I saw Jude Law BREAKDANCING on Oprah Primetime yesterday. 'Course he wasn't very good, 'cos he's British, but still, what a sight for sore eyes.
The last few days should be termed the Belated Birthday Present rush. So now I'm broke, which means today's the first time I'm going to be home for most of the day. I've had a lovely four days of doing nothing but what hedonistic pleasure popped into my head, but that's over, and now I gotta consult all the lists I compiled when I wasn't weeping over textbooks and lecture notes.
I met my 10-year old cousin twice/thrice removed for the first time in six years, in which interval my parents brought home videos of her singing on the news and The Price is Right or something, and starring in McDonald's commercials. Yeah, a child star. To my utmost surprise I was not inspired to slap her silly - she is inquisitive, tactful and though outspoken, polite too. There is something in the nature in a child that does not judge. When does that change?

My brother has left for London, my prelims have ended, the world is thick with change. I feel like a steamroller ran over me. (I don't respond effectively to change.)
After a large lunch at Marche's, where everyone enjoyed the sight of Zihao licking his plate clean like a boy starved of dessert (which he is), a split ran between painfully gender-stereotype activities. The boys piled off to watch Dodgeball, the girls went shopping. I like shopping. No, I love shopping. Truest sense of today's use of the word ('love', not 'shopping').
(I feel some sense of the "hollowness" now, I suppose, my throat clamps together. Everything snowballs so quickly. Everything ends equally so.)
Anyway, I slipped into Glory Music later and started pestering the store-owner about Garden State because she had the soundtrack. She had to repeat several times that she sold music, not movies. Here's Donne, music and mod-style. Times have changed, huh.

I am thinking it's a sign
That the freckles in our eyes
Are mirror images and
When we kiss they're perfectly aligned
And I have to speculate
That God himself did make us into
Corresponding shapes like puzzles pieces
From the clay
...
They will see us waving from such great heights
"Come down now," they'll say
But everything looks perfect from far away
"Come down now," but we'll say...
- Iron and Wine, Such Great Heights

The longest possible time has elapsed since I last blogged or showed concern for anything but my annoying, palpitating self. That is because preparation for the Prelims and sitting for the Prelims sets up this pressing grey vacuum around one's brain and stomach and you are alternately panicking or packing organized knowledge into every existing virtual pocket.
What an excuse. I hate exams. And here you might want to celebrate a friend, save the Chechen children, or combat religious sensitivities which culminates in more letters to the MDA, but noo, memorize "princes who in times of action taxes get, and remit them not in peace" (or something), first and foremost.