handphones & relationships

Isn't this refreshing, two entries in a week!

Anyway.

After 8 months with my N81, I've exchanged it for an E66. If you know me, you'd know that I don't change phones easily. In fact, every phone that passes through my hands will be used for approximately two years. My first phone was the Nokia 3310, which lasted me throughout JC, until university, when I saw my Baobei using a very cute Nokia model (which number escaps me now). I asked my aunt to get it for me, and I used it for most of my uni days. Towards the end of uni, I got the flower phone (actually it's the Nokia 7630) because during my school experience, one of my colleagues was using it. It was very pretty, and I was sold.

Finally, around the beginning of this year, I started to look out for a new phone because the flower phone was coming to two years, held too many memories, plus I needed to upgrade/recontract anyway. One day I was at Great World City and walked into a Nokia store. I saw the N81, started playing around with the model, and... I fell in love. I was quite taken by it, and I decided, okay, that shall be my next phone.

But not everything was smooth sailing with the N81. Within the first week of our time together, it got cranky and my SMSes in my memory card were eaten up. Went to Nokia Care, told me they couldn't do a thing about it (why would they?), so I thought, it's okay, it's just a one-off incident. Fast forward a couple of months. One day in school, my phone ran out of batt/it hung/it SOMETHING-ed. When I switched it on, 300+ SMSes, not inclusive of the sent messages (btw, I'm a pack rat, I keep everything) were all gone. I'll be frank: I screamed in the staffroom. But there was nothing I could do about it. Off to Nokia Care for another futile trip. This time, they upgraded my software (of course, nothing was wrong with my phone).

So this time, I saved my SMSes in my phone memory instead. Twice bitten, thrice shy, you know. Then a couple of nights ago, I was transferring my SMSes over to my PC when the usual message popped up, "Memory full. Close some applications and try again." So I did. Normally, the phone starts up as usual, the stuff are all there, it's fine. Abnormally, the phone seemed to start up in factory mode. It seemed like my personalisations were gone. My first instinct was, "Oh, shit." Then when I checked, my songs and images from the gallery were all gone. Basically, the info on my memory card was wiped out. Again.

Time for another futile Nokia Care visit! I shall not describe it in detail because they say the same thing over and over again, "It's not our fault, it must be *insert random reason here*" It never is. Anyway, I sent it away for repair, and got it back with a software upgrade. Since I didn't want to deal with the N81's unpredictability anymore, I swapped phones with my mother, cos according to her, she under-utilises hers.

This phone fiasco is like a relationship. You find someone you really like. You do all sorts of things for this person. Yes, you do occasionally treat him badly (like drop it on the floor), but generally you really love the person. But there are issues of compatability; obviously there will be conflicts that cannot be fully resolved, there's always going to be a part of you that will remember the sad things and conflicts. Then finally, there's a huge conflict. While you still love him, you don't want to deal with the unpredictability and vague unease anymore, so you make a decision to remove him from your life.

You find someone new, someone who is much better in all aspects. You know he's a good man, someone you can rely on to make good memories with. You're impressed by what he can do. He's really quite something. But you can't quite form an attachment with him. There are some things that you find lacking in him, but since it's not critical, you shouldn't really make a huge fuss. Deep down, you miss your first love, the excitement of it all. The new person is just functional, someone you know will be good for you, but the love for him must be gathered rather than something you already possess.

"You'll quietly revise your definition of love and try to be happy."

Quotes

I think it'll be quite weird if Ju posted the following quote on her blog, saying that it's one of my favourites, and yet I've never posted it.

I like it because I read it at an appropriate time in my life, and it just described exactly how I felt. Maybe in a couple of years, or maybe even a couple of months, I won't think the quote is that true any more (as with some of my favourite quotes in the past), or that gut-wrenchingly true.

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"We all have the potential to fall in love a thousand times in our lifetime. It's easy.

But there are certain people you love who do something else; they define how you classify what love is supposed to feel like. These are the most important people in your life, and you'll meet maybe four or five of these people over the span of 80 years. But there's still one more tier to all this; there is always one person you love who becomes that definition. It usually happens retrospectively, but it always happens eventually. This is the person who unknowingly sets the template for what you will always love about other people, even if some of those qualities are self-destructive and unreasonable.

You will remember having conversations with this person that never actually happened. You will recall sexual trysts with this person that never technically occurred. This is because the individual who embodies your personal definition of love does not really exist. The person is real, and the feelings are real--but you create the context. And the context is everything.

The person who defines your understanding of love is not inherently different than anyone else, and they're often just the person you happen to meet the first time you really, really want to love someone. But that person still wins. They win, and you lose. Because for the rest of your life, they will control how you feel about everyone else."

-Chuck Klosterman, Killing Yourself to Live

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And this is something I got off Facebook, of all places, and off an application called Bumper Stickers, of all things!

But very true. And it is currently my guiding principle.

"The truth of the matter is that you always know the right thing to do.
The hard part is doing it." -Norman Schwarzkopf

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I went to the library today. Yay to books!