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.

All hail the wonderful, magnificent, and magnanimous folks at Photobucket, the only online photo provider that's apparently worked for me so far. Thank you thank you thank you mwah mwah mwah.

But if the pix didn't turn up, then may you be covered with all over boils.

Glad people like the cat. No I didn't adopt one. If I did my mom would scream the house down and throw me out the doorstep together with the cat. :p This little cutey's Hax, and he hangs around the colourful playground one block away from mine. Very friendly, very playful, and likes to rub himself on your toes. I wonder why. For a while I thought the cat got high on foot odour but i doubt that's the case...

To FWFC-ers and all others in need of fun, food and drinks, [alcoholic mainly, with a sprinkling of sugar and caffeine] the Jam will most likely be at my house next Sat, meeting ard 4something. [so sorry, got a student starting on sat so can't meet earlier] Drinks are on a BYO basis, [Bring Your Own] food will most likely be catered by various fast food establishments near my place, and I'm NOT peeling prawns this time. Bring your own scores too, and extra guitars, if u're not used to mine, or u think it's not enuff. We're prob. staying through dinner, and if anyone gets wasted by the drinks, my living room floor [and my toilet] is open to you.

All unemployed bummers or people in need of serious bumming invited to come.

Some pix:



It lifts you up sometimes, when you're walking to breakfast, and you're presenting with this wonderfully blue sky for your viewing pleasure alone. I just love the view in my estate in the morn. Although the weird pointed shadow on the ground makes it look as if it's about to be invaded by some giant KKK guy.



can u believe this is actually a bar? It's actually an alley way between shophouses at Emerald Hill, and these enterprising people threw some furniture there, put a mesh roof on top, and ta-dah, it's a pretty hip-looking bar. Wish I could visit that place once, without fear of the SPG label....



Chilli bottles at Cahaya. I was competing with Julian to see whether his super-duper-ex digital camera with 5px and 3x optical zoom and one of the hugest lens ever could compete with my barely 1px and 0x zoom camera phone to take the most art-farty looking picture. I like to think I won.

If this new server works and you all can see the 3 pix with no problem, it'll be a huge sigh of relief to me.......

Corpse in a Cart

and so started CSI tonight....

Tonight's ep was really... disturbing.. in a way. A model is found dead, in a shopping cart, with gaping holes in her face where the skin had been scraped out. Suspects include her model boss, a crazy ex-boyfriend, and a schizo sister.

What was the most disturbing part? When they found out at the end that the model had inflicted the injuries on herself.

Apparently the agency where she worked was an intense, high-stress environment. Too fat. Too flat. Can't fit into clothes, your fault. Eating too much. Her sister became a paranoid schizophrenic because of it. They both became hooked on coke, supplied by the boss of the model agency to keep his girls in line. Then she became bulimic anorexic. Eventually she died of a blood infection due to the, er, scraping n the constant puking. [something to that extent. sometimes I don't hear the words properly]

The really sad part is that she became so obsessed with her face in the end, she had to scrape out portions of it in order to make herself look beautiful. And that she couldn't see what a smashing beauty she really was. Contrast to hole-y face on stone cold white corpse on table of morgue. It makes you sick.

What also makes it even sicker is the ad ch5 showed after that ep, which was.... a commercial for Miss Singapore. What a bastardly piece of programme timing huh? Right after the ep when a model died because she hated her face so much, ch5 shows an advertisement for a local beauty contest. [in which the models range from pleasant, simple, man-like, and just plain bitchy looking] And then throughout the next programme, Buffy, adverts for slimming centres, facial cleansers and bust enhancements during the breaks.

Be the woman you always wanted to be.
Lose all your unsightly fat now.
Cleaner, clearer, oil-free skin.
For a shapelier bust.

Excuse the language, but this is just plain, clear fucking mad. The global obsession over how women should look is just bloody crazy enough, without all these advertisers, and slimming centres to screw our brains further. Be the envy of all the women - by having the bust of your dreams. What crock. What bull. Already we're [or rather I am] halfway neurotic about men, ticking bioclocks, menstruation and menopause for the older ones, and comes in all these people with dollar signs in their eyes, preying on our indecision and seeing our fears and worries as "opportunity".

I'm a business student. And I just hate the world of business at times like this. The one that judges people in terms of productivity, wages, numbers. The one that sees how well you fit into that $300 suit from zara. The one that looks down their noses at you because you don't wear makeup. The one that forces you to wear shoes that will trigger athritis later in life, but insists that that is the standard and that everyone has to go through this in order to "make it". The one that rewards all the young, slim chicks with smashing bods to screw for, and a face that'll sink a thousand ships, including one or two superstar virgos.

This is crazy. I'm so pissed now I barely know what to type. Who the hell came up with all these fucking rules and forced US to accept it??? Who the hell was the idiot who said that you had to be young, slim and screw-able in order to get the hot male bod who'd love you throughout life, and who doesn't care what you look, but thinks it wouldn't hurt if you try wearing a skirt once in while, just to look like a "girl".

