thusspokebma

Khadijah has been bleating interminably about updating this stagnant pool of a blog in that nice, reassuringly naggy tone of hers; it is with considerable grudgingness that I present here, extracted from the deepest bowels of my hard drive, a token of submission to that mesmerizing lilt O sing unto me thou siren of Araby...

The following is adapted from a post in the Notes section on Facebook:



Now, here's what you're supposed to do, and please do not spoil the fun. Copy and paste this into your notes, delete my answers, type in your answers and tag 20 of your friends here in facebook to answer this. Then see what happens!

1. Do you need him/her to be good looking?
AESTHETICS ARE A MORAL IMPERATIVE.

2. Smart?
Too vague a definition, too many a subcategory. Essential requirement: Able to sustain a conversation without either party turning violent or vomiting out of boredom

3. Preferred age?
± 2years

4. Preferred height?
Almost as tall as I am. Any loftier and I feel insecure.

5. How about sense of humor?
Bone-dry British Droll.

6. How about piercings?
No mutilation please.

7. Accepts you for who you are?
Yes.

8. Pink hair?
Due to rapidly fluctuating social conventions and ever-dropping standards of propriety, probably.

9. Mushy or no?
Only slightly around the belly.

10. Thin or fat?
Somewhere on the scale where the marking reads 'Toned'.

11. Black, Brown or White (skin color)?
Preferred Ancestry: Nordic
Preferred Upbringing: Chinese
Being female is the more important quality though.

12. Long hair or short hair?
No specific preference for length, but longthickwavy has always been popular with genetic instincts and the Greek sensibility.

13. Plastic or metal?
Flesh.

14. Smells good?
"Studies have shown that olfactory stimulus is just as lasting and striking as visual ones are." - Something I Made Up But Is True Nonetheless. Bleeding important, this.
Favorite female perfume: Ralph by Ralph Lauren (comes in a turquoise box)

15. Smoker?
No.

16. Drinker?
Nothing chronic.

17. Girl/Boy-next-door type?
Don't know enough about that stereotype to make a decision

18. Muscular?
Toned. No inappropriate bulges

19. Plays piano?
Not important

20. Plays bass and/or acoustic guitar?
Ditto

21. Plays violin?
Ditto

22. Sings very well?
A clear speaking voice with precise enunciation and a hint of huskiness would be great. SInging ability is a bonus.

23. Vain?
No

24. With glasses?
Insufficient information to decide.

25. With braces?
Possible

26. Shy type?
Only during Teacher/Student roleplaying.

27. Rebel or good boy/girl?
Please. Playing the rebel wasn't even cool during the teenage years.

28. Active or passive?
With taking charge of the relationship? We should take turns taking initiative.

29. Tight or bomb?
Good heavens more specious, reductive vagueness.

30. Singer or dancer?
meh

31. Stunner?
Would be nice

32. Hiphop?
No.

33. Earrings?
Ok.

34. Mr/Ms. count-my-ex-girlfriends-until-you-drop?
No sloppy seconds. Sucks out the exclusivity of the relationship and stomps on the dried out remains.

35. Dimples?
Ok.

36. Bookworm?
To a degree so as to achieve (2).

37. Mr/Ms. love letter?
Only if there is pictorial accompaniment to summarize the dross. Preferably of the sort that can get one charged under the local penal code.

38. Playful?
Acceptable if part of a upbeat, cheerful personality. Should it be a psychological carry-over from early childhood as perfected through the conceit of Daddy's Little Girl, then kthnxbye.

39. Flirt?
Only with me.

40. Poem writer?
NA

41. Serious?
During appropriate situations of course, like at funerals and during my explanations of exactly why I scream upon seeing cockroaches.

42. Campus crush?
Hoping to get one. Have to start some time.

43. Painter?
NA

44. Religious?
Protestant- Bible presbyterian

45. Someone who likes to tease people?
If she's asian, a huge wealth of potential material becomes unuseable. So it's ok.
If not, then insulation is in order.

