Moving Right Along

I woke up this morning with a stabbing pain yet again, the second time since I thought I have recovered fully from the spinal-lumbar compression/fracture. Sleeping on the mattress on the floor must have aggravated it which I did not experience previously while lying on my divan.

To charges that I wake up early, yes I do and blame this on my circadian clock. I have been known to wake up for early morning jogs so that I am over and done with my exercise for the day and to be able to focus on my thoughts with no human or vehicular distraction. So please Mr Old Fart, do not make me the oddball with this quirk I have.

Hey and I am being American here, what with comforter rather than a quilt for bedding terminology. An earlier blog using the term barrister was perhaps misguided though Mr Oath-Swearer's calling card proclaimed him to be. He would have been a solicitor, I think but perhaps he is an attorney or lawyer, a mongrel.

I wouldn't have known from the voice. Neither would I with a photo publication of him. But yes. In person, he is the Tan Soon Chuan I knew in my lower secondary class. I remember him as a loud and mischievous dude in class and a soldier in No 4 army fatigue. Sorry Soon Chuan (or is it Jeffrey now...I didn't know you had a Christian name), I must have been so caught up in Daryl Ho's blog about his snow-skis in Japan that when you mentioned the word 'ski', water-ski did not register.

I am counting on you as a fellow Gabrielite to look after my financial interest, dude. And he is active in our Old Boys' Association (or alumni). For what, I am not sure. I did ask and question. To me, the principal he is working for wasn't even our principal then. If most teachers are new and not the ones who taught us and even the locale is no longer in its old place, what memories can it hold for us to work for it? Unless you have a kid there.

When I think about it, where I am moving, precinctly speaking, is no different from my current one. It has a similar layout with a sports hall, swimming complex and stadium neck-to-neck, along one another. Yes. Young people. I love seeing them. They revitalise me. The feel of the whole place is different, maybe because I have been stuck too long at my old place holed up.

It is time I move in with "people" and "interact", rather than isolate and hibernate. My new flatmate looks swell and I can "communicate" with him on a particularly good level. Much like I can connect with Uncle Benjamin. Ha. Being an uncle myself, it is hard to believe I am actually calling some of my contemporaries the same. Hee.

The new place has everything going for it. I have never seen such a "huge" kopitiam sprawled over such "huge" grounds. There are two shopping malls and the MRT and bus interchange is just next door. I went round looking for shops I need my regular fixes such as haircuts, food, banking and groceries. I even found a "satay" stall but it doesn't taste as great though.

I have decided I will go computerless and surf at the community library. Not a wise choice to buy a notebook now with Window Vista coming up soon. As usual it was sifting through connectivity and wireless issues, comparisons of price plans and throw-ins and top-ups for both the notebook and mobile. My new cell phone will have to wait till I finish my 2-year contract. It is now a decidedly Sony Ericsson W550i which looks like a girl's rave somehow. The white elephant saga looms large and I am constantly reminded of this.

It is amazing how we can now flip, twist, swivel and slide our mobile's clamshell. I am looking at the Samsung SGH-X700 and SGH-D600 and the Nokia 6111 but each has its drawbacks.

Having seen a couple of places, the new place I am moving to is the most convenient. I have to balance between work and home life. I could have chosen the other place in the East, near the sea and an ideal place for work too. Work as in home-bound work and not with visiting customers. I have to think carefully if I want to live and work in full view of a visiting public.

And not that I think we are ready for a liberal arts education. Having dealt with parents, it will be an uphill task convincing them the merits of one versus a tutorial or technical degree sort. Parents of all manners of life want to have a say in education when some know nothing of what a real education is, apart from the exam practice, grill and grades we have ingrained into our culture. Try selling ice to eskimos!

I did meet a girl whom I mentioned to be the ass-bitch who rummaged through my stuff while I was teaching at AIT Academy, on instructions from M/s Wicked Stepmother. She is actually working at the reception counter. This is double coincidence or is it?

I know I am being watched from every quarter. Not sure why but I know I am on someone's radar screen for some reasons. Every single person I meet or talk to strike me as strangely muttering the thoughts I have or have blogged. My only word on all this is : Lay off and leave me alone. You are no better than thou and we are all just equal on that term. I am just trying to live life as you are, so do not throw a stone at someone else when you live in a glass-house yourself.

Thinking back to my trash days, I have lost quite a bit on stuff like some of the recyclables (in all at least 10 bags), my vintage and prized Rado of Switzerland timepiece, my tablet chairs and whiteboard, lightings, gold jewellery, etc. There are things I now know which have recyclable value and I will be setting them aside for future recycling. I have become a regular garung guni guy myself.

When I was in school, I use to write on both sides of a paper, first in pencil, then blue ink and finally in red as part of my personal recycling program.

I have come to understand the true meaning of "Dust thou art, so shalt dust you return" (which is a much shorter version succinctly put than the usual translation, albeit in archaic English).

Dust is a fine powder of pollen , earth and sand carried in the air by wind, for those scientifically-inclined enquiring minds. Living on a high floor and next to infrastructural projects could have worsened the dust attack.

We certainly can live with less. Therefore I am not wrong to choose a zen-minimalist design for my next house. In fact, when we sit down and reflect, we only use a fraction of the stuff in our house. In the kitchen for instance, I am only using the electric kettle, the airport, the juicer, the fridge and washer most frequently.

Weighing my options for the future has thrown up more possibilities other than migration. Like getting a new and bigger house with tenancy option. But I think I am the sort who would be comfortable jet-setting in different parts pf the world, living and working, more like meeting dignataries, businesspeople and socialites of the First World.

Technology has come a long way and walkie-talkies are no longer the big, bulky, unwieldy and poorly receptive gadgets they once were but sleek, almost mobile phone-like, with messaging functions even. Come to think of it, even the mobile phone of old was as huge as a walkie-talkie back then. And yes, we had pagers too though it was purely a numeric text for a callback. So now the mobile is a 3-in-1 hybrid.

The thoughts in my head are swirling up a storm. More blogs coming up.