fucked up day and it's only 5pm

1. this stupid pr girl. i've been asking for the price of a product at least five times over the past three days. i've emailed, sms-ed and called and now she's not even picking up. maybe you're busy but so the hell am i! if i have to spend so much effort simply getting the price of a product for every single damn thing i write about, i will never get anything done. i won't be so pissed if she actually lets me know why there is a delay. but no, she just ignores all my attempts to contact her, like i'm some stalker. seriously i want to slap her if i even know what she looks like.

2. this rude bitch at the supermarket. the mother forced me into a situation whereby i had to complain to the manager and i hate that.

3. the absolutely disgusting ramen at manpaku or whatever that japanese place in tampines 1 is called. i cannot believe they use hard-boiled eggs - it's ramen, not mee rebus. and that's the least of the problem. the soup was bad, the noodles were bad, even the corn and seaweed were bad and that's really quite an amazing feat. and the way they mass-produced the ramen on an open counter. even the bah chor mee uncles and aunties take more pride in preparing their noodles bowl by bowl.

4. i slept very little and woke up early to meet a friend. i was so exhausted i felt there was a haze over me the whole time. but because this is not a super close friend, i had to put up a front and still be enthusiastic. except that made me feel like i was pretending to enjoy hanging out when i actually do enjoy hanging out with her, just not today. but this is my own fault.

37: No. of mosquito bites I came back from Ubin with

32: No. of mosquito bites on my legs

35: No. of mosquito bites found on non-exposed skin

Bloody hell (quite literal, I believe). I was wearing leggings and three-quarter sleeves because I didn't want a tan, and I thought they might protect me against these monsters too, but no.

They didn't itch last night but now I'm dying to scratch! Fuck.

Oh god i simply loathe overly doctored photos.

Searching for pictures of sunrise to find the nicest spot and there are just loads and loads of artificially enhanced ones in which everything looks like some creepy digital coloured alien landscape.

And what's with people who tag their photos with both sunrise and sunset? I know they can look kind of the same sometimes but wouldn't you know if you took the picture?

Yes, I know they probably just want to increase the chances of getting their shots viewed but such a major inaccuracy grates me.

Been down with flu since the night of the 23rd of December. I suspect it's the National Library at Victoria Street that caused this. I was there for a few hours in the afternoon. The ventilation is tremendously bad. The moment you lift your foot to step through the sliding doors into the basement library area, the smell of stale unbathed human bodies assaults the senses. You know those vile beings that come out by the hoards during morning peak hour, all of whom have not showered and still stink of sleep and vile tiredness? Yah, that smell. Like toxins oozing out of their pores.

I've been to musty bookstores and libraries but usually it's the smell of well-thumbed old books that permeates the air, not the stench of unhygienic beings. It's not so bad on weekdays but I once walked out instantly on a weekend afternoon. That's when the actual unbathed bodies are packed like sardines into the library and sharing the space with the stale unbathed ghosts of their past visits.

So anyway. I spent many days blowing my nose and hacking away to expel copious amounts of snot and phlegm. Sounds gross, I know. But honestly, there is a great sense of momentary satisfaction every time I blow my nose and feel it clear with a rapid whoosh.

Alright, alright...

In any case, am finally left with only a trickle of a cough and sniffing. While it's actually kind of fun to be whoozy from cold and cough meds, it's rather nice to be clear-headed once again too.

Who was it who told me running marathons is the new black?

Every Tom, Dick and Sally is running their "first-OMG-ever" marathon or half-marathon or whatever.

I hate the sight of dirty, tired-looking sunburnt people traipsing around in town in ugly running gear.

Is farni easier to spell than funny? Or to type? Why do people use it?

I'll never purchase anything via sprees anymore. This whole "Oh, I'll send it to you when I feel like it and you can collect at my convenience I don't care how long you wait" thing may be fine for some people but it does not sit well with me.

Shopping should be happy. I don't like to spend money and get grief.

If those jokers don't reply me soon, I'm going to flood their email.

