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Tuesday, July 24, 2007

How can someone so "ying" be so "ull"?

Some things i just dont understand...

Just really had to share that thought. I had always had the theory that people who dress with style and flair, people have generally make an effort on the way they look tend to have a particular type of extroverted personality. That really, the way one dresses is an expression of themselves and hence the if they are quite trendy in their dress sense, they tend to be a particular type of witty/outgoing person who likes to interact with the world.

Apparently not true. Or perhaps this person just choses not to share his witty/outgoing self with me.

Just can't get my head around it.

Saturday, July 21, 2007

the world we live in

perhaps i'm a little slow to all this, perhaps i have a tendency of being in denial, but it wasnt until recently that i actually felt that the world was no longer safe.

yes, it may have been more than 5 years post 911, but its impact never sunk in for me. Of course, i remember exactly what i was doing the moment that the new broke, of course i saw the second plane crash into the tower as the reporter was discussing the first, and i most certainly will be haunted forever by the the images of people jumping off the building, like pins, to avoid the gruesome death they felt was ahead - but it never really made a personal impact. Somehow, i (perhaps naively) thought that it was far from my life, that it would never happen to me - not here, and it wasnt relevant.

But recently, i noticed that it finally has. it affects all our lives, and dare i use the cliche, that the liberty of our 'western' style of living and the choices we make in living out that life is somewhat hindered by an innate fear of 'something bad' happening. The fear has finally seaped into and gotten to me.

A couple of weeks ago i was having dinner one friday night at singapore chom chom. half way through, the diners all started coughing, us included. it was a sensation of suffication, of difficulty breathing, needing more air but the air that we were breathing was stinging. The first thought in my mind was 'something bad has happened - we must be being poisoned, and i'm going to die'. turned out that the police had used capiscan spray on someone outside the restaurant and the fumes had seeped inside and due to the poor ventilation, had that effect on the patrons. But the point was that my first thought turned to the worst. Perhaps it was melodramatic to think that a restaurant full of coughing diners would lead to a "we're all gonna die!" situation (maybe its just me in my old age?) - but i cant help but admit that it was no longer a fanciful proposition - it was no longer unlikely that something would happen, suddenly, and we are all going to die.

Every so often, particularly when i'm bored and on public transport, i think about what would happen if suddenly chaos broke out and there was an attack - what about my family, my friends and my loved ones? what about the future that i was to have? and then i think about the frightening possibility that at that very same moment, somewhere in the world, something might actually be happening.

In a stage of my life where so many of my friends and family and moving overseas to experience the big smoke - it does feel a bit scary. But ultimately, despite my slightly neurotic paranoia, i guess we just have to keep moving on with our lives and not let the possibility of something bad happening hinder our decisions. In the next week or so, i'll be bidding a good friend farewell to the UK, in 6 weeks i'll be making my first holiday over there my self. SO despite the world we live in, i think i'll be happy and excited for my friend and continue to look forward to the wonderful holiday that i'll be having.