I have a temper. A very bad one too. After observing some of my family members, I have concluded that my bad temper was probably inherited from my father who in turn got it from his mother. And the interesting thing was.....almost all of my father's siblings have a very bad temper. And thus, the vicious cycle of anger gets passed down to claim its next victim who is none other than me. WHy ME?!?!?! Anyway, last night was a night that could have had two very different endings. I was eating dinner with the family while reading the papers at the same time. Of course, this did not go well with my mother at all. Call me what you like but I have a very strong feeling that she feels that she is losing control over me and doesn't exactly LIKE that feeling very much. And thus, she makes it a point to exert authority over me whenever the oppotunity arises which was precisely over dinner yesterday. I was happily reading the papers when suddenly, the papers flew out of my hand and the next thing I heard was "I do NOT condole to such behavior during dinner. I expect you to maintain a conversation with us or eat your dinner in silence." Yes. My father was there and this wasn't the first thime that he was faced with this situation. Technically, my character follows my mother with a little contribution from my father. And typically, whatever I did next would set the mood for the rest of the evening. Of course, there was the typical options available to me at that point in time.
1. Challenge my mother and die trying (never tried it before though)
2. Have a super heated arguement with her which will gurantee my father's intervention and the NPI noise pollution index) will be way off scale.
3. Walk away from the table which will in turn make me face certain death (again...never tried it before)
4. Pretend nothing happened and BE HAPPY (if you know me..I'll never do that)
5. Eat the rest of my stuff and leave the table

SO. It was down to options 2 and 5. Option 2 was the most tempting of all the option but I tried option 5 for once. I just kept num about it, and I could swear that I could feel my mother celebrating her "little" triumpth and my father watching my every move and my sister not even sensing the tension at the table. But it was ok. After dinner, I felt happy that I gave in and didn't start World War X (where X is 2 + Y where Y must be greater or equals to 7). Sometimes, it is better to just give in and let people feel good about themselves. After a hard day at work, my mother was probably trying to relieve frustration anyway. But surprisingly, after a while I totally forgot about the anger bottled inside of me like a compressed can. Perhapes the can has expired and the anger was leaking away=)

And I finally got to replace my EZLINK card today. According to the nice auntiy at Bedok MRT station, she said that I could get my EZLINK card replaced at Pasir Ris Interchange instead of going all the way down to Buona Vista. But of course, even after living in Pasir Ris for 8 years, I had no idea where the office was. I was left with no other choice but to approach one of the bus drivers to ask for directions. The particular that I picked was every bit the bad boy I had "wanted" to be. He was big, strong and he smoked. But the surprising part was....he was friendly! Perhapes it was probably wise that I minded my Ps and Qs. But hey. I am proud of myself! A few years back and I wouldn't even have dared to approach anyone for directions. I would just have walked around and around until I give up and go home=) Anyway, the EZLINK card set me back $20 and I am so darn broke now=( Grrr.