handphones & relationships

Isn't this refreshing, two entries in a week!

Anyway.

After 8 months with my N81, I've exchanged it for an E66. If you know me, you'd know that I don't change phones easily. In fact, every phone that passes through my hands will be used for approximately two years. My first phone was the Nokia 3310, which lasted me throughout JC, until university, when I saw my Baobei using a very cute Nokia model (which number escaps me now). I asked my aunt to get it for me, and I used it for most of my uni days. Towards the end of uni, I got the flower phone (actually it's the Nokia 7630) because during my school experience, one of my colleagues was using it. It was very pretty, and I was sold.

Finally, around the beginning of this year, I started to look out for a new phone because the flower phone was coming to two years, held too many memories, plus I needed to upgrade/recontract anyway. One day I was at Great World City and walked into a Nokia store. I saw the N81, started playing around with the model, and... I fell in love. I was quite taken by it, and I decided, okay, that shall be my next phone.

But not everything was smooth sailing with the N81. Within the first week of our time together, it got cranky and my SMSes in my memory card were eaten up. Went to Nokia Care, told me they couldn't do a thing about it (why would they?), so I thought, it's okay, it's just a one-off incident. Fast forward a couple of months. One day in school, my phone ran out of batt/it hung/it SOMETHING-ed. When I switched it on, 300+ SMSes, not inclusive of the sent messages (btw, I'm a pack rat, I keep everything) were all gone. I'll be frank: I screamed in the staffroom. But there was nothing I could do about it. Off to Nokia Care for another futile trip. This time, they upgraded my software (of course, nothing was wrong with my phone).

So this time, I saved my SMSes in my phone memory instead. Twice bitten, thrice shy, you know. Then a couple of nights ago, I was transferring my SMSes over to my PC when the usual message popped up, "Memory full. Close some applications and try again." So I did. Normally, the phone starts up as usual, the stuff are all there, it's fine. Abnormally, the phone seemed to start up in factory mode. It seemed like my personalisations were gone. My first instinct was, "Oh, shit." Then when I checked, my songs and images from the gallery were all gone. Basically, the info on my memory card was wiped out. Again.

Time for another futile Nokia Care visit! I shall not describe it in detail because they say the same thing over and over again, "It's not our fault, it must be *insert random reason here*" It never is. Anyway, I sent it away for repair, and got it back with a software upgrade. Since I didn't want to deal with the N81's unpredictability anymore, I swapped phones with my mother, cos according to her, she under-utilises hers.

This phone fiasco is like a relationship. You find someone you really like. You do all sorts of things for this person. Yes, you do occasionally treat him badly (like drop it on the floor), but generally you really love the person. But there are issues of compatability; obviously there will be conflicts that cannot be fully resolved, there's always going to be a part of you that will remember the sad things and conflicts. Then finally, there's a huge conflict. While you still love him, you don't want to deal with the unpredictability and vague unease anymore, so you make a decision to remove him from your life.

You find someone new, someone who is much better in all aspects. You know he's a good man, someone you can rely on to make good memories with. You're impressed by what he can do. He's really quite something. But you can't quite form an attachment with him. There are some things that you find lacking in him, but since it's not critical, you shouldn't really make a huge fuss. Deep down, you miss your first love, the excitement of it all. The new person is just functional, someone you know will be good for you, but the love for him must be gathered rather than something you already possess.

"You'll quietly revise your definition of love and try to be happy."

workaholic.

KL was a good trip, a much needed break from work. Though, honestly speaking, work kept sneaking into my mind. In fact, by the time we were on our way back, work was already banging at doors in my head.

Hi, I am a workaholic. Nice to meet you!

I've learnt that once I completely relax myself, I'll end up falling sick. Case in point: had slight cold/flu thingie on the second day of the trip. =\ Went out with my beloved Wensy last night and this morning I couldn't even pull myself out of bed cos my throat hurt so badly and the room was spinning. How to drive when I can't even sit up in bed? So I ended up sleeping until 5.30pm.

All work and no play keeps me healthy.

