Alrighty so… had a relatively long weekend. Friday and Saturday off which was really nice and rare. Feb is my month for long off days. Happy. Friday I went for a hair cut. Had no choice. Was initially thinking of keeping my hair long except that I discovered that my passport was no longer valid and I need it to go back to Malaysia for CNY eve so, I had to go make a new one. My hair is really sucky in that when it’s at this in between stage, it curls every which way and looks terrible. So, had to cut it off. Hung around Parkway for a while after that. Had a shopping list of stuff to get ranging from: a book, an external harddrive, thumbtacks, dishwashing sponge, wall hooks, cake making ingredients. Except for the first 2, managed to get the rest and some other stuff too. Not sure how it happened but my bill from Giant mutated into $78. What the hell! I could hardly believe my eyes. Must’ve been the 4 blocks of Philadelphia cream cheese, dare I say. Stopped at Subway for lunch but balancing 2 heavy shopping bags and a tray was more tricky than I thought. My wallet got soaked in spilled F&N orange. Oh well. Had a ‘omg, so lonely’ moment while having lunch by myself in Subway with that lonely music playing. Saw 2 others also sitting by themselves, one with the newspapers for company, the other guy sat at the couches by the window and gobbled his sandwich and left.

Went back home and started to make oreo cheesecake. Been wanting to try that out for a long long time. Played Torchwood audiobook The Sin Eaters while working. Gareth David-Lloyd has a very nice speaking voice. Different from that low growl he always talks in in Torchwood. And he does a very good impression of Captain Jack. Anyway, ran into problems with the cheesecake. First, oreo cookies are damn hard to crack and turn into crumbs. I broke 2 ziploc bags and severely scarred a third. Ended up using a waterbottle and pounding at the cookies on a chopping board. Lucky no one else was at home cos it was damn noisy. Neighbours probably cursing me. At the same time, I put the cheese in the mixer. Discovered that the longer I left it there to mix, the smoother it became and that problem I used to have about the cheese not mixing properly disappeared. Of course, that was a fluke discovery. I only found that out cos the oreos delayed me. Yeah. The oreos was the most annoying part of that mixture. Mixed up a batch with the butter only to find out when I put it into the cake tin that it was not enough. Lucky had i had another pack of oreos so the process began again.

And then, I don’t understand my oven. I thought I put it to pre-heat but maybe I missed the beep but I waited for ages and there was no indication that it was done pre-heating. So after 20minutes, I gave up and just stuck the oreo base in anyway. Then I pressed the buttons wrong and set it for 4 hours instead of 10 minutes. Had to use my handphone timer. So, in the meantime, my cake mixture was mixing and getting very very very very well mixed. Anyway, was the most successful cake I ever made. The base still not as solid as I liked though. Guess I should’ve packed it in more. But, mum said the cake was very smooth this time. Haha! Part of the accident of mixing for too long. Oh well.

Saturday, another busy day. Got up to a scene of chaos in the house. Mum was getting the aircon man to come and take a look and what she says is a rattling and noisy aircon so she was fretting over how messy the house looked. As if the aircon man is the PM coming to visit our house or something. *rolls eyes* Anyway, headed over to the ICA building to make passport. Anther scene of chaos. Everyone and their kids were there making passport. Stood in line to take photo and saw a lot of Malay babies there. Was a bit astonished to see one baby – can’t be more than a few months old – there to take photo and the mother had applied damn thick eyeliner to the kid’s face. Geez. Anyway, got my photo taken. I look terrible, as usual. Was hot so had been perspiring and my hair was stuck to my scalp and I look like a mushroom head. Sigh. Anyway, headed over to the counters and discovered that they only accept cash. Which I didn’t have, not to the tune of $73 anyway. So had to go back to the MRT station and queue up again at the ATM to draw money. Having done that, went back to ICA to queue again to submit the application form.

When that was finally done, saw that there was not enough time to go back home before I had to come out again to meet the girls at Vivocity so I decided to head directly over there. Msged Sumi and TY to ask if they wanted to meet earlier for lunch. Anyway, went to Vivo. Walked around Tangs and saw this nice dress but it cost $89 and me was very very reluctant to buy such an expensive dress that I will probably seldom wear. Walked around Vivo some more. There was a Chinese dance performance in the atrium so stood there to watch for about half hour. Then went up to GV to buy movie tickets. Met up with Sumi there and went down to get lunch where we met TY at the time we were originally supposed to have met up. Oh well. Had unagi Pepper Lunch. Wasn’t too bad but could feel the little bones.

Met up with Duan at GV for The Imaginarium Of Doctor Parnassus. Terrible seats. I must be jinxed .The last time I bought GV tickets from the counter I also had second row from the front. But this time, it was pretty bad cos the screen was HUGE and far too close to the seats. They should make it illegal to have seats that close to the screen. What’s the use of it? So uncomfortable. Was feeling seasick when the trailers began. By the way, it was not bad this time cos GV was showing trailers instead of their usual ads. The Imaginarium was alright. I’m sure I would’ve enjoyed it more had I not been feeling nauseous. Someone in my vicinity was eating some really strong smelling popcorn and made me feel like throwing up. The show as bizarre. Had no idea what was going on. Not really. Again, I think if I could’ve seen the screen properly I would’ve understood it more.

