Festive Bullshit No More
Monday, February 12, 2007
Festive Bullshit No More
It is THAT time of the year again for everybody to be lazy and then have a reason to have unmotivated afternoon naps. The Chinese New Year is here again, and this time around I feel a tad bit different because I am a year older, the last year of my youthful-self, or the first year of my adulthood. Either way, I feel the creaks in my joints and the ball of fur in my throat, that strange feeling you get as you grow older and older. But whatever it is, looking back on the posts a year ago things seem to have been drastically different for me. At least the word 'festive' is no longer followed by the word 'bullshit', because like I said, as you enter into a different phase of your life, perspectives change and the previous perspective can either be a thought-provoking one or a downright stupid one.
Still, I stand by a couple of stuff I wrote in that ancient entry of mine. I went back to the January 23rd post of 2006 and had a good laugh reading about myself blogging about this time of the year while at home for Nights Off. Here's a little something I'd like to quote from that entry:
"...The fact that you can sit on your bed with the air-conditioning turned on without a speck of guilt whatsoever is liberating.However,i hate going out on those days,and here are some of the reasons.
1)The crowd makes you pity sardines.
2)Horrendous festive music everywhere,you think 5566's Chopin.
3)Ugly decorations everywhere,you start to appreciate graffiti.
4)Overall happy aura.
5)Exploitation.
6)Crazy foam-straying teenagers.
7)Fat shoppers.
..."
I stand by the seven points of why I hate to go out on such days though, especially point number 2, and the fact that there is a very fine line between music and noise very easily crossed. New Year songs are still as bad as ever, and I remember a couple of days ago when I was in the toilet of Junction 8, they were blasting them over the speakers in the toilet, with Mediacorp artistes taking their turns to sing some Chinese New Year greetings. And of course, their singing voices are compatible with their acting skills, and there in the toilet with the volume of the music tuned a tad bit too high, I rolled my eyes so bad I almost forgot to check myself in the mirrors.
But that fact is only redeemed when I am around my beau, simply because she does her own rendition of the songs and then make them good. Biased or not, you guys can actually be the judge, but she has the ability to sing every single Christmas and Chinese New Year song they play in malls, coupled with cheesy dance steps she learned in Secondary School, quite an amazing sight to see indeed.
There is something about private housing estates that I really love. The serenity that embraces you when you are sitting at home on a Sunday night, catching your favorite movie on DVD and having a cup of nice coffee. Be it alone or in the company of somebody you love, there is something about living in a private housing estate that is alluring. Of course, that is aside from the lawn that you need to tend to and the size of the house itself. But other than that, I like the idea of you keeping within the confines of your fences, minding your own business. And that stroll that we took between the endless rows of houses yesterday night was especially a memorable one indeed.
After dinner, the both of us took a stroll down the Serangoon Gardens Villa and through the neighborhood where I hung around for a couple of years. My kindergarten is situated there, and ever since I left that place, I haven't gone back to that same old NTUC very often, usually just hanging around the restaurants and stuff. But this time, I decided to take a stroll down memory lane with my beloved, and check out the houses on our right and left. That is something my parents like to do sometimes, to check out houses in private housing estates and see how they tend to their own 10x10 meters of land. So in a way that reminded myself of a married couple, though we were far from being one of course.
Somehow, the houses on the right were more rundown than the houses on the left, and some of them really had stunning renovations. We were peering into some of the houses like some voyeurs, and I bet the owners might not have been very happy about that. But still, checking out houses with her made me feel like we are going to buy a house of our own, come home after work to the same place and fall asleep together. That is a great fantasy to see come true indeed, something marriage can be good for in my opinion. The way your idea of a home changes between a place you go back to to see your parents, and a place you get back to to seek the love from your beau, very interesting.
My kindergarten is still standing there, though drastically different. Guess they must have gained a fortune over the years and renovated the whole place. The old playground at the front was gone, and the old tiles I remember were all dug up and replaced. But the porch was still there, with the long dark corridor leading to my classroom still remained lined with metal benches. I used to force my mother to sit there just so that I can see her during classes, all the way until I am done for the school. That didn't last for a very long time, but still I feel guilty to have done that, and if I happen to meet that self some day I might just give him a tight slap. But for now, more than fifteen years later, I stand outside the gates of the school I used to attend with a beautiful, amazing woman in my arms, and thought about just how much I have grown over the years into a better person, and still doing so with each passing day with my wonderful partner.
I guess that is how my perspective of festive seasons have changed. We don't really have to submerge ourselves to those horrendous music though they are still horrendous, or get into a crowd of unknown individual, squeezing the life and breath out of us. Festive seasons can be spent with your loved ones, walking through a random housing estate or just sitting at your balcony in the dark talking. I've never spent a memorable Christmas, a memorable Chinese New Year or a Valentine's Day, or any other festive seasons with anybody special. But I guess here and now, I am proud to say that I have you as a reason to tell people that it is festive bullshit no more, that you are the reason why my life has taken a sudden turn into the greater better good.
