The Marriage Proposal… One Year On

Last Saturday the fiancee and I went to East Coast Park (ECP) to celebrate our first year since I proposed. Originally planning on going to Sentosa via cable car to relive the proposal, we decided against it in the end. Among other reasons (truth-be-told, there was only one), it was because it was too expensive (of course, we all know that it was because I was stingy and didn’t love her enough).

Not wanting to disappoint her too much (just a little was fine), I told her that we’d still make our way down to Vivo for some (preferably window) shopping before we headed down to the East Coast. That way, we’d at least still be able to catch a glimpse of the cable cars, an activity I was sure she’d enjoy (if enjoying meant stirring up latent feelings of disappointment and longing, she enjoyed it plenty).

We made our way down to Vivo mid-afternoon, after watching a surprisingly addictive documentary called “Pawn Stars”.

We drove down to Vivo, which was approximately 15 minutes away by car. As we neared our destination, we caught our first glimpse of the cable cars, and I could sense the fiancee’s enjoyment level go up a notch or two (“so close, yet so far,” I thought I heard her say).

The time spent at Vivo was largely uninteresting. All I remember from the time spent in Vivo was walking and more walking, a routine only broken by a small meal, soon after which was followed by yet more walking (I guess it’s what girls call “shopping”?). We finally left the place just before 6pm (when the $2.40 per-entry carpark charges kicked in). (It was with great irony that our outing at Vivo yielded me a pair of shorts from a shop that drew customers in with a huge “Closing Down Sale” banner, whereas the fiancee went home empty-handed. Can I also note that it’s not the first time I went shopping with the fiancee with the intention of accompanying her spend her hard-earned dollars only for me to do so instead?)

At ECP, we were considering between two places, both ranked quite highly by hungrygowhere.com: 1 Twenty Six and Claypot Fun. We went to 1 Twenty Six first as it was the less likely of the two (by virtue of the reportedly steep prices), and were not disappointed — true to our expectations, the prices were as high as a teenager on drugs. As the fiancee said, at those prices, there were better (and fancier) dining places, so off to Claypot Fun we went.

The fiancee had heard about Claypot Fun from a friend. Overall it was a very decent place: food was acceptable for its price, the staff weren’t rude (you can probably tell my expectations of service in Singapore isn’t very high), and seating was relatively generous. There were really only two things that I would complain about: the first was that the cashier did not let us know that we could have been entitled to a 10% discount had we used the discount coupon found in one one of the million Big Splash pamphlets displayed at the counter; the second, more essential thing, was that they didn’t provide the sweet dark soy sauce with the claypot rice we ordered by default, instead providing only the lighter, saltier soy sauce (which did nothing to make the rice any less bland). Had I not finally requested it halfway through our meal after seeing another enlightened table having it, it’d have had to have been one of the worst meals we’d ever had.

No, this wasn't taken @ East Coast.

After we had finished eating, we went for a walk along the beach. The sun, by now settling down somewhere in the west, provided a wonderful backdrop for a romantic evening. About a half hour of paktoring (I think this roughly translates — not that accurately I might add — to English as “dating?”) later, we headed to Starbucks for a drink. The fiancee had her usual fruit juicy thingy, and I had my usual latte (it always brings back wonderful memories of my time in Aussie).

We looked through some newspapers, and somehow we always came back to the topic of our jobs (sometimes I swear I’d kill to be rid of this bane called a “job” — (though I know others who’d kill to have one)). My job’s decent, and hers I’m sure, to her, is too, but still we’d rather be some place else.

We headed back to the car after our drinks, and she thought we’d be making our way back home. But then I wasn’t done yet. I brought the fiancee to a more deserted part of ECP, which really wasn’t that deserted, and pulled a rabbit out of my hat. I told her to look in the glove compartment, and there it was, a Rabbids (for the Wii) game. Surprisingly, she didn’t look so surprised, and it was only seconds later that’d I find out why.

It seemed that she’d seen the receipt for the game (when I passed it to her to get the drinks I think) in my wallet! Omg, right? To think that she’d counter my surprise with a surprise of her own. But as every magician knows (I’m sure they do), the key to making sure you don’t screw up too badly is to always have a backup plan, which I did. After some corny mushy conversation in which I enticed her to say the word “too” (I really cannot go into the details), I reached my hand to the back of her seat and pulled out another Rabbids game (they were both different episodes, of course), all the while asking her, “two? did you say two? you want two?”

Her counter attacked foiled, she was now genuinely surprised, not at all expecting that I had bought two games (she merely glanced at the receipt and didn’t check out what it really contained). But a magician doesn’t just stop at delighting his audience, he seeks to absolutely delight his audience! I still had one more trick up my sleeve, one that I was sure would make her glow with pleasure even more.