I'm not sure how this will work out in the near future, considering how I'm going to hit a quarter of a century old next year. Bah! I still have many things I want to do before I can even consider finding someone and settling down before I'm 30. E.g. I want to do my Masters in Education. I've been calculating and making plans, and it's with some regret that I've decided to postpone my masters by a couple of years. I don't even know if I'm capable of it! But one can always hope.

Here are a couple of pictures I took on the trip:


Reliving our childhood days.


A shoe that I nearly bought. They didn't have my size. But oh, so pretty!


Nando's was one of the highlights of the trip, because it's something that Singapore doesn't have.

And it's gonna be back to the grind in exactly 2 weeks.

---

Pretty song that I found because I read part of the lyrics that someone posted:

Guster - Either Way
You were almost kind, you were almost true
Don't let me see that other side of you
You have learned in time that you must be cruel
I'll have to wait to get the best of you

Another nice song that I heard while blog-hopping:


Strangely though, my version of this song goes, "Four years later..." as opposed to this version's "Eight years later..." *shrugs*

Anyway, it's time for me to go to bed, again, even though I just crawled out of it seven hours ago.

days of my life

It's quite exciting to have a phone with a camera function, because now whenever I see something interesting, I take a picture of it. The only problem is that my phone's camera has a clarity of only 2.0megapixels. Oh well, better a pixelated interesting picture than nothing at all, right?

Yesterday, I walked my usual way home from the lift, and then from one end of the corridor, I saw this:



At first, I thought it was a piano, cos it really looked like one. Then I went closer and realised it was a desk. And what was funnier was that there was a sign on it that said:



Hilarious! Status update: When I walked by again this afternoon, it was still there.

*

Couple of days ago, when I was at Giant with my brother, I saw these humongous salmon.



I am wondering, who actually buys this??

*

Last Sunday, I went to Lot 1 to have dinner. Actually, wanted to go to this place called Farmart, where there's a collection of various types of farms. But parking was a headache, and it looked like a place from a random part of ulu neighbouring country, so it was Lot 1 ("Somewhere with air-con," says my mother).

In the end, we went to New York, New York!. I couldn't resist taking pictures at all.


My lemonade, which was quite good.


Our starter, prawn fritters or something like that. My mother loved it, I don't really know why.


Meat platter for 2. More like, for 3 instead. The knife is there for comparison. The plate was damn big! Bigger than two of my faces put together. Okay, bad imagery. There was lamb, chicken, chicken (again) and nice sauces.

*

Have you been to Raffles City Shopping Centre lately? I used to go there quite often, esp when I was still mingling with the masses on the MRT. It has changed quite a fair bit, and one of the changes was the toilet. That's right, folks. When Wensy told us the toilet was all modern and stuff, the 01S16 momoks decided to take a walk on the wild side.


The female toilet. Nice design!


The toilet. Okay I know there are many of these in Japan, but considering I've never really travelled much, humour me, okay?


A closer look at the controls.


And just in case you're totally confused by the cheem words, here are instructions!


And as always, when a bunch of 01S16 momoks flock into a toilet (esp if it's a nice one), we'll inevitably take a picture.

BTW! I didn't mention that only Momok Cheah actually used the controls. The rest of us only toe the line on the wild side, but Momok Cheah goes ALL THE WAY. HAhaha.

Memories:

PS toilet, circa. 2002. Was taken after a class outing to watch Lilo and Stitch.


Taken after a huge dinner at Hard Rock Cafe last June.

Okay, back to work.

ARGHHH!!!!

Sometimes things just conspire to make you so irritated. I had this premonition that I was going to have to a lousy Sept, and so far I'm right!

Actually it started just slightly before Sept, but as you know, Teachers' Day usually falls in the middle of the one-week break, so we'll usually celebrate it last day of the school term. Not A Good Day for reasons that cannot be mentioned. Let's just say it was an accumulation of many things that resulted in a lousy day. By the time I was alone enough to let it sink it, it was too late. You know how there are some things that has to be sorted out, or else you just become numb to it?

Then something happened during the one-week break which left me quite devastated. Not A Good Week for reasons that cannot be mentioned also. (Are you getting a sense of how this entry's gonna turn out?)

