Chuck Fuck Marry

Another shisha session today at my beloved Turkish cafe. Flavor of the day- Peach Mint. Delicious, fruity sweet but not too sickeningly so and the mint helps to soothe the throat. Sometimes the tobacco inhaled will be too drying and exhausts your throat. During the 2 hours puffing away, my friends and I got bored. So, someone introduced a game to us. Chuck Fuck Marry

The rules of the game:

Name 3 people everyone is familiar with.
(Celebrities are a given. Common friends are fair game too.)

Out of this 3 people,
choose 1 you would Marry,
another 1 you would Fuck (just for the sake of it or simply because the person is too hot),
and the last 1 to Chuck(meaning dump it).

Have fun making up several lists and be surprised to hear some of the choices your friends will make. We made up a few lists with expected names. Angelina Jolie (duh) Brad Pitt Clive Owen Pierce Bosman Robert De Niro ( God. He is so hot, especially in his younger days. Swooning. ) Jessica Alba Even that guy from Transporter I, II, III. ( Yes, some of us have a thing for sexy bald guys.) And the list goes on..

So an example would be: 1.Robert De Niro- Marry 2.Sexy bald guy from Transporter- Fuck 3.Brad Pitt- Sorry baby. I'm going to Chuck you. I like the other 2 better and you come in behind them. We even made up a few lists consisting of some local celebrities. Allen Wu Rui En ( All agreed without hesitation she's the cool girl we'd all f---) Felicia Chin ( Chuck without a doubt. Talk about a ) The 7 newbie princesses are naturally included in the debate then. And some more lists of common friends or people we know. I'm not going to name names here. Don't be so freaked out, people. But a general pattern occurred here.. We would never choose to marry our ex-es. It just simply will not do. It ended right? So no looking back down that lane. The only way is forward. That fear of screwing up once again is deeply instilled within us. But we had a bloody good time making up the lists and dissing each others' choices. What!? I can't believe you think a bald guy... Note: The names of friends and outcomes of the game are advised to be kept confidential. Shall any harm belay you in the course of leaking the names and results out, you and solely you alone shall bear full responsibility. No compensations will be made to you.

List of Things to Do When Taking Care of GM

How to take care of one sick grandma(GM):

1. pack an overnight bag with lots of mandarin DVDs (or in any other dialects she understands) and some snacks for yourself.

2.hide all snacks or stash any other food high in sugar and sodium content far from the reach of GM.

3.convince GM to go through blood glucose and blood pressure measurements 3 times a day.

4.drink some water to rehydrate yourself.

5.convince GM to eat countless pills prescribed by doctors 7 times a day.

6.Rehydrate again. Caught GM eating chili soaked in dark soy sauce. Stopped her.

7.pamper and shower GM with affectionate hugs and words. Remember, she is the queen here.


I'm currently staying with my grandma for a few days. She's the woman who is sick and hates that fact. So, my brother and I are taking turns to stay with her to make sure she eats her pills and monitor her diet.

But guilt aside, try to make it as lively and light-hearted as possible. After all, what use is there if we are all solemn faced and dwelling only on the bad bits?

Just see what life throws at you and whether with a smile or not, you'll still have to deal with it.
So I say, why not with a smile?

Who Changed? You Or Me?

As I were in bed trying to get to sleep (but failed to), a number of my suppressed childhood memories came to me.

One that stood out in particular was the day I was really mad at my dad and threw a tantrum. This occurred during one of the Saturdays when I had to return to school for special (bullshit, more like it) Creative Writing classes for the elite students during my Primary 5 school year. My dad had agreed to send me to school after his morning meeting. So he kissed me goodbye on the cheeks that morning before he left for his short meeting and told me he would send me to school right on time. But of course, he never did.

Insert note here: In case some of you were not aware, it was true that I used to be one of those anxious students. You know the type- getting to classes at least ten minutes ahead of the appointed time, laying out the stationary on the desk, eagerly awaiting for the Oh Grand Master's arrival and salivating for the preaching (latest math formulas, literature essays to analyze..) to come. Yes, I was one of those anal ones.

