I'm really praying I do get reimbursed for this:

Meet Sonny, the latest addition to a growing line of electronic products in my house. ^_^!!! Even if every photo I have is saved in soft copy in my laptop, it still is somewhat of a nostalgic thrill to hold a real photo in your hands, something that can survive crashes, hangups and can be hung and viewed without a 45sec bootup.

And printing out the above picture taken in Greece makes me not regret paying good money for Kenny and Sonny both. ^-^ Lookit that colour and detail!

So my day playing hooky, ahem, on MC turned out to be productive than I thought. While stopping a leaky nose, I managed to successfully install and use:

1. One card reader
2. One Nokia PC suite
3. One photo printer driver

Plus printing out 5 sample photos on said printer. Man, if only I had this kind of productivity at work.

Then again, maybe not. :p

For those who like eggs, whether fresh or scrambled, you have got to see this!

An appointment made to hang out on Deepavali Monday was duly cancelled on the morning of Deepavali Monday due to familial obligations. Namely, the obligation to hang out with family instead of me because of lack of time spent with them.

This is the kind of thing that you get irritated at because you shouldn't be irritated. Yes, he did make the appointment with you first, but he spends more time with you than his own family, but he cancelled last minute, but you know you'll see him next weekend and so on in a sisyphean cycle of forgiveness and blame.

I'm more irritated at the last minute nature of it all. Well, heck, if you wanted to hang with your family, then you tell me in advance and I'll just find other entertainment. But don't let me look forward to meeting you, only to let me down on the day itself, when it's too late to jio other people out ma. [and even when I surfed the cinema websites there's not even a show worth seeing. -_-!] I'm irritated that his family would 'book' him on such last minute timing, I'm irritated that he would go along with the last minute timing, disregarding plans made with me, I'm irritated that I have to play second fiddle to the deserving ones who contributed to his genetic makeup.

Bwah! I need something to stop me from getting more irritated by the minute......

Seasons come, seasons go, and no one knows how the leaves will fall
Life is the throw of a dice into the roulette table
All we can do
Walk in circles while doubting the sands beneath you
Praying they never part

Sinfest is a wickedly clever comic strip that I subscribe to, and the artist does great storylines. Especially with all the politic-financio drama happening in the US right now, which provides great fodder for some of his strips. Here is the latest, which I couldn't resist pasting here:

You must check out his cartoons here.

A random thought....

Pluses and Minuses of doing things yourself as opposed to getting others to do them

Doing your own cleaning
Plus:
- You get to tidy things up the way you want
Minus:
- Ever tried vacuuming and mopping an entire house? You have to have tried it to know why I call it a minus

Doing your own work
Plus:
- You get things done exactly the way you want it, without having to listen to someone else's opinion
Minus:
- No scrapegoats when something goes wrong

Sex - Doing it yourself
Plus:
- You get it done exactly the way you want
Minus:
- Er, isn't the point of it to be with someone else? [doing a solo act once in a while, fair enough, but for the rest of your life??]

Random thought of the day. Thank you for reading.

Sales and Weddings

I went for an FJ Benjamin sale on Saturday, where brands like the Gap and Guess Marciano were on sale. It was also a sale where the acrazed shopping bitch was prominently on display.

Witness: A guy pours a box of bags into the discount bin, where they are promptly and thoroughly snatched up by very quick hands, one being mine. I assess the bag, decide it's not worth it, and then throw it into the sea of handbags, where it's promptly snatched up by two lady sharks instead. *shudder* If I had thrown it back more slowly, I might have lost a hand.

Told by Quet: She carries a Raoul bag around her shoulder after deciding to buy it. Now, you see a woman carrying a bag, you assume that bag is her property right? NOT! A woman actually grabs at the bag on her shoulder, and then when Quet turns and glares at her, she actually asks if she's buying it.

Uh duh!!! If it's already on her shoulder, you think she's just carrying it around for the sake of a cheap shoulder massage?

