Life - Boring as hell...... and ..... trying to avoid the family.......:P

 The official bumming period has started... hooray... NOT!

Just an update on my previous post... The problem kid is now officially out of my hair now that the holidays have started. This means that the module that I taught and he was in is now officially over and it is very unlikely I will see him again. And yes, through a particularly convoluted scheme... I have made reccomendations to his advisor to send him for a psych evaluation. Why? Well, his violent outbursts are not only frequent, they are uncontrolled and he has confessed that he doesn't know why he even reacts in a violent manner at all.... *roll eyes*

Whatever the reason for his behaviour. I do think he is unrepentant and I hope for all concerned that he does get medication and perhaps hospitalisation.... 

Now, as a big believer in natural therapies, I won't reccomend that anyone take meds as a first step solution to their psychological problems... However, since our society is so adverse against corporal punishment in school, and since no strong measures (eg. suspension/expulsion) has been taken by the school, I harbour the nasty hope that over medication (they sometimes tend to do that) will somehow turn this bully into a drooling idiot. It will certainly make life more bearable for the students and teachers he's been bullying in his faculty.... apparently he is so famous, some students actually approached me after the module with stories of what he has been up to...

Anyways....about the "official bumming period"

The period of late Aug to mid Oct is what I would term my "official bumming period". Its nice because it IS a holiday period in my jobs. For some odd reason, most of my "official" jobs stop around this time and I usually make use of this time to catch up with the rest of my other "businesses". 

The problem with this period is also that some pretty big things tend to happen. I used to use this period to take a trip out of the country to get a break from Singapore and perhaps get a move on with my own spiritual progress, but since I stopped the trips out, stuff happens during this period, such as the whole "painting demons" business last september... :P 

So far, my strategy this year is to stay out of the house as much as possible. This is so that my family can't accuse me of being a jobless bum and stupid stuff won't blow up between myself and my folks... :( Fortunately this year, I'm done painting the demons ... (I really hate the red colour) and am now painting space elves.... yes, that's right, thanks to the proliferation of Warhammer 40K in Asia, there are space elves selling on store shelves.....:P Its something I can do that will help occupy the time and it does bring in the ka-ching.

Unfortunately, painting for hours in silence can either be regarded as therapeutic or dammed boring. Also unfortunately, I have to paint at Da Bear's to avoid my folks. I like Da Bear's because it is centrally located, but I also hate it because for some stupid reason, all the elitist boys who frequent the place are getting on my nerves.

Anyway, this "bumming period" does give me some time to think about certain things that are happening in my life. I had an awful bout of illness sometime in June to July...it was worse than the rest of the "flus" I got over the last few years and ended up with me having a terrible pain in my throat. I think it got to such a stage that F even asked me why it is I keep getting so many "colds". 

Well, through a series of events I eventually got the answer to F's question... which... if viewed through the lens of our logical, scientific age, makes absolutely no sense. It seems that most of the "colds" and in particular the last awful one, are the actions of certain "beings" to get me to move in a certain direction. Now, its not a bad or awful direction to move in, but it is something I'm a little reluctant to do because it does take effort and might result in me confronting certain things I don't really want to confront.

I don't think this is something I can escape doing 'cos otherwise I'm looking at a lifetime full of "flus"....:P

Karma Bitting Me In The Ass :(

These days I'm down pretty often at Orchard Road painting at a game store. I tell friends who want to find me to go to Da Bear's store, cos I'm down there every day now from 12 noon to about 9 to 11 at night. The store is basically a place that sells board games, tabletop games and miniature figurines which are usually part of some kind of tabletop wargame.

Anyways, the whole incident with my father started with some miniature tabletop figurines. For years, it has been a hobby of mine to paint miniature figurines. I had tried taking up tabletop wargaming long ago but because it took so long to determine the outcome of a single battle (ie. hours), I just stuck to painting.

Mostly I paint elves, knights or other more-human-than-not figurines. However, recently a gamer commissioned me to paint his tabletop wargaming army. Since the money was good, I said... okay... anyways, I might as well do something during my bumming period other than receive calls from some truly strange and sometimes downright pesky people looking for spiritual advice ... or god knows what... :P

This particular gamer however wanted a demon army... (that is a miniature army made up of ranks of demon miniatures) well, since I consider myself a fairly logical and non-superstitious person, I said okay. 

In order to help me paint this army right, the gamer in question actually bought me a reference book which I could keep at the end of the entire comission :) Naturally I read it and well, while reading it one evening, I got so tired I left it at my bedside and forgot all about it when I got up and went out for lunch the next day. When I got home, I realised that my father had seen the book and well, he was NOT PLEASED.

I had hoped that despite years of indoctrination, his own intelligent mind would rise to the occasion. However, that was not the case. Given the circumstances, he was pretty calm when he said that he felt the figurines were capable of "damaging his spiritual health" :( Well, I said... first of all, most of them were plastic and second, it was just a game that people, even people of his own religion played.

Well, my father naturally started ranting and said that those people who played the game had "fallen" and that I had "fallen".... haiz...  I mean, he doesn't know that I have "left the faith" so to speak... I wonder what would happen if he ever found that out. :((

Anyways, he wanted me to stop painting once and for all and I had to return the figurines....:( 

I had hoped that the notion of money would sway his opinion, but clearly, that did not help either... so well... I had to shift my entire painting gear to Da Bear's store. And what's worse, the dateline for the commission is coming up ... soon ... haiz.

Sometimes my father can be such a hypocrate... he would talk about the values of his religion... reading his religious text out loud every morning in the hall... but won't get off his lazy butt, find a job and pay off all the money he owes my mom. Money which he lost through his own stupid speculation on the financial market......:( (hey, his religion forbids gambling too... and stocks is a kind of gambling.... according to his buddies at least) I know he is retired, but honestly... he sayz I do not follow in the footsteps of the founder of the religion...however, he is still strong and healthy and if he ever followed the teachings of his religion, he would exercise more responsibility and DO SOMETHING about that debt. :(

Heck, if he was so "ON" about his religion, I woulda thought he would spend more time with his religious buddies or doing something at their place of worship, but all he does everyday is sit in front of the TV. My mom mentioned to him that that was like... unproductive and that some light job somewhere would give him more satisfaction in life....

Some friends I spoke to about this feel that his behaviour in general is of a person who is unhappy ... and especially with his religion, but... dammit... he never says anything about it... I think I did more stuff for the religion (when I was still in it) than he ever did. :( In fact, come to think of it, he is content to let my mom, sis and myself do everything and sit back doing nothing... its like.... what.... our labour is somehow counted to his merit when he dies and goes to that paradise in the sky????

Naturally, I'm not telling my father that I'm still going ahead with the painting, he just thinks I'm going to "work" everyday... I mean, if he'd put two and two together he'd remember that well... this is the bumming period....

F said in her mail to me that well "this day was destined to come..." she expects that one day I'm going to have a confrontation with my father or family about my own personal beliefs... well, its karma bitting me in the ass and the fact that this issue was raised because of some fictional demons is really.... well.... ironic... haiz.... given my own past life as a priest.....:(

Speaking of which.... for gamers who wanna know, the demons I'm painting come from Warhammer and they are minions of Khorne (pronounced "corn").... 

Yeah.. its ironic... a "corny" spat....:(((