I've been a very good housemaid today. almost like a house wife. In the morning, I hung up the clothes to dry. In the afternoon I vacuumed the whole house and then mopped everything twice to make it extra clean. In the late afternoon, I prepared the stuff for cooking dinner. Then I made dinner. I did a gourmet scallop dish that was simply superb. I'll be entering my name for the next Iron Chef. Then I realised that the kitchen floor had become oily from the cooking. so, after washing all the dishes and wiping down all the countertops, I mopped the kitchen floor again. Trice. After dinner, my brother had to go for his music lesson. As my mother is sick, I volunteered to take him there. After his lesson, we were suppossed to get a cab home but the queue was too long. I tried callilng one but comfortcablink could find a cab either. Our absentee father was too busy to drive us home as usual and so we took the train-bus route home. By the time we got home, the little bugger was dog tired and i had missed half of the super funny desperate housewives episode. So after a hard day's work, i'm relaxing through writing therapy here. Mummy's husband just arrived home and i opened the door for the keyless breadwinner instead of ignoring him as usual. He has just settled himself on the sofa and is nagging at me to stop chatting with people on the internet. I am not doing that. I don't like socialising, even virtually. This guy knows nothing about me at all. zero, nada, zilch. (but i know alot about him, esp the internet porn habits)
And so, after a hard day's work this is all the thanks i get. a groundless accusation and some buzzing noises around the ear region. And I haven't even had the time to shower after cooking dinner. (going to shower right after this) But I still look immaculate.
Anybody here watches desperate housewives? you know the redhead housewife who can do everything perfect and looks so perfect but who has issues with her family that doesn't appreciate her? I think I understand her perfectly. so PERFECTly.

where have i been and what have i been doing?
At home. Cooking and cleaning. I'm a maid! I'm a housewife.
This sucks. I'm going to get out of the house tomorrow and go for a walk. Thank goodness it's saturday tomorrow. I don't have to cook as we'll be going over to my grandmother’s (paternal) place for dinner.

But i'm afraid i'll be quite tied to the home until my maid comes back. my poor grandmother (mother's side) has been having problems with her legs and can't do housework. plus she has to make the new year goodies.

I've been cooped up so long in the house that i think i've quite forgotten how to talk. i don't talk much to people at home. to prevent my brain from rotting i've been working on various pieces of rubbish writing and "art". and of course, doing push ups to release pent up energy.

I tried to persuade my mother to let me go backpacking again. but, again, i failed.
I truly believe that i am wasting my youth. my mother is the type who likes to sit on her ass all the time. very placid and domesticated with no sense of adventure
whatsoever. She thinks i should stay put in this city. maybe learn to drive, bake, sew. Damn! she's been bugging me to learn to drive but i really don't want to. I'm carsick, Hello!

I need to travel. there could be some truth in horoscopes after all. every article i've read about Sagittarius has mentioned this need to travel. Argh, I feel so tied down.

My mother says that when I start working i shall have my own money and can then go on all the tours i like. That's not what I want! I don't want a cushy vacation where you stay in classy hotels and rush from place to place and have meals included. what I want is to wander about in a foreign land, damn the risks. live on a budget. I don't mind sleeping in the streets.

alright, enough about the teenage angst stuff. let's hear about more interesting stuff.

found a few viruses in my computer. rewind to yesterday night.
steven, my father(really? i still can't believe it!) asked me about an attachment.

steven: how come i can't read this attachment? I open the file but the computer can't read it

me: really? what kind of file is it?

steven: don't know

me: who is it from?

steven: dunno. I don't know this sender.

me: damn! it's a virus you abysmally stupid man!

yes, no kidding. all this from the man who claims to be my father. the man who nags me not to download stuff from the internet in case i get a virus.

but there were some other viruses that didn't come from email attachments. once again, i tracked them down to steven's user account. and when i peered into his temporary internet folder, bloody#$!@$! my eyes almost popped out. and that's saying a lot as i see the naked female body everyday in the shower. PURE UNADULTERATED PORN!!! (with these keywords, i bet this site will be getting lotsa hits from guys searching for porno)

Now don't get me wrong. I am not against his being a depraved man. I'm just shocked at how stupid he is. (stupidity is a sin) What's the No. 1 way to download viruses? opening attachments from unknown senders! what's the best way of getting viruses that run automatically when you visit a website? go to a porn site! Who is stupid enough to do both of these things? the man i am supposed to have inherited genes from!

