slacker update

Today was make-like-a-tai-tai-and-do-nothing day.

I popped into the office for a coupla minutes to get a cd i'm supposed to return someone tomorrow. Then headed off to town for a haircut and a lemon tart and lemongrass tea at Marmalade Pantry

Before stepping out of the house though, I decided to watch This Is Spinal Tap. Finally!
As the movie's tagline best explains it: Does for rock and roll what "The Sound of Music" did for hills

Go see it already.

Week Two of leave

I'm feeling damn lazy today. Thought I'd go and chop of some of my hair ie, go to the hairdresser, but decided since i'm going to town tmr afternoon I'd fit everything in and go cut ma hair, have tea and maybe even squeeze in some shopping! (Chiang Mai, as i mentioned was hardly a place to shop so I'm still itching to buy something. although this time when i say 'something' i mean clothes, not my usual books/cds (altho i havent exactly done a cd spree for a while)

meanwhile today i watched the Travis DVD, the tape of last night's shows (D Housewives, LV, Frasier) and might see some more DVDs in a bit. There's quite a few I havent yet found the time for, so heck!

shock-o-rama

Walk into Mortinis and who do I see
but my boss and supe smiling right at me...

yup... just happened this evening. i stepped in and there they were.
she smiled at me as i stepped up to the plate and said 'why look so shy? you're on leave after all?!'

i wasnt being shy (altho i sure would've liked to blend into the wall at that moment)
i was merely shocked.. you know... stroll into morton's bar and they're the first thing i see.. at the table near the door. not exactly a welcome sight during one's leave! it was like ladeeda... i'm off to get some steak sandwiches and martini's and WHAM BAM!! (no thank you mam) and plus we didn't land ourselves such a great table - too bloody near the damn Teevee.

and on that note, i'm onto Week Two.

The weekend was a good one, spent Fri to Sun in Chiang Mai with me mum. Nice weather, mountainouse little city in N Thailand, but definitely catered to farang.

While I've got some pics up at the usual site (I'm not one for putting the URL so if you don't know it, email me at youknowwhere or sms/call me to ask if you really are just dying to see someone's vacay photos) I'm putting up some random pics of stuff I saw.

Stuff I saw in Chiang Mai

Wachirathan waterfall


It's the pagoda commemorating the King's 60th birthday (especially meaningful for the Thais apparently... similar I guess to our 12-year horoscope cycle thingy) on a windy kinda cloudy day (monsoon season after all) and on a clear day, we could've seen the city from this pagoda perched on a mountain but as luck would have it all we experienced was lotsa wind (the kind which seems about to sweep you off your feet) and temp of 11 deg C up in Doi Inthanon National Park


Grilled prawns at a seafood restaurant near the night bazaar - 299 baht for 1 kg!


Chiang Mai is famous for its elephant camps (not in the POW sense of a camp but more like where the elephants 'work' by giving rides and performing for tourists). This is the Maesa Elephant Camp at the foothills of one of the mountains. Before the show at 10am, they take a bath in the river, watched over and scrubbed by their mahout.


Yes, the performance also showcases their artistic talent.


Chiang Mai has some great curry noodles - and the rest of the food's damn cheap as well! my mum and i (as well as our guide) had noodles, a veg salad, satay and drinks at one of the famous curry noodles restaurants at only 149 baht total!


Thailand's full of strays. This little one sorta became our guide as we walked around one of the Royal Projects where the mountain people grow fruits, veg and flowers as part of the royal family's project to help them out of impoverishment.

On the way back, while waiting in the departure lounge i started thinking of the many places i've been this year...
-bangkok
-batam (for work)
-banda aceh (for work)
-bintan (twice in one month! once to stay at indra maya and the other time at the PSA villa at bintan lagoon resort)
-hong kong
-chiangmai

and the year's only halfway through....

In 2004 I went to...
-canada (toronto, ottawa, PEI, montreal - a family trip)
-tokyo (twice - once for vacay and then for work)
-sydney (to see radiohead!)
-margaret river (for work)
-cherating (for work - club med)
-koh samui
-bintan (yes indra maya again)

and there are still so many places i've not yet been, such as Turkey, Egypt, Alaska, Greece, Maldives, Mauritius etc etc etc

I guess i've had the good fortune to have a mum who enjoys travelling - as a kid i went to places like europe/nz/australia/the US/Korea/Taiwan etc...

and now to conquer more places!

iTunes is currently playing Travis' Peace The Fuck Out

Day Three of Leave

And i'm wondering if i have what it takes to be a tai tai....

i was getting a bit bored yesterday, watched the taped eps of Monday night TV, some CSI, looked for jobs and applied for a few.

