My Fingernails Are Exam-Ready

But the rest of me is not.

In any case, the battle has begun...

Extra-Ordinary Day

Today was a normal day. A very normal day. But somehow, the little things that happened around and to me made feel - and this is a rather rare event - very blessed indeed, on so many different levels.

It first started with an sms my dad - yes my dad! an unusual phenomenon in itself, haha - telling me tell managed to squeeze the hotel we're booking for Thanklian - oh, how on earth did I manage that typo? - Thailand a few hundred baht more on the room rate - a trifling S$15 in total, but the fact that he went to the trouble to get it means so much more. I gave him a big grin when he came back home today, my way of saying "thank you" to him, even know he doesn't know it. Daddy's the best.

I went home soaking in the sights today, stopping a bit to look for a bird in the tree singing its song, stooping to give a kitty cat a few pats on the head, just enjoying being in the here and now. I just felt this simple contentment in being where I am now. Maybe it's the fact that I'm studying for my finals - in the true sense of the word - now.

But in any case, as I was walking to the MRT station to meet Ching for her to pass me something (that she did as a favour to me, to boot), my friend messaged me. Part of her message contained the sentence: "God bless yr studying!" I was so touched. The concept of God is real in the sense that he is manifested through people around us who care and show they care; through them this benevolent entity "exists". And that's enough for me, for now. Like Ching, who gave me some home-made mango pudding and herbal tea for me and my family, and the fact that she came down to meet me even though she was feeling a lil under the weather.

And finally, the icing on the cake I so relished: On my way back home from the station, from out of the blue, I started humming Chye's favourite song. I got to my block, opened the letter box - which was literally brimming in its excitement to see me (and get the load off its insides) - and saw, among the mountain of mail, a letter, in unmistakeable handwriting, from Chye. Now you busybodies, I shall not reveal to you its contents (no you didn't ask, but yes you'd like to know) but amazingly enough reference was made to that very same song.

Maybe it's telepathy?

Or maybe just the little miraculous coincidences of life?

Whatever the case is, today has been a most ordinary of days, yet, in a sense, it also has been the most extraordinary. And the most beautiful. Know what the best part is? With a bit of luck, I have my whole life ahead of me to enjoy such days.

Stardee Fast Food Restaurant: A Great Place to Mug!

Was having a conversation with Chye earlier today. Here's an anecdote that tickled me:

Me: i can't stay much longer, have to go stardee.
Him: Where is it?
Him: We have one Stardee fast food restaurant nearby too!
Me: huh?
Me: hahahahha
Me: I meant I was going to study!
Him: hahaha

hahaha.
Me and my unpredictable switches between proper-sounding English, and, typical of net-speak, the usage of novel re-formulations of the way words are spelt. Really, if I decide to be a prude, I ought to stick to it. That way it won't confuse people who're trying to have a decent conversation with me. But sometimes it's just fun-ner to take control over cultural tools. Rather post-modernist, no?

P/s I've changed the template of the blog in response to comments about how hard it is to read my entries. Not that I didn't already know that, but let's just say I've had a change of heart.

ETA: Darn, there goes my attempt at telling a joke. Turns out it's a Hardee Restaurant, no thanks to someone's delusional memory. But well, the jokes we could spin with that name...
(Let's try one on for size:
I am Hardee at home now that I've discovered the pleasures of Hardee Fastfood Restaurant! Boy, they sure give the best hard-ons...)

(Another) Postscript: Ah Chye got it wrong again. It's Hardee's, and the only reason I found out was 'cause of the saucy ad Paris Hilton did for them (www.spicyparis.com). All I can say is, well, they sure live up to their name.

Some Musings; A Statement

Inertia was preventing me from settling down to do my work, even though it's really quite urgent, so I visited a classmate's blog I hadn't gone to in a while. When I read it, it struck me, really struck me. So many thoughts were running through my head. He's an eloquent writer. Obviously, this guy really knows his stuff. He is passionate about his - our - major. Reading all the references he dropped about all that we've learnt the past four years, made me realise how little I'd absorbed. How superficially I know the concepts, ideas, arguments of the people I've been reading. It made me wonder, if I'd had enough passion for the subject, if I could be a bit more like him. To have a passion. Where is my passion?