Anyway, on that morning 20 minutes before class, I was already dressed for school, hair up in a neat tight ponytail, shoes clean and spotless and my bag packed with all the necessities to combat creative writing, and standing at the side of the road where my dad was supposed to pick me up at. Ten minutes before my class was starting, no sign of my dad nor his car. I dialed his cell. He didn't pick up. Ten minutes later when the class has already begun, still no sign of him nor his car. Damn.

I was freaking out by then and was dialing his cell incessantly. He finally picked up and told me he was reaching soon and to wait for him. I breathed out a loud sigh of relief. I continued standing my guard at the side of the road, ignoring all the taxis that slowed down upon approaching me.

A freaking half an hour later, there I was, hyperventilating in anger by the side of the road. I was so angry that I ran back home and there, my poor mother attempted to curb my tears and rage.

My dad finally reached 45 minutes after my class had begun and my mother had to practically drag me to the car to get me to go to school. I did not want to show up to class an hour late, so I reasoned that I would report sick. But they refused to hear of it. They both belonged to the school of thought- better late than never.

I did showed up in class later with a few crumpled Kleenexes in my hands,wet eyes and a very red nose. To my mortification, the ang mo teacher did not reprimand me and instead sat me down to continue a very enjoyable lesson on visualizing your story characters.

From this point on, I'm not going to go into one of those expected soppy Mum, Dad. Thank you for this demonstration of sturdiness in character and from that day on, I did turned out to be one of those morally upright citizens and displayed perseverance regardless and going on to reap the goodness from all these. Because this is not really true. I did not turned out that way.

Instead, fast forward to the present day.

Today, I was supposed to meet a friend at 10am but changed it to 11am. I woke up at 10.30am,called my friend to change the lunch appointment to 1pm. At 1pm, I was still trying to decide what to wear. After several outfit changes and finally one deemed appropriate, I met my lunch date at 2.20pm.

So, the irony of our lives.

After the internal comparison of me when I was a child (super uptight, punctual twat) and the present me (Super laid back, unruffled, late twat), it occurred to me that anybody can change. For better or worse. A drastic or mild change. It all just takes time.

Give anybody ten years. Observe their habits and learn their beliefs and values. Plot out the gradual changes over a span of ten years, and you'll realise that all these gradual changes eventually add up. The person you once thought you knew so intimately has transform into someone else, or a stranger. Someone you used to smugly believe you know everything about had, to your horrified surprise and dismay, transformed into one of those people you could not stand.

Or is it just you who has changed instead?

Maybe, just maybe.

Ten years down the road or better yet, give it five years. One of those days, you'll look in the mirror and maybe you'll go who is that I see?

Sulking and Crying

Everyone has a temper right?
A side to them they are not readily going to gush to their friends and family about right?

I'm ashamed to say so, but I'm going to admit on record now I'm actually not as angelic and tolerant as how I want people to believe and think of me as. My attempts at portraying a calm and composed front usually do not betrayed the fact that underneath the thinly-veiled surface, were all these roaring cacophony of thoughts and conflicting emotions ringing constantly within my head.

Sometimes, I think I'm going crazy. So I do what I can to help myself.

I sulk.

I love sulking.

Sulking is like second nature to me at times. And I only allowed it to show behind the safety of my closed doors. I pout my lips, bite it till it's swollen, tension puckering my forehead, do a little stomping exercise with my feet and sometimes grumbled to my stuffed bears. I don't do the throwing of things around act, as the cleaning up is really too much of a hassle to do later. (I can never comprehend people who throw plates around and then have to go to Takashimaya to get a new set.)

Sometimes, I'll burst into tears even. I can't help it.I have to vent it out somehow right?

Plus, I swear my tear ducts seemed to be lacking an off button now. Somehow, one way or another, the tears just start welling up and I try so hard to stop them by thinking about puppies or the hundred uses for Vaseline, the 100% pure petroleum jelly (1.apply on minor cuts or burns 2.use to tame flyaway hair 3.tame unruly eyebrows 4...). But they always come eventually, even if I stop them midway after a tear or two had glided down my cheeks, they returned to me later in the night.

And it's ridiculous now.

