i have moved into my apartment, but it'll be unfurnished till tomorrow, so i'm still in a hotel for tonight. the apartment is very empty, space and space and nothing to fill it with. even though i'm the kind of person who craves room, i also have unexplainable compulsions to fill it up once it's available to me. prognostication: rainforests in my backyard, should i ever have one.

Philadelphia, PA

So. Here's how it is.

I am not brave, or strong, or good. I'm basically a twelve-year-old stuck in a twenty-six-year-old's body. I crave security like a drug, even though I know that true security does not exist. I would like nothing more than to be looked after, mollycoddled and pampered all the days of my life, safe in the arms of people who I know I can trust, fully and absolutely. I want controlled measures of excitement, while knowing I can flee to safety at any point I choose. I don't want to have to think for myself. I want dinner on the table, money put into my bank account every month, friends and family a bus ride away.

On the other hand, if I sort of twist my mind in a different direction, the way it was twisted when I ticked 'yes' on the card they sent me asking me if I wanted to enrol in Penn, I do still want to do this, with every fibre of my being. Because, as the old chestnut goes, everything in life worth doing is scary. Because, in a masochistic sort of a way, I like the thrill of knowing that there's not so much of a safety net now, that if I screw up I have to bear the consequences. Because just being in this city, being back in the States, reminds me of what life was like as an undergraduate, and how excellent that life was.

It's a delicate balance. It would help if I learned to be brave.

From The House at Pooh Corner, A.A. Milne

"Hallo, everybody," said Christopher Robin - "Hallo, Pooh."

They all said "Hallo," and felt awkward and unhappy suddenly, because it was a sort of good-bye they were saying, and they didn't want to think about it. So they stood around and waitied for somebody else to speak, and they nudged each other, and said "Go on," and gradually Eeyore was nudged to the front, and the others crowded behind him.

"What is it, Eeyore?" asked Christopher Robin.

Eeyore swished his tail from side to side, so as to encourage himself, and began.

"Chrstopher Robin," he said, "we've come to say - to give you - it's called - written by - but we've all - because we've heard, I mean we all know - well, you see, it's - we - you - well, that, to put it as shortly as possible, is what it is." He turned round angrily on the others and said, "Everybody crowds round so in this Forest. There's no Space. I never saw a more Spreading lot of animals in my life, and all in the wrong places. Can't you see that Christopher Robin wants to be alone? I'm going." And he humped off.

Not quite knowing why, the others began edging away and when Christopher Robin had finished reading POEM, and was looking up to say "Thank you," only Pooh was left.

"It's a comforting sort of thing to have," said Christopher Robin, folding up the paper, and putting it in his pocket. "Come on, Pooh," and he walked off quickly.

"Where are we going?" said Pooh, hurrying after him, and wondering whether it was to be an Explore or a What-shall-I-do-about-you-know-what.

"Nowhere," said Christopher Robin.

So they began going there, and after they had walked a little way Christopher Robin said:

"What do you like doing best in the world, Pooh?"

"Well," said Pooh, "what I like best - " and then he had to stop and think. Because although Eating Honey was a very good thing to do, there was a moment just before you began to eat it which was better than when you were, but he didn't know what it was called. And then he thought that being with Christopher Robin was a very good thing to do, and having Piglet near was a very friendly thing to have; and so, when he had thought it all out, he said "What I like best in the whole world is Me and Piglet going to see You, and You saying 'What about a little something?' and Me saying, 'Well, I shouldn't mind a little something, should you, Piglet,' and it eing a hummy sort of day outside, and birds singing."

"I like that too," said Christopher Robin, "but what I like doing best is Nothing."

"How do you do Nothing?" asked Pooh, after he had wondered for a long time.

"Well, it's when people call out at you just as you're going off to do it, 'What are you going to do, Christopher Robin?' and you say, 'Oh, nothing,' and then you go and do it."

"Oh, I see," said Pooh.

"This is a nothing sort of thing that we're doing now."

"Oh, I see," said Pooh again.

"It means just going along, listening to all the things you can't hear, and not bothering."

"Oh!" said Pooh.

