I should change the title of this blog to Too Little Time.on her Hands. It feels like I've hardly had a free day to myself these days.

And this is the part where all the working people and schooling pple go: "WTH??"

My hat off to u guys, if I actually wore one. I go to NUS to meet with Dr Foo for 3 hours, eat lunch in sch, hop off to town or somewhere, and I'm drained by the time I head for tuition at 5. I swear I eat too much carb. It makes you sleepy after that.

What I Did On My BirthDay

So.... here heralds the days of being 23. 2-3. Not a nice age to be. I liked 18. I was ok with 19. 20 was fine, and 21 was cool. 22 had a nice symmetry. 23? Prime number. Yuck. If there was a mathematical popularity poll, 23 would rank at the bottom. Can't wait to be 24. Hyuk hyuk hyuk.

As birthdays go anyway, can't complain. The only thing I didn't like was having to go to NUS in the morn for a meeting with Dr foo. [bleah. they shld give out mandatory leave on birthdays. can someone appeal to MOM?] Had lunch with Candle in school, then went to check out the LaSalle Open House. Looking through the studios, the works on display, the musicians performing......... damn. Suddenly my time at NUS seemed like such a waste. Anyway, in terms of real info, the open house wasn't too forthcoming. The overall impression was a load of pomp and popery, designed to impress the impressionable secondary school kids who were tromping in by the busload. And whaddaya know, they didn't even gimme a goodie bag, cos they didn't think they had enuff for all the kids. Wat da heck.

So I wandered aimlessly around the campus, even bumping into old secondary school classmates, and eventually joined what seemed to be a walking tour comprised of adults. [huh? whatdaya doin here?] So walked around the building a bit. One impression I gained was that the people doing product design had an atrocious grasp of the English language. Sorry lor, but their standard of English was just plain bad..... and this is what you want to present to prospective clients? Sorry guys, but bad, bad English just turns me off. [tuition teacher instincts] Although acceptable in Primary School essays, certainly not in presentation materials for corporate clients. [biz sch instincts]

After that, I adjourned to Changi Airport to see off SylverAcyd. Friends since sec school, spent birthdays, new years, and even one christmas together, and she chose to fly off on the very day of my birthday. Bleah. Anyways, it was fun, even if our group's particular brand of humour did seem to alarm some of her other saner friends. ["And this is just when we're sober!"] Hope she's fine down under, [reading this blog] and that she has loads of great times there! We ended the night off with sundaes at Swensens' and a mad dash to the MRT station for the last train home. Kudos to me, I'm 23.

The next day..... woke up and went down to NTUC shopping for ingredients for a potato salad and garlic bread with mozza cheese for the ducky NUS gang heading down that night. Opted for a night with takeaway pizza cos' least we can stay the whole night chatting, no worries about the place closing, and if anyone gets drunk, they can just spend the night on my floor. Potato salad turned out great, though I think mine was the first waldorf salad with red apples and prawns.

And gods the prawns! I had this mad idea at NTUC to put prawns in the salad for the less vegetariannally-inclined [is there such a term? Did I just invent it?] among us, and first it was to the seafood section. Piles of prawns, lumped together on ice, and when you pick them up with the pliers, they look at you with these emotionless eyes. Fine. You wanna eat me. Whatever. Then becos of the airconditioning or some errant breeze, their feelers would move or wave and you have the freezing thought that they're alive! They're alive and you're about to eat and kill a living creature! Suddenly you realise why animal activists feel the way they do. So you gingerly pick each prawn up with the tongs, praying to God that one of them doesn't suddenly squirm in your grip and cause you to let out a blood-curdling scream across the supermarket. Finally you're done, and you signal to the lady behind the counter, while a man behind her calmly takes a cleaver and decapitates another dead fish.

This is why I always prefer my meat very dead by the time it comes to me.

When you get home, you have this brief idea of shelling [shelling? peeling?] the prawns and throwing them into boiling water. Mother comes home and dispels that simple notion. First, you tear the heads off the prawns, and squeeze out the orangy-brown brain juice from the body. Then you shell as usual. When that's done, you slice the prawn down the middle, and pull out a long, thin black thread, which is supposed to be the defecation tunnel of the prawn. When that is done, you throw said prawn into a dish, and try to throw out thoughts of how the prawn would have looked, swimming happily in the sea, with all its crustacean brethren, and you realise you will never again look at prawn the same way again, let alone cook them for your friends. *shudder*

My consolation is that they liked the salad! They said it was good, [though maybe they just didn't have the heart to break mine on my birthday] they ate the prawns, [thank god. crustacean bastards] and sat around the merry round table eating pizza and drinking.

Did I mention the drinking? Gods... as far as our group's standards, it was a celebration of bacchalian proportions. [once again, did i spell that right?] What other drinking hole offers a smoke free environment, toilet literally a stone's [or prawn's] throw away, and all the booze you can handle the whole night? Well, not that we handled it all that well anyway. With the excess alcohol going around, people became rather "szair" [i have NO idea how to spell that word in the English language] and spilled out their employment woes. Think of how the people in the drama serials usually do it. Haha, ok, kidding guys.... [ducks the various missiles thrown to her] My father even came in and threw a bottle of cognac as well. [what a dad, huh?] The night's drunk count in the end was: Gamybird, Me, Yenn, and Quet, the latter being the most highly inebriated. [blogger needs a spell check. help!] Half the party drunk after the night was over. I count that as a successful party. Mwahahaha....

Meanwhile I have 2 tubs of ice cream in the freezer, one courtesy of kairos, 2 bottles of hoegaarden beer, courtesy of Yenn, and a half bottle of advocaat, courtesy of Candle. I love advocaat! Mix it with 7up and you get this yellowy drink that tastes a little like a vanilla milkshake with a twist. Yum! That night I mixed together gin, coke, advocaat, and 7up. yum yum yum. Tonight I mixed it with the 7up and stirred in vanilla ice cream. Fainted and woke up in a heavenly place with clouds around me and angelic music in the background. Fainted due to shock and woke up on earth. Darn. But i seriously recommend advocaat. Yum Yum Yum.

So there passed my 23rd birthday. Happy birthday to me, happy birthday to me. Here's to another year, and the next bachannial [is that right now?] celebration.

This blog entry is hereby dedicated to STINGRAY, a long-time fren of mine, who recently discovered my blog and was mildly chagrined [albeit in an amused way] to find that i have never mentioned her before. So yes, I hereby dedicate this blog entry to Stingray. Long live Stingray. [also known as jubilee14 in other circles] Together with this blur sotong, [what all u ducks out there call me] we make the ultimate seafood dinner.

Hahaha...... I told you I was gonna do something like that on my blog..... :p :p :p bleah bleah bleah.........

Has anyone read Internal Bleeding's Blog abt what we were doing during our Jap classes? Basically every week after Jap class, we ask sensei the Jap equivalent for some word that we commonly use in English, but are not commonly taught during Jap lessons. For eg, shinimasu is the verb for "to die" in Jap and tamatteimasu vaguely means "I'm pressured/stressed". This week, just as we approached him, he burst out laughing and went "sumimasen, sumimasen...." [excuse me, excuse me] I think he was a little relieved that we were just asking a perfectly innocent phrase like "i have no money" [okane ga arimasen].