His musings about the world as it is today really hit home too. Some of it reminded me of Mark, and the me when I was with him. Presently I feel really cynical about the world. Really callous. "Nothing I'll do is not going to change anything anyway, so why bother?" Sometimes I think I don't think. Just floating through life. I've just been taking the path the state carved out for me. And after this, what? Well, do what everyone does after this. Into the corporate world. And the thing is, I've been preparing myself for it so well, getting rid of my cognitive dissonance, it scares me. I don't care anymore. And I don't pretend to care. In the past, when I did at least pretend, I could still console myself that the internal struggle still continued. Where is it now?

And the way he wrote about his grandmother. She moved away; no wonder I keep hearing him talk to her on the phone. It put a smile on my face, the way he reminisced about the times he spent with her. When you see the tender side of a person, you'll never look at him quite the same way again. Awwww. It also made me wonder if I'd made any good, lasting ties with any of my family. I don't know how to express it, but it just made me feel so self-centered.

Unbelievable. All these stirrings-up in me just by reading this one guy's blog. If you're ever reading this, Wei, thanks. May I never want to aspire to sell my soul. Yes, I want to be "bourgeois", but may I never betray my values in order to get there.

Post-note: Reading this again just makes me feel embarrassed, but I'll keep it up for now (albeit with a slight edit) because it is a rather accurrate portraylal of how I felt at that point in time.

I Seem to Have an Affinity with Birds

Then again, this is Singapore, and I live in a high-rise building.

Anyway, this is how the story goes:
My brother came to loserly me, who, as usual, was seated on her bed in front of the computer, beckoning to me to come with him. His face had this "I have something really cool/interesting to show you" look on it, he seemed so amused. I thought my mum had fallen asleep on the couch in a funny position. But, as it turns out, that was not so. My mum was simply reading on the sofa in an odd position. But nevermind that. So he pointed to the window in his room, and there the little adolescent was, resting on his window sill. His - well, I don't know for sure, I just have a habit of assuming every living creature is male until proven otherwise (and every non-living thing as a "she": country, house, car etc. Go figure.) - parents had been scared off when by brother, upon hearing some noise from the window, turned from his laptop to take a look. The parents must've had the shock of their lives. They forgot to take their son - offspring - with them when they fled the creature whom, unbeknownst to them, couldn't eat them for dinner even if he'd wanted to, because he was separated from them by a sheet of glass.

So anyway, after talking about it for a bit, and marvelling at how, out of the myriad of tiny window sills in the neighbourhood, the three decided to take a breather at one of ours, we did the only thing all self-respecting Singaporeans would do: meld their love affair for fancy gadgets and gizmos with their penchant for kiasuism - and took a photo for remembrance. I joined in too (hey, I'm a self-respecting Singaporean too ok!). And this, my dear (not-so) hypothetical reader, is the result.

Gosh, how I pamper thee with boring stories about mundane affairs painted in a romanticized light.

(For those of you - very few, I know - who are interested in finding out how the story ended, well, it ended with the clumsy human (me) making a sudden movement, after having crept closer to the animal, and scaring the little thing off. He flew to a nearby block. Alright, the end.)

On the Bus Route to School

I smiled at a mynah today.
There he was, peering up at me from
Below when the double-decker pulled up alongside it.
He cocked his head up, his yellow-ringed eye
Looking at me inquiringly.
I gave him a plastic grin.
He cocked his head to the
Other side, and then, deciding
I was too plebeian for him,
Took flight into the dense foliage.


* * *

All these years in uni, and I've never really known the places I passed by every time I took the bus to school. One day, I ought to cycle past all the places on my bus route, and take in the sights. Before corporatism takes over my life.

With Love, There's No Making Up For Lost Time

With finite, measureable things you can. Like catching up with that module you were slacking off on the whole sem. It may take a whole lotta effort, but it can be done. You could also catch up with a tv series you had been too busy to follow. Sure, coz as long as you can find it, there are only so many episodes you'll have to sit through before being up to speed with what your friends know - supposing you'd want to do that in the first place, of course.

But, though we always say it, can we catch up with sleep?

Once that night has passed us by, that windowfor your skin to rejuvenate itself, for your liver to regenerate its lost cells, are gone forever. Perhaps once in a while it's ok. But not for extended periods of time. There's a reason why they call it beauty sleep, after all. I guess you you conceiveably make up for it over time, but sometimes, when the damage is done, the damage is done.

What about catching up with friends? I think we've all been there before. After you've ceased to contact someone for a period of time, you similarly lose touch with what's going on in his/her life. Sure, that person could update you, but those tidbits are necessarily compressed to an extent that the details (which are really the most juicy and important bits) have been lost a great deal. Then you find that you really don't know what your friend is going through anymore, the life she/he is living as she/he lives though it. You feel less and less close to that person, and you wished you'd kept closer touch with him/her. I'm not saying, of course, that reparation to the damages cannot be made. With enough effort, it's possible.

