You are currently browsing the monthly archive for April, 2006.
hehe i juz found the erm, friendly reminder to instill a sense of participation and involvement in voters a little erm, inspiring. yeah, inspiring, that’s it.
i’m losing my voice these few days, from too many tuition lessons. it’s the peak season for tuition classes, cos primary schools are having their exams. with two psle kids and one primary four streaming kid, you can imagine how nervous the parents are.
what i learnt in pricing was that we should maximise the earnings if possible. since demand is so great during the peak season (daily lessons for four consecutive days for one of the psle kids), and in order to cover the operational costs during non-peak seasons (school vacations), i should theoretically price my lessons based on the demand for them.
then weekends will be priced at premium prices, cos the opportunity costs are high, and cos demand is highest in the weekends. weekend morning lessons will bring in the highest rates per hour, cos it’s the weekend, and damn, it’s in the morning and i need to sleep, can? weekday afternoon classes will be priced lower than weekend classes, though higher than weekday night classes (non-existant for the time being) cos it ruins my plans for going shopping or getting anywhere. during the non-peak period, maybe i can do a “buy eight get one free!” promotion to encourage demand.
only then i would be able to buy a mini cooper sooner.
yeah right, i wish.
if i owned a cash register that’s what you would be hearing now. cos the money’s rolling in! and i’m so excited about the roaring success of my money-saving campaign, i’m afraid i’ll go on a crazy shopping spree and before i know it, i’ll be back to square one. especially since i’m making considerably expensive post-exam celebration plans.
cos by may, my bank account will finally be hitting an unprecedented level. it’s a phenomenon which was last seen when i was in primary school. yeah, i was richer and more sensible when i was a kid.
as a memorial to those days of poverty, i shall do a flashback of my financial status:
lower-primary days: i saved a hell lot in those days for a less-than-10-year-old kid. think my parents consolidated the cash savings and put it in the fixed deposit account. the money was later used for other more worthy purposes.
upper-primary days: i learnt the magic of spending more and thus bought more and better food during recess time. not to mention the occasional fancy stationery and kiddy stuff all primary school kids buy.
lower-secondary days: the true havoc was wreaked when i went out for not-so-cheap meals with my friends almost everyday. plus the spending on silly items that all secondary school girls buy.
upper-secondary days: didn’t bond so much with my classmates, but still spent a great deal on stationery and by then, my savings was depleted anyway.
junior-college days: life in ac isn’t cheap, with all the outings with friends etc. etc. those who hung out with me might remember the days of true poverty, when i had less than S$1 to spend everyday. just nice for a curry puff.
early university days: life got better, cos i had some income from tuition fees, though i stopped getting pocket money regularly since jc graduation. the unstable income supported my lifestyle well enough with few luxuries, though savings remained at a constant zero.
last semester in university: the bare timetable i had allowed me to take up more tuition assignments and thus, money was rolling in fast, though it rolled out pretty fast sometimes. the level of savings fluctuated more than the prices of oil. fortunately it’s rising like the price of oil now.
to correct any misunderstandings anyone might have from reading this post, nah i’m faaaaar from being a millionaire. i’ve only accumulated an amount equivalent to 1% of the price of a mini cooper plus COE.
yah i know i’m a little over-excited about this phenomenon.
it’s the beginning of a mini cooper ownership can?
yeah, this is the new theme of this mini-revamp in my blog.
cos as time went by my blog got more and more cluttered. so once in a while i feel like cleaning up the whole damn thing. just like how my stuff are strewn around in my room and when it hits my low threshold for untidiness, i behave like a crazed housewife cleaning and clearing every single thing in my room.
just now while i was vacuuming my blog template, this classmate msn-ed me. she was in the same class as me for my very very first tutorial, so theoretically we’ve known each other for three years. in these three years, we never ever spoke a word to each other. the only reason why she had my msn contact was because of the online collaboration tutorial task this semester, which required everyone in the group to exchange msn contacts. still, i had never ever msn-ed her.
turned out that she was just too bored. but i wasn’t exactly friendly, cos well, i don’t talk to strangers and i behave uber awkardly when i talk to people i don’t know. it’s funny what boredom can drive people to.
