Today, on day 1 of the attempt to chip away gradually at the 10-year scholarship bond (though one might argue it would be a little bit like giving an ice cold Diet Coke to a Bedouin), I quite quickly realised how fatal my surname had become ( Read more... )

We delight in reading pulsating tales of intrepid travellers, heroically pulling off Herculean tasks with befuddled ticket inspectors and wistful old men whose primary purpose in any postcard perfect scene, really, is to supply drections via a well-rehearsed wordless song and dance routine. A new day, and another motley cast of stock characters ( Read more... )

Today the ghost of a failure haunted me ( Read more... )

Every year, someone reminds me my blog still exists, and that normally sets off a sudden spate of writing, which ends roughly 1 month after uni starts again due to non-existent Internet connection in my new house, at which point I start handling my emotional problems in other ways (some say alcohol heals all wounds ( Read more... )

It is completely invisible to parking attendants.

For the past 6 days, everytime I have parked my car in a fee-paying lot, I have come back up to an hour later to find no parking ticket on it.

By the way in KK we don't have meters or anything fancy. Just rather sad-looking people in big sunhats scurrying around affixing parking tickets to people' ( Read more... )

One expects home to look less like a war zone or an epidemic-struck crisis area.

However, H1N1(A), to give it its more socially acceptable moniker (The Coming Plague by Laurie Garrett has a brilliant chapter on the early origins of the 1970s "swine flu" epidemic and how categorically incorrect the pig connotations are) has driven usually paranoid ( Read more... )

"Of what value is a civilization that can't toast a piece of bread as ordered?"
Murakami, After DarkToday was oddly inspiring, in a way ( Read more... )

"[I'll teach you] how not to leave the windows of your heart open when it looks like rain and how everyone has a stump where something necessary was amputated. "

Steve Toltz, A Fraction of the WholeThe wind was knocked out of my sails for what seemed like a very long night, partly due to poor nocturnal eating habits supplying an unwelcome rush of ( Read more... )

LiveJournal had the clarity of mind to remind me I "last updated 55 weeks ago ( Read more... )

he woke up, wide screen wistful, staring at poignant clouds that had not moved an inch the last time he checked ( Read more... )