Took a bus down to Orchard Road to get my hands on some Thai baht, ran a few errands and then decided to get a Mexican coffee (well it's just coffee with a bit of chocolate and cinammon) at Coffee Club (Paragon).

Went to Hong Kong for dinner - the cha can teng at East Coast Road that is. Had a Shanghai Pork Chop Rice, and shared a salt n pepper tofu. not bad.

now if they'd open a branch somewhat more convenient for me....

Also, finished reading William Trevor's The Story Of Lucy Gault, a simple, beautifully-written book about the life of Lucy Gault, whose family has to leave Ireland and she runs away, only to be mistakenly presumed drowned. Her parents take off for greener pastures in Europe, wandering through Italy and Switzerland, mourning the death of their young daughter, not knowing that she is still alive (this is of course long before the age of the Internet) and as she has no way of contacting them, she can only wait for their return.

It's a melancholic little story, a quick read. But one that stays with you. I have to admit the first few pages didn't really draw me in, but as I read on, it was captivating and I just couldn't put it down. Trevor's writing is poetic, simple but charming and the prose just flows on so well that while you just want to race through the plot, you can't help but to make yourself slow down, to thoroughly read his admirable writing.

And today I'm starting on Kingsley Amis' Lucky Jim.
(Besides still reading Bling that is).

Plan to do some swimming and supposedly meet someone for dinner.

The sun's out for a change so I might just hop on down to the pool at Buona Vista (hope there aren't any kids) and have a nice swim before lunch.

Oh and btw, know of anyone looking for freelance writers? Pick me! Pick me!#

Day One of leave

was spent on Tanjong Beach.

(yeah so it's not a spectacular beach and the water's damn suspect but heck what other beach does singapore have anyway?)

Met ying at Carrefour where we picked up some various munchies for the great sentosa do-nothing day.

got some bread, cheese, dip, corn chips, oj, baby carrots. plenty for a good meal and more.

the only disappointment was the weather. where was the sun? hiding beneath the clouds it seemed...popping out (barely) once in a while.

but despite the weather, it was a great time, mostly because there were few others around on a tuesday at sentosa.

sure there were some kids, but they seemed to head towards siloso beach so tanjong was nice and quiet.

great to lie back and read a book (William Trevor's The Story Of Lucy Gault), swim a little in the murky water, build a sandcastle with a moat, play some frisbee and snooze.

hung out for about 5 1/2 hours, before taking a quick shower and then grabbing a beer at km8.

then it was off to harbourfront for some pizza. at spizza. where the service was slow and the food decent.

and now i'm just a little tired. it's amazing how doing nothing the whole day can tire you out. :P

n now what to do tomorrow?

I'm on leave

My TWO (Count 'em!) glorious weeks of leave officially begin on Tuesday... but i'm already celebrating!!!

altho my sister just said that i'm going to get bored....

well let me say this. i'd rather be bored for two weeks than be in the damn office!!!!!

yesterday i could actually be found in a karaoke ... what do you call them... lounge? at chinatown!! i think the last time i was in one was.... well, prob many years ago. so it was fun to find myself in this kitschy very cheena-looking place, the kind that could double as a set for a HK drama.
so it was four hours of karaoke, snacks and beer.

but heck.. it was my last day of work for june!

fraud-like

i'm skimming through this one by my teeth.

i'm writing a story on Toronto.

I was just there last year.

I cannot remember much about it.

Although I remember falling in love with the gorgeous Prince Edward Island (but it's not even near Toronto).

I'm a fraud.

I have to pretend that I know what I'm doing.

.... then again that's what I always do when it comes to writing articles...

So anyway I am a fraud.

Don't believe what you read.

as i was flipping through Life this morning, I chanced upon the most hilarious ad.

It was for Theatreworks' 24-hour playwriting competition, where entrants are holed up for 24 hours in places like Bintan and Ikea (if i remember right) and must finish a play at the end of it.

The ad's copy was astounding with its wit and sarcasm.

""Your inspiration: the fascinating newspaper environment of SPH's headquarters in Toa Payoh and it's ever-changing facet.''

iTunes is currently playing Kings of Leon's Four Kicks from their album Aha Shake Heartbreak cos on a day like this, you just need four boys from Memphis to cheer you up with lyrics like this:

Huffman don't take no nonsense
He's here to rectify
He's got his black belt buckle,
And the red man's fire in his eye

You with your switchblade posse,
I'll get my guns from the south,
We'll take to the yard like a cock fight
Four kicks who's strutting now?

This party is overrated,
But there aint shit else to do
She's a lovin' on a boy from the city,
I'll be lovin' him under my shoe

the hardest part....

is listening to coldplay's lyrics for The Hardest Part....off their latest album X and Y.

