Scenery

Rolling mountains and tea fields.

Strawberries

First tourist-y thing we did was to pick strawberries from a strawberry farm a couple of kilometers downhill from the hotel. Then we had strawberry products for the next few days. By the end of the third day I was so sick of strawberries, but not yet of cheesecake.

Mushrooms

Probably isn’t a main attraction of this place but there was a large mushroom farm where we visited, and the multicolored mushrooms poking out of large bottles was just a little too cute to resist. We bought two bottles back to Singapore; I think they will die sometime soon.

Cacti

A huge cacti wholesale area sits a short drive away from the hotel, so on the second day we came down to buy some. The tiny ones were really cute and the long tall ones really looked like male reproductive organs which was how I spent the 11:11 of 23012012 saying “Penis”.

Flowers

Also not a huge attraction of Cameron Highlands (which would probably just be strawberries, tea, and cacti), but the cacti wholesale area sold beautiful flowers right beside it, and though we didn’t buy any, I took a few pictures. The first picture is a from a separate event, the strawberry picking.

–

Whoever buys this:

…is totally overcompensating for something.

When we reached we rushed into the main room. His body was propped up with a few seats and a crude mattress, and covered with a blanket hastily folded and sewn together thicker to avoid the chill. His frame was skeletal – hollows in the face I didn’t know hollows were. At the temples, and the cheeks sunken in so deep. Spasms coursed through his body. His eyes cloudy and unaware. Two days ago we stood beside him and said that we were good kids, thought that Tina was absolutely pretty, and wanted to give out candy to everyone in the village. It’s hard to imagine him then as I saw him, his mouth opening and closing and too weak to say a thing.

And I’ve never had so many adults crying in the same room as me before. The village priest stands on the head of the bed, chanting in a dialect I wished I learnt. I never really talked to him properly before, because we never really understood each other. Now I can’t hear him and he can’t hear me.

My baby cousin cries and kicks up a fuss. It was 1am. He must be sleepy, but maybe, maybe he knows what’s going on. My uncle retreats from the bed and smokes furiously. The crying has died down by then, but the sniffling continues. In his illness he hasn’t drank anything, so we took some water, which my aunt mixed it with the holy water the priest brought, and fed it to him through a spoon. He gurgles, and it doesn’t go down. Not for a long time. He must be drowning in the phlegm in his lungs.

It was 3am. My toes were freezing in my boots. Every other part of my body was warm, but it felt so, so cold. We ate a little, toasty pieces of buns and bread, or chocolates. And the children were chased to sleep. In the huge 4-storey house, only the first floor looks fully lived in. The second had just three beds, for when we visit, the third storey was hardly renovated at all (In the summer, he would sleep there on a bamboo mat when we came to visit. He can’t walk now.), and the fourth storey was a just a giant balcony, and we used to climb up there to look at the starry nights of the unpolluted countryside.

We slept on a queen bed, the three of us. When they woke us up, it was 6.30am, 2nd January, and he was still alive. He couldn’t talk, but was conscious. We took the scheduled flight home. When I woke up today he was gone.

I don’t know how he went, but I know my other grandfather did so very quickly. He coughed twice and just…just died, as opposed to spasming through the night or something, I’m not so sure myself.

How will I die?

-

Who am I? It’s such a stupid existential question, but lately I’ve really been wondering.

I cannot remember a time I haven’t thought of myself in relation with other people. I don’t exist, not by myself. I’m nothing without other people. I don’t really have an identity of my own, I think. Most of the things I do, I do because of other people. The few times I didn’t, the few times I did things for ‘myself’ or what is left of that, I…I’m not happy. Well, it doesn’t make sense to satisfy ‘myself’ when most of what I am is defined by other people.

So many things I do, I do for other people. Even if it benefits me in the first place, my overall reason always becomes someone else in a roundabout way. Sometimes I wonder if it’s what I want. But sometimes I think it is. To make people happy. Sounds like a noble enough goal.

So shall I cruise through life making people happy? Since I am, happy when they’re happy. But what if I’m not? What if I’m not happy? Who can ensure my happiness?

Or does it not matter at all, since everyone else is happy? But…but I’m not brave, or strong, or noble enough for that. I want to do somethings just for myself.  But I don’t know what I want anymore. I haven’t been wanting much lately. Nothing ever gets fulfilled anyway.

I’ve never been a fan of Jane Eyre, abandoning the book even before I reached the halfway mark. It was really boring, and Jane has been annoying ever since she appeared in the book (the start). I never had any expectations of the book either, especially when it was introduced in class and we listened to Jamaican folk songs for one hour and the literature teacher printed out world maps for God-knows-what reason, but less of that.

Wide Sargasso Sea is a prequel to Jane Eyre, giving a life and personality to the old raging mad woman Bertha in the attic of Thornfield Hall, at the same time expressing the life in the West Indies and of the people who live there.

But enough of the book.

Acting

Starring as Edward Rochester was Rafe Spall. I’m not sure what to make of him. His face is stone-cold and expressionless except for select parts of the film in which he’s either having sex or crying. Either that or he has a face of disbelief. He spoke way too fast and is sometimes disruptive so I have no idea whether this is bad or it has some intended effect like it shows his actual curt and uncaring nature and the fact that he didn’t actually love her and just married her for the money or something.

