What I can't get out of my mind - a man with intellectual disability and advanced follicular thyroid cancer. Given only four months to live.
Perhaps he is unaware of the severity of his condition, and blissfully so.
I can't get the image of his face out of my mind, and the sound of his voice is still echoing at the back of my head. His wide grin as he told me how he's going to see more doctors, his look of happiness while telling me that he's going on the train to see the footy on Thursday.
It breaks my heart to know that his condition is likely to take a sudden turn for the worse. Maybe he wouldn't understand what's happening with him, and I wonder how he would feel? Because for people like him, when they're happy they are happy; when they are sad, there's no need to fake a smile. So often, we complicate things almost unnecessarily but we are so used to hiding out true selves and true emotions that sometimes that's the only way we know how to get by. In so many ways, I have so much to learn from him - about being real, looking past the minir imperfections in my life and finding joy in the little things.
It's a humbling experience, to know that despite everything we think we know and despite being the ones with normal iq and normal x-y-z, perhaps we have really missed the whole point of doing what we do in life.
On the train now. It was a trying day at placement, as always. Knocked water over twice - why can't I get my act together and avoid these things that create unnecessary stress for an already anxious me? I have four more days to try and improve as much as I can.
Jumping to a different note, I guess when you fall for someone there usually isn't a good reason. Many times, the person you fall for might be someone who does not fit your criteria of what you thought you wanted. It's usually near impossible to pin point the one characteristic that sets the person apart from the rest. Sure he's kind/insert-other-objective-quality, but chances are you'll find that quality in x number of other people. It all boils down to this something that you can't quite put your finger on - that unique something that makes a person who they are.
I don't want to lose that about myself. I don't want to look at others and make silent wishes about how I want to be like them and lose who I am in that process. I just want to be who I am, without trying too hard to prove myself, or to be someone else. It sounds simple enough but it sure as hell isn't all that easy.
And the last note - It's almost May, December and January feel so faraway now. The few precious days we got to hang out are gradually becoming fuzzy memories.
You'll always be the best to me, the one who put me above yourself - always.
We're just friends now and we don't talk all that often, we touch base everyday and that's about it. You're busy, I'm busy. But it always makes me smile to know that someone could look past all that I've done and accept me cliche as it sounds - just the way I am
Maybe this period is so hard because I have no one. No one. Sasha, Alex - we can't find a common time to meet. Jinli - goodness, I miss her so much I wish she were still in Melbourne. Same goes for Wanhui. Dom - it's the same situation with Sasha and Alex. And the same goes with Sherry.
It's no wonder I hate uni so much now.
On the bright side, I've got gym with Zoe to keep me sane, and give me smth to look forward to.
I can feel it coming. Nearly broke down on my way home from dance. I have no time and I have no motivation. And the worst part is that there's just nothing to look forward to.
My head is spinning, and I get headaches ever so often.
I get confused by what people say and do, and my to-do list scares me.
Some nights I think about the day and I am utterly disappointed by how little I have achieved despite the amount of time and effort put in.
On those same nights, a quick mental run-down of the fast-approaching due dates for x number of tasks leaves me thinking - I'm not going to make it.
Today's one of those bad days,
and tonight's one of those crazy nights.
I guess I'll just leave things till tomorrow.
Monday to Wednesday at Frankston next week. Truth be told, I'm so scared I will slip up in placement, as I do ever so often...and, I'm just dreading the next week. I wish there were some way I could escape that reality, but there just is no way.
I wish I would stop feeling so miserable about these things, I don't know how else to put it - but I'm really not happy doing these things. It might be because I've never really had to study something I absolutely disliked before. Or something I'm just downright bad at. I would say, being a researcher is definitely not my forte, and neither is working with swallowing and voice patients. In fact, I would really like to add that "swallowing and voice" (literal name of the subject, I kid you not) was my worst subject of all time. All time i.e. all my uni life since year 1 in undergrad. It's the first exam I actually walked out from thinking - geez, I might actually FAIL this thing. Oh well, maybe I should count it a blessing that I'm having my swallowing and voice placement at the intermediate level, where I'm not expected to be fully independent yet. I would most certainly die if my entry level placement were to be a swallowing and voice one. Sometimes I look at patient files thinking - alright, now what? You know, when your mind's a blank? Oh, thank God this isn't entry-level. No, really.
Green eyes, you're the one that I wanted to find Anyone who tried to deny you, must be out of their mind.
Cover from ages ago, just thought of my lovely friends. So irreplaceable, any one who tells any one of you that you're not worth it is most definitely deluded.
Haven't spoken to you in months and months, but you never fail to cross my mind every day. Never fail to.
It's a little crazy when I think about it. Really. It is. But, I don't care anymore. I really don't. I just marvel at the way I can say this - it doesn't feel too long ago when this felt like a giant calamity.
Can't believe it's mid-April. Lately, it feels like all I do is rush from one place to another. It feels like my time is spent getting lost in online libraries searching for one journal article and another and another and another...
