i was on the way to school this morning and the bus was passing this motor parts store along jalan besar (???), the one with the mannequins dressed in motor sportswear standing on top of the roof in poses too cool for school. so here's what tickled me today right. there was this guy (a mannequin) with a really long beard and a really long mustache dressed in his finest qing dynasty gear frozen in a chinese opera stance inviting passerbys to enter the store. then i glanced up on the roof right. and the mannequins who were usually decked in mini skirts and funky jackets were now in their finest chinese new year clothings ready to go to their uncles and aunties to collect their new year hong bao (red packets (money envelopes)). it just cracked me up! then i started wondering about them standing up there rain or shine, and lately, alot of rain. and i was like, oh what a pity! their new year clothes! then i was wondering further, maybe someone goes up on the roof to wear raincoats on them and place umbrellas over them when it rains. or maybe, they are brought in or stripped or i don't know? i wonder if there is a special job for that. hmmm. whatever.

so then, i was sitting on the second deck of the double-decker bus and still looking outside and General Wu Tang was now somewhere far behind when i noticed the outer casing of the red light camera and i don't know why but my first instinct was to check that i had my seatbelt on. the only thing is, buses don't have seatbelts and for a few seconds, i was wondering where i was. have you ever had that feeling of losing the sense of where you are physically? like when you wake up after an afternoon nap and it's evening and the sun is almost down or already gone, and you feel disoriented and puzzled about time and space? or when you sit down and keep still for a while and suddenly you feel like you've floated away from your body? like your arm or leg doesn't belong to you anymore? i don't know, it just happens.


i don't know why but despite all my fellow year 4 friends telling me they don't see people they know around in school very much already, i keep seeing them all the time. however, i feel a strong urge to remain unnoticed, unrecognised, invisible. when i choose a place to sit, i'm hoping it's the most obscure (but comfortable) place. or if i'm walking, i've decreased my range of visibility to like right infront of me, trying not to turn my head left and right too much though i love to look at things. i don't know why. perhaps it's just a phase. perhaps i'm scared that i'm really forgotten, unnoticed, invisible and don't want to know it for sure. it's pretty silly but that's me right now. shireen the recluse. the hermit. the whatever. maybe i should read that exchange manual that OIR sent for students coming back from exchange. i don't know. i think i'll concentrate on finishing this mushroom spaghetti that tastes like phlegm and get down to work. irk.

talk

i suddenly feel so tired. so tired of small talk. so tired of all talk. talking about internships talking about cute guys and summer scandals and exchange, about injustice and hurt and blame. i'm tired of talking about my problems and dreams, about love about life, about things i know nothing about, about the things of my secret garden as though they were merely weeds to be trampled on, ordinary, meaningless, mere coincidences. tired of talking about why i'm sad, about what makes me happy, about myself, about you, you and you. tired of talking to fill up the space, talking to connect, to belong, to be noticed, to not be alone. man i'm tired of talking about talking. i'm just so. tired. of. talking. what's the point.

it's funny, it really is, how you sound sick, like you've got a cold, when you've lost all drive to talk.

out to get you

another brilliant song by james. out to get you. check out their live performance on one of their gigs during their last tour. amazing! excuse the glitches and jokes in the first part, just adds to their charm and simplicity. so just plug in your earphones, stick them into your ears, play this video and be blown away, gradually but eventually. mind you, this is just the live performance, raw and uneditted. and i particularly enjoyed watching tim booth (vocals) spinning around and flailing his arms in a trance.



besides that, =).

bigger than my body

my pinchable cheeks have always been one of my trademarks. "oh hey look at shireen. let's pinch her cheeks yay!" that kinda nonsense. so imagine my joy when mutu (M.P.) tried to pinch my cheeks and realised he couldn't pinch them anymore. hooray for weight loss yay because no matter how heck care you are about your weight, and if you are a girl and not terribly skinny, you can't deny that a tiny grin finds its way onto your face or you get a little light-headed with a sense of victory when someone says, "wow, you've lost a lot of weight ar?" and then, that little modest angel in you goes, "aw, nar.." or "what? you mean i was so fat last time.." and then the complimenter thinks, "man, girls are hard to please!"

