Monday was a day of sobering contemplation of death, of brokenness and also of the ephemeral life. As the day unfurled in a clockwork fashion, I tripped over broken hearts and was suddenly jolted into an emotional sobriety I hadn’t felt for a while. Hearing the resignation and tears, and left without the armor of words I too was rendered vulnerable. Something stirred in me but my timid words of sympathy fell, broken and useless. Confronted with my own mortality in the face of the immortality of death, I began to wonder if the demise of something was actually as sad as it was. Or were we simply missing the comfort of a familiar landscape? The series of coincidences were uncanny; friend A and I spoke briefly about the death of her grandfather, friend B and I spoke at length about this quote by Milan Kundera about the nostalgia of death, friend C had her heart broken, friend D’s baby nephew died. I know you’d have a wry smile on your face as you read this : A series of unfortunate events indeed. I’m still not entirely sure which is it — the finite note that death delivers or the nostalgia of familiarity. A little bit of both perhaps.

But how apt that I should write this entry in the advent of my departure.

In the sunset of dissolution, everything is illuminated by the aura of nostalgia, even the guillotine.

Its been raining every single day here, and today has been the worse so far. How can it possibly rain the entire day? I’ve done nothing productive today except to finally get out of bed 3 minutes ago, and just like that any plans for my last sunday in singapore flew out of the window. I have mixed feelings about my last weekend in Singapore. On the one hand, friday’s school organized party sucked but yesterday’s beer ponging with the UC people was really fun. I actually got two balls in; and the boys were very encouraging even though I was possibly the worse player on both teams. Allow me to back track to friday’s siesta fiasco. The whiskey was indeed free but it was so vile that just a whiff of it was enough to make me hurl. The music they played was decent; the usual hip hop and r&b. The make-shift stage was a rickety mess of insecure planks and inebriated people jumping all around. After last wednesday’s bruises and this week’s swollen foot all souvenirs from free flow wednesdays at Le Baroque I wasn’t itching to get hurt again.

Enough said. Coupled with crappy internet ,I’m done staying in for today and hopefully the skies will clear early enough for me to go book shopping and maybe sneak some coffee time.