Missing

These nights, especially since after my exams are over for this semester, I've been staring at the ceiling while I am on my bed, and I will think. Often, on the ceiling I will see random dots of light as if the ceiling and the walls are filled with millions and millions of glow-in-the-dark ants that one could only see at night. I don't know what they are; I suppose they are some trickery my eyes are playing on me, but when I was younger, I truly thought they were glow-in-the-dark ants and I was truly afraid of them coming to crawl over me, because they really were all over the place.

These nights, as I lay on my bed staring at the ceiling and thinking, I've been thinking of and missing people. I've been missing my auntie and my cousin, both of whom passed away last year. It's been more than a year now, and most of us have moved on from the loss, but now and then, I still lie in this state of unbelief. I lie in a state of disbelief that my cousin and my aunt have gone, and will never come back.

I miss them. I truly do. Their going away seems to have created this void in my heart that retains a special shape that only their presence can fill. I imagine a parallel universe where they are still alive and we would talk to each other, and I would play MMORPGs with my cousin because he would have been cured of his partial blindness and he could see again.

I miss my cousin. I truly do. I truly truly miss him. His death has been the death that has affected me the most. It is at his funeral that I have ever shed the most tears for anyone no longer alive. I am usually not a crier at funerals, because I truly believe that they have left a suffering life and have gone on to be with our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. I don't know why, with all the cynicism I have towards religion, it is basic things like these that I still choose to believe in.

But I miss my cousin. I really do. I remember the world that he introduced me to. The world of fantasy and dragons and dungeons and games and anime and books. It was truly an amazing world, and one that really changed my life. It was my cousin who introduced me to and lent me his copy of Final Fantasy VII, and until today I am still a Final Fantasy fan, and my favorite of the series is still Final Fantasy VII. I am just glad that he is with God now, and no longer need to suffer the pain and suffering of this world, but still, I miss him very much.

I miss my aunt too. Now my uncle got to know this new girlfriend and she would sit next to him just the way my aunt used to do. But it's different. Not only is she different from my aunt in terms of character, I feel that she will never take the place of my aunt, ever, at least not in my aunt. I will never see and recognize her the way I see and recognize my aunt. My aunt is special, and no one can replace her. I believe that my uncle and my living cousin feels this too. It's just that sometimes it's important to move on, but moving does not mean forgetting those who have passed on.

I imagine that in a parallel universe, they are still alive. And we would sit round the dinner table and have crabs and what not, and we would talk about different things in our lives. My cousin and I would talk about some MMORPG or game that we are playing, and my aunt would ask me about how I am doing in school and what I want to do in the future and I would tell her that I am doing fine and that I planning to work in the government when I graduate. And she would tell me in chinese, "Oh, good, good." And then my cousin would give his comment about working in the government and what he feels about it. And then my uncle would grab a dish for my aunt and he would say a joke and we would all laugh, and then my aunt would hit him jokingly and say that he never grows up, and how his friends always call him 开心果 (Happy Fruit).

When I get to Heaven one day, I wish that I can see them and hear them talk about how it has been like up in Heaven, and we spend all eternity having these nice and simple dinners together.

Happiness

It seems to be widely believed that people who know they are going to die soon tend to lead happier, and more fulfilling lives.

Perhaps, if we live our lives thinking that there is a possibility of us breathing our last the next day... perhaps, then we will live our lives happy, because there is no longer any point in being unhappy.

From the battlefield

Hi everybody, it's been over three months. Does anybody miss the blogger me? I don't know who actually reads this blog now, but I still keep it because it holds a lot of memories for me. It's sort of like an autobiography, in a very weird sense. Blogger tells me that there are 19 people following the blog, but the thing is I don't know any of the 19. So, hi my 19 followers! Thank you for being interested in what I write, I really do hope to get to know you guys.

Anyway, why I am here? It's the middle of my exam period. Three papers down and two more to go. Not the best time to come blogging after a three months hiatus. But well, Blogger sent me an email saying that if I don't migrate over to some new system that they've got, they're gonna wipe out all my data. Hell, this blog's been around for almost 8 years now, I udon't want my data to get all wiped out. So yeah, I sort of did the migration thing and thought I might as well come and post something.

My life's been like a machine these days. Just running and running according to a sort of system. School, research, church, girlfriend, friends, family. I don't have much happening in my life. Just a lot of reading and writing, reading and writing. An occasional jog once in a while to get my mind off things, meeting my girlfriend for a nice meal or a simple movie in the house. That's about it.

Academia is slowly killing me. I'm so grade-oriented now that I am getting closer to graduation. And it doesn't help that I am a borderline first-class. Being that just puts so much pressure on me because I don't wanna spoil it right at the end of the race. It would really suck if over the next two semesters I drop back to being second-upper-class again. It would really really suck. And that's why I'm working my ass off to try and score as many As as possible, and that's not exactly a very easy thing to do. I'm not exactly very bright - I scored 18 points in my 'O' levels and in the 'A' levels, my grades were a horrible A, C, E. ACE, yeah I know the joke, but it wasn't a joke back in 2007. It was my future on the line. And it is only through God's grace that I somehow made it into university. And now I'm in university, it is through God's grace again that I'm on a run for first-class honours.

If there is anything that university has taught me, it is to bring me into focus. Focus on what I want for myself and the future, and then go for it. Never mind if I fall or fail, as long as I give it my best shot. The most important thing is to decide on what I want, and then go for it. It's like running a race. Back in the secondary school and JC days, I had no clue about what I want in the future. So I was just running aimlessly. And because of that, I didn't run very well. But now, I really can see the finishing line ahead of me. My dreams, my future. And I have to run for that. It's just two semesters now, and the run is becoming very tiring.

Research is confusing and difficult. Even after like nearly 7 months into the research, I only have a very small understanding of my research area. The topic is just so huge and deep, and the readings are really not easy to understand. But I try. It's all about trying now.

A few things that I'm looking forward to at this moment: the end of my exams, the arrival of some parcels that I ordered online, going for some epic movie screenings (Avengers, yes), and my summer internships.

Just can't wait.