A really busy Sunday

I was out with him almost the whole day and after lunch, this is what we did:

World Cyber Games

2 words: Boys' Playground. The place was packed with guys staring intently at video and computer screens while battle raged in cyberspace.

Conversely, the chairs around were filled with bored and tired parents, who had probably been badgered by their sons into bringing them here. ^_^

We walked around the place a bit, but there weren't really much exciting battles going on at the time. In fact, most of the gamers there seemed to be amateur gamers who were just taking advantage of the free gaming computers. [according to him, they were amateurs anyway. To me who can't play for nuts... ok they seemed pretty decent]

Too bad we missed the grand final match. Oh well, onto the...

Let's talk about... Sexpo

Quite a disappointment, really. Even the DF found it mild by his standards, and that's saying a lot. ^_^!

When we went in, there was a slightly 'cleaner' family section outside, and the more 'adult' stuff was in another area which had been walled off from the rest of the public, and guarded by pseudo policemen who were really security guards. [whacha gonna do if a minor really tried to run in? Pin him down and arrest him?]

And the first thing we saw when we went in was 3 guys trying to blow up condoms in a given timespan. ^_^!!!! [actually, my thought was I never knew condoms could be expanded to the size of monster jackfruits, but I digress...]

The whole thing was just really mild to the point of boring. Besides the little stage with the condom-blowers and pole-dancing girls, there was just some ancient Chinese sexual artifacts and a bunch of stalls around selling sexual items. The artifacts were of some interest, but were mainly erotic paintings. There were though, these little ornamental fruits. You opened them up, and they revealed a little porcelain couple in a sexual position. Apparently, mothers included those in their daughters' wedding presents to prepare them for marriage. How that worked, i don't know, cos I didn't see instructions included....

Anyway, it seems our ancestors weren't exactly that pure either. There was a hell of a lot of stuff going on beneath the covers [literally and figuratively] but all were hidden beneath a veneer of respectability. Like on first glance, the fan which had a normal painting of a warrior on one side, and an erotic painting on the other side. The person using that fan must have fanned himself pretty hard, I must say........

Of the stalls, the largest [and most crowded one] there was from Condomania, stocking a huge variety of vibrators on the walls, from the [do penises really come in that size??] large to the tiny ones you could put in your purse. But really, most of the stuff there could be bought in their brick and mortar shops too, so what was the point? [quite ex also]

In fact, the DF got quite bored along the way, and wanted to go shopping at the other halls. I was wondering whether I should be worried, that my BF seemed to be more interested in shopping than sex, [!!] till we walked nearer to the entrance, and we saw that the condom blowing guys had been replaced by a young nubile thing gyrating on the pole.

"Now it's getting more interesting!" He said, before I steered him firmly to the exit at the other side of the hall.

Note: actually it might've been more interesting if we had Jules and Candle with us. The 2 of them came in after we had started shopping, and according to Candle, Jules kept up a very..... lively commentary of the items in the show. Which was actually one of the reasons why I was hesitant to go with him, but well... :p Maybe next time I should start a podcast with the things he says... hahaha...

Edit: I found some photos on the web. Click here to see some.

A Twist of Fate

The musical I watched with Candle and Mega after the Sexpo was much more entertaining. In the style of a classic whodunnit, the whole thing centered around a peranakan household in 1937. The death of the family patriarch sparks off a fit of soul searching and secret baring amongst the household, as their sordid secrets come out one by one till the real murderer was revealed.

The music, composed by Dick Lee, was cute, though not quite memorable. But what really stole the show were the actors, and not even the award-winning actress who was in it. No, for me, the most entertaining actors were the family matriarch, [a formidable, kebaya-wearing woman full of hairpins in her bun] and the family servant, Ah Si. Good god, the matriarch was really peranakan to the core, the way she flicked her wrist and spoke to the others, and at certain times, she even reminded me of my great grandmother.

The family servant Ah Si was most endearing, in his star-crossed love with the daughter of the matriarch. But he was most cute when he started singing about how he hated the matriarch, and how it made him want to kill.... chickens. *pwak* It's really one of those things you had to see. :p

All in all, a busy Sunday for me.....

Check thy CDs now!

Because it turns out that some CDs which Sony had produced come with a hacking tool that leaves your PC vulnerable to virus attack if you play it on your PC. :( A summary of the whole fracas can be read at this link, and if you're worried about your CDs, check this list of CDs which come with the software. If you're interested in reading latest updates on the people who are suing the pants off Sony, read the blog on Sory Electronics.

What a dumb move for them. Bad enough for the company that they're losing money through illegal downloads, now they do something like this which just discourages people from buying the original item altogether. [You can get viruses through P2P software too, but at least you got free music in the process. Here, you're paying them to install nasty stuff in your PC.]

There was a contest.

There was a winner.

At the end of it,

There was a really cute film.

Minnasan, mite kudasai. :) Kawaii desu yo.

Jesus loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life: HELL

Before you start stoning me, not my words, but taken from this website. It's amazing, how people can just blindly do things and think the way they do, before thinking through on all sides, and considering if they were actually *gasp!* misguided in the first place.

Take a look at some of the inane things they say:
Jesus Would be Ashamed of You

Inflict ancient Chinese tortures on me.

Make me listen to inane professors lecturing.

Force me to eat my greens.

But PLEASE don't make me............







Clean my room. Bleah.

After officially moving out from the hostel, I was left with a pile o' stuff in my room, which I had left there conveniently because I had no other idea where to put them.

The little pile grew and grew in strength each day, until it became a strong, sturdy pile, capable of swallowing up whole boxes and refusing to spit them back.

It was then time, I knew, to do another complete spring clean. [in what would be winter. Yea, I know.]

I wish spring cleaning was easy for me. I wish it was like this:



But it's not. Most of the time, I end up like this:



The horrible, horrible part about it all is that I'm an uncontrollable hoarder. A trait I inherited from my grandmother, apparently. I'd never forget the huge amounts of stuff we took out from her cupboard the week after she passed away. That cupboard alone seemed to defy all we knew of the normal laws of physics.

And the weird stuff she hoarded: Money was tucked away in envelopes, or under shelf lining, on each different shelves. Ditto with jewellery, and a menu from the hospital my grandfather stayed in. Yes, a menu, which looked like it came from Cahaya or something like, but actually was from Tan Tock Seng.

Yea, I know where I got this from.

So when I had to clean my own room, you can imagine the stuff I managed to dreg up. For a while there, it seemed as if that strong little pile in my room had grown into an INSATIABLY HUNGRY MONSTER WHO WON'T STOP TILL IT HAD MUNCHED UP HALF THE WORLD. I ALMOST LOST A LEG, I TELL YOU.

But I managed to grab a dusty [trusty?] broom and whacked it back till it was whining on the floor in submission. Damn thing.

Now I've managed to pull in a favour from Candle, who'd be helping me next week to stop the pile from taking over the world. And btw, if you're reading this, I've blogged it and made it officially public, so NO BACKING OUT! xP

Some cookies before the Bangkok rant below...

The Gorillaz are actually a virtual band, with 4 cartoon characters as its members. They won the Best Group Award at the MTV Europe awards recently, and, by the miracle that is technology, managed to appear on stage for a 'live' performance. Gawdammit.

Ok lah, it's actually done by an old theatrical trick called Pepper's Ghost, but you can see how cool it looks on stage. :p

watch the live virtual performance here.

Singapore is a fine city, and that's something we've known for ages and ages of empires long gone. [bad gaming joke. sorry.] But what's refreshing is Kenny Sia's take on it.


Read it.. It's a fine laugh and you won't get fined.

my faraway land...

This thing between Bangkok and me has become almost something of an obsession during this holiday period. I think it's because this is the last holiday I can go, obligation-free, to any country, and because of that, there's a certain mental pressure on me to go somewhere.

And that somewhere is Bangkok.

And why Bangkok? Well, cheap foods and shopping come to mind. :p Plus also because practically the WHOLE of Singapore seems to have gone there at least once except for ME.

As I ranted to Candle the other night, it's crazy to think I haven't been there. It's like an hour away, the airfare is cheap, and so are the accomodations and the shopping. There should be NOTHING to stop me, monetary-wise at least.

But strangely enough, everytime I think I'll be able to go, something crops up, and the plans are dashed. *irritated crease on forehead*

Like the other time, Quet and I planned to go one Dec and she ended up going to Phuket with her BF. [heavy colour light fren.......grrr.....] And of all the times to go, she went on the most 'interesting' one. :p

Another time, I was supposed to go with Doe in place of her BF, but we couldn't change the airline tix and that was cancelled too. X(

This time, I thought I found a travelling partner in Necroz. I told her to take leave on any day in Dec and we'd go book it together. She was all set to go......

Until she found out she had to go to Malaysia for a wedding instead. X( X( X( X( X(

NONE of the guys I know wanted to go with me. Strangely enoughly, the name 'Chatuchak' alone put fear in their hearts and sent them screaming.

WHAT THE F--K IS THIS?????? It was actually easier for me to go all the way to freakin' London than it is to go to Bangkok!!!!! It's like the entire world has conspired against me to stop me from going to a country which is barely one hour's flight away! You know it takes me LONGER than that to travel to blardy NIE from home????

I can't stand it. My many thwarted attempts have made me even more stubborn about the whole idea of going there. Now, I just wanna gawdammit go there just to prove that THERE! I'VE DONE IT! YOU TRIED TO STOP ME BUT I DID IT ANYWAY!!! NYAH NYAH NYAH!!! >P >P >P

So now I'm thinking of either 1) going there by myself and praying I don't get mugged/raped/kidnapped there, or 2) booking myself on some package tour. One way or another, I'm going there at least ONCE in my life before I FREAKIN' DIE.

