An Unsettling Sat Nite

This is one of those Sat nites where I realise why is it I usually prefer to be out and not at home.

11pm on a Sat nite and I'm blogging because there just isn't much else to do. I went home early after dinner with Goodmeat, [a Sat nite date with another guy! Gosh! The scandal!] and finding the PC unused, proceeded to take possession of it.

Logged onto MSN and found out no one was online to chat. Tried DF but he was on Busy mode, probably still writing essays.

Read frens' blogs, read other people's blogs, read online comics and all not much update. Well, go fig. It's Sat nite. Other people have better things to do than write blogs. [except me. SIGH.]

Mother having menopausal hot flushes, and asking me inane questions, like why didn't I show her the letter from MOE, [because you never asked, till now, 3 days after I received the letter, and what difference is it going to make anyway] what was the contents of the letter, [again, what diff does it make if I tell you?] and the weirdest, was there a dress code for the talk on thurs.

Huh?

I think more like she got nothing to do, so instead she asks me these weird questions. [my mother, weird in that way. She'll ignore me for weeks, and then suddenly she'll take an interest in all these insignificant aspects of my life]

My trance music is playing on the computer, making me relaxed and sleepy, but yet loath to sleep. I feel like I want to do something, something, anything, but there is nothing for me to do.

The most... unsettling... is that kind of restless feeling. The feeling where you have all this energy pent up inside, stirring inside, and you want some kind of release or outlet for it, but yet you don't know what. Instead, you are left to prowl restlessly in circles, not knowing what it is you're lacking and what it is you want.

Times like this I wish I could call somebody up to meet me for supper, coffee, something, anything, but the only two people living near me are DF and Julian and I don't think neither are particularly willing to come out at this time of night just to entertain me. [Let alone friends who live further away, in Hougang, Sembawang, Katong and worse still, Clementi and Jurong, and who have no car]

I want some activity. I want something to do that will prove to me that I'm alive,

rather than just sit here in front of the PC and feel myself slowly die away to the sounds of the music.

Meowr....... I want to do something.......

Man, this is one sianz post... Maybe I should cheer you guys up by telling you all something that happened during Jap class.

[To understand what's so funny about this post, you have to know what kinda person Yenn is]

We were playing a kinda game, where Oyada Sensei had these different picture cards in a bag, and we were supposed to draw one, and use the words on the back of the card to make a sentence.

So for example, i drew a picture of a pair of Nike pants, and the back of the card said, "jimu de hakimasu", which means "wear at gym". So I said, "kore wa watashi ga jimu de haiite pan-tsu" which vaguely means "these are the pants I wear to the gym"

And when Yenn drew her card from the bag, it turned out to be...... a very long pink skirt.

A pink skirt.

A long pink skirt.

I saw the picture on the card and I went "BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!"

Oyada Sensei obviously didn't get the joke. She looked at me with a slightly bemused look, and asked "Daijiobu desu ka??" and all I could do was nod, yea, daijiobu desu.

WAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

The rest of the class didn't quite get the joke either. Half the class laughed nervously, [er, was there something weird about that picture that we didn't see?] the other half thought I was some kinda weirdo for laughing over a pink skirt.

BUT REALLY, if you know what Yenn is like, and you imagine, her sentence was something like "This is the skirt I bought yesterday", and you think YENN BUYING A PINK SKIRT?????

Well obviously after that her answer to me was "Anata wa shindeiru hito desu........."

Krynn: I did a dumb cartoon in my textbook for the occassion. Will show you next Sat when you come for Jap class...

Again some stuff I was too stoned to say last night......

After a long, looooong slacking period, I finally updated the GTS strip. Gomennasai.... hehehe... As a recap, GTS has entered the school, met her nearly-psychotic mentor, gotten a bucket dropped on her head before her first lesson even started, and had just finished the end of her day, when 2 kids approached her to warn her that everything she experienced was courtesy of the '4 Small Hell Kings'. Now she gives them her reply......

Maybe next time, GTS will have a new colleague... GTT... i can almost see the storyline......

Hope I will have time to update this comic after I enter NIE. [With my tuition, my coursework and other misc stuff............] Er, ok, maybe not that often. :p

It's like, 140am.

I know I'm hormonally charged and [on the verge of being] obsessed by this point of time.

And yet I can't help it.

Another graphic about not seeing love when you're looking for it. [check out the pun in the mag titles]

Then I'm off to sleep..............



More blogging another time......