So. Can you make up for lost time with someone?

Are relationships like modules you can cram?

Can spending all your time with someone for the next three months make up for the six you haven't been around?

Maybe you can, like with sleep. Or with some friendships, if you're lucky.

But maybe, like sleep, the damage would have already been done.

The One Where Julia Becomes Mr Heckles For the Day

I was having my nap, having slept only about 4 hours last night, when I was awoken to the sounds of the girl upstairs jump-jump-jumping away. What was she doing, playing out some school-girl fantasy? There was so much running. I'll bet there was some twirling around in circles, too.

Naturally, I was pissed off.

So I went to the kitchen, picked up thetek kor propper (does it have a proper term? Laundry stick, perhaps?), went back to my room, and knocked on my ceiling. With vengence. But that reminded me of Mr Heckles, a grumpy old man in Friends who lived in the apartment below the girls' - only people in America have no need for tek kors and by extension, tek kor proppers either, so he used a broom. Why didn't I use a broom? Because - well, it just didn't cross my mind to use a broom - so I stopped being grumpy sleepless Julia after a while and, instead of going back to my work, went and did a search on Friends episode transcripts. Hoorah for the ever well-disciplined Jules.

FaceAnalyzer

When I submitted this photo:



These were the results:


83% South East Asian
17% Chinese

Gender: Female


Intelligence: 5.7 Average Intelligence
Risk: 5.4 Average Risk
Ambition: 5.9 Average Ambition
Gay Factor: 1.9Very Low Gay Factor
Honor: 5.1 Average Honor
Politeness: 5.3 Average Politeness
Income: 6.4 $30,000 - $50,000
Sociability: 5.8 Average Sociability
Promiscuity: 3.8 Low Promiscuity

Archetype: White Collar




100% South East Asian

Gender: Female


Intelligence: 5.3 Average Intelligence
Risk: 6.1 Average Risk
Ambition: 6.2 Average Ambition
Gay Factor: 3.1 Average Gay Factor
Honor: 3.6 Low Honor
Politeness: 3.3 Low Politeness
Income: 5.6 $30,000 - $50,000
Sociability: 5.3 Average Sociability
Promiscuity: 3.5 Low Promiscuity

Archetype: Gambler



89% South East Asian
11% Chinese

Gender: MALE

Intelligence: 5.9 Average Intelligence
Risk: 4.3 Low Risk
Ambition: 5.9 Average Ambition
Gay Factor: 1.3 Very Low Gay Factor
Honor: 5.2 Average Honor
Politeness: 6.4 Average Politeness
Income: 6.2 $30,000 - $50,000
Sociability: 5.7 Average Sociability
Promiscuity: 2.7 Very Unpromiscuous

Archetype: White collar

Conclusions:
1. I don't look very Chinese.
2. With a doll fringe, I look like a guy.
3. For some reason unknown to me, wearing a flower on my hair makes me look like a gambler.
4. It also made me look gay.
5. Guys take note: I am, based on my looks, not a very promiscuous person.
6. (Too lazy to post a picture up, but apparently, with glasses I am very intelligent as well as very polite. Hmn.)

My Life As A Paper Cut-Out Doll

doll
Originally uploaded by stygian_feline.

Haha. Meanwhile, in other happenings of my day...

Was taking pics today for a job application, and my brother took this candid of me. Commented to Adrian (sorry, haven't learnt how do that nifty link "trick" yet - I know it doesn't really qualify as a trick since 'most everyone knows how to do it - where you place your cursor over the name, click on it, and be magically transferred to the URL, so I can't link to your blog as yet) how I looked like a paper cut-out doll, and suggested that he added some tabs to me, since he was already Photoshopping my other photo. And so he did! Thanks for fulfilling my life-long fantasy of being a life-less, two-dimensional cardboard character Ad! You're such a pal. :>

ETA: Yes I know the tabs are on the clothes of the doll, not the doll itself. Details-schmetails.

And hey, I figured it out! Visit Adrian's blog here.

I Like My Showers Warm, Thankyouverymuch.

Of late I've been taking showers cold.

No, it's not some new health fad scientists/doctors/people in the field are highly-recommending, no, not at all. Far from that.

It's something a little, sorry, make that a lot, duller than that.
It's a technical malfunction.
It's my heater.

