Ticketing today! My TSM jammed a few times again today. Had 9 jammed cards in total! But thankfully there were no long queues or large throngs of people at all today. And I handled the ticket jams all by myself okay! I'm very proud of myself that I never panic or anything! I simply removed the jammed ticket, talked rot to the guests who were waiting patiently, and kept trying until the ticket printed! YAY. I'm a superhero.

We had a new IC today. Siti Eyshah from Visitor Arrival Centre I think. She's just here for a couple of days to replace Irin who is happily in Hong Kong now. We all like her because she's so much more lax with us! Hahaha!

Anyway, we had 25 VIPs coming over to our Station to try the trains today. All our Admissions big bosses were here at our Station to facilitate things! Had to ensure everything to be smooth and efficient for the VIPs. They got Preena and Yi Na (from Imbiah Station) to come here to help out, then they turned both escalators to travel upwards, then they disallowed all other guests to enter the station, then they prepared all the special blue tap cards for the VIPs, then they even prepared an exclusive blue train for them!! We were on absolute alert for 2 hours. And when the VIPs came, they were whisked away into the blue train in 5 minutes flat. We didn't say anything more than "Hello welcome to Beach Station" to them! The worst thing is, the VIPs don't even look important!! They were dressed shabbily in outdated fashions!! Ehh okay. So much hustle and bustle for a few old uncles!!!

Something funny. Hui Mian was doing rover on the train platform today, and she called for Vincent through the walkie all of a sudden. So Vincent asked her what was the trouble, and guess what she said on air? "There's a topless guy on the train platform!" HAHAHAHA!! We don't allow half-naked guests to board our trains, but somehow that guy managed to get in without me or Xin Yan spotting him. And Hui Mian was afraid to go stop him because she said he's very hairy. HAHAHA so she called for Vincent!!

Ooh! I saw David Lim today! He was on training for his Sentosa job too. I think today is his module lessons. Then on the way home, I saw Lauren and Mer at the MacRitchie bus-stop! Lauren gave me a big hug. I miss her! And Tis and Mer. My favourite NJ clique, although I'm not part of it.

And and, I've found someone to ogle at girls with me! Haha the whole of this morning, Elton and me were pointing out cute girls to each other. And since both of us were on ticketing shifts today, we just need to sit at the counter and we'll get to see all the pretty girls walking past! Yay! Both of us have rather similar definitions of beauty, although he doesn't think my eyecandy is pretty. BLAH.

Gotta sleep. I need to be at work at 8am tomorrow.

No work today! I'm so sad when I'm finally away from work, I'm so tired that I don't even have the energy to go out. Not that there's a lot of people to go out with either. Everyone's busy at work! I slept a lot today. More than 12 hours I think. I went out for lunch with my mum. I watched television! Something that I haven't done in a very long time.

I finished reading Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller! We did a small excerpt of the drama in Literature class with Whitby last year. Happened to spot the book in the library the other day, so I borrowed it. I think it deserves its accolades as one of the best plays ever to be written. It swings between all the extremes of hope and loss, happiness and anguish, dreams and reality. I like the fluidity of time throughout the play! Willy Loman's present happenings and his own reminiscience are so intertwined it makes for brilliant dramatic effects. Willy Loman reminds me of King Lear. Haha! Except that I think he's a deluded and sententious old man who's hopelessly caught in his ideals. Other than that, it's a tender, despairing, hopeful and haunting tragedy (all at the same time) of the Loman family. Ahh I can go on waxing lyrical about how majestic the play is, but you have to read it for yourself.

I played with my goldfishes today! Yesh I do have goldfishes, in addition to my hamster Nutseed. I don't really care about them, because most of the time it's my dad who feeds them and cleans their fish tank. But today I decided to go spend some time with them. I fed them! And I tried dipping my hand into the fish tank to try and get them to nibble my hand, but they were all cowering in fear in one corner. Dumb ol' fishes. But I shall spend more time with them from now on!

But I still love my Nutseed more. She's absolutely adorable. And she's the most self-obsessed clean freak in the family. My mum says I should emulate her good qualities.

I want to go to the Underwater World! Haven't been there for at least 10 years I think! I can't even remember my last visit. That day at work I saw this kid who's got one of those biting shark thingy thingy. SO COOL!! Oh my gosh I also want! Annie said the souvenir and gift shop is located inside in Underwater World, so that means I have to pay for the admission costs. It's $19.50 okay! My crap I'm not paying that much just to go in and buy some toy. Okay la it's a joint price with Dolphin Lagoon. I want to go Underwater World cos I haven't been there for donkey years. And I've never been to Dolphin Lagoon before.

I want to go get one of those orange Sentosa Express toy trains. The colour's a bit ambiguous. It looks yellow, but it's too dark a hue to be a proper yellow, so it looks more orange instead. Anyway the official Sentosa statement said the train colour is orange. But sometimes OCC will radio us saying "yellow train going back to depot"!! Haiz so confusing. I've been calling it yellow train all these while, so I shall be proper and call it the ORANGE TRAIN. Yay! There's a promotion on all the toy trains till March, so it gives me plenty of time to go get one of them!

I want to get a new wallet too! I want a funky funky one, but I want a proper wallet. I haven't had a "normal" wallet for about 2 years now already! If you know me well you'll know what I'm talking about. Hello Kitty tin cans, Kogepan and Cinnamonroll big pouches. Haha! Time for me to get a new wallet.

I want to take photos of the Merlion walk and the bells! I still haven't done so. I'm beginning to look forward to the bells ringing every quarter of the hour now. It's such a soothing and melodious chime.

I want to get a new bag too!

I'm going to wait till I get my pay first before I go shopping. It's coming soon! Hippee hooray!

I've got work tomorrow. Ticketing from 10am. I hope TSM doesn't jam, or else I'll be in a nasty fix because Irin's on away leave to Hong Kong, so I don't think there's going to be anyone supervising till late afternoon as they're a bit strapped on manpower now. Quite a shame that Irin's away, because I like her working style best! She's very appearance-oriented, so whenever she's at the station, she'll clean the ticketing counter glass panels and the tables and everything. She'll arrange all the things to her convenience, but everything still remains clutter-free. And she's so fixated on personal appearance and grooming that she forces all the girls working at our Station to wear light make-up! And she sent Jeremy back to Vivo office to iron his uniform once. Hahaha!! Anyway I told her I'll attend her "Irin's one-on-one makeup sessions" if she has one.

Ooh. 2am in the middle of the night!! Just came home from the last ticketing shift at work. It's kinda disturbing. At 12 midnight I could hear the Merlion bells chime out fully. And I was frantically filling up my Brinks forms and counting money and rejected/damaged tickets.

Today was a bad day on ticketing. TSM jammed a million times again! Halfway through a transaction, the dispenser had a jammed ticket. Okay I managed to get it out and it was relatively smooth until a lot more tickets jammed again! Then a tour guide came along with a huge tour group from one of the beach resorts, and told me to print fifty thousand tickets for his tour group because they wanted to go see the musical fountain. Of course TSM had to jam at that crucial moment! Then I was under a lot of stress because the stupid tour guide kept asking me a million questions while I was trying to fix the ticket jams! Things got worse when I accidentally printed service recovery cards instead of complimentary cards, so when Shuba (my IC for the night) came back it was a chaotic frenzy trying to account for all the damaged tickets and void transactions.

I was so stressed!! Ugh. But thanks to Shuba who was very patiently trying to sort everything out in order for me. Bloody stupid tour guide. His huge tour group all queued up orderly, and he's the only rowdy ass thinking he can control everything at the ticketing counter while I was trying to fix TSM. Everything was accounted for in the end! If not I'd probably be in a lot of unnecessary paperwork because administrative regulates that all tickets and transactions must tally.

I like doing ticketing. I've got the fastest fingers for TSM. But I hate the lousy dispenser which keeps jamming. After the dramatic incident, it was an extremely peaceful and trouble-free night. My last transaction was at 9pm! So that means I was slacking for 3 hours with Shuba, talking to ourselves or about her previous job at Jurong Bird Park or blah blah.

I met my eyecandy again today!! Even better, TWICE!! But I think she knows that I'm secretly admiring her or something! Because she kept giggling with her friend and looking at me when she was going up or down the escalators on both occasions. I cannot pretend that I'm shy right?? So I happily waved at her! Then she giggled somemore with her friend. Irin doesn't think she's pretty! Shuba says I go nuts when I see her. BAH I don't care!!

Yay!! Eyecandy!! And my yellow train! Silly things like these that makes me look forward to work.

Oh I saw Atiqah today! She was in Sentosa with Jin Jen and her other Science Centre colleagues, but I didn't meet Jin Jen.

I ate ice cream from 7-Eleven today! Melissa was telling me about eating ice cream from there, and I decided to try too! Our Beach Station 7-Eleven is the only one in the whole of Singapore (I think) that doesn't operate for 24 hours daily!! So weird right??

I told all my ICs that I've decided to stop my job after the first week of March! They're in the midst of planning the March roster and I wanted to give them early notice. 5th of March shall be my last day at Beach Station.

I'm off for tomorrow. Nope, actually I'm off today. Okay okay I'm off on Tuesday, but it's Tuesday now already. Anybody wants to go out?? Although I think I'll be asleep all the way till afternoon. Alright time for bed.

Whoo hoo! Okay here's my daily update of my social and work life. Didn't go church for service this morning. Extremely sleepy from the day before and I've got work at 1.30pm anyway. But I did go out to meet Annie at Ang Mo Kio because her heels broke and she wanted slippers!! So weird. In the end she got her own heels because she got fed up waiting for me. Then took the MRT with her and went for work. Haha I'm sooo glad I'm not on ticketing today. Ticket dispenser jammed a few million times today. Guest Relations, and a few hours of platform rover.

They lined up queue poles across the train platform today! Basically the whole platform was divided into half. One end was for guests who just came up from the escalators and are waiting for the train, while the other is for alighting guests. Then when the train comes, the alighting guests gets shooed off quickly before we release the queue poles for the other crowd to board. Crowd control procedures to deal with all the Sunday crowds. I like the arrangement!! That means I don't have to trouble with annoying guests who keep sticking their heads out in the train's tracks, waiting for the train to snap their heads off.