Dammit I hate this world.

Internal Bleeding: I'm always up for a jam+drinks session.... even better if it's at my house. I don't have to lug the guitar somewhere and I don't have to worry about getting drunk on some street. Moreover the drinks are free. Mwahahaha..... :p Name the time and date pal....

So one fine Sunday morning, while I'm contentedly reading the newspapers in the living room, my dad yells out from the com room:

"OIE! Bored Slacker!!"

Oooooh boy........ daddy found the blog. First thing that crosses my mind are the recent entries in my blog: Chocolates, ice cream and sex. Graduate Unemployment Woes. Groan at the thought of having to justify and explain the stuff I've previously written for the entire Internet to see but never told my own father.

Then he goes on about Cats in Bishan, and eating roti prata on Sundays, and I frown: When the heck did I last write about eating roti prata for breakfast? For the life of me I couldn't remember. Then I ask him whether he went to the other website for my camera phone pix and he goes, "Ha? You have another website?"

Ok, so probably my dad saw a very, very outdated version of the blog. [hoping he did anyway] And he didn't even see the camera pix one. *Phew* I went into his profile, found the link in the history folder n deleted it. The only problem with that is that he may think it suspicious. Would he? He hardly goes online. Oh phish. Fortunately the stuff I write here isn't anything like what Belle Du Jour writes on hers. Then again, I'm not a London callgirl, so what do I have to worry about? That Daddy sees my fan raving about Agatha Christie? :)

BTW, my fren kry5t4l has come up with a blog for women to rave about love, relationships, singlehood, [contributor on that last topic, moi] and everything wonderfully rainbow-ish, good, sucky about it. Take a read at Scents N The Pretty. She's also looking for people interested in writing for it, so if u want, er, indicate on the tagboard? :p

Also tried tidying up the blog again. Hope this looks 'presentable' to u guys, meaning that you can read the words in a coherent fashion. Also that you can see the little cat pix up there. Pray to God this works.

This is most decidedly an ungodly hour. I just came back after a wonderful dinner at Kenny Rogers' courtesy of Tenderheart. Many thanks and roses to you. Also shared Black Angus mudpie with her too. If chocolate was sinful, then I'll gladly jump into the fire and brimstone.

Pix gone. Again. My poor pix. Daff: The method I'm using for this table is the percentage method, so that obviously is a crossout. I'm not sure abt the cm method 'cos that might mean that my table will be fixed no matter what browser you guys are using and might cause other viewing problems too.

I'm currently tweaking the code a whole damn lot to get the look I want. So this is gonna turn into a construction site for a while, sans concrete and yellow boots. Bear with me guys. I know it looks terrible right now.

That done, here is a Little Bad Poem dedicated to my trials with HTML:

I hate .jpegs.
I hate tables.
I hate javascript.
Bleah bleah urgh.

I did say it was a Little Bad Poem.

Onto blogging proper now....

Chocolates. Ice cream. Sex.

Just an example of the things women eat to reduce stress. I'm not sure about the sex part though, I just put it in the headlines to get your attention. *grin* But it will come up later in the blog.

Kry5t4l's blog [link on the right. check it out] has a little ditty this week about how girlfriends are the most important friends in your life you'll ever have. Now I produce scientific evidence to support this hypothesis. [ooo I sound all reseach-ey]

From Readers' Digest:
Shelley Taylor, a University of California, LA, psychology professor, [this is all to show you that this woman knows what she's talking about and ain't just bullshitting you] says that "Women have a potent stress-fighting system based partly on oxytocin, the 'cuddling hormone'"

Known for being produced in women during chidbirth and lactation and in both sexes during orgasm, [hence the sex part. Hey, does that mean sex will help us reduce stress too?], oxytocin has also been shown to boost bonding in rats, sheep and prairie voles. [what's a vole? why are we being compared to animals?]

Giving rats daily shots of oxytocin cuts blood pressure and the stress hormone cortisol [that's the idiot hormone screwing all of us up] while promoting wound healing and possibly, weight gain. [probably from the chocolates and ice cream]

Oestrogen increases oxytocin's effectiveness. To Taylor and others, this shows that women may naturally cope with stress not just by fighting or fleeing, but by finding comfort in friends too. Most intriguing is how... oxytocin may feed a kind of self-perpetuating loop of stress reduction.

So when stressed, forget the pills and the food. Call up your girlfriends, have a night out, and chill in each others' comfort and misery. Note one thing: The article makes no mention of male friends. :p

Hence women are better equipped to handle stress, because we reach for our girlfriends the minute stress hits? This may be more true than you think. Think: What do women do when they face stress? They SMS, they call, they meet their fellow girlfriends.

"My idiot boyfriend..."
"Dat damn bitch at work..."
"All guys are blocks..."
"They ran out of ice cream!"

