The Budget was generous to say the least. A quick count shows that I will probably be getting quite a fair share of the economic surplus hand-out. I just hope that this is as real as it gets and there will be no "leak" somewhere else in the economic loop.
I am actually no better now than our foreign guest workers. I mean I am bedding on an old mattress, hanging up my clothes silhouetted against the glass louvres and eating out of a beggar's bowl. The place is spacey for sure and it has two decks. It is also peaceful and quiet, up until the landlord decides to play his karaoke music.
I am still waiting for the wardrobe as promised though this has been a fortnight already. All my barang barang are still upacked in cartons and travel bags. My bedroom is not under lock and key too. In fact the whole front gate to the house is missing.
This place is at least a generation old in its original condition. It has lots of good potential for renewal and upgrading of course. It is quite clean. However I do not step into the kitchen as this is messy and chaotic where I can hardly put down a bowl or jug on a proper and uncluttered structure.
Transport takes me to most places I frequent but there are far flung places like the airport in the east or the eastern side in general that need me switching buses and spending more than a hour and a half travelling. All this is time and money. The bus-stations along the way too may see different buses plying its routes. I mean all it takes is one side-road where a bus turns in from onto the main road and voila, you have a new bus service at this station but not the previous one before the turn.
Kudos to the online solution provided by our bus company in scenarios where I have to know where and what services I have to switch to so as to reach my destination when a single bus service cannot do the job.
The holding address where my mail is routed has office hours of between 9am-12pm and then 2.30pm -4.30pm, a total of five hours in a day. I can miss a boat by a mere 5-10 minutes delay if I don't hurry or stride along as fast. Therefore I am training up my stamina and leg power by running in the woods.
But running on gravel and rocks do see me spraining my foot here and there when I step on an uneven keel. I am picking up speed and momentum though. My left foot isn't what it used to be and I am not sure if this has something to do with the unequal size or length or some previous injury or my feet condition.
As I am without information either online or in printed form, I have to travel out to get this information for my financial investment needs. It is frustrating to wait in line especially since time is a factor in making or losing money. The delay caused by the people at the brokerage had seen to this. I mean I travelled out to this place no less than three times.
Noise, happenings and disruptions in the surrounds can make you irritable or make you make mistakes when you need to key in an order entry. This is unlike my own private space at home where I can make cool, calculated and thinking decisions. It is the nature of the work I guess which strictly needs a quiet environment.
This also takes up my full-time attention and energy, commuting, reading and analysing. I am still trying for a part-time teaching job and more scanning through the classifieds (not the recruitment pages) and then emailing out my resumes. The computers can be down, or I can't log in or they are being occupied by gamers or users.
The public ones have blurred screens sometimes and headphones have one side working only. The strangest thing is, with guys around you gaming, they don't care two hoots about what you are doing or surfing. This is one swell thing about guys when compared to girls. They mind their own business when rightly so.
It is also frustrating as I mentioned earlier that I can't access a local gay dating site deemed sexed up at public libraries while with a gay porn site I could. Which leads me to why "BrokeBack Mountain" is rated R21 when it has no full frontal nudity of the guys while Mrs Henderson can score a M18 with her clothes off. What a shitass logic!
My morning sojourns of runs in the woods happen at the crack of dawn. The gravel-laid trail is surprisingly reflective and serves as a beacon of light in the dark. Even the monitor lizard is reflective. The one trail that makes it easier to cut into the reserve from my street is really a blessing. Another unfortunately is fenced up although I could see the street sign of my residence in the distance but I can't make a beeline for it.
More observations in the coming days, if I am not too busy or if I find blogging at LAN-shops or public libraries too expensive.
Saturday, February 25, 2006
Wednesday, February 22, 2006
The Big PunchUp, My Investment Portfolio And My New Living Quarters
I confess. The third reason why I moved away from the old place was because I got into a scuffle with the "straight" dude. I can't believe I did but I did. I guess it was all the tension and stress and hate building up in me. Having to shift away, holed up in alien places with equally alien people, no stability, no security, not being able to do the things I always do in private, far away from the public glare.
