Was out most of today, most rare for sad sods like me.

Some brief, light angst (sans dark colours, a lack of punctuation / capitalisation, repeated addresses to people with lots of 'you lah blah'):

Slimming ads always have the line, "your clothes fit better!". Obviously they've never lost more than 2kg. Without a belt my pants'd slip right off. Well actually they're not that loose, and I still have my paunch. Some section mates are heavier than me but look thinner, I wonder what I'm doing wrong. Maybe they have more muscles, which are denser than fat.

Back to the topic, all my nice belts have disappeared since enlistment, so whenever I don trousers I am forced by the exigencies of the situation to use the SAF belt, which is not that bad in and of itself but carries negative connotations and feelings. My stuff's always hidden because my mother cleans my room and rearranges everything, forgetting (deliberately or otherwise) where all my stuff has been shifted to and blaming my messy room for the lost items. Ahh - everyone's been there, done that. So I shan't dwell on that.

That wasn't too heavy anyhow. Back to the post proper.


High class hotels all seem to have the "hotel" scent. It must be sprayed to give guests a sense of comfort and deja vu.

I had lunch at the Mandarin's Triple Tree, where the Lobster Bisque has pieces of Lobster floating in it - a first for me. There was also this lovely crumble, fig I suspect. I still haven't mastered the art of dispensing soft serve ice cream, so the vanilla ice cream on top didn't look very good.

Driving past the School With The Most Indecent Uniform In Singapore Bar One, I saw no one with hair long enough to warrant tying up, even though they've had almost 3 full months to grow it long. This doesn't bode well for my future plans.

The time of the coven was shifted up from 3pm to 2pm, and we got an expected visitor after a while. The head honcho was, as usual, fashionably late, so I got to question Our Friend on the effects of tetracycline on teeth, and she claims it's her strong tea. Uncharacteristically, I was the only one in long pants, because of where I'd eaten lunch earlier.

Andrew Gan finally volunteered to give me a hug (after struggling whenever I ambushed him in school), but Kairen had to be caught. :) Ah what a pity, in RI, him and Allan used to come up and hug me.

Paul Foo, who was allegedly fired from his job at RI for some pornography related incident (I have no idea whether this was true, but if it is I doubt it was his fault) is now Kairen's brother's form teacher. Woo.

The cabby from Guthrie House to Orchard Road was very energetic and happy, apparently because it was Saturday. Kairen thinks he's psycho. "I'm a happy cabby. Just call me Mr Happy Cabby." - Mr Happy Cabby.

Weird things you hear: I hear Jasmine Kok got tipsy and stripped at some AC party. ??? [NB: If, as is usual, the party mentioned or someone who knows the party visits, there is no intended or implied malice or negative connotations, merely a stating of a weird rumour]

My section (or at least the other 6 who turned up - just over half of us were present) decided to go to Burger King for dinner. Kind of sad. Tze Li had a Whopper meal and a Double Cheeseburger. He claimed he didn't eat lunch. Joshua, who did, had an upsized meal and another burger. And you wonder why we're in Morbid Obsese.

Suspicious things are going on at Chinois Chinois - Lady patrons must be 18 and above, while Male ones must be 25 and above. Ahem.

The makeup BIC was done with Whiskey, so I was told by Nelson about the Whiskey Girls. Apparently of the 4, 3 can make it, and have female voices, while one cannot, and has the voice of a man.

I met the 4K group on another of their outings at Lido, after last leaving them just after 6, after my hitchiking with Mr Happy Cabby. As usual, Mr Ong was with them. I wonder how come he always manages to turn up, and how he's always invited. They got row Z, while we were at row N, markedly further from the screen.

This 13 year old was sitting on the crotch of the Ronald McDonald figure at Lido. Erm.

Poor Ken lost only 11.5kg, and he says he has to do a recourse because he's short of the target by 3.5kg.

We met this Malay from our company, with his tudung clad girlfriend. What bothers me is this: If she's pious enough to observe the tudung rule (according to that interpretation of Islam), why doesn't she avoid the greater sin of Khalwat? I didn't see any male relative of hers close by.

The Time Machine is based only loosely on the original. Hollywood requires: Love, English Speaking Foreigners and Climatic Fights. Bah.


Overheard:

[On Andrew Gan's white sleeveless top] I know it's really hot today, but every time I see you you're wearing that

[On me] He's excellent at quoting people out of context. You should go and work for SPH.

[To Grace on Mr Ong's friend] Do you know Mazit?

I'm not going to say anything that will result in me being quoted out of context.

[Covers Ho Poh Fun's face in the RJ Yearbook] See no evil, see no evil.

The only given when Mr Ong is around is he'll come and touch you.

Yesterday after debate, I saw my brother talk to some girl. It was damn sad.

I remember during OBS when some Chinese High Guy sprayed deep heat on you... I was Mobile... We were nearby... I heard someone screaming, I knew it had to be you, but I didn't know why.

Some guy's father called Melvin up and told him, "Can you stop hitting my son's balls?"... Every morning he'd take his pencilbox and whack Junxian.

[On CAP] They just go there to buaya, seriously lah.

[To Grace] Do you know when I saw you, the first thing I thought was, 'This girl looks like Shawn Ban.

Hi, I'm Albert. Want to see my Prince Albert?

You know that I finally found out that Gabriel's Dad's name isn't Camel?... I was deluded for 6 years.

[To Grace] Maybe you should marry Shawn Ban. You'll have smart kids who look like their parents and write really good cynical poetry.

[On me remembering the $25 debt] I hate your palmtop. I want to smash it one day.

[To Andrew on his neighbour] Why don't you wake up at 5, dress up and pose at the door. When she comes out, you can say 'hi' and go back to sleep.

I saw the ad: Miss Singapore Universe, it's not just a flesh parade. I thought of Gabriel. [Grace: Me too]

I'm going to poke you Gabriel... Wow, that works.

What's wrong with Hot Shorts? I like Hot Shorts.

Oh look, it's the [ugly] RGS girl and her, cousin.

My arms and shoulders still hurt from yesterday's torture session. Ouch.

Wow, my blog's come to life.

I come back after 2 weeks and I find that I've 822kb of mail from Screwed Up Girl. This might account for the dearth of (more useful or interesting) mail from March 15th to March 20th. I'm going to put her on my "blocked addresses" list very soon.

Puppy (who thinks she looks like a hamster) is telling me I'm mean for calling Screwed Up Girl thus, but I stick by my description :)

And Andrew Gan is planning some conspiracy at 3pm tomorrow at Guthrie House. Oh, the intrigue.


It's all my fault for following links!

I got stuck at this rather angsty page and got a big headache.

You ARE getting into the hang of Melbourne life - it took me a year to discover the Arts Center, and 3 years more to lose my wallet. I always knew you were a smarter kid than me:)

Have not being on much, because have been trying to play more computer games in my limited recreation time, as opposed to trawling the net in a desperate search for alternate employment. This is part of my new spiritual renewal plan of "karmic acceptance".

Not much job rant of late - it's been mostly training - fascinating (really!) lectures about bank frauds, cheques, cash handling, counterfeit money, etc. Today we even had a robbery simulation roleplay with pretty ferocious sounding guys with AK-47s. We were videotaped as doing "everything wrong" - allowing press on the premises, customers to remove cash, not sealing off the branch, etc etc.

However, I came across a *very* cool chop - "MUTILATION CONFIRMED". I mean, it may be something fundamentally, viscerally male but it is *IMMENSELY* satisfying to go around stamping "MUTILATION CONFIRMED" onto all kinds of things:) Procedurally, it's meant for damaged cheques, although there is *so* much potential with such a chop.....

Ah well.

Weekends seem to pass so fast... spent saturday on the phone chatting with people. Sunday was... church, then household shopping in the reject shop, then met melvin tay's friend for lunch. I didn't know how to recognise her, but she said to meet at Nike Melbourne and later mentioned something about the infallible "RI look" of all schoolboys from there. Also went to the asian grocery store- picked up green tea, instant noodles, wasabi peas. Now i gotta get a proper big pyrex bowl for instant noodles and other similar microwave-prepared foods. Bumped into aunty janet in chinatown- (i didn't even know she was supposed to be in melbourne~!). Went back and ... can't even remember what i did in the evening, suspect i didn't accomplish any work.

Monday was so not a blast... long school day, then while jiaming & co. went to watch gosford park (5 buck cinema tickets!) I went back for college tutorial. Someone stole my sandwich, so I had to bring a salmon roll to school.. classes! classes! Somehow "school" doesn't correlate to university. (if only it were the Unseen University....) Can't seem to remember what I did at night.... think I was reading pratchett's "The colour of magic"(octarine). Oh, now i remember... there was supposed to be friends on TV at 7.30, but it wasn't there... sigh sigh sigh.

Tuesday... wasn't that much better. Woke up, discovered my wallet was missing. Panicked. Panicked again. Panicked a handful more time before going to school. Spent classes in a panicky state, and left word with everyone I knew about my missing wallet. Last time i could remember using my wallet was to buy a rice ball from the second level vegetarian place in student union the previous afternoon.
Night: went to audition for the ormond play. Great fun, embarrassed myself totally over and over again. Won't get it though. Then went to com lab- got an email- my wallet had been found in melbourne business school dustbins by cleaners, handed to the school office. Went back to my room after being out of it for 2 hours, to find my father had left 5 messages for me to call him back in the last 2 hours. He also left word with chaowan, and tried to ring the com lab. About my missing wallet.

Wednesday: Rushed down to melbourne business school to collect my wallet. Apparently, my wallet and another lady's wallet had been found in the dustbins on Monday nite, devoid of money (mine was suspiciously devoid of my medibank private card as well as my photocopying card). Plan to file a police report.
Went for first field visit to clinic/medical centre. Outlying place called meadow fields medical centre (during icm, broadmeadows-the district- was discussed, and it was referred to as the "poorer place" as compared to Tourac- where bungalows cost $1m upwards), almost all the patients in the 2hour visit were elderly turkish men/women who spoke little english. The middle eastern doctor could also speak turkish, and was explaining a little abt the cultural sensitivities involved- e.g. headscarves, not shaking hands with the women. I asked if he was muslim as well, and he replied affirmatively. Not much apart from sitting down and (pretending to be ) looking interested in people speaking in rapid turkish to one another. I caught an "insya allah" and "assamualaikum" and "waalaikumasalaam" here and there, though (=.

