Life has become more unpredictable than ever since the beginning of this year.
My younger brother and I were always at loggerheads when we were young. He has, however, grown up to become a very sensible person and we become very close.
As I have been putting stress on myself without taking much rest, I am prepared to die of brain cancer or similar illness at a young age. I used to think that I can depend on him to take care of my mum when I am gone.
When he notified me that his body was acting weird, I was lost.
A few days later, when he returned from Bali, we went straight to the Accident and Emergency (A&E) department of Singapore General Hospital (SGH). It was one of my most hated places. Scenes over there were nasty, especially when I had to witness foreigners crying over to the lost of their friend.
Half of my brother’s body was experiencing numbness on the right side and it seemed like needles were poking him. Doctors and nurses began to get worried after they conducted X-ray and CT scan. Initial finding was either brain bleeding or blood clot, as we were told different stories by the staffs.
I had to lie to my gullible mum that my brother went over purposely just because he had bought travel insurance and wanted to make full use of it. My acting skill excelled as I remained calm in front of my mum even when my brother was admitted to the Intensive Care Unit (ICU). Perhaps, his condition was not so critical at the moment but it happened that the high dependency (HD) ward was full and he had to be admitted inside the more critical ward.
When my relatives started to find out about my brother’s condition, I had to answer them on the phone besides my mum, pausing for a few seconds to suppress the urge to burst out, before explaining in a relaxing tone. That was what grown-ups had to learn to do.
There was no feeling of festive season. I was glad enough that we could get time-off for him to go out for our reunion dinner. My brother was hospitalized until the second day of Chinese New Year. We did not manage to see the doctor in charge to ask about his condition. We were also disappointed with the management of the hospital.
My brother needs no medication at the moment and we are all clueless about what will happen next. His illness is likely to be “Post Thalamic Syndrome” as researched online. I cannot imagine myself feeling the numbness over half of my body symmetrically and boiling over my leg occasionally.
I’m beginning to feel numb as well. Staying alive is mainly to face hardship. My work alone has already taken away half of my smiles.
I began the day blogging while doing SEO for the quit smoking site. It had been quite long since I started neglecting it. I went to bed at 5am.
My aunt woke me up at around 11am when she came over with our breakfast. However, she added chilli and we could not finish the spicy noodle. We took bus 75 to the home at Bukit Panjang to visit our uncle.
After the long trip, it was one of the worst moments I would ever want to be in – looking at my uncle nearly made my tears fall. He was one of the best guys on earth and it really hurt to see him in such state that he could not even think. Sitting on the wheel chair, he was tied to it and saliva continued to drip.
After leaving the home, we went to Bukit Panjang Plaza for a quick bite at the MacDonald’s. We shared two Mac Nugget and one filet-o-fish meal. Then, we went to Daiso to shop. We went to the bus-interchange and a cute wild dog caught our attention.
I continued with the SEO work for my tuition agency site. In the late evening, I caught the movie “Zombie Land” at on a SCV channel.
It was a totally different Chinese New Year Day 2 this year because my uncle on my dad’s side went overseas with his family and thus there was no gathering. My main stream of ang bao money was eliminated and it was my poorest Chinese New Year ever.
While my family went to Chinatown to squeeze with the others, I played the Command and Conquer game by myself to relax. I managed to push the new article regarding teenage dating to live and sleep at 5am.
I woke up at around 1pm and my family and I went to my aunt’s house an hour later. We did not buy MacDonald’s and dined over instead. As my aunt had not been cooking regularly, there were insects inside the rice and I was quite disgusted while eating, picking up more than ten dead bodies in the small portion of rice. I did not finish it.
All of us dozed off after the relatives left. Suddenly, my young uncle woke up and Lucky barked at him and there were some dramas. I was quite disgusted and did not feel like staying there at all.
In the evening after we got home, the Red Cliff movie screened on channel 8 distracted me from my SEO work for the tuition agency. My aunt from my dad’s side came over and my family went to the “Chun Dao He Pang” with her. I stayed at home alone again with Lucky.
I spent some time blogging for the tuition agency and went to sleep after 3am.
I woke up at 9am to get ready for movie with my family. We caught “Ghosts must be Crazy” at Tiong Bahru Plaza at 11am. It was one of the lamest shows I had ever caught. It had two stories and the last one was really sick. I regretted catching it.
We had lunch at the food court. The four of us had kaya toast with eggs. The tea was diluted. My younger brother went straight for his tuition assignment. We went to the M1 shop for a while. After taking the train back, we went to the NTUC for a while and my mum went missing.
