Bric-A-Brac (Latest)

Where Have All The People Gone?
As I sit in class these days, I begin to notice the dwindling number of students.

Some have consistently skipped classes and only turn up on exam day while others are just erratic in their attendance for whatever reasons. There are a couple of them who may have deferred or who are exempted while others have dropped out altogether for reasons best known to themselves.

Among them are two people I know. One has dropped out and his "close" friends have apparently not cared enough to call him to find out what happened. I have taken it upon myself to find out.

Another I have not seen ever since Henry, the lecturer, picked on him and asked to utter the words "I wanna die". I am trying to get to this person as we were chatting happily one minute and the next thing I know, he has completely vanished into thin air.

Seriously I am amazed at the callousness of some of the personalisation the lecturers can engage in and their "close" friends who don't really seem to care.

Fair-Trade's Hall Mark Of Fair Trade
It started with a jar of lemon curd I bought from Marks And Spencer.

It bore a label with the "Fairtrade" mark that purports to give Third World producers a fairer deal so that they will have a better standard of living, acknowledging the sugar ingredient it uses is from such a country.

More recently I have been noticing a whole range of products from coffee to tea bearing this "Fairtrade" mark with diverse countries like Kenya and Ethiopia of Africa, Sri Lanka, India, Colombia and Brazil of Central/South America and Aceh, Indonesia of South East Asia.

This is a good start and I am sure it will extend to other tangible and intangible products in the future.

Men No Wear Flowery And Colorful Clothes? Desigual And Spanish Men Must Be In Big Trouble Then
If men are typecast as humans who cannot don flowery and colorfully designed attire, then Spanish men are in deep trouble.

More specifically, Desigual, the Barcelona-based Spanish fashion design store would have to close shop and Spanish men would be looked upon as sissies.

At least that is the impression I got when a female Malay classmate enquired about my yellow colored two-toned tee and the flowery Hawaiian long-sleeved shirt I wore very recently. She was kinda taken aback, I guess, from this flamboyant display.

Truth is, my few working shirts have laid crumpled and creased for years in my luggage, waiting to be worn and see the light of day but my unsuccessful school interview recently has absolutely crushed this wishful hope.

So I bought a steam iron recently (and it seems they all now come with "steam" function) to iron out the creases and treat them as casual wear instead, coupled with jeans of course.

Sexually-Charged And Connotated Conversations
"Cut, wash and blow" - what a male hairdresser would say to a gay client.

"This iron got steam" - what a male sales assistant said to me.

"This display set has been touched, fingered and mauled so many times, if I were to buy it, I want a discount" what I said to a young handsome sales assistant, alluding to sex workers or the like.

Allusory Movies
If you had watched "Transformers - Revenge Of The Fallen", the backdrop of the story and the plot look a lot like the war in Iraq.

The desert, the desert palm trees, the storm troopers and the allusion to getting at the energy source (more precisely "The Matrix") underneath the pyramid all seem to point that way.

"Terminator Salvation" is a remake of the Terminator series minus Arnie who makes a very brief appearance towards the end the film.

It was action-packed and promised no end of thrills and spills as the cyborgs go about their mission to terminate humans.

A mission perhaps, that is all too appropriate?

More Than One Display Pattern, More Color Changes
OC has more than one display pattern.

So you will excuse me if I wrote about the changing colors of one such pattern the last time and not taking into account the hues of the other display pattern.

In fact I like the new display I saw. It had more hues and vibrancy to it.

Help! Help! Help! Any Fit Young Handsome White Knights Decked Out In Branded Fashion Togs And Riding On A Pure White BMW To The Rescue?
Even as I prepare for any eventuality, I am ensuring I look my best and do most of the things I wanna do. Too bad trips to Europe and Egypt cannot be fulfilled.

From my hair, to my facial skin to my finger nails to my clothes and accesories and the food I eat, I am not letting up on trying things I have not tried before.

Not that I really wanna die, but hey does poor me have a choice? I can only pray for a miracle. And that does not include going back to past employers, turning to the UnHoly Alliance Of The Trio or signing up with any political party. It has got to be a pure and simple case of unconditional help with no strings attached.

I only hope I live long enough to see the opening of some of our newest attractions like the shopping malls, the casino resorts and so on.

Please someone, help! I really dont wanna die!

Sob, sob, sob, sob, sob ($$$$$1 000 000x).