Courage

I finally found the time and courage to decide what I was going to do abt S..

Honestly, I've been quite excited abt this.. emailed the "referrer" back and forth a number of times to find out abt S.. the referrer's not too helpful tho.. haha.. so now all I know that I can think of is:
a. She's just graduated from NUS, i.e. she's 21 or 22.. (ooooh... yummy)
b. She's gonna be a teacher... just the kind i like... I tend to fall in love with the teacher / nice girl type, only to find that they tend to be religious, totally incompatible with the godless me..
c. She stays in Jurong, according to the referrer.. which is +47 points cos I stay in the west too!
d. err... can't think of anything else.. in fact, that's just abt as little as i know!

Anyways, I decided I'm not about to ask her out rightaway, but wanna see what she's like first.. in a way, it's a lot easier when the target knows that you might be / are interested in her.. then there's little of that play-acting / plummage-flashing, and you can just get down to knowing the person better, and if I like her enough, she ought to know simply and quickly enough too!

so after ensuring that the referrer has pre-warned her, I sms-ed her.. it was innocent lah.. but basically that I've heard glowing things abt her and wanna find out for myself.. there was no reply for like 2 hours.. maybe she was napping, maybe she has summoned an emergency meeting of the Caucus of Girlfriends.. but the reply was nice! a few messages later, we agreed that it would be easier to call / MSN messenger, and that's what we'll do tonight! the latter one at least...

Has MSN replaced the likes of ICQ? and there is yahoo messenger too right? so which one is the most popular these days? I remember those days when ICQ was all the rage... that must have been 1998 or 1999? I remember it used to be so proud to have a 6 digit ICQ UIN.. and the multi-party real-time chats... was so cool... wld be nice to do that all over again..

Meat

Don't you have days when you just need to just need to eat meet? We had grand plans to go to the Brazillian meat place at 6th Avenue to satisfy the carnivorous instincts.. but it was fully booked up.. geez.. everyelse we could think of after that paled in comparsion..

Paid up the sleep debt big time today... slept at 1am last night, woke up at 11.. slept at 2, woke up at 6.. that makes 14 hours.. not bad at all... but was looking through this website where you can trade contingencies of all sorts, e.g. the Bush-Kerry elections, sports, winners of the Emmys, etc... something like betting, except it's like a stock / futures mkt, where you can bid up or down the prices, and you dont lose every single cent if your bet doesnt come through.. this set my mind into overdrive, and it was a bloody fitful nap i tell you..

Me! 

The Times Have Changed

Who needs SDU these days when you have amazing friends who do the same trick? Well.. ok... these friends dont usually organise cruises and dance classes and find me 7 girls with whom I can speed-date and choose from so blatantly.. This is an email which I got from a friend I dont know really well... +++ [Me], what's your status now? Are you still single? If you are, I have a good friend whom I want to introduce. She just graduated from NUS, and wants to be a teacher! Sooo.. perfect combination ahhaahahha! :) Anyway, her name is: [S] and she is in Singapore. Her e-mail is: [...] Her number: [...] So, give her a call, very nice girl. I just told her that I have a lawyer friend and most importantly he is SiNGLE. You still are right? :)

+++

So these days, you just help yourself... you just need to mention the name of the common friend like it's "open sesame".. have things changed all that much?

When We Were Weenies

I had this really fun lunch with LG and TY, where most of the conversation was devoted to the stuff we played with / thought about / did when we were far younger.. that will have to be the subject of another post tonight or something, but the thing which I remember most is Colleen Double Colour Pencils! I only had the 24 colour ones and envied my friends with the 48 colour set.. and can you remember the colour pairings? Silver with gold, Orange with ?, Maroon with ?, Beige with ?

