A Singaporean In Australia

After the boss sent me home on the day of accident, I took a nap shortly because I wasn't feeling right. Couldn't put a finger to it, just felt strange. Giddy or something. The body felt tired and weak as well, with joint pains at the lower back and neck.

I remembered wondering if I would wake up after the nap. I read somewhere that some people didn't. When I eventually did, Albany woke at almost the same time. I heard her babbling away and took a peek. She could recognise me quickly by now and gave me a big smile. The pains of the upcoming financial losses somewhat diminished at the back of my head. It felt good being alive. I might be over dramatic to think about such things because I was hardly hurt. Just as I could have totally avoided the accident if I wore a sock slower in the morning or beat the amble instead of stopping at one traffic light earlier, I could have been injured or dead if the accident didn't happen the way it did. There was plenty to learn from this incident. By today, I would have collated as much as I could. The only way to make a lesson cheaper than it wasn't was to maximise our learnings from it.

We were back to where we were, the days without a car. Barry White was left with a pi-jiak head at my colleague's home in Yangebup. I would decide what I could do with him later on, there are more urgent things on hand. Thankfully the situation is much better compared to the early days when we just arrive. We have very supportive friends who are willing to land a helping hand such as the usual ones like Grace and Patrick. Micky even offered his shiny black Hyundai Getz as a temporary transport if I needed it. Thusara aka Zorroz, who just came to Perth less than a month ago, offered me help even before I could offer him any by taking me to Applecross to meet a car owner selling her car on Friday night.

Like Patrick, Mr Zorroz was another Singaporean son who came over to Perth, leaving his his wife and children in Singapore. Another young chap Edmund, whom we met a while ago was yet another one. Edmund might even have it worse, leaving a young baby behind with his wife. When we met Edmund told me he wouldn't have done what I did, risking it all moving over with a pregnant wife without a job. I simply told him what I told Patrick as well as Thusara the same thing. I wouldn't have done what they had. I would have gone crazy alone here without a single friend without my spouse in a strange land which I didn't think of wanting to be at not too long ago.

Every Singaporean son here has different circumstances and his own unique story. Each of us has our own path of discovery. At the end of the day, we could be walking into a dead end or didn't end up where we wanted to be. Some of us would even end up packing up and returning to Singapore. It's not really a big deal. We could just see it as a long expensive vacation. It may be delusional or just viewing things from another perspective but when it comes to staying alive, there isn't many ways to look at it. It's pretty good to be alive isn't it? What's a little setback?