I was in TTS hospital pretty often lately because my grandfather was admitted after a fall.

In the past before the hospital's facelift, on the rare occassions when I went to the old facilities to visit some distant old relative on his/her dying bed, I'd be holding my breath for fear of contracting some airborn virus from the mouth of some coughing old man with terminal illnesses. Even after its facelift, with it's swanky new lobby, starbucks and all that cool shit that defines a cool new place, I still get the creeps the moment I stepped into the place.

Sharing the room with 5 other ole man, Gramps was occupying the window bed. He looked just like he always look, on weekends when the whole family would go over to have dinner with the folks. He didn't look too bad, except his usual strong voice is replaced by a barely audible whisper; and he constantly rubbed his tummy with a pained expression, while sniffing his medicated oil that I've always seen him sniffed for 20 odd years. He didnt look scary, but the scene around him did. Morbid, rather.

The old men were in varying stages of consciousness and mobility.

The old man lying at the other far corner had a tube that extended in the depth of his nostrils and he kept hacking up terrible things.

The old man on the bed beside my Gramps was extremely grumpy to all those around him. He was calling for the Missy, and was cursing and swearing and demanded to have his teeth brushed, although he looked like he was delirious, because he kept muttering some thing about some unfilial son in a mixture of Hokkien and ENglish.

The chap lying in the bed opposite gramps kept asking his wife and his maid, which of his friends had died.
"Eh, Aloysius died right?"
"Then what about Sam? Sam died too right?"
"Ah David, is David dead? Yea i remember, he died"
"Oh and there's Christopher, he's dying too right? He doesn't recognize anyone any more, right?"
ANd he goes on endlessly...

But through all the poignancy and gloominess, all around in the room, toothless old ladies held on to the hands of their significant half, stroking their arms occasionally and listening to the old men's barely audible whispers.

Looking on, I asked the bf, would he find it a hassle, that when I grow old and wrinkly and ugly and sickly, and my pau cheeks no longer bouncy and I'm no longer sexy, to take care of me everyday, wipe my drool off my cheeks, even if I do not recognise him anymore?

He said he would. (it's a Ten-year series sort of no-brainer answer for now.) But I believed him.

I believe that he loves me, and would want to take care of me for the rest of my life, but to love someone, you need to love something about that somebody. Something about me must bring him joy: make him happy, cook nice food for him, have great sex with him every now and then, try to look cute all the time, be fun to be around, connect with him intellectually etc, for him to continue loving me. That's why I would try to not be ge gao, unhygienic, ugly and fat even when I'm 40.

But the point is, when I am delirious and gross, and have clean forgotten him and our lives together, the only reason why he'll be be my bedside cleaning up my drool is probably because he feels that it's his responsibility to take care of me, his partner for life.

Responsibility. I don't want responsibility without love, I said.

He said, by then, love would settle into a quiet sort of comfort between a couple. It's accountability, responsibility yadayadyada....And I would treasure the memories we had together, and I can hold on to that to love you.

Digressing, if memories were sufficient for passion to burn, then he would still be in love with his ex gfs wouldn't he? <--Not trying to be ge gao here

Even though I've always been cynical about love, I'm ironically a romantic at heart.
To me, love is a philosophy, an emotion. yet to him, he walks the straight and narrow path on the idea of love that has been passed down for generations: responsibility and companionship.

So even when I am 89, stricken with Parkinson, lying immobile on a hospital bed, drooling, he would take care of me, and maybe thinks that he loves me.

Me? If we grew old together, and he got into the above mentioned situation instead of me, I would defintely be like one of those old ladies there gingerly scooping water for him and taking care of his every needs. But would I call that love? That I'm not so sure.

I might, when I'm 50, have seen more of life, and is greying myself,. But I guess I'm still too young to comprehend how can there be love without attraction.

D'Element Fashion Show

OoooKie, My Bad. This post is probably like a MONTH over due and I can only recall it hazily now. BUT I had the contents typed out, and I just had to upload the pictures (which was the one that took really long)...Genius me eh? Anyways, it's about a pretty cool fashion show that I did about A MONTH ago. Pretty cool cos the girls were cool, the outfits were cool, and this time, I had 2 dressers to change for me. WooHOoooo...But before you start thinking that I'm some whip wielding slave-driver who expect poor girls to pick my toe nails and buckle my 5 inch heels for me, I have to say that the interim between my outfit 1 and outfit 2 was a mad rush, especially with the ongoing craze with the layering fashion. Bah...long shirt over tight, with boots and a wrap around that I dunno what it's called, with a plaid cabby cap, and giant hoop earrings, plus a bunch of bangles,and a vest and OH MY GOSH, I CANNOT REMEMBER LA.


