To the Brave Souls to whom this letter is addressed to,

You are about to embark on a great crusade. A journey of vast proportions, a path of unrivalled peril and depressing shrouds of mental failure. You will be sorely tested, placed on a course of challenges and trials that will undermine the strength of your will, weaken your heart and crush your spirits, so that you will be left defeated and abandoned by the dreams that you so determinedly grasp.

But you will not fear it, nor shall you look upon it as an entity of despair. Arouse your spirits and summon your strengths, warriors. Yes, you are warriors. Warriors who defend the core of their love, who fight for their freedom and the sanctity of their minds. You will stare it in the eye; the dark chasms that threaten to pull you within, and you will fight it, and you will prevail.

So pick up your pens and pencils. Organize your notes and dust out the text books under your desks. Revise and research, study and learn, for knowledge is your greatest strength, and the pen your sword and armour. Remember your dreams, and know your love. Seize victory, and you seize future. Fight for yourself, and you shall fight for others.

Fight, and win.

And a diploma is forever yours.

With deep regards,

XXXXXXXXXXXXX

My sanity is degrading. Considerably.

But I am not so arrogant enough as to claim that I’ve been poring endlessly over notes and text-books, plunging myself deep into immeasurable pressure and depressing hours of revision; the most I’ve done is sum up a bunch of last minute notes to throw at the examiner and pray for a marginal pass. The procrastinating plague is still strong in me, and it takes a little more than some panic-stricken moments and jovial inspirations to siphon it.

Hence it is not the pressure that is robbing my mental health, but the gloom it manages to cast over the workings of the world that I reside in.

Everyone is in a snappish mood; aggression mounts to cautious levels and the pressure they bear weighs down under their eyes, forming grim shadows beneath weary pupils. I see smiles, but they project an unbreakable barrier of dismal trepidation that unwittingly turns me into a wrecking circumspect.

Argh. I don’t even know what I’m saying anymore.

Chill J-E, chill.

It only means that you, too, should be picking up your books and start bloody revision.

After this blog, my precariously wary shoulder angel. After this post.

Now, you said it already. Don’t go back on your words.

Yeah, yeah. I promise I won’t.

Good. And don’t forget to say what I always told you to say.

Yes, yes, I’m not forgetting it. *ahem*

Goodnight people.

(There. There’s a good human. Aren’t you glad that I’m your conscience? Hm? Hm?)

(*&^%$!%I’’llshowyouconsience@&^!&*)

I could really imagine…

I could smell her hair; the same, familiar scent of sweetness, like a chorusing whisper of a million flowers.

I could feel her close to me, feel her feel my heartbeat. Feel her warmth, and feel her cold dissipate in my embrace.

Feel her cheeks soft onto mind.

Feel her filling me. Feel her coursing into every corner of my body and soul that never knew the things that she could give me, and feeling whole. Feeling full. Content. Blissful.

Feeling loved.

I could really imagine…

But that is as far as imagination would go.

And at its wake, I only get a longing. A very strong longing.

The rain was crazy.

It came down in sheets, and if I tried to divert myself away from the gentle music in my ear I would’ve managed to deduce a certain form of rhythm in their falling. Like waves. Like billows of velvet curtains under a benign wind. But it was heavy. It was rough, violent, wrathful. It was scary, to be honest. That was why I took to stop myself at the shops to wait for the rain to subside. I had the window down a crack, and through it stray strands of the tearing squalls outside made into my car. I put my fingers to it. Chilly.

I was lucky. I reached my car when the rain took the heavy turn, and it wasn’t until I took the road back home when the rain became a storm. Had I went to the photo exhibit at KLCC like I planned earlier, I would’ve ended up stuck at the station, waiting for the downpour to stop.

It was crazy. I couldn’t see anything a few meters away. Somewhere up Bukit Mewah I saw palm leaves literally ripped off their barks by the winds. Waste baskets were tossed onto the roads and I had a Chinese lantern rolling after me. At one point I had branches falling on the roof of my car. Nothing big or damaging, but it unnerved me enough to make a detour towards a row of shops at Taman Zamrud, where I stopped to wait.

I had my Mp3 on, which quite conveniently had run itself into the English-songs half of my playlist (the first half jam-packed with J-rock and anime tracks), so I could sing along a bit. It ends tonight (All American Rejects) flitted through, and I hummed together with David Bowie’s Heroes (not knowing the words). Then Confidence (For you I will) played.

And I felt myself falling silent, glancing out at the lashing rain.

I felt sad.

I felt like I’ve seen her tearful. Three times in my lifetime now, and every time it was battle with self-control to not fling my arms over her, soothing her (I’d imagine her going into an epileptic shock, then throwing me a jaw breaking punch).

I hate to see her cry.

Not that she ever did. The most I caught was a glistening of tears she must’ve fought hard not to well. But it was enough. I would become a useless, petrified person. I would try to cheer her. I would think of consolations, but what use were those, when I know not the things I had to console. All I could do is say a few words. Hopefully get her talking. A smile, at best. Then I can pretend that she’ll be fine for a mo, or at least not as desolate.

Pretend. Huh. A soothing of my own troubled thoughts. What good is pretence?

I mouthed the chorus.

For you I will.

The rain dimmed a little. Enough for me to make a run for home. I started the car and drove slowly back. And then the rain stopped completely.

The sun was beautiful at that time. But I think no one noticed. No one really looks up to the sky after a rain, and understands that after a downpour, the sky is most beautiful.

After the rain.

I guess I’ll wait.

Sweet. Definitely with an authentic taste, of not vaguely so. It lacked a certain punch, though, like a half-thrown uppercut with little effort. And I daresay it had nothing to do with the packet of fried onion garnish I forgot sprinkle on it. But I have to applaud its effort. It was instant noodles after all. Prawn-noodles flavour. Over a horrendously tedious movie. One can only complain so much. If any more, the world will lack colour and dive into nonsensical pandemonium.

It was a quiet day. Peaceful. It feels like one of those perfect days to wake up and realising that you’re living on your work pension, and all you have to do is feed the birds and bask in some placid, comfortable rest at the armchair. Sip a glass of juice or two. Like I did. While stretching out on the sofa, having the fan billow genial winds down on my flabby back over the serene chirping of birds outside. I could’ve done with a little more sleep, but an entire morning alone at home, dad-free and everything alluring, how was I to resist the call of les Ps2 and a good movie?

I was supposed to go ching ming with mother today, but there we didn’t count in the possibilities of my fifth uncle going this year, so I stayed back to make room in the car. I spent a few moments wondering why I didn’t take up Mich’s offer to go on a movie spree, now that I had to stay home and do nothing anyway. When I volunteered to stay home a little walrus in me gave a histrionic “AAAAAAAArrrrggghhhh!!!!....” and spread itself under a spotlight. So much for going to the Nirvana cemetery every time I was capable to. I was home alone when I could’ve gone to The Reaping with Mich and Amanda. Jolly.

So I thought I’d redeem myself by watching some DVDs I haven’t had the time or mood to sit through. I started with Dreamgirls, which was pretty good, though I find it pretty weird when some of the characters began singing out of the blue. There’s no hint to a start of a song at all, and suddenly the character goes into a vocally charged fit, singing out loud as though people wouldn’t find it incredibly unnerving to have a woman falsetto-ing in the middle of nowhere. But then maybe I haven’t watched enough musicals to know how they work.

After that I sat down for After This, Our Exile (or Fu Zi); a Chinese movie starring Aaron Kwok. The movie was a big deal because it was shot in Malaysia (Ipoh) and Aaron Kwok won the Golden Horse award for his performance. Halfway through it managed to bore the crap out of me, and I couldn’t find a single explanation to those supposedly artistic shots (which adds to the aggravation). In the end it was a big deal of crap, but not entirely without its worth. So I shrug and go do my chores with a quiet tinge of regret knowing that The Reaping will – at any rate – definitely do better than this tedious movie.

And I still feel that now, despite whatever the reviews said about The Reaping (D+ rating on yahoo!movies). At least I’d have some visual effects of locusts devouring them puny humans...

Goodnite peops.

It has been a crazy week. Demented, more like, or should I say psychotic? No, trying to personify it with synonyms of madness doesn’t seem to emblazon it properly. Let’s just say that it was a quite a week. Not bad, but just messed up. And it’s making me nuts.

If I think hard about it; I mean, really really hard, I think I can remember that in the course of 5 days, I’ve had nothing but a continuous streak of assignment deadlines. But I can’t remember well. Doctor said my brains were fried, a result of excessive critical thinking (a feat for the likes of me, he said) and insufficient sleep. I went on a complete meltdown for a whole day. I didn’t remember what happened, but mom said I sang “Can you feel the love tonight,” while waltzing with the kitchen mop for an hour or so. She then knocked me unconscious with her tazer, because she was afraid I might do something dangerous, and because the mop was a good mop. It lost half of its hair when I was done with it.

Anyway, the doctor said I should lay off with thinking more than I should, so I’m stuck to Bugs Bunny cartoons the whole week and I’m not allowed to eat carrots. Oh, I’m also not supposed to write, but the doctor doesn’t need to know.

There’s also the matter of losing my Sony E. K700i handphone.

I dropped it at Alpha Angle and it got nicked in an instant (I didn’t manage to see who). And it was a perfectly good phone, despite the memory size and the shitty joystick. Now I’ll have to settle with an old Nokia, and with all my contact numbers lost. Tell me your handphone numbers, ya? I’m very keen on refurbishing my list. Unless I owe you cash. Then I don’t think I know you.

There was one morning where I woke at 3 a.m., thanks to my nefarious brother who quite conveniently forgot to re-switch my air-cond on after taking a midnight shower (the conditioner in my room uses the same port as the shower, so you can’t have them on at the same time or it’ll be short circuit). And being the small room that is mine, it grew immensely stuffy, so I was forced to wake and wash my face. Then I saw that Michelle had IMed me 4 minutes before.

And I replied (O.o). And we chatted for an hour or more. And she asked me something that kick-started an engine roar of questions, which I predominantly repeat over my head until now. And then I really started to wonder about something that bro said to me, very constantly. About knowing that I wanted in life.

I knew what I wanted then, but I didn’t understand why I’m so fickle. I didn’t understand why I didn’t pursue things wholeheartedly. Apart from a few exceptions, but then again those exceptions didn’t stack up in significance.

Maybe it’s really time I stop being so indecisive, and let the future worry itself when I get there. Maybe I should really get what I want.

No fear. So said the T-shirt.

Goodnight People.