I was going to start by admitting that I thank my lucky stars I live in Singapore, where social distancing and the wearing of masks is taken more seriously. The weekend pictures of crowds snaking up the hills to the cliffs above Durdle Door in Dorset, UK, resembled a crowd of budding mountaineers waiting for their turn to reach the Everest summit. All, equally lacking proper attire.
That would never happen in Singapore. Or so I believed.
And then I saw the post of the snaking crowds waiting to enter Lucky Plaza on Sunday.
Yes, I get it.
It is the end of the month, and helpers rush to use remittance services to send money home. But, what happened to the advice for employers to allow their helpers to do this during the week and use remittance services closer to home? So, even before we lift the lockdown, we have just exposed another group.
This last week seems to have disappeared in a fuzz of I am not quire sure what. Whether it is because all days have smudged into a mush of work, or because the cat keeps practising for that lucky break he is hoping for on This Cat's got Talent at some ungodly early hour of the morning, I have as yet, been unable to ascertain.
I have to make a conscious effort to vary my day and routine, or I will end up robotically repeating my day like a groundhog. Nevertheless, maybe I should just allow myself to go with the flow after my attempt at doing something different on Saturday afternoon resulted in a near disaster. Unfamiliar with my newfound circuit breaker strength, I pulled a giant plant pot and it broke apart. That should have been the end of it, but the pot took revenge and attempted to slice the front of my knee off and send me flying backwards. My immediate reaction was, "ouch that hurts, but I suppose it's OK as the skin looks white." And then, the blood started. It's strange how the sight of blood exacerbates the idea of pain.
Enough of stupidity on my part.
Tomorrow, Singapore, following many other countries, will be slowly emerging from our version of 2 months of lockdown - or circuit breaker, a carefully crafted euphemism to soften what it really means. As I alluded to earlier, the initials CB in Hokkien are a vulgar term, very familiar to my NSMan son, leading one to wonder whether the person who thought it up had his tongue in his cheek.
We've all been issued with masks here, and a second distribution took place last week, hence, we have no excuse to be caught without one as the circuit breaker is eased. However, even after 2+ months of practising how to wear a mask properly, there are still the few who either have no idea, don't care, or really are just stupid. Some insist on wearing it over the chin - no doubt the women are growing beards or something, - some use it as a hair or elbow accessory, while others are like the chap I growled at the other day as I ran past. Now every time he sees me, he pulls his mask out of his pocket and looks worried! I have to laugh
as I am not sure who he thinks I am.
As we await a change in tempo tomorrow, I feel like I am making a New Year's resolution list for post Circuit Breaker life, where removing the candles from the birthday cake before you blow them out, will be the norm. Believe me, that is what I did yesterday, much to the eye-rolling of my eldest son.
I think I shall take the resolution list, one task at a time. Tomorrow's Post CB resolution will be to examine how the lockdown has changed the way my students view their learning and school interaction.