304 : How bleak can it get ?

Maybe its just me, but i think it was too long of a time since i donned on contact lenses. My freaking astigmatism just went up again and now, everything's a blur. Since i need to work next week infront of my stinking 4 year old PC and type type type, i reckoned i should get some daily disposal ones.

And yesterday i tested my new buy, and hmm, comfy and clear vision... i like it. After some work and helping out at the company, had some dinner went back home wash up and realised, shit, i can't take off my contacts. I'm too used to wearing specs, and even my previous experience with my hard perm contact lenses was a breeze to take out.

Just imagine me, spending 1 hour gouging at my eye in front of the toilet mirror trying to get that damn piece of plastic out. It was a horrible experience, hurt like hell, and my eyes were blood shot red. Not a nice sight either. My fingernails were a tad too long, and its been scratching my eyes pretty bad. A voice in my head advised myself to cut them off immediately and to continue my assault on the stubborn plastics in my eye.

AND finally after another 10 minutes of fun, both sides were finally out. I flushed the disposables down the sink instantly. I got so tired of gouging myself, i fell asleep on my bed within minutes.

Today, Sunday, another weekend, another end of the weekend, another coming to start another monday of endless phonecalls paperwork to handle. I've been assigned clark duties finally for the month of june, and i'm so not looking forward to spend a precious weekend inside camp manning a phone and an empty bed. Maybe perhaps, i can ultilize the buffer time in between to think of ideas for a new piece of furniture competition coming up.

*Wow i posted this post via mail and it worked, just that the tags don't show up... hmm...

303 : Conversion ?

I'm grateful i won't be studying accountancy or business management. There's a gradual growing fear of spreadsheets and basically anything that's got to do with answering phones. Today's my precious 1 day off to go renew my passport at the Merleisure Ambassy. Here's a quick recap of what happened.

-Woke up at 6am (as per normal on weekdays -.-' )
-Took cab to at 645am to ambassy
-Took queue number at 730am
-Admitted to ambassy at 815am, received 3 phone calls from camp (asking where i am, what i doing and when i will be back )
-Chiong all the documents and photocopy and stuff
-Called my queue number at 9am. Finished submitting at 930am
-Went home to sleep at 10am only to wake up to answer another call at around 11am
-Out for lunch till 2pm
-Went back to ambassy by bus (40min ride, 2 more phone calls then) to collect finished passport at 230pm.
- Went to cut hair, make A1 size picture frame, buy groceries back home (another 1 more call....)

Its so not in the name of good fun when i pick up the call with the number XXXX999 (my camps' outgoing extension)

Suddenly, not having a mobile phone seems more convenient after all.

You might suggest that i either switch off or ignore calls, but i don't think there is a culture in my to do that. But one day, when my patience really gives way, i shall make an effort to put "NIL" under the HP NO. field whenever i fill up forms.

Speaking of forms, i paid an extra 10cents when i needed to collect the application form for renewing passport at the ambassy. The 4 pieces of forms to fill by right cost only 50c. I paid 60c in total. Here's what happened. Long queue, impatient people behing and front. I have like my old passport IC and other documents in my hand, with only 1 other hand left to dig my wallet out from my back pocket and retrieve some coins for the 50c, the first digging in my wallet came out with 40c(2x10 cents and 1x20cents), which is not enough so i dug out another 20 cents accidently from my wallet and put it on the counter along with the 40c, i was about to take back the extra 10c when the officer in-charged of handling, CORRECTION, selling the forms just swiped all the coins off the counter and arranged the coins nicely into their respective boxes. I HIGHLY DOUBT HE MADE A MISTAKE IN COUNTING THE COINS AS HE HAD SORTED THE COINS INTO 10C AND 20C AND PUT THEM INTO COIN BOXES. Of couse, with the long queue behind me growling and waiting, i simply walked away in utter astonishment.

My goodness, 10cents.

The key point i trying to make is the annoying procedure i have to go through to apply for a citizenship here. I need to have a valid passport which has yet to expire. Curiously once my application gets through, the passport which is currently valid for another 5 years is suddenly... useless. Not cheap, $130 for a 32 page A6 booklet with red leather cover.

At least its red.

302 : The Whimsical Green Elves

They say change is good. Change force us to adapt to different environments. But i've been put into a whole lot of awful circumstances that i cannot say how or why or what. Its really sad.

I've been away from here awhile because of all the silly admin work i need to do even though i get to go back every night. I've been recently occupied with learning how to do quick sketches and draw using my right brain. And i've been thinking a lot about my next step in life should be.

I fear a lot recently about my health. Fell ill for 2 whole damn week, still can walk and talk, but when it comes down to people asking me out or asking me to do things, i just can't find the energy to do so. I mean, yeah though its strictly "light duties/jobs", just... no drive to do it. Been coughing non-stop, lots of phlegm, lots of undying phlegm that refuses to go away even after lots of medical treatment, oh boy.

My back pain has gotten worse recently too, and due to this i had largely avoided exercise. I am skipping my physio because of my day job (disgustingly true).

The ID job fell through because of my new job, i no longer enjoy an odd day work schedule and yes i am officially booked out from mon-fri 24 hrs from now on.

Well the only good news that came this awful month of may is ANTHILLASS's offering me a seat in academic year 2010. Which also means i have to defer my service to the nation, and give it back during my precious uni holidays. Disgustingly true... too.

At least i got another buddy from archi joining me in this journey. Its gonna be sad, but it won't be lonely.



