I once bought a wooden car. Wooden engine, wooden doors, wooden wheels, wooden seats, the works.
I got in, and put the wooden key in the wooden ignition.
Wooden start.
The Ordinary Singaporean
Musings from Singapore
Page 21 of 27
I was at a bar last weekend with my friend, and he made a remarkable shot in pool. I asked how he did it.
“When I am about to take a shot, it’s like magic, I can just see the line where I need to shoot,” he said.
He then went to play darts and hit the bullseye every time. I asked how he could be such a marksman.
“When I am about to throw a dart, it’s like magic, I can just see the line where I need to throw it,” he said.
Later, he got in a fight with another guy at the bar. He threw a punch and missed badly. I asked how he could throw such a poorly aimed punch.
Through a blackened eye, he looked at me and said:
“There is no punch line.”
There’s a lot of controversy about vaccination, but you know what I don’t get?
Measles.
A group of kindergartners were trying to become accustomed to the first grade.
The biggest hurdle they faced was that the teacher insisted on no baby talk.
“You need to use ‘big people’ words,” she’d always remind them.
She asked Chris what he had done over the weekend. “I went to visit my Nana.”
“No, you went to visit your GRANDMOTHER. Use big people words!”
She then asked Mitchell what he had done. “I took a ride on a choo-choo.”
She said, “No, you took a ride on a TRAIN. Use big people words.”
She then asked Bobby what he had done. “I read a book,” he replied.
“That’s wonderful!” the teacher said. “What book did you read?”
Bobby thought about it, then puffed out his little chest with great pride and said, “Winnie the Shit.”
Mario is in court for a traffic infraction (he parked his kart in a no-parking zone).
Judge: “I order you to pay $500.”
Mario: “Why?”
Judge: “It’s a fine.”
Mario [sadly] : “No, itsa not.”
When we were kids, my older brother would always tear out the last pages of my comic books.
He never told me why he did it – ultimately, I had to draw my own conclusions.
Every year feels both too long and too short.
On the eve of a new year and decade, I sit alone in my room. It’s a location I’ve barely left in four days, due to a sudden, seemingly random fever+flu combo I caught last Friday.
It’s an extremely disappointing way to end the year. Because of this illness, my girlfriend and I had to scrap dinner plans (a nice one, to cap off the year), I had to pull out of a Dungeons & Dragons game, and my exercise routine – which I’d just properly restarted – stalled.
All that on top of dealing with all the symptoms, of course.
But 2019’s end doesn’t represent the whole year, as much as it’s colouring my perception now. Recap time:
Family
I’m thankful that my parents remain healthy. Neither of them exercise much – they put a lot of their time into work – but that’s changed, especially with my dad.
Ever since the cancer scare a few years ago, he’s incorporated long evening walks into his daily routine. His diet has improved, thanks largely to my mum cooking most dinners nowadays. They used to eat out almost every day.
They even went swimming together a few days ago.
I may never be able to properly communicate on a deep level with them – there’s an insurmountable generation/mindset gap. But I am grateful that they support me regardless. That in itself is priceless.
Brother and his family are doing fine. The small man (my nephew) Brayton amuses me almost every time I see him. He’s mischievous as they come, and has his little tantrums as any three-year-old would, but his wide-eyed enthusiasm for the world around him is refreshing.
I am also deeply thankful for the support Olivia, my sister-in-law, provided when I was job-hunting in late 2018-early 2019. She helped me to find a balance between 1) taking up a job because I need the cash, and 2) taking up a job that’s actually right for me.
In the throes of the arduous job-searching process, it’s easy to just take the first thing that comes along. But she helped me to keep my eye on the prize, and ultimately I rejected two good offers for a great one.
What an amazing segue into the next section.
Work
I’mma get dramatic for a bit:
After three years of running away from my destiny, taking up roles in PR and communications, I finally found a full-time writing position.
A combination of a lack of (suitable) opportunities, a desire to get my career started as quickly as possible, and a self-fulfilling prophecy of a mindset that writing is very tough to make a career of in Singapore meant that I took a really long time to find an answer that I actually knew all along.
The job isn’t all roses; each project presents its own challenges. The thing is, none of them are problematic enough to take away from the general enthusiasm I have for my work.
In other words, I actually enjoy the dirty, gritty details.
My colleagues are great too. A fun bunch of people who I both like being around and can learn from.
The goal now is to keep getting better, expanding the breadth of my work, and, should opportunities present themselves, help younger writers.
I want to pay forward the kindness and guidance that others have shown me, and I feel like the only way I can do so to any discernible degree is with writing.
Friends
I am happy for Max and Win Low finding their respective partners, and Zhen Ling for the healthy birth and development of her daughter.
