Tuesday, May 24, 2005

Do you have a Life Plan?

Oh no, Now that i see the title, it sounds as if I'm talking about insurance.... But of cos I'm not, I'd make a terrible insurance agent.... I did used to be a sales personnel-cum-arts teacher-cum-assistant manager in an Art and Crafts Store. That shop hiked up their prices by so much as a whooping 700%, then expect me to sell their product to the Singaporean masses...

EsQ me hor, you think the normal money-minded, KS singaporean will want to spend $30 on a single rubber stamp? Yes, albeit it was a pretty stamp of a Rose, but for fricking $30, I'd get a 'bukay' already (forgot how to spell), rather then go home and stamp the $30 rubber stamp on a $2 cardboard card, using a $15 inkpad. It was so bad that when arts students (very New arts students) or housewives come to the shop to look around or when I was teaching the newbie on how to make certain crafts, I'd be telling them to go get their supplies from Bras Basar. But of cos, some of the richer tai-tais always came back to buy crafts here, just so I'd be around to teach them how to make them properly.

So for that $30 rose stamp, you'd have thought I'd get like $10 from it, since the shop is actually still standing becos the customers required my expertise. But obviously got no such thing, so in the end, I'm paid a measly $5/hour, without OT pay and all the grievances I can encounter having like, at one time, 5 managers above me, wearing down the carpet in the shop, doing nothing but siewing hong-ki all the time out the backdoor.

Oh shit, i digress again!

back to the topic:
did you ever have a Plan sometime in your Life? The one where, if you were a girl, you'd put the maximum age before you declare yourself a blue-stocking, on account of having no boyfriends, and then retire to China to live in the pasture? the one with the minimum age to achieve before you deem it morally possible to lose your viginity? Or the one with the maximum age limit to have a kid before the odds of getting down syndrome on your infant is too high for you to risk pregnancy?

if you were a guy, then it is the maximum age you can reach before you lose your virginity, duh! Any age above that and you'd to start lying to your other guy and gal friends that you've 'done' it before. The maximum age you can still remain a Bachelor, without having to surrender to the term 'old perv' or 'gay' among the female crowd?

Yes, very important, your Life Plan. It's made up of all your childish hopes and dreams and the underlying principle that the World is, despite the increasing crime rate, the unending wars, the crazy terrorisms, still basically a wonderful place to grow up in.


As for me, the excerpt below is a message from the past, in a bottle. Straight from my Diary is an entry of my Life Plan (pls bear in mind I'm already 26):

19 yrs old- 1st year university, get a BF

21 yrs old- Lose that piece of flesh, and get instant gratification plus love (so naive!) in return

22 yrs old- Finish University and go on a Backpacking trip in Europe for 3 months

23-25 yrs old- Find iron-rice bowl and work hard at keeping it filled

26 yrs old- Wedding, not just ROM, but the works, ie tea ceremony and banquet.

27-30 yrs old- Have at least 2 kids and at most 3 kids (!). Leave work to look after them.

30-40 yrs old- Stick to iron-cast bowl and work my way up to the top. make lotsa $$. Play Stocks, property etc. to increase output. Roll in dough.
40 yrs old- retire gracefully (!). Travel the world with hubby and kids. Send kids abroad to school, non of the singapore Education shit. get into mother/father-in-law's good books for a piece of inheritance (!)

55- death- enjoy tai-tai-hood. Learn mahjong to prevent onset of Alzheimer's. Workout and be healthy and slim. Botox and Lipo? or massage and spa? be a granny.


This would have been the story of my Life, had everything turned out as planned. I would have been this Tai-tai, career woman, successful mum, elegant grandma all rolled into 1. doe sit look difficult? Apart from the working to get money, I don't see any. It's pretty straightforward...


Hmmm....hell, so what went wrong?
you would have thought that it didn't matter leh, but I think the whole plan started unraveling when i didn't get a BF. in fact, looking and hitching for a BF was harder than I tot it would.

Then, at 23, instead of looking for a metal utensil, I continued studying. Because i was still a student, I was broke, so i never backpacked to Europe.


