tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-320426202024-03-13T21:09:01.978+08:00Tais-toiLife with Saffy and Amanda, and other Singaporean adventuresJason Hahnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07240623610405771612noreply@blogger.comBlogger558125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32042620.post-70533885778745786482019-10-21T16:23:00.000+08:002019-10-21T16:23:00.726+08:00Teething Problems<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">I’ve never liked going to the dentist. First of all, there’s the antiseptic smell that’s got a layer of ozone skirting under it. And don’t get me started on that whining sound which, to me, is exactly like the soundtrack of a Japanese horror movie, round about the time something the shape of a small child, all black with a lot of hair, emerges from the bathtub. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">But fundamentally, I don’t like going to the dentist for the simple reason that there’s something incredibly frightening about opening your mouth and letting someone wearing a mask approach it with sharp implements.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">“You are <i>such </i>a baby!” Amanda said to me the other day as we sat in the waiting room of Dr Chan, our regular dentist.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">“Seriously, thank you for coming with me,” I told her. My eyes were shut tight as I tried to breathe. “I really hate coming to the dentist!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">Amanda sighed. “Who doesn’t? But you’re not getting any drilling or scraping done, so what are you so scared about? It’s just a mouth-guard!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">A few weeks ago, during my regular six-monthly check-up, Dr Chan was prodding and scrapping inside my teeth with his scary hooked instrument while I was convinced I was about to pee in my pants from sheer panic. Eventually, he looked up and said, “Your back molars are quite worn down. You’re grinding your teeth in your sleep.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">“I most certainly am not,” I said automatically. Already, I didn’t like where this conversation was heading and I knew it was important that I stopped it in its tracks.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">Dr Chan ignored me. “If you keep this up, your teeth will be all uneven which will cause you a whole world of problems. So, we’d better set you up with a mouth-guard. You can rinse now.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">As I bent towards the white porcelain bowl and slowly sloshed the icky peppermint flavoured solution in my mouth, I considered my options. Getting a mouth-guard meant I would have to come back and spend more time in this white torture chamber. But <i>not </i>getting one might mean I would eventually grind my teeth down to stumps, which would require an even longer period of time in here getting the problem fixed and God only knew what would be involved in repairing teeth stumps – although I imagined the process would involve a lot of needles and drilling.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">By the time I’d spat out the solution and leaned back into the plastic-lined chair, I knew there was no way out of this. “I’ll give you an extra hour and that’s that,” I told Dr Chan firmly.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">His eyes crinkled above his white face-mask, but for all I knew, he was sneering at me.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">Which is why I now found myself back in the clinic, though this time, I had dragged Amanda along for moral support. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">“Honestly, you are such a baby!” she repeated as she pulled out her compact mirror and examined her make-up, moving her face up and down, and from side to side.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">“You can talk, you have lovely teeth!” I said. “Mine are turning into stumps!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">“Well, if you get the mouth-guard, that’s not going to happen. The only thing about them, though, is that you’ll drool in your sleep!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">I sat up and stared at her. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">Amanda shrugged. “It’s true. Remember Roger? He had to wear one. Drooled all night. His pillow was soggy each morning. It was like sleeping with a bull-dog.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">“That’s really disgusting, Manda!” I said. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">She shrugged again. “Well, it’s that or have stumps for teeth. Not a good look. Anyway, part of the reason Roger and I broke up, I think, was because of the drooling. That and the fact he was so stingy! At one stage, I made him bring over his own set of pillows and pillow cases. I just couldn’t deal with the idea of him drooling all over my Frette linen!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">In the end, the fitting of the mouth-guard wasn’t as terrifying as I thought it would be. I basically had to bite into a metal mould filled with some kind of wet plaster that had the texture of chewing gum. “Not so bad, right?” Dr Chan said at one stage. “OK, bite one more time for me? There, all done!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">I massaged my jaw. I felt like I’d been chewing overcooked steak for an hour. “That’s it?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">“Yes! Come back next week for a fitting!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">Later that day, Amanda came home and presented me with a set of soft hand towels. “They’re Egyptian cotton and you put them on top of your pillow to protect the linen from your drool!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">Saffy says this is the beginning of the end. “First, drooling pads. What’s next? Plastic bed protectors? It’s over!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Jason Hahnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07240623610405771612noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32042620.post-6702229481223283642019-10-15T00:43:00.001+08:002019-10-15T00:43:11.764+08:00Job Satisfaction<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">When we were growing up, my mother always threatened us with a succession of increasingly bizarre career choices if we didn’t study hard enough.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">“Do you want to end up sweeping the streets? Is that what you want?” she asked my brother Jack when he came home with a red F for music theory. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">To which my sister, Michelle, who never met a button she didn’t want to push when it came to our mother, replied, “So what are you saying? All the street sweepers in Singapore are failed musicians?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">To which my mother, who never met a smart comment from her children she couldn’t shoot down with the precision of a heat-seeking nuclear missile, replied, “You got a C-plus for biology! You really think Harvard Medical School is going to accept you? Keep this up, and you’re going to end up an accountant!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">In the world according to my mother, being an accountant was way up there with being a dentist. To her, if you were an accountant, it just meant that you weren’t good enough to be a <i>chartered </i>accountant. Or, if you were a dentist, this must have meant you’d failed to become an actual <i>doctor</i>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">Which is why she’s always gone out of her way to stress to complete strangers that her daughter is a chartered accountant.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">“Looking at her today, you really couldn’t tell that your mother was once such a hard ass!” Saffy said the other day. We were sitting on our sofa drinking tea and watching two guys abseil down outside our window, as they painted, one floor at a time, the exterior of our building. “She just seems so mellow.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">“Mellow, my ass,” I told her. “She still hasn’t told any of her friends that I’m no longer a lawyer!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">Saffy’s bosom stopped in mid-heave. “Wait. What?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">I pursed my lips. “Uh huh. Everyone still thinks I work at Ong & Ong! It’s ridiculous! And she tells everyone that Jack is on a retreat working on his symphony!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">Saffy frowned. “Isn’t he a dentist though?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">I shrugged. “An orthodontist, and a very good one, but Mother says she just can’t imagine why anyone would want to spend their lives looking into someone else’s mouths.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">“Better than being a gynaecologist!” Saffy said. “That’s surely got to be the <i>worst </i>job in the world. I’m a woman and even I get the <i>icks </i>thinking about it!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">“I think doing what these guys are doing is the worst job in the world,” I said, nodding to the painters swaying outside, strapped into their harnesses and, literally, hanging around. “Those harnesses look so painful!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">Amanda later said she’d spoken to one of them that morning, on her way back into the condo. “Apparently, after half an hour, they get quite numb in the crotch!” she reported, adding, “And not in a good way! The harnesses really cut off the blood circulation and it takes a while before they get any feeling back! Peeing isn’t fun, he told me.