where i am now

i like photos. they remind me of the journey i took to reach wherever i am now.

when i was 13 or 14 i put together an album of my most precious photos. they're still in my room somewhere, way back in singapore. this may sound weird, but that album told a 6-year-long story of my journey with my first crush through my first church.

i think i'm one of those emo people who care a million times more about relationships than career success or studies. when i look back on my short little life i think about people precious to me - my dear family and all the ups and downs we went through together, all my childhood and "teenhood" crushes that gave me the whole spectrum of emotions from hope to frustration to love and to regret, my crazy army buddies and all we went through together, and the dear friends i have walked with - the people i cried to, jumped for joy with, sang with, comforted, fell in love with, walked down the beach with, watched movies with, offered an ear to, and grew up with.

there's something lovely about seeing your life as a collection of relationships. it makes looking back like reliving every moment with each friend. but memory is like a double-edged sword because the joys are tinged with the sorrows.

not that i mind, because to have lived through a sorrow with a previous friend is better than not having had that friend at all.

i feel like i live in emotions sometimes. as if in everything i do i try affirms that i am a living, breathing human with the whole spectrum of feeling. an inexplicable joy in sorrows - filling your heart with tears knowing that they will one day rush out like a waterfall. and perhaps the sun will be up to cast a rainbow while the tears are at it.

today some of my most precious photos today were those taken at east coast with my greatest friends. it was along that beach that we walked through, together, some of the most down periods in our lives, and some of the greatest joys.

so here i am now. a people-loving bag of emotions trying to walk through the unfamiliar path of corporations and office life. it's a difficult journey in which everyday i feel more convinced that corporation-life not the future i want for myself.

you know the song "fields of gold"? really love it

China experience: day 23 of 70

a thought in the food court and korean dramas

today i noticed the sounds of the food court over lunch. it was a bustling, busy sound of hundreds of people talking, walking, eating... i got lost in it for a while, like a droplet falling into water. for a moment i felt that it would be so easy to lose myself in the hustle and bustle, so blend with the crowd, to merge into the scenery.

in fact, it's so easy to become the background, to detach myself from things and people and watch the ups and downs with the attitude that it no longer matters to me. but somehow i don't. somehow i'm here, in the midst, the one living this life, the one feeling the emotions, the once acting out the drama.

i am Prospero, needing to find strength. i am Dream, crafting my own death and denying that i am. i am Arwen, making the mortal decision. i am Death, learning about people as my apprentice ends the world. somehow we remain the protagonists of our little comedies and tragedies - ones usually made for an audience of one.

our lives really are like korean dramas. we can walk off the stage or stray from the plot anytime, but we choose to stay, acting out our little defeats and joys and victories and sorrows. perhaps this willingness to engage our emotions is what makes us human - things that laugh, cry, share, love, and hold.