20 Random Facts

It comes to a time when I have finished my exam at 12.10pm today and suddenly feel that there is no motivation for me to do anything. Everything becomes slow and boring when compared to the amount of time I had to grasp for dear life for the past four days to study and cram as much information into my head. I had never checked Facebook so frequently, like 20 times today (I didn't count but heck, it felt like that number), and Instagram on my phone which is probably the reason why my battery was critically low when I am only at Buona Vista MRT station.

So let's cut to the chase and post 20 random (and seemingly disgusting and boring) facts about me!

1. I still have my 臭臭 (baby bolster) with me and my dearest threatens that it would disappear on the day of wedding because it will NEVER be a part of my dowry
2. I like painting short finger nails; short like just-cut that type of short
3. The age gap between me and my siblings are 10, 13, 15 years old
4. I had bad luck with red since young like tripping over at Pulau Ubin while wearing a red dress when I was five and my red-and-white striped heels broke on the first day I wore it to town
5. If you aren't really close with me, don't trust me with your secrets because I will either a) forget it or b) tell everyone else so that at least I can remember
6. Liking to blue colours was acquired from young because there was always blue and pink options for me and my cousin but she was quicker and fiercer (although one year younger than me) and I was left with the (then ugly) blue coloured dress
7. I can't sing for nuts
8. I can't take artistic photos for nuts
9. I LOVE PIKACHU
10. Spamming and "liking" wedding photos on Facebook is my trait
11. I have the bestest best and loving boyfriend even if he isn't 1.80 m, dark and lean
12. I remember people's names and faces from school when they don't even know who the heck am I
13. I used to aspire to be a gynae because delivering baby is such a great job
14. I used to hate people who use "YOLO" but I'm alright with it when using at hilarious and appropriate situations
15. I hate people calling me "EH!" when they clearly know my name
16. My biggest attempt in being a daredevil was the Cyclone rollercoaster in USS
17. My age gap between me and my dad was so big that during primary school, my classmate asked me if my grandpa was coming to fetch me
18. My first handphone was back in Secondary 1 which was a Panasonic flip phone with INFRARED (yes, you heard it; no bluetooth) function for file transfer
19. My jokes aren't suitable for everyone
20. Once you are the target of the group, be wary that my words will drip with sarcasm

After reading so much, some of you probably hate me now. Go ahead and click the "X" button and erase me from your memory because YOLO!

Removing A Lizard

As literal as the title sounds, I'm gonna pen down my stupid behaviour of removing a house lizard - which is pretty well-nourished from its size - using a plastic container and an umbrella.

Usually lizards are rarely bold enough to come into a wide living area as they hide behind TV cabinets and the corner of cupboards, but then this long-time resident appeared near the feng shui fountain at my house and when I moved the nearby containers, it flinched but didn't run away! I thought it was weird, so I went back to have my brunch and watched "13 Going On 30" until 12.30pm.

I went back to check and it was still there at the same spot where it got frightened by me. I took an umbrella and used the tip to hit on the floor, hoping the sound would scare it and it will go back to hide. It still didn't respond... so I used a container to trap it and use the umbrella to push it out of my house and to the corridors (and kept muttering "Sorry!" when its rubbery limbs got caught under the container as I dragged it across the cement floor).

Imagine your neighbour using an umbrella to push a plastic container cautiously at the corridors... wouldn't you think she is mental? Yeah, that's what I thought when my neighbour left her house with her grandson and I just left the container right beside a drain... just in case I look like a crazy person.

I hope the lizard is alright though.

Y U NO THIS?

I thought it was a fun post to do after reading on my cousin's blog, so I shall do one myself!

I had been stuffed a durian into my mouth when I was young - don't like being forced to eat something unknown and don't like the taste of that unknown. The flesh tasted mushy, fibre-y, vomit-ish... just every undesirable sensory descriptors characterised into one fruit known as King of the Fruits. Ugh, how can they even say that? I have given this King another chance by eating durian puff when I was in primary school, then it was, like, thanks but no thanks. The texture and taste is still all wrong. I think durian is the only fruit that has more bad health effects than any other fruits?