Anyway, Internal Bleeding, this is dedicated to you:
IB-san wa saru to inu desu, mainichi hatarakimasu, tamatteimasu. Mainichi shinimasu. Taihendesune.........

ontop of that, I bought the guide to Making Out In Japanese. Despite the title, I bought it mainly for the section on Curses and Insults. Mwahahahaha! Now I'll know if any Jap guy/girl calls me a yariman or that kono kuso-ttare or kono kuso-onna and I can reply back saitei-dayo and kitanai!! [no, i won't explain what I just said. Go buy the book.]

So how was everyone's Valentine's Day? [Crass commercialism! Hallmark holiday!] Obviously I had no date, so this Vday I decided to go to church and rediscover God.

Before everyone pukes, I went because there was a concert going on in Stingray's church, so went down to take a look. No, I haven't been "reborn" and no, I didn't get struck by lightning the minute my feet touched hallowed ground. Tough. I'm only at the 4th level of Hell - Prodigal and Avaricious. Not a bad concert, the band wasn't too bad either, but camerawoman of the night was quite amateurish. [mwahahahaha] And no, no guitar smashing, swearing, or jumping around on stage. Only thing is for half the concert, the lead singer talked about his breakup and how God was the only friend at his side through the breakup. [frankly, the way he started off sounded like something I receive from time to time in my email. I was waiting for the girl to either break up/die/contract some incurable disease. Ok fireballs coming my way now]

stingray, don't kill me for the next few lines.

hm, after thinking about it, i feel that such an environment is not exactly suited for spreading God's message lor. For one thing, assuming that most of the people there are pre-adolescent non-Christian kids, they'd most likely be shutting out what the guy on stage says, in order to talk with their frens. In fact, most of them were, as I looked around. If they're mostly Christian kids, then the guy is preaching to the converted. [literally] It's so ironic that when they start out saying, "I'm not here to preach to you guys, but..." they inevitably sound like they're preaching after that. Why do they do that? [scratches head]

well, no worries. It was an enjoyable evening anyway, [though pple like Internal Bleeding would either walk out halfway or fall asleep during the guy's talk. Ha!] and it was great seeing stingray again. [awww.....] Too bad I didn't get a sock at the end of it. They were rather cute. *wink wink*

Less Updates These Days

Been updating less and less frequently...... Mainly this week I've been going back to NUS for Dr Foo's project, some filming. His subject pool is scheduled for next Tues so everything has to be done by then. Argh! And then after that I have to rush for tuition. As busy as I am, the remaining free time I have on the Net is devoted to.... READING ONLINE COMIX!!

Ladies and Gentlemen, due to the ease of publishing on the Net and the thousands of deluded individuals of artistic ability out there, [ok, meself included in there] you no longer have to pay money to read good comics. Indeed, some net comics out there are really good, and deserve to be published into books. One comic in point being Megatokyo - Relax, we understand j00, which chronicles the lives of 2 computer-geek-nerd guys, who are your typical gaming, roleplaying, manga reading geeks. Any wonder why I like this one? Ha..... Art is a bit sketchy, and looks like the guys don't know anything about inking basics, but other than that, it's a good comic to read, and shld appeal to the comic/gaming community. If you really like their stuff, a Megatokyo volume 2 is out at Kinokuniya right now.

Another online comic is Order of the Stick by Rich Burlew. Imagine a bunch of stick men [and 1 woman] playing a fantasy RPG, complete with warrior, wizard, cleric and cleavage-exposing warrioress. The art is a simple kindergarten style, yet the story is funny and the good thing is that it's also updated regularly. All hail the Order of the Stick! I recommend reading the character profiles first, before plunging into it. That way you get a good idea of who's who and what.

Nowhere Girl is a most fantastic online comic, and definitely tops the 2 in terms of story and art. It's written and drawn by Justine Shaw and tells the story of Jamie, who goes through her life struggling with low self-esteem, a crush on a gay friend and her own struggle with life, money and sexuality. [for the prudes out there, disregard the sexual references]. The first chapter is how she brings herself from her abyssmal [ did i spell that right?? ] life to forge a new beginning for herself. With the high quality of writing and art here it's amazing why this book isn't in print yet! The bad thing about it is that the story has been suspended indefinitely at chapter 2 because of lack of time on the part of the artist, and it's been that way for, er, almost a year. However, you can still read and enjoy chapter 1.

And if all that whets your appetite, check out the top 33 online manga list for more. More than ever, the Net proves itself to be the ideal launching pad for young, struggling artists. All hail the great struggle!

We are a universe of misunderstood souls. There's something I like abt that line that i can't put my finger on right now.

A Lonely Night in Orchard

I went through 2 days of Japanese cultural immersion.

Ok, not intensive 2 days. :p but on Fri nite, I watched Lost in Translation with the Gamybird, went for the first Jap class in 2 weeks on Sat afternoon, followed by the Last Samurai with newbie on Sat night. So yea that's a lot of Jap. And I can't even string together a decent sentence yet. All we've been doing is stringing together words and making our own version of the Japanese language altogether. Hey! At least I understood a sentence or two in the movies! ( In the Last Samurai, "This is my house." No kidding )

But the nite I watched LS with newbie was crazy. Firstly, he got the meeting place wrong! Waiting for me in Bishan when we were supposed to meet in Orchard! Then when we went to Cineleisure, we realised that the next show with empty seats was at 155am!!!! Freaking shit! Who the heck airs movies at 2am in the morning?? Ok, cineleisure does anyway..... so in a moment of temporary insanity, we were like, i don't mind if you don't ok you don't mind let's do it then.

a 2am movie. Good god. Even now I don't believe I actually did it.

So naturally we had all the freakin' time before the show to do whatever.......... ate dinner, walked around, ate dessert, walked around, and ended up at the Lan cafe at cineleisure, where he *tried* to teach me CS. I'm so sorry, newbie, but I'll probably never play that game again, cos I kept getting *shot* by unknown parties........ You imagine: You log into the network, you take maybe 3 steps forward, and suddenly, there's a blood spot on your screen and everything turns dark. You're dead. (*_*) And that happened to me like almost everytime I entered the game lor. *sigh* Warcraft was slightly better, at least the graphics were awesome to look at, and I knew a bit abt the game. Still, when the enemy attacked, he smashed me to the ground! Argh! Where does the enemy get all those damn soliders!? Finally I got totally *crushed* and that was just the beginner's game........... (*_*!) I soooooo suck at these............ gimme my minesweeper or bejewelled............

Have to admit though, Gunbound was pretty damn cute. Hee! All those little manga characters trying to blast each other dead with their cannons! but bad luck for me, halfway through the game there was this ultra lag and no one could do anything for the longest time. Finally the cafe was closing, so we had to leave. And the people in my game were still stuck unable to do anything. Damn servers.

