After 3 and a half days of work, I have: heard about 4-5 different accents (sometimes all in the same day), cleaned up a girl who "poopoo-ed", seen 2 vomitting cases, cleaned/bandaged dozens of injuries ("ouchies"), played Monopoly about a million times, and sworn off having kids forever.
Hahah no I'm kidding about the last one. Kids are an enigma. They're actually more complicated than they seem. Some are really sweet, while others are just pure evil haha. Oh and actually Singaporean kids are more well-behaved than their angmoh counterparts. I don't know if it's the parenting or the education system haha.

For example, there's Anneliese from Australia, who's super adorable. She chose to sit by me instead of the other kids, while we were watching TV :D And she gave me a keychain before she left!

Then there's the 5 year old German girl today, who practically attached herself to me and gave me random hugs :D:D And the 6 year old Korean girl who cuts herself and says to me very matter-of-factly: "See teacher, my leg!", then promptly goes back to whatever she was doing. These are the kids that I was really tempted to kidnap and bring home haha.

Contrast this to other terrors I get. Like this 8 year old girl from England, who really deserves to be spanked. She throws tantrums when she doesn't get her way, and blames others for her own mistakes. And she bawls over the smallest things!

Then there are the Jekyll-and-Hyde kinds. Like this girl from Australia, who threw a fit when I refused to let her stay in the pool longer. The same girl voluntarily shared her money with me during Monopoly after I became bankrupt haha. See, they are complicated beings!!

Haha but ok la, it's not sooo bad.. I do get to eat the lunch buffet for just $3! Though my lunchbreak isn't really a break cuz I have lunch with the kids so I'm technically still working. And I get to have healthier sleeping habits (no more 3am/12pm days!), not like I have a choice though. I'm usually so tired when I get home that I fall asleep by 12am. At least I'm being paid (peanuts) to play with kids! I get to kayak, play board games, and splash around in the pool. Although it's also my fault if anything happens to the kids haha. It's hard to find something else like this elsewhere :)



My eyes were dark
Til you woke me
And told me that opening is just the start

I've recently been hooked on this show called "Chuck". It rocks lor, like it has everything a show should have, ie. action, comedy, drama and romance haha. Mostly the comedy. It's about a nerd who has the government secrets uploaded into his brain, making him very valuable to the country, so they send 2 spies to protect him. And he goes about on all these spy missions to save the world using the intelligence in his head. It's seriously very good, and I'm really glad they renewed the show for a 3rd season, though it's very unfortunate that it'll only start airing in March next year :(

So that's how I spend my time at home. Actually I'm kinda worried about my potential job looking after kids at Sentosa. I'm afraid of something happening to the kids while they're under my watch :S And I seriously hope I'd be able to entertain them, and not let them ride all over me haha.



I told you to be patient
I told you to be fine
I told you to be balanced
I told you to be kind
Now all your love is wasted
Then who the hell was I?
Now I'm breaking at the bridges
And at the end of all your lines

"And that," put in the Director sententiously, "that is the secret of happiness and virtue - liking what you've got to do. All conditioning aims at that: making people like their inescapable social destiny."

"The greater a man's talents, the greater his power to lead astray. It is better that one should suffer than that many should be corrupted. Consider the matter dispassionately, Mr. Foster, and you will see that no offense is so heinous as unorthodoxy of behavior. Murder kills only the individual - and, after all, what is an individual?"

"Our world is not the same as Othello's world. You can't make flivvers without steel-and you can't make tragedies without social instability. The world's stable now. People are happy; they get what they want, and they never want what they can't get."

"You've got to choose between happiness and what people used to call high art."

"Actual happiness always looks pretty squalid in comparison with the over-compensations for misery. And, of course, stability isn't nearly so spectacular as instability. And being contented has none of the glamour of a good fight against misfortune, none of the picturesqueness of a struggle with temptation, or a fatal overthrow by passion or doubt. Happiness is never grand."

"The Gods are just. No doubt. But their code of law is dictated, in the last resort, by the people who organize society; providence takes its cue from men."

" 'We are not our own any more than what we possess is our own. We did not make ourselves, we cannot be supreme over ourselves. We are not our own masters. We are God's property. Is it not our happiness thus to view the matter? Is it any happiness or any comfort, to consider that we are our own? It may be thought so by the young and prosperous. These may think it a great thing to have everything, as they suppose, their own way - to depend on no one - to have to think of nothing out of sight, to be without the irksomeness of continual acknowledgment, continual prayer, continual reference of what they do to the will of another. But as time goes on, they, as all men, will find that independence was not made for man - that it is an unnatural state - will do for a while, but will not carry us safely to the end.' " - John Henry Newman

" 'A man grows old; he feels in himself that radical sense of weakness, of listlessness, of discomfort, which accompanies the advance of age; and, feeling thus, imagines himself merely sick, lulling his fears with the notion that this distressing condition is due to some particular cause, from which, as from an illness, he hopes to recover. Vain imaginings! That sickness is old age; and a horrible disease it is. They say that it is the fear of death and of what comes after death that makes men turn to religion as they advance in years. But my own experience has given me the conviction that, quite apart from any such terrors or imaginings, the religious sentiment tends to develop as we grow older; to develop because, as the passions grow calm, as the fancy and sensibilities are less excited and less excitable, our reason becomes less troubled in its working, less obscured by the images, desires and distractions, in which it used to be absorbed; whereupon God emerges as from behind a cloud; our soul feels, sees, turns towards the source of all light; turns naturally and inevitably; for now that all that gave to the world of sensations its life and charm has begun to leak away from us, now that phenomenal existence is no more bolstered up by impressions from within or from without, we feel the need to lean on something that abides, something that will never play us false - a reality, an absolute and everlasting truth. Yes, we inevitably turn to God; for this religious sentiment is of its nature so pure, so delightful to the soul that experiences it, that it makes up to us for all our other losses.' "- Maine de Biran