AND THEN the coup de grace happened last Friday. I went to the canteen with Der, took my purse with my phone, and as I slid open my phone... Nothing happened. So I thought, oh dear, battery flat. I didn't bring along my charger, so went around looking for one. Had to go for invigilation, so only starting charging my phone a whole hour and a half later. THEN I had to go around finding an available socket as the bloody socket at my table is irritating low and the charger couldn't fit into the space. So anyway, switched on phone, and first thing I do, always, is to look at my messages.

THEY.
WERE.
ALL.
GONE.

ARGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I had quite a fit and I was hoping against hope my messages will return. BUT NO!!!!! And you know what, this isn't the first time my phone pulled this trick. It DOESN'T hang. The first and only time it hung, it was about two weeks old, and the same stupid problem occurred. ARGH ARGH ARGH!!! In the end I was so frustrated that I went to sit at Crystal's table together with the Malay & Der and had lovely durian mooncake until 5plus.

AND THEN at the end of the day when I was doing up a worksheet and saving my work, I closed some extraneous MS Word windows. A message popped out, "Do you want to save the changes in Document(1)?" Thinking that it was a file I opened to copy something from, I clicked, "No." And then I looked for my worksheet. AND THEN I REALISED I CLOSED A WINDOW CONTAINING FIFTEEN MINUTES WORTH OF WORK. ARGGGGHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!

My colleague next to me looked over and said, "It's not your day. Go home."

So I did.

Went to Nokia Care on Sunday, and they said it's a software problem. So they recommended upgrading it, which resulted in my phone being reverted to factory settngs. SIGH! And I still doesn't know if it solves the prob of my messages being completely wiped out cos of a hanging of a phone. I lost ALL my drafts on my Melbourne trip, which is why I don't really feel like blogging about it anymore, cos I CANNOT REMEMBER.

So anyway, September's not shaping up well at all. Plus something sparked me off again today, and that's why I'm ranting away. I keep telling myself, think positive! But a bit hard ah, esp when it seems like the fingers of fate are being wiggled in your face and going HAHA at you. Sigh.

Okay although there's one good thing that I can see from my mishaps of the last couple of months. Remember my accident in March? (Well, now you do.) AIG refused to reinsure me about two months ago, so my mother had no choice but to go source for another insurance company who would be willing to insure my car. Seems like AIG is in trouble now. Actually the whole world's in trouble, so tighten those wallets and chin up.

---

Apologize - Just for you, Der. I know it's your favourite song. Now it's one of my favourites, too!


Cover of Gregory & the Hawk - Boats and Birds
Something about this song just gets to me.

you can skyrocket away from me
and never come back if you find another galaxy
far from here with more room to fly
just leave me your star dust to remember you by

book list

Lazy to update Melbourne pics! So here's something I koped from my friend.

“The Big Read reckons that the average adult has only read 6 of the top 100 books they’ve printed. Well, let’s see.”

1) Look at the list and bold those you have read.
2) Italicise those you intend to read.
3) Underline the books you LOVE.
4) Reprint this list in your own LJ. (mine not LJ ah.)

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee [Read it too long ago. Plus I just watched a play on it, so gotta refresh my memory.]
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens [I've only read the abridged version...]
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger [Want to buy it!]
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky [I still can't believe I read this book.]
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis [Read the entire series just before the first movie came out. Still can't believe I missed Prince Caspian!!]
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis [Um... isn't this a repeat?]
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini ["For you, a thousand times over.]
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres [Should have totally bought a dirt-cheap copy of it a while back... "Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned away, and this is both an art and a fortunate accident."]
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez [Saddest ending ever - the futility of living.]
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon [Nice one!]
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon [One of my favourites! Have two copies of it, and I bought neither of them.]
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez [Draggiest book ever.]
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold [Just finished re-reading it the other night.]
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’ Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett [Even did this for a book report when I was in sec sch.]
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker [I can't seem to find my copy.]
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro [I can't believe I actually read this.
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom [Just read it, and I cried BUCKETS.]
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle [I actually have the entire anthology.]
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton [Name the book, I've read it. Really.]
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery [Classic.]
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

So! I've read about 27 books. How many have you read?

Melbourne Day 1

Yes, the long awaited entry.


