Thursday, November 30, 2006

Tossing and turning

This is bad... had a relatively sleepless night. It would already have been bad enough to have 4.5 hours of sleep from 1.30am to 6am, but it's now worse that I spent a large part of this time awake.

It might have been the adrenaline still running its course after I got back from work, but although it does keep me sleepless for a while most work nights, I will eventually still knock out.

Maybe a fatal combination was activated when I accepted that cup of coffee from NH when I got back? Coffee used to have no effects on me whatsoever back in secondary school and junior college days cos I drank too much of it. But after I cut down on my caffeine intake it's now effective for me again. Hmm, but I still managed to fall asleep pretty quickly the last few times I had coffee that late at night.

Maybe it is a lethal combination afterall. I shouldn't have drunk that coffee! But then if I didn't I probably wouldn't have been able to keep awake enough to have written out 5.5 pages of notes for a seminar presentation next Thursday, within 2 hours. It's quite frustrating when I realised all this time I was awake while trying to sleep could have been spent on more productive activities. But on the other hand, I didn't want to keep myself awake doing something cos the point was to let the brain and body relax enough so that I'll be able to fall asleep, right?

Hope I will survive today... more coffee, perhaps?

On hindsight, I guess I am quite glad that the classmate whom I promised to accompany for her performance today informed me on Monday that she had been ill and has decided not to sing. I was disappointed cos I spent Sunday learning the hardest piece with the speed changes, figures and bass line. And at the end of the day I was so proud of myself for doing a good job, being responsible enough to learn the music in such a tight schedule so that I won't screw up during her performance. But I guess now that I didn't have much sleep, it probably would have been quite hard to pull off a good performance if she were still doing it.

And I'm glad I took the courageous move of agreeing to accompany another singer last Wednesday, cos this sort of thing works best by reputation and word-of-mouth, so this Monday yet another singer sms-ed me to ask if I could play for her too. Great opportunities, especially since these two singers are really responsible to look for their accompanists this early. I just hope I won't be too stressed when the time comes.

Ok, enough rambling, off to get my coffee.

Wednesday, November 29, 2006

Muahaha all bow down before me!

Right now I am seriously lacking the drive to blog. Slightly exhausted from working four nights in a row and trying very hard to catch up with school work on Sunday. Glad it's Wednesday though, had a nice sleep-in this morning. Now the quiz takes over:


You are The Empress
Beauty, happiness, pleasure, success, luxury, dissipation.
The Empress is associated with Venus, the feminine planet, so it represents, beauty, charm, pleasure, luxury, and delight. You may be good at home decorating, art or anything to do with making things beautiful.
The Empress is a creator, be it creation of life, of romance, of art or business. While the Magician is the primal spark, the idea made real, and the High Priestess is the one who gives the idea a form, the Empress is the womb where it gestates and grows till it is ready to be born. This is why her symbol is Venus, goddess of beautiful things as well as love. Even so, the Empress is more Demeter, goddess of abundance, then sensual Venus. She is the giver of Earthly gifts, yet at the same time, she can, in anger withhold, as Demeter did when her daughter, Persephone, was kidnapped. In fury and grief, she kept the Earth barren till her child was returned to her.

What Tarot Card are You?
Take the Test to Find Out.



Hehehe this decidedly so not me. Other than the fact that I do like to decorate things and create stuff.

Right. Going to drag my lazy bottom out of bed to make myself some hot 'dinner' before I drag myself to work.

Sunday, November 26, 2006

Not only Singaporeans complain

The Helsinki Complaints Choir. And click here to watch the amateurish Complaints Choir of Birmingham. Cringed at their out of tune moments but somehow it adds a very 'layman' feel to it.

Anyway, random daily update on work:

Feeling so shiok now sitting on my bed with my legs on the chair. Ah....

But work today wasn't too bad. The other waitress was the one who received training with me on Wednesday, and she's ok. Albeit just a little slackish sometimes. I don't really mind, as long as she doesn't slack the whole time. And I got to meet one of the students who works as a chef, but only on Saturdays, and who is a friend of a friend.

