having been told my blog is actually monitored (and i do mean Monitored), i hence feel some sort of residual guilt and a small nagging feeling that i probably should update more often. i believe it's called a conscience. or that horrible thing called responsibility-to-the-reader.
nice to know i'm providing entertainment for you guys *waves*
mmmm...chinesenewyear. not too bad. except for the bit where i either dropped my cash+angpao which was in my back pocket or it got stolen *sigh* so. must be philosophical/stoic about it. hooray.
watched memoirs of a geisha too. they really should have done it in jap. and the best actresses were gong li and michelle yeoh. zhang ziyi was, um, well, very "saltysoup"-ish. really. "that-would-be-like-letting-the-tiger-out-of-its-cage". read it as stiltedly as you like.
nyum. i keep seeing cats when i'm out. i think it means something. *grin*
and don't practice journalism on me please. my words are not meant to be dissected for information on whether or not i have a social life/significant other (the answer to both, by the way, is no. surprising as that may be hurhur). the reason i say this is because it's bad enough i have to live it 9 hours out of every 24, without having to endure it from all of you :P yes, you with th' rss feed and the one with the bluenude. this means you. hur.
music of the moment - u2 - the sweetest thing
mood of the moment - oog. i think pineapple tarts should not be glazed with egg white. they turn out crunchy, and stomachs upside down.
that's a zeugma by the way. check it out. this is your enlightenment-thingy of the day.
Tuesday, January 31, 2006
Wednesday, January 25, 2006
guess what! i'm in office! again! and it's ffreezing. where the extra f is used as in "fugly". fingers are gone. am typing with sticks that might shatter any moment now. went to golden mile to interview people who are going up to malaysia for chinese new year. all i can say is, sucks to be you! the checkpoint will be hell for the next few days. hur. but thank gods this day is over. been so scatterbrained and i realise multitasking is REALLY not all it's cracked up to be. and it's late, late, late. think i'll leave by 11 i guess :( oh well.
meeeeep.
meeeeep.
Thursday, January 19, 2006
i am in the office again, and feeling absolutely bored. then again, this is the rincewind kind of boredom: long periods of doing nothing followed by short periods of "OHSHIT" and having to stay back. dont really want to. they havent refunded me yet. and i spent close to 50 bucks in 2 days on cab fares dammit. chasing stories. very tiring. gahahhahaahahagh.
turn up with a box of chocolates, why dont you.
turn up with a box of chocolates, why dont you.
Wednesday, January 18, 2006
i wonder. are the songs of today the poetry of our generation? do we see in dishwalla what they saw in frost?
i dont know. but what i do know is that i spent last night reading a large book of classic poems, the kind that you wish you could memorise because they sound so nice to read aloud. and they're like music in prose, dripping with meter and pentemeter and rhythm. you have waltzes, and marches, and even blues and jazz.
and somehow, somehow, i think frost will last longer than franz ferdinand.
i dont know. but what i do know is that i spent last night reading a large book of classic poems, the kind that you wish you could memorise because they sound so nice to read aloud. and they're like music in prose, dripping with meter and pentemeter and rhythm. you have waltzes, and marches, and even blues and jazz.
and somehow, somehow, i think frost will last longer than franz ferdinand.
Monday, January 16, 2006
people who make pineapple tarts
HAVE TOO MUCH TIME ON THEIR HANDS.
they're really time consuming. and i think we overboiled the jam and if you stick a wooden spoon into it it stays in that position and the there's more jam than pastry and it's bloody sweet and i think i got diabetes and there's cloves EVERYWHERE.
but i like cloves :D
HAVE TOO MUCH TIME ON THEIR HANDS.
they're really time consuming. and i think we overboiled the jam and if you stick a wooden spoon into it it stays in that position and the there's more jam than pastry and it's bloody sweet and i think i got diabetes and there's cloves EVERYWHERE.
but i like cloves :D
Monday, January 02, 2006
i should probably write about the few days now. just got back from thailand, and if ever there was a lifechanging experience, this would be one of them. dont just talk about eye opener...it's a mind opener. it makes you think, makes you feel, and understand.