Take for example the public places I have to visit now for my surfing time. One, it is a third more expensive. Two, there are too many distractions since the people who LAN are gamers. Vulgarities are hurled as banally as a smoker smokes. It isn't as if these are real thugs (a few may be) but it is as if the expletives are as natural as shitting is.
"I Not Stupid 2" actually did capture this peculiar species. Not that they are that strange. Most had gone astray for one reason or another. Some gangsta are gays. The grandma in the movie put the message across well about law enforcement or for that matter for anything. "When it isnt necessary, the law enforces but when it is, it doesn't". The stiff-necked principal in the movie did show up how inflexible the system can be, ossified by policies.
If I hadn't mentioned it, I also watched our local animation production "Zodiac" over the CNY period. Wholesome theme as it touted itself to be. But it fell so short of real life animation and graphics, the movie crawled along on a predictable plot.
I couldn't concentrate as much on my work too in full public view what with giggling or chatter-box school girls, screaming kids or like today, a couple chose to share their butts on one armchair and yakked away. How can anyone ever do serious work here? Perhaps the 11pm curfew could be extended to shooing courting couples away from quiet places.
The only consolation is the place I am living in. It is a nice, quiet place tucked deep in the reserve and away from the thoroughfares, edging the waters. I could do my morning runs in the great outdoors and yet get all my regular fixes at a nearby mall and at shophouses. Transport isn't too bad but the one I hitched on to town was in really bad shape, a virtual heater at the backseats.
Best of all, I am reunited with all those gorgeous hunks kayaking their strong butts and musculated torsos and limbs down the reserve's waters.
I could commiserate with the landlord over tenants he had letted the place to. He had a fair share of the problems I faced too. He is a nice and understanding person whom I can speak with. But I need a boyfriend, someone to cuddle up to on the mattress when I need an emotional blanket. And I am horny as hell after all that physical exercise in the morning.
I am running all over the place, trying to put together my investment portfolio and to collect tonnes of mail. Once again, it is sifting through a maze of information and some personal bankers aren't too helpful either, especially in the product knowledge department.
One thought she could get away with it with just plain good old service but she forgets that the information is just as important to make well-informed investment decisions. Anyway, she acts too cute and appears to me to be totally unnatural and plastic.
I don't mind different or supplementary information personal bankers hand out but when they are conflicting, that gets me really mad. I have to check and do my own little research.
The worst let-down was having a troupe of chattering women not updating my new mailing address correctly with the consequence that I was delayed for more than ten days and watched two blue-chips soar in price and not able do a thing about it.
More things coming up soon in my next blog.
Take for example the public places I have to visit now for my surfing time. One, it is a third more expensive. Two, there are too many distractions since the people who LAN are gamers. Vulgarities are hurled as banally as a smoker smokes. It isn't as if these are real thugs (a few may be) but it is as if the expletives are as natural as shitting is.
"I Not Stupid 2" actually did capture this peculiar species. Not that they are that strange. Most had gone astray for one reason or another. Some gangsta are gays. The grandma in the movie put the message across well about law enforcement or for that matter for anything. "When it isnt necessary, the law enforces but when it is, it doesn't". The stiff-necked principal in the movie did show up how inflexible the system can be, ossified by policies.
If I hadn't mentioned it, I also watched our local animation production "Zodiac" over the CNY period. Wholesome theme as it touted itself to be. But it fell so short of real life animation and graphics, the movie crawled along on a predictable plot.
I couldn't concentrate as much on my work too in full public view what with giggling or chatter-box school girls, screaming kids or like today, a couple chose to share their butts on one armchair and yakked away. How can anyone ever do serious work here? Perhaps the 11pm curfew could be extended to shooing courting couples away from quiet places.
