Yucheng got 4 days of MC for his ingrown toenail, so he asked me go to celebrate with him, and he brought along his brother Yuqun who's now in Primary 5 (who hasn't changed in 5 years and is still boisterous and attacks me without fear of recrimination - kind of like Yangyang, actually).

As ever, his cheapskate ways persist. Not willing to buy a cup from the KFC/Pizza Hut/Taco Bell outlet, he was thinking of using a used cup we found on the table. He was scared of contracting Hepatitis, however, so he poked a hole in the cup, complained that it was leaking and went to have it changed. Gah.

We saw Treasure Planet. If this keep up, we'll run out of shows to watch :) "Cinema admissions. This being Singapore, I can't think of anything else people do socially." - Mr Reeves. Oh well. Maybe I'll go to the beach next time. The only comment I have about the show: I doubt the classical sailing ship is the most suitable design for space-faring vessels, and how come there's air in space?

The cinema was rather empty - I guess all the school students have watched the show already. There were 2 schoolgirls behind us who, even by the end of the show, had not managed to finish their nachos. Tut tut.

After that, Yucheng indulged me by waiting for me while I returned The Mists Of Avalon (which I'd just finished last night, in time to return it on its due date today) and I applied for my POSB Mastercard Debit Card, and I him by waiting for him and his brother to find the latter assessment books. Yeh. I can almost smell the Underachievement - the tallest blade of grass is the first to be cut down by the lawnmower - poster now! On a semi-related note: I don't think I've ever seen a male bank teller before. Bah.

At one corner of Takashimaya, there was this man dressed in subdued Magician garb and entertaining children (and also denying that Albert Einstein came up with the theory of relativity). Oddly, this show was called 'The Age Of Fun' and was modelled loosely after the Victorian Era - hardly an "Age Of Fun". And in keeping with the season, Giordano Junior's salesgirls are wearing white Santa hats with bobs on the ends. AHHH!

Along Orchard Road, 3 secondary school boys were making a fool of themselves, waddling like ducks while uttering weird noises, and then waddling back with their hands on their heads. One guy in RJ pants was filming them with a digicam, and 2 girls were looking on with amusement. After they'd finished humiliating themselves, they started scribbling on a worksheet which, on closer inspection, said "RICSC Urban hike 2002". Looks like RI, Raffles Guys' and RJ's Computer Science Clubs are holding yet another combined activity. Further down the stretch of The Centre Of Singapore, a girl from the Singapore Oriental Arts Troupe was twirling hula hoops around assorted bodily appendages... to the tune of Christmas carols like Frosty the Snowman. ARGH, the torture!

Brunei has really done weird things to Yucheng's stomach - today he had wafer ice-cream - the one in large blocks which the ice-cream man chops down to size. Three times.

At the two Popular Bookstores we went to, there was the usual deluge of assessment books. Actually I think writing them is a very simple matter that requires not much work and brings good profit margins. Maybe I'll write some with subliminal anti-propaganda messages one day.

While waiting for the twain to find assessment books, I got the opportunity to browse through some books on Social Studies, the subject which I missed having to do by 3 years. I'd already known that it would be quite bad, but I didn't expect it to be so extreme ; The parts on Singapore are fawning, sycophantic and obsequious, not mentioning Singapore's faults, while the "case studies" have detailed listings of how other countries went wrong.

Also seen in Popular Bookstore: In Quest of Excellence - A Story of Singapore Malays by Saat A. Rahman. The community must be really proud that they've a book to showcase their progress and how far they've come. Maybe they should make a book commemorating the progress of Singapore's Zoroastrians also. On 2 pages, the book had photos of 2 young Malay girls, with the caption: "These two young beauties". Well. One was ugly, and the other normal, but more importantly, none of them were modestly clad! None were wearing tudungs. Ah, the profanity! Call in the The Ministry for the Prevention of Vice and the Promotion of Virtue!

Twas fun seeing school students today!


A water pipe just burst in a toilet and as usual my mother is growling at everyone for unwarranted reasons. I wonder if age does that to a person. If so, it'd be better to all of us to end life at a young age - humans were not meant, evolutionarily, to live such long lives anyway.