sometimes if you feel like someone is worth it, you have to take the risk and put yourself out there.

-Diary of a Wimpy Kid (Movie)

i feel like a mimosa

a friend is..

someone who joins in

when you’re trying to sing ‘sometimes love just ain’t enough’ at the ktv and it’s starting to dawn on you that a large part of why you normally don’t sound half bad has more to do with the acoustics of your bathroom than anything else..

so she blends her voice with yours

lends it strength

just so you’re not doing it alone.

unwise

I used to perform badly for exams when I was younger. Whenever I encountered a question I had problems with, I had this inability to just cut my losses and attempt the other questions first.

I was insistent that I was ‘almost there’, ‘just a lil bit more and I’ll get the answer’, ‘so much time has passed, if I give up now, then it’ll be a complete waste’, ‘I know I can do this’..

More often than not I would submit exam papers with pages of ‘un-attempted’ questions which I would later realize I actually knew how to do.

Not very wise.

It’s been 2 years since I took my last exam, those days are over (for now at least), but the tests persist.

& I’m still not very wise.

with my little eye

i spy

a  pretty  rainbow

i’m lucky..

It disappeared 5 minutes later

The last time i saw one was 2 and a half years ago(!) at this place called Kapity(?) in New Zealand.

The rain has stopped

and it’s time

for the sun to come out again.

What sort of person?

I read this in the news today. Apparently the man who oversaw the death of 15,000 Cambodians in the Khmer Rouge prison Tuol Sleng which i recently visited is on trial, almost 3o years after the Khmer Rouge were ousted by the Vietnamese.

The dude was a Maths teacher. “He was acting under orders”, he says. I’m not making any sort of judgment of his character but i wonder what sort of person he was. What were his experiences, what kind of environment did he grow up in that shaped him to become the person he eventually became?  Was he some sort of fanatic? or was he simply weak?

What kind of reasons did he give himself to rationalise his behaviour?

or was there no need for any sort of rationalisation?

My first day at my new job

I have a personalised safety helmet with my name on it.

We have morning exercise together before we start work.

i love it!

My Cambodian Adventure

It’s strolling through Siem Riep town licking an ice cream cone,

it’s chilling in a cafe, writing postcards & satisfying my ever present pancake craving.

 It’s walking the ancient ruins of the Angkor City,

listening to stories of great kings & imagining in my mind’s eye how thousands of years ago, people walked the same halls & corridors that i tread today.

It’s marvelling at the sheer scale and magnificence of the Angkor ruins,

as well as the intricacy, artistry & beauty of the carvings that adorn the temple walls.

After witnessing trees growing upon rocks, it’s making a mental note to recall the resilience of nature even in the most hostile of environments when life gets me down.

It’s sitting atop a temple on a hill, bathed in the light of a breath-taking sunset, praying, because surely in the face of such splendour, God must be present to answer my prayers.

It’s zipping through the Cambodian countryside, dodging potholes on a ‘moto’,

flanked by fields of emerald.

It’s cruising down the Tonle Sap with the wind in my hair & peace in my heart,

& chatting with fishermen with weathered faces & toothy grins

who obligingly pose with the catch of the day.

It’s beholding a rustic life at odds with mine, of attap houses & wells & rearing livestock & gathering firewood for fuel. The stuff of books. 

It’s stopping to observe how palm sugar is made traditionally,

only to be moved by the generosity of  a lady who possesses little materially but has much to give to a stranger from afar.

It’s conversing with my tour guide who shares with me his life story & advises me to, “Live & learn”.

It’s hearing about a people whose favourite leisurely pastime seems to be lounging in a hammock, such that enterprising businessmen rent out picnic sites furnished with hammocks to families during the weekends.

It’s offering a lollipop to a child who returns my little gift with one of his own, a radiant smile, before continuing his game which involves the cover of a styrofoam box for lack of anything else to play with,

while i wait for his brother to prepare my dinner.

It’s traipsing through Phnom Penh, navigating the maze-like streets with my trusty guide book,

& stalking kids trying to get a good shot (& failing) of a child with one arm around the shoulders of another, a heart-warming scene repeatedly witnessed during my short trip but hardly ever seen back home.

It’s feeling nauseous as i walk through cramped jail cells, staring at row upon row of portrait photos of genocide victims, viewing pictures  and reading about the torture & other atrocities inflicted on these innocent victims during a war in the not so distant past.

It’s enjoying dinner along the Mekong River under a blanket of stars

& savouring a variety of local delicacies.

It’s learning about contentment & gratitude & compassion & solitude & independence & self-belief & inner peace & revelling in the simple joys of life.

places of transit

Over the past 5 years i have lived in Choa Chu Kang, Bukit Timah, Balestier , Novena, back to Choa Chu Kang, Toa Payoh & come Sunday i will move to Boon Lay.

Time to stuff all my belongings into my bag, up & leave.

I’m unsentimental when it comes to moving. I’ve never really gotten too attached to any of my rooms & the lifestyle they entail, cos to me.. that’s all it is.. a room.. a place to rest my weary toes (high heels..  i love & hate them!) at night.

A place of transit,

till i move again.

But this time..

it feels different,

i feel different

kinda serenely expectant

& it’s not so much the departure but more the moving in to a new place,

it’s not so much the fact that this time i will create a place that is a home away from my family home  (& not just a room) but more the fact that my heart has found its home.

It dawned on me today that

the struggle to be someone else or to be the kinda person i wanna be, the dissonance within has disappeared

& I finally recognise that I am exactly the person i wanna be.

I’ve finally caught up.

I’m exactly where i want to be in life.

I have arrived.

Quotable quotes

While on his way out the back door for a smoke, one of my company’s directors stops in front of where my colleague & i sit & asks, “What year did Raffles discover Singapore?”

“1819?” The nerdy student (memorizer of useless trivia) in me automatically responds.

“That was like 200 hundred years? 2 generations ago? At that time if he wanted to write a letter home.. it would take.. what? 3 to 6 months to get there?”

He looks at me with a slight, quizzical smile & pauses

 

for

 

the

 

longest

 

time.

 

“Erm.. get on with it already dude.”

I’m getting a teeny weeny bit uncomfortable with having THE director’s unwavering attention focused wholly on me.

onepinkelephanttwopinkelephantsthreepinkeleph..

He gives his blueberry a quick glance & raises it slightly,

“This takes.. less than 30 seconds?”

& his grand finale

“Time seems more precious these days.. doesn’t it?”

He steps out the door.

I slowly release my breath.