Don't you think? When my frens have a shitty day at work, or a bad day with the BF, or a bloody hell of a time organizing a holiday across the European continent, I'll hear about it sooner or later. Whether through SMS, phone, email, ICQ, MSN, blog, or when we're really pissed, or bored, meeting up face to face. Or through the wonderfully effective grapevine within the group. I think the intelligence network within a group of women would put the CIA to shame. Then again, they're men. Go fig. It also shows why Bush never managed to get definite intelligence about Iraq's weaponry either. He's a man. He's genetically deficient in intelligence gathering. Ok, I'm digressing.... *ducks tomatoes*

I think part of what helps women to handle stress is the ability to share stress with her fellow women. Instinctly we have a need to pour out our sorrow, grief, joy to our frens, and instinctly we are made to receive that stress, share in it, and offer our own, sometimes unwarranted, opinions. Nothing wrong, bad, even particularly good about it, just the way good ol' Mother Nature [or God] made us.

Ditch the Valium. Ditch the chocolate. Ditch the ice cream. Gals, your best stress reliever is always there, free of charge, and only an SMS away.

Which triggers a question: Do guys handle stress the same way? Thru' male bonding? Or do they just drink themselves silly or something? Any male readers wanna comment? Or do I have any male readers at all?

A Multi-faceted Diamond...

Is my blog... because almost everyone sees different sides of the same thing. Bleah argh eek.

Overwhelming opinion is that the right column with the tagboard seems to be 2X the size of the left column. Damn. Totally the opposite of what I usually see on my screen. This is probably due to the HTML code I used, for tables. Someone more versed in HTML please give me an answer to this... Doshitte??? *hunts for her Idiot's Guide to HTML*

And all hail me, proponent of Graduate Issues. I can just see myself in Parliament...

"You con all these parents into thinking that the only way their children can have a future is to have a degree, and then you pick on them for trying to carve out that future for themselves? Shame on you, Mr Goh, shame on you!"

Right..... The only problem is that if I appeal to the grads for votes, seeing as how little a number we are compared to the entire Singaporean workforce, I don't think I'll ever make it as far to Parliament. Unless I'm standing on the lawn having my picture taken as a tourist. :p

Thankfully the rest of my life is sailing smoothly along. The online comics are still coming up, *grin* my real-life comics all came, and I'm on an Agatha Christie fever.

Blood, Gore, and the Little Grey Cells

There's a good reason they consider Agatha Christie one of the best selling mystery authors of all time. Because she's just so damn good! I've been reading her Hercule Poirot series, ["use the little grey cells, mon ami" "order and method!"] and by Jove, they're stunning! One yardstick by which I measure how good a book is is how much it pulls you into its world. i.e., a really good book should be able to make you oblivious to everything around you, because you're too absorbed in it.

Another measure could be the number of MRT stations by which you overshoot your stop, because you were too engrossed in reading the book... :p

Ah... murder, mystery, and mayhem. Brings me back to my childhood days.... When I first read Sherlock Holmes. [don't worry, my childhood wasn't that traumatic] How exciting it was to hear of the murder, and then follow eagerly on the trails of the detective as he sought out the villian, eventually roughly pulling off the mask of the suspect, and exposing his dirty, murderin' face for what is was. Of course, Sherlock Holmes was also a most polite, civilised Englishman. Despite a cocaine habit, he also played the violin and was well-versed in many subjects. [all pertaining to the art of murder, unfortunately. His knowledge of literature, for example, was described by Watson to be dismal]

Then in secondary school, I discovered the mangas Detective Conan and Kindaichi. Again, both fantastic murder comics. Conan being a young high-school detective, who was induced to swallow a mysterious drug by black-robed villians, and then turned into an 8 year old with the mind of a teenager. Don't ask. Sometimes it's best to just accept it as it is. In fact, this manga became so popular in Japan, that the town that the writer/artist, Gosho Aoyama, has declared itself the Town of Conan and there are statues and memorials to the young boy detective everywhere. The power of fame...

Kindaichi is also a high-school detective. No drugs, just the grandson of a famous detective in Japanese mystery literature. He goes around solving cases too, like Conan, but his cases tend to be longer, and usually involve a lot more blood and a lot more bodies. :p In fact, there is a pattern that runs throughout all of the Kindaichi comics:

1. Kindaichi fumbles into something, or joins something, for eg, a mystery club in school.
2. The first murder occurs. Kindaichi proclaims dramatically that "The Murderer is within our midst!"
3. Kindaichi goes about solving the crimes. Nanase, his childhood sweetheart, is usually put into danger.
4. Kindaichi, after coming across an important clue near the end of the story, says, "The riddles are all solved. I know who the murderer is!"
5. Kindaichi exposes the murderer in front of everyone. Sometimes the murderer takes his own life to avoid the shame of prison, sometimes he takes a hostage, most times he goes along quietly.

It's too bad that the Kindaichi comics have ended, but the authors have released a new title called Detective School Q, revolving around a famous Japanese Detective School, which teaches its students the art of crime detection! The main lead here is Q, [don't ask either, just accept it] who's a 10 year old boy [i tink he's ten anyway] and a prodigy at solving crimes, with a great sense of observation. It's just too bad, that, just like Kindaichi, his general knowledge is woefully poor.... sometimes not even knowing the most general of knowledge.