*one freakin' irritated traveller*

Marbles, Sand and Coffee

In response to krystal's blog, the story [slightly rewritten by me] went like this:

So you take a huge glass jar and fill it up with marbles. Make sure you fill it to the brim.

Full already? Shake it a bit, to let them settle, then try to pour more in.

Managed to pour more in? Good. Can any more marbles go in? No?

Can you say the jar is full? Ok then.

What if you pour some sand in? Smart, eh? The fine sand trickles down and fills up all the space left in between the marbles. Fill it up to the top, and make sure you don't spill any.

Any more space in the jar? No?

What about some coffee then? What will happen if you pour some coffee into the jar?

Try it.

What happened then? Were you able to pour it in? Of course you were. The sand soaked up the coffee and so you managed to squeeze in one cup of java into the mix.

Have you realised something? Everytime you think the jar is full, there's actually a bit more space for you to fit something in.

Now what's the deal? What's this gotta do with my life, you say?

Think of it this way.

The marbles are the most important things in your life, the things you will never compromise on. Things like your family, friends, your career, et cetera. Even your dog if you will it to.

The sand is the other extras in your life. You know, the stuff you could do without, but yet are still in your life anyway. Things like your deadend job, the endless social acquaintances, the shopping and movies, and all the other little distractions.

See, even with a whole bunch of marbles in your life, there will always be cracks for you to fill up with sand. You can have a whole bunch of important things in your life, but there will always be other little stuff to distract you from them.

The key thing is to not fill up with so much sand that the marbles start to drop out of the jar. Like, why would you let the little stuff get in the way of the big ones? At least marbles are something hard and solid, that you can hold in your hand.

Ever tried holding a handful of sand? Yea, that's how stable they are.

And the cup of coffee? Well, that's mainly to prove another point.

That despite how many marbles

How much sand in your life

There is always time

For a good cuppa coffee with a fren. :D

The City

I love this song. I always imagine a passing overhead shot of NYC in the morning whenever I hear the intro. And if you change the words to "S'pore City", it's almost exactly what I feel towards Singapore. You can't stand it, but yet, you love it and in a funny way, you can't get away from it. And so was inspired this illust...



NYC Weather Report by Five for Fighting

Got to get away from here...
Got to get away from all these thinkers... drinking up my thoughts again
Got to get away from here...
Got to get away from all these choosers, losers... all my best of friends
Sit back New York City
You're not cute but you're oh so pretty
When the rain comes you fall up again...
SUNNY... You are a part of me
SUNNY... You are the heart of me

Got to get away from here...
Got to get away from all these people who need people... You know it really makes me sick
Got to get away from here...
Got to get away from expectations, recreations, just for the sake of it

Sit back New York City
You're not cute but you're oh so pretty
When the rain comes you fall up again...
SUNNY... You are a part of me
SUNNY... You are the heart of me

Sit back New York City
You're not cute but you're oh so pretty
When the rain falls you come up again
Sit back New York City friend...

Got to get away from here...
Got to get away from what I'm thinking...I'm thinking...it's too much for anyone...
Got to get away from here...
Got get away from what you're drinking... you're drinking...so I'll take another one...

I am Woman, Hear me Roar

This is an interesting article about Women In Power. I read the original in my subscribed copy, and the interesting part is where the articles written by various women in powerful situations. These women talk about how they gained power, status, and importantly respectability in their various fields, and also juggle family and work life at the same time. They range from Oprah Winfrey, to a HK virologist who worked with the bird flu virus and SARS.

I guess the most empowering thing about the article is the message that you can do it. It takes planning, commitment, and a whole lot of guts, but it IS possible.

A group of us were hanging around outside the classroom, waiting for the lecturer to come and the class to start, and we started talking.

"You know, after the exams are over, I don't know what to do anymore."
"Ya, I know what you mean! You feel so aimless, like you got to do something, but there's nothing to do."
"Ya, and I don't know how to pass the time also."

When I heard that, my thoughts went back to what I did after my last exam and report deadline. Which was return to the room with Yenn for a 3 hour nap, followed by a trip to the library, which resulted in a very hefty reading list for the next few weeks or so.

I also thought of all the shopping I wanted to do, [as soon as I got my paycheck] the blogging, the art, maybe a few afternoons sitting in a cafe sipping coffee and reading, finding a wireless router and trying to configure it in my home, maybe a new graphics tablet, the lindy, the japanese......

Nothing to do? Sorry gals, I passed that stage a long, long time ago while still in school. [although technically I am still in school, but let's not get distracted.]

But it did occur to me how easy it was for us to just let our jobs take over our lives. Most of us, we work most of the day. We leave at 5,6,7 and go for dinner with BF/Friends/Family. Then we watch TV at home, sleep and repeat cycle the next day. With maybe some shopping over the weekend as an interlude.

Your job takes up the majority of your day, and of your energy. And hence, sometimes, there isn't time left for much other stuff. "I'm interested, but I'm so busy with work now, I don't have the time!"

Well, when will you ever have the time?

I realised what a big risk it was to let your job take over your life, till pretty much all you live for is your job. Imagine, that if as students, you can already feel such a sense of aimlessness after your papers. What would happen if you lost your job for some reason or another? Do you have anything else in your life to back you up? Do you other ways in which you can earn an alternative income?

We always say we don't have enough time to do all these things. And then when something happens, we lament that we didn't do something earlier to prevent it.

Well, make a change. Don't let your job lead your life. You lead it.

One Hell of a week...

In more than one ways.... starting from Sat when I watched the Possession of Emily Rose with DF...[his idea]

Now, I'm not the World's Most Devout Catholic, [I'm somewhere towards the other end of the scale] but something about this movie chilled me to the bone. Yes, chilled is the word. For those who don't know, the movie is about the [purportedly] true story of Emily Rose, whose demonic possession is the only one officially recognised by the Church so far. Ok......

The movie is not particularly scary. If you want a real scare-fest, I'd say look to the Koreans or the Japanese.

However, it did touch me on several levels. One, because as a Chinese, you're constantly exposed to tales of the supernatural world around us. Witness the Hungry Ghost Festival every year. And it goes without speaking that you are brought up with tales of ghostly hauntings and wandering spirits and vengeful gods.

Two, as a Catholic, you are brought up to believe in the existence of the Devil, and his minions. Because face it, if you believe in God, you have to believe in the Devil. The existence of one implies the existence of the other. And if you read your Good Book regularly, you will know that there are demons in the world around us.

And if you forget that fact, or let it drop from mind, there's always Emily Rose to remind you. :p

So if you're brought up with helpings of both of what I just mentioned above, you get a pretty shaky mix of Asian-Western Fried Potato. And I say fried, because if you put in too much helpings of supernatural beliefs from each culture, that's what you become.

And if you're an Asian-Western Fried Potato like me...... You sleep that night with a bottle of holy water next to your bed. [PS, I ain't kidding about the holy water. Conveniently, or fatefully enough, my mom went on a pilgrimmage to Malaysia and brought back bottles for the whole family] And you will NEVER dare wake up at 3am in the night, as that is supposedly the demonic hour, where demons roam the earth.

This I do to myself, after the previous Black River House scare... duh.......

And what do I do this week? One exam ended on Monday, and the very last essay of the term was handed up, so I have officially started holidays. ^_^ Me and Yenn are two very happy birds, Yenn with her now-incessant Mapling, and me with my long-neglected library books.

[Aside: The National Library has doubled the loan quotas for all library card holders, so this is a GREAT time to start your reading habits!]

And of all things, I start with... The Dante Club, by Matthew Pearl, which is the story of a series of murders modelled after the Hells of Dante. ^_^!!!

Like, for instance, in one of the scenes, Neutrals [people who refuse to choose between good and evil] are set upon by flies and maggots which eat their very flesh while they are alive. In another, Traitors are placed in ice so that only their heads are above the surface. Simoniacs [priests who accept money for unholy reasons] are buried headfirst underground, so that their legs are above, and then their feet are set on fire.

WHAT'S FREAKIN' UP WITH ME??? I NEED MORE CHICK LIT!!! I need to read and see more of the pink cottony, lah-lah fluffy rainbow stuff and EXORCISE all these from me!!!

Time to start more on the Photoshopping and stuff before I go completely wonkers one day......

The Big S

Went to Batam on Deepavali with Juls and Greg and learnt two things:

1. That Batam is just like Perling, Johor

So true. We entered through the main Batam centre by ferry, and the minute I walked out of the centre, I could've sworn that we'd ended up in Malaysia by mistake.

Certainly on first glance, it seemed like it. Bahasa everywhere, [even though yes, I know, that Bahasa Indon. is not the same as Melayu] the mega airconditioned malls, [these things are everywhere nowadays, and I swear the one at the centre was built for the express purpose of Singaporean dollars] and the endless rows of suburban houses and shophouses and trees.

But there are differences if one cares to look more closely. Streets are dirtier than in Malaysia, for one. [sorry, Candle] Some of the sewage drains I saw were filled with extremely noxious looking grey.... sludge that looked deadly to any living creature foolish enough to step in it.

Also, there is a diff in the shops over there. The streetside stalls all sell the same range of goods, namely wallets, caps, belts, shoes, and the huge piece of cloth that Muslim women wear over themselves. [sorry, i don't know the name of it] We walked a few km along one long stretch of stalls, and it felt like I was seeing the same cycle of stalls over and over again. Wallets, caps, belts, shoes, cloth, wallets, caps, belts, shoes, cloth, wallets, caps, belts......

