Tornado!!

So I was calmly doing my work, trying to catch up on the last two days, when the girl sitting behind me yelped in excitement. She pointed speechlessly to the window, and this was what we saw.



It started off by being rather far away, but started looming ever nearer even as we watched it negotiate amongst the vessels in the open sea. (We were hoping that one of those vessels weren't ours.. That would be a couple million more in damages!) My boss was joking that the captain must be shitting in his pants watching the tornado.

Apparently, lots of people working around here saw it too, and the pictures started circulating rapidly in the industry.

This is what Sandro saw:


This is what my shipping broker saw:


Me: It was quite scary lor
Me: It was quite far away, then started looming larger..
Me: And it started moving amongst the ships..
Me: Haha. That was quite scary! We were praying that one of them isn't the Trust [one of our vessels] man..
Broker: aiya this type can only suck in fish and prawns
Broker: ships just feel ticklish

Heh heh. Told you he was funny.

Anyway, here's the explanation from a friend's friend who's an MOE scholar with an Oxford masters in Geography.

~~~~~~~~~
That's a waterspout.

Happens when you have a mass of air rushing into an area of low pressure. See it lots in tropical areas where weather is hot (therefore area of low pressure, Hot air rises = low pressure).

Prob a storm happening in further Indian ocean or something.. bringing in cold air mass. As the differentiated air masses converges, the funnel forms.

If you wondering why the ships are not drawn up and destroyed, its because the water of the funnel is not drawn up from the sea, but rather the condensation of water vapour around the low-pressure centre where the air masses merges.

Harmless one la.

Is it just me?

...or is this quite funny?

Me: Hey! Have you heard of any oman refinery export recently?
Broker: wat abt that?
Me: Nothing lah.. Just wondering if you know anything about that. Platts is asking me, and we dun do crude mah.
Broker: aiya they're like blind spider anyhow jump
Broker: didnt even check then straight away post out their questions
Me: Your analogy is so funny
Broker: yah sometime they sent to multiple people on their yahoo list to ask
Me: Blind spider will anyhow jump meh?

Haha. I love his analogy man. He's damn funny.

Anyway, I did this thing last night cuz I was really bored. 2 days of MC can really drive a person insane. (Haha, you people. Don't even think about saying it.)



In a separate email conversation I had with Andrew,

Me:
I think this is hilarious! Not the most perfect fit, but…


Andrew:
Is that all I am worth ??!!!

Me:
Less.. But they didn’t have coins lah. :D
Gosh I keep farting today.

Andrew:
:finger

Me:
So crass. Tsk tsk.

Andrew:
:finger (left hand)
:finger (right hand)

Me:
Can’t decide if my response should be this:


Or this:


Andrew:
the second defintely since you are already farting non-stop

Me:
Since you mentioned…

Values

I’m feeling a little under the weather today, yet have to be at work because the boss isn’t around, and someone needs to give the analysis for the trade window.

Something stirred inside me when I read Christabel's blog entries. I guess part of it had to do with my own experience with adolescence and even though I was more centred and having less extreme emotions, I struggled. Yes, I did. I struggled with approval, with peer pressure, with homosexuality, with doubt, with esteem issues, with academics (or disinterest thereof), with authority, with popularity. The human emotion can sometimes be a tempest of wild and unabating extremeties. I guess she would have to fight her own demons. I have faith that she will survive, and emerge victorious.

A short analogy comes to mind at this point: There once was a thief that broke into a supermarket one night, as one would break into an apartment. But this thief did a very strange thing; instead of stealing items from the shelves, he swapped price tags on the items on the shelves. He would take the price tag off an expensive item and put it on a cheap item, and vice versa.

Strange, isn't it? But it really isn't, because this is what the devil seeks to do to us in the world. He would take what was unimportant, of little value, and swap it with an item of great value. Because of that, the world becomes confused, and imagines the item with the expensive price tag to be one of great value, when only God knows the true value of the items on the shelves. Things like popularity, money, career, social standing, beauty - These become items of great value, and integrity, love, contentment, respect are relegated to the bottom of the priority list.

Christabel, the Bible says this:

The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full. "I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. (John 10:10-11)

This is what I would tell my students, and something I constantly remind myself: That price that Jesus paid for me? That's my value. That's what I'm worth. I should never allow the world to put a price tag on me.

Personality Disorder Test

So I was doing this test that I found on Christabel's blog. Wahaha. Ok, I'm quite well adjusted lah.

Disorder	Rating
Paranoid:	Low
Schizoid:	Low
Schizotypal:	Moderate
Antisocial:	Low
Borderline:	Low
Histrionic:	Low
Narcissistic:	Moderate
Avoidant:	Low
Dependent:	Low
Obsessive-Compulsive:	Low
-- Personality Disorder Test -- -- Personality Disorder Information --

Good job, me! (As you can see, the narcissism is starting to show).

A few of the AHMs and even HMs have been accusing me of being massively hormonal. I found that to be quite strange, because I used to pride myself on being quite consistent. Obviously, I didn't think much of it until recently when it occurred to me that, looking from a boarder's perspective, my consistency could very well be construed as being slightly crazy.