And now I come to Hercule Poirot... all I can say is masterful. Simply masterful. The crimes, the methods, the human psychology behind it all. In fact, Agatha Christie's main interest in all her mysteries seem to be the human psychology. The way a murderer thinks, and the way that influences the way he commits his murders. Of course, there is also plenty of physical evidence to back the psychology, but you will find that the way the criminal thinks is just as important to her. No wonder that her books are one of the world's best books, and only outsold by the Bible and something else, I forget what. :p

For people with too much time on their hands, [:p] and a good love of murder, I suggest The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie for a mystery novel with a wild twist like no other. If anyone has read this book before, don't reveal the ending!

goldfish's comment on the tagboard does raise an interesting question mark in my mind now: Just what does my blog look to you guys? On my house PC I see 2 columns, and the left column is 2X the width of the right column. Do you guys see that? Or do you see something different like what she does? Plus does anyone see the 3 cat pix on the right and the boredslacker one on the left? Are you reading my blog at all??

Grad Employment Woes

Anywayz the FWFC are unemployed once again, apart from the long-suffering Yenn. [Whom I nag at every week that she should quit, but she still labours on] The common reason amongst the different resignations, or unhappiness at work, seems to be "that damn bitch". I never hear any complaints about "that damn asshole" or "that damn dick". Hm, looks like women really can't work under women huh?

In a wider view, though, it is interesting to see how disgruntled [most likely dip holders or lower] others would take this as a cause against the "picky grad". Some common views include:

"You youngsters don't know the meaning of hardship, of perseverance!" ~ Thanks a lot, Daddy.
"Grads these days don't know the meaning of loyalty to the company." ~ Quet's boss.
"Grads like you so educated don't even know how to send fax meh?" ~ Friend of Quet's experience.

Let's face it, everyone has it in for the grads. We hate grads. Lousy, stuck-up pigs. Bring out the flaming pitchforks.

Well, excuse me all. Does hardship and perseverance mean that we should stay stuck in the same, lousy job until the day we die? Does it mean we should accept bitchy supervisors and unreasonable bosses all our life? Does that mean we should just meekly accept our lot in life and deal with it somehow? I thought the reason for our education was to give us something of an edge over all that. Face it, no one excepts a grad to take a clerical job, doing data entry and filing for $1K a month and if someone did so, it would be acceptable only as a temp job to something higher, or that you were just plain crazy.

Why does everyone have this thing against us? Well, firstly you have to blame some of our own stuck-up, stupid grads. These are the idiots that ask for a salary that's 2K above the current market rate, and all sorts of fancy-shmancy benefits thrown it with it. "Oh, and nothing less than a BMW." It's idiots like these that just spoil the market [and the rest of societal opinion] against the whole lot of us, and lead society to condemn us all as spoiled, money-grabbing apes. Next time you see a stupid grad like that, whack him/her in the head, and shout, "Don't be a godamned fool!" These are the idiots that deserve to be mopping floors in McDonald's, so that they don't think that hardship is having a salary less than $3K.

The other reason that everyone hates us stems partly from that, and partly from society's own envy and jealousy at us. We are the "privileged" class, the one that tasted the sweet wine that everyone else can't have and the orgies that come with it. [ok, maybe not the orgies] Remember all that "top 20%" crap that SML used to dish onto us in JC? Never mind that most of us didn't care that we were the "top 20%", the fact that we were intelligent, hardworking, and just plain lucky enough to get in didn't cut it with most Singaporeans. [oh, I'm blushing] They still seethe at what they don't have and they blame us, because we are the ones who have what they don't.

So anytime any grad expresses dissatisfaction with their work, people automatically think, "oh, they're too soft. They don't know what hardship is like". Screw you. Our parents slogged and pushed us into this, so that we could have a chance at a better life. What's wrong if we take that chance for our own? Won't it even more of a waste of their money, if we are stuck doing what they did all their lives? If we should be content with lower salary, lousy working hours and tons of work, then why study all the way here? Why not stop at PSLE and work at Mac's? Or in a factory?

*Sigh* One thing's for sure. Being a grad really gives you a perpsective over society that is different from everyone else's. In fact, the "streaming" starts as early as secondary school, when students are put into Express, Normal A and Tech, and Gifted. The separation of classes begins as early as that, and from there, the hierarchy of society is formed. It's sorta like the Indian hierarchial system, but a little more relaxed.

The levels remain, however, and they remain all throughout life. So essentially, we're dealing with a resentment that is over 10 years old! These guys started hating us from secondary school! How do you deal with that??

There are a few arguments:
On hardship: Do you except us to stay at the same lousy job all our lives just to show others how well we can experience hardship? Obviously not lah! Given the choice, [and if other jobs were available] many other people would also quit the very next day. We have other jobs available. Therefore we quit. It's not our fault if people like to hire us.

