Updates Week of 23 May

It's confirmed at last, and I leave tomorrow.

Training progress for the week:

• Monday - Swam 1.5km, timing for 1.0km 25:10, realized public pool not so crowded after seven when the little children go home to have their dinner
• Tuesday - No formal exercise, but I ran around Singapore the whole day on Official Army Business and spent at least three hours on public transport, which has to count for something
• Wednesday - Ran 6.5km in 36:32, which is an embarrassing timing, but again I spent so much time on public transport my ass was aching and my legs not working quite right
• Thursday - Might go jogging later, though from my state of unpackedness I doubt it

As Nick puts it, I'm gonna be pretty much fucked for the triathlon. On the other hand it's taken something of a back seat these days, what with my rediscovered work-addiction and Abandonia, home of abandonware DOS games. Ahhh, the good old days of 8-bit sound and 16-bit colour, the era when I would spend hours trying to configure my PC just to run the new crap out on the market.

These days if it doesn't work upon installation I just uninstall and go read a book.

The old classics were still the best, really. The days when games were actually fun and features were still new, instead of being tiny noveilties built into yet-another real-time-sim or action-shooter. When the multiple unit selection of Warcraft 2 drew gasps and admiration from all who had played the original Warcraft. And despite the claims that games these days are more interactive, you could do a lot even back then. I liked to go bungee - it was before 3rd-ed rules and I could fly in Menzoberranzan for up to five minutes before the spell ended and I came crashing back to earth to lose all HP and die horribly, only to load and reply.

Yes, the goold old days were really the best, I'll say (at the risk of sounding like my father).

Okay, going to pack.

Wherein I Claw for Clothes

Despite my lack of attention to dress most days of my life, I do like to look nice when I go out to meet someone important (so if you've never seen me dres nicely it means you're not important) or when the fancy grabs me that the past few days have been filled with dreary t-shirts and berms.

This, of course, requires me to actually be possessed of decent-looking apparel with which to clothe myself in, which only appear rarely in my wardrobe due to a very poor eye for what would actually look good on me. The few friends whom I trust enough to go shopping with will attest to my poor taste and I thank them for always having the courage to tell me that the brown-shit-patterned-hawaiian-shirt-type clothes are unsuitable for anyone but Darth Vader, and only because he can Force Crush people who say otherwise.

So one evening as I rushed the dinner table for the daily scraps, I noticed a notice of a carpark sale sitting there on the table. Cheap franchise-clothing, of brands that target people my age group and income range (meaning nothing) were being hawked at one Wing Tai industrial building's carpark promising rebates of up to 70% off!!! Now, I am anything but a sensible shopper, and I have an unreasonable love of the bargain bin, so you must understand that an entire carpark full of bargain bins sounded simply irresistible. Visions of clothes, heaped like bonfire-fuel on the ground and people screaming and biting each other over the size S's made me dizzy with delight, and I resolved to pay this event a visit.

So Saturday morning came, I awoke early, had a nourishing breakfast that I imagined would be important in the day to come, and began my journey to said carpark sale. It is a well-known fact that if an event takes place in the morning in Singapore and it is anticipated that there will be a large crowd, Singaporeans will queue up all night in front of the venue's gates to ensure their entry (the exception being Heaven, most Singaporeans don't seem to be particularly anxious to book their ticket-to-Nirvana). Not wanting to seem too completely Singaporean, I planned to make an entrance an hour after the gates opened, when the queueus had hopefully dissipated and the wrath and frustration of the morning-queue aunties had diminished.

I was greeted with a queue in front of the industrial park that winded into the neighbouring housing estate.

In my real life, I hate to queue, and will readily abandon anything that requires me to wait for it. However, today was different - I had set my mind to my task and the Alex that usually ate-the-disgusting-Science-canteen-pasta-because-no-one-else queued-there was gone. Every so often people would walk out of the gates, smiling brightly and happily and poring over their purchases as if they were newly-born infants, that strengthened my resolve to make the most of the morning and get myself some babies.

I queued for about a half hour before I was let into the carpark. Strangely, there is a certain kinship you feel after standing in line with other people for so long. Or perhaps it was merely because I was so bored I kept listening in on their conversations - the couple in front wanted to take lessons in ballroom dancing, the couple behind seemed to be having problems - the guy was being too oppressive and the girlfriend didn't like it. I wondered if the Soviet Union's food queues were anything like this, and decided that if it were merely cheese and flour I was queueing for I, and many of the others, would have resorted to grass instead. It was unproductive just standing there and shuffling forward, but I was ashamed to bring out my Schopenhauer to read - it burned simply being at the bottom of my bag.

