Mount Buller

I wasn't expecting to see snow in Australia, but viola, Mount Buller is snowing! At first, news reports about Mt Buller not snowing this July because of climate change and global warming dominated the media, much to our disappointment. In the end, we got the chance to see real snow!

I had to wake up at 5am in the morning to board the bus to Mt Buller, and knowing my sleeping patterns very well, I opted to stay awake the entire night. It was a 3-hour drive from Melbourne to Mt Bullet, and when we got to Mt Buller, snowflakes were falling from the sky!!!



Pure, white snow blanketed the entire Mt Buller! I heard the snow had fallen to 20cm deep! We were all freezing cold, and everyone went through a mummification process by wrapping themselves up in bundles of layer. Maggy called me a "Spongebob Squarepants" when she saw me wearing a thick, waterproof jacket. Great. I not only felt like an idiot, I looked like one too.

We took a bus up to Mt Buller, the temperature for the day was minus 4 degrees, the ground covered in layers and layers of thick snow. I'm glad we had opted for the sightseeing tour, because I wasn't really in the mood for any sort of sport exercise ie. skiing in this freezing cold climate.

The mist clung to the sky like a gauzy fabric, creating this ethereal and unwavering glow and occassionally, disphanous fickles of snow fell from the sky to everyone's excitement, blanketing the entire Mt Buller with pure, white magic!

Most people come to Mt Buller to ski, but we come to Mt Buller to take photos. So, while everyone else was busy changing, preparing their skiing equipment and attending the skiing lessons, we were very happily camwhoring.

Maggy and Me in front of the clock-tower

It was so cold, and I couldn't keep my eyes open because wind and snow kept blowing into my eyes!

Mt Buller's alpine environment

We were busy taking photos when suddenly, someone skiing crashed into us. Not surprising, one guy's ski even crashed all the way into my bag placed on the ground, filling my entire bag with snow. I had to help him lift his ski out of my bag. So, the girl who crashed into us and fell onto the ground remained there for the next 5 minutes, simply because she couldn't get up! In the end, Mon and Me each took one side of both her arms, and hoisted her out of the thick piles of snow.

Sidenote: All skiiers are required to sign an indemnity form in advance, so that Mt Buller does not have to take any responsibilties in the case of accidents.

Pictures time!

This very, very cute creation of a snowman, which has green leaves for hair and twigs for arms, consummated with a heart drawn deep into the snow. I'm guessing the artists behind this creation must either be a very sweet couple or a bunch of romantic die-hards.



Evidence of the cold? My camera died on me several times.

heart-wrenching

Just received an email from my friend:

Hi everyone,

It's a little hard for me to communicate because I am under house arrest, I got no net and phone connection at the moment, I can't even log onto facebook, I came out today for some work, so yeah, just mailing you guys a quick update.

My parents are crazy, I made a big mistake in coming back home. They are not sending me to UK or anywhere for that matter. They want me to get married, to some random guy, like an arranged marriage thing, forcefully, which is like legal here in a way because your family's honor and pride is more important than your daughter's happiness.

Anyways, I stay home the whole day staring at the TV. Yeah, I get TV here, thank God for that. But, nothing seems to go through my head, am getting more and more depressed everyday, and all this happened because my stupid cousin sister went and snitched and dobbed on me to my parents about me and my boyfriend. She knew what my parents would do after that, but still she couldn't keep her mouth shut.

I cry everyday and am lonely and sad and stuck in my own house and none to share all this with. Dad wants me to work at one of our national dailies, but he doesn't trust me, so I doubt he will let me work there. Today, Mum and Dad said I can go to a local uni and do my BBA, but the thing is I have lived abroad all my life, I doubt I will be able to adjust here, but I wanna get some fresh air so I might as well go for it. And, I hate my family. Anyways, I gtg, guys, don't know when I'll talk to you guys again, love you all...

tc
xxoo

I cried when I read this email. I don't know how I can help my friend anymore, I haven't been in a good or stable mood these past few weeks, dealing with many issues revolving around my friend. Watching her as she excitedly informed me about the patch-up after the break-up, watching her as she smiled and air-kissed her boyfriend over the phone, watching her as she talked about her future with her boyfriend and the kids they would have, watching her struggle to keep her relationship under wraps, watching her as she broke down after receiving a call from her mum to break off all ties with her boyfriend or they would disown her, watching her cry when her parents stormed into her room and smashed everything into bits and pieces and take her home by force. And, to think, that all my friend did was to fall in love. To think that such a deep relationship could be met with such twisted rejection is way beyond my thinking. All I know is that I refuse to give up without a fight, to the extent that now her boyfriend thinks I am a big-time idiot.