question: do you hear the squeaks?
i woke up this morning, thinking it’s a sunday today.
nice weather for sleeping in too.
too bad i can’t watch channel u. something’s wrong with the cables or what. meeeeh.
i’m so bored at home, there’s absolutely nothing to do. i’m too lazy to get out of the house, cos i have tuition later i don’t like to go out and enjoy myself for half a day, when i know the enjoyment will get cut off by the reality of having to head back to jw for tuition. most of the people i know who have ended their exams are out partying, while those who haven’t are stuck in school studying and have no time to entertain me.
sigh. no sun to bask in. what should i do now?
i’m still recovering from the exam shock i had a few hours ago. personally, i don’t understand people who can go out partying immediately exams. don’t they suffer from shock and depression? in the first place, i don’t understand people who can go out partying every other day. where the heck do they get their money and energy from? plus, don’t they ever feel that such partying gets boring after some time? of course, there’s a tinge of jealousy in me cos those partying people seems so happening.
back to exam shocks. this is probably the worst exam i ever had in ntu. before the exam i was such a wreck. my instructor saw me just before he went into the exam hall, and he very nicely asked me, “so, how is it?”
i gave him a typical singaporean student answer, “stressed.”
before he walked off, he told me, “nah, you’ll be fine.”
though that sounded quite assuring, i didn’t feel so assured when i saw the paper. it’s more or less screwed up. i seriously hope his prediction of me being fine comes true.
when i called the weiwei along the way home, she told me her laptop monitor has died. so she has to fix her screen, which wouldn’t be before next friday, cos that’s her last paper. so i wouldn’t be able to bug her, to entertain her, or to nag at her for the next one and a half week. meeeh.
and when i came home i had the shock of two huge tvs in the living room. cos somehow, the first tv sent yesterday from courts was faulty, so they had to deliver a second one. i reached home while mr-installer-in-a-bright-yellow-polo-shirt was setting the channels and my mum asked me to check with them some other stuff (cos my mum doesn’t speak english). so i did, in a state of shock and laziness. i was quite amused by the sight of myself lounging against the sofa like a king and asking them questions like i’m some high-authority person.
when the lights came on in my room, i had another shock. an active cockroach (those with twitching feelers always ready to fly) was poised on the wall at my bed, and my helpless pooh bears and nice clean pillows were in danger of being polluted by its evil aura. i whacked it with an old magazine, some of the magazine ink came off and is pretty much stuck on the wall, but the cockroach escaped.
to where, god knows.
i need to rest. too many shocks today.
and before i rest, it’s nice thinking about how nice people have been to me. my fyp mate msn-ed me yesterday, wishing me good luck for my paper. we were never close, cos fyp projects are not the perfect stuff to bond over and also cos we’re kind of different. so i was really touched when she remembered my last paper, when i don’t even remember telling them when it is. and when walking home, my group mates this semester nicely asked me if i wanted a ride home. being the anti-social being i am, i declined, cos i wasn’t in a sociable mood, though i was really happy they offered. at least they don’t hate me.
that’s right, everyone loves me, and i love myself.
now i can rest.
i have a trusty big-assed (yeah i know, there’s lots of big-assed stuff around) philips monitor which i love. i adore the colours coming from it, cos it’s shows rich and dark colours. until i noticed that everything is about two shades lighter on normal monitors.
i’ve adjusted the brightness and contrast levels to the maximum, and there’s nothing else i can do. it irks me to see my own blog on other monitors, cos all the colours seem washed out or overexposed. believe me, the cookies on the right column look like rich chocolate cookies baked to a yummy-looking colour, and the photos that i post look so much better on my own monitor. and i do try to lighten everything by two shades, but sometimes it’s just not possible, or i just forget.
someday when i’m rich i’ll get a flat-assed monitor with normal colours. i wish the school will have a write-off sale soon so that i can look out for any of those monitors. i know there should be some cos they changed the entire library’s collection of monitors. i hope i didn’t miss any write-off sales.
or maybe those flat-assed monitors’ prices will plunge soon.
i’m hoping, i am.
the new tv is coming today! wheeeeee!
it’s a kick-ass 42-inch lcd tv!! wheeeeeeee!
