THE STOLEN CHILD
It is yet another of those fantasy stories about faeries and changlings. What is interesting of it this time round is how this fantasy world intercepts into our real world. To have things simply put, the story is based on the two main characters, a changling who went to "steal" the life of an ordinary boy , Henry Day, and "becomes" him and the real Henry Day who had no choice but to become a changling.
The story is so wonderful to me because at some point it seem so real while other times, it's just s sheer fantasy. It is a Fantasy in itself. And perhaps what got me to it is because of the fact that it somehow reminds me of how we all are like living in fantasy worlds every now and then, living in our own world while the rest of the world is moving on. At the same time, we are always in this search for self identity. Who Am I? At some point in time, everyone of us was once a stolen child.
It has been a long time since I have had such feelings after I had finished reading a book. As much as I was eager to get to the end of the book, I cannot but help feel sad for a while when I was done. Flipping the pages was easy. Somehow it's always at the point when you get to the end of the last word of the last paragraph of the last chapter that you start questioning if you have gone too fast that you are missing out on the slow digestion to enjoy the process. And what now after I'm done with the story? The pages may have ended but the story does not seem to end there. The characters are still very much alive in my mind. Maybe I have become Henry Day? Or Ani Day?
Thanks to Winter for lending me the book which has been my bedtime story for the couple of weeks with my slow read to digest it, a good sidetrack from my thesis and all things architecture and most of all, a good inspiration to keep my imagination alive.
Without leaving much to be said, here's a good review of the story:
http://www.amazon.com/Stolen-Child-A-Novel/dp/0385516169
S.A.D
In a dispirited mood while working, I went on a random search on the internet to see what's wrong with myself. I came across the S.A.D (Seasonal Affected Disorder) and the symptoms are as follow:
Sleep problems - oversleeping but not refreshed, cannot get out of bed, needing a nap in the afternoon
Overeating - carbohydrate craving leading to weight gain
Depression, despair, misery, guilt, anxiety - normal tasks become frustratingly difficult
Family / social problems - avoiding company, irritability, loss of libido, loss of feeling
Lethargy - too tired to cope, everything an effort
Physical symptoms - often joint pain or stomach problems, lowered resistance to infection
Behavioural problems - especially in young people
I cant help feeling excited that I've got all the symptoms that has been mentioned. That concludes that I DO HAVE S.A.D! At least I have identified my problem! The next step is to cure it! And so I attempted my first Light Therapy session yesterday and it did miraculously helped! By my definition of Light Therapy is to take a walk downtown in the middle of the day. After the walk, I got back to studio and was highly productive! I managed to come up with my sections for my buildings by the end of the day.
After that, I am more convinced that I ought to take a break in the middle of the day to go for my "Light Therapy" everyday! Well, the website was saying that we need about 4 hours of Intense Light Therapy every day!
The Light Therapy continued today. Unfortunately, the therapy had gone wrong or something, it somehow did not have much effect and I just wasted my day away again!
FALLING BACK IN TIME - 29th Oct 2006
An extra hour gained did not seemed that evident when I just slept through that tick of the clock.
Just curious, and what if we get to gain an hour every day? Wonder what life will be like?
Moment of Grieve
The zip on my backpack tore apart one fine day after all the stress that it has to endure from my overloading. That finally stopped my procrastination and got a new bag as I did not want to "expose" my laptop to the calamities of any form -natural or man-made. It's almost a month after that has happened. I woke up this morning and the sight of my old backpack caught my eye. I decided that it's time for my to think about its "future" and not let it just be left hanging around. Grieving is a painful but neccessary process ( they say). At least that will give it a good ending before we part and move on.
