Today is a very sad day for me.
While on the way back from my walk at a wooded area this morning, I saw lying on the ground at a pedestrian pavement of Montreal Link a young monkey—dead with eyes opened and flies circling around.
Just an hour earlier, I saw from a distance an adult monkey climbing up and down a tree at the same spot. Several onlookers were watching from the opposite side of the road, and I stood along for a little while to watch as well, and then proceeded with my walk without paying much attention to what was going on. Now I know.
The dead monkey is one of the several monkeys in a family I used to see at the wooded area I regularly walked. The family is made up of two new born, several young, and two adults, apparently the parents. Although the young are rather active and mischievous at times, always swinging from place to place even on trees within residential landed properties, they appear harmless and do not usually come close in contact with people.
I am unsure the cause of the monkey's death. It may have been killed or died of unknown causes. These days, I hardly see the monkey family anymore, and I suspect their demise, probably gotten rid of by hired hands.
May our God have mercy on this family and the people who may have chosen or been tasked to remove them. I fail to see why the monkeys cannot be let alone or captured to be placed at a habitat of their own, such as the zoo or some other place.
Is there really a need for the extinction of monkeys in our land?
Not the longest queue yet, but this is the sight you can see every morning between 8am to 9am at the new shuttle pick up point at Jurong East next to JTC Summit, after the partial closure of Jurong East St 12 and Summit Lane from 5 July 2009 to facilitate construction work for MRT Jurong East Modification Project.
So far the weather has been fine over the last few days in the morning, but I wonder how these passengers are going to handle the situation on a raining day with such poor shelter that is not designed to brave the rain nor the sun.
Photograph: July 10, 2009 08:26
Photograph: July 9, 2009 08:24
Not the longest queue yet, but this is the regular sight you can see every morning between 8am to 9am below the MRT track af Jurong East station.
The queue is for the shuttle bus service to International Business Park (IBP), and on certain days, it can stretch all the way to the next road junction, sometimes under scorching sun, sometimes superficial rain. On a day when the rain gets too heavy, the queue rearranges itself under the shelter beneath the MRT track in squeezy zig-zags that often give queue-jumpers an opportunity to skip the queue within the already stifling crowd.
Such is the situation workers at IBP face every day, and on an extremely hot morning, this can be unbearable. Is it, therefore, good enough reason and the right time for the relevant authorities to start looking into how this painful daily routine may be solved, and consider the provision of a sheltered path for these sufferers?
If I wake up at 06:30 in the morning, it means I am late for work, which starts at 09:00. What goes on sequentially in the hours between these time are:
1) Wash up
2) Stretching exercise
3) Quiet Time with God and reading His Word
4) Breakfast
5) Dress up and leave house
By then, the time will be around 08:05 and I will be in a mad rush ...
- Walking to the train station (about 15min)
- Waiting for and taking train to destination (about 30min)
- Waiting for and taking shuttle bus to workplace (about 15min)
- Walking from bus-stop to workplace (10min)
Two things I can never skip from my routines are related to health: physical health and spiritual health. If I don't exercise, I will usually face aching bones after some time. If I don't spend time with God, I will usually end up working aimlessly and wasting the day, lacking the strength to push and look forward. These two routines are therefore an essential part of my life and I am determine to keep it, rain or shine, late or early.
What about you? Do you find meaning in your life within your routines?
It irks me that I am a pusher and I have to do it daily. It is not as if I am enjoying it, but I don't really have a choice.
Let me tell you my story, how I became a pusher. I work it a place remote from public transport and I have to take a feeder bus to reach my destination. Each time the bus arrives, a huge crowd will gather to enter to a one door entrance up the bus. There is no queue whatsoever nor the cue to know the exact spot where the bus will stop, so everyone will have to move discerningly to position a good spot when the bus is seen arriving.
When the bus arrive and stop, all hell will break lose and everyone will be rushing to get up the bus relentlessly. Some passengers however will be stricken with fear of stampede and freeze without moving forward, and that is where I become a pusher.
I push people to move forward to reach the bus. Many people surrounding the bus will try all angles and means to make their way forward and up, inch by inch, step by step, but with some fear stricken people ahead, there is seldom chance to reach the goal. The only way, therefore, is to PUSH ahead using a finger or one's body, with a stare that can kill, to make sense to the person ahead, to quit being a stumbling block and move forward and up.
This is my story of how I became a pusher, and it is an unpleasant daily experience for me, because I have always pride myself in acting gracefully, but for this case, I do not have a choice, so if you are one of my victims, I hope you will understand.
Today is a very sad day for me.
