背影

Do you know how the French Revolution started?

France had a system of lordship and serfhood. Basically a serf is a farmer who tends to the land allotted to him (or more commonly taken away from him) by his lord. Now, serf had to know his place, and farm enough to pay the "rent" for the land in terms of taxes and also to have enough for his family.

The French monarchy was obviously infamously unaware of the sufferings that this system caused, as epitomised in what Queen Marie Antoinette said, "Let them eat cake." As we all know, desperate people are dangerous people. Think Cultural Revolution, think Berlin Wall, think, more recently, the 2nd Gulf War.

And so the serfs rose up against the oppression of the lords who had no real right over them, killing them with farm tools and the guillotine they created.

Now, what has this got to do with what I'm going to blog about?

Simply that I was just passing excrement (ahem) in someone's place, and this thought came to my mind: "I should know my place." Typical Dezhi thought, I would think. Something that is low on esteem and filled with self-belittlement.

But spend some time to think about it. I have a Lord who has every right over my life. He bought it, after all. Have I really thought about what my place is? What I need to do is to obey, and not heed the spirit of rebellion that is within me. Maybe that's why there's been so much difficulty and heartache along the way. Simply because it's not God's way. Makes total sense.

Now if I were me when I was in Secondary Three, I would not believe that I would say such a thing. I believed in freedom, in doing what you want as long as it harms no one and you feel good about it, and in that elusive idea of love. You know, it being universal, selfless, blah blah blah, all that jazz.

I believe in God now. So if you have something to say to me, please don't. I feel like I've grown older over these years. I've learnt a lot of things. So I should know better. Just need to learn once again not to get caught up in the moment, I guess.

So what I'm saying now is that I should emancipate myself like what the serfs did. Break free from the bondage that has held me, and focus on the things I want to achieve. Like get a Vespa! Get a 2B license before getting a Vespa! Get a non-SLR-but-has-manual-options camera! Learn Japanese! Buy a new MacBook Pro if I have extra money (not likely)! What else arh? I think that's about it for now.

Anyways, I saw 2 Vespas at Thomson Plaza today! Gracia was suggesting we share a Vespa. Hahas.. Doubt it will work, but sounds very tempting sia! That would cut the price I have to pay to about 4 thousand bucks up? I think I will be putting a meter up to show my savings real soon =) Presuming I survive ______, the place I am going to.

Kayaking was fun today. I feel like I can do a K1 better now after Wei Lun pang seh me to take a K2 with Jun Kai. I lost to Piper and Cheryl and the J1 in a T1! Quite sad larh. But I guess 1 year of non-rowing really makes a difference. Especially because I didn't do any warm-up rounds! It was like "okae, Dezhi, go challenge them!" Aiyah. I pulled all the way and threw strokes into the wind. Obviously, I died by 500m. Boo! But hey, I loved going back to MacRitchie and capsizing as much as I want. Exhilarating!

I'm now in Jamie's room after playing LAN with the kayaking gang. There's a class gathering going on now with pizza and the last ever game to be held in the National Stadium playing outside, but I'm blogging alone here. Oh melancholy! Hahas.. Drama darling! No lah.. just don't feel especially in the mood for talk with my irritating sore eye in my eye. So hello blog! I've got a feeling I'd become some geek who only blogs before soon (that's if I'm not already that).

This is not bad, you know. There's no climatic ending and sendoff, but at least there's an ending. Another chapter is half closed with no clue as to what the future of the story would bring.

That's the beauty of life isn't it? Nothing is ever final.