Having a mind block. Sometimes I feel so creative in front of a blank screen, everythings totally jumbled up as usual. I write and blog with no particular focus. Often going out of point all the point. Very off.
I see Chinese New Year as a time to just rest, perhaps take a long-deserved break, receive some money from relatives and have a get together. Honestly, I find the whole thing a complete waste of my time. The money isn't a compensatory factor in this case. Its strange how tensions in my extended family rise significantly during the traditionally happiest time of the Chinese year.
Family is really one my top priorities in life. Although it has ranked close to the bottom of my list for many years of my life, after that incident not too long ago, I only realise how important family really is to me. For the most part of my life, I've taken my family for granted. My dad is the Banker and the Driver. My mum is the Organiser and the one running the house most of the time.
Dad works close to 14 hours a day. That is no joke. He is a living testimony to me as to how hard people have to work in this country just to make a living and survive. My Dad is getting old already and his health is very slowly but visibly failing him. He has worked too hard all his life. Besides being at the office, most of the time Dad just drives me to Church and to the base. Other than that, he is the person I go to when I need money.
The truth is that I have never been close to my Dad all my life. I know he cares for me and loves me. But I guess he just doesn't really shows it openly, choosing instead to broadcast his concern for me indirectly. Its strange how Dad can send me to the base and throughout the whole journey, both of us are just totally silent. Sometimes, I do feel envious when I ride in the cars of my other AC friends and they have this super-lively conversation with their parents.
Most people who know me in real life will know that I tend to talk quite a bit. Yet at home I am as quiet as a graveyard. Conversation is usually kept to a minimum at home. I talk more words to my relatives when they come over for a few minutes than I do to my Dad over the course of a whole entire week. Its quite sad I guess. But I can't blame my Dad. He is often too tired to talk after work and often too stressed out in the morning no thanks to heavy demands at work. The fact that older workers are often being the first to be retrenched also weighs heavily on him.
But he has been a great father in the sense that he has shown to me what exactly the phrase "very hardworking" really is. His work ethic is excellent. Not too long ago, he was working 10 hours a day and taking 4 hours of classes 3 times a week for 3 years just to secure a part time distance degree. And I can complain about not having enough time to study. Perhaps my Dad's long stint in the army made him who he is today: a highly disciplined man who does not speak much but takes a lot of action.
Mum has stopped working for many years now to take care of the house as well as mind me and my brother. For the most part of my life she has been nagging me to study hard and been really strict with me. I guess she has really let up the day I went into JC. For the most part of it, my mum has had the greatest influence on my character today. She has nudged me like a set of braces on teeth into a desireable mould. When I think back on what she has done in the past, I realise that rules that mum implemented which I disliked were really all for my own good. I could easily be a very different person from who I am today.
Mum is a Roman Catholic. Strange it might seem as I am a protestant Christian. As many of the "desired character values" in both Catholicism and Protestant Christianity overlap and are really essentially the same. Mum has helped give me a good start to being a person of good character. Obviously, it might not be perfect, or anything fantastic. But at least it is something. Strangest thing my mum didn't like me to go for in JC was nothing other than Christian Fellowship. Very odd indeed. Mum would rather me join "some other CCA" than to "waste time at CF". I guess she always thought that I was there to "look for girls". Too bad, she never found out that for a short period of time, there was an average of only 2 girls in CF.
Well, today my mum doesn't restrict me from going out knowing full well that I am "unlikely to mix with bad people". In the past, she was violently opposed to me getting to know girls or even talk to them on the phone! Church girls were an exception, but they too were scrutinized. I guess mum never wanted a girl to distract me from my purpose of being a student. I won't blame my mum one bit. But I could say that my lack of communication/talking with girls during my younger years has made me a real awkward person when I converse with girls. Think of a conversation as a vein diagramm that never intersects. That's really sad. My sphere of conversation topics almost always seem to be exclusively guys-only topics.
Even in AC, although I managed to know quite a number of girls superficially, I never really had this ability to communicate directly to say what I mean and to mean what I say. This is why I have desired to be a better communicator the last year of my life. To improve communication with both my parents and finally not be such a dork when I talk to girls. Like T-Squared once told me in the area of conversing with girls.
