Paris once again

I'm due to fly off to Paris again, on the 1st of May, and this time, I'm really leaving all the packing to the last minute.

行李还没收拾，心情也还没收拾。

At least I have an entire weekend, plus Monday (on which I've applied for leave) and Tuesday, which happens to be Labour Day. That gives me about 4 days to do whatever shopping or packing I need to.

Coincidentally, my mum is going for a cruise over the weekend and a group of friends have selected that weekend to stay in Batam. It's going to be a lonely weekend for me, but I guess I have to get used to it. There will be more while I'm in Paris.

行李容易收拾，但心情却比想象中还难。

Somehow, I'm looking forward to the end of the trip already.

There's a first time for everything

This is becoming one of my pet phrases in my blog. Need to come up with something more original or I'll remain outdated.

Today's first isn't really anything special, just that since I like to blog about where I'm blogging, I thought I'd blog about blogging in MacDonald's. Yet another tongue twister to my name.

I can't really say there's any special feeling about blogging in a fastfood restaurant. Afterall, majority of the population with a laptop and a blog has probably done it already. I'm just another one out of the thousands.

Now that I'm looking around, I find that approximately 50% of the occupied tables have at least 1 laptop on it. Wireless@SG is well utilised.

9 o'clock: 3 foreigners (Japs I think) having a chat over a cup of tea.
10 o'clock: An old man sitting by himself with only a cup of water.
12 o'clock: A couple of friends sharing quality time together.
1 o'clock: 4 adolescents studying (but chatting and playing more than anything else).
3 o'clock: A history teacher marking her students' test papers.


The history teacher had a huge stack of papers piled up in front of her. After every 10 papers, she'll pause to take a short break: glance around at the neverending crowd despite the late hours, fiddle with whatever she lays her hands on, and lean over to look at what I'm doing on my laptop.

"What are you doing?" she asks.

"I'm blogging about the pretty lady beside me."

She gave me a I-can't-be-bothered-with-you look and resumed marking her papers. Oh well, some people just can't take the truth.

Suddenly, she bursts into laughter. I turned towards her out of curiousity.

"Look at this", she showed me one of the scripts before her, "I can imagine my student, answering my question verbally in his broken English. It's so funny."

On the paper was written sentences like "The British should have checked whether the Japanese had enough ammunition to attack Singapore". The tone is like that of a child questioning an adult's wisdom. I can imagine.

Gradually, the crowd disperses. It is getting late on a weekday night. Students have classes to attend the next day, and I have to go to work as well. I'll be going off soon - it's midnight already. I didn't know I've spent so much time blogging.

Pretty soon, I'll be blogging in Paris. Flying off on the first of May, and returning on the 3rd of July. Feel that I'm missing a lot already.

Some inspirations

As I was rushing to meet a deadline today, my computer hanged several times. Just then, a thought crept into my mind: Is it 'inauspicious to put a photo of an insect up as wallpaper?

This is my present wallpaper on my workstation.




I wouldn't be wrong if I were to say, "There's a pretty big bug in my PC", would I?



Caught the movie, Freedom Writers, on Tuesday. Inspiring movie about an extremely inspiring teacher, who inspired her students to see beyond themselves and the part of the world they live in.

Simply inspiring. I was suggesting to a teacher-friend of mine, that she should consider revising her lesson plans. And also to work part-time selling br... Oh no no, I didn't mention that part.

It's very important to realise, that your life is in your hands, and that every little bit that you do, counts.

A housewarming that's gone cold

HCl and I went over to Jun's place last Thursday.

Though her housewarming should have been held last year, it was only until I brought up the topic last week - because I was about to leave for Paris soon and I wanted to catch up with friends before leaving - that she said last Thursday should be ok for a visit.

Huimin was initially joining us, but she fell ill just before the day we met up. Perhaps it was a deliberate plan to let us 2 guys entertain Jun. After all, Jun's mother always return home late on Thursday nights.