Once I was let in I proceeded with the mission - to loot through as many bins as possible in the least amount of time and to loose all inhibitions and manners I had painstakingly been brought up with and to shove and push others with an abandon I seldom employed even in competitive sports. My expectations were somewhat foiled by the lack of mens' apparel and the lack of men to loot through those - most of the men there were only there to carry things for their ladies. The ladies' clothes bins were packed, and tensions high there, but my killing fields were much more relaxed, the action spilling over only when various spouses pulled their hapless men over to be fitted. Those women I would have slapped quite readily, if not for said hapless men, who tended to be rather muscular and fit-looking, which probably happens if you constantly have to carry big heavy loads for your spouses.

As in all events in which many people are packed together and partake of intense physical activity, someone fainted. A woman, rather dramatically, exited from the main arena, paused for a moment with her hand to her head and tottered about unsteadily for a while before swooning (in a manner that Faizal would have approved of and imitated for months after). This prompted a kindly woman nearby to help her to a sitting position, whilst another ran for medical attention, which shows that not all Singaporeans are heartless shoppers and that some can be nice, helpful people.

I apologize for the thumb blocking half the image of said fainting lady (she's somewhat obscured behind the woman in red, who was helping her) - I was trying to take the picture as surreptitiously as possible, which meant I was trying to look as if I were frantically SMSing someone. That said, this only goes to show that not all Singaporeans are nice, helpful people and that some can be heartless sensationalist photo-hungry blog-creeps.

Having satisfied my cravings for things-that-look-good-on-me and things-that-look-good-on-my-blog, I decided to pay up and head home. The queue for payment was at least as long as the queue I had been in to get into the place. And much less fun to be in, as it was an enclosed space and people were by this time hot and sweaty and beginning to regret their picks. There was much screeching and looting through the plastic bags we had been given to store our loads in, as tiny blemishes were found, condemning their bearer to the "Please place unwanted goods here" bins or frantic women with no breasts decided they needed more bras and got their boyfriends to Stay as they ran off to get more. Rumblings of unrest echoed though the queue, as cheapskate-shopper chafed cheapskate-shopper, and only the thought that we were in the last leg of the marathon kept the order.

It took me another half-hour to pay. The woman at the counter expressed surprise that no woman was with me and that I trusted my own taste. Quite fed up with the members of her gender at that point, I gave her a wan smile and grunted humourously at her joke. She was not dressed in the type of clothes which she was selling, which led me to believe I was paying money to remove stuff from her warehouse for her.

I ended up buying a couple of tees that looked, as usual, rather less happy on me than they had looked in the bargain bin. Also managed to obtain an incredibly cheap blazer, which I will likely never use considering the country I live in.

Ah well. And that was my little Singaporean adventure, inasmuch as we Singaporeans have adventure, I guess.

Wherein I Finish Another Dickens and Run a Bit

Finished A Tale of Two Cities. For those of you who don't know, it's the one that starts off with:

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.

I love Dickens. I remember reading all the abridged versions of his works in my youth, which did his prose no justice whatsoever (but which Mother proclaimed to be good for my Education).

Also, inspired by Nick, I will post my physical training schedule. It's supposed to inspire me to greater heights of training and keep me doing it. In case I haven't mentioned, I'm taking part in the OSIM Singapore Asian Triathlon 2005, but of course not in the full triathlon (Nick was unmoved by my plea to his ego about how boosted it would be if we completed the complete triathlon - because he ostensibly does not possess one), but rather in the "Sprint" category, which is half the distance.

This week's training:

• Monday - sat on my ass all day
• Tuesday - discovered I wouldn't be able to get my second bar unless I pass my IPPT (see post two days back) and did a 4km run, followed by a 2km walk (because I was weak)
• Wednesday - did a trial 2.4km run, completed in about 11 min (an embarrassing timing for anyone who intends to take part in a triathlon)
• Thursday - sat on my ass all day again, but was comforted in the knowledge that I had cause to do so - I was allowing the body to rest for the next day's exertions
• Friday - Completed an entire IPPT with a silver grade and then went swimming for 600m. The pool was overflowing with little children whose parents had wisely sent them for swimming lessons, though there was barely room for them to learn anything but how to struggle in the water and grab at the other people there.