After the movie, rushed down to the basement to buy tau sar piah and pineapple tarts to bring back home cos mum was having a little reunion dinner with ah ma. The two little kids were there too and, predictably, I was late. Oh well, whatever. Charlie was damn cute. He’s at the questioning stage where he’s asking questions about everything and anything. Mainly along the lines of “what is this?”. There was a cute moment where he brought my Polly Pocket toy and asked his mother what it was, then, having received an answer, went over to his sister and asked her the same question. His mother says he’s testing the sister. LOL! At least he’s more vocal now and not so clingy. Janice was… not as well-behaved as she could’ve been. She didn’t eat anything except white rice for dinner. Then I brought out my oreo cheesecake for dessert and the bro put a dollop of chocolate ice cream on it, she ate only the ice cream. That girl… been a while since I seen her eat anything but chocolate. Goodness. Thought the parents should make her eat more nutritious stuff.

Anyway, so that was Saturday. Sunday, got up early to go for 9am mass for the first time in a long time. Wasn’t too bad cos I managed to get quite good sleep on Friday and Saturday nights. Brought the guitar to ask Clifford to help me restring cos the other day I took it out to tune (in one of my ‘yay learn guitar!’ phases) and one of the strings snapped. Unfortunately, that packet of strings that the bro’s friend left behind did not include the one that was snapped. Sigh. But anyway, learned how to string a guitar. Not sure if I’ll be continuing to learn. Hopefully I will. Project Learn Guitar. By mid year I want to be able to play Testify To Love on it. Hehe! Ambitious much? I can already sort of play it on the piano. Just chords right? Sure. Haha!

Anyway, then went home after church and the bro told me that the IBM laptop died. Sigh. Yup, breathed its last. Gave a last rattling clunky noise that it never gave before in the vicinity of the hard drive and announced that OS was not found. We tried using the reformat discs but the strange noise at the hard drive suggested that it was finally dead. And it’s past warranty and 5 years old. Has lasted longer than my other friends’ IBMs that were bought at the same time and already been sent for repair twice. Suppose it was time for it to go. Gonna miss it. My first laptop. Dad went a bit mental when we told him it was dead. Well, he went mental earlier already when we found out that the $80 singtel voucher was expired. Which, by the way, was totally NOT my fault. I kept asking mum to go down to the shop with me to upgrade my phone (cos it was the voucher on my phone line) but she kept putting it off and I can’t do it myself cos the phone’s under her name. Sigh. $80 flew away like that. Oh well. The bro’s starting uni in August and was already planning to get a proper laptop anyway. One that doesn’t rattle and wheeze like an engine revving up.

Then in the afternoon, headed down to the News Centre for work. Siiiigh. Was very quiet and sort of peaceful until around 6. Picked up a cute story about service dogs. Also picked up the additional information box that went with it. Thought up a nice headline that could link the two. Unfortunately, it got changed in the end. Had dinner with Pat up on the rooftop then back down. That was when trouble started looming. Picked up the story about dinosaur footprints. It was a really short story. Shouldn’t have taken me more than 20 minutes max. But, after picking it up, I realised that the photo was not in yet. So ended up sitting on that story for a very long time. Picked up another story while waiting. This was a money story that had been sitting in the basket for a long time. No one wanted to pick it up and I don’t blame them. Unfortunately, I was the unlucky sucker who happened to be the only one unoccupied and that was the only story available. Was a money story about S-reits and it was more than 4 PARAGRAPHS over the length limit. After the first read through I was metaphorically banging my head on the table. Managed to tighten so that it became exactly 4 paras over. Now, when it’s 4 paras over, I know there’s no way I can shorten it without cutting something. But, I have no idea what to cut. S-reits. What the hell is a reit anyway? I hadn’t heard of it before I read that article. So, asked Pat for help since she used to work at the money desk and knows what’s important and what’s not (everything looked important to me). She first suggested I ask Irwin if he can give me more space. He could only give one line more, which didn’t help. So, in the end, Pat came over and walked through cutting it with me until it finally fit. Filed the story only to have the checker personally come over and tell me to call up the story. I get really worried when they say call it up cos it usually means big problem. The headline was too short; even though it was correct, it was unacceptable. Sigh. So got scolding for that.

