Shereen

10:44 pm: Death and Mayhem
I didn't dream of Dan dying last night, but I did dream that we were living in Singapore on the eve of the Japanese Invasion and Occupation and this guy came to tell us that we were about to get invaded and stay in our hotel room. Why we were staying in the hotel, I really don't know. I think it was the Concorde Hotel, a 4 star hotel near the river.

And being the obedient and law abiding person that I am, I snuck out to the supermarket, which then morphed into a something that looked like a shopping centre in Johor Bahru but was named Highpoint, a mall in Melbourne we used to go see movies at. And I couldn't find Daniel.

Anyway, today was the first day I could sleep in since term started and I willed myself to stay asleep. The reason for that was probably two fold,
1) it was Saturday and I really wanted to get as much sleep as I could.
2) I wanted to know what was going to happen in my dream.

I was rudely awakened by the sounds of a band, which I initially thought was the Japanese military band, playing their victory songs since invading Singapore was a piece of cake. It took me some levels of consciousness to realise that it was the funeral band, sending off the person, whose wake was in our void deck. Ten floors up and they still sound like they're floating just outside my window. Determined to remain asleep, I pulled the pillow over my head and drifted in and out of consciousness which caused even stranger snippets of dreams, eventually giving up about midday because it was midday and the pillow allows sound through- specifically, it allowed the melancholic wail of the instruments through. I swore I heard Auld Lang Sye. Who plays Auld Lang Sye at a funeral?

This was just in time for Dan coming home from his morning course in school. I have it relatively eaiser than he does, with respect to Saturday mornings. So, in order to make up for his having to wake up early and my being able to sleep in till midday, we went to have high tea. It was alright apart from the fact that everything was deep fried. I think that's why he liked it so much. After that, we hazarded our way down to Raffles City to try and trade in his mobile phone for something that looks better and has more functions. His mobile is old, by mobile phone standards anyway, and for some stupid reason could not be traded in. So that was an act in futility.


Everything was in place for a good day, till we had dinner with the in laws who are in themselves, good and nice people. However, the thought of my brother in law moving out has sent my mother in law into somewhat of a panic, I suspect. The very idea of not having young 'uns around must be terrifying to some extent. I remember how depressed my dad used to get when my mother was over at Kevin's and Mark and I were living a continent away.

So anyway, my mother in law's on a renewed crusade about us having kids. At any opportunity, she broaches the subject. Over dinner tonight, she mentioned the joys of having kids at least 3 or 4 second times. She also indicated, rather pointedly the advantages of having children all at one go. She's used to getting things done on her own schedule and it must infuriate her quite a bit that this is out of her hands.

My sister in law is rather stressed about it, having been married a grand total of three months and only seeing my brother in law on the weekends, on top of that. For Daniel and I, it's a source of pressure, possibly because he's the elder son and should therefore present them with their first grand child but also because the both of us are control freaks ourselves and do not wish our lives to be changed because someone else would rather it that way. I mean, let's face it, both of us find it hard at times to give in to one another, what more, someone else outside of our relationship.

We will have kids when the time is right and right now, is not the time. The both of us chose last year, to be in schools where there are lots of changes being made. This means, the year does not exactly belong to us. I recently told a friend, it's not that we don't have time to conceive, it's that I don't have the time to be pregnant and fuzzy headed for 9 months and then go off on leave for another 2 to 3 months. So, what can we do? We'll wait, till there's more time, more inclination and less outside pressure. For the last reason one should bring a child into the world, is because someone else, apart from the both of us, wants it.

Maybe we should buy them a pet. :)

Later.

06:50 pm: Someone Stole my Cheese
School started for me unofficially today. It was a reunion of sorts, seeing colleagues that I haven't actually seen in the last two months. We had our annual staff conference and the college gave every individual teacher fruit. I think this was in the attempt to actually make us healthier staff? Hmmm...

Anyway, I have to give the school points for staff welfare. We had a nice reception thing after the conference and there was wine and cheese apart from the usual fair of halal food. I have recently acquired the taste for cheese and crackers, yes the influence of Wallace and Gromit take longer to subliminally infiltrate my mind than it does to infiltrate the then infantile mind of Bruce.

So cheese and crackers. And the cheese was good cheese, so good that it was the only thing I ate at the reception, apart from Peel Fresh juice with the aloe bits in it. I could live on cheese, crackers and juice with aloe bits! Yay to the three food types!

What then amounted to the first bizarre thing to occur the happen in the new school year occurred.

Much as I like the people I hang out with, my college has a staff strength of 140 and the laws of probability dictate that well, there will be some strange people in the fold.

My anecdote today revolves around one such person.

Having discovered the yumminess of the cheese and crackers, I decided that it would be prudent of me if I went to get a drink. Yummy cheese and crackers tend to be salty cheese and crackers. Much to my delight, I discover the aforementioned juice. Being rather un-octopus like, I needed to put down my plate of cheese and crackers to get my cup of juice and this is the moment when the strange man strikes.

Strange Man, " What is that?" Pointing at my plate.
Weirded out me, " Cheese"
Strange Man, " Are you sure?"
Weirded out me, " Well, yah"
Strange Man, " Wanna bet?" Reaches out, takes the cheese of my plate and takes a bite into it!
Strange Man, " Mmmm, you're right, it's cheese."
Majorly Weirded out Me, " Erm... Yup"...thinking to self " HELLLLLOOOOOOO!!!! MY CHEESE!!!!!"

So yes, he comes up to me and unashamedly takes off a slice of my cheese and pops it into his mouth when there's an entire platter behind me. How weird is that? I swear that's why some of our kids turn out the way they do.

This marks the last entry of 2003 I think. We're going to be out late tonight so I doubt I'll have the time to write later.

Major things that occurred to me in 2003 in no particular order
1) I finally threw off the spectre of NIE. Wash and Scrub, Disinfect and burn, Rinse and Repeat.
2) I got married. Yay me!
3) I was able to get my weight down to 47 kg. Of course, everyone thought it was gross. Me, I wanna be 47 kg again!
4) My brother was diagnosed with a tumour but is now alright. Thank God!
5) I survived staying home without Dan for 4 days. He was in Ubin, an island off Singapore.
6) I completed the 10kms at the marathon. Next year, I'll attempt the half.
7) I did more shopping than I've ever done before.
8) I finished three books during the December break.
9) I started dancing again
10)I stayed up through the entire Return of the King!
11) I bought a flat and have been broke ever since.
12) I got through 2003 without getting SARS, being in Iraq,Iran or China, on a naval ship or space shuttle.

In short, I got through an eventful year, both good and bad, more bad actually, relatively unscathed. Here's looking at 2004, the year we were actually supposed to get married. Hopefully, it'll be kinder to the world in general.

Later.

10:01 am: The keeper of late nights.
My parents used to make sure that I was in bed, latest by 9. This meant I was a total spazz when I had stay overs. Pyjama parties were a waste on me. That was me as a child. Now, I'm better at staying up. No doubt, there are still many nights where I fall asleep trying to watch television, but if there is a need for me to stay awake, I am able to. But it is unnatural for me.

Since 23 December, there has been a need to stay up every night into the wee hours of the morning.

