Just trying to be difficult....

The first-ever F1 Singapore Grand Prix and also the first-ever F1 Night Race has just drawn to a close. The race was won by Fernando Alonso of the Renault Team.

*Clap clap whistle whistle*

*Entire Singapore Grand Prix audience goes into a tizzy and celebrates with lots of booze and reckless behaviour, some taking advantage of the party atmosphere to go around kissing all the boys*

Ok. So now that the race is finally over, can we finally take down the lights and the grand-stands and all the rest of the stuff, erh, and get on with our lives?

I'm not sure why I'm such a spoilt-sport and roll my eyes at the greatest sporting event to ever be hosted in the country - W says I'm just being difficult - but for all the inexplicable reasons only known to myself, I'm frankly quite irritated by all the buzz and hype surrouding the F1.

Granted, yes, it's a most exciting occurence to take place in the little Republic.

Granted, yes, it's a sport worth watching. (I actually AM quite a F1 fan. Not fan in the normal sense of the word, as in, crazy person who is willing to spend obscene sums of money to watch the race, and to make sure the telly is switched on every time a race is showing on TV. But I do actually show more interest in this particular sport than say, tennis or footie.)

Granted, yes, it's a worthwhile investment for the government who is spending gazillions of dollars on the event because everybody is so impressed with everything and by everything, and Ecclestone and the powers that be might even consider having Singapore join the ranks of permanent F1 hosts blah blah blah.

Granted, yes, it placed Singapore on the F1 map, and with its influx of F1 maniac fans and tourists who came just to watch the race, suddenly, Singapore is everyone's favourite destination for a holiday. Quite unexpectedly also, a few more people suddenly came to the realization that Singapore is in South East Asia and not in China.

Granted, yes, Singaporeans finally have a reason to be excited about living in the country. Suddenly Singapore is THE place to be. Instead of our having to flock out to check out the latest and the more happening, people are actually flocking IN to experience the latest and the most happening!

The list could go on and on. There are only pros and no cons to this particular event.

SO WHY THE HELL AM I FEELING SO IRRITATED WHEN I HEAR PEOPLE TALK ABOUT IT?!

Maybe it's because it seems that the entire world of Singapore is revolving around a singular event which, while I'm sure is all very interesting and exciting, should not constitute the end-all and be-all for our lives? Why does Singapore come almost to a halt just because of this one event? Why do people obsessed with this and nothing else? Are our lives and brains so pathetically and inifinitesimally small that they can't contain and think or talk about anything else over the last weekend, except the event of the year?

Why does, and why can ONE SINGULAR event bring Singapore to its knees, and its inhabitants into such a state of dizziness that almost no one can talk of anything else but the F1 for weeks leading up to it, and for weeks after to either moan/groan or yap/squeak about Alonso's unexpected and miracle win?

F1 virtually had Singapore down on its knees and gagging, and splaying her all wide and opened and welcoming F1 to all of it, so just begging to be taken.

It's the same thing with the the Beijing Olympics - they did anything and everything to please the Oympics people. Anything they wanted, they got. China was practically begging to be allowed to bend over backwards and do somersaults while attempting to have her tongue touch her nose AND juggling 10 balls at the same time; pull down houses to make way for spanking new malls, steal her people's drinking water - they'll do ANYTHING!

I think that's what makes me mad, all this pandering and grovelling; frankly, it just reeks of desperation.

And even as I'm writing this, the people around me are just gobbling away, "F1 F1 F1 F1 F1 F1 F1 F1 F1 F1 F1 F1..." as if to prove my point. Just like turkeys really.

Or maybe, I'm should really just stop being so difficult.

"A" is for Apple

"A" is for Apple, "B" is for Boy, and AB is for, erh, Apple Boy?! (Haha!)

I was just chatting desultorily with a fellow colleague during a break today; we were talking about careers and personalities and other stuff which people converse about, and she made a very interesting statement.

She told me that I was a Type A person, and that I need to be careful. I had to be careful not to be too hard on myself.

Her statement totally pulled the rug out from under my feet because I had never ever once thought of myself as a Type A personality; and the funny thing is, when I asked my close friends about it, they actually agreed that I was too hard on myself. Or were they agreeing that I was indeed a Type A personality; I better ask them again.

