sell a car on tv.

Every year has a formula. It begins, as most have led themselves into thinking, with a clean slate. Because humans tend to imbued into themselves the alarmingly ludicrous idea that any form of negativity will dissipate and be gone over time, as long as you ignore it long enough, the knowledge that a new year is looming ahead is always thought to be a fantastic occurrence. And because I stoically refuse to be classed as a cynic, I would add that at times, it can definitely be one (a fantastic occurrence), but most go about achieving this stage of effervescent illusion in all the wrong ways. In many ways, a new year has most people thinking that their problems can just be forgotten about because “It’s A Brand New Start!”

Then comes the anti-climactic calm, and then reality sets in that nothing, really, was resolved by forgetting about it.

Records have been straightened out, I suppose, by others. But the effects are short-lived - fruitless at best - and the realists battle a perpetual war against the hat-wearing, cheering, joyous crowd shouting “Happy new year!”, thinking to do Everything by solving Nothing, Really. I’m rather sure there have been past meagre attempts at letting humanity know that new years and new millenniums will not magically sledgehammer the previous era’s ice-chunk of troubles and quandaries into mini fragments of rainbow candy-farting-unicorns. No. As much as we like to ignore it, those problems journey with us across the causeway to the new year. In an ideal world, they get held up at customs and sent back; but where you live? They mutate into nefarious little grenades that might make your entire year miserable the more you treat them like imaginary lint.

So here’s your resolution for this year: don’t forget. Closure is the new giving up. Perhaps it might be easier to perform the latter, because forgetting, in one’s mind, often equates to a less hassling time period, where you can just bubble under the surface, in the safe, in the neutral, in the delusional and ignorant.

I might say this all with the air of someone who thinks she knows better but the truth of the matter is that it is all I’ve been doing before this year: drowning in the safer options. 2009 was the year I let go of some of my inhibitions, planned the things I never saw myself doing – really doing, outside of the confines of my skull – and plucked up the courage to dream and believe even more than I already have. When I found out that the world isn’t out to get me, as most people insist, and that there is so much more to life than what I’ve been told, and I have yet to see it for myself, that’s when I knew I had to have the upper-hand. Ultimately, I wanted to say ‘I did’ instead of ‘I was told that…’

And that’s how I don’t forget. I don’t forget the bad times, to awkward times, the miserable times, the downright suicidal times; because forgetting would mean that the lessons are lost, and tongues are turned archaic. Ten years from now, I would love to look back, cringe slightly, and bask in the knowledge that because of all the everything I overcame – as opposed to cowering in its demonic presence – it all turned out okay.

So 2009, I definitely won’t forget you, but 2010 is looking pretty rad from where I’m standing. Here’s to misadventures, risky-living and breaking the status quo. Happy new year motherfuckers!

There are few things in life I value and prioritize with a level of loyalty that borders on sinister: self-discovery, music and books. Somehow, through realizing my often overwhelming love for each of these entities, they manage to easily spill over their dividing fences and merge into a glorious mutant form of thing I like to dub life itself. Music and fiction often lead to my reflective side being provoked, and through that, from there, I live. Straight facts and reality cripple me; a large factor that will probably crush all naïve ambitions of being a journalist (something I gave up on a long time ago anyway, after knowing that I deal far better with things that don’t make much sense).

It sounds remotely deep and all, but really, what I’m trying to say is, simply, this: Neil Gaiman thinks my name is ‘lovely’, and that’s how I will introduce myself from now on – “Hello, my name is Husna, and Neil Gaiman thinks it’s a lovely name.”

I should probably be all conventional and start from the beginning. When I found out that Neil was coming down here again for the Writers Festival, I basically decided that I was going to say one of these three things:

1)      Hi Neil, when I grow up I wanna be just like you!

2)      Hi Neil, I think you’re a fucking genius – can I eat your brain?

3)      Hi Neil. Ho my god.

Like all things planned and rehearsed, I never said such things. Though I was probably close. I spent the next few weeks since I found out the great news, and the 2 and a half hours I stood in line, in the sun, with a bee-stung foot that swells sporadically, thinking of what I can say that’ll be worthwhile/witty.

