Atlas Shrugged
Usually, on this day of the year, when we’re meant to spend our time visiting relatives, I’m tucked safely away in North Malaysia with my grandparents and closest cousins.
We set up bonfires in the yard and burn things, cook melted chocolate and marshmallows and have sparkler Olympics while my grandmother bustles around insisting that we refrain from setting her grass on fire. We wake up late and laze around the huge island in the kitchen eating rice and beef curry out of large battered pots from the neighbourhood stall.
Unfortunately, this year, work commitments and a dearth of bus tickets means I’m stuck in Singapore with all the men in my family while my mother lives it up in her ancestral home. Though I am sad that I’ll be missing the yearly cookout and lion dance, I figured now is as good a time as any to be grateful about the many wonderful things in my life, stressful though it may be.
Here are eight of my favourites, eight being the lucky number of Chinese choice (in no particular order):
1) Being on course
I love my job but it can be really really heavy going at times and fate was smiling on me the day my bosses nominated me for a course to train me up in the basic knowledge required for my line of work.
Not only does this mean that I get to leave for home at five every day, it also means that while my poor colleagues will have to go back to slogging on the second day of Chinese New Year (which really really sucks), I am able to spend it resting at home, in the presence of season two of The Office and other assorted movies and chick lit.
2) M
Everyday I realise anew how lucky I am to have someone who is both my best friend and my other half, my refuge, my listening ear, my sparring partner and the hot date I get to usher around town on my arm every day.
Yesterday, she did the most ridiculous thing ever – we were walking around Tampines Mall and I was considering buying a pair of sneakers, but we’d just looked at the Converse ones and they were at least $40 a pair, a little over my budget. As I was kicking around outside the store, she came rushing out and said, “Hey there’s a really cute denim pair on sale at $19.90!”, which sounds unbelievable for a pair of Converse sneakers.
I went back into the shop and checked the tag on the shoes which said $59, and asked if she was sure, to which she replied, “the discounted price isn’t written down and anyway, I just spoke to the cashier who is (insert name of friend)’s brother and he said he’ll give me a special price. The cashier did indeed look like (insert name of friend), so I tried on the shoes and was about to pay for them when M whipped her card out and did the whole thing.
As I was exclaiming in surprise, I came round to her side by the counter and saw that the shoes were actually $59, and she had told me they were discounted so I would let her buy them for me and just pay her back $19.90! The goddamn cashier wasn’t even remotely related!
When I was done yelling and laughing in disbelief, I managed to thank M for the very nice (advance Valentine’s Day) present and if you see me strolling around tomorrow in a very cute pair of new shoes, you’ll know it’s just one of the amazing things she’s always doing for me, all the time.
3) My friends
If I had to write about the wonderful friends that I had here, I would probably never finish… needless to say I have this great group of pals whose always there for me, no matter how annoying I get (which can be very), and who will never hesitate to be sympathetic, but also honest, which I treasure deeply.
It took me many years to realise that the best friends are the ones who will support you but be straight with you no matter what happens, and who don’t ever take offence at the many nonsensical things I have to say, but instead accept me as being loud, mildly potty-mouthed and not a little strange!
4) Chip
This being the Year of the Rat, he has come up with a new way to test my limits – breaking through the fence of chicken wire I painstakingly set up on the upstairs balcony to run on the awning that acts as the roof of the floor below. Naturally, everytime he does this, I just about die thinking: today is the day he is going to fall off the awning and break his neck.
Every time he is NOT trying this new trick out on me, I am extremely grateful and happy for his presence in my life and I don’t know what I would do without my best buddy keeping me warm under the blankets at night.
5) My brothers
When I was younger and used to have issues with my brothers, I used to wish fervently that I had a) a sister or b) was an only child. Now that I am the queen of the children (in the most metaphorical sense, hah!), I’m glad that there is no annoying little girl whom I have to content with to be prettier or skinnier or smarter, and I get along with my brothers just fine.
And now that we’re all grown up and much more rational, I realise just how nice it is to have people I can kick back and watch The Office and Buffy: The Vampire Slayer with (never let it be said that boys don’t get Buffy) and who totally get my sense of humour, even when it’s not all that funny.