23 December- Carols by Candlelight followed by supper with Dan's friends at Newton Hawker Centre. Bed time: 0200 hrs

24 December- Christmas eve dinner followed by another party at a friend's house. Bed time: 0300 hrs.

25 December- Nursing a potential flu but at another friend's house where Dan is playing Lord of the Rings Trivial Pursuit. Bed time: 0200 hours

26 December- Dinner for Dan's father's birthday and walked home from Holland Road so as to feel less bloated. Futile attempt at ironing Dan's Armani suit for the wedding the next day. Bed time: 0130 hours.

27 December- Tea Ceremony in the morning, wedding in the evening, clearing up old room in between and drinks after wedding. Bed time: 0100 hours.

28 December- Wedding dinner of the friends who got married the day before followed by an afterparty in the suite where we ragged the couple mercilessly. Bed time: 0300 hours.

I am tired.

No matter how much I sleep in, I'm still tired. Blame it on the way my parents set my sleep clock as a child. Now my body is just crying out to be let to sleep early.

Tonight's not going to be any different because we're watching The Return of the King. I haven't seen it yet and much as I'm not a big fan of it, I would like to complete the trilogy plus I gotta know what everyone has been talking about.

So I'm hoping that tomorrow can be a quiet night at home. School's starting on Friday and there is much that has yet to be done. I have an entire pile of newspaper commentaries that have yet to be cut. I have reports that have yet to be written. I need to do these things! But then I have been married to world's greatest procrastinator for the last 7 months and some of it's rubbed off.

How nice it would be if we, like our friends who got married yesterday, we were off somewhere on holiday. Not necessarily NZ like them, since we find NZ quite boring, but just somewhere on holiday. What I'd give to be on our honeymoon again. Actually, I was slightly wistful last night about weddings again. Well, it was more of the " I wish I'd had my wedding at the Ritz Carlton" sentiment. The service was excellent, the hotel sent a team of banquet staff who were efficient, polite and very well trained. They all seemed also to work seamlessly and did a wonderful job coordinating the 700 guest wedding. Plus the bathroom! What I wouldn't give to be able to draw a bath in their tub. Mmmmmm..

As you can tell, I'm still tired even though it's ten thirty in the morning.

Sigh.

Later

11:45 pm: A season of over eating
There is never any use trying to diet at the end of the year. Too many festivities which revolve around eating. There was Christmas eve dinner, Christmas day lunch, Christmas day supper- because we were too full for Christmas day dinner and boxing day dinner because Dan's father's birthday is the day after Christmas.

Dinner was no lean affair. It was an ala carte dinner buffet with 65 choices of food. According to the waitress, the number of dishes we ordered were in the region of 30, much to the disappointment of my mother in law who felt sure that we had had at least 35 dishes. It did feel that way.

Too much food.

Walking home from the ATM at Holland village wasn't sufficient to make us feel any less guilty. The only means of placating ourselves was to promise that we would go on diet after New Year. Yes, that'll work, all the way to the 3rd week of January which is the Lunar New Year, yet another set of festivities that revolve around food.

Festivals should be spread out like birthdays in a family. Daniel's family celebrates 3 out of 4 of the family's birthdays within the Month of December. Put that together with Christmas eating, that's alot of celebration. It isn't even stopping yet. The day after tomorrow and the following Sunday are both wedding dinners. We really need to stop doing everything at the end of the year.

Even sales.

This afternoon was the earliest available time our hairdresser, Ashley was able to fit the both of us in. Yes, Daniel cuts his hair at the hairdresser's. No longer at the Sri Nada equivalents (barber corners). To get to the hairdresser's was insane. If possible, town was actually more crowded today, on boxing day, than on Christmas eve when everyone's out there buying Christmas presents at the last minute.

Why?

The major departmental stores all decided to cash in on the fact that half of Singapore was on leave and held their annual sales. If one stood in the middle of the Orchard Road junction and triangulated in any direction, one would actually hit a departmental store with a sale. It was insane. Pedestrian traffic was at a crawl and cars were at a standstill.

Did I mention how insane it was?

People who are non-teachers should all go back to work on Boxing Day and leave us poor long-suffering teachers alone to enjoy the last days of our holidays.

Later.

10:01 am: Newsworthy
This has never happened to me before, I knew what was in the news today before I went to sleep last night. Strange bizarre feeling to see ads declaring they will be closed today, when it was still last night for me. I had to stop myself from wondering how Robinsons could be closed today when I was in Robinsons a few hours ago.

Reading the next day's newspaper the night before should absolutely not be done. It messes with your head too much.

Well, it's Christmas morning. I would like to christian Christmas eve as the Christmas solstice- the longest day of the year.

The day began slowly, with wrapping, blogging and the preparing of today's lunch. Then it take the shape of a snowball at the top of a hill. Lunch was with Cat, in the heart of town and my brother needed me to check out Toys R us for a bicycle for Beth. Before that, I had to complete some last minute shopping. This led me to Borders- crowded but still sane, Marks and Spencers- crowded with shelves beginning to resemble supermarkets in communist Russia, Mango- not for myself! And totally devoid of shoppers, a sight I am unaccustomed to! And then Toys R Us- TOTAL MADHOUSE! Parents looking harrassed, children everywhere, staff ready to pull their hair out and checkout lines reminiscent of Mango on the first day of the sale. Totally insane. It took me 15 minutes to claim my bags!

The snowball was slowly gaining speed and the hill was getting steeper.

The expressways were stuffed with reckless drivers who were weaving in and out trying to get ahead, we almost hit a Ford that was trying not to hit a Honda Accord who slammed on his brakes too suddenly.

We ended up at Parkway Parade, a suburban mall to get my dad some trashy DVDs to get him through the year and a present for Dan's grand dad. Believe it or not, Rambo DVDs and James Bond, totally sold out. Die Hard trilogy, not available on DVD. So, option 2, trashy books. Ended up deciding on a local CSI-esque book about our most eminent forensic pathologist who died of a heart attack from eating too much junk food. Rather ironic.

Next on the agenda was to buy ice and let me just say that we shouldn't just be buying water from Malaysia, we need to buy ice from them too! There were 8 petrol kiosks and 2 7-11s between Parkway and Kevin's house and none of them, absolutely none of them had any ice left! We managed to get some at the supermarket near his house, but when we went back for more, that stock had run out too. The only moment of brevity was when a Malay man working at one of the kiosks told me in Malay that there were no "stones" left. Okay... ice-> hard frozen water -> stones? I'm not sure. Something may have gotten lost in the translation.

Dinner was at Kevin's, but before dinner came the final lot of wrapping and plenty of placating of the children who were antsy having not slept in the afternoon. Dinner went quite well, excellent turkey, ham and roast beef. I'm told the seafood pasta was excellent as well, but coming from me, you can only count it as hearsay. There was also excellent dessert, a cake with the icing words "Happy Birthday Jesus" that no one could quite read. Bruce almost got into trouble here because he was ready to smoosh his entire face into the chocolate surface of the cake-only to be stopped by a "you're in a lot of trouble" voice from his mother. That and the thought that Santa may not bring him any presents seem to be enough to stop him in his tracks.

And somehow, the day did not end there. We had another party to go to and although that one was also winding down, we stayed till past one playing cards- this time I won a few times rather spectacularly if I may say so myself. Heh.