I told her to wait in the car, as I had something else in the boot for her (a lantern shaped as a pig — any resemblance to any person living or dead was purely coincidental). She happily agreed, by now engrossed at examining the two games I got her. I know, the lantern festival (also known as the mid-autumn festival) wasn’t quite here yet, but I when I saw this lantern at the stationery shop where I got the wrapping paper for her two gifts, I knew I just had to get it for her (she had indicated her interest in this lantern just the previous week at some other shop in Jurong; in turn, I had indicated my my displeasure at how much it cost. No purchase was made back then, but the serendipity of seeing the exact same lantern in Kovan did it for me).

Taken when in Perth. Josephine, the fiancee, and me.

Her eyes lit up when she saw the lantern (it might have been the candlelight). So off we went, lantern in hand, to the beach. There were more than a few curious stares, which I welcomed; doing things like this reminded me so much of Perth and the crazy times we had.

Many times the candle threatened to be blown out by the wind, but somehow or other it continued burning. We walked to one of those sea-wall things and sat there and talked for a bit before making our way back to the car, by which time the candle had pretty much burned itself out.

All in all, I couldn’t have planned this day any better. Sure, we missed out on the cable car ride (I was actually quite looking forward to it before my lantern plan came about), but this day’s certainly going to go down as one of the more unforgettable days in my life. And hopefully just one of the many, many wonderful days we will share in ours.


2010
09/01
CATEGORY
Uncategorized
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The Beggar Woman at Tampines Mall

Yesterday, just as I was about to cross the street near Tampines Mall (a very pedestrian-heavy intersection between the Tampines MRT station and Tampines Mall), a slightly oldish-looking woman, possibly between 45 and 55, grabbed my arm and asked me (in surprisingly decent English) for $5.

Stunned more than anything else, my immediate reaction was to ask, “what for?”

There was a brief pause before she said, “to buy something to eat.”

I was still not quite registering what was happening (note that at this point she was still holding on to my arm, a most uncomfortable feeling), and with my mind still pretty much focused on crossing the road, I asked, “where are you going to eat?”

There was another pause, this time longer than before. While she was still registering what to say, I, too, was zooming ahead to consider what my next reaction would and should be. Whatever it was, I decided, I wasn’t going to give her any money. If need be, I would instead accompany her to any place selling food and buy the food for her.

“I need money to buy food,” she reiterated after the pause. And like a child who after pondering long and hard about the answer to what 12 x 12 was, and suddenly realising it was 144, her eyes lit up and she added, “I need money to buy food for my family.”

I wasn’t expecting her to say that — I was now imagining eating with her and her family and how odd that would be (I wasn’t thinking too clearly at this time, forgetting that it was possible to buy takeaway). I reconsidered my “only food, no cash” position, but stood by it, realising that offering to buy her food instead of giving her the money outright wasn’t all that bad. So I asked her again, “where are you going to buy the food?”

Flustered with all the questions, she became desperate. “Please give me $5,” she said, half-bending her knees (as if to kneel down). The first thought that came to my mind (other than that this was such an interesting situation to be in) was that this was so dramatic, and that in television dramas kneel-threateners almost always get what they want (that is, the person they’re going to kneel to almost always asks them to get up, right before they cave in the the initial request that prompted the kneeling).

The second thought that came to my mind was on what I was going to do. What could I do in a situation like this? My heart was set on not giving her cash, but letting her kneel down in front of me was going too far (I’d have preferred to give the cash). I resolved, then, to kneel down with her as a last resort, if anything at least the humiliation would be borne by two.

But a couple of seconds after she initiated her knee-bending, I realised the time she was taking far too long in her attempt; it didn’t take so long to kneel, and if she was going to do it she would have done it already. It was quite obviously half-hearted, and was probably an empty threat (she might just have had weak knees preventing efficient execution of the kneel).

But I didn’t get to find out if she’d have gone all the way because before she did, another woman standing nearby held her and asked her, “Auntie, why? What’s wrong? Don’t cry. Don’t cry, okay?”

Filled with relief that I didn’t really have had to kneel with this “auntie”, I looked at this woman with the hope that she’d understand my appreciation for her joining me in this difficult situation. But the look she returned was unreadable — was she chiding me for giving this poor woman such a hard time, or was she telling me to carry on with my life and that she’d take it from here?

The “auntie” let go of my arm (finally!) and turned toward the woman. “I need $5 to feed my family,” she told her. Without hesitating, the woman then took out $5 from her purse and gave it to the auntie, telling her to “take care,” walking off right after she did (like me, she wanted to cross the road). Just as this woman left, the auntie turned toward me and with a hint of moral superiority said, “See! That woman gave me $5 and told me to take care! You didn’t even want to help!”

