Blackout in 10 Raeburn Park

Posted on February 21, 2011 by S

[Thursday, 17 February, 2011]

I went to sleep at 2am with Lucky. I dozed off faster than usual because I was too tired.

My mum woke me up after 9am just because Lucky shit on the floor. My stomach was not well again and I had noodle for late breakfast.

I went to the office at 1pm. I was too lazy to do chin-up since the weather was too hot and I did not want to sweat more. It was not long after I booted up the laptop when the first blackout happened. I started going outside to crap with the aunties. I realised it had happened a few times before and it only affected our block – block B.

My eyes were tired again but I struggled on with the tuition agency’s administration page. I started blogging after that and reached home by 7.30pm because my mum wanted to have steamboat on the fifteen day of lunar calendar.

It was a tiring night for me as I continued with the planning of the tuition agency website for tutors to apply with tuition assignments.

Second Movie with Family for the Year

Posted on February 10, 2011 by S

[Saturday, 5 February, 2011]

My brothers and my elder brother’s girlfriend started playing monopoly deal game in the room. Lucky joined us but he was moving around to change his sleeping position, unlike my mum could sleep throughout at the corner. Lucky, however, refused to stop farting. After the game, I continued with SEO work for the quit smoking site and went to bed after 7.30am.

My mum woke me up before 11am to get ready for movie. We went to Great World City to catch the movie “It’s a Great Great World”. Since we were in a rush, we did not take breakfast before that. It was a good movie and I enjoyed the pieces of stories inside. It was filmed in a humorous and touching way.

We went home after dropping by the pet shop. We had steamboat at home for our first meal of the day. I started dozing off and by the late afternoon, everyone was out of the house. I continued sleeping with Lucky using my chest as his pillow as usual unless 7pm.

I started playing a game in Command and Conquer before watching my favourite show on channel 8 – Zheng He Xia Xi Yang.
Skai Chan @ http://sillydumb.com

A Thought of Beautiful Life

Posted on May 30, 2010 by S

[Saturday, 29 May, 2010]
I got to rest a while by having a Command and Conquer game with my elder brother. By then, my effort in managing my new Facebook Page had brought in more than five thousand fans. I knew the figure would increase more.
My mind could never stop working then. I knew I was able to reach out to many young Singaporeans and it also meant I could do something to help those in need, in term of mentality poverty. The first person I could think of to work with was Hirman, the greatest creative educator who would do beyond his limit to help the youngsters. It was the greatest goal I had in mind to change all the selfish and wrong thinking of human beings, which was far from possible, even though I had already started http://sobeautifullife.blogspot.com.
Somehow, I blamed myself for I had not started looking for job and yet I was thinking of non-profit work again. It was 8am when I hit the bed.
I woke up at 2pm. I tried asking Hirman if he wanted to meet up. I contacted Joei but she had a concert to attend and could only meet us up after 11pm, which was quite late. In the end, the plan was cancelled and I would have to wait until Friday before I could meet the group of wonderful educators at Zaki’s house for the “movie night”.
While doing the contacting, I received an enquiry for web design and I took very long to think of an appropriate reply. I was never a sales person and I hated spoiling things. The focus of the day was on Facebook for the enormous progress.
At night, my family had steamboat together.

Dinner at Golden Mile Steamboat

Posted on May 24, 2010 by S

[Saturday, 22 May, 2010]

Since my mum was at Johor, I slept alone in the room. My stomach was playing tricks on me and together with the mindful of thoughts over everything on earth, including all the unhappy things, I could not doze off.

I woke up in the afternoon, feeling the day would be wasted again. I started doing my daily work, especially on the Facebook marketing. My extreme late breakfast was cereal in the late afternoon before my mum returned.

My elder brother suggested having curry fish head but since I disliked it, he suggested Golden Mile steamboat, which had somehow came into my mind just seconds before he mentioned it, even though I was not really thinking of dining there.

The four of us took bus 196 to near Nicoll Highway and walked past the Concourse before reaching Golden Mile. It was very crowded and we could only find a very small table. We ordered the $28 bucks set together with twenty satay, which cost $0.50 per stick. It was a very expensive dinner with the small portion of food. Nothing was really tasteful to me except for the chicken rice. The place simply smelt of too many memories of my father.

We passed by the army market and took bus 145 home.

Jingkun's Chalet at Changi Safra Resort

Posted on July 20, 2008 by S

Last Tuesday, I continued to be drained during work. There was a limit to how I could help others but nothing could be done if one did not wish to help himself.

