What I saw on a girl’s t-shirt :
Life is not about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself. (by George Bernard Shaw)
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I seem to have reached a new stage in my life. Where do I go from here? What do I want to do? What should I do? I’m feeling utterly lost.
I remember when I was a kid, I talked my mum into buying a Christmas tree even if we didn’t celebrate Christmas at home. Kids love Christmas. Decorating the tree was fun and getting Christmas presents were even better. When I grew older, I no longer got excited about Christmas. We still don’t celebrate Christmas at home and I’m fine with that. My parents are Buddhists but for some reason or other, they got my siblings and I baptized at church when we were kids. In primary school, there was the First Communion and Confirmation. I went to church a few times when I was younger and went for confession also. When we were young, we didn’t really have a choice. We just listened to the parents and the teachers. Luckily, I’m the only one in the family who doesn’t get called by my Christian name which starts with a K. No one calls me like that. I send New Year cards sometimes and I write Merry Christmas and Happy New Year inside. That’s only because my friends celebrate Christmas. When someone wishes me ‘Merry Christmas’, I smile and say ‘Thank you. Merry Christmas to you too’. I don’t want to say that I don’t celebrate Christmas because I don’t want to explain the reasons why. People all over the world celebrate Christmas nowadays and many don’t even realize that Christmas is supposed to be a Christian celebration. Many non-Christians say that they celebrate Christmas but the truth is, it’s only the gift-giving part which appeals to them. They don’t do anything except give each other gifts. It can’t be helped. Christmas, just like many other celebrations is very commercialized and it’s not surprising that many people all over the world ‘celebrate’ Christmas. Even in Shanghai, I saw Christmas decorations, Christmas trees, people wearing Christmas hats and they were even playing Christmas songs in the supermarkets. During my 4 years in Shanghai, my non-Chinese friends invited me to a few Christmas parties and our faculty even organized Christmas parties for the International students. It was fun to see how people from other countries celebrate Christmas. 
Yesterday was my first Christmas eve in Singapore. Lisa, Audrey and Nicolas usually celebrate Christmas and they planned a Christmas dinner with the other Mauritians at their place. I’m staying at Lisa’s place so I ‘participated’ in the celebrations as well but I’m not sure if there will be a second time. Not doing anything on Christmas eve is fine with me. Still, it was an interesting experience. Lisa, Audrey and Nicolas worked really hard in the kitchen as well as getting the tables ready in the living room. Last year they ordered food but this year, they did everything by themselves because it was too late to order anything,esp the turkey. I didn’t go to sleep the night before and yesterday, I went to sleep at around 2p.m after helping them in the kitchen for a short while. I woke up 3 1/2 hrs later and it was time to shower and get dressed. I was so sleepy. :faint:
Some photos:
(note: weird color in some photos because of the dim light)
One of our first photos of the night. Lisa, Audrey and me. I had to force myself to smile. I was too sleepy.
The 3 of us decorated the Christmas tree. It’s a bit small but I like it.
A photo taken with the tree.
Group pic minus Hanssen who hadn’t arrived yet because he was working. Nicolas was the one behind the camera. The turkey didn’t look like what I had imagined it to be but it was delicious. 
Read the rest of this entry »
I got quite alarmed when I saw that my blog got nominated for Mauritian Blog of the Year 2008 organized
by another Mauritian blogger. I requested to have my blog removed from the list and I’m still waiting. What’s so alarming about that? Well, I don’t like my blog to be listed anywhere where many Mauritians might be visiting. One thing I noticed is that apart from 2 Mauritian blogs I’ve been reading, I don’t know the other bloggers. Ah.. and most of them seem to ‘know’ each other and are currently in Mauritius. To me it feels more like a local Mauritian Blog of the Year contest. I know some Mauritian bloggers who are overseas and who have been blogging for a long time but none of them were nominated for that Mauritian Blog of the Year thing. The ‘newer’ bloggers know each other and the ‘older’ bloggers know each other I guess.
All this got me thinking about the good old days..
I wrote about Mauritian bloggers back in 2004. (See old entry written on 19th August 2004 -> Mauritian bloggers. )
Like I mentioned in my About page,
Why this blog?
