walking in the rain

A few days ago at Universal Studios Singapore, when you came running up to me and crying after one of the characters you hate tried to catch and disturb you, I realized that all I really had to do, was to be there for you.

Today, as you lay motionless while being wheeled back into the ward on a stretcher after your tonsillectomy surgery, I realized that all I needed to do, was to be there to take care of you.

As you struggled to swallow water and medicine in pain, I wished I could be the one suffering instead of you.

As I fed you porridge and jelly at 6pm for your first meal of the day, I realized that all I really wanted to do was to love you.

Today's happenings felt like scenes taken from a MediaCorp Channel 8 drama, but never in my life did something like this feel so real.

Tonight, I ended up all teary as I looked through the photos I took at the hospital, and I hate myself for not being able to stay the night with you due to the hospital's visiting hours.

Today, I made a decision.

I promise that I will always be there for you.

I promise that I will take care of you no matter what happens.

I promise that I will always love you.

To my baby: Thank you for loving me. I love you.

I’ll be turning 26 in a few days.

You know, judging from the frequency of my updates, I might be 27 by the time you see a new entry.

This year, I had a birthday surprise. Yes, that’s right, a birthday surprise – one that I’ll remember forever, simply because it was the worst surprise I’ve ever had.

It took place at a Nonya Cafe at Heng Mui Keng Terrace. I mean, where the hell is that right? It’s a little restaurant at NUS – a location picked by my aunt. I had previously given plenty of suggestions with good food and great ambience at affordable prices, but well, they were all turned down.

Actually, it was a dinner not to celebrate my birthday, but a farewell dinner for my younger sister who was back in Singapore for a couple of weeks.

So the dinner was held on Sunday, 9th January, 2 days before her departure. It was also the day where I had to wake up at 5.30am for radio duty, which wasn’t quite funny as I already had a long work week.

So, anyway, since all my other relatives were going, I decided to show face. After all, for $17, the food might be worth a try. I had earlier suggested going but not eating at the buffet (I’ve given up on buffets for 2011 – I’ve had years of unhealthy eating and I promised myself this year was going to be different), but hey, I was told off in the end.

So there. I wasn’t in the best of moods because 1) I was tired – I woke up at 5.30am (not for anything else but for work on a Sunday, mind you); 2) I didn’t want to eat a buffet but I was forced to; 3) I had to pay for my own meal; 4) and guess what? The food at this Chilli Padi Nonya Cafe was absolute rubbish. Yes, people at Chilli Padi Nonya Cafe, if you’re reading this, hey, let’s be honest. Your food sucks. Like shit. I’ve never been to a buffet dinner not eating anything for the first 30 minutes, and dragging myself to eat only because I have to pay for the meal. The range is appalling, and so is the quality. I could have spent my $17 on a better buffet dinner elsewhere. Seriously.

So there I was, looking moody throughout the dinner, and of course, feeling very tired from a very, very long week.

Somewhere towards the end of the dinner, I got a call from J. Was excited to receive his call as I haven’t heard from him in almost a year and he was back in Singapore for a few weeks. The conversation got interesting when he mentioned that he had some opportunity for me to work together with him for an upcoming local film (I won’t spill too much details here), and that actually perked me up on an evening as boring as hell.

I got up from my seat at the table and proceeded nearer to the buffet dinner, as I didn’t want others to eavesdrop. After all, it was only basic courtesy, since the call was going to take a while.

Minutes later, I was summoned to put down the phone. I was puzzled for a moment, thinking that it might be because everyone wanted to take a group photo. One of my aunts then came up to me with a red packet with the words “Happy Birthday”, and that was when I thought something must be going on.

I ended the call, reluctantly of course, and the next thing I knew, I saw a cake with candles lit on the table. I was then asked to do this, do that, make a wish, pose for photos, etc. The birthday song was sung, and honestly, I was completely embarrassed, and very much annoyed, unfortunately. The cake was then cut, and after all that was over, I was too tired and angry to even eat a slice of the cake. I only took a small piece after much persuasion from my relatives. And of course, all this while, I had to put up a smile. A nice, wide smile along with a happy face, for everyone to see.

