I'll try anyway...
"I hate you!!! You messed up my career!"
"I love you!"
"Stop bugging me, you're so irritating!"
"You light up life"
"Just leave me alone!"
"You're a great friend"
"You never have anything good to say"
"You cheapskate!"
"Why me????"
"You're a great role model"
"There's no more love here... only duty"
"Why are you so sensitive?"
"Why are you so insensitive?"
"I need more from you."
"I need approval, and respect"
"What's wrong with me?"
"Nobody loves me like they mean it."
"We're all being screwed over and our opinions don't mean a damn thing"
"Show, not tell!"
"Is it my fate to forever be a late achiever?"
"You were my rock"
"Life sucks"
"I want more money!"
"I want more time!"
"I want more brains"
Wordless
I feel like I have so much I want to say, yet when I try, nothing comes out:
"
"
I feel like I am closing up to everyone, because there is no one I can entrust with what I want to say, no one who can understand, no one who bear the fall-out from the voicing out of these thoughts.
Life Lessons
The most important life lesson I learnt from my parents:
"Do it, before they can stop you."
The fight against dustmite infestation
Handheld 900W Phillips Vacuum Cleaner with dual HEPA filter
- $70
Set of Anti-dustmite bed linen:
1 x anti-dustmite bedsheet and mattress pad
2 x anti-dustmite pillow cases and pillow pads
2 x anti-dustmite bolster cases and bolster pads
-$150
1 x floor detergent
-$6
1 x box of tri-layer air con filter with carbon mesh
-$25
Fighting with my mum to make her understand this is the right way to do things, and my asthma is NOT a convenient scapegoat for everything she hates about me, like sleeping late, eating unhealthily, having less stuff in my room; Fighting with my mum over the use of the washing machine for my bedding; Fighting with my mum to make her understand that coloured bedding runs when first washed and necessitates a seperate machine run and no I couldn't help choosing stuff that runs unless everything I buy is white (it's Friven for fucking goodness sake, if that's not good enough I dont' know what is);
- Every ounce of my patience and self control.
***
I can't wait to get out of this house and them out of my life.
Reading, and Little Voices
I just realised I don't really read anymore. It's been ages since I've read a novel, and I haven't even been keeping up on buying the latest books I've been waiting for. Usually I'd grab them the moment they appeared on the shelves in hardcover, but now I have no problems waiting an extra year for the mass market paperbacks to come out. Partially, I blame George R R Martin for dragging his feet an unprecedented 4 years for his 'A Dance with Dragons'. This one, on top of anything else by a mile, is what I really want to get my hands on, and all that waiting has dulled my interest following fantasy epics in general. Sharing the blame would be Robert Jordan, who strung me along for 15 years with his 'Wheel of Time' series and then died before he finished the final book.
I also realised that I don't really read the papers anymore. Not fully, anyway. I just end up scanning the articles for keywords and facts, just enough to understand what the point of the article was. No more reading full sentences and deliberating over sentence structure and nuances of phrasing, or appreciating the descriptions of abstract concepts with metaphor and imagery.
Why? I used to love language. When did I get reduced to just becoming a numbers and factoid cruncher? I think it boils down to a systemic degeneration of the quality of my life due to the stress of not being able get a grip on my current work/ph.d situation. When one isn't in control of the situation, fear and guilt and a dose of irrationality mess with the head: On one hand I indulge in bouts of escapism in some areas, on the other I withold deriving pleasure in other areas, as if by spending less time in some 'leisurely' pursuits would correlate with more time spent on what I -should- be doing. Thus, less time reading, playing sports and games, exercising...
A lot of ideas get scrapped in my head simply because I can't justify spending that time when I have so many other things I -should- be doing. It's like the little voice is telling me "if you aren't taking the time to write your reports and read your journal papers and planning your expts, then you can't take the time to enjoy yourself either!"
***
In other news, I'm sick, my asthma and allergies are as bad as ever, and the place is a dump. I want to clean out my room(s), but really, how do you begin cleaning out a junkyard? Everything's useful, in some way, and shouldn't be thrown out. But I can't move them elsewhere cos elsewhere is taken up by other junk, which can't be moved either cos there isn't any elsewhere elsewhere to move them to. It's like a mosiac puzzle, and when I think of all the time I need to spend on cleaning up, the little voice goes "Hey, shouldn't you be spending that time on something else MORE important, like your work, or going for a jog?"