Just for everybody's information, Type A behavioural characteristics include:-
- Time urgency and impatience
- Free-floating hostility or aggresiveness
- Competitiveness
- Strong achievement orientation

The physical characteristics acompanying a Type A-er are:-
- Facial tension (tight lips, clenched jaw)
- Tongue clicking or teeth grinding
- Dark circles under eyes
- Facial sweating (on forehead or upper lip)

So tell me, am I really really really a Type A-er? I would think I was the more relaxed and easy-going Type B, or perhaps the mixed-up Type AB.

This simple little conversation has left me all confused about what Type I am. Again. Sigh.

Well, at least this will explain my tongue clicking, oh, and my dark circles. Oh crap I'm 50% Type A already. Damn.

Nippon!

I am so excited!

About possibly going to Japan at the end of the year!

With some of my favourite people!

And I'm going to get to see snow!

I shall, from now on, save money like a fiend!

I can't wait! I'm so excited I'm blogging about it although I have nothing to say about it - no dates, no itinerary, no tickets nor hotels booked.

It's not even confirmed, far from it.

I'm just too excited. Finally, something to look forward to, after a horrid horrid horrid week*.

*There were some extremely good parts to the week, but there were horrid horrid things as well!

Ouch...

Ouch.

My head hurts and feels hot and my nose is leaking. My eyes are bloodshot and surrounded by dark circles. It's so bad I fight to keep my eyes open, and have sucuumbed to the stupor of 5-hour days, sleeping 19 hours a day, sometimes up to 16 hours at one shot.

With only 5 hours a day, for the last 2 days, I struggle to do all that I'm supposed to do - eat a little something, taking showers to keep myself from turning mildew-y, send a couple of reply sms-es, write an email or two to people expecting them, all the while fighting to keep my eyes open. I'm not sure why my eyes are behaving so strangely; I'm not THAT tired that I will fall asleep once my eyes close shut, but somehow, the eyelids are just so heavy. Is that a sympton of something?

My neck and my shoulder aches from my strange sleeping position. My hair's weird looking, and I'm feeling disorientated from staying in a darkened room all day and all night. My nose is red from all thhe abrasions with tissues and hankies and whatever else is on hand to stem the flood of mucus, bodily fluids and the essense of life dripping slowly but surely out of my body. Help, I'm convincedI'm going to die soon from some form of dehydration. I'm not awake long enough to take enough fluids to replace the ones I've lost, and trust me, I've lost A LOT. So much so that I've run out of tissue; the whole house is absent of tissue with which I can plug my leaking nose.

I'm also convinced that I will drown in my own bodily fluids if I lie down, nose facing up, as the fluids and liquids accumulate and block up all airway passages, and I slowly drown in my sleep. (YIKES!) Add to that, I feel a weird dull numbness, couple of inches beneath my left collarbone left of my vetebrae, and almost directly under my left breast. I hope that goes away soon; it's been most uncomfortable.

Written in ink, cannot erase

My friend was telling me a story.

And the morale of the story was, "Walk away. Write off."

And I thought about whether, in a similar situation, I can breezily just walk away.

In the midst of all the ranting, and all the moodiness and broodings and angst, and though wished I could, I don't think I can. I just can't.

I just can't write off people. No matter how much I wish I could.

Maybe it's because I know I would have been written off many a times, by many a people, if I had not been given the chance to change?

Maybe it's because, what if they write themselves off as a result?

But I wish it wasn't so damn difficult and so emotionally, mentally and physically draining. Heck, I don't even like watching some shows because they engage my emotions and feelings and sympathies too much; and now we're talking about real-life people, that go "OUCH" when you pinch them.

I was telling Wee about a certain someone, who doesn't write people off, no matter how they resist, snub, sneer, turn a deaf ear to, ignore, show contempt towards the person and the advice given. Whatever advice that is given, is always the best to the person's knowledge and experience; he doesn't sell people short.

Personal feelings and prejudices are always put aside. People may choose to walk away; but when they come back, there's always help needed, if help is seeked for.

I find that admirable, but incredibly hard to achieve. Perhaps, unwittingly, I've put my ego into my advice and help rendered to others. So when they reject my help or advice, I feel slighted, and I over-react. This shouldn't be the case me thinks. Maybe I need to re-think my position.

