mood

Woke up this morning feeling mellow. I'm going to sit at home all day and work. And for lunch I'm going to cook. Currently I'm averaging once a week on opportunities to cook; how pathetic is that? First time with sauteeing mushrooms, I'd better not kill it.

reasoning

I finally realised why I prefered cyclocommuting to the other kinds of cycling I'd experienced so far: namely, you're not allowed to stone at the wheel. Having to avoid people and take speed bumps and navigate traffic lights means that you have to use your brain as well as your thigh muscles while you travel, which gives me (at least) an incredible feeling of connection with the road. This doesn't happen on the lame flat track I'm restricted to most of the time or even the comparatively hilly (though organised) Pasir Ris park. Moreover, you have a goal to reach, so you don't get the deflating feeling that you're cycling just because you have nothing better to do for exercise. If I have to go anywhere between Pasir Ris and Bedok on an individual errand nowadays I think I will cycle. Unless, of course, it threatens to rain.

NEVER. AGAIN.

Now that I no longer have to beg my parents for 50 cents every time I want an ice cream (though nowadays it costs 60 cents), it's time I realised that I can refuse to be accosted by anyone whose company I don't enjoy. 'Guilt' and 'duty' can go hang themselves. I'll go at my own pace; screw everyone else.

scatterbrain

I've been losing things left and right lately. Today I left my thumb-drive in someone else's computer.

MOST inconvenient.

my parents go out in pairs

Screw my parents' ban, cyclocommuting is good. Today's ride was fantastic. The sky half-heartedly threatened to rain, but it never did (save perhaps a few drops), and the cloud cover provided excellent shade. I rode in comfort for the whole round-trip. The sky was blue and the grass was green and Tampines looked very pretty, not in the least for the two void deck weddings I spotted in passing. (um, congratulations to them?) A stick got lodged in the back wheel around Sunplaza park as I was returning home and I had to stop to coax it out. That disoriented me a bit so that I veered off the road safely into the grass patch. (Thanks be to the government in their infinite wisdom for their grass patches and their roofed connectors.) A biker coming in the opposite direction laughed at me. Sigh.

Another trip of puddles, people, dogs, wheelchairs, bus stop crowds, unreasonably narrow corners and nefarious traffic lights accommodated WITHOUT ACCIDENT. Let this be a record of my erstwhile competence. (Stick notwithstanding.) I played so safe with traffic lights that I must have lost five minutes of good time on the road at least. I'm just glad it didn't rain.

Weather continues fantastic. Pretty birds everywhere. Must resist urge to take bike downstairs and disappear forever.

I'm in a really good mood for the first time all day.

shinigami eyes

My left eye hurts. I don't know why.

If it continues into next week I'll have to do something about it.

Furtive bike love

My feet hurt (my left foot hurts more than my right foot) and I am pissed off. I am pissed off not only because my feet hurt. I have hardly been so pissed off before. My parents are leery about me cyclocommuting! In fact, they have explicitly forbidden it AGAIN! It's not even as if I have had any accidents. I point this out. 'But it's dangerous!' they chirp. This will be a long battle.

What's dangerous? Learning to walk is dangerous! Your precious baby could fall on his face and squash his malleable ickle nose! Or look, it's dangerous to go to school because you could get bullied, you could get trampled in the canteen, you could get a ball in the face at P.E. Oh, and it's dangerous to sit at home and eat and sleep, because then you have the 5 Cs after you: Cholesterol, Coronary heart disease... it's far more dangerous to drive than it is to ride a bicycle on Singapore's comparatively empty walkways. (Certainly it's more lethal.) And if you want danger you can go downstairs to where I live at 7 a.m. or 6 p.m. respectively, and stare all you want at the crowds of competent mums balancing two or more children (along with their shopping) on one bike on their merry way home.

If you want SAFE, you've already GOT it. All things considered, I'm a pretty safe daughter to have. I don't smoke weed, drink alcohol, ogle porn or stay out partying all night. In deference to my parents' wishes, I don't even go to sleepovers. On the other hand, cyclocommuting makes for healthy exercise and is practical to boot considering the skyscraper cost of transport these days, thanks to oil economics and other clever things. So for fuck's sake just let me on that bike.

Because I'll be on it anyway.

Bike journal

I can't remember which number this bike journal is supposed to be. I don't really care any more. I've started cyclocommuting :D :D

It is fun! Slopes and puddles and people to dodge and road bumps and traffic lights! My thighs died and my heart sang!