So yeah. Someone tell me if I should be overthinking on this point.

Starring as Antoinette Cosway is Rebecca Hall. I liked her acting. She was appropriately dramatic, and I loved the subtle accent it sound very in-character. She had crooked teeth and a gummy smile but that’s hardly something to complain about.

I think I only created this subsection to talk about the stoic Rafe Spall, so I’ll just move on.

Story

There’s nothing really to complain about story-line because it makes more sense complaining about the book it was based off.

As Antoinette hesitates before marriage, Edward sprouts a charming speech:

I know you make me happy. I know that I want to marry you. To take care of you. I could say you don’t know anything about me. But you know how you feel about me, don’t you? Then isn’t that enough? Shouldn’t we trust that? Isn’t that what marriage is, that bargain. That I’ll trust you if you trust me. Do you trust me? Then you have nothing to be afraid of. I will make you happy, I will keep you safe. I will give you everything you need.

Doesn’t it sound so beautiful? Won’t you just turn around and yell in his face MARRY ME NOW YOU OAF and snog him senseless? And dream about a fairytale ending and little children prancing around their wonderful summer house? No?

Then you remember he literally DIAF and Antoinette went mad and killed herself as well after, well, setting fire to the house. But before that he cheated on her and she cheated on him and she tried to poison him as well.

I’m never looking at marriage the same way again. This is just…frightening. So many ‘what ifs’, and marriage is one and lasts forever. What was a beautiful promise turned out so disturbing. How much can we take before we snap..?

But sadness grips at the heart and suffocates. It tears you apart from the very center of your being. And it rarely goes away, leaving a raw spot, a lingering ache, a bitter reminder. Anything that triggers it breaks you down completely, like it did the first time. It doesn’t ever leave.

Funny how minor things that people say or do not say, do or do not do, translate to such alarming responses from me. Is it even warranted? I’m so tired, so tired of thinking so much, of being so sad. Can’t I just be happy? For just one day? Half a day? Please? What must I do? Just tell me. At this point of time, I think I’ll do anything. Anything to be happy. To stop the thinking.

I’ve become a lot…weaker this year. More susceptible to depressive thoughts and  more prone to over-thinking and more vulnerable to insensitivity and I do have my many many happy moments, but my whole year appears to be a giant bout of PMS. It really is quite interesting to see because I record all my adfjskdgakshg feelings down somewhere and I’ve been updating it a lot more frequently lately.

I don’t think this was what she saw though (and I hope not). I hope she can organize her thoughts and tell me soon I’m pretty curious to know.

-

Incidentally, its 11/11/2011 today and I feel like if I should update my blog on this day, I should at least mention it or something. So here is the mention. Um. Yes.

Had quite a good lot of things to say but I’m so shagged tonight I can’t type all. In any case, it was a good day.

Will…Should probably update this with content.

*Edit: Never wait too long to write something because some time down the road you just won’t be bothered to anymore.

Hot chocolate, beef pie, Belgian waffles, my Literature texts in my hands and my Mathematics worksheets in my file. It was supposed to be a good night. But company is…important. Someone to stop me from binge eating (Clearly.) Someone to analyse with me the literary features of the texts. Someone to whine to when I can’t get my third term in the expansion of y=ln(1+tan^-1x). Someone to tell me to stop studying and discuss inane issues with them instead. Or sit with me in silence aside from the scratchy sound of pen on paper.

Goodness it seems like I can never function properly alone.

I took the MRT back, the long way, the full 22 stops, and watched as the crowd thinned. Home-bound. And I felt a great reluctance to do the same.

Hear the ambient noise. The soft whirring of the laptop, of the air-conditioning. Of the hair-dryer of the person next door. Feel the heat of the table lamp on your arm. Observe the gradient in the wash of the table lamp’s glow. Marvel. Slowly, the heightened awareness of the surroundings dissipates. Now it’s just you.

Feel your heart in your chest cavity pumping blood regularly. Feel it drop, well below where hearts are supposed to be. Feel the throb in your head from every beat, the twitch in that vein in your arm or at your leg when the blood flows. You can feel the air passing through your nose and you can almost taste it, that odd, stale, cool quality. If your arm is supporting your head, you can feel the trembling of your arm. You can feel your hair sit on your head, your forehead, and you remember the position of every strand. Realize that occasionally, your nostrils will flare. You wonder if it makes you look stupid. Feel the sides of the chair digging into your thighs. Sense a backache developing from all the hunching over the computer.

Yawn, feel your eyes close, scrunch up, squeezing out the tears you didn’t manage to cry out. Call it tearing – a natural side effect of yawning. Believe it. Commit to memory the feel of skin on skin – as two fingers touch each other, as you unconsciously brush your hand across the arm, as you rest your hand on your leg or on your face – crave it. More.

And if you sit still long enough, the entire body aches, itches, screaming for activity.

Sit very still.

Actually I sort of miss how it was, studying for exams, having some sort of purpose in my waking hours. I felt productive, perhaps sometimes a sense of achievement when I finish a difficult topic or if I managed to solve a tricky question. Now it’s either PW or gaming, and both are equally pointless (even if the latter can be entertaining). So this is the freedom I had anticipated.

I’m so angry at myself.

It hurts. I didn’t think it can hurt this bad but I’ll get used to it.