I miss summer so much. I miss being carefree, and having my family and friends around. So much. On the bright side, time flies so quickly I know that when this is over I'll look back and somehow be surprised that it all went by so quickly.
It's a little ironic, the fact that I want time to pass more quickly but yet hope that I am able somehow to stay in this day and age forever. It's just silly that when you're young, you have no problems at all and you look forward so much to growing up - thinking that it would be the same. But you start taking on all these expectations, responsibilities and worries upon yourself, and suddenly every stage of life appears to be fraught with all these uncertainties. I wish I were less afraid of failure, so I could go all out and know I'd be alright even if nothing works out.
Somehow, this song...brings back memories of a time that now feels so distant. Of two people being close but then also reduced to complete nothingness. That we could be so important, but yet so unimportant.
Montage is in two weeks! With the whole hustle and bustle of fundraising and easter camp, I haven't had the time to dance and yesterday I realised how much I missed dance. It felt good to dance, I love choreographing for a message...It felt amazing to have that focus and that clarity to know that this dance, it's all for God, and all I wanted to do was to pour out my heart.
The word is focus. I used to be focused and I used to know what I want. Maybe I let a few things get in the way of that - laziness, negative emotions, lack of resolve? Who knows, but I want to get back on track. It's not easy to get on top but I will get there.
But the feeling that comes when things happen is irreplaceable.
You're my best friend in Melbourne and nothing can ever change that. Even if we no longer talk and even if we are hardly friends now, even if we fall out someday I'll never want to forget the times we had - just you and me.
I look back at the memories we have had, from the first time we met out by the lockers, and the classes and school events we skipped, the emails we would write, the way my phone would ring in the day and I would know it had to be you...and how we would always share everything we eat and would always sit on the same side of the table. I miss all these moments we shared when we were young and free. I miss us in the car with our seats fully reclined windows open and soaking in the cold air, and I miss us discovering things and getting over-excited. I miss the way you would do things for me like climb trees to get the greener leaves, and I miss the way we used to tell each other everything, every single thing.
I could never show that I was upset at you. Perhaps we placed each other up on a pedestal and perhaps that's the thing that caused us both to grow distant, with every unhappy moment swept under the carpet and with every hurt left unattended...and with every moment spent making excuses for the other.
We hardly talk now, I look at you and I see the same person - you still have those lips that tense up in concentration and the way you hold the wheel while driving never changed. You still like the same food, the same music and the way you dress hasn't changed. But beyond that, I don't know you anymore. I try to get us to talk the same way we used to, but there's this foreign sense of strange that I can't get past.
Then there are days where we would sit at a juice bar awkwardly perhaps, and I'll see us emerge, effortlessly. We would talk about the crazy names juice bars name their juices, and come up with a few of our own. That's when we are infinite, and that's when I know our friendship has changed but as long as I wait on it...the time would come round again, the time where the invisible walls would disappear even if just for a moment or two.
You're so important to me, and I hope that someday at the right moment, I'll be able to tell you just how important you are in my life.
So Easter camp is over, and I sort of get my previous life back. Though I'm not sure if I really do...spent the better part of my day racking my brains over the dreaded big T, and that's not the only horrible uni responsibility. Ah well, such is life.
Being part of the camp committee opened my eyes to so many things, and looking back on the way everything has panned out all I can say really is that God had been in control the whole time. I wish I had better words to describe how this feels, but I don't know how to describe how every single thing - the good and the bad - has added up and created this perfect ending. Perhaps it's not perfect, in the perfect sense of perfect, but something in me just knows that the way everything ended up is perfect for me.
Most of the committee were doing a lot of work behind the scenes, so the camp seemed to just flash by...However, I'm really glad we had time to participate in the worship and sermon sessions. That was a time where I felt I was able to be still amidst the non-stop activity and just slow my mind down. During those times, and many other moments in camp, I just felt so blessed by God, that while we were weak, He is strong and He has been with us every step of the way.
When I was first asked to be in the committee, I thought to myself - oh wow, am I even going to go to the next easter camp?! I actually had no intention of participating in future camps. Personally, I go to and leave each camp with an immense amount of emotional baggage. The last camp was pretty much the worst for me - just in terms of that emotional baggage...camp itself is usually pretty amazing. Joining the committee was essentially not an easy decision and I took a few weeks to actually make the decision to say yes, and I'm really glad I did it. Hearing all the testimonies about non-believers from the group leaders each night brings about this indescribable sort of joy, and made all the long late night debrief sessions worth it. Looking back, that really was the highlight of the camp for me even if I was really really sleepy during the actual sessions.
2 am - the night before camp! Slept for about 3 hours that night...no idea how I survived.
The night before the night before camp! Had been running on so little sleep that week...once again, it's over!!!
Ohana! ^.^
Fundraise team <3 face="" imitating="" jeff="" lau="" p="" s="">
Can't believe we forgot to take a ^.^ photo in camp itself :( Shows how busy we were...
PBJ
"Jeff Aurelius Lau" - best group ever!
Random photo...of all the typos that cracked me up lol.
BACK TO THE MILL.
I will miss the past few weeks, and the joy of serving together.
