to build a home

I hate chin ups.

Mounting the bar must be the singularly most energy-expenditing event, space travel edging it out but just barely.

I see all my friends doing their chin ups. They reached their limit but always without fail try to squeeze out one more, usually by attempting to slither up the air. When I do chin-ups, I dismount after comfortably completing 10 reps. I don't even think of trying for one more.

It also seems that no matter how much effort I put in the gym, I'm only good for 10.

I hate chin ups.

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I think chin ups are like life.

No matter how much effort you can put into something, the end is always pre-determined. You can never change an outcome. Over and over again. The eternal return of doom and gloom. Happy endings are things that exist only for other people; I've tried, very hard, too hard, , too many times and here I, plunged painfully right back to the beginning.

it's been a good life, almost 24 years of it. It can only go downhill from here.

I think I would like to dismount liao.

time of death

my logistics manager: The neighbour informed me that Client XXX passed away liao.

Me: Ok.

manager: ermmmm.. then how?

me: deactivate all his services lor.

manager: Ok but you have to write me a com[munication] form?

me: What? You want me to write a com form to you to tell you what you told me?

manager: yah. this kind of news i only hear from the neighbours. You are the social worker. This kind of thing only you know.

me: ok

*put down phone.

*scream

resignation letters: always good to have one on hand.

in the news: silly health survey

The Straits Times recently reported that based on a global online survey, 4 out of 10 Singaporeans suffer from either the flu or sore throat. And only 1 out of 10 is shameless enough to say he's totally healthy. 26,500 people replied, with 500 Singaporeans so that means 200 Singaporeans are sick with flu or sore throat?

Seriously I have no idea what the survey is mentioning because that's all the article mentions. It doesn't even mention what is the time frame for the illness to occur, which I would think is pretty important; your figures are surely gonna vary if you ask what illness a person has within one week, one month or one year time frame.

And online sampling must be the worst sampling method ever.

Obviously the type of people who answer online surveys are the type who are generally good at computers, and nobody ever got good at computers going to the gym.

When I fall sick, I tend to do bo liao things like answering online surveys.

When I fall sick, I tend to do pity seeking things like answering online surveys about my health.

help unlock the second prison

The Yellow Ribbon Project.

They should get Durai to be their mascot. Got racial harmony component some more.

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Personally I'm not a fan of the project [big shock].

1. You put people behind bars, you're the one that stick the stigma on them.

2. So you tell me what I should not mind by pointing out all the things I should mind. I always wonder how that worked.

3. Finally, I strongly suspect if I had a degree and went to jail before, I don't think I will have that tough a time finding work. I think the problem is more of a qualification issue, which of course isn't an issue here, because qualifications are the way our meritocratic society sieves people and decides who gets PA and who decides how much PA is.

beware the spouse who never gets angry

Mack said to his partner Gabriel, 'When I get mad at you, you never fight back. How do you control your anger?'

Gabriel replies, 'Simple, I clean the toilet.'

Mack asks, 'And how the heck is that supposed to help?'

'I use your toothbrush.'

empiricist by birth, constructivist by convenience

My friend says: I'm an academic cheat, very much like how you distribute pirated mac app. We're going to be together for a long time.

Me: Distribution is such a strong word. I prefer to think of it as carelessly leaving my stuff on your table.

Friend: I'm an empiricist, not constructivist. A transaction, by any other name, is still a transaction. Heading to school. Hope I don't murder anyone along the way.

Me: I'm into peddling pirated psy e-books now. Can i interest you in a pdf of the dsm iv? Fully searchable wor.

Friend: yes yes yes yes :-)

Odie my colleague says to her clients, 'how pregnant are you?'

At 1 pm in the afternoon, my mum asks, "Why are you still at home ar? You on leave ar?"

Me: No ar

Mum: Den?

Me: My boss is.

desire

My credit card is somersaulting in my wallet.

stark

I learnt today, as big as I have grown, and got all graduated, some more with a job that looks after other people's lives, and I know so many things that people can even begin to imagine, in the end, it's dad that has to bail me out.

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You know on television, especially on those taiwanese dramas, some tragic character stations herself in front of your parked car so you can't drive out and turn away, forcing the erstwhile protagonist to come out of the car to talk some sense.

With some fine motor control, you can actually not let these tragic damsels get their way. Slightly hit the accelerator and before the car moves, hit the brakes. The momentum that was supposed to move the car would not be able to move the car forward, but it will have nowhere to go but thrusting the metal body of the car somewhat forward, nudging the person back, at which point you can quickly accelerate to move car forward to make up ground. Repeat until car has enough space to turn out. Sweetener: Before turning, make a feint that you're gonna go forward again and watch as said damsel recoil and unable to react as you swiftly turn away.