46. Computer games geek? Or internet freak?
Only BMa freaks need apply.

47. Speaks 20 languages?
"Studies have shown that the brain can only handle five, at most six languages before it starts spazzing like members of a specific ethnic minority when placed in a circular room with no TV nor tobacco"- Schopenhauer (ft. DJ Nietzsche)

48. Loyal or faithful?
A relationship is contingent on the bedrock of faithfulness and trust. And Feisty Conjugal Relations, don't forget the Feisty Conjugal Relations.

49. good kisser?
As long as drooling is minimal.

50. loves children?
I don't particularly. This requirement I don't impose then.

Done! What a liberating excercise in banality this has been. Till next time.

Tata

5:30

Twelve more hours before I leave this blessed nursery for the spawning grounds of  America where I was so inelegantly heaved into life nearly nineteen years ago.

Twelve, meager hours left on this final page of an exceedingly eventful chapter where the characters and settings of which will never again be united under the same plot, extant only in an ever-blurring narrative of photos, videos and memories.

Everything I seetouchhearsmelltaste take on an evanescent quality like never before, as if the knowledge of their imminent removal from my life in the immediate future takes away much of their substance.

Twelve hours.
Then, I fly.

(I  didn't intend for this final post in Sg to sound so somber and... contrived. But what to do. Subconscious harbors a lot of suspicious emotions leh.)

Tata.

Had actually completed this a week ago but held out from posting it in vague hopes that I would somehow discover reserves of fortitude to see it to completion. Obviously, that had not been forthcoming. But up it goes anyway! Mayhap I'll return with a Pt 2 someday (hoho that's a good one).


In all bare, stripped down honesty and in spite of much needed reassurance for my stingy conscience that S$500 was money fantastically well spent, I must admit that the SinoTrip wasn't much of a blast for my GrandHyatt Indonesia sensibilities. Perhaps it was the fact that I was traveling alone on most of my excursions. Or that maybe the very nature of urban Beijing, despite the dust and general entropy, is simply too similar to Singapore's predominantly Chinese and reasonably well-developed environs for me to feel suitably foreign, in a foreign land. Or could it be the stuffiness of historical sites, the visits to which will anchor the narrative of this entry, that made the journeys feel like an extended school field trip minus the half-crazed classmates and booze? Something as mundane as too much physical exertion? Incomplete purchasing of counterfeit luxury goods, the most traditional of cultural chinese products? I don't know. Probably a combination of the above factors in varying degrees, but as an aside, the fact that I'm still hovering about this theme gives insight into how keenly felt the ripping of hard-earned five hundred dollars (500!! 五百块！) from the warm womb-like embrace of my bank account has been. Sigh.

An interesting point to note; my Beijing International Airport- bound flight out of Singapore was the first time I had travelled out of the country on my own, with neither parents nor teachers nor classmates nor friends. Just myself. And the as-yet-undetected parasites lodged in my body- there is sure to be some- traveling illegally with me through 'Nothing to Declare' aisles, but that was it. Alone, for the most part. I had half-expected something exciting to happen to mark this momentous, special occasion but I am disappointed to report that the transit was singularly unremarkable. Boarded my midnight flight at T1 without incident, where things got only as exciting as the odd screaming, defecating baby providing a soundtrack for the slight turbulence. Approached Chinese customs anticipating someone to point me out with a  "就是他，那个王八蛋！" but no joy there either. Stepped onto a connecting airport bus at around 7 AM local time and headed into Beijing city proper, bound for the Wenjin Hotel in the Peking University locality, eager about the new vistas of experience I would soon enter.

Upon dumping my luggage onto the carpet of the hotel room, I then promptly keeled over and fell asleep, enjoying four solid hours of snooze time in the communist daylight. Spasmed awake at 2pm in the afternoon and stumbled bleary-eyed, out into the unfamiliar street where grubby individuals vigorously tried to sell me computer parts and root vegetables. Onward!

YUAN MING YUAN RUINS

My very first destination of the grudgingly self-funded trip was so exceedingly underwhelming that I almost went back to the ticket booth to demand a refund, deterred only by my pitiful command of Mandarin Chinese in forming sentences more complex than asking for less Sze Chuan pepper in my beef noodles. The name of the park could not be more accurate, because there really was nothing but rubble, fields of water lily, desolate empty patches of grass and groups of sweaty tourists.

