In a phrase to cut these lips

Shakespeare, scurvy, and everything in between.
Snippets: Finding The Mansion February 2011 It remains somewhat a mystery how we stumbled into our eventual accommodation. I never had high hopes we’d find a house quickly, and it was with some amount of lethargy that we piled into the front office of our housing agent. Perched on tiny stools, we filled up almost the entire shop space. Despite thinking the six of us would be residing in two houses split by dint of our preexisting social circles, we ended up riding pillion on our housing agents’ scooters to the three-storey terrace we would eventually rent. (That in itself was an adventure, being my first time on a scooter. I have no sense of balance and cannot even ride a bicycle, which suitably justified my apprehension. But there was no other way to the house, so I chose to ride pillion behind the stockiest housing agent of the lot, hoping his low centre of gravity would provide a good sense of balance. The snaking cold whipped the ends of my scarf around my face, and the ill-fitting helmet they provided us threatened to fall off my head at every turn. Unfamiliar sights rushed past, together with the wind beside my ears. Fear quickly turned to exhilaration and I never looked back.) It was almost as if the house was meant for us. Three stories; six rooms; a basement, living room and a kitchen. Never mind that there was another tenant living there when we moved in, slated to leave only in two weeks. It was only the second day, and already we had a place to live.  We moved in the next day, cleaned it out that night, and christened it The Mansion. Yinghui and I spent hours mopping the master bedroom, which we were to share for the time being. Neither of us had mopped anything in our lives and we ended up on our hands and knees wiping excess water off the floor with newspapers because we’d failed so terribly at mopping. But that night, when I went to bed - exhausted from the day’s work of lugging suitcases, housing essentials and pails of water around - it was sweet to have a roof over our heads we could finally call our own.

Snippets: Finding The Mansion

February 2011

It remains somewhat a mystery how we stumbled into our eventual accommodation. I never had high hopes we’d find a house quickly, and it was with some amount of lethargy that we piled into the front office of our housing agent. Perched on tiny stools, we filled up almost the entire shop space.

Despite thinking the six of us would be residing in two houses split by dint of our preexisting social circles, we ended up riding pillion on our housing agents’ scooters to the three-storey terrace we would eventually rent.

(That in itself was an adventure, being my first time on a scooter. I have no sense of balance and cannot even ride a bicycle, which suitably justified my apprehension. But there was no other way to the house, so I chose to ride pillion behind the stockiest housing agent of the lot, hoping his low centre of gravity would provide a good sense of balance. The snaking cold whipped the ends of my scarf around my face, and the ill-fitting helmet they provided us threatened to fall off my head at every turn. Unfamiliar sights rushed past, together with the wind beside my ears. Fear quickly turned to exhilaration and I never looked back.)

It was almost as if the house was meant for us. Three stories; six rooms; a basement, living room and a kitchen. Never mind that there was another tenant living there when we moved in, slated to leave only in two weeks. It was only the second day, and already we had a place to live. 

We moved in the next day, cleaned it out that night, and christened it The Mansion. Yinghui and I spent hours mopping the master bedroom, which we were to share for the time being. Neither of us had mopped anything in our lives and we ended up on our hands and knees wiping excess water off the floor with newspapers because we’d failed so terribly at mopping.

But that night, when I went to bed - exhausted from the day’s work of lugging suitcases, housing essentials and pails of water around - it was sweet to have a roof over our heads we could finally call our own.

  1. spokesuchscurvy posted this