So I was supposed to start part timing on Friday, mid March. And what? Now my boss gets to hear of it and says no? I have to full time till the end of April, at least. On the other hand, he does have a point; my probation period will be over and they'll start paying CPF, along with any medical benefits.

I am such a damned sucker for people who are nice to me. Yet from here the negotiatons start, I need a 5 day work week soon or I'll crack.

My results? I'm good with it, my parents are happy, it's enough.

It's enough.

It's the time of year for hearts, flowers and blog entries denouncing the prominence of hearts and flowers on V-Day. A few days ago, I read an article in that vein by regular New Paper columnist Ivy Ong-Wood which prompted a moment's reflection. It was about a couple she knew who were getting divorced before their 3rd anniversary.

Apparently "marriage killed all romance", where Romance = sending her flowers + taking her to nice restaurants + champagne on private yachts.

Ivy's idea of romance was more mundane, found in everyday actions like her husband going out at 2am to buy kway teow soup for her. That's not far off from my parents' own philosophy; every day is Valentine's Day for them. (Aww... so gross) Once, we were in Paris standing on the steps of the Sacre Coeur on Montmarte Hill, overlooking arguably one of the most romantic views in Europe. I asked them, "Isn't this romantic?" And my father replied, "Yes but your mother and I can be romantic anywhere." (Aww... ew gross)

Turning back to my own relationship, I think if I asked Jamie to go out and buy a specific, hard-to-find dish like kway teow soup, he'd probably tell me to go stuff myself or snack on something healthy like fruit instead since I'm always complaining about being fat. Come to think of it, getting your boyfriend to fetch food for you in the middle of the night seems to be a remarkably Singaporean characteristic. One memorable example of this is a piece of gossip I heard concerning a SGean boy who went to Oxford and was so pussywhipped by this SGean girl he fancied that he would ride his bicycle for miles into town during winter, at night, in the dark, to the MacDonald's just to satisfy her craving for a burger. His name was Philbert, by the way, which might explain things a bit.

Don't get me wrong though, I like romantic gestures, flowers and diamonds as much as the next girl. Especially diamonds. But at the risk of sounding smug, I don't need any of the above from my boyfriend as proof of his love because I already know he loves me.

Here, I'll count the ways:

1. Moving Out For Me

He basically moved all 8 boxes of my stuff into storage at his house for me. Of course I helped but he did most of the heavy lifting.

2. Letting Me Crash In His Room For 3 Weeks During Exams

We didn't fail though.

3. Finding A Flat For Us

Walking around viewing flats in the London chill until his feet blistered and he got the flu. Just so I could spend chinese new year with my family.

4. Moving In For Me

Moving all my boxes into the new flat from his home which is 3 hours drive away on treacherous snowy roads.

5. Braving My Parents + Making Them Like Him

Convinced them that he wasn't a despicable ang moh out to deflower and exploit their innocent daughter.

6. Learning Some Chinese

He has learnt the words

Shark
Enemy
Cockroach
Danger
and
Vampire

He also speaks a bit of Singlish.

7. Resigning Himself To The Fact Of Bolbol

'Nuff said.

No one bothered to tell me that she'd been removed. Suddenly, I have to deal with all the Valentine's Day reservations myself. Oh gee, thanks. Tomorrow, I'll have about 5 hours to know the menu back to front, call and confirm with 14 people and assign tables.

Yes, it'll be easy (it's an eternity of 5 hours for god's sake) but what annoys me is that the most fun bit, labelling tables, has been taken away by my bar manager because he says it's unprofessional. Hahaa, so damn many things about the place can be considered unprofessional that I don't know why he's making noise about this.

Then again, it's also probably because he doesn't trust me enough to do it decently. Not for all my parchment, fountain pens, german nibs and indian ink.

With her gone, I'm back to being a door bitch. I'm paid to stand around and wait for people to walk past, or seat customers, which sounds like a good deal yes? Hahaa. I'd much rather be writing an essay or doing someone else's homework. Hell, I'd be happy in a corner, beta reading the chef's reports.

It's a damned good thing I'm only here til university.

Come home past midnight. Munch on leftovers. Watch half a movie and polish off half a tub of ice cream. Write notes for family members, because I don't get home early enough to talk with them. Chat online with people half way across the world, because the time difference is just right.

I like work. But having so little time left for anything else, is driving me mad. The following is a random thing that's been floating in my head. Work gives me strange ideas.

---

No pressure, just guilt. Yes, your hair is too long for wax but I still love to run my hands through. Scratchy kisses, can't leave a mark. Fogged glasses, will they notice? Soap and a sigh, watching the blue grey patterns from your Marlboroughs fade.

I almost wish for you to leave, would that make me feel better or worse? I think, at least I won't wake up screaming.

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.