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">“Their poor girlfriends,” Saffy said, demonstrating, not for the first time, her ability to steer any conversation, even one about occupational health and safety, back towards sex. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">The subject of the world’s worst jobs occupied our attention for days. My sister said being a parent is probably top of her list. “Because children are so ungrateful! And I speak from personal experience!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">I sniffed. “Well, I was just talking to Jack and he says that the worst job in the world is the lab guy who examines stool samples!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">Michelle shrieked. “Oh my God! That’s so true! I mean really, talk about a sh** job!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">We fell about in hysterics. After a while, we picked ourselves up, still laughing. “Can you imagine?” Michelle said, dabbing at her eyes with a tissue. “Can you imagine if we’d come home from school and told Mother that’s what we’d decided to do with our lives?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">Amanda says she doesn’t know what the big deal is. “It’s no different from picking up dog poo, and we did that three times a day with Pooch, remember?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">“Yeah, but we never bent our heads close to <i>look </i>at it,” Saffy pointed out. “And I know I always held my breath. You couldn’t do that in the lab. You’d pass out!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">“Well, I’m sure it’s not done out in an open-plan office!” Amanda said. “Surely, it’s all in some kind of protective box?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">Saffy was unconvinced. “Yeah, but you’d still have to <i>look </i>at the stuff!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">Sharyn says it’s really weird what single people talk about. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Jason Hahnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07240623610405771612noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32042620.post-6785545123232714902019-10-08T18:41:00.000+08:002019-10-08T18:41:18.945+08:00Sleep It Off<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">A few Sunday mornings ago, I was sitting on sofa watching the latest episode of Dr Pimple Popper in which the good Dr Lee was grappling with a particularly difficult lipoma. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">“This woman is amazing,” I murmured to myself. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Just then, Amanda walked in the front door, the sweat still shimmering off her dewy smooth skin. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">I was surprised. “Oh, you’ve been out this whole time? I thought you were still in bed!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Amanda came to stand next to the sofa, and put her right leg in a quad stretch. “No, I’ve been up since 6.30. I decided to go for a run! Ooooh, that is one huge lipoma! The woman is amazing!”<br /><br /><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">“Tell it! I love her. I wish she was my mother!” I said and added, “Six-thirty? That’s way too early to be doing that kind of physical activity.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">“It’s a perfect time. The streets are empty. The air is clean and I don’t have to dodge those nasty bicycles and electric scooters on the pavements! There really should be a law against those things!” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">It turns out there are two kinds of people in the world: those who wake up early, and those who don’t.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">When I was growing up, my parents would complain to all their friends that their children were born lazy on account of the fact that we would sleep till noon. “The whole day is over!” Mother would tell me when I stumbled downstairs, rubbing sleep from my eyes. “You’ve missed breakfast and it’s almost lunch time!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">To my sister, she’d announce, “You’re wasting your life sleeping! You’ll have plenty of time to sleep when you’re dead!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">“But we wake up so early during the week!” Michelle would reply. “The weekend is the only time I can catch up on my sleep!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">“Well, if you went to bed early at 10pm, instead of 1 am, you wouldn’t need to catch up on any sleep!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Michelle, barely 17 years old, rolled her eyes. “Who sleeps at 10pm?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">As it turns out, people who aren’t 17, that’s who. These days, by the time 9.30pm swings around, my eyes start to droop. I used to read in bed till all hours. Now, I read a page, and I’m out.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">“That’s how you know you’re getting old,” Amanda said, as she stretched her other leg. “You sleep early, and you wake early!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">“Which must mean Saffy is still 17, because she’ll sleep till noon, if you let her.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Amanda sniffed. “That’s because she’s up till 3am watching tennis or golf! I don’t know how she does it. The minute I get into bed, rub some moisturizer into my hands and I’m ready to call it a night!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Saffy emerged from her bedroom shortly after noon. With her bloodshot eyes, wild hair and rumpled nightgown, she looked ready to star in the sequel to ‘The Ring’. She collapsed into a chair at the dining table. “Oh. My. God.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Amanda looked at her sideways. “You know you’ve missed lunch, right?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Saffy turned a red eye towards her. “How does Jennifer Aniston do it?!” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">It turns out that Saffy had read an article about how famous people like Jennifer Aniston, Michelle Obama and Tim Cook only sleep four hours a night. The article didn’t come right out and say it, but the hidden message was that if you sleep four hours a day, you too could become intelligent, gorgeous, famous and fabulously wealthy.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Which is why Saffy got into bed at 11pm after catching up on ‘Big Little Lies’, set her alarm for 4am, and found herself utterly unable to sleep till 1am. When the alarm went off three hours later, she stumbled out of bed and then through the fog of her sleep deprivation, it occurred to her that she’d never really worked out, once she was awake at 4am, precisely <i>what </i>she was going to do.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">“I mean, Tim Cook has an empire to run. Michelle Obama writes books and gives lectures. Jennifer Aniston does yoga and meditation and makes movies. I have a day job in HR!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">“You could check your emails?” Amanda suggested as she passed Saffy a cup of super strong coffee. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Saffy moaned. “Wake up at 4am to check my emails about personnel redundancies? What kind of a life is that? So anyway, I tried to do some yoga, but I lost interest after two minutes. I couldn’t concentrate on my book. I couldn’t focus on the TV. In the end, I went back to bed at 6am!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">When Saffy recounted the story at work the next day, Sharyn said, “Wake up at 4am? You think so easy become rich and famous, issit? If liddat, I orredi billionaire!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Jason Hahnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07240623610405771612noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32042620.post-10127905527381292312019-10-01T17:22:00.000+08:002019-10-01T17:22:37.897+08:00A Leg Up<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">My parents never told any of their children anything about the birds and the bees. They simply figured they were paying enough for our expensive education, so it only made sense that someone would teach it to us eventually; otherwise, what were they paying all that money <i>for</i>?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">It’s the same approach they applied to litter. Which is why when my sister Michelle’s primary school organized a ‘pick up litter at the beach day’ and tried to get the parents to also join in, they made a critical mistake in actually telephoning my mother.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">When she put down the phone, she immediately turned to Father. “I’ve just had the most astonishing conversation!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">He stared at her over the top of his newspaper. “I don’t see how. You just said, ‘Hello’ and ‘No’ and hung up the phone. How is that a conversation?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Mother sniffed. “That was Michelle’s school! They wanted me to pick up garbage at the beach! Why is that my job? I pay taxes so someone <i>else </i>can do that kind of thing!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">My father’s mother did not raise a stupid son, which is why he wisely refrained from pointing out that Mother, despite receiving a very substantial household allowance from him, did not pay taxes on account of the fact that she didn’t actually work at a job that required taxes to be paid. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Mother was so affronted by the phone call that the next day, she pulled Michelle out of school and re-enrolled her somewhere else.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Years later, over afternoon tea of kaya toast at Toast Box, we were still talking about our parents’ division of labour. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">“I just don’t understand how your parents just palmed off the responsibility for sex education to the school,” Saffy said, shaking her head as she gently blew on her kopi-o.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">“I know, right?” Amanda said.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">“Oh my God,” Michelle said, “I’m so glad they didn’t! I can’t imagine a more awkward conversation!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Saffy’s bosom inflated. “You know, I love your parents, but they’re really weird.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">“Tell them what conversation they had with you instead!” I told Michelle, who immediately rolled her eyes.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">“So shortly after that beach litter phone call,” she began, “and I had just started at my new school, Mother picked me up one day. Which was weird, because she never picked any of us up. She never saw the point because otherwise why have a driver in the first place?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">“Which makes complete sense,” I said. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Michelle nodded. “Yes. Which meant that her coming to pick me up from school was a big deal and it also meant she wanted to speak to me about something very private.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">“Which was?” Amanda prodded. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">“Which was to tell me that if and when I ever got married, I was not getting a <i>dowry</i>!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Michelle sat back in her chair triumphantly. Amanda gasped.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Saffy blinked. “Wait…What?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">“Isn’t that just crazy?” Michelle asked. “She couldn’t talk to us about sex, but the subject of dowries was completely on the table!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">“What I never understand is why she didn’t get the lawyer to speak to you about it,” I said. “After all, that was <i>his </i>job!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Saffy waved her hands. “Wait! A <i>dowry</i>? Is that still a thing?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">“Of course it is!” Amanda said. “Stanley Ho’s daughter just got $100m dowry when she got married!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Michelle’s eyes widened. “She did? Cash or stock?” she asked, demonstrating, not for the first time, that here was a woman whose expensive education hadn’t gone to waste. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Saffy was astonished. “What <i>century </i>are we living in?!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">The next day at the office, it was all she could talk about, though Sharyn, surprisingly, didn’t see what the issue was.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">“Ay, if my parent give me dowry when I get married, today, I no need work, ah, I tell you!” Her already magnified eyes became even more enlarged behind her thick spectacles. “So shiok, stay at home all day and watch TV and shake leg!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">“Your parents aren’t that wealthy, Shazz!” Saffy pointed out.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">“Who say? My fadder own the Toyota dealership in Muah, you know! Every year we go to Cameron Highland holiday! But then before I get married, he kena cheated by his business partner and lose all his mah-ney!”<br /><br /><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Saffy blinked. “Oh, I didn’t know that. I’m sorry.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">“Aiyah, is old story. So now, like that, lor! Must every day come to work. Boh pian,” she sighed as she stared at the stack of HR reports on her desk. “Not like Stanley Ho daughter. That one confirm go on honeymoon, come back and shake leg, one!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Saffy says she’s never understood the allure of shaking her legs as a way of passing time, but for $100m, she could probably learn to like it. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Jason Hahnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07240623610405771612noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32042620.post-74828698688440674032019-09-22T18:01:00.002+08:002019-09-22T18:01:19.040+08:00Tongue Twister<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Amanda’s friend Jenny recently started dating again after a particularly nasty divorce. The ex-husband had emptied their joint bank account and run off with his secretary. When the money ran out, the secretary dumped him and he tried to come crawling back to Jenny. And when she refused to take him back, he claimed, during the divorce proceedings, that it was precisely this kind of unusually cruel treatment that had led him to have an affair in the first place. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Anyway, the dust settled a few months back and quite unexpectedly, Jenny suddenly found herself agreeing to go out on dates organized by Amanda. “You have to keep on top of your game!” my flatmate said even as she organized another drinks party to which she invited all the single men she could think of who weren’t currently attached to a wife or a porn addiction. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">“How come you never did any of this when I was still single?” Saffy complained as she looked over the invitation list. “I mean, you’ve invited that super hot Sam! Did you see his Instagram post today when he did the splits? All I could think of was why the stupid camera was at the front and not to the side, if you know what I mean?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Amanda sighed. “Well first of all, Sam only dates women who are over five feet eight, and you’re not. So there’s that. And secondly, you’re supposed to be happily in a relationship with Bradley, so why do you care who’s coming to the drinks party?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Saffy’s bosom inflated. “Well, I think it’s just weird to have a height restriction when you’re dating. And –,” she hesitated, “I love Bradley and everything, but I kind of miss the excitement of dating. You know, that funny feeling in the pit of the stomach?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">“That’s usually your period,” Amanda snapped. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Saffy shrugged, by now, long immune to Amanda’s jibes. “Not always! But you know what I mean. That butterfly flutter when you think, ‘Is he going to call? Oh, he’s calling me! He’s asking me on a date!’ I miss that feeling of the first date, and especially the first kiss!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">“Completely over-rated!” Amanda sniffed. “Especially if the guy is a lousy kisser and you have to spend the next few weeks coaching him how to kiss but without him knowing that’s what you’re doing, because if he ever knew, he’d be so offended!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Saffy sighed, her bosom deflating on cue. “Oh, that bad kissing bit. There must be some school of bad kissing that guys go to. I can’t tell you how many bad kissers I’ve dated in my life. Even with Bradley, I had to quietly coach him.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">As it turned out, Jenny and Sam hit it off like Jon Snow and the Targaryen girl, and within four days of the drinks party, they were posing for wefies in front of the Jewel’s Vortex.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Apparently, later that evening, they took their dragons out of a ride and to hear Jenny tell it the next day at breakfast at Toast Box, it was amazing. “It’s so liberating to be with a man who knows his way around a woman’s body, you know? Not like that low-down scum sucking pig of an ex-husband of mine!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Amanda was beatific. “You’re welcome!” she said.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">“The only thing is,” Jenny said, leaning in. “The next morning, when we woke up and he moved in to kiss me, I nearly gagged!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Amanda winced. “Morning breath?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">“The foulest!” Jenny confided. “I had to hold my breath and then make some excuse about needing to pee.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">“And I guess it’s too early to introduce him to the tongue scrapper?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">“Not till at least the third date, I don’t think,” Jenny said.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Saffy says that she really should start up a school of dating for men and one of the compulsory modules would be tongue scrapping. “What are mothers teaching their kids these days?” she wondered to the world at large. “That’s just basic hygiene and good manners! I mean, if we women make the effort to <i>wash </i>our bits and put on clean underwear before going on a date, the least the guy could do is to take a few swipes of the tongue in the bathroom before getting into bed!