Fuck

I am completely flat broke. So broke I refuse to think about it. I'm just pissed off at the fact that I've always been so careful about my expenses even when I was depressed and buying lots of stuff online, but I always kept it within my means. Now I've been saddled with an unexpected large bill, my entire pay for the next month is gone. Goodbye dreams of buying lenses and/or adding more hard disk space to Masako, my new laptop. I'm going to stay at home and play Sims 3 the entire day. Anyone who asks me out will be promptly shot in the face.

The end.

This is supposedly the 1000th post on this blog

The original title of this post was supposed to be " 'let me check with my husband first' ".

I started work today in another firm, the newly mysterious M/s P-. Probably not a very good idea after an exhausting jam packed weekend that started with Bum Friday with Ianthe, Stephanie and JH (Flight of the Conchords marathon and playing Little Big Planet) then went to Bridge Saturday meeting lots of new people and some old familiar faces that ended at 2 a.m. when Nick sent me home (also first time I sat in Wesley's car... Wesley who doesn't slow down when he makes turns. More thrilling than a rollercoaster ride). Then there was Movie Sunday with a random spontaneous movie session of Night At The Museum 2 with YH, Nick and ZY which ended at 9:30 p.m. plus. This huge flurry of activites left me feeling rather drained last night. Thus, I died this morning when I was given actual! responsibilities! that! required! my! brain! (as compared to my last job, doing about the same thing).

Today I must say was an interesting day. I arrived early and spent 40 minutes waiting for the partner who hired me (also my direct superior now), S. I spent most of it thinking about how ugly the reception table looked with the glowing flourescent blue lights, then pondering about why there was such a incongruous bronze-like sculpture of a weeping girl dumped in the corner of reception. Maybe she saw her bill from the firm, because as I was later to learn the solicitors in this firm bill by the hour. Apparently the rate for work done by me is $60 an hour, of which I see less than 10% of. How exciting.

This job is also quite dodgy. Dodgier than my old one with the defamation suit which required numerous onlines searches to prove as evidence that he was gay. For instance today I have lied multplie times (forgot how many) just to get the information I want, hence the line I uttered in the above captioned quote. I have also turned into a married woman with a 5 year old son. Quite exciting really, I can feel my heart start to race as my mind churns out various plausible storylines as fronts for such phone calls. Morally however, I think if I dropped dead on the spot now I'll be headed to hell.

I also just realised something dodgier, M/s P- didn't ask me to sign a confidentiality agreement. LOL.

"Erotic comic thriller, featuring Lu Xun"

Sayeth the title of this article, featured on What's Hot in Google Reader.

I'm not sure if this is the most awesome comic I've ever seen or the worst. Maybe both.

Recommended strongly for all IB students who remember their Lu Xun and May 4th Movement.

On Time's 100 Most Influential People List 2009

I was reading Time's 100 Most Influential People list last night. Majority of them were the usual homages to leaders of the world and written in the usual professional style, like Hillary Clinton by Madeline Albright. Some were a bit surprising like Gordon Brown, written by J. K. Rowling (not a politician nor a political commentator!) but still proved to be meaningful and relevant as she relayed how his political stance helped her when she was a struggling single parent. There was also those surprising and touching ones, like Somaly Mam written by Angelina Jolie, in addition to those written by the most unexpected people like the twitter founders by Ashton Kutcher.

Then there were those that were a bit head scratch worthy, like m00t - written by of all people - Rick Astley. The article had like 1 line on m00t, and everything else about being rickrolled. Epic fail article is fail. However nothing comes close to Sarah Palin, written by everyone's favourite insane hate-filled conservative political commentator cum politician, Ann Coulter.

"John McCain was so preposterous a candidate (at least on a Republican ticket) that Palin was responsible for far more votes than the usual vice presidential candidate."

O rly? Sure it wasn't the reverse?

"The biggest red flag proving her popularity with normal americans is that liberals won't shut up about her. Palin is a threat to liberals because she believes in God, Country and Family-all values liberals pretend to believe in but secretly detest."