This sudden accusation ruffled me a bit. I did want to help. I looked back at her and said, “It’s not that I didn’t want to help. I asked you where you were going to eat, and I’d have brought you there to eat.” There was a brief pause, then she added, “She told me to take care. You didn’t tell me to take care!”

I had half the mind of continuing this debate with her (“I asked you where you were going to eat”), but I realised I had no business being there anymore. I had errands to run, and the poor woman probably wouldn’t have been begging if she could help it. I walked off quickly as the other woman had done, the sounds of the accusations dying off in the distance.

About ten minutes later, after my errands were run, I had to walk by the same place again, and I wasn’t all that surprised to see the auntie still there. As I waited for the light to turn green, I saw her busily going from one person to the next, asking for money. Most brushed her aside immediately, but some, like me, stopped to listen to what she had to say. When the lights turned green and I crossed, I overheard her telling a young student couple something about somebody’s grandfather dying.

I stood behind this couple for a while, looking at her, listening to this story not offered to me previously (engrossed in telling her story, she did not notice me). The couple after some deliberation shyly shook their heads and walked on. Looking for her next target, she then turned in my direction and saw me looking at her, before looking down and turning away. As did I.

2010
08/21
CATEGORY
Personal
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Missing Entrepreneurship

I went out with Zixuan a couple of days ago. It was the first time we were meeting for a little over a month but, it seemed hardly a day passed since we last saw each other. Nothing much had changed, except perhaps his greater immersion into the world of entrepreneurship.

It was with some regret that I told him that my own entrepreneurship aspirations had dwindled about as much as his had grown. “Work,” I said, “has taken up much of me.” And it was true — work had, especially recently, drained me pretty dry; it wasn’t something I had envisioned before I got the job, nor was it something I had envisioned even just a couple of months ago.

The whole time we were out we were talking about entrepreneurship in some form or the other.

By the end of it all, tired as heck as I was, I knew I was going to have to start something, even if I didn’t know what it was yet.

But as they say: if not now, when? And if not you, who?

2010
08/15
CATEGORY
Business and Finance
Personal
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Aftershock

I just finished watching the Chinese movie Aftershock with the wife-to-be. It’s deliciously sob-worthy (I did drop a tear or two in parts), and was overall quite an enjoyable show.

The only pity is that this story had the potential to be so much sadder. The family-orientation(?) probably meant that the show was to be toned down a wee bit, ending on a positive-neutral note.

2010
08/09
CATEGORY
Misc
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Self Improvement

I’ve gotten weary of self-improvement literature. I’m not sure when it happened or how; or if it’s a temporary thing (as so many times it has been in my life) or not; but if I had to read one more list of “things you can do to improve your life” I think I’ll puke.

Once a self-improvement junkie, you might say I’ve moved closer to the dark side; where once I looked up to those who shouted at those who would listen how one’s life was deficient and how one might overcome those deficiencies, I now have apathy and scepticism as my bedfellows.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m still all for sugar, spice and everything nice. And despite what I said earlier, I still do love learning how I might be a better person. What I probably can’t stand is the sheer immense volumes of rubbish people write, especially when they don’t realise what they write is rubbish.

I think what’s missing in most of the self-improvement material I go through is that of humility — it sure would be nice as hell (forgive the expression) to have someone write about the self-doubt they faced, or the fact that they suspect all their hard work could be for naught (success leads to the exact same ends failure does, but let us work toward success anyway).

And  nobody ever gives chance and randomness any credit any more. Sure, tell people to work hard and let them know that by doing so they’d be more likely to succeed. Lots of people work hard and succeed. But lots of people work hard and fail, too; only thing, because they fail we don’t get to hear about them. Who’s to say working hard makes much of a difference?

2010
07/29
CATEGORY
Self-help
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Happiness — a state of mind.

It’s been a week since I completed my two-week in-camp-training (ICT) stint. For those two weeks, I complained to everyone who would listen how much I disliked it, and how I couldn’t wait for “normal” life to resume.

I can imagine how stupid I’d sound if I said now how much I missed those two weeks, and how those two weeks — no matter how maddenly frustrating and physically torturous — was actually enjoyable to a certain extent.

It is with great irony that — with my mind tuned to how I might be subjected to a different sort of torture at work tomorrow — I’m left wishing I was back at camp, where there the strong camaraderie made it all seem almost worthwhile, which is more than I can say in my work at the office.

Perhaps it is true that the grass is always greener on the other side — we are not ones to be easily satisfied with our lot — and that happiness is more a state of mind than anything external.

Who knows, but I could well be looking back on this day years down the road, thinking how wonderful it all once seemed; when the body was young and the opportunities plenty, with family and friends whom I can then only meet in dreams still around.

