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So long, and thanks for nothing.
I’ve removed the nuffnang sidebar ad from my sidebar.
Reason #1: Even though I’m a Glitterati, I’ve not seen any increase in my earnings. They’ve stagnated at $16.17 for the past few months. I blame this lack of income on the new system that relies on clicks instead of page views. Now, I won’t tell people to go click on my ads, and I’m certainly not going to be stupid and click on them myself. So the ad has to be interesting enough to warrant clicking, which brings me to my 2nd point.
Reason #2: I get uninteresting ads. I don’t want to advertise “Uniquely Singapore” or “Safra” on my blog, but unlike Google’s contextual ads, I don’t have a choice. At least with Google Ads, I’m to blame for the HIV-testing ads, because of the posts about my J-drama. And no one wants to click on these crappy ads, so they’re generating zero income FOR ME while the advertiser gets free eyeballs.
Reason #3: Advertising on my blog not only costs you money, the money has to come straight TO ME. That was why I stuck with PayPerPost for so long, because I saw the money in a month. With nuffnang, I display ads but I don’t see the money. What’s the point?
Reason #4: I started working.
And now for possible rebuttals:
Rebuttal #1: It’s my own fault for putting sidebar ads. Yes, I know other nuffnangers get the cute new Wall-E ad because they’re using the rectangular format. Well, Wordpress doesn’t allow me to do that. And between a blogging platform that I really like, and advertising that doesn’t even earn me that much, which do you think I’m going to choose?
Rebuttal #2: I have very low pageviews, so I get ads that no one’s interested in. Well then, shouldn’t I remove them in order to keep the 20 or so pageviews I get every day? I’d rather be read than make a few cents.
Rebuttal #3: My blog makes money while I sleep, whereas I only earn money as long as I work. True enough, except that my blog doesn’t ACTUALLY make all that much anyway.
So, I hope you enjoy the new and nuffnang-free Bohemia Bunny. The Google Ads stay for the time being, though, just because I like seeing what funny ads they come up with. Oh yeah… now that I’ve removed the nuffnang, maybe I’ll put Advertlets back on. Just because.
Disclaimer: I acknowledge that it’s my own damn fault I’m not making money from my nuffnang ads. So since it’s my own damn fault, shouldn’t I be the one taking steps to rectify it? So I am.
Edit: I added the Advertlets sidebar for all of one minute. It’s very cute and all, but having my face compete for attention with the gorgeousness of Felicia Chin just doesn’t seem like a great idea. So I guess the money I have sitting with Advertlets will just continue sitting there. Oh, and I have an incoming ad from Nuffnang next week (they sent me the email some time back and I forgot about it). Let it not be said that I don’t stand by my opinion. I’ll restore the sidebar ad in time to display the ad, just to see if it actually makes any money. Stay tuned!
The Undercover Malaysians
They’re there, and you know they are. Sometimes you can spot them, but mostly you can’t. They’re indistinguishable from the average local Singaporean.
Yes, the Malaysian is a tricky creature indeed to spot. We look like you, talk like you (with certain exceptions that can be used to identify us), eat like you (except for my incessant bitching over how prawn mee, char kuey teow and laksa is very very different in KL) and we’re found in every level of society, from the humble hawker assistant to the loftiest of judiciary posts.
Don’t believe me? Go check the backgrounds of the previous Chief Justices of Singapore on Wikipedia. They were all born and raised in Malaysia. This tendency means that, ironically, my ex-boyfriend may have a higher chance of becoming Chief Justice than his Singaporean friends. I find this amusing.
Yes, the dudes at Cheese Prata, your kid’s tuition teacher, your company’s IT guy, and even your boss - you never know if any one of these might turn out to be Malaysian. We sure are good at hiding it.
We’re like Cylons. HAHAHAHA!
What’s it like being undercover, though? Well, it’s fun until we get spotted. Then it gets funner, as our friend/teacher/classmate’s eyes widen in surprise, and they say (in my case anyway): “But you don’t look Malaysian!”
Er, I didn’t know we had a “look”, but I’ve always been wonderfully stylish, which perhaps contravenes the common perception of Malaysians as backwater hicks with bad dressing.
On the other hand, my kids think I come from a rich family because “only rich Malaysians come to Singapore to study”. They’re not familiar with the ASEAN scholarship, apparently. While it’s true that one needs to be comfortably well-off to send one’s kid down south, it doesn’t require giant amounts of money. You think there are THAT MANY rich families living in Johor Bahru?
