Water Parade

I feel like doing absolutely nothing, apart from maybe staring at the dust on my monitor screen in anticipation to clap my hands if the speck of dust moves. I have 8 hours of sleep behind me yet I still feel like I need more. My identity card says I’m 28 yrs old yet I feel like 60. I’m coughing as well, which adds further evidence that my preliminary observation may not be too far from the truth. Tuesday was meant to be my research day, yet I’m halfway into declaring it to be a ‘no-work’ day, and instead spend time to complete my sandcastle construction project.

Maybe I’m burned out, as the last few weeks have been really hectic. I actually worked to 2am in the office for three days straight. It was a great experience actually when I finally got my work done. The sense of achievement was almost as good as getting a full-house in poker. I needed to write a paper from scratch and I actually did it in five days. I was rather proud of myself with the thought that I could finally call myself an academic. My self-praise and celebration were short-lived when arnette announced that she had a deadline to complete five papers in a week. I suddenly felt like a tadpole in a well. The anticlimax was like a dying cartoon jingle played through a broken speaker.

I really wish that this cough will go away. It is something that I can never get used to, despite suffering from viral coughs twice in a year. You tell yourself, maybe it’ll go away the next day, but you still find yourself croaking your lungs out in the morning. Traditionally, this kind of cough would only leave me alone after four weeks, but I’m still naive enough to hope. Drink lots of water they say, so I end up visiting the toilet as often as I need to procrastinate when I work. I think I’ve tried everything in the cabinet, cough syrup (with and without codeine), chinese herbs, vitamin C, zinc and garlic extracts, cough drops and here is a new one, Manuka honey. Maybe I’m getting desperate. I have three more days before CG is coming over for dinner and I’m pretty keen to make an impression. I guess coughing away while you make the red-wine sauce ain’t really the kind of impression I want to make. I’m running out of ideas continue to drink lots of water I guess and perhaps make the washing-closet my second home.

Wonder who might be reading this?

Chee Soon Juan gets sued again. If we get a dollar every time that happens, we might collect enough for one week’s worth of ERP expenses. Poor Chee, you have to feel for him, he is like a political rag doll that is flung around by the big boys, yet he comes back with puppy eyes and asks for more. To most Singaporeans, Chee has the political standing of a crippled insect whose place is to make the lives of the big guns just that bit less perfect. He is an annoyance, and much as I am no fan of his, I feel that he has an important role to play.

In Singapore, placing the word ‘opposition’ in the same sentence with the word ‘PAP’ gives a forlorn sense of futileness. Given the stringent rules in the game, there aren’t many ways one can play the devil’s advocate. You can follow the rules, do everything right and perhaps find inconspicuous longevity in the political game as Chiam has. Or be the quiet citizen who may every now and then blog his political view while harbouring a nervous suspicion over who may actually be reading those words. Or the last and least celebrated approach, the soap-box-squealing ex-psychology lecturer who collects summons for defamation suits instead of Christmas cards.

Chee is no fool. He is pushed against the corner with nothing to lose which ironically releases his damaging worst. He cries foul as often as the government gives away money before election, yet he is not just a balloon of hot air. He is Dan Brown when it comes to fabricating conspiracy theories and he uses the old saying ‘there is no smoke without fire’ to good effect. Yet at the same time, his allegations are not completely baseless. Not backed with facts, because if he was able to, he wouldn’t be bankrupted. He listens to the whispers at coffee shops and amplifies them. He suffers the consequences with the hope of becoming a political martyr despite having only his wife, 3 daughters and a few fellow bankruptees who would care enough to celebrate his endeavors.

In Chee’s most recent and strategic outcry, he draws the parallels between the NKF saga and the national governance of Singapore. Just before General Election some more, perfect. Be it a knee-jerk reaction or a traditional practice of fanning the smoke, the Strait Times announces that Chee’s allegation is dignified by a defamation suit. And as predictably as a B-grade chick’s flick, Chee will lose the suit – how do you prove that the government does not operate in transparency? The logic of proving that an allegation is not not correct is quite hopeless; especially when you are trying to say that to Davinder Singh. Chee will sit in a cell with a daily 45mins break to brush his teeth for 7 weeks, but he will do so with a smile. Suddenly, the word nepotism will ring at the back of people’s head – Chee 1, Lee 0. But it will soon be forgotten when the government announces new shares to give away. Chee continues to sit in his cell, but what the heck, you can’t be bankrupted twice.

Bum On My Lounge Floor

It is the 7th April. I really should be sitting in my new office, peering through my window blinds at the lunch hour traffic as I procrastinate my day away in blissful daydreaming. Yet, I still find myself engaging in an extended liaison between my bum cheeks and my lounge carpet because I have to work from home. It has been more than a month and the new office was meant to be ready before the Germans surrendered. They say I’ll be at my new desk next Tuesday, but I know that with a bit of luck, I should be happy if the office was ready before Christmas.