Thursday: Woke up woefully late, arrived 15minutes into the lecture. Too woozy to wake up, and it was starting to get cold inside. Fortunately thursday's the good day- 1 lecture plus maybe 1 practical. Went to sarah's place for lunch (and got berating for not being A Nice Guy and offering to help wash up, =p ) then to prac. Darn. Forgot to
a) returrn books to rowden white,
b) file police report
c) see kitchen staff abt re-starting my sandwich orders
d) study as hard as the people around me seem to do.

Oh. And i just discovered blue/orange tickets are sold out all the way till 30 march. Hrmmmph. Grabbed lotsa brochures on the way back from vic arts centre the other day. Arts precinct is a great place- esp compared with the meagre touristy locales and artificial settings in singapore.

Andrew

For Everyone's Entertainment, here are some more Job Soundbites - presented in disjoint "paste from icq/journals" pastiche. Cull what coherence you can.

"...fucked up woman who wasted two hours of my and senior's time bragging about her 3 million ringgit condo."

"erm... there's this idiot bangala i mentioned also.. he can't write so he spent 20 minutes signing his name(he was just drawing out patterns.. like carving some mural)
there's the fairly cool security guard who used to work in australia. he brought in a million ringgit loan today through his contacts with this guy who's the local president of a gas extraction company..."

.."here was this one guy who said loudly : "i have a few million dollars in this bank and i will withdraw it if you don't fix this machine(Cash deposit machine)"

"the pressure is entirely from the GODDAMN FUCKING CUSTOMERS.
the assistant manager is even more stressed out than i am and the manager.. god knows what the manager is doing..."

"but will get pressure from supervisor soon.. because right now i am in the "learning" stage.. but soooner or later have to go hit sales targets and make sales reports..."

"basically i am a
receptionist +
secretary +
customer service +
bank teller +
financial products salesman.."

"every morning everyone has to get into a Cultural Revolution-style self-confession where they admit how many mistakes they made the day before.."

"wah lan.. the people.. GOD
some indian guy actually threw a brochure at me just because he couldn't understand what it was saying despite trying v. patiently to explain to him..."

"and yesterday had to deal with this customer trying to bail out her husband from jail..."

"...not to mention being the de facto receptionist/secretary for all the back room staff and other officers..."

"....i must've said "XXXXX bank XXXX branch speaking how may i help you?" at least 200+ times today

"....today manager called me to talk to her - she sort of scolded me for missing a business meeting(because we had gone out to meet a client who WASTED TWO HOURS OF OUR TIME BRAGGING ABOUT HER WEALTH) - then told me that my sales targets were not that important, not to worry abou t it, yada yada, concentrate on deposits and loans(because those are part of the BRANCH targets)

then regional PFC supervisor called me and pretended to be a customer to test my "skill".. then she gave quite a lot of zhai sales tips to improve my technique.. then reminded me : "hit your targets ah??"

then assistant manager today told me to learn more about branch operations, don't be just too focused on sales, help out the back staff a bit.. when everyone else has been telling me so far to concentrate only on your duties because have no time to do anything else..."

"...anyway, today my senior was nearly in tears because her transfer request was turned down...."

"On tuesday, at this ther branch i was temporarily assigned to, another PFC was begging the regional PFC supervisor(who took me there) for a transfer in front of me.... it's very unnerving to see that, particularly on your second day of work in that line."

"*shrugs*
it's not all bad
i get to run credit checks on people:)
and i know a bit more about my relatives' financial state than i did previously:)..."

"...today we met a client.. a loanshark..
his office is so disturbingly like what you imagine a loanshark's office to be from the movies that i almost thought that he copied it off some hong kong movie.. (the barely occupied shoplot, the unmarked stairwell, the gray, smoke-hazed office, the fishtank, the "chinese organisation" banner, the guan yu altar, the smoking henchmen lazing around, the fat ta ge at the desk with a video screen attached to a closed-circuit camera aimed at the stairwell)..."

"... I should add that I was thrown into work sans training. That's right, you have to question the sanity of any commercial bank that allows someone with my sloppiness, near-illegible handwriting(even to myself), and utter contempt for humanity into a position where I have to deal with people's financial transactions. No training, no familiarisation. Simply a "show up at work on Monday" order, and I was immediately herded to my desk and instructed by my *very* frazzled superior on how to open accounts, all the while she was fending off her own horde of customers..."

Had a conversation today with a friend - an interesting insight was shared. Any comments on the matter?

"Have you noticed how ang moh porn tends to have guys with pretty good physiques and well hung dicks(even if they're ugly), while asian(particularly hk or jap) porn tends to have guys who either look damn geeky or are fat old ah peks?"

My friend's theory:

"angmoh men know where they stand with their women... equal. chinese men always want to show that they are boses over their spouses or partners.... guys with small dicks or generally old fucks in those shows tend to give the women (if they watch it together with their partners), a sense of: 'if that old fucker witha tiny dick can get sucha pretty girl, i'd better be nice to my hubby too!' get it?"

My own $0.02(most of what I said was too lurid for depiction on this PG-13 blog, but here's a choice soundbite):

"And i guess it tells the males that it doesn't matter if you're an old fuck or a fat fuck; there's an akira fubuki somewhere waiting to suck your digitally obscured cock.
It must be a cultural thing though - i've rarely seen any asian female domination porn before - and a lot of it is mostly in a "ghost story" kind of context."

And the word of the day is "fluffers"

"They are cocksuckers who help pornstars get an erection before going into the shot. a lot of them were used in the 'annabel chong' record event."

To Andrew (Tan not Gan): "rational utility maximising decisions as they pertain to human sociological interactions." is a possible research topic/anti-Deepak Chopra go - if you're still interested.

Went for the Grand Prix last Sunday. Fantastic ambience - and was thankfully seated right in front of the first corner where Montoya clipped Schumacher immediately after start-up. Pretty good stuff - not to mention the absolute lack of fan support the so-called "Malaysian F1 driver" Alex Yoong recieved. (The Petronas-Sauber cars performed a lot better, and were a lot better received than the pathetic Minardi team). Also enjoyed idle speculation during the Malaysian Air Force flyover about the prospects of a military coup d'etat, missile fire into the box seats(which I didn't get this year, thanks to declining corporate sponsorship), and being amused at the large number of old rich guys with young stewardess-lookalike women.

We were overtaken by a TVR Chimaera and a Maserati Merak on the drive home. Although, in a freak twist of joyful malice, it started raining, and we soon spotted the poor bastards in the TVR huddling under a bridge fiddling with the convertible roof while about 15 other motorcyclists watched them in amusement, and probably contemplating some ad hoc banditry.

Anyway, on to today's golden moments at work(orientation training at the main branch in KL). The ride into town really made me appreciate the luck I have at being chauffeured to work.

Today's Golden Moments.

"but the account never changes.. it's very nature.. you know.. NATURE."
"erm.. do you mean NEUTRAL?"

"if you go from 0 to 20 that mans you increase 200%" (if you can't figure out the two horrible mistakes with this sentence i hereby revoke your sentient status)

"(COMPANY NAME) is not tan sri XXXXXXXX but rather the combined sum of you employees..." (AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAH)

watching the cartoon from www.whomovedmycheese.com and trying to resist from alternately laughing out loud, pointing out the various moral loopholes of the story, and throttling my instructor with the XXXXX corporate tie. not to mention resisting that our function at XXXXX is more to add to the XXXX family's overflowing cheese station rather than find out own "new cheese"

learning the 7 habits of highly effective people in malay("menajamkan gergaji")

being the ONLY overseas graduate in the whole orientation group

listening to the cheerful internal audit guy tell us: "we don't beat you up or cut your hand and pour salt in it.. but we have psychological techniques and our staff are trained in interrogation... so don't play play." (he also had some good stories about fraud cases - particularly regarding people who escaped)

Participating in asinine exercises involving throwing balloons around - which tied into quality management through some arcane syllogism that eluded my comprehension.

Constructing 3d representations(origami!) of the corporate culture(my group did a very lopsided cottage that resembled a "old-fashioned kampung toilet")

Noting the utter absence of any attractive females in the group

And, to Dan, Vernon, Jason and the rest of the happy 350 PYC people, there was a half-hour talk on "synergy". I now understand why you guys hate me so:) I repent of my sins:)

Also, they described their Global Industrial Master Plan - or GIMP. The importance of GIMP 1(domestic) and GIMP 2(regional) were highlighted repeatedly(in the typical corporate power-point presentations with lots of fancy colours, bulleted buzzwords such as "innovation" and "continuous improvement"). Clearly the corporate strategists at XXXXX have never watched Pulp Fiction. Or else they have, and this is their twisted way of revealing just what the company represents to them.

And, in a final, utter act of blackest hypocrisy, the last talk was on the importance of "spiritual" and "mental" well being, the importance of making deposits into your "emotional bank accounts", the need for constant psychological renewal, and a touching, tear-jerking expression of concern: "We don't want you to die for our company." (Yeah, because they can wring more labour out of your breathing, work-sated, barely mobile zombified form. And avoid life insurance payouts.)

I am now convinced that the HR/Training departments of organisations worldwide are participating in a massive conspiracy to use cutesy phrases, self-help books(there was a whole session on @#%@#ing Covey's Seven Habits of Highly Effective People), one-shot animated parables, inane "teambuilding" activities, and repeated pep talks as a way of breaking the spirit of the working man. Since the baton and chanting of Maoist slogans have gone out of popular fashion, this is a more terrifying and insidious way to destroy you as a person. And after one day, I can say that I'm almost ready to break.

If anyone calls me on the phone these days, my instinctive reply is: "good afternoon this is XXXX bank, XXX branch how may i help you?" in a breathy, telephone-audit-passing, optimistic, "smile-on-your-face-which-can-be-percieved-by-listeners"(a theory propounded during one exercise in practicing our phone habits - probably through some mysterious and little understood kinaesthetic process. Oh, and the phone habit exercise is part of the organisation's efforts to have customised greetings from all staff members.

http://cmc.mcg.edu/childlife/schoolage.htm

Hi i know this is a violation of blogger expectations but i just logged out of everything and i need to keep a copy of this hyperlink to visit for preparing presentation (which i suspect i'll end up doing the whole of anyway) so i can print it out in uni, darn printer in comp lab in ormond doesn't auth me

Hmm.... what if someone in Ormond somehow finds this and reads it.... ah, heck. Floor dinner on Friday nite, sally told me on my way out and got a note under my door. Walked a fair distance to Brunswick st, to this funky place called Hideout. Done in pastels and bright colours, and lots of lavender purple. And decor was sorta girlz "phuture london" line.

