Miss World

Watched Miss World on Channel 5 a few hours ago.
Its held in CHina this year.
Other than the addition of chinese characters on the sash so that Miss Turkey is also Miss Tu2 Er3 Qi2 and Miss Belgium is Miss Bi3 Li4 Shi2, this year's contest is not much different from the previous 55 years.

Other than the rare spark of talent from a small number of contestants (like Miss American Virgin Islands, she's very very smart!) There are about 2 answers to most questions. The idea is to pick one of them and fit it into any answer.

1. Oh, all the girls here are so wonderful, beautiful, friendly... I have learnt so much from them.
(Read: Bitchfest! I hope all of them break out in pimples so I would be crowned Miss WOrld!!)

2. Oh, I wish to help all the poor children, orphans who do not have families, do charity work.
(Read: Heck it! The last kid i was forced to bounce on my lap in the orphanage peed on my beautiful dress! Darnit i hate those monkeys!) *Why does everyone want to help children?? Year in year out.. Nobody said cancer? Aids? Famine?*



For questions like ...
How is your experience here?
What do you like most from this experience?
What have you learned/gained?
Use ANswer 1.

For questions like ...
What is your ambition?
What do you want to do if you win the title?
WHat are your dreams?
What does Miss World stand for/mean to you/your country?
Use ANswer 2.

For good measure, end off your sentence with 'Oh, CHina is such a beautiful country, its people are so nice/friendly/beautiful' to score brownie points.. (No no.. its for international goodwill.)

If all else fails, just ah ehm a bit, say something incomprehensible and smile very brightly (Which was what Miss Korea did by the way) and the host would take the cue from the megawatt smile to say a very loud THANK YOU VERY MUCH, at which the audience would applaud automatically.

If it were up to Miss Hufferphish here, the competition would have only one segment.

BKK

The hotline had suffered a premature end. And it was amazing to see how folks reacted when you know your job's ending. People immediately slacked. And i mean really slacked! Right after the 'boss' made an announcement that we must all stop taking orders past a certain date of purchase. I no longer had to pick up phones fast and quick to hit the 30 orders a day 'suggested' quota, coz many others had suddenly become uninterested in picking up the phone... Having been retrenched from my temp job, I'm once again jobless and hence very free to blog a really long and detailed entry. Warning: Long and dreary...

Day 1: Friday. Checked in at around 1am.

Cheapskate me had picked a cabin room. SInce it promised 'all the facilities, just without a window.' The room was nice enough and very clean. And moi was grateful to be greeted by a soft comfy bed. Until .. It gave me the creeps... I can't quite explain it. It was perfectly fine till the time i tried to fall asleep. Despite being tired, I had problems sleeping. I woke up many times during the first night with the sensation of being watched and had a couple of scary dreams. I felt unwelcomed.

Requested for an 'upgrade' in the morning. Topped up difference of 1500 baht. Moved all the barang barang from room 448 to 723. This time i had a window. Though the first room was much bigger, the furnishings newer, nicer and cheaper, I was quite happy to be out of it.

Due to the delays caused by the changing of rooms, our trip officially started around half past noon. Bumped into an old friend in the lobby. Most unexpected. Walked to MBK. It was hot and sunny but quite fun. The 25baht roadside cocoa was yummy. Starbucks at less than a fraction of the price. They had a coffee machine, whipped cream.. the works...

Mostly just look see, explore the area and the buildings near MBK. Found the cheap nailart place Miss Fong was gushing about in her 'guide to BKK'. Ate junk food, bought DUnkin Donuts and watched a movie since there was nothing much to do at night.

Hightlight: Movie. Not the movie itself though.

1. The theatre is chio. Feels like cineleisure. Great sound. Lots of leg room!

2. Stunned! I almost dropped my popcorn when everybody suddenly stood up after some trailers. To 'pay respects to the king'. And so i stood, watching a slideshow of sorts of the king's life, rice padi, blah blah... accompanied by ang klongish music which i suppose is their national anthem. Honestly, i was bloody impressed by this show of respect thing.

DAy 2: Saturday
No problems sleeping in room 723.
Rise and shine.

Supposed to be out real early, but moi here kept dragging and took a bloody long time to get ready. After a hearty complimentary breakfast, we set off for the famous chatuchak market.

TIme of entrance: 1015am.
TIme of exit: 630pm.

It was hot and sweaty, the air wasn't fantastic at some parts. I felt icky and dirty. but heck it! The vast assortment of goods kept me quite entertained. An endless Bugis Village. Those puppies and rabbits at the pets section were so cute. I wish i could take one home.

I didn't buy that much stuff actually. SOme knick knacks, lots of cheap earrings at 20baht a piece. Since most stuff can't be tried on, it was quite a risk to buy them. Especially since Thai gers are generally of smaller build and moi here isn't exactly what you would call petite. I must thank Miss Fong again for reminding moi to wear less. Hence i went in a skirt and tank top. Else the heat would have been more unbearable.

Quite amazingly, i was not hungry at all for the whole 8 hours. And subsisted on bottles of green tea, a Singha beer and mineral water. No food, no sitting down and no toilet break (which im grateful for. Must have sweated all the fluids out).

Come nightfall, the shops were starting to close. We left chatuchak and took a cab to PAtpong. For the shows that moi had been looking forward to.

In the end, i think the only highlight was the taxi driver. WHo informed us he can " speak ying ge-lise a little." He rattled on for a bit incomprehensibly. Poor me was quite worried when he turned around to yak while driving on the highway. The only 2 lines we understood were " Lady CHIO!", "Make Love CHio!"
He obviously makes regualr contributions to the economy of Patpong ...

Patpong itself was a let-down. I find the acts neither amazing nor gross. (mabe after hearing so much about it, it loses impact.) In other words, i was a nonchalent audience. Some of the gers were really pretty, some were so-so. A couple of fat ones were probably there for some weird fetishes. One rather fat ger was making a half-hearted attempt at dancing. She had a tummy and her boobs though big, were nothing to shout about. Her feet shuffling was extremely irritating. My friend thought her dancing was akin to a half asleep passsenger on the MRT holding onto the pole.

The constant pestering by the gers working the floor for tips were very irritating too. You pay and then pay some more. What a waste of money.

The acts were standard. The very long coloured string pulled out from the vagina. Opening of the bottle, shooting at balloons and this balancing act where a ger flips over and try to loop a plastic ring over a little pole...

And don't touch anything at the street market there. The vendors can be aggresive! Moi being so auntie decided to find out how much i had saved when i spotted a stall selling lamps identical to the one i had bought at Chatuchak earlier.

"How much?" (pointing at the lamp)

She punched 650 on the calculator! (I paid 199baht for mine)

I tried to walk away but she kept saying no! no! and insisted that i name a price. When i refused, she simply kept punching lower prices on her calculator.
Her final offer was 180 baht. Although her final price was slightly lower than the Chatuchak price. I was much happier buying from the friendly vendors of Chatuchak. 19 baht for emotional trauma was not worth it. The nasty look she gave me when i walked away was worth more than that.

Later, took the Skytrain to Siam station and look see for a bit. All the shops were closing. Rich man district. VNC shoes sell at around 40 sing there! And guess what? ANother movie.. Hahaha..

Day 3: Sunday.
Was simply exhausted the previous day so slept in and missed the complimentary breakfast.

Went back to Chatuchak around noon.. Determined to clear all sections cept for those farang infested wood products, cushion covers ... and livestock sections which don't smell very fantastic.

ANd Chatuchak gave me a horrible pimple outbreak. I think its the toxic combination of the heat, sweat, dirt and sun. I'm also a tad darker after all the sun i got, despite most areas being sheltered. Lots of small zits on my forehead and nose. The 'cluster' kind.. I can't remember ever having so many zits at one go. Argh!!

AGain, we left Chatuchak at closing time. Headed to MBK for my first restaurent meal there. Steamboat Very impressed with the service crew. They were efficient, polite and can do everything. The same ger who pushes a trolley around clearing the plates zips to your table to take orders with a PDA the moment i flipped open the menu to order dessert. SHe then lifted the pot off the hot plate with her bare hands! Just like those folks at Marina Bay Steamboat stalls!

After dinner.. Shops mostly closed.. What else but to re-visit the cineplex? I suppose there were many others who had nothing much to do on a SUnday night. Cos there was quite a crowd at the cinema. We picked this Thai horror show called Long Kong. Damn scary stuff. Simply gross. Its about voodoo and spells. This deranged woman wanted revenge against this whole bunch of teenagers. She killed one of them first and fed her face to her friends in fish curry. *Puke* Cos for her black magic to work, her enemies must eat their own friend's flesh. A guy died horribly with lizards, snakes and baby crocodiles bursting out of his torso. One ger dug her eyes out and the worst.. she saved it for the guy who masterminded her disgrace and was the cause of her misery. SHe pulled out his teeth, tied him up, poured boiling water down his throat. And burned his feet, hands and finally his face. Oh my god.. *getting chills*

I watched like 50% of the show, the rest of it I was cringing and looking away. Especially the burning part, where i only caught glimpses. I really pei fu the thais.. I looked around and everyone had their eyes on the screen. ANd moi who claimed to be a horror movie enthusiast cannot take it!!

That night was the most scary night. Not cos of the movie but cos my pal was not feeling well. And we found ourselves at a certain Mission Hospital at 4am. After paying a stupid cab driver(one of those who 'camps' outside the hotel) a bloody 100 baht for like a less than 5min journey. And I filled in an alarmingly long list of drug allergies while the doc attended to the patient. Thankfully its a rather touristy hospital and they can all speak English.

DAy 4: Monday
After the late night 'adventure', the next day was even more fraught with adventures. Apparently, we had thought that we were going home on Tuesday when it was Monday. Packed and washed up in a record 25min after receiving a call from the agent who was picking us up for transfer to the airport. Made it to the airport on time though we had to pay 500baht for the hotel cab service.

