Yesterday morning, I was at my cousin's house, making breakfast for myself. I decided to make cheese on toast because, well, I was thinking of cheese on toast the night before.

So I placed the cheese on the bread, turned the knob to seven minutes and waited with great patience. After the dial went 'ping', I checked on the bread. It was slightly warm but still rather soft. Rather determined to have my cheese on toast, I turned the knob again to five minutes and waited patiently once more. To my great surprise, the bread was still slightly warm and rather soft. I reflected this to my cousin, who solved the mystery by saying, "Did you switch on the power?"

So, truly determined to have my cheese on toast this time, I switched on the power and proceeded to toast the bread. Unfortunately, the melted cheese dripped off the bread to pool at the bottom of the toaster. So I told my cousin hastily that I would clean it up and removed the slice of bread from the toaster.

Just as I was removing the bread, my hand slipped and the bread flew spectacularly to land face down on the table, and the cheese stuck solidly to the surface of the tabletop.

At that point, my cousin went (rather unsympathetically, I may add): HAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Anyway I spent the next fifteen minutes clearing up, which made me rather late for my training with SCGS.

What can I say? Even the best of us have those times.

I spent some time observing the fish in Yuan Kheng's house, when I went to train the girls last Friday. She has a huge luohan and extrememly interesting goldfish. Two of the goldfish were face down in one of the corners. The rest of them kept gurgling air at one corner, then presumably they got bored of the scenery so they swam to another corner to continue gurgling air. This process was then repeated several times, and I was just standing there watching them swim back and forth in fascination.

My parrot fish are crazy. Despite the size of the tank, they are still growing. And for some strange reason, they keep arranging and rearranging the stones in the tank, although there I couldn't tell any significant difference from before. Maybe they're just doing maintenence or something.

My mother was hospitalised today. I'm not sure of the exact details yet, but I hope it'll be useful.

I read an article on Sunday Life today, regarding women at the top. Apparently, women bosses tend to be more nitpicky, temperamental and domineering. This has given me several insightful thoughts on this subject, the first and most important being:

AHH! I am every one of these things! Well, maybe not temperamental, but certainly domineering and nitpicky. This is terrible. If This Goes On, I will be carrying the label of the Dragon Lady.

I have thus decided on a course of action. Because I cannot change my natural urge to be domineering and nitpicky, I will attempt it to disguise these traits in the following manner:

1) Act more like a Man

That is, instead of being Domineering and Autocratic, I will be Decisive and Firm. I must change my innate feminine bossiness to a more masculine way of being bossy. I am not quite sure of the specific differences as yet, but they will no doubt all come to me later.

My tendency to nitpick will be substituted with my eye for detail and a continuous pursuit towards excellence. I shall emulate my male counterparts in this regard, without seeming too gay.

Rather than being naggy, I will be, er, persistent. Though actually, on further thought, what the hell. Who am I fooling? Naggy means naggy. At least I'll make a good mother in future.

2) Display my softer, more feminine side

Phase one of Fooling Other People is already in action. I have pierced ears, rebonded hair, and I dress better when I go out--except for the occasional brightly coloured, cartooned T-shirt. What I need to do is to carry it to the extreme. Not only will I purchase more frilly stuff, I must cultivate a sweet, soft spoken and pleasant feminine charm that will knock everyone off their feet. Even when being bossy, I shall be bossy in a nice, sweet manner.

Well, I haven't figured out how to do that yet, but I will eventually.

Now as I sit back and admire my foolproof plan, I realise that Damn(!), they contradict! This requires deeper thought.

So for more ideas, I refer to the article again, which mentioned several stereotypes with regard to women bosses. They are: Micro-Manager, Mother Hen, Blinkered Boss, High-Flyer, Drama Mama, and PMS Tigress. So all I have to do is examine the faults of all these types and not follow the trend, right? Right.

Essentially, I can't be too demanding and fastidious, but I also can't be too caring and maternal. I should not be too temperamental, or be too much of a yes woman, though I shouldn't be too contrary either. I mustn't be too "blinkered" and just use tried and tested methods, yet a risk taking style could be dangerous too, from what they say of Carly Fiorina.

Darn it. I still have a long way to go.

My mother went home immediately after going to my grandma's house, instead of going house visiting as usual. I had always taken for granted that my parents would both live till their seventies, at least, but nowadays when I look at her I wonder how long more she has to live. Pain wears a person down day by day, night by night. We had a discussion about children today, and as usual, she said she would like us to have children and she would be happy to take care of them for us. And I thought then, can you really? The sensation of my heart being squeezed is becoming all too familiar.

