THE BIRD
while walking to church for the weekday mass, i heard this sound of metal like clicking behind me, much like knives, so i turned around, shocked and worried, and saw these wuss of a flutter of feathers flying away.
it was the damn albino cousin of the damn crow.
well not albino, more like zebra.
anyways.
it kept on trying to attack me but stopped before i hit the church.
stupid bird.
then when i came out, i wasnt expecting it. it doved onto me from god knows where and dug it’s damn claws into my skull above my pony tail.
OH IF I WASN’T FRESH FROM THE CHURCH OR ALMOST LATE FOR IT YOU DAMN IDIOTIC STUPID FREAKY ALBINO RED EYED WUSS OF A BIRD, I WOULD HAVE THROWN ROCKS, CARS AND PLANES AT YOU I SEE HOW YOU DODGE THOSE U LITTLE TURD!
and it won’t stop.
next time i run across the island section of the road, o mr bird, i would have a bazooka ready for you, all filled with water. I SEE HOW YOU FLY.
A letter to God
Dear Lord,
My family’s buddhist. in the generations before them, they were also buddhists. staunch or otherwise, i am not quite sure. as far as dad’s concerned, he has always and will always be, buddhist. he’s the staunchest buddhist in my world, and the world’s most patriotic chinese, just totally borned in the wrong country. my mum though, prays to whatever gives her money.
so it was that i was brought up in that kind of environment, praying to buddha, goddess of mercy, and what have you, till my parents enrolled me in an anglican kindergarten. even then, through out my entire childhood, i was never released from the superstitious stuff that my parents had put me through. they were not well educated, but that has always been a blessing.
with all those superstitions came imaginations of the wild kind. i used to be afraid of ghosts, of pixies, of elves, of the “little people” (xiao ren), of the guardians of hell and what have you. mix in with all these were the beliefs i took in from anglican church.
But Lord, between buddhism and Christianity, i chose you for some odd reason that i am still not quite sure of sometimes. Deep in me, o Lord, you have always seem more real to me than buddha and Goddess of Mercy.
My beliefs nurtured from young doesn’t give room for scientific reasonings. science to me though, seems to make you more real from whatever i look at it. So, i have always belief in fate and the Divine reason and the Divine hand in almost every single thing i do. from the choices laid out to me, to the lessons i learn from each choice i make, i have always believed that you were there.
Fate tonight, O Lord of mine, was your divine hand in guiding me, from the choice i made.
i haven’t been attending church regularly either since 2 years ago. since those things messed up my life and i didn’t know what to do. i made confessions, i go a few times and then i stayed home.
how do i face you, Lord, when i felt someone died when i could have stopped it? how do i face you, when i have flunk on my choices?
and of course, laziness…
tonight, i took a walk.
i gave myself no directions than to go somewhere i havent been to before in this neighbourhood. it was night and it was dark. along the canal i walk, and the empty dirt track behind, with my ipod stuffed into my ears while the path just got darker and darker.
then the path opened up to the main road. and there, i saw Your House.
People say there are no such things as fate, and that subconciously, i might have been the one who wanted to go there after all. People would say, i would have known where i was going in the dark, especially my dad, after all, i have a good sense of direction, at least to my dad.
to be honest, i had no idea where i was going. in the dark and from very vague memories, the road curves out and as far as i am concerned, the road goes all the way out to northbourne. but you know what God? it’s funny how the memories work.
while my home is about 10 minutes or 15 minutes from the church if i had gone by the front, it’s approx 6 minutes from the back, because i was just listening to 1 and a half song when i found your house.
I am sorry i have been missing church. i know i am silly. i know u are VERY disappointed.
i am going church tomorrow morning and making a confession. and then i am just going to sit there for a long while, just chatting with you.
Forgive me, O Lord for i have sin, i have sin against you and my brothers and sisters.
but i will change. and i think, that’s more important than what i can’t erase in the past.
i love you.
Amen.
journalists?
some guys are sooo great.. kinda. to find out about how new orleans were really going, they packed their bags with some techie shet and set up their own wi-fi system and is blogging on the spot there.
http://jacob.wordpress.com/
so there you go. they have been there a few days.
What happened in new orleans
Although the contents cannot be assured to be 100% truth, considering what we have all heard so far, i wouldn’t say it’s entirely untrue either. so here goes, something for you guys to read that isn’t my retarded inquisition as to why the entire world is against me 
The following is a message from Tobias Wolff to his father, Robert Paul
Wolff, professor in the Afro-American Studies Department at UMass
Amherst, and contains an eyewitness account of two friends of Tobias
who were trapped in New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
Sent: Tuesday, September 06, 2005 11:07 PM
Subject: Saramago’s Blindness Revisited — an eyewitness account from
New Orleans
Dad –
Forward this message to your friends in the department (and elsewhere)
– it is quite something.
Begin forwarded message:
Two friends of mine-paramedics attending a conference-were trapped in
New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina. This is their eyewitness report. –PG
Hurricane Katrina-Our Experiences
Larry Bradshaw, Lorrie Beth Slonsky
Two days after Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans, the Walgreen’s
store at the corner of Royal and Iberville streets remained locked. The dairy
display case was clearly visible through the widows. It was now 48 hours without
electricity, running water, plumbing. The milk, yogurt, and cheeses were
beginning to spoil in the 90-degree heat. The owners and managers had
locked up the food, water, pampers, and prescriptions and fled the City.
Outside Walgreen’s windows, residents and tourists grew increasingly thirsty and
hungry.
The much-promised federal, state and local aid never materialized and
the windows at Walgreen’s gave way to the looters. There was an alternative.
The cops could have broken one small window and distributed the nuts, fruit
juices, and bottle water in an organized and systematic manner. But they
did not. Instead they spent hours playing cat and mouse, temporarily chasing
away the looters.
We were finally airlifted out of New Orleans two days ago and arrived
home yesterday (Saturday). We have yet to see any of the TV coverage or look
at a newspaper. We are willing to guess that there were no video images or
front-page pictures of European or affluent white tourists looting the
Walgreen’s in the French Quarter.
We also suspect the media will have been inundated with “hero” images of
the National Guard, the troops and the police struggling to help the
“victims” of the Hurricane. What you will not see, but what we witnessed,were the
real heroes and sheroes of the hurricane relief effort: the working class of
New Orleans. The maintenance workers who used a fork lift to carry the sick
and disabled. The engineers, who rigged, nurtured and kept the generators
running. The electricians who improvised thick extension cords
stretching over blocks to share the little electricity we had in order to free cars
stuck on rooftop parking lots. Nurses who took over for mechanical
ventilators and spent many hours on end manually forcing air into the
lungs of unconscious patients to keep them alive. Doormen who rescued folks
stuck in elevators.
Refinery workers who broke into boat yards, “stealing” boats to rescue
their neighbors clinging to their roofs in flood waters. Mechanics who helped
hot-wire any car that could be found to ferry people out of the City.
And the food service workers who scoured the commercial kitchens improvising
communal meals for hundreds of those stranded.
Most of these workers had lost their homes, and had not heard from
members of their families, yet they stayed and provided the only infrastructure
for the 20% of New Orleans that was not under water.
On Day 2, there were approximately 500 of us left in the hotels in the
French Quarter. We were a mix of foreign tourists, conference attendees
like ourselves, and locals who had checked into hotels for safety and shelter
from Katrina. Some of us had cell phone contact with family and friends
outside of New Orleans. We were repeatedly told that all sorts of
resources including the National Guard and scores of buses were pouring in to the
City. The buses and the other resources must have been invisible because
none of us had seen them.
We decided we had to save ourselves. So we pooled our money and came up
with $25,000 to have ten buses come and take us out of the City. Those who
did not have the requisite $45.00 for a ticket were subsidized by those who
did have extra money. We waited for 48 hours for the buses, spending the
last 12 hours standing outside, sharing the limited water, food, and clothes we
had. We created a priority boarding area for the sick, elderly and new born
babies. We waited late into the night for the “imminent” arrival of the
buses. The buses never arrived. We later learned that the minute the
arrived to the City limits, they were commandeered by the military.
By day 4 our hotels had run out of fuel and water. Sanitation was
dangerously abysmal. As the desperation and despair increased, street
crime as well as water levels began to rise. The hotels turned us out and
locked their doors, telling us that the “officials” told us to report to the
convention center to wait for more buses. As we entered the center of
the City, we finally encountered the National Guard. The Guards told us we
would not be allowed into the Superdome as the City’s primary shelter had
descended into a humanitarian and health hellhole.
The guards further told us that the City’s only other shelter, the
Convention Center, was also descending into chaos and squalor and that
the police were not allowing anyone else in. Quite naturally, we asked, “If
we can’t go to the only 2 shelters in the City, what was our alternative?”
The guards told us that that was our problem, and no they did not have extra
water to give to us. This would be the start of our numerous encounters
with callous and hostile “law enforcement”.