While I was trying to blog and do my work, Joanna messaged me and I was very stressed by her because I could no longer afford more hours to help her do her programming assignment. I started on a new article on teenage dating.
My aunt came over with my youngest uncle and we had reunion dinner at the Kopitiam at Pinnacle Duxton. It was the first time we dined out on the Chinese New Year Eve night.
After that, my youngest uncle went to Chinatown by himself to walk around. My mum and I walked my aunt to the bus-stop at Everton Park.
After reaching home, I continued with my work. There was some discussion regarding the tuition agency.
At first, I thought I could spend more time on my web development during the Chinese New Year festival, but it turned out that I had lesser time to do my own stuffs.
A day before New Year Eve, I had already spent quite some time sweeping the floor and cleaning the toilet. I did not expect my family to start doing spring cleaning on the New Year Eve itself. I could not help much since the items to be thrown were mainly my mum's "treasure", inclusive of all the branded unused containers, collected since before I was born. As for the shoes and bathroom's stuffs, I had no idea who they belonged to. Later part of simple tasks caused me backache. Nevertheless, my brothers did very good job in making my mum dump many old stuffs.
After the reunion dinner, I struggled to do work until my family wanted to go to Chinatown at around 1am. It was a wrong choice to follow them for it was still too early for the big crowds to disperse and that the cheap goodies were not at the lowest prices yet. For the previous year, I would leave my house at around 3am. I got nothing in the end.
We visited my mum's sister as usual on the first day of Chinese New Year. We bought MacDonald's and dined over the house since we woke up late and did not want to further waste time taking lunch at the restaurant itself. Like the previous years, we were caught with visitors while we were eating. It was not an enjoyable trip since around ten years ago ever since my eldest uncle suffered from the unknown illness. It was only during Chinese New Year that my aunt would accept red packet from us and that explained why my "income" was lower than usual people's during Chinese New Year. The topics they talked were dead boring and sad. It was more of the plans for my aunt's future and mostly on the issue of the flat. A big joke was my mum's second brother sending his son over during New Year Eve to show my aunt her "god daughter-in-law", trying to hook up with my aunt obviously for the flat. The disgusting part was that this proud family would only visit my aunt once every year. Luckily, my aunt and my youngest uncle could at least recognise who were the relatives who had been treating them sincerely all these years.
We went to River Ang Bao at night as usual since my mum was determined to visit the big fortune god's statue that would send tiny pieces of papers down as "gold" every interval. The floating platform's event was run mostly by China people. It was boring except for all the costly big game machines. My only entertainment was looking at girls and I was stunned by two very "ang moh-ish" girls in their very delightful smiles and figures.
Second day of Chinese New Year was visiting to my uncle's house where my main source of income came from. The location, structure of house and renovation was one of the most ideal I had ever seen. My uncle was the person who held the family together ever since my grandma passed away. All the food and preparation had certainly cost the couple a lot each year. However, it was sad to see him going out of the house to smoke every now and then; in fact, I did not witness it myself but my nose told everything. I loved playing with my nieces but they left earlier this year. I felt the pressure of not owning an iPhone for my brothers were busy with their games while I could not do my work, not even surfing net.
The plan to have golf with Irwin on the second day of the Lunar Chinese New Year day two was cancelled since I was not sure what time my family would be leaving house for house visiting. My gang’s gathering at Kok Chiang’s house faced the same problem.
We took bus 80 instead of NEL and the journey almost killed me again. My elder brother and his girlfriend reached the interchange at the same timing. We had our Ez-link cards replaced by the new type but I was having hesitation since I would face the problem of accessing the office again and I hated troubling others.
We had fun disturbing our nieces and nephews for the entire afternoon.
Since it was my elder brother and his girlfriend’s birthday, we placed order for tickets at Bishan’s Golden Village for “Love Matters” by director Jack Neo through the GV website. Bus 88 put me to sleep.
The cinema was one of the worst we could find in Singapore nowadays. My younger brother’s view was blocked by a big head who sat straight throughout the show. On my left was a couple and the girl was in sexy red dress, whereas their hugging was an indeliberate distraction with the girl’s butts facing me.
The movie was humorous at many scenes but the ending part was quite weird at the “Jeremy” part.
We managed to catch the last train home but my elder brother was not as lucky.
