It is the calm before the storm.
I had a gloriously long vacation of six weeks in Singapore. I was going to use the word home but have been reminded most recently that I have for better or ill spent all of my adult life in New England. All one hundred percent of it. So how do you measure what is home?
Perhaps it is because of this that being in Singapore turns me into a child once again. The girl I am over here to all accounts is an independent, confident, capable young woman. I can earn more than enough to live the way I choose to live, keep house, do well in studies, cook and take care of chores and interact with the world. I can also say this because I am here.
The girl I am in the places I grew up though, once again is a child with all her needs being taken care of. I am cooked for, my laundry is done, and a great many things I have only to ask for. More than that though, whatever I can do here suddenly becomes unimportant and secondary. It is not important what I do, only that I am.
It's great for a vacation but now is the time to readjust to being the former girl. The girl who will order her mind and put her best foot forward, be fiercely independent and yet friendly and capable all at once. It is the start of yet another adventure and at the end of it lies a question. One which I hope the answer will become apparent during these two years.
Can my childhood home also become my adult home? If these two girls meet and join, which one will come to the fore? Can I hold on to who I have become?
I'm not sure I will ever find the answer to these questions or ever stop asking them. Growing up, I knew for sure I didn't fit in in cookie-cutter Singapore with its preset molds for people and careers. I am not done growing up but now I know for sure that I will never fit in 100% anywhere and that cookie-cutter molds or not, I don't have to or want to fit in anywhere.
Sunday, August 17, 2008
Friday, June 06, 2008
Leaving Town.
I quit work in a week.
I'll be starting at business school in the fall and coming back to this same old town. A part of me is tired of Boston and my wandering feet would really like me to move somewhere different. But another smaller part of me has grown to love my quiet town masquerading as a city.
Soon, I'll be back for a month and half in a very different sort of city - the place I grew up in. A place I left seven years ago now and never really looked back on. A place that I'm not sure I'll ever fit in again. When kids move from a small town to a big city, upon coming back to the small town, there is a familarity to everything and a kinship to everyone, a web of connections that you don't have in a large city, drawing you in both supporting you and holding you down. Why is it then, that moving from Boston to Singapore feels the same way? Singapore may be the bigger city but maybe because its the town I grew up in, it's even more of a small town than Boston is in terms of mindset of the people.
I've had room to stretch these few years. Room to grow wild and unchecked for a bit. But for the next two months, I suspect I'm going to get sat on and pressed down for a bit. I wish home and being myself weren't so mutually exclusive.
I am a coward. I hide my beliefs at home because it's easier not to argue. It's easier to be something I'm not in order to avoid conflict. In the end, I'm not sure which is the right path. Should I stand up and fight my losing battles with my elders or is it enough that I know that I will not change them and they will not change me and keep the peace?
I lie with my silences. I lie without words everytime I nod and smile and just pretend I don't hear hear the insinuations on marraige, appearance and girls acheving entirely too much for their own good. Sometimes I get scared that if I stay there long enough, I'll start to believe my own quiet lies. It's so much easier to tell myself I can do things when there aren't a million other people telling me I can't.
I am a Singaporean who has abandoned her city. I have evaded any responsibility of contributing back to the land in which I grew up. But like an unwanted child, I don't think I ever fit in in her family. Long before I left her for a place halfway around the world, she had already abandoned me.
I'll be starting at business school in the fall and coming back to this same old town. A part of me is tired of Boston and my wandering feet would really like me to move somewhere different. But another smaller part of me has grown to love my quiet town masquerading as a city.
Soon, I'll be back for a month and half in a very different sort of city - the place I grew up in. A place I left seven years ago now and never really looked back on. A place that I'm not sure I'll ever fit in again. When kids move from a small town to a big city, upon coming back to the small town, there is a familarity to everything and a kinship to everyone, a web of connections that you don't have in a large city, drawing you in both supporting you and holding you down. Why is it then, that moving from Boston to Singapore feels the same way? Singapore may be the bigger city but maybe because its the town I grew up in, it's even more of a small town than Boston is in terms of mindset of the people.
