oh bless the powers of a swig of my honey-apple cider vinegar concoction!! the block is gone....somewhat. something just popped into my head and here i am dissecting it for all it's worth! yesterday my mom and my aunty were commiserating about how they would love to turn back the hands of time and crawl back (butt-naked, of course!) into their mothers' wombs. they revelled in their regrets and counted the curses. they should have done this, should have gotten that, should have been somewhere else instead of here, should have gone up...should have come down...all tha yadda..though this little tete-a-tete was not normal, i wasn't shocked at their misgivings. but both of them reeled me when they said the husbands they should have looked for should be degree-holders!! how very cookie-cutter, jelly-mould stereotypical! i retorted at both of them "STEREOTYPE!!" and they looked at me in utter disgust and said, "Then how do you think you can have a wonderful married life?" HELLO??? Am i the only one living in this world now? do they not see that not all degree-holders go down the golden path of life? and not necessarily degree-holding men would make good husbands and give their wives a good life? and that as far as i know, a lot of eligible university bachelors are gay.....gone....or grounded with the supposed loves of their lives already (the malay boys always with the chinese girls...)? my mom then looked at me, condescendingly, i must add, and said, "Han, you think you can live your whole life just on love?" I reeled BIG TIME! HELLO??? do i look that naive to her? do i look like i just got my period and started growing breasts yesterday?? i am bloody 22 and I KNOW i can't pay my bills with LOVE! what i wanted to put across to them was simply to hell with the degree-holders and all the hype that comes with them. what i'm thinking is more "To each his own.". any one person can have a wonderful life if that is what he/she makes it out to be. it's the standards one sets for oneself. if some people think a degree can help them self-validate...then as long as they're happy. i've come this far with only my dip. i intend to go further to fulfill myself with a degree only when i've sorted out this period of my life first and make lots of money. it's never too late to do alot of these things but if i die before i get the degree, it's not gonna be chiselled on my tombstone "Budak Takde Degree..". i take my time. that's my timeline. Life has alot more to offer and it has been offering me better things than my friends with their degrees and then vice versa. we all give and take. once, when i was 17, when i first donned my cute little ACJC uniform with my cute short college skirt and Jap socks and blue Adidas sneakers, and stepped through ACJC's college doors, i reeked with hope and enthusiasm to step out of here one day headed to NUS. That was naivety. now, i dunno why but i just wanna make lotsa money, be happy, make my family happy and then later on, get that degree, nice and easy. cruising....