For no apparent reason, I felt like crying and yelling when I was biting into my Top chocolate bar the other day. I had to suck it up and focused all my attention on the crunchy bits of my choc bar and tried to memorize the exact shape so that if you get me to replicate it now, I am able to sketch it out for you immediately. It finally stopped after I convinced myself that throwing a fit in the parking lot of my school is just going to gain me the reputation of a nutty recluse who yelled at her choc bar and stomped on it later.

So, I walked myself over to Little India and sat down in one of those dirty greasy unnamed Indian coffee shops and ordered a cup of tea. Amongst the blustering crowd and loud incomprehensible Hindi music in the background, I finally found calm and quiet in myself. The nice Indian man with his indecipherable accent at the counter even taught me what a vadai was and how to cook and eat it.

So, I was thinking. Maybe this is the new cure for my temper and emotional turmoils?


Dear friends, please note that these are not frequent occurrences. I have not be able to lay a finger on the exact cause but am feeling better since the last incident. So there is no cause for you to feel alarmed that I am displaying schizophrenic-like behavior here.

She Is The Woman

She is the woman who brought my mother into her family and provided her with a roof and hot food after my mother was given away by her own mother.

She is the woman who remained true to her heart and devoted herself to one man, regardless of what other people said of her 'marriage status'.

She is the woman who continued to believe in and remained with the same man even when he was down and broke. She is the lover who pawned her jewelry and valuables to help.

She is the woman who sneaked sweets into my hands and told me I was pretty in my red dress during my growing years.

She is the woman who told me everything will turn out fine in life and to just give it time, when I was crying into her lap after my first heartbreak.

She is the woman who taught me and my mother to cook. Instructions were shown to my mother in her kitchen and told over the phone to me. In this way, she taught me to cook my first omelet with spiced sardines.

She is the woman everyone called the kick-ass hot babe in her days. Wolf- whistles.


She is the woman who had by now, checked into the hospital and left it countless times. Each visit the doctors (with different names but yet they are somehow all the same) used words like deteriorating...heart bypass... surgery... damaged organs.

She is the woman who I visited on Thursday to attend her grandson's first month birthday alongside with her and watched as she beamed down proudly at her grandson in my arms. I'm pretty sure my heart was not the only one constricting as I watched her struggle to carry the baby but could not.

She is the woman, despite all the turmoils and destitution life threw at her, held on with dignity, elegance and ounces of charm.

She is the woman who is a daughter, mother, wife and grandmother. But she is also a friend, a confidante, a companion, a pillar, a muse and hope to all whose lives she had touched.

She is the woman who we all loved and little girls hope to be one day.

And which woman are you?




(Thanks to SomethingStickyThisWay for the inspiration, i am the girl, for this post. )

Pleasure Derived.

Just spent some time reflecting on what I've accomplished today and I realized... absolutely nothing.

But isn't is great when you have days like these? When you can just idle around, puff on shisha the whole afternoon, chat with your friends and enjoy a cup or two of piping hot teh tarik?

Even when you know that you have a whole pile of shit waiting for you to clear, and tens of thousands of pages of notes for you to read through, and all the areas and points of the possible exam questions (given the seemingly intellectual guesses you've made) quivering in anticipation for you to mark them out with one of those shockingly disgusting neon-color highlighters?

Yes.

I love days like these. After all, how can one truly enjoy idleness without the pleasure of knowing there's more work to be done yet but one has the option of choosing to stick work up another day's arse or to simply procrastinate?

I know the work and the exams are inevitable and the deadlines are closing in on me. Undecidedly fortunate or not for me, my guilt and panic alert for my various overindulgence have not kicked in yet.

So for now, I'll choose to simply kick back my shoes and bury myself under the bed covers with a copy of Jane Bowles' Plain Pleasures.

After Long Silence

Speech after long silence; it is right,
All other lovers being estranged or dead,
Unfriendly lamplight hid under its shade,
The curtains drawn upon unfriendly night,
That we descant and yet again descant
Upon the supreme theme of Art and Song:
Bodily decrepitude is wisdom; young
We loved each other and were ignorant.

