The key to not being sad hearing a song is not listening too closely to the lyrics.
The key to not being sad writing a poem is not reading too in-between the lines.
The key to not being sad reminiscing a memory is not thinking past the parts that matter.
Since you left, I have listened to music with my mind occupied and I have read poems with my heart elsewhere and I have thought of you while doing Maths.
Last week I made a conscious decision and effort. I told myself I'll go swim, and I surprisingly managed to get there. I tread with my toes lightly into the water. The chill crawled up my legs slowly, dying to enter my spine. And I stepped out immediately as if I've been scalded by fire.
It is funny, isn't it?
I wanted to tell you this is an analogy - an analogy of how I never do anything too intently now because everything is you.
And yet all I could think of is;
Had I submerged myself, I would finally be able to hear everything and see nothing.
Had I submerged myself, my mind would have went into a helpless limbo, a limbo where thoughts of you finally manage to crush past the locked door to my conscious begging to be released.
Had I submerged myself,
I would have never wanted to resurface again.
Saturday, August 30, 2014
Sunday, August 17, 2014
Saturday, August 16, 2014
Life has the strangest way of working itself out.
When I rejected DBS, I thought it was the end of it for me. But immediately the next day, I got an email for an interview. And in a flurry of movement, I started working at Weekender Singapore as their writer and social media developer. Talk about luck.
These days have been excessive, sketchy plannings of projects to take on ahead and while none have materialized, I have mainly decided to start on a series of photographs and writings first.
Hopefully the goddamn card mounts so I can start a preview here.
When I rejected DBS, I thought it was the end of it for me. But immediately the next day, I got an email for an interview. And in a flurry of movement, I started working at Weekender Singapore as their writer and social media developer. Talk about luck.
These days have been excessive, sketchy plannings of projects to take on ahead and while none have materialized, I have mainly decided to start on a series of photographs and writings first.
Hopefully the goddamn card mounts so I can start a preview here.
Sunday, August 3, 2014
On DBS and opportunities
It is 11:38am.
At 2pm, I have the opportunity to sign an offer with DBS Bank Asia. I could have been earning $2500 a month before I turn 21. I could have had my 26 days unpaid leave, my medical benefits, my transport allowance, my year end bonus, my chance of promotion within DBS in 2 years.
This opportunity will not come again. I have spent the past 2 months since graduation moping around at home while I fire out resumes after resumes and attended interviews after interviews. The idea of another interview nauseates me.
But the idea of working 9-5 and working shifts and hours at a job I know I'll hate nauseates me more.
It is 11:41am.
I am remembering how I felt when I stepped into DBS's HQ at changi. The 1.5 journey pissed me off to no end but I arrived eager and wide-eyed. I watched the DBS tv for 45 minutes. I saw the working folks walk into the building in their immaculate suits. I heard their deep conversations. I wanted in.
But I can't do it.
It is 11:43am.
I closed JobStreet and opened SGcares instead. I am thinking of volunteering to keep my sanity while I continue to look for jobs and source for internships. I am wondering of the days ahead of money issues and how to get more in the shortest time frame possible. I can still change my mind. DBS is only a half hour cab away.
A 9-5 job awaits me with a promise that fresh graduates only dream of. A job of unparalleled employee benefits calls me. A job that I could maybe try out till the end of this year is at the other end of Singapore holding a contract with my name on it. I could've earned more than 10k by the end of this year despite joining only in August.
But I want to write. I want to take photos and I want to write and I want people to read my writings deep into the night and think: wow thank god for her inspiring me. If not I would've never gotten out of my shithole.
I want to write for magazines and I want to write for newspapers and I want to write my own book and I want to write poetry and I want to write and write till I die.
I've always been a dreamer and I've always disappointed myself no matter what I do. I am 21 and my life still hasn't gotten itself together. I have been presented with the best possible monetary opportunity to get my shit together. And I am letting it go.