I am happy for the continued health and well-being of everyone else, even as life hit them hard in various ways throughout the year.
The Bali trip in the middle of the year was one the most fun ones I’ve ever experienced.
I am thankful to have had such people in my life. I don’t know if I even deserve them.
Girlfriend
Jieyi continues to be the best thing that’s ever happened to me, bar none.
There were a couple of highlight occasions, like our anniversary, birthdays, the Pokemon Go Safari in April, and the trip we took with my parents to Thailand, but it’s all the little weekday and weekend dates where we didn’t do anything extraordinary that add up and mean more, ultimately.
That’s what a long-term partnership is supposed to be about anyway.
Best of the rest
- Picked up a new hobby recently: Dungeons & Dragons!
- Passed Japanese Language Proficiency Test, N3 level (technically, took the exam late last year, but results+cert came this year)
- Started playing basketball semi-regularly again, with colleagues
- Finally got this site up and running
Goals for 2020
- Lose weight: get to ~72kg
- Write more, and better
- Both at work and on this site and anywhere in general
- Get better at Japanese
- Aim to take JLPT N2 in 2021
- Hold better conversation
There are bigger picture goals such as saving more money and getting a BTO and so on, but those kind of go without saying.
Here’s hoping that the next decade will be a happy and fulfilling one.
Tim is dining alone in a fancy restaurant and there’s a beautiful redhead sitting at the next table. He’s been sneakily checking her out the whole night, but doesn’t have the courage to go over and talk to her.
Suddenly, she sneezes, and her glass eye comes flying out of its socket toward Tim. His reflexes kick in and he reaches out and plucks it out of the air. He goes over to return it to her.
The redhead is mortified. “Oh my goodness, I am so sorry,” she says as she pops her eye back into place. “Let me buy your dinner to make it up to you.”
So Tim joins her table and they enjoy a wonderful meal together. Afterwards, they go to the theater, followed by drinks at a bar. They talk, they laugh, she shares her deepest dreams and he shares his.
After paying for everything, she asks him if he would like to come to her place for a nightcap. He says yes and they return to her place.
He ends up staying the night. The next morning, she cooks a gourmet breakfast with all the trimmings. The guy is amazed at how everything has been so perfect and how incredible this woman is. He can’t believe his luck. “You are the perfect woman,” he says. “Are you this nice to every guy you meet?”
“No,” she replies. “You just happened to catch my eye.”
All the parts of the human body were having a meeting, trying to decide who was the one in charge.
“I should be in charge,” said the brain. “Because I run all the body’s systems, so without me nothing would happen.”
“I should be in charge,” said the blood. “Because I circulate oxygen all over so without me you’d all waste away.”
“I should be in charge,” said the stomach. “Because I process food and give all of you energy.”
“I should be in charge,” said the legs. “Because I carry the body wherever it needs to go.”
“I should be in charge,” said the eyes. “Because I allow the body to see where it goes.”
“I should be in charge,” said the rectum. “Because I’m responsible for waste removal.”
All the other body parts laughed at the rectum and insulted him, so in a huff, he shut down tight. Within a few days, the brain had a terrible headache, the stomach was bloated, the legs got wobbly, the eyes became watery, and the blood turned toxic. They all relented and decided that the rectum should be the boss.
The moral of the story?
Even though the others do all the work… the asshole is usually in charge.
I hadn’t put my own picture up on my dating profile, just a picture of my pickup. But that’s okay, because she’d just put a picture of her dog. I sent her a message, something almost-clever like “your dog can ride in my pickup any time,” and she responded.
We clicked pretty quickly, and started chatting regularly. Every day, sometimes throughout the day. Slowly we learned more about each other. Her dog’s name was Daisy. My truck’s name was Dodge Ram (I apologized for my lack of creativity). She was a CPA. I was a beekeeper.
And at this, she stumbled. “If we ever meet in real-life, I want you to know that I could never date a beekeeper.” But we were still far away from that point, so it was moot.
But time went on, and we gradually got closer to that point. More personal information. What firm she worked for. Where my farm was. Names of relatives. Names of high schools. All the things that just come up in conversation eventually if you talk to someone long enough.
But, oddly, after all this time, neither of us had thought to send any pictures. Until one day I got a message from her: “I never thought I’d say this, but I really do want to meet you in person. I think we have a rare connection, and I don’t want to squander it. I want to send you my picture, and I want you to send me yours, but I’m telling you, I can never date a beekeeper.”
I couldn’t imagine a life without my bees. But I also couldn’t imagine a life without her. Tentatively, reluctantly, I clicked on the image attached to her message.
Then I saw her face. Now I’m a bee leaver.
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