In Continuum.

It was a public performance for some Earth Day event, and it was probably the silliest and the most corny script I know, about how corporate businessmen would do anything to get their hands on even more money at the expense of the environment, or something like that. While the story line didn't actually involve killer plants like M. Night Shyamalan's The Happening, it sure wasn't the most original script to involve businessmen choking on their own poisonous fumes towards the end of the play. Let's just say that I am not very proud of what we did, but at least we got it over and done with. I remember him choosing that horrendous song by ABBA, and the embarrassment written all over my face when it was played over the speakers at Bugis Junction. So what if they are the only successful band in the history of music to come out of Sweden, that song irritates the devil out of me. For some reason, however, those lyrics are the exact same words I have been thinking of these days on top of what I already have to deal with. 

Money just seems to be the root of everything, don't you think. We have marriage based on money, happiness and sorrows, love and love loss, contentment and frustration, everything can be manipulated and traced back to money. Some people say that the more money you have, the more problems you have. Well, the poor may be contented with their lives, but it's not like they'd burn the first bag of money they find at their doorsteps either. This giant machine is operated and fueled by money, those green and blue and red and brown plastics you have in your wallet or stuffed in between your pillowcase. Sometimes they are intangible, like bank credits or numbers on cheques, but they are all there anyway, like water circulating this world that we live in. It is in the food that we eat, the water that we drink, and very soon we might have to pay for oxygen as well because we might just run out of it. Like, in half a century we might be ordering tanks of oxygens because our houses are going to be running low on them. They are going to be ordered like pizzas, or maybe some random Chinese food, and we are all going to walk around with tanks of oxygen with wheels underneath the carts. 

Anyway, money has been quite a distraction in my life these days, and I haven't got the time to think about anything else, save for school work which is always a priority. A lady came upstairs to my home a few days ago, and she is supposedly in charge of the renovation upstairs which is coming to an end by the way - thankfully. She was asked by the management of the estate to check out the water leakage problem on the exterior walls outside my parents' bathroom, and something about the leakage causing a serious delay in the paint job that has been happening around the building for the past two months or so. Anyway, so apparently my unit and two other units above have the very same problems, and they are telling us that we need to knock away the entire bathroom just to put a layer of waterproof cement. Since the workers above are doing renovations at the same time, the management suggested them to do the bathrooms for us at a cheaper price, although the word "cheaper" really is an under-statement. A letter was dropped into the mailbox this morning in regards to the prices of the renovation, and apparently we are supposed to fork out $8000 for this water leakage problem, and not a single cent is going to be paid by them - that is not to mention the fact that my family just installed brand new toilet bowls and sinks. 

My parents don't intend to pay, in fact they are going to offer the management $2000 just to leave us alone. It's just a little stain on the exterior walls anyway, and it's not like anybody is complaining about it. A subsidy would be nice, but it's not like people can be very kind and charitable these days. We all have monetary problems these days anyway, taking a cab can be the most horrifying traffic experience of your life aside from a road accident. Just looking at the meter is enough to make your head spin and your heart race, and it certainly isn't related to any romantic reasons, I can assure you. Gas is at a ridiculous price, and it is just ironic how we were promised $20 barrels of oil before the war, and now we are looking at $137 per barrel - whatever happened to that? Every mile driven on the roads is a nail to the coffin, and you just can't wait for the day when we can all pour our used cooking oil into our car engines and make it start as per normal. That, however, is not the only issue in my mind that has got to do with money either.

I have been thinking about moving back to Taiwan a lot these days, and that alone involves a lot of money even if you already have an apartment there waiting for you to occupy. You have to think about all the items in your house you want to bring back, and all the boxes you have to buy. Then you have to think about the money involved in moving these boxes into a container, onto a ship, across the sea, out of the ship, onto a truck, and then finally into your new home in a foreign country. That alone boggles anybody's minds, and then you have to think about what to do with all the things you are leaving behind, and the house itself and everything you have bought over the years. The problem is, you can't even just throw them away, like a ball of tissue you just used for your running nose. Once settled in Taiwan, I imagine spending another obscene amount of money on the basic necessities just to make things work out in the short term, and that alone is another money issue I am not even going to worry about right now. 

Going to the States can be an experience worth having, but the idea of money comes creeping into your head and never fails to spoil your dream, like an accidental pregnancy. You have to think about the fact that modules there are three times more expensive than it is here, and all the textbooks and accommodations. Transport, food, more food, and entertainment...the list never ends really. As much as I'd like to leave this country right now and move over there for my studies, my wallet is only so deep and the bank is only so big. There are limited amount of money in this world, and certainly a lesser amount of money spared to my family. If only barter trade is allowed in this country, then I might trade some of the things I have at home for items that I really need. I wish for the world to operate with rocks and sea shells, and we can all be rich by picking them up at the beaches. It'd give people a reason to visit the beaches anyway, a reason to move out from our hermit shells and office space. 

Money, however, isn't the biggest worry for some. My grandmother is 94 years old this year - bless her! Money has never been the problem for this woman because of an interesting rule in the household. Gambling is allowed only if it is done amongst family members, and the winner has to give her a share of the money won because, well, she's the oldest and the wisest. In that way, money comes in constantly, and that is not to mention the fact that her sons, including my father, sends her money on a monthly basis. Money never stops coming in for this old lady, but she has other things to worry about in her life. As some of you may already know, my cousin was diagnosed with liver cancer and was dying in the hospital a couple of weeks ago. Well, he died yesterday night at ten, two weeks earlier than the doctors predicted. I suppose when death is at hand, it becomes the chief issue on anybody's minds. My grandmother received the news of her grandson's death, and she was fetched to the hospital by my uncle - don't you just hate English kinship terms by the way? They don't ever tell you which uncle you are talking about. 

Anyway, I guess for someone like her, it must be difficult to realize that you have outlived even your grandchildren. It must be a strange feeling, something not a lot of people can understand save for that old lady. She shed a few tears in the hospital according to my father, but she was bouncing out of it as soon as it was all over. I guess at that age, money really isn't the problem anymore, but the possibility of death around every turn even if it doesn't necessarily have to happen to yourself. I guess when you are that old, you just sort of look life in a different light, and you just see that death is really what makes us human, more than anything really. As much as money is a part of our lives, it can never touch how definite and how absolute death is. You just have to have an opened mind, like my grandmother, the way she wiped away her tears and then complained about my father being stupid for taking the smallest chicken drumstick from the fridge that she saved for him. I love my grandmother, although I don't and can't show it from all the way around here. I guess, if nothing else, knowing my family back home may be a better reason to leave this island, more than anything really. In the mean time, in this rich man's world, it's all about money, money, and more money. Damn.