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!"

Why my laptop can't connect

"I've been trying to connect my laptop with the LAN point in my room, but it doesn't seem to work. It doesn't even sense the LAN connection"

"Hm, I see... Lemme see now......" [does some clicking here and there] "Ah, I see the problem."

"What?"

"You've never tried to use this LAN point, have you?"

"No, why?"

"Because this isn't a real LAN port."

"What??"

"It's just a fake LAN port. A dummy port. It doesn't work. You need to get a local LAN network card to connect."

[feeling stupid and muttering some choice expletives under her breath, she trudges her way through the North and South spines to the computer shop at the other end of campus.]

"Hi, do you sell local LAN network cards for laptops?"

"Er, we're out of stock for those..." short, bespectacled guy cringes nervously around me. And I was just asking cordially. Is my teacher aura so strong already?

"Ok, are you gonna have new stock soon?"

"Er, not really..... " shuffles nervously "Nowadays, all the laptops come with inbuilt ones......" shuffle shuffle.

"..............................." Except for my almost-antique one anyway....................

It's all about the nose

And indeed the nose, one of the most underappreciated of our senses, is the theme of this blog entry.

One reason is because i'm currently in midst of possible flu. I'm not so much sick, as irritated, because my nose keeps running the 2.4 without me, and I have to have a box of tissue on hand just in case something crosses the finish line.

Man this sucks.

And maybe one reason why is because of the stink emanating from some of the guys' rooms below us.

Imagine perspiration, stale clothing, decaying food and other olfactory horrors rolled up into one double room. I truly dunno how some of these guys live with that kind of stench. I know they trained to live in the jungle for weeks on end with no clean underwear, but f'godssake! There are other clean, hygiene-loving people living in this block as well!

One horror in particular is this one room which is next to the kitchen.

One time, long ago, I was walking past their room to get to my room, and the door was open at the time.

At first, I was walking in clean, fresh air. Suddenly, when I walked past their open doorway, the stale stench hit me.

BLEAH!!!!! Never in all my life I have seen/smelt a room that was so STINK! And since their door was open, I could clearly see the piles of clothing strewn all over the floor and bed that was clearly contributing to the smell! What a blardy cesspit!

[thank goodness I didn't see other unmentionables.......]

So I hurriedly walked past, and lo and behold, the minute I walked past their doorway, the clean air returned to my nose. So apparently the smell was so bad it was almost creating its own force field around the room.

NVM. I went back and ranted to Yenn about that room.

A week later, Yenn and her sister walked past that same corridor, to curiously peek [and smell] that same room. And then they came into the room, and asked me whether it was the one that was 2 doors down from the kitchen.

"Huh? No, it was the one right beside the kitchen."

"Huh?? The one we smelt was 2 doors down from the kitchen!"

So now the Dark Force is even spreading to other rooms........ The power is strong, this one........

[Can I stress here that none of us ever purposely walked near the rooms, or even tried to enter them? All these were smelt just by walking along the corridors like ordinary folk. These people should be fined for air pollution or something...]

Now just yesterday, I went down to the kitchen in the morning to fill up the hot water flask for breakfast.

Just as I was approaching the kitchen, [and half contemplating whether I should go near their rooms, just to see/smell whether the stink was just as bad] THE SMELL HIT ME.

This time I wasn't even near their rooms. Heck, I wasn't even AT the kitchen. I was just APPROACHING the kitchen. AND THE STINK WAS ALREADY THERE.

So the force field had now extended its boundaries BEYOND their room. Still, not so bad. You know what was the best part?

THEIR BLARDY DOOR WAS CLOSED SHUT. THE SMELL WAS EXTENDING BEYOND THEIR ROOM, EVEN WITH THE DOOR SHUT. How da af do some human beings even LIVE in such conditions you tell me??????

This one really took the cake. So maybe that's the reason for my runny nose. My nose has automatically gone into detox mode with all the olfactory tortures I've been subjecting it to, and now it's frantically washing itself out to purge it of all the disgusting stuff that's been lodged in it.

Next time I approach THAT room, or even the kitchen for that matter, I'm going armed with air fresheners...............

Save the starving children

Yenn and I are eating in the Jurong Point food court when she notices me chucking unwanted egg yolk and cucumbers into the soup that came with the chicken rice.

"You're not eating that?"

"Nope." I grimace. I've always found chicken rice soup too bland for my taste.

And then comes the highly cliched line: "Think of all the starving children in Africa."

