On Full Moon's Day...

5 thousand years of chinese astrology couldn't go wrong... the full moon on the 8th lunar month will always be the brightest full moon of the year. Chinese culture has traditionally been closely related to the moon as the Chinese calendar IS based on the cycles of the moon. For generations, the Chinese people have been farming and holding their annual festivals based on the lunar calendar and it has not let us down.

Tonight is especially special as the full moon is at its best. So bright, so serene yet it reflects upon us a sense of sorrow and melancholy. I do not know about you but I am certainly feeling a little melancholiac right now.

I was about to download the attachment on my email which is a copy of the assignment that we are suppose to hand up today and i was in charge of doing the final editing. Unfortunately, before i clicked on the link to download the file, as though the moon beckons people to get out of their dorms and get a break from their busy lives to experience its magnificence, the whole campus suffered from a blackout. Only the emergency lights that were fully charged all this while kicked in to action and dimly illuminated the corridors, the staircase and the toilets.

Annoyed i packed up my notebook as i was in my friends room and i asked them whether they want to go out for mamak or just to have a stroll around the hostel area to soak up the atmosphere of this special night. Their answer was a resounding NO as they prepared their beds and bunked in. I can barely tell what they were doing on their beds with the dim moonlight coming in from the windows that were now opened wide to let the cool breeze of the night come in.

Feeling a little let down, i climbed up the stairs to my room to keep my notebook and lock it up in the closet just in case of theft as the incidents of theft are really high in the past month. I took along only my room keys that were attached to the bicycle lock keys and my handphone and off i went down again to get a bike ride and soak up the view of the full moon just like what i have always done without fail as a little kid. Back then i went out of the house with a lantern of course but since i do not have one with me at the time, my bicycle would suffice. I cycled around at a relaxed pace feeling the breeze blowing on my face and taking deep breaths of this cool and refreshing air while making phone calls at the same time. Number after number i dialed and all of them refused to join me in my 'cycle as you enjoy the night'.

This lack of friends during such a great time to kick back and chat makes me feel the emptiness of this place again all of a sudden. Just as the moon's serene light shines upon my gaze, i feel the serene melancholy of being without friends that would join me to do something crazy just to feel young and alive again. The human atmosphere here is almost as though every person for him/herself. As i cycle past other people who are taking walks because they couldn't sleep like me, i gazed at them trying to make out who they were, looking at their blurred out faces in the dark. It was as though i was dead and all i could see were faceless people walking around. The only thing that reaffirms that i wasn't dead was the fact that the other people also looked back at me trying to make out who i was just as i was doing the same to them.

The fun of cycling alone in the darkness only illuminated by the moonlight quickly fizzled as there were no one to share the joy with. So is my main reason of feeling sorrow in this place where not only god, but men forsake.

I locked back my bike at its place and i ascended the same stairs tat greet me every week and every day as i come back to this place of grief, sorrow, frustration and bitterness. Although life's experiences are suppose to make us better and not bitter, how can i be better when everyone else here is bitter?