a couple of bad encounters, and then some.
written: 8:39 p.m. on Thursday, Feb. 17, 2005

I went for the interview on the pretext that it's an admin work job that pays $7/hour, which sounded bloody good to me (of course, when I was on the phone with the guy from Recruit Express, I forgot all about CPF). I mean, look, not only is the pay more than what I got at my previous job, I was also paid more to sit down in front of a computer and do nothing but type and enjoy nice air-con. Hello?! Dream come true and all?

But of course, because I am me, things always have to have a catch; and yesterday was not exempt.

So the short of it is that I went down to Ngee Ann City Tower A, where I filled up an application form (I still don't really know what that was for) at Recruit Express and then was briefed by the consultant on the job scope. Prior to that, I still thought that it was an admin job - one which requires no long-hours standing and other discomforts along those lines which I am very bloody sick and tired of. But guess what? Halfway through the conversation, he told me, "This job is 90% admin and 10% roadshows. You may be called down to do roadshows from time-to-time."

Already I was like, "What the fuck roadshows?!" in my head. But still, 10% sounded quite reasonable, and hey, it might even be fun!, I thought. So when the guy told me to go to Haw Par Centre at 4.45 p.m., hence shattering my plans of shopping around a bit before I headed home, I MRT-ed down after hanging around at Zara for like ten minutes.

Starhub's office was surprisingly small; at least, the one that I was at wasn't big anyway. They chucked me in a room with about six other people and I filled up a double-sided application form. Ten years later, one of the staff called me out where I took an actual typing test.

That was hilarious as hell, really. The woman told me to take a seat, and so I sat on the nice comfortable chair and proceeded to look at her expectantly. A few seconds passed with neither of us doing anything, and then she suddenly said, "You can start the typing test now."

Right. Thanks for politely informing me that it was what I was supposed to do, after you've started the stopwatch. How nice. But anyway, I was actually slightly nervous and so the first few words were extremely screwed up. After a while though, I began to get into the swing of things and started typing really fast, without even looking at the keyboard. It was fun.

But my real point is, the job sucks. After waiting for ten more years, five other people and I were called into a room with two women working at Starhub. They told us about the job, and guess bloody what?

It's fucking shittified 50% admin and 50% roadshow.

Who the hell ever said that I wanted to do roadshows? Hello? And the worst part? I have to work on weekends.

Ugh. I'd rather be jobless than to sacrifice my weekends. So um, yeah, I'm just gonna look for other jobs.

The reason I said that I'm not gonna get the job is because I told the interviewers that I hated my previous job due to all the standing that I had to do. That was before I knew that the job involves roadshows. After they told us (there were six people in the fucking retarded interview) that roadshows take up half of the job description, I was like, "Right, there goes my chances."

But hell, I don't want it anyway.

Interestingly, the people in my batch, so to speak, were all JC students. Three females from VJC and two males. When I overheard the two males talking whilst waiting for something to happen after I'd taken the silly typing test, I honestly thought that they were some ITE/neighbourhood school/sub-par Poly students, because of the crass and disgusting way in which they were speaking. Like, you know, typically Singaporean bad Chinese and really lousy English, ie. at least one grammatical/pronounciation error every two words and all.

But during the interview, when we were doing the introduce-yourself thing, I found out, to my horror, that one of them was from Hwa Chong JC and the other, National JC.

OH MY GOD. Their English was so much worse than some of the lousiest Arts students in Jurong Junior, no shit.

So that was the failed Starhub job interview.

I'm getting damn sick of this too-long holiday. I WANNA GO TO SCHOOL!!!!!!!

Right. Anyway, something stupid happened on the MRT yesterday, when I was on my way to Orchard. I'd just transferred trains from Raffles Place to the Woodlands direction; at Dhoby Gaut, three guys entered the carriage (cabin? whatever). I was sitting at one of the two-seater seats...right, abysmal description, but who the hell cares what MRT seats are called, right?

So anyway, the three guys stood by the door, next to where I was seated. At first, I didn't notice anything out of the ordinary; I continued day-dreaming about the day that I will finally meet Jielun and have him fall in love with me, things like that, until I saw, from the corner of my eye, that the guy nearest to me kept turning around to look at me (his back was to me).

