Last night I finally came up with a sound strategy to get rid of tiny bugs, inspired by the sudden appearance of one on the screen of my MacBook. This method is incredibly hygienic and effective, but involves a lot of running.
Firstly, the freezing. This step is optional and not recommended, but I did it anyway because when I see something I'm terrified of, my first instinct is to quit all the other programs in my head and dedicate 100% of my brain juice to figuring out what to do. Actually that made me sound smarter than it should. In reality I am just a bunny caught in the headlights, frozen in fear.
Next, I move my mouse cursor in circles around the bug, confusing it. This is effective not only on bugs but on ants, too. The bug (or ant, as the case may be) will seemingly be hit with a dizzy spell and begin to paw its feelers, then crawl in all sorts of directions, depending on how quickly you move your mouse. I guess something does have a worse sense of direction than I do, after all.
Next, the mode of annihilation. Soap smells nice and is effective but makes too much of a mess; I've experimented with it in the bathroom before. Ants cannot touch liquid soup because they would instantly drown in it (tried and tested). They make nice mazes for ants, until they dry up, and then the ants can escape and run home. Glue is messy too, especially when you're panicky, and burdens you with the carcass(es).
My weapon of choice is adhesive tape! I RUNNNNN to my stationary box and yank open the drawer containing adhesives, grab the roll of tape, pull out a looooooong portion, tear it off the main roll, RUNNNNN back to the victim-to-be, wave the looooooong piece of tape until the bug gets stuck onto it, then carefully wrap the tape around the bug and RUNNNNN to the bin, preferably one far far far far far far far far far far far far away, where I dispose of that disgusting thing.
I have also tried holding both ends of the tape and picking up the bug with the tape, but, more often than not, the tape sticks onto whatever surface and is a pain to remove, especially with a bug on it. And I don't like to risk spilling bug guts on my stuff.
And here's a tip about the waving part: Be sure no strong fans are on, and that the coast is clear for the full length of the tape to explore its gymnastic abilities. You do not want a bug swinging into your hand like an acrobat on a sticky trapeze. Revolting.
(N.B. Many bugs were harmed in the production of this entry.)
A few days back, I was shopping for monthly feminine supplies, an act I have christened the Curse-Grab-Go. I am a very unpleasant person whenever I do the Curse-Grab-Go, because more often than not I have some sorry makeshift excuse for the real thing struggling for its poor life to stop me from bleeding to death. On those rare occasions, I am also usually extremely glamorous as I scan the shelves and mouth vulgarities about my femaleness. Be quiet, radical feminists: Let's see you burn your sanitary pads. I get to embrace and reject whichever parts of femaleness I wish to, BECAUSE I AM FEMALE.
What helped mitigate my irritation that day was the sanitary pad shelf, and a little boy and his mom. I was in a much better mood that day after discovering a brand of pads with brightly-coloured packaging, because I have excellent taste and a couple of years ago I'd wanted the colours of my braces to be hot pink, lime green, and bright orange. (I never got braces done in the end, so now I have bunny teeth.) I think I have digressed. And I have no idea how to get back to the main discussion within this paragraph so
ANYWAY, the little boy was looking at other shelves while his mother picked out whatever she needed. I didn't think purchasing sanitary pads entailed such deep thought, but his mom stood at the same spot looking over the shelves for over half an hour. Evidently, I am tragically superficial. I went shopping for chocolate and when I was done she was STILL there. Suddenly, the boy took a few steps towards the pads with brightly-coloured packaging and his mom began waving madly, enthusiastically flinging her arms into the air as if wiping imaginary windows, and in a very high-pitched voice shoo-ed her son away, "Noooooo~! Darling you cannot go here~!"
