excess baggage

the past few days i've been spending a large portion of my time packing.  while i personally think i've become quite a snazzy weekend-trip packer, these large packing jobs are still beyond my skillz.  probably the worst case of this was moving out of my dorm room freshman year.  i had no exams yet managed to not finish packing the entire room until my parents had already showed up at my door.  furthermore, i rode for 3.5 hrs back to dallas in the same position, without moving - with my still-inflated yoga ball pressing me against my seat since the entire car was packed full.  how?  i know not.

two years later, and unfortunately, the story has not changed much [with the exception that i did not pack my yoga ball to singapore, although it is still inflated and has remained so all the various times i've moved it since freshman yr].  attempting to fit a semester's worth of stuff [used not b/c of a lack of a better term, but really just for the fact that it generalizes & accurately reflects all that i'm stuffing in.  pure stuff] into two suitcases was impossible.  i added on an additional backpack [80 oz] and a duffle...everything is BARELY fitting.  should check-in stop me tomorrow morning and question how a duffle+huge backpack = personal item+small carry on, i'll have to pray/wink/cry [in that precise order] myself onto the plane, hopefully with all my bags in tact. 

so, while sweating bullets [in my non-aced, extremely humid singaporean dorm room], i slowly realized how much the small things add up - the small knicknacks here and there that i'll collect/keep/pick up for the keepsake; a bit of this to remind me of that trip, a little of that to represent so-and-so.  overtime [a semester to be exact], the little things collect and become excess baggage [or rather the 5kg that won't stay within the designated luggage]. 

with one suitcase down, i formulated one of those "only b/c my mind is going crazy" metaphors.  my daily pack-rat/keep-it-all habits extend beyond southeast asian trinkets; the habit leads to a pile of back-tracking memories [not the fond ones, but the ones that stay past their welcome & hinder present/future judgments due to pure sentimentality] that cause present&future stuttering.  maybe i've always subconsciously made this connection; maybe that's why it feels so good to get rid of things sometimes.  or to pass them on.  i'm not sure exactly how much i got from these past few months, but i'm sure that i've figured some things about letting go of things; it's not the receiving that's the problem, it's the ridding process.  regardless, these months are done, the page is mid-turn, and the hand flipping through is slightly more steady and sure.  only slightly though.

on a less personal note... 

Bleeding Love

Leona Lewis

my british lovey from singapore is in love with this song; when we are listening to this song on the plane during departure/landing, she will ignore the flight attendant who signals/yells/pulls to get us to pause the ipod; when others speak during this song, she thinks they're disrespecting the music; whenever we heard this song on the streets on bangkok [which was quite frequenly], we'd stop until it finished.  anyway, basically, i've listened to this song QUITE a bit since my first week here.  HOWEVER.  i didn't pay much attn to the lyrics until recently...and um, let's look at them shall we:

My heart’s crippled by the vein
That I keep on closing
You cut me open and I
Keep bleeding 

... graphic much?  seems in the middle of this british idol's pop hit, she decided to insert an extra dose of emo-licious-lyrics.  i think the imagery is disguised behind the catchy tune, but now i can't listen to the song without imagining McDreamy & open-heart surgery. 
 

heading back to america in t-8 hours.   

adios-la, singapura