Wenjie’s Ramblings

Since one of my new year resolutions was to take more photographs, I had told myself I will be going to the Sentosa Flowers 2009 event this year. I was a bit apprehensive of going to the Sentosa Flowers today. My mum went on the first day of the Chinese New Year and she was complaining to me about how there was such a long queue, people cutting queue and how rowdy some of them were.

So I was pleasantly surprised when I arrived at Vivocity to see a short queue outside the Sentosa counter. All in all, it took me around 15 minutes from Vivocity to Sentosa, including the queue for tickets.

It was not too crowded, and since the only purpose I am going to Sentosa was to take photographs of the flowers, I spent the next 3 hours snapping happily away. It was hot, but I was too engrossed to take notice, only pausing to wonder how they manage to get all the flowers to bloom at the same time. I slowly make my way up Imbiah Lookout, finally reaching the top hot, thirsty and tired. It was only then I realised I should have gone all the way up to the top, then move downhill instead.

The many colours of flowers on display.

All in all, I was quite pleased with the photographs taken, even managing to take some bees in action, my very first nature shots. (For those interested, they can be viewed in the ‘Travel Photos‘ link on the left.

A few days ago I was checking my emails from an email account which I hardly used. It was only then I realised that the husband of the woman who unfortunately passed away in the Mumbai attacks, attended the same secondary school in the same year that I was in.

Decided to check out some of the respective groups in Facebook. The people that I remembered seems to be doing very well, there was one who moved to UK and published two books on the gay community in Singapore, another one was a corporate lawyer who was actively involved in the local poetry scene and environment conservation. A few were overseas, holding high positions in big corporate companies.

And then I looked at myself and I wonder.

While not doing too badly, it seems like I also have not been achieving much either. Too many wrong choices, too many wrong roads taken, and the times when I was on the right road, it seems something always happened to sway me to the wrong one.

Regrets. I have so many of them that if I stacked them together, it will reach all the way to the moon. And back.

I wished I had studied more. I wished I had focus. I wished I did not screwed up that much. I wished. I wished.

Of course, with more than half of my lifespan gone, I could just be going through a midlife crisis. Whatever it is, I do want to make the most of my other half of my lifespan, and achieve more. The problem is now asking myself, what I want to achieve. And I suspect the answer to that question requires me to look back and wonder.

After the big mass orgy that arose from the Minister’s speech on raising GST in order to cater for free public transport, the Public Transport Council is looking at reducing the public transport fares.

http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/singaporelocalnews/view/404406/1/.html

So, with the recent Budget and this, is the election near?

The wind blew.

He stops momentarily, the wind temporarily transporting him to a place where the beach seems to run forever. The waves of the ocean rushes onto the beach, again and again. The saltish breeze sweeps through his hair.

A dog was running eagerly between his legs, barking happily at the waves. And there was someone else standing there on the beach with him.

He sighs. It has been windy lately. And the wind brings back bittersweet memories.

Was showing on TV where an old monk was trying to teach a young monk about morals.

They saw a scene where a husband and wife was in the same room. The husband’s face was all blackened with soot, while the wife’s face was without. The wife saw the husband’s face and started cleaning her face, while the husband just laughed at her. The old monk asked the young monk if he understood what was happening. The young monk replied eagerly that the wife, after looking at the husband’s blackened face, thought that her face was blackened too, and started to clean hers. The husband saw the wife’s clean face and thought that his face was cleaned, and thus did not clean his. The old monk nodded his head and asked if the young monk knows what was the moral behind this scene. The young monk shook his head.

The old monk replied in his sagely voice and said that we are too often influenced by others that we failed to tell the difference between what is good, and what is bad, and that we should not let others influence what we believe is right, and what is wrong.

And I thought to myself, if only it is so easy to differentiate between what is right, and what is wrong. Sometimes, there is no clear defined line.

And I thought comics was just that.

I think there is a serious problem when you could not get into 5 trains, having to wait 30 minutes to squeeze into one, for a journey that spans only two train stations and takes only 5 minutes.