Okay, here’s the thing. Firstly, if you know me well enough, I don’t do birthday surprises. Secondly, I’m NOT into birthday surprises at low-class places. If they had told me there would be a cake for me, and that there would be a mini-celebration of some sort at a nice hotel (or at least a decent place), I would be very happy. But no, it had to be a birthday surprise at a ridiculously ulu place at NUS, which serves up the worst food I’ve ever had in my life.

I was truly upset on the way home, and when I told my family members, I was called ungrateful, and was told that there would be no more surprises for the rest of my birthdays. My response? Great! Thanks.

Anyway, I spent the night thinking about what got me so upset, but I couldn’t really quite put my finger on it. I then decided to share this with a good friend, whom I met up with the following day after work.

His answer was that I’m upset because my family doesn’t know me well enough, and that they should have known better than to throw a celebration at a place like that. He also mentioned that they had treated my birthday surprise as an afterthought, like, “Hey since we’re all gathering for a dinner, why don’t we just throw in a birthday surprise for him?”. Oh, for crying out loud. It was 12 days early. TWELVE days, mind you.

I totally agreed with him. It was also a culmination of unhappiness throughout the day – tired because I had to wake up early, not being allowed to skip the buffet, having to pay for the meal, shitty food, hanging up on an important call, etc.

If my family had known me well enough, they would have known better than to throw me a birthday surprise at a stupid place, right? I mean, after all, when any of my family members celebrate their birthday, e.g. my mum, we always put in effort to think for a nice dinner location.

I did make an effort to state my point of view, but it was still brushed away. I guess I’ll always be that ungrateful person. But hey, to each his own. If you don’t understand where I’m coming from, it really isn’t my fault anymore. It’s not as if I haven’t tried.

It’s not my habit to blog these days, but these are emotions I’d want to remember.

And you know what? Sometimes I wish people can be more understanding, and less selfish.

The world would be a better place that way.

And for the record, yes, I still paid for that dinner.

You know, if there’s one thing that makes my blood boil over and over again each day, it would have to be taking public transport in Singapore.

Singapore’s public transport, in my opinion, is by far the most ridiculous and inefficient mode of travel I’ve ever come across. And the fact that it’s considered world-class is probably the biggest joke ever.

Okay, let’s put it this way. I think in Singapore, a 15 to 20 minute wait for a bus to arrive is simply unacceptable. Doesn’t SBS Transit or SMRT know how precious time is? This is Singapore, mind you. Don’t they know that if I had decided to take the car or a cab instead of waiting for the bus, I’d have reached my destination during that 15 to 20 minutes?

Has anyone tried waiting for SBS Transit’s service 175? An average wait would be about 30 minutes. I mean, so what if the ridership is low? Does that mean that people who take that bus service don’t deserve to be provided good service?

It doesn’t help with such weather like Singapore’s. It’s just so hot and humid all the time. And after enduring a long wait, a crowded single-decker bus comes along, and depending on the time of the day, you may not even get to board it because it’s completely full. If you do, you end up standing, and of course, squeezing with noisy, smelly people on-board for the rest of your journey.

Honestly, I have put up with ridiculous waiting times over the years. I must, however, thank the person who came up with the Bus Arrival system, because even though it’s not quite accurate half the time (especially for SMRT buses), it certainly shows the inefficiency of the 2 bus companies in Singapore, SBS Transit and SMRT.

I know some of you might tell me to quit complaining and try experiencing public transport somewhere else, like in the US, where it’s much worse. Well, guess what? It’s not a fair comparison, simply because in other countries, buses run at longer intervals because the country is much bigger.

In essence, this is nothing but poor service.

