complaint (small)

sometimes i wish all of us had started blogging earlier in life. the incompleteness of our various stories as presented online offends my aesthetic sensibilities.

re: blogger being down

isn't it funny that su-lin and i said more or less the same thing when it came back online? full of excuses, aren't we?

i alternate between days when i wake up with a steely determination to get my way and steamroller over all this unfairness, and those where i just sit at my desk crushed by the weight of my failure and waiting for the hours to pass. i'm told there's no shame in earning an honest wage, but i still can't help feeling like working in ******* is a prostitution of the soul.

anyway, from the gold bug variations:

We sat in front of the console and stared at the equipment, now completely changed. The phone rang, disturbing the empty hiss. I thought: Here is one of the few places where a phone call late at night doesn't automatically mean someone has died. Todd answered. "That was Dr. Ressler. "Bookkeeper is unique. And so, my friend, is your face." I smiled, already skilled at letting his moments of confrontatory zeal fall away without crisis. "What do I do for a living? I'm not sure the question has an answer anymore. Everyone, no matter what he does, is kept in the dark about his clients."

That was the moment of expansiveness that brought me compulsively to Manhattan On-Line to sit with this stranger after my own shift was over. "Do you know Ben Shahn's great answer to that question? I take a guilty pleasure in the man's paintings, knowing his whole pastel, representational aesthetic has been on the outs for a decade. But his essyas need no excuse. He tells a story of an itinerant wanderer traveling over country roads in thirteenth century France who comes across a man exhaustedly pushing a wheelbarrow full of rubble. He asks what the man is doing. 'God only knows. I push these damn stones around from sunup to sundown, and in return, they pay me barely enough to keep a roof over my head."

"Farther down the road, the traveler meets another man, just as exhausted, pushing another filled barrow. In reply to the same question, the second man says, 'I was out of work for a long time. My wife and children were starving. Now I have this. It's killing, but I'm grateful for it all the same.'

"Just before nightfall, the traveler meets a third exploited stonehauler. When asked what he is doing, the fellow replies, 'I'm building Chartres Cathedral.'

Blogger's been down the last couple of days, and I know there were a bunch of entries I meant to backdate but can't for the life of me remember I wanted to say. Hm.

I seem to have lost my love for the Swingle Singers version of Loch Lomond. It's probably the only track on the Folk Songs CD that I don't like (now, or have ever not liked), and runs counter to my belief that I would fall on my knees in adoration of everything the Rathbone-Cairncross-Parry team have put out forever and ever. The arrangement of the piece is wonderful, but the solos have definitely been grating on me of late. Jon Rathbone and Andrew Busher do not sound like they're enjoying themselves singing verses one and two, which probably would have benefited from being moved down a couple of keys. Part of the problem is that a bunch of the high Gs and As have to be sung on awkward vowels (sun shines bright on Loch Lomond; me and my true love etc.), and fairly loudly, which just really is not in the style of either a folk song or the Swingle Singers. Another thing: the dynamics are weird -- and I suspect that this was a function of the way the track was recorded. When I listen to the song on my iPod it's a lot worse than when it's on speakers because it starts off near inaudible unless you turn the volume to about 75%, and then makes your eardrums bleed on the crescendoes in the third verse (...broken heart will ken/no second spring again), and when J.R. comes in fff after the funky key changing bit.

It's a technically difficult song to do, particularly if you're trying to fake a Scottish accent while on the solo, and now that my feelings for the Swingle Singers track have cooled I don't think there's a single a cappella version of the piece I like. The Whiffenpoofs arrangement is too vanilla, and (with apologies to the Harvardians), I'm not all that fond of the Kroks. It's a pity, because its lyrics are heartbreaking, one of those songs that makes me want to curl up in a ball and cry, but in a good way.

13.5 Lives of Captain Bluebear has arrived. It has a very attractive cover.

Also: thanks to the Gutenberg Project, I'm now, on the office computer, discreetly going through all the Austens that I have not read. Anything to survive the drudgery.

things accomplished at work today

1. finished online crash course on investment
2. wrote 2 pages of book (first two in months)
3. learned that "banana bombs" are actually called jemput-jemput, after the beckoning hand action used when making them
4. split the office into two groups: those earning more than i am and those earning less than i am
5. moped

Acts 2:22-28

"Listen to these words, fellow Israelites! Jesus of Nazareth was a man whose divine authority was clearly proven to you by all the miracles and wonders which God performed through him. You yourselves know this, for it happened here among you. In accordance with his own plan God had already decided that Jesus would be handed over to you; and you killed him by letting sinful men crucify him. But God raised him from death, setting him free from its power, because it was impossible that death should hold him prisoner. For David said about him:

'I saw the Lord before me at all times;
he is near me, and I will not be troubled.
And so I am filled with gladness,
and my words are full of joy.
And I, mortal though I am,
will rest assured in hope
because you will not abandon me in the world of the dead;
you will not allow your faithful servant to rot in the grave.
You have shown me the paths that lead to life,
and your presence will fill me with joy.'

Happy Easter!

blogger has been very uncooperative over the past few days, triple- or quadruple-posting everything i write. ugh. i really ought to get going on a personal page.

(p.s. i managed to get never let me go from borders)

spanner

after telling everyone that i intend to quit ***** within the next 1 or 2 weeks, and asking for friends to shower me with love and support, my mom now hints to me that she'd like to take a cheap holiday in the summer using the staff travel benefits i get, which would mean holding out till at least august. four months is a terribly long time, but affection for mothers is a powerful force as well. and when guilt is concomitant, well, is resistance even possible?

hitchhiker's guide

i am highly amused by the teaser trailer, mostly i think because stephen fry is the narrator.

new ishiguro

I don't believe no one mentioned this to me before today. I'm very excited.