So yea! We spent most of the time at the lan cafe! Fortunately I drank a latte during dessert so didn't sleep through the movie. Even after the show, at abt 5am I still felt so awake...... terrible. My body totally cannot handle caffeine at night. We hung around a while in the empty streets of Orchard. There's something so surreal and peaceful about Orchard at night. There's nobody, except the odd straggler like us, so the streets have this empty, abandoned feeling. It gives you this funny feeling, walking down these streets that were thronged with the masses just 6 hrs before, but now were empty as space. You have more space to walk around, more seats to sit on, and you feel more of the wind blowing on your face, because now there's nobody to stand in your way and block it for you. So nice a feeling..... the empty road just stretching away before you...... I think I like to hang out at Orchard after 2am. Anyone game? hahaha....

Too bad I wasn't too quiet abt getting home though. I tot I managed to sneak in quietly, until my mom came out ( at 530 in the morning!! ) and demanded to know where I'd been and why didn't I call and did I know she'd been waiting for me to come in how can i just go out the whole night just like that blah blah blah with me thinking please just go sleep lemme alone i got home fine i always get home fine i only watched a movie i wasn't out drinking or screwing or anything like that i don't do this often just freakin let me sleep already...... urgh.....

Amazing though, that I did manage to squeeze in about 3 hrs of sleep before I woke up at 8 to prepare to go for tuition. The human body is much more amazing than we give it credit for.

Right enuff crap for now. I feel the writing juice just dripping out of me. I'll try to come up with a review for the 2 movies I watched so we'll see how it goes. Suffice it to say for that I think LS was a really good show and LIT was really humourous, watching 2 gaijin muck their way round Japan. Ja, mata for now.

Some Sober Reflection

I will never drink coffee late at night again
I will never drink coffee late at night again
I will never drink coffee late at night again

That's cos I drank an ice latte at this cafe, celebrating Quet's bday at about 10pm. It's now 4am and I'm still wide awake. Shit, I thought I was over all this already.

But that's not the sober reflection I was referring to in the title.

The piece below is something that I had been thinking about for a while, but couldn't really write it all here, cos it was just damn too long. Since I was so gawdamned awake tonight, [and those darn profs haven't emailed me the script which I was supposed to edit for them. hope they let me extend my deadline] I decided to finally work on it.

The idea for this little essay came to me, as I was walking home one day, having been *fired* by this family I was teaching. As I was walking home, I looked to the sky and asked myself if this was truly the path I wanted to take, with all its uncertainties and thorns along the way. I considered my dreams and ambitions in life, my needs and wants, and I found my answer in the clear blue sky. I went home, I read Paulo Coelho's Eleven Minutes [Good book! Good book!] and it gave me further insight and reflection into my situation. After I had finally decided it in my heart, the agency called me again to say that the family had decided to hire me back. Whether this is divine providence or not... I'm not too sure, but I feel there has to be some holy agency working its way in this. [and for that I'm thankful] The whole experience and my reflections on it became a whole essay which was too lengthy to be put on this blog, so I created a separate webpage for it. [chalk up another one for the portfolio]

So Here's To Dreams, Paths, and the Clear Blue Sky. Hope it proves insightful to anyone out there.

Defences Down

As usual, the pix disappeared....... click on the link guys......

They crept up on me unknowingly. While my back was turned, they pounced up on me, pinned me down, and ravaged me from all corners, leaving streaks of fluid running down my face and making me huddle in my room at night, afraid to go out any longer.

Goddamned flu virus.

And no, I haven't got the bird flu. ( At least I think it's highly unlikely ) I think it's more of the ordinary strain that goes around from time to time. [Well I haven't been near any poultry farms anyway] Not bloody surprising considering the number of times I have had to go out in the heavy, pouring rain the past few days. Umbrellas are bloody useless when it comes to deluges such as those too. No matter what, you're bound to get wet somewhere.

*ACHOO!* [runs to toilet for tissue]

TOday I have a sore throat, [comes from eating too much murruku and downing alcohol to wash it down] and my voice has effectively broken like a boy on the verge of impending manhood. I'm a man. I'm so proud of myself. I can't even mew a greeting to the cats round my estate. The pitch is too high and when I try to do so, nothing comes out.

I also have a nose that is badly in need of a plumber. It leaks incessantly and I have to run to the toilet every now and then to plug the leak. Bloody, bloody hell. And even in this condition, I'm considerably better than yesterday, when I had a fever on top of the whole shebang.

Can't stand this. Healthy most of the time, but when I get sick, I get the whole package. It's like a family deal or something.

On a more sunny side, I have a new tuition assignment. This time 2 indonesian boys, 2X a week, eng math sci and whatever they need help in. ($$$) Hope this one doesn't drop me once again. The kovan kid dropped me today, after I called him repeatedly the day before to ask him when he wanted me to come for tuition this week. Of course, he didn't bother to tell me anyway. Called the house, called the guardian, no reply. Finally the guardian called me this morning to say he didn't want tuition anymore, and that she'd meet me another time to pay me for the times I came.

Frankly ma'am, I'm almost at the point where I don't care about the payment anymore. I just want out.

So in a way, the arrival of the 2 indon boys was pretty good timing. Hope nothing goes wrong, nothing goes wrong. [crosses fingers and toes] Though after these 2 assignments, I'm pretty much not too impressed with the way the Singaporean guardians handle their charges. I mean, from the example of the kovan kid and this 2 boys, it seems that the guardians are just there to supply food and lodging and sign their consent forms for them. I went to the 2 boys' house, and it turns out that the guardian never even told them that I was supposed to come today. Gee what a surprise.

These are kids, living in a foreign country, for the first time. And the impression I have is that the guardians are only interested in the income from the kids, and not much else. The kovan kid's guardian had 4 Thai boys in her house, including him. The 2 indonboys live in an apartment with 3 other boys, and the guardian lives in an apartment 2 floors down. Who's responsible if something happens? It was pretty clear, even after 2 lessons, that the kovan kid's guardian couldn't do anything to him in the way of discipline. The kid's a 15 year old troublemaker and on top of that she has to take care of 3 other boys. If someone beats him up one day and chucks his body into the drain, [i must admit, i have been sorely tempted to do so] who's responsible? If something happens to the indonboys in the flat, can they take care of themselves? They're prob around 16 or 17 and they're in a foreign country. What happens if something happens?

I'm getting pretty prejudiced against these so-called guardians, by the 2 I've seen. My chinagirl, on the other hand, came with her mother. [yup, the pei du mama we've heard so much about] So at least she has someone who's genuinely concerned about her welfare. These others, they don't seem to have anyone. The guardians are more like landlords. Worse still, like the godown owners of yore who'd hire coolies off the harbours as they came in from China.

Ok, getting too prejudiced here. I'd teach the boys for a while more and see how everything goes. After the AMK fiasco, I hope I don't get suddenly dropped from this one.

The Great Graphic Guessing Game!

For lack of a better name.........

Anyway, here are some shots I took around Singapore. In the most-likely event you guys don't see them due to the Phantom Pix thing, go to my camera pix website. If nothing, at least it'll give my shots some additional exposure. [bad photographic joke there]

So this is the game: I took these shots in assorted places around Singapore. What you guys do to play the game is to simply guess where I took each one, and put the answer on the tag-board. Simple right?