And in case you haven’t noticed, buses in Singapore are completely ugly. The interior of SBS Transit buses is awful purple and yellow, and the seats are as hard as rock. Also, most SBS Transit buses are now wheelchair-friendly, which is completely ridiculous because there are way fewer seats than before. And there are steps in single-decker buses, which is a really brilliant idea. One day, someone’s going to get hurt real bad when the bus captain does an emergency brake.

Air-conditioning in buses is horrible in both SBS Transit and SMRT buses. Some are leaky, the seats have a weird smell, windows are oily and the hand poles are slimy. No one gives a shit about cleaning the window panes once in a while, or wiping the dirt off the covers of the ceiling lights.

And this is just a rant about Singapore’s bus service. Don’t even get me started on the MRT, or our recent “Love Your Ride” campaign, where commuters are forced to listen to the “Train is Coming” jingle before boarding the train, and “Give Up Your Seat” jingle during the ride itself. Whoever came up with that is stupid beyond belief and has absolutely no shame. I’m sure foreigners must have had laughed their ass off after seeing such a stupid campaign like this.

So, I’ve had my say.

It’s not surprising that many Singaporeans are switching to cars, even though it’s ridiculously expensive to own a car in this country.

In the meantime, it’s interesting to see how so many Singaporeans can rely on the country’s inefficient public transport to actually get around. It really amazes me sometimes.

It always amazes me seeing how people can be such sports fanatics, especially soccer.

To me, soccer is nothing but a bunch of people running after a ball. How fun can that be? And after they finally get near the ball, they kick it away. I mean, seriously, how interesting is that? Someone tell me please.

People who claim that they’re a fan of this team or that team simply prove to be nothing but silly. Phrases like “Come on, Man U!”, “Shit! How could Arsenal miss the goal?!” or even “We are the champions!” makes me wonder if they’ve got any brains at all. WE are the champions? Who’s WE? You? What makes YOU a champion when the team you support wins a match? You simply did nothing but watch the match, right?

Or if a team loses a match, you end up crying like a girl. Oh please, do everyone a favour and get a life.

If you’re a soccer fan, please do not take offence, but in my opinion, people who play soccer, or watch soccer for that matter, simply have too much time on their hands.

The YOG is on right now, and if you ask me how interested I am, on a scale of 1 to 10, I’d give it a zero. It’s nothing but a waste of taxpayers’ hard-earned money. Come on, let’s face it – who really cares? Many polls have been done online, and it’s clear that Singaporeans don’t give two hoots about any of these sports competitions.

Singapore should stop wasting precious time and resources in things like these. We should focus on more important issues like the recent floodings and what not. Instead, we’re forced to give way to stupid YOG buses on the roads, with time and money spent on painting the “Give Way” signs on the roads. Honestly, I don’t really care, and I’m definitely not giving way to any of these buses if I do see them on the roads. We pay road tax too.

Recently, I’ve been very disappointed with some people around me.

It scares me because I had expected this group of people to be the last to disappoint, amongst all my other friends. I won’t mention who I’m referring to, and I certainly won’t mention names.

Often, I stop in my tracks and wonder why these people actually bother at all.

I mean, why pretend to be something else when you’re clearly not?

Why bother doing something when you don’t even walk the talk?

Why give advice when you know it applies to you more than anyone else?

It used to amuse me to a certain extent, but I’m starting to get awfully disgusted.

I’ve often been told that Man will always fail. That has never been truer than anything else.

Man has let me down time and again, and it’s reached a point where I can’t quite take it anymore.

I’m going to take a break and run away as far as I possibly can.

You know what’s the scariest part?

I don’t know if I’ll be able to fill this hole in my heart and start believing again. I really don’t.

Death is a funny thing.

We don't usually treasure the people around us, until one day, we lose our loved ones, and realize that it's all too late.

I remember buying fruits at Clementi a couple of months back, when I bumped into my younger brother, who was with his classmates. Among his group of friends stood a boy who was fairly big-sized – with puffy cheeks and all.