I'm surprised Time even passed the article. It's filled so blatantly with her misguided hate filled vitriol (and vice versa ultra defensive 'anyone not with me is against me' stance) that it has been rendered almost incoherent. Nevermind that there is no longer any definition of a stereotypical "normal american" who is just as likely to be a teenage chinese girl like me rather than a white conservative christian man who likes female politician who shoot animals for sport. Oh Ann Coulter. I leave you with her following words to mull on:-

"The only thing I have against her is that she threatens to surpass me in attracting the left's hatred."

I'm Home

Despite many misgivings, tears and fears, I am back home in Singapore. I managed to get the flight on Saturday back, sitting next to an overly friendly Tibetan monk.

I am happy to be back in a place where I don't have to pray every hour that the power won't go out.

The Only Thing Weak About Me Is Myself

It's 5am here and I can't sleep.

If anything else during my rather short stay here has taught me that I'm not suited for the humanitarian field. Gone are my notions of joining the ICRC or the UN's Humanitarian arm. I can't imagine suffering the same severity of illness out in the field, surrounded by suffering refugees and having no medical facilities (I actually went to the hospital here, let's just say I take back all my complaints about SGH). This place was bad enough, with me praying that the power wouldn't go out at night so the fan would keep running because I closed the windows to shut out the barking dogs. If this experience didn't make me hysterical enough, being out in the field and sick would thoroughly destroy my spirit.

Thus this notion of mine has been thoroughly rubbished, relegated into Bad Idea Hell alongside:- 1) Trying to eke an apology out of the Japanese Govt for WWII 2) Trying to read War and Peace and 3) Trying to kick glass doors.

This trip has also further lowered UN in my eyes, they having become some sort of a huge joke here, as if they weren't already enough of one. This however hasn't quite reduced my notion to work for them that much though, because how awesome is it to say "I work for the UN" and see the respect emanating from the unknowing masses? Lol. We'll see.

Thankfully I feel much better now, having vomited hopefully for the last time at 12am the most vilest bitter thing all over my bed -____________- Last night's dinner, the grand total of a spoonful of rice came out too, whole and completely undigested despite having been consumed about 5 hours prior. At 3am I woke up hungry. Hopefully this means the worst is over. And I can get on today's flight back home.

I am never eating chicken momos again

Even typing the title made me feel sick. Yesterday Gloria brought me to this really dodgy momo place. I thought that since she and her husband ate there, it must be fine right?

Yesterday while teaching Renuka at the girls home I started to feel a bit weird. My stomach seemed to be really bloated and hurt. I started burping a lot, more than usual. My head felt funny and I felt like I had a fever. I ended up leaving for my place early, unable to teach the younger ones.

Flash forward to today, and entire day spent in bed after a night of bad sleep. I woke up, vomited out everything. Now I still feel like vomiting, but there's nothing in my stomach. I just had 2 cups of milo and a banana today. My head is starting to hurt again and I know I'm going to feel really cold soon, and my head is going to feel like it's on fire. I'm coughing too, because of asthma. I spent the entire day lying in bed half awake half sleeping. Oh, I still keep having to use the bathroom, passing out lots and lots of water. I'm going to suffer from dehydration soon but drinking water makes me want to puke.

I want to go home. Nothing makes you more miserable and miss home than a sickness.My parents want me home too, but Silkair flies only on Saturday, Monday and Wesnesday, and I think I'm too late to get the Saturday flight back.

Why Am I So Forgetful?

I don't know how I forget this, but Nic, you were right. Books here ARE damn cheap. Just now at Namaste Supermarket I got 3 books for 1,500 NRP ($30). Damn cheap. I found E. H. Carr's What Is History and bought Donna Tartt's The Secret History and Anais Nin's Delta of Venus (probably the only version with a non-dodgy cover).

Also, there was oddly power when I came back at 5:45 pm. It's now 6:19 pm. Now I'm afraid there'll be no power later in the night because the schedule has gone all wonky again. Sigh, Nepal -_________________________________- why so fail?

