Thoughts Outside the Routine

Dear Diary,

I was leaning against the window sill on the bus… Each day of work ended with exhaustion and life seems all so “treadmill-like”. The TV Mobile was broadcasting the evening news but I did not pay much attention to it tonight. Earlier, people at the bus-stop were crowding around this electronic board which is supposed to “foretell” the arrival of the next bus. Similar to the one at Orchard Road... I saw that my bus would be arriving in 6 minutes’ time. It couldn’t be… it should be arriving in 2 minutes! My intuition (or rather, my routine) was right. I then realised that the electronic board was actually on testing mode. The numbers were not going to change, hahaha… that’s our modern life in Singapore where we are constantly bombarded by new contraptions and advertisements. There is rarely a moment of true peace.

My thoughts were somewhere else because this same evening earlier, a 53-year-old lady and her daughter came over to my counter. I did not exactly recognise them but the daughter pointed out to her mum that I was “the one”. Hmmm… then upon her clarification, I realised that they were the family that once consulted me about a month or so ago (think I recorded that incident on the first of two blog entries on the recent Good Friday 2008). At that time, she had her jaundiced husband with her. Even as I was considering whether to probe, she told me that the pastors prayed for her husband but he died swiftly from liver cancer within a fortnight. She was supposed to ask me about the calcium supplement which I sold them then. However, could sense that all she really wanted was a listening ear. I told her that she did her best and to thank God that her husband died as a Christian. She will see him again in the life to come. She seemed a little comforted by that. Then she spoke about a doctor’s referral of her daughter to a gynaecologist. Think she was a bit pessimistic about life at large. I assured herself and the daughter that everything’s gonna be alright and referrals are really common practices. I told her to be strong and that her daughter needs her to be too! Life has to move on after a demise of a loved one, right? The staff and promoters in my pharmacy were amazed at my patience and the consolation words I spoke… yeah! ;-) Especially so, when just earlier… a super irritating customer was trying to talk to me for long stretch of time without any intention of purchasing anything! They were telling me that they would have been super-irritated and snapped back. Nah… this is good training for me… especially when I will be getting a pharmacy student joining me from 12 May onwards, hahaha… =P

That incident really impressed upon me to cherish my loved ones. I went home, took a really good look at my parents… never told them I am looking at them though, haha… I gave my mum a bottle of anti-oxidants on Monday. Hope those supplements can help her to age gracefully. Sometimes, I can’t help feeling that life can be quite a sad process… I wonder how my parents or my grandmothers are feeling right now… We must remember that they were once girls and boys like us.

On Monday (21-4-2008) which was my off-day, I actually took a walk in the vicinity near my house instead of going to the city areas. It is ironic that I actually know the developments of the city areas better than the town of my residence! I walked to the Geylang East library and spent a lazy morning reading some books there. It was filled with China students studying as usual. A random head-hunter called me up for a job offer but I turned him down. Little did I know that yet another would call me two days later… there are genuinely many jobs in the pharmaceutical sector. I borrowed a book and then proceeded to the MRT station to top up my EZ-Link card. I saw some foreigners sitting and chatting under a tree on a grass patch. It must have been really nice and cooling there. If that couple were Singaporeans, you can be sure that others would think that they were nuts! That’s how stressful life in Singapore is. No one really bother to pause a while and enjoy nature. I saw the primary school students in the nearby Geylang East Methodist Primary School doing their oral examinations. One of them sat in front of the teacher, reading the text… while the other sat some distance away, feverishly browsing through the passage and the attached picture. The scene reminded me of my primary school days when I was at East View Primary then.

Strolling along one’s neighbourhood is indeed a luxury I can hardly enjoy these days. Noticed that many students seemed to be wearing uniforms of the premier schools… Are the premier schools (eg. Raffles schools) taking in more students each cohort and the neighbourhood schools taking in less these days? Strange…Anyway, to end my haphazard thoughts… my military training in the evenings will be over soon! I do not need to go for army training while taking my pharmacy student this time… yeah, unlike last year’s ordeal, hahaha… Okay, late night… have a goodnight and a good weekend! ;-)

God Bless,

Andrew