It was the sixth day of the '08 Eurotrip holiday, that fantastical journey through a wonderland of culture exhibitions and reassuring evidences of declined European dominance, at a border town situated high up in the mountains straddling sovereign territories of both Switzerland and Italy.

The coach parked in the middle of the settlement and disgorged its excited, pudgy and entirely Asian vomitus of tourists for toilet breaks and more importantly, the submission of duty-exemption forms by the brand-crazy aunties to reclaim what is rightfully theirs while they stroked their Gucci and Prada merchandise through the shrink wrap in the queue. Stumbling off the bus and feeling the need to keep in character as the Indolent Tourist, I swayed about the narrow street of the alpine village in search for the nearest Italo-Swiss lavatory which I shall grace with my Oriental stream; but none were in sight. Holidaying in a foreign land however, erodes one's sense of propriety for the simple reasons that you feel as if it's your agency-paid rights to break some local rules, and the fact that it's someone else's country. At a few thousand kilometers above sea-level the air was pretty thin too. Thus my definition of 'washroom' was immediately reformed and I shuffled behind the nearest building to do my dastardly deed.


It was the most sublime leak I'd ever taken in my entire life.


Let me illustrate. The town was situated high up in the mountains, in a narrow valley where it was wide enough to accommodate only two long rows of cottage-like houses with a two-lane road running between them. The houses were therefore built flush against the sheer rock face of the valley with approximately two meters to spare. The particular house whose backyard I chose to defile had a dividing wall between the itself and the neighbor, which formed a little alley of sorts with the rock face on my left, the house on my right, and the wall in front. This cozy little cubicle was filled knee-deep in pristine, fluffy untouched snow.

All around me, echoing silence.
On me, the crisp, sharp winter air.
Within me, calmness.
A distance from me, a small, perfect circle melted into the white fluff.

Vulnerable, yet tranquil, I was at peace with the world.

I also wondered what Frost would have made of this scene.

Tata.

Was obliged to help the mother out with dinner preparations in the evening, something that didn't turn out to be such a good idea.

Spent about twenty minutes hunched over a half-kilo bag of prawn corpses whose sad little forms i methodically desecrated through beheading, de-shelling, eviscerating and disemboweling, in that order.

Drenched in viscera and haunted by 30-odd angry, naked crustacean spirits screaming for revenge, I knew depravity.

May Kuan Yew have mercy on my soul.

(ChinaTrip travelogue coming soon to a screen near you!)

Tata.

I actually made a list because that's one of the Habits of Highly Successful People (right before 'Strive to Be Favored Son of Fate- Be a Lucky Bastard!') to help me categorize the numerous tasks I would require completion before I bugger orf to the Land of the Freely Obese. The below is not complete at the time of writing, which presents the niggling indecision of whether to surreptitiously edit this post at a later date when I remember what exactly I would spray-paint on Parliament House, or simply post subsequent content in episodic parts. The former idea has a rather underwhelming effect, while the latter feels disjointedly incomplete. Vexing.
Feels like the conundrums I face during those underwear selection sessions I have after each monthly wash.

LOCATIONS

The Zoo
The Night Safari
The Grace Kwee (lulz)
Sentosa/ Beach- DONE
Mustafa Centre- DONE
Bukit Timah Nature Reserve
Sungei Boloh Malaysian Reserve- DONE
Botanical Gardens- DONE
Southview Primary School
Xingnan Primary School


ACTIVITIES
Watch a performance in: The Esplanade, The Old Parliament House, ACS (Independent)
Urban Night hike through HDB Estates
Overnight Camp on a beach
Wander around Eu Tong Sen Street
Make Chicken Tikka
Eat at a Churrascaria
Have one last swim training at the ACSI pool with the Wu Jiao Lian swim club members

More to come!

Tata.

It took quite an effort to crawl out from the figurative clothes-heap of inertia and general slovenliness to mumble about something or other through this convenient portal of online self-aggrandizement; I am baffled that the cause for this is simply a need to tell everyone about how I almost dissolved the arm-rest of a living room sofa with copious amounts of drool produced during a particularly uncomfortable nap session with contortions  (contortions, dear reader, not contractions, not just yet) so extreme that I couldn't walk straight the first few seconds of standing up.