By that time, the picture for the dinosaur story came in. It had nothing to do with dinosaur footprints and the caption was missing. ie, it was just the picture with no information about what’s happening in it. I mean, i can sort of guess that it’s dinosaur bones at a dig and I could assume the location was the same as in the story. But there was a person in the photo and there was no way i could guess at who it was. So, messaged photo desk and they couldn’t help either because they had the caption in Chinese and said none of them could figure out what it meant. My chinese is sucky so not much help. So approached the guy at Foreign who filed the story and he said he’d find the caption and fill it in. So meanwhile, me picked up another story to work on. End of drama for the night for me, thank goodness. So that dinosaur story ended up being on my hands for over 2 hours while I waited for the various parts to come together. Oh well. But not as bad as leowmc’s problem for the night. At half hour to offstone, he got a call saying that they had to call back the page he had pushed because one of the photos he was given was 2 years out of date. Everyone was perplexed how that 2 year old picture managed to get into the database in the first place cos it had apparently been archived in 2004 and the database didn’t come into existence until 2005. But anyway, they were bitching that there was really no need to change the photo cos a plane is a plane and the one they replaced it with looked exactly the same. lol!

Yup. So that brings me to today. Long weekend for me. Jam packed. Can’t wait for the festive period to be over so I can have time to myself during my free days. Oh well. Working again today. Sigh. I should go do my little daily workout but I’m feeling so lazy. I’d rather just get back into bed and sleep. Still haven’t figured out why I’m so sleepy. I get my 8 hours what! :p

So according to the prediction on Dawn’s blog, today’s events will be indicative of what it’ll be like for the whole year ahead. If that’s true then for me:

1. a lot of frustrations about the lousy bus timetables

2. rushing and worrying about punctuality

3. changes of plans at the last minute

Does not make me look forward to the year. Bleah.

So i finally figured out who Ng’s Mansion belongs to. That’s the house that I see when I go by Bukit Timah road in 151 and has a huge plaque proclaiming that it’s Ng’s Mansion. I seriously used to wonder who lived there. Wondered who’s hao lian or pretentious enough to put that facing the main road. You know? It’s not everywhere that you see something like that in SG. Well, now I know. It belonged to the wealthiest man in SG, Ng Teng Fong, who was in the news yesterday cos he died. There was a picture in ST that had Ng’s Mansion so, putting two and two together, tadah! Yeah. And the king of Orchard Road is perfectly entitled to name his house Ng’s Mansion.

Right so, a few big things and several small things. Let’s start with work first. There have been articles in the papers about the trainee programmes that were launched last year to help fresh grads (like me) cope with the economic downturn. Of course, I am grateful. Who knows? I might still be unemployed if I wasn’t hired on one of these schemes. Anyway, there’ve been 3 articles in the course of a week, which is a damn lot. Mainly dealing with what happens to these programmes now that the economy is climbing up again. Since it concerns me, I’ve been following them. And also it comes at a time when Jerlee, me and LesterK were bitching talking about the scheme and LesK sent off an email to the editorial dept to ask about our uncertain futures. So yeah, the point is, we were contracted for one year. After that one year, there’s no guarantee that we would be kept on in the company. In the meantime, we can’t go looking for another job cos breaking the contract means we have to pay back everything we’ve received. And I mean everything. It wasn’t that I read the contract wrong or forgot (as apatric thinks). Everything. Which obviously, unless that new job earns us $5000 a month, I think we’ll go bankrupt before we manage to pay back our debt. Anyway, personally, I’m not too worried because I know that I’m stuck with this for a year. I was very sure I wanted this job before I signed away my soul for a year. So trainee or permanent staff, for one year, I don’t really care. Of course, it would be nice to get a pay raise. It’s almost going to be the 3 month mark so I suppose I’ll be up for review. Unless they decide to keep us on tetherhooks longer and only review at the 6 month mark. I don’t know. Even after 1 year, I’m not too worried because when I interviewed, HR told me not to worry and, seeing the situation in my dept, looks like nothing to worry about either. I suppose it isn’t the same for the reps. I heard they’ve actually got new hires in their dept who’re not on trainee scheme. Hired outright. Now that is unfair right there.

By the way, it’s 2am in the morning so pardon me if it’s more than a little incoherent. I just forgot the point of my starting that above paragraph so I guess I’ll move on to the next point.

Uncle Paul from church suffered a stroke on Friday. He’s been hospitalised, went for surgery to get rid of a blood clot in the brain, and is reportedly in critical condition. Now, me, who followed Grey’s Anatomy for all 6 seasons, is starting to get very worried. Especially since, you know, Grey’s has a neurosurgeon as one of the main characters so there’s quite a bit of brain activity going on medically. AND after what happened with my grandmother a few years ago… yeah, worry is me. It only just hit me today that no matter what, Uncle Paul is never going to be the same again. And somehow, that’s kind of scary. I was ok with Ah Ma. That was expected. She’s already old and she’s been going on about her funeral for long before the stroke came on. I don’t know how to express it. It’s like, as weird as he can get sometimes, he’s still the familiar smiley, friendly face at church – no matter what screw ups i managed to get into – and he’ll always be giving nice friendly advice (which i never take because it usually ends up with a request for me to join the cathecists). Heck, he was my main character referee on my resume. The last proper conversation I think I had with him was way back around the time when I started work. Can’t imagine that I’ll never see that person again. Feel sorry for Ruth and Ruben. They’re just kids. And it wasn’t like the situation with Uncle Mike where it happened over time. It was like one second he was fine and the next. Yeah. Well. That’s life I guess. Hope Uncle Paul recovers. Will definitely miss him.