I considered telling him that it’s tres apt that I got stung by a bee at the very weekend I wanted to meet him – and the man is obsessed with bee-keeping. I toyed with the possibility that, like everything else that I play in my head, this may not come out as suave, manly and cool as I’d like it to. So at the very last minute, I threw this option out.

I should also mention that I brought along V-Chan, who – and don’t start playing the elitist card – isn’t exactly a fan (but in my defence, I did offer my spare ticket – no one wanted it. Might as well I bring along someone who harbours the potential to eventually be a fan, no? I think he won her over), and I told her to get a book of mine signed under my middle name (Husna) because you were only allowed to get one item signed. This wouldn’t go down well with Singaporeans, who might grow suspicious of a person like Vanessa having a name like Husna, but we stupidly figured that he wouldn’t care.

When it was her turn, he said, “Hi Husna.”

I giggled behind her.

“That’s a lovely name.”

She smiled awkwardly, trying to be a convincing Husna. I was basically hyperventilating at that point.

V-Chan said something like “Thank you so much” – sounding rather sincere and completely like a fan, I might add – and he said, “Thank you for standing in the sun and queuing.”

I think she giggled at some point, but I’m not quite sure where, because I was pre-occupied with the fact that my copy of The Graveyard Book was being drawn on by Neil Gaiman – with the name ‘Husna’, and a heart, as included in Vanessa’s writing, on a rather intricately drawn tombstone – intricate for a quick signing anyway. Vanessa: that heart is the best idea you came up with in your lifetime. <3 And you come up with good ideas all the time (I’m not sucking up, I swear).

When it was my turn, I said, “Hi Neil!”

So that’s part of what I planned.

And he said, “Hi…Nabilah!”

I grinned. (Probably stupidly too).

And while he signed my book I said, “Can I ask you a quick question?”

“Sure, go for it!”

“I haven’t had a chance to buy it yet, but I heard that you penned the introduction to Umbrella Academy: Dallas for the trade paperback?”

I said this all very fast and nervously, and he leaned forward and said, “Sorry, for the what?”

“The Umbrella Academy.”

“Oh yes! I did!”

“So how did that come about?”

“Oh, how it came about was, I was at the Newbery Medal event, and I was doing a radio interview – ”

Oh my god, I was thinking. He’s actually answering me properly.

“ – and I was asked, what I was reading at that point, what comic was I into that I would love to work on sometime – ”

Shit. I thought he was just going to say, Oh I was asked to do it. Oh wow oh crap, he’s still talking.

“And there was this long…silence…because I grew completely blank – ” he gesticulated blankness, somehow, in the way that writers like him do. “Which was really awkward because it was, you know, a radio interview, and there was just a stretch of silence. And I was trying to think of what I was reading at that point, and the first thing…that popped into my head was The Umbrella Academy.”

In between all of this, which in actuality is longer than it seems because he paused a lot, I was trying to arrange my expressions so I didn’t look too stupid (which I failed at, because I looked really stupid – see pictures for proof). I was basically just in awe over the fact that he actually took the time to answer my question as best as he could, while still signing the other books for the people behind me. Man.

“So, that was really how it came about – because I really like The Umbrella Academy, and I would’ve liked to work on it.”

“Wow.” I said, or something similar/equally stupid and anti-climactic.

“Then, you know, Gerard – Way, the writer – he called and asked if I wanted to write the introduction for the paperback. And I said yes.”

I took that as finality and I said, “That’s so cool. Thank you so much.” Rather profusely/desperately. Then I asked, “Oh can I have a hug?”

And his reply was a very enthusiastic, “Absolutely, you can have a hug!”

And he hugged me, while saying “Thank you very much” or something like that. And that was it. Being hugged by a genius 49-year-old fantasy writer and having his stubble cheek press against your non-stubbled one, is too much for my vocabulary to justify.  

So this is how my introduction comes into play:

I knew of Neil through Gerard (I know, lame way, no pun intended), and through both of their creations, I definitely did some reflection to lead to my eventual self-discovery. It totally makes sense. It does, it does.