And the hardest part
was letting go, not taking part
You really broke my heart....

it's like a nursery rhyme!!

so album two is still far better!

Anyway, i was wondering... what is the point of this blog? i guess it might be for people to know me a bit better. As i had mentioned earlier, and as everyone knows, i am pretty quiet. so maybe if they read this blog, it cld be revelatory! :>

But a lot of times, i am tempted to take my entry off this blog. er like that one about love and what not. and i have taken some entries off, wondering why the hell I put them up in the first place.

and at other times i think i should just expire this blog and lay it to rest. and go about a blog-less life.

iTunes is currently playing Coldplay's The Hardest Part

unrepresentative surveys

somehow i have to get 50 surveys on mobile phones done by tomorrow.

50 doesn't sound too bad...

but when you are standing out in raffles place trying to get people to stop to talk to you for five minutes, it sure as hell is a huge number.

i had to survey 25 pp the last time and it was murder.

the thought that ran through my mind was... i am so not getting paid enough for this.

that's why i try to stop to answer people's questions when i'm out and about and not working. but they usually are just some shitty company trying to sell some shitty product so in the end i have to say no and i dunno if they have wasted their time or watever.

meanwhile, back to my own surveys - yes, it will be unrepresentative but i'm asking friends and friends' friends to do this. people have all been nice and willing to oblige. so thank you very much for all the help. i'm hoping to be able to get at least 25 people to answer so i wont have to go begging on the streets.

i really dont get paid enough to do that.

(in other news... i have to welcome two new readers to this blog so hello richard, hello mej,please excuse the mess and feel free to read and comment)

iTunes is currently playing Hot Hot Heat's Aveda

I will turn 26 next month.

So that means I have less than a month to be married, at least to fullfill my silly childhood ideal of being married by the age of 25.
At that time, 25 seemed so old, so wise, so mature.
But at 25, I hardly feel that way.
I still feel like a kid - hardly ready to be an adult.
Barely even knowing what that word means.

And yet I have friends, my age or younger, who are married or who will be, by the end of this year.
Of course, I also have friends who are perfectly happy with singlehood at the moment.

But I guess, the question always in the back of my mind is:
HOw do you know that the person you're marrying is the one you want to spend the rest of your life with?

When I think of the guys i've gone out with, and especially the two i guess i could say i was in love with, i wonder... was i really in love?
I mean, what is love and what does it mean to be in love?
And of course, that eternal question - is there really someone out there for me?

The first guy, well that was a relationship that was serious and also comforting but it was something i was not prepared for, that i was too young for.
it was a JC romance that carried on until uni (Yes i know, it was a long relationship), except for a 6-mth or so breakup in between that probably fired off many warning signs that i sorta ignored when we got back together after that...

some times later, well, last year to be exact, I found myself falling for someone.
and that somehow we clicked.

he made me happy
and then he went away
and for a while, i was sad.

and now it's been more than six months and i've not met anyone else i feel that i could get caught up in a whirlwind for.

but i've been going out and recently i've started wondering - what kind of an impression i make on people.

i've always been a quiet person, i know that.
my pri and sec sch teachers never failed to remind me every year in the report books.

i think i've opened up a lot more since last year though!

but i guess i'm not exactly the bubbly chirpy type. definitely not the life of the party type. and while i think i'm getting better at speaking to pp i've just met, especially w a glass in hand, i'm not the sort who tells fantastic and funny anecdotes.

i hardly think there's anything interesting about me, although people always think my job is fascinating.

the only fascinating thing about it tho, sorry folks, is the interesting people i get to meet and the stories they tell me.

and i'm a firm believer that everyone has a story to tell.

i love listening to what people say - their ideas, their goals, their passion.

which is why giving up this job will not be easy.

randomiser

so fed up, i just whacked out whatever I could, hoping to find time to refine it tomorrow, and left at 10.20pm for ICB, at Mr T's invitation.

Hadnt seen Mr T since.... the interview last year. so for a sec, i couldnt recognise him (Mr T - only for a sec!!! - Your glasses lah! but it was nice to catch up with you again)

Mr T btw has some great t-shirt designs, i'm especially wanting to get a 147 one (hint hint) and yesterday, i got to meet the guy he gets t-shirts from, as well as some other nice people. It was a good night.

