a sigh of exasperation...

I’m sitting in front of someone else’s computer in someone else’s home. Why, you ask? BECAUSE I CANNOT GET INTO MY OWN FRIGGIN’ HOME.

After spending much time living independently away from my parents, I have learnt to cherish and not take family for granted. I’m happy they come to visit me, even though I’m not entirely used to all the noise and people in my crampy apartment.

HOWEVER, this is one rare occasion when I think :

Damn….I was doing oh-so-fine by myself…thank you very much. 

Yes, spiteful, I know. But such thoughts rarely surface and I surely do hope it goes away soon. I do quite like my usual bubbly self.

What I am about to tell you is seriously like those based-on-a-true-story-movie where you kinda doubt whether it really is real at all….

Let’s rewind back one day. I’m on the ferry early in the morning, still a little sleepy-eyed with enthusiasm slowly creeping through my body. I’m going to Macau, where I can get away, just for two days. Not exactly a vacation per say, but a much needed break. Okay, I think I went back too much, let’s just fast forward to 3pm today. I had a wonderful stay at a truly magnificent hotel and had gone to a fabulous casino and had several amazing meals and had a nice adventure and got to spend time with my lovely pilot guy……..and now I’m at the ferry pier buying a ticket to go home.

*cue intense music*

Out of nowhere, a shadowed figure approaches me. I blinked several times, trying to process what I was seeing. D..d..daad…dad? I stammered, still not quite sure what to make of this all. WHAT THE HELL?? FANCY SEEING YOU, DAD?? Thoughts were going through my head.

I’ve lost everything! That man who seems to be my father exclaims, his voice full of exasperation.


What do you mean?, I ask.

Turns out, my dad decided to go to Macau also just to hit the casinos. Unfortunately, his bag got stolen and he was left with nothing but a member’s card from the casino. This is probably the only time I’ll ever say this, but good thing he gambles and so gets to exchange his points for a room…. I know, such a sinful thought.

So there’s my dad, with no passport, no ID cards, no credit cards, no money, no keys, nothing whatsoever. The police and the casino security staff took two hours to review the CCTV cameras and then took one more hour to come to the conclusion :

The man who stole your bag, sir, he ran away and caught a taxi. There is nothing we can do. 

— this seriously deserves a standing ovation.

And then my dad probably spent whatever cash he had on him for a ferry ride home.

Still not quite processing all this WHAT? STOLEN? HOW? WHAT? WHEN? WHERE? WHAT???….my dad tells me his ticket is for 4:30pm and he leaves. WHAT? HOW THE HELL CAN HE STILL LOOK SO CALM AND NORMAL?? WHAT??? Oh, did I mention that he took my phone? Yes, because he decided he needed a phone more than I did.

Oh it gets even better. I had given my only two sets of keys away : one to my mother, the other to my dad. And of course, my dad’s keys were part of the stolen goods, among other things. They’re probably selling his passport to illegal prostitutes right now somewhere in the black market.

And there is more. My mum went to China with her friends. AND SHE DID NOT SET UP HER ROAMING. All she said when she left was : I’ll call you when I get back. My dad was supposed to be the homekeeper for just two days. Two days and he failed. Miserably.

Speak of role reversal. I feel like the hard working parent who is being terribly let down by my teenage children.

*sigh*

So there. That’s my story of the day.

May 21st 2011

Three things that are bothering me right now:

1.) I’m sitting alone in my apartment right now and it is awfully quiet. I can’t even hear any trams or cars or human voices…

2.) My phone hasn’t rang at all since noon today….in fact, the only time it rang today was a computer trying to loan me some money….

3.) I haven’t had any human contact except the pizza man two hours ago. And he didn’t say hi….

Three questions that is running through my head right now:

1.) Has the Rapture occurred? What time zone does it go by? It’s still 21st here…

2.) Am I left behind? Did I sin too much? I did read the Bible the other day just in case….

3.) Are there any Christians out there? Wait….are you guys real Christians? Maybe I should ask, are there anyone missing?

It would be great if I could get some answers!

ps.) I haven’t paid my bills yet. If it isn’t the end of the world….then I better go pay them soon.

