Southern Comfort and sangria, with cake on my birthday after hours. That really made up for the horrible one last year, wish everyone had wonderful colleagues like mine!

19! I don't want to get any older!

---

Why are you feeding me bullshit? Really, I may be young but please don't insult my intelligence. I know you flambouyant lying types, along with your wives and kids! I have nothing for you, so stop with the leverage! Oh, and get out of my head please. It does hurt.

TOR:

I can't talk properly or eat solid food for a week because I just had my wisdom tooth operation yesterday. I had 3 teeth out in shards after an arduous surigical operation. For the record-- it was very painful. It felt like parts of my skull and cheekbone were being carved away and wrenched out of my head, which is in effect what happened. I could feel the dentist drilling deep into my jaw. I'm afraid I screamed several times. Some kindly nurses popped in after to calm my blubbering self down. It was all very embarrassing. My mother said it sounded like they were sa-ing zhu in there, i.e. killing pig. I couldn't feel my gums and flesh, but I could feel, in my nerves, the bones in my face being sawn apart.

I heard the dentist ask for bigger pliers twice while violently chiseling into my lower right tooth, shattering it into easy-to-wrench bits. Because my teeth were so close to my nerves, I could feel the drill bit every inch of the way. And there was nothing anyone could do about the pain, since it is not possible to numb the whole damn nerve. This is not a kua-zhang-ated account. I'm already 24-- hard bones; more drilling.

Of course you'd expect me to be on a soft mushy diet of congee, congee and more congee. But in fact I've been able to get away with having more tasty, yet still liquidy stuff without having to resort to rice porridge. Initially, I thought I would be able to lose weight by not eating much during my week of recovery, but this doesn't seem so likely now. With a bit of imagination, it's amazing what yummy (fattening) foods you can think of which do not require chewing.


Vic's recommended diet for the wisdom-toothless convalescent(mastication unnecessary):

Day 1-- post-op

Dinner: Milo cereal drink +mango apple juice for vitamins
Supper: Low-fat hot chocolate drink

Day 2

Breakfast: Orange juice + horlicks energy drink
Lunch: Mashed banana + Birds' nest soup
Dinner: Sharks' fin soup (fake-- from J8 downstairs stall) + bak jio (spicy pork paste-- like mashed up bak ting)

Day 3

Breakfast: Apple pureé + marigold yoghurt drink-- passionfruit and pear flavour
Lunch: Dao huay (beancurd dessert) from Jollibean + orange juice
Dinner: Oyster mee sua from taiwanese chicken shop. (without oyster)

Day 4

Breakfast: Kopi + soft boiled egg from Ya Kun
Lunch: Brekkie To Go smoothie from Boost! (banana, vanilla low fat frozen yoghurt, muesli, milk, honey, ice + I will ask for a spoonful of chocolate)
Dinner: mashed potato + chicken gravy (ready-made from NTUC) + Tow Kae Noi seaweed (melts in mouth)

Day 5

Breakfast: Milk + Khong Guan egg rolls softened in milk
Lunch: Barley drink with dao huay from Ya Kun
Dinner: extremely cooked vegetable stew (easily mashable cauliflower, potato and carrot)


Even a wisdom tooth operation that's left me with chipmunk cheeks, holes in my gums and painful stitches that click when I laugh hasn't dampened my appetite. But I'm not hungrier than I usually am since my present diet is not actually that far off from what I would eat normally anyway. I am so not going to lose any weight lor.

My only gripe with my ravaged gums is that the ache goes right down to the holes in my jaw and cheek bones and it hurts when I laugh, smile, sneeze, cough, yawn or talk like a normal person. I can only speak in a wierd, sleazy, muffled way, through clenched teeth, without really moving my mouth. That's actually worse than my inability to eat solid food, since I've demonstrated that there's a good variety of tasty non-solid foods available in our fair country. It's times like this that I give thanks for the virtues of our bounteous island-state. Can you imagine being in angmoh-land with holes in your gums? You'd be stuck with going to chinatown for pei-dan chok, pei-dan chok and more pei-dan chok!*



*Ok, ok, I jest. I'm sure there's lots of ang-moh food for convalescents, e.g. angmoh soups, porridge, cauliflower pureé, mushy peas, Heinz baby food...

