No, I'm not avoiding you or giving you "the cold shoulder". I just started work, waitressing at a restaurant. Can't use phone on the job, though I can sneak a peak at messages. Full time, 9 hours a day, 6 days a week. I'll plug the place I work at, if you ask. I'm not stupid enough to state where I work on my journal, kthxbai.
Now it's TOR not GLOR. I work in Boost Juice, Vivocity. It's the best juice bar ever, do drop by.
Yesterday I realised just how much of Mummy's english vocab is derived from ours. As we ww
ere watching TV, she commented, 'the picture is very...' She was obviously trying to find the right word so I helped her by suggesting,'exciting? slow? boring?' She said, 'No. (pause)Retarded'.
Yes. My mother's pwers of description in english aren't very strong but her repertoire does include words like:
Cool
Happening
Retarded
Rubbishy
Gross
Random
and
Rocks
It's Gloria's fault, I tell you.
One usually has to guess wht Mummy means from various noises, gestures and expressions. Once she tried to explain the difference between brown and green kaya. Apparently, brown kaya is more (reapeatedly open and close fingers into fist slowly, using small up and down motions of the hand simulating an upside-down squid). Also, the difference btw duku and langsat is that 'duku is duku' and 'langsat is langsat'.
Thursday, December 14, 2006
I met up with a friend the other day, and had a lovely day despite her being quiet at some points. True to form, I babbled inanities in the mistaken belief that one might strike home and lead to a renewed conversation. Little did I know that she was rolling her eyes internally. Cutting to the chase, here are excerpts about me from her blog entry.
I'd say they are not wholly undeserved.
"So I found it shocking that a friend of mine didn't know her way around her phone... she's still using the damned thing even though it's big enough to be, as the older folk call it, giah lai kah tzeem eh tzng tao (a brick you use for cracking crabs)..."
"We tried to send some of my ring tones to her phone, except she didn't know how it worked, which elicited another slow-mo-turn-with-incredulous-stare action sequence from me."
"It's a strange fear of the technophobes that they'll somehow cause the device to spontaneously combust if they pressed the wrong buttons, although common sense suggests that installing Explode buttons on consumer electronics is probably a bad idea. "
"To me, being technologically backward when one isn't robbed of the ability to keep up with the times suggests a certain, well, laziness. Being proud of not knowing anything about tech stuff just screams a fear of being ostracized and told to stand in a corner until they master their pre-polyphonic phones. "
Sound familiar? Yes, it should to those who know me, or Gloria's sister. The person whose PDA phone is trying to commit suicide, and whose top of the range, S$200 camera is held together with scotch tape. But to the people who say: Just get a new one! I say: you give me the money then I buy a new one lah!
Those very same people will then ask, 'How come you got so much money to go australia holiday then?'
It's a question of priorities. What people chose to spend money on is indicative not just of their personalities but their circumstances. Right now I have a lot of time and no money. I'm collecting experiences, not consumer durables. I have the rest of my working life to acquire those things, as and when I want them.
I've written an email to my friend and it pretty much sums up how I feel about techy gadgets:
My incompetence must seem staggering to you. I think I ham up my self-deprecation (not just to you but in general) because it's an easy way to get people to laugh and relax as they feel superior to me in this respect.
What can I say? We all know self-deprecation is an art. The point is that people in the know know that you are really just pretending to be inferior, while the people on the outside let their guard down because they think you are a fool. Also, kids love it.
The truth is, I do know how to use my phone. I've been using it for years. Obviously.
I don't know how to use the more complicated functons like the pdf and excel programs because I cannot foresee ever needing to use them. I don't know how to put mp3 ringtones on it because I have never wanted to. I know how to use exactly the functions that I want to, or need to.
I have this phone because it was free. I would never have chosen it on my own. Why the hell would I need a PDA type phone? I know how to use the connectivity functions, I can surf the net, do emails, chat, play games, use the planner.
But I don't.
Because I don't actually want to do these things on my phone.
Maybe I am actually just bloody irritating and should just get on with it without pretending that I don't know how to do the techy thing in question. But oh! It is so much fun when my sister gets exasperated with me and does it instead. I like to think it's rewarding for her to be able to help me with some trifling task. Then again, maybe I should just ask her to do stuff for me out of the goodness of her heart. (haha fat chance)
Actually the part of the entry that really made me sigh wasn't what I've already pasted above. I wouldn't be affected by people saying I was a bloody fool due to my technological incompetence. After all, gadgets don't really matter to me one way or the other. As I said, the ones I have now are perfectly adequate for my purposes. Anything I should come to require in the future I will deal with then. But then again, I'm not likely to need anything more. Most gadgets are entertainment-related so I won't need to use them for work. I already know how to use a blackberry.
The part that made me sad was, 'And technology is the one thing that shows one's adaptability and speed of processing information more than anything else. Being able to pick up a console of any kind and navigate around it has become a basic skill, and those who don't have it have a much more difficult time than those who do.'
I'm grieved to see that she links ability to learn to use new technologies so closely with the general skill of adaptability. (although such a linkage would come in extremely useful when writing CVs btw)
Referring to a less tech-savvy older person, she said, 'While personality and motivation helped, I think the basic ability to adapt and change and learn was something that made him a lot more successful than his peers.'
I completely agree. From experience, four years of achieving my personal goals (of getting a good job, doing well in uni, making genuine local friends) in a foreign country (and dealing with colleagues, landlords, bosses, government, banks, companies, judges, examiners, clients, students, members of the public, ) requires a whole lot of adaptability. But having to adapt my IT skills to different systems is really at the bottom of my list of things which are hard to adapt to.
I heed this warning call to be open to change and learning. But... wait! My recent life so far has been about that. And I'm not complaining about being less successful than anybody else I know. Perhaps objectively, I am. After all, I am only a shop girl. But I'm a happy shopgirl.
I'd say they are not wholly undeserved.
"So I found it shocking that a friend of mine didn't know her way around her phone... she's still using the damned thing even though it's big enough to be, as the older folk call it, giah lai kah tzeem eh tzng tao (a brick you use for cracking crabs)..."
"We tried to send some of my ring tones to her phone, except she didn't know how it worked, which elicited another slow-mo-turn-with-incredulous-stare action sequence from me."
"It's a strange fear of the technophobes that they'll somehow cause the device to spontaneously combust if they pressed the wrong buttons, although common sense suggests that installing Explode buttons on consumer electronics is probably a bad idea. "
"To me, being technologically backward when one isn't robbed of the ability to keep up with the times suggests a certain, well, laziness. Being proud of not knowing anything about tech stuff just screams a fear of being ostracized and told to stand in a corner until they master their pre-polyphonic phones. "
Sound familiar? Yes, it should to those who know me, or Gloria's sister. The person whose PDA phone is trying to commit suicide, and whose top of the range, S$200 camera is held together with scotch tape. But to the people who say: Just get a new one! I say: you give me the money then I buy a new one lah!
Those very same people will then ask, 'How come you got so much money to go australia holiday then?'
It's a question of priorities. What people chose to spend money on is indicative not just of their personalities but their circumstances. Right now I have a lot of time and no money. I'm collecting experiences, not consumer durables. I have the rest of my working life to acquire those things, as and when I want them.
I've written an email to my friend and it pretty much sums up how I feel about techy gadgets:
My incompetence must seem staggering to you. I think I ham up my self-deprecation (not just to you but in general) because it's an easy way to get people to laugh and relax as they feel superior to me in this respect.
What can I say? We all know self-deprecation is an art. The point is that people in the know know that you are really just pretending to be inferior, while the people on the outside let their guard down because they think you are a fool. Also, kids love it.
The truth is, I do know how to use my phone. I've been using it for years. Obviously.
I don't know how to use the more complicated functons like the pdf and excel programs because I cannot foresee ever needing to use them. I don't know how to put mp3 ringtones on it because I have never wanted to. I know how to use exactly the functions that I want to, or need to.
I have this phone because it was free. I would never have chosen it on my own. Why the hell would I need a PDA type phone? I know how to use the connectivity functions, I can surf the net, do emails, chat, play games, use the planner.
But I don't.
Because I don't actually want to do these things on my phone.
Maybe I am actually just bloody irritating and should just get on with it without pretending that I don't know how to do the techy thing in question. But oh! It is so much fun when my sister gets exasperated with me and does it instead. I like to think it's rewarding for her to be able to help me with some trifling task. Then again, maybe I should just ask her to do stuff for me out of the goodness of her heart. (haha fat chance)
Actually the part of the entry that really made me sigh wasn't what I've already pasted above. I wouldn't be affected by people saying I was a bloody fool due to my technological incompetence. After all, gadgets don't really matter to me one way or the other. As I said, the ones I have now are perfectly adequate for my purposes. Anything I should come to require in the future I will deal with then. But then again, I'm not likely to need anything more. Most gadgets are entertainment-related so I won't need to use them for work. I already know how to use a blackberry.
The part that made me sad was, 'And technology is the one thing that shows one's adaptability and speed of processing information more than anything else. Being able to pick up a console of any kind and navigate around it has become a basic skill, and those who don't have it have a much more difficult time than those who do.'
I'm grieved to see that she links ability to learn to use new technologies so closely with the general skill of adaptability. (although such a linkage would come in extremely useful when writing CVs btw)
Referring to a less tech-savvy older person, she said, 'While personality and motivation helped, I think the basic ability to adapt and change and learn was something that made him a lot more successful than his peers.'
I completely agree. From experience, four years of achieving my personal goals (of getting a good job, doing well in uni, making genuine local friends) in a foreign country (and dealing with colleagues, landlords, bosses, government, banks, companies, judges, examiners, clients, students, members of the public, ) requires a whole lot of adaptability. But having to adapt my IT skills to different systems is really at the bottom of my list of things which are hard to adapt to.
I heed this warning call to be open to change and learning. But... wait! My recent life so far has been about that. And I'm not complaining about being less successful than anybody else I know. Perhaps objectively, I am. After all, I am only a shop girl. But I'm a happy shopgirl.
Wednesday, December 13, 2006
So my estate was fogged today. And about a million cockroaches came crawling out of every conceivable place a nasty thing like that could possibly hide. They were all sizes, from a grain of rice to as long as my finger. It wasn't possible for me to walk in a straight line and I even changed course a few times. At least three would have entered the house if we hadn't taped up the rubbish chute before the fogging.
My life has been fogged but I wish the cockroaches would leave me alone.
My life has been fogged but I wish the cockroaches would leave me alone.
Monday, December 11, 2006
So me, Gloria, and my cousins, Felicia, Peter and Mavis went out for a night on the town last week and here are the photos to prove it.
Mavis isn't in this photo. She's in the next one.
Here's Mavis and Glor with a bellini.
And here's Felicia and Peter, who are siblings.
And here's my favourite inanimate object in the whole world: Bolbol. You can make out Small Colourful Bolster in the background, and Ster Ster beside it. (It's fairly obvious which bolster is Small Colourful Bolster and which is Ster ster).
For more photos, check out my Flickr account at www.flickr.com/photos/victoriaho
Wednesday, December 06, 2006
Sunday, December 03, 2006
Post prom post to be done later as have had no time to sit and jot one down properly. Can't do now as cousin is staying over. We went to loof today, we enjoyed it muchly and will go back some other time. Lychee martini and Berllini made us very happy. Little cousin Peter was irritating.
*Mavis waves hallo*
In other news, I am now single again.
*Mavis waves hallo*
In other news, I am now single again.
Wednesday, November 29, 2006
For those like me, applying for NUS after the A's:
For the moment, relax because "Instructions for completing the Online Application Form Type I will be posted by February 2007."
"Admission exercise for AY2007-2008 will open three working days after the release of 2006 Singapore-Cambridge GCE ‘A’ Level results in March 2007" is what I got off the site, after at least half an hour of trawling through it. Interestingly, it is easier to find (ie, with one click) that "Singapore is a vibrant cosmopolitan city with a population of 3.5 million. Find out more about Singapore from the following external websites", than the actual application procedure.
Excuse me, this is a university. Are we catering for tourists or the student population?
For the moment, relax because "Instructions for completing the Online Application Form Type I will be posted by February 2007."
"Admission exercise for AY2007-2008 will open three working days after the release of 2006 Singapore-Cambridge GCE ‘A’ Level results in March 2007" is what I got off the site, after at least half an hour of trawling through it. Interestingly, it is easier to find (ie, with one click) that "Singapore is a vibrant cosmopolitan city with a population of 3.5 million. Find out more about Singapore from the following external websites", than the actual application procedure.
Excuse me, this is a university. Are we catering for tourists or the student population?
Tuesday, November 28, 2006
Yes, my A's are done. No, I've not been free. Here's the breakdown-
Friday: sushi genocide with Khayce, Ed, Rich and Tor. Coffee after, saw Mich. Vivo city with Cass and Nadia after. Went ice creaming when Nadia abandoned us.
Saturday: Nick and Dawn's wedding banquet. Got a bit drunk. Har har, yesh.
Sunday: RK outing in afternoon, evening barbecue at Sentosa with MI people for Terence's birthday. Came home and cleaned barbie dolls to give nieces.
Monday: University application research. Dinner with Eldred.
Tuesday: Christmas shopping, D&D in evening.
So whoever says there's nothing to be done after the exams is obviously an idiot. On the other hand, I'll be much more free next week. So I'll be able to see assorted people and not to mention, get back on WoW too.
Friday: sushi genocide with Khayce, Ed, Rich and Tor. Coffee after, saw Mich. Vivo city with Cass and Nadia after. Went ice creaming when Nadia abandoned us.
Saturday: Nick and Dawn's wedding banquet. Got a bit drunk. Har har, yesh.
Sunday: RK outing in afternoon, evening barbecue at Sentosa with MI people for Terence's birthday. Came home and cleaned barbie dolls to give nieces.
Monday: University application research. Dinner with Eldred.
Tuesday: Christmas shopping, D&D in evening.
So whoever says there's nothing to be done after the exams is obviously an idiot. On the other hand, I'll be much more free next week. So I'll be able to see assorted people and not to mention, get back on WoW too.
Saturday, November 18, 2006
How far we have come. If at this time last year, you'd asked me to do a full exam I'd have though you were mad. Now I've had an intensive week of various combinations of papers from all my A level subjects. 2 sets of MCQ (of which one was a colouring session, being CLB), CSQ, 6 DRQ and 7 assorted essays. Thank god for the prelims that trained us for this mess. Yet, every hour or so, especially during my 3 hour papers I need to stop and stretch, or I'll get cramps after the thing.
It's a wonder I've lasted though the week. At the last entry I was dreading the start of this mountain of papers. I just hope that I haven't dreamed this moment of having got to Saturday. 2 papers left, it's too good to be true!