They walked on, thinking of This and That, and by-and-by they came to an enchanted place on the top of the Forest called Galleons Lap, which is sixty-something trees in a circle; and Christopher Robin knew that it was enchanted because nobody had been able to count whether it was sixty-three or sixty-four, not even when he tied a piece of string round each tree after he had counted it. Being enchanted, its floor was not like the floor of the Forest, gorse and bracken and heather, but close-set grass, quiet and smooth and green. It was the only place in the Forest where you could sit down carelessly, without getting up again almost at once and looking for somewhere else. Sitting there they could see the whole world spread out until it reached the sky, and whatever there was all the world over was with them in Galleons Lap.

Suddenly, Christopher Robin began to tell Pooh about some of the things: People called Kings and Queens and something called Factors, and a place called Europe, and an island in the middle of the sea where no ships came, and how you make a Suction Pump (if you want to), and when Knights were Knighted, and what comes from Brazil. And Pooh, his back against one of the sixty-something trees, and his paws folded in front of him, said "Oh!", and "I don't know," and thought how wonderful it would be to have a Real Brain which could tell you things. And by-and-by Christopher Robin came to an end of the things, and was silent, and he sat there looking out over the world, and wishing it wouldn't stop.

But Pooh was thinking too, and he said suddenly to Christopher Robin:

"Is it a very Grand thing to be an Afternoon, what you said?"

"A what?" said Christopher Robin lazily, as he listened to something else.

"On a horse?" explained Pooh.

"A Knight?"

"Oh, that was it?" said Pooh. "I thought it was a - Is it as Grand as a King and Factors and all the other things you said?"

"Well, it's not as grand as a King," said Christopher Robin, and then, as Pooh seemed disappointed, he added quickly, "but it's grander than Factors."

"Could a Bear be one?"

"Of course he could!" said Christopher Robin. "I'll make you one." And he took a stick and touched Pooh on the shoulder and said, "Rise, Sir Pooh de Bear, most faithful of all my Knights."

So Pooh rose and sat down and said "Thank you," which is the proper thing to say when you have been made a Knight, and he went into a dream again, in which he and Sir Pump and Sir Brazil and Factors lived together with a horse, and were faithful knights (all except Factors, who looked after the horse) to Good King Christopher Robin...and every now and then he shook his head, and said to himself, "I'm not getting it right." Then he began to think of all the things Christopher Robin would want to tell him when he came back from wherever he was going to, and how muddling it would be for a Bear of Very Little Brain to try and get them right in his mind. "So perhaps," he said sadly to himself, "Christopher Robin won't tell me any more," and he wondered if being a Faithful Knight meant that you just went on being faithful without being told things.

Then, suddenly again, Christopher Robin, who was still looking at the world with his chin in his hands, called out "Pooh!"

"Yes?" said Pooh.

"When I'm - when - Pooh!"

"Yes, Christopher Robin?"

"I'm not going to do Nothing any more."

"Never again?"

"Well, not so much. They don't let you."

Pooh waited for him to go on, but he was silent again.

"Yes, Christopher Robin?" said Pooh helpfully.

"Pooh, when I'm - you know - when I'm not doing Nothing, will you come up here sometimes?"

"Just Me?"

"Yes, Pooh."

"Will you be here too?"

"Yes, Pooh, I will be really. I promise I will be, Pooh."

"That's good," said Pooh.

"Pooh, promise you won't forget about me, ever. Not even when I'm a hundred."

Pooh thought for a little.

"How old shall I be then?"

"Ninety-nine."

Pooh nodded.

"I promise," he said.

Still with his eyes on the world Christopher Robin put out a hand and felt for Pooh's paw.

"Pooh," said Christopher Robin earnestly, "if I - if I'm not quite -" he stopped and tried again - "Pooh, whatever happens, you will understand, won't you?"

"Understand what?"

"Oh, nothing." He laughed and jumped to his feet. "Come on!"

"Where?" said Pooh

"Anywhere," said Christopher Robin.

So they went off together. But whereever they go, and whatever happens to them on the way, in that enchanted place on the top of the Forest a little boy and his Bear will always be playing.

more miscellaneous - and also final - bits

6. my unit is still trying to call me back for mob manning, even after umpteen telephone calls telling them to PISS OFF. i mean, dear god, why?

7. altogether, my luggage weighs close to 80 kilograms. it is almost certain that i have bitten off more than i can chew, but i will rely, as i often do, on providence and the kindness of strangers.