I just realised that my first drafts almost always look like this one:
intent not in dispute plaintiff clearly a mean evil dude. physical contact indirect also can. sufficient? SUFFICIENT? SUFFICIENT FOR BATTERY?? yes sufficient! explain and elab, this is what the case turns on. must have strong argument. bring in yong and collins. injury irrelevant don't put that in REMEMBER!!!!! else will get F for paper and will die of grief. also, need to discuss implied consent. something about contact in everyday situations not being legally actionable - go find that quote. don't be lazy. lazy is bad. must figure out how the kaye case is relevant mksanfjugsdufgdsjehk
I know, right? Who on earth is going to hire me?? ):
In reference to yesterday's post on the bimbos I spotted, I was so shocked mainly because law school stereotypes go in quite the opposite direction, though Bimbo is not all that unappealing... I mean, I don't think I'm qualified to say the opposite anyway because within the last ten minutes I have slammed my shoulder against the sliding door accidentally while entering a room and also stared at my toenails to make sure the colour was even and also? Giggling. I've no idea how I got into law school; maybe they took pity on me because I wrote about witnessing a closed one attempt suicide when I was eight. But only because the essay question demanded that I write about a defining moment in my life, and I wanted to be true to myself. There's no other way to really live, is there?
I must add that the aforementioned bimbos are a gross misrepresentation of the general character of the student body here. In fact, I've never seen so many assholes at the same time before. Not that everyone who goes to law school is mean: There are fairy dusts of extremely nice people here and there, but mostly in hiding because the asshole per cubic meter figure here is way too suffocating, like an overgrowth of fungus. It's just the aura of competition that law students breathe, and the high of empowerment, like an emotional drug; I've walked law school corridors enough to hear most purposeful droppings of case citations and judgements, and I say 'droppings' because that's exactly what it is -- Shit. From the way they say things, it's obvious that these people are just mentioning these things because they can, and they know they can, and they're incredibly thrilled by the notion that they're superior to others.
To illustrate: We were discussing the only other law school in Singapore, a recently established faculty in a fairly young educational institution. My tutor posed a question to the class regarding the justification for the introduction of the new law school, and a schoolmate answered, "Well... I do need a secretary in the future." Another proposed that "those who can't get into [our law school] resort to the other", and yet another suggested that those students would graduate to become "second-tier lawyers" to "make us look better".
See? Assholes.
On a happier note, Neptune is my Sneeze Thief. That is one person who immensely enjoys depriving me of sneezes... So I suddenly freeze because I feel a sneeze coming on, and I need to stop doing everything else, including walking, because I need to concentrate on the sneeze, and suddenly Neptune startles me with a loud, fake AHHHHH-CHOOOOOOOOOOOOO! and smiles at me gleefully as I stare back blankly because MY SNEEZE IS GONE. T_T
Just a while ago, a few giggling law students seated at a nearby bench were discussing "some Justice's judgement", though their 'discussion' would more accurately be described as a My First Reading Class. It was really cute; they took turns batting their extended eyelashes and reading out bits of the long-winded judgement and when they were done my eyelids were all droopy, only that they weren't done, nope, not yet, not until they put themselves to sleep reading the bits out continually repeatedly over and over again many, many times.
Finally a gasp put a stop to their dictation, and the other four girls stared at its origin. The girl had her hands cupped over the lower half of her face, and she froze in that position for a few seconds, after which she recovered really slowly, as if in shock. One of her friends went, "I... I was waiting to say 'bless you'!" And the girl, the About-to-Sneezer, she whimpered, "It's gone~~~!" The other girls added in their two cents' worth: "I hate it when that happens..." "I wonder where it went?" "It's so unfair..." "It's like someone stole it!" In conclusion, About-to-Sneezer nodded very vigorously in agreement and whined, "I wonder who took it awaaaaaaaay~~~~?"
My family and I were at a supermarket recently for grocery shopping. I think my mom overdoes the whole shopping thing. She has, like, grocery shopping diarrhoea or something. The last time she convinced me to wait in the car while she did her thang, I allowed that moment of weakness only because her shopping list had three items and I thought: It can't possibly take her THAT long to pick out twenty. I was wrong, utterly and woefully wrong, and ended up taking photos of Yoshi in all sorts of weird positions.