Currently reading:
The Gold Bug Variations - Richard Powers

Luke, 23:26-31

The soldiers led Jesus away, and as they were going, they met a man from Cyrene named Simon who was coming into the city from the country. They seized him put the cross on him, and made him carry it behind Jesus

A large crowd of people followed him; among them were some women who were weeping and wailing for him. Jesus turned to them and said, "Women of Jerusalem! Don't cry for me, but for yourselves and your children. For the days are coming when people will say, 'How lucky are the women who never bore babies, who never nursed them!' That will be the time when people will say to the mountains, 'Fall on us!' and to the hills 'Hide us!' For if such things as these are done when the wood is green, what will happen when it is dry?"

question

is it just [company name censored to protect the innocent i.e. me], or is it the norm in all singaporean workplaces that going home at the time you are told it is ok to go home when you sign up for the job is like a cardinal sin? i waltz out of the office promptly and without guilt at 5:30 every day because i can't give a flying fritsch about anything to do with this job, and there are definitely stares and black looks. every day. i just don't get it. not that it doesn't afford me barrelfuls of glee to leave everyone else pounding desperately on their keyboards as i depart triumphantly each evening.

I want to go to South Africa too.

Good article on Arrested Development and its possible (probable? Please no) cancellation.

small mercies

one of the (very) few things that i enjoy about working here is that there are some days when i can nip out and have lunch by the ocean. changi beach is one of the loveliest places in singapore, and the little development that has happened there over the past few years has been very sensitively done (if you haven't seen the new ferry terminal where the bumboats leave for ubin and pengerang you really ought to.) one of the best things about it, though, is that despite its loveliness, very few people ever go there (and we all know the premium on solitude in this country). it's funny how a place i associated for the longest time with tekong and booking in to camp has become a kind of sanctuary from the office, but there you go.

Currently reading:
Q & A - Vikas Swarup

addendum

(Hm. Now that I think about it, there ought to be a way to remove myself from the majordomo lists on my own, but I am stupid and have not figured out how. Someone?)

I asked to be taken off the Duke Singapore Society mailing list several weeks after I graduated, but all pleas have fallen on deaf ears. As a result, I still get emails every other day inviting me to movie night in Keohane quad or pizza in the WEL commons room. This is beginning to be quite off-putting. If you laid out all the things I could be doing end to end from most to least fun, playing frisbee in Duke gardens is probably not even visible from where I'm standing right now.

things you don't want to hear on an mrt train

[little boy, 6 years old, enters carriage, plops himself down cross-legged on seat beside me. grandma, behind him, immediately starts pressing hard on his abdomen while brandishing a plastic bag with her free hand]

grandma(histrionically): ni xiang tu, shi ma? yao tu ma?

book 6 art

Covers

everyone in my office has decorated their cubicle in some way or another except for me. the only inessential items i have are 12 monochrome pictures of piglets which got left behind by the person previously using this desk and the weightlifter frog that su-lin gave me umpteen years ago (what was his name? benedict? gargamel? i'm going to get a scolding for forgetting. again.)

i'm not sure if my reluctance to spruce the place up is because i'm trying to make a subtle statement that i'm not in this for the long haul or because i just can't bloody be bothered. probably the former. such subtle hints are what give one the psychological edge.

i'm becoming minz.

this scholarship shortlisting is actually doing me good. it's an excellent reminder that there are dozens of us! dozens!

Dorcas

-- conveniently started a blog about 5 seconds after I told her the URL of mine. Coincidence? Perhaps. Visit! Delight! Heckle! (Well, don't heckle.) (Dorcas: I took the liberty; hope you don't mind.)

ok, regretting it already.

it's just that i want everyone to be happy.

be happy?

scholarship applicants all have so much promise -- and the funny thing is that we (well, y'all mostly) were that way a few years ago. i think that's worth remembering, especially for the those of us who are stuck doing things we really would rather not be doing. screw work: outside of that we ought to be getting good at things. we ought to be making stuff happen. can't one be rueful and accomplished at the same time? i look at all these transcripts and testimonials and read about the fantastic things that folks have done, and i refuse to believe that everyone gets battered down by the years, or that everything worthwhile gets ground into dust.

(p.s. i'm so going to regret posting this entry when i'm in a clearer frame of mind)

oh boy. now that i've started blogging at work there's going to be no end to it.

dreamt last night that i was hunting for treasure in this cavernous mansion with laurence fishburne, wearing a transculent poncho about five sizes too large that kept catching the wind and dragging me down corridors into darkness.

eski bar

-- is not even close to what i had imagined it to be; stay away if you were planning to go. for the overseas folks not in the know, it's a relatively new nightspot down tanjong pagar road which is marketing itself as having a bar room kept at a temperature slightly below zero. "below zero", as it turned out, was more like thirteen above, largely because said room opens directly onto the street. the funny thing is that the backroom of the club is kept (purportedly) at a more moderate eighteen degrees, which means that the designers decided to sacrifice efficiency for the impact of walking from the heat outdoors right into the area kept below freezing. for reason above, i don't think the trade-off was worth it. the decor was tacky at best -- floor panels resembling rubber bathroom tiling, light fixtures trying very hard to look like they're made of ice, and mirrors irrationally placed. on top of all of that, the drinks were mediocre and overpriced (though this i would have been ok with if the concept had been well executed, which it wasn't). anyway, you have been warned.

from mom

elevenses (i-LEV-uhn-ziz) noun

A midmorning break for refreshments taken between breakfast and lunch, usually around 11am.