Then again it's always a good night when there's alcohol present! :P

(once again another inane entry in this inane blog, which i would like to emphasise, is nothing more than a conversation than myself so you have absolutely no obligation to read any further)

but in other news... I HAVE ONE MORE WEEK TO GO BEFORE TWO WEEKS OF LEAVE GLORIOUS LEAVE! (altho this is the first time i'll be spending most of my leave in this country - i've only got a 3n trip with me mum to chiangmai and then the rest of the time i expect to be bored to tears after i'm done with my reading/swimming/window shopping/movies/dinner/coffee/tennis (hopefully)/jogging/watching dvds (jem promises his jimmy eat world and more!!! and to add to that i still havent finished all of Pearl Jam's Live On Two Legs or Touring Band 2000).

And I will write this here so that you... how many is it now... 9? readers of this blog will please ask me after the two weeks are up.

I shall attempt to do some writing!!!!

I shall!

I shall!

I shall?

And after reading this NYTimes article, i think i should look into becoming an image consultant. i love to criticise dress sense, why not make $1600 a day doing so?


in case you think i'm some kind of schizo, let me remind you that this is a sat evening, that day of the week i spend watching my fingernails grow at work.
so i end up surfing the web, reading online news, blogs and more. and with my iPod and charger... woah look out world!

love and marriage.....

these days, whenever my family attends events where my family friends are present, my mum will not fail to ask... who do you think will get married next?

(to backtrack... these family friends are families whose children i grew up with when living in farrer court. somehow we are all about the same age... born in 79 and 81.)

well, we were such great friends when kids, and at least for the older ones, seem to have each gone our own ways, meeting only on special occasions like weddings and chinese new year. sad but true.

anyway, the most recent event was one of my friend's grandma's 80th birthday. the spritely lady is always such a treat to see. i wish i cld be that chirpy at that age.

so my mum asks that question, and i realise that i'm probably going to be one of the last! :/

two of 'the farrer court gang' have already taken it upon themselves to step into the world of matrimony (not to each other tho!) and well, most of the others are attached - and this is the kind of attachment where the parents regularly see the bf/gf and they get invited to dinners etc...

and me?

well...

some country music for a sunday morning

Update: I did cut and paste the music video code for Days Go By... but doesn't seem to work... ah well.. i'm providing the link to his website instead.


Keith Urban - Aussie turned US country singer! What a cutie.. such a catchy song, too bad about the cheesy music video!

And in other news... I'm finally going to see what the sith everyone's been talking about... yes... star wars.

dragging my feet for a while about it. mostly cos i hate those damn darth vader posters, and that ridiculous m&M shit. and come on, the first two eps were absolute jokes. except for that beautiful fight between Darth Maul, Obi-Wan Kenobi and Qui-Gon Jinn. and besides, i already know how it's all going to end.

ah well, i have already given into popular culture and booked those movie tickers. this is the first time i'm watching a $9.50 movie. so OUCH OUCH OUCH!

and now for my third post of the day...

once again.. free labour... posing as the midnight shopper ....
wearing a pair of too-large muji pyjamas (why muji i dunno) and typing this at my desk while they check out whether the pics are good enuf... i wanna go off already!!
going for dimsum at jln besar.
after a bad macs meal near office..

funny how...

i am busy with work yet i manage to write two blog entries in one day...

anyway i had a look at the lineup for this year's Splendour In The Grass and I must say it's pretty damn attractive...
with Ryan Adams, Interpol, Futureheads, Athlete, The Beautiful Girls, Doves and Bloc Party (and more!) rocking Byron Bay!

envious...

A NYTimes article explains just why is it that we see certain books on obvious display eg Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code at bookstores, while often better-written books languish on the shelves, hidden from plain sight.

""It is known, somewhat deceptively, as a cooperative advertising agreement. In plain terms, it means that many of the books on display at the front of a store or placed face out at the end of an aisle are there because the publisher paid for them to be there, not necessarily because anyone at the bookstore thought the book was noteworthy or interesting.

Under such programs, booksellers -- mostly chains, but also larger independent stores -- keep a certain percentage of a publisher's net sales, usually 3 percent to 5 percent annually, depending on the agreement with the publisher. This money is then parceled out for various purposes, to help, for example, defray the bookseller's advertising costs, when a chain takes out ads or prints fliers to promote certain books. But the publisher's money may also buy coveted space on the store's front tables or on tall, highly visible racks, known as stepladders, announcing to customers that these books are considered the most important in the store.""

Perhaps more revealing is this statement from the reporter:
Trying to get publishers or booksellers to talk about display agreements, even off the record, is like trying to persuade Mafiosi to break the oath of omertá.



my iPod is currently playing Mazzy Star's Flowers In December while I knuckle down to finish my stories on this hot Saturday afternoon - a day that no one should waste by spending time indoors, in an airconditioned office where the only hint of natural light flickers through the blinds, calling out to me... come and join us outside!