Woot! Arubaito today was MUCH more fun. Probably coz I had a "cheat sheet" of some basic things to say in Jap. Haha. And also coz my group this time round were slightly more proficient in English, and more friendly. Not that Wednesday's group were unfriendly; they just kept to themselves more.

This time, 7 girls, and except for one, Nozomi, who was 16, the rest were all 17. Surprisingly though, Nozomi, though she was the youngest, was the loudest and the joker of the group.

This time, we were ferried to Orchard Road from their hotel (Riverview Hotel) and the minute they were dropped at DFS Galleria, they made it known to me that they wanted to go shopping.

And shopping is no problem. Better than wanting to go all those cultural and educational places which I have no idea whatsoever where they are. So I took them to Taka, where they got really excited over the bubble tea stall at Basement 2, and the accessories store nearby (Hushush, I think it's called; their stuff really is quite nice); Nozomi and one of the other girls got excited when they spotted a selection of Japanese comics in the window of Kinokuniya; when I brought them to Chinatown, they were just as excited (if not more, since this group were more "noisy" and friendly than the group from Aichi on Wednesday) at all the colours of the buildings and all the cheap stuff they could buy.

One thing different, however, was that when they entered one of the "3 for $10" shops and saw the large array of costume jewellery (the rings, specifically), Nozomi told me that back in Japan, they preferred things simple and that only the "aunties" in Osaka (their hometown) wore such gaudy stuff. In her words, she called them "Osaka obachiang". At least, that's how it sounds like it should be spelt. :P

We crossed the Garden Bridge for a light snack again (I know where to go now, haha), and when they saw the decorations still strung up over the main road left over from the Lantern Festival, they got excited all over again; all the cameras came out (all seven of them), and they asked one of their schoolmates who was walking past to help take the pictures. They insisted I join in too.

Oh, and one thing that really fascinates me to no end..? You know how when you were in secondary school and maybe you and all your good friends were obsessed with taking NeoPrints and doing the "V" sign with your fingers was seen as trying to be "like all those Jap girls and act cute"? Well, all the Japanese students do that sign when they take pictures. Really. ALL of them. Even the guys.

They bought ice cream from the shop just beside the Q Bread bakery; it was some kind of natural fruit, gelato ice cream, I think, and they were quite amused at how the ice cream sometimes "stretches", like warm pizza cheese. The guy at the stall even gave me a little extra when I ordered lemon flavour, "for bringing all of them around", he said. Haha. :D

In the end, we went back to Orchard, and they went back to DFS Galleria early; we were told that they had to be back there by 4.30, but after eating Mac's for lunch at Taka, they wanted to go back at 2.30. Really early, but it turns out that they wanted to shop around.

And the most shocking thing of all was that they bought me a bear!



Ta-da. Romance, the TY Bear that they bought me from DFS itself. Ian was saying on Wednesday that he'd been doing this for so long and the pair of Havaianas that he was given that day was the best gift that he'd ever received; so I guess I'm lucky that I received something on just my second try! Haha...

Another $94.50 for six and a half hours; it's good money, but I can't help feeling bad coz I can't really talk to them. Oh well. Tomorrow, Pam and I are gonna start doing the Soci dept surveys... gonna have to go to Commonwealth to give them out and everything; hopefully I'll be able to give out some so I can collect them back on Sunday and bring them back to school to hand in on Monday.

It's a survey on late marriage and low fertility, by the way. I'm not sure if the department still needs more student interviewers, but if you're interested, you could ask. They're paying $15 per completed survey, by the way; and all you have to do is leave the questionnaire with the randomly selected household (they give you a list of addresses) and collect it back the next day. :)

Can't feel my arms anymore.

Well, okay, that was more like a figure of speech; I do feel them. They're making their presence and existence and attachment to my body very painfully known, thank you very much.

Yesterday, I did a tour guide job; Ian's lobang: bring Japanese students who are here on a field trip around Singapore. Basically, they tell you where they wanna go and you bring them there. And maybe chat with them a little. I don't know any Japanese though.

But apparently, the guides aren't really supposed to know Japanese, since the kids are supposed to be improving their English anyway, but most of the people whom the Jap Studies Soc get to do these arubaitos (as they're called) know Japanese. Makes it a lot easier to communicate with them, after all.