Still in First R'ship Mode

Does anyone think there's a discernible difference between friendship and relationships? 'Cos it occurred to me that among all my attached [or previously were attached] friends, very few of them started out on the basis of simple friendship like Dragonfly and I did.

In fact, counting off the friends I know who are attached, most of them started out because both parties were attracted to each other on another level other than friendship. They never went past the long process of friendship that the two of us did. [In fact, I can honestly say that no other relationship I know started off with a 7-year courtship. Tian ah... ]

I do wonder how other attached females felt the first few days of their relationship. For me, I was too sick the weekend after that to really think about it, and then later on, when I got well, it hit me that omgimattacheddiditreallyhappendidhereallysaythatamireallyinthis???? Thankfully, a conversation with DoE revealed that she felt the same way in the first few days too, so at least I'm not alone in this. *phew*

Wonder how the guys feel. Hmmm..... *looks sideways at him if he happened to be reading this post*

Maybe in a very roundabout way, what I'm wondering at is this: At the moment after being hitched, are you supposed to feel different? Well, not in the different-because-you-got-real-damn-sick kinda way that I did, but you know, different. Or have I been watching too many movies? oh oh......... Someone cancel the fluttering rose petals and the choirs of angelic voices....

I guess this is because even when we went out as a couple for the first time, it still felt very much like we were still friends. The conversations are the same, the way we talk is the same, and the general feeling I get when I'm with him is still the same.

But even then... Even though there's still strong emanations of friendship, there is a little bit of relationship seeping in as well. Like the way we can now sit closer to each other at the bus stop. The [slight difference in the] way we talk and laugh with each other. And most obviously, the way I can now reach out my hand, and he can take it, and the way we walk together like that. :)

[can I do a very girly mushy thing and talk about holding hands for a while? I now understand why couples always hold hands with each other like that. The mere act of enclasping your hands in another, and interlocking your fingers with each other's is not only a symbolic act, because of the way your hand is still facing your body and vice versa for him, the interlocking also serves to bring your arms closer to each other. Just holding hands alone drastically reduces the distance between two bodies and souls, in more ways than one. :) ok mushy time over]

But anyway... *cough cough* After asking around my other attached female friends, I realised that this is a pretty normal thing. One assured me that the feeling of "ARGH!!" at the moment of realisation was pretty common and she had it to. Another said that the feeling of real, pure love will seep in while you aren't looking in the most subtle ways. So in fact... everything I'm going through with him for now are pretty normal. *phew*

For now........... I'm just gonna ride this and enjoy what I can. [Esp. the holding hands part. Can't get enough of that! Hehehehe....]

And then there's:

New job, new life

Just the day after I called MOE to enquire about my application, the results actually come in the mail after I came home from the movie with him. "Congrats, you have been selected for..."

Like what's up with my life this week? Who the heck gets 2 such life-altering things in the same week?? Did I accidentally disrupt the feng shui in my room?

My feelings are a touch more mixed on this career issue rather than the Dragonfly one though. On the one hand, steady income, job stability.

On the other........... Screaming kids, overworked life, tons of unrelated-to-teaching admin work, stupid principals, idiotic colleagues, tied to the Ministry with no hope of respite. The feeling that you aren't choosing your own path, but am stepping onto another of your parent's choosing. The feeling that this parental influence will dog your steps for the rest of your lives and haunt every decision you make.

And the most painful of all: The freedom. Freedom to stand in the street after a good breakfast and admire the deep blue sky, the shade of blue you can only see in the morning, when it's still cool enough to stand outside. The feeling that you can go anywhere, that you can do anything. That all roads are still open to you.

Will I lose this feeling?

Too soon to say.

For now, I will walk down this path and see where it takes me.

At least I know I have a hand to hold if I do feel too scared to move on.

The Dragonfly read the blog before he met me for lunch and a movie just today. He was...... much amused at the Venusian need for constant and instant communication, and much.... amused at the range of remarks by you guys. :p [He still......... hesitant........ about meeting you guys. When I brought the subject up, he mentioned the possibility of say, next year........ (^^!)]

What can I say? Men may have invented most major communication devices, [telephones, handphones, pagers, Internet] but those who made them truly powerful are the Women. Yea, we rock.

And speaking of instant communication, yours truly received The Letter just ten minutes ago, and yea.

Officially introducing... Great Teacher Tan.



