Ice cream

I had ice-cream alone yesterday.

)=

Ice-cream is a social food. Social foods are usually relatively expensive in comparison to its nutritional content or benefits, unhealthy and extravagant. That's why it takes the high-inducing company of others to put one's good sense at bay -- long enough to make a usually-considered-irrational decision to go for ice-cream, potato chips, popcorn, nachos, pao pao cha, chocolate, cakes, and other desserts/snacky food.

I had ice-cream alone yesterday because a new gelato shop in Novena Square caught my eye. I am a sucker for good gelato, and I have been disappointed with the gelato I have been getting in Singapore ever since my favourite shop in Bugis closed down. (Oh, Scoopz is not too a substitute.) So I had to try this new shop out.

The gelato shop attendant was a young boy of about 16. Very boyish, very cute smile.

I wondered how long this shop had been in Novena Square since I had never seen it before. As the obviously older woman in this setting, I did the aunty thing, pointed to the shop sign and asked the young lad, "How long have you been here?"

He looked stunned, took a moment, then replied, "Oh. I've only been here for a week." Then he grinned at me with his boyish eyes, boyband hair, and charming smile.

Die. I was flushed with embarrassment as I realised that the young lad had thought I was asking him about how long he had been working here.

The boy then mustered up whatever little pubescent muscle he had to scoop up a ball of my Ferrero Rocher gelato. (Tip: Good gelato shouldn't be that hard to scoop.)

Meanwhile, I pondered about how I could salvage the embarrassing situation and emerge with my dignity unscathed.

"Wah, this is hard work. No wonder they need a boy at this shop." I mentally remarked aloud.

Darn. I really need to stop my mouth sometimes.

Neh-mind. I just continued playing my Aunty role.

"You want cup or cone?" he blinked at me.

"Hm.. cone lah. Cup cannot eat, cone can eat right?" I auntily replied.

After a full agonising minute-and-a-half of digging and scooping, he handed me my gelato on a cone. I passed him a ten-dollar note and he returned my change with that same I'm-going-to-melt-you smile.

I held my head high and calmly walked away, but mentally, I was scurrying off as fast as I could respectably do so.

Nice boy, I thought. But it was the most inauthentic gelato by the way.

I'm Home

I'm home!!!

I thought I'd be afraid to return, that I would have problems reintergrating after being in the "bigger" world. But no, home will always be home. (=

I'm happy.

The 20-hour plane journey back was arduous though. I was sandwiched right in the middle of the plane between two families of four, and had a bad bout of watery and bubbly diarrhoea. The poor parents on both sides of me were so exhausted from caring for their young ones but I had to interrupt their sleep every half an hour to get out of my seat.

My surge of blissful happiness began when I boarded the SIA plane. The Straits' Times Sunday Times greeted me at the entrance of the plane. Oh... to see my local paper again.... There was a pro-family article featuring Dr Vivian Balakrishnan -- my favourite minister (he's a sensitive new age guy, very diplomatic and principled, good-looking too). I don't care if the Singapore government is perceived as paternalistic and propagandanistic -- all governments are for goodness' sake (just less visably than ours) -- but at least they promote good social values. I love my government and my country despite their flaws.

I had a great team stewards/stewardesses on my flight. It was so nice listening to them bantering with each other in their thick Singaporean accents. They spoke clearly without any pretentious attempt to fake another accent. They weren't the best looking of the SIA crew, but they had a genuine warmness about them that I've never experienced on any flight before.

My first meal in Singapore at 3AM on the night I returned -- prawned flavoured Maggi Mee with an egg.

My first drink: Milo.
The Milo I got in Berkeley was made in China and it's got a thin consistency unlike the Australian-made one that we can get in Singapore. Shiok!

My family, especially my sister, made sure everything was perfect for my return. The usually cluttered boot of the car was cleared for my luggage that weighed as much as its owner. My sister cleaned the house and changed my bedsheets. My Mum bought me a new bulky pillow. I had a wonderful sleep on my firm mattress with my solid pillow and shiokalicious bolster!

Right now, I'm still having extremely strong adverse reactions towards memories of my experiences between March and mid-May. My body reacts adversely and I get nauseous when seafood, rich food, restaurant food, American food is mentioned or brought before my eyes, or when I smell something that reminds me of International House or cooked oil.

I've been ill since the two days before my departure and am still a little under the weather, but the homely air and love is aiding my recuperation from my upset stomach and the psychological and emotional trauma of the last few months. There were so many times while I was in Berkeley when things were so awful I felt I couldn't live another day. I was on the verge of insanity and clung on desperately, tightly to anything that gave me motivation to survive even till the next day. I almost thought I'd never make it home.

But God has been good.

Photos! Happy Times While on my Exchange Programme..

Hey dear friends and faithful readers.
I know I've been moody for way too long. Here's something more cheerful. Nice bright pictures of happy smiley people and pretty things.
I promise no more angsty, moody stuff for a while.

JANUARY

My very first ride on the "F" bus to San Francisco. Hair was short, eyes were wider, much more clueless.
Photo taken by Andy - talented achitecture graduate student and photographer. (You'll find a picture of him a few photos down this entry.)