PS: If you want additional clues, you can click on the link to go to my camera pix website.

Pic 1:


Pic 2:


Pic 3:


Pic 4:

Tired. Wet. Irritated

Which pretty much describes my mood these days.

Tired comes from helping Tenderheart distribute surveys all over prime office space in Shenton Way and Orchard. Went building to building, door to door, knocking on doors, pressing doorbells, intercoms, all with the same story. "Hi! I'm a student from NUS and I'm conducting a survey in this building!..." Responses range from outright rejection, [Woman at UOB Kayhian cut me off with a curt "We have no time to entertain these!" the moment I said the first 5 words] hesitation, ["er, I'll try, but I don't know if she'll do it] and the rare acceptance. ["Sure! WHere's the survey?]

Then after that come the telephone rejections, and Tenderheart got the blast of it, cos her number was on the forms distributed. Most pple are rather polite about it, but some woman just blasted her off on the phone, about how her envelope wasn't attentioned to anyone, and that pple would usually throw it away, [Gee, how'd we know who to attention it to? Shldn't the fault lie with ur receptionist for not putting anyone's name down on the envelope?] how the thing got thrown to her, [that's not our fault isn't it? How can we be responsible for what your company does to you?] and that the most atrocious thing was that her boss asked her to reject us politely. [ironic, considering she was anything but polite to Tender, and that she considers it beneath her to show simple courtesy to others]

Bleah. Can honestly say that this is the most tiring of survey distribution methods ever. Not to mention that most people are turned off by the sheer bulk of her survey, which is about 40 odd pages. [Most common response:"Wah! So thick ah?"] Takes a buncha wheedling and begging after that. ["Please............ I need it to graduate"]

One interesting thing about this affair, however, has been the part about how to get into the buildings in the first place. Since we don't exactly look like executives with a mission, dressed in jeans and carrying stacks of surveys, we get stopped by the security guards most of the time. When we have to explain that we're NUS students and we want to distribute surveys, we know we're gonna get turned away. The guards don't wanna get into trouble if any tenants complain about us. So we either walk right in, like we own the place, or we come up with some story. Case in point, 78 Anson Road:

Guard: [sees us looking around, gets suspicious] Where are you going?
Me: Er, [looks at numbers on lift lobby] 13 floor.
Guard: Oh, Alexandria, is it?
Me: [relieved] Yea, yea, that's right

After this phase of survey distribution, we're all rather familiar with the level of security in most of Shenton Way, which you cannot get in, which you can get in with a little *tweaking* and which have empty floor spaces for you to attach incendiary devices [IBM towers is the most empty building in Tanjong Pagar]. We actually have enough information to start off a terrorist bombing in Singapore. Just kidding. Hope no one from the ISD reads this.

So after all that physical activity of the past 3 days, coupled with tuition after that, I'm bushed. Drained. Whacked. Insert adjective for lack of energy here. Not to mention the rain has definitely dampened my mood. Haha. [n my humour as well. Damn.] I woke up today, not having to wake up early to distribute surveys, hoping for a nice hot, crispy prata with teh peng at AMK, and instead what i get is more showers of blessings. It's been raining since like, 8 in the morning in Bishan I think, and 5 hours later, no sign of stopping. And I have tuition later in the day so I can't stay at home and cower. Blast. Need to get wet again in the name of financial sustenance. I hate life.

I thus decided to log on to the Net, do some blogging, send off some email, and stuff. THat's when I realise that the modem was missing. My dad's been messing around with the coms trying to get a router working, but so far no luck. My laptop was out of the table, on the beanbag, as usual. It's funny how parents nag at you for leaving books and magazines lying around on the living room table or floor, then conveniently leave a $2000odd laptop lying on a beanbag susceptible to a big fat butt being sat on it. I rescued it from impending death by butt, then started a search for the modem. Even when modem was found, telephone wires was missing. Shifted com table, found one wire hanging behind it, and now I'm on, telling the world about the rubbish I went through today, regardless of whether they want to hear it or not. I think I'll leave everything in a state of mess to make a statement to my father.

Bleah. mood is definitely sucky today.

Damn, cos of poor lighting and stuff, some of my camphone pix didn't turn out so good and I had to mess ard with PSD for them. Looks like i'm gonna be doing that a lot with the night shots. I'm also accumulating enough shots for a short photo-essay on Bishan so hope that turns out well. :p Click on the camera pix link above to see some of my latest efforts.

ooo boy.... got a lotta rantings this time..... first off......

Raining again??

Bleah. It's been raining on and off and on and off this CNY period. Just as it was time for our family to go out for dinner, it went BOOM and BISSSH and *sings* showers, showers of ble-ssings..... Tried to order pizza so we could stay at home like little cowards afraid of a little water, but even the pizza lines were clugged up. Too many cowards like us cowering in the comforts of our homes. So we had to brave the rain, go out, and sit in the coffeeshop with the wind blowing rainwater into our food and making us shiver in our pants. I swear, if not for the threat of imminent starvation.....
Days like these, you just wanna curl up in a warm, comfy bathgown, with furry bunny slippers and a cup of vanilla tea by your side. Unfortunately, right now all I have is the vanilla tea and I finished that a while back. :p What the hey. I'm just glad to be sitting in my home, while it pours on some other poor sad soul outside. Hate rain. Everything gets wet and cold and muddy and you can't go out or do the things you like to do outside, like shop, or blade or stand with your toes barefooted in the grass and hold your hands up to the sky. [no, i've never done that last one] What happened to that sunny, tropical climate that we were supposed to be so famous for?? Where the heck did all this water come from? Is God having some serious diarrhea issues up there? [eww..... that puts it in a perspective that I shouldn't be thinking about]

Ok, other stuff instead....

School of Rock

I recently caught this one on a pirated VCD while waiting for my mother to get ready for visiting. [yes, she takes that long] The story roughly is that Dewey Finn [Jack Black, main character] poses as his fren and takes up a substitute teaching post at a prestigious prep school. Then he gets the class to participate in a band competition. Along the way, they learn self-confidence, rock 'n roll history, values, and how to do a mean guitar solo.
This movie goes into the Dead Poets category. If I sound unenthusiastic about it, that's because I don't really find another new or inspiring in the movie. It's a pretty much set formula of DeadPoets+humour+rocknroll, and it becomes pretty predictable that way. You know he's gonna inspire staff and students and show them an alternative way of life. You know he's gonna inspire all of them with his wayward, carefree ways. You know so much, nothing become surprising in the movie.
One uplifting part about the movie I suppose is the talented cast. I swear, if those kids are really playing the instruments and not just shaking their fingers, then they're pretty damn good. Some of those supposed 10year-olds are good enough to be pros!