It is THAT time of the year again for everybody to be lazy and then have a reason to have unmotivated afternoon naps. The Chinese New Year is here again, and this time around I feel a tad bit different because I am a year older, the last year of my youthful-self, or the first year of my adulthood. Either way, I feel the creaks in my joints and the ball of fur in my throat, that strange feeling you get as you grow older and older. But whatever it is, looking back on the posts a year ago things seem to have been drastically different for me. At least the word 'festive' is no longer followed by the word 'bullshit', because like I said, as you enter into a different phase of your life, perspectives change and the previous perspective can either be a thought-provoking one or a downright stupid one.
Still, I stand by a couple of stuff I wrote in that ancient entry of mine. I went back to the January 23rd post of 2006 and had a good laugh reading about myself blogging about this time of the year while at home for Nights Off. Here's a little something I'd like to quote from that entry:
"...The fact that you can sit on your bed with the air-conditioning turned on without a speck of guilt whatsoever is liberating.However,i hate going out on those days,and here are some of the reasons.
1)The crowd makes you pity sardines.
2)Horrendous festive music everywhere,you think 5566's Chopin.
3)Ugly decorations everywhere,you start to appreciate graffiti.
4)Overall happy aura.
5)Exploitation.
6)Crazy foam-straying teenagers.
7)Fat shoppers.
..."
I stand by the seven points of why I hate to go out on such days though, especially point number 2, and the fact that there is a very fine line between music and noise very easily crossed. New Year songs are still as bad as ever, and I remember a couple of days ago when I was in the toilet of Junction 8, they were blasting them over the speakers in the toilet, with Mediacorp artistes taking their turns to sing some Chinese New Year greetings. And of course, their singing voices are compatible with their acting skills, and there in the toilet with the volume of the music tuned a tad bit too high, I rolled my eyes so bad I almost forgot to check myself in the mirrors.
But that fact is only redeemed when I am around my beau, simply because she does her own rendition of the songs and then make them good. Biased or not, you guys can actually be the judge, but she has the ability to sing every single Christmas and Chinese New Year song they play in malls, coupled with cheesy dance steps she learned in Secondary School, quite an amazing sight to see indeed.
There is something about private housing estates that I really love. The serenity that embraces you when you are sitting at home on a Sunday night, catching your favorite movie on DVD and having a cup of nice coffee. Be it alone or in the company of somebody you love, there is something about living in a private housing estate that is alluring. Of course, that is aside from the lawn that you need to tend to and the size of the house itself. But other than that, I like the idea of you keeping within the confines of your fences, minding your own business. And that stroll that we took between the endless rows of houses yesterday night was especially a memorable one indeed.
After dinner, the both of us took a stroll down the Serangoon Gardens Villa and through the neighborhood where I hung around for a couple of years. My kindergarten is situated there, and ever since I left that place, I haven't gone back to that same old NTUC very often, usually just hanging around the restaurants and stuff. But this time, I decided to take a stroll down memory lane with my beloved, and check out the houses on our right and left. That is something my parents like to do sometimes, to check out houses in private housing estates and see how they tend to their own 10x10 meters of land. So in a way that reminded myself of a married couple, though we were far from being one of course.
Somehow, the houses on the right were more rundown than the houses on the left, and some of them really had stunning renovations. We were peering into some of the houses like some voyeurs, and I bet the owners might not have been very happy about that. But still, checking out houses with her made me feel like we are going to buy a house of our own, come home after work to the same place and fall asleep together. That is a great fantasy to see come true indeed, something marriage can be good for in my opinion. The way your idea of a home changes between a place you go back to to see your parents, and a place you get back to to seek the love from your beau, very interesting.
My kindergarten is still standing there, though drastically different. Guess they must have gained a fortune over the years and renovated the whole place. The old playground at the front was gone, and the old tiles I remember were all dug up and replaced. But the porch was still there, with the long dark corridor leading to my classroom still remained lined with metal benches. I used to force my mother to sit there just so that I can see her during classes, all the way until I am done for the school. That didn't last for a very long time, but still I feel guilty to have done that, and if I happen to meet that self some day I might just give him a tight slap. But for now, more than fifteen years later, I stand outside the gates of the school I used to attend with a beautiful, amazing woman in my arms, and thought about just how much I have grown over the years into a better person, and still doing so with each passing day with my wonderful partner.
I guess that is how my perspective of festive seasons have changed. We don't really have to submerge ourselves to those horrendous music though they are still horrendous, or get into a crowd of unknown individual, squeezing the life and breath out of us. Festive seasons can be spent with your loved ones, walking through a random housing estate or just sitting at your balcony in the dark talking. I've never spent a memorable Christmas, a memorable Chinese New Year or a Valentine's Day, or any other festive seasons with anybody special. But I guess here and now, I am proud to say that I have you as a reason to tell people that it is festive bullshit no more, that you are the reason why my life has taken a sudden turn into the greater better good.
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