The only consolation is the place I am living in. It is a nice, quiet place tucked deep in the reserve and away from the thoroughfares, edging the waters. I could do my morning runs in the great outdoors and yet get all my regular fixes at a nearby mall and at shophouses. Transport isn't too bad but the one I hitched on to town was in really bad shape, a virtual heater at the backseats.
Best of all, I am reunited with all those gorgeous hunks kayaking their strong butts and musculated torsos and limbs down the reserve's waters.
I could commiserate with the landlord over tenants he had letted the place to. He had a fair share of the problems I faced too. He is a nice and understanding person whom I can speak with. But I need a boyfriend, someone to cuddle up to on the mattress when I need an emotional blanket. And I am horny as hell after all that physical exercise in the morning.
I am running all over the place, trying to put together my investment portfolio and to collect tonnes of mail. Once again, it is sifting through a maze of information and some personal bankers aren't too helpful either, especially in the product knowledge department.
One thought she could get away with it with just plain good old service but she forgets that the information is just as important to make well-informed investment decisions. Anyway, she acts too cute and appears to me to be totally unnatural and plastic.
I don't mind different or supplementary information personal bankers hand out but when they are conflicting, that gets me really mad. I have to check and do my own little research.
The worst let-down was having a troupe of chattering women not updating my new mailing address correctly with the consequence that I was delayed for more than ten days and watched two blue-chips soar in price and not able do a thing about it.
More things coming up soon in my next blog.
Saturday, February 18, 2006
Updates And Not Blogging As Fully
I am not blogging as much here now, primarily because it is so expensive to surf and blog at public cafes.
Rest assured, many things have happened in my life. I have moved twice so far and I thought I have met someone special. But as things are, it did not come to pass. I can only cross my fingers and I am busy putting together my investment portfolio.
When I have time, I will blog fully again. Right now, moi is holed up in an almost perfect environ. A little of country and city living, right at the edge of the water and of nature. The place is named "a gem of a park or garden" which in many ways it is. My first taste of living on landed property and I am beginning to love it. Each estate has stairways connected to another which isn't shown on any map.
Here are some updates of the past few weeks. My CNY's eve was spent at McDonalds. I observed the foreign maids, the foreign community and our other ethnic groups coming in to dine or take away. There were even pockets of locals who walked in for food. So I don't think the reunion dinner is such a sacred event after all.
I watched a couple of movies. "I Not Stupid 2" was so superbly made, its theme, scenes and storyline strike at our very emotional chord concerning education. It shows up how education fucks people up the wrong way sometimes and how families influence one's orientation.
"BrokeBack Mountain" wasn't what I was really hoping for. Of course it had very good content but I took issue at what it depicts gay love to be. A top and a bottom. With anal intercourse a necessary pre-requisite to consummate it. Gay love should just be what it should be. Concern, love, care and sex in whatever form the couple finds suitable. No wonder all the sluts are asking for a fuck.
This story reinforces the idea that gays will get married and they then have to find sex with each other on the side, with fatal consequences in this case. A broken marriage for one party and death for the other. The film points out the tragic end gays will meet if they should hang around married or straight guys preparing for marriage. They apparently can't be like a real hetero couple living together. This is what a civil union would have conferred.
Anyway I watched this late in the night on Valentine's Day in busy Orchard Road. The really young crowd thronging the whole place was staggering. After beating my way through the herd, I was equally astounded by the kind of audience streaming in to watch the movie. Not only PLUs but a gathering of gals and guys too. I was, by the way, at an extreme corner of the screening, huddled in my plush seat.
If you are beginning to wonder what on earth I am doing on Valentine's Day watching this movie, well I was bored, had no Valentine's date and had a huge misunderstanding with my gay housemate. I shuffled home past the stroke of midnight.
The rift really began when I learned there was a lady agent handling the whole place. As I wasn't any signatory to the lease agreement (an agreement between the main tenant and her) and was being subletted a place, I wasn't about to deal with her, unimpressed as I already am if you care to recall with agents in general and in particular. But she kept imposing her presence upon me, despite me having furnished her my particulars.
