When sickness and disease strikes someone you love, the last thing on your mind is figuring out what items to write down on your list of achievements for your scholarship application form.

Anyway, my grandmother got warded for a UTI. Apparently the inflammation has affected her kidneys too, and from one of the greatest gifts to modern man that is Wikipedia, I'm guessing it's pyelonephritis, though fairly common, may lead to complications in older people. (Urgent kidney transplants and blood transfusions and melodramatic Jack Neo-esque scenes of families with tear-streaked faces running along with a hospital bed are playing in my mind right now. Even though this seriously cheeses me off.)

I wrote a prose piece about her once. I really do wish that I can look back and say that "well that was that and it all ended happily with one course of antibiotics and lots of rest and peaceful music". However, I do realise that everything is in His timing and in His hands, and although I can self-centredly mourn a passing by going "I should have asked her for her pineapple tart recipe/I should have skipped work to spend time with her making sugee cake/I should have appreciated salty buah keluak now", I'm just immensely relieved and assured that God is in control, and no matter what the outcome may be, he has his reasons and his plans.

And it's dawning on me how pathetic it is to read The Bell Jar and listen to depressing shoegaze music in trying to attain catharsis when what I really I needed to do was to trust in him.

Besides that, I really enjoyed shopping/trying to shop with Andrea, Mingting and Angeline just now! We met up with Shiyun first, who was left all alone in a Helen outlet surrounded by a sparkling sea of light-synthesizing rhinestone-studded accessories. We went bag-hunting for Angeline's school bag at various nike and adidas stores, and while in search of The Perfect Tee, I rummaged through rows and rows of disappointments. At least I tried on a t-shirt, but it was not worth the hefty $49 price tag for its very average quality and design.

Later on, we drifted placidly along with the crowds with lowered expectations and ennui floating through our minds. I discovered a cheaper ice cream maker at Tangs, Angeline finally resolved her first-day-of-school-with-no-bag crisis, we bought things from Muji, and everyone reached home safely. I, however, have no new clothes at all because recent shopping trips have all been uninspiring to say the least, and I end up buying food items all the time! This time, I bought mango lassi from Muji and tomato soup that I shall have first thing in the morning. Sounds nice huh.