Would have had a v. boring time if this senior and i didn't start talking on the way. A 5th yr eng/comp. sci student, from hongkong, big Big soccer fan. The girls were chattering away, 5 guys went along. It was supposed to be BYO but the restaurant didn't allow byo. Hmm. Then one of the girls who had a bottle asked if she could leave hers in someone's handbag. Then all the girls indicated their tiny handbags/baguettes.

I almost burst out laughing on the street.

The only other fresher around looked pretty bored, hardly spoke at all. And viewed his burger with the same sort of apprehension and distaste a student views exams. Might have been because one of the seniors was talking abt how his working stint in a restaurant turned him right off catered food, because of the level of hygiene and other things going on in the kitchens. Then he went on abt having large drinks since the morning.

Finally excused myself at 8pm, thereabouts. Called jiamin but the farewell dinner for tingru was over, so i missed that for this. Made my way down to north dining hall, union house for OCF. Which was good; vyu kien was going thru the "OCF (vision) = cell group (ditto) = you = me " which isn't exactly self-explanatory. Verse for the year is Eph 5:8 (ephesians only has 6 chapters, silly me)".

Ephesians 5:8 For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light.

Then cell time, word on the Great Commission, sharing abt Serve. Signed up for the easter camp, 28 to 31 march. Well, that's another weekend taken care of.

http://briefcase.yahoo.com/muocf1/
Hi. I'm supposed to be studying, so I'm just putting this up. It's melbourne uni's Overseas christian fellowship briefcase of documents, haven't really looked at it yet.
Basically yesterday I went for floor dinner (partly a disaster socially), then OCF nite (lasted until 12.35am).
Then Woke up to phone call from concerned (but very sleepy) father who woke up at 5am to call me to confirm some details and also to be sure i was "up for school". Reminded him that it was saturday, but at 5am I'd find it hard to ascertain the day too. Tried to call brother but he was out, and he left a msg saying he had just got back home and was going straight to bed.... will give him a wake-up call tomorrow (sorta "passing the buck"!) Lazed around, went for a run, chatted with melvin's friend on phone, spent almost the whole afternoon on the phone with wanyan (who is leading a very exciting life now). Did some studying. Trying to finish up readings now. Wanted to go to brownless library, but by the time i was off the phone it was 20 minutes to closing time.

Gabriel are you back from tekong??

As I logged off, a perverse notion suddenly prevailed upon me. Of late, I have had only two deities - one of which is the love of my life, and you know who you are(skiing in the Alps, bloody hell!). Without your radiance, I could never get through to lunch, let alone the day and all its associated emotional and psychological encumbrances. And to my other deity - Amusement - who still favours me with Its largesse, often at the most unexpected at times - a moment of homage. And that ends the requisite "mad propz" encomium to my religion:)

It seems that blogger has issues with my account.

*Yesterday's* post didn't get through as well, so from now on I'm going to backdate all my posts by a day. It's rather sian, but I haven't got a choice, and it does give me some time to polish them up for readability. In any case, today I was oddly deprived of inspiration- in fact I could sum it up by saying that the dreaded sianness has begun to descend. I actually found myself, today, while drivng to work, thinking that I could get *used* to this job - when a week ago every moment of commuting was spent stewing in a maelstrom of self-contained convection anger. It's congealed into this deadening, numbing, ambition-killing stoicness which highlights more than ever my need to change careers. In any event - on with yesterday's entry.

Yesterday's (Ed: which actually turned out late by a day due to certain technical errors last night, and some creative re-editing, as was this one) entry actually proved to be remarkably entertaining, as well as a good way to blow off steam after work. In fact, I was so inspired that today, I went around scribbling points that I intended to include in today's diatribe. However, the cuneiform patterns on the dog-eared scrap of paper I had used for this task has proved rather tricky to decipher. This is, at best, what I can read:

Topics

Tan Ah Kow competition
the guerilla of finance(catharsis)
importance of literacy(murals, signing, ATMs) ----> joy of writing
danger of CTOS(!!!)
Islamic banking -> ethical considerations
quoted Dune egregiously - water-rationing
solicited sycophancy VOC

Alright, so that's a little vague. Permit me to clarify.

Firstly, the Tan Ah Kow competition refers to a perverse idea that occurred to me while indulging my morbid curiosity. It turns out that there are no less than 52 separate Tan Ah Kows - all different people!- holding accounts with my bank. Who let the Kows out?? (okay. BAD BAD JOKE). It may say something that 46 of these appear to be born before 1955. But seriously, who knows what other @#$^ed up names might reside within the database? Should anyone be so inclined, leave a few potential candidates in the comments section, and I'll see how many I can dig up from the database. If this was a radio show, there might be prizes, but it ain't, so there ain't, save the potential for entertainment. Which may be the biggest prize of all.:)

Secondly, perhaps my natural adaptive instinct is kicking in, but today, instead of the usual waves of crippling despair, I felt this odd, god-like sense of omnipotence as I basked in the glow of being an integral cog within the economic life of society. Granted, the removal of this one cog doesn't do the machine much damage, but I was struck by the sheer.. *dependency* some of these people I deal with have on me, and the institution I represent. A person applying for a home loan could have his dream home turn to ashes if I raise doubts about his income consistency. The old geezers who depend on me to help them read their passbooks and write cheque deposit slips for them are placing their economic convenience squarely at the mercy of my perverse whims. Of course there's only so much damage I can do before I get fired and/or prosecuted - but I can do a *hell* lot of damage. And if I want to be stealthy.. security in the bank is rather lax(except when dealing with cash, obviously). Simply "misplacing" some of the credit cards, cheque books or ATM cards we issue everyday could deal untold trauma to the people who need them *immediately*. Believe me, I've seen enough pissed-off customers whose accounts didn't balance or had unexected charges come up, only to have that rage multiply when faced against the quality of customer service I provide. Or, if I *really* want to be evil - I could just go into some of those accounts and modify their addresses:) A lot of people wouldn't get bank statements, notifications of late charges, etc... and imagine all these bloody furious people going around and taking out their rage on all the people around them. As Crowley from Good Omens puts it: "The knock-on effects were incalculable. Thousands of souls all got a faint patina of tarnish and you hardly had to lift a finger." I could be the guerilla of consumer finance, dealing damage to a public as vengeance for my pain. hur hur hur. *snorts like a pig*

Thirdly, it's so bloody important to be literate. I have people who can't read(no kidding) insisting on an ATM card, and then, when faced with the bold new concept of PIN numbers, they put on the same face I do when anyone tries to talk to me about sports or shopping. Not to mention their anguish when asked to sign their names - I had to deal with this Bangladeshi who inscribed his name into the form with the steady precision and meticulousness that it took Michaelangelo to carve the Pieta. And, much like the Pieta, the symbols that emerged are meant to be a representation rather than an actual use of language. So we be glad we can all reed n rite end speelll rill gud n stuf.

Fourthly, boys and girls, NEVER EVER get on any of those international or national databases of bankruptcy or court records. EVERY little transgression in your life these days is certain to be filed and documented somewhere, somewhere where it *will* bite your ass someday when you least expect it. I've seen grown men's faces crumble when we dig up a past bankruptcy hearing from the CTOS database(which maintains a local listings of all bankruptcies and financially-related court orders) and have to turn down permission for a credit card or an ATM. Imagine what *other* databases are being kept on your littering, unwanted pregnancies, and taxi driver conversations.

I'm a hell of a lot more tired than I thought I was, and in hindsight, the other topics I've earmarked don't really seem *that* fascinating after all. So I think I'll wrap it for tonight, and go to sleep basking in the warm glow of mediocre, Pepysian glory and the satisfaction of a day well-bitched.

*Cheers again*

Apologise for the hanging "And" in the last entry- Daniel (Chaowan, as his acquaintances in singapore would know him as) pulled me out of com lab, lessons were starting.
Forgot to mention I went to watch Neil Simon's "The Odd Couple" (female version) when i was in singapore. Arrived late because i left late, plus the bus was stuck in an orchard rd traffic jam. And there was a traffic block at wisma for a strange reason. I ended up taking off the bus near heeren, walking down to the mrt to take it one stop to dhoby ghaut, then running up to the drama centre. Traffic was crawling.
Someone in the stage club must have some neil simon fetish- i remember them putting up the first "the odd couple" and barefoot in the park recently.
Lighthearted comedy- dialogue was funny, the two female characters were flat (and i don't necessarily mean in stature, then it would only apply to the skinny one). Sorta bordering on american sitcom-ish "beverly hillbillie" girl teams up with "friends cum ellen cum frasier " type generic gen-x yuppie-working-in-media. Lotsa laughter. But there were two spanish brothers with irritating accents and even more irritating stereotypical behaviour, like, do-oh!!

Anyway, that came to mind because blue/orange is showing here, as is Lifex3, and i was trying to think of pple to go watch them with. But a lot of the bunch i'm close to here (made up largely of singapore/malaysian 1st yr meds.... awful aren't i) are watching their purses/wallets closely. I don't dare ask albert, he practically counts every penny (not that it's possible, 1 cents don't exist, apparently this Other kid from singapore bought some stuff at $2.99 and was waiting at the cashier for 5 minute for the one-cent change). And all this is making me edgy 'cos i feel like i'm squandering money away every time i make any purchase.

Got a reminder to study so returning back to my room. Ciao.

Here's yesterday's entry.

Will follow with today's entry shortly after (damned blog errors)


I realize that yesterday's brief rant of bitching actually served as an emotional novocaine of sorts to my beleaguered soul. Strange, but it goes some way to explaining the Adrian Moles and the Bridget Joneses of this world. So today, I have decided to provide a somewhat experimental foray and test run a series of observations, some of which border on bitchy, others of which are just plain abstruse.