The group I had yesterday were six girls, all 17 years old, from Aichi prefecture. I only know four of their names though; Nodoka and Masuya seemed the most enthusiastic (so to speak), almost always walking in the front of the group, and hence the ones I spoke to (or attempted to communicate with) the most often. But Masuya and Iyumi were the only ones who actually ever started conversation with me. And Yoshie, the quietest girl of the bunch, never said a thing the whole time. Even when I asked her name, she just held up the lanyards that they were all wearing and showed me her name and smiled. Jinshen (the guy whom I think is in charge) later commented that they weren't from a very good school, so their English wasn't very good either.

My group did have electronic dictionaries, though. Haha.

Anyway, when we left the hotel yesterday, many groups wanted to go to Merlion Park. That threw a lot of the guides for a loop. Jinshen had briefed a few of the first-timers earlier, saying that usually, they'd want to go to Chinatown or Little India first, and anyway, at 9.30 am, nothing else is open. So when quite a few of them said that they wanted to see Merlion Park... yeah. And it didn't help that quite a few of us also had no idea where the place is.

I saw the lady from the tour agency (JTB) who was one of the go-betweens for the school and the agency as we came down to the lobby of the hotel, and I asked her where Merlion Park was. And the woman's immediate response was to stare at me and ask if I was Singaporean.

Well, no, I'm not, but that's not the point, woman! How many Singaporeans can actually be bothered with Merlion Park, anyway? Who cares to find out where the hell it is, unless they have kids who want to see the friggin' fish-lion-hybrid-monstrosity? Singaporeans are just all so jaded with the Merlion already; and the fact that I'm not the only one of the guides who didn't know where it is just proves it.

Worked it out in the end, though; caught up with some of the groups who'd already left the hotel, bumped into Jinshen's group at the first traffic light, opposite Raffles City, and found out that his group was going to Merlion Park as well. He said that he had no idea where it was either and that he'd never been there before, but he had a rough idea now of its location. So he told me to tag along. Which I very gratefully did.

Turns out the place is behind One Fullerton (if I remember right). Daft, I tell you. Should never have moved the Merlion in the first place; it looked much better and so much more visible where it was.

After that, Chinatown, where they spent a good amount of time, about one and a half hours; when we took the MRT, they were fascinated by how all they had to do was tap the card, and they were even more amazed when a dollar was refunded when they returned the standard ticket. As we came up the escalator, they started to get really excited as the shophouses came into view. They started to buy a lot of stuff from the "3 for $10" shops, and when we bumped into Jinshen's group again later, he suggested to me that I take them to Bugis if they wanted to have lunch, and told me to wait for a double-decker bus coz they'd have never been on one before.

But when we crossed the Garden Bridge, it turn out that they saw the Q Bread bakery and bought some stuff from there instead. Then, wanting to go back to the Orchard area, we crossed the bridge back, where they then wanted to stop and sit in the shade of a few of the trees up there to eat. And they got fascinated all over again when they saw that a crew were shooting an Indian movie on the bridge.

In the end, I brought them back to the hotel at 3.15 (we were supposed to be back by 3.30 pm coz they had an early evening flight); Ian's group bought him a pair of white Havaianas, man.

Awkward moment of the day was when we were on the bus and we passed the Civilian War Memorial; you know, the one which consists of four pillars, each of which is supposed to represent one of the four races in Singapore which suffered and died during the Japanese Occupation years. As it happened, the Memorial caught Iyumi's eye and she then turned to me and asked in hesitant English what it was.

First thought: "Oh shit."

In the end, with the help of one of their electronic dictionaries, I just told them that it was a war memorial and hoped that they wouldn't ask any further. They didn't. Good thing.

So why do my arms hurt, you may ask?

Well, yesterday, I figured that I might go to school after the tour was over and do a bit of reading, and as a lack of foresight on my part, I hadn't left my course pack in my locker but had brought it home instead. So yesterday, I carried my bag everywhere for about six and a half hours; I hardly sat down at all, and my shoulders became very sore. And today, archery training. After about a week of non-practice.

It all adds up. And it hurts.

At least today I've thought to leave my course pack in school, so if I want to do reading after tomorrow's tour, I won't have to lug it everywhere with me.

Oh, and did I mention that for the six and a half hours' work, I got paid $94.50? ;D

It's funny. People are telling me a lot of things which I never thought of myself before.