I hate the feeling of helplessness. Other than doing housework and massaging her head for an hour at a time every night, there's nothing much my sister and I can do. I get impatient with people whining about their lives sometimes, because we all have our own problems and yours seem quite mundane. But I suppose that makes me a hypocrite, because I hate it too when others belittle my experiences as nothing comparable to the great disasters that besiege families day to day.

Anyway, to happier matters. I ate and ate and ate today, which I believe would come as no great surprise to many people. Fortunately or unfortunately, my skirt was just the right size for me, so it started to get rather tight and uncomfortable after some time. It prevented me from consuming more than I did just now, which was quite a significant amount. I also drank a lot of "chicken wine", which was very thick and very nice. I realised that I'll probably be a quiet drunk if I ever have the occasion to be one. Instead of getting high and laughing a lot like some of my friends, I suspect that I will just go happily to sleep. Not a bad thing, really.

As usual, we're doing steamboat for CNY eve. It seems to be the in thing nowadays. To tell the truth, however, between a nice traditional chinese dinner and a menu of boiled food, I rather have the nice chinese dinner. But I suppose steamboat does come with its advantages. It lessens preparation and clearing up time, lengthens the time spend at the table, and sets the stage for interesting bits of small talk like, "Hey, where has my fishball gone?". All in all, the benefits outweigh how boring it is. But I'm still going to fry the prawns nicely in sauce and whatnot.

I discovered today that my sister is deep at heart, an obsessive compulsive. She usually cooks up a storm in the kitchen and leave it looking rather ravaged. Today, however, she has been wrapping everything carefully in gladwrap, even the onions and ginger. I think she has found joy in pulling the clingflim over food.

Hannah bought me a Happy House keypad cushion today! My subtle hinting has finally got to her. It's yellow with three big colourful hearts on it. It's so nice I might not use it for typing on a permanent basis, but like, keep it somewhere safe and hug it occasionally. Which I realise defeats the purpose.

I quit the teaching job! Apparently I wasn't doing what a proper teacher should be doing i.e. have the kids sit in their proper places, etc. I decided that I just I as already trying my best and that I just wasn't suited to this job. At least, not one with the expectations of a full-time teacher.

I was feeling a little depressed for the remainder of Friday (when I quit) and Saturday, but it sank in, truly sank in today. I woke up at twelve, feeling stress-free, decided to go out with my sister to watch a movie, return some library books and borrow some when I haven't for the last three weeks (shit, just as I type this, I realise they are overdue). I also feel an urge now to continue my writing and catch up on current affairs, which I have been sadly neglecting. Plus improve my Chinese.

Now I'm also thinking of what to cook for CNY reunion dinner, since my Tuesday will be free.

Well, so I thought, quitting isn't such a bad thing after all, it seems. I didn't realise exactly how stressed I was until I stopped it altogether. I have enough for my China trip, anyway, so just doing coaching shouldn't be too much of a problem.

Anyway, later, I might go shopping with my sister. Our shopping styles have not changed over the years. We will go to west mall, walk one round in Bossini and look at the shelves. If we buy something, we will sit down somewhere for a drink and a chat, happy with our purchase. If we don't buy anything, we will sit down somewhere for a drink and a chat, having decided that there is nothing much to buy.

There are so many mosquitoes in my house now that I think we're all going to die of insecticide inhalation. Unfortunately, I'm not even sure if all that is working. Despite spraying all around and aiming Baygon at the flying insects, there has been no dead bodies of mosquitoes lying around. Argh, why can't they be as easy to kill as ants?

My sister told me that one night, she couldn't sleep and went out to the balcony, to stand in front of the fish tank. The fish got a big shock when they saw the big, hulking figure, banging the glass and splashing the water. So...human. Or we are so fish. Whatever.

From the many SMS-es, it appears that many people are interested in how my job went.

After day one, I wish I could say something like, "Oh, I expected it to be really bad, but thank goodness it went better than I expected!"

No, it was more, "Oh, I expected it to be really bad, but it was worse than I expected."

Expected: General rowdiness, defiance, noise, disobedience, running around the classroom in a worse case scenario.

Did not expect: A freaky fascination on the students part with knives, gas stoves, and anything they could kill themselves or each other with.

You know what was worse? I could handle it if they were doing it out of defiance! The thing is, I think it had absolutely nothing to do with me--the common sense that usually tells you sharp, pointy, can poke very deep appears to be absent in those boys. Needless to say, the class was a lot of shouting, since the first moment they stepped into the kitchen, spotted the knives in a basket and immediately picked it up to swing it around, saying "YaaaHHH!"

