Monthly Archive

it’s 2.05am and i’m awake. why?

because there’s this very sincere landlord who sounds like she’s dying to rent the place to me. the place looks nice and new and clean, though i’ll be sharing bathrooms (ack!!). still, it might not be that bad. so i spent more than an hour checking up on the place and the additional expenses i might incur on top of rent.

did i mention that i might come back not only as a crazed international student (read: the ultimate geek), but also as a wise financial planner? with so many things to plan for and a limited budget, this one and a half year is gonna be one hell of an experience i think.

it’s been a long time since i sat down in front of the tv for the entire night. i’ve been out every single day meeting different people for different meals, or just rushing here and there preparing stuff for the “great experience”. sometimes i skip meals because i can’t be bothered to eat while rushing here and there.

my luggage is less than half packed i think and the next two and a half days are already filled. i might have to pack late after midnight.

the life of an international-student-to-be is a tragedy indeed.

i thank all who’s involved in approving my visa and all who prayed that it would get here soon.

it’s here.

haven’t felt this relieved for ages. funny thing is, this morning i dreamt that the department emailed me to inform me of the application being approved.

do i have sixth sense or something? that’s the third time i sensed something before it happened within a month.

in case i do not graduate with the master’s degree (TOUCH WOOD), i think i’ll do quite well as a fortune teller or something.

must go hone my prediction skills.

introducing to everyone, the final decision!

which i finally laid my hands on after visiting funan a few days ago. then sim lim, epicentre@suntec and epicentre@orchard yesterday.

i hate buying for computer stuff, cos there’s so many nitty gritty things. luckily my bro was there (main purpose cos i had to use his credit card) asking those small little questions.

i learnt that apple products use dvi instead of the vga thingy. so i have to get a dvi-vga adaptor in order to connect to regular projectors. he was asking the salesman about this and both of them turned to look at me, waiting to see if i wanted to buy the adaptor from apple. all i could manage was a HUH?

now i have to buy pretty little accessories for ally, so that she remains pretty and wouldn’t get disfigured.

i think i’m getting along with ally reasonably well, just that i haven’t introduced her to the wireless network at home. i tried, but i didn’t do a good introduction. thus they’re having a cold war. what’s the use of having a pretty little laptop but cut off from the internet?

bah.

i visited vivocity for the first time yesterday. before you exclaim in horror, let me explain why. it’s really because vivocity is rumoured to be totally packed on weekends and it’s kinda out of the way. i’ve been really lazy and anti-social, thus the late visit.

it wasn’t a pleasant first visit too, cos i got horribly lost while looking for a dbs atm. while trying to return to candy empire where the attachment mate was supposed to meet me.

there’s an obscene number of shops though, if i ever feel rich enough to shop for an entire afternoon. which wasn’t how i felt yesterday. so i left immediately after lunch with the attachment mate, in case i turned destructive. which is always the case when i’m out shopping alone.

instead i went to funan to check out laptops. and man, fate decrees that i shouldn’t have anything but a macbook. or at least it seems to be so for the time being. think it’ll take quite some time for me to get used to a new operating system if i really do get a macbook.

switching to mac after about 16 years of windows? sheesh, i sure hope i survive.

someone just kill me now and save me from all the trouble of:

a) deciding which laptop to buy

too many options! i think i know why i’m dying to buy a macbook. it’s cos there’s only three options for macbooks, and it’s freaking easy to make a decision.

b) looking for accommodation

gotta find one within budget and hopefully, near the school. and i am already settling for non-private bathrooms! arghhhh. think i’m gonna come back a totally crazed psychopath after 10 months of sharing a bathroom with a stranger.

c) worrying about when the visa stuff will be approved

it’s been 17 days since they received all the stuff and commenced processing of my application. now, i have good reason to believe it should be approved anytime soon, right?

d) random thinking tasks

where to eat multiple dinners, etc. etc.

e) packing the damn luggage

i haven’t started yet. i’m putting it off cos well, i’m still in denial mode. ten months’ worth of luggage, how to pack?! things i want to bring along, i can’t. things which i want to leave behind will follow me no matter where i go. yes, i’m talking about non-tangible items as well.

no wonder my parents are so damn worried about me flying there alone.all right, back to solving the above problems.

it was the call at 3am in the morning that started everything.

