snot makes a good pollution index.

scratch and sniff

i was doing my laundry today downstairs and smelled a familiar smell- swimming pool. then i realized it was the chlorine bleach. but i remember that smell from long ago when i used to swim until my fingers were wrinkly like raisins and my eyes were red and stinging. (i was one of the tough kids who refused goggles. also partly because they were realy hard to put on and yanked at my hair when i tried to take them off)

then i was at dim sum in chinatown. went to the bathroom and was greeted with that heavy/sweet/clingy smell of mothballs. is solidified naphthalene a chinese invention because i don't know anywhere else that people hang these things like they're lavender potpurri sachets. but it reminded me of my grandma's house. she used to have them all over- in the cupboards, under the bed, behind the table and of course in the bathroom. when i was younger i used to think mothballs were special mentos that you put in your cupboard to scare the cockroaches because i obviously didn't get the "moth" part of mothballs. do we even have that many fabric-eating moths in singapore that we need these mothballs everywhere? for some reason i even remember the cheena-pok packaging it comes in.

the sea inside

the problem with foreign films is that you have to actually watch them.

it wouldn't be so problematic if we had not forgotten all about the dvd we borrowed two weekends ago. a few days ago i received notice in the mail from blockbuster that rather than charge us late fees, they will sell these dvds to us- amounting to a whopping $35 for two of them.

but i read on and it calmed my faint heart a little to learn that if i return the dvds within 30 days of the notice i will not be charged the selling price of the dvds but rather a re-stocking fee of $1.25 per item.

so in a small panic to make my money and efforts worth, i played the sea inside while trying to study and ended up missing all the subtitles. but psychologically just having it play on the screen comforts me, whether i actually watch it or not.
it's the wah-so-cheap-and-eventhough-i-will-never-wear-it-i-just-HAVE-to-buy syndrome. you can take the girl out of singapore but not singapore out of the girl.

peiru left today and i am happy/sad. happy that she's off to a new place and new experience which will be quite wonderful in many ways, sad because she's such a big part of my life here and it will never be the same without her here! i mean, who is going to share pad seeaw and tofu with garlic sauce at UN noodles with me? who is going to be my walking zagat/timeout? nightlife will never be the same because there is no one to say no to playing taboo and scrabble on weekend nights. and of course no more complimentary passes into the hottest places. boo.

those were the days

last night we sat at thailand cafe and reminisced about days of yore, those days when scrawny jc boys did silly things to win girls' hearts- like folding 999 paper stars or tacky little hearts from old bus tickets (what were they thinking?!)- those days when every girl thought her uniform was a cheerleading outfit and hemmed up her skirt as high as possible. those days when we stayed in school late to play games/training/people watch and then head to ghim moh for food. those days when we came to school early for that morning worship i forget the name of.

i used to meet elaine at the sick bay during bio lectures. "ok, see you in an hour at the sick bay" we used to arrange. then we would each take a bed (there were only two) and sleep through the bio class. one time we went and there was a girl already sleeping in one of the beds who we did not anticipate on being there. we were pissed but agreed to share the one bed. the girl left after an hour and i moved into the other bed.

leon and i used to eavesdrop on this one couple because they sat in front of us at math lectures. we knew much more about the drama in their lives than they would ever guess.

i used to sign my own blueslips so i could leave school because going to the teacher
pretending to be sick was just too much of a hassle. i did get caught once because i skipped my last class to go home and she called! she said, "jia en, this is mrs chee. what are you doing at home?" in a lame attempt to save my butt i told her i had a sudden bout of terrible diarrhoea (or something drastic to that extent) and i couldn't find her so i just had to leave without her permission.

oh and all those jc parties- those were such fun too.

life was so exciting back then. no wonder old people are nags and bores- that's what growing up does to you.

sleigh bells ring are you listening?

so the whole of last weekend for some reason all we talked about was love and marriage or at least every conversation seemed to gravitate right back to it. maybe because everyone i hang out with here is in a long distance relationship (rtr-2??haha) and we are lovelorn and helpless. or maybe we are all just of that age where marriage is right around the corner and all of a sudden someone of someone you know is tying the knot- GASP!

kate my freshman year roomie is getting married to her bf in august and veron is having her second baby. this phase of growing up scares me to death and all of a sudden i feel like that petulant 10 year old who hated boys and swore i would never ever in my life ever have sex and reproduce.

jon and ju are back from their all-america tour. they beat hang and i at pool last night and we had a brief go at electronic taboo when we got back home. hang and i cannot understand why no one else will indulge in some wholesome boardgame fun because we are both big fans of boggle, charades and the like but we can't just have two players all the time. we tried forcing the jeremy, damien and enwa to play boggle at central park two weekends ago and finally understood why most guys are especially resistant to these games- they are just pretty damn hopeless. these hot shot wall street punks are simply not skilled enough to string together letters to form words bigger than EAT/FOR/HER. haha. don't we just love to win.

fruit loopy

have you ever heard of a sugar-free fruit? yeah neither have i. until two days ago when i picked up a pluot (cousin of a plum) which had a sticker on it that declared it SUGAR FREE and at the same time labeled the fruit as a "Sweet Pluot". and the slogan, even better- says "ROOTED IN SWEETNESS"!!!! i'm thinking these f*ckers must be mad or they think we consumers are. fruit is almost nothing but water, sugar, vits and fiber. these people are absolutely NUTS and have taken deceiving the consumer to a whole new level.