Shouting worked, kind of. They'll put down the knives and about three seconds after you turn your back, they'll be waving it around again. One guy went out to another class with THREE knives between his fingers and got caned for it, because the other teacher spotted him and called OM. Unfortunately it was my responsibility, but I just didn't spot him because of the gas stoves. Crap, those boys are NUTS.

Worse still, I had to spend so long after cleaning up with a lazy kitchen servant taht only knew how to complain because half of them didn't wash up properly. As in, they did, kind of, only a lot of stuff was oily. And I thought it more hazardous to keep them back.

The good thing is, I can stop having practicals with this class. Apparently the office prefers it so. It is slightly unfair, I suppose, because really not EVERYONE is that bad...the girls were pretty nice, and one or two of the boys. But half the class is enough. Oh well, it's really too much effort though. ANd I'm a little paranoid they will kill each other and me accidentally.

Thankfully, after today I discovered that the teacher was right; that class was probably one of its kind. The sec three normal academic and sec two express class i thought today was quite nice and obliging, although they stoned quite a bit. At least that leaves me enough energy to blog today.

Oh gods, I'm starting to start relief teaching tomorrow! I just got the syllabus today...the head of department kept telling me that teaching would start on the 17th so I thought I would have the weekend to prepare. The three teachers for F & N all assured me that most classes were ok, although the normal technical class could be "a little problematic". And guess what? As Murphy Law dictates, the first class I'm taking would be a NT class, for TWO hours. Because I don't know how to teach the basics of a balanced diet for two whole hours, I'll be starting cooking immediately. Not to mention, I don't know the kitchen so I'll probably spend half the time hunting for cooking implements. Plus the fact that I haven't cooked shepherd's pie for a long time.

Sheesh, at least the NIE teachers get training! Now I'm thrown into this and I'm supposed to replace a teacher completely for the next four months. I should get more pay man, whatever the teacher is supposed to be earning. Oh crap, I'm starting to get this slight lost feeling of being in deep water and not quite knowing how deep the water is. Or whatever organisms there are swimming around me. Never mind, that's a bad analogy. There's a NIE trainee teacher coming in Febuary that may share my table. Imagine if she watches my class, hahaha. Exactly what do people do in NIE training anyway? They should just throw students in and let them die! Buahahahahaha.

I should have tried to get a better babysitting job. I'll play hangman with the class and let them ask stupid questions. Even teach if necessary. At least I won't burn down anything doing that.

Now I have one more thing to worry about, to add to my growing list: how to plan the lesson. Sigh. In any case, I think I'm fated to get this job, if you believe in all that. Not only was it delivered to my door, the teacher is coming back on 14th May! Which is just before I'm going to go to China, around mid May. I must look on the bright side. At least I'll get to eat the shepherd's pie I made.

I have henceforth resolved to go on a diet. The last straw came when my father said I was fat. That was after my sister said I gained weight, which was after Judith too said I was fat. My sister's later reassurances (don't worry, you didn't gain a lot of weight, just in the wrong places) wasn't reassuring in the least. It also did not help that I went out with Hannah and Grace yesterday, leaving me feeling rather short and inferior.

The worst thing is, when I mention that I want to go on diet to others, the answer I generally get is "ok", instead of nice comforting remarks like "what for?". I mean, I always say what people want to hear when they are fishing for compliments. Common practice and all that. So I suppose the fact that people just agree with me constitutes a Sign.

ARGH. I'm becoming a fusspot! This is terrible. I now find myself worrying about every single little detail about what I'm going to do for coaching, for cooking, for china trip, even for my social life. It's a side effect of too much planning. Because I am an extreme workaholic I discover that from next monday I will be working fourteen hour days from monday to saturday, some nights at times because of competition. So if I don't plan everything in advance, everything will clash, and I suppose that has spilled over. It has uncovered hidden depths to my fussiness. If I'm not careful I'll look 30 by the time I'm going to China. Fortunately I am still getting enough sleep, but unfortunately that will stop when my relief teaching starts.

Anyway, Grace found a job! Her great persistence in finding a food-related job has paid off and now she will find out how to make muffins in Grand Hyatt.

