Diggerboy & 22 smoke-free days!

I just officially completed 22 smoke-free days. it's really, really, really hard to quit but i guess when u find a really good reason to do so, and when you are mentally ready, it is possible, but not easy. Some days i crave for a smoke so badly i feel like hitting someone on the head, when i should be biting a rubber slipper or i'll bite someone's head off. someone please chain me up when i have these thoughts.

 

my mum is recovering well from her surgery, it always breaks my heart to see her suffering. i hope she recovers soon. she is completely addicted to the taiwanese drama on weekend nights. still homebound, that is sort of the highlight of the week now. i've never seen her so addicted to a TV series. I watch 100 episodes of stupid Japanese drama almost non-stop once when i was in the hospital for weeks.

 

my nephew's latest craze is to dig for treasure and collect stamps. he wants to be called Diggerboy and pesters me for stamps whenever he is not being Diggerboy. Last few weeks, he is obsessed with pretending that i am his taxi, he will dial for me and i have to carry him around. his destinations revolve around BathroomLand, PillowLand, TVLand. I finally understand why my dad was kind of upset when i grew up. My nephew is so damn cute.

 

the most inefficient place in Spore

21st May 2010 11am

I had to renew my passport and while I’m often appreciative of Singapore/Singaporean’s efficiency in many things, I finally discovered the most inefficient place in Singapore. Thank god I only have to come here once every 10 years – the ICA. After you filled up a form, wrote a cheque, got your picture taken, you imagine that you could just stroll in at the ICA and pick up your passport in a matter of seconds. Firstly, my photo got rejected because about 0.5cm of my eyebrows was “covered” by my fringe. Mind you, I did take extra care in gluing my fringe to the side when I took the photo, knowing that the all the facial features should be “fully revealed”. Anyway, I had to retake my photo, send it down personally and wait for my turn to get the passport fixed. After waiting for an hour, which I was told, I was still about 100 person behind in Q-number. I came back the next day and I had to take another Q-number which puts me at about 300 persons behind the current Q-number. The waiting hall is filled with bored people who are resigned at having to spend the whole afternoon staring at the electronic Q-number board (wondering if they have a name for that). So thank god I have my laptop, as I am writing here and after having spent an hour sitting and waiting, I am still about 100 persons behind – just to pick up my passport!! I feel more like an immigrant waiting for an interview or something. Couldn’t they make the collection more efficient? More counters? More manpower? Better computer system? Surely there is something they can do about this right?

My friend from Malaysia, who once had to go back to JB to renew her passport, reached there, and walked into a dim room with few people, at first thrilled thinking she doesn’t have to Q-up, she went up to the Q-less counter and the girl behind said, “no electricity.” As she needed to travel soon, and really wanted to get her passport fixed, she asked the girl what could she do. “Go KL.” Desperate, she drove up to KL from JB and she Q-ed for hours waiting for her turn, and finally when it was her, she happily went up to the counter and explained the urgency of her passport and the girl behind the counter replied, ”Passport out of stock.”

Maybe I am in a more fortunate position, but still, right now, I am about 70 persons behind. Sigh.

there's no time limit on your dreams

just watched a Susan Boyle documentary, and like the 1st time i watched her sang "I dream a dream", she makes me cry. it takes so much guts for someone like her to go up the stage to do an audition that is broadcasted worldwide. People are often unforgiving of fat, frumpy, old, not so good-looking people in general, and to stand on a stage to sing..  gosh it takes so much courage and determination.

i'm happy that her dream came true and as one of her fans said in the documentary "Susan showed us that there's no time limit on your dreams." you just have to stop whining and get out there and do the things you want to do, even if it is going to break you. But if you believe in it enough, or put in enough hard work, it's more likely to make you, like Susan.

meantime in bricklane

i was having a beer on bricklane in London, and there is this completely sleazy guy, obviously trying to pick up a girl half his age.. and he said, amongst many hair-standing things.. i don't feel old, when i am in my shorts and T-shirt, i feel like a boy again! He, with his huge beer belly, looks about 55 to me and the girl, about 25. Likening himself to being a boy is quite a stretch. and that idea of him being in shorts - yikes, yikes, yikes.

as my gay friend would say, "Shine the Mirror, shine the mirror at look at you!"

The reward for love is the experience of loving

so the last of my inner circle friends have gotten married and i attended the wedding in London. as with all solemnisation, when the couple said their vows, i just cried like a tap. maybe bcos that left me to be the last spinster standing, damn it. anyway, i am a romantic that way. Just to listen to two people (in love) telling each other into one another's eyes how they want to spend the rest of their lives taking care of each other and loving each other, til death do they part - never fails to move me. perhaps because i have never made a vow as such. and i know if i ever should, it will be for real. i take my vows very seriously and if i should make one, it has to mean it. so whenever i believe people are taking it the same serious way, it is truly one of the most romantic thing you can ever say to another person. and the groom, Mark, in his speech, said to my dear friend Klara, one of the toughest and funniest person i know , that, "every time i looked at this woman, working next to me (they work together), i have no doubt that this is the woman i want to spend the rest of my life with." i just cried like a baby. gosh, we're hardly near Notting Hill. Too much romantic comedies!!!

im thankful for friends, as always, who in their strange ways make their silent vows of being with you forever. and today i was, as usual, hanging out with my very pregnant best friend Joce, who has been thru a hell lot of a live, in consolation for me or in jest of herself, told me about this man she is marrying. When they broke up, she literally chased him out of the house to stay in Hotel 81 (hahaha) when they broke up (he is a foreigner here so no family home to go back to), for 3 years they figured out their lives, and they are married today. and yes, they actually used to live in Notting Hill. Romantic Comedies do happen, and i am so glad it happened for my dear dear friend. it's an amazing story, and it made me cry again. Argh.