The unpacking of all the goodies and the exchange of presents between Daniel and myself take us all the way up to 3 in the morning. That's when I attempted to read the next day's newspapers that had already been delivered and Daniel announced that there was no way we are making the half 8 service this morning.

The snowball had hit a wall and was now just a million little bits of snow.

Here endeth the longest Christmas eve.

Later.

08:59 am: Eve of Christmas Eve
Our Christmas celebrations tend to start on the 23rd of December. We got to church on the 23rd. There's always a carols by candlelight service which is quite nice, although I am a little tired of singing the same carols over and over as well as listening to them ad nauseum.

Speaking of which, in the KL malls, they either play instrumental carols, or the secular Christmas songs about Santa, Rudolph and the frosty white snowman. I suspect it's got something to do with Malaysia being an Islamic country. This led me to wonder if there was actually such a thing as Hari Raya carolers or something of that equivalent. I guess one cannot help but feel that one's religion is superior to all others.

Anyway, it's officially Christmas eve and I'm supposed to be still in bed because we slept really late last night and my non-cold is slowly becoming an issue. But I was up at 8 and couldn't get back to sleep, despite sleepy remonstrations from my passed out, stone cold husband.

There's much to do today. Some more presents, preparing food for tomorrow's Christmas luncheon, buying drinks for tonight's Christmas eve dinner, write out seriously late Christmas cards and finish wrapping the presents that are strewn all over my living room floor.

We don't have a tree this year because
1. If we got a real tree, it would shed all its spines and I would have to spend all my time picking up after it.
2. If we got a fake tree, there would be the issue of where to store it after.
3. It's troublesome to take down. Putting it up is always fun, but taking it down, not so fun.
4. We're not having anyone over and we're hardly at home, so the tree will not live out it's destiny of giving the house Christmas spirit.

So we settled on a live Christmas wreath which I decorated myself. It gives off the nice pine-y smell that I like, gave us an opportunity to use the unity candle from our wedding, and sat very prettily on a side table. Now the wrapped presents go below the table and it's a pretty sight.

According to my much exhausted brother, I'm hosting Christmas eve dinner next year. I need to think of a way of making my living room bigger then. 7 adults, 2 kids and 2 maids makes more people than the house can comfortably sit. We'll see. I have a year to figure it out.

For now, I need to figure how to wake the dead to the world husband because we need to make a run to the supermarket and from experience and past Christmases, supermarkets tend to become a mad house on Christmas eve.

Later now. :)

04:10 pm: It just occurred to me that I forgot to talk about the highlight of our trip. We went on a roller coaster ride, INSIDE a shopping mall and it was a shitting in your pants, scary 2 minutes.

We've got a picture of us four and it's not very flattering. On each one of our faces, you see this " OH CRAP!" look. I've got major veins showing on the side of my forehead and that only happens when I'm really stressed or I have a headache. In this case, both of the above. To make it worse, I got outvoted and we went a second time round, this time, I was made to promise to keep my eyes open. And let me just say, seeing the world rushing up at you, or the world upside down whilst hurtling through the air, not funny. That's why I'm not a fighter jet pilot, although I do have a penchant for clothes that look like flight suits. Of course, it's hell to pee in. That's why they have pee tubes. Heh. Strange thought.

Anyway, I thought I should add that in to make the entry complete.

Now, I'm off to wrap Christmas presents and watch last night's West Wing. I like Christmas.

Later.

10:30 am: Up North
I've been in KL the last few days which will probably explain the silence since last week. It was loads of fun and loads of food. There was the slight danger of me doing a Sydney thing again when my throat started to hurt the first night we were there. I blame this on the thick smog that engulfed us the minute we got off the bus. On top of that, the bus dropped us in no man's land without a taxi in sight or a road sign in sight. So we really had no idea where we were and I was breathing in all that horrid air.

Thank goodness one of our friends actually spoke passable Malay. If he didn't, I suspect we would still be at the cab stand now, coated in soot with lungs so full of tar, the post mortem would report that we were heavy chain smokers.

All of KL is polluted. It's ironic because the first ad we see when we return to Singapore is one about KL being the vision city. Right. They forgot to mention the lack of organisation which is their road system, their lack of integrity that pervades the entire society- corruption is rampant and it's a way of life. They also forgot to mention that KL was built in a hodge podge, anything can go anywhere sort of way. It has to be one of the few places in the world where when it rains, the whole city comes to a stand still because a) people drive like madmen there, with no respect for traffic lights or pedestrians ( This I can personally attest to, having had to jump backward while still standing on the kerb to avoid a big ass bus thundering down the road and rounding the corner with its wheels sending sparks into the air inches from my toes!) so when it rains, things get exacerbated. b) Urban planning and drainage are words not in the vocabulary of the civil engineers that built the roads and highways in KL. A highway- built at least 5 metres above road level- in KL, is most likely to flood when it pours. So I ask myself, monsoon season how? Our friend's uncle who was taking us around said people just had to be patient. He was telling us of this jam (because of rain, what else?) that caused this guy to sit patiently in his car for 3 hours not moving at all, in front of the uncle's house.

KL has all the makings of a developed city, but it's not there yet, not by a long shot. It makes me glad for the clean, sanitised order that is Singapore. Even our traffic jams have more order. Plus, I think it would be a strange sight if the Sheares Bridge flooded everytime it rained, especially these few months!

Having said all that, it is not all bad in KL. KL has two things that appeal to me. Cheap shopping and cheap food. Every night, we ate on the road side, another thing deprived to us in clinical Singapore. It is unhygienic but Dan thinks it's the fumes that make the chicken wings taste better. We had to continually look for tables that sat 6 even though there were only 4 of us. It was the only way to put get all the food we ordered onto the table. The only thing that made me sad and uncomfortable was the prevalence of begging that occurred at such places. This pregnant mother would drag her daughter to every table begging for small change. A little boy not more than 7 sold tissue paper packets. But what made Daniel and I blanch was the sight of a man with only one arm begging. As we got up, Daniel gave him all the coins we had, as we had no idea how to use the coins owing to our bad command of Malay. Anyway, I turned around to look at him as we were walking away and saw him drinking the remnants of our coke on the table. I suspect if I looked longer, I'd see him cleaning off the rest of the Hokkien Mee and chicken that we left behind.

It made me feel guilty. Because this man with so many others was suffering and there was so little I could do and part of me wanted to block it out of my memory. It's the same reason why I don't like going to animal shelters. The animals look so forlorn and in need of a home and there's only so much I can do. That always makes me cry. And this would have happened if I'd let myself think about it. That's where the guilty part comes in. You know it's there, you know you should do something about it, but you can't do much and thus try to ignore it despite the niggling conscience.

Our friend commented that all this isn't seen in Singapore. I don't think it's because it doesn't exist, but because the authorities come down hard on these people, send them to social welfare and make sure they're off the streets. This is part of the reason why people like me live a life with blinders on. Visiting a less developed country is a sure way to get them off. One large dose of reality come right up.

Ok, this is entering morose territory.

I'm quite happy to be back. I come back laden with five pairs of shoes and some clothes. Not as many as when I come back from a Mango sale, but well, just as contented. I also return with the slight ability to play Chua Tai Tee (CTT)- a card game that somehow eluded me even though I went to NUS. Everyone in NUS plays or played CTT. Well, everyone except me. I'm still bad at it and can lose badly. I'm also a bad loser, especially when Daniel is the one who wins and gloats through his victories. I was ready to relegate him to the floor that night. Heh. Yes, yes, I am a sore loser.