Suppose I've changed.

Maybe Jianwu's right, and maybe when girls find someone to love, they stop wanting to be strong all the time. Maybe it's why all the strong girls that guys may be attracted to all get clingy after a while.

Maybe character-wise... I'm a stronger person.

Maybe now, given my year in office and having to juggle a lot of stuff in my first year, I have more confidence.

Gone around looking for all the reasons and I think I've found them.

And I think I agree. And I understand.

These are the brightest corridors that wind around each other
White and blinding and filled with so much joy it could hurt
Fell through the storm that was waiting behind the last door
Twisted so tight that it felt like the warmest bedclothes
And a dreamed lover's embrace
And the safest place to get lost in.
Yew tree roots started to show and the shadows of its branches lengthened;
Evening of my first most longest journey;
Walking towards oncoming vehicles and suddenly wakening and realising
That nothing was halting my feet

Willow, willow, why do you weep? The rain is here,
The storm at its hardest just as its end approaches,
Weep less and not have to feed thine own love no more;
The yew tree saplings all have moved away; their roots up-plucked and
Away they whisked

So that left here is but an apple orchard in the sunshine
Fruits and flowers battered and lashed
And littered 'cross the ground
But are the trees not yet still standing?

Woo... Thank You Dinner only ended at about 11.30 pm last night; that's late. In comparison, last year's dinner at the Orchard Meridien ended at 10-plus. Although I suppose that's because last year's VIPs, the then Dean of Arts, Vincent Ooi, and one of the Vice-Deans who was with him, didn't turn up one and a half hours late. -_-

Tim, Yaozhong, Steven, and both Ivans even um... "dressed up" for the occasion. Really. They rented costumes.

Tim and Ivan Chen dressed as Roman gladiators (Tim complained of the "armor" causing chafing under his armpits; he said that he knew then why the Trojans lost. -_-||); Steven and Yaozhong dressed in those very simple blue, one-piece robes that men in China would wear in the past (you know, the type you always see the commoners wear in Chinese drama serials; apparently, Steven wanted to rent the "long pao", the robes embroidered with dragons which only emperors were allowed to wear, but it was too expensive. Heehee.); now guess what my dear Ivan came dressed as.

He rented a 70s' kind of suit; think John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever. White, with tiny metal studs and beads and costume jewellery; long-sleeved top with flared cuffs and a wide, low neck, and flared pants with gold trim around the ends of the pant legs. And to top it off, reflector shades (Ray-Bans, I'm telling you) and a large brown afro wig.

I was somewhat mollified. :P But it suited him. I sometimes think that my dearie should've been born in the 70s.

But just half an hour before the dinner was supposed to start (at 7 pm), the headache that I'd had the day before came back, and later, I realised that it was the start of a fever. Very bad; my hands were cold (not entirely because of the air-conditioning) and my face was warm, which is what always happens to me when I have a fever.

So as it turns out, I ended up not eating very much due to a lack of appetite; thank you Chong Han and dear Yanyan for your concern, though. :) Chongy, if you say I'm lucky to have a nice boy like Ivan, then Shuyi's just as lucky to have someone like you. :D

Gift exchange finally came around; I gave Guanjie a pen. Was somewhat embarrassed coz I didn't have the time to wrap it, but it's nothing to be sniffed at: a Cross pen from their Ion range. The pens come in a lanyard set, coz the pen can be attached to it, and the pen comes out when you slide the two sides of the pen apart. I have one myself, and the sliding thing about the pen entertained my for quite a while. But that's just me. I take more pleasure than is normal in some of the simplest things in life; I don't know why. :D

And Guanjie got me a book! "The Five People You Meet In Heaven" by Mitch Albom; I've wanted that book for ages! Have already started reading it today and I'm one-third of the way through it. Now if only I read my readings that fast. :P

At the end, Steven gave all the 25th MC girls a pink rose each; lovely little things; mine's sitting in a vase on my bathroom countertop at the moment. :) Ivan waited with me for my mum to come pick me up since he decided that he was going to stay over after all, and there was a very amusing 15 minutes when my mum decided that she didn't mind sending Ivan home (all the way to Tampines) and she kept wanting to do so, even though I told her that he wanted to stay over. Eventually, Ivan personally talked her out of it, heehee.

