there is a new set of measuring spoons in the kitchen and the smallest one is labelled 'just a pinch'.

fin de siecle

was hunting through books just now to find an appropriate passage to sum this year up. came up empty-handed, which either means that 2004 defies encapsualation or that all the books i buy are shallow. probably the latter.

so.

may next year be better, or shorter, or more alcoholic, or, as some of you have wished, just different. may the people who keep posting random things on my comments board start making more sense, or at the very least spell better. may this be the year in which justin and i finally win something of significance in a bridge event.

may life stop sucking for the people for whom life sucks.

may we all try to complain less as a prelude to the previous thing, though i would not put this down as a resolution because it is one that will be broken several hours after midnight when i cannot get a cab. may we all laugh a lot, because god knows where i would be without that.

(yes, all of you are hysterical)

may we discover, and make, and revel in lots of good food, even if the ingredients don't have fancy foreign names. (su-lin: i'm sorry you didn't get any cheesecake.)

and finally, and very vitally, may harry potter and the half-blood prince be worth the bloody 3-year wait.

happy new year folks!

pda

someone needs to convince su-lin that she needs one. someone who is a far better salesman than i.

there's no denying it, i feel ashamed, somehow, of the fact that i'm going to be starting work in as an administrator -- despite all the self-talk about (a) this being only temporary (i hope) and (b) the fact that i should be happy to have any work at all, there's still this feeling that i am letting everyone - and myself - down. one forsook the scholarship road four years ago for the freedom to choose, and it just seems that i'm now making a terrible hash of what was so dearly bought.

boondocks

for dinner, we embark on this odyssey across singapore in search of buckaroo's, a bbq place buried in the deep nowhere that is sembawang. the usual combination of lack of foresight and pure bad luck means, of course, that the restaurant is closed when we get there, leaving us to contemplate what else there is to eat in a place where the most salient landmark is dieppe barracks.

we eventually light in a rather suspect food center beside sembawang mall, and mike and i trot into a 7-11 to get drinks. we bring our gulps to the cashier, who is clearly new and who decides to ask us (in Chinese) how much they cost. submerging my displeasure, I point her to the prominently displayed sign on the soda fountain that says GULP: $1.20, but she is incredulous and duty-bound to charge us the right amount, not a penny more not a penny less. thus, she starts trying to scan the barcode on the cup in the hope that it will reveal The Truth. a queue starts to form behind us. the machine beeps, and reads out BM Valentine: $35.00, which allows her to rapidly compute that our purchase of four Gulps and one can of Yeo's chrysanthemum tea totals $141.00, an amount that she then stands in eager expectation of receiving. i gently try to tell her that she's made a mistake, but she's not buying it - it's her first night on the job, she says, and she doesn't want anything to go wrong. the guy behind me in line fumes. we ask her if there's a store manager; she disappears into the backroom, and finally emerges with someone who sorts the whole mess out, releasing us to return to mediocre satay and tepid gado gado.

and that's the last time i'm ever going to sembawang.

the bowl now has two oxygen stones and ornamental bubbles that strongly resemble dippin' dots, and the fish appear considerably happier. insofar as icthyoids can play, i swear that these do.

new pets

-- two fish, sleek and orange, bifurcated tails and see-through dorsal fins. They are in a cookie jar turned fishbowl, not doing very much at the moment except quivering slightly. I suspect hypoxia. There is an 'oxygen stone' in there with them but the directions said one stone to one fish so they might indeed be suffocating to death as I type. Will procure more slow-reacting oxidants tomorrow, as well as maybe some ornamental pebbles.

The Phantom Of The Opera

-- movie was spectacular in some ways and incredibly disappointing in others. Props, first and foremost, to whoever decided to block the scenes in such a way that the mise en scene still felt like a musical while making use of the unlimited space and angles of film. Kudos also the choreographers, costume and set designers, and for that matter most of the technical staff (if anything, I was expecting the film to fail because of production since the performers already had a lot to work with). As it turned out, all my gripes were with the singing and acting. It seemed like J. Schumacher was making a special effort not to get any A-list stars in the show - which is all well and good, but the least he could have done otherwise was find people who can sing. Gerald Butler's voice was a disaster - all his sound comes from his windpipe and he mangled the high A in Music of The Night so badly that I'm suprised that Michael Ball has not already hunted him down and killed him (his career, incidentally, is already dead, as evidenced by his resplendent recent roles in Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life and Michael Crichton's Timeline.) Minnie Driver as Carlotta was just...wrong, and Emmy Rossum, though tolerable as Christine (I suppose) is not a patch on Sarah Brightman and her glittering transcendence when it comes to hitting the high high E at the end of the title song. (Mercifully, God or someone else decided to intervene and nix the original casting choice of Katie Holmes. Ugh.)

The experience was not improved by incessantly-beeping pagers and audience members who thought it necessary to clap at the end of every song (seriously: who are these people?) Fortunately, the theater was only about a third full, the rest of the movie-going population having decided that Meet the Fockers was the obvious choice for where their $8.50 should be spent.

For all that, if you're Andrew Lloyd Webber's bitch (like I, unfortunately, am: where do I sign up for rehab?), it is probably still worth a watch.

investigated yen's ramshackle killiney road bar and it is everything that was promised. we must must must must go. byob!

Merry Christmas to all!

Received, just now, the sad news that my brother's godfather, and long-time family friend, has just entered the final stages of thirteen years of on-and-off illness. What began as nasopharyngeal cancer turned into a series of medical complications quite beyond my power to detail, the last of which was an episode of choking during a bout of pneumonia which led to anoxia and brain damage. Went straight from Mass to the ICU (in SGH) where the family was gathered, and married up with Jiahao, who managed to steal away from the urology ward where he was on call. Mom pressganged him into accompanying me into the ward (only 2 people are allowed in at a time), where, still in his scrubs, he did a perfunctory, official-looking flip through the patient charts (Can you do that? I asked him. Apparently he can. I'm not sure if I was expecting something wise and wonderful like "Oh, how silly, they could fix everything by doing X", but no comments were forthcoming.)

No matter how obvious, the juxtaposition - hospital wards on Christmas Eve - is still a horrific one. There's no inoculation either, no way to not put the two things together: out there, people are celebrating; in here, someone is dying. The mind, our minds, are drawn by irony, hungry for meaning, and, unbidden, do the interlocking. No stopping them. The best one can do is not feel guilty, not be the fulcrum - things aren't all about you, the universe is unfolding as it should.

xmas nosh (ii)

the cheesecake has uneven edges and is not the texture i had hoped for. i am tempted to blame either (a) the waterbath (maybe i should not have used one) or (b) the recipe, although of course it could be just one blaming ones tools etc. it rather reminds me of fiesta japanese cheesecakes which, though charming in their own way, are not really what one expects after spending nearly $20 on cream cheese, not to mention running all around town to find just the right brand of strawberry topping.

xmas nosh

i

accidentally threw bangkwangs instead of yams into the shopping basket in cold storage 2 days ago. candied bangkwangs probably don't taste so good.

ii

finally getting round to making cheesecake. spurning nigella's recipe because frankly i did not like the lime one we made in su-lin's place eons ago and would like to make something that is not the consistency of goo. poll: grahams or digestives for base?

iii

peanut butter cookies were quite satisfactory. only mishap: should have followed advice to letter and made indentations for jam deeper.

iv

why are artichokes so expensive?

v

the problem with christmas in the tropics is that food that might be considered hearty elsewhere merely makes one jelat in equatorial climes. (can one be jelat? or do you feel jelat? or have i just completely lost my mind?) also: many vegetables not available/are too expensive/not fresh. spent a king's ransom on brussel sprouts; acorn squash completely unavailable.

vi

food disappears all too quickly when there are 5 people in the house.

vii

year after year i am disappointed by christmas hams. our aunt dropped one by as a way of a family present and as always expectation has surpassed actual tasting. ham is a very stodgy food to begin with and is rather difficult to give a lift to. packing it into a dense log does not help the cause. am plotting to escape the imminence of sandwiches at lunch.

viii

tomorrow, though, will be good.

echoes of su-lin

woken up at 8:45 this morning by someone from ****** berating me for not having gone for my medical checkup yet. i did tell them last week (in fact i swear i had the conversation with the very same woman) that i would not be free to go till today and was given the ok to do that, so i don't apologize for being curt and in fact now feel like going tomorrow instead just so that she'll be further aggrieved. for future reference, no phone calls to my home should be made before the hour of ten in the morning unless murther or similar has been committed. (i do already wake up earlier than most of the idlers i know.)

syntax and such

was pondering, in church last week, the lyrics of o come o come emmanuel, which go thusly:

o come o come emmanuel
and ransome captive israel
who mourns in lonely exile here
until the son of god appear

specifically, was trying to figure out why the final verb of the stanza should be plural and not singular, until i realised that this was probably an analagous construction to the one choonping eekia and i had had a discussion over not two months ago, that is, the bit from 'and is it true' that goes:

the maker of the stars and sea
become a child on earth for me

where 'become' (choonping explained) is not a verb at all but a more adjectival-like thing (sidebar: consulted mother about what exactly it is and got into head-spinning argument about what the word "won" is in the sentence "the battle is won").

on top of the grammatical muddle, carol lyrics, i have found, have terribly tricky syntax too - for instance:

what child is this, who laid to rest on mary's lap is sleeping,
whom angels greet, with anthems sweet, while shepherd's watch are keeping?

no matter how hard you try to untwist that pretzel of a question, you just can't ask it in a more straightforward way. i love it. people need to appreciate these things more.

spelling

but both minuscule and miniscule are ok, yes? dictionary.com and my ye olde webster's concur.

wasn't it granny who said something along the lines of i spells it like how i says it?

perkier.

have been considering moving this blog onto a private domain for a while now, however do not feel comfortable enough with html to endeavour to create a site without help. tried to enlist the brother who also pleaded uselessness, which leaves me with:

a) stick with blogger
b) go it on my own
c) find a kind soul to help out

we'll see

I have been offered a position by [yes, I have edited this out. why? one can never be too careful. and also because it makes a good running joke. if anyone actually reads this leave a comment and i will buy you an ice-cream)] , which I am taking while I wait for something better. (Smash cut, of course, to me sitting at a big desk, still in the company after 25 years contemplating songs about rainbows and what's on the other side. Also, should I be saying this on a public blog? Ass-biting, ahoy!)