And oh, also that choral music is aural sex. Resonant, uplifting, sacrosanct encapsulations of a glorious bygone culture so pure that actually I felt sacrilegious listening to it in boxers.
Got nearly 1.5 GB worth of tracks and I still can't get enough.

Tata.

The woman who had given birth to me, hereafter in this post 'The Mother', has been rather cunning of late with regard to a certain healthy-eating pact that she had enacted with The Father about a year back. Spurred on by some dubious health books (dubious because they were all written in Traditional Chinese which I can't read well) and scared by advice from undoubtedly well-meaning relatives with somber expressions, the parents had agreed to be mutual watchdogs for each other in attempts to regulate dietary junk and hence outlive me.

Evidently this is easier in theory than in application as shown thus:

Me: Going to get lunch.
Mother (nonchalantly): O rly? Get me the, I don't know, hmm... Fillet-o-fish kthanxbye.
Me: Fillet-O-Fish? As in MacDonald's?
Mother: Yes they've got this nice Coca-Cola cup which comes free with an up-size... which is actually what I really want.
Me: Oh.

Afterward, she wouldn't let me touch the fries on account of my 'pimple-farm of a face'.

(The above conversation has been translated from Mandarin Chinese for your viewing pleasure and ease of understanding. It has taken linguistic skillz and considerable imagination to achieve. We speak Chinese because we are Taiwanese, duh.)

I am still coming to terms with the recent developments of the past week. So unimaginable is it that I somehow feel as if I'm living in a perpetual dream, despite proof to the contrary derived from frequent, dramatic cliches of violently pinching myself.

The fulfillment of a dream is every bit as dream-like. To have matched up to an achievement of such elevation in the hazy, self-indulgent imaginings somehow takes away the mythical sheen of exclusivity now that it has been attained; I just wonder if it could have felt more triumphant. Not to give the wrong impression though- it has been exceedingly so to the extent that I almost smashed a wall lamp and impregnated a cactus.

It's almost official now.

Hoya Saxa!

Tata.

An excerpt the web report explore.georgetown.edu/news;

"Scholars were also asked for the first time to identify the best places for undergraduates interested in studying international relations. Georgetown earned the fourth highest number of votes in this area, above Columbia and Yale universities. Harvard, Princeton and Stanford universities placed first, second and third respectively."

Bagus.

Politico Borat ala John Stewart served Crossfire style;

www.jehsmith.com/1/2008/02/the-woman-it-is.html

US Foreign Policy: It Makes Sense Sometimes!

The descendants of this 14th-century woodcut's creator prepare for the lawsuit against Kelis even as you read this.

Yes you Year 4 buggers I know you are reading this in between your online self-help sessions...

Study Hard.

Tata.

Laffs! Phun! Embarrassment! And all within one day!! Had my second major cringe-worthy moment in a classroom (the first one being an occasion when I  told the .11 worms that I was serious about something or other- to which their bawled response was "HI SERIOUS.") last Friday in .13 Cornelius, incidentally my old Yr 4 class, whose new occupants seemed like a desecration of her sacred memory. 

This particular student who shall remain unnamed (not out of respect for any teacher-student confidentiality protocol; he doesn't learn, therefore, I am not his teacher- no, but for fear that this might somehow surface on Google and there would another thing for him to be disruptive about) suddenly, inexplicably decided to go on a racist name-calling rampage and started serenading an Indian classmate with all sorts of colorful comments about his parentage, pungency, etc (...what a byooo-tiful chocolate man...). So interesting were the descriptions that I would have taken them down myself for further reference had I not been striving with all my will and facial muscles at keeping a straight face; an attempt which failed miserably, leaving me collapsed in a snorting heap with an exploded kidney. I honestly couldn't help myself, something which the students with less crude senses of humor failed to appreciate, thus making me the target of numerous disapproving stares. The vast majority however, were delighted that their teacher had finally shown himself up for the psuedo-educator pretender that he is, and proceeded to spasm violently in my direction.

