Canvas Shoes Are Not Waterproof

The sky was overcast but I had to get the match tickets sooner or later anyway, so I set off towards Jalan Besar Stadium by taking a train from City Hall to Lavender. Being able to locate a place you've never been to before so easily is quite a joy.

With the tickets settled and no other objective in mind other than heading back where I came from, I suddenly took in the surroundings for once. The area around Jalan Besar Stadium - Jellicoe Road, Horne Road, avenues and places just down from Kallang - was really quite rustic, and deja vu struck cos I think this place belongs in a personal memory and experience that has been long since forgotten.

Then it started to rain. I walked my long walk, since I had an umbrella. Past Lavender MRT - I do this all the time to go back to school after running Beach Road errands - and then the rain started to get kinda heavy. But I was still pretty upbeat. I hadn't brought my MP3 player out today, and interestingly I felt that the natural percussive rhythm of pattering raindrops was quite a welcome substitute.

But the rain became a downpour, and before long my $3 umbrella could barely hold out and I was quite drenched to the bone. And soon enough I was feeling quite miserable.

Touched down school to find that Kok and Yitwen have created a settlement at some concourse benches near SOA, so I tried to settle in too, airing my soaked footwear.

Yitwen talked about the old man he helped who had an umbrella but could only use it as a walking stick and thus couldn't shelter himself from the rain. It's screwed up enough that people with huge umbrellas were just walking past him, but Yitwen - with his tiny foldable umbrella - had to be the one to go over and shelter him. And his umbrella could barely take 2 people, so Yitwen decided the one to get wet would be himself.

The hard, sad irony and reality of the situation is that people with an innate sense of responsibility like him will always exist so that others can get away with not caring.

Went home early cos I couldn't desensitize myself to the really shitty feeling of wearing wet socks and shoes.




All programmers are playwrights and all computers are lousy actors.

Audio Candy:
Keepsake - One Season Too Late