2023 Week 31: A Big Tree

Visited the big tree at Ang Mo Kio before coming to the library today. Sacred site! I wonder if children growing up in Punggol or Tengah will know the majesty of such trees. I hope this tree does not get chopped down for an MRT station. If that happens - which I am fairly sure it will one day - the big tree will probably not go easily. Its roots probably extend all the way to Upper Thomson.

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The past couple of months have been my first dry spell as a freelance writer. Maybe everyone's using ChatGPT - who knows? I'm quite happy about it. I've come a long way, in the past 2 years, in untangling the personal (my enjoyment) from the pragmatic (the $ I get paid) rewards of writing. Were I to get more paying assignments, the hesitant newborn artist would have to shrink back and make way for the Experienced Professional Writer persona.

Right now I am not as flush as I used to be - as you might imagine. But don't you feel sorry for me! All those windfalls were a burden on my soul - they never really sat right with me. It's because my pay was not commensurate with the value I put on the final product. It was valuable to the paymaster, but not to me personally. No matter how high I raised my rates, I felt oddly ripped off, like I'd "lost a shilling and found sixpence", as D. H. Lawrence wrote.

It's good that circumstances are forcing me to move on and wean me off freelance income. When freelancing, I could make anything from $1-7K a month, though last year I tried to aim for the comfortable $2K a month. Now my income - comprising bookstore pay, rabbit boarding/grooming fees, maybe a bit of food delivery here and there - hovers around the $1K mark - sometimes less. But I do not feel poor; I keep myself well-fed and amused.

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Return to normalcy this week. 

Mon: yoga and lunch, entertain Jon's parents and aunt, write at library, 5pm swim

Tue: Pasir Ris swimming pool (alas! the slides are still shut), hang out at Joel's house

Wed: lunch with dad, Carousell seminar, reading, writing, yoga at home

Thu: work day

Fri: bought yoga wheels and socks at Bedok, walk & talk with Joel

Sat: work day

Sun: cycling to AMK for lunch, writing at library

That Carousell seminar was at Launchpad @ one-north and reminded me of my old job. Wearing slippers to work, basketball at 3pm, free snacks in the pantry, bullying your superiors for being uncool - oh, life on the gravy train! On hindsight I should not have taken work so seriously. It made no difference whether I worked or just crocheted and drank beer on company time like the others.

Other things this week... family drama (luckily resolved), completing Lady Chatterley's Lover, and my used book reselling hobby (which is obviously BEEG BIZNESS).