paamayim nekudotayim

I guess the most real sign of a troubled mind is that to fall asleep on the bed while some stuffs are still scattered on it, be it a bag, cellphone, wallet, and such.

1am here.

On the afternoon I decided that it’s time for some afternoon stroll to the city. Shopping centres, I mean. I’ve never liked wandering through shopping centres here, partly because I do not have much money to spare, and also because I do not have the passion for windowshopping either (heck, of course, I am not a girl).

I set out on a few plans in mind: open a bank account, find a decent microphone (I need it to practice my spoken English), look for a good sleek elegant chessboard, and go to the ISP customer centre to update my ID number (after one full year of subscription, they just realized that my Foreigner ID number recorded on their side is _wrong_). And buy a cheap but reliable clothes’ stand.
So I went in and out one mall after the other, boarded a few different buses going to various places, and even took train (whoa timeout; ever since I moved in to this new flat, I took bus most of the time, there are lot of different buses going to major parts of the city, or country).

And at the end of the day, I accomplished none of my initial plans. Very well done.

Perhaps it’s just me, due to my infrequency going to shopping centres, but I found it difficult to find a store that sells chessboard set. I might not have looked hard and long enough, but I couldn’t even find one. In this metropolis? I can’t believe my luck.

good morning. journal and internet.

nothing much happened, nothing special. The day before yesterday was my housemate’s birthday, and it was celebrated twice, first in the midnight at our flat, and then the next evening at a certain eating place somewhere in the city where we had good foods. Yeah, good house, good friends, good family, and good foods, for all thy blessings we all thank thee.

Coincidentally, that day was also the birthday of my good friend a while back (still a good friend only we’re not in regular contact nowadays). I sent a text message wishing happy birthday, and asked whether there is a chance for us to get together and have dinner someplace.

There was not such chance, unfortunately.

Yesterday I spent nearly the whole day in bed. I felt a little weary, didn’t know of what, so I just lied down and listened to whatever was on air on the radio.

Tonight’s been a typical night. Before I start my coding session for the night, I went through the daily rituals: read up a number of pages from the novel I’ve been reading for this week, practiced my typing, listened to Winona Ryder’s naration, brushed up my English (I found a good guide on the internet), and watched a couple of Roman Dzindzichashvili’s chess videos.

All those had taken a few hours, and guess what, here I am, it’s already Friday morning, and I’m yet to start the coding session.

earl grey.

Earl Grey Tea. The first time I had a taste of it few days back, I told my friend (who has it on daily basis), that it tasted more like those washing-liquid spray we’ve been using to clean the sink with. Rather than tea. Oh puhlease, the reply I got.

The tea is supposed to help us feel calmer. Or trick us to feel so.

Not that I relied on that suggestion, but after a couple of hours failing to settle on the bed, just now I decided to boil the water and tried this tea again. Perhaps it’s not solely because of the tea, but I _do_ feel calmer now.

I have restrained myself from having another cup of coffee, at least for tonight. For the last couple of nights I could feel my heart beating so irregularly, and there was no doubt over what the cause was. But the coffee was necessary, to help me concentrate on my debugging. Now that the debugging problem has loosened up a little, I take the chance to skip the coffee session.

And enjoy the earl grey tea instead. It still tastes like the dish-liquid, but I will soon get used to it. Afterall, I refused to eat those chinese hokkien noodles during my first two years here, and nowadays they seem to have taken over rice as my main meal (so to speak, but I still have rice for my main meal).

My typing skill is still poor. But I believe it has improved a little compared to when I first decided to improve it. I’m still practicing with the main keys only, and without the SHIFT key. Once I tried the practice set with the SHIFT key, it was a bloody mess. So never mind, I might be slow but I’m progressing.

I am thinking of opening a new account with a bank that has the nearest ATM in the neighbourhood. Currently the only ATM for my bank nearby is 20 minutes away; not that far, I know, but still, it’s not convenient when I want to buy a cake downstairs but with no cash in my pocket, a 20 minutes walk is not worth it. There are at least two ATMs of a certain bank much nearer. In fact, one is within touching distance from the cakeshop.

hello again to you, my little bunch of random thoughts mixed into wordpress’ php and mysql database (my journal, that is). and hello to me.

Classic and recurring theme. Reappearing after a while of absence from posting a journal post, that is. Anyway, I’m stuck with my parttime work, it’s past midnight here, so I just thought I could come back to you and write something, scribbling bibbling whatever, and then snap back fast to my assignment.

So within this past month there were not much going on, except for one true thing about dramatic side of life, and a fact that I’d moved into a new flat somewhere near the central area (or rather the centre of the island, not the centre of the country, confused yet?).

My current doings, apart from the part time work I already mentioned, are reading novel and listening to people reading novel. And practice my typing (oh at such late stage and age), and first and foremost of all is enjoying the new space and air and neighbourhood here at the new place.

To be specific, I’m at the moment reading Indu Sundaresan’s The Feast of Roses, a story about an Empress in Mughal India circa 16th-17th century. It’s a sequel to The Twentieth Wife by the same author. Two books that once I’m on them I could hardly put them down had it not for something else that needs more urgency.

Did I mention about “listening to people reading novel”?
To be specific, I am listening to Winona Ryder’s narration of Anne Frank’s Diary of A Young Girl, a collection of memoirs of Jews’ hiding during German’s occupation of Holland. Well, it’s perhaps something that has its part on my returning to write on this journal.

Also, I’m catching on James Bond’s adventures. Have seen Dr No, From Russia with Love, and Goldfinger within this past week. Goldfinger is the best so far. Still 17 more to go (or 18, if I count Never Say Never Again, or 19 if I am to include the latest one; Casino Royale).

I believe this is long enough for a comeback post. So, until my next post.