Happy Birthday
Old Years day (a logical derivative, don’t you agree?). Friday, December 31, 2004, the last day of the year. That’s it, no more sleeps before it is 2005. No more nights, except for the one that gently slips us into the next year. No more breakfasts. No more Christmas, no more birthdays, no more morning showers. No more 2004 hangovers.
Nothing, nada, 2004 has passed and taken 80,000 people with it, just in the last few days. People that had plans for the year 2005, just like we do.
Let’s see, what was 2004 the year off? It was the year where President Bush II was reelected and (completely unrelated, of course) large parts of the world lost faith in America. It was the year of the largest earthquake in living memory. It was the year of the Singapore Cocaine bust. It was the last year of Liana living in Singapore without truly having lived anywhere else (if everything goes well). Possibly even the last year of her living there. It was the year where I finally gained some sense of responsibility. It was the year of the Monkey (I think).
It was a year of growth, for me anyway. It was a year of good friends and bad ones. It was a year that in a couple of hours will be past.
We went to the beach today, jumped around in big waves. They are fun if they aren’t too big (I got washed around a couple of times and had a pretty good impression of how weak you must feel when hit by a tsunami). Strange how we can just go back down to the beach and frolic in the same waters that claimed thousands of lives.
I wonder if every single drop of water in the world has washed through the body of a dead person, or at least a person that is now dead. I guess the ice on the North and South Pole hasn’t. Some of that has been frozen longer then we’ve existed as a species. The rest probably has. So if you want truly clean water, you’ll have to get bottled North Pole ice. (Now that’s an idea for a new company).
I imagine that if you try hard enough you can think of something disgusting connected to everything. Take a kiss, for instance, it might appear romantic, but in truth is the sharing of the most germ-infested substances on the human body. Ever wondered why we share the most toxic bodily liquids with each other out of love (or lust)?
Alright, I’m going to snap out of this bleak mood. I have the feeling I’m starting to sound a little melodramatic. That fits with the time of year, of course, but still. I’ll leave it be. Instead, I’ll talk to you all next year (I hope). Have a good one, and make sure you drink one to our health, out here in Australia. I’ll make sure I drink one to each of yours as well.
Happy Birthday, Mr. Earth!
Hurrah!
Shazam’s alive! He finally sent in a message yesterday night that he is fine and so is his family. Unfortunately some of his friends aren’t doing as well, but we’re happy to find out that at least he’s still fine and still looking forward to joining us in a month’s time (he’ll be coming for Australia day).
His SMS’s were a relief. Everybody we know seems to be ok. Which is surprising, considering that they are all spread around the South East Asia region. Thanks the stars (or what ever you may believe in). I have a suspicion that the after shocks of this disaster aren’t over yet. Even if the physical ones are long gone, the social and economic repercussions will be felt for a while yet.
The economies of Sri Lanka and Indonesia are both going to take a hit. Indonesia will probably be able to absorb it well, being a huge country, but Sri Lanka was only just really starting to improve. Well, at least the armed soldiers wandering the streets bored might have something to do, instead of shoot at each other. Of course that certainly does not compensate the human cost.
So I was wondering, two days ago, if we’re now going to declare nature a terrorist. ‘We struck at nature, and nature struck back… Blow it up!’ Then we can have declare war on the different branches of nature. Those trees that won’t bend, will be broken!
Ok, not very funny, I’ll stop. I’m at L’s sister’s house again and once again it is noisy as hell. It can’t be all bad, at least I’m being trained to ignore the things around me (I was never very good at that). The only people that suffer for all this noise is my audience and if somebody has to suffer, I would rather it were you then me. (I love making the implicit explicit, especially if it’s going to stir up a bit of noise!)
I would like to thank Loobz for sending in comments to my posts, since I’ve restarted. It is always nice to get a bit if feedback. I’ve actually been surprised with the number of people that are now looking at my Blog again. I let this place slip away for a few months, I would have thought most of you would have forgotten about this place. Apparently you haven’t, that’s really cool. (Or, if you’re new, I hope you’ll learn to like this place of brain farts).
