Standing by the water.

Here we are. Sunday afternoon. Alone but not lonely. I have two cans of beer by my side. I like beer. It helps me think. Thinking is what I need to do right now. Like that philosopher said, 'I think therefore I am,". At one point though, maybe I think too much, and I should get to doing more things instead. Whatever.

Blaring from my laptop is "Heroes" by David Bowie. I heard it first in a movie featuring Emma Watson, and she was the one I remembered most from that movie. I remember the protagonist getting to touch her boob, and I was like...what I'd give to be in his place. Emma Watson is pretty lovely.

There's nothing pervy about it, a guy's fascination with boobs, or the female body. It's soft, and it holds a lot of secrets. It's warm. And it's alive. Nothing beats hugs, kisses, touches, and all those things from a member of the opposite sex. It's more than a physical thing - it's also a mental and emotional connection. When I touch someone, on one side, there's me, asking for permission, and then there's her, and her body is going like..."Go ahead," and so that's what I do/did/will do.

I take another sip of beer. The can has a metallic taste, but I like it. As the beer goes down, it leaves a trail of bitterness. It feels like the dark-side of life. Usually, we drink soft drinks, coffee, milo and other sweet things. Beer is the necessary 'yin' to the 'yang' of sweet drinks. Water cleanses, sweet drinks rejuvenates and beer keeps you going. At least, that's how I feel.

"We could be heroes. Just for one day."

It's peaceful, and I like peace. There's nothing much going on, and to some extent, I don't mind, but to a large extent, I can't not mind it, because if nothing's going on, then nothing's going on, and it scares me that...other people might be moving ahead, without me. My biggest fear is getting left behind - opening my eyes and realizing that all my friends, peers, family members have left me behind.

Am I growing fast enough? Am I getting there? Why can't I be better? Point is, I'm in no way satisfied with the current state of things, but I don't really know what to do about it. It'll be fine if I'm not the only one facing this struggle, but it seems like other people have got most things figured out.

If I were to use an analogy, I'd use the drowning man. He's drowning...but thank god there's straws at him to grab at. But there's too many straws. Which one should he choose? He doesn't know. At the same time he's drowning. Surely he'll sink...it's inevitable. Or maybe the straws will slowly fade, and soon, his hands will have nothing to hold on to, and all that's left is for him to drown, and sink, and be eaten by the fishes and the bottom-dwellers of the river.

I just burped. Twice.

2. Double-Tap

Something happened today and it put me in a bad mood. I'm not going to go into any details, but I will tell you that it reminded me of Zombieland.

Zombieland is a movie where the world is overrun by zombies (duh). The story centres around a dude who has survived by following a few golden rules. One of them is to double-tap. Killing a zombie once isn't enough - you need to hit it again just to be certain.

The same applies to a relationship, I guess. It doesn't quite end when you split ways. It ends when you move on. To put it visually, it's like standing together and holdings hands - to break up is to let go of her hand, and to move on is to walk away. With me, she let go of my hand. And I guess she walked away too. I called out to her, cried out even, but she continued walking.

And I stood in place. And maybe I'm still standing in place. What does it mean to actually move on? Man, I don't know. I'm okay, actually, most of the time, but then I fall back into remembering all the could-haves, and then thinking about all the maybes, and the chances and opportunities that I can take; the what-ifs in life that keep us hoping.

I'll be fine. I hope.

1. Effortless.

Saturday morning. In school. The library is quiet. I doubt that anyone is actually studying yet - it's still too early. And what's more, it's the weekends. If you're studying on a weekend morning, you're doing it wrong. You're defying years of Saturday and Sunday morning cartoons, of lying in front of the couch and just stoning your day away.

Yesterday evening, I stayed over in school to study for the first and hopefully last time. I didn't have to do it, on hindsight. There's plenty of time, but the opportunity presented itself, so why not? I managed to finish up the remainder of my MA syllabus, and all that's left for me is to do the practice papers, which are painful. Imagine banging your head against the wall for hours on end, to the music of Kesha, in the hot sun on a terrible summer's day. Yes, just like that.

I always fancied myself as being better than most people, even though I have no proof. I guess I know myself best (duh), and this gives me some authority to comment on myself. So when it comes to modules in university, while others were struggling, I'm supposed to...breeze through it. Because I'm intelligent as hell. But university grounds you to a certain extent, I guess. It knocks you off your pedestal, and if you're too high up, you're going to hit the ground hard.

That's what's happening right now in MA. It's getting better though, on the bright side. I'm learning the system, and my brain is getting accustomed to the way of thinking that the subject demands. The real struggle in university comes when your brain is forced to adopt to so many systems. For example, with Management of People at Work, you're thinking in terms of people, and their individual differences - qualitative stuff. Then you switch to MA, and you're thinking about numbers, and cutting of costs.

It's not impossible to switch, but my brain's just not at the stage where it can shift conveniently just yet. I've got some ways to go.

The past few weeks, I've just been....studying. I'm enjoying myself, because I've got good friends to study with, and there's also a certain satisfaction that comes from learning and mastery. But what about after the exams? I'm thinking about the future all over again, and it's exciting and terrible all at the same time, because you don't know what's going on, but anything can happen, and it's awesome as hell.

Gulp.