i think i should just stop blogging and direct you over to dr. boli’s. i love randomness, and he is really just about the most random person i know whom i don’t (did you get that?) but i think you have to be tarred, at least slightly, with some randomness too, if you want to laugh at his little irreverent pieces.

and here’s his take on socks.

it is dark and gloomy and wet this morning, and will continue to be for the next three days. i would usually spend such days in my pjs, lounging around on the bed, attempting to get some work done. but a friend from home is in tokyo, and we will be tackling the optician this morning. i have never had glasses made in japan before; did you know that it is possible to get a pair of glasses made in half an hour? why do they make you wait for days back home??

i have known this friend for a long time, but never actually spoken to him one-on-one for a good, long time before; i wish i had. he is intelligent, funny, and full of such sincere good thoughts about the choral scene back home. i miss talking to people about such things, in a language i can handle. i haven’t felt like singing lately, and rather shocked him when i told him that i didn’t quite care about my voice anymore, and decided that i wanted to drink.  but talking to him brought back all the myriad emotions that i have for singing and music, and stirred me; and now i want to sing again.

i can relate to people like him – they have ideals but a firm sense of realism; earnest, sincere, hopeful yet jaded at the same time. at times, i become frustrated when speaking to young japanese; they seem to be either entirely indifferent, or naively idealistic (in a miss-universe-world-peace way). but then again, young singaporeans sometimes seem to be entirely indifferent and overly-pragmatic. both are the result of living in sheltered societies – isn’t that ironic, and interesting?

i really had the best of intentions. i was supposed to shower and head straight to bed. but it started pouring, so i simply had to make a cup of tea and do that whole cozy routine. plus, the tea was supposed to help remove the taste of some blue cheese i had taken by accident (which mum had bought by accident. i don’t suppose she could have known that the blue packaging was significant in any way.) but i don’t think peppermint tea and blue cheese work, and coziness aside… i think i just might throw up any minute now.

i wish my fellow countrymen would stop going on and on, whining about the decision to remove some seats from the trains to make space for more commuters. it is, apparently, an issue of genuine importance to many singaporeans, because… oh really, making it harder for us to get a seat on the train is an infringement of our rights as commuters.

it is one thing to whine about such things over coffee and rolls, while talking to your neighbour in the corridor, while trying to fill up an uncomfortable silence. of course we all whine. where would the joy in life be without whining? but it is another thing altogether to write to the country’s major english daily, all self-righteous and seemingly logical, and plead that those seats might remain. that plea, alongside everything else in the news. why does it feel wrong and embarrassing? i don’t know. maybe i am snobbish and hypocritical… and a show-off into the bargain. because if i were going to write to the papers, i would make sure i had something more important to say.

…for everything else, but great for whining. it’s whine-fest monday!

i am tired, and sad that i don’t even feel like i have the right to be saying that. i’m entering week 2 of the lull, and starting to feel absolutely uncomfortable. i need work soon. money is one thing, of course, but there is a far stronger cry – i simply need to feel gainfully employed, and of some use to the world. i hate feeling forgotten and somehow, left behind in the whole scheme of things. it is such a lonely feeling. and furthermore… hell, i’m bored.

i am also tired from hounding Agency From Hell for the fees due to me. being a debt collector is exhausting, to say the least. i am beginning to understand why s always seemed so jaded and tired. it can’t be good for you – asking people for money over and over again, then listening to their sorry excuses over and over again. besides, it’s christmas season. they should really have a little more sense than that. how am i going to fuel the economy with outrageous christmas shopping if i don’t get paid?

and then there is the health. always the health. my gastric pains have returned again after a year long sabbathical. i know not why. perhaps my body is as bored as my mind. but why should it be when it has been wheezing for close to a year now? surely wheezing is as interesting an ailment as gastritis. in any case, the combined effect of the two has effectively stopped me from doing anything more exhausting than running for the bus (believe me, even that can make me wheeze for half an hour). the rain makes me wheeze, the air-conditioning makes me wheeze, dust makes me wheeze, late nights make me wheeze… frustration has given way to amusement; i refuse to go to any more doctors or imbibe any more antibiotics, so i have opted for resignation.

and resigned i am, too, about scholarship results that are slow in coming, stupid agents, motorcyclists bent on scaring the very cells out of me when i drive, jeans that are too tight, dad saying “parrot importer” when he really means “parallel importer”, and whiny government-hating singaporeans. i should probably elaborate on the last lest i come across as an extremely hypocritical, i-studied-abroad, singaporean-bashing singaporean. i have many thoughts on the singaporean need to complain, but have neither the physical nor mental strength to go into that today. suffice it to say, for now, that i am rather well aware that that particular gene is alive and well in me (hello… whine-fest monday, remember?), so at least some of those thoughts do not involve mentally maiming my fellow countrymen.

i leave you, my dear non-existent reader, with something from a german movie i watched last night (with the enticing title rabbit without ears). there is a scene where ludo, the typical skirt-chasing handsome lead who falls for the not-so-beautiful nice-girl, laments about how he does not enter into relationships because he has yet to find the woman who has it all together and does not look to him to make her happy. the gospel, according to ludo, is that one has to find happiness on one’s own, and that it is selfish to expect someone to make one happy. i… don’t… know… but… i (rather grudgingly) think he’s right. oh, hang the men with all the answers.