but dont fly finnair. its just scary. we sat on the same plane there and back, and its a lockheed tristar. (lockheed tristars were supposed to be phased out already. we only learned this when we got back home.) so anyway. we took off from singapore, and were happily climbing until we suddenly levelled off. this wouldn't be so bad if it weren't at 5000-8000 feet. and then you hear some noise stop. which is not a good thing. even when we were comng from bangkok midway through the flight something cut out, and you -don't- want something to cut out when you're above the damn ocean because you lose altitude. we even flew over indonesia, although that was apparently because the stack is so huge so that's ok. i think. but never again. i've never been so worried about the plane landing than then. really a case of terra firma: the firmer the ground, the less the terror.
but anyways. thailand was a really good trip. first off the bat, we went to the immigration detention centre (idc). and if you've never been to one, well. i dont know, but it really makes you wonder. the cells are big, but not spacious, and on a good day there's only 500-odd people in the centre, about 20ish to a room. on a bad day the rooms can fill to 80-100. people are there because of persecution, they can't go back because they come from places as far away as congo and somalia, from china, from germany france and even singapore. some can't leave because the embassy can't help them, some stay there because there's no place to go, some stay because their families are in thailand, just that they're in a no man's land of quiet toleration and deadening hope. some have been in there for 10 years. and it was a hundred times worse then than what we saw. the jrs has been improving things bit by bit, so that noone feels threatened, everyone feels like they come out on top, and things are better overall. and the worst part? they're 26, they're 22, there are kids in there who dont know a life without bars. and you think and you realise, that could be me. but by grace of birth, that could have been me.
then we went to the urban refugee programme, and the child daycare centre. do you know there are refugees in the cities from the city itself? they hide in the crowd because they can't go back. the life in thailand is better than what they have back home in laos, burma, cambodia...if they get caught, they get sent to the idc. once in a while the idc will hire a bus, and drop off the refugees from neighbouring countries at the border. and because they have no choice, they will turn around and come straight back in. so when the jrs is helping refugees in the city, they're actually breaking thai law. so. who would you help? which would you break? the law? their spirit?
and the child at the daycare centre, mat. he gropes people. like, the girls had to stay out of his reach, because he lunges at you. the guys got drop kicked in sensitive areas. if he was older, he'd get prosecuted. but that's what worries us. he probably doesn't know its not normal. what really worries us is if he's learning by example.
and then we met the burmese students. they're in thailand, because they're on a scholarship from their diocese in burma. naturally, they have to go back to burma to serve out their bond. the thing is, unlike singaporeans, they want to. unlike singaporeans, they have something to go back for, and they go back for the people. they dont go to university to better themselves just to earn more money, they go there to better themselves to serve the community. and we didnt know just how dire the situation was in burma. i mean, you know there's a junta there that represses the people, but you just dont know how bad until you hear it first hand. you cant send clothes in to the poor, because the junta will confiscate it, and replace it with clothes of poorer quality. as if that's not bad enough, they'll sell the clothes and take the profits. you can't use a phone because there's no network, and there's a us$300 license to be obtained first. there's no electricity, except for 2 days a week, and even that's intermittent. and their dreams aren't big. their dreams are along the lines of "i want to go back and help improve their electricity supply" and "i want to go back and help them realise the value of education". and this really is the way to improve their life; not by forcing democracy on them, but through increments like the jrs does. read fukuyama's posthuman world today, and i found this quite apt meme: that repressive dictatorships and bad governments require a monopolisation of information to remain in power. in china they can't, because people are more educated and it's so big they can't hid the internet and phones from them forever. in burma, because people dont understand the value of education, they can and do. so this is the slow, but steady way to freedom. people actually dont care what government they're under, as long as they're free to do what they want, i.e. get on with their lives. usa, are you listening?
there's so much more. so so much more to do.
