~The Road Less Taken~

Wednesday, December 3, 2008

today was simply too eventful to not blog about. (it would have been a crime, and it was so nearly one too)

ok the first part was fairly uneventful, and the most interesting part was meeting kieran (ong) while walking around bishan. (don't think he knows me though, but he did recognise me)

which was perfectly fine. and then lunch came along.

being (ever so slightly) healthy, i decided to head for subway for lunch.

and that choice proved to be a good one.

i was busy looking at whatever i wanted to order up on the menus. there was a caucasian guy standing in front of me, so i had to move around a little to see the menus, but he was looking at me and moving as i was moving.

and then he started speaking, and then my whole day changed.

at first, it was just a simple "hi. how're you doing?" before i HAD to order my lunch (being next in the queue after him and a local guy, who i sort of presumed was related to the other guy).

but boy, when you live in a place like singapore, and people aren't particularly gifted at striking up conversations with random strangers, it sure feels weird. and i did feel a little bit weird at first (i bet people were looking behind my back), but it wasn't too bad.

in fact it was really their own loss they didn't speak to the guy himself.

and something which happened ever so slightly later really struck me (and reminded me even more strongly of what yu da posted on his blog) that we singaporeans may be pretty accomplished and all, but we somehow lack a little bit of warmth and concern for the average guy walking down the street next to us.

and at this point you might want to consider reading the post.

but what exactly happened was that while the guy was having toppings to go with his sub, he tried to strike up a conversation with the subway guy, and the subway guy simply ignored him and went on with business.

granted, he might have been busy and engrossed with his work, but surely it's not too hard to even smile or answer "how're you today?".

(ok fine. i must be honest. i didn't have a stellar impression of the guy at this point, but it's not a bad thing to have happen to you, especially when you're not in a rush, so i thought i'd just take it as it came.)

taking it as it came meant that if i could, i would quickly have my lunch and be off with my business (which oddly enough included carebears again).

but of course, being the chatty guy he was (and i suspect this may be true for all caucasians in general), i didn't "escape" him on the way to my table.

and since i was alone, he and his friend (don't forget the asian dude man!) invited me to join him.

and then everything really kicked into high gear.

apparently, the caucasian guy (i'll just call him by his name now - rodney) was from malaysia and it seemed like he didn't really have too much on his hands (he was a teacher for english literature (woohoo!) for 22 years, and did some basketball stuff with a school in malaysia. he's a religious man too, so he occasionally gives speeches at churches and stuff like that), and really just stopping over in singapore to catch up with other people.

his friend, jonathan (the local one), on the other hand, worked with the comms department of "Focus on the Family" (that radio segment on 938Live) on the 8th floor of the office building opposite J8, and apparently quite a lot of student volunteers (i'm assuming they're from raffles) help out there. sweet.

and to cut a really long conversation (45mins-1h) short, it was a really enlightening and insightful conversation. and you don't have them too often either, so yeah it's definitely a memorable experience. we talked mainly about education stuff, but in the end there were life lessons on show too.

like how it's the most important to be a good person on the inside and not just on your report card.

and the importance of doing what you want to do, and not what you are wanted to do.

and really having a meaningful life, making good use of your time.

i'm really glad i got to talk to rodney and jonathan - it's really cleared my head about my future life, and how i replied "i wish i could say i was" to his question "are you married?". but seriously though - i may not know yet what i want my life to be, but when i do i think it'll be a good choice on my part.

it's really encouraging to hear from someone that you can do stuff or that it's good for you to do stuff (psychology). motivational power and all.

and of course there was humour everywhere, peppering the conversation (but it never for a moment stung) - rodney's shock to find that a chinese guy (like me) actually likes writing poetry in english (yes, i can almost hear the cries of outrage amongst you literature people out there), hearing him describe how he met jonathan (apparently, at a bookstore almost 8 years ago, rodney went up and started talking to jonathan, as he did to me, and it all took off from there), and the incredible fate which brought him and the people he met together.

but overall it was 100% meaningful. in more ways than one.

(what have we singaporeans been missing out on.)

and to cap it all off i got their details! so it's good to see we can keep in touch. =)

unfortunately, i had to settle my business (and settle it i did, leaving a huge hole in my pocket - a foreshadowing/precursor to what would happen later? o.0), and then after a thoroughly action-packed afternoon (which included seeing mr kwok and his friends in J8! but i didn't dare call out "mr kwok" - heard a few horror stories about teachers getting red-faced when called by their "teacher names" in public. ah well i can surprise him the next time i see him anyway.), it was time to go home.

or so i thought.

being the perennial sleepyhead and always running on some strange reserve which seems to end up inevitably with me needing to fall asleep before actual bedtime, i decided to take the bus instead of the train (well it was already my favoured mode of transport home anyway) so i could get a seat (and thus allow myself some needed shut-eye).

as it turned out extremely ironically, my desire to get a seat and get home comfortably led to an afternoon of wild proportions.

let's go through the normal routine first. i take 59 to bedok reservoir road, change to either 69/228 and end up at bedok interchange where i can walk to my aunt's house. almost foolproof (there are FIVE bus stops along the reservoir stretch. can't miss all 5, can you?).

so the first half of the routine was normal. got on the bus, got into a comfortable position and then promptly fell asleep.

when i woke up it was around eunos, and after another 15 minutes i got to the bedok reservoir part, and so i got off.

instantly after getting off i felt a problem. literally.