Of course, being a Malaysian overseas has its perils. Unlike being one abroad in the US or UK, where they’re generally genial towards you, Singaporeans seem to harbour a strange mixture of familiarity and disdain. On one hand, they will tell you what a great time they had eating and shopping in KL. On the other, they love pushing what they think are hot buttons: politics, race and education. I enjoy rubbing salt in their wounds on all three counts.
Singaporeans bitch about our country because they can’t bitch about theirs, and besides, when was the last time THEY got to vote?
For a supposedly ’second-class citizen’ in a ‘backwards’ country, I sure have done well. Or rather, my parents did well, which set me up in life to enjoy a multitude of privileges. For some of us very fortunate ones, the racial quotas are things that happen to other people. Moral of the story: Money reigns supreme.
I’m a product of the “lousy” Malaysian education system, where you can “allegedly” buy your grades. Now, I don’t know where you guys got your info, or if you’re just stereotyping, because some things remain free of bribery. The system is built such that you’d probably need extremely powerful connections to get a (fake) good grade, because stapling money to your exam booklet isn’t going to work (so don’t try it, kids!). Don’t ask me how, because I earned mine the hard way.
Besides, “lousy” education or not, it was good enough for the Singapore government, plus I pwn my kids AND I learned my content in Malay, then relearned it in English. The poor dears just suffer from inferiority complex now that a Malaysian is lording it over them.
Muahahahaha.
White Knight, Dark Knight, who will save Gotham tonight?
AS*spoiler alert for Batman: The Dark Knight*
Brain blown. Movie too awesome. Cannot be coherent. Here have many bullet points instead.
- Much symbolism. I like symbolism. Harvey Dent’s lucky coin. The references to him as Gotham’s “white knight”. The use of Joker cards.
- Nolan brothers totally rock. What’s a director without a good screenplay, so it’s just as well that the director co-wrote the screenplay with his brother. The mind-blowingness should come as no surprise, being that these are the guys who did “The Prestige” and that left me speechless.
- The Batbike is sex on two wheels.
- Michael Caine again gets snappy one-liners, by virtue of being British. “The Lamborghini? Much more subtle.”
- Batman is not perfect, and Lucius Fox does not serve him blindly.
- Public opinion can be a real bitch.
- The Joker is a criminal mastermind. So is he sane or insane? I have no idea.
- The 2 ferries each holding the other’s fate: brilliant storytelling. I did see it coming, but I didn’t know how it would play out. In this case, the true heroes are the people of Gotham.
- The hero is imperfect, the villain is without malice, and suffering warps a good man into an evil one. Such is humanity. There are no heroes, only people doing what they can.
- The antagonistic balance between hero and villain, as old as language and still unresolved. For how does one exist without the other?
- The Joker makes some good points about gravity and anarchy.
- The overarching point of the film, according to me: We are all haunted by shadows in our heart. Misguided intentions, faulty motivations, love… all these lead us to decisions we regret, and which will stay with us forever. There is no evil blackness or noble whiteness - we are only human, and have both.
- Explosions +sound effects of THX movie theatre = nerdgasm.
- The Joker tells 2 different stories regarding his scars. Which is real, and does it even matter?
- Are police forces so corrupt that even Gotham’s cops can be bought? And do all forces have an Internal Affairs department?
- The subtitles are funny. Onscreen says “balls”, subs say “LP”. Hahahaha! (LP = lam par)
- How do you continue being, when the forces that made you are now striving to unmake you?
- When given two choices: Yes or No, remember that there is a third way: “F87k it.”
So that makes 3 movies in 2 weeks. You know you’ve been to the cinema too often when the ads are stale and even the trailers aren’t exciting anymore - it’s the 2nd time I’ve seen the trailer for the new Mummy movie. I enjoyed the trailer for the upcoming “Clone Wars”, though. With a female Sith Lord, that would make the Dark Side more progressive than the American presidency.
Off-day offloads
Here I am, on my day off. Don’t get me wrong - I’m not overworked by slave-driver employers. Quite the contrary, I go in to work when I’m not expected, just because I like the company of others. But this is my first proper day off in two weeks.
Last week I used my two off-days to be with my family and attend commencement, so I didn’t really have any time to just chill out and do “me” stuff. “Me” stuff means the mundane, such as backing up my hard drive and ironing my clothes, and more abstract pleasures such as eating lunch at whatever time I like, and reading online comics non-stop, because I have 10 years of backlog to get through. I’ve been reading this comic, “Little Dee”, and its creator used to do a daily strip entitled “Bruno”. It was a surprise for me to read “Bruno”, because it’s very much for mature audiences, and “Little Dee” is quite child-friendly.
