Wednesday, April 28

Flea and Easy

Ginnie, Mousey and me [it rhymes!] will be having a stall at the flea market next Sunday at Zouk. Come and buy our unwanted junk and cast-offs from our wardrobe, ok? Must support lah, we're poor and we need the money.

Monday, April 26

It wasn't supposed to be a dirty weekend at Bintan. But it ended up that way when I decided to indulge in a Mud Detox Wrap. Could not resist even though (1) I need to save money, (2) I know it does not really detox, and (3) a massage would probably have been more helpful for this chronic shoulder ache.

But it was fantastic to get away -- 45 minutes by ferry and we were in a foreign land! -- and just lie by the pool with an open Vogue flapping in the sea breeze. What's more fantastic is that I didn't pay a cent for the Angsana hotel stay and enormous buffet dinner on the beach. Yet another perk of working in a newsroom and having a kind and generous journalist friend. [Thank you, Clare!]

Of course, it helps that I'm shameless when it comes to freeloading.

Tuesday, April 20

The first anniversary of this blog is coming up soon. Unbelievable how much rubbish I can write about and how self-indulgent I can get. I don't even dare to read back some of my initial entries. So blardee precocious and whiny at times...or should I say, all the time?

Anyway, one of my goals for June is to re-learn DreamWeaver, which I never managed to master last year. Hopefully that skill can be put to good use to redesigning this site.

At the same time, I'm still trying to get the hang of doing page layout at work [take note of the What's On, TV highlights and comics pages, they are likely to be done by me] and learning to make skirts and camisoles on my off days [just completed my second skirt today, a lovely sky blue flare skirt].

Feel like my brain is being overloaded these past few weeks, but in a good way.

Tuesday, April 13

While slumbering between being awake and trying to return to sleep yesterday morning, I had this "dream" in which my grandmother was in my house.

I can still recall vividly that I was trying to force breakfast down my throat, which is what happens every morning because it's always too early to eat. Somehow, I saw her walking towards my parent's room, dressed in one of her flowery blue samfoos.

I remember smiling at her, totally unterrified. Only when I regained more consciousness that I began to feel a tingle of fear.

Of course, when I told my pantang mother, she insisted that my grandmother must have missed me because I didn't pay my respects during Qing Ming last week. So bright and early tomorrow, I am going to the temple to bai bai.

Thursday, April 8

"In certain offices, it is considered sexual harassment to show you this Hotel 81 brochure, right?"

Out of nowhere, this not-that-young male colleague presented me with a full-colour brochure of the rooms in Hotel 81, the insides of which I have never seen before. I was so dumbstruck, all I said was "Ermmmmm..."

This is the same guy who, while telling me how to crop photos, suggested that I could safely chop off the cleavage of the woman -- unless she was Amy Yip.

Sunday, April 4

"Big Sister is watching."

Not sure if the handful of regular readers of this blog know, but I do have a site meter which keeps track of the number of visitors and shows partial addresses. And for the longest time, I've been intrigued by an on-off visitor who apparently works for the NHS. Would the mysterious stranger like to leave me a message, in return for my ungrateful bitching about the free medical service the NHS provided to me?

And on a marginally related note, why is it that I get more than 10 visitors a day -- that's more than 4,000 (!!!) in total in 10 (!!!) months -- reading my rambling thoughts, but I hardly get any feedback? It's like I'm writing in a vacuum, or as that philosophical conundrum goes, "If a tree falls in the forest and no one hears it, does it make a sound?"

Saturday, April 3

While doing the cheapo magazine-browsing thing at Borders, I flipped through the latest Cleo with its annual gratituous 50 Most Eligible Bachelors spread.

To my horror, I realised how much I've aged, since those days when my hostel mates and I always ended up with one copy each of that particular issue to ogle over. The next stage came a couple of years later, when I began recognising the guys featured, including my mudding buddy.

Now, I've progressed to the third level, where my friend's younger -- and I'm ashamed to admit, but he is rather cute -- brother is considered an Eligible Bachelor. The terminal stage will be when the sons of my peers make it to the Top 50.

Friday, April 2

"Today is a vicious day for moving."

Because I requested to do sub-editing instead of writing -- with effect as of today -- I was supposed to exchange desks with the chatty colleague across the cubicle partition. But just when we were about to cart our barang barang to our new desks, this Indian colleague came up and stopped us in our tracks by solemnly quoting the Indian almanac.

So we're both now sitting amid piles of haphazard files, notebooks and other junk we somehow accumulate, waiting for Monday when it will be a full moon, hence more auspicious. And we have been advised to move only after 9am.

Thursday, April 1

Chinatown has become my new hunting ground.

Have been on leave the past four days and have been there daily to eat, shop and take dressmaking lessons.

After just three lessons, I'm almost done with my first attempt to make an A-line skirt. I wish I could quit my job and do this full-time. It's so satisfying and relaxing to hunch over a sewing machine or just tack with needle and thread. As I commented to Mousey, who is my partner in crime and the business of skirt making: "I just love doing things which don't need me to use my brains."

I know this guy we call Bee Keeper, because that is what he would do if he could do anything in the world. I told him I wanted to be Carpet Weaver. But Dress Maker would suit me just fine too at this point in time.