Apologies for the infrequent updates. My mind has been dulled lately, spammed with books, dragonflies, kids' exams, salaries, Europe expenses....... Argh! Not much in the way of intellectual activity there! Thankfully after a while, I managed to write a little piece about school and life in general. Scroll down...

Incidentally, last nite while at TP with Necroz, I saw something totally cool, it was a MINI POOL TABLE!!! Courts is selling a mini pool table, and it's not some cheap plastic thing, it's like made of the same materials for an actual pool table, so the balls are damn solid and the cue is wood! AARGH!!! I WANT! But it's $60!!! *cries* I found it so freakin' cute, I actually played on it for a while, despite Necroz's profound embarrassment. She said I was like some big kid playing with the table, but I repeat: IT"S FREAKIN" CUTE!!!

For Slayer's interest, DoE and I went to Sylveracyd's house for dinner last Sat. Now, the interesting thing about this visit is that Sylveracyd is currently studying in Adelaide, and her parents were nice enuff to have me n DoE over for curry chicken dinner. *Smackeroos!* Afterwhich, they set up the webcam, and let us see Sylver online through the cam, and even talk to her on their handphones. *2 thumbs up* to these parents. But is it any wonder, considering they've known DoE since she was like, 2? :p

Sylver looks much the same, though she's BORED STIFF OUT OF HER MIND over there. Can you blame her? Put a vivacious, party animal in a place like Adelaide, and no wonder she feels restless. Krystal, do you get the same way sometimes? ;p We spent the time chatting, making stupid faces in front of the webcam, insulting her stuffed fish, [ok, that last one was me, and resulted in me getting whacked with a stuffed pea by DoE] and she showed her some pix of her and her bf too.

Sylver> Hey hey lemme show you something
*Pic of her n BF appears on screen

[note: Her family doesn't know of BF]

Khel> Eh the screen just froze

[sometimes due to connection probs the frame will hang, and the scene be stuck there for a while]

Sylver> Wat??

Khel> Yah the pic's stuck there, and your mom's coming out of the kitchen

Sylver> OH NO!!!!!

Boing. Nah, the screen unhung itself b4 her mom came out, so it was fine after all. :p

Otherwise the past week, I've been hopping from house to house for tuition as usual, and then coming home and reading. At the house of my O' Level English student, I realised that an awareness of current affairs could be severely lacking in our youth. [or at least the one I'm teaching anyway] So onto the essay proper...

School of Life

This actually happened during a recent lesson with my O' LEvel English student:

Me: Ok, I want you to write an essay saying whether you agree with this phrase, ["Spare the rod, spoil the child"] and make references to the Nan Chiau incident.

Student: What's Nan Chiau?

Me: *blink blink* Did I pronounce that wrong? Nah-n Cha-o? Nah-n Qia-o?

Student: Oh, that sounds familiar, is that the one where the guy committed suicide?

Me: ?????????????????

What the freakin' heck???? This topic has been making the rounds of the newspapers, the TV, the Internet forums, and all the kopitiams around Singapore, and you have no idea what it is about??? What insulated, plexi-glass dome have you been living in the past few weeks??? Good God!!!

Everytime I encounter a student with problems in English, [or current affairs]I make the sincere vow that I will teach my kids to READ, read as if your LIFE and SOUL depended on it. Ye Gods! I'm not gonna let them out into the world with bad English, bad writing and total ignorance of the world outside the entertainment sphere!

In fact, wonder whether you think we learned the really important stuff in school after all. I mean, we pay all that money in school fees, uniforms, books and stationery, and all they teach you are some stupid Grammar, maths and science concepts, half of which we don't even use once we're out in the real world. And then lessons like Civics and Moral ed, they pass you over to bored, uninterested [and hence uninteresting] teachers and give you dumb exam questions, like one that popped out in my Sec 3 exam:

If you see a wallet on the road, do you:
a) Pick it up and keep the money?
b) Pick it up and give the money to a charity?
c) Pass the wallet over to a policeman?
d) Leave it there?

Like PUH-LEEZE LOR. What kinda dumbasses do you take us for?

But then again, I didn't really attend ANY civics and moral ed lesson throughout sec sch and JC, not becos I'm a moral-less being, but because being from a convent school and later a Catholic JC, and a Catholic [on paper anyway], you get sent to the Cathecism lessons, which are mainly about God, the Bible, and why you should do what He says.

Ok, but the point of this post is not about whether kids should receive religious education or not in schools. The point is that they spend so much time trying to cram all these so-called useful facts to us in school, and hammer us about how important our exams and studies are, they forget just how short a period these things are in our lives.

Consider this: If you learn algebra in school, for eg, ( X + Y ) * 2 = ?, the concept is useful to you as long as you're learning Maths. This could start in Pri 6, all the way up to Uni, if you're taking Maths or Engine or something like that. The life expectancy of a human is about 100 years, [if you believe the Five for Fighting song] and throughout those 100 years, the concept of Mathematics is only useful for about 10-12 of those years. [John Nash-wannabes excluded]

So essentially, the concept of Maths is only useful for about 10% of our entire lives! Why do they continually drill it into our minds that it has the power to shape our entire future? Because it doesn't! The knowledge is only good for about 10-12 years!

Why don't schools teach you more about stuff that's gonna affect you the WHOLE of your lives? Why can't they teach you stuff with more long term value, like:

- Love. How to handle falling in love? How do you know you're in love? What should you do to get the girl/guy of your dreams? What should a love relationship be about? How do you tell a girl that you love her?

- Heartbreak. How much it hurts to have your heart broken. What should you do? How can you handle it? How do you walk away from it?

- Ethics. What exactly is right and wrong? Why is there NO right and wrong? What should we do in grey areas? How come it's ok for the President to bomb and kill innocents, but not other people?

and generally, How To Be A Person? How To Live Life? What To Expect? How Will It All Turn Out?

You know what's the common feature of the 3 points I mentioned above? If you were a secondary school student, about to burst into adulthood, but still hazy about the details, mind pumped full of media trash, and you asked any respectable adult questions about those, most likely, the answer would be:

"You're still young. Don't worry about these, just concentrate on your studies."

Don't worry about these? OF COURSE I have to worry about these! Why should I put aside my 90 years of future happiness for these 10 years of Maths that I have to study in school?? I want to know about Love, Sex, Drugs and Rock N' Roll! [ok, scratch the last one]

The Govt still wondering why we don't have enough babies? There you go, INSUFFICIENT EDUCATION. Teaching kids the biology of things ain't enough, they need to know REAL stuff, like how do you know who is the one you want to marry? What is it like to raise a kid, for real? What do you have to expect? F'God's sakes, these things aren't instinctual in us, like birds you know, we have to be taught! And as long as you keep emphasising the 10 years of Maths over the 90 years of life, this is what you can expect.

Anyway, as an aside, you know the most likely theory why the adults just tell us to concentrate on our studies? The big secret is that THEY DON'T KNOW SHIT! They don't know themselves WHAT the answers are, and to save themselves the embarrassment of admitting this, they just brush our questions aside and tell us to concentrate on our studies. Actually, they totally don't have the answers, because their parents screwed up with them, and so when we try to find the answers ourselves, they get pissed with us for knowing something special that they don't, but which they should.

So hence, the one lifeline of parents:

"Just concentrate on your studies"

Note: The date of my Convo is out! I will doing the hat-n-gown on the 13th July 2004, Tuesday. Not sure of the timing yet, but most likely around 3pm. Venue is University Cultural Centre, NUS. [thank goodness it's after Europe. Phew!] If yr interested to come, [and hence see me in full graduation regalia] drop me a note, k? ;)

Back to the zoo!

Blogger has a new look. The blog looks the same, but the publishing desktop has totally changed. Hm.

Yes, I went to the zoo on Friday 7th May, with Newbie. Have to admit, when you're perpetually living in an urban concrete jungle, it's a great change to go back to nature, so to speak. When we took the bus into Upper Thomson Road, you could feel the change in the air, there was less people, more greenery, and no buildings in sight. Then when you changed to another bus to get into Mandai Road, it's even more deserted. We passed by Pierce Reservoir, and everything was so calm and peaceful, it didn't seem like Singapore at all.

Note to all out there: If you ever want a break from work/home/unemployment, take the trip up there, or check out the reservoirs. Very calming.

When we first arrived, I tot the zoo had undergone a complete revamp at first. The entrance was totally unlike what I had remembered it to be. Then again, the last time I'd gone to the zoo, I was something like half my present size, as I told Newbie, so this explains it. Turns out it was only the front entrance that had been revamped, and all the exhibits stayed mainly in the same place, so we didn't get too lost inside, hahaha.

Or maybe something did change from the last time I went. Everything seemed.... smaller. The amphitheatre with the animal shows, the cages, the enclosures, everything that seemed huge and imposing then, now seemed so much smaller when I looked at it through adult eyes. Even the elephants they used for the elephant rides didn't seemed so tall and grand as it used to be. Sad, when you revisit scenes from your childhood and you realise how much has changed, and how much time has gone by.

Anyway, it was fun, :). We managed to catch some of the animals feedings so we could stand there, watch them being fed and listen to the zookeepers' commentaries on the animals. The jaguar, especially, was a most amazing animal. Its closed cage may seem imprisoning at first, until the zookeeper tells you that it climbs, swims, and runs better than any human, and that it could jump to a height of 5m. Yikes. "Maybe in a worse case scenario, you could swim across the reservoir," Newbie jokes. "Yeah right, you'd drown before you even got halfway there." I retort.