Pause. "Would me not eating the food help the starving children?"

Yenn looks up from her food, wondering what crap I'm about to come up with.

"If I finish the food, does it help the starving children in Africa? No! In fact, you're taking away much-needed food from them!"

Yenn stares.

"And if I didn't finish it, would it help them? No! Because there's no way for this bowl of cucumber egg yolk soup to reach any starving children in time for them to save them!"

Yenn stares.

"And even if there was a way to fly this bowl of soup over there, would it reach the starving children before it spoiled? No!"

"And even if there was a way to bring this bowl of soup over there before it spoiled, and in such a way that it would not spill a single drop of soup, would it help? No! Because this bowl of soup would only feed one child! And even then, this serving would not be enough to save him from starvation!"

"And even if miraculously, it did manage to save him from starvation, you'll only be feeding him for one day! There's no guarantee there'll be another bowl of soup for him, and there's no guarantee that this one bowl of soup will save his economic situation and find him a job so that he can earn more money to buy more bowls of soup for his family!"

"So that line about the starving children just carries no balls, because whether or not I drink this bowl of soup, it's not gonna do anything about the famine situation in Africa!"

Yen: "........................................................."

This is how you know we've been working too hard............

I. MUST. WATCH. THIS. MOVIE.

Click to see the movie trailer!

Is it a big deal?

In regards to Slayer's comments about tristefemme........ [krystal: this link shld work]

Hmmmm.....

It wasn't really the abortion part that struck me as much, I guess, as her description of the relationship between her ex and herself. Her ex apparently had been showing her a false front all along, and all those overtures of care and concern was not because he truly cared, but because he thought that was what a boyfriend should do.

And what a selfish pig he turned out to be in the end. Claiming how he hurt her and his family, when really it was HER side who would always suffer from the stigma. PIG! [getting all feminist now]

Slayer's comment:
"I really think she's old enough to make her own decisions...Abortion isn't a form of contraception but it IS an option..."

I spoke to Slayer a bit more to get a clearer view on her comment..... Her view was that the girl was mature enough to know what she had to do, and old enough to get an abortion if she wanted to [she didn't], so she didn't like the fact that she seemed to be victimizing herself in the blog. To her, it's not quite the big deal the girl makes it out to be in her blog.

These are my views:

1. As to her age, I don't really know whether the fact that she's 26 makes her more mature and more able to handle her pregnancy. After all, we do know some over 20s who act as if they should be in diapers....... but I digress.

To me, whether you're 16 or 26, an unwanted pregnancy can hit pretty hard. Mental trauma aside, you'd have to care for the child through the term, and live with the stigma throughout. Not to mention the hurt and disappointment on the parents as well.

True enough, being older may mean that she has more options at hand, than if she were underage, but that doesn't necessarily lessen the stress.

2. To the victimizing part... Hey, everyone with a blog rants once in a while. :p If you were to read selective entries from my blog, [esp. those regarding one block of an insect] you could think I was a neurotic psycho hair-pulling female who just loved to cry to the whole world about her boyfriend. [which I'm not, ok??]

And sometimes, the act of just typing it out, or telling someone about it is therapeutic in itself, and helps one to deal with the situation better. She may seem "victimizing", but everyone needs a shoulder [or a laptop] once in a while. Let her have that break.

Gimme more big talk

It's good that I never went into marketing, because I decided that I'm really tired of small talk.

"How are you?" "How's class?" "How's your projects?" "That GESL thing, sucks huh?"

Good god! I never really realised how tiring it was to keep thinking up common topics between a person I hardly know, and myself. What IS there to talk about?? The ramifications of US trade policy in the Saudi region? [and me hardly understanding the statement I just typed] Or the different graphic styles in each Sandman volume and how it affects the storyline in question? Or the Christian connotations in Angel Sanctuary?

No, it's "how are your assignments?" most of the time. Bleah.

And yet, as a form of social obligation, you have to at least make some kind of pathetic attempt, even if it's just "Hi." That way you are still "part of the community" [makes the little aprostrophe signs with her two fingers] and people still "like you" [makes the little signs again], otherwise you are "out of it" [frantically making little signs again]

What's wrong with being out of it? Sometimes, I feel it's easier on me. I come for class, I listen, I do my work, and I leave. No need to worry about what people think of me. No one to attempt to talk petty topics with other people, and no need to hear other people's sanitized comments in return.

