tsewei’s blog

Here I am blogging from the stone-age, using dial-up connection. :s

No GPRS on my phone network too. Ugh. Can’t send MMS to e-mails either.

But I guess it isn’t that bad. At least I have Internet now.

The year of the Dog has been good so far. Good to be visiting relatives whom I’ve not seen for ages. Nice to share rooms with my sister and hurl insults at each other all day long too. Plus food tastes good after my month-long diet of eating out. And watching Hong Kong shows on TV sans Mandarin-dubs is great. I miss KL, but Penang’s not too bad either. Just a tad too hot. I walk around the house with the heat clinging to me like a second skin. ugh.

Also realised that people don’t really know much of the legends and believes associated with the lunar new year celebration. Or maybe it’s just me. Like, how the second day of the new year is the official ‘opening’ of a new year (”kai1 nian2″). Or why ang paos are given, and a whole assorted temple visit rituals and etc. The only thing I know really well is the ‘nian’ monster story. Probably because it’s on TV year after year.

Speaking about TV, the one thing that I never miss is the chinese new year commercials on TV. Big companies like Petronas and Perodua always come up with the best ads. Not only because that it’s usually funny, well-shot and nicely scripted (and well acted out), more often than not there’s a social message that reflects the society at its truest. I like this year’s Petronas’ ad, which depicted several old ladies sitting at a table and boasting of their children’s careers & money-making abilities. People laugh at it, but it is so true of the chinese community, where everyone just wants to have more ‘face’ than others. But in the story, one old auntie wins it all. After everyone else was done boasting about their kids’ multimillion house and x-hundred pounds salary per annum, that old auntie said nothing about her son except for the fact that he’ll be coming to bring her for a trip. The camera pulls out, and reveals a rickety Proton saga car driving up and the old auntie happily following her son, while the boastful old ladies have to be contented with the chinese new year alone in the old folks home. Ok lah, actually it’s a bit sad, but I still think it’s a good ad. Almost a mini-drama piece.

Okay, gotta head off to relative’s place to bai nin.
Gong hei fatt choy!

heehee, I’m so happy ‘coz I got my early ang pao today.

Scholarship allowance is in so the bank account has gone back up to 4-digits, for the moment. Suppose to last for 6 months, so lets hope everything doesn’t run out too soon with all the extra expenses on travel and food.

Paycheck’s here too! Since late last week. Double whee!

But unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be much nice things to buy for CNY. Shoes are especially icky and oh-so-boring. All the nice ones seem to be at Nine West, and I was all ready to go in and get a nice pair of pumps with their sale, but guess what, “Sorry, that’s the smallest size we have already.” ARGH! The smallest they have is a 5half and I need a 5!! icks icks icks!

Counting down the week till the holidays. Thought I had the Monday blues (yeah forgot to bring jacket to work but luckily didn’t get frozen) but time passed kinda quickly. So yeah, 1 down, 4 more days to go!

yup, thank god it’s friday! No more work for the next 2 days. And after that is a week of work, and Chinese New Year! wheee…

Working really tires me out. The travel between Orchard Rd and Boon Lay doesn’t help either. Everytime I get back to my room, I just wanna plop down and do nothing. Which is exactly what I do, after my dinner and shower. teehee.. what a bum..

I’m glad things are going well with my internship. Started out with nothing much to do, but nowadays I’m usually busy with quite a bit of things to do. Sometimes it’s mostly quite menial n easy, like borrowing tapes, transcribing, and watching lots of TV, which is always quite enjoyable. But I’m happy I finally got to help produce a teeny bit segment for a show this week! It’s nothing much, just a short 1-minute thing, but I’m happy with the beginnings of more interesting work.

But I’m seriously impressed with the efficiency of the division of labour there. There’re all sort sof different people to do all the different things. I mean, I don’t even have to do much editing physically on my own. I just need to decide what shots I want, and there’ll be this FCP-sifu who is super good at using Final Cut Pro (remembers all the short cuts by heart! I can’t do that yet!) who will help me do everything and make it all nice and snazzy. He takes half an hour to do what I’ll do in 3 hours. I’m convinced that by the end of this internship, my FCP skills will go down to zero.

I think I quite like it here in MTV actually. Everyone’s quite nice, and the environment is relaxed. So I guess, this is a good start to the 6-month internship!

p/s: I went over to Aussino after work to buy a new towel, and instead I got a 3-piece towel set (with embroidered flowers) for only SGD 9.90!!! AND new bedsheet set for only 8.80!! It’s yellow lemons on pale green background, to match my sunshine yellow mini-carpet. wheeee!

