World Book Fair - Day 4 - 10 more hours

The punked hairstyle didn't work. Somehow managed to find myself with the parents who don't want to buy but still want to come and molest our teaching manuals. Damn pissed off lah... then Rainmaker Ron actually had this Indonesian school director who walked up to the booth and immediately without hesitation said that she would buy 1 of everything we have. Enuff said.. I wanted to exterminate some non-sentient lifeform, someone kindly direct me to the nearest ant or something. I want to stomp it flat and then drive it into the concrete floor.

Results are out today. HK called me to tell me there's a difference in the boat grade between him and hunter. I fear the worse. Turn out I didn't fear 'worse' enough.. but I really don't want to talk about it.

It's a very bad day.

Pangy was pricked and bled at 11:43 PM
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World Book Fair - Day 3 - another 10 hours, total 20

Having been already confirmed for full 10 hours shifts until the end of the fair, I believe Aunty Alice and co are nice enough to keep me possibly for my positive attitude. Maybe I won't get axed even if i didn't manage to clinch those deals.

Day 3 starts with manual labour. I arrived at the booth earlier than any of the other promoters and Aunty Alice and see lian were doing facelift for the booth. The tables have been rearranged and after i put my bag in the corner i got down to helping them move stuff around. The real manual work came when see lian had to rearrange the stock. Had to carry and move heavy boxes while bent from the waist. Bad for posture... but maybe as a warm up for the coming day of standing straight up.

A new girl arrives, she's called Joanne. Petite little thing, probably very young.. younger than the other girls already here.

CJJ came to the book fair and I spotted him 1st as he approached our booth. The day gets off surprisingly fast. Before long it's 1 pm already, and some of the promoters have gone to have their lunch. I'm still hanging out at the booth with clara and joanne. Then after awhile more it's 3 pm, shanice tells me and joanne to go for our lunch.. albeit a late lunch.

Found out more about joanne as the hours went by, she's just graduated from VJ too, going to Dentistry. Then over lunch got to know that Aunty Alice is a family friend of hers and she's been helping Aunty Alice almost every holiday and she lives along Frankel too. She started work today only bcos she just got back from Adelaide last night. She did manage to unpack first.

After returning from a quick lunch, nothing much goes on.. entertained a little girl with the DMM qn on this whiteboard set-up at the booth. The christmas tree was drawn up and this gutsy little girl actually cleaned up half of it with a tissue paper when she left with her mum! MY CHRISTMAS TREE!

Nevermind.. I redrew the circles and thought for awhile what new picture I can come up with. Then I drew one of those cottage houses we drew back in our childhood days. Got some commends of creativity from the girls in general. One particular girl, she looks pretty dao most of the time, ting, called my xmas tree childish but she caught herself with a 'just right for the little children'.

clara played nanny for the day.. she's been entertaining the little ones non-stop. She says everytime she stops with the little ones, she sees that we're all busy with the adults and nobody was left for her.. she only managed to approach 1 parent before the presentation time.

Presentation time, me and joanne were left behind to slack around. Wonder if it was just as fun at the presentation today as yesterday was. Talked a little more with joanne, found out that her mandarin was poor. Seems she a typical Frankel Avenue-VJC-chiak kantang kind of girl.

This is were my luck really shows its defiance against me. Halfway through the presentation, these 2 Indian men, really well dressed in shirt jacket all come and I approached them. They came from the presentation and were obviously so eager to get their hands on our manuals before the rest of the crowd came back to the booth.

I showed them the manuals and in the end they didn't buy. It wasn't my fault, one of them commended that I did a good job showing them the material but something screwed up and I forgot what.. damned..

Then when the presentation was almost over, this important looking man came to the booth. I went up to him and he was obviously interested in the manuals. He even enquired and showed interest in the Parents' workshop. Clearly a man who wanted the best for his children. He flipped a keypad off the front of his Motorola 3G handphone (Rich too!) and checked his calendar against the date for the parents' workshop. Uh-oh... he wasn't going to be in the country on the date.. Damnit.. I think he said something about going back to discuss with his wife and left.