01: 6.30am (Melbourne time) at the airport, waiting for the rest of the tour group to clear customs.


02: Something familiar.


003: My favourite food! I had Subway there, just one evening, at the outlet near my hotel. However, the guy who was serving us had a poor attitude. Maybe he wanted to go home and relax on his couch, but that didn't meant he could wrap my sandwich badly.


04: First stop on our city tour of Melbourne - St. Patrick's church. It was closed cos that day was the Queen's Birthday, which was a holiday. Too bad, I'd have liked to go in and see the interior. Heard there's pretty stained glass.


05: Closer look at the front of the church.


06: Another view of the church.

Okay, so we just took lots of pictures, breathed in the cold air, and then bundled up the bus to our next destination.


07: Fitzroy Garden. I was wondering why there were descriptions in Japanese, Korean and Chinese. Not that I saw a lot of Chinese, Korean and Japanese people around Melbourne.


08: I wouldn't mind going to this park every morning for a stroll.


09: James Cook's cottage in the background.


10: And then I saw this. !!!


11: I can't resist. MUST take picture with pretty tree.


12: Leaves changing colour.


13: Another view of James Cook's cottage. Wasn't open as well.


14: My sharp eyes spotted these banners! I wish the musical would come to Singapore. )= I am a Great Fan

Didn't get down the bus after Fitzroy Garden. Was so tired, cos I didn't sleep much on the plane. I tried to sleep at 12, but it was too cramped, and I had interrupted sleep, so I got up at 2am, which also happened to be breakfast time. Hence, I just couldn't stay up anymore.


15: Passed by the Yarra River. Yes, it was rainy. It was raining on another night when I went to the Crown Casino, so I didn't get a chance to walk along it this time.


16: I thought this was a pretty strange ad. I asked a friend who lives in Melbourne about it, and I was told this was an advert for the late night trams or something. Cos after a certain hour, all trams stop running, and if you're stranded in the outskirts, there's no way you're gonna get home, cos the cabs don't travel that far out.


17: Saw this sign when walking back from the restaurant we ate at (Shark's Fin Inn - and no, we didn't eat any shark's fin. I guess it's just the name of the place). And to think that we complain parking in Singapore is expensive!

One other thing about parking in Melbourne is this: There are plenty of signs telling you that you can't park at a certain spot. However, every sign tells you that under certain exceptions, you may park there. For example, the sign will say, "No parking from 10am to 7pm | Buses parking for less than 2 hours excepted". My friend said that it makes parking in the city area very hard, cos you never know when you can park, and when you can get a ticket.

To be continued...

---

Someone was asking me how to pronounce a certain word, and when I was told how the majority pronounced it, I thought, It really makes no difference. Then I thought of the song, "You say to-mah-to, I say to-meh-to..." So I went to trawl Youtube and found this:



I kinda like old American movies. I started liking them after taking a film module back in NUS. Ahh, the good old days...

funny things

Today I went to see a polyclinic doctor, despite my morbid fear of people in white coats. Actually, I'm not that worried about them; I just don't like to take time to go somewhere and get asked weird questions that I don't really have the answers to, like, "What is the matter? How long have you been feeling this way? You sure?"

So anyway, the reason I was at the doctor's is because I acquired a bruise that would not go away. The bruise is named Kang Ryung Bo, after the guy who kindly gave it to me. It looked somewhat like this:



The bruise is officially nine days old as of today, and it is still lurking around and hurting, so I thought I'd better go visit the good ole people in white coats. My mother was pretty smart, she said, "They close at 4.30pm. You go at 3pm. They'll rush everything, cos they want you out by 4.30pm." And I was right! Queues were amazingly short. Or maybe it's just my really good luck.

So anyway, the doctor was this Chinese guy with a thick Hong Kong accent. I complained about the bruise, and then he decided to send me for an X-ray. Now, you know how pregnant women aren't supposed to go for X-rays cos of the radiation and what not, so when the screen on his computer popped up asking whether the patient (i.e. me) was pregnant, he asked me politely when was the last time I menstruated. After I told him, he actually looked a little stunned, and he contemplated for a while before asking the Most Ridiculous Question in the Universe: "Are you very sure you are not pregnant??"

