cloudy days。

On a sunday morning, with plenty of sleep the night before, is a good sunday morning. Flipping through the papers, I found this excerpt from an article about unhappy scholars. I was just about to flip the pages until i came across this under the comments column. i was having troubles expressing how exactly it feels at the end of my exchange at the start of 2009, i think this excerpt rationalised it very aptly.

It felt terrible, to know that the fairy tale was coming to an end…

For as much as it was enriching, my time overseas was disorientating. The more I saw, the lesser I was sure of who I was, where I came from and where I stood.

Contrary to the writer’s opinion, I regard the ‘disorientating’ positively. It was a refreshing experience as you discover more about yourself. It was disorientating, it leaves me confused and upset. But as I try to gather those memories and experience, and give them second and third thoughts, I realised that all of those have strengthened me, in many ways.

It’s like sailing out in the sea.

If I had chosen to stay in the gentle and calm sea where I was entirely familiar with, I’m likely to have grown at a pace that I’m normally used to. No doubt it’s also growth, as over the same period time, I would also learn to be better at steering my sail.

But by choosing to sail out to the more choppy waters and bigger waves, it’s less comfortable, it’s disorientating. But at the end of the storm, as the sea calms down, have I become a much better sailor? I think so.