How to train a Jedi

I am damn well feeling like Queen Amidala at this very moment. I have 2 neat, red pimples on each cheek. I don’t even know how to describe what I feel about that, but I have never had so many pimples before. And this is probably all thanks to the air in China, thank you very much. I think I will just go train a Jedi now.

I was re-reading The Last Lecture (or rather, just bits of it) a few days ago and the same emotions as when I first read it came over me again. It sort of gives me the same lump in my throat as whenever I read A Prayer for my Daughter. I didn’t write about it here last time, but if I were his kid, I would probably have read his book a hundred times over before I even turned 12. It is just such a moving book, and there are a lot of lessons to take home from it.

Wake on up from your slumber

I am currently nursing two very sore upper arms. I got my vaccinations done today. What a horror. But I’m glad it is over. They gave me my 2-year overdue second dose of Hepatitis A magic, typhoid and influenza jabs. However much I hate looking at needles half sunk into my flesh, the last one was no doubt quite welcome, seeing as to how I had been down with the influenza no less than 3 times last year. I was also prescribed a test dose of anti-malaria pills. I am gonna feel like (and in fact, will be) a drug user for the next year. A very disciplined one at that; I will need to pop the pill exactly once a week!

Anyway, my main point is, it is slowly but definitely beginning to sink in. That I will soon be leaving the comfort of home and the pleasurable albeit slightly unfulfilling lifestyle of the past month or so. This week is a week of many ‘lasts’, which is what is making me feel somewhat down and sick in the stomach. I didn’t realise it until today, when I was sitting perfectly still in Starbucks finishing off Choon’s book. Her book was a delightful walk through days of yore, but despite my occasional bursts of laughter at the text, my heart still felt heavy.

And then I realised: I am having pre-departure jitters.

I might have gone and returned home several times before, but never have I set off for a third world country to call my home. And I might be whimpering now, but I think I am going to get so much more than I would ever deserve whilst I’m there.

And I should be thankful that I am still relatively near home and not heading halfway across the world to South America or something (though I would like to one day).

You see, I am already dreaming of where to next. I know I am going to love it.

Evening Solace

The human heart has hidden treasures,
In secret kept, in silence sealed;
The thoughts, the hopes, the dreams, the pleasures,
Whose charms were broken if revealed.
And days may pass in gay confusion,
And nights in rosy riot fly,
While, lost in Fame’s or Wealth’s illusion,
The memory of the Past may die.

But there are hours of lonely musing,
Such as in evening silence come,
When, soft as birds their pinions closing,
The heart’s best feelings gather home.
Then in our souls there seems to languish
A tender grief that is not woe,
And thoughts that once wrung groans of anguish,
Now cause but some mild tears to flow.

And feelings, once as strong as passions,
Float softly back—a faded dream;
Our own sharp griefs and wild sensations,
The tale of others’ sufferings seem,
Oh! when the heart is freshly bleeding,
How longs it for that time to be,
When, through the mist of years receding,
Its woes but live in reverie!

And it can dwell on moonlight glimmer,
On evening shade and loneliness;
And, while the sky grows dim and dimmer,
Feel no untold and strange distress—
Only a deeper impulse given,
By lonely hour and darkened room,
To solemn thoughts that soar to heaven
Seeking a life and world to come.

Charlotte Bronte