My escalator was recently upgraded to stop at all floors - it used to only stop at all even numbered floors.

for the past few days, i kept getting off at the wrong floor, and it would usually take me a few steps down the corridor before the huge sense of unfamiliarity kicks in.

and i couldn't for the life of me understand why this is so.

and today i caught myself jabbing the '5' button automatically once again, and finally realized - oh. my office is on the 5th floor.

I never do understand the need for a neat and tidy room.

a neat and tidy workspace - yeah, i get that. its political. it reflects a professional image and conforms to social norms.

but your own bedroom?

my bedroom is the living area of the house, my mother breezes in to put things in order, my dad is perpetually glued to my computers (both household computers are in my room), and of course there's me.

and things always disappear.

of course i know i'm not the neatest of people, and i tend to leave things be as long as they don't get in my way, but sheesh. i never know where my things are. thing is, the last time i saw my thang it was sitting in that corner of my desk 4 months ago, and by all the laws of physics, if i had just left it be, it'll still be sitting in that exact corner, maybe buried under 3 files and a few sheaves of paper.

but it'll still be there!

and i know where it is!

but of course with parents coming in and moving things around, i can never find my things. i don't care that the gizmo-looking thangs are with the other gizmo-looking thangs, and the bank statements are in the files, the point is, if it was in location A, it should be in location A, because it was in location A for a reason. maybe to serve as a reminder, maybe cause it was a work-in-progress, or maybe cause i conveniently put it there - which is easy to trace to, because i put all my 'conveniently put there' stuff there.

screw the first person in this world who said 'we should be neat and tidy in all aspects of our life' and set a downward-spiralling trend among the masses.

In the middle of work today, I left my Caps Lock on while keying in my password. I was prompted once again for the password...

and suddenly my mind drew a blank.

I use the password for 90% of my applications, I'm already logged into my terminal and most of the apps. I just- forgot.

My brain is turning into mush and flowing out my ears and my sanity with it.

I'm scared. Really. I want to quit my job...

=i'm a walking dartboard for the metal thing-things=

*Gasp* i joined a match-making event today. a MAJOR one. it was... the events were... fun... but on a whole very very tiring because i had to jack up my defences to 'CRITICAL' level the whole damn day.

Was I the youngest game there? coz there were guys aiming for me and shooting real, wild bullets (T__T)

i mean, who told me that these gov events were harmless places where most of the guys won't have the balls to chase and pursue anyway?!

i'm going to stop complaining about not having a bf for the next 4 weeks while i go through rehab. truth is, i'm really really not cut out for the dating thing and i really really need a textbook to tell me what the whole hoo-hah is about. maybe something like:

Chapter 1: Just what is a relationship - Definition and Terminologies

Chapter 2: Phases in a relationship - From strangers to BGF

Chapter 3: Types of relationships

Chapter 4: Social Conventions

Chapter 5: Common Errors and Misconceptions

Chapter 6: Expectations from a relationship

Chapter 7: Where to go from here

Appendices (Charts, Timelines & Tables)

Oh and if you're still reading, here's a low-down of what happened today.

Basically SDU organized this all-day singles event today, and being ever so adventurous, i signed up (mostly i was enticed by the 'GRAB A BEAR' captions). there was the hippo heritage tour in the morning which was really fun - i love open-topped buses and the weather was lovely. hit it off fairly well with the really cool middle-aged guy and woman in our group and it was a stress-free excursion through chinatown, old cbd and kampong glam.

Then we went back for a sumptious buffet lunch with stuff like lamb, grilled chicken, custards, cakes, etc. Did the normal exchange of contacts at the table stuff, and i zipped off to the grab a bear thingy where they have 6 machines with BEARS!!!!! in those UFO-catcher things. and its free, but you get only 3 tries as a unique couple.

from this point on, i start getting stress lines on my forehead. seriously, all the guys have agendas! you can't catch anyone's eye! you can't make eye contact! they all smile funny like 'heh.. heh.. heh' and their eyes are overly bright and hopeful, and you can hear clicking going off in their little heads as they analyse and calculate and measure! *hysterics*

anyway, true to my agenda i tried getting a bear with some guys, attacked different machines, got extra tokens from the friendly staff, but still, we didn't get a bear.

beaten, i trailed over to the NLB booth where they were trying to get people to rent movies and do lucky draws. i won a book (fuhuhu). FuHuHu Yay except that the book was 'The Surrendered Single' about how you should just surrender up your ideals so you could start having a happy relationship. at least that was the first 5 pages. the book is now sitting on my shelf waiting for its chance to brainwash me. 

den we went for some hairstyling talk where the stylist advocated looking good using styling products coz even if the products kill your hair the cells were dead anyway, and as long as you keep using them you'll look good. oooh what a revelation. (o___O)

den we went for the 'how to snag the guy/girl of your dreams' talk, which was summarized by: 'upgrade yourself and the rest would follow'. it was very funny though and there were 3 female eye-candies on stage talking about their worst dates and arguing if Takeshiro or Andy Lau were better. (definitely T)

and in the middle of the talk a gutsy, earnest guy plonked a chair beside me and tried to chat me up. and learning i wanted a bear, he tried to get one together but after the 100th try i was just too jaded and gave up yet again.

with 15 minutes left i gave up and decided to go get my postcard which an 'admirer' had sent me (there's a system where people can send you anonymous postcards with their contact details).

but then a guy who had succeeded volunteered to help me and my fren, so we high-tailed it back for a last try....

and i failed miserably yet again, and got attacked by people making last ditch attempts to chat up girls and weasel contact information whilst i was on it.

and the very earnest guy suddenly returned and presented me with a teddy bear! up five points! and my friend got her teddy bear as well, so its a happy ending!

so, without having time to pick up my postcard we rushed off to the second event, a mocktail making workshop. it was damn cool! highlight of the day was the virgin mojito! i want to buy a shaker and a levelled stirrer for mixing drinks! kyaaaaah!

and den we went back down to get that bloody postcard and realized they had sealed the area down for the next event for which i have no access to. so we had to get the admins to go through a lot of trouble to find that bloody postcard, coz i'll really feel bad for that person if the postcard ended up in the trash.

and it looks like its gonna end up in the trash anyway because the guy put his number instead of his facebook.

i abhor the phone. i detest the 8 digits and the 1s and 0s going out the end of the receiver and talking to someone i cannot see. and if anyone tries to weasel my number from me its going to be THE WRONG NUMBER so there. hate it when people do that. grrrrr....!

Nation States (www.nationstates.net) is a game where you run a country, shaped according to your decisions on several daily political issues. Today's issue was pretty interesting, so i decided to do a copy-and-paste here. Hope the creator, Max Barry doesn't mind too much (his books are an interesting read as well, you can get them at the central library) ( ' ._. ' )

The Issue