Cornered

My head is all over the place. Help.

When I first came in, I did not like the fact that all the tables lined the wall. That means our backs are always exposed and what you are doing on your computer can always be seen. Barring the times you sit up so straight that you block the entire thing, or when you slouch so low that you can flip the laptop screen so low that nobody can see it unless they squat beside you. But of course, I can’t really be bothered to indulge in such suspicious behaviour. There is no real need anyway, not when your supervisors are forever on MSN and Facebook.

But I digress.

Walls, yes. So I got used to facing the wall. And it became this aid to my schizo nature. Facing the wall all day long (and I have a corner, which means nobody can see my face unless I choose to turn) allows me to shut everything and everyone off should I choose to. I can stew in my foul moods and my face can be as black as I wish. I can be anti-social and always hearing what other people are talking about, joining in only when I am bored or if I wish to.Because the truth is, people annoy the shit out of me.

Digress again.

So the good thing is, with a corner, I can be as myself as I can be. The bad thing? Sometimes people don’t know you’re positioned this way deliberately and they still talk to you. What’s worse, this is a office and people end up talking to you all the time anyway, sometimes about random things (which is not so bad) but often about work (which is blah). So I just have to take a deep irritated breath and sigh (sometimes inwardly, depending on how irritated I am and how far away the person is), plaster a fake smile on my face and spin around on my chair to go, “Yes?” in a sickeningly saccharine manner.

I don’t think I’m suited to this profession. If you want to do PR, you should like to talk to all people. I don’t. I can, sometimes, when I feel like it. But I don’t like to. I just want to walk off with a rude turn and get back to my bed to lie down and continue reading.

annoyed

can't find the holga's lens cap

Today's outing was kind of disappointing. It felt more like a lot of walking done for the sake of walking and for getting from point to point to point without any seeing. Maybe cos I was too hot and sticky to really see and feel anything. The sun was not friendly today.

Hmm. Don't you just dislike questionable online sellers?

So I emailed someone to purchase a necklace. It was something that I pondered over for a while cos while I liked it, I didn't love it. But it was nice and it was okay cheap, so I emailed her.

So the reply was that I should add $2.50 if I want it via registered post.

To which I said, the listing says $20 with registered post.

Technically, I probably shouldn't quibble over $2.50. But then, $2.50 is a lot when it comes to something you're not sure you really wanted in the first place. And it changed the entire value of the necklace to me cos while $17.50 was okay, $20 was not. And besides, the reason for quibbling over small amounts always boils down to principle arguments, isn't it?

So anyway, she replies to say sorry, someone else has paid for it.

Maybe it's just me and my old-fashioned retail ethics not fitting into the world of fast cash via offloading the junk you no longer want aka sell it to the first person who gives you $$, despite the fact that someone else has basically reserved the item and is working out with you the questionable copy in your product listing.

If the other party had reserved it before me, why was I given the acc no to transfer funds to? Are we playing fastest fingers? And if it's after me, well, payment is supposed to be made in 24 hours and time is definitely not up by the time she told me someone else has already paid for it.

(Yeah, I kinda enjoyed Business Law in Year 1 when I had to do all these rationalising and hypotheses.)

Ah well. No big loss anyway. Just 20 bucks more for me to spend on film.

Still in office. PFFFFFFFFFFFFFTTTTTTTT.

On a better note, tickets for Camera Obscura went on sale today. Another something to look forward to.

Lloyd I'm Ready To Be Heartbroken, for the benefit of funny girl, because I could not describe the music to her at all. I'm really bad at music description and classification. Probably cos I don't really care. Only two broad categories are important - I Like and I Don't Like.



If you're going to book tickets, go back from the shopping cart page and try to get a couple more seat options. My first try was row Q. Second was L. As usual, sistic's "Let the system assign best seat" fucks up. Like, what's new, right?