Working from home is not easy. Apart from having to work on the floor, there are the distractions of mid-day TV programmes like Oprah and Judge Judy and self-inflicted commitments such as keeping my PSP company and regular testing of the springs on my Slumberland mattress. There is also Raft the furry white cat. Raft is my neighbour’s cat and I have taken a keen adoration for it. I’m not really cat lover, but since I spend so much time at home nowadays, Raft is my only window for mammal-mammal interaction. He is a really adorable cat with fur soft as erm…. fur, and a face that looks perpetually squished against a glass door. I think I should stop letting it into my house, as I suspect that the owner smells something fishy, and that is not just the tuna and chicken treat I feed Raft when I’m in the mood for feline affection.

Work is also getting increasingly demanding. Despite spending more than 2 years in my research, it only just occurred to me that PhD is actually a difficult ordeal. Most candidates would have figured that out in the first six months, but I say why waste time worrying when you could take it easy and spend time indulging yourself in squandering scholarship money? Being in my final year, the story is quite different now. It is not really the amount of work I have to do, because after living the life of a maltreated cur in the army, hard work doesn’t bother me. It is the stress and frustration of not knowing what to do that drives me up the wall and sometimes through it. It is the feeling of being lost in a forest somewhere in Poland with aid of a needle-less compass. At the end of the day when the frustration gets the better of you, you would turn to the clock in seek of an escape… … the clock reads 6pm, perhaps it is time to take a break – you deserve it. You would then pack up with weary eyes and look forward to….. …. Alas! You realised that you have been rob from the pleasure of going home after work!

I need my office, they better have it by Tuesday. Otherwise we will have one fat cat in the neighbourhood.

a chat with Jameson

It has been a very long week and I’m weary. I would love to say there hasn’t been any entry in this blog for more than a fortnight because I have been too busy living a life. Instead, I have been too busy pondering about one. It is the end of the day and I figured that I’ll pen down a few lines before I turn in for the night. I really don’t have anything in mind which I particularly want to share; there are thoughts in my mind, and they waft across like ink in water – formless, silent yet restless.

My lounge is dimly lid by four burning candles, each releasing a subtle scent; a strange mix of blueberry and ocean breeze. Nora is weeping the blues in her sweetly haunting vocals. Jameson swims in my old English rock glass… … good’O Jameson. I take solace in my introspection… ….

Sometimes I wonder where I am heading, which is probably ironic since everything appears to be so well-planned ahead of me. Maybe paradoxically, it is within these plans that I find restlessness. The problem with a plan is that when doubts creep in, like seeping water of a leaky vessel, faith threatens to fall apart. It is a very dangerous thing to lose, faith is. Not in religious means, as I still stand within an under-defined realm when religion is concerned. Faith that I am heading in the right direction and despite the momentary discomfort, everything will be just fine. I wish that I could find it within myself to find these words but more often than not, I choose the easy way out by seeking reassurance from an external source. Otherwise, I would find myself living within my past glory and completely forgetting about the journey ahead.

Where is the line? The line that differentiates dwelling, if not being engulfed in the past from drawing strength from memories of yesteryears? This wisdom escapes me. I draw a smile when I sometimes take a stroll down memory lane and relive some of the warmest memories that I will always bring with me. Yet the same memories will sadden me when I realise that I will not find them again when tomorrow comes. I wish that life can be simpler sometimes, where you could go to bed with certainty that you would wake with optimism, not doubts.

I wish…. …. I close my eyes and I wish….. …

Sun, Sand, Beach, Beer, Babes, Ball and Frisbee

Sand and sun, beach, beer, babes, ball and Frisbee; these are the ingredients that can rejuvenate even the weariest mind. There is something about beach day that makes me fall in love with life all over again. I remember a time when I would spend every weekend at Sunset bay to collect bruises over volleyball, drink beer to further aggravate the dehydration and indulge myself over the romance of having sand in my hair and all over a tired body that begs for a nice cold shower right after.

How many years have it been since I have taken those days for granted? It really is difficult nowadays to spend a day at the beach, and I can only imagine that it will get increasingly harder. While the sand and the sun are still there, the demands of a maturing lifestyle create distance between a weary mind and the simplest pleasures of life. From where I stand at this moment, I really can’t complain. I am still indulging the transient luxuries of student life yet tasting the responsibilities, and not to mention, financial supplements of having a job. It probably won’t be long before I venture into a nine-to-five program of drudgery so I constantly remind myself to live life to the fullest while I still can.

The problem however, is that my friends around me have moved on into the next progressive chapter, where commitment and responsibilities spell a daily schedule, leaving little time for rest, moreover the beach. Investment bankers, engineers, stock brokers, academics, architects; arranging a day at the beach with them would probably require a two-week notice pending an almost hopeless vacancy on their weekend schedule.

