Brick-bats And More Bugaboos

Did I mention this rocker musician (at least he was dressed the part) who sat next to me on a Saturday morning in a LAN shop? He smelt fragrant, oozing with such animalistic sex appeal, I was tempted to caress the fine matt of hair on his navel, working my fingers all the way up and down his body, whenever he stretches himself exposing his belly in a-size-too-small tight-fitting tees, rumping down on his LAN (pardon the sexism) chair. On top of all that, he speaks well and he is able to articulate his thoughts and feelings. The SNAG man!

The other rocker next to him had me tingling somewhere in between my groins whenever he shouts the "LJ" expletive while LANNING! It was such a sexy, sex-charged and vulgar word all at the same time! Another swell dude was equally charming, suave and communicative. He seems to be the dude the others hung around or look up to. I really want to know these chaps especially you two!

I have a deaf and mute gay dude on my contactlist. I would like to meet with him one day. But being such a loner (not by choice I guess, I am as gregarious as the next pink dolphin but most people are in their own cliques, their own world, and we do fear rejection, don't we when we initiate the first move and in a crowd like that how are we ever gonna start something?) myself and deprived of good communication for so long, I am communication-starved at home and outside. I really need people whom I can share my thoughts, feelings and experiences on a verbal basis - in the English language. I don't want to live in a world of silence anymore. That is why I blog!

Yes and I am not working not by choice but by circumstance. I mean if I ain't cut out to be a security guard, a taxi-driver or a cleaner (three jobs that are still open to Singaporeans while IT and other "professions" are for the rest) , I just ain't. My true calling lies in education. Not that many of the leaders in educational institutions see their roles as "education of the heart, mind and soul" but rather as solely political or economic appointments. Sad straying off the path of the true meaning of education, I would say and they do get rewarded for "efficiency" and "long and meritorious service" (whatever those terms mean).

The reserve continues to be a source of discoveries of new animal species (at least to me as I have not seen them before). Some time ago, a colourful white, red and black bronzeback (I think it is this) was strewn across between two planks in the boardwalk, making it look like a hooker. I reckoned no right-thinking man (maybe MR PSYHCO?) would take a hooker to the reserve and leave it on the boardwalk and suspected it to be a snake instead. I plucked off a twig and jabbed at it. I wasn't disappointed. MR BRONZEBACK reared its small head with its flickering tongue and slithered away. I have even spotted a lone purple heron wading on shallow waters. It is purple on nearsight and in stills but in flight and further away, it could have been a grey heron. And in the early morning darkness, leafbirds , green with a black face mask, fly low among the shrubbery as if to lead the way for me.

All my time in the reserve I have never seen a flying lemur but the national newspapers actually reported a case of poachers shooting down a mother lemur leaving dear junior helpless. How did this happen when I didn't even get to see one?

I refuse to switch vocation. I have been advised to do something else like sell insurance policies or real estate. I will stick to my guns. Education it is and education it will be. I don't even envisage special education as I am not equipped (though I am sure training is provided). I think I have enough problems of my own and I can't give of my best to these kids who certainly need more attention. I don't mind students in the NA or NT or ITE streams. It will be more rewarding if students are more intellectually up to task.

Even these high brows have problems too, don't they? They need attention all the more. But it is easier to reach out and they can better reason and think through issues. That is why younger children isn't who I would want to teach either, especially in our highly formalised education environment with the stress on exams and grades. They also need more behavioural control and management. As I mentioned before, at their age it should be exploration, discovery and fun learning in an informal way.

Bumping into my ex-student Casper illustrates this point very well. He was just a scrawny primary three kid with a squeaky voice, mischievous , hyperactive and harping on topics any 9 year-old would when I first tutored him. He is about fifteen now, still scrawny, but his voice has matured and his language ability, conversational topics and thoughts are different too. I feel I can communicate with him on a different and higher plane now. I text him to fix a day to meet alone.

I may have bumped into another ex-student of mine at the pool (you guess what kinda pool I mean) and he must be like out of secondary school and into poly, ITE or JC?

In fact I have been bumping into many people. My ex-FT in secondary school (sorry I was in no mood to talk that day), Mediacorp stars (one whom had muscled, chiselled, macho-looking twins as his escort at the pool or were they his friends?), academicians, businesspeople, people from my past life (eg: classmates, schoolmates, oooo one girl from my ex-jc is living near me) and yes, my sister just this morning.