It gets to a point where your sympathy for your friend turns into sympathy for yourself. I just want to escape from all of this. Your nightmare has become my nightmare. I no longer want to bother. No longer want to try. No longer want to reminiscence. I'm sick and tired of all these months of melodrama, really. Give me a break.

If I cry with my friend, who's gonna cry with me?

the brevity of misery

I've learnt not to make the same mistakes again, not to harvest the same regrets again. Instead of commiserating over the lost friendships, I should cherish the ones I have right now. It is okay to miss those who were once close to me, it is okay should distance draw our relationship apart, I should never let unhappy thoughts overwhelm me or compensate for the missing jigsaw puzzles in my life. I do indeed realize that sometimes we get so consumed by certain things happening in our life, that we forget that God sees the bigger picture. An ending of any relationship is just a beginning of a new one. A dollop of misery is just to provide a contrast to the blessings to pour your way. I do believe that any situation can only get better.

Had a good chat with Han today, about life, God, sex, virginity, relationships, unhappiness, happiness, emotions. There is just something so edifying about chatting with her, a releasing and a pouring out of emotions. Certain emotions and certain situations that I probably wouldn't even think of encroaching to some of my closest friends, it comes so easy for me to talk about all of it in front of Han. Lying naked all my emotions, the pain, the rejection, the hurt, about forgiveness. Han never fails to encourage, inspire, put me in awe. It is perhaps this spirit that I look up to her for. She looks at me and tells me that the thing she admire me most for is my brave soul, my courageousness, my daringness, my perseverance, my unwillingness to give up without a fight. She sees in me what others don't, and it is this force that propels me forward, that ensures me that there is someone out there who notices. Han is truly a God-sent, and I'm so glad to have her as one of my closest friends.

laugh at myself.

I must be the biggest idiot on this planet.

I just sat in on a wrong lecture for an entire hour, and only realized it an hour after the lecture was over.

First, I enrolled in the wrong course module, and ended up having to literally beg the lecturer to take me in, and now this.

So, there I was rushing into lecture late, taking my place in the second last row, taking the hand-outs given by the lecturer, and thinking to myself why the hell there were so many unfamiliar faces (given that this module was a continuation of last year's semester), and so many new people whom I've never met before. Looking at my hand-outs, there I was, wondering why the school had been so irresponsible in not informing us about a change in course code and name.

...and, sometimes, I wonder whether I left my brain at home.

on your feet, soldier

It suddenly occurred to me that no longer will there be 13 missed calls for me, random smses, occasional ringing up after 2am, no one to go to the dumplings store at Chinatown with every other freaking day (because we are incurably hooked onto dumplings), no one who whom I can spring random surprises on like suggesting going to the beach after midnight, no door that I can come knocking on as and when I like, and bunk over for the night. No longer, no longer.

"I hope everyone will cherish everything they have now, and not wait till the day to lose it to regret, because for all you know, every person or every object by our side, might disappear the very next second."

How very true.

We made so many plans together, to go to new york, etc etc, and now all of them are not going to happen. Hanging out for the last time outside the winter cold way past midnight chatting, there were some regrets. So many places that we said we were going to travel to, but plans got cancelled nonchalantly. We said that if we had one more chance, we would definitely do what we had planned to, otherwise all that's left to embrace now are regrets.

It's time to be strong. On my own two feet. I will be my own emotional pillar, my own support, not because I want to, but because I have to.

On your feet, soldier. I have to fight this battle alone.

another farewell

"Being away from home,
being away from the ones you love,
makes you strong,
builds your armor.
Because in the end,
the only person in this world you can depend on is yourself."

~ Ugly Betty

As if things couldn't get any worse, I had to say farewell to another of my best friend in Melbourne today. It was so unexpected, she wasn't supposed to leave the country for another three years, and suddenly, an sms sent at 3 in the morning informed me that her parents were forcing her to get the hell out of Melbourne.

This farewell was a lot harder than the first. Especially since S was someone I hanged out with 24/7. We were so different, in so many ways, and yet we became instant best friends right from the very first day we met. Even though we had virtually nothing in common, we just clicked. She once asked me why I don't swear, don't smoke and don't take drugs. She was a party girl and a wild animal, and me the studious bespectacled kid. She loved partying and clubbing, I thought it was a colossal waste of time. She loved reading, I thought books were boring. She loved smoking and taking drugs, I thought it was the path to lung cancer. In so many ways, she influenced me, and vice versa. For one, she started adding 'la' behind every one of her sentences.

