Relationship

The lights were out and darkness filled the living room. It was a monday night and something must have gone terribly wrong when Grey's Anatomy was replaced with the usual black screen. Silence flooded the floor as i entered into the cold and lonely house. I dismissed the anomaly and went straight to my mum's room. A healthy chat with her ending with a wild goose chase over a cockroach signalled that all is well at home. So i changed into my running gear and went for my overdue run.

An hour later, i covered 5km and 200 jumping jacks. Cooled down and got home, again. This time round, something was different. I could hear some commotion in my mum's room and it's highly unusual for her to be up at 12 midnight. So i dumped my perspiration soaked vest into the laundry basket before running up the stairs, ignoring the built up lactic acid in my thighs. The door opened to a tearing sister halfway through a conversation with my mother. Apparently, it happened again. This time round, the guy went banana splitting.

While it is seemingly similar to someone, i refuse to classify it under the same "case". Once again, I was called to the role of "doctor love" and as we adjourned out of my mum's room, i was obliged to pour out some advice (under the order of my mother and also the brotherly love in me). Somehow, it is so wrong and unfitting for someone like me to be in such a role. Not when i have one terribly failed relationship, one bad relationship, one puppy love and one guilt-filled, regretful relationship under my belt. What kind of advice can i give? If there had been an award for "the worst possible lover", i would have gotten it without any contest. But under such circumstances, I was elected to be the only plausible candidate. Outside our room, sat my sister, me and God. No one else was around. God couldn't talk to my sister, so i did.

I am not going to spill the beans about what went wrong in my sister's relationship, rather, it triggered off memories of what happened to mine. It offered me yet another perspective, yet another view, this time from that of a female. From that of a crying female. From a female that i could not find any fault with because i love her so, because she is and she will always be my sister. How it pains my mother and also my heart to see the youngest child in our family to be crying, to see her with red swollen eyes, to see her with such anguish on her face. The last time i remember seeing her like this was way back when we were still fighting during our childhood.

Over the hour of conversation, i spoke to her aplenty. After listening to her side of the story, i dished our whatever advice i deemed fit, both as a brother and as a guy who have been through several (failed) relationships. I remembered saying that a relationship has its success rooted in both parties and similarly, its failure comes only when both parties pull the plug. Commitment and trust are two major essentials to a healthy relationship. There's no such thing as "i trust you abit", "i give you 10% trust" because somethings are black and white. If you want a relationship to work out, then you have to be fully commited and give the other party the full trust deserved. You may or may not agree with me but this is something which i've concluded over the past year. Some couples go through a rough patch and things go terribly wrong. One of them says to the other "alright, i will give you another chance." Yet not many of them truly meant what they said. I've come across a few who confessed that they could not bring themselves to trust their partners fully after they patched things up. So why bother giving the chance? Things did not work out the first time and you expect them to the second time round when you don't put in 100%? I find that hard to believe. To all those who get a chance to reading this and happens to be in the same situation, do consider assidously before commiting yourself to such a decision. Relationship, i said, is like planting crops. You're only going to reap what you sow. I know it's hard to fully trust and put in even more commitment the second time round after the crops fail to yield. Yet if you do not and act in self defence mode, how do you expect the crops to grow healthly? Alright, perhaps i've drifted away from the main topic again. Thoughts are just overflowing and i do not have time to tidy them up.

Statics paper is tomorrow and i've yet to do anything about it. Hopefully my practices over the past weeks will aid me in my final dash. All the best to those who are still having exams. Adios.

Fried Rice

Heat the wok, oil it and start frying the garlic. Next add in the hot dog, preserved sausage, crab meat before the variety of vege and beans. After goreng-ing them for some time, collect the ingredients into a bowl before they are fully cooked. Thirdly, add more oil to the wok before adding the "overnight" rice. Fry till the rice are finely apart and rather dry. Collect them into a huge bowl and add one bowl of beaten eggs depending on the number of servings you are catering for. Stir them well to allow each rice to come in full contact with the egg. Get the egg-ed rice into the wok and keep working them out till the now-wet rice becomes drier. Add the ingredients together with all the necessary seasonings and fry till the rice becomes even drier. Now add some curry powder and keep frying till the rice is completely dry. By now, each rice should be clearly separated from the rest and should "jump" on the wok.

After going through all the steps above, you will end up with - a failed attempt at the once famous curry fried rice.

I was berated by my family (spear headed by the woman who claimed to be my mother) for an over-generous portion of curry powder. My ever supportive father "ate with a frown on his head" (Yixin, 2006) while my dearest sister left the table with half a bowl of rice left. Tears circled my eyes as i poured down the remainings into the rubbish chute. Being the only one who finished the serving today, I thought the rice was rather bland and not too spicy.

Realised that i wasn't brought up to handle criticisim well enough, both at home and in school. Need to get around it somehow. Anyway, do not attempt the "recepie" above, i think all of you will be far better trying out pastas.

Battle Preparation

Exams officially starts tomorrow for many of the year one engineers. The physics module has always been the first item on the list and for the past few days, my peers have been struggling with the abstract quantum concepts and the invisible electromagnetic fields. Since the war starts tomorrow, many of us decided to stay at home to polish our weapons before we hit the field early tomorrow morning. As i open my powerbook for some nice hokkien songs streaming from my itunes, i inevitably clicked on the msn icon and it was no wonder that i saw that many of them are either "away" or busy". Good luck people!



Talking about battle preparation, some guy from town council came over in the afternoon seeking to address any complains that we might have. Probably the MP is coming for some walk about and he was trying to rid any stumbling blocks. While my dad told him that we had no complains, i secretly draw up a list of questions to "attack" the MP...