But it was a nice holiday. Good food, good company and cake! Yes cake! Secret Recipe makes the most divine cakes in Singapore and we found that they're everywhere in KL. What makes it better, everything on the menu is priced the same as Singapore except that it's in Ringgit, which means it's half the value of what it is here! In one day, we had six slices of divine sin, so I say again, it was a nice holiday.

Now, it's time to diet and go on an austerity drive but who am I kidding?

Later.

06:34 pm: Somewhere over the rainbow
...there was another rainbow!

It rained today. That's an understatement because in Singapore, it's the monsoon now and it's supposed to rain. But the heavens really opened up and visibility was almost zero. Plus, in a country like Singapore with first world drainage systems, the town centre we were at had shop display racks where the castors were submerged in murky water. This was just a microcosm of what was really out there. An entire two lanes of road and the corresponding bus stop were under three feet of water. I was wondering why the seats at the bus stop looked so low down. For little people?

Anyway, we needed to buy groceries and snacks because Dan and some of our friends are going to the Lord of the Rings marathon tomorrow. I was supposed to go, but I'm involved with debates so my brother is going in my place. Anyway, 12 hours of movie requires some nourishment and sugar to keep one awake. We wanted to go to Giant, this supermarket that is well, gigantic. But seeing that at the turf club and the carpark was where the race track was once, we figured that at the very least, the ground would be too wet but most likely, we would open the car door and let dirty once upon a time had horse dung water gush into our car. So no. Jelita Cold Storage, a little bit more expensive, but at least dry from car park to supermarket and back.

Strange things is when we drove into the car park, it looked like the rain would continue for another week. And then when we stepped out after buying enough junk food to feed a classful of adolescents, there was sunshine. Not watery sunshine from behind the clouds trying to break through, full, golden, orange yellow evening sun competing with the raindrops that were rapidly fighting a losing battle. Not only that, the sky had a nice hint of blue and there were actually some wispy white cloud, the type that you think is like cotton wool. Only in Singapore will you have this, undiluted sunshine with blue skies on one side and rain with grey clouds sharing the same atmosphere.

It was nice though. Everything looked like it had a nice wash and was bright and pristine. Daniel claims it's because he had his glasses on but it's a nice sight. All that pollution and soot washed off buildings and trees. Yes, even the trees look greener. And the air smells nice too. I wish it smelt Christmasy, but I think that's too much to ask for. :)But what was really nice was the very visible rainbow in the sky. Pretty. And if you looked really hard, you could see a spectre of another just above it.

The last time I came across such a sight was in Melbourne, a few days before we moved home. So, it was nice, to see it again. Comforting that not all things had to be left behind and somethings follow you where ever you may go. Right about now, it would be apt to break into song *I will follow you.... follow you where ever you may go...* I think I might watch Sister Act again. :)

Well, when Dan saw it, he tried to say something intelligent and went, "Ah...a rainbow, a sign of the covenant from God to Moses". That got me stumped for a while. Was I so biblically ignorant that I did not know that there was a rainbow in Exodus when Moses came down the mountain? Then I put two and two together and made like ten! Hello! Moses, wandered round the desert for forty years- desert, no water-no rain- NO RAINBOW!!!!

Turned out he meant Noah. Now, that made a whole lot more sense and sent great relief through me. I knew I was biblically challenged, but I knew I wasn't THAT bad.

We're toying with kids' names now. Not so much that we're pregnant or anything, but because we've always known what we wanted to name our future daughters, but knowing all that close detailed name planning, a boy will just pop right out of me. So, we figured it's high time we started thinking of contingencies. It's also the holidays where we seem to be driving about alot and driving distances always brings about inane discussions. But this all began when my brother told me his colleague wants to name his son Nebuchadnezzar Olaf Chua! Child abuse clearly! You can just hear the Hokkien derivatives quite clearly! So far, we decided Christian middle names and Dan likes Alexander for two reasons. One, he was a great warrior who conquered half the world, never mind the fact that he was cruel and was the first guy to use weapons of mass destruction/biological warfare. Two, he wants to be able to call his son Xander, after the lovable goof in Buffy. I don't know. I'm drawing the line and naming ANY of my daughters Buffy. Buffy Tan is just too ditzy and will cause much ridicule.

I think these discussions will get weirder when I really do get pregnant. We're talking about it alot because we do have a schedule to keep to. We need to have a child before I go off to do post grad in 2007. And to work backwards from there, well, next year's 2004 and you need to take into consideration 9 months gestation. Someone do the math for me! And somewhere in there, we have to consider money, where to stick the baby and that we have friends who have been married way longer and we really don't want to jump the gun. Too many factors. We should just get a cat. :)

Later.

11:31 am: Breakfast at Ikea
I had french toast, baked beans, sausage and egg for breakfast this morning. I was at Ikea for breakfast. My brother decided to bring his brood to Ikea and swung by to pick me up.

Bethany is getting more petulant by the day. She started off well, feeding herself boiled egg and sausage, but she has the attention span of a gnat and decided soon enough that she wanted to go play. When denied that, proceeded to pout, sulk and ignore everyone while whining about wanting to play. That one is a stubborn one. And one who does not hesitate to throw tantrums. Ikea has a playroom. It admits only children between the height of 98 cm and 120 cm. I think it's too small a margin though. There was this boy who was slightly over 120 cm and his father commented that the last time he came, he was too short and now he was too tall. They should really raise the height restriction- the poor kid looked so despondent after. His mother must have, in the ensuing months after he was turned away for being too short, nagged him to eat his vegetables/meat etc so that he could go into the playroom the next time. In his head, he must be thinking, "ate too much meat, too tall, should stop eating now". Heh.

I liked the French toast. It was slightly sweet and was made with thick slices of bread. Yum. So my resolution to not eat carbohydrates today went out the window first thing this morning. Oh well. I'm eating dukus for lunch. Dukus are local seasonal fruit with apparently no nutritional value. You split the skin and you have a whole fruit in there divided into quadrants/fifths/eighths..depending on the size of the fruit. Anyway, they're sweet and yummy but there are dangerous seeds inside that leave a horrendous bitter taste. So beware the mines.

I will go buy the duku when Dan gets home. He finally finishes his course today and has next week off. I'm not sure if I get next week off having got this week off. I hope so. Christmas shopping is much more fun.

I spent the last two days Christmas shopping and yesterday, I did my yearly pilgrimmage to my house of worship- Mango, for their sale. There are just too many Mango worshippers in the world. This was what yesterday was like.

8.00 am. Message from brother about how there is a long queue outside the Mango at Raffles City (he manages to sound incredulous over SMS)

8.30 am. Stand in front of wardrobe trying to pick out "push comes to shove" shopping clothes. Nothing with string, nothing tight, nothing that yells out Mango either!

8.45 am. Decide on jeans and a shirt. Comfy, warm (it is the monsoon season) and nothing that can be yanked to hold me back.

9.00 am. Get dressed and stand in front of shoe cupboard, going through same motions of deciding what goes on my feet.

9.05 am. Settle for shoes that friend has christened "kick dog, give die" shoes. They're comfy and deadly to anyone who tries to get ahead of me. :)

9.15 am Leave house.

