Lessons learnt this holiday season

I have been tested and I failed. For someone that prides myself so much on self love, I failed myself. For that, I am sorry. When a door closes, another one opens. The glaring deficiencies in my character were revealed to me as I stomped on my own heart.

I will emerge more patient, loving and less self centered. I think I can finally wait. I will wait for what I want. I am willing. Its a character I will play. Meanwhile, I'll practice being unselfish, I'll practice giving and not receiving. My priorities will be set right.

I am going to be better.

Shanghai- Nostalgia

I can't explain the kind of longing and nostalgia I feel towards the life I left back in Shanghai.

Kevin and a couple of others have mentioned that it was the people that made Shanghai so great to live in. I agree partially. To me, Shanghai was amazing simply because it was Shanghai. It was my home.

Shanghai was a place that had practically anything and everything I needed. When I wanted to, I could hang out at Helen's, smoke some shisha, drink some hot cocoa and just chill. In Shanghai I had the experience of owning an apartment... the very first apartment I had ever owned in my life and boy, did I love it. I still fantasize about my room, the dark wood furniture, my bed adjacent to that glorious window seat of mine. The cats, their warm furry bodies rubbing up against me. I miss riding my bike to the wet market after class, picking up some amazing mushrooms and broccoli (getting cheated by the mushroom lady :D) perhaps being tempted into purchasing a cup of lemon yoghurt from Coco's on the way down wudong lu. Back home I could go back to my own kitchen, cook something up on the stove and eat it on the dining table or in the living room with the spectacular L shaped blue woven couch.

At night if I was hungry, the awesome street food vendors would be just a walk down the street. Those warm people that I grew to recognise and that I never got to say goodbye to. Kimchi fried rice was always just a phone call away, and they will come, even at 2 in the morning. I miss Korean street where I always got my hair cut by a slightly patronising, korean, transparent apron wearing hottie. Dahao massage... the place where aches go to die. Best of all food places was Lawson's, right outside my apartment complex. There I could get fan tuans and an endless supply of drinks and cup noodles.

On the weekends if I fancied it, I could go clubbing in some of the best clubs, complete without a cover charge. I could chill at the balcony of bar rogue and just gaze at the twinkling lights of the bund. Maybe I could go bowling at hongkou stadium or sing some KTV till 6am at wanda. On sunday, I will wake up just in time for church. Take 537 down to renming guangchang and change to line 1. It was always amazing, walking to church... past those black iron wrought gates. Church was so beautiful, the stained glass windows with spectacular shadows created by the branches of the wutong tree behind it. The warm orange walls, dark brown pews and rusted green windows. Church had a smell of peace.

That was my life in Shanghai. My life that I shared with friends and my bike. Shanghai was a place I first learnt to be alone, to be okay with being alone. I grew up there, grew into a young adult, I made mistakes, fell in love, fell out of love and just lived. It breaks my heart to think that I can never go back to that. I can never relive my life in Shanghai. What I had there, I'll never have again.

First Halloween in HK

LKF - Halloween

Call this the "Afro Trio"

Little kid amongst the drunken revelry

Crying in Morningside

There has been much crying going on recently in Morningside. Crying for the student union, crying for language problems, crying for homesickness, crying for the ridiculous workload and crying for matters of the heart.

The mood seems to be extraordinarily infectious.

Fear

For me, fear is being in a dull white room. Surrounded by an impenetrable maze of sharp, amazingly fine fibers. I can't help inhaling but when I inhale, it all goes in. I choke suffocate but still, I keep on inhaling choking inhaling.

Today, I sat at the table and existed in that room.

My Silver Shimmer

I've always had a firm belief that even though I wasn't one of the golden people in life, I was a shimmering silver star in my own right. I shone with a determined glow, a glow that intelligence and ambition recognised.

These days however, I feel as if the glow is getting steadily snuffed. I was a child and a teenager with much potential, I coasted along on it and grew in complacency. Now however at the brink of adulthood I'm starting to realise that potential can only take me thus far and instead substance has to make itself known. People no longer look at me and search for what can be, instead they expect to see what should already be there.

The past few jobs or endeavors that I've undertaken have left me feeling short at best. I don't seem to possess the substance to succeed as an adult. Perhaps I have to start over, learning my limits and trying not to be impeded by them. Maybe I've finally learnt humility. Either or, its a hard lesson to stomach.

Application issues

Got my academic referee! PTL!

Its late. Ann is gone.

The end of an era

I am no longer a scholar.
I am no longer an undergrad in Fudan.
I am no longer exclusive with Gerald.
I am no longer a new christian.
I am no longer a teenager.

I wonder if I am moving forward or backward...

The possibility of a different sort of life

Today a good friend of mine reminded me about a pair of high school sweethearts I used to hang out with.

He said that when someone asked the female counterpart about what she wanted to do later in life, she said... "Marry Male counterpart". Such an amazingly secure life they both have. They are currently in university studying to be professionals, assured of financial comfort and emotional success.

It made me reflect on my situation. I'm in Shanghai, my future uncertain and uncomfortable. My poverty has resulted in 1 or 2 meals a day (Bread and cheese for several meals when I really am broke). My future destination is riding on whether or not I get a scholarship from Hong Kong. It’s a scary life. I have about 3 continents between my guy and I. Uncertain professional life, uncertain love life, and a distant idea of home. But … I chose this life. I don’t think I can be fulfilled by anything less than this.

I worry about losing my youth, my talent, my potential. I worry that my brain isn't getting the stimulus it needs.

Its human to dream of different possibilities, I guess that's why I like the Parallel Universe Theory so much.

A spiritual calling

I feel like I'm always clutching at straws, trying to feed the various needs that I have.

Christians term that gaping hole we have within us the "God-shaped hole". They say that the emptiness we feel so poignantly can only be filled by god. Perhaps that is true. I guess for non Christians they would rather not call it a god-shaped hole. I believe its a spiritual calling.

As human beings we are always trying to paint the colours of the wind, to attain deep satisfaction from a cup of coffee, to feel something buried in the core of us. Something we cannot grasp physically but we just know exists, that search, that is what makes us different from animals. We turn to religion, to music, to literature in search for that spirituality. Some surface seemingly contented, others bubble with dissatisfaction and pronounced yearning.

Spiritual beings... I like that we are spiritual beings.