(this has been sitting in my drafts for 2 weeks now)

so i went house hunting today [the sat i wrote this]. am i considered an adult now? :O i sourced the houses through propertyguru. though my dream home location is somewhere near the right fringe i still wanted somewhere close to yishun for now. so many thoughts about house hunting for the first time.

for starters, i didnt know what qn to ask. when you first approach the agent through whatsapp about house viewing they usually have a template of questions to ask you. like your name, age, citizenship, how long you wanna rent for, how soon you can move in, your occupation etc. initially i was thinking if i should lie about my occupation, just say a random office role or whatever but i didnt and went ahead with my actual job. i mean not that my job is embarrassing or indecent, i rather avoid so that i dont get any unnecessary request for consult

well there wasnt much issues with my so-called applications for house viewing except that one agent rejected my request because i was fully WFH. at the start i was ?? and even angry when she explained the reason for rejection but i was like whatever. perhaps it's not going to be that feeling if i were desperately looking for somewhere.

anyway the first hosue i viewed was somewhere in Zone G. i cycled there and yes, i got lost as usual though i kinda frequented that place >.< i was late for 5min so the agent was already waiting for me at the lift lobby. i quietly crept behind him and parked my bike but he saw me in the end, looking so shabby :/ the house belonged to his secondary school friend who was a single parent taxi driver supporting his daughter. and he fostered dogs!! aww so cute and he was really such a kind person. i was asking him if he were okay with me fully wfh, cos some owners were not okay due to the increase in usage and electricity for aircon etc and he very layman-ly chided those owners on my behalf (': but overall the house wasnt to my liking as it had an altar and i think he smoked but he's such a nice dude i hope God or Buddha blesses him somehow.

the second house was nearer to the mrt at blk 83X. mid-floor, also being rented out by a single parent. but this lady owner was in a better position so to speak. she look relatively young yet was retired and her son was part-time studying/full-time working. i kinda liked the room (it was bigger than the zone g one) and the house was rather cooling amidst the sullen weather. but i didnt give a reply to the agent in the end (nor did he chase) but as i sat in wildwood cafe that day for lunch, i was thinking about what i exactly wanted. it wasnt about money per se, or was it? i didnt know exactly. just grateful for the eye-opening experiences i guess. 

what does your birthday say about you?

mine says..that im a very private, individualistic and independent person. though im not a strong believer of horoscope i would probably say that's quite accurate of my character

i'm typically not a big fan of birthdays and celebrations and definitely not one who does like "im grateful for being born" kinda posts on birthdays

tbh i wasnt like that last time

looking back at all my hidden posts i would say i have changed. a lot. more solemn? probably more stoic. and definitely more private.

i dunno.

what changed?

life?

maybe the things ive seen and experience have changed me. is it for the better? i dunno

but am i proud? of the 29 years i achieved? maybe? maybe not. i used to dream that i would be so much more when i reached this age. married with a kid or two. climbing the career ladder. or working overseas in somewhere cool. never would i tot that my birthday wish would be for the people around me to stop dying i guess. 

im sorry if it sounds morbid but this is exactly the kind of thing i cant openly say when people ask me what my birthday wish is. i cant cry and tell people if wishes could come true, i wish there would be no illnesses in the world, that people wont suffer and fall ill.

im sorry for being private about such matters but i dunno how to explain and open up to others. if i have real birthday wishes, i hope people never get to see the paleness of a dead body; a sight that never get erased from your memory no matter how tired you are and how your eyes are closing. the sight of your mother bawling her eyes out - the same woman who is strong enough to survive 2 cancer relapses; i hope people never have to see their loved ones suffer in hospital beds or lose so much weight or just have refluxes from all the medicine they have to take and you just cant do anything to help them.

i wish: people never have to experience loss and death ):

and my condolences to the family of 14-year-old girl who jumped. i know the pain you feel. i really do. i know what it means when you say it never goes away, it will always be on your heart. i do. ive been there too.