Then it was over to .11, where I was kept out of class for the first five minutes on the pretext of "teacher still inside". She was, indeed, inside, only not so much teaching as... tolerating. As I passed the teacher (colleague!) on her way out of the classroom, I received an amused look from her- in addition to some huge grins from the students suggestive of the triumphant discovery of super-weed; the reason was soon made clear to me however. Turns out that some bright spark nutjob in the class had discovered the transcript of my Lee Suan Yew speech from last year published in Cresco, and proceeded to get the other nutjobs to copy out everything on the class whiteboard, which they used, upon my entrance, to scream out in unison a bizarre recital. I still don't know if I should be flattered or just make the entire class face the dustbin.

Attended the !nk exco meeting at the request of a member, and was quite impressed at the civility of proceedings, helped immensely by the fact that there were no Yihang-like innuendo-producing machines. Good to see that things are in safe hands.

And finally, I come with much anticipation and excitement to the climax of the day; the penultimate preparations for the long-awaited, much strained- about walkACSwalk charity walkathon, whose ex-juvenile delinquent (heh read the ridiculous mypaper article) organizers I have never failed to be impressed with, that twenty-odd group of athletes/alchoholics/sex offenders and their new-found sense of responsibility and mental (not to mention testicular) fortitude. Refer to the numerous Facebook video for more information, for if a picture speaks a thousand words, then a video is worth 1000x + 5y words with x = No. of seconds and y = No. of hip gyrations. The event was a guarded success I suppose, the limiting factor being the number of people who in direct denial of the average Acsian’s more, shall we say, Yiddish dispositions  and simply didn’t turn up despite having paid their $12 registration fee. But no matter. All the more free stuff for the crew.

 Getting addicted to Cheetah Megabite. Can’t walk straight without a can in the mornings.

Tata.

There are a rare few moments in life that leave me overwhelmed and desperately attempting to assimilate.

None were as awe-inspiring as the account of a certain Lt. Gen. Sun Li-Ren (孫立人) (December 08, 1900- November 19, 1990) of the Kuomintang recently made known to me by the Father one afternoon after church. Apparently Gen. Sun's daughter, Sun Tai Pin, was his best friend during their undergraduate days at Duke, giving him a source as close to the horse's mouth as it gets with regard to the good general's achievements. I'm not going to repeat everything he had said here because I'm not sure if I'll be able to keep my tone from getting too adulatory; for a reasonably well-written biography, please refer to this link: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun_Liren.

I suppose it's this indirect (sort of) line of acquaintance between the illustrious individual and persons whom one actually knows which makes him  suddenly more relevant, real, yet ironically, even larger-than-life. View them through the prism of my inexperienced, bumpkin-like sensibilities- a result of a cloistered, privileged way of life- and they become all the more indomitable, monolithic characters of stature in the imagination whose life and endeavors stand as immortal testaments to courage.

How exhilarating, is this.

Tata.

I had no idea marking essays would take up so much time, neither did I expect to actually finish stupider than I had started out. There exists this constant, uneasy balance between my responsibility as a teacher to give a fair grade and the urge to slack by speed-reading so much that the only thing I remember from the script is the bugger’s name. The resultant dialectical tension had me downing copious amounts of preserved plums and assorted nutrients as I sought to distract myself from my own bitching at myself.

Still, I had such a great laff when I came across one particular sentence in a Document-Based Question (source-based) essay discussing the benefits and detriments of globalization. I had recorded it verbatim and it shall be reproduced here without any edits to preserve authenticity:

“Terrorists and disease and illegal immigrants may mess up the society, like Singapore, we have been attacked by the terrorists from Malaysia and Bird Flu form other Asian countries.”

Its author shall remain unnamed, but suffice to say he is a PRC scholar- that might explain some of the vehemence. Whenever the times get dark and the future bleak, I will recall this and give a smile.

Tata.

It wouldn't be strictly true to say that I have no free time now; I still do. Pleasant dollops of nothingness are still interspersed throughout the days- but it has lost much continuity. Which is admittedly, good, as an indication of new-found industriousness with which I had engaged the odd-jobs so fortuitously chanced upon. I <3 income.

The Mother had at a certain point in time, found me a little boy from whom I derived quite an amount of satisfaction.