Dust Gets In Your Eyes

Today I gave up and finally bought one of those darth vader like face masks the foreigners wear here. Initially when I first saw them in Thamel, I thought that it was some over zealous response to H1N1 (look, I am being politically correct :D). Fast forward to today, more than a week later, and you learn why the foreigners wear the mask after you develop Kathmandu Asthma. It's a very special type of asthma, one that won't kill you but irritate you like hell after layer upon layer of dust enters your respiratory track and nestles itself along the folds of your aveoli. Joy.

-----

Today I also went for a hair cut. I bet you're going WTF now right, but thing is the hairdresser kind of botched my hair during the last haircut I had in Singapore. Anyway that was about a month ago too. It's also very troublesome to wash hair here what with the hard water and all making shampoo impossible to dissolve. So I went to get my hair cut. It wasn't actually too bad. The lady spent like maybe 20 mins on me (just the way I like it, I hate sitting still for too long) and trimmed my hair till it rested above my shoulders. If it wasn't for the neck snapping hair washing job, it would say it was a pretty good experience. All for 500 NPR (=S$10).

I also walked back by myself today from The Lazy Gringo where Gloria, Loong and I had lunch. This marked the first time I actually walked anywhere by myself in Nepal. I went home, dumped the things I bought from Namaste Supermarket and rest a bit before attempting to find my way to S- Home by myself. I almost got it right, overshooting the two turns I had to make by a little before realising I was heading the wrong way. I ended up taking about 5 minutes more because of that, out of a 15 minute walk. Not too bad I think considering Kathmandu is like a whole series of dodgy small alleys with no road names at all (they use P.O. boxes for mail).

I acutally felt kind of happy walking by myself today. I felt kind of independant. It was a nice feeling, the same one that I had 2 years ago when I first started working and went to eat lunch by myself when out exploring.

41 Things You Learn About Nepal: A List Because There's Just Too Much

1) Baggage x-ray checking is optional. Only the foreigners stop to push their luggage through when they see guards and an x-ray machine for screening luggage. The locals just walk past and wave at the guards.

2) There are dogs everywhere. They (thankfully) do not have rabies. However this means at any one time you will run into a few that are in heat. Dogs are also stupid. Short Pomeranian origin mutts will attempt to mount a mutt of Labrador height anyway. Nevermind the taller dog is also male.

3) Roads are not paved. They're more pockmarked than your uncle who had chickenpox and really bad acne when he was a little kid.

4) There is dust everywhere. When you see people sprinkling water on the streets from bowls they are not blessing the road with holy water. It is to make dust stay on the floor and not fly up.

This is the tourist area in Kathmandu, called Thamel. Roads are normally not so smooth.

5) There are power shortages all the time. They even have a name for it, Load Shedding which is of the scheduled variety. Unscheduled is just called 'those idiots are doing it again'. Power is now on from 8:40 pm to 9:30 am+ here in Jawalakhel, Lalitpur, Kathmandu.

6) They have water shortages too. But I've yet to experience one. This does contribute to the need to bathe mandeep style though, that is with a bucket and pail, which I've done twice.

8) Taxi drivers are maniacs. On second thought every driver is a maniac on the road.

This man is a homicidial manic. He is also a cab driver.

9) Nepalese drivers love their horns. They horn to indicate overtaking, stopping, thanks, scold, show the world they can make nose.

7) There is one road leading to and fro Kathmandu, the capital. This Achilles heel is exploited at least once a month (maybe more) by villagers/unhappy mobs/minorities/unhappy unionists/anyone and everyone trying to protest and get attention. Roadblocks are very common.

8) No one knows about roadblocks till they happen. Not like France where they tell you before they're going on strike.

This is what 4 hours of frustration, pain and waiting looks like. It is also what a Nepali Highway looks like: 1 lane.

9) When roadblocks happen, shops nearby stock up on lots of food to take advantage of the situation. People from nearby villagers boil eggs in anticipation to sell.

10) Nepalese people have no shame. During roadblocks they just walk to the side and pee even if it's in full view of everyone on the bus. This happens in the hundreds.