- Aldous Huxley, "Brave New World"




"Just an after-effect, he tells himself, an after-effect of the invasion. In a while the organism will repair itself, and I, the ghost within it, will be my old self again. But the truth, he knows, is otherwise. His pleasure in living has been snuffed out. Like a leaf on a stream, like a puffball on a breeze, he has begun to float toward his end. He sees it quite clearly, and it fills him with (the word will not go away) despair. The blood of life is leaving his body and despair is taking its place, despair that is like gas, odourless, tasteless, without nourishment. You breathe it in, your limbs relax, you cease to care, even at the moment when the steel touches your throat."

- J.M. Coetzee, "Disgrace"

And so the bumming begins.

I've been travelling around Singapore the past week, going to bo liao places to do bo liao things :D Ok well, it's been sort of educational also. At Little India after my paper (which was quite terrible btw), I learnt about the Indian culinary culture when we tried all kinds of flat dough, from prata to uttapam (ok I don't think I learnt much cuz I still don't know what that is, though it was good hah), and had a vegetarian dinner complete with mock chicken and prawns. Oh and I finally discovered Mustafa!! It's freaking cheap, if you can ignore the clutter.

Then on Thurs, we revisited our childhood when we went to Haw Par Villa. It's become quite old and derelict since I visited like err 10 years ago, which is really sad. Some of the figurines are falling apart, and the ponds have become breeding ground for mosquitos. I wished someone could do more to maintain the place, even though it's actually loss-making cuz there are really few visitors (apart from bored students who have nothing to do). The statues were really life-like and detailed (which just makes them all the more frightening), which is quite a feat considering the place was built in the 1930s. So I think the place deserves to be taken care of, and not left to rot like that.

Other than the excellent workmanship, some of the dioramas were just plain scary, especially the ones of "Hell" (by the way, it costs $1 to go to hell). I can't believe the figures weren't censored or something, cuz there's so much blood and gore! Seriously, all forms of torture and dismemberment were there on display. No wonder I used to have nightmares when I visited as a kid, though my mum had a field day using those gory scenes as a teaching tool: "See, this is what happens when you tell a lie!" *points to scene of man getting his organs ripped out*.

I think we were mostly at HPV to take retarded pictures with the statues haha. Anyway after HPV, we actually travelled all the way to Jurong Point for dinner just for the heck of it. Hahaha, this is boredom to the furthest degree.

And on May Day, I visited this mangrove boardwalk thing at Pasir Ris Park with Jamie and Nina, during which we came to the conclusion that we're not cut out to live it rough in nature (this coming from 2 ex-Guides). Barely 15 mins into the walk, we were already looking for the exit while swatting mosquitos and complaining about the heat hahah. We're sissies. Anyway the walk was ok, we saw a million mudcrabs, gross giant caterpillars, and imaginery mudskippers.

The actual fun thing was actually navigating our way around the roads in Jamie's car haha. Or at least it was fun for me. Woohoo I can navigate with a Street Directory!! But seriously, it's fun to go to places when you have absolutely no idea how to get there and all you have is each other, a car, and a map. But anyway, it's Singapore, so there's a limit to how lost you can possibly get.

Into the wild!!

A few of the gazillion crabs out there.

Everyone say "Eeew!!"

It's a jungle out there.

On Monday, it's the top of the world at Singapore Flyer!!! At only $10 (usual price is $29.90)!! I tell you, it rocks being a student cuz you get all kinds of crazy discounts, which is one of the reasons why I'm happy I only graduate next year :D 1 more year to be a cheapo!! Oh but we didn't manage to get a student price for our movie tickets cuz apparently GV Marina only has discounts for SMU students. What's wrong!! Anyway we failed to negotiate for cheaper tickets with the girl at the box office :( I actually felt bad for her, cuz we kept pushing our luck with her haha ("Can you pretend we're from SMU?").

Oh but the view from the flyer was great! Especially since we went at sunset. I didn't know Singapore was capable of views like these. It'll probably look even nicer once the IR is built, though the flyer tickets will also probably go up.

View of ECP.

Sunset in Singapore :)

I think my house is somewhere out there.

Pretty awesome view.

Yesterday was another baking session at QY's house. Actually we didn't really bake, more like mix stuff and put into the fridge to chill. We made chocolate truffles (which are idiot-proof, except when they fail to solidify after freezing), and some jelly thing QY's mum made for us last time. I think we should give the jelly a name (like err "Strawberry and Marshmallow Surprise"), if not it'll forever be known as "QY's mum's jelly thing". Anyway we made all these stuff for Mother's Day :) And fortunately, my mum loved the stuff haha.

In between going out, I've been reading and watching "How I Met Your Mother". It's hilarious, everyone should watch it.

Anyway, I have given up on finding an internship, and have re-dedicated the next 3 months to fruitful bumming. Which means I slack purposefully, and on a budget of course :D But as of yet, I have no idea what to do. I reallllyy need to earn some money, so I'm hoping I'd be able to find a part-time job or something. I'd like to volunteer somewhere, or learn a new skill. But my problem is I have a short attention span. I get distracted too easily. Once something picks up my interest, I lose it immediately when something else gets my attention. This is bad.

So there, this ends week 1 of "Eng Eng Bo Dai Ji" (which translates to super duper free and nothing to do) haha.

Don't get offended

If I seem absent minded

Just keep telling me facts

And keep making me smile