So far today I’ve picked up my mail, sent out my mail, done my laundry (yay!), and had a delicious lunch of porridge from the downstairs stall. The proprietor didn’t skimp on the ikan bilis, but maybe it’s because he’s a young man and I’m a pretty girl. Yes, I admit to the sexistness of that statement.
While we’re on the subject of food stall proprietors: The chicken rice seller downstairs from my office calls me “mei-mei”. Heh. When your job consists of being with people who consider you a relic, having someone treat you as a younger person isn’t all that bad.
There’s a temporary stage erected on the empty field, visible from my balcony. I can hear the dong-dong-chiang of drums and cymbals as they rehearse for tonight’s performance. Perhaps I’ll head out later and watch. I haven’t seen Chinese opera since I was a very young child.
I think raising kids is always so damn hard because they usually turn out the opposite of what you wanted them to be, and if they don’t, you’ve failed somehow to raise an independent human being. Either way you’re damned. Tell me again why we don’t have parenting licenses?
And now to be controversial: I’m calling out the hypocrisy I see in some sectors, that they oppose abortion and stem-cell research, and not assisted fertility. If children are indeed given by God, and if you have none in spite of your efforts, then isn’t that a pretty clear sign that God doesn’t want you to have any? Why are you messing with the divine plan to keep you child-free? Answer me that, and then maybe I’ll give you leeway to advance your pro-life rhetoric. If you ask little cynical me, though, I’d just say that anything that advances their numbers is a good thing, and anything that reduces it is bad. Never mind the fact that a pro-life policy also affects people who don’t necessarily share their religious views. How unselfish they are, to want to save us all from the hellfire of Damnation!
Part II:
One of my students woke me from my nap with a nudge on MSN. Serves me right for not turning down the volume. Seeing how it was already 7pm, I readied to go out grocery shopping at the bargain supermarket before it closed. I managed to lug back nearly 50 dollars’ worth of groceries, as the rain drizzled down gently. So gently that I could just barely feel it alighting on my skin as I waited for the red man to turn green. The Chinese opera had already started, but I think it was in Hokkien because I had no idea what they were saying. Still sounded like fun, though.
On the uphill walk to my apartment, I glanced back at the makeshift stage and saw the moon, just rising above the buildings. She was hidden behind the diffuse rainclouds, aglow but not bright. As though she, like the opera performers, was waiting in the wings for her moment to shine.
I did my ironing, which is always strangely calming. Bringing flat, smooth order out of wrinkled chaos. There’s an analogy in there somewhere.
Now it’s time for some bedtime Sudoku, and that’s not anything dirty or kinky a la “bedroom Twister”, okay? Although Sudoku makes for a poor nightcap, it revs up my brain instead of calming it down for sleep.
I! Am! Chai-niece!
About a month ago I sat on a bus, absent-mindedly watching TV Mobile, when a movie trailer came on. It was for some show starring Takeshi Kaneshiro. And as far as I’m concerned, Takeshi in a movie is good enough reason to hand over my debit card and sit in a big dark room for 2-and-a-half hours. Doesn’t really matter what the movie is.
The movie, by the way, is Red Cliff. Being the ignorant banana that I am, I thought it was just another period piece, instead of being one of the major stories in the Three Kingdoms novel. It wasn’t until I wiki’ed it that I realised the cultural import of the movie.
The nearest comparison I can draw to Red Cliff is 2007’s 300, which I absolutely, thoroughly enjoyed, and not just for the bare-torsoed muscly men. 300 was a real popcorn movie, a cinematic blockbuster, go watch and be entertained. Probably also something to do with the overall look of the movie, and different directorial visions.
Red Cliff, on the other hand, didn’t feel as entertaining. Sure it had its good bits - everyone loved Takeshi’s interpretation of the strategist Zhuge Liang, and you can’t not like Tony Leung (it’s illegal!) but it just lacks that punch. Surprising for a John Woo film, actually. At times it felt more like a historical re-enactment, which I suppose it partially is.
In certain parts the military tactics really had me befuddled. There’s a pivotal scene where the first skirmish happens, but the events seem to go beyond common sense. *spoiler alert* Who rides into unfamiliar terrain, with poor visibility, just to pursue what seems like an easy target? C’mon, stuff like that only happens in Looney Tunes cartoons, right? Right? I very much doubt you need to read Sun Tzu’s Art of War to know that it’s not the wisest move.