This will not be another disappointment. I will not regret being a dreamer. I will find my way through Singapore's sordid mess of being unhappy all the fucking time and I will find my way. I will not allow myself to be unhappy anymore.
I am chasing my dreams.
At 2pm, I have the opportunity to sign an offer with DBS Bank Asia. I could have been earning $2500 a month before I turn 21. I could have had my 26 days unpaid leave, my medical benefits, my transport allowance, my year end bonus, my chance of promotion within DBS in 2 years.
This opportunity will not come again. I have spent the past 2 months since graduation moping around at home while I fire out resumes after resumes and attended interviews after interviews. The idea of another interview nauseates me.
But the idea of working 9-5 and working shifts and hours at a job I know I'll hate nauseates me more.
It is 11:41am.
I am remembering how I felt when I stepped into DBS's HQ at changi. The 1.5 journey pissed me off to no end but I arrived eager and wide-eyed. I watched the DBS tv for 45 minutes. I saw the working folks walk into the building in their immaculate suits. I heard their deep conversations. I wanted in.
But I can't do it.
It is 11:43am.
I closed JobStreet and opened SGcares instead. I am thinking of volunteering to keep my sanity while I continue to look for jobs and source for internships. I am wondering of the days ahead of money issues and how to get more in the shortest time frame possible. I can still change my mind. DBS is only a half hour cab away.
A 9-5 job awaits me with a promise that fresh graduates only dream of. A job of unparalleled employee benefits calls me. A job that I could maybe try out till the end of this year is at the other end of Singapore holding a contract with my name on it. I could've earned more than 10k by the end of this year despite joining only in August.
But I want to write. I want to take photos and I want to write and I want people to read my writings deep into the night and think: wow thank god for her inspiring me. If not I would've never gotten out of my shithole.
I want to write for magazines and I want to write for newspapers and I want to write my own book and I want to write poetry and I want to write and write till I die.
I've always been a dreamer and I've always disappointed myself no matter what I do. I am 21 and my life still hasn't gotten itself together. I have been presented with the best possible monetary opportunity to get my shit together. And I am letting it go.
This will not be another disappointment. I will not regret being a dreamer. I will find my way through Singapore's sordid mess of being unhappy all the fucking time and I will find my way. I will not allow myself to be unhappy anymore.
I am chasing my dreams.
Tuesday, July 29, 2014
Sunday, July 27, 2014
Review: Being a Toy Outpost Merchant
In the tragic beginning when me and my boyfriend first came up with the brilliant idea of renting a booth at toy outpost, our sincere thinking was that it would work - how can it not when our costs are so low?
I mean $230 a month to expose your stocks to a potentially countless myriad of customers. The weekend crowd is impressive and the weekday crowd isn't all too bad. Selling one item a day would recover the day's cost immediately. What's there to lose?
E V E R Y T H I N G.
So dear reader at 2am googling "toy outpost merchant review" thinking your entrepreneurial idea is bloody brilliant, you're in luck. Here is the naked, writhing truth about renting a booth at Toy goddamn Outpost.
There will be expletives involved because I'm a mean son of a bitch so don't read on if you're looking for a sugar coated review of this hell I call Toy Outfuckingpost.
Aww look at how eager I was.
Me and my boyfriend spent the past couple of weeks looking around for booths. There were always a couple of empty booths around but all of them were bad placements. We found this one by chance.
This booth is 1717, the placement is basically two locker booths away from the entrance of Vivocity's outlet. We went on a Sunday. The owner had just moved out. We saw the vacated slot and wanted to book it immediately but they don't take merchant queries on weekends.
So I cabbed down to Vivocity at 11am the next day and waited for this place to open. When they did, they offered me a leasing contract to sign. Because I know your attention span is running bleak, here's a quick rundown.
1st: Pay deposit of $150, pay one month $230.
Timeline: We opened the booth in end May.
