I haven’t been getting much of a social life ever since I started in my current occupation.
Yes, I have been going out with my friends.
Yes, I have been chatting with some of them.
Yet, the feeling just isn’t there. I don’t know what has happened to the fire within. Perhaps doused by the cold air-conditioning in the office? It always get chilly in the afternoons when the sun is blazing outside.
In fact, nothing has ever been the same since my life took a drastic change back when I enlisted into the army for my national service. With only one hour each day to wash-up, prepare the stuff for the next day’s training, I literally let the ball drop.
So much so that by now, I feel a teeny bit close-friendless. Sure, I have all the great friends in my life; especially the new ones I have found at work, but the extra oomph always come from my closest friends, from whom I have been drifting ever since 2003.
Wow, 3 years of extreme close-friendlessness. Am I some weird creature? I’d say probably.
The next 2 weeks are not going to help a lot: I am scheduled to work the magical 8pm to 8am shift - very much like guard duty, except that we yak instead of shoot. I don’t know whether the extreme cold temperatures in the wee hours of the morning would affect me: I had survived morning dews in a forest, but probably, the cold temperatures are a reflection of a too-cool heart.
That is not something just any sweater or windbreaker is going to warm.
Scribbled under:
General
I travelled way further north than usual today, hitting the remote little town of Sembawang, which is near the border city of Woodlands. Though the previous sentence makes absolutely ridiculous sense in tiny Singapore’s context, it seemed to be a huge leap of travel for me, just like when I went to the far east for a chalet.
We first met at Yishun Central, the hub of the North. This is where most bus services to the various towns in the North originate. The mid-way towns between the next regional hub (the border city of Woodlands) are notoriously poorly connected to the City; thank goodness Sembawang had its own stop along the islandwide MRT railway system, otherwise it would seem like travelling out of this world.
When we alighted at our destination, the nearly-empty narrow dual-lane carriageway contrasted with the residential buildings towering above the road. It seemed like a remote city, and the lack of shops in the immediate vicinity gave the impression of general isolation.
At least the carparks seemed full: people here looked well-off enough to afford a car. Perhaps this is why they dared to buy a house in this area. I can’t dream of waking up at the crack of dawn just to get to work in the City by bus: just travelling to the area from Yishun itself took around 20 minutes. I couldn’t imagine how the secondary school kids manage the monotony.
Well, as to why I (or rather, “we”) went to Sembawang, that shall have to remain a mystery. A top secret that I can’t reveal. I can only just say, “Thanks for having us! We had a great time!”
The side effect was that I am now even more bent on getting a car than before.
Scribbled under:
General
I got tagged by Harrison’s blog when I dropped by this morning. I just had to finish reading his meme. Guess the final line?
7 people to do this:
Mingwei, Brose, Pat, Huiyin and anyone who visits my blog!
I got tagged for reading his blog!
(more…)
Scribbled under:
General
Not that I blame the Indonesians, but recent nose-digging has led to dark and forboding discoveries. I couldn’t even begin to imagine what I would have gotten into my lungs had I gone out and gasped for breath through my mouth.
I know, it is a poor excuse for me to not be exercising, but with the buildings outside looking like they were standing on Genting Highlands, I am really hesitant to take the risk. After all, I am stuck inside here doing something more constructive (like blogging regularly for once).
From today’s papers, I was a bit amused that the Indonesians have tied ractifying the anti-air pollution treaty to a package of quad-lateral issues to settle with its neighbouring countries before they would pass a piece of paper banning haze belching in its own country.
Kind of like threatening to drown yourself in nicotine and tar if your neighbours don’t let it have your way. The scary thing is that they do not mind doing so to extract an extradition treaty from Singapore, get Malaysia to stop importing illegal Indonesian wood, and Thailand to stop its fishermen from fishing in Indonesian waters.
Not that Thailand could yell for the ships to retreat. Indonesian can’t even get its own farmers to stop burning trees.
I am quite surprised that nobody has pointed out this point to Indonesia. The haze is a seasonal encounter: we get some if we are unlucky, but for the most part it causes considerable damage to the economy, but nothing that major enough to warrant being held hostage by the Indonesians. Maybe they were too diplomatic to inform them that they (Indonesia) were the ones stewing in its own fart.