It has been four consecutive days since I have seen an ant in the kitchen. It appears that my efforts have paid off. I am never more sadistic when I am around ants and cockroaches. After I decided that I couldn't stand them any more, I bought ant poison and scattered them around the kitchen and the living room. In order that they will not be able to resist it, I also specially prepared a bowl of sugar solution which I carefully dripped on the poison. As for the cockroaches, I shoved some poison under the cupboard where they resided, so that they would be faced with it every day until they succumb to temptation.

When I saw some dying ants later I felt a twinge of guilt, but I suppose not a very big twinge.

For some reason, my wrists have been aching lately when I type for an extended period of time. Hence I have been subtly hinting to Hannah to buy me a Happy House keypad cushion. It goes something like this: Oi! Buy me a Happy House keypad cushion!

I hope she really will despite the lack of reason to, or I shall have to hint subtly again at someone else.

My parrot fish are either fighting or making out. They have been touching their mouths to each other in a very violent manner. I thought fishes don't kiss but they don't seem to be fighting. I have prescribed genders to each of the fish. The red one is decidedly male, because it is more passionate (in the kissing) and swims around doing nothing (in the fish equivalent of reading newspaper) while the pale one goes around arranging stones for home improvement. Needless to say, the pale fish is female.

After a grand total of about four days I have discarded my accounts book, which I decided was simply not my style. Financial planning can only go so far. It's bad enough worrying about money without worrying about daily expenses too. I will ease my conscience by worrying about money in monthly amounts.

It was yiling's birthday yesterday! I was half an hour in wishing her, because well, I didn't remember until then. I better keep better track.

My sister came home last night! We chatted till 2 a.m. this morning and I completely missed the alarm to wake me up for Judith's flight. So I didn't get to see her off. ARgh. I feel terrible. Plus I have a stupid bear sitting at home and lots of postcards. ARgh.

Anyway, my sister really is an anchor. I've been feeling rather listless and depressed lately but now I have my whole grand plan out for university. Yeah man. I feel full of life once again! I will have a career without scholarship. Lalala.

I was cooking dinner for my family today. When I was pouring the chicken from the pot onto the plate, a drumstick slid dramtically off to hit the floor. As I transferred the vegetables from the sieve to the pot, some of it scattered around the pot to be burned to a crisp by the gas fire. The eggs stuck solidly to the bottom of the pan because the non-stick pan suddenly stopped being non-stick.

At this rate, I'm going to be the most amusing home econs teacher ever.

I was reading back on the archives and I realised that I was so much funnier when I was moody and in school. It gives inspiration, somehow.

Anyway, since everyone seems to be saying it, Happy New YEar! And happy birthday to my sister. I made a startling realisation today: my spine is perfectly straight but because my shoulders are rounded, I look like I have a natural stoop. How sad.

I wish I could say I spent my new year making resolutions and preparing for a fresh start, but being the anal person I am, I was calculating my expenses. Money seems to be revolving around my head these days, for some reason.

My sister was complaining for so long that it was the warmest winter in Japan in 20 years and she wouldn't get to see snow this year. Two days ago, she got her wish, only unfortunately it caused the cancellation of her bus to Tokyo and resulted in her having to spend a hundred plus more dollars. Talk about Murphy's law.

I got a job!

It's relief teaching--I didn't mean to do it originally but it came to my doorstep on a silver platter. I got a call last week from Yuhua secondary and the HOD on the phone said carefully: erm, you wrote that you were interested in relief teaching and in doing math or science right?
Me: yes
HOD: erm, would you be capable of teaching home economics?
Me: i did food and nutrition in sec four
The guy sounded like he had hit jackpot. He went: OH! Good, good! I shall reserve the place for you.
Me: For what period?
HOD: As long as you like! You indicated you are free till May yes? Till June too, if possible!
Me: (Rather bewildered that I got a job just like that) Do I have to apply online?
HOD: No, just come down and do it!

Anyway, I went down on the 27th but there were a hell lot of problems with the MOE server, but I got it, anyway. Starting in Mid Jan. I shall face the perpetual fear of
having my creation crumble in front of the students. The best thing about this is, it's within walking distance from my house (although I have to walk 50 min, and lunch is kind of provided (I get to cook it myself). School also apparently ends at 1.20, so I can go coach Vj in the afternoon.


Basically, Yay! Yuhua better not play me out, though, because I got four more calls. (For some reason, the schools around my area seem to be short of teachers) But none of them are so convenient, I should think.

Went to pulau ubin on Tues and WEd. It was rather sad. AFter days and days of clear weather, the clouds consolidated on Monday night to provide near continuous rain for the on day and one night we were on the island. Well, as Judith said, at least it was representative of all the times she was there. I did have some fun; we got to cycle in the rain and climb some hill to see the quarry. Unfortunately I couldn't sleep at night because of water soaking up my jeans.

