Reflections

I had dinner with Joseph and Visayon last night since Jo's just got back from the Philippines and I haven't seen Visayon in almost 6 weeks. As usual, the crazy choir exco was (and is) perpetually busy with choir-y stuff. Nonetheless, they found a slot in their busy schedules to fit me in for dinner, and Joseph mentioned several things to me which made me think:

First, he said that I looked happy.

Granted, I did spend most of last year terribly depressed (as he reminded me) and whining, moping and stressing. We both had really a really bad time last sem and found ourselves chanting "Life sucks" a lot. In fact, that sort of became our mantra. I'd forgotten all of that. lol. In retrospect, it seems a little bit silly when I look back. But just a tad, because I do recall it being a most painful time for me - I failed my first Sociology midterm (which was a blow to the ego and the CAP), got a darn B- on a Scitech essay, had 5 papers to write....... In any case, stress works as a motivational tool, sort of like a grain of sand in an oyster. I worked it and the semester only dented my CAP by 0.1 anyway.

But yes, I have been happy. I haven't been thinking about it much, but I have actually been really happy for the past few weeks. I've enjoyed hanging out with the Aggies, from lunch at Engineering on Tuesdays and Thursdays to weekends away and just chilling by beaches or under cloudy skies... Believe it or not, I actually like going on their field trips with them. Who'dve thunk it huh? It's hard to explain it, but they calm me down. I feel really mellow when I'm with them, like I don't have to think too hard or try to please. They make me smile all the time and they make me happy. They are the reason I'm happy.

I wouldn't say that the past six weeks have been surreal, but it's felt like an out-of-the-ordinary experience. Like going on exchange. I've attempted explaining it as something external to your real life, like an extension pack of sorts that you use to fuel yourself and when it's done it's just an empty shell to look at fondly on a mantlepiece or something. Victor Turner wrote a paper on rites of passage called "The Symbolic Passage of Time" or something like that. In the paper, he describes rites of passage as liminal periods marked as sacred periods in between 2 profane time frames. I'm going to have to re-read the paper to be accurate and more specific about this, but generally, as you leave your initial state of profane or normal mundane everyday existence, you have all these preparations like a ritualistic symbolic death. Then you enter your liminal or sacred period characterised by all these things that i can't be arsed to look up... anyway, this is the special period where you do things you wouldn't normally do. Rituals you follow, etc. And as you leave this sacred period, you are sort of "reborn" symbolically back into your profane existence.

It seems strange perhaps, but this time has been liminal and sacred for me too. It's been very special. They're special people. It's going to be hellishly sad when I have to say goodbye (soon) and I foresee tears and a period of mourning. But dang it, I think they're the best thing to happen to me this summer. *poke* ;)

Joseph also asked me how I've changed. How my life has been changed.

I said I needed to think that one through. Which I did, and this is what I think: I think that life is such that you don't notice change until some time after and you look back and see. There's various aspects to this, and I will get to them in time I'm sure. Right now, I believe I'm still in it, still within the process to notice any change. What I can do is share what I've learnt. Because essentially, it's what you learn and what you do with the knowledge that you've learnt which changes you, right? And I've learnt a lot. The job has taught me a lot, Evonne has taught me a lot and hanging around American engineers has taught me a lot. One day I will make a nice long post about what I have learnt. Today, alas, is not that day.