Right after work, Weitat drove Mingli and I to meet up with Mingfa at Clementi. We enjoyed waffles bought by Mingfa. Weitat had his existing identification card sized photo reprinted, which was a waste of money for the costly price and lousy quality. We wanted to get some rice but none of the stalk owners wanted to sell us.

Next, we proceeded straight to Jingkun’s chalet at Changi Safra Resort. Our initial plan was to play bowling or indulge ourselves in other facilities available. The steamboat set refused to give us warm food and I ended up eating only a fishball, a piece of vegetable and three seventy-percent done prawns peeled by Mingli.

We called for pizza and decided to cancel it for they called us back to inform of that it would require around one and a half hour delivering our order over. Later on, we called back to resume the order.

As Jingkun and his girlfriend left to pick their friends up, the remaining four of us started playing mahjong. It was not long before the pizza delivery man arrived and caught us by surprise. The couple returned with their friends and the mahjong game stopped. I had only two pieces of pizzas to fill my stomach and afterwards, the ice-cream made the night.

Lunar Chinese New Year 2008

Posted on February 9, 2008 by S

Chinese New Year Eve saw some packing of the house. Reunion dinner was as per normal. I was quite sick of the steamboat for it happened more than just once each year, and every time I had to feast on it for numerous continuous days.

My plan to comb down the pasar malam at Chinatown for cheap goodies was killed once again. It was quite stupid to go down early and thus I did not join my family members earlier. I went down at 3am but unfortunately, met them at the junction. Both my brothers wanted to go home but my mum decided to tag on to me.

I did not have much time and I would not want to waste any. I just wanted to speed up in all the crowded alleys and get whatever was cheap, in the shortest time. My pace was usually swift and far beyond your imagination, but this time, I knew I was grounded. I gave up on everything. Other than my preparation being trampled, I had to endure on the wastage of time and boring journey.

Basically, I allowed my mum to lead the way and she was basically far worse than any road idiot who had actually stayed near the place for more than twenty years. Alas, we reached the big field opposite Maxwell Market, besides the Fo Ya Shi. My mum bought some trays for placing utensils and I bought a shoes rack which looked more presentable than our neighbour’s, but everything was under my account.

First day of the New Year to my auntie’s house was the standard order by my mum. We got up late as usual and packed Burger King before approaching the bus-stop, where my mum flagged for the cab just before an approaching bus. That was really sudden and luckily the bus driver did not horn at us. However, it was really stupid to take a cab when we had already made our way to the bus-stop.

We met the usual gang of relatives who visited my auntie. We were all amazed by my toothless uncle who was chewing on hard food like nuts and bak kwa. It was the only occasion when this two non-working and sick couple would accept our money as a form of ang bao. Things turned a bit sour when my youngest uncle returned and we left soon. However, my mum forgot to take her phone along and my younger brother had to go back to retrieve it from the insane youngest uncle, who in his fifties, still acting like a less than ten years old kid, and his jokes were absolutely not funny at all.

At night, we went to春到河畔 and my mum’s main motive was to find the big fortune god’s statue to collect the “gold” from him. The pasar malam stalls were mostly rented by China people and some of the items were quite interesting. For some items, you probably needed to slash down the price a lot.

We walked to Lao Pa Sat for supper on the way home. It was an irritating experience as we were followed by the hawkers for ridiculously from one end of the food centre to the other end. If the government was not going to do something about this aggressive pulling of customers, Singapore’s reputation would certainly fall. That was not the end for the other hawkers were clinging to us. Luckily there were many empty tables and we could easily avoid all of them. We had twenty chicken satay, costing as expensive as sixty cents each. Four cups of tek tarrik proved to me that not all Indian tea stalls were good; that was the most awful tek tarrik we had ever tasted.

On the second day of Chinese New Year, we were supposed to visit my dad’s youngest brother. He had repeatedly reminded us to go over for lunch but we all woke up with food on the table. My mum bought chay kuay teow for us to share and we had to finish the food before leaving the house. We managed to reach Hougang soon but were overwhelmed with the earlier food that we did not take lunch immediately. That was the second and last place to get ang bao every year. The red packets were not big but at least, better than nothing. It was fun playing with my nephews and nieces. We stayed till 10pm and left after watching the Kungfu Soccer on channel 8. My uncle drove us back home.

Anyway, I missed all the gatherings with my buddies.

The Weirdest Steamboat

Posted on February 6, 2008 by S

It was a weird occasion. I was not greedy for any free big meal but was dragged in by kind intention. I did not know everyone well and actually, got to pack up my house before the Lunar Chinese New Year.

Anyway, I went with them and was actually feeling quite awkward and sometimes, indulging in the silence. Steamboat was never same like any of the previous times in my life because my table was basically doing our own cooking and not minding each other’s business. We exchanged smiles at times, looking at the next table where there were more jokes and laughers.

