금요일, 3월 19, 2004
i'm about 10 minutes away from handing in my key, so that's why i'm here trying to stall for time, in the hope that maybe it won't be so painful when i actually have to part with the object that has become such an integral part of my life in the past few months that i've been here. it's been the key to my solace when i had to trek through the sun, wind, rain, snow and sometimes hail, and also the source of communication between me and my housemates. those keys are easily the most important thing that i could have here. without them, i wouldn't be anything.

it's that time of term again, when everyone, well, almost, goes back to the places where they came from, and the frenzy of packing and setting things in order gets on everyone's nerves. yeah, it's fun to pack and all that, but today as i stood back to survey my handiwork, the now-barren walls, the drawers that have been cleared of all my bits and bobs, the stark walls stare back at me and i thought the room looks awfully big. i wish it wouldn't hit me now, but having said goodbye to almost half the house and given away many hugs and well-wishes to the people who mean more to me in this place, i can't help but feel exactly the way i felt last term at this time:

torn.

torn because i yearn to go home, yet at the same time i can't help but sigh when i think of all the wonderful times i've had here. torn because i have just gotten accustomed to the thought of living independently, torn because i want to be here and at home at the same time, torn because i can't believe how fast time has passed.

this term, so much has happened, that i can't even begin to remember exactly and recount everything that i've heard, seen and experienced. it has helped me grow and discover sides of me i never knew existed. my life has settled into a pattern that i don't feel like breaking, and i've made deeper friendships and started new ones that i didn't have time for last term. all too soon though, it seems as if i have to put everything away, just like my suitcases, and life here stops momentarily while i get on a plane, 12 hours later arriving in the place where i was born, to resume the life that has gone on without me there.

right now i feel displaced, as if i don't belong anywhere, and that's where a sense of wanderlust can land you. the need to get out of singapore and ford new rivers was too much for me to bear, hence i made my way here. life here is good, it is a unique experience that cannot be replicated, and i have no qualms about saying that this is the path that God has allowed me to take because of the fact that it will allow me to grow. yet at the same time i get mixed emotions whenever i have to leave durham, or leave singapore, for that matter. maybe it's the case of separation anxiety that i developed a couple of years ago before it was blitzed into oblivion by the process called growing up. otherwise, i can't seem to think of a reason why i might be feeling so emotional all of a sudden. it's as if the life i have come to know of lectures, tutorials, nights out, chilling out with friends, walking all over town, has been wrested from between my fingers, all to be returned in good time, when the easter term starts.

so i bid durham adieu, only to see it welcome me back with open arms when i next return. until then though, the optimism that i had this morning fails me, because i have suddenly become weary of this whole business, as i usually do before having to undertake missions of such great complexity. in a few days there will be the return of the usual happy me, but until then, when i go back to an empty gables and wait for the wonderful people who have agreed to come pick me up, i will try to shake off that feeling of being alone and accustom myself, knowing that where i am going, i will have arms, different arms, welcoming me back, ready to make me feel as special as i have felt here.