I could have kept quiet. I'm not the big mouth sort. but i really hate stupidity. so when my mother came home this evening.

me: mummy, the computer has been infected with viruses
mum: oh dear!
me: yah. it's the kind that runs itself when you go to some websites
mum: really. that's terrible
me: you know, there's only one kind of website that almost always has this virus
mum: what kind?
me: PORN sites!

and i proceeded to show my mummy all the lurid, HOT WET SEXY AMAZING SHOCKING FF MF MM BDSM KINKY SUCK *&^* F%^& HORNY GIRLS pictures from steven's folder.
evil i am. pure evil.
but when my father came home. my mother didn't talk about the porn at all. just told him the computer had some viruses and that he shouldn't open attachments from people he didn't know. i was too preoccupied with a BBC radio programme to add fuel to the fire, salt to the wound. However, don't start thinking that i'm being nice and sensitive. I might just be saving it for tomorrow when we go to my granny's where all over GOSSIPY relatives will be. Am I Evil? Yes, I am.

On a lighter note, Hubert, my brother is becoming corny. this makes me believe that he really is my brother. I was explaining to him all the names of various soy products.
this one is called tau gua
the one in the soup is tau ki
the one that's like a sponge is tua pok
the kind in sweet syrup is tau huay
the white soft kind is tau hu
the one in the cup is tau huay
and boy was i impressed when he said:
and the one that sings is Taufik!

ahhh.. it is so heartening to see such a feat of corniness from one so young.

* amusing stories from down under

On redheads:
my sister in australia tried to chat up a redhead girl today. (i have a thing for blonds, she goes for the auburn).
here's an excerpt from her email to me:
"tried to chat a redhead up today but she got so shocked that i could
speak english that she ran away"

On fashion:
"haha, one jap has a weird fashion taste. you watch kongfu hustle yet?
he pull down the jeans until can see top part of buttock. obi quack
got scolded by vice principal."

on having small feet:
"today i went to buy a better shoe
shoe price range was $14 or $100-$500 haha, mummy will faint
went to a big store, they don't have my size. miss by 5 inches
went to a mens store...don't have
went to a womens store...don't have
....
finally got it at a kiddie store.. Stupid 5yr white kid keep coming up
to compare feet size."

being a good sister:
"my teacher adviser is a blondie want me to matchmake?"

ahhh.. my disciples are coming along nicely.

Today, I was finally let out of the house. I took the rabbits downstairs for a walk. I like my meat lean. After dumping the rabbits on the field, I proceeded to ignore them as they tried to jump onto my lap. And the sky was so blue. I had almost forgotten.

After dinner, my grandmother took Hubert and I out to Toa Payoh Central to get groceries. Seems like she'll only let me go out when she needs free labour. I think this period of time might have been more stressful for her than I thought. With my parents abroad, maid gone home and me sick, she's been doing most of the work.