None of us was anti-social but it was just that we did not have many opportunities in office to talk to each other when everyone was so busy and spending most of the time in the classrooms instead.

Kok Chiang and Ah Teck were at the other table since they arrived later; it was actually the entire group arriving much earlier than the stated time. It did not matter much since both of them usually did not really talk to me despite we had been playing volleyball together for so many years.

I really wanted to stay behind in school, at least to finish up a bit of my work and spending the rest of the time watching volleyball at the hall and having dinner with my gang after that.

Chinese New Year – Day One

Posted on February 18, 2007 by S

[Sunday, 18 February, 2007]

Alone in the living room, that was how I spent my first moment of the Chinese New Year. I could not even be bothered to look at the television. My brothers each occupied a room while my mum started offering prayers to the heaven and then went to the temple.

The bonus was the phone call from Suimin. It was fun to chat with girls who spoke English most of the time and had weird but sexy Chinese accent. Usually I would try my best to fool them into using Chinese. Nevertheless, it was good enough to chat with sweet girls. We did not chat for long again.

I also received a greeting SMS from Sherry. How weird it could be for such a busy girl to do this? We used to chat a lot during the IRC days but time eventually got us separated. She moved on fast with the pace of this society but I was still straying and losing my way at the very beginning. Almost seven years of friendship and we had not taken any photo together, but I trusted her to keep her promise, unlike other friends.

After two o’clock, my mum returned home and gathered my siblings and I to invade Chinatown. Weirdly, this was the first year that I had visited Chinatown only during the last day of the pasar malam. We met up with my younger brother’s friends and started walking around. The place was still very crowded at three plus. Many people were partially blinded and had to bang into me even at spots where it was not so dense with people.

I hated the sticky floors. Uncivilised people had thrown wrappers all over the floor at their convenience, trying to turn down the title of the garden city. It was very boring for all the stalls were selling almost similar items like the previous year except there was this party gun which was cool but expensive. At around 4am, most of the stalls at the streets were already closing. A couple who just got there mistook that business was good, but actually, the owners were on curfew and had to stop operation around that time by law.

We went to Maxwell market. I was quite hungry but there were not many stalls left. All of us had bean curd type of dessert, which was quite fulfilling. Then, we strolled back to Tanjong pagar and waited for my younger brother’s friends to flag a cab home. We waited quite long and were entertained by two half drunk westerners.

I had to drain my bank account once again for my mum wanted us to contribute hundred bucks each for my auntie who was taking care of my sick uncle. Government did not offer enough help for the childless old couple who could not work for they still owned the 3-room flat even though their savings had almost depleted. In fact, I was not in any better situation.

Back at home, it took me quite a long time to settle my stuffs before going to bed. It was as early as 11am, I was waked up by my mum and younger brother. My younger brother seemed to be grumbling about either my elder brother or me, or both of us for bugging on the bed. I was very irritated.

We set off for my auntie’s house. Breakfast was chicken rice from the stall at the nearest bus-stop. The owner rented that stall for one day only once every year and that explained the quality of food. Anyway, we had takeaways and dined at my auntie’s house.

After eating, I dozed off as usual until a few visitors arrived and I was waked up by the noise. All the familiar faces I saw only once every year gave me a weird feeling, especially when receiving the red packets from them. Anyway, these were the only pathetic few small red packets from my mum’s side of relatives. In fact I was so used to it already and would be glad enough if friends were to believe my “income” was so low.

On the way home, my mum’s feet were giving her big problems again. I was not positive about how long she could still hold with such poor health condition. I expected my health to be worse than hers when I was as old as her for my injuries incurred.

It was a very sunny day but rain soon swept over areas in Singapore to welcome us into the new year of the lunar calendar. I spent my late afternoon playing Romance of the Three Kingdoms 3 after abandoning it for so long until dinner time. My younger brother wanted to dine out at Marina Square but my elder brother and mum decided to finish up the leftover food and thus we had steamboat again. The idea of making my whole body and work area stink turned me off so much.

Steamboat and BBQ

Since the barbecue platform was nearer to me, I did a lot of cooking for my mum and elder brother and was attacked by the flying oil many times as well.

Chinese New Year Eve 2007

Posted on February 17, 2007 by S

[Saturday, 17 February, 2007]

The day began with dining with Weitat and Kailin at Geylang. We had our supper at Wang Jiao Dian Xin instead of You Tiao Da Wan for the latter shop was closed for the festival. Food was just alright but service was terrible.

