El dolor.
What is it? What does it mean? What does it tell?
El dolor.
Do you feel it? Are you down? Do you feel the tears seeking to break any constraint?
El dolor.
Do you know how a heart is shattered into pieces of china or jade, thin, transparent, naked?
El dolor.
Do you hear me? Can you sense what has happened? Do you remember the moment four nights ago?
El dolor.
Do you know how to remember? Do you know how to forget?
El dolor.
To leave the world, to get rid of the omniscient eyes of Fate, to become an distant observer.
El dolor.
So distance that he feeds himself on memories.
El dolor.
I don't know. Nobody thinks this should concern me.
El dolor.
But here it is. The piercing sensation streaming in veins, in heart.
El dolor.
El dolor.
El dolor.
We have lost you.
So we say, el dolor.
To see you for 30 minutes, and to be reminiscient about you for the rest of my life.
El dolor.
Lloro por ti.
Lloro que no regresa.
Lloro. Lloro.
Lloro por el dolor.

I believe that it's the lack of preparation that has got me into immense panic. I feel my heart sinking unretrievably, and my stomach churning. Even feel heavy-headed. I can't concentrate. Save me. Get me out of this disorder. Bring me normality. Take me away. Spain. I need anything Spanish to sooth me. My fingers are being frozen. My toes are being frozen. My words are being frozen. My confidence is being frozen. Nobody comes to my rescue. Nobody can help. I'm helpless. This IOP, it's eating me up, bit by bit, from the heart, to the bones. It's drinking my spirit, making me feel so so small. What am I, if I can't handle it? Curse the IOP! Away, you demonish grumbling loser! I'll trash youuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu!

It has occurred to me that all of a sudden, those people who have never said a mean word against RM turn to my enemy by announcing that they hate RM. They try to justify by saying that they have never said they support RM either. I was kind of dumbfounded on hearing such confession. Well I'd rather not take it as ill-intended, but feel stupid that I have so oblidgingly trusted that they do accept RM. Anyway this doesn't matter so much as I never cared about voices from without.

What really makes me worried is RM's notorious performance since the summer break started. Maybe it is understandable as a BRAND new coach has just joined and the team is very much in a holiday mood, but I have to admit that it is disappointing. Imagine, they have lost five or six games so far. To wait patiently is something sensible to do but I am not a fan experienced and toughened enough to be that sanguine. I doubt the effectiveness of Schuster's arrangment and strategy; to me they are proved to be a failure. Moreover I doubt if a German guy can ever lead a Spanish team, especially a traditionall remarkable team like RM. Capello was wronged. He was the scapegoat. And Calderon and his followers are water-headed.

And I suddenly remembered this: the strong must learn to be lonely. From Enemy of the People, final act. Didn't realise how ironic it is until I typed out the title of the play. Well....

C'est la vie. For this, and something else.

Día de la Hispanidad, 12 October.
Tell me that this is no coincidence.

I think I resent logic, or argument. The moment certain issue is brought up for reasonable discussion, my thoughts liquify and leave my mind blank, like defiant sulky children who are dragged out of their cozy corner. I gather that this is either a symptom of aging or due to the disease called laziness which is my typical mode of behaviour. When laziness becomes habitual, responsiveness is stolen away. What I can do and like to do is to ponder alone, silent and deep in thought, to process whatever I can perceive, mainly about myself, about people, about life, world, time, and all the not-so-boring philosophical or psychological issues. Like what I am doing now. I can perfectly make sense and sound rational (logical???) then. Perhaps it is because I am sentimental and highly intuitive, my thoughts and ideas tend to expand beyond the boundary, and I am sensitive to emotion-related matters. However I find it difficult to condense my thoughts to follow a certain pattern, increasing the density of the process of thinking. The invisible rules and principles are an irritating kind of confinement which makes my brain stop functioning properly. Maybe it is the qualities of Libra that have made me an insulator of sciences and subjects with scientic kind of approach, or, at least, I can't bring myself to do detailed studies of sciences but random reading and exploration. Social science is none the less dreadful, but when application is concerned, there is more flexibility allowed which does me good. On the other hand, arts and humanities such as history, geography, theatre, music, visual art, languages, literature and other culture-related subjects appeal to me much more. So, well.

Luckily, Senorita is nice. Felt really uncertain before seeing her and listening to her talk. We have got used to the forever patient and soft-spoken Senor. Anyway, no more abandonment, please. Reminds me of those days in Crescent,where I was once deprived of confidence, because of the change. In those depressive days I used to take a walk in the playground in NYGBS, looking at the sky. The sky was as solid as a wall, and stars distant, beyond reach. Yesterday was saying how much life has changed since then, without our knowing it. Nanyang, it sounds unfamiliar now, like uttered from years ago. Didn't go back to Crescent for Speech Day. Didn't feel like receiving the award in front of the many people, known or unknown, all somehow detached. And somehow relunctat to go back.

Angst. Learnt this word some time ago, which probably describes my mood now. Began to feel like one year ago, not knowing what on earth is waiting for me. Can't perceive the outline of the future. And don't know which path to take.

I walk on this lonely road,The only one that I have ever known.

And don't know where it goes. I'm really happy with just sitting outside the classroom leaning on the lockers looking at the building opposite or drawing some random stuff. Happy with letting my mind follow my fingers instead of leading them. Happy with naughty defiance and little trick and mild violence. Happy with being obssessed with nothing or nobody but soccer and the players. But not happy that I have to make all the compromise for a life far from ideal. So everything now needs to come to an end. Life is just a slideshow. Sigh. Being random again.
Printed out some RM picture so that I can read their faces everyday, so that I can sense their company, so that I can somehow trace the untouchable past. What if I get old this way, gazing their faces at peace. What if time passes only in this silent one-way communication, gentle and soothing as if it was non-existent.

This thought suddenly came to mind: do Spanish people have their national pledge? I don't think so. And I can't imagin if they had one, what it would be like.

The day shall come: I shall play my guitar, perhaps in a small town in Spain, with my shadow stretching long. Into the past, into the dream, into every happiness of life.

Walking alone in this chaotic layer of world. Everywhere wafts the fragrance of illusion and the intoxicating uncertainty. I don't know I don't know I don't know what I don't know. I'd like to indulge myself in an ocean of randomness where there is no geometry. Ahhh I feel tired and want to feel resigned every now and then. Please give me a handful of fresh air of idolized arts and I will swallow it as if deadly thirsty. Randomness is good, boredom makes you feel useless. I feel the years being drawn away from me, leaving no reflections or shadows whatsoever. This endless waiting shall end. To be changed. Shaped. Coloured. Dreams shall dissolve into reality.
By the way I hate Shakespeare. He shows no genuine compassion for his own characters but strives to pose himself as a sage. His plays smell like the rotten furniture in some 18th century maison and his poems have a facade thick and death-like green as tortoise shell. For his plays I'd rather read the abridged version or some Spanish/French version if I could understand them. He has no taste in the beauty of language. Excuse my skepticism but I find him boring to death. Like a walking skeleton clod in some flamboyant costume breathing the air of a coffin full of arrogant flowers. I tell you I'm devoted to deny everything or anything positive about him. Reading Shakespeare is simply repulsive.

Henry David Thoreau and Virginia Woolf. After Shakespeare-ing for so many days I long to get into touch with their purified silky language. Curse this the Colour Purple. It's insulting.