The Execution Of Molly

In her childhood years, Molly was perfect. She was innocent, obedient and lovable. Her elders adored her, her peers liked her.

But for unfathomable reasons, she became wild, twisted and unpredictable as she stepped into her teenage years.

No, she was not only a dark, moody adolescent. She committed unforgivable crimes, even caused the burning of a friend. After the heinous act, she started a life on the road, as a runaway. Once or twice, she got curbed by the law, keeping her toe to line, though for only short periods of time. Eventually, she would escaped punishment and run rampant again.

But not for long this time. This time, she is locked behind bars, she cannot escape because she has been charged with the ultimate sentence - execution. Crime? For being an uncontrollable vagrant for almost two decades. She is dangerous and needs to be tamed.

Execution may sound too harsh for her misdeeds but do not be mistaken, execution in this context is not to end her life. It is an effort to put an end to her past and cleanse her soul.

Although execution does not take away her life, Molly is scared nonetheless. In her cell, she trembled and prayed and put on her best behaviour, in an attempt to delay or even reduce her sentence. Sure enough, the judge was moved by her sincerity - Molly's execution was postponed by two weeks.

And today, is the end of the grace period. Rest in peace, Molly's soul. We will meet the new Molly very soon.

My Neighbours, The Losers

For years, my neighbours (the kids) looked surly and unfriendly and many times retreated back into their houses when I or Baby walked past their doors. In an effort to maintain cordial neighbourly relationships, I decided to greet them the next time I see them.

So, one bright morning, I stepped out of my house to make a trip to the market. There he was, one of my neighbours, tying his shoelaces, ready to leave the house.

Plastering a smile on my face and adding little skips in my stride, I sang, "Good morning," as I walked past him.

He was standing up at this moment. And he stumbled upon hearing my cheery greeting. I half turned back, wanting to ask if he was okay but changed my mind. Instead, I held up my head and chuckled to myself.

Grow up la, Mr Neighbour. You are already twenty years old. You can't get the chicks if you get so nervous around girls. Lol.

You might have heard that my neighbours are infected with the Xiaodong sydrome. This is yet another example to illustrate that.

毕业日记（三)

The Following Lesson...

At the end of the lesson, I packed up to leave. A little quicker than usual cos subconciously afraid of the mother's "advances". Alas! Not fast enough...

The mother: (Jumped up from the couch) Wait, wait! My son, he's very shy. (Called for Son)

Me: (Laughed awkwardly) Er...

Student: (Laughed) I didn't do anything. This is not my business.

Son came out. Embarrassed? Shy? I couldn't tell.

The mother: Come, don't be shy. Introduce yourselves. Don't worry about me.

Son: Hi, I'm XXX. (Offered to shake hands)

I'm dreading shaking people's hands over the weekend because my hands were constantly sweaty and clammy, either due to the blazing weather or due to my illness, or both. But I had to shake his hand out of politeness. So I did. I took his fingers and shook and released his hand immediately.

Me: (Smiling to hide my embarrassment) Please to meet you. I'm Melissa.

Silence.

The mother: Why you all so shy? Here, (handed me a pad of notepaper and a pen) get her number or something. Don't be shy la.

Son: (Chuckled) I'm only shy in front of pretty girls.

Me: (Laughed) Auntie, why you so anxious? He's only twenty years old.

Son: Actually, it's not that they're anxious. It's me who's anxious.

Me: Oh, hmm... (Smiled) What do you want to know?

I gave him my number and MSN contact. He gave me his in return, although it was pretty much redundant. The mother told me she got to know her husband through note passing "too".

Son: So I'm supposed to walk her down?

The mother: Anything, anything. Up to you la. Go, go.

Student: I didn't do anything. This is not my business.

Me: Okay...

As we left the house...

Son: This is so embarrassing. It's not the first time my mum tries to do something like this. You're not the first one.

Me: Oh... (Forgetting I asked this before) Why is your mum so anxious? You're only twenty!

Son: Actually, it's not that they're anxious. It's me who's anxious.

Me: Oh... Then why are you anxious? You're only twenty...

Son: Well... All my friends are attached and they are really happy.... (I wasn't paying attention to what he said cos I was feeling a bit disoriented from the weirdness of the whole episode until...) My sister told me you don't have a boyfriend.
Me: Uh huh...
Son: I was quite surprised.

Me: (Secretly happy for unfathomable reasons) Oh, I don't know... Erm, all my friends are attached too.

To digress... Titbit from yesterday: One more name has been added to my List of the Smugs.

And the conversation continued into what I studied and what he's going to study. If you want to know, he will be going England to study next year, for four years.

As we reached the gate...

Son: How are you getting back? By bus or train?

Me: Actually, I'm waiting for my friend to pick me up. She's waiting for me at the bus stop. (Stopped at gate) You can leave me here. (Beamed)

Son: Oh okay. Byebye.

Me: (Waved cheerily) Bye~

******

This is getting really weird.

To Market, To Market

I spent the whole Tuesday morning in the kitchen attempting to whip up a tasty edible meal for the Sir Dewei in return for his chivalry. More importantly, I wanted to make good old Cantonese soup for Her Highness Agnes who needed all the nourishment she could get for a speedy recovery. (My mum had to ask, "Are you making the soup for boy or girl?")

For the first time, I had to go the the neighbourhood market to get fresh ingredients for the meal I was going to prepare. I have not been to the market for so long that I did not realise it was upgraded. I could no longer locate the butcher my mum frequented.

Although the new layout was unexpected, it was neat. Veggie sellers, chicken sellers, butchers, fishmongers, florists were each given an alley to sell their wares. Thinking like a smart (first-time) homemaker, I made a beeline for the stalls with the most customers.

