Halfway around the world

2007-05-09T23:49:00.001-07:00

It’s the 3rd day now practising my ingenious disappearing-then-reappearing-out-of-nowhere act during FYP. David (Copperfield) vaingloriously calls his craft, ‘Vanishing the Statue of Liberty’. I’m proud to say, I, too, know a thing or two. Ha-ha.

I shall let you in on today’s events.
It all began at 1130am, when I tiredly made my way to the computer lab. The sight of the dull-coloured computer screens added to my vexation. Well, school’s a routine and I guess seeing the same sullen faces in the mornings would be one of them.
I logged on to MSN and did the usual stuff; heavily laden with many nagging thoughts at the back of my head. I secretly held on to the slightest hope that my supervisor won’t pop in too early today.

That stalky figure with eyes peering through those harlequin glasses (almost) and that similar creased checked shirt he wore everyday; there’s absolutely nothing fashionable about Mr Godfrey Khoo except for the fact that he changes his hair colour every now and then. However, I should thank God for the fact that I didn’t get a termagant teacher like how one of my neighboring classmates did. Oh that overbearing son of a gun!

Alright camera-man, swing the focus.
Let’s fast-forward to 1230pm.

I carefully packed some of my valuables into my snugly big pockets by the sides of my three-quarters. I simply love those baggy to-the-knee pants.
Then I exchanged several SMS-es with Darryl Khoo. Oh that name!
Where can I even start talking about this secondary school friend of mine? Let’s say it’s evil taking a human form.
He is rich, has slits for eyes and a pretty loud mouth to add to his already egoistical swagger. The thing about him is that you’ll never know when he’s serious and when he’s trying to exaggerate every single detail. Sometimes, you just have a feeling that there’s actually fire behind those deceptive eyes; that what you thought was a helping hand is actually a devious scheme plotting your downfall only to see that sinister grin as you fall deeper into oblivion. On the other hand, when the moon turns it’s hinds blue occasionally, you’ll see Darryl giving you quite a sincere hand at things but then comes the array of thoughts of the bad experiences you had with him two weeks ago and pop goes your perfect mental image of him. You simply take a step back in defense; weary of what might happen next.

Nonetheless, he remains as my good neighborhood friend (he lives in the same neighborhood as me).

We made plans to meet at 1pm in Orchard. Well, it was lunch at first but I decided to miss the eating part and went into my main agenda- to find that book I wanted. I reached Orchard first and made my way to Borders, the biggest bookstore located at Wheelock Place. Tastefully done up, this place has a tinge of classiness to go with it. Walking through the massive collection of books neatly displayed on those brown shelves; I began wondering to myself the number of lifetimes a person would need to finish reading every single composition. Indeed knowledge is never-ending. Then someone caught my attention from afar and I fixated my stare on that particular subject. My eyes grew larger as my mind whirred, desperately trying to figure out who that familiar stranger was. My eyes grew larger as my gaze turned into her entrancingly big eyes and thick black specs, owned by none other than, Dinnie Lim.
Ha! Gotcha!
Donning a dark blue Borders Jacket, this tall and fair-skinned individual stood behind the information counter diligently giving instructions to customers with ‘too many questions’. Nonetheless, I witnessed great customer service- the one that she proudly blogged about two days back. I advanced but stopped at a distance, not wanting to distract her from her job and the fact that there was a woman beside; staring down at her added to my hesitation. Oh goodness, that sounded like a love story from some novel. OKAY IT’S NOT.

Heck. Owing to time constraints, I couldn’t wait for the woman to get away to give my salutations to Dinnie. Hence, I did away with politeness and trotted along myself; carefully pinning my eyes on every single book title that came within my spectrum of view.
15mins passed and still nothing found which left me rather flustered.

I decided to go with unwritten motions of the bookstore and headed back to the information counter to ask for the exact location of my book. There goes the once valiant lion in me; thinking that I could do it in my own strength combing every book in that store.

Anyway, this time Dinnie was free and she gracefully led me to the section where my book title was found. On the way, I met Gina who didn’t say anything much except mumble a few words under her breath. I guess it has to be because of the higher authority walking beside her. Welcome to the world. I guess that’s the way things worked in the working world-stressful and serious. I totally understand because I was sacked three times before. Ha-ha.

Moving on.
Wow... bless the heavens, the book I wanted cost a whooping $52.62! My goodness. I stood there in disbelief only to regain composure after a couple of seconds. There was private war going on in me at that moment on whether to actually fish out that $56 I had in my wallet and spend it. My thoughts went deeper before I decided on forcing myself to NOT spend that kind of money; summing up with a few theories of mine to convince myself and to serve as a consolation.
Emerging from the corner, I noticed this girl walking towards me. Unlike the usual hair-dancing-on-shoulders thing, this girl had her hair combed to the side (if I don’t remember wrongly). Showing off her widest grin, YI LING came up to me. Ha-ha. We had a pretty short conversation because she was in a hurry to change for her working shift.

I made my way out of the bookstore and went to Somerset to meet Darryl. Yes, it was changed from Orchard to Somerset. Quirky as always, we made our way to Cineleisure so that I could get a small something before heading to Kinokuniya at Takashimaya to find a cheaper alternative to the book title I wanted.
NOTHING.

Well, let’s pass the mundane details and fast forward to the part where we both headed back- Darryl to his workplace and me to school. I was on my way back in the train, still fighting with myself and convincing myself that I made the right decision to not spend that kind of money.

*Vibration
I meddled with a few buttons before staring at the message from my lab friend on my phone.

“Your supervisor is looking for you.”

Moving on...

2005-07-07T00:13:00.000-07:00

Blog moved.
new address: www.welcometomyfrequency.blogspot.com
Kindly relink me.
thanks!
-Jeremy Chan

Then Jeremy happened

Halfway around the world

Moving on...