Day 17: Mood's Picking Up

Shalala...

After making the decision to throw that issue to the back of my mind and not think about it until the time comes, my mood has started to pick up.

One thing puzzles me. My knuckles are reddish and sometimes feel kind of scabby. I haven't been hitting them against anything hard or rough, so why are they like that? Dry? But why red? My elbows are dry. My face is dry. I can feel the difference.

One thing good about this dryness. My face is not as oily as it usually is back home. But less oil means faster aging. Moisturise, moisturise, moisturise.

It's almost 2300hrs (0600 SG time), and I just reached the apartment. It was a long day. I'm not complaining! In fact, I rather enjoyed the long day. It wasn't the work the kept me back, but I finally attended my first Thursday nights meeting with the group in church and met a whole new bunch of people. Eric, Stephen, Eleanor, and Anna (a very popular name) from Sweden. Of course, I spell them the way I know. I have no idea what their names should look like on paper. Except maybe for Eric. Maybe it should be spelt like this: Erik. Jana (pronounced as Ya-na) from the Czech Republic. An aspiring teacher. Very nice. Well, how many ordinary Singaporeans can say they met someone from Czech Republic? Another score for me! I may not be so ordinary after all. And of course, Father Philip (sp?). It seems like I'm the only person he has met from the little red dot so far. We are not as well travelled or as mobile as we think we are, or the government thinks we are, after all.

It seems like the people here are amazed at my super short family name. Tonight wasn't the first time someone asked if that was all to my surname. More like the forth or fifth time. "That's it?" Yup. That is it. Only two letters to it. Sometimes, I've had to explain my chinese name as well. 志强. Two characters joined to mean a whole host of things. Well, the given name doesn't only have a meaning to it, it has a significance attached too. The first character represents the generation to which I belong in my family and the second character reflects the wishes or hopes that my parents or grandparents have for me. And when put together, they can mean something too. Asians are exotic. I'm exotic. lol.

Boss emailed me today. Of course he wants to know my progress. Didn't he read the biweekly report I sent last week? But before he touched on the main subject, he had the cursory niceties, along the lines of how things are and that I'm not TOO cold. (The words in bold are the exact style he typed. TOO in Caps form.) Is this humour? Ha ha ha... Can I bitch about the idiot in France? *grin* Of course not lah.

Oh well, time to rest. It had been a long but fruitful day.