"You're damn sad you know?"
Yeah, which is probably one of the biggest stumbling blocks to even getting married. Don't think so far. I can't even get to know girls or girls get turned off from me no thanks to my horrific ability to communicate with them (mei being an exception). I don't even talk to girls in church unless I am spoken to first. It lamentably sad. Strange how singlehood seems so very appealing to me right now. But I really don't want to be a 37 year old ah peh who only comes to family gatherings at Chinese New Year just to flash a toothless grin and collect red packets like the little children do. Most likely I will only get married out of parental pressure, society's expectations, a herd mentality, a fear of insecurity in old age and "just for the sake of getting married".
The biggest irony is that the one of my biggest motivating factors to end up in ACJC was because she told me that she wanted to go there as well. How strange that the very thing that my mum thinks will distract me from my studies is the very factor that drives me to put in more effort to come to ACJC. I could have gone to any other JC and done my A levels, chosing to trash my AC heritage to the "fact" that I "wasn't smart enough" (more like a pathetic cover to pure laziness). But she really made one heck of a difference. Of course, she was a God-sent to my life even as God made it possible for me to come to ACJC in spite of all the barriers.
My brother has been quite terrible for practically his whole life. For those who know me. Assuming I am a function f(x). Then my brother is really y = - f(x). We are totally, totally, completely, infinitely different persons. For those who know me. Just change all my plus points to a minus and minus points to plus and more or less, you'll get a person called my brother. Everything about us, our personal philosophy, our choice of friends, our personality and erm, our character too are as distant as the ends of the universe. As distant as Light matter differs from Dark Matter. We are THAT different. You name it, we are different: preference of food, choices of color all the way down to the computer games we play. All different. Almost as contrasting as Black and White.
Think of it this way: My birthday party - people who come are generally really smart, decent, highly educated, SINGLE, and well behaved. My brother's birthday party - people who come range from school drop-outs to retainees, terribly uncouth, attached in very shallow relationships and just HAVOC. Not that I discriminate according to education. But really, the people who greatly influence us are really the people who we spend most of our time around with. Perhaps proven true by the monetary theory that one's income is determined by the average incomes of the five people one spends the most time with.
But at least I can say that my brother is changing for the better. Perhaps he has finally grown up just that little tad bit. Whatever it is, I hope that he will study hard and at least get less than 20 points for his prelims in Barker. With his affiiation as well as excellent CCA record. I believe that I will be able to utilise my "contacts" to at least pull him into ACJC for the first three months next year. All I can do now is to motivate him to study when all he thinks is that "school sucks" and "getting a girlfriend is the most important thing now". Like I said how different both of us are. For starters, he doesn't attend church, instead choosing to go out with girls on a Sunday. For anything with God in it, he won't go. For anything with Girls in it, he will attend. Sigh. We are really so different.
I've never brought a girl back home alone in my whole entire life. Not that I have any interest in it in the first place. My brother casually and freqently brings back girls home ALONE. Yup. We are very different people. My group of friends so defnitely CANNOT mix with his group of friends and vice-versa. He can't stand my group of friends. I can't stand his. Perhaps this is pride, but I think its really just mor of a matter of personal preference. What I can give him is the chance to go to ACJC if he gets just below 20 points for his prelims and have the chance to really mix around with some decent girls in ACJC that will hopefully smash the notion of the very distorted and generalized view of what girls are in his life. Its really about time he started relating to girls on a much deeper emotional level rather than solely on looks and touch alone.
All this while in my whole life. I can say that I have never had a happy family. Never is too inadequate a word to describe things at home. My household may be well off by most people's standards. But there really isn't much love at home. Most of the love I've ever received that has sustained me through my life is God's love. It is so reassuring that truly, it is a peace that surpasses all understanding. This is despite being a rather crappy Christian all my life, bearing a lousy testimony for God. Truly, God is not just faithful when I am unfaithful. He is good all the time. It is really ALL the time. His Love has seen me through all the dark periods of my life.