Been watching Sarah Jane Adventures. Yeah, i’m bored to that extent. Guilty pleasure, like Twilight is. It’s a pretty kiddy show. Not pretty kiddy, EXTREMELY kiddy. Well, not to the Sesame Street extent I guess. It does have its moments where I think, this can’t be good for the kids to watch. Think RTD’s trying to go for that behind-the-sofa tv watching thing that Doctor Who induced. Anyway, I wouldn’t recommend SJA to people whom I want to impress. But if you’ve got spare time to burn, it’s entertaining. Luke is really nice eye candy for those ‘paedophiles’ out there (and I think I know a few). Sarah Jane’s not too bad herself, considering her age. Really nice to show how a companion lives her life after the Doctor.

Thinking of buying an ebook reader. Well, not quite thinking of buying, I want to buy one. Question is which one. Looking at the Cool-er reader. That’s my first runner up at the moment. It looks nice and it seems to function pretty well. Heard there’ll be a new model out this year so I think I’ll wait for that to see.

You know, when I go to work, I have to pass by this HUGE madrasah and it tends to be dismissal time when I go by. The other day, I saw something really cute. Realised that the tudungs they wear are one size fits all because I saw this little girl walking pass and she was more tudung than anything else. Seriously. It looked like it reached down to her knees, then you see her uniform pants and shoes and that’s it. And you know, like any other lower primary school student with the huge pink-ish bag. Freaking cute. Didn’t see her face though, her back was to the road.

Banged my head on the door of the night bus the other day. And when I say bang, I don’t mean bump. I mean literally hugely painfully bang. It was a serious white light moment. My vision blanked for a second. Never had that experience before. Stumbled into a seat to rub my head and I was convinced my head was bleeding (it wasn’t). It felt like it. By the time I got home, I swear I felt a lump which my hair hid. Then when I showered, it was hard to wash my hair cos the water pressure on my scalp freaking hurt. Luckily, it’s fine now. Think it’s settled into a bruise. Yesterday it was very tender. And I’ve got a wariness to the bus door frame now.

Quite bad  haze tonight. For some reason. The air reeks of it. Of course, I’m in the air con room now so I don’t notice but I’m sure when I step out it’ll stink. Sigh. Talking about environmental issues, did anyone else see that article about how Osama’s trying to recruit environmental warriors in his fight against the US? To quote that US security guy: We’ve gone from the Great Satan to the Great Emitters. LOL!!

Finished reading Turin Shroud. It’s a non-fiction book about the shroud of Turin that’s supposedly the image of Jesus. Of course, by now apparently the world knows the cloth is not 2000 years old. Apparently there was carbon dating done on it about 20 years ago that debunked that completely. No, this book wasn’t about that. Their main question was to find out HOW the image came to be on the cloth. Cos that in itself is seriously a mystery. Or was a mystery. Anyway, Leonardo da Vinci was supposed to have faked the shroud and he did it with a primitive camera. Very ingenious. Not going to explain it all here. Too sleepy for intellectual discussions tonight.

Had to mention. Cooked pasta for lunch with that basil pesto sauce that I bought ages ago. I am so not buying that sauce again. Opened the bottle just now and since it was more or less close to frozen, I spooned out a few spoonfuls and stuck it into the microwave oven to heat up. Upon taking it out, the first thing that struck me was the (to me) horrible smell of basil. Disgusting. Anyway, not wanting to waste it, I scooped it onto my pasta, mixed, then licked the spoon to clean off the excess. Disgusting again. Well, I think I just don’t like basil, not that the sauce in itself is disgusting. Anyway, it seemed a bit dry to me so I dribbled some of mum’s olive oil onto it. Still didn’t taste right so I took dad’s chopped garlic from the fridge and spooned out some. Instantly that fixed things. Well, the garlic smell and taste completely masked the basil, making it edible to me. So, all things considering, it was an extremely healthy lunch. Boiled pasta, herb sauce, garlic, olive oil. And I added a hard boiled egg but that didn’t really do anything to the dish. Haha! Didn’t die or get diarrhea so I guess my foray into the kitchen for this strange dish could be considered a success. Even though I had to clean the microwave oven after the pesto sauce spattered all over it. Hee!

Ok, that’s all for tonight I guess. Gonna go post my latest chapter of Shadows and Light. Hopefully technology agrees with me and makes it as pain free a task as possible.

Quick one today. finally got round to cleaning my macbook. now typing with only my fingertips touching the laptop cos it’s just so nice and clean white now – i don’t want to make it dirty again. that magic sponge really worked wonders.

Apple’s iPad got announced today. iPad? really? don’t they have a cooler name? Anyway, it’s really pretty and sexy and all that but after I’ve had the day to think about it, it’s really all there is to it. Pretty and sexy looking. In terms of features, it’s exactly the same (as far as I see) as the current iPhones and iTouches, just bigger. So… I doubt I’ll be getting one anytime in the near future. the way the price is, I might as well get another macbook or iMac desktop computer.