Egg Squad goes to River Hongbao

Yup, we got up to some serious comedy stuff here. [?] Started out with dinner at Kenny Roger's, where I ate enough potatoes and pasta to make Atkins swoon into a dead faint. [so sue me, they were good. :p] Then went to River Hongbao, and I managed to snap some shots with my camphone. Check out the camera pix link to see them. [hopefully when you do, i'd have finished putting them up] Lots of crapping around, esp with Jules. Wonder why the stupid stuff always comes from him? After that we went to Insomnia at China Jump. I realised that the band apparently changes every 10 weeks or so, so that explains why sometimes it's good, sometimes it's bad. That nite I went down, the band up there wasn't too bad. Lots of rock music though, so not much dancing going around. Long island tea also sucked. The bottles sold at 7-11 are cheaper and much stronger than the one sold at China Jump. Never again, never again....

American Idol 3

This first episode of AI doesn't seem so interesting, mainly cos Simon doesn't do as much dissing in this one. The thing to watch out for were the gawdawful contestants, who think they're the "next American Idol", but in reality don't know the difference between a C and a G. Some of these contestants have utterly no shame. They go on national [and now international] TV, sing a song so badly off-key, and as David Eddings once wrote, "made up some notes that never existed before", shake their pathetic little ass, and expect a contract to be given to them. Yea, if it was American Failure, or American Laughing Stock, maybe they would've qualified but....
There was this black lady, she sang so bad, Simon said if she was singing in a bar or restaurant, she would drive out half their customers. She said she didn't believe that. [note: self-delusion of talent] So Simon took up a bet with her, and Ryan Seacrest, the host, brought her out to a restaurant, where she started belting out a tune. Er, true enough, more than half the customers standing there watching walked out. One or two even walked up after hearing her sing 2 notes. Reality check dahling.....Another woman sang some undecipherable tune, [not the Asian lady on TV] and of course, got dissed. "That was utterly horrendous. Have you heard yourself sing?" She started tearing and she said all she wanted to do was to sing, God on her side. "Well, he must've taken the day off, darling." Owch....
But no matter what, they all have the same response. "You're wrong." "You're so wrong" "You'll be sorry you didn't sign me" and this is the most popular one "I am the next American Idol." One lady was really bad, and when she got dissed, she started on about how she knew she could sing, and how she had talent [even though her singing consisted of maybe, 3 notes?] and when she went out crying, her friend actually assured her? "Of course you have talent. These idiots just don't see it. They just can't see your talent. Get that f**king camera out of here!" er, have you heard your fren sing??? I am reading through this book about mental disorders right now, and maybe I should go through the one on self-delusion again. Might explain a lot about these folks. What I remember is that sometimes sufferers get so caught up in the delusion that they can't see anything else. Yup, says it all.

Ok, that's all for now. Don't feel much like writing, cos it's cold, wet and I feel something coming on. Urgh. Need more tea.
As entertainment however, betcha never thought germs could be toys. So cute. Wonder when they'll come up with one for SARS?
I've also taken up reading spacefan's blog. Quite interesting, take a look.

Gong Xi ah Gong Xi!

Fa ya fa da cai.....

Hopefully for me and everyone else too. May monkeys and sarus upgrade to chimps and eat more bananas. May unemployed slackers like me find alternative means of economic sustenance. May those in school not find their intelligence stifled by uncaring professors. May everyone's wishes come true, unless u wish someone dead, in which case you're excluded, cos I don't wanna be an accessory to murder.

Yup, it's been an ok CNY for me so far. Went to Chinatown on the eve of the eve, and it's as crowded as heck. Is there some deep, inborn instinct in Singaporean Chinese for them to all flock to Chinatown during the CNY period? You know, like birds going to the south during winter?

That part was ok, though, cos the really interesting parts came during reunion dinner.

My family and I went to the SAFRA club at Yishun for reunion dinner this year, and encountered a few "incidents". Firstly, they had us and a whole buncha families waiting outside for our dinners. Why this is so is because the place has 2 sessions of reunion dinners. One starts at 5 something, and the other, ( ours ) starts at 730. But at 8, we were still waiting outside, cos some of the diners inside were still eating. So my dad goes over to the bouncer at the door, and goes "I'mbloodyhungryandsoismyfamilyiwantutogoinnowmakesuremydamntableisready!"

ok, he din exactly say that, ( knowing my dad, it's most prob to be all in hokkien anyway ) but whatever he said worked, cos finally we got a table, while a whole buncha families were still outside waiting.

The real award, however, goes to my aunt. The place was taking forever with our food, and there was something like a 20-min break between each of the courses. What was irritating was that while we were waiting for our first course, we saw waiters walking to other tables with their 2nd or even 3rd courses! So she started with this guy in the suit, and the mike to his mouth, let's assume he's the head waiter. As the guy walks by, she goes, "Shuai ge, wo de fan zai na li?"

bleah. If you've never seen my aunt, she's a total tomboy and almost-there butch lor. and imagine her going "Shuai ge...." at some waiter. Bleah bleah bleah.

So we get our 1st course. Talk talk talk for about 20mins and the 2nd course is nowhere in sight. She calls the same guy over. The following conversation took place in Chinese, but for the sake of easier typing, becomes English.

Aunt: Do you guys have a doctor here?
Guy: *blur* Doctor?
Aunt: Ya, a doctor.
Guy: Er, I donno if we do. Why? *confused*
Aunt: I need a doctor soon. Cos I'm getting gastric waiting for your food.
Guy: Duh...... ( din say this out, but it was in his face )

The final clincher came when we were waiting for our 2nd/3rd last course. She says she thinks she knows this guy in a grey shirt serving food, and she asks Guy what that one's name is. Guy says Richard. Aunt says ok, thanks. Later, Aunt calls Richard over, asks if he remembers her, and it turns out his fren knows her or something like that. Guy comes over, and says, half-jokingly, "You don't say anything bad about me ah! he's my boss ah!"

Ok, Richard wasn't exactly the boss, but more like the Guy's superior. So anyway, after it turns out that my Aunt knows his superior, suddenly he becomes really attentive to our table. We get extra chilli sauce, and even extra green chillies when my mum asks for it, and he makes sure we're happy and we get food. Man, I wonder why she didn't say she knew Richard earlier. Would have saved us a lot of time waiting for our food. We got in there at 830 and dinner ended at almost 1100 cos of all the table spent waiting. Duh.

Well, that for me was the highlight of this CNY anyway. Today was spent going to the usual relatives' houses eating, collecting and listening to my relatives telling me I shld get a job and how the economy is improving. Thankfully, because of my bro's vocation, most of the attention was diverted to him. On the flip side though, the general comment was that he had made the right choice, cos of the job security. Duh, does that mean my choice of education was a mistake altogether? Then they were telling me to be a teacher, police officer, watever that has money and some security. Thanks ah. As if I wasn't worried enough already. Next year I shld try to get a boyfriend, then they'd be talking about something else at least instead.

What You Think is Not What Is

Or rather, what you think a situation is sometimes, may not be what is really happening in reality.
Like when you go for a tuition lesson with a kid, and you do your best to explain the words in the comprehension passage to him, and try to explain what the whole passage means. And you go through all the questions with him.
And you explain half in Chinese and half in English, because the kid is from China, and his English is not all that good. In fact scratch that. You explain practically the entire passage to him in Chinese, and correct his understanding of the words.
And then you go home, thinking everything's ok and how you're gonna conduct the next lesson.
And then the tuition agency calls you up and tells you that they thought you couldn't speak Chinese and they decided not to have you back again.

