The last 24 hours have simultaneously filled me with the greatest of joys of my young life and its experiences and the melancholy that is reality. In order to deal with these two disparate emotions as best as I can, I shall deal with the latter one first before dealing with the former so that in my absence it shall be a happy post that greets readers.

I first heard about the Mumbai terrorist attacks on the car ride to Fullerton Hotel. Hadi gave me a ride in his car, along with Cheam. All day I had been sequestered either reading/watching Dexter at home/getting my hair done/getting my makeup done, and has not heard the slightest peep of the world outside. Hearing it on the radio, in the middle of a jam, was almost surreal. In that instant I felt a flood of Melancholy flow over me and seep into my pores. Passing by the large screened led television outside a building in a CBD, I was assailed by images of a plane flying smack into the twin towers some 7 years ago.

There I was all set to engage in a night of frivolity, and there were these people who were terrified into an inch of their lives, and forming new scars of emotional terror. I felt ashamed for being so insensitive and uncaring. I felt sad that I was unable to do anything. I couldn't jump out of the car, change into some cheesy spandex suit and fly off to beat the living hell out of the perpetrators. Instead I was just a silly girl, sitting in her prom dress with layers and layers of makeup.

We soon reached however, and the general euphoric mood of the ballroom soon pushed any such negative sentiment to the back of my head. And thus I forgot all about life outside the confines of the hotel, my thoughts more centered upon the early death of my camera's battery and how much shoes were beginning to make my feet tired. This continued till almost the end of the post-post prom party at Yihang's Color Bar in Holland V.

We had just returned from wandering to Cold Storage when we saw the newpapers just delivered to the doorstep, and someone brought it up. Daryl and Chong Wee immediately started attacking the papers. It wasn't till I wandered near however that I saw the headline and I the forgotten emotions came back to me again.

As I sat semi moping in one of the chairs used for hairdressing, watching JTek and DLai flopping about on the floor in a semi drunken/exhausted stupor, I thought of a few things. One was that I remember I cried when I heard of Sept 11 and saw the repeated videos of the planes crashing into the towers/the towers buckling and collapsing. Most striking however, were the images of people who opted to jump out of the upper levels of the towers. The images conveyed emotions, feelings and thoughts that words would never have been sufficient enough to convey.

The second thought I had was that no matter whatever I became in life, I could not save anyone. I could change nothing. This thought really really struck me and made me upset. I was just a human being, a person to be filled with hopelessness and to futilely rail against the cruel mechanisms of fate and destiny. Forget all those rubbish motivational things people say, that I Can Change The World, Make It Into A Better Place, because I can't. No one can. Any faith placed in the ability of humanity to Save The World is only bound to be replaced by disenchantment and disappointment because at the end of the day we are just mere humans. It is the unfortunate circumstance that we have been alotted in this life. That doesn't mean however that we are unable to change things on a micro scale, and perhaps even a macro scale - it simply means that when it comes to the bigger bigger picture, we are powerless to end the everlasting cycle of human suffering and conflict.

Another piece of news also came to me today, that of JTay's mother passing away. I had known her and him far before I had even heard the name ACSI. The last time I saw and talked to her however was before I left church some 2 years+ ago. She used to be my old Sunday School teacher. The last time I had really spoken to JTay was some time ago too, when I first came to ACSI and he tried to talk me back into going to church. I saw him yesterday during prom too, and said hi to him. I can't even begin to imagine what he's going through now, and my heart really goes out to him. So please, keep him in your prayers and thoughts tonight.