We walked to the police command center at Harrah’s on Canal Street and
were told the same thing, that we were on our own, and no they did not have
water to give us. We now numbered several hundred. We held a mass meeting to
decide a course of action. We agreed to camp outside the police command
post. We would be plainly visible to the media and would constitute a
highly visible embarrassment to the City officials. The police told us that we
could not stay. Regardless, we began to settle in and set up camp. In
short order, the police commander came across the street to address our group.
He told us he had a solution: we should walk to the Pontchartrain
Expressway and cross the greater New Orleans Bridge where the police had buses
lined up to take us out of the City.
The crowed cheered and began to move. We called everyone back and
explained to the commander that there had been lots of misinformation and wrong
information and was he sure that there were buses waiting for us. The
commander turned to the crowd and stated emphatically, “I swear to you
that the buses are there.”
We organized ourselves and the 200 of us set off for the bridge with
great excitement and hope. As we marched pasted the convention center, many
locals saw our determined and optimistic group and asked where we were headed.
We told them about the great news. Families immediately grabbed their few
belongings and quickly our numbers doubled and then doubled again. Babies in
strollers now joined us, people using crutches, elderly clasping walkers
and others people in wheelchairs. We marched the 2-3 miles to the freeway
and up the steep incline to the Bridge. It now began to pour down rain, but it
did not dampen our enthusiasm.
As we approached the bridge, armed Gretna sheriffs formed a line across
the foot of the bridge. Before we were close enough to speak, they began
firing their weapons over our heads. This sent the crowd fleeing in various
directions. As the crowd scattered and dissipated, a few of us inched
forward and managed to engage some of the sheriffs in conversation. We
told them of our conversation with the police commander and of the
commander’s assurances. The sheriffs informed us there were no buses waiting. The
commander had lied to us to get us to move.
We questioned why we couldn’t cross the bridge anyway, especially as
there was little traffic on the 6-lane highway. They responded that the West
Bank was not going to become New Orleans and there would be no Superdomes in
their City. These were code words for if you are poor and black, you are
not crossing the Mississippi River and you were not getting out of New
Orleans.
Our small group retreated back down Highway 90 to seek shelter from the
rain under an overpass. We debated our options and in the end decided to
build an encampment in the middle of the Ponchartrain Expressway on the center
divide, between the O’Keefe and Tchoupitoulas exits. We reasoned we
would be visible to everyone, we would have some security being on an elevated
freeway and we could wait and watch for the arrival of the yet to be
seen buses.
All day long, we saw other families, individuals and groups make the
same trip up the incline in an attempt to cross the bridge, only to be turned
away. Some chased away with gunfire, others simply told no, others to be
verbally berated and humiliated. Thousands of New Orleaners were
prevented and prohibited from self-evacuating the City on foot.
Meanwhile, the only two City shelters sank further into squalor and
disrepair. The only way across the bridge was by vehicle. We saw workers
stealing trucks, buses, moving vans, semi-trucks and any car that could
be hotwired. All were packed with people trying to escape the misery New
Orleans had become.
Our little encampment began to blossom. Someone stole a water delivery
truck and brought it up to us. Let’s hear it for looting! A mile or so down
the freeway, an army truck lost a couple of pallets of C-rations on a tight
turn. We ferried the food back to our camp in shopping carts.
Now secure with the two necessities, food and water; cooperation,
community, and creativity flowered. We organized a clean up and hung garbage bags
from the rebar poles. We made beds from wood pallets and cardboard. We
designated a storm drain as the bathroom and the kids built an elaborate enclosure
for privacy out of plastic, broken umbrellas, and other scraps. We even
organized a food recycling system where individuals could swap out parts
of C-rations (applesauce for babies and candies for kids!).
This was a process we saw repeatedly in the aftermath of Katrina. When
individuals had to fight to find food or water, it meant looking out for
yourself only. You had to do whatever it took to find water for your
kids or food for your parents. When these basic needs were met, people began to
look out for each other, working together and constructing a community.
If the relief organizations had saturated the City with food and water
in the first 2 or 3 days, the desperation, the frustration and the ugliness
would not have set in.
Flush with the necessities, we offered food and water to passing
families and individuals. Many decided to stay and join us. Our encampment grew
to 80 or 90 people.
From a woman with a battery powered radio we learned that the media was
talking about us. Up in full view on the freeway, every relief and news
organizations saw us on their way into the City. Officials were being
asked what they were going to do about all those families living up on the
freeway? The officials responded they were going to take care of us.
Some of us got a sinking feeling. “Taking care of us” had an ominous
tone to it.
Unfortunately, our sinking feeling (along with the sinking City) was
correct. Just as dusk set in, a Gretna Sheriff showed up, jumped out of
his patrol vehicle, aimed his gun at our faces, screaming, “Get off the
fucking freeway”. A helicopter arrived and used the wind from its blades to blow
away our flimsy structures. As we retreated, the sheriff loaded up his
truck with our food and water.
Once again, at gunpoint, we were forced off the freeway. All the law
enforcement agencies appeared threatened when we congregated or
congealed into groups of 20 or more. In every congregation of “victims”
they saw “mob” or “riot”. We felt safety in numbers. Our “we must stay
together” was impossible because the agencies would force us into small
atomized groups.
In the pandemonium of having our camp raided and destroyed, we scattered
once again. Reduced to a small group of 8 people, in the dark, we sought
refuge in an abandoned school bus, under the freeway on Cilo Street. We
were hiding from possible criminal elements but equally and definitely, we
were hiding from the police and sheriffs with their martial law, curfew and
shoot-to-kill policies.
The next days, our group of 8 walked most of the day, made contact with
New Orleans Fire Department and were eventually airlifted out by an urban
search
and rescue team. We were dropped off near the airport and managed to
catch a ride with the National Guard. The two young guardsmen apologized for the
limited response of the Louisiana guards. They explained that a large
section of their unit was in Iraq and that meant they were shorthanded
and were unable to complete all the tasks they were assigned.
We arrived at the airport on the day a massive airlift had begun. The
airport had become another Superdome. We 8 were caught in a press of
humanity as flights were delayed for several hours while George Bush
landed briefly at the airport for a photo op. After being evacuated on a coast
guard cargo plane, we arrived in San Antonio, Texas.
There the humiliation and dehumanization of the official relief effort
continued. We were placed on buses and driven to a large field where we
were forced to sit for hours and hours. Some of the buses did not have
air-conditioners. In the dark, hundreds if us were forced to share two
filthy overflowing porta-potties. Those who managed to make it out with
any possessions (often a few belongings in tattered plastic bags) we were
subjected to two different dog-sniffing searches.
Most of us had not eaten all day because our C-rations had been
confiscated at the airport because the rations set off the metal detectors. Yet, no
food had been provided to the men, women, children, elderly, disabled as they
sat for hours waiting to be “medically screened” to make sure we were not
carrying any communicable diseases.
This official treatment was in sharp contrast to the warm, heart-felt
reception given to us by the ordinary Texans. We saw one airline worker
give her shoes to someone who was barefoot. Strangers on the street offered
us money and toiletries with words of welcome. Throughout, the official
relief effort was callous, inept, and racist. There was more suffering than
need be. Lives were lost that did not need to be lost.
stealth fighter!
hog’s breath was… overwhelming. it was a great dinner altogether as usual, albeit just as slow as we expect woden to be. somehow, though, i think woden will always be a lesser quality as compared to the civic one, even in terms of service.
i am not saying it’s bad or anything, but truly, civic always seems faster and knows when a customer needs or don’t need them. 
after dinner, we went to watch stealth, another one of those AI based movies. what with the technology as it is, AI is really not that much of a technological fantasy anymore. i am talking about fully AI-ed stuff, not things like robotic dogs and so on.
i loved that movie! i love aeroplanes, i love fighter planes, and for all that’s supposedly not so good about the movie (some people mentioned in forums that you can see the wires and shit) i love how the cameras allow the audience to “fly” with the pilots.
not to mention the gorgeous scenaries.
i am a little upset at the ending though, i don’t like how one of the more important characters were… treated.
but overall, the reviews of it was a little.. off. it wasn’t just about the pilots stopping an AI from turning everything into ww3. it was also about a plane/AI learning how to feel and cope with it’s feelings. Contrary to most news reviews about it, yes it’s not meant to be a very intelligent film. the beauty of it was really the planes, the emotions in it. just go in for a ride.
it’s movies like these though, that often makes me want to sit in a cockpit and fly a damn plane. rrrrr
oh. and charlie and the chocolate factory.
it was.. just one word: BRILLIANT.
i can not start to describe to you how great it was. we went to watch it during our first “hi how are you yvette i am XXXXXX” when yvette came and wadge was finally free to pull her out with us.
the acting by johnny depp was.. ooeer. cheeky like i expected movie to be. and as far as i am concerned, it went as close as it could possibly be with the actual story by roald dahl. the funny parts stayed funny, and the touching parts stayed touching. i was more awed by the squirrel scene than anything else.
from the various “background” shows i have watched about it, it seems they have brought various well trained squirrels into the same room. having the trainers nearby to actually make them do that scene in perfect sync. one of the best… production i would say, that i have ever seen.
while i would say stealth isn’t meant for everyone, charlie and the chocolate factory is really one movie you can’t miss. beautiful, meaningful, and so full of bitter sweet child hood memories… T_T
i want to know the real willy wonka 
if there ever was one.
explosive cooking
we are supposed to have some sort of farewell dinner with yvette, wadge’s gf who’s over to visit from the states. the dinner’s meant to be at hog’s breath civic, and wadge booked a table for us.
at abt 6.11pm, wadge called.
wadge: you won’t believe this. i am serious though.
me: wassup?
wadge: hog’s breath just called. their kitchen exploded, they can’t cook dinners tonight!!!
me: whaaattttt?!!?1 you are kidding me!?!?!?!
wadge: no i am not ahaha, i am serious!! their kitchen exploded or something. or maybe just an oven failure..
me: but still!
wadge: yer, anyways they moved out booking to hog’s breath woden.
me: er ok, but… did YOU blew it up wadge!?!? how could you!!!!
wadge: i did not!
me: yes u did! how could you man!! that’s so mean!
wadge: well ok fine, i did!
me: I KNEW IT!!!!
wadge needs anger management… i am serious!
