Monday, May 14, 2012

First.


This morning was just like every other morning. Alarm rings, shattering the dreams, pulling me from realms of the subconscious. What I was doing there will never be remembered, just like every other morning, but I can only hope that it was somewhat interesting, compared to my boring life.
Life, in general, is boring. As much as I enjoy routines, one can't help but feel to get bored from all the same-same sort of things that we do over and over again daily. Of course, they're not exactly the same,  but the outline of the day becomes more or less becomes predictable once you get to know the routine, if you know what I mean.

Of course, like any other day, I never, ever, ever, get out of bed on the first alarm. It's the sole reason I have about three or four more set to ring at fifteen minute intervals after the first one just to motivate my lazy ass out of bed, and so far, it's been working pretty well.

In my sleepy, just-woke-up sort of morning haze that I get for stumbling out of bed before sufficient rest is obtained, I auto-pilot my way around the room, grabbing a towel and pulling off my pyjamas in the process, before stumbling into the bathroom for a shower.

As usual, I went about my morning business, toilet, shower, brush teeth, stare at eyebags, doze off a little bit, before going back into my room to lie on the bed for those precious two to three more extra minutes in a vain attempt to feel slightly more awake, as if that extra sleep was compensation for the three-or-so hours that I missed for sleeping late last night.

Again, my alarm rings, to my annoyance, and there's always that thirty second moment where I contemplate between sleeping in and staying at home or going to school, before my morals get the better of me and drag my sleepy ass out of the room and downstairs, bag and heavy-ass laptop in tow.

On a side note, I'd like to digress a little about my daily routine here and mention how heavy my laptop is, and I'm pretty sure that anyone who helps to carry it will probably gain enough muscles to significantly improve their physical fitness. No joke. It probably weighs (or at least, that what it feels like to me) as much as new born baby child, and if you carry it around long enough, you'll probably be able to do more pull-ups or something. You can ask me, actually, over the last semester or so that I've lugged it around in school, the number of maximum pull-ups that I've been able to do has improved by about fifty percent (four to six, quite the improvement).

Back to topic, as I reach the kitchen, I look to my watch and note the time as my dog paws at my leg for breakfast, giving myself a sense of how much time I'd have to do grab breakfast, feed the dog and go. Today I had a solid fifteen minutes, which was not too bad considering the usual amount of time I take to drag my sorry butt down here in the first place.

Fifteen minutes, right. Three minutes to feed the dog, five minutes to prepare breakfast, ten minutes to eat breakfast... By simple arithmetic calculations, that leaves me with insufficient time to do any of the above listed items. Still, waltzing into the kitchen at the insistence of my dog, I grab her bowl and proceed to feed her anyway. It's cute how my dog likes things done in a routine, too. Her breakfast is always a mixture of some dried dog-food pellet crap and some canned meat, and she'll eat neither of the two of either of the two are missing.  The dog stops pawing at the fabric of my pants with her rather blunt, yet oddly painful claws as she notices me preparing her breakfast, and proceeds to wait on the floor patiently, tail wagging in anticipation.

Opening the container of the dried dog-food-like stuff presents an enticing, meaty, food-like sort of smell that almost always usually smells better than the crap I eat in the morning (though I haven't had the nerve actually eat one yet). I pour that out, before spooning a bit of canned dog food meat-like stuff from  a can in the fridge, before setting it down for my dog and making my own.

Another glance at my watch tells me it's about a quarter past seven and that I should be hurrying up. I give myself about half a bowl of cereal and spam generous amounts of milk on my Koko Crunch, wolfing it down as fast as I can before leaving it in the sink and running out the front door.

The first thing I do is to jam on a pair of socks, then shoes, which are always left tied, but at that sort of tightness where one can easily slip a foot into, but not loose enough for it to come out while running around. I guess for me it's been sort of a convenience more than anything, especially on days like this where its seven twenty and- OH SHIT I HAVE TO LEAVE NOW.

Again, standard routine, push button to open front gate, lock door, run out the front gate and tear down the street to the bus stop like a madman, before I'm late for school. It's not that the bus comes once every hour or something like that, this is Singapore. I have about thirteen different bus services, each arriving at an average of five minute intervals (per service) passing by the stop outside my house so catching the bus to school is never an issue since almost all but one of them go directly to my school, but traffic outside my house is always atrocious in the mornings, and one can never be too careful about it, I suppose.

I've been late more times for school than I'd really like to, and with the threat of suspension just looming over my head, being punctual is essential for me.

As I board the first bus that passes by, I breathe a sigh of relief, knowing that I probably will be on time. Rummaging through my bag, I fish out a box of my favourite chewing gum and pop one into my mouth, before leaning back into the seat of the bus as I partake in my morning commute to school.

As mentioned, life is always so boring. Routines, routines, routines, I can't help but feel bored. I always wake up and hope something exciting happens, like waking up in a foreign land or something, but that never really happens, much to my disappointment. Why doesn't anything cool ever happen to me? It's like I'm destined to lead a boring life, but I always hoping something happens.

Perhaps that's why I like to write stories. I can put myself in another place, another time, or at least just twist things to make life sort of... bearable, in many ways, keeping myself from being bored stiff by daily routine. Perhaps there are other reasons, and I acknowledge that there are, but of course, those are stories for another day, maybe I'll find courage to tell them in the future.