...

this is part of what I wrote to L this morning.. hate to drop this kinda thing on people, but I'm selfish, and need to let her know.. +++ hey... I think I "need" to say something.. and you have to take my word that it's not meant to make you feel bad or to give a guilt trip or anything like that... just that like I said, i havent really spoken to anyone abt it, and need to externalise.. i'm sorry that I was a little sullen on sat.. it was a combination of work, tiredness, etc.. but somehow it was sucky seeing you across the road on Sat aft, and just knowing what you were going to do.. I guess something's happening between you and [X] again.. for what it's worth, to a large extent I think it doesnt even have anything to do with what I feel about you anymore... but more to do with our friendship over the past, i dunno, 4 months? I've dug deep into the recesses of my mind, and i guess what's been troubling me are 2 main things lah... firstly, when my friendship with [Y] started sliding somewhat, you were the one whom I looked to for friendship and companionship.. and you were a wonderful provider of those 2 things.. i guess I took just about all of my eggs out of the [Y] basket and put it into yours, such that I've become more emotionally attached to you than was healthy i guess.. secondly, maybe what made it extra painful was i never saw the period when I was gradually being displaced.. in a way, i guess it's a painful but short slap in the face when you can see it coming, but in this case there was just one day / week, some months later, when I woke up and realised that in a way, you were already out of the door... I ask myself what friends are we right now, and I dont have an answer.. i think I'm not terribly articulate right now.. but what I mean to say is that there was a time when we'd talk about everything and nothing every sunday afternoon, and spend many of our sundays together watching movies, etc... then ure mean spell at work came, and u'd say that you spent your weekends at work... but after a long time, i realised sometimes ure work weekends didnt end all that late, and u had time for dinners and movies too.. i know to some extent my "realisations" may not be accurate, and to a larger extent it would have been difficult for you to say whether you could get off work in time for dinner or a movie in time... It might hurt, but i could try to understand if the point was that you wanted to spend time with [Y] to the exclusion of other people... but somehow the impression i got from you was always that you simply had no time to do anything much because of work and nothing else... until 1 day I realised that, hey, I'm not the one u watch movies with anymore, u'd rather spend time with, etc... this was in that "nasty" email i said I wanted to send you the day you were down with migraine, and thot u werent return my call to make sure u were alright, or ure promise to let me know how you were in the evening.. it's festered too long in me, and I need to let it out.. sorry it prob causes a little dint in ure already sian monday morning.. +++

Why..

I was waiting to cross the street yesterday on the way to buy movies tickets.. and I saw L.. she'd just gone to the gym, and was going to meet X.. L's the same friend in the earlier posts.. the one I've have feelings for for the past 7 months.. she's also 1 of the 2 best female friends I have..

L is kinda (she can't even confirm it) that she's seeing / together with X.. deep down inside, I know that she can't make me happy in the long term, but what really sux is seeing how I've been displaced in her life.. There was a long time when we'd do dinner together twice a week, lunch almost everyday at work.. movies on Sat aft.. all throughout, we were wonderful friends... To make things worse, I never even really saw things coming as I was gradually being replaced.. she always told me she was busy at work, even on both weekend days... I know she was at work, but what she never said was that they'd leave at 6+ in the evening and go watch a show, etc...

So yest, it was painful to see that there was someone she was spending her Sats with now, etc.. That's what stinks about being a Male Friend I guess... It hurts that she cant even be honest, and didnt ever try to do anything to address how I might feel...

Days like these, I wonder why I even still consider her my best friend.. romantic stuff aside, I feel abandoned even as a friend..

I know I'm just moaning, and most people have gone through this too, and time will make the wound not hurt so much... just needed to externalise..

Our names are in the last 2 cloumns..  

That's him 

My ex-room-mate

I say just about the same thing to my ex-room-mate ("ERM") in my Christmas card to him every year... It's variations of the same theme about how it's been 4 / 5 / 6 / 7+ years since that day in July 1997 when we were placed in the same group for matriculation.. 2 things stick to my mind..

a.  he was wearing these really outlandish Alien Workshop (haha... I cant even find a link with a pic of that anymore!) ear studs... and I was thinking "geez.. what's with this guy"...

b.  at sentosa for matric week for some game, he and I were the only ones who did what had to be done, instead of slacking off..

In law school, somehow our chunk of our OG stuck together and survived far longer than the rest.. ERM holds the dubious honour of being the only guy who has stayed over at my Island paradise alone.. that night, we studied Legal Research (duh.. that was totally dumb) and went running... We mugged together during exams, moaned over the girls who were troubling us.. and miraculously, we were 2 of the 3 only pupils on our floor when we did pupillage... and convinced the powers that be to let us share a room when we got called to the Bar..


