Swensons

"Teaming up with the distinguished Carl Zeiss lens, every details is reproduced with astonishing clarity."

Anyone who has laid eyes on that line and approved it should be sent back to Primary School.

I've got 15 minutes to finish this blog entry before I go for my run and meet Jie Yu for lunch, and then to work, so let's get it started.

On Monday Isetan was having Dinner and Dance at Sentosa and so the shop closed at 1730. We left the place at 6 and the full-timers had to attend something at Paragon and so we went to Ah Mei for a huge cup of coffee/tea each. We sat there for about half an hour while discussing how much we had to work to earn the money for a cup of tea (10 minutes of standing for a dollar's worth of tea), which was kind of frustrating. Money's kind of bothering me nowadays!



We went around shopped around Paragon before going out to take some photos! As you can tell we were really bored. Wee Hong brought his semi-professional camera, the Sony V1. I like the fact that the camera gives really good field of depth. We cam-whored a lot, but Wee Hong's not in the photos because he prefers taking them!



At 1930 we went in to Swensons to secure 14 seats while the rest of them were still at Paragon doing their stuff. We talked a lot of rubbish and I must've drank about 3 cups of water while waiting. I had to visit the toilet of the Crown Prince Hotel too! Not that I've never stayed over there though! I got quite tired of talking because that's what we've been doing the whole day during work, so after awhile I became quite stoned.



By 2000, we went from this, to that. I think I've never cam-whored more in my life, but I couldn't help it - I was bored. Everyone else was too! Luckily Cassandra came down and she told us a lot of stories about her office life since leaving the gallery and there's a hilarious video of her talking about the consequences of the guys coming down so late for dinner. It's kind of amazing how she can rattle on while forming her thoughts at that very moment.



Another hour passed.

Eventually we were starved and ordered some calamari rings and fries, which tasted damn good. Haha... They finally arrived and we took a group photo...



... before chomping down the food that was served. I think we left at about 2230 and coincidentally, I met my parents on the train, and we went home together.

Yesterday I went out with Sequeena and Si Hua, my closest Secondary School friends. We never fail to have fun when we're with each other. It's just that now the three of us are working, it's become really difficult for us to fit each other into our schedules. One's a nurse, the other sells liquor at Changi Airport and is something like a supervisor at Rocky Master.

I have a 6-day work week. Enough said.

Si Hua and I went to the airport to look for Sequeena and she looked astonishingly different. It was the first time that we've seen her since her 10+ kg weight loss. It makes me feel that I need more determination to work on my body. Gosh.



We went for a meal at this Jap/Korean restaurant before taking a bus down to Suntec where we shopped for awhile. We walked through Marina and rented a couple of umbrellas from Hang Ten which didn't come in to use as the rain stopped the moment we stepped out of the building. We took a long walk to Lau Pa Sat and had dinner for 3 hours. When you haven't met in 3 months, you've got a lot to catch up on. We talked about our love lives (for me, the lack of one), our jobs, and money.

I think I've become a little bit obsessed with the topic. The only other thing I ever think about as much is how to get back the bod I had in army.

We left the place at 11 or so, feeling really tired from an entire day of activities. The time passed incredibly fast though, which always happens when I'm with them.

After half day of work and another day of off, it's time to get back to work again!

Wonderful

Ooh, just had to share a photo which was taken during TWJ's birthday last week. I got it a couple of days ago. Anyway, a big happy birthday to him (although a bit belated). He had a hand in shaping my life in JC, without whom I'd never get crazy hairstyles, perform in a band, and drink alcohol.

A good run in the early morning makes everything feel better. Not that I'm feeling bad to begin with, but yeah, the pump of endorphins from exercise makes me feel great.

Alright, off to work!

Focus

I haven't been able to write anything interesting because I haven't gotten my focus right. Sometimes I sit down and I feel like jotting down some of my thoughts, but I've got absolutely no inspiration. When inspiration strikes, it's a very magical moment. Even during exams, I can spend half the time day dreaming till I get hit by that elusively exclusive idea and the other half rushing out the essay. More often than not, the moment when I put a full stop to the last sentence of the last paragraph, the invigilator announces that it's time to put the pen down.

