The F1 Race Is In Singapore This Week
This week, tourists and motorheads throng our little island for the Singapore F1 Grand Prix. As the barricades and the route lights were put up along the affected roads about afew weeks back, the excitement can be felt in the air since then. Joel, who is most familiar with anything F1 and can rattle off race statistics for all the races throughout the year had been begging me for a ticket but I wouldn't budge. Even when "well-connected" friends attempted to arrange group discounted grand stand seats to turn it into a fabulous night out, I still wouldn't budge. So here's where I stand with F1 and I hope that would put Joel's incessant whining to rest.
F1 Week Is Possibly The Worst Week Of The Year
Honestly, I hope I'll never see an F1 corporate suite again. I had the privilege of experiencing the corporate suite for 2 F1 races when I was working at a previous company. Actually, I wasn't sure if it was a privilege. Sure, they served up swanky food and the champagne ( yuck, Mumm, in my opinion, is the mother of all horrid champagnes) was flowing continuously throughout the night. However, I was saddled with an evening of worries when I lost some of my clients who wandered off to buy useless branded knick-knacks like caps, t-shirts, and umbrellas from the retail village. I also had to worry about bosses who were cruising down the river by the riverboat to the event venue, while I was waiting for them at another entrance 3 km away where they promised to be meeting me. Within the suite, things didn't get better because after spending weeks allocating the right seats to the right guests, complete with personalized place cards, these clients, had decided to rearrange the seating to get closer to the balcony. By the end of the night, with everyone pretty much wasted over the cheap champagne, we had guests stuffing their little sponge ear plugs in their nostrils. Brilliant.
I thought that the walkabout tickets would have been better. I could come and go as I please and watch the race from every angle. So, last year, we had decided to purchase the walkabout tickets. To my utter disappointment, the situation was worse. To get a great view of the race, one would have had to possess claws of a koala bear to climb trees. And if you're not built like a koala, you had better be built like a giraffe, tall enough to rise above the heads of these tourists camped against the fence. When we sauntered over to the entertainment area, I had to wade through the sweaty bodies of drunk people dancing everywhere. There wasn't even enough standing room left for us.. At the end of the race, the family got separated somewhere between Gates 1 and 6. And I had to walk back to the carpark miles away alone, brandishing a newly purchased cap of a particular driver who lost the race by the end of that evening.
F1 Week Is Possibly The Worst Week Of The Year
During the week of the F1 race, traffic comes to a standstill on the roads and off the roads. Public transport is the recommended mode of transport during that week. However, I find myself reprising my rugby-playing days when jostling to get into a train and then I have to endure the numerous putrid-smelling armpits of these passengers in the train. Also, as David gives me a lift to work every morning, it's only during the F1 race week that he has to whip out his GPS to pre-plan the best routes to get to work so as to avoid the barricaded roads. As the traffic is mega heavy, even the express ways are no longer an "express" route. If you're lucky, you can get to the office within an hour.
Then there are the retail shops and food centres which think that the week of the F1 race is a licence for them to increase their prices. I also get annoyed with stupid promotional messages like "Special Offer On The Grand Prix Chicken Wings" or " Try Our Red Hot Ferrari Sauce" and worse, at our neighbourhood Korean restaurant, the sign proudly plastered outside its glass window read "Dinner Special: The KIMI - CHI raikonnen fried rice set".
We're Watching The F1 Race At Home
So this year, given that I have got a severe reaction to crowds, I have decided to get the family to stay home to watch the race. I won't have Mumm champagne, thank goodness for that, I'll remember to have my Moet chilled. I'll buy the beers for David, tonnes of coke for Joel, and put out a spread of delicious food without stupid names like KIMICHI raikonnen fried rice. Hey, if you want to hear the loud roar of the engines, I'll even turn up the volume of the TV. And if you really want to complete the F1 weekend, I will charge you for the dinner that I will be cooking specially for the race.
NB: David wants you guys to know that the photos attached to this blogpost were captured by him at the F1 race here 2 years ago. He climbed the tree for them.
Photos courtesy of www.singaporemaven.com
About the writer:
The writer of this blog post is a 43 year old mother of one, who spreads her time between her day job as a marketeer at a financial institution, her hobby as a certified professional tarot reader and numerologist, and her family which includes a 19 year old son. She's married to a Scot who has been affectionately called "The Crazy AngMo" and prays that he does not find out that the term when translated, has labeled him as a "Ginger Head".
Motivational Mondays
I have decided that, just for a change this week, I was going to write about the kind and random act of someone I don’t know personally but am very inspired by. That’s what Motivational Mondays are for, isn’t it? We need something to kick the Monday blues right out of our system so that we can instead, look forward to the blessings that we will chance upon along the way this week.
A Random Act of Kindness
I chanced upon the story in The New Paper in August this year about the 27 year old Lin Dilun who had donated his healthy kidney to a complete stranger, a 6 year old little boy called Brian Liu.