They don't teach that in driving school.

-

Way to go dad!

st forum

I always start my day with the Straits Times Online forum. As depressed, twisty and damaged I am, I always feel alot better after reading the forum. If only life was one big ST forum.

Today, in addition to said emotional states, I didn't get any sleep the whole night, started to work too early in the morning, got drenched twice and one of my clients whom I am particularly attached to requires major surgery. Not a good day.

But this letter is a classic:

University lecturers who upload class notes at 11th hour inconvenience students

I WOULD like to share my experience of the use of e-mail to relay important information. What I encountered is not widespread but it is not an isolated case.

I have a friend who studies in a local university that requires the lecturer to upload class notes and assignments for students. This is a good idea as it reduces not only time but also paper the lecturer would need to photocopy. And most times, there would be extra copies that might go to waste.

However, of late, I have learnt that certain lecturers upload their notes at the 11th hour, that is, at night when the class is first thing the next morning. Although most students have computers at home, some do not have printers. They therefore have to race to school to print their notes before class.

On another occasion, the lecturer sent an e-mail message to my friend that a lesson was scheduled the next day (a last-minute addition to the fixed timetable). The message also asked my friend to tell the other students. Fortunately, my friend knew some of the students and managed to tell them. I am interested to know what would have happened if my friend did not check his e-mail that day. Would the lecturer have marked them all absent?

Although I am not a student in this university, I felt the frustration as if I were in my friend's shoes. I am disappointed we are paying for people who are so unprofessional.

Teo Cheng Nam

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I'm really ashamed of myself leh.

Here I am worrying about my non-existent love life, moping about my this month's pay with increment and backpay that is late, trying to figure out how to make a blerdy mysql webby already, and being concerned for my second favorite client's life.

But here we have Mr Teo who is able to transcend such earthly woes and forge his transcendental concerns through the unforgiving fires of public discourse.

I'm really ashamed.

So ashamed I'm inspired to write in also. Here:

"Universities have a part to play in fighting global warming"

I would like to share my experience when I was a student at a top local university at Kent Ridge Crescent.

Every room and lecture theatre is air-conditioned, and freezingly so. I spent lectures and tutorials shivering even with a jacket and a heat pack in the form of my laptop charger. I think if you look around the lecture theatre, it is a common phenomenon [if you don't count of the hot hunks and chicks of course who are by definition hot and therefore can get by in a skimpy singlet or bra]. I suspect this is also a phenomenon experienced in other universities.

I wonder how much of the earth's valuable resources and yong siew toh's money the school is wasting for the singular purpose of freezing the rooms.

Everyday in the papers, we come across the very real and increasing threat of global warming. Even though I am probably not going to be around when that happens, I feel gaea's pain. Ouch.

I hope the universities in Singapore can work together and play their part in fighting this threat.

I suggest opening all the doors at the universities of all the rooms, libraries, offices, lecture theatres and so on and so forth. We can let some of the cold air out to cool the environment down so that the coldness is not just wasted on freezing students.

Chen Lingshen

prophecy 101

The Chinese consider it bad luck to sleep beneath ceiling beams.

Geomancers say it's because ceiling beams are dragon spines, the spine joins the head and the bottom together, and so you're getting dragon fart and spit all over you if you sleep beneath the spine/beam. Very bad luck indeed.

Someone wise told me superstitions often have very practical precedents.

Ceiling beams were necessary in ancient Chinese architecture because they held the ceiling up [so assassins can go around running on rooftops]. What held the beams up was another question which the Chinese didn't really answer so let's just say eventually those with a genetic disposition to sleep beneath beams all died out.

Fast forwarding abit, in the news recently, 'China has banned Buddhist monks in Tibet from reincarnating without government permission'.

I always thought Buddhist rebirth was like an amusement park. You go around getting tokens and exchanging them for the appropriate prize with what you've got when the time comes.

Apparently, the Dalai Lama has enough tokens to get a wild card. He refuses 'to be reborn in Tibet so long as it's under Chinese control', and all Dalai Lamas are supposedly able to control their rebirth.

Personally, I think the Dalai Lama voided his wild card when he put on them guccis and raybans.

But as he foretells, the next Dalai Lama will not be born in Tibet so long as it's under Chinese control because it's a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Once the Dalai Lama dies, his followers are going to look for the next Dalai Lama only among the Tibetans who are not in Tibet and they will find some poor child malleable and bendable enough who has done some miracle according to someone who heard from someone who saw it.

The good thing about prophets is you don't need job consistency.

And the next Dalai Lama will not be re-born in Tibet.