I sure hope they do something about this. Meanwhile, I guess I’ll get on with my life while they suffer a drastic loss to their tourist arrivals.
Scribbled under:
Current Affairs, Writings
Supposedly, my work would actually help me manage my time better, especially when working in shifts with ever-changing off days. What I didn’t count on when I scrawled on the contract papers was the fatigue accompanying 12 hours of straight talking to unresponsive humans.
Granted, most people are fluent conversers (is there such a word?). They can make the most basic articulation to get in with the flow: provide name, their situation and request.
The rest, however, are socially inarticulate and incompetent fishes (remember, fishes don’t talk). While I had people with problem conveying their messages across, it was far less tougher to be informed on their needs than to chat with guys who think that the whole world could understand them with just 5 words.
“I just got a letter.”
Resisting the urge to be a telepathic psycopath, I decide to probe, “So, you got a letter?”
“Yes, I (sic) got a letter.”
Gee, I might have flipped there and then. That conversation was going nowhere, and I was plotting on how best to get him to keep his trap open. I suggested to myself that he rarely used his mouth for purposes other than refuelling.
But I kept silent. Sometimes, keeping silent and not make conversation can have the uncomfortable effect of anticipation, and encourage the mouth to yak. Anything to stop the silence.
“Hello?”
“Yes, I am still here. So you got a letter?”
I decided: if he wasn’t going to be forth-coming with his request, I won’t carry on waltzing with a time-waster. There are a good many other things that I could do than to wait for someone to decide to tell me his situation (like take other calls; but you know that I wrote this to make the Boss happy. I prefer lazing it out  )
“So, would you prefer to tell me your current situation, or would you like some more time to think it through?”
Sometimes, I wished that people didn’t think that I was omnipotent. Besides, why would I continue to work when I can read their minds for at least one month’s salary in one day?
Scribbled under:
General
It has been a whole 8 days since I posted something, and almost 2 weeks since I posted something that resembled any coherent piece of blogging (in my own opinion). Of course, there is no excuse, since I have been mis-managing my time left after all the coursework.
In fact, I enjoy abusing the time, almost saddistically. When you know that you can idle on the bed for the few hours not doing any real work, it is a real motivator to just, well… not move.
And I lie there, with the fan whirrling on top of the box which contains my old computer monitor, thumbing through my phone every few minutes to wonder why nobody was calling me. Scroll down the contact list, hover the hand over the green “Call” button, then find a cowardly excuse not to ring up a long lost friend.
Drop phone on the bed, day-dream about never having to work, wake up to find myself groggy because I have fallen asleep, pick up the phone, and repeat the cycle.
When I am not pursuing that non-profitable hobby, I am away reading other people’s blogs. I usually leave the IMs shut down for no reason. Intellectual discourse fails my brain after numbing myself on all the mundane questions that I am asked by inbound callers at work.
Plus the hours are killers: while I am lucky to only rarely have bad customers, the odd ones whom don’t adhere to an acceptable basic phone courtesy really irks me to no end.
I don’t need a job; I need a goal.
Scribbled under:
General
As the cliche goes: a picture speaks a thousand words.
If only Wordpress could leave comments on my postings, perhaps I won’t feel that lonely?
Scribbled under:
General
Time for you to break into those long-unused particulate face masks! The smoke from the Indonesian fires are making their way again, this time engulfing the entire Singapore in its smokey embrace.
After I posted the last entry, I took out my running shoes, and ran for the first time in 2 weeks. Whether my inactivity had anything to do with the wheezing was immaterial because I could see the translucent fog diluting the colours of the surroundings. I didn’t want to imagine the smoke making its way into my lungs.
The haze covered practically everything, including all my usual target markers on my run. Which made it hard to concentrate. The lesson on the need to have a clear goal struck me, and I nearly scored an internal injury as I tried to stop laughing while wheezing in a particulate covered environment.
Mother was worried when I returned from the run.
“Why are you running in such a hazy weather?”
“Does it matter? I am not asthmatic, and it is not so bad that I’ll kiss a lampost along the way.”
“Now’s not the time. If you want to (lose weight), eat less for dinner.”
Now, mum is not known to spew forth unsound advice, so it got me wondering if the haze conks up the brain. Perhaps it has to do with all the fart that we are receiving from Indonesia? Talk about eating their dust!
Scribbled under:
General
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