W.B Yeats

Yeats had said it all.
Everything that I've ever felt and wanted to say but did not.

My Other Love

No matter what anyone else says, this is the best combination ever. Poppadums and spicy mango chutney.

For those who have no idea what a Poppadum (or Papad) is, it's a thin Indian wafer that is usually made up of lentil or chickpea flour and can be flavored with various seasonings like black pepper, chili or garlic. It's served with dips, chutneys, and other condiments or even as a snack by itself.

But what interest me was the fact that it gives women in India some form of financial independence. The production of snacks such as Poppadums and prickles provide these women with regular income given that it has only a low start up cost. This is a lucrative business.

In fact, business is so good for them that a well known organization, Shri Mahila Griha Udyog Lijjat Papad which is run solely by Indian women, now has an annual income of around US$80 million dollars! They produced papads like these and sell each packet for only around US$1. Is that not impressive or what?

Okay, 'nuff said. Excuse me now while I go munch on more of these delicious poppadums dipped in the mango chutney I got from Mustafa (for only S$2.80!).

Babies and More Babies

Elegant cocktails, grown-ups making polite conversation, nice babysitters around and soft soothing music in the background. Preferably a jazz piece by Stacey Kent or Ella even. That is my idea of a good celebration in honor of a baby's first month birthday. But of course, in reality it never works out to be the way you want it to be right?

*Smack head* Of course not. Instead, what I went through today was utterly horrifying.

It was my cousin's second baby's 1st month celebration today. So, we brought the necessary gifts and cheery smiles plastered on our faces. When we were about 2 doors away from my cousin's place, I thought I heard a sea seal wailing. (zoo experience) But no! To my horror, when I stepped into the flat, I saw this tiny pun of a baby in this woman's arms and she was the wailing sea seal. Oh My Lord.

I did recovered soon enough to greet my cousin and his wife and congratulated them on their newborn daughter though. Turned out the wailing sea seal was not their baby, but their friend's instead. Whew.

But then, when I was making the rounds with a plastic plate of catered food in my hands, I noticed something really odd.

^This is the star of the day
.

And now, let's play a game of spot the missing babies.

I am not kidding you.

There were more babies that I didn't manage to shoot a picture of. And a few other pregnant women.

I had to go to the corridor to get a breather after lasting all of 10 minutes in that tiny confined flat.

I loved kids. I really do. But I think I'll love them even more when they come in single numbers (like 1 or 2) and are at least 18 years of age.

At least judging from this scene, I can tell that Singapore's government, the PAP will not have to fret much longer about the issue of procreation in its nation. I'm pretty sure that its people are doing the best they can to push more babies out and meet the ideal fertility rate of 2.1 children per woman asap.

Back To The Old Days..造句

Came across this in the Chinese newspapers today.
It's an exchange between some Chinese students and the teachers who graded their work.
The students were required to form a sentence using the given terms, also known to all Chinese students who've previously studied in Singapore as 造句. And here is a short list of what they came up with.
*Note: I almost sprouted tea out of my nose when I was reading no.3. You've been warned.


1。原来

小朋友写： 原来他是我爸爸。
老师评语： 妈妈关切一下。

2。你看

小朋友写： 你看什么看！没看过啊？
老师评语： 老师真的没看过。

3。别人都夸我。。。。其实我。。。

小朋友写： 别人都夸我很帅，其实我是戴面具的。
老师评语： 什么面具这么好用？

4。其中

小朋友写： 我的其中一只右脚受伤了。
老师评语： 你是蜈蚣吗？

Back from Doraemon Land

Just went to Malaysia for a quick dinner and a pop by to Tesco, one of the lastest 'malls' (I used this term loosely. It's not so much of a mall than a tiny 3 levels-high garage.) to emerge within Malaysia.

Saw this huge ass Doraemon. It's so adorable. It towered over by me (1.65m) by at least 2 heads. I could not resist taking a photo without my arms wrapped around its tummy too.

