Random Weirdness

Every night at around this time (1am), my toaster and big tower clock makes a lot of noise. Banging and squeaky noises like there’s something trying to get out.

I stare at the toaster, open it and shift it around, shake it up a little. The noise stopped. Good.

Metal and wood contracting at night.
It better be.

It helps to act like an atheist at times like this.

How Often Do You Stop to Think?

Time: 8.10pm
Venue: On bus 56, on the way home.

Unable to take a nap now, what I mostly do on the bus, because I’ve to change to another. Somehow, though the body’s programmed to identify “home” even when asleep, it is not programmed to identify “stop to change bus”.

Today, I bought this notepad, not for the purpose of “bus blogging”, but to take down some notes because I’m asked to go for work pretty last minute. But, I’m a person of convenience. Since the pen and paper is within reach, I just took them out and vandalize on these few sheets of bleached-to-bright-white paper.

I plopped my ass on the first seat of this bus, with only the words “grumpy”, “irritable”, “exhausted”, “stressed”, “tired”, “PMS-y” on my mind. Then urgently made a few calls to settle the air rifle training camp tomorrow. (An old man just boarded this bus, pressing his chest to the card scanner to scan the EZ-link card in his shirt pocket. There are lazier people than me around.)

The urgent need to rant hit me. What better way to rant than to write? And rather than waiting to get home for internet or risk screwing up my wireless internet access by trying to randomly connect to wireless networks, I picked up this pen and paper within reach.

This post should not degenerate to nothing but a rant about my day and a chronological record of my bus trip. So I should stop here, and write what I wanted to write about. After all, I wrote the title to this post first.

Can this post be considered “stopping to think”? Stopping while traveling at 50km/h on this rickety bus.

- break, alight to change bus -

What prompted me to write about this, was one question my prof asked me today.

Prof: “What are you planning to do this coming summer?”
Me: (shifty eyes) “I’m applying for internships.”
Prof: “So what areas are you looking to?”
Me: (…)

Prof was very nice to offer his help, suggesting that I drop him an email so he could help me arrange something. What struck me was that I haven’t took the time to seriously consider what I wanted to do, and someone else was already offering to help me.

I knew full well that this weekend was the only time left for me to decide and send in the applications, with at least 2 bank internships’ deadlines being next Wednesday. But so are the half a dozen reports and homework and all the studying I need to do because I’m seriously behind time.

So, it’s time to stop and think.

And I’m not thinking about the right stuff. I’m only wondering how often you will really get to stop and think, while

- pause, board 2nd bus -

(“走进一点，来，麻烦帮忙走进一点”)
Translation: “Move inside, please help, move inside”, the bus driver said as I packed myself into the bus filled to the steps.

(Can’t write properly while hanging on to a pole in a crowded bus.)

—

So that ended experiment one of “blogging” on a bus trip.

Here’s to pick up from where I left in the notepad.

How often do you really get to stop and think, think about what you want and plan how you are going to achieve it? It is getting quite frustrating, how everyday I’m just fighting fire and meeting deadlines. You know there are more important things to do, you know you need to sit down and figure things out a bit. But right now, it’s living by the day, and any plans for tomorrow just seems to get disrupted and I’ll end up being derailed to do something else.

How I dread my phone and my emails now. They are the biggest stress creators in modern life. Yet, I just can’t turn the phone off, or not check my email accounts for more than 2 hours (other than when I’m sleeping). How do you deal with that anxiety when the email server is down for more than 5 minutes? Or that itch you can’t scratch when you realize you’ve left your phone at home or it’s running out/completely out of battery? It is ironic that whenever the email is down and the phone is out, I just can’t concentrate on doing anything, suddenly unsure, as though my schedule has become dictated by the people who set fire on my work desk.

Trying to find the time, and the mood for that matter, to plan beyond a month seems impossible. How do you draw up plans for digging a new well, when your eyebrows have caught fire and you have banged your head on the wall one too many times to put the fire out?

Perhaps it’s this lack of thinking, and lack of planning, that everyone seems to hate their job – they just take whatever’s available; and why they hate their spouse – they just marry the person they wake up to one morning.

No wonder life sucks.

But today, I spoke to this person so unusually happy with her life when you just can’t see what’s there to be so happy about.

She’s about my age (slightly younger) and not as educated as most of the people I know, meaning she has difficulty adding up the sums for a transaction that involved a few products with different quantities and a discount. But she’s such a bubbly, happy and enthusiastic young girl, unlike the zombies I see around in school.

She is a full-time shopkeeper at a store, her first job. Everyday, she sits in the store alone for long hours, her solitude broken occasionally by a customer who wanders in.

Me: “Don’t you get bored alone here?”
She: “A little. But I can pop by the neighbors and talk to them. Hahaha…“
Me: “So you are very close?”
She: “Yeah! Hahaha… We’re quite close.”
Me: “Do you have internet connection?”
She: “No. Hahaha…”
Me: (pretty horrified by her job by now) “So what do you do all day?”
She: “Oh, I can make the [products] look like they’re asking the customers to buy them! Hahaha… Like arrange them, the ones on the shelves, in the buckets… Hahaha… I can replenish the supplies when they are out! Hahaha…“
Me: “Do you like [products]?”
She: “Yeah! I like them! Hahaha… Do you? Hahaha…“
Me: “Er… ok.”
She: “Hahahahahahaha…“

I couldn’t understand. If I were her, I would expect myself to be furiously planning for the next job. So I went on asking.