And not only that, but at least I know that if other people come to talk to me, it's because they are genuinely interested in doing so, and not because they don't want to appear dao. I know there are people like that, but at the same time, there are people also who just talk to you on the surface, so that they can absolve themselves of the responsibility. "Well, I tried talking to her, but we didn't really click, so like that lor." That way, it sounds as if they tried, and the reason why we didn't click it off as bosom lifelong friends is entirely due to me.

It's mainly because of the 2nd group of people that I feel like branding myself the local pariah.

But yet, at the same time, you have to do group/pair work, and you have to work with others. So one has to have some kind of basic socializing. *haiz*

Being human stinks, sometimes.

---

This is truly touching.... a story of a girl, who found out way too late, just how selfish and irresponsible her boyfriend was. After she got pregnant with their first child.

http://tristefemme.blogspot.com

Bored? Slacker?

It is Tuesday night, and Yenn and I have just finished logging all our assignment deadlines onto calendars.

Yen: "I think you should change the title of your blog."

Me: "Huh? Why?"

Yen: "Well, " [points to the title] "Are you sure you're still bored? Are you sure you're still slacking?"

[Imagine an Aki balloon deflating with a low sigh and a highly depressed look]

---

Happy Birthday Singapore.... Now get over it already!

And so another National Day is over..... Happy 40th Birthday Singapore, only about 10 years more to mid life crisis....

The one good thing out of the end of National Day? [Hopefully anyway] no more irritating "reach for the stars"...... bleah........ If I see one more Taufik and Rui En in the MRT, I might just make the LCD screen see stars...... [Bad pun, but I'll blame it on T and RE's inadequate harmony :p]

I know it's supposed to be the celebration of Singapore's independence and all that, but after about 24 years, the National Day celebrations are getting a bit tiresome. It's all about the same anyway. The different ethnic groups and the ever-present PAP group putting on a few skits, the military shows off its arsenal, everyone gapes in awe at the fireworks, and then goes home with the goodie bags.

For about months after that, you will see the goodie bag itself being used by tons of schoolkids all over Singapore, and a few adults, and then its appearance will diminish over time. Till the next National Day.

A pretty sarcastic take on the whole thing, huh?

And yet I don't see myself as an unpatriotic Singaporean. I don't badmouth every single Government policy, [well, not every single one anyway] I don't badmouth everything about the Gahmen.

Importantly, I don't, at this moment of time, have any plans to migrate to other countries. Other countries are nice, and some might be better than us in some ways, but I would still like to live here, marry here, and perhaps eventually die here.

This I know is totally at odds with a lot of people, and even some of my closest friends :p. But I do feel that Singapore is a good place to settle down for many reasons, most of all being the safe environment, and also the fact that here I am acknowledged as a citizen, and hence I know that, however much I deplore the actions of the government, they are made in my favour.

You think this isn't much of an advantage? Tell that to the Blacks, who suffered the chains of slavery. Tell that to the Muslims in France, who were forced to compromise their religious beliefs in exchange for life in a secular France. Tell that to any other disadvantaged race in other countries.

Your civil rights, though not tangible, are a more precious thing than almost any other thing in this world. And you cannot guarantee that the governments of other countries will grant their Permanent Residents with the same civil privileges that they grant their own home-born citizens.

But still the National Day celebrations and all the marketing hooha leading up to it bores me, and, in the case of the NDay song, irritates me. Why?

Because it's all marketing. Because I know that all this is to promote an image of something else, and ultimately, it's not real.

Because I know that the image is there to cover the reality, which may or may not be the one the Gahmen wants to project to the world.

Because the images of Singapore I see in the MTVs and the National Day parades are NOT the images of Singapore I know and love.

And what I love is what I see and feel around me. The real Singapore.

The prata stall at AMK which I still faithfully patronise every Sunday. [pulling along a father who is getting increasingly sick of prata]

The comics which arrive for me every Tuesday. [ok, not quite every Tues]

The clean and convenient transport. [Sit the Tube and the Metro and you realise just how fantastic our MRT really is]

and more importantly,

All the friends and family who have been with me for as long as I've been living here.

To me, THAT'S Singapore, my home, my future.

So Happy National Day, for all those who truly care.

And let's continue making this a home worth living, for each other.

loss - gain - what?

One of the saddest things about starting work/school/a hybrid of both is simply not having the time anymore for the things you love.

