Nsync, dried flowers and Grey's Anatomy

Rules:

*Each blogger must post these rules first
*Each blogger must start with eight random facts/habits about themselves
*Bloggers tagged need to write in their own blog about their eight things
*At the end of your blog, choose eight people to get tagged, and list their names

1. When I was young, I used to eat my mum's dried flowers and steal my neighbour's slippers.

2. There are a lot of things I don't like that most people I know like: hawaiian pizza, Grey's Anatomy, that damn ping-pong song by Enrique Iglesias.

3. I cannot stand the sight of blood, flesh and bone, but I'm extremely fascinated with serial killers.

4. I usually must read 2 books at a time, and it must always be one fiction and one non-fiction. I can't read 2 fiction or 2 non-fiction at one go. Why? Because I'm a psycho.

5. The best places I've travelled to are as follows: Koh Samui, London, Bangkok and Osaka.

6. I have a strong suspicion that I will never get married.

7. I will listen to any kind of music except country and German polka.

8. I secretly like to watch Oprah and listen to N'Sync and Westlife. If anyone calls me on it, I will pretend to laugh and scoff, then run away.

Since almost everyone on Multiply has been tagged, I shall tag the following victims:

Aliah
Jayine
Imah
Crystal
Ah Poh
Juanna
Almir
Eugenia

(If I didn't tag you, it's because I saw that you've already been tagged by someone else.)

Hopefully this will go through, no thanks to the stupid intermittent internet connection. *crosses fingers*

Colour The Small One

Apologies to everyone for the recent quiet spell. A lot of things happened to me last week - I quit my job, got a new job, lost my internet connection due to a faulty modem, sprained my back and missed out on both my birthday and Hari Raya. How horrible is that? I've only been able to watch from a miserable distance as everyone else was making preparations and having fun, but that has also rather excused me from having to help clean the house, haha. My best friend also turned up at my house at midnight on my birthday with a beautiful cake, so that more than made up for the fact that I've been stranded at home for the past week.

Still, a few good things came out of it. Watched a lot of DVDs, read a lot of books and found out from the acupuncturist that I have incredibly poor blood circulation and that if I hadn't come to her earlier, it would have resulted in more serious symptoms apart from a sprained back. Also, I've learnt to be a LOT more patient with those old people who walk along pathways very slowly, now that I've been walking like them for a week. Also, some people who I thought would remember my birthday didn't, and those who I thought would have forgotten totally surprised me. So it only goes to show that people always, always surprise you, and to expect any more or any less of them is stupid, especially when I'm guilty of some of the same things myself.

Tomorrow, I start my new job. As I was telling Redz, I hope that this doesn't start a whole round of job-hopping. But you know what, it's sort of like going on lots of dates before settling down with someone you're really serious about. I'd rather wait and job-hop before finding one job I really like, instead of trying to settle down into something straight away and ending up unhappy, which was the lesson I learned last month.

In any case, Selamat Hari Raya, folks. My deepest and sincerest apologies for any wrong that I may have done to you, intentionally or otherwise.

A Time To Be So Small

For the past week, I've been in a really weird mood that I haven't been able to suss out, and it's making me do and say weird things. It's mostly to do with work and my muddled thoughts about -what-the-hell-am-I-doing-with-my-life-and-career and the same old crap. Then earlier, I had a bit of an insight that helped to shed light on why I'm feeling this way.

I was logging into my school portal when I saw an ad (targetted at prospective students) about current students, the degree they're pursuing and what they eventually hope to achieve. There was one about this 50+ year old ang moh engineer who's taking the same course as me and eventually wants to be an English teacher, after a lifetime in engineering.

My first reaction was, "Wah, so old already, still want a career switch? What's the point?" Right there, I managed to pinpoint exactly why I've been feeling so down and weird recently. It was my own skewed perception that the main chunk of life is meant to be enjoyed in your youth, before you hit 40 or 50. At that point, I had these weird, preconceived ideas that you're supposed to be well established in your career and family life before then, not going back to school and making career switches.

But, the thing is, why not? Over half of my schoolmates in the English course are older than my parents. More than 90% of them are juggling full-time work, school and kids. I'm one of the odd ones out who don't have to get up at 4am for some alone time so they can finish their assignments without the kids bugging them. So why do I have the very biased thinking that life is over at 40, 50?

This ang moh engineer reminded me of my dad, roughly around the same age but at the other end of the spectrum. The other day, he messaged my brother to tell him that he had to cut my brother's monthly allowance of $200 in half, because "he needed to save for his old age." Granted, I understand my dad's motivations, but part of me is horrified that my dad doesn't even have any CPF money because he spent most of his life being self-employed and neglected to save any money for his retirement. Now, divorced, alone and broke, he has to skimp on the maintenance money he promised to my brother and my mum just so he has money for his old age.

Now, don't get me wrong, I fully intend to provide for my father once I'm older and he no longer has the capacity to work. But the thing is, if life is really over at 50 as I mistakenly think it is, then what about people like my dad, who don't even have any CPF savings to their name?

I think my biggest fear is that I don't want to end up like my dad. I've had people roll their eyes at me before when I said that, and I get the reply, "Nobody wants to be exactly like their parents, it's not only you." But they don't understand. I'm now recognising signs in myself that are EXACTLY like my dad - the short temper, extravagant spending, a tendency to blame others for our own mistakes. Looking at my own finances, I know it's only a matter of time before I'm 50 and I'm exactly like my dad, living alone with nothing but failed, empty dreams. It makes me sad for him, and it makes me afraid for myself.

I need to get over the mindset that I need to achieve whatever I want to achieve as quickly as possible because I feel that time is running out. It isn't, it's indifferent, it continues whether I agonise over it or not, and I get another year older still stuck in the same rut despite my fretting and whining and overanalysing things. Some things have changed this year, and I actually am happier in the department of friends and family, and I have to work on a couple of other things and just, well, stop complaining about everything and stop having these weird ideas.