Now I could outline a straightforward "bitch" narrative in which I complain assidously about the horrible drive to work, the need to go against all my habits and gorge myself for breakfast(because I'm never assured of time for lunch), the public and the constant source of wonder I derive from their inability to read the words: "CASH DEPOSIT MACHINE" or "CHEQUE DEPOSIT COUNTER". (and to some of you, I already have done this, and more, over and over, until your "heads grew heavy and your sight grew dim." bwahaahhah)

However, I shall unleash a fusillade of random points. I actually catalogued a few observations I expressly wanted to gripe about today. So here there are. uh huh uh huh. ooh yeah. shake it baby.

a) The toilet has a generator in it. It is the only toilet I have ever seen with a fully functional gasoline generator just in front of the toilet bowl(there's just enough space
to stand in between the bowl and the generator to perform your ablutions). I find that highly fascinating! A generator! In a toilet! (it's the bank's back-up power supply, for the congenitally thick)

b) There are two security guards there. One is an amusing, garrulous, scoundrel type who has lived in Australia, reputedly has contacts with some seriously wealthy Malay tycoons he met while abroad(he alludes to the camaraderie of Malays overseas as a uniting bond that transcends classes), is fleeing a court order against him(in New Zealand) for unpaid debts, and a felony suspicion, if his highly suspect stories are true. The other has only said about four words to me since I started work, wears blue-tinted sunglasses, and carries the shotgun.

There is a certain *rightness* to things that the guy who talks the least carries the gun. I have to come call him Silent, as a nod to the wizard from Glen Cook's Black Company series(the inspiration to the computer game Myth: The Fallen Lords and a rattling good yarn for fans of comparative morality:). I once remarked to Silent. "Funny how Hasan(the talkative guard) yaks so much and you never say anything and all. It balances out." He sort of smiled. I'm not sure if it was a polite, meaningless smile, or a flash of true Zen appreciation. I shall probably never know.

I might add that Hasan has formally told me that if a robber ever comes, at night, he'll be glad to help him load up the ATM machine into a truck. He claims that him and Silent are there for purely formal insurance purposes. As he put it: "The security company and the bank have a back-scratch deal with one another. The robbers are another story. The police are YET another story."

c) Today we had a meeting. I actually planned to say a LOT about the meeting, but once again, the raw seething waves of hatred and self-loathing and hypomanic fits seem to have faded somewhat now that I'm at home, and well-fed, and looking forward to watching some VCDs before I head to sleep. All I shall say now is that, if I liked Scott Adams' Dilbert work before, I am now *living* them. With the pointy-haired manager, Quality Initiatives, surreal office politics, and all.

d) Actually, at the meeting, our assistant manager(ABM) was pointing out that my branch is legendary for the numbers of complaints, etc etc. And unfortunately, a lot of wealthy golfing partners of our managing director seem to have chosen our branch as their whipping boy in conversational topics over the fairway. AND this is despite a lot of informal commentary that we provide some of the best service among branches - although formal complaints are the ones that get filed. When the ABM was assigned to a ulu suburban area, he said he received abuse, threats, scoldings, in greater amounts than we do here.. but only one written complaint? Why? Because, he said, in cheena areas, they can't be bothered to write in.

Unfortunately our area is kind of like Holland Village, with yuppies, expatriates, the nouveau riche, restauranteurs, hairdressers, small(but wealthy) businessmen, and these people all LOVE to bitch. Formally. In letters that get attached to our personnel files. I had to restrain an insane urge to orate sonorously: "The evil that men do lives on after them, the good is oft interred with their bones."

e) And, finally, a word of kudos for my ABM. He's cynical, mean, swears a lot, smokes like a chimney... but cares for his staff(us poor sods). He had a bad hiatus in Singapore for a few years, and has emerged the equivalent of the broken down, contemptuous, hard-bitten lieutenant in a Verdun trench who constantly prods and holds his staff together through sheer force of will. He gives good advice, when he isn't swearing at HQ, the cheque clearers, the credit card department, our manager, the customers, and any of our obstacles at work. He is the linchpin of our "us against the rest of the damn world" esprit de corps that infuses my colleagues.

*Cheers for The Associate's "gems"*

Am in the med comp labs now... iMacs here are all in teal..... one of my favourite colours!!
Tuesday was,... well, tuesday. Lectures (studying chem s pays off .... enzyme kinetics, organic chem 3-D structure, stuff like that). And yours truly betrayed his blur roots... missed my tutorial at 3.15pm (i thought mine was at 4.15!!). Attended the 4.15 class instead.

Attended a college tutorial- first biochem one. The PhD pharmacology student conducting it claimed she spent her afternoon in UBar, and that would account for her tipsy behaviour. She was, like, out of it, totally, and well still managed to go through the stuff she prepared, but just barely. Had problems pronouncing "pyrimidine". I'll have to check out which tutorials are coming up... could have skipped that one.

Sheila's in australia!!!! (manic whoooping, gleeful noises) Now if only i had some way of contacting her....
And

thank ye, o pedantic one, for the help with placing the 'comments' thingy on my blog. while html is still comprehensible, i can't manage javascript to save my straying soul. in the same vein as the associate, mayhap you'd like to explain why you relish unleashing your dieting anecdotes in greater frequency than i do of my own? taking into account the perception that i'm an airheady neurotic-consumes-only-celery-sticks rgs gep type, that's rather alarming, innit?;)
retaking your gp's an excellent move, but you might like to spell 'diarrhoea' accurately first:) [Ed: di�ar�rhe�a also di�ar�rhoe�a (d-r)
n.

Excessive and frequent evacuation of watery feces, usually indicating gastrointestinal distress or disorder.

[Middle English diaria, from Medieval Latin, from Late Latin diarrhoea, from Greek diarroia, from diarrein, to flow through : dia-, dia- + rhein, to flow, run; see sreu- in Indo-European Roots.]diar�rheal or diar�rheic (-k) or diar�rhetic (-rtk) adj.


Source: The American Heritage� Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright � 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.]

BTW, it's spelled Moomba, the bar in Collingwood is near the McDonald's(can't remember EXACTLY where), and Brunetti has the most divine Italian hot chocolate on the planet bar none. Brunetti's is located on Swanston Street itself, right opposite the part where all the trams terminate - it's on the University side. Just before the overpass from the Physics building.

1984 was written in 1948. John Nash's work in the Pentagon was in the 50s.
The book was already extant then.

I've never really appreciated the therapeutic value of sharing your most intimate personal feelings with a diary, let alone publishing that diary for all and sundry on the net. Still, at the repeated exhortations of friends who keep telling me I have related enough experiences about it to write a book("oh god stop already stop just make it stop go write a book or something") - there ARE some interesting observations to be made. And it IS oddly cathartic. So here's today's little gems

Putting work into perspective:

Succeses to date.
a) Learning to tie a half-windsor knot for my tie. This is no mean feat considering that for four years in secondary school my school tie was only tied twice by my mother, and subsequently hitched and unhitched every week; only retying the knot ONCE after Sec. 2(lost the tie in canteen). And in university, I got away with clip-ons and bowties whenever occasions demanded a cravat of some sort. But now, I have to tie a tie *everyday*. And now I know how. (thanks to http://www.bizweb.com/tie) Cheer at my triumphs! Bask in my glory!

Failures to date:
a) Everything else, from having a hideous job, to having a hideous life.

Okay, that bit of bitching made me feel WAY better about myself:)

Monday: Lectures started at 8. Breakfast at cafe notturno's (delightful iced choc) with the bunch, lecture and tutorial in the afternoon (irritating teacher in tute, hardly had any idea what was going on) then watched a beautiful mind. Fantastic!!


Tidbit trivia:
When jon nash finishes his business in the pentagon, he looks up and says "who's big brother?"
* The term "big brother' only came into common use after orwells' "1984", so, ha-hah


The little girl holds a Dr. Seuss "Green Eggs and Ham" book for dr. nash to read to her; i doubt it was written by the 1970s.


Check out the changing hairdos of the main characters and extras over the years 1960s to 1994.

Andrew gan

Collingwood: My type? What's the bar?

Wanted to give gabriel a call (i got back to my room at 4.30pm Singapore time), but unsure at that time if he was available. Ah well.

Stingray's one of my favourite dishes! Provided it's done well. Actually I just like all sorts of food with seafood quite high on my list (my parents cook quite a lot of it, my dad comes from a seaside town with lots of iodine in his diet)

Ah, discovered I was practically the last one to find out about tina tan's catwalk aspirations. According to sarah she's gotten into the finals (20 girls); general opinion is that she's somewhat chio but her glamour photos in the press don't do her mug justice. Oh, and danny finds the whole thing highly amusing. I probably shouldn't elaborate lest I offend anyone.

Games day was fun! The first game my cell group ("Pluto") went to was next to the pond (used to be a river, but most of it dried up) and there was this pole erected 20m from it, the pole had holes drilled into it and a piece of styrofoam was stuffed into it; objective was to ferry water from the pond (smellier than septic tanks and all kinds of lower life forms) into the poles via 3 plastic cups, to force the styrofoam out. Involved most of cell group stuffing their fingers into the many holes in the pole (muffled cries when jets of water shot out from the holes in the pole into pple's mouths). Rest of them were more unusual stuff- boil an egg in the middle of a circle 6m in diameter without stepping into the circle (tie the egg, mess tin, and the mess tin containing lit solid fuel to string on both sides and slowly lower them into the circle), modified hopscotch, and throwing a tyre onto a 5m- pole and getting it off the pole again.

Mumba festival This weekend, so the few of us ("1st yr meds? Soo exclusive"-lu-fee) arranged to meet for dinner and mumba after games day. Was suppposed to meet albert, then meet up with the rest of them. Albert turned up hafl an hour late, then brightly suggested getting one large pizza (each) to eat on the way. He didn't know intersection cafe didn't do instant take-away, we ended up waiting for the pizza to bake. By the time we got to the river, fireworks were over, and his handphone batt died. So we couldn't contact the rest, then decided to head back. Only we missed 2 buses in a row, and the buses came in 20-minute intervals. Got back at eleven plus.

But i didn't mind. Really. Pretty sure i'd been thru worse, somewhere in the 2L era of 1996-1997. Or in 2L revisited- 1998-1999. Plus, I had pizza (=.
And in case u got the wrong idea, nooo i didn't finish the pizza by myself, called my friend to help me finish it. Neighbours on my level were all out.

Sunday was brunch day (brunch is simply delightful- all kinds of things, large spread... rudy suggested i go to the 9am service instead of the 11am one since brunch is 10.30 to 12.30) eating food made me late for church (though i ate pretty little). This is weird. My life shouldn't revolve so much around food and its consumption.

Sermon on the brother who asked Christ to arbitrate in the inheritance dispute with his brother; "riches on earth"; building up relationship being paramount;.