We had two big reservations - seven people (turned out to be eight) at seven, and six people (turned out to be seven) at eight. And other people who just came in. All the tables were filled.

Saturday, November 25, 2006

Waitressing rants again

Had a killer time working alone on a Friday tonight. The customers started waiting outside the restaurant before our opening time, 7pm. Three tables at the same time! And one more shortly after. Ran out of menus to go around even... had to ask them to share. And just after I took orders from one of the tables, another guy came in.

Was kept on my toes all the time. I couldn't manage to serve the drinks and some starters/snacks fast enough. God. Argh. And I really wanted to slow down taking the orders, but they all were so quick to decide what to get! But fortunately most of them were really understanding and forgiving, seeing as I was the only waitress serving five tables at the same time.

Plus it's really irritating to prepare the drinks cos in order to get the the space I'm allocated to, I need to squeeze past the chefs. And then, I need to get the drinks past them to serve. Or if some customer signals to me halfway while I'm preparing some drinks, I really don't know whether to just acknowledge them and continue preparing, or to attend to them first!

Only one of the tables, the guy who came alone, was impatient. He was the last of this batch of people to come in, but even when some others haven't been served their food, he was already asking me how long more it was going to take. Tried to explain to him that there were customers before him and it might be a wait, but he cheekily argued, 'But you can serve me first.' Luckily the head chef has good foresight, when he saw that the order was just one main dish and a drink he tried to prepare it relatively quicker, no matter if it was ready before some of the others' dishes.

On the bright side though, since the bulk of the customers came in so early, we got to close earlier too when all the customers left by 10pm.

I think it's back to two waitresses tomorrow. And boy am I glad... even if it's that miss-experienced helping out.

Friday, November 24, 2006

I'm still alive

I survived working alone yesterday! Woohoo...

But it wasn't very busy so it was manageable. There was a new chef as well, she's quite ok, just that she gets a bit sullen after 8pm cos I think normally on week nights she's used to sleeping early, like about 8 plus. That's really early!!!

But one of the older chefs said he'll be quiting in January. No more favourite trio of chefs.

I like the job.
  1. The head chef is humourous and won't get really angry unless it's something very serious.
  2. The other students working there as chefs or waitresses are friendly.
  3. The customers are usually not too demanding unless it's really busy.
  4. I get my exercise by standing and walking from 5pm to about 10 or 11pm. And washing the heavy yakitori grill. (Yes my legs are aching after only working two days in a row.)
  5. It's quite near my house, about 20-30 minutes' walk away, and either the head chef or one of the other chefs will drive us home after work.
Was so tired last night that I knocked out at 1am in the morning and slept till 10am. That was after taking a nice hot shower, having something to eat with NH, then chatting a while when YR and his girlfriend came home. As for tonight... I hope against hope it won't be too busy even though it's Friday.

Thursday, November 23, 2006

Food outing and job woes

Glad it's 'weekend' again. I was going to work very hard practising on next Thursday's performance pieces today. In fact, the rehearsal on Tuesday went quite well. Two of the pieces were quite straightforward so they were good. I just have to work harder on the third piece, which has speed changes almost every two bars and in which I only have the figures and bass part.

But, due to lots of disturbances from my housemates last night... 'Wheres the basket?'... 'NH!'... and other variations or noises I can't remember. I can only remember being woken up by all the noise, looking at the time, feeling really pissed, then going back to sleep. Only to be woken up again. Argh. So I didn't brace myself and crawl out of my warm bed into the cold room when my alarm rang at six this morning. I slept till it was TEN. What a pig...

When I finally dragged myself out of bed, the whole house was silent... all sleeping, of course... hahaha retribution for disturbing me last night was that both NH and YR missed their two lectures today. Hmph. I decided that since it was already so late and I have to go to work at about 4.30pm, I might as well not go to school to practice. This decision was made with lots of aid from the fact that NH and some of the Singaporeans were going for a conveyor belt sushi buffet. And it was practice, or sushi.

The types of sushi were really little, but it's still good after not eating sushi for so long. And I declare that their egg sushi passed my test! Most of the time in Singapore I wouldn't even touch any egg sushi cos most I've ever given a chance and eaten tasted disgusting. I don't know why I don't like them, I just didn't... this is coming from someone who's a I-eat-anything garbage bin.