It's a wonder I've lasted though the week. At the last entry I was dreading the start of this mountain of papers. I just hope that I haven't dreamed this moment of having got to Saturday. 2 papers left, it's too good to be true!
Sunday, November 12, 2006
There used to be seven posters in my room. Now there is one. It's not LotR, WoW or even anime, but something given to me by someone I'm not even in contact with these days. Our paths crossed very briefly, I regret to say. She was a source of comfort, at the time. Someone I'll remember for the rest of my life, though we were together for only a handful of days. I hope she is doing well. She reminds me of the mermaid at the edge of the world of Narnia. If we meet again in the years to come, on the streets or train, I will surely greet her with an embrace.
Oh quick mayfly before-
Two weeks more. Twelve damn days. Eternity! But freedom is close, I can feel it. Yet I dare not look for if I falter-
Forver is nothing. Forever is twelve days. Twelve days to cry, dream, bleed. My pen flows. My life is ruled by pieces of paper.
There is time yet for Living
-~-
So that was my share of teenage angst. I put this here because I want something to look at in the decades to come. Written in bed with indian ink. Yeah, at the ungodly hours of the morning that put you in strange moods.
Yes I have a long list of people to meet up with after this is done. Amanda, Mavis, the MI people (so that we can whine about the exams or assignments for poly bunch) and various IJ people. RK meetings go without saying. And the boyfriend too, of course.
I am writting this under the assumption that I'll be awake after the 24th. I'll be clearing out my room (including cleaning the walls) right after my last paper. Very unhappening, I know. What to do, the last time I cleared the place out was after my last major exam. That was two years ago, dammit. I think the resident dust bunnies have their own political systems by now.
Then I'll probably WoW for as long as I can before Gee kicks me off for MC or something. Calien needs some lovin'!
Oh quick mayfly before-
Two weeks more. Twelve damn days. Eternity! But freedom is close, I can feel it. Yet I dare not look for if I falter-
Forver is nothing. Forever is twelve days. Twelve days to cry, dream, bleed. My pen flows. My life is ruled by pieces of paper.
There is time yet for Living
-~-
So that was my share of teenage angst. I put this here because I want something to look at in the decades to come. Written in bed with indian ink. Yeah, at the ungodly hours of the morning that put you in strange moods.
Yes I have a long list of people to meet up with after this is done. Amanda, Mavis, the MI people (so that we can whine about the exams or assignments for poly bunch) and various IJ people. RK meetings go without saying. And the boyfriend too, of course.
I am writting this under the assumption that I'll be awake after the 24th. I'll be clearing out my room (including cleaning the walls) right after my last paper. Very unhappening, I know. What to do, the last time I cleared the place out was after my last major exam. That was two years ago, dammit. I think the resident dust bunnies have their own political systems by now.
Then I'll probably WoW for as long as I can before Gee kicks me off for MC or something. Calien needs some lovin'!
Thursday, October 19, 2006
Graduation, again. Leaving CJ is a small thing; what's 2 years compared to 10? I didn't shed tears this time. Honest.
Backlog hardly ever gets to my journal, but I suppose this is in order. Written in class, on the last day.
Bob, Zi Lun and Roy are playing the last football game in class. The chairs that serve as goalposts probably won't see this much action again, they're good at the sport. Til the last, Bob dresses not in proper attire but in a PE shirt.
Most of the girls are going trigger happy. I'm not sulking, I just don't have a camera. I don't need one at this point, I much perfer owning my iPod. Besides, it's nice to occasionally be in their pictures. The committee people are fixing up the class poster and Mrs Ho has just put a cute picture of Yasmin as her desktop wallpaper.
I'll miss these people. We may not have been very good friends, or found each other too late, yet it is good that we met at all because life is too damn short for regrets.
Who can say if I've been changed
for the better but
because I knew you
I've been changed for good.
-Wicked, For Good
Backlog hardly ever gets to my journal, but I suppose this is in order. Written in class, on the last day.
Bob, Zi Lun and Roy are playing the last football game in class. The chairs that serve as goalposts probably won't see this much action again, they're good at the sport. Til the last, Bob dresses not in proper attire but in a PE shirt.
Most of the girls are going trigger happy. I'm not sulking, I just don't have a camera. I don't need one at this point, I much perfer owning my iPod. Besides, it's nice to occasionally be in their pictures. The committee people are fixing up the class poster and Mrs Ho has just put a cute picture of Yasmin as her desktop wallpaper.
I'll miss these people. We may not have been very good friends, or found each other too late, yet it is good that we met at all because life is too damn short for regrets.
Who can say if I've been changed
for the better but
because I knew you
I've been changed for good.
-Wicked, For Good
Saturday, September 16, 2006
4 days, 4 papers, 3 subjects, 11 essays.
Suprisingly, I'm still alive. For some reason they wanted to slaughter us in the first week then let us have an easier time the next week. Can't say the same for the science students though, I hear Chem has 10 essays in paper 3. Wow, I'm already flagging after 3, I don't know how they do it.
I thought that the opening of the Bishan library would be a good thing, especially with the prelims, but no! Is unhealthy as want to borrow many things. Not conducive to studying at all, plus the tables are always taken. Teenagers actually turn up an hour early, wait outside and run up the ramp and stairs to get to them. It's quite alarming, my cousin told me. I mean, yes the floor is nice and carpeted but it's not good for a long haul because after the first few hours your bottom starts to ache. I hope the damn place gets more tables and chairs instead of the stools in the middle of nowhere.
I don't just go for tuition because it helps my econs; I also go to be amused by my fellow schoolmates who also go there. In addition, I hear things. The few things I know now make it obvious that not knowing things about other people in CJ really is good, generally speaking. And I'm going to carry on pretending that I don't know anything. Yes I'm being cryptic on purpose, you think I'm stupid enough to be specific? In any case, if anyone needs the miracle that is econs tuition, especially after the prelims or promos, don't hesitate to drop me a line. It's held in a bomb shelter in Bishan, by the way.
Damn, after this I really need to get a life. Here is a list of stuff I'll do after the A's:
1. Sleep.
2. Apply for various universities.
3. Clean and clear out bedroom.
4. Get rid of notes. (I take Geog, Econs and Lit. Call if you're interested or need specifications.)
5. Get Calien to 60.
6. Get own account and start all over again with a Blood Elf Mage, while getting Cal to 70.
7. Chuck more movies in iPod so can watch with Jerrick on kick ass huge tv.
8. Spend alot of time with Jenny.
9. Watch alot of anime.
10. Read alot of manga.
11. D&D, or whatever whoever is running at that point.
13. Christmas shopping.
14. Do whatever inane things my sister wants me to do with her.
15. Study for driving license.
Any suggestions?
Note to self: call Cat to check if Bolbol (see: various recent entries by Tor, my sister) is in.
Suprisingly, I'm still alive. For some reason they wanted to slaughter us in the first week then let us have an easier time the next week. Can't say the same for the science students though, I hear Chem has 10 essays in paper 3. Wow, I'm already flagging after 3, I don't know how they do it.
I thought that the opening of the Bishan library would be a good thing, especially with the prelims, but no! Is unhealthy as want to borrow many things. Not conducive to studying at all, plus the tables are always taken. Teenagers actually turn up an hour early, wait outside and run up the ramp and stairs to get to them. It's quite alarming, my cousin told me. I mean, yes the floor is nice and carpeted but it's not good for a long haul because after the first few hours your bottom starts to ache. I hope the damn place gets more tables and chairs instead of the stools in the middle of nowhere.
I don't just go for tuition because it helps my econs; I also go to be amused by my fellow schoolmates who also go there. In addition, I hear things. The few things I know now make it obvious that not knowing things about other people in CJ really is good, generally speaking. And I'm going to carry on pretending that I don't know anything. Yes I'm being cryptic on purpose, you think I'm stupid enough to be specific? In any case, if anyone needs the miracle that is econs tuition, especially after the prelims or promos, don't hesitate to drop me a line. It's held in a bomb shelter in Bishan, by the way.
Damn, after this I really need to get a life. Here is a list of stuff I'll do after the A's:
1. Sleep.
2. Apply for various universities.
3. Clean and clear out bedroom.
4. Get rid of notes. (I take Geog, Econs and Lit. Call if you're interested or need specifications.)
5. Get Calien to 60.
6. Get own account and start all over again with a Blood Elf Mage, while getting Cal to 70.
7. Chuck more movies in iPod so can watch with Jerrick on kick ass huge tv.
8. Spend alot of time with Jenny.
9. Watch alot of anime.
10. Read alot of manga.
11. D&D, or whatever whoever is running at that point.
13. Christmas shopping.
14. Do whatever inane things my sister wants me to do with her.
15. Study for driving license.
Any suggestions?
Note to self: call Cat to check if Bolbol (see: various recent entries by Tor, my sister) is in.
Thursday, August 31, 2006
I hate having to ingterneck in the library and pop into the living room to watch the TV. This is a situation caused by not having wireless access or ingterneck access in the living room. Speaking of which, I am reminded of a hilarious anecdote which I am now going to relate to you, whether you like it or not: I was in Shanghai, asking the cable guy if our internet access was unlimited (wu xian) which it was supposed to be. His negative reply almost threw me into paroxysms of frustration when my flatmate realised he had misunderstood me and meant that it was not wireless, which in chinese, sounds the same as unlimited (wu xian). I just can't win.
I have developed a morbid fascination with daytime TV since I got back, TV itself being such a novelty since I haven't actually been able to afford one for years. There are reruns of whole series of local teen dramas that I have completely no recollection of, like Lightning Years and Spin. I watched the tail end of Chicken Rice Wars the other day. I can't figure out how I feel about missing out on so much pop culture. Despite my initial scornful reaction to these shows, I can't help but be wary of such snobbishness. Don't I watch Amazing Race, after all? Who am I to judge? But even then, some of what I hear honestly drives me up the wall.
"Are you crazy?"
Yes, I'm crazy. (significant pause) I'm crazy about you!"
[cue dramatic music]
Warning: Rant follows
Has anyone seen/heard the new mediacorp trailer for their new programme, The Dance Floor? I take no issue with the show itself; the concept seems interesting, and I would definitely watch it if I am here when it airs. But I am slowly being driven to the brink of insanity by their excessive overuse of the phrase, 'young and young at heart.' Do english speaking people in this country not realise that peppering their speech/writing with cliches is not conventionally regarded as good english? I believe this will come as a revelation to most SGeans-- through no fault of their own-- as I remember being taught to use english 'idioms' in school essays. But cliches ARE NOT THE SAME THING AS CHENG YUS, ok?
'It was a dark and stormy night' is not equivalent to 'yi ge feng he ri li de zao cheng', alright? I wholeheartedly agree with Janadas Devan's article in the Straits Times on monday about the overuse of cliches by the local media. (which I unfortunately cannot post a link to-- see below for tirade against having to pay in order to access it online.) Of course, I am in no way saying that chinese is an inferior language in this respect. In fact, chinese is an incredibly expressive language. With just four characters, one can convey many subtle shades of meaning (which, regretfully, are often lost on me.) This richness makes for a language more poetry than prose.
English, however, is a whole different language. Yet here it is taught in the same way chinese is. We memorise whole books of cheng yus, or idioms, and try to use as many as we can in compositions. For chinese, yeah, I get it; we have to learn many cheng yus since it's impossible to understand chinese texts otherwise. And memorising them is the first step to using them appropriately and elegantly. In english, the overuse of cliches is usually a symptom of laziness (according to Devan). Why think up of a more original phrase when there's already one that does the job? Because english is not chinese, can? Cliches don't actually make your writing sound poetic. The word is hackneyed, or uninspired or maybe, boring.
So, a suggestion. In line with this whole Speak Good English campaign thingie, can we all try to MAKE MEDIACORP STOP BROADCASTING THIS DRIVEL. The media has a responsibility to the people of singapore not to propagate the myth that 'young and young at heart' is an acceptable phrase for marketing its programmes to the general population.
AND
Does it irritate the hell out of anyone else that the programme is described as a 'reality dance competition'? When was the last time you saw a dance competition open to the public that was entirely scripted and enacted by professional actors? It might be a reality TV show, or a dance competition, but I think the fact that it is a dance competition with real people, set in real life, does not actually need to be emphasised. Dance competitions, unless in the context of Dirty Dancing or Shall We Dance (which do not take place in reality. sorry. it might be in your head, but they aren't) are by nature reality TV. They are one of the very first manifestations of the popular phenomenon.
Ok?
I might be forced to write a letter to Mediacorp if this situation continues.
I have developed a morbid fascination with daytime TV since I got back, TV itself being such a novelty since I haven't actually been able to afford one for years. There are reruns of whole series of local teen dramas that I have completely no recollection of, like Lightning Years and Spin. I watched the tail end of Chicken Rice Wars the other day. I can't figure out how I feel about missing out on so much pop culture. Despite my initial scornful reaction to these shows, I can't help but be wary of such snobbishness. Don't I watch Amazing Race, after all? Who am I to judge? But even then, some of what I hear honestly drives me up the wall.
"Are you crazy?"
Yes, I'm crazy. (significant pause) I'm crazy about you!"
[cue dramatic music]
Warning: Rant follows
Has anyone seen/heard the new mediacorp trailer for their new programme, The Dance Floor? I take no issue with the show itself; the concept seems interesting, and I would definitely watch it if I am here when it airs. But I am slowly being driven to the brink of insanity by their excessive overuse of the phrase, 'young and young at heart.' Do english speaking people in this country not realise that peppering their speech/writing with cliches is not conventionally regarded as good english? I believe this will come as a revelation to most SGeans-- through no fault of their own-- as I remember being taught to use english 'idioms' in school essays. But cliches ARE NOT THE SAME THING AS CHENG YUS, ok?
'It was a dark and stormy night' is not equivalent to 'yi ge feng he ri li de zao cheng', alright? I wholeheartedly agree with Janadas Devan's article in the Straits Times on monday about the overuse of cliches by the local media. (which I unfortunately cannot post a link to-- see below for tirade against having to pay in order to access it online.) Of course, I am in no way saying that chinese is an inferior language in this respect. In fact, chinese is an incredibly expressive language. With just four characters, one can convey many subtle shades of meaning (which, regretfully, are often lost on me.) This richness makes for a language more poetry than prose.
