Melbourne (9th - 20th)

In my recent trip to Melbourne (9th to 20th April), I was wondering how it was going to be like. So many things I want to do, so many people I really wanted to meet up and catch up with, theres Church conference etc... I was on the plane to the airport and it just felt so different. Small suit case, no agenda of studying for my degree but the pure desire of the trip is to really catch up with my friends and have fun. Even flying off was different in the sense that there were no one sending me off and I just finished helping my parents with their tribe meeting (thus I hurried over).

Melbourne is great. Spent a great time with good friends. In my opinion it is still too short to do anything but it is still worth it. I feel rested and strangely at peace to enter NS. Its like how an old man who is wealthy but has a son who ran away from home and inside him, he has a desire to just meet up with that son before he dies. I guess it was the same for me. A month would have been the bare minimum to me but a week and a half is sufficient to just be able to catch up or at least see with numerous friends. I can truly enter NS in peace now haha!

Melbourne has most of my good friends, people whom I can connect to, many people whom i deeply respect and people whom I really love to hang out with. I guess my time in Singapore, though it was the majority of it (16 years) was not as fun or adventurous filled in comparison to Melbourne. And the ages of 16 - 21 are technically the more fun filled times of one's life. Hopefully NS would be something will be fun as well...
I'll end it off with saying, Melbourne has many of my brothers. Brothers from different mothers (lol), friends with the same type of kindred spirit and people whom I can connect with very easily. If its fate, I'll be able to meet up with them in the future.
I'll post some pictures up of the trip up soon!

Apologetics

Yeah I know I flopped. Like major big time. I'm really sorry for what I did, its not like I did it really intentionally to dig things up and find stuff out. Just a really bad coincidence to just happen to google find it and just find out. I do get bored at work and your name just happened to be in front of me in twitter.

What ever I did its out of good intentions. If I know a friend is in trouble, I would definately help. That has always been my character. I mean, if something happened to a friend of yours, wouldn't you try and help or something? If you know something happened to a friend, would you just ignore it and let it go? If so, what kind of friend will I be if I did that? I'm not doing it to be a "good person" or like to make myself feel better, I do geniunely try to help. Its not like I'm saying that I'm not at fault, just that I had good intentions. However, I would like to ask, why would you so no to me about it at first when we are from the same faction that teaches not to do something of that nature. Regardless, I now know that you did so for a reason which of course I didn't know cause I already knew it before I checked on you. I just asked cause I wanted to let you know I'm here if you need help or someone to talk to as I stated in my msg.

I won't say I had a rosy life so far nor would I dare say I had a thorny one but I can say that I had some stumbles and thorns along the way. During some of those walks, there were no one around. Whats worse is those of my own faction didn't do anything for me. Especially those I expected to do so, those from my local country faction. What did the CG do? Did they send me e-mails? Or text me? Or call me? Or even skype me? O.k, those from UL in the region I was in did stuff. Not the things I needed but I feel the sincerety and I appreciate the efforts of those who tried to help. But as a whole no one from my faction really did much. Rather its those outside from us that did far more. That is perhaps one of the primary reasons why when I hear someone is in trouble or someone is in pain I try to help. I do so cause its placed in my heart to help. If I, for any friend can go an extra mile, how about you? My own faction. How much more would I care for you all?

Regardless, I acknowledge what I did was wrong. I just wish you the best and hope that whatever happened this year doesn't plague you anymore.

One of those days?

"Cause you had a bad day, you're taking one down

You sing a sad song just to turn it around

You say you don't know, you tell me don't lie

You work on a smile and you go for a ride"

This is the song thats playing in my head all morning. Its one of those days you know where things just go wrong? Now don't close this page or roll your eyes, I'm NOT emo-ing about this or the events that happened. Ever had one of those typical days that you have when u just happen to get up on the wrong side of the bed. First u set the alarm clock but though you wake up to give yourself "5 more mins" which in reality is normally 20-30mins, this day u got 40 mins instead? Then on the way to the train / MRT there is an accident on the road thus making traffic slow, on train theres no seats as usual, and around Paya Lebar MRT station I swear I think I saw someone hanged there or something. Its looks like one of those metal intra-structure of a house or something and there was a man (or at least something that looks really like one from the train) that was hanging from one of the metal beams.

Of course, nothing would make it better by missing the bus and being all blur in work despite doing the work before. Well honestly at this moment, I'm not feeling down. Nor am I feeling emo. More like a careful feeling. Verr careful on what I'm trending on! So I'll just be posting bad day pics on this post just to make it more colourful.

Life in the office

I really don't think I'm office material. I'm just seating around in the office practically doing nothing! Nothing! Well at least I FB and Twitter and check e-mails but other than that, I don't really do much! I feel somewhat bad cause everyone SEEMS to be busy or at least thats what they appear to be. And while they are compiling data, I'm that noob guy who is reading the newspaper and playing the computer.

Now its not that I slack or what. I really do try! Honest! I go around asking "What is this?" "Whats that for?" "What does this do?" "Why do you do this?" etc to try and learn but in the end theres really so much "W" questions u can ask. Besides the 5 "Ws" cannot be applied here (Who, What, Where, When, Why). That was something my mum used to ask me everytime I went out during Secondary school haha!

