Irritated with Singapore

Dear Reader,

Today had to be my most BLAH day of the week. Of this month. Days like these I am happy to get out of this island nation.

I think it is because I have so much time on my hands.

Woke up at 9 to try to call Andrea, I couldn't get through. Something is telling me that I need to call her, the other day I had a dream that I saw her and gave her a huge hug, and she showed me her diary as a way to update me, and it was so organised filled with all of her drawings.

Anyways, I woke up, had breakfast, emailed Mary, then went back to sleep until 1.

It's Catherine's Bday gathering tomorrow, its a whole day event, Movie (transformers), Dinner and then Partying. Our group of friends are going to National Stadium's lights out party.

Yesterday I went to Nokia at Wisma to buy tickets. (A group of 15, can you believe it, so nice.) The jerk at the counter said "Oh, that was a misprint on the flyer, we only sell tickets to you if you buy a phone."

I HATE NOKIA

Stupid nokia.

Ended up having to go to Toa Payoh Sports Recreation Council (SRC) to buy tickets today. Toa Payoh isn't so far from home, just 4 MRT stops. But..Toa Payoh is HUGE. I managed to find the SRC, went into the foyer, saw that they took nets/creditcard, and asked to buy tickets fo LIGHTSOUT PARTY.

The lady at the reception said, "No not here, at our booking office, do you know where it is?"
Me: "No, could you please tell me?"
Lady: "It is beside the gym."
Me: "And where is the gym?"
Lady: "Oh, it is very easy to get there, exit this building and walk straight until you see a glass building"
Me: "okay thank you."

Singapore Peeve 1: PEOPLE DO NOT KNOW HOW TO GIVE DIRECTIONS.
I've noticed this before. It's not that they aren't friendly people, because they are.
If I was in HK, and lost, and asked someone for directions? The person would give me a super dirty look and ignore me. Here they are quite friendly, but they give either...WRONG directions, or they just do not know how to describe things. Not to generalise, but man, singaporeans are really stupid when it comes to directions.

Picture me, walking out of the SRC admin office, walking straight ahead, aimlessly looking for a glass building. I see a building with blue transparent windows (2), could this be what she was saying?

No way. "Toa Payoh Table Tennis Club"

Glass building.....

None ahead...

To the left is the road...

To the right....wait...I see...a GLASS WINDOW.

then I see...a ghetto white sign "Booking office."

Grr...

Okay, I get to the booking office, and no one is there. No queque. (line ups)
Then I see a sign "Sorry please be patient the waiting time is 10 minutes"

Looked to the left, looked to the right.....Toa Payoh SRC was a GHOST town, no line ups, no other beings around, and they still managed to stick up this sign.

Amazing lor.

Then the staff returns from her smoking break. Guilty. Powerwalking towards me.

I request for 14 tickets. Guess what, they only accept CASH payments. 210$ cash.

Singapore Peeve 2: SRC BOOKING OFFICES ACCEPTING CASH ONLY

Whats with.

SRC admin offices accept credit cards and nets payments, if you go to the immigration office they only accept non-cash payments. And here we are, a BOOKING OFFICE, with a CASH ONLY policy???

Talk about not cracking down on corruption, the smoking-lazy-good-for-nothing woman could easily just say she sold 10 tickets and pocket 70$. But okay, Singaporeans are risk averse so she'd never do that. Noted.

Its probably some petty thinking that they don't want to pay Nets' or Visa's commission charge.

Anyways...She directed me to FairPrice (supermarket), across the street (bad directions again) for an atm. I manage to get to FairPrice. Decided I needed a pick-me-upper. Got myself a chocolate milk...at the cashier...there are....5 cashiers, all at their post, with 3 of them having the "please use the next counter sign"

Grr...needless to say I didn't get my chocolate milk. Went out of the supermarket to the area where there was suppose to be an ATM.

There was an ATM...but it was a POSB Atm. and this leads to my...

Singapore Pet Peeve 3: Selective usage for local bank cards. Meaning that, if you have a DBS account, you can only punch out money from DBS and POSB atms. Similarly, if you have an OCBC account, you can only punch out money from OCBC and UOB.

I have an OCBC account.(Gotta love OCBC. I'm overseas chinese and Mark works for it. Therefore I love it. ) Had to walk to the main bus terminal (where I got off the MRT) and I see a UOB sign, so happy. I felt, hey maybe things aren't too bad.

Yeah well. it was just a sign. The ATM was a 5 min walk from that sign. Whats up with that!?!?

Got to the ATM and this guy was taking his sweet time taking out money

Singapore Pet Peeve 4: For an efficient economy, they DIDDLE DALLY WHEN USING ATMs.

But this guy was creepy, he was playing with the brochures, loitering around...I had a super creepy feeling so I backed away and waited til he left.

