When I read a book, I don't like to share. I get so drawn into the world that I want to keep it all to myself, where the characters feel real and alive. Talking about it to someone else turns everything back into just a book. Some people just may not feel the magic you do, and their lack of rapture spoils your imagination.

On the flip side, when someone else gets the book the same way you do, it becomes double the enchantment. Once in awhile, fiction is so much better than reality.

Feel It

Feelings on Flickr © jeanne c

It is extremely rare to find someone who gets exactly the way you're feeling.

For ages, I've been trying to explain how I feel about living in Singapore and also having a home in Malaysia. I've told many people about the unfamiliarity yet comforting familiarity I feel when I go back to either of my homes. (Don't let my mother hear me say I'm going back home to Singapore, though.)

In the beginning, it felt like so much had changed and I couldn't click with anyone. After awhile, going back to Malaysia felt like I'd never left, yet my sisters looked different, my parents looked older, my dogs older/bigger, buildings sprouted out of nowhere and so many TV shows I missed. My sisters can hardly remember whether I was there for something or not. 'Oh, do you know that time Daddy...?', and I'll remind them, 'I was THERE la.' or 'Remember when so and so...?', to which I reply, 'I wasn't there la.'

Sometimes I feel so glad to be going home. (Many incidents of which I can remember clearly why I wanted to escape.) Most times, I feel really reluctant to go (for the most obvious reasons as well), and take out my annoyance on poor Mummy, as always. And when I go back to Singapore, sometimes it's with excitement, but most times lately with a tinge of homesickness, feeling awfully bad for ever making Mom feel like I didn't want to come home to M'sia. It feels quite sad imagining them sad at my departure, and occasionally even sadder knowing that I spend a lot of my time in S'pore alone.

Lucky me that I've a friend who relates to me completely, to her utter surprise and to my final relief. You'll get used to it like I have, I tell her.

It's great when someone understands precisely how you feel. I just love the sensation when my description clicks completely with another person's experience. Probably why I keep going off at the mouth to everyone I know, waiting for that magic moment. Doesn't come often enough.

The word feel suddenly looks funny to me. Like French or something.

Change on the outside often times brings change on the inside.

With everybody gone to church camp, and me left alone to fend for myself, I've finally found the inspiration to get to work at the stove. A little too salty at spots, and everything just minimally seasoned but it's totally edible! What an achievement, friends, for the girl who usually makes others cook for her.

The fact that I am going to eat some cup noodles later does not mean anything.