scene one. a man inside the mrt. sitting and reading the fresh daily publication. i can’t help but notice him because: i was standing directly in front of him in the crowded train; and he was incessantly picking his nose that he seems like digging deeply into a very precious goldmine. then, he pressed the accumulated mass with his thumb and forefinger, rolling them to create a perfect ball. finally he stopped, but in total profundity, perhaps thinking where he will store his treasure. his hands went deep inside his pockets. i don’t know what happened next.
scene two. a middle-aged lady maybe on her way to work just like myself. she was sitting beside the goldminer. i can’t remember if she’s reading too or in her own world listening to an mp3 player. but as the goldminer busily hoards his treasure, she suddenly stood up, at first i thought because she was afraid the miner might deposit his precious into her for safe keeping, but it later revealed that she was standing up to give her seat to another middle-aged lady with a swollen tummy. she looked definitely pregnant in my opinion. the second lady declined the seat, and said something to the first lady, smiling, laughing, and holding her stomach all at the same time. the first lady sat back. i don’t know what they talked about and i’m uncertain if the second lady was really pregnant or she just has an inflated stomach full of fats and oversized innards.
scene three. today was swimming day.
i guess my last post sounded i’m leading a dispairing life in this country, so to set it back, i’m not actually in too much agony. it’s exactly four months being in this city, and i’ve been away from the philippines for 13 months straight, the longest continuous time i’ve been out of my homeland. lately, i’m engrossing myself with being active. if i’m not running, i’m swimming, well, let’s just say i try swimming. i’ve been running on and off for about 4 years now, my mom even inheriting the treadmill when i left home. i don’t go to any gym or fitness club. i suppose it’s better for me to run outside along the jogging lanes downstairs our flat where i don’t have to pay a single cent. it is also more flexible for me as i can run anytime i want. running outdoors is different than running on machines primarily because it is more physically demanding perhaps due to external forces and resistance and gravity. but then, it is more enjoyable because you see a lot of interesting things, and maybe just by the fact that you are actually moving! i don’t run as much and as fast as i ran before but i hate to admit that it might be because A.) I’m aging., B.) I smoke., C.) I’m too heavy, my cheeks are plump enough and dragging me slow., or D.) A bit of A, B, and C. in any case, i run at least 4km during each go (just like last night), but it really ranges. there was one night when i ran as much as 8km. last night’s 4km took me about 27 minutes.
just like i said, i’m taking swimming a little serious now. it’s not that i don’t know how to swim, or i have this intimate closeness to the silver swimming pool rod near the ladder when in pools. i really know how to float and swim, but they are all my own way of swimming. i never had lessons before, and i just do it the way my legs and arms would do naturally to survive. what i wanted to learn is to swim like phelps. haha, kidding aside, i just wanted to learn the proper strokes and be more efficient and take swimming as a form of exercise. taking lessongs is not an option as it is incredibly expensive, and with the kind of compensation we are getting, this is impractical. so, my flatmate and myself resolve this by learning on our own from video instructions. i was hesitant in the beginning, but thought i’ll never lose anything so why not try? (that’s a rhetorical question) i swim every tuesday (today), thursday, and saturday.
i hope i did not suggest that i’m very much into physically demanding workouts that you would expect i’m in the best of shape just like that model hunk imprinted on an underwear carton (that is how my flatmate described the kind of body he wants hehe). i still have extra 10 pounds or so..5 pounds on my left cheek and another 5 pounds on my right. excellent.
the primary reason why i’ve been posting sporadically is because i’m having a serious struggle with time, and the good (or bad?) thing about this is that it’s not because of work. with the coming of the new year, office has been so-so to the point that i’ve convinced myself to start looking for other better opportunities. i realize it won’t be easy because i signed a contract to stay for 2 years, and it’s only barely 4 months to date since joining the company. it was good initially as i learned a great deal of new things, especially with mainframe and lotus domino, but then work has been tidbits of unimportant, irrelevant tasks that i’m not sure if i’m going to be happy or not. added the fact that the last pay i got was last dec 24th, and now i still have to wait until the end of the month to make my wallet back in decent shape.
