First Week Back

it feels a lot like a dream
am i in singapore dreaming i'm in alabama
or was i here all this while dreaming abt being back to singapore

or maybe
i'm just trying to be lao tzu and his butterfly.

i was quite happy and hyper just now
but turned on the tv and there was a mercy charity concert for the hurricane victims
so a bit subdued now

the hurricane did pass by here
over a town just miles away
but by the time it got here it's quite weak already
still, those were the strongest winds i'll probably ever see

i'm so thankful i got here before the hurricane touched land
i was still blissfully unaware until J, who picked me up, told me abt it
"a hurricane's coming our way. Everyday on tv the eye gets bigger and bigger"

(the eye is the centre of the hurricane by the way. i told jialu the eye came by and she asked what's the eye. she said the tail's passing thru boston and i'm like what's the tail. Mr gomez will be so proud of us.)

so i arrived on sat, and katrina hit land sunday morning i think
i turned on the tv and there was a lot of alert of course
but then if you remember there was a big hoo ha about hurricane dennis
i bought my water and bread then nothing happened
so this time i also just heck care
sekali this time is big time disaster
sigh

by the time the eye reached us it was monday night
i wanted to skip work on monday to rest, like everyone told me to
but the thought of facing Katrina alone is not very appealing
besides i sort of forgot how to drive and i don't relish familiarising myself in a thunderstorm

Anyway, so the eye passed by monday night to tues dawn
i'm so thankful number two that it came at night
so i can just sleep through it see
i could hear the winds pounding outside
and the power flickered on and off
it's quite scary yes when suddenly there's pitch darkness and silence
so i quickly went to bed
blissfully unaware of the world that blew by

the power did go off again
i know cos in the morning all my radio alarms were reset
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anyway, if anyone is still wondering
besides the strong winds nothing major happened here
i'm very north and inland
and usually hurricanes fizzle out before they get here
katrina was just a hell of a storm to still survive all the way here
the eye passed by
we got strong winds (and i mean STRONG)
30,000 homes lost power i think for a couple of days
and that was it
the only fatalities were the flowers and grass and dunno what all over the place
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so..i'm fine...and so is everyone here
i haven't been online much
probably adding to the worry for some of you..heh
i've tuned my sleeping pattern to neither here nor there
so i just sleep all the time

mom called me and panicky told me there's another strom coming and there's looting and there's fire now!
i was like "er...i'm here and i see nothing"
(jen's gonna say i'm mean again..)

some parts of alabama (in the south near the coast) is probably still in trouble
that's why alabama is in a state of emergency
but alabama is very big
i'm prob as far from the south as KL is from singapore, if not further
so it's all well here
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the price of petrol is going insane
it's just about to reach the regular cost of petrol in singapore!
i thought there'd be a panic spike and then it'll go down
but it doesn't seem like that's gonna happen in the near future
it has risen about 2 bucks a gallon
that's crazy
imagine petrol in singapore costing 3 dollar a litre instead of 1.75312434

at least there's public transport as an alternative in singapore
over here there's none
so it's gonna be tough on a lot of pple
it's not uncommon for them to drive an hour to work
so walking/cycling is not an option
unless you, like, start 5 hours ahead of time maybe
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i've been eating a lot of grapes
it's like, eat grapes, sleep, eat grapes, sleep
it's just so convenient to eat grapes
seedless grapes of course
just pop into the mouth and move the jaw

i lost 5 pounds by just eating grapes
but now on hindsight i think those 5 pounds were all from the plane food
the way they keep feeding you
it's prob just abt 5 pounds of food
it's uncanny how they always serve just as you're going into deep sleep
like finally you overcome discomfort to move into REM
and then comes the "BEEF OR CHICKEN?"

i got through immigration
and all the officers told me "good luck for school!"
the first one i replied "no no, i'm working already"
but the rest i just smiled back
it's too much trouble to explain
next time i'll wear a power suit on the plane and pile on the makeup and perm my hair
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i'm friggin tired.