My Mango dress.
written: 9:52 p.m. on Friday, Apr. 23, 2010

Before I start, I'd like to reproduce the most fantastical quote I've read in quite a while:


"Many women who do not dress modestly ... lead young men astray, corrupt their chastity and spread adultery in society, which (consequently) increases earthquakes," Hojatoleslam Kazem Sedighi was quoted as saying by Iranian media. Sedighi is Tehran's acting Friday prayer leader. (source)

See, it's not even about Islam, which I find very fascinating. It's not even about religion anymore. It's about how anyone with half a brain can actually process a thought along those lines, decide it makes sense, and announce it to the entire world. I'm honestly quite flabbergasted by how such an idiotic conclusion can be reached by a person whom I presume to be of some intelligence (being a prayer leader and all. Hmm, maybe being a religious leader doesn't require any intelligence at all). Women cause earthquakes? Let's not even begin to touch on the utterly sexist accusation that women, being the shedevils that we are, lead poor innocent babe-in-the-woods men astray by our immodest dressing (and thus rape is the woman's fault, not the man's - fuck this shit); let's just focus on the unbelievable cause-and-effect analysis of women dress immodestly -> blah blah -> earthquakes.

The utter buffoonery. Where the hell do these people come from?

*

Still on the topic of stupid people: I am of the opinion that these goddamn Singaporeans should learn how to fucking queue up. When a queue forms by the sides of the train door, the logical thing to do is to stand at the back of the queue, not stand at the side of the line, hoping to squeeze your way through the line of people that were there waiting for the train before you and allowing you to board the train first. The logical thing to do is also NOT to stand at the door because there is no goddamn queue there, and no, you cannot start your own queue.

People that stand at the doors are also utterly inconsiderate. How do they expect passengers to alight first? And since Singaporeans are so stupid, no doubt a throng of people will follow suit and start a queue right at the doors. How are passengers supposed to alight when these same people will no doubt rush onto the train the minute the doors open?

Oh yeah, I forgot - these goddamn Singaporeans don't give a damn about giving way to alighting passengers before boarding, thank you for your cooperation. That's the exact phrase that's repeated over the PA system every other minute. Does anyone listen? Hell no.

Today at Jurong East I queued up to wait for the train to come. The train from Pasir Ris pulled up at the station and the hoarde of people that got off the train to change trains surged towards me. My back was turned to them, but I could hear footsteps pitter-pattering towards me in a hurry, as if they'd die if they didn't board the oncoming train.

But there I was, standing at the back of the queue, minding my own business, when suddenly this fat kid showed up on my right. This was despite the fact that there were about 3 or 4 people behind me. I was annoyed, but decided to ignore him. Then, out of nowhere, his mother showed up on my left. She was a short, non-descript looking ah soh with thinning hair and a figure that had seen much better days (maybe I'm giving her too much credit). I didn't know she was Fat Kid's mother until she reached for him - stretched out her arm in front of my body and reached for him, simultaneously telling him that the floor was wet (was gonna reproduce her pronunciation of "wet" but I've forgotten what it was).

I fucking refused to budge. I stared at her incredulously and she made a face with an expression I couldn't decipher. But no word of apologies, no "excuse me", no-fucking-thing. What the hell is this? So I fucking refused to budge. It also didn't help that my head felt stupendously heavy throughout the whole MRT ride and the congestion of human bodies, thus polluting the air, didn't make me feel any more comfortable.

I usually give chance to old people when they don't queue up or when they block the right side of escalators. But this auntie today and her fat son just pissed me off. They represented the worst of Singapore society - the utter absence of civic consciousness, the total disregard for other people, the poverty of anything that dares hope to resemble consideration. Am I really living in the same country as these people? Am I really? Shit, I can't wait to go back to Taipei where the people are actually civilised and queue to board the MRT and stand on the right so as to let people who are in the hurry walk up/down the escalator on the other side, and possess enough shame not to take up the reserved seat when they're perfectly normal.

I know I rant about this a lot, but the mere fact that I'm still ranting about it shows that the situation hasn't improved much. The absolute worst is the reserved seats issue. Everyone is tired after a long day at work. Everyone wants to sit down. So nothing gives you the right to get the seat over me, but the elderly or disabled or pregnant deserve the seat over everyone else because they need it more, and thus it is reserved for them. Simple fucking logic and these goddamn Singaporeans still don't get it, or choose not to fucking care.