i feel so happy. i hope it arrives before i leave for tuition class.
i hope i spend the second half of the day preparing for tomorrow’s paper, not watching tv.
by the way, the attempt to quit that kid failed. a miserable operation failure. i hate talking to grown-ups. instead of sounding like a professional tutor who thinks that the kid might perform better under another tutor, the parent made it sound like she’s coaxing a child throwing tantrums (me) into resuming lessons.
dunno why, but there’s a lingering pain in my back, near the tailbone. and i haven’t been falling down or anything like that.
my bank account hurts too. i just gave a month’s notice to the tuition kid. don’t know how things will turn out in the end, cos i told her i’m quitting after her exams, she replied me with a “Y” and i told her why. since then she hasn’t replied.
my sms to weiwei during lunch:
me: “i can’t believe this. there’s this china man who plonked himself at my table w/o asking despite me staring at him n he’s eating messily and noisily. now his colleagues have joined him! i’m surrounded by a whole lot o them n i look like i’m eating with my uncles and aunties….”
yes, that’s what exactly happened to me. before anyone accuses me of being “racist” or xenophobic, the real reason why i was so freaked out was cos this man, regardless of race or nationality, sat down without even checking with me if i minded, or if i have friends who will be joining me at the table. note that there were empty tables around, so i really don’t know what was going on in his mind, unless my table had exceptionally good fengshui.
and i have a relatively low tolerance for messy and noisy eaters. this man, together with his colleagues (both male and female) were slurping and sloshing their food. they chattered on and on while eating at an incredible speed, smothering me in a top-volume conversation which i didn’t want to listen to. all these while i was still wondering how a country could have a 20% real growth rate.
all i wanted was a peaceful day of mugging, but ouch.
am feeling hopelessly bored. too much reading done, perhaps. plus a twice-daily headache.
haven’t replied the tuition kid who wasn’t at home when i turned up outside her flat for lesson yesterday. she didn’t reply me within the ten minutes when i was standing outside her door waiting for her, so i left.
in the following one and a half hours, she gave me more than twenty missed calls. but being the stubborn person i am, i didn’t answer her calls. cos i was on the verge of screaming after two lessons and being in a situation like that didn’t cheer me up entirely. so i knew i was in danger of spouting some vulgarities at her if i had answered her calls.
after calling twenty times, she messaged me to request for a timing later in the afternoon. too bad. i was in a bad mood and i wasn’t gonna walk to and fro jurong west like some fool when i wasn’t at fault in the first place.
she messaged me later in the night to apologise (finally) but i still haven’t replied her till now. she asked me if i were angry, and i felt like
“YOU TRY WAITING FOR SOMEONE OUTSIDE HER DOOR AND SHE DOESN’T EVEN REPLY YOU! AND IT’S NOT EVEN THE FIRST TIME HAPPENING! THROW IN YOUR KIND OF ATTITUDE AND SEE WHETHER YOU ANGRY OR NOT! “
eeeeek. i’m really considering quitting this kid, cos she’s totally hopeless. not only her grades are bad, i wouldn’t mind putting in more effort teaching her if she’s just a slow-learner. but on top of that, she’s lazy and doesn’t concentrate on her work. i have maybe a month or so to decide, after her term exams and enough time for another tutor to start her psle preparations earlier.
meeeeh. i hate telling parents i want to quit.
don’t like talking to grown-ups.
for a while, i really thought that i’m gonna have a chin.
in chronological order, these pictures were taken last december, post cny (check out the bright pearlies!), term break and yesterday. so scary that the jacket on my head looked so much better, covering my head and making it look smaller.seems that post-fyp days have proved to be too good. the chin-less days have returned. for the time being, i’m avoiding phototaking a little more than usual.
dark days, dark days.
quite pretty hor?
it was a carpet of white, white flowers on green, green grass. in the gray, gray school compounds.
there were a number of trees like this, but they were all pink, and they didn’t form such a thick carpet of flowers.
so there, this is the champion of flowering trees.
haha studying with the weiwei has never been boring! and she lets me make all the noise i want to, like ding ding dong, ding ding dong. when she bravely shhh-ed people in lwn library for talking at the next table. she tolerates me. wahahaha.