Oh, and I passed IPPT, did I mention? I'm getting promoted! Supposedly this coming June I will be able to return to the army with two flimsy bars on my shoulders, a sign at last of my seniority in the army.

My happiness is somewhat dampened by my chief clerk's confiding in me that I was most likely to be posted as a PC somewhere unless I sell her my soul and promise to do programming for her the enternity of my National Service days. Oh god. The idea is nauseating.

Exactly one more week, and I can finally ejaculate my joy to the world!

On Blogging

*yawn*

When I ask people if they blog, and they reply in the negative, the most common reason I am given is that they think there is really nothing interesting in their lives to write about. This is a statement that never fails me to make me feel chastened, the discovery of my friends' humble and honest self-reflections about their watered-down lives against my own sluttish (?) display to the world of the extravagences of my shallow existence, an existence that includes taking self-indulgent photographs of myself as such:

(Hair is growing out at a fine rate - I can shampoo now. For those of you who have never experienced a buzzcut, 3mm hair cannot be shampooed. It just runs off your head like muddy precipitate. Only at around 9mm does hair begin to retain hair-improvement formula.)

If it were true that only people who led interesting lives should be allowed to blog, I think Blogger would find itself in a state of rather less business than it has now. The reality, of course, is that the majority of bloggers write about nothing more than the most trivial affairs of their lives, such as top-rated dooce, a not-so-desperate housewife and one of my daily(well, almost) reads. But on the other end of the spectrum there are the politically charged ones that begin with nice, analytical articles about this-or-that government's tyrannical or oppresive regimes and then degenerate into comments from viewers that sound suspiciously like they came from an eighteen-year-old.

Then they're the people who have blogs describing their latest twenty favourite links, like this, this and this. The people who've been in the business longer know to include some descriptions of the outbound links (in my case, an online etext by Charles MacKay "Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds", a computer-animation with some beautiful music and the last being a really cool project by students of MIT about a disco dance floor), but sometimes you get people who just provide anonymous surprise links of the day, which I have no doubt takes it roots from the days when their loving parents would bring home mysterious presents for them (which they so lovingly share with us now). I have tried setting up daily fun-links myself, but after a while I realized my blog was neither specialized enough to provide entertainment of this scale nor were my surfing interests popular ones with my readers (I used to track where you come from and where you go to after reading my blog). So I stopped, though from time to time I promise to post the occasional fun stuff (and less etexts). As for people who suffer from the chronic need to share their surf-habits, I blame entirely on the email-culture of the IT era, where if you received attention of any kind the standard procedure was to forward it to someone else as soon as possible.

I've seen blogs dealing entirely with food and packed with recipes and blogs that were created to commemorate some classes' comments about their imminent graduation. I've seen blogs used as bug-trackers and administrative-complaint-loggers. Blogs are used for advertisement, for spreading of news, for influencing public opinion - in essence blogging has become our new pen-and-paper, the poster of the new millenium, the face of the written word for the century.

So! Write now!

Wherein I Recount the Activities of the Past Days (again)

Work in the past few days have left me with little time for blogging - not so much the office job but the horrible realization that the last IPPT (Individual Physical Proficiency Test) I took back in the Army resulted in a FAIL grade.

I suppose it didn't seem like a big deal back then, as I was almost out of the Army and physical proficiency didn't really associate itself with my civilian identity.

Unfortunately, despite being in the manpower business myself and having committed to memory dozens of the administrative procedures and requirements for promotions, I had somehow overlooked the fact that I was not eligible for promotion unless my previous IPPT showed me to be of at least a moderate level of fitness (as well as several other requirements, all of which I meet).

So the past few days have been in the pursuit of physical fitness, something I thought I had left behind me and could be in pursuit of mere physical pleasure. Results so far have been disappointing - that other black bar on my shoulder is in danger of never being attained.

Of actual work I have been delegated to a programming project. Now I am beholden to travel from administrative unit to administrative unit, spreading the gospel of my embarrassingly pitiful project and checking the status of (xxx) management within the units. It is a job that I rather like, as it makes me seem rather important in the eyes of those damned clerks (who will burn in hell for laughing at my hair!) and gives me some modicum of authority over their superiors in the dispensing of my knowledge, but it has once again opened my eyes to the severe administrative deficiencies of my organization. Sometimes I wonder at the peopled who are hired by the central HR. Are they so blind and idealistic about the rote training they dole out that they can imagine a half-blind, meek old lady whose voice is barely able to reach across a five-metre room will be able to control a roomful of young men burning with the frustration of boredom and entrapment?