I start 15 Jan.

Goof of the day in today's papers is a rather unfortunate headline that reads:

Here's hope for lymphatic cancer

Driving up to the airport to pick up the brother at close on one in the morning, I was amazed to see a line of cabs several miles long (no kidding) on the expressway waiting for arriving passengers. There always used to be a queue, but neither of us had ever seen it reach such an impressive length. Postulation by my dad: its distance from head to tail is an accurate barometer of the state of the economy, and also a good indication of who will prevail in the next General Election.

aargh

my sandals are broken
my watch is broken
all but one of the clothes hooks on the back of my door are broken
my umbrella has gone missing
my knee is hurting like heck
and i've skipped lunch for three days running

could something just please go right?

Yet more frivolous things that I absolutely must have (I especially love "You are full of bombs")

reading

sadly, the rest of my reading of late has consisted solely of trashy detective novels.

i think i shall re-read the grapes of wrath. it's one of those books i go to when i'm down, the macaroni cheese of my favourite literature. a somewhat strange choice, i suppose, but choonping tells me that he goes to paradise lost for comfort so i do have some company in my strangeness.

camus

just finished the outsider in galilee. feeling disturbed because of it (particularly because of the afterword, where camus mentions all too briefly the idea that mersault is a Christ-like figure), and itching for illumination. can one of the clever english students talk to me about it/tell me more (about existentialism to begin with, if nothing else)?

menace to society

two times in three days i have accidentally injured a fellow citizen. the first was on the mrt when the train came to an abrupt halt and i trod - hard - on a poor lady's sandalled foot. the second - and jianyi will go into schadenfreude-induced rapture reading this - happened not two hours ago in ang mo kio library. i was leaning against a bookshelf trying to decide whether i wanted to give j.g. ballard a second chance when this young kid, shoulder-high, came hurtling around the corner. he was being chased or something, was not looking where he was going, and clotheslined himself violently on my outstretched arm before I had any chance to react. went down like sack of turnips, flat on back, very reminiscent of three stooges. i instinctively (and rather idiotically, in retrospect), started apologising but he was too busy seeing stars to notice, so i quietly crept away to look at bridge books while he recovered (and found something by stewart that i had not read before: his writing is funny even if his concepts aren't the best).

i do have more to say about heartlanders/cosmopolitans but the idea of turning these thoughts into lucid prose is putting me off at the moment so the entry will have to be put on hold.

weighing in on von's thoughts on the cosmopolitan/heartlander divide.

i disagree that the distinction is purely phenotypic/behavioural (as yen commented: a hawker center meal does not a heartlander make), and not just because of the traditional blurring-of-boundaries argument. the underlying dichotomy (certainly nowadays, perhaps less so in the past) is probably far simpler - the terms have become euphemistic catch-alls for 'rich' and poor'. therefore, being 'cosmopolitan', in the singaporean sense of the word, is not context-dependent: moneyed is moneyed whether one is eating in an hougang hawker center or les amis.

the truth of the matter is that singapore really is too small to have delineations that depend, at least to a certain extent, on possessing a geography that produces immiscible cultures. there is not enough physical space for our population to be hetergeneous - cosmpolitans end up in heartlander territory (and vice versa) by sheer dint of the fact that there is nowhere else to go. diffusion; probabilities. thus, it is impossible for us to produce two behaviourally distinct groups, and (sorry to say), people like von are probably not all that uncommon.

so if it's not what you do, and it's not who you are (i don't think anyone's going to argue that there's a heartlander gene), it must be what you own. and if that is the case, one really cannot be both cosmopolitan and heartlander, charming as the illusion may be. even if one could, not being well off in a nation of bloated prosperity is probably not cool - in fact, i will stick my neck out and say that it sucks - so at worst we're insulting the 'heartlanders' quite terribly by insinuating that we would like to straddle the fences

the moral of the story, perhaps, is that the division is more political than genuinely sociocultural. it's a gentler way of talking about inequality of wealth distribution, and, as von inadvertently pointed out, softens the plight of the poor, and even makes it, in a twisted sort of way, desirable. we're one of the masses! count on me, singapore! etc. me? i just don't believe in labels and pigeonholes. fade to grey.

craving

i would give a kidney right now for some waffle house

joo chiat

Tried, today, an approximation of the Makansutra Joo Chiat/Katong Jalan Jalan, all by my lonesome because people were either busy or did not pick up my calls. Booo. Fei Fei Wantan noodles were not as superlative as the description suggests - my mom and I (correct me if I'm wrong) like our wantan mee gravy to be fairly sweet, which is why the Farrer market stall has long been one of our favourites. (Jiahao's Sunshine Plaza one is not half-bad either). For $2, though, one really can't complain. Chased away pesky drink-stall owner and high-tailed it down to East Coast Road in search of kaya buns, admiring, along the way, some very architecurally interesting (and enormous) semi-ds. Where the bun shop should have been was a large and rather sketchy beer garden, which was disappointing. Fortunately enough, there was one of those old, Hainanese(?) confectioneries nearby, packed to the rafters despite it being 3 o'clock on a Wednesday afternoon. Crowds in Singapore usually indicate quality, so I perused the grubby display case and selected a Swiss roll and a yellow, custardy tart thing, sixty cents apiece. The Swiss roll was very sugary and jammy, and I polished it off before I had gotten ten paces from the store. The custard thing was less exciting, and made me wish I had gone with something else - one of the creamhorns, maybe, or the chocolate pastries.

Heading back towards Katong Mall, I located Makansutra's famous tau kwa bao, which was as good as promised, the tau kwa exceedingly fresh and its texture perfect both outside and in. It came stuffed with everything you would usually expect in tau kwa bao, plus many unidentifiable bits, and, (this is the kicker) everything was cooked in remorseless amounts of garlic. The chili sauce was superb as well.

I then took a little break to explore Katong Mall, which was almost a waste of time, because just about everything was shut. 'Almost' because I got to peek into a tuition centre upstairs, where, written on the whiteboard, was this:

BODY LOCI (LOCATIONS)
1. eye
2. nose
3. mouth
4. neck

etc.

-- which wins the WTF Singapore strangeness award for the day, and an overall WTF quotient of 7.5 out of 10.

Downstairs was a fascinating bakery named Awfully Chocolate. Enticed immediately by the name and its strangely minimalist layout (it has no display case, and is very white, sort of like an Apple store), I went to explore - it has but three kinds of cake (chocolate fudge, chocolate banana, and something else I forget) and a few flavors of ice cream. I make a call to the Goddess of Chocolate who, of course, has heard about the place, and tells me that yes, their cakes are indeed as mouthwateringly scrumptious as one might expect from a bakery that deigns to call itself Awfully Chocolate (Sidebar: does anyone remember the miniature golf course along the ECP, since closed, that was called "Lilliputt"? An actual pun! In Singapore!) The problem being that they don't sell slices, only whole cakes, so now I have to either wait for my family to return, or have, as the GoC suggested, an Awfully Chocolate cake party (anyone?). Or, I told the GoC before hanging up, starve myself for 2 days and do a Bruce Bogtrotter.

After that, went in pursuit of durian puffs, only to find that they are only sold in boxes of 20. That, and the fact the shop smelled rather horrid, made me pass, and decide to call it a day in terms of eating. Walked through Marine Parade to the shore, and sat for a while watching the rollerbladers and reading Minz's "irresistibly-titled" Gould's Book of Fish: A Novel in Twelve Fish by Richard Flanagan, which I thought might be good seaside reading, what with it involving, you know, fish. I got neither land breezes, nor sea breezes, which Minz had promised me in an IM conversation earlier in the morning:

(lamotte: what abt
lamotte: east coast
lamotte: becos it's really v nice to sit under a tree and read
TryptophanCakes: true
lamotte: and there's a japnese restaurant there i'm v fond of
TryptophanCakes: it is sort of hot today though
lamotte: seabreeze!
lamotte: and land breeze!
lamotte: and whatever other breeze!)

-- but it had cooled down somewhat, so it was not all bad. Decided, since I was in the vicinity, to take another of her suggestions and check out the Fort Road excavation, where her mother (she said) used to play as a kid

(lamotte: i said, how come you so lousy and not inquisitive
lamotte: you could have been famous for it)

They haven't uncovered very much yet, about a hundred square meters, maybe, but there is still a ways to go, and it is, I suppose, kind of exciting. (Somehow, don't have much else to say about that)

And now I'm home, drinking Vanilla Coke and succumbing to Singapore Idol because I am bored, and The Amazing Race has been pre-empted.

december

-- is upon us, which means that it's time for:

X'mas wish list, 2004

1. DVDs:
- Dr. Strangelove, or How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love The Bomb, 40th anniversary special edition
- Schindler's List, widescreen edition (keeping copy)
- the Arrested Development Season 1 Box Set (lots of extras)

2. Eddie Kantar Teaches Advanced Bridge Defense, one of the best books on defense out nowadays, IMHO.

3. A heart rate monitor, for jogging.

4. This Swatch Irony, which I think exists in green, although I cannot find one on the webpage

5. A small bedside lamp that can clip onto my bed (couple inches of wood). I don't have a bedside table so the clipping bit is imperative.