So please people, don't tell me what I should or should not be doing. It is my life and I know what is best for me and what would be most meaningful and satisfying.

I know many people would draw parallels between my experience as a tenant now and formerly as a landlord. They would think the role reversal would be a lesson to teach or learn from . I am so sorry they cannot be any wronger. The contexts in which each operated in were entirely different.

First, my former house was a one-level and compact 4 roomer. At the entrance the control switch for the lights are just there. The places I have lived in were and are now an executive apartment with a long corridor leading to the bedrooms and a duplex terrace house. The lockset to the bedrooms in my current abode is a door handle and a keyhole. If the landlord doesn't want me to have lock and key, I have to change the entire lockset. It is not like my 4-roomer which is only a keyhole and a key to lock/unlock it. I only need to make a key, not an entire lockset.

At my former place, the common bath was exclusively for the sole use of one tenant. At the executive apartment, three of us (possibly even more) were clamouring for just one bath. So if someone is bathing in there, and I am on high-tide, I can't possibly breathe in and hold my bladder. I have to pee somewhere, certainly not in my pants, but perhaps over at the kitchen sink? So if MR BOSSY tells me to call him if I need the bath, can't he at least take his mobile with him inside and I will call as he wants me to ?

I wanted to, at one juncture, to go to MR PSYHCO for a haircut at a whopping $14. Now, seeing how things have turned out, I have decided to withdraw this intended support and have my hair cut at the Malay barber instead for $9.

If the brokerage's online trading system is not as buggy as I think it is and as they claim it isn't, then tell me why on one fine day, I see only a partial contracted list of stocks? What utter fandangle! If they can't check on my bank statement then why when I call in on the bank's hotline, I get transferred to the same person whom I liaise with at the brokerage? A double coincidence or some chuckleheady multi-tasking, cross-over the line thingy?

I had the misfortune to lock up my SIM card and as I don't have a fixed line anymore, I fished into my wallet and was grateful I still have the left-over magnetic-strip telephone cards valued at $3 and $5 respectively. One was depleted in value till the last tens of cents while another was almost full. Now the public phones are operated by SINGTEL but I am on STARHUB. I have to pay $0.60 for a 100 directory assitance call (the 1633 number cannot be dialled and had to have a few more digits placed in front) and when I inserted a dollar coin to make this call, it swallowed it up hook, line and sinker when the call ended even though I still have at least $0.70 credit because it doesnt refund unused portion of the value.

Next was choosing the red or silver phones as the magnetic strips are being phased out and phone chipcards are in. I couldn't use the magnetic strips at the red phones and had to hunt down a silver one. It was a hell of a morning I tell you.

Now I have my mobile phone and SIM card all securely locked up with a password. It is mind-blowing the copious amounts of passwords , PINs , user identities and account numbers I have to remember just to log in online for my various purposes.

While fishing into my wallet, I also scooped out a Seng City Trading photocopy card which was the technology then to use at all public libraries for photo-copying services. But now it is the cashcard. The first person to answer to my call as to what I should do with this technologically outdated dinosaur wasn't helpful. A second call (and this was connected to the Big Boss directly) and I was told I could trade in my card for a deposit refund and whatever value is left with a school. I chose SJI as I wanted to peek at the cuties there ( of course there were CJC and AJC named as well)

The same thing happened when I closed a bank account with several dollars credit due me. They didn't tell me this over the counter and to put it in the bank's frontliner's reply "the bank can't refund you this now as it should have been transacted OTC and thus it will absorb this for you". Absorb my bloody foot. They agreed to send a check and I got my several dollars worth, this after the 24% or 17.5% interest per annum they have been blood-sucking off my account.

I watched "Dorm" and "Date Movie" recently. "Dorm" wasn't exactly a horror flick but more a sentimental and moving story of two boys locked in together in different realms of the physical and spiritual world. One may say it smacks of gayism and love between two dudes. One boy had to help the other unleash himself from the real world to be back in his spiritual one. "Date Movie" was hilarious as it was in the ilk of its writers from "Scary Movie" (the 4th version is gonna be launched soon). It spoofed "Meet The Fokkers" and about everything else.

Now how does one get rich in Singapore? I think I have the answer. In fact the answer seems to be just right under my nose, literally. But I just have to keep my fingers crossed for things to roll and at the right time, BAM, I put my money where it is worth.

Are you guys with me now?