Blank Doll feels sad.

I rushed through the last pages of The Time Traveller's Wife because I didn't want to continue my crying binge. The story is tender, touching and it makes me want to smile and cry at the same time. There is something magical about the book that I fear because it whispers those most profane of words: true love is possible.

I hate it. I detest it. I abhor the way some people spend their whole lives looking for something so ephemeral as true love, something so painfully transient as soul bonding. Don't you know the devilry of lingering infatuation? I cannot abide by that sort of passion, that sort of devotion to another person in the strange belief that she or he happens to be the person you'd spend your entire life with.

The truth is people die. The truth is a love that strong once fade makes life thereafter all the more painful. The blaze that is extinguished leaves the room deeper in desolation than it was before. You'd go mad should your soulmate perish before you. Better a life devoted to some other passion, some other love eternal than the love of flesh and blood.

You wonder why Elizabeth wed herself to England. Damn if I don't wed my life to fashion.

On another note, I've realized that school has become increasingly boring for me which must mean that I've been spending either too much time on schoolwork or on doing trival stuff that doesn't consume brain power. It's time I resume my real studies on subjects that please me.

Antiques for one. I love antiques. Usually furniture, chinaware and other services, manuscripts and jewelry. I like furniture from the mid Ming dynasty and those from the late Qing dynasty. I also like furniture from the Louis XIV period and those from his heir though those tend to be rather effete. I'd like nothing more than to look over celadon wares, white glazed Southern Chinese wares, the rugged Annamite soft-pastes, apostles spoons from 14th century France and Vienna, old Wedgewoods and Dutch imitation porcelain. There is something tantalizing about old manuscripts, paper pamphlets turned yellow from neglect, leatherbound bibles made from vellum sheets and miraculously preserved Chinese manuscripts. Ah and jewelry, oh how wondrous is our very human obsession with adornment for cameos are beautiful. Antique jewelry, a duke's wealth in rubies set in the old way before faceting became the norm in Western Europe, the punctured gold belts from Java and the polished jades of the Chinese. I love the things Faberge made for the Russian monarchy, those beautiful eggs and little canons made from polished ivory for the tsars. All the enamels, the gold, the electrum, the settings, pearls, topazes, diamonds and onyxes.

You wonder why I fail to mention Africa and the Middle East? Because I'm not a global person and I wasn't really keeping track.

So I shall resume finding out more on international trade in the antique world, preferably between China and the rest of the barbaric realms.

Yeah, I will never reach the heights of philospohy nor that of reason but hell can I do luxury and fashion.

C'est tout.