8. i was reading through old journal entries, and have concluded that i was more terrified the last time i left, but less sad. i told yen (and a few other people as well), that it is different this go-around. when i went to duke, i was in step with everyone; i was entering a new era together with friends, so that although we were geographically distant, we were still in the same phase of our lives. of course, as the mother pointed out, this is kind of an illusion -- the dephasing will happen ineluctably anyway, it's just that i'm the first one to get out of line (to be precise i guess the credit for that has to go to people like von and john p. and billy and minz, but this is my day to be a cynosure, so leave me alone). knowing it is an illusion, though, is still very little comfort.

9. to su-lin: thank you -- again -- for everything, and stay well, and never change.

10. and to everyone else who reads this damn litany of crap: thanks for sticking on, and keep in touch. i'll be online, and blogging, and keeping the dream alive for as damn long as i possibly can. love you all.

#20: you. all of you.

miscellaneous bits

1. re: transubstantiation and chopped-up tables
i have tried hunting for more information on the spatial relationships between accidents and essences, but google is for once useless, and the summa theologica too thick for casual bedtime browsing. also: no word on whether the water co-mingled with the wine obtains the essence of Christ, or whether it was plasma that flowed from His side, or whether the tradition is related to the spearing. to be looked into further.

2. there have been a lot of goodbyes. i was losing track for a while, but i think i am more or less done (except for you, minz).

-- not farewells, clarifies cp, because after all, what are years nowadays? (cp: it's going to be six years before my sister actually becomes a proper doctor. me: oh! i'll be working by then!)

3. re: time perception as we grow older. see this for a good summary of logtime.

4. i am as ready, i think, as i ever will be. ready to start work again -- i don't think i even really saw these couple of weeks as a holiday, just a necessary interlude. i could have used more sleep, and more time to read, and certainly more time to look through notes, but that is water under the bridge now.

5. to various people: thank you for making time for me, and giving me sweet little trinkets, and being indulgent when i go off like a bullet train about things like cognitive prophylaxis, and handing out exercise tips, and believing that i'm not going to go to penn to make a complete ass of myself. and i will see you next year, if the fates allow.

#18 - Knowing this: "I will never forget you. See, upon the palms of my hands I have written your name." Isaiah 49:15-16

i was absolutely sure that i had read a poem once that started "remember me when i am gone away", and i had! not that it's at all appropriate now that i've seen it again, but it is rossetti. didn;t we do this for prac crit at some point?

Remember

Remember me when I am gone away,
Gone far away into the silent land;
When you can no more hold me by the hand,
Nor I half turn to go, yet turning stay.
Remember me when no more day by day
You tell me of our future that you plann'd:
Only remember me; you understand
It will be late to counsel then or pray.
Yet if you should forget me for a while
And afterwards remember, do not grieve:
For if the darkness and corruption leave
A vestige of the thoughts that once I had,
Better by far you should forget and smile
Than that you should remember and be sad

#17: meeting people who have an actual sense of humour

everyone

1 week left. i've been swanning around town with my mom's friend and her family (just in from the uk) while sweating and baking in the unbelievable heat. we did the tourist loop round chinatown, through orchard road and down to the bay, where we were finally done in by the weather (and for them, the jet lag). then su-lin called, and i thought she said she had bought me eight pounds of chocolate, but it turns out that wasn't the case.

***

in the museum in the raffles hotel, there is a newspaper clipping from the straits times (i think), circa 1910. it reads:

BOAR HUNT AT RAFFLES

No sportsman in Asia should miss paying a visit to Raffles, for he never knows what a rare bag may be picked up on the verandah of a morning before breakfast. Within the past few months we have had occasion to chronicle a tiger hunt under the billiard room and a lively python chase in and about the verandah. Yesterday morning there was an exciting wild boar hunt, including a separate conflict between the monumental Sikh jagah who stands at the doorway of the hotel and the extraordinary brute that sought to pass the portals. This jagah in question who is known to practically every globe trotter on earth as well as to residents in the Peninsula, hails from somwhere near Peshawar, and stands over six feet in his stockings. His girth is generous and he weighs about eighteen stone. Recently he came into a legacy from an appreciative guest of similar dimensions to his own. This legacy consisted of a full dress evening suit, whic, when worn in the morning in conjunction with an immense puggree, a sash and new lemon-colored boots, lent to the naturally imposing form of the jagah an additional air that was bizarre and picturesque. In this attire he met the wild hog.

The circumstantial details of the combat as purveyed by Mr. Chaytor and other officials of the hotel management who were eyewitnesses to the unusual spectacle, furnish mental pabulum which will rejoice the soul of every shikari, and every student of wild animal life when such life is considered under the contorted conditions which must obtain with wild animal life when combined with life in a first class modern hotel.