When I was in the car later, I turned to my brother and asked, “Eh, who’s that fat guy? He looks like a monster.”. My brother replied, saying, “Don’t be so bad. He has cancer.”.

Later, I learnt that he was formally a handsome, skinny boy who had to fatten himself up due to some therapy he was going through. He was actually going through a tough time, especially when the cancer cells were spreading fast.

I felt bad after making that comment, so I kept quiet after.

Today, that boy has since passed away. He lost the battle, leaving behind the people closest to him - his family and friends.

It was ironic that the news of his death broke when my family was out celebrating my brother’s birthday. It couldn't have been more than coincidental that the funeral procession took place on my brother’s birthday itself - I guess it would be a birthday he would remember forever.

I never knew that boy personally. What I do know, though, is that I feel bad, because those words could never be taken back.

It was a lesson to learn, and I will certainly be more careful with my words from now on.

And I know I've said this before but I'll say it again - Life in short, so treasure it, together with the people around you.

To my brother's friend - your mission on earth is complete. Rest in peace.

Before I even continue, I would like to say that this is just my point of view, so don't slam me if you do not happen to agree with me. Thanks.

Well, for quite some time now, I’ve been wanting a phone that could allow me to do stuff I've always wanted to do - surf on the go, check updates on Facebook and even read my emails.

And no, I had absolutely no plans to get the iPhone. I don't like anything to do with Apple. I completely dislike the Mac, even though I use it at work everyday. Give me a free Mac and I'll put it where it truly belongs - the bin. I mean, look, Apple just came up with the iPad – how not embarrassing is that?

I’ve been a Nokia fan for as long as I can remember, and I love each and every Nokia phone I’ve had all my life, well, at least for the last 10 years or so. The design, the functions – everything’s so sleek, and it fits me so well.

So there, it’s been almost 2 years since I last changed my phone, and my Nokia 3120 Classic was becoming awful due to wear and tear. Afterall, I was eligible to recontract my line again, so I thought, why not? After much consideration, it came down to a close fight between a Nokia N97 Mini and, horror of horrors, an iPhone.

Before I knew it, I was over at the M1 Shop at West Mall, still undecided. My mum and younger brother (who happens to be a huge iPhone fan, or a fan of any Apple product, for that matter) were with me that day, and swinging by the M1 Shop was not part of the plan. We were supposed to be buying a new printer for the home.

Still, it was a close fight between the Nokia and the iPhone. I managed to get hold of the dummy phone of the Nokia N97 Mini, and I thought the flipping of the phone was really quite cumbersome. It wasn’t exactly easy to flip it fast, too. A friend of mine, Willie, tried to promote his Nokia N97 to me over coffee a couple of days back, showing me how easy it was to surf Facebook on the go. His phone hung, and he had to restart it there and then. Didn’t leave a good impression there.

On the other hand, my brother was telling me how the iPhone had changed his life over the past 2 years, saying that it beats any Nokia phone hands down. I don’t know how true that was – what I did know at that point of time was that surfing Facebook on my friends’ iPhones whenever we were out together was fairly enjoyable.

After much consideration (and of course thinking that I had made the best decision of my life that night), I succumbed, and bought the iPhone 3GS.

I left the M1 Shop $518 poorer. I don’t know what got into me, but I bought the phone even though M1 didn’t give me any rebate whatsoever for being such a loyal customer, but that’s another story altogether. I’ve made a complaint about that actually.

So there. I’m now able to do the things that I’ve always wanted, like being able to check emails, surf the net, surf Facebook, and even check bus arrival timings, all on the go.

It's been the 7th day of using my iPhone, and even though it has been quite an experience, it’s also been the worst 7 days of my life while having a mobile phone with me. I figured that the iPhone is a bulky, useless piece of device that has given me inconvenience, frustration and much misery.

To put it simply, the iPhone sucks.