Little Brian had no kidneys. Shockingly, in the last 3 years, he was not able to urinate because of his medical condition. When Lin read about the plight of the boy in the newspapers, he made a monumental decision to donate his kidney to Brian. He did not simply showed up at the hospital to get the procedure done. He had to endure 2 years of medical tests before he could finally undergo the procedure to remove his kidney so that it could be transplanted into Brian.
This was a totally random act of kindness, to a totally random stranger. I am still baffled by Lin’s altruistic actions but also very inspired by it, knowing that there’s so much good in this world still, in spite of the pressures and complexities of life around us.
Inspired By Joel’s Dedication
I think, within each one of us, there’s always that capacity for a random act of kindness. I am not asking everyone to donate a kidney here, but our respective acts of kindness take different shapes and form. Here’s an example of one, inspired by Joel.
Joel’s clinical attachment at the Singapore General Hospital had ended a couple of days ago. He came home from his shift looking quite despondent and told us that he had enjoyed his stint so much that he thought it was too short. He said that it saddened him to break the news to some of his patients that he wasn’t going to be at the hospital next week to tend to their needs and he was genuinely worried about these patients and how they were progressing with their respective medical conditions. Joel also recounted how some of his patients were dismayed about the news as they were often delighted by Joel’s visits.
Joel spoke particularly fondly of an elderly gentleman who was going to be relocated to a nursing home. In spite of the fact that Joel had completed his clinical attachment for the semester, and that he had no familial relations with this elderly man, he told me that he was going to find out which nursing home the old man was going to be relocated to so that he could visit him.
I am not sure where Joel’s compassionate heart came from and I would never dare to assume that he had inherited it from us. However, it made me proud to know that he has governed his life with empathy, kindness and generosity.
About the writer:
The writer of this blog post is a 43 year old mother of one, who spreads her time between her day job as a marketeer at a financial institution, her hobby as a certified professional tarot reader and numerologist, and her family which includes a 19 year old son. She's married to a Scot who has been affectionately called "The Crazy AngMo" and prays that he does not find out that the term when translated, has labeled him as a "Ginger Head".
Acceptance
Just as I had gone through a period of transformation this year, Joel went through his. He had to stomach the disappointment of not doing as well as he had expected at the GCE O’ Levels examinations, and was forced to come to terms with accepting admission into a course at the Polytechnic that he did not opt for as a first choice, nursing.
For him, it was a painful journey of acceptance, compromise and most of all humility throughout the first few months of the year. He was so adamant about not wanting to be “Gaylord Focker” staring down a patient’s bedpan throughout his life. However, upon our encouragement, he did some desktop research about the profession, read all the materials sent over by the polytechnic and I dragged him, kicking, to a career fair for prospective medical professionals. The lady nurses at the career fair must have helped swung his thoughts positively towards the profession.
He took our advice to embrace the nursing course as a learning experience, and we told him to enjoy his campus life. There was going to be so many more years filled with plenty of opportunities ahead of him. If he doesn’t try it out with an open mind, he will never know.
The Transformation
Over the months, I had seen Joel traipse in and out of home and campus with a little spring in his step and he had talked incessantly about the lecturers, his course mates, his tutorials and his industrial attachment at the hospital. Recently, the chats about these were injected with a lot of humor, enthusiasm and a can-do spirit. He seemed to be voraciously learning as much as he could because he came home spewing weird medical terms in a bid to impress us. From time to time, he would chase the dogs around the house with a stethoscope and pin me down onto the bed to take my blood pressure. He hasn’t yet pin David down for a prostate check so thank goodness for that.
So here’s my question. Was he really enjoying it or was he just trying to keep the peace at home with us?
When he was posted to the Singapore General Hospital (SGH) for his industrial attachment, I swore I never saw anyone as excited about staring down a patient’s bedpan as he was. He was so fired up with excitement that the chatter at home was filled with his passionate accounts about the things he learnt at the hospital, his experience of administering medical care to his patients, the different types of patients he had been talking to, and how happy he was when he saw his patients recover well enough to be discharged.
When he was booked in on a late shift, I often see him coming home exhausted, but still with a smile. He once returned home and told me that his back hurt as he was on his feet all day. As I was administering the plaster to relief his pain, he was recounting excitedly what he did in the hospital and what he had learnt. Surprisingly, he said,” I prefer to be allocated the early morning shift Mum. Although I start my day at an ungodly hour, at least I have so much more to do with the patients.”
Aspirations
A few days ago, while having a casual chat about his work at the hospital, Joel suddenly said, “You know Mum, initially I thought I might just complete this 3-year nursing course, go on to fulfill my national service obligation, then do something else different after national service.” He went on to make a point, “However, after my experience at SGH, I realized I do enjoy nursing. It’s so fulfilling when I know I am doing something great for the patients. I can’t understand it when some people can’t embrace an experience wholeheartedly enough to enjoy it and learn from it. In fact, in future, I hope to be able to establish a private nursing care service. That’s my goal.”