On company loyalty: Quoted from Quet: "The way you treat your staff, the way you pay them, you think anyone wants to be loyal to you? They're just sticking it out 'cos they don't know where else to go! I know where else I want to go, and it's not anywhere near here!"

On the fax: Quoted from Quet again: "If I was smart enough to use the fax, you'd be out of a job, so thank your lucky stars I'm that stupid."

At the end of it, it's your life. No one else should tell you what to do with it. Not parents. Not employees. Not bosses. Not the Government. It's up to you what you want to do with it.

Even if you want to be a full-time tuition teacher. :p

Ok, on a lighter note,

Bday Outing with Egg Squad

Never mind that merlin's bday is in Jan, and mine and Juls are in Feb. Due to Juls' totally fluid schedule, what was supposed to be a Feb 28 celebration finally happened in March.

So we met up one Fri night for dinner and dessert. Dinner was... a mucho cheapo affair at Burger King, seeing as how we couldn't decide where to eat, and I had coupons handy. :p The good thing was that it gave us a good reason to splurge on a really good dessert. Mwahahaha.... The whole squad looked good, though goldfish was a bit frazzled at her thesis. [Slog on, girl.]

And now for some shameless promotion. The mudpie at Black Angus [1 fullerton] is REALLY BLOODY GOOD!. Ok, first up, we ordered the Wild West Onion, heaven for onion lovers I tell you. Imagine one huge onion, opened up like a flower, and fried to crispy goodness and served with a special sauce. OOO mama mia! When you eat it it's crispy and crunchy and tastes divine...... though your breath will stink like mad after that, and you might end up releasing a lot of gas into the environment... but that's where the...

Mudpie comes in! A thick slab of ice cream cake, that comes with a cup of chocolate sauce which you pour over the entire cake! O la la! And the apple pie was good.... fresh apples in a pie, served with a scoop of ice cream. [food orgasm] We totally whacked the dessert while talking, it was bloody good!

Anyone up for Black Angus dessert one day? ;) It's that steak place at 1 Fullerton, but the desserts are $10 and below. 2 plates like the ones I mentioned are enough for 4 people sharing, so it's more worth it... heh heh heh...

I read the Death comic I got from the egg squad. Argh so bloody cute!!! Sandman stories are usually dark, grim and grimey, and this one was a manga-esque offering from Jill Thompson, same artist who did the cutesy big-eyed Sandman cartoons. Suddenly a lot of manga comic styles which I had never paid attention to became glaringly obvious when applied to a comic such as this. For eg, a scene where Edgar Allan Poe falls for Despair stunk of shy schoolgirl shoujo manga. Then there are the other manga references, such as the big-eyed characters, [Death is the archetypical 'silent cool guy'] and the sound effects and stuff. WoO! The effect is sort of like hearing Josh Groban sing a Linkin Park song. :p

And yes, my pix disappeared again.... I hope some of you can see them....

BTW thankfully they found all the guys who escaped to Tekong and also seem to have recovered the guns that they had on them. Phew! Fortunately I'm not as prophetic as I was afraid I was...

why is it everyone else can put pix on their blog without having them disappearing mysteriously one day but mine seems to be eternally plagued by this curse? if i ever find the wanton geek who's responsible for this, i'll stuff those .jpgs up his.... orifice. let's try this again and hope after a while the pix stay....

On a brighter note, Merlin sent me what our response should be to the baby crisis. Can someone send this to the sexually-deprived, chauvinistic old pig of a minister who said that giving birth was the patriotic duty of every citizen?

Cookies!

Sorry, not the confectionery kind.... Just a few bites of today's news.... the ones I liked anyway... :p

So... From the Straits Times, Mar 19:

Big hunt for robbers who fled to Tekong

Full ST article here

SAF personnel are now combing the island of Tekong, hunting down 3 armed robbers, who fled there from the nearby coast of Pengerang, Johor. Right now, they're focusing on the northern part of the island and they've got guardsmen, recon troops, Special Operations Command and Gurkhas, along with 12 search dogs.

Gee, that's a pretty huge party searching for 3 men.

Now comes the chips.

Firstly, I donno what the robbers were thinking when they decided to flee to Tekong of all places. [let's see, fear of capture, fear of death, fear of imprisonment... pretty much that] The conversation must have went like this:

[in Malay]
A: Ok, that veg stall owner was a bad idea, but hey!! We got RM8000 from the boat! Yahoo!
B: But now how?? Going into Singapore meh?
C: Better not ah! They cane people there one leh!
A: Eh, down there got island, got jungle some more, we can hide there first!
B: OK! Good idea!
C: Er, why got men hiding in the trees carrying guns ah?

So pretty much, they flee the Johor police force..... to end up on a Singaporean military camp where almost every man is armed. Granted the NS guys are probably untrained, but think about it. If you're scared shit, tired, and untrained, with a rifle in your hand, and the first thing you see jumping out of the forest is a guy with a gun pointing at your head...... [Argh!!! BANG! BANG! BANG!]

