Check

Like the passing of a comet through our tiny solar system, my blog posts come and well, don't come, as they please, largely dependent on whether the intellect behind them is in the mood to pen down a post, the state of his emotional well-being or whether he has ranked and prioritzed blogging as imperative over all other things currently within his wide-reaching purview.

Fortunately, this is one such time.

It's been almost three months since the kids left, leaving the office many degrees more silent, and very much colder. Without their energy and personalities to punctuate the drudgery of everyday work, the office is merely an empty construct, devoid of feeling, thought or emotion. It feels as if time had been reversed back to a year ago, when I first set foot on the gray carpeted floor and weaved through the labyrinth of faux wood furniture. I was alone then, and it feels like I'm alone now as well, especially if my only other colleague is manning the front desk.

Sometimes I wonder, how did I survive so long in this place, performing a whole assortment of tasks for a meager paycheck and to put myself through seemingly unnecessary turmoil and torture? I could have easily gone for a full-time degree programme, eradicating the need or feasibility of having a job. But who is going to pay for the car's petrol, ERP, road tax and other associated fees? Who is going to pay for the DSLR? Who is going to pay for my hobby expenditure?

No one, but myself.

I know myself well enough to understand that in order for me to not atrophy into dust by having too much free time on my hands, I have to be put through my paces and challenged, for activity and having stuff to do is the primary source of my being, my fuel if you will. Granted, at times I wish for nothing on my plate, but those periods are rare and fleeting.

Therefore, this work-school arrangement is most optimal for my current and future development, and is a model I will probably adopt to other scenarios if applicable.

On a side note, I thought of this new theory to characterize the process which always finds its way into my blog posts. I call it: the Germ Theory of Affection.

As with all diseases, it starts with a single germ, and this particular germ represents the YY-chromosomed individual who ventured into my system. The germ will be classified as the X-Strain, where X is the name of the individual. As the virus matures and multiplies, my systems start to falter, and eventually I succumb to the full might of the germ, laying my heart bare and ripe for the taking.

If the Strain is strong enough, it would succeed, otherwise, it would withdraw and go into remission. In the event that a particular Strain actually gains control of my heart, a team of specialists and experts will have to pull me from the brink of disaster, and I would have to fight tooth and nail to repress the condition myself. Generally, I would make it and see the next sunrise, but like all superviruses, each Strain will never be wholly obliterated from my systems, they will merely be in remission, awaiting the opportune moment to strike again.

Waiting for the moment to spring a devastating and unexpected relapse.

Even if the Strain isn't particularly damaging or developed, any form of assault on my systems is still considerable, and repeated action would quickly wear down any defenses raised and penetrate my shields. As for the more hi-level Strains, well, let's just say that all it takes is a single touch to take my life.

The Strain which had been in remission and suppression for the past year has awoken yesterday, but it is still weak, still reeling from the pressure put on it the last time it wreaked havoc. Nonetheless, it is now active, but I am biding my time, looking to see how this particular Strain will develop.

We shall see.

Feed the fish kids.

The Degeneration

It is at once scary and also saddening to note that as human beings age, their bodily systems slow to a perceptible crawl, their reflexes slowly but surely grind to a lower new constant and their mental faculties start to falter. Out of the three however, the slowing of the mind and its associated capabilities brings about the most difficulty and anguish, to the person experiencing it as well as to the people unfortunate enough to be around him/her when the brain cells start to die for good.

My grandmother is undergoing that stage right now, having lived vicariously through the deity of gambling for the past eight decades, and then some. Still, she is going strong, and according to one over-enthusiastic and retrospectively irresponsible doctor, healthier than a person ten years younger. If you ask me, she's a bit too strong, to the point that she is exhibiting signs of emotional displacement and displaying severe violent tendencies to her immediate family members.

Three times within a week, she wound up in three different police stations, after running away from home (yes at her goddamned age) due to trivial and wholly unnecessary squabbles with my family members - primarily my Dad - over the maid who had been employed for the sole reason to care for her. What is wrong with just sitting there on the sofa, watching TV and having someone to take care of your every need? Sounds like an awesome time, but then again I'm not grandma.

Everyday she tries to find fault with the maid, picks fights with her which almost always degenerates to forceful stoppage and loud shouting from both sides of the conflict. The innocent citizen - the maid - bears the brunt of the damage, and is powerless to do anything about it, although she knows that everyone in the family except grandma is protecting her. Yet, we cannot be in the house all day, all the time, and truth be told, I am beginning to DREAD coming back to the house, for fear of history, especially last Friday's event, repeating itself.

There I was, in the cinema at Iluma watching Transformers 3 for the second time with my OCU classmates when a flurry of messages from my sister came in, saying that grandma went crazy again and Dad is on his way to the hospital because of a deep cut caused by a fall with grandma when the two of them were struggling. Again, it was because of the maid, or rather, grandma tried to attack the maid when she was just minding her own business, and Dad (and his confrontational character) tried to stop her and shake some sense into grandma. I believe one or the other lost balance and both of them fell to the floor, and Dad cut his forehead on one of the sofa's sharp corners. According to eyewitnesses, a lot of blood was seen on the ground after the incident, and Mom had to accompany Dad to the TTSH A&E for treatment. The messages came halfway through the movie, and had it been my first time watching the show, I would be even more pissed than I was last Friday, like Megatron-pissed.

