My One Cent Worth of Thoughts

My friend told me that I could do whatever I want, for my wedding dinner and that included inviting whoever I wanted. He said, “After all, it is YOUR wedding, that is your right to do so!” But, Cheong, do you know how wrong you are?!

Sadly, that is not a reality of life. To create this once in a lifetime, perfect moment, I have to scrimp and save every cent. This includes eating cheap meals, not buying the things, which I badly want…..only to find that, at the end of the day, I cannot choose with whom I want to enjoy this moment.

50% of the guests who will be there, will be people whom I have probably not met in my entire life and will attend the function for reasons which I can never fathom in a hundred years. To them, it will probably be a normal meal to meet up with friends or relatives whom they have not talked to for the last decade.

Since they have never ever set eyes upon me or my partner, there is no reason for them to be here at all! I resent the fact that I am the one who has to pay for their little gathering. YES! YES I DO RESENT the fact that I have to scrimp and save for a bunch of people who do not give a damn about this most important day of my life! I do not mind spending the money on people who genuinely care about me.

However, if I were to hold it at a place which I do not genuinely like, or if I have to cut down on other expense just to pay for these freeloaders, that would be short-changing myself! I want everything to be perfect for this very day!

For goodness sake, this is my wedding dinner! Why does it have to be a stupid gathering for long distance relatives!!!!!!!! Can’t they just hold their little luncheon at some other place and time!

*At this moment of time, I amd really pissed off and feel like spewing some really, awfully, extremely, absolutely vulgar phrases! What the FISH!!!*

YH just criticised my Kito post. She claimed that it was incoherent. I thought that it was obviously about this mosquito which plagued me for the whole night and eventually died from an overdose of my poisonous blood?!

Is it really THAT BAD?!

Night Vision mode activated.

Multiple Targets locked on.

Fire!

Kito buries its miniscular sting repeatedly into a few spots of the left foot of the poor victim.

Object successfully retrieved and digested.

Next Target area locked on.

Kito makes its move as the left hand scratches the inital bombed zone.

4 Target grounds bombed and objects successfully retrieved.

Sneak Mission successfully comple…ted…

Kito goes into convulsions….and clutches its neck…..

Blood … is… poisonous……

Kito makes one last twitch as life drains away from it.

Muahhahahah!!!! Face the wrath of Ah Wei!!!! Warning to all Kitos… Sting me and die!!! Muahahahahah!!!!!

That will teach you for harassing me for the whole night!!! Muahahahahah!!!!!

Too many things have happened, events have come and gone.

Economic Recession, Iraq War II, Sars…..

I really have no idea where to begin writing. I can’t help but realise, how fragile and vulnerable humans are. There has not been any news of joy for a very long time.

Ok ok, I admit that, this is a very poor attempt of writing constipation to make up for the lack of articles for the past 2 months. I will try again later, when inspiration strikes.

To SLEEP at 11pm sharp every night.

To LEAVE the house at 8am on the dot.

This must be the curse of my life. With less than 8 hours of sleep, I am practically a walking zombie for the next day. Hopefully, this new resolution will be able to relieve the mental and physical stress of rolling out of bed and peeling my eyelids open.

As for the 2nd half, it is to prove to everyone (who has given me looks of disbelief, when I announced it) that I CAN DO IT! *fold arms, glint in the eye… !!zing!!**

It is Chinese New Year again. Once upon a time, these words conjured up visions of new clothes, sweets, cookies and best of all, *ang paos! Even the tedious, respectful chants of “Great grandaunt” and “Cousin Ah Kow” (who is perhaps 10 times removed), the dangers of being suffocated by enthusiastic hugs, the drop dead boring waiting sessions (when old folks reminisce about their youthful exploits about 60 years ago) could not diminish the lure of the red packets. (See! We have been taught to be $$$minded at a tender young age!) Anyway, we didn¡¯t have much of a choice. What could little 8 year olds do in situations like that, except to put on a brave face and endure the ordeals?

20 years later, the thoughts of having to elbow my way through the mad crowds during sales (For some reasons, there are always sales at this period of time!) for new clothes, the high cholesterol and calorie levels of sweets and cookies and sitting through droning of 80 year old adventures (YES!! They never tire of repeating the same story every year!) seem drearier as CNY draws near. The pluses gained through the ang paos simply do not justify the agonies anymore.

Is it due to the fact that I am holding a job now and the ang paos aren¡¯t attractive anymore? Or is it due to the erosion of my grasp to my ethnic roots (as my father lectures us on the degeneration of traditional values of today¡¯s youths)? Or now that I am 28, I have the means to more choices and mobility?

Somehow I just do not see the point of sitting there, nodding my head eagerly to stories which I have heard for more than 20 times or making small talks to people whom I have either never met in my whole life or kept asking me if I have eaten already. To me, they are people whom I will not keep in contact with after my grandmother and my parents have passed on. Everything is mechanical and emotionless. Does this really endorse the true spirit of Chinese New Year? To me, it is a season to get together with close family members and friends. And the above certainly does not subscribe to this.

CNY gives a different meaning to my generation. There is no debating on if it is a merit or a minus because it is a change to our way of life. It is here to stay.

*CNY = Chinese New Year = Celebrated by the Chinese, in accordance to the Lunar Calendar

Ang Pao = Little red envelopes filled with money = Usually given by the older folks to the younger unmarried ones for good luck.

