Time flies...
~
In the blink of an eye, a year had passed. Before last year, I'd never dreamt what life without my Grandma's like. Who would have known that on this day, I'd survived one whole year without my beloved Grandma. It's amazing, the ability of people to pick up and move on.
When I was little, I used to to think that I'd never be able to live without my Grandma. I used to wake up in the wee hours of the morning, crying for my Grandma cos of another bad dream of her passing on and leaving me. She'd promised that when the time comes she'd fly on a crane and bring me with her. Too bad she cannot fulfill this promise.....
Po, I miss you... I'm sorry I never said I love you. To your death I still never gained the courage... I hope you'll be able to feel it though.
Far as you are, I bear hope that one day, we 'll definitely be reunited somewhere and we'll never part again...
~
My Dad called the week before last to announce that for the second time in his life, he has been retrenched. When my Mom told us after the phone call, I almost thought she was merely joking. Apparently not...
The funny thing is, it does not shock anyone of us at all. It felt like an inevitability that came too early or something. For a whole week after I lived in panic and anxiety, leapt headlong into a saving programme, praying that my meagre pay from tuition can at least count for something, maybe pay off the UOL pounds payment I have to make early next year. Luckily I can say that I have calmed down considerably now...
It's really the worst timing ever. I graduate in approximately seven months or so and even then there is no guarantee that I'd be able to find work right away. My brother is still in the army, slated to go off to NUS soon enough. Then there's the youngest one to consider too. Will we be able to pull through?
I could be worrying too much cos my conscientious mother has always made it a habit to save. I thank whoever's up there for all the rejections I've made mentally to my urges to buy things and to my Dad's urge to buy me something. Every penny saved now really counts for something.
I worry for my Dad. He is a capable man but he is a difficult man to work with or even put up with. He doesn't see it but he has too much of an ego and overestimates the way people see him. His friends may be able to tolerate and see eye to eye with him but not everyone is a friend. Now that he is 52, it is infinitely more difficult for him to find anything. However, his enormous pride will likely impede him from taking on things he perceives to be demeaning, much like the case of my aunt. It is likely that he has in fact lined himself in for coerced early retirement...
I worry for the youngest too. He'd always seemed like the quiet sheep, the yes man, but how much do we know him? How much has he kept bottled inside? Has this affected him in any way? Or is he oblivious to it all in some way? I'm afraid for this to affect my family but at the same time, things HAVE changed and we really have to react accordingly. My brother is too nice, always rising to the occasion and saying ok it seems. I'm not sure if he's like that with friends but it seems he might be. A boy his age is sure to meet with some angst in his life. I wish to be there for him but sometimes you just have to let him be...
My life's going to change again once my Dad returns. I name it Armageddon.
I am tired of it, I don't wish to fall into the age old routine of avoidance and and silence as strategy. I wish I could speak to my Dad the way others could. I envy Xinrong and Zhixian. My father and I, we are like the two poles of Earth, better apart than together. Perhaps one may say that this has not happened yet, that I can't just think about the negative parts and all, but for me, it seems as inevitable and the daily sunrise that we are bound to quarrel sometime in the near future. Bottom line is, we have different wavelines and different views about almost everything that counts, religion, life, food, habits, the list goes on... I dread the downward spiral, I wish there's some way I can get out of it. I don't recall if I was ever really elated that my Dad was going away but I can seriously say that I'm tormented that he'd be back for good...
Even before he's back he's started to quest to wage a war. He may not see it that way but it has built resentment in me already. He asked for our entire family to go vegetarian, for his good. I got angry. I told my Mum that he's trying to blame his retrenchment on us due to supposed bad karma that we bring him due to our meat eating ways. Ma argued that he never said that but that was all implied in his request.
Never once in his many attempts to make us join him in vegetarianism has he said the right words that could possibly motivate me to want to really try it. His emphasis is always on the improvement of the spiritual well-being of the person if we become vegetarians. Never has he placed the possible health benefits of vegetarianism as his main point in his arguments. If I were to ever become a vegetarian, it would NEVER be because of the supposed spiritual elements but due to health reasons. Why? Simply because I don't believe in it, I don't believe in it at all. Food has no link to spirituality, let alone have such great influence that we can spread bad, or in his words, good karma in his direction.
Everyone should reflect and decide what is wrong with themselves. If one can only blame external elements, therein lies the fatal problem. The problem is never with oneself but someone or something else.....
Been busy with tuition and all for the past two months or so, ironically it was actually my school holiday. Now's school started, am just as busy as ever, peak season for tuition cos the P6s are having their PSLE from Wed onwards. Good luck P6s!
Am extremely glad that I got through the last sch year unscathed, for awhile had really been a little worried that I might not be able to pass Managerial Econs but thank God I've managed to pass it and don't have to take it again. My worry for the year now is Financial Reporting, I've been having a hard time trying to concentrate during the lectures for this module. The rest, mercifully, are quite interesting and fun. =)
Hmm.... Got loads and loads of stuff to update on, will come back another day to tell more!
Before I go, here's a portrait my Mum dug out while throwing out some of my stuff. It's a souvenir of sorts from my trip to Hong Kong last year. Wouldn't you agree that the artist did quite a good job of drawing me? ;)