All together now, what the...?!

Do I even look PREGNANT?! Maybe he mistook my healthy glow to be an expectant mother's glow. But still. This is ridiculous. I told him, "Yes, I'm pretty sure." I could hear my mother's sharp intake of breath. And then the worst thing happened.

I got an attack of the giggles. I couldn't stop laughing at the absurdity of the question. I covered my mouth to hide my laughter, and thought of sad things and unrelated things to make me stop laughing. BUT I COULDN'T! I kept thinking, How can the doctor think I'm pregnant just because my period was three weeks ago? It's only three weeks! Are pregnancy test kits able to detect at three weeks?! Plus I am single!

So I kept giggling and trying to hide my laughter. The moment I stepped out of the room, I started laughing like a maniac. The patients at the polyclinic must have thought I'd gone mad. Who comes out of a consultation room laughing like an idiot?! I laughed all the way to the X-ray room, and I laughed so much, tears came out of my eyes.

"Are you very sure you're not pregnant??"

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!

Okay I know my Melbourne trip pictures are due. Next entry, promise!

yet another one from a musical

Came across this when I was going through my usual LiveJournal stuff. Actually it was the lyrics I came across first. So anyway, I was also taking some time to pick photos to put into my FaceBook, and I came across some old photos. I wondered for a while whether to put it up, but then I thought, Nah, no need to tell the whole world. So I wouldn't.

It started out like a song.
We started quiet and slow,
With no surprise,
And then one morning
I woke to realize
We had a good thing going.
It's not that nothing went wrong,
Some angry moments, of course,
But just a few,
And only moments, no more,
Because we knew
We had this good thing going.
And if I wanted too much,
Was that such a mistake at the time?
You never wanted enough,
All right, tough, I don't make that a crime.
And while it's going along,
You take for granted some love,
Will wear away.
We took for granted a lot,
And still I say
It could have kept on growing,
Instead of just kept on.
We had a good thing going, going, gone.

-"Good Thing Going" from Sondheim's Merrily We Roll Along

---

Also!!! My plans have been finalised, and I am proud to say that travel-phobic me will be going to Melbourne during the third week of the school holidays for a short trip to recharge and refresh myself. Do you know, I have to go back to school tmr, but I don't remember what time? Anyway, I have to meet parents in the afternoon, so I guess that's how I'll be spending my Tuesday: in school for lessons and meeting parents.

Don't you just love my life?

new developments

Okay I have got exciting news, but I won't divulge it until I get things confirmed. No point getting all hyped up and then it doesn't materialise, right? But as things stand, 99% confirmed! Left that 1% possibility of hopes being dashed.

Meanwhile, I was pleasantly surprised to see a nice balance in my bank account last night. I was going to go online to check what exactly contributed to the nice balance, but was unfortunately logged out of i-banking cos the lousy website didn't accept a) my user-id; b) PIN; c) IB secure code; d) all of the above. )= I haven't been logging in for quite a while; I'm not one of those crazy people who check their bank account balance fervently everyday praying for a sudden influx of money.

Which reminds me, I still owe my mother money.

School-wise, it's a mad rush for time to complete the required syllabus before the exams. Losing two periods earlier this week due to a learning journey that the kids had to go on really pushed my plans way back. And the kids are all so busy! So Saturday lessons it is.

The five-day week is a myth.

I plan to take some time off for myself next week on one of the afternoons. The headaches are coming back, especially on really long days of talking non-stop to students who stare back at you blankly. Otherwise, they make so much noise until it gets to you. Maybe it's the air in the staffroom that's causing my headaches hmm.

Okay it's late and I must finish preparing my lessons before sleeping. Thank goodness for light Mondays!

Quotes

I think it'll be quite weird if Ju posted the following quote on her blog, saying that it's one of my favourites, and yet I've never posted it.

I like it because I read it at an appropriate time in my life, and it just described exactly how I felt. Maybe in a couple of years, or maybe even a couple of months, I won't think the quote is that true any more (as with some of my favourite quotes in the past), or that gut-wrenchingly true.

*

"We all have the potential to fall in love a thousand times in our lifetime. It's easy.