so anyway, the point is, my cheeks are once again pinchable!!! shock horror gasp faint!! and my dear mother does not fail to point this out to me by laughing at the roundness of my face in the middle of giving me some instructions for whatever. in fact, a few days ago, i was looking in the mirror and marvelling at my cute little small mouth (also my trademark), only to realise it was cuter and smaller perhaps because my face was rounder! shock horror gasp! take me back to new zealand so that i can grimace at the high prices of restaurant food and washing dishes and survive on a staple diet of tuna sushi and a measly amount of something else which would constitute my two meals a day and a hell lot of walking from anywhere to anywhere you name it! aaargh!

what can i do? christmas, new year, holiday, ice-cream and chocolates, cheap hawker food everywhere, public transport, cars, taxis, oh my! so i tried to almost starve yesterday in my panic and today i helped myself to a nice bowl on ben n jerry's ice cream.

i can't believe i dedicated a whole or half post to food and weight-loss shame on you shireen.

oh bother, school is starting again soon. it makes me think about my days in otago last semester. well, about the days i did actually go for classes and study in the library. i liked it. i loved going to the music lab underground with windows near the top where you could see the feet of people walking by while trying to churn out a piece of music that would rock the instructor's socks off. it was like my secret dungeon, which opened up to a whole other universe once you were in it. i wish i had my own lab like that in my room with maybe just one mac desktop and one keyboard. for that one semester at least, i could do something i really loved without writing essays and whatever and actually be graded for it (with an A by the way!). but who's gonna care right? just me.

when i was on exchange, i actually found a new sense of confidence in myself. besides all the other stuff that comes with the package when you live independently, i was actually doing really well in school without the stress! or if there was stress, it would be the night before a big roadtrip where i was rushing to finish a bunch of essays beforehand so that i could enjoy the roadtrip with no dark clouds looming ahead. the end result, a bunch of As and well, one B+ but hey, all my essays and projects came out with As and A+s. and what's more, i thoroughly enjoyed myself and did almost everything i ever wanted to on my little getaways! and i remember thinking to myself, i am shining over here! i am a nobody but i am shining!

then i got back home, and it meant coming back to the reality of internships and grades and class participation points. pui! so anyway, to my horror, i realised that i would only be able to graduate with a merit, not even a cum laude, no matter how many A+s i get next sem! my grades in otago didn't matter because you only get pass/fail for your exchange credits (which i knew from the start, but wanted to shine, well, just because i could and for myself). and i thought about the hordes of other students who were aiming for their magnas and summas and i recalled my conversations with my career counselor months ago and how discouraged i felt after every session, feeling lousy, not-good-enough, a jack-of-all-trades, mediocre and lackluster. but see, something didn't add up. all my talents, my achievements, my character and personality reduced to one or two pieces of paper and a number? ah, what a waste i thought, what a waste. there's so much more!! way too much!

and so while i go on with life back here in singapore, joining in the crowds in the buses and trains and hunting for internships and preparing for classes and wondering about my future and all that jazz, i'm not entirely what you see. you may see me in the crowds, you may not. i may be invisible and insignificant, my presence just a feather floating from one point to the next. i may be just like any other girl you see, worrying about her weight and her looks, unpredictable and confusing, wearing hoop earrings and flip flops and talking about the most mundane things like the weather and heroes season 2 and whatever. ah, but what you can't see is this.

"Here is my secret. It is very simple: It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye." (from the little prince) in me lies another universe where i see things in different colours and where possibilities are infinite and where memories carry me far, far away and help me believe in miracles. these thoughts i carry, these things i see, these things i've done, these places i've been to, these emotions i've experienced, there are some things noone can ever understand or experience the way i do and in that loneliness, it is untouched and sacred.

i just need to smile more.

"Bodies. Oh, groan. I've always just wanted to leave this body of mine. What a treat that would be. To be a beam of light, a little comet, jiggling itself loose from these wretched bones. My inner beauty could shine and soar! But no, my body is my test in life."
- Eleanor Rigby by Douglas Coupland

sometimes, when i look deep in your eyes, i swear i can see your soul

you have to listen to this song by James. papa put the cd in the car and everytime i drive it these days, i play it on repeat. each time i listen to it, i fall in love with it more. and it doesn't help that it's been raining like mad too. and listening to it while driving in the rain and smiling through the tears, it just makes my heart burst. BURST!

and i love how they are all standing so upright and firm and strumming their guitars with a mission in their eyes.

p.s. you really have to listen to it!