It seems that at about three minutes past nine o'clock yesterday morning Mr C. Chaytor was attending to routine duties on the verandah of the billiard room when he was amazed to hear the voice of the Sikh jagah uplifted in a great roar for help. On looking down at the spot whence the roar emanated Mr. Chaytor was still further amazed to see the jagah - dressed in his best suit of clothes - but wrestling despearately with a wild hog. The situation so far as Mr. Chaytor was concerned stood absolutely without precedent. Neither the tiger nor the python had wrestled wiht the jagah. Therefore he simply waited and watched. Presently, the jagah cast aside the hog and panted. Then still panting, he rooted up one of the stakes supporting a climbing orchid, couched the...

#16: A place for everything, and everything in its place.

i have been ruthless with my packing. but a handful of books are traveling with me:

1) seligman's abnormal psychology
2) the apa style manual
3) huettel's functional magnetic resonance imaging
4) my statistics book (granvetter)
5) the catcher in the rye
6) of mice and men
7) the bible (student edition)

and the mysterious flame of queen loana (umberto eco) which i will read on the plane. everything else is clothes, and shoes, and some dvds, and an external HDD, and my playstation, and the most important mementos including photographs, justin's glass swan and gershwin the weightlifting frog. i don't dare to weigh anything yet because i am mortally afraid that i will exceed my allotted 64 kg, and need to leave behind more stuff than i already have decided to. there will be tears if this happens. there already almost are tears.

Currently reading:
The City of Falling Angels - John Berendt

#15: Puppies

last night

-- had wine and leftover liquer chocolates and milo ice cream, laughing at the '98 gp bulletin, british stand-up comedy. various conversations started in hushed voices so as not to disturb su-lin's sisters which ended up being rowdy anyway as we rounded midnight. it was being 20-something, the muscle memory of what college was like, respite from Other People tinged with the dull anxiety of being labeled elitist by them, the unspoken longing for things to be this way always.

incidentally

this 40 things that make me happy business is an exercise i've set myself, and is not happening because i've gone sentimental/soft in the head.

#14: long bus rides at night

Currently reading:
A Short History of Tractors in Ukranian - Monica Lewycka

Victor Frankl:

Logotherapy, keeping in mind the essential transitoriness of human existence, is not pessimistic but rather activistic. To express this point figuratively we might say: The pessimist resembles a man who observes with fear and sadmess that his wall calendar, from which he daily tears a sheet, grows thinner with each passing day. On the other hand, the person who attacks the problems of life actively is like a man who removes each successive leaf from his calendar and files it neatly and carefully away with its predecessors, after first having jotted down a few diary notes on the back. He can reflect with pride and joy on all the richness set down in these notes, on all the life he has already lived to the fullest. What will it matter to him if he notices that he is growing old? Has he any reason to envy the young people whom he sees, or wax nostalgic over his own lost youth? What reasons has he to envy a young person? For the possibilities that a young person has, the future which is in store for him? "No, thank you," he will think, "Instead of possibilities, I have realities in my past, not only the reality of work done and of love loved, but of sufferings bravely suffered. These sufferings are even the things of which I am most proud, though these are things which cannot inspire envy."

i was on the 153 on my way to church this evening when i espied su-lin sitting at a bus stop and muttering something to herself under her breath. this was most amusing, so i called her immediately to let her know this. where are you? she says (looking around, i imagine, for binoculars behind curtains), and then: i was singing to myself. anyway, i'm sorry if i startled you, my dear, but it was charming and will make me smile when i think about it on lonely winter nights.

#13: something that always made me extremely unpopular in JC, i think -- finishing papers a day before they were due, and then feeling smug about it.

note though:
1) this did not happen often
2) i would invariably get 13/25 for them

denial

2 weeks more. i have confirmed my flight on the 30th. i'm not certain if i'll be allowed to carry hand luggage with me; it will be a major blow if i can't. my instincts for avoidance behaviour are kicking in full force, which means that instead of worrying about what i'm going to bring with me and what i'm going to leave behind, i have (1) finished the amos oz book, as well as shusako endo's silence (so much more intense than the power and the glory (2) watched requiem for a dream and i heart huckabees (bizarre) (3) gone (impulse) shopping, and (4) doubled my daily caffeine intake. not good.