Here are my reasons why:

1) Never in my life have I found it harder to type an SMS. My fingers aren’t as small as you think, Apple. So what if I have unlimited SMSes? I don’t even feel like SMSing at the very thought of having to touch those stupid tiny letters on the screen. It doesn't even matter if the phone has a smart dictionary.

2) The iPhone cost me $518. Thinking back, that was like daylight robbery. I don’t know what got me into thinking that that was a “special price” for recontracting my line. Even if I had a $100 rebate, $418 would still be a ripoff for a phone like that.

3) The browser doesn’t support Flash. Which website doesn’t use Flash nowadays, you tell me?

4) The battery of the iPhone sucks. 2 days ago, the battery went COMPLETELY flat within just a few hours. I mean, I wasn't on YouTube or Facebook, and I certainly wasn't on the phone the whole day. Neither did I even touch any of the games, and I had no resource-intensive applications running at all. I left the house with a fully-charged battery, and by 7pm, the phone was dead. I was fuming mad. You can have all the features you want, but with a battery as useless as this, you're better off without it. Apple doesn’t realize that a smartphone with a useless battery that dies after a few hours of usage (or non-usage, in fact) doesn’t make it quite smart afterall. Charge it once every few hours? No wonder the earth is dying.

5) I can't sync my Hotmail to the iPhone. It claims that I have 50 unread emails, when I actually have none at all. What's up with that? I don't care if it's Hotmail's fault. If syncing can't be done properly with a large email provider like Hotmail, then don't have such a feature, Apple. Not everyone uses Gmail, mind you.

6) There are a whole bunch of unnecessary applications - Stocks, Voice Memos (can't believe people are bo liao enough to use this), Clock (what's a watch for?), iPod/iTunes (a music player does the job, no?), Compass (you think what, you stay in the jungle ah?). YouTube's for people who have nothing better to do, and it eats up your battery. The Maps feature is ridiculous (I've tried it, but maybe it's because I don't know how to use it properly). WhatsApp is interesting, but then, I've got unlimited SMSes, so it becomes redundant.

7) To answer a call, you'll have to slide this bar on your screen. You will never know how stupid that feature is until one day, the slide refuses to budge when you need to answer an urgent call. Well, surprise surprise, it happened to me a few days ago. It didn't budge an inch even when I tried to slide the bar over a dozen times. To reject calls, you'll need to press the top button twice. What happened to the simple pressing of a green or red button?

8) SMSes are turned into conversations, similar to MSN. What's that for? If there's an option to choose NOT to have my SMSes turned into conversations, maybe it's not so bad. But there isn't any. And I think Apple thinks that the green speech bubbles are pretty. I think Shrek looks better.

9) The iPhone charger is short. When I mean short, I mean ridiculously short. What were you thinking, Apple?

I could come up with another hundred reasons why the iPhone sucks, but I shan’t, because it's not worth my time. If you want, try googling “iPhone sucks”, and you see nothing but tons of webpages listing reasons why it does. Reasons which I can't agree more.

On hindsight, I really don’t know why I bought a phone which I told myself never, ever to buy. The iPhone is a big, bulky piece of shit which is poorly-designed by the money-sucking company, Apple, of course. They should stop embarrassing themselves with products like the iPhone and iPad.

Anyway, as mentioned earlier, it's been exactly a week of being able to surf on the go anytime I want (not always, actually, as the 3G dies every now and then), but then again, that can always be done on a Nokia or a BlackBerry. The iPhone has brought me much anger and frustration every single day this week, and as much as I've paid good money for this, I've decided that this phone has to go, simply because it does not suit me one bit.

It feels better knowing that I'm not alone in this. Although I have many friends who love the iPhone, I found out that I've got a whole bunch of friends who dislike the iPhone too. In fact, they told me off for buying a ridiculous phone like that. I should have known better, dammit.

I think it's about time to head back to my first love - Nokia. It may not be everyone's choice of phone, but at least I'm quite sure it doesn't disappoint.

Good riddance, Apple. You're the worst thing that happened to my handphone life.

