Shiva's and Metta's Mother's Sutra

  Drew this yesterday for the book. It has a problem which is the text doesn't flow. No matter I will work away at it today. Never mind. Ah well. I am starting to shed the fat again, finally. I'd say another month of running and swimming to be back where I was. And watching what I eat. That cheese and wine blowout in August/ September was instructional. Madness really. So, I sent in a email about a job at the NSS and I got an offer for an interview. I'm delighted but also a bit worried. Hope Ma is able to look after herself while I am gone. But it is unrealistic to have me around her 24/7. The job interview is for a Freelance Education Officer for the Nature Society. I must start learning everything about the nature society.  Upload starting. Well, what do I think about the past month? It has been mad. Not only have the Republicans and their ilk taken a beating, but predators have also been going through it. The culture which enabled them was vile. I remember it so clearly....

People cheat all the time, but what is it about Jensen Hunag's cheatery that makes me soooo annoyed? I mean. how do I list thee? 1. Got lucky... His wife who had to struggle alongside him to help him build his fortune. This man CLEARLY did not intend to become a multi billionaire. All he wanted to do was develop some chip in a gaming console. His first iterations of this failed and he almost went bankrupt. Huang was very lucky because AI then came along and he parleyed that into the wins he is now experiencing. 2. ...  then got cocky.  Let's face it, as with all those geeks, when he is onstage with the T-shirt gun and his dancing, I mean everyone should be allowed to enjoy themselves, but it is quite cringe. Huang is not a cool kid. He is the nerd. And having this wealth and status suddenly he believed his own shit. He believed he was invincible. So invincible, that he believed that a woman 20 years younger than himself would fall for him.  3. Long suffering wife?  H...

After almost eight months, and five trans Atlantic trips, and two months of nursing Ma through a tough patch, looking after all the finances and leaving everything behind, for the first time, yesterday, a felt a sense of deep peace as I was walking back from NTUC. I said to myself, as I enjoyed the bright sunlight and the butterflies and the flowers... it is such a beautiful day, nothing is going to spoil this for me, not even atomic war. So yesterday, I did exercises with Ma, cooked. Went shopping. Went to see Joyce. Came back. Did my last round of edits. Then started another drawing. I have loads of adminy things to do today. I'm seeing Deena and Serena tomorrow. In other news, Jensen Huang has been a total pisstake. An utter cliche. He turns out he had been having an affair with this woman who is about the age of his children for around a year and a bit and she may or may not be a Chinese spy. China has come out to say it has nothing to do with them. The woman whose company is b...

There exists two Singapores. One where there is indigent poverty and one where there is just so much wealth it is unimaginable. I was driving to Shangrila to drop off someone when I realised I was on the road which I took the bus when I went to Tak Takut Kids Club. I told the passenger, you cannot imagine how much people struggle and here we are, a conference about philanthropy where people are paying $4,000 a ticket to attend. It's kinda obscene. I said to my sister, there cannot be such terrible wealth sitting beside such abject poverty, society has to be somewhere in the middle. The doctrine that you have to allow the very rich to exist so that everyone else can benefit from them is bollocks. It's nuts. Yesterday was good. I went running, then exercised with Ma. Oh I had breakfast with Jac, I did not finish my prata. I then came back and exercised with Ma. I then did my Duolingo and almost fell asleep... Oisin then asked me to accompany him for breakfast. The food in the mar...

I know that physiotherapy is supposed to be amazing, but it really is. I have started doing sessions with ma two days ago - we do sessions at 8 am, 2 pm and 8 pm - after she has her bath. It has been only two days and she looks so much better. Her movements have improved so much. I am utterly gobsmacked. And most importantly the pain is also gone. Well, it isn't torturing her any longer. She's mostly off her meds and the plasters. I am so pleased. Delighted. I know we will always been supporting her, but its just so good.  Well, what does today bring?  7 am:           Run and stretch 8 am:           Physio I 9 am:           Write and Edit 11 am:         Swim 12 pm:       Tidy desk area and hall 1 pm:          Lunch: Stir fried beef and kailan with fried rice 2 pm:          Physio II 3 pm:  ...