At the end of everything, she thanked me for the friendship and said that I had done so much for her. I told her that I had done nothing to help her, and felt so useless. For a while, we even talked about her running away from home, running away from her family who were committing an act, which in the case of a stranger executing it, would be deemed 'kidnapping'. So what if I stood in the freezing cold next to my friend for hours while she cried and talked, cried and talked? So what if I helped her pack her luggage and listened to her complaints? In the end, I didn't do shit. In the end, I didn't help change anything. In the end, she is still going back to her country. Against her own will. It is very hard to believe that in this day and age, pre-arranged marriages are still taking place, parents will happily sacrifice their daughter's happiness in exchange for wealth, status and prestige.

PEOPLE FUCKING TELL ME THAT I CAN'T ALWAYS LET MY FRIEND'S PROBLEMS GET TO ME BECAUSE I HAVE MY OWN FUCKING LIFE TO LEAD. WHAT DO THESE PEOPLE FUCKING KNOW? WHEN YOU ARE WITHOUT YOUR FAMILY, YOUR FRIENDS ARE YOUR LIFE.

I get so fucking sick and tired of trying to bloody explain myself. It's okay. As long as I understand my own situation, it's enough. After all, at the end of the day, you only have yourself. I don't expect anyone to FUCKING understand my situation. Just go on and think that I am being a whiny, childish and immature person.

Anyway, a few of my friends are flying back to Melbourne soon. With so many people leaving, people actually returning is a breath of fresh air.

Goodbye to 4 months of our friendship, and of course, I will attend your wedding in Sydney.

Melbourne Zoo

I thought Singapore Zoo was nothing great, until I went to Melbourne Zoo. It is suffice to say that from the very moment I entered the gates, I was very, very disappointed. It was nothing like a zoo, instead it felt like I had entered Botanic Gardens.

Dull gravel pavements leading to even duller wooden signboards, leading to the animals. There were no sort of embellishments or nicely done-up enclosed viewing areas. People go there to see the animals, and only the animals, literally.

Took many, many photos of reptiles - chameleons, snakes, etc. I liked the contrast the lighting and background provides to the enclosed creatures.

People generally look at this photo and wonder if I had been standing right in front of the tiger. Yes, I did, and managed to come out alive. No, stupid, can't you see the reflection of the mirror upon the tiger's striped body?

It was so nice meeting not one, but TWO Singaporeans! They identified me quickly after seeing my ez-link card. But, I totally couldn't tell because one of them had developed this accent. Anyway, it was very weird and surprising to hear familiar places like 'Bugis' and 'Orchard Road' being mentioned occasionally.

My favourite animal of the day!

The reason why I absoutely adore pelicans so much - to the point that I couldn't stop snapping countless photos of them even long after the entire group had moved on - is because they are so CUTE, from their artificial-looking eyes that looks like it had been plastered on to their long beaks and their webbed feet.

The second reason, being, that they were practically the only animals in the zoo which were allowed to roam freely about, instead of being enclosed in some cage.

gone.

I sent my friend off today, the very last place I saw her was the very first place she first brought me to, which I still remember was at a time when I was very new to Melbourne, and she was like an oasis to me.

I don't think I've seen her best friend S looking so upset before. She still struggled to smile when she saw me, but the beautiful smile I had grown so accustomed to wasn't there, the smile that I once told her was so very very beautiful and never failed to brighten up anyone's day. The same smile that an acquaintance once commented no matter how sad she was, she would still continue smiling. Gone.

I opted for my way of saying goodbye, no hugs, just simple words, a goodbye wave and a turn on my heels. This is my way of saying goodbye, for her saying goodbye means a hug, she has learnt the Aussie way of open affection.

Life will go on. What I hadn't expected was that I feel much more horrible than I had ever meant to be.

this is farewell.

"You are worth much more than that."

I attended a farewell party for a close friend of mine today. The thing about farewell parties is that it gets messy, the atmosphere is all funereal, all don't-be-sad-that-it-ended-but-be-glad-that-it-happened, everyone's noses are suddenly running, eyes are overflowing, tears are spilled, and the farewells are never right.

The time we knew each other was barely there, short, very short. But, the thing about being away from your family is that you grow closer to friends, you treasure them more, you appreciate them more, you notice their presence more. The thing about being away from home is that you hang out a lot more with your friends, you speak to them a lot more, you grow a lot closer to them than if you've been home.

We once made a pact: that once she quit her job, we would have dinner everyday. With her, I got introduced to all the mouth-
watering dishes in Melbourne. With her, I had the most meaningful conversations ever. With her, she taught me a whole new lesson about love, generosity, honesty and what a beautiful heart really looks like.