Time was I could blog just about everyday, because of all the time I had. I had the time to compose lengthy, witty, [or least, I hope they were witty] entries, and whole sagas about my then-non-existent-and-even-now-not-quite-there love life.

Time was I spent more time with Photoshop and Freehand than I did with actual human company. My fingers moved with an unconscious fluidity of their own, and created pixels of cartoons and other illustrations.

Time was I could spend a whole afternoon lost in a good book, or comic. Even after I had finished reading the comic, I had the time to spare to lust over the luscious art.

Time was I was poor, but I had enough cash to get by, and I was content.

Now?

My blog got dusty, my typing became stiff, and I haven't created anything new or arty in a while, aside from some black and white ink stuff in my hostel room. [I brought over the barest necessities - A sketchbook, black pens, and a mechanical pencil] I still read, but the time I spend on a book is getting longer. I still buy comics, but I'm not able to read intently, and sometimes I find myself skimming over the words, and not fully appreciating the art.

And my wallet? The excess money only made me want to spend more, a feeling of consumerish frenzy which I am frantically trying to abate.

And I think: What have I lost in exchange for career and financial stability?

And do I even fully know what I have lost?

I think only time can prove this hypothesis. Perhaps I can be happy at this. Perhaps I will find some balance. Perhaps I may never really care about what I lost in the past.

Perhaps I may never be a slacker again.

Perhaps I may declare this blog a waste of my time, and close it down for good, resigning to the depths of the dusty online dungeons.

In a way, this particular speaker I heard in NIE spoke true. That we must "never forget why is it you went into this in the first place" [I apologise, but I forgot who spoke that line, only that the person is in NIE]

And I may have taken the line out of its proper context, but I guess it fits this now.

That I must never forget why I do the things I love.

And never forget why is it I love them so.

And never stop loving them.

[slightly pensive mood]

Conversation

Me: "I'm having bad neckaches nowadays."

schwarz: "Yea, you look like you're getting a dowager's hump."

Me: "What??? Is it because of my posture??"

schwarz: "Usually these things are determined genetically, just that your bad posture could have made it worse."

Me: [conveniently not listening to the second half of the sentence] "Good, another thing I can blame on my parents."

*Doing*

schwarz: "Try not to slouch so much lah."

Me: "I can't help it, most of the time in tuition I have to bend down to help the kids."

schwarz: "How, like that?"

Me: "I know one thing I could do."

schwarz: "What?"

Me: [looking down at her 1.4m frame] "Talk more often to taller friends, for one?"

[that earned me a kick in the knee]

My neck hurts every time a tuition session ends. Or not hurt, but rather, ache. I can feel the muscles in my neck right now screaming out for a good massage, and a lot of those parlors are starting to look real tempting......

So if I go out with you and you notice that my neck is stuck in one position, or, [if you're shorter than me] I'm talking over the top of your head, bear with me.......

Incidentally, I forgot to mention... I've watched Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and had a few thoughts:

1. Johnny Depp's Willy Wonka is not at all like the WW I imagined in the book. [then again, I had the same problem with the Harry Potter movies] Roald Dahl's WW at the time seemed like a lovable, clown-like character with a child-like innocence. JD's WW seemed like he was walking a fine line between sanity and psychopathic behaviour most of the time.

Although he does have a slightly sexy slant in the movie ads... Rowr!

2. Tim Burton's movies have an unmistakable dark quality. There is no mistaking a Burton film for any other film. They all have that same dark comedy feel.

3. The movie will make you crave for chocolate. No kidding.

Why women are smarter than men

The post below this is a rant of sorts, so I thought I'd get you guys into a reasonably chuckly mood before you start reading about my angst....

This was received in my email from Sylveracyd.... [to the women out there] Enjoy!

Marriage - Part I

Typical macho man married typical good-looking lady and after the wedding, he laid down the following rules:

"I'll be home when I want, if I want and at what time I want and I don'texpect any hassle from you. I expect a great dinner to be on table unlessI tell you that I won't be home for dinner. I'll go hunting, fishing, boozing and card-playing when I want with my old buddies and don't you give me a hard time about it. Those are myrules. Any comments?"

His new bride said, "No, that's fine with me. Just understand that there will be sex here at seven o'clock every night ......... whether you're here or not."

(DAMM SHE'S GOOD!)