And I managed to feed an arapaima! This is the largest freshwater fish in the world, and they were kept in a moat surrounding a monkey enclosure. The zookeeper first sticks a fish onto a bamboo rod, and then you hold it slightly above the water surface. And you know what? I didn't even get to see the fish, cos when it came, all I saw was this gigantic *SPLASH* and that was it. Bleah. Newbie's reaction was funnier, he said, "I saw this giant jaw coming out of the water, and I went WTF??" and he jumped back even further than I did! Hahaha! Later on,

"C'mon, try it! It's nothing! There's a stick for you!"

"No way."

"Or would you rather try it with your hands instead?"

"No WAY i'm trying it!"

Darn. No fun. :p

He did remark later, after dinner, that I didn't seem to be scared of animals when they came near me. I guess I was just brought up that way? No, that's not the reason either, cos my family doesn't keep animals. Maybe it's cos I was taught to handle them, to understand their thinking, and that's why I don't cringe and scream when a butterfly flies too near to my hair, like one Jap girl did at a walk-through exhibit. Sheesh. *Rolls eyes at ceiling* When you realise that they're much more afraid of you than you are of them... well, there ain't much to be afraid of I guess. Of course it also helps that most of the large, carnivorous or poisonous animals are either separated from us by a large moat, or by secure enclosures. Everything else was ok. :p

So that's my day at the zoo. Will be going to the Birdpark next, cos we bought saver tickets. :p so watch out for that one!

Interestingly a dragonfly landed on my shoulder on that day as well, a small, meek little thing that I didn't notice for a while, till he came into sight. I didn't wanna smack it, so I'm carrying it around for a while. See what happens next lah. ;)

Macy gray, Exams, Convo and Sat Nites Out

So.... what's a cantor? I don't really know either but I'm guessing it involves singing.... :p which I can't do much of these days, 'cos my old Macy Gray cough has come back again. The same old phlegm in the throat that enabled me to successfully imitate her rough, grating voice to a T. Most of it has cleared by now, so I can still speak and sing somewhat normally, though subject to sudden coughing attacks at times. Lao Mao Ping by now lah, so I just drink tons of water and honey nowadays. Can't even be bothered to go to the doc's anymore.

The irony about it is that fried food for some reason makes it better. I donno why, but when I eat soupy stuff and hot liquids that's supposed to help me, I still end up coughing loads. But when I eat a BK meal, after downing the whole cup of ice lemon tea, I feel better, and my throat feels slightly cleared. Weird......

Anyway, the coughing mostly affects me when I'm teaching, cos when I start talking for too long, *HACK HACK HACK* Not only that, but all my kids are entering into Mid-Year Mode, which sort of is like a performance appraisal for me once their results come out.

"Miss Tan... I see X has improved by 5 marks in his English... how come only like that?"

"Er, um, er...."

"And his Maths marks stayed the same. Hmmm..."

*Squirms uneasily*

"Hmmm.... We'll call you after June if we still want you."

Ok, so thank goodness the above conversation hasn't taken place yet with any of my students, though I have to keep in mind the possibility that I may lose a few students ( if not all ) after I come back from Europe. The funny thing is that now as soon as I get bad feelings about a student, I lose that student after the one-month trial period. I have no idea whether my instincts are that strong, or is the power of suggestion really that powerful. Hm.

Most of my kids are doing ok, but others....... I really gotta pray. This one kid, I was supposed to be teaching him P6 Eng and Math, and suddenly the mom is asking me to tutor him in Sci as well?? Bad thing about this job is that there's no contract. "Mrs Yeoh, it is clearly stated in my employment contract that I am to tutor your son in the following subjects for the price of $XXX and if you wish to add another subject you have to raise my rate by the following: [$XXX * ( X + Y/2 )]/ ( XY ) and as you can see, after I have done all the calculations, you should be paying me an extra $XXXX for 3 subjects."

Bleah. I wish. Anyway, some kids I just gotta hope and see lor. I don't think you should except miracles from me if I've only taught your son for about 2 months before his exams anyway. If I was that good, you won't be paying me that little already. I just hope those parents understand that and keep me around after the exams and after I come back. Otherwise I'd be totally jobless after my holiday. Argh!

Sigh. Never thought I'd be experiencing exam stress again after graduating from NUS.

Oh, and incidentally my convo is supposed to take place the same week I come back from Europe. Holy cow. I hope I make it back in time. After all the shit I went through NUS, I may as well have the fun of going for convo, enjoying the free snack buffet, and wearing my jeans and sandals underneath my convo gown to collect my degree. Hee. Sorely tempted to do the last option, if not for potential shame on family name.

Japanese also starts again this Sat, after a one week break. Ii-desu-ne! Nuahing for 2 saturday nites at home is enough for me. Flipping through the remote last Sat with my mom, I realised just how deadly boring saturday nite tv was.

Mom: "Forget it lah! There's nothing on TV on Sat nite one!"
Me: "Wait! Let me check Central! Maybe there's something!"
Mom: "Central the whole nite is Indian movies lah!"
Me: "The whole night?? Indian workers don't go out on Sat nite meh??"
Mom: "They don't wat! That's why!"

So my mom ended up watching some docu on CNA about bittergourds' healing properties, [bleah] and I escaped to my room to lose myself in a good book. This sat, Yenn, DEFINITELY have to go out somewhere! Even if we end up nuahing at Esplanade again!

And LINKIN PARK is coming to Singapore on the 22nd of June, when I'M IN FREAKIN' EUROPE!!! ARGH!!!!! LINKIN PARK!!!! *Wheeze wheeze hack cough POOI!* why why WHY!!!!!

Oooo, long entry up ahead.

Slayer, the -1 tracks are of some pretty common pop songs, like Unchained Melody by Gareth Gates, and hey hey, This is the Night, by Clay, and Beautiful by Christina Aguilera. It's called Sing Ballads, and i think it's being released in conjunction with the upcoming Singapore Idol.

Krystal, -1 tracks are essentially karaoke tracks. They're the accompanying music to the song, but with the voice of the singer missing.

From The Food Quiz. Italics are obviously my comments.

My Results
You are friendly and easygoing. Why gee! Thanks! People feel comfortable around you so it is not a surprise that many friends surround you.Looks around wildly. Where?? Where?? just kidding guys. :p You have high self-esteem and will not let anyone get you down.Er, yea, I stomp on like, the faces of those who oppose me.

You're very careful and circumspect in all matters but you won't face any problems until they actually happen. Because by then, they're staring you in the face so hard you have no choice but to slap them back Also you're a kind and sensitive person.Awwww....

You think positively about the people around you and are never prejudiced. Yea! You're all cool! This means others see you as a kind and gentle person..Awwww....again They enjoy listening to what you have to say because they respect you.You do?

You are logical, smart and inventive. Hee... oh stop it...Sometimes you are too cold and selfish.Man, you really stopped it

Luther

So I watched this movie with newbie on Friday night. It's basically about Martin Luther, the guy who broke away from the Catholic church in the mid 1500s [i'm bad with dates. sorry.] to start the Protestant movement.

So what's the difference between Protestants and Catholics? For one thing, Catholics regard the Pope as their spiritual leader, the Great Shepherd of All Them Sheep, while Luther's Protestant movement was a breakaway movement from the leadership of the Vatican at the time. Why was that? Well, according to the movie, the Vatican was.... well, one hell of a shithole at that period of time. See the scenes where peddlers hawk statues and medals of saints in the streets, the predecessor to the modern day religious salesman. See the 'indulgences' being sold.

What are indulgences? Well, at that time, you paid the Church some money, and they give you a piece of paper, which states that the Bearer of this Certificate wilt have access into Heaven upon death, bypassing Purgatory, or spend 500 less days in Purgatory or something like that. It's sort of like a Monopoly card that says go straight to the Go square, and collect $200 on the way. In the movie, that was one of the Church's main sources of revenue, the selling of these little Certificates of Faith.

What got Luther into trouble with the Vatican at the time was that he specifically spoke out against the selling of indulgences, and saintly relics. [examples of saintly relics: bones of the Apostles, a hair from St Peter's head, a fingernail of Mary etc etc...] Naturally Pope Leo at the time [did i get the name right? I hope I did] got irritated, 'cos he wanted to build his spanking new St Peter's Basilica and there was this irritating little priest helping to reduce his main source of revenue. What a pest. Please excommunicate him now and let's get on with the Basilica.

[Sidenote: The St Peter's Basilica still stands today, over what is believed to be the actual remains of St Peter himself. However, because of that building, the Vatican was officially made bankrupt.]

But then again, the Holy Father Pope Leo wasn't exactly the paradigm of faith. Hello, what pope has gold gilded bird cages? The Vatican was a cesspit of corruption and politics, and this spread to the area outside. In the movie, Luther remarks that there are whores specially for the priests. Ironic considering that Jesus originally threw the moneylenders out of the temple.

The movie shows how Luther was disgusted by all this corruption, and wrote his books, deriding the selling of indulgences and saintly relics. This got him into serious shit with the Vatican and he was excommunicated. [one of the ironies of the film is that later on, he marries Catherine Dubray, a runaway nun. Excommunicated priest and runaway nun. Hm.] However, his popularity was immense, and spread as a holy fire throughout Europe at the time. At the height of the Reformation, practically the whole of Europe turned Protestant, with the exception of France and Italy. Catholics everywhere became persecuted and hunted down. Churches were looted and their stained glass windows destroyed. [the Protestants believed they were destroying graven images of Christ]

Which is sad and ironic, because at heart, Luther is shown to be a theologian, a scholar at heart, and a reluctant warrior of faith. Indeed, he stands before a raving mob in one scene, and cries out that "This is NOT what I taught!" With the strength of his words, he manages to stay the mob and prevent them from destroying the church.

