How many days more of this can I possibly take. If there’s one thing in the world I cherish more than Patrick, it is the happiness of coming home to empty solace. I use to make the effort to come home from school earlier, so I could be alone in a solitude that the house offered me; away from the incessant noise that is Singapore. The parents would be at work, Daniel at our grandmother’s and Hilary at school. But gone are the days because at the threshold of Daniel’s PSLE, my mom has taken 5 months of leave. In the mornings, it is just the two of us. She pads around the house, randomly sweeping the floor with a clockwork mop that makes a mechanical clickety clack sound. That or she talks on the phone to random people ; salespersons, travel agents, working colleagues, or ex classmates. Whoever at her time disposal, the telephone is only an arms’ reach away. Mistakenly, my mother thinks that having just the two of us at home offer her the intimacy of mother-daughter talk. Unfortunately, I refuse to partake in this. This is not without reason, pardon me I can’t talk to someone who repeats my answer 3 times as if incredulous at everything I say. My thought discourse can certainly be shocking at times making people wonder if I am mentally sound. And in some ways, they are not far off from the truth. I cannot however, hold a decent conversation with a woman who chooses to repeat what I say thrice over, and then proceed to ask me the same question only rephrased in an absurd, helter skelter manner. She also tries to impart to me life’s valuable advice about divorces, materialism, and ironically waxes lyrical about my aunt’s household robot. When Daniel gets back, the entire house is thrown into a noise frenzy. The cretin is unable to speak coherently, instead he communicates with others around him by yelling at the top of his lungs. Obsessed with everything military, he lines his toy soldiers up all over the house furniture. Last night, in the fit of rage I took the pleasure of razing all his militia to the ground. One day when I feel mean enough I will incinerate his men.

Everyday I die a little. Somedays, I sink into a deep depression. Today was an exceptionally shitty day, and no there is no way I can be eloquent about it. After running for the bus in a bid to catch up with a familiar face, with hair flying all around my perspiring visage I of course, missed the bus arriving to class 10 mins late. Dr Yew was exceptionally boring today so I spent the lesson frying my brains out with stress over graduation requirements, and going to the dean’s office without finding anyone of course because that’s the way bureaucrats work; they leave for lunch early before the stipulated time of 1pm and come back at quarter past 2. Lunch was better, perhaps it quelled the angry hunger within me or maybe because I actually had some human contact. I also saw the strange guy who is always on my bus after no seeing him for the whole of last week. Curiously, he seems to always hang out with a bunch of Chinese, pale faced and stricken with work anxiety the little group is always quiet and he sticks out like a sore thumb. I’m still trying to figure out his ethnicity, perhaps eastern european or jewish, middle eastern? It intrigues and secretly pleases me that he stares at me at length. What girl doesn’t like to be flattered like that? The only contact we’ve had was 3 weeks ago on a Thursday when I dropped my ISM report unknowingly and he had picked it up, and handled it to me. Deep in thought about Khao San and the Burmese opium syndicate, I distractedly muttered my thanks. It was not until the following tuesday that I noticed him again, staring at me as we walked past each other in the FASS corridor. Today, again he stared at me without offering even a smile and I thought to myself that this was starting to get a little creepy.

When I finally went back at 2pm, a lady at the counter was a bitch about things. My day couldn’t have been more perfect. I’ve always loathed working with low level bureaucrats who with their insecurities and crappy pay , assuage their misery by picking on harmless students who are nothing but polite. Albeit, coldly so.

Other annoyances include the passport-visa issue. It seems I will have to forsake the $70 I paid for my new passport because it is a small price to pay compared to another air ticket for me to fly back to Singapore and then to the US gto renew my 90 days visa waiver limit of staying in the US. With the visa, I have 6 months. Second mini issue to grumble and sulk about; northwest has cheap tickets to portland in July and September but not August. I contemplated waiting it out till Sept 11th ( little wonder why the tickets are cheaper ) but 2 more months of this household madness will kill me if I don’t decide to take my own life first. So August 25th it is. Afterall it’s only a difference of $200 between heaven and hell. Not that portland is heaven but at least the climate there isn’t unbearable unlike this place.

I have a splitting headache now, coupled with an earache that is really making my life unbearable. As an afterthought, I’d like to add that all the mistakes in my life started in university. NUS really blows and this is how much.