In the end I have to do this job scope of hunting around for things to do. So I typically (when I can actually find something to do) just wash stuff. How exciting right? Studied 5 years in Melbourne to do washing hahaha! T_T

Tram inspectors

Has there ever been a time when u wanted to carry something out but in the end you chickened out or changed your mind? Yes, by the title of this post its quite obvious that I wanted to do something regarding tram inspectors, brilliant deduction sherlock holmes! Ever had this funny feeling? Whenever you do not have something, you do not want something to happen but when you do, you would want something to happen? Just like whenever you have an umbrella you want it to rain in order to make carrying the umbrella "worth it" while when you are not carrying one, you never want it to rain? Some thing for the tram inspectors. Whenever I do not have a tram ticket, I always wish: "damn those inspectors, don't come up don't come up!!" and keep a major lookout for them so I can do my ninja escape from them. Of course this is one of the major ways to differentiate between a person who bought a ticket and another who didn't. Well in the 2nd semester of my final year in Melbourne, I had to do extensive travelling for research purposes and thus I had a tram ticket with me all the time. Yes, call me bad all you want but I always wished to see a tram inspector coming up to catch people without tickets (and make them PAY!!!! MUAHAHAHA) cause they take up space and they are cheating the law for not paying for it!

So what I've always wanted to do is to play possum with those tram inspectors. For those who have never been to Melbourne, Australia or never met a tram inspector, this is how it goes. Bascially the inspector would say (in a typically robotic voice) "Ticket" and in the most rarest of occasions "Ticket pls". Yes, they do not say "Pls" normally because they are not well mannered and that is a topic I will not be delving into. Anyways, so if you do have, they will just move out and find their next victim. If you do not possess a ticket then thats when the drama starts, they would ask you to leave the tram and go down the stop and ask tell you some mundane information and ask some questions and later call someone you know with their handphones to verfiy your address.

What I've always wanted to do was to always pretend I didn't have a ticket and pretend to search my whole wallet for it while they wait (and presume that I do not have one). And I'll create the whole thing about I bought it already but I can't find it and I'm in a rush etc and finally pull out my ticket triumphantly and wave it in front of their noses and walk off. But sadly this has never happened as I chickened out all the time. Sure, call me big chicken but its really intimidating when a group of gorillas and baboons surround you and ask you for your ticket. Not to mention there is peer pressure as everyone else always hands in their ticket for those thugs to inspect. Perhaps if I ever go back to Melbourne, I'll act as a tourist. Wait a min, I will be a tourist. But anyways, I'll just pretend I do not know anything and just communicate to them in Chinese or something since they cannot understand it hee hee (and get off scott free!).

-p.s. WHOEVER is reading this blog. Do NOT carry out that plan too often as if there are too many "Chinese speaking" people, I'm very sure they will be hiring Chinese speaking inspectors very soon and my plan would fall apart.

Culture difference

A common question that I've been asked whenever I tell someone that I used to study in Australia is "Can u fit in there?" or "Is there a big culture difference?" etc. And honestly, because I pretty much hanged out with 99% asians and not ang mohs (Yes I still use the word Ang Moh to represent caucasians. But its still better than using guai lo) thus Australia was a mini-asian town to me with insanely high prices and a quaint lifestyle. I pretty much could fit into most of the "Australian culture" which is to me being laid back (or another word is lazy but lets not go there), drink beer in the afternoon (a stereotype) and a whole lot of other stuff. But of course if you do know me, I do not do any of the above (with the possible exception of the laid back part though not as bad as them). Its not that I cannot understand nor get used to it but rather I rather stick to my own culture's way of life (and at the same time have a mild musing over the funny things they do and later on complain). Well this could be also considered as culture difference (and of course it is) but its not really like that big culture shock peoplel assume I might have.

However there is one thing that really shocked me. I only found this out when I was communicating with my Australian (sort of) friends online whom I met on the MMORPG game WoW. They were telling me how they had no money and how the money was sucked into paying rent. Obviously for any Singaporean or Malaysian or pretty much any asian, I think paying rent means living out on your own. However in Australia, at the age of 18 onwards, it is expected for you to either move out or to pay rent for staying in your parents house. Some of you smart alexs may go "yeah I know that already" or "Didn't you know that?" or "so?". Stuff you! This is pretty much the only culture shock I had regarding Australians.

Though it is far more seldom now, I think it is still normal for children to stay with their parents even when they are older. It is afterall their duty to take care of their parents. Of course later on in life, parents may move into the child's house etc. But whatever the case, paying for rent to stay in your house or your parent's house? Oh please come on. Like at least 90% of Singaporeans only move out when they get married or after 22 or 23 at least. Afterall we are still studying haha. But yes, not going to debate whether paying rent is the right thing to do but its honestly the greatest culture shock (and pretty much the only one I have for Australia)

Forlorn nostalgia

Reminiscencing the past has never been my forte. I love my past. Everything that has happened, everything that I've experienced. Its like an adult thinking of the time when he touched a light bulb the first time when he was a young child. Almost magical, something that disney seemed to hold when I was young. Something so fantastic, full of dreams and tingling sensation. Flying in the clouds, catching the moon, imaginary giants in the sky with their gigantic castles up there...

I remember the elasped really well. Its as if I can even grasp the image right in front of my own eyes. The very essence of what I see...

I had a fascination with snakes when I was young, attributed to the fact that I was born in the year of the snake (1989). Soon however, like many others though not in the same context, I've grown out of this childhood interest.

I ask why is it that I see what I desire or rather what I regret in conjunction with this creature in a dream? How do I, I ask, defeat this monster? I never looked at myself as a strong person, I could not protect what I wanted, what my utopia was.

What I do not want to reminiscence, I leave it out. It has been a year since I've dreamt of it again. I pray to God Almighty, oh Lord, could I have done something to intervene sometimes? Its over now of course and I though I do not see why it had been done but I know things has been set on motion and your obviously in control. I can already see it happening but sometimes I wonder if it was worth it.


The very fascination I had when I was young, the very thing I dreamt about since young. In conjunction and in terrible aversion. The forlorn nostalgia... What I wish... to have a melancholic dwelling on those thoughts but whats the use of of thinking of the same water that falls from a waterfall?

Stranger on the shore...