Today was one of those active days which I like though I didn't actually manage to complete my errands fully ...
I woke up at 3am (again!) and didn't get back to sleep at 6am. The same old panic about work and gloom about feeling unnecessary cropped up again over the 3 hours that I lay there, tossing and turning and listening to the trucks, cars, buses and motorbikes going past. I live on the 9th floor but you'd be amazed at the clarity of the vehicle noises at that time of night. Or morning even. I watched the shadows and street lights reflected onto the ceiling and thought, gosh there is a lot of light pollution here.
Anyway, I heard mum's alarm go off at 5.30am and then made a fervent prayer to say oh God please let me fall asleep before it gets light and I think that worked. The next thing I knew, it was 9.30am and I had an achy head again. I jumped out of bed and got washed, had breakfast and got dressed and was out of the house at 9.55am pronto, ready to start my day with Task Numero Uno. Or Tasko Numero Uno.
The visa application. I get to the visa office by memory. I didn't really note the address but I remembered vaguely where I should get off the bus and vaguely what the building looked like. Only it was slightly tricky as there were renovation works and everything had been stripped bare save the building name and address. Hrm. Luckily my hunch was proven correct when I checked the directory - I didn't know the floor number either, yes I am efficient and organised! - and thank goodness for the directory. Unfortunately, after waiting an hour for my queue number to be called, I found that I was short of a couple of documents so Tasko Numero Uno was left incomplete. I'll be going tomorrow morning now that I've sorted the odd bits of documentation. I can't wait to finish that off.
The afternoon was much better. I met up with Shiying for lunch and she was late as she had loads of blisters on her feet from ill-fitting footwear and so she was trying to find a pair of flipflops that would not aggravate the condition of her feet. She finally found another pair of ill-fitting slippers but that had to suffice. It was quite funny in a way. She's a really bright girl, just got married too but as she pointed out, contrary to what her American husband's friends were conjecturing - the stereotypical demure and gentle Asian girl = perfect wife material - she's a gung ho outdoors kind of girl. A true leader. I guess us RGS girls weren't ever going to compare with SCGS girls in the gold and jade ladylike competition. We had a lovely lovely time. Shiying is one of my best friends and her energy is boundless. We went back to our old school Raffles Girls and walked around and it all looked so familiar. It was odd in a way as I dreamt about the spiral staircase last night or the night before and there it was, still as it was 9 years ago when we left our alma mater, 16 year old girls looking to take on the world with our best shot. We may not be the delicate Asian beauties like the SCGS girls but there's a bit of fight in every RGS girl. It's not that the teachers didn't try to make us ladies - we talked about the funny grooming classes too where we had to learn how to eat and how to walk haha! Past the canteen, the amphitheatre, the field which now has a proper running track, the area where the softball girls did batting practice, the tennis courts, D&T room with the smily teacher and deadly equipment, the mini-amphitheatre where we used to have house practice, the once pink but now icky brown stained rock wall that we scaled, the time capsule that was sealed about 10 years ago during Founders Day and the odd bronze statue of the front porch with the doves that are supposed to symbolise something that neither of us could remember haha ... the biology classrooms overlooking the carpark ... the stained glass window with our school crest and badge. Filiae Melioris Aevi. Daughters of a Better Age.
Those were my best days at school. We worked hard and played hard. It's uplifting to know that so many have passed through these gates and made a future for themselves. In some ways it gives me some strength to know that if nothing else, the RGS girl knew what she wanted and would work to get it, if nothing else, she had some fight left in her. And I am one of them.
Talking to Shiying also has some downsides as she works in finance and we were chatting about financial capitals of the world and all that finance talk made me quite sad as it reminds me of that nagging feeling that I don't feel necessary, I don't feel I belong to this Global City that encroaches on every part of our lives here in Singapore, or any other city ... though I guess in retrospect, it's partly because I feel so insecure at the moment, being a student and afraid that I'll always be a worry for my mum and my sister will always have to help me out financially ... and also the loneliness I guess. People tend to turn to retail therapy to buy things that will fill the gaps in their lives but I can't do that. I guess it's back to the whole feeling incomplete issue, about how when you come from a family that doesn't function you always want to fix it and make your own functional family ... it's a sort of instinctive wish-fulfillment of sorts. Shiying and I spoke of depression too, how she had a bout of depression when she was stuck in an unfulfilling job and she felt so free when she finally quit her bond and paid it all back but when depression was due to a more deep-rooted kind of dysfuntionality, like something that cannot be altered, like family issues, then it's something that stays with you and shapes you for life. I think that's why I feel rather mournful. I can't fix my family but there's the need to fix it yet the closest I got to having a stable relationship has now come to nought as well and after all that trust coming to nothing I sort of feel unable to relate. It's just numb with a dull chronic ache.
Apart from chatting and sharing confidances, we also went shopping as Shiying had such a huge blister she simply had to get some new footwear and I helped her pick one pair of sandals which I might get too :) and she chose another pair plus a belt for her trenchcoat. The drycleaner lost the belt so she hadn't worn it for 2 years but now that she was heading back to the US, she needed the coat again so it was quite a stroke of luck that we got her new shoes and a new belt all in the same shop! I quite enjoy shopping for people - Shiying hates shopping as it's too stressful. I used to shop with Jon to pick going out shirts and we even picked a jacket and shoes from Paris! He lost the jacket in one of his drunken intern nights out but we bought the same one the following year in Paris again. That was in 2003. Fran posted a photo of us all at my birthday meal, with Emily and Marc plus the usual crew, on Facebook.
At times like these no words but just a leaden weight falls upon my heart. If I hurt long enough it will hurt no longer.
One person, one half, then the relationship will never fade ... hokkien song lyric from 881, a new movie by Royston Tan that I went to watch with Zhiying yesterday. Intensely funny and immensely emotional. It's films like these that are uniquely Singaporean, with Singaporean nuances and requiring cultural capital that cannot be learnt but that is accumulated by a local-born growing up in the strange mish-mash of cultures that makes Singapore.
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