Julio Diaz has a daily routine. Every night, the 31-year-old social worker ends his hour-long subway commute to the Bronx one stop early, just so he can eat at his favorite diner.

But one night last month, as Diaz stepped off the No. 6 train and onto a nearly empty platform, his evening took an unexpected turn. He was walking toward the stairs when a teenage boy approached and pulled out a knife.

“He wants my money, so I just gave him my wallet and told him, ‘Here you go,’” Diaz says.

As the teen began to walk away, Diaz told him, “Hey, wait a minute. You forgot something. If you’re going to be robbing people for the rest of the night, you might as well take my coat to keep you warm.”

The would-be robber looked at his would-be victim, “like what’s going on here?” Diaz says. “He asked me, ‘Why are you doing this?’”

Diaz replied: “If you’re willing to risk your freedom for a few dollars, then I guess you must really need the money. I mean, all I wanted to do was get dinner and if you really want to join me … hey, you’re more than welcome.

You know, I just felt maybe he really needs help,” Diaz says.

Diaz says he and the teen went into the diner and sat in a booth.

“The manager comes by, the dishwashers come by, the waiters come by to say hi,” Diaz says. “The kid was like, ‘You know everybody here. Do you own this place?’”
“No, I just eat here a lot,” Diaz says he told the teen. “He says, ‘But you’re even nice to the dishwasher.’”

Diaz replied, “Well, haven’t you been taught you should be nice to everybody?”
“Yea, but I didn’t think people actually behaved that way,” the teen said.

Diaz asked him what he wanted out of life. “He just had almost a sad face,” Diaz says.

The teen couldn’t answer Diaz — or he didn’t want to.

When the bill arrived, Diaz told the teen, “Look, I guess you’re going to have to pay for this bill ‘cause you have my money and I can’t pay for this. So if you give me my wallet back, I’ll gladly treat you.”

The teen “didn’t even think about it” and returned the wallet, Diaz says. “I gave him $20 … I figure maybe it’ll help him. I don’t know.”

Diaz says he asked for something in return — the teen’s knife — “and he gave it to me.”

Afterward, when Diaz told his mother what happened, she said, “You’re the type of kid that if someone asked you for the time, you gave them your watch.”

“I figure, you know, if you treat people right, you can only hope that they treat you right. It’s as simple as it gets in this complicated world.”

Robbed it from /th as usual.

Today felt much better. Maybe cause the customers were nicer. And also today there was additionally Suwen and Andrew to close with me. Thanks friends for your concern anyway, I <3 you!

In any case, I've submitted my threadless shirt design for critique two or three days ago, and I totally forgot about it cause I'm so busy everyday. I recreated the animal images from photos at Google Images and I spent bloody long doing them using the Photoshop traditional pen tool and a mouse. This is the reason why I'll need a wacom. Anyway, I just checked it out and I suddenly got a flood of feedback and I am so bloody happy HAHA nice community up there.



P.S. Yes, that's me with the white tiger head.

Okay, work sucks. Not in a "oh, I'm so god-damned tired" way but in a "oh fuck this is fucking screwed up" way. Tomorrow will be a complete week working at Outdoors @ Somerset, and I extremely feel like quitting. I won't talk much about this cause I wrote it all down on my daybook yesternight. My daybook's my sketch-book cum meaningful stuff book, kinda like a diary with random sketching. Anyway, the management at Outdoors' screwed up. There's an Indian boss who is... well, bossy and arrogant, and people don't appreciate you. Go sign up with them if you want to undergo a hell-like endurance training. I've hardly ever heard a "thank you", and they fuck you around for mistakes you didn't make. Teamwork = 0 and communication = 0. I rate their management a blank zero. The only thing / people I'll stay for is Suwen / Xiao Hui or the customers. Really, Outdoors have some really nice customers. Customers are 75% foreigners, 50% westerners, and 30% travelers though. I've had a lot of great chats with friendly ang-mohs (mostly old people, unfortunately) even though the worst customers are ang-mohs as well. Enough about that anyway, I've got it all down in my daybook. And I'm sorry to the friends I asked to join me at Outdoors, now: don't join me. I guess it was a selfish part of me which secretly dreaded the first few days and wanted more company. I can't believe I said on the previous post that "Anyway, job's been fine. Tiring but I hit it off with most people so I'm cool." I look at people like Perle earning only a little more than $5/ hour but are having so much fun at work, and I think to myself: what the fuck? I'm taking so much shit just cause they are paying a bit better? But blah, I'm quitting soon in any case.