Termination notice needed is a month so even if you regret it and decide to close your locker in early July, you would still have to cough up the rent for from July to August. Your misery will only end one long month later.
You can decorate your locker as you wish. No restrictions but you can't scratch or leave marks on the interior if not you'll be liable for a fee. I am rolling my eyes so badly my corneas hurt.
2nd: Start rearranging your locker!
Wow so exciting!
But hold your illegal Singapore horses.
They have a long list of products you can and cannot sell. No branded products nor replicas. They rejected the Balenciaga inspired wallets (corner left) and my Hello Kitty bracelets (roof corner right). They also rejected the My Melody casing (front corner left).
Things you get at this point:
1. a long list of price tags that you can write your prices on
2. a little card to verify you're the locker owner anytime you need to open it to restock
3. a username/ password for you to log onto their website to track your daily sales
Price tags are replaceable, you can claim a new sheet everyday. Card loss results in a replacement fee. How much it is I don't know, I held mine onto today even after the lease has ended. I'm still mulling over which murder method would hurt this card the most.
To digress a little, it is important to note that while there are always lockers available, it is rare to find one in good placement. So when we did find ours, we had no ready stock because we weren't prepared. This pile of junk you see above are leftover stocks from my old Carousell business and assorted pre-loved stuff.
So if you see piles of junk in lockers in toy outpost, sympathize with them, because it is very likely they were in the same situation as I was. In case you can't visualize, here's the easy rundown:
Oh my god dardar look! There's a locker, let's book it! Fuck we have no ready stock because who knew the previous owner loser would open up today! Let's just sell your precious fake tattoo stickers/ my worthless jewellery knockoffs! Oh yeah we are doing this!
Got the picture? Okay moving on.
3rd: Leave and pray to God that your locker doesn't end up a loser locker
For the first two weeks, I religiously logged in onto the website hourly to check my sales history. And for the first three days, I got nothing. Within two weeks, I managed to sell a grand total of two items.
Take note that from the minute I opened my locker, I already started making losses.
Sales was so slow, it would make the nearby snails feel proud that they are little racers. But that's okay because after all, it was still my old stock we were selling. We finally gotten our shipment of accessories so we went over to tear down the old stuff and mount our new ones.
Take note again that because of the ridiculously stupid small space, you can practically sell nothing but accessories. I spent nights agonizing about how to display everything because the space was so fucking small, its senseless.
Timeline: We took the whole locker down and redid everything in mid June.
I don't have a photo of the re-done locker because right now, our earnings were a grand total of $47.50 (after close to a month, which has been at a $250 rental cost) and we were both pretty pessimistic about the whole thing.
Still, our new stocks made us a little more hopeful so we persevered.
From here on, read everything carefully and wake up.
I will tell you: in the next two weeks of wondering why the fuck aren't my things selling, I went back to check on my booth. To see this. Now well well well, isn't my locker beautiful!
Now, what is wrong in the picture? Shall I start with how my new stocks are spilling out from the side? Or shall I start about how my necklace hooks are empty? Or how about how my price tags were taken down? Or how about the general fuckpile of mess at the bottom?
Because you see folks, the staff do not give a fuck.
I told them nicely that the necklaces on display are, well, for display and new stocks were at the side. But did they give a fuck? No. Whenever a customer bought a customer, they took the display, took the price tag off, and went to sell it.
So what am I left with?
A grand total of three necklaces sold in two fucking weeks. That is a $15 sales by the way because there is NO WAY you can sell accessories in this shithole for anything more than $8 and expect to profit.
In the next two weeks after that horrifying mess, I forced myself to go down once every fur days to tidy up since THE STAFF COULDN'T GIVE A RAT'S ASS ABOUT MY ARRAGEMENTS and so finally, me and my boyfriend decided to cancel the lease the soonest we could.
Timeline: This is end June.
We were informed we can clear out on 15th July. Hallefuckinglujah.
Timeline: This is 14th July.