A few days back, my mom picked out a rectangular box from a shelf of boxes and, after scrutinizing it for approximately forever to the power of forever, let out a satisfied sigh and mumbled, "'Sensitive teeth'! This is exactly what I need."
But my brother HAD to point out other options, HAD to find ways to prolong the torture everyone was in. After a while I got impatient and pushed the trolley in random directions while randomly pulling out stuff from the shelves and dumping them into the trolley. Nothing beats a shopping binge! I think that's why the grocery shopping bill for (supposedly, anyway) a week of supplies came up to nearly two hundred.
That day, when I was sooooooo close to getting out of that supermarket, when my mom was just about to leave the shelf of toothpastes... My brother enthusiastically grabbed another box and read, "GUM CARE!" AND THEN. My mom was all, "GUM CARE!?" and my dad was like, "Cares for your gums." And my brother seized another box off the shelf and went, "TOTAL CARE! TOTAL CAREEEEEEEEE!" and then continued his sales pitch to my mom, "Hey, that one cares for teeth, the other cares for gums, but this one totally cares!" My dad replied, "It cares for total!"
It has been one month since you left. It feels weird, like someone has yanked my heart out and preserved it cryogenically: Sort of alive, but not really. Which begs the billion-dollar question: Is the Angelique half-alive or half-dead? Some days I pass by in stoicism because you'll be back eventually and I know it, and I really believe in it. Other days I stare at the so many, many things that remind me of you and try not to cry because I miss you and it hurts so much.
Recently we hit the 100-days-left mark, and I didn't sleep very much the day that the countdown ran into the double digits because I was so excited. =D
Your absence feels really odd because we used to see each other almost everyday for the past three months, and suddenly I found myself counting down the months. I remember that within the last few minutes of meeting each other, there'd always be this insanely frantic exchange of SMSes between us counting down the number of minutes. Then you'll get on the train where we'd decided to rendezvous and immediately heads would turn because passers-by always stare at you, and then we'd be annoyed because you're mine, not some museum exhibit or zoo captive. Shameless staring is a little too intrusive for my liking, and too many people were brought up too poorly to master discretion.
I can't believe it's been only a month because it feels like I've been trapped on Singaporean ground long enough. Soon I'm going to be desperate enough to swim over to America even if it means exposing my dark and mysterious cellulite-related secrets (Hint: I have a lot.). These days I feel as if life is a constant struggle between dignity and missing you, and you're slowly eroding my concern for preserving a pristine reputation. I might even ditch my morality for your sake, nevermind the masses a mere glimpse of my ass would blind.
We've been spending quite a lot of time together and I'm really thankful for that. I get to talk to you when you wake and before you sleep, and when I wake and before I sleep, and on weekends we watch movies or video clips together. I think long-distance relationships are 80% effort, 19.9% patience and 0.1% Mathematical ability: Time Zones are the most obnoxious bitches I have ever been acquainted with. If I were ruler of the entire world, I'd do away with such preposterous ludicrousness and ship all proponents of time zones to Antarctica where they can waste their lives away walking the perimeter of the continent while calculating where the time zones should imaginarily slice the glaciers into bits. I mean, when it's the present here, it's the present there too, so why should it be 3AM here and some unearthly hour elsewhere? Why can't we just behave like normal people and do away with time zones so I don't have to keep straining the Mathsy part of my brain? Oh and there's daylights savings, too. Will someone just admit that we were stupid to adopt time zones in the first place instead of giving that awkward correcting mechanism such a cheerful name? It's obviously an evil ploy to distract the general public with imagery of sunbeams in a cute oinky piggy bank~
I cannot be thus fooled~!
