Swine flu is wreaking…

MAY HAM!!!!

Chickens roam the grounds of my office throughout the day; because there’re so many trees around they usually keep to the safety of the greenery but sometimes an odd rooster crosses the road and forgets where he is (I think) and this usually results in him frantically hobbling around on the concrete in front of the lift lobby in circles as he tried to avoid people walking in and out of the building. I can imagine his little chicken voice in his little chicken head. “Oh no oh no oh no oh no oh no…”

This afternoon I’m on the way to lunch with Xiao, when I struggle to remember the collective noun for “chickens” and I can’t for the life of me summon the stupid word!

I know it is a gaggle of geese, and a murder of crows. A bed of clams, a bury of rabbits, a school of salmon, a bevy of swans, a band of gorillas, a buncha dudes.  But I can’t remember what a group of chickens is called!

I can only think of a plate of chickens, or a bowl of chickens. Xiao said it was a “scop” of chickens, but she made that word up. So we are not as smart as we think.

I miss you like nuts when you’re not around.

But I shan’t tell you, just because I’m me!

Meh.

Tonight, as I am taking the number 48 home from work, I see an old lady with a beautiful sari.

Her skin glows despite her age against the vanilla white sari she is wearing, and my eyes notice first the delicate flowers embroidered along the edges of her sweeping dress, then the gold bangle around her tiny right wrist that seems to have become an extension of her skin over the years. Her hair is pulled back in a grey bun, and she looks around the crowded bus calmly. You can read some faces and know that the stories that toss about beneath them are angry, sorrowful, empty, or painful, and I read hers to be none of those.

I want to meet her eyes and tell her that I think her sari is lovely, and I want to ask her what her name is, if she is somebody’s grandmother, mother, wife or lover. I imagine her to appreciate the compliment of her dress, as all women would do. I imagine her to tell me her name, and comment about the rain, or the noisy air conditioning on the bus, or my tired face. I imagine her to tell me stories. I imagine her to tell me that some people I meet will be beautiful like brass vases, that some will be made of stone, and that some will have hearts with walls that are thinner than the lace on the hem of her sari. I imagine her to say that some nightmares will be dreams I will not shake off for years, and to remember that my broken heart will heal and be broken many times over again, sometimes by the same person, and sometimes by someone I do not know. I imagine her to remind me that the day always ends, and another new one always comes right after, and that this is the most important thing anyone can tell me.

She says none of these things, of course. Before I can meet her eyes and smile at her she is swept away, off the bus, off into the rest of a story that I will now never hear. But I hope that when I am 70, when some tired 20-something year old tells me that my dress is pretty, that I can tell her these things.

Ok! Enough reflective thought! I’m going to watch Invader Zim now and eat peanut butter cups!

Chris says:
u WILL update ur blog today and apologize to it!
joyce says:
fine fine fine
Chris says:
yay. anyway, i gotta go now
Chris says:
have a briefing
joyce says:
ok
joyce says:
be brief!
Chris says:
in briefs!
joyce says:
and a briefcase!

Why the hoo-hey are they called briefcases anyway? Do people keep pairs and pairs of briefs inside them? Because if I owned a briefcase, you know I would defo do that. A secret compartment for mah secret briefs.

I’m very sorry I’ve been ignoring you blog, I’m sorry I tell all my random shit to Michael now. He’s unworthy, he’s unworthy. I’m-a gonna blog again real soon.

What do you see?

I see Elvis!

Elvis and a Samurai sword!

The King lives!

You smell like Sundays.
There, is that agreeable,
You silly muppet?

I remember talking to Chris Yo once. I said he’d do anything, and that he’d probably do the table we were having supper at. He replied, “Only if it had nice legs.”

This conversation popped to mind when I read this article.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/2000899/Man-admits-%5C’having-sex%5C’-with-1,000-cars.html

and I say, 10 points to Mediacorp for taking every possible opportunity to have Vincent Ng in a scene where shirts are optional! Hooray for basketball games and balmy weather!

Minus 20 points however, for adding in scenes where his character has to emote and look confused.

It hurts, oh it hurts!

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/17/business/worldbusiness/17stem.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Check out the article and tell me that JAMES BOND ISN’T WORKING AT BUONA VISTA!

It looks like him to me…

Studying for Econs is so much more fun when you pay attention to silly things like this instead of the more pressing issues of technological transfer, government intervention and how the initial endowment of Singapore threatens to turn the millions invested in biotechnology into dust!

Education schmeducation!