I’ve been taking public transport for as long as I’ve lived, and after all these years, I find that Singapore’s public transport has never lived up to its expectation. In fact, I think it completely sucks.

Here are 30 reasons why.

1) Waiting for the bus is a pain in the ass. Buses never arrive on time, and are often late. If they’re early, you’re late.

2) Waiting at the bus stop makes you exhausted. By fumes, that is.

3) The real-time bus arrival information via SMS isn’t quite real-time at all. Half the time, the timings are not accurate, especially for SMRT bus services. And soon enough, this service will be chargeable.

4) When it’s peak period and you hope for a double-decker bus to arrive, a single-decker one always does.

5) Buses are often crowded. If you get a seat, consider yourself lucky. Peak periods means you always have to stand, which is annoying.

6) Taking the bus means you have to squeeze with smelly people, and touch dirty handles and poles which many others have touched before.

7) The pleasantness of your bus ride depends on many others whom you commute with. If people are noisy, or, are damn smelly, well, good luck.

8) You don’t find peace on buses. TVMobile is always there to annoy you.

9) The yellow, ugly seats on new SBS Transit buses are rock hard. Gone are the days with softer blue seats.

10) On some buses, there are advertisements covering the entire bus. It’s hard to see where you are especially if you’re on an unknown route.

11) The air-conditioning of most buses are poor, especially all of the new SBS Transit buses. Not only there’s a weird smell to it, but it always gets warm after a while. Whatever happened to good old air-conditioning?

12) The new SBS Transit buses are wheelchair-friendly. I mean, I don’t wish to be mean, but come on, is there really a need for this? I don’t see wheelchair-bound people boarding these buses at all. In fact, I don’t see more than 5 people with wheelchairs boarding the bus in an entire year.

13) Half the bus is now reserved for wheelchair space. This means less seats and more standing area. We don’t pay good money to stand during our rides, you know.

14) There are now steps in buses. To get to your seats, you’ll need to climb them, and before you get off, you’ll need to climb back down. One day, someone’s going to have a really bad fall while climbing down when an emergency brake is applied. Whoever came up with the idea of having steps in buses should be shot in the head.

15) The speed of the bus depends on the bus captain. Half of these bus captains drive like snails, because they’re often ahead of time and can’t afford to reach the bus terminal earlier than scheduled.

16) Travelling on buses means you have to share seats with people. I hate that, because I dislike sitting with strangers. It gets even more annoying when some people take up more space than they should.

17) Many bus captains in Singapore these days are from China, and don’t understand a single word you say. Trust me, it’s annoying when you get lost, need to find your way around, and end up talking to a bus captain who does not only NOT answer your question, but replies in Mandarin with a strong Chinese accent. I’ve experienced it first-hand, and it’s not quite funny.

18) If someone comes on board and asks the bus captain for directions, it causes a delay, and it wastes everyone’s precious time. Sometimes, these China bus captains have no clue as to what is going on. By the time they’re done with it, the traffic light turns red. Time is lost not only during the conversation with the driver and passenger, but for waiting for the traffic light to turn green, which could very well be avoided. Two minutes gone.

19) Bus captains like slowing down when approaching traffic lights. When they see amber (and have more than enough time to pass through), they slow down, and...stop. Brilliant.

20) Bus bunching occurs ever so frequently. When this happens, the first bus becomes crowded and the one behind always ends up being almost empty. Then they start playing the overtaking game.

21) Different SBS Transit bus services have different waiting time. While waiting for, say, service 52, which is a single-decker service, 4 or 5 double-decker service 74s would have passed by. What’s up with that?

22) Waiting for trains to arrive is a pain in the ass too. The waiting time of SMRT trains has become worse over the years. SMRT promises to keep waiting time 6 minutes or less, but this promise is never kept. The arrival time for the following train often doesn’t show up because it always takes longer than 6 minutes to arrive. After waiting for 2 minutes, the “6 minutes” finally shows up. SMRT should really explain this.