okay, the blame is not because i’m pathetically overloaded with work but more of because there’s not much work with the work. trust me, it’s even more difficult to pretend to be working on something than to work the work itself. having said that, it is with complete humiliation that i’m typing this entry during my paid office hours. if i’m not sitting on my chair making sure it’s warm, i’m waiting for amnesic employees to have their password reset, or busy arranging meeting rooms, setting up pcs and projectors, or lifting heavy servers like a power-lifting champ. it’s funny the first time i got this meeting invitation in my email not because i’m having a meeting but because i’m going to arrange a conference room. i don’t really look down at this kind of job, i even enjoyed it at some point because i roam around a lot and i’m the kind of person who would rather walk around than wait idly, just like when i distributed new IDs and wandered the whole 5th floor matching cubicle names, faces printed on the IDs and breathing faces in real life. perhaps, it’s with all things that sooner or later, you’ll get used to them and then it’s boring. to add that this is not the most intellectually challenging job i’ve had, and i just know (i know i would sound arrogant) that i can still make better use of my skills somewhere else. it’s just a reality that sticking with this job gives me a secured cash flow every end of the month, and that alone is worth staying put for now. i still even owe my sister some 15K pesos, and i’ve yet to start saving.
the bitter part with work is that it ate more than a third of my life each day, and i just enjoy more the things i do when i’m out of the office. at the tick of 5:58, i start going to my boss (he leaves at 5:30) to sign 6:00 for my time out. by 5:59, i’m shutting down computer. at 6:00pm, i’m gone. that’s 5 days a week without exception UNTIL this coming saturday when i’ll be working in the morning. working on weekends is rotation within our group, and so i’ll come for work, again, to provide warmth on my chair and wait for amnesic colleagues to reset their password that i can type the whole command with my eyes closed. but i’m not really complaining as working on saturday is really rare and it’ll give me some extra hours of time-off i can use in the future.
if you think about it, people struggle because they don’t like what they do but they have to because it gives them something they need or want. this is giving me something that i need.
south-east asia → malay peninsula → malaysia → malacca
it was not until the last hours of christmas day that i finally decided to go to malaysia. i have nothing to do for the next 2 days, and just like i said, holidays are hard to get by, and so i was stuffing my trusted backpack early hours of 26th to catch the morning bus to malacca along lavender (along MRT green line) street. the trip took about 5 hours from singapore, including a short stopover, and clearing the immigration. there was no traffic (or little) both at the highway and checkpoint for immigration as it was the 26th already. i guess most people have started the vacation a day ahead of me. entering malaysia was like seeing the philippines. everything looks familiar in my eyes, only you see women covering their head, and hearing people talk in some vernacular i don’t understand, and of course the road traffic reversed (right-hand drive or left-side traffic of the road in malaysia as well as singapore). the stopover proved that food (and several items) is cheaper in malaysia. reaching malacca by half past-3 in the afternoon (i left singapore 10.30ish), i checked for my bus going back to singapore the next day and was startled to hear that its all full, all trips for the next 2 days! i tried to asked all bus operators but they’re all the same save for one which offers a trip to johor bahru (about 15 mins away from singapore) for a very impressive price of 70 ringgit! then i remember reading somewhere from the internet during my very productive research the night before that there’s a national train going to singapore from tampin, and tried to look for that but unfortunately there’s no way to get that train ticket unless i’m in tampin, and so i just left the terminal onwards to town because i know i can worry about that tomorrow, there’s one more important thing i have to worry now, which is my bed for the night. 
reaching the town centre after half an hour, i tried to find by foot the first hostel i have in my list, which was not really hard to find, but with all people and tourists i see walking around, i was expecting there’s no vacancy. i realize tourism is big these days, and so i was not surprised at all when the receptionist told me they’re full. bus going back tomorrow is full, and i have no bed for the night. great. and this is one of the reasons why i prefer traveling by myself. i don’t have to worry about other people, and deal with their crazy standards of traveling with all it’s luxuriousness and grandness. well, i respect. to each his own.