English, however, is a whole different language. Yet here it is taught in the same way chinese is. We memorise whole books of cheng yus, or idioms, and try to use as many as we can in compositions. For chinese, yeah, I get it; we have to learn many cheng yus since it's impossible to understand chinese texts otherwise. And memorising them is the first step to using them appropriately and elegantly. In english, the overuse of cliches is usually a symptom of laziness (according to Devan). Why think up of a more original phrase when there's already one that does the job? Because english is not chinese, can? Cliches don't actually make your writing sound poetic. The word is hackneyed, or uninspired or maybe, boring.
So, a suggestion. In line with this whole Speak Good English campaign thingie, can we all try to MAKE MEDIACORP STOP BROADCASTING THIS DRIVEL. The media has a responsibility to the people of singapore not to propagate the myth that 'young and young at heart' is an acceptable phrase for marketing its programmes to the general population.
AND
Does it irritate the hell out of anyone else that the programme is described as a 'reality dance competition'? When was the last time you saw a dance competition open to the public that was entirely scripted and enacted by professional actors? It might be a reality TV show, or a dance competition, but I think the fact that it is a dance competition with real people, set in real life, does not actually need to be emphasised. Dance competitions, unless in the context of Dirty Dancing or Shall We Dance (which do not take place in reality. sorry. it might be in your head, but they aren't) are by nature reality TV. They are one of the very first manifestations of the popular phenomenon.
Ok?
I might be forced to write a letter to Mediacorp if this situation continues.
Glor: How do you know that Bolbol isn't somewhere on the bottom of the sea?
Tor: I just know. I would know if it were lost forever at sea. I would feel it in my heart the instant the ship sinks.
Should Bolbol be truly lost to us one day, the following will be its perpetual companions (at least until they biodegrade):
1. Glor's Marks and Sparks push-up bra
2. T-Shirt I bought Glor from Egypt
3. Cat's (my ex-flatmate) uni notes and textbooks
Tor: I just know. I would know if it were lost forever at sea. I would feel it in my heart the instant the ship sinks.
Should Bolbol be truly lost to us one day, the following will be its perpetual companions (at least until they biodegrade):
1. Glor's Marks and Sparks push-up bra
2. T-Shirt I bought Glor from Egypt
3. Cat's (my ex-flatmate) uni notes and textbooks
THINGS WE CAN'T TELL MUMMY
I realised the other day how often I say, 'don't tell mummy I did...' and how trivial those things were. Many many small small things that we do annoy her, so her default mood is slightly-pissed-off all the time. These are some things (with rationales) Glor and I can't let her know or she will nag me all through CSI:
1. that I wore shoes in the house while I was stretching before my run (dirty)
2. that I walked in with my shoes on afterwards (dirty)
3. that I stretched on the clean floor and dripped sweat on it (dirty)
4. that Glor didn't close the door when she came home until after she took her socks off (someone might barge in in the 1 minute it takes and do unspeakable things, like walk in with their shoes on)
5. that I switched on 2 fans at the same time and stood in front of them (waste electricity + blow sweat everywhere, so also dirty)
6. that Glor chewed ice cubes (bad for you)
7. that Glor slept in the middle of the day instead of studying (self-explanatory)
8. that I ate leftover food (bad for you)
9. that I used the wrong laundry bag for underwear (?)
10. that Glor didn't soak her underwear before giving it to wash (dirty)
11. that I ate 3 curry puffs in 1 day (fat)
12. that I ate 2 flosss buns at 3 am (fat)
13. that I left my dirty plate with traces of flosss upstairs for 2 days (dirty)
14. that Glor drank milk straight from the carton (dirty)
15. that we left the TV on really loud so that we could hear it from the library (waste electricity)
16. that I used the wrong ga la to hang laundry (dirty)
17. that I used the wrong washing detergent to wash the clothes (must mix white one with blue one first or else the clothes will apparently stink, hence: dirty)
18. that Glor sniffed her snort all day instead of blowing her nose (dirty)
19. that I ate 2 brownies AND ice-cream for dessert (fat)
20. that Gloria sneezed in the house all over the place, spewing germs everywhere (dirty)
21. that I didn't clean the floor without being told because I couldn't tell that it was very slightly less spotless than before-- the magiclean cloth yielded a light gray dusting after she swabbed the whole downstairs down with the same cloth (dirty)
So it's quite difficult leading a normal life at home, as you can see. Still, it is a home filled with light and laughter when we don't actually do anything that pisses mummy off. Today for example, was quite pleasant as I actually washed the clothes without being told. I made it on the ga las and used the right delicates bag, but fell down on the mixing of washing detergent.
The monsoon really made itself felt today and it's such a nice day to sit indoors with the door open, writing or enjoying a bolster. Alas, Bolbol is still en route somewhere in the Indian Ocean (I bloody hope). For fun, I came up with a list of fun facts I bet you didn't know about me and Glor.
FUNFACTS I BET YOU DIDN'T KNOW ABOUT ME AND GLOR
1. We have names for all our bolsters
The spare bolster is called 'yukky bol' as it is hard and not squishy. It does not have the necessary ergonomics to be a good bolster. Our limbs bend at an obtuse angle instead of an acute angle when we try to hug it. It also doesn't smell like anything and doesn't have a bolster string that is 'mian mian'. 'Mian mian' is the soft, springy quality that bolster strings have when you squeeze the small knot tied in the string. It should be a bit furry and must be firm, yielding to the touch and not too hard. We also have a small, colourful bolster that is called 'small, colourful bolster.' It doubles up as a pillow or soft thing to put over our eyes to block out the light. And obviously, there's Bolbol and Sterster. Mine is Bolbol.
2. Glor likes using a straw to drink yakult whereas I prefer to tear off the aluminium completely
Glor likes the green colour apple flavoured one and I like original.
3. Glor's favourite thing nibbly thing from Old Chang Kee is deep-fried squid heads. Mine is curry puffs
4. Gloria likes the dark-haired guy from The OC (Seth) but I like the blonde one (Ryan).
5. Gloria likes the original CSI whereas I like the Miami version.
6. I think 'harhm' is integral to laksa. Gloria doesn't like 'harhm' in laksa or in anything else.
Which reminds me of something of only tangential relevance. PM Lee in his National Day Rally speech alluded to the mr brown 'ter kwa' controversy by using a food metaphor which involved 'harhm' in mee siam. Please tell me that I am not alone in thinking that 'harhm' is not used in mee siam. Where got 'harhm' in mee siam? I can only conclude from this that the PM does not eat/like mee siam. I know he was talking in hypothetical terms, but this is singapore, goddamn it! Does the PM not eat mee siam?
And because I am trying to be like Nick Hornby, here is a list of things I ate for supper one night with Bunn, Janet and Terrence at Chomp. Chomp.
1. S$10 worth of la las (clam).
2. sambal stingray with nice chincalok (pinkish-grayish shrimp in salty/sour sauce)
3. white chai dao kueh
4. prata with an egg fried sunny side up on it: plaster prata
5. chicken and mutton satay
6. or luah (oyster omlette with starch)
7. almond flavoured dao huay (bean curd)
8. mango flavoured dao huay
9. egg flavoured dao huay with peanut
10. hot cheng tng
11. mug of teh (tea with condensed milk)
On the other hand, the most interesting supper Gloria has had so far is prata and teh, at the 24 hour prata place outside our house. Glor decides that she needs to get a life after the A's.
I realised the other day how often I say, 'don't tell mummy I did...' and how trivial those things were. Many many small small things that we do annoy her, so her default mood is slightly-pissed-off all the time. These are some things (with rationales) Glor and I can't let her know or she will nag me all through CSI:
1. that I wore shoes in the house while I was stretching before my run (dirty)
2. that I walked in with my shoes on afterwards (dirty)
3. that I stretched on the clean floor and dripped sweat on it (dirty)
4. that Glor didn't close the door when she came home until after she took her socks off (someone might barge in in the 1 minute it takes and do unspeakable things, like walk in with their shoes on)
5. that I switched on 2 fans at the same time and stood in front of them (waste electricity + blow sweat everywhere, so also dirty)
6. that Glor chewed ice cubes (bad for you)
7. that Glor slept in the middle of the day instead of studying (self-explanatory)
8. that I ate leftover food (bad for you)
9. that I used the wrong laundry bag for underwear (?)
10. that Glor didn't soak her underwear before giving it to wash (dirty)
11. that I ate 3 curry puffs in 1 day (fat)
12. that I ate 2 flosss buns at 3 am (fat)
13. that I left my dirty plate with traces of flosss upstairs for 2 days (dirty)
14. that Glor drank milk straight from the carton (dirty)
15. that we left the TV on really loud so that we could hear it from the library (waste electricity)
16. that I used the wrong ga la to hang laundry (dirty)
17. that I used the wrong washing detergent to wash the clothes (must mix white one with blue one first or else the clothes will apparently stink, hence: dirty)
18. that Glor sniffed her snort all day instead of blowing her nose (dirty)
19. that I ate 2 brownies AND ice-cream for dessert (fat)
20. that Gloria sneezed in the house all over the place, spewing germs everywhere (dirty)
21. that I didn't clean the floor without being told because I couldn't tell that it was very slightly less spotless than before-- the magiclean cloth yielded a light gray dusting after she swabbed the whole downstairs down with the same cloth (dirty)
So it's quite difficult leading a normal life at home, as you can see. Still, it is a home filled with light and laughter when we don't actually do anything that pisses mummy off. Today for example, was quite pleasant as I actually washed the clothes without being told. I made it on the ga las and used the right delicates bag, but fell down on the mixing of washing detergent.
The monsoon really made itself felt today and it's such a nice day to sit indoors with the door open, writing or enjoying a bolster. Alas, Bolbol is still en route somewhere in the Indian Ocean (I bloody hope). For fun, I came up with a list of fun facts I bet you didn't know about me and Glor.
FUNFACTS I BET YOU DIDN'T KNOW ABOUT ME AND GLOR
1. We have names for all our bolsters
The spare bolster is called 'yukky bol' as it is hard and not squishy. It does not have the necessary ergonomics to be a good bolster. Our limbs bend at an obtuse angle instead of an acute angle when we try to hug it. It also doesn't smell like anything and doesn't have a bolster string that is 'mian mian'. 'Mian mian' is the soft, springy quality that bolster strings have when you squeeze the small knot tied in the string. It should be a bit furry and must be firm, yielding to the touch and not too hard. We also have a small, colourful bolster that is called 'small, colourful bolster.' It doubles up as a pillow or soft thing to put over our eyes to block out the light. And obviously, there's Bolbol and Sterster. Mine is Bolbol.
2. Glor likes using a straw to drink yakult whereas I prefer to tear off the aluminium completely
Glor likes the green colour apple flavoured one and I like original.
3. Glor's favourite thing nibbly thing from Old Chang Kee is deep-fried squid heads. Mine is curry puffs
4. Gloria likes the dark-haired guy from The OC (Seth) but I like the blonde one (Ryan).
5. Gloria likes the original CSI whereas I like the Miami version.
6. I think 'harhm' is integral to laksa. Gloria doesn't like 'harhm' in laksa or in anything else.
Which reminds me of something of only tangential relevance. PM Lee in his National Day Rally speech alluded to the mr brown 'ter kwa' controversy by using a food metaphor which involved 'harhm' in mee siam. Please tell me that I am not alone in thinking that 'harhm' is not used in mee siam. Where got 'harhm' in mee siam? I can only conclude from this that the PM does not eat/like mee siam. I know he was talking in hypothetical terms, but this is singapore, goddamn it! Does the PM not eat mee siam?
And because I am trying to be like Nick Hornby, here is a list of things I ate for supper one night with Bunn, Janet and Terrence at Chomp. Chomp.
1. S$10 worth of la las (clam).
2. sambal stingray with nice chincalok (pinkish-grayish shrimp in salty/sour sauce)
3. white chai dao kueh
4. prata with an egg fried sunny side up on it: plaster prata
5. chicken and mutton satay
6. or luah (oyster omlette with starch)
7. almond flavoured dao huay (bean curd)
8. mango flavoured dao huay
9. egg flavoured dao huay with peanut
10. hot cheng tng
11. mug of teh (tea with condensed milk)
On the other hand, the most interesting supper Gloria has had so far is prata and teh, at the 24 hour prata place outside our house. Glor decides that she needs to get a life after the A's.
Thursday, August 24, 2006
Who Is Your Favourite Singapore Idol?
I like watching Singapore Idol.
I watch it for the judges' comments, even if it means having to sit through another of Joakim's set-pieces. I usually go and get a drink from the kitchen at that time anyway.
I wait eagerly for a glimpse at Dick Lee's supposedly 50 year old face to try to guess what work he's had done to it-- a great hobby of mine. Ever since I discovered this page, I consider myself quite expert at discerning signs of botox usage. Jacintha's cryptic remarks are always a treat: 'We are still in the land of the living. You have to take us somewhere else.' is my favourite so far, although 'you are still in vocal purgatory' is also quite inspired. I do get what she is saying, but I'm not so sure about the idols.
My favourite Ken Lim comment so far is, 'Shh... Hear that silence? To me that silence sounds better than the sound coming out of your mouth.' No prizes for guessing who that was directed to.
Watching Singapore Idol is like watching Big Brother. You know it will turn your brain to mush, you know it is patently NOT a talent competition, you boo and hiss at your least favourite contestant, yet you still watch it to see just how bad he can get. I watch it for the same reason I watch Amazing Race and Temptation Island. I give in to my secret passions-- voyeurism, schadenfreude, appetite for gossip. Indulge your basest emotions with Singapore Idol: fun-filled family entertainment on Channel 5!
[Actually, come to think of it, they're not really secret right? Everybody knows I love scandal and gossip] Especially when my whole family pitches in. My father's favourite is Jonathon, who he says will get the cheena-piang vote as well as the holy-holy vote. (In the 'what would you take on a desert island' clip, he answered, 'a bible'.) My mother just thinks they all have no standard but Hady got chance since the malays will all vote him. I think I will only chu ma if Joakim looks in danger of actually winning the goddamn thing. I am actually willing to spend good money ensuring he doesn't represent the best of Singapore's talent solely due to the (rather surprising) spending power of hormonally-driven teenage girls. As I have mentioned, when I was a teenager I only got S$10 a week lah! Money was too precious to spend on frivolous things like voting Idols in. Food was a lot more important, hence my present size.
Dysfunctional as it sounds, 8pm to 9pm wednesday nights is quality family time for me and my parents. During the show, I relax, sit back and prepare to be entertained by my parents. And of course they do what they always do: bitch. Sometimes at me, about me. But I much prefer it when they just bitch about the Idols.
I like watching Singapore Idol.
I watch it for the judges' comments, even if it means having to sit through another of Joakim's set-pieces. I usually go and get a drink from the kitchen at that time anyway.