(time for a little philosophy lesson)

P1: my handphone was not in my pocket.
P2: i checked the time on my handphone while in the bus.
C1: my handphone was still on the bus.

i needed my handphone back (that's not a premise, unfortunately), so since i had realised all this within 5 seconds of getting off, i decided to run after the bus while it was within reach.

before this i must add that in retrospect, i now wonder why i didn't realise my handphone was gone even before getting off the bus. i should have felt (or not felt) it really.

back to reality though. so i was running after the bus.

BIG-TIME MISTAKE.

i did mention previously that my ankle was sprained, if you remember, and it definitely wasn't pain-free yet, but at that moment my handphone mattered more than my foot, so run i did.

i don't think i've run so fast this year as i did chasing the bus.

adrenaline sure does strange things to your body.

however, it was already a MISTAKE (that's the 3rd of the day, by the way) to chase after the bus in the first place, because it had a 200m headstart, and it was ever only going to grow, and i wasn't any x-country runner or a sprinter, so i was left feeling really scared.

before i realised that the next thing i should do was to chase the bus in something faster (taxi), or go straight to the terminal (changi village).

as luck would have it, i only managed to hail a taxi 5 long minutes after getting off the bus (and i also failed in trying to get the license plate of the bus in that time), and i had no idea where 59 would go in reaching changi village, so straight to the terminal it was.

i tell you, it was a mighty nervous ride to that bus terminal. not just because my wallet had been bled dry from the business at J8, but because my handphone was at stake. and my handphone is the next most important thing to my computer, which sadly is not a portable version, and neither can it call my contact list.

but after 15 minutes i reached changi village, and thank goodness the fare was payable, so it wasn't too bad (barring the obvious fact that my handphone could be anywhere but in my bag or pockets).

so after asking the bus captains at the interchange, it was another nervy 15-minute wait for the bus i had taken to come in. although they did give me food for thought when they said i should have chased the bus in the taxi, which i could have done, given the exact route of the bus is plastered at every bus stop.

the lesson here is: never take things for granted. that piece of paper at every bus stop made me feel absolutely horrible for 15 minutes.

eventually, the bus came in, and i hopped on board to check if my phone was there (hoping against all odds that it was).

and of course it wasn't. way too optimistic of me.

the next course of action was then to call my phone, and hope that someone would pick up.

and to my absolute relief, someone did.

the good news was that a good samaritan had retrieved my phone, and so i had a chance of getting it back.

the bad news was that that same good samiritian was leaving singapore (what luck i have, i might have thought) at 4.30pm. and the time was 3.30pm. and there's no direct service to changi airport from changi village. (same name, no link ><) and i definitely had less than enough money to even make it onto the expressway to the airport by taxi.

but of course taxi was to be the only option. and i figured i could get the taxi driver to wait while i got my phone back, and then drive home where the money was.

so to the airport.

at 3.45pm i was at the airport, and the meter was already enough to make anyone feel pained at paying it, and of course it would continue rolling as i went in to meet the lady.

(i covered all distance on foot by running the minute i lost my phone, by the way. i really must have run quite a lot, at the expense of a normal-feeling right ankle)

eventually, after another painstakingly slow 15 minutes, the lady finally arrived at the meeting point in the airport, i got my phone back, i profusedly thanked her, and we were on our seperate ways.

and then the trip back was fairly normal (for once, and at last), but in the end the fare was over 20 dollars. OUCH.

but then again, considering that the total cost of getting my $188 phone back was less than $30, i'm definitely not complaining about losing the money. relief surely, disappointment that it really could have been avoided, but it's a lesson learnt, and well learnt at that, at a much lower cost than a handphone.

reflections:

1) what a way to get your daily dose of exercise and your pulse racing.

2) my right ankle held up pretty well amongst all of that, so yay for it, but i'm sure that running so much can do it absolutely no good at all.

3) i haven't told my parents about either incident (sprained ankle, nearly losing my handphone). or i would probably be grounded, and they might suffer a heart attack.

4) for the tremendous number of mistakes i made in retrieving my phone, it's really incredible that i got it back. of course i had to mop up the PR mess it left behind (as i went along, and after i got back), but that's really secondary to the fact that my phone now sits (safely) beside me, when for an hour or two i thought i might never see it again.

singaporeans may be rather aloof and all, but at least some of them are honest.

to a lady named shirley out there who's probably overseas right now - THANK YOU SO MUCH.

thanks too to the bus captains at changi village and the 2 taxi drivers who ferried me around! couldn't have done it without them.

and of course, thanks to you the bossman, for keeping your cool in those smses! it's really... interesting what kinds of things have happened between us over the last 2 days, wouldn't you agree.

lesson learnt:

never wear shorts to school AGAIN. and if i do, my handphone will either be in my bag or firmly in the palm of my hand.

but seriously though, i really must be more careful and attentive to these situations.

no point being all rah-rah and stuff like that if you can't even take care of yourself properly.

and now the whole world knows how close i came to losing my handphone, so you may feel free to laugh now.

I stopped to rest at 12:44 AM

Two roads diverged,and I-
took the one less taken...