No wonder all NSmen were ordered to stay confined to barracks the whole time the search on the island was going on. Their nonchalance at the situation, however, belies the serious nature of it all. At the time the searchers were ploughing through the jungle and the rain, these guys were gleeful for having their road march cancelled and one battalion was having their battalion party as planned. Hello? We have armed brigands here? These are the defenders of my children?

Then the really BIG chocolate chips come up. If you read between the lines, you come up with the following chips:
1) The robbers are on a jungle island, with cash and jewellery.
2) They are believed to have fled to Tekong early yesterday morning.
3) The troops began searching at about 11am yesterday.

What does that tell you guys? C'mon, think about it!

Think hard!

Any clues?

None at all?

You're getting irritated at this?

Ok fine.
1) Cash and jewellery cannot be used in the jungle, and obviously not be pawned to the SAF on the island. Where is the next nearest place the robbers can use their loot, if the hunt for them in Johor is on?
2) + 3) The robbers fled there early yesterday morning, which could mean anywhere from 7 in the morning, to 11 when the search came on. Which means they could have had at least 4 hours to escape to somewhere else where they could use their loot.

Where is the next nearest place for them to cash in their loot? You got it..... Pulau Singapura itself......

These guys are now being chased hard, both in Johor and Tekong. Assuming I was one of them, it would seem to me that my next desperate course of action would be to make my way to Singapore somehow. I can't go back to Pengerang, because I'm being hunted there. I can't stay in Tekong, because the place is small, and crawling with armed personnel more armed than I am. If I had arrived in Tekong around 7-8am, that still gives me time to make my way to Singapore before they think to search for me in Tekong. And since Singapore is slightly bigger, if I move fast enough, I can maybe get into the island, hide in the crowd and then figure out my next move. And while I'm at it, hey, maybe I'll hock that nice gold necklace for some cash somewhere.

So, unless the robbers are more stupid or desperate than I think, the possibility of there being 3 scared, desperate armed men roaming the streets at this moment right now seems very, very real. Which, on the bright side, beats having bombs placed in messenger bags all along the MRT tracks.

Right now, not much is being mentioned about the robbers except for the article in the papers, so either there's no development on it, or they don' wan' us to panic about the prospect. [Argh! Shriek! Eek!] I'm just hoping that the thieves are either slower or more stupid than I gave them credit for, and that they find them fast, and not on the mainland. Gun violence in Singapore. Who'd've thunk?

Helping Tenderheart do some research for her thesis, and starting to remember what a total nightmare the whole process is. You log into the digital library, select a database, key in the stuff you're looking for and then......

The database unrolls a bunch of stuff in front of you that you never asked for, and you curse the blindly-thinking algorithms behind all this. Or worse, nothing comes out and you have to keep searching frantically trying every combination of words you can think of into the search engine.

*Sigh*

Anyway, to entertain you guys, [and to Candle, trying to brush up her English] here from the Back Page of 8 Days...

English Writing Rules to Drive You Mad

1. Never use a big word where a diminutive alternative would suffice.

2. Always avoid alliteration.

3. Prepositions are not words to end sentences with.

4. Avoid cliches like the plague - They're old hat.

5. Don't use commas, that, are not, necessary.

6. Don not use a foreignn word when there is an adequate English quid pro quo

7. One should never generalise.

8. Be more or less specific.

9. Use youre spell checker to avoid mispalling and to catch typograhpical errers.

10. Avoid, poofread carefully to see if you any words out

11. Don't use abbreviations, etc.

12. Parenthetical remarks (however relevant) are unnecessary.

13. Parenthetical words however should be enclosed in commas.

14. Contractions aren't necessary.

15. Who needs rhetorical questions?

More in next week's 8Days....

Was just surfing through the Xanga website. Those not in the know, it's another bloggin server, out there for you to create cool blogs. [when i write it that day, 'bloggin' now looks like an adjective rather than a verb..]

So anyway, not a bad website. There are a bunch of features that Blogger doesn't have, like the ability to put background images on your blog and profile pictures of yourself. Coolz. Unfortunately the code doesn't seem as manipulat-able [is there such a word at all??] as the Blogger code. Somehow all the xanga sites look pretty much the same as one another. [sorry kry5t4l. :p] So either the HTML is not accessible to the public, or the owners of the sites I've seen have not tried anything with it. :p

And somehow you can only link to other xanga sites? You can't seem to put external links on your blog, like I did with this one. Once again, matter of coding.... The Code is the secret language, known only to the few who are willing to learn. Very Jedi, but since we're talking about computer code, it kinda fits. In a way. [right, release your inner geek]

However, the good thing about it would be since you can't manipulate the code, you have to rely on your own writing to keep your readers interested and coming back. [that is, unless, like in this case, your readers are your friends who don't wanna hurt your feelings by saying they didn't read your blog. :p] No flashy animation, [not that much anyway] no long list of Links To Websites I Like, and no pictures. [none of the blogging servers allow picture upload anyway, unless you pay for it] Just good, ole' simple writing.

