Yay yay yay to life! Alhamdulillah to be alive :)

More Weddings

I HATE getting ready for weddings with a passion. There's one today and one on Sunday to attend. Whilst everyone else is excited that it's segregated and the hijabi girls get a rare chance to dress-up, it puts me in a bad mood. I'm not out to impress anyone and I'd rather be studying or watching Psych (my new favourite show). It's far too much effort that I can't be bothered to put in. My mum has forbidden me to just rock up in my abaya though. Sigh.

Magicky Me

I've been told that if I was a mythical creature, I'd be a mermaid (not the scary Harry Potter kind though). I am completely and utterly in love with the idea <3 

And no, I haven't actually seen 'A Little Mermaid'. Although, Ariel and I both share the same personality type apparently :D

"It is not who I am underneath but what I do that defines me."

Too Much Time

I'm on my 'consolidation week' at the moment. I guess that's supposed to mean that whatever I've done so far, I'm supposed to pad out the knowledge, bulk it out a bit, consolidate it. What if I haven't actually studied anything so far? No textbook, no Webct, no lecture slides, no nothing. It makes me feel ever so slightly queasy when I think of all the work that needs doing, averaging out to be around six textbooks per core rotation. I kid you not. And it's already November. For most people that's around the beginning of their academic year, but for me, my year started around 4 months ago. Exams are in about seven months, they count for 60% of my degree and with the craploads of stuff I need to get through, I guess that means I should've started cramming oh I don't know, sometime last year. I'm so screwed.. (Inshallah not :| ) Despite all the studying that needs to be done, I still regret the fact that my Morocco trip didn't work out. Story of my life eh?

I find that when I have more time on my hands, I start slowing down to a pace worthy of hibernation, which actually reminds me that I saw a hedgehog in my garden the other day! So darn cute! Some years back, there would be a hedgehog gathering in our back garden every day at 9pm for a few months. It was truly a bizarre experience, yet quite humbling, as though we were privy to their secret world that they had chosen to share with us. Even they seem to be far more active than I have been this year. Instead of studying so hard to the point of getting a nose-bleed (an asian parent's dream I would imagine) I'm amused at the competitive, brown-nosed, super-elitist med students whose number of unholy hours in the library speaks for itself in the imprints perfectly contoured to their arses left on the chairs there. I prefer the peace of my bedroom and the possibilities of afternoon naps and hot chocolate breaks compared to the humid atmosphere of the library, only intensified by the sweat of unwashed bundles of scruffy jeans and computer-strained squints vaporising into the still air.

That's just not me. I reckon I belong with the pot-smoking hippies of the 60s; cruising along, travelling wherever the wind blows, my head barely seen bobbing in the smoked ends of god-only-knows how many joints; a 'dude'. Although, I'd trade in the minivan for a Bentley or a Lamborghini, and a joint for a steaming plate of rice. In my head I vaguely remember a phrase about the devil and idle hands. Something that didn't quite make sense before is somehow seemingly becoming less of a foggy metaphor.

Instead of wisely taking advantage of my spare time (which technically I shouldn't have), I find new ways of dropping the big A into conversations at home. Like a bombshell, waiting for how people will react, minutely scrutinising their faces for that small giveaway of surprise in the slight widening of their eyes and an almost embarassed look that fleetingly crosses their face, not quite sure where to look or why I've said the name. We don't talk about him. Hardly ever. At the beginning, I wouldn't let them. But now, perhaps in some perverse reversal of the situation, I see how far I can go. I test the words, in my head. It's been a long time and somehow I have forgotten how to form the words with my mouth.. Abi. No, that sounds too strange, too formal. Clinical almost, like an awkward hospital appointment. It has been too long. So I try the next best thing, your husband, your father. I try these phrases, roll them around on my tongue. Yes, they seem more usable. The A is too intimate, or perhaps too far back in the past for me to heave it back into the present. I don't know. Maybe I'm still not quite ready. There are times when I'll sit stock still in my room and this overwhelming sense of loss and grief overcomes me and I'll frantically hide the tears that are crushing me so hard inside that I'm physically left gasping for air. It's like my lungs are drowning in the tears I refuse to shed. And then there is silence. I wonder whether my mind even remembers what it misses, whether I  remember, or whether it's just an involuntary reaction to some unknown trigger. It feels like a lifetime ago and yet at the same time it feels like I'm still waiting for him to walk through the door, to fill this dark space that's eating away at the peripheries of our lives like a slow degenerative disease, tunnel-visioning everything we see, do and hear. As though if he came back, it'd suddenly become brighter and we would see again, barely registering surprise as though this was the way it should be. Lord knows I've grieved, but perhaps it's something you never really get back. That sense of being whole. You're always waiting for that little more. Maybe I'll just blame my lack of time utilisation on that, as I always seem to be in limbo, waiting for something to happen..