Free Night

It's my first free night in a long while and I have no idea what to do. Otrie has a gig, Hanan is away at a chalet, I got nothing pressing at work to do.

Movie?
Dinner for one?
Shopping?
Drinks with a friend?

Or should I just go home and curl up and watch TV?

Gosh, I spend days wishing for a free evening and when it happens, I have no idea what to do.

As Hanan would say, this is so lame.

requiem for a neglected blogspace

Ah poor beloved page, where once I had run my thoughts across, without prejudice or pain. How I have missed you!

I am caught in a blogging dliemma, where if I penned down everything that has taken place, I would not have enough hours in a day to write, and yet, if I gloss over the past few weeks, I might as well not say anything.

It helps to have a blog where one is focused, like food bloggers, book bloggers or movie bloggers. Unfortunately, I am none of these, concentrated souls, who can speak their hearts, in short succint, well constructed posts.

Alas me, who tend to ramble, have little of predominant importance and have no reason to log in on a daily basis.

Maybe I should try to get focused. Write about things that have value, shelf life, substance.
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.
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Or I could give you 10 random facts abouy my life.

1) My new colleague gets eyelash extensions every 4 weeks, which make her look unnaturally camel-like. Its worse when they start falling out and she has "bald" patches in between

2) I can now say I am a published writer. The publication is my club magazine and the things I write about are society columns and event reports. But still!!

3) I was recently saddened by a best friend's decision to not have children. I don't know why it pains me so. Maybe it's because I want more and I can't, and she can, but doesn't want more.

4) I went to Chitty Chitty Bang Bang!!! It was fabulous!

5) I think the Dark Devotion dessert at TCC is awesome! It's a perfect chocolate cake with a molten centre, served with natural vanilla ice cream and some kind of fruit croulis. Heaven!

6) I miss church :( I haven't been in weeks and I am thirsty.

7) Going home from work the other day, I met the most interesting cab driver. He used to be a computer engineer, but decided that the stress wasn't worth it, and decided to drive a cab instead. That's so cool. I want to come to that place one day.

8) Happiness is irrelevant. Only joy remains.

9) I hate the fact that I am apparently the only one who knows how to google for information at work. Every body asks me stuff like I am some kind of walking encyclopedia, when all it takes is 15 secs on the computer. You have a computer. use it people! Its not a typewriter!

10) 5 months have passed at this place and I have done enough work for 2 years at my old company. Am still trying to decide if that's a good thing.

Goodbye Geraldine

Geraldine Lee was not the prettiest, nor the smartest, nor the wittiest girl around. She was merely kind, thoughtful, meek and happy. Not exactly award-winning characteristics in anybody's book. With characteristics like that, she would never have been a heroine in a Jane Austen novel, or star beside Johnny Depp in any pirate movie.

But Geraldine was a dreamer, and one of her dreams was to rise up out of her mediocre trade school beginnings and be counted among the foreign educated academics in society. And she was only 2 months away from her goal when her body was found in her room in faraway Brisbane, 3 days after her heart stopped beating its song of love and compassion.

My path crossed with Geraldine's when I auditioned for the Short Film Competition that she was entering 3 years ago. She finally selected me to be the evil witch in the film, and gave me her carefully drafted script like she was handing over the Holy Grail. Geraldine had the confidence to enter a competition with just a script and a dream, and the humility to allow her actors to tell her how to shoot it.
We didn't win. Maybe if we stopped micromanging, we might have.

Geraldine is a heroine alright. She had courage, determination, tenacity and an incredible force of will. All the traits that take us beyond existence to living.

Goodbye, Geradline. You spent your last days doing what you wanted most, and that makes your death a happy one. For you, at least. I hope at some point, we realise it as well.

The Confirmation Appraisal

It has been three months since I started this new job, and the time has come for the all important confirmation appraisal. That basically means that my boss and I have a chat about what I can and cannot do within my job scope, and whether its worthwhile for both of us to have me hang around to learn how to do the things i can't.

At least, that's how I always saw it. But this place does things a little differently. For one, I have to write things down, to go on record, in my file for all my time here.

Things like, what have I done that I am happy about, what keeps me from doing my best and how my boss can help me "accomplish those goals". (Aside: HR people should be banned from using words like goal, accomplish, target and develop. They throw it around like it was so much confetti.)

So I have to fill this thing in by the 9th. And apparently my boss has one to do too. Sigh

A couple of updates for you who have read other posts.
Remember Mr So-early? The one who gave me a hard time about leaving past 7? He resigned. Within 2 months, couldn't take the pressure. I should ask him, "Why you leave so early?" Ha ha.

My tough boss - I think I found her marshmallow centre. She wants what all human beings want, empathy for doing a tough job and doing it well, and friendship. QED.

Have any of you been here?

This post is a cop out, cos i am not really writing, but I thought I may have sympathisers out there.

A alternative headline for this post would be :"Interview with a vampire sympathiser". Nal is me, and Teemo is the VS.

[10:34] + . naL . +: u know X from ABC company?
[10:35] Teemo: of course i know him
[10:35] Teemo: Y?
[10:35] Teemo: he left there already
[10:35] + . naL . +: yeah, he left
[10:35] + . naL . +: then he keep calling me to sell me insurance
[10:35] + . naL . +: i buay tahan liao
[10:35] Teemo: give him a chance to share with u his services
[10:36] Teemo: no harm right?
[10:36] + . naL . +: i am already covered lah
[10:36] + . naL . +: dont want to waste my time or his, because I am not a prospect
[10:36] + . naL . +: u know what i mean
[10:36] + . naL . +: why bother? training ah?
[10:36] Teemo: ok then maybe u would like tell him the truth ,that will be good
[10:37] + . naL . +: i did lor
[10:37] Teemo: but i wanna share with u, the market sentiment is real good
[10:37] + . naL . +: yes, but i dont have any more money
[10:37] Teemo: good time to invest
[10:37] + . naL . +: my funds are tied up
[10:37] Teemo: i think he is referring to CPF
[10:37] + . naL . +: yes, i have 2 policies using CPF already
[10:38] + . naL . +: unless u think I should borrow money to invest
[10:38] Teemo: did u review whether the return is giving back u good rate?
[10:38] Teemo: thats where he comes in to help u
[10:38] + . naL . +: yep
[10:38] + . naL . +: just met my advisor 2 months ago
[10:39] + . naL . +: besides, why would I go to someone new?
[10:39] + . naL . +: makes more sense to go back to the same advisor right, since i already trust her?
[10:39] Teemo: he is sincere and shrewd in investment, monitor prices daily for clients
[10:39] Teemo: i mean thats wat he tells me
[10:39] + . naL . +: i am sure he is, but i really have no desire for the services he provides lah
[10:40] + . naL . +: if he ran a part time maid agency, i will need his help
[10:40] Teemo: btw did he share with u about estate planning?
[10:40] Teemo: haha
[10:40] + . naL . +: nope
[10:40] + . naL . +: i blew his off
[10:40] + . naL . +: him*
[10:40] + . naL . +: told him to stop spammin gme
[10:41] Teemo: ok lah give him some, he is just doing his job
[10:41] + . naL . +: sigh, its just annoying lah
[10:42] + . naL . +: anytime one of my frens goes into insurance or real estate, i stop being their friend, and start being a prospect
[10:42] + . naL . +: and then when i turn them down, they dont want to be frens anymore
[10:42] + . naL . +: i dont know how many more frens i will lose to this 2 industries
[10:43] + . naL . +: if i really bought from everyone, I will have all my salary paying premiums by now
[10:44] Teemo: i fully understand your feelings
[10:44] + . naL . +: thanks, i was hoping u would
[10:44] Teemo: probabaly is the way u reply them
[10:45] Teemo: or maybe they have their own agenda
[10:45] + . naL . +: ha ha, to say "stop spamming me" is too direct huh
[10:45] Teemo: maybe
[10:45] + . naL . +: point taken
[10:46] + . naL . +: i just didnt want to read about death and accidents everyday, first thing in the morning
[10:46] Teemo: u never know 1 day i may come to u too
[10:46] Teemo: haha
[10:46] + . naL . +: dont you dare man

Working for a tough boss

The last month or so has been an adventure into the world of the average Singaporean office worker - late nights, ridiculous deadlines and high stress.

Throw in the other elements that are unique to my situation, i.e. committees, unsatisfied members and a tough boss, and you will know why I haven't blogged in a while.

This may sound like a preamble to a long bitch session on how horrible my work life is, but its not. I actually learned quite a few things over the last month. I will call it:

Lessons on Learning

1) Learners cannot be egotistical. :) Nuff said, i think we all know what that means.

2) Learning from a tough teacher teaches a whole oter bunch of lessons that are not on the curriculum.

3) People feel sorry for you when you are learning, but that's ok!

4) You feel sorry for yourself while you are learning, but you have to keep reminding yourself what your goal is.

5) Learners who quit halfway have nothing to show for it. Sticking with it is hard, but anyone who has dropped ot of anything halfway knows that you lose something at the end.

I am also learning that most people, not matter how tough they are on the outside, have a marshmallow core - something that they will bend to. Find it, and you find the human within the iron lady.