My 2 lovely dressers.



Preshow, camwhoring sans makeup. the lightings in the ballroom make it possible without us looking ghastly. Lyndia and I



The pre-show runway. OKie la, almost every picture here is taken either pre-show, or post show. Cos all 10 girls were in a crazy mad stripping and piling on clothes during show, that there's no time for cam-whoring


Preshow prancing about and practicing our walks in the ill-fitting sponsors' heels or own 5inch high heels, lest we trip and fall on stage later.



I never had an issue with my height...well at least not THAT often...

I mean being 170cm tall, plus my trademark 3 inch (and above) heels that I never make an entrance without, you can bet that I tower over most people.

But for the fashion show on Saturday, I was towered over by most, despite being in my 5-inch catwalk heels. Wah Piang eh... The girls were all GORGEOUS, skinny and TALL, like 175cm and above kinda TALL(plus all with their own 5 inch heels)... You can bet that my self-esteem was looking like a raisin, if self-esteems can be seen.

DOn't believe you see...

That's Janine and Me. I'm in this Hiao flamingo dress with feathers. Poooooh, talk about couture. Janine is like 179cm? and has legs that starts from the ground and ends at my waist.

On the runway, she looks like she walks on imported air. Not me, Claire. Damn, I think I am a good 4-5 years older than her....feels ole.







Apart from the fact that they made me the flower girl for the grand finale, because well, I LOOKED like *eh-hem* a girl (with the lack of height and all), and put me in a flowery tiered dress for my last segment, I had a blast of a time with the girlies. ;p I hated my finale dress though, and unfortunately for me, that was the dress I had to take most of my pictures in.

I look like a damn tierd cake




Did I mention that my nickname was "the short one"?

But with friends like that...


and pretty clothes like that...





and fun like that....



and a buffet spread of rich sinful chocolate cakes tempuraand Har Kow for anorexic-looking girls to feast on afterwards, I guess I didn't really minded being shortie for a day. K fine, 2 days: casting & fitting day, and show day.


In case you were wondering, alot of the pictures were stolen from Lyndia. So she's highly featured here. :p

[Guess who's this? Yes, Click here!]


This company is obviously trying to be racially friendly. That's prolly how I made it there -_-||

Either that, or the people in Germany are very hungry, that's why they chose someone with huge pau cheeks to grace their kontakt page.

I hate it when I have to do OT alone in the cold, miserable office in the middle of Amoy Street at 9pm on a Friday night. Especially when everyone is on extended Deepavali Holiday.

Eee-yer, this is conservation area k?

And it doesn't take a history student to know what it means to be in a conservation area. It means this place is old, it has a history, and someone might have actually died of illnes, poor hygiene, or even murder....EEeeeps I don't want to think about it.

My office is located right next to a chinese temple, and god knows what floats around chinese temple~~ Because they cannot enter it. Eeeeps!

Let's just say that sluts get all the fun...

With nothing less than flirty fake eyelashes, 5 inch strappy heels, boobs perked to dizzying height and confidence the size of 5 Moses Lim, one could gain entry into any clubs in town for free, by just posing outside the door.

Coupled with some slinky moves on the bartop, and a devil may care attitude, you can bet that guys, who don't already have a girl in tow, will be fighting to buy you drinks.

Accept the offer, bat your super long eye lashes, down the poison in a couple of gulps....

Then RUN....

So I have not been updating....well, new job = new found busy-ness. Newer new job means new responsibility, new people to remember, and more OT.

With the newfound level of stress and insecurity, I was inflicted with a very bad case of breakouts. Not even when i was at the pinnacle of my adolescence, when everyone had red warts covering their faces did I have such major acne problems.So u can imagine how depressed I am.

Although the peeps at my new place are decent enough, but the lunch culture there is severely lacking. NOBODY EATS LUNCH LA...

I'm always a firm believer that lunch is not just the packet of chicken rice that you tapau and scoop them into your mouth without tasting them, as you loose your mind in the figures and information stacked high in front of you.

Lunch time is a time when people joke and talk with each other, about everyday nonsense. It's a time to not think about work at all. And it's a time to unwind and get recharged to get ready for the next half of the day. But no, people at my office makes calls, thump on calculators, write long reports and stare crazily at their computer screens during lunch. So almost every lunch, I'll be sitting alone in one corner of the marketplace, overwhelming with groups of execs from Raffles place and Shenton way area. I'll be starring down at my plate of wanton mee sullenly, trying to avert my eyes from curious gaze from passers-by. Because it sucks to eat lunch alone, and I totally miss the peeps back in Huntinton. Even when I was teaching, I would have lunch company almost everyday. People would jio everyone to lunch everytime, unless our timetables clash; even so, we'd try to wait for each other.