I mean, even a young man like myself, full of the energy of life and the blush of activity, feels rather lost amongst these apes (who will burn in hell for laughing at my hair!) when trying to explain how to use software to make their lives easier.

Which is why I have respect for my own chief clerk for her command, if not her ability to actually work. At some point in life I suppose managerial skills start to count for a lot more than technical ones, though I loathe the idea and tend to stay away from any kind of leadership position. You see, I hate to depend on anyone else to do any kind of work - my particular brand of mistrust - which makes me a rather poor leader, since I almost never delegate and I have trouble thinking of things to do for idle hands (unlike YOU, eh?). I'm still wondering if there's any way I can squirm out of society's expectations of my management destiny, though I see precious little chance. Seet's constant exhortations about how I should transform myself into a leader always chafe - it's almost as if leadership, like monetary success, were the only things to be aspired for in life.

In an effort to have less to do, I avoid the higher orders like the plague. As far as I can tell, by not presenting myself to any personage of higher rank than myself (an actual possibility where I work) I can get away with doing very little. So far the strategy has worked, except that it just means I end up doing work of my own device. This week I go home early most days, but I have the sinking feeling that the old flame of industriousness burns brighter each day they feed my ego with the "Oh! Alex! So useful are you!" and soon I'll end up like those bastard chinese overseas who do OT every day, toiling away at my tiny contribution to my organization late into the night.

But wait - I am mistaken - that level of industriousness is impossible for now. I've found something so much more meaningful in life than work.

Eight more days. Oh, goodness.

My Own Country Scares Me

Remember that short film Singapore Rebel, about Dr Chee Soon Juan? In case you didn't, it's a documentary-style thing by Martyn See about the trials (forgive the pun) and tribulations of Dr Chee Soon Juan, notorious opposition member in Singapore. Incidentally, the music on the film is by Opposition and One Man Party, of whom I can sadly find no website dedicated to (it's probably gonna be a bit difficult to register www.oppositionparty.com.sg with Singapore's NIC).

Anyway, Mr See had to withdraw the film from Singapore's International Film Festival because it might have landed him in jail. Evidently, even making the film is going to land him in trouble, being under investigation by the Singapore Police force now. Amnesty International Film Festival(USA) said of the film:

The film has just been withdrawn from the Singapore International Film Festival because of government censorship. We are proud to host the World Premiere and to support freedom of expression for artists worldwide.

It screens 25th, 28th May. As far as I can remember the only films we produce that ever seem to make it in overseas film festivals are those we don't get to see much of in our own country. So sad. What we DO get is stuff like Gan Cheong King, an insipid little thing that plays on TV Mobile and which I hope its producers are embarrassed to have on big-screen.

Having actually watched Singapore Rebel, I can only say that it is not very good. The quality of the camera-work is pretty good for a one-man-production (or maybe there were people who helped but didn't want their names credited) and the archival videos were as good as you can expect the opposition to keep, but otherwise it's a rather limpid documentary that fails to excite much attention.

However, it is about lack of certain freedoms that people in other countries seem to take rather for granted, so I suppose it's a novelty for them to see a country where people get arrested and fined for peaceful rallies and protests. According to Thai Airways, smoking, chewing gum and littering are illegal in Singapore too, so I can only imagine what kind of a zoo we look like. Maybe we should just forget the IRs and come up with more fun and exotic laws that can garner us big tourist dollars.

Also hot in Singapore's activism news is something about a Singapore student's comments about A*Star in a public blog. In it, he lambasts A*Star chairman, Philip Yeo in what I personally consider to be a rather artful manner but-of-course-do-not-endorse-as-truthful-in-any-way. A*Star threatened to sue him, unless he apologized, retracted and promised never-to-do-it-again. He did so, you can check it out here. Of course, he's not an A*Star scholar - broke his bond a couple of years back because of many many troubles with PSC.

Of course, international media spared no time getting on the media frezy - you can tell it's big news - even Channel News Asia reported it and now we also face charges of being amongst the first few countries to sue a blogger (I don't know - have any other countries sued bloggers yet?).