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Amanda, who has higher standards, added, “And again first thing in the morning before they come near the woman!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">“See, that’s <i>one </i>thing I don’t miss about dating,” Saffy said. “The house training!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Amanda pursed her lips. “Yeah, and after all that effort, they run off with the secretary!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Jason Hahnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07240623610405771612noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32042620.post-36443455876090725252019-09-17T17:11:00.000+08:002019-09-17T17:11:06.102+08:00Knowing Me, Knowing You<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Saffy’s motto in life is: ‘Everyone will eventually disappoint you.’<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Each time she’s been let down by someone, say her mother, she’ll announce in dolorous tones, “Everyone will eventually disappoint you.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">She says she came up with the motto when Jonathan, her first boyfriend in high school, cheated on her with the head girl. “I was devastated!” she told us once. “He was the first boy I ever loved. I thought we were going to get married. And then he had to hook up with that skank, Sarah Chan. Broke my heart.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Apparently, Jonathan eventually married the skank, but on their seventh wedding anniversary, she ran off with her remisier with whom she’d been having a torrid affair. Some time later, Saffy bumped into Jonathan when he was coming out of the local 4D shop. “He’s grown so fat!” she later reported with immense satisfaction. Her bosom strained with happiness against her tee-shirt. “You can barely see his eyes! Which just goes to show. Everyone gets what’s coming to them.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Amanda arched an eyebrow. “Is that another life motto?” she asked.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Saffy’s bosom inflated. “Yes! It’s the yin to the yang of motto number one!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">A couple of weeks ago, she stormed back into the flat, her face black as night. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Amanda and I were on the couch weighing up our Netflix options – a Marie Kondo re-run or a slasher flick. We looked up at Saffy’s entrance.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">“What happened?” Amanda asked.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Saffy’s bosom inflated. “I am never going out again with that Melissa!” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Amanda sucked in her breath. “Oh my God. She ditched you again?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Saffy flopped onto the sofa next to us. “I just never learn!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Amanda later told me that she’d been friends with Melissa first and had introduced her to Saffy. “She’s the absolute pits, but she and Saf seemed to hit it off, so I couldn’t wait to palm her off.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">I’ve met the woman a few times. She’s a transplant from New York, and a lawyer in one of the Big Four firms in Raffles Place. The first time I met her, I was in the midst of my obsession with Dr Pimple Popper and Melissa said that was the most disgusting thing she’d ever heard, so that was the end of that potential friendship. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">But to hear Saffy now tell it, the woman is actually very nice company. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">“When she shows up that is,” Saffy sniffed. “First of all, she does this ridiculous thing of never replying to messages about going out. I have to ask her, like, five times, ‘Shall we catch up?’ before she says, yeah sure! But she never suggests a date, so I have to do that, and then she doesn’t reply. So I follow up. Several times.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">“I’m exhausted already,” I told her.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">“It gets worse,” Amanda piped in.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Saffy rolled her eyes. “So if I suggest any day, she’ll say, ‘Oh, my sister may be visiting then. Can I let you know closer to the day?’ Once, she actually said that she might be having her moon cycle on the day we were supposed to meet. ‘Can I let you know?’ I mean, what do you say to that?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Amanda pursed her lips. She’d been down this road before. “Nothing.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">“We’ve made so many plans to meet up for coffee, for a movie, for drinks and lunch and dinner and manicures. And it’s always, ‘I’ll let you know?’” Saffy went on, working herself up into a simmering rage. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Amanda asked, “And does she still do that thing where about a week before, she says, she thinks she can make it, and so you start making plans before and after you meet her?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Saffy’s bosom stiffened. “Totally. I will have the whole afternoon planned out. And she confirms on the day and about half an hour before she’s due to meet, she’ll text and say, ‘I’ve got a headache, I’ll have to cancel lunch!’”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">I gasped. “After all that?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">“Well, today, it was a sudden headache. Two weeks ago, she double booked herself. And before that, she had a stomach ache. And before <i>that</i>, her mother was in town. And she would have known about her mother’s visit ages ago. So why string me along? It’s ridiculous! Every. Single. Time.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Amanda sniffed. “It’s no wonder she’s still single. What man will put up with such crap?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">“I had to have lunch by myself, too!” Saffy’s mouth curled into a pout as Amanda rubbed her back. “Seriously, people are so disappointing! Though why am I surprised?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">“Come on, I’ll take us all out to dinner. It’ll cheer you up.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Saffy sighed. “I’m not sure I’m up for dinner after all that. Can I let you know?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Jason Hahnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07240623610405771612noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32042620.post-31974935485438705012019-09-09T21:08:00.000+08:002019-09-09T21:08:01.127+08:00Meat and Eat<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">It’s been a year or so since Saffy and Amanda turned vegetarian and life has finally settled down. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">The first few months were a little challenging, especially for Saffy who had never met a cut of meat she didn’t like. She was the ultimate carnivore, an approach very much informed by a complete lack of protein prejudice. Anything that mooed, crowed, oinked, slithered and crawled was fair game. We once watched her crunch her way through a heaped bowl of deep fried crickets in Cambodia. She went on a camping trip in Australia and came back a confirmed fan of grilled snake.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">But a combination of YouTube clips of Esther the Wonder Pig and an endless daily barrage of news articles about the environmental and ethical problems about meat consumption started wearing her down. The final straw came when, at a yoga retreat she and Amanda attended in Bali, the teacher said Saffy couldn’t ever really become truly spiritual if continued to eat meat.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">Sharyn, who was at the same retreat, snorted. “Aiyah, what for you want to become spiritual?” she asked. “You think you are Dalai Lama, issit?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">For Amanda, the bigger psychological obstacle to becoming a full-blown vegetarian was that she would have to give up leather and silk, but she comforted herself with the knowledge that she could now shop exclusively at Stella McCartney. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">But at the beginning of their vegetarianism, well-meaning friends provided plenty of unhelpful advice.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">“Where are you going to get your protein?” asked Mabel, whose family runs a steakhouse. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">“From pulses and tofu,” Amanda replied, serenely beautiful in her new Stella McCartney dress. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">Mabel looked unconvinced. “I read somewhere that people who don’t have enough protein in their diet are more likely to get Alzheimers!” she went on. “I think you should still have a little bit of meat. Just eat the skin of the roast pork! You don’t have to eat the meat if you insist on being a vegetarian!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">Amanda couldn’t wait to get on the phone to tell Saffy who squealed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">“She did not say that! Eat the crackle but not the meat?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">“Apparently, you can still be a vegetarian that way,” Amanda reported. She hesitated. “Though I can kind of see the logic of what she’s saying…”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">“Don’t you dare!” Saffy warned. “I need moral support. You cannot abandon me when we’re already in week three!