As for today: went to Sharifah's house to do the tutorial assignment for Soci of Food: cooking. :D

We decided in the end to cook fish & chips, partly because we were lazy and because our group had a lot of "restrictions": Sharifah, being Muslim, can't eat pork; Jialing, being Buddhist, can't eat beef; and Jialing and I are both somewhat against spicy food.

Was fun covering the dory fish fillets in breadcrumbs and frying them, although I'm not sure the meal was entirely healthy; we deep-fried the fish and fries, after all. But we did leave them on paper towels to soak up some of the oil. Jialing and I were both somewhat traumatised at the amount of oil that Sharifah poured into the frying pan when we started. Seriously, I've never seen that much oil in a pan before. Was slightly nauseating.

And our food did taste pretty good. :D

Meanwhile, my two group members have enlightened me as to the fact that there is an essay for Soci of Food... which just adds to the number of term papers I have to do: the number now stands at four, and two of them have to be at least 10 pages long. -_-

So... I probably should get cracking and stop wasting my time here.

Well, archery training camp for the last two days was fun; got back yesterday with a massive headache though-- probably all that time spent out in the hot afternoon sun over the last two days.

My juniors are improving nicely and I'm readjusting to my lovely bow after a long period of irregular training during the holidays; getting ready to upgrade the poundage of the limbs and slowly make the shift to carbon ones somewhere around November.

Thank You Dinner is later this evening, 6.30 pm. Will find a gift for Guanjie, my Deputy Publications successor, later. Wonder what everyone's going to be wearing...

Got new carbon limbs on Tuesday. Pity, coz their poundage is 34 pounds, and the current poundage of my bow is only 28. Quite a big jump, so I've decided not to upgrade to a Hoyt riser and the carbon limbs just yet.


My metal bow, with its lovely blue Samick riser. 

The problem with this is that Samick risers can only take Samick limbs, and Samick doesn't manufacture carbon limbs-- only wooden ones. Carbon limbs are really made of fibreglass, by the way, not carbon, and because they're made of fibreglass, they give a much smoother draw than wooden limbs.

I'm somewhat reluctant to upgrade to carbon limbs because that means I'll have to change the riser to one which fits carbon limbs; something like a Hoyt Gold Medallist riser. And the GM risers are nowhere as pretty as my Samick one. They're all solid colours, and there're only three colours...

But on the other hand, there are the carbon limbs, which are just beautiful:


Winact carbon limbs, by Win&Win archery 

Now, the picture doesn't really do them justice; they're lacquered and shiny and the silver parts actually gleam under the light.

Sigh. Lovely riser, or lovely limbs? I could just have a black Hoyt riser. That would go quite nicely with the carbon limbs.

Decisions, decisions.

To quote Steven, I'm "now officially an ordinary Arts student."

I've finally officially stepped down; it's going to be weird, not having the clubroom key, watching the 26th go about their MC activities, and basically watching from the sidelines instead of being at the heart of all the action. But I suppose I'll have to get used to it.

"Goodbye to MC..." :P

Mondays. Ironically enough, when I planned my timetable and packed the very first day of the work week with 5 hours of lectures first thing in the morning, I thought that Mondays would be a terrible drag. But it turns out they're not.

American Law is actually quite stimulating; I might walk into class still a little fuzzy-minded, but the discussion's always interesting. And immediately after the three hours of seminar, I have two hours of Methods of Social Research lecture, but Pam always there to brighten the day. So, really, I could probably safely say that I enjoy Mondays the most this sem.

Ah, wait. Will be back in a bit. Clement has offered to go to Law library with me. Haha.


Woot! Back from Law Library. Cool. VERY quiet. VERY good studying environment. Maybe I'll study there during the term break. Or when exams draw near. Although nearing exams, it might just get really crowded and all the people around would probably be quite distracting on their own.

Also saw the long couches that Mario told me about last year; really quite an ideal environment for sleeping. Haha.

And outside, it looks to be getting ready to pour. Reminds me of rare desert showers and short-lived gardens; flowers blooming and wilting in the blink of an eye of the universe-- they last about a month, I think. What then of seven and a half months? How much does that mean?

Today is a bad day...