6. A one-year renewal of my Bridge World subscription

7. Low-maintenance fish, with fishbowl, that will swim around and give me inspiration to write.

8. A dock for my Ipod mini - a completely superfluous accessory, I admit, but what is Christmas for?

9. (family only!) A pair of sneakers. It is embarrassing, but I don't have any.

10. To take each moment, and live each moment, in peace eternally

(P.S. I encourage other people to put up similar lists so that I don't feel like a greedy bastard. Thank you.)

yes, no one cares, but

interviews: sia yesterday and mcys today. the former is for a generalist post which i have no real intention of taking (the bottom of the barrel, she is being scraped), and involved five excruciating hours of tests, including a gp type essay that i thoroughly flubbed. the interview itself was not much better. what, the woman asks me, do i think the people who were retrenched from sia felt when they heard the bad news -- to which i give the extremely eloquent reply of 'er', just because, well, what possible bearing does the question have on my employability? i left feeling a thorough wreck, the only consolation being that i did not get lost finding my way out of the free trade zone onto the ecp, although i did have to pay $7 for parking. ouch.

mcys was somewhat better. i had been fortified before hand with a semi-decent lunch (leftovers, but good ones), and promised myself time at galilee if i did well; plus, the job is actually one that is sort of interesting to me. one of the interviewers reminded me of e-ching: sunny, imperturbable and rubicund, which gave me hope that not all who stay in the civil service for years at a go are grinches and grumpy-pants. it was a first round, group-chat thing, something i manage better than one-on-ones because i tend to feed, remora-like, off my own superiority complex and own the room that way. so much for humility, but if it works, i say run with it. knock on wood, i think it went well. oh, and i did go to galilee, and would advise future customers to stay away from the "NEW" teriyaki chicken because it is synthetic and highly overpriced.

Whenever I read about people having twenty-page papers due, I realise that while I don't miss having to write those things, I do miss the complaining.

today

many happy hours with styron, who thankfully does not write like saul bellow as i feared. movie with yen ida jianyi dom wendy and their psc friend ken at the new arts house. the show was torremolinos 73, viewed in a very cozy, teal-lit theater that reminded me of cat's cradle in chapel hill, then to a food court after that for them to get dinner. ida never seems to age; it is most unfair. abandoned them to other friends for prata and dou hua supper at rochor, and now, home, stuffed to the gills, and not really looking forward to waking up early tomorrow (4 duke interviews to give in the morning, starting at 9.) still, a good day, all things considered. bed.

the missing piece

by shel silverstein -- everyone has read it, yes? i was reminded today that it is most apropos, especially as it begins:

it was missing a piece
and it was not happy

the language thing (ii)

Credit where it's due: MM Lee's speech yesterday hit the nail on the head, and I guess I forgive him this particular trespass. You can read it on ST online if you're out of the country.

von

i realise that i didn't advertise his blog, so the few people who read only this one do mosey over to the link on the right some time and find out what's going on in his life. he is unrelentingly funny.

edited because I am still using bloody 's's and 'z's interchangeably. aargh.

on getting a phd

does everyone remember that mcdonald's ad that ran many many years ago, the one with the little boy who is sent up to the counter by his parents to make an order, and the waitress is all smiley and bimbotic and 'would you like fries with that, sir?', and the little boy goes back to his parents all doe-eyed and carrying his burger and says 'she called me sir' in a tone of reverential awe as if he's whispering paternosters in a basilica? that's half the reason why i want to get a phd -- so that people can call me doctor and cause me to go into quiet delighted giggles as soon as they've left the room. i'm so pathetic it's not even funny.

the language thing

The parliament debate on syllabus reform for Chinese is getting on my nerves. Action is certainly long overdue -- what irks me is that even in pursuing change, the powers-that-be are still clinging on to the old utilitarian philosophies, the ones that got us into all this trouble in the first place. Yes, we all know about the 21st century Chinese economy -- all of us except seven-year old kids who really, I would imagine, don't give a flying fig about their chances as entrepeneurs thirty years down the road. What the gahmen should be doing (if anything at all) is making kids excited. They should make learning Chinese seem cool. I mean, hell, it is cool.

And yet, over and over again, it's the same stupidity. The Straits Times today proudly carries an article entitled: "Can having too much fun learning Chinese be bad?" -- I personally can't think of any ways my experience learning Chinese could have been less fun without bringing leg shackles and an iron maiden into the picture. I know the adage is that if it ain't broke, don't fix it, but guys, it's broke.

Over dinner the other day (the Westlake one), we were talking about how Singaporeans don't really have a handle on any language. We can communicate -- but so can chimps and dolphins. And cockroaches. The grasp that most people have on either English or Chinese is insufficient for anything other than the expression of basic, literal meaning -- it's not that people are without the intelligence to come up with abstract ideas or novel thoughts (well, in some cases anyway), it's that they lack the vehicle with which they can share them.

It's sad. And it's all because education is firmly dictated by policy, and policy (correctly so) is geared towards the end, the prize. Language lessons (I feel) just can't work that way, because there is no end, and the milestones are not obvious until they're passed. The journey is everything, and the trick is getting people not to fall by the wayside, not to give up, no matter how slow their pace may be.

Anyhow, I guess that on the whole I'm glad they're trying to change things. Yes, they have the wrong motives and methods as always, and it's probably going to end up being a case of too-little-too-late. Still, as Justin always tells me, people like us always succumb to idealism in the end -- the triumph of hope over experience, as he likes to say. Here we go again.

Currenly reading:
Lie Down in Darkness - William Styron

book pairings

minz had an entry on this a while ago, and i'd like to contribute number9dream and ishiguro's when we were orphans as 2 books that seem to be natural bedfellows.

bow-wow dogs?

i think that's what they're called. has anyone seen them in the stores? they're like beanies. adorable and (i think) made locally, and there are about a million of them, all different breeds. the problem (isn't there always one?) is that i spent twenty minutes in a toy shop rummaging through piles and piles of them the other day and couldn't find any corgis, which is sad. corgis always get short shrift.

guilt-free

-- just thought I'd tell everyone that I had sirloin steak with a very passable red wine sauce and mashed potatoes and steamed veg, all home-cooked, the best meal I've had for days. And now I'm going to take a nap.

circle line

-- construction is sprouting up everywhere, and I just had to see exactly where it goes

more woe

you know, i really am rather tired -- it's not that good things aren't happening on the job front, it's that they're happening very very slowly. i fear putting the full details here will jinx me as appears to have happened the last time i did so (not to mention the fact that you'll be bored to tears). i think i will need to look for another temp job but have no idea what to do -- tuition is out of the question at this time of the year and everything else is either sales which i am hopeless at or burger-flipping. it is moderately amazing how fifteen years of top-class education prepares you for absolutely nothing in the real world.

Currenly reading:
number9dream - David Mitchell

spufford's

-- opening chapter is the most wonderful thing i've read in a long long time. and i have spelled his name correctly this time round.

ugh

all of the stores are playing very bad christmas music

philosophy

Have started watching Dead Like Me. Gotta love a show where the opening monologue in the pilot has the lines:

"I also don't have a lot of interest in being a good person or a bad person. From what I can tell, either way you're screwed. Bad people are punished by society's law, and good people...are punished by Murphy's Law. So you see my dilemma."

meanie

living fifty meters down the road from a mormon church is turning me into a very uncharitable person. when we first moved in to casa rosita, i used to allow them to stop me, say 'hi', and chat about their gospel, but years and years of that has worn my tolerance down to a nub, and i avoid them now like the plague. i do feel bad doing it, mostly because it's different missionaries every time, and i do like to let a person say his piece at least once. the problem is that it's always the same piece - they must have a script or something because whenever one of them stops me i know the exact words he's going to use before they're out of his mouth. and they're so persistent! - i've tried everything from staring fixedly at the ground as i go past to plugging myself into my ipod to changing the subject to duke basketball - but nothing ever stops them from giving the five-minute spiel.

to make matters worse, there's now a team of buddhist monks plying bukit timah road asking for donations, and i have been stopped by them thrice in as many days. i allowed myself to be accosted and detained yesterday and the day before, but today's experience was the limit - the guy just kept tailing me and hounding me even though i insisted quite firmly that i had given them quite enough of my time and money already. i was angry (and i got the impression that he was as well, somehow), and i even think i hated him a little because of how un-christian he made me feel. same deal with the mormons really - there's just no way to walk away from them quickly without being rude.

you see, getting rid of evangelists is not the same as getting rid of salesmen or those people who try to get you to do questionnaires. with the latter you can tell them: 'no thanks' firmly and walk away, but the opening salvo of the evangelists is always something like how are you (fine, how are you) do you live around here (yeah, down the road) have any of our brothers told you about the saving love of jesus christ - and then they're off to the races. their trick is that they start a conversation first, they make a connection, and to not respond to the first one or two questions is (to me) just plain rude. salesmen (in singapore, anyway - this is why they're more successful overseas) often don't have the skill to forge that link, and anyway, it's easy to stick in a 'i don't want to buy anything, thanks' before they even have the chance. i've tried the strategy of immediately inserting something like 'i know what you're going to say but i already am a catholic' after the 'how-are-you's, but like the telemarketers, they have a comeback for that too: which church do you go to? (st. ignatius) have you ever considered etc.

i mean, dammit. i can't wait till our house goes en bloc.

argh the grammar police have returned run for the hills

my ten dollar, bought-from-a-random-american-mall, digital watch is approaching the end of its life, and browsing for a new one yesterday was a sad experience, for all the usual reasons. all the really nice swatches and fossils are in the 150-200 range, and while that's not obscenely expensive it's not an amount of money i want to put towards something like that right now. grr. i hate wanting things. will go and distract self with fried food.

