White sight

Let’s see… Yesterday’s evening (family event) and Today’s morning (with brother).

YESTERDAY

Family dinner yesterday at Crystal Jade (omg lol wut) was nice. Everyone was kinda there, although ray could only come later cus of his darn camp stuff. But it was cool seeing my uncle again, and his wife had cut her hair!! I was so surprised cus she’s the daughter of some rich jewelcrafting jewelry businessman and was stunningly pretty in the.. ex-swimmer, bubbly, populaar kind of way. :) Now she looks tomboyish but still nice. aha….

A few things. My cousin apparently wanted to talk to my mom about.. certain stuff. It kinda made me sad to sort of.. know what happened. And being me and what I’ve learnt, I had a lot of opinions to give to my mom after that. (sigh)

But all in all, I like spending time with my cousins. I was sitting next to my elder maternal cousin, Lydia, and I guess.. secretly, I’ve always liked having ‘older sister figures’ around. Although I did er.. pout a bit when she helped me get some vegetables and eggs. I told her I didn’t want to be treated as a child *pouts*. Heh.

So. After downing at least 30 cups of tea like a crazy mofo, I was feeling quite happy and high about everything. It’s fun to see everyone, and oh. I sat next to grandma. So er.. as usual…. I had to actually try and make an effort to speak cantonese. D:… but you know, the times when I did say something right…it made me feel very good to have understood her and to see her reply.

Of course, the littlest obnoxious metro cousin has got his friends to go to, and my brother only came later. Aw. But anyhoo, once my brother finally arrived (being the cheapskate and taking mrt train person that he is)… my uncle kept saying in that funny accented english “so macho!”. And my super aunt commented that he looked skinnier and… Ray was just a perfect and good guy, the likes of which years ago, my parents would have given him extra credit and said he did well for the evening. I was so proud of him. He sat next to grandma and really tried to reply to her. And my cousin and aunt leaned in to hear him speak cantonese and said stuff like how rare and good it is that they can hear him now. I love that. It’s great that both of us are well-adjusted enough and doing decently alright. My parents like to talk about my brother’s strict dietary preferences and um.. yeah.. :D

So all’s well. Parents and us two escorted grandma back to the Tampines house later on, despite her insisting that the road is sufficiently lit up and it’ll be ok. It is while walking from the mall to the house that more of what happened with one of my cousins was told to me by mommy. (sigh)

TODAY

List of sorta mundane, maybe, events are as follows:-

Woke up at 845am ish. Asked my brother if he wanted a haircut now. He said yes. Cue haircut/shave/whatever and his fussiness XD. But yeah, I think I do a decent job. Then we went down to buy his bak kwa, but realised the shop was closed. So we bought newspapers and sat down to read on some steps. Then we moved into the void deck once the rains came. And stayed there talking and reading for a while. Then at 10am, we went back to the bak kwa shop. Then we went to the CC cus I like my salmon alfredo lunch and we waited inside til the place opens. Then after I’m done, we went to the food court where he ordered $7 worth of dishes from those kinds of mixed vegetables stalls w/o rice. Then we’re done and headed home.

*breaths*

… Just thought to note it down. Cus I really liked talking to him from like.. 9am to 12pm ish. Stuff about philosophy, about operation: firestorm, pop, wow… yeah. stuff.

At one point during my salmon alfredo…

me: *looks at ray* Do you know why you are drinking water now?
ray: Er.. because I was thirsty after the bak kwa?
me: Well yes. But also… because after not drinking water for a long time, I just picked up my glass of water to drink. So naturally, you modelled that behaviour, although maybe you didn’t realise it.
ray: … oh shi. Yeah, didn’t realise it at all.

… Sometime later, while talking and stuff, I saw him about to drink, and then he put down his cup and did a /facepalm thing. He said that he’s only drinking now again because I only JUST poured some water from his cup to mine (cus mine was empty) and drank. So… er…

Point being: It’s kinda funny how a lot of actions we do are just modelling others, and we do so unconsciously. Then we talked about how people in cliques look so god damn alike, about how everyone at camp looks the same.. about how when he became dorm IC, the aura of laziness washed off his dorm cus he insists people MOVE in the morning… and how his dorm is known as the gilat dorm now and he finds that it’s much easier for people to just be there early, cus it’s like they’re proud of that now.

We talked about group dynamics, adoption of norms.. etc. etc. This, in addition to Aristotle’s doctrine of the mean and moral philosophy.

…

Ok. Guess I’m just rambling. But… I like that I can discuss what I’ve learnt with him, and sort of.. tell his what uni philo life is like. I like hearing his opinions about eating disorders and major depressive disorders etc. It’s just… cool. Part of it most definitely comes from having a nice conversation with my brother (surprisingly a lot of non-wow stuff, cus i was worried that i only talk about wow to him)… but the other part, also came from being able to apply psychology and philosophy into everyday life.

So yeah. Returning home to see my dad washing the curtains, and mommy resting… I can’t help but feel that I’m an extraordinarily lucky girl. (dad kept telling me my grades are luck-based. aha.) I’ve got a most, beautiful family… and the best subjects in the world to study and have fun with.

Sure, it’s not like I succeed all the time. But dammit if they aren’t my sustenance.

edit: mom just woke up. she pointed out that.. essentially, ray waited for me while i had my lunch, and i waited for him while he had his lunch.

ok. gonna raid sunwell with him and some guildies. joy joy joy.