Relooking plans for an ebook reader now. Apple has disappointed. Sigh.

So, yesterday, went to work and the strange stone wealth egg thing was still there. oh well. didn’t bother me any. what was weird was that i glanced cross to the cluster that’s in front of mine and cperalta had straightened her hair! it was a very dramatic change because she used to have a HUGE shock of afro hair and now it’s all straight and shoulder length. for a minute, i was wondering who that was – some newbie or something? then i realised it was her!

went out for dinner with jerlee. we couldn’t decide what to eat and we were bitching as we walked so by the time we realised it, we had walked all the way to toa payoh. it wasn’t that far actually. haha! still, nothing appealed to us so we ended up walking back to braddell and eating at macdonalds. lol! janh found us there and we had fun talking over dinner until it was 1.5hrs before we finally returned to the office.

was thinking abut buying the Kube mp3 player yesterday. seriously. don’t know why i had the sudden urge. was talking to footloose about it. basically one reason i’d like to get it is that it looks damn cute and apparently it is quite quality player, despite it’s local make and selling at the 7-11. Anyway, was almost determined to go buy it yesterday during dinner but, as providence would have it, we didn’t go by the 7-11 so i didn’t. haha!

anyway, today’s the first of my very rare 2 off days in a row. just got up a few minutes ago. today, i decided, after blogging, i shall go and do an arrangement of the Amazing Grace Kyrie that i want to introduce to Aloy and Josh. I decided that trying to arrange the whole Amazing Grace Choral Reflections is a project that’s beyond me so I’ll just concentrate on that small section of the song. after that, i shall have lunch. then watch a movie on MioTV – Julie and Julia; or Angels and Demons. That should take me to late afternoon. Then I shall probably slack around and get prepared for the scolding mum’s going to give me for not cleaning the house, doing the laundry, checking up on tours etc etc. haha!

Thought I’d post about today at work. Interesting. First, I went early to go shift my CPU tower like I mentioned in my last post. Left the house about 15 mins earlier. Got to work a full half hour early instead. Damn. Anyway, managed to shift the CPU tower. Today got strength in my arms. The problem was replacing the shelf. I must’ve made a lot of noise when the stupid metal bit refused to go into the frame. But it got done in the end. Yay!!! Put up my mischievous nun calendar also so it was a nice day for my work station.

Then, I opened my drawer and found something strange in it.

At first I thought it was a piece of chocolate. You know, those oval shaped chocolates that got a nut inside? Yeah. The thing was a shiny brown with shades of brown, ranging from shiny glitterly light brown to really dark brown. I thought it was an insect egg at first cos it was egg shaped. So used a piece of paper to lift it up. It was heavy and smooth and had the words 财蛋 carved on it (in the traditional character except my computer can’t handle those). Think you can see the carving if you squint at the picture. Anyway, me still thinking it’s an insect egg so I shook it, wondering if there’ll be sound, tapped it on the table to see if it’ll break – secretly hoping it won’t cos I don’t want to know what kind of insect lays that kind of HUGE egg. Huge for an insect. Turned out it was a stone.

The freaky thing is, how did it get INTO my drawer?? It was not lying on my desk where someone might have accidentally dropped it. It as in my closed drawer, the kind of metal drawer that you need to pull to open, ergo, someone had been going through my workstation. Jerlee did not help. When I showed it to him he was like, you better be careful, later got curse. *rolls eyes* I don’t think something that says Wealth Egg has a curse on it. I initially put it on my shelf – still half afraid it’ll hatch into some hideous big slimy insect. But got very distracted so I dumped it back into the drawer. Oh well.

Very slow day for the first half of the day. Things started to get busy around 7.30pm. Eventful thing was the wobrief26 that I picked up. Usually people avoid wobrief cos it’s notorious for always getting updated/amended/changed. Today was no different. I picked it up. Less than 20mins later, front end wanted it back for changes. So I sent it back. And waited and waited and waited. When it still didn’t come back, I picked up another story – court story. Finished subbing the court story, wobrief was still not back. Sigh. It came back around 11.45pm which was damn late. AND they added in another story which made it 2x as bad as it was because it was now extra over the length. Lucky I was told I could drop one of the stories. Anyway, I became the one with the last story. Halfway through Whock came round and asked me to go check up something with the reporter of a story I did a few hours ago. Major kancheong attack. I so cannot multitask, especially when I’m pressed for time. Don’t think I did a good job with the checking so I’m really keeping my fingers crossed that nothing went wrong.

Yeah, so that was my day. Wonder if that thing will still be there tomorrow. Hehe!

By the way, I decided that if I need to talk about my colleagues at work, I’ll use their usernames rather than their real names (or permutations of their name). At least an extra layer of protection for me just in case.