Oh oh oh! Today is a very very happy day at work! I saw my Tourism Academy eyecandy!! And we even had a decent conversation okay!! We said hello to each other, and I commented on her new red hair! Hahaha actually I saw her red hair on Thursday already, but that was when I was doing ticketing and she didn't see me. So I pretended to be surprised!! And she asked me nice or not!! And then I asked her for her name!! Hahaha she's got a very weird name, even though I have this junior whose name is somewhat like hers. For privacy reasons I shall not post her name here. What if she decides to blog search her name and finds it here??? Then she'll know I'm eyecandying her and that'll be so embarrassing!!

Then Jeremy told me later that he thought he saw my red hair girl!! Haha he's doing rover on top and tried calling me the moment he saw her, but I didn't answer. He told me he was explaining to her why we placed those queue poles to divide the train platform, and she gave him a puzzled look!! Haha so cute! Then we went to the surveillance cameras and rewinded to the time when she entered the Station!! AAAAHHHHHH!!! I can see myself talking to her! I can see her on the escalators! I can see her talking to Jeremy, before the train arrives! And I can see her boarding the train!!!!

Yay. I'm very happy today! I know my eyecandy's name!

Yay!!!

I made a new friend today. Think it's the second or third time I met her, cos she's an Islander and she comes to Sentosa quite often because of that. She's beautiful in an elegant way. Cos she's tall and pretty. And she has very nice curly hair! But too bad she's attached already. Her boyfriend's quite goodlooking too! Maybe she can be my eyecandy too!! Eh but no no cannot cos I think her boyfriend looks like the very jealous kind. And I think my Tourism Acad eyecandy is cuter.

Anyway I talked to a lot of tourists today. Especially when I was doing rover, cos while waiting for the train I got a lot of time to interact with people. I talked to people from France, Denmark, New Zealand, Australia, Canada, England and a lot more! I like all the kids too. They are mostly apprehensive about talking to strangers, but they will wave back to you shyly if you wave first! There was this kid who bought one of those toy Express trains from the IslandLife shops. He got the purple one! And when the actual, real purple train pulled up in front of him at the Station, he had that awestruck look.

And I taught Devin how to fill up all the Brinks forms! You have to do a lot of paperwork after you finish a ticketing shift because must put the money into a safe and despatch it to somewhere and blah blah. Yay! Irin is going to give me a pay rise hahaha!!

Ooh. There was trouble at musical fountain today. Apparently the 7.40pm show stopped halfway due to technical difficulties. I heard it on the walkie talkie. I think it's probably a pandemonium!! I wouldn't want to be at the 7.40pm musical fountain show, and on a Sunday somemore! And anyway, here's a little insider trivia for you. The current musical fountain is going to close soon. There'll be a new fountain show by the Beach Station that's opening in April (I think). Heard from Devin that there's fireworks and blasts of fire! They were testing the water jets and lasers and lights and music today and at night. It's funky. There's the "Munneru Valiba" song sung in a purely tantalising Indian voice.

Okie. I'm on ticketing till past midnight tomorrow. Free taxi back home! I hope there'll be no tickets jamming. And I hope to see my eyecandy tomorrow!


Annie and me. My eyes look so small for some strange reason.

Today is 10th official day at work. One thing I like about the 10am to 6.30pm work shift is that I get to assume all the different duties. Guest Relations, rover and ticketing. All in one day. It's necessary because you need to cover for various colleagues knocking off or going for breaks, and it's not that boring because you're constantly on the move.

But I did mostly ticketing for today. Weekend crowds got me very flustered. TSM (ticket selling machine) died on me when I was most busy!! There was a long queue at my ticketing counter because this huge tour group from Shangri-La Hotel wanted their complimentary passes. Guests staying at the various hotels or chalets in Sentosa gets free passes. And it's quite a slow process because I must type in their room numbers and TSM takes darn long to print 3 tickets in a row. Halfway through, the program just hung! Crap. We allowed all the guests eligible for the complimentary rides to go in without the passes.

I'm tired and sleepy and grumpy. Didn't sleep well last night. People kept asking dumb questions when they can just find out from the island guide. Or stupid tourists who repeats their original question 5934 times after you've just explained yourself thoroughly and clearly. I sort of raised my voice a bit too loudly while explaining myself to death to a China tourist. And when I repeated myself for the final time, he still had that blank look. UGHH.

I put a box of tissue in our back-of-house. It's got "DONATED BY GUAN YOU" on it.

And, happy birthday to Shermin! She was working at Beach Station today too. So sad right working on your birthday!! Hahaha I stole one of those green passes for you. HAPPY BIRTHDAY GOOD GOOD FRIEND!!

Need to sleep. I've got a huge pimple on my face.

Ticketing again today. It's funny. I've been working there for almost two weeks only, and I feel like the Beach Station is a place where I've been there for ages. I'm happy working there. I know most of the SOPs of most of the duties. I recognise familiar faces and know most of the staff, including my colleagues. I feel like an experienced veteran. HAHAHA! Did I sound too arrogant?? Noo it's not meant to be that way. I just feel like I've made myself very comfortable at Beach Station.

Anyway, Fridays are one of the better weekdays cos there's more people than the normal weekday. This morning there were a lot of kids in yellow teeshirts running about! Nanyang Primary organised some Amazing Race thingy at Sentosa. The whole morning, we had primary 6 kids that zoomed around asking us for assistance with their questions. What is the legendary walk with a mystery? Haha! Oh oh! Melissa was working at the information counter today. She's pretty! Me and her and Vincent and Shariffah were talking to yellow teeshirt kids the whole morning.

I saw my dad for the first time on Sentosa since I started working! Okay I see him like practically everyday on all those advertisements. But today he drove down to the Station in his buggy. Then he saw Vincent. So they started chatting abit, until my dad asked what time I was working till. Vincent got so puzzled that he asked me "who is he (pointing to my dad) to you?" Hahaha!! He hadn't caught on that my dad works at Sentosa too! Yay!! Oh I found out today that my dad's name appears on the list of SENTOSA PHONE DIRECTORY to all the various important departments. Under Admission Operations, there is an Animal Unit sub-category, and my dad's name and his designation (Executive!) and his office phone extension are all there. Wah! My daddy so big there okay!! Hahaha!

Ticketing today was another breeze. Nothing went wrong! Perhaps the only time I was shaky when handling money, was when somebody gave me $50 and I have to search for $44 change for him. And Irin taught me how to do credit card transactions.

Met Debbie again. Hee hee I got to know her better and I taught her how to play the pre-recorded messages! But she got transferred to Sentosa Station later. Subra is our new colleague at Beach now.

And and, I didn't get to see my Tourism Academy eyecandy today! That's not all. I got teased somemore!! I told Shariffah and Jeremy to inform me immediately if they see a quite short girl with dyed long red hair and they have to let her out cos Tourism Acad people gets to ride the trains for free (therefore she won't have one of those pass). Yar they did tell me of a red-haired girl who went into the toilets. I was so excited okay! Irin gave me permission to desert my ticekting counter to go see her, but when she came out of the toilets, it turned out to be some OLD AUNTIE who's tall with short spunky hair that's super striking red. EEK!! Jeremy toyed with my feelings!! And Shariffah's no better!! To think I was so excited. Blah.

I saw Yan Peng today! She had huge shades on so I didn't recognise her at first. I saw Keren yesterday! I forgot who she was entirely already, but she reminded me that she knew me and I knew her too, so yup. I was supposed to see Atiqah last Sunday but I saw Ms Kao and her family instead. I was supposed to see Annie today but she went playing at Underwater World.

After work I was actually meeting Shermin for dinner, but she had to play for worship last minute, so dinner's cancelled. I rushed down for youth service! During cell group we were taking pictures for fun. Biru's got the exact same camera with me! She copycat!


Cell group! Minus Rachel Kwan.


I like this picture of me!


Shi Hui! Whom I haven't seen for quite long.


Biru! My awesome childhood friend for 14 years plus plus plus. You're on your own now! Hahahaha you're the chief reason why I'm stepping down!!!

The rest of the photos, here.

8th official day at work! When I reported for work today, I noticed two huge LATE acknowledgments on my punch card!! I'm so traumatised okay! I was late for like, 3 or 4 minutes on both occasions only!! But never mind, I've resolved to be early for work for at least 15 minutes from now on!

Anyway, today was ticketing from 10am to 6.30pm for me today. It was a good day cos I didn't have a single screw-up while I was on that ticketing machine! I'M SO BORED OKAY! I feel so trapped in that small little box counter. I like to go out and do Guest Relations and talk to people. I don't mind Rover too cos at least I have the huge train platform all to myself to handle. But ticketing behind glass panels makes me feel contrived and restricted!

I tried to escape from the stupid counter, but Irin caught me twice! It's such an UGHH feeling! It was one of my hyperactive, crazy days, but I'm stuck behind some lousy counter. In the end I resorted to greeting a loud "HELLO!!!" and waving maniacally at everyone who passed by. If people don't want my attention, I want their attention! I think I look like a fool. Nobody really buys tickets from me anyway. I'm giving away complimentary tickets most of the time!

I think I'm going to die tomorrow. Ticketing on the same shift. When I'm bored out of my life, I monitor the 8 surveillance cameras that we have on our entire Beach Station. The whole station is so big okay, but 8 cameras are enough to make sure that almost every spot is caught on surveillance! And OCC (some control centre for our trains and stations) are monitoring it constantly too. Oh oh! I get to play all those pre-recorded "please give way" and "train out of service" messages too!

I've got an interesting encounter with a group of Japanese girls today. They wanted to take to Blue Line bus to go somewhere, so I was leading them down the bus bay. Along the way one of them tried asking me whether they have to pay for the bus ride or not, but I couldn't understand them!! It wasn't until one of them took out her wallet, showed me a $10 note and gave the quizzical look, then I shook my head and said "FREE FREE FREE". Then I just happened to see one of those Sentosa advertisements with my dad on it, so I pointed him out to the girls and told them proudly that that's my dad! And they started to "oooh-aahhh" and one of them said he's handsome!! HAHAHA so fun!