Bourne Ultimatum - Movie Review

In the midst of what was a armrest gripping, teeth clenching, extreme excitement finale to the Bourne trilogy, I had a headache.

It was that darn handheld camera technique, which is what Director Paul Greengrass was selected for anyway. It broke every rule that film students were taught never to break - change in direction in the midst of continuity, extreme close up followed by extreme closeup, short edits, over-the-shoulder shots that were tight to the point of you wanting to physically move the person away so you can see Jason Bourne's tormented face.

And he looked like he had a headache too. All the amnesia, loss of love, injuries and paranoia really got to the man and he didn't crack a smile once in this movie, his forehead permanently crinkled.

And it was brillant, that juxtaposition of character and camera action. It really helped me relate to the character and all his confusion. So maybe all the problems that the movie had with continuity and jump shots were deliberate as well. (I won't get into them, but you can read them here.)

But what a ride, eh? All the globe trotting, car chasing, rooftop chase moments were in true represetation of Ludlum's genius of tension in the midst of action. And I love the fact that the women in this movie, Nikke Parson and Pamela Landy were portrayed as honest,loyal and righteous women who were neither femme fatale nor the weaker sex stereotype that generally women in this genre tend to carry, like so much baggage.

Worth every cent and definitely an apt ending to a wonderful story. I couldn't have cared more about what happens to Jason Bourne if I tried. And when your audience cares of the characters, that, my friends, is good cinematic story telling.

Early? But it's past 7!

It really bothers me that people equate working late to working hard.

Yesterday evening, I decided I had it. My eyes hurt, my brain was drained and not a single thought was running through my head. I didn't see the point in continuing to stare at my computer, so I started packing my things to leave.

"You are leaving? So early?"

I looked the the time. It was 7:40pm. I get off work (technically) at 6.

"It's not early. Its 7:40. What do you mean by early?"

Without waiting for a reply, I walked out of the office.

This morning, I was the first one in. And Mr So-early strolls in at 9:30 and says, "You know the rest of us were here till 9 yesterday."

I was tempted to say, if you spent less time chit chatting at the secretary's desk and taking coffee breaks, maybe you can finish your work quicker and go home "early" too.

But I will bide my time. Does anyone else have this problem with going home "early"?

Yes, its been a while...

Hi everyone, yes I know I have been missing for a while, but since I just started this job and all, I haven't really have had time to get online long enough to write something.

But today is Saturday and it's fairly quiet, so I thought I would take the opportunity to do a quick update.

I have been here 4 weeks now, and considering the amount of work I am doing, it feels like I have been here forever. They work like crazy here, the MarCom department and my boss is a stickler for perfection, so not only is there a lot of work to do, there is a high quality to do.

Just to make things more exciting, I have also joined for the half of the year where there are the most things happening, National Day, AGM, the groundbreaking for a new building, Christmas, New Year's , and the list goes on.

As with any large organisation, half the problems here are based on human error, especially communication errors. So I have to step quite carefully, especially when it comes to handling the members. Not that I am a particularly badly behaved individual, but Club etiquette is a whole other ball game.
People who come here are used to giving orders and treated like VIPS and somehow they feel justified to do it here as well.

I am sure I will have stories on this as time goes by :)

My only grouse with working here right now is the crazy hours. My boss practically lives here, going home only to shower and sleep. Everyone else is around at least till 9pm. I feel a little guilty leaving at 7 (!). But I think they will get used to it, especially if I still deliver. At least I hope so.

I realise this has been more a letter than a post, but hey, you didn't have to read it all.

See you all in a bit.

Plug for Miss?ed? - a radical play about marriage in the Yindian Community

The play ‘Miss?ed?’ mainly highlights the importance of marriage and marrying the right person. At present, in the Indian community, a high divorce rate is more worrying than high single rate and yet, too often our society has a negative view of single-hood. The society sees single-hood like a state that cannot be changed - an immortal condition destined to bring unfulfillment. The play questions whether an individual’s happiness in life is based on their marital status.

The play examines if single women are given the time to make the right choice in their life when it concerns marriage or are they conformed by social conditions. With wit, the play explores how singles are stereotyped, stigmatized, and pressurized to get married and the many reasons for their singlehood.

Miss?ed?, a thought provoking play, looks into issues such as financial security, an individual’s potential for growth, relationships, trust, betrayal, autonomy, power and also the price an individual has to pay because of some selfish and inquisitive people in our society.


When: 3rd to 5th August 2007
Time: 8pm
Venue: The Arts House (Old Parliament House)
Cost: $21 (adults) $16 (Students)
For tickets: 9475 3392 / 9229 9649

Work Opportunity

Hi all,

My ex-boss , Joyce, is looking for promoters for Trendmicro Anti-Virus Software. If any of you need a part time job or quick cash or both, please email me.

When: Sat and Sun from 12 - 9 pm for 4 weeks

Where: 4 different locations in Singapore

How Much: $50 a day (before commission)

How many: 4-5 promoters

So if you are interested and have a small amount of knowledge about IT, please contact her, ok?

When

When is it ok to say enough is enough, I want this to stop

When will I be able to hold what I had loved and wanted so long ago

When will I have the courage to say, no more of me, now it's all You

And when will the answer be "I am done with it, it's fixed. Now back to you."

John 14:27
Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.

How I know I no longer work in an IT company

1) I only have 10MB email space

2) Noone knows how to use the Q drive

3) I don't have a calculator on my desk

4) I have not used excel in a whole week

5) The radio is playing English music

6) People understand and respond to my one-liners

7) I haven't had to hear anyone say "Like that, hah?" all week

8) I receive no junk mail from anyone offering to sell me cheap Microsoft Suites

9) Noone knows how to change the toner in the laser printer

and the last indication that I no longer in IT

10) NO MORE DAMN PRICE LISTS TO DO!!!!!

New Beginnings

I started my new job on Monday and it's been good. It is a totally different ball game though, because it is so different from working for a family-run SME, but I think I will be learning alot of new things here.

As usual, working in marketing means there will be a lot of people who love you and a lot of people who hate you. In this organisation, there also seems to be a lot of politics - inter-section, inter-department and interpersonal. I think I am going to stay out of it as much as I can. Gossip is just a devious double-edged sword, one that I want no part of.

My team seems to be a very talented lot. Alot of the people here are new, so I think we will all have to adjust to each other. There are a couple of old timers (meaning been here 10 years), but they seem to be nice and friendly people. One of them looks like a neater version of Jeff Goldblum, which provides nice eye candy. :)And he sits right in front of me :) :)

I love my new work environment. So green and luscious, everywhere you look, trees, trees and more trees, which is a lovely change from the dry dusty industrial park I worked in before. Getting to work also takes a lot less time. Thank God for bus lanes, where I travel and happily watch all the cars stuck in the selfish, arrogant desires of one another.

The IT here leaves much to be desired though. My mailbox can only hold 10MB of space (!), and Outlook keeps hanging. And every thing is still paper based, from member records to staff leave application.

Well, that's my first report. I go on my first journalistic assignment today, so I will have more to say later in the week, I am sure.

Cheerio!

It’s a fact, but is it truth?

It's a fact

We like to talk about facts in our culture.

“Face the facts”
“As a matter of fact”
“The facts of life”

They all seem to indicate that if something is a fact, it must be true.

But that’s not true, and scientific fact finders will be the first to tell us that. A fact needs to be linked with other indicators that are real, i.e. exist, before it can be verified as truth.

But most of the time, we seem to think that if something is a fact, then it must be the truth.

Does the sun rise?

For example, it’s a fact that the sun rises every morning, right?

But that’s only what we perceive with our eyes. It is only partial knowledge, that which is witnessed by our position as a being standing on earth at dawn, and watching the brilliant colours change in the sky as we slowly see the sun peeking over the horizon.

The truth is that the earth rotates, and in its rotation, part of it is illuminated by the sun, and part of it is in shadow. The interim period where the earth’s rotation takes a section of the earth from shadow into the light is what we call the “sun rising”.

So is it a fact that the sun rises? Yes
But is it the truth?

But what is truth?

Sometimes, we can speak a fact into being the truth. As a mother with a small son, I see that almost every time I talk to my son. The words I speak influence him into believing that what I am saying is true, even though there is no evidence for it yet.

Let me illustrate this. Even before Hanan started taking guitar lessons, we told him about what a musical genius he was. His dad encouraged him to listen to and sing all kinds of music and I kept telling him what a great musician he could be.

When Hanan picked up the guitar for the first time, it never crossed his mind that he wouldn’t be able to master it. Within weeks, he learned chords that took me, in my teens, weeks to get even the fingering right. Even his guitar teacher was amazed at how quickly he picked it up.

Now here are the facts:
- Hanan has heard music before and can sing
- He may have musical genes he inherited from the father


But nothing there says that he is a good intuitive musician. It’s what we wanted for him, and we spoke it to him till he believed it enough and it came to pass.

***
Why are we sick?

The reason for this sermonette on fact and truth is this – my mother just started medication for diabetes last week. And when did she decide she had diabetes? Some time in March.

In March, she started complaining about how she is getting old (fact) and is not going to be as healthy as she used to.

Me: Why do you say that?

Mum: I feel tired after work, lethargic, don’t feel like doing anything after that (fact).