Cannot speak Chinese????? I went through an entire 1.5 hours conducting an English lesson in Chinese and I can't speak Chinese????

Ok, apparently there was some really weird breakdown between the grandmother and me. I went for my first lesson with this family at lives at AMK, ( 5 mins bus from my house. What a waste! ) and they're all from China, so naturally their Chinese is power. ( The guy has a copy of Shakespeare and World History in Chinese. Good god! ) The grandmother first talked about her son, and how he was doing at school, and how his English and Science was, and then left me alone with the kid. Note, she's speaking all in Chinese, so I answer her in Chinese. I go through the abovementioned process with the kid, and then I say bye and leave.

And after that, they called the tuition agency and told them I couldn't speak Chinese, and they'd rather not have me back, because it's not good for the kid in the long run.

2 rantings about this picture: Firstly, I was speaking Chinese all the way in their freakin' house!!! I explained the entire passage in Chinese, ( ok, maybe not the entire passage, but sizeable portions of it ) I spoke to the boy in chinese, I spoke to his grandmother in Chinese. HOw the freak did they come to the conclusion that I couldn't speak Chinese????? This one didn't just fly over my head, it went by so fast I only saw a blurry streak.

Secondly, why the heck would my Chinese matter in the first place??? I'm there to teach ENGLISH, not Chinese. If you want your child to learn English, then why on earth are you looking for a tutor with a high Chinese level???? What is it exactly you want me to teach your kid? Shouldn't my English matter over my Chinese? And why is it it matters that the grandmother thinks I can't understand Chinese? Shouldn't they have asked the kid whether he got it??? And of course he's not used to my teaching! It's the first bloody lesson!!!!!

Dammit. On a more reasonable side, I suppose they wanted a tutor with some Chinese ability so that it would be easier to explain English words to him. Bloody hell. I suppose I'm a little pissed at the fact that they thought I couldn't speak Chinese, ( I passed with B ok?? ) and a little confused that they came to that conclusion when I was speaking to them in Chinese. Plus, there's the part about lost potential income again. *Bang bang bang BANG*

Fired on the first lesson. I don't believe it. Someone just run me over with a car.

Before you read my Insane and Possibly Unreasonable Rantings below, I would like to intro a link to you:
Women should remain single to stay sane
No offence intended to my attached galfrens, ( though there is some sly humour involved ) just something to make me ( and my other single gal frens ) feel a bit better about being single at our age. ( Or rather for my case, being single all my damn life )

Insane and Possibly Unreasonable Rantings

Firstly, let me do some insane ramblings....

ARGH!!!!! I had GOOD tuition prospects and I LOST IT! This guy was looking for a tutor to teach 2 girls together, sec 1 and 2, maths and sci, and I said I did O level phys/chem, went onto commerce in JC and did business in NUS. That was this morning. Tonight, he called back and said he changed his name, sorry about it.

Insane ranting no. 1: You're sorry??? I just lost $600 potential income and you're sorry???

And this is not the first time. Last time I got offered 2 girls by the agency, 2Xweek, $500 a month. I said yes I want, ( and they stayed in Bishan some more. ) That agency never got back to me. Today, after the above guy called me, an agency smsed me, China woman, every day tuition, 15 an hour, and stays at AMK, but because of *below* kid, I told them I can only make it mornings. Then they said, sorry, she didn't say she was schooling, can only make it after 330. I told them I have other students, can only make it mon tues wed and fri afternoons. ( Thurs *booked* for Kovan, and Sats I have Jap class and Sun I try not to work if I can help it. ) The agency now said they'd get back to me tomorrow, and it looks like it'd be with a rejection note.

Insane ranting no. 2: Argh!!!! Why why WHY do I keep losing all the tuition assignments that I want to get??? What freak sense of karma here is stopping all these good-income assignments from going to me??? Bad enuff that I have to worry day and nite about my money, but I have to have these things slip out of my hands time and time again??? And end up with the super far assignments that don't pay as much???

Then we come to the Kovan Kid.

Just that Thurs, I went down to teach this kid at Kovan for the 3rd tuition lesson, and when I got to his house, the maid said, "But he just went out 5 minutes ago." What?

Anyway, guardian calls kid on handphone. Rant rant. Scold scold. Then tells me that he's at heartland mall and he's not coming back so they have to cancel this lesson so sorry about it would you like to call him and arrange the next lesson?

Yes, I would. At the same time I would like to arrange a session to kick his ass big time.

So I called him back. He claims he told the guardian he didn't want tuition on thurs. ( Incidentally, original tuition timing is mon + thurs. He didn't want on mon, so change to wed + thurs. Wed lesson got cancelled cos he had to stay back after sch. Thurs guardian never tell me anything. ) He said she told me wrongly. I said that's not my fault. He replied "Well that's not my fault either."

Fine. Whatever. Communication breakdowns occur. So I ask when he wants tuition again. I hear a "argh" over the phone and he cuts me off.

The little bleep bleep cut me off.

I call him back again, and after less than 10 words he cuts me off again.

The next time I call back, his fren answers and says "Wrong number."

Finally I get him and I say when you want tuition tell me now and forever hold thy peace. He says saturday, so fine, I'll see you on Saturday. When I tell the guardian this, she goes, "Oh dear, he has chinese tuition on saturday."

So now I can't come on Saturday. He doesn't want it on Mondays, he's at school on Wednesdays, he skips on Thurs, and he has chinese tuition on Saturdays. I get the picture. You don't want to see me. You don't want tuition.

Insane ranting no. 3 coming up.... ( The FWFC will know that when I get really pissed off my language gets a bit colourful. Hence, the following rant has been edited accordingly )

IS IT THEN SO HARD TO GIVE PPLE A BIT OF **** RESPECT WHEN YOU TALK TO THEM???? I think the whole part about that day that really pissed me off was the fact that he ***** cut me off 3 bloody times when I was already at his damn ***** house wondering where the hell he was! Then he ***** cuts me off, and has the ***** nerve to get his fren to tell me "Wrong number"??? I never in my life saw such a ***** ***** who had so little respect for the pple around him and if I ever see him on the streets.... **********

I am seriously pissed, insulted and highly offended by this one stupid gesture. If there was a pure communication breakdown, then at least have the courtesy to acknowledge this, and arrange another day when I can come. When you cut me off like this, and even give the phone to your fren, to me, you're just making an effort to be rude and you don't give a damn about the fact that I came all the way to your house. Not to mention you bring yourself closer to getting yourself severely beaten up by myself one day.

