Snippet Of My Life Episode 28 – A Matter Of Perspectives

1. Making Potions

Lily Allen once wrote in her MySpace, “Most people don’t know how to make love.”  I chuckled at her observation.  What if she is right?  What if most people simply mess things up in bed?  Is it profound or is it stupid?  My guitarist once told me that talents are innate in nature.  You either have it, or you don’t.  Combine the two, greatness in bed would only be for the special few.

If I could create a potion, I would make one that erases our knowledge of how to make love.  Better still, make us forget how to kiss too.  So every few months or so, we have to relearn and rediscover the joy of getting to know the how.  Now, think about it.  Really, think about it.  This forget-how-to-make-love (FH2ML) potion, you have got to admit, is a quite a jolly good idea.  I can’t think of any undesirable side effects.  Unless one is making a career out of …

OK, next topic.

2. Putting on Make-up

Every morning, there is a jam on part of the highway.  To kill time, besides chatting with Cynthia sitting next to me, I observe the things around me.   The debris on the highway resulting from previous crashes, the flowers and the plants on my right, the scratch marks and the dents on the railing that prevents us from banging onto the cars traveling from the opposition direction, and the access areas that I didn’t know they exist.   When you are moving at such snail speed, the time-space continuum seems to get punctured.  You tend to see the world around you in a whole new perspective.

One morning, stuck at a traffic jam, through the rear mirror, I saw a young girl putting on make-up while her partner was playing stop-and-go with me.   She has a face that resembles the seed of a melon (it is a Chinese compliment, trust me), a mouth that resembles the blossom of Sakura (again, a compliment).  Her hair is long and luscious, wavy and carefree.   Our cars were heading south so naturally, the morning sun shone through the passenger side of the windows perfectly lit up the subject of my observation.   So, that morning, in between the stop’s and the go’s, instead of the debris and the flowers, the plants and the scratch marks, I watched the girl inside a car behind my car powdering her face, coloring her cheeks.  I might have hallucinated on the application of her outer-V.  But for sure, I saw her curling her eyelashes.   Left first, and then right, checking the mirror in between with subtle smiles of satisfaction.   That transformation – of which women putting on make-up (almost) daily – a transformation from which a natural form of raw beauty turns into an art of color and vibrancy that blends into the clothing they wear, into the four seasons, and sometimes, into the festive occasions.  I do the little I can in return.  I stop, and admire.

Of the many forgettable morning rides (memorable rides often involves some terrible road accidents or massive jams due to fallen trees or some drivers doing something very stupid on the road), I enjoy watching the girl putting on make-up through my rear mirror that one morning.

3. Business Class versus Economy Class

My company forbids me to share pictures of my workplace online.   But it does not seem to forbid me writing about it, so long as I make it clear that my view does not represent the view of my company.  So here we go.

Some friends tease me that I now work in a factory, which may not be far from the truth.  Consider that all skill sets get commoditized over time, I could well be a modern day farmer, or a modern day meat packer.   I believe that so long as we keep ourselves productive – in return – our society takes care of our daily needs.  And if I am properly clothed and fed, I am happy.  How my friends’ perceive I making a living does not affect me.   I work on the third floor.  Our canteen is on the sixth floor at the rooftop partially exposed to the sun and the rain.  From six o’clock onwards, our main lobby is transformed into a mini-bus terminal.   Private buses from a public bus company, school buses from an university, and shiny buses from a casino – all eager to earn some extra cash by fetching our staffs home.  Paid by my company.

I cannot say in certainty how many people we have in our department versus how many desks that are allocated to our department.   I suspect we have lesser desks than we would like (collective wisdom somewhere in my company observes that not everyone works in office everyday).  We – as corporate citizens – are given a mechanism to book seats online.  And we – as human beings – tend to be territorial when it comes to workspace.  Some of my colleagues prefer to sit at the allocated hot desk area.  I am a peace lover.  And I hate to bump people out of their seats, or get bumped for that matter.   So I prefer to sit at the landing area that contains rows and rows of long wooden benches with movie director type of seats up for grab on a first-come-first-serve basis.   Not many like the landing area, especially the full time staffs.   It is an area for our vendors who do not have a designated sitting area.  It is cramp with seats that cannot be adjusted.  It is next to the pantry.   One time, over the phone, a friend of mine overheard the clinking sound from the mugs and kitchen utensils and he asked, “Are you working in a restaurant?”  In any case, I love the vibe in the landing area.   People are friendly.  The best things I love are the windows.  I enjoy natural daylight and I enjoy watching the planes fly by.   In a good day, through the windows, I can see many planes in different shapes, silently coming down in different speed.  FedEx planes, Singapore Airline planes, planes with logos that I don’t recognize, private planes.   The only type of plane I do not see is warplane.   You should try to catch a glimpse of a plane landing under a heavy raining condition.  What a majestic sight!  A modern day giant bird coming down from the heaven, a rainy heaven.

Whenever my good friend at work and I part from our meal breaks, at the lift lobby, I often joke with her, “Now you go back to your business class while I return to my economy class!”   She prefers to work at the department’s designated area if she can.  And I, by the windows.

4. I Feel for You Man

Our Spanish teacher has been expecting a baby, for five months.  I got shocked out of my socks, figuratively.   I mean, if she did not announce, I would not have noticed.  OK, she looks – how shall I say – fuller overall.   But I guess I was not paying attention to the right area – her tummy.   I mean, most women have a bit of tummy here and there and that is OK.   Yes?

Onto the ninth lesson of this season, we are taught the difference between ‘para’ and ‘por’ in Spanish.  I suppose many students find that confusing.  I often pick the wrong one.  It turns out that for aim and purpose such as “I did it for love”, we use para.   To address someone such as “Guns are not for kids”, we use para.   To indicate a deadline or a specific location, we use para.  So, when do we use por?   One lollipop for each bull eye shot, that is por.   One lollipop per kid, that is por.   To indicate an unspecified location – be it as time or space – we use por.   The expression of “through which” and “because of”, it is por (I did it for [para] love, I did it because of [por] love … so now you get the drift?)

To help us to internalize ‘para’ and ‘por’, our teacher asked each of us to take on a sentence with a missing word.  To guess if the missing word should be a para or a por.  It is 50-50 really.  One girl got a sentence with three missing words and she got it all correct.  Respect!  Girls are better at languages.  That is an indisputable fact.  When it came to my turn, Cynthia on my right helped me out.  Next, when it came to my good buddy’s turn, he struggled.  I too struggled.  Out of nowhere, Spanish words poured out of my mouth, “Lo siento para ti, tío” that literally means “I feel for you man”.  OK, I used por instead of para.  Even Google Translate gets it wrong, I found out today.   But I am surprised on what I randomly made up in class makes Spanish sense (‘lo siento’ also means ‘I am sorry’).

In Spanish, mañana means morning.  And it also means tomorrow.  So how to say ‘tomorrow morning’ in Spanish then?  Mañana por la mañana.