I don't like the feeling of getting squished/grinded by random people/pervy dudes feeling up my bottom/getting sweaty and trading beads of sweat with the people around me. In fact, my first experience in a club-like place is the mosh pit during Paramore concert. Sure, I was excited that Alex paid for Dennis and me for $98 standing pen tickets to get close to Paramore. But when the opening band departed, the mosh pit squeezed from 3/4 of mosh pit to half of the pit; imagine that. I was being pushed 2-3m away from Dennis and Alex was (happily) being pushed to a far corner near the stage by the crowd. Imagine my delight when I found Dennis standing at the empty area back of the crowd, where I can get aircon and not being pushed around during "Ignorance". With that, I conclude why I don't go to clubs.

Stop saying I am skinny, I am normal sized! In fact, I am putting on weight - not to be bragging - but the fatty areas are not seen 'cos they are all at my tummy. Put me on the weighing scale and see how much I weigh and you will be shocked. I get comments like "You look 45kg!" or "You look like 50kg!". Puh-leese, I weigh a stone more than that alright! I can see my weight jumping 2kg by 2kg as my jeans size increase with an additional muffin top. Gosh, I hate muffin tops!

People find drinking alcohol is to savour while chatting with friends, having a good time. But my life objective about food is that once it is placed in front of me, my mission is to finish it. After finishing, I would have to focus on chatting with my friends. So I don't find drinking alcohol to be cool at all, especially the vomiting and disorientation as your friends carry you to walk. It's not cool at all. Yes, I have a limit because I don't want to reek of alcohol. In fact, I drink on rare occasions, like barbecue and celebratory events or night out with friends, but it's just a cup and that's all. Nothing more than that because I don't like red face + bloodshot eyes + disorientation. Thank you

When there's a perfectly good reason to dress nice to school such as friend's birthday dinner after school, I will wear nicely. If I am in the best of mood, I will wear nicely. Other than that, I will dress in Threadless t-shirt, berms or shorts, slippers and my denim Zara bag. My Mom says I look like I'm heading to the factory to work, but what's there to flaunt about in school? I gotta admit that when I dress nice to school, I don't feel comfortable because I have to wear the outfit WHOLE DAY. By the time school ends, my make-up would have melted; I would have been pespiring; my perfume would have been diminished; hence I would have to go through the trouble of bringing all these stuff to replenish what I have lost, before heading to meet my friends.

Call Center Nightmare

Count myself "lucky" to encounter two dispute calls since the start of my work 2 weeks ago. I must have been so heng to get these type of calls because they put my reasoning skills to the test and stretch my tolerance for such unreasonable customer.

So one lady called in today and I guess the only way she speaks on the phone is to yell, shout, holler, scream, whatever you can think of. She made an enquiry and a request that I could not attend to because it doesn't fit the purpose of calling this hotline and it is not my responsibility to entertain such calls, but I attended to her request out of goodwill. Yes, goodwill can kill - and I got "killed" by the customer today all because of the little angel floating at the top of my head urging me to do something nice for her.

I did whatever I could to help the lady and all she said were,

"You don't understand what I'm saying!"

"Are you stupid or what?"

"You are not answering my question!"

Tell me how to not blow my top when she only converse by shouting? Fine, I kept my cool for the first 10 minutes of the verbally and emotionally abusive call. She even asked a very stupid question like,

"How come the country code of Hong Kong is 852 - 3 digits - while Singapore one is 65 - 2 digits?"

How the fuck would I know lady? I am not the head of whichever big company that decides the country code and decides how many digits would be in the country code! So I tolerated her a while more and replied her politely that I would not know the reason for this as it had already been determined like many many years ago. 

After tolerating her nonsense and screams for the past 15 minutes for something stupid - like how I didn't read the number in one go (I mean, hey, I read out the number slowly to you to make sure that you get every damn number correct so you cannot have another chance to scold me!), I broke into sobs and it could be heard over the ultra-sensitive microphone attached to my headset. The lady apologized to me and used her age as an excuse ("I'm 55 years old and still have to work at this age. You are, what, 20 years old? I wish I was at your age working so it wouldn't be tiring"). She asked for my name and an email address that she can reach somebody because she wants to do this...

A commendation letter.

Seriously ma'am? I don't need your fucking commendation letter for all the emotional and verbal abuse you had put me through for the past 20 minutes of phone call. I know some people find 20 minutes is not long enough to count blowing your top and break into sobs but imagine a random old aunty approaches you in the MRT and start to yell at you for something you didn't do wrong... wouldn't you be furious?

