Of molestations and XiaXue

I have been reading Xiaxue's blog for a while. In the beginning, I find her loud and obnoxious, one who is always swearing to get what she wants and one who is a thinks too highly of herself.

However, after exploring her site more and reading more into detail about her life, I find her a normal young girl at heart. One who is not afraid of speaking her mind and letting others know her thoughts, even though it offends others. And most of all, one who dares to stand up for herself and for her friends.

Her accounts of her being molested was a good read, not just on the weird kinds of MAN that exist but also on how she managed to stand up against these perverts.

I think most girls have one time of another been in a situation where MAN took advantage of them before. I believe I speak for them when I said the experience will make you feel disgusted and dirty and most of all angry. And yet, generally the most common reaction would be that of a forget-about-it kind of attitude cos its kind of embarrassing to make a fuss. There is also the fear of being accused that you are over reacting and it was just a simple accident.

I was in a number of such situations before. The youngest was when I was in primary school, probably about 10 years old. I had just started to develop breasts and because they are not obvious enough, I wasn't wearing any bra. I was at a swimming pool, waiting for my swimming lessons to commence when this middle aged man happened to slip and fall. His hands conveniently pressed onto my breasts, one hand on each breasts. I was flabbergasted, I mean I was young, not knowing what to do and he was so much bigger than me after all. Besides, he did seem like he had a real fall. He apologized and loiter around me. The nerve of him! Scared, I ran to my mum and told her. She ran out to confront that pervert but he was already gone.

Yucks.

Next incident. Common scenario. On the bus. I was sitting down and this man was beside me. He was sleeping soundly and also conveniently, his head nodded and rest conveniently on my chest, almost touching me. Anytime the bus jerked, his head would have rest comfortably on my breasts. Fucking sick bastard. Pardon the strong language cos I am still pissed when I think back now. Luckily, the bus reached my stop and I stood up. He looked up and looked irritated that the pair of bosoms that will soon to be his pillows were gone.

And then there was this time when I was sitting at the inner seat on a bus (again), and this old man was sleeping (again) beside me. The longer he slept, the nearer he would lean towards me and then his hands would just sort of fell onto my laps. I was trying my darnest to move inside and he was trying his darnest to lean onto me. Until finally, I stood up and sat behind him. Surprises and surprises he woke up and came to sit beside me again! Until this nice lady told me to sit beside her cos she witnessed the whole scene and apparently, according to her, she said she always noticed this old man trying the same trick quite a number of times.

There were some more incidents when I was taken advantage of. Brushing of my breasts, rubbing the dick on my thighs/butts, rubbing of shoulders, leaning closely towards me and intruding my private space etc, you name it.

Perverts are everywhere and like XX said, we should stand up for ourselves. Do not ever let yourself be shortchanged cos you are the only person to defend yourself. Let no one intrude your body. Most of all, respect yourself.

For this, I take my hat off XX. I admired her courage and respect her for saying what we should all be doing.

Life is beautiful?

In the morning, i feel the breeze
The sun watches over me
The sound of water, the crashing sea
Is it only me, that feels alive
Its all ahead on me, cos it feels so right

Just open your eyes and see

That life is beautiful, so beautiful
Its beautiful to me
That life is beautiful, so beautiful
Its beautiful to me

Life can take anywhere
You don't know where it leads you
But you know you not alone
Just open your eyes and see

That life is beautiful, so beautiful
Its beautiful to me
That life is beautiful, so beautiful
Its beautiful to me

(Thank you, Paddy for sending me this song)

Is life really beautiful?
I did not see the sun, I did not feel the breeze, I did not see the crashing sea.
All I can see are the disappointments in life, the complications of human interactions, the anger and frustration of being let down and the dissatisfactions of being misunderstood.

Perhaps my vision is clouded.

Or perhaps not.

Sometimes when you expect too much, your disappointment is greater.

A friend stood me up today. And another friend disappoint me today.

The year of 2006 is leaving in a few hours. The year of 2007 is at our back door. The new year ushers in new hopes and new dreams. I hope this year shall be a better one than the past. I hope this year I will be more clear headed, more wise and more strong. I need all these to survive. I must survive. Life is a bitch in the ass sometimes and she will bite you in the ass if you are not smart or not tough enough to handle her.