The start of the day was like previous years, which was house visiting to my aunt’s place. Before that, we went to Burger King but changed our minds and visited the new MacDonald’s branch at Shenton Way instead. It was fantastically designed and I regretted not asking them to dine in instead.
We spent some time over my aunt’s house before going home. There was a gathering at Wilson’s place but I was waiting for my family to visit the River Ang Bao until quite late. After my younger brother reached home, we went off without my elder brother.
The event was hosted at the Floating platform where NDP had been conducted for the past two years. There was a big crowd at the entrance and we were quite turned off because the entire place was much smaller than the usual ones.
There was a stage where all the China people performed. Statue-like lanterns of the twelve animals were as per normal and there was an additional gigantic Chinese chess set. We left the platform very soon and walked around the small “Food Street”. Some of the stalls did not label price for the food, which was very cunning. We did not buy anything in the end.
It seemed that more than half of the patrons were China people. The only good thing about the place was that there were many sweet girls around.
I woke up after four in the afternoon. Starting the day at the hour was amazing considering the fact that I rarely would have a good long sleep. However, I had a mixed feeling since I could have spent the time doing other things.
There was some sweeping and mopping of the floor by my younger brother and I but I did a few times on my part.
Reunion dinner was as per normal; nothing was appealing.
At around ten PM, Irwin came over to bring me to West Coast Park MacDonald’s again for the second night, where he did some brainstorming on his work. If only I was not taking the course at UOW, I would have taken up his projects.
We shared a nugget meal and I got to drink chocolate milkshake finally again but somehow the sensation was not very good.
The chat resumed at the car park and finally nearby my house. A mosquito irritated me badly.
My mum had insisted to go to Chinatown early and I refused to join in the “fun” in the rain with the huge crowd. By the time I went home, they had returned and thus I did not go down to Chinatown.
Chinese New Year Eve saw some packing of the house. Reunion dinner was as per normal. I was quite sick of the steamboat for it happened more than just once each year, and every time I had to feast on it for numerous continuous days.
My plan to comb down the pasar malam at Chinatown for cheap goodies was killed once again. It was quite stupid to go down early and thus I did not join my family members earlier. I went down at 3am but unfortunately, met them at the junction. Both my brothers wanted to go home but my mum decided to tag on to me.
I did not have much time and I would not want to waste any. I just wanted to speed up in all the crowded alleys and get whatever was cheap, in the shortest time. My pace was usually swift and far beyond your imagination, but this time, I knew I was grounded. I gave up on everything. Other than my preparation being trampled, I had to endure on the wastage of time and boring journey.
Basically, I allowed my mum to lead the way and she was basically far worse than any road idiot who had actually stayed near the place for more than twenty years. Alas, we reached the big field opposite Maxwell Market, besides the Fo Ya Shi. My mum bought some trays for placing utensils and I bought a shoes rack which looked more presentable than our neighbour’s, but everything was under my account.
First day of the New Year to my auntie’s house was the standard order by my mum. We got up late as usual and packed Burger King before approaching the bus-stop, where my mum flagged for the cab just before an approaching bus. That was really sudden and luckily the bus driver did not horn at us. However, it was really stupid to take a cab when we had already made our way to the bus-stop.
We met the usual gang of relatives who visited my auntie. We were all amazed by my toothless uncle who was chewing on hard food like nuts and bak kwa. It was the only occasion when this two non-working and sick couple would accept our money as a form of ang bao. Things turned a bit sour when my youngest uncle returned and we left soon. However, my mum forgot to take her phone along and my younger brother had to go back to retrieve it from the insane youngest uncle, who in his fifties, still acting like a less than ten years old kid, and his jokes were absolutely not funny at all.
At night, we went to春到河畔 and my mum’s main motive was to find the big fortune god’s statue to collect the “gold” from him. The pasar malam stalls were mostly rented by China people and some of the items were quite interesting. For some items, you probably needed to slash down the price a lot.
We walked to Lao Pa Sat for supper on the way home. It was an irritating experience as we were followed by the hawkers for ridiculously from one end of the food centre to the other end. If the government was not going to do something about this aggressive pulling of customers, Singapore’s reputation would certainly fall. That was not the end for the other hawkers were clinging to us. Luckily there were many empty tables and we could easily avoid all of them. We had twenty chicken satay, costing as expensive as sixty cents each. Four cups of tek tarrik proved to me that not all Indian tea stalls were good; that was the most awful tek tarrik we had ever tasted.