See, I compartmentalize. This means that it doesn't matter that someone's my favourite boarder, and just 3 minutes ago, we were having a wonderful discussion about my pet hamster. If in the next half a minute, I find out that she has disobeyed the rules, I will come down as hard on her as I would the next guy. I would scold her, and dish out the punishment, and then after that's over, I will resume my chat. Obviously that's quite an extreme example, but the lines are quite clear for me. I would be your friend and do all the things friends would do for each other, but I would rarely, if ever, use my AHM position to grant privileges to a favourite boarder that I would not do for another normal boarder. And if I *do* grant privileges to a favourite boarder that I deny to another boarder, it is because that favourite boarder has proven to be worthy of trust.

See, it sounds complex, but really isn't. And I really am not crazy.

Performance Fest

I judged at the Performance Festival tonight in the hostel. I resolved at the beginning of the event that I would be tactful with my words. Alas, I guess I screwed up because I accidentally made a comment that went something like, "you chose a wrong song". And one of our boarders didn't have any qualms making his opinion known that I should not have said that about the song. It was uncharacteristic of me to be affected by this sort of thing, but I felt lousy the rest of the night.

Talking to Calvin, thankfully, made me feel better. He's coming back soon.

Me: Hey! How you?
Calvin: heyhey! im good
Calvin: youyouYOU?
Me: Not so good..
Calvin: what is it?
Calvin: do you have skype?
Me: Don't have..
Me: It's ok, I'm good..
Calvin: something obviously is bothering you. What is it?
Me: Yeah but it's really not worth mentioning. I'm just moping.
Calvin: alright, if you wont say. there are always things you can do with money to buy some happiness. Like splurging on ice cream or going to the spa.
Me: Haha.. Buying happiness... I can't really buy happiness, my dear.. It's too expensive..
Calvin: expensivity is relative. Happiness is crucial to living. What's the wortth of money if you can't buy a little happiness when you need it?
Me: Hehe. But I'm not earning enough to be happy.. Happiness is a Volvo C70.
Calvin: buy a smaller happy
Calvin: hey do you like to watch taiwanese variety shows?
Calvin: there is this interview that is very funny... you should watch it
Me: Haha. I don't like leh.
Me: The cheapest happy is just talking to you on MSN.. So I'm doing that lah.
Calvin: good to know im a happy and cheap too
Calvin: get a javanese massage! i know where you can go to get that.
Calvin: Or go sun tanning tomorrow
Me: Heh. There's church tomorrow..
Me: And ticklish, so massage won't work!
Calvin: you are hard to please, honey
Calvin: bake brownies then
Me: Heh. Good idea. It's 12.57am in the morning. I'm sure skulking around the hostel pantry is a normal thing to do over there but it's a wee bit different here!
Calvin: oh well..... order a pizza and some spicy wings... make friends with the delivery guy and have some beer together
Calvin: it's tomorrow before you know it
Me: Haha. You're insane do you know that? That, my dear, is the reason why I talk to you.


Yup. That's the reason. On hindsight, I don't think I was really wrong. It was the truth after all, and I don't think I said it in a way that was tactless or wrong. They chose "Bring Me Back To Life", which was a really popular song and notoriously difficult to sing. With that level of difficulty, pulling it off will take another level of skill. Although they might have been superior technically (with all the electrical equipment), there was a greater chance of screwing up, and the fact that the guitar amp *did* screw up didn't help.

Whatever. I think my mistake tonight was that I made an effort to give comments that I thought would help them perform better in the future, rather than the standard "I enjoyed myself".

The Perfect Diet (for me)

You start with a cup of coffee in the morning. Latte. Lots of milk.

Then it's emptying the bowels for the large part of the morning.

The effect normally lasts about 4 hours, so take a cup of latte at tea time.

Just in time while your lunch goes into the sewer, as well as the rest of
what you ate in between.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

This is the result of a potent intolerance to a combination of caffeine and
lactose. Or one, or the other.

Madness

I had this one funny conversation with Calvin today. Calvin, if you all remember, is that friend of mine who gave up a prestigious architecture career to study writing. He's now on scholarship in the UK somewhere studying English and Literature. He's developed a quick wit, so I assume he's enjoying himself there.

Me: How are you doing?
Me: Do you have school today?
Calvin: yes, one class.... which im not at all excited about, mainly because the tutor is crazy
Me: Haha. Do tell.
Calvin: he is just crazy not in an endearingly erratic way but just so wannabe sort of madness by making things difficult to grasp when what he's saying is mostly crap
Me: Hahah
Me: This is interesting. Define "wannabe madness"
Calvin: madness cannot be defined, my dear. you should watch him. he fidgets alot and talks wierd
Calvin: "oh, erewhon, erewhon, nowhere nowhere, is victorians nowhere, what is nowhere, nowhere nowhere, erewhon..."
Me: Are you sure?
Me: Hahaha
Me: That's quite surreal...
Calvin: he is not convincing to me
Me: But still, I think trying to be "wannabe mad" qualifies him as crazy in my book.
Calvin: craziness is more subtle.... he deliberately tries to be unusual which is plain irritating
Calvin: he says things like.... "have you considered the shadow your hand casts over the paper when u write, like some ominous shade? the effect it has on writing."
Calvin: we go
Calvin: 10 minutes later we are like get on with THE lesson!
Me: Hahaha
Me: You're so funny!
Calvin: trust me, eel, he's unbearable. i hardly talk in his class. the overbearing silence weighs in the room like madness itself!!!
Me: Wah. Being quite poetic about your angst eh?
Calvin: im an aspiring writer you see. words preserve me.
Me: Yes indeed..
Me: Just let it preserve you then!
Calvin: like pickles
Me: Yeah, then you'll be wrinkly and sour.