Then i bumped into my mum's friend, who insisted on bringing me to her apartment for lunch. Her 2 sons are studying in melbourne, so they had a 2-bedroom apartment right in the city all to themselves; she and her husband and a 12-yr old harry potter/WWF maniac daughter came down for the school holidays. Ate delicious home-cooked bee hoon, roast chicken, chicken curry, some kind of omelette. And lovely peaches. And lazed around their place all afternoon. (Ouch have a backache today- think it's because i fell asleep on the couch in their place)

Sunday nite was spent in the comp lab on icq, blog, email.

I have to go back in less than 2 hours time. Oh well. At least I got 1 1/2 days off due to my diarrhea (ouch).

Well let's consider the homosexuality of your rants:

"My previous Body Shop Jasmine Exfoliating Body Wash just drains away." [Ed: Lavender and Ylang Ylang are just not for me]

"Ahhh! I hate jumping down from such heights..."

"Apparently everyone, even mild mannered sorts, come out of Slavery spouting vulgarities. I am the only survivor, though unclean thoughts (of this nature!) sometimes trouble me. I think I will survive this assault on my sensibilities though!"

Plus the fact you went for SAF MDC auditions.....

If the shoe fits, you cannot acquit.

[Ed: I am more amused than anything (comments in this league rarely faze me) but re: http://gssq.blogspot.com/2001_11_01_gssq_archive.html#7263853 in which was quoted:

"you seem to have a distinct mortification for sexuality - a quality shared by quite a few serial killers... i was reading through your blog - and a recurrent theme in our conversations and in your epistlery - there's a not-so-subtle misogyny and resentment of female sexuality - the abhorrence of "flesh parades" and "hot pants" {Ed: It was hot shorts actually}, the general veneer of distaste for anything that heightens adolescent sexual attractivenes... the proliferation of calling people by these little soubriquets
it's vaguely schizo - you're disssociating yourself from these people, giving them conceptual labels.

might i add how psychopathic it is to pick up scrunchies and hairbands..."

There was some more about how it was like the priests who molest little boys because they're repressed, "same thing, different degree" and that it was a symptom of my repressed sexuality. There was a lot more, due to the fondness of our proto-psychoanalyst to be, but my ICQ history got corrupted, so.

So which way does it swing? A secret liking of Flesh Parade-rs or a secret desire to participate in the Sydney Mardi Gras {I hear it's quite magnificent. I must go have a look, soak in the atmosphere one day}.]

The Associate informs me that cohabitate is a word. And searching for it gets 3000 over results on Google. Well. Oh well.

The 2001 Batch of Raffles Guys GEPs had a better lit (elit I presume, I don't think they have clit there) average than English average. Weird.

I intend to retake my GP. It's ignominious, on paper my English/Logic is shown to be as bad as my Chinese. Even if the certs can't be combined, it's a matter of principle :)

There are just too many seafood stalls at Newton Hawker Centre. At least 8. Probably because of the high profits you can earn by selling Stingray.

Apparently "The Tick" is now a Live Action TV Show. I never really understood that one.

Apparently a RI scout came earlier in the day and asked if there were any jobs to do. My sister gave him some chocolate cake.

That day Chinx went back to RJC in his Combat Boots. Actually they didn't look too bad, they go quite well if the pants cover the top of the boots. But astute people like me can tell the dark secret hidden underneath the cloth...


"you DO know that your army rants are horrifyingly gay.

not as an insult - but they're horrifyingly terribly full of repressed latent homosexuality."

Yeah baby.

Had a rockin' weekend. First welcome nite by Overseas christian fellowship, rudy was telling me abt it a Looong time ago when he was in 1st/2nd/3rd yr, siew min said she'll bring me along to the meetings. Arranged to meet sarah/jiamin/albert at student union first at 7pm when it started. Had to wait until 7.25pm for him to arrive (grrrr) but jiamin and sarah were telling very funny stories abt rgs/rjc, abt orientation n stuff.

OCF welcome had worship, youth-service style (2 keyboardists, worship leader, 1 acoustic guit, 2 basses, 1 drummer) and they connected in their own amps, hillsongs and others. Announcements about their upcoming activites (games day the following day, easter camp, all sound fun, going for them), introduction, welcome of new members (i stood up but ushers didn't give me a file. Hrmmmph. I can't be That short. ) OCF is mainly singapore/malaysian chinese, more the former. I mean, they even have holiday meetings in singapore! And there's OCF melbourne (melb uni and RMIT), OCF parkville, OCF branches for monash and stuff. And vyu kien (sp?) (whom i discovered, was the chair this yr) warned us that ocf wasn't a replacement/sub for any church, we were expected to go to church on sunday. Most ocf-ers i heard, go to the glen waverly one with a v. good speaker, or to ACCF the cultish questionable young people's one, or to swanston st church of christ (met esther there).

Then a pastor from a church in the city came up, short message on quiet time. Passage from gospel of John where Jesus went to the mountains to pray by himself without telling anyone. Then broke up into cell groups; siew min suggested i and albert and yew ngie join hers. Rudy's also in it; we've got a cell leader Emily who's very nice, got to know one another, covered some bible study material.

Friday nite, I signed up for the games day on saturday 'cos i couldn't sign up earlier during the recruitment drive. And turned out tentatively not enough transport, i may not be able to go. Past midnight emily called me to say i could (they rented a van for the day to accommodate, aside from the bus and the other cars the uni students drove).

Games day on saturday- went down to Allfit campsite out in the bush; really hot but quite fun. Ran around, station games, got all wet and dirty, will blog more later, gotta call sarah and tell her Tina's in the running for ms singapore!

Andrew gan

BTW. We don't eat food cooked in palm oil, unfortunately, for the most part. Palm oil is a necessary ingredient for making certain types of soaps and emulsifiers, so you can sort of say that we all bathe in it.
Andrew - there's a bar at Collingwood where they'd just LOVE your type. Thursday nights, man.

Harrowing incident on thursday nite.

I missed dinner (took a long nap in the afternoon and unless u put yr name down earlier to reserve a packed meal in the fridge, they clear away all the food by 7pm. A lot of food goes to waste). Anyway, esmond and cindy and see siong and william were going to town, asked me along. Took a tram frmo swanston st. Then these group of drunk punks (reaaal purple haired-mohawk) came onto the tram spewing vulgarities. Next thing i know, one of them was glaring at me and tried to lick me. I was sitting right at the front of the tram and the tram driver wasn't intending to do anything. He ended up licking my ear. Twice. GROSS. Anyway, i was traumatised for the rest of the nite and went to wash my ear over and over again.

I'll never venture out into the city at nite alone ever.

Hi, oh-gosh-haven't-blogged-for-a-week is back, Lessons started monday (and everyone keeps on asking how the first week of school has been, it's Reeaaaally irritating but i won't scream) all just introductions to this and introductions to that. Kiasu singapore students copying down what the lecturer says about "there are 3 types of muscle; skeletal muscle which is striated, cardiac muscle which is only found in the heart and smooth muscle, which doesn't have striations or clear bandings", like, we'll be going in-depth into all these until you'll be sick of histology soon. Aniwae it's all easy easy stuff which doesn't reflect the rest of the course at all (2nd yr onwards, medicine and physiotherapy school terms start 2 weeks earlier than everyone else because of the amt of coursework to finish)

And i got my mantoux test again. Worrisome, on the 2nd day the red spot where the antigen was injected ballooOOOOoooned to a whopping 20mm (9 to 15mm is safe). Which means i may have residual TB (i've never gotten TB before; have mild asthma). And i have to go for an x-ray. Ah well, at least i'm not particularly scared of needles (a girl who shall remain anonymous was asked by the nurse to have a lie-down after her injection in case she fainted; another anon. boy decided to whack another anon. girl on her mantoux skin test spot until hers was big and swollen, girl was asked by the nurse if "she was abused or had been the victim of abuse")

Re: SAF MDC auditions
Ha! No more dismissing modern music or dance!!!!
Ah well, you have the consolation that even among the pple who audition successfully for it, quite a number won't want to join eventually.

The Associate would like to say this to all and sundry, in between his hiding in his attap house and partaking of food cooked in palm oil:

It's been a long time since I posted. And some of you reading this are kept reasonably informed on the current anguished status of my existence, which has taken on fever pitch of late.

While you can get all the gross details off Gabriel - he was the only person online when I needed someone to talk to, unfortunately, and thusly I furnished(bombarded) him with a great deal of goss.

To sum up:

a) Am working now in a bank.
b) I deal with people's money despite having no training(absolutely no training - i was posted to a branch to start selling unit trusts, opening accounts, processing loans, accepting credit card applications on the first day), poor handwriting, outdated computer systems(P-166 with 32MB of RAM - which isn't so bad. but the software linking to the bank's network is KLUDGY as hell. running a credit check on someone has never been so difficult), clients who think they're God, and a typical cheena firm. I mean cheena - every morning we have to undergo a Cultural Revolution style self-denunciation briefing where we outline the mistakes we made the previous day.(eg. the tellers describe the number of casting/entry errors they made, i outline how i mistakenly issued a passbook for a wrong account, etc etc...)

Let me highlight this - when we open accounts for customers, we have to fill in these forms. and then stick these forms into printers that will print some reference data on a blank space. Now, the printers are aligned for the latest form layout.. but our branch has been instructed to finish using all of the OLD forms first(a few hundred). and so, the computer printed stuff gets printed onto this space occupied by text and lines, and we have to squint like fuck to make out what it says for reference.

Although it's not an entirely painful experience - it can be reasonably interesting at times. Yesterday I met a client, who, let me euphemistically put it, was in the high-impact, high interest informal-debt collection/provision business. I feel safe to describe this encounter here, unless he happens to surf the net and have this page bookmarked, in which case the constituents of my body will soon be in several garbage bags. He wanted to meet us to refinance a house that used to be in a joint account but was now transferred solely to him. (hmmm)

A man came to pick us up at a gas station(probably to make sure we weren't the narcs.) As we entered the office, some thug locked the door behind us. His office is so disturbingly like what you imagine a loanshark's office to be from the movies that I almost thought that he copied it off some hong kong movie. It was in a barely occupied shoplot, with no signboard, at the top of an unmarked stairwell; and the office's decor had all the cliches: the gray, smoke-hazed miasma, the fishtank, the "chinese organisation" banner, the guan yu altar, the smoking henchmen lazing around, dumbbells scatted on the floor, the fat ta ge at the desk with a video screen attached to a closed-circuit camera aimed at the stairwell, and a huge slash scar bissecting his arm.

