seasons of love

The responses have been mixed - some expressed their sadness and dissapoinment, some expressed their disbelief and skeptcism, some expressed their pity and sympathy.

Whatever their reactions may be, one thing for certain in all instances is that most of them have not been expecting this at all; it was highly irregular, highly unlikely and highly unbelievable.

For me personally, what disturbs me most is that I have not a clearest idea of the sequence of events which had transpired which ultimately resulted in his discontinuation for Imperial College.

Indeed, for most of us the first question to have crossed our minds after hearing about it was why and how did it happened.

Could it be reduced to a single cause or was it caused by a confluence of different factors? Was it solely due to internal, personal reasons or external, social reasons? Were the reasons unique to him or common to all of us? Was it a result of personal neglect or circumstances beyond our control?

I believe it is natural for us to ask these questions as it is natural for us to fear the unknown or unforseeable.

I guess whenever we ponder at his predicament, at the back of our minds, we can't helped but to wonder that the same thing could have happened to us - it could have easily been any one of us in his place, facing those troubles and complications.

We want to know whether our futures too will take us down his path; whether the circumstances will work against our favour and thrust us into the midst of the same problem he is facing now.

In short, whenever we think about his situation, it made us reflect on our own position, our own efforts and our own achievements.

We see a faint reflection of our own situation and wonder whether our situation is anywhere near as precarious or fragile as his.

Added to this is the sheer proximity of the situation to all of us - the fact that it happened to one of our closest friends. It does not have the measure of distance which normally shields us from the full emotional impact of the such emotionally devastating situations.

Apart from the fear for our own sake, we also can't help feeling a little guilty over the whole situation: have we done enough to prevent this from happening? Were we so ignorant so as to not identify the initial symptoms of the problem? Did we fail him as his friends by letting things to become this bad?

Each of us will surely give a varying degree of responses but the truth is that only we will know the answers to these questions for ourselves.

It is often said that only the purest and brightest of lights could penetrate the deepest and the darkest of corners.

And judging from the turn out of tonight's gathering - which was called on a rather short notice - I am beginning to understand the full meaning of that statement.

It is heartwarming to see all of us coming together again - either just to catch up with others or to show our support and concern or just to share a few laughs amongst ourselves.

Whatever the reasons might be, it is comforting to see that all of us can readily and willingly come to the rescue and offer him a few moments of happiness and hope, especially under such a despairing situation he is in.

It is a true and sure sign of the strength of bonds and connections which runs deep among all of us even after all these years that we openly give everything we have to help him get through his complications.

The sense of warmth, reassurance and solace serves as a device where all of us could anchor our emotions into, providing some form of stability and brief normalcy to the turbulent and chaotic times we had for the past few days.

Even the autumn breeze doesn't feel too chilly tonight.