Working.. sigh

It only just struck me today that I'm now a working adult.
Yes, it's silly considering that I've been working for almost 3 months now.
But you know, it only really hit me today. I'm working. No more skipping class, no more allowance without responsiblity. No more playing till late the next morning without having to worry: "Do I have to work tomorrow?" (Previously, even if I had classes, at most skip!)

And I'm not ready! Guess I haven't had a smooth transition to a life of responsibility. Haven't even transited yet. Am I the only one feeling this? Maybe all my working adult friends who are going out and happily spending their earnings on toys and gadgets are just like me but haven't realized it yet. Maybe they realized it and don't care. Or maybe I'm the only one who's looking at a lifetime of having to be responsible for myself and my family and freaking out..

(to chuipz: no, this not a reaction to what you said about unreflective blog posts)

Long update

Hmm.. haha. Just to tell everyone that, yes, I played ball on Friday, enjoyed it tremendously, and yes, my hand hasn't fallen off where the stitches were taken out... :>

Stitches out!

Had my stitches out! Will post pics from Key's phone soon.. heh!

Bumped into Jelaine today as well.. Nice to see her after so long...

Pattern Recognition / Anansi Boys

Spending the weekend catching up on reading, anime, life entertainments. I've finally finished Pattern Recognition, by William Gibson. Not that it was a difficult book to read. Au contraire, it was very.. sumptious.. reading. Normally I speed read through books, gobble up the words and I'm done ultra fast. Pattern Recognition took me about 2 weeks? Of course, I was reading in the train, on the bus, in the little interstices of life, so probably it wasn't the most conducive environment, but.. I found myself concentrating hard on enjoying the prose! I think Gibson's writing style has actually improved. Previously I just enjoyed his juxtaposition of cyberpunk, sci-fi elements with elements of myth and the feeling of larger, mystical forces moving in a technological era: Kind of like seeing how myth might have formed in the past, played out in the present. But in Pattern Recognition, it's not the formula that entrances me. If anything, he doesn't stick to formula. But the prose itself makes me savour each sentence, really, really slowly...

Just after I finished Pattern Recognition, nekki and xp gave me Anansi Boys, by Neil Gaiman. Heh, thanks! It's a fantastic book too! It doesn't follow Gaiman's style in American Gods, that was much gloomier, while this follows a more Grimm format: that is, it's dark inside but with a childlike narrative. It's a delightful treat that I found myself reading until the early AM hours.. hahaha... couldn't put it down! Good stuff, anyway..

And then, started catching up on the Naruto filler episodes, and the new anime, Blood +. I'd watched Blood the Last Vampire and found it rather enjoyable, and thought this would be a good new series. Someone on outie compared it to Elfen Lied, which threw me off, cos I didn't like THAT anime, but Blood+ proves to be pretty nice, at least in that 1st episode.. Very nice drawing, and a nice arty feeling that isn't compromised by the blood and gore the way Elfen Lied was...

op over

well.. op is over. quite funny, had a young caucasian female anaesthetic specialist ( what's the term for it?) and an old "uncle" type nursing assistant both reassuring me in the operating theatre, one in Aussie and the other in Singlish/Chinese. Did they realise they were saying roughly the same thing?

oh.. and heh. the operating bed is heated? small things to improve the whole experience. typing one handed now, kind of slow...

Operation soon

In less than 3 hours I'll be checking in.

I received an email from FCBC about the prisons ministry that I'd signed up for about 2 months back? It's a serious commitment. Like really serious. The coordinator's email somehow manages to communicate that clearly, setting a challenge that makes me want to grit my teeth and go through with it. It seemed like an answer to a prayer when I signed up to know more.. I was looking for a different approach to serve, something different from THC, something close to the ground, no longer managing but actually caring and doing. But now I still haven't managed to hand off my THC responsiblities yet. And FCBC side seems to require a much more serious, years-long commitment than I can give.

.... What now? Argh. I'll worry about it after the op.

