I lost it last night. For the first time in a long, long time.
I have been back home for the past week and the mother has been nagging every single day since. About e-v-e-r-y s-i-n-g-l-e darn thing imaginable about my impending move to New York at the end of the month.
I have been back home for the past week and the mother has been nagging every single day since. About e-v-e-r-y s-i-n-g-l-e darn thing imaginable about my impending move to New York at the end of the month.
She is a serial nagger, but this surely has to take the cake.
"You said you want to ask for a change of your 95 square feet single dorm room, can or not ah?"
It would almost always inevitably be followed by: "Eh, so how? How are you going to bring all the money over? Have you decided already not?"
And then, about everyday living such as food and laundry, "New York not like Singapore, cannot go out so late ah, scarly you kenna robbed or shot at."
"Next time when you got no time to iron your clothes, just make sure you hang it out the moment the machine finishes the tumble dry."
And I always promptly remind her that I have to throw them in the dryer after I am done because unlike here, clothes take forever to dry in wintry conditions in NY. And that, the dryer is so hot that it straightens your clothes. And that I have done this all before.
Once in a while, she will pepper the cycle with a tale or two about a friend's friend's child/nephew/niece who died/lapsed into a coma after an accident while studying overseas.
On a good day, she will instead make me repeat my promise not to go into conflict journalism and I have to tell her for the xxx-th time that I will come back home if the situation arises.
Yesterday though, I punctuated her serene everyday existence with my outburst.
I basically did everything I normally say and do, except in a louder tone. I told her that I appreciated her concern and good intentions, agreed with her that she has a right as a parent to ask and express concern with a child who is leaving the nest, so to speak.
But I also reminded her that this is about me leaving. She can insist on her right as a parent, but it is going to unnerve me the way she has done whenever I am home in between the two-week study trip to Jakarta, Bangkok and Brussels I went on in May and the 10-day photojournalism boot camp in Siem Reap that I just returned from last Tuesday.
Staying at home has always been about her nagging and I have developed a tolerance to that over time. But what tipped it over the edge for me last night was simply because I am also grappling with everything associated with leaving and making such a big life change. I don't need to be rushed or reminded about everything more than I am on a daily basis now.
I reminded her that I am no more the person when I was a teenager when all I cared about was my friends and people out of the home or family. I told her it was my intention to try to spend some time with my maternal grandmother, her mother, who brought me up and is my only surviving grandparent. It was also my intention to do lunch with her sometime, something which I have almost never done.
I know I haven't been the best child or family person and I have a lot of outside friends. But this is the way I am. I do not apologize for the fact I am closer to my friends, my mentors because that's the way I learnt to cope in a family that has never been closely knit in any Western or Asian sense.
Maybe it's too much to expect her to understand or see things from my perspective.
I just need the time and space to think, read whatever circulars I have to read in order to plan for classes, read up on New York and American society and basically deal with everything I need to in my emotional and spiritual realms. To just do things in peace, basically.
Left with slightly less than a month in Singapore before I make that cross-continental move to New York to start graduate school, I have been "doing" meals/tea with folks, saying my goodbyes in as authentic a manner as I possibly can.
I want to consolidate the various relationships I have here, not so much closing a chapter, but more of making sure that the friendship won't die when I leave.
In between, of course, all the paper work for the student visa, trying to figure the cheapest method to bring my money over, trying to start getting my room packed up (which I haven't started yet) and dealing with the mother incessantly nagging me about every single imaginable thing possible.
I am beginning to feel the fatigue of meeting everybody in such a compressed period of time. Not that I hate meeting the people I am meeting. I am meeting them because I want to, but I also do think this whole thing about my moving is really not as big a deal as it is generally made out to be.
I just need my space, space to have some down time with myself, with God and what not. I just booked myself on a ticket to Brisbane for a week after the whole graduation ceremonial circus ends the following Tuesday.
Absolutely can't wait to see Kelvin and John again, but most of all, I am just looking forward to some much needed peace so that I can find my equilibirum and leave end July in a proper state of mind.
And of course, just simply travelling for travelling's sake.
"You said you want to ask for a change of your 95 square feet single dorm room, can or not ah?"
It would almost always inevitably be followed by: "Eh, so how? How are you going to bring all the money over? Have you decided already not?"
And then, about everyday living such as food and laundry, "New York not like Singapore, cannot go out so late ah, scarly you kenna robbed or shot at."
"Next time when you got no time to iron your clothes, just make sure you hang it out the moment the machine finishes the tumble dry."
And I always promptly remind her that I have to throw them in the dryer after I am done because unlike here, clothes take forever to dry in wintry conditions in NY. And that, the dryer is so hot that it straightens your clothes. And that I have done this all before.
Once in a while, she will pepper the cycle with a tale or two about a friend's friend's child/nephew/niece who died/lapsed into a coma after an accident while studying overseas.
On a good day, she will instead make me repeat my promise not to go into conflict journalism and I have to tell her for the xxx-th time that I will come back home if the situation arises.
Yesterday though, I punctuated her serene everyday existence with my outburst.
I basically did everything I normally say and do, except in a louder tone. I told her that I appreciated her concern and good intentions, agreed with her that she has a right as a parent to ask and express concern with a child who is leaving the nest, so to speak.
But I also reminded her that this is about me leaving. She can insist on her right as a parent, but it is going to unnerve me the way she has done whenever I am home in between the two-week study trip to Jakarta, Bangkok and Brussels I went on in May and the 10-day photojournalism boot camp in Siem Reap that I just returned from last Tuesday.
Staying at home has always been about her nagging and I have developed a tolerance to that over time. But what tipped it over the edge for me last night was simply because I am also grappling with everything associated with leaving and making such a big life change. I don't need to be rushed or reminded about everything more than I am on a daily basis now.
I reminded her that I am no more the person when I was a teenager when all I cared about was my friends and people out of the home or family. I told her it was my intention to try to spend some time with my maternal grandmother, her mother, who brought me up and is my only surviving grandparent. It was also my intention to do lunch with her sometime, something which I have almost never done.
I know I haven't been the best child or family person and I have a lot of outside friends. But this is the way I am. I do not apologize for the fact I am closer to my friends, my mentors because that's the way I learnt to cope in a family that has never been closely knit in any Western or Asian sense.
Maybe it's too much to expect her to understand or see things from my perspective.
I just need the time and space to think, read whatever circulars I have to read in order to plan for classes, read up on New York and American society and basically deal with everything I need to in my emotional and spiritual realms. To just do things in peace, basically.
Left with slightly less than a month in Singapore before I make that cross-continental move to New York to start graduate school, I have been "doing" meals/tea with folks, saying my goodbyes in as authentic a manner as I possibly can.
I want to consolidate the various relationships I have here, not so much closing a chapter, but more of making sure that the friendship won't die when I leave.
In between, of course, all the paper work for the student visa, trying to figure the cheapest method to bring my money over, trying to start getting my room packed up (which I haven't started yet) and dealing with the mother incessantly nagging me about every single imaginable thing possible.
I am beginning to feel the fatigue of meeting everybody in such a compressed period of time. Not that I hate meeting the people I am meeting. I am meeting them because I want to, but I also do think this whole thing about my moving is really not as big a deal as it is generally made out to be.
I just need my space, space to have some down time with myself, with God and what not. I just booked myself on a ticket to Brisbane for a week after the whole graduation ceremonial circus ends the following Tuesday.
Absolutely can't wait to see Kelvin and John again, but most of all, I am just looking forward to some much needed peace so that I can find my equilibirum and leave end July in a proper state of mind.
And of course, just simply travelling for travelling's sake.
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