My goodness, time flies, it's been some time since I've updated.

Yesterday my sister and I were discussing sibling relationships and a number of childhood incidents we had. For the festive season, I shall make a list here:

My sister once drew stars with a crayon all over the walls of the flat and the rough surface under the chairs because she wanted to practice. The moral of this is, when you have a child, always provide him/her with paper.

I cut the hair of my sister's barbie doll once because I was wondering if it would grow back. The resulting fight between my sister and I broke the barbie doll head, which flew us both into a panic at the thought of facing my mother's wrath. With great sisterly cooperation, we carefully balanced the head of the doll on the neck and relegated it to the back of the cupboard, which was discovered a month later by my mum. Thankfully, she thought she accidentally broke it while clearing the cupboard.

I used to practice writing with my left hand because my mother told me that the left brain controlled the right hand; the right brain controlled the left hand, and I concluded that I would be smarter if I was ambidextrous.

I realised that sisterly quarrels are almost always about washing the dishes. In one memorable incident, I threw the cloth which I was wiping the table with towards the dishwashing area where my sister was, so that I did not have to make the six metre trip there. It sailed in an arc through the air and landed unerringly in the dustbin, causing it to topple into the sink and spilling its contents. I spent the next twenty minutes laughing and clearing up.

My sister and I were fighting in the room (with fists and all) when my mum knocked on the door and asked us what the sounds were. Because nothing is to be more feared than her fearsome nagging, we were the very picture of suspicious sisterly love.

This is a recent incident: I was going to my cousin's house for an overnight stay three days ago. Because her hands were full of my chemistry stuff which I lent to her, I was holding her little bag and the umbrella to shield us from the rain. Somewhere near the bus stop we spotted 66 and started running. The bus driver waited, I got on, the bus doors closed and the bus started moving; and by that time I was too embarrased to tell the driver to stop cos my cousin was still down there. I tried to call her for her to take the next bus, only to realise that her handphone and wallet were still with me. I think a lot of people thought me mad, because I was laughing all the way as I got off two stops later, crossed the road and took the bus back.

Sometimes I feel like I may be giving up a little too much when I decided to coach VJ.

Hell, first question: what part time jobs end at around one in the afternoon?
Maybe a job in a clinic. Trouble is, the pay is pathetic, because it doesn't need an O/A level cert. And the point is, will I even find a clinic job in the first place.

I got St Anthony's. But that's not ENOUGH. It was lower than I expected, and lower still if that means I can't take a regular job with it (not that I could, with VJ). 500 per month sucks. And it's probably more committment than I can afford.

Who says i don't care about money? I'm a materialistic person. I care a lot about money. I'm spending disgusting amounts for applications, and I want to learn driving. I want to go CHina in May; I've wanted that since secondary school. And I promised myself that end of As is the start of the time I should pay my own way, but hell. It's not happening. I wanted to learn Malay too, but I guess my budget definitely doesn't accomdate that now.

I'm not a naturally altruistic person. Oh, I may find it fulfilling, etc, etc, (I do think so), but money is still more important. Being fulfilled comes second in my agenda to being able to pay my own way, and saving up my own nest egg for university.

(Sorry Felda. I know I really shouldn't complain.)

But Damn it! I so wanted to stop depending on my parents. Take a study loan and supplement it.

Shit. I'll feel bad if I back out. I should give back, really, and many seniors did do so out of pure and noble intentions. I gained a lot, in any case. But the money problems loom larger over my head day by day.

Why is self-sufficiency so hard? It should be easy at my age. FUCK.

I got my first two pairs of dangling earrings today! One pink and one blue, both from my cousin, plus this rather...irregular bracelet. The earrings were lovely. Actually, I wanted to try them on, but Woon Teng's infection rather put me off. Exactly how long are we supposed to wait after the piercing, before taking out the studs?

I have confirmed the source of the cockroaches. My grandmother was trying to find her stuff this morning, and the dislodging of several bags under her bed disrupted the overall habitat there, causing a few cockroaches to run to my parents' room. Naturally, they were promptly poisoned by insecticide. My father threatened to set a fire to the stuff under the bed, but I suspect that he would never do it, not because the fire may spread and result in unnwarranted damage, but because WHERE WOULD THE COCKROACHES GO TO IF THEIR HOME IS BURNED UP?

The thought of the community down there sends shivers down my spine.