My terrible relationship with library books

Public libraries. There are so many of them in Singapore.I live near one that's located in the neighborhood shopping mall. It's a place where you can find retired old men flipping through newspapers, students with laptops plugged in, and the occasional person who'll fall asleep in the free air-con.

My trip to libraries are usually unplanned. I may just happen to be helping my mom return the books that she borrowed, or require a free place to hang out at while waiting for the rain to stop. But of course, I do pop by intentionally with the purpose of finding a book I need lah.

Here's the usual scenario whenever I pop by the library.

Firstly, while browsing, something interesting will get my attention.
Soon, I'll get bored of reading in the library. I'll max out my library card, lugging 4 books home, promising myself that I'll finish them when I get home. Plus, I get to pretend to be an intellectual while lugging so many books home.

Reached home. Books will end up on desk.

Books will continue to be abandoned on desk, while I spend most free time I have doing this...


3 weeks will pass.



I have forgotten about the library books. But the friendly library would remind me of them. And then I'll lug the same books back to the library...

Return them at the book drop.





And since I'm at the library already, why not drop in for some browsing?
The cycle repeats.

Stepping out of Comfort Zone

I've taken my Marian Keyes' novels, the ones I've read probably a hundred times (because they're comforting that way), and have them placed in a cupboard shelf I seldom access.

These are mini steps of letting me step out of my comfort zone, and explore the other books I've bought ages ago. Titles include Atlas Shrugged and The Great Gastby. Cheem.

What I am scared of

1. lengths of Chinese sentences.

2. long essays

3. emails in red text

4. too many sharps and flats in musical scores

Why I need some sleep

Was in the kitchen looking for something chilled to drink. Ah, 3 bottles of Lemon Lime and Bitters on the fridge shelf, leftover from a drunken night over the weekend. Whipped one bottle out, unscrewed the cap, took a swig. It tasted sweet...and spicy. Weird. I took a second look at the bottle.

It was the bottle of sweet chili sauce lah.

*facepalm*

Slit-Eye Kitty

I'm Chinese and you can blindfold me with a shoelace. Slit-eyes: the over stereotyped physical trait of a Chinese person which I happened to be blessed with, and also the target of jokes from friends with much bigger eyes, despite being Chinese as well.

Stupid Question #01
Audrey: So do you see half of what we see with those eyes?
Me: No. Feck off!

Na bei. You can never hear the end of it from that woman.

Audrey loathes the Serious Cat and thinks that Serious Cat's eyes were photoshopped on. She thought she could do a better job.

Here's a picture of a Scottish Fold cat, photoshopped with my terribly small eyes, courtesy of Audrey. Thanks, ah.




I think I'm Picture #02 most of the time.

Burfday!

My 24th was a blast :P
And this is how me and the other birthday girl Natasha looked when we are blowing something :P

Doing the "Karen Cheng"

Attempting a "Karen Cheng" on my 24th Birthday, before heading out to meet mai pals. No nice party frock here. Only a "lousy" Threadless Tee! Tee and jeans is what I'm gonna wear, coz I've got no shoes to match the nice dress I've got. Seems like my left foot has expanded ever since my injury...arrgh, yet another thing to add to my long list of problems.

Hopefully Charis didn't think of wearing the same teeshirt today to my mini celebration. And hopefully I don't bump into Cakie along the way there, who bought the same tee recently too. Else, one of us has gotta flip the shirt over, and it has gotta be Charis, because Birthday girls are supposed to be treated with extra niceties on their special day. YA RLY.

KTHXBAI.

Alamak

No doubt I've caused a fury over the past few days. And never have I thought that I'll need to have to say this on my blog: I'm entitled to have my own opinions. And as for the f-words, it's just vulgar old me writing in the style I'm comfortable with (if you find time, bother to read through other entries): no doubt unprofessional, but still, me, writing a leisure blog in my style.

Some quotation I heard a long time ago, but never found meaning in it until now:
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it" - Voltaire supposedly said it

Thanks for reading, Kthxbai.

Arrgh that face!

And so I was blessed with a new handphone yesterday. Was fiddling around with the camera functions yesterday while lying on the bed. Took some face shots, and in awhile I was scrolling through the gallery, appalled by the results. I so don't have the kind of face you'll like to wake up to loh! Whoever that is who is going to be waking up beside me in the future will have to accept that, I guess. Or choose to wake up after me to save himself the horrors.

Some social life

Yesterday night I went out with my drama mates - a gathering organized by a Mass Comm Graduate who seems to be putting good use of her PR Skills she had picked up during her course. Dinner was Al Ameen along Chun Tin Road, the place we've spent many happy hours after drama rehearsals getting fat on Teh Pengs and Nasi Goreng Ayams. The Boys, being boys spoke about National Service, and they didn't bothered to fit the girls in. You can never take National Service outta a Singaporean boy, no matter how many times they've ill-bitched about the whole ordeal.

We headed to Holland V, some of them in hope of going to Wala Wala (but it was darn crowded apparently), the rest of us girls headed to coffee. Of course I don't mind Wala Wala, but getting to the 2nd storey would be trouble for someone in crutches.