Session at Cecily's

Had a pot luck session at cecily's yesterday.. though I didn't bring anything! Hee.. didn't know what to get also, figured I'd join Kok Peng's suggestion to get there, see what we're short and pay for pizza for the shortfall. There was too much food though, oops... Haha.. Or like Velle said, if everyone brought food then all of us would go back bloated.

I haven't met up with everyone in a while. More and more are not doing engineering jobs, only chor ling and regina are still in relatively harder engineering industries.

Fun session in general! Played minimize, but because the group was so large we didn't keep score. A more immediate gratification form of the game with forfeit eating for the loser.. somehow less satisfaction! I guess next time for these gatherings I should supply games! Bring along taboo or another one of those classics.

I'd never been to Cilly's place, it was quite nice. Strange to be living "alone" in Singapore, as in non-family.. (she's got a housemate, Japanese). The feeling is like in Stanford, all these student homes... a feeling of austerity brought on by the lack of certain types of furnishings our parents would buy. The kind of classiness from a certain modern aesthetic in the kind of placemats, table arrangements, and so on she has. Empty space well-maintained in the home because you don't have family members adding stuff to the living room and leaving things lying around. And the kind of "bachelor pad-ness" that comes from having a fridge in the living room as well as in the kitchen. Makes me feel like I want to move out soon sometimes. But family has its own benefits.. Much as I quarrel tons with my mom, I acknowledge that she cares a lot, and really takes pains particularly to ensure we don't fall sick..

Cilly herself, I haven't seen for a longer period then the rest, generally other than the significant others, I'd seen the rest at Reg's place the last time. Hee.. Cilly's slimmed down a bit, and sounding a bit more Singaporean too!
Ah well.. till next time!

Mentoring

The mentoring session on saturday went relatively well.. Ashwin, Nandini and Ka May seem to be doing okay, and the new batch of mentees looked like they had fun.. heh. Not too bad, but it's slowly draining the energy from me.

After that, went to k and pool with key's friends. Can't remember the last time I'd had time to k, and the last time I played pool... haha, but didn't perform too badly..

Hate those spammers

who infiltrate the site and give spam comments. Sigh.

I hate the army efficiency. Monday I'm having my operation and I don't even yet know if I'm being covered for service injury. kind of pissed off and frustrated and it's bleeding into everything I do.

Oops... tied up at work

Made key angry today.. :< Was supposed to meet her family for dinner, but at 5.45pm got swept up into meeting without phone.. Ended up making her very worried.

Sorry dear! My bad! Should have made some excuse to give you a call.. But you're the best! Thank you for forgiving me! heh...

Pattern Recognition

Finally bought William Gibson's Pattern Recognition. I've been eyeing it for a while but didn't get around to it. But finally, with a Kino voucher in hand, I made the purchase. Now I'm still deferring Neil Gaiman's Anansi Boys and Garder Dozois' latest Sci-fi collection. Seems like my tastes are becoming more borderline... Gaiman I only started reading this year, and I started reading Gibson only in 2003, beginning with All Tomorrow's Parties.

Anyway, started reading it, and almost from the start was introduced to CayceP's strange theory on jet lag -- it happens because your soul can't travel as fast as the airplane and has to reel itself in. Kind of like Shadowrun, maybe, when you're astral projecting, your soul has to find its way back! But in SR it moves super fast..

Well, I NEVER suffer jet lag.. what does that mean? Maybe my soul is super-para-human and can travel faster than yours? Or maybe that my default mode of life is a strange kind of soul-less existence similar to zombiehood.

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Blogger's giving me strange problems. The formatting bar's gone all weird on me ever since I installed that wireless router. Both the PC and the laptop are weirded. Anyone know what's going on?

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NYF meeting today. It was good to see everyone.. mostly everyone looks the same. Alex seems a bit more tired, stretched, as Bilbo would say. And Lari somehow looks more energetic than before.. hmm. Energy transfer?
They're launching a new round of NYF, looking for an Org Comm. I'm too busy. Ah well. I have ideas, but maybe I'll submit them some other way.