Here's why I think she might have finally lost it. It also gives you some idea about how much I had to carry. She bought vegetables. 4 bags of celery, 3 bags of big leafy stuff, 2 bags of small leafy stuff, 2 boxes of dou miao, 2 packs of french beans, 2 packs of baby corn, 2 ears of corn, 2 packs of baby corn, 2 boxes of pea pods, 1 bag of 10 tomatoes, 1 bittergourd, 1 yellow mellon thing, 1 cabbage, 1 head of lettuce, 1 big brocolli and some more green stuff that I can't remember. She is obviously overestimating how much we and the rabbits can eat. Is it stress? I had a hell of a time trying to pack everything into the vegetable compartment of our fridge which is saying something as it is a big fridge. The top of the lettuce got chopped off by the fridge door when I tried to close the vegetable drawer. At that point, there were anout 2 more bags of green stuff still not packed in. I rearranged everything and tried again. I don't give up easily but when the tomatoes began to look a little like what you find on spaghetti I realised I was fighting a losing battle. I solved the problem by stuffing all the greeen stuff that wouldn't fit into the main compartment of the fridge. Then, I held everything back with one hand, counted to three and slammed the door shut as I retracted the hand with superhuman speed.

You know the TV advert that tells you how one serving of vegetables is about 1 cup? I swear I have the vegetable equilvalent of about 20 litres in my fridge.
Now, don't laugh. Seriously. I need to know if eating too much green stuff will make a person turn green. The situation here is not vegetarian,it's far worse. (there's a difference between "no meat" and "all veggies")

Sorry about the strange, surreal content and language of my previous post. I must be going bonkers and I really need to get out of the house and see the sun.

I'm practically under house arrest. I can't go out. I can't go down. I can't do anything except eat, read, write, and sleep. Luckily, there's always that surreal, kaleidoscopic world of imagination to wander about in. One thing I learnt last night before I fell asleep is that there is a subtle but significant difference between letting you mind wander and wandering in your mind.

* At this point, the reader who has just left JC is advised NOT TO CONTINUE as they may find following content highly disturbing. The blogger accepts no responsibility whatsoever for any harm caused to mental health that may result from UNWISE disregard of this warning. However, readers who do not fit the above description may safely continue as the following will probably be quite boring to you anyway.

As I tried to fall asleep last night, my utterly bored mind decided that it wanted to go for a walk. So I let it. What I didn't realise was that it was going to take a walk inside itself.

You see, it is perfectly safe to wander about in an imaginary world. Such a world is outside of yourself or maybe made up of bits of your subconscious that really have no real significance. It is, however, simply not safe to poke around your own mind. There are places in there that should be kept locked up and the key melted down and made into something else. If you've watched films like Dreamcatcher or read books like Hannibal which talk about the Memory Place, you'd know what I'm talking about. Imagine a place like a house or castle or file cabinet where all your thoughts and memories are kept. When you want to see your old schoolteacher, you can go into the castle for example, walk to the door marked childhood school memories and there your teacher will be, explaining the difference between solid and liquid just as she used to.

So I wandered in this place which I thought was Imagination. But no. Unfortunately, I had forgotten to write the sign on the door and lock it up. Pure laziness. So I went in and guess what I found?

Behind the door a medium sized hall. Non air-conditioned. The ceiling very high. Grey tables and chairs arranged in neat rows. Large pasar malam type fans at various places. At each table sat a student frantically writing, scratching his/her head or just plain staring at the lofty ceiling in desperation. The EXAM HALL. Just like I remembered it was on the day of the Econs 'A' Level Exam.

I saw myself scribbling frantically. I heard myself hoping that my made up explanations would somehow uncannily hit on the answer, all the while knowing it was bullshit.

And then the tidal wave of fear hit. The memory of anxiety. I'd almost forgotten. Kicked it into a corner and pretended that everything had ended when the exams had concluded. But it's not true. I still don't know the results although I seriously think there won't be any As on the dreaded slip of paper.

I guess most of you A level takers have also put the exams behind you. But now, sneakily I should think I have unlocked the door in your memory place labelled "I am so going to fail the As!". HAH! Aren't you scared now? Don't you remember how you failed to answer the question? Don't you recall how you realised that you got the multiple choice questions all wrong because where everyone had put "A" you had answered "C"? Your bowels are clenching in fear aren't they? You AREN'T going to do well, you know. It's going to be a permanent stain on your academic records. Really. It is very, very possible.