This man is definitely Nepalese.

11) Roadblocks can be something like 2 logs lain across the road. The police don't intervene because they're afraid of agitating the locals further.

12) Ambulances are for hire by tourists, because the people who block the road let ambulances through.

The roadblock was 2 guys watching a pile of ashes dumped between 2 large logs.

13) It's easier to get out of the bus and walk for an hour to the next town to get another bus.

14) Misery is sitting in a hot stuffy overcrowded local bus on a road riddled with even more potholes

15) Things like the PM firing the Army Chief often result in trouble, trouble of the mass protest/demonstration/curfew sort. However the villagers often don't care enough to participate in politics. They just want tourist money.

16) Power outages happen in hotels too. What a royal pain.

17) Nepalese breakfasts (for outsiders anyway) is AWESOME. Picture a large hum chim beng like bread, two eggs any style (often scrambled for me) and a large serving on potatoes fried with onions. I could die happy eating that. WHY WHY WHY did I not take a picture? ):

18) Porters are the most awesome shit ever. Our guy was like 1.56m or something, built like a stick and could carry 25kg+ with his neck and back. Again I didn't take a picture of him in action.

But that's him, with a dog that followed us from Magethanti to Ghorepani. His eyes are closed though.

19) Mule trains are very common. Mule shit is even more common. It gets everywhere, onto narrow steep steps and broad rocky paths alike. The smell is terrible.

20) Mules are dumb. They are also powerful enough to push you off the steps when they run into you.

Yeah I thought this was cute too, before we discovered shit all over the place.

21) Leaves have leeches. Trying to avoid mule shit and walking into foliage that sticks out is no fun either. Leeches climb up legs by making smaller bites and using that as a ladder. Leech bites are FUCKING ITCHY OMG. I took a pic, but I think it's a little too sick.

22) Mysterious Fucking Insect (MFI) bites are bad too. They make ankles swell up into the size of two ankles and itch like hellfire. They are still itchy and swollen more than a week later.

23) Tiger Balm with camphor is your friend. Kind of. It works better than Calamine Lotion for MFI bites.

24) Tomatoes are a Nepalese crop. Tomato soup is awesome. We ordered it (okay me) for every meal. I took note of the best 3 soups. As the pinoys say, sarap!

Yay :D

25) Rain makes the place very cold, plus strong gale force winds. So cold that hiding under a thick blanket while already in a sleeping bag for -5 degrees still makes you shiver yourself to sleep.

26) Teahouse beds are narrow. Waking up in the middle of the night and looking for your duck is not a good idea. Neither is reaching over, flipping over mattress and all off the rickety bed and falling to the wooden floor, just to get an imagined duck that turned out to be hiding in the hood of your sleeping bag.

27) Walking uphill on uneven steep slate steps riddled with new mule shit and old mule shit coupled with thin mountain air makes one stop every 5 minutes to rest and become ashamed of all previous imagined physical capability. This went on for 4 hours, uphill, all the way. (Though it really was my mother that slowed us down)

Mule Trains = Mule Shit, Steep Steps = Pain. The combination is simply inhuman.

28) Smoking actually makes you slower than age. We constantly overtook a group of Israeli boys that kept chain smoking even though they looked university age. MY MOTHER OVERTOOK THEM. I bet they're still stuck somewhere in the Poon Hill Trek route.

29) All Nepalese assume you're either Japanese or from China. They go Ni Hao! or Konnichiwa! Today some guy when 'So Deska ne!' to me, nevermind that it made no sense at all. I often just go along with it and pretend I'm from China.

30) The view while trekking is awesome. However you spend more time watching where you step (avoid shit, avoid twisting ankle) than admirning the view around you. Nat Geo would have been a better choice if you were doing it for the view really.

31) Early morning cold mountain air aggravates my asthma. I turn into my mother, with her walking speed and all.

32) The view from the top is great, all 3210 metres of it. Except coupled with aching muscles, icy slicing winds, and the existence of everyone and their dslrs, flickrs, you can't help think to yourself "was this all really worth it?" because you know someone's got more awesome better pics on flickr.

