My Own Stupidity

I have often noticed that the first few days back in Singapore tend to be a huge daze for me. The sights, the smells, the crowds....I just get confused.

But this time I stupidly forgot all about buying tickets for the Neil Gaiman movie screening thing at Orchard Cineleisure UNTIL TODAY. And yes, they were SOLD OUT.

The registration for the talk at thw Library@Orchard was also closed.

GAH. Am still going for the signing at Kino and Borders but given the crowd....I think I should try to go a few hours earlier.

Somebody, anybody who wants to sell those tickets, I'll pay $20 for them.(Original Price was $8)

Actually, never mind $20, I'll pay $30 just for ONE ticket.Argh....if anyone has a ticket, mail me and name your price.

P.S But please keep in mind I am a poor student with limited pocket money. VERY limited pocket money.

The Aquarium behind the Shangri La Hotel buffet table

They drifted lazily among the dead crustaceans laid out
so prettily on the blocks of ice
stopping every so often to peer
and nibble

Over at the corner a school of fish darted
hastily, this way and that.
Often moving with barely contained excitement toward
particularly tasty morsels.

Across the room, we saw
a very pretty angelfish with hard bright eyes
her jaws busily moving
as she chewed on shellfish and intrigue

here and there, were some very fat ones
beady eyes staring out of puffy faces
on the constant lookout for the newest titbit,
the juiciest cut; whose corpulence seemed

Vast and unmoving, until food appeared
then they turned into fast moving tigers
a blur of fins and toes and grabbing fingers
till the haze of food and blood died down.

Most diners never noticed the aquarium till after the meal
when bloated, they'd turn and watch
the peaceful sight
of shiny fish in an artificial sea.

Some never saw the aquarium at all,
because of the lights
you'd sometimes only see
the room reflected in the glass

6 degrees

One is constantly reminded of how small this island really is and how circles you thought far apart actually do intersect at some point.

I read Scarlett Ting's blog every so often, just like I read many many blogs once in a blue moon. But today, staring out at me from her blog was a photograph of a friend of mine.

So in her case, less than six degrees.

It often makes me wonder, looking around the people I see everyday in law school; which of them could be the face behind a blog I read.

Too Little Time

I've been resisting the urge to blog for a couple of days, mainly because I don't really want this to turn into a "personal diary" of sorts. Or at least not the kind that lists down and gives a blow by blow description of my day.

But over the past few days I've come to the realization that despite the fact that I'm halfway through my law degree, I'm not actually that keen on practicing law. I don't hate the thought but neither am I truly excited/interested in it. Although I have to say that I probably should try to get some internship experience before I make any huge decisions. For now though, I'll still take all the right classes and keep my options open.

The truth is that I'm going to be 24 in a month's time and I'll be 25 when I graduate. I just don't want to spend that much time mucking around in a profession I don't want to stay in. There is a pressing need to figure out what is it I really want to do and which industry I'd want to work in without wasting too much time.

God, life is so short.

You don't know what it's like

This post at Commentary Singapore accurately reflects a lot of what I truly feel about the ministers having completely lost touch with ordinary Singaporeans.

The minister did not seem to feel that there was anything wrong with an old man being charged $64 for treatment of a common cold and fever.In fact he pointed out to the old man's son-in-law that it was his duty to take care of the old man.

In other developed countries, most people expect some kind of a pension when they retire or get old. In many of them,health care for the elderly is free or heavily subsidised. Here, we have neither despite the fact that we pay comparable taxes.( Yes we do, not in terms of income tax but we pay so many hidden taxes on everything else.)


If one is expected to take care of one's aged parents, support a wife and a young growing family of three (which is the government's current magic number for kids), all this during a time when the country's economy is frankly not doing well then one is inclined to think that the government is asking for too much.

It's something I've noticed for awhile now; this growing ministerial insensitivity to the needs of ordinary families in Singapore. It was not so long ago that the Public Transport Council found that the “ordinary Singaporean family” only spends less than $150 a month on transport. And when I saw the calculations behind that figure, my eyes nearly fell out.How many Singaporean families fit into that strange model they gave us?

Also, very strangely, that report only included the transport to and fro from work and school. Tell me this, what happens when children fall ill or if the family goes on a trip to the zoo? Or do they expect us to only work and go home?

What on earth is happening? How is it no one in a government chock full of hyper intelligent scholars noticed the lacuna in that calculation?

The truth is I've always felt that the million dollar ministerial salaries were a mistake. Or that the government tended to recruit from the high flyers in the private sector. Ten years of making 5 figure monthly salaries would tend to make one feel that $64 for a doctor's visit is reasonable and that our transport system is really very cheap.They've just been at the top level for so long they've completely forgotten what it's like at the bottom.

I can understand if a CEO of an MNC doesn't understand the needs and concerns of ordinary people. His job is to make money for the company. In return for that he gets a huge salary and the ability to live a lavish lifestyle.As part of his job, he does a cost benefit analysis of everything the company does and makes sure it stays in the black.

Maybe paying our ministers CEO type pay makes them think exactly like CEOs too.It gives birth to a Cabinet of ministers who apply cost-benefit thinking to everything to justify raising transport costs when the economy is still not doing well and an inability to even imagine what life is like supporting a family on one medium sized pay cheque.