Overall, a rather interesting movie. The story of Luther is well told and engaging. Unlike the Passion, the director here has chosen good old fashioned storytelling techniques, which engages the crowd, rather than alienate it.

Aside, there seems to be a trend of historical and religious films these days. Before the Passion there was the Gospel of John, then now Luther, and Troy opens next week here too. Gee, what's up?

Also, I just remembered a little story I read in an email before:

The Dragonfly on the Shoulder

Once upon a time, there was a man and a woman and they loved each other very much. They had met as friends, and after a long and happy friendship, they advanced to the relationship stage. Everyone remarked how happy and compatible they were, and it was no surprise when they eventually got married.

What was a big surprise, however, was that a few months after they'd gotten married, they found out that the man had cancer. It was a particularly vicious cancer, and the man soon passed away, leaving his heartbroken wife behind.

In Heaven, the man pined after his wife, and he asked God, "Is there a way for me to see her again?"

God replied, "When she dies, and comes to Heaven, then you will see her again."

"I can't wait that long. Please let me go down to Earth and see her."

God was silent a while. "I cannot let you go down as a human, because you have already died. If I let you down there, it will be as some other animal."

The man paused when he heard this.

"However," God continued, "If you can make her recognise you, and fall in love with you again, I will turn you back into a human, so that you may enjoy the rest of your lives together."

The man was overjoyed, because now he had a chance to be with his love once again. Thus, of all the animals in the world, he went back as a dragonfly. This was because he remembered telling his lady love that if he ever died before her, he would come back as a dragonfly and sit on her shoulder. He was thus sure that in this form, she would recognise who he was and they would be together once again.

[I'm taking some creative liberty here, because my memory of the story's patchy. Bear with me guys.]

So he went back as a dragonfly, and he swooped around, looking for his love. To his joy, he found her sitting in the park where they used to sit while courting, and next to her was the doctor who had treated him. He flew near her, eagerly trying to get her attention, but she didn't seem to realise he was there. Indeed, he even got swiped at a few times!

Maybe she can't see that it's a dragonfly, he thought, I should try letting her see me. So he flew to where she could see him.

He flew near enough to finally hear the conversation between her and the doctor.

"He's been dead so long. You have to accept that he's never coming back."

"I know, but, it feels like I'm betraying him this way."

"He would have wanted you to be happy too, and I... I would make you happy. You know that."

"Yes, I..do."

As their faces drew closer, the poor little dragonfly was aghast. He tried flying around their faces, but they were ignorant to the world outside of themselves. Finally, as they kissed, the little dragonfly felt his heart break. He even managed to perch himself on her shoulder, but they were too otherwise engaged to notice him there. He sat on her shoulder, utterly miserable.

"I'm sorry about this." came the gentle voice of God.

"I understand. And in a way, the doctor was right. I would have wanted her to be happy. I just wish..."

"What?"

"I just wished it could have been with me, that's all."

"Do you want to come back to Heaven, as a man again?"

"I think... no. Please. Let me be a dragonfly the rest of my life. I cannot go through the same pain I went through as a man. Let me be a dragonfly here on Earth."

"As you wish."

So what is the moral of the story? It asks us to see if there are any dragonflies on our shoulders? Is there someone there who cares for us, but have never been noticed? Please be gentle to the little dragonfly, and take a care not to blindly swat him.

Hope you guys liked the story. :)

a bunch of jiapalang

or rather, a bunch of misc stuff.

note to Slayer: Auditions for Singapore Idol are in Jun, u keen? :) No sight of your MOAM yet, and the DVDs you asked for, but they're released a compilation of pop songs with -1 tracks, for the budding Idol-wannabe. Can check it out when you're back in Spore. J8's also going through major renovation, as in addition of more shopping floors, so can expect more shops when you get back.

firstly, a link to some stunning sidewalk art. I received these pix in an email from Sylveracyd, and Slayer and they're really good! [slayer: Why you fwded me an email which Sylver already sent to me is beyond me] Taken from the right angle, the pictures look amazingly lifelike. [plus the laptop one looks like my laptop. :p]

Sidewalk art

secondly, this was taken in the room of one of my P4 tuit kid's:



Slayer, meet one of Singapore's youngest Claymates :p

thirdly, guess what?

A urinal in the ladies' toilet. Who'd've thunk? And no, I wasn't crazy enough to sneak into the men's toilets. Can anyone guess what this urinal is for?

Now the longer entries....

Kill Bill......Finally

And with Vol 2 comes a sense of closure, finally, on the Kill Bill movies. Caught this movie on a Thurs, cos kena play out by a friend of mine. Supposed to watch with me and then end up going with other people. Grrrr......

So what's different about this from Vol. 1? Well, more on the stories behind the characters, and less of the... cheesy blood splattering. Hee. At this point of time the Bride has only 2 people left to kill, so there is the bitchfight between her and Elle Driver [Darryl Hannah] and then Bill. Frankly the fight between her and Bill is a bit disappointing, compared to the Elle one. They exchange a few blows, she presses some of the vital points on his system, and he falls down dead. Hm.

In this movie, more emphasis is placed on the characters, and finally we understand a bit more of the character of the Bride, her relationship with Bill, and all the other emotional stuff that was lacking in the first movie. Kinda balances out the 2 movies in a way I guess.

If you knew a bit of what went on in the first movie, you would be able to catch what's going on in this one, so even if you haven't watched Vol. 1, you should be able to follow the action. Just that you'll see less blood and action in this one. :p Watch out for the funny bits, like when with Pai Mei [Gordon Liu] suddenly talks in Cantonese and calls the Bride an American dog or something to that effect.

Spare the Rod...

A rejoinder to all those who have ever asked me why I never signed up with NIE to become a teacher. [merlin, are you seeing this? :p]

Preserve the dignity of teachers

This pretty much ties in with the scandal over the resigning of the Nan Chiau principal. Seriously, I don't see why on earth he has to resign over a little thing like this, and I don't see what's the big fuss about him hitting that girl. Goodness sake, it was a soft cover book lor. There's no lasting physical damage to the girl, apart from her dignity, and a repeat offender like the girl sometimes is just asking for it sooner or later.

Why do some parents want to pamper their kids to such an extent? Is it guilt, for not spending enough time with them? Is it over-protectiveness? A lack of faith in the resilience of children? Did the complainant in the Nan Chiau case think that whacking the girl with a book would inflict untold irreversible damage on the girl's psyche, and is in fact complaining because of the future psychiatric costs the family would have to foot for her future therapy?

Come on lah. Some of these kids are hardier than some adults. Last time when blading at Bishan Park with Quet and my dad, we saw a bunch of kids chasing each other on blades, [as naturally kids would do] and crashing into one another several times. Sooner or later, there was a multiple pile up on the skating area, where a few kids were piled up on top of one another and other kids decided to join in the piling by crashing into the pile. Then what did they all do after that? Get up, dust themselves off, and continue laughing and chasing each other, gleefully ignoring their parents' scoldings.

If some buffalo like my dad crashed into another adult like that, I'd probably start worrying about hip fractures.

Could that be the cause of overprotectiveness? Strangely enough, adults are in some ways physically weaker and less resilient than children, because adults' bones have stopped growing, and the body systems have started to slow down. Because we as adults grow weaker, we tend to be more careful when we walk [or blade] around. So then this tendency for safety extends to our kids, although we're the ones that need more protection!

How strange parents are huh? They want kids to experience life, but only after putting on knee, elbow, wrist guards, chest guards, helmuts and all the other chiapalang. By the time we deem our kids ready to go, they can hardly waddle out the door after all that weight. This is what we want to teach our kids? No wonder we're having problems with creative thinking and all that. We don't allow our kids to explore, we don't allow them to learn life's lessons, we don't allow them to live. And we push them to get paper after paper, thinking that that's the only guarantee of success for our kids.

When can we say that we have truly lived?

Weird Eggs, No Ham

Krystal thou hast only one task for thy quest... To bring home safely a bottle of Absolut Vanilla... Do not fret over the gin... I drink too much anyway...

Sad to say, the next major drama event in my life was my breakfast. :p I had this brainwave to make a pirated deli-potato, since my mom had baked potatoes in the fridge, and there were eggs and mayo at home. I started out by plopping the eggs in boiling water and waiting for them to, well, boil.

Now the last time I tried to make soft-boiled eggs, I actually left them too long in the water, so in the end they became hard-boiled eggs, much to my chagrin. This time, however, I left them too short a time a time in the water, so my intended hard-boiled eggs turned out to be perfect soft-boiled eggs. Bleah. Thank goodness I only cracked one at the time, so I just plopped the other one back into the water and turned on the heat to sauna-fy that bugger.

Who knows, suddenly there was a "POOIIIFFF!" from the kettle [i swear, it reallly did make that sound] and the kettle regurgitated some boiling water onto my stove. "Oh shit, oh shit" as I go over to the kettle, and open to see if some dead chick had hatched from my egg or something. [hey, you never know one day] My egg seemed to be fine, though, but there were pieces of cooked egg swirling around the water, so I quickly took it out, cracked it, and well... it was some strange hybrid between a hard and a soft boiled egg. My poor mutant scrambled egg. I should have never brought you into this world.

