Really thankful that a simple blog like that is proving to be an invaluable time capsule.
My memory has been failing me. I'm forgeting who i am with each passing year... A bad case of substance abuse? A malnourished soul? Or just simply the result of maturity - these endless responsibilities and expectations?

Pouring through posts just put a wide smile on my face. My soul feels lifted. Almost like acquainting with a long lost friend. The missing pieces of this huge puzzle of life start filling out the empty void in my head. I'm alive again...

Have i lost my ability to express? I've never been someone that good at expressing myself verbally or physically, save putting them out in words like the rest of this blog. And even now, i'm losing that part of me.


God, save my soul.

The terms retrenchment, lowered wages and the all too familiar 'Times are bad...' never fail to remind us of the finiancial recession that broke out just a few years back. Peoples' impression of their cushy jobs and bright futures suddenly became bleak, almost as if a dark blanket was being pulled over the once-thought-to-be recession proof economy of Singapore. Several months later, hopeless Singaporeans received a message from the Government; the economy is forcasted to take a turn for the better in the year to come. Almost within a week, retail businesses started to pick up once again. The Great Singapore Sale recorded an all time high in sales, unemployment rate dropped and people could finally take a breather. The Government announced that two large scale casinos to be built, erected the spectacular Singapore Flyer and won the bid to host the inaugural F1 race. With the expected boom in tourism, the fate of our economy looked bright and hopeful.

September 15th, 2008. The leading U.S. investment bank Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy and stock markets all over the world plunged overnight. To the ill-informed and economy-ignorants, this just seemed like any other news article in the financial segment of The Straits Times. The implications were only realised when the news media erupted, strategically featuring the carnage in financial sectors worldwide. Hopeless investors with their messed up hair and crumpled half-tucked shirts staring blankly into the stock index, reports of millions of dollars lost and multi-millionaires bankrupting overnight. Economists even tossed around the possibilty of a second global depression. Back home, local experts started to craft lists of potential problems related to the general population; higher cost of living, retrenchement, lowered wages, ... Ministers' advice on coping with the catastrophe included spending less, watching what you spend on, upgrading yourself to minimise chances of retrenchment and lowered wages. Needless to say, we obedient Singaporeans were panic-stricken. National stress-levels must have hit an all-time high, with paranoia coming in second. Many started keeping a personal 'check-list' of do's and don'ts, and as I would expect, started treating their fellow colleagues and bosses a tad better. Affected industries started assessing their risks, figuring out ways to cut-coss and to minimise their losses. The banking industry, being hit the hardest, was the first to act. Inefficient bankers lost their jobs and bank loans became harder to acquire.

Amidst the chaos, a group of industries began to ride on this wave of tragedy. It became an excuse to unaffected companies to cut-cost, lower wages and retrench for the purpose of generating greater revenue. When asked, they simply respond with 'We have also been hit badly, it is either we retrench or we have to lower wages, cut-cost and charge more to survive.' One would expect that the banks, being at the front-line of this disaster to be busy cleaning up this mess but instead, they have actually been opening up more positions. On the surface, it looks like a noble act of helping people who have been hit worst, giving people the hope of staying employed in these tough times. Pardon my dogmatism but a simple chat with fellow banking friends of mine have revealed otherwise. I have heard that these banks are actually hiring more to seive through the bunch of desperate bankers, keeping only the best. What a luxury.

Blame the economy or even the Lehman Brothers if you will, but take an objective look at the involvement of the media. If you're an avid news follower, i'm sure you would recognise that even up till now, more than 4 months later, there are still articles and reports on the matter. 'More people losing their jobs', 'The retrenched seeking help', 'Luxury goods dropping in demand' , 'One in three people believe that they will lose their jobs', 'Senior employee coping with retrenchment', '2009 growth forcast gloomy',... The list goes on. It does not take an expert to draw a relation in these reports - most of them are bad and depressing news. It almost seems as if people are drawn to such articles, wallowing in their sorrow and self-pity. As reports like these roll out day by day, people are only developing unnecessary fear and panic, painting grim defaced realities of our lives. Our expectations of jobs and prices are now oppressed by the dominating power of the media, giving inethical business practices a chance to thrive.
Additional chilli sauce on your noodles costs an extra fifty cents, taking out your food an extra dollar, even five dollars can hardly get you a decent meal these days. In my opinion, hawkers are in the most advantageous postion. With hardly any form of regulation to their business practices and the fact that food is indispensible to our daily lives, they pretty much call the shots. The cost of ingredients might have risen a mere five percent but their prices skyrocket to an exorbitant increase of twenty percent. Thank you for doing the math now pay up and finish your food.