But isn't that the same for Blogger anyway? Wat the 'eck are you talkin' about?

er..... you know what? I don't know anymore.... :P :p :p

A CheckList of My Life

Well the mess on the trip is starting to kink out a bit thank God for that.

My ERS also finally came in, so my bank a/c has a positive cash balance again.

My long-awaited comics also came out, 3 at a go. Ergh. While I sorely missed my manga, it pains me when so many are released at the same time, and I have to fork out the cash for them all. Unfortunately, for me, manga comes under the category of 'Needs and Necessities' rather than 'Wants'. Necroz, your Tsubasa 4 is out, will lend it to you once I'm done with it and when we can meet up.

Starting 2 new students next week, this time in Bishan. Really hope I don't get fired from these again, cos I really need the cash right now. Please please please oh God.........

Considering
-selling stuff online to make more money
-making my own online comic. Already have some ideas, now need to kick myself to do it
-eating the baked potatoes Mother has put in the fridge
-making a sorta online portfolio and putting up some of my stuff on it. Once again I have to kick myself to do this.

Also need to create some English grammar worksheets for my adult students. Hope they don' fire me too soon either.

As entertainment, check out this toy I saw recently in Seiyu at J8. Something every army in the world needs....... The Amazing Bio-Scan
If I actually get enquiries about this I'd laugh till I die. Hey if people are willing to contribute thousands to help some Nigerian prince smuggle money out of the country......

BTW special regards to THE SLAYER who's only just discovered my blog. Yipee. *Pulls cracker and one measley piece of confetti comes floating out* heeheehee.... ;) She's starting a blog too, so I'll link her when she has more than 1 line on it....

Kry5t4l's starting a blog on relationships too. Will link it up soon too.

Ok that's it for now. I don' wanna spend too much time online cos I'll get stuck and never come out, or I'll begin another round of minesweeper. See you guys.

sore with guilt

Great, now after my last rant on my Europe trip ( see below if u haven't read it ) there's now a buncha people who think I'm upset with them or something. Turtle wrote me a email from Sweden telling me to chill and Bunnygirl freaked because I missed her phone calls [3 of them, actually] n called Juls frantically saying how upset I must be with her that I'm ignoring her phone calls and stuff. N of cos Juls tells her Aiyah She Always Like That One Lah...... which is the truth as most of you might know...... n then he tiredly calls me up to tell me what happened and that's when I find out about it.

This trip is starting to give me a whole lot more grief than I had bargained for. Bleah.

So screw it. I'm gonna write about something a bit more cheery now.

Captain's Ball at Church

It's been a long time since me and the IJers had touched a basketball now. In sec school, we used to spend all our recesses at the basketball court. Once the bell rang, me n Stingray would run down to the canteen, get our food and meet the rest of the girls. We'd usually buy the kind of food we could hold in our hands, like the hotdog popiah or the sandwiches, so that we could finish eating them fast. We'd then go to the basketball court to meet Doe, SaraJ, Jul, ( not the male one mentioned above ) n the rest and then sit in a group at the court, in the shade of a tree growing nearby. Once we finished our food, we'd grab the basketball someone had earlier hidden in a nearby grove of banana trees and start our game in earnest. Needless to say, we usually ended up going back to class hot, stinkin' and sweaty, and loving every minute of it.

After we graduated from sec sch, there was hardly any more time for us to indulge in basketball any longer. Our timetables were all radically different, some of us having gone to JC, some of us having gone to Poly. We were too caught up in school, tutorials, and projects to meet up anymore, even once a week, for a game or two. Not helping the situation was that we lived in opposing corners of Singapore. Me n SaraJ lived in central Singapore. Doe lived in Yishun, Stingray in Jurong, and Jul in Sengkang. The geography was against us. We met up once or twice to play but never managed to make it a regular thing between us.

Then last Saturday, a Captain's Ball competition was held at Stingray's church, and we formed a team of 5 to enter. Players were me, Stingray, Jul, Doe and Doe's bf. What fun.... *muses* We gave it our all against those young punks, and despite age, despite lack of practice, and years of a sedentary lifestyle, we prevailed over most of the other teams. Ok, so one of them was a bunch of er, primary school boys who were almost like, half our height. It seemed almost criminal to compete against those boys, but hey, all's fair... and besides, one of those young punks tried to intimidate me by yelling, "You watch out ah! We're going to get you!". This from a boy who's just higher than my waist level. It's almost funny, if not for the prospect that they could pull a David on our Goliath.

A huge advantage of cos was Doe's height. To those who've never seen her, Doe is almost 170, which effectively makes her almost as tall or even taller than most guys we know. And when you put her up on a bench to be our team's goalpost... Suffice to say, there was a large point in our favour. :p One of the teams we played against, a team of all boys, lost 11-6, because their defence wasn't high enough to reach her, so all we had to do was lob the ball to her and they were powerless to stop us. Legs not strong enough, guys... :p

Too bad that once we were against GoodMeat's team, we finally lost/drew. Well, Doe forgot to keep score so er, we weren't sure, although we were almost certain we won, even if by a margin. We were too tired at that point, I guess, and when it came for a rematch against that team, to decide on a victor, we decidedly lost. Thank goodness, because GoodMeat's team then had to play against the Dragonball team, [as we named it, because one of the players looked like the main character, with his hair gelled up in that style] and they were crushed as cockroaches. Owch.