All in all, while Red Cliff is a perfectly fine cultural vehicle (apparently produced to coincide with the Beijing Olympics), it lacks entertainment value. I won’t fault it for being long, since wars are protracted, wearying affairs. But it just… lacks… something.
Probably machismo.
On another note:
Whoever it was who spoke of turning swords into ploughshares, didn’t watch war movies. Look at how many awesome war movies there are. No one’s made an awesome farming movie yet, eh? No, the blood and gore doesn’t get to me, and it’s not because I have bloodlust. What is chess but a war game, writ small upon a board? What is war but a strategy game, writ large? And thus, I enjoy the mental stimulation of war movies, especially if they involve strategies.
Ok, who messed with my karma wheel?
Strange things have been happening recently. Really strange things.
Yesterday, I lost an entire streak of 5 or 6 games of Big 2 (tai dee) to one of my students. I couldn’t win at all, and I lost pretty badly even with a good hand. I don’t get it! Yes, I know I’m quite dumb at this game, but I’m not all THAT bad!
And today, I started up the music player on my phone, only for it to tell me “files corrupted”. What! I have 24 hours of music on this thing, and now I have to add them all over again? Plus it makes no sense for the files to suddenly be corrupted, I haven’t done anything to them. Faced with the prospect of an hour-long commute without music to drown out the lousy Channel 8 drama on TV Mobile, I pressed “refresh library”. Thankfully it worked, otherwise I might be a little less sane (than usual) today.
Approaching my usual bus stop, I checked my watch and got a gigantic shock. The face read 11.15am, which seemed odd given that I left the house at 10.10am and it doesn’t take an hour to get to that stop. Plus the more pressing issue of being late for work, of course. I rushed to work, with Deep Purple’s “Highway Star” in the background. I made it to the office and started up the laptop.
Imagine my confusion when the computer clock showed 10.57am. “Eh?” I thought. I looked at the actual analog clock on the wall. It read 11.05am. I looked at my watch. It read 11.40am. I took it off my wrist and readjusted it.
I know it’s perfectly possible that someone pranked me by adjusting my watch, but I’m sure it was perfectly normal yesterday. I don’t take off my watch at work, so none of the kids did it, and the only time it comes off is when I’m back at home. So, assuming that no one had the opportunity to adjust my watch - how did that discrepancy come about?
I am thoroughly befuddled. It feels like I’m the butt of a cosmic joke on some level.
God’s most beautiful creatures
If I were being interviewed and was asked this question: “What do you think are God’s most beautiful creatures?”, I would probably reply “Christian fundamentalists, because they believe in their God and teachings to the exclusion of logic and common sense. God must be so pleased that His creations love him so much.”
Nah, just kidding. No one’s ever going to interview me, and that’s supposed to be a satirical answer, anyway.
God’s most beautiful creatures are dogs.
Firstly, their name is an anagram of His.
Secondly, they’re so loving and non-judgmental, which is what God-fearing people should aspire to be, no?
My next-door neighbour, meaning the dude who has the room next to mine, has an Alaskan Malamute. They’re naturally beautiful dogs on their own, with an attractive colouring and lush fluffy coat. But what makes the dog so darn lovable is that he gravitates towards people.
I was in the kitchen pouring myself milk when I heard someone enter. I didn’t think much of it, then something bumped up against my butt and I knew it was the dog. He had exited his room to come and see what I was up to. And later, as I left the house, he poked his head out of his room so I could wave him goodbye. How could you not love a dog like that?
God got it right first time with the canines.
Fending off insurance surveys
My phone just rang, and I thought it was one of my friends so I answered without looking at the screen.
A chirpy voice asked, “Hello, may I speak to Lynn Chang?” Yes, there was definitely a ‘g’ hovering around the end of my name. I asked the caller to identify herself, and she said she was from Prudential, and could I spare 3 minutes to take a survey.
What the hell, it’s past 9pm at night and I have nothing to do, so let’s help out someone who’s getting paid by the hour.
Her first question: “Are you Singaporean or PR?”
I answered, “Neither.” Which is perfectly true.
“Okay, thank you, bye bye!” And she hangs up.
Well! That was fun and painless! Now I know what to answer to these surveys.
Mind you, this might only work for surveys, and not for hardcore cold-calling salespeople, who couldn’t care less if you were a deposed dictator of some tiny country somewhere who now spends half the year fishing the Arctic sea for crabs, as long as they make a sale.
When the past and future collide
A mere 8 days after signing a rental agreement, I signed another ground-breaking document: An employment offer. I am most efficient, no? I haven’t even graduated and I already have a job. Yay!