Oh, I thought I should say this. If you feel you aren’t getting the full story on my Blog, make sure you go see
Banana’s Blog. Seeing as I’m with her all the time you’ll probably get the gist of things if you fuse both our rambling tangents together. Or don’t and entertain yourself by just pondering the life that underlies the words thrown up on this page.
Just a Moment
We’re starting to get a little bit worried about Shazam. We’ve been trying to reach him ever since the Tsunami hit and haven’t heard anything from him yet. He was in Sri Lanka when the storm hit, though we’re hoping he stayed with his family in Columbo. If that is that case, then he should still be alright. Let’s hope the same for his family and friends.
I hope this disaster has made all of you stop for a few moments and realise what we’ve got. Especially those of you that are reading this from Lil’ ol’ Singapore, if that earthquake would have been a few hundred miles to the north or east you would all have been buggered by the waves. Indonesia saved Singapore (and a whole host of other countries) from being smashed to smithereens. That would have been a disaster. I wonder how well Singapore would have done if hit by a tidal wave the height of palm trees. Knowing how many Singaporeans can actually swim, not that well I imagine.
Important lesson to all you people scared of water, get a grip and learn how to swim. Sometimes it isn’t our choice whether we get wet, or not. Another big one, if a big wave is coming at you, dive /under/ it. That is where the least force is. Yes, you’ll still need to come up afterwards, but at least you wont have to come up after being tumbled around fifty five times and being slammed into five walls, two cars and a phone box.
Anyway, out here things are still as they were last time. We did manage to finally go out without anything going terribly wrong, last night. The worst thing that happened last night would probably be that my wallet got a bit lighter. Though I guess liana laughing about my penis wasn’t all that great either. (But then, she can laugh about anything, so I guess you have to take it with a grain of salt).
Oh yeah, I also managed to win two games of chess, to the chagrin of Ken. It was close, the second time, but then he buggered up and I was able to take the game. I really missed playing chess in Singapore. It’s so strange, out here people can just have fun without having to spend tons of cash. Hell, I used to be able to do the same before I came to Singapore. Then you come into Singapore and suddenly everything that is fun costs money. It’s as if the government had somehow brainwashed everybody (including me) into believing ‘the more it costs, the more fun it must be’.
Funny, I keep talking about Singapore. I guess you can’t help but relate everything about where you’re at with where you were. We are and remain creatures of memory. Unfortunately my memory doesn’t generally go back further then a few years, so it’s filled up with Singapore. Eek!
Shocker
So the earthquake has sent a shock through our life (excuse the pun). Shazam was off to Sri Lanka to celebrate christmas with his family and we haven’t heard anything from him yet. We’re all worried, what with the death toll rising each time you switch on the TV.
Fortunately Singapore was not hit, so nothing over there has gone terribly wrong (like always). I’ve spoken to my mother and she told me that they were fine. As far as she knew only a few big waves had crashed into the shore and that was it.
Over here things are good. We’ve been spending some time with Fish (Banana’s sister) and their kids. We just watched the Incredibles again (third time, for me, first time for the others) and that was fun. I rather like the Incredibles. It might actually be the best movie produced by Pixar.
It was quite cool, cause we gotta take out the car to go home with first (a lot of trust, hopefully not misplaced) and one of the kids (zak), though that was almost an afterthought (Just kidding). The funny thing was that Zak actually behaved really well while he was away from his sisters and parents. I guess he liked getting all the attention from two adults. As a result he was actually quiet and respectful (though he admittedly did have a bit of trouble with staying quiet throughout the movie).
I’m starting to get the feeling that his tantrums are all about attention, (Duh). Hey, at least he’ll grow up a fighter. Families with more children seem to produce more fighters (and more giver upers as well, but I have a feeling Zak will be a fighter).