Yup. Shermin was working at the information counter today! And there were three new people (Debbie, Subra and Alicia) who came to our Beach Station for a tour. And I saw my Tourism Academy eyecandy again today!! She didn't notice me even though I was waving like mad from my ticketing counter. But she dyed her long hair red!! It's a striking, deep-hue red! She's so pretty can!!

After work today, I went for dinner with Xin Yan! Went back to Vivo office to punch out and to change, then we took the train back to the Beach Station to go eat at Koufu. I had ice kacang for dinner?? Blee. Oh oh! I found out that she was band major of school's band!! So cool right?? Then we went around pretending to be tourists, and creating hell for our colleagues still on work. Haha!

Then I went back to Vivo to meet Shermin after her work shift. She's nuts okay!! She scribbled so many nonsense on her Sentosa island guide because people has been at her booth all day asking for directions. Whoever does that?? She likes tugging at my sleeve. And I have 11111 hugs on my hugs counter now!! Gosh! Dumb dumb 1 and 2!! We rushed back to find out that band practice just ended.

There's four different-coloured trains available on the Sentosa Express! Yellow, purple, blue and green. I like the yellow train the most because I think it brings out the spirit of Sentosa best. Although all the trains are similar in design and pattern and prints.

Photos time!


My dinner with Xin Yan!


Hui Mian trapped behind that restrictive ticketing counter.


Surveillance!


New musical fountain under construction by the beach. The picture's so dark though.


Shermin looks like secretary!


Xin Yan!


My favourite yellow train!


Inside the train with Alicia and Debbie, and my dad's advertisement with the flying eagle.


One of the funky train drivers.


Huge billboard for the Sentosa Express. I like!! It cheers me up.

The rest of the photos here.

I think other than working, I don't have much of a life now. I'm so sad! I'm like, at the Beach Station 6 days a week, and I spent my only off day at home slacking!! I should be out hanging about somewhere or shopping or doing something!! Sigh. If not for the fact that I'm having fun at work, I think I'm seriously some boring mule who's got nothing interesting in my life at all.

Anyway, I had terrible nightmares last night!! I dreamt that I was doing train platform rover and someone's arm was broken because he got hit by the oncoming train! Then Judith came down and she had to fill up some accident report thing thing. Then I got transferred to ticketing. Which was no better because I dreamt that I lost a huge sum of money! Then Irin was scolding me like shit and she called the Rangers down to arrest me!!

Oh my gosh. When I start having work-related nightmares, it's not a very good sign. And I'm doing ticketing tomorrow!! What if the Rangers really come and arrest me??

OOH tomorrow's going to be an exciting day!! I'm doing ticketing from 10am to 6.30pm. Then I want to go to the musical founitain after work! I shall go back to the office and punch out first. Then I'll go fight with the crowds to watch the 7.40pm musical fountain show! I haven't watched it since don't know when. When was the last time I watched Kiki the Monkey?? Then I want to visit the Enchanted Tembusu Grove too! Is that still open? I want to do so many things! I seriously haven't visited Sentosa (other than the beaches) for so long. The entire island is sooo much nicer now.

Okay! Tomorrow shall be my EXPLORE SENTOSA day. Haven't found people to go with yet, but I shall try asking some of my colleagues tomorrow! Oh Shermin's working at the membership info counter at Beach Station tomorrow too! Everyone whom I've met so far working at that counter is weird.

I can't wait!! I want to go see the musical fountain! Do you know that they are building a new musical fountain just beside my Beach Station? When I'm working on the night shifts, I can see them test-run the water jets for about half an hour each night. It's quite nice! The show will be located at an amphitheatre at the beach and the water will be spurted 40 feet into the sky from the sea. I think there are going to be fireworks too cos I saw the occasional fireworks testing too! YAY! So I must take this chance to go visit the older musical fountain first before it closes down for the Family/Integrated Resorts. I'm so excited!!

Oh oh!! I'm going to try and search for the bells that chimes every quarter of the hour too! I could hear them very clearly, especially during night shifts when there's lesser hustle and bustle. Shanaz told me it's near the Merlion Walk and they're called Carillon bells! The sound of the bells is really quite soothing. The bells follow the Westminster Quarters, which basically chimes two bars of three-four time signature for the first quarter of the hour, and four bars for the second quarter, blah blah. For the geeks, go research that out! Only thing of exception is that the bells don't sound out the hour. There's 2 extra chimes at the second quarter (half-hour) and 4 extra chimes at the fourth quarter (full hour). So cool! I like listening to the bells when I'm on night shift cos it helps me count off the times to the next train arrival. Haha! I shall go search for them tomorrow!!

Annie is going to work at Sentosa too!! Hahaha and Jin Jen and Atiqah wants to work there too, after their Science Centre stint. Yay everyone quick come here and work! And and, Rhoda knows a great deal more about Sentosa than I do. She's an Islander member or something equivalent!! SO COOL!!

Sometimes I feel that things are best kept the way they are now. But other times I feel that I should do something. Ugh. I don't know what I want la. Stupid.

God has been magnificent in this year so far. Things just fall into place so nicely. Opportunities comes nicely when I need them. Situations for me to take control. I'm astounded.

Okie, bedtime! Tomorrow will be an exciting day!

2am in the morning! Okay 2nd day as Rover on the midnight shift. 7th official day at work! It's been one entire week spent at the Beach Station. What can I say? I'm adoring every moment of it! It's perfect as an outdoor, outgoing, outspoken, outstanding job for me. Colleagues are all cute, just like me. The weekday blues are a pity though. So few people compared to the weekends! Eh but it's still Sentosa after all, so we still get a healthy amount of tourists coming in. Busiest moments on weekdays are when one truckload of tourists and the tour guide arrive to mess everything up.

And my walkie talkie! Everytime I send or receive a message on the walkie, I'm very excited okay! My favourite is "Beach Rover sending!", cos that's the reply to answer someone when he calls for you. I think I must have looked very cool. I've got a talkie strapped to the back of my pants. I've got a tiny clip-on speaker on my shirt. I've got a earpiece in my ear. I think I looked like Agent Smith in The Matrix.

As usual, I was eavesdropping on a million walkie conversations cos a lot of departments are also using our channel. Okay la they're mostly work-related or official notifications, but still, the occasional ridiculous message is hilarious! I heard someone say "toilets are jammed, send cleaner". Haha!! OH OH. The entire night, some stupid idiot kept pressing the talk button on their walkie, but never said a word. It's irritating! All you hear is just a series of clicks and beeps and a lot of static. Later on I found out who was responsible. SENTOSA STATION!! Apparently some of them were so bored because there were so few guests, so they decided to have a clicking/beeping marathon. What the hell.

Hmm let's see. Today has been quite okay. A couple left their video camera on one of the trains, so I radioed Sentosa Station and Shao Jie went to get it back for them. A huge group of China tourists stuck their heads out into the train platform when the train was about to leave, and I was in a frenzy trying to prevent an accident. PGD (platform gate doors) didn't close when one of the trains was going back to the depot, and I got a huge fright of my life. Told a woman not to board one of the trains as the driver was on training, and she gleefully smiled at me and said "don't worry, I'm insured, so can I board please?"

Anyway I've established my contacts. I know most of the train drivers and their supervisors now! I know the 7-Eleven people. I know the Coffee Bean people too. I know some Koufu people and the transport people. And the Luge people! And Sakae Sushi people. I know the funky cleaners that come every evening to clean our Station. I know one or two of those hunky, tanned, handsome Beach Patrol people!

Okay this is a trivial comment. I think the music is irritating! There's only like 15 or 20 tracks that keeps repeating itself every hour. Haha somewhat reminds me of KAP music. It's controlled by the Sentosa office I think, so the entire island's PA system is playing the same songs! There's even a speaker along one of the beach walkways!! Sentosa is trying to condition us all. There's Leaving On A Jet Plane played in an angklung style. There's that "because it's Singapore, Singapore, our hearts are big and wide you find, because it's Singapore, Singapore, you'll find happiness for everyone" song. My favourite is Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka-dot Bikini!! Hahaha so cute! But when you're working like more than 8 hours a day, you just hear the same old repetitive songs over and over.

I forgot to mention. I saw the pretty girl from Tourism Academy again today! She always board the train at Beach Station to get out in the evening. YAY! My Sentosa eyecandy.

I like working the midnight shift. Fewer people, less hectic, less stressful, and more time to interact with people. And the free transport back on those Mercedes taxis. Hahaha I discovered that there are a lot of fellow part-timers living in Bishan or Upper Thomson or Shunfu or Sin Ming or around my area.

I'm off for Wednesday. Which is now. YAY 2!

Whoopee! 2pm in the day! I just woke up okay!! Hahaha! Last night I reached home at 1.30am. It was another late late midnight shift at work. And tonight too! Hmm not bad la I quite like all the late nights. There's free transport home! And it's not just some lousy stinking normal taxi. It's a Mercedes taxi okay! Sentosa sure takes good care of us. And since I'm a late-night owl, I don't really have problems concentrating on my job(s). The only thing is, by night time, there's very very few people still around at the Beach Station.

Well okay yesterday night I was doing train platform rover duty! I've got a walkie talkie hooked up on me! So funky! I've used a walkie once before, and that was during my Catholic High days, when a few of us planned a massive Sec 3 camp at Ubin. But I've forgotten most of all those talkie codes and commands already! Irin had to give me a brief crash course on what's the proper language to use on the walkies.

At first I was super shaky. Cos my friend told me Sess (big boss) was monitoring on the talkies. But after a few calls, it's quite easy la. OVER OVER OVER!!! The most important messages I got as Beach Rover were to inform me of trains out of service because they are on training or going back to depot or last trains. If not, I'll be eavesdropping on the Merlion staff conversations. They lost some important key to some room I think. And some guy was going to the Ranger Station to return something. And I could hear the Beach Patrol people too! Then some idiot kept pressing the talk button so many times, but didn't make any message. So my poor ears were suffering cos I keep getting the static sound from the earpiece.

