CDS essay: The Hopes and Fears

The Hopes and Fears
13th February, 2007
Of all the years, those when Chinese New Year and St Valentine’s day are met in the same week always seem special for the heady rush of convivial fever. Funny then, how I can bear to drag myself away from London and the social event(s) of the year.
I hardly remember [...]

Sights and sounds

Well now, it’s happened.
This really reminds me to keep this journal updated, if only because my memory isn’t what it used to be and I am afraid I will forget the mood of the past year. Curiously, I remember things through a strange process where I recall a particular sensation at the time, such as [...]

Alma Mater

There is but one serious question that comes to us every time we make a clean break, and that is to ask: what happens when one disappears from memory? My presence effectively disappeared from this blog for months and I am sure I have already lost 99% of my readers for good. That is perfectly [...]

February

Apology
I must stop setting impossible goals for myself. Or rather, I must stop being such a perfectionist. The last blog entry definitely took its toll. Blame my foolish endeavour of trying to trump each preceding post with something even more probing and dazzlingly argued. Several false starts later and without any emergency aid due to [...]

Growing Up

As I write this on the eve of starting my second to last term at Cambridge, I am wondering how much I have developed as a person during my time at university. I suppose I could rant about how nothing that is worth knowing in life can be taught and then drop clichés about separating [...]

New Year’s Resolution

I hope everyone saw in the New Year happily and safely. Myself, I worked at the bar in our affiliated Chinese restaurant for the second year running. Supposedly the largest Chinese restaurant in the UK, it has an enviably low staff turnover of about 50%, which is the main reason why I do enjoy working [...]

My Year

YEAR, n. A period of three hundred and sixty-five disappointments.
- Ambrose Bierce – The Devil’s Dictionary
I used to have a superstition that even numbered years have always turned out better or luckier for me. However, the correlation seems to have broken down the past year. In comparison to 2003, this year felt as if everything [...]

Best Friends

I was feeling incredibly blessed as I pondered the whole concept of ‘best friends’ today. It could be because it is Christmas and even though I cannot say that it is pleasant watching one’s mother work herself ill over the holiday period, I can still work up some Christmas cheer. And in this mood of [...]

London

“When a man tires of London, he tires of life”, said Dr Johnson. I have been tired of both, often with one inflaming the other. Yet somehow, London still holds its attraction. Admittedly, walking from one end of Oxford Street to Piccadilly Circus during the last minute Christmas rush did tilt the opinion towards the [...]

Sickie

I think the side effects of the MMR vaccine have started to catch up with me, resulting in the flu-like symptoms that I am feeling today and most of last night as well. I have therefore decided to keep this entry relatively short and get some much-needed sleep. Especially as I have been accused of [...]