When you're hungry, you don't care anyway. So I had a plate of soft boiled, with soy sauce and pepper, bread, 2 baked potatoes and egg mayo for breakfast. What do I do? I heck care with the whole thing, throw everything into one plate, mix it all up and eat it as it is. My potato-egg-salad with soy sauce and pepper. Jamie Oliver eat your heart out, or rather puke your lungs out.

As some of you know, I have one of the strangest eating habits in the world.

Ok, before you guys all puke your lungs out... here's some pix...


Sunset walking home from mrt.


I really like this one, it's a gecko that was hanging on these grilles they've put up along the MRT tracks. This little bugger managed to climb way up high.

And finally,
Nocturne was done long time ago, when I was alone on a Sat night and wondering around town. Hope you guys like the pix. The one of Wheelock at the end is my fave.

Beli beli good, Krystal shalt get me a bottle of Absolut Vanilla and Quet shalt hand over custody of a bottle of gin to me. I shalt be a beli, beli, happy drunk.

Me no nothing to blog now, side from recent bout of fever/flu/god-only-knows-wat-germ-hit-me and cramps on Sunday, resulting in cancellation of one tuition class. Thankfully me managed to survive, after much, much sleep and cups of hot tea. Me not sorry to cancel tuition class because that one Mother scares me. That Mother damn damn hostile on phone. Talk like going to scold me for something, anything. Don't like talking to that Mother. Strangely Daughter don't really need tuition. Has 60, 70 marks for past exams. Typical kiasu mum. Easy money if not that Mother seem so grumpy round me.

In end me change to today. Now me have 4 students to gao ding in one day. Me would stand in middle of Bishan junction and wait for car to impose sudden death, if not for fact that me want to fly to Europe soon. Thought of holiday keeping me alive and earning money.

Me no feel like blogging much now. Me will wait for next momentous occassion to happen in me's life before me write it down. Hopefully, this would happen before me is 90 and dying. Me life not beli exciting right now. Me will see you guys later.

a new way to get drunk on the cheap

Friday night, after dinner. Krynn already left, leaving me, Quet, and Yenn to hang around aimlessly in Orchard. All 3 of us, Aimless Wanderers, suffering from inertia of some kind. Finally we make our way to the 5th floor at Lido, where at least there is free seating and entertainment from the trailer screen and the oddballs hanging around the area.

One oddball we noticed was the Tout. This was a guy hanging around the start of the ticket queue. He had a bunch of tickets in his hand, and anytime someone walked towards the ticket queue, he'd approach them, talk to them, and apparently try to sell his tickets to them. Curiosity strikes, we debate as to what the Tout is there for. Theories range from the innocent [his friends couldn't make it at the last minute, and now he has to sell them off] to the criminal. [he's trying to swindle people by selling them fake tickets. Before the show starts, he will run out of the cinema] I'm tempted to call the guy over just to ask him what the heck was he doing exactly, but before I work up the guts to do so, he runs off. Maybe he was swindling people after all.

The object of curiosity having disappeared, we focus now on our drinks. This is like the cheapest Happy Hour any of us have ever had. Yenn had a bottle of gin conveniently at hand, and we decided to make our own cocktails there and there at Lido. The gin was left over from the Nuah Day at my place, and I met her that night to return it to her, albeit much reluctance to do so. [btw Krystal, i still want a bottle of gin. Hee.] We get a medium Pepsi at KFC, yes, because it's refillable and we lace the bugger with about 2 inches of gin.

Yes, we got high. What'd u expect? We even had 2 cups of the stuff, cos we finished the first one rather, er, quickly, between me n Yenn. Damn, but gin tastes good. And where else are u gonna get drinks like that for $2? By the time I happily helped Yenn finish up the gin Pepsi, I was high enough to be spewing out Japanese expletives for the world to hear. Yes, I still managed to walk to the bus stop and take the bus home. I was high, not drunk. But I really, really hope there weren't any Japs in Lido that night who heard me go kono saitei yariman...

Krystal: GIN! GIN! I WANT GIN!!! :p Rdgs SnP site, why not just leave it? Or pass the account to me devious hands? heh heh heh...

And yes I tried to sell the vouchers off to tons of people at the time, but nobody was interested. They were 3 $50 [total $150] Nike vouchers, to be used at NIKE Bird stores at Wheelock and Suntec, no expiry date. Since no one was interested, I just hung on to them till I decided to get a pair of shoes for myself.

The browsers are also all magically back to normal. [Sigh...] Someone in my family must've gone "what the heck...?" and just changed it back. Either that or I have pixel fairies in my com. Hm.

Opportunities in Education:
If anyone wants to make serious bucks in education, I suggest writing a book on how to tackle PSLE cloze passage. This is the part of the PSLE that murders students all around Singapore every year, and yet when I go to Popular, there's only 1 book there that really guides you through the cloze passage. Everything else is assessments. [probably cos assessments are much easier to write] I know this personally because all my students have trouble with cloze passage one way or another. One parent also told me that was what her kid's form teacher said during a PTM. Hey... market potential here... :p

[Tenderheart you might be interested] The last time I spoke to Dr Foo, he was also commenting that most of the business books out there tend to be written by people who just want to express their own opinions and experiences, [case in point Robert Kiyosaki] and there aren't many books out there to make academic research accessible to the masses. [only case in point being Harvard Business Review, which isn't exactly that mass-friendly either] So why not a book/quarterly/magazine to express heavy cheemo academic research into reader-friendly terms? [although the copyrights would probably be so sky-high as to reach the level of God, think of all the grateful uni students all over the world who'd be willing to subscribe.]

A few more add-ons to the boyfriend-shoe thing:

1. Just like men, shoes are made for women to walk on. [in, on... whatever]

2. There is always the choice between the ugly, clumpy thing that's comfortable and will last you donkey years, and the stylish, graceful heel that'll kill your feet and break the moment you step into a drain. Stylish, yet comfortable and long-lasting shoes are rare.

Now tell me honestly, how many of you guys out there have bought a brand-new pair of Nike shoes for less than $10?

100% real, original Nike shoes, from the Nike store at Wheelock. Not from the neighbourhood pasar malam.

Less than $10. $6.45 to be exact.

BECAUSE I DID!!!!! MWAHAHAHAHAHA!

[this is the kinda dumb thing only girls like to brag about. Bear with me guys]

Last time, long ago when I first bought my handphone, the deal came with Nike vouchers. Today I finally decided to use the vouchers and now I have a new pair of track shoes. *evil wide cheshire grin*

Even buying the shoes were an act of fate. I walked into the store, and lo and behold, just almost at my eye level were THE pair of shoes. Like, the kinda shoes where I look at it, and I go "They're mine. I'm buying them." and I don't even bother to look at the other models on display. I tried on for size and after that, everything is moot.

I love destiny when she smiles my way.

As an aside though, it inspired this:
[krystal you can copy and paste this into SnP if you like]

Why Shopping for Shoes is like Finding a Boyfriend

1. Firstly, you have to decide the type of shoe you want. Playful? Sporty? Formal? Work?

2. Then, you select the shop to find the shoes you want. Eg, if you want the sporty type, don't look at Charles n Keith. Wrong products. If you want a homeboy to raise your kids, don't look in Coyote Ugly.

3. After that, glance at all the models on display and select the ones that take your fancy.

4. Just like in real life, there will be tons of other women fighting for the same model that you want. This is especially so in stores with sales, where the women outnumber the men, er shoes, 10 to 1.

5. Try on all the shoes you want before you find one that you like. [for men, remember to always play it safe. you know what I mean] But remember to always try on sizes that fit you. [shoes, ladies, i'm talking about shoes]

6. Don't be afraid to walk around in them. Before you invest in a long term relationship with your shoes, you must see whether you're comfortable walking around with them. If there is anything wrong with the shoes before you even buy them, or if they hurt you in painful and unnatural ways, return to shop assistant immediately, no matter how good or how cheap the shoes are.

7. Don't waste money on shoes [men?] like stilettoes. They may look fabulously good, and make you look/feel fabulously sexy, but they'll slowly kill your feet the longer you wear them and give you athritis in the long run. Avoid stiletto men, I mean shoes.

8. Don't overpay for shoes. However, always pay for quality. Good, well-cut, comfortable shoes will last you a long time. Once you recognise quality, don't hesitate to foot the initial investment. The returns you get back [feet that look n feel good?] will last you a lifetime.

9. Sometimes you walk into a store and you see the pair of shoes you know you'll love. You can't explain why, but you fell in love with the shoe at first sight and you absolutely have to have them. [this happened with my Nikes]

and finally,
10. The first time you wear your new pair of shoes, it's bound to give you blisters and aches all over. [god knows this happened with my leather sandals] Don't forget that with a new pair of shoes, slight blisters in the beginning are inevitable. However, the longer and more often you wear them, the more the shoes will stretch to fit your foot, and in the end, you'll have a happy, comfortable relationship with your shoes.

Too bad I seem to have better luck with shoes than men. :p

I did a silly thing.

I accidentally slammed a couple of keys on the keyboard at the same time.

Now my taskbar [below] has completely disappeared and only reappears when I move the mouse down there, which is a totally irritating thing to me.

Then the menu bar [above] has flattened, from its usual 3 rows to everything squeezed onto one row.