But there are certain people you love who do something else; they define how you classify what love is supposed to feel like. These are the most important people in your life, and you'll meet maybe four or five of these people over the span of 80 years. But there's still one more tier to all this; there is always one person you love who becomes that definition. It usually happens retrospectively, but it always happens eventually. This is the person who unknowingly sets the template for what you will always love about other people, even if some of those qualities are self-destructive and unreasonable.

You will remember having conversations with this person that never actually happened. You will recall sexual trysts with this person that never technically occurred. This is because the individual who embodies your personal definition of love does not really exist. The person is real, and the feelings are real--but you create the context. And the context is everything.

The person who defines your understanding of love is not inherently different than anyone else, and they're often just the person you happen to meet the first time you really, really want to love someone. But that person still wins. They win, and you lose. Because for the rest of your life, they will control how you feel about everyone else."

-Chuck Klosterman, Killing Yourself to Live

*

And this is something I got off Facebook, of all places, and off an application called Bumper Stickers, of all things!

But very true. And it is currently my guiding principle.

"The truth of the matter is that you always know the right thing to do.
The hard part is doing it." -Norman Schwarzkopf

*

I went to the library today. Yay to books!

sad song

Because my car was unfortunately sitting in the workshop awaiting repairs from my latest careless act of driving, I was listening to a Chinese radio station late yesterday. Then this song played on the radio, and I found it to be really sad.



至少走得比你早 by 卢巧音

你没有想过我会说分手
也许太习惯我在你左右
虽然离开你有很多理由
可看见你这样惊讶
也足够

我想得比你多
陪你一起更寂寞
我性格比你强
怎能做你的绵羊
我年纪比你小
不信快乐找不到
抬起头开了口
最后我比你骄傲

从此不坐你的牢
想不到你的好
记得和你的争吵
想到老可到老
可是和你做不到
如果你爱得比我少
至少我走得比你早

你没有想过我会说分手
除非以为我什么都忍受
就算你这时候努力挽留
不过是你不能接受
我先走

幸好我走得还早

啦~~~啦~~~啦~~~

轰轰烈烈的开口
最后我比你骄傲

从此不坐你的牢
想不到你的好
记得和你的争吵
想到老可到老
可是和你做不到
如果你爱得比我少
至少我走得比你早

And I've also been listening to the Cantonese/Chinese duet, cos the lyrics are a little bit different (even though I don't understand a word of Cantonese).

funny things

I swear, the things that my kids say are the funniest things ever. Like today, one of my kids came into the class, came right up to me, and said in Chinese, "Ms T**, I am very scared." ??? So I asked him quizzically, "Why are you scared?" He replied, "I scared the JI guy come and bomb me." Haha! I think it's quite adorable. And he's in Sec 3! Then one of his classmates overhead him, and said proudly, "I got that guy's face as my handphone wallpaper! Then when I see him I can recognise him." Things like that just make your day. Underneath their jokes, you can see that they are doing their part to help their country, better than some who just delete the mms that the police sent.

Anyway, here's what was transported to my place the other day:

After more than a year, my piano is finally here! One of the reasons why the piano wasn't moved from my old place is because we thought we might eventually move off somewhere else. But my mother likes our current place so much, that we finally decided that we're going to be staying here indefinitely. So! My piano! I'm going to start learning up all the old pieces that I used to play. I love my piano!


I met up with Baobei and Darling last Saturday. The place is situated across from Plaza Singapura, and the waiters/waitresses are all dressed in some type of really casual wear. Think khaki berms and sandals. Anyway, the waiters were so-so eye-candy, though they didn't really come around. The food was okay, had something called Seafood Laksa Spaghetti, which wasn't too bad, but got pretty sweet towards the end. Had a drink which wasn't very nice, and the ginger ale came in cans rather than the bottles we were expecting.

Food: 3***
Ambience: 4****

So anyway, IT fair on Thursday, barring any last minute incidents. I want to get my headphones! Sigh, my 1.5 year old Creative ones have finally sounded their last. It was good while it lasted.

Before I go, here's a really interesting song. The video is kinda addictive too, you just keep watching to see what other strange movements the guy will do. Frankly speaking, I stopped watching about midway through. Haha!