I've had room to stretch these few years. Room to grow wild and unchecked for a bit. But for the next two months, I suspect I'm going to get sat on and pressed down for a bit. I wish home and being myself weren't so mutually exclusive.
I am a coward. I hide my beliefs at home because it's easier not to argue. It's easier to be something I'm not in order to avoid conflict. In the end, I'm not sure which is the right path. Should I stand up and fight my losing battles with my elders or is it enough that I know that I will not change them and they will not change me and keep the peace?
I lie with my silences. I lie without words everytime I nod and smile and just pretend I don't hear hear the insinuations on marraige, appearance and girls acheving entirely too much for their own good. Sometimes I get scared that if I stay there long enough, I'll start to believe my own quiet lies. It's so much easier to tell myself I can do things when there aren't a million other people telling me I can't.
I am a Singaporean who has abandoned her city. I have evaded any responsibility of contributing back to the land in which I grew up. But like an unwanted child, I don't think I ever fit in in her family. Long before I left her for a place halfway around the world, she had already abandoned me.
Sunday, March 23, 2008
Baseball
Its the second morning in japan and already I am beginning to few the precious minutes slip quietly away. Yesterday we walked the sedate Meiji shrine and the much more crowded and energized harajuku. The press of people weighed heavily upon us.
Baseball, was something else entirely. For the record the red sox won 9~2 which was just lovely. But japanese baseball is arguably very different from Fenway. Being an away team in of itself was interesting but organized fan clubs? with set cheers for each player? Also, around ten they flashed a rule that noise makers were prohibited thereon and people actually obeyed!
I miss living here. Actually have not been very hungry at all. which is I guess kind of a waste but some of it is the tiredness perhaps. Hopefully I will regain my appetite and actually remember to start taking photos of food again. Also. less than 48 hours in, I have already consumed something like 4 ~ 5 bottles of tea. Ah japan.
Baseball, was something else entirely. For the record the red sox won 9~2 which was just lovely. But japanese baseball is arguably very different from Fenway. Being an away team in of itself was interesting but organized fan clubs? with set cheers for each player? Also, around ten they flashed a rule that noise makers were prohibited thereon and people actually obeyed!
I miss living here. Actually have not been very hungry at all. which is I guess kind of a waste but some of it is the tiredness perhaps. Hopefully I will regain my appetite and actually remember to start taking photos of food again. Also. less than 48 hours in, I have already consumed something like 4 ~ 5 bottles of tea. Ah japan.
Thursday, March 20, 2008
Writing
I started writing again.
I hadn't written anything for a long time with all my energies taken up by adjusting to a new job, new city, new life. Writing for me is something that needs time. Time for my mind to digest experiences and time enough for something in me to want to create. Of course, now that I'm adjusted I also feel like I want to move on thus ensuring that I'll once again be too absorbed in life to write.
I wonder if writing is something that will follow me through my entire life.
I hadn't written anything for a long time with all my energies taken up by adjusting to a new job, new city, new life. Writing for me is something that needs time. Time for my mind to digest experiences and time enough for something in me to want to create. Of course, now that I'm adjusted I also feel like I want to move on thus ensuring that I'll once again be too absorbed in life to write.
I wonder if writing is something that will follow me through my entire life.
Monday, March 10, 2008
the hidden law of pc buying
so it turns out there's more wrong with my desktop than just the operating system.
The long story is that I have been having issues with my desktop ever since I started using my new pretty laptop, Tsubasa. Jealousy issues aside, it started with an operating system issue where for some reason windows would not load, claiming a system error. After much trouble shooting, I dutifully repaired windows using the install disk, only to have the system continue freezing after light use each time. This got to be so annoying and unusable that Tsubasa got even more use in the mean times.