Now at 26 yrs old, I'm NO WHERE near to getting hitched, much less MARRIED.


*groan* Accepting this is hard to do, because i'm a biologist, we think women's egg cells start to go downhill after 24. i was actually conpromising already, giving myself till 27 to have kids...


So obviously, no hubby, no kids, no in-laws, no tai-tai-ism.


Hopefully, the career dream still viable, although with contract jobs right now, I'm probably earning a series of assorted cutlery of various metal alloys.


On the bright side, though, I already learnt how to play mahjong.


It's time to change! Posted by Hello

Alzheimer-free life, here I come!
Out,
aimless AKK ( in the true sense of the word!)

18 comments:

Tempest Blue said...

Hi. Came across your blog after some blog-hopping. Your entries are really funny and entertaining. Keep it up!

Ang Ku Kueh said...

oohhh! kam-siah Kam siah! pls come over whenever you are free! glad to know u like my writing!

atelierz said...

Oh, we are of the same age!
Ya, same like you, I have my own plans too when I was alot younger. But now, everything seems to be going the wrong way. Hahaa... Guess this phrase is so true: The beauty of life lies in its unpredicability. =)

Tempest Blue said...

Hey we're kindred spirits! I know -exactly- how you feel about getting a good Western Blot result after hours of preparation.

Ang Ku Kueh said...

hi!
Li-er:

Hey! nice to know you back from bangkok! Hope u've had a good time! OTOH, while I believe that life is unpredictable, I don't really think that's what made it beautiful *chuckle*. i think blue skys did the trick. :)

Tempest Blue:

Yups, man! It's annoying but i think that to do research is to have life of 'long periods of dullness followed by moments of stark terror'. It's not good for health, ehehe....

Tempest Blue said...

Stark terror sounds about right. ;-)That's why I need activities outside the lab to stay sane.

Anonymous said...

siao.. zeh u liddat say i abit scared to grow up le...

Zen|th said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Zen|th said...

I guess as much as we plan things, they usually don't go as easily as the way we planned them. Life's like that I guess.

JellyGirl said...

This is precisely why I don't make a plan for my life. That way, I dont look back and realise I have achieved nuffin'.

Ang Ku Kueh said...

Tempest:

that's y i'm leaving research soon. :)

Yan:

say me, say yourself leh! I'd like to know about a Guy's life plan! Thanks for the spelling, you know they say that English is the only language that did not improve itself? Because it refuses to change spelling to make words more pronounceable!

Zenith:

Ni hao! thanks for dropping by. Yes lor, so disappointing! haiyah, Life!

Jellygirl:

Achieved nothing with which you planned, but everything which you didn't, so actually still accomplishment, just different things :)

Ang Ku Kueh said...

yan:

ehehe....thank goodness we all have another language to fall back on!
I wonder what languages do the majority of English pple in England speak?

Hisreason:

It's fun to know how naive and hopeful I can be when I read it, but somehow, it's pretty sad to know that it's a phase you grew out of, knowing that Life is not so easy that you can plan it on paper...

takchek said...

You read phdcomics too! Try being a single male in his late 20s slaving away in a lab, penniless and sexless. :)

Ang Ku Kueh said...

Takchek:

if u exchange 'male' to 'female', it'd be me liao.... :)

kachuaz said...

me started to play majong at 19..heehee

Ang Ku Kueh said...

hey hey!

thanks for dropping by! not bad lor you! mahjong at 19 very big accomplishment hor, all the complex maths when summing up losses and wins, worse than studying...I just learnt only, so must let others count for me....

Acey Deucey said...

I started mahjonging at 14. :P But haven't touched it for "age of niece" + 0.5 years. Reason? My regular kakis were my mum, sister and bro-in-law. Then my sister got pregnant and that was the end of all family mahjong sessions. *Grin*

Anonymous said...

mahjong mahjong yet another reason why i want to sing a song to ang ku kueh oh ang ku kueh oh another reason to keep reading on is because you play mahjong