9.20 am Decide to take a cab having almost been knocked down by a bus in my vain attempt to run across two main roads to catch my only bus to town. Not only do I miss the bus, I came close to being road kill.

9.25 am. In cab. Kick myself for not waiting another 5 minutes. At half 9, the $1 peak hour surcharge is over. Darn it! One less dollar to spend at Mango.

9.40 am. Nice cab driver, in an effort to leave me more money for shopping drops me about 20 m from my destination so that I do not incur CBD charge. Nice man. :)

9.45 am. Goes in search of a drink before mad rush. End up at MacDonalds and on my way there, spot many women already totting Mango plastic bags. They are the same species as the ones my brother saw lining up at 8 in the morning.

9.55 am. Standing outside Isetan with fellow Mango worshippers and Lucinda and sister. As the shutters are lifted to about six feet, I feel elbows in my ribs as people surge forward into the store trying to get ahead of anyone else. Even the start point at the marathon was not so chaotic.

10.00 am. In Mango picking up anything that looks remotely decent. Take first, sieve through later. Lucinda taught me that.

11.15 am. Arms buckling under the weight of carrying more than twenty pieces of clothing. Finds quiet corner to sort out clothes into "yes", "no" and "maybe" piles, at the same time fending off people who think I'm dumping the clothes.

11.30 am. Narrow it down to 10 pieces with the help of Lucinda and sister.

11.45 am. Says goodbye to some of my bonus. :)

11.46 am. Lucinda decides we should pay hommage to the flag ship store even though it's bursting at its seams.

12.00 pm. Stagger over to flagship store. Enters yet another throng of hungry shoppers where it was rumoured that there was much shoving and same potential cat fights earlier in the morning.

12.10 pm. Eyes start to glaze over from seeing too many frenzied women changing in corners. Women throw modesty out the window at sales.

12.15 pm. Lucinda's sister decides to throw in the towel- or shopping bag in this case and sits outside with a drink ready for us, weary shoppers.

12.30 pm. Adjorn for much needed nourishment. Inertia slowly taking over.

12.45 pm. Lucinda plots our next move.

1.00 pm. At our 3rd Mango outlet, looking at shoes. They are either too high or too flat for my liking. Found myself drawn to boots, but none that would work in this climate.

1.40 pm. L & L decide to scope out the enemy- Zara- also a Spainish line of clothes but much costlier than Mango especially at none sale prices.

1.45 pm. I find a comfortable boyfriend/husband chair to settle myself into which is situated, I suspect on purpose, in the lingerie department.

2.15 pm. Decide that I've had enough of clothes shopping for the day and pop into Borders, on my way to the bus stop- yet another attempt to save some change- , to buy some Christmas presents. Spot perfect present for Dan, throws out previous idea, proceed to buy it. Now laden with 3 huge plastic bags. I should take a cab, but my niece had to get her stubborn streak from somewhere.

2.45 pm. Stagger to the bus stop after heaving and yanking bags up the over head bridge.

3.00 pm. On 106- possibly the one I missed in the morning! Eavesdrop on teenage boys having conversation about being 'horny' and having sex with teenage girls interjecting about the dangers of getting girls pregnant. Who says teenagers are ignorant?

3.30 pm. Alight bus, sorry to not be able to hear rest of conversation by teenage boys and girls on the buss.

3.45 pm. At doorstep after climbing ten flights of stairs. Trying to be a hero here!

3.46 pm. Tumble into the house with my spoils for the day. Tired, broke and thirsty.

4.00 pm Takes out remaining roast chicken from night before and devour it with chilli sauce while watching CSI. Need to replenish energy.

That was my shopping expedition for yesterday.

No crowds today. Today shall be a quiet day. We will go and buy duku, Dan will have a pair of specs made hopefully in time for the movie marathon on Wednesday, we will go to church and have dinner with the parentals.

Shopping will resume only next week. I need a rest.

Later.

08:27 am: This new skin is in conjucntion with my attempt to make things more Christmassy. :)

08:07 am: Too Many Dreams
My mother used to say if you got yourself too excited or if you ate too much before you went to sleep, you'd get nightmares. But I did neither and was plagued with bad dreams all night through.

It all melded into one, but if I thought through the bits very carefully, they were all different dreams. There was one of me being in JC, in Temasek JC as a student and having my essay ripped to shreds. There was another about my mother dying and me wanting to take sometime off school (this came from watching Buffy Season 5 where Buffy's mom died and Buffy had to stop school to look after Dawn), there was another bit where I was walking along a long stretch of beach, apparently in Thailand, looking for a deserted spot. And the last I remember was being at a camp at a hotel where there weren't enough rooms and we had to share and I didn't want to.

It doesn't sound very scary now probably because I can't recall them in full detail and digital sound. At least they weren't my myopic dreams. Sometimes when I dream, I am looking at the world without my specs on and because I'm almost as blind as a bat, I can feel myself squinting to get a better look at what is going on. Maybe that's why I have so many lines on my head. Maybe I should wear my glasses to sleep.

Daniel's back and spent most of yesterday in a daze. We went to Ikea in an attempt to make the house look more Christmassy but came back with essentials like a tray to catch the water droplets that drip of newly clean plates. A shower curtain to prevent the rain from splashing on our desperately trying to dry clothes- talk about improvisation! I can't take credit for that though. The previous owner thought about it first, we're just replacing the shower curtain that got torn to shreds after the last gale force winds took away what was left of its dignity. We bought wrapping paper in the event that I don't get enough from Tangs. Christmas shopping with my mother for years has taught me that contrary to popular economic theory, free-riding is a good. You go to a big departmental store and you buy loads of things. It doesn't matter if they're not all for presents. Then you go to gift wrap, which would naturally have a queue that snakes round the building and offer to relieve them of adding one more person to the queue by asking for wrapping paper so that you can go home and do it yourself. Then you show them all your bags of shopping and they'll give you enough wrapping for all of that and some left over to wrap them a second time round. So there! You get free wrapping paper!

Well, I'm not sure how much shopping I'm doing at Tangs this year and I think the sign of an adult house is one with wrapping paper and scotch tape. I had the scotch tape, so it was just the wrapping paper that I needed to get.

Today, I'm going with mom to try and get some Christmas fir to put round the house and give away to people I like. :) I love the smell of the fir trees and she said to put a candle in it and it would smell like winter. Excellent. Was talking to YM about buying a Christmas CD and she told me she had one in which you hear the snow falling. Hmm, subliminal programming but good subliminal programming. Plus the weather is kinda nice and cool these days. It's just wonderful.

Well, I'm off to meet the mother now. We'll see whether this attempt at Christmas-fying the house is going to work better than the last.

Later.

05:34 pm: Ten things
My cousin-in-law and I decided a few days ago that genetic engineering should not aim to improve the quality of our species but to tweak with the current species, removing annoying habits that are specific to both genders.

Ten things that should be genetically engineered out of men in general (there are always exceptions).

1.Their inability to see mess and pick up after themselves- cups, wrappers, tissue, clothes that apparently belong on the floor.

2. Their inability to put the right CD into the right CD case. I think this was an issue explored in Friends and it is SO true. Recently, I was looking for a Jars of Clay CD. I found the box, but in it was a Dawson's Creek CD and in the Dawson's Creek CD case was the Roxette CD and in the Roxette CD case...you get my point.

