How to deal with a Peishan

Most of you know by now who 'the other woman' or 'Peishan' in my marriage is. While it is a milder vice than most what other women go through, it can still get rather irritating to see the two go at it for 1 or 2 hours. Instead of, say, quality time with his spouse.

Hence the plotting brainstorming. What can a wife really do when this situation arises? Tantrums and tears will most likely irritate the guy and drive him further from you. Hence my maybe-helpful guide to all women who've found themselves widowed by the latest game.

Words in brackets are husband's likely responses, btw.

Explain how less time with the other is more beneficial to him
( "Are you sure switching her off is going to save us 'html'><div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'>Most of you know by now who 'the other woman' or 'Peishan' in my marriage is. While it is a milder vice than most what other women go through, it can still get rather irritating to see the two go at it for 1 or 2 hours. Instead of, say, quality time with his spouse. <br/><br/>Hence the <s>plotting</s> brainstorming. What can a wife really do when this situation arises? Tantrums and tears will most likely irritate the guy and drive him further from you. Hence my maybe-helpful guide to all women who've found themselves widowed by the latest game. <br/><br/>Words in brackets are husband's likely responses, btw. <br/><br/>Explain how less time with the other is more beneficial to him<br/>( "Are you sure switching her off is going to save us $100 a month on electricity?" ) <br/><br/>Make the other seem as unappealing as possible<br/>( "Aaaargh!!! Who's covered peishan in credit card bills and painted them camouflage green??" ) <br/><br/>If you can't beat them, thrash them<br/>( "You finished that level 27 Dragon quest that I've been stuck at for weeks?? How???" ) <br/><br/>Thanks to Theresa Yeoh for her suggestion of this blog entry! ( Yes, I did take your suggestions seriously! )<span id='BB_SIGN_BEGIN'><img alt='BlogBooster-The most productive way for mobile blogging. BlogBooster is a multi-service blog editor for iPhone, Android, WebOs and your desktop' src='http://theblogbooster.com/pixel.gif' style='border:none;'/></span></div>00 a month on electricity?" )

Make the other seem as unappealing as possible
( "Aaaargh!!! Who's covered peishan in credit card bills and painted them camouflage green??" )

If you can't beat them, thrash them
( "You finished that level 27 Dragon quest that I've been stuck at for weeks?? How???" )

Thanks to Theresa Yeoh for her suggestion of this blog entry! ( Yes, I did take your suggestions seriously! )

Some friends may remember the story of the over-achieving guy I told them about. See, this guy took up running, and went for a few marathons. But he wasn't satisfied at that level. One day, he finds out about ultra-marathons and starts training for those and participating in them.

Ultra marathons, btw, can be something like 100miles long. -_-!!!!! That's..... way longer than 2.4km.

( If you are interested in reading more about him, or to find out whether I'm really bullshitting you all, you can click on this article to learn more: The Tough Track by Psychology magazine. )

I'm not that crazy to do that, but I did take part in the Earth Day Night Walk recently. This was supposed to be a leisurely 3.5km walk from the Marina Promontory, to MBS, Esplanade, the Esplanade bridge, past Fullerton hotel, and back to Marina Promontory.

Siao siao that I am, I decided to jog the whole distance.

Well, I don't think my average timing could have helped me pass my 2.4km. But I felt a great sense of achievement when I was the only joker to run through the gantry as I finished the distance. Since everyone was walking anyway, it wasn't such a tough deal to run ahead of everyone, even the guest of honours. -_-!!!

But it's in the completion of the race that I understood what was so rewarding, and even addictive about the whole thing about running. To finish the damn thing, to know that you are capable of such a thing, blows your mind away. When I finished and I looked around at the distance I covered, I could only think "dang." And how shiok is it to know that here is something I achieved with my bare two legs.

This kind of achievements are hard to come by. So many of the things we want to achieve today are dependent on so many factors outside of our control. Our fortune is dependent on our boss, or our customers. Our happiness dependent on our family, friends, work and money. Even our weight is dependent on the food we eat, cooked by other people!

