snippets of my SG corpy lifelalu…
Everything happens…
in threes.
If I fucked this up again, this should be the last.
And because it can’t go worse than this, anything that will come after would be BETTER.
———-
BAD
i think my english is deteriorating.
aiyoooo!!!
———-
kuih bahulu
(pronounced; kwe-ba-hulu)
like back home, there’s also merienda time in corpy SG. men say it’s because, “the girls are always hungry.”
snacks can range from dried fruit skin (pregnant woman snack as per W) to cookies, rice crackers, seaweed sheets (as in A4 sheets of seaweeds) and even roughage 
but the one i love the most is this Malaysian treat Kuih Bahulu.
it’s like stale mamon with crispy outer layer. it goes well with Milo 
yesterday, M brought me some from the other side. when everyone else asked why she only brought some for me, she said, “it’s a personal thing between us.” haha! maybe she’ll always remember me when she sees/buys one, because as W puts it, he’s never seen someone get so excited about Malaysian baby food.
———-
lessons
the other writer M has been very patient teaching me some Chinese words. it’s quite difficult considering that every word can mean 4 different things (they change meanings based on the tone)…
so far, all i know is;
- pu yao (i don’t like)
- tui (correct/push)
- meo (i don’t have)
- xie xie ni (thank you)
- tien (sweet… because i always ask aunties if the dish is sweet, “tien ma?”. i prefer sweet dishes)
but the one word i remember most, hence using it for commenting on every funny thing she says is,
SIAO
which means “crazy”
———-
translation
one day, i received an email from a colleague saying;
hey, i need your help. can you translate this in Filipino, “no guts, no galaxies.”
i replied: ummm… what’s it for?
reply: i want to send it to a Filipino friend. it’s the tagline of the game we’re playing. i just want to surprise him. LOL!
me: oh, ok. do you want the literal translation or an idiom in Filipino that says the same thing.
reply: do you have the idiom for it?
me: i don’t think so… not really sure. i’m asking friends back home… but here’s the translation i came up with;
“Kung walang Lakas-loob, di mararating ang Kalawakan.”
~
all i can say is…
‘creative’ agencies, no matter where they are in the world, are filled with crazy people.
———-
a typical ‘conversation’
“cherie, is it, are you finished, or do you finished?”
me: it’s, “are you finished?”
———-
a thought
i posted something about sunshine through the rain here at dLr before. it’s about how we were told, when we were kids, that when it rained even though the sun was shining, may kinakasal na tikbalang.
just thought about it again the other day, because it’s raining through sunny skies again (which usually happens here in SG) and then it hit me…
hipon’s not around, could she be getting married?
———-
trouble with names
there’s this new kid and i can’t pronounce his name (it’s chinese).
his workstation had a problem one time, and someone called my local asking for his name. i tapped the back of his chair a few times to get his attention and asked, “what’s your name again?”
“z***-e”
i mumbled at the receiver.
later that day i asked, “don’t you have an english name?”
kid: oh, you can call me “E”
———-
Meeting
We were sitting in a room, and I don’t know if they’ve forgotten I was there. They all spoke in Chinese. Three, four, five minutes passed, and I was still sitting there, clueless. After a while, it felt as though I was watching a talk show with a boring host.
submitted at 50 word fiction
