Mood Board: F1 Race

from net-a-porter

Recovery

The worst part about an illness is losing your appetite. Losing your appetite for the physical things - the food, the taste, the smell is inextricably linked to the loss of appetite in all important aspects - Life. I was so sick that I didn't even wash my face. The only thing I looked forward to and longed for was peaceful sleep. Even that was limited. I prayed for less discomfort. Every day, a new body part ached and I took deeper breaths. More than the pain, it was just plain exhausting. One looked at life through a very narrow scope - please hurt less. Then, as if a different coloured paintbrush had dropped into a well of greyish muted colours, everything started changing. Nothing drastic of course. No deus ex machina. The fever went away. I could laugh again. The television shows on the same few channels became mildly amusing, some moments even touched me. I was grateful they touched me. I longed to be home again. The appetite has not quite returned, but at least, in the ways that are important - I'm home - and I see the colours from the view of my window.

A Waste

Years ago, a friend told me about how a really bright girl graduated and never worked. She married a man and spent her days making cupcakes. She said it was such a waste, and at that time I agreed - although we both agreed that a life of making cupcakes sounds very delicious indeed.

Years later, I've realised that I was wrong. It would have been a waste if anyone lived their life not doing the things they truly want - productivity levels of Society be damned!

So, if years later, someone tells me I've lived my life in waste. I'll smile and say, "Better considered a waste than good riddance!"

Groundwork for Penang

I've been wanting to write about my travels but I suppose there is always a bit of emotional disconnect from being so busy with work and writing about one's holidays. While walking home yesterday, I thought of my Penang trip, which happened just a month ago, and there was a sweet feeling in my mouth. It's quite apt that it was the mouth since I ate so much food in Penang.

Well, this will be my "practical" entry. I heartily recommend Yeng Keng Hotel at Penang. It's a really lovely boutique hotel and I say this with as much objectivity I can muster - by far, the prettiest of all the hotels I walked by in Georgetown. The rooms aren't very big but perfectly sized for a weekend of relaxation. Without further ado, I present the pictures:













It costs S$450 for three nights for the room, inclusive of a really generous breakfast buffet every morning. I have to confess that I only ate the breakfast once because waking up early on a holiday? Sacrilegious!

I recommend getting the rooms on the second floor. The rooms on the first floor are very near the restaurant and reception desk and I imagine it won't be very peaceful. There's also a mosque across the road, so if you are a light sleeper, you may be affected by the 5 am prayer calls. However, being a deep sleeper, I wasn't affected at all.

Yeng Keng is right in the middle of Georgetown and very near the best eating places. It's my favourite part of Penang... I really enjoyed walking around the streets and getting lost.

Dress Crush

When I was a teenager, I loved wearing prints and patterns. Unfortunately, due to work, I hardly wear prints anymore. I can only make do with little blocks of colour. Still, my dress crush on Diane Von Furstenberg has lived beyond my teens and one day I'll definitely buy a DvF dress :)

in tiny measured doses

When I saw your strand of hair, I knew that grief is love turned into an eternal missing. It can't be contained in hours or days or minutes. Remember those 1930s coffee spoons, each one like a melted sweet? That's how I'd be living my life, in tiny measured doses. But your death was a vast sea, and I was sinking. Did you know that an ocean can be seven miles deep? No sun can penetrate that far down. In the total darkness, only misshapen, unrecognizable creatures survive, mutant emotions that I never knew existed until you died.

- Sister by Rosamund Lupton

Returning to School

I went back to my faculty’s library on Thursday. I had to get a few books for a case. It felt so familiar even though there was construction going on (there is always construction going on in Singapore). It was very quiet, which was what I always loved and disliked about libraries. The quiet gives one the extra intimacy – you can almost feel the books breathing. But when it’s too quiet, it seems like all of life has fallen still and nothing feels real… and only when I exit the library again do I feel that something is returned to me.

It’s been a year and a few months since I graduated. Oh, lots of thoughts flew in and out of my head. I looked at the students around me. I wasn’t out of place. There weren’t many students around. It was early evening and the semester has after all just begun. Sometimes you get caught in your own life, you forget that you are only one wave of a big ocean… and the ocean will repeatedly repeatedly return to the shore, carrying with it greater and greater waves. I wanted to tell them so many things. Ask lots of Questions. Have Long Lunches. Take Conflicts of Law. Enjoy yourself. It’s true, the grass always appear greener on the other side… so sleep in your grass while dreaming of everything (oh! The things the things!) that lies ahead.

Yearning

On days when I’m feeling down, not just the average low, but the equivalent of a minus two hundred and eight, I think of a pond with ducks. Perhaps pond is the wrong word because it evokes images of something round, circular, manageable. Bigger than a stream, but smaller than what I imagine most rivers to be – wide enough for a proper-sized bridge. Actually, now I’ve started to imagine it again, its a wide river, wide enough that the houses on the other side are about the size of my palm.

We were going to have our first picnic. It was late September. The Autumn that year was unpredictable, sunny one moment, frosty the next – so instead of guessing how good she would be feeling, we just planned it. I don’t remember the logistics now. We went to the supermarket. We made sandwiches. We bought chips and juice. We laid out a mat. G was late. We were hungry and ate first. I don’t remember the conversations now.

G left. We remained. I remember the large bag of bread we had left. We started throwing crumbs to feed the ducks that surrounded us. We started to name them. Oh, you gave such bad names. Two-face to a frowning duck. On hindsight, it was the only name I remember… not so bad after all I guess. We remained until it was too cold not too. I didn’t even bring a jacket that day.

There were so many happy days before and so many happy days after. Why do I always return to this day? The pond that is not a pond, the river that is not a river? Why every time I close my eyes and ask you if you miss this place, I think back of this moment? I think this was my last few moments of freedom.

I didn’t know how you felt then. But I was falling in love. Only starting to be aware of it. I had the choice. To continue falling or stop then. So, whenever I feel the equivalent of minus two hundred and eight, I go back to this moment. I would choose to remain even after G left. We would decide to feed the ducks with all the bread we had left. And, I would choose to fall for you.

House

I find out that House finally confesses his love for Cuddy:

Dr. Gregory House: I've made a decision... Being happy and being in love with you... makes me a crappy doctor.
Dr. Lisa Cuddy: Shut up! You're too drunk to end this relationship.
Dr. Gregory House: I am drunk, and I am also right. You have made me a worse doctor, and people are going to die because of that... and you... are *totally* worth it. If I had to choose between... between saving everyone or loving you, being happy. I choose you. I choose being happy with you. I will always choose you.

AND! That the actress acting as Cuddy is leaving House!

ON THE SAME DAY.

The pain of it all.