When I run, my achievements become dependent on myself. It is not immediately dependent on factors like my boss, my husband, my friends or my family. It is dependent on whether I want to do it. It is dependent on whether I want to finish the distance, no matter how slow I run, or even walk. Because the only way that I am finishing that distance is by pumping my two legs and pushing myself past the finish line.

The high from exercising is unlike any other. I only improve based on what I want to, and not on how much I fawn the boss. Not on how much I beg the husband. Not on how much I talk to my friends. When I finish the exercise, I know that I did it all by myself, and that I need not share the glory with anyone.

Now when I look at the whole MBS, Fullerton view, at least I can think to myself: "I ran that. Dang."

The story of the Beetle

Imagine you found this old photo in your mother's old box.

Imagine she tells you a story how your father used to date your mother by driving her in his Beetle to a favorite cafe. And how the date was interrupted because he had to run over when the traffic warden came.

What an interesting photo it would be.

We were talking last night about North Korea, and we came up with an unlikely character of a superhero. ( Ok, I admit, I did, so I take all responsibility for this crap story. )

Take our friend, Big J, well known for his cold crap. Now, one day, on tour in North Korea, he tells a joke involving the Dear Leader and a phallus which fails to amuse the North Korean soldiers accompanying the tour group.

They promptly throw him in a North Korean gulag, and they decide that the most fitting punishment for this capitalist pig ( pig. hehe. ) would be to throw him into one of their nuclear reactors.

After he is thrown in, they throw on the switch. He feels all the protons in his body bursting apart, and in one last thought, he manages to make one more cold joke about his imminent death.

*BANG!* The nuclear reactor bursts apart and Big J is standing there, thrice the size he was and with 4 times the strength! Apparently, his cold joke mixed with the nuclear reaction and gave him superhuman strength!

While brushing aside the massive battalions of North Korean soldiers that come his way, he realises something: The more cold jokes he tells, the stronger he becomes! He is the crap-joke version of the Incredible Hulk, now known as the Incredible Joke!

"You know what happened to the pigeon who ate raisins?" Crash! A pair of war planes go plummeting to the ground!

"How about the playboy with 2 birds?" Aargh! Whole battalions of soldiers are swept aside with one handstroke!

"The priest and the bird!" Total annihilation! The Incredible Joke effortlessly crushes a pair of nuclear missiles heading his way and contains the blast in his humongous grip!

He uses his new-found powers to depose Kim and becomes the next dictator of North Korea, asking only that they feed him endless amounts of chocolate, which all the surviving North Korean generals do so, lest he unleash his joke about the priest and the bird again...... He lives in North Korea in a pile of chocolate for the rest of his life.

I'm sure most of you on my FB will know who I'm referring to... hehehehehehe... Any comments or ideas for the sequel? :p

Newspapers? Why?

We had a discussion the other day about whether we should subscribe to the newspapers in our apartment.

His view was that it would be a good way to keep in touch with the news happenings and to keep on top of current affairs. This I do agree with, but I also felt that it was only on the weekends that either of us had the time and leisure to sit over a cup of coffee and read the papers. ( this is something I miss doing on Sunday mornings ) If that was the case, why pay a monthly subscription, only to end up with a pile of fire hazardous material that the karang guni man would only pay a pittance to clear!

While this may be seen as part of the bimbotic side of me, ( News? How serious! Pass me the Urban supplement please! ) I also feel, just how badly do we need the newspaper?

Yes, we need the newspaper to keep in touch with local happenings that affect us. These I have gotten from various sources around me. The HDB rulings I learnt from a friend working in property. The Budget news I got from the man. Any other weird local happenings, or 'human interest stories', I learnt from either Twitter or the friends around me.

This is advantageous of the social network. For one, my friends know my inability to understand anything presented to me in terrific detail and numbers. They know how to retell the information in a way that I get it better. Also, they know which news are more likely to affect my life ( HDB for example ) and they inform me when it arises.

As a result, I haven't lost too much track of anything that would affect me from the political circles.

