Commit This to Memory

Photolog

Last weekend before the end of the exams!

My brother made a chocolate tart

and we cooked dinner.

Lunch with Grace and Zoe right after my final exam!! ^.^

Rooftop bar/sunny day

MIU T'S GOING AWAY D:

Jelly sandals - my feet were freezing, but #yolo.

Saturday afternoon before my flight.

On the way to work...it was a mad rush after work, I had two hours to get home, shower, PACK MY BAGS, eat, and leave for the airport. It takes 45 minutes to get home, so I had slightly over an hour to do everything else I needed to do. Gotta be more organised in future.

Though, in my defence, I had only just ended exams on thursday afternoon after having papers on Monday, Wednesday too, and spent the whole of friday traversing across Metropolitan Melbourne visiting participants for my thesis and collecting data. And had work on saturday - as mentioned, and then there's my flight. No time for packing.

Reading at the airport

First Day at Perth - Lilin dropped me off, and off we went.

First photo in Perth: still feeling enthusiastic, not yet aware of just how quiet Perth's city is.

Errol the Emu. Monumental moment of shock and disappointment. Not even gonna elaborate >:(

And really, no more photos for the day because it started pouring - and being geniuses, my friend and I bought four plastic ponchos for $5, when we could have got a legit umbrella for just $1 more.

That's me, with the useless and half battered poncho (yellow plastic looking thing I'm wearing).

This, my friends, is one of the major streets in Perth city at 7pm, somewhat like the Swanston or Bourke st in Melbourne. Perth feels like a ghost city at times. There are buildings, there are shops, but there are no people. It is nice and quiet.

Super moon.

Second day in Perth - dawdled the morning away, missed our ferry to Rottnest. Just a tip, ferries to Rottnest from Perth do not operate like ferries to Macau from Hongkong. Go figure. So we went to the Zoo, which was pretty dull apart from the elephants, and learning about Simo the croc from a very enthusiastic Zoo volunteer. A sprightly woman she was, in her late 50s or early 60s I would say. From her we learnt that Simo originally lived in the Darwin harbour, and was sent to a crocodile breeding farm where he killed two females he was meant to mate with. The people at the farm didn't know what to do with him, and the zoo in Perth needed a crocodile, so viola, here he is.

If you ever go to the Zoo in Perth, be sure to see Simo. He spends most of his day being still - apparently a very important skill for predatory animals.

Elephant selfie...

Doing cartwheels in Perth!

The walk up King's park.

Stretching in a rooftop bar in Perth, after two intense days of walking. Cocooned in this cubicle like chair.

View from the top of King's park. That hike up man...guess it was pretty worth it. Getting some fresh "mountain" air.

Third day in Perth - Packed, walked to the city, had food, had coffee, and it was time to go!

Home!

love, 13:03
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Full circle

It's been awhile.

I can't remember what my last post had been about.

I spent the past three days in Perth, just walking blindly. Walking and walking with a paper map in hand, not knowing where we were really going or what we were going to do.

Honestly, Perth just feels like a blur. All I really remember is a lot of walking - putting one foot in front of the other and fixing my gaze upon the destination (if it was visible...). A lot like life really. Just as we can't turn back time, we can't turn back our destiny or our fate. I only have to move forward from here on. I must.

Sadness though, is something that helps me remember why I am who I am, why I am the way I am. Guess it's not just the sadness, but it's every experience that counts.

---

But there I was, it was the night of a full moon...not just any full moon but the biggest and the brightest it would ever be, or would be in a long time. Half-hidden in chairs shaped like cubicles. Having a drink - something I haven't done in the longest time - with someone I never imagined I would be travelling with.
It sounds horridly cliched, but looking up at that full moon - or that super moon - I breathed in the cold night air and decided that my life felt complete, but only because I told myself that it was. My very own self-fulfilling prophecy. Even if I'm full of fear, all I need to do is fix my eyes on the fact that everything will always be okay in the end.

love, 02:26
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Emotionally unavailable

If we are a reflection of all the experiences we had growing up.

If God will not stop stirring my heart, if God will not let me cover it up and move on.

Because there's love, and there's unconditional love, and there is also unconditional love redefined.

I have no happy memories of my parents and myself as a child. I never wanted to say this because it would break their hearts to know that these are the true reflections of my heart.

I don't have resentment in me, and I know that my parents try to provide for me in every way. In every way but being emotionally available.

The past 6 years spent in my Melbourne gave me the chance to develop a relationship with my mum, beyond what I could ever have imagined. But if relationships were like glass, no amount of fixing could ever fully conceal the cracks once broken.

Paradoxical, because I'm happier being emotionally unavailable. It's far easier to hide the emotions that would choke me up if I tried to speak of them.