**Pause for incredulity to build up**


I will frantically clarify that we meet for the sole, innocuous purpose of tuition, something which the kid's mother determined he needed to pass an UWC entrance test. In addition to draining my cabinet dry of crackers and sour plums, he has already written two surprisingly readable essays for me to assess, remarkable when considering the panicked demeanor of the edgy mother and the fact that he has spent most of his early childhood in China, in some province where the English language probably featured in daily life only as backup swearing .

Quite a curious experience, this assumption of the teaching role. I have once, in a casual musing, considered choosing academia as a career path- upon which I immediately recoiled with great alarm.  I suppose the reason for the unequivocal rejection was that teaching ultimately feels too much like community service; what with the degree of human interaction involved for too little pay. I'm not ruling it out entirely though- just like I have not decisively written off Star Wars as an inferior science fiction franschise- but it would definitely have to involve a major epiphany or two for there to be any change of mind.

Which, brings me smoothly to my current day job spent in ACS(I) relief teaching. It has been nothing less than welcoming as connections were remade with old friends and teachers, now colleagues. This is a reality I'm still getting to terms with - I cannot quite shake the submissive student mentality that has me constantly expecting someone request I put on a tie, to hand in homework, or to grovel in penance for some imagined form of defiance or other. Classroom lessons have also been less fulfilling than previously imagined; I spend most of my time appealing to the students' morals in an attempt to regulate the chatter (eh eh what if there are girls here? You people think you can get laid behaving like this?) than feeding them subversive sentiments of dissent.

It would be so much simpler if I were to adopt the brutal, no nonsense approach most teachers utilize and walk into class with a grouchy expression augmented with as much tolerance as a hung-over porcupine. The limiting factor remains the fact that I have always promised myself since time immemorial (having experienced the stigma of being a perpetual 'punishee' from as early as Nursery school. But that's another story.) that I would never, ever on the sanctified earth of my ancestors' graves to have myself turn an anal bastard who would voluntarily inflict reprimands and unnecessary regulations. I will be the ultimate class traitor should I do, heaven forbid.


P.S: The money plant on my cubicle table which Mrs. Carrie Cheah had forced upon me for $10 is starting to annoy me immensely. Despite my best attempts to kill it by forgetting to water it for days on end, it continues to persist in being all green and upright. I would be forced to take more extreme actions in the near future. Nabeh plant.

Tata.

With the imminent arrival of my long-awaited thrust into the working world, I had become more aware of, and had placed greater value on, the piquant qualities of spending time alone, something which I suppose would soon be in short supply. It is, for sure, far from an absolutely solitary existence which I lead, what with the constant hovering of family members, in particular the Mother, at the fringes of the house and mind, comfortable in their familiar roles of archetypical support, as well as the ocean of faceless masses in which I am so frequently submerged in whenever trips out of the house are required. Even during the long stretches of time when I am left to my own devices have me plugged into the Net through the Mac, where the individual could be so easily lost amidst a low-grade drug-high of general diversions. But nonetheless it is free time which I have, and free time is spent for the most part with myself- and what conversation we make! Discussions, musings, abusive name-calling- all down at a level so instinctive, amorphous, without even the need for much words, as my soul mate surfaces to the fore in the absence of other immediate distractions and we intertwine. Yet to call upon him requires concentration and a mood of certain cheeriness which would at times not be as readily forthcoming, and my attention becomes tuned from the within to the without. This is when I become cognizant of intricate details of features around ranging from a shade of the sky right up to the many-faceted milieu, events from which is produced a curious affection for, of all things, the city-state of Singapore, probably an embodiment of all that is familiar and homely though I had never quite thought of myself as her citizen.

But maybe, I'm just lonely.

Tata.