Back in Huntinton, even if I had lunch duty, Eunice would always wait for me and accompany me, and me vice versa. And we'd spend that 1 hour of our time, feasting on big plates of char kway tiao or economical rice, and top it up with tau hway and 2 slices of cut fruits. And no I didnt gain weight at all. Even though some of the assocaites would sometimes insist on packeting food back to the office, we would always sit together at the meeting room, and talk about silly nonsense to political science and lousy clients over lunch.





I miss my friends there.

The C-list socialites

At the recent launch that my company went to, I had a taste of what
C-list socialites were like.

Pretentious, cakey, shrill and whores for media attention.

Okie, when we received the invite list for some of the VIPs of that night, i was astounded by the designation of some (in fact most) of them. Eg:
Name & Designation
MR Tan KK and Mrs Gucci Tan (Businessman & Tai tai)

So i asked my colleagues, erm wouldn't the "tai tai" designation be a little informal/ derogatory for the event that we'd be attending? Considering the formalities of it all. And that shouldn't we give these women an identity of their own? Instead of naming themselves as tai tai, which literally translate to "Some rich men's wife". Like a possession.
I would think that even a "Home-maker" sounds better as a designation than a "Taitai" even though that word comes without the glamour.
But no, according to my colleague, who was liaising with the events company, THAT was the designation they gave themselves.

And so i attended the event bubbling with excitement, and awaited with bated breath like a 5 year old girl, waiting to watch the Cirque du Soleil. And boy, i was massively disappointed.
The moment they arrived in their flashy red car, first they posed haughtily at the entrance, then they waltz in somewhat not so gracefully in their 5000 inch heels (i mean if they have heels that are higher than mine, then they must be 5000 inches).
The moment they got to the register, they bent down, and planted fake *Muack muack* kisses on the cheeks of the girl doing events register. AS IF THEY WERE LONG LOST GOOD FRIENDS. But no, according to the girl doing events, it was all for the camera, for the media, for the paparrazzi. The fact is, they hardly knew each other.

I've always thought that tai tais( well at least most of those that I've encountered while I was interning at the Art Museum), had gorgeous glowing skin, and silky soft hair, that are too etheral for the touch of us mere mortals. But no ley...it seems that these bunch, whom I termed the C-list tai tais, had skin that were cakier than mine. Some had hair that were frizzier than mine. For those who has seen my hair ah, will know that I have very messy, unruly kinks for hair, almost perpetually. But u see, it's tolerable for me, because I am a busy little graduate/trainee in my new job with no money and no time, and I even have to model part time to sustain myself. What's more, these are self-acclaimed Tai tais ley...Tai tais do things like sit in the salon and do hair/nails/slim wraps all the time. So you can imagine that I was majorly disappointed. On top of that, they didnt seem like the philanthrophic type that volunteer their services at places like the Singapore Art Museum or any other charitable organizations, but are those who REALLY squander their time partying away at social events and talks only about who's a bitch and who isn't. Basically, they remind me of Paris Hilton, but a less famous, and less pretty one.

The ultimatum came, when i had to interview them.
Because i was relatively new, and none of them knew me, they asked for my name after my interview, perhaps because it was only polite to do so especailly i had asked for their name (in my case, it was because I had to insert it into the video), not because i want to google about them and marry their sons. But when i politely replied that my name is xiao yun, there were a bunch of them (with the bad hair and poor taste in clothes), went gasping to each other, and to some of the ang mo guests "Oh it's a chinese name, oh it's an asian name."

As if a Chinese name is cheaper than a western name. WTF~

And apparently, one of them had a pseudo japanese hello kitty kind of name, which i would write here in font size 42, if not for the fact that knowing they are so media-whorish, they might just google for their own names and locate my blog. Eh but a pseudo Jap name is also Asian what...so I don't understand why is my Chinese name less worthy of being recognized than her stupid pseudo-jap name. The other one was even more pretentious, she was named after a designer brand whose fashion show I can only dream of doing, if I wake up one day to find myself with legs that are 1.5m. For the purpose of illustration only, eg Bvulgari Lee.

Furthermore, the adjectives in their vocabulary do not go beyond "beautiful" and "nice", as I've discovered upon looking at my interview notepad which i've scribbled down notes of their response. There was this one with very flat hair, who obviously has difficulty in expressing her delight at the unvieling, that she kept mumbling "ah so nice....hmm just very nice...i Like, nice to put in the house etc etc etc" and it was only until i gently cued in the word "sensual" then she was like "ah yes, sensuous very sexy, very sexy" etc etc...And then she kept using my word ever since. Dumbass.

Unlike the ones who've volunteered at the museum, these were obviously lacking in good-breeding, manners and intellect.