There's a storm outside, and the gap between crack and thunder
Crack and thunder, is closing in, is closing in
The rain floods gutters, and makes a great sound on the concrete
On a flat roof, there's a boy leaning against the wall of rain
Aerial held high, calling "come on thunder, come on thunder"

Sometimes, when I look deep in your eyes, I swear I can see your soul
Sometimes, when I look deep in your eyes, I swear I can see your soul

It's a monsoon, and the rain lifts lids off cars
Spinning buses like toys, stripping them to chrome
Across the bay, the waves are turning into something else
Picking up fishing boats and spewing them on the shore

The boy is hit, lit up against the sky, like a sign, like a neon sign
And he crumples, drops into the gutter, cut strings, legs twitching
The flood swells his clothes and delivers him on, delivers him on

Sometimes, when I look deep in your eyes, I swear I can see your soul
Sometimes, when I look deep in your eyes, I swear I can see your soul

There's four new colors in the rainbow
An old man's taking polaroids
But all he captures is endless rain, endless rain, endless rain.
He says listen, takes my head and puts my ear to his
And I swear I can hear the sea

Somtimes, when I look in your eyes I can see your soul
(I can reach your soul)
(I can touch your soul)
Sometimes

- Sometimes by James

raw

i wonder, no. i know, that i seem to place a lot of importance in pleasing people. it's pretty funny, and maybe even pretty insane.

like take for instance, i was at this retreat from monday to wednesday at the canossian spirituality centre where i happened to pick up a few books from the library about dying. and some other books not about dying as well. took the whole stack and sat outside my room along the balcony/corridor facing the bukit batok nature reserve. the australian priest who stays there comes along as his office is nearby my chosen spot. he asks what book i'm reading and i tell him, "life after death" by raymond moody and he says something about how we should be reading books about and focusing on this life first and it's my response to this that perplexes me. i look like i'm there talking with evelyn and cheryl anne and we've gone on to other subjects and are laughing about other things and the priest has already gone into into his office but in my mind, i'm still stuck on the same one subject. "what's wrong with this book i'm reading? what's wrong with me? does the priest think i'm not very wise? i hate that he thinks i'm foolish. i hate that maybe i've been foolish all this while. i don't want to be foolish. i don't want him to think i'm foolish. i want him to think i'm special. i want him to like me. blablabla."

and then i started thinking, how nonsensical these thoughts are. firstly, i'm shireen. secondly, i'm interested in this dying thing, in those spectacular, intense, scary, beautiful, unpredictable moments separating one life from another and, so what? thirdly, why do i care so much about what this priest thinks about me? i am who i am and i love who i was made to be.

take another example for instance. i was leading praise and worship for session today and i was pretty nervous. i know i prepared and i prayed and i reflected. i know that what i typed out on those pieces of paper was real and genuine and not just plain fluff. then it was time to start. i stood there, looked around at the faces of my friends as i was sharing, praying, leading, and i would see what i thought was a blank face and i'd start thinking about what this person is thinking. "oh, why is she so long-winded? can she just get to the song already? i want to sit down. ok, good try leading, shireen. at least, she tried." and then i'd start thinking, "oh man, am i really lousy at this? do they think all i said is fluff? maybe it is. who i am kidding? it probably is. blablabla."

and then now i think about it. and it's just plain rubbish again. these thoughts. how sad it is that i discount my own experiences and identity because of the fear that others may not like or agree with me. these thoughts get so loud and in-my-face i sometimes get bored and nervous about the sound of my own voice when i'm talking to others.

see, it's not the priest. i have nothing against him. i rather like him, he could be santa if he had a long white beard and snowy locks. it's not my friends who just happened to look the way they do. it's just that i've been like this as far as i can remember. i want to please people. i want people to like me, to say good things about me....but ultimately, it's because i want to know i'm not wrong, that i didn't make the wrong choices, that i'm a good person, that i'm lovable. like, i have to be a certain way to be lovable, to prove to you that i'm lovable. which is just crazy because i know i'm a good person. i know who i am. i know i love who god has made me to be, just the way i am. i know this. and yet, why do i need to prove it to anyone?

