Audible Sighs and Arghs

Okay so this is the post to fill in April. I thought I do it now just in case I get lazy in the last week of April. The title is because I noticed I have been making audible sighs and arghs. Someone or 2-3 people once commented me when they heard me sighing. I forget what they're saying but I remember not feeling so good hearing what they said. Remember people can forget what you say or do, but they will remember how you make them feel. Anyways, these days, I think ... whatever. You hear over and over to just breathe in a difficult unpleasant situation, well here I am breathing. As for the arghs, I guess I've been impatient more so these days. This one, when I caught myself doing it at a cafe counter upon finding out there's no more chicken noodle soup, yeah I did feel I was being very childish, so this I do think I need to watch it. I have to watch my behaviour.

Anyways, there nothing interesting to share actually, as usual. Since the last time I wrote, life has its shitty moments and then it went better. I am okay right now. I don't know if I'm still going to get into trouble, but for the immediate future, all seems okay. I hope I don't jinx it by writing it. Now that I think about it, there is something interesting that's going to happen, but I don't feel like talking about it just yet. My feeling about it has been swinging between excitement and nerves and right now I am in the nervous swing. Perhaps it's fate that today I saw a post from Shane Lynch's instagram. He's my cousin's favorite Boyzone member. I googled a bit and I think this is the fuller version of what Shane posted: "Don’t wait, make your move now. The conditions will never be perfect. It is when you start that you set the perfect conditions for you. You’ll never have enough time. You’ll never have enough money. You’ll never have enough knowledge. Do the best you can with what you have and the process of doing it will teach you everything you need to know!". More googling showed that perhaps these lines are inspired by a bible verse. This below is from what the internet told me as the living bible version. I seriously don't know which version of the bible is most used by English speaking Christians. Perhaps this living bible one was created to make it easier to understand.

Ecclesiastes 11:4 - If you wait for perfect conditions, you will never get anything done.

Then going down, there's this:

Ecclesiastes 11:9 - Young man, it’s wonderful to be young! Enjoy every minute of it! Do all you want to; take in everything, but realize that you must account to God for everything you do.

A good reminder to be nice. I think many people perhaps do try to not be bad, but then they do not bother to be nice. Anyways, here are some thoughts about what I've been feeling recently. They're so random perhaps.

I've been feeling demoralized, perhaps more and more in my Japanese class. I've been trying to learn Kanji. I coded a small programme to quiz me on random words and so far I think I can recall around 300 words, but then like at class today, there are so many words that I don't know and I felt very embarrassed when I had to work in pair with this Korean lady who for some reason knows all the words :( Not just that, I feel that my comprehension is very low. I don't understand what my sensei is saying most of the time. A lot of it is guessing :( I am thinking if I have felt this much despair before when I'm learning a language. A moment that I can think of was when I was in Mr. C's class when I was learning french. It then went much better when the class size was smaller and then when we're off his class. My current Japanese class have a few smart people, they're in a different league and the smarties are always difficult because I feel like I need things to be simplified or at least more time to think, but these people kinda make things go faster or complex. I guess they should motivate me to go to their level, but right now at each class I feel like I'm drowning. Am I the worst in class? I don't think so, but I think I am in the bottom half. As usual, perhaps I am judging myself harshly, but point is I am really so demoralized. I wrote about this before, that though it's hard, I shouldn't quit, but I guess at a certain point I have to think if moving on without adequate knowledge and skill is the right thing :( I hope I can get better :(

Speaking about being at the bottom. There's this situation in which I feel like I am at the bottom of the totem pole or as I like to describe it, the last chain in a zombie apocalypse. The bright side about being here is that I kinda have an ally. He's feeling he's also at the bottom and we both actually feel demoralized about it. The thing is I don't think we're the worst. We're pretty capable, but it's like we don't have any protection and our defensive capability is not very strong so when the zombies come, we might get eaten first :( When I was talking about this with this ally of mine this week, I kinda joked that perhaps we should start thinking about our exit plan. He said he's been thinking about it and that actually made me feel rather sad and worried. This whole thing becomes rather bearable because I have this ally. If he's gone, I think I'll be feeling much worse than before I have him as an ally. Again perhaps I'm underestimating my capability to walk as John Mayer put it, one man army. It's just when you're fighting zombies, it's always good to have an ally :(