Me (laughing): Ma, I feel like that after work too. Maybe your body is just telling you to take it easy, that you aren't as new as you used to be.

Mum: No lah, I think I need to get tested for diabetes.

Me: Why do you think you have diabetes?

Mum: My mother had diabetes what, very strong family history (fact). Anyway this is the age lah, where all these things happen.

Me: ……

Her facts may have been correct, but do they mean that she should also have the disease because of all those reasons?

Every month after that, my mother went to test her blood sugar. All the time confessing how she is getting old, and has a history of the disease, and its time for something like that to happen. For 3 months, the doctors told her that she had a normal reading.

But my mother was adamant something was wrong. She went to different doctors and finally found one that could tell her that her blood sugar was high (although the reading was the same as it was with the other doctors). And finally it got high enough, and she was put on medication for diabetes.

Now reading this account, do you get a sense that she almost wanted to get the illness? That she went out of her way to procure the diagnosis and succumb to the odds? That’s how I felt, watching her go through this thing.

Now when she whines about not being able to eat chocolate anymore, or how much she loves bread and jam, and can’t have it, I don’t know how to react. I know she wants my sympathy, but I can’t give it because I saw how she sought the sickness in the first place.

The Healer

And I am angry. That I know that she doesn’t need to be sick, and I know she doesn’t have to accept the symptoms, but she wants to be sick. And I am frustrated because I know Who can heal her, but she doesn’t want to know Him.

And I understand why Jesus, toward the end of His life, looked at the city of Jerusalem and said, with tears in his eyes and pain in his heart,

"O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing!

Matthew 23:37

There is a Healer, who does not want us to be sick. He said He is the Way, the TRUTH and the life. And He wants to gather you to Himself, Ma.

Are you willing?

Love Thy Brother

It's hard to be half-sister sometimes.

I have 2 brothers, one from my mother and father and the other from my dad and step-mother. The second one, I never really got to see growing up, because my visits to my dad's place were sporadic at best and non-existent at times. The reason: my stepmother and I didn't quite get along. She thought I was a lazy, spoilt rich girl who did not deserve the incredibly good father I had. I, of course, resented her for taking my dad away from us. Caught in this cold war was the innocent little Brother No 2.

So Brother 2 pretty much grew up as an only child. Sure he had an elder sister and brother in name, but for the most part he was by himself.

So I guess I shouldn't be surprised that he feels some resentment now.

Yesterday was my birthday celebration with my dad, and both my brothers were supposed to come along. But at the last minute, my second one told my dad he wasn't coming. When asked why, he lashed out at my dad, "Why should I come to my sister's birthday, who wasn't even there for me half my life?"

Ouch. When my dad told me, that stung. It stung all the more because it's true, that my mindshare for this brother is minimal - only birthdays and Deepavali. I think about him if there is occasion to, but not otherwise.

So his comment is not false. It still hurts though. I am sorry that I wasn't there for you more, but I hope you will one day understand the circumstances that led to that.

Meanwhile, your resentment is justified. And I still have love for you.

The Cold Freeze

A strange vibe came over the office once everyone knew through the grapevine that I am leaving. They are not supposed to know, because the official email has not been sent out yet, but everyone knows it all the same.

So there are weird happenings, like:

1) People smile meaningfully at you, without saying a word.

2) Conversations stop when you walk into the vicinity (always pleasant, that)

3) Colleagues who feel they should have been told start giving you the cold shoulder.

4) You stop getting cc’ed on emails. Your spam mail exceeds company email.

5) People watch what you are printing, photocopying surreptitiously. “Oh I am just here to get my stuff” and then walk away with nothing. Yeah, right.

6) Your desk gets cleaner and cleaner. No one dumps stuff into your in tray and you can have a good old fashioned paper throw. Also, you are handing work out left, right and centre, which will help with the cleanup.

7) People who are in the know slip up, and then look as guilty as heck about putting their foot in their mouth. It’s cute to watch.

8) Suddenly people come up to you and start talking about how they should spread their wings and try something new and what did I think. I see right through it, man. I should just come out and say, “Are you fishing for information? Cos I am a vault, baby, locked down!”

9) The IT department gets really busy around you. Things are being deleted, access is being denied. Our IT guys is really nice. He gave me a heads up on where some of my “weak spots” are. Like deleting all my MSN archives for example. Duh, I didn’t even think of that.

10) And finally, people who hate you suddenly look happier and smile a lot more. Well, I am glad I am leaving too, buddy.

It’s gonna be a rough week and a half. Hang in there with me.

The wait is over!

Ok everyone, the moment you have been waiting all June for is almost here!

I will be on TV, Vasantham Central at 9 p.m. on my very own episode of Mudhal Payanam (First Journey) on the 30th of June 2007.

All you people who will be in Australia, England, US or somewhere similarly far away will be made to watch a repeat telecast when you come back.

Thanks to all those who kept hounding me with the question, "When ah?" , I feel so celebritied!

So once again:

When: 30th June 2007 at 9 p.m.

Where: Vasantham Central (That's the same as Arts and Kids Central for you "I don't do local TV" la di da people)

Who: Lil' ol' moi!

What: Mudhal Payanam

Starring: Nalinee Barrett, Muthukrishnan Pillai and various other very puzzled people in Sirkazhi.

Why: Because you love me, of course!

Excited much!

Another Year

I apologise for the long blog absence, but really, so much has been going on, that I havent had time to stop and record stuff.

For one thing, I just had a birthday *blush*. Yep, I turned 34 on Wednesday, and spent it with Otrie and Hanan in Downtown East, in one of the chalets. It was good to take the time off to relax with my family and just enjoy each other (as far as that is possible!)

A few things that hit me while I was there:
1) I will never been this young again.
2) This will by far be the most challenging year of my life, as my friend said "the most mountain tops"
3) This will be year where more things happen, career and finances-wise, faster than they have happened in the past.

Hmm, on that note, I decided to not worry about how I look in my yellow swimsuit (like Big Bird), and have fun. So i went on every ride at Wild Wild Wet and Escape Theme Park! Now pple who know me, know that I am not usually a thrill ride person, so this was quite a stretch for me.

In the evening, we went to Mumtaz Mahal at Downeast for dinner. Firstly, an Indian fine dining restaurant in a place where flip flips and sarongs are de rigeur is an anomaly in itself. Then, we were the first customers and the only ones there for about 20 mins. So we had a good chat with our waiter, who has had the most fascinating career. Worked in India, Middle East, US and now Singapore, managing the most high end restaurants. He said he took this job because he wanted to slow down and have more time for his family (!) Which, you know, is as it should be.

I was supposed to go to work the next day, but the pool water set off my earache again, so I happily went to the doctor, and then happily went home. And slept all afternoon. It was the perfect way to end a great birthday celebration.

Here are some pictures
Waiting for our turn


How high is 15 m again?


Go Karting

Pool Fun.

The rest of the pictures are here.

New beginnings (or what am I getting myself into?)

Here's a question.

Are higher pay, better package, better job prospects and lovely location good reasons to take a job?

What about longer hours, more responsibility, higher expectations and a handphone allowance that requires you to be contactable AT ALL TIMES?

This was the toss-up. But I decided to let God's hand guide me in this and am plunging in.

Will keep y'all posted on what happens.

Epiphany at Carl's Jr

I was not really searching, but there it was, on my special order burger. Suddenly, I knew what I had to do.




It's time to get my NOINO on! Shake my groove thing! Get on the scene! Be the MAN!

Heh heh.

PC Show -The aftermath

Everyone who worked the PC show came in today looking slightly dazed. I think its the IT equivalent of post-show blues, where you feel like life will never be the same again.

It's been a strange experience, this show. Sure you have the bargain basement crowd, who compare the cheapest printers from two brands, everything down to the last spec and then say,"I will consider", like it's some lifechanging decision. There was this one woman who took out a magnifying glass(!), and compared a laser print to the offset printed brochure and kept saying "Hen Lan ah! Hen Lan ah!" (Very bad, very bad) until I just wanted to stuff the printout down her throat.

Then there are the absolute princes of customers, who do their homework before they come, walk straight up to the model they want, pick it up and go. These guys are such a pleasure to serve - they know their stuff and don't act like total buffoons over the price.

Speaking of pricing, everyone knows that PC show is where all the prices come down right? So why do some people insist on trying to bargain you down? "$159 ah? $150 lah! Why cannot?" The worse is people who tried and bargain the free gift. "Free 1B thumbdrive ah? why cannot 2GB?" Because we only bought 1GB thumbdrives, dipstick, and if you don't know how this works, then I can't help you.

Again PC show is where all the Indian expat/ software engineer (ISE) types come out in full force. And again, they come in various hues - of personality. This year I encountered 3 types.

Mr Sensitive
There are 4000 people in the hall, all talking. Music is blaring. People with mics are yelling out specs for 100 different products.

ISE: How much is this printer?
(Note: all the prices are printed in size 300 font and stuck above the printers)
Me (loud and clear): $159 sir!
ISE: No need to shout! you can just tell me nicely! Why are you yelling at me?
Me:....
ISE: There is no need to shout (walks away)
Me: Awww, are you going to go home and tell your mother the mean lady at the PC show shouted at you?