Alright I have to bugger off. People around me are waiting to go out towards the video store (they need my ‘expert’ opinion on the matter of movies). That and people are singing the song ‘this is the song that never ends’ around me and I’m singing along, so the flow of this text is getting interrupted a bit. (Men! Pfah! At least women can multi task (and they have breasts!)).
Initial Mistakes
So I completely buggered up last night. I’m very annoyed with myself, actually. We were taken to this big house party by Ken (the flat caretaker) and then I proceeded to get ill and vomit into the kitchen sink. That while I had only had two beers while I had been there (I might have drunk them a bit too quick and starting up at 1 o’clock didn’t help much either, I imagine.)
That while Ken had tried to take us out the night before and Liana had gotten dehydrated and had needed to go home early as well. I imagine that he’s a little annoyed with us planning to go out and then get sick on him. Not our intention, of course, but we must appear like really boring people when we do that.
In fact the last four nights that we’ve tried going out have all bunged up. The first time we fell asleep and didn’t wake up till the morning. The next night I had bruised my toe so badly that I could hardly walk (let alone walk to the bar district). The next night Liana got sick and the one after it was my turn. Three more days and we’ll have buggered up a week of nights out.
Well at least I know that I shouldn’t start so damned early anymore. I guess I was just too excited with getting a new life started in a new place and as a result I got so drunk that the only thing I did was vomit.
There sure looked to be a lot of drugged up people at that party. Quite a difference from little old Singapore. One doesn’t have to hide it over here, after all the worst that can happen over here is a quick slap on the wrists and a cop taking the drugs off of you, that is as long as you’re not dealing anyway.
Hopefully we’ll manage to find more similar parties, because they would be damned useful to build up a bit of a social network. I’ve noticed that people are far more approachable after they’ve swallowed a few pills or snorted a few lines.
Oh well, let’s not dwell on the past. At least I’ve been driving a little bit these last couple of days and am happy to report that I have lost absolutely none of the skill that I had before. Yes, that’s right, I’m still as bad as always. I tried to take one bush along for a ride (unfortunately the bush of the owner’s of the car) and I demonstrated my skillful ability of completely ignoring curbs as I park.
Actually it wasn’t all that bad, the many thousands of kilometers in Europe seem to have remained. Also, this place is damned easy to drive. A lot less traffic then in Singapore and the rest of the people seem to at least have an idea of what they are doing, despite the fact that a good percentage of them don’t even have their permits.
If you’re wondering why I haven’t updated each day, well that’s because we don’t have day to day access to the Internet. It’s odd, not having continuous exposure to the world wide web. I’m managing ok (no withdrawal symptoms yet), but I do feel like I’m beyond that scope of civilisation. Kind of nice now, but I wonder how I’ll be holding up in a couple of months.
Even if we were to get internet it would be a modem connection, so no just downloading a newspaper will take far too long. Oh well, at least we have a really nice garden to while away the hours in. That makes up for a bit.
For those that are interested, still no progress on the job front. Still, things could be worse, like I could have fucked up our visit to a house filled with like-minded people. Oh wait, I did.
Message in a bottle
I’ve now been in Australia for a few days and I’m enjoying is a lot. Outside of (the ever present) money troubles everything is going as well as it could. Liana got an absolutely great little apartment, which is just a few clicks away from everything that we might need. It’s also right off of a bus station, so we can get anywhere with easy, that in Australia (where everybody needs a car).
Thanks to the people that sent me a quick vote of confidence, always appreciate a pick me up! I’ll try to make certain that I update here often. Unfortunately right now I’m being harassed by Banana Super Hero Girl’s nieces and nephews, so I’m having a bit of trouble stringing an understandable sentence together.
We’re taking this laptop home, so that will mean that I can write in relative peace and quite, so expect more interesting tid bits then. (I say relative, because the holiday apartments across the way have tons of Chinese people in them and those people just do not understand the concept of sleeping in.)