Anyway... Do you remember the Sunday exactly seven weeks ago? I planned our date and kept you in suspense. "A room or two," I said, "and loads of toys for us." You were so red and I was all, "Aren't you excited? Let's head for that hotel. There are going to be so many toys for us!" While we walked to our destination I kept asking you if you'd like to shower with me, and then we could go for the TOYS! In your confusion you tried to extract the truth but I am slimy and evil (typical law student) and didn't let on my plans until we reached the toy museum.
You're so cute when you blush and then deny blushing and then avert your eyes when I lose myself in you. Remembering that instant evokes some of the best memories of my life; sometimes I feel that there's so much love that my heart fills up like a balloon about to burst: There's us at a fast food restaurant, you declaring your need to take a dump soon because the food there somehow energises your bowels. You nagging at me to check out the traffic before crossing roads. The underwear I made you hop around in because it had a cute cottony bunny tail on the back. The songs you play on guitar while I secretly indulge in fangirling. Your hair as I run my fingers through it. The familiar smell of your skin. Your hand in mine. Our sleepy heads on pillows, nose tips and foreheads touching... I close my eyes. You kiss me goodnight and I begin dreaming about you.
Sorry for the unannounced hiatus over the past week. It has been hectic and stressful and full of words, and at the end of each day I just couldn't bring myself to have anything more to do with the English language. Try reading 379 pages of legal shit over dinner. I had severe indigestion that night... T_T On the bright side, nobody died; the masthead makeover definitely worked, thank goodness. Though... I do wonder if, by displaying the Dead Duck masthead for two whole months, I was indirectly responsible for all those deaths. ):
Zomg. T_T
Anyway... Neptune did inspire me to write in the past week, but I haven't published that post because I want to put it through more editing, and anal-retentiveness is a very time-consuming compulsion. You never know, the placement of a comma could be a life-changing decision. One of my tutors related a case she'd handled in the past: A dispute arose between two parties who were initially unaware that the secretary had misplaced the comma in the HUGE sum of money quoted in a contract the two parties had signed. And as memories of elementary school knowledge suggests... Oh well. I guess the secretary was immediately fired. See? Life-changing decision.
So... Anyway. My thoughts are incredibly scattered right now. I went for a seminar recently on the legal status of individuals in the GLBT community, and it was mentioned that since bisexuals don't raise any legal issues which aren't already covered by the 'gay' and 'lesbian' categories, the speaker is pushing for the 'B' in 'GLBT' to be removed. Which is really utter nonsense in my opinion, as a matter of common sense. It's like saying, oh, since cute duckies don't raise any legal issues, let's just erase that term! Oh god. It's just... so hurtful.....
Of course, such an emotive argument won't hold water in a very logical and objective system that allows a tomato to be known as a vegetable (Nix v. Hedden) and a carrot to be deemed a fruit (European Community Law). I know, right? Can you imagine? "Your Honor... By this reasoning the court must come to the only logical conclusion: A tomato must be a vegetable in the eyes of the law." I would have LOVED to work on a case like that. Nix is my favourite case EVAH!
Does anyone else know the Nokia dit-dit-dit dah-dah dit-dit-dit ring tone for SMS notifications? It's actually Morse Code for 'SMS'. I HAD NO IDEA! I only figured that out while browsing Wikipedia. And there was that American POW (retired U.S. Navy admiral; former U.S. senator) who, in 1996, blinked 'TORTURE' in Morse Code to communicate to American Intelligence over a TV broadcast that his captors were torturing him and fellow POWs for information. !! I am going to learn Morse code! And I want a cute little white bunny, a Dwarf Hotot with black eye bands like Neptune's thick eyeliner-like eyelashes of which I have always been secretly jealous. I also want a sleek white kitty. I am going to learn how to blink 'I LOVE YOU' to Neptune over a silent video call. I get a bit delirious when suffering from sleep deprivation. I want a winter white Russian hamster too. And a cute hyperactive white poodle~
No, a tomato is a fruit. It's, like, a legal vegetable, I suppose. And the carrot, a legal fruit, is actually a taproot in real life.