Things to do in this %$!@#&!!! HEAT

1. Yearn for overcast skies and whipping winds.

2. Wish for loud, heavy rain.

3. Look for ice-cream everywhere you go. Venezia dark choclate gelato is blissful but so are the traditional ice-creams from the sidewalk uncles. Raspberry ripple blocks between thin wafer crisps, tiny round scoops of attap seed, sweetcorn and chocolate flavoured ice-cream in a plastic cup. Sucking on potong ice-cream in an air-con room is also most excellent.

4. Ice-cold drinks. H-Two-O and peppermint flavoured bubble tea for double the chill are particular favourites currently.

5. Hide in malls. There are people who cannot get used to the temperatures in our air-conditioned retail malls. I say bring it on to sub-zero. If you're cold you can always throw on a something or the other. But if you're hot, you're fucking hot. Malls which believe in giving you a comfortable shopping experience - Ngee Ann City and Wisma Atria are alway trusty. If all else fails, go to Cold Storage and roam the frozen food and dairy aisles, pick out a cold juice while you're at it.

6. Hide in movie theatres. Lido is most obliging, Cine is comfortable. Bring in a slushy ice-blended drink for additional temperature dips.

7. Hide in your room with windows shut (to prevent hot air from sauntering in and invading your sanctuary) and fan blasting or with air-con on. Here, you can:

• Watch movies and variety programmes. In this heat, light-hearted is key. Overly emotional films that lead to crying will cause the pressure in your head and chest to mount and coupled with the unforgiving heat, migraines will occur.
• Snuggle under the duvet with a book - we're talking air-con on here. Again, easy reads will work better. Nothing that requires too much thinking or appreciation of language. Plot is slightly more crucial than language for now. Think Stephenie Meyer with the Twilight Trilogy.
  
• Magazines work equally well. Frankie is quite a good cool-down read.
• Alternatively, use the heat to get into the mood. Love in the time of Cholera, Water for Elephants... Books that make you feel sweaty and grimy. But this is just a suggestion. I would never subject myself to such an ordeal.

8. Cold showers. Panadol Extra and a shampoo with cold water will alleviate migraines instantly. Wash away all the sweat and grime and immediately leap into a spot and keep the fan on you. This will maintain the lowered body temperature.

9. Of course, this air-con abuse is very bad for the environment. But I don't see how having a constant migraine or smelling bad due to excessive perspiration from heat can help anything or anyone. Still, some small tactics to save energy:

• Go out and hole up in the library, catch a movie, shop. Use what is already being used.
• When you wake up and off the air-con, keep the windows and door shut and on the fan. This will circulate the cold air and keep the room relatively cool for a long while.
• Use thick glass for your windows, or use impenetrable curtains or blinds. The heat and light coming in will just up the temperature which means more energy is wasted combating it.
• Drink iced anything to keep body temperature down.
• Avoid hot soup.

When will this stupid heat and humidity go away?

Your time is NOT more important than mine

There must have been thousands of stories written about how technology has bred unpunctuality. With the click of a send button, an SMS arrives in place of the friend who is supposed to meet you at the stipulated time.

Generally, I am quite a punctual person. I won't say there haven't been slips but on the whole, if I'm supposed to meet you at 2pm, you can find me where I'm supposed to be anytime between 1.50pm and 2.10pm. This also means that my threshold when it comes to waiting for friends is also around 10-15 minutes.

I don't see why it's so difficult. It boils down to basic respect and manners. If you're meeting me at 8pm and you called me at 7.30pm to tell me you're leaving the office now, you can be sure I will be pissed off when I call you at 8.05pm, expecting you to be coming up the building, only to discover that you had just left the office. And your flimsy excuse is that you were so busy.

If you're that busy, just don't bother arranging to meet up. I've better things to do with my time than waste it waiting for people who don't have the decency to respect mine.

When I was staying in hall in university, I had this neighbour who would be sitting at her laptop at 7pm when she was supposed to meet her friends at 7pm. Apparently, all her friends never show up on time and can be as late as an hour, if not more. The entire group had developed the habit of trying to be later than the rest so she wouldn't be the one waiting.