The prices there are also generally cheaper than in Malaysia. Sure, you'll feel like a billionaire when you count your currency in terms of 10000s, but when you look at the prices, you feel more like, an upper class man? I did a double take a couple of times when, after mentally converting the prices in my head, it was still too low for me to believe.

Like, in the department store, a decent tee shirt, maybe about the Hanes standard, cost about 16000rp, which translated to S$4??? And we stopped at this beauty stop [hair salon/manicure/pedicure/facial/massage.... Good god, has anyone done this in singapore? It's a stroke of genius!] where we found that the price of a 45 min massage was.... S$8. Bloody fork! Juls and I ended up going for a massage each while Greg was left to play at the arcade. :p

Of course, the dark lining of all this is that you have to pay about S$30 from Singapore to actually get there. So when you count the transport, food, and massage.... it doesn't quite become so worth it anymore. ^_^! If you want to make it worth it, you have to do a hell lot more stuff than we did. But hey, once in a while, I don't mind doing stupid stuff like this.

2. We have big 'S'es written all over us

I think that it is inevitable that, if you live in any country for an extended period of time, it leaves its mark on you. I notice this in some friends who go overseas, and now I know it is on us, even in a nearby country like Batam.

The moment we started walking around the town, Nagoya, [sounds Japanese, doesn't it?] I felt as everyone knew we were from Singapore and that we didn't believe. We didn't even look like the local Chinese, even though we were plainly dressed in tees and jeans. What was it? We don't know, but I suspect a great deal stemmed from us speaking flawless English most of the time. ^_^! Bummer.... Can you stick out anymore in a place where 90% of all people we met spoke only rudimentary English? ["Taxi! You want taxi?" being one of the most common phrases I heard being thrown at us]

And even then, our clothes didn't fit in. What we wore and carried looked just a smite too good to have been bought from their department stores, which carried This-Fashion-like stuff. [which also meant that everything in the ladies dept was 10 sizes too small for me. ^_^! If I lived there, i'd have to buy everything from either the Muslim dept or the menswear]

But it wasn't just us. Even while I was having my massage, I saw this lady come in, and my first thought was: Singaporean. Again, the bag she carried looked too good, and most telling of all, she was wearing a light blue gypsy skirt, which I never saw being sold anywhere in Batam. The funny thing was that her face did NOT look Singaporean at all when I looked at it again, so....... i don't know. :p

Another lady was more obvious. She was a 40s odd woman wearing 2 spaghetti tops, cropped pants and huge colourful wedges. Oh yea, very HDB tai-tai chic......

But really, we didn't fit in. And I felt like everyone was looking at the huge S written invisibly on my forehead......

I guess in a way, going to such places just makes you appreciate home that much more. [ESPECIALLY for the clean toilets with running water in the flush and adequate toilet paper] Even when you go to nearby countries, with plenty of Asians and Chinese, it's still pretty obvious the way you stand out from all the other locals. While we were there, I had this weird feeling that people were staring at me, and whispering to each other, "Singaporean must be lah..." [on a sidenote, must learn Bahasa so this never happens to me, either in Indon or Malaysia.]

It's only when you come back to Singapore that you, I don't know, fit? That suddenly, your behavior and appearances cease to be weird or ill-fitting, and that you're able to disappear into the rest of the crowd, because you're just like the rest of them. Yea, I know there are plenty more countries which are waaaaay more accepting of weirdness than Singapore is, or more open than Singapore is, but as much as I don't fit quite into Singapore society, I still fit more into it than all the other countries that I've been to. That it's the only place I know I can disappear into the crowd, and that won't mind me ever being there. It's weird, I know, and possibly also because I haven't stayed in any other country for a long period of time, but hey, that's just my humble opinion... :p that's just me.

Black River House

Was surfing randomly through the Net looking for free legal music [yes, there IS such a thing] when I stumbled upon The Secret Method and the Black River House.

The story goes that the Black River House was the site of the gruesome murder of an entire family that was living there in 1992. Later in 1996, a band called The Secret Method snuck into the house to, I suppose, record some music using the atmosphere of the site.

Don't ask me why, but the band vanished without a trace after that, leaving all their equipment behind.

After reading through the website, I only have 2 things on my mind:

1. This is NOT the thing to be reading at 1am while alone in your hall room. [YENN!!!!!! Anta doko ka??! *Wails*]

2. I SO do not feel like downloading the music, free and legal it may be.

Read the story for yourself

It's been a long time since I posted up any illustrations or cartoons on me blog, so here goes the set meal....

First the appetisers....

I know this may come across as slightly paedophilic, but lookie at this cover of the nov issue of First magazine...



Is it my imagination, or is Harry Potter getting more hot?! Yup yup.... :p

Next appetiser...

I did this one a while back, just after I ended lessons with most of my tuition students:



My happiness over the extra free time I had lasted for about a min... then I realised that I had a laptop to pay for in full, and my income had just gone down by about a third. *faint*

But even with the tuition and the extra income, I didn't have that much extra time either to go out with friends on weekdays or to pursue my dance.

The difference was more obvious after I got my first official paycheck. Suddenly, I realised that I could buy a LOT of the things I had always wanted. [Lapy being one of them] I even had the cash to indulge in afternoon coffee sometimes if I could spare the time...

But at the same time, there were a lot of things I could NOT do. You couldn't just take leave when you felt like it. You couldn't just plan your lessons as you felt like it. You couldn't teach the way you wanted sometimes, because of the restrictions placed by schools. And a lot of your time is taken up by your work.

So in the end... you realise that nothing really comes with no strings attached. If you want the extra money, you pretty much give up a lot of things. And if you are content with less money... don't expect to do a lot of shopping. :p

Now a starter before the main course....



World Animal Day was held at Bishan Park today, which made it highly convenient for me to pop by after my roti prata session.

Of all the charities in the world, the ones I probably have more sympathy towards are those animal-based charities.

This is cos I feel that while people are always able to help themselves, or are more inclined to help those of their own kind, they don't always feel the same way towards animals. And I feel that in our urban jungle, animals are more vulnerable, more helpless, and hence more needy of our help.

A big plus point is also I cannot resist the sight of poor helpless kitties......... ^_^!

I picked up these postcards from ACRES, which deals mostly with wildlife animals involved in illegal trading. They had some of the wittiest designs I had seen so far, and I picked up a button as well. [camera didn't capture it too well, so it's not in the pic]

Also present was Noah's Ark, from which I bought a pin. Noah's Ark provides sanctuary for animals who would otherwise be abandoned. They let the animals run free in a plot of land and they are dependent on donations and sale of goods like this to keep the place running, or all the animals have nowhere to go.

There were others, but these were the main ones I bought stuff from. No Cat Welfare Society... damn....

If you're interested in either of these organizations, check out:

http://www.acres.org.sg
http://www.noahsarkcares.com

Now the main course...

I'm realising how easy it is to get misunderstood over a blog post. My previous post on the ministerial salaries clearly ruffled one or two feathers, who immediately ran clucking to my comments box to tell me just what they thought of salaries and how wrong/misguided/delusional I was.

And who ALSO didn't see the next post after that about how ministerial salaries was NOT the point of the post.

You see how people can be selective about their reading sometimes? They see an issue that they are concerned about, and immediately I get more links about how cheated we are, and more info about how I'm really being scammed by the Govt.

ARGH! My point was NOT about ministers' salaries! I don't give a fork about ministers' salaries! [i'm more concerned about my own] My point was about the discrepancies and biases in THAT ONE EMAIL.

So granted, maybe they thought to clarify the discrepancies in that email by handing me more information and proof to back up their stance. Fair enough.

But ack! I still don't feel like I'm getting a balanced enough view of the entire issue. The whole Net seems to be full of people who are more interested in pushing their opposing views rather than people who are genuinely interested in exploring the issue more deeply.

[this is one funny trait about me. I don't like to subscribe to absolute views, and if I feel I'm getting one, I like to play devil's advocate just for the heck of irritating the other person]

More reasons for me to simply not get involved in local politics....... next time i'll just put the inane blatter on my blog......

This is a more light-hearted post before the following one, on ministers' salaries. Think of it as the appetizer before the main course.

Swing high... swing low...

I went for my first social dance last night and it ROCKED!!! Some of us from the Lindy 1 class stayed back after class to join the social, including me and Jules.

Although mostly, we huddled shamefully in one corner of the room, looking at the other way-better dancers swing their partners around.... bleah......

Some of the times, we did get approached by more experienced dancers to go onto the dance floor. But the girls definitely get it better than the guys. Mostly, girls just follow the lead of the male. Hence, I don't have to really think much about what I want to do, or where I want to go. I wait for the signal from the guy first. So even when I danced with a more experienced dancer, it wasn't so bad, save for the few times when he swung me around with an unfamiliar move, and I was like... ok, now what?

The guys don't have that luck. One of the guys from our class, R, who danced with an experienced dancer came back and told us, "VERY Stressful!" He kept worrying about whether he was doing it right, and leading her right, and hoping he wouldn't forget his moves, and end up being told by her, "Er, you're leading me the wrong way...." :p

Jules had the same problem. You could tell after a while that he couldn't remember his moves, cos' he'd just keep swinging me with the same move over and over again, till I went, "Jules, I'm getting dizzy, can we try something else for a change?"

And yes, I finally know why they call it Swing. Cos you get swung and swung and swung and swung and............ till the whole world goes all woozy on you and you feel like you're still being swung even after the song has ended. (@_@)~

But it's fun. ^_^ And yes, I'll be there next week as well. Damn you goldfish, you got me hooked......

"Ministers' Pay is too high"... Really?

This post may get me into trouble with some people, but I just wanna say it. Don't worry, nothing seditious.

