Go back to sleep.

Traveling alone has been a huge eye-opener for me. Yes, everyone knows that traveling has its benefits such as being able to do whatever you want, see what you want. And traveling with others, you'd always manage to find one thing about them that will most definitely annoy you. always. Still, after this experience, I conclude that I prefer to travel with other people anytime. There is nothing worse than seeing something cool and marvelous and not be able to communicate that excitement to anyone. I cannnnot stand it.

But being alone has its perks. Without the comfort of an old company, you are forced to make friends along the way. I must say that it was the most funnest part of my trip and what I remember the best. Suddenly it's not about the places, its about the people. I complained about the fashion scene with the gay dormmate who laughs in his sleep, had so much beer and watched tv everynight with the two funniest guys on Phillip Island, the 20 year old English girl who moved to Australia to be with her boyfriend instead of going to Oxford Uni, another English girl who loved the Oz so much she wanted to trade places with me and study here for a year, the Scottish girl who had just recovered from cancer and is here because it was on her bucket list. Oh, there were so many times that I had to convince people that english is the first language of Singapore. So many times that I couldn't understand a word they were saying (especially the Scottish girl zomgs). haha. But I tried! We really bonded, especially after a few beers. The whole world are friends after a few beers :)

Anyways, so much time spent on traveling alone on the many buses and trains and whatnots meant that I had a lot of time to think. One great big revelation I came to was that Singapore really sucks. Firstly, I realized that I didn't really have any good stories to tell people because my life has been painfully normal. All of our lives are painfully normal. We just don't see it because we're all happy in our little warm (bloody hot, most of the time) bubble called Singapore. Everything suddenly feels very constructed in Singapore. We are taught to only think and act in a certain kind of way. We have a very narrow perspective on life, and we are passive about exploring alternatives. It's all about the end, to attain something. That we so often forget about the process. It's a little bit like traveling. We drive from A to B (we chose B most probably because someone said it was a nice place to be) without looking out of the window, without stopping the car to take a look around, so there could be better places that we would wanna go, but we don't know about because we didn't look.

See I bought a bowler hat while I was in Melbourne. People wear hats, yes? So why did a fellow Singaporean feel like she has to dare me to wear that hat back in Singapore? Is it really so crazy to wear a hat in Singapore? No one says I can't, but I can already imagine the stares I would get. We judge! Why do we judge so quickly and so mercilessly at anything that is slightly different (okay, not just talking about something as trivial as wearing a hat now). Just a little bit of out of the ordinary is considered weird, or worse, edgy. haha.

and I think that's how I've been living back in Singapore - in fear. Fear of judgement. Fear of being different. Having close family and friends nearby is sometimes bad too. I was too comfortable, too passive to do anything MORE. Can't even try, won't be bothered. In a way, I was just asleep. I wasn't exactly living, just existing. Being forced out of my comfort zone I feel like I am finally myself, not something made up from pieces of everyone else that was around me. Does that make sense? I feel like I'm only starting to get to know me.

I remember someone once said that Singaporeans only want one kind of lifestyle - degree, job, car, marriage, house, kids. Back then I couldn't understand what was wrong with wanting a life like that. I still can't explain it, but I'm starting to think that I don't want that. It just doesn't feel right. Maybe not right now. Right now, all I know is, I don't know what I want. I don't know what I'm looking for, I don't know what I want. I just know that, I don't want the Singapore way. And when I return at the end of the year, I will fall back into that zombie state that I was in. Which is not good for me. I need to find out all I can about myself before I get back. But honestly, migrating sounds like a very good idea now.

Okay, all the times I used the word 'we', maybe its more like its just me. Maybe my friends have been leading very secret exciting lives that I don't know about :)