I have no idea if it's due to me being tired most of the time or the monotony of life taking its toll on me. Either way, I don't feel inspired to write anything these days! Most of the things that I'm doing have been talked about. Most of those that I haven't mentioned aren't worth the time to do so.

If I have to be forced to talk about something though, I'd like to complain. How very Singaporean of me.

First of all, there's this line on the advertisement for Sony camera pouches which read, "No unsightly scratches. No unwanted damages. Just desired safety." I don't mean to insult the retard who wrote it, but what kind of damages can be described as "wanted"? Logically speaking, you can have scratches which are unnoticeable, and you can have scratches which are big and unsightly. Fine. But are there damages that are "wanted"? Including the word just for the sake of it doesn't make it sound professional nor poetic, it just sounds retarded. And it irks me to see such rubbish being printed on a huge, expensive-looking poster.

They could've paid me and I'd have come up with something better!

As terrible as it is, most of Sony's adverts are written in that tone of voice and resort to using equally cringe-worthy choice of words. I just need to gather more proof. I'm bringing that SDW course booklet home tomorrow.

People who come from countries with high population densities are usually (but not always) vulgar. I've been convince myself that it's not right to judge people from where they come from. It's only fair to approach customers without any preconceived notions and deal with who they are, and not their nationality. However that's all a bunch of bullshit and if you come into contact with enough of them you'll realise that they fit into that mould and it becomes only natural to categorise them as such.

Just like the fact that Indonesian Chinese, who almost always go for the most expensive SZ VAIO, are easy-going and polite.

This has got to be my bitchiest entry to date.

In the meantime, the titles of the library books I've borrowed today quite accrately reflects on what I've been pondering about.

1. Personal Finances for Dummies
2. Absolutely Perfect Plan for a Flatter Stomache (you're allowed to laugh if you have a 6-pack)
3. Toxin by Robin Cook

March

I met up with Mak the day before yesterday after work and we went to Pastamania for dinner. We talked about a lot of stuff, specifically about the fact that he was going away for 10 months to learn flying in Australia. It is cool to have a friend who's going to be a pilot, but 10 months is a very long time.

It's nice to have the feeling that there's someone who lives near by, that you can depend on and ask out for movies whenever it's convenient. Not to mention a buddy who does the adventurous stuff with me - Macritchie, 15km run to Sembawang Park and back etc. I guess I'm going to have to find someone to do all that crap with me once he goes away! Haha!

After dinner we played Daytona, and he won because I had some technical screw-up. I'm hoping for a rematch before he leaves, just get things straight! He can fly planes, but I can beat him at Daytona! After that he left to meet da-sao. Yeah, I've never seen him more blissful than he is now.

Congratulations dude!

His birthday's coming up too. Gotta start thinking of what to get him.

Chris' Party

I've been too stoned recently to come up with good blog entries. What you've been reading lately are sub-standard rants, along with photos. Editting them is a whole lot easier than constructing a pretty sentence. I am so screwed.

Anyway, a bunch of us met up at Kembangan MRT station on Saturday evening, somewhere I've never been before! Guo Fei, Terence, Shawn and I went to Cheers and there was a pathetic amount of alcohol for sale. We wanted to get some for Chris (which didn't turn out to be too brilliant an idea) as a present. We spotted a 7-11 at the CC, but it wasn't stocked with alcohol, because it was situated in a CC!

Bet you didn't know that!

Chris (who is going to Taiwan to learn hairstyling, thus the farewell party) picked us up at the bus stop in his Honda Accord. It was a quick drive to his place. I've been to private houses before and his is the biggest I've ever been in.



We went in to have dinner and the food was really good. The Taiwan sausage, fried rice and dumplings were some of the delightful things we had among the wide variety of dishes. We left enough space in our stomachs upon seeing the fondue machine. The dips that were available were the healthy strawberries and the sinfully sweet marshmallows.