Say it with me, what the fuck?

I have zero interest in breeding such a ill-mannered system. I do not believe in rubber time and I think I've wasted enough of my life waiting for people for really no good reason at all, and I've seriously had it. So don't blame me if you pull that kind of stunt on me and arrive to find that I've gone off.

Rules are meant to be broken

One of the things I always skip when flipping through mags are articles on dressing guidelines. Dressing for your figure, style dos and don'ts, you must do this to flatter your assets you must do that to hide your flaws... blahblahblah.

I mean, in theory, it's all good to be sensible. And it's not like I've never read them, I've read enough to recite all the usuals and if I abide by these "rules", I probably should:

- avoid crew neck tees that emphasize my chest and make me look bigger and instead, opt for lower necklines that are "slimming"
- say no to volume
- say no to skinny stripes and accept that only thick stripes are acceptable in my life
- wear black or monotones
- keep away from bubble skirts and restrict my existence to "flattering" A-lines
- only ever pull on dark-coloured tights and look wistfully at riotous colours such as shocking pinks and blues

and so on.

The truth is, I love crew neck tees although I do appreciate how a lower neckline is truly more flattering. I prefer skinny stripes. I seriously do not agree with thick stripes. I love black but I think it's more of a character issue. I do not like bubble skirts but I am amassing some voluminous tulips like nobody's business. And when it comes to tights, I love the brights and patterns as much as the dark solids.

It's not complacency or delusion. It's just that I don't see why dressing up should be synonymous with figure-flattering. How about pulling on pieces you love to look the way you like, even if it means your ass looks that bit bigger than it should?

It's not that there are no rules. More like, as you understand yourself better, you pull together your own set of rules based on intuition and a sense of adventure, lots of time in fitting rooms and a healthy dose of wince-worthy mistakes. For instance, I am careful with skinny belts and would never hitch them around my hips, I do not attempt to wear most shades of grey when it comes to clothing and I've never found a flattering yellow. And while I'm most happy to encase my legs in neon pink, I do not delude myself into thinking horizontal stripes on the calves are an option.

These are pretty common-sensical and rather like what you would see as textbook fash guidelines but what's important to me is that I won't say no until I've proven to myself it doesn't work. There are always exceptions to the rules and ways to get around it if you want to. It applies in life and it applies to what you wear as well.

Generally, I find restrictive style tips patronising what with all their cover this up hide that. On the other hand, there are some how-to tips I've found interesting and more educational. For instance, if your calves are chunky and you want to wear ankle straps, look for those that start low on the ankle because your legs look longer. And instead of covering with with mid- to knee- length skirts, slightly shorter skirts worn with heels can create the illusion of longer, leaner legs.

So there you go. Wear what accentuates who you are, not your figure-type. If you want to wear volume, rein it in or pick closer-fitting volume, if you want to wear bright-coloured tights, sheers work easier than opaques, if your poufy skirt is making you look dumpy, throw on super high heels and stick your hands in the pockets whenever you can to weigh it down. And if you want to slouch around in what looks like a garbage sack, it's still your choice.

And of course, even though I've been living with this attitude for a while now, this entry was triggered by the purchase of two Topshop skirts (May Day sale lah).

Cream flouncy and big bubbly tulip - not the most flattering of skirt choices for me. But I like them too much to care.

(Been hankering for a floral piece, finally got one!)

Tell me why, exactly?

The merchandising process for Nine West Singapore must go something like:

Hmm. This is nice. So is this, and this, and this and this. Okay, done. Singapore can have the rest.

Where are these??

To be fair to them, the following is not on the website and was discovered via Fops and Dandies.

But still.

Anyone wants this?

Gel creme moisturiser for normal/combi skin. I opened the plastic seal around the outside of the bottle about one month or so again, but I've only used it once.

I'm not one that minds fragrances in my skincare. I like the delicate scents of Chanel skincare, and the aromatic ones of Clarins. But I hate it when I open a bottle and all I smell is a huge whiff of synthetic fragrance. Biotherm Line Peel along with some of the men's moisturisers, I've realised, are exactly like that.

