Cardinal Joesph Ratzinger, a German cardinal chosen by the College of Cardinals in the Conclave to be the new pope, has taken on the name Pope Benedict XVI.
The poor man is 78 years old, and already there are bets that his papacy won’t last long.
Joe and I were having an insanely hilarious conversation the entire evening on MSN. Part of it evolved into this.
Personally, I want to see how this one goes.
I am back home with the family. Singapore is still the same. Nothing has ever really changed, except for the fact that it has more buildings, the same unsmiling crowd of people and the particular blending of languages that most here identify as ‘Singlish’.
Everyone says I would get over the ‘culture shock’, but will I ever really? One major difference from what I have ever really felt from this place, compared to over there, is that this place just sucks the optimism right out of you.
And since I don’t want to whine anymore than what I really should, I am going on haitus for awhile. I am just not sure when I would be back. Goodbye.
The packing up is always the hardest to do. I am so weary with trying to cramp memories in boxes, that I have decided to start filtering out the unimportant bits and tossing it in the bins. Precious letters are always kept of course. It is things which the ex gave, or useless stuff toys that have found their way to the Good Sammy’s bin.
Have completely shifted to the boyfriend’s place until it is time to go. We tried spending some quiet time at home last night, seeing how it is Valentine’s day, and we are not big believers in the contributing to the massive spending spree that comes with V day.
Even the nice cosy Italian place two blocks from the river, which we like to go, if and when we have the money, has opened its doors. It is usually closed on Mondays. But this time around, the establishment was closed on Sunday, so that it could cash in on the patrons who would doubtlessly be increasing its coffers with the intention of having a romantic dinner. The boyfriend merely shook his head in disbelief when he heard that.
Anyway, our take-in pizza dinner was interupted by visitors who decided to stop by for post-Valentine’s dinner drinks. With the usual ‘we were in the neighbourhood’ greeting, they popped in to sit in the lounge chairs by the pool and regale us with the latest going-ons in their lives. Will miss them so much when I leave.
A Singaporean girl tried to pick the boyfriend up when he made his way to uni this morning. When he told me all that happened, I could not help but laugh. She was quite apt, I must say, at worming phone numbers out of people. Yet, strangely enough, I did not feel the slightest bit jealous. I just had to mention to the boyfriend that with me barely out of the picture, he was already distributing his phone number to his next conquest. 
Having said that, I do worry about him when I leave. There is just so much issues to resolve, too many problems to iron out. And if the plans which his parents have about working and living in yet another country are brought into fruition, the boy would be spending the next year at least in the big house all alone. Not a nice thought, considering how creepy it is to live in the place in solitude all the time. It just makes leaving him, all the more difficult, and the prospect of a long distance relationship all the more harder to bear.
It turns out that my last Australia day in the course of my undergrad life here was spent at the Foreshore, with loads of beer-guzzling revelers, watching the fireworks. We lingered around after the show, and decided to take a slow leisurely walk home. We gave up halfway because there were just too many drunk schoolies crowding the pavement, shouting ‘Aussie, aussie, oi, oi, oi!’
My friend wanted to buy nougat to bring home and so I directed her to a stall of a uni mate’s mom, who sells the best home made nougat and fudge on slabs. ‘Tell her, so and so recommended you.’ I instructed her.
It turns out she came back empty-handed instead. I asked her why she didn’t buy any. Were the samples of nougat just too distasteful?
My friend, unfailingly as always, comes up with the most practical answers. ‘I am buying the nougat to put in the pantry in the office and if I buy these home made ones, no one would appreciate it. I need to buy those factory made ones in those air-tight packets.’
The office finally decided to close on Australia day. All it took was one humble book. No, it was not the threat of being sued, or anything that involved a law book. ‘Empty cradles’ by Margaret Humphreys, is a very powerful book. Something I would have to explain in another entry soon.
I have been away from blogs and blogging, in my opinion, for way too long. A junior college friend is visiting, and going with her on road trips is like paying homage to places that you know you would probably never see again for a long long time. But this time, all seems different. I am laden with all the memories of friends along the way. In Pinjarra, I could not help but feel sorrow when I saw the place where G grew up in. In Bunbury, it was remembering that K’s boyfriend had shot himself there. In Margaret River, it was about Adonis and all that he had told me. I guess, there are those patchwork of thoughts and snippets of conversations, the personalities of the individuals who were shaped by those places, and who in turn shaped my own experiences, that got me all solemn and sad. It was also about saying goodbye.
