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Excerpts from my little red notebook. Extremely cushy and sentimental. You have been warned.

“I’m sitting at the departure area of the Singapore budget terminal. I don’t remember feeling so sad about leaving a country before. The last time my chest hurt this much was when things didn’t work out with the last guy I fell in love with (and not due to a near-fatal asthma attack from smoking, as some people might assume). I feel like a Chinese girl who has been forbidden to see and speak to her lover because a marriage to a disgusting pig has already been arranged and is about to take place. But perhaps this analogy is a tad dramatic and inaccurate. No stupid arranged marriage can keep me away from what I love.

I’ve become more than simply attached to this place. I’ve fallen in love with Singapore and its sprawling parks, clean streets, efficient public transportation system, the glittering city lights in the evening. But above all those things, I’ve fallen in love with the people. My last day in Singapore was great. I met up with Evie for a late lunch, after which I sat in a Starbucks and alternated between reading, people-watching, and power-napping. Even coffee can’t keep me from my afternoon naps. In the evening, Nic and I met up with Evie, this time with her boyfriend Budak, and we had beer at this awesome place called Archipelago. Time flew by way too quickly. One moment we were yakking our heads off about blogging, countries we’ve been to, and other fun things, and the next moment we realized that it was almost 9–time for Evie and Budak to catch their film and for me and Nic to take our last train ride back to his dad’s place.

“I try my hardest not to get attached to people and places because saying goodbye to something familiar and safe is one of the hardest things to do in the world. But no matter how high I build my walls and fortify my fortresses, people have ways of slipping through the cracks and crevices that lead to my heart. I damn near cried when I said goodbye to Nic’s dad, who has been extremely generous and hospitable throughout my stay here. I’m going to miss my Singaporean friends very very much, even though I’ve only spent a few hours of my trip with them. I wish I could have stayed in Singapore longer than a week, but I suppose that would make leaving this country even more difficult than it already is.”

If I had been scribbling away in my notebook the moment our plane reached Manila, my thoughts wouldn’t have been as verbose and romantic. Interrupting my sleep is somewhere on the top ten horrible things anyone can do to me. And since I only got about an hour and a half’s worth of sleep, I imagine that the appropriate journal entry would go something like this:

“Fucking hell, don’t make me put my seat up-fucking-right. I wanna fucking go back to sleep. Fuck this immigration shit. Fuck this customs shit. Fuck my luggage. Wait–I’ve got stuff in my luggage. What the hell are you assholes standing for, the doors aren’t even open yet. Oh wait, people are leaving the plane now. Get the hell out of my fucking way asshole, move faster old lady, fuck you fuck you fuuuuuck.”

In our half-dead state, Nic and I hopped off the plane and encountered a poster warning everyone about bird flu. Which made me turn to him and ask, “Bird flu. That’s like, for birds, right?” We pondered on the philosophical question I posited for an entire minute before heading off to immigration. Ah, intelligent early-morning musings.

Now that I’ve informed all my friends about my arrival, it’s time for me to get some fucking sleep. It’s good to be back.