A sight for chocolate-addicts, surely? I was tempted to kidnap the fondue machine back home for my personal use! It was certainly one of the many highlights of the evening. We couldn't stop ourselves from finishing almost everything, and had many "last" helpings.

Self-denial.

Anyway, we watched a bit of Star Wars in the living room and had our first taste of alcohol for the evening. There was a guy who was mixing the staggering varieties of alcohol available. It just so happened that he worked in Zouk as a bartender! It kicked off with some funny pink drink, which the four of us couldn't finish. We then had a shot of tequila each before going up to Chris' room, which was huge.

I need to be rich enough to get a house like that some day.

After browsing through a couple of old issues of Mens' Health, Chris offered us cards and we played Big 2. It's much less of a hassle as compared to mahjong, and requires more brains as compared to Blackjack. I'm surprised I didn't play it at all during CNY. We gambled - 10 cents a card!

In the midst of all the gambling...



Chris is an amazing host I tell you. I don't even know what this is called but after this baby, I was super high. It tasted really good with my favourite alcohol, Baileys Irish Cream, in it! I have no idea what the dangerous, dark, bottom-layer of liquid is. It's sweet but seductively poisonous. My camera tasted quite a bit of it as Terence spilled his over it! Thankfully, it's still functional, though I doubt it will be for much longer seeing how accident-prone it is!

To top it all off, Chris brought up Vodka lime that helped to sustain my 'high' for quite awhile. I think I was the noisiest and rowdiest (while playing cards, telling everyone off for not giving me a chance to throw my cards), which is just a little bit embarrassing, but I've known these guys for quite a long time already, so it doesn't matter!

Just one more for the alcohol list - we were offered Tequila Pop but I skipped that because I think it would've probably driven me to check myself in to rehab!



I won a little bit of money from the game (like 2 dollars), and we took this last group photo. Shawn and I were the most red in the face, but I think it's safe to say that the alcohol got us all high, and we had an amazing time.

Now I know why middle-aged uncles spend their spare time drinking and gambling.

Guo Fei, Chris' friend and I took a cab back home. And I called for the cab in exchange for Guo Fei finishing my Tequila Pop! Hilarious stuff.

Even after an hour and a half later whilst I was home in bed, I could still feel my heart pounding rapidly. I am such a lousy drinker.

Which just means that I can save money on alcohol.

(Forgive me for the crappy entry yet again!)

CNY Things

On Monday night (gosh I haven't been updating this blog in a really long time!), the class had an annual gathering at Ming Boon's house. We had this fantastic steamboat (as usual) but what was really great was the company. I realised that having them around is such a great thing - the jokes that came from knowing each other that well, and of course our "he xin nian" singing whenever someone said something scandalous just shows how much chemistry we have. It's really special to have a time for all of us to sit at the same table, have a meal, and talk.



Of course, after that we had the after-meal activities which include Mahjong and Blackjack. Overall, I lost money, but that's hardly the point. I had the most thrilling Blackjack session ever - I think I almost lost my voice after that! Yeah, it's kind of insane. I tried my hand at Mahjong for abit, which was okay (as in I didn't lose that much money!).



I can't wait to have another excuse for a class gathering. We don't do it often enough!

The next day I had work, but I managed to meet up with a couple of my army friends after that. Guo Fei, Samuel, and I made our way to Ivan's house from Causeway Point where Shawn (and of course Ivan) was already waiting! I was rather full from a dinner with Ryan, but since there was steamboat, we helped ourselves to it! Throughout most of that conversation they were discussing Warcraft, but I don't really mind because after knowing them for so long, I think they'd die if they didn't talk about it! Haha... After that we started playing Mahjong, and Shawn sort of helped me out and taught me stuff. I felt that I learnt a lot from this session! Can't wait for the next one! We left at about 3AM as all of us had to work the next day.

Yesterday a couple of us class peeps went to TWJ's 21st birthday chalet. More updates on that once the photos come in. I'm quite excited to be going to Chris' party today as well. And that would mark the end of a very busy week of entertaining!