a call from a drunk friend, who was slurring so badly i couldn’t figure out what he was saying on the phone, except for a few words which didn’t mean anything at all. if he were a female friend, i would have given him a bear hug, cos the only sentence he managed to say clearly was full of pain and yet like a child who wanted something badly.

which led me to sleep at only 5.30am in the morning. and woke up at 9 am to make sure he didn’t die of depression overnight.

and thus i was very sleepy and cranky when meeting the msian.

which led to the decision to abandon the visit to vivocity. and we decided to visit the playground near my house to sit on the swings. and i wanted to walk there from jurong point. and she drank too much snapple. so halfway through we stopped at a coffeeshop for a toilet break and drinks.

and we were so sleepy, we headed home to get more sleep.

so i slept from 5pm to 10.30am. and my digestive system acted up again, thanks to the obscene lack of appetite i had yesterday.

now i’m stuck at home trying to figure out laptops. it’s freaking complicated. someone should just tell me what to buy so i can live a happier life.

blogger is getting on my nerves. i don’t really like some functions of the new blogger but i can’t revert to the old blogger. never mind about that, i kind of got over that. but now, their new templates are so hard to customize with all the widgets crap. what the hell am i supposed to do with those bloody things? midget widget - widget sounds pretty dumb anyway.

i’ve tried switching to wordpress cos it sounds quite ok. but congrats to myself! they can’t do imports for new blogger accounts.

bah.

and all i wanted was a new template cos i was getting bored of the previous one.

the weathermen say it might not rain so much this week, despite them saying it might rain a lot for this week and next. don’t know if the weather’s being freaking unpredictable or it’s just them. anyway, i’m keeping my fingers crossed this good weather keeps up! otherwise there’ll be no jb-supper.

i heard my sister found $150 cash lying around on her bed this week. no one is claiming the money. man, how come such things don’t happen to me? i’m the one in desperate need of moolah, not her! life’s unfair.

it’s a little scary. the only surviving computer in the house is showing signs of misbehaviour.

what if it dies?! then i’ll be computer-less for the rest of my life!!! nooooooooooooooo!

*did i mention qantas has bad customer service? really bad……

i remember i liked swings when i was a kid. it was the best part of the playground, cos i found all other things stupid.

the screeching sounds of the metal chains rubbing against the metal frame, the quick rush of the wind against my face, the thrilling rise and fall - all those were such delicious moments.

we used to visit this park with a couple of swings there so i didn’t have to fight with my brothers and sister for a turn on it. i liked the swings there pretty much.

i haven’t sat on one for a long time, and i do want to do so soon. i wonder if it will feel the same.

went to attend the pre-departure seminar yesterday, and i regretted doing so. cos they didn’t really provide a lot of super-duper useful info. except for the vodafone sim card they gave out with $30 credit in it. guess that will come into handy.

i fled the minute they mentioned “ice-breaking session” cos for the past six years, i’ve been avoiding ice-breaking stuff religiously. i’d worm my way out using all kinds of methods and excuses. yesterday, i just exited, mumbling some excuses.

the neighbour-in-black was chiding me and asking how i was gonna to zao class if i have no friends there. but then those people at the pre-departure seminar were mostly undergrads anyway, and lots of rich, pampered kids bringing along their parents, so i didn’t really feel like socialising with them.

and i felt feverish halfway through the seminar. the kind of feverish where a hot surge ran through the whole body and i knew i looked lobster red. it must have been the in-and-out of rain and air-con rooms for the entire day.

yeah, i know. i’m anti-social. i’ll find new friends, slowly.

time was much better spent with the msian and her sista. even though it was in jurong point.

i think there’s this built-in device within me that leads me to screw up every now and then.

i just screwed up some stuff again.

but at least i’ve become smarter from this. or so i think.

*mumbles mustlearnhowtoreadfineprintmustlearnhowtoreadfineprint.

oh yes, i’m on a tight budget, everyone. so please limit all dinners to budget ones. or i’ll have to fly to australia penniless. i’m almost penniless already.

i’m swearing off ex-office gossip. so that i don’t experience withdrawal symptoms when i’m over there all alone, and so that those gossips stop hounding me for fresh updates, as if i’m still sitting at the office desk everyday.

the world’s gone crazy.

i’ve got a place to live in when i touch down in canberra, but it’s only for a week.

which means i have to arrange for permanent accommodation within that week, or i’m dead meat. it’s a pain in the ass that arranging for housing isn’t anything like online shopping. i can browse through all the potential flats and rooms etc, etc, but it’s impossible to place a deposit on anything across the oceans. i’d gladly do that, even though it’s not a 100% foolproof plan. but at least it calms me down when i know i’ve got a place to live in for a year.