Quite a nice chap though, I must confess. As my senior pointed out: in our line of work, "the customer is always right" - in HIS line of work, "the customer is always wrong." Guess who has a happier working culture.

Bookout Post:

Restored Post

We were weighed last week and I gained another kg, to 90.5. I've since shed that kg, so I think I've gained back the excess weight I lost during my bout of flu.

While at Kilo for the weight review last week, I surreptitiously bought a can of "Rich and Creamy Mug no caffeine Root Beer". The sample can in the machine was actually A&W Root Beer but this was not bad, though I do prefer A&W. Rich and Creamy Mug Root Beer is creamy and froths in the mouth. It has a slight sourish tang, and I detected a slight metallic taste - maybe it's just me, or because it's been in the can for a while. There are some strange ingredients - "purity gum, quillaia extract". The drink tastes more artificial than that of A&W, but Miranda Root Beer takes the prize for artificial taste! Yeos actually cans 3 types of Root Beer -A&W, Miranda and this Rich and Creamy Mug. Two timing?

Trench digging sucks. I don't know how much rougher my hands are now. Luckily though, I got Roy as my partner and the help of my sergeant. Even though they did the lion's share of the work, I was exhuasted. But Roy was very nice about it - "I know you're trying your best". I feel quite bad. This reminds me of my TCHS OBS Sea Expedition partner, who did most of the paddling. Another nice chap.

The day after Trench Digging, we had the 12km route march. I think I'll concuss on the 16km one, seeing how bad 12km was. During the first 4 km, we sang a lot of songs. On the 2nd 4km, the number of songs dwindled and on the last leg, we were quiet because we were too tired. How people motivate you during your route march - "You've done 4 click already, don't waste it!" or "4km to go only!". And if people want to fall out nearer the start, they'll probably go, "it's only been 2 km and you want to fall out?". So it's a no win situation, you never get to fall out :)

After the Route March, our Last Parade was at about 5pm. Someone had brought in a VCD of a Chinese Gongfu movie, so a lot of us crowded around and watched it. It's been a while, so I'd forgotten how funny (both intentionally and unintentionally) and impressive (all those extras standing around) Chinese Gongfu movies were. And impressive too. This one had many jokes inside, but too bad it ended unresolved. Apparently a sequel was to have been made, but it never was.

I've come to the conclusion that the biscuits they give us in the field rations are actually very good - crisp and tasty. But I think we've eaten so many, we're sick of them.

The best way to do 5BX - go into a training shed, turn off the lights and shout loudly.

One sergeant's bored of shouting "thousand" for warmups. So he moved on to making people shout "thousand" in other languages. Then one day he made us shout vulgarities instead, and "confinement" was not accepted :)

Taurus has over 70 OOCs and Charlie, 55. Well done.

The Honeydew Cordial they give us sometimes in the cookhouse is a vile colour - dark green like dishwashing liquid. I wonder what the makers were thinking.

Our sergeant was so tired of people exposing their underwear when they run that he imposed a punishment of 10 pushups for doing so. Heh.

I think I've seen maybe 1 or 2 cockroaches on Tekong so far. Weird.

The first aid dressings they give us are all expired. And we're expected to carry them everywhere (even when booking out!). Bah.

I don't know why people love to set their alarms blastedly early, do everything and go back to sleep. It's okay if you're the only one affected, but I'm the lightest sleeper in my section and the one who wants to wake latest.

I was pondering one day after calling us "sad sobs" when I realised that "sob" was not "sob" per se, but "s.o.b". So I've just insulted myself and my lot (and this was not the only time too). Oops.


In the end, I *was* attached out for the SIT Test after all. I did it with Hawk, which meant that I saw all my old RJ friends. My section was warning me about how bad it'd be, but it was actually quite okay. Hawk's a 'welfare' company, while Bravo's a shit one, so that explains it. One fallout from the first Sit Test confirmed that ours was much easier. During the Bravo one, they slept at 12pm and woke at 6am. We slept at about 9 one day and 10 the other and woke at 5:30. Also, we didn't have to double to and from stations. Maybe it was partly due to the fact that we were in "Platoon 5" so we didn't get knocked down as punishment.

I was in Andrew Tan's detail, which meant I could finally get answers to some questions I'd been meaning to ask. :)

A suspiciously disproportionate number of the people in the Mineclearer job were those from Gryphon and Delta who'd been attached after they'd missed their Sit Test. Ahem.

Apparently field rations taste much better if cooked, but we're too lazy. And those who did start fires all cooked Instant Noodles. Oh well.

The Delta people tell us they have a billards table, table soccer and a King of Fighters 95 machine with free play turned on in their Recruits' Mess. Oh well.

Lucky Calvin's No 4 nametag says "Calvin" instead of an ugly "K W Chong".

My section mate convinced me to fill my powder bottle with Prickly Heat, so during the powder bath, my body was aflame. "My balls are on fire" - someone.

We used our bayonets to open coconuts to drink the water inside (and those who were game scraped the meat to eat). Mmm, they were good.

Being obese has its advantages. Me and the other Gryphon guy were excused crossing a ~2.2m wide gap ~3.4m above the ground. "2 and 7, excused" - Assessor.

Andrew Tan cursed (albeit softly) 'lan jiao' when he fell into a hole. Ah, not even he has escaped the depredations of the army.

I think taking S Papers makes people speak in English. Few people chattered in Chinese during our Sit Test. Too bad it doesn't make them enunciate the "th" sound.

More ways to detect officers: The buttons at the end of their No 4s when they are in Long 4 mode are not buttoned tight.

The Sit Test actually reminds me of OBS in some ways, the "overcome this obstacle with your team" business. I'm very bad at "Knots and Lashing" so I couldn't help much with lashing logs to each other. Oh well.

One sergeant speaks with a quite pronounced American accent, but he slips into a Singaporean accent every few words. He also couldn't pronounce some more complex words, and he lamented that his English had gone to the dogs. I wonder if that will happen to me (sans accent).


We were late for our 12:30 boat. I was the one who most closely followed the timing given us (most of the rest went to bathe and came down late). The sergeants kept playing with a football in the company office, and some people didn't march properly so we were slowed. To add insult to injury, someone changed the channel on the TV in the fastcraft to Channel 8, and we saw soldiers doing the SOC and the flying fox (is it called that? The one where you slide down a rope holding onto some wheeled thing). Later I heard Lee Hsein Loong (on the radio) saying "National Service serves as a rite of passage". Right, that rubbish again. You might as well brand everyone, that'll be a shorter and less painful rite of passage. Oops, we have 2 BCGs already. Ahh you can chop off the tip of everyone's left pinky, then.

Apparently a rule is coming down in BMTC saying that resetting of pushups is now disallowed. I leave a wake whereever I go.

I think Going Back To Camp Syndrome intensifies sadness. I felt very lousy about my dismal showing on Thursday.

Some people try to encourage or congratulate me with things like "You're a man now" or "Men don't cry", but they don't realise that this has the opposite effect. It's really irritating.

Another irritating thing is this person who loves to not do things properly, eg moving in the file (a LOT), talking loudly in the file and doing pushups improperly when we're punished even though he plainly is capable of doing proper pushups. Yet, he's the first and loudest to scold "jee bye" when others do likewise. There's another person who's been on unofficial excuse for at least 3 weeks, skipping all the physical activities. Apparently his back hurts and he's afraid of getting Out Of Course, but it is really unfair to the rest of us.

Royston my buddy has OOCed. Most sad, with us having 3 weeks to go.

More sexism: We're freer nowadays since we've finished all our major activities, so I finally get to read the Straits Times everyday (excepting weekends when it doesn't come). In fact, I think I read it more often now than before I went in. Anyway, the Booker Prize winning author Arundhati Roy was jailed for 1 day to "show the magnaminity of the court and reflected the fact that Roy is a woman". This is disgusting.

All of us are excused the SOC station, the balance beam, where you high port (a term no one can pronounce! It always comes out as "i pod" or something) your rifle walk up to head level on a beam and then walk across precariously on a winding beam and then jump down. Yeh!

Kilo has a weird chant while marching: "Kilo, Stylo, Milo". I am flabbergasted.

Arms drill is painful. The foresight tip keeps digging into my right shoulder. Ouch.

2 of us were bundled into a rover after our Endurance Training run to help the sergeant buy Prata for the instructors. Too bad we didn't have any money (I had $1 in my slingbag but I didn't bring it down - pity's me!). Mmm, prata.

People keep calling the sling bag "shu1 bao1". I suppose the habit's ingrained already.

An explanation one sergeant gave for vulgarity use is that they are sometimes so frustrated with us that using vulgarities is the only alternative to physical abuse. Apparently when he was a recruit he felt the same way as me too. Well.


More information on the RJ female officer cadet (not all verified):

- she's a councillor
- "she like went directly to ocs.. in tri service now.. so she has one white strip.. soon we will all have to salute her.. : P"
- "They are applying for SAF overseas merit scholarship....
and thus have to do 10 weeks basic training.....plus OCS"
- "just so happened that Xiao Qing (3F)... applied for it.... in fact... the girl you saw in army garb is prob xiaoqing...."

Just in case said person visits this page (one of the disadvantages of my infamy and the grapevine), I think there's nothing wrong with joining the army. But I'll have to salute you soon.


Quotes:

"Do you ever get the feeling that you aren't sent to [the] Army, you're sent to a Boys' Home?"

"I have a very low respect for RGS girls now"

"[Me: The woman {there} looks like a man] Woman, where?"

"[On the coconuts we were drinking from, presumably from the trees growing beside the sea, which was the peeing are] You know where the water come from? It's from your pee. You are drinking 30 years of recruits' pee. (comes)"

"[On the disgusting things JC guys do to girls] They shave the girl, they cut the girl... They cut the girl while shaving."

"[On his SISPEC 'award'] Mine is rusty bayonet."

"[On my GP] Yah lar, B4, you must have insulted some religion... How can he get B4?... Too cheem already... Maybe he [the marker] was watching a soccer match, "fuck lar", B4"

"[On sand being kicked up] Jee bye, this place becoming like desert already (is becoming like a)"

"[To me] The Hawk people, all the same frequency as you"

"[On the fruit bars we get in our field rations] I went [to] CGH [Changi General Hospital]. I saw, buy 3 [at $1.65 each] get 1 free. [The free one was] Mixed fruit... We throw them away everyday."