And It Rained…
and i ran out to dance in the rain with a half dead camera in hand…
and now i shiver in cold…
surprise surprise
someone sent me a message via friendster just. it wasn’t someone i know, but because i didn’t officially state that i got kicked from school there (too big a thing to mention) or that i am no longer a student either ways, it was a strange request from a distant stranger, with regards to exam papers.
apparently they need student i.d to access the past year papers. perhaps when i last access them, i was on campus, thus i was never required to input my uni id for it. so when i faced that login page, not only was i a little daunted, i was… a little upset.
everywhere i go, there are constant reminders that i no longer belong to anu, and i am no longer studying and i was a total idiot to let things get to me so hard. i can’t believe i am no longer doing something i actually do like, and i am here feeling a little “homeless” and dejected. so this little adventure, to say the least, made me a little depressed again at the reminder that hey, i am a moron.
but i gave it a shot anyways. technically speaking, from what i understood, i should have access to career center for at least 2 years more, but even that was lost to me, while linxy still could get on to it.
voila…
i got showed to sssooo many exam papers, i could hardly breathe.
so in my happiness, i just downloaded every single shit of an exam paper that i found interesting.
MORE USELESS MUGGING!!!
hehehe
Cooking frenzy
to be honest, i have NO idea how to “broil” something or “roast” something. i have a distinct image of dumping the entire meat into the pot or hanging a piece of raw meat over some campfire respectively.
so i invent new ways to cook stuff! not exactly new ways, they are meant more for birthday bbq’s anyways.
today’s trial and error was some thai sour and spicy prawns. it turned out better than i expected, albeit i didn’t like the coriander leaves at all, so i am never going to use it ever again. i was so happy with how “extra spicy” it was, now that i know the trick to it all…
just do add more chilli and other ingredients as if you are cooking a huge pot
but i was lazy… i don’t exactly like to cook rice very much, what with the hassle of cleaning up thereafter. i know it’s just really cleaning up and then washing, but.. i am a bum. so i made the mistake of… pairing this up with potato pommes.
when i saw what happened, i was like.. errr… ok. time to make rice. so eventually when i was done, the prawns were just slightly cold, but not totally off. they went off ssooo good…
i miss home. all that chilli prawn and honey prawns. ooo, and the curry prawns, and the assam prawns.
and curry chicken omg omg omg..
i must try to make some tomorrow.
curry chicken attempt #4!!! (i know i know.. i will get it right some day. shut it.)
i really am getting into this cooking thing. it still takes a little getting used to, what with me not having cooked for like the past 3-5 years. at the beginning, there were the eggs that i got right. then there were the occassional raw chicken amidst the curry (the failed attempts) or the overcooked chicken amidst the honey soy sauce.. maybe, just maybe, i am slowly hitting the marriageable level of cooking.
now, to learn how to CLEAN as REGULARLY as i should. i feel like a bum.
meanwhile, here’s one of the puppies i saw at the pet shop while grocery shopping/job hunting/reading on the roadside..
oh reading.
i have decided to ignore the fact that i am no longer in school, that i have no clue what books i will be needing come october, and just read the texts that i did buy for this sem. perhaps it was a waste, after all, i am never going to need them again unless i get back to these same courses with the same lecturers with the same needs. i believe our undergraduate course cycle is 4 years.
the thing is, i can’t stand not reading something. i am more or less done with Eldest (i will probably make up a review of it at some stage). i am still half way through the Quarterly Essay, which has too much statistics in it than i care to read (Worried Well for the quarter that i am reading). i am done with the short essays part of the Monthly Magazine. I have read through time 3 times for this week (on Katrina’s devastation).
i am somewhat mentally exhausted through all these semi heavy readings, but i feel… twitchy. i need to read more… so i started drawing out all the other texts that i didn’t like last night. i am reading back on my first year’s books. the ones that i actually did attend classes and pass for. feels weird to re-read them, yet at some level, they seem all new all over again.
something different.
so amidst learning to cook properly, i am going to read properly.
here’s to more free reading material!! (i know it’s a dream)
patriotic spat
a few days ago, or maybe a couple of weeks back, a well known singaporean blogger wrote a post about her bad experience to kl, just a normal touristy, shoppingy trip. in it though, she wrote a whole bunch of, what some took it for, deragatory descriptions thus started some form of war of the blogs between her and some well known malaysian bloggers.
she has been called a dog (which i am going to go straight to the point and just say it’s calling her bitch) and a whore. the funny thing is, through out the comments on her blog, most malaysians were sympathetic rather than outright pissy. it was on their own blogs that they went all deragatory and defensive about the very country they hail from. or reside in.
then i read kenny’s point of view on this entire thing… and i don’t know.. just felt like doing a post on it.
i am a singaporean staying in canberra, most of you would know, because i am studying here. well i was anyways, now i am in a limbo. prior to coming here, i can not wait to get out of singapore. i hated alot of things about singapore. sure people are polite at times, they smile when u go shopping. there’s alot of things about singapore that screams “what’s there not to like about me?!?!!”
cheap food, asian culture that i was brought up in and thus more used to, “world class education”, easy to get jobs (at least for me), people i know… i can go on and on, i won’t be able to list it all.
the point is, life is cheaper and easier to handle at times than right here for the simple fact that money wasn’t that hard to come by for me back home.
however, i wasn’t happy. behind all these happy and cheery scenes, i know that half of it at least were superficial. nice smiley people? they are just people working. but everyone else is here too. their jobs depends on it.
however, check out the various restaurant reviews online, and some people’s blogs. people in restaurant smile and treat you good at times if you look like you have the money. or if you are obviously a foreigner. certain places treats you even better if you are a caucasian, because that means you are definitely a big spender, to them anyways.
cheap food came at the expense of taxes. everything’s going up in terms of prices in singapore, but not the pay. well at least not when i left. not that singapore has exhorbitant taxes, it seems reasonable compared to a few other countries.
the people one knows… people drift away. but that’s a personal thing, so let’s not get into that.
at the end of the day, each people take their own sides. national day? everyone wants to go celebrate. call for national service? it’s compulsory. how many people willingly walk in, saying “i want to be able to fight for my country!!!” and how many people go in coz they have to?
how many celebrate singapore’s national day because they really love singapore and am glad of it’s independence from colonial rule? i know when i celebrate, it’s because it’s a public holiday. yay, no school. i know my parents and sister does too. and my friends. if anyone gets the ticket to go for the national day parade, they go not because they love the country and want to celebrate it with the rest of the country. they go because there are freebies, you can see everything first hand and THERE ARE FIREWORKS!!!!
given the free chance to, how many will run for it to migrate out of singapore? i am not very sure.
that’s not to say i don’t love singapore though. in the 3 years that i have been here, i did miss singapore. for the cheap food, for the local food, for the people i know, for the transportation system that takes me everywhere so much that i don’t need to know how to drive. i miss the ability to keep quiet in class and yet still pass without contributing in discussions in class. i miss the quiet marching onwards of time in every single thing i do, which constitutes my normality in life.
i am proud to tell people i am a singaporean, to explain things about singapore to people, to point out where singapore is (yes i have retards telling me it’s in china) and how we function. often though, when i say i am from singapore in class, the teachers immediately swing my direction. “oh, the patriarchal political system.”
and then i am stunned.
that’s not to say i don’t know the term. prior to coming here. in fact, in the months following my a lvls results, i have started reading up on singaporean politics and have came to terms with the idea we aren’t all that democratic.