Me: “Have you thought of what would be your next job?”
She: “No! Hahaha… I like working here, and the boss is very nice. Hahaha…“

Ha Ha Ha.
She is so happy it makes you jealous. And it makes me feel like a bastard, a huge moronic showoff when I tried to teach her how to do her sums.

She is so much better than us in so many ways. Working 66 hours a week and being so happy and enthusiastic about her work she can remember the names of the hundreds of products in the store (as well as the prices and many of the product codes) that I could barely even tell apart. Besides, her job isn’t even cool or exciting. She doesn’t travel around, meet people, learn new things. Her world is pretty much confined to that shop.

It feels horrible, that us, with more opportunities and luck in life, are complaining about every darn thing. School, applying for jobs, not getting the job and the work when we get the job. Even food. And we get to choose what we want to eat and where. She gets her meals 6 days a week from the friendly janitor who helps her buy her lunch.

But she doesn’t need to plan. We do. Well, at least I do. Because I don’t know what I want and I don’t like what I might end up doing if I don’t plan.

I wonder if needing to plan is a pain or a privilege.

Overheard

Yesterday afternoon, as I was sitting at the table with the Bloomberg terminals (possibly one of the few seats left in the library), a group of guys noisily approached the machine beside mine to get some data for their project.

While logging into Bloomberg, Mr. Well-informed decided to update his friend on his latest discovery around school.

Well-informed dude: “Hey, do you know the QF students have an entire room of Bloomberg terminals to themselves?”

(Me: We do? Oh, this I gotta hear!)

Unsuspecting friend: “Really! Where?”

Well-informed dude: “At the concourse, where SOA is. It’s an entire room of computers like this one (points at the Bloomberg terminal in front of him), with 2 screens!”

Unsuspecting friend: “How did you know?”

Well-informed dude: “I walked past and saw it. The door says ‘QF Computer Lab”. It’s so unfair! The QF students have an entire room full of Bloomberg terminals to themselves, but it’s empty most of the time! While the entire school has to fight for these 2 terminals in the library.”

(Me: rofl!)

Well-informed dude: “It’s really A COMPUTER LAB.”

No doubt about that, it is a computer lab, with 20 computers connected to 2 monitors each. But not all computers with 2 screens are Bloomberg terminals, idiot.

Wrong-side-of-bed Day

Feels like I woke up in a different world today.

Turned off my phone’s alarm twice, and both alarms were set for the same time,

A girl sitting near me in the library had her phone pressed to her ear playing out loud some chinese pop song…on loop.

Saw a girl wearing slippers 2 sizes too small, walking around with half her heel on the ground.
Another dressed in 70s chic – checkered shirt tied at waist over tight black top and tight black pants.
And a guy in a polo tee sewed out of colourful rectangles of cloth.
(Was it all that guitar loaded 70s rock I was listening to before I slept last night?)

Now as I sit in the library killing time, the girl sitting opposite me has suddenly began smiling (ridiculously) to herself.

Heaven is…

Def Leppard!

Hell, Heaven is such an awesome name.

Wasn’t in a good mood and since I was on the way to get a new pair of earphones, I thought I might as well drop by the CD shop to pick up some angry music screaming evil, self-destruction and impending doom to test out the new earphones.

Was trying to decide which Iron Maiden album to buy when this humble Def Leppard album on the same shelf of heavy metal music caught my eye. Having just some vague idea that they are a rather famous 80s band, I thought I’ll give them a chance. 80s hippie band stuff can’t be too bad, right? Especially one that says “Best of”.

So I came home, plugged in the new earphones, put the CD into the CD drive and gingerly set the volume to a mid-low range, just to be safe. Then came the happy, catchy pop-rock tune of “Pour some sugar on me”. After the first few songs, I sampled songs beginning with the very familiar “When Love and Hate Collide”. Wow, a classic.

And I went on to be pleasantly surprised by an entire CD of good old 80s, 90s classic rock.

Especially liked this Rock ‘n Roll number “Heaven is”, happy music that lifts the spirits immediately. Check out the retro lyrics, it’s hard not to smile listening to it. The video for those not afraid of long hair 80s band.

I’m ashamed to be in the generation of “under my umbrella ella ella eh eh…”.

Hey boys, Miss Magic is back
No Hollywood waste or tinsel trash
A street kid, she’s no stray cat
Heaven on legs she’s a feline flash
Takes a good woman to play a good man
And no one plays like heaven can

She said leave your name at the sound of the tone
Call you right back when I get home
Better watch out when we’re all alone

Heaven is a girl I know so well
She makes me feel good when I feel like hell
Heaven is a girl that I’ve got to have
And she makes me feel better when I’m feelin’ bad

Hey guys, Miss Magic is mine
No silicone smile, she’s a vintage wine
Bombshell blonde, red lipstick on
Aqualine fine, she’s a real wild one

She said leave your name at the sound of the tone
Call you right back when I get home
Better watch out when we’re all alone

Heaven is a girl I know so well
She makes me feel good when I feel like hell
Heaven is a girl that I’ve got to have
And she makes me feel better when I’m feelin’ bad
Heaven is a girl that makes dreams come true
Oh, no one does it good like heaven do, no

She got the rhythm to drive me crazy
She got the rhythm of love