I was at Brighton beach yesterday. It was rather drafty so I was baking under the sun and bathing in the salty sea breeze in my tank top. There were almost fifty people there, over an annual occasion which a University club organised. I felt alive, just being on the sand and amongst students oozing with energy yet I couldn’t divorce myself from the fact that I was the oldest amongst them. That was made apparent when a chap walked up to me and identified me as his tutor this semester. I had fun nonetheless; you couldn’t have it any other way if you were playing volleyball for hours.

I did, however, wished that the boys were with me, just so that I wouldn’t be embarrassed to let the inner child out to play. I miss the old days and I miss the boys from home. I wish the investment bankers, the engineers, airforce pilots and captains would take their time off every now and then, if just to humour me when I return home and live life the way we did when we just turned twenty.

It was a rejuvenating day at Brighton yesterday. My body feels tired from all the excessive jumping and my mind is fresh enough to last for another week. I did learn two things at the beach though; first, that every moment I get to live as a student needs to be cherished; and second, never wear a tank top on a day at the beach, unless red arms and a fair chest is the trend of the season.

Spider on Hair

I am stressed
what a mess
a spider got caught in my hair
I lack sleep
my mind will flip
if I do not stop to stare
at my laptop for hours straight
to take a break
get away
from this desk
and remember to get some rest

A spider came
looks just the same
as the one I earlier squished
It spoke to me
told me to make a wish
and I’m pretty sure that I have gone mad
but what the heck
who gives a rat
the spider may help release me from this plight
So I said to the spider thank you sir
‘Squished!’
and then the spider died.

(for Arnette)

At the end of May

A comely smile, from the other end
a memory which seems so long ago
a certain warmth which heals a broken man
and unwittingly the fondness grow
to usher in an unfamiliar dream
one of hope,
and many promises;
- perhaps a new chapter may unfold
and through many winters the flicker may fade
like the murky glow, over a silver lake.

Hope is strength, and failure all weld into one
like in stories told where tears are made
when the final pages suggest that it seems
that the wayfarer had been trekking through a futile dream
like withered petals after mizzled rain
a closing chapter,
without an author’s name.

Just a little complaint

I had to work from home for the entire week. There is a major reshuffling going on and my new office is still not ready. I was supposed to move into the new floor last week, but I was also naïve to think that things would go according to plan and bureaucracy was really a figment of my imagination.

Working from home is like fishing in a pond with a salad fork. The concept of home and work is an oxymoron – home work, which when put together means ‘having nothing done’ in Latin. They just don’t go together, which was why wise men from centuries ago created offices, the very arena which I do not have at he moment. Home is a place where you drink whiskey and listen to jazz; it is not a place for the laptop and a place to have anything productive done. There are enough distractions at home to take your attention away from Karen Knightly in a wet T-shirt…………. erm… … maybe not. But there are distractions around, like the fridge, the couch, the TV, the bed, and the worst of them all, my new PSP which sits there like a puppy dog with huge sparkly eyes begging for attention.

This can’t go on; I need my new office quick. I need my power points to charge my PDA, mobile phone, digital camera and Bluetooth headset. I need my air-conditioning when the going gets tough. I need a desk and a proper chair so my bum doesn’t get sore from its extended liaison with the carpet. Oh and I need my free Internet too. If administrators can be a little more considerate for their staff’s welfare, we’ll all live in a happier world.

Just Another Tuesday

I turned 28 two days ago. If I should rank occasions and anniversaries in terms of being personally bothersome, my birthday will be right at the top with maybe the retirement anniversary of my orange Suzuki hatchback ranked at the bottom. Personally bothersome, because birthdays that occur after the 21st become as momentous as emptying the cloth dust-bag of my 1400W vacuum cleaner. As the years add on, birthdays become increasingly paradoxical and the reason to celebrate dilutes in its meaning. Yet it is a day that you can’t take for granted even if you try to, and anything less than doing ‘something’ about it; be it a celebration or doing something extraordinary like shampooing your hair with shaving cream, would render the mere 24hrs like life in depressionville.

I recited to myself on the days leading to my birthday, that it is just another day, and if you put your mind to it, it will be just another day. Yet the churning feeling in my gut told me otherwise. What is it about birthdays anyway? What is it exactly that we are celebrating? That I was born? It makes little sense. While you hear common linguistic expressions such as ‘will make you wished that you were never born’, you will notice that nobody ever says ‘boy I’m glad that I was born.’ As such, the essence to the celebration is somewhat murky, and the conflicting fight between making the day an ordinary one, and one to remember becomes confusing as much as it is bothersome.