who needs to sleep when i’ve got such an entertaining study-mate?
simply love rule no. 7, 10 and 11. classic ntu stuff.
yeah lastly, to weiwei, though you have a record number of unglam moments, i’m proud of you cos you can draw kick-ass-looking graphs!!! and thank you very very very muchie for the mcdonald’s breakfast!!
my new boss sits upon the cpu. it is staring at me while i attempt to read the many country reports before the paper.
never mind the silly-looking ribbon it is wearing. it has fierce owl eyes.
they say that the authority of one can be seen from the chair he or she is sitting on. my boss sits on those big-boss chair leh, while i’m perched on a cheap office-lobby chair.
and what they say about angles are true. a person positioned in a higher place radiates authority.
i’m terrified of my boss.
the gals and i went into a retreat in preparation for our core paper. we ended up eating lots of meat, some butterhead veggies, baby carrots, a tub of ben n jerry’s, hershey’s chocolates and a canister of chips. yeah, the meal was a little extreme.
the ground we covered for the paper? that ian is out to kill everyone of us, that half an hour per question just isn’t sufficient and yeah, there’s lots of countries that we need to read up on. within one hour of discussion we were all sprawled on the ground.
there.
but we managed to watch a couple of movies - a very old hk movie, the andy lau muscleman movie, and 13 going on 30. man, jennifer garner was so damn funny.
this sounds really effective in improving eyesight naturally.
maybe i should give it a try.
i visited the home of a retired chinese teacher on sunday together with my parents. he was lamenting about the cheek of students nowadays, cos he had placed his hand on the arm of a male student, asking the student if he needed any help with his work. the student pushed his hand away rudely and told him, “don’t touch me!”
i’m glad my tuition kids are not so rude, but then sometimes i sit there wanting to strangle them.
the first kid today has smartened up and knew that if she finished the questions i posed her too soon, she would end up with more work. so she chattered and chattered and chattered throughout the 2 hour lesson. then she made me go to her kitchen with her to get some food cos she was hungry, there was a heavy storm, she once dreamt of seeing a ghost in her kitchen, and there wasn’t anyone else at home. yes, i went to the kitchen with her.
the second kid today did a triple-insult today. first he laughed at my face when i took off my glasses to rub my eyes, calling my face a basketball. then he laughed at my hair which was standing up cos the fan was blowing up at my hair from the ground behind me. finally he laughed my height cos he has been growing like free one in the past year i’ve been teaching him.
luckily the kids are still damn scared when i get angry.
they have been testing the water and though i’m relatively lenient with them as long as the meet my expectations, i’m having more and more trouble getting them to toe the line. a black face works, though i think it might not be as effective soon.
damn, kids nowadays are uber difficult to manage. lucky for me i only have 5 more months to go before i retire from the tutoring scene.
since a year ago i’ve trained myself to divert my route to avoid all loitering folks decorated with a distinctive red neck-strap. these people look nice and friendly, and when you walk by them, they give you a quick glance from head to toe to decide if they should talk to you.
from personal experience, if you are dressed in anything like smart casual stuff, they will hound you. if you really want to avoid them at all costs, wear stuff like shorts or denim skirts with old t-shirts and yah, cheap sandals.
in the past when they just started out on these activities they wore red neckstraps that had the name of their company - prudential, on it. now that frequently-targeted people like me are avoiding me, they have changed to plain red neck straps.
just now on my way home i met one. not that i didn’t try to avoid him. but i was hoping to catch that bus and if i diverted my route i’ll walk into a wall. i wanted to give him my standard response “nah, i don’t have time.”
but before i could, he asked “did you just alight from 181?”
i went, “HUH?” he repeated his question and i told him no.
then he asked, “did you just come from jurong point?”
again i went “HUH?” and gave him a weird look and a ‘no’ when he repeated his question.
i should have known it.
he whipped out his clipboard and asked for my help in filling out a survey, innocently titled “lifestyle questionnaire”. since i was stuck i might as well answer those questions and walk off.
then he talked and talked and talked and talked. i told him honestly i’m not interested in such savings schemes they have been selling to me for the past two years. he went on to ask me why and i gave my standard answers.
