Like a boss

It was Saturday night. I was lying in my bed doing this, when I heard the cat meow. Now, the cat is not the most vocal cat, and only meows on occasions he is demanding food, or having a frustrating moment with lizards he couldn't reach, or telling me to stop carrying him.

I got off bed, and walked out of my door and found the cat standing in front of it.

He ran off and I followed him.

He stopped at the litter box that we've placed in the middle of the stairs, somehow twitched his ears towards it, turned his body towards me and stopped.

"Oh you want me to clean the litter box?" I asked.

His eyes said yes.

He continue standing there steadily, until he saw me fetching the newspapers to wrap the soiled litter in.

Like a boss, this one.

Traditional Chinese Medicine FTW! Consultation available.

A little shameless plug for The Father (my Dad, lah), as I attempt the powers of social media to promote him.

My dad has been practicing TCM for 20 over years, and he uses the power of poking. Accupunture lah.

He has treated from young to old, from Chinese to Indian. I'm not sure about Ang Moh though...

Right now, he's practicing at home at the moment in the evenings, and does house-visits on special requests. We reside in Bukit Panjang (West).

Consultation fees start from $10 onwards!

Dear friends who have went through the "Uncle Lian" treatment, please leave testimonial :)

If you are interested, please email me at kosherjellyfishATgmail.com . Thanks!

Give me my money back!

And so I haven't gotten down to writing about my recent holiday in Bangkok, Thailand. So here's a preview.

Here are my nieces, the crazy little beautiful girls who entertained me throughout my stay.


Doing their Hannah Montana thing, in front of the Damien Hirst print.

The "Hannah Montana" thing comprises of them chanting I want my money back, I want my money back!, clamping their left palm between their right armpit, alternate arm in alternate armpit, repeat. They looked like little monkeys.

Wasn't intentional that they looked like they were mocking my cousin's Damien Hirst's famous "spot painting" print. Looks like Wrapping paper when I first saw it, he confessed.

In colloquial speak, it's a like that also can ah? kind of art.

I didn't ask my cousin how much he bought it for. Yes, didn't want to sound like a n00b. But he was nice enough to explain a little of contemporary art to me: it's concept over technique!!, and that I could look at Sotheby's to have a clue on how much a piece of art is currently valued at.

Wah kao! 120,000—150,000 GBP for an original?!

Like that also can ah??

Excuse me while I recreate this in Photoshop....

I'm feeling a little sad

It's my last night in Bangkok. For the past 9 days, I was over at my cousin's house in Thailand, surrounded by the people whom I got used to seeing just once or twice a year. (Chinese New Year, lah)

And though I didn't do the usual things people do when they're over at Bangkok, I was happy. Catching up with my cousin, getting more acquainted with his wife, playing with my nieces. I had to work on my freelance project on some days, but I wasn't stressed out. It's a holiday, man.

It's the same feeling, like after a 3-day Girl Guides Camp, or after a week long stayover at auntie's place. Or working on a show for around 2 weeks with my fellow drama mates. This familiar feeling.

This familiar sadness, knowing that all this is just temporary.

Bargains from across the world

So The Mother just returned after spending 3 whole weeks in England for a holiday, at my cousin's house. She's jetlagged, but still found enough time to shove little gifts in my face before going to sleep her way back to our timezone.


The little guy above cost only 1 Pound! Brilliant find! The Mother also bought a million other stuff, like a 50 Pence wallet, a 2 Pound Bag, etc. Most finds from a push-cart or something. A true Singaporean knows where to find her bargains in any part of the world, it seems.

Uncle Style

Me: Aye, don't wear sports shoes with your office pants lah.

The Father: Aiyah, who cares?

Me: I care lah! Not nice lah!

The Father: (with much pride) This is called "Uncle" lah!

Me: Wah lao.

The Case of the Walker

I requested that The Father and I drop by one of those Outdoor Fitness Corners (one of these 'Town Improvement Works' by your government to entice you to vote for them in the next election improve your lifestyle) in our neighborhood when he was driving me home from work in the evening.

I needed the workout. Ever since my injury, the type of activity that has any semblance of an exercise is either hobbling my way to work, or the futile practices of hobbling down a flight of stairs at home. Both activities always left me sweating buckets and soaking wet whatever I was wearing that particular day: an image not too great for work, really. Plus my Manager has commented that I've "gained weight" since she last saw me last year. So BO PIAN LAH.

Once again, the crutches invited much attention from the children and aunties and uncles and domestic helpers seated at the benches that surrounds the fitness corner. Well, not THAT much attention: most of them simply glanced up from whatever they were doing after hearing the clak-clak sounds from my crutches, stared for maybe 3 to 5 seconds, realised I'm not much of a freakshow afterall, and got back to what they were doing earlier.