Damn kid. If Bunny or Turtle is reading this, then I'm sorry that you had to see all this here. Bunny, it's nothing personal to you. I'm truly thankful that you gave me this chance when I needed it, don't doubt that. It's just that this particular incident has really riled up my fur. I have considered quitting, but I feel I have to give the kid one more chance. ( I always believe in fair play. Damn. ) I will try to see through 5 more lessons with him. If this goes on, then I'm sorry, but I will quit. I do want to help the kid, but I'm no Dead Poet wannabe, and I seriously need the stable income. I cannot help him if he refuses to even come for class with me. And I'm not going to coax him nicely into doing things. I did that for 2 years with my other kid and it didn't work. Not to mention if I can't even settle a fixed timing with him, it's very hard for me to arrange other students during the week.

We will see what happens after 5 lessons.

Shopper's Paradise? My foot!

I actually had the inspiration for this last Sunday, but never wrote it till now. :p

So last Sunday, I had to go shopping for my CNY clothes, and since I'd already covered Suntec area with Quet on Thurs, I decided to go Orchard this time.

And I nearly killed myself in the process.

So....... the following are my gripes about shopping in this so called "shopper's paradise" Phaw!

Please don't give me good service

You read a lot about how everybody keeps complaining about the standard of service in Singapore, about how bad service is, abt how sales pple can't be bothered to serve Asians but run to the ang mohs, abt they're rude, blah blah blah.

Well, let me be original then. I hate good service. I hate it when you walk into a shop and all the sales assistant go "HI!" or "Huan1Yin2Guang1Lin2" at you and they look at you with their beady wide eyes the moment you set one foot in their store. When they do that to me, all my hairs stand on end, and I feel like some poor piece of prey that a predator has its eyes on. Then when you glance at a item they immediately take it out for you, tell you about the wonderful fabric that came from some Nepalese mountain that went into the making of this item and it's so soft and it won't lose its colour and speaking about colour it comes in 6 different colours here let me show you!

Ok, maybe that's a bit exaggerated, but here's an example. I stepped into a shop at Far East, and here's where I should have been warned. It had been raining that afternoon so there were fewer people than usual walking around the mall. Hence there was 1 other customer in that shop and about 4 sales assistants standing at the counter. The moment I walked in, "Hi!"

Cripes. Help me now.

If I wasn't so despo that day to get something for CNY, I might've just smiled and walked hurriedly out of the shop. As it turns out, I needed something and some of the fishermen's trousers in that shop caught my eye. So I winced, and walked to the trousers that caught my eye. As soon as I took it off the rack, this sales lady came over to me, and started her pitch, "This trousers very special, hen3 du1 te4 de3. We also have in other colours, other designs, sell very well, easy to wear also. See, not bad right? I also have some of these at home, very comfortable to wear."

Me: "Er, right, can I try that on?"

Her: ( In an eager, puppy way ) "Sure! Can! No problem! You know how to wear?"

Me: "Er, yea, you put them on, fold the big leg over, tie at the waist, and fold the folds down"

Her: ( Thinks I'm a idiot who thinks I know ) "You just put on, the big leg you fold over like this, then you tie at the waist, and fold down"

Right.........................

Why do they have to treat me like some kinda idiot? Why is it the moment I walk in you have fall at my feet and start fawning me? It's not as if I'm more likely to buy something if you start getting all over me like this, I'm not a male customer at the KTV lounge ya know. When I shop, I go in, see if there's anything I want, try on what I want, and then get out, and it's kinda hard to do that with a sales asst lapping at your feet every minute. ( It dogs your steps ) I don't like excess attention given to me like that. ( Like the staff at Long John's, every time you walk out they have to shout out together, "Please come again!" Dammit! ) You won't believe how many times I just felt like railing at some sales asst "F-off already! Get off my back and lemme alone dammit! Go away! Harass some other poor soul with a bigger wallet!"

Next gripe.....

Women come in all shapes and sizes

A piece of common knowledge and common sense right? We're all made different, right? Specially moulded from God's hand and all that?

Tell that to all the @!#$% fashion designers.

To this particular *species* of people, women only come in 2 sizes: Small and Xtra small. How the bloody heck do you explain the clothes on Orchard? If you're not either of those 2 sizes, you can't get anything at a reasonable price. The cheap stuff are all made for, I donno, Lolitas, maybe, and the expensive stuff are obviously over priced. $30 for a 3/4 sleeve shirt? Watch me stuff that shirt up some unmentionable bodily crevice.

And this is not just in Far East. That place I can excuse for the weak reason that it precisely caters to pre-pubescent Lolitas whose obviously aren't old enough to have gained the feminine bodily assets that I was so endowed with. That's the market. So if they want to sell exclusively to flat-chested, twig-like, straight-as-a-rod girls, fine, that's their market. What about the other boutiques?? Obviously you're catering to women a little older and more developed right? Then why are your clothes made for the flat-twig-straight girls?? Firstly, all their sizes come in S or M, ( and I dare any sales assistant to tell me that "we don't sell clothes for ..bigger women" ) so girls like me can forget abt shopping there. Secondly, their S and Ms are overstated labels. What they mean by "s" and "m" is really "XS" and "XXS". Some of these tops, supposedly for M girls, my M frens will be hard-pressed to squeeze into them. Unless they remove a rib.

Then this leads to the next gripe.....

Changing Rooms!

These smart-ass designers must've told the interior designers before they opened shop: "Oh, btw, our clothes are only for the very small sized girls, so don't bother making the changing rooms too big. We don't want to encourage fat customers in our store. *shudder* Just give it enough room for someone to stand up in. Space to wave their arms? What for?"

I'll tell you what for, you idiot. Because when pple try on clothes, they don't just raise their arms and wait for the clothes to magically fall on them from above. We have to mess around with buttons, zips, snaps, clasps. We have to fit our arms into sleeves and raise our arms to pull the clothes down onto our bodies. In other words, we have to move. And it's pretty hard to do all that in a space that's even smaller than the toilet in your average coffeeshop. Granted, retail space in Orchard is expensive, but then again, so is customer satisfaction. It's bad enough we have to queue for ages, holding our clothes, getting knocked at by sales assistants and other customers moving in and out of the fitting rooms, but then even in the fitting rooms, you get knocked at the elbows/knees/arms/legs while trying to squirm around fitting your clothes on. Eat your heart out, Houdini.

And you know what's worse? While you're getting knocked at everywhere in the changing room, you also have to worry about whether women outside are privy to your predicament. WHy? This is cos there's this trend in Orchard to fit curtains instead of doors on the changing rooms nowadays. I figure it's cheaper to just buy cloth instead of wood for the changing room doors. And if you're not careful, the curtain at the edge can be blown easily, maybe from the sighs of impatience from all the other women waiting outside. If you don't close it properly, then the next woman in the queue gets a full blast view of your purple Triumph bra and matching undies and will probably even see what model you're wearing. ( this is why they don't allow men near the changing areas )

But then again, even vacuum-sealed steel doors are no match for the incompetence of the sales assistant or other customers to boot. That thurs nite I went shopping with Quet, we were at this shop at Citylink where the doors were see peh solid ah. Solid wood through and through, heavy as oaks, and when I tried to open one, I had to tug with all my weight. When I closed it, I heard this sucking sound, like the air was being sucked out. No worries about peepers. That changing room could've held gold safer than some bank vaults. Oh, and it was spacious enough to do so too.

