[Saturday, 21 April, 2007]

I was working halfway when my elder brother suddenly asked if I wanted to have noodle. It was quite rare for he usually cooked for himself without asking. Thus, I continued with my work till a later hour even though I planned to sleep early. It was around 4.30am when I went to bed.

I waked up at around 9am and got myself ready to take bus 80 to reach Lorong Ah Soo by 11am. I alighted at the right bus-stop but decided to cut through the flats. I was walking parallel to the main road further away but soon, I realised I had to change my direction to the right and again to the right; which seemed ghostly.

I was early and sat at the usual stone table. I saw two guys dressed neatly and I guessed correctly that they were the contractors cum designers. Mingfa called just as Sally arrived. We went up to the flat but sadly, Milo’s door was closed and thus I could not play with him. I followed Sally and the contractors around the house and realised there were many renovation jobs to be done. After that, I had some chats with Sally along the way slowly until we reached the next block.

While walking back to the bus-stop, I was busy messaging my two teams’ members for the upcoming Rip Curl beach volleyball tournament as I had decided how to group them. I took bus 80 home and started dozing off on the bus.

When I reached home, I realised the massage chair had arrived. My younger brother bought it for my mum’s birthday and I thought that was really crazy for it was expensive and my house was already so cramped. Anyway, it was placed at my mattress’ location and I knew I had nowhere to sleep at night again like before they started packing the room.

I started a new site to create another “bronze goose” to lay money for me, which did not even start off for I was already having problems with the previous one. Before I could do much, Kaven called me and asked me to meet him out for dinner.

Jianhao finally called me back and told me the Redhill close owners did not mind my Vietnamese tenant to stay in their house. With all the efforts to confirm the timing and sudden message from princess that she had confirmed with another team to participle in the Rip Curl beach volleyball competition, I was in a mess once again. When I got down, Kaven was already waiting there for me.

I was feeling very low but tried hard to appear normal. Kaven drove me to Bukit Timah Shopping Centre where he went to withdraw money and we went to the opposite chain of food stalls to take our dinner. We ordered chicken, dou fu and a plate of prawn with vegetable. It was his treat once again, which was near forty bucks.

Next destination was the petrol station further down. After refilling the tank, I was stunned to witness a driver trying to park his car in front. He had to do a parallel parking and that he went in straight from the front and I thought he was very good with parking. Nevertheless, he made a turn out immediately and went in from the back of his car. The petrol station’s staff was trying to guide the way but it seemed hopeless and the car even hit the hose which was hanging in the air. I saw there was no “P” plate and that driver should be experienced enough but Kaven guessed he did not even have a license, which was quite true.

Soon, we realised a big problem, which was the car was parked too far away from the kiosk, blocking our way. Kaven reversed the car and tried to take another lane to leave but it was blocked by cars parking by the side. In the end, the staff told us to take the entrance out. It was so pathetic and luckily we managed to leave before a car tried to turn into the petrol station.

We went to his rented house and I waited at the parking lot as usual. Afterwards, he sent me to Redhill MRT and I realised I was more than half an hour earlier for the appointment to meet up with Khoa to view the flat. Since I had just taken dinner and that I took chilli, I went to the 7-11 store to buy a packet of sweet to keep my mouth refreshed. I went to the stone “beach” when a female smoker left. A quite pretty girl came over and sat besides me.

At 8pm, Khoa called and told me he had reached the flat at block 14. Since I had told him to meet at the MRT station, I was caught off guarded and had to rush over. He was a young guy, schooling in a new university nearby. The owners seemed to be very pleased with him even though they were unable to communicate due to language problem. I had to do all the translation and the owners were very chatty that they did not answer to my questions most of the time. Thus, we stayed quite long up there and since I had heard most of the stories during the previous visit, I had some cold sweat. We were able to come to a deal in the end but Khoa wanted to consider over it even though he had promised me earlier that he would give an answer immediately.

I took bus 145 home and started working. The falling of stock price was pulling my mood down furthermore; I could not help it if AdSense pay me only $0.01 for each click.

The delay of the rental deal and the falling of the “shares price” were kerosene added to my earlier fire, burning down my entire city of hopes. Perhaps, my dreams were shattered since before leaving the house.