I just found out that I only have a narrow window of roughly 2:30 - 3:45 pm in which to have The Talk. The heat is on.
Boss: Meeting in my office, right now.Ah --- fun times.)
Me: (wailing) It's my birthday today!!
Boss: (in the same tone that you would say, "Whatever") Happy birthday. So now that we've closed schools, we've got to figure out ...
"It makes me angry that my country is so violently opposed to how I live my life. Even if I am a student just like you, if I live and love just like you, if I love my family just like you, go to church and worship just like you, am as susceptible to pain and heartbreak as you are, sit for the same exams like you do, ask for a phone number and have dinner dates like you do (not jump into bed straight from a club) - we even bleed like everyone does. The people I have elected to love negates all that, and I am automagically transformed into the antithesis of family and values and all things good."I'm not gay, but I hold many opinions that diverge from the mainstream views of the society where I live. I just can't wait to be criminalised for the lot of them.
So here's the "more details" bit:Thai-Indon place, halal. One outlet at Far East Sq, further down from Carnegie's. Other outlet at Kandahar St. Food is excellent at both, but decor at K St is better, more antique-y and nostalgic. Can eat for $15 per head, a bit more with seafood, desserts and drinks are cheap, $1.50-$3. Will put more details on my blog.
Bumbu (pronounced boom-boo)
44 Kandahar Street, 6392-8628(I can't find an address for the Far East Square one, but I'll be there tomorrow night, so will grab a card.) 31 Pekin Street #01-01 Far East Square, 6536-8636
With apologies to those friends overseas (especially Stellou, whom I introduced to the restaurant last summer) who have just gone apoplectic over the tantalizing hints of regional flavour radiating from this blog entry.
Notice that only the last one fulfils the dictionary definition of the "ten-year series" of examination papers. (The "ten-year series" is a phrase used in local parlance to denote assessment books collating Cambridge examinations from previous years. Students use the ten-year series as practice exams for the real thing.) Two of these books are, in fact, twenty-year series --- which means that the seventeen-/eighteen-year-old students who use these books are doing practice exams that were set before they were even born.
Oy vey.
The Blind Assassin begins boldly, introducing three interwoven narratives: the narrator's present life interspersed with memories of her once wealthy family, alternating with excerpts from her sister's science fiction-inspired romance novel, both tied loosely together by newspaper clippings. The heart of these stories is Laura --- living in this world yet not of it, with her ingenuous disregard of reality, who "had the attitude of listening ... but you could never tell what she was listening to". It is no wonder that the novel opens with Laura's death: she haunts the narrator's memories. Atwood's deftness balances the reader evenly between present and past, fact and fiction, Iris and Laura --- but ultimately her management is too careful, too cultivated. Though this novel succeeds stylistically, it leaves the reader wondering how Iris was so neatly obliterated --- or perhaps, that was the point.(The requirement was to keep the review to 150 words, which I did so religiously.)
Glimpses of LightIf you want to avoid speechifying and the media, come a little later. We'll still be around. (And 7-Eleven better have have stocked up on iced lemon tea by then!)
The Atrium @ Orchard
March 16-30, 2005
Opening ceremony: Saturday, March 19, 3 pm
Dear [Tym],I can't believe I've spent almost a year cracking jokes about how if I didn't get around to re-registering soon --- after the first reminder, and the second, and I think there was a third --- that they would throw me in jail or something. Now I'm facing a composition fine if I don't get my sad act together.
Re-Registration of NRIC* at the age of 30
I refer to our first notification and subsequent reminders on the above matter. We note that you have yet to re-register your NRIC. You are kindly advised to call in person at our office to complete the re-registration before your 31st birthday.
[Finicky re-registration details snipped]
Please note that under the National Registration Act; registrants who fail to re-register their NRIC once they reach 31 years of age shall be guilty of an offence. You will have to pay a composition fine in addition to the re-registration fee.
Love,
Your friendly neighbourhood Citizen Services Centre
Apologies to anyone familiar with Singaporean hawker fare but living overseas, whom I may have just made ravenous with hunger and homesickness with my litany above. We were trying to introduce typical local food to friends from overseas.
Surprisingly, olua was a big hit; we always thought of it as more of an acquired taste. Next food stop: satay at East Coast Park Lagoon hawker centre.
The thing about me and food is that I like it, I'll eat it and I'll compare where's a good place to get it. Terz, on the other hand, actually knows most of the ingredients in local dishes and can explain how some of them got to be that way. So he could explain that carrot cake has no carrots in it and is in fact radish cake, and that the misnomer arose from an inaccurate translation of a common Chinese term for "carrot" and "radish" into the English word "carrot". The things you learn about your own country when you're taking people around...