“Observers frequently remark at the apparent contradiction between Singapore’s high level of economic progress and its illiberal, centrally planned politics. In an Air-conditioned Nation, however, there is no contradiction: comfort is achieved through control.” - Cherian George, Singapore : The Air-Conditioned Nation, 2000
and in a sense, he’s right. tight laws, few opposition parties or people with balls to stand up to the present ruling party. further more, part of the reason why i was stunned, few people have interests in the politics of our country. sure, people may laugh at chee soon juan. others may gossip about the government, further more might be unhappy with the laws.
unhappy but unwilling to voice it further than beyond the cup of coffee.
until university loomed across my horizon, i never had this idea to join politics. it was either arts or… well, since parents were the one paying, law or medicine. after all, they pay well and that’s that. few people in my class ever thought about it, neither do they care much about it. infact, when election comes around, chances are, few bother to think much about their choices and votes straight for PAP anyways. after all, they are the tried and tested party. stability and economic “growth”, that’s all most of them are concerned about.
ask them about the various ministers and what are they about, few can tell you beyond the more prominent ministers.
patriotic for our country?
i am not sure. after these 3 years, i am a little disillusioned by politics for one thing. but it also brought to mind various issues. being patriotic goes beyond just loving and missing your country. it also means being more involved in how it’s managed so that you not only have the best for your country, it is also being managed wisely. it is ensuring that you know what the hell you are voting for, and who are the people whom we are voting for and their portfolios.
are they up to managing singapore? can they manage singapore? can they upkeep the stability whether or not Lee Kuan Yew is there?
The same goes for malaysia. the debate went on and on about how XX was being very rude and blah blah blah about malaysia. much as singapore has flaws, australia has flaws, so does malaysia.
the laws… are they really kept or do the police just ignore?
rude people exists, is it that hard to face?
my mum was a malaysian. every holiday we go back to her home to visit my grandma who’s on the verge of death every now and then, being a diabetic patient and all. she hailed from Muar, in the state of Johor. there’s a few shopping centres there, and we would go shopping there for some of our clothes because they are cheap.
even if we are obviously not going to steal stuff, the sales people had hang around us for commissions, so they don’t lose potential commissionary income. but that does not mean they are even helpful. they had not be all that attentive to us, but yelling to their friends across the floor. but they cling so much unto us it’s scary.
and people like dad and me hates clingy sales people. they eye you, they size you up, they don’t leave you alone, yet they don’t even seem interested in you.
but i love muar as much as i love singapore. when i am there, i am happy. when i am in singapore, i am happy. both are homes to me, because i spend a significant amount of time on both sides. i have family in muar, kl and klang, so while i can’t speak alot of melayu, it’s still home. i can still say stuff like “mahal (i don’t know how to spell it, so get off my left nut about it)” which is to say it’s expensive or something o.o
it’s not that we don’t get it in singapore either. remember those clingy sales people in tangs, who had follow you around too while you are looking at perfumes? yer… thankfully, my friend works there as a sales promoter too, so we had gossip while keeping her colleagues at bay.
political flaws wise, we were all brought up to be semi-accepting. some people are more open about their unhappiness, some not so.
in the end, changes comes with time, unhappiness can be kept to one self.
blogs are for venting.
life’s short, take a chill pill and kill your neighbour instead if you are upset.
meanwhile, if i really love my country, this time around, i am going to actually read about who the hell i am voting for than actually just chucking in a pap vote. chances are though, i am not likely to vote beyond PAP. there are a few reasons behind it.
1) few worthy choices.
2) tried and tested group of people.. lky is still there… hehee…
in all other news, i might be migrating before the next election anyways.
i still love singapore.
i will still say i was from singapore.
i just can’t see opportunities there for me as compared to elsewhere, with the life i want.
ipod nano
there’s a God above, and he bestowed us with ipod nano…
but the people below, have no intelligence to price things accordingly, and thus my ipod 15 gigs of 2004 batch costs as much as this thing at 4 gigs is worth…
for all the prettiness, i am afraid i can’t afford it… and camera is more worth it.
granted that ipod nano seems to be coloured and seems to have more battery life. but bleah… T_T i will try in another RICHER life…
a tummy of water
i feel like a water sack now. as i walk from store to store, looking for a job, i was also wearing a light jacket in case of a sudden cold, which in canberra isn’t all that unexpected.
plus the fact that i was too lazy to take it off and look presentable.
so the “insulation” i made for myself ended up making me uber thirsty. i drank everything i could lay my hands on. mocha, bubble tea, water, sprite… anything, while i was looking for a job and handing in my grand total of 5 resumes today.
i know it doesn’t seem much as compared to one of my friends, who handed out a total of 20 resumes in a day. I was more on the look out for shops with obvious “WE NEED STAFF” signs. so far, i have handed one to boost juice, blooms, oportos, flatheads and camera house.
as each one pass though, i can not tell you how more and more hopeless i felt. while these ones today seem more interested than the few shops i have visited in the past, there’s still this face of “i am just patronising you” that i feel. some are more helpful, “we will contact you by xxx timeframe” and that was awesome and assuring. i know it doesn’t mean anything, but at least if this time frame passes, i know i shouldn’t wait or expect anything anymore, except to call back.
3 years ago, when i first walked out to hand out resumes, i was more hopeful. who wouldn’t be, after all, i have never failed to get the job i want, when i want it. as nobody called, not even a voicemail, i got more depressed. but i so need the job now more than ever, and it’s not only depressing, it’s annoying. every time i hear dad’s voice i get so frustrated.
i can’t tell him i am broke. or that i failed. or that i actually had no job for the entire time i was here. what with aunt feeding him tales of how easy it is to get a job in australia, it’s not true to everyone and every place. she lives in sydney, her children are born and bred here… they at least have some australian working background.
while i do have a string of famous brand names behind me, it doesn’t mean i can get a job easily, what with an international student status, no car, not even a driving license, and having to compete with everyone else for a job in civic because that’s the nearest place. i do try other place though, but if another student comes along with more flexible timing and a car, i am shoved aside.
i feel so sad.
the light for today though, has to be hog’s breath. i decided to take another route to the bus terminal today, and walked the longer way round, just looking at cafes’ and the signs out front. then, hog’s had this huge chalkboard saying “STAFFS REQ!!! apply within!!” all in cheery pinks and blues 
^_^
i walked in and ask, and the people were grand. they asked me to come back on tuesday when the manager would be back from queensland and to have a chat with him, because that’s the easiest to determine if i would be hired or not and etc.
so… hog’s breath it is! well for tuesday’s lot of applications anyways.
not to mention being close to nice smelling food…
more bloody steaks….
:O ~~~
i am drooling already. still waiting on kfc belco’s reply as well. but if i can have hog’s… omg.. i will die right now happily wahaha….
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anyways, so after walking around and drinking ssooo much liquid, i walked into starbucks to have a mocha frap. for some odd reason, the woman at the counter both didn’t hear “frap” and “no cream” so i had a hot mocha with lotsa cream.
let me explain something. i love coffee. i don’t mind them hot. but anyone who knows me knows i don’t exactly like hot stuff, for reasons i have explained ages ago. hot drinks scares me, anything hot scares me. i like SPICY food, they don’t necessarily have to be physically hot though. and i don’t really like cream anymore.
so the combi of stuff that i didn’t exactly want kinda pissed me abit. she offered to make a new one, but i was desperate to want to sit down after a tiring long job hunt that i just brushed her aside and said “forget it” and then sat down and read my time magazine, sulking at the piping hot, creamy mocha. -.-
and then, george bush in time mag pissed me off further. this week’s time focused on katrina and her influence on new orleans. pictures and pictures of angsty people, teary people, old and broken people, there’s only so much one can take. on the one hand i hissed at the pain that i could see them feeling, on the other hand i was sad at the amount of deaths.
and then idiot bush.
Time magazine’s interpretation of bush was that he was reluctant to ask americans for help, to sacriface. i look at the war on iraq and stuff though, and wonder how is there a show of reluctance there?
and while he “reluctantly” admit that response was inadequate, i still see more press conferences than help, more news coverage than a real attempt at “let’s go do it, forget the red tape.” and then the reluctance to accept help…
doesn’t this sound like the guys ingame..?
++++ e penis 8===============D?????
ok so your americans does not need financial aid, but then, what about PHYSICAL AID?
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meanwhile, i seem to have some random rashes crawling around my thigh suddenly. i also seem to have a sudden urge to actually go running. but i hate running, eugh, everything on me bounces. from tits, to fats, its really annoying.
oh, and i have this huge urge that should i go running, i should bring a cup along as well, a cup of hot chocolate or something. sounds totally random and irrelevant yer? what if i spill that hot chocolate and scald myself? *shudders* or make the rash get worse?
oh wells. i am tired. i am going to shower and perhaps take a quick nap been up since 7 am haha…
P.S for those who have been ignoring my radio blog coz i don’t change it often, i have shoved some new stuff up there. new as in, was never up there before, and have deleted some of the old ones. it’s a boring process though, i promise to upload more in the near future seeing how few people listen in on it anyways, and ain’t likely to break my bandwidth much then
don’t be fooled
almost 7k hits now since i put the ticker on. don’t be fooled tho. the last few days, i have been visiting my own blog like 4 times a day or something, because the skin is so pretty, i just had to see it in action, though i have the previews of them on my pc. i mean, damn, jake always know how to bring out my ideas.. or what i want even tho i don’t necessarily tell him properly what i want.
half the time, the conversations are like this..
“honey..”
