dad's gonna be on leave tomorrow. i wanna go home so bad. i miss home like crap, for some strange reason. being away from my family does have a rather strange effect on me. i start to feel all alone in the world and unwanted, somewhat. like nobody's child, nobody's sister. isn't it strange how family ties are so deep-rooted? like i never knew how attached i was to my family until now. my identity has a lot to do with my family. i feel good knowing that i'm my parents' child, their eldest daughter. i feel good knowing i'm Carol's older sister. i feel good knowing that i'm Koko Maggie's god-daughter and niece. i feel good knowing i'm Trina's best friend. i feel good knowing that i'm Chelsa's pal.

but do i feel good knowing i'm me? hmm i really don't know! i never realised how much my confidence and feel-good factor depended so much on other people. not a very safe thing, you realise. what if one day something happened, say my parents died or something? i wouldn't be my parents' daughter anymore cos they wouldn't be around anymore. so one piece of my identity would dissolve into thin air, just like that. then what if i migrate to another country and lose touch with all my friends? more pieces of my identity would shatter.

so who is left? scary thought.

i thought i'd be over the teenage angst stage. you know, when teenagers rage against the world cos they can't find their identity, cos they feel like they're someone else, cos they feel lost amid the sea of self-assured adult identities and fragile teen identities just like their own. i don't feel angsty against the world now or any such thing. i just want to know who i am. like who will be left if all the different titles and 'friend of who and who' and 'daughter of who and who' is stripped away? i'll still be Kelly, sure. but who is Kelly?

the other day, i was going nuts trying to understand the concept of consciousness. why am i conscious as Kelly? why am i not conscious as someone else? i see the world through my eyes, tainted and prodded by the girl Kelly's thoughts and opinions. how would the world look like through the eyes of another, say, Trina or Mel? would the roses be redder, the birds chirping sweeter, the sky that much bluer? or what if i were looking through the eyes of a guy? would a girl's ass be all that much more interesting to look at than say, a snail on the ground? why wasn't i given consciousness as a Jessica or a Rachel or a Xiao Li? as a Japanese or an American or a British? why Kelly, a Singaporean girl? it's such a iffy concept to grasp, this consciousness. my body was infused with the spirit whom my parents christened Kelly the moment i was formed in my mother's womb; i was given a set of dreams and inclinations and dislikes and fears and hopes and loves. i was given a brain that loved the English language and all things romantic and lofty aspirations of being a shiny pin-up girl and a writer, dreams of living by a quaint English countryside with English roses in my garden and a gurgling brook through the countryside my house stands on with 5 kids running around with straw hats and my husband doing the dishes.

i'd like to be someone else for just one day sometimes, just to see the change in perspective. i'd like to be perhaps a Justin for a day to see how a guy's mind works.

meanwhile, i shall bury my brain in books again so i'll stop chewing on all these unanswerables. many a great philosopher have debated these for their entire lives and even then, did not manage to get a concrete answer. i ain't no philosopher, unfortunately. sometimes i feel like the stupidest person on earth cos here i am, with all these weird questions that i can't answer and get so frustrated over.

pictures of people i love to cheer me up.

the people who were my life and the people who are my life now.

aites enough procrastinating. i shall read my mno article then go to bed.