Walk, walk a mile
in your neighbour's shoes
Walk a mile, walk a mile
in your neighbour's shoes
Walk, walk a mile
Walk a mile in your neighbour's shoes...

You'll understand them better if you do.

Repeat one million times.


I think that's all there is to say. 'Night!

Dear diary,

I am beginning to wonder if happiness is inborn. Is there a gene for happiness? Aer some people simply born to have a higher tendency for happiness than others?

If you were me, and had everything I have, would you be happy? Or would the mundanity of it all dampen your spirits? Would you still have the energy to smile at the one who frustrates you... or would you swallow your misery and have it churn within you, escalating from a dull ache to a constant throbbing like a bad tummy cramp?

If I were you, would I be happy? Or would I struggle and drown in my tears because the world is not as beautiful as I believe it should be? Would the silver lining in the dark clouds glint at me as they do now... or would the downpour leave me cold and shivering, feeling betrayed and hurt that the sun shines not for me?

If I share with you my reality, my perspectives, my world, would it make you happier?

I don't know. There hasn't been anyone else I know that is like me enough for me to judge. No one at all.

Could it not be possible to be yourself.. and still feel that warm glow of contentment and gratefulness within you, intricately woven into your very being?

Could it, could it, could it...

Is moving... she thinks. Or at any rate, moving when she really gets her butt down to designing a new blog page and everything.

Not that it is easy to write anymore--and it's not because a civil servant cannot blog, but more like there is nothing exciting to blog about. So maybe I won't move after all. Why waste a perfectly good site right?

To summarise the past twenty months or so that you have missed me (or not): I wake up, I wash up, I work, I return home, I watch tv, I surf the web, I sleep.

There you have it. You haven't missed too much :)

Am on ABBA-high! There's an Abba disc at home and another in my dad's car so I get to hear them every day =D They're so full of happy fuzz, it's irresistable :D

Here's one of their slower pieces that I'm quite fond of-- in an attempt to localise this for my mum my dad calls it "jit eh guitar" ("one guitar" in Hokkien -_-)

Chiquitita, tell me the truth
I'm a shoulder you can cry on
Your best friend, I'm the one you must rely on
You were always sure of yourself
Now I see you've broken a feather
I hope we can patch it up together

Chiquitita, you and I know
How the heartaches come and they go and
the scars they're leaving
You'll be dancing once again and the pain will end
You will have no time for grieving
Chiquitita, you and I cry
But the sun is still in the sky and shining above you
Let me hear you sing once more like you did before
Sing a new song, Chiquitita
Try once more like you did before
Sing a new song, Chiquitita

I miss Lit because it forces me to feel. Yah and that includes sobbing like a nut over an essay because I'm stuck at 500 words at 3am and have 1,500 more words to go.

*shudder* The thought still creeps me out but I kept doing that to myself somehow. Year 4 Sem 1 was a nightmare, yet year 4 sem 2 pretty much redeemed it all--I hadn't expected to find a new group of friends in lit-- but there they were, right at the end of my 4 academic years in NUS. And I'm very glad for them.

Okay that was really quite a belated thought. But since I've never really mentioned that before I thought I should :)

- - - - - - -

And you know. Strangely enough I feel like HR suits me more than writing and research ever will. From the point of view of the Lit Student it's very tragic in some ways, but I could not have written myself a living, nor live and die by my art... frankly because I do not feel enough for anything at all to be able to produce deserving works.

It's getting harder to write-- I don't know who I'm writing for, and I daren't know more.

because I like nostalgic stuff packed with warm fuzzy feeling...

My top three to-buy shows for the next few months:

- The Gay Divorcee (1934), or any other Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers musicals
- Ninotchka (1939), by Ernst Lubitsch, staring Greta Garbo
- To Be or Not To Be (1942), by Ernst Lubitsch, staring Carole Lombard

I can't find them anywhere =( I've got a bad feeling only NUS library has them, and alas, I am no longer a student =( WHY don't they sell black-and-white classics with brilliant banter in stores at all? Roar.