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">Amanda sighed. “I know, but I feel so left out! Last night at dinner, everyone was sucking up the crab claws and cutting into their medium rare filet mignon, and there I was stabbing away at my quinoa salad. It was a little sad!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">“Think of all the poor Esthers in the world!” Saffy insisted, having just spent the past hour cooing over Instagram posts of Esther the Wonder Pig. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">Amanda sighed again. “Oh, alright.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">Then, a few weeks ago, we found ourselves at Cut by Wolfgang Puck for dinner. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">“This is such a lovely restaurant!” Amanda said, looking around.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">“My God, why are we at a steak restaurant?” Saffy moaned, her eyes having attained the glassy stare of a recovering crack addict who was looking for the loo and accidentally wandered into a meth lab. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">“Because Sharyn says we need to check out the Impossible Burger!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">Saffy eyed the woman at the next table cutting into a thick cut of sirloin. “Sharyn is the Devil!” she pronounced.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">“How can vegetable protein taste like meat?” I wondered aloud. “Not even those mock meats at Chinese vegetarian restaurants taste like meat.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">“Apparently, the ones here are amazingly realistic. They even bleed like real meat and…Ooh, here they come!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">Saffy looked at her plate with deep suspicion. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">Because the Impossible Burger looked just like a burger. Right down to the patty, which had the texture, colour and glistening sheen of a well-charred slab of minced beef.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">The girls looked at me as I lifted my burger to my mouth. I took a bite, chewed, swallowed and paused. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">“Well?” Amanda said finally, gulping down her saliva. I picked up my phone.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">“What are you doing? Why are you calling someone now?” Saffy demanded.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">“We need to buy shares in this industry,” I said. “This is the future!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">“Oh, you’re so dramatic!” Saffy said as she gathered her courage and took a bite. “I mean, how can this be…” There was a silence as she chewed, her eyes closed in utter bliss. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">As meals go, that Impossible Burger was transformative. Even now, we’re talking about it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">“You really can’t tell!” Saffy told Sharyn.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">“Yah, lah! I told you!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">“But it’s such a dilemma. It’s not meat, but it’s meat. I love it, but I also know I shouldn’t!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">Sharyn pursed her lips. “Not easy being Dalai Lama, hor?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Jason Hahnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07240623610405771612noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32042620.post-84744280489271516572019-08-26T15:02:00.001+08:002019-08-26T15:02:09.731+08:00Gift Rap<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">When I was a child, I would pass by one of those red slot machines whose Perspex cover held little plastic balls filled with cheap toys, and beg my parents to let me have some coins.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">“The last one you got was a plastic toy car. The wheels didn’t work!” Mother would tell me.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">“Please?” I moaned. “I want one!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">“He’s so whiny!” she later told my father. “He clearly gets it from your side of the family!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">And as I grew up, my avariciousness for cheap rubbish continued. I especially loved entering lucky draws at shopping centres. Even the third prize of $5 vouchers kept me thrilled for days.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">And when credit cards started offering freebies for every dollar I put on the Visa, I was ecstatic. And impatient. I was never able to wait long enough to accumulate enough to buy anything worthwhile. Like, say, a spa treatment. As soon as I had enough points to get a free drink at Swensen’s, I cashed it in.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">All of which explains why I ended up with drawers filled with random stuff. Hello Kitty Ezylink card holders. Batman coffee cups. Sachets of soap and moisturisers picked up from those persistent shop assistants at the Wisma tunnel. I had an entire drawer of tissue paper packets.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">Another drawer was filled to the brim with stuff that family and friends had given me for Christmas and birthdays. Or people might come to dinner and bring a gift. I’d always be genuinely happy receiving these things, even if I had absolutely no use for any of it. Like salad spoons in the shape of hands. Or a book on bonsai plants. “Oh, I love this!” I remember saying and genuinely meaning every word. “I’ve always wanted to grow a stunted tree!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">Of course, I never used any of it, and yet, if you had suggested that I throw it all out because it was basically junk, I would have stared at you with mild amusement and incomprehension. “But these are presents”, I would say. “You can’t throw presents away!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">Every time I moved house, everything went into a box which I duly marked ‘Miscellaneous’, and they would be unpacked at the new home, and immediately forgotten about. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">Then, one day, Marie Kondo came into my life. I opened one drawer after the other, took one look at the magpie collection – a lifetime of patient collecting and filling out entry forms – and realized that none of it sparked any joy in me. So, it all went into the bin or was handed out to various kids in the neighbourhood.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">And now I look back at all those years I spent filling drawer, and it feels like it had happened to someone else. It’s an odd sense of disassociation. But it wasn’t as odd as last weekend’s dinner party in our flat.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">Things were proceeding as they generally do – in other words, most people were tipsy by the second cocktail Saffy had mixed up – when Amanda’s friend Jennifer arrived.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">She held out a little paper bag at the door. “Here’s a little something!” she announced. “I made it myself!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">“Oh, how lovely!” I said automatically since old habits die hard. Peeking in, I drew out two white cubes, each the size of a clenched fist that was covered in what looked like white felt. “What are they?” I asked eventually as I turned the cubes over in my hand.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">Jennifer tossed her long blue-tinted hair. “They’re my latest thing! I collect all the fur from my dogs and I mould them into these decorative cubes!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">Saffy, who was just passing by behind me, stopped dead in her tracks and peered around my shoulder. “Wait, what?” she said, pressing her bosom against my back. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">“Aren’t they lovely?” Jennifer continued. “I think they’re perfect presents for people who don’t have dogs. Plus they’re so environmentally friendly!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">“That’s <i>dog </i>hair?” Saffy asked.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">“It takes ages to collect enough to pack into a cube.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">“Like actual dog hair?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">“I was thinking I could maybe make smaller ones like those dice cubes to dangle off the car’s rear-view mirror!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">“Made of dog hair?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">For days, it’s all we’ve been able to talk about. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">“Who gives dog hair as a present?” Amanda wondered.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">“Well, to be fair, she didn’t just give a bag of it,” Saffy said in a rare display of balanced criticism. “It can’t have been easy moulding it into a cube!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">“I still don’t know how it’s all held together though,” Amanda said, turning a hair cube in her hand.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">Sharyn told Saffy she was convinced dried dog saliva was involved. “How can you give such a present?” she complained. “So kiam siap!” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">Saffy shook her head in amazement. “Dried dog saliva!” she repeated.