sortof eventful past two weeks.

met up with rima, jing and karin for vegetarian food in chinatown. very amusing how much (combined) effort it took for us just to order in mandarin.

jing places order.
prc waitress: chingchongchingchong
jing: (looks at karin for help) ??
karin: er.. black sauce. (to me) tt means black sauce right?
me: er ya i think so. (to self) chingchongchingchong... erm ya sounds like black sauce to me)
jing: (to waitress) erm ya ok. i'll have tt.
rima: xie xie.

hahahaa. it's not tt our chinese is bad. if she had said "dao you", we'd know exactly what she meant. but she said it in mandarin. totally threw us off there. it kind of disturbs me when i try to order local food and the prc server doesn't understand what i'm saying. i say chee cheong fun, she says zhu chang fen; i say char kway teow, she says chao guo tiao; i say cheng tng, she says qing tang. if its a hokkien dish, why can't the prc server just learn the hokkien name for it because tt's what it goes by?? similarly, you wouldn't have someone working at the nasi lemak stall asking you if you want "extra scaly hairfin anchovies with your coconut rice". you'd be like WTF. plus, calling different food by their original names makes them more unique, you know? maybe i'm just being anal, but i believe eating is all bout the experience. if i eat "luo mai gai", i feel like wah i'm experiencing cantonese cuisine.. as opposed to eating (insert mandarin name for luo mai gai), just another "chinese food". homogeny can present itself as a real bitch when you're a sucker for variety. where's the love in diversity, ya'll? and how did we go from recounting my exciting life to a dissing socio-linguistic peeves? tsk.

baybeats. only managed to make saturday. went there with shaun and alicia but they left when markie and the boys came. then terence came, then daddy came, then julius. i'm glad i went to watch meza virs even though i'm not a metal fan. fantastic presence and got the crowd really excited. quite funny though.. the whole throaty thing. oh they did a gothic metal ish cover of love song. their stuff is not the kind i'd listen to on radio or cd but i'd love to watch them live again. opposition party was good too.. with their mr samurai/ninja fella, though they didn't have the whole crazy cedric vox and jonny and tripped out female keyboardist haha. but at the powerhse especially, the sound system didn't do the bands justice. markie turned to us in the middle of the meza virs set and said: this is the first metal/rock gig i've been to where i can actually talk to you guys. and even though i'm not crazy bout the whole glottal roaring thing, i was a bit bothered tt the vox couldn't be heard loudly enough.

the whole night was almost like a mcm reunion of sorts. saw elias doing the spraypainting thing.. and indra- haven't seen him in ages!.. the last i heard (more than 3 years ago) was tt his visa in spore was expiring. but i guess he got it worked out. wanted to talk to him but i was on the ph and he walked off with his friend. and then saw josh, when we went to check out the pinoy band. he said his two bands' cds were on sale at the merch booth and i shamelessly asked if i could dwnld them off him. HAHAA. and then saw shaiful, and then michelle. she told me she was still teaching eng. cool beans. i didn't realise i had any friends my age who had also foraged into efl teaching. so anyway, it could be cos i'm growing old, but baybeats feels diff. the last time i went was 2006 i think. where i bumped into uncleparty hahaa. aside frm juli, i onloy saw ONE guy i recognised frm fsv. jules says it's diff cos it's become a gahmen thing. he's prob right but i think it's alos cos we're getting old. we're fucking old, julius. or rather, old is fucking us. anyways, the the silly little boys left early and daddy left soon after and it was just me, julius and terence. haha. just like tt no-smoking gig we went to. BEAT! started at 11 o'clock. kind of like the outdoor poptart thing they had in 06, which is juts my thing. bopping and gyrating and headbanging and handdancing and clapping and shouting along. i got so high from the adrenalin rush, my hands couldn't stop shaking 20 mins after we had stopped dancing. mummy made a fuss on sms and julius sent me home on his bike.. mummy made a big fuss when i got back. she was sitting in front of the tv with her imgonnatakeyouonaguilttrip face. and of course tt's exactly what she did. but as i lay in bed that mornite, i was still tripping frm the dancing and the scary bike ride tt i couldn't get to sleep. oh what a night.

next day, mama's bday. had semi-demi-fun. couldve been more gratifying if not for the familiar familial faux pas, and naik atas-ness and unyielding, unnecessary pride of various family members. made me wonder if i wouldve been happier just going for baybeats day3.

teachers day was fun. went back to sch to amuse myself and collect a whole paperbagful of presents. kids can be so sweet and so strange. then tutoring my two new students. tt was slightly painful. i hate it when my students start looking at their watched every 5 mins cos then i feel like i'm torturing them and tt's really the last thing i wanna do. i've always hated boring tuition teachers so why the fuck would i wanna do tt to anyone. but it's gotten better this week; the little one (and i do mean LITTLE) enjoyed my lesson so much, when we had finished he was like "c fini??? oh." *surprised french look* and tt made me feel real good. their dad's an artist, just like anne. how cool. i love french artists who enjoy living in singapore and who let me tutor their kids. HAHA.

after tt, jamming for feast day. we're getting lots better and i'm pretty content with the progress. also jammed just now at sonofa (twice a week!) and though we're not super, we've improved so much frm our last nativity gig. whee! i'm always so happy when i jam. don't fall sick, don't fall sick.

me and karin met with karol and jon for dindin. yes- to make a din, really. undersized meal portions, moonlight okos, japanese desserts with no service charge, and talk of marriage, cheap bridegrooms, the dearth of certain persons' sexual activity, my overbearing mother all included.

ok mother coming out to scold me now: 1.42am. fuck. gtg