I think I might also like the BBC TV series of Pride and Prejudice, and the later version with Keira Knightly, too. It's easier to locate them, but I'm still pining for my top three buys. I don't even know if they come in DVDs. Maybe they sell them in LDs or tapes or something =(

Would also like to own Speaker for the Dead by Orson Scott Card, and Diana Wynne Jones's Archer's Goon. And Dan Simmons's Olympus. My top three book treats should I ever locate them in stores :D And thereafter The Amber Spyglass by Philip Pullman to complete my His Dark Materials collection.

On my list of further readings:
- Foe by J.M. Coetzee, or any other book by the same author besides Age of Iron, which I already own
- Any Margaret Atwood book excluding The Handmaid's Tale
- Playful Phoenix: Women Write for the Singapore Stage (1996)
- Lit-crit texts on Diana Wynne Jones :D

Looks like a decent list for now :D I'm really quite starving for my lit and film texts. I've got a ridiculous urge to take a day off to shop in the old textbooks section of the NUS Co-op :P Or smuggle myself into the library and flout DVD copyright rules. *eyes gleam* Ahahaha.

Okay I better shut up before I get myself arrested for announcing my probably unfulfillable intentions.

"You've lost weight" is a good thing once in a long while, but after having heard it being repeated by the same people for the nth time I'm beginning to wonder...

Was I really tubby or something before this?

If I was not explicit enough,

WAH LAO enough is enough, please get this over and done with. We've all said our piece, now can we please make up and move on together, for the greater good of all?

I don't want to lose anyone because of this. And you don't know--all of you-- what you are close to losing... or may have lost already.

And no more comments people. I have no wish to hear from you, and if anyone wants to 打架 I will personally slap them myself.

I think I would like to say, with utmost sincerity and niceness, the same thing to the parents and the younger siblings. If you've ever loved one another at all, enough for it to hurt so bleeding much, then for heaven's sake remember that the opposite party has feelings too, feelings like yours, so think twice before holding them in your hands and smashing them hard against the floor.

It's damn hard to pick up the pieces, okay. And harder to piece them together, bit by bit, and harder even to pretend that the cracks never existed.

Thank you to the dear dear people picking up the pieces all these while.

I'm really, really sorry

for having to cancel on everyone.


Even if saying this doesn't make a difference anyhow.

Better safe than sorry?

*emptying pencil box*

Dad: What're you doing?
Me: Taking out my pen knife. Can't carry sharp objects. Invite card says it's a security threat, apparently.
Dad: *mock incredulity* So you gotta file your pointed teeth too, eh?
*Mum chokes on her drink in silent laughter*
Me: *exasperation* You can't hurt people with pointy teeth lar!
Dad: You could bite them, ahahahaha. Precautions, you know.

The thing about ABCs

Disclaimer: All acronyms in the following story are largely made up. Due to the Highly Secret nature of my work I am Not Allowed to type the Real Stuff.

*pause*

Okay lar actually I don't remember the Real Stuff. :D


___________________________________


Supervisor: "Charmaine, can you do me a favour? Help me call up J and clarify this email for me, can you? Help me find out what she meant by "changes"-- does she mean currently some of the BOGs go under the SOTs, excluding BCEs, but subsequently all SOTs are going to be taken as BOGs whether or not they have BCEs or EGFs under them?"

My eyes glaze over.

Supervisor: "Charmaine? Do you understand what I'm saying?"

...........

I ring up said person.

"Hi! This is Charmaine-- I want to enquire about the-- ah-- the email on the SOTs."

Nice Friendly Lady: "Oh, that! Yeah we got a few enquiries about that. See, what we meant is basically that all TYs go under the PAT scheme, but while formerly only the HGs were grouped under the BIT, from now onwards the ECGs will be grouped under BIT as well. That is, whether they are BIs or TOs."

Me: *stares disbelievingly at cubicle wall, pen hovering over notebook* What?
"So uh. All ECGs are now... under BIT."