Fine, I figured that I needed to do something about it. We’ll make it simple, like dinner with two friends over some sake at a decent Japanese restaurant. For some peculiar reason, I was in the mood for sake. There is something about sake and birthdays that make them come together, like yogurt and tandoori chicken. The first person on my guest list was Vietboy, just because he got me drunk in Hanoi so I have to return the favour; that is, despite knowing that his liver was preserved for a century in alcohol prior to his transplant. I guess I just wanted someone to drink with, although I knew that drinking with Vietboy would be like playing poker with the devil himself.

So I have this really cool picture in my head, Vietboy my Japanese colleague and maybe one other friend in a cool, clean-looking Japanese place where we’ll sip sake till the cows come home. Alas, I should have known better that things never work out the way they did in my head. There was the element of guilt, because within my clique of friends, my birthday is as much a secret as knowing which party will win the next Singapore election. The logic is skewed, but that’s how it worked; if I invite so-and-so, I have to invite so-and-so, but if so-and-so was there, so-and-so must come along as well. Don’t get me wrong, if I could help it, I would want nothing more than every person I know on this planet to come together over a few drinks but I don’t want it to be obligatory on my account. Not to mention, there is also the element of presents. It just doesn’t feel right that my friends have to spend money on me. I like presents, but I don’t like the fact that they cost money. Yet they still did it and made me feel like a very blessed man.

It was 7pm on a Tuesday night. There were twelve people in a private room of a pretty decent Japanese restaurant. There were three bottles of sake, there were presents, and there amongst friends was a testimonial that perhaps I have done something right to deserve their company. Birthdays are a special day. Perhaps the supposed meaning to celebrate the birth of a person seems somewhat awkward. However, there is no doubt that it is a day where one can get to appreciate that there are people around who care enough to drop a line, a word of well-wish, or share a sake or two and make him feel that it really is a beautiful world out there.

So thank you all for putting my name in your thoughts on the day that really wasn’t special, but was so just because you decided it was to be.

VD

It is Valentine’s Day. I know that there is a story behind it, some Priest by the name of Valentine who got beheaded and was later canonised a saint by Hallmark. Or something like that. Valentine’s Day is a strange day, more so than mother’s day or father’s day despite sharing the same origins leading back to the days when marketers discovered that consumers lacking in creativity were happy to pay five dollars for a cardboard. It is strange because it is a day when my friends finish their phone calls with, “happy Valentine’s day.” What exactly does that mean? How is ‘happy Valentine’s Day’ different from the regular ‘have a good day?’ At least when someone says happy Chinese New Year, it comes with overtones of well-wishes of good fortune, good luck, and reminders of other elements that I lack in life, such as wealth. Perhaps ‘happy Valentine’s Day’ has the same subtext; single or otherwise, may you find what you may lack in life, romance that is.

This is a day that certainly stirs emotions. I remember when I was eighteen, I was at a beach party when I met this lady. She was older and flaunted a persona of wisdom in life experiences which I found attractive. It was one of those outings where under the stars and after a few glasses of wine, you would feel inclined to share your most personal details even with strangers. I told her that I never had a relationship before. Her immediate response was as cutting as it was perplexing; she retorted “what’s wrong with you?” Yes, what was wrong with me? That inflicting question had me introspective for the next three years, and I have a poem written on each Valentine’s day to show for it.

It has been more than two years since my last relationship. I have spent the same length of time venturing into a new lease of life, setting up my own apartment, living by myself and pursuing new challenges that I thought would help me rejuvenate from some bitter memories. This very evening, I have a glass beside me, a classic rock glass which two pieces of ice swimming in a twelve-year old, single malt Glenlivet. Louis is singing ‘blueberry hill’ on my stereo…….. ….. and I am thinking to myself, I think I’ve done well….. .. life has been really good to me.

I know of people who wouldn’t hesitate to slap a label on Valentine’s Day being ‘too commercialised.’ While it is tempting being the cynic I am to jump onto the bandwagon, I realise that the statement is, ironically a cliché itself. I have my own beliefs, such as buying flowers on Valentine’s Day is really an apology, not a gift. It is an apology for not having sent flowers for the last 364 days. After all, inflated prices are more fitting to be the cost of a penalty rather than the value of a gift. But that is what I think. It is a little like religion, there is no point imposing my faith (or lack of it) upon others. Although it gives me great joy to witness how religion can save a person’s life. Along the same vain, it gives me great joy seeing couples walk along the street holding hands, and the girl parading her stalk of rose with a radiant look on her face that beams ‘he really loves me.’

I really don’t think much about Valentine’s Day, but there is no reason to belittle it. It can still be a day of celebration and I was quite keen to do it somewhat differently. I have already spent too many hours by myself at the office today and I thought it would be sweet to give someone a call. I did. I gave the Vietnamese guy who got me pissed drunk on my first day in Hanoi a ring, and wished him a Happy Valentine’s Day.