Saturday morning, and I wanted to sleep till noon, but instead I woke up a little earlier to put myself to some productive use.

I finally went and opened myself the UOB Campus account. Countless friends have told me about it, and I thought it’s all pretty cool. Free chequeing account, plus debit card that I can use for online shopping as well. So yes, I woke up earlier just so I can go conduct mundane matters at the bank and bore myself out.

Found that the Clementi branch is the nearest to NTU in terms of transport time, but unfortunately, I didn’t know that branch is soo0o small, that there were only 2 counters for account opening. And there was hardly any waiting space. People were standing and waiting for their turns. But I thought, Oh well, just gotta quicky get a number and join their queue and it’ll be my turn in no time.

Boy, was I wrong. I pressed the machine for my number: 1059.

I looked up at the screen: “Now serving: 1030″.
I was like: wtf?!?! the bank is closing in an hour and they have 30 clients to serve?!

I stood there like a deflated balloon, almost wanting to run off to the MRT and head to the bigger Orchard main branch. Hating that I’m standing there and watching the seconds tick away while the “Now Serving” numbers stagnate eternally, I went to ask a bank officer there for the application form to fill and clarify some questions.

So there we were, me asking questions and him answering them, and at one point I asked if there were any documents I need to present or special fineprints to owning the account since I am a foreign student here. Then the guy was like, “Oh, you’re foreign student? I thought you’re local. You sound local.”

I dunno lah, but what’s with the sounding local thing? (not the first time already.) I mean, seriously, I speak English in Singapore just the way I speak English in KL. No put-up accent, no difference, except of course I cancel out the Manglish words when I’m in Singapore coz no one would get it. And I do put up my “lets-talk-business” voice when I deal with ppl in banks, customer service, and other important stuff (just so they’ll take me seriously and give me what I want. ). But really, I don’t see the need for the surprise. Undeniably a lot of Malaysians and foreigners speak with a certain accent that sometimes make them stick out, but I find it a bit insulting sometimes when some people assume that foreigners in the S.E.A. don’t speak English fluently. Come to think of it, I even got a “your English is pretty good for a Malaysian” before.

Maybe there’s an ounce of truth in there, but I guess that reflects another painful issue, which is that of the failures of the education system in Malaysia. I have met peers who had a hard time handling their first sem in uni, not because they are not brilliant (I respect these ppl for taking the STPM exams in M’sia. I chickened out, escaped that & did A levels here instead) but because they have problems trying to cope with doing everything in English for the first time. It’s a steep uphill climb for them, but they diligently persevered on.

Well, the government has finally realised that speaking Malay will only get you business from Indonesia, and introduced the core Science and Math curriculum in English. But I don’t see how it’s even effectively doing anything. Stories of teachers who teach kids the wrong pronunciations in primary school, and friends in 6th form tell me they have to study everythg in English on their own coz the teachers don’t know nuts.

It’s so screwed up ‘coz the government doesn’t have any proper implementation plans and not enough funds (coz x% of the funds are probably siphoned off into someone else’s pockets), and that’s not even the biggest problem yet. The divide between the city and the kampungs is just too big. Some luckier kids have the environment to be exposed to the English language, and English classes in school bore them. While some in the rural areas cannot even put a proper essay together. Some get the chance to get out of the system, while others are stuck, and left out of it.

I used to always think, one day I’ll go back and live + work in KL again once I’ve finished my 3-year commitment here. I like the place, because my family is there, and it’s a big chunk of my past (well, as big a chunk as it can get in a 22-year life) + great food. But of late, I’m loosing that ‘want’ to go back. Having lived in Singapore for so long (and NY for a short stint), I realise there can be so much more out there. Things are getting from bad to worse in KL. Robberies happen everywhere, ladies have to act all paranoid about locking their cars, and not drive alone at night. Police tells me “apa boleh buat?” (what can we do?) when i reported my snatch thief case. They conned my Singaporean friends for exhorbitant bribes on the highway. How bad can everything get?

Some old friends ask me, “isn’t it very expensive to live in Singapore?” And I’m telling you it’s not. For the salary you earn here, you don’t have to pay as much for food. In KL, food prices go up so fast I can’t keep track everytime I’m back, but salaries stay stagnant there. Yeah sure, cars and real estate is costly in Singapore, but with the excellent public transport system, who needs cars except the rich? Better than KL where everyone thinks they can afford a car (coz it sounds so cheap), when in the end they’ll end up spending years and years paying off their loans for a lousy car to get stuck daily on the traffic jams.