[Double plural of eleven, perhaps as ellipsis of eleven hours
(eleven o'clock).]

"There at Delecta Dyer's elevenses became his (Geoff Dyer's) heaven, so much the focus of his life that impatiently he took his elevenses earlier and earlier until they were finished by 8.45am and the day lay before him, empty as a donut hole, all happiness shot."

Anne Simpson; President Who Needs a Wooster to Get Out of Bed; The Herald (Glasgow, Scotland); Feb 21, 2005.

" No...It was indeed not a dream. We really did it. The King of All Cosmos has really done it. A sky full of stars...We broke it. Yes, We were naughty. Completely naughty. So, so very sorry. But just between you and us, it felt quite good. Not that We can remember very clearly, but we were in all nature's embrace. We felt the beauty of all things and felt love for all. That's how it was. Did you see? We smiled a genuine smile. Did you see? The stars splintering in perfect beauty. So many there used to be. Almost a nuisance. Now there's nothing but darkness. Hee...'Tis but a dream...Hee...But a beautiful one. BUT That miraculous fabulous moment has passed, it's over. We came to and found everyone furious. Even the King of All Cosmos was not spared their wrath. Really, everybody was irate. So anyway, pee-wee Prince. Hurry up and bring back the glorious starry sky. Our problem, your problem. Yes? You owe us your existence. We collect on the debt. Yes? Hand in hand, always there. Yes? The very definition of the father and son bond. Yes? All right then get creating." -- King of All Cosmos

how ironic is it that this is one of the things keeping me sane.

in the 1960s, martin seligman came up with a model to decribe the thoughts of people who are prone to depression; it is called learned helplessness, and you may have heard of it (from frankl, perhaps, who is more widely read). seligman argues that a person's reactions to a bad situation he has no control over varies along three scales. internal-external (does the cause of my failure within or without?), stable-unstable (is my suffering temporary or permanent?) and global-specific (is my failure situational, or will i succeed in other things?). predictably, depressed individuals tend to think of root causes of suffering as internal, stable, and global, whether or not this is true. thus, they expect that bad things will happen to them, and sometimes even will their failures into being by assuming that they have no control over matters.

i had a point when i started writing this entry, but now i have forgotten it.

there are good days and there are bad days, but almost all of them are boring days, and that's something that needs to change.

re: request, extensive digging through the back rows of my bookshelves reveals that eagle breeds a gryphon is lost, probably irrevocably. i am passing the buck.

picnic

with the usual bunch at botanic gardens - olive bread, ciabatta, duck rilette, hummus, pancetta, various cheeses, su-lin's homemade brownies and a random packet of ready-made milo; contemplating cirrus clouds, the regular bitching, scrabble by lamplight, then home to fortify myself for monday, 6 a.m.

weekends

-- slip away like so much diamond dust through ones fingers - half of mine seem to spent on sunday evening wondering where they've gone to. one problem i've always had is that my want-tos are usually subservient to my have-tos. i need to learn how to live with going to work in unironed trousers, leaving letters unposted and documents unfiled, leaving my room in a mess like any other young person with Better Things to do would.

another thing: i need to force myself to sleep less. i managed it in college so there's no particular reason why i shouldn't be able to survive on 6 hours a night now. given that i spend 3 hours in total traveling back and forth from work, an extra hour every day would mean a lot, even if it was just spent reading. taking more than a week to finish the hemingway was exasperating, and there are so many other things i need to be doing - i haven't written a paragraph in ages, and only seem to get to go for a run at most once a week.

ok. less complaining, more resolve. i cannot allow this job to finish me.

Currently reading: (with apologies to Dax, who has bought me a copy -- I appreciate having it to keep)
Kafka on the Shore - Haruki Murakami

when i first finished rumo i felt rather ambivalent about it, but now that a fortnight has gone by i do have a strange desire to revisit zamonia and the netherworld. i think that moers overcomes the fact that he's not the best writer by having an overwhelming enthusiasm for his characters and his world, and maybe that's half the battle won in fantasy writing. i have ordered his first book (13.5 lives of captain bluebear) from borders and already i am impatient for it to arrive. six weeks.

from the I-S restaurant guide, 2005

review for the V Tea Toom

"The tea list ranges from fruity Turkish apple tea, to unique nutty macadamia bourbon Rooitea. Be prepared to be assaulted by a fine selection of cakes..."

fridays should feel better than this

on the way home

-- saw a car decal that read:

MATI ITU DATANG DENGAN TIBA-TIBA

man, i so want one of those.

ew

television has without doubt become a lot more disturbing over the years. the trend began, i think, which that episode of the x-files which everyone still talks about* - the one with the inbred family and the limbless mother under the bed. chris carter then tried to top himself with millennium - which i vaguely recall had some equally creepy, though less memorable, moments (clearly: i can't name any). several years later, people were being brutally gang-raped and murdered on oz, a show i have not watched more than a few episodes of, but which i will (in its entirety) some day if for no other reason than that harold perrineau is on it and apparently kicks ass. the sopranos then dished up the extended onscreen rape of lorraine bracco, and the horrible death and dismemberment of joe pantoliano, and six feet under did its bit by showing someone being cut in half in an elevator shaft.

and all of these were pretty bad, but where carnivale decided to go last week really topped it all. i'm don't want to totally spoil it for the two(?) people reading this who actually watch the show, but i will say that it involved someone being tarred and feathered, and it was utterly sick. i mean, when you hear the expression, it doesn't automatically cross your mind (well, my mind, anyway) that the tar has to be molten -- and neither did it ever occur to me that people died from the process. slowly and very painfully from third degree burns. i guess i'd never really imagined what the actual process would be like before this (and now, well, i don't think i'll ever forget it).

i have been mildly spoiled for the remaining three episodes of the season and hear that it actually gets worse. cripes. i've never been so fascinated and mortified by a program at the same time.