Our room was our oasis.. for most of the 1.5 years we shared in that room, we had at any one time at least:
3 or 4 stuffed bears,  
6 bottles of wine,
3 umbrellas,
5 packs of expired snacks,
4 different types of tea,
20 CDs,
80 files..

We had our own ritual observed almost everyday.. I used to get into the office at around 0850, and would make enough tea for 2 after evacuating the bowels... he usually comes in between 0915 and 0930, and he'd ask "Is it still hot?"

Around July last year, we both kinda burnt out and realised we needed out of the job.. I prepared my resume one week when I was really frustrated at work, and sent it to the recruiters.. the offer same in Sept / October, and before long, we both decided that we were going to quite once we got our bonus.. he to teach, and me to this job.. we even co-ordinated out tendering dates so that we'd leave on the same day, and not leave the other person in a once-lively room...

The last 2 or 3 months passed really quickly.. we stuck a countdown calendar behind our door, cancelling it with glee every few days.. we circulated archived emails which our group of friends used to exchange when we were wee pupils... we lamented, we sat in silence thinking the same things after we reminisced.. 

We had our last day on that same Friday, and we gave a little farewell party in the office... the bosses were obviously unhappy that we were making a show of leaving the Firm, and so happily at that... there was no time that day to feel sad... but we both came back the next day to send out our last emails... and to copy out stuff from our hard disks...

It's beem 4+ months since then... ERM went to Aust to see his gf whilst i started work the very next week.. he started teaching, then decided in favour of going back to legal practice as in-house counsel.. his hours are better than mine, and it's nice that we get to catch movies on weekday evenings when the rest of our classmates are still slogging at work...

Someone, Miss LiT I think, said something like the nicest relationships (in the broad sense of the word) are those simple friendships.. I guess it's like that with ERM.. somehow it's hard to have that with people of the opposite sex.. at some point, 1 person is likely to become more vested than the other... I've got 2 best female friends, and at some point they've promised me (separately) on those sentimental days that we'd be friends forever... but between getting married, getting (jerks for) bfs, I'm not so sure... as things are, things have already shifted...

The past few days..

Nothing much happened... I've been staying late at work since Wednesday.. thought I was done with the London hours in Singapore when I left practice, but the past few days are totally reminiscent of those days... similar kinds of contracts even...

Was given tix to Andy Williams (I know.. ah pek stuff) on Fri morning cos my supervisor couldnt make it, and expected to leave the office at 6+, but it never happened.. in the end HJ and wife went themselves.. but they ever so nicely got my sup and I a CD each..

The office was creepy at night, but nothing like the stories I've heard abt the other places.. some prick told me very seriously never to look out of the window at the top of PSA Building at night cos u might see something..

So I left the office at 3+ in the morning, and had to wake up at 7:30 to go for this ex-employer's car rally thingie.. somehow it's quite nice going back, now knowing ure on the other side and the one giving them work instead.. somehow they start treating me with some respect too.. heh.. I used to have to call the partners "Mr. X", and now it's purely first name, save for some...

But still can't get over that for my boss tho... I used to call him "Sir", and still don't know what to address him as... so much so that in the "friendly" touch-base emails we exchange once in a while, I start with "Hi,"...

Caught Brotherhood with my ex-room-mate, and now I understand why Mr. Miyagi was raving abt it... it was truly nice! Thot some parts around the 2/3 mark were a little needless and over-dramatic tho.. hmmm... think I like the other Korean war movie JSA marginally better tho... and that's saying quite a bit considering there was no real female involvement in that show...

It was nice catching up withmy ex-room-mate WK, but that will have to be the subject of another post after dinner..

Balls.. woke at at 7am again this morning.. I've just recently signed up for this program where we pick up kids who need transportation and send them to Changi Sailing Club, and help them launch their boats.. whilst they sail, I can eat nasi lemak at changi / swim / sail / catch up on reading / get some wind and sun... altogether not such a bad thing..

Really wanna pick up sailing again.. 1 day soon, I'll just be gutsy and take it out alone..

Totally crashed when I came home man... I cant live with 14 hours of sleep in 3 nights..

Alright.. dinner's ready..