I was taken aback by that mindset change. In fact, I was pleasantly surprised by my son’s maturity. He actually has aspirations! At the age of 19, most people his age would be thinking which club they should be checking out next weekend or which girl they should be making out with the following weekend. Their vision is often short-termed and tinted with self-interest.
It is truly commendable for Joel to go from that unenthusiastic “nay-sayer” at the start of the course to one who has a respectable goal of bringing joy to patients with an aspiration to open a private nursing care facility.
I am so glad that like me, ultimately, Joel trusted the universe to guide him along this journey. I remembered updating my facebook status on my Sun Goddess Tarot facebook page at the beginning of the year “ If your intent is pure, the universe, in its own time and pace, will put the right opportunities before you.”
The universe is indeed placing an abundance of opportunities at Joel's feet.
About The Writer:
The writer of this blog post is a 43 year old mother of one, who spreads her time between her day job as a marketeer at a financial institution, her hobby as a certified professional tarot reader and numerologist, and her family which includes a 19 year old son. She's married to a Scot who has been affectionately called "The Crazy AngMo" and prays that he does not find out that the term when translated, has labeled him as a "Ginger Head".
The Establishment Again
My blog followers will remember that I abhor the pedantic rules of any establishment. My more conservative friends would label me as irreverent, and the more open-minded ones would consider me a laugh-a- minute. I am of the opinion that I am just being rational and practical, trusting my good sense to bend the rules slightly if need be, to get the right things done in the right way.
More than 30 years ago, when Dad kept racks of books and papers from left-wing political leaders, and held discussions on political ideas not aligned to the establishment, he was incarcerated for “conspiracy” and our home got ransacked by burly, glove –clad, clipboard-toting establishment lackeys.
Fast forward 30 years later, I am glad there is a little improvement in the political climate to allow for different points of view. Perhaps, the power of social media left the establishment with no choice but to listen to all forms of public discourse with an open mind. And when negative sentiments appeared in the social space, the establishment could only “urge the majority of Singaporeans to speak out when they do not agree with such comments”.
The Angry Wife Again
Two days ago, I received a letter from the town council requesting that we remove David’s and Joel’s bicycles from the corridor outside our front door. I have lived here for so long, and these bicycles had never posed a problem. Moreover, all the neighbors at every level and along the same floor, had big potted plants lined up outside their front doors too. The width of these potted plants is definitely bigger than our bicycles, hence they wouldn’t pose any restrictions to people walking along the corridor. Unless one is built like the A380, it definitely wouldn’t be a safety hazard as there was ample space along the corridor.
These establishment lackeys were probably looking for something important to do. They had probably walked past our home with a clipboard and decided “1) Ugly angmo – check, 2) expensive bicycles that we can’t afford to buy that are occupying public space – check, 3) 3 annoying dogs in flat – check, let’s just make their lives miserable.”
I went into a fit of rage when we were told to have our bicycles chained downstairs at the bicycle stands instead. This is because, I have on numerous occasions, spotted a lonely bicycle wheel, or bicycle handle still chained to the bicycle stands without the rest of the bicycle attached to it. Theft of bicycles is very common here. Because such incidences appear to be minor crimes, unimportant for anyone to bother about and too petty for the establishment lackeys to shorten their lunch hour to put some effort behind them, many stolen bicycles remain unrecovered.
Years ago, I had an expensive mountain bike stolen from outside my front door. I spent months looking at the rag and bone man, the friendly neighborhood road sweeper, and construction workers from neighboring work sites, with pure disdain, as I conjured images of them scurrying away with my beloved mountain bike across their backs. I did make a police report and I have yet to receive a phone call from them to say “ Sorry madam, your bike is lost forever and because we’re so busy nabbing people who park their bikes outside their homes, we have no time to find yours.”
The Crazy Angmo Again
Throughout this entire episode, David had assumed an approach of resigned calmness. He maintained his composure whilst reading out the notice to me. He just looked at the letter cursorily and said “Oh well, we could find a corner within the living room to place our bikes. When this blows over in a few months, they would forget about it and we’ll just reposition our bikes along the corridor again.” That had absolutely no effect in calming me down. I went into a ballistic frenzy thinking he is letting the establishment win. I felt I have been oppressed! I paid so much for a family pad and I can’t even park our bikes outside our front door! Outrageous! And the only way he thought he could stop my torrent of expletives was to say “Stop raising your voice. Just go play with your cards, talk to a crystal, or burn a candle. You will feel better after.” Well, it’s been 2 days. I haven’t felt any better and I haven’t thought any better about the establishment.
About The Writer:
The writer of this blog post is a 43 year old mother of one, who spreads her time between her day job as a marketeer at a financial institution, her hobby as a certified professional tarot reader and numerologist, and her family which includes a 19 year old son. She's married to a Scot who has been affectionately called "The Crazy AngMo" and prays that he does not find out that the term when translated, has labeled him as a "Ginger Head".
