Huzzah! My first postcard has arrived, all the way from New York City! How apt is it that I receive a postcard from this wonderful state, when I've been dreaming of going to New York for as long as I can remember?

"For in much wisdom is much grief: and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow"

- Ecclesiastes 1:18

I'm experiencing warm and fuzzing feelings as I look through the many photos taken by Team 1 in Nepal. My uncle asked what were the things I got to experience in Nepal that I can never come across in Singapore. This is what I told him:

1. Learn that mental strength > physical strength

2. Meet some of the kindest and most patient men I will ever meet in my life.

I told him about Hom, and the two or three porters whom I got to know more than the other porters, as well as Sanjay, the guide (not the whole dodgy ol' misunderstanding between us), and told him how Sanjay taught me to always stop and smell the flowers and observe the tiny little things in life we always miss out because we're too busy focusing on the importance of getting to our destination before dark. Like, how Sanjay knows when a flower will bloom, when a hill will start to erode just by looking at the state of the sand, how he can spot a bird's nest high up in a tree and mountain goats miles away on the hills, and especially how patient he is and willing (or rather, forced) to put my with my incessant whining and barrage of questions.

These are the things that I have, throughout our 10 day trek, repeatedly told and/or asked, literally everyday:

"Sanjay, left or right?"

"Sanjay, is it this way?"

"Sanjay, its too high! My legs are too short!"

"Sanjay, I'm going to die now."

"Sanjay, if I fall, you must catch me okay?"

"Sanjay, how long more?"

"Sanjay I cannot walk anymore!"

"Sanjay, you want to die?" (when he pulled pranks during my bitch-fit episodes)

"Sanjay, I want to sleep!"

"Sanjay if I'm too tired, you must carry me up."

"Sanjay, I want chocolate!"

"Sanjay, I want to wash my hair!"

'Sanjay, bistari!" (slowly, in Nepali)

If I were Sanjay, I'd throw Serene off the bloody cliff.

3. See shooting stars for the first time in my life.

4. Go to a pub, for the very first time in my life and play pool, and also learn that I'm such a prude and make a terrible pub date.

5. Appreciate the modernity of living in a first world country, especially with proper flushing toilets and showers.

6. Appreciate that I am not living a life of poverty.

7. Learn that money definitely does not always bring you happiness.

8. Know that I would definitely want to return to Nepal again before I die.

9. Understand that heart > looks.

10. Seethe in anger at how porters are shockingly under acknowledged and under appreciated in their efforts as they help trekkers carry their entire load up the mountain.

11. How I'm just too nice for my own good.

Officially done with the first day of house visits. Much to my amusement, my kurta was the talk of the clan. No one appeared scandalized, unless my schema of what a scandalized emotional reaction is is topsy.

My mum said I looked nice! Haha for the first time in my life ever, she says I look good in front of my face. She demanded she take a photo of me so she could send it to my aunt. My dad, on the other hand, just sat in the living room stony-faced and slackened on the wooden chair. My mum later informed me that he had quietly asked her why in the world I was wearing an Indian suit on Chinese New Year?

My mum then retaliated then called him a traditional stuffy pudding face and to just let me wear whatever I wished to, because unlike him, thank God her children are not as traditional as he is and control whatever his children wear or do during Chinese New Year, and that I looked nice in it so he should just keep quiet.

Bless her heart, my mother.

Anyway, may I just say how awesome it was to be at the center of attention while at my grandfather's house? It was amusing to shake everyone's hand to say Happy New Year, then retracting my hand and placing my palms together to say Namaste after that, and then seeing everyone's amused expressions. Everyone in the clan assumed my costume to be an Indian Punjabi costume. I suppose I'll have to let this one go, since there are Indian Nepalese women in India who wear the Punjabi suits there. A relative jokingly asked my dad where he had imported me from, to which my dad replied, " I got her from the Gaza Strip!"

Til now, I'm not sure how I am supposed to react, but at that moment, it seemed pretty funny and sounded like a compliment. My aunt commented that I could pass off as an Indian, and several other relatives remarked how they could not recognize me at all when they saw me. They assumed I was my grandfather's Indian neighbor, who always come round Chinese New year to visit us. The young children there were fascinated with the bindi that I wore which matched my outfit. In case you were wondering, a bindi is the forehead decoration, typically in the shape of a dot or a water drop that's used as a head decoration to ward off bad luck and which also serves as a third eye.

I should I had bought more bindis while in Kathmandu. I wonder if Little India has them too.