2010
07/18
CATEGORY
Career
Love
Philosophy
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Back from ICT!

Just a little over a day ago, I completed my first “high-key” (two week) ICT  or “in-camp-training”. It’s been four years since I ORD’ed (i.e. left the army), so you can imagine how rusty I was in these matters. Just so you know, I’m one ICT short of most of my peers, having deferred my first due to my study commitments.

This ICT felt like a very condensed version of my two years in the army (serving my mandatory two-year national service). The days before I booked in were one of the worst I’ve had, as I constantly worried how everything was going to turn out (there were plenty of “unknowns”) — I wasn’t sure if I brought everything that I needed to bring; if I’d be with my old army mates; if the expectations of NSFs were present in the reservists; all that sort of thing.

But these fears were largely allayed from the moment I stepped into the camp and started seeing familiar faces. Friend after friend and acquaintance after acquaintance showed up and acknowledged me. People I hadn’t seen in years felt like close friends, and laughter flowed easily. The camaraderie between most of us was a pleasant surprise to me, though on hindsight having a common peeve — serving natural service — naturally brought us closer together.

The first week passed without much incident, with the highlight probably my pocketing a handsome $200 for my IPPT silver (and the realisation that I hadn’t quite lost it since I ORD’ed). The real stresses came from my civilian life — text messages related to work flowed in quite endlessly, and it was the first time in a long time that I seriously reconsidered my career options.

During the second week, we all went to Pulau Tekong for a four-day field camp. We were up against an active unit, who were using us as practice before their major exercise later this year. This field camp was ridiculously uncomfortable, with the main peeves of mine being the infinite mosquitoes/insects and the ridiculously heavy 84mm weapon I had to lug around.

The last night was especially unbearable, when we spent almost nine hours getting to our attacking objective (we started our march at midnight, and arrived for the attack at about 9am the next morning). By the time I got back to camp I was so exhausted I could hardly lift the 84 off the ground, and my body felt like it was hit by a bus, after it had been bulldozed and steamrolled.

But that’s not to say it was all that bad. It’s unbelievable how knowing that others are suffering with you, and supporting you in some way or another (like all my friends were), the pain was made that much more bearable. I really don’t know what I’d do if they were around, giving me respite from the physical and mental abuse I’d been put through.

PS: I’d also like to add that throughout the whole ICT I’d been texting and calling my fiancee, who provided me with fantastic support. I knew that if things ever got too bad, I could always rely on her to help make things more manageable again!

2010
07/11
CATEGORY
Personal
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ICT Coming Up

Hi people, I’ll be away on in-camp training for the next two weeks. Not particularly looking forward to it, but it may prove to be a nice respite from work (who knows).

Will be in Singapore for the first week, but will be in Tekong for the second. Will be back on the 10th of July. Until then, take care.

2010
06/27
CATEGORY
Uncategorized
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Air Supply Concert

I went with the fiancée to an Air Supply concert last Sunday. It was my first concert (her second), and up till now I still don’t quite know how it all happened. I remember seeing the ad for the show one day while watching television, thinking “hey, they’ve got one song she really likes and plenty that I like, I wonder if she’ll be interested.” I really can’t really recall any other concert (other than perhaps Michael Jackson) whom we’d both be interested in going to.

And even if it wasn’t that she was interested in watching Air Supply per se, I think the novelty of my actually suggesting that we go to a concert would’ve shocked her into saying yes anyway. I know few who are more tight-fisted about money than me, and my shelling out more than a hundred bucks for two hours of entertainment is quite extraordinary. She wasn’t going to give up this opportunity.

The concert was held at Resorts World Sentosa. We made our way down a little earlier than what we thought necessary in order to take a look around (since it was the first time either one of us were there), but in the end by the time we managed to find the convention centre (this place was huge) it was close to the time the concert was supposed start.

We took our seats  on what she called “50 cents seats” — because they looked so cheap — and quickly got down to the business of snapping photographs to capture the moment. Scanning around the hall, we realised we made a pretty good purchase with our $128 seats: straight down the centre and not too far as to have to require binoculars.

Before the concert started, I must admit that I was worried I’d brought her to show she wouldn’t enjoy. But once the show started, and “Two Less Lonely People in the World” started playing, I knew there was no doubt as to her enjoyment. Good show!

2010
06/22
CATEGORY
Uncategorized
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Happiness Doesn’t Lead to New Writing

I’ve always felt that my best pieces of writing were written in times of melancholy, sadness, or anger — generally negative feelings you’d want to avoid.

During the better times, those good but not great times, writing doesn’t come quite as readily. Perhaps it’s because life keeps you satiated with itself, and writing just isn’t needed. For most casual writers, is this not the case?

2010
06/19
CATEGORY
Writing
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