Milk It

Argh.. Bliss. I sit here in harmony with the Mother Earth, Nature and the Universe as I sipped my well- earned masala tea. This is part of my daily routine now. After I get out of bed in the afternoons, I would groggily move my arse over to the kitchen to brew some masala tea. The enticing scent of spices and sweet dark muscovado sugar from the tea alone will be an incentive for me to not laze around in my bed. So, in the kitchen, I would set the kettle on the stove and proceed with the usual of scooping out just the right amount of tea, spices and sugar into my exquisitely beautiful tea cup. I waited around for a bit, manhandled the papers a little, stoned in my seat for a little while more- then the bloody kettle finally whistles! I leapt out of my seat, poured the boiling water into my teacup and walked over to the refrigerator to take out some milk.

But something is different on this day. My hand was stretched into the fridge, seeking for the tin of milk that I would then gleefully and liberally empty into my tea, but my hand reached naught, nothingness.

Where the hell is my sweet milk?!?!

I doubled-checked, bending down to peer daftly right into the fridge and moving other items around to make sure that my milk is not hiding behind the bottle of kaya spread or that pack of cheese. But I still see no signs of my milk. Uh-oh. Okay, calm down. There's another tin in the larder.

Bear in mind that the whole time I was wasting away these precious minutes, my tea was sitting on the counter getting cold.

But I couldn't find any milk in the larder as well. Nor in the cupboards. I had just encountered the impossible in my house. We ran out of milk! The last time this occurred was probably at least 3 years back, when my mother ran out of milk to cook her curry and interrupted me from a very important PS2 game to send me on an errand to buy some.

And I'm not going to settle for masala without milk. So what I did next was to dash back into my room, changed out of my $5 Hello Kitty PJ's, took the essentials and ran down to the ah- pek's store at the next block. I'm determined to get my milk!

I could have dash back in record time, only stopping to receive the change from the ah-pek. But ah- ma was like aiyo.this is not the milk to brew tea la.it's this one. take this.take this. And she kept insisting on it until ah-pek asked her to back off from the xiao mei mei (me). Snigger snigger.

So here I am, sitting in front of my desk now with my tea. With milk in it. It's lukewarm, but I'll survive.

This entry has absolutely no point or objective whatsoever. It's just for me to ramble on about the injustice of running out of milk when you really really need it.

Don't Eat and Shit At Favorite Gym

A close friend of mine once told me not to eat and shit at one's workplace. For those who have no idea what I'm referring to, it means that one simply does not date your colleagues or even engage in any extracurricular activities with said c's or affiliated people from work. Mixing your work life and personal life will be hell.

So, I've been following this piece of advise faithfully. Considering the fact that I used to be a part-time tutor and wine consultant and my only options are either the divorced dads of my students or the sleazebags at the wine shops, I don't really have much difficulty resisting them.

However, what's the golden rule when it comes to your favorite workout spot?

I loved my gym ever since I joined it a few months back and discovered that it is a gym where one actually has the option of working out in your raggediest- looking clothes and no one will judge you or throw you a dirty/sympathetic look if you can't complete a 100 push ups at a go. (Have you ever seen the people at Fitness First, Orchard? They looked like they only ever owned Stella McCartney's workout clothes.) But that's not the point here.

The point is, there are a lot of hot guys with toned and absolutely lust-worthy bodies at my gym. And they are very generous with dispensing tips on toning various parts of your body- the calf, biceps, forearms, back muscles.. Some will offer to discuss the pros and cons of certain exercises over dinner and more than one had offered to pace me while jogging outdoors. (I politely declined with the excuse that I loved running alone without distractions but the comeback was that he'll pace me by running behind me instead.???)

I need to state now that I don't discriminate against hooking up at the gym.

I've heard a lot about people meeting their soul mates at the gym. They totally bonded over the leg flexing machines and the water cooler talking about the size of their calf muscles.

Oh heck it. What the hell am I doing still talking about this and not doing anything about it? The people at the gym are just HOT. Am I mad to say no?

But after much pondering and consideration (and even soul-searching within my shallow self), I figured it's just not worth it. Isn't it going to be extremely awkward to bump into him if it doesn't work out after all? It helps if they decide to void their membership at said gym after a few bad dates but what about the trainer there? (Yes, he was one of the two to offer to 'pace' me.) He is certainly going to be a fixture there.