FEBRUARY

Berwine my dear friend whom I grew up with since my green-uniform-donning days at Tanjong Katong Girls' dropped a visit at Berkeley during Chinese New Year. She's from NUS and on an exchange programme too, but in UC Santa Barbara, a 7 hour drive south of Berkeley.

MARCH

Here's Grace and Aunty Grace (I call my church friends' mum Aunty my-friend's-name) when I met up with them in San Francisco. We rendezvous-ed at Union Square.


Look what I found in San Francisco! A Banana Republic t-shirt made in one of those third world countries.

A FEW PHOTOS FROM THE SPRING BREAK SPENT IN MEXICO

We 4 girls in our hotel room after a "wild" evening spent on a touristy boat with music and dance.


The beach in Acapulco. Honestly, I don't see how different beaches can get across the world and how exceptional the same universal sun can be in a tourist beach... but well. Here's a nice shot of Sara, a sweet girl from China, and me.


Lionel and me! We went on a water motorbike (I can't recall the proper term for that vehicle now). Too bad no one tooked any photos of that! Lionel's one hell of a speedster. Hahaha.. I was clinging onto him for dear life, but it was fun going at such high speeds in water for a change.


There are more photos of Mexico, but I was not thinkingly selective enough and chose the people shots rather than the place shots. Here's a very happy Lionel and Ivan, our Mexican/American (well, he's got dual citizenship) tour guide and companion, at the Daly City airport having a fantastic meal of meat while in transit from Mexico back to San Francisco.. glorious pork ribs. Boy does Lionel love meat.. ;p We Singaporeans (sans Lionel from Stanford) met Ivan from our interactions at the International House (where we pay US$1300 per month in rent each for a small double room). He offered to bring us to his home country. (= I'm glad we had him there. We wouldn't have survived without his help in the almost completely Spanish-speaking country.


Here's Andy, my I House neighbour, who has been very much a big brother to me. He's a nice young married man from New Zealand/China (the people in I House seem to have confusing international roots) with a wife and baby back home. While we were holidaying in Mexico during the Spring Break, he was in New Orleans for an Achitecture rebuilding project. That's the state of the Hurricane-Katrina-stricken city.


This photo was taken in Febuary (by Andy too) in my favourite (and only) pair of flies-eyes sunglasses.


Taken in at the end of March - Check out how my chin has disappeared from my over consumption of American food.
Anyway, here's Grace, Matt, Lionel and I.
I still think I look best in those cooool shades! ;p


We wanted to have a BBQ at Point Reyes, another nice beach. But alas, it was windier than expected. We survived for about 5 minutes to take a quick shot since Lionel had driven us all the way there already, and dashed back to the shelter and warmth of the car.


We scooted off to a less windy park and still had our BBQ. (=


APRIL
PITTSBURGH - Lionel and I pontanged (skipped) two days of classes to fly across the North American continent to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. That was where Lionel did his undergraduate degree in Carnegie Mellon. He was visiting some old friends -- I simply tagged happily when he offered to take me with him.

It was the annual Spring Festival. Carnegie Mellon celebrates it with students building booths. It is more or less a 6 month project for the various fraternities/sororities/kaypoh student groups -- from the conceptualising to the construction of the entire display structure which is solid enough for families to bring their kids into.


Lionel and his gang seems to love BBQs. I have no complaints. BBQs in this cool and non-humid weather is enjoyable. And of course, having the guys take charge as usual, makes it even sweeter. (=


We had brunch at a chichi social club. This was the Pittsbirgh Athletic Association. The elderly couple are from the church Lionel attended at Pittsburgh. They "took care" of him while he was in Carnegie Mellon.

We went white-water rafting! I didn't dare tell my mum before I went. The Singaporeans here went skydiving and one of our friends told his mum only after the whole thing was over, "so that she wouldn't worry". Thoughtful right? I thought I'd do the same.
It wasn't that dangerous afterall. We did the Grade 3-4 rapids. (They have up to 7-8). We went in a group of boy scouts. A couple of the pocket-size prepubescent 12-year-olds got thrown overboard. One of them got washed up a big rock, but he seemed to be having fun.




I got myself involved in this volunteer tutoring programme called OASES. It stands for the Oakland Asian Students Educational Services. It's a huge association where most of the volunteers come from the Berkeley student body.
I'm not quite allowed to put up photos of the children, but here's one taken by my "tutee" (that's what they call them at OASES) at the playground during their recess. They spend a couple of hours with a different day-of-the-week tutor every afternoon. I was a Thursday tutor for a couple of fourth graders (9-year-olds).



MAY

Lionel brought me to Monterey Bay. It's a couple of hours drive south of Berkeley. This is coincidentally the place where one could go whale-watching. Amazing huh? The things those ang mohs do.. I've never heard of whale-watching. I'd like to try it some day -- to see those sea giants migrate and have my Pinnochio scene of the whale that housed his father Gepetto come to life.
Anyway, we were supposed to go kayaking but apparently, the sea was so rough that day that 9 kayaks overturned with one huge wave. They were not going to take any more risk by sending out more people to sea.