And what's worse is, it's one of those gas-powered heaters that warrant a lot of ventilation, so it needs to be installed outside the confines of one's bathrooms. And the offshoot of that is, everytime I goes cold on me, I follow the following steps:
1. Turn on the faucet.
2. Stand, stark naked, with your ear cocked next to the semi-translucent blue door of the bathroom (the kind when, if there's light coming in from inside, you can see a silhouette (albeit distorted) - a word I need to enlist the help of dictionary.com in order to spell, by the way) so as to listen up for the "pop" of the flame being ignited.
3. If not, turn off the tap, and repeat steps two and three.

A Visitor

I think I just spotted a male olive-backed sunbird perched on my tek kor just now. I was just going about my business, having just finished my lunch of hokkien mee, when I heard a distinct bird call, twittering away outside the window of my kitchen. I looked up from the mess that was the rubbish bin - and voila! - a tiny bird was there, surveying the area. For about 3 minutes, I just stood at the sink, not paying attention to the cutlery I was washing, staring all the time at the tiny little relayer of Spring that was barely two or three metres away from where I was standing. From the secrecy of the darkened window panes, I think, the bird, though it could hear my clumsy human ways, could not really make out if there was anything/one there. And then, with a little hop to position himself sideways, he took off. I scurried to my window and saw him joined by another bird, probably his mate, at the tek kor-ed window of another kitchen adjacent to my block. Ah. It's so nice to have Nature visit you every once in a while.

Here's the link to a picture of the olive-backed sunbird, taken by Paul Huang:
http://www.naturestops.com/gallery/photo.php?photo=388

Sado-Masochism on the Trains of Singapore

I really ought to be working on my term paper, but boredom set in and here I am, about to recount some weird thing I saw on the train some time last month - one of the side effects of living in an urban, claustrophobic country: so there I was, on my way home and minding about my own business like everybody does. But I was standing close to this couple, standing at the glass panels near the doors, and I couldn't help but indulge in my voyeuristic tendencies in the episode that ensued - they were practically inviting me to do so.

But it's not as if I was listening in right from the beginning, so when I started to tune in, the girl was already in the thick of a plot trying to do-in some person she didn't like staying together with her - a sister? A cousin? A roommate?

(in Mandarin, loosely translated from memory):
"Hey, help me think of something to frame her (I'm assuming it's a her, since Mandarin doesn't have a gender noun in the spoken form, ya) lei" (Spoken in a sweet voice belieing her apparant taste for schadenfreude, as it later turns out.)
(Her boyfriend keeps quiet, as far as I remember.)
" I know, I'll cut up all her clothes, and then make it seem as if somebody else did it!" (Boyfriend says some disparaging remark about her stupidity or something to that effect.)
"What, can what, she'll never think it's me lor. Who else can it be? Can only be her."

And I, realising that I have been quite quietly impolite, decide to tune out. But I only manage it for a while, because for some strange reason this girl started slapping her boyfriend, as if for the fun of it. That naturally pisses him off, and he utters the requisite swear word in Hokkien. So she changes tactics, and starts flicking him in the ear instead. Now he really loses his cool, and chee bye he said, this time with more menace, holding his fingers on the ready to flick her back - "Do you want me to do it to you? Huh?" The offending girlfriend finally desists and turns on her womanly wiles, acting all coy and demure... and before I knew it the two were back in lovey-dovey mode again.

At that point I was thinking: Gee, if they're like that in a public crowded cabin of a train, goodness what they do in the privacy of a bedroom. Bondage and whips? Seriously, that rates as one of the weirdest couples-I-am-unaquainted-with. Couples are always mysterious and uninterpretable entities in the first place, but this pair.... gosh.

Gettin' to know me...

The below is something I've just wrote - the only thing I've written in relevance to schoolwork, and this being a personal introduction, is a pretty sad state of being. Graduation-mode needs to be purged out of my system. Anyway. So, seeing as I haven't been writing, let me be lazy and post something that already will be "published" elsewhere:

Life in NUS, Sociology Department:

I'm a very ocular-centric person, so the media and its influence on popular culture (and vice versa) hold much fascination for me. Being someone who grew up glued to the goggle-box, the power of the media to me is an important and immediate dimension of human social life. Sociology helps me be more aware of how images and stories are manipulated to suit the aims of the press (and also to remind myself that a Xando pill does not a skinnier Julia make).