Last weekend, I tried to side step the whole operating issue by installing linux (which by the way is very pretty) and encounted a power issue where my system would flash on and then quickly shut off. Strange. I thought. Maybe a fuse blew in the long interim I haven't been using it. So I switched it to another outlet on my surge protector and it powered up long enough for me to install linux. Of course a week later, I try to turn it on again to encounter the same issue.
Twice is more than coincidence. I suspect my desktop has power issues. Now what to do about it? buy a new power supply and take it apart and hope the power issues haven't ruined the rest of the computer?
Give it up and strip the computer down for parts? (Very possible since I'm using Tsubasa almost exclusively now and like it a lot).
In sum, I swear there's a hidden law of pc buying that goes somewhat like this. No matter how new your current computer is, and how long you planned to simultaneously run two pcs and use both concurrently, within a few months after you've bought the new computer, the first would mysteriously die.
The long story is that I have been having issues with my desktop ever since I started using my new pretty laptop, Tsubasa. Jealousy issues aside, it started with an operating system issue where for some reason windows would not load, claiming a system error. After much trouble shooting, I dutifully repaired windows using the install disk, only to have the system continue freezing after light use each time. This got to be so annoying and unusable that Tsubasa got even more use in the mean times.
Last weekend, I tried to side step the whole operating issue by installing linux (which by the way is very pretty) and encounted a power issue where my system would flash on and then quickly shut off. Strange. I thought. Maybe a fuse blew in the long interim I haven't been using it. So I switched it to another outlet on my surge protector and it powered up long enough for me to install linux. Of course a week later, I try to turn it on again to encounter the same issue.
Twice is more than coincidence. I suspect my desktop has power issues. Now what to do about it? buy a new power supply and take it apart and hope the power issues haven't ruined the rest of the computer?
Give it up and strip the computer down for parts? (Very possible since I'm using Tsubasa almost exclusively now and like it a lot).
In sum, I swear there's a hidden law of pc buying that goes somewhat like this. No matter how new your current computer is, and how long you planned to simultaneously run two pcs and use both concurrently, within a few months after you've bought the new computer, the first would mysteriously die.
Monday, January 21, 2008
Breathe
It has been a rather intense two months of writing Business School Applications - in my case that means question my existence, life-purpose, ambition and all for 6 weeks and then write all your essays the day/weekend before they are due. Probably not the best way to do things. No wonder I never do well at the whole applying to things deal.
Essentially the path forward is a waiting game - wait to see if anyone likes me enough to interview me, wait to see if they like me even more so than that and admit me.
This weekend, I slept as much as I wanted for the first time in forever and just enjoyed doing nothing the entire weekend. It was my weekend of not thinking. On the list of things to do now... learn to drive? I keep putting this off because I live in cities where I do not need to know how to drive. But yes this is a useful skill that I should really pick up while its still cheap and easy to do here.
Essentially the path forward is a waiting game - wait to see if anyone likes me enough to interview me, wait to see if they like me even more so than that and admit me.
This weekend, I slept as much as I wanted for the first time in forever and just enjoyed doing nothing the entire weekend. It was my weekend of not thinking. On the list of things to do now... learn to drive? I keep putting this off because I live in cities where I do not need to know how to drive. But yes this is a useful skill that I should really pick up while its still cheap and easy to do here.
Thursday, November 15, 2007
How much is your vote worth?
Taken from:
"According to the report, a survey of 3,000 students conducted by an NYU undergraduate journalism class found that an overwhelming majority of those polled said their right to vote could be for sale; in addition to the 66 percent who said they'd trade their vote for a free year of college, 20 percent said they'd exchange their vote for an Ipod Touch. Half of the students polled said they'd forfeit their right to vote forever for $1 million.
Dalton Conley, chairman of NYU's sociology department, told Politico.com that the results are actually encouraging. The high price tag most students put on their vote showed that they actually think the right to vote is very valuable and important."