Mr Racial Loyalist
This whole exchange was in Tamil.

ISE (to friend): So costly this printer!
Me: Can I show you another cheaper model?
ISE: Oh, you are Tamil speaking! Yes, show me another model (Indian head nod)
10 minutes later
ISE: I will take this model. Even though it's more expensive than XYZ brand, I will take it, because you are also Tamil speaking.
Me: Thank you sir. you won't regret your decision.
ISE: So since we are both Tamil, you can give me an extra free gift, no?
Me:.....

Mr I'm too sexy for your printer

He walked into the booth like he was walking onto a yacht. And he IS so vain, he probably thinks this post is about him. (Apologies to Carly Simon)
ISE: Heh heh heh heh
Me: Yes, sir? How can I help you?
ISE: I am looking for a printer. Anything you can show me?
Me: Monochrome or colour?
ISE: Maybe we can sit down somewhere and discuss my options? Heh heh heh
Me: I am working, sir. Can I explain the options now?
ISE: Heh heh, here is my card. Maybe you can call me to discuss more, heh?
Me: Sure! I will call you.

ISE walks away. I crumpled up his card and throw it on the floor.

And that's all I have to say about that.

MOST IMPORTANT POSTSCRIPT

3 days I was at this show and noone showed up to show me love. The one day I was off (Sunday), my buddy Jared comes, brings a mocha frappe, waits an hour, calls me 7 times (which I didn't see, cos I was home listening to a online sermon with my husband)and leaves.

My friends are the best! I am sorry I missed you, darling, and after this, you have a place in my heart, always.

PC Show begins

It is a public holiday here in Singapore and while the rest of the world slumbers in peaceful respite, me and about 100 other co-workers in the IT industry have to drag ourselves to the PC show at Suntec city to sell IT equipment to zealous kiasu deal- getters.

If you happen to be in Suntec, pop down to the Starbucks on the first floor and get me a mocha frappe. I will be the only brown skinned woman in a Canon T shirt.


See you at the circus!

Update:
No of Printers sold to strangers - about 100
No of mocha frappes brought by friends - none :(

What is love?

I once heard a wise man say, "Love is an act of will, accompanied by emotion, that acts towards the benefit of its intended recipient." It is by far the best definition on the word I have heard.

It is also a concept a lot of people in my generation don't seem to get. They talk about things like, "my feelings have changed", or "I am not sure if you are the right one." Or even worse, "If it's meant to be, it will be."

People, don't fall for the hogwash. Love is not "Sleepless in Seattle" or "You've got Mail" or any of those feel good emotions that Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan got paid millions to propogate. We are not brainless beings, driven by our desires alone, in a wilderness where there are so many options, your head spins and you can't be responsible for your actions anymore.

I have feelings for people on a weekly basis. If everytime it happened, I told my husband, "My feelings have changed, and I don't think I love you anymore", I would be on my 416th marriage by now. But love is not about how you feel. It's about the choices you make, everyday. Choosing to stick by someone, even when he/ she is not particularly lovable at the moment. And noone is lovable all the time. We all have moments when we make mistakes, small or big, and need forgiveness. Noone is exempt.

But then we say," How am I supposed to know what love is?" Everything we see gives us the impression that love is unchanging feeling, unwavering desire, unevolving characters in a 2 hour life that ends with a crescendo of music and a star studded night. I am not saying it is solely the media's fault, but the pervasiveness of TV and film have made us beleive that the things we see are actually true.

I also idealised love growing up. Who didn't? We all wanted this person who would be like the somebody in the Depeche Mode song. We bought the myth, hook, line and sinker, and now are paying for it with more divorces, more single parents and more broken homes than we have ever seen.

But now I know better, because I have seen what love is.

Love is a man, torn by fear of his own life, the disappointment of his friends and family, and the destruction of what he had built, saying, "I don't particularly feel like laying down my life, but if that's Your will, then I will myself to do it."

Love is a man who was so emotionally driven by his choice, he cried out, alone in a garden, and was under so much stress, that his capillaries burst and blood flowed down his face mingled with sweat.

Love is a man, who bore the lashes of a whip so cruel, nails so sharp and a pain in his heart so deep, and yet kept himself on a cross for 6 hours, so that his intended will one day, be free.

That is love. That is going the distance, keeping the faith, finishing the race, and whatever other analogy you want to find for it. But that should be what we teach our children when they ask what love is.

This post is for a dear friend who is hurting and asked this question. We are all unfaithful lovers. There is only One who can teach it right. Learn it from Him.

my first hate mail

After over a year of blogging, I am pleased to announce I finally received my first hate mail. Yes, someone finally cares so much about my opinion and his own difference to it, that not only did he respond, he took time to conjure up personal insults, sweeping statements and blanket assumptions about my character.

If you want to read it, go to the KLK website and look under my 2nd Mudhal Payanam post. I am not going to link it.

Ladies and Gentlmen, hate mail. Nalinee has arrived.

Earache

I have a(n) ear infection. AND it sucks. The entire right side of my head hurts, from the jaw to the cranium and it feels like someone dropped a bowling ball on my head while I was sleeping.

It all started on Friday night, when I used a ragged non too clean finger to scratch what seemed like a normal ear itch. (Oh stop it! You know you have all done it.)

Next day there was a gentle throbbing which I ignored. But my last night, it was full scale war. My hearing got muffles because of the swelling and the whole ear just looks wonky.

So I went to the doctor today, and got some ear drops and an MC, my second one this year. Not doing well with the MCs this year at all.

Ear infections are such a juvenile ailment, I am almost embarrassed to have one. But if it hurts for a baby even half as much as it hurts for me, I am just thankful that any babies make it through infanthood at all.

I am going to rest now. See you on the other side of this pain.

New Boss

So I finally have a new boss. Actually, he is not really new anymore, he has been with us for 2 weeks now, but I wanted to wait to see if he was going to stick around before I wrote him up.

First thing, he is a he. This is actually my first experience working for a male boss, cos all the marketing divisions I have been in before have been female dominated, for some reason. So that's a first in itself.

Secondly, he is my first close up metrosexual. He is a spiffy dresser, all tight shirts and narrow pants, looks like he works out, has short hair and bling bling on his ears and fingers. He is also a little bit er.. expressive with the hands and face, which is very rare in most men who work in the IT industry. And I did not say what you probably think I said.

He has all the fire of a new employee who is driven to prove his worth to his boss, to establish his importance as new rooster in the yard with his peers and to show his subordinates that he knows more than them.

Will it last? We shall see.

Right now, I just wish he wouldn't come up and talk to me just after he has had a cigarette. I feel like Donkey in Shrek right after Shrek farted on him.

"I had my mouth open and everything!"

Movie Review - Pirates of the Carribean 3, At World’s End

Pirates of the Caribbean was an apt finish to a totally awesome cinematic trilogy. Everything that you would want to see in a movie was in this one, unless you are into mindless gore. The acting was superb, the sets mind boggling, the script a work of masterful wit. I am so glad I saw it before all the critics came out and added their two cents worth of sulphuric acid to it.

(A side note on that – Why do movie critics always have to hate everything that isn’t controversial, deep, about homosexuality or politics? Have they forgotten that movies exist to entertain, to help us escape to another dimension, relax and recoup our resources? I am tired of all these people who take what little jargon their “Film Appreciation” professor taught them at college and hurl it back at us. Get an original thought, people!)

Ok, that said, I want to draw out everything I loved about POTC. And then the one thing I hated about it.

Reference to Singapore
If Singapore really had half the colour, personality and sheer force of will as the Singapore portrayed in this movie, we would be really something! The head honcho pirate (Chow Yun Fatt) was amazing with his crisscrossing battle scars and penchat for steam (which is kinds weird. Who wants more steam in the tropics?). I hope the reference does everything for our country as the STB hopes it will do and I hope the tourists who come as a result of this movie aren’t disappointed to find the sterile, ridiculously ordered city that we actually are.

Wit
I think the script in this movie, rivaled, if not surpassed that of the previous 2. Of course Jack’s lines are always bordering on the insane, but in this one, he has a few realy gems while blindingly sober. My favourite has to be when Elizabeth says, “It would never have worked out between us, Jack.” And he says, “Keep telling yourself that, darling.” The way Johnny Depp delivers that line…. I bet Elizabeth was wondering if she made the right choice after all.

Action and Adventure
Nothing beats some of the action sequences in this movie. I was wondering what could possible top the water wheel sword fight of POTC 2, but, yep, they came pretty close. Some of the fight scenes were actually the breather in the movie, the light hearted moments that takes away the tension of the main plot. The fight in the pirate court was one such scene, and the mindless skirmish actually helped focus the decision taken right after it. Well done, Jerry.

But…
Ok, now for what I hated. Pirates are about men. I am not sure if women were known to have their own ships or whatever, but I know that one of the laws of piracy was “No women on board.” So how does Elizabeth Swann turn from being the damsel in distress to the “distressing damsel”, as Jack Sparrow so aptly put it. Putting her in a place where she not only calls the shots, but gets old, battered, hardened men to follow her lead, is less than unbelievable, it borders on ludicrous.

Was this some half baked effort by the powers that be at Disney to bend over backwards and ensure sexual equality? Are they trying to make up for all the heroines of old who were dressed by birds and rescued by knights? I am sorry, but this “Look, we are for women’s rights too” statement in this movie just didn’t work for me.