I don't know how many people you have to kills before it is considered a genocide? I really hope that they will come for the assholes. Just let them come.  Here's my post from FB today about Hegseth... Of all the super weird things Trump has done... this has to rank up there. Imagine, entrusting the world's most dangerous toy, the US military, to a total bonehead. This utter know nothing was at the very least embarrassing, at worst the very embodiment of running with knives. Everything he said and did just compounded his idiocy. Which would have been quite funny if it wasn't so awful. From the massacre of the children in Minab to the support of Israel with more weapons of torture and genocide. It would be swift justice if he and Trump would be clept in chains and dragged off to the Hague. Sometimes you have to give them enough rope to hang themselves. Where the Obamas and the Bidens were canny enough to hide behind the wall of artifice and pretence, of diplomacy and cut...

I loved going on the holiday with Ma and Jac. It was funny and sad and full of memorable times. Ma is getting older so we took everything with us - the toilet seat, the rollater, the trolley. Jac has a very comfortable car and she booked us into a very nice hotel. It was the kind of hotel in which I would have spent much of my life in had I stayed with the government.  BUT the environmental cost is atrocious. Seeing Malaysia go down the same path as Singapore but biggered by about 500 times was so depressing.  I have spent the past hour or so ranting on FB.  About colonialism and the state of development in South East Asia.  I am quite tired actually. After the trip, but it was good to go somewhere else. I don't know how alright the rest of Malaysia is but KL is a strange concrete cyberpunk nightmare. Who knows where it will go? I don't understand why anyone would buy into that idea of development? It's nuts. Ugh. Anyway. I feel a lot less anxious about stuff now - a...

All my life, the club has always been there - all the boys' lives it has always been there. It is a third space which hasn't changed very much and I hope it never changes. Just keep it small and sweet and just enough for everything we need to be doing.  Yesterday I did my usual swim. 10 laps. But I'm so good at this now I'm going to up it to 14 laps. Might as well. So that's find according to Gemini and I'm also doing too many sit ups. I don't know. I love my sit ups. Anyway... I did all my editing yesterday and I have four more stories to edit. The last two are great, the others, I'm working on. It reads good others better others a little more laboured. I must read one to Lianne - see what she thinks.  I have another 40 where that came from.  Just chipping away at it. I love writing. I always have and I am finally doing it. After all these years. It is the right time to do it I think.

Booked Ghin's tickets yesterday - that was good. It took me forever to find the right flights. It was a nightmare, but find them I did. Certainly almost twice as expensive as they usually are, but there is a war going on. So, anyway. We got lots of help from various places, especially Pa. BUT I am feeling so good now, so much better.  I have decided that I am not going to do anything for anyone for the time being. I just wanna do stuff for myself. And Ma, of course. I do think that Singapore has a serious mental health issue. According to google it does. But I was saying to Jac that these people tend to have self regulation issues - probably because of anxiety and stress. But how it has been manifested is through oversharing and poor boundary observation. It is a nightmare. Somehow, being unable to calibrate your sense of self.  I said to Jac that I think that it has almost certainly gotten worse. And we talked about Serangoon Gardens and how unique it was in Singapore. That i...

Singapore has gone Halloween crazy. It makes me very amused to see that while we have a full on month long ghost festival of our very own, that the children are dressing up for this one night of Halloween. It was never a thing even 10 years ago. Now it is everywhere. It is, of course, an Irish festival which has gone, via the US to arrive here. The whole thing is the dressing up. People love dressing up. It is the once chance they get to be someone else. In the past people would have also dressed up from time to time, but Halloween is the only time when we do it in the modern era. The talk went alright yesterday. Honestly teachers who teach young adults deserve a medal. Anyway, for the first time in months I don't have a commitment beyond what I am doing.  The Fitness Journey There always comes a point during the fitness journey when you have this breakthrough - like wow, you could do this forever. This week was that for me. It took me much longer the first time round this year - i...