Then you may argue: How about keeping abreast of world affairs? How about educating oneself on the world at large? I currently buy Time and Newsweek and various other magazines on a regular basis. I have Time on iPhone and Facebook and RSS. Reading through these are enough to let me know that Egypt is in riots and when Mubarak fell and which other countries are in protest. And you do really think that the comment and analysis section in our local papers can be consistently better than that in the foreign press?

The way I see it, the world of social and electronic communication is enough for any normal person in a normal walk of life to keep abreast of all the information that he could need in his daily life. If one is conscientious and interested enough to keep up with it, one could easily educate himself. If one didn't want to, well that person wouldn't be reading the newspapers anyway.

And I wonder whether this is going to be the face of news and information transfer in the future. Already newspapers are falling like flies in the US, where many smaller newspaper have had to quit publication because of increasing costs. Larger titles are not spared either, and have had to fire tons of reporters to reduce expenses. In the end such purges may one day lead to only a few major titles being sold in the US and the world, much like in Singapore.

People may still read, but they would increasingly turn to other channels for their reading material, like online channels. Witness the increasingly popularity of the iPad, and contrast that with the closing of Borders in Singapore ( RIP ) As part of the generation that grew up with the Net, I feel my reading patterns changing with the technology. I have a greater amount of reading material stored on my iPhone than in the little bookshelf in my apartment room.

I don't think we would ever grow out of the need for information. But certainly we will find new ways of doing so. The challenge for us would be to learn the ability to judge the sources of our information and learn which to accept and which to reject.

For the time being, though, maybe I'd just buy the Saturday and Sunday editions of the newspapers to satisfy the man. It would save us some amount in subscriptions at least.

Bad salad

In the interest of being healthy, I eschewed all the fried stuff at the takeaway counters and tried a takeaway salad stop that my friend was eating at.

They had a mix of salads and you could combine a few varieties into a tub. I chose 1 with mustard mayo, one with tuna and a hot one with tomatoes. And in order to know why I'm so unimpressed, you have to keep in mind the descriptions of the salads I ordered.

First the girl got my order wrong and scooped a rocket salad into my tub. Small mistake and anyway they were willing to give me a new tub.

Then I ordered a bottle of juice. Which they put into the bag of the customer behind me, who'd also ordered the same juice. Small mistake, and they were told off by that customer who told them to give it to me first because I was in front.

Then I realized the mustard mayo was so light as to have no mustard flavor at all. ( I've never eaten mustard mayo but I assumed the flavor of mustard, otherwise why the name? Correct me please if I'm wrong.)

Then the 'hot' pasta I ordered was cold. Not cool, as in formerly hot then cooled, but cold. As in never hot at all. -_-!!!

I sat in the basement looking at my miserable cold pasta, wondering why I was doing this to myself in the name of health. And then a smell wafted by and I saw people eating takeaways from Best Fries Forever, tubs of thick fries all smothered with savory sauces.

Next time I'm here, diet be damned.

Irritated at being late, stupid cab drivers

I find it incredible that I can wake up 2 hours early, leave house 1 hour early and still be late.

Heres the background story: I'm supposed to go for a course today near boon lay at 9. Thinking of saving money I took mrt for half the distance and tried to flag a cab in choa chu kang.

Big mistake. First, hardly any cabs at 830. I waited at the taxi stand, nothing. So I started to book a cab. At 835 they sent me confirmation of cab no. So far so good.

Then I waited and checked my phone. With the iphone app i checked the location of the cab and saw that it was stationary in another place. I started to realise Something was wrong so I called the hotline again.

Here's a few things about the whole thing that got me so irritated. First, granted that I'm not at the same spot as the taxi. Usually the taxi driver at this point either tries to confirm the customer location with the company or they call the customer. I've experienced this before with other taxis so I thought either company or taxi would call. What I got instead was an automated phone call telling me to go to my stipulated pick up location as cabby was waiting there.
Notwithstanding the fact that I'm already there!

Next irritating thing, when I tries to walk to the location where the taxi was as shown on my iPhone, stupid taxi actually drove past me with the On Call sign! I tried to wave he didn't see me. I called the hotline, they said he picked up another passenger!!