I wait eagerly for a glimpse at Dick Lee's supposedly 50 year old face to try to guess what work he's had done to it-- a great hobby of mine. Ever since I discovered this page, I consider myself quite expert at discerning signs of botox usage. Jacintha's cryptic remarks are always a treat: 'We are still in the land of the living. You have to take us somewhere else.' is my favourite so far, although 'you are still in vocal purgatory' is also quite inspired. I do get what she is saying, but I'm not so sure about the idols.
My favourite Ken Lim comment so far is, 'Shh... Hear that silence? To me that silence sounds better than the sound coming out of your mouth.' No prizes for guessing who that was directed to.
Watching Singapore Idol is like watching Big Brother. You know it will turn your brain to mush, you know it is patently NOT a talent competition, you boo and hiss at your least favourite contestant, yet you still watch it to see just how bad he can get. I watch it for the same reason I watch Amazing Race and Temptation Island. I give in to my secret passions-- voyeurism, schadenfreude, appetite for gossip. Indulge your basest emotions with Singapore Idol: fun-filled family entertainment on Channel 5!
[Actually, come to think of it, they're not really secret right? Everybody knows I love scandal and gossip] Especially when my whole family pitches in. My father's favourite is Jonathon, who he says will get the cheena-piang vote as well as the holy-holy vote. (In the 'what would you take on a desert island' clip, he answered, 'a bible'.) My mother just thinks they all have no standard but Hady got chance since the malays will all vote him. I think I will only chu ma if Joakim looks in danger of actually winning the goddamn thing. I am actually willing to spend good money ensuring he doesn't represent the best of Singapore's talent solely due to the (rather surprising) spending power of hormonally-driven teenage girls. As I have mentioned, when I was a teenager I only got S$10 a week lah! Money was too precious to spend on frivolous things like voting Idols in. Food was a lot more important, hence my present size.
Dysfunctional as it sounds, 8pm to 9pm wednesday nights is quality family time for me and my parents. During the show, I relax, sit back and prepare to be entertained by my parents. And of course they do what they always do: bitch. Sometimes at me, about me. But I much prefer it when they just bitch about the Idols.
Thursday, August 17, 2006
Headings of Letters From the Public Printed in Yesterday's Today
'Why is there noisy construction on Sundays?'
'Loud audio ads on transport'
'Why not install seatbelts on buses?'
And my personal favourite:
'Consider banning smoking outright'
The reader suggested 'having laws against possession' and 'permitting smoking only at special centres where rehabilitators help to cure smokers' addictions.' I can only guess that the reader is a middle-aged, unmarried female who professes to be religious and suffers from intense guilt every time she feels sensual pleasure of any kind. (alamak! cannot eat curry puff) In a country where a problem as major as Subutex abuse was virtually unknown among the general public until a few weeks ago, this reader suggests pushing something as widespread as smoking underground into the black market. But let's set this matter aside; it's not what I'm really concerned with.
Looking at the letters as a whole, the first thing that strikes me is their utter triviality.
On one level, that is a good thing. Not having more serious matters to complain about signals a safe and comfortable environment. No disputes over here whether children should be allowed to wear hoodies lest they perpetrate crime while hiding their faces! No terrorists wandering around with water bottles and iPods! The only social problem (haha I mean: what would be seen as a social problem in SG) I can think of involving waterbottles is the phenomenon of nervous white men loitering near Raffles City clutching a waterbottle and newspaper. According to Ian, the newspaper is to 'tiak' over car windows... so that people won't see oral sex not leading up to ordinary heterosexual sex being performed.
But back to the letters. The suggestions put forth adopt such a sweeping belt and braces approach that one suspects the government has taught its people all too well. Construction on sundays-- ask them don't build house on sunday. Two accidents involving buses in a few months-- quick! Put seatbelt! Then make illegal to not wear seatbelt. Loud ads-- ask SMRT to disallow. Smoking? Ban lor.
Is it just me or will other right-thinking, normal people agree that they are completely unreasonable and disproportionate solutions to the problems at hand? A little too heavy-handed, maybe? hm?!
Ok, rant over, back to Desperate Housewives.
'Why is there noisy construction on Sundays?'
'Loud audio ads on transport'
'Why not install seatbelts on buses?'
And my personal favourite:
'Consider banning smoking outright'
The reader suggested 'having laws against possession' and 'permitting smoking only at special centres where rehabilitators help to cure smokers' addictions.' I can only guess that the reader is a middle-aged, unmarried female who professes to be religious and suffers from intense guilt every time she feels sensual pleasure of any kind. (alamak! cannot eat curry puff) In a country where a problem as major as Subutex abuse was virtually unknown among the general public until a few weeks ago, this reader suggests pushing something as widespread as smoking underground into the black market. But let's set this matter aside; it's not what I'm really concerned with.
Looking at the letters as a whole, the first thing that strikes me is their utter triviality.
On one level, that is a good thing. Not having more serious matters to complain about signals a safe and comfortable environment. No disputes over here whether children should be allowed to wear hoodies lest they perpetrate crime while hiding their faces! No terrorists wandering around with water bottles and iPods! The only social problem (haha I mean: what would be seen as a social problem in SG) I can think of involving waterbottles is the phenomenon of nervous white men loitering near Raffles City clutching a waterbottle and newspaper. According to Ian, the newspaper is to 'tiak' over car windows... so that people won't see oral sex not leading up to ordinary heterosexual sex being performed.
But back to the letters. The suggestions put forth adopt such a sweeping belt and braces approach that one suspects the government has taught its people all too well. Construction on sundays-- ask them don't build house on sunday. Two accidents involving buses in a few months-- quick! Put seatbelt! Then make illegal to not wear seatbelt. Loud ads-- ask SMRT to disallow. Smoking? Ban lor.
Is it just me or will other right-thinking, normal people agree that they are completely unreasonable and disproportionate solutions to the problems at hand? A little too heavy-handed, maybe? hm?!
Ok, rant over, back to Desperate Housewives.
Wednesday, August 16, 2006
Being on holiday in SG means lots of daytime TV, doing housework, going to the gym, and writing blog entries.
I just got home from the gym where I had a very bad experience with the gym lady. She really f-ed me off. Our Bishan sports stadium gym has the most bizarre rules of any gym I have ever been to or heard of.
1. No water bottles in the gym
2. No MP3 players in the gym
3. Must put your bag on the reception floor, together with a pile of other bags, with absolutely no security (laughed when I saw the sign: management is not responsible for any losses)
4. No books in the gym
5. Can't use any machine for more than 20minutes, even if nobody else is waiting to use it
6. Towels must be 30cm x 30cm
7. Can only drink water in the reception from the water cooler.
There was a sign above the water cooler saying 'No spitting or washing hands in water cooler'. Bishanites must be a really disgusting lot.
The hawkish gym woman came over and took all my stuff away when I was on the exercise bike. 'No books!' she said. 'No MP3 players!' I was understandably confused. What is the rationale behind this rule? I asked. She just hissed at me. Hissed! I tell you.
So I used the bike in the corner so I could keep my eye on my bag on the floor in the reception. And I had to change machines every 20 mins because she was watching me suspiciously. I was a rule-breaker! The Raffles boys (why don't they use their own fancy gym? they must have one or what's the point of private-school facilities then? I know they have their own bloody pool!) stared as I opened my cunningly hidden water bottle and took a swig from it.
After 5 minutes of utter boredom and biding my time til the gym woman was distracted with her kid, I walked quickly to my bag and grabbed it, took out my book, retreated to the farthest corner, and started to pedal, holding the book beside me such that it was blocked by my body. She didn't even notice! I could have stolen someone's bag and walked out!
The next time I go, I am going to wrap up all my stuff in my towel and sneak it in. Bloody hell
I just got home from the gym where I had a very bad experience with the gym lady. She really f-ed me off. Our Bishan sports stadium gym has the most bizarre rules of any gym I have ever been to or heard of.
1. No water bottles in the gym
2. No MP3 players in the gym
3. Must put your bag on the reception floor, together with a pile of other bags, with absolutely no security (laughed when I saw the sign: management is not responsible for any losses)
4. No books in the gym
5. Can't use any machine for more than 20minutes, even if nobody else is waiting to use it
6. Towels must be 30cm x 30cm
7. Can only drink water in the reception from the water cooler.
There was a sign above the water cooler saying 'No spitting or washing hands in water cooler'. Bishanites must be a really disgusting lot.
The hawkish gym woman came over and took all my stuff away when I was on the exercise bike. 'No books!' she said. 'No MP3 players!' I was understandably confused. What is the rationale behind this rule? I asked. She just hissed at me. Hissed! I tell you.
So I used the bike in the corner so I could keep my eye on my bag on the floor in the reception. And I had to change machines every 20 mins because she was watching me suspiciously. I was a rule-breaker! The Raffles boys (why don't they use their own fancy gym? they must have one or what's the point of private-school facilities then? I know they have their own bloody pool!) stared as I opened my cunningly hidden water bottle and took a swig from it.
After 5 minutes of utter boredom and biding my time til the gym woman was distracted with her kid, I walked quickly to my bag and grabbed it, took out my book, retreated to the farthest corner, and started to pedal, holding the book beside me such that it was blocked by my body. She didn't even notice! I could have stolen someone's bag and walked out!
The next time I go, I am going to wrap up all my stuff in my towel and sneak it in. Bloody hell
Tuesday, August 15, 2006
Famous People That Know People We Know,
or Our Two Degrees of Separation From Various Household Names
One night Glor and I were watching Singapore Idol when Gloria mentioned that her friend Jenny knew long-haired braces guy, and various other not-so-obviously-noticeable contestants. Seems it's true that there are only 2 degrees of separation between Singaporeans. For fun, Glor and me decided to make a list of all the famous people that know people that we know. It's actually quite a respectable list.
We've only included famous people who would actually recognise the name of the person that we know; as in, if you said, 'Do you know Jonathon Lim?' to Hossan Leong, he would say, 'Of course! How is he, anyway?', hopefully with a smile. I've taken 'two degrees' to mean 'friend of a friend/relative' such that there is only one person who is the intermediary between the famous person, and us ('Glor, Tor and Family').
The threshold of famousity we've used for this list is name-recognition by the average person on the street. Therefore, worthy candidates such as 'guy from Electrico' (our friend KC's friend) have been rejected in favour of Cheryl Fox, and people who I believe to be flashes in the pan like Joanne Peh (my friend Sheena's ex-coursemate) have been left out to make space for old stalwarts like Patricia Mok. However, people who have been in the news recently for some reason or other have also been included, based on the assumption that the man on the street reads The Straits Times headlines on most days. In other words, if I've never heard of them, they're not famous.
These days, every young singaporean who has appeared however briefly on some TV programme or commercial considers themselves famous! Why has fame become desirable in itself? Surely it can and should only be the result of being particularly oustanding in your chosen field? I know that's an old-fashioned view. I'm sure that it was possible, even before the advent of reality TV, to get (in)famous without being talented. Many generations of young starlets have proved this. But due to the phenomenon of programmes like Big Brother, people have been able to 'get famous' by doing absolutely nothing, on TV. We all know that is the sensationalism that sells. Everytime someone has sex in front of the camera they get famous. What is this celebration of the lowest common denominator, and why is it suddenly ok to be a voyeur? But enough of this rant, let's look at the list.
In no particular order, Famous People etc.:
1. Paul Twohill
Is Gloria's friend, Jenny's friend. Paul is a contestant on Singapore Idol and although he has not proved his staying power yet, he is included on the list since he's the one who started this whole thing.
2. Eunice Olsen
Is our aunt's friend's niece. She is a Nominated Member of Parliament, and the former co-host of the Singapore version of Wheel of Fortune. She was also Miss Singapore Universe 2000.
3. Patricia Mok
Is Gloria's friend's aunt. She is a Mediacorp actress who often appears in comedies. She used to be on Channel 8 (Chinese language channel) quite a lot but has now crossed over to Channel 5 (English language channel) and can be seen in the sitcom My Sassy Neighbour.
4. David Rasif
Sorry I can't find a picture.
Who? The local lawyer who absconded with S$10mil of his clients' money! The man whose actions, in my own opinion, was behind the comment MM LKY made in an interview for a Law Society publication, reported in the papers around National Day. He stressed that lawyers must safeguard their clients' money. Seems obvious, but does this spell a more thorough professional conduct syllabus for PLCers? Haha!
Q1. You have a million dollars of clients' money. What do you do with it?
A. Hold it on behalf of your client
B. Run away with it to a country which does not have an extradition treaty with SG.
C. Nothing because one million Sing dollars is too little and not worth the potential punishment if you are caught.
He used to live in the same kampung as our grandparents. This ostensibly passes our 'two degrees' test because I asked my grandmother if he would know who she is and she said yes. Anyway she knows his parents.
5. Chee Soon Juan
Is Gloria's friend's cousin. Dr Chee Soon Juan of the Singapore Democratic Party gained notoriety in the 2001 general election when he made defamatory remarks about then Prime Minister Goh and Senior Minister Lee. Not smart. He has been declared bankrupt (couldn't pay the damages) and we (Singaporeans as a whole) haven't really heard from him since then.
6. Hossan Leong
Knows a director I've worked for before, Jonathon Lim. I know they definitely know each other because they shared a stage for 'Hark the Jingle Red-Nosed Chestnuts', an annual christmas musical-parody. I worked for Chestnuts when I was in VJ and then when I was bumming around, waiting to go to Uni. But Sean, one half of the stage duo of Sean and Jon, left the show and was replaced by Hossan Leong in one of he productions that I didn't get to watch. But Chestnuts still holds a special place in my heart. One year the centrepiece was a nativity play according to a soundtrack of Madonna's 80s hits, like Like A Prayer, Like A Virgin, Papa Don't Preach and Lucky Star. You can imagine.
Who can forget the deliciously irreverant one-liners! Though now admittedly dated, at the time they were genius.
From the makers of Titanic: (sung to the central tune of Les Miserables, "Do you hear the people sing?") Do You Hear The People Sink?
And,
[Jon knew the actual actor who played the Architect in the Matrix and got him to do a video cameo, so this really was the Architect]
Architect: Neo, you are the One. (pause) Ring To Rule Them All.
Architect: You are the One, Nemo (picture of disney clownfish).
7. Neil Humphreys
Taught me (TOR) speech and drama when I was in IJ. Maybe he won't recognise me anymore, but I'm sure he'll pretend to. He was a columnist for Today and has written a series of books about his experiences in Singapore including, Notes from an Even Smaller Island, and Scribbles from the Same Island. The Bill Bryson allusion is apt since Humphreys is an Englishman who lived in Toa Payoh, deep in the heartlands of Singapore, much like Bryson in middle America.