Today a very hyper exciting thought occurred to me... as I drove back from the station after i pumped the petrol. As we say. Ireland has 7 million people. I mean the whole island. AND Singapore has the same number. Ireland has an outsized effect on the world in terms of its culture, language, film, music, etc. Singapore has zero effect on ASEAN, nevermind the world. What the fuck is it? Ireland does have this deep culture which goes back into time and a struggle and they have always stood on the right side of history. Singapore also has a wonderfully deep culture, BUT it has been truncated by colonialism. Ireland has never allowed itself to be defined by the centre - except for the West Brits. Singapore has a slavish hangover to the centre. It has never fully come into its own. A true reckoning has never occurred for Singaporean culture and anyone who is interested in creating something has either been beaten into submission or gone overseas. I mean its sad is what it is. I don't k...

Well, not quite.  Tomorrow is Oíche Shamna - today is the 30 of October.  From here on in the long nights begin in Ireland. The darkness returns and all the festivals of light come on. Beginning with Oíche Shamna and then, St Martins, then Advent and Christmas, New Year. We can also add Deepavali to that. The celebration of the hope that there will one day be spring once more. How many times has the planet been through this cycle. It is humbling.  We are only here for a very short time and in that short time you'd think we would try and live with the humility and gratitude which we should given the gift which is our Earth. I love this place. I love it. I began unplugging yesterday - maybe the day before, but I really had to unplug yesterday. To understand my purpose and to understand that this is alright, and more than alright. Everything is changing rapidly. Very rapidly. But the human spirit, that will always be there. Always. Well, as long as there are humans. So I wan...

Achill Island - oh so long ago... I have lived a life... In Singapore, among my class of people, the important things are ostensibly material. Parents get a kick out of bragging about the schools their children go to, the universities they end up in, the material possessions they have, the holidays they take. Conversely people feel lesser then and embarrassed if they cannot keep up with the Joneses. The busyness epidemic is all consuming. Time spent with family whether it is your own children or parents is just seen as utterly pointless. If you are not making money you are not existing. I really don't know how else to put it. It is relentless. You have to be busy all the time. There is no time to do anything else apart from something really stupid in order to further some pointless planet destroying cause.  It was a wheel I actively stepped off from, so if I'm not part of this madness, I have no one to blame but myself. You are not allowed to think about things which you want t...

Finally the sun came back and the skies were blue. It does make me often wonder about people being 'rewarded' for doing incredibly stupid and destructive things.  Here are some of them These people have profited from the destruction of the rainforest. This year the burning season which pisses people off EVERY YEAR got out of hand and they blamed - El Nino. The palm oil producers complained there wasn't enough water. The Indonesian government said the rains were late or never. The Singaporean government blamed the Indonesia government when a majority of the companies involved were registered in Singapore. Singapore has been complicit with the destruction of rainforests forever. Ironically the man who made biscuits had decided to close his biscuit factory to invest in more palm oil. It is just absolutely vile. I cannot tell you how vile the march of palm oil is and how corrupt everything is as well. You are either a neocolonial oppressor, like Singapore, or you are a victim, ...

Another day passed peacefully. I'd say that is a good result. The friend contacted me yesterday and apologised, explaining why he behaved in this way. Well, I said, let's get together when a mutual friend came to town, then we could reconnect then. I think that's good.  We had a very busy day - Jac took us to Suntec City, then I realised I had not my wallet with me so we went back. Then we went to the market. After that we went to Serangoon Road for the pasar malam which was very disappointing. Then we went to Sushi Tei in Thompson Plaza. It was kinda crazy really. In between I worked on the presentation. I only am doing a small section. Well half. Anyhoo...  I was rereading my short stories and actually the others are ok - the most problematic one is the first one - the wonky pancake. The others are alright. They just need finessing. So there we are. I feel restored knowing this.  ================ Another day has passed. I took Ma to MyVillage and we had ramen there. I c...