Well, we caught the sunset at the beach. I have watched hundreds of sunsets, but I've never actually sat to wait upon a sunset. That's what you get to do a lot here in California and big countries in general with many nature spots and not much contrived entertainment. Lots of space, lots of time.
Oh, that's the shadow of my hand on Lionel's face.


Well, here's one of the tens of photos I took of the sunset. Sunset photos aren't exactly interesting if they aren't outstanding. I chose this one because it best shows a rocket's exhaust tail. We saw that fella slowly moving vertically up the stratosphere as the sun set. It must have departed from the NASA campus in California, pretty near from where we were.
Update: Lionel says that according to the NASA website, no rockets were due to launch during that time. So it could be some military stuff... or some secret mission... or both..

Here are a couple of photos to show the trees experiencing the seasonal change from winter to spring... Not the best comparitive photos, but yes, it's of the same place. Notice the green gate in both pictures. That's Sather gate.

Taken in January.

Taken in May.

And finally, I had one of the most pleasant meals here with nice people. Grace, Matt and Lionel again. We had dinner at Palo Alto. We had dinner a couple of nights ago at a New-Orleans-style restaurant. I wanted to take a picture of the food, but forgot. So here's us happily contented with the food in our bellies. Thereafter, we had gelato (Italian ice-cream) which was gooood.. Lionel really drives us far, just for food. Thanks Lionel!

Just scared. Afraid of everything.

I really want to go home, but I'm afraid of going home too.

I want to escape from this place of confusion. Social dynamics are so weird here. To me at least. In fact, because it seems weird only to me that it is alll sooo weird...

I feel so uncomfortable. I don't know what to expect of people, I don't know what people mean. I don't know what they interpret from my words or actions. I can't understand people's responses anymore. I don't know what is expected of me. I can't seem to use the understanding of my own social patterns and norms here. I'm not sure if the intelligent academics here are just plain weird -- high IQ and low EQ -- or whether I am really a social oddball.

I feel like I'm living in a different plain of reality altogether. It's as if the law of social physics are totally different. I feel out of this world -- literally.

People are at times so warm, and the next instant so cold I wonder if I've said something wrong. Sometimes they are overfriendly, and I wonder if they thought I was flirting with them.

I seem to be interacting with machines here. Very good-looking, impressive and intellectually capable machines. However, most of them seem to have a bug in their programme that makes them socially incoherent and inconsistent.

This is how I feel, of course. I'm not saying that they really behave like machines. It's just that nothing seems to be making coherent sense to me here.

I was just looking through some old photos, particularly of Ly. In a way, I suddenly wish I could feel all that feelings of familiarity and warmth all over again. The thing is, even though I can remember how I was truly truly happy then, I can't see myself in those photos. Maybe I've put on so much weight now that I can't identify that girl in the picture as me. But somehow, she feels like someone so foreign.

That's why I am afraid of going home too. I can run from this place where I feel so unstable and in a way.. abstract... like I'm subliming -- in between solid and gas states, yet not liquid. I can run home. But when I run home, and if I still feel so out of place, I don't know of any other place to run to where I can find some sense of familiarity and comfort once again.

Things are better now

Mum is out of the hospital.

I have decided to remove myself from an oppressive narrow-minded social group that made me feel so deviant just by being me. I don't hate them; I'm not angry with them either because I was once like that myself. And in many others ways, I probably still am close-minded. It's not a crime being blind, but it's a sad thing to be, and even sadder thing not to realise it.

I've realised the cause of my instability and volatility during the last few months..

Durkheim saw man as Homoduplex -- as an individual and a socialised personality sharing the same body. Man only becomes fully human in and through society. Hence, true moral action lies in the sacrifice of certain individual desires for the service of groups and society.

I have never realised how large my social being was in relation to my self-self. Being away from home, my stable society, and living here where I live in multiple social realities that are so different from what I have been accustomed to, shifted my centre of gravity me so greatly. I mistakenly kept tuning myself and hence compromising things I've always held fast to, to the little societies I got myself involved in here. Against my own grain, I tried hard to integrate, to assimilate my ways of thought and behaviour to each group. And it happened that the social groups I lived in here not only contradicted each other, but also the society I grew up in. I found myself oscillating from one extreme to the other because I had unwittingly placed too much value and trust in what others espoused and expressed. Not surprisingly, I thus never found my place, never found my balance. I was beginning to lose myself in all this.

The same events are still happening, but now I'm in control of how I feel, because I know the self within me is the most constant amidst these external variables with regard to my own life. And this self is regaining its position in my homoduplex body and regulating the effects this dynamic and unstable external environment has on me.

Biology students call this homeostasis. ;)

I am still a very social being and I will never deny that. Social control can at times be oppressive and unkind. However, just as much as I hate it, I am very much, too, a part of it. People and relationships still matter a lot to me, and this will remain the case for me, even if it means subjecting myself to the possibility of being stifled, or being hurt. The right people and relationships in my life will bring out the essence of my human spirit in the most joyous way. (=

To those who have faithfully kept up with my life through my blog even while I am so far away and out of constant contact with you, thanks.