On the second day of Chinese New Year, we were supposed to visit my dad’s youngest brother. He had repeatedly reminded us to go over for lunch but we all woke up with food on the table. My mum bought chay kuay teow for us to share and we had to finish the food before leaving the house. We managed to reach Hougang soon but were overwhelmed with the earlier food that we did not take lunch immediately. That was the second and last place to get ang bao every year. The red packets were not big but at least, better than nothing. It was fun playing with my nephews and nieces. We stayed till 10pm and left after watching the Kungfu Soccer on channel 8. My uncle drove us back home.
Anyway, I missed all the gatherings with my buddies.
I almost forgot it was near Chinese New Year until they mentioned going to Chinatown.
I happened to chance upon Mingfa when he was on the way to Clementi ITE. I thought of having dinner with my gang and it seemed so coincident that the few of them were free. Somehow I was supposed to treat them to dinner after getting my first pay and it was such a good opportunity. Weitat even got to drive and five of us, inclusive of Mingfa, Jingkun and Mingli got to fit into the car comfortably. The dinner was actually so random.
Anyway, we went to a coffee shop called Hong Kong Street Chun Kee, located opposite Queensway Shopping Centre. We ordered some dishes to share but the food was not fantastic in any way.
A dinner was actually nothing compared to friendship and their kindness.
Definitely, they did not understand my concept of money management. My understanding of the difference between needs and wants was too great for anyone with an average or well-to-do family to apprehend. Money which had to be spent must be spent and temptation should be resisted. Whereas, sometimes money could buy a little happiness for people who worth it, and so, why not?
We dined in joy, beginning with some serious matters and towards the usual jokes soon. The night was joyous.
We proceeded to Chinatown and it seemed to take almost centuries to find a parking lot. We started strolling around and all of them, excluding Weitat, were “conned” to buy “Japanese Grass Cake”. However, Weitat was the one paying for Mingli. The lady started making merry around and soon, the plastic bags were getting heavily. A hundred gram cost nearly two bucks and we got plastic bags of two and three kilograms. Luckily for me, I did not have any attempt to buy at all since I was not interested in these enjoyments. Anyway, the price would drop tremendously at the last day of sales, which was the Midnight after Chinese New Year Eve.
It seemed boring with so many stalls selling same items. I was expecting more visitors but they actually made ways for us to move easier. We did not manage to cover the entire basar malam. I was quite disappointed that I did not get to see any interesting item other than food.
We took a little rest at the Food Street and hydrated ourselves. The guys took Wantan noodle at four bucks each. I missed some good shows on television!
I began feeling worse and almost felt like dropping down onto the floor. The cough was irritating. However, as time passed by, I began to feel better.
I was waked up a number of times in the morning. Two hours after I dozed off at around 6am, my mum unintentionally and stupidly disturbed my sleep just to switch on the fan. Afterwards, my elder brother’s girlfriend came and they made so much noise and followed by phone calls.
I got up at around noon finally after Jingkun told me we were going to meet at 1.45pm. I could not finish my lunch and was eventually late for fifteen minutes. However, I had totally forgotten I was meeting the BMCC guys and I had to be late for an hour in order to match up with the latest comer. Jingkun’s girlfriend cocked up the day for us and eventually I went to Mingen’s house with only Meijun and Weitat.
Mingfa was already waiting there for us. Mingen’s house was big and nice and his mum was very friendly. I stayed until Wilson arrived and left with Mingfa to Hougang. Luckily I dropped Kaven a message for he thought the meeting was called off. Mingfa and I took bus to Choa Chu Kang MRT and finally reached Ang Mo Kio by train. Afterwards, we took bus 88 to Street 61.
Kaven reached there just before us and Suimin called me up when we were reaching. She was asking me about outputting Chinese in her computer. She was behaving weirdly like an insane somehow. This day, she turned into a tortoise.
This was the first time I experienced signing of OTP other than JTC flats’. Later on, I gave a call to Ruoci but she did not really sound like wanting to meet up and thus I followed Kaven home. I joined in the steamboat with his tenant and her friend. Then, I went for a swim with him and afterwards, got to meet up with his another two friends – Eric and Rina. By the side of the pool when I was shivering, I did not say many things and mainly it was because I did not want to say anything which Kaven did not want to announce yet.
Later on, he sent me to the Clementi MRT station and I managed to reach home at around 11pm.
I wake up in the morning in order to go for the viewing at early afternoon. It was the usual long way to Ang Mo Kio and I dragged on my feet when I was not feeling well. It was an unfortunate day indeed. I supposed I was the first agent who ever did not want to close a deal which I would make money.
