Air-conditioning + music + empty stomach + aching muscles

These are the things that combined to make me retrace, in my mind, every corner of my room along East State Street, call out SY's name silently for many times, thinking about how reasonable it is to end life there and then, my eyes two gaping holes in the darkness out of which tears couldn't stop flowing. Conclusion is, I gotta be real careful with the life I'm leading in Singapore. Images of HDB flats are replacing the face of SY. And this in turn just gets to me in moments of nostalgia and makes me doubt where my present life is leading me. "It takes courage to live life, child." If I choose to be freaked out, however, I'll just end up like SY and no one else will be sadder than myself. Gotta live for myself.

So what happened was like, RZ, I, and RZ's colleague YF got together to sing karaoke. I ought to have sung more new songs, but the harm of singing karaoke with different groups of people is that you can't wait to show off the same songs in front of each group, thereby wasting precious minutes in that enclosed little freezing black box. Anyway, wasn't as ill at ease with YF as expected, partly due to him being easy-going and fluent in Chinese. Missed sectional erhu practice prior to rehearsal on purpose for the sake of karaoke session, but was seriously late for the rehearsal for a different reason. After supplementing meagre lunch from kbox with tapiocated bubble tea, walked from MRT along CCK Ave 4, then 3, before realizing should have headed in opposite direction to Teck Whye Ave. So took bus to the right place. Was trying to get down to some tuning and warming up. Then a guy who plays the 中音笙 (wind instrument with multiple brass tubes, real heavy, players of which are eternally blocked from view) talked to me of my background in this snappy, condescending tone which somewhat indicates his amount of popularity among other members. I was actually light-headed with fatigue and hunger, and struck up one of those conversations that make you wonder later why you had even felt the excitement of communication, salty and drying tongues, etc. If he were a Singaporean, then I'd always hated the condescending way with which they take interest in mainland Chinese. If he'd had a dubious background, then.. I'm not even sure what to say of it. I'm not sure why I'm recording this now, but I do know it's one of the incidents which overwhelmed me today. I didn't know I could only withstand so much new people and exhibitions of self before I'm so overtaken by fatigue and grief of confusion.

And there was, of course, insurance and my sponsor. I payed the premium and receipts arrived at home marked "private and confidential". Mum, being mum, opened them and demanded explanation. So will try to settle that after meeting with insurance agent on Monday. Meeting him is like going to research meeting every week in Cornell. As for my sponsor, I'm not even sure if I want to say the reason for my being so begrudged is their ignoring me. RZ, YF and a whole bunch of people are following leaders out to other countries for symposiums, conferenecs and goodness knows what. And I haven't as much as received a breathe of what was going on in there. So want to be an outsider? A cynic of the system? Then just go easy over these things of name and fame. Isn't that what you want in the long run? That you want to hide snugly? That you want to do things on your own without getting punished? That you want to be recognised and attractive in that unfathomably eternal way, instead of this hustle of impersonance and achievement?

I even begin to think that mum's right, that I'm engaged in too many activities. But I don't want rest in the form of stay-home Sundays, in the company of mum and radio. There's ought to be something that I can do, with familiar, close people, which is refreshing and meaningful. Which'd be something to replace my past. Something I think back for courage to continue living.