01:16.

It is March 9.

About four hours ago, some courier staff delivered my bag - that blue and white Adidas sports bag I had to leave behind in Melb last month because I was overloaded - to my doorstep. The airport called me this morning to let me know the bag's here and I arranged for it to be sent to me.

I didn't want to open it till later, when I wake up and the day is bright, thought I would unpack from start to finish without pausing and get all things neat. Then I found myself turning the combo lock on the bag and opening it. Wanted to just get out the shoes and some clothes so I can get them sorted and throw some clothes into the laundry pile.

So I did.

There's a baby blue U2 T-shirt that I used to wear to sleep in Melb. It wasn't in this luggage, it came home with me on Feb 5 and has been sitting in my wardrobe drawer since the day I unpacked it.

Wanted to wear it a few times but never did. What I did, however, was kind of run my left hand over it now and then (it sits at the left side of the drawer), and about three times now, I lifted it up, kind of lightly squash it between my hands and just... breathed in its smell.

You see, it smells like home.

It feels softer than the rest of my home clothes here for some reason, I rub my cheek against it.

And it smells like home.

And so I am reluctant to wear it because once it hits the wash, it just won't be the same again.

Just now, about perhaps two hours, very possibly lesser ago, I unzipped the bag that has found its way back to me and took out first the People Of Asia cloth bag containing some clothes. And I kind of squashed it a little like I did that U2 tee and just brought it up and did the same.

It smells like a place that was cold, where clothes were hung indoors and not on bamboo poles outside HDB flats.

It smells of a climate that I once lived in.

It reminded me of a place I once called home and still call home, even as I am aware Singapore is home.

Guess it's still the same, this two homes syndrome.

Put the make up and tolietries that fell out when I pulled out something else into a box and placed them neatly in this little Ikea plastic shelf unit on wheels I have to my right, under my table, next to the full length mirror.

Carried the three bags of shoes to the living room's white shoes drawer. Pulled out the mis-shaped darlings and placed them into the white unit. Discovered some rather um, funky looking organic substance I can only deduce as some microbacteria growth that have sprouted up on the slightly damp black ballerina flats from Target.

They are fine, don't worry, except for a slight tear on the surface from my enthusiastic rubbing, but holding them in my living room and realising that slight dampness... I immediately remember why they were wet.

It was that Wednesday stretching to Thursday morning, in that veritable gale. From getting transcripts at RMIT to walking to town and saying goodbye to places just by walking though them. Having dinner at 609 for the last time (until next time) and Ray walking me back at Thursday morning, 2am+.

Those ballerina flats never had time to dry out completely in the cold weather that led up to my departure (I do not have particularly friendly feelings towards this word at the moment) .

I suppose every thing that was in Melb never really stopped somehow for me. And I don't exactly reckon it's bad but sometimes, when I stand up, I get dizzy.

My Dad told me last week about an article of Melbourne in the L i a n h e Z a o b a o, the chinese broadsheet he reads daily. As he told me about it, he walked towards where the newspapers were and searched to show me the said article.

That two-page spread is now to my left, folded into half on my (music) keyboard, which I place at an appropriate height-arranged shelf on my bookshelf.

I haven't got around to reading it. Glanced then looked at the photos the other day. Chinatown, Great Ocean Road, Flinders Street Station, Bourke Street buskers, Southbank.... Amidst the Chinese copy, English words like "Victoria Street", "Lygon", "Yarra River", "St Kilda" and "Miss Marple" popped out at me.


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I once lived there. All these places were the physical, geographical construct of my home. You know, where I lived and felt like I belonged.

Now, they are pictures in a travelogue, a travel feature, written by some writer sponsored on some junket. And I didn't really know if I wanted to read what he/ she had to say.

Perhaps... because all those were part of what made up "home", when I look around at my physical and geographical construct now, my head whirls and my heart doesn't know how to react though it commonly settled for dull aching, numbness or rationality.

My comfort is in Christ and is Christ.

Knowing that God is in control, that He has some purpose for all of these, that every thing will make much sense to me one day, though I see in shadows only now.

My first slated return date to Sg was Nov 15 2004. Then with graduation on Dec 15, I pushed it back to Dec 21. And then, I pushed it back to Feb 5.

Three times.

Come 21st this month, three months after that 2nd would-be departure which I spent instead sending my folks off, hitting the shops for some therapy after I got back to the city, getting home and bawling, then meeting Ray for coffee at Nortturnos that night, I would be starting work here in Sg.

Unless any thing happens between now and then.

Going back to journalism, going to give my best in what I do, love people, avoid politics, and if I step into them, I hope and pray I can deal with and behave as Christ would have me to.

"Big" is playing now on Qmusic, my lappie's music programme.

It's 512am now in Melb.

For some reasons, my lappie's time jumps back to Melb now and then.

For some reason.

And for some reason, Blogger still registers my posts at Melb time. I searched for a main time zone setting to alter this schizoprehnia but couldn't find one.

It is 214am now in Sg. Two minutes away from an hour from the moment I started writing this post.

I wonder when it will all seem clearer. Though I do not doubt it will all look much so one day, and things will make sense.

On Sun, while I was on my way back from town, on my way to the escalator at Somerset MRT, I looked across the station and saw to my surprise a M o u n t Z i o n bookshop at the side of the station, where I don't recall there ever being retail space and definitely not Mt Z.

That's the shop where at 17, I first took up my first job and returned to subsequently during holidays. The Sun after I got back, I discovered the store I used to mostly be stationed at at Causeway Point was gone. This Sun, I stared in surprise at the shop cut into the wall - with some shelf displays outside and signs announcing its presence - and recognised the glass displays that held the Precious Moments figurines. They were from Causeway Point.

It was too late for me to detour and go visit. I had already gone past the ticketing gates so I continued on my way, to the blasting music of History Maker which I could hear even when I got underground and waited for the train.

"Is it true today that when people pray?
Cloudless skies will break?
Kings and queens will shake?
Yes it's true and I believe it
I'm living for you"

Is it true?

Is it true?

Is it true?

Yes it is. And I BELIEVE IT.

Oh Lord, You whose ways are higher than mine, whose ways are divine mystery, whose heart and hands I know I can trust. You who are eternally faithfully, and the source of all that is good and right and pure and lovely, You who are my Lord, my sun and shield, my refuge and the Lifter of my head.

I need You and want You so much more.

I'm running after You.

I'm running after You.

Jesus.