2 DAYS and 11 DAYS.

There’s excitement and then there’s despair. There comes a time in your life when you’re up in the middle of the night watching youtube videos of Super Cows, yes, super body-builder cows, when you realize that you’re actually feeling a little guilty despite all that awe from the super cows. Yes, guilty because I spent the whole day not doing what I intended to do; which was to complete my term paper. So it’s due in 11 days. That’s the despair part. But where’s the excitement, you ask? Well, I am officially getting my iPad2 in TWO DAYS. So that’s the excitement part. But then when I get that iPad, I’ll only have nine days left. And that’s the despair. You get my dilemma??

Two days. It can feel like forever and it can be short. Let me give you a relative estimate of what two days might feel like…

If you ran out of water starting from now, you will die in roughly two days. It will take you about two days straight with no sleep to listen to the entire collection of Prince’s discography. That might feel like an eternity. 48 hours is also the time it roughly takes to eat 411 BigMacs. It takes the fastest and strongest sperm two days to get to the egg, providing that there IS an egg. Or there IS a passage for them to swim up to. 

Now 11 days. Eleven days may seem far, but it can also be extremely short. Here’s a quick comparison…

Many diet pills scream a slogan along the lines of “10 pounds in 10 days”. Given a whole extra day, you could be a “whole new you” minus one pound. Five million, three hundred and ninety thousand. That’s the estimated number of babies that will be born in the coming 11 days. WOAH. In 11 days, you could have travelled 8% of the distance to Mars. Not bad..not bad at all.

So that’s my dilemma. I’m super excited about my ipad in two days, but also super dreading the due date in 11 days.

ps. this is the first result that came back after I googled “Prince”. Enjoy your two day’s worth of Prince discography.

Naming a BABY

Naming a baby can seriously be HELL (as if having a baby wasn’t bad enough, you gotta name it too). I had the weirdest dream last night….I was sitting in a car and suddenly someone come’s up and says ‘hi’. I don’t know that person in real life but in my dream, she was a friend. Weird…. anyways, it gets weirder. Somehow, I was really excited and somehow I had a baby. Somehow, I really wanted to show my baby to my friend. So I said, “Do you want to see it?” And that’s when my friend’s face scrunches up in disgust and looks at me in shock. “IT? How can you refer to your baby as it??” And somehow a whole gang of people appeared and threatened to beat me up. And that’s when I woke up. SCREW DREAMS.

But then that led me to think about baby names. Usually there’s always “The big book of baby names” or “Unique names for your baby”, but seriously, how unique can a name be when it’s printed in the millions and for sale in every book store? Usually the first name is always Abigail. Nothing too unique there……

So screw baby books too. Today I’m kind of in a SCREW YOU ALL mood. Must be all this assignments and being cooped up in jail, oh I meant home…and the only time I go out is to teach someone what “What’s up?” means and maybe to buy toilet paper. Anyways, I was thinking……..if you want a UNIQUE name, and I mean unique, not nice, then you should come to Hong Kong. People here have unique names, but if I were to choose, I’d rather keep my plain old Jamie than be named Queenie or Beauty or Ice or Fanny or Vagina.

I found out that a movie director in HK is named FRUIT CHAN. WTF?! I’m NOT lying….. 
And there’s always in the back of my mind, that lovely girl who named herself Money. I will never forget you. And then there’s the crazy ones like Bebe, Lion, Kermit, Apple, Iceman….

My favourite so far? There was this ad on a bus for a gym and the personal trainer was called…. “CALORIE NG” I stood in the street and laughed for a good minute until I realized I probably looked crazier than a person who would call herself Calorie.

So yea, who needs “The Big book of Baby names” when I’ve got inspiration all around me! Having a name like Jane or John is wayyy too normal for Hong Kong and the kids probably get made fun of for having a “boring” name. Maybe in Hong Kong, it’s cool to call yourself Fanny or Tiffany or Gucci or ICEMAN. It’s even cooler when they’re not kids anymore and these names get printed onto business name cards. Too bad mine will just be Jamie. Maybe I should “change" my name to something crazy like DURIAN.