I may be the last one among us to have seen it, but if you haven't, do check out Before Sunset, one of the few honest movies I have been to this year, and well worth your seven dollars and fifty cents (on average).

sandwich

for whatever reason, bacon and grilled cheese in wholemeal bread just doesn't work very well

belated

-- thanks to everyone for making Sunday night wonderful - yes, it has been said already, but without you lot the marauding world would not be quite so bearable. Not to mention that I would not know what a quire is.

Books:
Tepper Isn't Going Out - Calvin Trillin
Deep River - Shusako Endo
Minz's copy of The Child That Books Built (Francis Spuford), purloined from Su-Lin's house
And Going Postal, of course

no accounting for taste

(dad and i, in JB, perusing dvds)

me: (looking at we don't live here anymore) this won't be released in singapore for a while. one of those with potential for oscar noms that the theaters don't seem to pick up on till june of the following year. and i bet you the same will happen with ray
dad: ooh, look! frankenfish!

last night: jiahao's b'day dinner - more than a week early, but with good reason. it was the usual six of us - the pre-birthday boy, zisheng, eekia, choonping, chun leck - whom many of us had not seen in forever - and, yeah, myself. started the evening off sonwhat poorly by meeting at 5:30 at the wrong restaurant. (yum cha in chinatown as opposed to teahouse in china square food court), which turned out to be sort of fortunate anyway because teahouse doesn't open till 6.

it's a tung lok place so the food was predictably good - and it was one of those a la carte all you can eat deals to boot. after the shark's fin came a drunken prawns wannabe dish, crab with ginger and spring onion, monkey-head mushrooms, peking duck, deep-fried prawn rolls with mango, tofu with scallops, a roasted meat combo, frogs legs in chili, stir-fried kai lan, siew mai, chili crab, prawns with salad cream and those little fruit bits, pepper beef, and many more i can't remember. for dessert: gui ling gao, mango xi mi lu, hua sheng hu and i think someone had a red bean thing though i'm not very sure.

and salmon sahimi (because no matter what kind of restaurant you are in singapore, as long as you have a buffet, that has to be on the menu).

and then we went home to suffer our individual, quiet attacks of gout.

something new every day

From TWoP:

"Stacie herself interviews that she feels like she's in a position of having to reclaim her reputation after the way she was fired. You know, in rescuing your good name, it's considered a good start not to wear a vest made from Wookiee fur. Furthermore, can someone tell the captioning people that seriously, there is no such word as "restauranteur"? There really isn't. It has a red squiggly line under it right now in Word. That's not a thing, I promise. It may be counterintuitive, but it's "restaurateur," and you can find that out by using a dictionary, which is that big book on your shelf with the never-cracked binding between your copies of The Bridges Of Madison County and Who Moved My Cheese? (Although really, they're kind of getting what they deserve by referring to a Subway owner as a "restaurateur" in the first place.)"

Must confess, never knew that.

busking (iii)

many phone calls later, we make the impossible happen and eke out a time when we're all free - 6 to 7 this wednesday. i email the arts council, and get a reply saying: oops, when we offered you that time we were just kidding because it's the eve of a public holiday.

i go to burn buildings.

excuse

i would blog more, but i'd only make everyone so miserable that you'd all need prozac.

today: bummed again, stayed in bed most of morning reading natsume and feeling like doom. finally got up and remedied situation with:

i) endless repeats of r.e.m.'s everybody hurts

ii) cappuccino and fudge cake at coffee club and

iii) second season premiere of arrested development. i've said this before, and will say it again: you have no excuse not to watch this show! u.s.people: sundays on fox! s'pore people: coming soon to tcs 5! family in thailand: i know you're already being good. everyone else: no excuse!

finishing my saturday quietly, with brie, table water, a wyndham estate shiraz, and natsume soseki's i am a cat. if it would only rain now, the evening would be perfect.

maybe

-- i should take a leaf from lucille van pelt's book, set up a booth in the middle of town, put up a 'the doctor is in' sign and charge people for a good swift kick in the pants (or was that last one calvin and hobbes?)

wrong side of the table (ii)

met with the other duke alumni interviewers last night at the post bar in fullerton (which is totally one of the places i'm going to go to spend lavish amounts of money on other people when i have it - don't hold your breath). the chairman gave out assignments, and we discussed the possibility of holding a group thing in rjc, which i said that i could put together since i know e-ching and friends. early admission interviews are happening as you read this.

we reminisced about duke - all of the others had been there a decade or more ago and were quite eager to hear about what had changed, what was still the same. for one reason or another, it transpired that no one had since returned to the campus, and all of us agreed that we hate the idea of reunions, their artificiality, the forced catching up and faux bonhomie. consensus was that the best way to revisit the school is during the summer when everyone has gone home. wandering alone in the shadows of the gargoyles and clock towers - in one's personal duke, not the duke that students in generations after you have created.

it's a pleasure to meet good people; it's a comfort to know that duke alumni (this group, anyway) are not just successful but splendidly human. and it's great to think that even now, 10 or more years after their graduation, there's still a place in their hearts for the tranquility of the north carolinian countryside and a bowl of piping-hot grits.

busking (ii)

so we went for our audition this morning, but not before vocal complaints from cp about having to wake up in the middle of the night (read: 8 a.m.) to drag himself down to city hall. i was the one who did the planning, and there was good reason for allowing lots of leeway -- bitter experience has taught me that early morning (read 10:45) appointments are never made unless some form of breakfast (read: caffeinated beverages) precedes them. it was the golden rule in rhythm in blue, and it stood us in very good stead while i was musical director, even though i admit that i was cursed at quite a bit.

anyhow. leisurely breakfast, warming up, and we arrived at mita in very good time, only to be kept waiting for nearly an hour while the whatever censorship committee convened and someone named chris popped out intermittently to tell us about the "objectives" of the busking program (like, thanks, captain obvious. i had no idea that buskers were meant to make singapore livelier until you guys told me. i think it would be hilarious if the first objective was something like "to spread the message of doom and eradicate any last traces of joy from our nation")

it came to our turn just before noon. we were brought before the whatever censorship committee -- five very grey individuals who i suspect have not smiled since the 1980s -- and interrogated on our intentions (us, meekly, and in small voices: to spread christmas cheer). the singing took place in a cavernous boardroom, us separated from the panel by two tables and a yawning gulf of space. weirdly enough, they had all the other auditionees in at the same time, so there were a couple of people fiddling with instruments on our left and a skin artist doing henna tatooes on one of the whatever censorship people while we belted out o little town of bethlehem.

it wasn't our best effort. i will not defame cp through exposition of his musical transgressions, but suffice it to say that we did not really compromise on a key till the silent stars drifted by.

thankfully, the subsequent two-and-a-half verses went by with only minor incident. applause, etc., and then, of course, because nothing is ever easy when it comes to the gahmen (tm talkingcock), they asked us why jiahao was not with us. indeed, he wasn't, because the poor guy has just started his stint as a houseman in sgh and barely gets time off to eat, never mind traipse around suffering fools. we explained ourselves, and i pointed out, perfectly accurately, that i had spoken to someone on the phone about having only 3 people present and that they had said that it would not be a problem. the usual speech about gahmen policy got trotted out, and despite all protestations that o little town of bethlehem would not suddenly become a song of sedition with the inclusion of an additional part of harmony, they would not have it. we have no problems giving you the licence, they said, but there has to be a compromise.

the "compromise" came in an email later - they need to see jiahao in the flesh one evening next week from 6-7 to confirm that he is not an al-qaeda operative or a space alien with big laser cannons. This is, of course, an utterly impossible demand given that he doesn't get off work till the sun has long gone down.

so now i have to fight again. i honestly seem to spend about half my life struggling against bureaucratic stupidity and this isn't even really for myself - singapore could use carollers, and obviously charities could use any money we can raise. whatever - once again it has become a matter of principle (read: if i can't get my way, at the very least i need to show you how imbecilic you are). let's hope the pen is still mightier than the sword.

christmas decorations

-- are coming up on Orchard Road. Less gaudy than in years past, although that may change as places like Centrepoint and Taka complete their makeovers. One notable and unfortunate eyesore stands outside Paragon: a squat purple tree with enormous accusing eyes and branches hacked off at the joints. It looks a little like an oversized model of a human heart -- and is quite disturbing. That aside though, the light-up looks promising, and it's nice that they aren't starting the festivities in the middle of October like they used to. That was a bit too much of a good thing.

food

all of a sudden, i feel like making lasagne.

i was, by the way, going to give a running commentary of my mounting despair yesterday (as minz did) but blogger was down -- probably because of thousands of americans flooding the server to do the same.

bush, 2nd term

must look on the bright side. now the u.s. continues to ignore kyoto protocol and carbon emissions skyrocket for the sake of economy. equatorial temperatures rise precipitously, and everyone in singapore is fried to a crisp as the country is engulfed by fifty-foot waves.

just so we are on the same page

i like making friends, and people should feel free to get in touch with me and make comments. inane comments, however, make the baby Jesus cry, and anyone leaving them will, in the future, be banned faster than you can say jiminy cricket. thank you.

halloween

-- sucks when you're alone at home and it's dark as pitch outside and you're ten thousand miles from chapel hill where you really want to be

JCU

Just returned from the James Cook University open house. They have one of the few graduate programs in clinical psych in the country, so I thought that they might be worth checking out. To pre-empt the people who are now like 'you idiot, you turned down one of the top five clinical psych PhD programs in the world for this??':

i) this is three times shorter
ii) which means that in terms of opportunity cost, it's cheaper
iii) and it gets to the heart of the matter, which is seeing patients, and lots of them.

Which, I guess, is what I want to do. Pretty pictures of the hippocampus are jolly, but I suppose it would be nice not to live on Maggi mee and microwaved broccoli for the rest of my life.

