Saturday
Saturday, August 23rd 2003, 1848 hours
Location: Central Library, NUS, third floor
Weather: rainy
The sky is violet in the evening rain, violet washed with muddy brown. Beyond the window the trees, deep brown, deep green as the light fades to electric. All stirred in the watercolour palette of the storm.
It's cold outside, Shirley assures me, or at least she did an hour ago. Freezing, both indoors and out, to skin more used to the heavy wet of sunshine. I went out myself just now to get a coat; the breeze was cold and thin and hung with dew. Quiet puddles on the tiles. Stones slick like the dark backs of nameless fish. And the quiet sound of evening rain, falling, falling.
It's Saturday now and still I'm on campus. I promised myself I'd take the weekend off, but it's so hard to tear yourself away. Morning to night I've been working, over the past week; putting in hours at the library, staying abreast of readings, doing my own research on the side. All essential, of course, for Honours year. It hasn't been too difficult; funny how leisure seems to take care of itself. It's merely a matter of work taking up the slack time. Perhaps it's the novelty of it all. But right now I can think of little else I'd rather be doing. It is something to do, after all the long idle July weeks. I'm rested and ready, and that's good.
The crowds have been getting to me, though: the mad thronging masses in the corridors, with their voices and their noise and all the chaos they leave in their wake. The corridors are clogged as usual, various student organisations / halls are getting in everyone's way with their endless orientation activities, and there's nowhere to sit away from the crowd anymore. It gets better late in the night, or on weekends like today: only a few people, and sometimes a few friends. Times like these calm me down, keep me sane, keep me kind and friendly and personable. Hopefully the Lit Honours room'll open soon, and I'll have somewhere to run.