Thursday, March 17, 2005

it's a funny thing, being a human being

you yo-yo between extremes of feeling, from immense depression where talking hurts the chest and thinking simple thoughts seems so tough, to happy grins plastered right across your face and you laugh at the slightest thing. right now, i feel guilty for moving on so quickly, for thinking such self-centred thoughts like "how am i going to get all my stuff back to singapore the cheapest way possible" and "how the heck am i gonna finance my 2 months plus of travelling when i'm so broke after 9 days of spring break?".

i sit here with a heavy heart.. having just watched the movie far from heaven and had my heart wrenched out by its autumn-toned perfection turning to ugly depression.. how can i be so involved in something so unreal as film? if it depicts reality i get tired and unhappy and jaded. if it depicts cheesy fantasy, i get disappointed because i know nothing of the sort is ever going to happen to me. i should stop being a film student, seriously. i go and have dinner at simmons with my dearest friends here in penn state and they're like veritable rays of sunshine... i think i'll cry for days on end when i leave them. funny how attached you grow to one another in the space of a few short days, funny how easy it is to share everything with people whom you never knew a few months ago. funny how they're my friends, and funny how i know they'll be my friends for life.

the past few days since coming back from spring break have been really hard days... somehow coming back from florida sunshine into this dreary cold biting weather (the sides of my lips are already sore and chapped and it's only been three days!) gets everyone down and depressed. nobody smiles as much and everyone needs hugs periodically. so i'm happy that today's over and done with. i thought i was adaptable and that i wouldn't mind coming back to a snowy place... but no. i think i'm through with winter and i don't mind if the sun's back to play.. the fields just outside my hall are full of people playing various games now. spring is edging its way into my vision and i'm happy if it'd just come a little bit faster.

i remember sitting in the front of the car on the passenger side....staying awake most of the time but the possibility of a car accident occurring never once flitting through my mind (or perhaps it did but only for the fraction of a second),, reading my carl hiaasen doublewhammy book with its cutout coupon arabian nights makeshift bookmark... following the "toad" or the "jazzy" car... i forget whichwas michigan and which was indiana but i know the two cars had these license plates. was i ungrateful for not remembering to thank God for safety? the possibility of accidents or something happening to any one of us ... 13 in all from start and 8 at the finish - was so great yet we all got back here in one piece. (save for travelling on the bikepath accidentally when finding our way out of state college but that's another story)

spring break, march 5 - 13 2005. 13 people, me jess yeemey jiwon jinny sharon mil norman hanwei faizal taka floriaan nang. travelled over 3000 miles by car, through virginia, georgia, north and south carolina down to florida where we spent our days in daytona beach, orlando, miami north and south beach and key largo. 9 beautiful days spent with priceless company. we're all truly blessed to have such a fantastic time with one another.

and then i got back to reading my mass emails (what is IT with people and updating online address books which i'm sure they don't usea nyways) and found out that one of my hallmates from taiwan passed away in miami in a car accident... i felt empty that night, sunday night, with my bags all surrounding me and angie's television blaring away (yeah, now we have a television i gotta go somewhere else and study) and me deciding to head down to alice's room to see if it's really ethel that passed away. and it was. what do we do now? nothing, there's nothing you can do.

so i give her a moment now and then, of thought. of remembering her saying hi everytime we bumped into each other. of that short conversation we had in the corridor while i waited to pass a message to mil and hanwei before their spanish lesson. of that unfulfilled promise to go out with the taiwanese group for a study session or for dinner someday.

and time moves on relentlessly, callously

even while strolling these barren paths throughout the university to my classes, looking at the scrawny fragmented remnants of snow that fell while i was in balmy weather, i still stick my hand out to see if it's real. kinda like michael j fox in back to the future.... i expect to see a hole forming in the middle of my palm... a patch of invisibility. this is just a very long dream that i just haven't woken from yet. and then my mind wanders to so many other places that i've yet to see, just looking at the roof windows of the student apartments makes me think of other countries and all the other places in which i'd like to live before i go, believing with my innate sense of being invisibly protected... that innate feeling i've had all my life and have been taking for granted up till now. and then i think of ethel, and what the article in the collegian said today, about her being remembered forher outgoing love for travel. i got angry at the title of the article... it was "student recalled for love of travel" and i hated the word "recalled" because it should've been "remembered"... only that they wanted to make the words fit the column. the sports sectionhad a front page article that read about some medicine being"recalled".. . yeah. so you know what i mean. bad choice of words.

how come it's so easy to just pack things up and move on? would you do the same thing if it were me?

right now, i'm here for you and you're here for me. let's treat each other tenderly, please be there to listen to my grievances and i'll be there for yours. i'll ask no more after we part this may, but somehow i know this'll be true forever beyond this semester, at least for me. i'll always be there for you, and any time you need a hug, you'll know where to look.

serial dreamer had time to talk trash at 8:46 AM

  posted by juice.susceptible @ 4:00 PM