Sim, Li, here's a photo journal; an inadequate record of my experience
If my trip was a full blooded experience, this is just a skeleton of it..apologies, it's the best I've got, already...
the end is in sight
Is this it? The end of (let's see...)almost 18 years of education (including kindergarten). I still feel a bit stunned. Wow almost 20 years of being inside school systems, I'm soon to be ejected out into another social system. How did it happen? How did all that time pass me by? I still remember feeling damn scared being shoved onto my first school bus, all that mess with vomits, untimely bodily discharges from the digestive system. How other children were scary but not as frightening as the towering giant of a teacher I had. Education was traumatic, how did we all stay so sane even after so many years.. Maybe we're not that sane, but oh well..it's never too late to turn hermit now.
All our life being governed by school terms. Hah, no seasons in Singapore, so we understand time via school terms. CA, SA, June holidays, December Holidays. tests, Periods, Bell rings, Recess. CCAs, homework. assemblies, national athems, school songs. Hanging out. Did I come a long way or am I still where I started off? I wonder if I have really been thoroughly changed by things I have learnt from the education system. Because part of me still feels like that really scared, small girl first day of school. Always trying to find my way around. Fumble about and manage to stay afloat with all the others thrown into the same ocean, learning the rules, finding ways to break them. Having guilty pleasures at the expense of some one else. that cruel stage called teen-hood. Some changes come upon unnoticed, like how new shoots bud from seeds always when you least expect, catching you unaware. How I see someone just like myself in secondary school and wonder when did I become someone else, but it's strange how some parts of me still stays the same, only I don't know which is which.
I know, I've always talked about anxiety of starting work, of 'supposedly' entering another phase in life, but I wonder if I am wrong. Maybe things aren't going to be that different. maybe I'll still be that same small girl first day of school, over and over and over again. And there's also that freedom, of putting on versions of yourself, picking one out from a pile. There are the secretive, sociable, private, mean, confident, self-conscious sides, there's so many, and having to put them together from that palette when changes come upon us, is scary, but it is probably one of those moments when we also feel an incredible freedom. Even if it is an illusion, that we can remake ourselves. that there are things anew. Even if the tree stays the same, the leaves are new, the blossoms are new, the insects residing are new, the rain it catches is new. And there is that freedom which accompanies that fear, like free falling, like sky diving, like living. And I want to appraoch both with eyes and arms wide open.
Why does blogging become pointless when I have a very packed life? Hm..
Maybe there is some truth to my sister's view that only bored people blog.
I refuse to agree totally, but then again, it seems to be damn true for me.(evidential support)
Whenever I feel happy with the way things are going, I hardly visit my blog...
When things get sucky, I want to type loads of stuff (unload).
Maybe unhappiness is a better source for motivation and inspiration for writing.
Die! I'm generalizing, but then again why are suicidal writer's work so much more intense?
Another 1 of those questions worth pondering in life to waste some time.
I have one more good question, why is work such a blank, bland, dry, totally tasteless subject?
No wonder I have yet seen a good book on 'work'.
Goodness, we (or maybe it's just me) desperately need good literature on this
disgusting topic.
Work. (Bah!) My whole brain goes dry and dies a little at that word
Oh. Results are coming out tmr, can't seem to be bothered. (abnormality)
What is happening? Must be the side effect of work..
tsk tsk.
How did my mum do it? I wonder if they have permanently damaged brain.
Symptoms: lack of imagination, terrible terrible sense of humour (office jokes-shivers), run on coffee, toilet breaks are considered fun. (I shan't go on...I'm being horribly bitchy today)-another symptom.
blame it on work again.
pics!!! (warning: these may be shocking)
(side view)
(tied up, so less scary at work)Wahaha my hair looks alive. (thankfully, my supervisors were nice, despite my hair)
I was afraid they'll ask me to remove the braids!
I shall call this the MSM episode.
MSM:
Modern Singaporean Medusa.
Man Such a Mistake
My Scary Makeover
Messy Scalp Mayhem
Misadventure, shock, monster.
"Miss, Some mousse?"
Miscalculated: Shocking Mismatch.
Thinking of cutting my hair really short again, but then I think of how hard it was for me to grow out the darn thing, must do more stuff with my hair before they get chopped off.
deep shit
Shit shit shit.. I'm starting my internship tomorrow and my hair is a disaster. How how how. how how how!I look crazy. (understatement) I'll proably be turned out of the ministry of health. And people are gonna stare like mad. With my usual harmless "I'm such a goody good guy" look, I normally have no problems with immigration check points, but today, they wanted to check me just because of my hair-do. Superficial people. (what can I say). I'm still trying to get use to my reflection. Damn weird. And my friend was talking about dreadlocking her hair... she'll prob be suspected of taking marijuana loh. Goodness, it is as if crooks have it written on their face, as if criminals have a certain scream out loud look or hairstyle.. Hah, dunno how my supervisor will react man. (hopefully, she will look past the bad-hair, cos I plan to keep uit for at least another week.)
Time, currently 2.35pm in Bangkok international airort.
Stranded here because of jetstar asia's shitty-ness.
Still 8 more hours before I can see the bed, the room I miss so much the past 8 days.
Skin, irritable. prickly heat rashes.
Hair, a total disaster, tried to braid everything, I look like a chinese gone african gone science-experiment-freak gone wrong.
Exhaustion
Even the 10 hour bus ride is not as terrible as the 4 hours wait. I'm supposed to be on the pane now, leaving for home...