"That's how I understand Tamil movies... First the boy and the girl will start dancing. Then a hundred people will pop up behind the boy. Then a hundred people will pop up behind the girl... Then the boy and the girl will dance around a tree... They will go to a vegetable market... The man will have a big belly and a moustache"

"[On wrapping towels around the body at the bust level] I find it very hard to breathe. I don't know how you stand it"

"[Before we booked out on the 7:30pm boat] I say again, cookhouse food not very healthy, eat less, later book out and eat."


"I don't deserve this award, but I have arthritis and I don't deserve that either.
Jack Benny (1894 - 1974)"

I happened, just on an off chance, to check the PSC application website and I found that the essay (if I deign to submit it) is due on the 20th of March, which means that if I want to apply this year, I'll have to do it by tonight. Right now I'm leaning towards sleeping.

Anyhow I'm locked out of the site for a while because my modem lost the connection and 'multiple login is not allowed'.

I've sold out!

This morning, Kairen asked me to accompany him to the SAF Music And Drama Company auditions. So I went. While there, I sung in my natural voice and had to perform a dance routine taught to us. So much for my making fun of Flesh Parade! And my dismissing of modern music.

Dance is actually very tiring - the warmup along was worse than 5BX and we were all panting and sweating by the end. And my natural voice has appalling range, and it still feels awkward to sing with it. And Weiyi came down to audition too. Ahh I've surely lost :)

Well, all the other people were so much better. At least it was something different to do for one afternoon. And I met my old Chinese Tuition classmate Alex Er, who's in Delta. His voice is very subdued now, and he is not the boisterous person he used to be. The travails of slavery!


As is usual when I book out, I've been feeling sick. There might be an explanation for this - apparently some people are intolerant of water from The Isle of Doom.

I hear there's this guy from Leopard who went mad. Ouch. Looks like my rants and ravings aren't altogether figments of my imagination.


My Brother in law has abysmal taste in music. Right now he's into German Industrial Rock, where their instruments include rolling barrels filled with ball bearings and chainsaws. Their singing makes them sound like they're on drugs. Then again, they probably are.

Apparently Evil Cult sucks even more now! Maybe when TBS returns it'll pick up.


Look who's in the running for Miss Singapore Universe! Wah.

Bookout post (up to 27/2):

When last I left, I went to the East Coast for dinner. While there, I saw a girl in pink floral berms, which went past her knee. I believe this is the first time I've seen floral printed bottoms which are so long!

Restored Post

There was a screwup on the first Monday. They ran out of food [the disgusting Chicken Pau and Lor Mai Kai], so we had to wait while they fried sausages and fish patties. Even at this stage in my life, I am called "Xiao3 Di4" :) They are very wasteful in the cookhouse - they throw away the end parts of loafs, the ones which no one wants to eat.

One of the tastier soups that the cookhouse brews, which does not taste like plain water with pepper and/or msg, is the one with pork bones and salted vegetables and is a bit sour, and which I like, incidentally.

My section made comments about the soft toys (of sorts) that I brought in. I've been sleeping with them every night for a while now - a rabbit, a leopard and a rainbow coloured bear, the first 2 given by Screwed Up Girl and the last by my mother. The latter 2 are Beanie Babies (which my section mate persistently calls 'Beanie Bears').

People like to chatter in Mandarin, but it does not mean that they have a high standard of Mandarin. In fact, I daresay I am better than some of them in that language. Incidentally, my brother-in-law's mother thinks that my Chinese has improved. Gasp.

We had a very interesting Stand By Rifle. The sergeant walked in and asked "Whose weapon is clean?... Those who never put up their hands, go and carry on 20" and then walked off.

I've noticed that no one curses in Malay or Indian languages. The most they go to is "bhuto" (whatever) and since that means idiot, they aren't actually cursing per se, but just scolding someone. Why this is so is a mystery. Another mystery in the area of cursing is why people like to curse "chee bye" but not "lan jiao". I think no one curses the latter except for my Platoon Sergeant. My theory to explain this distribution is how I explained what "lan jiao" and "chee bye" were to Huijun and Huimei when I went back to RJC during Chinese New year - "lan jiao" is what they have, "chee bye" is what they want".

When people 'borrow' soap from me, they always squirt out a lot. Usually, the amount they take to wash their hands is more than the amount I use in a shower. My previous Body Shop Jasmine Exfoliating Body Wash just drains away.

The bias towards women and children, and by definition, against men, that pervades society irks me sometimes. Males are always deemed inferior, or more worthy of blame. I once watched this Channel 8 drama serial where there was this "ethical" killer who proudly proclaimed, "I don't kill women and children". More recently, and what sparked this paragraph, the Commentary column by Asad Latif on 25/02/2002 quoted this woman on why she'd saved some Bengalis as saying, "Because they were women and children". I don't really understand why men are seen as evil (for lack of a better word) and women and children are innocent and free of blame. All are tainted by Original Sin, and I don't think women and children manage to avoid adding to it along the way.

And someone finally used the word "column"! I was sick of hearing "rows" when people meant "columns", then one night the sergeant said, "form up into 5 columns". However, he still issued the command as "bergera kerkiri ber tiga tiga" when it should have been "ber lima lima", since tiga means 3. Oh well.

Some sick guy was leading the marching song, and he changed "As the cold wind blows" to "As my girlfriend blows". Eww.

We were forced to watch 'Defence Watch' again, and they were showcasing the soldiers in East Timor. They showed one giving biscuits to a boy. It was the rations from the field rations. We were all quite amused at his apparent generosity.

The bookout criteria for the 3 obese companies seems to be quite similar, at least for running, something like 14:00 for Delta and 14:45 for both Bravo and Gryphon. This is really quite unfair since the Gryphon people are maybe twice the size of the Delta people.

Occasionally, we get this thing called 'Birds' Nest Cordial' at the Cookhouse. I wonder how much Birds' Nest there is inside. Maybe it's 1 PPM (part per million).

We have come to the conclusion that our dear Bunk Cleaning i/c Chee Hwa is obsessed with Bunk Cleaning. You should see the fire in his eyes when he says, "Do your bunk cleaning". The passion and the drive are unmistakable.

A few beds down is Tze Li. Unfortunately, he OOCed about 2 weeks ago, a really bad time to do so, because our course is ending and knowing how long the SAF takes to post people out, he'll probably be here after POP. Poor him.

One really disgusting thing is the way people's shorts and trousers keep coming down. Maybe it's because we've lost so much weight, but whenever many people move, their shorts ride down, revealing their underwear. For some people, their instincts have been honed to the point where their hands will subconsciously tug at their shorts to reveal their underwear the moment we are free for extended periods of time. And sometimes people even deliberately pull their shorts down.

If people try to cheat during Water Parades by drinking less water, they are made to drink more water, as a punishment. This really isn't appropriate as it will instill a dislike of drinking water into the recruit. A vicious circle thus results.

For a week or two, Platoon 1 had an interesting rhyme to chant during water parades, after reciting the 7 SAF Core Values as part of the not-so-subtle indoctrination scheme. It goes, "Drink water good, drink water good. Don't drink water get heatstroke. Get heatstroke, you will die. Then your whole platoon will cry. XXX days to POP!".

I am told that, even after 12 weeks in BMTC, I still bounce when I march. Oh well.

OC night was when the various platoons put up skits about our BMT life. Ours featured Khairuldin and his infamous jock strap, and had someone imitating him ironing his Smart 4 after Lights Out, wearing just the jock strap, while donning webbing for the light the torch afforded. And then someone came by imitating one officer (who was imitated in all *4* of the skits) who was rather perturbed by the sight. Of course, no evening would be complete without a cross dresser, courtesy of Platoon 4.

One of our sergeants decided to be funny, so on two occasions, he made our file contort while marching by issuing, alternately, the "empek kiri" and "empek kenan" commands.

I realise that there's one person whose voice is rather like En Ming's, especially in the way he gives commands.

The rest of the bookout post will be posted after I return on Friday night, since it is now 1:38AM and I am tired.


Quotes:

"[On why I should have scanned the RJ yearbook and not the RGS one] RGS secondary school right? The girls haven't develop yet. (is a secondary, developed)"

"[On Taiwan] You will go there and fight with the people there... You will suffer through sleepless nights, 4 days. That exercise is called R&R."

"For those of you who want to sign on, you can compare it to marriage. Why marriage? Because it's the stupidest thing you have done as a man. (will have)"

"This is my first obese batch. It's been one of a kind. The smell also is one of a kind."

Observations on my (second) return to RJC:

Sister on the RJ girls she saw as we were driving in: 'wah lau, look at those girls... Like convent girls'. The number of people with the A03 look and the A03 behavior seems to increase every year actually :)

There was some female officer cadet with 1 white bar (wah). Quanxing said it was michellle seng or something. Apparently she was from Science. Maybe she's the RJ girl I heard was in Whisky, one of the 3 Whisky girls.

Even with a shaven head, red jacket was still in his jacket.

Howe was in school uniform, the only one I saw who did so, even though I did see some in a RJ T-Shirt and their own shorts.

Odd things one sees: 1 Canteen having vending machines from 2 companies. Apparently they're trying to set up a competitive market, inasmuch as a duopoly can be said to be competitive. There was a machine with a picture of a Pepsi can on it, but which strangely did not vend Pepsi, with the price of its drinks as 70 cents. Across the canteen, the F&N machines vend drinks at 80 cents a can. In the arena of Asian Drinks, the Yeos machines are placed near the ones vending Heaven and Earth drinks.

I do wonder what the students of RJ, being rational consumers, will do.

Ruxin was talking to the school servant. She's one up on me! I chat to canteen vendors (even fierce ones like Monty's Auntie Mary) but she talks to the servants too. Hurrah! :)


Tim got 3 As too - a B for F Maths, and a M for Maths S. Otherwise (and for Chinese) he got a perfect score. What a disgrace for a professed lover of Maths :)

Okay, I did say I wanted to practice essay discipline, but this disparate collection of thoughts really can't be congealed.

Today we got our A level results.

Indulge me a bit.

Hearing my mother's lecture just now, you'd think it was the end of the world. Hearing her ("you don't want to do what I say" - on taking History), you'd realise that she has a plan for my life all mapped out. Right now she's urging me to apply for a place in NUS before they are taken. Looks like her dream of me becoming a PSC OMS scholar like my brother-in-law (ahem) are wrecked (awww). Sometimes, I wonder what's the point. Is boasting to your friends really so important? Or projecting your ambitions on your progeny?