after walking back and forth for more than half an hour, with a bit of luck, i was able to find a room in malacca budget home stay, but for a not-so-budget price of 50 ringgit a night (i haggled it down from 55). it’s not really expensive as it’s comparable to hostel prices in new zealand, but i was hesitant only because i could find cheaper here. hungry and tired, i availed the room (it was their last available room), dropped my backpack and started getting lost, beginning at stadhuys square. malacca has been once an important trading port, and strategic base for portuguese, dutch, and then british during the war, similar to manila during the spanish era. the crowd was happy, and people posing everywhere for pictures, and i was just happy to take pictures of everything my lens spots. the town housed numerous historical museum, so i went inside the first one, which is just by the square, on the other side of the christ church. entrance is a reasonable 2 ringgit, and inside is a wide collection of old artifacts ranging from porcelain and ceramics, to diorama of locals and native ethnics, to guns and armory used during the atrocious times. it was dark when i left the museum, so i had dinner first (chicken rice! never had enough of it in singapore), and joined everyone in the jonker walk for night market shopping. at the end of the night, i have got ref magnets for my mother, some bracelet for friends, and a brand new ray ban shades for 50 ringgit. i even ran out of money when i was buying the shades, but was happy that they accepted my 50 SGD, using a conversion rate of the same that i had in the bus terminal ($1 = RM 2.40). i walked more, watch the people shove each other, and then bought a bottled water and a can of beer for take home.
the hostel i was staying was really nice, with a backyard exactly on the canals of the malacca river. it was a nice view, with fresh air, and countless of tourist ferries passing by, almost all waving their hands at random strangers. i tried to initiate waving my hand, and 10 pairs of hands waved back at me. lol. sleep.
the next day was early as i plan to go to a nearby beach called Big Island, the hostel attendant explained to me how to get there yesterday, and that he knows of a taxi driver to help me. however, he is nowhere to be found at 7.30 in the morning, so i just head outside and eat noodle breakfast, and continued walking around the town from where I left yesterday. looking at the local map, i know there’s much more places of interest to visit so i happily skipped the beach, and stroll and took pictures instead. there’s another museum that is inside a ship replica, for RM3 i think, i’m unsure because i got in for free. it was inside a very low wall (3 feet max), so i thought it was okay to get through. i was already inside when i realize i have to pay to get in, so i just pretended i paid. to the very end of the town is the ruins of st paul church, a’famosa cannons, and the building of declaration of independence. in between these are parks, and smaller museum, including a stamp museum, and a touring museum featuring Tortura II, which showcases genuine instruments of torture during the medieval times (i didn’t get in, not because i’m scared of what’s inside but because of the10 unhappy ringgit in my wallet). one thing I liked in malacca is the heavy sense of art everywhere. there are countless of art galleries, museums, at night, people busking for money playing violin or piano, even how they decorated a normal bike as adorned rickshaw with colorful, dancing lights, beating to loud local music.
i decided to leave early at 4ish in the afternoon because i also knew from tourism malaysia office that the train from tampin to singapore is a freaking 9-hour journey.
back in same bus terminal i was the day before, i tried to find tickets going back to singapore, and then again, none. i was just standing thinking how to get home, and then a man came by to offer his taxi to johor bahru for 250 ringgit! seriously, i don’t have to think about it. and then there were 2 ladies, holding several tickets, and then i learned that they have one extra for the bus leaving at 5pm! it was 4.56 or 4.57 exactly, so i was in panic, paid them, and got the tickets!
and that is how i get back in singapore, and i don’t have pay more or take extra day off.
it was really a very short break, and now i realize the enormous amount of time i have for myself for the whole year 2009 until getting in singapore last september. it’s really true that you take things for granted and you realize they’re lost only when they’re gone. i’m not saying i’m unhappy being back here in singapore, because after all, i know i have to do what i’m doing at the moment, and it’s definitely a nice feeling to have money in your pocket.
anywho, happy new year all!