I’m lucky. My mini-explosions of epiphanies come in the form of cabbies.

In my line of work (I’ve always wanted to say that), I meet a multitude of people. Candidates for interviews make up the bulk of it – and the range extends from industry veterans, to scholars, to fresh faces in a company, to trainers and the trainees under them. Because of this, most of the people I come into contact with are the lucky ones, the ones who have had their four-leaf clover working well, or their Blarney stone well-polished. The ones who might’ve had it less than mediocre at one point, but have managed to catch the train to success and good fortune. They’re either settling at their destinations, or well on their way. I meet them when things are going well for them, and they have already forgotten how disappointing it might’ve been like before – either that, or they didn’t have it bad before.

But aside from a handful of the talented, unique individuals, most of these interviewees blur out in my memory the moment I step out of their offices. In the worst scenario, where I interviewed a logistics industry veteran who knew his facts like he sleeps muttering them, and rattles off technicalities at a speed yet unknown to man, he faded away right before my eyes during the interview itself. He seemed to know this, because his company had hounded me for a week after that, demanding that I add His Amazing Attribute Number 196 to the article, or that I shift the focus completely to talk about How He Has Done Tremendously Well His Whole Life.

That’s the worst case scenario.

And yet what sticks to me most aren’t the interviewees. Not the lucky ones. While at first, I figured that these people might provide just the right inspiration I need to get myself going career- and life-wise, I now realize that the notion of unrelenting success doesn’t fuel me. It’s as much the journey as it is the destination, right? It’s as much my character development, and a sundry mix of besetting muse. I don’t just want to know where I get to; I want to know how I got there. I want to know who gets me there. I don’t just want to be “lucky”.

So this is how I came to this conclusion. A cab ride.

Heavy rain is not an uncommon occurrence in Singapore, but somehow, when I’m stuck in it for slightly more than half an hour, with all the cabs in the world suddenly going on a “hiring” spree, and the occasional splash of water on my nose or eyelashes that make me jump a step back in mild shock, it is depressingly novel and not a nice position to be in.  I just finished an interview at the Singapore Tourism Board with a scholar who was about to leave for Japan on Sunday. She’s a lovely girl, and one of the better interviewees (the young ones don’t talk as much). I should also mention that I was in a good mood because of Soundwave, and F1 Rocks; and the prospect of standing in the rain trying to hail a cab seemed, initially, so mild it didn’t even pose as a problem to me.

Of course, I mentally jinx myself too many times because of thoughts like that. So when I called a cab in desperation, I was thinking, Thank goodness Singapore’s accessibility is fantastic, despite it being crap at everything else. Again, mental jinx, because the cab never came (or if it did, I wasn’t there to see it).

Because I’ve always had a thing against standing still when waiting for something – I feel the need to keep moving all the time so I can feel the slightest hint of productiveness – so I trudged in the rain towards Tanglin Mall. There had to be a place to hail a cab somewhere right? There was. I found a taxi stand. My heart sank: the queue was snaking.

I quickly walked back aimlessly to cross a road. For some reason, the red light held on extra long, as if it was mocking me because it had nothing to do. Fucking red man. You know, that’s another thing: red is blood, right, so if the red man’s covered in blood, he’s either dead or injured, where the hell does he get off trying to tell us to be safe?! What a wanker.

I walked over to this bus stop that opposite some building I had no clue about, and by then, my shoes were squeaking. I need to buy new work shoes, my obsession with boots will not do me well if I intend to get an office job (which I don’t – hence, defeating the purpose of this entire sentence already). There, I waited for about five minutes hailing hired cabs in my nervousness and bad vision, before I gave up and walked over to an overhead bridge opposite the mall.

I got lucky there. There was a cab whose sign was flashing “Changing Shifts” and yet the driver graciously stopped to at least ask where I was going.

“Science Park 1?”

“Okay, can.”

The moment I stepped in, I sighed loudly in relief and laughed, “Thank goodness you stopped, I was waiting in the rain for half an hour!”

“You’re very lucky! I was just about done, but since Science Park is on the way…”

“Yeah, lucky,” I said.

