Gah... feel like writing (or blogging, whatever) but do not have any idea what to write about. I am hoping that simply by typing, words will magically link into comprehensive sentences, and eventually, with any luck, into actual intelligible paragraphs. It seems to be working well thus far :P

I was recently thinking about my hometown - Miri. How it has changed in the few years I have been gone. The overall city remains the same but there are minute changes. A new shop, a newly paved road, a new landmark, even.

I have this memory of my mother and I in the dining room. I am eleven at the time. She is telling me that they (my parents) are planning on moving to Miri. The impact of fully comprehending this crushing news was a huge blow to me. I cried so much that night, not so much of the prospect of leaving Brunei, but of leaving my lifestyle. It was small comfort that, at the time, many of my friends' families were also moving back to America, Canada, Malaysia, Australia (I loved the ecclectic group of friends I had as a child - so many countries).

Moving meant leaving behind the swimming pool with its waterfall and adjacent kiddie pool where we would build our whirlpools in. It meant leaving the squash courts where instead of learning to play squash, swinging the racket was just a fantastic excuse for a pirouette. Moving to a new country meant that I indeed would never get the chance to wear the big-girl high school uniforms of Brunei with their sky-blue skirts. It meant that I could no longer play with the rocks and pretend to set up some "shop" or other in the crevices of the rocky hillside across from the apartment buildings I lived in. I suppose, above all, moving meant that the chapter of my life that, even to this day, remains my favourite would be closed and that I would have to basically start over.

It took me so long before I finally felt comfortable claiming Miri to be my hometown. And now, once again, the city feels strange and alien to me.

I often times view myself not unlike a desert nomad. Even now, I am incapable of envisioning myself living in the same place for more than a few years. I have trouble seeing myself buying a house or apartment, knowing how permanent that seems.

We are all victims of our upbringing, I suppose. Not so much because we have to but more because as children, we sculpt and shape of our life philosophies using our role models as our outline, our point of reference. Philosophies we pound into our own heads as children. Philosophies so ingrained in our minds that we no longer know why we put stock in it. It does not matter how hard you try to remove yourself from believing in it, there will always be some small fragment of it left, impacting your new, more up-to-date views.

Ok... I have satisfied the writing bug.