My disbelief cannot suspend that much.

Road Trip - India (part 4)

This is the final installation of my blog on my road trip.
For more photos of my journey, click here and here.

Day 3 - Vaideeswaram

Yet another temple town, Vaideeswaram is the “olai chuvadi” capital of the world. Using an ancient text to tell your history as well as your future, these guys belong to a special clan that has safeguarded these texts for 1000s of years. These texts, written on palm leaves, used a kind of archaic Tamil script that only people in that clan can still read. So they make quite a killing reading these texts to people who either want to know their history, or their future.

If you remember, the point of my trip was to trace my history, so we went to one of these guys to see if he could shed some light on my ancestors. Finding him was hard because there was literally a whole street of these guys in Vaideeswaram, all claming to be the original. (Sounds a bit like the whole Papa Roti thing, doesn’t it?) But in the end, a call to my dad’s friend Rajendran solved the problem. It helps to have friends in high places.

Outside Vaideeswaram temple, we were swamped by the most ubiquitious sight of India – beggars. They hang around the temple hoping people’s piety will move them to pity. I was warned sternly by Malar and John NOT to give them money. They said, if you really want, you can give them food – biscuits or buns – but chances are they will reject it. Apparently most of them belong to a syndicate that feeds them, but makes them beg for their keep.

I had to test it out. I had bought some packets of food (prasadam) from the temple, which I didn’t want to eat. I offered it to this beggar lady with 2 children, but she refused to take it and kept asking me for money instead. Now, if I was a mother with 2 hungry children, I would take any food that comes my way, especially when it’s still piping hot.

Lesson learned.

Vaideeswaram is a small town, well supported by the astrology business. But there really wasn’t much else to do there. So after we got all the footage we needed, we left and headed for Pondicherry for dinner and the long drive back to Chennai.

We reached the ultra comfortable Raj Palace Hotel at about 9:30 on Sunday night. With the most strenuous part of the shoot behind us, we could relax, enjoy a good dinner (Chicken fried rice washed down with several gimlets), and entertain each other with horror stories from the media industry. I found out that John was the CEO for a cable channel called SS music, before life on the road called him back to sound engineering.
And Malar has worked in almost every major city in India and South East Asia, including Singapore, where he holds an employment pass.

Day 4 – Chennai

Finally, the last day of shooting. All the shoots today are in Chennai, so we had a little bit of time for some shopping in the evening. But before that, I got to experience the colour and vibrancy of what is touted to be now the best Indian city to live in.

Beggars, cows and pollution. I didn’t really find any of these a problem. I don’t know if I just looked unapproachable or what, but there weren’t a lot of encounters with beggars in Chennai. I saw more beggars in the small towns, strangely enough, just outside temples. There were still street and slum dwellers, in rags, and with children in throngs around them, but they seem to be gainfully employed. I was glad to see that.

The ubiquitious cows were everywhere, but they were quite grazing in little grassy alcoves, rather than obstructing traffic or terrifying hapless tourists (aka me). It just wouldn’t be India without the cows.

As for pollution, I noticed something really interesting. Women would sweep their houses clean of dust and debris, then gather the said pile of dust and dump it just outside their houses, where the wind will blow it in again during the course of the day.

A lot of the rubbish is also organic. Indians use natural resources a lot more than we do here – banana leaves instead of paper plates, palm leaf baskets instead plastic bags and cow dung instead of pesticides. Yes, there are plastic bottles, cans and other man made rubbish as well, but for city as large as Chennai is, they must either have a lot less trash or much more efficient waste disposal teams. But there is no doubt that India is the original recycling society. People save and reuse everything, which is really admirable.

I felt that politics and cinema drive the city more than then many temples, spiritual gurus and ancient texts and books. Everywhere you look, they are posters of political luminaries. Actors endorse everything from Aircel mobile networks to pumps for agricultural use. And the people are such big fans of some of the actors, that apparently in the cinema the film reel operator has to stop the reel in order to accommodate the whistling and celebrating that goes on once the hero appears. I wish I had time to have experienced this, but sadly, it didn’t happen. But the next time I surely will.

Chennai has been an eye opener. The memory I had of the city I visited 17 years ago remains an old and distance memory, the way you remember your grandma when you were 5. As I have grown, Chennai has grown along with me, infinite in beauty, wisdom and grace. This is not to say that it’s perfect, no place is, but its faults have been exaggerated more than its virtues. The people are gentle and hospitable, I wasn’t eve-teased, rubbed up against or even gawked at even once. The food is amazing, with enough variety to keep foodies like me happy for a long time.

My heart is full. I am so glad I came. Chennai, you have a part of my heart, and you will see me again.

Road Trip - India (part 3)

Day 2 – Sirkazhi.

After a quick and excellent breakfast of thosai and the best tea I have ever had, we set out for Sirkazhi, the town my great grandfather came from. I was supposed to meet my dad’s friend, Rajendran who lives there. He in turn helped me to find all the possible connections to my dad’s family. If not for him, I would probably still be there, looking for my roots.

We went to the house of this old priest of the local temple, who was said to remember my great grandfather. This man was 95 years old, and still had a memory that was sharp as a knife. He is retired from his priestly duties, but lives with his daughter’s family in the same house he had lived in since he was born.

I was excited to visit the house, because 1) it would be my first visit into a village house, and 2) my first visit to a orthodox Brahmin house. I tried to remember all the “rules” of orthodoxy regarding visiting a Brahmin household. I am glad to say none of them were true. They welcomed us with kindness, offered us a place to sit on a bench, and some ice cold water to drink.

(A short note on drinking water in India. I was told NEVER to drink the tap water. The crew bought many bottles of mineral water and an ice cooler, so we were well watered throughout the journey. But, when you go to someone’s house, and all they have is water, from the tap, how to say no without being rude? The last thing I want is to be remembered as the uppity Singapore girl who won’t even wet her lips in our house. So I drank their water when it was offered. I said a blessing over it, and drank whole heartedly. And didn’t suffer so much as a stomach ache from it. )

The house looked exactly like the kind you see in Tamil movies. A U shaped covered house with a small open air courtyard in the middle, where they had the Tulasi tree and the water pump. In the back, there is a well and a general washing area. These people were considered affluent because they had electricity, running water, and a fridge. The floors were cement and the walls brick. The roof was wood and attap, and kept the house cool and comfortable. 6 people lived in that house, which is the size of my living room. Amazing. With no separate rooms for married couples, how on earth did they make 2 children. The mind boggles.

The next house I visited was the one my great grandfather built. It has been around for about 100 years and is based on the same U shaped with courtyard plan. My uncle and aunty who still live there have electricity, but no fridge, and no running water. And my uncle works in a bank!

Meeting my relatives was an experience in itself and I will leave it to the show to tell the story. But walking into the house that I could have been born in was overwhelming. I can describe it adequately, and won’t even try.


2nd Night – Chidambaram

Since Sirkazhi is such a small town, they don’t have any hotels that will fulfil the creature comforts stipulated by the crew. So we spent the night in Chidambaram, a slightly larger temple town that was a 2 hour drive away. I was so exhausted – drained physically by the 8 hour shoot in the broiling sun and emotionally by meeting my relatives – that I took a shower and went straight to bed. It’s only the next morning that I realized that the hotel we stayed at was called the Raffles Hotel! The irony was not lost on me. I’m not complaining because it had a clean bed and aircon, which is all I needed, but they were little short on the marble flooring and jazz quarter, what.

The hotel also did not have room service, so the guys had to go out to get some take away food. One of the things I really enjoyed about this trip was that I was with a bunch of people who were serious meat eaters like me. Which is really good because India has very good non-vegetarian cusine offer. The meat is usually fresh, not frozen, so it tastes different and absorbs the flavours of the spices better.

Now, I know a lot of you are frowning because you think I did something stupid and dangerous, but for the record, I did not get any digestive disorders while I was in India. No Delhi belly, nothing. 2 out of 3 meals were non-vegetarian. For breakfast, we went to a veg restaurant, but only because breakfast foods like thosai and idly are much better there.

If I have any complains about India, it’s this. The sun rises really early in the morning. By about 5:45 a.m., it is peeking into my room. Being used to waking at dawn in Singapore (6:30a.m.), I was like WTH when I found myself rising at 5:30 or so. So from then till my actual wake up call (8:00), it was my time with the wonders of Indian television. I was pleasantly surprised to find a TV channel dedicated to Christian programming – songs, sermons and services – in both Tamil and English. Belonging to a secular state like Singapore, it came as quite a treat, really.

Road Trip – India (Part 2)

First Night – Pondicherry

Being on a road trip like this one, it’s impossible to tell where we are going to be when night falls. Therefore making hotel reservations was out of the question. Therefore 2 hours of our night in Pondicherry was spent driving around, looking for a hotel to stay. Most hotels were full for two reasons – 1) Pondicherry is a kind of a party town where young Chennai natives go for a wild weekend of drinking and partying and 2) Because of the political meeting, even more people decided to leave the city and Pondi is the nearest destination.

