Started this draft like 2 weeks ago

Sieving through pictures of Singapore to show my host family was perhaps the most powerful feeling I got to date since leaving my home … a deep and mysterious melancholy so indescribable (not in magnitude, just the fact that I can’t describe it) they must have invented the word ‘nostalgia’ and missing home just for it. To me, even though my family isn’t tight-knit and close, it is still special and maybe it’s the Chinese culture still in me, but I owe a great debt and will always try and be there for my parents when they are old. I say that, not knowing what kind of scenario that may be tested; after all, I am abroad while my dad is at home recovering from cancer.

Thinking about ‘why now’, and maybe it’s knowing that my friends and family back home are living their lives out and sharing and creating memories without me, and that the longer I’m away, the more I fade into their memories…except there’s Whatsapp and all is fine and dandy to a degree/till I get a degree haha geddit? I also miss Chris a lot (duh), I think mostly when I read her blog or feel cuddly. Rwandans are a warm bunch though and hugs are often and soon. My host mother is very sweet and has a hearty laugh whenever I imitate my host sister.

We did a 'processing session' last Friday; it's like a 'do whatever you want summer camp style' time allocated at the end of each week for students to lead some activity, be it etching out tensions (like last week) or building human pyramids. Last week we did a 'toilet paper pass' where we just picked a person in the group to say nice things about in a circle and passed them the roll to pass on to another person. Jack K passed me the roll and talked about how his support group back home was his fraternity, which happens to be Lambda Chi, how coincidental and wholesome is that? I'm so glad he's got great character and setting a good example for a historically problematic institution.