I'm now suffering from windows disorientation.

Can anyone [if you know what I'm talking about] tell me just how to adjust this stupid thing??


As to the Europe trip, hm, donno.... Guess that our 'vision' here is for the whole group to enjoy ourselves as a group as much as poss so as far as possible, we try to do things together, and that's how the planning for the whole thing proceeded along. But anyway despite the size, the only ones making decisions [and objections] are essentially me, Turtle, and Juls. So all this ruckus is really just the discussion between 3 pple. Ironic huh? The other 3 more or less left power of attorney to Turtle and Juls.


The NKF bit I wrote sparked more tags than I tot too. I think it's about high time those people started issuing statement of accounts, just to inform the public exactly where all that money is going to, and whether there're people dying because of that. Luv 'em or hate 'em, you just gotta concede to their marketing prowess. They know what they want, and they're aggressive and pretty original in getting it.



Have you all heard about the collapse of the Nicoll highway? They were on a construction site for the new MRT Circle line along Nicoll Highway behind Golden Mile and then BANG! The whole thing caved in. Statistics currently stand at 1 dead, 3 hurt and 3 missing. Suntec City suffered a complete blackout, of which KR is grateful for, considering he had an early day off from work, but unfortunately Yenn didn't. :p The entire road is also completely impassable and will be so for months.

There were worries about the entire road caving in, rather than just that section, and that it might pull down Golden Mile and the Concourse with it, and then there were worries of a gas leak which could really overboil the soup. Imagine, road collapse and then gas explosion, good god. I think Candle's transport by bus to Suntec has also been completely wiped out. On the radio, I heard that buses like 10, 70, and 14 were re-routed, so Candle, you're out of luck there.

My thought is that somebody in the archi dept is really gonna lose his career for this. I mean, how could you make such a bad mistake in your calculations, resulting in this kinda accident? It's not the kind of thing you can recover from easily. You file something wrongly, slap on the wrist. You misplace documents, slap on the wrist. You forget to email a client, stern warning. You cause a road collapse of one of Singapore's major roads, resulting in 1D, 3H, 3M, and power blackouts throughout the city area including Suntec City, Marina Square, Esplanade.......

Pity the guy. If he gets designated as the scapegoat, the only thing he'll be doing in an archi firm from then on is pouring tea.

To Slayer: Er, so flying to a country you hate for the 3rd time is preferable to staying in Singapore? :p Even if it is semi-free? What's the logic in paying, even a subsidisied price, to go all the way to a place that you hate? Where nobody speaks the language that you do and in desperation you call someone in Singapore just to speak English to them? :p :p Wahahaha...

So either you have to find something you haven't seen in that country, or just don't go lah! Go somewhere else that ain't too expensive, like Thailand or something... Why do you keep going to a place you hate?

Krystal I'll take you up on your offer........ If I wasn't so damn broke at this point of time. *hangs head* Haiz... But KL maybe I'm alright for a weekend, and I know the place a little too. Hee... Might have to wait till I come back from my trip though, cos all my reserves are tied to that.

Almost a month and a half before I fly off, and there are still disagreements within the group about where to go. The LON/PAR part of the journey is set, but it's where we go after that that's causing us the problems. Gotta find some budget flight from PAR to either Copenhagen/Brussels/Stockholm and see where we end up by then. Turtle wants to go to Brussels, because he's been to Cop [lucky devil him *sulks*], Me and Julian were thinking of Cop, of which neither of us have been to, and wherever we go, we wanna try to end up in Stockholm. Then there's the matter of transport and accomo booking. Argh. Argh. Argh.

Am tempted again to do the Piscean thing and curl up in a shell somewhere, and hang a sign on the entrance that says "F**K off, World".

So... here's another of my literary contributions to the world:

Charity starts at... the Purse

The S11 at Bishan was abuzz with activity last Sunday night. This was not due in any part to a wonderful new hawker stall opening, but rather due to the NKF stunt about to be performed. For those who didn't watch/hear about it, the stunt was performed at the block just next to the CPF building and the coffeeshop. 6 stars [I donno who] lowered themselves from the 10th floor to the 6th, where they performed some aerial acrobatics. Like, "1...2....3....Go!" and the 6 people who were hanging in a row would transform themselves into a pyramid. Today in the newspapers, we read that the NKF has earned almost $2m from the 2 shows held over 2 weekends.

These few days, local charities have come under a most uncomfortable scrutiny, in light of the Joachim-Kang controversy. [the priest that allegedly embezzled church funds to pay for his 'goddaughters' computers and condominiums] So suddenly, a lot of people are interested in what happens to the money. What the average man in the street wants to know is, is the money I donate going to pay for meals for poor folks, or the priest's new handphone?

And is it any wonder that they wonder so? Take a walk down Orchard one Saturday afternoon, and you may be accosted in the face by more than 5 different charities, all asking for funds to various needy and worthy causes. [btw that no wasn't chosen arbitrarily. that was the no that accosted me one Saturday afternoon] There are so many people out there that need your money, who will starve if you don't give, who will die if you don't give, quick empty your wallet into my box now or this old lady will die, take off your clothes now because there's a family who needs it more than you, and hey, they need your shoes too.

No wonder people feel so stressed, what with all the guilt being thrust in their faces. The NKF uses this tactic to its deadly fullest in its show. They show clips of kidney patients crying into the camera, stars crying into the camera, asking for funds to keep them alive and on dialysis. Naturally you feel guilty and reach for the phone.

Then one day, 3 strikes. One, it's made public that the NKF has almost $180m in reserves, sitting in the bank. Everyone's like WTF?? They had so much money in the bank and they still want more from me??

Second, Joachim Kang becomes news. Every charity comes under scrutiny, and none more glaring than the one on the richest local charity around.

Third, the gold taps in the CEO's toilet, although admittedly, this probably won't cause such a huge ruckus as the above 2.

But it's true that people nowadays are more wary of the money they give, and who exactly is receiving it and what they're doing with it. If I give you $2, I give it to you in the faith that this money will help someone out there. I give part of the money I earned to someone, because I think he needs it and I want to give it to him. I don't give it to him so that he can upgrade to the latest model, or so that your CEO can buy that new BMW or build that new extension to his house. With all this charitable controversy going around, people are getting more wary about who exactly is receiving the money and what's going to be done with it.

Then further muddying the waters are the 'paid social workers', the kids who get a commission off each ticket they sell. Whether this is moral or not is a moot issue. There will be some for, there will be some against, and it's pointless facing each one off the other. The part I want to highlight here is the behaviour of some of these kids, who sometimes act more ruthlessly than some of the more experienced MLM, insurance or property agents. Maybe they think they have an added advantage by tugging at the heartstrings and hereby letting loose the knots on the purse strings. All they did was piss off a whole buncha people and getting themselves, and other reputable charities, in the same stereotype as MLM, insurance and property agents.

And who are the losers of all these tactics? Only the people who are most in need of the money. They put their faith and hope in an organisation to help them, and when this organisation, or its appointed representatives, acts poorly...... the nearest comparison would be to a lawyer who screams to a presiding judge, "Godammit!!!! Are you blind or what? Can't you see he's innocent???"

Charity organisations have to be more careful than anyone else in the handling of funds. No one gets morally outraged when the CEO of an MNC is caught embezzling funds from his own company. In a weird sense, we aren't so surprised because in business, the first principle is that of self-interest. Look out for your own arses first. People [especially employees, of course] will get pissed off if the CEO has his own Boeing jet or gold plated toilets, but they expect that, because he's the ultimo supremo, the boss of the entire company. Nobody's fooled into thinking he's some philantrophic soul, because if he has to, we know he'll fire our asses off in a minute. Anyway, he's also the one signing our paycheques.

But when we're doing the giving instead of the receiving, we naturally have an interest in what the charity is doing with our cash. I give money so that some family out there will have rice to eat. I don't give so that the CEO can have abalone for dinner. Charities have to make sure that their representatives act responsibly and morally. They also have to keep their slate clean of any speck of dirt that may affect their reputation.

Otherwise what's the cost? Ultimately and ironically, it's always to the people that need the money most in the end.

as an aside, I would like to say that I fully disapprove of guilt marketing. This is when the organization makes you feel guilty for not contributing, ie "If you don't give, they will die" "He died for you, what can you do for him?" and is extensively used by NKF in the former, and Christian groups in the latter. These people wanna make you think that charity is an obligation, which goes against the whole concept of charity itself. If I had an obligation to all the charities out in Singapore alone, I'd be in serious need of charity myself. By using the "If you don't give, they will die" line, they make it sound as if this man's life was in my hands, and that I have the power to let him live, or die. This is not true. As much as I'd like to think so, I'm just not that powerful. My money might help him live for a while, but it's certainly not the be-all and end-all. The more you throw this into people's faces, the more hardened and bitter they will be as a result, like moi here. If I earned my own money, I have a right to decide how to spend it. The more you force this supposed obligation onto me, the more I'm just gonna refuse. If you let me be, you'd have a better chance of getting my money.

Nuahing with FWFC. Wanderlust strikes. Take your pick.

Nuah Day

Yup, just had a Nuah Day at my house with the FWFC-ers, the purpose of which is to gather at a venue, and simply... nuah. Stone. Chill. You get the idea. We started off talking a buncha cock, watching Bowling for Columbine, [good show! good show!] and finally catching FHM's Bikini Heaven on CH5, which was basically a show where these beauties in bikinis 'battle' it out for $15,000 and an international modelling contract. Yowza. Spent more time commenting on the various body parts and clothing [or lack thereof] of the women on the show.

