when the kitchen sink is blocked.....

"the thought behaves like water, it stops flowing...."

I have been striving to work on a few deadlines in the past weeks. When time is needed the most at this very hour, November turns out to be the month of "events". Beginning the month, there was Karli's wedding, then this coming weekend and the following I will be heading London, so there is not really much available time to do the write up. RW is also visiting in a week's time. Time is very lacking as I also have two full modules to teach in this term too.

The greatest challenge I faced is the switch between tasks (all involved some sorts of writing) of a range of deadlines, which requires one's focus very much. The transition is hard. You felt you are pushing through a crowd like the mind trying to find a way to work itself or like water flowing through a sink that is stuck. And yes, it reminded me of water. I imagine myself as water, flowing through the stuck sink, finding its way, remains resilient and capitalized on the inner strength.

The worst I don't want to happen is for me to feel anxious and then paranoid. This often arises out of unrealistic imagination of the outcome, without it actually happening at all. So I learned to shut my mind out of that. It felt good at least I finished one of the tasks, which is writing up the first draft of a book chapter. I now let JL have it to amend his section of the chapter. With that out of the list, I found the flow is getting through better, the sink is now not as blocked as it used to be, water flows better now and so is my thoughts. Hopefully this helps me get back to my "focus" (or at least try to be) self.

"Half life" gone, and it's time to go home...

"..... a place only you know where....."

Why do people have to live their life as if it is an epic story. Perhaps in the modern day, it is already a little confused what made us live the life the way we live it. You have movie that idealized the scenario and then you have people chasing after those ideal and then "live life to the full", is there a lacking of originality of some sorts. Have people already forgotten how to live life from their hearts? But then we are often haunted by insecurity. This could be what we see in ourselves and how we see it, perhaps a little close to identity crisis, but still you keep "running away". running away like what Aruna did in "half life", a story about "running away" and then later "coming home".The story builds its plots in three locations, London, Singapore and Kuala Lumpur. There are a lot of flash backs and reflections in the story, you felt at times you were watching a movie. It is the sort of structure that is not easy to build upon. There is certain subtly and precision that are essential in each important section, which is self-contained, since the development of the story is non-linear.

Putting it in a linear or straightforward sense, it is about the story of Aruna, a young Bengali woman living in East London, but suffered from bipolar, and how she decided to walk out of her marriage one evening. A story like this seems very familiar to most. It is about "looking for oneself", "looking for true love", etc. "Half life" is in fact a story like this. It has a plot that built up following one to the next, until at the end you found everything falls back together. Taking the journey that Aruna began, she first left London, went to Singapore to meet her former boyfriend,and then both went to Kuala Lumpur to meet the ex-boyfriend's father, where the ex-boyfriend has some issues.

At the end of it, all get sorted and Aruna, with the encouragement of her ex-boyfriend, thinks she needs to get on. Aruna found that for her, "half life" has gone, but it's time to go home, the place where her heart belongs and only she knows where, as Aruna began to listen to her own heart, taking a step back and taking things slowly. In the novel, the story ends, but in a real life, for anyone, it is actually just another beginning. The beginning of the next "half life".......