Continued to serve the crowd that came from the presentation. At around 7 pm, the crowd had already dissipated, many sales were clinched, once again by Ron. A lady walked towards the booth staring at our displays, I approached her and she would sit down to hear me introduce the manuals. She didn't go to the presentation just now but she patiently listened to me. I had to teach her the method, go through several questions for each set and it was tough.. the step by step guided solution wasnt availiable and understanding the complete solution and explaining on the fly really took a chunk of my energy.

She also wanted to see the DMM for her younger one, so I showed her. She wondered how as mummy was she going to teach her young one how to do these number quizzes. Good thing I know how to tell her for the earlier problems, I explained to her the patterns to recognise and the logic to apply and some personal discoveries for some puzzles. Then we went out to uncharted waters of the DMM, the later puzzles that I haven't had time to check out for myself. Stumbled a little, but luckily she was mentally tired too so she asked something else and the DMM was left to lie.

All's good and well and she is ready to confirm her purchase. Then I realised I have to check availiblity of stock. To my horror HOW that she wanted, is out of stock already, cleaned out by the earlier crowd. She then said this was not really acceptable bcos she couldn't make time to come to the book fair again to collect the manuals later when in stock bcos she can't secure leave. Then after shanice returned from the ladies, she asked if other arrangements were possible but none worked out for her. And so then she just made do with shanice's handphone number and said she would call on thurs to check for stock. She commended me for a good job in showing her the material and she was gone.

I'm really busted now. I check the watch and it is almost 8. I spent 1 hour showing the manuals to the lady and she left without a purchase. I also haven't had my dinner, although I had lunch at 3 I was quite drained and hungry from the exertion. I then asked if I could leave early, using the 1 hour dinner break I have to cover for leaving early, and I was allowed to go.

Yah I'm also going to style my hair punked tmr.. I told the girls maybe it's Ron's punked hairstyle that's getting him all the deals. His punked can't fight with my punked.. I'll show him who's the rainmaker tomorrow!

Pangy was pricked and bled at 11:03 PM
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World Book Fair - Day 2 - the next 5 hours

Day 2.. begins with a record of 0 sales. Not to mention a jean-soaking heavy rain over my area when I left for Suntec. Maybe the rain represents a windfall today. Water is wealth as the Chinese believe and I'm going to be soaked up to my knees in wealth! Today is going to be a good day!

Saw Aisha as I was making my way to Sitec. Shared our stories of how customers listen to us talk then run off.

Arrived at the booth and a bit of asking around reveals that the high scoring guy from yesterday has done it again. Not sure if it's good luck that he's not on the same shift as me or bad luck cos obviously parents are more willing to part with their money during his shift.

Today is windfall day, but not for me.. for another guy, Ron. Damnit he sold something like 30 units at the end of the day.

5-6 was presentation by Aunty Alice. Jolly good fun. Had more banter with xiao mei mei! We prepared on A2 sized whiteboards a question from the DMM set. Xiao mei mei laffed at my 1st attempt to draw the circles.. i threw her a look and then cleaned off the quite pathetic circles that i drew and made another try. This time I drew them circles nice big and round.

She had to poke me in the ribs by saying 'so boring' and then she suddenly picked a black marker and added two straight lines at the bottom of my green triangle of circles. She laffed and said 'hey! look got tree!' then before I could react to anything, she grabbed the whiteboard and held it back to my face and said 'nah! now even more like tree!' and she was referring to my brown shirt.

After she got started, she picked another green marker and added a star on the top of the 'christmas tree', I picked a red marker and was wondering how to make it look like a christmas tree then she snatched it from me and added red squiggly lines in diagonals across the tree.

Not wanting to be out done, i grabbed a black marker and started drawing gift boxes at the base of the tree and using red to colour ribbon wrappings for the presents.

Fun fun... then me and her went to the little kiddies with our whiteboards halfway thru Aunty Alice's presentation. The kiddies were looking restless while the bigger children and adults were captivated by Aunty Alice's math magic.

At the end of the presentation, managed to clich a deal of 5 units. Pathetic when compared to 30 units from Ron. Fookened luck.