There are a few reasons why politics in Singapore generally does not interest me, and the most common one which I tell people is:

"Because there's simply no opposition worth voting for."

Put it this way. Between a respectable-looking minister and a guy hawking propaganda in front of Centrepoint shouting anti-govt slogans.......... It's simply not very convincing of your political ability, is all.

The one opposition candidate that got my vote [not literally] is Chiam See Tong of Potong Pasir. Here was a man who seemed generally interested in the welfare of the residents under his care, and didn't see the need to resort to hawker-like behaviour in order to boost his relationship with his voters.

The reason why I've turned this way is because of an email I recently received.

The email railed a familiar complaint, that of ministerial salaries, that they were too high. Among some of the statistics they mailed to me were:

Annual salaries of heads of government:

1. Singapore Prime Minister US$1,100,000 (S$1,958,000) a year

2. United States of America President: US$200,000

3. United Kingdom Prime Minister: US$170,556

4. Australia Prime Minister: US$137,060


Annual salaries of heads of government:

1. Singapore Minister: US$819,124

2. UK Minister: US$146,299

3. US Cabinet Secretary: US$157,000

(Source: Asian Wall Street Journal 10 Jul 2000)

And then the crunch:

"In stark contrast, BASIC SALARY FOR A MINISTER STARTS AT SGD1,166,844 A YEAR,OR JUST UNDER SGD100,000 A MONTH.

What these ministers earns in just ONE MONTH exceeds the ANNUAL TAKE HOME
salary of 80% of Singapore's income earning population."

Upon first read, you might feel scandalized, or at least a bit kek, like I did, especially if you're one of those Singaporeans earning less than 100,000 a month. BUT is there something wrong with the way the numbers have been displayed?

The most glaring omission of course, is that it is NOT stated whether the President of the United States earns US$200,000 a year, or a month, but I'm assuming the authors mean a year. I don't believe that they feel we are that stupid.

Secondly, the ministers earn a salary that is more than the yearly salary of most Singaporeans. SO WHAT??? That's totally keeping in terms with economical concepts. If you're a degree holder, do you expect to have the same take home pay as an A level holder? NO, YOU BLOODY WELL DON'T. That's because of all the hard work and sweat that you and your parents went through to bring you through Uni. In fact, you EXPECT to earn more simply because you have been through a better education than other A level holders.

It's funny how most people will agree with the above analogy, but then when it comes to ministers' salaries, they suddenly get their chicken feathers all in a ruffle.

Look at it this way: Just how many people have the ability and the pure guts to go into office? Not many, it seems, considering that most Singaporeans are politically apathetic, and both opposition parties and the PAP are having trouble recruiting members for their ranks. So if we don't have the guts to go try a hand at making this place better, then don't scream "Unfair!" at those who DO have the guts to do so. There's not much admiration to be had for a person who doesn't go ahead to solve his problems, and can only sit in the kopitiams and lament his fate.

Thirdly, the ministers earn this salary in a country that's relatively safe, peaceful, has a decent transportation system, a good education system that ensures every child has a chance at a basic education, and where the vast majority of its citizens has a roof over their heads.

The US president earns his pay in a country that has a high crime rate, poverty rate, illiteracy rate, is in a perpetual state of deficit, is obsessed with a Middle eastern country, is extremely on ridding the world of terrorists, whether the rest of the world asked for its advice or not, and yet is terribly hesitant as to whether it should give aid to its own citizens in times of natural disasters.

You tell me whether you're willing to pay the lower price. If you want cheap, you get cheap.

Thirdly, and positively the one that irks me most about that email, is the lack of balanced information.

The email states that this high income level will cause "Singaporeans continue to see their incomes being pulverised. Bankruptcies multiply and the increase in the number of homeless continue unabated. Social and family problems such as divorces, mental
breakdowns, and suicides skyrocket as a result."

So tell me. Just how pulverized are our incomes? How many bankruptcies are there? [maybe let's discount the ones due to credit card debt or poor financial knowledge] How many homeless are there? How many social problems?

This is the huge flaw in the mail. That while they seemingly have a lot of information to support their stand, there is none whatsoever to show that there may be flaws.

As I read on, I realised that all they had to rave about was money, money, money. The one and only main point in that email was that "Ministerial salaries are obscenely high!" And so what if they achieve their aims? So what if we do reduce ministerial salaries? So what if we become like that beacon of democracy and good political practices, the United States?

This is what irks me most. It is not a balanced argument. It is simply one prejudiced viewpoint and the numbers are simply the twitching of statistics to suit their purposes. Which makes them no different from any other political party in Singapore, or perhaps even the world.

I'm not a supporter of the PAP, even if I'm a civil servant. There are some things about the way they run Singapore that I don't like, and there are a low of things I feel can be improved.

BUT at the same time, I don't like the way that some people force change to happen. This kind of subverted email is not the way. If you want me to become more politically interested in the runnings of our country, that I need more than this. I need a stable, balanced argument, with solid facts to back it up. I need to see that while you have a strong viewpoint, you are also willing to admit the flaws in it at the same time.

In other words, I need a more politically mature view. THEN will I be more interested in our politics.

Update from the last post...

It's been about 5 hours since Lapidora came into my room and now I'm engaged in the tiresome process of having to reinstall a whole bunch of programs into her. Stuff like MS Office, for me to do my work, Photoshop, [gee, of course] and the Creative software [happening right now] to allow me to transfer music from Lapi to Shiroi.

Yea, all the important ones. ^_^

Only problem is that the PS doesn't work, and I've yet to install Macromedia. Also, there's like a pile of cardboard and plastic bags on my side of the room, from all the unpacking just now. Lapy also came with an IBM briefcase [just as obiang as the first one... groan...] and a thumb drive, which will definitely come in useful.

Next up, the software for Olly, and soon, she'd be introduced to the whole family. Yea. :) It is seriously cool to be one wired up techie....

So while I'm waiting for everything to be installed, let me tell you guys of the scene which confronted me after collecting Lapy.

I came back home on the shuttle bus, Lapy in hand, still in her cardboard wrappings and all, and because it was still drizzling at the time, I got slightly damp. NEver mind, I comforted myself with the thought of what I could do to her once I got her unwrapped. [yes, I know that sounds wrong]

I climbed the stairs to my room, found to my relief that it was open which meant that Yenn was home, and I walked in. "I'm....... back?"

"ARGH! You came back at the wrong time!!!" Picture Yenn running frantically around, tissues and piles of cloth in hand. Now allow your eyes to move down to the floor and OMG behold the great Milo Tsunami that hath descended upon us.

Apparently, the hook she usually hung her Milo packets on had suddenly given way, unfortunately when her full packet of Milo was still hanging on it.

We had one jolly time looking the room over for Milo drops and then wiping it up. The mess was... extensive to say the least. Other than her table, there were tons of it on the floor, my chair, a bit on my fan, and a sea on her table. Took us quite a while to clear up the mess, and even then, our room had a slight Milo-ish stench. Hence the insistence on me leaving the fan on.

So Lapy went neglected in her first hour in my room. Poor dear.

Anyway, most of the mess was cleared by now, and we each went for class. I came back about 4 hours later and started doing all kinds of things to Lapy. Then I asked Yenn for her Office XP CD.

"There, there." She pointed to her cupboard, while she Mapled. I opened it up and lo and behold, another Milo crisis. Apparently the splash was so terrific, some of it had flowed under her table, and even into her side cupboard. Wondafool. Out comes the tissue again, and Yenn starts wiping again. Lalala...

Anyway, by now everything should have been wiped up already. And I've already insisted that she NEVER hangs her Milo on that damn hook again.

Today started out to be a rather dreary day. Woke up early in the morning, still feeling sleepy. Went to another boring class, finished, walked out and realised it was drizzling. Din' feel like eating much, so just quickly ate lunch.

Then went to the co-op when I COLLECTED MY NEW LAPTOP!!!!!!!!!!! I HAVE A NEW LAPTOP!!!!!!! I'M TYPING FROM IT NOW!!!! IN MY ROOM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! *Champagne glasses pop, the band starts playing a merry tune and a parade of wild, swirling colours and prancing animals start marching*

Meet Lapidora. DOn't ask me how I came up with that name, it just appeared in my head during the setup process, so it has to be fate in one way or another. And yes, she's an IBM Thinkpad just like my old one. *sheepish look* Brand loyalty goes a long way it seems... She's still quite empty, but I have a class soon, so I'll fill her in as she goes along.

So happy. *Grin* My new friend Lapidora.

Imagine

Imagine. Just imagine.

You may have been like this before, or you may have not. If the latter, just imagine.

Imagine you went out for a drink with a friend. Imagine you sat in the pub, waiting for your drinks, while the singer got up on stage.

Imagine that, to your horror, you knew the singer. Imagine that you recognised her as being an ex-classmate of the cool crowd in school. And imagine that, you realised later, that others you knew were also in the crowd somewhere.

Now imagine again. Imagine you were back in secondary school. Imagine that everyone was cool except for you. Imagine that you were always on the outskirts looking in. Imagine... imagining that you could never be cool.

Imagine that you thought that you couldn't care, but some part of you did.

Imagine that on one hand, you were all right with the outsider status, and that to some extent, geeks were cool in a way. But imagine that on the other hand, you wished you could be part of the cool crowd for once.

Imagine knowing that you were good in some ways that they weren't.... but nobody knew.

Imagine that you were never part of the spotlight. And those who were in the spotlight never knew how it felt... to be so close to it, and yet never a part of it.

Imagine wishing that for once... YOU were in the spotlight.

Imagine you outgrew all that. Imagine that you became ok with yourself. Imagine that you started to grow your esteem again.