* the only other x-files episodes that the casual television viewer tends to remember are, in no particular order, duane barry (the one where scully is abducted), humbug (the one with the circus freaks), and clyde bruckman's final repose the one with where mulder steps on the banana cream pie. and now i want to watch all of seasons 2 and 3 again.

speaking of which

it is probably no toscanini's (von's blog, too lazy to link), but there is a little shoppe several minutes away from tanah merah mrt that has delightful homemade ice cream at $2.30 a scoop, waffle cone included if so desired. scoops are generous. unusual flavours include durian, chendol with red bean, brandied fig, black sesame (yes! it exists here too!), and peanut brittle. no mangosteen - i asked - and the woman at the counter made a valiant (but failed) effort not to make a face when i mentioned the possibility of olive oil. nevertheless. also, there is a food center nearby that makes a very passable milo dinosaur.

to jiahao

'anhedonia', though a good word, is not my state of being. 'a' for effort, though.

heh

saw, on a t-shirt, this golda meir quotation:

don't be humble
you're not that great

ok -- i am specifically unhappy because i roused myself to make a movie booking despite the fact that all i really wanted to do was go to bed early...except that for whatever reason the booking did not show up when i got to the cinema, which led to me being scowled at by the manager who obviously thought i was trying to jump the (really long) queue. maybe it's just me, but i think a cardinal rule in customer service should be that you don't embarrass the customer. anyway, there was no hope of getting seats for anything else so i'm back at home wondering why i'm thwarted on such a regular basis these days. oh well. maybe i'll go get ice cream.

i've been sitting here for the past fifteen minutes considering what to write but the only thing that really comes to my mind is that i'm not feeling very well so i'll leave it at that.

bwah

I was being typically productive by reading Survivor recaps at work when I came across this Miss Alli gem and nearly wet myself:

The great thing about this chat is that Rupert and Lill are both kind of dumb, which makes the whole thing feel kind of like watching two potatoes negotiate with each other. It may not be exciting, but at least it seems like a fair fight.

shoes

-- are things that i keep putting off buying, even though i know that i look like a street urchin every time i step outdoors. issues:

1) i have virtually no aesthetic sense in shoes, and the little that i do have goes towards telling me that cheap ones look tacky, leading consequently to

2) i have to shell out a pretty chunk of change for a pair. offputting, which means that

3) i wait for payday to come around so that i don't feel so poor when i buy them, by which time

3a) i have forgotten that i need them

3b) the ones i want are no longer on sale, or are about to go on sale, or are sold out.

4) i will never again be able to relish the sublime joy of buying a pair of green suede hush puppies, the very apogee of the shoe-buying experience, next to which all other purchases must necessarily pale in comparison.

nevertheless, i will brave aldo (SALE: 70% off) tomorrow, and i will buy something, and perhaps regret it, because whatever my look is, 'old and worn' probably is not it.

Walter Moers is good for a little light diversion if anyone is in the mood for something that's all plot and pictures.

Rumo and his Miraculous Adventures

Currently reading:
True at First Light - Ernest Hemingway

"In Africa a thing is true at first light and a lie by noon and you have no more respect for it than for the lovely, perfect weed-fringed lake you see across the sun-baked salt plain. You have walked across that plain in the morning and you know that no such lake is there. But now it is there absolutely true, beautiful and believable."

more complaining

it was i who went to see sideways with yen. it was a movie i probably should not have gone to so close on the heels of the Thing, but i'm glad i did anyway.

the most frightening thing about the character of miles, i reckon, is that he is not an anti-hero through and through. he has qualities that ought to redeem him. he has his interests and dreams, some kind of a moral compass - but none of these things actually lead to his redemption (in the movie's language, some of us are pinot noir); nothing inside of him is intrinsically valuable. only others can save us, and therein lies the doom - nothing we have to offer (er...erudition and wit and obscure knowledge of tropical fruit?) is appreciated by the people we have to deal with day to day.

thus, there are three eventualities. we:
i) build walls (a fortress deep and mighty)
ii) get the hell out of here
iii) wither

complaining

why i hate the oscars, part I

schmaltz always wins over pathos. and no, hilary swank was not "gritty".

it's harder than i thought not having a place to complain.

oh well. i've been good for, what, two weeks now? let the merriment recommence.

interscribum is a good word

previously unnecessary addendum/clarification necessitated by dax's comment to previous entry

"to keep us from going insane and bludgeoning everyone else/ourselves to death with blunt instruments of choice"

coming temporarily out of hiding to say 2 things

1) it would appear that my capacity for setting myself up for disappointment is approximately infinite.

2) although i suppose that when you think about it hope is really all we have.

It's funny how accurate my intuitions are.

You know, I've used humour (or attempted humour; I know I'm not very funny) a lot on this blog to deal with my unhappiness, but I think that I've reached the point where trying to be funny just isn't going to cut it, because I really feel now that all this is just shit. On the other hand, I don't want to turn this into a litany of woe either because I know that a lot of the people who read this aren't exactly waltzing down the primrose path themselves.

Ergo. I'm going to stop writing entries for a while, just to give myself time to regroup and come to terms with the fact that there is bloody nothing in this country for me, and that it's time to seriously think about going away -- far away -- possibly never to return.