Veggie stall
I picked out two healthy looking onions (which later turned out to be 4 times too much for a two person meal) and paid twenty cents for them. They cost next to nothing! And that made me happy. See, I am a domestic goddess.

Butcher's
The butcher with the most customers looked really experienced so I ordered in Cantonese, as instructed by my mum (also partly cos I didn't know how to order what I wanted in Mandarin). I had other instructions as well i.e. remove the skin and the fats but the assistant didn't seem to understand me. In the end, despite my attempt to speak polished Cantonese, I had to mix in some Mandarin to make sure my message got across. Totally unglam.

Later I got home to realise the two different parts of the pig that I bought looked pretty much the same. I could only dump both into the pot without following the procedure of boiling one first and complicated instructions like that.

Chicken stall
I needed to get chicken wings and chicken feet. Unfortunately for me, none of the chicken sellers had customers (I guess 9 plus was a pretty late hour for grocery shoppers at the wet market) at that moment. I chose to buy from the most kindly looking uncle who, of course, turned out to be a very shrewd man.

He told me each chicken wing cost 40 cents. I pondered that for a second when he said, "Five for 2 dollars." To the amateur domestic goddess, it sounded like a good bargain. To the marketing student, it sounded like bundled pricing, i.e a good bargain. Only after paying, I realised five 40 cents chicken wings cost exactly 2 dollars; it was simple Math, not exactly a bargain...

Then I told him I wanted chicken feet, about 10 pieces. The uncle said, "Give me fifty cents. You will get more than 10 pieces. Other people here sell chicken feet at 5 cents a piece (must be an attempt to confuse me with the prices again)." The packet of chicken feet which he threw at me contained 20 pieces. I didn't know what to do with so many pieces, so I chucked a couple of ugly looking ones away when I got home.

At the end of bustling and being clumsy in the kitchen, I came up with 1. oyster sauce (overcooked and too salty) chicken wings, 2. (messy pile of) fried egg with onion, 3. (not rich enough) chicken feet with peanut soup, 4. rice. At least I got the rice right. And Dewei was kind enough to comment that the food smelled fragrant. And Agnes was very touched by my soup.

Oh well, it was fun nonetheless.

A Day As A Geek

The day has come for me to spend the day outside in my geeky spectacles. The geeky specs with super thick, and badly scratched lenses, fading frame colour and bits of algae. Gross. The geeky specs that should never see the light of day.

I want to get a new pair of specs this week, thus I need to relieve my eyes from contact lenses for a couple of days for an accurate eye examination. With one more library book left to read, I planned to spend the two days hibernating at home. Until I remembered I was meeting Siyi for lunch today.

For a moment, I thought of cancelling the lunch date but decided not to, since we were only meeting at neighbourly Tampines. Besides, Siyi has seen me in my geeky getup before; I figured that she wouldn't mind the fugly specs.

On the way to lunch, a hot girl boarded the bus. I thought, Darn, without my specs, I am as hot as her lor. But with the specs, my hotness level plunged to near zero, so I attempted to blend into the bus seat.

Other than Siyi, I vowed to run into no one familiar. If I were to see someone I knew coming my way, I was to head in the other direction. Good plan! But not workable if the person I knew was in the same lift as me, which was what happened. Okay... that person was only a parent from the RC... But who knows, she might be planning to introduce her handsome and eligible nephew to me. Now, my golden opportunity has been thwarted by my ugly specs, and the ugly outfit that went with the ugly specs!

After (a yucky) lunch, Siyi returned to work. I milled around the area, asked Agnes if she needed me to buy lunch for her (an offer which she politely declined), and made my way to the regional library. There was no where better to spend the blazing afternoon in geeky specs other than our cosy library, right?

It was in this wonderful library that I chanced upon some gems that were usually on loan and under reservation. What luck! Skipping happily, I returned home armed with, among others, Soseki's I Am A Cat and The Time Traveler's Wife. If The Time Traveler's Wife is as wonderful as what Wanqing claimed ("Better than Life of Pi and Middlesex"), I am in for a treat! For I love the two books. Incidentally, if you want to read Life Of Pi and/or Middlesex, especially Ong Hui, get it from me. Spread the bookness~

And speaking of spreading the bookness, I am collecting a second set of Harry Potter books for my little cousin back in HK. If you want to sell yours (I cannot fathom why), any of the books, at a price lower than the bookstores, let me know.

Okay, the next friend who sees me in my fugly specs can only be Hui Ding who is taking me to her optician. Oh, and knight in shining armour, Sir Dewei, who will be protecting bespectacled and nerdy looking Princess Xiangxiang (title conferred by Her Highness Agnes) from the cable techinician tomorrow morning :D

Attack Of The Smugs

In addition to this list, two dear friends have announced their newfound happiness.

Told you the whole world was getting attached. Grrr.

Domestic Goddess + Parent Pleaser Make A Good Wife/In-Law?

For the second time,

Student's mother: Are you Singaporean?
Me: Yes.

The mother: How old are you?

Me: Twenty-two.

Student: (Sniggered) So old.

The mother: (Glared at daughter) You want to know my son?

Student: Mum! Kor too young for her la.

Me: Er...

The mother: You have boyfriend or not?

Me: Er... No...

The mother: No boyfriend okay ma. She's only twenty-two. Your kor twenty, not much difference. Nowadays, age difference doesn't matter. I have a few friends who are older than their husbands by four, five years.

Me: (Blushed) Er...

The mother: Can la, make friends only. Young people should make more friends. If cannot, never mind. You can still be friends.

Me: Hmm...

The mother: My son scholar, you know. (Beamed)

Student: Stop, Mum! I'm having tuition.

The mother went back to her room. I distinctly heard her said, "She's very shy," to her husband.

Feast Your Eyes

Some of the pictures are hilarious :D