Observations

me: Excuse me, do u have the Studio Ghibi box set?
salesperson: Hah?
me: Studio Ghibli box set.
salesperson: .... Studio Jimmy?
me: you know. Japanese animation? Spirited Away? Howl's Moving Castle?
salesperson: We don't sell here...
__________________

salesperson: Oh. sold out.

.............

Good grief. And that is why, ladies and gentlemen, mini skirts are a stupid invention. (You'll never see me in one) You can't run for the train with them. Well, maybe you can. propel yourself forward by kicking out stiff-kneed without your feet actually leaving the ground. Think can can with reluctant leg kicking.

.............

The fickle mood strikes again

Once again decided to give blog a facelift. As if I haven't a ton of other things to do...

School. That ominous word.

Oh poor me with poems to read
Oh poor me with films to heed
Oh woe me with too much on my plate

What do numbers mean?
Word-counts of course, to take away hope's gleam
Whinewhinewhine: school life takes away all the fun
Even though woe is still miniscule
Compared to others and what's to come.

Burnt out

Worked worked worked like mad today, shifting music scores in a certain new school library in a particular part of Singapore, descriptively speaking, it's somewhat near Little India, somewhat near Bugis and basically existing in Nowhere-near-anywhere.

Had lunch at Cafe Cartel with Kappa, which incidentally is also my day-at-the-new-swanky-better-than-nus-looking-library mate. Not bad and all, only it was quite a walk to get there, the nearest being at Doby Ghaut and neither Bugis or Little India.

The good bits were having a preview of a swanky new school, before it becomes infested with students, and of course, having HP 7 returned to me, which I happily hugged protectively for a few seconds (seconds, people. It was a public bus stop for crying out loud. Exposing my precious for longer than neccessary might entice robbers), and of course, discussing the various things there are to discuss in the aftermath of reading. The library had aircon, so that was ok. The work isn't however, and for what must be the umpteenth time, I wonder why there aren't more guys who work in the library because the scores are heavy, and the shelves require self-assembly (already done thankfully when we arrived), and the scores were heavy.

whinewhinewhine
whinewhine
whine

In any case, time seemed to fly when you're having fun, in spite of yourself and the work, and we discovered that it was already waaay past 4 when we left. The library continues to be in a state of shambles, but I suppose they'll be done by the end of the week... hopefully. I miss the library. And to think I used to shelf books as my CCA...

Readreadread

Reading list for next semester (not including the various poets)

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man -- James Joyce
Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit --Jeanette Winterson
The Bloody Chamber --Angela Carter
To the Lighthouse -- Virginia Woolfe
----
Wuthering Heights -- Emily Bronte
Jane Eyre -- Charlotte Bronte
3 Gothic Novels -- 3 different people

SEVEN BOOKS! HOW am I supposed to finish them?!

HP 7

Msfickle would like to extend a warm invitation to you all who would like to join her in salute of the Boy Who Lived for the very last time...

The seventh and final book is out and surprisingly, there're still copies floating about out ther in shops.

NO SPOILERS, IN CASE YOU WERE WONDERING...

Have just finished the final book without hearing a single wretched spoiler from anybody! Wheeeee!!! There was a moment there, in Chinatown... but I heard wrong (by accident), so yay for me!!

The ending is silly. Just so you know what I think about it, and do read past volumes, if you haven't heard any spoilers yet. Very very worthwhile to do so.

Am now unable to sleep. Too excited. Go. Sleep.

5 Dollars

Watched Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix today at the very cheap price of $5 at PS. Feel envious. mwahaha. Well, thanks to the movie, am now dying for next Sat to come. You know... 21st July. =D =D =D =D =D =D =D

Eternal Sleep

And there goes another one... to doze in the fields of eternal sleep.

Actually. What happened was this. We needed to bury our poor hamster that had died. There was a cleaner in the way, which meant playing a game of dodge and peek and discreetly standing around until he has left. Then, hastily dig a hole in public grass and bury the poor bugger. I've never been so pissed at a cleaner before for being diligent.

Perhaps I ought to be weeping distraughtly, but.. it's the eighth one that went, and the 6th we've buried. I'll miss them all. Somewhere out there, they're happy. Or at least, it's my hope that they aren't sad.

Baking disaster

Ok, so... the chiffon cake was stuck to the cake tin. Any ideas anyone? Had to use a knife to scrape it out. The cake had the wrong consistency too. Maybe whisking by hand wasn't good enough? So, how did people bake chiffon cakes then, before the days of electronic beaters? Hmm? Hmm?

I feel ill. Over indulged on cake.

Time Travelling

So.... guess what this slacker was doing today....