Alright, I’ll leave it at that for right now, hope you guys are in good health and hopefully when I write next I’ll have a job and you can all come get drunk off of stuff I slip to you while the manager aint looking.
Hurrah hurrah, here here and titties to all!
Last Words
Last day in Singapore. Let me try to put in words, how I feel. This for future years, so that I may look back and compare what I feel like then to what I feel like now. (A long way to say, ‘keeping a memory’.)
I think this is possibly one of the hardest times to leave. I’m not exactly sure, as I can’t remember what I felt like when I left holland all those years ago, but I have the feeling that this one is the toughest. This is the place where, to date, I have the feeling I built the ‘biggest’ life. As I get older it seems to get a little harder to let go of the stability that friends and family provide.
Still, it is possible to let go and I’m looking forward to the chances that the future will provide. I leave with a lot more confidence then I did last time. This time I know I will succeed, together with Banana Super Hero Girl. I am confident in my abilities and my fear of two months ago has faded away to nothing. I am not afraid, for I know we will succeed. It is the way it has to be, so that is the way it will be.
I won’t miss Singapore, what I will miss is the people in Singapore. I hope they all fuck off out of Singapore, so that I can see them elsewhere. Singapore isn’t all bad, after all it has helped raise the most important woman in my life, but it is still pretty damn bad. This place will only let you grow so far and after that you hit a ceiling. Like a tree that grows too tall for the room it is in, the people that need to continue to grow, end up growing twisted. They end up growing in undesirable and uncontrollable directions, with their gnarled branches reaching out towards any chinks and gaps that can be found.
I feel sorry for the people in Singapore, because they can never truly understand what I’m talking about until they have spent some real time outside of Singapore. They will have trouble grasping open mindedness, because their lives are designed to be small-minded. I hope they find freedom and liberty in their time.
I will miss my friends and family. That is all I can say. I will also miss the convenience. That is something else that will require some readapting.
I just hope that this time I can take the effort to remain in touch with those people I have grown to love and respect here. I’ve gotten better, let’s hope I’ve gotten good enough.
Adieu Singapore, may your future be bright, your government disposed and your people be allowed to taste the fruits of free thought.
Adieu my friends, may the long arm of the law be too short to catch you when you stray, may those that need to feel the warmth of your inner fire and may you get what you deserve, what ever that may be.
Crossing the Divide
It has been a long time since I have posted here and a lot has changed in that time. Tomorrow I’m off to Perth to meet Liana, hopefully leaving Singapore behind for good. My job at Philips is over and things have changed very drastically. The entire friend circle that we had built up has fallen apart and scattered to the Four Corners of the earth (in some cases literally). In many ways I am no longer the person I was three months ago, of course in every other way I still am.
Went out last night and got plastered with a group of people (Laurence, Rachel, Shazam, Richard and ‘get him out of my apartment’ Matt). Finally didn’t end up getting a head ache (like I always do) because I came to the realisation that it was always the Marlboro Lights which were giving them to me and I switched brands (now smoking luckies).
Ended up crawling across the threshold in the whee hours of the morning (and this only on alcohol). It was good fun and a good last drink. Today I’m spending my time with my parents (family day, seemed fair). I need to do a whole heap of stuff, but I’m a bit hungover and not completely up for it.
So instead I decided to restart my Blog. I did actually try starting another one, but then came to the realisation that that was a bit futile. I used to actually have a lot of fun with this blog and I decided that I just should pick up where I left off (what’s three months?).
I guess in a few weeks I’ll be able to read back compare entries from before the gap and after the gap, to find out in what ways I’ve changed. A shame I didn’t map the mental journey, but I’m a lazy cunt and that is something that I’ve learned to accept. Something you’ll have to accept as well, I imagine. That's enough for right now, I'll get back into the swing of thigns slowly.