One point I have to bring up is that although my workplace is the furthest from Sengkang, I actually arrived at Compasspoint earlier than the other 2. This simply proves the saying, "whoever is nearer, will arrive later". Such is the culture of Singapore.

The first impression HCl and I had on Jun's house was that it's rather spacious. Mostly because the living room and dining room were combined into one room, with no partition or barriers in between. To me, it's just a big living room and no dining room.

Most of the furniture were arranged close to the walls, leaving a big open space in the centre. What caught our eyes first were the number of media players , all of them arranged neatly in their slots on a shelf. I forgot to count how many there were, so awed was I by their number.

The next thing to catch our eyes was the 30+ inches - according to the owner, personally I think it's 40+ - flat screen TV. Usually, TVs are blocked by huge speakers that flank them, something like what you see in those electronic home appliance stores. I'm not saying her speakers are small, but her screen is too wide to be blocked by any speaker you can find on the market. No kidding.

Now that we're done with a tour of the living room, let's proceed onto the bedroom. Jun has a rule for all guests when it comes to her bedroom, but I'll leave her to state it herself. I think most of the furniture in her bedroom are custom-made, so everything looks very much in place and gives a overall neat feeling.

I wished I had remembered to bring my camera along.

There wasn't much of a tour to the rest of her house. That night, we ordered pizza for dinner, watched "Twister" on one of her numerous LD player, enjoyed the booming audio effects from her nicely positioned surround speaker as well as the fantastic video, exchanged cold jokes and finished up most of the snacks (that has been kept for quite some time) in her house.

HCl and I concluded that Jun's house make a nice, peaceful and quiet getaway for people who don't want to do anything but sit down and watch a good show. Just throw in some popcorns and everything will be perfect.

In respond to special request...

It's been a really long time since someone requested for me to blog. All the more that I should not disappoint.

This is not exactly about me, but my experience in using the shower facilities at a friend's house after a trek in Khatib Bongsu yesterday morning. Evidence of my trek can be found here.

Anyway, back to the main topic. One of my friends who went on the trek with me happened to live in Yishun, and he offered me the use of his toilet for bathing after the trek and I accepted it.

His house is the about-30-years-old-or-so kind of flat, each unit with its ancient marble floor tiles, (proportionally) huge kitchen floor area and toilet with aluminium door.

I used to live in one of those, but I've moved.

For some reason, the toilet door in his house, is rather low. Low enough for someone to spot my head when I'm in the toilet with the door closed. I don't remmeber the one in my old home being so low.

The top of my head showing over the door is a small issue, but splashing water over the door into the kitchen when I'm directing the shower head's water at my head is a big one.

I don't mean to be rude, but his toilet is a little small and yet crammed with pails, laundry and most of all, a huge basin. With his door at one side, my clothes hanging on another, and everything else scattered all over, I hardly had the room to move around. In fact, I could only stand next to the door.

In order to avoid a fountain show from outside the toilet, I had to half-bend down, especially when washing my hair and face. I still can't squat down from my knee injury.

Nothing beats (bathing at) home.

Back to blogging

I don't like to stereotype, but it seems that people tend to blog more when they're single than after they get attached. I've already seen quite a few examples, myself included.

Going back to blogging after a long break in between reminds me of things a couple of years back. Think I blogged the most during my final year in university. Now my blog is like a cemetry that people pop by once in a while, because it's been left to be run over with weeds.

Something like the photo below.




Lallang field



Long periods of non-blogging occurs mostly when I don't have time, or when I feel that my life is going nowhere. I don't know what to write about, nor do I wish to write about anything. Sometimes, I feel like I'm moving about aimlessly.




Where does this lead to?



It takes time to realise that though I can't see the destination, it doesn't mean I don't know where I'm going.





Life is a long journey, the end is not always within your sight.



It's been there all the time. It has never left. But sometimes, I forget that it's still there, just because I don't see it.





From the right perspective, life can be beautiful even with all the flaws it has.


All photos in this entry are taken in Punggol. A complete set of photos can be found here.