Our total sales were $100 in two months. At the cost of $250 + $250 + our travelling expenses every four days to rearrange the locker + $350 which is the costs of our accessories seen in that box.
Plus we sold every necklace for less than $3 because we had to cover costs and even at $3, sales were so low, I could find nickels on the streets and still earn more than I do at Toy Outpost.
We had to take everything down and clear out leaving the locker pristine. Exhausted and pissed, we finally got it done and went to the counter. Now this is not unexpected of course, but while Toy Outpost was lightning fast to claim monthly profits (6% of your sales) and demand rent, they told us it would take 2-3 weeks for the deposit to be in.
Weary and feeling absolutely fucked over, we surrendered the locker's card and prepared to leave when a staff helpfully told us we can keep the card in case we ever want to reopen a locker again.
My boyfriend took the card from them and threw it at their shelves and stomped off. I picked it up and kept it in case there were deposit issues. As of right now, it is sitting flaccid and worthless in my drawer, being the little prick it was in life and in death, in rental and in retirement.
So here's my word of advice to you, potential locker master:
DON'T FUCKING DO IT.
And Toy Outpost Vivocity if you read this, fuck you and your system to hell. I await the day your stores pull out of Singapore after every locker renter see how big a pile of bull you are.
And to you, dear reader. You can say I wasn't prepared. You can say accessories are done to death and I could've sold something else. You can say my decorations weren't good enough to attract. You can say my prices were too high.
But you can't tell me this service is acceptable.
If it can happen to me, then it can happen to you. Should you still wish to execute your idea at this point, I wish you all the best and I hope you give my regards to Toy Outpost. And by regards I mean concentrated acid.
Meh.
I mean $230 a month to expose your stocks to a potentially countless myriad of customers. The weekend crowd is impressive and the weekday crowd isn't all too bad. Selling one item a day would recover the day's cost immediately. What's there to lose?
E V E R Y T H I N G.
So dear reader at 2am googling "toy outpost merchant review" thinking your entrepreneurial idea is bloody brilliant, you're in luck. Here is the naked, writhing truth about renting a booth at Toy goddamn Outpost.
There will be expletives involved because I'm a mean son of a bitch so don't read on if you're looking for a sugar coated review of this hell I call Toy Outfuckingpost.
Aww look at how eager I was.
Me and my boyfriend spent the past couple of weeks looking around for booths. There were always a couple of empty booths around but all of them were bad placements. We found this one by chance.
This booth is 1717, the placement is basically two locker booths away from the entrance of Vivocity's outlet. We went on a Sunday. The owner had just moved out. We saw the vacated slot and wanted to book it immediately but they don't take merchant queries on weekends.
So I cabbed down to Vivocity at 11am the next day and waited for this place to open. When they did, they offered me a leasing contract to sign. Because I know your attention span is running bleak, here's a quick rundown.
1st: Pay deposit of $150, pay one month $230.
Timeline: We opened the booth in end May.
Termination notice needed is a month so even if you regret it and decide to close your locker in early July, you would still have to cough up the rent for from July to August. Your misery will only end one long month later.
You can decorate your locker as you wish. No restrictions but you can't scratch or leave marks on the interior if not you'll be liable for a fee. I am rolling my eyes so badly my corneas hurt.
2nd: Start rearranging your locker!
Wow so exciting!
But hold your illegal Singapore horses.
They have a long list of products you can and cannot sell. No branded products nor replicas. They rejected the Balenciaga inspired wallets (corner left) and my Hello Kitty bracelets (roof corner right). They also rejected the My Melody casing (front corner left).
Things you get at this point:
1. a long list of price tags that you can write your prices on
2. a little card to verify you're the locker owner anytime you need to open it to restock
3. a username/ password for you to log onto their website to track your daily sales
Price tags are replaceable, you can claim a new sheet everyday. Card loss results in a replacement fee. How much it is I don't know, I held mine onto today even after the lease has ended. I'm still mulling over which murder method would hurt this card the most.