the potential place i’m looking at is like, 10km from school. how long does it take to cycle 10km? 10km is like one-third or one-quarter across singapore, right? that sounds pretty far.

some stupid insurance agent of my dad’s came over to the house to visit him in the afternoon, and that woman must be damn used to ordering her subordinates around. either that or they’ve got a lot of admin girls in the office. i went to the living room where they were all talking upon my mum’s shouts, and that insurance agent had the cheek to pass me a set of documents and said to me, “can you make a copy of this for me?”

bloody hell, i’m her maid ah?! couldn’t she be a little more polite and said please?

i don’t like those kind of people. ack.

i went for a free dinner and drink session with the neighbour-in-black and my admin head on friday and sheesh, they’re mad. the neighbour-in-black’s dinner unglam moments were more frequent and funnier than the super-unglam seahyiyi.

especially my admin head. even though she’s only 30 this year, she’s already a mum with two young daughters. yet, she could stay out with us, yakking and yakking away like she’s still single. in fact, i was the one who had to declare end of session at 2.30am. and both of them were so dumb and slow when it came to “coincidences” and gossip, that i nearly died laughing at them. sometimes i seriously wonder if i’m too much of a gossip or they’re just lousy.

it was fortunate for me to have reached home just slightleeeey earlier than my dad, or i’d be a lump of dead meat typing this entry now.

you know how i’ve always hated blogs without a “point”? or anything without character, or anything that is so freaking abstract or vague, no one understands anything.

it’s funny how my blog doesn’t have any point too. nor character. it’s just here for me to record down what i do every other day?

uh oh.

meanwhile, i’m pulling my hair from the roots trying to get everything done in time.

it’s thirty-one days to departure, out of which twenty-one are working days.

this sudden realisation stressed me out so much, i’ve been spending the bulk of my time catching up with the applications and stuff. time is so tight, i was listing everything down mentally (or so i thought) while walking along the streets and i realised belatedly i was mumbling to myself. audible to passers-by. it was just that i was listening to my mp3 player and couldn’t hear myself.

yes i got quite a few weird stares, the kind you reserve for strange old men gesticulating to the air molecules around them.

now, i’m one of those.

spent the last days of 2006 and the first few days of 2007 being hungry.

went to watch charlotte’s web on 30th and was happily filled with popcorn and coke. i know i was supposed to feel sad and get all teary when charlotte announced that she wouldn’t be going back to the barn with wilbur - but i couldn’t help laughing. cos wilbur went, “what are you talking about?” in the american way that wenwen always mimicked in those good old days.

was supposed to go to msia over the weekend (again), but i accidentally starved myself a little and the digestive system went a little wild. had to give the trip a miss, and i’ve been living on a mix of terrible outside food and rice dumplings since. never am i going to buy porridge from the kopitiam near my house again. at the end of it, it taste like msg porridge. sheesh. luckily mf and pupu came in the last few hours of 2006 to gorge on pizza along with me. as for the rice dumplings, my mum made some cos my aussie bro hasn’t had any homemade ones for two years. it’s amazing how he has been living on them for the past few days, having them for almost every meal.

i spent half of the first day in 2007 making this ribbons-and-laces thing for my handphone. i know it’s not me to have this on my handphone, but i had to revamp the ugly pink chinese knot thing and yet keep the pink crystals. maybe i’ll think of something else. i can’t stand this thing hanging on my phone too.

and these are the bits and pieces of 2006.

decision of the year: heading for aussie to do the postgrad course. guess it’s a life-changing (no kidding) moment.

events of the year: convocation and the bro’s engagement.

discoveries of the year: contact lenses and *coughmascaracoughcough.

crap of the year: the design course being screwed up (it still bloody hell hurts when i think of it)

best moments of the year: going back to the usual company for the admin stint. thoroughly enjoyed myself, so much that the nag and the backstabber can be blisfully ignored. knew so many more great people i’m gonna miss.

maybe it’s because i’ve spent half of the year working at the company, that 2006 feels pretty empty. empty in the sense that there seems so few highlights and there was no space for unforgettable events. plus the fact that people around me are busy with either work or fyp.

i’m gonna keep my fingers crossed that everything works out for everyone in 2007, school, work, etc. etc.

here’s to a better 2007!