Then imagine seeing that cool crowd again. And getting hit by 4 years of precarious adolescence.

Imagine that that same cool crowd looked just as cool as ever. Imagine that some of that cool crowd, or rather the singer on stage most noticeably, managed to achieve a semblance of their dreams, or managed to start walking there, while you were still stuck at the signposts, looking for directions.

Imagine that every one of them looked thin and fabulous, while you were still fat and...... not so fabulous.

Imagine that they were as cool as ever... and you were not. And maybe you will never be.

Strands of Radiohead float through the smoke.... I'm a Creep...... what the hell am I doing here..... I don't belong here............ and indeed you don't.

Imagine that you douse yourself with alcohol to stave off the bad schema.

Imagine that you totter out of the pub singing a bad rendition of Radiohead.

Imagine that you get on the bus.

And you sober up. And it all comes crashing back.

Maybe this will seem familiar to some of you.

Maybe this will not.

And if it does not,

Maybe... Just Imagine.

Disclaimer: The author of this post was under a slight alcoholic haze while she wrote this and will deny anything when she comes out of it. She is generally happy with her life, so no worries, except for the times when she is reminded of how much more it could have been.

Screw It All

Yenn has reached a stage in the training which I had reached much, much earlier than she did. It's the stage when you finally get all fed up with work, you go "Screw it all!", chuck your inbox to one side, and do something fun instead, like Mapling, or reading comics. [i wonder whether I'm the first person to turn the name of that video game into a verb...]

I'll name this the Screw-All Stage.

There is no definite time when the Screw-All Stage will end. It depends mainly on your body's fun-work equilibrium and whether it has been met. If you keep this equilibrium roughly there, you will never reach the Screw-All, since you have managed to have an equal amount of work and play in your life. If you have been consistently working at a breakneck pace and finally one day you decide you're not going to take any more of this crap,

Then you are at Screw-All.

At this stage, Yenn and I never get any work done. Since I'm now free in the evenings as well, a typical night went like this:

Me: "Mapling again? Where are you now?"
Yenn: "I'm on this world trying to harvest snakes."
Me: "Snakes? Why snakes?"
Yenn: "People pay a high price for them, but it's very difficult for them to kill. Me, I take 1 or 2 strokes, and I can kill them. So I take them to sell."
Me: "Huh, more money. LOOK OUT THERE'S A SNAKE IN THE GRASS!"
Yenn: "Cheh, like that only. *swipe swipe kill* Don't you have any work to do?"
Me: "I guess so, but I don't feel like doing it."
Yenn: "Yea, me too. Rather kill snakes."
Me: "Hm. At this stage, we'd never get any work done. Hey, it's a green blob..."

And so on.

At least I now have Lindy on Thurs to liven things up a lil. :D I think it's partly a psychological effect there also, that the fact that I'm going for Lindy means that Thurs is over, Fri is almost here, and Fri's a slack day with only one class, and after Fri is DA WEEKEND and I can PLAY! SLACK! EAT PRATA!

Yup, there's a lotta good stuff that comes with thinking of Lindy. heh.

I've *almost* mastered the turns and swings that come with Lindy, and according to the instructors, now have all the moves we need to go onto the dance floor! *Cue rolling eyeballs from the rest of the class* But we did do some basic social dancing in the class, where the guy decided what he wanted to lead with, and it was fun! Except for that one guy who totally confused me cause he got the moves wrong, but anyway...... here's looking to the first social dance I ever had. *peace sign* and hopefully more to come! ;)

My hard drive works in NO computer lab around campus. *tears head out* Which means that the graph I did last night for my math lesson this morning, happening right NOW in fact, is totally NOT accessible and I have NO way to show my math tutor the wonderfully coloured graph I did on Photoshop last night.

*Bangs head on computer table*

Thank goodness my teammate had done an extra one on Excel just in case and looks like it's the one we're going to show the tutor.

All because of a few [yes, a few] antisocial computers in NIE. *Ergh!*

On the bright side, though.... one afternoon class has been cancelled this afternoon and since it's unlikely I'm going to meet for another community service meeting, my afternoon is officially free. Free. Free.

*WAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!!!* I'm going shopping. Yea. *peace sign*

A pile o' stuff

To update on...

I caught 2 movies this week with 3 of my closest guy friends [no guesses who, since they're my only close guyfrens...]

Mon was Corpse Bride with DF. Plot-wise, the movie was so-so and predictable in that usual cartoony way. However, watch it for the terrific caricatured clay animatrons. I loved the way the characters were portrayed, especially the butler with his nose stiffly erected at an upward angle the entire time. "THIS way sir!" Also the amazing portrayals of the Corpse Bride herself, from the way her willowy decaying gown billowed behind her as she walked. The attention to detail and perfection could clearly be seen here, and it's a rarity nowadays for directors to produce such animations without resorting to CGI, a speciality that can only be attributed to Tim Burton. *bows*

THurs was Deuce Bigalow Goes to Europe with Jules and Turtle, both of whom implored me to go because I never called, I never wrote, and I have basically become a heavy-coloured, light fren ever since I got DF. Ok finez. I didn't watch the first Deuce Bigalow movie, so thankfully I didn't get the Sequel Effect. [IE, that the sequel of the movie you first watched will never be as good as the first. Exceptions to this are the LOTR trilogy.] Still, DB is heavy on toilet humour. And I mean heavy as in what comes out into the toilet after a buffet meal high on bowel-inducing foods. When you imagine that one of the characters is a woman who has a penis growing out of her face instead of a nose due to a nuclear accident................. Just imagine when she gets aroused by DB. Watch if you're with horny and deprived male friends. As I did. (^^!)

I've finally put in an order for a new laptop! After months of molesting Yenn's Siren, I'm finally gonna get my own hot black guy to caress over nights of lonely blogging. I finally got sick of having to poach Yenn's lappie and considering that my laptop is considered a senior citizen on life support, I figured, take advantage of co-op prices while I can. [A bit push factor was also the continuous inability and unwillingness of my laptop to connect to the LAN network, a fact which baffled the IT guy and everyone else who has seen my laptop.] I placed it on Tues, so hoping to receive the new guy by next week. *crosses fingers on both hands* And if you're wondering, yes, it's another IBM Thinkpad, and yes, he does have the little red nipple...... ;p

Also, Goldfish will be pleased to know that I've finally started Lindy classes with Jules at her place. We came in this week just in time for the 2nd Lindy 1 class, and boogied our way for an hour. No, correction, we tried to boogie for an hour. (^^!) Most of the time we were frantically trying to pick up the steps taught in the first lesson, and the 2nd half, I was being swung around violently by several men in the class. Is my positioning wrong, or are these guys just a wee bit too excited? Hmmmm.....

But I'm glad that I finally managed to take it up. [even if I had to run from my class in Boon lay, run for the train, and run from the MRT station to where the dance school was, skipping dinner and appearance's sake in order to make it in time for class] After countless times enviously watching from the sidelines, it's about time I learnt to do it so that I can finally join in! And also prevent more embarrassing incidents like the time at Goldfish's house where someone actually persuaded me onto the dance floor and I was too busy worrying about not stepping on his feet................ Now I'm wondering whether I can change the timing of my Thurs tuition just in case, and even considering Salsa..... Daph.........? ;p

All in all, a fruitful week. *peace sign* I have to say, I like the extra cash that comes with my tuition, but it's nice to be able to finally have the time and money to do stuff like these that I always wanted to do...... One more thing struck off my Life List.... :)

I need dat fan

"someone I know likes to flip around at night. Turn on one side, scratching movments then still and sleep, then turn to the other and make similar movements, still then sleep. Cat like, feels like throwing a bolster in that direction sometimes"

~Yenn in reference to someone who owns this blog

I don't really think I make scratching movements though.... *scratches head*

But in deference to her cough, I finally made my way down to Courts to buy a fan that could blow at my butt the entire night and not make a puff in Yenn's direction... Only to find out that all the fans were far beyond what I considered a fair price for a fan, and the only one I wanted happened to be out of stock till Friday.

Somehow reminds me of my love life, I wonder why... either that or I'm too deprived...

But I NEED DAT FAN. I knew Yenn was sensitive to wind, but I didn't realise just HOW bad until I came back after class, opened the door into the room,

And went *smack* into a wall of hot air.

The lights were off, the fan was off, the curtains were drawn, and there was my roommate, wrapped up in blanket AND comforter, looking for all the world like a giant pink fluffy mummy. And I had already began to perspire just after 2 seconds of standing in there.

Ok. I. Need. Dat. Fan. *runs down to Courts*

Roommate from HELL!

"Staying in hall with Yenn is almost like being married to her, except without the sex."
~ Aki, to another friend

Sexual innuendo aside, [Aki ducks the flying kick from Yenn] staying with someone else in an unfamiliar environment for an extended period time does test all kinds of things about your relationship with that other person.

First thing we had to get used to was the fact that Yenn was a light sleeper. A very, very light sleeper. Which meant that if I got up early before her, and made breakfast, I had to be beli, beli careful or I'd wake her with the sounds of the crackling milo packet, the stirring of the spoon, and the bump as I accidentally hit my chair. It also meant that if I committed any of these sins I would soon feel her bolster thumping me at the back of my head.

So you get used to each other's idiosyncracies and weird habits. LIke my fondness for propping my feet up on the chair or even table when I worked. Or getting up in the morning to see Yenn wrapped up like a corpse in her blanket. [seriously, head to toe] And I'm pretty thankful that as of now, we haven't driven each other mad to the extent that we've killed each other in our rooms.