Please avoid The Steakhouse at Clarke Quay if you're looking for a customer-friendly dining experience in Singapore. I think the Singapore River (right beside it) would be more of an enjoyable experience; at least if you drown it's in water, which would definitely be more reasonable as opposed to drowning in the condescending manager's assholism.
My dad made a reservation for two separate tables for dinner this evening; when we called to inquire yesterday, we confirmed the 50% discount off on each of the two bills that we could enjoy if we used certain credit cards, as long as we sat at different tables. When we wanted to settle the bill, though, the manager merged both into a single bill, just because we were a family, and as a party of four, according to restaurant regulations, we could only enjoy 25% off the total bill -- which to us poor peasants felt like an incredibly nice gesture. I don't know, in the spirit of such magnificent nicety, why not just go ahead and rip the scalp off my head as well?
Anyway we tried to negotiate for a compromise, but the manager was rude and unreasonable. "I seek your understanding", he said, and then continued, "but I don't buy it; you are trying to be funny." Good idea, achieving maximum placatory vocabulary AND minimum sincerity in the same sentence. Just because your steaks are 36 dollars per 100g doesn't mean patrons agree to being patronised. It's insulting.
The last straw was when, after refusing to discuss further, he generated our bills for the fourth time and promised that this time there would be "no problems": Under the alleged heading of '1-for-1 main course', when we'd ordered two 200g steak main courses, he gave us only 100g free. Get this: the minimum order for that particular steak was 200g. It's not like we could have ordered two main courses of 100g each. When he tried to explain himself, something inside my head just went off. My mom completely lost it and when he was all, "Please, don't think I am trying to be funny~", my mom practically shouted YES YOU ARE TRYING TO BE FUNNY! Then I pulled out my legendary chainsaw.
The negotiations went on for about one hour in all. At one point the manager was exasperated and raised his voice: "What do you want me to do! I'll do it for you! Want me to void the bill? I'll void it!" And he said this not once or twice, but five or six times. "Just say what you want me to do -- Void the bill? -- Want me to void the bill? -- Just tell me what you want and I will do it!" At last my bountiful reserves of patience ran out, and I said to him in a very clear and happy voice, "Okay! Void the bill, then."
Because you know what? I'M SICK AND TIRED OF THIS NONSENSE. I think voiding our bills is reasonable compensation, especially since he sounded so willing in his offer.
So... Everyone was momentarily stunned speechless and I had a couple of seconds of immensely enjoyable silence. Then the manager asked incredulously, "You want me to void the bill?" And I was all, "Yeah of course." Another few moments of silence, woven in the finest atoms of world peace this universe has ever witnessed. Then he was like, "So you want me to void the bill. You want to come here, and eat for free." Yeah yeah, while you're at it, why not tell me a bedtime story as well? Of course I answered in the affirmative, being shamelessly angry. He asked, "What do you mean?" and I knew then that he was just saying all that shit out of spite, which aggravated me further. So I lifted his favourite adjective and said, "Oh, just being funny, since you're being funny too. Isn't it funny? I guess we both have a sense of humour."
Silence. HALLELUJAHHHHHHH!
Anyway in the end he got the restaurant owner over and by then everyone pretty much had had enough of the drama already, except me because I thrive on drama like a bloodthirsty wolf on live, squawking chickens, so we settled the bill on a reasonably acceptable middle ground and left.
What was up with that manager? Poor guy, really. It must be really hard for him to live with that stick up his ass.
I sometimes think my parents overdo it... Even though I'm on the receiving end of the benefits. Every single time I hang out with my parents, I somehow end up with a couple of shopping bags.