Anyway, today was the second consecutive day I felt like dung. Plus today Suwen didn't work, so there's no one to do stupid laughable antics in the middle of work to lighten the mood, but luckily there was Xiao Hui to chat to. I came down from the bus at 3.30am and I was so depressed I thought I had two options - one to go for a jog and forget about things, or two to go get a beer at 7-11 and just sit there and cool it off. I went up for a change of clothes and started jogging cause I'm bloody scared I'll become an alcoholic when I'm older and just 借酒消愁 everytime.

I ran despite the already-tired legs, down the stretch towards Serangoon Gardens, and stopped several times because my old lungs really couldn't take the sudden stretch and exhaustion. I ran till my legs felt numb, and till I had this ache near the appendix. I stopped, grasped at my waist and for the record a part of me actually wanted the pain. That's why some people do self-mutilation I guess. Your body focuses on the pain and forget the rest. I ran till I was well into the rows and rows of bungalows at Serangoon Gardens, I stopped to regain my breath and suddenly the surroundings became scary. It was cold, windy, a little misty from the rain at night, and the darkness seemed to surround the bungalows - then there was lightning at a distance as well. Lightning without thunder. I turned back for safer terrain, and on the way I was momentarily freaked out cause I saw an old man with one of those carts the road cleaners have, in the middle of the road, coming towards me. A couple of seconds later my vision cleared up and I found out it was just an approaching old man, the rubbish cart was left at the road-side, and I cooled off a bit.

I had the usual - 3 pratas and teh-tarik at the usual Indian food stall after the jog. I felt fortunate for its 24-hours operation. I looked at the 4 of them working then and I saw teamwork in that: smiles here and there and a pat on the back. No wonder the faces stay. The jog took away 80% of my troubles, but after the pratas I still went to the park beside my house, climbed up the highest structure at the playground, and just sat there staring into the sky, the moon and the stars while the cool wind blew. I question myself about how the crescent moon is formed and I realised I've forgotten my science. I see the unusual cloud patterns, some pieces moving so fast while some stays around the moon, and realised how big the sky is, that it's funny how people all over the world are sharing the same sky, looking into the same spot on the same moon. I looked into the stars and more pop up beside them, but I can't decide if it's my imagination or if they are really there.

Anyhow, my night is saved by the prata, the jog and the dolce far niente. I think I'm understanding why the characters in Skins always use running - with all their strength and might, in a single direction - to relieve their troubles and emotional struggles. I'm usually moody today huh.

Tribute to my previous job and oh-so-awesome lunch breaks.

Just cause I wanted to share another from watchlistentell. I hope the high-pitched sudden upbeat doesn't make you jump. Struck me the first time I heard it.



Caught The Tourist with volleyball guys today, was great meeting them - the last time I've had a chat with the whole team present was... almost a year ago, during the last training I went to. Haha, so yeah great!

You must have heard from others - it wasn't awesome pawsome. I mean well the ending is a twist, but hey twists have good / bad ones. This lies somewhere in between. I don't remember names, so I have a recognition of the director's name, but judging by its star cast I guess he should have some pretty good reputation. For that, comparatively, the ending felt like they spent a big budget on the filming, met up with some screw-up towards the end, and changed the film's ending to quickly wrap things up. The whole thing's too coincidental to be a completely planned plot huh? [Sorry spoiler, BUT I bet in your swift scan what I said didn't really cast in your head, so quickly fly ahead before your eyes drift back to figure]

It's still worth my money (after all just an hour of my pay) for Venice and for Angelina Jolie's posh-glamorous-never-getting-old look. I mean, I think she'll still look great with wrinkles. She (looks like she) has great skin by the way. I was staring. And I never liked Angelina Jolie cause (ironically) I hated her thick "luscious" lips, but today they looked great. Yeah and I think I've studied Johnny Depp's features enough to distinguish that it's him in his next (weird) movie character disguise.

Tomorrow (actually, today) is going to be the last day of my work at Screws&Screws. (Made up name, if you can't tell) I didn't realise till Yuting reminded me at lunch today. We had lunch together cause turns out she's working at Harbourfront too. Turns out Jeffrey's working at Harbourfront too. I think everyone's there. Anyway, yeah. I went back to work and for once I worked extremely diligently at work cause... I dunno, it was my second-last day and they've been real nice to me. I think I'll miss it. A little bit. I'll miss lunch-breaks at Harbourfront more though... fuck, I'm so heartless. Someday when I'm extremely free I'll take the train / bus there and morning / afternoon jog the entire stretch, from Reflections @ Bukit Chandu to the end of Henderson Waves, thank you.

Sidenote: I found out today in the shower that when the shower head's running on your cheeks, it doesn't really hurt to slap yourself. OKAY FUCK JUST RANDOM FACT OF THE DAY, DON'T COME ASKING ME WHY I'M TRYING TO HURT MYSELF IN THE SHOWER - I DON'T KNOW, IT WASN'T INTENTIONAL!

I've added a few songs into the music player above - if anyone actually still listens to it - to introduce you to Newton Faulkner.