I went straight to Buona Vista MRT and waited there for Meijun. Together, we walked to Ghim Moh to look for the rest and go up to Apple’s house. They started playing cards and I knew we would be late for the next appointment. We were supposed to meet the rest at 6.30pm at Queenstown MRT but they only planned to leave at the same time. I was quite nervous and kept looking into my watch for I did not like to be late. In the end, they only started packing up at 6.30pm and there were more things to drag about.
Weitat and I went downstairs to get some paper plates, spoons and forks. Mingen arrived with Tiffany and I was not sure what was wrong that Mingen seemed to be quite pissed off. Then I realised he was not joining us anymore.
Weitat, Apple and Meijun took a cab with me to Queenstown MRT. We were about half an hour late. Siewchin, Kok Chiang and Ruoci had already arrived, whereas Junrong had left to visit his friend meanwhile. Then, together we walked towards Anqi’s house. We met up with Mingfa and Wilson before going up together. They started playing cards but I did join in as usual. Suddenly Junrong called Weitat and since Weitat was not sure of the road, I was the best candidate to go to the bus-stop to fetch Junrong.
In fact, the gathering to me was quite a failure. Anqi was supposed to get her ex team-mates but none of them turned up. Whereas for my side, Mingli, Xinyi and Jinyang broke their promises last minute. Jinyang sent a message to the wrong number when he tried to explain to me that he was sick.
Brother met sister
My favorite picture (other than the one I took with her)
The dining room
The 3 girls
Weitat eating
Meijun and Apple (third shot and finally Meijun opened her eyes)
Wilson when he was about to mediate
SSB !
The mediation
Mingfa
Anqi
Ruoci
Pose for FHM
The grand winner
Biggest loser
Group photo 1
Group photo 2
Ren yao and babe
Anqi and Ruoci
They continued with the game while I entertained myself snapping around in the poor lighting. At times, I almost dozed off but Wilson outshone me more. We took group photos in the end and left at around 11pm.
Inside the lift
Kok Chiang's cool pose
Act cute and ren yao
Straight
With my girl friend
I forget she's attached...
I took the same path as Siewchin, Kok Chiang and Ruoci. I finally got to take photos with Ruoci after so long. Together with her and Kok Chiang, we shared a cab.
My second day of “bai nian” was actually at my father’s side - at my small uncle’s house which was located at Hougang.
I spent the early morning doing my website and chatting with Suimin. I was expecting very little sleep because my mum would wake me up for the house visiting but I woke up at around 11am by myself. My elder brother was not even home from his soccer game yet and I almost thought we were not going out anymore. After my brother returned and his girlfriend came to join us before we left for Hougang.
My youngest niece
Her sister
Through familiar paths, we were able to get there. The house was still as beautiful as two years ago; everything was well-kept. Atmosphere was good with all the jokes around and we did some catch up. The most entertaining part was when my eldest cousin came with her daughters, the kids started to play hide-and-seek. Kids were so naïve that they tended to forget who were the people they were supposed to search sometimes. One of my nieces was sitting besides my mum and the rest of them searched all over the house for as long as five minutes.
She wanted to leave with us
We did not stay for dinner despite the temptation of KFC and pizza delivery. After reaching the MRT station, my younger brother went to his friend’s friend while the remaining four of us went to Marina Square. I was busy messaging everyone to ask if they wanted to go to Anqi’s house to “bai nian”. After walking around, my elder brother finally decided on the restaurant “Azabu Sabo”. I was quite turned off for it seemed expensive and my elder brother did not seem to hesitate at all.
My mum's teriyaki
My elder brother's curry
My cold plate
The food
Again
Elder brother and his girlfriend
Showing off my younger brother's favorite - prawn
Desert
With mango and ice-cream
My elder brother and his girlfriend again
We started taking photos when the food arrived so that we could show them off to my younger brother for not joining us. My food was the cold plate and the taste was special. The dessert was fantastic as well but not the price. The meal cost around $77, which was a big bomb for me but luckily the money-shaking-tree was around.
God of wealth
Crazy people with umbrellas
Elder brother's girlfriend
My mum
Then, we set off to River Ang Bao once again. My mother’s main purpose was to visit the god of wealth sculpture as usual. There were two words for the brainy inventor – f*ck you. My mum stood there for very long time with those aunties and uncles who had brought their umbrellas along and their arms were so strong that they could hold the umbrella up for more than fifteen minutes. We did not stay there for long after the sculpture shot some golden tiny papers out which resembled wealth. Soon, we took the bus home.