i guess i'm beginning to understand why. i grew up like this. i don't blame anyone. but i somehow learnt that to avoid being blamed and hated and shunned and misjudged by the people closest to me, i had to make myself liked by them. because i paid a price when i was disapproved of. i found myself feeling guilty and disgusted with myself when i was disapproved of. maybe it was their words, maybe it was my need to feel loved and accepted, maybe it was their insecurities, maybe it was my need to prove to them i was a good person and they could trust and depend on me, that i wasn't the monster they said i was, that i didn't deserve to be called and labeled all the things they called and labeled me as, maybe i just wanted them not to give up on believing in life and its goodness. alot of maybes. i bent over backwards and bit my lip so many times for it. it ate me up inside. i could handle it though. i was strong. i trusted and believed. i loved.

but these days, every little sign of disapproval or disagreement or lack of interest in me seems to get me feeling edgy and worried, like i failed something. and i'm not so nice about it anymore. i don't just take it in anymore like i used to. initially, i still might, but then i hate patronising people and i hate living in a bubble of untruth. i want to make people pay for it, to show them that they made me feel this way, to make them feel the same way i feel, or just to assure me that i'm still loved. or i just believe what they say about me and fall deeper into my doubts about myself. i'm short on love and high on impatience and anxiety. i'm slow to love but fast to get angry and upset. i show everything opposite of what paul says about love in corinthians. impatient, rude, angry, jealous, insecure, keeps account of wrongdoings, you name it, you got it.

that's not all. i start to feel i've failed and not done my duty as a good person when i see all this suffering around me and can't do anything about it or don't know how to. i feel so disappointed in myself, i feel i don't have a right to be so happy, all these things. it all somehow links with all the misery i inflicted upon myself when others inflicted their own misery on me. i felt i didn't have a right to be so happy then. that if they were miserable, then i should be too. maybe all this, this whole post, it all sounds crazy. but i don't think i'm alone in having thoughts like these. i think we all have them, some of us, more, and some, not so much.

well not every uneasy feeling is bad. sometimes, restlessness is a sign that one needs to be spurred to take action about something important. but i won't talk about that now though some of the uneasiness i feel now is about that too. and some of the uneasiness i feel now also has to do with a whole lot of other stuff as well. but i'll probably never get round to sleeping and just end up with a very bad headache if i try to think it ALL out now...

well, at least now i can put a finger on it more clearly. i don't think i'm spiralling into a black-hole just yet. actually, i think i have been in one for some time (don't need to be surprised, most people never show it). but i guess i'm kinda trying to make my way out and i'm aware i am/was(?) in one. i think i've pretty much become a baby again, in loving, in believing. but i still love, and i still believe. i think i've fallen many steps behind but i know it's not the end, it's not everything and i know it's time to humble myself and take those baby steps. i feel like i am starting from the beginning all over again and progress is slow, oh how i stumble and fall again and again. how i throw my tantrums and become a lump of hopelessness (i'm sorry and thank you for your patience). but i am taking those baby steps determinedly, with thanks and praise in my heart. baby hope, baby faith. but still hope and faith nonetheless. don't let me let go.

last year, i was working in the same project group with a girl who had cancer. we weren't close at all and i only got to know her because we had to work together and she was in my class for that course. after a while, she started missing classes more and we had to take on some of her project parts, but she never failed to do up her parts and send them to us. she always dressed up and put on make up and she was pretty vocal in class, asking, answering question after question, and this was one girl class participation points wouldn't really have mattered to. she passed away some time this year or last, i no longer recall.

but i suddenly thought about her today and remembered that her msn contact is still on my contact list. how many months days hours has it been since she signed in for the last time? i thought about her and i wondered about her last months days hours since the doctors told her she was going to die. i wondered about the way she received love from her parents friends boyfriend. i wondered about how she loved them. her boyfriend. i wondered about her boyfriend and how he must have really loved her and the pains and the aches they both felt in those last months hours days which nothing could ever alleviate and how they wouldn't trade it for anything because it meant more months hours days seconds nanoseconds with each other. i wondered about how each waking hour appeared to her knowing she was going to die so soon. i wondered at the immensity of the ordeal she would have gone through and how that separated her from us, mere, ordinary students concerned with internships careers success magna cum laudes and how we would never know what it was to be her or her boyfriend or her parents or her brother or sister if she had any, well at least, for most of us. i smiled as i saw her msn nick a cute abbreviation for her name followed by "aka daddy's little girl" and i wondered about that. it's funny, we leave this world but when we do, we leave EVERYTHING behind, even our msn nicknames. traces of our existence strewn across the lives of others, people we met once, people we knew our whole lives, people we never met at all. i also wondered about the rest of my contacts on my contact list, some of whom whose identities now elude me. no, it's not an obsession with the morbid and yes, most of them are probably around my age but seriously, are all those people still alive? and i wonder about random blogs, facebook friendster whatever profiles we come across randomly, and it's just possible that perhaps some of those random ones you come across belong to people who aren't in this world any longer. i don't have a summary a conclusion or a point i'm trying to well, point out. but doesn't all this just make you...wonder?