Xiao mei mei.. I believe her name is peiwen.. saw on her name tag, asked me to treat her to dinner.. bcos she didn't get any sales. She also wanted me to find 10 'goldfish' for her, no correction.. clinch 10 goldfish for her! Threw her an arrow and told her to get to work.. haha

Then went for dinner break at 8 with her and clara. All along she was still going on and on about me treating her to dinner. Don't really understand.. do I have 'kai zi' face?? Tmd why all these xiaomeimei anyhow ask me for treat one! Don't even really know them!

Won't be seeing her tmr, she's not working tmr. Might miss her incessant rebuttals towards me?

Pangy was pricked and bled at 11:34 PM
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World Book Fair - Day 1 - the first 5 hours

Aunty Alice is looking like a big cannon.. poor me sold nothing. I guess it's different when she's giving us product training, she has our full attention and anything she says is captivating. When we try it at the book fair on the parents, they are distracted by the noise, by their kids, by the crowd and 1001 other things. They're also skeptical, don't believe that her method will work. Some are also egoistic, 'My child can one! This one not difficult! He can do himself one.'
Some don't think that they can apply the method in school 'Can do like that in school meh? Teacher mark them wrong how?'

The girls aren't doing any better either... everyone's going home with a bright and shiny zero.

Not some of the guys from the earlier shift.. Damnit one guy got 11 units off.. and from what he tells me, he didn't expend any effort at all.. just somehow get the parents to sit down and Aunty Alice will come and settle the deal for him. Fooken!

I can't even get Aunty Alice to help me! Once she starts on one customer, she'll be at it for 1 hr...

If the scores keeps at this rate, i'll be packing for home after tmr night.

One good thing though.. got xiao mei mei to chat up.. hahaha.. told that to ah xuan and all she had to say was 'you ah...' hahaha

The xiao mei mei saw her friend then she went 'EH!!' very loudly.. haha.. everyone turned to see what the commotion was about. A while later she came to ask me, "Just now everyone was staring ah? so paiseh!" Then I told her, "For just a LEETLE while everyone was looking, then they turned back and did watever they we doing." emphasizing on 'little' with a stress and shutting my eyes tight while stressing the word.. hahah. Wonder which shift she'll be working tomorrow.

Pangy was pricked and bled at 11:30 PM
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The only person I care enough about to get angry with often, Adeline..

Pangy was pricked and bled at 11:40 PM
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Slacked the week away..

Started on my ah-beng mirror paintjob.. covering up the parts that are meant to be black... still left a small part to cover up before i can start spraying the white on..

Bought NFSU2 from some guy in Tampines.. easier to play than NFSU

Played one whole day of SW Republic Commando... shiok sia..

Wasted away the weekend.. not shiok

Sold some of my games away... $45 income...

Went one on one against a Red Dragon.. thank goodness I learnt the Ice Sphere spell and not went for a higher level Circle of Cold.

Obtained Cafe Del Mar CDs... my Zen Micro is filling up.. only left 500+Mb.. damn.. have to add 'Remove seldom listened to songs' to list of things to do on top of 'Organising playlists'

Going to a temp job briefing/interview tmr morning.. hopefully can get... 10 day bookfair at Suntec.. even if i get paid measly $5, if i work 10 hr shifts for 10 days i'll still get $500..

Tmr have to find out who mistaken me as Dan's bf.. hahahaha.. by any means possible.. haha

Pangy was pricked and bled at 12:52 AM
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After going home to get a quick recovery after Macritchie, I picked up Ade from work and then we went for our 1st Tango and Jive lessons!

The dance studio's in Geylang Bahru opposite the old VS site.. yeah good old geylang bahru.

Got to dance with ade, her friend bhav, dan, qin and only once with ruyi mei leh. Wonder if I was doing 'gorilla steps' during tango or 'shaky goalkeeper' when it was jive haha... will have to watch myself in the mirror more closely when practicing at home.

Dancing's fun and I didn't feel the pain in my probably injured ligament.. the joint between my right thigh bone, right femur, and pelvis gives a sharp pain at some angles.

But now that I'm home, I'm feeling it.. and hungry!

