So little time, So much to do. I'd rather spend my day with you.

Over the past few weeks, especially with the Grade 12 graduation out of the way, it has hit me: we are the new graduating class.  With less than a year to go, I look back on high school; it has had its ups and downs, but I think that I'm coming to a place where I'm finally at ease with myself.  And now, it's almost time to go?  It just doesn't seem fair.  The bright side, I can see is the new experience university will bring, but even then, I don't know WHERE I am going at all.  Be it, the USA or England, Canada or Belgium, Italy or France, it's all new to me.  The worst part is, I feel like I have grown attached to UWCSEA, so much so, that I don't know how I'll react when it comes time for me to let go. I'll miss the UN Nights, the plays, the SEASACS, the chance to be an activist everyday, bubble tea trips (not like I ever made any..but still) the canteen lines, the good, the bad and the ugly.  I'm not sure where that's from, but its overused.  That doesn't change the fact that I just used it too.  Oh well.

I do realise that I still have a year left (thank god!) and there is so much I have to do.  But as I've been told by my dad and spanish teacher countless times, we'll cross that bridge when we get there.

OOH casual epiphany; I have decided art is what I want to do. Fully.  Completely.  It will take a while for me to allow myself to cast off the liberal arts safety net, but it will go eventually.  Art is an extremely powerful medium, in such a way that words cannot describe.  (that works in more than one way hehehe (: ) Watching Shirin Neshat's video, is just one way of how far art has touched upon global issues.  Who knows?  Art could be extremely important in the future, what with the importance of the proletariat (should I say) increasing in today's political movements.  To me, art is a way of the future.

You can't tell me where I belong.

Today I was having a long conversation with my cousin about India's caste system.  It hit me then; why does it in fact still exist?  I would have thought with all the hate going around because of it, it would have been eradicated to make way for a level playing field.  Who determines whether someone is backward or forward?  In the olden days, riches and wealth were the pinpoint for the selection.  However, it degenerated into a hereditary beacon of status.  And so over time, tables have been turned.  A 'backward caste'(I put in inverts, because reference to caste disgusts me) girl can now go into a shop and pick up diamond necklaces at her liking, while a forward caste man begs on the street for a measly lumpsum of food for the night.  And as some sort of consolation, or makeshift apology, the government gives rations to the backward caste, whilst the forward caste are left to scrounge for themselves, no matter what their economic status may be today.  They are judged upon their past.  To a lineage that they cannot even hold today.  Is it fair to look at others this way?

Also Body Shop is making an effort to stop Human Sex Trafficking; this is perfect; this is sort of my pavement towards what I want to do in the future.  Right now, I guess I'm the one doubting me, saying it can't be done.  I guess I have to prove myself wrong then.

Just another Third Culture Kid

Recently, it has struck me, this poignant feeling.  I feel, as if I don't belong.  Not to a group of friends, not to a certain way of living, but to a place in general.  Meeting many people at school, and around, you get a sense that some of them are perfectly comfortable in their culture; they have a true sense of who they are.  I, unfortunately, don't have that feeling.  And so in my vain attempt to gather it, I shall learn dutch, so I have decided.  This, however was what I had told myself years ago.  Summers ago, I had endeavoured to learn it, yet have never quite brought myself to do it.  I mean, over the years, I have caught onto the catchphrases and salutations.  But I want something more.  To belong.

When I go back to my grandfather's house in Leidschendam, it is incredible how much I remember.  The world takes a tilt back into the year of 1997, when I was slipping up that wooden spiral staircase in my itchy tight mayos that mum would make me wear.  The cowskin leather pouf was my decided resting spot. No one could dethrone me. Every Friday night, or so it seemed, the glass chandelier would come to life, leaving the living room in a soft, fuzzed din, that would soothe and only serve to complement the amiable atmosphere of the guests my parents and grandparents would be entertaining, smiles, clinks of champagne glasses and smalltalk were enjoyed by all.  All this, we could see through the large glass window, a picture perfect view, from our world.  All our world had, was a seahorse, it's tail of a coil uprooting likewise with the tufts of grass around it, a motorcar, and a battered blue river slide.  But it was our world, regardless.  We'd run, me, my sister, my friends Ronald and Florijs and her friends Roeland and Marcel giddily in youthful carefree spirit, not stopping to think what the next day would bring us, because where we were was perfect.  We were home.  And when we got tired of that home, we'd rush down the cobbled path, to the warmth of our other home.  How perfect!  I'd lazily nestle myself in my mother's lap, the low baritone of my father's laugh, my ideal lullaby.  In no time I'd be asleep, dreaming of yonder, dreaming of what a four year old dares to dream up.  I could wake up and do it all over again.  Oh how I wish those days would never end.

I know, I've changed so much as a person.  Especially this year, meeting certain people from certain backgrounds has opened my eyes to where I am in the world.   But it's memories like these, that I can honestly say, ALWAYS bring a tear to my eye.  When I look back on that world, I don't see the pain of moving, of lost friends and heartbreaks, of the loss of someone I loved so much, that I can't even begin to admit to anyone, let alone myself how much it hurts me every day.  I just see, the world that many other people see - a delicious home made meal cooked up in the kitchen and a stroll clinging on tightly to my grandfather's leathery hand on the way to the supermarket.  It's at this point where I realise it wasn't about belonging; it was about that feeling of everything is going to be alright.  I feel since, a few years ago, I've been plunged into a constant sense of uncertainty.  People say, it's uncertainty that makes your life what it is, unpredictability is the excitement in your life.  But there are some things, you wish, just like you know the sun is going to come up the next morning, that you could be sure of.
At a time like this, when large life changing decisions are to be made, it makes me ponder about what could have been.  How differently my life could've turned out.  Who would've thought all those years ago, what was to come?  Unpredictability hit me, with an incontrovertible force.

I should put the past in the past, as it is, the past.  However I know I have no intention of truly doing so.  Those memories, are the strongest, and some of the happiest I've ever known.  If the past is my only link to them, so be it.  Not to say, happier memories aren't to be created, but they will always be tainted, with this feeling of detachment from my young, happy self.  They just won't be the same.  And so, I pledge, to belong.

Mother Dearest

Happy Mother's Day, mama where ever you are (: I hope it's mighty peaceful up there, and I think of you every day.  You deserve that long retreat in Italy you were always talking about, maybe one day I'll go up there myself so you can live vicariously through me.

I don't think anyone understands how much you've done for me, and I think that includes me too.  Sadly, I don't think I ever will, but I love you so so so much.  And that is never going to change either.
Everyday I kick myself for thinking about what you must have gone through, and me being that oblivious happy go lucky child that didn't know.  And to keep me that way, my respect for you...there are no words to describe.

LOVE YOU MUMMY <3