I fell sick yesterday, and I've been working the entire week (sans weekends). It may be the drizzle that I brisked through on Tuesday's lunch break, or maybe my body just fell sick cause I couldn't take the routine anymore. I say that my job's easy (and slack) - and true that, it sure is easy. But I hardly ever mention to anyone else that it's boring. Partly because I think if I start telling others that, I'm going to soon believe it myself, which will make me hate my job, which is the exact opposite of what I want to do.

Anyway, I've uncovered the maximum of Alexandra Road area I can, within 1 hour of my lunchbreak. Whether it's West from HortPark - into Kent Ridge & the tiny museum - or East from Hort Park to Alexandra Arch, towards the Southern Ridges. I'm at the limits of exploration and I stopped having that little increase in heartbeat or the smile which uncontrollably breaks at the ends of my lips whenever I discover new scenery. I've been so much enthralled by the nature of Harbourfront, I now feel numb to any new discoveries. The furthest I can go is from my workplace, after a 10 minute lunch, to the top of Telok Blangah hill. Which is still approximately 1km to the Southern Ridges. And then you gotta take into consideration that the past 2 lunch breaks dragged on an additional 15 minutes. Still, pictures below.




In light of my doing-nothingness in this extremely long holiday, the longest one I've had in my knowing life, I figured I'd better learn something useful. 6 months ago I created a list titled "Oh, that sweet, sweet success" and under that, a list of big things I want to do after the big A's. Outcome of success is still more than a month away, but anyway. Oh I digress: I realised I actually had fun during the studying-for-As period, I mean I don't dread it. Instead, I don't mind going back to it again. Kudos to the environment, the company and my attitude. You should try to adopt my attitude - very positive-learning, very stress-free.

Yeah but during this holiday, I am supposed to find out about architecture / business / economics courses in University (future first), pick up Adobe Flash & Illustrator, create a book-list to borrow & read - think: NS days, sign up for last.fm & seek new artists, pick up guitar online (fuck those Yamaha courses, 2 years and I'm a grade-2 good-for-nothing), work on SPRING scholarship stuff (fucked already), start sketching and catch up with old friends.

I'm selecting sketching - I started on the first page of my sketchbook in KL, 30th December '10 (first attempt at sketching and it was utterly embarrassing) and I'm still working on it. Nothing much to sketch around home, but I'll practice when I have the time cause if I don't start on any random crap I'm not going to improve. Yeah with that, I'm also going to check up on a Wacom soon to aid my designing hobby. I used to recoil from designing cause I find myself too amateur to do anything which will be able to satiate my perfectionist-nature but Ivan's kinda inspired me with his determination. I'll possibly leave guitar to when I'm exceptionally free (and have no dramas / movie urges). The rest still kinda holds, just not on priority. Oh last.fm signup is totally swept aside till I get a new iPod Touch (at least 32GB please). Brushing up on designing skills would be my first. Oh wait, anybody knows of any poly designing part-time courses I can enroll in? Oh wait, and one last important thing: I want to learn about coffee beans. I heard Alisa's a barista at Starbucks now? If you're reading this please tell me more the next time I see you :)

I've a Threadless submission at 80% completion. It's kinda almost done already but I'm too embarrassed to show it. I spent the past 3 nights on it but it didn't turn out like I'd like it to. So fuck that.

I've worked the past 2 days and life's been hellavu busy period. Anyway, companies are rushing to cap things before the Chinese New Year (cause most Asian merchants are Chinese, I guess) so there will be a hell lot of shipments in the following weeks. So on Wednesday my boss told me I'll be needed every weekday till the 21st. Hallelujah, I was just complaining that I was working too little and now I get this. I sat there thinking about how boring it's going to be - reporting to work everyday, 9am to 6pm. I really can't handle office work / routines in life. I don't want to think about how I'm going to manage working for others after I graduate. But hey, all the more it fuels my dreams to become an entrepreneur. Oh but what I like about this job - it's flexible and the colleagues are nice. I get to take days off on any day I feel like it. Jealous much?

Anyway yeah, so lunchbreak on the 5th was an absolute nightmare. It was an extremely hot day (think: sweaty, sticky - you would kill for a gust of air-conditioning) and worse: I got bitten by mosquitoes. Mosquito bite count at the end of the lunchbreak was a total of 8 on my limbs. After I came home, I realised there are another 3 near my sole, which I had no idea how it happened cause I was wearing socks and shoes. Desperate mosquitoes must have sucked my blood through my socks and shoes, or something. I walked uphill towards really quite nothingness, and then found out that I remembered wrongly and that the Southern Ridges were at the opposite end.