You ever watched the Wizard of Oz? I'm beginning to feel like one of the inhabitants of the Emerald City, one of those citizens that don't have a name and only have five minutes of screen-time to portray a decrepit, morally bankrupt and meaningless lifestyle before being slaughtered by the heroes, who have names and cool guns (and come from countries with much smaller GDPs). Sodom? Gonorrha? Anyway we're turning into something of a city of evil, aren't we? And I'm not referring to the casinos, too.

I get to vote this year. Despite mother's best efforts, I still know quite a bit more about Singapore's political situation than most of my peers (discounting the few Political Science students I know). Which is sad, really, considering that I am already 24. Sometimes I think perhaps packing up and leaving is for the best indeed, screw all concept of loyalty to country and all. I have my nationalistic pride, but it's getting tiring to live in a country that's so hard to defend against accusations of smallness and meanness. Even the bravest child doesn't want to be the shortest guy in class.

Ooops, looks like psychological defence is fading- better get myself back to National Service where they can tune me up again.

Wherein I Return to the Army after 3 Years

Well - not entirely three years - I disrupted sometimes in the end of July, so it's really something like two years and 11 months.

Regardless, nothing much seems to have changed. The same jobs are still there, staffed by more-or-less the same people, with some exceptions, though their replacements look more-or-less the same anyway. Of course, I am unable to reveal anything of my work nor my colleagues, for fear that I will be punished under the Official Secrets Act for exposing my country's military secrets (mostly those of gross incompetance, laziness and generic civil-service-standard ineptitude), but suffice to say that I am not particularly impressed by the people I have to work with most of the time. Mind you, I love them all, of course, but I just imagined working life to be more dynamic on so many more levels than a couple of old women bickering about whose turn it is to take out the laundry.

Of course, they laughed at my hair, my old-auntie peers. Luckily rank had its tiny little perks, and I initially got very few jibes from the lower ranks. That changed soon enough when they realized the haircut wasn't indicative of my enthusiasm to serve my country in a most strict and regimental manner but rather the sort of bumbling mistake made by a stupid, kindly person, and even my suc-suc-suc-sucessor was soon laughing at me.

No wonder everyone hates us clerks. We're a cruel bunch.

I almost got the day off, but rejected it. The manpower-deputy told me when I reported to him that he had nothing much for me to do, especially since I'd missed an exercise in Australia and everyone of import wasn't around (which I took to be a rather refreshing self-confession of his own pathetic job). I made the mistake of volunteering for work, though, (and lots of it) for which I might kick myself in the days to come. On the other hand there's no worries about finding me anything to do, and I figure getting work you like to do is better than sitting around looking bored and discontent and ending up on the receiving end of busy-peoples' ire.

And there's a lot of ire going around. The army is the first place I got lessons in the infamous office politics people are always so eager to tell you about, being of too low import in my prior jobs. My position and ability with a computer made me something of a maneuver piece for the warring factions, though I did my best to keep out of it. Within the day I'd managed to catch up on quite a lot of the popular gossip going around, though it's never really very different. Someone got a larger bonus than someone else, someone doesn't seem to be working quite as hard as they should, someone seems to be trying to take advantage of someone else... sometimes the pettiness of human conflict makes me sick.

Of course, it's fitting that such conflict should arise in an organization designed to stifle (or amplify) the destructive effects of said conflicts on a larger-scale - meaning that wars are fought for reasons as petty as clerks' squabbles.

38 more days. Usually I like work, but I can't wait for this to be over.

Wherein I have a Family Meal and Meet an Idol

Despite my hair-loss problems (Take take heart) and my resolution to avoid any kind of outing in the next week, I was obliged to accompany the family to a steamboat meal in celebration of Mothers' Day. I consider it a bourgeois commercial venture to make people spend more, but mother considers it the least I could do to make up for nine months in the womb and twelve hours in the delivery ward. I think it's a good deal, considering even if I celebrate another 40 Mothers' Days exclusively with mother I still won't make up for more than two months.

Anyway we went to some awful steamboat place which was packed, and ended up playing the waiting game on some poor family trying to get their dinner in. Daddy is very good at staking out tables, although his offspring are more content to hide in the corner and be pushed around by the aunties and their voluminuous descendants. I think the price was the draw - about S$10 a person, plus the place was air-conditioned - a draw for any food establishment under twenty in Singapore (I believe it explains much of the success of fast food chains here). The food was decent enough, though the service tended to be in the form of grunts and "Si mi dai zi!?"