So I shouldn't write people off. Anyway, I don't get this phrase. Why write off? Shouldn't one write on and erase off instead?

So I should write on in ink, and not erase off people.

Well, it's gonna be hard, but I guess I'm still gonna give it a shot.

And I guess I'll have to try not to complain so much to my friends, or they'll be my victims of my Non-Erasure Agreement (NEA), and they may just write me off!

Uh oh!

Off with ALL their heads!

I used to be a very powerful person.

The secret to all power is, not caring about anything or anybody. It may sound ridiculous, but try it, and you'll find it to be quite true.

When you don't care about anything or anyone, nothing and no one can ever screw with your mental or emotional processes. You'll be able to make decisions at all level, hampereds by no such thing as consideration for other things or other people. The only thing imperative to you and to everything you think and do is, yourself.

Now isn't that a simple and direct route to being all-powerful?

It's really a much more simple life. One no longer has to think about the impact each action and word has on the next person, and how to come up with premptive ways to spare somebody else his/her problems. One no longer has to consider other people's conveniences, preferences or tricky situations. The world centres around a single person, and with that, the unimportantly superflous and the peripherals would be removed.

How simple. How fun. How self-empowering.

But one day, I chose to relinquish that power because I wanted to be a better person. And now, I find myself besieged with all sorts of considerations, concerns and worries, which I otherwise else would not have.

I really miss the good old days. It's not difficult to become that sort of a person again. Even if I didn't like myself as much, I will at least have less clutter in my life.

Because, sometimes, one wonders, is it worth it, my trying so hard to do my part as a friend, as a colleague, as a confidante, as a companion, as a good citizen of the world? The rewards seem greater, and the burden non-existent, my being a selfish, self-centered, and conceited ass with an attitude problem.

No wonder good people die young.

I'm already feeling the life ebbing out of me and my heart becoming increasingly weaker with every pummeling I'm receiving, and this is happening on quite a regular basis; it seems the world and its inhabitants are going to the dogs.

I think the only way I can feel better again is to go for a massage and a hair-cut and a whole day in bed with a good book. I think I'll curl my hair and go on a shopping spree and go to the movies and eat pop-corn as well!

Then I'll come back and decide whose heads I want chopped off!

I should feel better after that very therapeutic beheading exercise.

Q&A

"Would you rather have a head that's twice as big as a normal head, or half as big?"

"Well, it wouldn't matter which you had, would it? Since you're turning out to be quite the dickhead."

I don't usually dislike people, but there are some who are turning out to be quite the malignant vexatious boil, growing exponentially in size and grossness with each passing day.

Until I'm running out of patience, sweet loving-kindness, and humour, and am becoming increasingly displeased, annoyed and acerbic.

That is, until my patience runs dry and I decide to finally cut the person out of my life. I shall no longer tolerate patiently such things and people now from now on. I really do have more important things and people to turn my attention to.

Go, find another host for your parasitic crap.

It's good to be wrong sometimes...

Nobody likes to be wrong. But it's great to be wrong about some things, sometimes...

It's great to be wrong.....

... about your friend's boyfriend being a conceited ass, and finding out that he's quite respectful and patient and loving towards the friend.

... and finding out magenta is really quite my colour, and that I can carry curls quite well! (So I shall go and do my hair in curls!)

... and having friends exceed your non-expectations.

... and having boring strangers becoming quite interesting friends.

... and having the dull party turn out quite fun.

... and having your quiet shy little friend surprising you in a daring sexy dress and lookign quite spectacular in it! (People with hidden depths!)

I wish I was wrong more often. Instead of having my predictions turn out to be so true so often.

Come on, surprise me some!

The Dress

The Dress that is all of its traffic-stopping bright even-more-fushia-than-fushia-pink pink, in its silky softly flowing material that would probably distangle in its entirety before your eyes should you even snag it on as much as your fingernail.

The Dress that smacks of glamour and, fantasy and, sex and, hard partying in 4-inch bling bling stilettos and drinking out of a champagne flute with a Brad-Pitt lookalike hanging unto your every word and other Orlando-Bloom lookalikes trying hard to catch your eye across a crowded room.

The Dress that gives you the license to walk down Orchard Road and kiss every boy - black, yellow, white, red, blue, green - that you walk past, and the policemen who are after you, they want you for your kisses, and not to lock you up in a four-by-four prison cell.

