there's this longstanding joke about how abbreviations are short but the word abbreviated is so long.

no it's not funny the way i've said it above but i never meant it to be funny. what's wrong with you people?

so if you open your eyes a little bit you'd have noticed how much singaporeans love abbreviations.

of course there're the common and ubiquitous HDB, CPF, MOE, NUH, ERP, PIE, PSLE, SGH, GST, CPF, Apt, so on, so forth lah.

but people just love making up new ones like SARS... oh, i can't remember, but i had a few yesterday night. -sheepish-

and if this continues we'd all be talking abbrevi-speak.

so, singlish or abbrevi-speak? pick the lesser of two evils singaporeans.

i say singlish. because abbreviations confuse me.

on a sidenote, please download ben lee's no room to bleed simply for how wonderful the song is. don't listen to justin's falsetto or william's she bangs! anymore, please i beg you.

on another sidenote (there're two sides to everything afterall),
i think i need to do an apology for calling ms. peter an SDU reject. i'm sorry i didn't mean it. even though i didn't say it to ms. peter's face, i still feel i owe her an apology.
so any kaypo lecturers who like to search for their students' names in hope of finding snippets about their private lives can pass on what i've said here because i don't think i can ever face her again. thank you very much.

happy valentine's day to my attached readers. and myself.
happy valentine's day to myself.

anyways, i got surveyed today outside john little at somerset. something about shopping and orchard road.
and there was a little part about one's status and there were four choices: married, divorced, single, available.

and because i said i was under 24 years old, my surveyor took me to be either single or available.
not married, not divorced.

i mean, i could be below 24 years of age and be married. couldn't i? yes it's rare but what's to say that that couldn't be possible?

at that point in time i was really really tempted to say i was married and perhaps chance upon a look of surprise on the surveyor's face.
but honesty won and i replied single.

damn.

and another thing, you know the cliche, "the key to a man's heart is through is his stomach"?

well i quite disagree.

because today i discovered it is actually (ahemrajanahem) distress. distress and being emotional.

let me explain myself.

i went to sim lim square, mecca of electronics, just this afternoon to do an exchange for something i bought recently.

well the salesman who serviced me (oh that sounds wrong) wasn't there. and they had different accounts for each salesperson i guess. tres complicated.
basically i couldn't do what i wanted to without my salesguy there.

then i got desperate. i mean, look, sim lim is not that convenient a place to go to in my opinion. i don't want to go back there again or risk not being able to exchange my purchase because then it would have been out of the 7-day refund period.

so i kinda acted like i was really desperate, irritated, irate and holding-back-tears at the same time.
and bullied the guy a little too, i have to admit.

well it must have worked because he relented. in that oh-i-give-up kinda manner.

haha. victory is mine. i'm so proud of myself.

excuse me while i submerge myself in a moment of glee.

definitely not William Hung.
poor guy.

he is such the unlikely celebrity. i don't know whether to congratulate or pity him.

anyways, i like american idol not for its contestants but for its judges, rather. you know who i'm talking about,
the (in)famous Simon Cowell.

he's a funny dude, all right. mean and egoistic at times but you'd have to admit he's one of american idol's biggest stars.

oh, i've digressed.

i was watching the show tonight (when i should be studying for my PRMP), and it just felt so stale.

kelly clarkson, clay aiken, ruben studdard, justin guarini, even the current contestants like tonight's group erskine walcott, ashley thomas (who?) and marque lynche....

what do they have that makes them differentiated from the other idol wannabe or previous winners?

just about nothing, in my opinion.

yes they've got good vocal range- way longer than i could have ever imagined- but everyone just starts to sound the same after the first couple of contestants. i actually fell asleep when diana degarmo came on. they were that boring.

not even simon could keep me glued to the telly.

i only sat up when katie webber came along. simply because she sang a jazz song.

and i think her song, albeit sounding a tad broadway-esque, was uplifting and unexpected.

i'd give her a thumbs up for choosing not to follow the crowd but simon said she sounded a some hotel bar singer. typical of simon, but i was really disappointed.

i mean, if this goes on all the american idols are just gonna sound one and the same.
they might as well not have a competition at all.

diversity, where art thou?

so now all they've got to really show is their personalities but how easy is it to portray that through a two minute performance?

what's more, this season's the only season i've devoted myself to watching almost every episode (i missed the william hung one! damn!) only to be completely disenchanted.

another reality program - gone the ways of paradise hotel, are you hot? and temptation island.

'tis all my opinion though. honestly, some people simply cannot tell the difference between a statement of fact and opinion. tsk.

i was thumbing through a book last week - ann pearlman's Infidelity: A Love Story.

and this stood out:

i remember what my mother said, that she couldn't imagine Lala and Docie having sex, or enjoying it. but i could imagine her and daddy - though i didn't like to think about it and was, when i was younger, sure they must have only done it because they really really wanted me.

i guess it's hard for kids to imagine their parents enjoying sex. but maybe Lala is right. mother earth has made it so we do.

i really agreed with that.