lost and found

it's an amazing monday!

after a short intercessory prayer for CSS with FFM, i settled down at YIH for a while. however, i realised that to logon to the internet, i needed my NUS password. the new password. which... i can't remember... well, i changed my password a few days ago (can't rem when) cos IVLE says the old password was expiring.

i didn't believe i couldn't recall my password... so i sat there for a full hour trying to guess my own new password. and. it was to no avail... my memory is just bad.

finally admitting my ineptitude, i resigned to a fate of resetting my password at IT Care. so... in a state of self-inflicted despair, i jogged over to the computer centre in the mild rain. facing the counter girl, i told her i needed to reset my password in a monotonous voice... and then i realised that MY WALLET WAS MISSING.

i ran out of the building despite my bad ankle, frantically scanning every inch of the floor i just walked past for that old black leather thing. nothing. maybe i left it back at YIH? with a tinge of hope, i searched the CSS corner. nope. maybe i missed a spot along the way? no deal. it was nowhere to be found.

collapsing in a doubly dejected heap back at YIH, i started imagining horrifying possibilities: a bus had run over the wallet and its mangled body is stuck on a wheel! a foreign worker thought he'd struck it rich but upon discovering the meagre $4 had chucked it into his lawnmower! a bunch of as-yet-undiscovered bugs carried it off to their queen where it is now feeding slimy larvae! maybe i shouldn't be so negative... who knows? maybe someone picked it up? it's just a wallet anyway. at least i didn't lose my phone! what's the worst thing i lost... my atm card? my house keys? my matric card?? great. now i have no wallet, and no password. T.T

i picked up the phone to call someone i could whine to. but Cheryl and Brian beat me to it - they appeared in the nick of time! they walked me back the route i took to confirm the wallet isn't there, then walked me to NUSSU, OSA, and the Student Service Centre to try the lost-and-founds. they walked all that distance with me despite having just bathed after their jogging. Cheryl even walked me back to arts - and Brian eventually packed up the CSS corner! (it's unmistakably brian-ised now~) at the arts corner, everyone had that look of empathy on their faces. guess losing a wallet isn't unfamiliar to most ppl. St Anthony and St Jude kept coming up too - a little bit of CSS catholic culture right there. (St Anthony is patron of finding lost items; St Jude is patron of lost causes.)

i started thinking. i shouldn't be too sad la. i may have lost something materially valuable; but i've rediscovered something priceless - the CSS community! i could've sunken into deeper despair and wound up blaming God and praying with FFM, but thanks to these darlings, i didn't go further than blaming the system. i guess with all the "ministering" to everyone, i've forgotten how i could also depend on my dear friends for support.

and in a while, this guy emails me to tell me he has picked up my wallet! Brian thinks St Anthony and St Jude were working overtime. i think so too... but it wasn't so much my wallet that was lost and found - being able to depend on my friends was the much greater find!