Lovin' the Library again

I went to the Central National Library of Singapore today with my housemate, Mimi. Would you believe that only after 2 years and 3 months in Singapore have I finally gone there? Yes, it is weird coming from a person who describes herself as "can live in a bookstore or library". Well, it was one of the first things I had planned to do during my first month in Singapore but after finding out from their website about the membership fees I backed out. What can say but back then I was still adjusting with the Singapore cost of living and I was still doing my automatic mental conversion of Singapore dollar to Philippine peso which made everything very, very expensive in my perspective back then. Anyways, as they say, better late than never. The important thing is I have found another "home".

The National Library of Singapore is the best library I've been to so far. Like a usual library, it houses many books. I was overwhelmed to see the number of fiction books they have and I didn't know which one to borrow. For a big library, it doesn't work to just look into the books one by one, it is more advisable to know which title you were looking for or the author to atleast have a starting point. They have a centralized database to search for books in all the public libraries around Singapore. I was ecstatic when I found James Patterson's "Suzanne's Diary for Nicholas" and I immediately borrowed it together with another book "French Love Stories" (I borrowed this because it was a collection of short stories in French and with English translation so I thought it would help me with my French.) Then I tried to find "Pride and Prejudice" by Jane Austen. I saw the film and I just loved it so I told myself I should read the book. I found a book but...it was in the juvenile section, which of course meant that the book was a simplified version of the original (big letters per page and not much pages). I read it anyhow, so right there in the children's section, slumped on the floor with my back on the wall, for an hour I flipped thru the pages. It was fun being there, as the children looked so cute slumped on the floor lined up beside me, reading their books too.

The big difference about the National Library of Singapore from other libraries I've been too though, is that it has high technology system of borrowing and returning books. The Singapore National ID serves as the library card and there are self serviced computers there where you could check out the books to borrow them. The books can also be returned at any library within the country thru a drop box. It is very convenient indeed.

Yet, I was a bit sad about this high technology convenience because it was the thought of having a manual library card that excited me. I find great joy since I was a child to write my name on the book card I would like to borrow and see my library card becoming full of stamps from the different books I borrowed. I had a target back then to borrow and read all of the library books in my gradeschool(we had a small library in school so it was feasible and I think I did able to borrow all those in the fairytale section). I found it also nice to see in the book card who were the last people who borrowed that same book. In highschool, much as I've wanted to target the same things, it wasn't feasible anymore, as my highschool has a big library, and the books were more diverse and mature, which of course, included then a lot which did not suit my fancy. In my University days, my library book borrowing became more limited and I only borrowed reference books and not anymore books for leisure reading. After Uni, I shifted to buying books I fancy and so, the bookstores replaced the library in my life. Fast forward to today, I had been buying books and only now did I realize how I should not have forgotten the library. Borrowing books can save me a lot of money and it will save a lot of paper! Especially now that I don't have the space to house my growing collection of books. Although I am not buying books just because I wanted to read them, I also have this dream of someday having my own library/bookstore, perhaps when I retire and find my place in this world, it shall happen. For now, I am just happy that I rediscovered the library. :)

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You can read more about the National Library of Singapore here: http://www.nlb.gov.sg/

Picture courtesy of housemate Mimi.

Why I have not been blogging lately - other reasons

• Had some visitors. My Aunt (my mother's sister) was here in Singapore with her two friends. They were here for a short vacation with a side trip to Kuala Lumpur. On their last night in Singapore they stayed at my place. It was fun hearing about their adventures as they had many bloopers like going inside a church here, prayed the rosary and then found out after that it was an Anglican Church; and insisting to the taxi driver in KL to take them to the bus station they said against the persistence of the taxi driver that it was the wrong bus station and in the end realized the taxi driver was right. But they were so cool about everything and laughed their hearts out as they recall them. They referred to themselves as the "golden girls" and I could not agree more -- 3 lovely ladies in their 50's with successful professional careers, all single. When I was growing up the elders used to tease me about having the potential to follow my Aunt's footsteps, with me having this independent personality and strong will. While I was with the golden girls, this thought did pass to me like a cold wind gushing on my skin...I asked myself, am I the next generation? The thing is, being a golden girl was my aunt's choice: when I was child,I clearly remember her saying to my grandfather that she had no plans of getting married. As for me, do I really have a choice?


• Had to catch up with my French. I missed one (very important) lesson during my vacation down under. There was quite a load of homework plus, I had to study for the exam yesterday night. I did fine with my oral but I had a hard time with my written because I was not able to memorize the conjugations of many irregular verbs. I did try to prepare for it yesterday afternoon -- while I was at work I created this beautiful list of these verbs and their conjugations but before I could start to do some memorization, I had to work on a Production issue and by 6:30pm I was still in the office. I arrived half an hour late for my exam, and much as I tried to remember my verbs, I could squeeze only the thoughts of my still unresolved Production issue from my brain cells. Oh well, I really do have no excuse actually because I did have some time to study days ahead but I have not been taking my French classes very seriously, I mean, I know I could be more diligent in studying it but because it was not really something that I chose to learn but more of a necessity for me to survive in my job, I am not really that receptive or enthusiastic.


