11/05/2015

Today was a dancing kind of day.

I spent a large part of the day reading about the survival stories of people. One, a man named Fred Seiker, who underwent terrible torture including the 'water is pumped into your stomach and then a soldier jumps on your engorged belly'  one that we here as horror stories in our primary school social studies syllabus. He experienced such terrible cruelty and yet he called his experience a 'privilege' because he was able to see the 'unconquerable spirit of civilised man'. His courage and optimism floored me - and gave me hope. If a silver lining can be drawn from the darkest experience in the jungle thickets of Burma, then surely I can rise above anything. Or as Marianne Williamson says, Fly above it.

Then, as I went to have a little wipe down (today's weather was tepid hot), I got a call from a number beginning with 6. I always pick up calls from numbers beginning with 6 because these days the likelihood of them being something important is pretty near 90%. If its a number beginning with 9 then usually I bury my phone in my bag because one of the last times I picked up a call starting with 9 late at night I got myself into an awkward situation I didn't want to be in.

So with my blue batik shit hanging off my head and my torso still slightly soap suddy I picked up, and it was from the Media Development Agency.

'Hi, is this a good time to talk?'

'Yes!' (As i glanced at my half-naked, soapy, sweaty self)

Anyway, I got into the second round of the mda scholarship interview praise God! I did a little dance right in the bath room, then wiped the soap off, pulled my shirt back onto my still damp self (which I find is one of the best antidote to these hyper summer days) and danced out of the bathroom into the lounge where my Mum was hoovering and told her the good news.

I also decided to paint a bag, the old NUS canvas bag they gave out for free during their open house. I painted over the NUS insigna because I feel uncomfortable being a walking advertisement, and painted on some flowers and then wrote Oscar Wilde's quote 'The smallest act of kindness is worth more than the grandest intention' in fabric marker. Words to live by indeed.

In my after dinner shower I played Hall and Oates' 'You make my dreams come true' and did another wiggly dance in the bath tub.