Merry Christmas..

Impulse buying is a bad thing. Jay Chou's November's Chopin is a disappointment. Maybe it's my bias taste of songs but only track numbers 1,3,6 and 10 are worth listening to me. Heck, I can't even be bothered with the title of the songs. Can't make out what he's singing 3/4 of the time. I must admit that constant listening to these 4 songs causes me to suffer from depression though. This is no good at all. I'm sticking to the Best of David Tao Collection bought by Barbara from China. Costs a mere 15 RMB only. Haha. Shouldn't have wasted by hard-earned money on Jay's album. Or maybe I should have just bought the $9.90 CD. Can only blame myself for not being observant. $9 for the VCD is a bit too exorbitant. Haven't even touched it yet.

The crowd at Orchard/town area is crazy these past few days. I can't even squeeze into the MRT at times. Even if I do, I'll have to endure like packed sardines almost throughout the whole journey. With Christmas day looming, everyone seems to be rushing to do their last minute shopping for presents. I'm glad I'm not one of those people. My job gives me the priviledge of doing my Christmas shopping early. Buying presents when there's a storewide discount is not my cup of tea. Squeezing and jostling with the crowd, hoping that the object is in tip-top condition is not my idea of shopping. Despite the early shopping of gifts, I've only given out one present (not even a gift, just a treat) so far. Not that I bought many to begin with, haha.

In a totally unrelated news, I think I successfully embarrassed myself but surprisingly, I'm not bothered as I anticipated it all along. At least he proved to be a real gentleman though.

The act of waiting is really torturous. What was I expecting? Fairy tales do not exist in reality. In the end, it's just a wishful thinking on my part.

Home Alone..

A pretty amusing scene happened while Mr Lim and I were at the airport pick-up area waiting for our parents. I received a call from Dad that they would be slighly delayed as one of their luggage was missing. So Mr Lim and I decided to wind down the windows and switch off the engine.

While waiting, I stuck my head out of the window hoping to catch them. Instead I saw this middle-age man with a polo T-shirt carrying a laptop bag walking out. After a while, I realised he was heading straight towards our car! My first reaction was to laugh to myself. He hurriedly opened the back car door and plunged himself onto the backseat of our car. I was getting hysterical at this point of time. I turned my head slightly and starting laughing at him. He was still oblivious of the situation until Mr Lim turned over and said to him, "Er, excuse me." It was then that he realised he got onto the wrong car. He gave a quick "Oops, sorry!", with that he hopped out of the car. I was laughing too hard to notice his facial expression. But I noticed him getting into a black Toyota Vios parked in front of our car. I guess the long flight must have caused his muddle-headedness; the inability to differentiate between black and blue, and a Vios and a Corolla.

I'm glad my parents are back. I've practically been the slave of the house for the past week, only going out one out of seven days to relax and unwind from the household chores. Despite that, things are not that bad actually. I feel like a housewife for the past week. A typical day goes like this: waking up early to prepare breakfast for my family members, putting the laundry into the washing machine, fetching brother to the MRT station, making my own breakfast, read newspapers, sweep the floor (I didn't know it takes so freaking long to sweep just one level), mop floor/wash toilet, take out the laundry for hanging, cook lunch (in the end, Granny was the one who did most of it), eat lunch, clean the kitchen, bathe, bring in the laundry, fold/iron the clothes, put the clothes into the respective wardrobes, REST and RELAX (watch 2 hours of korean drama), supposedly to cook dinner but I'm half-dead at this point of time so we'll end up buying dinner from outside, fetch brother from MRT station and then order takeaway, eat dinner, clean up table, wash the necessary dishes, throw garbage and FINALLY massive lockup of the house. Yes, I did all these 6 out of the 7 days that my parents were away. The initial days were tiring as being blessed with the luxury of having a maid, the pampared me hardly needed to lift a finger to do household chores. So having had to do the household chores is a real novelty to me. Funnily, I got a sense of accomplishment after cleaning up the house. I hate to admit this but it's the first time I've made a positive contribution to this family as I've practically been a good-for-nothing in this house.

