Grad Expectations.

Well yes, I know, kinda cheesy post title (Charles De Yan, or Chuan Dickens..) but waddya know - the only reason I'm even trying to blog today is that I feel like I haven't actually used my brain for a while now. Once you're BFG (Back For Good) there's just too many ways to procrastinate, to tell yourself that okay next week I'll find some time to sit and write, to tinker about with my diary, to actually use any portion of my brain at all. But noooo, there's too much admin to be done, a myriad errands and tasks or plain lazing around thanks to the full blown fatigue of full time work. Quite apart from work (which is going decently all things considered), I have quite possibly done nothing of value at all over the 3 weeks since I've been back.

So, not that this is going to be of much worth either, but at least I have to give myself a chance to flex a wee bit of my cognitive functions.

Chronologically, I guess, was grad trip, followed by graduation. Too much really to cover, and previous posts on previous trips have borne out the fact that I am a horrible accountant i.e. my accounts of my travels have never failed to fail to inspire. Triple negatives, how's that for some random brainwork? I did cross entire continents, from the Nordic city of Oslo through Moscow, Lake Baikal, Beijing, and more, to Shanghai, a grand total of 8 time-zones crossings and a resultant seriously messed up body clock. The adherence to rail time instead of real time along the Transsiberian, the thousands of miles on the road, and much more too. Absolutely incredible stuff.

Graduation was, of course, surreal. It was odd to realize how many of the people at the ceremonies I'd have been seeing for the last time, possibly, forever. Bittersweet in the extreme. One, I guess, of the tradeoffs of studying in a foreign land. Exeter, too, unfortunately is not a place I am likely to revisit anytime soon, not least because a large majority of the people I have gotten to know there are likewise leaving it for good now. It did turn out eventually to be a massive photoshoot kind of, and I am immensely grateful to bel for gracing the occasion and graciously agreeing (tacitly) to be photographer of the day too! Wish I could attend yours come January!

Flew back via a circuitous route through Manila, a complete waste of time but not of money (the savings! why my return flight is not paid for I will never know). and went to work the very next day. Extremely rusty and almost starting from ground zero (again), it's been quite the learning process. And a good one too.

My grandma passed away last week, after almost 2 weeks of drifting in and out of consciousness having been admitted to the hospital for a fever. I guess everyone saw it coming, and my uncles/cousins even flew in from overseas to see her. It's a minor miracle she survived long enough to see all but 2 of her family/descendants.

It's a strange one. I was never close to her. Truth be told, I didn't like her all that much. All my life (or at least those that I retain sufficient memory of) she's been telling me to study hard, get a good job, and earn a ton of money. Emphasis on that final point. Which has been kind of grating at times. It's only been the last 3 years when I started visiting her at the hospital or nursing home that I interacted properly with her at all, although even till the very end I think she believed I was gonna end up as some high-flying ass-busting lawyer or something. I don't think that's gonna happen!

But no matter what she may or may not have meant to me, I realize how much losing her means to my dad. I cannot imagine what it must have felt like for him, not least because I felt nowhere near as keenly the loss. What grief I felt I felt for my dad, a man who's lost both parents, a brother and a sister, all in the last 5 years.

With this as backdrop, the first time I visited my grandma upon returning to Singapore last month I thought these thoughts, whether appropriately or not:

________________________

Hospital bed:
Hey how are you hope
You are well
Or do I?
How easy it is to pretend we love
We fake our concern our care
For the possibly loved
The potentially not
Honest deceit.

Death bed:
Eulogy
Desperately
Sieving memory
For the good stuff
But the muck comes up too
Keep a straight face look serious
Say something profound
Lie.

________________________



NB: This is an abstraction, much of which I have just thought up just now, and has nothing to do with my grandma's hospitalization and funeral, except inasmuch as it provided the setting for me to think these thoughts. Not very good ones, mind you, completely unpolished, no cadence or anything whatsoever, just an outlet. A beginning, perhaps, to a return to form sometime soon hopefully!

Some other stuff going on too, that I am keen on thinking about, but it is 1:22am and another day of waking up at 5.20 beckons and I am pretty much already screwed sigh, but I shall at least try to mitigate some of my deadness by going to bed right now.