Initially I told myself I wouldn't be exploring today and so I brought a book to work, even though I subconsciously picked a pair of jeans to prevent mosquito bites on my legs, what really made me do it was the perfect weather. Not in the sunny-perfect way, but at 1pm the sky was slightly cloudy and rain was imminent, air was cool and it was breezy everywhere. I risked it and explored into the other side of the HortPark, fully aware that there wouldn't be any shelter if the rain started, but also hoping that Buddha would bless me and hold the rain for a while. In the end, the rain really only started to get heavier at 2pm (the end of my lunchbreak) when I decided to head back towards the office. Such things, though naive, they really make me believe in the higher beings.

So through the walk, I almost got lost, I didn't find any Southern Ridges (not even a sign of it, I think I'm going to give up on that) but yet I explored into this amazing private estate area. The houses retained the old 1900s architecture, like as if a vampire royal family lives inside, and they are all so bloody big (area-wise) I swear every single one of them is bigger than the Reflections at Bukit Chandu museum. I keep thinking about how rich they must be with such huge land in the middle of such nature, I got carried away and one time I was staring into a house, a maid from inside spotted me and went: "HOI". Probably thought I was trying to steal something.





Anyway, I couldn't get any entire property in one-shot, but this particular house above, what's seen on the photo was only a block-A and in the entire plot of land, the owner has at least 3 blocks. With a swimming pool and a garden / yard - a proper one at that. Mothereffing huge really. And get even more jealous - (nature-lovers only) they are living beside effing forests! Look at all the wilderness around them!

At the end of my walk, heading back, I realised there's something amiss with the whole estate of private property. I noticed that many of the houses have their front gates wide open. Which really makes me wonder: is it that their houses are so fully fortified with guard dogs / guard maids, or is it that the place's so far away from the poor that no one who goes to that area bothers to steal? Seriously, they say that more than 60% of Singaporeans are living below the mean family income (I didn't bother to check the stats) but I bet the mean's pushed up by these families. So. Bloody. Rich.

After 7 days of KL, which everyone said was crazy and told me would be boring, which turned out so fast-passing and enjoyable, I'm back to Singapore. Hanged around at ECP with Hs today, no more waiteresses speaking in Malay, no more dividing prices by 2, no more finding our way around. Rode bikes from ECP to DHS and KLP then back, which half fulfilled my wish of riding a bike but it was in the afternoon, so no night rides, so the other half's left hanging. DHS Wushu stayover in a couple of days, we've settled on midnight cycling (I hope) so that's going to fulfill the other half. Haven't seen them for long man, I feel so glad for outings like these, meeting up with people I haven't seen in years / many months.

KL was great. I mean, it's the first time I went overseas with friends (sans Malaysia level camps) so that's a strike off the bucket list and deserves a mention on my blog even though I feel tired blogging about it. I won't forget the 4am nights with bridge, the Gavin incident, the shopping till dropping, the good food, the entire apartment, the scary countdown crowd, all those train rides, the first fish spa experience, swimming, cleaning up, more food, and to end off the trip, Sakae buffet at Harbour Front.

Anyway.

After ECP today, Sandra fetched off Angell towards the East, and I refused a ride from Yuting's bf conveniently, not only cause it was awkward but I wanted to have some time alone. So I walked from ECP back to VJ and it feels so great, refreshing all the memories and reflecting. Thinking about it, the last time I sat down quietly with Zee Avi (now replaced by Inch Chua) to think about life was forever. Almost half a year, I think - ever since I stopped morning jogging. Interjection: I think Inch Chua has real similar voice characteristics as Hebe. Maybe that's the reason why I like both of them so much. Interjection: Hebe's concert is in 11 days!

Walking beside the shore, up the overhead bridge, towards VJC - the familiar route back to school, at the end of every PT running session or casual jogs with Alvina and Perle. There's so much to miss about the 2 years in VJ, despite it getting a bit annoying nearing the A' levels, being able to wind back time to spend a day in school would be a hundred dollars. I miss every tiny part of school. Almost, every. There's some small closet mugger nuisance about VJ, which is probably present in every other school, just more or less evident. The night walk back reminds me of the days volleyball training ended late at night, having Thaipan together after bathing, or that time the Wushu A Boys explored east side and climbed VJ rooftop. Walking past the scrabble board - those many times we studied till late at night in school, surrounded by a mix of our close friends and schoolmates we half-know, each focusing on the work in front of us, but yet strangely connected in the way that we're all part of a jigsaw, with the same goal to work towards the completion of this journey - the A' levels.

I miss school life, making new friends on randomest occasions, with the occassional 'hi's around school, as well as the busy but yet fulfilling lifestyle. There are just so many things to miss huh? A visit to those days would be worth much more than a hundred dollars. 

Till next time,

Julio Diaz has a daily routine. Every night, the 31-year-old social worker ends his hour-long subway commute to the Bronx one stop early, just so he can eat at his favorite diner.