6) Drumming lessons
Initially when M suggested that we take drumming lessons, I was mildly skeptical about the whole enterprise. My hand-eye coordination is non-existent, as is my sense of rhythm, so I wasn’t sure of how the lessons were going to pan out.
Thankfully, however, we have a patient teacher who is willing to teach any random song that we plead to learn, and I really enjoy the process of sitting in front of a kit and just shutting out everything around me.
I’ve found that I have this ability to block out everything and just pound away at the instrument, which means that although I am abysmally bad and sometimes even block out the song that I’m playing, I enjoy it very much. And for about an hour each week, I get a sense of freedom to play as loudly as I want and really get stuck in it, which is very refreshing.
7) My black iPod classic!
I love having music everywhere I go, and my iPod is just the thing I turn to when I feel I need a soundtrack to back my movements on a daily basis. It’s a little silly but very gratifying, I can be my own DJ and listen to the most embarrassing, bimbotic music I want and no passer-by has any idea what’s going on between my head and my ears.
More than that, I resisted asking my parents for an iPod for four years because at the time, I didn’t want it much and I figured that I was going to earn it unlike my brothers who got theirs for free. It was the first thing I bought with my first paycheck, I walked into a store and got one after I’d dithered over it forever, and everytime I look at it, I feel proud because of what it symbolises to me.
8) The ridiculously large bag collection in my closet
Okay 1) I’m shallow and 2) I love bags. So even though they don’t really represent anything more intangible and emotionally fulfilling than the joys of consumerism, I get a real kick out of changing bags every few days and it can really make a bad day bearable.
Just knowing that I have (at least) ten bags in different colours, shapes and sizes for every purpose imaginable under the sun makes me excited for some strange reason, and as Becky will attest, I’m always willing to spread the love!
At present, I’m using a large red Mango bag with a slouchy shape made of large faux leather squares stitched together like a parachute.
And that’s my list… random but really helpful in remembering that I have things to be delighted about despite the fact that I won’t be there as my cousin tries to blow my nephews and nieces up with his illegal collection of fireworks this year… what things are you guys happy for in your lives?
We set up bonfires in the yard and burn things, cook melted chocolate and marshmallows and have sparkler Olympics while my grandmother bustles around insisting that we refrain from setting her grass on fire. We wake up late and laze around the huge island in the kitchen eating rice and beef curry out of large battered pots from the neighbourhood stall.
Unfortunately, this year, work commitments and a dearth of bus tickets means I’m stuck in Singapore with all the men in my family while my mother lives it up in her ancestral home. Though I am sad that I’ll be missing the yearly cookout and lion dance, I figured now is as good a time as any to be grateful about the many wonderful things in my life, stressful though it may be.
Here are eight of my favourites, eight being the lucky number of Chinese choice (in no particular order):
1) Being on course
I love my job but it can be really really heavy going at times and fate was smiling on me the day my bosses nominated me for a course to train me up in the basic knowledge required for my line of work.
Not only does this mean that I get to leave for home at five every day, it also means that while my poor colleagues will have to go back to slogging on the second day of Chinese New Year (which really really sucks), I am able to spend it resting at home, in the presence of season two of The Office and other assorted movies and chick lit.
2) M
Everyday I realise anew how lucky I am to have someone who is both my best friend and my other half, my refuge, my listening ear, my sparring partner and the hot date I get to usher around town on my arm every day.
Yesterday, she did the most ridiculous thing ever – we were walking around Tampines Mall and I was considering buying a pair of sneakers, but we’d just looked at the Converse ones and they were at least $40 a pair, a little over my budget. As I was kicking around outside the store, she came rushing out and said, “Hey there’s a really cute denim pair on sale at $19.90!”, which sounds unbelievable for a pair of Converse sneakers.
I went back into the shop and checked the tag on the shoes which said $59, and asked if she was sure, to which she replied, “the discounted price isn’t written down and anyway, I just spoke to the cashier who is (insert name of friend)’s brother and he said he’ll give me a special price. The cashier did indeed look like (insert name of friend), so I tried on the shoes and was about to pay for them when M whipped her card out and did the whole thing.
As I was exclaiming in surprise, I came round to her side by the counter and saw that the shoes were actually $59, and she had told me they were discounted so I would let her buy them for me and just pay her back $19.90! The goddamn cashier wasn’t even remotely related!