23) During peak hours, trains are so full that you’ll have to wait 3 to 4 trains to pass. If you’re lucky, you get on with your face plastered at the door when it closes.

24) The air-conditioning in most SMRT trains is horrible most of the time. Similar to buses, it gets warm after a while.

25) The seats in Singapore trains are installed sideways. I hate that. You tend to bend over to the person next to you due to inertia. Other countries have the seats faced front, which is so much better. So much for saving space.

26) The speed of SMRT trains, as compared to other countries, is ridiculously slow. And to think it’s called Mass Rapid Transit.

27) The volume of the announcements on trains really needs to be tweaked. They are too soft on old train models, and way too loud on new ones.

28) MRT stations are run-down and are completely ugly. If you haven’t seen Jurong East Interchange, you should really check it out.

29) Crowded and noisy trains with smelly people are really off-putting.

30) Finally, public transport fares are always on the rise. What more can I say when we’re all getting such “world-class service”?

I won’t even go into taxis. Taxis are equally ridiculous and often do the disappearing act minutes before midnight. I’ve waited for a cab at a hotel with a friend from 11.15pm to 12am before, with no taxi driver accepting our phone booking even when we were willing to pay the booking fee.

I’m a person who doesn’t like to complain, and I don’t wish to be overly picky but Singapore’s public transport really sucks and I just can’t be bothered anymore. In fact, I’ve completely given up on it, and may just get my own car next year.

Also, try writing in to these bus companies. All they ever do is provide a standard reply and nothing gets done.

I’m glad that both SBS Transit and SMRT have been fined a huge sum earlier this year, for not meeting standards. Well done, Public Transport Council. The PTC should fine them more often for providing such lousy service with absolutely no standard.

Singaporeans should not be blamed for the recent drop in public transport share (http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/singaporelocalnews/view/1013808/1/.html). Doesn’t the government know why people would rather stick to their cars than rely on sucky public transport in Singapore?

It’s pretty obvious, isn’t it?

I'm surprised that this blog is still having hit counts, after leaving it dead for so long now.

Well, I'm back to say that thankfully, I'm still alive and kicking. :)

I've just been through one of the most incredulously busy periods of my life, which was my very first radio Wave, which lasted 8 weeks, from mid-March till mid-May.

From handling of music scheduling, playlists, producing trailers for our Wave contest, preparing all the various segments for all the time belts during Wave, picking contest winners, along with preparing, scripting and recording the different segments for my own lunch show has been no joke at all.

All these on top of school talks, meetings, annoying company off days and running another job at OFS all at the same time.

Not forgetting this has been my very first time doing all of this, as I'm new to the radio industry.

I had so much work to do, I was practically camping at MediaCorp. I would have stayed overnight if I had company, actually.

Well, I'm just glad I survived it. :)

This week marks my last week on the lunch show. I have moved up to Music Director, and will be taking charge of my station's music instead. The previous MD left sometime back, which was something I did not expect at all.

I took up this offer because my station really needed all the help it could get.

From June, I will be full-time at MediaCorp, 8 hours a day, without a permanent time belt. I will cover shows now and then when other presenters are on MC. I will also do the weekend shows occasionally, so if you're a listener, you will still hear me around.

And yes, this means that I have left my other job at Overseas Family School. It has been a fairly fun and enriching experience but I just feel that it's time for me to go. In any case, some of the kids are getting out of hand. I shall not elaborate further. I will miss most of them, though. I'm quite close to them, and I treat some of them like my own kids.

Even if I did not move over to being full-time at MediaCorp, I would have left anyway. It has been tiring running 2 jobs, and the extra money I get from OFS has been given to cab drivers anyway, including the stalker I mentioned in my previous entry, if you still remember.

Speaking of the stalker, he's still around man. Everyday. I have written in to the taxi company but there has been no response so far, so maybe I'll write in again when I have the time.

