the entire scholarship application and pre-departure process is a testament to my growing ability to take things as they come without worrying overmuch. where i would previously have cried in frustration and become severely depressed, i now shrug my shoulders and focus on something more practical (or at least, more interesting), even if i cannot quite laugh about it.

the embassy appears to take delight in sending documents one at a time (quite literally, one piece of paper each time). each piece of paper seems to concretize my status as a scholarship receipient and student-to-be just a little more, and seems to swipe away just a little more doubt. it is rather amusing, at the end of the day… this… game they are playing. and yes, i say this with absolutely no sarcasm. cross my heart. the university, too, (bless their heart) assured me today that the location of the roof over my head in tokyo has been confirmed, and that i would receive news tomorrow. i am, i think, a happy girl.

so now i can commence packing, get a haircut, meet a dozen people for a dozen farewell meals (is it not funny though, that i may not even have met some of these people ever since i came back two years back? hello, and goodbye?), studiously avoid the pensive eyes of the male P.. .well… among other things. i have packed and moved, packed and moved, packed and moved so many times in the past almost-ten years that i have since lost any sense of urgency and/or fear. my mind, instead, insists on dwelling upon the unimportant things – right now, one of the most important of those unimportant things is to savour that mysterious, renowned chwee kueh at tiong bahru. i don’t even have any earthly idea where in tiong bahru i should go. it is really quite a catastrophe.

i cannot quite put into words how sick i am of translating documents about animal vaccines, but since i am more than grateful for all the money that awaits, i will not put my emotions into words after all. suffice it to say that i have mastered the art of translating something more or less accurately without quite knowing what it is trying to communicate. (there goes my professional credibility.) but isn’t one skill just as good as the other?

spam is so convincingly written these days, it’s amazing. have you ever received spam comments that sound really sincere (i like your writing! i added you to my blogroll. will be back!), and you would never really know if it were a real comment or spam… because… hell, mr. make serious income (or whoever) may really have liked my blog, no?

i’m feeling a little down today, having learnt that i still have to go through the entire research student route before taking an exam to qualify for the phd course. i feel a little cheated, because they never said so at the outset, and i went along happily believing that i could just go and start trying to be clever and all. when i look at it calmly and objectively, i believe it is all for the better – i now have a full year to really get back into (studying) shape, and to size things up before i jump into it all… but for now, i cannot quite come to grips with it. isn’t that how it always is when things turn out a little differently from what you had confidently expected?

i think i shall go for a swim. perhaps the chlorinated water will dull my senses a little, so that i can go back to all the practical business that awaits.

… but the end of the long wait. i’m so grateful i could weep. or dance around wildly. i don’t know how to react because i’ve been waiting for so long. it all seems so unreal. i’m going back to school!

i’m sure the fear will set in at some point in time, but for now… christmas!

i have this little piece of calligraphy standing on my desk, given to me more than ten years ago by a schoolteacher in japan. it is just one word – 忍, or the verb, shinobu. the word means the same as what it does in chinese – to endure.

my life is not quite so awful that i have to bear this mandate in mind from day to day, hour to hour. it is just a beautiful kanji to me, full of strength and spirit. if you didn’t know, 忍者, or ninja, quite literally means “one who endures.”

but i wasn’t going to go into a full dissertation on the origin of japanese words. i just remembered the word as i sat here, edgy and restless, thinking about the scholarship results. so desperate was i for news (any news), i started reading through long, endless forums on the scholarship. it turns out that some of the applicants in previous years were given the final ok only in february – less than two months before they were due to depart! february! how can i bear it? oh how can i bear it??

ligeti’s lux aeterna is beautiful. when performed by a choir like kammerchor stuttgart, it is ethereal beyond words. eternal light. it makes you think.

have finished an exhausting two-day interpreting assignment, spent mostly interpreting make-up tips from a japanese make-up artiste. i have a splendid idea of how to color the face now, and my feet… my feet!… have died and gone to heaven (or so we hope). amen. i have never had to stand for nine hours straight in high, pointy shoes before. it is a once in a lifetime experience (once again, so i hope).

i made it through the first major stage of the scholarship selection. japan looks a lot nearer now. still, i dread having to break the news to the Ps. i don’t even know how to broach the subject, but tell them i must. some part of me is terrified of triggering another heart-attack… but still… tell them i must.

my room still smells of lilies. it is amazing how long these things last. i am lulled to sleep every night by this smell that comes floating on the gentle night breezes. on nights like these, i feel like the island girl that i was born and bred to be, and i feel blessed and grateful.

there is work to be done yet.

