Nostalgia

Old pictures are like surprise gifts - you wouldn't know what to expect (in terms of emotion) until you see them. There are so many factors influencing how you would feel - place, environment (if you are still with the old bunch of people in the picture), current personal situation, etc, that each time you look at them you would get different reactions.

This time, looking back at the pictures of the uni days, I definitely felt like I hadn't moved as far as I had wanted to go, both in terms of leaving back the memories, and also finding new grounds at the new place. For a lot of people with rich memories, ie. those that amazingly have different groups of close friends and mix equally well with all, they might not remember a particular time when they had an amazing time. For me, there is just a single stretch of time that I had the fondest memories of, and each time when I want to encourage myself when I'm feeling down, unsurprisingly my brain will bring out the pictures of those days again.

I told a friend earlier that I hadn't wanted to go back as I don't want to destroy those beautiful memories in my mind. It is evident that those people that I relate my best times with have all but moved on with their lives, forming new friendships and finding new affiliations that they relate to.

It feels like I'm back to square one compared to what I had set out to achieve initially; I had a few really close friends (or at least I thought so) back in secondary school and we always hung out together. After O levels, each one of us left for different places to further our studies, and I was sure that our bonds would not be weakened even though we'd be continents apart. I wrote emails to these people trying to find out how they were, and each time I'm left dissappointed as days passed by and no reply came in. Felt especially hurt as those people disregarded our friendship, and later on when I found out that they had no contacts with each other as well, it just saddened me further.

I realised not many people are like me, finding it hard to move on when you've had some wonderful time with certain people in your life. To be away from their lives, when we were virtually together 24 hrs a day for a period of time, just felt weird. It feels like you're losing control of something that you've had & treasured for a long time, slowly evaporating away into thin air.

I classify this symptom as 'circumstancial acquaintance', ie. people get together in a certain setting, and once they're out of that they want nothing to do with each other anymore. It doesn't happen to all the people of course, but sadly I've been at the receiving end (aka victim) of this for way too many times to be able to stay positive on this issue. Further, the real dilemma lies in whether you are ready to meet these people in the future, because the memories that are with you no longer exist in their mind, and there is no common background anymore....

I also told myself to forget about her, as she's totally out of my life now and there's little chance we could ever be together. This time when I looked at her pictures again, her smile reminded me of why I fell in love with her in the first place, and I realised I haven't gotten over her after all this time, not yet anyway...

Along the way I've met new nice gals, whom I know will be interested to go out with me if I had asked, but I had always refrained myself in the end and didn't take it further than just being normal friends. This situation reminds me of an episode of Friends season 2, when Ross was making a list comparing her then girlfriend with Rachel. He pointed out Rachel's bad points, and then when it came to the other gal, he couldn't come up with anything and only said 'because she's not Rachel' .... I relate to this not because the person I liked had any flaws, far from it, as she's perfect in my eyes. All the other gals that I've met recently are attractive young ladies as well, but as Ross puts it, they're not '*******'

Totally random last part. It just popped up in my mind as it was related to the topic, so I thought I'd better put it down before I forget everything again when I wake up tomorrow. All right time to get some shut eye or I'll be late for work tmr!

'All it took was a glance at the old pictures,

to fall back in love again'

Tribute to FRIENDS

F.R.I.E.N.D.S

Started watching old episodes of Friends from season 2 & 3 last week, & it was definitely well worth the time. My cousin received the complete set of Friends episodes as her b'day present and she left it at singapore when she returned to US for her undergrad course. It has been lying on top of the TV set for a while and nobody was even close to pickin' it up, until I did it last week.

The first time when I watched an episode of Friends was probably while I was still a primary school kid at indo. Couldn't have possibly understood much english back then, so I must have been attracted to it because of Rachel Green, aka. Jennifer Aniston (yes, I'm a fan!). After I moved to Singapore later, it became a regular routine to catch it on the english tv channel, partly to test my english level since I still wasn't very comfortable with using it back then. Since then, I had been religiously following the storyline, & it wasn't exactly that difficult as it is shown in so many channels, even at indo too!

The first time when I really appreciated the performance of the cast members would have to be when I was at Oz, during the start of the 8th season. It was roughly the time when Rachel had the baby and the plot started to tweak to cater to that development. Although I had watched many episodes of the previous seasons then, I had little recollection of the events as different tv stations were showing episodes from different seasons, so it was all pretty much jumbled up. (That aside, I think part of the appeal is because you wouldn't have to know about the previous episodes to understand the story. Yes the eps are linked, but yet it is still possible to follow the jokes/story without actually watching the previous ones).

