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The wedding invite

Marina & partner. It specifically said Marina & partner. Where on earth am I supposed to find an eligible and strapping male partner for this weekend?

—

As much as I get thrills when two people in love getting married, I do get a little apprehensive – Theres so many factors that contribute to my dislike of attending wedding functions.

Like expectations of people looking at me as a single malay female. They’ll see that I’m of that ‘marriageable’ age and then they’ll start their talk of how I should get married as soon as possible. And then chide and scold me for still being single.

I’m rather sick of that. Why should I please you for something I’ll live with for the rest of my life?

But secretly, I do want to get married and care for a partner and have kids. I do want to share my life with my significant other. I just dont like the idea that I have to be obliged to do something, just because of social propiety.

—

But coming back to my colleague’s wedding, maybe I’ll just go to the wedding alone. She’s a friend and it would of course be lovely to see her on her most special day 🙂

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The relativity of time and age

It seems like time is passing by so quickly more so than ever. I wake up in the morning and head to work and before you know it, the day is over already and I’m back home again.

I hypothesied that “Time is proportionate to age. The older you are, the faster time passes by”

Unfortunately, I was standing next to Chan, a mathematics teacher who was sitting closeby started to debate about how flawed my hypothesis was.

Chan : Time doesnt go faster as you grow older! You just feel that it goes faster as you have more work to do.

The only way when time can go faster is when you go against the speed of light! Einstein already stated in his theory of relativity that if you want to go against the speed of light, your mass has to decrease while your volume increase which is impossible!

Thus time can never go faster. It is always constant. Time is always 24 hours a day. If time were faster, we would have 23 hours or less in a day.

Me : But Chan, time *is* going faster. You do know that there is evidence that the black hole is pulling the solar system closer.

That in turn, already disbalances the entire timeframe and effects the rotational spin of the planet. That would definitely affect time.

I think we must have argued debated some more for a little while. It surprises me how lively I get into these type of discussions when I keep failing my physics and maths (back in my schooldays)

Why do you think about the relationship between time and age?

Update :

Cartcart : If time itself was actually slowing down or going fast, we couldn’t even notice it. It’s all about our PERCEPTION of time.

Our perception is that time goes faster because of a given while, let’s say 1 year, is a lesser fraction of our lived time so far.

Like, when you are 5 years old, 1 year is 1/5 of your life

when you are 60 years old, 1 year is 1/60 of your life

Hence, you see it flowing fast. This has nothing to do with actual time speed – that thing doesn’t even exists since time is used to define speed.

If the whole universe goes on faster, our brain is included. and we can’t notice any difference

The best statement I’ve heard today was by Sin

Time doesnt go faster! You’re just slow!

Ok fine. My hypothesis isnt valid then.

Back to the drawing board I go.

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Ti odio, idiota

Oh Zuji! Oh Zuji!
Oh how you annoy me!
You promised me, my refund
In 3 weeks, you said, it shall come

But is almost a month already
And I still dont see my money
So how on earth can I go to Italy?
This is really not funny

I wish I was rich
Then I wouldnt act like such a
Till then I have this stitch
In my heart, its more than just an itch

Sigh.

I planned to go to see my dearest again for vacation in June and I’ve been scouring around for different places that have competitive prices.

After going to the Natas fair (where the tickets are sold out) and then Using Fare.net (they dont have tickets for the dates where I want to go) I then decided to use Zuji.

On the 27th of March, I booked a ticket with Zuji but after being acknowledged that they do not accept my KLM voucher, I quickly cancelled the booking. They still deducted money on my card anyway on Friday and I had no way to stop the transaction.

After a call from the customer service, a lady informed me that my money will arrive in about 7 – 10 days and I waited patiently even though I was pretty nerve wrecked with the increasing of ticket prices with time.

After two weeks, I called up the customer service again. They said this time that I will take 3 weeks from the date of cancellation. They even assured me that the finance department is handling the matter and then abruptly put down the phone.

To date, I still dont have my money.

And guess what?

The prices for plane tickets to Rome now is getting more and more extravagant.