Said offspring went off to play pool after dinner, leaving mother and father to go home alone. It is strange to realize your siblings are already of an age where the age difference between you is less obvious, and you can shar ethe same interests now. I think I suffer from anachronistic elder-sibling superiority complex, with the assumption that somehow I wil always be wiser, more mature and more successful than my younger brother and sister, though in truth it's probably just an illusion brought about traditional chinese belief. It doesn't help that I'm male - freudian theory probably has me plotting to murder my father and take over the place as male figurehead.

Turns out that I'm not that bad. Being a physics major has the tiniest of perks, and having to mechanics is useful for improving spacial imagination, if nothing else. Oh, and having friends like Take who like to bounce balls, of course.

The irony of children abandoning their mother on Mothers' Day to go enjoy themselves will not be commented upon.

Brother dearest went off to Pasir Ris to do more of his cycling after pool, so sister and I went home together. The self-indulgant pig wanted cheesecake, so we went to a Coffee Bean, where this sister-indulgant pig bought her some. And...

We met Sylvester! Sylvester Sim, Singapore Idol runner-up, beloved of chao ah bengs all over Singapore and my sister's personal favourite Idol! (meaning she won't buy his album but feels a little guilt ripping it off from friends) I took a picture for my sister, but most unfortunately she blinked, and I got a bad shot. Sylvester looked rather impatient, so I was rather too flustered to ask for another shot, and by the time I noticed my sister's usually small eyes were smaller than usual in the picture it was too late - he had already grabbed his generic-ice-blended and rushed out.

Of course, I felt a little bad for ruining my sister's chance to take a picture with greatness, so I did the only thing I could - I photoshopped her eyes back on. The results:

Without eyes

With eyes added

Sister complained she looked ugly. I replied that it was due to the simple fact that my subject was, in fact, ugly. She failed to concur, which is unfortunate, because I think I did a pretty good job (not too difficult considering the image is so low in resolution). Could you tell if it was photoshopped, even if you were looking?

Anyway, I hardly thought about my hair the entire day. It's like being a recruit again after a while. You know people are looking, but you just don't care, really.

The Worst Cosmetic Decision of My Life

Today I was helping out at the carnival thing for the single mothers, meaning I had to get up at 0600hrs, the earliest I've been up this entire year.

I was, understandably, rather sleepy by the time I got home and went out again for a quick haircut.

And I was, regrettably, rather curt in my instructions to my barber - that I wanted it short, because I was going back to the army.

And I was, sadly, asleep within seconds of him shaving my head.

Now, I have almost no more hair.

I look like one of those recruits who have just entered basic military training.

... it's a look. At least it's rather nice to touch, being all fuzzy. And it'll keep me celibate/célibataire for a while until it grows back out.

*sob*

Isn't it bad? Oh god. So forgive me if I don't want to go out in the next week, at least. From experience it takes about three weeks before some semblance of normalcy is regained.

Wherein I Finish My Exams and Make Plans for the Future

All right, my bluff has been called. I am not really "in a constant state of depression", but rather suffering from short, sporadic bursts of mild disappointment in the condition of my life.

I'm too practical to be really upset over anything. And I am a Singaporean with a penchant for exxagerating my situation. It comes from living on an island in which children are shielded from as much trauma as possible in their lives, and the slightest setback can seem like a life-threatening malice (Oh my god! My fingers are of irregular length! I'm a mutant!).

Anyway, my exams are over and I can forget about all the academic shame of the last semester. Not much in the way of celebrations so far, but then again I'm not really planning to do much since I only have the one week till the army rolls around. I'm hoping I'll get a desk job that allows me to stay in - don't wanna go to Australia anymore.

And after that? I dunno. I'm doing another semester, so I'll be looking for work in mid-June. I'm thinking either a short internship at some design firm or a waiter or front-desk job at some hotel. Have many plans to learn new things in this period - french, some digital-image processing, redo portfolio, learn Malay...

And after that? Well - back to studies, and this time I take only philosophy modules, which shouldn't be too difficult to pass. Just looking to graduate as soon as possible.

I said I would make plans for the future, but this is as far as I'm able to see, I'm afraid. Nothing stays the same, and I think I'll be happy to keep my options open for a while.

Bliss

Love can make snores sound sublime.