It's quiet on weekday nights. Mostly it's people wanting to go to the new Cafe Del Mar that just opened last week. I heard it's quite funky! It's this club that has a in-built pool and you can party underground the pool or something. I shall check it out one day when I'm not on the midnight shift! If not, it's those that are working on the beaches that are on their way home. Like the Sakae Sushi and 7-Eleven and Luge and Coffee Bean and Koufu people. Not bad la I made a lot of friends!! After working almost a week there, I can recognise most of the faces of those staff working along the beaches. There's this huge group of rowdy Sentosa staff working at the office who makes a lot of noise whenever they're down at the beach for dinner. The Beach Patrol people are hunky and nice and friendly! There's this Tourism Academy girl that I see everyday. She's pretty!!! And the train drivers!! They're the most nonsensical people around.

Okay. I've gotta go bathe and eat and whatever cos I probably need to leave for work soon. Some of the A01 people are meeting for dinner, but I can't go. I'll be on the walkie though! OVER OVER OVER ROGER ROGER ROGER!!

Just came home from work! At 1.20am in the morning. I did ticketing today! I thought the Sunday crowd will kill me, but it didn't really. Ticketing at Beach Station is quite non-existent, because people come to my counter to ask for directions instead. And, since my shift was from 4pm to midnight, there's not much people left on the island for me to entertain anyway.

Most of the time I'm doing ticket replacements for people! You wouldn't believe how damaged the tickets can get. The worst I've seen were soaking wet. I've got guests who came to my counter and asked for a replacement card because they said they dipped their cards in water to see if it is waterproof. Yesh my gosh. Not one or two guests. MANY GUESTS. I don't know what in the world they were thinking. The card is like cardboard material!! Do you think it's waterproof???

Ticket replacements are troublesome. Cos it comes under service recovery and only Station-ICs and Supervisors can authorise them. In the end Irin just gave me her username and password and told me to handle all the ticket replacements, cos there were simply so many millions of damaged cards. It's troublesome. And Irin's lazy. I typed her password (8 numerical digits) so many times that I can memorise it off-hand now.

So yup, basically there were only me, Irin and Azliza after 10pm. Me and Irin settled all the money and closed the station, then we headed back to the Vivo office. Transport is provided back home if you work on the last shift. And and, it was a Mercedes taxi!! Okay la I didn't sit in the Mercedes taxi cos there were only 2 of them. I took the other normal normal one. I'm tired and it's an unearthly hour, but still, free transport from the Sentosa company! I'm not complaining.

Today the big big big boss of Admissions & Operations talked to me!! I let him into the Station without asking for his Sentosa staff pass, cos I knew he's the big big big boss. By right I'm supposed to ask for it, but since I knew him, it's okay. So he started commending my actions and telling me that I should be insistent about asking for staff passes, but I should also be flexible and blah blah. I didn't really catch all of it. When your big big big boss talks to you in a friendly but lecturing manner, what do you do??

All my Station-ICs and most of my bosses at Sentosa Express knows me now. I very sad!! They all know that my dad is the guy in all the advertisements with that eagle. I'm very stressed okay! Irin keeps threatening to tell my daddy if I do anything wrong.

Before I forget, today was the first leaders' meeting for the year. There's going to be some changes and additions to the way things are going now. I'm quite ambivalent about them actually. For one thing, I probably won't be around much to see how things will go since there's army in less than 2 months time.

You know, usually I hate it when people get all too hypothetical during meetings and the entire meeting becomes a "what-if" session. Hahaha ask Jun Ying. I detest "what-if" situations or questions during Green Link meetings, and he'll always be the cool cucumber to answer everything. But okay I do understand that it's a clarification meeting and it's essential to make sure all perspectives of the issues are looked into.

Strangely, somehow today at meeting I wasn't extremely irritated at all the "what-ifs". Maybe it's because I told myself firmly not to be bitchy at meeting. Or maybe it's because I'm stepping down. Or maybe it's just that the "what-ifs" were sensible and logical. Hee hee I hate illogical "what-ifs"!! But whatever it is, it gave me a more objectional view on the whole situation. I was able to understand the concerns and arguments over some aspects. I need someone who's level-headed enough to balance me out. Like Jun Ying.

Okay. Time for bed. It's 4.30pm till past midnight for Monday and Tuesday too. I'm going to do Rover!! That means I'll get to use that funky walkie talkie.

Weekends at Sentosa are quite a nightmare. There's billions of people running around everywhere and congesting all the transport on the island!! Okay maybe it's a common occurence, but I wouldn't know exactly. 4th official day at work today! I like to count off the number of days I've worked so that I can compare seniority with my colleagues. Hahaha! But it's extremely busy for us at the Beach Station okay! Loads of people arriving by the truckloads on the beach trams, buses and our trains.

I'm quite good at Guest Relations now already! Been doing it since I started my first day. I think it's the most fun job duty cos you really get to meet all kinds of people. I know how to answer most of the questions that the guests ask me! Whoopee. I get the greatest sense of satisfaction when I've helped someone plan his day to visit whatever attractions or that sort of thing, and they come back to our Station and comment that their day has been awesome.

Oh oh, today has been my most interesting day at work so far too! I saw Lauren and Charleen and Soe-Na! They were there at the beach for some Aerius outing or something. I so wanted to talk to them a lot a lot, but Vincent (my Station-IC) and Sess (big big Admissions boss) were around so I had to pretend they were just normal guests. Weh! But okay la. Lauren asked about the flower she gave me. It's err, dead???

There was this huge group of girls from Catholic JC in their first 3 months. And this three girls from RGS. And this group of Malay guys from somewhere. And this group of 4 who were trying to search for the Skyride when it's just in front of them. They are all friendly enough to stop to chat with me!! I like it when people actually talk to you in a conversational way, instead of just asking you for directions. Even if it's nonsensical, superficial stuff. And there's every reason for me to flirt with all the pretty girls! Or to act cheeky. Or to be totally me. Whichever is better.

Anyway, today was such a busy day that I only went for my break at 7pm. Normally my break's at 5pm if I'm working from 1.30pm to 10pm. But we were quite short-handed and I had to take over at some places. Finished dinner first, then I went back to Vivo to meet Shermin cos she just got off her own work at the membership area at Vivo. Talked a bit, before I rushed back to complete the rest of my shift. I think it's okay for all of us to screw up la. Whee.

OOH I did Rover duty on the train platform for an hour while Hui Mian went for break! It's quite scary cos I've got to ensure safety at all times. But the crowd don't care. They will happily stick their heads from the platform out in the train's approaching direction, just to see what's the excitement about. They will lean far out into the station tracks. They rush for the train the moment it arrives, without letting other guests to alight first. Being a Rover is super stressful cos you have to be alert all the time. And guess what? I got to use the walkie talkie for the first time! There's a clip-on mouth-piece and ear-piece, so I look like a undercover policeman!! And when Shuba called for me I was so excited okay! The talkie's quite cool. You can eavesdrop on the Merlion staff's conversations too.

Towards the end of my shift, I quite got cranky. I did quite a stupid thing. There was this group of 3 girls who came up to me because one of them lost their Sentosa tap cards in one of the other train stations. So she couldn't get out of the Station cos the tap card thing works like the EZ-Link cards. Something like that. She wanted to get out and still come in again later in the night for her return trip to Vivo (unlimited use of the card within the day), but since she lost her card and I didn't want to make her pay an extra $3 just to get another new card. Guess what I did? I tore off a piece of scrap paper, wrote "Admit Kexin for one ride", then I signed my name!! Yea she's Kexin, but not the Kexin that I know in school. The 3 of them were just giggling non-stop. But in the end, just when they got out of the Station, Kexin realised that actually her card is with her all along. I'm very DUH!! Shuba (my other Station-IC) heard what I did and asked me incredulously "What the hell did you think you were doing?"

Okay. Tomorrow is leaders' meeting. Then rush for work till midnight. I'll get to ride the free taxi home! Shermin claims its a Mercedes taxi. I don't believe they're so extravagant.

Half an hour late for work (was supposed to start shift at 8am) due to traffic congestion. Sluggish morning. Hectic afternoon. At times, there can be as many as three billion people trying to squeeze through the turnstiles. But other times, not a single soul wants to get in or out. Today's my third official day at work! And sadly, Yvonne and Suet Yee's last internship day. They've been working there for 5 months already!! Okay I only know them for a few days but they are really nice people to gossip with.

Ooh. I went for break with Shariffah at Vivo Banquet. She's got a rich family heritage! Arab, Malay, Chinese and Indian. Even more complex than Beets I think! And she's pretty okay! She'll make the perfect racial harmony ambassador. I want to complain!! Someone asked me to clear his plates at Banquet!! I was wearing that hideous orange-and-green uniform and he asked me to clear his plates! What the hell!!

There was this huge horde of guys who kept going in and out of our Beach Station the entire day. They were playing some treasure hunt or something, and the base point was the Coffee Bean just beside us. They ran around topless most of the time!! Whoo hoo where else can you get to ogle at hunky guys and hot girls in bikinis?? Jeremy wouldn't believe it when I told him that I led this really cute girl (in my opinion) to the beach tram. Cute okay!!

After knocking off work, I hurried for worship practice. I've got a bad shift timing next Friday, so I swapped worship leading slots with Alicia for this week. Bumped into Tammy at J8. Tensed up on stage. But Ben Ng's video was awesome. Sometimes I think when I've got no focus at all, God works the best miracles. I should aim to have NO AIM in everything I do. Hahaha yar right. And cell group time!

Okay I'm going to bed soon. It's been a long day. Tomorrow is another long one.

2nd official day at work. I made quite a lot of screw-ups today! Aargh it was quite stressful for me. I mixed up the locations of Siloso and Palawan beach. I gave wrong directions to the Luge and skyride. I didn't know the Underwater World and Dolphin Lagoon package were together. I happily gave people complimentary passes when they're not supposed to get any. I forgot to punch out after work.

What a klutsy day. Was on Guest Relations! That means I just need to interact with people and assist people at the gantry gates. Easy right? NO. A million things to take note of. Then I must be ready to operate at the train platform itself and make sure things are safe. And I have to take over at ticketing booth if it's busy.