And then the other little voice goes "Screw you all! All of you Needs have equal claims to time, so to be fair, none of you are getting any, so you can't complain. I'll just spend what little I have playing Facebook!"
Something had to give.....
but I was wrong. It isn't the relationship, but my fitness. Somehow it finds itself at the bottom of the pecking order. The first to be sacrificed. Happiness leads to celebratory feasting. Sadness leads to indulgence in comfort food. Tiredness leads to eating to refuel. I don't know where to fit in an exercise session that I would not rather replace with some other 'more important' thing, like squeezing in some lab work.
***
My bills are not getting paid on time. I've been carrying it with me for a week, but I don't feel the push to get to an AXS machine to pay. Ditto for a cheque I'm supposed to cash in. I don't know why I abhor inconvenience so much that I'd rather avoid taking action. My mum found my uncashed cheque where i kept it and offered to put it in the cheque drop for me. I railed at her for going through my stuff and snooping at my financial affairs.
Under normal circumstances I'd have loved the help; but not from my parents. A lifetime of emotional abuse has taught me to fear their help. Taking action was to invite criticism. Asking for help was to be made to feel stupid and useless. Being unable to help was to be accused of being lazy and selfish. I regret that the only way to protect myself is to impose an information and communication blackout.
***
Idea #4: "Sometimes, things have to be turned upside-down before they can turn right-side up again"
Mortality
Today, on an unremarkable thursday morning in the middle of an unremarkable month of June, on an unremarkable road shoulder on an expressway in an insignificant part of Singapore, a motorist got into an accident and died.
As traffic slowed to a crawl and my car silently cruised past the accident site, I saw a large, silver sheet draped over something on the road. Blood was still seeping slowly out from within the cover sheet, soaking into the ground.
Somewhere, on this unremarkable thursday morning, somebody's loved ones will receive terrible news that will shatter their hearts and turn their life upside down, forever.
I'm sure everyone who passed by that morning would have had a moment's grief for the tragic loss of life. Then, life goes back to normal. The radio DJs chatter on over the airwaves, blissfully unaware. Cars pass out of the gridlock and zoom off, carrying their drivers and passengers to work, Thoughts are already turning towards the day's shuffling of papers and pushing of pencils. There are emails to send and read. Lunch locations to decide on. Colleagues to gossip with.
Still, in that short moment of sorrow, it served to remind me of the preciousness and fragility of life. Anytime, it could suddenly come to an end, cutting short all your hopes and dreams and unfufilled goals. It is the clearest warning yet that what you put off till tomorrow, either out of laziness, or fear, or procrastination, or just sheer confidence that you have time yet.... well... you may never get to tomorrow.
***
On another road-related incident, as I was driving home on the ECP this evening, I was shocked to see an old lady sitting on the white line of the expressway road shoulder, just down the end of benjamin sheares bridge towards the Changi direction. She looked dazed and confused as she stared at the oncoming traffic, shielding her eyes with one hand against what must be the blinding glare of the vehicle headlights.
Never have I been so frightened that she'd just tumble out onto the road and into my path. I gave her a wide berth by cutting out from the leftmost lane and halfway into the 2nd.
Why are there so many unfortunate souls in frightful situations today?
Curiosity
I've always been a curious person. So how could I resist when, riding on the MRT on the way home this evening, this young girl in front of me started typing a long, rambling SMS on her extra-large screen handphone?
"...Enjoy your dinner, dear. Tell me one of your childhood secrets later. Somehow I fear something bad will happen to you because of the bribery. It is govt assoc. after all..."
So intriguing, on so many different levels!
The price of friendship...
$100 per wedding x 2 weddings, $80 for suitable attire,30 mins of vigorous car wash, 10 hrs of auxillary support, projected 50km worth of fuel....
I love my friends dearly, but their weddings are beggaring me!
A change is gonna come
A big change, and I'm worried about managing my time. Between juggling work, tuition, and relationship time, something has to give....
...and i'm worried it'll be relationship time. I'm afraid that small sacrifices will keep being made, over and over, just because it can. Bit by bit, until it becomes an empty shell, just 2 strangers with a history, but little of a shared present.
Fitness
I'm absolutely unfit, that's the plain old truth.
