ambivalence

On the way out of my apartment grounds this morning, I almost collided with a yellow caterpillar marked by black stripes hanging finely by a thread, causing me to pause in my tracks and rivet my eyes on it for what seems to be seconds too long. What nerve does it have to block and dominate the field path, I thought, revolted. I was appalled by the thought that this mere creature has successfully intimidated me and caused me to waiver, such that i was figuring a way to bypass it without touching it at all (mind you, the track may be narrow but the field is huge), not because I was concerned about ruining its chances on becoming a butterfly, but because I was simply repelled by it.

While taking a little detour around the caterpillar, i muttered “That is so disgusting!” involuntarily, feeling a pang of guilt right after the words escaped from my mouth. Now, what nerve do I have to label the works of nature as disgusting?

Today is one of those rare days where I feel my life has split into two, just like in the film Sliding Doors. In one timeline, I’m on my scheduled flight back to Seattle for my graduation ceremony and getting myself ready for graduate school in Pittsburgh. In this timeline which became tangible as soon as I laid out my decisions, I will be working for a full year in Asia because of a sudden job offer before I make a move for graduate school.

I wonder about different possibilities and outcomes. Indeed I will be gaining valuable working experience that is beneficial for my career development. But by choosing to stay and defer graduate school, I am opening up new doors and causing a wave of ripples that alters a myriad other possible futures, meeting people I would have otherwise not met and experiencing a whole set of unique encounters not possible in the other timeline.

During the very humdrum and monotonous chopping of fruits earlier today, I was once again reminded by the temporal nature of life and that nothing is permanent, while changes reign as the only permanence. Before the thought conquered my mind, I almost yield to grumbling about my responsibilities in the kitchen. Certainly, thinking about the ephemeral essence of our experiences may sound bleak, but I have learned to see it in a way that alleviate my tendency towards self-induced melancholy.

As the quarter comes to an end, and so do all the challenges confronting me. Never had I encountered such a quarter as turmoiled as this. Always someone who is slow to accept the help of others, instead, I am indebted to many who have helped me get through. My roomate, who has to put up with my rants about dealing with these challenges. My friend Effie who saw me through the first half of the quarter in math461 by dedicating a few hours of her time to tutor me. My cse413 partner whom I cannot thank enough. And of course my special someone who is the beacon in the rough sea of challenges, lifting my spirit when the path gets too rocky.

If I pull through successfully, then the journey was worth the effort. Otherwise, at least I got through with a better understanding of where my strengths and weaknesses lie, enabling me to forge ahead in the right direction.

It doesn’t rain but it pours. Lately, failure has been staring at me in the face not just once or twice but a whole endless string of it. It taunts me to cling on while it threatens to release me from its grip. I have coasted through my life and averted failure for as long as I can remember now but it doesn’t get any easier from here. Even though a life that offers no hardship and challenges is not as enriching as one that offers a fair balance of success and failure, I very much hope to be absolutely unfettered by the looming clutches of failure.

I am driven to exasperation and to the extent that I think giving up would free me from days of incessant worries. It’s interestingly germane and timely that I watched Lions for Lambs amid all my troubles, in which Robert Radford’s character seem to be speaking to me, as to many others who are facing similar stressful predicaments — It is better to try and fail, rather than failing to try (although you’d eventually arrive at the same position, but at least you tried). And in an episode of Family Guy, Brian (the talking dog character), was clearly overjoyed upon crossing an academic hurdle although he failed. He claimed that at least “he did it”. So what’s all this? Am I foreshadowing my own outcome? And yet, even when I’m inclined to think that a higher probability of failure than success awaits me at the end of this arduous journey, I’m still tenaciously persisting on, as if betting on the elusive flicker of hope that cheers me on.

Sometimes I wonder if the struggle is worth the effort if failure still holds victory over my hard work. I lamented that it’d be such a waste if I should drop what I earned so far, and I was advised not to view all these as a wasted journey (if failure reigns) but instead to treat my efforts as a contribution to my overall journey in life.

A question reverberates in my ears - What’s the worst that can happen? Life is after all just as a main course with success and failure as side dishes. What’s for dessert?

