-random

its funny how condo (and perhaps landed property, except those tradtional looking ones) residents are stereotyped as english speaking, and hdb flat residents as chinese speaking or their mother tongue. just now outside my condo, someone approached me for help. he looked like he was a chinese speaker, but talked to me in singlish. he either perceived me as english speaking from my face, or just cos i stayed in a condo.
i would expect most of my neighbours to be english speaking too, somehow. and when like ppl do CIP or whatever charity at hdb flats, they always open the convo with the residents using mother tongue. even if the residents r young ppl. but thats not always the case that hdb dwellers speak mother tongue more. during a goodwill thing to deliver packages to 1room hdb flats as part of church camp, i remember coming across this very old chinese man in his flat. we talked to him in chinese, and he gave us the confused look and just slowly walked over to the gate before saying, "i dont understand..."
it probably became a stereotype that in order to be more successful in career, you gotta be english speaking, so that only those more successful and relatively richer ppl get to live in condos and landed property. its only true to a small extent, cos in todays society english is a must for better jobs and so is passing english in whatever exams. but couldnt ppl have just the required english fluency while speaking chinese the rest of the time, and still be successful? i dont see any reason why they cant. after all, the top 3 students in my class are all chinese speaking =.=' and no, they are not study robots imported from china.

speaking of that, its surprising how faces can so accurately tell of what they speak. just by looking at someone (chinese ppl only), i can roughly tell if that person is chinese or english speaking, or sometimes both. and its rather accurate most of the time! even as i look back at my classmates, those who are ES and CS all have the corresponding looks. the bilingual ones are harder though.
i think the most suitable explaination i have is that when ppl see u at first impression, they kinda judge whether ur ES or CS, and respectively talk 2 u in that language. and over the years, with this continually going on, u get moulded into the habit of speaking that lang. for the bilingual ones, i guess its like they somehow have a english face, but their family always speaks chinese or vice versa. confusing and amazing at the same.

staying just a stone throw away from vast nature has its own interesting effects. some animals just cant differentiate between trees and condos. so recently i have had invasions of huge wasps that come in every other night to buzz at my lights. when they first came, there were 9 of them, each one more than 2cm long, crowding around the ceiling lamps and like making a nest there. once that happens, they would consider it as their territory and attack us if we go near. my dad was really worried about them entrenching in our house but we had no inect spray. so i ended up using a newspaper and whacking all of them to death. (they are too distracted by the lights to run from danger.) lately i have moved on to more sadistic methods like using a scissors to just cut them alive into half! of course they have to be stationary for that. its fun to explore new methods of ridding these unwary creatures for the greater good.

a week ago i plucked a stalk of wild flower from near the nature reserve, and put it in a flask of water for display at home. now, it has started growing out roots from its stem! never expected it to be this kind of plant. and never come across such plants before. no wonder it could survive for so long after being cut. so i decided to transplant it into soil and have it grow and produce more flowers, hopefully. while doing this, i found some nice pots and gathered extra soil, so i suddenly decided to start growing beans again! no balcony this time so i cant plant a whole container of them. but just one or 2 in small pots which i can put on my ledge. needless to say, i wont be expecting to farm generations after generations of beans. or that flowering plant for that matter.

time seems to be flying extra fast these days. and the thing is, it flies fast even when im not having fun. though one thing i can say, i have not been doing anything stressful or that i dont like to do. still, it seems i have been spending unexpectedly long time on the stuff i do, or taking longer than expected to do them. and so especially on free days, i look at the clock every now and then and get shocked at how much time has passed already. it really feels like time is running faster, or disappearing into nowhere. hmm... holidays are such a bliss. then when school starts again and the projects and assignment pile up, time shall slow down once again, to my disfavour.

crap talk
Dad: so were there any restrictions on you for using the gym?
Me: uh.. not that i know of..
Dad: no kids allowed ah?
Me: WHAT KIDS?!?!
Dad: hahaha... i knew that will get your reaction.

