Spotted a rather meaningful quote from my friend's Facebook, it went something like: "Every hardship is an opportunity to strengthen ourselves, to temper our life and make it shine with greater luster."
- Words of Wisdom by buddhist philospher Daisaku Ikeda.
It's been one and half months since I came back from Canada, sometime I wonder is it really the culture and the people there, that make me really like the place, or is it because of the fact that I am traveling and that is why I love the place so much. The again, as I had told people around me, taking it to be in comparison with Australia, *The other ang moh land that I visited*, I would still opt for Canada.
I do not consider myself someone who is one die-hard patriotic Singaporean, then again, leaving my country, leaving my family and leaving my friends, had always been a "No no" thing for me. However, since my return from the land of Maple Leaves, all these have changed, sort of overnight.
The desire to leave this place is getting stronger as the days goes by, and the desire of wanting something had never been as strong as what I am experiencing right now.
But of course, from time to time, I do have to knock some sense into myself and told myself that, in reality, things are not as easy as I thought it would be.
As a matter of fact, as I age (*Not that I'm like very old now*), I start learning to appreciate the people and things that are happening around me.
For instance, this year's LNY has definitely been a rather meaningful and exciting one for me. Just over the weekends, I have got like 3 close friends, who were away from the red dot for a relatively long period of time, took turns flying back. Though I was not physically there to receive these friends at the airport, but the moment I received SMSes from these people, I was like jumping for joy that, they are back safely and finally. With the returns, it also mark that LNY is just like one week away.
It has seriously been a long while since I was last so excited about the arrival of the LNY.
I've come to realize that, traveling alone was not as easy as I thought it was, especially in terms of situations that arise at the last minute that at times could make you feel helpless.
While doing my transit at Detroit, my flight was first being delayed for two hours due to bad weather. After almost about 20 hours of flight from Singapore to Detroit and five hours of waiting, the last thing that I would wish for it to happened occurs, my flight has been canceled. It was the final transit that I had to do before arriving at the land of Maple Leaves. The best friend and her guy friend were both anxiously waiting for me at the Toronto Pearson Airport, and we were only 45mins away from each other.
Given the same situation like this to happen in Singapore, I guess I would have already dash to the counter and F the person upside down. Then again, I had to calm myself down and realize that, there's nothing neither them nor myself could do about it. And all I want at this very instant moment was to book myself for the next earliest flight available.
In the end, I had to wait for an additional eights hours, on top of the 12 hours that I had spent waiting for my flight as well as all the happenings with regard to the flight delay and cancellation.
When I got back to Singapore, my grandma and mother was scare stiff at what had happened, and some of my friends were questioning me about why such drama stuffs always happens to me. She even commented that, she thought situation like this only happens in movie. Pardon me, I really have no idea about it too.
Then again, on the other hand, as the buddy said. This is in fact a good test being put for me, to see how much I had grown up and how well my situation handling skills are. Comparatively to what happened in Australia, I reckoned I really do see the difference in myself.
Being the first post of the year, I am so going to make it an auspicious one.
Ditching away all the emotional stuffs and sad stories into the snow outside and to be covered by more snows that are still making its way down.
Wish everyone out there, a prosperous New Year and for Melissa & Matt, Happy Marriage, please have Baby soon!!!! And as for Andass & Wanning, I'll rush back for your wedding, and please do not tired yourself out!!!
For the rest of the people...
AY: Please have a BF soon!!! To stop us from being too lesbian, either one of us have to be attached, and looking at the situation now, I think your chances are greater than mine! So 加油!!!
Dar & TM: Another year is passing by secretly, so please stop telling us 3 more years to your wedding... We have been hearing this 3 years thing for like the past 3 years, you guys should start counting down to it.
KY: I'll see you back in Singapore~!!! With AY, gonna be attached soon, I hope you find yourself a gf soon too! So that you would not be too bored without AY. Of course, not forgetting HUAT AH~!!!!
Turtle: Just when are you coming back to Singapore??? While enjoying yourself in the land of Chinese, please do not forget that your dear friend here and your family are all missing you...
Earlier on was just talking to a neighbor at the office about diving... Something that seems so 10 years ago.
I first got my open water when I was 17 years old, right after I finished my O levels. Back then it seems to cool, being one of the first and youngest diver among the friends. At those days, without fail, weekends are delicate to diving trips off to islands around Singapore. Being young and a big noob, all I could do was to follow my father everywhere he goes, since I don't have to pay for anything anyway.
Thanks to my father, at the age of 18, I already owned full set of diving equipments from head to toe. I must say, those were really Rolls Roy series, among the diving equipments. The only thing was that, there were no photos taken back then, due to the fact that, digital cameras were still non-existence. Therefore, all the memories about those days could only come from my very own in-built hard disk up in my head.
However, what happened then remains then. It's been almost 10 years since I last did a dive, although in between I did do my refreshers for dive attempts, but in a way or another, those dives just didn't happen.
I remember back then I was telling my father, I should work hard on getting my class 3 license, so that we can get a Kangoo and load the diving stuff into the car. Which somehow I feel is so cool too... Hahaha... I guess, when we were young, we try and do things base on if we think its a cool or not. Which, the car did really happen. My dad bought the Kangoo as soon as I got my class 3, even without going for a test drive! But ferrying the diving gears around, never happened! Not even once for the last 5 years.
At the age of, coming to 25 soon, I guess its time that I should stop waiting for my father and get myself involved in diving trips once again. The neighbor had in fact just invited me to join her for a dive in Tioman this coming April. I'm so looking forward to it, hopefully I will be able to take more photos during that trip.