Well, it was bound to happen, but also I think these things happen because they are long time in coming. So I did chat with Josh yesterday, wished him a happy birthday, and we caught up, and then I closed down my friendship with someone I knew from JC. Honestly, I am GLAD of it. It was heading that way anyway. Either this person is exceedingly autistic, still there is no excuse, or they are just an unhappy person whose negativity I do not need in my life. In other words, they are a drag. I excised emotional vampires in my life and this person was always one. Just someone whom after you had a conversation with you had to recover from. They had told me that the two of US could be considered failures in our JC cohort. That was probably when I decided to end it with him. And I should have, but I didn't. What I did was push back and told him that if he wanted to consider himself a failure he should go right ahead, but I was not a failure. He is a total dick. So I am glad I've gotten...

So, yesterday was a great day. We went to Sungei Buloh and then to this ICOMOS panel discussion about the built heritage of Singapore. So many thoughts. But first, about the ICOMOS event. Firstly, I didn't stay beyond the first 15 minutes because Ma got cold and bored. BUT the guy who was giving the talk was not a good public speaker. There were no visuals and he was weirdly nervous because the longer he spoke the faster he got. Also if you are on a panel with numerous speakers, you get only 7 minutes, no more. I'm sorry.  He was talking about the Yishun 10 cineplex and how it was going to be demolished. Singapore was destroying its built heritage. In all honesty, I do not think people making much noise about anything will change the Singaporean government's mind about destroying things. For a start, whoever is in power does not have an aesthetic eye. Even a blind person can see Singapore is mostly an incoherent visual mess. Even in the 'expensive' parts of Singapor...

Outside my house in Harapan... it was such a privilege. I realise that I got to experience a real rainforest before it all disappears. I am really so lucky. I don't know what people think they are doing with AI. Ever since AI has come along - a system which relies on POWER, it's not like a new sun has suddenly appeared and is self sustaining - and people to build it, so I don't know why they are behaving like it is inevitable. In all of my life I have discovered the most important things we should do as human beings are the things which we have deemed boring and pointless and farmed it out to other people. We have called it Women's Work and considered it beneath ourselves. We have been colonised and forgotten the pleasures of life. Of being with each other. Of our responsibilities to each other. We have become the lost generation.  We know how we got here. We know. It has been a long time coming. And it is due to our human nature. We cannot be still. We are unable to de...

I had to have downtime today. I just couldn't get up and get going. After Ma's physio, I just hid in the room. I have just had enough. There is literally nothing in Singapore worth getting into. It is such a far gone place. And a place which won't leave you alone. So today, instead of running or swimming, I had to have an off day anyway, I just lay down and read. I did some Duolingo. I rewatched Lord of the Rings and saw how racist it was.  I'll restart tomorrow. Well, I'm heading out to Sungei Buloh tomorrow. So that should be fun. I just needed some downtime. It is a lot I do. It is. But I have also had downtime in Ireland. And I'm just going to breathe into the remaining time here. I've been back now for a month and a half... let me see...yep, exactly a month and a half. But that's alright - just taking it easy - very easy. I'm ok with that.  I'm listening to the concert from last night. It was such a relief being in a beautiful place. For a b...

Yesterday, I attended the Bowerbird collective - it was a concert about waders and migration. It moved me to tears. It reminded me of  Well today I discovered that AI is very good and doing astrology. Here is what it said about me... and my general horoscope. i am born on the 21 december 1970, at 9.24 pm in singapore. can you do a horoscope reading using my birth chart about me Based on your exact birth details— December 21, 1970, at 9:24 PM in Singapore —you possess a fascinating, complex chart that perfectly captures the "Cusp of Prophecy" energy we just discussed. At 9:24 PM in Singapore, the eastern horizon was rising in the sign of Leo , which completely shapes how you present yourself to the world. Here is your personalized "Big Three" breakdown and a reading of your core natal blueprint: [ 1 , 2 ] 🌞 The Sun: Sagittarius (28° 42') — The Soul Identity Your Sun sits at the very final degrees of Sagittarius. You are a seeker, a philosopher, and a natural exp...