It's easy to say (in retrospect) that I should have just gone straight to grad school, but as I told my parents last night, that would not have cut it simply because I would not have had the experience of struggling and failing and struggling and failing again, and the escape would have been too cheaply bought. I would probably have been in Minnesota now blogging about freezing my ass off and how much I want tahu goreng and blah blah blah woe is me. Too light winning making the prize light etc.

So perhaps the suffering was necessary. I don't know.

I have not been thinking straight for two days because I've been too busy hurting and feeling really sick.

So: hiatus. Su-Lin: thanks for the offer of cake.

I'll be back, I promise. I just need some time.

praise the lord for benzodiazepines.

spent most of day swirling in gaba-induced serenity, eating honey-roasted peanuts and surreptitiously reading the power and the glory under my desk. (the person i was understudying has resigned, and i got to take over her desk. which means my back is now conveniently against the wall and my front blocked by a large orange partition). that graham greene has to be one of my all-time favourite books. survived till 5:30 without any major panic attacks. i have decided to leave my phone off vibrate because otherwise every time anything near my desk moves i feel like my heart stops for several seconds.

wrote that mostly because the anxiolytics had worn off.

will switch to alprazolam today and see how that treats me.

premonition

I have a sinking feeling that the answer is going to be 'no'.

Von and I had a memorable conversation a few years ago about how all of us are screwed because we used up our quota of good fortune way too early - getting (relatively) good grades, making into reputable schools. Sooner or later, he said, it has to run out, and as we process into adulthood, I fear that these prognostications are, indeed, coming to pass. As long as we were in school, we were invincible, we felt guaranteed of a fairy-tale ending; now it's joining the line for handbaskets and being pointed the way to the big guy with horns.

So Dorcas springs on us this week the news that she is headed for Perth (a.k.a. Out. Of. Hell.) for her Masters in Ed. Psych, and is leaving "soon" (a.k.a. the 24th), which prompts a flurry of preparation for a goodbye party that really isn't much of one, unless you consider Canadian 2-in-1 Pizza, Bacardi and Coke, and Desperate Housewives an appropriate farewell-bidding combination. It's at Louise's place with Eekia, choir Adeline, and HCJC Debbie (who I barely know), and the apartment, though old, manages to squeak into the category of cosy. It has other plus points - overlooking Holland V's Coffee Club being one of them - but I digress. Dorcas. Is leaving - and not a moment too soon, I suppose, 2 years being about the outer limits of the amount of time one can tolerate in this damn country without beginning to pull ones hair out by the roots. I'm glad that all of this fell into place for her - partly because her situation is one that I hope ends up being pleasingly symmetrical to mine - but also because she really deserves to be happy, and it's nice that someone in this whole lousy mess is getting their due.

Other stories: Louise is angling to get out of JTC to join a company that will pay her to spend a month in Italy indulging in haute couture and Bacchanal. Eekia is teaching music to Sec 1s in Montfort Secondary School using the medium of film. Production of Arrested Development is being shut down this season to make way for American Dad, and people need to write to Gail Berman to tell him what an idiot* he is.

And I spent most of the afternoon staring at my handphone wondering why it was resolutely not ringing.

*This blog, I think, suffers significantly from the fact that I strain not to curse on it. I will rethink this policy.

exactly

during constantine

(which was, by the way, highly sacrilegous, and not terribly good to boot)

-- cp comments that films such as these work only with the catholic faith, what with its ripeness of iconography and plentitude of arcane rituals. if the movie featured protestants, we agree, keanu reeves would have had to talk the demons to death. or irritate them until they fled.

so who are they kidding again?

How this was put into print I'll never know. I know there's a sucker born every minute, but do they all reside in Singapore?

I have obtained Microsoft Frontpage (pirated), so you can definitely expect a personal homepage to be up and running sometime in the next, say, 15 years.

Currently reading:
The Hours - Michael Cunningham

recap

In all fairness, office life is several degrees east of tolerable, thanks largely to (a) long lunches, (b) strong coffee, and (c) colleagues who (on the large part) just want to make an honest day's wage (Is that supremely naive? Are office politics inevitable?). Things are benign enough that I can coast, which is good in one way, but bad in another - loss of momentum can be a killer.

*

I'd not mentioned actual work much in this blog because I thought it a rather dull topic, but I suppose it wouldn't hurt to give a rundown of my JD.

1) Ridicule of ineptitude in writing
(I can't give examples for fear of prosecution, but if you've received my emails you'll know what I'm talking about.)

2) Arranging for meetings to discuss Nothing Of Any Particular Importance

3) Attending said meetings

4) Coordinating a project to discover why the company, staff population 12,000, has such swelling ranks of underperforming middle management, and what the hell can be done about it

5) Poking around at other people's salaries, and wondering why I don't get paid that much, or if I ever will. (Hint: No)

6) Deleting spam mail from the company inbox

7) Smiling at my boss and telling him that he has Excellent Ideas, Most Excellent Indeed

8) Thinking about resigning, and going quietly insane while doing so

Happy CNY

-- to all and sundry, and may you, yearly, have fish

"Remuneration", I think, is one of the ugliest words in the English language.

10:45 a.m.

(i call cp)

cp: hello
me: hi! where are you now?
cp: boon lay
me: really? i'm in town. just y'know, hanging out and doing nothing in particular
cp: how long have you been planning this call for?
me: quite a while. but trust me, it was worth the wait

So it's done. The interview was the most technical I've been through - sort of (I guess) like a scaled-down version of defending ones thesis. (Having never actually defended a thesis, I apologise if the comparison is in any way obscene). Had to talk about pigeons and BOLD signals and HDRs and lie barefacedly about my critical (big inverted commas) contributions to science. Dolling up ignorance is an art. Perhaps I should, as Von suggests, go into consultancy.