***********************
started work already. kena saboed already. wth. should be interesting laaa....need office clothes. no jeans allowed pleh. GOTTA WAKE UP AT SIX FRIGGIN THIRTY TO RUN gods.
leon's tie is bloody fugly. what was acsi thinking? screw the saving money on branded goods, there are some things people should never have to see.
but dont fly finnair. its just scary. we sat on the same plane there and back, and its a lockheed tristar. (lockheed tristars were supposed to be phased out already. we only learned this when we got back home.) so anyway. we took off from singapore, and were happily climbing until we suddenly levelled off. this wouldn't be so bad if it weren't at 5000-8000 feet. and then you hear some noise stop. which is not a good thing. even when we were comng from bangkok midway through the flight something cut out, and you -don't- want something to cut out when you're above the damn ocean because you lose altitude. we even flew over indonesia, although that was apparently because the stack is so huge so that's ok. i think. but never again. i've never been so worried about the plane landing than then. really a case of terra firma: the firmer the ground, the less the terror.
but anyways. thailand was a really good trip. first off the bat, we went to the immigration detention centre (idc). and if you've never been to one, well. i dont know, but it really makes you wonder. the cells are big, but not spacious, and on a good day there's only 500-odd people in the centre, about 20ish to a room. on a bad day the rooms can fill to 80-100. people are there because of persecution, they can't go back because they come from places as far away as congo and somalia, from china, from germany france and even singapore. some can't leave because the embassy can't help them, some stay there because there's no place to go, some stay because their families are in thailand, just that they're in a no man's land of quiet toleration and deadening hope. some have been in there for 10 years. and it was a hundred times worse then than what we saw. the jrs has been improving things bit by bit, so that noone feels threatened, everyone feels like they come out on top, and things are better overall. and the worst part? they're 26, they're 22, there are kids in there who dont know a life without bars. and you think and you realise, that could be me. but by grace of birth, that could have been me.
then we went to the urban refugee programme, and the child daycare centre. do you know there are refugees in the cities from the city itself? they hide in the crowd because they can't go back. the life in thailand is better than what they have back home in laos, burma, cambodia...if they get caught, they get sent to the idc. once in a while the idc will hire a bus, and drop off the refugees from neighbouring countries at the border. and because they have no choice, they will turn around and come straight back in. so when the jrs is helping refugees in the city, they're actually breaking thai law. so. who would you help? which would you break? the law? their spirit?
and the child at the daycare centre, mat. he gropes people. like, the girls had to stay out of his reach, because he lunges at you. the guys got drop kicked in sensitive areas. if he was older, he'd get prosecuted. but that's what worries us. he probably doesn't know its not normal. what really worries us is if he's learning by example.
and then we met the burmese students. they're in thailand, because they're on a scholarship from their diocese in burma. naturally, they have to go back to burma to serve out their bond. the thing is, unlike singaporeans, they want to. unlike singaporeans, they have something to go back for, and they go back for the people. they dont go to university to better themselves just to earn more money, they go there to better themselves to serve the community. and we didnt know just how dire the situation was in burma. i mean, you know there's a junta there that represses the people, but you just dont know how bad until you hear it first hand. you cant send clothes in to the poor, because the junta will confiscate it, and replace it with clothes of poorer quality. as if that's not bad enough, they'll sell the clothes and take the profits. you can't use a phone because there's no network, and there's a us$300 license to be obtained first. there's no electricity, except for 2 days a week, and even that's intermittent. and their dreams aren't big. their dreams are along the lines of "i want to go back and help improve their electricity supply" and "i want to go back and help them realise the value of education". and this really is the way to improve their life; not by forcing democracy on them, but through increments like the jrs does. read fukuyama's posthuman world today, and i found this quite apt meme: that repressive dictatorships and bad governments require a monopolisation of information to remain in power. in china they can't, because people are more educated and it's so big they can't hid the internet and phones from them forever. in burma, because people dont understand the value of education, they can and do. so this is the slow, but steady way to freedom. people actually dont care what government they're under, as long as they're free to do what they want, i.e. get on with their lives. usa, are you listening?
there's so much more. so so much more to do.
***********************
started work already. kena saboed already. wth. should be interesting laaa....need office clothes. no jeans allowed pleh. GOTTA WAKE UP AT SIX FRIGGIN THIRTY TO RUN gods.
leon's tie is bloody fugly. what was acsi thinking? screw the saving money on branded goods, there are some things people should never have to see.
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