Strangely enough, I like such sales. Amidst such predators, I feel like a hunter, sneaking and grabbing for prey....... :p Although that may mean I'm also eating too much meat in my diet.

---

I'm reaching the age where my friends and I are getting a whole lot of wedding invitations from people around our age group. And to the inevitable question: No, I'm not marrying him yet. :p It really seems as if most of our friends have reached the sell-by date and are now flying off the shelves a la a 90% off sale from FJ Benjamin.

It used to be that we would mainly meet for birthday parties. [still do, actually :P] but now instead of cake and dinner, it's cold dish, chicken, fish, seafood, noodles, dessert and the complimentary doorgift. And it's more expensive than any birthday present I ever bought. -_-!!!

And it's no picnic for the couple either, as anyone who's had to attend to the logistics of a wedding can attest to. All kind of finicky details, from the gown right down to what kind of cloth to be used for the tablecloth. -_-!!! Personally, bridezillas who insist on planning down to the tablecloth confound me. To me, something white that I don't have to personally launder later on is ok with me.

Although the DF brought me to one of his colleague's that was remarkably elegant in its simplicity and cheapo-ness. The couple saved a bundle by booking a SAF chalet at Changi, [yea I know, not the most ideal of locations] and had a buffet dinner for all the wedding guests instead of the usual ten courses.

But yet, the air was cool when they took their vows. The wedding couple facing the calm sea as they were joined in matrimony, the sky almost at dusk. No one had to dress formally and because of the out of way location, it provided a great amount of privacy. If you couldn't go to Bali, this was the best and closest you could get.

Interesting. Sometimes I wonder if by worrying about all the nitty details, we lose sight that what is at heart is the joining of two hearts, together, through all of life, till death do us part.

Not very happy at work

The longer I stay in my job, the more mornings that I don't want to get out of my bed.

The longer I stay in my job, the more I get used to it, and the accompanying generous months of paid leave.

It's strange. Sometimes, every morning for a week, I wake up thinking that yes, this is the day I'll play hooky and take a false MC and pay the doctor for that one glorious day off that I can use to regain my nerves and sit in the library and read all morning and take a afternoon nap after lunch.

And then I somehow pull my unwilling body to work, scream for about 4 hours, stone for about another 2 or 3 or 4 after lunch, and then marvel at the fact that I actually managed through another workday.

I find it a miracle of God that I actually managed to get through so many weeks without succumbing to the MC path of temptation. [aside from the one day that I was actually sick] My [seemingly] robust health at times seems like a blessing and a burden.

My friends and I have become the Bedsheet Bimbos.

This started out innocently enough when Candle first discovered Aussino, and that one could have colour-coordinated, 200 threadcount bedsheets and pillowcases. Then Yenn got into it, buying quilts, bedsheets and more pillowcases than the number of pillows she has on her bed. ^-^!

This month Candle, Yenn, Quet and I embarked upon the hapless Aussino staff at Paragon during their sale. Before we did, over dinner, she was telling us about how some people she knew had spent close to $500 on bedsheets, pillowcases, quilts and other assorted at Aussino.

"Who spends that much on bedsheets?" Famous last words.

After the shop closed and we were the last customers in the store, the cashier racked up sales from us to a total of $412.50. That's like an average of $100 spent by one person on bedsheets. -_-!!!!!!! [for the record, I only bought a comforter set at $42.]

Who spends that much on bedsheets? Us, the Bedsheet Bimbos.

I'm touched. *sniff* While I was in Singapore whining away about not having any company, the rest of the gang, on the last day of their trip, eked out the last remaining baht they had to come together to buy me this surprise present: A new LeSportsac pouch!
The design is......... so typically me. :p Looking at the pouch and the shirt they got for me, I have to admit I'm quite the easiest person to shop for, as long as it has 2 ears and whiskers......