The JCU "campus" is in the SPRING building in Bukit Merah, which, as it turns out is also where Dorcas' workplace, the Dyslexia Assocation of Singapore, is. I didn't really expect to run into her on a Saturday afternoon, but lo and behold, she appeared as I was waiting for the 123, looking damp and rather bedraggled (it was drizzling). "You really shouldn't work so hard!" I said in greeting, but we hadn't gotten very far past the mutual 'what-are-you-doing-here's when my bus came and I had to go.

But I digress. The university occupies several floors - it still has that new-building smell, fresh paint and varnish, and the furniture is (as yet) unmarked by the grafitti of bored lecture-attending students. The guide made a big show of presenting the "facilities" (read: percolator and snack machine) in her sing-song English, and it was an age of going up- and downstairs before they finally cut to the chase and hauled out the lecturers to give their talks and answer questions. In the Psychology presentation it was mostly people looking for a B.A., NUS rejects no doubt, so that was another half-an-hour of irrelevancy, and when it finally came to Q&A most folks chose to cluster around poor Dr. Kylie instead of asking their bloody questions from the floor like they should have. Typical. There were only one or two others interested in the MPsych, and I was absolutely sympathetic to their wanting to see her personally since she didn't mention the program at all in her presentation. The rest of the morons, however, really needed to learn how to (a) listen so as not to end up asking for information that had already been given out, and (b) demonstrate some basic courtesy and not take up half-an-hour of a person's time when there are ten others waiting in line to see said person. In particular, there was this Indian fellow (by the way, I used much choicer words when I told this story to Jiahao just now, and am feeling seriously hampered by trying to keep this blog family-friendly) who must have been about 65 years old asking about getting a Bachelor's Degree. Oh, he says, I already have an MBA and an MEng. but blah blah blah fascinated with learning and blah blah blah and can I get advanced placement credits and shut the hell up already, we do only have so many years to live.

Because I chose not to join the line, I only got a very brief time at the end before the prof had to hurtle off to another presentation - which really goes to show that I should stop believing in the basic goodness of other Singaporeans (people?) already and just trample.

Anyway, I was impressed with 3 main things: first, that they have their own clinic where students get to practise, second (as I've said), that there's a heavy emphasis on actually seeing patients as opposed to coursework/research, and third, that they consider social and cultural norms when teaching treatment of pathologies, which I suppose is important.

Meanwhile, in the real world, I can't afford it (or, increasingly, as I go along, anything.)

Found the link

The chairman for the Duke interviewing committee has e-mailed the bunch of us asking us for brief introductions, and I am sorely tempted to pretend that I never got the message. Two of the five have replied and they're both illustrious CEOs in the making with Coca Cola and ABN AMRO, scintillating global escapades and all. In the mean time, of course, their e-mails are devastatingly self-deprecating and perfectly punctuated.

So, the dilemma.

If I introduce myself I'm going to be like, um, hi, I've accomplished nothing of very great significance in my 24 God-given years and look all set for a life of seething discontent. Nice to meet you too.

And if I don't they'll think I'm an obnoxious git.

I do confess, I'm the one causing the lousy weather - if I so much as think of stepping outside, it begins to rain.

indeed

wrong side of the table

the duke admissions office has asked me to be one of the interviewers for next year's incoming batch of freshman, the lip-smacking irony of which i will leave for you to savour on your own

othello

Re-read. Recalled how much I liked it the first time and wished that we had talked about it for 'S' paper. Especially:

The robbed that smiles steals something from the thief
He robs himself that spends a bootless grief.

Also finished the Patricia McKillip trilogy, which I enjoyed, though I am a little surprised that Minz likes them too.

Currently reading:
Ghostwritten - David Mitchell

busking

I have applied for a licence! Well, for the whole posse, not just me. For reasons no doubt related to censorship, the MCD needs all applicants to audition before approval is bestowed...and auditions are held but once a month, first Friday of every. (As CP noted, very Pratchett-esque: did I check to make sure that the office doesn't only open from 10:15 to 10:18 as well or something?). More when that happens.

Horror movies aren't usually my cup of tea, but i do find myself kind of intrigued by Saw. Hope it gets here soon.

(Maria Full of Grace has opened here after all, btw - thanks to those who offered help or tried to.)

peeve

when people put cheap biscuits into the same airtight container as my oreos so that they end up tasting faintly of khong guan

update

still rather bearing those ills i have than flying to others that i know not of

The Plan

1. Publish book
2. Win Nobel Prize
3. Invest
4. Live off fat of land

writing

It seems that there were other stages of my life when I was extremely bored; while doing upkeep on the hard drive of my old computer, I came across this unfinished piece:

On Mathematics

Back in the days when my friends and I were all still wearing short trousers, I was very much into problems that were challenging without requiring deep or involved mathematical manipulation, problems that tested what De Bono called “lateral thinking” (an epithet that Americans later transformed into the egregious phrase “thinking outside the box”). One of these problems, and one which I’m sure many of you have heard already, runs as follows:

As I was going to St. Ives
I met a man with seven wives
Every wife had seven sacks
Every sack had seven cats
Every cat had seven kits
Kits, cats, sacks, wives,
How many were going to St. Ives?

The immediate and obvious response to this problem is to dust off the mental abacus and start multiplying. My guess is that the average person would arrive as far as divining that there are 343 cats before giving up in frustration and turning his attention to the more interesting things in life like clipping his toenails or doing the laundry. The more persistent and mathematically inclined (geometric progression anyone?) would struggle on, find out that there are 2401 kittens, add them all up, and arrive at the grand total of 2800 (carefully excluding the man, since the problem only asks for “kits, cats, sacks and wives).

All well and good, until a flip to the back of the book publishing the problem reveals that the answer is one. Why? Because, they claim, you, the narrator, were the only one headed in the direction of the town of St. Ives. The entourage you encountered on the way there was obviously proceeding away from the town, or else you would not have met them.

Well, there is the minor quibble I brought up above: that since the narrator is presumably not a kit, a cat, a sack or a wife, the answer should be zero. Apart from this, should we be satisfied?

Hardly! The word “met” need not at all imply that the man, his harem and the menagerie of felines was coming from the town of St. Ives. What if the narrator met this huge party at the convergence of two roads, for example? What if the narrator was simply proceeding at a faster pace than the 8 humans and 2744 cats? After all, a quick calculation reveals that each wife was carrying 392 cats; thus even a conservative estimate suggests that they were toting more than 200 kilograms of weight apiece. Their peregrinations, in whichever direction they were going, must have been considerably hampered by this load.

To solve this problem, it seems that we have to dig a little deeper. We could tackle it from the angle of motive. Does it seem more likely that this huge party was traveling towards or away from the town? Perhaps St. Ives was a place in which polygamy was ill tolerated and the man was fleeing its fetters to enjoy a licentious existence with his wives and pets. Perhaps the town was a place that turned stray animals into sausage meat and sold it to their unwitting neighbors, and the man was headed there to make a quick buck. The cats, after all, must have been packed quite tightly into the sacks, hardly the most humane way to treat an animal unless it was already destined for slaughter.

So what was St. Ives known for? I did a little research to see if I could shed a little light on the problem that way. The two largest towns that bear that name are in the Huntingdonshire and Penwith districts in Cambridgeshire and Cornwall respectively. The former is most famous for having a “six-arched bridge (c. 1415), with a chapel over the central pier ”, the latter has “winding streets and colour-washed stone cottages housing fishermen, artists and potters ”. In 1920, a gentleman named Edward Leach gave its name to a style of pottery developed in this Cornwallian town.

Not very helpful. What about the narrator of the problem? Do we have any clue what he was up to? One website claims that he was off to the “famous” St. Ives fairs (the St. Ives here referring to the one in Huntingdonshire). This is pure speculation, of course, and has no bearing whatsoever on the direction of travel of the polyamorous husband. Looking at the rhyme itself, the only fact that we may glean is that the narrator had a burning intellectual curiosity, or the question of the size of the party would not have arisen in the first place.

Let’s take a step backward. Does it help at all if we assume that the narrator of the rhyme was also its real-life writer? No, it does not, for the verse is attributed either to Mother Goose or “Anonymous”. There was an earlier version of the problem written in the Rhind Mathematical Papyrus, but this was credited to someone called Ahmose who lived circa 1800 BC, and I highly doubt that St. Ives and its quaint riverside fetes existed back in those days.

(He got the wrong answer, by the way. He thought that 343 x 7 was 2301.)

Perhaps it is best to discard the problem altogether, arguing that such symmetry of numbers is highly improbable anyway. For instance, the average size of a cat litter is four (excepting the Abysinnian and Siamese breeds which have larger and smaller litter sizes, respectively). To be in possession of 343 cats each with a litter size of exactly seven is quite a mind-numbing coincidence. If we are treating the problem metaphysically, and not as merely an exercise in mathematics, it is surely necessary to consider its ecological validity as well. In other words, if the solution to the problem requires that we consider whether the husband is coming from or going to St. Ives, it is essential for us to also question whether such a situation could ever actually occur.


It goes on in this vein for a while. What a weirdo I am.

home from putting together a bunch of christmas carols (which will, with luck, actually be performed at some point this year, and possibly bartered for food of the homemade and chocolatey variety), i loaded up xmaslist.b4s on winamp with the intention of internalizing the tempo of the swingle singers' and is it true. ended up listening to most of the take 6 album as well, and the manhattan transfer christmas songs and recalling fondly the story of how anything remotely associated with the yuletide is strictly forbidden from the grillo household until the first advent candle is lit, how kristen's parents used to hide the xmas cds and candy canes and how no tears or tantrums could ever get them to cave.