The Taxi Rides back and forth totalled up to three to four times of my dinner and ice-blended coffee, but it was all worth it. I haven't had much of a social life (except for my dad and some friends that lived in the same neighbourhood) after my injury, so meeting some old friends helped. And it was lovely that some of us were there not to just show off how well we've progressed after graduating, but just to catch up, for real.

And of course, talking through the morning with Audrey was great.

My friend's Deng's bible verse SMS to me this morning, I will instruct you and teach you the way you should go. I will counsel you with my eye upon you. (Psalm 32.7b)

Wow. Kinda like what Audrey was telling me last night.

Audrey: Pick up a religion, JY. Just not Scientology can already. I will smack you loh!

Paper Bus Pass

From seven years ago, when I still enjoyed subsidized busfares as a student. And looked like a boy. And had less hair. Or more, really. The scalp's thinning.

I only used this for a year before they switched us all to use the EZLink Technology, which is better than those $50 stickers we have to buy per month.

Teddy Bear Collection

Chinese New Year Day 2

Attended another gathering of the extended family of my mother's, which was held at one of my cousin's place. My cousins' offsprings were running all over the place. My brother was distributing his namecards. Why he has to do that I don't know. Perhaps it is a status symbol.

Much of the conversations were carried out in Hainannese. I knew that the conversation was pretty private, but it continued being carried out even in my presence: I'm foreign to that language, and the mother is aware of that.

Otherwise, aunties and uncles chooses to throw you the usual questions of still working? and are you studying?. Oh I so hate that.

I tried to read Catcher in the Rye on our bus journey there, but the mother insisted on pointing out at trees and landmarks that our bus went past. Where Fandi Ahmad lived, where the British surrended to the Japanese (Old Ford Factory), the beautiful goddamned trees even. But we seldom go out together so I let her.

Chinese New Year

The extended family always chooses to gather at one person's house. I don't know why most of my cousins doesn't appear for such gatherings, except for one or two.

One of my cousins brought along his girlfriend. She took out her Econ notes. Common test on Monday, she says. She didn't spend a very long time studying them, though. Half the time they were watching TV or escaping to the corridors to have yet another cigarette break. I sat around watching TV, unable to join in the mahjong games that were going on. I can't play. The TV had some movie on Mahjong going on. I don't understand it as well.

GXFC to you all as well.

No confidence lah!

I guessed I never had the confidence to call myself a writer or playwright. I never did well in languages back in school, scoring a C in my GCE Os. Found an English Composition book whilst spring-cleaning this year. Man, I've got Cs for almost every single work.

Comments from the English teacher would include:

"Well attempted. But vocabulary used is limited"

"Good. Could do much better with vocabulary range"

Arrgh.

I think she would have laughed now if she found out that I was once commissioned to write a play. Or won a playwriting competition. Or had my play read by professional actors. Or staged by my peers in Polytechnic.Then again, my plays didn't had extensive usage of vocabulary.

So I'm still not calling myself a writer. But then again, I might one day.

The father and I

The father was lamenting about my pay check.

Dad: You pay peanuts, you get monkey!

Me: But we're in this country where peanuts are worth alot leh.

Dad: Well, that one is a different kind of monkey.

--------------------------------

Me: Let's go for supper.

Dad: Ah! Don't want lah. Just now I eat so much already. Later grow fat.

Me: You grow fat never mind lah.

Dad: You want me to be fat, so you wouldn't feel so bad about yourself, right.

Me: Wah lao.

Restart.

To quote:

"I fuck up, I say nabeh cheebye, and start over again and again and again."

That's from BlinkyMummy, one of those Singaporean bloggers you probably heard of if you have kaypoh-ed within the Singapore blogosphere. That line was found her blogger profile, but she has ever since removed it, not that I know why since I don't frequent her writings that often.

And yes, I remembered that particular line from her blog, because I could relate by frequenting fucking up with my life. And also the way she say nahbeh cheebye: ever since my lazy arse entered the workforce a year ago, I haven't gotten myself acquainted with those flowery words, except on occassions when I'm hanging out with those couple of friends and when writing angsty blog entries, or lamenting to friends and the ex-colleague how nbcb the boss can be. But never mind that.

I'm out of job now: left the last one on the 31st Jan 2007, and have been quite idle ever since.

And this is me trying to piece me life back together, as I ponder upon my next step, with a new blog, where I'll probably post more IT articles (no point letting that Diploma in IT go to waste), more arts-related stuff, and of course, documenting my life.

The old one's here (some of you probably hopped over from there, you 'secret admirers' who so often come up to me to and say 'I read your blog!'). Haven't been updating there because I couldn't find myself documenting my existence, attempting to be that working professional in makeup and that atypical collar-shirt from G2000. The older blogs' here, from my happier days as a student, where I don't have to worry much about anything, and where my blog entries were far more creative than it could get now.

3 blogs in 4 years. Indeed. I fucked up, nah beh cheebye!

And this is me trying to over, again.

In the meantime, you all probably can read the male nurse Jonathan, who is updating his blog on a terribly frequent basis, and is pretty famous now. I know alot of my blog readers adore his stuff as well. It's a pity whenever I ask him to attempt to submit his writings to some magazine, he'll say "aiyah, don't need lah" or something along those lines.

Okay, till we meet again. And update your links, hor!