But one night last month, as Diaz stepped off the No. 6 train and onto a nearly empty platform, his evening took an unexpected turn. He was walking toward the stairs when a teenage boy approached and pulled out a knife.

“He wants my money, so I just gave him my wallet and told him, ‘Here you go,’” Diaz says.

As the teen began to walk away, Diaz told him, “Hey, wait a minute. You forgot something. If you’re going to be robbing people for the rest of the night, you might as well take my coat to keep you warm.”

The would-be robber looked at his would-be victim, “like what’s going on here?” Diaz says. “He asked me, ‘Why are you doing this?’”

Diaz replied: “If you’re willing to risk your freedom for a few dollars, then I guess you must really need the money. I mean, all I wanted to do was get dinner and if you really want to join me … hey, you’re more than welcome.

You know, I just felt maybe he really needs help,” Diaz says.

Diaz says he and the teen went into the diner and sat in a booth.

“The manager comes by, the dishwashers come by, the waiters come by to say hi,” Diaz says. “The kid was like, ‘You know everybody here. Do you own this place?’”
“No, I just eat here a lot,” Diaz says he told the teen. “He says, ‘But you’re even nice to the dishwasher.’”

Diaz replied, “Well, haven’t you been taught you should be nice to everybody?”
“Yea, but I didn’t think people actually behaved that way,” the teen said.

Diaz asked him what he wanted out of life. “He just had almost a sad face,” Diaz says.

The teen couldn’t answer Diaz — or he didn’t want to.

When the bill arrived, Diaz told the teen, “Look, I guess you’re going to have to pay for this bill ‘cause you have my money and I can’t pay for this. So if you give me my wallet back, I’ll gladly treat you.”

The teen “didn’t even think about it” and returned the wallet, Diaz says. “I gave him $20 … I figure maybe it’ll help him. I don’t know.”

Diaz says he asked for something in return — the teen’s knife — “and he gave it to me.”

Afterward, when Diaz told his mother what happened, she said, “You’re the type of kid that if someone asked you for the time, you gave them your watch.”

“I figure, you know, if you treat people right, you can only hope that they treat you right. It’s as simple as it gets in this complicated world.”

Robbed it from /th as usual.

Today felt much better. Maybe cause the customers were nicer. And also today there was additionally Suwen and Andrew to close with me. Thanks friends for your concern anyway, I <3 you!

In any case, I've submitted my threadless shirt design for critique two or three days ago, and I totally forgot about it cause I'm so busy everyday. I recreated the animal images from photos at Google Images and I spent bloody long doing them using the Photoshop traditional pen tool and a mouse. This is the reason why I'll need a wacom. Anyway, I just checked it out and I suddenly got a flood of feedback and I am so bloody happy HAHA nice community up there.



P.S. Yes, that's me with the white tiger head.

Okay, work sucks. Not in a "oh, I'm so god-damned tired" way but in a "oh fuck this is fucking screwed up" way. Tomorrow will be a complete week working at Outdoors @ Somerset, and I extremely feel like quitting. I won't talk much about this cause I wrote it all down on my daybook yesternight. My daybook's my sketch-book cum meaningful stuff book, kinda like a diary with random sketching. Anyway, the management at Outdoors' screwed up. There's an Indian boss who is... well, bossy and arrogant, and people don't appreciate you. Go sign up with them if you want to undergo a hell-like endurance training. I've hardly ever heard a "thank you", and they fuck you around for mistakes you didn't make. Teamwork = 0 and communication = 0. I rate their management a blank zero. The only thing / people I'll stay for is Suwen / Xiao Hui or the customers. Really, Outdoors have some really nice customers. Customers are 75% foreigners, 50% westerners, and 30% travelers though. I've had a lot of great chats with friendly ang-mohs (mostly old people, unfortunately) even though the worst customers are ang-mohs as well. Enough about that anyway, I've got it all down in my daybook. And I'm sorry to the friends I asked to join me at Outdoors, now: don't join me. I guess it was a selfish part of me which secretly dreaded the first few days and wanted more company. I can't believe I said on the previous post that "Anyway, job's been fine. Tiring but I hit it off with most people so I'm cool." I look at people like Perle earning only a little more than $5/ hour but are having so much fun at work, and I think to myself: what the fuck? I'm taking so much shit just cause they are paying a bit better? But blah, I'm quitting soon in any case.

Anyway, today was the second consecutive day I felt like dung. Plus today Suwen didn't work, so there's no one to do stupid laughable antics in the middle of work to lighten the mood, but luckily there was Xiao Hui to chat to. I came down from the bus at 3.30am and I was so depressed I thought I had two options - one to go for a jog and forget about things, or two to go get a beer at 7-11 and just sit there and cool it off. I went up for a change of clothes and started jogging cause I'm bloody scared I'll become an alcoholic when I'm older and just 借酒消愁 everytime.