I’m really not happy with the fact that:

a) Zuji couldnt be bothered to tell me the exact date when I will get my refund. If the customer service would tell me that it would take *that* long for the refund to arrive, I wouldnt have cancelled the booking. I would have stayed and wouldnt be so emotionally nerve wrecked by the whole experience.

b) That airplane prices are really going up so high. Just a few days difference could mean a difference in hundreds of dollars! Just a month ago, airfrance was just $900 compared to now which is $1400

c) That I made hasty decisions like this and this in turn effects everything. Why cant I just decide on one thing and then just be happy with it. Instead I still want to look for other alternatives.

Sigh.

I wish I was rich. Then I wouldnt have to worry about petty things like these. But I’m not. Oh gosh. After the payments for everything. I feel so dry right now.


Me angry! Me want smash your face!

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The mind jog


It was a nice and breezy day, not too warm and was just perfect for a sports match. The school that I worked at, had their sports day today.

We had it at the Clementi stadium and there were heaps of people cheering wildly for their favourite athletes that it wasnt hard to get in the mood either.

Initially it rained in the morning and I was worried that I could ruin my precious Canon EOS350 camera from the condensation. Fortunately for us, the rain didnt last too long and soonafter we resumed the event.

Here’s a few of the pictures from the event:


We want this!


Haha, look at Alan’s face!


Yeah! No one can defeat me!


In deep concentration


The antagonising feeling during the race


Just a bit more, abit more …


I’m the winner!

—

In night class, during my mathematics lesson, the lecturer started on Permutations and combinations and I was just sitting there thinking to myself, being amazed.

It was almost 10 years since I left school and almost for the same amount of time, last used a calculator. I turned to my partner.

Me : Err Hanna, how did you get that answer?

Hanna : I pressed this on my calculator. Dont you have that function? (peer over)

Me : I dont see it! Sir! Can you explain how you came about that formula?

Teacher : Formula? You dont have to remember the formula (comes over my table)

Teacher : Its right here, see.

Me : Oh. (Feels sheepish)

But it wasnt so bad, the lessons having since already taken C maths (Which was supposed to be harder than AO maths) previously, the lessons wasnt so hard. But I do need lots of brushing up and practise.

A friend walked with me on the way back to the bus stop and asked me, how I found the lessons so far. She told me that it was different for us working people, having to juggle between our jobs and night class. She also said that as older people, it was harder to grasp new concepts.

I disagree that older people find it more difficult to learn. My idol, Tony Buzan is about 64 years old but he can comprehend things in a flash!

What I do agree however is that working people dont have much time to dedicate to their studies, with work taking up a large chunk of their waking time. It also affects the physical capabilities of a person, making them tired and this in turn affects them mentally.

I believe that a person doesnt go more mentally challenged as they grow older. I think that with mental stimulation, a person can still remain as sharp no matter what their age will be.

Its very much like gym.

We exercise, our physical self will be healthy. No exercise, unhealthy.

(pats her wobbly bits)

Anyway, mum is taking us out to go to Terengganu in Malaysia for a family vacation. Oh boy! I need one. I’m so stressed out. Ah the sandy beaches, maybe some water sports?

Hooray!

Will be back on Sunday. (Maybe by then Zuji will give me back my money and I can finally book my plane ticket with KLM)

And Happy Easter everyone! Save a chocolate bunny for me 😉

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Poor Rinaz

I am now officially poor.

Now that I’ve made my payments for my examination, I’ve hardly anything left in the bank. But its alright, since its not for frivolous expenses like the makeover session I had with Juli and Geri.

By right, the end date to make the payments was on last Saturday, 8th of April. However, I stalled and procrastinated and by the time I reached the post office, it was already closed.

I really had a most upsetting weekend and all I could think about was how I wont be taking my examinations this year and how careless and what a blockhead I was.

But I decided to call up the ministry of education anyways. I didnt have anything else to lose. They actually said that they still accepted payments with today being the absolute last day.

My heart leaped! Hope! Joy! Revelation! Penance!