There are points in my life where the frequency and intensity of favorable happenings increase with such ferocity that the superstitious, pre-14th century part of me which still believes in a flat Earth actually becomes afraid that my overall reserve of luck for future consumption is being depleted at too unmanageable a rate. I usually burn alive, immediately, that part of my mind at the stake with the flames of enlightenment, but it has an annoying habit of resurrecting itself from its constituent parts much like the proverbial Rasputin. Regardless, I am still, very grateful to the Almighty who has seen fit to throw these few gold-ribboned bones at me; my mood and confidence has been considerably bolstered by the following, in no particular order of euphoria-inducement;

1) Admittance into the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. I'm not sure why this particular school posts its decision so much earlier than the norm, which happens to be the end of March. I had found out just yesterday, information which was apparently made available one week ago and something I failed to notice considering the lack of any congratulatory emails. According to that most respected font of objective knowledge, Wikipedia.com, this school is considered to be a 'Public Ivy', which "provide(s) an Ivy League collegiate experience at a public school price". Extremely reassuring, that. I just hope that I would have a similar spate of acceptance surprises come late March. (Georgetown FTW!!!!)

2) Approval by the dear alma mater in drawing me into its enfolding embrace once more, only not as a fat, awkward adolescent-student this time, but instead a skinny, awkward post-pubescent-teacher to impart knowledge in the subjects of History and IHS (Introduction to Human Societies, should you have had the misfortune of receiving your secondary school education elsewhere). Had a very warm welcome by the faculty today as I returned to the school for briefings by the Dean and subcutaneous-tracker implantation by Human Resources. Said hello to some old friends ("What the f***? What the F***?"- Jaspreet Singh), the familiar silhouette of the Clock Tower, and its surrounding landscape. It's good to be back.

3) Confirmed employment by Paradigm Infinitum for my weekend job, with which I shall luxuriate in the presence of so much Warhammer 40,000 merchandise and take me 'obby to the next new level. My induction as a neophyte begins this Thursday (you can always tell I'm excited when I start using overwrought Nerd language).

Tata.

Unfortunately enough, I belong to the 6% of males in the entire human race (or more accurately, the demographic from whichever countries the report had based its research on) who live constantly with the specter of a migraine lurking somewhere within their skulls, ready to claw its bloody way to the surface at just about any trigger, most of them with innocuous names like 'climate change', 'chocolate', 'salt' or 'stress'. For some of the victims the causes aren't even clear, which turns everyday life into a minefield through which a careful path must be tip-toed for fear of setting off an explosion of pain and discomfort. I have at least managed to determine my individual triggers, and now avoid to the best of my ability over excitement, mental fatigue and Tom Yam soup like the plague.

Migraine starts off disorientating enough, with a blind spot usually appearing in the lower corners of my vision, obscuring that particular area of sight with a blank white fuzz. It then slowly expands to gradually fill up my entire field of vision rendering me effective blind, upon which I must be confined to a bed for fear of tottering aimlessly around and being a general nuisance. Then the headache would start, beginning its belligerent infancy as a low throbbing around the temples before picking up intensity with gusto and morphing into a porcupine in heat.

Desperate to avoid more attacks, I had been coerced by Mother into undergoing acupuncture sessions. I was of course, suspicious of the entire venture seeing as how my prevailing health and well-being have been sustained exclusively by the tenets of Western medicine thus far. But there I was, lying rigidly on the stretcher/bed, sweating freely as I eyed the acupuncturist prepare her needles, feeling for all the world like a heretic about to experience the ministrations of an Inquisitor. And I wasn't mistaken, tragically, as close to 15 pieces of filliform torture were firmly inserted into my scalp, forehead and temples, with electrodes attached and set to a medium high current. I had felt miserable, now like a potato in a primary school science experiment. The acupuncturist, to her credit, is a nice enough lady with genuine credentials and admittedly authentic skillz; but she does have this unnerving habit of saying "teng!" (pain!) every time I wince under a needle. Now it would have been perfectly fine if she had pronounced that with a question mark; "teng?"- I imagine that would have had a comforting effect. Instead, it comes out as a statement, together with a glint in the eye, giving the bizarre impression that she somehow draws sustenance from my discomfort.

The after effects of a 40 minutes session includes slight epidermal aches and dizziness, though there are long term benefits; the migraine attacks have been drastically reduced in intensity and frequency. I suppose I could consider myself an advocate for TCM seeing as it had been such a success. So to whomever chancing across the entry, consider yourself introduced. Do give it a try, Kwong's TCM at Jurong East Blk, directly opposite the MRT, even if only because you are a fan of indie medicine.