Work was ok, but a little... I dunno... spirit dampening? Cos the really cheerful and willing-to-teach girl I was learning from the first time I worked has gone back to her country now. And the person who was teaching me and another waitress today was really... slightly unpleasantly full of herself. And to add to that, it was a really busy night although Wednesdays are supposed to be quieter. Maybe it's because the restaurant had been closed for two weeks following the chef's operation.

My major mistake was to serve a dish meant for customer a to customer b, since the dish itself was ordered by both, but for customer a it was as an addition to his main course and for customer b it was as his starter. So I wrongly assumed the dish was for customer b, and when customer a's main course was ready I was waiting for the dish to be ready so that both will be served together, but miss-experienced yelled at me to 'Serve it now!' And so I did.

It was only after I did, that it hit me. I realised that the dish I just served to customer b might have been meant by the chefs for customer a! When the realisation hit me, it was like, oh my god! But the chef wasn't too angry (luckily), although miss-experienced was really pissed. She was like, 'Why did you do that?' And even after I explained that it was my mistake and apologised, she said in an accusatory tone, 'then you'll be the one to go and explain to the customer why he will have to wait for his dish.' As if I was going to push the blame to her and make her do the apologising to the customer. Eurgh. I will apologise to everyone when I make a mistake, but I just can't stand it when someone assumes I am not going to do it.

Anyway... today's just supposed to be my 'training day'... not sure if anyone else will be there tomorrow to help/teach me or if I'll just be thrown into the deep end on my third day at work. But I think I'll manage... or hopefully I'll manage... as long as the chefs working tomorrow are the same as today's. The two other students and the boss of the shop, they are the best trio of chefs to work with man. Can handle the pressure of lots of waiting customers well. But I think I'll still have to learn more on how to pretend to slack a bit and not take the customers' orders too quickly, so that the chefs will have enough time to cook. Heard two people got fired cos they took orders too fast on a Saturday night, which is when it's the busiest and the chefs can't handle cooking everything so quickly :/ I will try my best anyway. Jobs are hard to find, I must keep this one! Gambatte!

The one thing that probably cheered me up a bit today was when another person messaged me to ask if I can play for her performance in January. I was deliberating whether to accept cos I'm real scared I will screw up. But, heck, if I don't dare to accept it and challenge myself, I'll be wasting all these excellent opportunities. And of course, the more people you play for, the more other people will ask you to play for them (assuming you don't screw up). Oh yes, I like this person already, because I replied that if she passes me the score before Christmas holidays and we get enough time to rehearse with each other, I'll do it. And she immediately replied that she'll put the scores in my pigeon hole tomorrow! Efficient, and responsible enough to find someone to play for her in advance.

Monday, November 20, 2006

Starting to feel the pressure

I finally finished my essay at nearly 10pm, despite working on it all day. And even now I'm still doubting what I actually wrote about the construction of the piece. Not a good feeling. Well, there's nothing more I can do now except keep reading it to check for any errors. I think a first class is going to be out of my league but I really hope I can at least get a IIi, though anything IIii and above will be accepted with a sigh of relief. I'll just feel a bit 不服 if this module pulls down my overall grade. Hopefully it won't...

It's just like uni to have all the deadlines and important events happening within the same time frame. Submit essay on Monday, submit assignment on Tuesday, and play for someone's performance next Thursday. It's also just like me to have been slacking all this while until everything crashes down on me. Then only do I start to panic and slog like a slave.

It comes as no surprise then, that I haven't finished the assignment due Tuesday, haven't practised for a practical lesson tomorrow, haven't practised for a rehearsal on Tuesday with the person I'm playing for, haven't practised for another practical lesson on coming Thursday, and most importantly, don't think I'm going to be ready for the actual performance next Thursday.

It's one thing to screw up for your own performance and another to screw up while playing for someone else's... the latter shows that you are 100% irresponsible for accepting a performance you're not capable of doing, and will definitely decrease your chances of playing for anyone else, especially if they heard you at the performance, by 100%. I'm wondering if I shouldn't have agreed to play... given that it was quite short notice and she only gave me the score last Thursday as well. That's two weeks before the performance! But I guess I'm in no position to complain, if I agreed I'm expected to be able to learn the pieces well and do it quick, right?