Bah. got the money, took my 15 mins walk back to buy the tickets. Mission accomplished.

Usually I am a very positive person, but throughout the entire day I felt like I was cursing underneath my breath.

I feel severely irritated with Singapore, and on days like these I feel super happy with my decision to move.

Because I am super paranoid, I won't write here where I am moving to. Its a totally different location you guys wouldn' expect. For my darling friends who read my posts, I will update you personally.

Argh, I can't sleep.

Thanks for reading,
Stacy your Bitter Insomniac

Weddings

I attended my first wedding dinner on Saturday (Jay's birthday), June 23rd. It was a very nice and sweet, and it was a chance for a whole gang of us to get together. From an outsider looking in, our group of friends look like clubbing buddies. It's true, we do party together. But at the same time, we are quite close, I hope we grow closer.


It feels rewarding when you grow closer to people, and its a process of give and take, being more open, sharing experiences, sharing problems together. Although I don't meet them that often (the whole collective group) today I was daydreaming in class, and realised that time is precious, and I want to maximise my time with all the people I care for.

I have not received all the photos yet, but here are some photos I got from Catherine.


This is Table 15!! ( sans Joanne and Felix)

From Left to Right: Mark, Nelson and XinHui
Sitting down: Catherine, Yours Truly, and Rachel

The wedding dinner wasn't the typical chinese wedding dinner ( I was so craving super pimped chinese dishes)

The food was catered by the famous Brazillian restaurant on 6th avenue. It was such a novelty! Innovative and refreshing, Good job Michelle and Eric (bride and groom) for selecting it.







We were served meats, the waiters walked around with the meat on sword looking things. We thought the other things like rice, veggies, salads would be served too, but turns out it was a help-yourself theme! When we realised it was super funny because as Rachel and I were getting food to bring back to the table, we noticed that most people had full plates of food. Whereas every plate on Table 15 displayed one half eaten slice of roast beef, and 2 sausages. hahah.







The speeches made by Michelle and Eric's friends were so witty and sweet.

And I could not help feel very lovey dovey and my usual helpless-romantic self (that 'self' has been in hiding recently)







Michelle looked gorgeous. She had a sun kissed tan. An amazing body, and she had a stunning strapless wedding dress. I will upload pictures when I get them. I think she radiated so much because she was really happy. You could see it. I am so appreciative to have been invited and allowed to share this moment with her.




I had a super great time. And we were laughing so hard over really small random things. Laughing is always a good thing.

I've noticed recently that so many people are getting engaged.


Thank goodness they didn't throw a bouquet at the wedding. I would had run as far away as possible. I feel so traumatised.

" Love doesn't make the world go round. Love is what makes the ride worthwhile. "
- Franklin Jones

To all of you who have found the person you are going to spend the rest of your life with, may they cherish you and never let you go.

Little things that brighten up my day

I woke up this morning and Adrian told me he had something to give to me, and thought of me when he saw it.

He gave me a quote:

My knight in shining armour....turned out to be a loser in aluminium foil

It made me laugh and smile the whole day.

Quarter Life Crisis

This past week I've been experiencing a quarter life crisis. Alvin send me this article to read. I thought I'd share it with you all.

***

Being Twenty-Something

They call it the "Quarter-life Crisis." It is when you stop going along with the crowd and start realizing that there are a lot of things about yourself that you didn't know and may not like. You start feeling insecure and wonder where you will be in a year or two, but then get scared because you barely know where you are now.

You start realizing that people are selfish and that, maybe, those friends that you thought you were so close to aren't exactly the greatest people you have ever met and the people you have lost touch with are some of the most important ones. What you do not realize is that they are realizing that too and are not really cold or catty or mean or insincere, but that they are as confused as you.

You look at your job. It is not even close to what you thought you would be doing or maybe you are looking for one and realizing that you are going to have to start at the bottom and are scared. You miss the comforts of college, of groups, of socializing with the same people on a constant basis. But then you realize that maybe they weren't so great after all.

You are beginning to understand yourself and what you want and do not want. Your opinions have gotten stronger. You see what others are doing and find yourself judging a bit more than usual because suddenly you realize that you have certain boundaries in your life and addthings to your list of what is acceptable and what is not. You are insecure and then secure.

You laugh and cry with the greatest force of your life. You feel alone and scared and confused. Suddenly change is the enemy and you try and cling on to the past with dear life but soon realize that the past is drifting further and further away and there is nothing to do but stay where you are or move forward.

You get your heart broken and wonder how someone you loved could do such damage to you or you lay in bed and wonder why you can't meet anyone decent enough to get to know better. You love someone but maybe you can love someone else too and cannot figure out why you are doing this because you are not a bad person. One night stands and random hook ups start to look cheap and getting wasted and acting like an idiot starts to look pathetic.