So you see, the mind is not a safe place to wander in and I do serious apologise if this unsettling account has unsettled you and made you remember that the worst of the 'A' levels is not over.

Don't blame me. I did warn you and you chose to ignore it. Curiosity may not kill but there are certain things that you really shouldn't be curious about for you own psychological well-being.

I hope you sleep well tonight.

Still sick.
The cough disappered for two days only to return yesterday. It's now an asthmatic type of cough and I had to use the inhaler last night. Had to turn down another invitation to lunch with the Family. The coughing really makes me feel shitty. The tummy area around where abs are supposed to be has suffered most terribly. Feels likes someone made me to do a thousand sit ups last night and then kicked me in the guts. Damn is coughing a strenuous activity.
Having been confined at home for the past two weeks, (not counting bringing hubert to yamaha on monday) I haven't seen anyone except my grandmother, brother, maid and the doctor. Wonder what's happening in the world out there. Boon says on her blog that jun is in hong kong. When did that happen? Xinying is easier to keep track of as she regularly posts the soppy events of her melodramatic life on her blog.
My energy level has been very low. This is the first time in days that I've enough energy to use the computer.
The doctor has put me on my third course of antibiotics. The pill is bright yellow and supposed to be a very strong japanese brand. Doctor appeared perplexed by my illness and asked if I have recently visited anyone in hospital. I think he suppects I've got some new superbug as the past 3 bottle of cough medicine and 2 antibiotics haven't worked. If this new course of medicine doesn't work, I'm going to check myself into hospital and let them pump me full of all the antibiotics in the world.
Even as I am suffering and lying on my death bed, my parents and sister are having a great time down under. The asshole of a sister just emailed me pictures of the huge lobsters and scallops they are eating. She put her soft toy next to the lobsters for scale comparison and boy are they big!
The evening before I got the asthmatic cough, I took adela's rabbits down for a run. (irony of it all, the very creatures I want to eat). This boy, one of her friends came up to me and said, " Adela, what happened to you? Why you look so pale?" I looked up at the strange kid and it was some moments before he realised his mistake and scuttled away. Blind children people have nowadays. He was right about the pale part though, being cooped up at home and out of the sun has caused me to become even fairer than I was before. And the sickness contributes an interesting greenish pallor to the overall dead creature look.

In case anyone wants to know, the company that I worked for and quitted puts up many, many job ads everyday. They pretend to be crowd control, events coordinator, music lovers or ask you if you like to watch movies. It's all the same company and you can tell because the contact number is the same for at least 2 ads on the same day: 67440382 or something like that. They give different names but they are all the same person. Beware.

My throat and cough got worse. Yesterday evening, I brought Hubert to his music class at yamaha at plaza singapura. I also walked over to orchard library to return books. Popo says that I kenna the wind and re-caught a chill. Damn. So now my throat is swollen again and it hurts to swallow. And I couldn't meet up with LL, boy and doggy. I think I've got a superbug. The kind that can't be killed by most antibiotics. I'm going to die soon. No flowers at the funeral please. I'm an environmentalist.

i'm still sick. bloody. the germ was either resistant or immune to the first two types of cough medicines and the first antibiotic. so i'm now on a different antibiotic and my third bottle of cough medicine. tastes like shit. I hate salty-sweet and stinky syrups. bleah!
Adela has gone off to perth, mummy and steven with her. I'm the king of the castle. My subjects: brother, grandmother and maid. I had a great idea last night. I'm going to push adela's bed together with mine and i'll have the biggest bed in the house! Life would be good if not for the cough that won't go away.

the middle eastern governments have been the stingiest with their pledges to help the tsunami-hit countries. Some islamic clerics are claiming that the tsunami was sent to punish the people in the beach resorts. Quote: We know that at these resorts, which unfortunately exist in Islamic and other countries in South Asia, and especially at Christmas, fornication and sexual perversion of all kinds are rampant... The fact that it(the tsunami) happened at this particular time is a sign from Allah"

Note how they tried to link "Christmas" with "fornication and sexual perversion"
Why not link "Arabs" with "hypocrisy"?

