Age is Just a No.

Yesterday (was it really just yesterday?) I turned a quarter-of-a-century old. And although I started celebrating - for lack of a better word - my official entrance into the mid-20s since last Friday, it only really hit me when my close friend sent me an MMS of me holding a cake (my fifth) with the caption "Happy 25th Birthday!".

I most definitely do not feel 25. Heck, sometimes I still can't believe it's been so long since I was in a school uniform. Which begs the question: is age just a number, then?

Aren't people supposed to be getting married and having babies at this age? At least that's what I thought, back in JC days - or at least that's what an old classmate said I had said, when we were having a chat a mutual classmate's wedding. Which is highly unsurprising, seeing as 25/26 seems a long way away when one is 17 going on 18. About a gazillion light years away, in fact.

But we forgot we first had to complete our education. Then, get a job. And after that, get accustomed to - and hopefully, good, at that job. Stuff 17- or 18-year olds don't really factor into when they think about their future.

That said, however, I do have friends who are planning on settling down. 3 of them, in fact, from the same clique (actually 4 because one of the fiances is in this clique as well). Which is really cool and I am pretty darn happy for them. It's just that... I can't picture myself in their shoes.

I mean, yeah, I can picture the wedded bliss, a beautiful home, cooking for The Hub... all the picture-perfect things which fall into the "Too Good To Be True" and "In Love With the Idea of Love" categories. But the reality behind all this? So unchartered and so scary. Will I really have time to cook? Will we fight over what furniture to buy? Where to live? Who to do what household chores? To feed the cat? And, when the time comes, how many kids to have? Whose mother will take care of them? The differences we'll have in how to bring up the children? Will we be good parents?

And that, to me, is the moot point. As it is already, I feel woefully incompetent as a human being. Am I really up to it, this whole sharing my life with another half thing, bringing another life into the world thing - and being responsible for this life/lives for, by the looks of it, the rest of my life? *shudder* Am I really capable of doing that?

Argh. All this, and not even having been proposed to! Which is just as well. One of the to-be-Marrieds asked me if all this is making me feel pressured to wed. And I, quite honestly, told her that no, I subscribe to the Good Things Come to Those Who Wait belief. (Although, and quite honestly as well, I was also secretly wishing I had a Big Dose of Euphoria to cart around too. But that, as afore-mentioned, should also be filed under "In Love with the Idea of Love".)

And thus, I am forced to conclude that age is just a no. (or possibly, simply a big No!) in your head. It doesn't mean a damn thing.

In the meantime however, I shall work on BBP (Becoming a Better Person) and becoming of MMM (More Marriageable Material): both of which are, you would agree, inextricably linked. That is to say, in simpler terms: I'll be ready when I'm ready.

My Opinion of Her Just Sank Even Lower.

I cannot resist commenting on this:

"I also hope that besides seeing my diligence, he also sees how attractive and beautiful I am."

If you've read today's Life!, then you'll know who spouted that utterly bimbotic line.

Now if she said: "I also hope that besides seeing my beauty, he also sees how diligent I am," I'd hold my piece. Peace. She'd earn a lil of my respect. But, yeah, I'm sure Andy Lau loves your plastic beauty, Jolin.

What Jolin Tsai wears under her clothes.

(Ok, this was the original I posted.)

A Tale of Unremarkable Courage

Every morning, I take a bus to work. You've seen them before, those schoolbuses that double up as private transport for office-going people (my carbon footprint looks good, no?) who wait punctually by the curbside for them.

So every morning, I get on this bus, greet the ladies who are seated behind me (only one of them ever deigned to reply), plonk down on my usual seat, get cosy and nod off to sleep. (Things get territorial if you take the same bus with the same people, every day, much like what happens in a classroom.)

Of late, though, I began to experience problems carrying out this usual routine. The culprit? Paper. Not any normal paper, mind you. Sheets and sheets of it. It's newspaper, wielded by the hands of the lady behind me who is determined to read it spread out in its full glory, instead of folding it up into squares politely like everyone else does on public transport (and on this particular transport, too). Everytime she flips to a new page, she jerks the paper heavily, straightening it, conking my head in the process. On particularly news-worthy days, the paper is thick and heavy, and the resultant conking gets rather so hard that it became quite difficult to get any shut-eye at all.

It's not like this obstacle to rest just recently came into existence. No, it has always been around, but recently it has developed to become much more acute than before. Perhaps Newspaper Lady thought she could gradually build up my resistance to the conking over time.

But I, determined to maintain the genial neighbourliness of our relationship, resolved to be tolerant and make no mention of it. (Even though at times I really wanted to turn round and pointedly ask her to read the papers with more consideration for others.) And so, too shy to comment, too embarrassed to ask, one, two or maybe even three months passed by for me in this uncomfortable fashion.

Oh, who was I kidding? On one particularly violent day, I received a knock after falling asleep with much effort. And that was it; enough was enough: Positively fuming, I gritted my teeth and, in a deliberate move, shifted to the outer edge of my seat.

And with that, my troubles were over. I smiled, settled down and smiled, happy that I could enjoy my morning naps once more, now that I was outside of her range - or so I thought. Nary a few days after my momentous move, the unthinkable happened - Newspaper Lady passed her weapon onto her seat-mate, who promptly began to rain blows at me. What use could she still have for it, after all, when she could no longer use it to torture me? I was devastated. I liked my seat on the bus, but I couldn't be as rude as to tell her how Newspaper Lady should be reading her papers now, could I?

A colleague and fellow bus-mate noticed my woe-begone look that day, and asked me what ailed me. I told her my story, and to my surprise, she nodded knowingly and said, "Yah, I had that problem too. That used to be my seat on the bus. That's why I now sit in front of you."

Then it dawned on me. Newspaper Lady was trying to get me to vacate my seat! There wasn't enough space, it seemed, for her to spread her paper just the way she liked it, so that she could read it from left to right, top to bottom, in one glance. Good for the muscles too, judging from the way she holds it up.

And so, my mind was made up. It was time to move. Far, far away.

The next time I took the bus, I cheerfully greeted her like I did every morning, then proceeded to prance happily to the back of the bus. And now, my dear readers, I am able to enjoy my morning energy naps undisturbed on the bus - except for the fact that the air-con blows relentlessly down on me, making sleep all but impossible.

Oh woe, woe is me.