When I was done yelling and laughing in disbelief, I managed to thank M for the very nice (advance Valentine’s Day) present and if you see me strolling around tomorrow in a very cute pair of new shoes, you’ll know it’s just one of the amazing things she’s always doing for me, all the time.
3) My friends
If I had to write about the wonderful friends that I had here, I would probably never finish… needless to say I have this great group of pals whose always there for me, no matter how annoying I get (which can be very), and who will never hesitate to be sympathetic, but also honest, which I treasure deeply.
It took me many years to realise that the best friends are the ones who will support you but be straight with you no matter what happens, and who don’t ever take offence at the many nonsensical things I have to say, but instead accept me as being loud, mildly potty-mouthed and not a little strange!
4) Chip
This being the Year of the Rat, he has come up with a new way to test my limits – breaking through the fence of chicken wire I painstakingly set up on the upstairs balcony to run on the awning that acts as the roof of the floor below. Naturally, everytime he does this, I just about die thinking: today is the day he is going to fall off the awning and break his neck.
Every time he is NOT trying this new trick out on me, I am extremely grateful and happy for his presence in my life and I don’t know what I would do without my best buddy keeping me warm under the blankets at night.
5) My brothers
When I was younger and used to have issues with my brothers, I used to wish fervently that I had a) a sister or b) was an only child. Now that I am the queen of the children (in the most metaphorical sense, hah!), I’m glad that there is no annoying little girl whom I have to content with to be prettier or skinnier or smarter, and I get along with my brothers just fine.
And now that we’re all grown up and much more rational, I realise just how nice it is to have people I can kick back and watch The Office and Buffy: The Vampire Slayer with (never let it be said that boys don’t get Buffy) and who totally get my sense of humour, even when it’s not all that funny.
6) Drumming lessons
Initially when M suggested that we take drumming lessons, I was mildly skeptical about the whole enterprise. My hand-eye coordination is non-existent, as is my sense of rhythm, so I wasn’t sure of how the lessons were going to pan out.
Thankfully, however, we have a patient teacher who is willing to teach any random song that we plead to learn, and I really enjoy the process of sitting in front of a kit and just shutting out everything around me.
I’ve found that I have this ability to block out everything and just pound away at the instrument, which means that although I am abysmally bad and sometimes even block out the song that I’m playing, I enjoy it very much. And for about an hour each week, I get a sense of freedom to play as loudly as I want and really get stuck in it, which is very refreshing.
7) My black iPod classic!
I love having music everywhere I go, and my iPod is just the thing I turn to when I feel I need a soundtrack to back my movements on a daily basis. It’s a little silly but very gratifying, I can be my own DJ and listen to the most embarrassing, bimbotic music I want and no passer-by has any idea what’s going on between my head and my ears.
More than that, I resisted asking my parents for an iPod for four years because at the time, I didn’t want it much and I figured that I was going to earn it unlike my brothers who got theirs for free. It was the first thing I bought with my first paycheck, I walked into a store and got one after I’d dithered over it forever, and everytime I look at it, I feel proud because of what it symbolises to me.
8) The ridiculously large bag collection in my closet
Okay 1) I’m shallow and 2) I love bags. So even though they don’t really represent anything more intangible and emotionally fulfilling than the joys of consumerism, I get a real kick out of changing bags every few days and it can really make a bad day bearable.
Just knowing that I have (at least) ten bags in different colours, shapes and sizes for every purpose imaginable under the sun makes me excited for some strange reason, and as Becky will attest, I’m always willing to spread the love!
At present, I’m using a large red Mango bag with a slouchy shape made of large faux leather squares stitched together like a parachute.
And that’s my list… random but really helpful in remembering that I have things to be delighted about despite the fact that I won’t be there as my cousin tries to blow my nephews and nieces up with his illegal collection of fireworks this year… what things are you guys happy for in your lives?
She said, she said at 11:11 pm
2 Comments:
Happy CNY babe, and I miss you TONS!
You! I'm happy to have you! And singing. At one point it was good that they were synonymous...I'm sure one day it will be again!
We didn't get to have our head bashing vocal jam. Next time, ok?
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