It has been more than a month since I have updated my blog. In fact, I did try updating it a while back, but apparently, the blogger server was going nuts that day and I couldn’t get my posts up. After which, I confess that I have forgotten about it for a long while. Getting used to the whirlwind of acitivities, realigning my haphazard schedules and trying to beat the rule of “no using of internet for pleasure during office hours” (Yes! I am one of the parasites who (used to!) blog during office hours!!) took some time. However, after a full month of practice, I have finally mastered the art of gorging down my lunch within 30 minutes and thus relieving a teeny weeny bit of time for blogging.

Cutting the tedious matter short… I AM BACK!!!

The link to Extreme Ironing has been given to me by Tripps. He has never ceased to amaze me. He has been able to conjure up various links related to the subject we talked about, all in one minute. He claimed that he had a troupe of little green men on his payroll, searching for these links! Haha! Try harder, Tripps!

Anyway, coming back to the subject on Extreme Ironing. According to the website, it is “a new outdoor activity that combines the danger and excitement of an ‘extreme’ sport with the satisfaction of a well pressed shirt. It involves taking an iron and board (if possible) to remote locations and ironing a few items of laundry. This can involve ironing on a mountainside, preferably on a difficult climb, or taking an iron skiing, snowboarding or canoeing.” (Totally ripped off from the FAQ of the website. Am I infringing some copyright laws here?! Hmm…)

Well, I am not too sure about that. In the first place, I hate ironing! If I get to go to one of these exotic places, why would I bring along an ironing board?! Or perhaps I can do this on Singapore’s tallest mountain, Bukit Timah Hill, standing at 163.63m. Now, wouldn’t that be REALLY EXCITING?!

New Year Resolution: I shall endeavour to complete all my tasks way before time. Hey! Doesn’t this sound familiar? Yeah sure! I have made this resolution every year, for the last 20 years.

It is 8am now, and no, I didn’t wake up early to blog. I haven’t had my owed sleep yet!!!

I should thank my dilly dally nature for it. I have enrolled into a writing course, spanning across 3 whole months. Yesterday was the drop-dead deadline for all submissions. Yikes! I was going to fail my course! Therefore, I had to cram 1 and half month’s worth of homework into one night. The whole of last night was spent squeezing words out of my saturated brain and *hugging the Buddha’s familiar leg (We are buddies! I have done this same task for more than 20 years! SO you can imagine the kind of friendship we have!!). I am sure my *GP tutor will be doubly proud of me, knowing the number of essays I have churned out in record time!

Tragically, I am a person who can only work under time pressure and I am probably the most ill disciplined human being, I have ever met. I confess to this sin. Then again, I must never let my boss read this article, or else, I will have short deadlines for all my projects, thus causing my blood pressure to rapidly increase, bursting my brain and finally grey matter will flow out of my ears. Eeewww.. Gross!

Anyway, I am beginning to sound incoherent. I need at least 8 hours of sleep per night. I calculate that last night’s activity has led to a deficit of 8 hours plus 50% interest from the sleep bank. I have a loan shark for a sleep bank. Sigh….

*Hugging the Buddha’s leg comes from the Chinese phrase “hugging the Buddha’s leg during the last minute”, meaning… that one keeps procrastinating doing one’s work, until it is too late and so has to hug the Buddha’s leg, hoping that help will be given.

*GP = General Paper = English

They must have heard me up there! I have been lamenting to my colleagues that I would not get to see snow before I leave… blah blah….

Today, just as I stepped out of my front door to get to the laundry place (Ta dah!!!), snow fell lightly from the sky and the ground was blanketed with a thin sprinkle of it. Yikes! “Virgin SNOW!” I yelled. Dropping my laundry, I ran upstairs, called my friends in Singapore (They don’t get snow there. *evil cackle*) and bragged about it. After being blasted by their envious swears and curses, I hung up the line with much satisfaction and snatched up my digital camera from the midst of my mess and hopped outside for a photo mania! Anyway, I finally remembered my forgotten mission and made my way to the laundry place, dumped my clothes into the automated washing machine and ran outside for another photo snapping spree! The trees were really a pretty sight, especially the Christmas tree look-alikes. I walked around a little, letting the white flakes settle upon me. Bliss!!

The darkness came really swiftly in winter and that put an end to my joyride. Since I had to wait for 2 hours, for the slowpoke machine to be done with the clothes, I decided to drive home, instead of loitering around the streets in the dark. The light snow has become heavier by the second by the time I returned to the car. The innocent white layer on the roads has become killing machines. Besides, I suspected that they have not fitted winter tyres onto the car! As I made my first turning, I could feel it skidding to one side, onto the opposite incoming traffic! I hurriedly swerved it back again (perhaps a little too hard and sudden, which incur another skid!) and decided to go really slowly. However, it went totally out of control, whenever turns on parts of the roads, where the snow was thick, were made. I was a bundle of nerves when I finally crawled up the steps of my apartment. I was a newbie to all these difficult driving conditions – winter, driving on the wrong side of the road.

I dreaded the time when I had to collect the clothes. After 2 hours, the streets have become horribly dark. Even in Singapore, where the streets were brightly lit up, I had difficulties with directions at night. Somehow, to me, everything looked totally foreign in the dark. I had to manoeuvre through the darkness, slippery snow (skidding a few times, after which, it didn’t look so pretty anymore!) and the lack of road lanes (they have been covered by the snow).

Touched down at home base half an hour after I left for the 2nd trip. Phew! Still in one piece! If I were a cat, I would have only 1 life left after all those heart stopping skids (I counted!!!) Anyway, I’d better return the car to the company tomorrow, as it is a really cranky antique piece. It died a few times on me today, due to the extreme cold. Car towing doesn’t quite appeal to me.