Remember the time before the disaster? when the arabs had all these fatwas etc calling out to "muslim brothers" to come together to fight the "western evil"?
Now, their "brothers" are suffering. Do they help? No. Instead they say it's divine punishment. Anybody from Indonesia or Malaysia who goes over to join the so called islamic jihad after this would be a prime idiot.
Arabs are just too too oily.

I'm sick like a dead cat.
The person at the old fucking cheat money company passed it to me and i'm still sick one week later. Bloody.
Today is the first day I can talk. I've been missing out on so many things. Couldn't even go for the farewell lunch they had for the boys.
sucks sucks sucks. my body is overloaded with medicines. I think i'm going to die of drug overdose.
adela and my parents are flying off to perth on sunday to get the little bugger settled down. I have to get better by then or else there will be nobody to fuss over me. and i have to help look after hubert too.

New Year, New Start.
How much has changed?
In terms of the person, not much.
With regards to the circunstance, quite a bit.

New Year's Eve was my first real day at work. It was also my last.
By 8am, the hundred over employees of that small branch of the huge MNC was gathered in a small office space in Aljunied. They started playing games and doing motivational cheers. Normal orientation type games like the one were the leader says get into groups of 5 and there's a messy scramble. The way they played it, however, wasn't so normal. It was violent and not a little cruel. Puching a shoving. People falling and getting crushed. In a small room packed with so many, it's not funny. And the cheers and songs to get people motivated. Such things are normal during orientation but these people do this every day. I started to feel like I was in the wrong place.
Then I went out with my leader and a member of the team to Tiong Bahru. We had to sell those "charity" coupons again. The leader, an Indian woman told me how to reassure the "customers" that all the money would go to the charity. We had to "pitch" the "product" to them. This leader's pitch didn't sound honest to me. She would tell people that we were teachers from a school for poor children trying to raise money for our students. At the end of the day, we went to Macs to sit down and count the "donations". Then, the leader took 20% of the money from the booklet of tickets I sold and gave to it me as my pay.
An uncomfortable feeling. Like guilt.
I had smiled at and talked to about 300 people that day. I really hate smiling and talking to people. I'm not friendly by nature. Interupting people eating at coffeeshops and rushing home after shooping didn't quite tickle my fancy. And to think that I had lied without knowing it. Only 80% of the money was going to the charity. And who knows how much the leader and the manager will deduct of of that 80% for themselves.
I was so depressed, I went to Wen's house after that. Jun was out and the house was dark and quite. We switched on the Christmas Tree lights and I sat in front of it. It helped. Wen tried to cheer me up and encouraged me to quit. Suddenly, her older sister came down the stairs and I thought she was a ghost cos I didn't know there was anybody else in the house. I was still feeling not so good, like a tummy ache in the stomach of the conscience, so Wen lent me a book to read. Then I felt better.
The big sister drove us to bugis in her car. Cool driver. Like sitting in a crazy racecar driver vehicle. Not very safe but a lot of fun. I wasn't back to my normal self yet so I was very quiet and stared out of the window thinking of evil MNCs. Wen was going clubbing. Amusing the way she was trying not to let me know. Consciously or subconsciously I don't know. When asked where she was going, "to meet my friend" "to meet cheryl". Then the sister asked, "are you going to zouk or warehouse(something like that. is there really such a place)" Funny Kid, Wen.
On New Year's Day. I went to food distribution and met Xinying and Sharmaine. Nice seeing Xinying again. We haven't met up since the end of As, I think. We are good friends who are not interested in the same things. Except maybe food.
Then I went home.
In the evening, Steven came home with my new nice, nice black iPod. A late birthday present.
Now I'm happy again.
The equation:
+Job
+Lies
+Friend
-Job
+Community Service
+Friend
+iPod
=Friends + Community Service + iPod.
Ha! I win!