Then I heard them talk. God, the agony! More atrocious Singaporean-styled disgusting, cacophonous Mandarin. I didn't catch all that they said to each other, just a few key phrases (translated into English):

A. "You scared ah?"
B. "No lah, the most get whacked in MRT lor."
C. Something something cannot find girlfriend something something.

That was suspicion. Confirmation came in the form of something so fucking retarded that I still cannot believe that it actually happened. So you see, I was sitting on the seat with the glass panel thingy on my left; there's this gap between the railing and the glass panel, right? So the guy who was turning around to look at me leaned against the glass panel, stuck his hand in between the gap, and wiggled his fingers, as if trying to get my attention.

Well hell, you had my attention, but you were too damn stupid for me to even bother with a response. I ignored him and continued to stare at the door (where I could see their reflection and the shit they were trying to pull). But those boneheads did not get the hint, oh no they didn't. The same guy proceeded to walk towards me, hovering in front of me, and it was so damn obvious that he wanted to say something to me but was too damn chicken to.

God, if there's anything I dislike more than ugly guys, it's ugly guys without guts. And the funniest thing? That same guy was apparently trying to pick me up for his friend. When the train finally arrived at Orchard, I stood in front of the doors and waited for it to open; simultaneously, the same guy went, "Ay, dao le." (We've reached.) He dawdled tentatively towards me, stood next to me; the doors opened, and he said to me, "Wo de peng you jiao [insert name]." (My friend is called [insert name].)

Riiiiiiiight. When I told my mom the story, she gave me a fucking good comeback: HOW THE HELL IS THAT MY GODDAMN BUSINESS?

But I said nothing; reflex action was to turn my head to the right about 3 degrees, roll my eyes, and walk off.

It would've perhaps helped the preposterous situation a little if the guys were even slightly good-looking, but they weren't. It might've helped if they had even the slightest aota of confidence, but they didn't. If you want to talk to someone, just go up to that person and talk to her. Hello? Anything less and you'll look like a class A loser.

Why do I always seem to attract really sub-par human beings? Yuck.

On a slightly brighter note, I saw this drop-dead gorgeous guy at Mos Burger Parkway Parade today when I went there to get my lunch. I didn't notice him until I was walking to the counter and saw him looking at me. But you see, I am a very shy person (seriously!) and so I looked away and pretended not to care.

Too bad he left two minutes after I entered though, which made my wait for my food extremely boring and eye candy-less.

I like basketballers. I like writers/poets. I like musicians. I like Chinese men, and Asian men. I may even like economists, provided they aren't nerdy-looking.

But I think above all else, I like writers. Nothing turns me on more than an orgasmic intellectual stimulation of the brains. And that is why I still wanna marry Julian Barnes.

The thing is, Jielun is adolescent idol-worship and the nice Chinese boyfriend; Joaquin Phoenix is the mature adult hot and exciting lover (minus the smoking); and Julian Barnes is the type that I will almost certainly marry, if given the chance.

I have kind of lost track of which is the cause and which is the effect: am I not marrying because I know that I can never find someone whom I'd like for more than two months, or do I keep myself from liking someone for more than two months (after getting to know the person well enough, that is) because I don't want to marry?

But think about it: what are the chances that I'd find someone who writes as well as Julian Barnes? Like he wrote in chapter "Shipwreck" of "A History of the World in Ten and a Half Chapters", "a drop in the ocean."

Yes, I know, my entries are all over the place, but I just write whatever comes to mind and I don't care much for form and organisation so what the hell.

So last night - or rather, early this morning - I finished, in two hours, the first draft of another Slam Dunk yaoi fic that I'd been struggling to start on for months. This time, Rukawa dumps Mitsui and Rukawa's the one calling the shots. Bwahahahaha. I think Mitsui's rather out of character, which is damn bad since he's my soulmate and I'm supposed to get him exactly right.

But it was hard to write about heartbreak and describe it when I don't know how it feels like.

But I like stream of consciousness a lot. It's time I read some real stream of consciousness; may pick up Virginia Woolf the next time I visit Borders/Kinokuniya. But I still have a lot of new and unread books, and I'm still reading "History of the World", so I don't know.

Oh well.

before sunrise // before sunset

Previously:
- - Tuesday, Aug. 29, 2017
I'm moving. - Sunday, Jul. 11, 2010
In all honesty - Tuesday, Jul. 06, 2010
What I want for my birthday... - Sunday, Jul. 04, 2010
On Roger's behalf. - Friday, Jul. 02, 2010