3. Their perpetual optimism that even though they need something, they don't need to get it because, magically, it will fall onto their laps.

4. Their inability to multi task. Try talking to someone playing Diablo II online. You get the last words of your question repeated back to you with pregnant pause followed by a faraway "I donno"

5. Their inability to see that eating fried chicken, pizza and chips will do them in someday.

6. Their ability to put off the most important of things to the latest date and then panic. Daniel went to camp on Friday and was up till 2 the night before packing.

7. Their inability to remember appointments despite having a diary/organiser/PDA. Somehow or other, wives/girlfriends have to take over the under appreciated jobs of being PAs to them.

8. Their self-involved-ness when it comes to computer games. There have been many a time where I have come home to a dark house only to be lit by the iridescent glow of the computer monitor.

9. Their perpetual exhaustion even if they've done nothing the whole day. Guys seem to need more than the requisite 8 hours of sleep a night.

10. Their ability to ignore all amounts of nagging even if it means a snide and snarky "I told you so" later on.



And to be fair to the testosterone laden gender, I shall list ten things that should be genetically engineered out of women after consulting the token guy who happens to share a house with me.

1. Our inability to be rational when it comes to buying shoes, bags, clothes, makeup. We never have enough even when our wardrobes are bursting at the seams.

2. Linked to the previous one, the inability to shop quickly. We take all day and we like having tea in the middle of it.

3. Our inability to watch soccer or any other macho sport.

4. Our innate ability to worry about everything under the sun even though there is no chance on earth that we'd be able to do anything about it.

5. Our perpetual need to feel superior to other women in one way or other. That's why we engage in 1 and 2.

6. Our inability to accept putting on weight as a natural progression in life.

7. Our inability to parallel park. I join a group of well-educated, intelligent women who will go to the ends of the world just to avoid parallel parking.

8. PMS!

9. Our ability to make it rain, hail, storm, snow by just declaring confidently that it won't. Daniel still blames me for a six month long winter in Melbourne.

10. Our ability to nag till we go blue in the face.

The women's list was contributed by Dan so I bear little responsibility for it. I had to agree to give him immunity and not hold any of what he was saying against him.

So there, ten things that we could use genetics to improve upon.

Later. :)

10:28 am: 58mins03secs
That's how long it took me to run 10 km this morning.

I was up at 4 this morning, in my old room since my parents' house is much nearer to the start point than my flat in Holland. It strange how quick you revert into old habits. I fell asleep with the tv on and my brother came in to switch it off. Just like old times. It was fun. I look forward to climbing back into my bed for a nap later. Familiarity is nice.

Anyway, it was a nice run, a little bit of reminiscing right at the beginning though. Nothing like the smell of deep heat (muscular rub) to bring back memories from over ten years ago. Also the sight of groups of runners warming up and stretching and the general hum of excitement. Slightly disconcerting, because I felt like I had to be doing more but my friends who were of the non-runner variety were reluctant and wanted to crawl back into bed. I think the athlete in me just took over and the sleepiness was shelved for a later time... like right about now.

I must confess that I do miss the running and the buzz that comes after. Competitive running was greatly satisfying. I don't really know what I am more- a dancer or a runner. To date, I think I have done both equally seriously, in different capacities but with the same intensity. So what am I? Somewhat of an identity crisis going on. I suspect the dancer identity might be the stronger of the two because it's a more recent one. I have to dig deeper to get those athlete instincts onto the surface.

When I was doing psych in Melbourne, I did a paper about having multiple facets of identity and how the more facets one had, the more well adjusted one was. The premise was that if you had one all encompassing identity, i.e. a student/scholar then should anything happen to that facet of your identity, your world crumbles. I suspect that's why plenty of our students are becoming less resilient to failure. They see it as the end of the world because they don't know better. Now, if you were not only a scholar and you were a tennis player and a member of a Dungeons and Dragon Role playing clan like Dan is and you yield your tennis playing abilities to a thrown shoulder, it is less likely that you get upset.

So, in that aspect, I'm well adjusted. Just barely anyway. :)

I shall stop while I'm ahead since I'm getting increasingly sleepy. Yay! Dan comes back tomorrow.

Later!

11:32 pm: 5 antacids
I have heartburn, or something similar.

The entire day, I kinda felt this strange tingly sensation in my tummy. I put it down to being slightly anxious that this is the first time Dan is away. As it got worse, I thought it was me getting more anxious through the day. But the symptoms began to feel familiar. It brought back images of me slumped on the table, feeling like my tummy was on fire, feeling a severe need to throw up. It brought the bitter taste of bile to the back of my throat. Click click click click...the wheels turn. VOILA! It was what happened during the horrid time of my life that was teaching practice- Severe gastric thingyinmagig.

So was it gastric disguising as anxiety or was it anxiety that caused the gastric? Your guess is as good as mine although I suspect they played off one another and wreaked havoc with the stomach juices putting me into much agony.

It's 5 antacids later and it's still painful, but at least I have microwaved hot water close to me and the bathroom is two steps away if projectile regurgitation is required although I should sincerely hope not.

It'll prove that I literally cannot live without Dan which some may think sweet and all newly married like, but I don't want to be a Precious Moment bride/wife i.e. frail, pale and easily breakable...and oh! No, I can't allow myself to be that sort of person. I frown and make funny clucking noises at people like that. Gastric or no gastric, I'll do what I've planned to do and I shall not be floored by the high PH value of my tummy. I shall not whimper at imaginary strange noises that emanate from rooms that I'm currently not in. I shall not sleep with a baseball bat by my side.

Later.

04:35 pm: ST 555 K
I saw that number plate this morning on a Lexus two door. It doesn't seem like much but that was the number plate that my dad had on all his cars until we ran into money problems. Then he sold the plate to Singapore Tobacco (ST) for a measly sum of money and now, it's on a Lexus. Hmmm...

It sure brought back memories. I loved the plate number because it was so easy to remember as a four- five year old when you bossily tell your kinder teacher to look out for Daddy's car with those numbers on it. So I was sad when he sold it. On hindsight, I think he was more sad than I was that he had to resort to selling the license plate. Desperate times I guess called for desperate measures. It was a long time ago and although I don't remember fearing starvation or anything- I don't think I had any concept of that, I was always deeply terrified that we would be bankrupt. And as a child, that is one heck of an ominous word.

We're not well off now, but we've been blessed so I'm not complaining. Occasionally, I lament the inability to shop at Club 21 whose sale starts today by the way, and other tai-tai like places. I also lament the inability to afford holidays and a new car, but I'm quite happy with the lot I have now. I know we'd be much more well off if we saved less and spent more. But the childish terror I had for being bankrupt has translated into a not so child like fear of having no money to go away and do my postgrad. So, we sacrifice current tai tai status for hopefully one in the future.

It's been a busy few days. I've started debate training and man, am I stupid! Well, I was never brought up to question and to think things through. I'm not much of a thinker and it showed in college and it shows now. Basically, I wigged out Wednesday night because I could not for the life of me figure out how I was ever going to do a debate debrief and tell the kids where they'd gone wrong. I know there are flaws in the logic, but I just don't know where. It's akin to looking for a needle in the haystack for me and it's a really really big haystack! I have also never been subjected to Socaratic questioning in my life. I now know how to do it to my own students with content that I'm familiar with, but I was watching the coaches gorge answers out of the debaters in that manner. Then I asked myself, "How in the world am I ever going to do that when I barely know what protectionism is?" That was the motion of the day. So I panic, if I bit my nails, I would have no nails left.

