I think it might be a little too overwhelming to return home.

When I touch down and step out of the plane into Changi Airport... carpeted floors, fast queues, grime-less toilets, smooth trolleys and the absence of throngs of people at the luggage belt is gonna throw me into mild orgasm.

This will be in the wee hours of the morning, around 7.15am (well, wee hours to me) on the 18th of April 2008. Hopefully it'll be too early for people to notice my smug grin or hear the excited pulsations of my heart as my head wrecks itself deciding what would be the first thing I'd like to do. Or eat!

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Above all, I think this exchange has been a journey of self-discovery. I've come to understand myself at a much deeper level and I've learnt to deal with certain aspects of my character such that I am more at peace with my place in this world. It is in relativity that comes gratitude. At the same time, it is in relativity that comes dissatisfaction.

These three and a half months have also served as a crash course on the politics of human relationships and personalities. The exposure to, I dare say, a great myriad of facinating characters, has enriched my own sense of self.

Although I know I've barely scratched the surface, my stay here has brought to light certain aspects of India and its people that weave together to form the fabric of this nation. I've gained insight into what it means to be a woman, to the complications of arranged marriages, to the value of family, to the implications of caste, to the grotesquely high rate of infanticide even today, to the dangers of dowry, to the teachings of Hinduism, to the fierce competition that comes along with every developing nation struggling to prove herself to the world...and countless more.

Lastly, at the risk of sounding cliche or like i'm on an overdose of happy drugs, I've come to realise that we shouldn't rule out the possibility of order in chaos, sense in absurdity, clarity in confusion, grace in subtlety, tradition in modernity, sanity in mundanity, ecstasy in simplicity, richness in poverty and... beauty all around.

For now, I close this chapter of my life to begin my next.

Thank you for the lessons, India.