“ya?”
“do you know uhm.. if you can you know.. you know…. uhm… i want my blog to look like this”
*shows screenshots from some place*
“ok, they look nice!”
“yer… so can you you know.. do something like that, but… you know you know?????”
“erm.. i don’t know if you can’t tell me what is it you want O.o”
more pictures and screenshots would ensue, and he would eventually grasp what i want pretty quickly, despite me having 0 idea of how to describe it properly sometimes. poor jake.
So anyways, yes, i seem to have increased number of hits, but mostly by me 
———————————————————————————————————–
i called up some companies today, and finally managed to reach one of them that i could not reach for a while.
GUY: “hallo?”
me: “hi i am calling about my application for a job a couple of fridays ago..”
GUY:” OH! let me just check where my store manager put his application forms…”
me: (jubilant at this point for some odd reason) “sure ^.^”
GUY: “OH!!!!”
me: O.o yer?
GUY :”he has left the applications in another cupboard. he hasn’t read through any of those apps for the last couple of weeks. i would get him to call you back tomorrow or so if he’s interested in getting you to work with us.”
me: (silently swearing) ” ^.^ sure !! i will call back again tomorrow if he hasn’t called then…”
man… so if i hadn’t called he ain’t going to call me back? sometimes, just sometimes, i would love to know people actually READ my applications. really. i mean i roll out all these resumes like they said i should, then they don’t read.. why bother asking people to apply then?
meh…
—————————————————————————————————————
on my way back from applying for some other jobs though, i got to talked with a “neighbour” of sorts. he was… bald.. skin head.. i don’t think he’s naturally bald really, he’s too young to be naturally bald imo. but maybe he’s… naturally prematurely bald!
anyways, minus the hair, he was fairly friendly. i did over hear his conversation on the bus though. he was interested in applying for some language classes and qualifying to go to beijing or something. in a sense, judging from that conversation, i am sure he has some fair grasp of the chinese language.
so when i got off the bus, he started getting conversational with me. so i was like “whee… i feel like a test bunny!”
so it turns out, he was taught a little cantonese AND mando, AND have friends working in singapore with the kendang kerbau hospital, the hospital where 80% of singaporeans are born in. the richer 20% get born in places like mt Elizabeth and what not. but KK IS THE PLACE TO BE MAN!!!
ahem.
anyways. so his name is matt! i know ONE neighbour! yay… and chances are, hrm… he might want to make me his conversation partner? nooooo i suck in mando… shit shit.. fire the missiles!!!
meh. time to brush up mando.
————————————————————————————————————–
sorry i seem to be rambling. i have lots of thoughts running through my mind now, and most of them does not seem to be.. related. i think it’s the dreams i have been having. i am starting to feel some pressure financially too, partly from rent issues, partly from college issues. without a part time job, i am not quite sure how i am going to balance all that without pissing people off or losing my enrolment at the college.
i am not sure the related people who owe me realise how serious the issue is, it seems like they don’t. i have been trying to emphasise the seriousness of the entire situation, but now it seems they don’t care, or don’t want to care. it is times like these, i wish i am home, yet again, because i can at least find part time work easily back home than here.
on the flip side, while i didn’t get the job at canberra centre’s kfc, they offered to forward my resume to belconnen kfc. it’s near my future school at least, and i can opt to work late on weekends.
please dear god, give me a job. i need some form of sanity.
the retard of a camera
so i declared my camera officially dead somewhere along august 6th. now, a FULL MONTH later, i turned it on, as i do every week, in a desperate bid for it to say “AHAHAHA!! i was only kidding with you babe!”
to find that it was just.. doing exactly that.
no it’s not totally revived. but check this out.
that’s right, that’s taken with my camera, for the first time in a month. that’s the bush right outside my apartment somewhere, in full spring bloom.
my camera is being an asshole. the majority of the functions are still “hung” or “stuck” however you want to put it. and it’s all fucked up in the sense that, instead of the “picture viewer” it’s the “picture taker”. instead of “movie mode” it’s “picture taker”.
and instead of picture taker… i have a picture viewer! (not sure if you can understand it).
let me try and illustrate it.
so looking at that horribly drawn picture, it became this:
A became B; B became A and C. C disappeared and finally D… is not usable but can also be found in A by pressing another button.
but since everything is fucking hung on that stupid camera, i can’t change the set up, settings nor colours to the pictures.
the truth is, i am glad, even if it refuses to interact with my pc, but with my equally dead laptop. it’s like “the campaign of cheryl’s dead equipments! sign up here!!!”
i started clicking away. then walked out in the middle of cleaning my room, with my hair all messed up, in t shirts and barely there shorts, and started snapping away.
people started staring, as i started to try and re-figure out my camera. it won’t jump out of certain folders soon, but the time between taking one pict to the next had pretty much shorten. then i noticed that i was extremely cold. oh wells back home i go.
i heard there are new jobs out in civic so i might go out tomorrow to sign up for them soon, then i would be taking more pictures! once i get work, the first thing i am going to splurge on… would be camera and new time magazine renewal and perhaps a Monthly magazine’s subcription. that mag rocks. nice mini essays there.
in the mean time… should i declare this camera as alive? or dead?
last curry
Meh…. tonight is the last monday curry nights at Flirty Gorgeous. which is kinda sad because flirty gorgeous made them so awesome. although tonight was slightly different.
it was no longer that true indian styled layout. no condiments ranging from hot, hotter, spicy till you die kinda taste. and they were mainly thai curry dishes for some odd reason, and asian vegies (which might i add, since it was a platter by itself, i tried hard to avoid it >.> i will grow to love vegies one day, i promise). it was a totally different experience for me, as compared to the previous trips, but still filled me nontheless. i asked about the job as well, but it turned out the position was filled.
sad isn’t it? considering that it’s just next door to me. oh wells. waiting on kfc that’s the only one that hasn’t replied back since you know, i just handed in the app today. the rest that i either can’t contact (maccas), have weird responses (not going to name names, its a cafe near/around/in parliament house go guess) and etc, i hope they either call back soonish or kfc books me (yippeeee!!!).
well, digressing from the curry itself, why i wanted to be hired by kfc:
they are so fun! that about sums it all up.
let me tell you why. when i first went to order kfc a couple of weeks back, i just started thinking why don’t i work here? there was a chinese girl there, and an obvious train of trainees who doesn’t seem locals pottering around the kitchen and so on. it was entirely made up of girls as far as the eyes could see, and they were all going crazy one of the newest girls, a chinese girl, saying that “she’s mine!” as she giggles.
nono, it isn’t about the chinese vs the whites, it was more like the kinda play i had do with my friends that i love.
anyways anyways. so when i was asking for application, the entire kitchen suddenly went abuzz. the kitchen girls were, like, trying to see how i looked like or something. i felt so amused, warm and welcomed all at the same time, even though i wasn’t even a part of them. and everyone kept SMILING AND SMILING….
oo so nice..
anyways! back to flirty gorgeous!
so i noticed someone, who seems like he was one of the 2 owners’ son. he was going around the place taking pictures, and they turned out very nice too. so i kinda asked if erm, i could borrow his pictures for this blog. they haven’t given me a definitive answer yet, most importantly were the curries tho, but since uhm… this is the last night, i guess no curry picts!
but i am sure you guys would want to see why i love that place so much too, that’s just not all about food. the ambience, the slow jazz music, the occassional live jazz nights on fridays…
they say they would tell me whenever i walk pass, if i could get the picts… which is uh… any time tomorrow because i need to buy drinks.
geez.
talk about convenience. we are now between client, neighbours.. and friends? in all likelihood lol…..
more signs of spring… just not from my camera
Katrina
i know that Katrina wiped out a few towns 5-6 days ago (depending on where u stay ) and lots of problems have arised because of that. i refrained from talking much about it at that time, because the media is often known to blow up circumstances or report circumstances that they do not know much about.
they would only say “oh look, poor people are dying (flashes white people) and evil people are looting the poor (flashes black people)” and it’s not uncommon. a few documentaries ago, it has also been pointed out how the media often portray the black people in a bad light. if there’s a crime, the criminal that’s often telecast is a black. so, while i did read news about katrina, it was on bbc where they wrote it in a semi neutral way (aka how they received the news) and on some australian news.
like typical news though, australian newspapers concentrates on what matters to them most. the aussie suvivors and the missing people in new orleans that could be from aussie. they are not to be blamed tho, they have a right to care about their own, it is what most local newspapers anywhere in the world would have done. 70% local news, 30% world news.
anyways, reading enough about the media hyped up, i finally heard a cnn interview with the New Orleans mayor, Ray Nagins. you can find it here as a transcript (links to the actual interview too).