I tend to bottle up my feelings. Writing is the only way to make me feel better…
This blog also allows me to let my loved ones know what I’ve been up to.
They are still the 2 main reasons why I write here. (Also, maybe Email and blogging, Getting in touch with old friends as well.)
Most of the bloggers from back then have stopped blogging by now,some are on hiatus but a few are still updating their blogs. I’ve been on hiatus a couple of times already and I don’t update my blog as often as I did a few years ago but my blog is still alive even if I only update it when I feel like it.
I don’t maintain a list of Mauritian bloggers anymore and I have to admit that I don’t keep track of what’s going on back in Mauritius. At some point ( I don’t remember anymore. Maybe around year 2006?), there were more and more Mauritians blogging. I got an email from Stephane who was asking me if I was interested in having my blog syndicated in the Mauritius Blog Tracker. I said yes. That was on the 9th April 2006. On the 24th April 2006, I emailed him because I wanted to have my blog removed.
What I wrote in my email back then :
***
Hi!
I’m sorry but I’ve changed my mind about being tracked. I’ll be keeping the link to the Mauritius blog tracker because I enjoy reading some blogs tracked there but I’d rather not see my full entries(plus photos) over there.
It just feels too weird. I didn’t write with the intention of having Mauritians read my entries. As you may have noticed, some of my entries are like journal entries, i.e kinda personal and detailed. Most of my blog readers are people I’ve met in China or know online. Mauritius is a small country and gossips spread like wildfire. I hope you understand this and delete my entries there. (not to mention that linking directly to my photos might bother my friend who’s hosting me).
Thanks
aline
***
Now, more than 2 years after I asked to have my blog removed from the tracker, my feelings still haven’t changed. I’ve just visited the Mauritius Blog Tracker website and I noticed that the list of Mauritian blogs listed there has become longer. (Of course, not all Mauritian blogs are listed there.) I think it’s great that so many Mauritians are into blogging now. I’ve been reading a few Mauritian blogs from the Mauritius Blog Tracker but still, I can’t help missing the old Mauritian bloggers. I wonder what they are up to and why they stopped blogging.
Anyway, good luck to those participating in this Mauritian Blog of the Year.
-edited on 23rd Dec 2008 @ 11:58 pm-
The blogger organizing the Mauritian Blog of the Year finally removed my blog from the list. Hurray. 
I reached Singapore last Tuesday. My flight was at 10:05 a.m and I left home at around 07:40 . I thought that I would reach the airport at around 08:30 but due to the heavy traffic jam caused by 2 accidents, I only reached at 09:20 and I was probably one of the last persons to check in. The girl at the Garuda airlines counter called out to someone behind her to wait, that there was still another piece of luggage coming. Well actually I had two. I was around 10kgs well over the weight limit but she didn’t make me pay and just gave me my boarding pass. Gate D59. Yikes. She told me to hurry up because the passengers were going to start boarding soon. I didn’t get to say a ‘proper’ goodbye to Desmond. Just a kiss from him and a ‘bye’, then I hurried inside.
Bye Desmond, bye my little Sushi, goodbye to everyone else in Shanghai. :weeping: I’ll be back soon. (I hope) I wasn’t able to say goodbye to many people because I was still packing till the last minute and I didn’t even sleep on the eve of my flight. Packing 4 years of personal belongings is harder than it sounds.
I really wanted to stay one more day because the 3rd December was our 4-year anniversary but unfortunately, my PRC visa was expiring on the 2nd and it wasn’t possible to get another extension.
I enjoyed the flight on Garuda airlines. I liked the food. I had the chicken and it was a bit spicy. Yummy. :love: I’m one of those persons who love airplane food. 
I noticed that some of the Chinese passengers didn’t touch the chicken and only ate the rice and the bread. I suppose that it was too spicy for them. The people sitting near me were Chinese workers who were going to work in Singapore. They had a lot of difficulty filling in the Singapore Arrival card because it was all in English. They asked the Chinese guy (who was going to Singapore to study) sitting next to me for help while I watched on silently. I finally spoke up because he made a mistake. In the country section, they were supposed to write ‘CHINA’ but they wrote the province that they were from instead. I think that they should have made a Chinese version of the arrival card for flights from China. How do they expect all the Chinese passengers to understand English? I remember that arrival cards for flights to China were in both Chinese and English. They should do that for flights from China to Singapore.