Phew. Been a very busy past three days. Starting from Friday: non stop sub and sub and sub literally from 2.30pm all the way until 11.30pm, except for one hour dinner break in between. I’d do a story then release and immediately there’ll be at least three more in the basket waiting to be picked up. Damn tiring. Not much to say for that day. Think it was the day when Jerlee asked the helpdesk people to come and shift the CPU towers of both our computers from the floor on to the desk. Unfortunately, I should’ve asked them to put it in a better position. They had to remove my little shelf and now I feel so freaking exposed. It feels different. Not as cosy as I like. Gonna try again to shift the tower round to the other side of my desk. Think I can do it by myself. It’s just that the tower is so heavy and there are a lot of wires. Sigh. Been trying to work out why the tower is so heavy cos I’m ok with lifting heavy things. I think I figured it out. It’s about centre of gravity and all that. When I lift other heavy things, I can use my whole body as leverage. But this tower… I only have my arms and my arms alone are not strong enough. Sigh. Gonna go in early tomorrow so the whole subs desk isn’t looking to make me feel more self-conscious than ever.

Anyway, that evening, due to no one’s fault but my own, I had to hurry up and complete that church thing that I had to do. Should’ve done it during my off day on Thursday but as usual, I procrastinated and reaped the fruits of my laziness. Worked on that on Friday night after work. At least I had drafted it out early in the week – just hadn’t typed it up.

Saturday was tiring too. Had the subs retreat in the morning. Firstly I read the map wrong. Kind of. We were having the retreat at a cafe in Bishan Park area. I took 135 and thought I could walk through the park, 2 bus stops. Unfortunately, 2 bus stops were a massively large distance in between. Hot and sweaty by the time I got there. But the cafe was a nice place. Outdoor concept but air conditioned, thank god. Lunch was provided but not that much. Some of the guys were complaining they needed rice or noodles. Roast potato bits just weren’t enough. I kind of agree. It wasn’t a bad ‘retreat’ as in I had the chance to see everyone (almost everyone) from subs for once. The night editor was there too and gave us an extra day off in lieu for it. Best news of the day. Haha! And good for someone like me who was actually working on the day so I got a free extra day off. Yay! The meeting part was alright. Had some good discussions, although I didn’t contribute any. It was interesting to see what the others are thinking and what goes on at the desk. Of course there was one discussion that almost turned into a quarrel. Oh well. Don’t think that was resolved.

After the retreat, had to go back to the office to start the day’s work. Sigh. Was really tired and couldn’t focus at all. But I think that was due to me not being used to my new desk arrangement without that shelf. Like I said before, I felt really exposed. By the middle of the night, words were beginning to swim before my eyes. “Hotspot”, I was beginning to see as “hostop”, and even panicked and quickly rechecked in case it was really spelt wrong (which it wasn’t). Geez.  Was wearing my new crocs. Kind of new – they replaced my old ones that had worn out and were really slippery. Had blisters on places of my foot where I never knew could blister. By the end of the night I was seriously contemplating going barefoot while walking around the office. Didn’t though, but I took off my shoes at my desk. Should’ve worn my comfortable sneakers.

Then going back home, the night was still not over. Had been reading through and revising that church document I was doing in between stories at work. Got home and made the changes and printed it out. First time doing booklet printing with the new printer so I didn’t know how it worked. Finally managed it on my third try. Such a waste of paper. But anyway, it worked.

Sunday, got up at 10.30am and rushed off to church for the choir meeting, though I would’ve loved a few more hours sleep. Did the admin team’s handover and all that then went off to meet TY at her place. The other 2 girls were not there yet. Her dogs seemed kinda excited. She claims they like me – sounds different when they bark when I arrived. Oh well. I like them too. Hee! Hung out at TY’s place for the afternoon, watched this Taiwan version of Idol which is 10x better than American Idol. At least the judges give real proper constructive criticism. Heard some interesting songs including the unplugged version of Bon Jovi’s It’s My Life. It sounded really strange then because their accents when they sing in English sucked. But it wasn’t that bad. Then went over to Parkway for dinner and took a walk round Borders. Got 2 calendars. They were clearing stock so it was a wopping 75% discount!!!!! 2 calendars originally costing $32+ and $24+, in the end I paid a total of $14.50. Damn worth it. And they were calendars I really wanted: Bad Cats and Mischievous Habits (misbehaving nuns). There was also the Nuns Having Fun one that I saw on Oddee but I decided I didn’t like it enough. Wasn’t funny enough. Happy with what I got.

Anyway, some other stuff. Heard a song by Guang Liang during the Taiwanese show. Checked out the Youtube video for it and it’s so adorable! Posting it here with English subs (not very accurate but more or less there) for those who read my blog but don’t know Chinese. His songs are cool and the videos (well, watched only 2 so far) are very meaningful. Think I’ll post the other one here too. Second one’s really sad though. And the subbing isn’t as good as the first cos there’s a very subtle difference in the choruses that this one did not get. Still sad though.

Oh yeah, and I’ve been watching the classic Doctor Who on Daily Motion. For that era, I think it’s pretty cool. The Doctor’s very annoying though. The Daleks are here!! Very cool. Now at the Marco Polo episodes but unfortunately it’s a lost episode so there’s no video – only audio and production photos. So I’m listening in to the episodes there. Haha! It’s fun.