Really Meh?

You have a dominant kiss- you take charge and make
sure your partner can feel it! Done artfully,
it can be very satisfactory if he/she is into
you playing the dominant role MEORW!

What kind of kiss are you?
brought to you by

The Oldest Trick in the Book

I used the oldest trick in the book today.. My supervisor has to leave for Bali this evening because of his wife's employers' function or something, and he gave me 3 tickets to tonight's Andy Williams concert cos he can't go anymore.. After the protracted work meeting was over, I called LG, and said something along the lines of "err.. I was given tickets to tonight's Andy Williams concert just this morning, are you free tonight?" Unfortunately, the answer was no as she has to go for cell group (but that's another story). So I'm reduced to going with JH and his wife, which is probably a good thing cos we are both old fogies anyways.. Anyways, the point is, if not for the fact that it was LG, whom I've known for ages, I'd still feel bashful using that as a reason to ask a girl out.. too lao (3) tao (4) already... does anyone even use that anymore? hmm..

Nice Post

this link is just so that I can always find it... but it's a wonderful post anyone hasn't read it... http://snarkalicious.blogspot.com/2004/07/red-t-shirt.html#comments Isn't it true that many a time, the nicest stories and endings are the saddest ones? of course we dont want to be the lead in that show tho... remember this show called Next Stop Wonderland? I have something against that show big time.. for maybe 90 minutes, we see how these 2 people are so alike (read: "suitable for") each other, and how they almost, but never, meet, in the subway, in the aquarium, blah blah blah... and in the final 2 minutes, they do... com'on! why couldnt they have just not met, and the story ends there? that's what happens in life all the time right? it's all those envounters we nearly but never have that they should be making the public think about!

Thought of the Day

Is there such a thing as a stand-alone nipple?

Was at the bus stop today and couldnt help but notice that this lady had 1 nipple erect, but nothing on the other side.. can that happen?

 
Anyways, I forgot to shave this morning.. contract signing today somemore..

Prude

Quite sure I'm not one, but it usually makes me uncomfortable to see or hear hokkien swear words... And I'm sure it's spelt Chee Bye, and not "cibai" or "chibai" as I've seen in some of the other blogs.. surely those people who write them liberally on public washroom cubicle doors and in the lifts cunt be wrong right?

Nothing much..

Had dinner with VP last night.. she's the ex-classmate whose house gate is probably 15m away from mine.. the stray cat who sleeps on my car bonnet some nights probably does her car some of the other nights.. When I had my beat-up Nissan Sunny, I used to drive us to Temasek Poly almost everyday for about 5 months for the silly PLC course... the first morning we set out, I realised my cashcard (I sooooo smartly used my 3 year old SAF NRIC which was obviously slightly corroded) didnt seem to be read by the IU unit as I was approaching the gantry, and was adamant that I was not going to pay the whatever $ fine, so I stopped my car for like 30 seconds desparately trying to wipe the chip agst my shirt to get it to become read-able.. all this while, there must have been 15 stationary cars horning... heh... the card still didnt work... Anyways, in that 3 months, I must have driven through the gantry 3 times when the cards didnt read, and was never fined! amazing.. Then when she started working at this offshore firm with offshore pay, she got her new car, and cos we were both working in Raffles Place, she'd drive us to work everyday... all I had to do was to show up every morning at 0720 at her door, and pay for ERP (using a working cashcard of course) Dinner was fun... we ate at Foster's, and realised the guy who sings there isnt all that much good.. heh.. we bitched about our common friends, realised that seemingly-perfect couples our age are still breaking up, who's going where, that kinda stuff... What's more interesting to me is that we must have spent 20 months in our life where just about every weekday, we'd go to work or school together, until I switched jobs... we never ran out of things to talk about, even though our circle of friends in sch never really overlapped.. we had the craziest laughs in the privacy of her car, but we never met up on weekends, even though our houses were 25 paces away, and we never ventured into topics such as how happy she was in her r/s, sex, private stuff... hard to imagine one can actually have this kinda friend right? Anyways, VP, even though you arent reading this, you're a kick-ass friend!

And I better get back to work...

My Lord, my Lord, why hast thou forsaken me?