The freaky stuff doesn't end there. After somehow mistaking 05 12 for 06 12. I once again misread the gate number for boarding. Instead of 32, I was happily waiting at gate 36 and assume the plane had been delayed. Until they made an announcement for 'MIA' passengers.

Oh man... And that also mean that i didn't manage to go to the temples or back to MBK for 199bahtheels and nailart. Or banana chips and some other souvenirs. So please don't be angry with me if i din get you stuff.

Back in Sg, we went to see another doc and mistook number 29 for 26.

Freaks ... 6 is the number of the devil. And we have successfully misread another digit as 6 thrice. Seriously gives me goosebumps. I still don't understand how i can read the same ticket repeatedly and yet see the digit 5 as 6...

Just hope everything turns out for the better.

*SHudders*

2x33 = ?

Once again .. once again .. Fate has played a cruel joke.

Here it goes...

On Friday, I informed the product manager that I can't work for a few days and whether it would be alright if I find somebody to take over for the duration.

As i could not confirm who would be taking over, another ger asked if she could refer her friend instead. She called her pal who promptly replied.

The ger who would be taking over is also from NTU.
From Marketing, year 2.
Is a sports camp pageant.

Its all good until...
Until .....
................
..............
........
.......
.....
....
...
...
..
..
..
..
..
.
.

My colleague told me her name is ....
Shan Shan..
I gulped..

Oh man.. I thought... SHeesh..
I know its dumb. I told myself it doesn't matter. But heck it does!
Some super chio bu with the same name is coming in....

I can imagine .. The boys (I call them boys because they really are.. YOUNG. The pre-NS kind of Young.) would go.. oh this Shan Shan is HOT! Wow..

You know its like if there are 2 gers in class called Jasmine and one looks more 'Jasminey' than the other? This happened in my Sec 3 class actually. I only knew there's another ger called Jasmine when I was in Sec 4.. ONE YEAR LATER! One Jasmine is a chio bu dancer. The other well.. is just Jasmine. So normal Jasmine decided to intro herself with her chinese name instead on Day One.

So Miss Hufferphish here decided to be 'cheery' about it and 'prep' everybody for a 'surprise'.
Pre-empting the inevitable comparisons, I decided to be the one to inform them of Shan Shan and conveniently dropped in the fact that she's a chio bu pageant ger, jokingly telling the boys to 'behave'...

So well, I've covered my ass.. More or less anyway.. (Thank goodness there's no such thing as 'Shan Shany'. Unlike names like Mei Ling, Michelle or Elizabeth.)

So honestly.. as juvenile as it sounds. Yeah it matters..and i'm feeling a lil' sore abt it. It certainly doesn't feel very good to have Shan Shan the Pageant take over the work of good old 33 here..

*Sigh*

A series of unfortunate events

I fell asleep on the train today. On the way back from Kallang. I knocked into the guy's shoulder a bit and it jolted me awake. Thankfully, I didn't mistake his shoulder for a pillow and drooled on it or anything. Was very paiseh for abt 3mins or so, after which i amazingly dozed off again.

Neways this week has been marked by a series of unfortunate events.

Monday: After meeting the product manager in charged of the project, I was led into an office with phones ringing incessantly. Instead of doing outbound calls, I was to be picking up calls instead for a hotline. The line was so HOT, i truly understood the meaning of 'ringing off the hook'.

There was me, me and me. I was instructed to pick up the phones and take down the numbers while he went away to settle some stuff. 10min later, he was back. I had no idea of what I was doing, what service the hotline provided and had been told by an irate customer that I ought to be fired for not knowing anything.

The perm staff were asked to tend to the phone lines too. I was given a 10min 'brief' briefing abt the hotline's service and proceeded to answer calls the whole day.

What Gonzales would say: Insufficient employee training. Yield management.


Tuesday: By day 2, there were 5 people manning the phones. Manpower's up, but due to poor coordination between the company and the 3rd party company engaged, lots of cheques remained uncollected. It was the epitome of customer dissatisfaction. people sitting at home waiting for a courier to come when no one turned up. These people in turn called back and screeched to their heart's content. very zhe2 shou4.

What Gonzales' would say: Emotional labour, frontline, performing way below expectation.

Wednesday: Some of those folks who complained on day 2 had 2x failed collection!! The courier again didn't turned up even after rescheduling! Oh my..

And Miss Hufferphish here was 'handpicked' by the GM for the dept to do the most "honorable" task. To call back customers whose data had been partially LOST from Day 1. Absolutely queer... Somehow, as there were many people jotting down notes and passing around info, the consolidated excel sheet had blanks here and there. And the sup handed me the file with the instruction to 'fill in the blanks'.

That was tramutising...
A typical call went like this:
Hello Sir, I am calling from the xx promotion hotline. Can I just double -check with you some of your particulars?

What do you need?

IC number please?

XXXXXXX

Thank you. Can I have your address too?

The courier picked up my cheque already. How can you not know my address?

I'm sorry sir. I've been handed this file and need to make sure the data is complete.

No. You ask your own company. ...blah blah...

And the above was a moderate case.

A bad case is:

Hello Sir, I am calling from the xx promotion hotline. Can I just double -check with you some of your particulars?

Oh the XXX hotline. You know yesterday I waited and waited and NO ONE came to pick up my cheque. You promised me. And now your company don't even know my details?? I called and your lines were jammed. Left voicemail and sent email and now you are asking ME? Do you know when is my collection date?

(Missing data) Ehm, I'm sorry sir, can I reschedule for you?

I'm asking you! What time were you supposed to come? You tell me!

(Missing data) EHm, I;m really sorry sir, but this file has been passed to me and I do not have these information.

Your company is so inefficient! How can you don't know? I don't care, I'm not going to repeat myself again. I am going to file a complaint! This is ridiculous./ You should be fired/ You are stupid/ You are XXX. Use your imagination, the results are varied.

Repeat variations of the above conversations about 50 times and that's what I did on Wed. Each call was made with dread.

What Gonzales would say: How IT can help? Communication?

Thur: Today! They employed 5 more boys! Overstaffed!
Somehow, God or Satan or Fate. WHoever's up there, down there, around ? Loves to screw me. 5 new computers had been set up in the cubicles for the new staff. And somehow my computer was moved and I had to shift with it.

They use one number for the hotline and the calls are routed to the next available phone. Therefore phone 1 will ring first. If phone one is engaged, the call automatically goes to phone2. If phone 1,2 are both engaged, it goes to phone 3.

With the change in feng shui, my phone seldom rang today. My phone must be number 9 or 10 in line. Cos there was one other guy whose phone didn't ring much.

ANd the GM had stated in the morning that each person should have served 30 customers, minus those who call in for the wrong reasons and ought to be referred elsewhere. So everyone was scrambling to pick up calls n boost their numbers.

30 alright.Problem is there is oversupply of labour and undersupply of customers. Thursday is considered 'off-peak'.
At the end of the day, the max number by the ger at phone 1 is 20. The minimum by phone no 10 probabely is 3.
I had 5, yes 5.

And i was thrown caustic remarks by the GM.

He came once at 2pm: You only have 2? HOw come so few?
"The calls usually don't reach this phone.. The others are ringing you can hear..." *feeling quite useless*

At 430pm, he was back.
"Your list is still so few? The others are still alright. Yours is pathetic.

Yup, he said PATHETIC.

Excuse me? But i'm not in control of the number of callers?? I can't help it if all the calls get picked up b4 phone no 9 and you've doubled your staff on a day when you don't need it!

Economics? I only supply! I don't generate demand! If a prostitute has no customers, she can do a striptease and generate demand. I can't!

I suppose he just wants to be mean.
Sad to say, I seem to be a magnet for meanies. Mean behavior is constantly directed at Moi.

Bad karma? My face? My voice? Whatever, when people don't like me, they can pick on anything.

WHat GOnzales would say: XXXXXXXX

Someone is bound to be retrenched at the rate things are going. You can't be paying folks to sit around staring at the phone and waiting for it to ring.

The Irony...

Just Like Heaven

Movie review:
Warning: Contains spoilers.

Typical typical... Its a simple, light-hearted flick sorta show. What you see in the trailer is basically what you get. Except a tiny little sort of 'twist'. A good way to relax and space out from examinations but nothing spectacular to cry about. I'll probably get nightmares and heart palpations if I watch something like Emily ROse now. Went to check out her story and i don't quite believe that she's really possessed. 6 damned souls stuck in her seems a bit much.


ANyway...
What i found funny was the glaring Inattention TO Detail.
1. If ghost can walk through walls, how come it can lean on the side of a building and not flip off?

2. Funny a major road accident --> crashing into a huge truck leaves you in hospital but with no visible injury. Not a scratch! (I know Reese has to look cute, but isn't that a bit too cute?)

3. And this sometimes have shadow and sometimes no shadow thing which i din notice. (Apparently the special effects people need more coffee.)

4. The 'spend a nite in bed' scene is quite weird.. hahaha.. I'm still wondering if they censored its supposed to leave the audience guessing "did they, or did they not?" ALthough its technically impossible of cos.

5. ...................................................

6. .....................................

7. ...........................

8. ..................

9. ..........

10. ..

ANyway it had a happy ending and Reese Witherspoon is spunky, cute and pretty to bits.

A tribute to INSANIAQUARIUM

I have been eating my words a lot lately.
No i wont play silly games!!! NO!! They're juz bytes!! Argh.. but here i am... yes yes once again I have succumbed to temptation today (which i attribute to exam stress as usual..)

Being my usual Kapo self, I was browsing through blogs when i chance upon a certain game called INSANIQUARIUM which was 'featured' on the blog belonging to a friend of a friend.

I clicked on her link and ended up at POPCAP GAMES and that was it.