Here is a sample of his writing:http://www.wildsingapore.org/news/20050506/050618-1.htm
8. Cheryl Fox
Is Gloria's friend Vanessa's cousin. She was a TV news presenter on Channel News Asia and also does other stuff for Mediacorp.
9. Sylvia Toh Paik Choo
knows my grandmother. They used to live in the same housing estate. She's a writer for The New Paper and has written several funny books.
10. Adrian Lim
was a neighbour of our grandmother's cousin. He was a psychotic murderer who lived in Toa Payoh and killed a lot of vulnerable sweet young things in the 80s. Hence my mother's unwillingness to let me walk around Toa Payoh by myself even after he was safely caught.
I was going to put pictures on this post but can't make it work so you just have to imagine. It worked when I did a draft of this but suddenly all the pictures went away. I think it's the Blogger Ju On causing havoc the only way it knows how.
or Our Two Degrees of Separation From Various Household Names
One night Glor and I were watching Singapore Idol when Gloria mentioned that her friend Jenny knew long-haired braces guy, and various other not-so-obviously-noticeable contestants. Seems it's true that there are only 2 degrees of separation between Singaporeans. For fun, Glor and me decided to make a list of all the famous people that know people that we know. It's actually quite a respectable list.
We've only included famous people who would actually recognise the name of the person that we know; as in, if you said, 'Do you know Jonathon Lim?' to Hossan Leong, he would say, 'Of course! How is he, anyway?', hopefully with a smile. I've taken 'two degrees' to mean 'friend of a friend/relative' such that there is only one person who is the intermediary between the famous person, and us ('Glor, Tor and Family').
The threshold of famousity we've used for this list is name-recognition by the average person on the street. Therefore, worthy candidates such as 'guy from Electrico' (our friend KC's friend) have been rejected in favour of Cheryl Fox, and people who I believe to be flashes in the pan like Joanne Peh (my friend Sheena's ex-coursemate) have been left out to make space for old stalwarts like Patricia Mok. However, people who have been in the news recently for some reason or other have also been included, based on the assumption that the man on the street reads The Straits Times headlines on most days. In other words, if I've never heard of them, they're not famous.
These days, every young singaporean who has appeared however briefly on some TV programme or commercial considers themselves famous! Why has fame become desirable in itself? Surely it can and should only be the result of being particularly oustanding in your chosen field? I know that's an old-fashioned view. I'm sure that it was possible, even before the advent of reality TV, to get (in)famous without being talented. Many generations of young starlets have proved this. But due to the phenomenon of programmes like Big Brother, people have been able to 'get famous' by doing absolutely nothing, on TV. We all know that is the sensationalism that sells. Everytime someone has sex in front of the camera they get famous. What is this celebration of the lowest common denominator, and why is it suddenly ok to be a voyeur? But enough of this rant, let's look at the list.
In no particular order, Famous People etc.:
1. Paul Twohill
Is Gloria's friend, Jenny's friend. Paul is a contestant on Singapore Idol and although he has not proved his staying power yet, he is included on the list since he's the one who started this whole thing.
2. Eunice Olsen
Is our aunt's friend's niece. She is a Nominated Member of Parliament, and the former co-host of the Singapore version of Wheel of Fortune. She was also Miss Singapore Universe 2000.
3. Patricia Mok
Is Gloria's friend's aunt. She is a Mediacorp actress who often appears in comedies. She used to be on Channel 8 (Chinese language channel) quite a lot but has now crossed over to Channel 5 (English language channel) and can be seen in the sitcom My Sassy Neighbour.
4. David Rasif
Sorry I can't find a picture.
Who? The local lawyer who absconded with S$10mil of his clients' money! The man whose actions, in my own opinion, was behind the comment MM LKY made in an interview for a Law Society publication, reported in the papers around National Day. He stressed that lawyers must safeguard their clients' money. Seems obvious, but does this spell a more thorough professional conduct syllabus for PLCers? Haha!
Q1. You have a million dollars of clients' money. What do you do with it?
A. Hold it on behalf of your client
B. Run away with it to a country which does not have an extradition treaty with SG.
C. Nothing because one million Sing dollars is too little and not worth the potential punishment if you are caught.
He used to live in the same kampung as our grandparents. This ostensibly passes our 'two degrees' test because I asked my grandmother if he would know who she is and she said yes. Anyway she knows his parents.
5. Chee Soon Juan
Is Gloria's friend's cousin. Dr Chee Soon Juan of the Singapore Democratic Party gained notoriety in the 2001 general election when he made defamatory remarks about then Prime Minister Goh and Senior Minister Lee. Not smart. He has been declared bankrupt (couldn't pay the damages) and we (Singaporeans as a whole) haven't really heard from him since then.
6. Hossan Leong
Knows a director I've worked for before, Jonathon Lim. I know they definitely know each other because they shared a stage for 'Hark the Jingle Red-Nosed Chestnuts', an annual christmas musical-parody. I worked for Chestnuts when I was in VJ and then when I was bumming around, waiting to go to Uni. But Sean, one half of the stage duo of Sean and Jon, left the show and was replaced by Hossan Leong in one of he productions that I didn't get to watch. But Chestnuts still holds a special place in my heart. One year the centrepiece was a nativity play according to a soundtrack of Madonna's 80s hits, like Like A Prayer, Like A Virgin, Papa Don't Preach and Lucky Star. You can imagine.
Who can forget the deliciously irreverant one-liners! Though now admittedly dated, at the time they were genius.
From the makers of Titanic: (sung to the central tune of Les Miserables, "Do you hear the people sing?") Do You Hear The People Sink?
And,
[Jon knew the actual actor who played the Architect in the Matrix and got him to do a video cameo, so this really was the Architect]
Architect: Neo, you are the One. (pause) Ring To Rule Them All.
Architect: You are the One, Nemo (picture of disney clownfish).
7. Neil Humphreys
Taught me (TOR) speech and drama when I was in IJ. Maybe he won't recognise me anymore, but I'm sure he'll pretend to. He was a columnist for Today and has written a series of books about his experiences in Singapore including, Notes from an Even Smaller Island, and Scribbles from the Same Island. The Bill Bryson allusion is apt since Humphreys is an Englishman who lived in Toa Payoh, deep in the heartlands of Singapore, much like Bryson in middle America.
Here is a sample of his writing:http://www.wildsingapore.org/news/20050506/050618-1.htm
8. Cheryl Fox
Is Gloria's friend Vanessa's cousin. She was a TV news presenter on Channel News Asia and also does other stuff for Mediacorp.
9. Sylvia Toh Paik Choo
knows my grandmother. They used to live in the same housing estate. She's a writer for The New Paper and has written several funny books.
10. Adrian Lim
was a neighbour of our grandmother's cousin. He was a psychotic murderer who lived in Toa Payoh and killed a lot of vulnerable sweet young things in the 80s. Hence my mother's unwillingness to let me walk around Toa Payoh by myself even after he was safely caught.
I was going to put pictures on this post but can't make it work so you just have to imagine. It worked when I did a draft of this but suddenly all the pictures went away. I think it's the Blogger Ju On causing havoc the only way it knows how.
Friday, August 11, 2006
THIS IS TOR! TOR! NOT GLOR
We aren't very sophisticated, are we? But everytime I am back in Singapore, I feel my mind regressing and sinking into mush. My usually razor-sharp wit degenerates from watching too much CSI. I'm planning a trip to the east coast of australia with my boyfriend, Jamie, where we will can guan beautiful sandy beaches, majestic waterfalls, and giant earthworms. It will be like something out of Slaughterhouse Five (or substitute with any other post-apocalyptic movie set in the deserted future with large mutated animals). We're still in the research stage and he just asked his friend, amusingly named 'Chris, the Nazi', what to expect from hostels.
So he sent me this email:
"Regarding hostels in general, he (Chris) said on a note of caution, "they are full of 18 year old kids trying to get laid and it gets pretty tiring". He recommended staying in a few hotels along the way to avoid the desire to murder horny teenagers. Basically we will be the oldest people there
- Apparently there is a reason why dorm rooms are so much cheaper. This is because they are full of 18 year old kids trying to get laid. They are pretty noisy and tend to stay up all night.
- Don't bother with the OZ experience. An East Coast Greyhound pass will take you to the same places for about 2/3 of the price. Again, the OZ experience is full of 18 year old kids trying to get laid.
So, basically, 18 year old kids trying to get laid may haunt us. Personally I'm happy to pay a bit more at times to have somewhere slightly nicer. Having roughed it throughout Europe I can tell you its not nearly as earthy and romantic as you might imagine. It can get extremely depressing. And as we'll have more money than God next year we may as well try to be as comfortable as possible."
I feel old. One big attraction of the east coast for me is the possibility of seeing giant earthworms, like this:
We aren't very sophisticated, are we? But everytime I am back in Singapore, I feel my mind regressing and sinking into mush. My usually razor-sharp wit degenerates from watching too much CSI. I'm planning a trip to the east coast of australia with my boyfriend, Jamie, where we will can guan beautiful sandy beaches, majestic waterfalls, and giant earthworms. It will be like something out of Slaughterhouse Five (or substitute with any other post-apocalyptic movie set in the deserted future with large mutated animals). We're still in the research stage and he just asked his friend, amusingly named 'Chris, the Nazi', what to expect from hostels.
So he sent me this email:
"Regarding hostels in general, he (Chris) said on a note of caution, "they are full of 18 year old kids trying to get laid and it gets pretty tiring". He recommended staying in a few hotels along the way to avoid the desire to murder horny teenagers. Basically we will be the oldest people there
- Apparently there is a reason why dorm rooms are so much cheaper. This is because they are full of 18 year old kids trying to get laid. They are pretty noisy and tend to stay up all night.
- Don't bother with the OZ experience. An East Coast Greyhound pass will take you to the same places for about 2/3 of the price. Again, the OZ experience is full of 18 year old kids trying to get laid.
So, basically, 18 year old kids trying to get laid may haunt us. Personally I'm happy to pay a bit more at times to have somewhere slightly nicer. Having roughed it throughout Europe I can tell you its not nearly as earthy and romantic as you might imagine. It can get extremely depressing. And as we'll have more money than God next year we may as well try to be as comfortable as possible."
I feel old. One big attraction of the east coast for me is the possibility of seeing giant earthworms, like this:
Notice that the caption says 'juvenile' giant earthworm. Imagine what the adult version would look like!
So it got me thinking about what I was doing when I was 18. What was I doing when I was 18? Writing a play with my groupmates for our A level exams about how we were all cheena-piang even though none of us wanted to be, aka 'finding our roots through drama' and other wanky pretensious bullshit. My 18 year old sister is presently trying to get to level 60 for world of warcraft. It makes me wonder if we should have been trying to get laid and if we have missed out on a world of fun (and syphilis).
I suppose I would rather Gloria define her existence by trying to get to level 60 than trying to get laid.
I know I have definitely missed out on my most fruitful backpacker years. Now that I am old, I prefer my bit of comfort, ie. air-conditioned rooms, or even, rooms, instead of tents. In Greece, I know I preferred my own double bed in our rented villa on Mykonos to our 7euro a night Athens bunkbed. Yet part of travelling rough is the possibility of meeting new people (usually with a view to having another place to crash should you decide to visit their home city in future), and you meet the most people by sharing a dorm room in hostels.
Sometimes, young people being young people, they fall into each others' beds. Gloria and I witnessed first-hand such a phenomenon in Paris. But I can't be bothered to tell you about it because it is a boring story anyway.
I had a very innocent and boring childhood/teenagehood. I never took any drugs or had alcohol or casual sex, as my frustrated ex-boyfriends will testify. I didn't get to travel until I was safely out of the country, when I was 20. Jamie is right to say that we will be the oldest there. Even when I was in Shanghai I was the 2nd oldest in my little group of acceptable people to hang out with. When did I go from always being the youngest in every group to being the oldest?
My childhood was really quite idyllic. I had 50cents to spend every day. When I wanted to splurge, I would save up and spend a whole fifty cents on a giant bag of ikan bilis, with chilli of course.
That was in Primary 1. My standard lunch would be a 30cent plate of curry chicken which would include 1 potato cut into half and 1 piece of chicken. And a 10cent cup of fako ribena that was actually made from cheap grape cordial of some sort. Or a very small plate of mee siam for 40cents which came with half a boiled egg. And perhaps a packet of seaweed (4 paper-thin slices) for 10cents as a snack for later. Or chee cheong fun with thick black sweet sauce and sesame seed oil for 30cents and mixed fruit punch for 10cents. That way I could have 10cents left over to buy stickers from the school stationery shop to add to my collection of shiny stickers, scratch 'n' sniff stickers, furry stickers, 'branded' stickers like carebears and my little pony collection, and glow in the dark stickers.
For amusement, we would play, 'What is the time, Mr Wolf'? and other enlightened games like catching which allowed us to run around and not be fat. Nowadays, schoolchildren eat at MacDonalds and just watch movies on their iPods. While waiting for the bus, our favourite activity was to pluck little red Ixora flowers growing by the roadside, take out the stamen of the flower, and suck out the nectar. Now, kids have sex in void decks.
I remember the time blue M&Ms did not exist. Remember when kitkat was packaged in foil then wrapped in paper? Now you have chunky kitkat, peanut kitkat, sakura kitkat. I think their sales would increase if they brought back the paper-wrapped kitkat. Do you remember the days before blue M&Ms? If you do, you must be at least 20. Ah, those were simpler times.
I remember when there was no MacDonalds in Bishan. Now, there are 2 in Junction 8 alone! Do you remember the time you thought MacDonalds was not evil, but a place of happiness and fun and nice ice-cream in cones? Yes, when we were like those deluded little children in Supersize Me who ultimately could not recognise a picture of Jesus Christ or George Bush but pointed out Ronald MacDonald easily. Now my 18 year old sister is aware and mature enough to realise that they are taking over the world. So perhaps there is hope yet.
My teenage years were marked by trying to do well, not to get in the popular girls' way and arrogantly trying to assert my superiority over all (what's new, haha). I'm sure we have all been there. Then the later JC years were all about biding my time until I could flee the overwhelming inanity of everyday life here. Now all I want to do is set up a kopitiam in London so I can re-capture this mundane sense of sian-ness. But it will be an artistic, fashionable, ironic sian-ness, which some people call ennui. And I will let people smoke and read whatever wanky postmodern continental writers they want to. I will serve teh, teh-peng, skinny teh-peng(reduced fat condensed milk), kopi, skinny kopi, kopi with dao huay chui, green tea, green tea peng and various bubble teas.