I know this is a whole lot of negativity here, but it’s just thoughts that I’ve gone through from time to time. It gets depressing when you see that things have the potential to be a whole lot better, but things are just bogged down by too many factors from bad politicians, to apathy, to historical inheritance of a bad system that snow-balled to something this ugly. It’s hard not to feel sad about the whole thing. I’m not saying Singapore is wonderful-hurray-wheee-excellent, but at least for now, it offers me the basic needs of comfort and security.

Some people might label people like me who have gone away ” unpatriotic” and etc, but who gives a fuck really? If I had stayed in government schooling, I’ll probably be languishing in some pathetic unprofessional uni and taking a course that’s my 7th choice because of a screwed up system. No one in their right mind would choose that if they had another option out of it. Talks of patriotism is bull when you cannot even save your own skin. Want to talk about going back and help change the situation? I don’t know how that’s possible when half the society is apathetic, and the other half forgetful (yeah, voting the ppl u complain about back into power. smart move.) But seriously, I don’t even know how I’d vote because I don’t have faith in either the ruling or opposition to do any concrete changes.

Ok enough rants. This topic gets me going and going so I’d better stop. phew.

Maybe one day I would go back to live in KL, but that’ll only be because of my family. For now, I’m alright at where I am.

Ended work at 6-ish today and went on the MRT with a rumbly tummy. Rainy days make me hungry.

Canceled dinner plans of eating out with friends ‘coz it’s just crazy trying to eat out with the monsoon rain pouring outside. Then, I spent the next 40 minutes standing on the train and plotting my dinner plan for the night.

Decided to go healthy after a whole week of eating out everyday. It’s time for some wholesome greens.

So, after abt 30 minutes of grocery shopping and another 10-minute-preparation, I have my healthiest (and surprisingly, yummiest) meal of the week.

menu for the nite:

• Fresh leafy vege salad with baby tomatoes, sunflower seeds and tuna flakes, in Italian dressing. (Can’t find French Dressing at all in Jurong Point!! argh! but Italian dressing is better than icky thousand island.)
• Chicken & mushroom soup with croutons
• Focaccia bread with cheese and tuna
• A peach, & 1 lil’ bottle of Vitagen

It was a TV dinner as I sat there munching and watching old season 4 of Sex and the City on my polarbear lappie-top.
Great way to unwind AND fill up my stomach.
wheee! *happily contented for the day*

It was another mad rush travelling back to KL and then back here again in time for work tomorrow, but it was worth it. At least it gave me a little more time to spend the Saturday with my darling au yong before we went to KLIA with his family for his flight to Tokyo.

He’s finally left for Tokyo, after so many months of wondering when the paperwork for his work permit will be done and what plans his company had for him.

But sending him off at the airport didn’t turn out to be as depressing as it might have been. Sure, I was a bit saddened by it, but him leaving was a bit unreal. It felt so normal it was unreal. It was as if I was just sending him off on one of his business trips for a week or two, when in reality, he’s gonna be there for the next few years.

I thought I would end up crying, but we didn’t.

Maybe it was because we’ve been together and apart for so many times, constantly travelling to meet each other and sending each other off at the airport or bus terminals, that this time it almost feels routine. I mean, I seriously never visited the airports as much as I did in the last year than I did in my whole life before that. We have already grown so used to being apart as much as being together.

Maybe it’s also the comfort of knowing that we’ve been through our relationship while being far apart for 6 months. Knowing that we’ve survived our relationship with me in NY and him in KL is somewhat of a comforting thought. After all, Tokyo is only 1 hour ahead of Singapore, so there’s no need to wake up at weird hours of the day just to talk on the phone like last time.

Maybe it’s also because we’ve been preparing ourselves for this eventual move to Tokyo for quite a while already. We knew of the news since mid 2005, and have been thinking “oh maybe as early as August” or “maybe it’ll be next month” then just waiting and waiting.

But I guess it is good this way. Of course I feel sad whenever I’m on my own here, but the knowledge that we managed it before, and the feeling that tells me it will be just fine, makes everything alright.

