The first of June will mark the year 2014 into two. H1, as they like to refer to in the corporate world, would come neatly to a close, never to be experienced again, only to be reviewed in hindsight.
March was the month I went through a lot of novels. There was Sit, Walk, Stand by Watchman Nee, Five Star Billionaire by Tash Aw, The Man Who Was Thursday by GK Chesterton, Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates and The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas. Two of these were some pretty good reads that will definitely feature in my favourite books of the year. Not many activities and travels happened during this month, but I’m glad that I was around for the long lunches, elaborate dinners, stayovers, surprise birthday parties, watching the Oscars at home with my flatmate and catching up on all those years I missed out on BBC’s Sherlock. I was also privileged to be on the judging panel of Victory Life Christian School‘s talent show, attend Cleansing Stream at Bethel Assembly of God Church, embark on a full day’s shopping and eating spree to JB and even moved into a new office on Cecil Street.
In April, I finally bought my first guitar with the help of a musician friend! We headed to Peninsula Place and after shopping around decided on the Takamine acoustic steel guitar from Davis Guitar. I also celebrated a friend’s birthday in a salsa club (a night out I do not wish to repeat), played an escape room game at Lockdown, cooked an enchillada dinner for a couple in Bukit Timah and ate a $800 dinner on a supertree at Gardens by the Bay. My Good Friday long weekend was spent awake for almost 24 hours in a Revival March where we travelled the length of Singapore’s MRT praying for the nation. Elsewhere, I also dined twice at Gurney Drive Restaurant in Changi’s Terminal 3 and ate durians and charcoal-fried Singapore hokkien mee in Geylang at a colleague’s reunion. But by the end of the month I’d had enough of Singapore and jetted back home to Penang.
May’s Labour Day long weekend was spent at home in Penang with my family. We took a trip out to Kuala Sepetang, a fishing village off Taiping to have a delicious seafood lunch of steamed pomfret, fried baby crabs and garlic clams. We also spent the afternoon in Taiping’s old town and lakeside gardens. I spent a lot of time cooking, painting and watching DVDs at home, on top of meeting with an ex-schoolmate and watching my uncle climb the coconut tree in the backyard. Shortly after, the Wesak Day long weekend was spent with another ex-schoolmate in Subang. We took a road trip to Ipoh to explore Gua Tempurung and stay the night at M Boutique Hotel. May was also the month I enjoyed Shakespeare in the Park with a few new friends, sat out on a DAISO picnic blanket, ate a sushi roll and marvelled at The Merchant of Venice. Earlier in the month, I also attended my first Singapore Writer’s Group meeting, where I read out a 500-word short story that I had written to test the literary genre, and started an A-Z haiku series on my instagram. And now onto June!
Wan Phing Lim 