I live in fear of the day when people realise that despite my multi-disciplinary, multi-tiered degrees, I am actually a fraud who masquerades as one who knows plenty who in actual fact, knows very little. Sigh. Dan tells me I'm more intelligent than I give myself credit for. Oh well, I hope he's right.

Anyway, he's marooned on a tiny island off Singapore at this moment and will be for the next few days. He's at an adventure training camp for teacher officers of the National Police Cadet Corp. This is a uniformed group that wanna be police men/women join when they're in school and they make a big deal out of it. They stand at attention under the hot sun for hours, march up and down quadrangles and basketball courts, give rank to their peers, therefore elevating them and the low down no rank, but same aged cadets have to salute them, address them as "sir" and "madam". Beats me! I have never understood the phenomenon of uniformed groups so I mock it alot of the time. Sorry. It's the jock in me talking. Dan thinks the same thing but somehow or other, he is now in charge of the "take themselves too seriously" bunch of kids.

Well, I'm in charge of the other bunch of kids. The ones who think they know everything and will argue with you every chance they give you. They're the ones who read Francis Fukayama, Samuel Huntington and I don't know who else. They're the ones that make me feel dumb. It's payback for all those years when I scoffed at the scholarly ones and preferred to be proud of the fact that I could run the 400m under 63 seconds, which was a big thing then! So now, I have to humble myself and learn and hope that no one realises that the one, who's got the most acronymns after her name on her business card actually knows jack shit.

Later.

06:01 pm: Cropping it
I spent the afternoon in the city today. Dan was at a meeting in town and I decided I wanted some time to walk around the city by myself. I like doing that sometime because I feel neither pressured or rushed to get my shopping done, if there was any to begin with. I spent a good hour playing with lipstick colours at the MAC counter. I'm a sucker for lip colours. I have ALOT, but it's never enough! And according to some friends I know, the lip colours I buy seem to be about the same shade. Hey, my theory is if it ain't broke, don't fix it. So there.

I have also come to the conclusion that make up counter staff do the same sort of thing during their breaks. They all smoke! It's not so much that I'm against it but when you have two counter staff from two different comestic counters in two different shopping centres having nicotine scented fingers, you are forced to make some sort of association between the two.

Apart from that, they were very helpful counter staff. I have been told not to use anything with just a brown undertone because it'll make me look washed out. I have been told pink undertones and berries work well for me. I'm also hankering for a number of lip palettes and a lip pen from Stila. Stila is an American comestic brand with very groovy packaging and I, like many of my peers, am the marketer's wet dream. I'm a sucker for packaging and freebies. So, I did not buy anything from Stila because I could not for the life of me decide whether I wanted 2 notebooks with furry pens or an umbrella bearing the stylised cartoon girls on them. Dan thinks the umbrella, but well, I will make another trip back there to make a decision. Of course, I could solve all my problems by buying two hundred dollars worth of Stila comestics, making me eligible for both, but even for me, that's a bit much to spend on comestics.

Following my hapless indecision, I proceeded to buy what I really needed. Crop tops. I am less than a week from the quarter marathon that I so foolishly signed up for and I am in possession of only ONE very old crop top that has a secret sensor embedded in it. The minute one tiny molecule of sweat makes contact with the spandex cotton material, it releases a powerful and pungent odour that would make even the most sunbaked school boy cringe. My mother once explained it as the unfortunate result of leaving sweaty clothes unwashed. So anyway, when your husband refuses to go within ten feet of you when you're in the crop top, it's a sure sign that it's time to buy some replacements.

And that I did. In fact, I bought two! Even that was difficult. I like crop tops tight because only then does it serve its function. However, the tight ones highlight the fact that I have non-swimmer wing muscles that desperately need to be toned and one size up while it fits better, does not give me the snugness I require. Dilemma! To have a slightly looser fitting top which will leave my back smooth and visibly non-flab, or a tighter fitting top that will make me turn anorexic in my attempt to eradicate said flesh that would make beautiful wing muscles were I a butterflier for the Singapore Swim Team. I chose the latter primarily because from my experience, these things loosen out and also it gives me motivation to try and build those difficult to reach muscles.

We were supposed to go running after Dan's meeting and my shopping but Dan was certain it was going to rain. He highlighted the fact that there was ominous thunder, dark clouds and one lone lightning strike as basis for such a conclusion. Unfortunately, my husband who has an uncanny sense for many things does not have the ability to foretell the weather. I'm sitting at home, an hour and some later, without a trace of rain in sight. No doubt the skies are overcast now and genuinely threatening to unleash rains that would leave us looking like drowned rats. But if we had gone when we were supposed to, we would be home by now, all worked out and only drenched in sweat.

Alas the harbinger of meteorological doom was wrong.

Later.

10:41 pm: At a Snail's pace
I am a slow reader. And on top of that, I have the attention span of a gnat. So it takes me a long time to read serious writing. It takes me even longer to understand what I read in full. I'm not exactly sure why I'm a slow reader, maybe I'm slightly dyslexic- there was a consideration of that when I was younger- but I suspect I was just being plain lazy. I think that was more the reason, and the laziness manifested itself as a poor ability to read and then concretised into the gnat like ability I have now.

This is why I don't read alot of serious writing. I used to struggle through my academic journals because I would stop reading content and start reading words and at the end of the page, realise I haven't understood anything. But if I put my mind down to it and I read it very patiently and repeatedly, I'd get through it and actually learn something.

So, I spent the better part of today reading a lecture by Umberto Eco- whom I have never heard of until today when my cousin-in-law put a link to a lecture he delivered, on her blog. Apparently, he's at the fore front of post-modern academia. Something I know very little about. All I know about it is that it has little boundaries and it has something to do with Andy Warhol and his painting of the Campbell's soup can. I also know that Dawson's Creek and Buffy epitomise it, but I could not hold a serious conversation about it to save my life. So I took this opportunity to learn.

Eco wrote about alot of things and seeing that I read it in parts, this morning before I went out, this afternoon, after I came back and just now, after my brother's brood stopped using my computer to play Finding Nemo, what I learnt from it is rather disjointed. But something stood out. He talked mostly about the value of books and how despite what happens in the field of intellectual technology, books and more importantly text will not go out of date. He touched on, early in the lecture that memory was threatened by the system of writing a long time ago. That people would no longer use their memories because they would then rely on records and their written word.

It echoed what I'd been trying to talk about the last two days. Memory and writing. Someone asked me once why I wrote. Why I kept a blog. I've kept a diary since I was eleven. I didn't record as much as my interpretations of what occurred in a day, but I wrote about my feelings. And I still do that, perhaps more fluently but at the crux of it, I write what I feel. I don't write because I know there's an audience out there. Writing to me, is a catharsis.

