post yep trip syndrome

The saddest thing happened to me during my vietnam trip.. My YEP journal was lost and never to be found again! How very sad and unfortunate..3 weeks of memories, fun and laughter written in black and white all gone! Of course I was devastated at first, but in the midst of my sorrow and sense of loss, I picked up the scrapes of left over construction paper strewn on the floor of the bunk and made a new mini journal to replace the old. Once the mini book was made using stapler and blue, red and pink construction paper, I began to write in earnest all the lessons I had learnt from this trip. I was consolidating the hightlights from the past few weeks. It was like a re-cap of all the events with an indepth analysis. This incident made me realise how fragile these things are. Journals, letters written between friends and lovers,all pieces of paper that will turn yellow and tear one day. All these forms of momento could be easily misplaced esp by careless pple like me or wiped out by a fire .. why are such stuff are so important to some pple? thats because these things have sentimental value. This make me think of abstracts of scenes from some melodramatic movie where in a life and death situation, the lead actor or actress would go risk his/ her life in order to get back some material possession which is given to him/her by his/her lover or mother. Hmm, these material possession may come in the form of neckless, ring or even a simple letter. They may not be expensive but are strong symbols of something great. I feel that these trinkets are important and so dear to us because they help us to remember happy times spent together. Memories fade, the human brain is not like some memory storage device where memories could be brought to life by the click of the mouse. These things help us remembering.. or, they may be a form of a promise, for example, a wedding ring, it is a promise of a lifetime of commitment and devotion to each other. Whatever it may be , I cannot deny the importance of such stuff. But, to me they take up too much space in my room and it s getting really messy. Tsk tsk then I ll have to choose which to keep and which to throw or come up with a new storage system. Anyway, the most important thing is still the actual friendship and relationship. It is the pple that should be most treasured not the thing they give as a form of rememberance or promise..
Good friends the kind u wiould treasure for a lifetime are hard to come by..
Sometimes we hang out with a particular clich during lessons or sth but as time goes by due to change of circumstances and our paths dun cross so often anymore, the clich starts to drift and onli meet up during special occassions..
True, they are also very dear but I feel that it is on one on one basis tt u can really make the kind of close friends who fills up a certain emotional void in our lives. Those kind of friends are almost as close as family... these frends dun come easy

firstly, both parties haf to haf a certain affinity for each other, affinity in my context is a much milder interpretation of fate. I do not really believe in fate as I believe that the life you lead comes with the choices you make. However, certain things do haf a higher probability of happening to certain pple and that in my context is called affinity.

Secondly, in order for it to blossom, both parties must be able to meet up rather frequently to build up the friendship, thats why most of our really close friends come from sec sch or Junior colleges. Those days were the times spent hanging out with friends during recess, after sch, during tutorial... go through practically everything together..

I guess aft that you still need a certain amt of determination and effort to maintain it .. thats why its crucial to make time for friends...

Lastly, one of the most impt thing is tt both parties must be able to "connect". This connection is not shared among lots of pple, it is a feeling of inexplicable ease with each other, a feeling tt u can trust this person almost completely and deep in your soul u feel tt u can care for this person and is concerned for his/her well being. You would also want to be in the company of him/her as you can open up to him/her because you know tt he/she truly understands you and is genuinely interested in wat happened and has interesting insights of his/her own to share..

This comes with trust and as i grow older i realise this level of trust makes pple vunerable and it doesnt come easy ... ,the world is not such a beautiful place afterall .. but i still refuse to give in tot he cruelties in life as I believe in humanity .. I choose to retain my trust in people though i know they might betray me .. But, this knowledge makes me find even greater beauty in those friends of mine as now I know how precious this sort of trust is in the midst of the uncertainty and distrust in the world. I choose to indulge in childlike innocence as this makes me very happy but at the same time I would have higher awareness in order to protect myself and people i care about ...thats my motto in life