To digress a little, it is important to note that while there are always lockers available, it is rare to find one in good placement. So when we did find ours, we had no ready stock because we weren't prepared. This pile of junk you see above are leftover stocks from my old Carousell business and assorted pre-loved stuff.
So if you see piles of junk in lockers in toy outpost, sympathize with them, because it is very likely they were in the same situation as I was. In case you can't visualize, here's the easy rundown:
Oh my god dardar look! There's a locker, let's book it! Fuck we have no ready stock because who knew the previous owner loser would open up today! Let's just sell your precious fake tattoo stickers/ my worthless jewellery knockoffs! Oh yeah we are doing this!
Got the picture? Okay moving on.
3rd: Leave and pray to God that your locker doesn't end up a loser locker
For the first two weeks, I religiously logged in onto the website hourly to check my sales history. And for the first three days, I got nothing. Within two weeks, I managed to sell a grand total of two items.
Take note that from the minute I opened my locker, I already started making losses.
Sales was so slow, it would make the nearby snails feel proud that they are little racers. But that's okay because after all, it was still my old stock we were selling. We finally gotten our shipment of accessories so we went over to tear down the old stuff and mount our new ones.
Take note again that because of the ridiculously stupid small space, you can practically sell nothing but accessories. I spent nights agonizing about how to display everything because the space was so fucking small, its senseless.
Timeline: We took the whole locker down and redid everything in mid June.
I don't have a photo of the re-done locker because right now, our earnings were a grand total of $47.50 (after close to a month, which has been at a $250 rental cost) and we were both pretty pessimistic about the whole thing.
Still, our new stocks made us a little more hopeful so we persevered.
From here on, read everything carefully and wake up.
I will tell you: in the next two weeks of wondering why the fuck aren't my things selling, I went back to check on my booth. To see this. Now well well well, isn't my locker beautiful!
Now, what is wrong in the picture? Shall I start with how my new stocks are spilling out from the side? Or shall I start about how my necklace hooks are empty? Or how about how my price tags were taken down? Or how about the general fuckpile of mess at the bottom?
Because you see folks, the staff do not give a fuck.
I told them nicely that the necklaces on display are, well, for display and new stocks were at the side. But did they give a fuck? No. Whenever a customer bought a customer, they took the display, took the price tag off, and went to sell it.
So what am I left with?
A grand total of three necklaces sold in two fucking weeks. That is a $15 sales by the way because there is NO WAY you can sell accessories in this shithole for anything more than $8 and expect to profit.
In the next two weeks after that horrifying mess, I forced myself to go down once every fur days to tidy up since THE STAFF COULDN'T GIVE A RAT'S ASS ABOUT MY ARRAGEMENTS and so finally, me and my boyfriend decided to cancel the lease the soonest we could.
Timeline: This is end June.
We were informed we can clear out on 15th July. Hallefuckinglujah.
Timeline: This is 14th July.
Our total sales were $100 in two months. At the cost of $250 + $250 + our travelling expenses every four days to rearrange the locker + $350 which is the costs of our accessories seen in that box.
Plus we sold every necklace for less than $3 because we had to cover costs and even at $3, sales were so low, I could find nickels on the streets and still earn more than I do at Toy Outpost.
We had to take everything down and clear out leaving the locker pristine. Exhausted and pissed, we finally got it done and went to the counter. Now this is not unexpected of course, but while Toy Outpost was lightning fast to claim monthly profits (6% of your sales) and demand rent, they told us it would take 2-3 weeks for the deposit to be in.
Weary and feeling absolutely fucked over, we surrendered the locker's card and prepared to leave when a staff helpfully told us we can keep the card in case we ever want to reopen a locker again.
My boyfriend took the card from them and threw it at their shelves and stomped off. I picked it up and kept it in case there were deposit issues. As of right now, it is sitting flaccid and worthless in my drawer, being the little prick it was in life and in death, in rental and in retirement.