Since i had such a crazy time battling aliens from killing my dear phishes, I have decided to feature my bloody gaming experience... though i mus say im nowhere as good as the blogger whose link i clicked on.. Her page was filled and i mean really FILLED with phishes. Scary sia...

The logic of the game is simple: feed your phish, don't let them turn grey and die, and they'll make $$ for you. Collect the coins and jewels they drop/SHIT out and buy more stuff with the Money. AND ZAP those freaking alien attackers!!!




















See how cool this alien is? It shoots out rockets and those circle things tell you which phishes they're aiming at.

The preggy phish (the one with the big tummy and wearing a scarf around her neck) makes a farting sound whenever it pops out a new baby phish. Cute!

There are many types of aliens attackers. The one i HATE most is the lump of fat like thing in the pic below. It looks rather uncool and harmless but it gobbles up my phishes real fast!!! I have hence named it the FATGOB




















I figure i enjoy the game so much cos I love picking up $$.. Imagine your phishes shitting gold coins.. ANd you can't even pick em up fast enuf..Hah!

For those who are not afraid to end up like me (fingers a bit numb from clicking on the mouse like a freaking nutcase)Play at your OWN RISK.

http://www.popcap.com/gamepopup.php?theGame=insaniquarium

Tong Hua Gu SHi

After the headsplitting experience of muggin for LS80, I am finally able to get cracking for Svcs Mktg. I figured I have 6days. Or 5 1/2.

Half of which(mabe one) just went to Wang2 Zi3 Bian4 Qing1 Wa1. Literally translated into 'Prince turn into a Frog'. Its an Ou3 Xiang4 Ju4 which is currently screening on Channel U 7pm Mon-Fri.

Sis just bought Part3 of the VCD for this Ou Xiang Ju to commemorate her end of year holidays and moi could not help but couch in front of the TV with her. Moi who had laughed at her for watching such a stupid show. Moi who had said the male lead is ugly. Moi who got threatened to pay $5 for watching her VCDs. She claims that the rental is $20 for the whole set. Hence her part 3 is worth 7.3333 of rental, therfore i ought to pay $5 for rental at least. Damn.

Neways it is still a dumb show. BUT strangely addictive. Maybe its exam stress. Have you ever wondered why u need more junk food during exam period or watch some crap show just to tune out of studying. ANything that offers temporary relief suddenly becomes enticing.

Coming back to this show. Well, same old formula. Ger mits rich guy, dont know he's rich, cos he conveniently suffered from memory loss. Somehow memory loss happens so much and so often in the world of Taiwanese Dramas. Whenever the scriptwriter can't tink of how to link the story, just hit someone on the head. COncuss and tada AMMESIA! Oh and comas too.

The magic of ou xiang jus...

1. Hot looking guys and gers.
2. The guys must be RICH.
3. Better still, have a BAD rich boy turn GOOD becoz of a pretty POOR ger.

Sounds like Meteor Garden? That must be the mother of ou xiang jus.
BTW: Quite a number of successful ou xiang jus like Meteor Garden one, MVP Qing Ren and Prince to Frog is by the same Zhi4 zuo4 ren2. No wonder they are similar. Her Formula rocks!!

SImple but gr8 ain't it?
To fulfil the fantasy of tons of young nubile gers out there that .. hey u can find a RICH guy to marry. And he's cute and hunky too. Be a modern CInderalla. And rich meaning filthy freaking rich. Like Dao Ming Si and this Shan JunHao of some bloody organization called SENWELL.

And better still those nubile young gers would start buying posters,CDs and VCDs and whatever is churned out. $$$ What a money making venture. To make ppl pay to daydream!

**Pls let me think of a winning formula for TCS and make me rich...**

Post LS80

LS80 -->Espanol Level One. After taking the paper and munching on a slightly soggy peanut Kuei stashed in my bag, i feel so much better. Talk about soul food...

Quite mentally drained though. Felt like a PC with a RAM of say.. 128MB? I was struggling to assess my faulty hard disk. Bits and pieces of information here and there. A2.5 hrs long memory test.

I think the paper wasn't that bad really. Quite bad but not too bad. I shall seek solace in the fact that its a GE.

Neways, Im not burning any books or tearing any paper. There's only a few sheets of notes in my little folder here, so i doubt i will make a significant contribution to the recycling bin.

Linguistically challenged?

Warning: Whiny whiny whiny

Its 230 am. 36 hours before the dreaded Spanish exam. And im barely halfway through it. Meaning I took 2days to clear 2 chapters and I have 2 chapters left. Simple arithmatic shows that there is a problem here. Major problem. dammit i shouldn't even be blogging. But here I am..

Relating to my last post, I mentioned that studying is a 'must-do' thing. Once in a while, I come across something i enjoy. Spanish is one of those things. At least it used to be. Our relationship didn't last long though. The love fizzled out soon enough.

I have concluded im either linguistically challenged, have poor memory or worse.. Both. I fear the worst. I have been reduced to a primary school kid studying for a spelling test. Unfortunately, this is the mother of spelling tests. Ive been scribbling all over pieces of blank paper in a bid to practise 'xi2 zi4'. Hoping that scribbling a few more times would somehow make them stay in my alzeimer stricken head.

Ive also done the 'cover with paper and write yourself' thing.

SOb SOb.. this is bad... The bloody oral exam a while back almost killed me. This is 1st degree murder.. No plea bargain.
I reckon ive spent more time on a 3 (pathetic) AUs GE.. REPEAT GE! than an equivilent core over the course of this semester and i just dont get why im reduced to this state 36 hours before the exam.

ARGGGGGGGHHHHHhhhhhh!!!!!

Parallels of studying

Having sat for the Political Econs paper today(which turned out to be mainly a scribing exercise), I have some thoughts in my head.

After the paper, I was real pissed with myself. Why? I felt that I haven't done justice to myself. Despite reminding myself time and again to have good time management, that exam is both about knowing your work and knowing how to be exam smart, I didn't finish my paper.

The moment i flipped open the script and scanned through the questions, I made up my mind on which questions to answer and the time I have for each. But alas, it seems that my hand was not listening to my head and I was foolhardy enough to scribble on at the expense of the last question.

WHile waiting for the examiner to collect the script, I decided that i wasn't going to lug the big bag of readings home. However, I didn't chuck it into the first bin i saw. Instead, i carried it up the slope, under the sun and all the way to S4, found a recycle bin at the basement and chucked the pile in, paper bag included.

ALthough i tell myself that the reason for not dumping my notes into the first bin i saw was due to environmental friendliness, I have to admit that i really don't care about the trees and saving the world that much. Truth be told, I coudn't let go of the notes just yet. After all, i had spent many hours painstakingly highlighing and underlining the pages, and had spent much of sunday putting POST-ITS on them. After so much effort, I needed some time before throwing them away. And a dismise in a recycling bin filled with paper seems that much better an end than a putrid rubbish bin.

As i slipped each pile of notes, each tied with a rubber band through the slot, I thought..hey isn't this a little like love?

You see, before the exam is akin to being still in love. Lots of attention and time was lavished on the notes, getting the points, remembering which part goes where....Not that I love studying. I study because I have to. It has always been like this. It is something that has to be done. Neither do I hate it. Sometimes I chance upon topics that I like or find interesting, and I enjoy those. I also enjoy the process of studying and bitching with frenz and having an excuse to eat more junk food and attribute it to exam stress. Most of the time, I am ambivalent. Those who have a passion for the things they study may find this rather sad. To me, it is just part of life. Lots of things are done because there is a need to. More often than not, you do something you don't like, in anticipation of something you like.

Back to the point. The relationship between my notes and me ended after the exam. The love has ended. Just a while ago, they were important. The most important things I was carrying. Just as quickly, they become worthless. Each piece, highlighted and tagged, will be discarded.

However, there are remnants of what was there before. Hence, it takes time to get over it. Therefore, I lugged the heavy paper bag all the way to S4 before I finally understood that there is really no point in carrying it further. It is heavy and weighing me down. The string was making angry red lines appear on my arms. Finally I discard it. EVen then, I threw it into a recycle bin, cos I wanted the end to be better, nicer, not ugly and dirty.

3 degree slum

The time of the year has come when NTU morphs into a slum.

Day 1: Friday night. The dustbins start to fill up. Having been incalcated with the belief that a little man will pop up and fine us $500 for chucking rubbish in the wrong places, we students do NOT litter. Instead, we attempt to stuff each bin to the brim. After which boxes are stacked on top and around the dustbin, like a macabre Christmas tree.

Day 2: Saturday. Even the smaller bins in the toilets are full. The wastepaper baskets are overflowing.

Day 3: Sunday morning. The rubbish bins start to smell funny. I spotted a couple of wastepaper baskets toppled over along the corridor. A pair of chopsticks and chicken bones. Fellow mugger said she spotted birds picking at the fermenting food.

This coupled with lots of muggers makes the school rather scary. We flop around in our worst state. Guys start to lose their tans, turning a tad pale. Girls turn totally unglam.

To make things worse, the tutorial rooms turn into battlegrounds. A friend experienced a hostile takeover. Muggers armed with books, stake their claims.

The traditional notice pasted outside the door declaring temporary ownership no longer works. Notes / Books / Food placed on tables might be ignored

Come end of exams, things will be back to normal. We will be sane again.

A mascot for hufferland!

Nintendogs

"Wow! Oh my! That's so cute! CAn it bark? Gosh, it looks so real!"

Yes I was gushing as I stared at the latest generation of virtual pets. Made by who else but the grand dame of handheld portable games - Nintendo. Had it been so long ago when the humbleTamagotchi was touted as the must-have item? Remember those days when everyone had at least one of those egg shaped things which contained a precious little dog or chick which poops, sleeps and plays? And the future generations of Digimons it spun off that sent little boys into virtual battledomes?