on seeing that he was losing a potential customer he made more small talk and suddenly, “wow, you’ve got dimples! nice!”
i was stunned by how lame an attempt it was at flattering potential customers and gave him a very cold “yeah.”
final straw was when he asked me again how come i’m not interested in those savings schemes.
taking a deep breath, i told him, “if you really want a honest answer, it’s because i’m freaking pissed with prudential for parking you salesmen…” *rolls eye “i mean financial advisors around this area hounding people whenever you can about these schemes. if i really want to sign up, i would have and it doesn’t matter how many times you want to try convincing me. if i’m not interested, i’m not.”
he gave a smile and told me to try and understand his job, he doesn’t really like standing around at the interchange at 7.30pm when he could be at home watching tv too. he doesn’t really benefit from my savings scheme but in fact only increases his own workload when he does the admin work for signing me up, which he describes as “troublesome”. plus he doesn’t really earn my money when he signs me up, his commission is given by his company, not from my monthly savings to be handed over to his company.
that told me he is dumb and i decided not to argue with him anymore. cos well, that’s his job and if he doesn’t like it, he can jolly well quit and not torture me or himself. and by understanding his job doesn’t mean i have to waste my time standing there while he makes small talk and tries to convince me for the ten millionth time how i should sign up with that savings plan. if he finds admin work troublesome then go find another job that releases him from that. and lastly, where does he think his commission really come from? his company prints money?
so i gave him an equally friendly smile and said, “nah, not interested. not in the past, not now, not in the near future.”
i think i’ve mastered the skill of smiling while talking in a chilling tone a little too well, cos he looked nervous by the cutting look i gave him after the smile and scooted off with a bye.
seriously if prudential can’t think of anything better than parking their financial advisors at boon lay interchange so often, obstructing the general population from going after their buses or a peaceful walk home, they really gotta rethink their strategy. i swore that i will never sign up a savings scheme with those roadside people, who sometimes refuse to admit that they are from prudential when approaching me. they claim to be “just” filling out surveys and are not trying to sell me insurance and such.
the last thing i would ever do is to park my money, whatever little amount there is, with someone who can’t even answer me honestly when i ask them if they’re from prudential.
and this incident today has allowed me to redefine the word “stupid”. now it includes people who irritate me, and this very financial advisor belongs to the “stupid” category too. just like his company.
i want to find free hosting for audio clips but i can’t find any.
i want to do a lot of other things but i’m sleepy.
i want to sleep in tomorrow morning but i have tuition lessons tomorrow.
a sleepy me is a grouchy me.
ROAAAARRRRR!!
p.s. : she is a stupid bimbo indeed. easily satisfied with food and material comfort.
the weather is oh-so-perfect for sleeping, but i don’t feel sleepy.
darn.
just discovered the group report i did was graded an A-. eeeek. i’m not satisfied, cos A- is below my expectations! plus the instructor told us that he grades leniently for projects cos he’ll kill us all in the final paper. of course our project was sooooooo simple compared to other groups so we do deserve our grade. i’m just pissed with myself lah.
yes i feel like THE geek, but an A- just isn’t enough!
it disgusts me that such people want to be leaders of communities.
pleading guilty because:
“I had chosen to plead guilty because I don’t have the luxury of time to go for the trial and I don’t want to spend a lot in the legal expense. I’ll rather save this money to use it for the election deposit and election expenses”
without even admitting that he was in the wrong and had caused the injuries of an innocent party due to his impatience and inconsideration.i’d expect leaders to be at least honest and considerate. not calculating the worth of each action in terms of benefits and monetary costs. why plead guilty when he is not ready to repent? it’s just a loophole in the legal system to allow these people to get away with lighter punishments and it shows the ugly hypocrisy of some people.
it’s really disgusting.
i like haircuts. it means i look more presentable, and my head always weighs so much lighter after a refreshing haircut.
thanks to my bro now i have a regular stylist, not in those unaffordable salons, but in a very-affordable place which frees him from rent - his home. so he passes the costs savings to customers like me! wheeee!
yesterday when i went for the cut i chose to sit at his dining area, cos his sofa belongs to the minimalist kind, and it’s not so comfy. being hospitable, he invited us to sit at the sofa while we waited, so we could have a better view of the tv.
amused, i told him, “wah your tv very big lah, don’t need to sit so near also can see, don’t worry.”
later when he was blowing my hair, he asked “do you grow your hair after washing?”
or so i thought. he mumbles, i’m deaf, and the hairdryer was noisy.