And I'm not going to refund my membership!!
I know I'll be totally self- conscious around them later.
And I can't afford to be distracted by previous bad dates when I'm pushing weights/ running on the treadmill!

So, as hot as he is and as impressed as I am with his martial arts training (Aikido, Thai boxing, Taekwondo and Karate), I'm going to have to decline. I still favored being able to dress in my $2 T-shirt and FBT shorts at a gem of a gym over the hot dudes.

I've Said My Peace

I just had one of the most frankful conversations I ever had with my parents. This may sound like a big statement in itself and it's supposed to be liberating and rewarding. And it is in some sense but not for the most part.

After weeks of attempts to skirt and evade a sensitive topic and shove it into a wardrobe, it seemed that it did not hold well at all. Rather, the accusations, certain treasured secrets and exposure of lies and deceit burst right out and slammed us in our smug faces.

Defeated and worn down, we finally stopped pretending that everything was okay. And we got to the topic at hand- K, my ex- girlfriend and I.

This was never an easy relationship to begin. At the back of my mind, I knew that it may inevitably end up badly and everyone will be miserable. But I was (am) young, willing to believe and was selfish enough to desire and pursue after, despite.

After my family found out about our relationship and several chaos followed after, involving what seems like to be an illicit love affair and strong (aggressive even) objections from my family, we really broke it off for good. It was an amicable but very painful breakup. And to add to that, I had lost my family's trust and faith in me. I made certain decisions then that I was not proud of and now I do have to deal with the ramifications.

My parents are still convinced that it was impossible for me to ever want another girl. I had never in my life shown signs of it or proclaimed to be one. (In fact, I am especially fond of male eye candies but that's a different story for another day.)

However, unbeknown to them or most of my close ones, I had formed my own set of values and beliefs since an impressionable age. I had carefully aligned the importance of gender on the same page as skin colors, family lineages, hair colors even, for reference to any future partners and friends likewise.

Instead, thoughts like: "Are they sweet and funny? Strong-willed and determined? Do they prefer lemon curd or strawberry jam?" mattered much more to me. (I know this may sound all mushy and girly but it's always been this way for me and nothing else.)

I chose to believe that gender itself is secondary only to the really important factors that I based on choosing a partner.

I chose to fall in love with the person itself. Not restricted to which side of the gene pool they fall into, be it XY or XX.

I chose not to stick a label on myself,be it a lesbian or bisexual or even very confused person.

When this ideology of mine was revealed to my parents tonight, they seemed outrageously shocked. It seemed like an unspoken betrayal on my part that I had not inherited either the strict and rigid self-discipline from my militant father or the gentle disposition on my mother's side, and instead I had this.

It is a battle everyday to hold on to my own set of beliefs and not caved in to normalcy.

Regardless, that was still my first. The first time when attraction, laughter, confusion, absolution, desire, exhilaration and despair all mingled and bought to me within a single person.

It may have ended too soon for us as lovers but I believe it is not too late for us to be friends still.

Hellish Running Buddy II

Went for a short run with Poyo again.

Hilarious.

Intellectual Exchanges

This is the usual exchange I have with my friends on MSN conversations. Last night, with A.

A: I'm so tired.

Me: What did you do?

A: I cleaned my toilet for an hour.

Me: An hour? What?! I spent only 5 minutes doing the exact same thing you did.

A: That's why my toilet is spanking clean, unlike yours. How did you clean your toilet?

Me: I just rinse it over with the shower head and just scrub around inside the toilet bowl without peeking with my toilet brush(is that what you call it?).

A: See? That's not clean enough. I stripped down to nothing and just got on my knees to wash the toilet.

Me: Yeah. I do that sometimes too. Since we're already dirty, might as well just wash our toilets in the buff then bathe after.

Pause.

Me: Do you think everyone is secretly doing the same thing?

A: Maybe...


And off we go, discussing the various approaches, products and time one can spend on eliminating the germs in our sacred sanctuary and keeping it spanking clean. They are after all, part of the numerous settings where we females prim and tweak (and shave) in private.And we clean them up in the buff.