Having said that, here's a couple of suggestions for the local market ...

The NintenSiberian-Husky --> For folks still intent on 'adapting' Artic animals to the local weather, its a safer alternative. After all, it would only be a virtual dog which dies of heat stroke. The owner can always restart his game, making a mental note to turn on the air-conditioning for his precious pet the second time round.

The NintenLuohan --> Although the Luohan may be out of fashion now, who knows when it would be in vogue again? Uncles can carry their handhelds and stare at their fish while on the go for the divine 4 digits.

The NintenBaby --> We can't miss that out. For busy couples who can't afford the time to diaper real babies, this would be a low commitment project. Maybe they would find the virtual little one so cute, they decide to make a real one to boost our falling birth rates.

Of Service in Chilli padi Land

Due to the recent spotlight on Singapore's service level and the endless emphasis on good service in Gonzales' services marketing class, I have been irritated sufficiently to blog my 2 cents worth of cynical opinions here.

Yes, Singapore's service level does suck in many places. We complain non-stop about the bloody salesgirl who is more interested in her rebonded hair than us --> the dear, most important, alwaiz right customers' needs. About the slow servers at Swensens, the sulky faced counter staff and the sully looking salesger who gives you a sian look for not buying anything. Salesmen who adopt a stalker style appraoch, tailing you around his 'territory' in Harvey Norman.

Gonzales talk repeatedly about training staff, motivating staff, having checkpoints, solicitating for customer surveys. These people are in LALALAND. I'll probably fail my paper if Gonzales sees this, but this is REALITY.

Come on! People who write about this stuff are sitting in their air-con offices, fighting to get their next article posted in some journal like Marketing Science. Have they ever worked a day as a shoe salesger, driven a cab, or waitressed?

The simple problem is MONEY. How much does a salesger at Charles n Keith get for a month of staring at people's ugly toenails? $1000 give or take a couple of hundred. LALALAND DENIZENS can consider paying a decent wage to MOTIVATE employees. Factor in spending public holidays and weekends spent servicing an endless stream of Singaporean women with shoe fetishes(moi included), but can't afford On Peddar or the likes of Stuart Weitzman and Jimmy Choo. And worse still can't decide whether she wants black brown or both (moi included). And you get the idea how bad life is.

Factor in a stressful work environment with motivating techniques such as high sales quotas and leave that you somehow are never able to claim and how do you expect these folks to wish you a geniune goodday and smile at every customer?

Just keep it real, efficient and fuss free and its good enuf for me.

In case I risk sounding like a film critic, i shall relate my very own experience. During one particular end-of-year vacation a couple of years ago, I applied for a sales job at Veeko and started work at the Tiong Bahru outlet.

The pay is $1100 a month for junior staff. 6 day week, off on weekday(not-fixed), must work public holidays and working hours is 11am to 9pm. That works out to 4.231 an hour. 4.91 if you factor in the CPF contribution.

On day 1, I was introduced to a personal target, shop target, and watever targets people sitting in lalaland devised. The personal targets are anti-competitive as the structure is designed in such a way that staff fight like cats among themselves. Hence, every customer that comes in becomes part of a stalking game, giving rise to the 'follow very closely behind' routine. Stupid me had my first day's sales attributed to 'newcomer's luck' stolen by an unscrupulous '2nd shop in-charge' who happily keyed in her ID for my sales.

In addition to being on your feet all day, meeting nasty customers, the foul-mouthed, changing room divas, and faking interest type... And holding on to your customers so that your hard-earned sales won't be stolen, the company has cleverly decided to make sales staff bear the cost of stolen goods. So 50% of the COST, as in PRICE TAG "COST" minus staff purchase 'discount' will be borne by watever is deductible from employee's commission. Working hours are extended if there are customers who mill around past closing time and are too insensitive to walk out. Extra hours clocked are not paid but rolled over as hours to be claimed. But its hard to claim them. A perm staff told me that she can only claim it when she quits.

I lasted a mere 2.5 wks, out of the 5 wks i was 'commited' to work and threw in the towel.

Another example is the humble taxi. Everyone takes cabs sometime or another, and we have all had our fair share of good and ugly drivers. However, the service with a smile, polite and chirpy thing may be simply too far-fetched.

10 years ago, cab drivers were able to feed their families quite comfortably on their income. There were fewer cabs on the road and the rent was lower. Drivers could opt to own their cabs. Nowadays, drivers are reduced to just another unvalued employee of the cab companies. There are many more players now and the number of cabs on the road has multiplied. Drivers are squeezed by rising diesel prices, daily rent and the various other costs taxi companies add on. Many drivers quit each month as they can't make enough to justify the long hours spent on the road. This starts a vicious cycle. As the turnover increases, you get increasing number of drivers who are unfamiliar with the routes. Struggling to pay the rent and other expenses makes drivers turn to unorthodox mtds such as waiting for calls, taking indirect routes and worse, dangerous driving such as speeding to pick up more passengers during their shift or cutting across lanes to pick up a customer.

Do taxi companies care? It would be idealistic to think that they truly care about drivers' welfare. As long as the maximum number of cabs are rented, they can collect rent. And that's the important thing. To keep the ratio of idle vehicles low!

SO to improve service, PAY is of utmost importance. If the salesger is paid more, she'll be a happier person, be able to buy more shoes and hopefully genuinely smile more. How many smiles can you buy with $4.5 an hour? How many can you buy with $7?

Of onions and tissue paper

Now this post is about the little boy and myself.

The place is at Jurong West St91( So I thought its really near NTU, unfortunately I realised its not so near after all.) ANyway I was offered $20 for an hour of teaching kiddie stuff on Thursday evening. The agent mentioned that I had to teach Hanyu Pinyin and English.

I had conjured up a mental image of the boy and his family.
1. The parents must be rich. Why else would they want to blow $20 an hour on their K1 kid?
2. They must be very busy, hence they have no time to read to their baby.
3. They can't speak or write Chinese at all, (Super Ang Moh type), hence they need someone to come in and speak some Mandarin to their kid and pronounce the Hanyu Pinyin way.

I was so wrong. Totally off tangent.

1. The parents are NOT rich. There are 6 people - Grandpa+Grandma+Dad+Mum+Kid+Baby living in a sparsely furnished 3 room flat.

2. Once again the agency got it wrong. I must be cursed.. The mother says she only wanted help with English. Says she can speak some English but nobody in the house speaks English to the kid so she wanted someone to come and speak to him as his standard is below average. (She sounded Malaysian to me.)

And so I had come with a Hanyu Pinyin and English guidebook as instructed by the agent who messed up and the mother very kindly reassured me that its okie, that she can keep the chinese book for later use and paid me the money for the books.

That brings me to a problem here. As much as I want the cash, i don't think there is much i can do for the kid. Unlike the very noisy Primary One class who couldn't keep silent for more than 3min and drove me nutty, he doesn't talk to me much. I doubt I have the ability to make him open up to me. And there is really no point in wasting their money when they're already financially taxed.

And looking at this particularly family reminded me of the time when my mother was forced to engage an English tutor for me in K2. My tutor was also an undergrad at that point of time. Basically no one in the house speaks English too. SO i could barely string an English sentence together. And i had just transferred to a new Kindergarten after moving and it turns out that at the new place, my English was way below normal. (Don't ask me how 2 PAP Kindergartens can have such big differences.)

Anyway, the aweful relevation came when I got back my paper for the English test. My form teacher had given out most of the scripts as I sat there dreading THE moment. When i finally got it back, I was one of the last few in class and had failed miserably.

The teacher's one liner did the trick though. I don't rem her face, or name, whether its Mdm, Mrs or Miss, but i rem the sentence very well...

"You don't even know how to spell 'O-N-I-O-N' ?"

I clutched the test paper and kept quiet. The teacher moved on.

When the class ended, I started bawling my heart out the moment i stepped out of class.

My mother's friend, who had come to pick up her daughter, spotted me at the void deck and asked " Shui2 Qi1 Fu4 Ni3?" I managed to thrust her the offending exam paper and muttered something about failing it, in between sobbing, swallowing my own snoot and spreading the mixture of tears and mucus on my face by wiping with my hands. She proceeded to help me wipe off some of the gunk on my face, unfortunately it seemed that my tear ducts and nose had gone into "over-production" mode.

She then handed her packet of tissue to me, told me to stay put and left me alone for a bit to pick up her daughter before coming back. By then i had tissue bits stuck all over my face.
And she brought me home in the super unglam state to my rather alarmed mother.

This story eventually became her "must-repeat every year" story whenever we bai4 nian2 during CNY.

Tuition

I haven't been raking in much income ever since my crazy 'spurt' of 'working like mad' days to save up for a certain trip, depending on hand-outs from my mum and tapping into my savings which has been dwindling bit by bit over the past year. My last job was PA, which doesn't really count since well.. Pa is PA. No tuition, nothing. Nada.

Since the beginning of this semester, I've been actively calling up the agencies listed on the classifieds, hoping to stem the outflow of $ from my bank account.

As mentioned in previous entries, I had this freak case at CCK where I was "fired" before I started. (Disaster meter: 10)

And there was this case where one student suddenly turned out to be two, hence I "fired" myself before I started. (Disaster meter: 5)

And recently i've finally managed to land a couple of students. But the experiences were still rather fraught with disasters.

Student (a) - A sec one ger, so far seems quite obedient and pays attention, but not very quick to pick up concepts.
(Disaster meter 6): PAy is low as commented by Qiuling and the amazing thing was the agency got my name wrong, says that I just finished my A levels and I still can't determine whether its the parent or the agent who decided to 'under-report' my meagre earnings by another $10. Anyway first impressions were totally ruined. Instead of appearing professional on Day One. Both parties were freaked and making multiple calls to acertain the situation with the bloody middleman.

Student (b) - K1. Yes, tinny tiny.. He warrants a seperate post all to himself.

