Innumerabilis

So the earth has circled the sun twenty one times since I was born. Big deal. I don’t feel any smarter than I was five years ago. Stagnation, stagnation. I don’t like getting older, so I shall forget about this.

*end of short entry*

Amos said that I should update my blog more often. I am glad that someone at least visits, but sad that I know I will be unable to fulfil his request. I am just not the update-daily type of person. Perhaps it is due to my procrastination, but it does have a benefit – recalling events after some time has lapsed allows you to look at it in a dispassionate way, and recall only those things which are significant to you. Instead of blogging about the details, I blog about the emotions experienced, which is what I would like to be recorded down.

Still, even as feelings are the products of situations, so details of situations are needed to recall the emotions experienced. Last Wednesday (yes, I am a serial procrastinator), I had lunch with a small group of people from my former workplace. I had just woke up when Tang called me (my waking up timing then was 12 noon…) and asked if I could rush down to West Mall. Hmm… I took a cab and managed to reach there shortly after the group did.

I forgot the name of the restaurant, but it is the one next to Swensen. Frankly speaking, I did not feel that the food was anything to rave about, but Jenny and Tey was quite appreciative of the food, so why spoil the atmosphere? Raymond was too stoned to say much, haha. There was one leftover durian eggtart (six for five people), so we played open number (zhong ji mi ma) and tey got to be the lucky one! The fact that he has abstained from durian since young just makes it more fun. =)

After lunch, we were just sitting around and shooting the breeze, consuming pots after pots of hot water in a chrysanthemum-leaved pot (after the third refill, it was too diluted to be recognised as chrysanthemum tea) when a girl (JC1, from the looks of her uniform and JC badge) just vomitted! Omigosh, talk about a conversation killer. Jenny showed her maternal, caring side and whipped out a packet of tissue. The whole bunch of them just went off to the toilet with her, guys included (though they stayed outside). Tang was shouting after them, telling them that at least one should stay to take care of their things (they just left their bags, wallet, handphones, etc there), but they had vamoosed by then. Oh well, seeing that it is in Singapore, and it is in a restaurant, I suppose it doesn’t matter much. So that ends meal numero uno.

Two days later, on Friday, it was a farewell dinner. At first I thought it was just a few people, like the last gathering at Marina South, but it turned out that they had booked a whole restaurant! Gosh, was I impressed then. The restaurant is Surf N Turf at Funan, where Roger works. I suppose the fact that the restaurant was booked from seven to about ten at night, when funan is a ghost town, may have contributed to a slightly lower price, but still! Anyway, it was buffet style, with a lot of potatoes! Potato salad, potato cake, calamari ring, some kind of minced mushroom soup, honey-sauced chicken, and drinks. The Muslims had halal food brought in from the restaurant’s branch in Suntec; turns out that that branch is certified halal whereas this one is not. So why not hold the gathering at Suntec instead? Oh yes, the price, and perhaps Roger is working at Funan? This is, of course, only my conjecture, and has nothing concrete behind it. Concrete speculation, what an oxymoron…

I met Ray and Clement and Jian Ling and Rohaizad and so many people that I’d missed over the mere span of a month. It was here that Amos told me about updating this more often, too. Anyway, I met Richard Batara there. I’ve heard about him in CHS, but this is the first time I’d seen him face to face. (Actually probably not, considering that CHS is only so big, but that’s the first time I recognised him). Quite an affable chap, and we took the NEL line back together.

The next meal was a dinner on Saturday at Ngee Ann City’s Seoul Garden. Project Rendezvous was a lukewarm success, with nine people turning up eventually. Ling took a very long time looking for his parking space, and was ribbed mercilessly about signing autographs for his adoring fans, haha. After dinner, we wanted to go catch a movie at Cineleisure, but Ling got turned away from Borat (R21, but I passed the test…). So we walked to Shaw house, but even so there were no movies that perked our interest for that time slot.

Tze Shen wanted to go get some alcoholic drinking. For me, knowing that anything beyond two mouthfuls gives me a migraine, I decided to go home. As Ling, Jian Ling and I were walking towards the MRT, I told Ling that this is probably the last time that we will meet. He replied that there would always be another time, but I knew the veracity of what I had just said… people are going overseas, or getting a new job, and so on. Besides, we are, frankly speaking, with the exception of a few, mere acquaintances and ex-colleagues to each other. What pretext can we have to gather once more? As the memory of the place and experience that drew us together fades, so too would be our connection to each other. There would be no more gatherings, I must sadly admit.

Finally, we come to Monday, where I started on my first day as a transcriptor. I had to listen to an hour long interview, and transcribe the voices into text. The first day was horrible. My head was hurting from squinting at the small screen, the accents were throwing me off, and most importantly, for long audio files, Windows Media Player can only go back 30 seconds at a time! That means if I wished to go back to a sentence that is at the end of a segment, I would have to wait for perhaps 28 seconds to pass before I can catch it again. The statement that we must “do at least one recording everyday” only added to my pressure and frustration with the crappy software. To my surprise, I must have acclimatised near the end, because I finished with one at about 4.30pm, taking me about 6.5 hours for one transcription. Still, I went away miserable, thankful that only three more days remained.

On the second day (i.e. today), I wore much more casually after seeing the other temp’s example. Perhaps it was the more comfortable clothing, or perhaps I downloaded Audacity, thereby avoiding the stupid WMP problem, but I completed a 97 minutes transcription by 3.30 pm! Woot!! I spent the rest of the day just checking the transcript, because I felt absolutely drained. One transcription per day has just about exhausted all my mental stamina.

Only two more days. I’m glad to have met some interesting people there, though we do not get to interact much due to the big headphones and small screens that we have to squint at, but it abates the ennui of staying at home. Still, I am glad that 50% is over, and may the next two days go by smoothly.

Oh, and I am reminded of Parkinson’s Law, that work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion. Hmm…