In general I'm more interested in the micro, qualitative aspect of social life. (But that is not to say the Marx and Weber are crap. They are not. They are to be highly revered, yessiree.) So gimme gendered constructions of sperms and eggs, and gimme the inner workings of the recording music industry. Social life as it is lived, no? Of course it would be very nice to be able to extrapolate from higher abstractions of society, but sadly it is something I still have to work at.

ISM Topic:

An ethnographical study of how social gambling may or may not mediate social relations (in terms of hierarchy within the family, for example) within the extended kin group. This is based on the idea that gambling, as an activity that involves some matter of chance, provides a form of equality between actors and might therefore act as a mitigating factor for social norms of respect for elders, distance between in-laws (especially those of the opposite sex) and such-like.

Life, Post-NUS:

Enough studying for now. I would like to see the world. So if I cannot secure a "proper" job that can allow me to do so, I might pack my bags, learn feeling management, commodify them, and fly the skies in a sarong kebaya. But that would presuppose my writing up a resume, and seeing how long it has taken me to get down to writing this, it’s obvious I’m very bad and highly reluctant at giving descriptions of myself. That would also reduce the possibility of me pursuing the more lofty ambition of research in conservation (nor the more self-indulgent ones like a career in singing). At the end of the day however I would like to do something media-related, perhaps in writing or production. (Goodbye, superstar dreams.)

____________________________________________________________________

The Cat with the Notice Tacked on its Back

I had a dream the other night. I was at this farm, and for some reason it was having some kind of open house. So the whole place was did up like it was a fair, replete with ribbons and ponies and excited children zipping through your legs. It was really pretty too, the fields awash in golden light and the grass rippling in the breeze. So there I was, strolling along with a friend of mine (I can't quite remember who now, but maybe it was Daphne), and we came to the top of this small hill where a building stood, I know not for what purpose, but running alongside the building there was a nice long row of cages waiting to be explored. This is probably where my mind confuses between farm animals and pet shop, but let's be forgiving. My friend and I walked up to the first bunch of cages, admiring the pretty bunnies inside when, from nowhere, a meow rings out. Thus we take a few steps backwards, and sure enough, under the cages, was the prettiest little cat I'd ever beheld. It had a white band around its eyes, the neatest, cutest pair of ears, a long, thick, creamy orange coat that reached down to the ground like a nicely combed wig parted in the middle, all topped off with a set of quaint, stubby legs. I bent down to try and pick it up - this part is reminiscent of the time I went to SPCA and took a cat out of her cage and then she decided she'd like to hide under them and never come out again. It took me a long time to accept this, but in the end I ran to the staff with my tail between my legs pleading for help with the Cat Planning Her Escape Route Out of 0.5x0.5x0.5 Hell - and she just dashed out from under them, down the cobbled steps of the stairs next to the cages. And I gave chase, because she really was such a charming creature, and that was when I noticed that, tacked somehow on her behind, was a notice that read: Please Do Not Use As A Mop.

Snitch And You Shall Be Rewarded

In her continued bid to become (yet another) world-class hub, this time for R&D, Singapore has introduced yet another scheme (re: link below) to catch those miscreant flouters of the law. Now I don't know about other companies, but my dad bought the OFFICIAL version of Windows Office Professional for a rather hefty price, somewhere in the region of S$400 not too long ago. I thought it'd be a good time for me to stop my miserly ways and use the legal version too, and (upon the exhortations of my dad) decided to install it into my machine. Alas, and hour later, when I tried to (well, I had to) register the software, I was none-too subtly informed that This Software Had Been Installed On A Computer Once Preceeding This Attempt, which effectively rendered my copy a very white elephant 40 uses henceforth. How generous of the people at Microsoft.

So for the next month or so, I gingerly side-stepped any encounters with Windows Excel, Powerpoint and most especially my best friend till the day of the incident, Word for Windows, unless in cases of utmost urgency and of sheer necessity (like doing up my timetable for this semester). Wordpad was my new best friend. And for a while, everything I sent people was in RTF format, but since no one complained or asked why I suppose this doesn't affect the lives of the Microsoft-enriched very much. Oh, the wretchedness of being dependent on the IT juggernaunts of this world. Any juggernaunt, for that matter. Thankfully I have long extricated myself from the fat, trans fatty arms of McD's, and was never once part of those enthralled by the caffeinated wafts of Starbucks. Bush Jr I still can't quite shake off.

But I digress. So this morning, during my newly-embarked attempt at keeping up-to-date with the daily happenings of the world deemed important enough by the powers that be to be reported to the island at large, I came across this ad. Commissioned by the Business Software Alliance (never heard of it before), it calls for employees of companies to Take the Moral Stand, and report any of those opportunistic Capitalists (who also happen to be overworking and under-paying them) aiming to increase profit for under-licensing. Luckily for Microsoft, they've already got their asses covered and thus need no extra protection from the lads at BSA.