Looks like it's going to be a long week and a half ahead...

Sunday, November 19, 2006

This guy's already taken

Aw, housemate NH is such a sweet guy! He just came to give me his free chocolates that he got today. He went with some of the Singaporeans to the place this city is known for, no prizes for guessing where... while anti-social mugger busy me stayed at home all day writing my essay.

If I had free chocolates I wouldn't give them away. His girlfriend is one lucky girl indeed! Don't think I'm so easily bribed that I will start thinking he's a nice guy just because he gave me chocolates though, he's been a very caring housemate, always looking out for me and stuff. He was really concerned about my mouldy problem, and hasn't been chasing me for the money I still owe him for buying some stuff for the house, bills etc from a long time ago, just because I told him (as a passing remark) that I only had enough money in my bank to pay the rents for the rest of the ten months and if I keep withdrawing from the account I'm going to be in trouble. That was about a month ago... and up till now, even after I've found a job, he still hasn't told me how much I owe him.

The best thing about NH is, he's a good listener. Not that I'm a good talker, or have lots to say, but he is genuinely concerned and really listens when he asks about my day. It's nice sometimes (like when I have a crazy impossible essay like this), to have someone ask, 'Hey, how's it going?' and empathising when you say you don't even know where or how to start. And in turn I empathise with him and YR when they are rushing to complete their weekly assignments.

And he's equally concerned about all his friends, always willing to go the extra mile to help or even just lend a listening ear. Maybe it's because he's like a brother (eight years older than me), sometimes I feel so cared for I go crazy and start daydreaming. If only he wasn't taken already... Anyway, glad to have such a great friend and housemate!

Ok, enough daydreaming and babbling... back to my essay now. I'm aiming to finish it by Sunday morning. Oh, is it Sunday already? Er, well, I'll just get back to work.

Saturday, November 18, 2006

The craving strikes

Whilst doing work this morning I was feeling very cold, and I had a sudden craving for congee. So it was that I boiled a pot of rice and water and left it to simmer from about 1pm until I had dinner at 7 plus in the evening. I was really surprised that my skills of agar-ation was that good; I poured the rice into the pot completely by random! And water is of course variable, I added more water sometimes when it started to get less at around 3pm and it was too early to eat.

Hmm, of course, in my dictionary there's no such thing as 'too early to eat', and to be honest I couldn't wait to devour all that congee. But the consistency wasn't what I really wanted anyway, so I decided to be patient. And it paid off. Nothing like a piping hot, hearty bowl of congee with a generous helping of sesame oil on a cold day! It was surely worth all the wait, the occasional stirring, and it was even worth cleaning out the sticky pot in the end. Yum... should have cooked more... I need food right now!

It's funny how most of my food cravings are for the simple, home-cooked things and seldom what other Singaporeans here will crave. Like, they will crave char kuey teow, laksa, etc... although these can also be cooked at home, but I usually crave for simpler stuff. Like congee. Soup. Oh no, I'm thinking of fried bee hoon now... lucky there's no bee hoon in my cupboard, or I think I just might go down to the kitchen and fry some.

Just have to control myself now... and anyway I don't want to gain too much weight like last winter :(

Friday, November 17, 2006

Bliss is...

having 'breakfast' at 9pm. Sausages, scrambled eggs, buttered bread and strong, black coffee straight out of the coffee maker... *contented sigh*

Was cooking my dinner when housemate NH came into the kitchen to make his Mexican coffee and offered to make me some too. Mmmm... aromatic! Although it was too sweet, it reminded me of the coffee my grandma makes. When I was young I loved to dip 'soda biscuits' into her coffee.

I'm glad I don't have to work this week (the chef/boss is still recovering from his operation), the time is just right for when I need to rush to meet the essay and assignment deadlines next Monday and Tuesday respectively. Right, back to work!