God's Blog is gone...
 
The first thing which struck me when I read the post and comments by God was that it was truly scary having the power that God had (tho of course He knows what's right or wrong).. dare you say that abortion is downright wrong, knowing that others, like pregnant mothers whose lives are in danger because of their carriage of the foetus, might be influenced by you?
 
In a way, I'm glad God's gone...

Playing Ketchup

HJ does sound like he's in some shit at work... really hope everything tides over for the time being.. but somehow when you are arrowed and condemned, there's really no point staying at the same place anymore...
 
Let my mind wander, and realised I dont really want his car after all... it saves me $900 a month, which means a kick-ass IWC watch in 6 months... heh... of if I'm thrifty, this is pretty nice too! But more importantly, being on the bus gives me the time to myself that I otherwise would not have... time to think over things, time to read my stuff, and just to catch up with myself..
 
Tried this Jap pizza place yest after I went to Labrador Park for a run... obviously run by yuppies cos one of the bosses used his 2.4l Camry as a delivery bike... geez... the flavours are unique, it doesnt take half bad, and they give cuttlefish shavings and shredded seaweed as toppings in place of Pizza Hut's chilli flakes and cheese... heh.. so all you guys who work in raffles place till late, give them a shot some time...
 
Dinner with YH at Cafe Society tonight... passable lah, contrary to what some friends say..
 
Came back too late to watch anything on tv... so it's this short boring one before I go to bed...

Making up for lost time

Am putting up all these entries to make up for the non-posts the past few days... boring stuff, but all for my own edification...
 
Picked BY (another posts on abbreviated names will have to come in due course...), bought alcs from7-11 and drove to Labrador Park yesterday evening...
 
We saw:
a.  0 bouncing cars
b.  1 couple practicing what looks like akido, sticks and all, in the car park
c.  1 act of animal torture (more on that)
 
Heard the story abt how there are secret tunnels leading from labrador park? We had no guts to even venture into the bunkers, etc.
 
I guess the evening was more just to catch up on what each other has been doing... she was in the same year in law sch as me, but we never spoke a word cos we never had the same classes, she was active in NUSSU whilst I spent more time with other friends playing tai-dee, shopping, etc. She joined The Firm only after we all got called, and I guess to some extent the only reason we got to know each other well was cos of SRP (she's prob the only friend I have whom I call in initials rather than name), not to mention that she was a good 9 floors above me in the office..
 
So, she left The Firm around a month+ after I did, spent 1 month travelling in NZ, and then worked ard 1 mth at a non-legal-practice IP outfit before deciding to return to private practice.. that makes her the first in our year to leave, then re-join the law firms..
 
We drank, chatted, walked.. at the jetty, someone caught a catfish.. obviously something which most people dont eat right? that's my main gripe against fishing.. cos instead of releasing it, they tore off every single fin, then dumped it into a net, tied the opening, and threw it back, bloody and all, in the water.. whatever for, I dont know.. maybe as bait...
 
Why are there friends (not just BY) we share great moments with, whose character and personalities are like us, are at least decent in the looks dept, and we just arent attracted? instead, we go for these monkies who claim to be unable to catch up with us or reply emails (out of concern and to make sure they are still alive at work) because they are busy at work, and yet dont email or call or sms now that they are away on a relak holiday?

Hmmm...
 
How many drinks can u take in a 4-hour evening? 3 drinks in 1 hour and I feel the buzz, 3 more in the next 2 or 3 hours and I think I'm gone..

*Yawn*

So this is the first week in 3 I've actually managed to sleep in on a Saturday morning past 8am... and that's a relative luxury considering I wake up most days at 0640....
 
We've gone to Sentosa to run the past 2 Saturdays... the first week, we ended up at Rasa Sentosa, and found that between HJ and myself, we were short of abt $8 to have a buffet breakfast there... well, HJ brought $50, and me $10 (I thought all we'd do was to buy drinks at 7-11!!)..
 
I brought my credit card the next week, but had no use for it.. haha.. we did the same run, but got caught in the rain on the way back, and did BKT lunch (those pics from Mr. Miyagi or Ms. LT still make my mouth water) at this really good joint at Keppel (claims they are the old Outram Rd ones), mee suah, watercress soup and all...
 