Then I would have loads of nibbly things on the menu, like curry puff, ikan bilis, prata, durian puff, spring roll, nasi lemak and laksa (with ham! not ham, ham! i.e cockles) Would you patronise my cafe?
Tuesday, August 01, 2006
Alright, wrote this in class, like I used to before work piled up.
Eldred is back! With longer hair and a goatee sort of thing, which makes him look older. It doesn't help that he needs the aid of a cane to get around, even if it is a very pretty plastic one, being clear and very non-grandfather looking. It's very amusing to stroll down Orchard arm in arm with him, especially in my school uniform. It's good to have him back.
Speaking of assistance, econs tuition is a wonder. The tutor is in such high damand that there is little space left; they might open another slot, for the popular prelim prep class, making 7 slots in all. Thank god for my early sign up. So if anyone needs econs tuition, drop me a msg quick, and I'll point you in the right direction.
(This was when I migrated to the colder climate of Geog lecture). No one's paying attention as we're all too burnt out from doing nothing but geog essay outlines since we got back to school this term. This is the place where the most nonsense takes place; random scribbles on the attendance sheet going around, and pictures taken, under the table. Today one of my male classmates is trying to draw blue chest hair on himself. This is alright, because if he were trying to draw chest hair on the boy next to him, that would be really odd.
My mum's on leave til tomorrow and is having a ball of a time cleaning the house. She was cleaning the windows today when she discovered fingerprints on the outer side of the window, of the study room. No one from the house has had cause to press a face against that window for ages, so... ah well. Anyway, if anyone really were trying to break in, sawing through the grills would wake up the whole neighbourhood.
Oh woe is me, for Bol bol has not arrived, and my sister gets back tomorrow. I think she's just going to take the liberty of ninja-ing my bolster while I'm asleep, so why don't I just save her the trouble and give it up, ne? After all, she's done it since she was 7, what's to stop her from doing it now that she's 23? She will also make up something to actually justify it, mark my words.
grumblegrumble
Eldred is back! With longer hair and a goatee sort of thing, which makes him look older. It doesn't help that he needs the aid of a cane to get around, even if it is a very pretty plastic one, being clear and very non-grandfather looking. It's very amusing to stroll down Orchard arm in arm with him, especially in my school uniform. It's good to have him back.
Speaking of assistance, econs tuition is a wonder. The tutor is in such high damand that there is little space left; they might open another slot, for the popular prelim prep class, making 7 slots in all. Thank god for my early sign up. So if anyone needs econs tuition, drop me a msg quick, and I'll point you in the right direction.
(This was when I migrated to the colder climate of Geog lecture). No one's paying attention as we're all too burnt out from doing nothing but geog essay outlines since we got back to school this term. This is the place where the most nonsense takes place; random scribbles on the attendance sheet going around, and pictures taken, under the table. Today one of my male classmates is trying to draw blue chest hair on himself. This is alright, because if he were trying to draw chest hair on the boy next to him, that would be really odd.
My mum's on leave til tomorrow and is having a ball of a time cleaning the house. She was cleaning the windows today when she discovered fingerprints on the outer side of the window, of the study room. No one from the house has had cause to press a face against that window for ages, so... ah well. Anyway, if anyone really were trying to break in, sawing through the grills would wake up the whole neighbourhood.
Oh woe is me, for Bol bol has not arrived, and my sister gets back tomorrow. I think she's just going to take the liberty of ninja-ing my bolster while I'm asleep, so why don't I just save her the trouble and give it up, ne? After all, she's done it since she was 7, what's to stop her from doing it now that she's 23? She will also make up something to actually justify it, mark my words.
grumblegrumble
Sunday, July 30, 2006
I thought that between the two of us we'd get a post out at least once a month but apparently I thought wrong. Bah.
My sister Victoria, who now speaks chinese like a native chinese speaker (or at least that's what my mother says) and who cannot wait to get back home because the sheer chinese of China is getting to her, will be back this week, Wednesday the 2nd of August, 11ish in the evening. I am posting this because many people are asking, so I assume other people who want to know might actually read this blog.
Righto. Ment to post lots at one point, but the scrap of paper where I jotted all the things down got lost somewhere in my pile of notes. So here goes, off the top of my head:
Our form teacher gave my whole class pencil cases this year, for youth day. It's stripped green and blue, an unoffensive dark shade, thank you very much. Am very happy with it as was tired of battered old pencil case in which bits of paper kept getting lost. It's cute, to walk into class and see practically everyone using the same pencil case, even if it does get a bit disconcerting after a while.
Been reading too much Prachett. A wizard's staff has a knob on the end~!
Note to self: Shall Not miss Him while He's gone. Also Shall Not Whine.
Will write more when I remember, am off to do Econs, bleah.
My sister Victoria, who now speaks chinese like a native chinese speaker (or at least that's what my mother says) and who cannot wait to get back home because the sheer chinese of China is getting to her, will be back this week, Wednesday the 2nd of August, 11ish in the evening. I am posting this because many people are asking, so I assume other people who want to know might actually read this blog.
Righto. Ment to post lots at one point, but the scrap of paper where I jotted all the things down got lost somewhere in my pile of notes. So here goes, off the top of my head:
Our form teacher gave my whole class pencil cases this year, for youth day. It's stripped green and blue, an unoffensive dark shade, thank you very much. Am very happy with it as was tired of battered old pencil case in which bits of paper kept getting lost. It's cute, to walk into class and see practically everyone using the same pencil case, even if it does get a bit disconcerting after a while.
Been reading too much Prachett. A wizard's staff has a knob on the end~!
Note to self: Shall Not miss Him while He's gone. Also Shall Not Whine.
Will write more when I remember, am off to do Econs, bleah.
Saturday, June 24, 2006
My bedroom has a lighted altar (I am catholic). I live on the ground floor. So, I nearly set fire to my room while trying to exterminate a cockroach. Hrm, a bit of an overkill. It feels like something is telling my mage to return to fire spec.
It is possible for me to live without my iPod for a month. It isn't nice, but it isn't totally evil either. Thus, I have proved to myself that I am not a battery powered teenager.
Econs tuition is a miracle that should be spread to the masses, more pimping to be done at a later date.
You know, despite all your sexiness, I feel more at ease chatting with you on the phone rather than being physically beside you. Though that is nice too. Awfully nice...
No, my paragraphs do not have the flowy thing I do that makes my entries organised, I spent 4 hours in the form of my mid year lit exam doing that today. So excuse my frazzled brain. But some things ought to be put down so that I show that I am alive, and before interesting stuff gets lost in my non-blogging moods.
Ok, off to sleep. Hols, warm weather and... other stuff are wreaking havoc on internal clock.
It is possible for me to live without my iPod for a month. It isn't nice, but it isn't totally evil either. Thus, I have proved to myself that I am not a battery powered teenager.
Econs tuition is a miracle that should be spread to the masses, more pimping to be done at a later date.
You know, despite all your sexiness, I feel more at ease chatting with you on the phone rather than being physically beside you. Though that is nice too. Awfully nice...
No, my paragraphs do not have the flowy thing I do that makes my entries organised, I spent 4 hours in the form of my mid year lit exam doing that today. So excuse my frazzled brain. But some things ought to be put down so that I show that I am alive, and before interesting stuff gets lost in my non-blogging moods.
Ok, off to sleep. Hols, warm weather and... other stuff are wreaking havoc on internal clock.
Monday, May 08, 2006
I respect the idea of self preservation; heck I do it all the time. But at the expense of others and you dare talk back. Good thing you're around, because now I know the extent of audacity that people are capable of. People Like That Are the Only People Here, as Lorrie Moore put it (I only know this reference because it came out for the lit prat crit mock today larh, you think what).
Literary Evening preparations are going alright, but Cass is really annoyed by the whole thing, poor girl. For some reason she got stuck with multiple tasks, as usual. Oh gee, I wonder why. On the other hand, timing couldn't be more perfect, as day after is the annual sports carnival (see: picnic and/or ice cream at Stanley's) followed by Vesak day.
Playing the Lamb character from Blake's collection of Songs, that we did last year. Fortunate enough to have been able to borrow a young-ish looking white dress that Cass used to wear at 12, so have to wear one of my typical bandanas to preserve the flat cut. Make what you will of that information.
Slipped into character quite easily after getting the hang of it; is very similar to Caitlin Fay, my Ars Magica persona. We even do the same things, like give out flowers to random people. The Lamb isn't likely to have any inclination to want to screw up your mind while doing it though, which is the not so similar bit.
Did I mention the change of seating plan? My row seems to have stuff to eat all the time, mostly candy and chocolate. Never hit a sugar high though, school sucks that much out of me, it seems. Ah well, hooray for the iPod that can store stuff to watch!
Literary Evening preparations are going alright, but Cass is really annoyed by the whole thing, poor girl. For some reason she got stuck with multiple tasks, as usual. Oh gee, I wonder why. On the other hand, timing couldn't be more perfect, as day after is the annual sports carnival (see: picnic and/or ice cream at Stanley's) followed by Vesak day.
Playing the Lamb character from Blake's collection of Songs, that we did last year. Fortunate enough to have been able to borrow a young-ish looking white dress that Cass used to wear at 12, so have to wear one of my typical bandanas to preserve the flat cut. Make what you will of that information.
Slipped into character quite easily after getting the hang of it; is very similar to Caitlin Fay, my Ars Magica persona. We even do the same things, like give out flowers to random people. The Lamb isn't likely to have any inclination to want to screw up your mind while doing it though, which is the not so similar bit.
Did I mention the change of seating plan? My row seems to have stuff to eat all the time, mostly candy and chocolate. Never hit a sugar high though, school sucks that much out of me, it seems. Ah well, hooray for the iPod that can store stuff to watch!
Tuesday, April 25, 2006
Warm, yellow sunlight. Thick and honeyed, like the maple syrup Tsu once gave you during recess that you poured into your mango tea. Mmm...
Still air that you don't notice you're breathing. The teacher's voice carries well; ironic that you don't have to listen. It's Physics or some such after all. You scribble on.
Tyrone's opinion of 'dreams', life is insubstantial. Cross ref 'ghost within a ghost' img and Dowson's 'misty dream'.
The brightness throws you into that super conscious state you get when you've a fever; or drunk (sometimes you can't tell the difference). The surroundings make you fully aware of their presence. Scribble scribble.
Warm air parcels rising makes air instability, common in weather typical of Singapore.
You're starting to get fond of the shelter-pavillion thing just outside your class. You feel safe there, on the margin. Until it rains, that is.
_____
So. Cookie selling for international friendship day may not have gone so smoothly but our objectives were met. Nearly a thousand dollars raised, woot. Talking to strangers for orders wasn't all that bad. Well, except for the ones that gave not much of a reaction and just stared.
We'd left the butter cookie storage box in the corner. It's been weeks since anyone's shifted it. Interestingly, Bob found termites under the thing yesterday, after he toppled it over (as is a boy's fashion). They're rather cute, except for that mindless -insectish- sound they make when in a mass. The termites, not boys. Actually, boys too I guess. Sorry dear.
For once, I got gold for the physical fitness test. First in forever, even since primary school. I've found that running long distance (ie the 2.4) isn't all that bad, when you don't think about it. For example, don't imagine that you're running from Brill to Silverpine, that's just depressing. You monitor your breathing and pace, but that's it. The thing is just don't -think-. But that's just my opinion.
And to all those who gave a damn after my last post: thanks. It means alot. But I'm fine now, there's nothing approaching the edge of my annoying person/whatever tolerance threshold at the moment, that I've to compensate for. And I've gotten over the whole social disadvantage thing.
Thank you, thank you so much.
Still air that you don't notice you're breathing. The teacher's voice carries well; ironic that you don't have to listen. It's Physics or some such after all. You scribble on.
Tyrone's opinion of 'dreams', life is insubstantial. Cross ref 'ghost within a ghost' img and Dowson's 'misty dream'.
The brightness throws you into that super conscious state you get when you've a fever; or drunk (sometimes you can't tell the difference). The surroundings make you fully aware of their presence. Scribble scribble.
Warm air parcels rising makes air instability, common in weather typical of Singapore.
You're starting to get fond of the shelter-pavillion thing just outside your class. You feel safe there, on the margin. Until it rains, that is.
_____
So. Cookie selling for international friendship day may not have gone so smoothly but our objectives were met. Nearly a thousand dollars raised, woot. Talking to strangers for orders wasn't all that bad. Well, except for the ones that gave not much of a reaction and just stared.
We'd left the butter cookie storage box in the corner. It's been weeks since anyone's shifted it. Interestingly, Bob found termites under the thing yesterday, after he toppled it over (as is a boy's fashion). They're rather cute, except for that mindless -insectish- sound they make when in a mass. The termites, not boys. Actually, boys too I guess. Sorry dear.
For once, I got gold for the physical fitness test. First in forever, even since primary school. I've found that running long distance (ie the 2.4) isn't all that bad, when you don't think about it. For example, don't imagine that you're running from Brill to Silverpine, that's just depressing. You monitor your breathing and pace, but that's it. The thing is just don't -think-. But that's just my opinion.
And to all those who gave a damn after my last post: thanks. It means alot. But I'm fine now, there's nothing approaching the edge of my annoying person/whatever tolerance threshold at the moment, that I've to compensate for. And I've gotten over the whole social disadvantage thing.
Thank you, thank you so much.
Friday, March 31, 2006
Actually, what's the point? I'll carry on as usual, why should I not carry weird conversations, with people you don't know, in front of you? It's not like you don't impress any of your influence on me, look at the class dynamics.
Yeah, being all irrational was fun. But I'm not going to bother putting up barriers, it's too much effort. You're not worth it anyway.
Yeah, being all irrational was fun. But I'm not going to bother putting up barriers, it's too much effort. You're not worth it anyway.
Thursday, March 30, 2006
Ok, I give up. You win. I'll get out of your life, because I'm tired of trying. I'm not stupid, I can see and hear for myself.
Bimbos and people who hate my guts. Then everyone else is in a tight clique. So what's new? I've dealt with worse, only difference being I had people like Tora and Rosie in the immediate vicinity to take the edge off. Now the geographically closest people around have their own problems to deal with, plus I only see them what, twice a week?
Yeah, I'll still let you make use of me. Whatever. But I'll keep my damn mouth shut in class, I know it's the thing that annoys you most.
[edit] Yes, I know that I'm being petty. Let's just see where it goes anyway, shall we?[/edit]
Now, I have work to do.
Bimbos and people who hate my guts. Then everyone else is in a tight clique. So what's new? I've dealt with worse, only difference being I had people like Tora and Rosie in the immediate vicinity to take the edge off. Now the geographically closest people around have their own problems to deal with, plus I only see them what, twice a week?