Thursday, November 16, 2006

Mouldy room and random additional cookie ingredient

My room is now mould free! Someone came yesterday and according to housemate NH, he bleached it. I'm not sure if he painted over, cos I can still see some marks. But anyway, it's a much better improvement.

Before:



















After:











The other day when I was being a pig munching a whole roll of Hob Nobs by myself, I came across this:











Needless to say, it turned me off the rest of the cookies for some time. Urgh. Luckily I looked before stuffing it into my mouth :/

Wednesday, November 15, 2006

TGIW

My one day weekend is here! Because of my Monday- and Tuesday-heavy timetable, Wednesdays (when I don't have lessons) always feels like my weekend to me. And Thursdays are the start of a new week again, since I'm usually working on assignments and stuff throughout the real weekend although I don't have lessons from Friday onwards.

I'm usually brain-fried by the end of Tuesday, and yesterday was no different. Try practicing for two hours, then having a two-hour lecture, practice for another two hours, have another two-hour lecture, then playing in a two-hour rehearsal. Even though I really wanted to start on that essay due next week, I couldn't take it and knocked out at ten. Yet I couldn't even wake up at six thirty this morning.

I was also very disappointed when I got home from the long day in school, because I was expecting my room to be free from mould since my landlord called yesterday morning to inform me someone would come to clean my room on the day itself. I don't understand why he bothered to inform me if in the end the person wasn't going to come. Or, I don't understand why it takes whoever it is so long to come and get the job done.

Another disappointment is that one of the housemates, YR, is going to move out in January. 'I'm so devastated', as TU put it. But we all wish YR all the best with his girlfriend, or maybe wife-to-be by then. Yet this puts me in the very interesting position of having the option to move into his room, if I want to, to escape from the mould in my room (but hopefully it'll be cleared by then). And now the task of looking for a new housemate starts.

Monday, November 13, 2006

Biggest divorce of the year

I'm really happy that this year, I only have one module in common with GH. Because of this, I interact more with other UK students / other UK students interact more with me. Whichever way round.

GH has been a school mate of mine since we were 13, but we have only ever been in the same class for two years. Except for one subject (the one we're studying now in uni), in which all its students from different classes come together for lessons. The first two years I knew her, I hardly knew her at all. The next two years we knew each other a little better, and the next two years we knew each other even better since the number of students taking this subject were few in junior college.

And I got to know GH quite well last year, since we were practically together most of the time. Although we had only two modules in common, we had quite similar timetables and we were staying on the same accomodation site. It was great to have someone from your country (someone whom you've known for six years too!) going to the same uni, and doing the same course as you. There's company when we slacked around, had more-than-and-hour-long dinners (food preparation took longer with two cooks than with one), and it was great when we supported each other through the hectic last-minute rushes to finish our essays and assignments.

But the downside of it was that since we were so often in the company of each other, we seldom interacted with the rest of the students in our course. When I was on my own of course I did have short conversations with certain people, but not much anyway. Or at the very least, I think by the end of this term I'd have spoken up enough to be on par with how much I actually did last year. Questions put forth by professors are not taken into consideration, though I've been questioned much more this year actually.

Maybe it's because I'm beginning to get to know people by playing in a module, which I'm not taking but participating unaccessed. Or maybe I've changed somewhat after the summer holidays back in Singapore, working? I mean, I've worked before this, but somehow this summer's experience was different. It was not particularly as exciting as some previous jobs, but the people were rather more engaging and I started to gain experience in maintaining a conversation with people. Yes, I think I was that bad, I am quite aware that I only spoke up if anyone specifically directed a question or statement or whatever towards me.

Or maybe I've just matured a little more since the past year. Guess I'm a bit of a late bloomer, but I realised that this year I've been able to sometimes strike up conversations without feeling awkward or stupid for asking stupid questions as a way to do it.

I've seen very little of GH this year, except during the module we have in common, a rehearsal in which we both participate, and occasionally bumping into each other in school. This year, I'm staying with four housemates in rented accommodation (cheaper rent), whilst GH is staying in the uni's accommodation. Someone has told me this is the biggest divorce of the year. That's the extent to which some people have thought of us, as twins, as a couple even. GH has her own reasons for staying on in uni accommodation, some of which I don't know and some of which I know. I don't think her worries are unfounded, but I still think staying in rented accommodation is not such a hassle and fuss as HS has made it out to be. To each her own I guess, GH seems to believe and trust that HS is always right, but I'm willing to give rented accommodation a try.

