Listening to pinkie makes time passes so much faster… maybe not faster, but at least I’m idling to some really cool music. Pinkie has been jam-packed with some new albums courtesy of my faithful friends who so willingly share their recent assets in the cyberworld. [I don’t actually know these people, but I’m thankful for their existence along with the few gems that upload all the entertainment shows on youtube that keep me relatively sane and happy.] So there’s the OST for Black & White, Lala’s first album [since her win], a quirky album from zhang xuan and the newest album from soda green. Haven’t been able to see my best friend with the same initials as me (www) because some twit changed my CPU and somehow I’m not able to logon to the cyberworld. Bah. Vomitus volumous.
So marian keyes has been loyal companion while I while away 8 hours of my life everyday. In her latest book “This Charming Man”, she explores the topic of domestic violence. It’s an amazing statistic – 5% of all women experience it at some point in our lives. Don’t know where the women come from, but if you’re asian (whether male or female), i’m sure you would have been served some caning sentence early on in life. I don’t mean the Michael fay type which is still brought up now and again when I mention my beloved island hometown, but the thinner version sometimes with chicken feathers attached a.k.a. feather duster. Remember? Those wretched scary looking things with misleading bright plastic handles (hot pink, neon green, highlighter yellow, etc.) hanging in the 2mx2m storeroom which mum/dad/whoever whips out along with the oft-repeated threat of “police will catch you ah” – both designed to instil fear of authority and reprehension. Did it manage to make you piss in your pants? Totally made me run away from “Dear Mr. Policeman” on the streets for fear that they’ll put me in jail for the blue M&M with peanut I stole from the jar. This counts as domestic violence too right? Its violence played out in a domestic setting, pain inflicted by a family member on a helpless, screaming child. So I proudly declare I am a past victim of domestic violence. My parents are abusers in their own right. The Ong family who lived in Clementi and then moved to Bukit Batok are a bunch of crazed torturers/torturees. Yeah…. Wicked laughter [I hope my mum never reads this] BUT ever since parents stopped this cruel treatment of their kids and decided to spoil their kids silly (literally) and douse them with $$ and the latest gadgets, gizmos aplenty, have you noticed the rise of weird unruly behaviour? Where’s the discipline? Where’s the respect? What happened to giving up your seat to someone else who needs it more than you? Don’t they teach that at home anymore? Don’t they have civil education as part of the required syllabus in school? What are the parents doing? These “kids” (I hesitate to label them kids, cos kids are those who don’t pay bus fares, u know? Under 0.9m. anyone taller should be able to understand logic, reasoning and can be expected to know what is good and acceptable behaviour), these half-lings don’t look you in the eye nor do they greet anyone other than mumble under their breaths (they could be swearing for all I know), they spend money like there’s no tomorrow, they’re so privileged that they don’t know the real hard world out there. I mean, I’ve seen a couple of such kids during my schooling days (not too long ago), and I’ve always expressed utmost shock at how little they know of the common folk out there. [read: common = popular, large population, majority] God-forbid if they should drop from their pedestals and their little clouds right down to earth to experience harsh brutality called “everyday life”. Nasty.
I shall stop ranting like a raving lunatic in a mid-life crisis. (last time I checked, I’m still relatively sane and no-where near the mid-life mark)
I’m not espousing the use of physical brutality. I’m really not. I just think something’s gone gravely wrong and something needs to be done. And really, can we blame the parents? Who am I to judge these poor parents, when I can’t even take good and proper care of my 4 year-old dog? Her fur is always in knots and I always fail to brush it out regularly enough. My dog needs to go to the vet each year for major scaling because I don’t always brush her teeth. Neither am I conscientious in bringing her out for walk. I constantly put my needs above hers and neglect her. THANK GOD she’s a canine and her memory is restricted to 10 minutes. Else, I think she would have turned into a bitter, world-hating bitch telling the whole world how I’d wrecked her life and her fur. I do love her to bits, really.
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