Where am I?
It’s been a year since I’ve started grad school. The days are long but the years fly by. I can no longer use the excuse of being a hapless first year to bumble around, be driven around, and to play around.
Now that I'm a second year, things will start to get serious now. (Seriousness, of course, is open to interpretation.) Second years and above are working on their thesis projects. They have their freedom and autonomy, yet are anchored by daily coffee rituals and regular weekend activities. The skis in their cupboards have gone down more than several mountains and they can always find comfort in their favourite dinner spots. They have their cars, their well-lived-in apartments, and their credit histories. And maybe life will be like slightly burnt chocolate cake - not perfect! But nobody's really complaining.
If adolescence ends at 18, I’ve only had 6 years of adulthood. Most of them were spent mugging and earning money, but in the last year I did many, many things for the first time (some of which probably shouldn’t be written here lol). I’m still testing and trying, still figuring EVERYTHING out; what comforts, what excites, what revolts, and what merely tickles. Because at the end of the (presumably long) day, all I’ve got is who I am… and chocolate cake.
So here I am, hiding inside the walls of academia, outside which girls my age are getting married and mothering! Of course the next stage will have joys, pleasures and self-discovering epiphanies of its own, but I’m not there yet. I am still here.
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| Midnight in lab with fruits, nuts, hot chocolate and hand moisturizer. Watching How I Met Your Mother. Feeling full, so full. |
Now that I'm a second year, things will start to get serious now. (Seriousness, of course, is open to interpretation.) Second years and above are working on their thesis projects. They have their freedom and autonomy, yet are anchored by daily coffee rituals and regular weekend activities. The skis in their cupboards have gone down more than several mountains and they can always find comfort in their favourite dinner spots. They have their cars, their well-lived-in apartments, and their credit histories. And maybe life will be like slightly burnt chocolate cake - not perfect! But nobody's really complaining.
If adolescence ends at 18, I’ve only had 6 years of adulthood. Most of them were spent mugging and earning money, but in the last year I did many, many things for the first time (some of which probably shouldn’t be written here lol). I’m still testing and trying, still figuring EVERYTHING out; what comforts, what excites, what revolts, and what merely tickles. Because at the end of the (presumably long) day, all I’ve got is who I am… and chocolate cake.
So here I am, hiding inside the walls of academia, outside which girls my age are getting married and mothering! Of course the next stage will have joys, pleasures and self-discovering epiphanies of its own, but I’m not there yet. I am still here.