First off, my first feeling towards it was, “THAT IS ONE AWESOME MAYOR!!!” i don’t know why, maybe it was the colloquail use of his language, maybe it was his hard felt words and expressions (man, man, man, man) or maybe just the fact that he tells other governors, mayors whatnots to stop holding press conferences. he knew what was going on in his little place somewhat, and he knows what needs to be done, but can’t get it because of the red tape, because of the idiots who refuse to answer to his call.
while studying for my journalism dip before, we had to watch a certain movie, called wag the dog or something. it was based around what happens in a pr department when the president have to make a speech in the white house. more than half the time, the president does not know what he has to deliver, but he just have to follow the speech, the actions written in the speech so that everything comes out right.
like in a disaster situation, and he has to declare war or say something emotional, he goes up to the podium, with a speech already on the table, complete with actions on what to do. so in the right times, he teared. at the right times, he cleared his throat, as if emotionally caught, and called for a glass of water.
and the news media ate it all up.
and then we have mayor nagin who goes off on the interview, little cussings, little anger, emotional and crap. it feels real, and at times, you wonder if it is real. but this guy’s office is in the water anyways, so where is his pr agent?
so he’s still cool! because some of the street language, i don’t think any pr agent would have allowed. moreover, whatever he has said, might put his political career in danger.
then we look at george bush. arriving at some point in time 2 days after katrina, with the media dogging his steps, looking pretty in pictures, hugging kids and talking and more speeches. at this point in time, do we really need more speeches? do we need the media there or the reinforcements? how is it that the media can get to the “survivors” more easily than the help needed?
as kanye west puts it “GEORGE BUSH DOESN’T CARE ABOUT BLACK PEOPLE.” it’s all about the publicity…
my heart’s with you people of new orleans
i forgot to add though, that i agree with him on many points. no one asked USA to help out iraq, but they did. no one asked USA to help out the tsunami victims, but they did. the speed of help is tremendously fast, and yet when it comes to home grounds.. what happened? 4-5 days to start relief works? and we are not even talking about a third world country, we are talking about the wannabe police force of the world, the great ol’ USA.
and it took 4-5 days to have proper relief work started from the country itself. for people to take notice. 4-5 days in which looters have started rolling.
4-5 days that could have saved more people, less suicide, less rape, less woes. less everything but more survivors.
The country has failed their own.
understanding people
between gaming, looking for work and reading new magazines, i found many different types of people that amused me, be it in writing or in person.
1) i called back to one of the shops that i was applying to, just nicely enquiring about how my application process went.
“hi i sent in a resume last week. i was just wondering how the application process is going and if i was selected.”
*smile smile smile*
“oh, our supervisor’s family member just passed away, so everything upper tier-ed related has been put on hold. i will ask her to give you a call when she comes back. that would take a few days though.”
O.o i understand about family situations and stuff. they always tend to come by suddenly, and it is really sad when someone passes away. but surely, someone would have been in charge if one of the upper tier people goes away, shouldn’t there be?
2) the past couple of weeks, i have been gaming on private servers for l2 and trying out rfonline. i play on kastien and titan for l2extreme, and they are both 35x servers. in a matter of 4 hours max i can get my characters (depending on classes too) to about lvl 56 or higher.
that should give you an idea on how easy it is to play it on that private server. because of that though, many problems arised. there are more players on that server than on the real servers now. that may also be due to the fact though that the real servers are harder to play and more hardcore, in the sense that losing stuff or xp in the game can be really punishing.
so you can imagine, coming from the real servers, to these servers, 35x rates is like a heaven.
then you meet those who have never played the real servers before and have only heard of certain terms and understand it in their own little ways.
“don’t ks!” says a mage.
2 minutes later, he’s kill stealing from someone else.
“it is mine! i kill fast so i wasn’t kill stealing!”
add that to the memory of over 1500 players per 35x server, that makes it over crowded in many places. kill stealing is unavoidable, but, on such servers too, no one seem to understand the concept of partying up. but to be such a whiner and bitchy person… good god.
and other things. people go red by pk-ing other players. if they died coz they got ganked while being red, yay, free items. big deal on a 35x server. but some vicious people had get their entire clan, mothers, fathers, grandparents on you and pk you over and over again. 10 zillion vs one. and they go “OWNED!”
hrm. guess what. no matter how much you pk me, i still own those items, i can still get the xp back in less than 2 mobs, + money + xp and you will still be the sore loser who had to get a thousand other people to own someone 20 lvls lower than u.
the e penis of the gaming world.
it grows ever larger.
8===================================================D
3) i went grocery shopping yesterday for some stuff to cook today. i am slowly deciding to just buy enough for a few days, or just one day because i am afraid of spoiling food. so there i was, going to the supermarkets, and there was this cute little maltese puppy, all snowy white, a little windblown looking, but so cute!
and not leashed.
i have noticed for a time now that few australians leash up their dogs. even if they are 10 thousand times my weight, height and colour. ok scrape the last bit. the old man who owns her though, was calling out to her. however, bella was a small inquisitive little puppy after all.
10 minutes later, i walked out of IGA, hand full of coriander leaves, lemon squeeze and ginger flakes. and there was bella, strolling outside of flirty gorgeous… by herself. no old man nothing. she followed me for abit while i tried to pat her and find old man. old man was no where around. but i had to go home, so i pat her one last time and told her to stay.
and oh i looked back and there she was looking at me, sitting down with that sad face “oh why can’t i come along with you?”
then 2 mins later, i looked back, trying to see if old man perhaps was in the flatheads store, and there she was trying to cross the road to me. but a car came driving along and she quickly bounded back.
so, tell me, why don’t people leash up their dogs a little more often? i know it’s restraining on the dogs, but imagine if bella had come after me and got hit by the car. or if worse, he totally didn’t know where bella went. he was deep in convo with his friend and till i came along, he didn’t realise that bella was heading inside of iga.
poor bella. i wonder how she is now.
4) my boyfriend is so cute. i love to abuse him verbally and listen to him argue and whine back cartoonishly.
boy, am i evil.
seething within - the REAL story.
ok. so i was terribly happy with my garlic and chilli prawns, after all, it not only turned out right, it tasted right and was uber uber spicy. then my close friend came online to chat with me.
let me just say something, i don’t believe in cheating on your bf, gf, husband, wife and what gives you. i don’t believe in stealing boyfriends, girlfriends, husbands and wives from your FRIENDS either. i don’t believe in airing the dirty laundry in public either, but sometimes you know, some angst got to go somewhere. so i take it out on poor noobs in game, i had go kick a wall, take a shower and put a huge dent on the water bills. nothing really goes public anyways as far as i could.
sometimes things happen, i know, you have a smooch with a stranger, or a friend, while you are still hooked up with someone else. it maybe unintended, it may be plotted, but it’s what you choose to do after that that makes a difference. do you go on? do you make something out of it? at the end of the day, choices makes the differences.
choices leads to tears. choices can lead to happiness too.
3 years ago, i was in a course that was suppose to make my life all great, starting with me finding myself first. i met a guy called mark in the course. at that time, we were warned and warned again, never to get involve with a coursemate till 3 months after or something along that line. we were even to sign a contract on it. anyone related to the course, we were not to get involve with them till after the course.
this was because the course was terribly emotionally charged, and you are very vulnerable during this period of time. even the slightest smile makes you feel loved, because you are at your most exposed, your most embarassed, anyone who accepts you, it’s coz they are “oh so wonderful”. or so you think.
i had a boyfriend back then, and through out the course, while i changed, he was having issues handling that. he couldn’t accept me being different from the me he knew. the sobbing, depressive wreck that i was. so naturally, we have our arguments, our differences. and me being me, i wanted it to work out, and to work on it.
however, i started feeling a little something for 2 guys in the course at the same time. then again, you would too, one’s hot, the other seems so nice and sensitive. well both are nice and sensitive, but one of them was hot. the hot one was someone else, the not so hot guy was mark. but i knew the warnings, and i knew they were true. i mean, hell, i was wearing tube tops, tight short skirts with all my blubber oozing over, and yet these guys find me attractive!
and they didn’t care that i was the different me that they first knew.
they didn’t care either when i was dressed in a clown suit running mad on the mrt. mark even said i was beautiful. i was in 7th heaven.
mark and i got closer and closer. he had try and help me in parts of the course that i hated going thru: facing my fear of height. we went out for dinners, we went out on wannabe dates, often with someone though.
eventually came a day, while walking to the bus stops, i was holding his arm. now, i often like to hold people’s arms. guys or gals. i try to refrain from doing that when their obvious girlfriends are around if they are guys, that doesn’t mean i don’t do it though. i am a clingy bitch, and i have 0 sense of balance when i am walking.
anyways, so i was holding his arm. i am not quite sure what happened next, whether he swung me around or he swung himself into my face, but either ways, my “huh? what?” was smothered with a kiss from him, to which i returned it. and there we stood, kissing and smooching infront of marina square. then i broke it off. but the mood was changed.
i felt bad on the one hand. boyfriend at home, me down here kissing some other person. but i felt elated too. this guy who had seen me at my worst kissed me! although we held hands, i still felt bad along the way.
the next few weeks, he had call me out for curry dinners at serangoon somewhere. when we go clubbing, most of you know how i dance. some call it dirty dancing, i just call it dancing as you wish, and that’s exactly what i did. whether it turned him on or not, it didn’t matter 2 hoots to me. besides, the rest of our coursemates were there.
