i decided to stay at home today, because i went to school yesterday and came home with a splitting headache, the skin rubbed raw around my nose, after using up about 2 and-a-half packets of tissue paper, thermos nonewithstanding.
i cleaned the floor in the morning, using the imitation magiclean floor wiper, and decided that when i get married it's better to stay in a flat because there's less floor space which needs cleaning. and i decided that my flat will be prettily furnished, but with as little furniture as possible.
i'd planned to do some reading today but was hit by a massive sleep wave after lunch - chicken porridge - and woke up feeling incredibly alone.
so i stuffed a packet of tissue paper into my jeans pocket along with my house key, wallet and phone, and went for a walk.
i saw school children on their way home, and i saw a man selling ducklings outside the school, 3 yuan for 2. i heard some of the kids say that that was quite cheap, they usually went for 5 yuan for one and died easily. i saw a small boy sitting on the handle bar of a bicyle, the back of which was absolutely crammed with mineral water bottles tied up in plastic bags, waiting for his father to finish loading the rest of his rummagings.
and i thought about home, and how whatever i cook here reminds me of it. not that my cooking's as good as my mother's or grandmother's (yet, haha), but i've been cooking everything in water with a minimal amount of salt, and with lots of garlic, onions and ginger. i thought my chicken porridge turned out pretty well. if we had an oven i'd be considering baking my mother's chicken wings too.
thinking about ovens made me think about abi, and how i wanted to be in a kitchen with her somewhere, maybe with kathleen too, bickering about how much sugar and butter to cut from whatever we decided to make. the kind of bickering that's done just for the sake of it, because we all know abi will grudgingly let us cut the amount of sugar, and i'll grudgingly add just a bit more butter to make up for things.
then, because abi starts with an a, i thought of adele in freezing cold exeter and how much she'd have enjoyed shopping here because there are enough cheap, good quality, kooky clothes for her to experiment with. and thinking of adele made me think of ian and how he told me the other day that quents wanted him to tell me that they all still loved me very much. i do think the guys have been making an effort - quents and ian and jon wrong and shannon - which is quite sweet, really.
sometimes it feels surreal thinking about the fact that i have a boyfriend. maybe i've been thinking too much, i'm definitely the only one of us beijing people who properly stays at home. and people who are alone too much begin to go slightly crazy, you think? especially when they're alone away from home.
just now i realised that i'd like to be doing something worthwhile with my time when my life properly starts again, back in singapore. not to be up to my eyes in activity, of course, but to live well - whatever that will entail, time will speak for itself. and i don't know why but ever since jon went on exchange it felt a little like a part of my life went on hold. it's been good, as i've said, being apart - especially since it allowed adele to happen, and i think that's something i will cherish my whole life long.
it's been weird, is all. weird in a good way, but still weird.
and when last semester ended, i really started feeling like my life was on hold. maybe i shouldn't have felt that way, or maybe i felt that way because it was the first time since jc ended that i actually had nothing to do for an extended period of time. not that i ever had nothing to do for an extended period of time in jc, for that matter.
that's just the way things are, and feeling incredibly alone or not, i never quite felt lonely. aloneness and loneliness are different, you think? it's been nice, and surprising, when i'm alone, to find that i actually enjoy my own company very much. there's only God i can thank for that.
being away from home is finally starting to sink in properly, i suppose - as is the fact that i'm far away from jon, time and distance wise. however, it's also started to sink in that we're really only a heartbeat away from each other, no matter where we are, and i'm thankful.
"so neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth."
- 1 corinthians 3:7.
***
pomelos are readily available here, all peeled. i've been eating quite a lot of it, i love how the sacs separate.
today when i went downstairs to the fresh produce shop to buy carrots for my porridge i had to ask where they were. turns out i'd missed them because they were freshly plucked from the ground and covered in dirt so they looked like skinny sweet potatoes.
i cleaned the floor in the morning, using the imitation magiclean floor wiper, and decided that when i get married it's better to stay in a flat because there's less floor space which needs cleaning. and i decided that my flat will be prettily furnished, but with as little furniture as possible.
i'd planned to do some reading today but was hit by a massive sleep wave after lunch - chicken porridge - and woke up feeling incredibly alone.
so i stuffed a packet of tissue paper into my jeans pocket along with my house key, wallet and phone, and went for a walk.
i saw school children on their way home, and i saw a man selling ducklings outside the school, 3 yuan for 2. i heard some of the kids say that that was quite cheap, they usually went for 5 yuan for one and died easily. i saw a small boy sitting on the handle bar of a bicyle, the back of which was absolutely crammed with mineral water bottles tied up in plastic bags, waiting for his father to finish loading the rest of his rummagings.
and i thought about home, and how whatever i cook here reminds me of it. not that my cooking's as good as my mother's or grandmother's (yet, haha), but i've been cooking everything in water with a minimal amount of salt, and with lots of garlic, onions and ginger. i thought my chicken porridge turned out pretty well. if we had an oven i'd be considering baking my mother's chicken wings too.
thinking about ovens made me think about abi, and how i wanted to be in a kitchen with her somewhere, maybe with kathleen too, bickering about how much sugar and butter to cut from whatever we decided to make. the kind of bickering that's done just for the sake of it, because we all know abi will grudgingly let us cut the amount of sugar, and i'll grudgingly add just a bit more butter to make up for things.
then, because abi starts with an a, i thought of adele in freezing cold exeter and how much she'd have enjoyed shopping here because there are enough cheap, good quality, kooky clothes for her to experiment with. and thinking of adele made me think of ian and how he told me the other day that quents wanted him to tell me that they all still loved me very much. i do think the guys have been making an effort - quents and ian and jon wrong and shannon - which is quite sweet, really.
sometimes it feels surreal thinking about the fact that i have a boyfriend. maybe i've been thinking too much, i'm definitely the only one of us beijing people who properly stays at home. and people who are alone too much begin to go slightly crazy, you think? especially when they're alone away from home.
just now i realised that i'd like to be doing something worthwhile with my time when my life properly starts again, back in singapore. not to be up to my eyes in activity, of course, but to live well - whatever that will entail, time will speak for itself. and i don't know why but ever since jon went on exchange it felt a little like a part of my life went on hold. it's been good, as i've said, being apart - especially since it allowed adele to happen, and i think that's something i will cherish my whole life long.
it's been weird, is all. weird in a good way, but still weird.
and when last semester ended, i really started feeling like my life was on hold. maybe i shouldn't have felt that way, or maybe i felt that way because it was the first time since jc ended that i actually had nothing to do for an extended period of time. not that i ever had nothing to do for an extended period of time in jc, for that matter.
that's just the way things are, and feeling incredibly alone or not, i never quite felt lonely. aloneness and loneliness are different, you think? it's been nice, and surprising, when i'm alone, to find that i actually enjoy my own company very much. there's only God i can thank for that.
being away from home is finally starting to sink in properly, i suppose - as is the fact that i'm far away from jon, time and distance wise. however, it's also started to sink in that we're really only a heartbeat away from each other, no matter where we are, and i'm thankful.
"so neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth."
- 1 corinthians 3:7.
***
pomelos are readily available here, all peeled. i've been eating quite a lot of it, i love how the sacs separate.
today when i went downstairs to the fresh produce shop to buy carrots for my porridge i had to ask where they were. turns out i'd missed them because they were freshly plucked from the ground and covered in dirt so they looked like skinny sweet potatoes.
1 comment:
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