Down the Rabbit Hole

I feel like I've fallen into the proverbial rabbit hole from Alice in Wonderland. Work is getting so confusing and the path forward has never looked more uncertain!

I've started writing the longest pieces of news that radio uses and aside from minor tweaking, my work is being vetted by my editor with few complains. He even walked up to me and told me that he sees improvement in my work and my latest piece required few edits. When I grinned like a Cheshire cat, he told me I should be grinning.

My editor is funny in that way.

However, seeing how I've yet to clear my voice, I had to wheedle and kowtow to my senior reporter to get him to record my news story. After procrastinating and answering emails and doing his own work, which in the process made me miss the 7pm news bulletin, he grudgingly started to record my story.

That's when all hell broke loose.

Apparently, my sentences were too convoluted and long and difficult to read naturally. He had to keep re-recording and when he was finally done, he gave me a look of death that conveyed all his loathing for my work.

Sigh, I suppose grammatically my work is fine. Fine for print that is. But when listeners are relying only on their sense of hearing, such long sentences are ineffective. It's difficult for the reader to read, and difficult for the listener to listen to.

I suppose my editor was reading from a print point of view and it looked okay to him. But having not recorded news for so many years, he perhaps overlooked the fact that what looked good on screen didn't always translate well verbally.

Time to stop using 4-syllable words and stick to simple stuff. And short sentences. That's apparently the most heinous of my crimes.

Like they say, write to inform, not to impress.

This Can't Be Lingerie

A guy came up with this sorry excuse for a piece of underwear.




No wonder it looks almost pornographic.

Please do not give me some rubbish that it feels like "nothing" and that it is guaranteed to hold up.

Yeah, it feels like nothing because it is nothing.

If you inserted the back part into your arsehole, it could probably act as a titillating sex toy.

So if any of you people want to give this a try, go check it out at

https://www.cstringdirect.com/product.php

It's affectionately named CString. What does the "c" stand for - cunt?

Work Work Work

It's amazing how exhuasted I feel from working. My energy level starts to drain around 3pm and by knock off time at 7, I'm practically dragging my ass to the bus stop.

This is bad. I so have to adjust my body or I'd totally stop having a social life altogether.

My eating habits are screwed up.

And I can't tell whether I'm getting any better at my job. Sometimes, my mind goes into a complete blank and I lose my train of thought. I could be talking to an interviewee and not have a single question to ask. I can look blankly into someone's face and the person has to cautiously ask if I got the point.

I wrote a story today and my editor told me he couldn't have done it better. And then I wrote another story which had a wrong angle.

Worse still, I left out the "where" question.

I'm an idiot. An inconsistent, blabbering idiot.

When I interview someone from the government (MP, PS, Minister), my tongue trips up.

Oh yeah, I still haven't screwed up my courage to record my voice and get it passed so that I can do live radio. It's so intimidating to have to record my not-so-pleasant sounding voice in front of my colleagues who have been doing it for years.

I sound funny on tape.

And I don't enunciate properly.

And I'm turning into a whiny spaz. Someone please shoot me.

A New Beginning

The 1st 3 days of work have passed in a blur. Everything is so new, so different and so challenging. Doing journalism without a background in journalism is really making me break out in hives. Suddenly, I feel like I can't write properly and I can't speak properly. The only 2 skills that I am at least moderately confident of. But in just 3 days, such notions have been shot down completely.

Time to eat humble pie and be the incredible sponge. I can make it I can make it I can make it.

That said, I am having loads of fun. My adrenal glands are firing nonstop from the moment I sit down to the moment I leave the office. Writing news, tailing senior reporters to ceremonies, doing investigative work... it's definitely not a desk job.

And I never realized how much work goes into producing that 1 minute of news for radio. The constant rewording of 10 sentences to ensure there's no rubbish, condensing pages of a press release, finding the right angle and lead to a story...

But enough about work. It's time to bid a fond farewell to my slacker days with a tribute to my graduation trip. I know, I know, these photos have been a long time coming. But it's such a PAIN to sort through 3000+ photos and videos. So yeah, cut me some slack. And erm... I've only sorted out the Paris photos. Slowly, ok? Somebody asked me why the hell we needed to take so many photos, when we were already there to soak in the atmosphere.

Simple. Memories tend to fade and blend into one another. But with photos taken at every key moment of our holiday, I'd be transported back to that exact moment when I was standing taking that photo. Some people remember through sheer memory; I experience life through my photos.

It was fun travelling with my 2 dear girls, Kristin and Sylvia. What an adventure. I'd let the photos do the talking.

Yup, can you imagine? All those sweets for our plane rides. It's always an eye-opener being with these 2. Haha.