Speaking of Indian neighbors and bindis, I have just learnt that my granddad's neighbor is actually a 4th year psychology student in the University of New South Wales and currently on exchange in NTU. No wait, wait for it. The cool part here is that she's taking the same subjects as I am this year, and if I'm not mistaken, we are in the same Social Psychology tutorial group!

Anyway, y'all should be so proud of me for no taking a single CNY goodie over there. God, no wonder I've been so fat all my life. Munching on all these goodies and seriously overeating has made me overweight. My grandfather's domestic helper even said I looked so much better now that I'm not so fat as I used to be.

Thanks. I think.

Okay, keep going Serene and stick to your New Year's resolutions.

Too bad I can't change the shape of my calve s. I'll have to live with this physical flaw for the rest of my life.

Anyway, today was such an ego-satisfying day for me. Lah dee dah. It makes me wish that I had bought an extra kurta in a different color, as well as more bindis. Oh well. Azeemah, Astrini and Kelly, I'm now so thankful that the three of you convinced me to buy the suit. Best S$30 I ever spent.

Anyway, White Chicks is on HBO now. Its Triple TKA now!

I had the most intriguing dream about this whole Sanjay drama last night.

I don't exactly recall how the dream started. Its funny how we always land smack in the middle of a dream without knowing how exactly it started, sort of like being in a parallel universe. Anyway, in my dream, I was sitting at a table with a group of friends and suddenly, my iPhone started buzzing. The lit screen displayed Sanjay's number and so I excused myself from the table to answer it. I don't recall what the both of us spoke during the first few moments of the call, but all I remembered was how Sanjay started, well, sobbing into the phone like a baby. I think I must have told him how I didn't love him the way he thinks he loves me and the way he thinks I love him too. And much to my guilt, he started asking me why I waited so long for me to tell him that I didn't have any reciprocal feelings toward him. He was making weird choking noises and I started feeling flustered and desperately looking around the room for a way out - an excuse to end this conversation.

Then I woke up.

If that was not enough, this morning during breakfast, I was eating my cereal and reading a storybook because my dad wasn't done reading the Sunday Times, and on of the pages of the book, it read " Because the worst thing in the world is when you string someone along when you're not interested in them. And they suddenly fall for you, and you don't fall for them and don't tell them the truth."

Am I just stringing Sanjay along by not telling him I see him only as an older brother/person whom I happened to rely upon during my 2 week trek , and that he would just be a person who'll always have a place in my heart and memory because sometimes, we meet people in our lives whom we'll never forget because they did something for us. But that doesn't mean I see Sanjay as being a romantic partner.

Even if I did have feelings for Sanjay, how the hell am I supposed to make a relationship with him while I'm here in Singapore and he's trotting along mountainous trails in Nepal?

But that's not even the point, because I do not love Sanjay. This is just, a winter romance that will eventually fizzle and melt away. The point is, it really isn't fair to "deceive" Sanjay like this and play with his emotions. Some women do that, play along with this charade and take the poor unsuspecting man in their palms, play them for suckers and keep their hopes up and then do something vicious that breaks their heart. The thing is, I cannot do that. Its not in my nature.

I am the girl who runs away from commitment. I am the girl who is frightened at the possibility of a person ever being in love with me. I am the girl who is scared at the possibility that someone may actually want to be with me. Why, because I am the girl who cannot be tied down. I cannot imagine having to set aside some time in my week to go dating with a boy. I live by schedules.

I think I'm just too nice for my own good. Who writes farewell letters to people anyway, saying how much they're so grateful for helping them and telling them that they're such good and kind-hearted men? Actually, now as I recall the content of my letter, I myself would misinterpret it as a subtle proclamation of love. If so, I would have given it to Tej instead of Sanjay, because Tej is just way too gorgeous for his own good.

Hormones are a very powerful thing

I'm such a douche. I ought not to roam the streets. No wonder all the other sherpas and porters there are laughing at me. I should have just hugged and said goodbye, maybe present him with Pringles and be done and over with. What was I thinking? Asty says its the thought that counts, but I may have gone a tad too...dramatic.

But then again, I'm flattered be, for the moment, the object of someone else's desire and fantasy.

Hmmm. Maybe not

Okay. Let's be mature here. What I'm going to do to resolve this situation. What I am going to do. Is...

Go back to bed now because I slept at 5am after working for almost 2 hours to work off that psychotic binge I went on.

On an uplifting note:

Santana and Mercedes make the best duo ever. On for the record, I still maintain that Mercedes is better than Rachel. So what if Lea Michele sang on Broadway and is now skinny?

HUZZAH.