The pouch is not exactly this design, more squarish, but it was the closest to it I could find on the LeSportsac website......

*sniff* tai gan dong liao........ Now I gotta figure out what to put in it... >^_^<

In the midst of the political unrest in Bangkok, Candle, Quet, Yenn and Jules have decided to fly there on holiday. *sigh* My hopes are they don't get caught in any unrest and end up having to run from angry mobs carrying loads of shopping bags. I'm getting pretty bored in Singapore with all my regular dinner and drinking kakis off shopping, getting massaged, and avoiding rioters. Thursday I kept thinking I wanted to call someone for dinner, and then I had to mentally remind myself that the names I wanted to call were all overseas. :s Argh! Sat I'm just gonna sit in a corner and stone...........

I'm currently reading a book that's making me think [slightly more than usual].

The Lucifer Effect is written by Philip Zimbardo, the same professor that was in charge of the infamous Stanford Prison Experiment. This was the one where he got 2 groups of students in a realistic prison-like setting to see what was the effect of being imprisoned on guards and prisoners. The experiment had to be terminated after only 5 days [he intended it to go on for 2 weeks] due to the increasing sadistic tendencies of the students assigned as guards, and due to a moralistic awakening on the part of the professor.

Conclusion: Situational forces are strong enough to significantly alter people's behaviour, often to unrecognisable states. Students who are assigned to be guards became sadistic SOBs, but even more scarily, students assigned to become prisoners became depressed, detached, and suffered from increasing levels of hopelessness.

The even scarier part of it: Even when student-prisoners knew that at any time, they were free to leave the experiment, none of them took up the chance. They were so deeply entrenched in the prisoner mentality that they totally resigned themselves to their situation, and literally became prisoners of their own making. At one point, they asked the student-prisoners: If you could leave the experiment early, without collecting your monetary reimbursement, would you? 3 out of 4 students said yes, but did not leave the experiment. Even when the chance to leave was offered to them, they did not leave! They said yes, and then walked back to the guard to be literally shackled down!

Zimbardo's point was that the situational forces at work are so strong, that they confer a kind of mentality on the persons in that situation. If you were an easy-going, carefree person, who was put into a position of power over others, the situation that you were put in would transform your personality into a domineering tyrant that you wouldn't recognise if you saw yourself on TV.

This is scary, because I immediately started seeing paralells in my work situation. Ok, not quite to that extent, or I'd probably be fired, but I recognised some of it in myself. At home, or out, I'm relaxed, easygoing but in my work situation, I have to change into a more aggressive, domineering figure. [Yes, some of those under me would probably describe me as being tyrannical. -_-!!!]

And once I started to really think about the prisoner mentality, I started to realise that there were many other paralells you could find in society in general. Doesn't everyone know someone who would tell you to just obey the boss, despite his outer-worldly requests for your soul, because that is what you are supposed to do? Don't people complain endlessly about the gahmen, but leave it only at verbal complaints because they see no point in taking action against those in power?

Come to think of it, everytime you succumb to a figure of authority, or a general way of thinking, simply because that's the way things are, aren't you succumbing to a kind of prisoner mentality? Your job may suck, you may feel depressed, but you stick at it anyway, because of the perceived benefits in terms of the paycheque, and because you're not entirely sure that things would be better somewhere else. You've become a prisoner of the company in your own mind!

And just as in the experiment, these are boundaries that exist in our own mind and nowhere else. Is it such a moral sin if you decide to quit your job? Or get out of a bad relationship? Or decide to become a full-time bartop dancer? And yet there are people who will subscribe to that way of thinking, and who will tell you that such things cannot be done, because of various reasons, but actually because it just isn't done this way in our society. These people have created a prison for themselves, even though the prison door was never closed and locked.

You don't have to stay in a bad situation in life. You can always get out and change yourself. It only depends on whether you want to accept that you have this chance at freedom and whether you are willing to take it.

