I haven’t been shopping for awhile! What I mean is a serious shopping in which I was out for a few hours really trying out clothes and shoes and stuff. I just did yesterday.

It was like a 4-hour shopping experience. I started out at Takashimaya after I had some yaki udon there. I went to Kinokuniya, decided to buy some books (AGAIN) but then I thought maybe, for some of the mysteries or thrillers, I can look at the 2nd hand book stores in Bras Basah Complex, so I only grabbed one book - Watership Down by Richard Adams and also a little something for my beloved mother. Surprisingly, at around noon time Kinokuniya was already packed with people. Economy downturn? I don’t see any signs of that as yet.

After that I shopped around Takashimaya and walked to Wisma Atria. I bought some tee-shirts and a tunic at Outfitters. A red tunic, perfect for Chinese New Year. I just wish that by that time, I would’ve lose some weight so I can look decent in a tunic. I also bought a pair of nice shoes from Lee Cooper! :)  It costs me $42 bucks but I think I deserve a pair of new shoes! I am not sure yet if I can wear it for CNY, but it looks like it can be matched with anything, even dresses!

At the end of the day, I went to Ya Kun and had a cup of coffee plus some kaya toasts. It really did the trick as my feet were aching from the long walk.

I also have some happy updates! I finished two books, i.e. Victoria Thompson’s “Murder on Lenox Hill” and Lorna Barrett’s “Murder Is Binding”. Now I am reading Patrick Suskind’s “Perfume” and I shall be starting Orhan Pamuk’s “The Black Book”. The two books that I’ve finished this week are light-reading. It makes me feel better after I read the ridiculously long and not-so-interesting Midnight’s Children. “Murder Is Binding” is the first in the series while I am very eager to read more of Thompson’s Gaslight Mystery series. Anyone who likes Sherlock Holmes or Miss Marple (Agatha Christie) will enjoy reading Thompson’s books. Having said that, I didn’t really come to appreciate Thompson’s main protagonist Sarah Brandt. I could understand the role that she played. She was supposed to be a midwife, yet she was too eager to help and she bugged into other people’s business in a relatively annoying manner. On top of that, she doesn’t have the kind of wisdom that Miss Marple possessed. She seems more like a rich and nosy woman, not the embodiment of kindness and intellectual.

I am going to try to finish Perfume today and perhaps, make a ‘review’ on that. When was the last time I wrote one? Probably some time ago >< Blah!

Tags: gaslight mystery, sarah brandt, shopping, thompson

No more Midnight’s Children. If my boss hadn’t insisted, I probably wouldn’t have finished reading this book.

OK, I can understand why it was awarded Booker of the Booker Prize, but apparently the old saying one man’s meat is another man’s poison still rings true.

I just couldn’t get into the story at the beginning. There was Saleem Sinai, describing his ordeals from his grandfather’s time… There was Saleem Sinai, kept rambling on about the perforated sheets… There was Saleem Sinai, whose account on his life was really nothing more than giberrish…

Sorry, Rushdie fans. No, I don’t mean to insult Rushdie, but the book is just not my cup of a tea. I am not here to review any books, I am merely ‘penning’ down my thoughts. I know he is a big guy and he has lots of fans out there. Some parts of the book was quite interesting and bizarre, but others were just too boring to me. I admit that I couldn’t understand him thoroughly, but at the same time, his prose and writing style really just turn me off. It isn’t exactly a page-turner. I won’t even bother to re-read the book because it is so heavily laden with things that I deem unnecessary… What I’m going to do is, I think, I’ll put the book up for RABCK next month. While I didn’t enjoy the book, I do hope that it will find a better owner who will appreciate it.

Tags: Midnight's Children, salman rushdie

We have got a new kid in the lab!