THEN I saw this link in someone else's blog. And I THANK ALMIGHTY GOD that neither of us are as bad as this particular roomie.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

The Roommate from Hell

[Those of Genteel Constitution would be well advised to not click on this link]

It's been a loooooong time since I was here.... *brushes the dust and cobwebs off the blog* No thanks in part to all the tuition kids having exams this week, and Yen's passion for Maplestory... :(

But at least the tuition's coming to an end for now, since most of the kids are going off for the holidays. No need to set the alarm on weekend mornings soon... sweet.... :)

So let's kick things off with a meme I saw on Krystal's blog and for which I got tagged by SLayer:

Ten years ago, I was...
- 14 years old
- A wet-behind-the-ears Sec 2 student
- Innocent and fresh-eyed
- Reading comics

Five years ago, I was...
- 19 years old
- Frantically studying for A levels and despairing over my Accounts [ironically, for which I dropped at the last minute and am now tutoring]
- Worrying like crazy over passing my As [indeed, a lot of memories from 18-19years old revolve around this theme for me]
- Discovering the genius of Neil Gaiman and JK Rowling
- Reading comics

One year ago, I was...
- Teaching tuition and thinking that this was the life
- Fiddling with all kinds of funky stuff with photoshop and freehand [still missing those]
- Seriously considering tuition for the rest of my life
- Wondering whether SOMEONE would ever make a move [as you all know, he eventually did]
- Reading comics

Yesterday, I was...
- Having lessons in school wondering when lessons would end
- Sitting stone-eyed during my english lesson and wondering if I would ever be able to take this all in
- Irritating the hell out of Yenn while she Mapled and stealing her fries
- Going for the last tuition session of the year with one Sec 2 student and getting paid ( yea!)
- Reading..... a mystery novel by John Le Carre [heh, did you think comics again?]

Five snacks I enjoy...
- Pringles Hot and Spicy chips
- Pringles Ranch chips [similar to sour cream]
- Lay's BBQ Potato Chips
- Lay's Sour cream and Onion Chips [gee, do you see a pattern here?]
- French fries from just about every fast food restaurant in Singapore. :p

Five songs I know all the words to...
[This is pathetic, considering I'm learning teaching of music]
- 100 years by Five for fighting
- Fly me to the Moon in Evangelion soundtrack
- Majulah Singapura [hey, you sing it for 12 years of your life everyday, you don't forget that easily

Five things I would do with 100 million dollars...
- Hire the top stockbrokers in town and build a killer portfolio that will sustain me and my avaricious greed for the rest of my life
- Oh, and give some to the animal charities and my alma mater :p

Five bad habits...
- Using my hand to wipe the sweat off my face [my poor, poor pores]
- Forgetfulness at the wrong times
- Procrastinating all my major assignments [and then panicking at the last minute]
- Not staying on track of my dreams
- A liking for irritating the hell out of my roommate

Five biggest joys...
- Reading friends' blogs and hearing about them
- Having a cup of coffee and a good chat with DF and/or friends
- Finding out that my comics arrived this week
- Reading what I love ( Mystery novels and comics )
- Generally having a good time with friends and him

Five favourite toys...
- My laptop [which I'm hoping to change to a new one]
- My mobile phone
- My digital camera
- My Creative Zen
- Blimey limey and the Scarlet Warrior [you'll see pix of them soon, I hope]

Five places I would runaway to...
- London
- Paris
- Prague
- Japan
- My bedroom

Five things I would never wear...
- Hot pants [Not with my ass]
- Earrings [the pain! the pain!]
- Belly rings
- Nose rings
- Anything that causes bodily pain or makes me look like a whale

Five favourite TV shows...
- CSI
- Not much else. Too much time spent reading comics. :p

Five fictional characters I would date...
- Er..... The perfect guy? [hence the 'fictional' part]

Five people I tag...
- Yenn
- Quet
- Whoever reads this and has a blog

It's tough when you have to pull a project all-nighter and your roommate's a light sleeper. So if you read Yenn's blog recently, here's the other side of what happened:


Major project presentation the next day, and with a WHOLE section yet unwritten, I knew I was destined for an all-nighter....... especially since I spent a few hours after dinner out with the DF..... [so sue me...]

The moment I got back to the room, I quickly typed out everything I had to do for my part, and then I emailed it off to the rest of my group. My part, done! Now to wait for the others to email me their parts for collation.

11pm: No mail

12am: Mail from 2 people, one unaccounted for.

Check mail of 1 person. Realise that she has done project different from the way I did it. Call her. Check. Everything's ok.

Yenn is sleeping, the room is dark, and I'm hopping from my desk to type out my report, to her desk, to check my email on her laptop. [It is confirmed. NOTHING in the world will convince my laptop to connect to the Internet in my room. Stubborn antisocial fool.]

Trying to be quiet, but inevitably, being the fat clumsy fool I am, I knock into chairs, I click mouse, and a few times I had to call project mates and SMS them to ask what da hell was going on.

Inevitably, Yenn wakes up, groggy, moody, grumpy and grumbles, "Cannot sleep liao lah"

Ooooppppssss......................

By the time I managed to get ALL the parts collated, and sent it out as well, it was almost 2am. I thought that was it, huddled into bed under my covers. NO! Someone SMSes me asking about some part. I SMS her my reply.

*BEEP* Someone SMSes me AGAIN saying he didn't receive ANY mail! I said they sent it off long ago you baboon [ok without the last part] and asked him to go check mail.

All this while, Yenn is surfing the Net, resigned to a night of sleeplessness. I prod her gingerly a couple of times, asking her for the use of the Net, and she looks at me with glaring bloodshot eyes, worthy of the Hellbound one, and I feel the cells in my head distintegrating beneath her fiery stare.

Important point: It is LIFE-THREATENINGLY ESSENTIAL to make sure your laptop has Internet access in your hostel room. Otherwise THERE IS ALMOST NO POINT.

I fall asleep at 2+ and by the time I wake up in the morning, Yenn has left the room liao. I go to the toilet, and what do I know?

A good friend has decided to visit today. ARGH!!!

I'm fine in my morning class, but towards the end of class, I could feel something starting to burn in my abdomen already. I stagger out to the canteen, but I'm at tha stage where the sight and smell of food makes me sick. THis is bad, because I need some food before the panadol can take effect.

I buy some light chee cheong fun and milo, but the pain wracks through me and I'm unable to take more than a few bites. Finally, with all the strength left I can muster, I throw the 2 pills into my mouth, down the milo, and collapse onto the canteen table, where I lay for about an hour.

When I wake up, I RUN to the computer lab, finish the rest of my report, and finally done! I run back to the room to burn it onto a CD, and there I see Yenn. Unsure whether she was angry at me still, I gingerly ask her, "Er, you got any sleep this afternoon after class?"

She stares at me for a while, [hey, her eyes aren't so bloodshot at least], and says, "If I didn't, you think I still want to talk to you?"

So yea, I'm forgiven, [i think] and I won't yet be killed by my roommate for now. (^^) Seriously hoping NO MORE late night projects.....

For now anyway.......

Yea, I'm That Girl

I'm that girl who saw this happening in Popagandhi's blog, thought it was interesting, and decided to add her two cents worth on her own blog.

I'm the girl who, on all appearances, has settled down to the rest of her life, covered by the Gahmen, and who may settle down with a similarly stable guy, but who secretly craves to throw a spanner in the works to see what happens. I'm the girl who has everything one could want, but is not sure if that is what I want.

I'm the girl who likes to question the concrete opinions of others. I'm the girl who likes to challenge your opinions simply to see whether you believe in them firmly enough to back them up. I'm the girl who likes to challenge you simply because I like the thrill of a good fight. I'm the girl who irritates you because I seem to have no firm opinion of my own but sway to the views of others, and you cannot see that that is the only firm ground I have.

I'm the girl who would do silly childish things to irritate the heck out of you when I get bored, simply to get some attention from you. I'm the girl who would find such things a kind of twisted entertainment, even when you get pissed off or threaten permanent physical injury on me.

I'm the girl who thinks that "I'm drunk" is an all-encompassing excuse.

I'm the girl who loves the sun. I'm the girl who can stand in the warm sunlight, letting her skin soak it all in, while others pout and sweat under the trees. I'm the girl who would walk in the sun while others walk in the airconditioned shade. Who loves the warm feeling of the sunlight with a touch of a light breeze thrown in.

I'm the girl with the short attention span, who loves to have her hand in a dozen and one things, and who will never be a master of none, because that will give me too narrow a view of the world. I'm the girl who thinks you should expose yourself to as many new experiences as possible, so that you will realise that you can never stand fast to the same position for long.

I'm the girl who has an increasingly shorter patience for patent displays of stupidity.

I'm the girl who loves her art, but lacks the persistence to go all the way with it. I'm the girl who will NOT break any boundaries in the modern art world, but who will love each and every one of her babies, even the embarrassing ones she scrawled in the covers of her comic books when she was a child. I'm the girl who will probably keep steadily at her craft, taking baby steps forward bit by bit, and who still lusts for a Wacom graphic tablet, even though she doesn't know how much she will use it.

I'm the girl who lay beneath an impossibly blue Swedish sky and who finally realised that the only boundaries are the ones we place on ourselves. I'm the girl who stared at the streched out sky and the endless fields and realised that there are no real boundaries. And who finally believed it for real.


I'm the girl who walked on the cobblestoned pavements of Paris alongside the River Seine. I'm the girl who crossed the Charles Bridge of Prague, flanked by the statue of long-dead Saints. And who both times wished dearly that there was someone walking along with me sharing those sights. And who still wishes she could fulfill that image.

I'm the girl who believes that a good book is one that pulls you into its own reality and refuses to let you go. I'm the girl who reads the words of others and wishes she could execute her craft like they do, spinning pure golden words out of poor flaxen.