Emirates airport was a complete shitters. The crowd was disgusting, people were literally strewn all over the place, sleeping on newspapers, there was no crowd control at the gates with hundreds of people rushing the moment the announcement for boarding was made... It was a disaster. International airport my ass. Absolute rubbish.

First sight of Paris!

The view from our hostel room's tiny balcony. I loved this street. Very homey, it has tiny patisseries every couple of steps.

Immediately after we got to the hostel, we suited up and went to the Louvre. Small tip to save money - if you're under 26 and go to the Louvre on Friday after 6pm, you get in free!

Due to jet lag, the girls weren't really interested in the superb art that surrounded us from all corners. Not just the art, but the splendid architecture as well. Hence, we practically ran to the Mona Lisa and pretty much left to find dinner after that before crashing back at the hostel.

Breakfast was always a delight. Baguette and coffee. Simple but delicious. The girls complained about the lack of variety after a while, but ironically, Sylvia missed eating baguette the moment we returned to Singapore.

Yes, I ended up doing all the map reading and nagivation. Sigh sigh sigh. At one point, the 2 of them just stood there while I struggled to get my bearings, and after telling them twice which metro station we were getting off at, Kristin had to ask me again. I nearly strangled her.

We didn't always get things correct...

Navigation is just so much easier when you have a guide. We joined a free walking tour and it came with a tour guide who made Paris come to life with quirky anecdotes about various buildings in the city. His irrelevant humour definitely helped to liven up a very wet and rainy day.

Sample:

"Here's a tit." (points to a girl nearby)
"She's a tour guide-in-training."

St Michel Fountain...

Luxembourg Palace...

Kristin showed her "chee ko pek" side by sidling up to a guard and shamelessly asking for a photo together as she found him "cute"...

But of course I'm still cuter and camera friendlier (haha!)...

The beautiful River Seine

Our tour guide Pieter who earns a living completely from tips

What's the significance of this statue? Nothing, except that the temperature dropped so violently suddenly that my camera's flash bulb EXPLODED. And by this I mean producing a orange glow akin to fire and going "pop!". Bloody hell. Somemore claim to be all weather camera.

At this well, people believe that if you successfully flip a coin onto the raised platform, you would be blessed with a great sex life. But if you missed, you would be cursed with 7 years of bad life. One guy missed and we all went "Ohhhhh..." I didn't even try. I don't mess with the forces.

Yes, the coffee comes in tiny packages. But it was shelter and warmth that took us out of the near zero temperature of the outdoors.

We finally make it to the Eiffel Tower! Unfortunately, the experience was marred by an incident with a Middle Eastern beggar. She wasn't dressed in rags or anything, and I mistook her for a fellow tourist. So when she asked if I could speak English, I stupidly said yes. The beggar then thrust a piece of paper at me, saying that her father was terminally ill and they were poor yada yada yada.. That's when things became clear to me and I started to say no. You know what reaction the beggar had? She snatched back the piece of paper (which happened to be laminated, thank you) and used it to whack my head! What the fuck... she walked off and when I recovered from the shock, I screamed "bitch!" in her direction. At that time, I wasn't thinking and just wanted to vent anger. It was only when Li Wern mentioned that she could have been carrying a knife did I feel some fear. Haha. :)

At the top of the Eiffel Tower. The winter breeze was killing us and blowing us in every direction. The fence is to prevent people from jumping off, which apparently happens all the time.

The amazing view from the top...

The final day was spent visiting places we missed during the first few days there. It was mostly a whole day of photo taking as we didn't do anything more than go to the place of interest and look around.

Hamming it up outside Hotel de Ville, which has endured through the centuries despite revolutions and wars.

Notre Dame.. Yoo Hoo! Quasimodo! You home?

Moulin Rouge! Wooohooooo, let my inner diva out!

Sacre Coeur. Another scary experience occurred here. I seem to attract all the rift raff. Sheesh. To get to this basilica, you have to climb like 200 steps. At the bottom of the stairs, there was this group of Black dudes who suddenly accousted us. One approached me and when he tried to slow me down, I kept saying "不要, 不要!" Guess what he did? He put his freaking arm around me, hugged me close to him and called me his "girlfriend". That's when I REALLY ran for the stairs and didn't stop climbing till I put sufficient distance between us.

So that was our Paris adventure. Haha.. dunno when I'd have the energy to do the other 2 cities... Ciao!

Save The Film Maker

Oh my god, my friend is hilarious.

This is based on a real life story. He broke the school's camera and hence, made this short film to raise funds.

Save the cheerleader, save the world .

Save the film maker, save his career.

Go watch it.