The next bone of contention was a sudden turnaround in the profile of the tenant who is supposed to move in. A straight guy with his girlfriend and a fellow colleague of the gay main tenant. That wasn't supposed to be. It was supposed to be a PLU.
It was also the way he and some of the others put it. That we have to be "accepted" by the straight community and so, invite them to live among us, to humour them, to be like one of them, etc . For me, work and home life draws a distinct line. Living under the same roof with a straight and his gal turns me off and I am not exactly in the mood to cross this line. Work life is fine but not home life. If I have sex with my boyfriend, this is sacrosanct, away from his prying (or "accepting") eyes.
My blogging time is up. I really have to go.
Rest assured, many things have happened in my life. I have moved twice so far and I thought I have met someone special. But as things are, it did not come to pass. I can only cross my fingers and I am busy putting together my investment portfolio.
When I have time, I will blog fully again. Right now, moi is holed up in an almost perfect environ. A little of country and city living, right at the edge of the water and of nature. The place is named "a gem of a park or garden" which in many ways it is. My first taste of living on landed property and I am beginning to love it. Each estate has stairways connected to another which isn't shown on any map.
Here are some updates of the past few weeks. My CNY's eve was spent at McDonalds. I observed the foreign maids, the foreign community and our other ethnic groups coming in to dine or take away. There were even pockets of locals who walked in for food. So I don't think the reunion dinner is such a sacred event after all.
I watched a couple of movies. "I Not Stupid 2" was so superbly made, its theme, scenes and storyline strike at our very emotional chord concerning education. It shows up how education fucks people up the wrong way sometimes and how families influence one's orientation.
"BrokeBack Mountain" wasn't what I was really hoping for. Of course it had very good content but I took issue at what it depicts gay love to be. A top and a bottom. With anal intercourse a necessary pre-requisite to consummate it. Gay love should just be what it should be. Concern, love, care and sex in whatever form the couple finds suitable. No wonder all the sluts are asking for a fuck.
This story reinforces the idea that gays will get married and they then have to find sex with each other on the side, with fatal consequences in this case. A broken marriage for one party and death for the other. The film points out the tragic end gays will meet if they should hang around married or straight guys preparing for marriage. They apparently can't be like a real hetero couple living together. This is what a civil union would have conferred.
Anyway I watched this late in the night on Valentine's Day in busy Orchard Road. The really young crowd thronging the whole place was staggering. After beating my way through the herd, I was equally astounded by the kind of audience streaming in to watch the movie. Not only PLUs but a gathering of gals and guys too. I was, by the way, at an extreme corner of the screening, huddled in my plush seat.
If you are beginning to wonder what on earth I am doing on Valentine's Day watching this movie, well I was bored, had no Valentine's date and had a huge misunderstanding with my gay housemate. I shuffled home past the stroke of midnight.
The rift really began when I learned there was a lady agent handling the whole place. As I wasn't any signatory to the lease agreement (an agreement between the main tenant and her) and was being subletted a place, I wasn't about to deal with her, unimpressed as I already am if you care to recall with agents in general and in particular. But she kept imposing her presence upon me, despite me having furnished her my particulars.
The next bone of contention was a sudden turnaround in the profile of the tenant who is supposed to move in. A straight guy with his girlfriend and a fellow colleague of the gay main tenant. That wasn't supposed to be. It was supposed to be a PLU.
It was also the way he and some of the others put it. That we have to be "accepted" by the straight community and so, invite them to live among us, to humour them, to be like one of them, etc . For me, work and home life draws a distinct line. Living under the same roof with a straight and his gal turns me off and I am not exactly in the mood to cross this line. Work life is fine but not home life. If I have sex with my boyfriend, this is sacrosanct, away from his prying (or "accepting") eyes.
My blogging time is up. I really have to go.
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