Before I could rest enough in front of the computer before going to bathe, Suimin was asking me to find songs for her. Then, Anqi suddenly told me she was not free on Friday and I started messaging everyone again to change it to Sunday.
The night went on as usual with blogging and updating of my websites into near dawn. I woke up at around 3pm then, which was a new record for so many donkey months.
I played my game again in this really stupid New Year day when there was no house visiting or any other event.
In the late evening, my mum wanted to go to the River Ang Bao again. Since she did not cook or buy anything, I had to accompany my whole family to go there. We dined at the Amara hotel’s Burger King before proceeding to the bus-stop. The trip itself was shorter than the waiting time, which explained how long we had waited there.
The emperor's seat
We did a few photo-taking before my mum started camping in front of the God of Wealth sculpture. By then my stomach started to play a prank with me and I had to rush to the toilet. The journey towards Cityhall MRT was as long as completing the Great Wall of China. The crowds were blocking my way and the waiting for the green man in front of the road seemed to freeze.
Luckily there were empty cubicles. But I realised many Singaporeans were actually uncivilised barbarians. Whenever they wanted to check if the cubicles were occupied, even though there were indicators outside, they tried to tear down the doors with hard knocks. It was very irritating and I supposed they would feel the same after swapping places with me; but since they were really retarded, they would probably stick to such manners. A group of attention seekers with no proper family upbringing tried playing with the doors as well.
Mum with the statue
Act cute
Again
I returned to meet up with my family at the nearest underpass where dancers gathered to practise and perform. Then, we had a few photo-taking before taking the bus home.
The television kept me occupied with the Jordan Chan’s comedy movie.
There were so many different types of greeting messages for each festival and friends would forward them around so that I would receive duplicates. For me, I chose to be original and created my own. Then, I forwarded it to around two hundred plus number of people.
If you did not receive my message, please update me with your number!
Some friends replied me that they could not read Chinese even though they were Chinese, and thus I had done a translation of it to English below.
The fortune-teller foresees that you are lucky this year because you have a lucky star. I give him a big red packet “ang bao”, and he reveals the secret of the heaven – there is a cute guy born in the year of pig who is going to wish you “happy new year”. The red packet costs two hundred dollars and you can choose to pay me back by installment.
Alone in the living room, that was how I spent my first moment of the Chinese New Year. I could not even be bothered to look at the television. My brothers each occupied a room while my mum started offering prayers to the heaven and then went to the temple.
The bonus was the phone call from Suimin. It was fun to chat with girls who spoke English most of the time and had weird but sexy Chinese accent. Usually I would try my best to fool them into using Chinese. Nevertheless, it was good enough to chat with sweet girls. We did not chat for long again.
I also received a greeting SMS from Sherry. How weird it could be for such a busy girl to do this? We used to chat a lot during the IRC days but time eventually got us separated. She moved on fast with the pace of this society but I was still straying and losing my way at the very beginning. Almost seven years of friendship and we had not taken any photo together, but I trusted her to keep her promise, unlike other friends.
After two o’clock, my mum returned home and gathered my siblings and I to invade Chinatown. Weirdly, this was the first year that I had visited Chinatown only during the last day of the pasar malam. We met up with my younger brother’s friends and started walking around. The place was still very crowded at three plus. Many people were partially blinded and had to bang into me even at spots where it was not so dense with people.
I hated the sticky floors. Uncivilised people had thrown wrappers all over the floor at their convenience, trying to turn down the title of the garden city. It was very boring for all the stalls were selling almost similar items like the previous year except there was this party gun which was cool but expensive. At around 4am, most of the stalls at the streets were already closing. A couple who just got there mistook that business was good, but actually, the owners were on curfew and had to stop operation around that time by law.
We went to Maxwell market. I was quite hungry but there were not many stalls left. All of us had bean curd type of dessert, which was quite fulfilling. Then, we strolled back to Tanjong pagar and waited for my younger brother’s friends to flag a cab home. We waited quite long and were entertained by two half drunk westerners.
I had to drain my bank account once again for my mum wanted us to contribute hundred bucks each for my auntie who was taking care of my sick uncle. Government did not offer enough help for the childless old couple who could not work for they still owned the 3-room flat even though their savings had almost depleted. In fact, I was not in any better situation.