-- Went back in time of course... you know, by leaping off staircases and diving boards...

The Girl who Leapt Through Time (aka Toki wo Kakeru Shoujo) is an animated feature film directed by Mamoru Hosoda. Right now, it is only released in Cathay cinemas, so forget that Lido or Vivo screen... Unfortunately, it isn't showing at the AMK Hub cinema either. A pity, since a grand total of 3 cineplexes in Singapore screen this film.

Anyway, it's one of those films where, well, mercifully, there isn't any guns or some guy getting beaten up or, for that matter, beating someone up. That doesn't mean it isn't funny or exciting though, because it is. The main character is utterly selfish, meddlesome, and totally amusing in her attempts to matchmake her friends, eat pudding and pass her tests with flying colours by turning back time. Still, you've got to give it to her, she does succeed... at all three.

There is something about this kind of film that works so well. I laughed at it of course.. but then, I suppose it's safe to say that the whole audience laughed with it. Perhaps there is something naive in the way the film portrays youth, but then, it is that, that best captures that innocence that the young supposedly are endowed with... Whatever.. huh.

I'm scaring myself talking like that. Let's just say a little innocent fun and nostalgia wouldn't kill us... it's nice to see a film that doesn't try to be arty, but somehow manages to be arty, and successfully, if you ask me. It's a sentimental film, utterly sweet and slapsticky, which is something I suppose only the Japanese are capable of producing... All the same, great film.

A Riot of Colours

I never did get this: why is a bunch of many different colours a "riot"? What? Are they going to rebel?

And when the sunlight struck the window in full force, the coloured glass in it threw forth multiple points of glittering light.

The blues, reds and white decided to get together, against the reds, yellows and greens, throwing the world of colours into great disorder.

Blue: Hey! How come you're on their side too, Red?

Red (to great protest from the oranges): Why ever not? Being on both sides is also a side.

"If you want to talk about sides, then technically, you all should be on mine," adds White.

Red and Blue: Shut up, you!

"If we get together, we can unite and stand against Black," White continues, albeit sulkily.

Hey! Don't get me involved, I'm not a colour! - Black.

Thus, the colours went back to rioting...

Bed Breaking Work

Oww oww oww oww. My new mattress came in today, which means removing the old mattress, and putting in the new mattress, which is heavy. To my utter horror, the new mattress is waaay taller than my old one, and now I feel as if I'm miles away from the ground. The new mattress is also a lot heavier, which makes this somehow...tragic. I feel as if I've been heaving dead bears about, (which to all intentions and purposes I might as well have). Then, of course, I'll have to forget to put the mattress protector on first... and have to remove my beautiful work and start all over again.

Hail all hotel room service. Those beds are NOT fun to change on a daily basis.

Train

After sulking all morning and letting myself getting all pissed for stupid reasons, I'm feeling better (and benign), hence I might as well blog about the mime performance I went to watch and was blown away by...

First things first, The Train, by Dramatic Company Cho-In is a South Korean mime performance brought in specially for... you guessed it, the Singapore Arts Festival! Wheeee! When I first saw the poster and it said "festival outreach programme", I was convinced and prejudiced (with reasons of course) into thinking it was a kiddy show... The poster showed a bunch of mime artists typically painted inn the usual clownish manner and that the programme said it featured a "magician couple" made me think: this is for kids. The number of kids being brought by their yuppie aunties and parents to the show didn't make me feel any better, not to mention, instead of distributing the programme at FOH, they were giving out fliers for other shows... I had to go to the flier rack at the sistic counter in Esplanade to get it. =(

In any case, The Train is for kids the way Spirited Away is for kids. In other words, you wouldn't feel as embarrassed as you would normally feel if you were watching, say, Ronald MacDonald on your primary school stage... Speaking of Spirited Away, does anyone remember the faceless train conductor from the film? There are some eerie similarities between the conductor and the station master in the mime act... Both of them were stern sorts.. and faceless. If I happen to find a picture of the station master from The Train, it'll go up here and you all can compare. There must be something universal about train conductors/station masters...

Note: The picture on top isn't the train conductor from Spirited Away, but this is the closest I could get to finding a match....

See the resemblance?

Apart from that, the performance was really good... Not one word, but my attention was gripped throughout the whole show. Then, there was the scene where it snowed, well, fake snow of course... but still, it was very pretty. And you wouldn't believe the acting... I think it's pretty hard for a girl to play a bratty little boy. Yup. Not easy at all, but you'll believe that it was a boy and girl on stage where they are still obviously female actors...