A word of thanks

I would like to thank a few people.
You know who you are when you read this.
I haven't been able to articulate it very well.
But I am really touched.
Thanks for being by my side when i needed to rant,
for offering your help and company.
Thanks for staying with me.

Of hell

After reading Ms Chiongster and Spidey's comments regarding my last post. I have come to this conclusion. I'll probably see my sis in hell... If such a place exists.

About this obsession with the word .. hell, purgurtory, eternal damnation ... It comes in many forms. The terminology varies with different cultures and religions, but the end result is more or less the same.

To me, hell embodies fear, fear of misery, pain, anguish. We work so hard to avoid it, to secure ourselves a ticket out of it ... to heaven? To a better next life ? Or to disappear into oblivion? We pray, donate to NKF, contribute to the Tsunami aid, and sometimes simply decide not to step on an ant. Or curb the urge to prod that millipede you spot on the pavement.

Yet, sometimes living is hell. I choose to believe in living hell. To me, that is more scary than the unknown. Sickness, discrimmination, pain, poverty. That is less apparent in Singapore though, where the underclass leads a somewhat invisible life. You spot them when they venture out of their homes and once in a while, you see a man or woman foraging the rubbish bins at bus stops. Or the old uncle cleaning the tables at hawker centers, straining with the heavy buckets.

At other times, we struggle, trudging along to keep up and find that you're falling behind, and you keep trying and trying and you're exhausted. Its like the uncle who mops the floor at the bus interchange on a rainy day. He painstakingly cleans every tile, yet, the shuffling of footsteps continues and mud is smeared all over. Mopping makes no difference. And that's what happens. You can try but it makes no difference. Or your efforts may be wiped out by the folly of others or that of yourself and in the end you have nothing.

Sisters

Channel U was showing the korean (or isit Japanese?) horror flick -- Sisters -- at 1130 pm last night. I was being a potato while my lil' sis was multitasking, watching TV and doing last minute work as usual. (Note: The one week holiday ends this Sunday, so her pile of uncompleted homework is due in 2 days time.)

Now for someone as fierce and rude and fiesty as her, she turns into a timid little mouse when dealing with the supernatural. Hence it's a good time for me to scare her a abit. Typically after watching anything remotely scary, she'll be afraid of the dark, take a shorter time to shower and need someone to be with her ALL THE TIME. Hence her evil sister had a field day freaking her out by threatening to leave her to watch (and do homework) by herself. Occasionally i would also mimick those freaky breathy sounds favored by ghosts of Korean/Jap origins just to see her squirm. (I know i'm going to hell for this..)
Don't ask me why she keeps watching horror movies if she can't take it though... And insist that i watch it with her when i usually make it even more scary.
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While watching the wacko sisters being tortured by their evil but chio stepmother, i took out my midnite junkie snack --> A pig- shaped- lotus- paste -filled -mooncake. As i proceeded to break its head off and munch on it, i saw my sis eyeing my beheaded piglet and dropping blatant hints to make me offer her a piece. I obliged and divided the head into 2 halves, stretching out my hand and grunting 'nah'.

As both of us munched happily on our portion of the pig's head, my sister suddenly asked ..
" Can i eat the eye?"

Me: "Of cos you can, dont be stupid. "

Sis popped it into her mouth.

A few moments later...

Sis: "Are you sure? It's a bit hard.. "

Me (an evil thought kind of just popped up in my head): HAHA.. Of course you CAN'T, so stupid... "

Sis: SPAT it out.

Me: "You actually believed that? Oh lord... "

Sis: Shit you! I'm going to fart.

(Sis's farts are really killer stuff.. Not to be trifled with and she loves to fart in my face.)

Me: "All right all right. Really.. its edible.I ate it already. "

Sis popped it back into her mouth.

Me(an even more evil thought kind of just popped up in my head): " HAHA, don't you know the myth of eating the mooncake piglet's eyes?"
(Honestly, I was just trying my luck with this one.. I swear..)

Sis (eyes open wide and stops munching): Huh???

Me: "You'll turn stupid, i can't believe you ate it.."

Sis: "I don't believe you.. "

Me: "Then eat it, no one's stopping you.. "

SIs: "I really don't believe you.. "

Me: "Then just eat it and stop asking.. the... "

Sis SPAT it out. AGAIN...

Me: *Laughs! You believed that?? oh my.. you're really stupid! Pwahaha!"

Sis: "You stupid dumb &&U*&^^%$! " and FARTS.

Chicken or Egg?

After catching the 9pm TCS drama, roughly translated as ' Whose chicken doesn't lay eggs?", i'm amazed at how low TCS can go after the merger with Channel U. Don't ask me why i'm watching it.. I'm too bored, too free, too crappy or simply being a potato.

The scriptwriter ought to be fired. But then again he must be wishing he is dead too, given the requirements of the show's valued sponsors (MCDS - Ministry of community development and sports)

1. Must get married.
2. Must pop babies.
3. Try IVF if you can't make it.
4. Unwed and knocked-up? NO abortion.
5. And remember to breastfeed your kid.
6. Career-minded women beware, you'll lose your husbands if you are not family-oriented!
7. Give ex-convicts a 2nd chance.
8. Entrepreneurial spirit.

The poor scriptwriter must have been forced to work the following points into the plot, thereby resulting in the absence of one.

Snippets of the terrible show:

--> A one night stand with a Jap photographer resulted in a pretty young lass giving birth to a baby ger. The father of the child supposedly died when the overloaded boat he was in sank. However.. he survived as he.. drifted in the sea for days clingling onto a piece of wood and was saved by fishermen!(*gags* I'm getting morning sickness.) They met each other again as she was staging a 'Let me breastfeed my baby' campaign at Jurong Point!

--> Must set up a business. Sell cakes, sell eggs, whatever.

--> A pretty ex-wife who can't keep her clothes on comes back to find her ex-husband. The current wife (played by Chen Liping) felt sorry for her and took her in. Is the scriptwriter brainless? No woman will feel sorry for a nubile creature who has shagged your man before and is 1. Prettier 2. Perkier 3. Slimmer 4. Sexier. In this case, the contrast is stark.

--> A mother-in-law who is so crazy about having a grandchild that she threatens screams and hits her daughter-in-law for not getting pregnant?!!@$% And makes her eat all kinds of weird chinese tonics.

--> The mother-in-law plotted to get her son to sleep with the younger ex-wife so that she would give her the much coveted grandchild.

--> Guy eventually did not have sex with ex-wife but does not know coz he was too drunk to remember?!

Enuf said.. This show is seriously screwed and i'm even more screwed to be watching it at all.

Case 1,2,3

I don't know much about the law. The only thing that comes to my mind is the case of an old bat finding a snail in her drink during Biz Law Lecture 1. With my limited knowledge, I have come to the conclusion that our judicial system is warped.

Now i'm not talking about expert knowledge and incomprehensible language that law makers use .. I'm just using common sense here. A number of recent cases that i've come across in the papers simply befuddle me.

Case 1: A mentally retarded young man had his sentence increased after an appeal.

Details: Boy had just been released from prison for molestation charges. Almost right away, he groped the breasts of some unlucky woman along the street. Hence he was shackled and cuffed once again and sent on a return trip to Changi. Boy's sentence was increased after an appeal.

Why it doesn't make sense: Note i use the word 'Boy', coz the young man's IQ is in the 50s range. A normal adult's IQ is around 90 to 110 while the average IQ of someone with Down Syndrome is 50. Obviously, this person's 'brain power' is way below normal and its apparent from the way he acted that packing him off to jail didn't work the 1st time, and chances of it working the 2nd time is close to NIL. He needs counselling and help, not the cane.

Which brings me to today's case.. A SERIAL molester who can obviously think and plot, had been sentenced to almost the same punishment as the retarded 'boy'! He wears a tee shirt around his head, grabs women from behind and MASTURBATES in front of his victims stark naked. And he did it 8 times over a period of 3 years. That's a very sick and very unrepentant pervert!

Case 2: Alaskan Malamute dies of heat stroke. Owner fined $3000.

Details: The dog died of heat stroke as a result of wilful neglect on its owner's part. He had been 'advised' by some animal protection group prior to his dog's death but did nothing to improve its living conditions.

Why it doesn't make sense: $3000 is nothing to someone who lives in Landed property and in the prime district of Bukit Timah at that. Probably even 30,000 would do little to discourage the owner from doing such a thing again. This kind of extreme cruelty ought to be punishable by a jail sentence. He put an arctic animal with 2 coats of fur under the tropical sun with NO WATER!Its akin to humans putting on two jackets and standing under the mid-day sun. Moreover, this dog was subject to such unbearable conditions over an extended period of time, not a day or two. It died a painful death with blood and foam oozing out of its mouth.

Case 3: Woman in coma after being hit by a reversing car is 50% at fault

Details: She was crossing the road when a car reversed and hit her. Judge ruled that she has to take half the blame coz she failed to keep a look out for traffic on the opposite side. Errant driver was fined $500 and given 6 demerit points.

Why it doesn't make sense: How often do you cross a road expecting vehicles to move AGAINST the traffic? The driver reversed a distance of not one or two, but 5 lots, in an area with many eateries and ought to have done it real slow and kept a look-out for other vehicles or pedestrians. Instead, he hit her with enough impact to knock her out permanently. If the same logic applies, then if killer-litter hits me, i have to share 50% of the blame coz i should have been more careful and checked 'upwards'? Now the woman's in a vegetative state, chalking up medical bills which her family has to pay and the driver got off with $500 fine? That's like being caught eating on an MRT..

I find the above judgements mind-boggling. Somehow, sentences metted out do not seem to reflect the seriousness of the crime in some cases, while for others, it seems overly harsh and senseless.