i made it clear to him though, i wasn’t sure we should carry forward whatever we were doing. after all, i said it was an emotionally charged period of time in my life. i was having fun, i had a boyfriend whom i do stil cared for. it was a mistake, and i will think about him and me again at a later period of time.
that never happened. we drifted apart midway through the course, partly because i wanna make sure of my feelings. i mean ffs, i had a boyfriend, what was i thinking!?!? but the other part was, i wanna see how he is out side of the course too, and outside of interactions with me.
midway thru the course, he stopped turning up. people turned to me knowing we were close, but didn’t really think of what was happening between us. it turned out he owed people money and didn’t wana turn up to face them. he had money responsibility issues, and didn’t wana face them.
at any rate, he came back later on, supposedly a changed person and aiming to change further to be a better, more responsible person, but that’s his story to tell, not mine. midway through the 2nd part of the course, i came here. our contact went from barely there to none at all. and that was the end.
he was on my msn list, and i believe i am on his too, but we never really talked till about 2 weeks ago or so. he suddenly messaged me to say he’s together with my friend. and they might get married! they needed to know my timetable to be able to arrange a proper ROM coz she wants me to be there as a witness.
and they only knew each other for 2 weeks. but they both felt that they “clicked”.
ok fine.
i am not going to go further into detail what was happening other than what he said to her about US.
she asked me what i think of him, and i told her what happened plus what i knew. he’s a nice and sweet guy, but this and that happened.
and she started cussing and swearing. so i was like O.o what are u cussing about?
HE told her that I was the one asking for kisses, asking for dates. that I WANA BE WITH HIM, but HE didn’t want it coz HE just wanna be friends.
yo
you wannabe with me too you know?
and what makes you think she’s going to believe you over me? wei… i have been her friend since we were NINE. you only knew me from 3 years ago, and never kept in contact. true, me and renee barely kept contact through out our friendships. but we have this thing with each other called friendship.
why lie to her? did you think that FRIENDS don’t talk to each other? did you think i was going to keep mum if she ever asks? i treasure my friends, i wanna make sure that they would be happy, i leave the dossier there for them to make the choices.
the thing is, to your detriment, i spoke first in that convo about us, so she knows it wasn’t a retaliation. she knows i have jake, and GOD, do i love jake. so there’s no need to steal you away from her, she can have you perfectly fine, because i was over you a long long time ago.
so what else lies between retaliation and trying to steal you from her?
the truth.
so mark, you are a nice guy. you can be sweet. MONEY can be earnt. it’s called a job. not a rich wife. or a rich friend. or someone who knows rich people.
it’s called YOU. i thought we settled this money issue for you eons ago. what happened to “i am a responsible man”? it died somewhere in the last 3 years? yes i know rich and influential people, yes i am close friends with tonnes of them, sorry i don’t use their money. that’s why i am still shit poor, jobless and still struggling with my studies.
renee has her inheritance. it’s hers to call her own. not yours. not mine.
so let’s get the story straight. YOU AND I liked each other at some point in time, unless you kissed me for some weird retarded reason. you CHEATED on your ex gf and eventually chose renee over her because… she’s richer? perhaps. i can’t find an explanation for that, after all in 2 weeks of knowing each other, you guys actually wanted to marry AND got a gown. AND she has been spending 2k in the last 3 weeks just on the high living that you wanted.
and you can’t even tell her the truth about us. if you are really not into me now, or back then, you would have said at least that we kissed. and that you inititated it.
lies my friends, have a way of finding the truths themselves.
W00T!!!!
yay!! the first time i tried to deviate from a recipe and it somehow succeeded beautifully!!!!
and goddamn spicy too! :X wish the prawns were fresher though, then it be spicy and nice succulent, powdery prawn meat!! w00t!
i am crying in happiness as i savour my work of art.. (by the way, after cooking i realised that i used ingredients meant for 1kg worth of prawns… this is only like 200g :X thus i guess, too much chilli ahaha)
racism and more
ok i know the title is on racism again, but i have a couple of things to whine about that before i move on to more interesting stuff.
so there i was rushing to school to meet some people (yet again) and some punks walked past me on the other side of the road, hollering loudly that “FEMALE CHINKS SHOULD FUCK OFF!!!” and with his 2 other friends hooting and wooting at it going “FUCK OFF YOU STUPID FOB!!!” of course at the safe distance of 5 meters or so across the road, at a time where cars are zooming past, their balls remained safe. otherwise i would have kicked their nuts so hard, they had be squeaking still right now.
of course, they seriously thought i am a fob, or at least someone who don’t understand english. when i turned around and smiled at them, they were saying a sarcastic “BYE!! FOB!!!” to which i wave 2 fairly nice middle fingers, still smiling happily.
of course, i can still hear the screams of outrage “FUCK OFF YOU CUNT OF A CHINK!!!” yer yer… with the police station not very far off, i am not quite sure if i should tempt them to come after me with both the racist remarks and possible brutal beatings.
what fags.
then, just before i came back, i was trying to get an app form from KFC in civic, and was seated beside these 2 high schoolers. a ditsy squealing giggling blonde, and a trying-hard-to-show off brunette. both not very hot looking, but classy looking.
then again, everyone looks classy in checkered uniforms.
till they start talking anyways.
the boy called up a friend who was just right infront of me. brunette boy was just behind me in another row of tables.
brunette: yo did you just walk past me and didn’t say hi?
chinese boy : yer i am busy with a friend, sorry, didn’t really notice you
brunette: why didn’t you say hi?
chinese boy : i was busy sorry.
brunette: you are so rude!
chinese boy: i am sorry….
brunette: come over here.
chinese boy: i can’t, i am waiting for my order..
brunette: COME HERE.
chinese boy: i am with a friend.
brunette: I SAID COME HERE. RIGHT NOW. NO EXCUSES. COME HERE U SILLY FOB.
chinese boy walks over.
GEEZ. really. seriously.
W T F MATE?!?!?!?
at this point, i don’t know who to be pissed with. the boy for being a fag, or the chinese boy for being a submissive tool.
you know, in our genocide studies class last sem, we studied that there are 3 people involved in a genocidal case. the perpertrators, the victims, and the ONES WHO DOES NOTHING. altho i looked over and stared at the guy, which probably constitute as nothing, the rest of the adults nearby just behaved like nothing happened.
and then people wonder why the society seems to be NOT working towards a more harmonious relationship. duh. silence doesn’t equate harmony, nor breed it.
blah.
on to happy stuff!
IT’S SPRING!! dammit. well supposed to be spring, although at times, i wonder how long am i going to keep on shaking and trembling while i nap.
look at how pretty uni is, minus all that blur-ness… imagine all the sakuras in tokyo *_* so pretty…
until i walk to bruce hall anyways, then voila…
this reminds me of winter though.. hibernation, cold, companionship to keep the cold out…
FREE CONDOMS! oh yer…
talking about cold, remember i told you about the poor, the homeless and the free food for them?
i saw them again today, and thought it had be nice to put them here. frankly speaking, i am sorry about the picture quality, but these kind people and the poor souls that goes to them reminds me of the soup fairy in neopets.
you know, the one that gives out free food to the poor neopet owners *_*
and finally. for the last month or so, jake and gang have been raving about a new game called rfonline. i am more enthusiastic about zera though, but it seems it’s not even in korean beta. at any rate, someone finally managed to figure out the japan beta sign up list and informed a bunch of people. thus, alot of people signed up on it despite knowing 0 jap and unable to type in jap.
the characters seems blocky, and at the moment it’s pretty buggy. i have lost count how many times i crash, or got bugged out, but overall, music and scenary is great, i just don’t like how the characters seem so phat, even for an elf-like race.
the jap beta itself started yesterday, while the korean one was probably 4 months ago or something. when the servers finally went up, in a space of 2 minutes, the servers were flooded and, after finally fixing some lang pack problems, i finally got in, to find that i cant join the servers coz they were full. -.-
i am not quitting l2. just wana be one of those godly people who play beta while i still have the time.
^.^
perhaps time has ran out for me though. i walked by lotsa book shops today and realised, geez, eragon’s sequel is out, SNAPPED!
then, i found a new political magazine, SNAP!!!
so i have lotsa new stuff to read, yet again. weee…. cya!
VSU
although i am not in uni at the moment, i still have been reading and reading and doing other related retarded stuff such as walking out of my house and towards uni and get inundated by uni students.
for the past year or so, the buzz of the town was the VSU proposal that’s meant to be discussed, argued, and perhaps implemented. This new legislation opposes compulsory student union. as of now, every student pays gsf with their fees at the beginning of each semester. these fees goes right to the student union, to be paid for goods and services that might or might not be used by the fees paying students themselves.
the goods and services ranges from supposedly cheaper food, cheaper gym fees, toilet maintenance (thus legalising you stealing a toilet roll? :P), counsellors’ usage and even the various events that you might or might not go, or even heard of. the fees, most importantly, also goes to the students who are our representatives. the last treasurer i heard, earned 12k a year from just being a student association treasurer.
