bel

I don't usually fall sick; I like to say that I am a hale and healthy person, one who exercises three or four times a week on average and was once capable of running 10 km in under an hour without having to do too much training. I don't remember the last time I was bedridden, coughing and being brought to tears every five minutes like a baby choking on Lego part. Crying and sickness are both the same to me: deathly weakness. The slightest infection and boom bang bang good as dead. I have been stuck in a drug-induced fog, half-dreaming of little white roads that lead to nowhere plagued with the inherent oh god what am i missing in class today how much more reading do i have to do? there is no end to the path I'm taking and I drop down and sit quietly cross legged on the ground like a little girl and I cry and I cry. make it stop, i say. make it go away.

it's times like these when you miss your family and those closest to you the most, so much so that you hole yourself up and refuse to see anyone the whole week. if i were at home, i'd have crackers on the tackiest plastic banana leaf plate and my mug of unsweetened Milo in the twenty-year-old black octagon shaped mug, the shape of which I found so fascinating as a child. i'd have white porridge and soy sauce and pickled cabbage and fried eggs that my grandma would specially make for me. she would barge into my room and ask me questions about how i'm doing every 5 minutes and then run back out again. long story short, why the fuck did i ever leave home again?

everyone i know around here is often quite fascinated with how i'm not actually from London but actually just study there - which sort of makes me on exchange with two places if you think about it properly. i only got to see my family once every 3 months or 6 months. this year i won't be seeing them for 9. it'll only be another 6 before i go home again in june. the first quarter has flown by and it doesn't even feel like i've blinked once. my eyes are dry from capturing all the action and inaction of an American life. yeah, i slave at the lab, i work 7 hours in the library on quite lot of days because it's my last year and i'm not fucking it up again for the 4th time but i've also had some amazing times here: the endless stream of parties, the alco, the weird costumes, the odd spontaneous activity or two, eating every kind of American cereal, the jetset life. i look forward to the rest of them and the rest of my life.

oftentimes i catch myself muttering, 加油 加油！