Doing the household chores is not as difficult as I thought. It just seems to be a never ending job which would cause one to have aches all over if one does the job thoroughly. With that, I really salute all the maids and housewives out there. Even though its a brainless job, it's really a noble one. I'm beginning to appreciate my maid a lot now.

Oh yah, I didn't manage to accomplish what I aimed to achieve: cooking. Ironically, I mastered every household chore except that. I still have two more weeks to salvage that.

Dancing Show..

Was watching the last episode of the 9pm show on channel 8. Some stupid dancing show starring Jeanette Aw, over-the-hill Hong Kong artistes and some dancers/actresses/actors/ang mohs roped in from China, Africa and god knows where. By the way, it's the first time I'm watching this crap show and by the first five minutes of the last episode, I could figure out what happened for the past 29 episodes. It's also the first time I'm watching a Mediacorp show in a decade. The last complete show that I watched was produced by TCS. The cast included Sean Say, Ivy Lee and her fellow Star Search finalists.

Anyway, since I didn't watch the past 29 episodes, I can't comment much about the script. The acting skills by the artistes were so terrible that it became amusing after a point of time. It also gave me goose pimples. I was practically laughing throughout the whole show until Mr Lim commented that he thought I was watching a comedy. Jeanette Aw's acting was a real disappointment. I finally understand why she can't rise up to the Ah-jie status. Based on her performance, I thought she just freshly graduated from acting school. Or rather, I thought she was a dancer and have had no previous acting experience. Her acting was so raw and expressionless. She displayed the wrong emotions at the incorrect moments. She was no different from a flower vase. As for the actors (I don't even know their names), I absolutely loathe it when they frequently inject a few phrases of English here and there. What in the world were they trying to do? Sound hip?

The lack of talent in the local scene is leading to the death of the entertainment industry. Since Fann Wong, I've yet to see someone in the media with the X-factor. Besides looks and style, what I'm more concerned is artistes with decent acting skills. Turning to Hong Kong stars, even those who often play supporting roles can act a thousand times better than our fellow Singaporeans. Perhaps Mediacorp should look into polishing up the acting skills of their entertainers. If they do not possess the natural talent to act, I'm sure some proper training would aid a great deal. And I wish Mediacorp can recruit some fresh faces. All the current new actresses look as if they are from the same clone. The typical Singaporean actress: petite, girl-next-door look, boney, looks mal-nourished. Mediacorp should start pulling up their socks or maybe do a major revamp. With shows of calibre like the dancing show, it's no wonder that everyone is now turning to Korean and Hong Kong dramas.

Old Women..

Old women are a handful. You hear people complaining about difficult mother-in-laws or grandmothers, seldom do we hear people whinning about their father-in-laws or grandfathers.

Old women, especially those who are retired or have lots of time to spend, tend to be very meddlesome. This could be due to the inherent characteristic of women. However, I'll largely attribute to the fact that they have nothing better else to do in their lives. The older generation of women are more likely to be illiterate. They can't read or listen to the English Language. Perhaps they can understand some basic Mandarin but they are more proficient in dialect, which is not the main medium of mass communication here in Singapore. Therefore, they have no awareness of the world affairs or the happenings surrounding them. Their lives only revolve around the people in the house. Hence they like to scrutinize every action of each person in the house, command people what they should and should not do, make cynical remarks about people who do not listen to them, indulge in self-praise when they compare themselves with the current generation or with the maids and so on. At times, they can be such a earful that it really gets into one's nerves.

The ironic thing is that these old women do not know that they are extremely irritating. Reprimanding them would not work. They keep insisting on their point of view. The best method of dealing with these ever-complaining women is to treat their words as music. Never let their words affect you. Let the words enter one ear and exit the other ear immediately without registering them into your brain. The masterful act would be totally not hearing their ear-piercing words. To be able to perfect that would probably take at least a decade.

However if one slowly takes time to understand them, it is quite easy to comprehend their need to incessantly complain. Having been through heaps of sufferings and hardships such as World Wars or practically single-handedly bringing up their children in not so ideal living conditions while taking care of the household chores, they feel that they are vastly superior to the maids and their daughter-in-laws. Hence, they self-set a strict and high standard for their maids and daughter-in-laws to adhere to. When these ladies do not perform their tasks properly, be prepared to let the scoldings and complaints begin.