But it was fun anyhow. Relived a lot of old memories for us, working in tandem to throw the ball into the net, or in this case, into the arms of the goalpost. For a moment there, we were suddenly 10 years younger once again, running up and down the court like cannonballs, crashing against the opposing teams like cannonballs, [indeed the church had this 'contact' thing, which was a foul that had occurred when someone banged against someone else too hard, and Jul was like, er, I'm fine, let's just go on... So funny, we had never played with that rule and suddenly...] getting hot, sweaty, stinky, feet aching from too much running, lungs gasping for breath, skin scraped off when we landed on our knees, [Stingray] bruised when we crashed against our opponents...... and loving every minute of it once again. :)

Funny thing isn't it? You'd think that having to go through all that exercise, with opponents probably 7-10 years younger than us, [in the case of the young boys, maybe 15 years would be a closer bet] would make us feel our age, and make us feel older, and for me, it just made me feel the opposite. I didn't even feel that tired after the game was over, and I didn't experience aching muscles the next morning. Just, for that moment, the thrill of the game, the adrenaline of the chase, and now... the memories of times past. *sigh*

Stressed On Holiday...

and that's even before I leave for it..

Yes, my much-awaited, much-talked-about, much-deliberated, much-delayed, long awaited trip to Europe is finally happening. And yes, unlike previous times I talked about it in front of you guys, it is definitely happening. I've booked my air ticket, my rooms, ( more or less ) and the only thing left is for me to fork out the cash and I'm on the way there.

Although at this rate, planning for the trip may stress me out so much that by the time I leave, I WILL be in dire need of a holiday.

*sigh* Planning issues, planning issues...... The last trip I planned for was a 3D trip to KL and that went fine...... All I had to do was go down to the travel agency, choose a hotel, choose a bus, and ta-dah, we were on our way to Malaysia... n there were just 5 of us all in Singapore.

Now I have to contend with:
travelling 6 different countries in 2 weeks,
worry about the financial status of my bank account,
worry that one of my students may fire me ( again ) after less than a month, rendering me unable to finance my trip,
hunting and searching for the cheapest places to stay and yet are strategically located near the city centres,
corresponding over email with Turtle, who's in Sweden as we speak, and who disagrees with some of the plans that I've made and wants to strike it out on his own with his gf

Argh!!! Eek!!! Funny that a holiday, a holiday, mind you, can actually be the cause of so much stress stress STRESS! I don recall getting this worked up over my projects n tutorials but over a holiday of all things, the one that's supposed to help me relax! What the freak is this logic?? Just last friday I had to spend 3 hours sitting in the damn agency office searching for rooms that'll accomodate the entire group within the time frame we wanted, ( Which has a whole host of problems with it that I don' wanna mention on the Net. Will tell u guys face to face if you ask ) and then now 2 members of the group are thinking of pulling out of the Lon/Par leg of the trip, AFTER i went through all the effort to get the rooms.

Shriek. Wail. Pull out hair.

Right... ok not that bad yet...

I'm just waiting for the day when I can just book and pay for everything and have everything set in stone ( or black ink on paper ) and no more changes can be made. Then I can relax. Then everything is certain to a certain degree and no one can pull any more funny stuff on me.

Incidentally if any of those involved in this trip are reading this blog, I'm just ranting k? This is not meant as a diss against you guys, and I'm not trying to accuse anyone of anything, but I'm really getting damned stressed and this is just an outlet for me to let out that stress.

But I still am going on this trip. In fact, after all this shit, I'm even MORE determined to go on this damned trip and have a good time, godamn it!! And if anyone or anything else tries to stop me as the time draws nearer, they're gonna have one hell of a hellcat to reckon with...

It'll be a long time before I plan such long-haul trips again I tell you.... My next destination will be Thailand and I'll just go to Chiangmai and Bangkok and I'll keep the group small. Ergh....

BTW as I type it's raining up a storm right now outside my house. The rain is so heavy, the sun has been blocked out, the sky is grey and the lighting in my house is getting pretty dim. I hate this weather. It means I'm stuck in the house for lunch and I have to rummage through my fridge for the remains of any leftovers from dinners long past. This sucks. I want the scorching, skin-burning, cancer-causing and importantly, dry-and yet sweat-inducing weather that our island is supposedly famous for.

Too Much Crap

Too many stuff to say this week, guys, so I separated them into pages. Click on what interests you.

Results from a numerology test I took.Some expected, some... pretty surprising.

I manned a stall for bizad at the career fair. My thoughts, what I did, and the bubbles I burst. Don't worry, I didn't end up being carried outside by security guards.
[warning: Expect a great chunk of text and nothing else]

Erin Brockovich and Columbine. No connection. Just 2 movies I caught over TV and VCD over the weekend. Hee.