So anyway, I had found something that I wanted to try, and I asked if the changing rooms were available. This sales assistant went, "Oh, let me check." and pulled open the door of one of the changing rooms, only to let both of us behold this woman in her underwear putting her leg into a pair of pants. She went, "Oops, sorry." and closed the door again.

So who's the bigger idiot here?
a) The salesgirl, who could've checked if there was anyone inside by simply knocking at the door and hollering, "Anyone inside?" but inside pulled it wide open.
b) The customer inside, who didn't even lock the door properly, perhaps trusting too much in the vacuum sealed door.

What a pig it is shopping for clothes in Singapore. This is why I prefer Borders and Kino. I don't have to worry about size when it comes to books, there's always an empty corner for you to sit or stand, and the sales people leave you alone when you're browsing their stuff. *sigh* Too bad we can't wear books.

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This came to me in an email from the Slayer..... Just for fun till something interesting in my life happens again.... like a car crash or something....

*Sung to the tune of Clay Aiken's Invisible*

Whatcha got in your hand
Oh Bilbo I wish you’d tell me it all
You were giving your speech
Then you left the scene
Why can’t I see you
Where did you go
(Oh Bilbo)
We threw a birthday party then you left the show

My Uncle’s invisible
He just disappeared without a clue
My Uncle’s invisible
I can’t see him tonight
The hobbit’s untraceable
He’s probably off to a new land
‘Cause he wants to see Mount-tans
My Uncle’s invisible
Oh wait- I have the ring, damn

Now I’m stuck with this ring
And riders in black won’t leave me alone
Me and eight of my friends
Went on a road trip
We met the Balrog, and Gandalf died
(Sam’s Crying)
Boromir lunged at me so I had to decide

Hey, look I’m invisible
But now I must walk into Mount Doom
Sauron is invincible
He’s putting up a fight
If quests were untakable
Then I could relax home in Hobbit land
I would give the ring to Sam
And he’d be invisible
But wait- who’d water my plants?

Gollum, I know you’re behind me
Even in the Dwarf mines
You’re trying to find me
But I can’t do this without you
Bring your best friend Smeagol too

(Invisible, invisible, invisible)
(oooooooooooohh)
Hey, look I’m invisible
And I’m taking Gollum to Mt. Doom
He really looks miserable
He and Sam always fight
Our supplies are minimal
So I’m glad we have this Lembas bread
Two more weeks and I’ll be dead
If I was invisible, Hey look I’m invisible, If I was invisible

Body Worlds 2003

I have to say........ this exhibition puts a whole new perspective to the whole idea of signing your body up for science. As I walked through the exhibition, I kept wondering whether all these poor souls knew what was really going to happen to their bodies and the implications of what they had done.

Ok, some brief intro first. This exhibition is currently being held at the Singapore Expo and is basically a showcase of preserved human bodies. What makes this unique from your average bio lab display is firstly, the process used in preserving these bodies. The process of plastination, to be exact, which was invented by Gunther Von Hagens. It is basically the "forced infusion of anatomical specimens with reactive plastics", which seems to preserve the organs and even the nervous system.

It also allows the body to be preserved so well, pieces of muscle can be peeled away from the body, and even every intricacy of the central nervous system is preserved. This I can vouch to. In some of the exhibits, the nerves are preserved so well, they resemble nothing less than pieces of thread, covering our ( their? its? ) entire body. Also makes you wonder what happens if, say, someone sneezes hard in the wrong direction, or spiders decide on the cadavers for their holiday residence. ( Oh honey! This will be perfect! Look, even the web has been built for us!)

There was even one playing chess at a table, and Slayer and I were thinking that that could've been us in our chess-playing days. Eek. ( Noticed however, that they placed the black pieces inaccurately. :p )

They had specimens of the human body, ( male mostly. Slayer says sexist/generalist. I say we women know better than to just sign on the dotted line ) and a section to foetuses. The row of deformed foetuses is.... unnerving. There was a deformed foetus which had its ( his? her? ) brains and intestines growing out of its body, at abt 5 mths I tink, and the sign said it was a disorder present in every 1000 foetuses. Most times it's nothing. Sometimes..............

We tried to take some pix, ( yes, photography was not allowed ) with my camera phone. Since it wasn't allowed, the following took place:

Me: ( pretending to SMS ) All clear?
Slayer: ( Shiftily glancing left and right ) Clear. Quick! Do it now!
Me: There're people here! They'll notice us! ( Students on field trip standing ard us )
Slayer: Damn! She's moving nearer! ( Security staff )
Me: Ok, got it! ( Snap )

Aside: Slayer thinks the pix I took weren't too bad, and that I have a future as a budding paparazzi. My career prospects look so bright at this point of time. The 4 miserable pix I took can be seen on my camera pix website, link at top of page.

Viewing the exhibits is a morbidly fascinating affair. You look at it, and you think, "Good god, is that me? Could that be me?" Or rather that's what I mostly thought. The Slayer, whom I went with, for some reason, thought more in the direction of "Your dick is so small. I pity you." and "The dead foetuses are cool! They should have more!" ( She wrote that last thought in the comment book provided at the end of the exhibition, by the way )
As an aside, if you're reading this, I'm never going to such an exhibition with you again.

Excellent exhibition, especially for
1) budding doctors/nurses/anyone in medical field
2) anyone with a taste for the macabre
3) Jack-the-Ripper wannabes

More references, if I got your interest whetted:
Body Worlds website

Servers are Back Up

The Blogger servers are finally working again and I can continue blogging and reading once again. *PomPom*

The unfortunate thing is that I have nothing in my life to update about. *PomPom wilts*

Hm, so let's pick the nitty-gritty.....

Sylveracyd's website is coming up nicely, though a couple of pages need cosmetic arrangements, and some more organizing. I spent the entire afternoon yesterday before tuition alternating between helping Quet on ICQ with her report, ( Ya owe me, fren. Mwahahaha ) changing the order forms and cursing formsite's stupid arrangement, ( Form has to keep uploading every time I make a change. Bah! ) and using PS to change the logos. Gawk!

Then the new tuition kid....

Let's have some basic details. I got this kid thru Bunny ( er, for lack of a better nick, though Turtle may frown on me infringing his BF copyrights. ) and the kid's Thai, studied in Singapore for abt 2 years and now in P5. Firstly, I got terribly, terribly lost trying to find my way to the place, cos it's this super ulu-fied private estate bang between Hougang stadium and Heartland mall. Bleah. Then the kid turns out to be the most super-unmotivated-bochup-don-give-a-damn kid I've ever seen in my life, and yes, his English is...............bad.

God help me now, but I really need some damn creative-divinely-inspired way of getting this kid to even look at me, let alone do the work I set for him. I realise that getting assessments is prob useless and even ineffective, if he can't be bothered. Then when I call Bunny later at night and talk to her more about the kid, she tells me more horror stories about him, like how she went for lessons and when at their doorstep, he refused to come out for lessons and his guardian just said lesson cancelled but charged anyway.

Well, getting paid for not teaching........ hmmm......... I better think up some super creative way of teaching this kid English. Help!