Sakinah Abdul Aziz

"In the midst of hate, I found there was, within me, an invincible love. In the midst of tears, I found there was, within me, an invincible smile. In the midst of chaos, I found there was, within me, an invincible calm. I realized, through it all, that In the midst of winter, I found there was, within me, an invincible summer. And that makes me happy. For it says that no matter how hard the world pushes against me, within me, there’s something stronger – something better, pushing right back." - Albert Camus

Of course nobody likes the flu bug. We groan and sigh because we just have that too many things to do that we cannot afford to fall sick. And then we blame the "bug", or the people whom we have come in contact with 24 hours prior to experiencing the first onset of flu (normally would be a terrible sore throat for me). But of course at the end of the day, we blame ourselves for failing to immunize ourselves against these viruses and bacteria floating around in the hot, humid Singapore air. To have come to this point, I am aghast at how we tend respond to falling sick. Sometime back, I was down with a mild fever (and probably a diarrhea that did not really manifest itself very well, thankfully) after my weekend trip in Bintan, and what I suspected, after savouring the delectable street food. On Monday, I went to see the doctor and I was given a 2-days MC as he was afraid I had dengue. But of course, I had too many things to do, I stubbornly went back to work on Tuesday, an

Z: I sometimes feel like I'm looking down on myself. Like there's this older, wiser me watching over this 19-year-old rough draft, who's full of all this potential, but has to live more to catch up with that other self somehow. And, uh, I know I'll get there. It's just sometimes I think I want to rush the process, you know? And I don't know, maybe, um - maybe I thought you were some sort of shortcut. Does that make any sense? J: If I wrote you, I would be like, "This is the best rough draft ever." - J: I think one of the things I loved the most about being here was the feeling that anything was possible. It's just infinite choices ahead of you. You'd get out of school, and anything could happen. And then you do get out, and... life happens, you know'? Decisions get made. And then all those many choices you had in front of you are no longer really there. At a certain point, you just got to go, "Oh, I guess this is new its going down