Pangy was pricked and bled at 11:58 PM
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Treetop walk, Tree bottom trek

Wah lau.. the treetop walk at Macritchie is pathetic. You'll need to trek 4.4km thru winding gravel-ly, sandy jungle trail to reach the start of the walk. Just when you think "Yeah finally, what I've been waiting for!" you step onto the start of the suspension bridge and hey.. in the distance some 200 metres away is the end of the treetop walk!

PhhffffTTT! The bridge is also held up by a kiasu amount of thick cables and there's even a kiasee metal grider structure directly below the bridge to make sure it doesn't wobble. wwooooohhhhh......

Ok fine.. we stay at the top there, look into the distance, talk about how Picasso came to realise that lines extending to infinity away from you will always meet at the horizon, take a few pictures that would end up over illuminated, take a picture of a monkey hiding among the leaves with the sun's glare into the camera lens, time check... 15 mins. wow......... I brisk walked 40 mins to spend this awfully dragged out 15 mins on top of the trees.

After completing the treetop walk, it's time to go back to macritchie park. Via another route that is even longer than the 4.4 km route that brought you to the start.

All in all you'd have walked one whole round around macritchie. It was still great with friends like ruyi and youkai.

Pangy was pricked and bled at 11:43 PM
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Another one bites the dust. Blog that is.

I went to check back on a blog post that I entered a comment. And hey the blog's gone! Instead there was a message for all the flamers (my comment was in disagreement with what the author posted.. but I hope it didn't come across as a flame.. oh no..)

The blog in question is by some guy in NUS Science Fac and the post was about how there is a dearth of pretty girls despite the high percentage of female students in the population there.

Another extremely fun blog also bit the dust sometime ago. This one's by a girl called Jaime (fictitious name of course) who blogs about her adventures, she undresses herself in deserted public places and then quickly puts her clothes back on when she thinks someone might get near.

There were two prominant types of people who commented on each of her adventures, the ones who disapprove and called her derogratory names and the ones who enjoyed it (in all ways you can imagine). She too gave up after finally being called a slut one time too many.

Xiaxue also threathened to shutdown her blog once. Over what incident I can't remember very clearly, those of you who haven't been to her blog should go immediately. She too has her share of critics but thank goodness she's still at it.

So much for 'freedom of speech' yes? Go ahead and say what you like, it's the Internet, it's free media. Blogs are your private piece of cyberspace. NOT.

Pangy was pricked and bled at 4:32 PM
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More Orlan Bloom to the rescue

Watched Kingdom of Heaven. At the end of it, didn't feel that it was so fantastic. Sure, the seige and knight charges were splendid and I've always liked medieval knights, swords and armour and shield but at the end of it, it just can't compare to say Troy. Troy had a fantastic character in it, Achilles, who stole the show unlike in KoH where none of the characters stood out particularly.

At least this time Orlan Bloom isn't equiped with his weapon of choice, longbow and arrow.

Some questions I had as I was watching the movie..
1. If his dad was such a wise lord that cared truely for the people, why didn't he start on the irrigation project himself and leave the lands he owned dry and barren, his people without enough to eat and drink?

2. When Orlan Bloom led his knights against Saladin's advanced party, led by the guy he spared just after he arrived in the middle east, how the hell could the cavaliers have realised that it was Orlan Bloom amidst the mad blur of the battle and not have killed or greviously injured him?

3. When Saladin marched on Jerusalem, how could he have not noticed Orlan Bloom's white stone markers? A cunning strategist such as himself would have realised that the white painted stones served as some kind of marker for the defenders. He could have ordered the army to E-brake then send a few horsemen to scatter the stones.. then the defenders would be screwed..

If Orlan Bloom wanted to be devious, he could have sent people out to poison the water sources along the way from Saladin's camp to Jerusalem.

Also watching him fight for his horse kinda made me feel that the world hasn't actually changed that much.. horses gave men stature, speed and they were prized posessions, modern steel steeds the automobile can be regarded similarly.

"What man is a man who lives a day without making the world better" (exactly what was it that he carved into the beam of his blacksmith shop?)

Be without fear in the face of your enemy,
Be brave and upright that God may love thee,
Speak the truth even if it leads to your death,
Safeguard the helpless

Pangy was pricked and bled at 12:03 AM
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Anyone visited this blog before? Singabloodypore The author, in his own opinion, is championing freedom of speech and whatever other freedom that he, as an angmoh, feels compelled to exercise.