I’ll still be poor for a few months. Oh well, at least I’ll have no money problems since I dont have any money to speak of 😛

—

A couple of pictures I’d like to share with everyone. Shuqun, the school where I worked at had some guests from Hong Kong 🙂 They about 100 of these students, and they came over to experience what life would be like if they were students in Singapore.

They toured around the different places in Singapore like Bugis, Serangoon, to experience the culture and experienced different things. They even spent the night over at some shuqun student’s houses.

I think thats a splendid idea as this shows how people live. Its not superficial and its real. The right way to experience culture. (Do you hear that Ministry of Tourism?!)




Soft toys being sold. Money collected will be for the needy and poor students of Shuqun.


And my disciple Jean and me. Is it so wrong to want to take a huge bite out of my arm? ROFL!

Time to do a little bit of reading. Till the next time 🙂

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Completely and utterly pointless post

Somewhere on the abandoned planet of laptopia …





What will happen to our heroes? Tune in next time to … bricks in space!

—

Do you ever had one of those days when you just have one of those unexplained, “not good” feelings? I must have experienced one of my panic attacks again yesterday after being feeling overwhelmed by alot of different factors again.

Zuji still hasnt given me my refund (thats a whole months pay for me!)

Airplane tickets has already increased

Payment for my examination fees is already here

I’ve to pay for my geography tuition

And then payments for the economics additional group tuition

Costs for books is surprisingly expensive

My classmate Jaslyn got pepper sprayed on her face and then robbed

My dearest had his car broken in and his laptop stolen

Workload at work is as hectic as ever

Oh my heart cant take it. Thus, the overwhelming feeling and the panic attack again. But I have to keep myself focused on what I’m doing all these for. Its not easy to reach for for our goal and many a times we’ll face hurdles and some of us give up. But if one truely desires for something, one must persevere.

7 more months … 7 more months and I will be free …

—

I dont know why but I found this funny:

On realisation that it was the time of the month and having no supplies ready, I turned to ask my friend

Me : Psst! Do you have a pad?

She : Oh no, my dog died.

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The reopening of Jurong Lake Park

—


Went kayaking with my mum and brother today at the beautiful, newly opened Jurong Lake park. That was a whole load of fun! Initially mum was so afraid of falling in the water while in the kayak but after a short while, she really enjoyed herself pedalling smoothly in the lake that when the time was up, she didn’t even want to leave!

I really like kayaking. It probably started in Outward Bound School I think. One try and I really liked it. One of the more memorable experiences that I had was during the trip to Thailand with my best friends Juli and Hema. We went through mangrove swamps and the open sea and the experience really felt like a discovery channel show with all the nature that we saw.

Hema and guide in the front kayak with me and Juli at the back I miss this. I’d love to go again

Will there be a kayaking club in Jurong, I wonder? The instructors didn’t say, but I think it would be lovely to have one on lakeside, with all the unused water catchment area. I’d join in a heartbeat!

—

Night classes has been interesting. It was lovely to see some friendly faces but that nervous feeling is there. The feeling of unpreparedness, especially after one economics class when the tutor asked us a question and I just sat there feeling very blank.

I turn around to the person behind me.

“I don’t know how to do this. How do you answer it?”

“Oh, when the marginal propriety consumption goes up, the marginal propriety savings goes down. Thus, in the graph, it shifts up and the consumption graph, it pivots. Pretty easy right?”

“Huh? Err .. yeah, yeah yeah … easy …”

Just what the heck are you talking about?

I really need to buck up. I’m just too tired to do anything. Is it possible to have a burnout before anything even started?

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Of night classes and flight agencies

My night classes started already and I was very pleased to see that the General Paper lecturer that taught me last year, Mr Chako, was the one who will be guiding us again this year. There seemed to be just a handful of my previous classmates joining in this year. Majority of them, I’m seeing them for the first time.

Some of them were A level retakers, I realised. The mood was casual, however, I could sense that it was a tinge more serious as compared to last years where there were more happy-go-lucky people.

