Temporal Telepathy

Once this is imported to Facebook, this will become the 100th note. The discrepancy between the number of posts here and the number of notes there is explained by several Facebook-exclusive posts, mostly consisting of multimedia tidbits for amusement and entertainment that I had been too lazy to work into actual posts. But the actual 100th journal entry is also eminently imminent; at this rate, it should come within the next two weeks. And so, this is what eight months of posting here can produce.

Online, you can post many more things, and there are more options for how you can record time and experience. There are the photos and Youtube, and the many, many ways that one can conjugate these with words. But still, it has been a really long time since I opened a paper journal with a pencil in my hand, and occasionally I do miss the intimacy between the page and my person. Certainly, there are certain things that I can't say here, certain ways of saying things that I can't use.

It's about the audience, I guess. One always writes to be read, even when one is writing in a private book. And when I write on paper, the intended audience is my future self. And because of that, I feel like I can get away with more frank, more incisive writing in there than here. One can never know what a reader will take away from the text, what meanings that he can extract from it. But when it comes to my future self, I like to think that I more completely understand his motivations and his mindset. And so, if writing here is like storytelling, then writing in actual journals is like telepathy across the barriers of time.

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Met up with some more returnees yesterday over dinner at Tapas Tree at Clarke Quay. As usual, the food was good, and the company was wholesome. The conversation was a tad clumsy; I guess it's because some of us who are on the brink of departure were trying too hard to seem savvy, as if we had already been abroad for months.

And it was also not long before I noticed that everyone around that table was getting or can expect to get an overseas education. Every one around that table was departing after summer. This is rather rarefied company that I find myself in nowadays; whether or not that is for better or worse remains to be seen. But then again, having a bunch of friend who can go overseas to study is not a bad thing in and of itself, as long as one can keep one's sense of perspective amidst such plainly overachieving peers. Firstly, one must not begrudge others their happiness. Whether or not they may have deserved the chance in one's eyes, the fact is that they have the chance, and they should be held accountable not for the circumstances that placed them in this happy position, but for what they do with this opportunity from here on in. Envy and bitterness are poisonous - they ruin one's days; worse, they ruin the days of others who should not be blamed in this way.

And secondly - and more importantly, I think - one must not approach this opportunity as if it were an entitlement. Therein lies the seed of conceit. And anyway, it is so much more enjoyable to apporach it with a vague sense of incredulousness and amazement; it adds a certain edge to each day, doesn't it?

Anyway, on the way to the train station and home, one of my friends was talking about her first encounter with New York last winter. She said she didn't really fancy it, that it was much grimier in real life, and demoralisingly cold. But then, she said that New York has a tendency to amplify whatever you happen to be feeling at the moment. It's an intriguing though; maybe that's why people find the city so compelling, since it is a catalyst for their own psyches. It's also one of those revelations that fit in so well with one's mental image of a thing that one wonder why one did not think of it sooner.

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Good news: the visa has been approved. Will be going down to collect it on Monday.

This morning, turned up at the Embassy just before eight to find the queue already about 30 people long. Apparently, everyone had the idea that applying for the earliest slot would result in the shortest waiting time. Fallacy of aggregation: go figure. Anyway, was looking rather dubiously at the queue (especially since their fiddling with their appointment confirmation letters had reminded me that I had neglected to print out my own), when suddenly a girl in the corner waved to me.

I thought it was a case of mistaken identity, but it turns out that she's from my senior class (which goes to show how close I was to the senior class), and she's on her way to Minnesota to be attached to a medical clinic there. So, we rather easily started to chat about our courses and plans for the next year, and to commiserate on the ridiculously laborious process of applying for a US visa. It rather nicely filled up the vacant moments in the process, the momets that lurk between clearing the guardhouse, making payment, being fingerprinted and finally being interviewed. The moments that would otherwise have distressingly been used to feed a growing sense of panic at not having brought my interview confirmation letter.

It really does make a difference to go to the Embassy with someone else, especially when it's your first time, and especially as you pass through the guardhouse. After all, they built the place to look like a fortress on purpose. It may have really nice interiors and foliage, but the meaning of the crenellations running along the front is unmistakeable. That being said, though, once you're inside, the staff are rather courteous and helpful, pointing out what you may have done wrong in the application process, and doing everything they can to help you to set things right. It may have been the early hour, and the fact that the consular staff had not yet had time to become cranky and jaded, but I didn't see any of the much-vaunted American rudeness today, a fact for which I am grateful.

On the way out of the Embassy, ran into an old acquaintance from the RJGE days. Turns out this chap is on his way to Yale. Spent a few moments trading congratulations and encouragements, and I couldn't help feeling deeply satisfied that it was finally our turn to get this bit of paperwork done. It has been a moment two years in the making.

And after that, hurried back to work to attend this years' URA Scholarship ceremony. Managed to catch up with some of the colleagues and the interns, and to have a gander at the new batch of scholars. There were substantially more this year; almost twice as many as two years ago, I think. Certainly, the number of undergraduate scholarships has positively exploded. There was a guy who had a crew cut and had not yet found a university; I could not help but smile wryly at this latter-day manifestation of the situation I was in two years ago. And maybe it was because of the lack of a performance by the scholars, and maybe it also has to do with a certain measure of protectiveness of the organisation (what Lewis calls "corporate pride"), but I noticed that the scholars didn't seem so hyped up about the scholarship. A few looked none too pleased to be in this position. I hope it's just me; it seems inconceivable to me, how anyone can be dissatisfied with a scholarship; or rather, it seems inconceivable that someone who is dissatisfied with it can still allow himself to accept it.

There must come a point, I guess, when one accepts the circumstances that one is presented with. And that acceptance in turn enables constructive action. So, rather than exhausting your energies trying to change a situation that has gone out of your control, you instead devote them to the more productive initiative of making something useful and perhaps even pleasant out of what you have on hand. It's a useful trick, one of the surprisingly many tricks that Army taught me.

But anyway, with this paperwork done, the next step is to confirm accommodation with Columbia, receive the admission packet from the College and CUE, and finally, finally start thinking of planning to pack. I do apologise if my repetitive harping on the process building up to departure bores or distresses you; but I feel a need to savour this time as much as possible. I find myself standing on the edge of experience, and one is only innocent (or, to be more exact, ignorant) once. It is something to be enjoyed, especially when you can so clearly anticipate the dissolution of said ignorance.