Another reason could be the old ones trying to gain our attention. As busy working class adults or students being so caught up in own lives, the first immediate action when we reach home would be to plunge ourselves onto the sofa and reach out for the remote control or to head straight into our rooms. The last thing in our minds would be to entertain the 'old cranky'. As such, our long periods of neglection towards them cause them to constantly whine and make sarcastic remarks just to spark off any form of communication (be it arguments) with us.

If one observes carefully, elderly people behave exactly like kids. They sulk to seek attention, cry when they are behing scolded, make ridiculous demands at times, insist they are always right. They are also unable to piece together information to make logical sense and get curious about everything that is happening around them.

It is almost impossible to keep this bunch of elderly from complaining and making comparisons with the past. A high level of threshold to irritation is needed to tolerate their grievances and moanings. Most crucially, a caring heart and filial piety would be required to truly understand and put up with the child-like behaviour of these old women.

Catching Up..

The best thing about my job is that it allows me to relax for a couple of months which lets me stay in touch with my friends. The past week or so have been spent catching up with schoolmates, having heart-to-heart talk with close friends and meeting new people.

The immaturity of a group (introduced by a friend) of 25/26 year old men, or rather boys, initially amused me but gradually frustrated me. I know they are very nice people. However, at times, their simpleness was too hard to endure. Their inability to take point blank hints and take intiatives amazed me. Their lack of interest in their surroundings can be really scary. No wonder everyone stereotypes people of this occupation as 'no-lifers' or boring.

A good friend of mine gave me a piece of advice which got me seriously thinking. I'm tempted to give it a try but I'm afraid of ruining everything. There are certain burning questions that I want to ask but somehow, I can't summon enough courage to do so. Sigh, the only solution is to leave things as status quo.

I have so many things to do but I just can't get myself started. Have been procrastinating too much. It doesn't help that my maid has returned home to spend Xmas with her family. Maybe it's about time that I start learning how to perform simple household chores. I started off with cooking lunch for my family last weekend. Nothing sumptuous, just Maggi Mee together with ingredients such as fishballs, vegetables, yong tofu and chicken breast. Quite a feat for someone who hardly steps into the kitchen. I'm glad I didn't create a mess in the kitchen. Hopefully I would be able to whip up some simple dishes in the following weeks to come. At least I can claim to have accomplished something this holiday.

Being Paranoid..

I'm suffering from a serious disease: paranoia.

In the long-run, I realise this can be very damaging to my mental state of health. I'm constantly on the guard, not wanting to reveal much about me, my family and my friends. I have the tendency to beat around the bush when sensitive questions are being presented to me. Worse still, I'll ignore them and abruptly change the subject if possible.

When I reflect back on this behaviour of mine, I realise the crux of the problem: I am an extremely untrusting person. I'm always thinking that people must have an ulterior motive for each and every action she or he takes and that cheats are in abundance out there. This doesn't only apply to human beings. I too become very sceptical when good deals are presented to me. This phrase automatically comes to my mind when such good deals arise: there's no free lunch in this world.

Being brought up in an environment where I'm being exposed to stories regarding cheats and the deceitful acts of normal citizens, this had led me to become extremely wary of the people around me. Hence, I tend to take a much longer time to become close friends with anyone. Not that this bothers me much. After all, I'm a person of few words and I always believe in quality rather than quantity.

When someone suddenly becomes very nice to me, the first thought that springs to my mind will be: What does she or he want? At times, I do feel guilty on having such horrid thoughts, especially when that someone happens to be my friend. I find it depressing that I've forgotten that simple goodness actually exists in human beings. Blame it on the dog-eat-dog world we are living in, it's been a long time since I saw a kind or touching gesture from strangers or unfamiliar people. In this stifling environment where everyone is only concerned with his or her survival, few give a hoots about people surrounding them.

Of course at times, my inclination towards being 'safe rather than sorry' helps. I've encountered a fair share of people who are up to no good. However, if I have a choice, I would rather be less paranoid and be more trusting towards my friends.