there was this thing we did in queenstown called river surfing. you hang on to this board, try to latch on to the downstream current of the whitewater river and off you go! river surfing was pretty challenging for me. i don't know why but i felt paralysed in the flippers and kept getting sucked back into eddy currents. it was so hard to join the main flow of the river. and when i actually did, i would be cruising along just fine like a pro all the way until the guides made us catch an eddy current to wait for the rest. i hated those parts, catching those eddy currents. because 1. it was so hard for me to enter them 2. it was so hard for me to exit from them. by the end of the day, every muscle in my body had gotten a good beating and stayed that way for days.

coming home feels a bit like river surfing. the river is flowing as it should, as it always has been. and you are just thrown back into its flow. and it's a struggle entering into that main flow again. those eddy currents that pull you away. those eddy currents which don't let you come back. you're stuck between those eddy currents and the main flow and it's an agonising state of limbo as you watch your peers cruise by like pros. you try to kick harder but you're kicking wrongly and being pulled back even more.

see, when we look forward to coming home, we most often visualise images from the past and take comfort in them, looking forward to experiencing those moments again. and when we get back, we get a rude shock sometimes. because things change, people change, everything changes. and we find the real picture is vastly different from those we held in memories.

i was hoping for so much. i was holding out for so much.

as i always say, oh. well.

today's song is dire strait's "so far away". i love it! the starting bassline, the way the chorus comes in, the deep vocals, the instrumentals, the lyrics. it has this really classic, carefree, bittersweet feeling and like new order songs, brings me back to sunday afternoon drives. papa always plays these cds and the music resonates through the speakers straight into my heart. and when i called home just now, he told me that he had another version of eleanor rigby which he would let me hear soon and was listening to currently. i wonder just how many versions there are. i was looking for it on youtube and heard all sorts of versions ranging from pop rock to jazz to heavy metal and techno. amazing.

my last few days in dunedin, today will be my second last and i'll spend it with pravin who'll be touching down in dunedin in approximately 12 hours or so. can't believe it. my life in singapore is like a whole other world and it'll be so strange to have someone cross over from that world into this one. it'll be strange to see him walking the streets of dunedin, sitting in my car, staying in backpackers together. it just feels like it's been forever since i was here and yet, i will be home in about a week or so.

shanny and i were just reflecting today sometime in the middle of our bimbo tai tai escapade (hey it's possible alright!) today that we might be thinking right now about how we wish we had done so many things earlier or more often or both. but we agreed that it was not really about that. the fact is, things always feel different in the last few moments. every moment takes on a different, more brilliant hue. there's a sense of urgency, revelation, intensity, a certain burst of energy and life, and no matter how many times you've touched the mimosas and watch them close as you stroll on the fields on your way home, no matter how many times you've held the hand of the one you love, no matter how many times you've sat at the same spot staring out of your window at the cars and the trees and the clouds and the people each day, these moments will still feel different when you become aware that those moments may be one of the last ones you'll have.

we were also thinking about how the most intense and extreme experiences are necessary in order for life to progress. we might be mothers one day and we might have to experience labour and the pains of childbirth to bring another life into the world some day. i can't imagine it and yet, it's universal. everyone will have to die one day, and what is more extreme than death in this life? just think about it, as insane and intense as these experiences may seem, everyone must and will go through them. you can choose to skydive, you can choose to bungy, but you can't choose to not die, which is way scarier and more thrilling than any other activity you can conjure. and no coward or hero can ever run away from that.

i know i keep getting all emo and blogging about goodbyes and the last moments and life and death. it's just that these moments inspire me the most, they awaken something in me, they teach me so much more, they put music in my heart and paint all sorts of colours i've never seen before but continually fall in love with. and i want to share this with whoever i can. grab hold of these moments, think about the awesomeness and fragility of this beautiful transient existence and what a miracle each day, each breath is. no matter how boring you feel your life is, no matter how sad an existence you think you lead, no matter how hopeless your future may seem, no matter how mundane your days have been, look beyond it all, be thankful for each and every moment you are presently in. (i really believe that a joyful heart is one that is sincerely thankful.) and love like there's no tomorrow. love like your heart is on your fire and you could just explode from it.