“DO I WHAT?”
“do you grow your hair after washing?”
stunned silence.
“do i GROW my hair?”
he nodded.
two seconds after that stupid exclaimation i made and figured out what he was asking.
“OH! do i BLOW my hair?”
chuckled to myself while he gave me a funny look.
i think that’s my only gripe. i can’t hear what he says and therefore cannot manage intelligent conversations.
let’s take a break, it’s easter day eve!
i need to hypnotise myself before my haircut tomorrow.
shall not chop off everything. shall not chop off everything. shall not chop off everything.
for the unenlightened, i am trying to keep my hair long till convocation, cos i can predict myself looking like a butch if i have spiky hair under the mortar cap and the gown. therefore i need some long hair to look *ahem feminine.
to meet this goal i haven’t had a haircut since pre-cny and i’ve been living in agony, cos i miss my spikes and long hair is freaking irritating. i had to use two hair-ties and four clips to keep my hair away from my face and neck on hot days. and long hair is prone to hairloss.
thank goodness mf will be going for the haircut with me, i shall ask her to remind me of the need to keep long hair.
for tomorrow’s haircut, i aim to look less like a dog with shaggy hair, to get a nice fringe and yeah, chop off two inches at the most.
i think weiwei will be disgusted with me for getting a haircut during this critical period in our academic lives. this woman got her revenge, the tables are turned. instead of me nagging at her every single day to do her tutorials, she has been hounding me to study. she called me twice this morning, to wake me up on such perfect weather so that i can be tortured by books. the real reason being she is jealous that i am sleeping in my warm bed and she is mugging in lwn.
weather’s so nice i feel like cancelling my tuition classes and take a nice long afternoon nap.
was studying with a friend, who told me she’s starting work on 3rd july.
for a split second, it really hit me hard. yes, people out there have got their jobs, they know when’s their first day of work. and here i am, not knowing which is the next step i should take.
prior to entering ntu, i was glad that i took up a three-year course, cos i’d have one year less of school. and i bet most people think this way too. in fact, i was thankful for the three-year course, instead of a four, until attachment.
i finally saw that school is the safest place to be. with people that i know, with people who wouldn’t back-stab me, where i can afford to make mistakes.
at this point i don’t know if this will spell the end of my education, i have no concrete plans beyond graduation. i have zero confidence in either route available for me and i seriously don’t know how things would turn out. i want to do what i think i will like best, but i don’t trust myself. there’s too many questions, too many doubts.
just keep your fingers crossed for me, that things would turn out fine and the chosen road will be smooth.
first day of mugging, and i’m already behind schedule. bloody hell.
of course, i did a number of things besides attempting to read my textbook - cleaning the bathroom, clearing up the room and the thick layer of dust on everything in the room, mopping the floor and keeping track of many other things on email.
all of the above, being necessary actions, cos once i get into the groove of mugging, i don’t think i’ll be in the mood to clean. and i like to study in clean environments, though it gets dirty steadily until post-exams.
and gosh, i didn’t know emails could keep anyone so busy, despite the convenience it brings.
now i’m anxiously awaiting an important email, which would decide how i should plan my post-graduation routes.
damn it, i should just be honest and say i like hanging out online. there, i’ve admitted it.
it’s gonna rain soon, should i just go to sleep? can’t bring myself to self-torture by studying when i know there’s three tuition classes tomorrow.
depressing thoughts, depressing thoughts.
seems that there is a lot to prepare for the final exams, despite my suspicions.
minus sundays and a day of rest on 19th april, the studying schedule is packed till the big day.
country reports, global news, familiarizing with economies, project reports, industry reports, nanotechnology research, textbooks and notes - all to be digested within the next three weeks.
wish me luck, people.
the battle begins.
apple is impressing the hell out of me.