I told her straight off my chest - even though I knew every call was recorded for audit purposes - that I don't want her commendation letter. Deep inside, the damage had already been done, period. I am already inconsolable and I haven't sobbed quite badly since the last time I cried at my aunty's funeral. Yeah, that's how bad my work day was during noon time. She apologized repeatedly for upsetting me and mentioned that I am "young and brave girl that could put up with her because she was so busy that she couldn't spare time to look up the company'c contact number herself". While she explained for her abusive behaviour, I would never bring myself to accept her apology by answering her. 

Now I know how verbal abuse can destroy a person emotionally and how "sorry no cure" feels like. It is like slowly hacking a tree with each abusive word and to only apologize to the tree when it topples down with no more support from the root.

Nobody should ever be a victim of verbal abuse for something that they had not done wrong because everyone must be given the same amount of respect.

In Other Words...

From my experience in the past few job interviews, I came across some commonly used phrases that could have a crude and sarcastic meaning to it. So I shall start with the phrase that I heard and what I intepret.

Unleash your creativity in our shop

What I interpret: Contribute your ideas and boss earns the recognition while no pay increment for you.

Involved in production and having your say

"BKL" (bao kao liao - means you do everything even if it is out of your job scope)

Yes, we will definitely recruit you however you would start work in 3 months time

You may just wait and wait and end up with nothing, sucker!

We want to get the word out for our shop

Wants you to help them advertise for free

Besides this, there are also phrases commonly used by women that drives their man crazy, like...

I'm okay

A mild red light is flashing, so beware to ask further or keep your mouth shut because it could mean "Yeah, I'm okay. I would not think about what happened now... but maybe before I go to sleep/on the way to work/when I have time to myself and I would end up being paranoid."

I'm fine

Well this depends on the English standards that women are used to communicate with you; some people say "okay" often than "fine" and both have the same weight in meaning. However, in this case that "I'm okay" is used, "I'm fine" refers to the glaring fire engine or police cars flashing on the streets. Once she uses this phrase and you ask further, she would reply "Fine? You'd really believe I am fine with that? No, I'm not fine with it at all! Your attitude just now was horrible... I took so much time to prepare the dinner and yet you come home and said you had eaten when I told you I'd be cooking!"

Whatever

Seriously... that's stupid.

Ugh... I'm not gonna eat that; I'm on a diet

Depending on the personality of the woman - if she is headstrong then don't give her that food, but if she is one that wavers easily then just go ahead. It would usually mean "Would you spare me some fries? It would not have much effect on my weight cos I can burn it off while shopping."

Oh God she's such a bitch

It really means "I'm envious of her looks/her social circle/etc" when you see her exaggerated expression while saying this phrase. But if she looks slightly disgusted when saying that, she really hates the person but had gotten over the time when she used to spend energy to hate on them (e.g. gossip about their latest Facebook statuses, criticizing whatever they say)

Ever Wondered Why

Take me as a person who has a penchant for sick movies and novels that involve in the twisted minds of humans. Obviously in the "artistic" way and not gore related fun. I often wonder what is it like beyond death? Some say you go to heaven or hell depending on the amount of good or bad karma you gained through life.

Discussing about what happens or what might happen beyond death is rather useless. So let's talk about something else that is related to death: how would my loved ones react when I die? Hold on a minute because I do not have suicidal thoughts - even though I have always wondered how does it feel like to have a quick death - and did not thought about committing suicide.

So I guess I was inspired to write an entry (YAY) after listening to a song by The Band Perry "If I Die Young". It is a depressing song that I never fail to look through the lyrics again and again to comprehend what it is trying to tell us because different people decipher the lyrics differently. Additionally, I succumbed to the stress generated from doing report and presentations and possibly media interview of my FYP project.

I have always wondered how many people would attend my funeral? Out of those who attend, how many would cry for me; if so, what do they remember me for? Most importantly, how would my family and my boyfriend react? Would they be too traumatised that they don't have the strength to cry any more? And after I have passed on, would he go on with his life to find a new partner or holding a place for me in his heart?

If I wanted to choose a way to die - in which I had avoided many accidents such as taking back my slipper while jaywalking halfway - I would want to be ran over by a big truck or a speeding car; at least this way of dying is quick and easy.