well, i haven't been updating much recently and i doubt i might in the near future since i'll be leaving dunedin this sunday for good, after which i will be roadtripping with pravin and shanny. and soon, i'll be back home. people keep asking me, am i sad to leave? i have this to say. i'm happy i was here. i'm happy i'm here. i'm happy i'll be home soon. i don't wish anything different from what is given to me now. in fact, i'm grateful and i trust even more that i don't have to wish things to be different at all, ever, simply because i know that i'm always given what's best for me. love always wants the best for us. and i trust completely in that love. and if i ever forget, which i so often do, please be patient with me and remind me. shake me up and pinch me silly if you have to, just don't ever let me forget.

all the lonely people, where do they all come from? all the lonely people, where do they all belong?

the beatle's eleanor rigby has been playing on repeat in my head. i wake up in the morning, walk to school for my pricing exam and i'm singing, "all the lonely people, where do they all belong?" i'm walking around after my paper, waiting to pass henry back his book, i'm singing, " all the lonely people, where do they all belong?" i come home, watch the notebook, clean my car and take a nap. and in my sleep i'm singing, "all the lonely people..yadda yadda.." and then i'm on the way to church and i'm still singing it and so it goes. then after supper at a jap bar after a night of jazz at robert burns, we are about to walk to the car. but i hear a bassline which i can't resist and follow the music as though it has cast an invisible spell on me. a band all dressed in black is playing outside lemon room at the octagon in the crisp, cool, midnight air. the old fogeys here dressed in black leather jackets and jeans holding beer bottles and cigarettes in their hands are a world apart from the old fogeys at robert burns which make you feel like you've just entered a scene from the notebook plus (quite) a couple of years later. up till the next moment, the song is perfect but unrecognisable. i sit on a bench and listen as the lead sings the last few lines of the song which brought me there, "all the lonely people, where do they all belong?"

continuities

nothing is ever really lost, or can be lost,
no birth, identity, form--no object of the world.
nor life, nor force, nor any visible thing;
appearance must not foil, nor shifted sphere confuse thy brain.
ample are time and space--ample the fields of nature.
the body, sluggish, aged, cold--the embers left from earlier fires,
the light in the eye grown dim, shall duly flame again;
the sun now low in the west rises for mornings and for noons continual;
to frozen clods ever the spring's invisible law returns,
with grass and flowers and summer fruits and corn.

- walt whitman

everything's been squashed into such a short span of time i almost forgot about toroa's farewell dinner and horse-riding! but fortunately (or unfortunately, because it means another long draggy post), i remembered to attend them. for those not in the know, toroa international house is the residential college where i'm living in over here. i will still be here for another half a month (crap, that's FAST) but we had the farewell now because exams were starting soon, after which, everyone would be gone in their own time. the dinner was yummy albeit too much bready stuff. like the toroa ball, it was photos galore seriously. if you ask me, i would really like to just sit down, enjoy the food and have pretty decent conversations with people i've known and yet to know. however...there's really no point sitting down at your table. everyone is helter-skelter taking photos with everyone and anyone and the food's taking so long to come anyway. so ended up with a whole bunch of photos with a whole bunch of people and i think it wouldn't have made a difference if i super-imposed by face on every one of them. but it's all good i would say. who knows when i'll ever seen these people again?? how transient this life over here is. like the one in jersey last year. in those moments, everything is as real as real gets. but when it's all over, as cliched as it sounds, it feels like a distant dream from another life. yet, there will be those little reminders popping up every once in a while, telling you it was real, telling you never to forget how beautiful life can be and has yet to show itself to be.

and yes, as the picture below states, for old time's sake, the infamous paparazzi shots series...
the following day saw a bunch of us riding horses along deborah bay in dunedin. we had signed up for the hare hill horse treks, hoping it would satiate our lord of the rings fetish. however, it was not as fast-paced and exciting, though relaxing and refreshing nonetheless.