Of dark chocolate and smelly beancurd

A sour stench permeated the air when a group of 3 chinese foreign workers boarded the train. 2 made themselves comfortable on the floor near the door (non-opening side) while the third found a seat.

The smell is a mixture of a) sweat, b)grime and c)poor oral hygiene, (C) being the most toxic. His breath was so formidable that we squirmed in our seats each time he opened his mouth to shout across the breadth of the cabin to his friends.

(Well, i have no case against (a) and (b), since these folks are the ones building the HDB flats, paving the roads, and doing all the stuff that we jaded Singaporeans refuse to do. When the day comes that China, India, Bangladesh and whichever countries where foreign labour originate from have fully industrialised, we Singaporeans better pray we're as advanced as Japan and depend on AI to do all these jobs, or we'll be drowning in our own shit and rubbish. I've never believed that SG is really clean and green. We're 'clean' cos we employ legions of foreign workers to clean up the mess we leave everywhere, be it cutlery at hawker centers, old furniture we leave at corridors and void decks or the seemingly endless amount of litter we generate. Just look at Orchard Road at 2am or the Padang after National day celebrations and you'll see the 'real' city at its worst.)

I'm digressing ... Back to Mr Dragonbreath


Anyway, it was so bad that the guy sitting on his immediate left found it unbearable after 2 stations and decided to forgo his seat. (He retreated to a safe spot a few metres away and proceeded to lean on a pole.) The girl next to me (2 seats from his left) tilted her head towards me and was obviously trying to take small measured breaths. While Miss Hufferphish who was 3 seats away from the source wished she was down with a flu.

The 3 stops to Jurong East Interchange seemed like forever. I got off the train gratefully and hoped the poor girl next to me won't be deprived of too much oxygen.

To make things worse, they seemed to have this uncontrollable urge to scratch and dig at every orifice. In order of preference, as determined from the 'frequency' of contact are ... 1. Feet (Space between and around the toes.) 2. Still feet (Upper part of the foot) 3. Nostrils. (Where it seems to have an endless supply of precious metal to unearth.) When Dragonbreath's pals flashed him a toothy grin, the state of decay of their teeth attested to the lack of dental hygiene.

This observation made me wonder whether it is a general trait, or a pet peeve of chinese workers only.

From my observations, it seems that Banglaesh workers are relatively well-groomed, especially when they are heading towards Mustafa on their off-days. They are a happier bunch and seem to have a much better grasp of personal hygiene as compared to their chinese counterparts. In fact they look quite smart in their long sleeved shirts(usually with sleeves folded up) and pants. I may be biased here but i do feel that Bangladesh workers do look much cleaner, don't keep rubbing their feet, or have dragonbreath. In fact most of them have nice teeth and even when they get on the mrt after a day of hard labour under the scorching sun, in their work boots scuffed and covered with mud, do not smell any worse than sweaty school children on their way home after PE lessons!

This brings me to the conclusion that it is mostly chinese men who smell bad and love to scratch their groins. How do i find an explanation for this then? I'm afraid i'm clueless.

Confessions of a Spa Virgin

Having talked about weird theories, i shall talk about my experience as a Spa virgin. Its called the Hawaiian Ka Huna Bodywork and its promises range from the generic - "Physically re-energising" to healthy - " treats the lympathati, immune, circulatory, respiratory ... improved health and fitness" to Zen - " helps release fear, anger, grief .." to the bizarre - " releases hidden memories and allow change in your body, mind and soul (Huna)".

I chuckled as i read the bunch of marketing crap on its brochure AFTER the spa .. totally absurd. If it can do all those things in a 1.5hr service, all the shrinks in the world would be out of job by now.

So here's the real deal ... I entered the Earth Sanctuary Day Spa and was greeted by a VERY cheery receptionist who smiled ever SO sweetly, albeit oozing insincerity. Gonzales would be proud of her.

Then i removed my shoes and went upstairs where i was greeted by a middle age 'therapist' who definately scores tons higher on the sincerity scale.

I was given a little white disposable G-string and instructed to take everything off. I was actually expecting to be at least 25% covered. So i must have appeared kind of uncomfy and the therapist gave me a sarong to wrap around myself. I was also instructed to tie up my hair unless i want to look like Sadako on a bad hair day, since i was supposed to be slathered in sesame oil during the massage.

The sarong covered my vital bits for perhaps all of 5min. The moment she got started with me, it came off. And tada i was naked as a newborn and perhaps juz as slippery as well, since i was indeed well-oiled.

The therapist assured me that there's nothing to be self-conscious about and even 60 somethings with wrinkly skin and bellies come to her. (Actually i was more conscious about my A-cup status. But hey i started thinking that if she had seen and touched saggy 60 yr olds, she should be alright with mine.) After overcoming my inhibitions i started to enjoy the process of being kneaded and probed. She didn't miss out any part of my anatomy. I figured she covered 95%, the remaining 5% being whatever the by-then soggy G-string could cover.

Somehow i kept thinking of sesame cakes and sesame biscuits as the smell of sesame oil permeated the air.

I was rathered relaxed except for the part when she kept massaging my shoulder and back. That was uncomfortable, probably coz of my posture and all the tensed-up muscles. This petite woman can probably out wrestle a guy coz she's really strong!

After the massage, she proceeded to give me a scrub. I was totally exfoliated, from the neck down. During the scrub, i could only think of 2 things.
1. Glad that i had diligently tweezed those pesky underarm hair. The idea of her scrubbing my hairy armpits is gross.
2. Glad that i had waxed my legs a few days before. The idea of scrubbing my hairy legs is just as gross.

After the scrub, i took a shower, got dressed, drank this minty tea and went to look for a hairdryer and some moisturiser to slap on my face.

That sums up my very first Spa experience. Was i relaxed? A little.. Did i feel exfoliated? Yes.
BAsically i left feeling very clean. No zen experience, no Huna, Mana or Manawa crap.
Would i be back? Only if i am very rich.

Theory 1,2,3

Haven't blogged for a bit.. No time, no mood, no inspiration.

Life has been depressing lately, been dunked in shit over and over.

Take for instance - tuition - that is one freak incident. I had prepped myself with my little sister's Pri 6 texts, travelled to CCk and was turned away at the door. They had already engaged a tutor and the agent hadn't informed me! Numerous calls to the agent ended up with me talking to an inanimate object - The answering machine. No surprises that nobody called me back. Managed to get the woman on the line eventually but of coz all i got were flat-out denials. Promised to clarify with me but no surprises again that she never did call back. There's really nothing i can do either. All i've got is a number and no name or face. I'll just put it down on pure bad luck.

Been meeting the shittiest people too. The ribbon on my flats was damaged by this woman who tried to cut across my path, and ended up almost tripping over my left foot and ripping my ribbon off in the process. There was no apology for kicking my foot and tearing my ribbon off. Instead she glared at me. If looks could kill! (I had to 'superglue' it back. Eventually, i invested in an identical pair as the former was deemed too stinky.)

Friday nite i bought a Meiji Milk chocolate bar to soothe my troubed soul, hoping the onslaught of 'happy hormones' from cocoa would rejuvunate me. Sadly, i had a bad tummyache after finishing the bar. A mere 70g of chocolate made my stomach upset. So much for therapy...


Alright, enuf of bad karmic stuff.. they do drive one nuts sometimes. I'll share the warped theories i've formulated recently.

Theory 1 : I have come up with a little theory about life and the strange way it works. For instance, 1plus 1 might equal zero. No matter what you do, people will always have a bone to pick. They might not like your inepititude or way of doing things. Sometimes they simply don't like the face, name, voice or maybe the way you smell. Simply put, the line "I just don't like you" applies here. And therefore they reserve all their shit for you.

And on the contrary sometimes 8 - 5 = 10. You put in little effort, but things do turn out fabulously, no worries. Mabe its a sunny disposition, good social skills, a pretty face, good karma, cash ... any combination that works..


Theory 2: A combination of "Law of diminishing returns" and " Base Theory " - Miss Hufferphish's own.

Basically "Law of diminishing returns" means that if you're usually nice, people won't appreciateness your "niceness" unless you do something even better. So for example, if you always help your roomie to buy breakfast, soon your roomie won't bother saying thanks. He/She will just wait for breakfast delivery every morning. For Roomie to feel the same level of gratitude now, you would need to outdo yourself, like perhaps offer to do the laundry too.

Which brings me to the "Base theory". It means that you always evaluate others based on how you think they would behave - That is the base.
For example, if you're doing a project with person A whom you deem would be a 'worker', you would expect A to do work. If he didn't, you'll be surprised, angry, pissed. You might even relax and let A pick up the bits and pieces.
However if you are so unlucky as to have a free-rider 'fall' in your group, you start from a negative base, thus as long as the free rider does his part and don't cause any trouble, you'll probably be quite relieved and grateful already.


Some may say this is a baseless argument (pun intended), however it is food for thought.

Theory 3: Since i'm working on screwed theories, I would like to share this theory that i've come up with a long time ago during my JC days, perhaps during one of those dreaded chemistry lessons, hence explaining the origin of its name. Its about pretty ppl becoming uglier and uglier ppl become prettier. I call it the theory of "natural equilibrium". Its nature's way of moderating things for people whose faces he/she/it has screwed. (I'm a free thinker.) Cos ppl can't remain ugly forever, or they'll be permamently screwed or not... And they'll never get married and pop babies(Unless the lights are off of cos).

Its based on the fact that when i beau the Chio Bus in sku, their 'impact' decreases with the increase in number of "beauings". Similarly, the very ugly guy with the bad acne and bad teeth(not inclusive of bad breath..that's alwaiz bad, no matter how many times you are unlucky enuf to take a whiff), (imagine the grossest face you can think of).. he loses 'impact' each time you look at him too.

So if this process goes on, eventually everyone will reach equilibrium. (OF cos the number of 'viewings' required varies with each individual.)Think of couples who have been tog for a long time and kinda cease to care how the other looks like? That's what happens..