Marriage (Part II)

Husband and wife had a bitter quarrel on the day of their 40th wedding anniversary!The husband yells, "When you die, I'm getting you a headstone that reads:"Here Lies My Wife - Cold As Ever "

"Yeah?" she replies. "When you die, I'm getting you a headstone thatreads: "Here Lies My Husband Stiff At Last"

(HE ASKED FOR IT!)

Marriage (Part III)

Husband (a doctor) and his wife are having a fight at the breakfast table.Husband gets up in a rage and says, "And you are no good in bed either,"and storms out of the house. After sometime, he realizes he was nasty and decides to make amends and rings her up. She comes to the phone after many rings, and the irritated husband says, "what took you so long to answer the phone?"

She says, "I was in bed."

"In bed this early, doing what?"

"Getting a second opinion!"

(YEP, HE HAD THAT ONE COMING, TOO!)

Marriage (Part IV)

A man has six children and is very proud of his achievement. He is so proud of himself, that he starts calling his wife, "Mother of Six" in spite of her objections.One night, they go to a party. The man decides that it's time to go home and wants to find out if his wife is ready to leave as well. He shouts at the top of his voice, "Shall we go home 'Mother of Six?'

His wife, irritated by her husband's lack of discretion, shouts right back, "Anytime you're ready, Father of Four."

(RIGHT ON, LADY!)

Marriage (Part V) The Silent Treatment

A man and his wife were having some problems at home and were giving each other the silent treatment. Suddenly, the man realized that the next day,he would need his wife to wake him at 5:00 AM for an early morning business flight. Not wanting to be the first to break the silence (and LOSE), he wrote on a piece of paper, "Please wake me at5:00AM." He left it where he knew she would find it.

The next morning, the man awoke, only to discover it was 9:00 AM and he had missed his flight. Furious, he was about to go and see why his wife hadn't awakened him when he noticed a piece of paper by the bed. The message on the paper read, "It is 5:00 AM. Wake up."

---

Men are not equipped for these kinds of contests.God may have created man before woman, but there is always a rough draft before the masterpiece.

And I still haven't gotten my laptop hooked up to the Net.......... phwargh bleargh pooi pooi.........

Ok, lemme rephrase... I haven't gotten my laptop hooked up to the Net... In my hostel room.......... pooi pooi pooi............

It's 10am, in the NIE com lab, I didn't get enough sleep due to weird dreams the entire night, [Turtle was going to jail, and DF and I were back in JC, but he was in the wrong class.....er........] and I stood in front of a damned photocopying machine for one hour trying to desperately photostat whatever I could, and gacking at the sheer amount of paper that was coming out......

Oh yea, time for a good ol' rant...

Firstly, the LAPTOP

I brought it down to NIE com lab early one morning this week, and the lady there successfully installed the network card, and the client software, only to tell me:

"Oh, by the way, you may not get reception in some hostels."

"What? Where would I be able to use it, then?"

"In NIE itself."

*string of bad English, Hokkien and Japanese expletives* Then what's the blardy point of getting the card in the first place??? Why not I just make my way to the com lab each time???

Then, there's THE CABLE

I borrowed a network cable from the hostel office, which presumably was supposed to hook my com up to the Net through the LAN network.

Notice that I'm still in the com lab this morning. (-_-)

An inconvenient part of our room layout is that one LAN point is directly under Yenn's table. So I crawled under her desk to connect the cable, pushed the other end into my laptop, and set the proxy.

No connection.

I bring my laptop to the other side of the room, where our beds are.

STill no connection.

*English expletives* Then why I borrow the blardy cable for??? To strangle the hostel office staff when it doesn't work??

And when I asked the staff about it, all they said was, "The whole campus should be wireless, right?"

Yea, everywhere on campus except your blardy hostel area...... grumble grumble grumble....... This is when images of strangling them with the wire came in..........

Lastly, for today, is the PHOTOCOPYING.

I had [conveniently] forgotten how much photocopying one had to do in Uni. It seems, in the past few days, that everytime I came to the library, it was inevitably for some kind of photocopying. *dryly* After all, who cares about copyright infringements when your education and hence future career success is at stake, huh?

So I stood in front of the machine, zapping...........

And zapping...............

And zapping.........................................

Before I really got tired, and decided, "Screw this for now", and smashed my Iron Fist of Death into the photocopying machine, to the extreme shock and disbelief of all those standing behind me.

Nah, just kidding, though I wish I could have done so.

Now I know why NIE has that psychology clinic on campus...... It's to prevent Columbine-wannabes like me.......................

More rants if something else pisses me off...........