I was feeling a bit sorry for the Chinese workers. They were all dressed nicely. Some of them were even wearing suits. I heard them talking excitedly about their new life and new job in Singapore, how they were looking forward to these. One of the workers even showed me his employment letter and I saw that he was going to work for XXXX Builders Ltd. It seems that the rest of the Chinese workers on that flight were going to work there too. They were supposed to write a Singapore address in their Singapore arrival card but they had no idea where they were going to live so I told them to write the company’s address(which was on their letters) there and to show their letters at the immigration checkpoint. In my heart, I sincerely wished them all the best for their new life in Singapore. I hope that the agency/person who recruited them didn’t lie to them and gave them false hopes.
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It was around 15:30 when the plane finally reached Singapore. The duty free shops at arrival were a bit disappointing but I took my time walking around before going to the immigration checkpoint at Terminal 1. Afterwards, I spent one hour looking at perfumes & liquor and then I finally went to get my luggage. Someone had already removed my suitcase and sports bag from the luggage belt. One thing I love about Changi airport: the restrooms. When I think of toilets in general, the words which come to my mind are ‘dirty & smelly’ but I was impressed by the cleanliness of the restrooms at Changi airport.
I’m staying at Lisa’s place at Hillview just like last time. She rarely uses her laptop (gasp!! :faint: ) and is letting me use hers.
Me & Lisa , a photo taken with Lisa’s camera on the coach to KL a few days ago.
I forgot my canon charger in Shanghai and I will probably receive it by the end of this week. (thanks Des!) Desmond told me that he paid RMB40 to send the charger. Buying a new charger in Singapore would probably cost more and I didn’t even know where to buy the charger anyway.
There’s one thought which keeps going through my mind: “Did I make the wrong choice?” I wonder..
I’m sure that I don’t have any allergies but I got skin rashes that took around a week to disappear. I didn’t bother to go see a doctor because I really dislike going to hospitals in China. I just drank a lot of water, ate a lot of fruits and slathered my skin with moisturizing body lotion. My skin was itching like crazy and I had to apply antiseptic powder all over my body. Resisting the urge to scratch my itchy skin was so hard. I decided to hit or ‘pat’ the itchy area instead and I really felt better afterwards. As for my neck, I put both hands around my neck and applied light pressure there. Worked wonders. :faint: Strangely, the areas unaffected were my face, chest, hands and feet. I’m thinking that the rashes might have been caused by the sudden change in temperature. Winter is here. 
I love Shanghai but I hate cold weather. :no: I had already packed my winter clothes because I was so sure that I would not longer be in Shanghai at this time of the year but I’m still here.
I have ‘disappeared’ again for almost a month. I’ve been busy. My sister and cousin are going back to Mauritius today. Long story…but anyway, now I finally have time to do whatever I want. When I think of the number of times I’ve ‘disappeared’ in the past, I wonder why some people still come and read whatever I write here.
Photos for my previous entry…
A simple dinner at a Japanese restaurant on my birthday.
Birthday girl…
…and Des.
Papaya milkshake!!
No photos of food this time. hehe . Only a photo of the papaya milkshake that I had.
I never liked eating papayas when I was a kid. I used to think that the smell was horrible and the taste even more disgusting. Being the kind of person who likes to give 2nd (and 3rd, 4th and so on… ) chances, I bought a papaya earlier this year and realized that papayas aren’t as disgusting as I remembered them to be. They are actually quite good. :faint:
I’ve left Singapore a couple of days ago and I’m now back to Shanghai. I still have so much to write about my trip to Singapore but all that will have to wait because…….. it’s my birthday today.
Feeling a bit weird today. I’m now 24 and unlike 2 years ago, I am no longer able to say that I don’t feel any older.
I feel very old already. I keep wondering what I’ve managed to accomplish during all those years and where I’m supposed to go from here.
Happy Birthday to me. :flowers:
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