So here's my word of advice to you, potential locker master:
DON'T FUCKING DO IT.
And Toy Outpost Vivocity if you read this, fuck you and your system to hell. I await the day your stores pull out of Singapore after every locker renter see how big a pile of bull you are.
And to you, dear reader. You can say I wasn't prepared. You can say accessories are done to death and I could've sold something else. You can say my decorations weren't good enough to attract. You can say my prices were too high.
But you can't tell me this service is acceptable.
If it can happen to me, then it can happen to you. Should you still wish to execute your idea at this point, I wish you all the best and I hope you give my regards to Toy Outpost. And by regards I mean concentrated acid.
Meh.
Tuesday, July 22, 2014
I caught Transformers over the weekend.
And sincerely I was thinking, "how can they fuck this up?"
But life is as life does and disappointment likes to find it's way up to me like an old friend and choke me from the back and upper cut me with my own expectations and kick my non-existent balls.
For a start, let's go down the list of the people I hate a.d. after dino-transformers:
1. Kim Kardashian
2. Still Kim Kardashian
3. The entire cast of Transformers
In the short year I waited for Transformers 3 (it has dinosaurs wtf its gonna be fucking amazing), I transited from continuously wondering whytf shia is so fucking clueless all the time in the movie, to thinking "damn that innocence is cute" and what is it brought on from you ask?
Nicola Peltz and co.
I adored Megan. I tolerated Huntington. I abhorred Peltz.
Wasn't Hollywood trying to reboot the whole "wow I'm a woman I am more than my boobs" with paltrow being a power-inflamed pile of mess in iron man 3 and the upcoming Thor woman? Then why make peltz more worthless than toilet signs next to a urinal?
And that's not all.
Do you know why people bothered over Megan Fox's replacement? Because she was a badass motorbike, car-hotwiring, machine lovin' goddess and I could do with fantasizing about her while I tolerate shia lebeouf repeated incompetence.
Nobody cares about shia being gone because he was a simple, stupid accessory to Transformers. And I doubt anyone would mind if walberg goes because to face fact is to realize that the whole point of the show is the orgasmic Optimus Prime and everyone else are just time-fillers.
All in all, Transformers 4 (that's right you don't deserve the rest of the movie title) is a disappointment in waves and I am never watching Transformers again.
And sincerely I was thinking, "how can they fuck this up?"
But life is as life does and disappointment likes to find it's way up to me like an old friend and choke me from the back and upper cut me with my own expectations and kick my non-existent balls.
For a start, let's go down the list of the people I hate a.d. after dino-transformers:
1. Kim Kardashian
2. Still Kim Kardashian
3. The entire cast of Transformers
In the short year I waited for Transformers 3 (it has dinosaurs wtf its gonna be fucking amazing), I transited from continuously wondering whytf shia is so fucking clueless all the time in the movie, to thinking "damn that innocence is cute" and what is it brought on from you ask?
Nicola Peltz and co.
I adored Megan. I tolerated Huntington. I abhorred Peltz.
Wasn't Hollywood trying to reboot the whole "wow I'm a woman I am more than my boobs" with paltrow being a power-inflamed pile of mess in iron man 3 and the upcoming Thor woman? Then why make peltz more worthless than toilet signs next to a urinal?
And that's not all.
Do you know why people bothered over Megan Fox's replacement? Because she was a badass motorbike, car-hotwiring, machine lovin' goddess and I could do with fantasizing about her while I tolerate shia lebeouf repeated incompetence.
Nobody cares about shia being gone because he was a simple, stupid accessory to Transformers. And I doubt anyone would mind if walberg goes because to face fact is to realize that the whole point of the show is the orgasmic Optimus Prime and everyone else are just time-fillers.
All in all, Transformers 4 (that's right you don't deserve the rest of the movie title) is a disappointment in waves and I am never watching Transformers again.
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