I've fallen so far from my peak, it's heartwrenching. Just 3 years ago, I was a whisker away from IPPT gold, doing 14-15km runs regularly, doing aikido, muay thai.
Now I have problems even doing 5km. I'm a horrifying 10kg heavier, and none of my clothes fit well anymore.
Where did it go wrong? Was it when my asthma suddenly came back with a vengeance? Or when golfer's elbow struck and I could no longer do weights? Or was it the Iliotibial Band injury on my right knee which effectively halted my running regime? Or the stress of my studies and family relations? Or the love of good food, and plenty of it? It's hard to say which was the straw that broke the camel's back and started the downward spiral.
It feels harder for me to get back on track, knowing how fit I once was, and how much work I'd have to do just to get back to that level. Very demoralising. I know, I know. Step by step. Stick to a routine. Pace myself. Set realistic goals.
Challenging, especially for someone who can never enforce a habit or schedule, even for the simplest things.
I need to work around my weaknesses, like avoiding mind-numbing, solitary, time-consuming exercises such as long distance jogging or swimming. I've already started with futsal on tuesdays. At least it's fun and interactive. Time flies and before I know it, I've already had 2 hours of high-intensity interval sprinting.
Still, gyms are unavoidable, I think. For now I'll work on 20 min sessions of interval training on the treadmill. Haven't decided how yet to structure the anaerobic part of the fitness regime, But I'll want it done in 20 mins or less to avoid the dread factor from creeping in.
Meals - Fish soup, as often as I can! Is it achievable? I dunno. I mean, I like fish soup well enough, providing it's good quality fish, and I've done it before. Dunno how easy it will be to cut down on my nasi padang and western foods. I wish I could go back to cooking my own fish, broccoli and brown rice meals, but my discipline is atrocious at the moment. The thought of spending 2 evening hours cooking, eating and washing up is dreadful. Maybe my dear would be a kind soul and cook for me, since she's the main
nagger instigator in my plan to lose weight.
Step-by-step, lets see how it goes.
Conflict
My right foot is now badly bruised because of an injury sustained while playing soccer yesterday evening. I can only walk with a limp now.
Secretly though, I kinda like getting injuries (minor ones, of course). Especially the ones sustained through sports. It shows that I am pushing myself. I was fascinated when my toenails came off from playing soccer (twice). I was fascinated when I scraped my knee badly during a fall while doing a shuttle run.
I guess i'm just weird this way.
***
Our family was informed yesterday by the Condo Management Office that someone had complained that our aircon compressor was making loud noises at night and disturbing them. We checked it out, and there was indeed some kind of rattling noise when we switched on the room aircons. As a result we're going aircon-less for the week until the repairman can come take a look at it.
What I don't understand though, is why the neighbours couldn't come directly to us and let us know? We've always been friendly and approachable to our immediate neighbours. The way I see it, this is so typically Singaporean. What I notice is that many Singaporeans hate confrontation. So much so that they'd (we) rather go round the back way to get what they want. They (we) look for proxies to do the dirty work, like the police, or, in this case, the management committee. They (we) make anonymous tip-offs to the media, post anonymous rants on web forums or videos on Stomp. They(we) whine that the govt needs to legislate to prevent whatever they are unhappy with. Everything except go up to the offending individual and saying 'Hey, something is wrong. Can we resolve this?'
Buuuuut then again, maybe Singaporeans aren't really capable of civilised conflict resolution. I only need to point to the AWARE saga and the extraordinary shenanigans during the EGM. Grown women (and men), shrieking and yelling (anonymously from their seats in the back rows), interrupting attempts to speak, telling people to 'Shut up and sit down'.. and so on. It was like a scene from 'Kindergarten Kids go Wild'. if such a B-grade movie were to be made. Oh well.
***
Idea #3: What people do not understand (or appreciate), they destroy. They put down. They laugh at. They mock and criticize. And they attack you for daring to threaten their ego by showing up their lack of understanding.
Not yet ...
... into the habit of blogging regularly. The stuff that I might want to blog about are usually the things best left unsaid, lest the wrong ears (or eyes)come to know about it.
The stuff that can be blogged about, usually don't need to be said. That leaves just the material that I want to blog about and -want- to be said, which is usually an exercise in image building since I know people are watching and reading. It can't be seen now, but if all written text and backspacing were to be captured and displayed here, it'd give an idea of how much self-censoring I had to do to publish even one post. Why? Because, at this point in time I do give a damn about the people around me, regardless what I think.