W*e

Am sulking this morning, and therefore in no mood to post properly about the mime performance I went to watch last night. Better not in fact... a bad review might get me sued. It's rather funny really, that in this (day and age) time, people can get sued for not-even-complaining about distant big brands (am I gonna get sued for this, immensely large organisations???) whilst getting away with flaming people they do know. I do wonder which is a worse crime. Well, actions speak louder than words. I stand by my A**r post because everyone gets what A**r is anyway. If you don't, it doesn't matter.. And anyone suing a blogger is silly. As if ******** really works. And I'm being sillier for listening to that voice-in-my-ear (NOT my conscience). WHY is it that I don't listen to myself but hang on to what others say? And now I'm complaining about myself. Great. Actions that speak louder than words.

On the Other Side of the page

Wow. The first thing that has to be said about SPH is that they have nice air-con. This is how pathetic I must have felt thanks to a wrong turn around what should have been my old turf and walking on the baking tarmac of an unsheltered carpark... walkwalkwalk ... instead of under the nice cool void deck. Ended up dripping sweat under a rain tree (the sort that comes with nasty green caterpillars) outside SPH and wondering how people wearing long sleeved shirts can walk about and not fall into a heat induced dead faint.

Back to the air-con... nice.

Apart from that, I sat on the fringes of the ST office... on a chair/bench that wouldn't have looked out of place at the dentist's, i.e. a really posh dentist. There were even framed photographs facing the bench/chair; of the sort that you can find at clinics.
It just occurred to me... does the ST office get that many visitors? Still, it was a nice chair, and it's nice meeting up with old friends and sneaking into offices. I'm probably only several metres from writers I see in Life! everyday.

Notebook Woes

Got my darling* laptop back yesterday afternoon. They wiped my hard disk. Clean. =( Lost all my handphone photos. I'd thought I had made a backup for them... Guess not. Had to re-install messenger, MSOffice and a bunch of other stuff. Humph. It's just as well I had backed up all my documents.. would have been a major loss if I hadn't... Mysteriously enough, the 1st time I went to the repair centre, just about everybody who was there as well had an A**r in tow... Sad. At least, on the day I went to get it back, there weren't any other A**r toting cases... just me and a guy with a M*****k... Nevertheless, there is still something wrong with A**r laptops if you ask me...

Because apparently I'll might get into trouble for writing what everyone knows anyway...
*Still sulking: guess no one shall know the brand of my beloved laptop now anyway...

Ode to Ice-cream on Hot Days

It's hot today. Yesterday night, I left my handphone at my grandmother's house and had to double back after dinner for it. Bought my first blue ice-cream. =D Ate like 3 of them already.

Lovely, lovely, lovely blue ice-cream...

Maybe I should write a sonnet about blue ice-cream... ... What, in any case is a sonnet?

The Booke Faire Chronicle

Day 1: Sat, 26th May
In which one meets one's new colleagues and seizes up the competition

The morning shift included some rather eclectic people. Curiously, we were all from a so-called arts background. I suppose only us will be stupid enough to take on this job. Our booth had two open sides (one length and one breadth), since we shared two walls with an electronic goods booth and a myopia education booth, i.e. we are a corner booth... On both side of us were our 'friendly' rivals, and truly, they are friendly indeed, since they can't stop smiling: apart from being book fair veterans, they quite outnumber us greenhorns. Was rejected by every customer when attempting to entice them to look at our products.

Friendly rival 1: the Reds. Weapon-of-choice: professional looking and loves to shake hands. Has Rita Skeeter.
Friendly rival 2: the Greens. Weapon-of-choice: hard-sell, jerseys, balloons and a walking vacuum cleaner like thingy that is not a vacuum cleaner.

Day 2: Sun, 27th May
In which one is rejected yet again

The title speaks for itself. Sunday morning was quiet. The same group of girls came in to do a spot of colouring (Finding Nemo colouring book) again. No idea where their parents are. Things only began to pick up after lunch, or at least, slightly before lunch. Everyone going up the escalator to the convention centre seems to be going to Aquarama instead, or maybe it's my imagination. On the way to lunch, met Aaron, who told me he had a set of Americana at home. After lunch, I discovered that our rivals were giving it away for free as a prize in a lucky draw.

No luck still with customers. None of them came into our booth. When I mean none, I do mean none that I approached of course. It doesn't help when our booth is shorter on one side, so the opposite camp can grab the customers first, not to mention their aggressive tactics. By mid-afternoon, it is clear that book visitors have wisened up to our tactics and are avoiding the lanes occupied by us. Rita Skeeter is still annoying.

Day 3: Mon, 28th May
In which nobody comes

A slacky day. Enough said. I can't remember whether i pulled anyone in. Probably not. There weren't many people walking about in the first place. It was the day of the bratty kid, if I'm not wrong. If he isn't lying, he's from Rosyth. Has the attitude of a financial CEO, and is probably not even 10 yet. He said he would have to "consider" buying our product. Good grief. Most of our part-time colleagues have disappeared. Without a trace.