Finished reading My Sister’s Keeper. Like I said, it was an easy read and I enjoyed it, thinking it was quite well written and the themes seemed sufficiently explored for me. Switching between all the different characters kept the story moving well. Like the twist at during the trial, though I’m not sure what the point of the lawyer’s seizure was – other than to explain why the dog is there. However, I was very disappointed with the ending. Very. Those who haven’t read the book and don’t want spoilers STOP READING RIGHT NOW.

Basically, Anna gets medically emancipated so she can make her own medical decisions. Kate says she wants to die that’s why she asked Anna (sort of) to help her do it. Anyway, in the end, right after the verdict, surprise surprise, Anna and the lawyer get hit by a truck and Anna dies. By default, her kidney goes to Kate anyway and Kate lives.

I really REALLY hated this ending because it really cemented Anna’s position as the spare. Which makes me question what was the whole point of the book at all. The whole book, I thought it was about Anna gaining power and control over her own life. All her life she’s been seen as The Perfect Donor for Kate. Her existence was defined by Kate. She only existed BECAUSE of Kate. Before I read to the twist, I really thought that Kate would die and Anna would, for the first time in her life, be defined as a person and an individual, not just in relation to her sister. Or that Anna would win the lawsuit and then decide that she would save her sister – the lawsuit being a symbolic sign that she wants to be treated as individual. I thought that was the whole point of the lawsuit – giving her back her right to choose what happens to her own body and not guilt trip her into saving her sister all the time. In this ending, Anna goes back to her position of powerlessness and, more than that, she becomes literally the ’sacrificial victim’ while the sister lives instead. She was born for the purpose of saving her sister, she got in a car accident, dies, the sister gets the organs and lives then the spare gets tossed out. Know what I mean?

The whole family’s preoccupation with Kate had been disastrous. The son got into juvenile deliquency just to get attention. I would have liked to see the end of this affair being a mending of the family – a time when the silent members of the family regained their voices and their individuality. Heck. When the whole family stopped being a train wreck. The empowerment ending would have been so much better than this sappy sort of end.

Yes, I know this kind of ending would probably appeal to the dramatic teenage girl romantic sentiment. But yeah, I’m slightly outraged now. Disappointing ending. Very disappointing.

I suppose I might try looking out for the movie. Read the wikipedia synopsis and it looks more promising cos of the alternate ending. Maybe for once I’ll prefer the movie version. We’ll see.

Stayed up last night and finished off The Name Of The Rose. I have to give it to Umberto Eco. It may have pages and pages of long theological arguments and visions and descriptions but in the end, something about it drew me right in and made me HAVE to finish reading it. I was really satisfied with the ending. It was tragic but very apt. Wouldn’t recommend the book to anyone who’s looking for an easy read though. It’s supposedly a murder mystery but the murdery mystery bits are really entwined with all the long stuff. Kind of like a very watered down version of Les Miserables – the way they sometimes meander off into a different direction. Watched a bit of the movie on YouTube. Not satisfying at all. The only redeeming bits were Sean Connery as William of Baskerville, Christian Slater (pretty face) as Adso (who was occasionally showing some spark of intelligence and promise), and the library labyrinth scenes. Ok, the depiction of the abbey and the monks were different from what I was expecting. Very realistic – grimy, dirty, harsh. Probably like what a real medieval abbey was like. They had accents too which were not bad. The depiction of Salvatore was stunning. I think. Especially his strange speech. Haven’t finished watching it though. Not sure if I will. By the way, back to the book, by the time it came to the end of the story, I realised that those theological arguments – particularly the one I was making fun of in my previous post about laughing – were actually central to the plot. I suppose to someone who’s really good at solving murder mysteries, it would be picked up as a clue.

Started reading My Sister’s Keeper today at work. It was an easy read. Am now halfway through the book – that’s how easy a read it was. The Name Of The Rose took me at least a week (not counting the one false start a month ago). Anyway, I concede, it’s a very good book. Not like those teen chick lit kind of fiction I was expecting. Haven’t watched the movie version of it so I’m a bit worried that it’ll suck. It was quite hard reading it at the office, especially when they got to the bit where the brother stole a yellow Humvee that belonged to a judge; or when the brother tried to dig his way to China, thought he got lost underground then his father found him and he wasn’t anywhere near deep; or the part where Anna tried to run away but didn’t get any further than the hospital lobby before someone stopped her. Had to really work hard to suppress my laughter. Anyway, haven’t finished reading it, like I said. But I’m on Anna’s side. It’s not about the lawsuit and getting attention. It’s about choice – about having the choice to do or not to do something – even if in the end she might just do what her parents wanted. I kinda identify with that. The poor kid’s got it up to here and this is her way of showing that she’s human too and it’s not that she doesn’t love her sister, it’s about being able to choose to save her sister and not be guilt-tripped into it. The bit about the heir and the spare was really sad.