I called him a kid because he is about 4-5 years younger than me, and I consider that quite a lot younger than me. He came in about three weeks ago. I think this kid is just very fortunate to be employed by my boss (OK, on the same token, I can say that I am blessed that she is our boss). The boy graduated from a Poly two years ago, after which he was enrolled to the compulsory National Service. He just came out from NS and he is now doing a part-time degree while working in our laboratory. Supposedly, he is a lab technologist because half of the time he will be in charge of the FACS Aria II. Nevertheless, half of the time he will be helping us out in the research. As such, he has the opportunity of learning a lot of things that a normal undergraduate student will not yet encounter. 

Having said that, I must also say that I am lucky to have our boss too. She is very patient, out-going and funny. I can’t say that I know her very well yet, but at least this is a decent job and a decent boss that I’m having. We could play music in the lab while we do  work, and we also have tea-time almost everyday. In addition, whenever we have journal club discussion, we would usually go down to the cafeteria and have some coffee there. Someone from another lab told me that we look quite ‘casual’ and ‘informal’. I told him, “Hey that might be true but we ARE working hard!” .__________________. Man, it seems other people have the impression that we are having fun in the lab! OK, I shall calm down, maybe he is just being really envious…

I wanted to say more, but actually I’ve been taking my lunch time to write this. So I think I better get back to work lest I couldn’t finish all the work before 6pm, when NCC will have its year-end party. I don’t want to miss that for sure! 

Tags: boss, boy, busy

I want to just make an entry to indicate that I am still… quite alive here… The past weekends have just been incredibly busy. I wanted to really finish Midnight’s Children, but I haven’t got the opportunity to do it… because I was just way too busy and occupied (and the book is just so THICK!). My sister came two weeks ago and we spent the weekend together, then I was very busy with sending and writing Christmas cards. I also went down to the IT fair with WP and YM and I bought a really cheap graphics card. Let’s see if it can finally play all my .mkv files properly! I’m going to sleep, right NOW.

My sister just left two days ago, and I’m missing her already.

I’ve entered a next phase in my life, in which I’m trying to enjoy my solitude. I’m staying with a family now. Whenever I come home from work, I would see the landlady and her family eating dinner or watching television or doing something together. Sometimes I’m just so exhausted that I don’t pay much attention to them. At other times, I am really starting to envy them. Almost every night, I take some food home and then I eat alone in my little room while talking to my dad online or watching some downloaded crap. After which, I might study, read, or watch more crap before going to bed alone.

Somehow I managed to understand why I never slept as well as I did. During my sister’s short stay, I was able to sleep peacefully and I woke up feeling refreshed even though I didn’t sleep like 8 or 9 hours. I was happy and contented because my sister, a family member, was present. I saw her curl up in the mattress and I felt happy that I could wake up and find some life in my room because my room was always empty. Then, when she left, I came home feeling dejected. I turned the door knob, and looked inside. It was so quiet and so hollow. I felt nothing in my room. I opened my room into emptiness where it sometimes becomes so scary that I can hear my echo and my breathing. At some point, the loneliness would become so unbearable that I would just go out - to any place where I can smell people and life.

I missed company, more importantly, I missed being around with my family.

Oh holiday oh holiday, would you run towards me at light speed please?

Tags: loneliness

My sister is here!

Well, actually, she arrived yesterday. I didn’t have time and the energy to blog anymore. This is gonna be really, really short too because I am equally tired but I just don’t want to feel like my blog is retiring AGAIN.

Needless to say, we went to lots of places. Mostly, I brought her to shopping a lot because she wanted to buy things. She told me just a few minutes ago that she didn’t want to go eat the dim sum buffet anymore because she spent a lot -_-||  I have no idea why I am kinda disappointed, maybe it is because I haven’t been eating dim sum for a long time and I have been looking forward to it too. However, I think I can understand that too. It’s just, really expensive, the dim sum buffet is about 18++ I heard (for weekends).

So anyway, we have to go out now. I’ll update again when I have the time.

Tags: money, shopping, sister

I’m kinda reaching a bottleneck in my reading.

Is it just Salman Rushdie or me?