New boyfriend, new job, in just one week...... I'm just hoping the first one lasts longer than the 2nd... hahaha ;p

*very dryly* I can honestly say that this recent DF writeup has probably been the most... popular and most tagged of all the hundreds of posts I've written on this blog to date. Unsurprisingly, all my readers are pretty interested in my attached status, and I've even managed to lure in people like Sylveracyd who, as admitted, never reads my blog religiously.

Thankyouthankyouthankyouforallyaconcern......... doomo arigatou gozaimashita *bows*

It's also very nice to see all of you are interested in meeting the guy... as can be seen from the kinds of responses I've gotten on my tagboard... :p I'm wondering whether at the end of it all, am I gonna have a boyfriend after all my friends are done with him, or am I just gonna have a pile of smokin' ashes, and a brand new barbeque grill... [though I have to admit, bbq grill's not a bad idea...]

*sigh* and herein lies the difference between Mars and Venus. Knowing him, he's probably keeping it silent and hasn't told his friends or family yet. [and ya, I haven't told my family yet. I reckon let him get used to you guys, then he'll be ready for my dad. :p ] Knowing me, I already screamed it out to half the world on my blog, and sent out notifications to most of the friends on my phonebook.

Well, I guess it's a girl thing after all... the need to tell. :p If I had kept it silent for as long as he wanted, by the time I told you guys you'd all be like "I can't believe you didn't tell us!!!!!" [ok I can imagine a few people who'd tell me exactly those sentiments] and everyone will be dying to hear details from me. [Well, as it is, people ARE already wanting to hear more details from me. One at a time, eh?]

*groan* And I still have to tell some friends, who don't read my blog, about him. Like, I'd be talking about him to someone, then that someone will say, "Say, have you told XX yet?" and I'd be like "SHit!!!!!"

If I had known, I should've just like, sent out email cards or something. "ATTN: This is to cordially inform you that your fren, Aki, has formally gotten attached to Dragonfly. Please click on the link below to send them your congratulations." It's almost as bad as sending out wedding invitations. [which are NOT coming anytime soon]

Oh hell, when [IF] I get married, I'll announce it on my blog and whoever can come just send me an email, yah? Wahahahahahahaha.......

Why is the need to tell so intrinsic to female nature anyway? Sometimes when something big happens to me, my first thought is that I have to tell someone about it. I know most of my female friends think the same way too, cos of some of the SMSes and MSNs I get. [one hectic night, I had 5 MSN conversations going on at the same time, all of them wanting to know about DF. OMG!] It's like a biological need to keep each other informed of the other's happenings.

Whereas men don't seem to have that same urge. They'd just get on with life, and then one day, over a mug of beer, they'd turn to their friend and go, "Oh yea, I forgot to tell you that last week..." And his friend will go, "Oh, sure." And they'd go on drinking beer and watching football.

Science says that the need for communication is essential to human survival. For one, it allows members of the tribe to keep each other updated of each other's affairs, like who bonked the largest tiger for dinner or something. Another, more gender oriented, says that women have the need to gossip as a form of female bonding, because in ancient cavemen times, women had to rely on each other to help rear their babies and cook food and other womanly duties. Thus, they had to keep in constant communication with each other and this boils down to gossip in today's context. The need for female bonding, and the need for contact.

Men apparently never had the same need because they were hunter-gatherers, and had less need for such contact between themselves. For one, men are more competitive creatures than women are. [for an example, see the anecdote of my dad, which I will post below] For another, men are bred to be independent, and to forge their own way ahead. So competition plus independence means that most of the time, men are more in competition with each other. [of course, whether this theory still applies in today's corporate context is another thing altogether]

All I know is that, despite blogging about getting attached, there was still a sense of something missing over the weekend. Till DoE called me on Mon.

"Hey......... I saw your SMS..... Wow! Tell me all about it!"

And that was it. So treat that as a lesson to self: For all the boyfriends, husbands, family, and the Internet, there just isn't any substitute for good old girly talk on the phone.

PS to Slayer: I know you called me first, but unfortunately, you called me while I was in the middle of trying to sleep through a bad cold, so you caught me half awake. :p Apologies......

So anyway........... My dad..............

This episode brought home to mind why men are usually the majority in most armies, and why men initiate the most military action across the world.

I was walking with my dad to J8 on Sunday night for dinner. As we were walking along the pedestrian walkway to the MRT station, a cyclist rang his bell from behind.

Now what would you do in this situation? For me, I stood to one side to allow the cyclist to pass. For my dad, he continued walking as if he heard nothing.

