my delegated task at work is a simple one: collect the trolleys and baskets used by the customers and return them to the entry.
doing something simple and brainless like that tends to lead me into attempting to do my work while expending the least amount of energy. after all, basket collecting is an endless (and thankless) process so there's no point in trying to swim against the current (and for only $6/hr?!).
it's a boring job so we had to find something fun to tide us through the boredom. in between futile attempts at trying to convince my work buddy to change his views about the beauty of tall-girl, i started challenging them to push the longest trolley-trains.
i was in the morning shift and we set the record at 43. the night shift broke it with 48, then we went on to 50+. i then did a solo effort of 25 and it was a hell of an effort trying to steer that shit without crashing into shit and people.
this morning was the last day of work and i started forming up the trolley-train again. when i got to 50, there were still a lot more, so i continued stacking. i thought i would stop at 70, which would already shatter the existing record, but there were still a lot more trolleys.
fuck it, it's the last day, i thought, and stacked every single trolley there was at the exit point. final tally? 97. i felt like i was pushing a bus (it was definitely as long as one, maybe more) and i had to kick off a wall to get it moving. i was sweating when i was done but it was damn well worth the effort.
now that i think of it, i probably spent more energy pushing trolley-trains than doing actual work.
my maid fancies herself as a songstress of sorts. from the very first day here she was already singing aloud, something that i found rather weird and awkward, because seriously who the fuck sings out loud (and when it sounds so shitty) on their first day in a new house?
most of the time she sings in a quiet mumble (or whine for the higher pitches), but sometimes she loses control and starts belting out songs as though she was alone at home. this was exceptionally bad for me during my study months because i was practically at home all the time and thus had the joy of experiencing 100% of her singing.
i would be in my room enjoying the peace and quiet when suddenly my ears would pick up a little whining sound, which i'd almost always attribute to the cat (i never learn, but it's not my fault that it doesn't sound human).
before long, the 'cat whining' would start growing louder and i'll wonder 'wtf is wrong with the cat?' until it gets to a point where i'd realise that oh fuck it's my maid singing again, and then i start having the urge to rip my hair out or punch her in the throat.
there was one night she was watching some chinese singing contest on tv and they started to play the pearl harbour song in chinese. i suppose it must have been her favourite song of all time, because she started belting out the english version at the top of her voice, thereby permanently damaging the eardrums of everyone else in the house.
the girls at my workplace are pretty... pretty much nothing to look at. my working buddy and i were bemoaning our fate these past few days regarding this sad predicament whereby we're surrounded by females (of all ages and shapes and sizes) but nothing eye-catching or interesting or exciting at all. (the females are probably thinking the same of us)
so after my little experiment as described in my previous post, i began to notice this one girl. she looks so quiet and shy and rather cute, why haven't i noticed her before? then i realised that she seems quite tall-ish. "can't be taller than me," i thought, so i asked my buddy to measure us up.
i casually walked by her and stood as tall as i could beside her for a little moment, and then went back to check the results. "she's definitely taller than you," he said. "like 5cm taller." omg. afterwards i told him that i thought she was starting to look rather cute.
"errrr... you seriously think she's cute?" he asked to confirm my stand, not sure if i was joking or not and probably didn't wanna risk offending me with his stark assessment. yea, i said, and told him about how she's always so quiet and shy and cute.
"i think looking at the girls around here for so long made your standards drop," he said. "she's really one acquired taste."
sometimes while i ride the subway i try to look at each person and imagine what they look like to someone who is totally in love with them. i think everyone has had someone look at them that way, whether it was a lover, or a parent, or a friend, whether they know it or not. it’s a wonderful thing, to look at someone to whom i would never be attracted and think about what looking at them feels like to someone who is devouring every part of their image, who has invisible strings that are connected to this person tied to every part of their body. i think this fun pastime is a way of cultivating compassion. it feels good to think about people that way, and to use that part of my mind that i think is traditionally reserved for a tiny portion of people i’ll meet in my life to appreciate the general public. - dean spade.
well today i tried this at work. i looked at my co-workers (strangers, essentially), customers, male and female, young and old, and i imagined how i would perceive them should we be in love.
but first i had to recall what it felt like to be in love, the tenderness and the hope that you see in your partner's face. i took all of that and projected it upon these people.