Sometimes I marvel at the orderliness of our universe. The sun and moon in their uninterrupted cycle of day and night assure us of a new dawn and providing us a closure for today. The seasonal changes endow us with an excitement of a new cycle of beginnings and ends. A cascade of stars that glisten in the heavens imbues us with the mystery of our existence. And then, there’s the Physics and Mathematical laws that govern the realms of reality, that is the very fundamental cause for our existence. Life might not even be possible without gravity to begin with. Nature signs on its creations with the Golden ratio , which permeates the foundations of our observable environment.

The orderliness of the universe fascinates me as much as when I observed the locals in Japan standing on the left side of the escalator, all cases without exceptions. The proof to that is I still recall it so vividly even after 5 years. Order in society…something we cannot do without, although I’d say that with the case of the escalator, that would make us quite a rigid and inflexible bunch.

Beneath this seemingly pristine facade lies an intricate web of complexity, woven into the very blueprint of our existence.

And of course , underneath it all is the orderliness of my own life, which I sometimes describe as mundane and routine, except with the unpredictable occasional changes which soon enough become inevitably prosaic. I crave for order, the safety net I can fall back to, especially when life gets a little too messy for my liking.

For the first time, I am encountering a broken water heater at my apartment. Before that is replaced, the apartment manager suggested we use Apt 411’s bathroom, since it’s still vacant. Now that is definitely not a common occurrence in my ordinal life, is it? Tomorrow morning I’ll feel a wave of freshness sweep over me as I waltz into the vacant Apt 411 just to use the shower.

I almost fainted this morning, literally. I should have been forewarned that an empty stomach and a hot shower is a deadly recipe for hypotension. Maybe I’m still jet-lagging, maybe I was missing home food badly, maybe these are just excuses. When I arrived in Seattle a few days ago, I was still caught up in a delusion that I was back home with my family. I woke up on my bed thinking how I hope my alarm clock didn’t wake my sisters up as well, only to realize that I’m all alone in Seattle. I was sleeping in abnormal hours and missing meals these last few days. Before I showered, I was rather surprised to see my weight hit a record low of slightly below 50kg?which never occur for the last5 years.

And trust me, during that bout of almost losing consciousness was a smothering feeling uncalled for, to the extent that I briefly thought that a quick death would free me from that episode of miserable torture. It’s not as simple as faint and be done with it. I was engaged in a mental and physical battle to defend my consciousness.

The only other time I ever came close to fainting was in 2002 during the SARS epidemic. I couldn’t make it out of bed one morning without losing my sight, feeling chilly all over, and losing my balance as a result. I stumbled clumsily back to bed 4-5 times in an hour, each time hoping that my next attempt would let me breeze my way out of the room, an everyday mindless routine much taken granted of. I regained my sight only when I was lying on bed.

Actually I contracted SARS a few months before it was made official to the public but I found out that I had similar symptoms as those diagnosed with SARS later on. My little brother was the first victim in the family, who got it from his friend who returned from HK with what the doctors passed off as hay fever at that time. From what I recall that didn’t seem like any regular fever…he was getting chills, breathing difficulties, and body aches… my parents were by his bedside every night, an unlikely sight if it were a regular fever. My little brother recovered, but passed the baton on to my sister who shares the room with me, and her “fever” temperature was slightly lower than my little brother, and it got only lower by the time it reached me, albeit still >38C. I read that Sars-induced fevers decrease in temperature as it is passed on to another.

I thought I was going to die that morning in 2002. I was finally able to walk after our home helper massaged me, letting my blood flow better, as my mom suggested. A trip to the doctor ended up with daily antibiotics for a week or so, which left a disgusting plastic taste in my mouth. Even the pills smelled bad.

And of course, after my very close shave with unconsciousness this morning, I was again reminded how wonderful it is to be healthy. I escaped fainting once again by stumbling back to bed, fortunately this time round I could walk to get breakfast and reclaim my lost energy. At least I know this isn’t SARS. And for the rest of today, I was overwhelmed with the thought that I was lucky to be alive and well. Funny how a close encounter with unconsciousness (other than sleep) can do that to me. With that said, I’ll be stocking up my fridge tomorrow.