"Wah, real or not?"
"She looks... like she's been f**ked. Dozens of times"
"This one slutty looking"

Anyway, the whole show was more of an excuse to put the girls in various positions where different body parts would be highlighted. Example, the rock climbing segment, where the girls put on these tight black harnesses, and climbed up the walls in their bikinis, while the camera filmed their butts from below. Yup... Let's just say personality doesn't seem to earn you so many points here...

Oooh, but the beach in Miami is fantastic.... clear blue water and white sands... just like Redang, but about several miles longer. Man...... and the closest substitute we have is Sentosa. Boink. Which leads me to my next topic:

Wanderlust

Seeing the beaches, hearing about Quet going Perhentian and Kairos going to Mount Kinabalu really arouses the Wanderlust in me. Not to mention reading about Goldfish's current exploits in Cambodia and Thailand. Man oh man... I feel so badly like just going somewhere, somewhere which I haven't been over dozens of times yet. All my holidays as of far have not exactly been very exciting. Staying with grandparents. Beach resorts and Malaysia with parents. Malaysia with friends. Hai... Not exactly a very well-travelled person at my age....

So regretful in a way. Because my parents aren't exactly well-off and I've only just started earning my money, holidays so far are restricted to Malaysia and nowhere else, not even Thailand. Never been to Hongkong, Taiwan, and all those other places which other people have been to several times and dismiss as "nothing". But to me, it's not "nothing", because I haven't even seen what "nothing" there is like at all. To me, the fact that I've never been to a place means that there's something I haven't discovered about it, and so I don't mind going there, for the reason that I've never been there.

Cos a lot of people always tell me stuff like "There's nothing to see in Hongkong, it's just like Singapore." "Taiwan too noisy" "China nothing to see". Why do they say that? Is there any country in the world that's so like Singapore that it's totally a waste of time to go there? Surely there are differences in culture, food, language and customs. Buildings are totally different. Attractions are totally different. History is totally different. Maybe it's a matter of finding out these differences, rather than just dismissing it as a clone of Singapore at first glance.

Then there are stuff like too noisy, people too rude/fierce, too dirty, too backward... well, like Goldfish commented on her trip, the whole reason why you visit another country is because it's different from yours. If you want to see something different, well then don't expect to see the same customs and amenities that you see back home. [Before I get stamped for plagiarism, the idea in this point is taken from Goldfish. Please don't sue me. ;) ] Either that or go to a much more developed country and pay through the nose. :p

"Nothing to see"? If there was ever a country with nothing to see in the way of tourist attractions or sights, I'd think it was Singapore, rather than anywhere else. :p If I go to the desert, then yes, maybe there is nothing to see. If I get stranded in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, then yes, there's nothing to see. If I'm in a city of millions of people with shops, museums, and various others, why would there be nothing to see? There's people all around me.

Hai... feel like such a country bumpkin, or imo in Jap. Stuck in Singapore, no money to go anywhere, saving for Europe, and all I know of that country I learned from books and TV. Wanderlust strikes hardest, I think, when you open a book, or watch a TV programme, and see, whether in your mind or with your eyes, the images of a place you've never seen before. The possibilities that open up before you. The rich history behind their people. Everything seems so vibrantly alive before you that you just want to reach out a hand and touch it... and then you realise it's all been in your mind. It's all a bunch of images on the screen. Before your very eyes... and yet ultimately untouchable.

Worse when you build up all these expectations in your head... only to go there eventually, thinking you know everything, and then getting bitterly disappointed. Is that all? You ask yourself. Your mind, due to lack of actual contact, has built up castles in the sky, which fall apart the very first time you touch them. Then you realise they're just loose bonds of water vapour molecules, and there never was any real substance to it at all.

I can't wait to get to Europe. All this waiting and pacing around is just making me angsty. And yet, I don't wanna go there, and realise it's all been water vapour.

But then, would it be better to keep those pretty images in my head? Or find out the reality behind them once and for all? Answer uncertain.

I do know one thing, however. I'm pretty tired of having to live my life through intermediaries. To hear about other places through other people, other books, other sources. For once, it'll be good to just fly up and touch one of my castles, and find out whether they were as solid as I thought they were, rather than just take other people's words for it. For once, it'll be good to actually fly somewhere myself, rather than always stay in Singapore and hear it from other people.

Oh God, I want to go off sooooo badly......

Gays, Gyms, Googles, Gifs, and bloG

I know, I know, I broke the alliteration... and capitalizing the last letter doesn't count, I know...

Gays, Gyms
Concerning the last entry about Sex in the Gym:

From Gay Researcher's Blog:
It is true that gays often make out in the gyms, be it in NUS or Orchard Road or any other gyms with gays.

I believe the Orchard Road gym that was mentioned on radio refers to the California Fitness Centre at Orchard Building. [Khel: Yup, I knew that too. Way too obvious] From what I gather from my sources, the Starbucks and gym at Orchard Building are swamped with gays. Of course, there are unknowing guys who work out there.

Gay sex is everywhere. Not only in gyms, but toilets (Westin) [Westin toilet?? Really??] , gay saunas, etc. Promiscuity and sex seem to be on the top of gay traits. Of course, there are some who are celibate (as in they are gay but do not have sex), and some who practise monogamy.

Anyway, while I was doing research for a project, I came across an article that presented empirical evidence showing that both heterosexuals and homosexuals select mates in similar manners, i.e. physical appearance is important, must be similar in race and religion, and some other criteria. [Send me a copy of the results when you're done]

Recently, a topic surfaced on the gay forum: Is Mel Gibson's Passion homophobic? The gays who watched the film argue that Gibson intentionally portrayed Satan and the executioners as drag queens, with heavy eye make-up, etc. This perhaps stemmed from the fact that Gibson previously made homophobic comments. [Uhm, I tot Satan was a woman. Oh oh... and the executioners? They were Romans weren't they? That explains the skirt-like attire]

Googles
This one's from Krystal's blog:

Who is Kheldar?

And unfortunately, Khelath and Boredslacker aren't famous enough to be known by Google yet. Shame.

If you wanna try to see who you are, click this super long link.

Gifs
To Krystal: Try Photobucket, which has obviously worked for me so far. Go there, create an album, and then upload onto their server.

bloG
The following is in response to the Slayer's comment:

To Blog, or not to Blog?

Though something seems worthwhile in the head
To the world, it's better off dead
~Shooksword

Bad pun, I know, I know...

I may be the Bored Slacker, but still I'm not always that free. I go online about 3X a week, and I usually only blog if I have something a bit more worthwhile to blog about. Otherwise, everyday would go something like this:

Woke up. Ate prata at AMK. Shorts being sold at market, felt like buying. Came home and read. Then went online. Then played Minesweeper. Went for tuition. Scolded kid. So careless. Went home. Read somemore. Slept.

Do not worry if I don't blog or reply to emails, again same logic about having something worthwhile to write applies here. Do not worry that I am sick/raped/traumatised/dead. For the 1st one, I will heal. For the next 2, you can't help me much there, unless you wanna cast a hex on the person(s) responsible. For the last one...... Erm, nothing much you can do at all except pray?

Anyway, my point being that I'll usually blog if I feel something's worth blogging about, [what that is is subject to many interpretations] or if I get a flash of inspiration from someone [thanks to you, this has happened. :) ] or I have something on the mind that I want to broadcast to the world. Right now life's pretty quiet so there's nothing much to say, I guess. Not really keen on turning this into one of those inane blogs with the same entry day after day.

Woke up. Ate prata at AMK. Shorts being sold at market, felt like buying. Came home and read. Then went online. Then played Minesweeper. Went for tuition. Scolded kid. So careless. Went home. Read somemore. Slept.

It's such a turn-off to read something like that, where you know the author doesn't have anything better to say, but just vomits out the same words day after day for the sake of blogging, rather than anything else.

Woke up. Ate prata at AMK. Shorts being sold at market, felt like buying. Came home and read. Then went online. Then played Minesweeper. Went for tuition. Scolded kid. So careless. Went home. Read somemore. Slept.

And sometimes they try to gloss it over by changing the entries a bit, so it looks different, though the essence of it remains unchanged.

Wow! I woke up on time today! Then I went to eat prata at AMK, 2 kosong with teh ping. I saw some colourful shorts being sold at the market, felt like buying but still broke. Came home and read some of that book I'd been meaning to finish. Then went online, put a new entry on my blog. Then played Minesweeper, haven't managed to break my high score yet, sigh. After that I had to go for tuition. My kid was careless today so I scolded him. So careless. Then finally I got to go home, read a bit more and sleep

Emotions can be added in without much difficulty as well:

I woke up pissed today. Went for prata at AMK and the stupid *** gave me the soft ones. Cheapo shorts being sold at market, but what's the point? I'll just end up broke anyway. Came home and read this stupid book that was a total waste of my time. Then went online, and found out that I got a whole bunch of spam in my inbox from a bunch of no-good ***. I played some Minesweeper but I kept bombing and got so pissed off. Went for tuition and ended up yelling at the kid for being such a careless ***. Finally got to go home, chucked that stupid book, and slept. Hope tomorrow is better.

You can even be philosophical at times.

