the Art of Substitution

Done with part-time shandyings and taking a hiatus in wait of the big fish - a real full-time paying job. It suddenly occured to me that given the inevitability of getting kicked out/married/travelbug-ued/sued for sloth in the distant future, i must be wise enough to start saving. Ugly though it is and as un-adept i am in handling the technicalities in life like career-sourcing (eeew) and bank-account openings (double eeew. i got the shock of my life when $8500 worth of NUS tuition fees got thru to me - offering to take it up like a badge of honour (yea,yea the big girl's gotta prove her i'm-old-enough-stuff) bravely (though decidedly in a fashion of subtle quivering without the masculine sweatdrops) telling my mum to leave it to me to handle it myself in the face of anticipatory job cashflow, which obviously has not materialized.

So the Art of Giving Up/Substitution has to pave the way for this girl to master it - quick. It's bad enough having to thrash myself for giving up the offer at Seventeen as a fashion intern-writer (3 mths at a miserable $600 p/mth.Don't expect much from internships) --- Deviation No 1. Recognize the obsession with Numbers. According to the book The Little Prince, one measure of grown-up-ness would be that grown-ups love numbers. They ask, upon meeting other human souls - their age, the level of education, the number of children they have acquired (notice - Acquired. Another case-in-point for Grown-Up-Ness would be their fascination with stocking up. They suddenly take on the role of a Collector. Your perennial Garbage-Man, intrigued with the need to keep track of numbers - of time, of money, of bank accounts. Kiasuism becomes a universal impulse and not just relegated to your Hello-Kitty (or has that turned passe?) heartlander with high hopes of possessing a signature pseudo-cat that might rake in the dollars after fifty years, remembering once the feline's days of yore, now threatened by the (again, hopeful) discontinuation of Hello-Kittyness. One embraces such thoughts in anticipation of being deemed as a C-o-l-l-e-c-t-or - in possession of a prized, cult kitty-cat.

I know not how the art of giving up has led to the mock disapproval of pretty little kitties and numbers. but I certainly do understand the mechanics of giving up. Of late, strife has given up to peace, conflict to resolution and compromises, gut-reaction running away to squarely facing each and every problem, distemper to love, seclusion to sharing.

I look forward to such winds of change, when things do turn out for the better, when prayers get answered and even if they don't, just knowing that there is someone to listen to each and every plea gives you that strength to venture forth.

The fear of rocking the boat is passe.

Dare to rock the boat .