Coming back to the 8th season, by the time I watched it on Oz tv (I think it was on channel 9...), I realised their performances have really matured by a huge leap (you would really see this if you watched season 1), and I was entirely absorbed by the intensity of their performance. It was like they weren't on-screen personas anymore, but rather a part of my life. You could totally relate to what they were going through because you grew up with all of them, and you thought how great it would be to have pals like them.

When the show came to an end at Season 10, I remember telling Derr how there won't be a comedy sitcom that would ever match up to Friends again, and how Monday nights (when channel 9 used to show Friends eps) would officially suck and I wouldn't know what to do with it. It did get boring/empty for a while, and channel 9 played the sequel Joey (spin-off from Friends), which wasn't half as good as the real deal. The magic lies in the interplay between all the equal standing between the characters in the show, and when that was taken away, the sparkle diminished and it was something that can never be replaced.

Although what I predicted at that time didn't exactly come true, ie. life still went on without Friends, I would definitely have preferred to have it continue on. Many pretenders/contenders to the top comedy sitcom such as Everybody loves Raymond (which I rate 2nd only to Friends), 2 and a half men, to the not-so typical Desperate housewife came and went to fight for the crown, but in my opinion none of it came close to matching Friends' cult status.

While Friends has stopped running for a while now and the whole comedy sitcom genre has not exactly collapsed now (in fact it is running at full steam now as I have noticed an increase in the number of those sitcoms produced), it does mean that the genre does not have a clear winner and the market is fragmented. It will be hard to come up with that as Friends is only one winning bet in the thousands of shows produced by NBC, and therefore the odds of discovering another gem like that are pretty small.

Re-watching those old eps really brought back the nostalgic feeling each time, something that's probably on equal footing with my memories on when my first house at Indo was burnt down (ironically I always think of how Phoebe will say this out with her nonchalant yeah-that-was-just-some-normal-stuff-I-experienced tone whenever I think of my own childhood days) & how my whole 'mini-library' of more than a thousand comic books were burned down along with it.

Oh yeah I always thought Phoebe & Chandler were the 2 best comedians in the show, & they had been consistent throughout the 10 seasons, keeping this honour even during the 1st season when the jokes were really, really bad (by Friends standard, anyway). Chandler was always great with the punchlines, and Phoebe with her many anecdotes of her (crazy yet exciting) pre-Friends life. Joey has got to be the most improved as I thought he was great from Season 4 onwards. The rest of the cast (Rachel, Ross, & Monica) provided the bulk of the entertainment with their intertwining accounts as they were already acquainted way before the rest of the cast came to know each other.

(Just a side thought. One thing I've learnt from all the great comedians is that they're willing to make themselves the butt of their own jokes, which is what I believe draws them to the audience faster, whether they're stand-up comedians or actors in sitcoms. David Letterman is a great example of this theory & I really love his show!)

Thank you for bringing so much entertainment to my life, and even though the show has ended, the spirit of each of you will live on...

P.S. if you liked Friends as well, please leave your comment!

Dwarfed

Lately when I turned the pages of the local newspaper or just casually browsing through news websites, 1 topic always sticks out: the sharp increase in the price of important commodities such as rice, oil, etc. There are protests everywhere against the local government in almost every continent (save for Oceania & Europe perhaps), ranging from Egypt in Africa, Argentina in Latin America (albeit for a different reason as farmers protested on the increase of export taxes for commodities as government try to cash in on the commodity boom at the expense of poor farmers). Indonesia, Phillipines, and Cambodia represents Asia in this category, with the government cutting subsidies on oil and rice as it takes much bigger burden than predicted on the state allocated budget due to the spiralling cost.

According to IMF data, the current situation is not even that much of a shock outcome as it is reported nowadays. Indeed, the amount of food production has been at its lowest level for years, considering the world population that has kept on rising over past few decades. Arable land has been diversified into planting for bio-diesel crops, which is the current hot growth topic as energy sources are dwindling and there is an urgent need to find a renewable source. Also, bio-diesel crops typically fetch higher price than food crops, as can be seen from the 4-fold increase in price for corn produced in Mexico as it is increasingly used in the production of ethanol. Tapas, which has been a staple food for mexicans for decades, perhaps centuries, is no longer the cheap local food that is affordable to everyone.