< ---- lots of deleted text ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------->
I just wish more people do give a damn about me too. Perhaps that's the problem. A vicious circle of more people treating my feelings more roughly, trying to provoke a response from me because they perceive me to be a stable rock, even as I encase myself more deeply in stone to prevent being hurt.
And then one fine day they realise a towering great wall of China has been built over the years and I'm no longer interested in crossing over to the other side. No longer interested in offering an olive branch. Or building bridges. Or establishing diplomatic relations. It's frustrating when I see the beginnings of such an end, and when i say 'Stop it! Stop it!" no one takes it seriously. They don't believe that one day I will just stop trying to make things better.
****
Oh, and I went cycling with the gf last sat. We rode from ECP Mac's to Changi Village and back. Took 3 hours, and we saw the Sundown Marathon officials setting things up.
We spent sunday playing Sims 2, seperately on different computers. Simulating the virtual lives of 2 seperate, yet identical families comprising her and myself. While the real life remained on pause mode. How ironic, eh?
****
Gonna be a brother for my old friend's wedding next next weekend. Umm... what to say about it? Ok? I'm happy for him. That's a given. I usually never refuse such requests from my friends. But honestly, I think it's my need to feel useful that's making the decision for me. That's ok. The part of me that tells me I should push myself into unfamiliar situations says that that's how I will learn and grow.
****
Daily Idea #2: "Wallowing in self-pity is like masturbation. Sure, it feels good, but after a while you realise you're just fucking with yourself."- Unknown source.
Restart
The first rule of Restart is 'Don't ask me when I will graduate'.
The second rule of Restart is 'DON'T ask me when I will graduate'.
The third rule of Restart is 'Remember the first two rules'.
************************************************************
So there. That's out of the way. Now I just have to figure out how to blog again, and what.
It seems that the older I become, the less I have to say, and the less patience I have to spend paragraphs justifying my actions as I might have done in the past. So what is a blog if not a bin to unload all my angst? Maybe it'll just be a record of all my daily activities. We'll see.
*
Later, I'll be meeting my old JC buddies for dinner at Vivocity. Champion is back in town and leaving again soon for Germany, where he works, so it's a kind of farewell again, though with the advent of the internet, email, online messenging and video conferencing programs, does anyone ever really need to say goodbye anymore? I'm constantly amazed by (and jealous of) how changed our circumstances are since those carefree post-exam Fantasy Island escapade days. Ah Beng's married with a daughter, Champion's morphed from mischieveous boy to jet-setting yuppie, and Gentleman's doing well in the technological industry. I don't really know what to say to them, we're at such different stages of life now. I'm guessing we'll fall back on the usual male bonding staples: NS, sex, hot babes, cars, stocks, sex, computer games and technology. And sex.
*
Had an interesting midnight conversation with my colleague over MSN yesterday. We talked about heavy stuff like being cruelty, free will, and what it means to be an intellectual. Coming up with a definition for 'cruelty' alone took a long time. In the end, my definition, taking a part of his as well, was:
"The un-necessary, deliberate, inflicting of physical or emotional pain (for him it was 'deprivation of value'), onto someone, within the context of the perpetrator's goals."
I argued that 'unnecessary' was important to the definition, since intent is important in establishing cruelty. IF it were 'necessary' to inflict pain (deprive value from) to someone, lets say for the sake of survival or 'The greater good', is it really 'cruelty'? But then, what if the person's goal is merely to derive enjoyment from watching the suffering of others?
That conversation is scheduled to continue later tonight....
*
That's all for now. I thought it might be interesting to end each blog post with an interesting thought or idea which has shaped my own worldview. So here it is.
**
Daily Idea #1: "It's often easier to beg forgiveness, than to ask for permission."
Catastrophe
The laptop crashed last week out of the blue, rendering all of my saved data in the hard disk unrecoverable. After days of running around in panic, trying to salvage data with uncle J's help, it turns out that the hdd was totally fried. Data gone. Lucky most of my impt data was in my thumbdrive, which I immediately backed up in my desktop.