Studying at an Overseas University (hopefully prestigious) is something that the top echelon of Singaporean students desires, nay, expects. Since my parents can't (or won't, as for my sister) pay, this means that I'll have to sell my soul (but I'll be damned if I sell it to the SAF!). Right now it seems the worth of my soul has gone down a few notches, and seeing how bad I am at interviews, I'm probably at the bottom of the heap :) I really don't mind NUS, but it seems likely that Overseas Education is nice.

Hmm, This sounds like it's going to degenerate into an angsty post. In fact, it already has, but it'll end here. The heavy stuff, that is. No more, no Sir.

In the end, I did the same as in prelims, more or less - 2 subjects improved by one level, and 1 deproved by one level, so there was some slight improvement.

I actually had a (rather low) lower bounds of expectations - 3As, a B for history and a B3 for GP (and nothing said about the S papers, for which the intellectual stimulation was reward enough). Now I have missed History and GP by one grade each (letting Yortsin down doubly in the process!). Oh well. Well, at least my name's on the green board as one of the top 587 (or so, of ~850) in RJC! I will now go and kowtow to all those who got 4 As. At the risk of appearing condescending, I will voice my respect for Seng Pou, who got 4 As, who persevered in doing 4 subjects despite being adviced to drop Computing.

Perhaps this shows that there's something wrong with my writing :) My essay discipline is horrible, as is my organisation. Perhaps worse, I tend to have a style of writing which irks the hell out of some people (probably not frequenters of this humble establishment, too). It also didn't help that I used the imaginary word "cohabitate" instead of "cohabit" for my tract on why marriage is not feasible :) Mrs Chan, my GP teacher, actually said she expected an A1 from me. Oh well, there weren't any A1s in her form class 3S06A anyhow.

Ah, hell, I screwed up my essay on why the idea of one partner for life is not workable. Perhaps a peril of choosing the 'interesting' question, or one in which I have personal interest. Now that I think about it, that was one weak essay. Ah, the benefit of hindsight. Maybe I need to blog more, and not post incoherent posts consisting of one sentence paragraphs based on notes scribbled furtively during slavery. Or stop pouring thoughts out of my head one by one like in this paragraph :)

Many people were surprised by my History results. I have no idea why people think I'm good at History. I might know a thing or two about Hittite culture, or appreciate the significance of Shang 'Dragon bones' but writing an essay is really quite hard even so. Knowing random facts is good for SAT II (800!) but doesn't really help for the A level paper.

My sister actually suggested that I retake some A level subjects. I might just do English (Literature) for the hell of it, and write quirky [and marginally correct] stuff that will come out in the Examiners' Report but earn me a fail grade. Hindi would be fun, but be totally out of my depth. But then, most Private Candidates don't do well. In fact, most of them don't even attempt the paper - my basha mate during the SIT Test told me that he was drunk for most of the papers of the 5 subjects he took as a private candidate.

Oh well, when's all said and done, as my revered senior Eugene (now a storeman who books out everyday, a job I would love to have, though a CMPB job, even being the guy collecting urine, would beat that) said, in a few years, I'd not care or remember my A level results. " im sure u dun talk a lot abt o level now do u? =p". Whereupon I related the exchange I had with Quanxing (who might be reading this now, and who took offence at my mentioning that he owed me money but *still* hasn't returned it):

In 2001...
Me: What did you get [for O levels?]
Friend: 8 points
Me: I also got 8... A1s
Friend: Fuck you, Gabriel.

But then he beat me this time, so I guess we're even :)

Some people love to put disclaimers on their pages saying "this is my page, so if you don't like my style, get lost", but I think I shouldn't torture my small but loyal following (yes, they do exist, I'm not deluding myself!). So I will strive (but probably forget) to follow essay discipline, as preached to me by The Associate (who has gone into a leaky attap hut in the forest to meditate, presumably).

Apologise for the bad english in last line of last post- getting incoherent there.
Got back to melbourne on sunday nite, went over to chaowan's [Ed: Who was listed as a 'perfect scorer' on the RJ noticeboard, one of 41 I believe. Loraine and African are in there too!] room again (seems i spend precious little time in my own room not sleeping). Went down to gym- gosh was a whole week since i last trained. Slept.

I'm incredibly grateful to Ben Tan, senior student in ormond college, for helping me out around the college and miscellanous stuff. Including how to get to the airport and back, and emergency phone numbers. Wonderful fellow. First encountered his presence when I espied a nametag on his former room that said "These quarters belong to Benjamin Tan" in a Very Familiar font. I would have just walked away if not for other Very Familiar logos, namely the Babylon 5 Fan club logo and the Psi Corps logo (this one you should know, it's the greek letter "psi" that looks like libra, the scales)

Monday was the first day of classes- lectures mostly. Hung out mainly with the other asians i knew (seriously think i should be less introverted and mix around more with people whose home country's national language isn't malay or bahasa indonesia!!). No scandalous gossip yet, (well, at least none i *care* to share). Today's monday nite, so ... Oooh I went down to the student union library and took out 3 terry pratchetts!!! Soooo excited, just started on The Light Fantastic. Apparently the creative arts students are putting up Wyrd Sisters in april (one of the girls in ormond is acting in it), will catch it then. Student Union library also stocks dvds/videos to rent!

Oh Wutien if you're reading this, is there any way to get around mp3/icq/irc restrictions on the uni network? Oh right, there *is always* a way.

News update: Gabriel (known on Balderdash as agagooga norlan) told me abt ICQ lite, at
www.icq.com
or
lite.icq.com
that is a web version of ICQ- a new window opens as a column on the right of the screen. Ah well, have to build up contact list from scratch. Send andrew messages if you're online!

Next morning and the day after were more orientation games- ditto, ditto. I drenched myself running through the fountains at south bank gaining points for my group (originally comprising people holding on to a jack of spades or jack of clubs card, we called ourselves the black-jacks) made my way back to ormond college to pack my stuff- chaowan hadn't joined in orientation, he went out for lunch and got back just as I was leaving. Took 2 trams down to spencer st to take the skybus down to the airport.

Flew back to singapore and spent the next few days sleeping/reading/slacking. Apart from the scholarship interview (which i will tell u more abt only if you ask me nicely). I didn't bother telling pple i was back- lynette foo was, like, "i just sent you an email wishing you all the best in melbourne and now you're here??" SMSed the ns guys to tell them rumour has it a level results out on wednesday, amongst them only patch caught on that i was in singapore. By the way, A level results out is confirmed!!

Uh-oh. Backwards posts. AH well.
Then college orientation had just started as I got back. I informed admin I wouldn't be around past tuesday afternoon, then joined in the activities. Basically running around, cheering, playing games (some fun, some just dumb, some intended to cause embarrassment- I will not divulge details unless sufficiently bribed), tour around the college in the afternoon, a short chapel service in the evening. I had just enough time to change into a suit and rush down to chapel- which is located on the second floor of the main building, overlooking the quadrangle near the entrance. Amazingly, a number of the girls had enough time to change into gowns And put some make-up- eyeshadow, lipstick, mascara. No rouge. The choral scholars filed in (ooh! asians amongst them! I might have a chance!) and sang some lovely renditions- all pretty modern arrangements- late 1850s to 1900s, including benjamin britten. A short sermon; the deacon mentioned the wide range of religions amongst the student body and read from John 3 and (gulp) somewhere in the old testament. It's a uniting church (i think it's a union of anglican/presbytarian doctrine and tradition); the uniting churches form a big portion of the churches around. Services are sundays 7pm, I definitely will be popping by some of them. Chaowan went for the last one and was uncomfortable with the preacher's somewhat irreverent attitude to the bible.

After the service were pre-dinner drinks outside (cold wind blowing, no idea how backless-gown-wearers survived without their oh-so-out-of-fashion pashminas)- suspicious looking non-alcoholic fruit punches with bits of canned fruit in them, and waiters serving sushi/suspicious samosas/sandwiches. (andrew: Alliteration! Ed: No you don't!!! [Real ed: He's framing me]) A student jazz band was also playing- not bad standard. Then a formal dinner (i.e. i didn't have to queue up behind the dining hall to get my plates of food) with candlelight, tablecloths, napkins, the works. Lovely atmosphere! Before the main course, the college choir got up to some a cappella jamming.Some of them were rather unconventional, i heard a lot of pretty rude words in the lyrics and there was a lot of raucous laughter in between the parts I didn't hear. Ended with "wade in the water"- an afro-american spiritual.

Dinner followed by a "mad hat party"- don unusual headwear and turn up for more suspicious drinks at the junior common room. I pulled on my dark blue beanie (i can just hear my brother go "Not beanie! Woolly cap! beanie's the cap with the helicopter top!") and went down; seniors were serving cordials with a little alcohol in them. All drinks came in gaudy colours- BRIGHT green, red, orange, yellow. Thankfully no blue.

Had a stupendously great time on the dancefloor- a mix of techno, rap, good old-fashioned rock. Dead beat, retired at 11 something

Haven't blogged (andrew: hopefully this word will enter future editions of the OED/Collins/Webster's) for a very long time so this is to make up for it:

First Weekend since last blog:
College Orientation started Sunday. Rushed down to Swanston St. Church of Christ for the 9.00am service (which i was conspicuously late for- arrived at 9.20am). They use a lot of hillsongs material (so most of the songs were familiar); congregation about 200+, LOTS of international students. A large portion of the service was devoted to announcements and messages about current/future missionary/other projects, it was about 10am when the sermon started. Can't remember much about the sermon (bad andrew! must take down notes next time!) except that it was something about giving up all for Christ; then closing (don't remember an altar call); then this friendly guy sitting next to me started talking to me and offered to introduce me to the other singapore students around. The servers (aka ushers) on duty were from the church's international student fellowship aka asian uni students in the church; went out for an early lunch at mekong's with the OCF pple around. Mekong's (vietnamese restaurant) is great value for money; ~A$6.50 gives you a BIG bowl of beef noodles or a plate of "broken" rice with your choice of meat- pork chop, roast beef... , and you can order the $7.50/$8.50 one if you're starving, or just want to share the meal with someone else. Do note that at least for the beef noodles, the sliced beef in the soup is quite rare (Raw), the idea is that the beef should cook in the hot stock in your bowl, at least until most of it isn't red.