I was completely numb for about an hour after it was all over, and when I came to I discovered that I had somehow landed up in Starbucks with one of the largest mugs of coffee I'd ever seen in front of me. This was, luckily enough, when the day began to pick up. Finally got to see The Aviator (Ian Holm!) as well as finish reading Bennett. On now to Faulkner's As I Lay Dying, which I hope I'll be able cope with. (Probably not.)

panic/hysterics/etc.

as usual.

had planned to ask my dad to help print my independent study paper (in color, on his office printer) to give to the interviewers tomorrow as a writing sample, but procrastinated and ended up not getting it to him on time, which meant that i had to print it at home, except that of course we had run out of paper. sped out to orchard in ragamuffin clothes only to find that all stationery shops in town had conspired to close at 9 (time of arrival: 9:07). last desperate fling was taka, which mercifully had one ream of paper left in stock.

but what i really want to tell you about is what happened next. there were two cashiers nearby - one line seemed a lot shorter than the other, so i chose that one (which, of course, turned out to be short only because the ladies at the head of the queue were purchasing enough pots and pans to prepare meals simultaneously for everyone in continental asia). two poly students joined the queue behind me, and despite my fuming, i couldn't help but overhear the bit of their conversation which went: "i find psychology very interesting...(so-and-so) told me the other day that the human brain is actually really small"

which was funny on so many levels that i couldn't help but explode into laughter, probably making everyone around me think i was certifiable, but whatever, because i'm sure that some higher power had dictated that i be right there right then just so i could be privy to that little snippet of inanity. i really needed that. i mean, just half-an-hour before i was telling someone (online) that if i didn't get this job i would have to immediately go and look for a very tall building. honestly, it's all a bloody joke anyway. life is only sometimes kind, but fortunately, it is almost always hilarious.

no time

-- to blog what with reaching home bone tired every day long after sundown. in brief: dinner at the marina mandarin with gsk interviewers and candidates on saturday (good; everyone very welcoming and chummy despite most people having enough letters appended to the back of their names to make up a decent-sized alphabet), then pell mell to addy's for awfully chocolate cake and saunders and french. sunday: church, then out with yen and two of the british candidates i offered to get lunch with/show around. over-ordered at westlake and struggled mightily with trying to explain the concept of yu sheng to obviously-baffled company (me: all the ingredients have significance because chinese words can be pronounced the same way but mean different things. yen: like punes. me: yes, or plays on words.) then to the botanic gardens and the evolution path which featured signboards describing the various stages of plant phylogeny, signboards with such marvelous titles as "the flowering of the world". et cetera. today: sniffling most of the morning. cover letters bad enough to send me into conniptions. silent curses at boss for trying to correct my already-correct spelling. then, at 5:30, hurtling down the ecp at 150 km/h so as to be on time for gsk cruise on the cheng ho (minz, or anyone familiar with chinese history: was he the one with the yellow umbrellas?). taxi fare: $24.60. ouch. tried to make conversation with one of the panel members about schizophrenia except probably made huge fool of self for talking about pharmacological treatment of negative symptoms, which i suspect is not really done. got mildly seasick, correctly identified someone's west indian accent (mother from mauritius), misidentified kusu island and staggered home half-dead from exhaustion.

will try and get some reading in before bed.

cp continues to call me in the mornings in the hopes that his taunting will become the subject of every single entry on this blog. i must say he has been quite successful so far

At work, when i'm especially bored, I sift through my old sent-mail box, and lament the fact that less than a year ago I was busy - frenetically busy - with things that I actually wanted to do: labs, the SSA, R&B and just generally having a good time. A little strange, perhaps, but I think only natural, part of the process of grieving, coming to terms.

(Choonping: I was genuinely smoking out: was out of the main office, purportedly at a meeting, if by "meeting" you mean "sitting in the canteen all morning drinking coffee". It wasn't lunch. I haven't reached that state of depravity just yet.)

Currently reading: The Catastrophist - Ronan Bennett
(how many books can you name that are set in the congo?)

9:42 a.m.

[handphone rings. i pick up.]

me: hello
cp: hi! it's me!
me: hi. what's up?
cp: you sound depressed.
me: is that all you called to say?
cp: actually, yes. [laughs] so what are you doing now?
me: right now? i'm calling people to offer them jobs.

[pause]

cp: the irony of all this is sheer poetry isn't it?

and he had just woken up. i am mocked, mercilessly.

conspiracy

the first shuttle bus to tanah merah mrt from my workplace departs 5:32 or thereabouts; the one after that a good 20-25 minutes later. Which means either

a) one leaves the office just as the minute hand whispers past the six, incurring baleful looks from colleagues and bosses alike, or
b) one resigns oneself to catching the second bus, whereupon one thinks: oh well, may as well look industrious in the mean time and earn brownie points with TPTB, particularly as the bus stop outside ALH provides no shade whatsoever, and is, in fact, at the perfect angle to receive the brunt of the sun's rays at that time of day.

which means that they get a good 15 minutes extra labour out of us every afternoon. for those of you keeping score, that works out to a whopping 3390 minutes, or 847.5 hours a year. devilish.

the surviving fish is looking very pleased with his act of darwinian supremacy. i shall rid him of smugness by getting him another friend next week.

how boring work is

my stapler

dinner at addy's

= da bao from adam road hawker center + steamed prawns, fresh from the straits of malacca + a too-good-to-eat fruit platter (eaten). choonping called me up mid-afternoon to apologise in advance for his absence (he was going to cook), but since i didn't know about that beforehand i could not feel too disappointed (as i think he hoped i would be).

