thestateofman

I still think about you, every single night.

Severely overdue post! Procrastination follows me wherever I go. China has been a blur of cold and awesomeness -  nothing particularly blog-worthy, just occasional moments of euphoric realisation (OMG SMOKE IS COMING OUT OF MY MOUTH; OMG I LOOK QUITE NICE IN A SCARF; OMG I CAN ACTUALLY WRITE/READ/SPEAK MANDARIN; OMG I AM SITTING ON GRASS HAVING A PICNIC AND I AM NOT SWEATING; OMG I WONDER IF THAT WAS ACTUALLY PORK/BEEF/MUSHROOM) and the simple pleasure of being able to be really alone for the first time since... ever. Nothing better than walking through the rain/cold/pollution, oblivious to the mad honking all around, kebab in hand, feeling utterly foreign and new, before doing a little dance while coming home into a place that for a while is really your own. Hangzhou was amazing in the Chinese-textbook-coming-alive way; Nanjing this weekend and hopefully Beijing the week after. TEN THOUSAND LI IN CHINA

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I slammed the door shut, adjusted my scarf, looked into the golden haze that is a mixture of fog and pollution draped across the street, smiled to myself in the cold as the wind buffets me during the walk home, smiled to myself and thought, 'I'm here.'

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It's the overly-dramatic response to leaving. It's only going to be five months; it's been slightly more than fifty days. It's always in the middle of the night, the walk home when the streetlights pull lengthening shadows from under my feet. We always want what we can't have. I could not wait to leave; and now I cannot help but try to stay, prolonging memories and playing them over and over again in my head. There's so little time left and so much yet to be done.

There was a cat that would come out around 11-12 at night, every night, in Clementi, and it would obsessively rub (ram) its head against our legs whenever we walked past that area. We used to buy food for it, and it used to greedily lick up every last morsel from the ground. It was really soft and really cute. It seemed to look at us with longing as we walked away from it. I miss it, so, so much. 

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This new year's day, you're on the other side of the world to me.

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Other than the cough and fever that's been plaguing me for the few days past, and the big fight that we had, Christmas has been pretty great. The line dance showoff at Christmas dinner, fever+alcohol induced highness at the club, Tan Long's awkwardly awesome Christmas concert (till date, I still cannot find a secularly comfortable way to deal with such occasions), the housewarming+village gathering at my sister's, the awesomeness that is OG 8. 

It might be the effects of knowing that I'd be flying for a few months, but I've been feeling more unsettled than ever. It's not a bad thing, necessarily; a feeling that I should take a step back and look at everything, reconsider, re-calibrate and see where I really want to go and what I really want to do, and disregard anything that's holding me back. It's a really unsettling feeling, and I use the word in the most literal sense - nothing uncanny, but unsettled, things are in a flux and can still change. Two weeks ago, I knew with perfect clarity where I was bound, and what I wanted to be like in five or ten year's time. I knew what my house would be like (inflation holding), I knew what my first kid's name would be, I knew who I was going to be. But stability poses a kind of secret threat and a dull aching dread that manifests itself when some other future, exciting, plausible and enticing, rears its head. Do I really want this, I asked, and now I am not so sure. I could be convinced, but at this rate I choose to be flummoxed. 

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OFF TO BANGKOK TOMORROW WITH SIX OTHER COCKS (PENII, ETC) 

Happy Tenth Anniversary (break down in tears, cue Graduation/Auld Lang Syne) me homies. 

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现在已经是中午12点了，4个半小时内就会结束了！！

And then we will sing freedom from the rooftops!

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It's 11:40pm, on the night before the Evidence paper. This will be my twelfth Law School exam, but the jitters and insecurities are more vivid than ever. I can't remember anything without much prompting, my notes and understanding are skimpy, I can't really remember the cases - but hearkening back to Year One Torts... Fuck you, Nettleship v Weston, because my incompetent best is enough. Gonna wing it with first principles tomorrow! 

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