Sometimes I lose track of all these and get depressed and start wondering isn’t it enough that we’ve been apart for 1 year and why everyone gets to have a relationship where they don’t have to travel out of the country just to meet up. But I guess the answer is that this is not just ANY other relationship, it’s one that matter to us, and since we’ve put our hearts to it, we will work hard to make everything work out fine, and it will all eventually make us appreciate the relationship more.

I will definitely fly there to visit him in July when my internship is over, and it’s comforting to know that we will definitely see each other soon. We just need to stay strong and work hard in the meantime. The bonus would be if he gets to visit Singapore on his business trips, but now i’m contented with the plans for July.

Yes it’s getting pretty dusty in here. It’s time for a spring cleaning.

Abandoned my blog for a while when exams started. And then I went home to KL, and continued being lazy about my blog. Mostly, I hung out with my darling au yong, after which I will never feel the need to write anything down on my blog ‘coz I seem to be quite satisfied with just keeping happy thoughts and memories to my brains (or rather, just lazy).

Ok, so it’s time for a recap now. Needless to say, semester break was a good one. First there was a good short trip to Genting where us roulette newbies won a few hundred ringgit and made all the aunties at our table jealous.

Tried the go-karts but it was too excruciatingly slow. Things got funny when au yong got the car that’s even slower than mine, and I couldn’t hear him frantically yelling at me from behind to slow down so that he can take a photo of me looking dumb in my helmet. His throat was quite dry by the time i finally heard the faint calls of “slooow doowwnn!” from behind, and he was trying to take my photo with one hand and trying to call my phone on the other hand to get my attention AND trying to steer his kart with his elbows and wrists. Hilarious. I guess I couldn’t hear him coz I spent too much of my brain power getting into an f1 mood while the kart rattles away at 15km/h.

Then, there was a fun roadtrip to Penang island. On the way there and back, we stopped at his grandparents’ place for some tasty home-made ‘loh-bak’ and ‘tau fu fah’. Found a hotel in Penang that has huge rooms right next to the famous foodie place Gurney Drive, only to discover that: 1. it was a family-vacation hotel (lots of screaming kids running around and toddlers with squeaky shoes) AND 2. Gurney Drive’s hawker food place has temporarily relocated to a few streets and one roundabout away.

Also, I learnt that you can get to Hospital Pulau Pinang from anywhere (every point of the island seems to have road signs pointing towards there). Ooh, and we tried the couple spa package for only Rm120. So cheap! And the massage was great…

And then back in KL, there were lots of shopping and eating and lounging at home cursing at the crazy rainfall. My parents finally agreed to subscribe to Astro, so goodbye free-to-air TV, hello satelite TV. My house is probably the last house in the entire Klang Valley to have installed satelite tv. Even the floating kopitiam in the National Park jungle has one when i was there 3 years back.

Oh, and we also spent a lot of time cursing at crazy and brainless drivers on the roads. Au yong is in charge of overtaking/swerving to avoid them and the swearing part, while I give them a good staring.

Christmas was peaceful. Collectively, we babysitted his dog, my cats, my father’s fishes and my mom’s plants for the Christmas weekend while everyone was away. Avoided the city and shopping areas like the plague (coz this is when all the kampung folks come to KL to take photos with Christmas trees and clog up our streets). Instead, we sat at home and ate pizzas and watched Jamie Oliver cook his Christmas meal on TV.

There was also a lot of dusting and cleaning as I helped au yong pack his room and stuff before he shifts to Tokyo next week. That was when I got acquainted with Dust-ball From Last Millenium.

New Year’s Eve. Well, there was a lot of eating and drinking of course. First at a friend’s house on the 30th (excellent roast lamb and nice company) and then at my house on the 31st (excellent bbq lamb and the cats tried to get themselves bbq-ed too). And now I have 2 big fugly pimples for the new year. No thanks to oily food and dehydrated body from alcohol. *hic*

And then ending the year 2005 in a big bang — my bimbo moment.

Me, trying to act smart, tried to tell my sis tse mei an interesting serious fact about this new year.
Me (acting smart) : Eh, did you know, that 2005 is going to be one second longer?
Sis: Huh?
Me: Yeah. Tonight, they’re gonna add one more second to the atomic bomb.
(1 silent second as my brain tries to register what is wrong).
Au yong: Atomic bomb? You st000pid! It’s the atomic clock lah!
(everyone ends up laughing like hyenas.).

Oh well, Happy New Year!! Here’s to a good year ahead in 2006.
Hopefully my internship with MTV Asia goes well too. (Starting work on 3rd Jan! eecks! excited.)