A little whisper in the dark

I came across a little rhyme......

Who keeps an arrow in his bow,
And if you prod him, lets it go?
A fervent friend, a subtle foe
–— Scorpio

The topic of starsigns occasionally pops up in conversations among friends, and more than once I've been called a stereotypical Scorpio. The skeptics (and I am one of them) like to say that horoscopes, like the art of fortune telling (some would saying lying) is dependent on predictions being loosely ambiguous, yet seeming to hit the nail on the head. You'd have to be suitably primed in mindset to accept that a prediction applies to you......

But when more than a few people start dealing out that judgement, I'm having to give pause to think. Contrary to Fox Mulder, I don't want to believe. I don't want to believe that a horoscope can describe me exactly. People born under the same star sign can't all loosely behave the same, can they? They can't all be typical Scorpios......

But then, what to make of this? Would it be people knowing I'm a Scorpio, and thus seeking out the traits that suit the star sign, or perhaps by reading of my star sign, I decide I have the lee-way to be the person that my star sign predicts? Its all a little bit murky here.

Subconsciously, and I am probably closer to my subconscious now (after a stiff drink) than when I am perfectly sober, and perhaps a self fulfilling prophecy. Behavior deemed acceptable, because of the month I was born.

Or it could all be a coincidence that I happen to be the sort of person that's been described.

So, why then, do I willingly let my pride be bruised, why do I hide my envy, why do I give in, why am I feeling the way I am?

posted by Chung Leong @ 12:28 AM 1 comments

Gardening blues

The place in Australia which I now call home - well, at least for these couple of years I'm here, has a small front yard and a pretty big backyard. And rather than hire a gardener to come mow the lawn now and then we got our own whipper-snipper. Its similar to the ones the grass cutting workers use back in Singapore strapped to their backs, only ours is a light duty home version, as opposed to their heavy duty come-hell-or-high-water models. And light duty means its bound to fail, sooner rather than later.

And fail it did, when the head carrying the nylon string (which flays grass blades to pieces) broke, fell to pieces, and I chucked it aside.

Called in the professionals, with their lawn mowers and whipper-snippers, 2 hours and $40 later, all is good.

But as tide will come and go, so will grass grow, and a visit to the local K-mart quite by chance yields the exact broken part that I need - money changes hands and I am filled with visions of a tidy lawn - only now I've replaced a broken part, but lost another part, where I do not know, but I am told I would have to order it from Sydney. A measly $5 spring, and it costs $15 to send up to Brisbane. $15? Heck, I'll make my own, just what I will make it out of, I am still figuring out. Stay tuned.

Now usually there's some lesson or some point to be made when I make a blog entry, yet this one is just a mundane note. To draw an analogy (and I love analogies) you spend your time picking up pieces of a jigsaw puzzle off the floor in a room, and start putting it together, only to discover you've got 998 of the 999 required pieces.

But maybe there is something that I'm trying to say, but maybe I'm frustrated because I can't find that missing piece. It is hard to admit I've lost it, I'm giving up the search, I just won't do that.

I would rather make the missing piece with whatever means I have. Maybe then, I'll be happy again.

posted by Chung Leong @ 11:45 PM 0 comments