This somewhat reminds me of a scene from The Sandman: Season of Mists. Lucifer is talking to Morpheus, and of the souls in Hell, he comments wryly, that they can ascend to Heaven any time they want. They are only there as long as they want to inflict punishment on themselves for their sins on Earth. And some of them put themselves there for eternity.

It may look a long road to freedom, but maybe it's not as long as we think it is, as long as we start walking on it.

I'm still reading the book, so I haven't reached the part where it gives tips on how to get out of that prisoner mentality. But I am starting to think twice about the whole career deal and about what I really want for myself out of life. Freedom? Or handbags? ;)

I realised that after a while, due to my bag-whorish tendencies, my relationship seems to be progressing in terms of the bags he buys for me. :s Yesterday, it reached a all-time peak in the form of a *little* something he *subsidised* for me. Well, it ain't a gift but at least I got a really good discount out of it. :p Oh, and it comes from a new-yorkish brand named after a woman, in case you're wondering.

[rest assured, it ain't an LV. For that, I'd have to marry and bear him at least one child. :s]

Sadly, I had to temporarily cut off the respiratory tubes to one of my budding little children today. She had real potential but I wasn't coping with the responsibility well and the neglect showed. Hopefully one day I can get back to her and develop her to her full potential.

And btw, NO, this doesn't have any connection to my job. :p

My Birthday Wishes for Singapore

Happy National Day! Here are my wishes for the country:

May we understand the meaning of democracy does not solely include freedom of will, but also includes the responsibility of the citizens to be informed and to take action on behalf of the greater good of the state.

May we understand and appreciate the freedoms we already enjoy, instead of focusing on those inconsequential ones we think we lack of.

And lastly,

May the satay always be sweet and tender and the gravy always be nutty. ;)

Happy Birthday Singapore!

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It&#39;s so sadly typical and ironical when the one person [or rather 2] who can make you do things against your will, things that you have flatly refused to do with your oldest and closest friends, happen to be......

No, not the boyfriend, but a 5 year old kid. -_-!

First, know that I&#39;m a chicken, coward and a lily-livered wretch when it comes to anything more than 3 stories off the ground. Especially on a transparent container being hoisted off the air by the Singapore Flyer.

Secondly, know that the DF got cheap tix to the Flyer, and I was perfectly fine with the idea of sitting in Kenko, waiting for him and his family to come down.

Thirdly, you have to know that his mom brought along a 5yr-old, for whom the phrase &#39;it&#39;s too high&#39; has no meaning.

Lastly, know that my fear of heights is less than the stubborn dignity I feel I have to uphold in front of kids. And it was that stubborn dignity that brought me up the Flyer which brought me up 42 stories in the air.

But it was my height phobia that kept me butt rooted to the seat as the container made its revolution. -_-! Ok the view was ok and all, but I like the view I get from the ground very much better thank you.

Next time he gets tix to something in the air again I think I&#39;ll make him give it away......

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As all my friends know, I'm a 100% kentang.

So if I ever have kids, does that make them kentang kia?

But I'm kentang what, so must translate to kentang terms:

My kids in the future will thus be french fries. And I'll probably be the baked potato. [Because the potato would have been 'cooked' ;) ]

******************************************************

Anyway, for various reasons, this fat baked potato of a kentang has been getting gradually interested in China, especially during the Cultural Revolution period.

It's a fascinating period for several reasons:

1) The enforced conformity of the citizens, and the repression of desire that arises. When the govt determines how you work, where you live, and when you marry, what does that do for the wishes and desires of the people?

2) The elevation of status of the Mao, from once-guerilla leader fighting for all the ordinary workers and people, to All-Around God above petty peons Whose Every Whim Must Be Obeyed.

3) The ferocity of the Red Guards and Mao Thought Propaganda Teams [I'm guessing this last moniker is directly translated from the Chinese], personal bulldog troops of the All Around God who were swift in exacting severe punishment to any infringement of their All Around God And Leader.

and lastly,

4) The similiarities between the Cultural Revolution, as seen above, and the modern day workplace, especially in places like Yenn's and mine.