Alas, it is also The Dress that is too good for me.

Especially as I stand in the fitting room in my bare feet on a dodgy carpet which is a cross between the colours beige and grey, hair bunched up in a pony tail, and frantically trying to fit my unsubstantial boobs into the dress' bustier.

I have neither the 4-inch heels with a celebrity's name plastered in the inside of the shoes, nor the dazzling bag with its very own name, nor the diamonds-emeralds-stones-and-rocks jewellery that goes with The Dress.

Neither do I have the panache, the glamour puss lifestyle, nor the male eye candy (Ozymandias where are you?) to match the dress. Needless to say, I don't have sex often enough and with sufficient numbers of male bodies to meet The Dress' very stringent Glam criteria as well.

I feel forlorn and my self-esteem has burrowed into the floor of the dressing room as I face The Dress in all its magnificence and all its grandeur, put on against its wishes on my unmagnificent and drab body. The whole room is reeking of The Dress' disdain and extreme condescension. I can hear it thinking, "What? Me, with her? Pui!"

I don't want to do this either you Stoopid Pink Dress! I guess we just have to pretend to like each other and put up a good show in front of everybody. Because I'm, sob, gay (the pink-coloured version)!

I can't wait for the Gay Event of the Year to be over. So I can rip off the dress, and hang it up on its very own gem-studded hanger, and leave it feeling smug in its own bright-pink beauty, into tha bck of my cupboard.

Until the next gay event that is.

A momentous occasion!

The girls say I must blog about this, because this is quite unusual for me to be making such observations, thus maginifying its significance.

Drum roll please.

I met a very good-looking guy. He's a friend of a friend. Actually I met his mum and his mum introduced us. I know his mum better than I know him, so he's officially my friend's friend, instead of just being my friend. And the reason why i have to be so explicit is because some of my so-called good friends might just suspect me of picking up some random stranger from the streets when I tell them that I met a good-looking guy. Well, for the record, I WAS NOT TALKING TO RANDOM STRANGERS!

Anyway, back to handsome guy. He's South African, and he's all of 1.89 metres tall! And he's oh-so-young;he's only 20!

But he's wise beyond his years, and I'm impressed by what a good boy he is. I think I'll write and tell his mum. I might just mention how good-looking he is too.

Haha!

To be a better man

I was speaking to a 20-year-old boy today, and I was surprised at how very mature beyond his years he is! He was speaking of his personal near-death experience. When he was about 6 years old, a virus attacked his nervious system, leaving him bereft of speech, hearing and all his vocabulary within a couple of months. The doctor didn’t know how and why and what, and they didn’t expect him to live beyond 8 years of age. But he survived, and had to re-learn everything that he had lost. His entire school life was a constant struggle, but when he graduated from high school recently, it was a tremendous achievement and a major milestone in his life, that normal people with normal lives would not have understood. Normal people would have scoffed at is finishing school late, and at his lack of academic achievements, but to him, ‘normal’ was an achievement! And at 20, he had something which no other 20-year-old, how matter how rich or how smart could rival; he was un-touchable!

Imagine two people. One has the ability to coat what he has with voluminous words to make it appear all nice and prettily packaged and impressive and appealing; the other is more reticent and lets his talents show for itself. At the end of the day, both persons’ “packages” are the same size. The different is, one’s more fluff than substance, while the other is substance with very little sugar coating. Interestingly, society values the candy floss more. They call it the ability to “communicate” one’s talent, and to market and sell oneself. It’s strange don’t you think, what the world actually prefers. I would prefer to be more substance than fluff, but I do occasionally wish I could speak better, write better, entertain better, present better, because hey, the "rewards" are better!

When I meet people like that who have gone through certain life crises, I invariably feel humbled. Because I think if it were me, I couldn't have survived surviving the accident, the life-threatening disease, the being cheated on by a partner and other crises. I'm pathetic that way. The mere thought of it scares me, and I kick it out of my head and go into denial in a farway place in my head. I only wish Alice's Wonderland was a real place where I can go and hide; where only I can go and hide, because if everybody could seek refuge there, it wouldn't be much of a sanctuary would it?