Yes, we know about the financial recession. Yes, we know that we have to expect less and cut spending. Yes, we know that jobs are now hard to come by. Yes, it is time to stop reiterating the facts and move on. Give us consumers a little breathing space and we might just work harder to move us out of this recession.

You wake up to the familiar sound of your cellphone's 'alarm function' and after a few reluctant groans you force open your ever-so-heavy eye-lids and stumble to the bathroom. You pick up the same blue-green toothbrush from the same toothbrush holder, squeeze the exact same volume of toothpaste with deathly precision but casually, and start brushing your set of teeth in the same order.
What follows would most likely be that same chain of actions carried out that same order.

And we just go through it matter-of-factly, hardly pausing once to look at ourselves from a third-person's view. I would expect it to be uncannily similar to that first zombie flick you saw. Imagine what this does to your brain, and it hardly gets any better when you get to that same workplace, sit on that same chair, staring at that same computer screen with the same people around you. God save creativity!

I decided to do something different this morning. I actually decided to for once, draw those stark black curtains back, let in some of those first rays of dawn and just be... awake! Believe or not, i even skipped washing up.
Ahhh.. i forgot how beautiful mornings are; when you have totally NO agenda, nowhere you have to be, no one you have to talk to, nothing you have to do. And you just see it for what it is... (not to mention gloat at those neighbours *coughZombies of mine leaving for work)

The giver of life, casting its rays to gently cradle the world out from its cold slumber. As i drew that long and heavy light-proof curtain this morning, i stopped as a gush of cool morning breeze hit me right in the face. That aroma, that glow from the morning sun, that rustling of leaves, mixed with a certain spicyness of the december winds (yes, dont ask me how but somehow it always gets me into that festive mood).
As the leaves outside slowly awaken to bask in full glory of the morning sun, i pondered on the ultimate 'morning scenario'. Ah yess.. Glenn Ong and the Flying Dutchman in the morning express! Flipped the switches and scrolled to Class 95 on my hi-fi and wow, the all-too-familiar Traffic Watch anthem was on! Nostaligica in its finest!

*sidenote : i'm listening to my neighbour trampling away on the piano. its freaky how well he/she is playing it. i swear he/she (or i much really prefer to refer to as IT), had been admirably faithful to it's art.. i mean i've practically heard it learn to play the piano through the years!

An incense away and here i am sitting at my laptop trampling away to my own set of keys... Oh did i forgot to mention the reason for this perfectly random piece of text? yeahyeah i hit the b**g a couple of times.

omg omg omg, AIG please don't crash!!

40k for a life's lesson is gonna be too costly...

The full 13 hour sleep indeed made me feel a whole lot better, except after my attempt to indulge myself in some Kentucky Fried Comfort lunch - a romantic Couple Meal B with my dear Winni, i felt it wearing me down once again...

After hours of furniture moving and wading through thick dust lining my long-forgotten possessions, i find myself sitting in this echoey, new-paint-aroma-filled room with no curtains. Free striptease for the house of three sisters and their auntified mother directly opposite...



Allow me to digress, the family opposite mine had moved in about 4 years ago. Till today, it remains in no contact with the Leo Residence, save this once when the master of the house had reversed his Camry into my dad's car one morning while he was rushing off to work. Without even bothering to inform us of the damages, he had tried to drive off as if nothing had happened. Thankfully, Winni noticed something amiss and went out to stop him just in time. 'Talk to my wife, i have to go...' *Vrooom.... Very polite.

On a seperate occasion, the wife had came ringing our doorbell one perfectly fine evening. I saw my dad fidgeting uncomfortably her auntified aura, hearing only faint high pitched voices and noticing her seemingly panic-stricken hand gestures. Turned out, she had found a handphone in her maid's possession and had blatantly accused Winni of giving it to her. If i do remember correctly, her last words were 'I hope your maid doesn't come over to disturb mine anymore.'

Absurd!

Her daughters appear to be more normal except for the fact that they kept to themselves alot. It was hard to figure out the dynamics of their family tree since random weird people turn up to live within every once in awhile, but with me and my sister's sensitively honed neighbour-spying-intuition, we managed to piece our findings together.

