Progress Report, Term 1

Around me are grey walls. Smooth, grey walls with a slightly darker streak here and there. Nothing out of the ordinary. In fact, my laptop's right where it's supposed to be, which is to say a distance away from my already-stressed eyes. God, this is becoming unhealthy. But write I will, for write a long time I haven't done. Too long, in fact.

So what's different then? The walls are still grey, but they're mine. The laptop is on a desk as always, but it's my desk. Me? I'm sitting in my chair. That's right, folks, I'm home.

The most common question in the world to someone who has been miles away for an extended period of time is, "So! How has it been/How are things/How are you/How's life/How's the cat/How's the workload there/How's living alone like/How did the cat die/How........."

Et cetera, et cetera.

And to be fair, I've been rather vague in answering some of them. That's at best; it would be "incomplete" at worse.

So, how am I?

I'm lost.

More than anything, I feel, or at least I felt, alone. Very, very alone.

Only two months have passed since I came home for the lunar new year, but I'm not exaggerating when I say that sometimes, it feels like half a lifetime.

I've faced failures. Loss. Rejections. I've taken in hard truths and tried my best to accept them. I've been tripped over by obstacles and climbed over tall, frowning walls more times then I've been able to count.

Here's the thing, though. I won't cover what exactly those problems are - because I'll be going down a long, windy path of never-ending rants - but these are the things that people assume are the worse problems. And for many out of the millions of young people studying and/or living abroad, they are.

Not me. I've had rough times with all that, sure. But the true problem came when I realised this dreadful fact: No matter how good or bad my life was, there was no one whom I could really share it with. Why? Many reasons, but chief among them was this: I was the only Malaysian in our batch of the scholars, and the only one on the entire floor of my hostel.

And let me tell you this; it sucks. Like really, extremely sucks.

When people hear about this situation, they often symphatise, agreeing about how hard it is, et cetera et cetera. But...... like I've told many close to me, very few people can truly understand how much being alone hurts. It's not about the practical side of it, not about not having someone to share your problems and grouses with, or help you with those said problems and grouses. No......it is simply down to the basic lack of companionship, the need of someone to share a big part of life with you.

As the current situation stands, I have many people who share a part of my life with me, but not a big part of it. My classmates share my school life; my roommates share my hostel life; my debate team shares debate life and so on and so forth (a phrase Sg'poreans seem to love). And this is crucial - none of these "integrate". This simply means that in any of the many parts of my life, there is no one that can relate to any other part, no one I can talk to, laugh with or grouch with about.

It does hurt. Knowing that this will not improve in the short term doesn't help either.

However, there's something that still makes me thankful - the people whom I feel are the ones that truly care, haven't let me down. In these really difficult times of my dreamy little life, they've continued to give whatever support they can give, even when they know they have little power to help. I'm not listing names here, but you know who you are, and I thank all of you.

And here I am, home for a week. I truly, sincerely hope and pray that in this short period of time, I feel sort this mess manifesting in my head and heart, and return with a clearer path and mindset.

Here's to a better term. For now, some more pictures:

Even more: http://goo.gl/vkDB3