I went to one of those machines that allowed me to work out my flappy flabby arms: there were only two of those around, and I couldn't play with those that required the use of my legs. The Father played along and tested out the different machines as well. He was in his usual office getup, the SAME getup for the past 20 years: tailored collared-shirt, tailored trousers and a seasoned pair of leather shoes. No doubt the man looked really out of place in that getup in a fitness corner, but he really wasn't that kind of man who shops at World of Sports, if you know what I mean.

After awhile, The Father backed off from the fitness corner while I hobbled around in my crutches. My eyes never followed where he went, but I heard his car remote activating his car behind me.

After around a minute, it was one of those WTF moments. The Father returned with a silver wrench and a screwdriver, got on his knees infront of one of the fitness machine, and drove his screwdriver into one of the bolts. I was like "What are you doing" and he was like "It's loose".


The said loose thing happened to be a walker that resembles the one above, the name of the fitness equipment I only found out through the normal means of googling.

Fine, if The Father wanted to contribute to Singapore by providing free maintenance for the public property of our neighbourhood, he could. So he was screwing around with the bolts of the machine, doing what he was good at as a technician in his old job, while I, along with a teenage girl and a bespectacled indian boy, stared at him with much bewilderment.

I glanced up and realised The Father, after retrieving his tools, had forgotten to close his car boot, and was very much yelling Oi you forgot to close your car boot to him, but the man, far too absorbed in his new little 'game', never heard his temporary-paralyzed daughter. On second glance, which really, was the more facepalm moment (except that, if both your hands are holding on to your crutches, you can't really do a FACEPALM) - I realised the car keys were still stuck to the keyhole of the car boot.

I hobbled over to the car immediately, retrieved the car keys and slammed the boot shut. When I returned, car keys safe in my pocket, The Father, clueless that he was inviting his Hyundai to be stolen for close to 5 minutes earlier, was still very much absorbed in fixing the damn walker. After some screwing around, he hopped on to the machine, couldn't get it to move as smoothly as he wanted. And of course it wasn't working well: he was moving it wrongly.

Grunting, I told him I couldn't show him how to do it properly with my leg in a plaster cast. He insisted on walking the walker HIS WAY, and I told him HE WAS DOING IT WRONG AND HE WAS SUPPOSED TO "CYCLE" THE THING LIKE IT IS A FREAKING BICYCLE. With the screwdriver and wrench now stucked in his shirt pocket, leaving streaks of rust stains, he stubbornly continued. The teenage girl had a pained expression on her face on the whole demonstration.

The Man still didn't get it right after around 10 minutes. Before he destroyed any public property, I told him we should get home, on the pretext of finishing my 'workout' on my arms. The weird duo left the fitness corner. I passed him the car keys he almost lost, and we got back within the car.

On the minute drive towards our flat, I was thinking of this weird behavior that The Father was exhibiting. The man is approaching his 60s in a few years, so it could be all the unthinkables which I don't have the courage to come to face with. Or maybe I should just document it by blogging about it.

Break a leg, huh?

Yes, the image above is depicting my left foot. Yes, heavily-bandaged looking, in a half-cast. What happened, you ask? I met a CAR ACCIDENT: what a highlight in my otherwise monotonous life. If you happened to follow my Twitter updates ( which prior to the femes blogger Cowboy Caleb's wonderful little promotion, nobody really bothered about it) you probably already knew, but my buddy Harlie has been bugging me to update my blog about what has happened, and I've been granted too much medical leave, hanging around at home. So here you go:

"Before you cross the road, remember to look to your left, then to your right", that age-old advice that they've tried to drill into your head since you're a toddler are the very instructions I have failed to follow last Wednesday.

The story goes a little like this: I have two jobs, both temporary positions. Job A was with my ex-employer, who needed help to co-ordinate the works in shifting their office, and they needed more than just my brawns. Job B was a waitressing gig, at this small eatery which only operates in the evening. They don't pay much, but the boss and his wife are really, really cool people. Plus, loads of arty-farty types in this country's small art scene comes over: just last week I managed to strike up a conversation with a guy who's doing post-production work. I'm shamelessly doing some networking. But I digress.

And so I was trying to get from Job A to Job B, a little after 4pm. Job B starts at 5pm and I was running late already. And so I was awaiting for the ONLY feeder bus that will bring me to the MRT Station: now anyone who works at Toh Guan Road would tell you what a bitch Bus 183 is: the bus operates on a 15-20 minutes frequency, but sometimes you can wait up to 30 minutes for the friggin bus to arrive. On mornings it's chocked, bus after bus.

Bus 183 finally arrived, which was then I realised I've left my wallet at my workplace. Tardiness has always been part of my nature anyway, so I forgave myself quickly. I ran my way back to the office building, took the lift up, grabbed my wallet, said bye to the ex-colleague who was shaking her head in reaction to my tardiness, and took the lift back down. From the ground floor's lift-lobby I saw another Bus 183 approaching my bus-stop. It was a miracle for it to arrive in such a short time-frame! I made my dash across the road for it.