I ran despite the already-tired legs, down the stretch towards Serangoon Gardens, and stopped several times because my old lungs really couldn't take the sudden stretch and exhaustion. I ran till my legs felt numb, and till I had this ache near the appendix. I stopped, grasped at my waist and for the record a part of me actually wanted the pain. That's why some people do self-mutilation I guess. Your body focuses on the pain and forget the rest. I ran till I was well into the rows and rows of bungalows at Serangoon Gardens, I stopped to regain my breath and suddenly the surroundings became scary. It was cold, windy, a little misty from the rain at night, and the darkness seemed to surround the bungalows - then there was lightning at a distance as well. Lightning without thunder. I turned back for safer terrain, and on the way I was momentarily freaked out cause I saw an old man with one of those carts the road cleaners have, in the middle of the road, coming towards me. A couple of seconds later my vision cleared up and I found out it was just an approaching old man, the rubbish cart was left at the road-side, and I cooled off a bit.

I had the usual - 3 pratas and teh-tarik at the usual Indian food stall after the jog. I felt fortunate for its 24-hours operation. I looked at the 4 of them working then and I saw teamwork in that: smiles here and there and a pat on the back. No wonder the faces stay. The jog took away 80% of my troubles, but after the pratas I still went to the park beside my house, climbed up the highest structure at the playground, and just sat there staring into the sky, the moon and the stars while the cool wind blew. I question myself about how the crescent moon is formed and I realised I've forgotten my science. I see the unusual cloud patterns, some pieces moving so fast while some stays around the moon, and realised how big the sky is, that it's funny how people all over the world are sharing the same sky, looking into the same spot on the same moon. I looked into the stars and more pop up beside them, but I can't decide if it's my imagination or if they are really there.

Anyhow, my night is saved by the prata, the jog and the dolce far niente. I think I'm understanding why the characters in Skins always use running - with all their strength and might, in a single direction - to relieve their troubles and emotional struggles. I'm usually moody today huh.

Tribute to my previous job and oh-so-awesome lunch breaks.

Just cause I wanted to share another from watchlistentell. I hope the high-pitched sudden upbeat doesn't make you jump. Struck me the first time I heard it.



Caught The Tourist with volleyball guys today, was great meeting them - the last time I've had a chat with the whole team present was... almost a year ago, during the last training I went to. Haha, so yeah great!

You must have heard from others - it wasn't awesome pawsome. I mean well the ending is a twist, but hey twists have good / bad ones. This lies somewhere in between. I don't remember names, so I have a recognition of the director's name, but judging by its star cast I guess he should have some pretty good reputation. For that, comparatively, the ending felt like they spent a big budget on the filming, met up with some screw-up towards the end, and changed the film's ending to quickly wrap things up. The whole thing's too coincidental to be a completely planned plot huh? [Sorry spoiler, BUT I bet in your swift scan what I said didn't really cast in your head, so quickly fly ahead before your eyes drift back to figure]

It's still worth my money (after all just an hour of my pay) for Venice and for Angelina Jolie's posh-glamorous-never-getting-old look. I mean, I think she'll still look great with wrinkles. She (looks like she) has great skin by the way. I was staring. And I never liked Angelina Jolie cause (ironically) I hated her thick "luscious" lips, but today they looked great. Yeah and I think I've studied Johnny Depp's features enough to distinguish that it's him in his next (weird) movie character disguise.

Tomorrow (actually, today) is going to be the last day of my work at Screws&Screws. (Made up name, if you can't tell) I didn't realise till Yuting reminded me at lunch today. We had lunch together cause turns out she's working at Harbourfront too. Turns out Jeffrey's working at Harbourfront too. I think everyone's there. Anyway, yeah. I went back to work and for once I worked extremely diligently at work cause... I dunno, it was my second-last day and they've been real nice to me. I think I'll miss it. A little bit. I'll miss lunch-breaks at Harbourfront more though... fuck, I'm so heartless. Someday when I'm extremely free I'll take the train / bus there and morning / afternoon jog the entire stretch, from Reflections @ Bukit Chandu to the end of Henderson Waves, thank you.

Sidenote: I found out today in the shower that when the shower head's running on your cheeks, it doesn't really hurt to slap yourself. OKAY FUCK JUST RANDOM FACT OF THE DAY, DON'T COME ASKING ME WHY I'M TRYING TO HURT MYSELF IN THE SHOWER - I DON'T KNOW, IT WASN'T INTENTIONAL!

I've added a few songs into the music player above - if anyone actually still listens to it - to introduce you to Newton Faulkner.