It looks like I shall have to put in a new policy about work-related blogging - namely, none. My blog isn’t here to talk about work, it’s to talk about me! But just to sate curiosity, this is a rough overview of my future employment.
It’s in the education line, and I get the flexible hours and work culture I wanted, without sacrificing potential earnings. In fact I think I can safely say I’d be earning the same wages working as a drone in some MNC, but then I’d probably be less happy because a) I hate wearing office clothes and b) I don’t like corporate culture that’s too rigid. So hey, I don’t have to wear office clothes, and I have staggered working hours so I don’t have to cram onto the buses and trains with everyone else. It’s a small setup so I report directly to the boss.
Anyway, after I got back to hall, I had to go out and get some lunch from behind. Sitting in Cheese Prata waiting for my nasi lemak, I looked around and reminisced about the first meal I had there - which, incidentally, was also my first meal as a Eusoffian. I’d just moved into hall and my new roommate and I went to eat cheese prata, because someone had told me about the shop way back in JC. And there I was, nearly 4 years later, still looking at the same WordArt menus on the wall. Some things don’t change - much. In fact, the only thing in this scenario that had changed significantly was me.
I got a weird sense of tunneling through time, like the effect in the movies where the scene blurs out and one element remains the same while everything changes. Or vice versa. The menus hadn’t changed much, the scenery from my seat hadn’t changed (although the view from Fong Seng now includes Varsity Park), the service will probably still be abysmally slow in 5 years’ time. Nice to know I can come back and experience that anytime.
Numbered Days
My days in Eusoff Hall, and indeed in NUS, are coming to an end.
It’s so easy to point to my final semester and to graduation as some sort of watershed event, whereupon I suddenly become an adult, complete with adult burdens (thanks ah). But nobody grows up overnight. I’ve been on this road a long, long time. But I think I’ll keep that story for another time.
Now I’m closing the curtains on 4 years in Eusoff. Note I said Eusoff and not NUS. I will miss Eusoff tremendously, but I can’t say the same of the university. But yes, 8 semesters in Eusoff, 7 of them in the same room. There’s so many things to miss. The practical things like being near classes, near a bus terminal, near VivoCity, near 24-hour food outlets. These places will be in my backyard no more.
But there are still the intangible things. Like the sense of safety. In hall, you’re pretty much free to do as you like. But still not as free, and the pressure doesn’t just come from the authorities. Part of community living is, well, other people. Social norms keep you (mostly) in line. Drinking parties and midnight football viewings are ok. Doing drugs and stealing panties are not. There are still limits on things that matter.
Out there on your own, who’s going to make sure you’re okay? Who will take up your call for supper at 2am, who will watch football with you, whom can you count on to show up for your performances? It’s kinda lonely out there.
And I never quite realised the logistics that goes into planning one room. Just one. You move into hall, everything’s there. Bed, wardrobe, shelves, table. Then when you move into your own place, just deciding on furniture alone takes 2 days of online and on-site research. Then you have to make sure it all fits in, before you buy it and not after it’s assembled, obviously. After that, you still have to play interior decorator and rearrange stuff around to resemble at least a degree of normalcy. I mean, sure you can put your wardrobes in front of the window. But why, though?
And I’m so going to miss the Internet connection. Nothing can be as fast as institutional networks, and mine is free and unlimited and the fastest I’ve ever experienced. It’s a totally plug-and-play environment too - just bring your own LAN cable and your login ID. But on your own - I’ve been checking out broadband plans all of this week, and I’ve vacillated between home and mobile plans, StarHub and SingTel, cable and ADSL. How to decide? Well actually once again, logistics is the answer. There’s no cable point in my room, the only point is outside in the living room. So ADSL it is (for the time being). My gosh, how do people handle all these things, out there on their own?
I guess it’s just because my situation came in a more DIY format than others’. Most tenants just bring their luggage, make do with provided furniture, and cough up their share of the Internet bills. Their only major decision is finding a place. I, on the other hand, had to find a place, buy furniture, set up an Internet line, AND do this while also dealing with exams and Commencement. Go me.
But in all this frenzy of planning for the future, there’s a sense of loss for the past. It IS the end of adolescence. I left home a long time ago, but I was still dependent on my parents. Now even that is coming to an end, and it is kind of sad. Even getting married wouldn’t be such a large transition as this, since a large part of being married is relationship management and living with other people, neither of which is new to me.
Even the best-laid plans can’t assuage my anxiety - not just about broadband plans and furniture, but about the unknown that’s soon to come. New mothers sometimes get post-partum depression; do new graduates get post-convocation depression?
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