Little did I know, within the next few seconds, a car came my way. It all happened in a flash: I was knocked down, I fell on the road. I was very much conscious: no brains-splashed-over-road, no bones-sticking-outta-leg moment. When I tried to pick myself up my left-foot was throbbing madly, and Thom Yorke was still moaning in my through my earphones in one of those depressive Radiohead songs. The driver popped himself out of the car, and he looked totally helpless, not knowing how to react, only managing to splutter "Are you okay?"

He and a few pedestrians came dragged me to the side of the road. Some lady from a ground-floor office had rolled out an office chair and she made me plonk my arse on it. My left-foot was still throbbing mad and when asked whether I required an ambulance I replied "Yes, please". I made a few phonecalls while I await: first to the colleague of Job A and then to the boss of Job B. I told the colleague to come on down to retrieve the quotations/documents I had with me. I was the only waitress that night for Job B so he had to hurriedly find a replacement.

One of the witnesses that had helped me was telling me that it was my fault because the driver was actually driving real slow. A kid came forth and asked "what happened?" and witness said "you must cross the road carefully, okay". Yes, cross the road properly, kids. Or you may end up with a throbbing foot, cannot walk, like this stupid jie jie here.

The Civil Defence Ambulance came. My first ambulance ride. How very exciting: a mad childhood dream came true for I've always wished to ride on one of those vehicles that goes Bi Bo Bi Bo (or Ba Boo Ba Boo, whichever way you were educated). A buncha paramedics placed me on a stretcher : either I was way high or they were really good-looking.

Mr Driver passed me his namecard and I passed him my number. I told him "Don't worry lah, it's not your fault", but he told me to update him anyway.

As the ambulance drove away, they informed me that they were sending me over to NUH. I passed the good-looking lady paramedic my Identity Card without her asking for it. She then informed me that according to the traffic law "the pedestrian is always right", so I'm able to seek for compensation if required.

I guessed I was surprisingly calm, coping with my first mishap as a young-adult who still behaves like an irresponsible teenager half the time. Called my Financial Advisors and asked them whether the investment plans I had with them had any medical benefits. Nah, unless it's death or permanent disability. KNN. One of them told me I could actually use my Medisave to foot the bills.

It was a long ordeal in the A&E Department of NUH as the doctors tried to reach a verdict on my condition, and I wheelchaired myself around the place, made conversation with a random Malay family, and complaining constantly to the father ( who had came down an hour after I called him) that it was damn sian, but still managing to joke and laugh around with him, him calling me names like stupid girl and 小猪.

It was only when The Mother rushed over to the hospital, 4 hours after the mishap, did the waterworks started flowing when I laid my head against her familiar body.

I'll continue about my hospital stay the next time, lah.

National Pride

A few Caucasians walked pass us, carrying several bottles of 1.5 litre Mineral Water. There's more and more of them within our HDB heartlands. That's cool. Maybe I can meet an Anthony Kiedis clone someday at the coffeeshop.

The Father: They scared Singapore water not clean to drink, ah?

Me: Haha maybe lah

We are insensitive jokers

The Father: -pointing at random poster of the escaped terrorist- You know him?

Me: Yah my friend

The Father: Your friend ah

Me: Yah he hiding at our house. In our toilet.



Disclaimer: It's just a joke. And how can you all detain someone without trial one, ah?

Teddy Bear Collection

He questions my faith

The Father: What's your religion?

Me: Nothing.

The Father: I thought it's 'sleeping'


There you go: my father and his sardonic sense of humour.

She is so fecking irritating!

An ex-colleague who is way crazy about reading into horoscopes told me that the union of the Cancer Daughter and the Virgo Mother is the most explosive combination ever. There's some truth into that I guessed, because I feel like killing mine half the time since I'm young (and I bet she wanted to do the same thing to me)

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.

Grandfather stories by Mandrake: Part One, Part Two,, Part Three

My father's Chinese name is 国安 (guo an)- "Country Peace", if you translate the words directly. I often tell people that with a name like that he should have been a politician or something. But I think the father's a little like me: we're too shy (really lah), and we're not cunning. Hardly the traits you'll want in the team of Men in White.

A week ago I found my father's records in my ex-school's database: had the menial task of archiving old students transcripts (he's the 2nd batch of NP students). At 17 years old, the father is skinny, and looks very much like my brother. Don't know why the both of them always take photos frowning: does it make them the more intelligent facade with that long-suffering look? I told Audrey that fact, and she replied you also always look like that what.

And it's true: the brother and myself got 80% of our looks from our father. The mother often mockingly moan: if you got it from me you'll be prettier, whilst admiring her sharp nose once again, while we pinched our flatter, boring ones.

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.