KBox revised - With Liqi's slim middle finger left.. hmm..

That's TK and me on the last day!

This is Yoda!

A face to a name ..

Of love

Today, a friend woke me up with a phonecall. She has fallen in love.

The magic of love -- who could ever describe it? Certainty of having found the one being destined for us by nature, light shed upon life itself and apparently explaining its mystery, unsuspected value conferred upon the most trifling circumstances, flying hours whose details elude the memory through their very sweetness ......

--Adolphe

Of library books and gold

It was a cool, rainy afternoon. Despite a slightly lopsided jaw, (no thanks to the swelling from the wisdom tooth extraction), I decided to return a 'soon to be due' library book and hopefully find something else to read from the humble Bukit Batok Community Library at West Mall. By the way, it got 1pathetic star in a certain Sunday Times report whiched awarded a maximum of 5 stars to libraries, depending on how they perform .. In terms of collection, service, events.. etc.

I chanced upon a Dean Kootz book titled Frankenstein in the "Just-returned" shelf. The book looks crisp and new.. (Yes i judge a book by its cover.) Published in Feb 2005. Very new indeed, judging by NLB standards. I thought, "Looks great, this will keep me company for tonight". I spotted an empty seat, plonked down on it and proceeeded to read the first couple of chapters.

The story was fine. Done in Dean Kootz's usual style of serial killers and mystery, with an angsty cop thrown in for good measure. I feel he's the "thriller equivilent" of Danielle Steel's trashy romance stories. Quite predictable, same style for many books, but still nice to read. As the title implies, there's some psycho out there who chops people up and collects body parts. there's this warped scene where he talks to magdalene, and gives her a manicure. Flirting with her.. only to wrap Magdalene's hands in plastic wrap to be stored in the freezer. He's actually talking to the HANDS only.

I was happily reading along when i discovered a little speck of brownish green stuff on a page..
Hmm.. don't tell me its ..
One more page.. Another speck of the same stuff, slightly different shape this time..
Ewwwww!!
Ignoring it and ploughing on, tinking "No i'm not giving up on the book.. No way!"
Again.. Some more..
The previous reader must be suffering from a bad bout of flu, has lots of nose hair.. or has a thing for 'gold-digging' while reading a thriller.

By then i had stopped reading.. instead i was flipping through the pages discovering more and more little globs of treasure.

I gave up. I put the book back on the librarian's trolley, zoomed out of the library and into the toilet to scrub my hands.

Ugly Singaporeans at its best.

Day of Disaster

Just when i thought my gum was happily on its road to recovery, disaster struck.

I had woken up from an afternoon nap. (If you count 4hours a nap.) Drank ice-milo and had some porridge. Watched minority report. Couched in front of the TV for some time.

Logged on using the lappy and boy was i in for a shock.

The antivirus -- AVAST --(Recommended by Spidey), rang non-stop. The alert ws something along the line of sending or isit receiving? too many identical emails. When hell, i wasn't even logged into any email account! I noticed a new icon on that little bar at the bottem right hand corner. And the setting for google search had been changed to Chinese.

You see, my sis loves to log on to Chinese fan sites and ogle at Jolin, F4, FIR, you name it. And listen to songs and whatever clips they post on the sites. These sites are hotbeds for viruses. While i was blissfully asleep leaving the computer on and the modem off, she had taken the liberty to turn on the modem and surf to her heart's content.

I went out and asked her to come in, sit down and look at her handiwork in the "Don't mess with your big Sis" tone, berating her for whatever shit she has downloaded. And the only thing she could say was "i don't know".

I said " Fine, you give me shit like this and only know how to say i don't know, get out."

And man! She said the one other thing besides 'i don't know' --> *Drumrolls please*
--> " Then ni3 jiao4 wo3 jing4 lai2 zuo4 shen3 me4?" in a 'fuck you, you can't do anything to me tone. ' before turning around and focusing on the TV.

Not a single apology, no sign of remorse only 'i don't know' and 'ask me to come in for what'?

That was it. I lost it. With the antivirus still ringing away in the background, i started shouting at her for giving me shit and at her shitty attitude and the next thing i know...

Blood, lots of it. Warm, tangy and slightly salty. I had a whole mouthful of it. I had no idea whether i had overstretched my jaw causing the stitches to come undone or had the clot been dislodged. And i couldn't tell by looking at the mirror, coz each time i spat out the blood, there was more. The sink reminded me of primary school art class. After playing with watercolours, and you start rinsing the red poster colour from your palette.

My ma totally freaked out and kept insisting that i rinse with saltwater to stem the bleeding. (Some warped logic of hers.) If i can't spit them out fast enough, how on earth do i rinse?

I resorted to biting on the gauze the dentist gave me and swallowing the warm fluid. By the third piece of gauze i gave up, changed out of my white tank top (which had a few bloodstains on it, in case i freaked anybody at the clinic out) and decided to go to the 24 hrs clinic a few blocks away.

The doc told me he can't do anything since he's not a dentist. And to go to NUH for a dentist.

And off to to NUH i went. After being examined by a pretty nurse in a uniform with teddy bear prints, (Must be from the the children's ward) I was classified as 'won't drop dead anytime soon' i suppose. After approximately an hour of waiting in total, the dentist came to take a look at me. By then, the bleeding had ceased. And i was told that the stitches were in place, just that the clot had dislodged and a new one had more or less formed. (I think if you're sick and go to NUH A&E, you just need to sit there for a couple of hours to get well, some kind of hospital effect?)

And there you go. I spent $70 at NUH for a big yellow packet of sterile gauze. $7.50 for cab fare to NUH and $10 for the return trip. (Midnite surcharge.)

Only to be greeted by ma who first asked. "The bleeding stopped right?"
I said of coz, how much do you want me to bleed. Thanks to my little sis and her bloody attitude?
(I was still seething...)
And the reply. "Oh YOU scared her just now. It really isn't her fault YOU KNOW. She DIDN'T KNOW."
At that, i had nothing more to say.

And so in my parent's wonderful world, once again i am the villian. I scared her and i shouted at her and hence i deserve to drink my own blood. Its O plus by the way.

When has my sis ever been scared of me anyway? Thanks to my parents really. If my angelic little sis takes a knife and put it through my heart, it would be through no fault of hers. I MUST have provoked her and injured her delicate sensabilities, thereby causing her to behave in a manner atypical of angels and saints.

What a way to spend my sunday morning. My first sunday after PA, on wisdom tooth removal.

I arrived promptly at the dentist's at 1005am. 5mins late... but i waited for the guy before me to pay up so i assume i'm prompt..

Into the dentist's office...

1. Brief examination. Probed around a bit. Nothing much.

2. Signed on a form which basically states --> " The dentist is not to be blamed even if patient turns belly up."

3. Brace yourself for the anesthesia shot. (It feels like an extended version of the BCG skin test.) I asked " Its not painful right?" ( I know its as good as not asking, but i couldn't help it. Its akin to a child asking mummy if the injection's going to hurt, obviously mummy's gonna say no. You juz gotta wait for the kid to start wailing later.)

Anyway the dentist came up with a more qian4 bian3 answer.. "You won't feel pain, just pressure, during the procedure. Anyway pain is perceived by the mind, like Indians who walk over hot coals. But they don't find it painful." He went on about inspirational speakers for a bit and the power of the human mind.

Isn't that a fantabulous answer? I can imagine my dear dentist listening to tapes by inspirational gurus and spending sunday afternoons at the self-improvement section of Borders.

I said --> ' I don't like Adam Koo'.
(By the way, I'm not Hindu, neither do i intend to participate in the next Thaipusam.)

4. Wait for the left side of my jaw, (tongue included) to turn tingly, then numb and dry.

5. The Procedure.
I think i have a stubborn tooth. He must have taken like 30min or so to dig it out. There was drilling, i could feel the vibration and lots of pressure. He was playing tug of war with my tooth. All while instructing his not-very-competent assistant .. 'Susan, more sunction. Susan, you must suck till i can see the teeth clearly.' (That doesn't sound very right does it?) Susan this Susan that...

'Lots of sunction yep and blood of course. One of the fishes in Finding Nemo said the human mouth is a sewer. (I think its the grumpy one who was hell bent on returning to the ocean.) I totally agree. Its amazing isn't it? You eat with it, do raunchy french kisses with it. Speech is impossible without it ..The possibilities are endless. Yet it must be the grossest part of the human anatomy.

6. Finally it was done. I was supposed to rinse. *Yuck, double yuck.*
The dentist, failing terribly in social skills and tact mentioned casually that "Blood when mixed with saliva becomes viscous. You rinse now, after i stitch up the wound, you must swallow the blood, no more rinsing for the first hour at least. "

7. And yes! i was stitched up and ready to go. The good dentist asked if i wanted my tooth back. I said yes. (Hell, this cost me $350 bucks. More than half a month's pay. I'm going take a pic, post it here and gross everyone out!) ANd he popped it into a plastic baggy, with blood and all! I held it up, appraised it with a disgusted look and requested that he rinse it first.

8. I checked my face in the mirror by his sink and found bloodstains *gasp* at the corners of my mouth. I grabbed a tissue, wet it a bit and wiped. The dentist assistant was kind enough to offer me an alcohol swipe. Hell, he could have informed me or something. Obviously this guy doesn't believe in after-sales service.

9. The aftermath.
I'm on my fourth piece of guaze. Taken a painkiller, antibiotics and rinsed with antiseptic mouthwash. I look ridiculous with a piece of Kodomo Cooling Adhesive stuck on my jaw. (Been advised by Spidey to use an ice-pack to reduce swelling and bleeding. I improvised with a tui4 re4 tie1.) Other than a dull throbbing sensation in my jaw and some bleeding i'm good as new. I suppose i can eat something by evening. I feasted on half a pack of Hershey's Kisses last night to stock up on carbo. They were on promotion at NTUC, going at $3.55 a pack instead of 4 plus. Miss Hufferphish's crazed logic at work here. Else i'll just have to survive on bubble tea or ice milo for a day.