On route from Bunbury to Busselton, we were along Bussel Highway, when we saw a bushfire up close. It was the first time that I have gotten so close to one, and saw how quickly it had spread. The flames were just next to the road and most cars had stopped in morbid fascination of looking at one. The fire fighting trucks were just arriving and just comparing how large the fire was, compared to the size of the trucks was daunting. We did not stay very long though, we had to continue driving on, and so we were off.
Will update more when I have the time. Ja nei.
My brush with the bush fires raging in the hills came in the form of ash falling in the pool.
The Japanese girls came over on Sunday and the boyfriend had gone over to his friend’s place, to meet the newest member of the friend’s family. (His wife gave birth to a healthy baby boy).
It was just the girls and I. They were being their chatty selves. Diving in the pool, lounging around and simply having fun. It was about 2 in the afternoon when it started raining ash.
We decided to get out of the pool then. When we took a walk later by the river, there was a thick column of grey cloud in the sky and a dry smoky scent in the air. There were plenty of dead jellyfish carcasses being washed onto the river banks. I think the girls were slightly sickened by the sight and wanted to leave quickly.
The next day, when the boyfriend went to take a swim in the pool, he noticed all the black ash collecting at the bottom and asked me if the girls had dirtied pool. I could not help but laugh at the irony of it all. They would be the last people I know who would conceive of dirtying the pool.
I am not a happy camper at the office for the moment, because I was told that business as usual would go on, on Australia day. Intially I was perfectly fine with the situation, because I would show up for work as usual, in an office that would sooner rejoice for fireworks on the fifth of November, than celebrate Australia day.
Since I am staying with the boyfriend at the moment, I have discovered that I could not go to work, even if I wanted to. It is impossible due to the fact that the roads around his area with access to the city were going to be closed.
I informed the office about the situation and they told me that it was fine. I had their blessings to not show up for work. But it all comes at a price. I have been getting jibes about how I would be singing ‘Advance Australia Fair’ with the rest of the merry crew, when I do not even know the words to the song. Also the boyfriend has not been left out of it.
I finally told them, that, yes, the boyfriend is part of the merry crew and that is the only national anthem he sings, having spent very little time in the other country which he holds citizenship in. And why shouldn’t he celebrate along with the rest of them, after all, he has practically grown up here.
There was a decided chill in the office after that.
I just think swilling down bitterness along with tea, in precious fine bone china whilst everyone else is celebrating is not such a good thing.
I have not been updating for awhile, because everything that’s happened lately seems straight out of a soap opera. I am still shaking from what happened just five minutes ago.
Also I have thought long and hard about it and have decided to have a livejournal for locked and private entries only. It is not to say that I have abandoned this site altogether. What is written here for the consumption of the general net-savy public. Email me or leave a comment here if you want me to add you. I am still new to the livejournal thing.
Our office opted for a less extravagant New Year’s staff party than what was previously planned, going for a simple lunch instead, and decided to donate the rest of the money in the budget to the tsunami effort. I liked it that way. Still got to bond with my colleagues. The only thing is that they are all married and settled individuals who have children, and I can’t seem to relate to that. To them, I am still the young kid fresh out of school. Sigh.
The boss had arranged for all the other branches of the company to donate one day of their profits last week, to the tsunami effort. They had also put aside a jar at their counters, for people who wanted to give more, and the company would match that amount for donations.
The jars came to the company today, and the accountant was busy counting the monies. She took me aside, with a distressed look on her face and whispered,
“Someone put Indonesian rupiahs in the jar. How am I supposed to match that amount?”
Now all the jars have a sign beside them that says ‘Donate in Australian currency only.’
It unraveled over coffee. He wanted me to clarify a lot of things. Things that he wanted to know, because he wanted me for the long haul. He made it quite clear that he did not want something that was short term and that he was willing to make sacrifices, like moving to Singapore. (A promise that even I can’t extract from the boyfriend.) He claimed he didn’t mind, and how he had lived there before, and that it was not such a bad place to live in.
He also explained that he was still a country boy at heart and that there were certain values that ought to be adhered to. He did not believe in poaching another guy’s territory and breaking up committed relationships. He thought that my behaviour made it very clear who I had chosen.
It was painful to watch his face at that point.
And the most upsetting thing was that he did not want to remain friends after all. On some deeper level, I understood why. But the thought of losing someone who has so much in common and whom I have the most enjoyable conversations with, is nothing short of catastrophic.
I had dinner with my housemate last night. Choice cut steaks, mashed potatoes, two different kinds of salad and lots of beer. My friend, H, came over later and we played mindless fighting games on the PS2, in which I was soundly trounced, and drank more beer.
Right now, I have the worst hangover. Thank goodness it is a bank holiday today and I don’t have to go to work with this incessant throbbing in my head, impinging on my concentration.