as a pure business move to drastically increase profits i think their approach is ingenious. i mean, there’s so many people out there who like the design of apple products, but are just too stuck to windows. with this boot camp thingy, these consumers are freed to buy more and more apple products. man, i think their profits are so going to shoot up.
but then, apple has been relying heavily on their mac image and the strong cult following behind the brand. for some strange reasons passionate mac supporters hate microsoft to the core. i wonder what will this group of consumers think. guess they have no choice but to accept the changes that their cult leader has chosen to make.
maybe someday, their will be no wide gap between microsoft and apple. gosh, that’s kind of unthinkable. but at the rate apple is morphing, it might happen someday after all.
like i was telling fengyi and kx during lunch today, i cannot stand people who have brains but doesn’t even use their common sense. for guys, they will appear nonchalent and lazy. but for girls, it just makes them look bimbotic.
take for example this morning. my dad gave me a ride to school and along the way, i saw this girl standing along the roadside. nothing strange, except the location where she was standing. she was obviously waiting for a vechicle, and was standing casually along the one lane road at the gray signboard a few metres before the bus stop opposite the last 179 stop in ntu.
it was 8.20am, when that particular stretch of road is congested every morning. so by waiting for the vechicle to pick her up at that specific location, she was undeniably gonna cause a traffic jam and kana cursed by all the drivers like myself.
walk a few more steps to the bus stop and wait will kill her meh? it’ll bring about more convenience for the rest of the world lor.
later when i passed by i realised this very girl is my classmate, and i’ve always categorized her as one of those bimbos. man, this seriously doesn’t improve my impression of her. i suppose she has brains, really. it just irks me that she doesn’t even use her common sense in situations like that.
sad thing is, there’s so many others like her. and they all piss me off. usually i just tag them as stupid people.
i know, i’m cranky today. that’s why i’m blogging about stupid people. i can’t stand stupid people.
the domestic f&b manager has been serving up food less than satisfactory recently.ever since the opening of a new nasi-lemak and “economic” (wah, this is definitely uniquely singapore) beehoon after the cny period and my innocent utterance that the nasi-lemak is indeed palatable, she has been buying me the same food everytime she goes marketing. the same packet of nasi-lemak containing a slice of cucumber, a sunny-side-up, a chicken wing, peanuts and ikan bilis. without fail.
i once asked her how come she always buys me the same food for eons until i have a new craving, and she said it’s easier cos she doesn’t have to think what to buy for me.
and recently, her homecooked dishes have been very……strange. she throws whatever she sees in the fridge into the wok. a couple of days ago she dumped a carton of tofu which had been in the fridge for quite some time with sotongs. the combination was edible, but weird. and sometimes the combinations are even weirder. she just laughs it off when i accuse her of such crimes, or tell me to shut up and stop complaining, or i can cook for myself.
usually she says she doesn’t know what to cook, so just throw in anything lor.
and recently, there’s been more instant noodles, all-ingredients kwayteow/noodle soup and such.gosh, the f&b standards are deteriorating at an alarming speed.
this assoc prof from eee made a big-ass blunder. instead of forwarding this email to the undergraduate’s office, he sent it to the entire undergraduate population, with the message “For your advice to the student please”
the email:
“Dear Sir,
I am a student from EEE. The results for the first special term was out yesterday. I have not gotten any GE. I have currently done around two and a half years of studying in NTU. I am quite concerned about fulfilling the GE requirement. To date, I have not done any GE at all. Therefore, I am wondering if the school can help me or guide me in whatever way possible.
Thanks
Regards
……. “
man, if i had such a professor i don’t know if i can trust him with my personal requests. i wonder if the undergraduate population will itchy fingers and go spam the dude with advice on how to get GEs. after all, if he hadn’t done any GE at all in the past two and a half years, he’s quite a loser and need some solid advice. didn’t know there were such pathetic souls around. he has my sympathies.
i want i want i want!!! acccck! this is destroying my aim of becoming stingy! how can i ever become a millionaire?!
accccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccck!
i must remain calm! rational!
i would gladly travel to bras basah to get the blades and the glue that my aussie bro needs, while browsing in the bookstores over there which carry some gems occasionally.
but the weather’s too hot, and it’ll be halfway across the island on a train.