But perhaps there is nothing really to get worked up about. Lip service needs to be paid at times for the big daddies to get off our backs. I'm referring to the recently-concluded USSFTA. Along with clamping down on online piracy (don't look at me, you'll find nothing here. No, honestly.), this may be another step they need to take in order to fulfil the clauses of the Agreement. In view of the culture here, it is not likely that the hotline is going to get a significant number of calls, and perhaps this is why such a scheme was introduced in the first place. Besides, the government has never really liked to get its hands involved in such matters (as far as I can see) unless it was imperative for them to do so, being the pragmatic organisation that it has always been. So has The Man won? Maybe, but maybe we should count whatever small blessings there are that come our way.

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Who Says Engineers Aren't in Demand Anymore?

With my impending "desperately seeking job" status, I went down to the career fair organised by my university with a bunch of my honours mates yesterday. What greeted me, besides the stale, stuffy air of the badly-ventilated Multi-purpose Sports Hall like the pong of a herd of secondary school boys boarding the bus after PE, were the rows and rows of companies looking for engineering grads. Or the representatives from the insurance/banking industries. Sure, there were a few stalls manned by the good people at the stat boards or related organisations, but of those, very few(rather, almost none) interested me. HR? Managerial positions? I'm still dreaming of that stint on Discovery Travel. Or writing for SPH/Mediacorp. Damn. Looks like I'm gonna get stuck in that dead-end job nobody wants. Idealisms. Bah, humbug.

Fuzzy Navel, Out!

After enduring weeks of a fuzzy navel full of hairs of an assortment of lengths, the curse that is Procrastination was finally broken by my sheer grit and determination to go fuzz-free whenever I pair hipster jeans with that tiny cropped top. A few good yanks with the salon-style wax strips I bought eons ago in Watson's and I was good to go. But, despite exhortations from fashion gurus of magazines and the like, I've only waxed my underarms ONCE. Do they, the style-philes of the So-Hip-It-Hurts world, realise what an irony it is when they tell you to do so (in order that one does not suffer the painful, bothersome and embarrassing fate of in-grown hairs) and then in the next paragraph reveal that you need at least 2cm of hair (starting count from the outside of your body, ie not inclusive of that bit of the root that gets pulled out when you use other, less sophisticated methods of hair-removal like plucking) in order for the wax to get a firm grip on your follicles? Needless to say, you can imagine how many day's I'd gone out in tees with longish sleeves, and how oh how it itched when I walked.

And the Sky Cleared...

Yay. I finally found out why my friend was pissed with me, and it really was just a misunderstanding. A *misunderstanding*! I did not wrongly accuse anyone of anything. No gross unjustification. Granted, I haven't spoken to that friend of mine, but that's ok. I'm sure things will clear up ok.

For the few days since I found out about the pissed-off state of my friend, I've been kinda low. But it's only now, when I've gotten to the bottom of things that I actually realise how upset I really was. Hmn. Girl, you really gotta learn how to take things easy.

Please Allow me to Disappear

This week has generally been a lousy one. Because I was so caught up in doing stuff for Chye, I neglected my work (and still am, but for rather more different reasons). As a result I gave a lousy, slip-shod and on the whole very confused presentation, my first for the sem (what a wonderful start) - so it can be imagined what kind of effect that had on my self-worth.

On the same day I lost my phone, partly because I was late for class and in such a rush, but mostly because I am a hopelessly careless person. It's not the phone I'm upset about, but really my stored messages and the pics that I'd taken -it's a Nokia 6610i, by no means the most coveted electronic device this side of town, but I suppose the FREE calls couldn't hurt (to the person who subscribes to the "finders keepers" maxim: the karma police will come and get you), especially if that person is a foreign student. And neither would getting a coupla extra bucks at the second-hand cell-phone shop down at Toa Payoh, either.

And this week, TWO incidents regarding the iffy, touchy topic of FRIENDSHIP. Once I was accused of unfairly siding with my friends. And today, I was informed that I hurt someone's feelings. And I had absolutely no idea. The fact that this took place in the realm which you, dear hypothetical reader, are now in must have something to do with it. -_-;

Then there's the issue of my hair - suffice to say that it was a tactical error to try and save money by getting it cut and dyed separately.

ETA: A portion of this entry has been deleted.