And maybe it trickles down to a nation of people who like to apply cost benefit analysis to everything too.

Which is probably one of the biggest reasons so many people are refusing to have more children or even any children. Children just don't fit into a cost-benefit equation.

24 little hours

Just a short note to say that I'll be flying back to Singapore tomorrow by the earliest SQ flight.

Am so excited to be going home this time!!! I've got so much stuff I want to do like the blogger's conference and most importantly NEIL GAIMAN IS COMING TO SINGAPORE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!I am SO going to go to his autograph session.

God, I never showed the remotest interest in boybands at any time but plop a writer I like in front of me and I turn into the most shameless groupie. I think if someone like Diana Wynne Jones came to Singapore I might just do the infamous thing all boyband fans do and go wait for her at the airport.

Ooooh and I might get to meet mrbrown and mr miyagi et al at the blogger's conference too!!!! *turns a cartwheel*AND Gilbert Koh, want to see what they all look like in real life. Being here made me miss all the TV/radio/newspaper stuff they've all been doing.

Theme song of the moment: What a Difference a Day Makes by Jamie Cullum

P.S Its 2 am and I still have to wash a week's worth of dirty dishes before bed. Sigh....I missed my maid SO much.

When the going gets tough

I think of home. The only thing keeping me going is the thought that in less than ten days I'll be arriving in Changi Airport with a huge grin plastered on my face and my hair sticking up from the long plane ride.

I miss the funniest things about Singapore. Most people just miss the food but strangely that wasn't such a huge problem with me.

I missed the places I'd walk around with friends. I missed the bright shiny shopping malls where you could get Japanese titbits( Bugis basement, Taka basement, Plaza Sing basement) and where there'd be annoying people handing out flyers at your face and shops having offers on all the time.

I even miss the crowds of aunties and kids in school uniforms and the dull uproar a Singaporean crowd makes.

And when I slept I sometimes even dreamt of Suntec Shopping mall where I used to go every weekend with the bf. ( His church is there)

In the dream I was walking past Mango and going up an escalator to this little San bookstore where I used to buy my weekly fix of books , comics and magazines.

In other dreams, I'd be at home at about 5-6pm when the sun slants in through the windows and there's this really good smell in the air cos the maid and all the other families in the neighbourhood would be cooking dinner.There'd be screams and shouts of little kids emanating from the playground opposite my house.And it would be warm but not too hot the heat of the day having already been spent.

At this time of the day I sometimes went and sat at my porch and watched the kids play. Or took my bike out and went for a ride around the neighbourhood. It was just the best time of the day for being outdoors and enjoying life in the sun. ( Doesn't help that I'm never in Melbourne during summer of course)

Once when I was lying in bed daydreaming, I heard this dull thud from my neighbour downstairs and my heart gave this sudden leap. It sounded so much like the way my mum's car door slammed shut when she got home from work. I wanted so much to get out of bed and go downstairs to find her getting out of the car juggling her handbag, keys and work tote but smiling and asking me about my day.

The next week is exam week and I am still not doing great on the revision bit.

So every now and then I take a break and I dream about home.

Marriage and babies

For a few weeks now I've been quietly brooding over the fact that one of my oldest friends in world has gone and gotten married and is now extremely pregnant.

I haven't even wrapped my brain around the fact that friends my age are married, let alone accept the fact that they might be making babies soon. God, the government should be so happy.
Seriously, the people around me are dropping like flies. One by one they flounce up and flash pretty pretty engagement rings at me while I stare at them with my mouth agape.

I honestly never expected the whole wedding parade to begin so soon. In my secret fantasy world somewhere, I always imagined that we'd all go through a nice long period of singlehood together before succumbing to the marriage institution.

The worst is that very few of the couples I know seem financially ready to stand on their own two feet, never mind support each other and pay off a housing loan. I'm watching with this sense of horror partly because I know that once you go down that road, you're just stuck forever. I want to scream at them to slow down and save a bit more money first before plunging but I can't. ( This is especially so for this couple I know who don't even have the cash for a public housing flat downpayment yet and are going to end up living with his parents for quite awhile, which is what happens when you decide to get engaged right after you graduate)

You can never decide to just quit a crap job to try out new things, never take on an overseas posting because you're tied down. You're stuck in Singapore for the rest of your life, raising children in a crowded flat.

It's difficult to say which aspect of the Singapore dream strikes so much terror into my heart. Perhaps its because I feel that once one takes on the burden of supporting a HDB flat, one is forever at the mercy of the government. Perhaps because once one is married, one has more to lose. With children, even more is at stake.

Plus in Singapore, life just seems to keep getting tougher. Its not just the economical woes, its the loss of space and freedom. And it doesn't help that I think small children and public transport were just not meant to go together which seems to be the idea behind the rise in ERP charges.


I guess I'm just not ready to grow up yet. Not really ready to take on the full mantle of adulthood and definitely not ready to make huge purchases that I'll have to spend the rest of my life paying off.

I know, intellectually anyway, that there isn't anything wrong with the whole marriage + babies scenario. But there's just something about being stuck in that rut for the next twenty years that really scares me.

It makes me resolve that now, while I'm relatively young and carefree, I want to go and do all the things I've always wanted to do first. The suburban nightmare can come later when I've hopefully accumulated a little more cash andwisdom.