i know i need to get out more before i turn mouldy, but but but.
meeeh.
i wonder if they sell those special blades at popular bookstores. i wonder.
it’s such a luxury to stay at home for the entire day, doing some online shopping and stalking here and there.
as compared to yesterday, when we went on an intensive qing ming festival routine. for all those people who don’t go visiting their ancestors’ graves during the qing ming festival, yes, that’s what the chinese are supposed to do this time of the year.
but yesterday was a little more erm, eventful than usual.
i was supposed to repaint some red words on my grandfather’s grave, and an awful accident took place. i held the small can of red (read: bright red) paint in my right hand and a brush in my left. then a strong gust of wind blew and my hair was all over my face.
in an attempt to toss all the messy hair away from my face, i did it violently, forgetting that violent tosses results in huge arm movements.
the paint from the can spilt out in an amazing arc, landing on the grave behind my grandfather’s. maaaan, i felt sooooooo guilty. i mean, it isn’t so bad if i splashed paint on the gates of my neighbour or something, i can offer to clean it all up with thinner and repaint it.
but to splash red paint on somebody’s grave is so unrespectful and offending, i kept muttering my apologies to the erm, owner of the grave. plus, what would the family of the deceased think when they see that offending red paint on their loved one’s grave?
though i spent about 20 minutes scrubbing with strong detergent and a piece of rag, i didn’t manage to clean it up entirely, cos the paint kind of dried up a little and we didn’t have any paint-removing stuff with us. all i could do was to offer my apologies to the spirit resting beneath the grave who had its place of residence rudely vandalised by a person who just wanted to get the hair out of her face.
when we went to pay our respects to our granduncle later in the afternoon, we were all flabbergasted when we couldn’t find the urn containing his ashes. i mean, the urn had been there for the past twenty years and was placed more than two metres above the ground.
so we asked the attendant about it and he valiantly insisted that no, it wasn’t possible. after some checking and climbing up and down on a ladder, he found out that oh yeah, my granduncle’s urn was somehow relocated directly behind his original one and was thus completely blocked from view.
according to my dad the “new occupant’s” descendants had probably given the attendant a red packet to shift the positions of the urns. while shifting my granduncle’s urn to its original position, my sister and i were mumbling about how disrespectful it is to shift a deceased’s urns here and there, especially since the descendants had paid for that specific location for their family member’s ashes.
and the attendant talked about how dusty my granduncle’s urn was, didn’t we clean it? but hey, the urn is like up there, how the heck do we clean it? so he said we can actually “request” him to do it. bah. he just wanted an ang pao, which my dad gave him for the trouble of shifting the urn back to its original location, and to ensure that my granduncle enjoys the premium location overlooking the world outside. anyway, he seemed to be hinting that dusty urns meant that nobody visits them and thus it would be an ideal candidate for their corrupted activities.
while other typical families have an average of two graves to visit, my family visits a staggering eight graves - my four grandparents, my dad’s maternal grandparents, my grandaunt and my granduncle. yes, it is indeed a little extended and they’re situated in four different locations, but i wouldn’t mind, if the weather isn’t *ahem so hot.
when i was young i always thought it was normal for families to visit at least four ancestors’ graves if they do so every year. little did i know that my family seems to be the only one who has such eventful qing ming activities, and so far, nobody has broken out records for the highest number of graves visited each year.
no wonder the rest of the population who participates in such activites had the time to set up foldable tables, bring out tupperwares of beehoon and various food items for a standing-picnic at choa chu kang cemetery, no kidding.
sheesh.
i saw snaking queues at all the posb atms i passed by today. don’t know why nobody wants to credit the carrots into their uob accounts, only in their posb accounts. maybe posb is really the people’s bank.
and like many other kiasu singaporeans i’ve signed up for mine too. now i’ll get my money on may day. wheeee! yes, may day, not mayday.
funny thing was, i didn’t see the bright yellow buttons on the left of the screen.instead i clicked on the link “progress package” and was led to many other links, found one which said “sign up online”, and…..
*drumroll
“cannot find server”.
i only saw the mega buttons on the second attempt. i think i’m aversive to yellow, subconciously.
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