Oh oh, I must mention this incident. At around 9pm Shuba (my Station-IC) got me to try doing ticketing for a while cos I've never done it before yet. Well okay there's fewer people around by that time, but this group of people working at the Koufu food court on the beach came and asked if they can get a free ride. Normally most Sentosa staff gets the complimentary pass, or as long as they have the Sentosa transport concession. This group of people didn't have the concession, but they demanded the free ride anyway! This drunk guy shouted at Shuba for 10 minutes! He was threatening a million things and shouting away happily.

So I was stuck in the ticketing booth without anyone to look after me. Wayne (this other guy) was out handling the situation too. It's nervous to do ticketing okay! I sold my first 2 tickets smoothly. Then the drunk guy came over to my booth and tried to challenge me to a fight. Then another couple came and wanted to buy tickets, so I did everything right until the money part. I forgot to give them their change!! Had to go find Shuba for the key to the key press, then the stupid drunk guy came and harrased me somemore, then I cannot trouble Shuba anymore cos she was trying to be patient talking to the drunk guy. And I couldn't find the key! Frantic search, finally found it and gave the couple their change. Then the stupid drunk guy came over again and this time he started spweing vulgarities. AND, the phone rang. I didn't know what in the world I had to say so I just "Hello. Beach station", and of all crap the person calling was Irin, one of my Station-ICs. She started lecturing me about having to use the proper phone greeting and blah blah. And Shuba busy with the drunk guy, then Vincent, another of my Station-ICs called. This time I followed the little card pasted on the phone and rattled "Good evening, Beach station this is Guan You speaking. How may I assist you?", and Vincent called for Shuba. But I can't trouble her cos she's dealing with a very volatile situation! Then the phone rang again, this time it's Erica, one of my biggest bosses cos she's mostly in charge of the entire train operation. I had to rattle the long greeting again, but she told me she's coming down to deal with the chaos and she's coming with the Rangers. Whooppee. When she was finally down, this guest had a crinkled and folded ticket that he wanted to replace, and I didn't know how to do service recovery with the complex ticketing machine and issue him a new one, so Erica had to do it instead.

There you go. My disastrous attempt at trying to do ticketing. AAAARRRGHH.

And and and, my cover is blown!! So far I've been trying to conceal my identity from the Sentosa people. I don't want them to know that my dad is an Animal Trainer there! My dad is quite high-profile there I think, cos the latest Sentosa posters featured his huge face with a flying eagle. I can see his picture everywhere on Sentosa okay! There's one in every Sentosa Express train I'm sitting on! I'm trying not to tell anyone about it. But then, the big bosses of the train operations Judith and Erica know me! They've heard about me coming to Sentosa to work!! SO SCARY RIGHT?? Apparently it's been circulating in the upper office that Francis Low's son is working at Beach Station. FLYING COWS. Judith happily came to me and said "Hello! Your dad is quite famous huh? Anyway you really look like him from the nose down". Okay! How am I supposed to react when one of my big boss comes up to me like that unexpectedly?? I don't even know how she recognises me. Anyway, Shuba was super surprised to hear about that too. Somehow she knew my dad vaguely too.

Dang. There goes my grand plan of trying to keep my dad out of my Sentosa working life. And it's only my 2nd official day at work!! Okay la I should be more proud right?? Sigh.

I stayed back for half an hour after I ended my shift to try and understand how everything works. Shuba was nice enough to give me a guide through the entire station. I think I'm more confident now with the ticketing machine! I know how to play all the pre-recorded platform announcements! I know how to answer emergency phone calls! I know how to monitor the security cameras! I know how to use the walkies! I know a lot of things now!!!

Okay. I'm having fun working! Everyone I'm working with and working for are awesome. I'm still learning a lot of new things, but I think I'll get more experienced in a while. I think I can run an MRT station after this.

Anyway, I messaged my dad that I felt very stressed when I was about to knock off work. All he said was "OK", and "come home got food for you". Something like that. Eh okay a bit no link, but I take it as concern right?? I messaged Shermin too and she went very motherly. I messaged Annie too! But I think she's asleep cos she didn't reply.

I shall try messaging different people on different days after I end my shift.

I'm so glad there's no work tomorrow. Haha tomorrow is Shermin's turn to be at Vivo membership counter.

OOH my first official day at work! I very nervous can!! This morning I woke up very early and I started panicking. I went to read through all the Sentosa brochures and all the manuals and modules and whatever else that I've went through! And I started memorising what colour bus route goes where and where most of the attractions can be found and a lot a lot!!

Beach Station, along the new Sentosa Express! I reported for work half an hour early, which was quite a wise thing cos there were a lot of admin things to do and since it was my first day on the ground, my Station-IC Irin (and later Vincent) gave me a tour of my job scope. Basically what I had to do was just stand at the gate gantry and assist people in and out. And replenish brochures. And interact with guests and help them. And talk to them like they're my best friend. And smile. And greet. And thank. And welcome. And sell an "experience".

I was very nervous!! I very scared I gave the wrong information to the guests! And there were like 5 million people asking 10 million different questions! And must differentiate which kind of passes can get free rides on the train! Okay la my first few hours were quite disastrous. Got this huge group of tourists (like, twenty of them??) spoke to me in Korean and I couldn't understand a word. The silliest thing was, one of them started waving their arms around in wide circles, and the whole group started waving their arms in wide circles too! So stupid looking! After 10 minutes I still don't know what they want or where they want to go. In the end I just shoo-ed them up to the train platform and hope they got what they wanted.

But after like 4 or 5 hours, I kinda got used to everything and it was relatively easy from there on. And since it's Beach Station, there were a lot of hot hunks and babes! I saw a couple board the train clad in skimpy bathing suits, and they were HOT. Haha! The only grouse is I don't like my carrot uniform! Look like traffic police!! And, since my work shift is 1.30pm to 10pm, most of my colleagues are gone by 6pm. From then on there's not so many guests anymore, so it's more slack. My new colleagues are nice nice and sweet sweet and pretty pretty.

And and, I saw Shermin!! She was on her own group training and they were touring Sentosa today. Didn't even noticed her until she shouted "GUAN YOU!!" from the escalator down, then her entire group shouted "GUAN YOU" too, just to see if I will respond. I think I was extremely terrified at that time (cos I just entertained the Koreans, described earlier), so I didn't dare go talk to her.

Working tomorrow too. Same shift timing. I want to see more hot babes.

I don't really like the ominous feeling I get when I'm about to step down or resign from some form of responsibility. You know, the logical thing to do is to ensure that there's a proper handover to competent people who can take over you. I did that in Green Link! By the time us seniors had to pass on to the juniors, most of us had an idea of who we wanted in which positions. I did that in fellowship comm too, cos I ear-marked Joel for grooming! But I still don't like the uncertainties and the unresolved feelings that I'll get. Things like, what if I've chosen the wrong people and they destroy everything? What am I going to do after that??

Towards the end of last year, I made the decision to step down from cell group leadership earlier than expected. I mean, sooner or later I will have to step down anyway due to army, but that's in March. I told Matthew I wanted out by the end of January. Personal reasons hahaha. But the trouble is, I don't really have people who can replace me. Aargh I ended up with more regrets about things not done or things I could have did.

Worse, I'm beginning to feel stagnant and tired. When you've got an eye on your resignation day, you don't really feel like initiating anything; you don't really feel like doing your duties wholeheartedly; you don't really feel like doing anything well. I admit I've kinda ditched Biru alone and indulged in my happy own world when it comes to cell group leading. She's busy trying to rein everything in order while I'm adding to the disorder. Maybe I'm feeling extremely discouraged. Maybe I'm just apathetic. Sorry ol' friend, I'll try harder to assist you in my "ending of days"!

Someone recently shared with me a similar experience. She's quite unhappy at her responsibilities now, and she's counting down to the day where she'll quit everything and start somewhere else afresh. Somewhat like me right? Haha. Anyway, she told me that she was determined to be as antagonistic and uncooperative as she can be, now that she's filling out her days while waiting to be free from her duties. But her attitude changed slightly when someone wrote her a letter. It went something like "I hope that you will end this segment of your life with a joyous conclusion, instead of it being a drag to the finishing line".

Hmm. I shall aim for a "joyous conclusion" too.

Is there such a huge difference between the Social Support division and the Social Cohesion department?? It sounds the same to me, but Annie insists there's a drastic difference. Ahh whatever.

Tammy said they threw away partially melted ice cream and mudpies at work today because there was a power trip. So wasteful! Think African kids!

The opening launch of the Sentosa Express was on the news! I think I caught sight of Vera behind the ticketing counter! They showed this young boy who was among the first few visitors and he likes to play with trains. Then they showed him playing with his train collection and he has already got the full set of the Sentosa Express trains in the 4 different colours. Why so crappy?? Stupid Channel 5. Hahaha anyway the whole place looks kinda empty. Who asked them to choose a weekday for the opening launch?? Never mind I'll find out for myself tomorrow! First official day at work!

I shall blog about what happened yesterday!! Yesterday was Sunday. I met Shi Hui for breakfast at J8! It was supposed to not make her suspicious, although I've got no idea why she would be. Then we went for service! After that, Tammy and I got out the birthday cake and balloons for Shi Hui! Hahaha we decorated the cake with yellow icing and blew up all the balloons the night before! Tammy bought white FBTs and dyed it pink (although it still looks more white than pink) and I printed a BIMBO CLUB photo for her. Whee. Then I sat in the fellowship comm meeting for 15 minutes, before rushing down to Vivo for more work training! Yesterday was on how to operate the Ticket Sales Machine. Okay la there were a lot of things to take note and whatever, but after a while it was quite easy.

Yesterday was quite a bad day for me. Public transport was the culprit! In the morning while going J8 to meet Shi Hui, I took the wrong bus! There are 5 different bus services that I can take from my home to J8, but I cannot take 162! But when the bus came I just happily took it and the bus took a wrong turn away from J8, so I had to walk like three million miles back in the correct direction. The second time was after work training from Vivo! I overslept on 855 and ended up in Yio Chu Kang/Ang Mo Kio area. So I roamed around the neighbourhood for 20 minutes trying to find familiar bus services back to Bishan. Stupid right? I should have just took 855 in the reverse direction but I was feeling a bit more adventurous. In the end I took a taxi back.