• Had to get used to (or rather accept) going back to my routine again. That includes going to work in the first place. I still have not found my motivation back about my job. It's been months now but there has been no improvement, sometimes I think it is even getting worse and I feel like a wilting flower or in a more techy simile, like a toy car running out of batteries, no matter how hard you push the remote control forward, it just wouldn't accelerate anymore. My friends say I have twochoises to settle this: a change in perspective or a change in job. I've tried the former but I am not sure if I tried hard enough, I am also trying the latter but Ihave not found any. I've proven many times that things happen when it's time, things I ask for is given in the right time. If something is for you, it will come like the most natural thing but when something is not, you must know when to surrender and accept your fate. This is the challenging (and also confusing) part, how to know if you are exerting enough effort and at the same time be able to know when enough is enough. Well, I guess only time will tell...
  

Why I have not been blogging lately -- major reason

I am trying to pass some time for me to get over the trauma I got from my recent trip to Australia. No thanks to the " very warm reception", or shall I say, sizzling reception I got from the officers of Sydney airport who welcomed me by doubting my purpose of tourism in their beloved country and rummaged through the contents of my bags, my wallet, the stamps in my passport and yes, even my mobile phone combined with interrogating me with all the questions in the world. Though they were not rude, they did were hostile and formal. At first I was still cool and thought that they were just trying to do their job but I started to get annoyed when I felt that they were trying to find any fault on me that they could use against me. But well since I am not lying when I told them I was just staying only for 9 days and I could answer them straight in the eye (but I wonder why they couldn't look at me straight in the eye) and even if they swab all of my things to check for drug traces or turn the world upside down, they couldn't get anything from me and after about half an hour they finally said "Welcome to Sydney and enjoy your stay here". Yeah right.

To make matters worse, on my flight back to Singapore, I was still, unbelievably, got picked by "random" (that's what I was told) to be checked again by the immigration officers. They swabbed my things and scanned my hands to check for any trace of drugs again. But this time it was a bit different, as the two officers were trying to be a bit more "friendly", I thought maybe to make me feel at ease. So they were being chatty and I would have been convinced that their friendliness could be sincere so I had cheerfully conversed with them until one asked if I had a boyfriend in Australia and when I said no, one jokingly said when I go back there he'll show me around and find me a boyfriend. I wouldn't have been offended have he not gave away his real thinking when he said with a wide smile "I will find you a rich boyfriend and then you can pay me 2 million dollars commission". That made the smile on my face disappear, I paused, collected my things and I said "For me, it's not really at all about the money".Then he said "Yeah, it should be about the heart, shouldn't it?". I answered "Yes, exactly." I found it truly insulting.

I really wanted to forget about those bad experiences because I didn't want it to spoil my trip. But it made a big impression on me, and it was hard to recover. It didn't even help that during the days when I was traversing the streets of Sydney by myself, I never got a warm smile or nice encounter with a local. I only got strange looks from people. Maybe I am just being paranoid when I say I was not being given the same treatment as anyone else, but I suppose when I smiled at the people sitting in the train when I was trying to pass through to sit on the vacant seat in between them and they did not bother to move and I had to squeeze myself in, there was no relation to when they moved over when a white Aussie guy squeezed in and actually even exchanged some greetings with each other?

I don't even want to write about these experiences because I don't want to speak ill about a country, especially since my friend (from gradeschool who invited me over to visit) and his family (Filipinos who migrated to Australia and are now citizens there) have been so nice to me. They have a good life there and I know that they love Australia and proud of it and I know my friend wanted me to see it the way he does but unfortunately I could not.

I feel sad to be even be writing about this actually, because I would like to remember only the good things about my travels and write only about the beautiful things (I do am going to try to do some travel blog about Australia) but I also feel that I have to voice this out to be true to myself and for everyone who has chosen to be mum about a similar thing they might have experienced. I have heard stories about Australia being racist but I still went there taking this thought away to avoid prejudice and I was hopeful to even disprove it, because they said it is like New Zealand and since I only had good memories from my trip to New Zealand earlier this same year, I also had the hopes of bringing back with me only nice stories about this beautiful land down under. But while I do confirm how beautiful the place is, I could only also say that for me, the real beauty of a place lies on how it welcomes the beholders, where it doesn't matter if your skin is not white and your hair and eyes are black.

The aboriginals of Australia are the original inhabitants of this land, thousands of years way before the British settled and conquered the land. The aboriginals have tanned skin, black hair and black eyes...but now I understand why when we say Australia we think about white people in safari and outback attires.

I just wanna say...

..that I love Changi airport and I am glad to be back in Singapore!