Rest day No.1

The last three weeks have been one of the busiest times in my life, and as I finished up my second last static fracture test specimen yesterday, a wave of fatigue washed over me and suddenly I felt that I just could not continue. It was one of those odd moments where when the finishing line comes within sight, you start thinking back to try to remember where you have started and realized that you have come a long way. The mere thought of the journey was enough to invoked the fatigue. So in the end, I decided to enjoy a cup of coffee before returning to the lab to load my last specimen and spent 45 minutes testing it diligently, giving it my full attention, just like every specimen before it.

I think the will power of a human being is one of the most amazing and underestimated ability of all times. When we have a choice, we often take the easy root out and convince ourselves that we can’t do or achieve something. But when there are no alternates, then we find ourselves rolling up our sleeves, puffing up our courage and just get on with it. It is not like we gained an invincible power or magically inherited the skill sets to accomplish the task overnight. More often then not, we alter our thinking, our perceptions of things and then see our tasks in a different light. In dire cases, our body helps too by dimming our senses to discomfort, fatigue, depression, anything that could interfere with our progress. So I guess the phenomena I’ve experienced can be accredited to my body blocking out the weariness and my mind forbidding me to look back and count the exhausting days I have lived. And when the blocks were suddenly lifted, the sensory flood hit like a stunner but ebbed away in a couple of minutes and moments later, calm reclaims the mind again. If you think about it, it is actually quite cool, what our body does to help us, collecting our sufferings for weeks and then releasing it in a super-condensed style which takes just but a few minutes. I wouldn’t like to have that if the emotion that I ought to be experiencing is happiness, but if it is the bad stuffs, then yah, I think it’s an excellent idea.

Well, enough about work. Today is my self declared rest day and indeed, although I’m still in college (buring DVDs to back up my files at the moment, not seriously working) I’ve met my objective for today - resting. Well, it’s Thursday, first day of college easter closure, I woke up at 11am, paid a visit to my Warden to get an application form for next year and to complain about some nasty bugs, strolled into office at half past 12, had lunch, talked to a friend, MX and finally my mom from about 1pm till 6pm. Caught up with news, friends blogs, had dinner and now borrowing my colleague’s DVD burner to back up my insanely huge files. So yeah, it’s a pretty relaxing day talking to the people I care about and now happily blogging about my unproductive day. Heehee.

Actually, while talking to my mom, I realized how easy it is to talk to her and how much I enjoy conversing with her. We clocked 02:40:55 today on skype until my ears were all red and painful. But it’s really nice. We haven’t had the chance to chat properly in ages and I missed it. She has a way of passing on useful information in a light hearted manner and can making a trip to IKEA sounds utterly hilarious. I can talk to her about anything and she reads my mood like a book, knowing instinctively if I’ve called to talk, or I’ll be happy just listening to her. I didn’t think my mom could be my best friend when I was young as she was always so strict and was more like an formidable principal who also happens to be my loving mom. Then, when I was 19 and spending vast amount of time overseas, she made the transition to become my friend. With the strict principal veil abandoned, I began to see the other sides of her and begin to understand her concerns, her motivations, her vulnerabilities and the things going on in her life. She became my most trusted friend, my anchor in life and her character is a great mix of liberal practicality and sensitivity. I’m glad my mom doesn’t mind when I started feeding her advices and I am thankful to her for putting her family in first place all these years. Sometimes she tells me that there are things she regretted not doing for us when we were young, but then I guess every parents will have moments that they regret, and actually to us children, it’s not an issue at all since my brother and I turned out fine and we think that she has done more than enough.

The other phonecall of the day, well, it’s a bit sad for me cos MX is going hiking in Nepal for a couple of weeks and it will be the longest period since we have been going out that I won’t be able to hear his voice. I know it’s silly of me to miss him going away when we are already living apart on two different continents but it is not the same without him being conveniently accessible with the press of a few buttons. I can’t imagine what life must have been like when couples had to write to each other, and have those love letters delivered by ships. If it took 2 months to sail the letters across the ocean, then MX and I will be having six correspondences a year. If that is the case then every one of my letters will be a hundred pages long! *LOL* Yes, yes, so it’s only for a few weeks. I should be counting my blessings and thank the new age technological gods.*roll eyes*