Now Eff it all if I wasn't already totally pissed off by this point. I'm late already, I called a cab that not only didn't find me but actually drove past where I was empty and stupid phone operator can tell me he's already picked up another passenger when I just saw him drive past empty!!

Come to think of it considering how I totally yelled at the operator over the phone, maybe they figured that for his own personal safety the cab driver shouldn't pick me at all in case I really railed at him in the cab...

Finally they got me another cab which found me, and I managed to reach the place, although late by 30mins. Luckily smooth road all the way and even though the other taxi didn't know the way I directed him with iPhone GPS. ( thank you Apple )

Really was damned pissed off at that taxi. Do NOT ever let me see that licence plate number ever!

Something Old, Something New

Today I knew that my master bedroom was made for sleep.

In comparison, my old bedroom has windows along one length of wall, about 2m. There is lots of space for sunlight to stream in, and the old room conveniently faced a northeast direction. Even at night, headlights from the MRT depot nearby would shine in my general direction, so there was lots of 'moonlight' at night to see by. I had blinds, and later curtains, but because of the amount of furniture, I never really used them.

My new bedroom has windows half the length of the old ones. Already, during the day, I find it too dark to read comfortably, so I either read in the living room (not much better) or I switch on the lights. The window faces the opposite direction from my old room, and plus his computer table blocks most of it. ( Although I had furniture near the window in the old room, it never blocked the window itself. )

And the new bedroom has thick curtains. So when I drew them last night, I woke up this morning at 9am, in the darkness of 5am.

Hmm, quite the advantage for a weekend morning. :)

(except for my body clock, ticking off my hunger, which still woke up me up at 9 anyway -_-!!!)

Regrets i have a few

Dear friends, I regret to inform you that I may be spending much less time in your esteemed company. Be not affronted, as this is not a slight on you. Rather this is due to my reckless sentimentality.

You see, I happened to make the acquaintance of another. He is one that my husband and I met while at a sale. I was captivated by him upon meeting and I could not take my eyes off him for the rest of the time I spent there.

Finally when nearing time to leave, I could not bear to leave him to the greedy hands of the harlots around. I took him in my arms and we rode off into the sunset forever.

And hence because of this, I will be spending many nights at home, gazing adoringly at him. One day, I will introduce to all of you when the time is right. Till then, adieu to all.

one's own nest

Today is Saturday morning. I woke up slightly hung over from a baby shower ( ask me in person ) and after breakfast, one of the things I did was to sweep and wipe my bedroom floor.

This would not be such a big thing, except to people like my mother, ( who has a highly strong opinion on my therefore lack of housekeeping skills ) and people who've seen the state of my old bedroom at its best.

It would be a fair opinion. The number of times I voluntarily swept and mopped the floor of my old bedroom can be counted on both hands. Also with the number of bric-brac I had there, wiping everything free of dust would have been a task equal to the Aegean stables.

Why then am I actually getting up early on a weekend morning to engage in this housekeeping task?

One reason I think is the new sense of independence from living on my own. When you live with your parents, you don't have to worry much about the room getting dirty. First, you might have a maid that would take care of that for you. Second, the frequent nagging, sorry, reminders, from your parents would have made sure your room was cleaned on a somewhat regular basis.

When those two factors are not there anymore, who is responsible? Your parents aren't here, your maid isn't here. The only ones here are you and the extremely lucky soul who is sharing the room with you. In a way, I have to make sure I keep the room clean myself, because no one will do it for me anymore. ( Also, you have to keep the opinion of your MIL in a slightly more than average regard )

This was somewhat the case while I was living in the hostel. In the case of our laundry, taking loads of laundry back home to wash was a highly inconvenient option. You had to do your laundry yourself, or you went around naked and smelly in your room.

I think that's what one particular group of male hostelites did. Their room was near the kitchenette, so every time you went to boil water, you could smell the stench in the open corridor. Through the closed door. To this day, Yenn and I will always remember that room, despite never having ( and never wanting ) to see the guys who actually dared to stay inside.

