Merciless memory though I may possess, even that has its limits. When I look back on some of my past writings, I must confess being shocked that I can't remember those thoughts running through my head. I don't imagine this is because I didn't ponder long and hard about the surrounding events; quite the opposite, as the early days of this blog will attest to. This is troubling when the writing was about my then grave uncertainty about the path I was going down, which turns out to be path I am on now, funnily enough. On reflection, it seems that a single fork most momentous and harrowing took its hold on my world, shook hard, and caused a swirl for about half a year...before it became my new state of being. Comfortingly or depressingly, one gets used to anything, and forgets that there was once the option of it all ending up differently. Does my forgetting mean that deep down, I've resolved all that past uncertainty, and that this is the road I was meant to take after all? Yeah, that must be it.

All these years on, and some things just don't change. I once again provided entertainment to the poor comrade who happened to run into me after it was done, as I was imagining aloud the various hoops I've have to jump through in order to make up for that joke of a performance. He took it all very well, and he had enough foresight in him to claim that my mutterings of B+'s were tantamount to, how should I put it, s/+/S/g. Unlike that great southern land, the land of the free took very little time to prove him right. The discrepancy between expectation and result wasn't as bad as one particular incident the astute reader will recall, but it was bad enough for me to realize that I still have a loong way to go. At least I can provide more entertainment as I stumble through.

And therefore I have sailed the seas and come
To the holy city of Byzantium.

Well, I'd like to think so anyway, but at least the possibility of it being more than just another city, just another country, seems open. I suppose the natural thing to do in such circumstances is to follow-up the teary farewell post with a down-to-earth rumination of the changes one perceives. But aside from being too obvious, I fear it will also prove to be too time-consuming. Instead, I figure, why not try to capture changes as they naturally occur, and capture them in my specialty (ultra-short prose)? We shall see what time and inspiration permits!

I really do miss the days when I used to listen to actual CDs on my CD player, rather MP3s on the computer. Nowadays, my CDs typically see the light of day only for that first time when I convert them to MP3 form, which is added to my digital collection. I rarely, if ever, put a CD into my player; since my computer is connected to my speakers and headphones, it is convenient to listen to music either way! Of course, it does mean that my CDs are nice and clean, with no smudges and what have you. Still, all that lying around can't do much good for their dust resistance...

The convenience of my digital library I cannot question, but it does feel like something is missing. It is strange to talk of the tactile aspect of an audio-medium, but that plays no small part I think. I find that even the joy of flicking through liner notes is shoved away till the mood hits me, usually at a completely arbitrary moment where there is no music being played. Even the album art itself used to find itself subject to careful scrutiny, along with every aspect of the track listing. Looking at some old CDs that I remember studying carefully as the music was playing, I can't help but feel that convenience is most certainly not everything.