Monday, January 15, 2007
10:31 pm
first of all,
GOH JING TENG!
HAPPY 19TH BIRTHDAY!!~
haha..
two months and 8 days later it will be my turn!
we have to meet up one day!
when you think that there will be one day of brilliant sunshine (although i'm very much in love with rain and thunderstorms), it just had to start pouring before i could get any more than half an hour of warmth and dryness after stepping out of my house.
=.=
anyways, my mother had been talking about a bus ride to parkway a few days ago.
there was this arab woman (you know, those who wrap themselves from head to toe and the only thing you could see were her eyes? wonder how their husbands figure out which is their wife) on the bus.
technically, they were supposed to be covered up. literally covered up.
but my mother saw that the woman wore sandals.
not just any sandles, branded sandles.
branded watch.
branded handbag.
branded wallet.
and she had this small counter gadget that you count numbers by pressing a button on it.
now that's not the freaky part. the freaky part was that she was pressing the counter each time a person boarded the bus.
*cue sudden realisation*
.. right~
let's give that poor woman a benefit of the doubt all right? lest others assume that we are discriminating those who came from middle-east countries because we are taking things at face value that she was counting if the number of lives on the bus is worth her one life should she plant anything on it.
people, people.
please stop rolling your eyes at the seemingly-lamely produced warning/commercial on tvmobile about paying attention to suspicious articles and persons on public transport.
i know i did roll my eyes the first time.
singapore wasn't really well known for her half-ass tv commercials.
and i'm digressing a little here.
the point is, we assume too fast in our insignificant shells that singapore is a very safe country.
we have been too comfortable in believing that there are people who will do their job of protecting us while those self-proclaimed pretty and stylish teens and tai-tais keep swiping their credit cards dry of their parents' or husbands' money like there's no tomorrow.
and singapore still is very safe, i don't doubt that, but that does not mean that threats will stay away.
city or no city, modern or primitivity, danger does not choose easy victims to prey on.
this is still a dog-eat-dog world, my dears, regardless of whether the thing that covers our flesh is an armani suit or a few puny bits of fallen leaves (although i'm not sure if there are designers out there who will make that a fashion comeback).
and when you sit on the bus, alone or not, when you come to realise that you don't know if you could get home safe, don't know if the people on the vehicle will be safe after you get off the bus, don't know if the others surrounding you on the almost-empty or soddingly cramped transport are having some nefarious plans or are just trying not to fall asleep and miss their stop..
you will realise how fragile safety is, how illusive security is, and how horrifyingly uncertain life really is.
quote alastor "mad-eye" moody from harry potter,
CONSTANT VIGILENCE!
indeed, moody. constant vigilence.