absolutum dominium

yes. i am officially 22. see prev post. i just wanted to add on.

i take many chances with my life now. a lot more than i used to. the old me was the one who used to let them come and go, play it safe to avoid the pain, the hurt, the failure. the old me never really went away, but the old me has much receded in time past.

i believe tt life is about experience, and i know i've said it time and time again. the good give you memories to hold and treasure and to look back on with fondness when you are no longer capable of creating them, while the bad provide worthy lessons to you to grow on and to become a better (hopefully) and stronger person for them.

i took a chance on courses tt i barely knew anything beyond the names of. i fought for 2 months for a law of homicide course tt i didn't know a goddamn thing about, emailing the convenor even though the course was already full, and asking for a spot even though i didn't, and still know jack about canadian law. and face it, i'm on exchange. i don't need to fight so hard. i decided to take a psychology and litigation course even though i don't have the necessary pre-requisite of having taken psychology before. and the workload for both is pretty intense - including the readings. but oh man... demeanor evidence is just so interesting... we've learnt what to look out for to detect truths and lies, debunked the urban myth regarding lie-telling, and even discussed how polygraph tests work and how they might be beaten. i just emailed my lecturer discussing alternative methods for lie-detection, and i hope she replies me soon. :)

yet it's been a long time since my courses have interested me so much. i'm listening, i'm paying attention, i'm actually doing some of the readings (okay. for my law of homicide readings i HAVE to, just to keep pace with the rest of those competitive buggers), and for the first time, i really really love the fact tt i'm taking law.

i took a chance with certain people. with friends, with those who became more and those who became less. and i will admit tt i have made mistakes, and i may have admitted them to you or i may have not. people talk, and one of the things tt i never learn is tt as far as indiscretions go, people pounce on them like hyenas on a dying antelope. i might have a measure of regret with regards to one, but yet it is small and does not affect my overall satisfaction with everything tt has happened so far. i am glad tt i've taken the chances i have, and learnt what i have learnt about myself and about other people. maybe i might not be in the best of situations now, but i know tt had i not taken these chances, i will have regretted my lack of action far more. after all, i had previously thought tt i would not be celebrating my birthday here at all. all my friends and family would be in singapore, and i would be alone here, and this day would pass, just like any other day.

but thank God for sending me the people tt he sends. i won't be celebrating it alone. people will be coming. the older friends tt i hang out with here, the newer friends i've only met the week before, the people i know by face and name but nothing more... i might get a chance to know more of and to know better, and people whom i have never met before, i will get to meet. chance taken and more chances to take. amen.

and tonight, i took 2 more chances. i took a chance in an msn conversation with someone i had only seen once before, a few months ago. friend of a friend. it became a 3 hour heart-to-heart, possibly my first with someone here since eileen left, and i just thank Him for sending her to me. she was there all along, as was i, but yet it required a time and a place and a certain hour. it's strange. but suddenly my dying (or deadened) faith seems to have been revived.

my other chance... it was coz he'd emailed me. he'd just returned from bangkok and he wanted to be the first to wish me happy birthday, but his handphone had been lost so he could only email me. and for the first time in 2 months, i picked up the phone, checked my email for his number (it's been so long tt i no longer remember it off the top of my head) and called him. he didn't pick up and the phone kept on ringing. i was tempted to hang up and never call again, but instead i left a voice mail in his inbox and thanked him for the email. he records his own voice messages, and even listening to a recorded voice puts a smile on my face.

i am over him. but i have not forgotten him. and i have not yet given up on chances.

please. listen. to.

WHAT SARAH SAID
- Death Cab For Cutie

And it came to me then that every plan is a tiny prayer to father time
As I stared at my shoes in the ICU that reeked of piss and 409
And I rationed my breathes as I said to myself that I'd already taken too much today
As each descending peak of the LCD took you a little farther away from me

Amongst the vending machines and year-old magazines in a place where we only say goodbye
It stung like a violent wind that out memories depend on a faulty camera in our minds
But I knew that you were a truth I would rather lose than to have never lain beside at all
And I looked around at all the eyes on the ground as the TV entertained itself

'Cause there's no comfort in the waiting room
Just nervous pacers bracing for bad news
And then the nurse comes round and everyone will lift their heads
But I'm thinking of what Sarah said that "Love is watching someone die"

So who's going to watch you die?