Strange to say this, but I feel like my house-keeper is really the "binding energy" of my family. I can feel it whenever she's having an off day. Its like, the mood at home just feels SO different. Its strange even this Chinese New Year that my mum can be in the kitchen the whole day, my Dad watching the TV a distance at the other end of the house, me being stuck on the computer whilst my brother goes out. And we can stay like this for hours and hours on end. How sad is that. When there's no one to prepare lunch and call us to gather for a meal, we literally skip the meal altogether under some unspoken "collective agreement". Although I was bitter towards God a long time ago for giving me such a family. Today I no longer blame Him. At least I have a family, unlike many many other households in the country where the home is just a place of fighting, the home being a broken up single parent family and the home being just a place of sadness for most. Compared with other households, I can say that I've had a very comfortable family life thus far.
Maybe our Singapore society is really really screwed up. We seem to have SO MANY dysfunctional families around. As messed up as mine is. I still chose family to be one of my top priorities. All I want is to have a truly happy family. I might not have it now. But if ever. If and only if I ever ever get married. Then I really want to be the best husband possible (which is why I chose to be a person of excellent Christian character), as well as to be the most loving father around. I want to be able to communicate with my children (if I ever have children) and not relate to them with a deafening air of silence and formality. I don't want to be a father typical of father's today. I want to be real man of excellent character. If I can't fight all the other guys in looks and money and suavity of speech and personality. At least, I want to beat a vast majority hands down when it comes to character.
Sometimes I do think if my potential violent tendencies might make me a wife-beater. Who knows? Or would I be a violent and abusive father? I do not know and I cannot say for sure. I do not know everything about my own character. It is too early to pass any judgement on myself. But I do know one thing, and to me, it is the mark of a real husband. A man who never shouts at his wife even in anger. Yeah but all this is upon a notion which I do not agree with right now. My other ACJC cousin brought his girlfriend to dinner at my aunt's house to introduce her to everybody. She is really sweet and they are like a loving couple so reminisicent of those you find at the Void Deck during recess. Ah, I won't be doing something like within the next 10 to 15 years of my life.
And Mark and Shingles often ask me, "what age do you want to get married at". Often I give the answer as "27", but I'm not really sure of myself. Marriage no longer seems to be the sacred covenant between two flesh that becometh one but more of a "trial and error" form of finding a temporary partner to share a bed with.
I see Chinese New Year as a time to just rest, perhaps take a long-deserved break, receive some money from relatives and have a get together. Honestly, I find the whole thing a complete waste of my time. The money isn't a compensatory factor in this case. Its strange how tensions in my extended family rise significantly during the traditionally happiest time of the Chinese year.
Family is really one my top priorities in life. Although it has ranked close to the bottom of my list for many years of my life, after that incident not too long ago, I only realise how important family really is to me. For the most part of my life, I've taken my family for granted. My dad is the Banker and the Driver. My mum is the Organiser and the one running the house most of the time.
Dad works close to 14 hours a day. That is no joke. He is a living testimony to me as to how hard people have to work in this country just to make a living and survive. My Dad is getting old already and his health is very slowly but visibly failing him. He has worked too hard all his life. Besides being at the office, most of the time Dad just drives me to Church and to the base. Other than that, he is the person I go to when I need money.
The truth is that I have never been close to my Dad all my life. I know he cares for me and loves me. But I guess he just doesn't really shows it openly, choosing instead to broadcast his concern for me indirectly. Its strange how Dad can send me to the base and throughout the whole journey, both of us are just totally silent. Sometimes, I do feel envious when I ride in the cars of my other AC friends and they have this super-lively conversation with their parents.
Most people who know me in real life will know that I tend to talk quite a bit. Yet at home I am as quiet as a graveyard. Conversation is usually kept to a minimum at home. I talk more words to my relatives when they come over for a few minutes than I do to my Dad over the course of a whole entire week. Its quite sad I guess. But I can't blame my Dad. He is often too tired to talk after work and often too stressed out in the morning no thanks to heavy demands at work. The fact that older workers are often being the first to be retrenched also weighs heavily on him.
But he has been a great father in the sense that he has shown to me what exactly the phrase "very hardworking" really is. His work ethic is excellent. Not too long ago, he was working 10 hours a day and taking 4 hours of classes 3 times a week for 3 years just to secure a part time distance degree. And I can complain about not having enough time to study. Perhaps my Dad's long stint in the army made him who he is today: a highly disciplined man who does not speak much but takes a lot of action.