By 9:30, we still hadn’t got a room and I was beginning to panic. I know how Mary and Joseph felt, not that I was about to have a baby, but the part of being tired and stopping at every inn and not finding room to rest. Finally Malar called one of his friends, who told us to try a place called Shanti Inn. It was on a street that we had already driven by twice, but we didn’t see it because at the street level, you only see the door. The rest of the hotel is on the 2nd – 5th floors. The rooms were clean and air conditioned, the bathroom looked recently washed and the bed was comfortable. We decided to stay.

Dinner was room service, although no one had much of an appetite from all that traveling. Ok, honestly, that was not the reason. Pondicherry is apparently some kind of tax haven for alcohol. A bottle of Smirnoff vodka only cost SGD$16. So everyone decided to camp out in my room and have a few bottles of the stuff, “to help to relax”. They were so relaxed, I had a hard time kicking them out, because I wanted to sleep. Tomorrow we go to Sirkazhi, a big day for me. I needed to sleep.

Before I end this post, a word about Indian TV. Firstly, I love the fact that every channel has people who look just like me – beautiful Indian girls endorsing products in ads and good looking men reading the news. And the ads are really a lot more creative and sometimes risqué then what we get in Singapore. There is this one ad where the opening sequence is a medium shot of a woman, waist up, squatting on something and bouncing up and down with her eyes closed. The next shot is a long shot of her rinsing out the pair of pants she had just washed by hand, and turning to show it to the camera. It was an ad for washing soap.

And these people had a problem with Richard Gere kissing Shilpa Shetty? What the…?

Sex and nudity is not really an issue in India. People are bathing in public places all the time, the men wearing a little less than a thong and the women a sheer sari or cloth that doesn’t leave much to the imagination. The problem was probably that Richard was an old geezer, kissing a young nubile woman. Yeah, I think that was probably it.

For pictures, click here.

Road Trip – India (Part 1)

Itinerary
Day 1 – Chennai to Pondicherry
Day 2 – Pondicherry to Sirkazhi
Day 3 – Sirkazhi to Vaideeswaram
Day 4 – Vaideeswaram to Chennai
Day 5 - Singapore


Day One
I landed in Chennai airport at 10 a.m. and already the heat was searing through my skin. It was Agni Natchathiram, the hottest day in the year, although I didn’t know that at the time.

Good thing Kannan, the Assistant Director from Verite Productions was there with an air conditioned Chevrolet, so I didn’t suffer too long in the heat. It did make me think about how the people who cannot afford air conditioning survive this season.


We went to Raj Palace Hotel where I met the rest of the crew – Hameed, who of course I know from poly days, Malarvannan, the cameraman , and John Fernandez, the sound guy. Both Malar and John are Chennai natives (Chennaivites? Chennaaiwals?) , although they have both travelled the world extensively as professionals in their field. My episode of Mudhal Payanam was in good hands.

Before heading out of the city, we stopped for lunch – at Liu’s Chinese Cuisine. The two Singaporean guys, Kannan and Hameed were tired of eating Indian food and were dying for a change in palate, and this was their last chance to get some Chinese food before we headed for the rural countryside. So my first meal in India was steamed Thai rice, sweet and sour pork, chili beef and chap chai! Go figure eh.

At about 4:30, we headed out of Chennai further south toward Pondicherry. On our way out, we saw busloads of people with strange black and red flags on the windows coming into the city. Apparently some minister was getting honoured for 50 years of active political career, so the prime minister and president of India were coming down to some meeting to felicitate him. His followers also took it at a personal invitation and descended on Chennai in their thousands. Malar said it’s good thing we were leaving for a few days, because just the traffic snarls would tie up any travel plans for a while.

Even on the other side of the road, we were moving at a snail’s pace, because the more important followers of that minister were allowed to drive on the opposite side, towards oncoming traffic. Our driver Kumar played chicken so many times, I stopped counting. I just know that by the time my journey ended, I had almost broken the hand grip in the car.
Traffic rules are more of a suggestion than the law here.

And we are off!

I am writing this from the free internet terminals in Changi Airport. Check in was really smooth cos they had a special express lane for individual travellers. There were about 400 tour groups, all looking haggard, tired and carrying everything from rice cookers to small TVs.

In about 10 Mins we get to board the plane and then, the adventure begins!

catch u later!

Getting to know you!

This is such a perfect opportunity to get to know all you guys! Please do it and send it back to me ok? Email also can!


1. WERE YOU NAMED AFTER ANYONE?

No

2. WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU CRIED?
On Sunday

3. DO YOU LIKE YOUR HANDWRITING?
No. It's childish.

4. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE LUNCH MEAT?
SPAM! (Is there any other kind?)

5. DO YOU HAVE KIDS?
Yes, yes, yes, and I want more!

6. IF YOU WERE ANOTHER PERSON WOULD YOU BE FRIENDS WITH YOU?
Definitely! I am delightful!

7. DO YOU USE SARCASM ALOT?
Yes. Bad me.

8. DO YOU STILL HAVE YOUR TONSILS
Yes

9. WOULD YOU BUNGEE JUMP?
Only if someone's life depended on it.

10. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE CEREAL?
Nestum!

11. DO YOU UNTIE YOUR SHOES WHEN YOU TAKE THEM OFF?
No

12. DO YOU THINK YOU ARE STRONG?
Not at all.

13. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE ICE CREAM?
Macadamia and butterscotch

14. WHAT IS THE FIRST THING YOU NOTICE ABOUT PEOPLE?
Their eyes.

15. RED OR PINK?
Red

16. WHAT IS THE LEAST FAVORITE THING ABOUT YOURSELF?
woah.. where do I start

17. WHO DO YOU MISS THE MOST
My best friends

18. DO YOU WANT EVERYONE TO SEND THIS BACK TO YOU?
Absolutely

19. WHAT COLOR PANTS AND SHOES ARE YOU WEARING?
black and black

20. WHAT WAS THE LAST THING YOU ATE?
Rice vermicelli sauted in garlic chili oil with soya beans.

21. WHAT ARE YOU LISTENING TO RIGHT NOW?
My colleague's Chinese radio station (ugh)

22. IF YOU WERE A CRAYON, WHAT COLOR WOULD YOU BE?
Burnt Orange

23. FAVORITE SMELLS?
sandalwood, Otrie's cooking, and Hanan's head.

24. WHO WAS THE LAST PERSON YOU TALKED TO ON THE PHONE?
my mother

25. DO YOU LIKE THE PERSON WHO SENT THIS TO YOU?
Love her with all my heart!

26. FAVORITE SPORTS TO WATCH?
NBA

27. HAIR COLOR?
brown

28. EYE COLOR?
brown

29. DO YOU WEAR CONTACTS?
No. Perfect eyesight, praise the Lord

30. FAVORITE FOOD?
All of it, I guess

31. SCARY MOVIES OR HAPPY ENDINGS?
Happy endings

32. LAST MOVIE YOU WATCHED?
Spidey 3!

33. WHAT COLOR SHIRT ARE YOU WEARING?
Dress, dark blue

34. SUMMER OR WINTER?
We don't have a choice here -summer

35. HUGS OR KISSES?
I have to choose?! Kisses

36. FAVORITE DESSERT?
Otrie's key lime pie

37. MOST LIKELY TO RESPOND?
Who knows, man?

38. LEAST LIKELY TO RESPOND
By default, all of them.

39. WHAT BOOK ARE YOU READING NOW?
And the Shofar Blew by Francine Rivers

40. WHAT IS ON YOUR MOUSE PAD?
What an archaic question!

41. WHAT DID YOU WATCH ON T.V. LAST NIGHT?
American Idol!

42. FAVORITE SOUND?
Hanan singing praise songs!

43. ROLLING STONES OR BEATLES?
Beatles

44. WHAT IS THE FARTHEST YOU HAVE BEEN FROM HOME?
North Carolina

45. DO YOU HAVE A SPECIAL TALENT?
Honey, I am ALL special talent

46. WHERE WERE YOU BORN?
KK Hosptial, Singapore

47. WHOSE ANSWERS ARE YOU LOOKING FORWARD TO GETTING BACK?
All you lot! Consider yourself tagged!

Getting Prettified

Ok, before I start this post proper, here is a quick quiz.

A nail bar is
1) An upscale hardware store that specialises in nails.
2) A bar where the most hardened people in society hang out.
3) A place where dainty, delicate women go to get their nails taken care of.

If you guessed 1) or 2), just know I don't blame you at all. But this post is about my pedicure experience, so the right answer is 3). Thanks for playing.

I have been to a few nail bars in the last 2 years and the experience has been mixed.

The one at Suntec, Nail Addiction, is pretty good, but the space is small and cramped and only one of the nail technicians (yeah, i know!), Sharon, is consistently conscientious about her work. The others are a bit moody and if you draw them on one of their bad days, then sub-standard is all you are getting.

The worst one I have ever been to is PINC, the Woodlands branch. I paid for the deluxe pedicure, and what I received was just the most rudimentary of cuticle trimming and a quick slather of exfoliant before she started painting my nails. The paint job didnt even last 3 weeks. I didn't like the atmosphere either. The girls were loud, brash and speaking in Chinese all the time, and it was more like a cafe then a spa. People want to be spoiled and pampered a little when they come in for a pedicure. I know you want a quick turnaround, so you can service more people and make a killing, but really. If we wanted to be herded like sheep to be sheared, we won't be shelling out $38.

