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.