I fell sick yesterday, and I've been working the entire week (sans weekends). It may be the drizzle that I brisked through on Tuesday's lunch break, or maybe my body just fell sick cause I couldn't take the routine anymore. I say that my job's easy (and slack) - and true that, it sure is easy. But I hardly ever mention to anyone else that it's boring. Partly because I think if I start telling others that, I'm going to soon believe it myself, which will make me hate my job, which is the exact opposite of what I want to do.

Anyway, I've uncovered the maximum of Alexandra Road area I can, within 1 hour of my lunchbreak. Whether it's West from HortPark - into Kent Ridge & the tiny museum - or East from Hort Park to Alexandra Arch, towards the Southern Ridges. I'm at the limits of exploration and I stopped having that little increase in heartbeat or the smile which uncontrollably breaks at the ends of my lips whenever I discover new scenery. I've been so much enthralled by the nature of Harbourfront, I now feel numb to any new discoveries. The furthest I can go is from my workplace, after a 10 minute lunch, to the top of Telok Blangah hill. Which is still approximately 1km to the Southern Ridges. And then you gotta take into consideration that the past 2 lunch breaks dragged on an additional 15 minutes. Still, pictures below.




In light of my doing-nothingness in this extremely long holiday, the longest one I've had in my knowing life, I figured I'd better learn something useful. 6 months ago I created a list titled "Oh, that sweet, sweet success" and under that, a list of big things I want to do after the big A's. Outcome of success is still more than a month away, but anyway. Oh I digress: I realised I actually had fun during the studying-for-As period, I mean I don't dread it. Instead, I don't mind going back to it again. Kudos to the environment, the company and my attitude. You should try to adopt my attitude - very positive-learning, very stress-free.

Yeah but during this holiday, I am supposed to find out about architecture / business / economics courses in University (future first), pick up Adobe Flash & Illustrator, create a book-list to borrow & read - think: NS days, sign up for last.fm & seek new artists, pick up guitar online (fuck those Yamaha courses, 2 years and I'm a grade-2 good-for-nothing), work on SPRING scholarship stuff (fucked already), start sketching and catch up with old friends.

I'm selecting sketching - I started on the first page of my sketchbook in KL, 30th December '10 (first attempt at sketching and it was utterly embarrassing) and I'm still working on it. Nothing much to sketch around home, but I'll practice when I have the time cause if I don't start on any random crap I'm not going to improve. Yeah with that, I'm also going to check up on a Wacom soon to aid my designing hobby. I used to recoil from designing cause I find myself too amateur to do anything which will be able to satiate my perfectionist-nature but Ivan's kinda inspired me with his determination. I'll possibly leave guitar to when I'm exceptionally free (and have no dramas / movie urges). The rest still kinda holds, just not on priority. Oh last.fm signup is totally swept aside till I get a new iPod Touch (at least 32GB please). Brushing up on designing skills would be my first. Oh wait, anybody knows of any poly designing part-time courses I can enroll in? Oh wait, and one last important thing: I want to learn about coffee beans. I heard Alisa's a barista at Starbucks now? If you're reading this please tell me more the next time I see you :)

I've a Threadless submission at 80% completion. It's kinda almost done already but I'm too embarrassed to show it. I spent the past 3 nights on it but it didn't turn out like I'd like it to. So fuck that.

I've worked the past 2 days and life's been hellavu busy period. Anyway, companies are rushing to cap things before the Chinese New Year (cause most Asian merchants are Chinese, I guess) so there will be a hell lot of shipments in the following weeks. So on Wednesday my boss told me I'll be needed every weekday till the 21st. Hallelujah, I was just complaining that I was working too little and now I get this. I sat there thinking about how boring it's going to be - reporting to work everyday, 9am to 6pm. I really can't handle office work / routines in life. I don't want to think about how I'm going to manage working for others after I graduate. But hey, all the more it fuels my dreams to become an entrepreneur. Oh but what I like about this job - it's flexible and the colleagues are nice. I get to take days off on any day I feel like it. Jealous much?

Anyway yeah, so lunchbreak on the 5th was an absolute nightmare. It was an extremely hot day (think: sweaty, sticky - you would kill for a gust of air-conditioning) and worse: I got bitten by mosquitoes. Mosquito bite count at the end of the lunchbreak was a total of 8 on my limbs. After I came home, I realised there are another 3 near my sole, which I had no idea how it happened cause I was wearing socks and shoes. Desperate mosquitoes must have sucked my blood through my socks and shoes, or something. I walked uphill towards really quite nothingness, and then found out that I remembered wrongly and that the Southern Ridges were at the opposite end.