Day 4: Wed, 30th May
In which customers defect to the other side, and one reflects sadly on the gimmicky state of our booth

Back from one day's rest. We chatted to this father-son couple who seemed really really interested in buying. He said he'll consider, and then LATER, they got dragged into opposite camp. (The Reds) The father looks apologetic. At least he did.

Day 5: Sat, 2 Jun
Success at last, and mistaken identities

Our booth has been re-arranged. Now, we have more posters up on the wall, and half of it has become a section for people to sign up language courses. The booth looks tidier, and ever since a large board was placed outside letting people know we do langauges, more customers have been streaming in. Yay. Unfortunately, we were unprepared for talking to them about lang courses (as we weren't taught how). I must have lost a hefty bit of my commision telling them to go back to HQ...

After sitting for 3 hrs (i think), we closed a deal. Not bad, the commission will be split 3 ways. Finally, towards the end of the day, one family came in. They were eager to buy our most expensive set, but the price was a problem... They never came back. Sigh. In any case, for some odd reason, the entire family claims that i look familiar... Maybe that's why I got them to sit down so easily...

Day 6: Sun, 3rd Jun
Closed 2 more deals

The title says it all. It's the end to an exhausting week. ZZZZZZ... Pre-ordered Harry Potter at the same time. Got a second book (worth $15) free.

Thus, my one week stint at the World Book Fair has come to an end. Ugh. I've tried two of the worst jobs anyone could take, apart from cleaners and sweepers i suppose - waitressing (more like odd-job labourer actually) and selling encyclopedias. Up till now, I tend to talk like a salesman and smile too brightly. Hopefully, it's not permanent.

Everyday Heroes

What if, all you had to do to become a hero was leap across the watery chasm to the land beyond? What if all you had to do to become the mighty ruler of a beautiful woodland kingdom was close your eyes, and... keep your mind really open? Your pencil flies across empty paper and then voila! The denizens of Terabithia leap into life from carbon and parchment...

Yesterday, I went to watch Bridge to Terabithia with Shauna. It was a nice movie. The film is based on a book by Katherine Paterson. I used to see this book everywhere in my old secondary school library. For someone who read Lord of the Rings and the Chronicles of Narnia, this book never once caught my eye. =/ I've always felt that watching a movie was a cheater's way out of not reading the book, since all you had to do was sit there for two hrs and you get what would have been a day's (or more) worth of reading.

In any case, the movie was a good one. Some books translate well into small films about the everyday, while others... become a monumental task. Perhaps the reason Bridge to Terabithia (the film, not the book) resonates so well with me is because I do believe in the power of art in the real world. Some people call art and fantasy the opium of the masses, the bridge to illusions and escapism. Not true, as Bridge to Terabithia tells us - there are trolls and monsters in the real world too, and stories help reconcile us to the fact that they exist and have to be dealt with. The ending may come to shock some, since it is supposed to be a "kiddy" film, but I think it works well by anchoring a fantasy film firmly in reality. No worries, I shan't spoil it for people who are planning to watch it and haven't, and if you aren't planning to... nevermind.

So saying, I still don't intend to pick up the book. I never liked it, because it was attempting to explain to me the value of the imagination and story-making, two things which any reader can easily point out. It's not like you can like these things and not understand the value of fiction. Hence, reading it would have been a pain as the protagonist would have to go through the painful steps to enjoy what it is this frantic and aggreived reader already does. I'll keep saying "I told you so" to the character, which would quite take out the pleasure of the book. It's been said that there are two kinds of readers: the kind that just read, and then there is the other kind. I hope I fall into the second category.

Another Review

I've just finished reading Anansi Boys, by Neil Gaiman, finally. I've been trying to finish this book, with little luck ever since I first caught sight of it a few years back. Happily, the deed is done and I can go on to other incompletely read books in my holiday reading list. (For example, Kazuo Ishiguro's The Remains of the Day) In any case, Anansi Boys is...

Let's just say, read it and you'll know. It's a nice little story about finding yourself, through stories, and within stories. As an obsessive-compulsive reader, it isn't too difficult for me to find myself in a fiction world, and it isn't too difficult either to see why Anansi stories are full of wit and wisdom. After all, you take what you need from stories, and each stories' wisdom is peculiar to each reader. Anansi Boys celebrates the power of story-telling, and I don't mean for self-glorification (that's Tiger), but stories' ability to bring laughter and humour to the foibles of human character.

It's all in the attitude, as Anansi would say.