Yeah, I'll still let you make use of me. Whatever. But I'll keep my damn mouth shut in class, I know it's the thing that annoys you most.
[edit] Yes, I know that I'm being petty. Let's just see where it goes anyway, shall we?[/edit]
Now, I have work to do.
Thursday, March 23, 2006
Ok, so I mostly screwed up my common tests. Not sure how to tell parents. I actually have to start studying -properly- now, damn. I can feel the marathon, in the pace of school and the structure of work.
Urban case studies to be completed, by May. Econs graphs for all topics usable by June. Lit notes to be re-written by end of May.
You know, someone once told me you thought of your life as a sort of anime. Maybe it is, because every other week now you're telling me, or I'm hearing something that's gone wrong. I think maybe I've gone past the point of caring, because it's tiring, and because all I can do is listen. Does that make me a bad friend?
Mother's slipped disc isn't getting any better, and it's been more than 3 months.
And having an absent boyfriend gives me license to say "insert angsty teenage quote here".
Sometimes I think he's a fantasy I came up with, in those hazy moments of half dream, or half consciousness. A distant figure that speaks as a stream of words on a screen. Talk of work, mocks, parents. Though of course, he's still the same charming figure. Just strained, which is perfectly understandable.
It is selfish, but I find myself retreating, my heart placed more on anime I used to enjoy so much, and books. It is better. I think I'm not cut out for this.
Urban case studies to be completed, by May. Econs graphs for all topics usable by June. Lit notes to be re-written by end of May.
You know, someone once told me you thought of your life as a sort of anime. Maybe it is, because every other week now you're telling me, or I'm hearing something that's gone wrong. I think maybe I've gone past the point of caring, because it's tiring, and because all I can do is listen. Does that make me a bad friend?
Mother's slipped disc isn't getting any better, and it's been more than 3 months.
And having an absent boyfriend gives me license to say "insert angsty teenage quote here".
Sometimes I think he's a fantasy I came up with, in those hazy moments of half dream, or half consciousness. A distant figure that speaks as a stream of words on a screen. Talk of work, mocks, parents. Though of course, he's still the same charming figure. Just strained, which is perfectly understandable.
It is selfish, but I find myself retreating, my heart placed more on anime I used to enjoy so much, and books. It is better. I think I'm not cut out for this.
Sunday, March 05, 2006
THIS IS TOR
Ok, ok, I am guilty of forgetting Glor's birthday... but I remembered a few days later! Anyway I hope Glor had a happy birthday. Here is the very delayed meme of 4 thingies that I can suddenly do now because I've finished my exams! Yay. Just went to Edinburgh for a couple of days, will post pictures when I have internet again. It was snowing and the whole city was so pretty, like in a fairytale! (*simper simper, pirouette, big eyes*)
Meme of 4
4 Jobs You’ve Had In Your Life
Off the top of my head,
1. Stage manager for a show in the singapore arts festival (haha sounds cool but lots of shit work actually) Also various FOH and backstage work for shows.
2. working in the zoo. one job I had was to carry an albino python around so that the photographer could offer to take pictures of people with the snake.
3. intern at legal research centre. was cool writing letters and faxes to famous publishing houses. 4. shop girl in a shop serving tai tais.
4 Movies You Could Watch Over And Over
Before Sunset
Spirited Away
Snoopy Come Home
Interview with the Vampire
4 TV Shows You Love(d) To Watch
CSI (original only)
Sex and the City
South Park
Futurama
Desperate Housewives
Temptation Island sorry! I can't help it... it's order of preference though.
4 Places You’ve Been On Vacation To
where do i start? Can I do it by country? China (shanghai, beijing, xian, guangzhou, suzhou, guilin, HK..)
New York and DC (best vacation ever)
Italy (Florence, Rome, Milan, Naples, Capri, Venice, Ancona, Sardinia)-- favourite european country
Malaysia-- Sipadan, a tiny island off the east coast that's closed now for "ecological reasons"
4 Places You Would Rather Be
right now? or to live in?
Right now: Home in SG
South coast of France
Queensland
In SIA first class flying home to SG, watching loads of movies, eating nice food and wrapped up really warm, not having to worry about stuff like rent, work etc. bliss.
Live in:
I'm actually happy where I am in London if the weather picks up
NY
Paris, if I could speak French
SG, if I can go to thailand to shop/tan/eat nice food every weekend
4 Of Your Favourite Foods
This is a real toughie
Laksa with 'ham'
Old Chang Kee curry puff
just plain old bloody mee pok
And it's a tie between -really- good coffee, and spaghetti vongole at ciao bella. (actually their tiramisu comes a close third, hm)
Ok, ok, I am guilty of forgetting Glor's birthday... but I remembered a few days later! Anyway I hope Glor had a happy birthday. Here is the very delayed meme of 4 thingies that I can suddenly do now because I've finished my exams! Yay. Just went to Edinburgh for a couple of days, will post pictures when I have internet again. It was snowing and the whole city was so pretty, like in a fairytale! (*simper simper, pirouette, big eyes*)
Meme of 4
4 Jobs You’ve Had In Your Life
Off the top of my head,
1. Stage manager for a show in the singapore arts festival (haha sounds cool but lots of shit work actually) Also various FOH and backstage work for shows.
2. working in the zoo. one job I had was to carry an albino python around so that the photographer could offer to take pictures of people with the snake.
3. intern at legal research centre. was cool writing letters and faxes to famous publishing houses. 4. shop girl in a shop serving tai tais.
4 Movies You Could Watch Over And Over
Before Sunset
Spirited Away
Snoopy Come Home
Interview with the Vampire
4 TV Shows You Love(d) To Watch
CSI (original only)
Sex and the City
South Park
Futurama
Desperate Housewives
Temptation Island sorry! I can't help it... it's order of preference though.
4 Places You’ve Been On Vacation To
where do i start? Can I do it by country? China (shanghai, beijing, xian, guangzhou, suzhou, guilin, HK..)
New York and DC (best vacation ever)
Italy (Florence, Rome, Milan, Naples, Capri, Venice, Ancona, Sardinia)-- favourite european country
Malaysia-- Sipadan, a tiny island off the east coast that's closed now for "ecological reasons"
4 Places You Would Rather Be
right now? or to live in?
Right now: Home in SG
South coast of France
Queensland
In SIA first class flying home to SG, watching loads of movies, eating nice food and wrapped up really warm, not having to worry about stuff like rent, work etc. bliss.
Live in:
I'm actually happy where I am in London if the weather picks up
NY
Paris, if I could speak French
SG, if I can go to thailand to shop/tan/eat nice food every weekend
4 Of Your Favourite Foods
This is a real toughie
Laksa with 'ham'
Old Chang Kee curry puff
just plain old bloody mee pok
And it's a tie between -really- good coffee, and spaghetti vongole at ciao bella. (actually their tiramisu comes a close third, hm)
Monday, February 27, 2006
Hahaa, with exception of my parents, my whole family forgot my birthday this month! Ach, doesn't matter, got advanced birthday presents and trip to London last year, I really don't give much of a damn. It's times like these that make me think that yes, money can buy happiness.
Sort of caught up with Tora recently, glad to see that she's doing alright. Am really missing those IJ days now, when we could afford to skive off work and I'd crash at her place in the afternoons after school to watch FMA or go all PoT crazy. Which reminds me, need to go and look for the movie.
On the other hand, school is looking up. Not in corner of class anymore as have switched seats with Cindy. I really like the 2 girls I'm sandwiched between. But I'm becoming a bit more normal, damn! Let's see if this turns out to be a good thing.
Eh, Tor. When you coming back arh, out of curiousity? I'll need to clear my notes out of the spare room larh. And find someplace new to store them, don't know how I'm going to do that...
Sort of caught up with Tora recently, glad to see that she's doing alright. Am really missing those IJ days now, when we could afford to skive off work and I'd crash at her place in the afternoons after school to watch FMA or go all PoT crazy. Which reminds me, need to go and look for the movie.
On the other hand, school is looking up. Not in corner of class anymore as have switched seats with Cindy. I really like the 2 girls I'm sandwiched between. But I'm becoming a bit more normal, damn! Let's see if this turns out to be a good thing.
Eh, Tor. When you coming back arh, out of curiousity? I'll need to clear my notes out of the spare room larh. And find someplace new to store them, don't know how I'm going to do that...
Tuesday, February 14, 2006
Natasha: 'my valentine's date is with my books'
Tsu: 'my valentine's date is with my paintbrush'
Me: 'my valentine's date lives in China'
I still stand by what I said to Tsu, at least a paintbrush is long and pointy. You can do stuff to take advantage of that.
Hrm. On the bright side, I actually have one. A date, not a long and pointy thing. Which is an interesting experience, especially with the bit where he sent me an e-card. When I opened it, I fell off my chair in true anime fashion. Such a sweet gesture! And written in proper English with no flowery language too. /smile
No, I don't wish he were here, because absence makes the heart grow fonder. And besides, it keeps me balanced.
Tsu: 'my valentine's date is with my paintbrush'
Me: 'my valentine's date lives in China'
I still stand by what I said to Tsu, at least a paintbrush is long and pointy. You can do stuff to take advantage of that.
Hrm. On the bright side, I actually have one. A date, not a long and pointy thing. Which is an interesting experience, especially with the bit where he sent me an e-card. When I opened it, I fell off my chair in true anime fashion. Such a sweet gesture! And written in proper English with no flowery language too. /smile
No, I don't wish he were here, because absence makes the heart grow fonder. And besides, it keeps me balanced.
Wednesday, February 08, 2006
It was like drinking something both hot and cold at the same time, the coffee house vanished (wah, like romance novel like that) and nothing else mattered except him leaning toward me, lips pressed against mine. Then, I think my brain started to dribble out my ears. It's a wonder I managed to recover and hold an at least half-way decent conversation after.
An hour later, we went to catch a movie. Aargh.
Actually, this situation of him being overseas is quite ideal. Gives me a week to fangirl him out of my system and the rest to hear sappy love songs while passing by stores and form an honest opinion of them. Interestingly, I still think they're complete rot. Which is a good sign that my head is still screwed on right. (Right?) So by the time he gets back, I should be more or less sufficiently adjusted.
That's my theory, anyway.
He smells like Kenzo and tastes like chocolate. He's incredibly patient with my stupidity. He's charming, cultured and sprouts the occasional French phrase. He's expressive and I always know what he's talking about. He's witty and is as pretentious as I am (you might not want to hang out with us, for your own sake). He's also nicely random, sometimes.
oya koibito
An hour later, we went to catch a movie. Aargh.
Actually, this situation of him being overseas is quite ideal. Gives me a week to fangirl him out of my system and the rest to hear sappy love songs while passing by stores and form an honest opinion of them. Interestingly, I still think they're complete rot. Which is a good sign that my head is still screwed on right. (Right?) So by the time he gets back, I should be more or less sufficiently adjusted.
That's my theory, anyway.
He smells like Kenzo and tastes like chocolate. He's incredibly patient with my stupidity. He's charming, cultured and sprouts the occasional French phrase. He's expressive and I always know what he's talking about. He's witty and is as pretentious as I am (you might not want to hang out with us, for your own sake). He's also nicely random, sometimes.
oya koibito
Friday, February 03, 2006
Had a fantastic Chinese New Year. However, angpow haul not so good as missed a few relatives. Ah well, will probably be made up for next week, more or less. People usually have angpows conveniently left over at that point. Usually, conveniently in time for my birthday. Ok, I am shameless.
For some odd reason, interesting things seem to happen to me during the Chinese New Year period. And I wish you didn't have to leave on Sunday... /kiss
Tagged by Khayce, sorry I haven't done it til now!
4 Jobs You’ve Had In Your Life
Erm, I've never worked before, so this isn't something I could answer?
4 Movies You Could Watch Over And Over
Labyrinth (the one with David Bowie in)
Spawn
Anything by Studio Ghibli
Underworld (how they take things from other movies is just funny, but looks good)
4 TV Shows You Love(d) To Watch
CSI (all of them)
Who's line is it anyway?
Star Trek (all of them)
Just for laughs (not the gags, the staged ones)
4 Places You’ve Been On Vacation To
Brisbane (Gold Coast)
Paris
London
Various bits of China (not Suzhou though...)
4 Places You Would Rather Be
Paris
Dustwallow Marsh, 'cos of my bloody backdated mage quest
London, I miss the gallaries and museums!
Beside You (prefably in Paris)
4 Of Your Favourite Foods
Allio oglio
Black pepper crab
Cold soba
Mee Kia
4 Websites You Visit
www.errantstory.com
www.giantitp.com/cgi-bin/GiantITP/ootscript
www.ventoline.com/frozenbubble (it's damned addictive)
www.cowboycaleb.liquidblade.com
4 Tagged
Electra
Jenny
Scha
Jerrick
For some odd reason, interesting things seem to happen to me during the Chinese New Year period. And I wish you didn't have to leave on Sunday... /kiss
Tagged by Khayce, sorry I haven't done it til now!
4 Jobs You’ve Had In Your Life
Erm, I've never worked before, so this isn't something I could answer?
4 Movies You Could Watch Over And Over
Labyrinth (the one with David Bowie in)
Spawn
Anything by Studio Ghibli
Underworld (how they take things from other movies is just funny, but looks good)
4 TV Shows You Love(d) To Watch
CSI (all of them)
Who's line is it anyway?
Star Trek (all of them)
Just for laughs (not the gags, the staged ones)
4 Places You’ve Been On Vacation To
Brisbane (Gold Coast)
Paris
London
Various bits of China (not Suzhou though...)
4 Places You Would Rather Be
Paris
Dustwallow Marsh, 'cos of my bloody backdated mage quest
London, I miss the gallaries and museums!
Beside You (prefably in Paris)
4 Of Your Favourite Foods
Allio oglio
Black pepper crab
Cold soba
Mee Kia
4 Websites You Visit
www.errantstory.com
www.giantitp.com/cgi-bin/GiantITP/ootscript
www.ventoline.com/frozenbubble (it's damned addictive)
www.cowboycaleb.liquidblade.com
4 Tagged
Electra
Jenny
Scha
Jerrick
Friday, January 20, 2006
This paragraph from nanashee's latest post made me laugh out loud. Or maybe it was the post-exam come down.
I don't know what she spawned from, but frankly, walking into a club and expecting people to buy you drinks is a mentality that really should belong to supermodel-type people. Not when you have legs as stocky as two overgrown carrots and lines like a map of the London underground around your eyes. It's like a Monet painting; it looks pretty ok from afar, but up close, it's a fucking mess.
