Thirty isn't too old or is it?

I got high on apple cider last night. I am getting older. This is how you realise you are 30. You wake up in the morning with a hangover because you drank 4 bottles of cider. Like seriously!  My drunk stories ain't that drunk anymore. They are more of happy and buzzed stories when I have a great time over  barbq and conversations on modules and how all of us are dying together. I am not the only one having a tough time. So many of us hold the same views and opinion on the way of living here, how you are not allowed to think for yourself. I thought being an Indian I was probably being too critical but I was speaking to an Indonesian, a Thai girl and a Vietnamese classmate and they felt the same. I don't share a single module with them but they have had the same experiences and they get the same vibes I do from the Singaporeans. I wasn't imagining all of that.

The only reason I get offered notes in my PIL class is because I am good friends with Andy and Bettina who are Swiss. If not for the Swiss none of the Singaporeans would come out and offer me their carefully comprised notes. I get the fact that my brown skin will be held against me. I was under the impression it is more to do with my race so if I was an oriental they would be more friendly. I was wrong because my mates belonging to neighbouring countries and happening to be South East Asian are treated with the same disdain. So last evening we were exchanging notes and it was amazing how each one of  us had similar stories to tell without ever having discussed it with each other. But to be honest I am not so sensitive about this racial profiling. Given that it is Singapore I am more than happy going back and working in India.

This isn't some fascinating city I see myself in. If this was London or New York I wouldn't have given a  rat's arse to racialism at this level and stayed on and tried to make it there. There has to be more to a city than just clean roads, greenery, well managed traffic, malls and more malls. I love the safety bit. I love the fact that I can wear whatever I want and walk out anytime of the day without men checking me out from head to toe, without men mentally undressing me, without being objectified, without being felt up, without being scared that I am gonna get raped. I love all of this and this should be the case in any civilised city but sadly it isn't so in my country. But this isn't enough for me at least to stay on. I so miss my people. People make a city or it has to be as fabulous as a New York, Paris or a London and this place is far from that. I haven't been to those cities so I shouldn't be talking like I am authority on having lived there but I am so sure they are more interesting cities to live, work and stay while you are still young. :) Come now thirty isn't too old and I am not gonna stop dreaming, trying to get where I want to. Not as yet.