How is it I woke up today? Could the purpose of the day be to partake of the crispy prata at AMK? But then, why not at Bishan? What are the underlying psychological implications of me going to AMK for prata? Such a worthy question... Upon sighting apparel for sale at the market, I could feel my materialistic impulses coming to life. Or could it be the passionate red of the shorts called out to me, symbolic of my need to break out of the mould and show my true colours? The question disturbed me, so I came home and pondered over it. To relax my mind, as many of the experts do, I will read and play Minesweeper. Perchance in this state of half-relaxed concentration, the answer will come to me. It is unfortunate that I have to fulfil my educational responsibilities to my students. I hope I will be able to ponder it further tonight when I am done.

To save time, just be minimalistic. Try being poetic.

As I Woke
Ate prata at AMK.
Shorts are sold,
so must buy.
Read.
Online.
Find the bombs, do not ignite.
Went for tuition.
Scolded careless kid.
Why? Why? Why?
Went home.
Read somemore.
Slept.
My day.


Try haiku if you want to be shorter:

Woke up, ate prata.
Shorts, book, online, Minesweeper
Careless child, home, sleep


Or just tell people the plain naked truth:

Sian ah today. Same as yesterday lor. See tomorrow how.

2 articles today, the obviously slightly raunchy one below, *grin* and a more sober one about being your own boss further down. Read what you want.

Sex in the... Gym?

Am listening to Perfect 10, morning show right now, and the topic of the day appears to be the raunchy stuff that goes on in gyms. You know, the kind of thing that everybody knows happens, and is whispered furtively from person to person. "I donno whether true or not, but my friend tell me that..."

So Daniel Ong and Sheikh Haikel right now are taking in calls from the public about all the *cough* sweaty stuff that goes on in gyms. The way you hear it, gyms are like a hotspot for gay sex nowadays. All the callers keep talking about the gays that hang out in the gyms and who check each other out and have sex in the toilets. This girl even called up about walking in a pair of lesbians making out in the sweat room. [sweat room. Hm.] This guy with a bit more balls [bad pun] called up, admitted he was gay, and that he agreed with it, and said it was because gays were visual and with the sight of all those sweaty bodies... *wipes sweat off brow* He even mentioned an "Orchard Road gym" and how many gyms are there along Orchard? ;)

The other consensus also seems to be that gays are a whole lot freer with the lovin' and are more open to anyone who catches their fancy at the time. I see you, I like you, let's make for the toilet. Yipes. Someone did comment to me that this was a failing of the gay community, that because they don't have to worry about pregnancies, unlike the rest of us straight folk, they don't mind spreadin' the love if they feel the need. [I'm putting in effort to not mention the F-word here. Give me kudos for that at least]

Sensationalism at its best, folks. The guys had to put a disclaimer at the end that "Gyms are for working out, and not everybody who goes there is there to pick up guys, and is gay" It was getting semi-pornographic at the end actually. Ok lah, not so bad, but definitely getting hot there. ;)

Have to admit though, that if what I heard is true, then there isn't much to dispute on the gay sex part. Does the Gay Researcher have anything to comment on this? [oh, you know who you are you... hahaha]

On to other more innocent stuff....

To Be Your Own Boss

One strange effect of my biz education is that I'm more hesitant about jumping into biz. Funny huh? I donno whether I'm supposed to graduate with all these grand delusions about being 'my own boss' and having my own office with my own namecards or something, but I certainly don't have those.

I wonder about the rest of my cohort. Do they all have urges to start their own businesses? Be their own bosses? Have a horde of employees to lord over and boss and bitch over? Work, slaves, work...

Sounds like a revenge complex. As I have suffered at the hands of my bitch-boss, so you shall suffer at my hands.

Anyway I comment on this, because being part of a biz cohort, naturally I have offers to go into biz or to help someone with their biz. Maybe they think that as an NUS Business School graduate I'm supposed to be more 'qualified' or have access to secret knowledge that only the holiest of holiest academics hold. Nyuk. Joking lah.

I think it's more to the fact that people like to be bosses. Who'd want someone lording over them, wielding whips and dangling your salary cheque just safely out of your reach? The main point is that we don't like to be vulnerable. We don't want to feel that someone has such a large amount of power over us. By God and nature, we are made to have free will, and naturally we resent any attempts to remove that freedom from us.

To counter this, thus, we have the option of going into biz. I'm a boss. The power lies within my hands. Best still, the power over other lies within my hands. Yes, as much as we like to be free, we like the feeling of power and superiority over others too.

Is this the right approach to biz at all? Face it, even as a boss, there're gonna be people with power over you, who've more money and who can squash you within their grip like a hamster in your hand. [bad allusion to what Tenderheart and I were talking about last night.] There'll be clients you have to humiliatingly kowtow to, there'll be customers infuriating in their incessant and impossible demands. There'll be suppliers who couldn't care less if your biz will collapse if they don't deliver that batch of T-shirts by the agreed time. [another bad allusion to the T-shirt stunt]

So maybe doing business isn't about power at all. After all, there're still people with power over you, just that they're a different batch of people.

What else then is the point of doing biz? Opportunity? Money?

Is it considered a good biz practice to grab at every single opportunity that comes your way, regardless of whether you can handle it, or whether your biz is suited to it, or whether you know the market at all? [Tenderheart: Remember A?] I have a relative who blindly grabbed at opportunities presented before him, without considering the risks involved. Needless to say, he's not exactly rich lah. [my dad pointedly told me never to attempt to ask him to invest in any schemes I have, lest we face the prospect of him pounding at our door asking for his returns.]

It's even worse biz practice to work purely for the money involved. Biz literature is full of case studies of companies who only cared about the bottom line, without caring about the effect on customers, employees and overall company reputation. This doesn't just happen to small Lim-Ah-Hoe-Pte-Ltds. British Airways back in the 90s wanted to cut costs, and did so by firing off a great bulk of their experienced staff and hiring cheaper inexperienced staff, hoping to train them in the long term. [at least, i hope that's what they intended] Of course they screwed up bigtime, pissing off a lotta customers to fly to other airlines.

Enron is a prime example of a company that wanted to see profits so badly, they ventured into areas that deviated from their core biz, and in the end, had to resort to unethical practices in order to avoid their asses being sued off. Of course, we all know now that didn't work.

What other reason is there now to go into biz? I'm gonna say something that might go against the grain of what everybody thinks biz should be about. I say, go into it for the love of what you do.

Sure, sounds like more of Khel's fancy-shmancy dreaming. Wake up to real life. You can't survive on love alone to do biz.

No you can't, but you'll certainly have a lot more ommph to go through with it. Love ain't enough for you to survive in biz, but I say it's a large deciding factor in whether you'll stick to it, and succeed in the end. Every large biz started with a vision. Someone had a dream, and pushed that dream through, until they made good. Don't believe me? Try Anita Roddick, of Body Shop, one of the most successful social entrepreneurs around. Take a look and see why NKF has more money than any other local charity.

So my advice to all budding entrepreneurs: Forget the money. Forget the prestige. Forget the power. Find something you love, you have a passion for. Everything else falls into place after that.

To people joining the workforce: Don't fall into that i-need-a-job-now mentality. You can find a job, you can be good at it, but is it worth being miserable for the rest of your life? Don't just jump at the first job offer that comes your way, and don't bother about people who think you're picky or fussy. [tell them to read my blog for the entry about Unemployed Graduate Woes. You have to scroll down to the bottom.] Find out what you truly love to do. Then only will you be able to succeed in the end.

And the real reward of all this? Looking at all those people that doubted you in the beginning, slogging at their lousy jobs, complaining about their bosses and wanting to quit but the economy's so bad and i need the money for the downpayment for the car and the maid and the blah blah blah..... And being able to laugh in their face outright.

The domestic mode continues today, as I manage to clear out [most of] the mess in my room, which had reached a critical Level 3. [Level 3 meaning that there was 3 layers of mess over all the surfaces in my room] Finally today I manage to see my floor again, without having the view obstructed by books, bags, papers and hair. [i shed a lot]

I still can't access Yahoo Mail or Geocities on my laptop, so I won't be able to upload photos for a while.

Horoscope today tells me to face it, that I have the tendency to go into hiding whenever problems loom too large for my liking. As unflattering as it is, I have to hang my head and admit truth in that. Better learn to tackle that bull by the horn.

Other than that, the other interesting thing today happened as follows:

Nurses can't heal themselves?

Everytime I write something in this blog, it's about me. This time I switch the topic to my brother.

Early Sunday morning, as I'm reading the news, Bro comes down and I notice that he's limping rather noticeably as he does so. I frown.

"Hey, did you sprain your ankle again?"

"Yup."

"Didn't you just sprain that ankle last week?"

"Yup"

As you can see, he's at that stage of adolescence where it is deemed unnecessary to volunteer any excess information to senior family members unless directly asked. Mother comes down and kicks up the typical motherly fuss.

"You sprained your ankle again!!" Statement, not question.

"Yup"

"Did you put anything on it? Ice? Medicated oil?"

"Nope" Hey, a different answer finally.

"How did you sprain your ankle?" Mother asks the question on my mind.

"Walking"

???? What the heck?? The last time he had sprained the ankle was playing basketball and at least that had a modicum of coolness to it. Walking???

Father joins in the act with his own brand of fatherly love.

"Oh, my poor, poor son! Sprained your ankle again? Can you walk?"

"......"

So of all the family, Mother is the only one with enough sympathy in her to make him lie down while she spreads generous amounts of medicated oil on the ankle, and then wrapping it in a blanket to keep in the heat. Funny since I thought the typical prescription for a sprained ankle was a bucket of ice, but hey, it's bro's ankle...