~~

whereas we were merely bitchy in rjc, i'm beginning to feel that we're now honestly bitter and vindictive and all too ready to take potshots at everyone and everything, and while i don't want our misery and acrimony to be justified, the sorry fact is that it rather is. and from that, you can extrapolate the post-prandial topics of conversation, which means that all that needs to be said has been.

(except: thanks for the fforde, su-lin. anyone else who wants it can get in line behind yen)

one (1) of my fish died

i wish -

- that i could blog during the day, mostly because every ten minutes i come across a cover letter that sends me keeling over in undisguised mirth (and then disappears from my memory because something even funnier comes along). the grovelling and bootlicking is hysterical, not to mention the e-mails that show up in my inbox with the subject heading: APLLICATION.

damnit

my final interview for glaxosmithkline is on the 4th of february, and i just found out that i have yet another interview tomorrow for the dyslexia association of singapore (dorcas!). naturally, both of these jobs are more desirable than the one i have now, with the better of the two being further away. murphy is on full-time employ when it comes to my affairs.

definition

you know your workplace is ulu when:

1) the only people on the bus in the morning are employees from your company, and army guys.
2) the army guys get off first.

only coffee can save me now

first day

I believe it has come to pass that when it comes to office life, we are at the point in the cycle where life has begun to imitate art. It hit me during the welcome speech - I got that funny disembodied feeling, the one where you feel like you're outside yourself, watching, and I knew exactly why - the desultory rambling, the painful cliches, they triggered something, they overlaid the narrative so exactly that the scene became drama, and I had no choice but to step outside myself and watch. The feeling persisted. It held.

Or maybe it's just because I'm hankering for the South and Beaufort again:

"To describe our growing up in the lowcountry of South Carolina, I would have to take you to a marsh on a spring day, flush the great blue heron from its silent occupation, scatter marsh hens as we sink to our knees in mud, open you an oyster with a pocketknife and feed it to you from the shell and say, 'There. That taste. That's the taste of my childhood.' I would say, 'Breathe deeply,' and you would breathe and remember that smell for the rest of your life, the bold, fecund aroma of the tidal marsh, exquisite and sensual, the smell of the South in heat, a smell like new milk, semen, and spilled wine, all perfumed with seawater. My soul grazes like a lamb on the beauty of indrawn tides.

I am a patriot of a singular geography on the planet; I speak of my country religiously; I am proud of its landscape. I walk through the traffic of cities cautiously, always nimble and on the alert, because my heart belongs in the marshlands. The boy in me still carries the memories of those days when I lifted crab pots out of the Colleton Rivier before dawn, when I was shaped by life on the river, part child, part sacristan of tides."

The Prince of Tides, Pat Conroy

more books

mph book sale at expo a far sight better than the one i went to last week, the trip improved first and foremost by having a fellow reader (su-lin) along (also called yen, who didn't pick up her phone (me: maybe she's at work; su-lin: but that's the only time she gets her calls (OWTTE))). afternoon began with brief detour for coffee and trudging through endless hallways searching for an atm (sign on door: CASH TERMS ONLY; CASH TERMS in my pocket: $6.65), but that over and done with, the book-buying began in earnest. the exhibition hall being something of a melee, two was definitely better than one in terms of back-watching and noticing things left behind in the heat of battle. pratchetts again notoriously hard to find. minor tiff over who was to get wyrd sisters and much despair over being unable to relocate a left-behind copy of the truth. confessed to su-lin that if we found a copy of something rotten, i would have to fight her for it - as it is, managed to get through the day without any bruises, dismemberments or defenestrations, so that was a good thing. non-fiction not worth speaking of. children's section very inadequate, containing mostly tv show novelisations and sweet valley high.

after several hours, emerged with only 6 books (remarkable restraint, now that i think about it; i have a feeling that some of my stuff was stolen from our box, although thankfully not the horizontal instrument which i pulled from between a couple of unassuming romances with surprise and glee) and lumbago. su-lin much more succesful (or prodigal), despite her assertion that she will not be able to read at all for the next five weeks (yah, right). but yes, it was fun, and next time more people should join us (cp could not because he had to spring clean, something which amused me greatly because it was a very me excuse - and no, we found neither the graves nor the yolen, sorry).

Currently reading:
The Prince of Tides - Pat Conroy. Is this a very girly book to be reading? Or just a trashy one? I fear it's both - but whatever.

bridge

did reasonably well in the bgb on tuesday and wednesday - top 15% finshes both days - and i am quite sure now that we don't totally suck. after all these years of struggling, it's heartening to have sure markers of progress, to be able to look at a result after a board has been played and know that we've done the right thing, and for the right reason. the spats and disagreements that justin and i have are about higher-level things as well - psychology, technique, fine-tuning our judgement - and this, too, is an encouraging sign.

players like kantar, zia and roseneberg have all spoken variously about the stages of improvement in bridge, and in particular about how intelligence and problem-solving ability do not necessarily correlate with skill at the table. kantar, in particular, has written (i believe) a series of essays on players who "get it", and what exactly that means and entails - ability to think about the right thing at the right time, ability to see things from the points-of-view of the other players, knowing when to concentrate and when to let go. this was hardly comforting to me when i was picking up the game eight years ago, and there were times when i despaired of ever "getting it" - but now, now, i am convinced that at the very least i have not stagnated at that awful plateau, the stretch - sometimes impassable - that stands between the advancing player and the expert in any game.

some things haven't changed. there are still a million details of our system to be discussed. i still feel bloody terrible after, well, many sessions (although for vastly different reasons than i had in the past). i'm not an expert - yet - but at the very least i'm now sure that the path towards that goal is open to me, may be traversed. and that's a big thing.

not an option for grad school

Currently reading: Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said - one of the Philip Dicks that I never got to - surprising really considering that I'm a sucker for catchy titles. His style of writing, I find, is very comforting; you never get the feeling that he's going to let you get lost in his worlds the way some other SF writers do.