Sometimes when you are disappointed too many times, you tend to get very defensive and very morbid. Perhaps its a kind of survival instinct.

Bite first before you get bitten.

Happy Birthday

Happy Birthday
Make a wish

Please accept my apologies, I wonder what would have been.
Would you have been a little angel or an angel of sin?
Tom-boy running around, hanging with all the guys.
Or a little tough boy with beautiful brown eyes.
I paid for the murder before they determined the sex,
choosing our life over your life meant your death.
And you never got a change to even open your eyes,
sometimes I wonder as a fetus if you fought for your life.

Would you have been a little genius? In love with math?
Would you have played in your school clothes and made me mad?
Would you have been a little rapper like your poppa The Piper?
Would you have made me quit smoking by finding one of my lighters?
I wonder about your skin tone and shape of your nose,
and the way you would've laughed and talked fast or slow.
I think about it every year, so I picked up a pen.

Happy birthday, I love you whoever you would've been

Happy Birthday
What I thought was a dream
Make a wish
Was as real as it seemed
I made a mistake

I got a million excuses, as to why you died.
And other people got their own reasons for homicide.
Who's to say it would've worked and who's to say I wouldn't have
I was young and struggling, but old enough to be a dad.
The fear of being my father has never disappeared,
I ponder it frequently while I was sippin' on my beer.
My vision of a family was artificial and fake
so what it came time to create, I made a mistake.
But now you got a little brother, maybe it's really you.
Maybe you really forgave us knowing we were confused.
Maybe, every time that he smiles, it's you proudly
knwing that your father's doing the right thing now.
I'll never tell a woman what to do with her body
but if she don't love children, then we can't party.

Happy Birthday, I love you whoever you would've been.
Happy Birthday

Happy Birthday
What I thought was a dream
Make a wish
Was as real as it seemed
I made a mistake

And from the Heavens to the womb to the Heavens again.
From the ending to the ending, never got to begin.
Maybe one day we can meet face to face,
in a place without time and space.

Happy Birthday.

Merry Chirstmas!

Merry Chirstmas everyone!

And a Happy New Year! May the new year usher in your wishes and make them come true!

Of love and expressions of love

Magic is when 2 persons from different parts of location met and then sparks fly. It is when the 2 persons know that they are going to spend the rest of their lives together as one whole entity. Such is what we mere mortals call love. It has the power to fulfil, the power to heal and ironically, it also has the power to hurt, to break and to destroy.

I attended a friend's wedding today. The couple looked so happy together, they may not be very incompatible in terms of height or in terms of education or even in terms of family background. And yet, they are such a heavenly match. Most of all, they love each other so much. Love does not need to be seen from extravagances, it is readily seen from little actions and thoughts too. Actions like the groom pulling the bride's hands, the groom helping the bride to take her stuff, the bride wiping the beads of perspiration from the groom's forehead.

They looked so happy together.

I saw many expressions of love today. An uncle helping his wife to take food and asking her if she is alright. A young man rubbing the arm of his girlfriend when she was hugging herself. A bride worrying about if her groom has had his dinner amidst all the preparations for their wedding. Little expressions like this are more touching and heartwarming than extravaggant expressions of love.

A couple of people asked me today, "when shall be your turn to get married then?"

Seriously, I don really know how to answer their question. How am I going to answer them when I myself don even know the answer? Besides how am I going to tell them painful truth?

I will have to attend another wedding next week again. And then another 2 again next year.

I am tired. I have no idea if I can still withstand the emotional price that comes with seeing all these expressions of love. I really really don want to spend another afternoon coped up in my room crying again.

You will never know

Problems, when you do not tackle them will just remain as problems. It is only when you have the solutions to tackle and solve your problems, then will they be destroyed.

However, sometimes there are no easy solutions around. I wish there were. I really wish there were. Problems, no matter what kind will tend to eat into you and pull you into an abyss of never ending state of sorriness.

Somehow I wish things could have been different. That I was at the wrong time and at the wrong moment. That during that faithful day, I did not stay up late or that I did not post a blog entry. Things are so weird sometimes. You never really know that what you do now, no matter how minute would lead to larger consequences.

Rain pours like never ending sorrow, coldness seeps like there is no tomorrow.

I care about your sorrow and I wanna know your sorrow. Every time you are cold, I feel a lot colder than you.

