Gong Hei Fatt Choi

I'm hoping this niu year will be as ox-picious as all the wishes I've gotten on my phone. (Total of 5 smses?)

As the number of cars and number of Singaporeans who need to go back to Malaysia increase exponentially, we were bound to finally experience 2-3 hour causeway jams. The queue begins 2km from the Singapore customs and 1.5km from the Malaysian customs. Or the reverse, depending on whether you're going north or south. My uncle says it's because all the Malaysians married Singaporeans. Of course, you need both hands to clap.

I think this is the age in life (at least for our family) where the number of relatives we have available to visit has decreased. Some relatives have discovered the joy of an annual pilgrimage to ancestral China, so I haven't celebrated CNY with them in awhile. With the passing of my grandaunt, there's no more center for all the twice and thrice removed relatives to gather. I do not foresee anyone stepping up to replace that role, so we've lost another 2/3rds of our family there.

The next phase will have to be when my generation gets married and we need to start visiting in-laws. And the phase after that when everyone has kids.

In the meantime, CNY has become a pretty quiet affair.

I am a fan of small joys in life. Like realizing tomorrow begins at 9am instead of 8am. And that from 10.30 am to 2pm I don't know what to do as the timetable has blocked out a session called LIBRARY. It either makes me thoroughly lifeless or someone with lots of excitement to look forward to.

Change is good. Once you've overcome the apprehension of things going wrong, everything falls into place and suddenly you can't imagine if you'd stayed at the same place you were before. And God's grace always pulls me through, as long as I keep reminding myself that tomorrow will worry about itself as long as I put my trust in Him. Which is why I did not have to buy another 1 4 for lab today. I did get another scolding from Prof Neo. Ugh. 2 weeks for her to forget it was me, yet again.

CNY is coming. Still ain't got my red undies.

bath on Flickr © fast boy

I'm quite settled into my new room, but there's a slight element of fear and yet tiny excitement about whether things will last. At least the toilet's not as bad as I feared, and hopefully I can get some privacy without anything going haywire. At least I don't have to wake up crazy early as I've had to the past 3 days. As much bravado as you have, one day of travelling by public transport is enough to tear you down.

But gahhh, being the toilet freak I am, it sucks to have to get up and walk just to take a leak.

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I dislike it when someone I thought I could read so well suddenly does an about turn. It confuses me and annoys me. It also scares me because I realize I don't dare to be myself, to just throw a fit around the person. And that says leagues about how close to each other we actually are.

I AM A HOMELESS PERSON

I've just spent my evening packing and lugging my at least 20 pieces of heavy luggage/items into the car to move back into my precious room 8-6-C in PGP. To my utter horror and dismay (as Papa says, Horror Story of 2009, which he suggested as the title for my complaint letter to the management), someone else has just moved into my room. And all they could do was give me a temporary TYPE C ROOM. TYPE C, I TELL YOU, TYPE C.

I've just wasted all my time travelling, making my aunt and uncle travel with me and lug things up and down. I'm eternally grateful to them. And I really felt like crying for a moment at the thought of spending the night like that there.

Grrrrr. Now all I can do is wait and hope.

My flight's today and I've spent the last few days going out with different groups of people. When you have the time, it's actually easier than you think to socialize with everyone you want to. And I'm very fortunate to have more than one circle of friends in my future profession. Of course, some of those people will go on to even bigger circles once they hit other shores. But one should count their blessings.

I foresee this semester to be a lot less fun. Since it's going to be very been there, done that. Especially since I shall be very lonely in PGP this year. So lonely I'm even contempating moving out of campus next semester, but the travelling is really a huge turn-off. The only other incentive is that this is the year of ECONOMIC CRISIS (as Mom put it in our family talk) and it's time to save some moolah.

Other than that, I resolve to get my head screwed on right, and stop getting distracted.

Oh, For A Time Turner

There will never be enough time in the world to maintain all the relationships you want. It's a fact of life.

The other day, I realized that so many things in my house remind me of people from my past. Teachers, friends, relatives, all mostly people I haven't spoken to in years. For example, my house is brimming with the touch of Ms Lau, my former art teacher. She's not only taught me, but both my sisters, some of my friends and even my cousins, occasionally. Everywhere I turn, there's some artwork hanging on the wall that I created in her class. Can't remember the last time I saw her, though.

I wish I could just make time every year, just one day per person, to meet up with the people who meant something to me. Yet relationships are funny things. Getting closer to someone usually means getting even closer. The more you spend time with them, the more time you need to spend and it becomes a heavy investment. It's only natural that you have to build on to maintain a relationship.

Maybe it's time to accept that some people need to stay in the past. Or maybe both parties just have to acknowledge that there's a cap to their friendship. That there's only so much time we have, and that time is reserved for people you prioritize as more important.