So I must admit, I am a cowardly whiney pathetic girl who has her head up in the clouds. Of course I've always wished I was stronger and harder and more than capable to deal with the crap of life, but I'm not. And I wish I was different sometimes, or rather, almost all the time. Because it's really the strong people, the people with character who can make a difference in this world isn't it, to do things that other people dare not or aren't willing to risk doing, like climb Mount Everest and quite their high-paying job to teach English in the world's backwaters, or give up a professional university to go to baking school!

On the other hand are people like me who don't do anything but merely indulge in feeling angry and angsty about childish wars and about people losing their homes because of the Olympics, and fantasizing about a better world, and a different world. People like me will probably just die dreaming.

Unless.... Before I explain what that 'unless' entails, let me elaborate on a little theory on mine.

For some reason, all the people I’ve met who’ve gone through some dramatic happening in their lives, whether it be surving a terminal illness or going through a hard life etc, they’ve somehow turned out better and stronger people, just by dint of their experiences. Which leads me to think, while we may not like the idea, but suffering may be a better teacher than anything can ever be, that is, assuming we all want to be a “better man” according to the Robbie William song. (I’ve learnt not to assume that other people have these same objectives.)

I was contemplating this observation of mine, and asking myself, would I be willing to go through that baptism of fire so to speak, to emerge as a phoenix out of the ashes? In other words, if given a choice to go through life uneventfully and leaving no mark in the hearts and minds of people, as opposed to leading an eventful but worthwhile life, which would I choose? After much contemplation, I daren’t answer that question still, because much as I like to choose the latter, it requires much to be able to consciously choose the latter life. (I daresay I may not mind so much if it creeps up up on me, but really, it’s the very deliberateness of making such a conscious decision that is so unnerving!)

Now why am I so philosophical today? I think my brain is starting to hurt from all that thinking! Ouch! I think I'll go and soak my head in a tub of ice now.

To the olympics

The 2008 Olympics came and went without me barely noticing, the opening ceremony, the closing ceremony, and everything in between.

Apparently, it's very much the social faux paus to be nonchalant about the Olympics, because when I mentioned the above fact in passing to a group of colleagues, they all looked at me as if I've just spouted horns and turned green all over or something. It is, NOT THE THING TO DO, missing the Olympics, because it's the first time ever to be held by an Asian country, and China, the country not the porcelain, spent a whole lot of money and effort to making it the greatest Olympics EVER!

*Rolls eyes*

Ok fine. Call me the apathetic non-sportsman showing unsportsmanship behaviour and not rooting for the international gathering of sporting nations in a display of camaraderie and peace and harmony, which is what sports, the link between all men and humankind can bring all together in unity. (Wait, does that make sense? That sentence is so long I got grammatically lost!)

So what?

So what if I'm not too interested in who wins and who loses and who broke records? As in every game and sport, there is a first place, a second place and a third place, and a half a dozen more non-winners of the sport crying at their loser-status, away from the lights of the TV. There will be natural sportsmen and sportsmen who got where they got by dint of 20 out of 24 hours a day pegging away at whatever sport they play, and only 4 hours left to be non-sports-like. And there will also be the dopers who insist on taking drugs even though they'll most certainly get caught and be shamed and exposed in front of their peers and disqualified from the games.

Which brings me to a most persistent question in my mind, which is, how many of these people will still play the sport if there was no such thing as the Olympics and no such thing as winning a gadzillion dollars for being first and for doing the same thing over and over again? How many people are left if we take away that gold medal and the glory and the money? Isn't that where people take performance-enhancing drugs even though there's such a high chance of getting caught? Because all that money is worth all that risk!

Why do I have to be interested in the Olympics? It's hard to be interested in the Olympics when you hear about water being deviated from the rest of China, from the crops that need the water, at the expense of the livelihood of millions of other Chinese people, when you hear about the lives of Beijing-ers almost coming to a dead stop just to accomodate the presence of an international Sports event which has brought it nothing very much else in terms of rewards, but has brought so much in terms of unappreciation and a bad stinking attitude from the rest of the world.

How about when you hear that people's houses are torn down to built spanking new shopping malls to feed the lust of engorged pocketbooks and to appease and please the insatiable lustful condescension and patronage of the rest of the, dare I say, Western world.