Mum has stopped working for many years now to take care of the house as well as mind me and my brother. For the most part of my life she has been nagging me to study hard and been really strict with me. I guess she has really let up the day I went into JC. For the most part of it, my mum has had the greatest influence on my character today. She has nudged me like a set of braces on teeth into a desireable mould. When I think back on what she has done in the past, I realise that rules that mum implemented which I disliked were really all for my own good. I could easily be a very different person from who I am today.
Mum is a Roman Catholic. Strange it might seem as I am a protestant Christian. As many of the "desired character values" in both Catholicism and Protestant Christianity overlap and are really essentially the same. Mum has helped give me a good start to being a person of good character. Obviously, it might not be perfect, or anything fantastic. But at least it is something. Strangest thing my mum didn't like me to go for in JC was nothing other than Christian Fellowship. Very odd indeed. Mum would rather me join "some other CCA" than to "waste time at CF". I guess she always thought that I was there to "look for girls". Too bad, she never found out that for a short period of time, there was an average of only 2 girls in CF.
Well, today my mum doesn't restrict me from going out knowing full well that I am "unlikely to mix with bad people". In the past, she was violently opposed to me getting to know girls or even talk to them on the phone! Church girls were an exception, but they too were scrutinized. I guess mum never wanted a girl to distract me from my purpose of being a student. I won't blame my mum one bit. But I could say that my lack of communication/talking with girls during my younger years has made me a real awkward person when I converse with girls. Think of a conversation as a vein diagramm that never intersects. That's really sad. My sphere of conversation topics almost always seem to be exclusively guys-only topics.
Even in AC, although I managed to know quite a number of girls superficially, I never really had this ability to communicate directly to say what I mean and to mean what I say. This is why I have desired to be a better communicator the last year of my life. To improve communication with both my parents and finally not be such a dork when I talk to girls. Like T-Squared once told me in the area of conversing with girls.
"You're damn sad you know?"
Yeah, which is probably one of the biggest stumbling blocks to even getting married. Don't think so far. I can't even get to know girls or girls get turned off from me no thanks to my horrific ability to communicate with them (mei being an exception). I don't even talk to girls in church unless I am spoken to first. It lamentably sad. Strange how singlehood seems so very appealing to me right now. But I really don't want to be a 37 year old ah peh who only comes to family gatherings at Chinese New Year just to flash a toothless grin and collect red packets like the little children do. Most likely I will only get married out of parental pressure, society's expectations, a herd mentality, a fear of insecurity in old age and "just for the sake of getting married".
The biggest irony is that the one of my biggest motivating factors to end up in ACJC was because she told me that she wanted to go there as well. How strange that the very thing that my mum thinks will distract me from my studies is the very factor that drives me to put in more effort to come to ACJC. I could have gone to any other JC and done my A levels, chosing to trash my AC heritage to the "fact" that I "wasn't smart enough" (more like a pathetic cover to pure laziness). But she really made one heck of a difference. Of course, she was a God-sent to my life even as God made it possible for me to come to ACJC in spite of all the barriers.
My brother has been quite terrible for practically his whole life. For those who know me. Assuming I am a function f(x). Then my brother is really y = - f(x). We are totally, totally, completely, infinitely different persons. For those who know me. Just change all my plus points to a minus and minus points to plus and more or less, you'll get a person called my brother. Everything about us, our personal philosophy, our choice of friends, our personality and erm, our character too are as distant as the ends of the universe. As distant as Light matter differs from Dark Matter. We are THAT different. You name it, we are different: preference of food, choices of color all the way down to the computer games we play. All different. Almost as contrasting as Black and White.
Think of it this way: My birthday party - people who come are generally really smart, decent, highly educated, SINGLE, and well behaved. My brother's birthday party - people who come range from school drop-outs to retainees, terribly uncouth, attached in very shallow relationships and just HAVOC. Not that I discriminate according to education. But really, the people who greatly influence us are really the people who we spend most of our time around with. Perhaps proven true by the monetary theory that one's income is determined by the average incomes of the five people one spends the most time with.
