My two parrot fish are really very interesting. From the start of last week, they have embarked on a major upgrading-reconstruction project of their home. All the while my family has been somewhat amused by how they shift the gravel and wood around to make a nest for themselves, and now I can't stop watching them because they're really progressing on to the next stage. It's not just an uncivilised shifting of rocks here and there to make a space for themselves, nono, they have a concept. The area behind the piece of log has been cleared of ALL bits of gravel, so that there's a nice smooth bed for them to sleep. So that's their bedroom area. The other side is a garden--they actually created a slope around the fake flower and there's landscaping of the gravel. There's also careful selection of the big and small stones for arranging: the big ones were all carefully shifted to the bottom of the little 'hill', I haven't yet figured out for what purpose. It's really very pretty.

It's interesting to watch how the different characters of the fish are shown through their work. I think the pale one is the one in-charge of this reconstruction phase, I constantly see it pushing big stones around, picking up a few small stones with its mouth and depositing it in other positions. The red one, on the other hand, has to be prodded occasionally by the pale one, and several times its only pretending to work, while it is in fact just swimming around. When I go near the tank to observe their progress, both of them stop and stare at me, swimming against the glass of the tank. I wonder if they feel like humans staring out into the unknown depths of the universe, and if a god truly exists, He feels the same amusement that I do.

Anyway, in a few weeks time will be fish tank cleaning, and the fish will have something to do after the 'earthquake'.

My life is definitely getting better. Yesterday evening, I chatted for three hours with my sister online, displacing many of my doubts about me and MSN. Well, its still not the best--but it will do, for now. We talked about everything under the sun, as usual, and its really wonderful that our topics were not constrained to asking her how she's doing in India and other small talk. My cousin just called recently from Australia--though the call was cut short due to another incoming call. I even had time to socialise on Saturday--going out with Hannah, then Woon Teng, Xin Min, Hui CHu, and Amanda on the day of the funfair. Unfortunately for the latter group, most of the stuff (esp food!) had been sold out by the time they reached, so they didn't really enjoy themselves until we went to Marche to have dinner later. Woon Teng and I went for a Tarot reading for one dollar that was surprisingly and unexpectedly accurate for me. I ate a lot and bought a book for one dollar that I discovered I already possessed when I reached home.

I'm supposed to go out with the class today, but I woke up late and I'm really too lazy. I really must commend Glenda, Cheryl, Eugene, Loyalle, SIn Yee for being at the booth almost all day at the fair. Admittedly, I didn't do much on Saturday, though I made many pots of jelly the day before. Overall it was great.

The periwinkle I bought for $22 is in full bloom, and its really pretty. I'm glad my mum loved it (or I'll have to think of another mother's day present), because it negates the effort I took to carry it back. It was really quite hard, I had to take it all around orchard looking silly, it was damn heavy and I couldn't hang my arm down or the stems which were hanging out will be crushed, so I had to lift it up at an angle all the time. Really tiring, I tell you.

Best of all, my mum's getting better! Whatever therapy she's doing now is working, the pain is lessening and the doctor said probably in three to four weeks time she'll be completely cured. Let's hope so. Life is definitely getting better:)

It seems like this period has really made me aware of my emotions and depth of feeling for the people around me. A few days ago I dreamt that I died and came back as a ghost because I couldn't bear to leave my loved ones. So I just hung around--the emotions were very intense and when I woke up I wondered if ghosts exist, whether their reasons were the same as mine. We must treasure the people around us, while we still can:).