Life, Laughter and Everything Else

“I err, and therefore I am”. The number of days left in this city has whittled down to a number I can count on my fingers. A couple of days ago I asked my friend if he regretted choosing Stockholm for his exchange. “Now that you asked, actually I do”, he replied. During the long bleak winter, so did I. It was cold, people you knew travelled and those, whom you gave up the people you knew for, hibernated at home. The atmosphere at school was different. The American-Pie-like craziness I expected, I got, but then I realised that it was not really what I wanted. I left Singapore in search for people whom I thought might appreciate life more. Instead I saw scores that drank and partied, only to complain of headaches and hangover the next day. So I avoided the parties, the drinks and rejected invitation after invitation. I stayed in my comfort zone and ventured out along tracks that I knew was safe, that I knew had something in the end for me. I was convinced that actions ha...

If there is something I really enjoy in life, it is meeting like-minded people. If there is anything I enjoy even more, it is meeting someone who has a set of beliefs completely opposed to mine, but whom I can’t prove wrong by reason. Now that is someone with a refreshingly new perspective. He was one such person. Tall, respectably well built and bearded with hair uncut in months, he resembled more of a hitchhiker than a playboy. I was not aware of his little hobby when I had decided to to host him at my place for a night. The truth came to light from his own mouth, and while there was all the possibility he could have been making up these stories, I saw firsthand the way he dealt with the girls, and I could see they loved him, his boyish charm, his jokes and his attention. Expectedly, my first question to him was, “ So can you give me any tips? ” What he revealed is probably what you already know. The art of picking up is essentially the art of marketing, except this tim...

"So how has exchange changed you?" I might be one of the rare few who will respond to that question with an "I don't know". But honestly, I do not know and I am myself stupefied by this lack of an answer when the question was directed towards me, especially considering how much I preach about the pursuit of a meaningful life and the dare to take up life changing experiences.  And while it a month too early, I think this is a good time as any to look back and reflect on a period where I was far away from the warmth and comfort of family and friends, in a strange land that is both Antarctica and Spain in the same year. It has been a period which I had earmarked as a time to do some soul searching, but that has instead left me critcising the often over-maturity and sometime immaturity of my decisions.  I still feel that I am very much the same person I was before, though perhaps I have picked up some new pleasures in the form of grocery shopping and (v...