Sometimes I think my life is quite ironic. Maybe God just have different plans for me contrary to what I would have imagined my life to be. I just discovered (after a long talk) that I might have ended up being in a relationship with a certain someone. Okay maybe not that optimistic, but it might have led us somewhere. Isn't it strange?? Scary even. It sounds kinda ominous now that I'm in retrospection. But right now I've got to deal with my current feelings. I don't know what I should do, or what I can do for that matter.

I like talking to people about my life. I like talking to people about my own stand on certain issues. I like expressing my views. I like telling the world about my opinions and perspectives. Problem is, no one is patient enough to hear me out. Sigh.

Today is the official opening launch of the Sentosa Express! I officially start my work tomorrow! Guest Relations at Beach Station.

Whoopee. 1am in the middle of the night now. Anyway, I had a almost-three-hours meeting just now! Post drama camp evaluation. I wanted to go into the meeting in a bitchy mood but I didn't feel like being antagonistic. It almost always turns the meeting into a tense and volatile argument. See! I'm so mature in thought and responsible for my actions right??

Okie. Here's a random thought that has been going through in my mind. I think girls shouldn't be afraid of asking guys to do things. Sometimes girls are hesitant about asking guys to them a favour because they think some guys are not gentlemanly enough. Actually I think otherwise. I think most guys are quite gentlmanly! Okay maybe it's a sweeping statement, but I think most guys would be willing to do simple things like opening doors for girls, fetching items, helping them with something, accompany them somewhere, and other small little things like that. I mean, as long as it's not that demanding! And it doesn't even have to be guys who are good friends. I don't know, but personally I'm more than willing to do anything for anyone, but people don't really ask me for a lot of favours anyway.

Sigh. Have you ever got the feeling that you wish something will happen, but then again you don't really want it to? Worse, you're actually partly in control of the situation and if anything is going to happen, you'll be the one to initiate things. But then again, you're so uncertain of everything that you really don't know what to do. Have you got such experiences before? If you have, do tell me about it and give me some advice.

OH MY ZMYGHSTSFIOSDNPIREFDS!!! I just helped my neighbour Jolene with her Chinese homework! I can't believe it! CHINESE!! Okay even though it's just simple primary three Chinese, but it's still difficult for me okay! 2 years not touching that horrible language! I still can read Chinese newspapers and books and stuff like that, but I can't speak and write in it anymore. OOH. Give me English Literature anytime.

Anyway, shopping with my mum at J8 today. A little kid beside us fell off the chair while we were having lunch. So poor thing! He was crying so badly. I've got a small cut from that accident.

Got a post-drama-camp meeting later. Maybe I'll blog more after that. I want to go play with my hamster.

Hmm. Okay my day today! I only woke up at 11.30am when Tammy called me and phone conferenced me with her and Amelia Yeo. Then I fell back to sleep and woke up at 1pm to watch Sesame Street. Elmo's laughter is annoying, especially when you just woke up. Went out to market in the rain to buy lunch for me and Mummy. Then I went to J8 to meet Tammy and Ame to hang out. At around 5pm Ame left to meet her friends, while me and Tammy took a bus down to NJ! We wanted to go for the orientation dance party! Toured around the school, pigged out at the College Publications room with Shi Hui. We tried to find Chris Chen (and a whole lot of ex-NJCians) on the college archives but couldn't. But I saw a certain Lim Liyan and Dorothy Chua and Mr Don Whitby and Ms Helena Ting! Okay then we walked around somemore, met Tammy's friend Shanshan (sunshine!) and Khairi and so many millions of people. Didn't stay for the dance party though. We came back to corps for youth service cos it's Covenant Friday, then cell group time and then I went to buy food after walking with Sarah and Shermin in the rain. Sarah did one huge detour to avoid a puddle of water. BLEE.

Anyway, I have prata and curry to eat now! I'm absolutely famished cos I haven't had a proper lunch and I skipped dinner too. There's some leftover soup in the kitchen too. And corn! Whee. I shall have a feast.

Oh yar I must mention the corn! My mum recently went on this corn craze! She started buying huge amounts of this supposedly organic corn that costs like almost a dollar per corn! Normally you can get two normal corns for like sixty or seventy cents? But my mum likes it, so my diet has included a lot of corn all of a sudden! The organic corn is sweeter and more crunchier, but I prefer the normal cheap cheap kind ones! Organic corn is sweeter but less juicy! It's much harder and firmer, so there's less juice. I shall secretly replace my mum's organic corns with the normal ones!! Well my mum isn't the only one obsessed with corns. My hamster too! She loves eating dried corn!

I forgot to mention. Thanks Su Kai for the chocolates from Hokkaido! I haven't tried them yet, but they look very elegant. And, the box is baby pink! Okay almost baby pink, except that it's slightly darker. Whoo the box alone is enough to make me love it! Hahaha! Anyway, I got her candy from Candy Empire in exchange. Thanks Su Kai my crappy nugget!!

I've more or less made up my mind on everything that I plan to do in this year. I spent most of the end of last year thinking about things that I want to do and things God wanted me to do. Then I spent most of the start of this year thinking about how I'm going to do them and trying to trust God to let them happen. So bottom line, decisions decided, resolutions made and ready to go into this new year!

My current addiction: teeny boppy happy bouncy music from Japanese bands. Those that sound like those Gameboy or Nintendo games! Thanks Sheng-De for his crazy introduction to all these weird songs! And and, Biru compiled a collage of my stupid faces! She was hoping of blackmailing me, but I'm more than JUBILANT to see my own stupid faces! Hee hee hee!

Went back to NJ with Atiqah today! We walked the long way in and got a cool Visitor's Pass! Okay that's trivial. I forgot to bring my NJ tap tap card along with me! What a tragedy to think I was looking forward to tapping my attendance! And and, the Jap stall terminated their lease with the school, so now my favourite canteen aunties aren't working there anymore. So sad! I feel so old now that I've graduated and all the different changes taking place. Sigh. Had a very long talk with Mr Alvin Leong and Ms Teo Sui Ho. Have no idea why I'm still so formal in addressing them but I guess it's habitual. Saw quite a lot of teachers, and a lot of juniors. Saw the new batch of juniors mass dancing. Oh oh, I met Elaine!! She saw me like 3km away and started waving at me! Okay maybe not 3km, more like 50 metres? But still, she waved!! Met Xiu Jing who's teaching Maths there now. The field was destroyed because of orientation war games. And, I visited the Green Link garden! The flowers are bigger and healthier now. Hydrangea especially, cos last I saw it, it was droopy and languid. Hong Yi and her EXCO are doing a good job. Hee hee!


Articuno Atiqah


Food!


Look at what Cheryl and Qiling did!! Yay A01 left behind a legacy!

I'm reading about Sesame Street on Wikipedia. I grew up with Sesame Street okay! I can't believe the stuff they have on Wikipedia. Check this out: Elmo is left-handed. Bert and Ernie are rumoured to be gay couples. Oscar's pet worm Slimey has its birthday on 18th February. And loads of other nonsensical theories and facts and trivias! Whoopee. I still love my Cookie Monster! I'll cheer whenever he gobbles up the Letter of the Day. I hate Big Bird cos it's one huge mangled mess of a yellow bird monster. Ernie can be my good friend because he likes rubber duckies. I like counting with The Count. Elmo and his goldfish Dorothy! And I like Mr Noodle's stupid dumb dumb antics! Blee. When will I ever grow up. I shall go find Cookie Monster merchandise.

Shermin couldn't find icing at Vivo. I think it's sold out already cos when I saw it on Tuesday, there were only 2 squeeze-tubes left.

I think I've got a new food item to add to my "DO NOT TOUCH FOOD AT ALL COSTS" list. Right now grapes are the only food item on that list. Revolting, inedible grapes. Oh, the new food item is chocolate milk! I think it's too thick and too rich and too creamy for my liking. It induces emesis! Don't get me wrong I love my chocolates. I'll eat most kinds of chocolates; dark, milk, white, whatever. I don't really like chocolate with nuts cos it tastes bitter. I don't go for luxury, premium, overly fanciful chocolates too cos it's too expensive and too smooth. But chocolate milk! It's a horrible mix. Milk should just be milk, not with chocolate! It sticks in your throat like peanut butter and the taste is too strong! I just feel like puking. BLEAGH.

Wikipedia shall be my new online hobby.

It was quite dramatic this morning. My mum left some laundry out to hang before going out of house, while I was happily sleeping like a pig. Guess what? It started raining! So she called home to ask me to bring them in, but I was sleeping and I didn't hear the phone ring. I only woke up at 12 noon? Then I went to check the house phone and there were 7 missed calls from my mum or dad. Checked my phone and there were 4 missed calls from my parents too. Hee hee!

I watched Sesame Street today. Then I went out to post some letters and to develop some photos. I went to the market and the first photo printing shop said their instant print machine was spoilt and the minimum number of photos that I must print was nine! Went to the second one, but I must wait till Friday to get the photos! So I walked to J8 and got them printed INSTANTLY and at 50 cents each! Whee.

I bought a sundae from Macs and walked back home! Then I went out to get a haircut. NICE NICE! Okay it looks normal anyway. I had dinner with Eleanor today.

I'm quite sad you know! My parents say they might not go and send me off when I'm going army! My dad's going to the States somewhere in March for business and he won't be back in time for March 16, and my mum doesn't want to alone cos she thinks it's weird! WEH. I'm so sad! My parents are not going to send me off into the army! They told me to go invite my friends.

I'm going back to NJ tomorrow with Atiqah! I can't wait! Hahaha Su Kai and me are going to exchange gifts. I'm going to meet the Jap stall aunties too! And and, I can tap my NJ tap card!!

Second day at work. Today was just a lengthy module session on the corporate beliefs, plans and whatever else of Sentosa's management company. And what you should do as a Sentosa staff to make GUESTS (not visitors) feel welcomed and be impressed with our service. Haha that's about it. Oh oh, I'm going to be posted to the Beach Station! Hahaha it's the coveted station cos all the babes are there. My new colleagues are great too. Next working day: Sunday afternoon, training for the ticketing machine. I must wear the ugly carrot uniform!! EEKS.

I explored a small part of Vivo today. My aim is to finish exploring Vivo within one month. I shall be a Vivo directory! I met Kwek Zhenyu there today! And I made friends with one of the Candy Empire staff.

