i am currently reading sylvia plath's 'letters home'. for those who only know her for her poems and the bleakness they embody, her diaries and letters do describe extreme joy and much encouragement. maybe it's because of this parallel in the academic route. something i read in the shadows awhile ago made me tear, for sure it's written ages ago but it dut up my fears. it's the sort of letter ee jie might write to me 'cept we don't meet that much anymore.

from 'letters home'. to warren her brother:

...my wings need to be tried. o iracus...but listen: i want you to have some idea of your potential. it is great. like me, when you're good (as a person, versatilely), you're very very vood, and when you're bad, you need rehabilitation; ergo: we both have a great deal of growing (maturing) to do, and it is by our relationships with other people (after all, what is life but people) that we will grow to ripe stature. in other words, the self-examinations that are induced by our problems and disappointments in relation to others are paradoxically the best incentives to growth and change we have. and it does take guts to grow and change, especially when your horizon is lighted up by what looks like the very best of good things..what i am rambling around and trying to say is this, how much i think you have to work with and how much i want you t have the sure, positive, creative feeling of the one or two men i'm lucky to know: that your security and love of life doesn't depend on the presence of another, but only on yourself, your chosen work, and your developing identity. then you can safely choose to enrich your life by marrying another person, and not, as e e cummings says, until. ...i want you to grow to a certainty of your identity...which will never ask for another court of appeal but your own conscience..."

but while plath is very much about the power of self, for me it aught to be surrender to God isn't it? i guess, it's because the academic route for me cannot just be 'something to get over and done with' to enter the work force. it's very much in my head my mind my heart and i have to get as much from it intensely as much as it gives to me, seeps into my pores and give me many flashes of renewing, as a person, as a being. and it is very much my own actions that give me oppotunities for me to appreciate this education i have and not be jealous of what and where others are studying. it's just that when metaphors and the discovery of a new word in a brillant oxford dictionary gives you more kicks then struggling over structures, the doubts come like waves. but i must not give in, for there are things i do appreciate in this course and so i shall hang on to them. and i shall try my best to be a very very good student, first of all which starts with having the confidence and secondly to be as hardworking as i possibly can.