Decisive moment

Ok the interview is done! and it was easier than i expected. they didnt ask any hard questions which leave me stumped or where i could easily say something wrong. just very straight forward, standard questions such as why i want to go.

the interviewers were nicer than i thought. very friendly and cordial, and not like strict and serious, waiting to pick on our flaws. helps us from being nervous.

for the interview queue, just unlucky to get one of the last few, which was in the late afternoon. others could go back as early as 11!

anyway, i didnt say eveything i had on mind.. they just seemed to disappear when i was at it. but i guess i said enough. and kept diverting her away from the topic into another related topic to prevent her from staying on that one which i have nothing more to say. saved us from awkward pauses, and since she didnt go back to those topics, i guess whatever i answered is enough.

well we have been told that the selection criteria is not at all stringent. last year's batch, 15 applied, only 3 were rejected. i believe most of us will make it too. spoils the fun, but saves us the worry. well i guess i wont rejoice as greatly as i said i would if i get in, but nevertheless i will rejoice for this great experience opportunity, and gladly look forward to it.

actually i think sue, the interviewer gave me a hint on my interview result..
sue: so, are you sure you still wanna stick to your choice of roles after what i have told you?
me: hmm.... yeah, for learning experience!
sue: alright! you're in for a great learning experience!

now i better get selected or its gonna look real stupid. hah

pics and work.

Today i uncovered more treasures from the past. unpacking stuff which was packed without looking through it, i found my kindergarten class photo! i wasnt very close to any of my kinder classmates though i remember vaguely playing with a few. the boys just didnt mix with the girls
yet when i saw the class photo, a number of names just came to my mind. some of them like alvin, neythan, maureen, i could match to their faces with much certainty. some when i see the face, the name just pops up but without a clue of certainty. like for this big girl called Ing Ing (what a lame name), that name came to mind when i saw her, but i thought, must have confused with another big girl classmate in p3 called Yin Yin. and when i look at the whole class, more names come up but i just cant match them to the faces. some of their faces ring a bell but no clue to their name.

Well but then for those names i remembered and matched, they all turned out to be correct, including all the uncertain ones! So it seems as a small kid when i was hardly able to store info, these things like names (even for those ppl i hardly had contact with) are being recorded and stored vaguely in the corner of my mind long term, and can still be ignited so many years later. so exposure and influence on a toddler is very important...
Oh and i also found out Tisha and Sarah Ho were in my class! that i never knew till now!

I have so far worked 2 shifts at Sushi Tei, and somehow i seem to be quite happy with the job. happier than i was with my previous waitering job at The Wharf. comparing the 2 jobs:

Wharf advantages:
Wharf provided dinner before the shifts and supper after. good food that is also offered to the customers. wharf pays $1 more per hour, thats comparing their salary then to ST's now. doesnt even give consideration for inflation...
better scenery - can see the sea and some boats.
western restaurant, easier names, less procedures.

Wharf disadvantages:
further and less accessible.. but that didnt really matter.
only can work fixed shifts 6 to 10 on fri to sun.
the uniform was ugly. blue shirt with white shorts, yuck.

Sushi tei advantages:
got 3 ex clasmates working there as well, got chance to work with them.
aircon! it really helps at times.
when i work the night shift, there may be leftover sushi which would be given to the staff! these food sure beats the supper given at the wharf.
warm and friendly supervisors, and a really nice manager.
a better sense of camaraderie between the staff, cos there are more roles and tasks, so more interdependence and collaboration.
we are allowed free flow of green tea.. wharf only gives water. oh but just by stuffing myself with green tea, i was able to eat only 4 biscuits at 5+ and not go hungry for the whole shift.
we are able to choose when we wanna come for work. we can choose our shift timing and even the days to work. very flexible, just need to give 1 week notice of schedule.
$2ph more on weekends, but only for non-trainee staff.
more staff to tables ratio, though we are not necessarily less busy.


sushi tei disadvantages:
no dinner provided, expects us to have very early lunch or dinner and see food for the next 4 hours but cant eat it...
we need to take care of, bring back and wash our own set of uniform! so cheapskate.
pathetic pay... lower than most restaurants. plus this is a higher class restaurant sumore...
complicated names, more procedures, more variety of menu (disadvantage for us), more formal requirements (like in dressing)
most of my colleagues speak chinese. very few can speak fluent english.
small cramped restaurant space.. can get very annoying.

i look at it and wonder what so nice about it.. well i really dont know. its like im busy and may be tiring, but its not stressful. i would say the nice supervisors and manager really contributed alot to reducing the stress. like im not so scared of getting scolded if i make a mistake. they also probably not deal with me so harshly. the flexible schedule also saves me a lot of worry if i will be able to make it, and i can reserve time for other activities and plan ahead. the experience, company and the sense of fulfilment i may get would totally override the low pay. so yeah, i guess i would wanna continue on this job as long as i dont get too busy with other stuff. that would be probably when my new term starts. oh, i dread going back to school...