I prepared my farewell speech even months before she was to leave. This was what I had intended to write on the farewell card:

I won't say friends forever,
because time has driven the closest of friends apart.
But what I can say is, thank you for leaving footprints in my heart.

But, I didn't. Saying what I had intended to say would be like personally putting a full-stop to our friendship, and signing off. I couldn't do that without my heart bleeding out of a guilty conscience. And, the last thing, someone needs to hear when saying goodbye is that it is forever, it is eternal, thank you for everything and I will never see you again.

What really touched me during the farewell party was a witnessing of a kind of friendship I've never seen before. With tears soaking her entire face, her best friend left the room. Everyone took turns saying what they wanted to say to her, and she teared, a teardrop here and there. But, when her best friend appeared, and started sobbing uncontrollably, started by saying, "I don't know what to say...you are much more to me than a sister", I saw my friend broke down, totally losing control, for a while time did stop, at least in the house. Nothing else mattered, only two best friends throwing away their dignity, their pride, both sobbing away uncontrollably, and one saying, "...you taught me how to laugh like I've never laughed before."

The funny thing about these two friends is how different they look, and how similar they both turn out to be. One has black hair, the other yellow; one is Asian, the other English; and yet I cannot find two individuals with more matching personalities than them.

Before their departure, everyone took turns hugging her and exchanging some words here and there, making jokes about both their countries being a stone's throw away, about how she should and must visit, about how the doors of their house will be open to her, about how there will always be a home away from home, waiting right here for her in Melbourne.

The thing is, yes, everyone will feel sad, everyone will feel loss. My friend has come a long way, from her initial reluctance to leave her hometown to come to Melbourne to study, to her longing for more time, more opportunities, about her missing her friends.

Maybe, once a while, they will keep in contact. They might even call each other. But, slowly, as time crawls to a week, a month, a year, the distance between them becomes unmistakable. They will go on living their lives, and all they will have is the memories of the past. Because they will no longer feature in her present.

What my friend did say was that I made her fat. What my friend did say was that I never knew how much I meant to her, more so than I could ever imagine. What my friend did say was that I am worth much more than I ever thought myself to be. What my friend did say was that no doubt we shall see each other again soon.

And, yet, what she didn't say remained the most obvious to me. Given time, and given distance, the two most unforgivable elements, one day she will mean no more to me than a footprint in my heart, and me as someone she used to be close to.

But, right now, at this very moment, with her departure, all of a sudden, I feel a gaping hole in my life.

Empty. No words to fill the void.

Why does this farewell feel so hard? Why does this farewell feel like goodbye forever?

forgiveness is to free yourself from the prison of anger

"Forgiveness is the fragrance of the violet
which still clings fast to the heel that crushed it."

I was involved in a money scam sometime back. I won't go into details, but what I lost was more than the paper notes in my wallet, it was a trust in humankind in general.

As outsiders looking in, one can only think that the person who had been cheated was either naive or plain stupid. The thing is, unless you are immersed in such a sticky situation yourself, you will never understand.

I once came across a report stating that many highly educated and intellectual Singaporeans had been involved in email money scams costing them more than a few thousand dollars. It might sound ironic that an educated bunch of Singaporeans are actually 'stupid' enough to fall for the old trick in the book, or was it their lust for financial wealth tempting them? A friend of mine also lost thousands of dollars involving some lottery draw scam.

I must admit that when I came across that article and my friend's situation, only one word flashed across my mind: Stupid!

But, there was one thing that my friend told me that I remembered up to this day:

"It is only when you are personally entangled in such a situation yourself, then you will fully understand
(how someone can get cheated)."

What was upsetting was that my trust in someone had been betrayed. When the person first disappeared with my money, anger and hatred reigned dominant in my mind. I even cursed the person to go to hell.

On that particular Friday evening that I sat on the cold chair in the cold night for a person who had long fled with my money, and coming to the even colder realization that I had been cheated and lied to repeatedly, it was only then that I fully understood. It is only when you have been personally involved, would you understand the intricacies involved. These might be normal people, but they are masters at playing mind games, twisting and turning your minds around until you are mere marionettes under their thumb and obediently hand over the wad of notes.

It is only when you look back, that you realize the many loopholes. But, again, the majority of us are not fortune tellers, and we do not possess prophetic minds. What matters is that we walk away with a lesson.

The guy whom I met was a fortune teller and he tempted me with the possession of hidden information. It wasn't money that I was tempted by, it was immaterial possessions that I was after.