Media Frenzy

We wanted crossing of political swords from different parties, heated debates, real time battles and strong passionate rallies, instead, we got the media spicing up on the wrong end of the spectrum - a show for the youths to justify their behaviour on the TV prog. Reality TV at its best, we've ushered in this new era of "real life" actions that peg itself to every facade of our society, from suriviving on a deserted island to finding the right man of your life to picking the best singer in the country and now the trend has entered into the political realm. *wave wave* - whatever...

The youths were admonished publicly in the forums, coffeeshops and everywhere including the political wrestling ring in the taxi. Uncles and aunties talk about it. Ah gong and ah mas talk about it. Daddies and mummies talk about it. Everyone talks about them and their unruly behaviour, (except my peers...) Well i have no problems with the questions they brought up, including those perceived "rude" questions seeking MM to justify his presence, I was against the manner of which they set them in. Tonality and body languages speak volume of the respect they had for the speaker. Had i listen to the radio broadcast, i might not have as much of a reaction compared to that triggered when i saw them live on TV. I believe they could have dealth with the situation much better and given their profession, i doubt they had any problems keeping questions to themselves before MM finish replying the previous question. Do not tell me it cannot be done because the editor present that day appeared the most calm and collected among the rest of her younger counterparts. Was it because she was the oldest there?

I read some letters which mentioned that MM could paved the way for other ministers abroad and also acted as an unmatchable storage of expeience to the cabinet. Open the chest and the wealth of the past experiences simply gush out like floodgates bursting (inside joke). There were some explaining done and story telling to convince (i hope) the youths of the decisions made.

Then there was the thing about the opposition. I'm tired. To make it short. Unfair playing field, GRC size, last for HDB upgrading blah blah blah. MM is right. If the opposition is capable enough, he will be spending his time gathering the talents instead of complaining about the conditions of the playground. Think da chang jin, think frodo, think of all those who fought hard and win regardless of the odds stack against them. Do away with the fictious characters. Think MM himselve who emerge victorious way back during the days of post independence. If there's a will, there's a way. The challenge has been issued to the opposition. Without as much resources, without the use of media, without such TV forums, without political blogs, without mass emails, what will their response be? The first i've heard was the turning down the contesting of a GRC. Any other takers?

Dialogue with MM

Since the faithful TV forum last week, the media has been pouring tonnes of reports on the responses of the youth during the discussion. I caught the show on its first repeat telecast and was taken back by the fury of the talk. Though i did read about the tense moments in the papers earlier, i could not envision the type of debate MM was put through based on the reference PM dialogue which i caught at the beginning of the month. MM remained a powerful speaker and whoever thought age has crippled his critical mind must have been blinded by the urban myth. The father of Singapore was sharp and is still as capable as the man famous for his "curry puff" hairdo rallying the many immigrants back in 1965 to stand together, to throw away the racial differences, to stop the riots, to create and build a nation that belongs to ourselves.

To be honest, I have never been politically inclined person and i wonder if i will develop into one considering the comfotable environment the prevailing government has created for me (and the rest of my countrymen). In fact, I was always cynical about the motives of the whites, thinking that they strange and suffocate the local with seemingly harmful benefits while threatening to strike anyone who speaks against them with the famous red lightning. Some youths (or most) on the show were emphasising on the lack of fair playing grounds for the opposition and claimed that the whites have inequitably dominated the Pseats. If you had polled me before the talk, I would have easily agreed without giving it much talk since that has been the general feeling and belief on the ground. Yet as simple as it is, MM easily put it straight by tilting my perspectives slightly. Which political party, in the right state of mind, would want to put itself out of job by creating a favourable (or even that with an advantage) environment for its opposition? It is not a matter about feeling insecure of losing or that the whites are not confident of winning but rather the simple rule of "survival of the fittest". In a similar fashion, many complains have been received regarding the lack of upgrading benefits to certain constituencies belonging to the opposition. It is a simple rule of rewarding the supporters and in MM's own words "taking care of those who voted for us" that these "grievances" seemed unjustified. I do not think that we can accuse the whites of not taking care of them as they have been promptly rescheduled to the end of the queue. Think about it, at least they are in the queue.

Granted that the youth in the forum was not representative of the future generation, many thoughts (though overlapping) from the ground were conveyed and some surfacing to the papers for the first time in forty years. Bold questions asking for the justification of MM's presence and whether MM was puppeting the two PMs who succeeded him. Numerous letters must have reached the editors of various forums, screaming out to the nation regarding the rudeness of the younger ones. I too, was one of the letter hopefuls, but the letter was only conceived in my head due to pure laziness. Tempted as i was, i refuse to use a "howler" (think Harry Potter) on any of the participants even when i strongly agree against the use of harsh, rude tones on the most respected man in Singapore. I tried keeping count the times MM had to brush off interruptions politely by saying "let me finish first" but alas! God only graced me with ten fingers and ten toes that I lost count shortly into the program. If i were ever put in such a situation, I would have volunteerily asked for a straight jacket in view of the coming elections, else I might end up with a crimminal record which is worse than that of beating the red light.

Love to continue writing but having physics on sat and the lack of preparation of bug my handicapped mind. Pardon the language if you do read this entry (or for that matter, all the entries on this blog) and bear in mind that the above mentioned are not politically intended.

First Rant

Here i sought temporary (erm...yar) refugee while i painstakingly "construct" my new website. Will be posting my random thoughts here rather than letting them intertwine with my photo comments on the main blog. Purposely chose a difficult to remember website so most people (if there are any) will link here from my photoblog. =) Now i shall study,...