Rebellion Rewarded?

Today i was a few minutes into a game of chinese chess on viwawa when i got the call to go downstairs with the trolley to bring up groceries. The game had a time limit of 15 mins, anyone who took longer than that in total auto loses. As it was online playing with other ppl, obviously you cant pause the game. my mom was busy and joel was topless and refused to go. so i decided to be obedient, just leave the game runing and quickly went down to collect, intending to rush it through and get back.

So i huriedly got down and unloaded the groceries. i demanded for the card to open the gate so i could go up first. my dad took his own sweet time to handle his heliconias, told me to wait, then strolled to the gate. thats when be both realised we both didnt bring a card! im not really appreciating this 'security feature' in the condo, its more of a hassle. i was never given a card for myself and i assumed my dad had one. he also assumed i would bring one (even though its just going downstairs to fetch groceries...) so now we were locked outside, and my dad had to call joel to come down with the card to let us in. i was thinking to myself, 'gone, game over alr. nvm la, just lose lor.' i was silently blaming joel for my loss cos he didnt go instead.

when we got back up, i went back to my game, my timer had only 3 minutes remaining. i quickly made my move and my opponent came back soon. But what followed left me amazed... my opponent (who was higher level than me) made a series of really stupid mistakes, and when i still had 1+ min left, he surrendered! im thinking, this must be really God's reward for me for being obedient and making the sacrifice.

I was reading the passage on the prodigal son for qt, and the last part of the story left me with some doubts. Reference Luke 15:11-31
so we are familiar with how the story goes, the son rebels against his father, demands his inheritance and then leaves the family. squanders his wealth, gets into dire situation and decides to return and repent. Now while how the father reacted reflects God's forgiving nature who will accept us back no matter what we did if we repent, the brother comes in and makes the story complicated in application.

"the older brother became angry and refused to go in. so his father came out and entreated him, but he answered his father, 'lo, these many years i have served you, and i never disobeyed your commands; yet you never gave me a young goat that i may make merry with my friends. but when this son of yours came back, who has devoured your living with harlots, you killed for him the fattened calf!' And he said to him,' son, you are always with me and everything i have is yours. but it was fitting to make merry and be glad, for this your brother was dead, and is alive, was lost, and is found."

the father made full acceptance of the younger son, fully restoring his status as his son and forgetting all about his rebellion. he became on par with his elder brother. whats more, the son actually got rewarded for returning! So this could lead ppl to think, if we remain faithful to God, we dont get anything for it, not even a token of appreciation or in this case, a young goat to celebrate with friends. But if we rebel and later come back, we would be fully restored and in addition, given a big token of apprecation! Is it really free for us to stray and then come back? is it really better to do that way to get a blessing? will we really be given nothing if we stay faithful?

yes the father said that everything he has belongs to his elder son. but thats only logically right, because the younger son had already taken his share, so whats left obviously goes to the other! the elder did not receive anything extra at all. i fully understand his dissatisfaction.

well i cant bring myself to think and believe that way. it should be reasonable to assume, God does recognise our faithfulness and what we have done for Him. Just that He will not show us extra favour or give extra blessings of earthly and material things. our reward would not be on earth, but stored up in heaven. any deeper than that i shall not go, but leave it to God to reveal. after all, there are cases of rewards, like what i mentioned above.

Resettlement

This is the day i left Farrer court for good, (though its not so good.) and it feels like i have just migrated, never to go back. i might go back to the place, but not the house again. the time came so swiftly i didnt feel the effect until the last few hours. i thought to myself, this is the last meal in FC, the last bath in FC, last walk downstairs, last time viewing the view, last sleep in FC, etc.
my dad was like, "ah, my good and faithful house for 23 years,.. i give my farrer court a hug!" and proceeded to hug the wall corner...

was feeling very emo last night, especially as i packed the last few items into the boxes. they were old stuff from my childhood times, little writings and drawings. looking back, i was a very creative and imaginative kid. When i did certain things as a kid, ppl say im creative or maybe even genious. but if i do the same things now, ppl instead say im weird! it seems ppl are forced to let go of that upon growing up.

all the unwanted books to be left behind were placed on my table. i had previously looked through them briefly, and didnt want them.but as i took a last glance at the unwanted items, one of them caught my attention.. was a small book which i haven seen for long. so i took it out and there behind it i found my world at war game book! its been somehing i been hunting for the whole week, and thought it got packed somewhere alr.