im not exactly one who expresses her thoughts very well..all these posts you see here are products of thoughts that have been sitting in my drafts for weeks, even months on end. still i believe that writing down thoughts is a healthy outlet for emotions. so how am i recently?

i guess after reading thewokesalaryman's latest post im glad that someone managed to verbalize my inner thoughts. it's been a year-ish since covid struck and singapore being in and out of lockdowns, albeit their fancy names like circuit breaker CB [meant to liken a bad word] and heightened alert HA. i for starters dont stay home on pre-covid days except for maybe weekends and the "lockdowns" have stifled me more by forcing me to work, eat and sleep all in one space.

i really miss sitting in cafes/macs to read/write and just surf the web aimlessly while enjoying food or the scenic views. i miss travelling, those getting lost days while exploring new cities and streets. and most of all, i miss my freedom. 

not many people might understand, but i really want to move out. i know others see that i have a big nice house with my own room and own toilet and all but that's just the surface.

i dislike eating homecooked food. i mean it's great that i get to save money and that my mother cooks, but i really dont like the food she cooks. i dont blame her too, but it's just that i like pasta i like sushi i like ramen, none of which she will ever cook or buy cos she doesnt like them. but that's not the only reason. 

staying at home is just..very negative. my father and i have many conflicts cos we have very very very different living habits. i hate it when things are disorganized in the house, i hate keeping useless stuff, i hate it when rooms arent bright and i hate it when music gets too loud and i hate it when people touch my stuff without permission. perhaps i sound very unreasonable and prissy to you but im sorry that's just my habits and me. unfortunately my father is the totally opposite. he will finish food in the fridge though he didnt buy the food, and he wouldnt even tell me. he likes working in the kitchen though he has his own study room which makes it very hard for me to make breakfast or my drinks. and he like to text me to do stuff. i dont like to be chased to do very trivial stuff especially when im extremely busy. i mean i will do it when im free. period. if im not doing it i didnt forget, i just dont have the time.

but i guess, above all, i hate staying home cos i just feel like im obliged to do stuff because im stuck at home and have "nothing to do". 

for instance my relatives like coming over to play mj every sunday. and cos mj is a 4-people game i have to play. and when they play it's really for hours on end, until 11+pm in the night. before covid we went to my uncle's house every sunday and imagine staying until 11+pm and then reaching home to get ready for back to work on monday..it's crazy. i mean i could say no but they'll make all these fuss. and it's not just about playing long hours. it's about playing with seniors - relatives older than you and it really feels that i have to lose in order for them to be happy else whenever i win they just keep making those snide remarks about how i always win but when they win it's another attitude altogether. im really really tired of all these double standards you know.

and sometimes on sundays i just wanna unwind and nua and lie down and just scroll aimlessly on my phone just to unwind. but they keep making comments about how im so lazy and all. and sometimes i really have a lot of work to do i just wanna use weekends to catch up on work cos i dont wanna work until 3/4am to finish before monday. sigh. is spending 1k to move out worth to buy the headspace i need?

Random coincidence meeting Evan at the coffeeshop on thu night and spontaneously joining her cell haha

I had just texted her two min before and I tot she saw my msg so she tapped me to say hi but turns out she didn’t read my msg and it was pure coincidence wowww

I haven’t attended a cell in years, partly cos I don’t like to pray and I’m not the kind who likes big group sharing so I always make excuses for attending cell (terrible I know) anyway they were sharing about James 4: 13-17 which rebukes people for planning ahead selfishly without putting God in place. not to say that planning is bad, but to believe that we humans have total control over their lives is foolish

And then the cell leader asked if we have in our lives the same instance as James? Where we tried to plan a perfect life only to have God thwart our plans and throw us in another direction? And this guy B spoke up about how he experienced death of his close ones one after another within a short span of time and he admitted he was very angry at God for letting him experience all these grief and loss that he ran away from church. Eventually he met his fiancee who brought him back to church aww

What was more interesting was what he said about the time it takes to heal. he said that it takes one year to move on from the death of someone you anticipated eg sickness, old age, and it takes up to 4 years to move on from the unexpected death of someone close eg accident, just sudden without any reason. Well I did google about this before, but I didnt actively count or take note how long I take to get over a grief so it was kinda interesting that someone/some research actually put a measure of time to such stuff