I am proud of the indomitable Chinese spirit, but I'm not proud of that incessant need to show off what we already know about ourselves, that we are an incredible people who can do incredible things, and there is no point in my opinion, in having to prove that point. I am proud of the beautiful buildings, the air-tight logistics, the brilliant showcase and display of talents, but I am sick to the stomach knowing the amount of extravagant resources that went into it, at the expense of her own people. Is it worth it really, punishing your own just to feed other people's big fat children?

One last comment. It's quite funny, the irony of the closing ceremony ( I heard about it although I didn't watch the ceremony!), the easy-going random attitude one country has vs the pompous granduer of the other. And I shall stop here, and not say any more on this particular topic, before I actually get killed or something for all my irreverent and sacrilegious remarks.

In the Secret Place

The secret place is, oh well, secret. It's somewhere only I can go, and only those I bring along are allowed access. It's a sort of elite club, only better.

It is a happy place, and a fun place, and a most wonderful and magical place. It is where everybody wants to be (if they could choose to be), but where only few are able to access, because only some have the magic code to to enter.

In the secret place is total privacy and exclusivity. It's my place of refuge, of refreshment, of rejuvenation, of deep thought and idea generation. It's a place of still restfulness or fruitful productivity, whichever is the activity that is preferred at that point in time.

If rest is required, there's no restless or troublesome external influence that invades, because all of that is kept out by a firewall. Worries, anxiety, strife, quarrelsomeness are all kept at bay and not allowed to disrupt the peace of the inhabitants of the secret place, allowing me to refresh and rejuvenate every single cell in my body. I become a totally new person almost - whole, anew and afresh.

If what I need are ideas and strategies and plans, this is the place where ideas and concepts are generated almost automatically, easily and quickly and without stress. I can add, multiply, subtract and divide vast numbers at a fraction of the time I usually need. I will not have writers' block, but words and ideas and prose will flow like water. I will become the incredible writing and thinking machine! There will be a lighted-up lightbulb above my head 24/7. Even when I'm sleeping, I will dream dreams and envision visions of new machines, new worlds, new toys, new books, new creative ideas for art and music and song and dance!

I can either choose to enjoy the still quietness of the secret place by myself, or I can enjoy it with the people with whom I choose to share it with. But conversations in the secret place are always full of laughter and joy, and the topics of conversation are always interesting and fruitful and beneficial. There's never any malicious gossip or back-biting or mean-spirited remarks. Such bad emotions are not allowed in the secret place.

The secret place only allows all that is good and true and noble and pure to exist, whether in thought or word or deed. There is no secret shameful harmful thing, no intention to harm or to hurt, no devious, evil thought to discredit or to destabilise or to de-motivate or to deride.

In the secret place, I am hidden from view and only some have the ability to see me or to find me. Those who are insincere and have bad agendas, those who are malicious and who want to exploit and take advantage, they are not able to find me, because I am invisible to them. So all relationships are pure and wholesome and mutually beneficial. Parasitism and manipulation and politics are absent from the secret place because they are absent in the hearts of the people who are allowed in. It's like the one-way mirrors - I can see them, but they can't see me, their 'badness' acts as a blind so they cannot see.

I can see them but they can't see me. I can see their actions, read their thoughts, and have insight into their plans and strategies of manipulation and politicking and creating dissension, but they don't know that I know, but I know that they don't know that I know. They plot, the connive, they manipulate, they create traps, they lie, they cheat, they fake. But I know everything and I watch them get caught in their own rubbish, because make no mistake about it, evil will be repaid by evil, and good for good. For those who are for me, who wish me well, who help me, encourage me, wish only good for me, they will be rewarded for their goodness. The great stuff that I have will be theirs as well. When I have my own apartment block facing the sea, they will get their very own 3,000 square feet apartments facing the sea!

In the secret palce, we'll never grow old ugly. There's no such thing as wrinkles and pimples and freckles and fats in the secret place. In the secret palce is eternal youth and eternal beauty - both internal and external. Very importantly, there's no such thing as PMS as well. Biscuits will hang from trees and chocolate will flow in the streams. In the secret place is health and gracefulness and longevity. We'll enjoy the fruits of our rewards, and be full and satiated, never lacking, never empty, never longing.

Where is the secret place?

If I tell you, I will have to kill you.

But I may just give you a secret peek or bring you with me when I walk through the secret magic portal into the secret of secret places.