the night before, i was telling shanny how i couldn't wait to meet my horse. and rightly so, because horse-riding isn't just getting onto any horse and riding it just like that. it's about forming a relationship with the horse as well. the experiences with the horses that day reinforced my conviction that animals are so much like humans, with their own idiosyncrasies and habits and expressions. or maybe it's the other way round. i mean, you know how we transfer all our weight onto one leg when we stand sometimes, and kinda lift the other leg so it's toes are only touching the ground? yeap, the horses were doing that. and they would make these funny noises from time to time to clear their throats. and they would nudge you with their noses when they want their face to be scratched. they loved being stroked. some like it on their face or necks. some love being stroked on their bums. and each of the horses have such unique characters as well.

summer was really the cutest if you ask me. she was the smallest horse and of course, went to bavani. they made such a lovely pair, just look at that picture above! summer even had her own hairband, so sweet! my horse was anna, and she was the daughter of gavin's horse, shannon, and the youngest one in the whole lot. she liked banging into other horse's butts and using her head to nudge the owner who got so angry with her after a while. sometimes, she would follow really smartly. sometimes, she got a bit cranky. when all the other horses were busy gorging on grass, she would just stare out into the bay, as though she were in her own world, dreaming. but who knows right?

dias' horse was really funny. from the beginning, dias knew he had found his match. all the other horses were obeying instructions and obediently walked down the slope. dias' horse parted with the rest of us, wandered over to a patch of grass and suddenly walked down a flight of stairs infront of the whole group. everyone was puzzled and deeply amused. this horse, like dias, had to take the road less travelled. snow, that's the name, was one really hungry horse. he couldn't stop eating, while walking, and of course, while resting. at one point of time, during the break, we were given some fruit to feed the horses. snow was busy munching on grass and when the fruit was brought near its mouth, with his mouth still full of grass to the extent that it was sticking out and overflowing from its mouth, it still gobbled up the fruit and went back to munching and munching and munching. reminds me of reno! haha.

speaking of reno, i met a dog there named tigger. just like all the other animals on that farm, he had his own character too. while i was stroking him, he would roll over onto its back with a smile, waiting for me to tickle him. reminded me of reno. he was a very alert dog. when something was coming along the driveway, he would immediately get into alert mode and run to the gate to investigate the situation. if not, he would be smiling and walking from person to person to share his joy and simplicity of being with them.

after all that, attempted to study because my first paper is in two day's time on thursday. 23-24 chapters of abnormal psychology to fit into my meager brain. however, in between, we managed to squeeze out some time for a pot luck and it was nice that everyone managed to attend and everyone actually cooked something! everything tasted really good. sadly, the cake i baked kinda sunk. i have to practice more. need to prove myself when i get back! haha. but look at the amount of food! we actually managed to finished most, if not all. we had shepherd's pie (eugene), pork ribs (leonard), mustard chicken (shanny), baked spinach with cheese (gavin), minced beef and vege stew (dias), fried rice (bavani), pizza and wedges (johnson) and tim tam cappucino chocolate butter cake (shireen).

here's a group shot of us.

during the potluck, i got a phone call from news 93.8 in singapore! haha, it wasn't a surprise. melt set me up for it because she works there now doing her own talk show! anyway, her colleague on edutalk was interviewing singaporean students on exchange and in overseas universities and was looking for people to speak on the show. it was a conference call between the host, jeremy, and another exchange student from SMU, jesse james (who is in mexico, where i really would've loved to go if they had non-business courses offered), and me. it was really nice listening to jesse's experiences, he really speaks well. i think i must have sounded like a rich spoilt kid next to him! haha. anyway, if you're interested, it's on thursday morning and night, 910am and 910pm respectively. and on saturday, 8 something in the morning, i forgot. thanks melt, for giving me my virgin experience of being on air! in accordance with shanny, some part of me will be in singapore even though i'm really here. amazing, isn't it? if you really think about it.

i wanted to say so many things though. like i was sharing with johnson, it's hard. it's hard to give an answer just like that when you're asked point blank "what did you gain?", "what were the highlights?", etc, etc. because the list is endless, believe me. before this, i hardly cook at home, i don't even clean my own bathroom at home or do my own laundry. i don't do chores every weekend, like cleaning the kitchen or vacuuming. i'm doing groceries and accounts as well. i've never pumped petrol on my own at the petrol station. c'mon, i've never been in charge of my own car even. i've tried so many new things without a blink of hesitation which i'll never regret but won't list out now. and oh yea, this is the first time, i've come to a place all alone. i mean, morey's was similar but i had friends beforehand who were there with me and i don't think we did that much chores and it was just different, though a great experience nonetheless. yea, the list is endless. and the thing is, i feel like i'm where i should be because though i never really expected or anticipated most of the things that have come my way throughout this whole experience, they feel like the most normal things in the world to me, like i was ready for them anyway.