i’m on fibre pills again, on top of the other three medicines i have to take for the wheezing. not good.

went to meet a little miracle of life today. babies are sweet. they can’t help it. they don’t have to be anything but the small little wonders they are, and you feel like melting when you carry one. i wanted to hold her forever, and talk nonsense to her, feed her, sing to her…

… but i have decided not to have one of my own. well.

halfway through the visit, s sent me a message to wish me a happy weekend. my heart did weird things, and i couldn’t stop smiling to myself. to think that after all this time, he still wields such power over me. so there i am, baby on one arm, s in my heart… the combination was quite heartbreaking, really.

on a lighter note, i received notification to sit for the scholarship exam. one small step in the long arduous journey! i read the mail about ten times over. i still feel rather superstitious about being hopeful and all. dare i wish? i don’t know.

it’s been a roller-coaster day of sorts. emotional turmoil – ups, downs, up, downs… until i have no idea where i am situated anymore. i do know that i have more work than a normal person can handle. i don’t know when i’m going to do it all. sigh.

and here’s something i cannot say out loud (because i don’t want to hear concerned voices asking me if i’m ok) but yet wish to tell someone… anyone… i felt lonely today.

what a day.

first, the wheezing (always the wheezing). wheezing is a really terrible thing to have happen to you. the sound itself is enough to send anyone scuttling to the other end of the room. air may be a free commodity, but the pain you experience when you have to tear out your lungs to get at it…! you are so exhausted you need to lie down, but yet cannot do so because that makes breathing an even more excruciating activity. so you spend half your time sitting around dully with a heaving chest, wondering if your next breath could be (touch wood) your last.

then, i wonder if i am sickening for yet another flu attack. my nose is aching and tender from contact with too many tissues and towels, and… all ah wad to do ith lie dowd ad thleepth.

then, then… oh, the big then! i met my first stalker today. or, if i were feeling a little less mean, i could call him the overzealous suitor. (but i cannot stand using the word suitor on him! it is an insult to the word!) he came sidling up at lunch today and asked to share the table when there were a dozen empty ones all around us. alarm bells went off. then he started a conversation, and the details are too painful(ly embarrassing) to relate here. to add insult to injury, he had to be some fortyish, balding, medicine man (yes, he called himself a ‘drug-pusher’and seemed mighty proud of his little joke). wherefore my expat husband?? part of me wanted to weep, another part wanted to howl with laughter, and the rest of me was simply struggling with mortification, panic, and some fear. he did say he had seen me around a few times. does that not qualify him for stalker-albeit-mild-version? so, lunch-from-hell and fake smiles and vague answers to ‘let’s lunch together another day’.

oh, and there was also the chain of miscommunication with agency-from-hell, who told me instead of just saying ‘no’ to a job when i couldn’t make it, i should try to make it seem like i was really trying to help. what? i don’t see that as my job – that is the agency’s duty to its clients and has nothing whatsoever to do with me. i am Translator/Diva, and i do not see why i should not say ‘no’ (nicely) when i really.do.mean.no. i have noisy lungs, a painful nose, and trauma from being picked up by someone i thought looked like my uncle. i do not see a need to bend over backwards to accomodate an agency who doesn’t even treat me all that well to begin with.

what a teeth-gnashing, foot-stomping, fist-pounding day. it’s not over yet. more work awaits, but tomorrow i will have a night of martinis and free steak sandwiches. scant comfort for she whose pride has been brutally trampled on in one short day, but comfort nonetheless.

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afterthoughts.

i have been pondering the reason behind my popularity with old-ish men (yes, today’s was not an isolated incident).

i am clearly not so young and pretty that they would take one look at me and know that i am way out of their league, yet attractive enough to make them want to take a chance with me. another way of putting it is to say that i am also unattractive enough to make them think that they would actually have a chance with me.

dang. i am not making myself any happier.

i try to keep my mind off that, but the suspense is killing me (and it has only been one weekend!) so i have to say it out loud – i really want to get that scholarship. there. i feel somewhat better, as if i have finally made it to the toilet after holding in my pee till my bladder hurts. i am actually highly superstitious, and i do believe that the more people i tell, the less likely it is that i will get it. so i have been trying to keep it all zipped up.

i have just found out that the current ambassador is an alumni of the same university i graduated from. i see that as a good omen. but when you want something real bad, it is easy to find an omen in the smallest thing; i swear, the ants are trying to tell me something. or… there must be a reason why thunderbird is now refusing to work just three weeks after i gave it life as a member of my computer.

i am going to go back to my work and give it all the attention it deserves… and then… to bed, to bed, to dream of fat pigs…