Saturday, June 27, 2020
Book 1 - The Water Dancer
Hey guys, how have your "new normal" been? The most jarring thing I encountered when I was finally able to go out and about was that everyone are in masks. It unexpectedly feels quite sad to me. I didn't realize that seeing people's faces would matter to me. The whole coronavirus experience does give you a chance to learn more about yourself. Sometime you only learn that some things matter to you after they are taken from you.
Today my class resumed. Well today there's only 2 students including me. It's a make up class for those who didn't attend the online lesson. It was very nice of them to arrange this for us. So anyways, basically today I got to go to Orchard and it was quite crowded. A realization came to me that these are all Singaporeans or people who live here permanently. There's no tourist. Though it was crowded and people are spending money, I do think Singapore would need tourists to sustain the businesses soon and since Indonesians are the second highest visitors to Singapore and have been at the top for many years, I hope they would find a way to make it easier and not expensive for Indonesians to come. Anyways, it was my first time being in Orchard with the new entry restriction imposed everywhere and I was quite confused about finding my way. I don't particularly like Safe Entry. It's where we have to scan QR code and enter our ID and show it to people guarding the entrance to be let in. I don't like it because it basically tracks us no matter what they say about the record being safe and going to be deleted and all. I don't find it user friendly as well. Like today I checked in in Wheelock but I didn't see a border between Wheelock and Ion that I didn't check out from Wheelock, instead I checked out from Ion despite of never having checked in there.
Singapore can really just enforce rules and people would follow without any protest. You look at America where there are people who protest about having to wear masks, can you imagine how they will take it if they have to be tracked when they enter basically every single place? And in Indonesia, just the other day I told my mom and brother, it's like Indonesia has given up. Whatever will be will be, people will just do what they want. Rules in Indonesia are like aspirations --> Did I use the word
aspiration correctly? I guess like in many places everywhere, many Indonesians can only hope and pray that it will all work out. Different people do have different reaction about coronavirus, it's like a scale from the ones who don't want to touch anything to the ones who are pretty much carefree.
Anyways, as the title says, I finished reading the (officially) first book of the year,
The Water Dancer by Ta-Nehisi Coates. It took awhile finishing this book because, well you know. The book tells a story of a slave, Hiram, who had the power to (for a lack of a better word) teleport. In order to do that reliably, he had to lean on his memory and the stronger and more personal the memory was, the better. Though he had a photographic memory, he couldn't remember what happened to his mother when he was young and that was the memory he needed to tap to use his power effectively. After finishing the book, I think I have mix feeling about it. It was nicely written, but the "science fiction" aspect of it doesn't sit quite well for me. The book featured Harriet Tubman and it implied that she had the same power hence she was able to help slaves get their freedom. I don't know. Maybe deep down I have become way too cynical to believe in magic? I know it's just a story, but I don't know. So mix feeling in the end.
Now I am reading
Do Not Say We Have Nothing by Madeleine Thien just because the title is so apt as a response to the hopeless feeling and or negativity that I may feel about life. Life hasn't fully returned to the way it was before, but all the anxiety has come back roaringly unstoppably - it's back to not being able to sleep, the weird health issues happening all around. I'm just trying to hold on here.
:) eKa @ 9:32:00 PM •