then, there were all those things i saw, things i felt, things that inspired me. just stepping out of the laundry room, looking at the green hills beyond, fills me with something good. can you imagine the rest of it all? i could've said so much, but i didn't. especially the most important things. i wanted to thank my parents, my family and all the people who have been supporting me, over here, back in singapore, from all the different parts of the world, but i didn't either. (i wanted to advertise for my car also haha.)

really, each experience is so unique. you have these 4 months, 5 months, so what are you gonna do with it?

oh, oh, there was an earthquake last night. i was sitting on my bed and studying and then felt the whole bed vibrating! i thought i must've been shivering but i was pretty warm and cosy. then i saw the standing light shaking and the water in the water-bottle on my table moving from side to side, like in jurassic park, when the t-rex was approaching. it was so cool! then it stopped. apparently there were 5 after-shocks after that but i was too deep in sleep to notice. mansi did and i asked her why she didn't tell me (c'mon, singapore is so flat and we're never in the thick of action) and she said she wanted to scream and she was so scared the floor would crack open! haha, mansi, mansi! and she was so appalled when i kept saying how cool it was we were experiencing this and she said, "cool? we are going to die!!" faint.

the earth is just so alive here! and johnson thinks it's us leaving a trail of doom and gloom wherever we go. we went to north island, near mount raupehu, and 2 weeks or so later, it erupted. we went to milford sound 2 weekends ago and the earthquake was reported to have occurred 60km off milford sound. johnson predicts that after we go to the glaciers, they'll crack open. let's hope otherwise.

here's a sneak peak at some part of my room. i love beds by the window and i always go for window seats, unless it's too hard to the toilet. and yea, i use 2 thick blankets and it does the trick so yea. my new study spot is on the bed against that pillow against the wall.


and a short reflection before i end. i was sitting in church on sunday, and i was suddenly thinking about my room at home. i had got it refurnished and repainted before i left. i was imagining the day i would be spending time in it again, sleeping on my new bed, playing my keyboard or guitars, staring out of the window from my bed, taking my shower with the new shower head, looking into my cupboard to find clothes to wear. and while i was over here, that room was still waiting for me and there were people preparing it for me. like the contractor who fixed my bathroom shower holder or aunty and the cleaning lady who dusted in once in a while. and people who occasionally slept in there from time to time in the wake of my absence would know it was mine. my period in dunedin was only temporary and i would be going back to that room soon and i just had to find my way home again. and it struck me it was a clear reflection of this life. this whole life on earth, is just one really long roadtrip, longer for some, shorter for others. we travel by different means, through our own unique routes, staying in different places, for some of us, maybe a villa, for some of us, maybe a crowded backpackers. some of us meet new people, grow to love them, but then have to leave them because our routes just diverge. some of us, meet new people, grow to love them, and find that our routes converge till we finally reach home. some of us have experienced more earlier on in our journey than others, and we have to be thankful for this, rather than angry at those who can't and won't understand; they have their own lessons to learn, just as you still have more to come. some of us haven't experienced the same things others have, and we have to be thankful for this, not bitter that we "weren't as lucky," in our own words. ultimately, when we've done and seen and felt and tasted and whatever all that we set out for, we find our way back...home.

i was talking to a friend online and told him that now i had done pretty much everything i wanted to do, i could die happy now. then, i immediately retracted that statement. because no, going home and being with my family and loved ones is also part of this whole travelling thing. just like i know for certain (though nothing is certain), that there is a room definitely waiting for me back in my earthly father's mansion, there is one waiting for me in my heavenly father's mansion and it is being prepared lovingly in the anticipation of my homecoming. and that itself is a clear reminder of where we come from and where we belong.

"there are many rooms in my father's house, and i am going to prepare a place for you. i would not tell you this if it were not so. and after i go and prepare a place for you, i will come back and take you to myself, so that you will be where i am. you know the way that leads to the place where i am going." - john 14:2-4