His sharing also reminded me of what I planned at the start of the year, not really a resolution but I did bring up 2 things I wanted to focus on for 2021. Sad to say, point 1 cannot be completed anymore but maybe God wants me to actively focus on no. 2? well story about the challenge for that another day

And that night in the car we were tuning in to yes 933 and the dj (I think was hazelle) was talking about 2 unhealthy mental habits people have - (this was in Chinese but I translated it so pardon me for misrep)


1. Being jealous/envious of someone’s life based on what you see on social media

yups. many a times we only see things at a surface level. I rmb telling my piano teacher that I wished I was like Mozart or some genius too. But she chided me for being silly; I didn’t see how many hours these people put in to get that result 台上一分钟，台下十年功 [one minute on the stage, ten years behind the scenes] yknow

2. Wishing you could go back and choose another path instead

most of the times there aren’t right and wrong to choices/decisions; whatever we decide just sets us on a different path but that doesn’t mean we won’t be happy or we will be happy. It’s just the butterfly effect of things, any action we embark will set off different consequences and we cannot 100% confirm that if we go back and make another decision, we will definitely be happier

I admit I still have these 2 habits and tbh it’s hard to let go and not be influenced by people/things around you unless you really abstain from social media/outside world and live in cave all alone but wells, more growth to work on it seems. been a thought-ful night.

(side note: b really looks like you sp (‘: and his story is so similar to yours just that it’s reversed in your case)

It’s a weird feeling..

to see someone close to you growing..

that girl who told you she’ll marry her first boyfriend, while saying that holding hands was icky, is now a mother of 2, that girl whom you shared the bedroom for 20 years and lived at loggerheads with is now breastfeeding and teaching you how to change her baby’s nappy..you just wonder if anyone noticed your growth too? Or did you even grow?

At the same time, growth isn’t for everybody. There’s only so much one can grow..mentally I and physically. Some people reach the limit earlier, some later..if I could, of course I would wish everyone to live forever but unfortunately it’s not within my control

Perhaps it’s the uncertainty and brevity of life that makes it unfathomable and precious I guess? 

i rmb there's this scene in TGP where Eleanor was in the queue for froyo and she couldnt decide what flavour to get so she just turned around to the guy behind her and said "why dont you just go ahead?". then she was enlightened as she realized that it was the first time she didnt hog the queue or turn nasty when people behind her asked her to hurry up so she was very excited about it she immediately ran home to tell Chidi about it

and when she was recalling it to Chidi she reflected that in TGP it's actually quite easy to build good karma and be good or make morally upright choices. the reason being she didnt have to worry about anything - on earth she was always preoccupied with repaying debt and so she had to take on various dubious sales roles where she scammed people for a living hahaha and she was always selfish (buying her own cake and celebrating her own birthday so that she wont be obliged to chip in and share when it came to other people's birthdays, being mean to the dude who wanted to pass her a flyer for saving earth which resulted in her ultimate death) and did anything against her conscience in order to survive

and it's like what maslow says, people have to fulfill their most basic needs first - food/clothing etc before they can finally put priority on the goals at the tip of the pyramid - self-actualization: focusing on improving themselves, finding purpose in their lives, being grateful and contented

in 2020 a lot of people's base (of the maslow pyramid) were hit. many lost their jobs, fell sick to covid and struggled to put food on their tables. only a handful of luckier ones were still able to extend their hand to others without compromising their own resources. the world, in short, suffered tremendously. in the midst of 2020 we saw singapore slowly recovering while other countries continued to suffer wave after wave of covid - it's like watching the 5th wave or any other post-apocalyptic movie in 3D haha. but then again it's the end of 2020 now and i still dont see any light at the end of the tunnel. the world, indeed, has developed a new normal that we cant go back to the way things were pre-covid

sighs. anyways.

happy new year everyone and i hope everyone ultimately can climb to the top of their pyramids (: