here.
Sunday, October 11, 2015
unripe thoughts
Ho ho ho!
Nope it ain’t Christmas yet, but by the length of time it took from the last post to now, it feels like it’s Christmas already!
I haven’t posted so long because, during the long break, I had nothing to post… Because my day-to-day life was so not worth posting about HAHA.
And another big reason is, a lot of the thoughts floating in my head are not ripe for posting. (Few as my readers are, the Internet is still never a safe place.)
This whole year, I feel like it’s been one big decision-making process. This turning point in life that I dreaded so much since I was much younger – it is finally here, and I am living it right now. I always felt so unsure and apprehensive about my future – what do I want to do with my life, what should I study, what job should I do. I didn’t want to grow up. I wanted to stay in my carpeted garden of thornless roses, I wanted to stay protected, I wanted to play without a care.
But, no surprise to you, time does not stop for anyone. It ticks on and on like a never-drying river flowing through the endless tributaries. So here I am – here we are – perching on the verge of adulthood.
There are still many things that I am struggling with internally, even though people probably don’t see it as I go about my daily life. It is never easy to admit that we are struggling. Complaining about life is one thing, but to reveal your weakness and wrongs is to make yourself feel vulnerable beyond what is commonly acceptable. I feel ashamed and angry with myself for feeling bitter, and it is no one’s fault but my own. Sometimes I blame it on others but ultimately I am the master of my own emotions, and I can totally choose to let it go and be happy where I am.
I hope I will be able to take this as a lesson of trust, and trust that God’s ways are higher than mine. I wouldn’t know if I would survive, I wouldn’t know which path is more worth it. I can make wise choices but in the end, what happens will happen, and I know it is not by my own effort but by God’s grace. I tell this to myself constantly. I know it by logic, I believe it in my head. But my heart still tugs at something currently unreachable, and I don’t know whether that is right.
What the world tells us is definitely not the same as what God tells us. Maybe, some things are similar, some things are universal. ‘Do unto others what you want others to do unto you’ is a theme that runs across many religions, and it is something right and good. But some things the world increasingly tells us is right, may not be pleasing to God. It is getting harder to sift it out, as the devil constantly tries to mislead us, manipulating our selfish desires, making us doubt what is right.
How do you tell apart greed from a calling? They seem far-fetched, but think about it, they are both tugging feelings inside of you, urging you to do something. The difference is, greed comes from the sinner inside you, while a calling comes from God above. It is so dangerous, that is why it is so important to get it right. And that is why it is a struggle.
The above few paragraphs are just a snippet of what has been going on in my head for the longest time. It’s a recurring theme like the leitmotif of a dramatic symphony, manifesting itself in various forms, at various points. It sounds cryptic and confusing, but that is why I say the thoughts in my head are unripe for disclosure. Even if I say it, don’t know if you can empathise, or help me. All the words that can be said, I probably already heard it or said it to myself already. The only help that can really help comes from within and above.
***
But if you really want some updates, here’s some, more light-hearted stuff. They are more everyday things, but somehow I maybe don’t tell to people because… I respond too slowly to questions.
I feel like I need to make a FAQ for what linguistics is!! If only I could make a podcast and play it out of my head when people ask me things like “So, are you learning a third language?”, “So you study… grammar?”, “What are you going to do after this? Be an interpreter? Be a teacher?”
I actually don’t hate this course. I feel like JC was a point where I started to dislike studying a lot. But this course is actually pretty fascinating, even though there are annoying aspects as well. I’m still a bit rusty at studying though. Reading notes is still okay, but to actively try to study, retain info, or make notes, those activities seems to repulse me. I need to get that ignition running again..
Social-life-wise, I don’t really know if I have friends. Do you call those friends? When a senior confessed that she actually didn’t have a single friend in uni, only acquaintances, I found it a bit hard to believe, and sad. But now, I think I can understand, and I think it may very well happen to me. I feel like most of the ‘friendships’ forged here so far are very ‘professional’, like we make friends ‘just because’. Just because it looks weird to go to lunch alone, and sit in lectures alone. You need people to do projects with, and people to discuss things with in tutorials. Each module may have different people so you make ‘friends’ from all of them. So you seem to have many friends. But in reality, you don’t. I’m not saying there aren’t nice people, or none that click with me. I just feel that the circumstances are not optimum for forging of genuine friendships. And I’m not a person who thrives in a clique, I think. (Morose is an exception because we do have close individual ties, at least between some of us, too!) So far, the most comfortable I’ve been with any new friends, is when it is really with just me and one other person. When new people come into the equilibrium, I just shut up. There are just too many different cultures and backgrounds converging, my social pea brain cannot handle everyone at once.

Yeap so that’s it for updates so far. Hopefully I’ll get back to posting a bit more again? Blurting out my thoughts like that can be therapeutic…