Somehow 6 in 10 18-year-old girls in tank tops / bikinis and shorts on the Sentosa beach look good... that's far higher than the national average... must be something there...
 
Anyways, so there's no run today... guess it's partly to do with HJ having some potential shit at work... hope things turn out well... if not, I take over his car 4-mth old Altis at $640 a month (no insurance and road tax liabilities)... good deal eh?

The Amazing Race

Caught the Amazing Race this week? I snatched bits of it as I was doing something else (can;t remember what right now), and the last part was when the team with the lady who was suffering from some form of dwarfism getting off the horse carriage and running towards the finishing point (looks like 100+m away) like 5 seconds before the other team, only to be taken over cos her short legs couldnt get her as fast as the others..
 
It was downright painful and sad seeing that... I'd be furious if her team was eliminated cos of that...

Oh para, paradise..

RT sent me the link to the pics he took when the ex-Bs went back to our island paradise abt 2 months ago?

Yup, I used to live on an island. Nope, not Pulau Tekong or Ubin. Nope, not attap huts or zinc roof houses, and I didnt have chickens or monkeys for pets.

The Old Man works for Shell, and he used to be needed in the refinery almost all the time, so we were transplanted there for 11 years of my life, from 11 to 22... Save for the slightly foul smelling air, it totally rocked:
a. central air con in the house all day long;
b. a cruise home everyday;
c. the sea in just about every direction;
d. sports facilities;
e. and if you dont fancy sea water, there's fresh!

Not half bad eh?

Where have all the new plastic $10 notes gone?

Just checked my wallet and realised I have a whole bunch of new $2 from all different sources..

Which leads me to wonder, how come I dont see the new $10 notes actually being used? Is someone out there collecting bags of it, paying $15 for each? Try me, I've got a pile at home! :o)

Furry, Warm Belly

It's 0853, my work day starts at 0830, but I'm blogging and slurping minced pork congee on a rainy day... life could be far worse!

Am glad that Ms. Lost in Translation ("MLT") (the "in" doesnt count.. haha) is back! Her commencement ball reminds me of the one I was supposed to go to... not at NUS (did they even have one? think there was only some Guild House thingie) but at NJC... At the School Hall!! what a dud... and think they were finally persuaded to take their business to a hotel just a couple of years ago...

My question of the day: How does Mr. Miyagi know that I started a Blog, cos he just posted comments!?!

The past few days at work have been quite hairy... to the extent that I took the wrong bus home the day before.. Left amidst the rain, waited around 15 minutes for my bus, and when a familiar number came (I take 97 to get home, and 51 to get to Queenstown MRT to go to town and wherever), I hopped on, plugged into the iPod, read my Economist... before long, I realise I'm at the kick-ass hot/sour soup & wo-tieh place... tempted to tuck into burning soup there and then, but I had cold dinner waiting for me at home.. oh well...

Some of the people I call distant colleagues are driving me up the wall! This is what I emailed JL who's on holiday to bitch:

QUOTE

check this out... caused me quite a lot of worry over the weekend cos I thot I screwed up big time.. I was asked to convert a licence agreement draft which we were discussing into a tenancy agreement... so obviously part of the stuff was converting references to "licence", "licensees" etc to "tenancy" and "tenants"... I sent my draft across to her (internal accountant... my biggest peeve right now), and she saw it fit to point out, copying every damned person inte email, that my draft still contained erroneous refers to licences, etc...

and cos I didnt have access to my sent file over the weekend, I though wah lau, this is the kinda nonsense that gives people a nasty impression of my abilities and meticulousity (whatever)... this morning, I realise that the references to licensees, etc. were all non-captialised terms, and were obviously unrelated 3P references!! use ur bloddy brain!!! see the clauses:

+++
Any licence, permission, approval or consent required to be obtained by the Tenant under this Tenancy Agreement shall only be effective if in writing and not otherwise.

Not to transfer, assign, underlet, license, share or otherwise part with the possession of the Tenanted Area or any part thereof whereby any person not a party to this Tenancy Agreement obtains the use or possession of the Tenanted Area or any part thereof.
+++

UNQUOTE

gee whiz...

