Around The World In 80 Days (Part 3)

I didn't think it would be this hard. Mentally, I was prepared to leave, but I wasn't prepared to be strong by myself. I imagined it to be a bit easier. I thought I would come here, and get enlisted in January and limp my way through the Christmas holidays. Sadly, since the announcement that I could only get enlisted in March, I went downhill from there.

My world went from bad to worse. My world came crashing down as I realised that I would be here for 2 years. I didn't know how to deal with this. So I went back, and contemplated on what I should do. And as a guy, I did some thinking by myself. As I sat in the living room area with my grandma beside me, I reflected on the situation as she told me stories about our family. I tried to pay attention to her, and responded with occasional grunting noises, but I was too distracted with the situation I was facing. Eventually, I managed to temporarily pull myself together. The only thing that kept me going was how I knew that Corliss, Sylvia and possibily the Tohs, would be at my parent's place that night, so if I called back, I wouldn't be so sad.

So that night, I called back, and to my delight, I was able to talk to the two girls. After that, I felt much better and a bit more happy. I ended the night with a bit of tele and I went to bed at 9:30pm.

I told my grandma that I would follow her to the market to buy some food for breakfast. I woke up at 6am that morning, and we left at 7am. I had decided that I wanted to eat some Carrot Cake because I haven't had it in a while. For those of you who don't know what Carrot Cake looks like, it looks like this.

I had the white one because it has eggs and are usually crispy.
So when we got to the stall, there was this line of 5 or 6 people. Generally, when there's a line, it means the food is good and people are willing to wait in line for the food. And usually in Singapore, the stalls have really fast service cause they need to be fast to accomodate the large number of customers. So we decided to join the group of 'suckers' to have our Carrot Cake. Unfortunately, it took us more than 45minutes to get our food. Was it worth it? Well, considering I haven't had Carrot Cake in over a year, I guess it was ok. Nice to have it in my stomach again. lol

After my breakfast, I packed my stuff and took a cab to my other grandma's place. It was the first time I took a taxi myself. Usually it's with my mum, dad, auntie or grandma. So you could say that it was another step of independence when I took that cab.
When I got off, I met Amoz and we went up to the house. I unpacked my stuff and soon got bored. I then took out the PlayStation and started playing a bit. After that, I helped wheel my grandma to the dialysis centre. For the rest of the day, I just spent most of it on the internet, trying to come to my senses about this Singapore situation.


Sunday morning, I met Amoz at Tiong Bahru MRT (Mass Rapid Transit) Station. We met there at 9:30am and were on our way to Aljunied, which was where the church was located. There, we met up with one of Amoz's friend from his BMT (Basic Military Training) batch and went to church together. The service was very different to what I have been used to for the past year. In a way, it was good to be back in the presence of God among people on fire again; but I must say, it's gonna take a bit of getting use to again. Just gimme time.
That night, I went out at 12am to look for a coffee shop that had the English Premier League on the tele. My dad told me that the shop next to my grandma's dialysis centre has an all day-all night coffee shop, so I went there. However, when I got there, the tele was not on, and the place was also packed, so I didn't wanna create a scene, telling them that, "I wanna watch soccer on the tele, so can you please turn it on for me and by the way, I need a table and chair to sit on. Also, bring me a cup of coffee and don't be stingy with the sugar."
In the end, I wondered around a bit through the cool night in my sleeveless shirt and finally found this closed coffee shop with a plasma tv suspended on a pillar. The match ended at 1:50am, and I went home and slept.



The past few days for me have been hellish. I haven't been sleeping much, and I've never been so depressed. I've really tried to be positive about the situation, but I think it's going to take time. Time to get over Australia, and time to make friends. In the mean time, I'm trying to live through each day on the internet, talking to whoever comes online. At the moment, my dad is trying to find me a job so I'm just waiting.
During this waiting period, it's bad in the sense that I have so much time to myself to think. And everytime I do, I think about the wonderful memories of the past, and how I'll never be able to have them again for a very long time. Everytime I look back, it hurts. There's this pain in my chest that hurts when I recall the house in Geelong, the church, the people, the close friends, the life. It was a bad idea to look at the photos. It was a bad idea to think.