It's been decent enough so far, other than having to put up with the loneliness of seeing two of the housemates bringing their girlfriends home and hearing another singing to his girlfriend over the internet (aw, so sweet). Oh, and having mould growing in a corner of my room, waiting for a week for whoever-is-supposed-to-come-take-care-of-it, calling the landlord, and being told that they will come this week. We shall see. But all this is another story for another time. Got to get more sleep to make up for last night, and also to pull me through a long tiring Tuesday tomorrow, as always.

A Hard Day's Night

Whew, I've finally finished half of my third assignment for one of my modules, due in full in a week's time but due in draft form for coming Tuesday's reading session. For most of the class, it's a norm to send other classmates the assignment at least a day before so they can have time to look through it before playing during the reading sessions. And it's a must to send a copy to the assistant lecturer, who conducts the reading sessions, one day in advance as well. Hence the rush to finish by tonight.

I've just sent it to the people who'll help play my assignment but I think I'll rather send it to the assistant lecturer tomorrow morning, I don't want him to think I'm such a last-minute worker that I have to work past twelve midnight to get my work done! Although it's the lecturer who grades the assignments, you never know...

I certainly thrive under pressure. Give me an assignment like this and I'll claim to have no inspiration or ideas to start, but come one or two days before the deadline and somehow the sparks start flying due to the miraculous forces of time constraint.

Hmm... that reminds me of a major essay for another module due next week, just a wee twenty four hours before the above-mentioned assignment. And, no prizes for guessing this: I haven't started. I've borrowed a few books to help me along but haven't read them at all, other than little fragments here and there (and also a little in aid of above-mentioned assignment). I don't think I'll be able to finish reading them before writing the essay and I guess I'll just have to find my way as I go along. *fingers crossed*

It's cringe-worthy to note that a week ago, I actually promised myself that I'd start on those books. I did, but I lost track of the authors train of thought somewhere after the second page because of the sheer technicality of these books' subjects. So I gave up and just listened to the subject of the essay, twice, thought to myself oh luckily it doesn't sound too awful, and conveniently left it somewhere in the pile of papers on my desk. Maybe I somehow thought if it doesn't sound too awful I would be able to cope with taking it apart and writing about its construction process. But all these processes are quite new to me, and now I'm starting to worry.

To cheer myself up a bit on this gloomy, moody, restless and full-of-work day, I decided to cook something homely for dinner. Had some sort of herbal soup that I've never seen in Singapore but my Hong Kong friend introduced me to at a chinese supermarket here. It's bamboo with some kind of dunno-what-that-is thing, and dried carrots. Each time I cook about a quarter of the packet and it yields two bowls, so it's quite worth the money I guess. I was told that it's nice cooked with real carrots (there are only a few slices of dried carrots in each packet), so that's about the only way I know how to cook this soup. Other than occasionally adding a chicken drumstick when I buy any.

And the ultimate homely food in the picture is vermicilli, cooked with garlic and lots of chili. My mum used to (I think she probably still does) cook this with prawns in a claypot. Ever since I bought the vermicilli I've been thinking of cooking this but always put it off when I come home late on most weekdays (excuses, excuses). Not sure if this is what my mum used to do, I think it's close cos it tasted like hers except without the taste of prawn.

So I guess it's just: fry the garlic, chili padi, and sambal oeleck sauce nicked from a housemate's cupboard (he did previously tell me I could use it!), then add the already soaked-in-water vermicilli for a quick stir-fry before adding some water and soy sauce. Actually I have a feeling that the soy sauce wasn't needed, maybe it's only needed if I didn't use any chili sauce but just the chili padi. And then, just let the vermicilli soak up all the flavours (ok, one flavour, hot!), and while the water dries up the vermicilli will start to become browned and fragrant and delicious. I'm salivating thinking about it now.