Back at home, it took me quite a long time to settle my stuffs before going to bed. It was as early as 11am, I was waked up by my mum and younger brother. My younger brother seemed to be grumbling about either my elder brother or me, or both of us for bugging on the bed. I was very irritated.
We set off for my auntie’s house. Breakfast was chicken rice from the stall at the nearest bus-stop. The owner rented that stall for one day only once every year and that explained the quality of food. Anyway, we had takeaways and dined at my auntie’s house.
After eating, I dozed off as usual until a few visitors arrived and I was waked up by the noise. All the familiar faces I saw only once every year gave me a weird feeling, especially when receiving the red packets from them. Anyway, these were the only pathetic few small red packets from my mum’s side of relatives. In fact I was so used to it already and would be glad enough if friends were to believe my “income” was so low.
On the way home, my mum’s feet were giving her big problems again. I was not positive about how long she could still hold with such poor health condition. I expected my health to be worse than hers when I was as old as her for my injuries incurred.
It was a very sunny day but rain soon swept over areas in Singapore to welcome us into the new year of the lunar calendar. I spent my late afternoon playing Romance of the Three Kingdoms 3 after abandoning it for so long until dinner time. My younger brother wanted to dine out at Marina Square but my elder brother and mum decided to finish up the leftover food and thus we had steamboat again. The idea of making my whole body and work area stink turned me off so much.
Steamboat and BBQ
Since the barbecue platform was nearer to me, I did a lot of cooking for my mum and elder brother and was attacked by the flying oil many times as well.
The day began with dining with Weitat and Kailin at Geylang. We had our supper at Wang Jiao Dian Xin instead of You Tiao Da Wan for the latter shop was closed for the festival. Food was just alright but service was terrible.
While we were walking back to the car park, my mum called and when she heard a girl’s (Kailin’s) voice besides me, she just assumed that was Vivi. At this moment I did not know how I should feel. I did tell my mum before we were through already but somehow she did not get it or she refused to get it. Perhaps, she did not get to see Vivi often since long ago and that was why she was used to it, like me, that she did not realise it was history already.
Kailin drove me home and followed by Weitat. I was sleepy but energetic somehow, however, did not lead the route well enough that Kailin had to make a big round at Chinatown.
I continued with the clicking of the “hug” website for Suimin, and that was very time-consuming and dull. My elder brother was packing his house and finally there was some space for me to stand in front of the walk-in wardrobe to pack the stuffs. The room was so dusty that I had a few rounds of sneezing.
Afterwards was discussion with Irwin about his new website for the new product, the CLY phone charger. I continued to do my stuffs until daylight.
Having slept less than four hours, I was waked up by an agent enquiring about the Ang Mo Kio flat. I had by then totally forgotten about block 610 and only knew it was on the third level. So, it was another awkward time on the phone again.
I did not go back to sleep. I spent the afternoon more wisely on updating of my websites. My affiliation with Adsense was improving but still far from ideal case. It was however very frustrating that given the amount of page impressions, I could get more money from other advertisements source.
I started some packing of my work area. Then, I continued with a little cleaning up of the house in the late afternoon. My mum was doing quite dangerous chores in the kitchen. My elder brother was asleep the whole afternoon while my younger brother was out with his friends. I felt frustrated that I actually needed more sleep than my elder brother but I did not want to leave everything to my mum. She packed the living room’s table as well, which none of the rubbish on top belonged to me – that was why I could not and did not know how to pack it.
My younger brother returned during evening to add on extra shoes to the messy living room floor. I called him to come out from the bedroom later and questioned him about how many pairs of shoes wears he had on the floor but he did not care about the mess. Believe me it was impossible and that was why I had given up on the condition of the house since long ago.
The reason why I hated reunion dinner returned again. The big table was pulled nearer to my computer and there was so limited space. During dinner, the oily gas would fly to the computer with the fan blowing from the front. I quickly moved my webcam backwards in case it would be harmed.
My elder brother continued to sleep and my younger brother joined him soon but in the other room. The sleepiness and backache pinned me on the bed as well and when my mum started calling out for dinner, I tried so hard to ignore her. Eventually, I was the first to go to the living room, feeling so irritated that my siblings were not very bothered with the dinner.
My mum started two cooking sources, one for soup and another for steamboat. The dinner was quite alright for we were always helping each other to prevent the food from being burnt. I hated the oily smell on my body after steamboat but that could not be helped.
Fruits
At HDB
The Tan family
My neighbour, Tan Kok Hin came over with his daughter. He wanted to test his DVD but realised he could only use his burner to watch it. After that, my younger brother and I followed him back to his mum’s house. Actually I did not really want to go over in case they thought I was just greedy for ang bao. Luckily I received none.
