A long night it is, one bereft of emotions, intellect, and communication whatsoever.  One in which I would gladly relax and reminisce, or perhaps occupy myself with a good movie or look at photos for the sake of amusement. 

So I did.

Content with scrolling through Maurice’s photos and admiring how flattering he looked in formal wear, I found myself looking at the photos of others, and quite inevitably, I ended up on GOLWOUNHANOGACHY’s page.

GOLWOUNHANOGACHY. His mark on me is indelible. The first person to fill my heart with such exhilaration it lasted for days, even months on end. The first person to have impeded my oratorical abilities reducing me to nothing more than a panicky blushing lass, hemming and hawing as I struggle, to much failure, to even enunciate the most minute of things.  

The first person whose presence even from afar sends me into spasms of happiness, causing my cognitive abilities to somewhat malfunction.   The first person whose pictures I stare at with lovelorn sighs; the first person I ever attempted to sketch and the first person for whom I attempted poetry.

So charismatic, so free spirited, so witty. I never ceased to laugh whenever he was close. ..and yet that aura of mystery shrouding him draws me to him, invoking my desire to become closer to him, to learn more about him and his ambiguous background.

Circumstances had him ejected from my life in the harshest way possible. Betrayal, gradual deterioration of our relationship till close to nothing remained.  Determined as I was not to succumb to depression, whenever I had nothing to occupy myself, thoughts about him would come flooding back into my mind in torrents.  How our first (and last) date went,  how sheepish I felt when we walked home together on that all-familiar road…

I looked though his photos, most of which taken with his girl. The photos were arranged in chronological order.  Even though I found myself looking at his later photos with his girl, I smiled in contentment at how in love the both of them looked to be. However, as the photos approached those from 2006 and further back, the ubiquitous feelings that I often got with him returned -the adrenaline rush and the disappointment that usually follows a microsecond later.

I know full well that the only reason his impact on me was so great was because he was my first love. The one who stole my heart, to the point of having no remnants, and the one whom I loved to the greatest capacity without a care.  

Exiting from my room for a moment, I passed my cellphone, void of messages.   Yes. Maurice was out for the night and possibly getting sloshed mad.  For a moment there, a slight feeling like that of emptiness and longing crept into my heart.  My phone was always filled with messages from Maurice.  So there I was thinking about two guys who has thus far, had the biggest impact on my life- one whom I yearned for so badly but never got, and the other, one whom I admired so much and without quite expecting anything, managed to snare and what entailed was a feeling of surrealism and disbelief.

I never loved Maurice at the beginning. All I had for him was admiration and perhaps barely visible a hint of amorous feelings.  Despite that being the case, Maurice showered upon me a ceaseless stream of love and care and for the first time in my life, I felt appreciated, and yet, I felt so unworthy, my heart perpetually remained partially closed to him.  I was aloof. I found it hard to reciprocate, especially with my reluctance to love.  He was always there to lift my spirits, to share my joy, to be my pillar of support regardless of circumstances and to be the one for me to love. 

Most lasses I know would have loved to add ‘…and to make me mean the world to him’.  I do not feel the need to express that.  To begin with, I do not need someone to make me feel like I matter.  That would be really pathetic, for me NEED to feel like I matter.  Instead, I mattered to him, and all he did was to let me know, whether or not would it change anything.  He did not MAKE me feel like I mattered. He merely did what was in accordance with his emotions and if I sincerely meant so much to him, and I did not reciprocate, who then was I to give my heart to? Someone who MAKES me feel like I matter, because I need to?  I’d rather give it to someone whom I deem worthy.

I may have been looked down upon with disdain by men aplenty and my love may not mean a lot to some. Still, I believe my love is of some worth, and I give it to the one who’s most deserving.

It’s been a day since I last saw him and already I feel myself enveloped by sentiments of yearning.  Truly, Maurice is the one who matters the most to me now, more than anyone. For him, I seek to become the best I can, for I want to be not just the object of his affections, but one who would be an asset to him, and vice versa.  And it goes without saying that I do very much wish for him to be someone like GOLWOUNHANOGACHY, someone whom I love with every bit of my heart, right from the bottom.

If a comparison need be made,  I would liken GOLWOUNHANOGACHY to a drug, he who provides me a temporary high though unfortunately accompanied with a drastic fluctuation of moods should anything remotely negative intervene in my being high (LOL).  Maurice would be a medicine or a tonic. Healing, keeps me in good condition, and stimulates me. (Intellectually I mean LOL)

I look at GOLWOUNHANOGACHY’s picture, then at my phone, and I proceed to text Maurice.

He replies, saying we’ll meet the next day as well as for the next week.

With a smile, I closed the window containing GOLWOUNHANOGACHY’s picture.

A few moments pass, and Maurice calls me, all high from the alcohol.  His speech slurred, his sentences peppered with incessant laughter which was a first for me, and extremely amusing at that.  He narrates to me his condition at present and tells me he loves me. I grin sheepishly to myself and laugh at how high he was. 

Dawn will break in an hour or so.  The supposed long night has passed, and ended on a good note. 

And it is high time I got to sleep…..

Kimchi is truly a most mentally stimulating dish. Today, as I was having my daily dose of which,  random thoughts started dancing its way into my mind.

Moral education in school.  What would I make out of this? Firstly, I think that for it to be taught as a subject would totally defeat its purpose.  What are morals? You can’t slap a definition on which. 
Racial harmony, tolerance blah blah blah….you TEACH it. But do the students GET it? Or are the students blindly writing down politically correct answers so that they do not hafta waste their time doing corrections later?

If I were to ever teach this subject in this school, I would say, screw the textbooks.  Shoving down politically correct information down the students’ throats does not equate to them understanding the rationale behind what is taught.  I would instead, turn it into a debating session and have students voice their views no matter how unorthodox. This is because I would want the students to realize that morals are subjective and are a result of cultural reasons (Asian society, patriarchal, never question elders……) and societal (a higher level of tolerance would result in lesser or no chaos) reasons and are hence not absolute.  ‘Morals’ vary from place to place, circumstance to circumstance and what I would want the students to understand is the IMPETUS the drives such values to be deemed ‘morals’ and simply saying that ‘pre marital sex is NOT ACCEPTABLE’ without debating why is it such, is simply NOT ACCEPTABLE indeed.  Why is it wrong? Is it because it is a violation of human rights? Or because it is simply not in tandem with the ideals of an asian society?  If its the former, in what way are human rights violated? Does it cause any hurt to anyone if both parties consent? And if is the latter, the values of an asian society need be questioned, well, at least some of em. Those that are, LOGICALLY speaking, not pertinent to the society today.

I feel, that by getting students to be able to justify their stance in issues would be a stepping stone to their being able make decisions and view issues more rationally, given that understanding an issue and all its contributing factors will no doubt widen one’s perspective when it comes to evaluating it. This could enable one to make optimum decisions based on what is actually needed rather than what is actually accepted.