David Jordan - Sun Goes Down

work

This is quite sad. I work all week, and then I sleep all weekend. And despite all my talk about going for training... Well, it's just talk.

1/ I need to cut down on the amount of time I spend in school. But it's so hard when you know that there are a thousand and one things to do (and a thousand and one questions to mark), and that you don't really want to bring them home.

2/ I need to get my ass back into training. But it's hard when all I want to do is to sleep in on Sundays cos my Saturdays are often spent in school. Which is linked to the first point about cutting down amount of time I spend in school. But if I don't go to school on Saturdays, I'd feel like I'm not doing much work! It is a vicious cycle, I tell you.

3/ I need to get out more and meet people other than my colleagues. I mean, I love my friends at school, but I need to meet more people! I'd like to meet new people also. But the opportunity doesn't seem to arise that often. And I don't seem to even meet up with people from my school days.

4/ I need to stop procrastinating about training. I even missed the visit by my first sensei cos I'm too damn lazy. )= Actually, it's also due to other reasons, which shall remain privy to only myself.

5/ I need to move away from the past.I need to stop drowning in my work to escape from reality. The reality is that I no longer know what to do on endless Saturdays, so I try to occupy myself with school so that I don't need to think about how free I am and how there's no one I can possibly go out with at the drop of a hat. The reality is that I miss you and I don't know how I can ever stop missing you whenever something triggers my memory. When I walk by your old block sometimes, I remember you. Which is why I hate to walk about my neighbourhood because there are some places I don't particularly like to go without recalling you. I hardly go to the National Library, not only because of the ERP charges and the insanely expensive parking fees, but because we went there often. I don't like to go to Marina Square cos we spent so much time there. You see, you are on my mind, and I don't want you to be there. So I kill myself with work so that I can forget about you.


I keep hearing this on the radio! I heard it three to four times on Saturday.

i'm alive!

It's been a hectic few weeks since school started. And there's still four more weeks to go! Towards the end of the 5th, 6th week, I started feeling like I couldn't teach, couldn't make lessons interesting, couldn't get the facts across. It started from Chap 7, when I realised my kids were BORED. They looked bored, they sounded bored. I guess it's because half of them have tuition, and their tuition teachers have gone ahead already.

But anyway, I was tired, I wasn't finding any joy from my lessons, followed by a unexpected change in classes. I thought I was the only one who was feeling this way, until I shared with Der, and realised that she was feeling washed-out too. So she told me that we all need a good break, and that is why I relaxed for most of the CNY break. Only picked up work to do on Sunday, and I did work all day!

Okay, I just wanted to update so that you know that I'm alive, that's all. Haha. It's back to the grind, and I've to face two new classes of kids. Thankfully it's not the full class, just half of them. But it's still uncomfortable cos it's Feb and I still don't know most of their names. Nvm, I'll give myself till the third week of Feb to remember all their names.

Here's a song that I heard on the radio the other day. I heard another song, but I can't remember the lyrics now! Something about "when heaven and hell can compromise" or something like that. Anyway.


Cover of the song Always the Last to Know, originally sung by Del Amitri.

so you're in love with someone else
someone who burns within your soul
it looks like i'm the last to know

phew!

School has been crazy busy! But on the bright side, we still have time to sit down and have beloved Der blow out candles on her birthday cake. Happy quarter of a century! Next year's my turn. )=

Lessons are going well, I like my kids except for a minority who still don't know the seriousness of streaming. Wake up!

I went to the library the other day, hoping that the copy of Daywatch will be on the shelves, but no! It wasn't! And I refuse to pay $1.55 to reserve a book that is supposed to be 'available'. So I'm going to try my luck on Monday.

I didn't go back to school today, so while after dinner with my parents, I was thinking, "What must I prepare for tmr?" And then it hit me that tmr's only Sunday, and today's only Saturday. )=! My mother commented, "Occupational hazard."

I went for a haircut today. =D Basically, I can't tie my hair now, cos there's not enough hair to tie. Haha! The last time I had hair this short, I was in JC. Ahh... the good ole days.

Great changes ahead, looking forward to them!