With the local staples of many countries under threat, it is hard enough for the authorities to keep inflation under control, let alone handle the daily mass demonstration. Rice is consumed by around half the world population (estimated at 3 billion people), and its price has increased by almost 3 fold compared to just 2 years ago. With many of its consumers belonging to the low-income end of the population, it is no wonder that these people are protesting for an increase in the basic wages to help make ends meet.

Routine demonstrations organised by students and factory workers lined up the streets of Vietnam capital Ho Chi Minh and also Indonesia capital Jakarta. Already struggling with their livelihood in the past, the latest blow has further cut their real income by another 20%, & it is impossible for them to survive with further inflation set to cut deeper into their thin pockets.

Analysis from commodity expert points out that rice is harvested 3-4 times a year, and when the price is so high, farmers would plant much more in the next season, which will then alleviate the shortage in the coming 2-3 months. The use of higher quality seeds will also boost the total tonnage harvested and the current export ban imposed by the governments of Vietnam & Cambodia will be lifted again once the rice stock is in abundance, creating surplus in the international market. As such, the price will most likely return to its equilibrium level in the short term.

In the long term though, the production of rice will not keep pace relative to the increase in world population size, and as such there will be another crisis waiting to happen in the not so distant future. With the minimum wage at Vietnam at lower than USD 60/worker per month currently, it is hard to see how they would be able to survive the next commodity price jump. Many of its counterparts in the rest of Asia would be facing the same problem, and there is no shortcut method around it, other than to be agriculturally independent.

It is a tough world to survive in, and with all the major happenings around the world, my own problem seems to be too miniscule to be mentioned....

Blogging - Cure for Insomnia?

Went to the family GP recently to get some medication. I realised I haven't been there for almost a year now (that's definitely a gd thing!), & the doctor almost didn't recognize me although I visited him almost every month in my last 2 years during sec sch days. Yeah I gotta confess I was quite a lazy student then, so everytime I couldn't wake up at 5.30 am to get to sch (as many SG school kids could testify), I've gotta make a trip to the doc and get a medical cert (aka MC).

Well this time the purpose of the visit was similar to the past, although the root of the problem is different. While it was more of lack of sleeping time during those days (would be sleeping like a log and before you even realized it, it was already 5.30 am!) , right now it lies with the fact that I can't get to sleep at all, aka insomnia. Have had this problem since the Uni days & seen a GP at Melb, who prescribed a really strong sleeping pill that left me with drowsiness for the next couple of days. I didn't really take it that often though and only used it during exam periods.

It has been a huge problem ever since I came back to SG, possibly because I'm under a lot more stress right now than during school days, due to a variety of reasons. My brain just kept replaying whatever I've read & seen and set its own motion on analysing those situations just before bedtime, and I must say it is really irritating. Usually when I get to sleep, it would be at around 3-4 am when I'm really physically exhausted, or my brain is tired from arguing with itself on the endless topics.

Family GP prescribed some light sleeping pills for me, and initially it worked fine for a couple of days. Within a week, my body has developed resistance to the pills and it's no longer working. Went back to the doc to ask for the same pill that the Oz GP gave to me, but he refused to prescribe it as he deemed it too much for a 23 year old to be taking such a high dosage. He gave me a stronger acting medication this time, and so far it has been working out fine. Took it for a day and until now I haven't had the need for a 2nd one.

These few days I've been researching on methods to cure insomnia, and tried a few of them. They didn't really have any effect on me, & I believe it's because of the different environment that we're in. Since mine occurs because the (crazily) independent brain of mine is obsessed with thinking through stuff when I'm supposed to be sleeping, I thought I'd give it a platform to air its view and see if it would be satisfied and let me have a good peaceful sleep each night after that.

This may sound like the silliest thing you've ever heard of, but I haven't got any other ideas at the moment, so I've gotta try it out while researching further into other methods. Have lined up many topics to review, & will be posting it up over the next few days. So for those who are keen on an argument with the restless (read: uncontrollable) nerve lump inside my head or are just looking for something to read during a boring day, drop by often & most likely you'll see something new everyday!

moving on...

So it has been more than a month since my last post. 'It' hasn't been concluded yet, and although sometimes it has been moving frustatingly slow, we've now arrived at the junction where it could take a turn to anywhere. Sometimes 'we' feel that it is absolutely ridiculous that both parties have found almost childish reasons to delay the transaction, and can't help to feel that if it was up to us, it would have been concluded within 3 days. Having said that, we aren't the decision makers, so we are at the mercy of those 2 parties until everything is concluded.

Have had too many sleepless nights associated with this already, and whatever the result is, I'm ready to move forward and won't dwell on it anymore. Hopefully there will be better news in my next post =)