I have fallen sick.

There’s a grating sensation in my throat, which I pummel with water to no avail. I despise being sick, and the fact that I cannot seem to devote my energies entirely to my work. Instead of studying, I read old copies of magazines, read Pride and Prejudice and walk around my house. I don’t even exercise because I am sick. My parents tell me I will suffer a fatal heart attack should I attempt rigorous exercise while ill. I use that as my exercise to shy away from physical exertion and be lazy.

I watched the whole Angels in America series … I think it succeeded emotionally a lot of the time, and the cast was well assembled. Meryl Streep as Ethel Rosenberg was particularly chilling, Al Pacino being the closeted gay racist Republican Jewish lawyer with unnerving ease. Patrick Wilson played the beautiful confused closeted Mormon well, although I confess to paying more attention to his matinee idol countenance than his acting. I tried in vain to decipher some of the fantastical elements of it. I’m not entirely sure I understand what it is the Angel meant when she said to keep moving and keep running, I suppose I lack the grand powers of perception to discern the metaphorical and allegorical resonance of her strange address to Justin Kirk’s character. It only brought to mind my favourite Mark Strand poem :


In a field
I am the absence
of field.
This is
always the case.
Wherever I am
I am what is missing.

When I walk
I part the air
and always
the air moves in
to fill the spaces
where my body's been.

We all have reasons
for moving.
I move
to keep things whole.

I must be resolute now. I will have to free myself of all my distractions, and not think about petty things like prom dresses. I must submit to the reality that, given my limited personal income, I cannot very well go out and procure the Matthew Williamson, Nariciso Rodriguez, Zac Posen and Rochas dresses I would very much like to wear to prom, I will be firm! I shall study! I shall not fail myself and others. I fear that the prelims were nothing but a grand illusion. I don't even know what to write for my college essay, and I have approximately 4 weeks to finish writing it. Sometimes I feel I am rushing towards an end I cannot fully comprehend. Everything in flux, the ebb and flow of it all, and I am powerless to control it.