Despite the iffy news source (you can see I don't think much of fox news), the question posed inspired me to ask myself the same question. What would it take for me to sit out the next election? The answer (not surprisingly) is not very much. The reason I come to that conclusion is that the chances of me voting at all in the election is terribly low - in the last 25 years of my life, my mother has gotten the chance to vote exactly ONCE, considering I live in the walkover Bukit Timah district. Even if I did get the chance to vote in the next election, the chances I would have a choice of candidates to vote for are incredibly slim and the outcome incredibly sad i.e. there is a 99% chance there won't be any good opposition and a 99.9% chance the guys in white would win anyway and my vote would be a token protest vote.
The sad thing is I think that transaction has already been enforced on me wil say or nil say not mattering much in this equation. "The Western media wants Singapore to 'listen to them' -- to introduce more democracy and public protests." Sounds familiar? That's what our very own LKY said last week. The rheotheric has always been that individual freedom is a "western" concept, not an "asian" one. The implication being that as asians if we give up individual freedoms, collective wealth and economic growth will come. Not that I am denying that Singapore has gained great leaps and bounds over the last decades but sometimes I wonder if we had to have given up one to have gotten the other. In other words, this is like the enbloc sale of a flat - because 80% of you want the cash return, the other 20% of you must be happy to give up your home of 40 years sentimental value or not and not complain.
That being said, while I say that my vote price for not voting in the next election (a near surety anyway) is relatively low, my price for voting one way or another is much higher and in the faint hope that things somehow change (or that I move to Hougang or Potong Pasir), I don't think I'll be giving up my right to vote for life anytime soon.
"According to the report, a survey of 3,000 students conducted by an NYU undergraduate journalism class found that an overwhelming majority of those polled said their right to vote could be for sale; in addition to the 66 percent who said they'd trade their vote for a free year of college, 20 percent said they'd exchange their vote for an Ipod Touch. Half of the students polled said they'd forfeit their right to vote forever for $1 million.
Dalton Conley, chairman of NYU's sociology department, told Politico.com that the results are actually encouraging. The high price tag most students put on their vote showed that they actually think the right to vote is very valuable and important."
Despite the iffy news source (you can see I don't think much of fox news), the question posed inspired me to ask myself the same question. What would it take for me to sit out the next election? The answer (not surprisingly) is not very much. The reason I come to that conclusion is that the chances of me voting at all in the election is terribly low - in the last 25 years of my life, my mother has gotten the chance to vote exactly ONCE, considering I live in the walkover Bukit Timah district. Even if I did get the chance to vote in the next election, the chances I would have a choice of candidates to vote for are incredibly slim and the outcome incredibly sad i.e. there is a 99% chance there won't be any good opposition and a 99.9% chance the guys in white would win anyway and my vote would be a token protest vote.
The sad thing is I think that transaction has already been enforced on me wil say or nil say not mattering much in this equation. "The Western media wants Singapore to 'listen to them' -- to introduce more democracy and public protests." Sounds familiar? That's what our very own LKY said last week. The rheotheric has always been that individual freedom is a "western" concept, not an "asian" one. The implication being that as asians if we give up individual freedoms, collective wealth and economic growth will come. Not that I am denying that Singapore has gained great leaps and bounds over the last decades but sometimes I wonder if we had to have given up one to have gotten the other. In other words, this is like the enbloc sale of a flat - because 80% of you want the cash return, the other 20% of you must be happy to give up your home of 40 years sentimental value or not and not complain.
That being said, while I say that my vote price for not voting in the next election (a near surety anyway) is relatively low, my price for voting one way or another is much higher and in the faint hope that things somehow change (or that I move to Hougang or Potong Pasir), I don't think I'll be giving up my right to vote for life anytime soon.
Monday, July 30, 2007
Disjointed
Sitting in the taxi going down memorial drive, i was struck with the sudden burst of feeling that "ah, I'm home" even as a wave of homesickness for the places I had just come from hit me.
Home is everywhere and nowhere. Boston is expansive and welcoming. Here I can breathe and grow. But all the freedom in the world can't buy me my family and friends, the culture and world that is the home of my childhood even as that very same culture and family suffocates and confines me.
