not an ordinary yesterday.
written: 11:41 a.m. on Tuesday, Jul. 04, 2006

Yesterday was unforgettable.

**

I don't even know where to begin to talk about the afternoon, and so I won't. I came home and wrote about it in my diary anyway and I think that's enough.

I did, however, had dinner and a movie (yeah, I know, what a classic dating ritual) with Yun, Pearlyn and Shuting at night and it was super fun. I was about fifteen minutes late and I really don't know how I became the girl who's perpetually late. I remember quite distinctly that I used to be the girl who was always arriving way earlier than she had to in the past.

Anyway, we had dinner at Swensen's, we walked aimlessly around Plaza Singapura, and then we took Neoprints. It was fun! The machine was freaky and after the first couple of shots, this pink cloth suddenly started falling on us and we screamed. It happened a couple of times more and the first time it happened did not serve as warning at all, and so the booth was pretty noisy. When it came to decorating the photos, Pearlyn took the liberty of adding some shit-looking...thing to Yun's neck and forehead, a fat man's half-naked body to my body, and some worm-y thing to Shuting's body. And she did it while Yun and I were busy trying to figure out why the other pen wasn't bloody working! But guess what the worst part was? Pearlyn selected that ugly picure for printing! And I had my face all contorted and ugly in that one. Thanks a lot, pal!

They gave me early birthday presents which really touched me beause I totally did not expect it. Somehow, it seems like we're closer now, and I'm glad, because we did have some pretty good times in secondary school. I know I posted a semi-rant about the new Superman movie in the previous entry, but nonetheless I'm gonna watch it with Yun one of these days.

And the movie we watched last night? Scary Movie 4. Seriously. Yes, seriously, I watched a slapstick comedy. It wasn't the most hilarious thing ever but I couldn't stop laughing the George Bush parts (um, no pun intended), the bit in the Village parody when they were talking about "those of whom we do not speak", and the faux Japanese! Oh, and they screened the trailer for Pulse, which is this Hollywood remake of a Japanese horror movie (Kairo) starring Kristen "Veronica Mars" Bell, whom I absolutely adore. When the trailer started I was all, I'm gonna watch this! Halfway through I was already covering my eyes and recanting and I was all, IS THIS STUPID TRAILER OVER YET!

Yeah, it's bloody scary. I don't think I'm gonna watch it anymore. But I wanna see Kristen Bell in her first major starring role. Damn, why did she choose a horror movie to star in? It's all her fault that I'm now torn.

So that was my night. Cool huh. When I got home it was almost 12. Now that is cool!

**

At Carrefour I thought I saw someone I knew. He had the hair and the bad dress sense and the longish face. I didn't know for sure but it was almost enough to put a damper on my mood. It was unexpected, I didn't think it would ever happen, I'd played such chance occurrences over and over in my head and rehearsed exactly what I'm gonna say if it ever happened, but when faced with the real possibility of it happening I'm rooted to the spot, the mind a total blank.

I hate feeling like a deer caught in the headlights. I need control over my circumstances, I need order, I need to just...know. Standing there in the middle of the fucking supermarket I felt my confidence, my cocky, arrogant confidence that is so dear to me, being shaken up all over again. I hated the person that reduced me to and I've tried hard to get me back and now I'm back, slightly scarred, but it doesn't matter, does it?

It's all water under the bridge.

Duplicitous, evil water.

(That might've been a Veronica Mars quote but I think it's kind of applicable. Kind of. Sort of. Yeah.)

**

A moment that really pissed me off:

I dropped my ATM card when entering Bugis MRT Station; it fell on the floor on the other side of the gentry (is that what you call the flaps that open and close to let people in and out after they've scanned their EZlink cards?). I realised it soon enough and I turned around and tried to pick it up, but of course there were a lot of people behind me and I hesitated.

I hesitated because if I'd seen someone drop something and that something is right in front of me, I would pick it up and give it to the person. It's the decent thing to do, for me it's the instinctive thing to do, but I always, always manage to overestimate the level of consideration of the stupid, fucked up people in this stupid, fucked up country.

The woman behind looked at me, looked at my ATM card, and proceeded to step over it.

That got me quite ticked off, but hey, people are stupid, right? It's a mantra I've learnt by heart over the last few years; nothing too surprising there.

But what got me severely pissed off was the man behind the woman. He stepped on my card. He glanced at it, glanced at me, and just...walked off.

Oh my god. I was too stunned to grab him and give him a piece of my mind. I've seen a lot of rudeness on the MRT from the stupid people of this stupid country, but nothing quite like that. How the hell can a person step on a stranger's ATM card and not pick it up for her? Worse still, he didn't even mutter so much as a fucking apology.

Oh my god. It was so disgusting and it only further reinforced what I've always known: Singaporeans are stupid and Singapore is stupid. There is something awfully wrong with this country and the way we behave. Even something as basic as clearing your own table after a meal in a fast food restaurant is seen as odd here. And it's so funny that people in Taiwan and America and god knows where else practice it all the time.

I'm sorry, Dear Country, but no amount of white-washing and upgrading and foreign-designed monuments will cover up the murk that the average Singaporean carries around.

God, I wish I'd yelled at that stupid man.

**

One last thing before I go off to meet Mel.

Remember this person?

Well, last night at Dhoby Gaut MRT station, he struck again.

I was walking towards the North-South line, pretty much minding my own business...until I felt some weirdo looking at me. I looked up and saw this fugly man smiling at me. In my mind I was like, This fucked up creepy, man; outwardly I smiled back awkwardly and looked elsewhere.

I didn't connect the dots at first, but when he told me that he loved my eyes (and I swear he said, "I love your eyes"), everything clicked. The same person from a year and a few months back who creeped me out at Cineleisure, the same person whose number I threw out, the same person whom I never wanted to see again. Oh, of course my shit luck would have it that I run into all the wrong people, men to whom I'm not the slightest bit attracted and never will be, men that creep me out like fuck with their overt creepiness. God, you should've seen him. He looked even worse than I remember. The teeth that could never be straightened, the sloppy t-shirt and shorts, the oily hair, the flip-flops. GOD WHY IS MY LUCK SO TERRIBLE?

He asked the usual shit about whether I'm local and he managed to put a new spin on things this time by saying that I look ABC (American-Born Chinese, for the uninitiated). Yeah. Whatever. Thankfully he left me alone after a while.

Thankfully he didn't remember me, or at least didn't appear to remember me. When I recognised him I was prepared for some major awkwardness and perhaps a few lines about why I never called or whatever (like I'd ever go out with an ugly creep), but thankfully he had the good sense to detect that I totally did NOT want to talk to him and so he left me alone and we went our separate ways.

If I ever see that person again, I will flip and just give up. Seriously.

How horrendous. I told my mom the incident the first thing I got into her car and she said it was creepy as hell too. She was the one that unknowingly rescued me from spending even more time with him that other time. Needless to say I never told my dad; otherwise I would've had a bodyguard following me around all the time.

The bodyguard in question being my dad himself, of course.

**

I'm late to meet Mel so that's all from me.

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