Living oneself is like growing up in a way. It forces you to take responsibility for yourself, and to remember all those lessons in cleaning up and fixing up that your parents drove into your childhood. I do know of people who become changed characters when they start living on their own. You can tell that they have a different air of maturity about them sometimes, and they seem more confident of how to navigate in this world.

Well, that's life for you, isn't it? I can only hope that the longer I live on my own, that I can have that air of confidence already.

Highly Intelligent Ways of Insulting People

As an exercise in creativity, I decided to come up with a blog post that would be highly beneficial to most of humanity. Here then are some tips on how to insult people intelligently, enough that they may even think they are being complimented.

Use scientific terms where you can

- Dig up your old biology textbook and look for the scientific terms for flora and fauna commonly used in insults. My favourite for this example is the word 'bovine'. To the unknowing, it sounds similar enough to the word 'divine'. To those in the know, it really is an adjective for 'cow'.

- Examples you can use:

"You bovine specimen." = "You cow."

"How bovine." = "Wah cow"

Other words include 'porcine' (pig), 'rectal' (anal). Choose your favourite body part or deficiency and find out the intelligent term for it.

Enlist the help of a thesaurus

- You'll be surprised that the various words that can replace a simple 'stupid'. A simple check through http://thesaurus.com will give you:

dense

dim

half-baked

moronic

nonsensical

But why stop there? Use more intelligent adjectives like:

deficient

ill-advised

inane

insensate

ludicrous

obtuse

puerile

Don't you love the sound of some of these words? Imagine:

"You are a deficient, insensate and puerile person." Wow! How poetic~!

Channel Shakespeare

If you paid any attention during your literature lessons, ( and probably you didn't, or you won't have to consult this blog entry ) you would know that the Bard was highly capable of some very sharp retorts, hidden beneath his loquacity. ( Remember, thesaurus.com is your friend! ) The key is to make it sound like a flowery compliment. If you do this correctly enough, your target won't even know what hit him, and may even thank you for the line! To do this, first start out with a sentence that is a compliment:

"You're so pretty."

Now change it into an insult:

"You're so ugly."

Now change the adjective using a thesaurus:

"You're so uninviting." ( Use the most uncommon and most positive-sounding one you can find. If you use 'grotesque', for example, you give the game away. )

If it still sounds negative, confuse further with a positive adverb:

"You're so blindingly uninviting."

This method requires some skill in fine talking. So to carry this off, you have to use a smooth tongue, your brightest smile and your most charming manners. If you do this way, your target may even thank you! Use more practise and come up with better examples, for example:

"I am astounded at the depth of reprehensibility that you show."

"My dear, you are the most bovine example of womanhood that I can think of." ( Remember point 1: Your biology textbook! )

"I can think of at least a dozen men who can testify to the depth of your prowess." = "I think you're a slut."

Exercise your creativity indeed! To end off, here are some last tips:

Check carefully the meaning of any insult you craft before use. You do not want to accidentally compliment the target instead, or come up with something too obtuse, like "You are a window."

Check grammar also. Use of wrong grammar means you're the one looking stupid, not your target. This is especially so in the 3rd method.

Practise your insults before use. When you are using these, you want a perfectly straight expression or a loving one, to send your target in the wrong direction. Remember that you are trying to make your target accept an insult as a compliment. This is better achieved when you can use the appropriate body language and tone of voice. Think Casanova.

( *End note: The Author of this blog post takes no responsibility for any lives or reputation lost as a result of the methods listed here. )

Again, another time to dust off the dusty blog... :p

It’s now fresh into 2011. What can I say was the main achievement of 2010? Oh right, I got married......

And since I’m trying to start my blogging afresh, why not I talk about married life for a while.

Ever since I got married, everyone’s one question has been “How has married life been?” ( Variations include “How’s married life?” )

Maybe I can use this chance to answer that question in more depth.

My 1st impression is that Married Life is like Living In A Hostel. ( Of course, I got other benefits that I didn’t get from my pig roommate, but that’s another thing altogether... )

I now stay in a room in a shared apartment. The room is shared between me and another party. We keep both our laptops, our clothes and our books in the room and we share a bathroom. Also we ( or rather I! ) keep the room clean by sweeping it every few days. And my iPod is playing music.