Currently reading:
Surfacing - Margaret Atwood

moral responsibility

it is as many have pointed out - singaporeans die by stages, from young, unaware that it's even happening. creativity, independent thought, chutzpah, free-spiritedness, hope, dreams - all systematically snuffed.

i'm reminded of this by the latest psle brouhaha - devastated children, angry letters etc. - and honestly, it really is getting to be too much. the moe will defend itself to the death, i know, but the fact remains that there is something seriously wrong with an examination that wilfully reduces twelve-year old children to tears year after year after year. it started, iirc, with the math question in the 1992 paper - our paper - the one about the two bloody trains that approach each other at different speeds, when will they meet? (i always imagine people like yisheng putting down something like 'never the twain' and waking up the next morning to find themselves in acs.) and ever since we set the precedent it's just been one big annual sobfest.

look at it this way. say you're walking along your way and you come upon a grown man beating up a little kid. other people around. intervention, i feel, is a moral imperative (unless you're a singaporean, in which case you find out the boy's age and the number of times he was hit and come up with a 4d number). my suggestion, therefore, is that we hunt down mr. shanmugaratnam and punch him in the nose, many times. seriously. people should learn to pick on those their own size.

Currently reading:
Me Talk Pretty One Day - David Sedaris
The Sea and Poison - Shusaku Endo

see the world, they say

my chatty barber (who still calls me 'boy', and who can never keep straight what exactly it is i'm doing at any given period of my life) took about 10 minutes of persuading today before he would believe that i am no longer in ns, was in fact done with that 3 years ago (or whole lifetimes if according to my internal measure of time). this is important because it means i'm constantly in danger of getting a buzz cut, though on a positive note it might also indicate that i'm going to look 18 for the rest of my life. i think i got stuck in this particular time warp some time in sec 4 - all strangers i have met over the past decade, when asked to guess my age, invariably come up with a number between 17 and 20, except for american gas station attendants selling me alcohol who think i am 12.

anyway, freshly tonsured and no longer hacking and sneezing, this monday is already an improvement upon the last. i'm not entirely sure how healthy (psychologically) the pendulum swings between hope and devastation are, but i have the feeling that i should be settling upon on or the other pretty soon. hope, after all, has its own demerits. one of the lessons of ns was that if one is going to process towards despair, one should at least do so consistently, with fortitude. after all, once set on that path, a person can be armed fully with the acrimony and cynicism necessary to survive it, and not waste time chasing fleeting palliation.

hope: buying $1 worth of toto every time the jackpot creeps above 1 million dollars. did you know that you're about six to seven hundred times more likely to die in a plane crash than win the lottery? hope: applying to the ywca on the off-chance that they want a neuroscientist to design curricula for 7-year old girls. it's amazing how you can spin a resume to fit any job if you really put your mind to it.

chatty barber's conclusion was that i look like i should be some sort of a military person. except...obviously not. anyway thanks for the hint, destiny, try harder next time, and do compensate ria's hair salon for the visit i will not be paying them whenever my hair next overgrows my ears.

Currently reading:
Howard's End - E.M. Forster

every grain of sand

Making my way through Bob Dylan downloads, I come across:

I hear the ancient footsteps like the motion of the sea
Sometimes I turn, there's someone there, other times it's only me.
I am hanging in the balance of a perfect finished plan
Like every sparrow falling, like every grain of sand.

letter

Dear Mr. Yeo,

I am a recent honours graduate from Duke University, having received a BSc. Psych. from this institution.

As a concerned citizen of our country, I have come to recognize, as our government officials have persistently pointed out, that our resources are scarce, and that we rely largely on the industry and innovation of our citizens to keep our tiny ship afloat in the choppy seas of modern-day economic uncertainty.

I have thus returned to Singapore of my own volition to contribute my meagre talent to this cause.

Bearing in mind the comments you made in the capacity of A*STAR chairman in 2002, and noting how difficult it is for a person of my own mediocre ability to find any other meaningful employment, I wish to submit my application to your organisation for the position of Test Tube Washer. Please find my resume attached.

I am willing to provide my own dishwashing liquid, in a brand and scent of the organisation's choosing, and also scouring pads.

I look forward to hearing from you very soon.

Sincerely,
J____ L_____

Thanks to all who asked after me - all symptoms have abated except for a slight cough. Oh, and I seem to be 4 kg lighter.

Destitution is, as always, imminent.

Currently reading:
The Jane Austen Book Club - Karen Joy Fowler

I really want to see Maria Full of Grace but have the feeling that it has been banned in Singapore for whatever reason ("Whatever reason" being "drugs". And perhaps that it's a good film.) Tried downloading, but all I've come up with fakes and partials, so if anyone can get me a copy electronic or otherwise I'd be most grateful.

blech

flu. two boxes of kleenex in as many days. no appetite. voice like macy gray's. grossness coming out of nose. endless cups of lemsip, probably enough paracetamol to cause a rhinocerous liver failure. activity: read for 5 minutes, doze off, wake up, repeat. wrote script for canon short film contest while high on phenylephrine. despite grogginess, decided to play monday night duplicate anyway. slogged through 25 boards. more panadol halfway through. stayed up till 2 analysing progressive double squeeze on board 23. letter to forum once again not published. food: almost nothing, choked down fish porridge an hour ago.

fever has finally broken, though, so i sense that the worst is over. touch wood. etc.

My life at present, perfectly encapsulated

Lunch with Dorcas at Ikea. She's doing well, as one might expect (being the only Humans student among us who's actually relatively normal. No offence.) She had fish and chips. I had poached salmon, in an effort to be healthy (eyeroll). Was failed by the fact that the fish came drowning in something pretending to be Hollandaise sauce but that was, in actuality, melted butter.

Walked around afterwards searching for a housewarming gift for one of her friends. I suggested recycling my lava lamp idea, but that thought was quickly put to bed because Ikea doesn't sell them. She settled, instead, on a rather phallic table lamp, in spectral white, because she wasn't very sure of the colour scheme of the house. I sort of approve - I like gifts to sit right on the line between practical and whimsical, and a lamp isn't the sort of thing that's likely to end up sitting in a box no matter how fugly it is.

Waiting for the bus, I promised Dorcas (again) that I would get myself to one of her cappella group's concerts, and as penance for missing so many of them already, will give her a little publicity here:

publicity

there is a certain prescribed order for how this has to go. i am ready to move on to the next stage: philanthropy. following that, crime.

Currently reading:
Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell

blah

i mean, who am i kidding? all i'm doing is hemorrhaging money and getting fat.

sigh.

from Vernon God Little:

Say, for instance, two guys want to drag Taylor Figueroa to Mexico right away. One brings her roses, and says he has this plan to go to Mexico, and would she like to come along. The other dude turns up with a quart of tequila, a joint, and two tickets to the border. He doesn't show her the tickets right away, but says, 'I have hours to live - help me kill the pain.' He gets her wasted in three minutes flat, sucks her tonsils out of her throat, then pulls out the tickets and says, 'Ten minutes till the cops arrive and take you in as an accessory - let's jam.' Which one does she go with? You know the fucken answer, I don't have to tell you. And let me say, it ain't all on account of one being nice, and one being a slimeball. It's because one of them knew she would come. As Americans, we know this to be true. We invented fucken assertiveness, for chrissakes. But in amongst all the books and tapes, in between that whole assertiveness industry - and I don't mean how to fast-talk people, and increase sales and shit, like that's a whole other industry on its own, I mean the industry where you end up knowing like day is day that something's going to happen for you - you never once hear how to actually fucken do it. Like, for my money, just thinking positive doesn't cut the ice at all. I've been thinking positive all year, and fucken look at me now. My ole lady thinks a new refrigerator will turn up on her doorstep, but you ain't seen the fucker yet.

no, i haven't.

you know, it's not hard to be optimistic when schlepping around with friends during the day or ensconced with cuppa and book in galilee, but i have a feeling that deep down, buried under the self-enforced role of bon vivant, is the bone-chilling knowledge that for all i know things are not going to turn out all right.

update

no, la grand tournee gastronomique is not dead and buried, merely unchronicled. in brief, i've explored:

hougang - mostly in search of soon kway, which proved elusive. ended up eating pig organ soup in some mcmall.
zion road for famous char kway teow
club street - anyone been to windows? very excited about their sandwiches - tasty and quite affordable considering. i had the salt beef because they were out of ox tongue when i went, so another trip is in order. is this near enough to your workplace, yen?

on extraneous prepositions

Seeing as how the topic has been raised (once and again), I cannot but contribute my two cents.

"Chasing after" - indeed, very often abused by Singaporeans, but was there ever any doubt that it has a legitimate use? Local bastardizations, I suppose, usually involve the pursuit of some unidirectionally moving thing/person (e.g. "Wah lau, you let her run away for what? Go and chase after her, lah!"), the redunancy arising from the fact that you could not possibly be chasing said object/person in any other way. My take on it is this: where the preposition would come into play is if one were chasing some concept or abstraction that could be moving in any number of directions or none at all. So love, lucre, happiness, etc. Even then, I can think of exceptions (one wouldn't, for instance, (metaphorically) chase after rainbows/waterfalls (cf. TLC)) Also, the phrase seems to work much better in the passive voice. Hmm. Perhaps it's more a matter of style to insert the 'after' than one of grammatical correctness?

Another phrasal verb that always gets my hackles up is "entering into". On our lovely island, this seems to be interchangeable with simple entering - he entered into the room, the building, etc. - all of which are cases where the simple verb should suffice. Shouldn't the verb phrase be reserved for admission to things that are not obviously enclosed containers (e.g. Jesus entered into the world to save us of our sins)?

And last of all - "change up ". Yuck! Even if one did want to add a preposition, why "up"? There is no up-ness to changing! Aargh! The crosses we bear.

