its been a loooong week...

i found out that working 5 days in a row straight is not really a good idea. im left exhausted each night when i go home, and wakes up shagged to the max the next morning. miss the days when i could sleep in and wake up like in midday, and i kinda hate the feeling of snooziness and laziness while rolling around in bed each morning pondering why wasnt i born rich. work was alright though thankfully. nobody actually really patronise the store that early, so the earlier part of my shifts were spent watching the entire season 6 of friends. yes i did manage to do that. only busy periods were during the later part of the day, when school kids come in all stinky in their uniform hoping to see what the shop is all about, and the office crowd people. kinda getting used to the tiong bahru branch, its good that there's the mall right across the road. going for meal breaks allow me the option of the many fast food restaurants in it, which is great. haha. apart from that i dread the long hours standing at the counter hoping for time to pass by faster, and the fact that the lingua franca commonly used in the area is something which is alien to me. even when im spoken to. how rude is that. whatever la huh.

highlight of the week at work is the surprise visit by yan and her mamasitas gang out of nowhere on monday. turned out that they wanted to catch some movie and ice cream and bum at shrek's place. so happened that they were in the vicinity of the area and thus decided to drop by and contribute to the business. but weak la the choice of movies they made, which were a couple of teen flicks. mebbe its some bonding thingy i guess. hmmm... whatever that works for them la. hehe.

going for dikir practice again on thursday was also a welcomed relief, something quite different from the mundaneness of work. twas fun hanging out with the guys, taking the crap out of each other and engaging in verbally demeaning jokes at the same time. what else do guys do when they meet up but to make fun of the resident butt of the group, whoever the poor bloke is. but great la, pure clean fun with no harm done. hope the eventual show would be a success.

on friday late nite i embarked on my virgin trip into johore on my bike, finally. twas a hell of an experience. man, if you can drive or ride in johore then i believe you can do that in singapore with your eyes closed. bikes rule the roads there, and traffic conditions make it seem that whatever we learnt back in driving school were total bollocks. and the roads were filled with countless potholes everywhere. goodness me what a trauma it caused my buddies down under. aniwaes, went with my cousin hakim who's been there lotsa times and can be deemed quite a pro already la. pumped some petrol, though i was quite disappointed that i got only RM$7.04's worth while he was able to reach about RM$15. amazing. mebbe next time i'll learn to maximise the savings i can get from there la. made it a fast game and was back home by about 2am.

aside from all that, the week's been quite a torture. hope the weekend will be better. time to destress. hopefully with the missus la. afterall, its been 7 months already. pretty fast aye.. *grin*

oh, and of course, the week will never be complete without a single wrong. so i wonder, what is it this time?

i just realised that my last post was kinda ambiguously scandalous. to make my stance clear and clarify myself, i am not like that. i remain totally commited to my gf, am happy with her, and will continue to remain so for as long as it is possibly viable, 'ceterus parabus'. guess i just got too caught up with putting my rambling thoughts into words without actualy considering the sensitivities of the blog entry. sooo..to those who have misconstrued the contents, please unravel and delete those perceptions that you have ya. to those who still choose to disbelieve and question my values, hahaha.. too bad. i dont really care. your thoughts dont make me.

the day was good. had 'dikir barat' practice around 2pm for some upcoming show thingy. am getting myself involved in it coz im doing it kind of like a favour for friends, and also in some ways to get myself reacquainted to an old interest i used to have. was quite rusty and stiff at the initial stages, for its been ages since i last performed and participated with jurong institute's 'keris pusaka'. the practise felt good though, and hopefully we'll get the hang of everything soon. what with all the lyrics and hand movements to synchronise all.

met up with yan after that. ate at banquet jurong point for dinner, before heading to town to bum. as always our day veered from peaceful to volatile before subsiding back to a happy ending again. hahaha. we're weird like that. but tight no matter what. we decided to stay out late for once, coming up with lame 'supper' excuses to our respective moms in order to have that extra time together. hahaha. hey hey which one of you out there never do that before yea... aniwaes.. talked about lotsa stuff, stories, gossips, info, while laced with the occasional bicker and disagreement. finaly ended the day at 3am plus by going to west coast macs to really get our food, with both of us feeling so hungry after the last meal we had at banquet. no time to sit down and eat because of the ungodly hour, so we ordered takeaway to eat when we're both home sweet home. wont be seeing her again til in about 4-5 days time, so i guess the time spent for the day was much treasured and appreciated la. *thumbs up*

work again tomorrow, and for the next 5 days. shucks. how boring.

ok, am tired and sleepy now, what with the tummy contented with the mcspicy double burger i just ate. good nite people.