This is me trying to do my best

33) Walking downhill is bad too, because it is a massive strain on already aching knees and ankles. It's very easy to slip and fall, not to mention twist ankles. Also cannot be done at a fast speed.

34) Food in the villages literally means they kill your food when you order it. Lots of chickens running around the streets and lots of heavy dodgy chopping sounds in the kitchen after you order, plus the fact that they take almost 40 minutes+ to serve your food from when you order it.

35) They have hot showers with hot water and showers with no hot water. They assume you know why they're named differently on the door. Nevermind that no one will in their right minds will take a shower without hot water when the temperature is hovering around 15 degrees. This did not happen to me though, phew.

36) Hot water turns into steam when it touches your body up there. If your hands are numb from the cold prior to the hot water, you think you're being scalded and have lost your hands. True story.

This is pretty much the route we took, about 40km uphill and downhill.

37) Happiness is getting reception and contact with the outside world again, like to learn who got into NUS medical

38) Happiness is also a good shower in a bathroom with hot water without cold air blowing about your ankles.

39) Nepal is where the taxi drivers from cartels and declare unofficial monopolies on roads and attempt to bash up jeep drivers delivering tired trekkers back to Pokhara (the town nearest to the trekking area). And it's perfectly valid in the eyes of everyone present except the foreigners.

40) Misery is again taking an un-airconditioned bus from Pokhara to Kathmandu (7 hours, 215 km) on bad roads in 33 degree+ temperature with no wind and a searing sun. My lip balm melted into an unredeemable pool.

41) There are mountains of trash in Kathmandu. No one really clears it.

This is a dead cat that had flies around it and smelled just outside Thamel, the tourist district. Taxies were driving by just centimeteres away.

Aiyah I'm Burping Again

I just had the my longest conversation in Nepali.

Me: Anu didi?
Anu: Haju?
Me: Namaste
Anu: Namaste

No People Bowing To Neon Gods Here: There's No Power.

I woke up this morning to the thought of 'what the fuck?', and then realised I was in Nepal. Then I looked at my laptop and was relieved that there was power, not that power really makes a difference in the daytime anyway. It's just good to have the guise that there's power 24/7, till the power actually goes out and I get all funny again. Last night after I managed to get my laptop up and running and my room in order, I started to feel better and calmed down a little.

This is what my room looks like:


I even have my duck from home. A duck that went trekking. I feel a bit like Lee Min.


And that's the view from my room window. Last night I heard freaky sounds of something that sounded like it was climbing up the stairs. This morning I woke up to see a dog running on the tin roof (Oh gosh, dog on a hot tin roof), making the same noise.

-----

There's a part in Conrad's The Heart of Darkness where Marlowe, the protagonist watches as a storehouse of his burns down. He gets upset, naturally, but everyone around him is like 'oh what's new?' and the natives run around trying to put out the fire with buckets with gaping big holes in them, to the extent that there's no water actually left in the buckets by the time the reach the fire. I think it's the beginning part of when he starts to go mad. Nepal, to me, feels like this. Every piece of shit is nothing new ("oh PM sacks army chief for no reason? nothing new") and the subequent event ("oh President vetoes action? nothing new") to the natives response ("oh let's protest and attempt to shut down the capital by making life worse for the majority BECAUSE MY VIEWS ARE MORE IMPORTANT. nevermind that it accomplishes nothing :D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D"). Fuck this. Really.

Oh and I'm not supposed to swear too, because I am attempting to be a good christian. Living in a pastor's home. This is hard because in normal life in Singapore when I fall down or make a mistake I swear. Here EVERYTHING makes me want to swear. From the roads which makes driving feel worse than the worst air pocket to a plane, to the cars that honk more than a herd of angry agitated geese, to the kids (not even those in the home, the 6 kids of the missionaries are enough) doing what kids do: behaving badly in those oh so precocious way when there's just 2 of them.