Anyway, I've been having strange dreams of late. I find dreams interesting, actually, but it gets scary when they contain content of people closest to you passing away, which happens once in a while.

Well, I'm off.

It seems quite fun updating this blog all over again. I'll try to do it more often. :)

Over the past couple of weeks, I've been taking a cab from one workplace to another in the afternoons. I leave MediaCorp at around 3pm daily, before I rush down for my next job at Overseas Family School, with classes commencing at 3.30pm.

I used to take the bus, but the walkout to the bus stop, as well as the wait in the hot sun, or rain, for that matter, was a killer. I had to change bus too, and sometimes the wait for each bus to arrive was so long, it wasn't funny at all. I had waited for over 30 minutes for service 174 before, and ended up being late for my classes at OFS. Not to mention the frequent jams along Lornie Road too.

One day, I was running late, so I took a cab. 5 minutes was all it took from MediaCorp to Novena Square, costing me less than $5 per trip, in air-conditioned comfort, with time for me to take a short breather. An additional 5-minute MRT ride would bring me from Novena to Orchard, and that would cost no more than a dollar.

After a while, I just figured that it wasn't worth saving that kind of money, especially going through all that frustration hoping to be on time. So there, hopping on to a cab from MediaCorp to Novena Square became an everyday thing for me.

So one day sometime last week, I boarded this Trans-Cab. I was running fairly late that day, and it was drizzling after all, so I told the driver to send me all the way to OFS.

My goodness. He started yakking the minute he drove off. I was slightly tired and wanted to get some rest, but he threw me a million questions in my face: "oh are you a star?", "are you a DJ?", "oh really? which station?", "how much training do you need to go through?", "is training tough?", "what happens when you say the wrong thing?", "have you said something wrong on-air before?", "who's in charge of this, that, etc", "do you know so-and-so?", and the list goes on.

I mean, these questions are harmless, and I get them almost everyday, but he sounded like a complete stalker with this funny look on his face.

Then he started telling me that he has picked this radio presenter before, that TV presenter before, and that this news presenter (insert name) is really, really pretty and he hopes to pick her up one day, and all that. And he asked me a dozen times if she was indeed pretty. I agreed. After a while, he asked me the same question, again.

I got really annoyed so along the way I told him I had a change of plans and wanted to head to Novena Square instead. Heck, I thought, I'd rather get wet in the drizzle and take the MRT and be slightly late for class than endure an extra ten minutes of his stalker talk.

He then gave me this cheeky look and said, "ke yi shen jiu shen hor?" (which means if you can save money, you'll save right?), and I just told him that I needed to pick up something from Novena before heading to Orchard. Of course, that wasn't true, but I just had to get this bugger off my back. Which, thankfully, I did.

In any case, I thought nothing of this incident until the very NEXT day. I saw his cab. Again. Same place - MediaCorp taxi stand, same time - 3pm. I recognized his huge, red Trans-Cab, and its license plate. This time, he was standing outside his cab waiting for his next passenger. I was almost freaked out. I was late, and it was raining cats and dogs, so I needed to take a cab badly, but I waited at the staircase leading to the taxi stand. Thankfully, someone else came by a few minutes later and I took the cab behind it.

I thought bumping into that cab driver again could probably be a coincidence, so once again, I thought nothing much of it.

BUT NO. I saw him again TODAY. Same taxi, same driver, same place, same time. It completely freaked me out. And it was drizzling again. I then decided to walk in the rain to the bus stop. I then boarded the bus, which came a minute later. I then changed to a cab along the way, and was almost late for work.

Well, I don't know what to say man.

It definitely was not a coincidence meeting him thrice at the same place (within a week!), neither do I believe that he had just changed shift at that time.

So this guy's definitely a stalker. I hope he doesn't pick up the news presenter one day and drive her to a secluded spot or something.

I have this feeling I'm probably going to take his cab again someday soon, when I run of options.

And if he appears to be a stalker again, I'm going to do something about it.

Damn. These people really have nothing better to do.