Pictures time!!


I like this picture! It's so spontaneous.


Yurong's hair is messy.


Fellowship comm!!


A01 at Chiew Yee and Qiling's party!


Birthday girls and me!


I like this photo too!


I don't know what me and Dezmand are doing.


With everybody at Chris and Lingling's wedding!


At the boardwalk.


My bikini pose! Haha.


Me and Shermin!

Credits: Last 5 photos, thanks to Lurong! I'm quite horrified to see the 13 consecutive photos of my stupid face.

I shall go Starbucks with someone soon. I don't know who yet.

Had a very good day today. I THINK I'M GOING TO LIKE MY SENTOSA JOB A LOT. Today was sort of my first official day at work! Okay actually it wasn't even working, cos it was supposed to be training, but I'm getting paid for it! What's more, today was a free tour at some of Sentosa's attractions! Fort Siloso, the new Carlsberg Sky Tower, Images of Singapore, Merlion, my dad's Animal Encounters show, and numerous bus and tram and Sentosa Express rides. So cool can?? I enjoyed myself a lot! The last time I seriously visited Sentosa's attractions was when I was 12 or 13?? The entire island is very attractive now!!

There were like 14 of us, so half of us started on the tour while the other half did the in-class modules. My group (the tour group) was pretty funky, although we were all quiet and not talking a lot. Only Vincent (our trainer) was talking, and the only person I remotely know is Vera cos we were in the same interview group. But never mind, it was still fun! All the places and attractions were a lot better than I could remember of in my childhood days. I like Images of Singapore best! The displays were very very good. And every single staff that I met there smiled back when you just catch their eye. I shall be determined to be a nice Sentosa staff too! I think Sentosa is quite a decent tourist attraction actually, except that it's quite expensive. Blee.

Haha all my fellow new part-timer collegues are either O's or A's graduates waiting for results. They're quite pleasant! Whee. Oh oh oh I got my Sentosa uniform too! I think it's quite hideous. Hahaha if I wear it I'll look like a huge carrot!! The colours are orange and green and the pants is dark olive green like my Catholic High shorts. CARROT!! WEH I'm a carrot!! It looks a bit like some road sweeper's uniform too! Gosh what in the world were they thinking when they decide to standardize such horrible carrot colours?? I like the purple one actually, but that's for people working in some other department.

But, check out the awesome name-tag!



Anyway, my job is kinda complicated. I'm part of the new Sentosa Express team (they call themselves the SEX team), and the office is at Vivo! Oh by the way, the Sentosa Express is really fast! Its official opening launch is 15th January, but we sat on it today and it's sort of like the skytrains at the airport. And you reach Sentosa in about 5 minutes from Vivo! Okay so I might be doing ticketing at one of the stations. Or I might be patrolling the station. Or I might be doing admin stuff. And I have to know the transport routes of the island and what each attraction is mostly about. No wonder we're called the Admissions Host because the job scope is so wide.

I'm in the tourism industry! YAY! Hahaha my dad's been in this for more than 20 years! I think it runs in the family, cos my dad met my mum while they were both working on Sentosa! Okay okay I got this job through my dad's application for me anyway. But I don't plan to let my new colleagues know that my dad works at Sentosa too. Not yet. I mean, we were at the Animal Encounters show today and my dad's in charge of that (but he wasn't at the show today) but I didn't tell anyone that my dad is one of the animal trainers. Except maybe Vera who knows, but she didn't say. Blah I don't like to live up to expectations la, so I hope my new SEX team bosses don't know too. And they can't stop calling me Mister Low Kuan Yew.

Haha. I think I will be going to Vivo a lot in these 2 months. Anyone going there can just give me a message! I shall explore every nook and cranny of it!

Whoo! The weekends had been a mad rush for me! I travelled a lot. Was in a million places these two days. And and, public transport is expensive! I spent $20 on transport in 2 days alone! BLEAGH okay it included a few taxi rides. But still?? It's unacceptable! I need my own personal assistant to plan my days and I need a chauffeur.

Anyway, let's start with Saturday which was yesterday! I woke up at 10am yesterday and I watched Powerpuff Girls! It was exciting okay they were fighting a huge Medusa-like monster called Sedusa (because she's female and she seduces people). Anyway, I cleaned my room some more! Until about 3pm when I went out to embark on a long and dangerous journey to Yew Tee MRT! Okay it wasn't dangerous but it took 45 minutes. Was meeting Annie there to go to Qiling's house. I haven't seen Annie in eons okay! Yep we went to buy chicken wings and marinate sauce and herbs, then walked over to Qiling's to marinate the wings! Hahaha we did it to my secret recipe again!

I think Qiling's parents are the coolest. My own parents would never let me invite my friends over to cook or prepare food, cos they think it's messy and I'll cause the stove to explode. But after marinating the chicken wings and our fingers, I went down to meet Yurong and Weiting and Dezmand to go over to Clarence's surprise party! Took the long and dangerous MRT ride with Qiling and I got off at Yishun MRT. Quite a huge mistake because they were waiting at Yio Chu Kang MRT instead!! But but, guess who I saw at Yishun MRT? I saw ELAINE!! Elaine as in my school's Elaine. AAHHH!! Haven't seen her in eons too!! Okay, at Yio Chu Kang we took a taxi down to Clarence's. His house was the first home in a long time that I've been to that has a decent herbs and spices garden! Anyway, loads of people turned up and the surprise was quite surprising. Plenty of booze, smooches and disco dancing! I can't figure out why anyone would want to go clubbing. It's foggy and loud and tiring and most of the songs have the same annoying DUM-DUM-DUM beat. But yeah, didn't really joined in much anyway cos I was tired. Going home was quite a chore, cos had to take 3 buses and try and catch the last bus for each one.

I didn't know Kenneth stayed opposite my block until 2 weeks ago. In a sense I went home with him last night, and we agreed to try and wave at each other from our windows sometime. Haha does this count as neighbours? Anyway I reached home at 12 midnight exactly, had a terrible insomnia and people messaging me all the way till 4am.

This morning, I woke up at 10.30am! Was supposed to meet Kenneth to go for service together, but not when I overslept horribly. Shi Hui came in this year's orientation red OGL shirt. I think my year's nicer!! Okay. After service I went home to dump my stuff and got my guitar out, then I went to J8 with Melanie and Biru. We met Andre and Andrew there, then we went Bishan library to borrow books!! Hahaha! I've never been there before even though it opened not too long ago. But I like the concept of it! I shall visit it again.

I left them and set out on my long and dangerous journey to Yew Tee again. Halfway along the way Annie messaged to meet her at Khatib MRT, then we went back to Ang Mo Kio MRT to meet Qiling and Chiew Yee who were buying food for the barbeque! Bought all the stuff, Annie and me walked to Qiling's aunt's condominium and sun-tanned at the pools. Then Qiling's cousin (who is a pilot and waiting to assassinate me) drove us to her house. Last minute preparations for the barbeque! I think I know Qiling's house better than she does.

The official meeting time was supposed to be 5pm at Yew Tee MRT for everyone, but at 5.10pm I called Kai Jie and he's the only one at Yew Tee MRT! So I walked over from Qiling's, expecting him to be the only one. But then Rhoda was there! And Ginny and Cheryl and Liyana arrived after! We went to buy ice and serviettes, then walked back to start the barbeque. Helped started fire, and cooked! I appointed myself the cook for the night, although I burnt millions of food. But the barbeque was good!

We saw a huge meteorite streak across the sky! It lasted too long to be a shooting star, and it had green and purple streaks as it burned up in the Earth's atmosphere. Hahaha people started wishing for good results for A's. It didn't even cross my mind! Then cakes for the birthday girls! Chiew Yee had durian cake, while Qiling got chocolate cake. Then I did my performance! By that time we've finished most of the food, hung around, then the remaining few of us went back up to Qiling's to listen to Kai Jie playing piano! Left at 10pm, and I was too tired to endure the never-ending trip back to Bishan, so I took a taxi home.

And now here am I! Uploading photos. Oh oh Chiew Yee's got a new camera which is somewhat like mine, of which I think I somehow left it in a precarious position and it fell off the table. WOOPS. My camera ran out of batt halfway through. And I just cleaned Nutseed's cage!

I've got to be at Vivo tomorrow at 10am tomorrow morning! I'm starting work at Sentosa! Okay technically tomorrow is not the actual working, cos it's training and briefing and stuff like that. I'm excited! I'm going to meet new friends tomorrow! Yurong's afraid her new friends will eat her up. Blah I think meeting new people is one of the things I enjoy most in life. What shall I wear tomorrow??

Oh oh! My left thumb is hurting. I think I scalded myself while I was barbequing this evening. I can't type properly now cos I can't press the space bar effectively. And I can't squeeze the toothpaste out! And I can't eat curry puff! WEH.

Shi Hui just messaged to tell me that the orientation walk-in and skits will be tomorrow at 8.30am! I want to go! Kai Jie's going back to NJ too. But work training is quite important and I can't really replace it. Sigh. Then Su Kai said she wants to pass me chocolates from Hokkaido tomorrow! I can't wait.

Photos here. You have to differentiate which was taken at Clarence's, and which was at Qiling and Chiew Yee's. Quite funky right? I've got 2 consecutive birthday parties in 2 nights.

Who wants to eat dinner with me at Vivo tomorrow??

YAY! Today is a happy day for me! The Sentosa management finally called me to inform that I've got the Admissions ticketing job! I'm supposed to go down to their office at Vivo on Monday for in-class training. And it's supposed to last for 2 days?? I have no idea what they can teach me for 2 full days. I mean, there's only that many ways you can operate a cash register right? I think it'll probably be one of those customer service training thing. And a basic tour on all the attractions of Sentosa. And the history of Sentosa. And who's the CEO of the Sentosa management. OH NO WHAT IF THERE'S A TEST??!! I don't want!!!

Blah anyway, I went for a walk at the market in the morning! Then when I came back home, mummy watched Cows and Crayons on TV with me. So cool right how many mothers do you know that watches shows on Kids Central with their sons?? I think my mum is weird. She thinks the Sentosa job is not safe cos she thinks that the tourism industry is hazardous. She's afraid I'll get bombed or robbed or kidnapped or something. Blee.