"Country road take me home..to the place wehre I belong..."
close shaves: My camera was almost stolen.
My itchy neck is killing me!)
haven't had a good night's sleep, last night the disco below my lousy camper's hostel was blarring disgusting pop music.
The aircon in my room was freezing, and I had no blanket.
ONe thing is for sure though, If I ever have a choice, I'm not gonna rough it out.
I might stick to being a pampered, well-rested, good-food stuffed, pink-of-health, sunblocked, mosturized, nice-smelling, clean-looking, straight-haired tourist.
Like those tour-group Japanese at Angkor
with nice hair, makeup, fair skin, no sweat top it all with hats, sunscreen, plus an additional umbrella.
I could have fallen to my death at Angkor when I was climbing those crumling steep stairs with no railings
but I didn't, thankfully.
I don't know where's the line between stupidity and bravery.
Fool? Foolhardy? Hardy?
None of the above.
I've breathed in tons of red dust, from the bumpy road to cross the border.
Am i proud of myself? Not really.
Wish I had taken a flight instead
Regret: My Freaking hair scares me everytime I see myself in the mirror.
Monster. Medusa. Mussafa(Lion King). Mistake.
ok. 3pm. I rest my case. I have been complaining too much.
Why glorify death? I would much rather glorify life.
Lately, I have been coming across quite alot of people writing about suicides and death (not in a morbid way) but strangely as a celebration. Seeing it as a act of beauty, the ultimate act of reaffirmation of the possibility of living and as a choice. I don't know, maybe I'm unromantic, and old school, but I'll never agree. i am sure that out there somewhere are people who choose to end their lives by choice, or choose to see it as beautiful. But everytime i read these viewpoints, this Chinese phrase always pops up, I don't know where it came from, maybe a movie I 've seen, or something I've read, or maybe it is something I believe so much in that it just automatically wells up from inside. "活着,比世界上任何东西都要好."
I don't know how have we gotten to a state when we have taken everything so for granted that even being alive seems like a natural given. It is a boredom to be a alive, death is more exciting. Perhaps. But I am grateful for being alive. I don't know why I have the sudden urge to reaffrim this to myself. Maybe I'm afraid I will forget (becasue sometimes I do)about how wonderful it is to just be alive. Sometimes, I have lunch with friends who are Chirstians or catholics, and I see them saying grace before their meals. I think it is beautiful, (if)when they mean it, to eat with gratitude. In the same way, I don't understand how is it that so many of us now no longer live with gratitude. Live with thanks giving. Is it because we feel so safe? so far from death? Or is it because we have the illusion of having control, or is it simply ungratefulness on our part. Afterall, we have never experienced war, or much suffering. Because it amazes me, how people in times of war, famine, still hold on to their lives. Not really only out of fear of death, i don't think fear of death is the cause. But I feel that that fear stems from loving life. I don't know why we have all gone so numb from living that not-living becomes beautiful.
Does it take a war, a death, a close shave to remind us that being alive is a gift? Maybe I sound like some preachy social worker dissuading some suicidal teen, but I genuinely believe in it. And I hope I won't forget it along the way. Maybe it is because most of us don't think our existence is anything really special. Afterall, we are not all Shakespeare, but maybe we always forget it is a miracle we can even know of this life, this place, this time, this existence, this moment. Really, "Thank God I'm alive."
more political space,less fear (please!!)
2 more days to the election and I flipped open the newspaper and am quite frankly horrified. What the hell man? i don't know what the rest of Singapore is thinking, but I am horrified! What kind of country, political system am I living in? When they publish the voice of one dominant party on front page. I don't know man.. I have been considering who to give my precious virgin vote to. and now I have made up my mind.
Talking to my friend over dinner yestserday, I am a little surprise to find out that not everyone my age thinks the same about the issue. I do admit that the oposition parties do not seem to be very convincingly competent. And sometimes their tactics are immature: names calling etc... But in the long run, I think the local political scene desperately needs new voices. DIFFERENT voices. OTHER voices. Carving out new political spaces for these opposition parties is so badly needed, and it is become more and more blatantly obvious that there aren't enough space created for people to say things differently. To go against the grain.
And once again the 'fear' of not conforming, of saying things differently resurfaces. Everytime. It never fails, someone does something, say something different, they are silenced. No wonder most Singaporeans prefer to have no opinions most of the time. Better stick to discussing movies, music, arts, tv than dabbling in politics. Dont'even talk about it. "you could get into trouble you know? like so and so?" The fear is unhealthy, and if we want creative, risk taking proactive citizens, this fear really has to go. It is a terrrible obstacle. I don't know if giving opposition parties a chance will eventually help us break out of this fear. But I do know that the need is getting more and more desperate. And we feel it, especially us the younger generation. We may not acknowledge it consciously but we all feel it in our bones that we need more space to develope our interests, to say things that matter, things we observe. If not how do we explain that look in our eyes of dissatisfaction and powerlessness to change things, and almost everyone-I-know's talks of going away, living elsewhere. imagining a life as something rather than staying in Singapore.
I have made up my mind. For me, it is time, since I have the right to vote now,(even though it is weak) to start freeing up space, if not for me, for people after. Because we may not want to face it or admit it, but currently the stage is too small and too tied to allow our best to take flight. And I'm so sick of this "fear"- always so invisible and hidden from view and UNSPOKEN.
new found truth
Relations are a chore. Period. (another chore)
I understand you Oscar Wilde, finally!