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Jason Hahnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07240623610405771612noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32042620.post-45027054219417487602019-08-20T18:43:00.001+08:002019-08-20T18:43:10.761+08:00House Visit<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Amanda has always said that of all the free websites out there, the only one she would voluntarily pay money for is YouTube. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">“It really is the best!” she marveled the other day as she watched a decades old interview with the then crown prince of Thailand after she read about it in the newspaper. “I mean, back in the old days, I don’t know how I would ever have gotten my hands on this video.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">“Some dusty library, probably,” Saffy said as she peered over Amanda’s shoulder. “Goodness, his English accent is so posh!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">“Expensive boarding schools,” Amanda said with the kind of knowledgeable authority you can only get from months of ruthlessly following every single aspect of the king’s coronation.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">“The new queen is pretty. I wouldn’t mind being a queen one day,” Saffy said as she allowed her imagination free rein to gallop. “Her Royal Majesty, the Serene Queen Saffy of Monaco. That’s got a ring to it, don’t you think?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">“They don’t have kings and queens in Monaco,” Amanda murmured, demonstrating, not for the first time, her encyclopaedic grasp on European royal heads of state.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Saffy paused. “Oh, well, in that case, I should marry the king of Bhutan, or something. He’s so hot!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">The idea of her royal Bhutanese nuptials occupied Saffy’s fevered fantasies for days, until Sharyn told her that Bhutanese winters are dire. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">“I ever saw a documentary on YouTube,” she said. “Wah, dey all, ah, look so damn cold! Minus <i>sick </i>degree in January! My husband set our air con to 22 degree, I or-redi cannot tahan!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">“Minus <i>six</i>?” Saffy said, her eyes wide. “No way!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">“Confirm, cannot,” Sharyn said. “You want to marry, must marry someone who live somewhere warm. Like Bel Air!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Which is how Saffy found herself trawling through YouTube videos of Bel Air, a suburb that, until the death of her dream of being Bhutanese royalty, she’d given absolutely no thought to at all. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">One day, shortly after lunch, she was randomly clicking through the videos that YouTube’s algorithms had generated, and found herself watching a real estate video of a house that had just come onto the Bel Air market.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">She immediately forwarded the link to Shayrn who sits next to her. “Ohmygod, Shaz, you’ve got to watch this. This 22,000 sqft Bel Air house costs $88 million! Eww-ess dollars! And it’s on the market!” she said in tones that suggested this was an absolute steal. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Sharyn immediately clicked on the link. “Siow, ah! Must be for Chinese market, if asking price is eighty-eight! Ang-moh where got so much money?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">“It’s got nine bedrooms, seven guest-rooms, 15 baths, and something like eight bars!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">“Wah, got hair salon and spa room!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">“Did you see the car elevator?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">“Aiyah, Singapore oh-so got what!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">“The one on Scotts Road? That can fit only one car, I think. This one fits six!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">For days, it was all the girls were able to talk about. What boggles the mind, Amanda observed recently, is that you don’t just buy an $88 million house and call it a day. “You need a full time staff of, like, 20! You can’t have one part time maid cleaning a 22,000 sqft house! It’ll take you two days just to mop the floor!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">“I don’t even know what 22,000 sqft means!” Saffy pointed out as she scrolled through YouTube. “Ooh, what’s this?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">She clicked on it and gasped. As if the Bel Air mansion wasn’t sufficiently OTT, she’d just stumbled on a 38,000 sqft, 12 bedroom house. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">“How much is it?” Amanda called out from the kitchen.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">“$188 million!” Saffy shouted back.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">There was a clatter in the sink. Amanda’s head popped out. “Seriously?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">“It’s available for rent, and it comes with its own helicopter!” Saffy reported. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Amanda sidled up behind Saffy’s chair. “Who are these people?” she demanded.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">“And why are we not married to them?” Saffy added.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">It turns out the house also has a $300,000 quartz sink in the guest bathroom, 350 built-in speakers, a $250,000 onyx garden wall, and a $2m staircase. But what’s captured everyone’s attention are the fire extinguishers that are literally made of bottles of Dom Perignon. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">“Wait, you’re extinguishing fires with actual champagne?” Amanda asked.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">By this stage, Saffy was so numb by the excesses of the house, she just shrugged. “You know what’s depressing is that I shop at Sheng Siong. And the owner of this house probably doesn’t even know what the inside of a supermarket looks like! I’m going to die poor,” Saffy decided.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Sharyn says the owner probably isn’t a Passion Card holder either, an observation that, days later, still has us all in stitches. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Jason Hahnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07240623610405771612noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32042620.post-90174824746563400602019-08-12T12:16:00.003+08:002019-08-12T12:16:55.890+08:00Fortune Selling<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">I grew up in a traditional family in the sense that we always greeted our elders with a “Hello, Auntie Wai” or “Hello, Uncle Shiong”. When we sat down for meals, we would chorus in Cantonese, “Papa, eat! Mama, eat!” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Once when he was eight, my brother Jack was diagnosed with anemia. For a few months after, he was fed with a daily broth made of ginger and boiled liver which our Amah swore would boost his iron count, and nobody, not even my mother, ever dared disagreed with anything that came out of that woman’s mouth. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Years later, Jack said that broth with its floating grey liver bits reminded him of the final scene in ‘Avengers: Infinity War’ when everyone disintegrated after Thanos’s finger snap. It was also one of the reasons why he turned vegetarian. “So incredibly gross.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Anyway, my point is, we were that kind of family. We may have looked modern, we may have been dressed in the latest fashions, and we may have spoken like Michelle Yeoh, but we might as well have been characters in ‘Growing Up’. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">I especially remember the yearly visits of Master Fu to our house. A short man with thick glasses and bald head, he was a fengshui expert who, every December, would arrive, slightly disheveled from his long drive from Kuala Lumpur. After being plied with hot tea, cold towels and cakes and polite conversation, he would then wander around the house with his bak-kwa, stopping every so often to scribble into his note pad.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">He would murmur under his breath. Behind him trailed my anxious parents, straining to make sense of what he was saying. After that, he’d sit down again and chat some more, asking whether there’d been any new staff or children since his last visit. And if there were, he’d want to see them and interrogate them about their family history and birthdates, and he’d peer at their faces, and make more notes.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">And then Master Fu would ask if there’d been any major events in the house over the last year. Had anyone close to us died? If so, how did they die? Had there been an increased number of quarrels? How was Father’s business? Had we lost any friends or made any new enemies?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Eventually, he would sit back with a sigh and announce all the things that needed to be done to the house. Usually, this involved nothing more than putting a mirror here, moving a pot there, planting a new tree outside a window…that kind of small cosmetic thing. Once he wrote out an incantation on a piece of white cloth and pinned it to my bathroom entrance. Another time, he suggested the kitchen door be moved two inches to the left, and the front door removed and a new one be placed facing a few degrees inwards.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">And that would be that. Another cup of tea. A fat red packet would be discretely handed over, and that would be the last we saw of Master Fu till the next year.