Having lost focus on the movie, I spent the last 1.5 hours merely admiring the finer details of the SFX, noted the details on The Wreckers' vehicle modes and scrutinized Shockwave's cannon and Optimus Prime's solo rampage through a gauntlet of Decepticons. Straight after the movie, I had to bid the group adieu to rush to the hospital, where my parents were waiting for their turn in the Emergency, and it was only after two hours that we were finally on the way home, with Dad having four new stitches in his forehead.

One of these days, someone is gonna get hurt real bad, and the worst part is, grandma will conveniently forget everything the next day due to her rapidly deteriorating memory.

All these when I'm just about to start class again next week.

Excellent.

Feed the fish kids.

End of the Line

I must have did something wrong in my past life, to go through this tumultuous mess right now, probably allowed a basket of kittens to be run over by a ten-wheeler or something. It could also be merely circumstantial - things are happening the way they are due to the accumulation of a myriad of different factors encompassing a whole spectrum of situational conditions and environmental concerns. Regardless, the matter is evident at this point in time, and like a pus-filled tumor, might just explode at the slightest prod, saturating the area with its toxic fallout.

As a general rule, we are all victims of circumstance. Who can proudly say that he/she is who he/she is because he/she wanted it? None, because everyone is moulded by their own individualistic experiences, the building blocks of your character, your personality - what makes you who you are. Like people, happenings in life go through this process, nothing is smooth sailing, rarely will things follow a straight line.

I was naive to think that it will.

As the negatives continue to pile up with no slight, even remote, positive in sight, my thread is wearing thin. Our publics - both internal and external - are getting angsty and upset, and for good reason. Honestly speaking, we expanded too much too fast, didn't calculate the logistical concerns for such a massive undertaking. We also overlooked an important factor: the functional publics.

Even if we're doing this activity out of our passion for the sport, that passion will burn out, even if you are a ultra-enthusiastic, all hyped-up practitioner. Running chaotic civil wars week after week tend to grind away at your passion, patience, and then your temper, and doing so WITHOUT any form of visible return just accelerates the inevitable process. Underlying issues now find themselves floating to the top of the agenda, and eventualities predicted have begun to manifest themselves. On top of all those, the parent organisation just switched hands, effectively ending the relatively hassle-free venue system we previously enjoyed.

It is not that I don't want to do anything, it is just that there is simply nothing that can be done at this point in time. The primary, crucial concerns have been highlighted to the higher-ups many, many times, but there is little they too can do. If the main organisation's goal is profit-oriented, logically speaking, the activities going down the flowchart would be revenue-based as well, which is the case right now. All of the ideas being thrown around right now to resolve this issue sound good, practical, but is the result worth it?

Sadly, it probably is. We are still too young to be less selfish.

I will hang back and let you guys settle this mess the way you want to, observing the process, anticipating the outcome. If you guys manage to calm the storm, good for you, all of us can continue with the new status quo. If nothing is changed even by your hands, I will do something, provided my motivation is still intact.

My thread is at its end, and there is no spool to reel it in.

I am really spent.

Maybe its time to head back into my own little bubble, where everything is perfect.

What a wish.

Rebuilding

Feelings come and go, just like friends who appear and fade away like so many grains of sand plastered over the beach, few substantial, some significant, but mostly fleeting. It is rather troubling to note that I go through this same thought process many times a year, and though some last for mere days, most drag on for months on end, sowing emo-seeds of self-contemplation into the arable neural farmland of my cranium.

Without much tender care or high-tech agricultural machinery, these seemingly-insignificant seeds will waste no time into blossoming to towering canopies of sunlight-blockading evergreen structures of despair. They constantly grow, evolving into newer, more dangerous strains as time goes by, furthering barricading the once-healthy farmland from the rest of the world, sapping the nutrients from the once-fertile soil while leaving nothing behind.

Alas, all it takes is for the farmer himself to raise his double-barrel, point it towards the heavens, and pull the trigger. As the buckshot soars towards the suffocating cover of darkness with relentless determination, the farmer knows that he can begin cultivating his more profitable cash crops soon, once the darkening canopy is destroyed.

In an instant, the rounds breach the desecrating trees, eradicating one structure, with the others falling away soon after, leaving but a single pod behind, ready to burst open at a moment's notice should the opportunity arise. This particular pod remains hidden from view, concealed from prying eyes, immune to even the most advanced scrying techniques, awaiting the best moment to shroud the entire world in darkness once again.

For now, all is sunny, all is well.

At long last, everyone can now breathe a collective sigh of relief.

It took a while, and the battle was tough, but the armistice has been signed once again.

The Rebuilding is complete.