'life changes in an instant'

so says Joan Didion in "The Year of Magical Thinking".

i think of this quote to remind myself that life is always transient - that relationships and situations are dynamic, volatile, unpredictable. i'm only just beginning to realize this after a certain close friend has recently betrayed me. after analysing this for days, i've come to realize that the only way i can survive is to just forget about it. no person this deliberately cruel deserves my energy and emotions. i don't deserve to feel so unhappy and confused, wondering all the time what exactly happened to have made him think that i'm not worth being friends with.

i refuse to sink into depression. it is scary knowing that others have done so in the past, but i REFUSE to let one selfish, irrational, cruel person do this to me.

i'm sorry that i can't possibly contact everyone and explain exactly the situation. in time i'll be able to look back on this and not feel so miserable. but i ask that my friends just trust me, and be there for me - whether it is through emails or phone calls. i know there are worse things than losing a best friend.

i hope that everyone else is doing well though :). or if not well, then at least better than i am! i'll try to get in touch soon...in the meantime, i'm just going to try to move on from this incident and enjoy Cambridge. (which has actually become a fourth home).

returning to normality

the wonderful thing about having rough starts is that it means there's only one way to go! up!

i'm lazy so here is my second week achievements compressed in bullet points. in the past week, I....

1. opened a bank account and paid the Michaelmas term rent. this helped me clear away all that angst about whether or not to stay. I'M STAYING. for once, the little voice in my head, and the little voice in my heart, are in unison...
2. finally made friends. (awww)
3. drank a lot of Vitamin water and orange juice in hopes of psycho-somatically convincing myself that i am immune to all those freshers-flu germs.
4. learned a lot about eighteenth century moral philosophy. ahh SO looking forward to her comments on my 1600 word attempt at analysing sympathy. how i hate philosophy.
5. showed M around Cambridge, rather blindly, as my knowledge of Cambridge is limited to like four colleges, the river, the supermarket and shops. we had waffles for lunch which is amazing in itself. we also poked around small quaint shops selling cute things like 'knit a sheep' kits and pretty notebooks...i'm so going back there this weekend to do a bit of early Christmas shopping!
6. attended ZERO english lectures.
7. somehow managed to miss a bunch of meetings for activities that i had signed up to do. but i'm definitely doing informal choir, and might get involved in editing for science magazine. (that's right - no more literary fluffiness. and no more crap about not being able to edit pieces. *cough* issu....)
8. was convinced that Serendipity is totally underrated. by Serendipity herself :)
9. struggled a lot with religious faith and have realized that it's not for me. it's upsetting, but also weirdly empowering, too...
10. ate a lot of dark chocolate digestive biscuits to complement the not-so-great hall meals here...(they call it trough)

i have yet to find my routine here, but i'm getting there. firstly, got to tackle a mountain of errands this weekend. i put off EVERYTHING for essays, seriously, but the weird thing is i conversely put off essays for the most trivial of things like facebook stalking, PET bottle recyling, digestive biscuits, etc. sigh well it feels good to be concerned about the small things for a change...:) as opposed to huge, aching questions about my place here.

couldn't have done it without the love and encouraging words of a lot of eople however. it's pleasantly surprising how one can find inspiration in the most unlikely places. but yeah, sometimes i lie in bed and i just feel all this love from distant places awash over me and i think, "this has gotta make all of this worth it" and "what the heck did i do to deserve such a family and such friends?" sigh. i have so much learning and living to do.

life at cambridge: week one

the past seven days have gone by like a cross between a dream and a nightmare.

when i feel safe and strong, i look out of my attic windows and smile at the chapel spires, the immaculate green, the cloisters of Old Court, thinking to myself - if anything, i should feel blessed that i can study at a place so steeped with history and culture. Pembroke College is extremely pretty: our courtyards lack the regal, imposing feel of Trinity and St. John; they're more of the comfortable, garden tea-party kind. also, i'm amazed that some of the great poets studied at Pembroke - Thomas Gray, Ted Hughes, Spenser - and i guess i shouldn't take that history for granted.

there are so many quirky traditions here, all of which i've just accepted/half-embraced. no walking on greens. early dinners unless you go to formal hall. a heck of a lot of alcohol during formal meals (you get a different one to accompany each course, so champagne with the appetiser, red with the main, and port with the dessert and coffee). lots of port in old fashioned decanters (and i thought those things were only found in the His Dark Materials books!!). the whole town of cambridge shutting down at 7 pm. not having to go to lectures or class. gowns over your fancy clothes in hall. standing up in hall when the fellows enter to dine at the High Table. (there is a lot of hierarchy here...like we have a senior butler, Salvino, who is our sort of ally and gestures to let us know when to stand and sit and take leave, and then all these other waiters/waitresses in hall that follow his orders...) i actually live right above the Hall, which is a little weird but very convenient.

so i guess that's the dream part of it...the beauty of cambridge, the constant tea drinking and biscuit nibbling. the meeting of people exponentially smarter than you. it's very humbling. :) i'm quite freaked out about my Practical Criticism supervision with some of the 2nd years this afternoon. they all look so put together with their hard-cover diaries, dissertation papers, pens and english-y coats...sigh well we shall see what happens.

and the nightmare bit? well, the intense loneliness, the lack of friends (except for Ritz, who's been a total star in looking out for me), the sense of not fitting in anywhere, the lack of structured time. i'll try not to fall into some self-fulfilling prophecy...i have been trying hard to meet a lot of people and establish at least a list of contacts. i guess the people here are quite different, and navigating the asian groups is even trickier.

coming here has made me value friendship, family, company, sun, hot food, nice showers even more. especially friends!! i've always known that i had the most amazing of friends, but i now feel even more fortunate when i reflect on my relatively easy transition into Brown. a lot of things are due to pure serendipity, as everyone has been saying to me. i guess i'm praying for some sort of magical encounter here - in the shape of a friend, a phone call, a conversation.

i know i owe it to myself and to a lot of other people to persist. at the moment, it's just difficult for me to be truly optimistic...i find myself walking around sometimes crying on the inside because i'm so consumed by uncertainty and loneliness. but i guess if anything, this was a much-needed crash course in true independence. and i'll try to focus on staying happy and healthy...haha nowadays, a conversation with a stranger at the dinner table is a lifeline, a sunny day, a miracle!