Alrighty, here is one more ang-sek-ness for the record.

Terminator 4/Transformers 2 are just around the corner !

301 : Clark

And post 301 marks the beginning of my humble journey to become a measly little company clerk. It ain't 8-5 as most people would imagined and i do hope its kind of... lax. I'm not sure, today's my first day and i'm at home busily packing my things back into my bag again for the 3rd time this year while i brace myself for a brand new home.

Let's have a quick recap :
1. tehkong
2. paiseh rubba sixpack K (twainee)
3. paiseh rubba sixpack E (ohohsee)
4. paiseh rubba sixpack gutroom (ohohsee)
5. paiseh rubba tuadog oxroom (observar)
6. paiseh rubba sixpack B (clerk)
7. No, i don't think there's no. 7

Oh jeese. Imagine for every new place i go, i need to pack in all my things, and then unpack, then pack again, bring back the things i thought i do not need only to bring them back the very next week because i'm going somewhere else. The leh-ceh-ness is fantastic !

But after 6 times of moving here and there, you kinda get used to it, meeting new people, keying in new contacts into your phone only to call these people once or twice. I've met more Jeremy(s) than i can count with both hands, oh and did i mention ? 3 Jeremy tan. And i thought the name weilong was common. (HAHA)

I remember back in secondary school (after we toured the off-icers school on a fieldtrip, i had envisioned myself already inside ahmi, in a lonely outpost in the middle of nowhere, reading books while listening to a dying radio. I was a clerk, jotting down vehicle numbers going in and out of the compound, it was boring-lish hell. But that was many years ago when i was pure and don't throw vulgarities at a random stranger on a street.

Now... yes now, its 943pm and another good 2 hours plus before the time i need to land my ass back inside my new (yet old) home, with toilet paper, undies, night snacks, coffee, books and batteries to last myself a FULL WEEK till friday night.

Aiming for my golden keyboard.

300 : Heng Sai

On the usual days, you don't normally have a good story to share, here's one :

I knew i will sure kenna the interview for my uni application. Well, AT LEAST there was still an interview in line for moi.

Reality is, 3.43 just ain't gonna make the cut for anything =(

With just 12 hours notice beforehand for the interview, i was already mentally prepared to sell myself like a telemarketer high on coffee and coke. And when that lucky email came, i had already booked out and armed myself with my B4 photo-portfolio, ready for an all out war.

I'll skip the part about how the interview went, other than 2 adjectives from me; quick and decisive. Ok, maybe i say a bit ba, there were 2 professors, one taiwan, the other european, both of which i can't really understand from their incredible slang, or perhaps my ears didn't developed as well as i thought during puberty.

That was all 4 days ago history.

TODAY WAS AMAZINGLY TYCO/TAIKO/泰国. Today, being a public holidays, people get out, fewer at home, more shopping, less money in pocket, sit down in mall sip coffee kill time to spend less money. Simple logic.

I was sipping coffee alone while waiting for my ka kia to show up, vivo was flooded with over-eager consumers who goes out but refuse to buy anything mentality because a great flood is coming. My crowd hating switch triggered, and i instinctively teleported myself to another neighbouring mall with lesser mindless shopping zombies. Ah, again my coffee detector switch lit up and it was all automatic from then on. *beep*

Alone, i chopped a seat nearest to the kopi counter with my red red bag and went about ordering my drink. A boy, being a kid and you know... playful, seeing there was an empty seat with an empty table sprinted towards it and sat down on the chair just right beside my bed. Of course, i felt uneasy and inside my head i was like : " Oh great, jia lat liao." And then the kid waved to his daddy queing beside me at the counter who was getting something to eat and drink too.

The dad turned and looked at me with sad meaningful eyes...

"Oh... err its ok we can share no problem."
"Hey thanks!"

I got my order of kopi-c first, and went ahead to sit down at my 4 seater table, me being the minority... The mother was tending to her son who was busily being busy almost never sitting still. "Oh boy..." , I thought to myself, "Lets whip out some entertainment baby."

I reached into my bag, and took out my 1 yr old black ring sketchbook with a black copic pen clipped onto the inner loop of the rings.

THEN, the mother went about to her child, "See, kor kor AYE DEE one. Must learn how to draw like him ok?"

Ah, these people must be designers... but.... aye dee, how the heck did she know i just applied for aye dee, or did she meant interior design ?

The father poped the question, "Are you a designer....?". The best reply i could thought of at the moment was to reply with another question, "Are you one.... too?".

And there it was... "YEP, i am a product designer." Exciting. We continued on the conversation about me from where study what and which company he from and stuff like that, things people would ask and inquire when strangers meet for the first time.

He later asked for me portfolio, and being the well-prepared kia that i am, its readily available on my ipod and i confidently handed it out for him to see. He quipped : "Ah this must be fate."

I explained to him some of my previous projects i've done in both educational institutions and my half year experience in the public sector, and he seemed pretty interested. He later offered me a freelance job for website design and layout planning which sounded pretty cool to me. Extra cash and some practice again in this line is never a bad thing, especially with my pathetic ahmi pay and bad economy.

And here's the most zai part. The conversation shifted to my interview for uni... turns out his wife is an artist from taiwan and her good friend... was the taiwanese professor who interviewed me 4 days back.

Once we're both done with our kopi, we exchanged contacts and parted ways. And here's another zai part, his name is exactly the opposite of mine, just flip the entire words around. COOL RIGHT.

Life is going to get pretty interesting now~ All that's left is me getting thru my application and striking 4D.