now that i'm actually back up and running and taking buses and taxis across singapore, sometimes i draw a link. i see things and i want to write them down, and at first i think it is because somehow something in the soil touches me.

objectively though, what are the things i've seen? much has changed, the shops have changed, the big ferris wheel is up, and i must say i'm happy with the diversity of shops and the new architecture up in singapore (the supreme court, for example, i felt was very well done). but i know singapore in a different way i know london. maybe memory formation hasn't occured yet, or maybe i haven't had a chance to miss it. when i passed by the white sign by the armenian church, i remember that it wasn't always there, i first discovered it in this "singapore search" thing way back in school. i remember crossing the junction to the hotel to attend the lse induction program. i look for the stamford road bus stop and i find it has been replaced by a tunnel which isn't very useful (and now the road runs through smu). i see the class benches and i am reminded of how class benches are such a hwa chong thing, and how nice it must be to have class benches in school.

when i go to people's park, and the lawyer situated within the dinghy walls, i am reminded that there are 2 singapores. as john nash's fictionalized friend, mediocrity (beer), i have utmost respect for. it is hard to explain my strange relationship with mediocrity. perhaps it is personal fear of failure, or too much arthur miller, but when billy joel plays "piano man", or when i speak to such people, i cannot help thinking that the world is built on mediocrity and normality. after all, it is not everyday that mongolian models are blown up with plastic explosives. some lawyers are about translation, checking and checking, and yeah, it doesn't seem like such a great interesting job. something like being a gp. but these are the people who will be respected in the villages, because you speak and interact with them, and it is wonderful to see how they take pride in tying the ribbons and checking documents a few times, and being an appointed public notary. sure, they charge about 130 bucks. and he too speaks enthusiastically about sending his kids abroad, to give them a better future, to break free from mediocrity, as the huge collection of college application handbooks evince. i saw an old man on the way back who looked startingly like lee kuan yew, except that he wasn't, but it all feels so familiar, people's park etc.

i think about my potential jobs and how i am supposed to explain them to someone, and it is so abstract. the new economy requires a certain abstraction or leap of the imagination. i am not a radical writer. my attraction to writing has always been rooted in memory and the past, and thus i am the sort of person that progress holds big trepidation for. so now i have an answer, maybe it is difficult for me to be optimistic, because i was happy at these moments in the past and i knew it, and i am not so sure about the future. what could it hold? more money, longer lives? perhaps the occassional moments of fulfillment. we'll see.