Not too long back, over sushi, hotpot and orangetomato sherbet, I had a conversation with Debb:
Filed under: conversations, memories, places
November 13, 2008 • 4:29 pm 0
Changeling
November 12, 2008 • 4:52 am 1
Jobhunt fatigue
Enough said. The sense of urgency of the past two days- with application deadlines and chats- just disappeared today.
Today, hot and stuffy. Too hot to be spinning cover letters. Too hot to do anything.
*
On an interesting note. I’m extra sensitive to generalizations, so its no surprise words like “Its okay everyone goes through this…” do nothing to comfort me.
1. Everyone going through the same shit doesn’t mean a thing to me.
2. In fact, you’ve just managed to make me feel more pathetic.
So yesterday, at my helpliner training, we were acquainted with the life cycle models. You know- when you tell someone else, ‘Oh, you’re at that stage’, you’re probably referring to it. So we told to place ourselves in the model- and contemplate/reflect. It was pretty enlightening, try it.
How:
Think about which stage you are in life. Describe it in terms of emotional, mental, financial capacities.
What was your previous stage like?
Was the transition difficult?
What are you doing or what did you do to cope with the transition?
Are you stuck, or are you successful?
Right. I apologise if it sounds like some pretty lame shit, but it was cool. A class of women ranging from 23 to 55 (probably?) shared their personal situations, and it was just so cool getting to take so many shots at the everyday, getting so many different circumstances with different women in different places in their lives.
It was cool.
Filed under: daily grind, memories
October 3, 2008 • 2:38 am 2
the meaning of this rain
Its 2:30 am in the morning. I thought it was a good idea to wake up and write- after lying awake for some time to the rain hitting hard on this window. It is an attic window- and captures the sound of rain in quite an interesting way. This particular rain, this Yorkshire rain on this attic window of a student hostel, reminds me of another rain, a Nepalese rain on the zinc roofing of a brick and motar house. And both rains in their intensity is perhaps not too unlike the Singaporean rainforest rain back home against my condominum window panes. The nice thing about hearing rain in the midst of your sleep is that you feel safe- warm and safe. The elements might be raging outside, the covers of your shelter are getting absolutely battered for your sake, for your posterity, but you rest still, dry and secure in many chambers of your bed. I have never identified much with the homeless. Perhaps now when I see them, I shall recall the rainy nights.
Just rain, and I have collected so many different kinds over the last four years. Australian rain is generally not unlike the UKian rain in daylight, either like threads of water in spring, or like icy stones in winter. How I waited for the hail then. Perhaps it was my romanticisng nature. How I imagined the hail, scrutinsed the whites of my sunlight to determine afore-imagined hail. Hail is truly magnificent, when it does happen. But just regular rain has its touch of class as well. In Melbourne, the morning showers that visit just before I step out of the apartments are the best, they leave the walking pavements shiny, Nature’s way of loving you.
And of course the rain of the slippery hillsides in Sunaula Bazar. How dusk ends and night falls and the rain persists. How midnight owls call and farm mice scurry to the sound of the thunderous rain because- it can only be like that- on a zinc roof. No poetic pitter-patter when it rains in Dhading, Nepal. Only glorious rainfall. My favorite memories of the rain is how it made their lives humble and graceful, that when it rains you know that their lives are self-preserving, and meaningful. My imposing Hajur-ama never rushes when the rain does, she bids her time, as if her age commands the rain to respect her- she walks home slowly barefooted, sometimes buffaloes in tow, sometimes a water container on her hips. If her walk could sing, it would be, Let it rain, let it rain, be it. Rain in the villages trigger a whole new set of chores that need to be dismantled- the greens earlier sunned, have to be collected, the freshly laundered colors on washing lines have to be folded away, the goats have to be chased into their sheds, the dirty pots and pans should all go out for a free wash. Rain in Nepal is the grit of life.
Coming to hear this rain in the early steeples of this morning in yet another foreign land, at age 23 is a gratifying experience for me. Perhaps because I am pleased to have accumulated my varied rain-wise experiences thus far. I acknowledge they aren’t miserly experiences for a 23 year old. And I am further excited about what more rain-filled experiences lie in store for me- 33, 43, 53. (Honestly, I don’t mean that. I have an inability to think too far. At the most, I can visualise rain up till age 30). At age 23, I am here in the shire of York, sussing out my sister’s spanking new degree waiting to happen. The prospects of her dormitory life, her young and rest presumptous nineteen-twenty-year-old friends and her idealistic academic discourse is making me green with envy. My own undergraduate days linger in the corridors of my mind- In times of rain, be it in bliss or bitterness.
For the horizons now, it is fit that I give justice to the home-grown rains of Singapore. Beyond feeling frustrated that I can move nowhere, beyond feeling like I am hiding away from the rest of my world, I need to be similarly inspired by the rain and live, properly, by it.
September 1, 2007 • 7:22 am 0
Time.
Perhaps I stood yesterday at the shop window of Catherine Manuel on my way to Uni, looking at their glossy in-flight luggage bags, thinking to myself- Yes I’ll get a set for Mumbefore I finish my undergrad studies and fly back to Singapore.
At that moment, it was peace of mind. A material promise- that wedged a whole stack of months in between then and now, that soothed my wants, and reassured my identity as student. Now comes the cliche: How time flies. It was three years ago.
I am here now. What happened in between?