Random Notes

Gawd. I hate exams.
Look at what they made me become. I'm a cue card-notetaker now.
Am never going to forgive myself.




Okay. I know. It's an exaggeration. It's just that I can't bear the thought of sitting down at my desk to produce even more of these to prep for my exams.
And I know, I know. My handwriting is very awful. I've heard that a million times already. So stop harping on about it.

Oh, by the way, these notes are on the topic Unemployment in Macroeconomics. Apparently, this is all one needs to know about unemployment. Hooray!

The Love of My Life Since I Was Ten.

Laura Fygi is coming to take part in a Singapore production in November!!!!


She'll be in the musical comedy Victor/Victoria, starring as the lead Victoria Grant- "A woman pretending to be a man pretending to be a woman".

The show opens with how Victoria is struggling with food and rent and is even resorting to put bugs in her meals at cafes to get a free meal. With a twist of fate, after standing up for her gay friend to his gay boyfriend, they were inspired by her masculine side and decided to market her off as a man pretending to be a woman. Thus, her singing career is born.

It all got a bit complicated from this point on, seeing as how this plot is so inspired by Shakespeare's Twelfth Night.
(Remember Viola/Cesario posing as a messenger boy to Lady Olivia and having her falling in love with her 'messenger boy'? and how her 'messenger' boy falls in love with Duke Orsino who's apparently in love with Lady Olivia? Arhh..Shakespeare as we know it. All those dramatized tragedies in love and so much mistaken identity. Sigh.)

Okay..enough diversion. Back to the topic at hand. Victoria then captured the attention of a local gangster boss, King and sparked off King's jealous girlfriend, Norma. You can already see what's coming..but there's more to the plot than this.

A wing man of King's confessed that he's gay and has fallen in love with Victor and ensured more hysterical confusion from there. The jealous girlfriend and a shady nightclub boss tried to break up King and Victor. King got frustrated at thinking that he may be gay after all. After all, he's the gangster boss and he's certainly not supposed to be a wimpy gay. More fighting, singing and even a bloody boxing match later, with a perfect ending ( no spoilers here.), you see now why I'm in love with this play?

This is all thanks to Zebra Crossing Production, who had kindly brought us(Singapore) other notable plays such as

The Vagina Monologues

What the Butler Saw

Anyway, I am just so psyched that they managed to convince Laura Fygi to come down to Singapore to take part in this production. I fell in love with her music when I first inserted her cd into the player without even knowing who she was or what genre of music it was and it felt like magic when her voice started purring "Stars shining bright above you, night breezes seemed to whisper I love you.." to Dream a Little Dream. Even though I had heard that song sang before by various artists, it's different with Laura. She has soul.

And that's why I'm begging my parents now to let me use their OCBC credit card to purchase the advance tickets to her show in November.

A Hellish Running Buddy

Haha. I can't help it.

One of my friends from work called me the day before to jog together. I was actually kind of shocked that Poyo called me and did not ask me to join her to
1.club
2.shop or
3.watch films

but instead to
4.jog!!

I was certainly woozy from her suggestion. The only things we did together were activities 1 to 3.

So, I headed out last evening to the park with a tiny bit of trepidation and a lot more apprehension.

This is generally what happened.

P: I'm so excited to run la!

Me: Yeah, you want to do some stretching first?

P: Aiya, no need la. I just ate dinner so I want to digest my food faster by running.

And off we go, at 7.30pm in the park. 2 girls challenging the limits of their body ,testing just how far we can push them.

After 0.8km..

P: Ai! I can't run anymore. Got gastric pain.

Me: Ok. Let's brisk walk.

After another 1km, we tried running again.

0.5km later..

P: I'm dying. Stop running!!!

Me: P! You can do it! Just a bit more. It's only around the corner.

So with more annoying urging/nagging on my part, we managed to complete a 3km course. I swear, Poyo will definitely not want me as her running buddy anymore. :( I know I was being one of those people. (the ones who say YES YES YOU CAN DO IT!)

Later, Poyo confessed to me that she was faking the gastric pain and when that did not even deterred me much in dragging her along to continue the run, she was just about ready to fake an asthama attack.