Nice Friendly Lady: "Yes, that's it. Applies to BIs and TOs as well. Of course we have people asking us about EPTs--Do you guys have problems with the EPT portion of the HWE? The HWE is--"

Me: *hurriedly* "Uh, I'll check with my supervisor about that one. Actually I wanted to ask about the-- uh-- *checks notebook* Annual-Well-being Survey. AWS, that is. Uh, with regards to the *checks notebook* Junior Officers-- I mean, the JOs."

Nice Friendly Lady: "Ah, that... *begins to launch into explanation, then pauses* Oh-- hang on. You're new to this, aren't you?"

(It shows? Oh yes-- I wasn't conversing with alphabets.)

Nice Friendly Lady: *sympathetically* "Then probably I oughta give you a background on the AWS, too, because it wasn't formerly part of the BOG."

Me: *flustered* "It's okay! We'll just settle the ay-dubble-liew-ess bit and then I'll let you know if I need anything else!"

________________________________________________________


Seriously. Talk about code-speak. I promise you, they're freaking efficient with words in Ministries-- conversation time is probably shortened by half at the rate that two-syllable words are reduced to single alphabets.

I need more prose in my life. Haha.

In the mail:

I LOVE MY JOB PHOTO CONTEST

To qualify, simply describe & send us a picture of yourself at your workstation, in your office, together with your office mates or whatever portrays why you "Love Your Job!"

-mildly amused-

I think I can't possibly take a picture with any of my office mates until Sunday mid next month :P

high strung

... and when she knew not what not to write, she thought perhaps she oughtn't write at all...

Irrelevant

Why doesn't blogger have a entry password protect function? Roar.

Never mind, I shall create my own. Behold the privacy of a password protected entry!

-----
This post is password protected. To view it please enter your password below:

Password:

( _________ )

[Submit]
------

So I have my arms wrapped around my bear bear (embracing Sunshine, literally! Isn't that such a sweet thought? ^_^) as I type this entry, and as words and thoughts flow I'm watching and waiting to see where they lead me.

It feels strange to be out every day, but I've done it so frequently these days-- more frequent than I have ever done in all my life thus far, I daresay-- that I find I almost cannot stop. It's clinging on to the last vestiges of everything I've loved and stretching each moment to its maximum... down to every photograph and every comment that keeps me up till 3 at night, just re-living real moments re-captured in virtual reality.

Will I start missing everything with a vengeance once I do grind to a halt? I'm making more outing promises than I ought--my parents have yet to see me at home before 11pm for two consecutive days ever since June began.

Yet meeting Reso and the sisters, the SC girls and Gill and Agl and Wenyi--they are somehow deeply crucial to me. It's almost a wilful relishing of the belief that I need not lose all these in whatever is to come, that a change in lifestyle with the omnipresence of work will not swing my life anywhere else, will not take away my freedom to luxuriate in the presence of who and what I love.

I haven't even begun to wonder what comes next. Today, here, and now, is where I want to be,for as long as I can. And I will live tomorrow when it comes, but not before, not yet.

And thus is each day spent.

The Post-VOIII High...

... is really quite apparent on Facebook:


In other news, Reso members have once again proven that food is the greatest carrot you can dangle:

From Charm(s): "if a large percentage of people report attendance [for the debriefing], we will consider getting ice cream. :D so people, report attendance now! :D "


We don't usually see people replying this efficiently :P

Post VOIII

I feel very very very blessed :) There is just no place to begin. It did go well after all, VOIII, with so much fervent praying, and I'm so so so very grateful.

All you infectious, crazy, dedicated, lovable, noisy Reso people-- I love you all :) Thank you for weaving such fond memories with each performance we have, thank you for such a beautifully dazzling VOIII, from its very humble unsure wonky beginnings to the stunning performance last night. It's hard not to fall in love with Reso over and over again with people like all of you :)

There's no group I'm ever prouder of being a part of. Thank you, my dears, for being part of it with me.

Go Reso! :)

COME FOR VOCAL OBSESSION III!

Because we all really put in loads of effort for this,
Because we have really zai groups on zai arrangements,
Because the songs we're gonna sing are probably songs that you know and will love to relive, too,
Because it's gonna be bigger and livelier and better than ever...

Endless becauses.

And also because you're gonna make me a very happy person if you do come =)