i just found out how unfun handing out flyers and freebies to the public is. had to do that on friday while helping out with the opening of the new branch at tiong bahru. saw how much singaporeans lack in graciousness and simple pure courtesy. plus the long hours i stood in front of the mrt exit, felt kinda dumb sia. doesnt help by the fact that i was kinda in the middle of the public eye, which i hate to be in. again, for the money, just had to endure and thicken my skin abit.

had a tiring day on saturday also because my cousin's wedding. i went there all dressed smartly and all, and ended up typically folding my jeans, changing into a simple -tshirt, and getting my hands dirty scrubbing plates and dishes and big pots and pans in the makeshift kitchen in the void deck. been doing this for ages since i could remember, along with my fellow guy cousins around my age, since we all kinda grew up together. i wonder when will the time come when we could retire from such roles and just attend weddings to sit on chairs and bum around like the pakciks and makciks catching all the glamour with the blings blings and indulging in endless chatter and order kids around. what with all the music blasting and hustle and bustle atmosphere common to a malay gathering or wedding. basically by automatic default all relatives of the wedded would be expected to contribute to the labour needed for such a grand scale occasion. not that i mind. just the fatigue that will set in the next day that's not looked forward to. its funny how you'll end up meeting or seeing people you never knew were related to you, and when introduced they'd go like "wah grow so big already when's your turn to get married." ummmm, not yet? of course there were plus points too. the eye candy was definitely there - invited guests, 2nd cousins from the other side, friends of bride/ groom, daughters of pakciks & makciks who you dunno how your connected to, etc etc. it kinda kept the engine going when you're sweating hard trying to clean the soot from the humongously big 'periuk' that were used to cook all the lauk and gravy and watnots. and the catching up and gossiping among us cousins who only get to see each other in like once every .. ummm.. big family occasion.

oh, and i really think that girls tend to look very nice and sweet when in the baju kurung. mebbe they should wear them more often la. seriously. there's just something mystifyingly appealing about that attire.

i just watched american beauty. belatedly. all i can say is, its a darn good show. lazy to elaborate la.

dammit how unlucky can man utd get? sometimes, being the better team on the day is of no use when you have no luck. look how scared shit assene wenger was when the match was going on. and they ended up going home with the FA cup. what a total bummer.

am not gonna be seeing the missus for the whole of next week's weekdays due to work. how sad is that. would not have wanted it if i could help it though. sigh.. hopefully we'll get to do something before then la.

relationships are tough, lotsa ups and downs, but i think that once you've hit the right formula, the efforts and sacrifices would have been worth the while i guess. there's always light at the end of the tunnel, but its going through that tunnel that's the difficult part. and its always easy to choose the side exits that are available along the course of that route, but what makes one sure that those easy exits are the correct paths to take? my belief is, to hold your head down, take a deep breath, have faith, and take the plunge. afterall, we chose to embark down that tunnel in the first place yea.

*ponders*

in the mood to reminisce..

i miss (in no particular order) ..

- my 'geylang serai gang' from secondary school. elf, sham lipas, erwin, mahadi, fik s/o samy, firdaus step, anis, willy. the innocence, the pranks/jokes, the growing up.

- the 3 months i had in Jurong Institute in jan-mar 1999. best education ever.

- the SA Malay people in my 99-00 batch.

- playing rugby.

- my NS pay. shiok sia.

- my fitness. and the capacity to run.

- sunday soccer.

- the old skool cartoons like transformers & visionaries.

- my once-toned physique. esp after BMT.

- the sugar cane juice in the old Taman Jurong market. best i've ever tasted.

- relief teaching. the money, the working hours, the experience.

- pegasus company in tekong.

- my loved ones who have gone before me.

- the gf. every day.

- playing Lego.

- taking public transport.

- my primary school kakis.

- the modules i took in semester 1 year 1. interesting & chicken dodol man.

- spending more time with the family.

- going for gigs.

- etc etc plus many more.

this list is by no means conclusive. just random ones that come to mind. sometimes i wish there was time travel, so that i could probably live through the experiences again. just for the fun of it. hahaha... how cool would that be. mite include more of them if i happen to think of any later on la.. cheerios.

finally managed to catch the Kingdom of Heaven. found it fairly alrite, nothing wow or that outstanding to it. plot-wise abit skimpy, would have been great if there was more focus on the crusades and jihad itself. for once islam was given quite a credible portrayal in the film, quite unlike the typical negative image most hollywood films give about muslims, arabs and anything from the middle east.

my next most-looked-forward-to movie is the upcoming final Star Wars instalment. yes yes for those unaware, i am quite a geek when comes to this. am trying to source for fellow fans to come watch it with me, though i'd probably be catching it 2-3 weeks after the release. kinda wanna avoid the crowd in a way la. hehe.. so anyone interested do ring me up aite..