Being the pig that I am, I became hungry again once I started work after dinner and I consumed three cereal bars, which were meant to be the next few days' breakfast, or lunch, depending on my mood. (Ah, and did I mention eating a family bar of cadbury's chocolate yesterday evening?) Haha the perils of doing work... my foot. Someone just told me today that I gained weight. Oh I don't think I want to get started on that. Got to get some sleep anyway, need to have an early start tomorrow, what with having left my practical skills to rot for the past week.

Sunday, November 12, 2006

I'm sorry

I woke up really grouchy this morning, thinking of the amount of work I put off yesterday and how I'm going to pay for my procrastination.

So during the webcam session with the family back in Singapore, I was really sullen, only answering when questioned, and even then most of it were one-word answers. The bulk of the session took place in silence, with me having nothing to say and not bothering to rack my brains, the family wondering what to say at my sudden sulky attitude this morning. In fact, most webcam sessions with the family are generally a re-asking and re-answering of the same few questions, the family updating me on any note-worthy event that happened back home (among relatives, I mean, not news and stuff which I can read on the internet). However, the moody me made no effort whatsoever to participate in the conversation (or non-conversation) this morning.

Towards the end of the session, when the family realised they weren't going to get much out of me, it struck me. Guilt at having treated them to this torture. It wasn't their fault that I woke up grumpy this morning, and they only get to talk to me once a week. The least I could do was to make an effort to be nice. I'm not even talking about acting cheerful, happy, or whatever, no, that would come out absolutely fake. In any case, I've never really been cheerful during any session, with the exception of smiling occasionally. But just to be pleasant. I don't think it's too much to ask for.

I was feeling so disappointed with myself and tears were starting to well up in my eyes, but there was no way I was going to let them see me cry. They've probably only seen me cry less than five times (with the exclusion of baby and little-kid times) in the whole of my twenty years, and if they saw me cry this morning I think they'd have cause to be extremely alarmed. Fortunately they were about to end the session and I managed to smile and wave into the webcam before the tears started rolling down my cheeks once they had ended the video conversation.

I've always disliked the idea of having to webcam once a week because it's really just repetitive ritual of talking about the same things over and over again. I've always found it a waste of time. But at the same time I understand that all my parents want is to assure themselves I'm fine, I'm coping well by myself, to show their concern for me and this is one way they can do it. By talking to me every week, even if it's just the same few questions every time.

Now I'm regretting it and feeling so sorry for my attitude this morning...

Saturday, November 11, 2006

Why I started this blog

Despite already having a blog, I decided to start a new, and (hopefully) anonymous one. The simple reason for doing this is that it is quite frustrating having to hold my tongue (or, in this case, fingers) when I really feel like bitching about people but know I can't because they'll probably be reading my blog. While I may feel disappointed with their behaviours and characters, I am definitely not looking to make any enemies. As such, I'll very much rather remain friendly towards these people (and at times, they can be pleasant company if they chose to) while keeping any rantings against them confined within this blog.

Also, I'd rather not let on about certain details of my life since these people have the tendency to spread the word quickly and in the process, often stretch the truth a bit too much. Generally, they have a superior complex and tend to bitch about anything anyone does because, to them, they are the only ones who do things right. To date, I don't think these people have actually been nasty towards me, but I don't think I want to wait around for them to start. Starting a new blog just because of a couple of irritating people might seem like a nuisance and all, but there are other reasons as well I guess.

Mostly, I'm quite a private person who doesn't talk about herself to anyone, not even to my closest friends or family members. It's just how I've always been. So what am I doing writing a blog open to anyone and everyone to read? If I'm just looking to rant and rave why not start a private diary, or talk to some object, pet, or to the empty room even? I'm not too sure about this myself either, but being the private person that I am, sometimes too many things go on in my head and I just need to air my thoughts and feelings. How ironic.

Blogging sort of gives me the platform to do this, to communicate with anyone who comes across this blog, without me feeling uncomfortable about letting someone into my thoughts. Well yes, by blogging I am doing this, but in a sense I'm not doing it either since the reader doesn't know who I am, and vice versa. Hmm, that's about it I guess, stay on and read my incessant ramblings if you like.