Things we did in Farrer court just before leaving

Acacian outing held at farrer court. Initially intended for mike to co-host but he moved out earlier. Met outside first for lunch and buy food for dinner. Delayed by almost an hour to do unnecessary trip to wilson’s house.

Using spray paint and water-base paint, we created a masterpiece of graffiti art on my balcony wall. Spray paint for the main design, water paint for the little details around it. Looked really ugly at first cos we used no templates. The golden outline really made it nicer. But who cares if it turned out ugly… im moving out the next day..

was told just the day before that I had to go to school for a Disney briefing, I was so sianed out that it had to clash with my outing. I had no choice but to leave them behind in the house while I went out. The last trip to school from farrer court.

been wanting to do this before but didn’t find the chance to. I brought along the camera and made my way to meet the other acacians near the estate entrance, videoing the journey on the go. Captured a good portion of the estate for remembrance.

Had bbq dinner at the bbq pit; only the 2nd time I ever used it, the previous being my 10th birthday. The pits were in pathetic condition and especially the charcoal tray – it was twisted and bent beyond hope. After wasting a lot of time trying to get the pit and charcoals fixed up, we still had to make do with a slanted grill which food rolled off many times. Had to transfer the charcoals from one pit to another, wasting lots of fire starters. The fire finally grew very strong for a while but died out before we could finish cooking everything. One rather big mistake was marinating the food before it thawed... so it became quite disgusting later.

At first thought to be too little, ended up being too much food. Luckily didn’t set out to buy more yet. So we were left with an excess of seaweed chicken and also mush mallows for dessert, we were too full to eat them all. Then a few of us started throwing these excess food from on top the slope into the windows of neighbours on the low floors, and managed to get 4 mush mallows and 1 seaweed chicken inside! Wasn’t easy cos it was quite far. Lots of missed morsels littered on the ground floor below the house. Haha.

Halfway setting up the fire, we realized there was a young snail hiding at the corner of the pit. The fire wasn’t strong enough to kill it before shifting, so later on it came outta its shell and tried escaping real fast (for a snail.) but some sadistic acacians wanted tried make escargot from it. First they burned off its tail and antenna with lighter, then poured honey into its shell, surrounded it with matches and set it alight!

Joel left behind a glass grenade which was quite handy for throwing. I found a big beetle and trapped it inside, filled it with water and threw it downstairs. Missed the pavement and didn’t break. So at 12.30 in the morning I went downstairs, found the grenade and threw it over the fence into the construction site, heard it shatter into bits.

My neighbour vacated their house and the door wasn’t locked. So at night we went inside to explore the place, which still had a few furnitures and posters around. The next morning went there again to smash the lights and an old computer for fun.

When we were about to take a group photo, Wilson took the corner spot and we squeezed together, but what he didn’t know was there was this tall cactus behind him and he pressed onto it. So it went like:
Kaimin: eh Wilson be careful, behind you got cactus!
Wilson: (looks behind) (after a few secs) Ooohh! My ass! Very pain!
(everyone stares at him)
Me: you serious arh?
Wilson: yes! Really..
(everyone starts laughing hysterically)
Seems ironic that people only find things funny when your serious.

I guess im settling quite well in the new house, better than I thought. I didn’t have this overwhelming sense of unfamiliarity like feeling not at home or homesickness. Internets set up on the day itself, but connection a bit faulty. Still lots of unpacking to do… there was about 30 big boxes lying around the house and many small ones. The study room was the worst.. totally cluttered looking like a junk yard. My study table has not arrived yet! Will have to leave those stuff on the floor first..


Random stuff:
responses to random messaging:

A: thanks for your concern!
B: no, not random. Its nice to receive such messages!
C: why you so kaypo?!
D: its kinda freaky that you suddenly talk to me…
E: (no reply..)