I'm the girl who wants more out of life, who wants to do so much more with her life, but yet is willing to sit on a park bench, letting the wind blow stray strands of her hair, and think of nothing more important than how the shadows of the clouds look on the grassy fields.

I'm the girl who, when taking a journey, prefers to take a long yet scenic and visually stimulating ride, than to sit in the sterile seats of the subway surrounded by the same faces for stations on end. I'm the girl who will prop her feet up when sitting in the green area in the bus, plug in her MP3 player and then stare unthinkingly out the window for the rest of the journey, lost in a world of her own making.

I'm the girl who's the self-confessed full-time slacker.

Who are you?

New School, Same old Troubles

My old schools are all undergoing a flurried makeover at the moment. The primary and sec schs are due for a major smash-to-the-ground-and-rebuild makeover, while the JC has undergone a sorta image makeover, retaining much of the old infrastructure while dashing a bit more blush on the cheeks.

Much of this is thanks to Brother Paul, the new principal who took over a few years ago from Sister Maria, and, according to the DF, is turning CJC into a SJI-JC. :p

Case in point being the new performing arts centre. Yes, ex-CJCians, we now have a performing arts centre, which looks suspicously like the SJI one, only in blue. And sadly enough, it stands smack in the spot where my classroom used to be. (^^!) I mean, I knew those classrooms were temporary, but dang....

The funniest thing I saw, though, was the words over the quadrangle. For those not in the know, the quadrangle is a little courtyard in the middle of the school, where all of us stood there for our assemblies, and listened to the various litanies dished out by the teachers. That was where the principals would give mass pep talks, scoldings, implorings to be better citizens and uphold the image of the school ( yea, right ). Where the students would eventually get hot, restless, and bored, and start talking to each other, and where the principal, fed up at the lack of attention, would eventually scold us for having a total lack of respect for those who demanded it. ( But yet failed to earn it from us. )

Which is why I think this sign, now overlooking the quadrangle, is especially funny. Because to me, it seems like a pathetic plea at good behaviour:

Check out what it says

My only answer: Like THAT ever stopped us.

I've just decided that I hate doing research. :( Especially when the topic is chosen by someone else, the deadlines are set by someone else, the method of writing is determined by someone else.... You get the idea........

Anyway I reached that point in the writing of my essay when I'm just "Ah screw it!" and hell with the grades, I just don't wanna work on it anymore...

This is probably why I'll never survive in research. :p

Anyway, lemme blog about more interesting stuff...

3 Idiot Things Said to Me

1. Revealing that you remembered my birthday wrong

While we're looking at a bunch of zodiac keychains, DF remarks, "That's your sign, Aquarius."

"??? I'm not an Aquarius!"

"Er...... Pisces? You're a Pisces!"

Suspicious look. "Ok, wise guy, what's my birthday?"

Along with "Am I fat?" and "Do you love me?", this is probably one of the most dangerous questions a girl can ask her guy.

"23rd Feb!"

*Pause* "That's not my birthday."

"Huh?"

"That's JULIAN'S birthday!!!"

"What?"

"You remembered JULIAN's birthday as MY birthday all this while?????"

................................

2. Trying to blame me for something that's partly your fault

Julian found out that trying to pin something on me while I'm PMS-enraged is not a good thing to do.

"What da fork do you mean all of you are at Fullerton????" Right on time, I arrive at the designated meeting point, only to realise that the meeting point had been changed and no one told me.

"I tried calling you all day! You never picked up!"

"My HP was on low batt! You could've SMS-ed me!"

"I had no time to SMS you!"

"WHAT DA FORK YOU MEAN YOU HAD NO TIME TO SMS??? IT TAKES LIKE LESS THAN 1 MIN TO SMS SOMEONE TO SAY VENUE HAS BEEN CHANGED! YOU TRYING TO TELL ME YOU BEEN SITTING IN THIS DAMN CAR THE WHOLE DAY AND NEVER STOPPED DRIVING AT ALL?"

"Er.. YA!"

"What time did J tell you to meet somewhere else?"

"In the afternoon."

"IN THE AFTERNOON!!! YOU HAD THE WHOLE BLARDY AFTERNOON TO SEND ME ONE SMS AND THAT WAS IT!!! AND YOUR EXCUSE IS YOU HAD NO TIME???? ONE BLARDY MIN TO SEND ONE SMS AND YOU COULDN'T FIND THE TIME???"

Note to all men: This is a terribly, terribly stupid thing to say to any girl. After all, it takes like maybe 1 or 2 minutes to write an SMS. And saying you had no time to SMS is like saying I couldn't be bothered to spend 1 min to compose an SMS. If you have to think of an excuse, don't use this one.

3. Saying I look like a man

Julian again: "You know something?"

"What?"

"When you were walking here, I thought you looked like a man with long hair!"

At this point, I pinch him really hard on his arm "ARrRGGHH!!!" he loses control slightly of the car "Screech!!!" and it nearly swerves into One Fullerton. "ARGH!"

So there you go. 3 Idiotic Things to say to any girl. Hope this helps all the guys out there.

Slummin' it

Although this isn't exactly slummin' it... I'm sitting in the cafe on the 3rd floor of the NIE library doing research for my essay, tapping away on my laptop, [happily the wireless card hasn't given me any problems in NIE, unlike a certain USB adapter I have thrown into a box in anger] listening to the radio with Shiroi, and with my handphone next to me to answer any SMSes.

And don't forget the iced caramel latte.

I've decided. I like the techie-bohemian thing.

The only problem? I'm supposed to be doing research on my essay. And right now......... I'm blogging.

Ho boy. This is gonna be a problem.

It's now the one week break, and I've one 1-2000-word essay, a couple of project meetings, a report on communication technology to complete and somewhere in there I'm supposed to fit in some meeting to practice for my music test.

And I end up doing this:

Your Dominant Intelligence is Linguistic Intelligence

You are excellent with words and language. You explain yourself well.An elegant speaker, you can converse well with anyone on the fly.You are also good at remembering information and convicing someone of your point of view.A master of creative phrasing and unique words, you enjoy expanding your vocabulary. You would make a fantastic poet, journalist, writer, teacher, lawyer, politician, or translator.

Just crown me Queen of Procrastination already. Or Lady Last Minute Despair.

Yea, I know the picture link's broken, but the 'writer' and 'teacher' part is quite the coincidence huh?

[And btw be careful when you select and copy the code. When I pasted it into my blog, I realised there were a thousand and one errors all over the place and it took me a while to manually fix everyone of them...]

Then I started reading blogs, and I realised I got tagged by
Krystal on her blog. :p So now I'm supposed to declare 5 of my weirdest habits to the whole blogging world.....
Erm, so which 5?

Promise you guys will still be friends with me after that.

Ok, here goes:

1. I get terribly excited during action flicks.

The DF found this out when we watched Red Eye on Sunday. [Good show! Cillian Murphy rocks as unsuspecting psycho killers] And I don't mean excited as in I shriek, cover my eyes in fright and miss half the movie that way.

I mean excited as in I shriek, shield my eyes if someone's about to get horribly murdered, sometimes I wave my hands like a chicken on steroids, and now with the DF, I cling to him and go, "Oh fork! Hesbehindthedoorhesbehindthedoorhesgonnagether!!!!!!"

Er, onto the next...


2. I like to kiaow my karh

Hm. Not very good English. How about: "When sitting, I normally prefer to bend one leg and perch it on the chair that I am sitting on"?

Nah, kiaow karh somehow has more say......

I don't know how or why I picked this up, because God knows my parents were always pounding me to sit properly, being a girl who should be all ladylike and all, but somewhere along the line I realised it was more comfortable to kiaow karh. All those trishaw riders had it right all along after all...

But I don't just kiaow all the time. Sometimes I cross my legs guy-style, [ironically the DF does it closed-girl style (^^!)] sometimes I sprawl one leg over the arm of the chair, sometimes I prop my legs up on the table, sometimes I sit on the table instead.

It's as if my body is doing everything it can to prevent sitting properly and ladylike. Hm.

And which leads on to....


3. I can't really sit still. Nope.

Even if I'm reading for a long period of time, I'm unable to keep still. I will periodically move my body in all sorts of almost-yoga-proportions and perform calisthenics on the furniture.

Even when I'm lying in bed reading, I will roll from side to side, sometimes sit up, then lie down again, then roll to the left, to the right... you get the idea....

And even when I'm reading, I'll tend to......


4. Talk to myself

Watch me sometime when I'm reading an exceptionally funny book. You'll hear me suddenly laugh out for no reason. Or if I'm reading something, exciting, I'll do a much-muted version of what I do in the cinema. [see above]

Or if I'm thinking of something, or like in the hall today, when I was looking for something, I'll talk to myself, swear to myself, curse myself...

It's a wonder people don't think I'm insane yet.

And the Ultimatest Weirdest Habit I have...................



5. Is simply being myself. Nothing can beat that. :p

I think I'm supposed to throw this to someone else, so will the below 5 people please subject yourself to the same loss of reputation that I just subjected myself to, arigatou gozaimasu......

1. Slayer
2. Belly
3. Yenn
4. Goldfish
5. Goodmeat [time for you to update that dusty blog of yours!]

And hey, if you guys do the tag, leave a link on a comment on my blog k?

Granted this isn't very complimentary to IJ girls on the whole, but I couldn't help but chuckle, cos... well the characters all seemed so damned familiar in one way or another... :p

The Students' Sketchpad - Choices

New Guy!

Ok, I met this guy at Comex Asia when I went there.

He kinda caught my eye when I went in, and we bumped into each other again at the Creative booth. I was talking to the salesgirl on the right, and he was talking to me on the left, advising me. I found out that his name was Shiroi, which totally suited him.