Interesting Things that Have Happened

Tor went for wisdom tooth surgery today. She's ok but still in pain and wants to eat Old Chang Kee curry puffs, as expected. I hope she doesn't bleed all over her pillows tonight, like I did that time I got my last molar extracted.

Bar manager is ill. There is something disconcerting (but at the same time funny), about a heavy set, bald man looking miserable while nursing a cup of tea. He used to be a bouncer, at that.

Peter our dish washer got hit by a motorcycle this morning, on the way to work. He's now in hospital with a broken leg. You'd think that accidents were more likely to happen in a kitchen right? I pointed this out but everyone thinks I'm mad. Hallo, what's the use of fretting? It's just a broken leg, we're not some third world country where you'll get gangrene and die from it.

The various bits of my life are fixing themselves. Also, to date I have conditional acceptance into 2 universities, having applied for 7.

Methinks '07 is starting out pretty good, all things considered.

I never thought the lack of something mentally challenging would drive me nuts. Now the memo pad I use to jot down orders is filled with random scribbles, some of which will make it to the journal in due time. It's starting to resemble my school notepad (or any of the A4 notebooks I used for Lit). Examples of my downtime mental excrement:

Rebound is Bad For You
Starfuckers is Much Love!
Get out of my head, please
and
"Anything red compels us", being from Atwood's Good Bones, a fantastic book that I'm actually planning to buy.

Along with lists of things to do, like "find out what's wrong with iTunes" or "buy new clothes". The latter is due to the fact that I'm losing weight at an alarming rate. I'm eating more, more often (I do work at a restaurant), so it doesn't make sense. This does not combine well with being in an environment I'm not comfortable in yet.

And I need to start WoWing again, or my hormone levels will become unbalanced. Bloody hell, I really need to frostbolt something to death.

I Like My Job.

It isn't perfect or anything fantastic, but it's everything a job should be. Crappy managers, unhappy collegues and not much of a life. That's the point, isn't it? On the other hand, I am very fond of the people I work with, like Sophie and Diana, making this a major reason why I Like My Job. Ok, maybe also too fond of a particular Boy but he only works Saturdays.

I am Not Unhappy with this job, but I just might move, in a while. The managers are really pissing us off and it's ok for them to lose us, since they've got about 50 new applicants in the last few weeks.

I've learnt alot of new things:

Waitressing is not always thankless.
Managers are the spawn of Satan.
The people who own the store are nicer than managers, obviously. They generally have less to stress about.
Guys behind the bar shaking up a martini automatically become Hot. (it works like a +5 charisma or something.)
Carrying 10 cups with one arm is really, dead easy.

Okok, I work at Bungalow, United Square. Ground floor, in the corner where the large beige tents are. We're more a bar than restaurant, though people keep thinking otherwise. Exhaustive list of alcohols and mixes, 4 types of sangria and 3 colours of absinthe might interest some people I know. Our Penffold and One Tree wines also seem very popular with customers.

We open at 11 everyday, close at 11 on Sundays to Thursdays, 2 on Fridays and Saturdays. Last orders for kitchen 9.45pm.

Ok, I quite like my job. For now, at least.

So the place I work at has a bar. I had half a bottle of Asahi, my mum smells it on me and thinks I'm turning into an alcoholic. And if I'm the slightest bit late she freaks if I don't call home. What's the point of asking me to get a job if you don't trust me enough to take care of myself from work to home, in a cab. Cab fare is also free because the management pays.

I start work at 3 and end at midnight everyday til Saturday, the 13th. So don't ask me out for prata or drinks or a movie or whatever unless it's before or after work. Thanks.

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'.

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.

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.

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

There would have
Never been a
Good
Time for
It

I know You
Cannot
Forgive my
Selfishness

And I
Will not
Ask for it

We were not a
Mistake but-

I hope You know
I still
Love
You.

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.

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?

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.

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!

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'!

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

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.

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.