The oddest thing is that when I'm on my own I'm a serial impulse window shopper, because there is a heavenly voice within my head nagging at me to control my spending, so I pick out stuff I want at shops and then when I'm done, I begin the self-reflection process as I examine every item and do a cost-benefit analysis. With age comes wisdom, and I have now learnt to weigh the after-purchase guilt against the after-purchase glow. When I'm with my parents, though, I'm a serial impulse buyer. My MOM, strangely, tugs on my sleeve and walks towards the trendy stores, picks out stuff for me to try on and shoves me into the dressing room. Five minutes and one enthusiastic salesgirl later, my dad signs for the bill and we leave, my dad's bank account hundreds thinner.
This evening I attempted to put a stop to this ridiculous process by extracting my parents from the calculatedly sugar-coated words of the villainous salesgirl, partially because she horrified me when I stepped out of the dressing room by giggling and squealing, "SO CUTE~!", her partner-in-crime gasping with a "kAwAii~~~".
I am not cute.
Anyway after wrenching my parents away from the forces of evil, I lugged them into a restaurant, promising the salesgirl and her accomplice to consider the purchase over dinner. Very unfortunately on our way to the carpark we had to pass by the shop, and the salesgirl spotted me (She just HAD to! I mean, I'm like totally short and she just HAD to spot me!) and SCAMPERED over with this really huge smile on her face, an expression which would more accurately be described as a Dinner Has Arrived! look. Her Japanese companion scuttled over too, her head full of frivolous conversation fillers, I'm sure. So, obviously, it happened and I couldn't stop it. I think such situations are a real test of character and mine obviously flunks the Budgeting section through and through.
Of course I felt incredibly guilty for ripping my parents off like that, so I told my dad that I'd save up to pay him back. My mom was all, "Oh, I don't care, it's your father's money!" and my dad, he REFUSED to let me pay him back. He cut me off before I completed my sentence and said, "No I'll buy them for you! This dress..." -- he pointed to one -- "...for your nineteenth birthday, and this one..." -- he pointed to the other -- "for your twentieth." But I know he was joking because my Macbook was supposed to be my birthday present for when I turn twenty.
Do you remember the day that marked our third month together? It's still so clear in my head, as if it happened just yesterday... Us leaning against each other, quiet, very contented with doing nothing at all. A friend there with us asked for the date, and both of us very quickly replied that it was the third. You squeezed my hand just as I did yours. And then that knowing smile we shared. Oh what I would give just to be back in that enchanting moment now, to take in your scent and feel your arms around me again.
As you may have noticed, the masthead has finally gotten a tiny makeover. You'll probably also realise that it's just a slightly tweaked template, and that's because after the shift from Windows to Mac, which I should really have done ages ago because the Mac OS makes Windows look like shit, I have yet to find a mouse to suit my doodling needs, and I'm a tech snob so I'll have to save up for the sort of mice I would use. In any case I'm probably getting a tablet this December so until then, this duckie masthead is here to stay.
I know, I'm a lazy bum and totally left July's Dead Duck masthead on for a whole two months. The thing is, who knew it would've been so apt for August too? My grandma died, my aunt committed suicide two weeks later, law school killed my social life and required me to dress in the white and black that I did at my grandma's funeral on the first day of school, and then Neptune left for an overseas education, which killed a part of me. And a few days ago our lecturers repeated the story of our would-have-been-senior who committed suicide ten years back, and then I had dinner with a guy from MIT who told me about his room mate who painted her walls black and then set herself on fire. Alive. Oh and just two days ago some dude around my age crashed his father's car near my law school and died because the car burst into flames. So I've decided to change the masthead before more people die.
It's raining noodles! Hallelujah! And the noodles shall inherit the earth!
If you know me, pretend you don't. If you don't know me, don't pretend you do.
Comments are not necessarily reflective of my opinion. Only people who love me are allowed to comment. I'm serious. Trolling is so last season.
Bitch in my face if you have to.
It's only polite!
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Angelique
November 20, 19xx
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