The stranger I met was a morally bankrupt man who uses his special talent to swindle other's money, who had the audacity to mention God frequently during our conversations. There is still some traces of anger in me, but I still wish him well. And, no, I don't really wish for him to go to hell.

From what I know, I wasn't the only one who was cheated. Scribbled in the notebook where the man asked for my name and telephone number, were many other people's telephone numbers in the same scrawny handwriting.

Right now, I can only say that losing the money is no big deal. It's not the worst thing that can happen to me. I still have my hands and legs, and I still can earn the money back.

I don't know if I should make a police report or not, since I know next to nothing about this stranger.

Back to the me sitting on the cold chair in the cold night on that Friday evening. I was sizzling with anger, very upset and kept chiding myself for trusting so much in a stranger I barely knew about. I didn't know his (real) name, his (real) telephone number, I knew next to nothing about this guy, and yet he is such a smooth prophetic talker that spun the cobweb of lies that slowly corroded the wall of resistance and that I had built up initially.

Half an hour before I was scheduled to meet this stranger, the growing feelings of unease finally escalated to a point where I realized plainly that I had been cheated. I took out his number from my wallet, and dialed it. It turned out to be an invalid phone number.

But, I walked away with a very potent lesson: Forgiveness.

The me that was swearing and cursing at the guy to go to hell was one full of pent-up anger, sadness and full of agony. But, the moment I decided to let go, to forgive this guy, to a point where if I were to bump into him on the streets one day, I wouldn't feel like hammering his head to a pulp and run a car over him, I felt a peace of mind. I then realized how tiring it is for me to keep on hating someone…

Anger is using another's actions, words or behaviour to punish ourselves. Why would anyone do that to themselves? Hating someone is only torturing yourself, not the hated party. The person whom you are directing all your wasted energy and hatred might not even be aware, or might not even care about your feelings. There is simply no point. No matter which angle you look, it is a superfluous waste of energy. It would be so much easier to extinguish the feelings of hatred directed to people who have hurt us in the past.

Also, you cannot control how other people behave. You can only control what you want to think or do.

Why then allow your prison of hatred thoughts to form a stranglehold over yourself?

media internship

There has been a constant inundation of job opportunities in my inbox ever since the holidays rolled along, courtesy of the head of journalism department. Unfortunately, none caught my eye. Too boring. Not interested. Nothing to do with my course. Hence, all emails were relegated to the back of my mailbox without a second glance.

That is, until an email sent on the 20th June jumped out at me. A media internship!

I promptly sent my resume along the way, and received a phone call interview shortly afterwards. When the guy over the phone questioned as to how much I knew about the company, I was stunned. Made a mental note to read up on company profiles before blithely sending out resumes. Crapped out something about having a passion for environmental issues, and having the opportunity of being the driving force behind the concoction of such a meaningful global project.

And then came the inevitable: Why didn't I have any job experience in Australia (as illustrated so clearly in my resume)? My response came in the form of informing him that I've only been in Melbourne for a short period of four months, before proceeding to blabber on about my 'impressive' work experiences in Singapore.

The guy seemed pleased enough with all my answers, and an interview date was quickly set up. In the end, the guy called me up again and my interview was pushed back two days, because of the apparently overwhelming response from numerous potential candidates vying for the same position, as kindly divulged to me by the guy over the phone, and later in person as well. Talk about competition. Suddenly, the internship increased its attractiveness quotient tenfold, and I wanted it so badly!

Their office premises is located along the prime district of Melbourne, in a dull grey and nondescript building. The guy who interviewed me was the same guy who spoke with me over the phone. The same guy who for every 100 words he spoke, I only managed to understand 10.

Both our uniquely French and Singaporean accent presented a form of albatross in our awkward and repeated attempts to try to understand what the other was trying to communicate. This resulted in me squirming and writhing (inwardly) and nodding my head in enlightenment (outwardly) at every sentence he said that I managed to understand. He apologized for his accent when the necessity arose for the both of us to keep repeating our sentences.

When the guy asked me why he should choose me over so many others whose interviews he had conducted over a session of three or four days, I cooked up the same shit I did over the phone, about having passion for environmental issues. After the interview, I felt my position as media intern cemented. Got a call back from the guy in the evening, and was informed that I would start work on Friday.

This is not easy. After having cultivated a sloppy lifestyle habit of cocooning myself comfortably in bed till early afternoons (my mornings are non-existent), and basically leading a hedonistic lifestyle, I now have to commit myself to a regimented (albeit normal) waking up habit, not to mention the de rigueur ordinance of the pinstriped working world.

Basically, this spells the death of eyes glued to the computer screen till 7am in the morning, thanks to some soppy drama series.