i tried (tried, because i wasn't actually in love with them) to find something to love in their faces, in the way that you would somehow find a peculiarity in your lover's face lovable.
i looked and i stared and i imagined... and it felt weird as fuck. i guess the one thing it taught me is that love will find a way to make itself work out. no matter how weird you are, someone out there will still love you, somehow.
this morning i was riding to work when it suddenly occurred to me that i had completely forgotten about my 3rd year enlistment anniversary on the 10th of july. something that was once such an important event is now a distant memory hardly worth remembering.
my brother is enlisting this november and although everyone says that national service is getting easier each year, he wouldn't know how easy it is now compared to the past. it doesn't matter how easy it is, because to him it is still going to be the worst shit that he's ever been through.
but in all few years' time it'll be all forgotten.
tomorrow is the first day of a 10 day job i've gotten myself stuck in. it's a sad story really. for the past month i've been rejecting job offers from my friend for all sorts of reasons: too long, too boring, too low pay, etc.
until one morning (or afternoon, i don't remember), i was sleeping and she called me about this 10 day job. quite short, not too boring, hmmm, not bad. EXCEPT THAT THE PAY IS SHIT AND I HAVE TO TRAVEL ACROSS THE ISLAND FOR IT.
but in my half-awake state of mind, somehow i managed to block out the shitty bits and convince myself that it's quite a good offer and accepted it. when i was fully awake, i even calculated my expected pay and somehow managed to screw that up and over-estimate the figure.
it was only when i came close to signing the contract that i realised my folly, but in the end i decided to just fuck it and bite the bullet. hope it turns out well.
so the moral of the story is: don't accept any job offers and you'll never be at risk of having a shitty job.
the big bang theory sucks. i'm at episode 6 and i'm dying. the first episode i watched was borderline sucky, but i continued because everyone seems to like it and i hoped that it would get better.
as i watched each episode, the characters started to wear on me. their quirks and general incompetence get so annoying and over-the-top that i feel like smashing something everytime sheldon starts to talk.
i think it's a really shitty show with terrible writing and storylines. the writers are probably jizzing their pants with each obscure-retarded-scientific reference they insert into their dialogues, and they're there in almost every line. everything just becomes ridiculous and plain annoying.
the only thing that impresses me is how the actors manage to memorise and act out such long and ridiculous dialogues. their acting, however, is still crap.
crap acting, crap storylines, crap dialogues, but millions of fans. what is the world coming to?
on monday i went swimming and then dinner. i rode back and reached home at about 9+pm. my grandparents were in the hall watching tv. basically a very normal evening.
last night my mother asked me if any of my friends came over on monday. she said that my grandfather told her in the morning that he saw my friend follow me home.
could it be my brother's gf? no, he said. he was very sure that it was me. he said there was a girl who stood behind me and looked into the house but she didn't come in.
so who was that? i don't know. what i do know is that there was definitely no one in the corridor.
i always feel a sense of loss and sadness when the shows i watch come to an end. the first time i experienced this was when season 3 of the oc ended and i was left with a big WTF feeling, especially after spending over 3 years watching it.
most recently was after i finished watching dirty sexy money and i knew that there wasn't gonna be a new season because the show had been cancelled. the WTF feeling was big because everything was left dangling and unresolved at that point.
i went on to misfits, but i stopped midway through the second season because i didn't want to go through the same shit again. instead, i started watching blue mountain state (which is awesome btw, like american pie with jocks instead of nerds).
i stopped watching that too and just finished watching episode 1 of how i met your mother, which i expect might last me a long time since it's into its 6th season already.
one show i cannot even bear to watch is pushing daisies. i know that it's already been cancelled and these 13 episodes are all i have. it almost feels as though i'd be slowly killing it with every episode i watch, and i'll definitely be devastated when it's over.
i think chipped goals are the best way to score in football. it's just cruel, really, the way the ball travels so slowly through the air, allowing everyone to watch it go in.
the keeper thinks he has a chance but grasps at thin air as it sails agonisingly out of reach. the defenders hold their breaths, hoping that their keeper will get it or hoping that it'll go over. some determined ones even sprint back for a last-ditch save.
but all these don't matter to the striker. the moment he felt the sweet contact as the ball left his foot, he knew that there was only one outcome: the ball in the back of the net.