Not only am I a poor reader, sometimes, especially when it's most essential, I find it difficult to articulate my thoughts. Sometimes I think there is too much of a filter that prevents my thoughts from being translated into coherent sentences so I write. When Dan and I fight, I end up writing to him how I exactly feel and what I meant to say. It's better this way, because I have time to phrase it correctly and I am not in the danger of getting it wrong and adding oil to the already raging fire. In the Harry Potter books, there's this contraption called the Penseive, where some of the wiser characters deposit their thoughts. The rationale is that sometimes there's so much going on in your head that you can't make sense of any of it. So, you draw out the thoughts that you want to concentrate on and put it into the Penseive- there, they lay isolated.

It's the same thing for me, in a sense. Writing clears my head. I find that being able to focus specifically on certain thoughts clears the muddle that is my mind and allows me to go on and to think about other things. Especially when I'm feeling burdened by those thoughts.

Writing also heals. When the longest relationship in my life ended 6 years ago, all I did was write. I had four journals spanning a period of 6 months. Reading them a while back made me realise that it was somewhat repetitive. I talked about how painful it was, how it hurt, how I still loved him and I didn't want to. The same thoughts, expressed differently day to day, but all the same anyway. But it did its job. It helped put the pieces back together. I tell distraught friends who have just ended their relationships that there is a deep necessity for them to grieve and mourn the relationship. Only then will one be able to go on. And the way I mourned was to write and get it all out.

So, to me, writing is sacred. As a child, writing meant creating stories that couldn't happen in reality. As a teenager, it was a channel for my frustrations and my angst, as an adult, it still works in the same way except that the experiences I have seen and been through add a tinge of sophistication to my writing that did not exist when I was still in school. Nothing else has changed much. The last piece of fiction I wrote, I wrote about three years ago. It had the same style as the childish stories I used to make up when I was in school and according to those who read it, it touched them because it was emotional. That's where it differed- the ability to express raw emotion powerfully and to elicit a response from anyone who read it. I remember events by how it makes me feel and I am blessed with the ability of bringing how I feel into how I write.

It allows me to deconstruct a situation in a very subjective way- through my eyes and mind. It also allows me to preserve the moment the way I like it. Others I know like objective accounts of a situation because it lets them recall the situation as it was. I see the importance of that, but when I write, I record the situation as I would like to remember it later on. It gives me the opportunity to recall exactly how I felt at that particular moment. And that to me,that is more important than where everyone was seated in that moment. So that's why I write. And that's why Eco was right. Memories don't disappear because you record them. You immortalise them when you record them and then, you never forget. Well, for me anyway.

Later.

09:21 am: Lest We Forget
As I said in my entry yesterday, I was looking at my old blog which stretched from the end of 2001 to August last year. This time I wasn't looking at the nostalgic about Dan and my relationship bit. I was looking at the bits when I talked about Melbourne.

It's strange how the human mind and the human memory makes things that mean alot fade into nothing more than a spectre and a distant thought. It is a good mechanism because it allows events or situations that hurt or are unpleasant to fade into the past. But what happens to things that you want to remember and choose to hold on to? No matter how tightly you hold on to something, time slowly and unobtrusively pries open that vice like grip you have around the memory and lets it flutter away in the wind. So, no matter how one swears never to forget, one will. That's another kick in the shins for James Cameron's Titanic- where at the end, Kate Winslet's character tells the dead from hypothermia and rapidly sinking Leo that she will never forget.

Forget maybe not. But to remember every detail and every emotion, it seems quite impossible. That's one reason why we keep records. Had I not written so vividly about Melbourne last year and the year before, I would not be able to recall now, with such clarity what I felt then. I remember being sad and cranky and upset that I had to close up the house, but I don't remember the little nuances that I recorded in my entries then. It all seems so distant.

Two reasons for it. One, the passage of time- it just occurred to me that I graduated and moved home some two years ago. Two, when we came back from our honeymoon, both of us decided to close the chapter on Melbourne. Not so much because we didn't like it anymore, but because reality did not fit perfectly with our memories. However faint, most of our memories were good to the point painting Melbourne as a fantasy haven for us. And going back last June just fed that fantasy. The honeymoon, on the other hand, served to remove the wool from our eyes. We saw Melbourne for what it really was. All the beauty and the joys of being back was intermingled with the harsh grey reality of the city. And it was bittersweet.

We made a deal that we would not go back to Melbourne again until we moved back there for post grad because we didn't want our idea that Melbourne was our haven to slowly erode with each succeeding visit. And even that seems further away. Not so much because I don't want to do it anymore, but my doing postgrad depends very much on my dissertation being published. And like I said earlier, it's been two years and it's still sitting on a very high and dusty shelf. I'm not giving up on it yet, but I'm slowly considering other options. We've also been toying around with the idea of Vancouver, but mostly it's because we know people who are toying with that idea and we like huskies, like to move in packs. :)

Later.

11:38 am: The life got sucked out
I am bored.

So, I decided to pop over to my old blog, back when I set up my own homepage and all and see how many hits it had. Unfortunately, the hit meter has disappeared. I did glance at some of the old entries in there and it's such a strange feeling to read those old entries. They're about a year old, but they sure sound like they were written by a feistier version of me.

What has happened? Where has all the feist gone? I am uncertain that there's such a word, but I find no better word to describe what I am saying.

I suspect much of it is due to the fact that I have less time now. I know it's an age old excuse, but it seemed then that I thought about it more and put it into my oft absurd perspective. Now, I call it as I see it. It's sad though.

Perhaps working life has sucked some life out of me. I don't like that. I shall endeavour to be as interesting as I was before. I don't like being dull and colourless. I had a friend who once called me boring and dependable. I didn't talk to him for a long time after that. I could also use the excuse that this page is very utilitarian and it is hard to be inspired to think much less write quirky. Excuses excuses! I am just plain boring now. ARGH! I want my personality back!

It was strange though, reading about how nostalgic I was last August, knowing that I would be married in less than a year. And here I am, married for 4 days shy of six months and I'm still nostalgic. Just about different things. Then, I was kept thinking about how far our relationship has come and how sad it was that I would never get to experience a first kiss again. Now, I am nostalgic about what the wedding was like, although much less now than a couple of months ago, and sad that it was never going to happen again. I see a pattern emerging. I always want to recreate the best moments in my life and more often than not, it is downright impossible. So we go on with life and wait for the next big event to come, that will make me less wistful and nostalgic about the previous one. It just goes on.

I remember having a huge fight with Daniel over that last entry I wrote in the previous blog. www.geocities.com/shereen_huang. He took it as me still wanting all those things and not being ready to head out and face the future. I remember crying and crying till my eyes were swollen and trying desperately to make him understand that it wasn't about that and it was more about memories. Men! They either don't get it or take it the wrong way.

Well, we still have the same sort of arguments some days. It's just a fundamental difference between the two of us but we survive, somehow.

Today, I got a glimpse of what he would like if he were a banker/lawyer type professional. There was some award ceremony and he had to get dressed up for it. He did look very spiffy in his get up but chances are he won't survive it well. The weather is his arch nemesis and he has not won one battle against it yet.

Anyhow, I should go now. I have to get dressed for an afternoon of invigiliating and I need to collect the yummy chicken pies for tomorrow's party. It's Dan's birthday party and as a tradition, we have all the friends over to eat junk food as a sign of respect to the birthday boy. So, tomorrow is the designated date. I also need to go running but that's another story altogether.

Later now.