hmm..tink i kinda misplaced my "angela's ashes" book. not too sure if ive loaned it out to anyone or not, cant seem to remember la. hope ive not lost it, for i loved the story so much..if it's being held on by anyone out there, do return it to me yea?

working at jelita last sunday brought me back memories i had when i first covered shift there last year. non-stop human traffic, difficult customers, rowdy rich kids, having to eat at the stairways due to absence of a proper store, enduring the mentel (cheeky) stares of the cashier-minahs at cold storage, etc etc.. was left darn exhausted at the end of work that day. but for money, i'll endure all that. *grits teeth*

hmm.. things havnt exactly been that smooth of late. i dunno why, but i certainly hope it works out fine.

"My tea's gone cold, I'm wondering why
I got out of bed at all
the morning rain clouds up my window
and I can't see at all
And even if I could it'd all be grey,
but your picture on my wall
it reminds me that it's not so bad
it's not so bad..."

realised that i was kinda all curse-y in my language about 2 postings ago. which i feel hinges along the parameters of harshness, and rudeness at the sametime. afterall, this is a family-friendly page (or at least i try to make it to be). so to readers who were offended, taken aback, shocked, displeased, or peeved on the strong inferences made by me to a particular female anatomy, i apologise. shall filter what i say next time aite..

had a good day with the missus today. picked her up after her work, got my complimentary frappucino again. hehe... been awhile since we bummed around and walked around town/orchard, though nothing much different from the standard stuff that can be done in singapore. eating, window-shopping, people-watching, gossiping etc etc. seriously, this country is darn darn boring. and for whatever there is that arent boring, they'd be expensive. its especially taxing on people like me/us who live on a shoestring budget.

the weather's rainy tonite. sleeping would be a blast. gd nite!

fatigue from incessant work + disappointing news + hunger = shittified end to the day

sigh.

it saddens me to see the state in which the Red Devils are now in, no longer imposing fear into the opponents and losing that ability to beat teams with relative ease. the swashbuckling attack and cavalier wingplay is missing, and they are now so defensive in nature and short in ideas when comes to breaking defences. what is wrong with you fergie?? tactics all koyak man..look at what mr. jose cockrinho and assene wenger is doing.. attack la attack.. even senor benitez is doing wonders at liverpool, amazing at how they matched millwall's 2004 achievement in reaching a major cup final. i miss the heydays of the 90s when man utd was in their prime. watching soccer was simply sheer joy. now watching man utd play is reminiscient to watching the singapore team play during the post-msia-cup, pre-casmir agu days.. utter heart pain.

my pay from last month was apparently over-calculated by 45 bucks. means i gotta return the amount to the fella who actually deserved it. damn. and all along ive been jollying like nobody's business. wat a cockup. those people in the finance department should bloody wake up their ideas man. cause inconvenience only, while getting big fat salaries doing a 5-day 8-5 job. and still cant get it done right. tsk tsk..

whats worse is that circumstances at work aint getting any better either. my work commitment has been questioned, which i feel was an unfair judgment made by someone who had barely seen what ive contributed all along, and im getting much lesser slots/hours due to the appointment of a new partimer. its a sucky feeling to be marginalised when despite me being a relatively seasoned worker, i get looked over in favour of the newbie in terms of working hours, which equals money. not only that, the stipulated hours ive already gotten keep getting revised without me getting informed way beforehand. cheebye sia. and there is even a tentative possibility put forth to me that i may get sent to another branch under this wicked witch of a supervisor to be reeducated and corrected in my ways. another cheebye sia. all these are pretty disappointing to me, having come from a colleague who i thought had known me well enough wayyyy before his promotion, resulting in such a jerkified reaction in him. triple cheebye man..

on a lighter note... hmmmmmm.. ah well there's none...

on the days that i dont hafta work, its been real bliss these days to have the luxury of waking up late without any sense of guilt nor regret. on average, i'd only be up and about only from noon onwards. haha.. and its especially great when the weather was like all rainy and cooling as the most recent sunday. shiok man..

somehow my pay from last month is depleting pretty fast. sigh. i know i should start saving up, but sometimes the expenses are just so unavoidable and necessary. 10 dollars these days can barely last for one day's worth of consumption. i worry how much higher the cost of living would rise up to eventually. one example, bus fares are supposedly going to be increased. which i wonder what the heck for also. i remember one report quite a while back stating how bus companies are worried when they experienced a percentage decrease on profits. hmmm... doesnt that mean that they are actually still enjoying profits and making money out of the public? so what makes them so worried? i dont have all the answers to that, but as each day passes, im somehow starting to get disiilusioned with life in singapore. as i read and observe and think, i realise that behind all these bright images of a meritocratic and fair and prosperous society that we have, its all diplomatic mumbo jumbo and bullshit. just look around, and if you pause for a moment and observe hard enough, i think its clear for all to see the loopholes and cracks that this country is afflicted with.