Yes, from that description alone, it is very much like Uni days all over again. :p

My general lifestyle has not changed very much. I still ( most unfortunately ) go to work, I go out to all the same places I used to, with the same people I used to, and mostly at the same times I used to as when I was single. Being married has not stopped me from socializing with any friends, or stopped me from going any places.

Well, it does mean that I do ‘report’ my whereabouts to another party, but this is not forced onto me. Rather I tell him where I go just to let him know, or to try to cadge a free ride. Heh.

If there is a disadvantage, it is that staying in such close quarters with a person also highlights each other’s flaws in glaring detail. When he leaves things in the wrong place, I notice. Or he doesn’t do something that he is supposed to. Or when I bring home new shopping. Or when I eat too much fried garlic for dinner.

I try to adopt a zen approach to all these. Let not the pebbles make you fall flat into some rocks. So if it’s a small thing, like hair on the floor, I just sudah it lah. No point I get pissed off over him over a hair. Or a pebble. I just sweep it up myself and make myself happier. Hopefully the big rocks will not come yet. Or that all this zen will prepare me for the boulders.

But as a balanced perspective, it does also highlight more good points in him. Like how he told me to stay home from school when I was sick, because he never does that himself! Or how he has just offered to send me to work. (!!) How come dating that time never so nice??

Point being, somehow being married just... made him do more good stuff for me. Gawds, should I have done this earlier??

As for me? I feel more Peace when I am in the room. It’s nice to have a room with some library books, a laptop and an iPod dock. It feels comfortable here though a bit hard to read on the bed during the day, because of the sunlight. But it’s much more quiet than in my house, without brother walking in and out, Mother yelling for you to do something... Maybe that’s why I feel more like blogging ever since, because there’s more quiet around to think and reflect. No background noise from the TV downstairs, no nagging and grumbling about how I never fulfill my daughterly duties... Just the space to be... me.

Of course, this Peace could be temporary. Who knows if we will argue till one of us breaks the cupboard door with some hard object. Or if I produce two severe ADHD offspring. Or if the Peace will start to bore me.

For now, I am content to simply enjoy the moment for what it is, and make myself happier that way.

Getting married!

Considering what a milestone this is, it seems only fitting to log it in my blog.

Finally I am getting married to the first guy I dated. After all the trials and heartache and of course plenty of good times, and all the other headaches with the preparation, it's finally going to be done.

And make no mistake about the trying times. I can't imagine how I managed to get through all the expectations and all the demands in my mind, because certainly at that time itself I was certainly upset enough over it.

Then again, I think it's something in a book I read that helped. I began to see that any unhappiness of mine, though maybe caused by other people, was also in part there because I let it be there. I was letting myself dwell in the unhappiness and so partly responsible.

Maybe in the end the lesson to derive from all this is: Look at the big picture. After all our planning, the important thing is not the church or dinner or the house or his mother's opinions. The most important thing is that we're married in the eyes of God.

Who cares if I clash with his mother? Who cares if the speech is not right? Who cares if things are not done? None of these will contribute to our future happiness. It's the way we get through all these disagreements that counts. And doing a Bridezilla will not.

So if I ever read this again, I say Let it Go. Learn to forget the unhappiness of the past, Learn from it certainly but not dwell in it. And even with all the grief from others, they have still done plenty to bless u too. And never forget that.

Ok time for this post to end, last post of my single life. Like the psalm says, put thy childish ways behind and become an adult. May God bless me (mightily) on where I am about to tread.

'Too sweet'?

I do not understand a particular combination of 2 words in the English language: 'Too' and 'sweet'. They make no sense to me.

Rubbish

This is a post about rubbish, special request by my friend Yenn:

O ye stinking heap
I gaze upon thy rotted leaves
And thy half decomposed fruit
How nature has treated thee
Once so abundantly alive
Now nothing but... Rubbish.

Dedicated to my faithful fan of poetry, Yenn.

(bows)

Resort World Sentosa

A day at Resort World Sentosa


Since someone say I never blog anymore... Here are a few iPhone shots from today's trip:


Now we know what he thinks... Or maybe that's us after being told to wait an hour for a table...



