Brussels-Luxembourg-CharencyVezin

Today we traveled down from Brussels. I must say, I really really enjoyed my day in Belgium. We went to Tournai, Ghent, Brussels and Namur. The food was really good (mmm Moules and Waterzooi), the place we stayed in nice - a beautiful loft apartment owned by an Artist and her husband - she decorated everything and hung her paintings in the apartment, the people could speak fairly fluent English and there were all sorts of lovely perfumes and chocolates (both of which my mother and I purchased a few). Transport was convenient too, with a metro going right into town.

Namur today was pretty dead. As we drove into town, we ran into a film crew with a guy all decked up in a suit and bowler hat, clutching three lovely lime green juggling pins. He stopped in the middle of the bridge leading to the main town square and the crew would film him as he juggled. When we left almost 2 hours later, he was still filming, and it was cold out :/

Namur has a nice old citadel, but it was a bit of a disaster. It's a Monday, and hence a lot of attractions, the citadel namely, were closed. We ended up walking about the ruins looking at things and I wandered off, through a tunnel and found myself on a wooden bridge over a very high gorge/moat ): I ended up standing in the middle, where the highest point of a cottage lay underneath, thinking that if the bridge collapsed at least I would fall the shortest distance. I stood there, stuck, for a few minutes because I could see through the gaps of the wood and got scared. It was all very silly really.

I learned today I am scared of tunnels (because they might collapse on me and kill me) and that I am afraid of bridge (because they might collapse under me and kill me). I already know I am afraid of the darkness (I always sleep with a light on if I am alone and in a new place), afraid of dark woody old rooms with dolls in them (like tonight and the first night where we stayed in a 300 year old Chateau B&B) and afraid of thinking about my future when I am 40 years old and potentially possessing 2 bratty children I want to kill, a husband who is cheating on me/and totally disinterested in bed, a mediocre dead end job and holding on to lots of shattered dreams. I am scared of a lot of things.

Anyway after I managed to unstick myself and shuffle back to the tunnel, where I kept trying to push thoughts of all those horrific Malaysian North-South highway landslides on the way to Ipoh and people go BURIED ALIVE, I emerged to find my parents exiting a nice perfumerie. Yesterday we all bought 3 vials of perfume from this nice charming Belgian guy in the market near the Brussel's Grand Plaza (between that and the Central Station on the metro line), and mine smelt like nice floral-ey apples. Today I ended up getting another bottle of perfume that reminds me a little of the Issey Miyake smell, something confirmed by the perfumer himself. Its a bit of a wonder how I'm going to use it, since I usually run out of my dorm to anything - late, and thus forget to spray even my Cacharel's Scarlett perfume on. All I know is I smelt so many perfumes that past 24 hours that my sense of smell has official imploded.

Lunch was a random Pizza Hut affair on the way to Luxembourg, since we had no choice. Before we entered a nice lady gave us a coupon for 0,30 euros off any drink. There were lots of random British kids running about the place, on a school trip of sorts.

Luxembourg was a disappointment. Not much really in the way of shopping, culture, or places of interest. Oh well.

On the way to our nice B&B in a little place called Charency-Vezin, we ended up crossing the Belgian-French border 5 times because we got lost. Boo. My dad is seriously so cheap. He refuses to pay for a damn GPS system so instead it's all map reading (for me) and we end up getting lost because the road and direction signs are not labelled clearly. This means in total we ended up crossing the Belgian-Luxembourg-French borders more than 7 times today. Imagine, if it was still the days before EU and every border crossing meant going through immigration customs...

Bruxelles

Today in Brussels, I learned that the metro system is done through the self-validation system, moules are awesome, chocolates too and that this B&B has no hot water because I am bloody cold now. Fail.

Two Oh

So I am now 20.

I remember around New Year's Eve 2010, Daryl was going on about how we were turning! twenty! A quasi-milestone in our lives where we were booted out of being terrible teenagers to legitimate young adults. I also remember sort of wondering what the hell he was going on about. And today, I turned 20 (going by Singapore time, since I was born there anyway).

This is probably the birthday that will be celebrated with the least pomp, being both out of Singapore and my adopted city of London. Already my friends in Singapore as asleep, and my friends in London are out celebrating Ruben's birthday which is the day before mine (and Chen's which is the day after mine: we planned to have a mega celebration together). Even though I am with my parents, I have never felt so alone, or a birthday so un-celebratory in atmosphere.

Instead tonight I am online and looking for people to mitigate this feeling, but the only person really talking to me (or rather who I am talking back to) is a drunk, homesick, oddball who stays in my dorm and everyone avoids. I'm actually kind of scared of him because he can get violent and has a tendency to drink till he's well and truly fucked. And I'm only talking to him now because I feel bad for him. Plus I hope he won't remember this tomorrow and think I'm his new best friend and follow me around Passfield.