You go through the same emotions and questions over and over and talk with your friends about the same topics because you cannot seem to make a decision. You worry about loans and money and the future and making a life for yourself and while winning the race would be great, right now you'd just like to be a contender!

What you may not realize is that everyone reading this relates to it. We are in our best of times and our worst of times, trying as hard as we can to figure this whole thing out.

***

Great Singapore Sale

The Great Singapore Sale (GSS) is coming to an end!(http://www.greatsingaporesale.com.sg/ )

I've been a good girl, did not buy alot of things (2 shoes, 1 jacket?), and when you really come to think of it, the GSS isn't really a big deal. Usually the sale is 10-30%, I was walking past FILA and they had this sign posted "WOW SALE!!" and underneath in fine print was..

"up to 10% off"

Honey honey honey, I don't blink an eye for anything less than 70% off.

Bangkok has spoilt me.

But its nice and fun to go shopping all the same. And I am such a lazy bugger, I only like to shop in Orchard! I gotta get out more. haha.

Today I rolled out of bed and joined Denise for Step class.

Goodness me...

1. Make sure to get plenty of sleep before a step class...because...
2. An upbeat mood is the best for this class...and also...
3. Coordination is required...I didn't have much so...
4. I tripped.

MY WORST NIGHTMARE came true, im always paranoid that I would trip and fall flat on my face during aerobics class. Tada! mission accomplished! but I'm a smooth operator, I caught myself in time, ha ha.

The other day I was at Paragon basement, went to buy something at Guardian, and someone whistled. I turned around, and there were 2 malay boys (20ish?) sitting at Delifrance snickering. IT REALLY PISSED ME OFF.

I decided to ignore them, then afterwards after buying my goods, as I was walking out of the store and the guy whistled again! (I was wearing frumpy gym clothes.) I was half tempted to walk up to them and just say

Hello, DO YOU KNOW ITS RUDE AND DISRESPECTFUL TO CATCALL WOMEN

But I held back.

I held back and regretted it.

Next time...I will be confrontational. So f**kers be warned. Someone has to teach them a lesson.

Its been a while

I feel like I haven't written in ages, and actually I just haven't blogged in 11 days! Amazing. Felt like half a lifetime passed since then.

I went home, and it was great. I finished my corporate finance paper, not so great, but doable. And now its all about applying for jobs!

Now I am more free I will blog more. So many random things happened to me, I can't choose which one to share with you all.

I feel much closer to Jamie now, I am very happy she came over for 3 weeks, I hope that we can travel to korea together next year. Will save money for that trip.

Here are some random pics of us on the plane, haha how we killed 15 mins of our 2 hour plane ride...

I really miss her. I got so used to having her around, now its just me at home.

On my own once again...

Happy Birthday

I want to dedicate this entry to one of my best guy friends - Mitchell.

Happy Birthday!!

I love how you read my blog! and you are right, I have to cut down on the sweets and the cakes, will do so after my exams. (on the 16th, please be patient :) )

When Mitchell and I went to UCC together, sometimes we'd chat on the phone (ah..the dramas of secondary school and the endless hours chatting with friends...i.e., Oh...you like her? yeah maybe she likes you, maybe you can do this and that and this and that...) I was the forever 'friend of the object of affection' never the object of affection.

Which to this day, I will never understand why. It is seriously damaging to the ego and self esteem.

Okay getting back on track, throughout the years (12 years!) Mitchell and I have grown closer and closer, and I cherish our friendship so much. I would like to say that we motivate and inspire eachother. Sometimes he shares stories with me that will change my outlook on life (Mitchell, the whole "fly on the wall" thing helped me get over my fear of awkward silences!!) and recently he has been my rock to keep me off the NO JERKFACE!! Resolution (going quite well..but i have to admit that i added him back on msn...I think I'm at the 'i can be friends' stage, no?...do i have to delete again?)

We spent new years eve 2000 together, watching this horribly boring movie, what was it called? incognito? incommando? a movie with Samuel L Jackson, and all i remember was that he was wearing jungle army gear.

I will always laugh really hard when I am with Mitchell. He is so funny and so sincere, a great guy. Plus he is a genius.

My earliest memory of Mitchell is ... him singing outloud all the time in class/break/what nots. He is a crooner and a class clown.

I miss hanging out with you. I wish I could be there to celebrate your birthday! I would come over to your office with lunch, or if you were busy I would bring you out for dinner, and we'd do something crazy like...go to an open mic karaoke bar and sing!!

Mitchell, be Happy and content. You work hard and for that you will definitely achieve your dreams. I have no doubt about that.

Rather than fear as a motivator, when you confront obstacles/snags, say your famous phrase...BRING IT!! Take on challenges like you always do.

Happy Birthday Mitchell.

Thank you for being there for me.