We spent most of the time watching television there.
As time passes, my trust for people decreases. Promise is always meant to be broken and it always happens.
Maybe it is an essential in life to give promises to others since hopes are the motivation to survive in this unholy society; I might be wrong all these while because I have never compromised over it, such that I hate to give promise when I'm not confident of handling the task.
I still live in this own naive world of mine. I remember losing a good chance to socialise and earn big bucks in a job offer; I never want to cause any problem to anyone. I have lost more than this, especially when girls love to hear wonderful lies.
While others have gained so much more than me, it has been so common that everyone seems to have immune to empty promises, except me. The immaturity wraps me up like a little kid, giving me such big disappointment each time.
Yesterday was the fifteen as well as the last day of the Chinese New Year. My trust for people decreased greatly again a week ago. But before that, I have never expected much from anyone anymore.
It was my busiest Chinese New Year Eve ever. I got home near 5pm and then tried to contact everyone for outing at night, clear all my emails and read up all my friends' updated blogs. I almost forgot my haircut appointment at 6pm. I nodded at least thrice but luckily nothing went wrong with my hair.
After bathing, I started to do spring cleaning. Crazy it might sound like but it was the fact, on the very last moment just before the reunion dinner when my two brothers were enjoying their sleep. Alone, I made it happen, such that the living room was so much better than before (lasted for less than a night only).
I was waiting for Guoxin to come and weirdly there was no news from him. I started my reunion dinner near 9pm and he finally called when he was already at Buona Vista MRT. So, I quickly took up my first round of BBQ food and left them on the bowl to turn cold (better than being overcooked).
I brought him home and left him inside the room to burn the "仙剑奇侠传" show into CD. He was so lucky that the burner worked. I quickly took my dinner but he hadn't finished the task; and he left the remaining job to me. Together, we left for Cityhall to meet the rest.
Kailin was the earliest, who almost had a heart-attack as I was still at home at the meeting time, but eventually I was only late for around fifteen minutes. My ou xiang (idol), Peifeng, arrived with her cousin and then followed by Siew Chin (人妖) who brought my "girlfriend" along. Together, we went to the River Ang Bao to look for Tze Khit and his mum.
We took many photos. Tze Khit's mum was so funny that she posed looking at the other side when we asked her and Tze Khit to have a shot together. Though many friends did not go, I was still quite lucky to have the ratio of number boys to girls at 1:2 before Anqi arrived.
The vending machines sold drinks at two bucks per can, which was insane (similar to stalls at Haw Par Villa and Sentosa). The stalls were quite boring since they sold items almost the same as the previous years.
Anqi reached before twelve but she could not find us. As the fireworks started, I tried to shoot video; Olympus C-750 was not a good camera for video filming since the sound detector was not good. (Can get the video clip from me)
In the search of us, she went to Fullerton hotel and enjoyed the seats there comfortably and almost didn't want to leave. We managed to persuade her to get her butts off and come over. By the time she found us, ou xiang and her cousin, Tze Khit and his mum had left. I met Sergeant Kenny and insisted him to take a photo with me.
We continued to tour around and buy some stuffs to eat. Then, we slacked by the roadside besides a foundation which wasn't in operation. It was after two that they decided to go home. They took night riders and as for Kailin, she was lucky that her family member came to pick her up. I walked to the main road, walked towards Chinatown alone.
Chinatown was still quick packed at three in the morning. The floors were sticky but I continued to finish combing almost the whole place. After which, I called my mum and joined them up and left at around four.
The holidays of Chinese New Year were fast over and every year it seemed to be getting worse.
There were little contacts with my father's side's relatives and with the death of my grandma a few years back, there was no gathering at the Bedok house.
For the last two years, my uncle hosted invitations for everyone to gather at his house, thus I was still able to get some ang bao. My relatives didn't care about the rational behind giving ang bao - to give blessing; and therefore I wouldn't get any if I didn't barge into them; unlike other people who would deliver to you no matter through how many hands.
As this year my uncle didn't organise any gathering, my most important source of getting ang bao was gone. But eventually I saved a day.
I thought it was going to be a great holidays for me to buck up on my work but it was never as planned; nevertheless I was able to catch up with my friends.
Long weekends were never enough. I pushed myself too hard that I could never have enough rest to start off the days.
One thing weird about this New Year was that I received more greeting than my birthday.