For the record, he's pretty cute, sensitive and loves music. Like the same chillout, and jazz stuff that I do. How cool is that??

But I wanted to check out the Ipod booth later, and he didn't, so we got separated in the crowd for a while. I went there and looked around, but decided that maybe I shouldn't spend so much just yet. Regretfully, I walked back to the Creative booth and he was still there!

"Wah, you wait here for me ah?"

"Ya what, I knew you were going to come back." He said with a huge grin.

And then after that, we've just been hanging out, listening to music, talking almost every night. It's amazing how we just clicked and fell into each other's lives just like that, but I feel like I have a connection with him. I have to admit, I feel a bit guilty, because I'm spending more time with him than the DF, but it's like those drama serials, where the husband doesn't spend enough time with the wife so she wanders...

I'll be bringing him to Candle's bday party on Saturday, so you guys can all meet him, but if you're already anxious to find out what he looks like, here's a link:

Click to see Shiroi!

Mad about Womad

Cheesy title, but I'm running low here.....

ANd yea! I went to Womad on Sat night with Candle. Tons of music, all over the world, it all rocked, and we got a massage, and yea, it rocked!

*Cough* Ok, back to proper blogging...

After we left, and I sat the long bus ride home, I came to 2 conclusions about Womad:

1) It is best enjoyed with someone you don't mind looking stupid in front of

One of the stages we walked past was playing music that, as I told Candle, "You just can't sit down to." A sort of infectious Spanish, samba-ish song that was more infectious than the common cold and had everyone in front of the stage shimmying away. Best was the way the singer got the audience to engage in some kind of synchronized dance. "To the left!" And everyone shimmys 2 steps to the left. "To the right!" "Front!" "Back!"

Somehow I'm reminded of all those mass exercise displays we used to have in school.......

Anyway, it was so irresistable, that Candle and I were soon shimmying away with the crowd of them as well. And best, we had our own moves, adapted from some Ks we knew in NUSSUX..... For sake of anonymity, and general mercy, I shall simply put the initials of the guys... you guys should be able to guess who...

First clap a regular 4-beat. One. Two. Three. Four. Getting it? Hold that beat... Now do...

The KL! [Thrust your head forward with each beat, keeping the rest of your body still]

The KR! [Jab your index finger in the air with each beat]

The KL! [Slide side to side like a crab walking on ice] [this is a different KL from the one above, btw]

Ta-dah! You now have a simple synchronised dance routine that can be adapted to any music, and you can even do the same moves together! For example,

KL and KR! [Thrust your head forward while jabbing your finger]

KR and KL! [Jab your finger while sliding]

and if you're really zai, you can even attempt to do all 3....... as we tried, to extreme bouts of laughter as we saw how stupid the other looked.........

But anyway, exactly my point there....... There's no fun going to an event like Womad and then spending the whole time standing in a corner, with a cup of Heineken and bobbing your head up and down trying to look, is there? Save that for the pubs man.... this is Womad!

So go only if you are willing to sacrifice your self-dignity for one night...

Onto the next point, which is...

2) Womad is like a bohemian fashion show

I wish I could have complemented this entry with photos, but I got all the way to Fort Canning only to realise that I had forgotten to charge trusty Oliver... ARGH!

Because Womad is like a bohemian fashion show, and something like half the people there were models.

See them sashaying up and down the stairs, or the slopes, and see what's IN in boho hip right now. Long, flowy skirts, reaching either to just above the ankle, or sweeping the floor. Light, airy material of bright, bold fabrics. Fishermen pants of varying lengths, some even becoming fishermen shorts. Loose linen shirts. Brightly striped hairbands. Indian-inspired sari skirts.

Man, I could've just bought half the clothes off some of the people there.........

My last point is a bit more sober...

3) What is Singapore culture? What is Singapore music?

They had music from Israel, from Spain, from India, and as I was sitting on the grass, listening to music from South Africa [I think it was SA, anyway] this question occurred to me:

What kind of music would Singapore play in a world music festival?

What is the sound, that would define Singaporean music? And I don't mean POP music like Stefanie Sun and the like. I mean music. The kind that has a recognisable and distinguishable style everywhere around the world. The kind that makes people stop while they walk, listen to the first few bars, and then go, "Oh yea, that's Singaporean music."

Do we have one? No we don't. We have Chinese, Malay, Indian and Western music, but we don't have local music.

Is that a little sad? In a way, yes. Because our culture is not developed enough to have an identity of its own, let alone a sound of our own. And isn't this the common complaint about Singapore? We have no culture! [trying to emulate other cultures and passing it off as our own doesn't count]

We're too young as a nation to yet discover our national identity. While other hotspots like London have existed for 1000s of years on the very soil they are still living on, we have only been hogfooting it for about 40. We're practically kids in terms of countries.

But at the same time, does that mean we have nothing?

I guess if you would look at the other side of the coin, this is an excellent time to mold a national identity. If we are still infants, then we are still exploring our self-identity, finding out what we can about ourselves.

And some of it is good, some is bad, but you don't scold infants for farting in their diapers, do you? So in the same way, we have some leeway yet when it comes to culture.

Maybe someday...... who knows?

Having a child....?

One day in school, Yenn pulls me aside and whispers, "See that girl?" and points to a girl, who was partially blocked by the crowd of people streaming out of the lecture theatre.

"Yea, so?" I reply offhandedly.

"That girl is in one of my tutorials, and I can't figure out one thing...

Can you tell me whether she's pregnant or not?"

Blink. Blink blink blink. I try to get a better view of the girl above the crowd, and lo and behold, she does have a pretty, *cough* impressively bulging abdomen. Which could have been a baby, but yet......

"Er, she could be, I guess, but...... I donno, it looks a little....... off?"

Ok, later we both reckoned that she probably wasn't pregnant, because there wasn't much chance that Moe would have hired her and allowed her to do her course if she was that pregnant, but then, if she wasn't......

Then all that stomach was just pure fat?

*Pregnant Pause* [ok bad pun there...]

But I felt I had to make a comment, especially after reading ms beautifuk's post on the ugly Singaporean student. [her main point is that people from our local universities are particularly lacking in courtesy] I would like to point out that in this particular instance, I was not quite discourteous, but rather... confused.

Here's another incident that happened to me. I was on the MRT, going almost from one end of the island to another, and I was reading my book for most of the journey. [NOT to try avoiding those who needed my seat]

As I was almost approaching my journey, I looked up bleary-eyed from my book, and I saw a pregnant woman in front of me. I was about to get up, when something stopped me.

Suddenly, it hit me that the woman could have been fat.

Because I don't know why, she had a bulging stomach all right, but it didn't look like a pregnant stomach, like a little... off or something? Some deep womanly instinct, I suppose you could call it that, told me it wasn't quite right anyway...

So here's the dilemma now:

1) I assume she's fat, and keep my seat. People brand me an insensitive, uncaring, selfish bastard.
2) I assume she's pregnant, and offer her my seat. She's actually fat, and she slaps me hard in the face.

How da af was I supposed to figure this out?? Nowadays maternity clothes look so chic, they look better than normal wear in some cases, so you can't judge pregnancy by how much the dress resembles a potato sack. [not only that, but I also hear they have jeans for pregnant women.] Neither can you judge by how haggard the mother looks, because of all the spa stuff expectant mothers can go to now, highly publicized by Zoe Tay.

Elderly and handicapped are easy, you can tell them from a mile away. How then do you tell an expectant mother from a fat woman? (^^!)

Anyway, I took the coward's way out in the end. I stood up from my seat about 1 station away, and sort of edged my way through the crowd such that I cleared a path for the [maybe] pregnant woman to go straight to my seat if she wanted to. I figure this way, she can have the seat, with no undue embarrassment to me, if she wasn't pregnant.

So don't be too quick to judge me as insensitive, uncaring, etc etc..... Sorry, but I was really clueless in this case...... :p

Blur-do

I just posted up a lengthy rant on Mis-educators, so let me balance it off by tell you a funny thing that happened to me today.

I was walking to my lecture theatre, when I noticed that strangely enough, 5 minutes before lecture was supposed to start, the whole area was empty.

I was trying to figure out where did everyone go, when one of my project team mates walked past me and said, "Going lecture is it? It's this way!"

I followed him, and sat in the unfamiliar lecture, wondering why the lecturer had chosen to change the lecture venue suddenly, and where the heck was Yenn.

Then the girl next to me, who was in my English lecture, turned to me and said, "Are you in my tutorial group?"

I thought this was weird, I mean, yea, I'm in your English tutorial group what.

"Yea, but are you in my science tutorial group?"

Pause. Think. What lecture am I sitting in right now?

"Er, the science lecture? You thought this was the English lecture??"

Comprehension dawns. Oh yea... the English lecture is actually an hour from now...............

Comment Spam

Really sucks..............

I opened up my email to find out that I had like 6 comments on this blog alone!! I clicked on the link to the post to find out what was the fiery post I wrote, and then I realised....

All spam.

I was wondering what incendiary post I wrote. Cheh!!! It's just a bunch of people telling me to invest in US timber, buy pills, blah blah blah...... They couldn't get to my inbox, so now they're attacking me through my blog. (^^!)

Anyway, here's a tip for Blogger users if you're affected:
Go to your dashboard, and click on "Change Settings".
Go to "Comments" and go to "Word Verification for Comments".
Click on "Yes"

Hope that works,since I just did that for mine and it works on the Miseducators blog. The only added inconvenience is that you guys now have to type on some letters in order to comment... bleah....

So let's now shout the warcry from every blog all around the world:

"Screw Spam!"