I have one question I would like you to take the time to think about: what emotion do you personally find is the most excruciatingly painful, and why is that?
Or if you can’t decide then perhaps you would like to pick one emotion you would like to reflect on a little? Is there any specific emotion, apart from what you think would be obvious (such as happiness, perhaps), that stands out to you? Anything that has stuck to your brain (not necessarily one you feel yourself) and intrigued you?

Personally I’ve always been very aware of how bittersweet is so heart-wrenchingly painful. I’m not saying bittersweet is the worst one out there as anyone could argue for a dozen other feelings that could be worse, but bittersweet has always been special to me, always stuck with me like a quirky little idea refusing to let go. I think it’s one of those that are sometimes easily taken lightly. Bittersweet might not sound that bad because there’s a sweet part to it — but I think it is exactly because of that sweet part that makes it so much more unbearable than had it been just bitter alone.

I often picture bittersweet as an epilogue. The ending to a war, the ending to a story. The aftermath after a great battle. Imagine standing in the middle of a battlefield newly victorious after a great battle and taking in the sight of the hushed field strewn with the dead bodies of your comrades. When that bone deep relief and weariness soaks into your body when you realize you just survived and won what was believed to be impossible, but at the same time you also feel like crying out in anguish and laughing a crazy humorless laugh because of the… painful victory. Victory, yes, but at what cost. It’s an overwhelming feeling of relief of having achieved the impossible, but hurting badly inside knowing so well what was sacrificed along the way.

Bittersweet is that mush of contradicting feelings where you’re happy, because of the good things that came out of something, yet you are in great pain due to possible sacrifices along the way. The whole situation is just kind of ironic to deal with such contradicting feelings, and it only adds to the pain. It’s gratitude laced with incredible pain.

You just don’t know whether you should laugh or cry.

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It was brought to my attention that the comment page was going bonkers, it’s fixed now so you can leave a reply :) Sorry about that guys!

…and I’ve been rubbish at keeping you updated. Haha. I’m sorry, busy times means less writing! Anyways, the biggest events lately must have been the Pharmacy Christmas Ball 2010. As tradition has it I made my ball dress again, but this time my dress was a short one to make it different from last year’s design. The colour choice will always stay white of course, but details, cut, length etc. will always differ with each year :) I don’t have any good photos of my dress from the actual ball, but I wore it to the Hong Kong Society Christmas dinner as well and there were some better photos from that one:

We had a leaving dinner for the Bergen students on Wednesday, was rather sad as I’ve come to love these people. Some of our lecturers attended as well, was a very good dinner!

And you know how much I love symphony orchestras, so I went to a concert by the UEA symphony orchestra (can you believe we have our own orchestra?) and choir. It was beautiful.

I’ve been working every weekend at Hollister now, and I must say it’s definitely a much easier job than being a waitress. I fold clothes, help customers find their style/size/whatever they need help with and do transactions at the till. My collegeaues and I all look pretty much alike because we have a very strict look policy. This is my uniform, what I wear to work everyday and it’s all from Hollister. Feels weird being dressed up in one brand from top to toe (literally as well). You might notice how dark this outfit is compared to my everyday style. So depressing… but it looks good, so it’s not bad at all! (Yes, flip flops are part of my uniform)

Oh well, I’ve got another 3 exams next week and I better scoot off and make some food before I die here. And then back to revision. Perhaps an all-nighter again? We’ll see! Btw, thanks Marie for nudging me about updating! I really really am rubbish at this am I not? Seems like I always need someone to remind me to write! In any case, this was a pretty shitty update, but I promise to write something more decent with actual thoughtful content when Christmas break starts in a week! In the meanwhile you guys have a merry good time!