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">“God, I wish my fengshui master was that easy!” my cousin Lin said recently. After a few months of bad dreams involving her running away from Freddy Krueger who kept screaming “Mummy!” while loping after her, falling ill with dengue, losing her diamond bracelet when she was snorkeling in the Maldives, and the discovery that her husband was having an affair with his secretary, she decided that she needed professional help.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">With great diligence, she tracked down Master Fu’s son who said he was really busy and couldn’t make a house-call, but to WhatsApp him her house plans. Within 20 minutes, he FaceTimed her and told her she needed to move house. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">“He said in all his years of practice, he’s never seen a house this bad!” Lin reported morosely. “Normally he said most houses can be fixed, but this one is unsalvageable. If I stay, more disasters will happen to me.”<br /><br /><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">“Not even a pot plant?” I asked.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">“Not even if we demolished the house!” Lin sighed. “Everything about the site conflicts with me!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Amanda was horrified when I told her. “But Lin lives in Nassim Hill! Where would she <i>go</i>?” As far as she’s concerned, being told to leave a Nassim address is like having losing your PPS status, a catastrophe not to be wished on your worst enemy.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Saffy said she needed to get the number of Master Fu, Jr., to which Sharyn said that was a terrible idea. “Skali he say if you ever move out of the flat from Jason and Amanda and you have bad luck forever, den how?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Amanda says she wishes she’d taken a picture of Saffy’s face. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Jason Hahnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07240623610405771612noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32042620.post-11109365447949916132019-07-31T07:33:00.000+08:002019-07-31T07:33:02.319+08:00Class Action<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Amanda says that if she ever had to go through her schooling again today, she would just, to quote her directly, “do things a whole lot different!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">“You mean ‘differently’, don’t you?” Saffy asked the other day. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Amanda paused. “Do I?” she asked eventually, a question that led Saffy to later say privately, and not for the first time, that it’s an absolute scandal that Amanda was ever allowed to step foot into a classroom at Harvard, much less graduate from it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Aside from that grammatical point, I told her, I said that I did see Amanda’s point.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Looking back, I remember long days and long nights that stretched literally into years of me just sitting at a desk. Just me with a pile of books in front of me, scribbling and reading. Reading and scribbling. Sitting back in the chair and sighing.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">I sweated blood and tears getting to grips with calculus and valency tables. I struggled to memorise the capital city of Czechoslovakia and the speed at which a falling object dropped from a great height would hit terminal velocity. I went cross-eyed trying to understand the subjunctive in French while I barely understood how to conjugate the verbs.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Oh, I passed all my subjects eventually, but what good did any of it do me, I now wonder? Czechoslovakia doesn’t exist anymore, so what was the point of knowing the name of its capital? As a lawyer and later as a journalist writing about hotel rooms, I’ve never ever had to use algebra. Ever. Or calculate the density of water at 10 atmospheres of pressure. And I have literally never had to discuss with anyone the rainfall patterns of the Sahara in July. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">So, beyond learning how to read and write, and do basic maths, I don’t see how much of anything I ever studied in all those long years of primary school, high school and university was beneficial at all.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">What I wish I <i>had </i>learnt in school was how to pick a lock and hotwire a car.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">“Really?” Saffy asked when the subject of wasted education came up again the other day.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">“Totally,” I said firmly. “I can’t tell you how many times in my life, I’ve locked my keys in the car. Of course, that was back in the day when you could manually click the lock from the inside and then shut the car door. But still…”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">“And hotwiring the car?” Saffy asked.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">I shrugged. “Oh that. I always thought that would be a cool trick to know. They do it so casually in the movies!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">“Well, if I had to do my schooling all over again,” Saffy said, “I would have learnt yoga instead of stupid netball. Eight years of netball and only because I liked the outfits! Being able to do a headstand like you can now would have been so much cooler than stomping so pointlessly up and down that court!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">I preened, pleased to be reminded that after years of fruitlessly slamming myself up against a wall, I am now able to wobble up to an unassisted headstand. Next on my bucket list is the handstand which, in terms of utility, is probably not very useful, but then again, neither was the ability to work out when and where two people would meet if they started out from opposite directions and moved towards one another at different speeds. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">At least a handstand has the advantage of being a great party trick. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">The other day, Sharyn’s mother-in-law fainted in the bathroom. To hear Sharyn tell it, there was a great deal of screaming. “My maid found her. She scream. My husband go in to see why she scream, and he saw his mudder on the floor, he start screaming. Den I go in and have to scream at him and my maid to stop screaming! Wah liau!” she sighed, shaking her head at the memory.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Saffy’s bosom inflated. “What happened then?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Sharyn shrugged. “Like dat, lor! Must call ambulance! We all doh-no what to do! My husband say must put pillow under the head. My son says must lift her leg. My maid say must put Tiger <i>Bum</i>! My neighbour come in and say must turn my mudder-in-law on the side. We all like Doctor Quack. Lucky ambulance come so quick.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">The long and short of it is that Sharyn says she wishes comprehensive first aid was a mandatory subject in school. “What for learn about what year Raffles arrive in Singapore? Better you learn what to do if your mudder-in-law faint or have heart attack, right or not?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Amanda says <i>she </i>wishes schools taught girls what to do when boys say they’ll call and then they don’t. Saffy says she’s practically got a PhD on <i>that </i>subject.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Jason Hahnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07240623610405771612noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32042620.post-71832540064638016032019-07-20T08:57:00.000+08:002019-07-20T08:57:03.217+08:00Tall Tales<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">So, the other night, we were watching reruns of Game of Thrones and there’s a scene in the throne room with Queen Cersei and her hulking mountain of a bodyguard. And this being Game of Thrones, his name is literally Mountain – which is helpful because there are so many hard pronounce names in the show, it’s such a relief when a character gets one that’s a simple, easy to remember.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">“Gosh, I’d forgotten how tall he is!” Saffy said, while stuffing her face with popcorn.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">“The Mountain?” Amanda asked, currently curled up under a light shawl in the armchair. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">“He’s enormous! How tall do you think he is?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Amanda pulled out her phone and tapped. There was a pause. “His name is <span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #333333;">Hafthor Julius Björnsson. He’s…uhm…186 kilos and he’s six feet nine!”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Saffy sat up, and hit pause on the remote control.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">“Wait, what? 186 kilos? And six feet <i>what</i>?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Amanda’s eyes flicked back to her phone. “Six feet nine.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">For days, it’s all the girls have been able to talk about. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">“Six feet nine!” Saffy told Sharyn. “The guy is literally twice your height, Shazz. If you stood next to him, you’d come up to his navel!