The view as we entered the hotel from the restaurant area. Such a welcoming sight......



Even Breadtalk gets in on the act...


And can you believe it, the carpark is so big we had to take a tram there...

Ok I know this is very duh from the usual diary entry but just had to do something different... Hehehe... Interesting afternoon though, felt like tourists, in Sentosa of all places...

Ps this blog entry was written on iPhone, hooray to free apps... Lemme know if something goes horribly wrong here....

Funny how social we all are as human beings. No matter how much people drive us nuts, we can't live without many of them.

We are all born to be social creatures. It is biologically hardwired into us to rely on parents when young, socialize in our teens, get a mate, reproduce, and spend the rest of your waking life taking care of that young offspring.

This biological need has been used to explain all kinds of human behaviour. For example, gossip fulfils a need to keep oneself in touch with the rest of the pack. People like to follow and keep in touch with celebrities so that they feel they are in touch with the Top Dog of the pack. [People who are more known to more people have this aura of seeming important, otherwise why would so many people know you.]

I read once that humans help each other out of an altruistic neuron in the brain. Apparently, when you do something to help other people, you get a shot of the feel-good endorphins. This is nature's way of encouraging to continue doing good stuff to help the tribesmen. So nature encourages us not just to keep in touch, but also continue to contribute to the well-being of the pack.

And this comes up time and time, under the Courtesy campaigns, and various Pay It Forward schemes. All kinds of people from Jesus to Oprah encourage you to give to your fellow man for the good feelings that you will get.

Maybe part of the reason I'm coming up with this post is that I'm starting to get bored silly while on MC. Yes, it sucks to have to go to work with laryngitis, but it also sucks a bit to be stuck at home while the only thing close to human companionship is Facebook. -_-!!! Facebook is nice, but when all the human interaction from a friend is a status update, it leaves you a little lacking. If I had to be sick, it would have been nice to be sick with people looking out for you, cooking for you and talking to you.

Perhaps that is why Facebook is so popular. It gives you that little bit of human interaction, and then leaves you hungering for more. So you do more stuff on Facebook to get closer to your friends, maybe plant a few carrots or something. Despite its shallow nature, it does help us to fulfil that much of a social need.

Then again, this could just be me lonely at home with MC. Wait till I get socially overloaded at work tomorrow and see how things turn out. -_-!!!

I've been thinking lately about women, and our obsession with our looks.

Maybe it's partly due to the influx of weight-loss advice -_-!!! I've been receiving because of the wedding. This ranges from the practical ( "eat less and exercise more" ) to downright absurd ( "5 apples a day" )

And of course, comes all the advice on clothing. This colour/style will make your butt/arms/breasts/waist look fat. This makes you look old. This is better. That is better. Wear a corset. ( Back to the Victorian pre-lib days we go! )

The advice irritated me to no end. First, slimness is not a prerequisite to happiness. Yes, being slimmer may be good for me healthwise, and would make me look better in photos, but will it make me happy? Do you mean that if I was fat on my wedding day, I would be unhappy in my marriage? That my husband would leave me at the altar?

Of course not, all these people would tell me. But it would be better for you. And healthier of course.

( The irony being that most of these people telling me this would be the ones who either eat loads of fried/grilled foods, or can't even jog 500m to save their own house burning. Me, who eats sashimi and subway sandwiches after 1.5 hours at the gym -_-!!! )

But if I scrape away the unintended advice, and my own reactionary irritation, I find something a bit more fascinating underneath all these. Namely, that women, from prehistoric to modern times, have not gotten rid of the unhealthy obsession with their bodies. We are still as preoccupied with our bodily image as ever.

Because if you listen carefully to all the advice ever dished out, you would realise that the main message being given is to slim down. All the other health risks of obesity: clogged arteries, weakened joints, etc are merely afterthoughts. ( "...and you will also get health attacks!" ) The driving point of all the advice is that I have to lose weight so that I will look slimmer and better, and also so that I will reduce my chances of heart attack etc. And definitely all the bad dietary advice I've ever received never even takes these health risks into account at all. Hardly anyone ever says, "Eat more veggies to reduce the clogging in your arteries so that you can have a healthier lifestyle." Rather it's more "Eat more veggies to reduce your weight, and your arteries will not be clogged as well."

