Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Gone too soon..

Ever since getting back it's been one crazy day after another. While initially i was very pleased with myself that i had the foresight to choose a holiday destination that did not fall under the "affected country" label (since i had also considered places in Australia, the States, and the UK), think i soon came to regret that decision mere hours after the plane touched down at Changi as less than three hours after that i found myself in school for a staff meeting (when i could instead have been tucked in bed under LOA). It's no one's fault but mine that i was distracted by the inflight entertainment from what i had originally set out to do for the latter half of the flight (which was, of course, to sleep), and as such i only snatched less than two hours of precious shuteye before landing. By lunchtime at the staff meeting, i was already craving for the bed, but well, didn't make it there until past midnight. And so began a cycle of totally warped sleeping hours over the weekend, which has now 'stabilized', if you could call it that, to a midnight to five am sleep cycle.

Speaking of the inflight entertainment, i randomly ended up listening to the song Ben and thinking about how that probably was one of my favorite MJ songs. (In fact, i think all the songs by him that i like are generally of the slower, more minimalist variety (at least relatively speaking) like Human Nature, Man in the Mirror, Childhood, Heal the World etc) How strangely ironic that after him being somewhat in my thoughts for the first time in years, that i should arrive back to hear that he was admitted to hospital, and then dead. And while now i am semi-boycotting CNN and even BBC World because of the far-too-excessive coverage of his death at the expense of far more pertinent world events (and by that i don't mean Farrah Fawcett), as troubled as he ended up he was a very talented guy. Even though i did feel somewhat cheated in the aftermath of his death to realize that he in fact did not write some of those favorite songs when i had always thought he had (Was under the impression that Ben was written by him for his pet mouse, when in fact it was written by two other guys and was originally intended for Donny Osmond). Ah well.

Thursday, June 25, 2009

æøå

About to head home to a staff meeting mere moments after touching down, and also have elearning stuff to prepare thanks to H1N1 (and guess what, i have the textbook with me now). Also, on the plane, i will seriously be freaked out if anyone starts sneezing or coughing incessantly, not cos i don't want to get the flu, but more cos of the hassle involved (and not turning up for your first week of work isn't exactly the best way to start things off, is it?). Please don't let this be a so-called 'affected country'...

On the plus side, this has been a very good, albeit as usual way too short holiday. Met new people, surprisingly bumped into old ones, did new things, experienced different weather and so on and so forth. It also occurs to me that i never said where i am here. Well, i consciously did that, for no particular reason other than that i'd feel somewhat paiseh to announce it here. So, before i leave, using the local keyboard that i have, here are some parting clues: æøå..

Sunday, June 21, 2009

jiang-ing hua yu

Yesterday i had a rather interesting experience - the precursor to what happened was that there was a Chinese (as in, PRC) girl seated in the seat in front of me in the train, who was not sure when her stop would come. Armed with the timetable, i got her attention and let her look at the timetable. She asked me where i was from and i said S'pore, and she was like oh no wonder we look similar. That's somewhat besides the point, but anyways what i am getting at is that i made a conscious effort to not speak Mandarin, just because i didn't want to.

The experience itself was that after reaching a certain ulu train station i had to take a tram from, there was this elderly Asian man who saw me and immediately went up to me and asked me something in some undecipherable Chinese tongue - i guess cos again, we looked similar. Anyways initially i had half a mind to feign ignorance, but eventually uttered some words in Mandarin which caused his eyes to light up and so the rest of the conversation continued in the said language (of course with much difficulty on my part).

Turns out he was stranded cos he had missed a connecting transport back home and didn't speak any of the local languages. So i ended up helping him by providing English-to-Mandarin translation through the tram and subsequently a train, before leaving him to take a connecting train. En route i learnt a bit more about his fascinating history (or at least whatever i could gather - i was usually just nodding while understanding only 80% at most of what he was saying), and before i said goodbye to him we exchanged contacts, and if he ever ends up in S'pore maybe we can meet up again...

Well, i hope he found his way back home. And on my part, well, maybe speaking Mandarin isn't all that bad...

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

charity post

Just a random post cos when i was about to buy one hour's worth of internet access this guy called me over and offered me his remaining 55 min for no charge. :)

Arrived without a hitch, and so far have not been bothered by the absence of the stuff i forgot to bring - apart from one guy winking strangely at me when i was in one corner looking at the free city map i got at the tourist office. Creepy.

Now i have to get back all my stuff and trek across the city to the ferry terminal on the other side of town - and i wonder why it's hard to find people who want to travel with me :p

tootified

Before this falls into disrepair...

Am now at the airport waiting for boarding to begin.

I was confident that this time i had left nothing at home.

Turns out by the time i got to the airport i realized i had left 1) phone charger, 2) medication, and 3) all (five - thanks to nlb's new policy) the guide books behind.

Hardly the end of the world, but still...