“I beg that you will listen to what I have to say, that you will recollect my words, and endeavour to call them to mind when I am no longer with you. I will make known of what is in my mind to my successor, but I can only be responsible during this my lifetime.

I have lived in this country now for 60 years, and for the greater part of that time as Rajah. I know that I feel as you do in every way regarding the present and future for the existence and welfare of the inhabitants. I think after so long a period you will allow me to open my mouth and give my opinion truthfully.

Has it ever occurred to you that after my time out here others may appear with soft and smiling countenances to deprive you of what is solemenly your right, and that is the very land on which you live.
This land is your inheritance on which your flesh and blood exist, the source of your income, the food even of your mouths.

If this is once lost to you, no amount of money could recover it. That is why the cultivation of your own land by yourselves or by those that live in the country in important to you now.

Cultivation by stranger, by those who might carry the value of their products out of the country to enrich their shareholders ? such products should be realised by your own industries and for your own benefits.

Unless you follow this advice you will lose your birthright, which will be taken from you by strangers and speculators who will in their turn become masters and owners, whilst you yourselves, you people of the soil, will be thrown aside, and become nothing but coolies and outcasts of the island.”

The farewell address in the State Council to the Sarawak people by Charles Brooke.

I once wrote something about paths not crossing some while back. Today, I wonder if I have pushed destiny a little too far. I have stepped a step too far. I tried to make the uncrossed paths meet each other. It is a mysterious out there. It has since been a week since I pushed that button. No definite reply and I feel kind of in a cocktail of doubts at the moment.

I wonder if it is like trying to piece together a amazing sports car using some Ferrari parts. It is what is going on in my mind. Cluttered thoughts and uncertainties.

Now that I am having my extended break, I feel really in need of some adventure. I feel like going for a travel - a new place, a new country, perhaps. I truly believe that it gives you a new and fresh perspective to travel to a new place. Whether it is learning a new culture, language or meeting new friends - it is all about learning and realising that the world is bigger than you think.

However, one cannot escape from the budget when money is concerned. We cannot deny that without sufficient fund, you actually cannot travel anywhere. An unemployed student on a gap year - where can I find sufficient travel fund for myself?

How I wish I can earn enough, get good deals and perhaps some extended stay hotels to add on it.

Sometimes I wonder how come we just do not cross path with certain people. Complete strangers, people whose lives may be somehow faraway intertwined we us, but just not directly connected.

Then, do you try to intervene the human ways to make paths cross?

Or you pray and hope..

Martin Luther King, Jr once said,

If you lose hope, somehow you lose the vitality that keeps life moving, you lose that courage to be, that quality that helps you go on in spite of it all. And so today I still have a dream.

I don’t know.. hope, shall I continue to be doing? After all, this is a blog of hope and love.

Sometimes, I dream. Well, everyone dreams.

I dream if this is what is greeting me for Christmas in a year’s time. Well, the chilly snowy winter, the hot tea or black coffee. The warm toast. The fireworks. Eh, not fireworks. Fire woods, I think.

I haven’t had good year-ends since I-can’t-remember-when. With the very odd schedule my university adopts, I even had to forgo Chinese New Year.

Well, envisioning myself in that situation just feels surreal. I cannot quite imagine how it would be like. I don’t know, maybe it is just that I am still quite skeptical at times. Dreams, to me, are things that are not meant to come true. So when they ever do come true, would they be like a merry winterland to me?