Initially I told myself I wouldn't be exploring today and so I brought a book to work, even though I subconsciously picked a pair of jeans to prevent mosquito bites on my legs, what really made me do it was the perfect weather. Not in the sunny-perfect way, but at 1pm the sky was slightly cloudy and rain was imminent, air was cool and it was breezy everywhere. I risked it and explored into the other side of the HortPark, fully aware that there wouldn't be any shelter if the rain started, but also hoping that Buddha would bless me and hold the rain for a while. In the end, the rain really only started to get heavier at 2pm (the end of my lunchbreak) when I decided to head back towards the office. Such things, though naive, they really make me believe in the higher beings.

So through the walk, I almost got lost, I didn't find any Southern Ridges (not even a sign of it, I think I'm going to give up on that) but yet I explored into this amazing private estate area. The houses retained the old 1900s architecture, like as if a vampire royal family lives inside, and they are all so bloody big (area-wise) I swear every single one of them is bigger than the Reflections at Bukit Chandu museum. I keep thinking about how rich they must be with such huge land in the middle of such nature, I got carried away and one time I was staring into a house, a maid from inside spotted me and went: "HOI". Probably thought I was trying to steal something.





Anyway, I couldn't get any entire property in one-shot, but this particular house above, what's seen on the photo was only a block-A and in the entire plot of land, the owner has at least 3 blocks. With a swimming pool and a garden / yard - a proper one at that. Mothereffing huge really. And get even more jealous - (nature-lovers only) they are living beside effing forests! Look at all the wilderness around them!

At the end of my walk, heading back, I realised there's something amiss with the whole estate of private property. I noticed that many of the houses have their front gates wide open. Which really makes me wonder: is it that their houses are so fully fortified with guard dogs / guard maids, or is it that the place's so far away from the poor that no one who goes to that area bothers to steal? Seriously, they say that more than 60% of Singaporeans are living below the mean family income (I didn't bother to check the stats) but I bet the mean's pushed up by these families. So. Bloody. Rich.

After 7 days of KL, which everyone said was crazy and told me would be boring, which turned out so fast-passing and enjoyable, I'm back to Singapore. Hanged around at ECP with Hs today, no more waiteresses speaking in Malay, no more dividing prices by 2, no more finding our way around. Rode bikes from ECP to DHS and KLP then back, which half fulfilled my wish of riding a bike but it was in the afternoon, so no night rides, so the other half's left hanging. DHS Wushu stayover in a couple of days, we've settled on midnight cycling (I hope) so that's going to fulfill the other half. Haven't seen them for long man, I feel so glad for outings like these, meeting up with people I haven't seen in years / many months.

KL was great. I mean, it's the first time I went overseas with friends (sans Malaysia level camps) so that's a strike off the bucket list and deserves a mention on my blog even though I feel tired blogging about it. I won't forget the 4am nights with bridge, the Gavin incident, the shopping till dropping, the good food, the entire apartment, the scary countdown crowd, all those train rides, the first fish spa experience, swimming, cleaning up, more food, and to end off the trip, Sakae buffet at Harbour Front.

Anyway.

After ECP today, Sandra fetched off Angell towards the East, and I refused a ride from Yuting's bf conveniently, not only cause it was awkward but I wanted to have some time alone. So I walked from ECP back to VJ and it feels so great, refreshing all the memories and reflecting. Thinking about it, the last time I sat down quietly with Zee Avi (now replaced by Inch Chua) to think about life was forever. Almost half a year, I think - ever since I stopped morning jogging. Interjection: I think Inch Chua has real similar voice characteristics as Hebe. Maybe that's the reason why I like both of them so much. Interjection: Hebe's concert is in 11 days!

Walking beside the shore, up the overhead bridge, towards VJC - the familiar route back to school, at the end of every PT running session or casual jogs with Alvina and Perle. There's so much to miss about the 2 years in VJ, despite it getting a bit annoying nearing the A' levels, being able to wind back time to spend a day in school would be a hundred dollars. I miss every tiny part of school. Almost, every. There's some small closet mugger nuisance about VJ, which is probably present in every other school, just more or less evident. The night walk back reminds me of the days volleyball training ended late at night, having Thaipan together after bathing, or that time the Wushu A Boys explored east side and climbed VJ rooftop. Walking past the scrabble board - those many times we studied till late at night in school, surrounded by a mix of our close friends and schoolmates we half-know, each focusing on the work in front of us, but yet strangely connected in the way that we're all part of a jigsaw, with the same goal to work towards the completion of this journey - the A' levels.

I miss school life, making new friends on randomest occasions, with the occassional 'hi's around school, as well as the busy but yet fulfilling lifestyle. There are just so many things to miss huh? A visit to those days would be worth much more than a hundred dollars. 

Till next time,

emails: chew.bolong.2009@vjc.sg (main) / bolong02@hotmail.com (dominated by junk mail)
facebook: http://www.facebook.com/bolong
mobile phone: yeah you wish.