Ninth Post

If I could, would I......

...spend my years learning the languages I want to learn in the places they're spoken?

Spanish in South America
Korean in South Korea
Japanese in Japan
German in Germany
French in France
Russian in Russia maybe not for this one LOL
Vietnamese in Vietnam
Chinese in Taiwan
Thai in Thailand

Learning languages organically
with the native speakers
meeting native beaus and babes

far from home
so I roam

perhaps the distance will make the hearts of my family members grow fonder

I'm sorry, my mother. I need to grow up and I can't always be by your side.
I am no longer the innocent, naive child you grew to adore, and stop treating me like how a mother treats her toddler.


...work in entertainment such as acting?

I need to tap into my looks and make my life rich in experiences with others, far from the junk that is my current life and the people I have been acquainted with in the past months.


...settle down in another country like suburban America?

To be living in a detached house with kids running around, and friendly people all around town, to experience the neighbourly camaraderie that is portrayed in Western romanticised media.


All these, while being watched over, protected and blessed by God, far from the toxicity of inactivity, sloth, childishness and incorrigibility that I regularly withstand at home.

Samuel

Labels: 2017, thoughts

Seventh Post

My mother was asking me about my study plans because I was asking her about insurance overseas.

I found it so hard to talk to her about such things especially when it concerns money. After all, I grew up with a mother who was overly money-centric. When I asked for a relatively large sum of money to lend me to undergo some dental treatment, she typed two freaking long essays in our family WhatsApp group to try to dissuade me from going for it. What's even more angering was that she would raise irrelevant examples of herself and her colleagues, talking about how difficult it was to find a job, or how she had to work a lot to support her family when she was younger.

She would also always nag at me to look for a job, saying that any job will do because she values that a sum of money is guaranteed at the end of the month regardless of the number of hours of labour. I, on the other hand, valued the flexibility that comes with giving tuition part-time. I may get less per month, but at least I spend less effort per hour to get that money. She is really not understanding.

Once, when I applied for NUS's scholarship and was awarded the lowest-tier one, she complained to me in an accusatory way about why I did not apply for the higher-tier one which would give the scholars a monthly allowance. She attacked me without even finding out how scholarship applications worked in NUS. You merely submit your application through a single channel and NUS will decide to sieve you into a respective tier based on your submitted qualifications. Money, money, money.

Coupled with my mom's lack of experience in university education, she has absolutely no clue as to how university works or is, and it is frustrating for me to have to explain things to her, especially when she will go "huh" every second I end my sentences as if she didn't think before speaking, and even more especially when it deals with money. I abhor it a lot.

I decided to ignore her just now when she was asking about my plans and walk out of the room. I imagine how in other families, the kids would have been more open to talk to their parents, but I just was not raised to do so. Everything has been so top-down and I had to rebel when I was 14. I don't have the capacity.

~.~

Just last week, iMax introduced me to this Thai series called Bangrak Soi 9/1 about a family with a son and daughter and two siblings who moved into the neighbouring space of the family's house. Right now I'm at Episode 8, but it has themes of parenting, the protagonist's struggle with his sexual identity (it's all scripted, though) and etc.. The parents have repeatedly told the kids that if there's anything, they could always confide in them. Not our family, I guess.

Anyway, I don't think I can ever tell my mother about my future educational plans. Firstly, they're both pertaining to different languages. Secondly, I would expect different application procedures. Thirdly, different kinds of miscellaneous things. It's tiring to explain to her to half-thought-out "huh?"s and also talking about my sensitive educational plans. Especially when it concerns money.

Besides, what's the point of achieving a milestone of becoming a millionaire? Money is a tool that is supposed to help us in life. There is no point being stingy or overly obsessed about it especially when it is put to good use. It's rubbish when parents say they "save for their children's education" but then go back on their words when it comes to university. Fucking bullocks.


Anyway, regarding my personal life, I think my emotions have been like shit lately. Feeling the tidal emotions, thinking about my relationships...... it sucks when people you interact with let you down or mistreat you. I've been telling myself that I am better than those people (at least in terms of academic prospects) and that I do not have to feel like it's a pity if we do not become friends or are not friends. They can continue being in their state while I will be on my way upwards, or at least I hope that it's upwards. Sometimes I wonder about my academic future, if there's any point to studying so much.

Also, I am still keeping myself open to getting to know girls. It'll probably be a painful journey especially without His guidance...... Man is foolish, I guess. I am foolish.

Alright. That's all.

Samuel

Labels: 2017, thoughts

Fifth Post

I was buying peanut waffles (after like months) at a bakery when I saw a standee about some Mother's Day promotion for their cakes.

Mother's Day, Mother's Day......

Sure, it's a day we celebrate our mothers being our mothers, but it seems to be a day we take for granted. When it comes, we celebrate it as if it's an ordinary day, and then not think about it after it passes.

It struck me ten seconds later. A tinge of sadness crept up on me.
Mother's Day...... just how many more Mother's Days are we going to have?
Ten? Up to Twenty?
What a really small number...... it's like a countdown.
Mother's Day seemed so much more precious, our mother's presence seemed so much more precious.
How could we have gone through twenty-four years of Mother's Day without respecting our mother enough?
And yet when the number comes down to ten left, we start to feel the reality of eternal separation......

I then imagined myself as a parent with many children, maybe even one that looked like First Post boy... one year old, two years old, three,
four years old, five years old, six,
seven years old, eight years old, nine years old, ten,
eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen,
the number never seems to go down. Oh, the passing of each number, the death of each time of age...... they're never coming back again.
It kinda makes you appreciate the people around you that our days are numbered and we will one day have to say goodbye. Oh, if only time could stop or if we could go back time.



갈수록 짙어져간
그리움에 잠겨
시간을 거슬러 갈순 없나요
그 때처럼만 그대 날 안아주면
괜찮을텐데 이젠

As I soak in the thickening missing of you, can't we go back in time?
If you hug me like that time,
now would have been alright.......

Samuel

Labels: 2017, thoughts