At this time of the year, when votings are going on, there are many students plying the streets, throwing brochures at any passing students, trying to chat us up and perhaps interest us to vote for them. so at this time of the year, despite being painfully NOT a student, i am constantly reminded how much i was a part of it.
people i know were approaching me and asking me to vote for them. in the past, i had kindly decline. i had only voted once, and nicely, the person won the position he wanted. As far as i know though, whether i encourage them or not, few people i know actually bothers to vote.
and part of our gsf were supposed to go into this entire election process.
and at this time of the year, you get to see why there was an compulsory student union suggestion, and now a proposed legislation for voluntary student unionism.
there are many arguments about this, and alot of them stems from this: a huge amount of local students here goes to uni and work to support themselves, their lifestyles AND to pay off hecs, a financial aid program.
There are many ways to take it FOR VSU. GSF was supposed to pay for certain stuff that would eventually help the entire student body, however subtle, however “in the background” and however unfair it might be. in some students’ opinions, they do not use much of any services, where else there are often those who uses more than, if not alot of the services, and yet everyone pays the same amount. it seems, we are paying for those we do not know, may never know, and who might be taking advantage of the system and the services for their own benefits, such as those who only seek out counsellors when they need an extension for their assignments due.
also, for some people, they felt that their own student associations are not transparent enough in terms of expenditure reporting. sure they may say “oh we only spent this amount on this, and that amount on that” but truly, how much is spent on certain events, and how much on others? we might not really know.
in the past few years since i have arrived, for example, we have went from 12cts/mb downloaded in college, down to 8cts/mb downloaded and it’s going back up next year to 10cts/mb, on the pretext of standardising the fees through out all colleges. as i understood though, uni itself pays about 2-3 cts per mb, and i believe so does the colleges. effectively, we are simply paying college for transferring the net usage to us. i still don’t see why it should had have been at 12 cts originally.
if our gsf were supposed to lower the costs significantly, may i point out with similar rental i can get a nice place somewhere cheap, quieter, perhaps with a good choice of a partner, and honestly, better net? how many times have our net crash since i arrive? and how many “virus threats” which they blame on students bringing it into the network?
further more, we had email accounts that were technically free, maintained by staffs within uni, again which just might be supported by our gsf and/or fees, but also is extremely laggy for those who try to access it outside of uni and can be faulty even at the best of times? remember, i was booted from uni despite NOT having received any probationary letters/emails that they claimed they did sent out.
i am not expecting everything to be perfect, neither am i saying that education should be free. it is unreasonable to expect such a thing because even the best of lecturers have a family to feed, himself to care for and bills to pay. even the best university has their own buildings to maintain.
VSU itself depends on the hope that if students wants it badly enough, and sees the good of it enough, they WILL pay for it whether VSU actually exists or not. it is true that no matter how much gsf we pay, food outside can be found cheaper, better, and more professionally cooked than the ones inside.
remember my writeup on burgie food and their excuse for poor food was mass production? now imagine that at the uni canteen. yer. it’s not all that bad at times though, but surely, 5.50 for a smoke salmon sandwich, i can get a better quality one, healthier version, more variety in the sandwich with awesome, succulent meat and so on, for 4.50. that’s right, a dollar less, fat ass sandwich with more vegies, better meat, less rotting smell.
and it’s not like having a student union makes our voice any more significant anyways. the text book discount still went. the uni fees still went up. $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ all the way. so going by that trend, it is likely that VSU legislation would be there to stay, whether we whine about it or not.
because at the end of the day, universities are a form of business. the government is a form of business. they work hand in hand and it helps the economy, it moves the country forward. the people down below here? i am no longer sure if they cared.
how does that translate to more money though? let’s put it this way, few students already liked the idea of paying for gsf, even voting. today, as i walked around the union watching people in pink waving other people down, i also see a huge bunch who had think it’s funny to loudly tell them to “fuck off!” because it’s a cool thing.
eventually, do you want to be paid to be standing there, in the rain, being told to fuck off? and the chances of you being paid would eventually dwindle, as fewer people pay for the student union. so soon, there won’t be a student union. or there would be a bare glimmer of it.
with less student union pressurising them, chances might be the shops would have more exhorbitant prices. we would have less “discount cards” that we usually get with our o-week bags.
and wait, when you REALLY need a counsellor, a doctor, or a law counsel, you might have to pay, or pay more than what you do pay now. as what i was told, whatever services you receive now, you would have to make an appointment and PAY. no more “i was stressed the fuck out, sorry i couldn’t come see you earlier. now can i have an extension back up letter from you ms. counsellor?”, no more “uni abused me, is there any way i can fight back legally?” for free. perhaps there are other avenues out there that one can turn to.
but where to seek them other than the one right where YOU belong and where people might understand understand you better?
as we grow old and get out to the working world, people start to understand less and less of the life as a student. the only person that best understand you, best represent you and best be your voice, is another student like you. not john howard, not the rest of the parliament, but another one of you. it’s true, they might be the least capable of people to appropriate money, some other fucker out there might be abusing the systems while using YOUR portion of the money.
but even if we make the choice to spend our money on the unions, would it be less likely to happen? where would you turn to, if uni no longer provides services to students at a lowered rate? food sucks, we can cook; people sucks, we can ignore.
but if we are to not have a student union, we might have to work more, to get the services we want at market prices, and i think as students, working or not working, none of us can afford to really spend more money outside of what we do spend already on a student lifestyle.
if student unionism do stay though, what the present batch of wannabe student politicians should work for is to regain confidence. they voted for you, now get their confidence back enough to want VSU to stay away. better money appropriation? a louder voice? what does the student body want? would you know? how would you know?
because we are all students.
*note: of course gsf pays for more than that. they pay also for the sports and recreation, childcare in some universities, employment for both students and non-students alike for certain positions and whatever else you might have that you had walk by and miss.
i LOVE the nature here, really, but i honestly am not sure if i had like to walk around and look for my class amidst overgrown weeds or uncared for lawns that are bound to have snakes or some random wild animal that had bite me up.
or the weeds be tall enough to hide a rapist.
my point is, everyone wants to talk about THEIR money, and worried about spending more money on stuff they aren’t likely to use. so hey, think about this, there will be one day you might actually need the services. better safe than sorry eh?
the other side to it is this: you pay for taxes too. but you might not exactly like it that john howard is sitting up there lording over you. true, you pay for safety amenities that you do use, but at the same time i am sure there are other stuff you don’t use. same goes with uni. so why are you still paying taxes?
u can say “we don’t have a choice we will be arrested!! blah blah blah ladida…” but you can also set up a protest against it saying you will only pay for those you actually use. pay 1 dollar per km driven and so on, pay at the voting booth for the voting paper you use. in the end, seriously, you had end up paying more for the services you do use than if you had paid a one off fee.
same goes for uni. really. think about it.
disclaimer: i have no reason to support or be against VSU. i am an international student after all, and one that’s just booted from uni too. at this point. if i go home now, VSU is none of my business. even if i stay, after 3 years, it’s still none of my business. infact, i rarely, if at all, use any of the services in uni, save staying on campus and occassionally using the lecture theatres, the tutorial rooms and what not. oh, and i get taught as well, but those are school fees.
i just felt like saying my piece. yay, so i did.
a few places to read about it:
against VSU proposal:
UNE’s University Chaplain’s opinion
victoria university council’s press release on their VSU opinion
actually… i kinda lost the links to the “for VSU” stuff oops. there are forums on it but those are personal opinions which i am sure everyone can form on their own. so! have fun!
blow up!
some 10 years or so ago, i came back from school to see dad and sister playing mortal kombat on our sega, in an enthusiastic battle between wu kang (or something) and rayen (i think).
i sat down and join in the fun, for those were the days when dad ruled supreme and i wanted to beat him so bad.
then “pomp!” something loud seemed to have a smackdown inside the tv, then, the screen fizzled. smoke came out of the back of the tv and some bad smell emitted.
“turn off the tv!!” dad yelled, but it was too late another “poof!” and the tv was smoking AND firing.
we threw water on it to cool it all off, and dad admitted to playing it for the entire time i was at school, he was having his off day and sis was staying at home for some reason i can’t remember now.
for days and days after that, our dear toshiba tv was giving us it’s cremated smells as if telling us it hated us.
fast forward to year 2005. i rarely turn off my pc now because there never is a real need to. my laptop had switch itself off anytime 2 mins after i booted it up, but my pc stays up.
so after talking for abit to smoke and boyfriend, voila, i smelt something.
“uhm hunny, i think my pc is burning”
“uh what?”
“something is burning!!!”
so here i sit under my table, with no screw drivers that i know where it’s placed, linxy dead to the world and a possibly burnt pc box and a nice white ibook typing this away.
i don’t know what’s wrong with it, not that it matters much to me, but it’s still annoying. oh wells, if it’s burnt, i will auction off the good parts or something and use the money to pay rent.
tell me, can anything more go bad ?
ke xing.
my dad said i was to experience bad luck for 4 years or something before i came.
INDEED! stupid pc.