My postcards to Texas, Germany, the Netherlands and Finland have finally reached their respective addressees!

Surprisingly, I am actually anticipating the first day of Chinese New Year celebrations, but not for the reasons you may be thinking. I typically dread the social customs associated during this festive Chinese season because:

1. Chinese custom, or rather, my father, dictates that I engage in small talk with my frightful Chinese-speaking-only relatives who continue to converse with me in a dialect that leaves me feeling utterly befuddle, despite repeatedly telling them I do not understand a single word that they are uttering, accompanied by mindless gesturing.

But hey its a custom, not a rule.

2. Having to answer questions about my personal life from Nosy Rosy relatives and their friends, ranging from the educational institution that I am currently studying in, to the state of my marital status. Hopefully, my sister's change in her status would distract them their usual torturous interrogations directed at me.

3. Having no one operating on my intellectual wavelength who can carry out appropriate intellectual/social conversations/gossip with me, forcing me to retreat to the corner of the living room and burying my nose in a book, much to the chagrin and annoyance of my traditional Chinese father who belittles and looks down on my love for books. I'm sorry, but I cannot possibly find a single Chinese relative in the Juan clan who has ever read Jean Sasson or Jodi Picoult to keep me amused. And, most of my relatives are at least 30 years old and too busy engaging in "adult-talk" to want to talk to me about the discipline of psychology or the state of women in Middle East with the lack of enforced rights to protect them from abusive and backward husbands who, sadly misinterpret the Koran in ways that would surely disappoint Allah himself.

4. Being forced to face fattening, calorie-laden Chinese New Year goodies that will time and time again, put my new year resolution to the test.

5. Having your ultra-conservative Bible-beating aunt bring her flock of friends from church and having them preach to me about the sorrows of atheism, the joys of the Bible because listening to the Word of God brings peace to my empty soul, and subsequently culminating with them blessing my siblings and I with what they claim to be holy water. To which I always tell my aunt that the Bible cannot be fully taken to heart because the Bible was written by Man and not God himself. Since Men are flawed and biased, it is likely that the version of accounts in the Bible are flawed and biased themselves. The double whammy here is that we can neither prove nor disprove that the events in the Bible are true because the men who wrote it are dead. Without scientific and/or probable justification to prove that the Bible is either true or false, the Bible can essentially be considered moot at this point in time.

I think my aunt banned me from going to her church when I first told her that 5 years ago.

However, I'm somewhat looking forward to Monday only because of the fact that I intend to wear the traditional Nepalese costume I bought in Nepal to wear.

And instead of saying gong xi fa cai, I'm going to greet everyone with Namaste.

My aim here is to scandalize the bejesus out of my traditional Chinese relatives by wearing clothes of another country and culture in Southeast Asia, rather than a nice cheongsam.

I positively cannot wait gaze upon the looks of horror/jealousy on their faces as they gaze at my adoring costume.

Aren't I positively delightful? That's what you get for being the black sheep in the family. Hear me bleep!

On a completely unrelated side note, when is my father ever going to leave the living room so that I can walk on the elliptical machine and watch Harry Potter at the same time? He's been sitting there for over an hour by himself, answering the phone when it rings and spewing a string of curse words into the phone every two minutes that is actually very disconcerting. I have just caved in, and somewhat binged on a tosh of junk food, much to my annoyance and am fully intending to glue my butt to the elliptical machine for the next hour and a half.

Great. I can't even starve myself right. Get yourself straightened up slut.

There are eye bags under my eyes now. They look like ball sacs thank you very much. And are very unflattering.

And I have eye-ball sacs thanks to a hefty night of midnight jibbering with Asty online about letters, texts and cute porters whom we fantasize about.

I'm sorry but is it my fault that good looking boys don't like me?

Yes. Because I neither have the looks nor figure to attract boys and should just stick to what I do best. Going to school and studying. Books never disappoint me.

Except for Jodi Picoult's Sing You Home, because that was a disappointing read.

Have I ever mentioned how I find it distasteful to have to think of openings for a blog post? My idea of an "opening" is to just cut to the chase and getting straight to the point. That's what you get for detesting shades of gray and basking in the clear cuts of black and white.

Given what the embarrassment and humiliation that has plagued me last night, I'm gleeful that school has started to distract me from the above emotions that are currently throwing me off course and putting me into a terrible countenance.

All I can say is, this will teach me to never be so open with my emotions to people (okay maybe not to people, but to people of the opposite sex) in general. The idea that women overly interpret emotions and words is completely false now, because the male species are equally guilty of this felony, albeit in completely unexpected and perturbing ways.

