*insert witty one liner here*

I just have to put it out there that I’m so unbelievably happy that my very first serious boyfriend is finally over the drama of our crazy (young and stupid) relationship and talking to me again. It’s been almost 5 years and we’ve come a long way. I’m so glad that we’re finally here. It feels like I’ve gotten a long lost friend back. We might be thousands of miles apart, but we’re still talking about the same old things - music, family, our futures.

So very lovely to know that while many things have changed, some things can stay the same.

:)

I have no idea why but I suddenly feel like crying.

Oh god, november is here.

Oh god. 7 more hours of classes to go. I want to pull my eyeballs out of their sockets and let them laze around in a swimming pool. I also want to go for a massage, because the last few days has been a long unending blur of unpacking, and cleaning, and fixing CHAIRS.

I FIXED CHAIRS, BITCHES.

And not lego chairs, or even Ikea chairs. I have been dismantling, painting, varnishing, RE-UPHOLSTERING, these very gorgeous 1960s Danish inspired chairs that we got. It’s times like these that I wish I had a magic wand to swish and flick. My fingers are now deformed, and if I have to pull another staple out of the bottom of my seat, I might barf.

It’s been about 5 days at the new place and it’s weird not having housemates around. I feel so disconnected from everyone else, So strange to be in a place that is just me and the boyfriend. On the other hand, it’s been really nice to have our own space. Nice and oddly domesticating.

Ok gotta go back to acting like I’m paying attention to some Peruvian protest thingamajig. Happy Birthday Singapore!

At this very moment, I really really really loathe my housemates. I am so frustrated and angry that my friends would do this to me. But I really hate them.

I don’t understand why you would treat your in-laws better than you treat your own blood.

It sounds so primitive to prioritize blood relations. I know family is more than originating from the same lineage, there are people I call family whom I’m not related to. There are wonderful adoptive parents, and abusive biological ones. Those that are deserving, and those who are not. Your mother falls in neither category. No doubt she has her flaws, but her love for you is very tangible, very real, witnessed by everyone who knows the both of you.

So why do you treat her the way you do? With disrespect and dishonor, with curt words and a sharp tongue, with cold wars and stares that look through her. I would be less puzzled if that was just who you were as a person - rude, ungrateful, mean spirited and one to hold grudges. But you’re not. I’ve seen you with your in-laws. You are a lovely person with them, you are kind, considerate, you show respect to the elders of that family. Why? Do you feel that they have treated you better and are hence more deserving? Does familiarity breed that much contempt that you think you can get away with how you behave? Or is the person they see a mask, and I do actually know what type of person you are.

Back to my base and primitive logic, should you not be grateful that you are alive because of her? Does her blood not run through your veins? Does that not go beyond your ideas of being ‘deserving’ of respect? Explain to me please, because I simply don’t get it.

There was a moment in the midst of rushing out one of my essays last week that I want to pen down. It happened while I was sitting at the dining room table with my pile of books. Chong was to my left, Darren to my right. We were all rushing our various assignments, and it had been a crazy night of reading about Mao and his policies, or angry Arabs and their goal of destroying Israel. I can’t really remember which. Anyway, there was a point when my eyes had gotten too heavy, brain too slow and I had to reread sentences several times before I could ~sort of~ understand what the damned academic author was trying to say. So I folded my arms on the table, and lay head down. The way we all did when we were trying to sleep in class in Secondary school.

And the moment I did that, I don’t really know how to explain it without sounding crazy, I sort of transported myself back to when I was living in Bedok North Avenue 3. With my eyes closed I imagined sitting at our round, glass dining table. I was facing the sideboard with the large mirror hanging over it. To my right was what used to be our balcony. The pebbled floor. The water feature. That old yellow leather one-seater that my dad used to sit on. My mom’s plants. The wind chimes and that bee thing Truett loved to play with when he was a baby, hanging by the window. The trees outside - I could only see the trees that it made it feel like we weren’t surrounded by a thousand other HDB flats but instead we lived in some kind of cool garden. At my 10 o’clock was the door to the kitchen. I could see inside, see the green wooden country cabinets, see the reddish brown tiles. And I could see part of our fridge. Then to my left was the living room. The carpet that lay in that space between our door to our dining room. And our beige recliner where the sofas were.

I could see all of this while my eyes were closed, and it was as if I was right back there. Sitting at the dining table. Taking a break while doing one of those cram sessions before a poly exam, or when my sister, my brother-in-law and I stayed up nights to memorize sixty bible verses. It feels so far away, so long ago. It feels like another life. And yet, it remains to be the only place I know to be home.

Roaaarrr I miss Singapore and all of my tribesmen :(

How is it that you can come back and suddenly it’s as if nothing changed, and suddenly you run a hurricane in my heart, and then as sudden as you came, you leave. And once again I’m left. Left behind, left confused, left wishing for things I really shouldn’t wish for and probably wouldn’t come true.

Now I’m left with having to start over again. I need to learn to live without you.

I’ve always been protective over the people I’m close to. The idea of someone hurting them infuriates me so much. When I was younger, I always felt the need for vengeance. Those morons - the cheaters, the liars, the damaging ones - needed to know what kind of pain they had inflicted. I’d write angry posts to show them what I really think of them, dream up some elaborate scheme that would involve burning their favourite possessions and pushing them off a cliff.

I still feel the same infuriation when my best friend is left in a crying heap, or reduced to becoming numb. But I know that this person, X, who has caused so much grief, is more than a moron. There are more facets to her. There are more facets to everyone. So I don’t wish her any more harm, I don’t want her to fall into a black hole anymore.

I just want her to go away.

I’d rather have him in my life in any form, than nothing at all.

For all our complaints about the lack of political freedom, it’s safe to say that all of us are grateful for all the Lees have done into making Singapore what it is today, and deeply saddened by the passing of Mrs Lee Kuan Yew. My heart goes out to MM and PM Lee, not as our leaders but as the man who lost his partner and the one who lost his mom.

Rest in peace, Mrs Lee.