He won the Booker of Booker Prize, twice in fact. But how come, I can never seem to pick up? It seems to be that it is very difficult to read. Well, some people have been telling me that it is their favorite book. Yet…

Oh well, one man’s meat is another man’s poison. It’s definitely always true, and, it is also true that reading a book that makes you feel crappy really doesn’t help…

On the other hand, my sister is coming to visit on Friday. We would definitely go to Harbourfront to eat the dim sum buffet there. I am also thinking of taking her to eat Japanese food or something else. I am in need of some good food. I just noticed that I’ve almost been eating Malay food every day. I bought cereal and milk, but I haven’t been eating them for the past three days. I blame the cold weather. I mean, OK - I don’t understand Ang Mohs, but, how do you eat cold cereal when you wake up feeling really cold?!

Oh well, at least now I can be assured of something warm over this weekend

Tags: food, salman rushdie, sister

Boss and I got off work at 5.30pm yesterday, because she said she needed a drink lol.

I wasn’t too sure where to go, well, I do know of some places but under such circumstances I would prefer to let my boss decide where to go. At last, we decided to go to her favorite place, a cafe & bar place called ‘eM’ which is located at Boat Quay. That place is like a heaven. It’s approaching 6.15pm when we reached there. We took a seat by the river because the weather is cooling and both of us seem to enjoy being outdoors more.

After that, I walked along the river, all the way from Boat Quay to Clarke Quay to The Central Mall. This was when I discovered that there’s a lot of japanese restaurants along the river and also in Liang Court! My goodness - first time I stepped foot in Liang Court after seven years of staying in Singapore. Pathetic. I just found a new food heaven, maybe I can bring my sister along to try it out next weekend when she’s coming over for AFA 08.

My JLPT3 is in a month’s time… actually, less than a month. The funny thing is, I don’t even know when exactly is it! HAHA! Well, I’m just going to try my best to study and then wish for the best! I find that I am not putting in a hell lot of labor into it, possibly because I’m learning it for leisure and I just don’t want to overly stressed myself.

Tags: boss, jlpt

OMG! It has been raining for the past few days - today being the worst.

I was sitting outdoors having some tea with boss and we were engaging in a work discussion. It was raining and the wind was ranting crazily, sweeping across the cafeteria notoriously. While we were seated under the shelter, I could still feel the raging weather. It was nice to be outdoors though because it was just too cold in the lab and we could both do with some hot drinks.

For the past few days, my reading speed has been incredibly slowed down. I’m not sure what is the reason, but probably because the book that I’m reading now is just incredibly hard. It is Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie. The book has twice been awarded Booker of Man Booker Prize but… somehow I found the writing style difficult to comprehend. Maybe it’s just me. Well, if it is that GOOD, I will somehow try to finish it.

Okay, I know people get fed-up with me because I talk about books all the time in my post. Maybe.. something different now.

I saw Criminal Minds Season 4 Episode 1- 3, and I’m really glad that none of the agents died. JJ is getting fatter due to the pregnancy. Rossi seems to be more compassionate (old age? lol). Hodges looks different because he doesn’t wear the moustache anymore. Morgan and Garcia are cute as ever. Prentiss looks… sorry to say, bland as usual. I just couldn’t find anything in her. Reid is just superb! In the 2nd episode, he was able to decode a hidden message in a letter written by a criminal in the prison to his lover in a mere few hours when it is claimed that a computer will a day to decode that. He’s just plain genius. Oh, he has a different hairdo too!

There’s still CSI Season 9 waiting for me. Somehow, I didn’t feel like watching it. In the past, it has always been my favorite. But, ever since I heard that Grissom (William Petersen) is leaving the show after Season 9, I got a bit depressed. I think CSI is all about Grissom’s spirit and charisma. Without those, I feel that something is lost. Grissom is not flawless, but his attitude towards work and how he manages the people in the lab really impressed me. At times, one might feel that he is a bit too harsh on his teammates, but on a closer look, he actually care about them and he trusts them more than anyone else could. He is cold or even indifferent in some circumstances, but he always have this touch of compassionate and kindness that makes him Grissom.

Tags: anime, rain