Anyway, to other news. Heard a colleague talking about planning her wedding. Geez. Got to thinking, if I ever get married – which is an extremely remote possibility at the moment since I never even had a boyfriend and am currently more likely to get hitched in a lesbian civil ceremony instead – I don’t think I want a big fairytale-ish wedding. In fact, given my way (and my current blah mood) I’d just go to ROM – not even ROM, one of those CCs where it can be done now – and sign the cert and be done with it. Ok, maybe I’ll do a beach kind of thing at Sentosa, right at the water’s edge, where I can show up in pants and tshirt and we’ll have a barbecue cook-out party. No ten course dinner at some fancy high class hotel restaurant with the wine and sharks fin and abalone. Nope. Not for me. If my future partner suggests that I’ll just break up with him. I don’t even want a wedding dress. Unless I’m getting married in a temperate zone like London in cold weather, or St Petersburg. Nothing where I’ll be hot and sweaty on that day. No way. Haha! Come to think of it, getting married in St Petersburg would be damn nice.

It’s sunday again. I hate sundays. Sundays mean church. Which I hate. Again I feel like that girl Anna. Guilt-tripped into making a visit to church. Don’t know what possessed me to say I’ll continue to be committed in there. Force of habit I guess. Faking a show for my parents to see that I’m still going to church. Whatever. I’ve been hypocriting my way through religion for years now. Why does my off day have to be on a Sunday? I don’t even have the excuse of needing to go to work to get out of going to church.

Wanted to say something else… what was it… Oh yeah! Neil Gaiman and Amanda Palmer are getting married!!! Omg. Haha! I still find it very surreal that they’re together at all. They’d make a really weird and wacky family I think. Lol! Amanda Palmer is so flamboyant. Ok, I admit, I don’t know Neil Gaiman well. But he seems a lot more sedate. Don’t know. Maybe opposites attract. Congrats to them.

My phone’s dying. Or mum’s phone is. Apparently she was trying to call me all of yesterday and it didn’t ring at all. I swear it didn’t! I may be going deaf but not to the point where I can ignore the phone going off right next to me. On the other hand, the phone worked fine when dad rang me today. Haha! Still not sure if I should get the iPhone. Still holding out to see if Apple really reveals a data slate on the 21st. I think I’d prefer that one more.

Talking about going deaf, my left ear is blocked AGAIN. It’s not too bad in a noisy area but it was horrible at work where it’s all quiet. My head felt blocked up. :p So anyway yeah. Talk to me on the right side, if you happen to remember and want to be nice and not have me strain to hear you clearly.

Been watching Destination Truth on YouTube. They’ve improved a little since the last few seasons when they’d go as far as going out on a lake in iceland in a rickety little boat in the middle of a fog without a compass. Lol! They did some ghost hunting in the first few episodes which was a change but boy did it freak me out or what! I can’t really figure out which one’s freakiest and I don’t want to think about it at 2.47am in the morning all by myself. Probably the one encounter in the Ghosts of Chernobyl segment. Anyway, talk about campy and lame jokes. They’ve got a bigger team this time round so more lame jokes. At least they got rid of that other girl who couldn’t make it through a show without yelling ‘oh my god’ and ‘get me out of here’ at least five times. The current girl is much better though she’s slowly unravelling at the edges in the recent episodes I’ve watched. One major gripe I had is in their recent alien hunting episode. They actually unearthed a strange little ‘corpse’ – which some YouTube comments say looks more like a frog than alien – and then left the body in the country because of ‘customs regulations’. Omg!! Couldn’t they have smuggled it through or did tests in that country? Instead they took photos of it and expected their experts to be able to definitively tell what it is. Please be more pro lor! The Monster Quest dudes would’ve fought to keep that piece of evidence in their hands.

Clay’s releasing ANOTHER album of covers from the 50s and 60s. I really don’t know what to say. Well, I do know what to say but it’ll probably be another paragraph long rant so I won’t. I’ll just say this: HOW COULD YOU????!!!!?!?!! Wasn’t ATDW bad enough?? You seriously need to fire whoever’s helping you make these decisions. Ok, time to stop ranting.

I discovered topsy-turvy cakes today. Adding to the bit about weddings, I decided that my wedding cake shall be a topsy-turvy cake. Something like this: Of course, I’d settle for something like:
Apparently they’re also called Mad Hatter cakes. I think Topsy Turvy cake sounds much cuter. And with my cousin a professional baker, I can force him to make one if I ever get married. Don’t care if it tastes horrible, I just want it to look nice. Hehe!!! How superficial am I?

Ok well, it’s 3am. I really should get to sleep but I’m all wired up now. Work was not too bad today. Subbed the longest story I ever seen in my life. Well, not quite in my life lah. In my subbing life. Took me a full hour. The longest time I’ve spent. Of course, I was expecting it to take longer but… at least it was interesting. About liposuction. In the end the checker took out all my changes anyway so I don’t know what the point of me subbing it was. Lol! Oh well.

Oh yeah, in case some people, like Sumi, who wanted to read my nanowrimo story but don’t follow me on Twitter, you can read it the slow way here: http://tinyurl.com/shadows-light.