A supposedly good concert with a world renowned pianist in a state of the art concert hall: expectedly the best birthday gift I’ve ever received, was disappointing to say the least. But the great people I sat with and spent the rest of the night with made the concert worthwhile, and the birthday special.

Thank you everyone for coming, especially the last VIP surprise guest Liu Xi: it was great having you around tonight. Tonight really made me feel special.

“LC” or not, I think it was a great decision to drink simple wines in styrofoam cups at our usual spot on the rooftop terrace; it was better than the best ambiance that any bar can provide. Thank you for staying out late with me, I enjoyed the school stories, reminiscing the lab mishaps, “apparently annihilation” and all that jazz, ahem* classical, about Beethoven, Chopin, Liszt, Handel and Hadyn.

You may think I’m drunk to say this, but who cares about the bad acoustics and prickly grass, it really is the company that counts, and I’m glad no, ecstatic, that I have you.

The teenagers on vacation jobs at Kbox must be really puzzled when they passed by our cubicle.

Karaoke outings with nostalgic me and my bunch of nostalgic friends has always been for songs from the decades passed. The songs we sang on the bus while going out for primary school excursions. Sappy love songs with music videos of heavily made up singers wearing padded blouses, and the loud band songs with ridiculous dance moves and outfits that never leave out the skin-tight leather trousers. Once, we even put on songs from our mothers’ generation.

It’s never about pitch perfect singing at karaokes. It’s precisely the songs that are impossible to sing without going off-key, voice breaking and bursting into laughter at some point in time that are so fun. Somehow, retro songs do the trick. Old songs always give me the feeling of “they never make them anymore”. Or maybe it just takes the going-out-of-fashion part to put the enjoyment  into some things.

Yesterday, when I told my dad I was going to karaoke, he was surprised and asked me, “But why? I don’t even hear you sing at home.”

Well, at karaoke sessions, we laugh more than we sing, which is where all the enjoyment is.

I finally have the answer to a friend’s question.

“What would you choose to have if you could suddenly have a superpower?”

At that time, the question completely caught me by surprise. So I gave a lame “there’s nothing I really want, I’m happy as it is” or something to that effect. The proper and better answer comes a good 2 years after.

Teleportation. Yes, definitely teleportation.

I can only fully appreciate Nightcrawler’s gift after Saturday, when I realized I had stupidly left something in school when I needed to pass it to someone somewhere else. That means a good 2 hours wasted just to travel to and back to retrieve it. It’s a small problem, but also an extremely irritating one. Teleportation would save all the traveling time that I suspect wastes a good 20% of my life.

The very next day, I made my first trip to Ubin, an ambitious cycling and hiking full day outing on mountainous roads for someone who has otherwise led a relatively sedentary lifestyle. According to a signboard, legend has it that Pulau Ubin and Pulau Sekudu were created when an elephant, pig and frog all lost a race and were therefore turned into rocks with mutated single-pincer crabs digging holes into their backs.

Imagine, if they had learnt teleportation, the race would have been completely redundant, and we would have saved a lot of money on boat trips and rent for the van. My friend would also have been saved from her 2 bad falls on what was meant to be her birthday outing.

Nonetheless, it was enjoyable and I realized how much I missed biking. My legs are not aching as much as I imagined it would. But my neck hurts. It appears that the steamboat dinner after that might have been more strenuous than the biking.

Christmas-
The time of partying, meeting up with friends, class outings, unable-to-get-movie-tickets-ing.
The time of giving, shopping, sales, unable-to-get-that-sale-item-ing.

With Christmas here and new year round the corner, it’s the perfect excuse to be out boosting the economy. Perfect time for the shops to clear their warehouses of leftover, out-of-season inventory. So the shops dig out their sale signboards and leftover sale items, hang them all out or dump them in a trolley and crowds will appear, as if on cue, at their stores.

Yeah. Scores flock to Orchard like there’s no tomorrow.

I went shopping (more like, attempted shopping) with my sister last week and we met a quarter of Singapore in the corridor leading from Wisma to Taka, a quarter in Mango (50% off! selected items) and the remaining half between us and all sale items. If it weren’t for the necessary, I would rather be rotting at home with Monopoly Online.

Don’t get me wrong. I love shopping, and I love sales. I’m the kind who shamelessly make for the bargain/sale corner the minute I enter a store. So I perfectly understand this thrifty (cheapskate) mentality.

But this kind of shopping is draining. It’s draining enough to watch. People elbow their way to the sale items, dig through the whole mess of clothes, bags and shoes in a trolley and then queue up for the fitting rooms like it was for the ten million dollar TOTO ticket.

No thank you. I would prefer to go stroll in Orchard on some relaxing weekday afternoon and discover (to my surprise) a sale I can make use of, then return home feeling happy and accomplished.

Stay home, on a public holiday.