laremy.sg

Why are ordinary women exposing themselves online?. (via)

• Police seize 42-piece dinner set constructed entirely from cocaine
• An Emergency Broadcast from Sugar: An Abortion Near Sarah Palin’s Front Lawn
• Broadcasting Fake Names
• Silken Tofu with Cream of Miso
• Parking

Wish I could keep one of these in Pooters… Would sure come in handy most days when there’s a car nonchalently parked over all the motorcycle lots!

• At least man on horse is safe
• TOP JOB HUNTING TIPS

“11. Create sympathy by printing your cover letter on the back of your DBS High Notes 5 refund rejection letter”.

• SIGNS YOU’RE GAMBLING AT A HALF PAST SIX CASINO
• New faces watching new media
• Descent into the Wilderness
• Flexibility, please, on CCAs

“Both my sons are in Ai Tong School and train five or six days a week in a swimming club. The school’s co-curricular activity (CCA) head told me that time spent training in the club cannot be recognised as a CCA as the school does not have swimming as a CCA. So my sons have to spend another two or three hours in school on a CCA offered by the school”. – For what, you tell me, this inflexibility?

• Don’t Chop Trees To Build Estate

“SLA (The Singapore Land Authority) recently felled more than a dozen trees near where I live. They said those trees posed a danger to the residents. But the trees have been around for the past 20-odd years surviving thunder storms and strong winds. I think SLA is more dangerous”.

• Headlines: March 20, 2009 [Weekend Edition]

I’m wondering why it is patients don’t have more of a say in deciding their own rest/recovery period. The dentist told me she was only going to give me a one-day Medical Certificate (MC). I asked for one-more day; she offered me an excuse letter instead, saying the procedure was a “minor” one.

I understood why – it wasn’t a surgery (although I thought it was at first but I guess I confused the phases of treatment) so from a very clinical point of view, I didn’t need that much rest.

But I didn’t see the point to this flow of logic i.e. I thought it was too hard and fast a rule for it to work across the board. I’m not an office worker, so it’s different in my case. The act of excusing me from teaching still means I have to be at work, which still means I have to prepare my food, my clothes, etc. the night before, wake up early, jostle with the crowd (Pooters is at the workshop, BTW [separate story]) – which I think doesn’t really bode well for the recovery process.

Or is it a Singaporean obsession with ‘showing face’ at work? Quantity of appearances doesn’t really translate to quality of appearances, you know.

Anyway, I went to the clinic near my home to request for an MC; the doctor said no. Again, I understand. He has his own ethical code of conduct to follow. I could feel him grappling with his own inner conscience, but I decided not to push the matter. I know he felt guilty, but I think he should feel some sense of guilt – if he had bothered to listen to what I was trying to say (which, in any case, was kinda hard because the braces have rendered me slightly unintelligible), perhaps he would have understood a deeper meaning to it all – I don’t chao keng but I am aware enough of my own body to know when I need the rest.

I think the rest I need is more psychological than anything else. I didn’t have a pleasant day with the extraction; it hurt like hell. I can’t chew any more; I’m reduced to soups and porridges, and even though I like soups and porridges, I don’t have any more choice to consume what I want at will. I just want some time at home to recover mentally and emotionally, but I guess Medical Certificates don’t cover that, do they?

On hindsight, maybe I could’ve practiced what I preach about performance. I didn’t go into the clinic looking like death; I went in requesting for an MC. So in a sense, I wasn’t in the role of the patient enough for the doctor to step up to the stage and perform his role as well. Maybe it really is all about the politics of performance? *shrugs*

The only thing to be slightly cheery about: I have very good Co-Operating Teachers. Ms Toh Hui Yuan, Mr Peter Crawshaw and Mr Anthony Phoon, if you come across this – thank you very much for your care and concern.

And for the students who are stalking: 4E2 and 4E Literature rocks, and I hope 3E4 comes on board soon.

It is entirely numb and flubbering about like a leech mooching off a piece of butt cheek. I’m starting to feel my gums though, in a painful way. My blood tastes like iron, although I have never consciously tried tasting iron before. Is that supposed to be ironic? I don’t know, but there’s this dull ache extending from where a tooth used to be, massaging the depths of my brain with a finger called pain.

Four of my original teeth have been plucked out, by the way. The shock of it will probably hit me tomorrow when I wake up.

I’m not entirely convinced I should have done this, but I am trying to convince myself it was the right decision. Maybe I’ll start to appreciate having gone through the pain in ten years’ time. Maybe I won’t, but it wouldn’t have mattered – in the end, we all need some kind of coping mechanism in life.

• Morning Coffee
• Personal Best – Caffeine – A Legal Performance Booster – NYTimes.com
• British soldiers victims of a mental conflict without end

“Although almost 4,000 military staff annually are found to have some form of mental disorder, in just over three years only 115 British personnel or veterans were compensated for the psychological injuries of war”.

• How I Saved Newspapers
• PAP playing the race card again to justify its witch-hunt against embattled ST journalist
• Haro Genki: I want that WTF too

Think I should get one for my students too? (Just kidding, BTW.)

• forever’s gonna start tonight.

Sweet + very nice photos from Fiza.

• Actually, Jesus Christ fled to Japan
• British cops identify 200 schoolchildren as potential terrorists

This is crazy. Haven’t they heard of labelling theory?

• Verified by Visa: British banks phish their own customers
• Amazing art made with old audio cassette tapes
• Spring Picnic at Central Park

Sweet.