Speaking about army, so I forgot to tell you guys. Finished my first book of the year some time ago, The Dressmaker by Rosalie Ham. Also watched the movie. I have mix feeling for both the book and movie. Reading the book, it was hard for me to picture things because I don't know some of the fabric or clothing style mentioned. The movie showed beautiful dresses, but I was expecting more. So anyways, currently I am reading Rain by Barney Campbell. It tells the story of a British soldier in Afghan war. I also have difficulties reading this book because I don't understand the military terms. Sometime I took the effort to google things, like what a scimitar and mastiff are, but overall there's so many things I can't really picture. I'm close to finishing the book now, but this week when I read someone died, I wanted to stop reading altogether right there and then. Perhaps this is a sign that I need to interact more with people, but it's just it hit me hard when a character in that book died. I think it's because I've read the book for days now and in each day I read the book, it's like I'm meeting him and I kinda care for him, I want all the happiness for him. So I was really sad when I read he died and then reading his funeral, I wanted to cry. However since I was in a public place when I was reading the book, I had to hold myself. There were still tears and I had to dab my eyes. It's mind opening reading this book. There they are these soldiers fighting in a foreign land for reason they may not quite understand and whose result don't seem to be visible to them as well as their fellow country men. It's not something that their country men can relate to because the war is very far from their country. It's not even noticeable perhaps most of the time, but there they are these men, having to risk their lives and be brave every day they're there. Very often we overlook people serving this way, but truly they are remarkable and I have much respect for these soldiers.

Moving on to my other idiosyncrasy. I have to just admit that changes are not easy for me. There are 2 changes recently that caused me to be quite flustered. First was when there's some road work on the pavement I usually take every evening. Because of that I have to take another way which would lead me to pass this old shoe repair man. Let's pause for a second and think of where is the nearest shoe repair person to you that you can think of. You most probably cannot think of any because at this day and age people just easily throw things at the slightest defect. So it's a job that's going extinct and this old uncle as we like to call them here in Singapore is pretty much just sit in his spot waiting whenever I walk pass by him. I've only seen him work 1 or 2 times. Maybe it's just me imagining things, but there is this certain sadness whenever I see him and my heart breaks a little or quite a lot that I couldn't bring myself to look at him, to the point that I tried to take another road to avoid seeing him. Maybe I'm wrong, maybe he's not sad and lonely, maybe he has a family waiting for him at home, though one time I saw him eating alone. It's just I don't know, I think maybe because I am often sad in my restlessness and loneliness, so somehow I feel like I see the same sadness in him. It's not a sadness I wish on anyone, terrible loneliness and isolation. One would think that would make me want to walk pass him every day just to keep him company for a few seconds or to make sure he's alright, but it's really hard, really, even as I write this, I feel sad thinking about it. I know I will feel sadder if I walk pass that spot and I don't see him, but it's just hard for me, really hard.

I am weird that way. Just like I am weird in feeling rather safe whenever I saw another uncle waiting for the bus at the end of my every weekday. I think of him as an anchor. If he's there, all will be okay. If I don't see him, I feel a bit lost and I don't even know him. Perhaps it's my slight OCD that I need things to be in certain order or form. So anyway, the other change recently that kinda bothers me is DBS ATM changing its interface. Yes it is so much nicer, but the layout is all different that it takes me longer to figure out where things are and it kinda annoys me. I think they should have put up notice at the ATM saying that they're updating their interface and so the queue may take longer to move as customers are trying to get used to it. I feel quite burdened of having to quickly figure out how to do my transaction with the new interface. I guess it's because I get annoyed at people who take a long time to do theirs. See I do judge people hardly, but I apply the same judgment and perhaps even worse on myself.

Speaking on judgment on people. I had the chance to meet Whisky some weeks back. It was so coincidental. She was free so she accompanied me for lunch and we talked about people we know and putting all the stories together, I guess now I have less regard for someone we know. It was really good meeting her and I'm glad that she's in a good place now. I'm sure there were many times when she annoyed me back in the days, but I really do care for this girl and thankful to have known her in my life. I think I like her best because we can talk about God and I really do miss having someone around with whom I can talk openly about God and faith. Anyways, I've actually been social this week. I met up with Gascoigne and la Gioia separately and of course the usual me, after all that I was ready to go into my hole. By the way I imagine my hole or rock to be like Patrick's (the starfish) house :P Okay, I guess that's about it. I have a medical problem this week, which was quite bad in my opinion :( I have had it before so as la Gioia said I should perhaps not worry so much, but I'm worried. I haven't seen the doctor because I'm scared of what he's going to say or prescribe so I'm waiting it out. I'm waiting until tomorrow. Hope it will be really alright. Buonanotte tutti, I hope things are going well with you guys too.

:) eKa @ 11:56:00 PM • 0 comments

archives.