Wildfires

It's been an exhausting two days. Which is weird, considering that I haven't done anything much at all, other than watching the news. It's all so surreal. I woke up yesterday morning, preparing for work as usual. I groggily check my mail, and saw an email from my boss that told me to be careful, and to protect my data. My initial reaction was WTF. And then, I realize something was amiss. I turned on the tv, and almost every channel reported the wildfires taking place here. All the places I went to the night before, and got lost in (was trying to find this buffet place) are burnt up! The news told everyone to prepare to evacuate, and I found myself at a complete loss. I don't know where to start packing. Finally, I bunked up my car with my clothes, shoes, bags, and belongings. Jenn came over and we watched the news together. We saw the fires coming closer and closer, and Jenn's area became under mandatory evacuation. It was unreal. We heard news that they were out of gas up north, cuz everyone was pumping gas like no tomorrow, and when I went to the grocery store to get rations, the cashier got annoyed at me for getting cashback, because apparently everyone was doing it, and they have no cash for change. The air outside was stinky, and smelly, and everytime I ventured outside, there was a layer of soot on me. When night falls, I was pretty nervous, as the evacuation areas became closer and closer. My friend Eveline came over, and we watched the news in silence. I tried to sleep, but it was eluding me. I was just so tense. I never had to deal with any form of catastrophe in Singapore. A slight tremor of a faraway earthquake in Indonesia will hit the headlines of local news for two weeks. It was just so bizarre, being stuck with the situation that you would think: This might be it.

Today, the winds died down a little. The humidity is still like crap, like 9%, but at least the winds are not blowing that strongly anymore. That, and aircrafts are dropping water bombs on the fires today (They couldn't fly due to the strong winds yday). Hopefully, this will pass and leave us in relative peace. A lot of my friends are leaving town though, which is pretty ruthless. School is out for the rest of the week, but I have to go to lab on Thursday. Oh well. Better than no school to go to.