i realise that im starting to be more critical lately. i also dunno why though.

aniwaes, happy belated mothers' day to all mothers out there.

been working for the past 3 days, kinda getting back the hang of spending the day away at the shop and going back way late after closing. its quite tiring, coz ive been putting in more attention and effort at work, unlike during term time when my mind's more focused on essays, readings and assignments. really need to earn and save the cash, am pretty worried for the upcoming bike insurance renewal in september. plus am hoping that i'll earn enough to go for some holiday fun too.

aniwaes had a break today, and went cycling at east coast with the missus. twas nice with all the cooling weather leftover from the morning/noon rain. though i kinda spoilt the day abit by causing yan to have a minor accident while cycling. me, being the unwise prankster, was trying to scare her the novice cyclist by swerving in and out of her path. yes warped sense of fun i know but that's me. despite her pleas not to do so, i happily continued doing so until the point when her bicycle crashed into my front wheel. this caused panic, and left her trailing her right foot along the track. ouchh. end result was a stubbed bleeding big toe, and a couple of scratches/cuts near the metatarsal. ouchh again. yes i know it was vicious of me, and i felt bad for causing it to happen. im very sorry, for the inconvenience of pain, especially the stinging feeling when it gets in contact with water. please forgive my insolence yaaa... that aside, the outing was good. ate at komalas after the session, and ended the day with ice cream from mcdonalds.

i also took the time to watch "eternal sunshine of the spotless mind", starring jim carrey. its about the erasure of memory, and the selectivity of one choosing what he wishes to remember. underneath it there's also an underlying theme of a real sweet love story. you fellas should go check it out. another good movie that i managed to catch while at work (one of the perks..hehe) was 'hotel rwanda", which is based on a true story of the conflict between the hutu & tutsi ethnicities in the strife-torn african nation, and the kind gentleman who bravely took refugees fron both sides under his care in the hotel that he owned. a very sad, very depressing, but very enlightening story indeed.

the other day i heard something said on tv, by some minister or some government authority, which if i remember correctly sounds something like "...we are serious about being fun...". in my mind, i find it quite depressingly sad for it to come to a point where our leaders have to declare officially that they are actually serious in having fun. where's the logic in that? and for them to think that by legislating what funness is all about, it will make this country more appealing to the rest of the world? hahaha what a sad sad i idea i feel. the problem with this place i think is that it tries too hard to conform to preconceived notions of what modernity is all about. simply put, to them westernization = modernisation. look at the issue of the resort thingy. what a joke.

ok i think ive said enough for the night. gotta rest, work again tomorrow. cheerios..

no more nescafe & mopiko...

wokie im back, after the short self-imposed hiatus away due to the darn exams. its finally over, now comes the start of the 3 months plus plus worth of slacking, rotting, sleeping and waking up late, and watnots. not that ive not been indulging in them all along, but this time it'll be without the guilt nor worry. haha. though the expected euphoria of ending the exams didnt exactly materialise, the atmosphere's somewhat muted. the anticipation while looking forward to it was more of a bigger hoohaa than the actual end i feel.

here's a post-mortem of the papers i had:

1. history of malay world - tough demoralising start to the exams. the joy and fun of the module didnt exactly translate into the questions that were asked. bummer.

2. sociology of deviance - was very panicky abt this one. and the paper was kinda tricky. though somehow i came out of it feeling relieved. not because i was happy with my answers, but rather the fact that its finally out of the way.

3. history of colonial indochina - started studying for this only the day before, and without even doing the thickest pile of readings ive ever encountered. again, panicked like hell but it being an open-book paper kinda helped abit.

4. evaluating claims related to health - the module with one of the skimpiest amount of notes to revise, but the information loaded into them just doesnt help much at all. think i answered more arty than as sciency as it should. strongly unrecommended for those without any biology background. which i didnt exactly have myself.

5. social thought and theory - half the time my mind was thinking and theorizing about the stuff i can do socially AFTER the paper. was too bochap already, being the last paper. guess i kinda just went through the motions.

well basically thats about it. have a gut feeling that my CAP's probably gonna drop, and am kinda mentally preparing myself to take 6 modules next semester. that science module just give me the creeps man. aaaargh wat the fark.

aniwaes, whats done is done. and its all about fun now... hurrray!