Pricey

And I'd planned to spend so little today, too. Thing is, my mother has been complaining about my expenses and making me feel guilty about being a) a spendthrift, b) an academic failure, and c) a daughter to boot. Okay. Well today was sort of a special occasion because I was meeting a (sort of) old friend for dinner at fish&co for the evening, and fish&co is expensive. Surely you must be thinking of how extravagant I am already. But consider that my supply of mints are quickly running out and that I hadn't been to fish&co for at least three months.

The fish&co mints are extremely worth their money. We are talking here about a 1 kg bag for fifteen dollars, meaning that I am getting over three hundred extremely delicious sweetmeats for less than ten cents each. The only good alternative to these wonderful mints are Ricola, which come at $3.15 a pack and take about two days to finish -- whearas each bag of mints can take me three months to finish at least if I go crazy over them in the way I have for the past term. I shall make this bag last until the end of the year.

Now, let's take a look at my expenses. In chronological order.


sandwich (breakfast): $2.00
chrysanthenaum tea (breakfast): $0.60
foolscap: $1.50 <-- because, like the fool I was, I had forgotten to bring any of my own out.
cashcard -- for photocopying and payment of library fines: $5.00
A level math past-year papers: $3.45 <-- my mother wanted me to get this. She thinks for some reason that it will help my math.
rosti (lunch): $4.50 <-- the grease this shop used made me feel ill, by the way. I do not think I shall go there again.
tic-tacs (lunch): $0.85 <-- in a half-successful attempt to placate my stomach
unwilling donation: $2.00 <-- that guy was so smarmy. I wanted him to go away so much I just gave up the cash. I think next time I shall succumb to the impulse to punch him very hard.
fish&co (dinner): $11.45 -- a shared fish-and-chips and kola tonic. Half as much as I usually spend at fish&co.
mints: $16 <-- because my friend was broke by then, and she had got the mints too. Hehe.
manga: $18 -- only now do I realise that I had been cheated of $2 merely because I was too tired to notice the register. I shall never trust the people at Tampines Popular again.

Total:___________ <-- I can't bear to write it down.



The thing about this particular manga was that it had been out of print for some time, and to find any books from it at all was a miracle. Unfortunately, they had only BOOK ONE and BOOK THREE. Where was book two? MIA. Hooray.

In any case, I'm not going to a football sleepover tomorrow because my parents think that 'sometimes it's better to be more traditional', and that even if people happily agree for you to go over for the night it is not nice to comply. Something in the order of refusing presents, which I've gotten out of the habit of because people have taken to pooling their money just to foil me. Also, apparantly, because I'm a girl.

It's really inconvenient to be a girl. THe only good thing about being a girl is probably getting to wear BOTH pants and dresses, and not having to do national service (in where I stay, and at the moment anyway.) Otherwise.

I shall attempt to survive on $50 for the month of July as I save up for that military atlas I still want.

Yah.





edit: I just realised I wasn't cheated after all. I was just not paying attention.

Something is deadly wrong with my cranial construct.

First Day of Mid-Years

Lalala.

Yesterday I spent three hours making myself feel better when I should have been studying Vietnamese nationalism.

Today I spent six hours doing absolutely nothing constructive.

In mitigation, I had a two-hour History paper this morning.

In further condemnation (possibly with bits of holy fire in it), the paper ended at ten a.m. this was what I did later in the day.

11 a.m.: travel home.
11.30 a.m.: travel back out to eat lunch at macdonalds.
12.40 p.m.: lunch eaten, a few desultory notes doodled on lit stuff.
1.10 p.m.: buy a skirt. (My mum will kill me. I spend far too much. <-- but it was on 50% sale! oh no what am I evolving into)
1.20 p.m.: buy extra pen for exam, and more black card.
1.30 p.m.: loaf around in the library.
2.10 p.m.: borrow two fiction books. One of them is called 'The Hobbit' -- you may have heard of it.
3.30 p.m.: reach home.
3.40 p.m.: feel ill.
4.20 p.m.: wake up from inadvertant nap in horror.
4.30 p.m.: take a bath.
4.40 p.m.: discover that, of all things, my PERIOD's COME. <-- sure proof that someone up there really wants me to suffer.
5.20 p.m.: WATCH ANIME. (I mean, I know my self-control meter reads next to nil, but this is going a bit too far.)
5.50 p.m.: vaccum the floor.
6.00 p.m.: DRAW. (as if the anime weren't enough for my itchy frivolity already!)
6.50 p.m.: cook dinner for everyone.
7.25 p.m.: bloogging this instead of studying or eating that dinner I cooked, which is very nice.


Damn.

Two papers tomorrow. My stomach is cramping nicely.
I need all the luck I can get.

Korea (sort of)

I came back from Korea three days ago. Am only slightly more fuzzy-eyed now.

Selected pictures taken there are soon to be posted at http://minamata.deviantart.com.



I've been at the receiving end of some strenuous labelling for the past few weeks, partially because it entails me being steadily forced to socialise. I've received comments from people who object, for some reason, to me taking pictures from the inside of an aeroplane (for purely aesthetic reasons I assure you), or the amount I eat, or the way I eat my fillet-o-fish. 'Weird' is the word they use.

The way I take pictures or eat my fillet-o-fish has nothing to do with you, silly people. Go and jump into a river and maybe lose your wallet, and all the gods be ready to tell you that it serves you right.

On the other hand, it's not really weird to start getting fidgety and irritated when you have to stand around waiting while your partners run squealing into a lingerie shop and spend half an hour inside, still expecting you to be there when they saunter out with their purchases. According to the behaviour of my schoolmates their antics are considered 'normal'. In that case I suppose it's 'weird' too if I consider it boorish (never mind if that word is traditionally reserved for males.) Ah well.

Yet on the other hand, Korea was very nice. They have padi fields and a cool breezy weather that makes you cringe at the very thought of returning to hot, sticky little Singapore.

I also spent far too much shopping in Korea, but in the process I made a few new friends who don't mind the weirdness. Hmm maybe not 'weird'. 'Unconventional' sounds nicer.


Oh, gads, do I miss being in GEP.




Back to mug, mug, mug, mug, mugging. Life is great.

Murphy.

Back from PreU Sem. Fuzzy-eyed and blinking.

Just when everything had been going more or less swimmingly, I lost my transponder. A transponder costs $100 to replace. I'd clipped it safely to my lanyard and it was gone.

Fortunately a coupla nice boys from my group had found it. After all, if you're in Singapore and not a politiclan, Murphy's law can only seriously annoy. (Unless you're dead by then.) I did have to look for some way survive for another two hours in my court shoes though; all my other shoes were locked up in my then-inacessible room. My court shoes are new, in black leather, with surprisingly stitching. Not to mention the most uncomfortable thing I've ever worn in my life -- nothing like shoes short of circumcision for cultural female torture.

One slightly less upsetting incident: on the morning on the last day, with everything packed, transponder safely back on lanyard, decked out in Suit and slightly more comfortable Shoes (they'd ripped enough so that my feet fit better), I boarded the bus knock-kneed from the formal school Skirt, confident that nothing could possibly go wrong: and it was then that I banged my elbow.

It was in the funny bone. Pain!

o_o