It hurts like hell for your heart feels like its being gutted by dagger.

And every time you feels that way, I feel a lot worse than you.

Its just that you will never know.

Person of the Year award

Oh Wow! I have been named the Person of the Year in Times magazine!

I would like to thank my parents, thank my friends, thank my aunties, thank my uncles, thank my sister, thank my brothers. I would like to thank my fans for reading about me and giving me this chance for contributing to the world. Thank you everyone!

Now, back to reality.... Shit...

Angst or simply boredom?

I really wonder what is really the enjoyment in scribbling things that only you yourself can understand in an enclosed room; a toilet.

Looking at the scribblings, they are all done by kids, students, our children. Is this the product of our education or is this the fault of the parents? Who gets the blame? How about the children themselves? Ultimately they made the choice to destroy public property, should we put the fault on them or should we blame the adults?

This was taken at the toilet on the first level of West Mall. The toilets there have been vandalized so many times that the management there have kinda given up on washing it, choosing to repaint the walls instead. The original colour of the toilet walls were yellow, instead of dark green. Perhaps dark green paint is a cheaper paint?

Someone please tell me what is the joy and enjoyment in hiding in a dark and stinky toilet cubicle and drawing and scribbling words and phrases that only the scribblers can understand? I thought the whole idea of using a public toilet is to finish your business as fast as you can and then get the hell out cos its a dirty and germ/bacteria filled place? Why waste time there showing your creativity there when there are other better places for one to do that??

Sigh..

Of Sukiyaki and wet market

I was at a Japanese restaurant along Siglap Road last weekend when I overhead the following conversation. It went something like this:

"Boy, you are eating Japanese food now. Next year, mummy shall bring you to Japan to eat their Japanese food ok."

I turned my head my right and there was this happy family having their dinner. On the table was an assortment of Japanese food. In fact, the table was packed with food. Some of them had actually spilled out onto the table top actually. There was a rather pretty lady with her hubby sitting beside her. On her right was a baby in a baby chair. Facing them were their children, a pair of boy and girl, less than 10 years of age.

And then I turned to my right. There was another family. And extended family this time. There was the a kid too and all the rest were adults. The kid looked also to be less than 10 years old.

At the far end of the restaurant, there was another happy family eating. There was a father and a mother with their boy and girl, also less than 10 years old.

In fact, everywhere I looked, almost all the patrons in the restaurants are families having their dinner. Me and my friend are the only non family there.

Back to the first family. I was thinking, "These people must be rich. Come to such a restaurant to having dinner and ordered so much food! That meal on the left alone must have cost like $200 plus I think! Singaporeans are definitely getting richer!

When I was younger, my parents never really brought us out for meals. Two simple reasons. First, nothing is healthier than eating at home. Second, we could never afford. My father was the sole breadwinner and he was a blue collar worker. My mum had to stay home and sew clothes to bring the 3 of us up. Dinner everyday was a simple meal consisting of 2 dishes and a soup at home. Holidays were spent at home watching TVs during the weekdays, whatever shows that was on and then cartoons during the weekends. Sometimes, father would bring us whole family out for an evening out at the nearby NTUC to get groceries for the week. McDonald's was once in a super purple moon. (Come to think of it, I cannot recall my parents bring us to McDonald's for a meal!) Toys for us kids were bought from the nearby market place and I have always enjoyed going with my mother to the wet market when I was younger cos that would meant that I might have a chance to get her to buy me toys.

I wonder if those kids in the Japanese restaurants ever stepped into a wet market with its slippery floor, its dirty and smelly chicken cages with live chickens inside and sweaty uncles and aunties shouting and blabbering in dialects. Or have they ever played at the local playground with the sand, getting all sweaty and dirty? Or seeing their father worked his ass off, sometimes 24 hours a day, all through the night and then coming back home, pissed and dirty cos he was bullied by his supervisor? Or seeing their mother sewed clothes until late in the night just to earn that few hundreds and then feeling overjoyed when her earnings for that month hit a record high of $300?

I really wonder......

Anyway, just some pictures of the stuff that I had. The Japanese restaurant do serve up a mean dish of beef Sukiyaki though....

Casino Royale 007%

He does not look as charming though...

