Journal no. 3

haven't been doing much this year, except that i worked on Thurs and Fri at the cafe.
after 12 days of being idle, i got nervous and anxious at the prospect of having to work.
then i thought of how i would probably look back at my life as a student fondly when i was back in Singapore, trying to look for a job.
and how i am so lucky that everyone i love is doing well enough... because when the inevitable comes, and what on earth will i do? thinking about death makes me scared. i don't believe in the afterlife, so i think when i'm gone, i won't get to enjoy movies and such (lol wtf), and it fills me with regret and fear.
but then, it's only because i enjoy a comfortable life now. if i lived in a terrible time of war and/or suffering, i suppose i would be happy to die.
it's all relative.

anyway, i was the second hand shop and benefited from a cashier mistake today. i got 5 books which supposed to be $1 each, but the cashier entered them together as 1 item costing 50 cents. and being a dishonest person, i did not report that mistake.
i also bought a huge The North Face backpack - the fancy sort that originally cost more than $100 or so. it was missing the front zip-on pouch but otherwise it was pretty awesome because i could fit in that bag. and i found a 4GB flash drive in the front pocket. the owner left the AirAsia luggage sticker tag on it as well - it seems that she arrived here in May 2011, but it doesn't say where she flew from.
the flash drive contains blurry photos of a holiday, mostly boats and beaches... as well as a movie file for The Matrix. i wonder why she left it in the bag.

one of the books i bought was The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck. is it a sign of a good book if your head is swimming in the lyrical style of its prose after you finish reading it?
i'm really glad i wasn't born there during that time. the character O-Lan, the long suffering and dutiful wife/slave, told a powerful story even though she didn't say much. being a female in pre-revolutionary China was very shitty because it was such a patriarchal society. and the idea of starving to death is shitty as well.