Funny how I loathe and get amused by the joke of a transportation system that we have.
Last week it was the inappropriate dramatic video of the ah lian-ah ma showdown, which brought some heckles and an immense sense of fear every time I get a seat on the train.
Earlier this week, due to an early morning breakdown, it took me 2 hours to get to work while sandwiched in between other commuters and feeling extremely uncomfortable.
Yesterday, I bumped into a secondary school friend whom I have not met in a year. We spent about 20 minutes talking before an ex-colleague walked past, and started another 20-minute conversation. On the train back, a Russian from Vladivostok asked for directions to Orchard. I have heard of the city before but never was prompted to find out more about it till after the connection. It's the start of the Trans-Siberian railway and seems like an interesting place to visit.
Friday, June 29
Monday, June 4
White Flakes
Recently, getting hitched seems to be the norm. A scroll down Facebook, a chat with an old friend or even overhearing bits of conversations and you would be thinking that the entire world (around you) is getting married. Wedding lunch last Saturday where I had a bit too much to drink, another one this Saturday and one more next month. From what I can remember, one more in September, another in December, February, April and June.
Congratulations to everyone though.
For the price of a HDB flat, we can own an island in the Caribbean.
For the price of a Toyota sedan, possibly a second-hand Ferrari in the US.
Singapore is ranked second lowest in the cost of living index conducted by a firm I cannot remember.
The other day, I was just listening to a bunch of uncles complaining how costs have gone up so much in the past twenty years. One of their friends, a fish monger, sells the same fish then for 25 cents per 100g. It is still the same price now. Funny how we have to work three to five times as hard to make the equivalent.
The taxi driver that dropped me at the wedding on Saturday said I was lucky, at least I finished school. He was forty-something, had three kids still in school and no way out. Driving a cab can be neurotic, he said, especially when there are no customers in sight and all you can do is to have a conversation with yourself. Funnily, I told him, I could never get a cab at any hour.
I'm reading Kerouac now. The care-free-devil-may-give-a-damn spirit he embodied may be lost on an entire generation of us. Although I suspect that brewing underneath all this normalcy, beneath the rat race, lies a bunch of fed-up dreamers, tired of being a cog in a machine that does not benefit them, sick of being told what they should do.
Ironically, if you ask me now if I had achieved any of my dreams and I would tell you how many were dashed. Hanging barely to the threads of the last great dream that I have, and failing which, I will just surrender and float along with everyone else. Oh wait, there is still that grand dream of my own wedding bells.
Congratulations to everyone though.
For the price of a HDB flat, we can own an island in the Caribbean.
For the price of a Toyota sedan, possibly a second-hand Ferrari in the US.
Singapore is ranked second lowest in the cost of living index conducted by a firm I cannot remember.
The other day, I was just listening to a bunch of uncles complaining how costs have gone up so much in the past twenty years. One of their friends, a fish monger, sells the same fish then for 25 cents per 100g. It is still the same price now. Funny how we have to work three to five times as hard to make the equivalent.
The taxi driver that dropped me at the wedding on Saturday said I was lucky, at least I finished school. He was forty-something, had three kids still in school and no way out. Driving a cab can be neurotic, he said, especially when there are no customers in sight and all you can do is to have a conversation with yourself. Funnily, I told him, I could never get a cab at any hour.
I'm reading Kerouac now. The care-free-devil-may-give-a-damn spirit he embodied may be lost on an entire generation of us. Although I suspect that brewing underneath all this normalcy, beneath the rat race, lies a bunch of fed-up dreamers, tired of being a cog in a machine that does not benefit them, sick of being told what they should do.
Ironically, if you ask me now if I had achieved any of my dreams and I would tell you how many were dashed. Hanging barely to the threads of the last great dream that I have, and failing which, I will just surrender and float along with everyone else. Oh wait, there is still that grand dream of my own wedding bells.
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