The even funnier thing is that Bro is a nurse in training. The first time he sprained his ankle, he didn't even put ice on it, just went to bed and of course the next morning, he's limping. You'd think a guy who understood all the cheemo-body-parts-terms in CSI would know enough to be able to treat a sprained ankle, but apparently that was missing, either from his education or from his common sense.

Our family has a peculiar way of showing sympathy in the event of injury, especially when we feel you could have avoided it if not for stupidity and carelessness:

Me. As we walk out of the flat: "Let's walk to Ang Mo Kio for dinner!" Ang Mo Kio is a 1km walk away from my house.

Instead we take the car, to a coffeeshop that's five or less minutes walk from my house. :p

Father in the car, outside coffeshop: "I better let you off here at the coffeeshop for the sake of my poor, poor son who cannot walk!"

After dinner, we decide to drive to a friend of father's who runs a foot reflexology shop in IMM.

Father to Me: "You wanna go along?"

Me: "What do I go there for? Just to hear him scream?"

Father: "Something like that."

Me: "Ok!"

Father. On the journey there: "Drive all the way to the shop because of my poor, poor son. Nurse also don't know how to help himself!" hereby condemning the level of nursing education at NYP because of the [idiocy] of his son.

Father at IMM: "I better park on the 2nd level [same level as the shop] for the sake of my poor, poor son who cannot walk!"

Notice how Father likes to put the emphasis on poor. Kudos to Brother, who manages to maintain a stoic silence throughout the evening. Something we probably picked up along the way while living with our father.

But Brother does get his own back in the end though. While he gets a foot massage, father decides to get a body massage. Halfway throughout the massage, a heartrending yowl is heard throughout the shop. Apparently, in an effort to dissipate negative energy in the body, the masseur put her knuckle to the middle of Father's chest and then pressed her entire body weight onto that one spot. Yeow. So the one whose screams bring down the shop in the end turns out to be that of my dad's. :)

And what do I get out of the whole thing? A trip to this incredible $2 shop at IMM called Daiso, which got me 2 Jap books [normal phrases, no curses and insults] and a new waist pouch [i know, another bag, but I couldn't resist, for $2. :p] for $2 each. Mwahahahahaha... You could say I got the best out of the entire evening, especially towards the end:

Me, lifting one foot in the direction of my bro's sprained one: "Hey, let's test to see if your ankle is fully healed"

Bro, dodging awkwardly: "I don't think so."

is anyone having this problem besides me? I can't seem to access any of the bigname sites like Yahoo for my mail and Geocities, Tripod and Angelfire. I would think that I have a virus, except that I can access other websites just fine. [otherwise how would I be putting up this blog entry right?] dammit this sux... i had a new website all done and ready to upload and then it turns out I can't even access the stupid Geocities page. What the ......

Anyway, life has sorta plateaued for me right now. The bad thing is that my brains seem to be turning to fluff and mush. I'm perpetually walking around in some kinda semi-dream state, one foot in reality and the other in dreams. The worse of it is that I'm mixing up all kinds of appointments because of it. "Am I free on Sun? Sure, sure... I'm free" and then 10 minutes later, "Oh dammit...." I realise I have an appointment already. Awgh........ I want my BRAINS back... and my memory.... whatever little I had of it at first....

But what I want most of all now is to be able to access the damn bloody Yahoo page!!! I want to check mail! I want to upload HTML!!! Awgh!!! How could they do this to me??? *revelling in self-pity*

Fired Again!

I don't know if my tuition instincts are becoming more refined, or rather I have a dire self-fulfilling prophecy lingering over me.

I [used] to teach these 2 boys in AMK, and the most irritating thing about them was that they were forever late. Latest record: Late for 1 hour, while I loitered at their void deck, SMS-ing quet and juls complaining about them, and from time to time, calling their house to see if they were in. The best part of it all: I couldn't leave because I was supposed to get paid by them that day.

Fume.

Anyway, on that day, I had this strongest feeling that I won't be teaching the boys for a 2nd month. [yes, this was the first month] This strong, instinct-like feeling just kept bugging me again and again. Somemore, I would actually be rather relieved if they would fire me, because they were starting to make me rather late for my student after them. [Thurs' class, supposed to start at 3pm, became 4, then 430. After their lesson, I had just enough time to take a bus to the MRT, take the train down to my next student and walk briskly to his house, without time for dinner.]

Also, teaching the boys was becoming damn sianz..... They obviously couldn't be bothered with tuition lessons, they came late consistently, and they couldn't be bothered to do their homework. The times they came late, they claimed they were held up by school. Hello?? My lesson is at 5? What are you doing in school that late? [either that or I'm woefully oblivious to the hectic schedules of an average Sec 2 and 4 kid.] And anyway, if you couldn't make it at that timing for tuition, why did you tell the agency in the first place that you could be home at 3? [the original timing agreed on via agency]

The other irritating thing was when they were late, they couldn't be bothered to even send an SMS telling me how late they would be. This meant that I ended up waiting outside their house, for half an hour or even up to an hour like the last time. Eh, guys, this is basic courtesy lor. When you're late for an appointment, the polite thing to do, especially since it's your tuition teacher whom you're paying and are dependent on for your continuing progress in school, is to notify the person lor. I had this feeling that they just couldn't be bothered, and that's what irritated me the most about them.

So anyway, today was the last lesson. I went down and the younger boy said his mom said they didn't need tuition and they could do self-study on their own. Highly unlikely, by my account, but done is done. I took my pay from them and I left the house on the spot, suddenly faced with 2 hours free before dinner and the next student. Yay! [the little pleasures we take in retrenchments]

I expected this anyway. If I was her, why would I waste my money on a tutor who couldn't make my kids' timing? In fact, it's a waste of money to do so, because either my kids don't get taught, or I'd have to compensate the tutor for the times she came down and ended up waiting for an hour. It would be more worth my while to either hire another tutor, or just let my kids study themselves lor. So somewhere in my subconscious, I guess I expected this to happen to me all along.

The loss of the income is a sad thing, but fortunately while I was teaching the boys, i managed to pick up some new students, of whom I'd be starting this month. So thankfully my income didn't take such a large dent after all. [heng ah...]

What makes me happy is the thought of having my Thurs afternoons free again... Sigh... and not having to rush from one house to another without meals in between anymore. I can't believe I'm getting to the point where I'm sick of getting new students. If I already can't stand the loss of time from my already-pretty-free schedule, how the heck did all you guys take [or used to take] working 8 straight hours in a day?? I bow to you on that. Or maybe I just have too free a spirit.

Yea, yea, put a positive spin on things. Hee....

Domestic Mode

"Necessity is the Mother of Invention" - an oft-used cliche in reports, compositions and GP essays. Maybe for this purpose, we should change it to "Necessity is the Mother of Laundry".

The parental units have gone on vacation over the weekend to Malacca, and obviously, the little laundry basket piled to inconceivable heights. Ok, there wasn't actually a Mount Underwear in my house, but to a person who's only done laundry thrice in her entire life, it definitely seemed that way. Plus the fact that I was running out of clean underwear [mother happily leaving aforesaid dirty laundry pile behind before leaving] meant that action had to be taken. Out with the detergent.

Thankfully my machine is a very fool-proof device. You switch on the water supply, press "Power", and "Start" and the magical machine starts pouring water into its belly and washes everything for you. It even spins-dry the clothes when it's done. All this is a godsend compared to the old chunky machine we had. You had to turn 5 different dials throughout the laundry cycle to get your clothes cleaned, and when it was in the spin cycle, you could hear its shouts of complaint from the first floor of my block. And to further make its point, sometimes it would even jump up and down in loud, spinning protest. Yes, I am definitely thankful for the new machine, which purrs like a kitty and obediently washes and dries your clothes for you.

Humans are such versatile creatures. When faced with an imminent problem of survival, ie in this case, not enough clean underwear, they can quickly figure out a way to tackle this problem. Problem: No clean underwear. Solution: Do laundry. It's AMAZING what the brain can do! I actually managed to get the laundry washed, iron my dad's shirts, and hang all the almost-dry laundry from the first wash! And I even managed to remember to separate whites from colours! Mwahahaha...The power of Detergent is mine.....

Another cliche to explain this phenomenon: Nature abhors a vacuum. Since my parents are off overseas, the Seat of Domesticity previously occupied by my mother was left vacant. This hence left my household open to the evil forces of Dirty Clothes. In order to let the family survive in the Jungle of Household Grime, the next Chosen One, ie the Daughter, has to rise up to the challenge and save the family from being overcome by the Stink of Dirty Clothes. Armed with her Chalice of Detergent in one hand and the Staff of Bamboo in the other, she is left to confront the Stink by herself. [her useless bro having sprained his ankle once again and ironically, being a nurse, unable to heal it and thus hobbling around the house today]

Was that the cheesiest piece of writing you guys ever read or what? hahaha.... I'm just thankful I'm not such a klutz when it comes to laundry and that I can turn out a decent piece of clean laundry. This will definitely come in useful in Europe... Ok, time to take out the next load...

BTW Anyone been to Wheelock place lately? On the 3rd floor there's an amazing photo exhibition full of pix that this guy took at beaches around the world. There's some amazing underwater shots as well, my favourite being the one where a school of little blue fish are swimming around a bright coloured coral. The ones of the beach also are so pristine, it made my heart ache to look at it. Fond memories of Redang. Sigh. Go check it out.