Was teaching my group of juniors today during archery, and halfway through their third end, suddenly it was as if someone had smothered my brain in cotton: my vision started to get more and more obscured by a grey "cloud", and my hearing started to get very fuzzy-- like someone had stuffed cotton in my ears.

My first reaction was "Oh, shit."

So went to sit down before I could actually fall over, and asked Zhan Tao to take over for me. Crappy. This has never happened to me before.

Think it was the sun that was especially strong today or something. Nicholas agreed with me on that, and Angel spent the better half of training sitting in the shade with me as well.

And then, after the juniors were done with their shooting, some of the seniors decided to shoot at 30m, so I thought, well.. okay.. Was a bit hesitant coz I've never shot at 30m with my metal bow before, but I thought that as long as I shifted my sight down, it should be all right.

So I moved the sight down. And apparently it wasn't enough.

My first arrow went low, hit the ground and bounced off the zinc fencing at the back of the range. And when we went to retrieve our arrows, I found that it was BENT.

FUCKING hell.

If fletches get nicked or torn, they can be easily replaced, but if the shaft of an arrow gets bent, then it's pretty much useless. Even if you try to bend it back, it'll never be as good as it was.

The most I could do was remove the point so that I could reuse it, but the fletches and nock pretty much had to be condemned along with the shaft. That's worth about $9 in total that I had to throw away. Bloody hell. This is the first major accident that my arrows have had.

And it's terribly upsetting. Sob. :'(

Internal elections ended at 3.30 am this morning. They started at 6.30 pm. Isn't the thought of it just horrifying?

And to top it off, it was disappointing and a complete waste of time. That's my opinion, although I'm quite sure that many of the 25th MC members will concur with me on that.

But anyway, I've sorta realised that I will miss the 25th comm.

I'm not a very social person, and I admit that I don't even spend nearly enough time with the people that I'm supposed to be working with, but after working with and losing sleep and getting stressed out with all these people during FOP, I'd say that I've got to know a few of them a little better than I have in the past year.

I wonder if I'll even hang around clubroom as often now that I'm stepping down. I wonder if I'll still see Xuzi and Hock everyday; Xuzi with his "Gerri, where's my rice and curry" question, simply because it rhymes and Hock with his laughing greeting and wanting to pat my head (most traumatising, I assure you :P). Beng Chong and our jokes about him being 60% gay, Yuimin and her "totally" bitchy way of talking (which I've learnt to appreciate :D), Alex and his himbo-ness, Xinyan and her random acts of kindness...

Yeah. I'll miss these people.

And now more than ever, I'm convinced that we're one of the best comms that Arts Club has seen.

25th, we rock.

Have you ever, as a child perhaps, tried a sip of your parents' cup of coffee and pulled a face at its bitter taste?

I have, and the first time I tried it, I solemnly said with as much conviction as my 6-year-old self could muster, that I would never drink coffee.

And so, nowadays, the only source of caffeine which I consume other than Coke and lemon tea is mocha.

And mocha, being coffee mixed with chocolate to make it less bitter, is what I call "sissy coffee".

Today, during my SC2101 lecture break, I came out of the LT wanting to buy a cup of mocha, but found that, to my dismay, the vending machine that sold mocha didn't sell it anymore. So I went to the other vending machine which sells canned drinks, and bought this:



Ladies and gentlemen, I have finally "graduated" to drinking.. um, "normal coffee". :P

I have new music; like? Kevin Kern's "We All Fall In Love Sometimes"; I especially like the beginning-- the first short 15 seconds or so has a lingering feel of autumn tinged with sadness and children running in a meadow, mere dots against the expanse of grass, carefree and full of hope.

ROP (Rite of Passage) Camp for the incoming 26th MC is starting in about 2 and a half hours' time, and I'm part of the comm; one of the station I/Cs, with Ivan. Should be fun (probably more for us, the comm, than for them, the incoming MC).

Still looks somewhat overcast outside; have plans to train for a while with Nicholas later, at 4 pm, actually, so I hope it doesn't rain. Well, actually, the lazy part of me does. :P Especially after yesterday's training... 41 push-ups, coz everyone accompanied James to do the 21 that he accumulated as penalties during training... -_-

My back muscles ache. The juniors' probably hurt more though, seeing as they did those push-ups *after* all their training.

Hm hm hm. Hectic next three days. We'll see how everything goes.