Okay. Then Tammy messaged me to go hang out with her at J8 cos she's got nothing to do. Khairi called to ask if I wanted to go back NJ with him cos it was CCA fair today for the orientation kids, but Tammy messaged me at an earlier time, and I've got worship practice anyway so I had to turn him down. Sorry ol' buddy. So Tammy and me walked around at J8 in circles, then we walked back to corps. At around 5pm I went for dinner with Shermin at Kopitiam! Then we came back corps for worship prac. I was leading today! Yay I felt great today. You know when there are days when you don't feel like doing anything and days when you just feel excited about something? Yar today was the exciting day. Haha!

So yup, during cell group I met a new friend! Andre brought his friend Daryl for service today. Well he happened was from Catholic High too, so there's a common point there. Haha he's a funky guy. Then Andre started talking about his orientation at VJ! And Shi Hui (who's a cool whackass OGL this year!) told me about NJ's one too! I realised I'm actually missing school quite a fair bit. It feels weird having people telling me about their orientation instead of me telling them about my orientation! Okay I'm growing old and shrivelling and withering.

Our cell group stayed in church for a while, then we migrated to the mini-mart to buy food. Daryl is a pole vaulter! I thought Singapore didn't offer that in athletics at all. But apparently they did. Hahaha I know about pole vaultings okay! Cos when I was young I've always admired those people who can take-off like 5 metres above the ground with a single pole!! It's so cool can?? And and and, do you know that there's only an exclusive group of guys who broke the 6 metre barrier in the event! And there's this Russian woman (whatever her name is) who has been dominating the pole vaulting scene for the past 2 or 3 years, and all she ever does is keep breaking her own world record?? HAHAHA!!!

OOH! I walked Shermin to the bus stop again! Bus-stop buddy!

You know, I've been thinking about my army enlistment. Somehow all my male friends around me are dreading to go in, while I'm the only idiot who is kind of looking forward to it! I'm treating it like it's some excursion!! Hahaha! You see, there are many perks! You get free food, you're paid a monthly salary, you get the occasional free lodging, you get free uniform and attire, you get free toiletries, you get concessions to a million things. That's not all! You get to fire machine guns and rocket launchers and bazookas! And throw bombs! And drive tanks and fly airplanes and ships! It's every boy's childhood dream! Ah ha I'm so ready for NS!! The government's feeding me! And ten million other freebies!! YEAH okay go join the army.

I think I'm constantly in hunger these few days. I want to eat everything! FOOD FOOD FOOD.

I've always admired people who have artistic talents. People who can either dance, act, sing, play instruments, draw and write really well! I think they're gifted people who have a unique way of presenting a message for the rest of the world. Sadly I think I excel in neither any of those aspects! Well okay okay maybe I've been trying to dance. And I've been trying to act and sing and draw and write and play instruments, but I'm not really very good in any of them. Keep trying Guan You! If I don't have sufficient talent, I can always make up for it by practising!

I enjoy watching people dance. It's quite nice watching graceful dancers in ballet performances, or traditional dances. I like hip-hop performances too! I think it's quite hard to be synchronised in beat. I think guys who play the piano are sexy (think Kai Jie). I've always wanted to learn piano but my mum didn't think of enrolling me for piano lessons when I was younger! She enrolled me for drawing classes and acting workshops!! CAN YOU BELIEVE IT?? I can't remember a single thing from those classes. According to mummy, she said I look forward to drawing classes all the time, and my drawings were not too bad. Hahaha! Okay I like drawing with crayons. Then when I was slightly older, I supposedly told my mum I wanted to be an author when I grow up. Can't remember saying that too!!

But I didn't turn out too bad I guess. Haha! I've acted on stage before okay! I was in some Total Defence performance in primary school! And I was one of the three witches in Macbeth! Had minor roles in church drama performances and whatever skits. Oh oh! I was the lead for the Aerius skit for Orientation! I was in many many minor dance performances in school too! And I do know how to play guitar! And I used to play trumpet/cornet and trombone and a little bit of euphonium okay! I know I know I know how to play the recorder!!!

Shermin made me eat ham. Daisy Lin Yurong. Chris Ngoh borrowed a book from me. Qiling and Chiew Yee happily dumped the planning of their joint birthday party onto me. Nutseed refuses to eat oranges.

I want to go back NJ! I miss the Jap stall aunties. I miss the horrible colours of the canteen. I miss the butterfly garden. I miss all the teachers and juniors. AND AND, I miss tapping my NJ tap tap card! Do you think the system still recognises me? They will, right right??

Oh oh, I forgot to blog about all the birthday messages that I sent in 2006! I meant to mention it in that end-of-last-year post, but I forgot. Anyway here it is now... For the entire of 2006, I've sent a generic birthday message to all my friends on their birthdays. So if it's your birthday and I love you enough to remember your birthday, I should have sent you a message that went something like that: "whee!! have a fun-filled, enjoyable, splendid, awesome, cool, blessed, spiffy, pretty, amazing, magnificent, hip, funky, gorgeous, groovy, merry, wild, crazy, HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!"

Hahaha I sort of decided to do this at the start of last year. You know those kind of character tests to see how different people respond to the same thing? I wanted to see what kind of replies I'll get. Well, most of my friends didn't even acknowledge the long list of adjectives! They just replied with a "thank you" in various spellings. I think spelling "thank you" as "thankew" looks/sounds quite funky!! I shall spell in that way from now on. The next common response I got was "wah your vocabulary very good!" Haha! I've got one that said "your english must have been a distinction"; one that said "how do i love thee? let me count the ways"; another one that says "i am going to have a fun-filled, enjoyable, splendid, awesome, cool, blessed, spiffy, pretty, amazing, magnificent, hip, funky, gorgeous, groovy, merry, wild, crazy, HAPPY BIRTHDAY!"; and one that started lamenting about how his birthday can't be merry because he has to study.

So, for the year 2007, I shall try experimenting with another new generic birthday message! I just sent the first one out for Chiew Yee. Yup yup happy birthday CHIEW YEE! Thanks for your fabulous friendship, for being my big sister and I'll beat you in Solitaire Showdown! Meanwhile, all you people can wait happily till it's your birthday to find out about my new birthday message!! Then reply me in a cool and funky way!!

I was just wondering. They always say life is too short for you to hold back from doing something and you must treasure your loved ones, blah blah blah. So technically speaking, there should be a situation where everyone is going sky-diving, bungee jumping, or roller-blading. Or going to see the polar bears. Or go in a submarine or a space rocket. People throwing in millions of dollars to invest in their life goals. And shouldn't there be people hugging and kissing all the time because you must treasure your loved ones? Wouldn't there be people proposing to their boyfriends or girlfriends everywhere?

So why are people afraid of going sky-diving? Why doesn't people flock by the millions to go save the penguins? Why are people afraid of confessing their love? Why are people witholding all they have to save it for a "rainy day"? I thought you only live once, so spend all your money at one go! Why are people embarrassed to give even a simple speech onstage, not when you have only one shot at life and no one will remember what you've said two million years later and you're just a small fry caught up in a gigantic universe and what you do has no impact on the cosmic scale?? Why why why can't people just shout out their love for their beloved without fear of rejection?

Just wondering. But sometimes I'm guilty of that too.

I managed to find an excuse to get out of house today. Went heartlanding at Ang Mo Kio Central with Qiling! She happened to be in that area cos she's staying over at her cousin's (who's a pilot and ready to shoot me down from his fighter jet anytime) house. We went to the library to eat! Hahaha then explored the area for the whole afternoon. I haven't been to Ang Mo Kio for quite some time now, and the entire AMK Central changed a lot a lot. It's definitely more hip now, like I didn't know there was this new row of shops hidden somewhere above somewhere. The huge and newly opened NTUC is stealing the show though, cos the crowds were monstrous and it looks quite urban. Qiling thought she was in town.

She wanted to buy whipped cream for her aunt cos she's baking a cheese cake, so we went over to NTUC and we saw whipped cream and whipping cream on display! Hahaha I've never heard of whipping cream before, and I certainly don't know what is the difference! Isn't it a bit strange? Whipped cream is understandable, cos it means cream that is pre-whipped so you don't have to whip it yourself. But what about whipping cream?? It's confusing because you expect the cream to be undergoing whipping at the very moment, but the packet of whipping cream is just one ordinary packet with no special whipper devices inside! So how can it be whipping cream??

Then a nice uncle beside us probably heard our conversation, and he explained to us that whipped cream is yar, pre-whipped cream that is available in aerosol cans only, while whipping cream is cream that you have to whip yourself and is packaged in containers (sort of like milk). So cool right? I never knew, which goes on to show that you can learn something new everyday. What in the world were those people thinking when they call it whipping cream?? Wrong use of present participles!!

That's not all. There were 2 different brands of whipping cream on sale, one was Emborg and the other was President. Both say "UHT Whipping Cream" on it, but President's one has French on it while Emborg's had some Arabic language on it. The price is also different despite the similarity in quantity; President's is more expensive.The nice uncle told us that the different packagings was actually misleading because he went to Europe and visited some dairy factory, and both brands of the whipping cream originated from the same factory! And then the cream is simply shipped to the two different companies' factories to be packaged!



See! Look at the difference in price! Almost a dollar okay! My guess is that it's because President is a French food processing company while Emborg has its headquarters somewhere in the Middle East. But who cares? It's the marketing and economics that intrigues me. Don't you just love a conspiracy??

I wish something exciting will happen in my life. I want adventures! I want to go cave exploring and scaling mountains and trek jungles and canoe in rivers. I want to go find hidden treasures and unravel mysteries and investigate all the unsolved riddles! That's exciting! Or I want to rescue someone from a dangerous situation and help someone in desperate need and save someone from a danger! Yay yay!!

I think I want to do a million stupid, nonsensical things, but nobody wants to be my stupid partner-in-crime. I have boring and un-interesting friends.

Somehow the more I think of it, the more I'm having second thoughts about it. Oh gosh. This can't be happening.

This entry is going to become quite emo soon! Okay.


A little boy wearing a Spongebob shirt, and Qiling's fingers.