Choices again

Jerry is the manager of a restaurant. He is always in a good mood. When someone would ask him how he was doing, he would always reply:

"If I were any better, I would be twins!"

Many of the waiters at his restaurant quit their jobs when he changed jobs, so they could follow him around from restaurant to restaurant. If an employee was having a bad day, Jerry was always there, telling the employee how to look on the positive side of the situation. Seeing this style really made people curious, so one day someone went up to Jerry and asked him：

"No one can be a positive person all of the time. How do you do it?"

Jerry replied, "Each morning I wake up and say to myself, I have two choices today. I can choose to be in a good mood or I can choose to be in a bad mood. I always choose to be in a good mood. Each time something bad happens, I can choose to be a victim or I can choose to learn from it. I always choose to learn from it. Every time someone comes to me complaining, I can choose to accept their complaining or I can point out the positive side of life. I always choose the positive side of life."

"Life is all about choices. When you cut away all the junk, every situation is a choice. You choose how you react to situations. You choose how people will affect your mood. You choose to be in a good mood or bad mood. It's your choice how you live your life."

Several years later, Jerry accidentally did something you are never supposed to do in the restaurant business. He left the back door of his restaurant open. In the morning, he was robbed by three armed men.

While Jerry was trying to open the safe box, his hand, shaking from nervousness, slipped off the combination. The robbers panicked and shot him. Luckily, Jerry was found quickly and rushed to the hospital. After 18 hours of surgery and weeks of intensive care, Jerry was released from the hospital with fragments of the bullets still in his body.

Six weeks later, Jerry was up and running. When people asked about his health, he replied, "If I were any better, I'd be twins. Want to see my scars?" When people asked about what he was thinking while being robbed, he replied, "The first thing that went through my mind was that I should have locked the back door,"

"Then, after they shot me, as I lay on the floor, I remembered that I had two choices: I could choose to live or could choose to die. I chose to live."

Jerry continued, "The paramedics were great. They kept telling me I was going to be fine. But when they wheeled me into the Emergency Room and I saw the expression on the faces of the doctors and nurses, I got really scared. In their eyes, I read 'He's a dead man.' I knew I needed to take action."

"There was a big nurse shouting questions at me," said Jerry. "She asked if I was allergic to anything."

'Yes,' I replied.

The doctors and nurses stopped working as they waited for my reply. I took a deep breath and yelled, 'Bullets!' Over their laughter, I told them, 'I am choosing to live. Please operate on me as if I am alive, not dead'.

Jerry lived thanks to the skill of his doctors, but also because of his amazing attitude.

Every day you have the choice to either enjoy your life or to hate it. The only thing that is truly yours -- that no one can control or take from you is your attitude, so if you can take care of that, everything else in life becomes much easier.

I finally managed to go Vivo City today. Its huge, its humongous..!

It kinda reminds me of a cross between Mid Valley and KLCC in Kuala Lumpur.

I went to the cinema there, GV Max and apparently its one of the largest screen in Asia, as told by CN, to which I asked, how is anyone able to say its one of the largest when there are tons of cinemas in Asia. I mean, Asia is the largest continent and there are so many countries in there so how can a cinema in little Singapore claimed to be one of the largest?! And to which CN replied, "One of, the emphasis is on 'One of'."

Anyway, there is even a watered walkway on the highest level, which by the way is only level 3. The place is large cos it spreads out far. The watered walkway is just a long and wide and shallow pool which spans the center portion of the highest level. There were a number of kids waddling in the pool and some adults walking inside with their kids too. I was quite impressed with it, its rather unique and creative, though someone should do something to the colour of the tiles in the pool. Its a light shade of beige and it made the pool water looked muddy. A turquoise or blue or green colour would be so much better.

The day I permed my hair

I went to perm my hair today.

It took so long. I think I entered the salon at about 1pm and only exited from the place at about 4pm. My hair was pulled, stretched, curled, blown dry and cut. Besides all these, I have lots of chemicals dumped on it too.

And the whole process set me back by $273.

It was money well spent though.

The first thing that my mum said when she saw me was that you look so pretty, so different, so like a bride. Now, that really helps to cheer me up manz..!

I think I looked so much better than before. My hair has much more volume now and with my fading colouring of my hair, I think I kinda looked a little like a Japanese porn starlet. Minus the figure though. Heh!