Everyone asks you how great it is.
Everyone wows at your travel.

Nobody asks you how tired you are.
Nobody asks you how lonely you are.
Nobody asks you how hard it is.

Some people writes to you. Sometimes you reply with a sad tone, and said that you are really really really not feeling well emotionally. And mentally, you could turn mad. They reply that with a sacarstic remark like "what kind of emotional/mental suffering could you possibly go through" You wonder why they even reply.

Life here is tough. I would say, tougher than Singapore. You wake up. You have lots of admin stuff to do. You have lots of bills to pay. You worry about exchange rate (esp now. I lost almost a thousand sing from the plunging exchange rate already). You realise your rice cooker is not washed, hence you cant cook rice. You wonder what's there to eat next. You eat the same plain thing everyday. Some days, you get so sick, you simply dont eat the whole day. You tear your hairs out at travel plans. You worry about your family back home. You dont even have time and mood to study, even though you need to hand in papers and do exams. Paper format are very weird to you. You have yet to fully learn how to use their "ivle". Most days, you have no one to talk to, except the 4 walls in your room. You walk around in circles. You walk to this bank, that bank, this office, that office, and nothing gets done. Why? Because you are not a citizen. You are binded by tons of red tape as a foreigner.

You are sick of the fact that every letter you receive is in a foreign langauge. Every letter you receive, you go the the office and ask them to interpret for you. Disgusting. Even if they use English, its in this weird Norwegian grammar English (like Singlish per se)

Everyone marvel at your travel. They say how lucky you are.
They look at your pictures and wow.
They do not know how much pain was put into it.
You sleep alone at airports in winter.
You're afraid of being robbed.
You hate the fact that every country is trying to earn money from tourism.
You are aware that every tourism gimmick is overpriced.
You look for free accomodations, free this, free that. You get stressed out. You could not make yourself pay a hundred sing dollars a night in hotels. The guilt would torment you so much. If not the guilt, then the feeling of plain stupidity that someone is laughing as he collects your money.
You learn to talk to the locals, for as long as it takes, to learn the ways of getting through the country, without being cheated as a tourist.
You learn that tourist information places has been taught to cheat tourists of their money.
You learn that every airport has a city-bus, that takes tourists to the city. And you pay about 30SGD for it. And of cos, you could get a local bus, which you pay 5 to 10 times lesser, to get to the city. So you learn to read the different bus brochures, in all sorts of weird formats and acronyms that you never seen before.

You endure a snow blizzard that lasted for 5 days. You saw less than 1 hour of sunlight the 5 days combine. By the 3rd day, you were depressed, lost, and feel like you could turn insane.
The lovely arctic snow landscape they see on the pictures.
They do not know the dangers of it.
It took me 1 hour to walk to the eagle's nest, 200-300 metres away.
Every step I take, my leg sinks in beyond knee level.
Both leg.
When u try to pluck one leg out, the other sinks in deeper.
Sometimes your leg gets stuck.
You take minutes to pull it out.
And then snow gets into your feet. Its only minutes later that you could no longer feel your feet.
In the mountain, you encounter a snow blizzard. You could not see more than 20 metres. The wind blows too hard, the snow attacks your face like a thousand needles. The coldness of the snow particles hitting your face, freezes your face, you could not feel your face.
Soon, you lose sensation of your body. You start to shake your limbs vigorously, proving to your mind that you are still alive.
You could not go anywhere. You are trapped. You wonder if the snow blizzard would go away. You even wonder if you would live.
Times like this, you feel like crying.
Your thoughts start to go crazy.
You realise at times like these, all the bad and traumatic memories that you once repressed and forgotten, surfaced. You could not even believe the images start to flash in your mind once more.
Sometimes they surface one by one. Sometimes they surface all at once. When they surface all at once, its crazy. Your thoughts become so scattered, its like your brain split itself into a hundred pieces. Your vision might even start to blur. You start to look around vehemently, looking for a friend, a closed one, a support, a hand, a direction. But all you see is fog and coldness. Your mind refuse to accept that you're all alone. The loneliness cripples you so much, you did not even realise how much it affected you. You start to talk to an imaginary friend, believeing that him or her is really really there. You did not even realise that you are talking to this imaginary friend. Your mind just lost it, its on autopilot. Then God comes and smack you wide awake. You see the image of your imaginary friend fades. You realise for that few moments, you were talking to this image, and your mind lost it. Then you realise that admist this madness and loneliness, there's still God around. He takes away your bad memories. You compose yourself, pray to Him, believe that He would guide you, believe that He is there beside you (instead of your imaginary sg friend), and you make it through.

Through the times your lips crack so badly, you could not smile.
Each time you tried to smile, it tears your lips apart painfully.

Some days you were sure you would freeze to death. You could not afford to take a rest, even if your body is begging to stop. How do you rest, when its freezing. The longer you maintain surface contact with the snow and open air, the more the literal pain from the cold.

Every night, you dream of Singapore and family and friends. The dream is so real, every morning you wake up and wonder where you are. After 30 seconds or so, you realise you are in a cabin, in the arctic.

You worry if you have the finances to get through.

You have no source of emotional support. Or even maybe, financial support. You do not want to tell your family. Because they would be so worried.

So you learn to keep things private. Keep your blog private. Because you rather, people not talk to you, then assume that he/she knows everything about you/your sep.
You rather he/she shut-up, then say things like "how could you possibly feel sad/stress in sep?" or "you're having such an easy life". Easy. No offence to him/her who said it to me. But I would not be able to see him/her do it. Well, perhaps him/her would adapt. Cos I never foresaw myself able to do it either. If months ago in Sg, you were to tell me this is what I would experience, I would say you are nuts, and then I would cancel my sep, and hide in a nutshell. Nevertheless, I believe, my life in Sg, is way easier. All I need to do, is study, worry about grades, and try to manage the occassional social pressure.

Everyone wants to know how far you run.
Nobody asks you how tired you are of running.
Everyone wants to know how far you intend to run somemore.
Nobody asks you how stress and afraid you are of the distance ahead.

And so, through it all, you learn to lean on God, and loves the fact that He knows and understands your every thought. He sees beyond, right into your soul. And He knows that all is not so well, all is not so great, all is not what other people sees.
Even though He perhaps, cheated a little, by being omni-present, and all-knowing. You could not help, but feel closer to this special Person, who has saved you from becoming mad.













Or maybe, you might think, I already am mad, talking about God.

Doesnt really matter.