Last night I had dinner with them (the 3 missionary families) because of the 3 visiting pastors from the big scary board of christians who've come to try and open a proper *insert my denomination here* chapter here. You know those scenes where it shows someone sitting down on a park bench and the world moves around is superfast speed? It felt like that except with more facepalm, and the world was 6 kids. 6 kids which cried, threw utensils, tried to grab at open flames (okay that was just the baby), pretended to be the baby by sitting in the high chair, played a game that involved slamming tables as hard as they could (this was a restaurant with other patrons), whinined, ran around and did other stuff I was trying to ignore. Did I mention I am strongly reconsidering being a mother? I kept thinking 'okay I'll just eat my hamburger and pretend I am a cow', but then I got worried the kids would notice how weird I was. Because kids are perceptive apparently.

And then there was the actual work in the home yesterday. With a kid who was DAMN LAZY and the other who was slow. The damn lazy kid (Joy) kept on mocking the slow kid (Hiva). I think. It was in Nepali so I don't know for sure, but the tone sure sounded like it. I had to keep thinking 'okay I will keep calm and carry on' or 'I will not massive facepalm in front of the kids'. They kept asking to go to the bathroom too, and kept giggling as they asked. I was sure something was up, but they returned really quickly so I ignored it. On reflection I might have killed Neath if I had to teach her, she seems like one of those who'd run away and be completely impossible to teach.

Okay I need to stop complaining less and just go with the flow, but damn if this thing isn't going to turn me into the guy from Curb Your Enthusiasm.

I Just Ate A Milkybar

Hi. Incredibly I am not quite dead yet. Ièm sitting at a moniter in Pokhara with really dodgily slow internet service at a rate of 50 rupees for 30 mins (thatès S$1) to you, and apprently with a keyboard thatès half messed up. The joy.

I just finished a 5 day trek around Nepalès Annapurna Conservation Area and my calf muscles feel like theyève all been shredded into little bits of tissue. My thighs hurt like hell too. Ièll write more when I get back to Kathmandu, tomorrow. That is IF I get back. For the past 5 days weève literally have had no connection with the outside world. Before we left on Monday morning, we heard that Kathmandu had a curfew due to protests and rioting on the streets by opposing political parties. This came after the army chief was sacked by the Nepalese PM, then vetoed by the President. As a result the PM and the rest of the cabinet quit, leaving Nepal effectively government-less. This in addition to the fact that the minorities are already protesting in the East of the country and have threatened to storm the capital because er, their rioting went ignored.

Plus on the way from Kathmandu to Pokahara we were held at a roadblock for more than 4 hours. This is because the villagers nearby closed off the road, which is the only road from Kathmandu to the other towns (thus closing off all gas, fuel and food supplies, driving prices up in the capital sky high). The army people were sitting around watching the roadblock too, helpless. Nevermind that the roadblock consisted of a few layers of logs laid across the road and some random burnings of incense. This held up hundreds of tourists like us, in addition to more locals. We could have stormed them if we wanted to -____________________- Meanwhile, the shops nearby the affected area made a huge killing selling things from 20 RHP Lays marked up to 50 RHP (50 RHP = S$1) to boiled eggs. It was madness.

But what can I sayÉ (thatès meant to be a question mark btw), this is Nepal, where my google reader hardly works because the internet here is far too slow and power outages are scheduled daily yet still happen randomly. I can hardly believe Iève elected to stay here for a month, yet somehow Ièm slowly getting used to it.

-----

DID YOU KNOW THAT LIKE JUST AFTER I TYPED THAT LINE THE POWER WENT OUT AND MY POST GOT STUCK IN DRAFT LIMBO.

AND I AM TYPING IN CAPS NOW BECAUSE I AM BORDERLINE HYSTERICAL?

AND THAT PACKING THE ROOM I WAS ASSIGNED MAKES ME FEEL A LITTLE BIT BETTER?

BUT AT LEAST I HAVE POWER TODAY.

AND THIS IS FINALLY POSTED ON MONDAY 11TH MAY AT 10:54 SINGAPORE TIME?