Power to the People!

Again, this has been a week of nothing to blog about. [nothing that would not potentially get me sued by my employer anyway] so Quet has suggested I blog my version of what happened to her car on July 6. Since I don't think I'll be sued by Quet for this, here goes:

We just had the usual dinner and drinks and had actually decided on an early retirement home. So as usual, Quet sent Yenn home and she, Candle and I were on the car driving down the ECP towards Candle's house.

This is when it happened. As the car cruised along the expressway, it coughed, sputtered, died, and then literally cruised along. As Quet tried to direct the car towards a breakdown zone, the car ran on nothing but kinetic energy and then finally came to a halt serenely parking itself in the breakdown zone.

Did I mention this was at, like, 1am at night?

Being 3 girls with the combined car-mechanical knowledge of a peanut, we began calling up the men in our lives for SOS. [Our closest bimbo moment] Quet's brother, unluckily, had a car breakdown of his own to settle. -_-! Jules was having supper with his friends. -_-!! Quet's friend had no idea what had happened to her car. -_-!!!!!

Finally it took Quet's dad to come down and rescue us, or rather the car from its comatose state. As this was happening, I got more male attention along the highway than in all my years of being a woman. Witness the number of men who slowed down to look at us, wound down their windows to holler at us but never stopped to offer us, 3 girls along the expressway at 1-2am at night with a broken-down car. -_-!!!!!!!!!

At any rate, when Quet's dad came, even he couldn't start the car, it being really stuck in its automotive coma. Luckily some policemen stopped by and gave us the number to a tow service. And then even luckier, Jules told us he was coming down to rescue Candle and I!

At this point, I would like to blog my heartiest thanks to my fake husband for gallantly driving down at 2am to fetch both his fake wife and mistress home. I only hope the Carl's Jr supper we treated him to was enough thanks.

Finally, Quet's car was carried by EMAS guys to the nearest car park to wait for the tow truck, and Candle and I were off home in Jules' car. Maybe we have been abusing Quet's car too much, what with the drivings to obscure drinking spots in jungled areas...... May I suggest that when the rest of them head off to Bangkok to give thanks for unexpected windfalls, they also donate a little something in the box for the strength and longevity of the car...... ;)

what's there to blog about?

I think I'm getting too slow at catching up with my blogging.By the
time I actually have the leisure to think about blogging about
something, I read some frens' blogs only to realise that what can be
said has been said.

Breakdown of Quet's car and subsequent rescue by Jules, blogged by Quet.

Obscene monkey face and sexual depravity on Yen, blogged by her liao.
[although she may have phrased it differently from 'depravity'......]

What is left that is unique to me... are specific work stuff that I
can't blog about in case I get spotted by a co-worker or even my boss.

Er... should I start making stuff up a la Leonard Frey? Any ideas
anyone? *sigh*...

--
Getting all the slack I can...
http://boredslacker.blogspot.com

I woke up this morning hacking away my lungs and I decided enough was enough. Time to honour that promise made to myself and get an MC the moment I was sick this year.

Took me till July to get it, but hey......

And it's taken me long enough too. In a spit of self-justification, I would like to say that in 2 years of service, I've never taken a single MC yet [not counting lectures skipped]. I have endured my little gremlins through bouts of flu, pounding migraines, and even a bout of throat that was so bad once I had to do everything in writing. [and considering my job, no mean feat!] I would like to think that this one day is at least justifiable, from that point of view.

The doctor has diagnosed it as the 'usual' sore throat and cough, going around via the 'usual' bug that commonly hits teachers, students, policemen, and prisoners. [huh] So his advice to me: Lay low, rest and don't use my voice for the next 2 to 3 days.

I could only look at him with eyes upturned, in a 'yea, right' fashion.