I have never tried to fix a broken relationship or a broken friendship when it came to the point where that relationship/friendship was nothing but a symbol of hurt for me, when it would come to the point where the most salient memories are of how the other party willingly chose to walk away and I was the only one left. When the balance of memories is tipped such that while the good times existed, I only see the bad. I have never had any desire to fix such relationships even when I am no longer hurt by it. I wish I could understand why I do the things I do, and why I think the way I think.

love, 11:51
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Mixed Feelings

But blessings that rain down.

I still don't know what the problem was. Perhaps a combination of a strained something, and a paranoid mind and stress?

Whatever happens though, I don't know why or how but God always sends someone to be with me.
On the other hand, I feel a little guilty for making people worry for me. It might be a little random but when an old friend of mine offered to come with me today, it genuinely put a smile on my face. We haven't been talking in so long, and that gesture made me think that God sends angels around me all the time so that even when I'm hurt I don't have to walk it alone. That friend probably thought I was being melodramatic though, but then again...it's been a week, at the start of the week I was definitely not being dramatic (i.e. my foot was in some bad pain)! And actually, to be honest this experience has helped me develop yet another area of empathy. I truly believe that you can't empathise with something you have not personally experienced. Perhaps you can empathise but it wouldn't be at a genuine level, because only those who have experienced the same pain and loss can understand how someone else might feel.

It's strange, because I remember two people at separate occasions of my life who have unexpectedly both come up to me to tell me that my greatest strength is mercy. And there are many things in life that have happened that have moulded my perspective to be able to understand people's pain from a deeper level. I'm still trying to fully grasp the concept of true empathy, and unconditional respect for what others feel.

Oh well, it's Friday and I'm exhausted. Mentally, physically drained. Exactly one week left till I get a change of climate and see my closest ones!

love, 16:23
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Sink in

Just finished my first exam *does happy dance and throws confetti in the air*

The past weekend was mildly depressing. I had no idea what caused it but there's this really sharp pain in my foot each time I walk and it hasn't really gone away despite me practically immobilising myself the entire weekend. It's true that you tend to take the little thing for granted - until it's taken away from you. I'll admit it's still mildly depressing each time I think about how I might not be able to really dance again, or do physical activity with this weird foot condition, but I guess there isn't much else I can do.

I haven't really talked to many people about this, because not everyone would understand the loss associated with not being able to as active as you were previously. After all, each individual has a different perspective on what's important to them. But, this is important to me, and it's taking all the faith I have in me to say that in all things, God's will over my own.

Sometimes it just feels like these unfortunate things happen in my life all the time. Not even gonna bother listing everything, but at the end of it all, I'm reminded that nothing in life is ever going to stay the same. Nothing but God.

If you do read my blog, please pray that I'll keep my faith.

love, 15:16
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Rough draft

I should be studying right now, but my brain feels so saturated and my eyelids so heavy.

Neurodegenerative disorders. Traumatic brain injury. Childhood brain tumour. Palliative care. ETC.
Prevalence rates, percentages, aetiologies.

As I read, and re-read all these words that spell out all the different disorders and conditions, characterising everything from their onset to their associated symptoms, sometimes I find myself feeling so detached. While these are just words to me, and while these words are just a means to an end (my exam!!) for me, these words are someone's life at the very moment I'm reading them, and possibly for the years before and most certainly, the years to come.

I find myself wanting to make those words on paper more personal. For some reason, it seems like the only respectful thing to do. As I read ".... affects 10 in 100 000 people", it's so easy to just memorise those figures as a statistic. But those figures stand for real people. People with names, people with a life I know nothing of, people who have hopes and dreams. People like me.

It makes me so sad that young people have to live with degenerative diseases, that they have to live watching themselves die. We all know that everyone dies, but, surely it's different having to watch yourself get progressively weaker day by day and struggle with the most basic of basic life skills, while everyone else of your age around you lives day to day, chases their dreams and have what would be known as a "normal" life.

Which brings me to an unrelated point - love is watching someone die.
It's the most painful thing watching someone die. I feel uncomfortable watching strangers.

But, love is watching someone die.

And there's this one case that I don't think I ever will forget, about a young 8 year old girl who got hit by a truck and suffered a closed head injury, and as a 30 year old - never completed school, has no social support, and is very depressed, not surprisingly so. All it took was one miscalculated moment.

Life is really fragile, and I've always grappled with that. I've always tried to live my life to the fullest, to the extent of appearing impulsive.

On a chirpier note, (chirpier?!), booked tickets to Perth and Singapore at the start of the week! Such an impromptu decision, but life's too short to even care at all!

love, 23:03
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