A pile o' stuff

To update on...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I need dat fan

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

~Yenn in reference to someone who owns this blog

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Roommate from HELL!

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

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

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

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

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

Ladies and Gentlemen,

The Roommate from Hell

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

11pm: No mail

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

For now anyway.......

Yea, I'm That Girl

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

Who are you?

New School, Same old Troubles

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

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

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

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

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

Check out what it says

My only answer: Like THAT ever stopped us.

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

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

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

Anyway, lemme blog about more interesting stuff...

3 Idiot Things Said to Me

1. Revealing that you remembered my birthday wrong

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

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

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

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

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

"23rd Feb!"

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

"Huh?"

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

"What?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"I had no time to SMS you!"

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

"Er.. YA!"

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

"In the afternoon."

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

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

3. Saying I look like a man

Julian again: "You know something?"

"What?"

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

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

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

Slummin' it

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

And don't forget the iced caramel latte.

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

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

Ho boy. This is gonna be a problem.

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

And I end up doing this:

Your Dominant Intelligence is Linguistic Intelligence

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ok, here goes:

1. I get terribly excited during action flicks.

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

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

Er, onto the next...


2. I like to kiaow my karh

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

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

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

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

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

And which leads on to....


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

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

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

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


4. Talk to myself

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

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

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

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



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

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

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

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

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

The Students' Sketchpad - Choices

New Guy!

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

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

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

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

"Wah, you wait here for me ah?"

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

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

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

Click to see Shiroi!

Mad about Womad

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

KR and KL! [Jab your finger while sliding]

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

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

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

Onto the next point, which is...

2) Womad is like a bohemian fashion show

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

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

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

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

My last point is a bit more sober...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Maybe someday...... who knows?

Having a child....?

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

"Yea, so?" I reply offhandedly.

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

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

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

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

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

Then all that stomach was just pure fat?

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

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

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

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

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

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

So here's the dilemma now:

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

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

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

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

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

Blur-do

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Comment Spam

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

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

All spam.

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

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

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

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

"Screw Spam!"

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!