But coming quickly to the reason for this post. I pass by this place every day on my way to work and the reason I never stopped in was this.



Pretticure. What kind of name is that, right? It just sounded so.... cheesy, you know. Like they were at Registy of Companies and went, "Darn, we don't have a name for this venture.. let's see.. people want to be pretty and they come in for a pedicure.. let's see... prettipedi? Pedimanipretty? Prettymani? I know!! Pretticure!!!" (For all I know, that's exactly what happened!)

Anyway, I went in on my way home from work yesterday solely because my other option was PINC and I REALLY REALLY didn't want to go in there again. As soon as I walked in, there was this pleasant scent of lavender everywhere, which is nice, since most nail bars smell like acetate.

Then, the girl behind the counter smiled and took me in, sans appointment. She offered me a drink list (!), with a selection of teas, from simple Earl Grey to the exotic Ginseng and Vanilla.


She left me there to choose my nail color while she went to prepare for my pedicure.
When she invited me to my station, I just knew this was gonna be a good experience. Reasons
1) Bubbling foot soak. Usually you get a tub of lukewarm water.
2) Equipment within their own sterile packaging.
3) Copious amounts of exfoliant
4) Cup of Earl Grey (my order), piping hot

My technician's name was Milo, and she was gentle, careful, conscientious and a great conversationalist who actually spoke good English. She did not try and sell me anything I didn't want or need and she gave me the first foot, ankle and calf massage I ever had at a nail bar. I thanked her profusely for the massage and she smiles behind her surgical mask and says mysteriously, "Wait.This will be even better." She then places a hot towel on my feet and kneads my toes till I sink into sweet, estatic oblivion. Sigh.....

This is the finished product of Milo's handiwork.


Now the cost of this little experience was only marginally less than other nail bars - $35. But the experience was worth so much more. I was so impressed by the level of service I received that I did not even let Milo finish her sales pitch when I signed up for their 5 pedicure package. She did all selling she needed to with her gentle hands and immense pedicure and people skills.

If you need a little pampering and a lot of TLC for your feet, go to Pretticure. Located at Jurong Entertainment Centre. Tel: 65600778. Don't let the silly name fool you. These ladies know how to treat another lady. And the rest of you, you are in the service industry. A little service wouldn't go amiss.

Letter from Grandma/ Grandpa

National Library Board has launched this project called Letters From Grandma And Grandpa.

The project is to help record advice (can be about life, the future, lessons to remember) grandparents want to pass on to their grandchildren.

Tamil Murasu is working together with National Library Board to gather and publish the letters in Tamil.

This is open to all Grandparents, who are Singaporeans or Permanent Residents.


Your letter has to be written in Tamil.
You should submit your letter in either typewritten or handwritten form.
Each letter should have approximately 500 to 1,000 words.
Unselected letters would be archived.
Letters are subjected to editing by the selection panel.

For more details please contact me via email and I will tell you what to do.

Inane questionnaire thingy - Thanks Shal!

TEN EM0TI0NS:
1. are you missing someone right now? Yes
2. are you happy? Happiness is so temporary. I got JOY, baby!
3. are you talking to anyone right now? No
4. are you bored? No.
5. are you german? No.
6. are you irish? No.
7. are you french? No.
8. are you italian? No.
9. are your parents still married? No. Yes, another statistic
10.are you scared? Honestly? No. OK, maybe a little.

TEN FAV0RITES:
1. televison: Judging Amy
2. flower: Any that end up at my door with a card with my name on it.
3. color: Orange
4. sport: To watch or to do?
5. mall: IMM I think.
6. band: U2
9. animal: Whichever one is smart enough to stay the hell away from me.
10. state: Insanity

TEN FACTS:
1. hair color: Brown
2. phone color: Silver
3. car color: Lime Green
4. hair style: Long and straight
5. eye color: Brown
6. shoe size: 10
7. ring size: 13. With a big solid piece of compressed coal will be nice.
8. skin color: Brown
9. available: No
10. lefty/righty: Righty

TEN THINGS ABOUT YOUR LIFE:
1. have you ever been in love? er, yeah
2. do you believe in love? I don't know.
3. why did your past relationships fail? I was an idiot
4. have you ever been heartbroken? Of course
5. have you ever broken someone's heart? I think so
6. Have you ever fallen for one of your best friends? YES, YES, YES!
7. are you afraid of commitment? Yes, but I will give it a shot
9. has someone ever kissed your hand? Yes
10. have you ever had a secret admirer? Errr.. I think so

TEN THINGS - THIS 0R THAT:
1. love or lust: Lust. I am premenstrual and hormonal
2. hard liquor or beer: Yes
3. night or day: Night.
4. one night stands or relationships: Relationships.
5. television or internet: Internet.
6. pepsi or coke: Coke man!
8. money or family: Family. Money. Family with money?
9. phone or in person: in Person
10. msn or myspace: Msn

TEN HAVE Y0U EVERS:
1. have you ever been caught sneaking out? Of course not. I am too good.
2. Have you ever done something you regret? Of course!
3. have you ever bungee jumped? No, and no thanks
4. have you ever gone skydiving? No, and no thanks
5. Have you ever finished an entire jaw breaker? Yeah!
6. have you ever wanted someone so badly it hurt? Yes I have.
7. have you ever killed a man? In the biblical sense, yes
8. have you ever danced in the rain? Danced... hmmm... no
9. have you ever kissed someone in the rain? Yes
10.have you ever broken a nail? NO! They are made of iron, hello?

Defending God, or Defending myself?

“And you call yourself a Christian!”

The first time someone used that put-down on me, I was shattered. There were 2 reasons it hurt so much.

1) It was a direct below the belt hit on the one thing that I cling to as my identity, which encompasses every aspect of my being. Attacking my status as a follower of Christ is the sharpest barb Satan has in his arsenal, on par with “If you are the Son of God…”

2) The mouth that uttered those words was my father’s, a man that I adored beyond anyone else. It was the ultimate rejection and put down.

Over the next 10 or so years, I have heard him say this about many believers, some of whom I love dearly. All it took was for the believer to make a mistake, act in a way my dad didn’t like, tell a lie or conceal a truth for him to jump on him with the only way he can attack him while maintaining his face and sense of self-worth.

My reaction was always one of anger and deep hurt. I jumped to God’s defense, trying to explain away my shortcomings or defend my actions, as if the circumstances extenuate my actions. I tried to get my dad to understand that it’s not God’s fault I am such a sad example to his glory. I pleaded, groveled, explained and generally left feeling even more defeated and deflated then when I started.

But lately I have been thinking about what that statement really means. Yes, it is said with derision and a sneer, but it carries the following hidden meanings:-

1) Because you are a Christian, I hold you to a higher standard than anyone else.
2) Your profession of faith is the only thing I can attack because there is really nothing else about you that I can possibly be offended by.
3) I want you to remember who you are and Who you represent here on earth, so that, through you, I can experience such a little of the Grace you walk in.
4) I know what the “rules” of Christianity are, but I don’t know who Christ is.

Now when I hear my father or my brothers ask if someone calls himself a Christian, my answer is a simple yes. For being a Christian is not about how good you are. It’s about how good Christ is.

If I was able to be good, keep all the “rules”, never lose my temper, never tell a lie, never swear and never make mistakes of any kind, then, why would I need a Saviour?

Ephesians 2:4-10
4 But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, 5 made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions--it is by grace you have been saved. 6 And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, 7 in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. 8 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith--and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God-- 9 not by works, so that no one can boast.


Enemy: Call yourself a Christian?!

Me : Why yes, I do. Because in my moment of weakness, Christ loved me. In my moment of hurt and anger, He comforted me. When I fell and fell again, he shed His blood for me. When my sinful nature arose, He forgave me.

Enemy: Call Nalinee your child?!

Jesus: Why yes, I do. Because when I hung on the cross, it’s her face I saw. When I was striped with the lash, I had her healing in mind. When I shed my blood, I redeemed her unto myself. When she calls on me, I answer her.

I don’t need to defend God against a defeated enemy. And who better to defend me than the King of Heaven?

Movie Review - Spiderman 3

Spiderman 3 marks the beginning of the wondeful summer season of very watchable movies coming our way - POTC, Shrek, Transformers and Fantastic Four. I guess you can add Harry Potter to that list as well, although I won't be watching it.

But back to good ol' Peter Parker. Except he wasn't very good in this one was he? No siree, he decided to explore his bad side, the side that is vengeful, bitter, horny and cruel. We all have it, which is why Sipderman will always be my favourite reluctant superhero.

I really enjoyed the bad guys in this one. Not one, but three! Sandman was a great character, especially to produce with CGI effects and all, bet the geeks had fun with that one. And of course Venom, with that lovely mouthful of teeth. And then of course the best one of all, whose come back was not exactly unexpected by anyone who has seen 1 and 2.

Mary Jane, despite all her screaming glory, was a better developed character this time around. It's important for us to see her weakness; I felt she was too one-dimensional in the first 2. I liked her mean, bitchy side, and they should have done so much more with that. What's the point of all that red hair, when your character is not even as fiesty as your hairdo? (Yes, I just don't like Kirsten Dunst.)