By the way i'm feeling quite happy that the offensive tooth has finally been removed for good. Despite his lack of tact, i find this dentist morbidly funny in his own way. The tooth is really quite huge. And it came out in one clean piece plus a tiny piece of root tip. Thankfully there are no complications. Worse i heard was no sensation and loss of sense of taste. Imagine a foodie who can't taste!! Horrors! Or having to cut the tooth up into fractions and taking it out piece by piece. Pity its impacted, if it had grown properly, it would probably be the last tooth standing when i'm old and wrinkley. Possible use? Hooking dentures.

A day as blondie

Today is my last day of work, other than eating Clara's chocolate banana cake -Yummy! Thanks gal! Saying customery goodbyes to people i don't like, giving little tokens to those i like, writing a card for higher power and clearing cookies off the slow lappy and just as slow PC, i've got nothing else to do. Hence i shall blog some more.

Dove Trade Launch

An eye-opening experience (Read: At last! something interesting to write on my PA report.) Despite being made to stand the whole day and having scratchy white pants, it was miles better than being stuck in the office, staring at data the whole day and eating $2 cai fan.

Food is something we never run out of at the trade launch. Breakfast, tea - where we help ourselves to the snacks meant for guests, free lunch (Note: Hawker food at hotel prices. Day 1: Chicken rice or Hor Fun. The Chatterbox chicken rice is way overhyped. The portion is huge and they give you all the 4 sauces in little plastic containers. But the rice is super oily and the chicken nodescript. Day 2: Spagetti or nasi Lemak. The spagetti had everybody guessing if its chicken or beef. Those who ate it says its bland. The Nasi Lemak is worthy of its $6 price tag though. That's equivilent to 3 packs outside, so it had better be good. The person who ordered the food said its supposed to be $8 per pax, but the hotel quoted the wrong price and had no choice but to stick with it. A generous portion of omelette, a chicken wing, an otah, the rice is authentic coconut rice and the chilli's good too. Best of all its FREE!

After lunch we help ourselves to the buffet once again, tucking into little custard tarts and chocolate eclairs, while listening to brainwashing speeches of what's real beauty and trying to convince ourselves that we're really all beautiful. I still don't buy it after listening to the same speech four times over. All while waiting for the moment where we're supposed to take off our blonde wigs together.

Objective: To break the stereotype that only Blondes are beautiful. The idea is imported wholesale from the campaign in USA. Hence the blondie thing. Wherever do you c blondes in SIngapore anyway? other than Ah Lians who aspire to be Ang Mohs. Even those are a rare breed nowadays. The statement of breaking stereotypes becomes a moment of comic relief as everybody gets a cheap laugh from seeing a bunch of gers in ugly wigs. Hence the original msg is probably lost amidst the laughter. Moreover your hair gets totally flattened by the wig and all the bunched up ends make you look like Medusa instead of 'Real beauties'.

Other than that, the booths for make-up, haircuts, colour typing, body type analysis and facial masks are quite refreshing. It makes the launch interactive, more like a fairground than a talk. People come and have fun instead of just sitting through a long lecture on how good your product is. Its a soft approach instead of a hardsell technique and that really helps to bring the message across. Eddy from Monsoon added lots of clout to the event. Judging from the long snaking queue from those eager to get a free haircut, he's one hell of a popular guy.

Quest for white pants

Having been instructed specifically to come in white bottoms on Day 2, short of painting my butt white for a day, i had no choice but to embark on a quest for white pants/skirt after work on Day1. After standing around for a whole day in heels, (Having been instructed by one of the office aunties not to wear flats.. only to see her come in flats on Day 1.) the balls of my feet were aching big time. Same goes for Gan Jiong Spider. We traipsed down the Orchard shopping belt and zipped in and out of shops military style. Fast. Focused. Precise. Taka first, Bossini, U2, then Far East, in search of something budget. Fit for a day of work. The skirts at Far East are far too short. Deemed too slutty for work. Moreover there was no way we could sit on the steps (The usual resting spot for gers in Blonde wigs) in skirts that could barely cover your ass. Spidey found her budget pants from Giordano at Lucky Plaza. They were going at half price. Unfortunately they didn't have it in my size.

Desperate and tired, (By then, my whole feet was aching.) i decided to give mango a shot. Chances were slim though. At 70% off and nearing the end of the crazy MNG sale, the store had mostly been stripped bare. I stood by one of the tables, scanning its contents. A swath of white fabric peeped out from the pile of leftovers, beakoning, teasing. I pulled and a pants 'leg' emerged from the tangled mess. I pulled again, this time with more gusto, and out popped a pair of white pants in my size! I parted with $36 bucks *Ouch* and ended my misery.

The next morning, i discovered to my horror that i had a horrible case of VPL. The pants was semi translucent or something. Not VPL actually, since the whole undie was visible. I don't have white seamless undies. Very pale blues simply don't work. Neither does very pale pinks. (Please don't laugh at my choice of undergarments.) Only one choice remained. The FREE nude T-Back - Company freebie. (Maybe they had anticipated this.) They do give the wierdest things don't they? Like 'drink today, expiring tomorrow' milk, dubious bottles of 'soon to expire' Mayonnaise, and of coz the by now famous ' FREE expiring B&J ice-cream that has graced many a birthday celebrations.

I'm digressing. back to panty problem. Now T-backs are basically like G-strings. Miss Hufferphish doesn't wear G-strings. They don't give me a sense of security. I need to feel protected. Not that anybody's gonna attack my butt. But between a very prominently coloured behind and an unprotected one, i chose the latter.

I thought my troubles were over. But by the end of the day i had a rash the size of about 4 50cent coins on my right hip. Gross. It had been itching the whole day. Culprit? The size and laundry instructions tags sewn on the inside of the pants. Nice.

Dumb Blondes

"what's your name?"

"I'm a blond... "

"I mean what's your name.. "

"Oh you can call me blondie then. "

Maybe wearing a blonde wig makes me morph into a Norma Jean wannabe...

FAQ on the wig

• Its Barbie blond, Sweet Valley High blonde, Mary Kate and Ashley blonde.
  
• Its long. So long if you wear it the other way round, you can be mistaken for Sadako after a bleach and dye job. She got sick of that matty straggly black mop. I don't know which is more scary though.
  
• Its itchy. *Scratch* Now i fully understand how it feels like to have head lice., No wonder Ah Meng and family pick fleas off each other as a sign of affection. By the way, folks at Mandai are hoping to pair Ah Meng with a boyfriend half her age. Its seems a lil queer but apparently there;s no age limit for Orang Utans and she's still fully capable of poppin more babies. I'm digressing here...
• Its strong. Damn strong. My brush lost a few bristles combing through the tangled mess. It took many brushings (violent ones) to look the way it did.
• It grips your head so tight i'm starting to pity all those Ah Peks out there. No wonder DOnald Trump walks around with that weird golden tuft on his head.

Fried to a crisp

Gosh, don’t I feel screwed after the presentation. Have more to evaluate now, like whether I could have made it better, bugged people more aggressively for information or whatever.. Its over and we got fried to a crisp. How demoralising. This was not how I envisioned my PA to be. There were some problems in our data and the arrows juz kept coming, If I had a shield, it would resemble.. say a lotus root? I duno why but this image juz popped into my mind. Of those sliced lotus roots that’s boiled slowly in soup. It has lots of holes. Feeling whimsical now..

Its like the worse presentation ever. I mean have you ever seen a presentation that got interrupted like 10 times? Miss Chiongster started first, and was questioned repeatedly about the ratings and how they were calculated. I admit we had some data errors. That’s our fault. I’m sorry. The rest well, its really not within our control. There were no clear instructions on what to present so we produced everything that past groups did and more. How are we supposed to check placement according to planogram when we didn’t have one to begin with? *Frustration* And we did bug people for it. To no avail though. We got a pathetic handwritten sheet of the ‘right sequence’ and were instructed to ‘make do with it’. That’s just one example of many. The head of the deptmartment didn’t even bother to finish listening. After all, we spent weeks churning out the stuff. She could have bothered to sit through it, even though we’re really just lowly interns. Spider continued, and the arrows had lessened by then. The head of dept walked out like right after I started. And some other guy walked out after her. There were no more questions after that though. The arrows had ceased by then.

There was one kind soul – TK. He actually helped us to explain coz nobody bothered to listen to us when we spoke. The same kind soul who bothers to come and talk to us once in a while.

Our supervisor invited us to lunch with him for the first time after the presentation. Our first free lunch. But of cos there is no free lunch in the world. After a meal of curry fish head, veg, frog legs, chicken and you tiao with pork floss at a zi2 cha4 stall, the bomb came … “SO what do you think of your presentation?” “Could have been better right?” A meek ‘yah’…. “ Did you have enough time to complete?” “Yes we think so, its not the time, its juz that we started out with the wrong definations and we weren’t sure what to do.” “ Oh, After which the floodgates kind of burst. And dear higher power obviously didn’t like it very much. He asked TK to drive us back and he left to visit the trade or sth …

Well, if anything, its coming to an end. I shall juz keep a low profile, stay out of further bombs and get out in one piece.

Green tea?

Green Tea...
You are Green Tea!
Strong and very smart you prefer peace to violence
and very rarely take action if it involves
confrontation. But you make up for this with
your keen insight and understanding of the
world and people around you, you have a very
mysterious nature. Many people see you as laid
back and that may be true but you are very
intelligent and make good decisions.


What type of Tea are you? {-With Anime Pictures!-}
brought to you by Quizilla

saw this on elv's site, gave it a try too...