Then we talked about the crowd, and the cabbies who wouldn’t stop, and the rain. The surface stuff.

“Are you going back to the office?” he asked.

“Yep, I am.”

“What are you working as?”

I loved that. Usually the first thing someone would ask is where I’m working. They seem to macro-judge a person through the people they work for, rather than what they actually do. He asked me what I worked as, and it was more personal than judgmental – so okay, I felt thrilled for all of two seconds (sue me).

Despite this, I answered with a “I work at JobsFactory. I’m interning there.”

“Ohhh,” he paused. “What do you major in?”

He was adamant. So I said, “Journalism”, then added, “But it’s only a diploma, not a degree or anything.”

“Wow, journalism! That’s good huh. Never mind, you can get experience first, then go to NUS,” he assured.

I asked him how long he had been driving and he said, “Not very long. Only two years, then I got a proper job, and now I’m back in driving.”

It turns out he had a diploma in Electrical and Electronics Engineering, but was retrenched, and because of that got into the taxi business. Through a friend’s recommendation, he applied for a job at Jurong Island, doing something to do with chemicals, but he didn’t elaborate further on what he actually did.

“It was very dangerous,” he said. “And tough. Even if it rained, we had to put on our raincoats and do our work outside. So it was very risky. My wife was worried. After 2 years, I couldn’t take it, so I quit and started driving again.”

“Yeah, it’s not worth it sometimes,” I said. “I’ve been to Jurong Island actually. The security there is damn tight huh.”

“Yes, yes! Very dangerous place also, and very hard to get a cab.”

Somehow we got to talking about degrees and work again, and he said, “The thing is, it’s very hard to get a job here, but the government doesn’t acknowledge it. They say we have to keep upgrading ourselves. They say Singaporeans are very choosy. Okay. I want to upgrade myself too; but the jobs they give, if I go for courses, and I get 1.2K working for a month – what if I have a family to feed or a house to pay for? It’s not enough for everything, so it’s not that we’re choosy. In Singapore, it’s all about paper qualifications – no matter how much experience you have, some still won’t employ you.”

“That’s true,” I said, then remembered something. “Like the one that came out in the news? About a guy with a PhD, and he got retrenched and had to go into cabbing?”

“Yes, yes, that one!” he exclaimed. “The guy was a professor too.”

“And he has a blog too,” I added. Then thought, Which I read during work when I’m bored, but hey now.

Then, “Do you know the minister who said, during one of his speeches, he said that Singapore has no freeloading – so indirectly he’s claiming that it’s very hard for us to get money out of the government,” he said, miffed.

“Ha! And yet so easy for them to get money out of us,” I scoffed.

“Exactly! That’s what got a lot of people pissed off.”

We were at Buona Vista by then and my shoes were still wet. I kind of hoped the ride was longer.

Then he said, “Sometimes you look at other people and you think, he got successful, but he’s also a human, like me, so why can’t I do it? You just have to persevere, and don’t give up. It’s not going to be easy, but nothing is.”

“Yeah, that’s true.” I said lamely, because he was so right. I think that often when I….er…think about rock stars. They work their butts off and they managed it. So can I, right?

“You just have to believe in yourself, that’s the most important part,” he said.

We were almost reaching the office and because we talked too much, I got distracted and forgot to tell him to turn. So I told him to drop me off at the bus stop.

“Okay $7! Thanks, I had a nice talk with you,” he said happily.

“Me too!” I was all for this, fo shizzle.

“Work hard! And I’ll work hard too.”

“Yeah, I will,” I laughed. “Have a good day.”

I said ‘bye’ about three times, that’s how into it I was.

He wasn’t very lucky, but still, that was more muse than listening to some old guy ramble on about the trends of the logistics industry and how fantastic a resume he has.

I am greater than my acumen to this life

than that of you, and

all your smudging opuses.

