Thursday, June 30, 2005

Everything Latino...


My nights will no longer be spent down at Cuscaden Patio, my chill out place for the past 3 months and more. I used to grace them with my presence at about 1700hrs and will reluctantly depart at around 0100hrs. Not many people can understand what I find in that little hole in the wall, apart from the cheap beers which I rarely consume. It's almost always ginger tea and a plate of friend rice with 2 bull's eyes to top it off. But yes, for the lack of anything more interesting to do on my weekday nights, I either worke on crossword puzzles with Gerry for hours on end or jam to oldies on the lone classical guitar standing forlornly in the corner. Anyway, as I was saying, that will no longer be for I have signed up for salsa classes!! Woo hoo!!! Finally after more than 2 years since my dance partner left me for his home town Down Under I can finally get back into the groove... and not only that, I'm also seriously considering taking Spanish classes to suppplement my (somewhat questionable) self-studies. Eventhough it DOES hurt to know that I'm about to spend $275 just so I can practice my conversational skills :p Heard that the lecturer is from Colombia and takes a very fun approach to teaching the language; using games and videos and drama to engage his students. I'm quite glad really coz I for one, find it bloody difficult to sit for long periods of time. Hopefully i'll be able to scrape together enough money before the next intake, which incidentally is on the 29th of this month.

Ok, writing about fried rice and bull's eyes has made me hungry. Guess I'll go pay a visit to Patio again.

Tuesday, June 28, 2005

$160 going once, going twice...


My sis has been scanning the pages on eBay religiously eversince she first typed in her information on the registration page in February, and to date is the proud owner of more than 25 books and $455 poorer. Apparently she got so hooked onto bidding that she very nearly spent US$200 on 'The Lord of the Rings:The Rough Guide to Middle Earth' or something like that. Despite her addiction to 'submitting' her hard earned dough to a stranger half-way around the world, I must say she has managed to procure a large variety of hardcovers for a fraction of the price she would pay if she'd bought them from Borders. With that said, I have now joined the ever growing family of bidders and am currently trying to decide what exactly it is I would like to waste my money on.

Friday, June 24, 2005

Wanderlust or Spiritual Loss?

"We are seeing a religious wave rising in almost all of Europe, a wave of religious need and despair, a searching and a profound malaise, and many are speaking of... a new religion to come....Europe is beginning to sense... that the overblown one-sidedness of its intellectual culture (most clearly expressed in scientific specialisation) is in need of a correction, a revitalisation coming from the opposite pole. This widespread yearning is not for a new ethics or a new way of thinking, but for a culture of spiritaul function that our intellectual approach to life has not been able to provide. This is a general yearning not so much for a Buddha or a Laotze but for a yogic capability. We have learned that humanity can cultivate its intellect to an astonishing level of accomplishment without becoming master of its soul."


Hermann Hesse, 1920


Siddhartha is a book about a journey in search of spirituality, of hope and of promise, all of which according to Hesse, is what the human soul is yearning for, to quell the growing restlessness and dissatisfaction we seem to feel, time and time again, a restlessness that no amount of "affirmation of self and enjoyment of sensuality and the possession of the materialistic" be able to soothe.

After almost a year of my casting aside Hermann Hesse's Siddhartha, unfinished, back onto my bookshelf, I picked it up again this morning, determined to try again, determined to really read it. Of course I had to start again from the very beginning, but this time round, unlike my first attempt, it took me an hour just to get through the 12 pages that were the Translator's Preface and the Introduction. For within those 12 pages, a disturbing image of my life began to take form... and what I saw both scared and saddened me.

Are my feelings of wanderlust really the desire to explore new places and live a different culture? or a desperate attempt to suppress and control the feelings of restlessness and fill in the hollowness I feel deep inside? Am I suffering from spiritual loss? If I am, then I'm afraid that I will spend the rest of my life never truly happy, never completely satisfied; always having to fight off the beckoning finger of wanderlust, knowing that it would only be a matter of time before I give in, and start life anew in a place that promises a new and exciting beginning... knowing even then that wanderlust hasn't really gone away, but is lying dormant, waiting...

Wednesday, June 01, 2005

'Tis the season to be jolly...

'Tis the season to be jolly... fa la la la la la la la la'

Now if my brain was working, I'd do a parody of the song but they're not so... Friday the 27th of May 2005 was the official end to the second school term. So the young, hip n happening bunch of teachers (moi included) decided that it was a good enough excuse for a girly night out that weekend. So at 11.30pm Saturday night, 4 lovely ladies, all dressed to the nines with purses loaded, sashayed into New Asia Bar, stilletoes a-blazing.

The night started fairly slowly, for me at least, 'coz R&B was spewing out of the speakers. (I'm sure you can tell that R&B ain't my thing). But it got more tolerable when the witching hour dawned upon us and brought with it... Happy Hour! 50% off beers and housepours! But only for a miserable hour so we had to think (drink?) fast. Lychee Martinis were the favourite of the night, interspersed with shots of Detox - an innocent looking, pale ruby red fireball of a shot which came in trays of 10. (Nah I'm exagerating. It tasted like antibiotics and at only $3 a pop, the alcohol content must've been miniscule). Unfortunately, somewhere in between my third Detox and second Lycheetini, the walls and ceiling decided to mess with me and thought it would be funny to do a little jig. And that was when I had to regrettably inform the lovely Italian gentleman, who'd been regaling me with his traveling plans of Europe, that I was terribly sorry but if he could be so kind as to excuse my hasty departure for I had to sit down... NOW! My night basically ended there. The sofa belonged to me and me alone for the next 2 hours, until the club closed and Sharon hauled me into a cab.

Now before anyone judges me, lemme say this. I am a good drinker and I've had way more than the 5 I had that night, and still be able to make it home by myself in one piece. Hence my premature withdrawal from the bar confused me and had me convinced that something else must've happened 'coz there's no way in hell I'd gotten drunk so quickly! And I was right! Apprently the exact same thing happened to a colleague's brother after having only ONE mug of beer... ONE MUG!! And this is a guy who has two decades worth of guzzling experience under his belt and drinks like a fish! AHA! Interesting... He seems to think that my blood pressure had dropped and took a while to go back up to normal. Hence the dizzines and the need to lie down. Which makes sense to me! Why? Because first of all, I do have a history of being plagued with dizzy spells once in awhile, second, i was well aware of what was going on around me and was perfectly capable of carrying on a proper conversation as long as I had my head down, and third, if i was indeed drunk, lying down would have only made me feel worse and feel like throwing up, when instead, i felt sooooo much better! So there!

Now you must be wondering why in the world did I write this post... Well I wrote it in my defence 'coz i'd gotten hell from Jochen about not being a responsible drinker and making him sick with worry, and to reassure myself that my alcohol tolerance is still above average. (at least I think it is...) I AM a responsible drinker, much better than I was in University anyway, and it really isn't any fun getting sloshed. You feel sick, you miss all your favourite dance music, your night is ruined, not to mention that of your friends' (Village Boy can attest to that), and you'll wake up in the morning wishing you were dead. So where's the fun!? I don't drink to get smashed, I just drink to have a good time with my buddies... And I just realised that I'd gotten so carried away that I've forgotten why I started this post... :p

THE END