A blazing hot
afternoon,the sunshine danced randomly on mycup of coffee.I waited impatiently
at the corner of a cafeteria, constantly searching for his sight.Stream
of people coming and going added noises of their conversations to my unstable
mood. 3 pm, he came as promised in his sporty car. Well-built and tall, he was
in his maroon burberry polo-shirt, wearing Guess cap and fashionable jean
ripped at both knees, his eyes swept through the cafeteria. I raised my hand to
signal. We exchanged greetings and he ordered his drink. He asked about my study, I replied politely. We both felt into a moment of absurd
silence. He started to initiate more topics…Without a word, I handed him a piece of
paper; he glanced through and signed under Guardian section.At that
moment, I knew for myself that we could no longer talked freely to each other as the
way we did before any more.I felt as if there was an invisible wall separating
us . Obviously, we were having a interpersonal conflict.
Money, when
it matters, sometimes it hurts, no matter how close the relationship used to be.
Several years ago when my little brother came to Singapore to study, he needed
a guardian. Tan, a Singaporean friend of
my brother’s, offered his help. He did not
accept any money even though we suggested him to do so. Tan started to borrow
4000 $ from us last year for a business project. Out of appreciation for what
he did to my brother,my mother gave in despite it was a big amount of money to
my family.Since then he has been promising to return them “next month”, but
next month has never seemed to come yet. My brother started to bring up the
sensitive money issue while they met for a drink. He started to talk about
being a guardian to my little brother as an excuse .Gradually, it came to the
point that my brother did not bother to meet up with Tan anymore. Tan , in the
other hand,visited us sometimes to sign documents for my little brother as if
nothing serious happened. Our disappointment grew into frustration and anger as
time passed by.He has a well-paid full time job, with average income of 5000 SGD
per month. It is definitely not so hard for him to return the amount of money
that he borrowed.
Hi Heather,
ReplyDeleteVery interesting and descriptive post.
On the first read, we could understand what you were trying to say, which is good. However, overall, we feel, that in the first paragraph, there was a lot of unnecessary flowery language. Punctuation wise, you might want to consider leaving a space after each full stop and commas.
Word count is way over the limit of 250- 300 . We checked and it was 446 words. Thus, you might want to consider doing without the flowery language.
From paragraph 1, it feels like we are reading a novel.
danced randomly on mycup >>> danced randomly on my cup
Stream >>> The stream
3pm >>> not really necessary on top of not being correctly used
we both felt >>> we both fell
absurd >>> awkward
we could no longer talked >>> we could no longer talk freely the way we used to
any more >>> anymore
Para 2
Money, when it matters, sometimes it hurts, no matter how close the relationship used to be. >> > you might want to simplify this sentence.
Here, the sentences are short and simple, which makes for a good read.
Cheers,
Kateřina and Hakeem
Hi Heather,
ReplyDeleteThat was a really interesting post. Here are some suggested changes that might improve this post in terms of language:
danced randomly on mycup of coffee…>>>…danced randomly on my cup of coffee
Stream of people coming and going added noises of their conversations to my unstable mood. >>> Consider revising the sentence. Instead of stream of people, maybe you could write hosts of people. The humming of their conversations disturbed me further.
He asked about my study…>>>…He asked about my studies
We both felt into…>>>…We both fell into
.At that moment, I knew for myself that we could no longer talked freely to each other as the way we did before any more…>>>.At that moment, I knew that we could no longer talk freely to each other like before.
Money, when it matters, sometimes it hurts, no matter how close the relationship used to be…>>>… This sentence is a bit unclear. Consider rephrasing it into several short and clearer sentences.
He did not accept any money even though we suggested him to do so…>>>…He did not accept any money even though we offered him.
In the other hand…>>>…on the other hand
Cheers,
Jestina, Hassan and Shuman
Hi Heather
ReplyDeleteThank you for an interesting conflict.
I was a bit confused with the first and second paragraph do, didn't really get the connection between them.
I think the solution to this could be that your family make up a plan how he can pay the debt. For example $500 per month. Since it is such a big amount of money I really think you need to solve this problem. It is hard to stay friends if you can't trust each other, and at this moment I guess you can't trust him anymore.
Thanks, Heather, for sharing this scenario with us. Like Patrik, I had a hard time initially understanding who "he" was in the first paragraph. That became clearer as I read on, and I enjoyed your story-telling.
ReplyDeleteYou've focused on the age-old problem: money. I can empathize with your situation, and feel that tan is obviously taking advantage of your family's dependence on his own "guardianship." How unfortunate!
Patrik provides a pragmatic solution, but I'm not sure how easy it will be for you to even bring up the debt he owes due the various cultural restraints.
I'm interested to see how you solve this.
Best of luck!