I am surprised that the ITE department allocated us to the 4th level instead of the 1st level where we were used to. Apparantly, the students at Monks Hill Secondary School, the school where we used for night studies, complained that the classes were always in a dirty state when they come back to school the next day.

I wasnt pleased at having to climb up so much staircase after a hard days work. It was tiring having to go for a one hour bus journey and then walking such a long distance from the bus stop to the school. But what made me extremely displeased was that there were no proper facilities on the 4th floor. There isnt any projector where the lecturer could use to give his demonstrations.

It felt discriminatory.

I’m quite appalled that the school would do that. I can vouch for myself that the classes that I passed by had no evidence of being littered nor messed up.

The least that the principal could do was to at least give a warning before implementing such a harsh treatment like that. We’re paying students. Yes, I realise that we are heavily subsidized but the least we want is to have proper facilities for our lessons.

Sigh

But anyway, it was always an interesting lesson (as always) in which we discussed about the different reasons why people would commit euthanasia. He states 2 different examples:

Firstly, Ramon Sempedro, a Spanish man whom became completely immobile from the neck down due to a diving accident. For 27 years, he enjoyed the support from his family and friends and kept his mind sharp through reading, but finally succumed to depression and wanted to die with dignity.

Secondly, was an exerp from S. Rajaratnam, a former previous deputy minister of Singapore, who recently passed away, wrote:

“This brings me to the question of human rights. The list of rights is growing, but one important right is absent from the list – the right to die with dignity. Neither law, the Constitution, nor even the United Nations Charter of Human Rights makes any reference to a human being’s right to die without indignity and with the least possible pain. Dying should not be prolonged torture”

To what extent does committing suicide be justifiable?

—

I’ve been stressed out trying to book a plane ticket all week now. Fare.net finally responded to my email but I couldnt get to the discounted Emirates flight that I wanted as they claimed that it was fully booked and adviced me to book a higher priced plane ticket with another company. So I called up some agencies from the namecards that I acquired from the Natas fair and guess what was the response?

“Sorry, we dont cater to airline plane ticket sales”

Huh? But the salesperson at the counter at the Natas fair said …

Then I finally gave up. Fine. I’ll use Zuji again. And then I booked a flight with KLM and then I realised that KLM gave me a voucher last year. I’m sure I could use this and so I called up the Customer service. Only to find out that they dont accept vouchers and that If I wanted to do that, I had to book with the airline themselves.

So I quickly checked the KLM website. Guess what? The plane ticket dropped from the initial $1.2k to $950! I was fuming! And my heart palpitations started again …

Cancel my booking! I dont want anymore!

And I quickly tried to do a reservation with KLM instead. But they couldnt process the transaction. Zuji still kept my money and they will only refund it back in 7 working days. In the meantime, I cant do anything with my money being stuck and I dare not spend anymore money with my examination fees, my tuition fees and other payments that I had to do …

O I’m so stressed. Whats wrong with airline agencies? Why do they pressurise me so? This must be some kind of devious torture for us to want to book the ticket fast but dangle a carrot every now and then with a cheaper plane ticket.

O my heart … be still. You’ve been beating so fast, a Bollywood MTV couldnt catch up.

Sigh

Anyway, something nice did happen this week. Sujimi, a former newsreader and currently a producer for the tv show, Hanyut, a reality tv drama came over to the workplace. He did an interesting talk and a demonstration for the students. I quickly asked for a picture before he ran away for his next appointment.

How come celebrities seem to always come when I’m in my glasses and looking very mousy?!?!

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The opening of the new park in Jurong and Natas Fair

The lingerie fair at IMM was lovely. I got myself a stylish pierre cardin bra and panty with matching camisole for only $50 dollars after my old bra trade in when regularly it would cost $40, $14 and $39 individually.

Do you like my new camisole?

I could have gone crazy there though. So many lovelies. And cheaper too. Even some of the ones that I bought just last november went on sale, 2 pairs for $29. Unfortunately the choices were limited though, and some of the lingerie that I saw from the website wasn’t there. And I don’t fancy the dressing room that they had there which was so cramped! There wasn’t enough space to extend my arm forward. It felt a bit coffin-like even.