I don't know what she spawned from, but frankly, walking into a club and expecting people to buy you drinks is a mentality that really should belong to supermodel-type people. Not when you have legs as stocky as two overgrown carrots and lines like a map of the London underground around your eyes. It's like a Monet painting; it looks pretty ok from afar, but up close, it's a fucking mess.
Wednesday, January 18, 2006
I know that posting msn conversations is seen in some blogging circles as tremendouly low-class, but I'm going to do it anyway. Here's a snippet from my chat with my friend Preeti in SG:
Preeti says: so how's Jim and Sung Hyui
vic-- i want to eat mee pok says: jim is doing ok-- at school he excels and has a variety of extra curricular activites. he takes spanish, jazz dance lessons, and has a healthy social life
vic-- i want to eat mee pok says: he also has a lot of fit classmates whom i am always asking to be introduced to
vic-- i want to eat mee pok says: not one of them has called me yet
vic-- i want to eat mee pok says: sung-hyui is doing well as far as i can tell she is well-liked by the teachers, popular amongst her peers, helpful and friendly. she goes to jazz dance with jim and similarly bemoans the lack of romantic interest at bpp
Preeti says: vic why do you sound like a teacher giving a character appraisal?
vic-- i want to eat mee pok says: i am trying to be ironic but it doesnt seem to be working
Preeti says: haha no wait....I'm picturing you saying it now and it sounds very Victoria..
vic-- i want to eat mee pok says: Sung-hyui has so far declined to join the book club set up by jim, myself, and a couple of other fellow nerds
Preeti says: so how's Jim and Sung Hyui
vic-- i want to eat mee pok says: jim is doing ok-- at school he excels and has a variety of extra curricular activites. he takes spanish, jazz dance lessons, and has a healthy social life
vic-- i want to eat mee pok says: he also has a lot of fit classmates whom i am always asking to be introduced to
vic-- i want to eat mee pok says: not one of them has called me yet
vic-- i want to eat mee pok says: sung-hyui is doing well as far as i can tell she is well-liked by the teachers, popular amongst her peers, helpful and friendly. she goes to jazz dance with jim and similarly bemoans the lack of romantic interest at bpp
Preeti says: vic why do you sound like a teacher giving a character appraisal?
vic-- i want to eat mee pok says: i am trying to be ironic but it doesnt seem to be working
Preeti says: haha no wait....I'm picturing you saying it now and it sounds very Victoria..
vic-- i want to eat mee pok says: Sung-hyui has so far declined to join the book club set up by jim, myself, and a couple of other fellow nerds
vic-- i want to eat mee pok says: the first book we are discussing is bleak house
Preeti says: haha oh my god. thats sad
vic-- i want to eat mee pok says: hey book clubs are very much all the rage now in fashionable circles in the US
vic-- i want to eat mee pok says: we are not being nerdy but trendy
Preeti says: of course not vic
vic-- i want to eat mee pok says: in a few months we will be seen as uber cool trendspotters
vic-- i want to eat mee pok says: ok, forget i said 'uber cool'
Preeti says: y'know vic....I havent laughed this much in a while
vic-- i want to eat mee pok says: i'm glad to be of assistance
Preeti says: forget? yeah right...I'm going to be quoting you now to everyone who will listen.I will start with the LSE singaporeans tomorrow at evidence lecture
Preeti says: Your uber cool book club will be famous soon
Preeti says: maybe you shoudl ask some of the fit guys in Jims class to join
Preeti says: waitt....didd you do that already? is that why they havent called?
vic-- i want to eat mee pok says: yes, i already did
Preeti says: hahaaaaaaaaa
vic-- i want to eat mee pok says: thats probably why they havent called
Preeti says: its sad isnt it that they dont seem to be the "uber cool" trendspotter types vic
vic-- i want to eat mee pok says: no lah. i'm totally just kidding
vic-- i want to eat mee pok says: god i am not that sad P
Preeti says: you mean there is no book club?
vic-- i want to eat mee pok says: yeah there is but i havent asked any cute guys to join.
Preeti says: well then the guys in Jims class must be gay or dumb for not calling you
vic-- i want to eat mee pok says:thanx. bloody hell
Preeti says: sigh. maybe you meet someone nice in china. nice chinese boy
vic-- i want to eat mee pok says: NO
vic-- i want to eat mee pok says: please dont even joke about it
So, there is a book club, and the first book really is Bleak House. I've only got to page 200. I have no idea why we chose it. It seemed a good idea at the time. I guess after a couple of bottles of wine everything goes rosy. Oh well, we needed an excuse to meet up every so often-- but Bleak House? Actually, I was so far gone that I remember promising my friend that I would run a marathon with her. If I'd thought that was feasible, the book must have seemed much less of a challenge at the time. Well, at least we will decide the next book sober. (Hopefully)
Saturday, January 14, 2006
More gems of witty repartee from my little travel notebook (it's well worth keeping one when one has entertaining friends):
Joey: What is this used for? (referring to a pumice-stone in a shop in Greece)
Me: You rub your feet with it to get rid of dead skin.
Kenny: (glaring with inexplicable hatred of Joey) No, you eat it!
Joey: Well, you could use it for your brain, it's about the same size.
Kenny: Ya, but it's definitely bigger than your brain.
The next page contains a list compiled by JD, Qianru and myself on 'How do you know when you're an adult?'
1. When you can tell when white wine is too cold to be drunk
2. When you insist on drinking it out of proper glasses instead of plastic cups
3. When you think it's NOT ok to mix red and white together to get more drunk, faster
There's this other bit that always makes me laugh, but I suspect you have to have been there.
Kenny: Give me some water
Qianru: No.
Kenny: Give me some water lah! I'm very thirsty!
Qianru: No! Buy your own.
Kenny: Why don't you give me some? I'm very thirsty leh! (makes whining sounds, feet-stamping etc.)
Qianru: No, can you at least say please?
Kenny: What's the point of saying please if you're not gonna give me anyway?
Joey: What is this used for? (referring to a pumice-stone in a shop in Greece)
Me: You rub your feet with it to get rid of dead skin.
Kenny: (glaring with inexplicable hatred of Joey) No, you eat it!
Joey: Well, you could use it for your brain, it's about the same size.
Kenny: Ya, but it's definitely bigger than your brain.
The next page contains a list compiled by JD, Qianru and myself on 'How do you know when you're an adult?'
1. When you can tell when white wine is too cold to be drunk
2. When you insist on drinking it out of proper glasses instead of plastic cups
3. When you think it's NOT ok to mix red and white together to get more drunk, faster
There's this other bit that always makes me laugh, but I suspect you have to have been there.
Kenny: Give me some water
Qianru: No.
Kenny: Give me some water lah! I'm very thirsty!
Qianru: No! Buy your own.
Kenny: Why don't you give me some? I'm very thirsty leh! (makes whining sounds, feet-stamping etc.)
Qianru: No, can you at least say please?
Kenny: What's the point of saying please if you're not gonna give me anyway?
Flicking through Ian's mostly 'tetno' music collection, I commented on his evident beng tastes.
Ian: "Actually at heart, I'm a beng. I just tak a lot of ang moh chek only."
Elaborating on the theme, he went on,
"Wa eh sim si ah beng.
Wa eh nao si tak LSE.
Mai ga lim peh wax lyrical.
Wa ma eh hiao."
My friend Ian is a potential king of one-liners. Consider:-
In a discussion on bad boys, their charm, and their heart-breaking ways:
"I'm not dangerous when I'm charming. I'm dangerous when I'm candid. And I'm candid all the time."
Oooooooh.
And when I busted my ankle,
"How do you know how to treat it?"
"Got lump just rub lah."
One surmises that this practical approach must have served him well in other *ahem* less innocent situations.
Ian: "Actually at heart, I'm a beng. I just tak a lot of ang moh chek only."
Elaborating on the theme, he went on,
"Wa eh sim si ah beng.
Wa eh nao si tak LSE.
Mai ga lim peh wax lyrical.
Wa ma eh hiao."
My friend Ian is a potential king of one-liners. Consider:-
In a discussion on bad boys, their charm, and their heart-breaking ways:
"I'm not dangerous when I'm charming. I'm dangerous when I'm candid. And I'm candid all the time."
Oooooooh.
And when I busted my ankle,
"How do you know how to treat it?"
"Got lump just rub lah."
One surmises that this practical approach must have served him well in other *ahem* less innocent situations.
Friday, January 13, 2006
The fencing room in school, is good for singing. 10 minutes after I discover this, someone from band started to play the saxophone from the block across. On the other hand, went back to IJ today and fiddled with my old saxophone. The magic is gone, and I don't know why. It hurts. Ah well, it was my choice and I must live by it. Better to have loved then not loved at all.
This week, I realised, with a start, that I've a crush on one of my schoolmates. Am not quite sure what to make of this. It does not help that I might see Lance during Chinese New Year at the Lim's and that Jerrick will be back in the country too. All of this, all of it, is a big cosmic joke with the finger pointed at me, I tell you. Bah.
On the bright side, school is going well, so that's always good. Work hasn't piled up yet, but have to do revision, is all.
Tor! The photos are really good, especially the eiffel tower one! The weather was so nice that day. Missing you muchly~
I should go. Need to move my mage out of Desolace, wandering elite mobs have proven fatal.
This week, I realised, with a start, that I've a crush on one of my schoolmates. Am not quite sure what to make of this. It does not help that I might see Lance during Chinese New Year at the Lim's and that Jerrick will be back in the country too. All of this, all of it, is a big cosmic joke with the finger pointed at me, I tell you. Bah.
On the bright side, school is going well, so that's always good. Work hasn't piled up yet, but have to do revision, is all.
Tor! The photos are really good, especially the eiffel tower one! The weather was so nice that day. Missing you muchly~
I should go. Need to move my mage out of Desolace, wandering elite mobs have proven fatal.
Friday, January 06, 2006
Photos from Paris
Still don't understand 'nyan'. I suppose it's similar to my comforting phrase, 'bolbol'. Here are some photos from G and T's trip to Paris.
The view from inside the glass pyramid at the Louvre. The overcast sky ruins the picture. Next time I'll post a better one I took of mummy in the same position with a clear blue sky. I don't have it in my laptop now.
Still don't understand 'nyan'. I suppose it's similar to my comforting phrase, 'bolbol'. Here are some photos from G and T's trip to Paris.
The view from inside the glass pyramid at the Louvre. The overcast sky ruins the picture. Next time I'll post a better one I took of mummy in the same position with a clear blue sky. I don't have it in my laptop now.
Here is Glor in front of the famous english language bookshop across the river from the Notre Dame. It's where the first scene in Before Sunset was filmed, so needless to say, it's a damn romantic location lah!
Here's me eating snails. Mmm. Tasty. The vacant expression on my face is my reaction to Glor eating a raw piece of flesh.
Here it is:
In front of the Eiffel Tower.
'Artistic' shot of the Sacre Coeur. Hey, it's hard to take a good photo juggling a quiche and a blueberry tart and trying to sit down at the same time, ok. Also, squillions of tourists had the same brilliant idea of chilling out on the steps.
View from the top:
And to show the contrast in the quality of pictures taken by my camera above (no brand camera, cost=S$100) and James's camera which I used to use all the time (Canon Ixus V3, cost=S$800), here is a photo of Florian I took at his graduation at UCL:
Florian= my ex-flatmate and Cat's boyfriend. Cat=
Yes, that really is Bentham's dead body. Except the head, which was replaced with a plastic model because KCL students kept breaking in, stealing the head and playing football with it. Apparently he is still wheeled into every UCL board meeting in accordance with his will. He is marked present but not voting. And below is a really good photo of James lim-ing kopi in Brighton. Damn I miss that camera.
Even though the background isn't much to look at, the colours are so vivid!
Here the background is nicer but obscured by us people. Still at Brighton. Beside me is Nicolas, James's friend and his crushee, Sabrina. Note my budding mummy-ish tendency to shield my face from harmful sunlight.
I don't know why I never thought of posting photos up here before. Maybe it's because of how bloody long it takes. I'm gonna put everything up on flickr so Glor (and anyone else) can look at it there. Except I don't actually know how to link it to my flickr account. hm. Glor?
I think this is how: http://www.flickr.com/photos/49514497@N00/
I might put up some nice ones from my Greece trip next. They're probably safer online than sitting around in my hard drive waiting to be stolen.
Thursday, January 05, 2006
Nyan~!
Stating the obvious, it was the first week of school. Is going well! I think my class made our last year's form teacher quit, so we've got a new one now. She's very lor sor, lecture us for econs until want to sleep. She -is- nice though. And generally sounds like she knows what she's talking about, even if she does explain in circles.
The classroom that we're in was ment to be a toilet. There's the tell tale space in the walls and narrow glass windows near the ceiling that one only finds in toilets. We're also tucked away in a corner, of course. Convenient location though. Not the centre of everything but still easy to get to everywhere. Don't have to climb 5 levels again this year~
Is a very wide classroom, enough space for the boys to fool around with football, and for Andrea the resident hockey player to do her stuff. I like it. We're next to the science classes though, so miss seeing the familiar arts fac faces.
Bern made it to arts fac here, been seeing her around. Really good to see a close friend on the school grounds again. I've made myself mediator, in case of any collision between her and Tsu. On the other hand, I don't think they're going to cause any collateral damage, so everything should be fine.
Tor! Good to hear it's been solved? How was it ah? Decided not to kick you guys out is it? Good. Ian hasn't called me, the idiot. You know his number here or not arh?!
Ach, Rosen here to use WoW on my com.
/wave
Stating the obvious, it was the first week of school. Is going well! I think my class made our last year's form teacher quit, so we've got a new one now. She's very lor sor, lecture us for econs until want to sleep. She -is- nice though. And generally sounds like she knows what she's talking about, even if she does explain in circles.
The classroom that we're in was ment to be a toilet. There's the tell tale space in the walls and narrow glass windows near the ceiling that one only finds in toilets. We're also tucked away in a corner, of course. Convenient location though. Not the centre of everything but still easy to get to everywhere. Don't have to climb 5 levels again this year~
Is a very wide classroom, enough space for the boys to fool around with football, and for Andrea the resident hockey player to do her stuff. I like it. We're next to the science classes though, so miss seeing the familiar arts fac faces.
Bern made it to arts fac here, been seeing her around. Really good to see a close friend on the school grounds again. I've made myself mediator, in case of any collision between her and Tsu. On the other hand, I don't think they're going to cause any collateral damage, so everything should be fine.
Tor! Good to hear it's been solved? How was it ah? Decided not to kick you guys out is it? Good. Ian hasn't called me, the idiot. You know his number here or not arh?!
Ach, Rosen here to use WoW on my com.
/wave