I had the weirdest dream ever--weird, because it was completely unreal, and I knew in the back of my mind that it was unreal, yet it was so shocking that I actually entertained the thought that it might be real, and physically jolted myself out of bed.

That's what you get for taking an afternoon nap right after lunch haha.

In any case, it was oddly reminiscent of past memories, from the tornado warnings in the summer of 2008, to the crazy high-wind warnings of the September 2008 post-Hurricane Ike storms which left us powerless (literally) for almost a week after sweeping through Oakland with 110-150km/h winds, not once, but twice.

The horrifying part of the dream was that I was right here in Singapore, at home, in my room, and thinking it was impossible that there would be a tornado here. And then, the sky started turning a dusty reddish-brown, with the heat beating down relentlessly, and before I knew it, a reddish storm of dust had kicked up, and there was an enormous red funnel rising high up into the sky, larger than an apartment block, and moving amazingly quickly. The last I remembered of the dream was running through the house, shutting windows, pulling curtains shut, trying to pile up boards and mattresses and what-not, while trying to get everyone out of the house, and shouting to someone (parents?) to grab important documents like passports, bank passbooks, credit cards, and what-not, and debating which were the most important to grab and run with. And I was grumbling that I didn't have as good a disaster plan as I had in Pittsburgh, when I actually started thinking in earnest about what to take and run with if we had to make a run for it, some time in my Sophomore year during our first tornado watch since moving off-campus.

It was a pretty crazy dream, and I actually jumped out of bed, awake, with a crazy splitting headache and my head spinning terribly. But my was I glad to see that the sky was a clear blue, albeit mildly hazy from the heat, and I could still hardly believe it was just a dream, still reeling from the shock of how real it all was. It was mildly traumatizing.

I've been having these insanely real dreams quite often of late, although I haven't been remembering much of them. Perhaps it's just the heat wave that's making me get all cracked up.

This is kind of an odd phase of life--with all of life ahead of me, too many crossroads up ahead, that it's filling me up with trepidation, at stepping down the "wrong" path and having to live with it the rest of my life, rather than with eager anticipation at the limitless possibilities of youth, yet with the power of being a fully contributing (paid? haha) member of society.

I should look at things through differently coloured lenses, and try to see the world for all of its goodness and possibilities, and focus on the happy things, and the good times, rather than keep looking back and cowering in fear at the possibilities.

After all, it's fear that brings us to life, isn't it?