Plus, I can honestly say that I am so not ready to deal with such emotionally laden moments. I remain a child as I flee in fright from such issues dealing with the heart.

Maturity much, I ask you?

I'm in positively no mood to do any of the assigned readings for tomorrow Research Design lecture. Isn't it only the first week of school? My body is aching from my run around the school after dinner, and I just want to plop onto my bed with my magazine and read til I fall asleep.

Should I sit down and read, or lie down and read?

Talk about laziness.

Okay. No more procrastinating. I read at 11pm and sleep by 12.30am at the latest!

It constantly amazes me how the odd little "catch-ups" with friends from your previous schools can bring back such peculiar and wonderful memories, and how events that you vowed never to speak of again, are brought into the conversation and what once seemed to be uneventful and disastrous now seems pretty darn funny.

Lunch at a quaint little cafe near our homes with JL and DL. Unsurprisingly, the only two friends I manage to keep up with from my old secondary school class are these 2 wonderful people and even though we haven't spoken to each other in months, its peculiar how we have so much things to talk about, what with our new and ever-changing lives.

I'm still enmeshed in a state of denial with regards to the start of the school, which is odd because before I flew to Nepal, I positively could not wait for school to start. But now after spending 2 glorious weeks baking under the sun and shivering in the cold in the Himalayas and opening my eyes to a plethora of mystical wonders that the rest of my family can only dream of, I now want nothing to do but travel, travel and travel.

With nothing but a camera, pen and a notebook.

Of course, this might just be a temporary phase in life. Maybe when I'm trapped in a sea of school assignments and projects, all thoughts of traveling would cease for the next 5 months as I struggle to raise my CGPA.

Another interesting thing I've come to note is how many people turning 21 this year are throwing birthday bashes to celebrate this social milestone. Why, in the 1st week of January, acquaintances and friends have electronically invited me to their 21st "birthday bash" to commemorate the commencement of their adulthood.

My questions is, what is it with people and the need to throw elaborate, attention-grabbing birthday parties when you're turning 21? Its just a day when we turn a year older, isn't it? Obviously its just a social custom that's been blown into elaborate proportions that has become highly commercialized as some individual compete and see whose party is the most elfin' big one amongst their friends. However, I still do understand that it is an incredibly significant day for young adults like us, keen on roping in much more taxing responsibilities in life and relinquishing themselves from the unpleasant memories of their childhood.

Or maybe I'm speaking from a biased perspective, seeing as how majority of my birthdays are spent at home with but a simple cake. And how I positively hated my primary and secondary school experiences.

Wouldn't it be nice to spend my birthday away in a foreign land, dwelling in the anonymity of a tourist while I'm out and about strolling the streets of Venezuela or nibbling pastries in Sicily?

Its intriguing to note how television can warp one's mind. I now find more enthusiasm in watching The Big Bang Theory than reading my new book, Snow Flower & The Secret Fan.

And I have just died from watching Who's Line Is It Anyway.

On the Last Day of 2011.

This is what I did on the last day of 2011:

- I read old books while drinking ice-cold chocolate milk

- I flipped through old copies of CLEO and Seventeen magazine

- I created New Year resolutions, for the very first time, and am bent on keeping them.

- I watched a show on HBO that, apart from John Q starring Denzel Washington, very excellently depicts the very taboo topic of health insurance in America, called The Rainmaker (regardless of the fact that its adapted from a Grisham novel), featuring Matt Damon, Jon Voigt and Danny Devito. I swear. Jon Voigt should totally be given villain roles from now on, just because he's so good at being a villain. And looking the part of a villain. Refer to Enemy of the State for more evidence.

- I re-watched Black Hawk Down, one of the most amazing war movies ever made, aside from Pearl Harbour.

- I watched re-runs of The Big Bang Theory Seasons 1 and 2.

- I lay around on my bed, tossing and turning and trying to entice Bobby to stay on the bed and sleep next to me. As disturbing and completely gross as it sounds to non-dog lovers, the smell of Bobby somehow makes me feel comforted (and yes, Bobby just had a bath the day before)

- I spent a good hour on Facebook, sifting through all the photos taken by members of KERT which injected a sense of nostalgia in me, and allowed me to relieve all the wonderful moments and memories spent in Nepal.

- I got a good workout on my very old elliptical machine while the whole world, or at least, Singaporeans were doing the countdown at various clubs and other locations around the island (like I care about some countdown).

So you see, my life has reverted back to its same old unexciting routine.

Go figure.