You write about death,

as if you’ve gone for a trial session,

came back with the rotting flies dead,

and a swat stick in your right hand;

That smugness, the one resultant of debunking

a myth, is perennial with proclamations - 

“It’s true; the gods are medieval.” –

or something along the lines of self-

indulgence. Your philosophies have less

to do with insight, than they do

to monolith reputation. And while your sotto voce

has its own agendas (a pretension of indifference, for one),

I burn a fissure in your back,

and I know when you lie, or when

the mystics are just trickery, or when

your words are only translations of the

languages that became lost on tongues

and diluted in the shadows.

I’m greater than your acumen to a life

because it plays no role in

anyone else’s realm, aside from your own.

(This was written in 2008 during my school internship).

I think that most of the world has become jaded by the thought of “career” and “happiness” coexisting in harmony. The few who haven’t been inhaling the toxic fumes of cynicism, however, are either stuck with low-end jobs or scouring the streets for their calling to help them out from between the rock and the hard place. When you give it a bit of mental calculation, you’re left with the few in the employable age range who have recently died.

This is not a good thought. Especially not when you have a childhood-throwback session and realize that the best part of youth naiveté was the constant assurances of, “It’s okay. I will leave this town one day and be a writer/singer/actress/first astronaut to have sex on the moon, and I never have to deal with people pulling me down ever again.”

But instead of these encouraging words that I hear from my school tutor, what is thrown at me instead, when I expressed my interest to have a job that I’m – you know – interested in, was, in a tone that dripped with the syrup of condescendence, “But Nabilah. Interest is temporary.”

“I know,” I said, although I didn’t, and didn’t believe it either. “But…you know. It’d be nice.”

“You can be in a job you really like,” she continued, “but the novelty will wear off after a while.”

“I know,” I lied again.

She sighed. I sighed.

She probably guessed me as the wide-eyed child who thinks that being happy with a job would last for approximately a lifetime. I thought of her as the teacher who lost the passion for teaching after the 18-year old students turned into 8-year old brats. Either way, it wasn’t a fair judgment for both of us. Young and restless versus professional ‘realist’.

Everyone wants something for themselves. Some people crave the idea of having little change in their life, lack of drama and a smooth-sailing path to their grave. I want something with no routine, a lot of heart-pumping excitement and preferably a stereo system.

Case in point: my mom has been working in the same telecommunications company for twenty years. Almost every fortnight since the start of my deskbound internship, I dramatically enter the kitchen and wail, “How do you stand it? Sitting in the same place for so long, doing the same thing over and over? Why don’t you quit?!”

“Fine,” she’d lift a spatula for emphasis. “And you all can starve.”

“I mean,” I insisted, dogging her steps. “When you were younger, what did you want to be?”

“I’ve had a job since I was young,” she answered, completely not answering my question.

I groaned. “I never want an office job.”

“Then what are you going to do with your life?”

I shrugged. “Gig photography. Stay-at-home child. Not this anyway.”

“HAH,” she scoffed. “You better get a job.”

“I will,” I assured her (myself). “Doing something I actually like.”

And then my tutor’s voice would echo in the confines of my skull. Interest is temporary. Muahahahaha.

No, I don’t think it is. Not because I’m the type to live in fantasy land where everything is dandy and full of frappucinos, no. Although, okay, I am that type. But not in this case. If interest is “temporary”, then you shouldn’t pursue something when what you have is merely interest. Passion – I suppose that’s the right word. If you and It are meant to be, why does Time have to have a say? (Look at me, titling everything with my uppercases). Sure, you won’t be as excited as you were when you first start out – like every relationship, some things have to go stale.

But if you lack the wide-eyed spark to begin with, you’re just asking for corrosion. The fact that you have nothing to pursue morphs you into a programmed machine where your body controls your heart, instead of the other way round.

Again, not a very nice thought.

Most people need to find that spark again. It’s almost exactly like marriage – I’m not sure how I know the in-and-outs of marriage, but I suspect it’s the TV dramas. The world’s gone jaded, and it’s rather sad because there are still some coals to turn into diamonds. People just choose to ignore the dirt.

_______

Afternote: Just in case you care, my mom did quit earlier this year, and she’s a lot happier too. She loves baking and that’s literally almost all that she’s been doing. Coming home to mountains of newly discovered recipes put to practice the entire day? Who’s complaining?

Fuck you. Fuck you to the nth degree.