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.