#12: the smell of paper

thursday was my last day at work. now that i've gone through three jobs in two years, i can say with some confidence that the novelty of last days does not wear thin easily. quit your jobs! because scientists are stingy bastards compared to HR executives, or because the folks in [that place] just liked me better, or something, there were no lavish celebrations, just bak kut teh and well-wishes. i think the 'something' is that people in our lab feel that the tentacular influence of our boss over continents and ages means that no one truly leaves, that this is not so much 'farewell' as 'how soon will you be recalled?'. which is comforting if you think of ex-colleagues as useful connections, and horrifying if you consider the situation from any other angle. i am addicted to clean slates. as one gets older, one finds that they get less and less desirable, and harder and harder to obtain.

never-ending fun

it's 10:46 a.m. on national day

why aren't you wasted yet?

on ubin, we took a break at one of the various ramshackle kampung huts for drinks and respite from the heat. one of our number had admitted shamefully that he did not know how to ride a bicycle. on aggregate, sympathy won out over derision, but only by the slimmest of margins. so we walked, and were more tired than we needed to be, and the ice lemon tea was very much a necessity by late afternoon. we sat down next to the only other party in the shelter: three civil servants immersed in a very earnest discussion about educational policy and overseas scholarships, and once again it struck me: the administration here is the graveyard of shibboleths. occasionally, one of a family of mongrels would trot up to us and inquire in a doggy way whether we had any food. we did not.

the elderly drinks seller, who also happened to live in the place, soon decided to be chatty. he was awfully robust for someone who looked like he was pushing 70, and talk oh his health soon revealed the fact that apart from his day job, he also happened to be an apothecary of sorts, and for 22 years has been busily doling out cures for all kinds of maladies, including hypertension, malaria and cancer. we sieved through his herbs, and a. took some photographs, but my camera was messed up so i can't post them here. they were more weeds than herbs, really, nondescript, and a cactus. people come to me, the apothecary-of-sorts said (in chinese), telling me that they have intestinal cancer or leukemia and that the doctors say that they only have 3 months to live. i tell them to take these and they come back in 6, completely well. the weeds are brittle, and to be honest, look like they contain the medicinal properties of a twig. still, the man is charming and twinkly, and we ask lots of questions and buy another drink.

do you think? i asked a. as we were walking back to the jetty, that he tells that story to everyone who will give him an audience. almost certainly, he said, so back at home, i googled singapore ubin cure cancer and got at least several hits for blogs telling the same story (i'm not going to link to them; you can go yourself if you care). the internet really does take the numinousness out of everything. i bet that if you found an oracle in kathmandu who told you the meaning of life someone will already have blogged about it. some stories are cheapened with retelling. it's so much more romantic to believe that we had chanced upon someone who really had discovered a panacea, and that the secret belonged only to us; it's fun once in a while to just suspend disbelief and murder rationalism and live, momentarily, in a space where the impossible is not.

#11: When someone opens a gift you get them, and you can tell from that instantaneous look on their face that you have got them exactly the right thing.

i am watching the australian version of the mole. though lacking anderson cooper, it is almost as good as the original abc edition, one of the top contenders, i think, for a dead before its time award. it appeals to me mostly because of my soft spot for classic detective fiction/locked-room mysteries, plus it is a much purer game in terms of interpersonal dynamics than, say, survivor (which is probably rigged from start to finish). the greatest pity is that editing 21 days down to 8 hours does not even begin to capture the intricacies of suspicion and strategy that i'm sure must run frighteningly deep as the game progresses.

Currently reading:
Fima - Amos Oz
(by the bye, von, i went to read simmel's stranger after you mentioned it to me. it's marvelous.)

i am told that the media has announced that the national stadium will "literally go out in a blaze of glory" on august 9th. finally, something worth watching on national day.

#10: christmas carols

i do slightly regret saying that i prefer german to italian food, because i think it depends. if i were on death row, and had to pick between the two for one last meal, i would have to go with the sauerkraut and dumplings; however, if i had to pick a country to go on a gastronomic tour of, italy would of course win hands down. it's comfort/carbohydrates vs. freshness/subtlety, and i think i was in need of comfort when the question was asked (scones, jam and cream helped.)

comment

von emails me to say that my perception of gep-ers is warped, that there are numerous high-functioning, well-adjusted, useful people out there in the working world now, and that we are unfairly projecting our personal angst on people who have none. this may well be true, but because there is very little way for us to prove this empirically, i'm afraid the debate might have to rest there.