13th March 2005

What an interesting day I had yesterday! I forgot an invitation I had to my cousin Kong Chin's place for dinner and while waiting for him to pick me up from Bishan town centre, I discovered that my laptop screen display had skewed to the left, leaving more than a third on the right darker than night. It was thus with a heavy heart that I prepared to face my cousins's three hyperactive daughters and his secondary school classmate whom he had invited as well.

I was faced with a predicament: to send my 'baby' for repairs, which could potentially cost over a thousand dollars or to buy a new one, which would cost even more.

However, it was a rare opportunity for me to partake of home-cooked food. The spread was quite delightful: Teppanyaki chicken with sliced lemon, oysters cooked with broccolli, a mix of two types of traditional Chinese sausage(the one from China rumoured to contain flesh from executed criminals!). Also, a delicious cabbage soup with fish maw and fishballs.

I even enjoyed the company of my aforementioned nieces, who proved to be every bit as fiesty as I imagined them to be. Nonetheless, I got a chance(reluctantly) to display my piano-playing skills, first playing pieces selected by Wan Ning, the middle child, and then "Marca Alla Turca" by Mozart and "One Song" to an enraptured audience. I made a couple of mistakes but the little girls didn't seem to mind! I was honestly hoping that a good performance would encourage them to tide over the inevitable boredom associated with beginning piano lessons.

After dinner, we proceeded to view the numerous photos from the family's trip to my paternal grandfather's home village in China. It was a rustic setting and looked very exciting even when experienced vicariously! Of course I got a little bored halfway through( and even yawned a couple of times) but got an insight into Hakka culture and home design. For instance, a landowner who builds over a piece of land first gets it, so there's a constant jostle for space and it influences the closed circular design of homes in that village.

When I returned home, it was close to midnight and my heart was still heavy, knowing that I had to wait a day to resolve the problem of my sick 'child' as the next day would be a Sunday. However, I did pray to Jesus(not Jebus!) to help me out as I was also going through a period of failing and non-existent relationships, troubled familial ties, unsteady finances and also had to move out within a fortnight. I told myself that a challenge in life helps to make a person stronger but at the back of my mind, I felt that I had too many challenges to deal with.

I was rather angry and even thought of obscene words to scold the Lord with in my mind, but soon apologised for them. I repeated my prayer in the morning, just as the flourescent light in my room flickered in tandem with the health of my baby. I thought of Murphy's Law at that moment and cursed my luck yet again.

Going for a country breakfast at Long John Silver's, I felt sobered and considerably less uppity than I had felt two weeks earlier. I returned home from my shopping trip to the NTUC supermarket(only healthy food for me!) with the same heavy heart that I had the evening before when I discovered my predicament.

Lo and behold, when I turned the machine on, a miraculous occurrence! My screen display was back to normal! I immediately believed in divine intervention and actually cried for joy!!

So here I am writing this down and sharing my up-and-down experiences of the past twenty-four hours with you, the reader, with an uplifted heart and a slightly more hopeful future.