Books (since, now):
The Quantity Theory of Insanity - Will Self
Plowing the Dark - Richard Powers
Vernon God Little - DBC Pierre
and a ton of miscellaneous bridge-related stuff

and if you haven't heard Ryan Adams' In My Time of Need go download and listen and cry if in the mood

the absurd

the doorbell rings at about 7 p.m. today, and standing on the threshold is a good-looking chinese guy, in his twenties, someone i've not seen in my life. hi, he says, i was wondering if we could borrow a can opener. then, gesturing behind him by way of explanation, we live over there across from you. oh! i think, sure that just last week it was an expatriate couple living in that apartment, but willing to believe him because people move in and out of casa rosita like passengers in a transit lounge. i tell him anyway that sure you can have a can opener. then, being friendly: did you just move in? because just two days ago i did see the family movers in their ugly shirts hauling boxes and wire contraptions up the stairs. no, he says penitently, we're just having dinner. and i have nothing to say to that.

Is the teapot thing that enchanting?

alma mater

jiahao, shiny new mbbs initials and all, took a trip with me to ri to pay the annual respects to the ones who will claim to have gilded the path we now walk on. (yah right. many of our teachers were great and all that but the fact remains that most gep kids all but teach themselves. the most important job of gep teachers - at least this is what i think they are told - is to lay the smackdown when we decide that anything other than grades is supremely important.) almost a decade on, almost all of the teachers i give a damn about have left for greener pastures (or in ms. santha's case, presbytarian high - guffaw with me now) with the exception, of course, of ms. chiang who clings on to the reins of rv with the tenacity of a limpet on rock. florence lee, for those who care, is in indonesia, either being an eremite or discovering the meaning of life or both. low seng eng has disappeared through a rip in the fabric of space-time, although having said that von will no doubt leave a comment informing me not just of her mailing address and telephone number but where she had her hair done last tuesday.


emerging from the staff room, we are spotted by ms. quah. the lightbulb appears but fails to turn on and i have to supply her with a name before it all comes gushing out by association, ending with the rememberance that i was the one who (co-)wrote that play, the one with the ducks, the infamous one that was inflicted upon generations of lower secondary RI kids (though in fairness it probably took some of the edge off drunken prawns, in the same anthology). 'it spoke to them', she says, lying through very small incisors. 'we show them the video and everything and they really enjoy it.' i try not to die on the spot, and she starts babbling about how teachers are always encouraging her to publish an anthology of drama feste scripts so they won't be lost forever, and then there is rushing about and taking down of email addresses, and i ask her half-jokingly if i'll get royalties this time and she laughs and i laugh and feel a little ill.


shortly after, we finally married up with ms. chiang, trying to solve the usual crises - missing music lab keys, getting 40 teenage boys safely to orchard cineplex to watch les choristes (in lieu of choir practice - how come we never got to do that?) we had a brief, awkward chat, told her that we would try to make it to one of their christmas performances (still in the garden hotel after all these years). the last stop was for jiahao who wanted to catch up with miss mani, chief librarian and boss-of-him for 4 years. we took off for HML, still sequestered in the wooden underground beneath the boarding house dining hall. pining for the old days took a while, but we stopped short of getting the dime tour because of wanting to go catch a movie (although i couldn't resist spending a few minutes on the grand tradition of going to see my name misspelled on the pioneer boarders plaque in bayley house, something that makes me laugh to this very day).

and the movie was harold and kumar go to white castle which i actually kind of liked so there.

things that cause one to snort coffee out of nose

in the forum page:

Please keep Channel i

I was shocked to find out about the media merger.

I have been a supporter of MediaWorks and Straits Times TV since they started operations. I find the shows on MediaWorks to be of more substance that its rival's (ugh). It feels funny to know that these two media giants are merging all of a sudden.

.
.
.

Though there are a number of English channels, they cater to different people: Channel 5 (masses)(!!), Kids/Arts Central (children and arts enthusiasts) and Channel News Asia (people interested in the news)(no way).

As for TV mobile, it is strictly not a channel as it features live shows such as Singapore Idol, soccer matches and charity shows, or repeats of programmes.

This being so, is it not possible to have one more channel catering to the masses?

Masses! HAHAHA! Emma Lazarus would have been tickled. To death.

things we would rather forget about

by some feat of black magic, shaun managed to uncover this, a project that I was sure had been lost in the mists of time. i only did it for von.

The Emmy results

-- were, for the first time in recent memory, almost completely satisfying to me. My major grouse (to get that over with first) was with James Spader beating out Gandolfini for Best Actor in a Drama Series - even if he did do a good job, The Practice became completely irrelevant about 4 years ago, which I reckon should have counted for something in the voting. Anyway, that blemish aside, I was actually in complete agreement with the choice of winners in the rest of the major categories. Bruckheimer rightfully beat out Burnett's deadly duo in reality programming (a pair of shows that will no doubt be joined by The Contender next year, unless lawsuits knock it out first, which will only make it that much sweeter when TAR completes its hat trick). Allison Janney got her 4th award, which I shall not begrudge her despite my opinion that Edie Falco is a better actress who happened to have a diminished role in the 2003-2004 season. Angels in America deservedly snagged everything in sight in the miniseries department (and if you haven't watched it yet, for the love of all that's holy, please do) and the extremely-funny Arrested Development got its due as well (was sure that they were going to go with Sex and the City but for once the sentimental favorite lost to a show of actual quality. Anyway, the nod to SJP should keep them happy, I guess.) Most importantly though, my beloved David Chase finally finally finally won himself Best Drama for his show, an award far too long in coming IMHO (No explanation in heaven and hell as to why the superlative 3rd season should have lost to The West Wing, already in rapid decline). Oh, and Terence Winter, my hero, won himself a writing award. Good stuff.

if there is a hell for those who download tv shows illegally, i think it can safely be said that my spot has been labelled 'With Extra Brimstone'.

on free time

It's the typical fantasy of every working man - what would I do if I had all the free time in the world? Answers: varied and plenty, which does not at all explain the behaviour of the people for whom this is reality. I know this because I have, over the past few years, become an inveterate blog-surfer, and could easily point you to the websites of several strangers who seem to do nothing but go through a never-ending cycle of lying around and complaining online about how lying around is all they ever do.

I admit that I slept through most of yesterday's rain-drenched afternoon, something I promised myself today would not happen again. I'm writing, but one can only write for so many hours a day (usually a night-time thing for me), and ploughing through the Classifieds is typically a ten-minute affair on weekday mornings. I figured that I needed something to fill the slow-passing afternoons, so my plan is this. I will

(1) eat, and
(2) walk

It's really quite perfect. I like eating. I like walking. I've always wanted to explore the nooks and crannies of far-flung Singaporean hawker centers as well as the obscure gems near my home that I have overlooked. Food here is cheap, and the walking to places will save on transport as well as make sure I don't end up whale-sized. And I'll get to recommend things to people and become the Guru of Makan-dom, or something.

For my maiden expedition, I decided that Bencoolen Street might be a good place to uncover something tasty. After a fair bit of wandering, I lighted in this new Thai cafe in Sunshine Plaza. Its selling point is that all proceeds from sales go towards charity, and it displays the fact loudly in rather too many places considering that it only seats around 20. The decor is cheery though - cartoon sketches by amateurs on the tables; happy, playgroup colored walls. I had local-style kopi and their purported specialty - steamed bread with a Thai-style kaya. The kaya wasn't really all that different from the Singaporean stuff - less eggy, I guess, and the same hue as the emerald green pencil in a Staedtler colouring set. Tasty nonetheless, and what was different was that it came in a bowl, fondue-style, with a swirl of butter mixed in. (The bread was cut into cubes, for dipping) . Two other plusses: it's a nice place in which to read, and the manager was pleasant and attentive without being irritating. I'll give it a B+.

I took a detour through MacKenzie Road on my way home, bumping into a lost Golden Retriever who tried to pee on me and then ran away. Of course I couldn't resist a Selera curry puff (a thousand times better than Old Chang Kee, which has frankly become quite horrid since the whole franchise thing began), which then made me think about ACPS. When I was in that school, it was still on Coleman Street (where the Registry of Marriages is now), and I used to be ferried home every day in one of those boxy, light blue school buses that let out enough exhaust to kill a small rhinocerous. The bus uncle was a fat, intimidating man, always yelling at the kids in the back to stop being rowdy (and who could blame him? Primary school children really are monsters). Just like in the movies though, heart of gold, etc, and on the last day of every term (or perhaps it was every semester, I forget), he would take a detour from his usual route so that he could treat us all (one whole busload of kids) to curry puffs. I didn't really think much of it at the time, but years later I realized how phenomenally generous that was considering the pittance he must have been making (and I'm sure he had a family to look after too). Anyway, the place we stopped at was on MacKenzie, just across the way from Selera. I think it was called Rex (my dad will be able to confirm this), and it has closed down since, a victim of location and the southward sweep of the center of commerce. As the first kid to be dropped off, I always had the honour of sitting (with Justin P'ng, no less) in the front seat, a honour that also entailed the almighty responsibility of taking Uncle's money, counting the number of kids, sliding off the bus, walking into the store, and purchasing the piping hot treats to be carried out in four large, greasy paper bags. We never took that responsibility lightly. For three years, right up till we finished our PSLE, Justin and I did our duty bravely, and this is why now, when I get my head chewed off as his bridge partner, I know that it's all for my own good. Tested by fire, etc.

That last bit - not serious, but these nostalgia trips, I don't know. I mean, all around me people have become grad students and teachers and doctors and policy-makers, Old Chang Kee has spread like a fungus across the land, and I feel like all I do is look backwards and wish that it was 1990 again. Sometimes I think that reminiscing is the mental equivalent of lying around and complaning; even if it isn't overt, there's always that kernel of desire for regression, atavism. The more I tell myself to look ahead, the stronger the pull to languish in the past.