While we were walking back to the car park, my mum called and when she heard a girl’s (Kailin’s) voice besides me, she just assumed that was Vivi. At this moment I did not know how I should feel. I did tell my mum before we were through already but somehow she did not get it or she refused to get it. Perhaps, she did not get to see Vivi often since long ago and that was why she was used to it, like me, that she did not realise it was history already.

Kailin drove me home and followed by Weitat. I was sleepy but energetic somehow, however, did not lead the route well enough that Kailin had to make a big round at Chinatown.

I continued with the clicking of the “hug” website for Suimin, and that was very time-consuming and dull. My elder brother was packing his house and finally there was some space for me to stand in front of the walk-in wardrobe to pack the stuffs. The room was so dusty that I had a few rounds of sneezing.

Afterwards was discussion with Irwin about his new website for the new product, the CLY phone charger. I continued to do my stuffs until daylight.

Having slept less than four hours, I was waked up by an agent enquiring about the Ang Mo Kio flat. I had by then totally forgotten about block 610 and only knew it was on the third level. So, it was another awkward time on the phone again.

I did not go back to sleep. I spent the afternoon more wisely on updating of my websites. My affiliation with Adsense was improving but still far from ideal case. It was however very frustrating that given the amount of page impressions, I could get more money from other advertisements source.

I started some packing of my work area. Then, I continued with a little cleaning up of the house in the late afternoon. My mum was doing quite dangerous chores in the kitchen. My elder brother was asleep the whole afternoon while my younger brother was out with his friends. I felt frustrated that I actually needed more sleep than my elder brother but I did not want to leave everything to my mum. She packed the living room’s table as well, which none of the rubbish on top belonged to me – that was why I could not and did not know how to pack it.

My younger brother returned during evening to add on extra shoes to the messy living room floor. I called him to come out from the bedroom later and questioned him about how many pairs of shoes wears he had on the floor but he did not care about the mess. Believe me it was impossible and that was why I had given up on the condition of the house since long ago.

The reason why I hated reunion dinner returned again. The big table was pulled nearer to my computer and there was so limited space. During dinner, the oily gas would fly to the computer with the fan blowing from the front. I quickly moved my webcam backwards in case it would be harmed.

My elder brother continued to sleep and my younger brother joined him soon but in the other room. The sleepiness and backache pinned me on the bed as well and when my mum started calling out for dinner, I tried so hard to ignore her. Eventually, I was the first to go to the living room, feeling so irritated that my siblings were not very bothered with the dinner.

My mum started two cooking sources, one for soup and another for steamboat. The dinner was quite alright for we were always helping each other to prevent the food from being burnt. I hated the oily smell on my body after steamboat but that could not be helped.

Fruits

At HDB

The Tan family

My neighbour, Tan Kok Hin came over with his daughter. He wanted to test his DVD but realised he could only use his burner to watch it. After that, my younger brother and I followed him back to his mum’s house. Actually I did not really want to go over in case they thought I was just greedy for ang bao. Luckily I received none.

We spent most of the time watching television there.

Boring steamboat

Posted on October 16, 2005 by S

I ought to be shot for overusing my SMS (short message service). For just three days, I can use more than two hundreds of them. Then, I’ve bee reduced to such pathetic state that I don’t reply to any message.

It was a challenge to organise outing without using SMS. I had to keep calling the person when he didn’t pick up his phone. In fact, it was good in some ways that the intention of that person could be heard through his tone – but not all.

Tze Khit asked for the steamboat outing, Weitat and I did the calling. It was always me doing the shit. And again, I wouldn’t mind if response was good. I couldn’t stand people who changed from green to red light at the very last minute, not even those who couldn’t make up their minds.

Since my elder brother had brought his camera with him to Thailand, I could only turn to the free BenQ one, which was missing. I left house without camera, feeling uncomfortable.

It was the most boring steamboat outing I had ever attended. People were late more nearly an hour and there were only thirteen of us, four I didn’t talk to. The food didn’t feed my appetite and the cripple table made cooking difficult. I didn’t crap as much as in the past. There were jokes but I seemed to be trying hard to make myself laugh. I shouldn’t go in the first place in my cough.

I couldn’t stop recalling and comparing. I thought about unfairness too and the angel on my ear told me I should stop everything. I needed to spend my time on useful things for my future instead of wasting time on trying to piece a broken puzzle with missing pieces back.

It seemed to be a weird night for me. I was quite worried for Wilson and Pauline since I didn’t know what was still going on between them. Then, I recklessly tried to switch off the steamer, pushing the metallic tip down for more than a second which didn’t work and instead, burnt my index finger. I couldn’t believe I was so foolish.

Dear Dreams

Skai Chan

Tag Archives: steamboat