One of the Spidey fans that I spoke to was a little disappointed by the whole "It-came-from-outer-space" cop-out on the black goo. Admittedly, it was a bit contrived. But writing it as a science experiment gone wrong would have made this a 3 hour movie, and that point, we might as well throw in 3 songs and a fight scene as well.
And why did the goo jump on Spidey and not MJ? Curiouser and curiouser. I hate it when plots have holes big enough to fall through.

Still, go watch Spiderman 3. I can think of worse ways to spend an afternoon.

Short and Sweet - Theatre Review

Last Sunday, I went to watch Short and Sweet, the inaugural instalment of a play writing competition organised by NAFA (Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts). Basically, a collection of 8 new and original 10-minute plays, written and performed by both professionals and amateurs in the local theatre scene.

Some of the plays were very very good. Notably:-

1) Remembering the Kites.
Performed by Lim Kay Tong (who looked alot like Gandalf in this role, according to Aarika) and Sonny Lim (who looked like the Kung Fu Master in KingFu Hustle). This play was about 2 old timers, who seemed to have problems remembering the past, even if their lives, or at least the life they were holding on to desperately, depended on it. Needless to say, with such illuminaries, and a fairly solid script, this was one of my favourites. Unfortunately they ran over 10 mins, so they were disqualified. Yes, we were all, like, WTH?

2) Exchanges
This one was a Wild card winner, meaning the audience didn't have to pick them, because the judges, who have veto, picked this one. A simple tale about a couple who meet after 15 years, and all the pain, joy and memories that accompanies it. Each has a gift for the other, and the play ends without telling the audience what she gave him. This totally consumes us for the rest of the evening. "What was in the bag?" Does anyone know?

And then there were the duds.

1) Haven't.
With a name like that, you have to expect some half hearted portrayal of an afterlife, and that's exactly what we got. I was happy to see that it put some Indian actors to work, but that's all that play was good for. I didn't understand the plot, one of the characters didnt even need to be there, and most of it was existential hogwash anyway. Maybe the playwright "haven't" got it yet. How it was shortlisted baffled me.

2) 4 seconds.
This was another Wild Card winner, but I didn't like it. It seemed like another attempt to exploit the pain and loneliness faced by homosexuals to sell a story. I hate the fact that plays like this armtwist you into accepting homosexuality as "normal". That if you didn't like it, then you were labelled homophobic. Much as I don't like watching 2 men kiss, what bothered me about this play was not the "Give the homo a chance" subtext, but the "homos are "normal" too" agenda. You are not. There is no "normal". Deal with it, the way the rest of us deal with our own failings and insecurities.

The rest of the plays were good, not great. Frostbite gets an honourable mention here because my friend Candice was in it, and she is an amazing and talented actress. Go see her in "ON North Diversion Road".

Short and Sweet is a marvellous idea, an event that we need more of, and publicise more. The audience turnout was dismal at best (although the organisers claim the finals are sold out). But look out for the next one. Local theatre needs this.

A little slice of pleasure

On a day when work was boring, the weather was dismal and my mood was low, there was this.

Served with a smile, some friendly banter and a beautiful message at the West Coast Park MacDonald's.

A simple Oreo Cheescake at a fast food joint can add so much happiness to my day. Am I just easy to please, or would it have done it for you too?

Pre-Interview for India Trip

On Sunday, the TV crew came to my house to do a pre-trip interview for the show, Mudhal Payanam, which I have blogged about before.

For the occasion, we gave the house a super thorough cleaning, even getting areas we haven't thought about before, like curtains and behind wardrobes (like anyone is going to film there!) But it was partly the excitement of a TV crew coming to my humble HDB flat to film me, which made us overprepare.

They were supposed to be there at 4:30 initially, but because of the freaky rain we been having, the previous shoot went longer. So they decided upon 5:30.

Then 6:00.

Then 6:30. Dust was beginning to gather. I was starting to panic.

Then 7:00. Dad and Hanan were getting antsy, so I started dinner, make-up melting and all.

Finally at 7:15, there is activity outside the house, the four man crew with a huge box of equipment turned up.

In a flash, they are set up and ready to go. I tell you man, 3 lights and a camera tripod sure take up a lot of space! There was hardly any room to move, what with 12 tripod legs, wires everywhere and about 7 people squeezing into a space meant for one or two!

In my excitement, I totally forgot to take pictures *slaps head*, but of course, you will see it all when it comes out on TV lah.

My dad had a lot of nice stuff to say about me - that I was not shy, friendly with everyone. Thanks Dad! That's why I love you. He also had a lot of interesting facts and trivia on the place I am supposed to go to. And his Tamil!! The beauty of the language really comes through when Dad speaks it.

Hanan said I was a wonderful mom because I bought him alot of Xbox games. Ugh. Hope they edit out the stuff after "wonderful". Otherwise, he was kinda shy and did't say much, but that's ok.

Otrie, of course had to really think hard for something nice to say, and in the end came up with how I get really excited about stuff, but lose the fire for it quickly as well. True lah, but don't have to say it on national television right?

Walau.

On the whole, I think the interview went well. We couldn't do any outdoor shots because we had "lost daylight" as the producer put it, so that's gonna have to wait till after the trip. Hopefully, by then I will be so used to being filmed that I will be a lot more relaxed and vocal!

More updates soon!

Oral examinations

For those of you who thought this post was about something else, shame on you.

This is, in fact, about that componenent of all exams in Singapore, which test your language skills by making you, read, converse and describe a picture. Students in Singapore do this in both English and their Mother tongue.

You see where I am going with this.

Hanan is taking his first oral exam this semester. In Primary One, they got away with a "Show and Tell" type deal, where parents had a chance to coach and train and practise with the kid. But in Primary Two, it's the real thing - sight unseen passage for reading, and a picture of some kiddie scene, like a playground or a zoo, to describe and talk about.

The English one should be a breeze. The Tamil one has us all nervous. I am kicking myself for totally wasting the last 5 months by not doing ANY reading with him. He is wondering why his parents are making him undergo this torture.

The oral segment of the exam is 20% of the final grade. I hope he at least clears 10%. Will keep you posted.

Peekaboo!

You know those clear bra straps that you insist on wearing with your tube, off shoulder, halter neck or tank top?

We see them.

You aren't fooling anyone. Except yourself.

Theatre Review - Blithe Spirit

For a play that was written in 1941, the themes of noveau riche eccentricity, petty jealousy and marriage are very current in the black comedy by Noel Coward, especially when translated into the local context as well as Wild Rice’s production was.

Harnessing the talents of some of the best known names in the local theatre scene, Blithe Spirit was as entertaining for the wit of the original script as it was for the localization of names, places, media and culture.

Blithe Spirit is about a writer, Charles Koh (Lim Kay Siu) who, seeking material for his new book, invites a medium, Mdm Arcati (Selena Tan) into his house to conduct a séance. The séance summons his ex-wife Elvira (Tan Kheng Hua) from the other side and the mayhem that issues between her and his current wife Ruth (Neo Swee Lin) is what makes up the bulk of the play.

A lot of the reason why this play worked is because of the stellar cast. Few people would have been able to give the difficult words and phrases in the script a natural flow like Lim Kay Siu and Neo Swee Lin. They brought upper class elegance to the performance, while still maintaining their Singaporean-ness, without the need to break into a ridiculous pseudo-British accent.

And little Pam Oei, as the Filipino maid Edith, invoked laughter every time she was on stage, regardless of whether she said anything or not, although her rendition of “Unporgetable” was priceless.

Mdm Arcati’s partiality to cucumber sandwiches and strange use of idioms helped identify her as working class with aspirations to “atas-ness” and won the empathy of the Singaporean heartlanders (i.e. me)

The local references not only served to bring home this play, which was written during WWII to cheer up the British. It also took loving jibes at issues close to our hearts like the quality of the local press and our ongoing love-hate relationship with maids. My favourite line was this

Charles: Ah, reading the Straits Times, I see. Anything interesting?
Ruth: (snaps) Don’t be ridiculous, Charles!

In the same scene, Charles is seen being friendly to Edith, enquiring if she has had breakfast and Ruth quips,” Don’t be over familiar with the servants, Charles. It confuses them.”

There were a couple of gaffes too. The follow spot guy just couldn’t keep up with Tan Kheng Hua and there were times when the light trailed behind her like a ghostly train. Swee Lin sometimes forgot that she was not supposed to see the apparition and stared dead into Kheng Hua’s eyes before she remembered who she was. And the most obvious one was poor Lim Kay Siu, tripping on a piece of debris and falling (rather gracefully) when coming up for his curtain call. The audience audibly sucked their breath in and slowly released it as he waved and assured us of his wholesomeness.

Blithe Spirit was a black comedy which would have left a local audience high and dry with its extreme British verbosity and dry wit, if not for the wonderful adaptation, clever pacing and occasional physical humour thrown in by the cast and the Wild Rice team of writers. Glen Goei drew out his cast all that they were able to give, and that is to his credit.

Watch Blithe Spirit with the heart of an English educated Singaporean, and you will enjoy it. Go expecting Noel Coward’s original masterpiece and you may be disappointed.