I called to him, and the cyclist continued to ring, but my dad still played deaf. By now, I knew that my dad wasn't playing dumb, but in fact was purposely trying to block the cyclist from cycling in front of him.

This continued for a while, until the cyclist managed to just maneourve his way past my dad, who glared at him, then walked faster, keeping at the cyclist's side all the way!

Me, I was halfworried that a fight would break out between the two men, so I hung behind, waiting to see what would happen. [hey, no way in hell am I gonna come in between my dad n another guy in a fight.]

Of course, sooner or later, the path cleared and the cyclist cycled on way ahead of my dad. I asked him, "Why didn't you just let the cyclist pass?"

"I hate those cyclists on the pedestrian paths! You know that technically i'm in the right of way here?"

"But when you block him like that, you're just inviting an accident to happen. He may hit you by accident or something."

"I'd kick his bicycle! I'm in the right of way here! He's just blocking the way!"

I rolled my eyes. "Good god, daddy, would it have killed you to move aside to let him pass? You move aside, he cycles on, everyone's happy and peaceful."

With his evil grin, "Yes! It would!"

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why men are responsible for most military conflicts around the world.........

This is the 2nd time I've blogged today, I know, but the responses have just been too good to pass up, ranging from:

"Congrats! And to the DF, if you do anything to her, YOU'LL FREAKIN' GET IT FROM US!" or that general sentiment, to:

"Hey, good for you! Don't forget to use a condom!"

Which made me blink where several of my friends MSNed it to me, and when I found the same thing on my tagboard from Goldfish.

Like, huh? Huh? HUH??? PEOPLE!!! IT'S ONLY BEEN 2 DAYS!!!!! What are you all thinking????

In response to Slayer's tag that I didn't mention her... ok here's her honorary mention on this blog... hahaha

Saturday night, stuck at home due to unceasing nose flowage. [how bad was it? Bro bought me my favourite fish and chips for dinner and I couldn't taste a godamned thing... groan......] Finally gave up trying to be alive, and decided to simply go to bed mucho mucho early for the night, with the radio on.

A call comes on the handphone. In a state of half-consciousness, I rouse myself up from sleep enough to answer blurrily, "Hello?"

"Oh. My. God. OH MY GOD!!!!!"

Blink blink. Consciousness slowly coming on. "Slayer?"

[Ok so obviously I don't call my friends by their nicks, but all for the sake of anonymity on this blog, yah?]

"MY GOD! You DID IT! You're ATTACHED! You're no longer single!!!"

Blink again. "You called me all the way from Australia to tell me these things that I already knew?"

But anyway, ha, thanks for your good wishes, and also to Krystal, Candle, Yen and all those who sent them whether in tag, SMS, or silent prayer. And erm, thanks for the death threats and threats of severe bodily harm on Dragonfly should he scratch so much as a hair cell on my holy body. Your, erm, kind wishes for my well-being are greatly appreciated. [though I don't know how much on his part...]

And yes, I will still have time to hang out with single friends. I've been a moody single for far too long to forget what it feels like. And besides, the man is facing exams for the next 2 weeks after which he'll hop straight into work, so it's a wonder he still has time for a girlfriend. Hmph! *stares haughtily into distance*

But anyway, my Cold obviously hasn't subsided yet, and I'm even half starting to suspect my bro unwittingly became the carrier of some SuperFlu Bug on his attachments or during his tutorials, ["And now, here in this fragile little pep dish, we have the highly contagious SuperFlu Bug. When released into the air, it... Excuse me, what do you think you're doing? You can look through the microscope if you want a closer look... No, stop! Don't open it! FOR THE LOVE OF HIPPOCRATES... HACHOO! TOO LATE!!!"]

Nah, I'm kidding. Anyway this Sunday morning it's obviously better already, after me having sneezed a lungful of phlegm into the bathroom sink. [well it seemed like a lungful of phlegm!] The nose is getting better, [i hope] and the throat is getting increasingly worse and clogged up, which for me is a good sign. 'Cos when the sore throats and deep voice starts is when the end stages of the flu is coming.

So now I'm just purely washing it all down with litres and litres of water. I think within this one weekend that I've been hit with the flu, I've drunk more water than I usually do in a week. Suddenly, warm water gushing down your throat has a very soothing feeling.

*Groan*....... [cat sprawled on ground, mewing and clawing weakly at air in desperate attempt for pity]