So I'll try not to nap any more. But maybe eating and walking will, eventually, work out to the same thing.

hmm

Go here and tell me if the first paragraph doesn't sound wrong to you.

lesson of the day: there is such a thing as too much mashed potato.

So there will be no raiding brothels and running around yelling "CID" because in their infinite wisdom the SPF has decided not to hire me. The news came in a shockingly brusque letter that I opened while still feeling very satiated from a fine cheesecake parfait at Cafe Rosso in Holland V. As such, the disappointment didn't immediately hit, just a kind of numbness that only crescendoed to full force this morning when I discovered that I did not want to go to church, or eat breakfast, or lunch for that matter. Moped and slept until about 1:30 when Jiahao called me asking if I wanted to go out, whereupon I decided that since I wasn't dead I'd better get on with the business of life. So, got up, showered, watched episode of Six Feet Under went out, watched The Terminal, had Japanese dinner and came home, bringing us to now.

It is tempting to just feel totally disgusted with myself and whine about how the last 2 months have been a total waste of time, but really, they haven't. For one thing, I'll go into the next interview, whenever it may be, that much less intimidated. For another, working in NIE has helped me figure out that unless I want to be utterly miserable for the rest of my life, I'd better plug away at getting a job I actually want to do rather than grabbing the first thing in sight. Perhaps my optimism will do me in, but all my life I've been taught that I can do anything I want to do, be anyone I want to be, and damn it all, that's sure as all hell not going to change now.

quitting, and such

I have sort of quit. I turned in the final draft of my report yesterday and the boss told me that short of wanting a "grossary", she was quite satisfied with everything and no longer needed my services. Unless, she said, you want me to give you more work. Much head-shaking, hurried emptying of drawers, etc.

"Sort of quit" because there is one more gala meeting next week which I (unfortunately) have to attend, apart from which I am once more free as the Easterlies. Lunch, anyone? Dinner? Tea? Second breakfast?

Felicitations have already been received from Yen, Fay, Sulin and CP (whose name gets abbreviated from now on because I'm too damn lazy to type it keep typing it out in full) over dinner last night at Annalakshmi (was that what the place was called?), Indian restaurant in Excelsior where you pay as much as you wish for however much you eat. Ordering was a bit of a trial because no one really knew what anything on the menu was, but we ended up with a spinach cottage-cheesey thing, stuffed capsicums drowning in curry, a cong1 you2 bing3-like dish that was either utthapam or uppatham or neither and a multiplicity of rotis, all very oily. oh, and samosas and cauliflower in batter to start, and gulab jamun and rasmallai at the end, no kulfi because they were out, and everyone remembering A Sense of Shame because of what CP dubs our shared something-or-another textuality, otherwise known as being forced to read the same crap in secondary school, titihoyas, mockingbirds and all.

ouch

i have bit my inner lip no less than three times in the same spot over the last two days and it is presently bleeding and swollen to the approximate size of canada

to Jiahao

A crap-ass poem :P

Will, by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

There is no chance, no destiny, no fate,
Can circumvent or hinder or control
The firm resolve of a determined soul.
Gifts count for nothing; will alone is great;
All things give way before it, soon or late.
What obstacle can stay the mighty force
Of the sea-seeking river in its course
Or cause the ascending orb of day to wait?

Each well-born soul must win what it deserves.
Let the fool prate of luck. The fortunate
Is he whose earnest purpose never swerves,
Whose slightest action or inaction serves
The one great aim. Why, even Death stands still,
And waits an hour sometimes for such a will.

week 8

choonping sees me in the nie canteen and looks like he's about to throw up. 'you're here for good, aren't you?' he asks. i deny the fact. 'then why are you still around?' he asks. and about ten thousand answers spin through my head and none of them are right.

On the subject of singing, I've broached the idea of going caroling this year to Eekia and Choonping and have been met with but moderate enthusiasm. It's been a long time since I've done Proper caroling (last year's Rhythm and Blue Carol of the Bells debacle does not count) and it honestly isn't too difficult to set up, doesn't have to be a big deal in terms of rehearsal time, procuring scores and so forth. Also, it is the time of year where hotels and such are practically begging the festive trollers to emerge and help up the festive quotient of their establishments so that tthe money will pour back into the coffers so that the whole lovely cycle can start up again the next year. Or we could do churches where pitch transgressions don't matter quite as much. Or hell we could just stand on a street corner somewhere with an overturned fedora.

I suppose this might be wayward nostalgia more than anything else on my part, but who cares? I've given up being embarrassed about my attachment to the past. There comes a point where one has to draw the line, admit that yes, we're changing, but there's a part of us that will always be us.

In Bishan, about a week ago, I happened by the old Base (which became World of JJ several years after we left RI), and which has now closed down and moved across the way near the S-11. I was kind of upset by that for a while (upset enough to call someone about it, yes, I'm an idiot), but you know what, I went to check out the new place and the old fat auntie is still there, as is the shorter, thinner one who looks like what Tammy from The Apprentice will be like in 30 years, and aside from things being a little glossier and the lights being a little brighter, everything is more or less the same. See, I can live with that; it's not as if I get eternally mired in the past. But let's not burn down the shop altogether; that would make me sad indeed.

Belatedly

-- I would like to second Von's recommendation of A Short History Of a Small Place - it is unpretentious, inviting, and genuinely funny. It took me forever to finish reading it, not because I wasn't dying to, but because reading time nowadays is scant. If they had a reading of it by Arlo Guthrie, I would have bought that in a heartbeat because he would have read it absolutely prefectly, cf. Alice's Restaurant. Anyway, to tempt people to the book (particularly the people reading this who sing), let me give you a sample:

We were trated to a minute or two of coughing, sneezing, nose blowing and general uneasiness among the congregation once Reverend Wilkinson had returned to his chair, and following some elaborate arm waving between Mrs. Rollie Cobb at the front of the chapel and Miss Fay Dull at the back of it Mrs. Cobb got herself properly set and anchored at the piano and then assaulted the keyboard but with such limited success that she had to break off and start in again and the second time around she got underway in fairly good form. However, Mrs. Cobb commenced to put a little pace on the melody directly and it became so frantic with embellishments and excesses that Miss Fay Dull had a difficult time cueing the sopranos and the altos, which was all she could cue since the baritones were still outside on the landing and could not see her from there. So the sopranos and the altos simply jumped aboard at the first available chink in the tune and the baritones waded in shortly thereafter and they all managed to draw together presently into what sounded very much like singing. This particular selection called for a solo and Miss Fay Dull had nominated herself, so once she choked off the competition to her satisfaction she made a fine entrance into the melody and brawled with it all the way to the refrain where the rest of the choir showed up to help her vanquish it entirely. Then they all sang together for a couple of bars before things got a little uptown in the middle and called for the baritones and sopranos to bark back and forth at each other while Miss Dull trilled away between and underneath them and Mrs. ROllie Cobb bludegeoned the whole business with some rather ponderous fingerwork. We were entrained in this fashion for what seemed an inconsiderately lengthy spell and by the time the melody began to shut down, the whole business had turned into a kind of slilgfest for soprano, choir and Seventh Day Adventist and we were pretty much relieved to see the animosities brought to a close, especially Daddy whose ears had become as red as firecoals

On a separate note, Richard Powers is a bloody genius, and for some reason he has chosen to write about all the topics dearest to my heart.

for those who are leaving

A Farewell - Lord Alfred Tennyson

Flow down, cold rivulet, to the sea,
Thy tribute wave deliver;
No more by thee my steps shall be,
Forever and forever.

Flow, softly flow by lawn and lea,
A rivulet then a river;
Nowhere by thee my steps shall be,
Forever and forever.

But here will sigh thine alder tree
And here thine aspen shiver;
And here by thee will hum the bee,
Forever and forever.

A thousand suns will stream on thee,
A thousand moons will quiver;
But not by thee my steps shall be,
Forever and forever.

oh! and harold perrineau, who was mercutio

Lost

New fall premiere that looks pretty cool. JJ Abrams! Dominic Monaghan! Terry O'Quinn! With my luck, though, it's going to be cancelled after the third episode.

t-shirt

i saw someone today wearing a t-shirt that had the "Google" logo on the front, and on the back: "I'm Feeling Lucky". i want one of those!

good days

you know how mark haddon's young narrator in curious incident knew it was a Good Day when he saw x number of red cars in a row? well, i've decided a Good Day for me is one where i get to:

* read a little
* write a little
* nap a little
* gym/run a little and
* see friends a little

which means that today was a Good Day.

a Very Good Day, on the other hand, must needs involve tequila.

my police interview was this morning. please keep all your fingers and toes crossed for me (but not for too long, or you'll cut off the blood supply to them and need numerous amputations). gracias.

- had a craving for a proper southern breakfast on saturday, so decided to embark on a quest to learn how to make home fries. the secret, it turns out, is in the spices - paprika, cumin, garlic, salt and pepper. it all turns out very well for a maiden attempt and i also fry sausages and eggs and make a stack of pancakes. finally, coffee, and i have a 2-hour breakfast while reading the newspaper and missing durham with every mouthful.

mrt, a.m.

on the train this morning, i found myself seated next to this malay guy who was listening to evanescence on his discman - at about a hundred times the volume a normal person would. honestly, you could hear my immortal blaring forth from three carriages away. i really pity his poor eardrums - and it's not even as if evanescence is that great a group to lose your hearing over.

*
on the subject of the mrt, i find it rather amusing that the announcement as the train approaches boon lay not only tells passengers that the train is terminating but also somewhat morosely apologises "for the inconvenience", as if some people on board would like nothing better than to stay on board while the train travels further west, bursts off the tracks and plunges into the straits of malacca.