"Choose!" everything screams at me. Choose. There are so many push factors and so little pull. This is not choosing. This is running away. Left or Right? It feels like I'm picking against the other path.
Home is everywhere and nowhere. Boston is expansive and welcoming. Here I can breathe and grow. But all the freedom in the world can't buy me my family and friends, the culture and world that is the home of my childhood even as that very same culture and family suffocates and confines me.
"Choose!" everything screams at me. Choose. There are so many push factors and so little pull. This is not choosing. This is running away. Left or Right? It feels like I'm picking against the other path.
Saturday, June 23, 2007
Going Home.
I'm leaving the US for the first time in two years in about seven hours. I haven't blogged in a while because things have been so hectic. To start with I finally took the GMATS last weekend. Taking it the last weekend before I leave was definitely cutting it a little close but although I was ready to take it the weekend before that, those plans were cut short by analyst training.
I don't have to think about work for at least a whole two weeks! (I did promise I'd check in and check email daily when I could though...) Yesterday, I went out with a whole bunch of people from work to a bar to celebrate everybody leaving on vacation and the successful outcome of standardized tests.
Incidentally... I scored a 780. The GMATs are scored cumulatively out of 800. My math score was 50 and the grammer portion was 48. Not that that means anything to anyone who hasn't taken the GMATs. I'm just so relieved that I don't have to take them again. I guess the sad thing is that singapore has probably prepared me for standardized testing. Simple skills like sitting through a 4 hour long exam has been ingrained in me through force - rendering it slightly easier for me now to do standardized tests than for most people I guess.
Now I have to decide what I want to do with my life. If I apply to business school, where do I apply? What do I study? And what the hell do I write in my essays?
Sometimes it seems like every decision I make is a decision to put off the real decision of what to do in life. Before I know it I'll be old and gray and I still won't have done anything I wanted to do with my life.
I don't have to think about work for at least a whole two weeks! (I did promise I'd check in and check email daily when I could though...) Yesterday, I went out with a whole bunch of people from work to a bar to celebrate everybody leaving on vacation and the successful outcome of standardized tests.
Incidentally... I scored a 780. The GMATs are scored cumulatively out of 800. My math score was 50 and the grammer portion was 48. Not that that means anything to anyone who hasn't taken the GMATs. I'm just so relieved that I don't have to take them again. I guess the sad thing is that singapore has probably prepared me for standardized testing. Simple skills like sitting through a 4 hour long exam has been ingrained in me through force - rendering it slightly easier for me now to do standardized tests than for most people I guess.
Now I have to decide what I want to do with my life. If I apply to business school, where do I apply? What do I study? And what the hell do I write in my essays?
Sometimes it seems like every decision I make is a decision to put off the real decision of what to do in life. Before I know it I'll be old and gray and I still won't have done anything I wanted to do with my life.
Saturday, May 05, 2007
居場所
honey & clover の竹本君はｸﾘｽﾏｰｽがきらいな理由はいつもｸﾘｽﾏｰｽの時：’お前は幸せか？居場所あるか？’って感じる。今ｸﾘｽﾏｰｽの季節ではないが私そういう感じがわかる気になる。
ねえ、幸せってなに？なぜ人生の中でいろんな幸せの中から選ぶことにしかならない？
私の場合はいい仕事といい人間関係といい生活の所は全部世界の違う所だ。こうなたらどう選ぶでいいの？自分の居場所がどこか迷いってもどんなに時間かかって考えってもも答えがわからない。どんな道選んでもあと後悔するだろう。
ねえ、幸せってなに？なぜ人生の中でいろんな幸せの中から選ぶことにしかならない？
私の場合はいい仕事といい人間関係といい生活の所は全部世界の違う所だ。こうなたらどう選ぶでいいの？自分の居場所がどこか迷いってもどんなに時間かかって考えってもも答えがわからない。どんな道選んでもあと後悔するだろう。