But at least I can say that my brother is changing for the better. Perhaps he has finally grown up just that little tad bit. Whatever it is, I hope that he will study hard and at least get less than 20 points for his prelims in Barker. With his affiiation as well as excellent CCA record. I believe that I will be able to utilise my "contacts" to at least pull him into ACJC for the first three months next year. All I can do now is to motivate him to study when all he thinks is that "school sucks" and "getting a girlfriend is the most important thing now". Like I said how different both of us are. For starters, he doesn't attend church, instead choosing to go out with girls on a Sunday. For anything with God in it, he won't go. For anything with Girls in it, he will attend. Sigh. We are really so different.
I've never brought a girl back home alone in my whole entire life. Not that I have any interest in it in the first place. My brother casually and freqently brings back girls home ALONE. Yup. We are very different people. My group of friends so defnitely CANNOT mix with his group of friends and vice-versa. He can't stand my group of friends. I can't stand his. Perhaps this is pride, but I think its really just mor of a matter of personal preference. What I can give him is the chance to go to ACJC if he gets just below 20 points for his prelims and have the chance to really mix around with some decent girls in ACJC that will hopefully smash the notion of the very distorted and generalized view of what girls are in his life. Its really about time he started relating to girls on a much deeper emotional level rather than solely on looks and touch alone.
All this while in my whole life. I can say that I have never had a happy family. Never is too inadequate a word to describe things at home. My household may be well off by most people's standards. But there really isn't much love at home. Most of the love I've ever received that has sustained me through my life is God's love. It is so reassuring that truly, it is a peace that surpasses all understanding. This is despite being a rather crappy Christian all my life, bearing a lousy testimony for God. Truly, God is not just faithful when I am unfaithful. He is good all the time. It is really ALL the time. His Love has seen me through all the dark periods of my life.
Strange to say this, but I feel like my house-keeper is really the "binding energy" of my family. I can feel it whenever she's having an off day. Its like, the mood at home just feels SO different. Its strange even this Chinese New Year that my mum can be in the kitchen the whole day, my Dad watching the TV a distance at the other end of the house, me being stuck on the computer whilst my brother goes out. And we can stay like this for hours and hours on end. How sad is that. When there's no one to prepare lunch and call us to gather for a meal, we literally skip the meal altogether under some unspoken "collective agreement". Although I was bitter towards God a long time ago for giving me such a family. Today I no longer blame Him. At least I have a family, unlike many many other households in the country where the home is just a place of fighting, the home being a broken up single parent family and the home being just a place of sadness for most. Compared with other households, I can say that I've had a very comfortable family life thus far.
Maybe our Singapore society is really really screwed up. We seem to have SO MANY dysfunctional families around. As messed up as mine is. I still chose family to be one of my top priorities. All I want is to have a truly happy family. I might not have it now. But if ever. If and only if I ever ever get married. Then I really want to be the best husband possible (which is why I chose to be a person of excellent Christian character), as well as to be the most loving father around. I want to be able to communicate with my children (if I ever have children) and not relate to them with a deafening air of silence and formality. I don't want to be a father typical of father's today. I want to be real man of excellent character. If I can't fight all the other guys in looks and money and suavity of speech and personality. At least, I want to beat a vast majority hands down when it comes to character.
Sometimes I do think if my potential violent tendencies might make me a wife-beater. Who knows? Or would I be a violent and abusive father? I do not know and I cannot say for sure. I do not know everything about my own character. It is too early to pass any judgement on myself. But I do know one thing, and to me, it is the mark of a real husband. A man who never shouts at his wife even in anger. Yeah but all this is upon a notion which I do not agree with right now. My other ACJC cousin brought his girlfriend to dinner at my aunt's house to introduce her to everybody. She is really sweet and they are like a loving couple so reminisicent of those you find at the Void Deck during recess. Ah, I won't be doing something like within the next 10 to 15 years of my life.
And Mark and Shingles often ask me, "what age do you want to get married at". Often I give the answer as "27", but I'm not really sure of myself. Marriage no longer seems to be the sacred covenant between two flesh that becometh one but more of a "trial and error" form of finding a temporary partner to share a bed with.
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