I am losing the plot.
---
Once again, I overstayed my welcome
at Fusionopolis today. (At 7pm, the lights and air-conditioning go off. The
former can be switched back on manually, if you stagger dumb and blind between enough switches and poke limply at the wall, but the latter is a not-so-subtle hint from on high, which cannot
be reversed until the next working day.) I always used to tell myself that I
would never do this, as it would most likely only make certain things worse...not least what I regard as an evolutionarily-sound aversion to being roasted alive in a Singaporean building without air-con.
Nevertheless, it's an increasingly frequent habit that has become necessary in
this pre-conference results-free zone that some of us occupy. In fact, the only thing
that compelled me to leave today was the deflating realisation under the
microscope at half past six that my latest experiments have spectacularly
failed, too! 28 working days until 'The Conference'...
For my desultory dinner of dejection,
I went to a food court in the adjacent building that happens to do passable
South Asian cuisine. I eat there often because it's a taste of the familiar,
especially after a horrific day. The vegetable biryani goes down a treat with
an ice-cold glass of calamansi juice. As I got up to leave after my meal, I was
summoned back by the Indian lady who runs the stall. At first, I didn't think
she was calling to me; I had already paid. Only when the cries of
"Sir!" got louder did I turn around to see what the commotion was.
"Free chaat, sir!" she
shrieked, waving a yoghurt-smothered spoon above her orange hat like a windmill.
"Oh! For me?"
"Yes, yes, sir. Here. Take this.
Sit down."
And she sounded like she meant
business, so I did as I was told. I took the bowl of chaat in yoghurt and the
well-aired spoon, and sat back down in the same seat.
Chaat is a fried snack served with
potatoes or chickpeas. I don't normally buy it, because it costs extra, so it
was my first time trying it from this stall. The biryani had been quite a
generous helping – maybe I looked like I needed it! – so I didn't get through
the freebie, but it was delicious.
I like to tell myself that they gave
me the free snack because of my loyal custom over the years. Never mind that
they were about to close for the night and were getting rid of the leftovers.
Nobody needs to know that, and you didn't hear it from me.
So, what can I say? It was another
day of almost comically bad results and increasing agitation/desperation as my
PhD continues to sputter and stumble backwards into the knackers' yard. But I got a small bowl of finger food out of
it, so I guess it's the kind of day that passes for an unparalleled success
overall at present!
---
By:
The Imperial Orange,
8th May 2017