Now that I'm reasonably competent in this business, I think I won't write another bike journal until I finally get into an accident. Hooray nobody can stop me now. Not that I've relinquished being a plodder (slow walks are good when your thighs have died) but bikes are so much more efficient -- and so much more exciting.

WAHAHAHAHAHA.

WTF

I could have screamed when I heard, off the grapevine, that there was only ONE KI student left in J2 at MJC. All the others had left! Wtf! WTF WTF!!!

At least the J1s look promising... Even if Mr Wee said they were really off today. (Everyone except that particular talker was very quiet. Maybe it was my malicious aura of post-seniority emanating from the back of the classroom.) One nice boy told me afterwards that he was worried about whether he was clever/knowledgeable enough for the subject. I told him that he had two whole years, and that I'm actually very stupid. It's not very difficult to do KI. You've just got to be interested in it. Like everything else, I guess.

So why, WHY did like the whole bloody second batch leave the course????? It pisses me off. Oh, but that one brave soul left, I want to shake his hand and offer him tips on the IS. I hope he has friends from other schools taking the subject willing to chat with him about it. It's hopeless to take KI properly without people to talk to. Poor lad won't get the kind of round-table slander and inside jokes even we the screwed-up first generation got, sigh.

The third generation has SUCH a compact curriculum. I'm jealous. But then, they're soloing it with Mr Wee, while we had Dr Alfi AND Mr Cheong. So I guess it balances out.

chopped

So much for agonising over cutting the hair -- it's done. CHOPPED. Bye-bye. All it took was for my mum to drag me into Jean Yip after pacifying me with super spicy tori karaage ramen and a silver starfish. The guy was so appalled at my dandruff that he insisted I get a shampoo and a blow-dry as well. Then he slashed, snipped and cut. I brought the remnants home in a bag and my naughty mother put it on my father's table. I expect him to scream when he sees it.

I look strange. I met Yan Han in Tampines Mall and he didn't recognise me. I think he's still wondering who was the mad girl who waved in his face this afternoon. I kinda miss my long locks already, but it IS easier to wash my hair now.

save the roots!

I know I swore once that I would only chop off my hair if threatened with imminent hair loss. Well that is happening now. So I shall have a (well-paid, alas) expert take scissors to it soon -- probably about next week. I'd probably have done it this week, but it took me three years to grow this waist-long monstrosity and it's terrifically hard to just let it go. Moreover there is the prospect of having the hairdresser tut over the state of my scalp -- the very reason why I'm killing most of my pretty hair. Sigh.

Considering how my life has been flattening into one contented progression of days, perhaps a change might be a good thing. And I swear, once my hair has recovered, I'll grow it out again. May it then have long life and prosperity.

camera.

Speaking of which, if I am to go overseas after all (hahahaha FAT HOPE), I would probably spend my wages on a proper camera. I could learn to shoot things there, where it's probably legal. And my parents would have incentive to help sponsor some of it.

Bike Journal #4

Five rounds today, windy weather. Felt the intense irony of being cold on the outside and burning on the inside (from exercise). Tried to go down two right-angled slopes like an idiot, nearly crashed into brick wall. Put out my hand to the brick wall to deflect the crash, was successful, but jolt sent saddle right into my arse. Gave me an immense wedgie. My bum doesn't hurt quite so much as it used to, but it IS still kind of numb. Either the saddle or my bum needs some intense breaking in.

Numbers and varieties of birds spotted today grazing about the shorn grass were huge and strange. Usually there are exactly two white-collared kingfishers perching along the rails -- today there were four. Then there were the usual pigeons, crows, sparrows, and along with that, a fat white egret with a browny tail and green feet flying with it's neck tucked in. The same white egret squirting out a white wad of poo. A thin-legged brown thing with a spotted belly, a smaller cousin wading the flat waters of the canal. A small round bird with a back of iridescent russet. Another one with a beige-feathered chest that puffed fatly. And, best of all, a huge creature with feathers like scraped bark and a great long neck and an orange bill that stalked like a king. Marvellous. All this along the woodlandish far edge of the canal.

first of january

New year! Planning to work, learn to speak passable Chinese, start drawing one comic per two days and go for scholarship interviews. I'm definitely going to work somewhere, though my ideal places mostly consist of bookstores. I love being surrounded by books. There is a place in Funan that is hiring, will check it out tomorrow morning!

There are plenty of good reasons to want money. For example, if I'm going overseas, I'm going to need as much money as I can get for computer equipment, transport, cold clothing and other peripherals, scholarship notwithstanding. If I'm NOT, the money can be put to buying my Cintiq. It's a rich woman's world.