The stupid HD laptop bay is damned frustrating. To open it up, I need a phillips screwhead, a starshaped screw head, and a long-nose plier just to remove the 3 different sets of screws for the mounting. I spent more than $300 buying a set of screwdrivers, and 2 new HDD; one internal 2.5" and one external to serve as a backup drive. Problem solved? Nope. Firstly, installing the new hdd into the laptop was a mistake. I didn't have an internal CD drive, and somehow the bios didn't allow my HP laptop to boot from the USB CD drive. So cannot install. I had to strip it back out and plug the HDD into my desktop, using a 2.5" ide adapter which Uncle J kindly lent me. Tralala, Format, partition, install winxp, update, update, update.....
Thinking that now I have a bootable hdd, I plugged it out and installed it back into the laptop, and turned it on.
.... Bloody thing couldn't load. !@#@#!@#!@ It keeps hanging after the screen where you choose to either run normally or boot in safe mode.
Now for the kick in the balls: I plugged my desktop HDD back in (which I previously removed when I was installing stuff on the laptop hdd), and it won't work!!!! now, it keeps hanging after the 'Verifying DMI Pool' screen. I tried playing with the bios settings, switching IDE and power cables, master/slave configs..... nothing. Still cannot work.
So now I have an inoperable desktop and an inoperable laptop. Ironically enough, my laptop HDD now works on my desktop. Argh. Why won't it work on my laptop?? Could it be because the new 5200 rpm hdd can't be supported by my laptop motherboard? The old one was only 4200. Or could it be that when my laptop malfunctioned, the damage was to some part other than the hdd? Then why can't I read my old hdd?? And why did it show severe bad sectors during recovery?
Argh! Why is this happening to me???
The more I think about it, the more I feel that life is like a game. A poker game. Sometimes you are dealt winning hands, and sometimes losing hands. It's a fallacy of all these self-help advice that suggest that ultimately, one has to take full responsibility for the cards one is given. That if one is in a bad situation, it's down to a personal flaw, or attribute of character. Trying to convince oneself otherwise sometimes just can't work, as it involves redefining the goals of the game. In soccer analogy, that's probably called 'shifting the goal posts'. If I can't win at a game of tennis, or badminton, I could probably tell myself 'Hey, no sweat, at least I improved my stroke, lost many calories orhad a good social interaction with friends'. Sure, it works. It makes you feel better. but I still didn't win the game. And sometimes in life, you HAVE to win the game.
Life is a game. Did I say that already? There are people who win. There are more people who lose. It's an undeniable fact. It's utterly impersonal. Maybe the trick to winning is not so much to play a bad hand back to a winning hand -although it's entirely possible-, but to recognise and bet big on the good hands, and know when to cut losses on the bad ones. Whether it's about social relationships, jobs, finance, personal adversity, I guess in the course of our life, we'll be dealt a great number of cards. Opportunities. Some will reward us greatly. Some will be a great waste of our time, effort, money, and cause much heartache. It's utterly impersonal.
So what does one have to do?
1)Play the game better. Learn the strategies, the tactics, the raw skills, and even the exploits. Every hand requires a different mix of these, and sometimes stuff that isn't in my repetoire. Knowledge is power, so learn to get an edge. In multiplayer environments, as Life invariably is, understand the social mechanics and psychology of others. Apply Game Theory. Or Sun Tsu's Art of War. Or Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus. Cooperate. Negotiate. Manipulate.
2)Balance the risks and rewards. Life is not just one hand of poker, but thousands. Don't bet everything on one throw of the dice,if you will forgive the mixed anologies here. Capitalise on the good hands, play as best you can, and cash out at the right time. On bad hands, give it a go, but cut your loss as soon as you recognise it. Don't keep throwing good money after bad money, as stock investors like to say. (That's where I suspect my work life is at right now. I STILL have to win, i.e. pass my pH.D, but I'm not gonna stake my entire life on this dud hand)
So there. My new philosophy for Life. Knowing that I will be dealt with dud hands from time to time without it being my fault makes it easier to bear. If I learn the game, and keep playing each hand, chances are I will win more than I lose. And at the end of it all, on my deathbed, after I tally everything up I want to have won more than I lost. Only then, I can be judged a WINNER. But even if my losses outnumber my gains, I will still only be a person who lost. Not a Loser.
Because, in the Great Game of Life, the only real Losers are the ones who choose not to play.
Game on!