I wish I could be happier about all of this, I ought to be anyway. I've made progress from who I was in 2009, and I've definitely come a long way since Jan 2010. But somehow, that niggling seed of dissatisfaction, the bit in me that always values human companionship over a lot of other things, is always present and shall always be. Fingers crossed for tomorrow then.

Should I look forward to turning 21 then? I already dreamed the dress I shall buy myself for the celebratory dinner, oho.

Goodness

Yesterday I wrote "I feel like gnawing away at my cup now" in my diary. 24 hours later, another teabag of Twinning's camommile, honey and vanilla tea, I still feel like gnawing away at my cup.

I kind of miss the good old days of ACSI where after one gets dumped (well for me anyway, certains females have proved this is not always the case - either that or they are good hunters) everyone stays the fuck away and I get more than a year to recover and find my bearings again. Here I get bombarded with the silly advice of "get a rebound!" and tossed about by many people who think I would do be good to be out on the dating market again.

And I have tried. Meeting new people and all. But those who I am remotely interested in are not interested in me. Then there are the really creepy ones (like Monobrow who loves staring at me, has bad breath, the sense of humour of a brass doorknob and the severe disposition of a hundred year old wooden floor of a funeral parlour, then there's fucking Korean small eyes who kept trying to kiss me against my will and started groping me like crazy while clubbing and had to be rescued from - made me cry the next day and feel an extremly strong aversion to Korean looking people with small fucking eyes, to a nice guy friend who thinks horses lay eggs and tells everyone he likes me after two drinks) who are invariably ALWAYS interested in me ($*@$NDX@(VC.

I really wish I could take a break from it all and shrug it off. Be rid of relationships and all the damn ways it affects my life in a most negative manner. BE ASEXUAL. But no, there's the part in me I actively recognise as always wanting to be in a relationship for all the (supposed) love and security it brings. So it's bad enough I need to fight myself, without getting traumatised by all the weird frogs around jumping away at me and making me feel that little bit worse about myself.

Ribbit.

So, what now?

The term has ended on far less than a cresendo, and somehow because of this I feel a sense of loss. A loss of Not Knowing What to Do and a loss of This Should Have Felt Better. This was soon followed by a cross examination of my inner self on the drizzly walk home, a quiet dinner and then getting ready for Crush to the strains of Bob Dylan singing Things Have Changed.

Despite all the craziness that lasted from 9pm to 6am (sitting on steps talking with Nithi, Hardeep and Suan), upon waking up I felt that seed of disastisfaction that keeps going 'what now? What now?

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I get a new laptop on Monday.

Cheesemaker

During today's History presentation on the success of the British Navy during the Seven Years War, a classmate said "giant penis from North America" instead of "giant pine from North America". A previously mentioned McDreamy with the blonde hair and blues eyes and I were the only ones who caught it and laughed as silently (and childishly) as possible. But he has ugly nails that need to be cut, a habit of appearing for lectures and classes late in the midst of a situation where it is impossible to know thy fellow classmate.

In other news, I seem to STILL be wildly attractive to weird, silent guys who like to stare at me. Those that want you, you don't want - those that you want, don't want you. And thus life goes on in a neverending merry-go-shitpile-round.

I miss my laptop.

I know it's a lie I wanted to be true

I am boyfriend-less, laptop-less and now comparatively-friendless with Miss Yuen having gone back to Canada early. I so need a job to take up my time. Next year I suppose.

I think I am quite done with trying to live a life as 'right' as I'm supposed to - I'm young and have so many years ahead of me to do that. I spent the past few years of my life being so upright about things and the actions of other people, and for what? In the end I still get screwed over. Might as well be less uptight, see another side of the world and have more fun if I'm still going to end up with the same result as before.

I also give up on relationships and compromising. If a guy wants me, he can bloody well chase me good and proper. I don't think I can live through another heart ache like the last one. I shall stick to my limerances, with fresh memories of pain to prevent me from falling for anyone anymore. An open heart brought me nothing but pain, and I don't think I'm strong enough to maintain it any longer.

Oh, I am turning 20 soon.

This proves it - I'm jinxed for life blablabla. URGHHHHHHH.

Marched into March

Apparently it is March now. I never noticed February ended, or even remembered that February had 28 days. Time passing seems to have degraded into an abstract concept. Yes time passes, and I keep having to find ways to fill it up as best as I can. I sleep, wake up, Monday turns into Tuesday, Tuesday turns into Crap day, Crap day turns into Good day - time flies and I am aware of its passing but the realisation that I have let 3 months of 2010 slip by without noticing is startling. I feel like all I have been doing is watching time go by, and willing it to go faster and faster without any active participation in life.