But anyways all in all I had a whole load of fun with all the lovelies. Great deals like that dont come very often. I’m surprised there wasnt more people coming over though. There were just a handful of ladies when I was there. More for me I guess 😛

After some months of construction, the new Jurong Greens park was officially opened today with a fitness carnival and there were so many people. It was lovely to see so many excited and happy faces as they participated in the various activities.

When I arrived there, there were many people queuing up, waiting for to try out the different games there.

There were many happy children there too, playing with their friends and it was such a delight just to see them laughing and smiling as they played around.

Near the concourse, there were a few activities too, such as the taekwondo and juggling display as well as the break-dancing display.

Soon after came the announcement of the lucky draw winners. Hamish Brown, radio personality for class 95 was there. How funny it was to have him smile in my direction as I casually took a picture 🙂

The happy faces of the proud winners!

Went to the Natas fair at Suntec City afterwards. The Natas fair was where different travel agencies have their annual fair to promote their packages. This is where people were supposed to get good deals. And thus, with the long Easter break coming up as well as the June holidays, there were a huge crowd there, from the ticket booth :

To the entry :

To the inside :

Narima, a ex colleague of mine whom initially wanted to go to Italy complained that it was super crowded and quickly left after spending less than an hour there. I could see what she meant by that.

One of the prettiest display I’ve seen

This poor thing got bullied by kids who kept kicking and poking it. I was tempted to scold them if not for their parents right next to them. Why didn’t they say anything? 0.o

Turns out that the Natas fair was catered more for packaged tours. And I wasn’t interested in that. However, there were about 2 or 3 agencies that offered plane tickets to Rome.

Funnily enough, the prices for the plane tickets weren’t competitive plus most of them said, “You HAVE to book today! Last day!” and I was left to think that I might as well book a ticket online anyway, which I did at fare.net.

I do hope I get a plane ticket.

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I love bras. They are so uplifting.

Oh my, Minoshe has a new website and there’s even more lovelies to drool over!

I want! I want! I want them all!

But Marina, you’ve got so many lingerie already …

But I love them …

But you’ve got enough to last you two years

But I want …

You’re being wasteful

But they are so pretty …

Argh!!!!

The heart is strong but the flesh is weak. Anyway, Minoshe has a promotion at IMM this weekend. Trade in your old bra and get discounts on a new one … hehehe. I think I’ll drop by and take a look. Would be fun I think. 🙂

Cart and I planned to meet again this coming June for our vacation and I was just comparing a few flights from Singapore to Rome and I am flummoxed and quite flabbergasted really, at how fast the price increased in just a span of a week.

When visiting cartcart last year, we used zuji.com.sg to book a flight. It was a smooth and professional transaction by Zuji.com. I liked the way that they did the itineraries, everything was complete, from the plane number to the gate numbers at the stopover.

But it was still kind of pricey, so I thought I’d do a little research myself.

Since I was in the airfrance flight last year which I liked very much, naturally, I went to their website and compared the prices there.

A few clicks later, I found that it was about $900 without taxes, and that sounds pretty good. Let me wait a little bit and see if there are other offers somewhere else.

KLM my inbound flight was slightly more expensive at about 1.2k without taxes.

That was last week.

Today I checked the same flight again and it has increased by at least another $100 dollars … oh my. Plus taxes, it will easily reach 1.5k How now? These flights are costing me more than a month’s pay. Need to find cheaper alternatives.

Juli will be going to the Natas fair this Sunday … I think I’ll tag along too.

O how I wish I was rich. Wonder what I can do for extra money. Any ideas anyone?

  • I can do beautiful studio shoots but it seems like either people don’t want to do it or too shy …
  • I can do digital art but it seems like no one wants my services :

Ahh what can I do? Maybe I’ll try to write some articles and see if there be any publication who wants to buy them. I got to try something after all.

*Goes to sing at the void deck and begs for moolah*