In the hierarchy of guilty pleasures, I place him somewhere in between reality shows and mudpie.

lost

the [doo-de-doo censored cakes]-issued schematic to the [dah-de-dah that place] looks like it was drawn by someone with zero spatial sense and an oversized crayon.

eta: now this entry makes no sense at all! whee!

no appetite. had scrambled eggs for breakfast, and forced myself to eat a small bowl of noodles for lunch, but it's 10 and there's no way i can stomach any dinner. i'm not vomity, but my gut feels like it has a very large round stone in it that isn't going anywhere.

today and yesterday: gastrointestinal malaise

today: had appointment with last of duke interviewees. felt loath to cancel - dragged self out of bed into gloom and rain. on the way home, popped in to borders to spend $10 voucher obtained from last month's xmas shopping. purchases: alan hollinghurst's the line of beauty and the gold bug variations (richard powers) which was in my hands almost by reflex due to sheer delight in just seeing it on the shelf. kafka on the shore nowhere in sight, though i probably wouldn't have forked out for a hardcover anyway.

library sale

On today and tomorrow in Suntec! (Well, you've missed today.) I got a nearly unblemished copy of Galatea 2.2 for 2 bucks, and one of The Colour Purple, paperback, ugly cover (not that I really wanted it, but was miffed that I couldn't find anything else remotely worth the purple note, so bought it as a gesture of futility). I probably went too late; the rest of the fiction on sale definitely was nothing too special (read: mostly Catherine Cooksons and tatty Ruth Rendells) but there will be fresh lots tomorrow morning if you get there early. If anyone does go, and finds any Pratchetts in decent condition, BUY THEM FOR ME. Thank you!

(Oh dear, this PSA is going out rather late.)

music

i've had patty scialfa's stumbling to bethlehem on my ipod playlist for months now and am not yet sick of it.

and on an almost entirely unrelated note, if anyone here has watched the polar express (family aside), i have made a startling realization about the song the three kids sing just before they get to the north pole (i'm wishing on a star/and trying to believe etc.) it has been in my head for a couple of weeks, and i now realize why: if you take every tune on earth ever composed, superimpose them all on one another, and compute their exact average: this is the song you will get. listen to it and tell me that i'm wrong.

the feeling that free time is scarce is returning, and for now, that's good. the final period of freedom after a long break always contains a fury and a unique kind of desperation, the need to hold slippery increments of time under ones fingernails, first days, then hours, then final meals, last goodbyes. like the december holidays or those awful weeks before enlistment. i say awful - and they were (and these last days kind of are as well) - but these are also wonderful in that everything has become precious again, every idle afternoon, every hyper-protracted lunch, every time i wake up in sunlight and not to the beeping of an alarm clock.

there's little marginal reward in taking long breaks as opposed to short ones - most
everything is unappreciated except the beginning and the end - but really, the fact that i know this doesn't make me feel that i should have done anything differently. maybe i just never learn. or maybe i feel that being completely unproductive is like kicking sand in the face of conventions and norms. or maybe i valued my free time over the last three months more than i think i did, or will in retrospect.

whatever the case may be, i'm excited again. excited that i have to tell someone that we are meeting "next tuesday afternoon" and not "any tuesday afternoon", thrilled at the countdown, that the devalued currency of time suddenly has stock once more.

and next week, on this very page, i will be cursing the fact that it's all gone. we are perverse animals, and, time and again, must be forgiven this fact.

thought

it occurs to me that with under two weeks of free time left, i should be taking as many naps as possible.

here i go.

abbrvns

is anyone who reads in the habit of calling plaza singapura 'ps'? was definitely a little lost today when darryl asked to meet at said 2-letter destination; 'ps' to me has always been short for post script or playstation but never the mall, which is, was and always shall be plaza sing. moreover, i feel that no other building name has been reduced to mere letters in our lingo - certainly we pare the more unwieldy monikers down: forum, wisma, taka etc., but i don't think anyone would dream of shortening those to fg, wa or t.

anyway, that is not interesting. what is interesting is that snoopy's place, the cute cafe with horrid food, has been replaced by this haut monde (-ish) establishment called tuscan, which serves not tuscan food but an eclectic mix of french and mediterranean-type dishes. we were too late for lunch and too early for dinner, but were lured in anyway by teatime special which was dessert and coffee for $6.90. not five seconds after we entered did we realize that we were sole patrons for the afternoon, which meant a window seat overlooking the courtyard where giant plastic flowers were being planted in readiness for chinese new year.

we had the creme brulee and the molten chocolate cake. the first was excellent: light, not too sweet, and very substantial for the price. the cake, on the other hand, could have been richer and warmer: promised magma flows of molten chocolate were not forthcoming from within, and the whole affair was, i think, slightly overdone. other offerings were tiramisu, pastry selection and chocolate walnut cake, all of which sounded (and looked) worth a try.

i shall stop here in annoyance with my incapacity to describe food and say that i do think it's worth a visit before it either (a) vanishes into obscurity (b) closes down or (c) gets swamped by crowds. if anyone wishes to, as they say, ponteng, we could go next week before i begin my penance (i mean, work). or dinner is good too.

bean's blog

This is Bean's blog

Some of you know Bean.

And some of you don't.

oompa loompas

I had heard about this a while ago, but was reminded again today that Johnny Depp as Willy Wonka is going to be twelve kinds of awesome.