I find it rather revolting to use. I might as well spritz cheap, imitation perfume or smear air freshener on my face.

So no, I don't want it anymore. If you like and would like to have the product, let me know.

Topshop is so killing me!

Ho.Nest.Ly.

Is it just me and my unreasonable expectations or has our local Topshop been stocking too slowly? I've been waiting and waiting for all these things I want but as of last Saturday, there is still no sight of them all.

So to make it clearer. Topshop is killing me because the website is tempting me with all these luscious items, forcing me to rush to the store in anticipation every weekend, only to walk away disappointed.

There was this:

The pink ones refused to appear in the store. Next thing I know, the white ones have made their presence felt on the site. I definitely want this pair of shoes. The question now is, colour. What do you think?

And then there were these. Previously, I liked the blue ones. I don't recall if they ever made it to SG TS. But now, I'm really keen on the peachy pair. Thoughts?

Next there were these glossy leggings. Glossy leggings. I like the sound of them.

Recently I've been wearing a lot of dresses. A big reason is because there are just so many to be found everywhere these days. This grey seems like something I should have in my "polished" wardrobe. Not sure if it's me though. And grey. The one colour that makes me look grey. Although this shade is not as bad.

And florals. I really want something floral, but it's not a print I can pull off. Big, small, muted, bright... it just looks really auntie on me. For sure though, chiffony and swirly floral is not for me. Structured, Balenciaga-inspired and short, however, in a black based bright-coloured, small flower print is what I envision might work.

I've never liked the strapless over tee look. But there's something about this blue, drapey dress that I'm willing to work the look out for. The colour has been one of my favourites these few months and also, I rather like the drapes and folds. If it's in a good fabric, I'd be happy to buy it as a companion for my H&M black cropped blazer.

Ooh. 1am. Bedtime.

First thing after work tomorrow? Rush to TS.

And Nine West - they owe me two pairs of shoes I want to try. Well, okay, not owe owe per se. I just want to put them on my feet.

We're on meritocracy, people

Support local ______.

Productions, music, fashion, design, talent, etc. Fill in as you wish.

Whenever I see any of the above, my question is always, "Why?"

Hear me out.

I'll start by stating some of what I love that's local. Royston Tan. The Great Spy Experiment. Stefanie Sun. Tanya Chua. Astreal. alldressedup. Argentum. Baylene. Hansel.

I like them because they're them. Not because they're Singaporean. Nobody should ever think that their fellow countrymen are obliged to support their craft just because. I believe that work should speak for itself.

Perhaps the person who came up with that in the first place really meant, "Don't discriminate against local _____."

Because it happens. I once asked the room if anyone has The Great Spy Experiment album,
and I got this reply: "Ew. They're local right?"

Wtf? I don't mind if you tell me, "Ew. They're so lousy," but automatically assuming local equals bad is simply disgusting.

So if that's the true meaning of the line, I don't mind so much. But if it's otherwise, please, just shut up.

Say it if you wish but don't wear it

I hate approximately 99.8% of all slogan tees. The worst offenders are probably the wisecracks and sexual innuendos. They are like the guys I've had the misfortune to attend tutorials with in uni - always cracking the lamest, most unfunny jokes you can imagine, and then laughing uproariously over their own sparkling wit while trying to insinuate that they are god's gifts to womankind because, wow, they can make them laugh! And girls love that, don't we?

*snorts*

So anyway, I have yet to encounter the other 0.2% that I don't dislike.

Then there are the Little Miss and Mr Men tees. I love the books and the silly stories. But grown ups strutting around in Little Miss Bossy tops are so. Not. Cute.

But the other day, a scrawny teenage boy walked past me and I was gobsmacked by his tee. He was wearing those black plastic frames that are so fashionable now, and looked to be nothing older than 18. Chinese boy of the typical bespectacled variety.

Mr Well Hung.

Amazing, I tell you.