Not Half Bad!

Just had to see how my blog turned out... and it's better than I feared.. heh..

1 of the biggest things that has been bugging me abt my blogging is how I intend to handle:
a. my identity - how much should I reveal about myself?
b. my ranting - I can imagine that most of the bitching in the time to come will relate to my colleagues, whom might one day read this, or worse, I might marry!! yah right
c. the extent to which I can be free about my feelings

When does one decide that he is ready for the world to read his diary?

I don't know...

Anyways, I worked out yesterday on the bus on the way home that I've not taken a single day of leave or mc in 7 damned months, and only around 11 days in the last 31 months.. Can anyone beat that?

Probation ends in 48 days, and I sure as hell am looking forward to a week's break then, if not more... Top destinations now are:
a. Skiing near Melbourne (an ex-intern's invited me!)
b. Shanghai, where my sec sch friend GL is presently working (I'm inviting myself! Free Digs)
c. Hanoi, where JL is going for her firm's associate retreat (free digs too..)

Could have spent 4 days in Shanghai last week, but that's another story altogether.. Was so looking forward to the break that when it was canned, I think I just crashed together with the aborted trip... hence Mr Brown, Mr. Miyagi, and now The Whore with More...

Air-con's broken since the night before, and it's been downright painful.. it started to drip and damaged some of my precious books.. almost got the signed first-edition of the book I bought off ebay to suck-up to my supervisor come this Christmas... nah... it aint sucking up...

Yup, I've got an ang-moh for a supervisor... a really good one at that! I meant supervisor, not ang-moh.. anyways, with a last name like Hughes, no prizes for guessing which angmorland he comes from... speaking of which, check out my previous supervisor..

The RSS Courageous appeal was heard today... am a wee bit surprised Uncle Yong (nope, he's not my real uncle) didn't up the sentence..

It's a little interesting and surprising to realise sometimes how much you really want to forget certain things, and unknowingly can! I spent a good part of 2 months spending my day in court typing every utterance for that trial, memorising the exact relative positions of both vessels at every half-minute mark, but was a little stumped when I saw the replay on CNA just now... Bridgette See (sweetie :o)) kept calling the ANL Indonesia a "tanker" tho... doesnt she see the boxes on board? ok.. it happens to the best of us..

Am pleased to report (ok, this is just for my own amusement) that after 4+ months at this new job, I can sense when a container is a 45-footer and not a 40-footer... yes.. you all probably thing I've got no life...

And I think we've got the kick-ass-est looking containers in the mkt!! Check out the dark-blue APL ones! The container moves!

Wo De Di Yi Chi 3-4-4-1-4

Yeah yeah... so this is my first attempt at blogging... way after everyone else may have been sick and tired of having to type down their feelings.. the same way I started on Windows XP only in March this year..

Perhaps 1 good way to start would be to record how my inspiration to blog came about... I was surfing Mr Brown's site during a totally sian day at work (more on that in the time to come), and chanced upon Mr. Miyagi's and Lost in Transition, and somehow the sincerity, truth and whatever just prompted me to do just this!

Mr. Miyagi writes amazingly! Well, I've never been one for journalistic writing... All throughout my secondary school English life, I kicked butt getting scores like 44 out of 50 doing descriptive essays rather than discussive ones, or novel-types... The horrors that I got when I realised GP (General Paper) did not allow for descrption, but I had to expound on why I thought that the death penalty should be abolished. Going to law school and spending 2 years in Uncle Darvie's firm naturally is bad for creative writing when the letters, faxes and emails inevitably began with / contain:
(a) Reference is made to your fax of [x]
(b) Our clients are dismayed to note the contents of your fax
(c) Be that as it may, we are prepared to ...
(d) In the meantime, all of our clients' rights are expressly reserved.

When I grow up, I want to be able to write just like Mr. Miyagi!

Ms. Lost in Transition's posts made for some really heart-rending reading... there are days when I go through the "I should throw all caution to the wind" moods, but somehow am just a little too sensible for my own good... I really hope she's fine.. sounds like she returned to Singapore, but has been MIA for 8 long days.. during which time tons of things could have happen.. come back!

Alright... I'm too curious to see how this looks on a page.. will be back with more!