I haven't managed to get pass his choice of title for his blog.

GGRRR!!! It might be true when you say those things about my country but it is DEFINETLY NOT BLOODY! I don't want to point fingers but you can go to many other countries.. such as those without strict gun control legislation, those without a strong police force, those with corrupt governments, rampant crime, crime lords, drug syndicates, homicides, serial killers, armed robbers, people discriminated based on skin colour and heritage, forced to live in grottos and slums, growing up with a hatred inside them AND THERE is where you will find BLOODY. NOT SINGAPORE.

I should email him.. yes I will.

Pangy was pricked and bled at 1:56 PM
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Exams are over. Yes they are over. Hurray. hmmmm......... Actually the hype is not living up to expectations. For the past weeks it's the usual horrible exam preparations and taking the exams, wishing that they would finish tomorrow and now that it's over.. so what?

I've been blog surfing again. Clicking on the 'Next Blog' link on top of the blogspot bar. Came across advertising 'blogs', a series of entries with links to whatever the site is advertising, porn blogs, news commentary blogs and personal blogs. I only bothered to stop and read singaporean blogs. It seems that singaporeans only create personal blogs, unlike some other people around the world who really want to speak up and offer commentaries on the news, politics and sports around them. (See related posting on Capn Intrepid's blog here)

One thing about singaporean bloggers... MANY are really young kids.. boys and girls, 13-16. One 13-yr old girl's blog entries are all in shortform Singlish. Something like "2dae i wen 2 skl n ...." can't remember liao.. almost looked like some other language to me, damn difficult to read lah.

Kids will just be kids, live revolves around school, the pretty girl and the yandao guy in class, the guy who asked me out that day, the girl whom i tried to date that time, i'm fat/skinny/ugly/pretty/cute/pissed off with the world.

Then I also found this young lady's blog, she's taking some level 5000 Econs module, presumably in NUS. Somewhere 2/3 down her very very long list of displayed blog entries was a transcript of her friend mumbling to her over the phone abt making out with another gal-pal after a drunk nite at mohmd sultan.. haha.. quite funny.

Read another blog (non-singaporean) and the blogger related a funny incident that's a parellel to men going to the supermart to buy pads.

"I went into our local "Borders" bookstore yesterday after work. My friend had told me about a specific book that she spotted on her last visit there. She told me that it was right in front as you entered the store." She couldn't find the book and a friendly staff member of Borders (male) came to ask if he could help her find her book. She tried to convince him that she was fine by herself but he insisted and then she told him she was looking for 'Ten Signs That Your Boyfriend is Cheating'.

"He takes me back to the customer service desk and approaches two more gentlemen, 'Can you guys help us look up a book titled 'Ten Signs That Your Boyfriend is Cheating?'
I swear he must have been speaking into a microphone. He was a good 10 paces from the counter when he shouted out his request. Now the other two gentlemen are looking at me with great interest."

The book was found but feeling extremely embarrassed, she walked around the bookstore awhile more and decided not to buy the book but a comedy DVD instead. She goes to pay for her purchase and it's the same guy at the cashier now.

'You're not going to buy the book???'
'Well, no...I'm sorry....I saw you up here and knew you were going to ask me why...I just....well....It just wasn't what I thought it was...'
'So, do you think your man is cheating on you?'
'Yeah, kindof.'
'Does that book tell you how to catch him?'
'Yeah, sortof....but I don’t really need to catch him.'
The line is backed up a bit as interested customers listen in...

She then decides to say a big bunch of crap to try and make the situation less embarassing.

'Well, it's just that.....the book tells you how to get over the other woman....I need help getting over other women, other men, drag queens, transsexuals, sheep and gerbils.'
His jaw drops and he shakes his head. I start to giggle watching his dreadlocks swing back and forth.
'I don't know why I'm laughing....it's really awful....I just can't help laughing....there is really nothing I can do about the whole thing but laugh...and... well....tell perfect strangers about it.'

Lol..

Pangy was pricked and bled at 8:11 PM
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