Long, frustrating day. In the morning – rush off to take Zen to the school, then get on the 77 bus downtown. It is the same bus Naoko takes, so we ride downtown together, she goes to work and I continue on four more stops to my interview place at the massive SunTec City, which is a huge mall with five or six business towers tucked away at the back. My destination is miles from the nearest bus stop, of course. The interview goes OK, it is with a job placement agency. They MIGHT have a job suitable for me with an internet agency, but maybe not. Wait and see, but now that introductions are out of the way hopefully something will develop. On the way back to the distant bus stop I linger at a few shops – HMV, Borders, books and music as always. Film. DVD. Wait at the bus stop 30 minutes before the thing finally comes. Get home, it is lunch time – check emails and go pick Zen up, hoofing it since I left the bike there in the morning. Zen sleeps at 1:45 and I chill out reading ghost stories for a while. When I am finally ready to take a nap, the person who plays piano on the upper floor starts practicing. Man, do I ever hate the sound of someone practicing piano, especially when the vibrations come through the cieling and also the open windows to where I am trying to sleep. I wish they had a keyboard, like the kind that doesn’t produce massive vibrations… the kind you can use headphones to listen to your playing with! A huge rainstorm comes up and dumps a ton of water on the t own, lots of thunder and lightning too. I get some work done, mostly emailing and proofreading, and another article is done. Take Zen for a bike ride to Bukit Batok Nature Park, then discover a huge tree has fallen across the bicycle path. I turn around and take another way into the park and my rear tire gives out. I walk 20 minutes back to the bicycle shop so that Zai can fix my tire, only to find out that the shop has moved to Buena Vista. This all adds to my problems and frustrations. Bummer. Had lovely curry with Naoko and Zen, showered, watched the Big Lebowski again.
Book Review: Popular Ghost Stories is a bunch of ghost stories, most about 3 pages long. The book is 120 pages, but you could probably read it in an hour. Some of them were OK, but most not. Fewer typos than the Malaysian Ghost Tales book at least, and slightly better composition. Slightly. One ghost story was a repeat from the other book – the one that told of the doctor whose patient dies, then he hears of another person living in the same flat who wakes up to find the dead patient’s name carved into their arm. In one book the ghost was a foreigner named John, in this book it was an Indian named Siva, otherwise all the same. Enough of ghost stories for me, next I read the English Patient.
Thought for the day: Put a log on the fire of your sprit.