This is truly touching.... a story of a girl, who found out way too late, just how selfish and irresponsible her boyfriend was. After she got pregnant with their first child.

http://tristefemme.blogspot.com

Bored? Slacker?

It is Tuesday night, and Yenn and I have just finished logging all our assignment deadlines onto calendars.

Yen: "I think you should change the title of your blog."

Me: "Huh? Why?"

Yen: "Well, " [points to the title] "Are you sure you're still bored? Are you sure you're still slacking?"

[Imagine an Aki balloon deflating with a low sigh and a highly depressed look]

---

Happy Birthday Singapore.... Now get over it already!

And so another National Day is over..... Happy 40th Birthday Singapore, only about 10 years more to mid life crisis....

The one good thing out of the end of National Day? [Hopefully anyway] no more irritating "reach for the stars"...... bleah........ If I see one more Taufik and Rui En in the MRT, I might just make the LCD screen see stars...... [Bad pun, but I'll blame it on T and RE's inadequate harmony :p]

I know it's supposed to be the celebration of Singapore's independence and all that, but after about 24 years, the National Day celebrations are getting a bit tiresome. It's all about the same anyway. The different ethnic groups and the ever-present PAP group putting on a few skits, the military shows off its arsenal, everyone gapes in awe at the fireworks, and then goes home with the goodie bags.

For about months after that, you will see the goodie bag itself being used by tons of schoolkids all over Singapore, and a few adults, and then its appearance will diminish over time. Till the next National Day.

A pretty sarcastic take on the whole thing, huh?

And yet I don't see myself as an unpatriotic Singaporean. I don't badmouth every single Government policy, [well, not every single one anyway] I don't badmouth everything about the Gahmen.

Importantly, I don't, at this moment of time, have any plans to migrate to other countries. Other countries are nice, and some might be better than us in some ways, but I would still like to live here, marry here, and perhaps eventually die here.

This I know is totally at odds with a lot of people, and even some of my closest friends :p. But I do feel that Singapore is a good place to settle down for many reasons, most of all being the safe environment, and also the fact that here I am acknowledged as a citizen, and hence I know that, however much I deplore the actions of the government, they are made in my favour.

You think this isn't much of an advantage? Tell that to the Blacks, who suffered the chains of slavery. Tell that to the Muslims in France, who were forced to compromise their religious beliefs in exchange for life in a secular France. Tell that to any other disadvantaged race in other countries.

Your civil rights, though not tangible, are a more precious thing than almost any other thing in this world. And you cannot guarantee that the governments of other countries will grant their Permanent Residents with the same civil privileges that they grant their own home-born citizens.

But still the National Day celebrations and all the marketing hooha leading up to it bores me, and, in the case of the NDay song, irritates me. Why?

Because it's all marketing. Because I know that all this is to promote an image of something else, and ultimately, it's not real.

Because I know that the image is there to cover the reality, which may or may not be the one the Gahmen wants to project to the world.

Because the images of Singapore I see in the MTVs and the National Day parades are NOT the images of Singapore I know and love.

And what I love is what I see and feel around me. The real Singapore.

The prata stall at AMK which I still faithfully patronise every Sunday. [pulling along a father who is getting increasingly sick of prata]

The comics which arrive for me every Tuesday. [ok, not quite every Tues]

The clean and convenient transport. [Sit the Tube and the Metro and you realise just how fantastic our MRT really is]

and more importantly,

All the friends and family who have been with me for as long as I've been living here.

To me, THAT'S Singapore, my home, my future.

So Happy National Day, for all those who truly care.

And let's continue making this a home worth living, for each other.

loss - gain - what?

One of the saddest things about starting work/school/a hybrid of both is simply not having the time anymore for the things you love.

Time was I could blog just about everyday, because of all the time I had. I had the time to compose lengthy, witty, [or least, I hope they were witty] entries, and whole sagas about my then-non-existent-and-even-now-not-quite-there love life.

Time was I spent more time with Photoshop and Freehand than I did with actual human company. My fingers moved with an unconscious fluidity of their own, and created pixels of cartoons and other illustrations.

Time was I could spend a whole afternoon lost in a good book, or comic. Even after I had finished reading the comic, I had the time to spare to lust over the luscious art.

Time was I was poor, but I had enough cash to get by, and I was content.

Now?

My blog got dusty, my typing became stiff, and I haven't created anything new or arty in a while, aside from some black and white ink stuff in my hostel room. [I brought over the barest necessities - A sketchbook, black pens, and a mechanical pencil] I still read, but the time I spend on a book is getting longer. I still buy comics, but I'm not able to read intently, and sometimes I find myself skimming over the words, and not fully appreciating the art.

And my wallet? The excess money only made me want to spend more, a feeling of consumerish frenzy which I am frantically trying to abate.

And I think: What have I lost in exchange for career and financial stability?

And do I even fully know what I have lost?

I think only time can prove this hypothesis. Perhaps I can be happy at this. Perhaps I will find some balance. Perhaps I may never really care about what I lost in the past.

Perhaps I may never be a slacker again.

Perhaps I may declare this blog a waste of my time, and close it down for good, resigning to the depths of the dusty online dungeons.

In a way, this particular speaker I heard in NIE spoke true. That we must "never forget why is it you went into this in the first place" [I apologise, but I forgot who spoke that line, only that the person is in NIE]

And I may have taken the line out of its proper context, but I guess it fits this now.

That I must never forget why I do the things I love.

And never forget why is it I love them so.

And never stop loving them.

[slightly pensive mood]

Conversation

Me: "I'm having bad neckaches nowadays."

schwarz: "Yea, you look like you're getting a dowager's hump."

Me: "What??? Is it because of my posture??"

schwarz: "Usually these things are determined genetically, just that your bad posture could have made it worse."

Me: [conveniently not listening to the second half of the sentence] "Good, another thing I can blame on my parents."

*Doing*

schwarz: "Try not to slouch so much lah."

Me: "I can't help it, most of the time in tuition I have to bend down to help the kids."

schwarz: "How, like that?"

Me: "I know one thing I could do."

schwarz: "What?"

Me: [looking down at her 1.4m frame] "Talk more often to taller friends, for one?"

[that earned me a kick in the knee]

My neck hurts every time a tuition session ends. Or not hurt, but rather, ache. I can feel the muscles in my neck right now screaming out for a good massage, and a lot of those parlors are starting to look real tempting......

So if I go out with you and you notice that my neck is stuck in one position, or, [if you're shorter than me] I'm talking over the top of your head, bear with me.......