This subject makes me so angry. I'm gonna talk about happy things now.

*

Wei Chuen is the sweetest ever. We went shopping at Orchard last night to replace the botched half of the Christmas present that he got me. He bought me a couple of dresses from ASOS.com and one of them was too tight around the ribcage since I have an unusually large ribcage. It fit everywhere else - awesome fit around the waist, was of a decent length, but couldn't zip up when it got to my chest because my ribcage was in the way. He sent it back and I'd already chosen which dress I wanted as replacement, when we both realised it was damn hard to decide on which size. Both dresses were UK 6. One fit, one didn't. I took forever to decide between UK 6 and UK 8 until he proposed to just take me shopping here and replace the dress, so that we'd know for sure it'd fit.

He's a smart boy, yes?

We had dinner at this Japanese place in Ion whose name I've forgotten. It was actually quite good. I ordered hon-something ramen - cold ramen with vegetables, including kimchi. I also ordered cream croquette with crab meat and scallop which was really good. He ordered seafood baked rice which was really good and pan-fried pork dumplings which was bad by virtue of the fact that it was pork, the poor pig. For dessert I ordered some brownie with ice-cream thing which was okay-ish and he ordered Mango yogurt drink which he thought I'd like but which I thought was tasteless, and if it tasted of anything, it tasted of water. (To be fair, after drinking Indian mango lassi, I can't drink mango yogurt drink anywhere else - not even the sacred TCC.)

We ordered all those food and the bill was $49.20 or something along those lines. Good food at affordable prices. Good place. Thankfully we went in a little bit before 7; 10 minutes after we sat down, a queue had formed outside. It's apparently authentic from Japan (okay the name starts with either T or W and is something like T/W_a_a_i, the dashes being the missing consonants which I can't remember) but I wouldn't know. And also? I hate Japanese food as a rule so my opinion may be flawed. I think the main reason I liked my ramen was because it actually had taste. Japanese food is generally too subtle for me to appreciate; I find it quite tasteless, and if it tastes of something, it's sweet, and it's not the Thai kind of sweet. It's the disturbing, "why the hell is my rice so sweet and salty at the same time" kind of disturbing.

Anyway, I was damn full after dinner and I think he was too. We walked around Ion looking for something nice to buy but came up empty-handed depsite covering almost all of the shops in the basement levels. At 9, we walked to Wisma where I tried Dorothy Perkins and Miss Selfridge and even Forever 21 ("even" because I hardly go there for their dresses) but couldn't find anything to buy too. Out of desperation, I dragged him to Isetan where I went to Mango again and finally tried on three dresses. He was hijacked by his sister for a while, whom we ran into outside Isetan, so he didn't see the first dress I tried on. And good thing, too - the boob area was disturbingly squishy and the bottom of a dress had a layer of ruffles that made me look like I was pooping ruffles ("pooping fabric" is courtesy of one of the judges on Project Runway). That was not a good dress.

The second dress I tried on was yet another black dress with a wide skirt that was flirty and yet still rather conservative. I stuck my head out of the fitting room and saw him standing diligently outside, waiting for me. I went out; he said, "You look very nice. But it's yet another black dress. But it's very nice."

The last dress I tried on had this gorgeous blue-ish print. Unfortunately, it opened funny at the front hem and quite literally clung onto me, such that my stomach stuck out for all to see. The top part of the front of the dress also sat weirdly on me. He liked the colours but agreed that it fit funny.

We decided on the black dress despite the fact that I have like ten million black dresses. Before payment I found out that there was a white version and tried that on but it was too translucent, so we decided on the black. I told him to pay $50 and I'd pay the rest as I didn't want him to spend so much on a dress when I don't even spend that much on a dress; but he refused. He didn't even care about the 3% discount I would've gotten with my supplementary Isetan card.

I'm a very happy girl. And we walked so much that I felt like I did some exercise, and all the while holding the hand of the boy that I loved.

The boy that I love is also a blur sotong. He was at Republic Plaza at 6-plus yesterday but didn't make the connection. That is, to ME. The fact that I was also in bloody Raffles Place. If I'd known I would've gone to meet him or had him come meet me.

He's cute, right? I know.

*

Okay gonna shower and maybe watch the Hades episde of Clash of the Gods. I love this series, by the way. Awesome.

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