The following findings should be accurate as of 2006.
There are three daughters, the youngest one appears to be a Secondary School, the middle sister a tertiery student and the eldest, a budding Singapore Airlines Air Stewardess. The middle sister has a boyfriend who drives a bright orange scooter (whom i used to curse at for inconsiderately taking up one whole parking slot directly outside my house), and the eldest has a live-in husband driving a BMW identical to my brother in-law Aloysious (whom used to take him as his undying status arch-enemy).
Occasionally, the trio and i would arrive home at an exact same time (3.30AM) which only highlighted our common activity for the night. Nope, i did not say hi, shake hands, hit it off, invite them over for a drink, etc. (or any relevant manifestations).
Hmmm.. come to think of it...



Now now, lets not drift off-topic too much. I had put together my rob-cheat-steal-coerce-to-get list so here goes...

1. Onkyo Home Theatre System HT-S3100 for superb music clarity.



2. Creative SoundBlaster X-Fi Surround 5.1 for decoding my music.


3. A big enough mirror for my empty wall.

4. A coffee table and loungy arm chairs for my new space.

5. Spotlights for meandering shadows.

6. Friends for my room-warming. (Open for reservations)


The Audio House and IKEA, be ready for me tomorrow!

Here i sit, with a heavy head, lacerated back, bruised head, hips, ass, feet, and a stinging cut in my left toe. Still remotely dazed, i can only wallow in quiet contempt with regards to last night's events... swirling through my mind like a chocolate marble cake. Yes, that's how i feel like, soft and spongy.

Ways in which the furry felines are similar to women:


1) They sit with perfect posture, staring at you enticingly just beyond reach. You make your move by advancing, they make you chase. You pretend to disengage and walk away without care, they chase after you.

2) They are curious with just about anything that dangles and shines.

3) They demand your attention when you don't give them any.
They run away when you give them too much.

4) Cat feed can be costly.

5) They go into crazy fits, overturning everything in sight.

6) They hate insects.

7) They spend ridiculous amount of hours grooming themselves to look immaculately cuddly.

8) When you watch your movies, they hop right onto your lap purring and stare at you with the 'you don't love me anymore' gaze.

9) When you try to sleep, they scramble on top of you suggestively.

10) They only understand negative feedback. Forget the trusty old 'NO!', they only enjoy it even more.

11) They are suspicious of every scent you have on your body.

12) They bite.

13) When you try to work, they climb onto your workspace, sit their ass on your papers, keyboard etc. and just refuse to budge.

14) They don't speak english.


Understand a cat even before you think of moving in with a woman.
It allows room for alot more errors and in the event that they piss you off, paralyse them by the scruff of their necks, dump them into the carrier, put on your noise-cancelling headphones and hit play.

Scrolling through the whitewash of these pages just days ago revealed the voids in my life i had long forgotten. The different phases in which collectively influenced me to be who i am today... Or supposedly?

Neuro Linguistic Programming talks about walking through the world only through this map that you have created out of these experiences; the way you percieve the world, is just a projection of a distinctly unique bundle of responses and stimuli you've had in the past.

Yet strangely enough, i have hardly any recollections of my past. I feel like i had just been awakened from a coma, only remembering events which i had faithfully chose to bring up every now and then.

Where do i walk now, when i look down at my hands now and see this smudged and faded parchment with no roads to follow?

Cooked myself a hot meal this afternoon.
Left it cold on my table.
I should be hungry, i'm always hungry.

||

Truth. The nemesis of the aphorism; Ignorance is bliss.

The varacity of the statement is challeged by curiosity for the truth. How does one actually be ignorant, and care for something at the same time?
Digging for the truth may not necessarily be the best way out, but how does one force a state of ignorance just for a moment of peace? This self-percieved peace is just a ticking time-bomb that lurks at the back of one's head. More often than not, it will only subconciously taint each successive thought. And each time these questions get unanswered, it multiplies like malignant cells and before you know it, your whole outlook on the situation morphs into this defaced reality. A reality you'd come to so firmly believe in, but just seems totally ridiculous to another.

On the other hand, questioning for the truth brings about the element of trust. Questioning for the truth also questions your trust.
How did questioning ever evolve into a sign of suspicion?
Should we all just live on blind faith, and risk being exploited emotionally?

"Hey. Could we do that again? I know we haven't met, but I don't want to be an ant. You know? I mean, it's like we go through life with our antennas bouncing off one another, continously on ant autopilot, with nothing really human required of us. Stop. Go. Walk here. Drive there. All action basically for survival. All communication simply to keep this ant colony buzzing along in an efficient, polite manner. "Here's your change." "Paper or plastic?' "Credit or debit?" "You want ketchup with that?" I don't want a straw. I want real human moments. I want to see you. I want you to see me. I don't want to give that up. I don't want to be ant, you know?"

-Soap Opera Woman, Waking Life.