Notice the slight difference in emphasis?

So you take all the comments people ever give you about dieting, and it comes down to this: That as a woman, you must look slimmer.

Funnily enough, despite all our advances and our supposedly modern thinking, this has not changed since caveman eras. That our outward bodily appearance is the sole deciding factor in whether we women score a date, a husband and subsequently get to reproduce our genes. You would think that given all the bras burnt, the pants worn, and the higher salaries, we would have had time to reconsider our criteria for a mate, but no, it remains woefully prehistoric.

And even this. Given our higher education, salaries, and increased women's rights, do we even need to score a husband at all??? Yes, laughable, coming from me, but surely there are tons of other stuff we could be doing, reading Shakespeare, curing cancer, saving dying dogs, other than spending the time on looking pretty for the men. Also, don't most of the dating advice out there start like this: "Love yourself first. Spend time on the things you like doing."? If he's not coming to you, and the waiting is making you miserable, then why not, instead of waiting, do tons of the other stuff that you like instead?

Our own bodily obsessions are our own undoing. We get together and gripe about the various men who have rejected us because we were the wrong size and look. But yet we also spend tons of time and money trying to get the 'right' size and look. In all this, we neglect one simple thing: If only perfect-looking women got married, then how about all the other 'imperfect' women that have gotten married over the centuries? And how about the 'perfect' women that have gotten divorced?

Ladies, it's time we stopped thinking in terms of waist size and kilogrammes. These are not prerequisites to a happy life. They are not going to open the door to Magical Happy Land, no matter how much we want them to. It's time we acknowledged that the key to our own happiness lies not in our stomachs, but in our own hearts.

What I learned from Indo:

1. I am incapable of posing for the camera. Unless it's a corny one.

2. Aunties everywhere are the same all over, they just speak different languages.

3. Always pay good money for professional work.

4. Singapore has a world class traffic system. Yes, we do.

5. People will do anything to eke out a living if they have to.

6. Humming Lady Gaga will get your mind off anything.

For more details, meet up with me over a cup of coffee... :)

It's been almost a month, so here's the Great Hamster Escape that happened just 2 days ago...

We keep 1 other hamster in the office other than Anthony, let's call her Spidey. Spidey is a hamster with the mind of a gymnast, because for entertainment, she would start climbing up the bars of her cage, and even climb upside down on the ceiling bars.

We always thought that was cute. And even on the day of the Great Escape, I was giving them breakfast at 9am, and watching her climb upside down.

Then at 11am, I went to check on them again, and I realised her cage was empty.

And the gate to the cage, on the ceiling was open.

*MAD PANIC!!!!*******

I shook the bedding in the cage in case she was hiding there. I searched the cubicles around her cage, kicking boxes hoping to frighten her out. I shook Anthony's tank and asked him "Where's she??? Did you see her???"

Obviously all did not work.

My colleague was also frantic. We tried looking around the office, kicking at boxes but damn she hid from us. My worst fear was that we'd only find her when we heard an "EEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!" from across the office and rush to see her dead under a stiletto. -_-!!!!!

Thankfully she was spotted at the end of the day. Cyn spotted her along the corridor of the cubicles and we rushed in and cornered her at (ironically) the messiest cubicle. Those in the office surrounded the cubicle SWAT-style and finally she came out and one of us scooped her up in a box and closed the cover.

*PHEW*

Here is a testament to the intelligence of hamsters. While we thought she was so cute for imitating Spidey, she was actually training her muscles to bring her to the only point of exit on her cage. Then she managed to fiddle with the latch enough for the cage door to open and for her to climb out, thereby sending all of us into a panic. -_-!!!

She has now been placed under house arrest. We tied the door and the cage down with raffia string, and I'm hoping she'll not learn how to untie knots. Now she sits forlornly in her cage in my house, perhaps dreaming of the brief foray into freedom.

Or plotting her next one.