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Behind her Coke bottle thick spectacles, Sharyn’s eyes bulged. “Wah!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">“I know! I wonder what meal times with him must be like?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">“He’d probably have to eat ten roast chickens or something,” Amanda said. “I read that he eats six to eight times a day!”<br /><br /><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Sharyn sucked in her breath. “Hah? <i>Sick</i>time a day?!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif;">“Well, you don’t get to be that size by eating carrot sticks, Sharyn,” Saffy pointed out.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">“Wah liau. Then when he go toilet and do number two, how? Must flush <i>tree </i>time, I think!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">The girls fell about and shrieked. Later that evening, Saffy was still cackling at the idea of The Mountain sitting on the loo and doing a dump. “That Sharyn kills me. The things she says!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Amanda lifted her lovely face to the ceiling and stared into the corner. “But you know…I have to wonder…what…” She trailed off and turned pink. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Saffy glanced at me, her eyes flicking back to Amanda. “What?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Amanda hesitated. “Well, you know…He’s so…<i>big</i>. Do you think…do you think everything is in, uhm, in proportion? You know? Down <i>there</i>?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Comprehension finally dawned on Saffy’s face. Her bosom inflated. “My God, you know, I never even thought of that! Well…I guess he must be. And he’s an <i>ang moh </i>as well!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Two of Saffy’s ex-boyfriends have been American and Swedish, and to hear her tell it, if they were a statistical sample, Western men are tremendously <i>gifted</i>. Which is also why, apparently, the relationships never lasted very long. “Oh, the whole thing was impossible!” she told her friend Suzanne after she broke up with Matt, the Citbank trader from Dallas. “I literally cannot walk straight the next day! And let’s not even talk about the state of my <i>jaw</i>!” she added with a pout.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Suzanne had been bug-eyed. “Really? Like…how impossible are we talking about?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Saffy didn’t hesitate. “Like that <i>you tiao </i>you just had with your soy bean drink! Only <i>twice </i>as big!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">And as Amanda now pointed out, Matt had been six foot two and played quarter back in college football. “Imagine someone who is six foot <i>nine</i>!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">“He’d be packing a mutant <i>cucumber</i>!” Saffy said firmly, shaking her head at the violence and damage that could be inflicted by a vegetable that size on a petite five feet seven girl like herself. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">A few days later, at a party, Amanda’s friend Anna brought along her new German boyfriend. I wasn’t there, but apparently, the guy is literally six foot nine, the same height as the Mountain.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">“He’s huge!” Amanda reported later. “I got such a neck-strain looking up at him that I finally had to ask him to please sit down. And even then, I still had to look up!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Saffy frowned. “But Anna is, what, like five feet five!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">“She literally comes up to his navel,” Amanda said. “I don’t know how that relationship is ever going to work!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">“Has she, uhm…” Saffy coughed gently. “You know, tried the salad bar…”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">“That was the first thing that crossed my mind” Amanda said. “But there were so many people at the party, I didn’t get a chance to ask! But really, how <i>could </i>she? It would just be anatomically impossible! Oh, speaking of, Anna did say that Johann can only travel in business class and even that is super cramped. He literally can’t fit into an economy seat!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Saffy says if that isn’t a metaphor for her love life in general, she doesn’t know what is. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Jason Hahnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07240623610405771612noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32042620.post-20641242236772544702019-07-09T17:45:00.002+08:002019-07-09T17:45:40.496+08:00Retirement Benefits<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Once, when she was a child, my sister said she wanted to travel the world like our parents.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">I remember Mother smiling indulgently. “Oh, my dear. You have to grow up and go to school and study!” she said. “Then you have to become a doctor and work really hard and make lots of money. When you retire, <i>then </i>you can travel!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">It was just the sort of thing you can’t un-hear and it sticks in your mind and years later, it’s still a subject that comes up every so often during Michelle’s therapy sessions.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">“My therapist says my inability to relax and let go can be traced to that conversation,” Michelle sighed recently on FaceTime. “She says it explains why I’m always pushing myself and feel so much guilt when I’m on holiday. I am not giving myself permission to enjoy my down-time because apparently I feel like I don’t deserve the moment.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">I stared at my phone. “What, so when you retire at 65, suddenly, you will get that permission and you’ll become less uptight about having fun?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Michelle stiffened. “We don’t use the word ‘uptight’ in therapy!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">When I recounted the conversation to Amanda, she said it’s such a typical Asian parent thing to say to their kids. “My dad said the exact same thing to me that one time I was in university and I wanted to come home to Singapore for the holidays. He said I was so spoilt and that I should just stay put and study for the next semester’s courses.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">“Oh. My. God,” Saffy sighed. “My mother said the exact same thing, too! What, is there some guidebook out there that Asian parents read about what to say to their kids?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">“He said I would have plenty of time to travel when I retire!” Amanda went on. “Exactly what Jason’s mum said!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Saffy’s bosom inflated. “You see, that’s the sort of thing that qualifies as fake news. If people said that sort of rubbish today, they’d be arrested!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Apparently, Amanda told her father that if she waited till she was 65 to travel, she’d be lucky if she was able to lift her cabin luggage into the overhead compartment.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">“You’d be lucky if you’re still <i>alive </i>at 65!” said Saffy, whose Uncle Max literally dropped dead on his 64<sup>th</sup>birthday while walking from his bed to the bathroom. To hear Saffy tell it, it was the sort of thing that made you want to cash in your CPF and blow it all on a first class round the world trip.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">“I mean, he <i>died </i>on his birthday! I can’t even imagine it!” Saffy’s bosom inflated. “He woke up and thought to himself, ‘Happy birthday to me! I wonder what presents I’ve got waiting for me downstairs. But let me pee first’, and literally ten seconds later, he’s face-planted on the floor!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">“What a crappy birthday present,” Amanda said, shaking her head.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">“Well, his wife said the upside is that he didn’t linger and suffer from some malignant disease that took years to finish him off,” Saffy said. She paused and gave the matter some thought. “She really is a glass half-full kind of person. It’s not the kind of thing I would ever have thought of.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">For Amanda, the moral of the story is, have fun now because you never know – tomorrow, you might be stuffed into a coffin.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">“If you want to have an affair, have an affair!” she said airily to Sharyn who turned goggle eyes at her.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">“Hah?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">“If you want to go on that cruise to Spain, go now!” Amanda went on. “Don’t wait till you’re retired. Your hips may have given out by then!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Sharyn looked unconvinced. “Yah, but if I spend all my <i>mah-ney </i>now, and then when I’m ninety-<i>tree </i>and I’m still alive and by den, I got no more money, then how? Next week, my mudder turn ninety-nine and my fah-der is ninety-four, so proh-blee I oh-so got same gene!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Amanda pursed her lips. “When you’re ninety-nine, there’s no way you would be able to travel, so, either way, you should travel now!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Sharyn drew in a breath. “Yah hor! You are right. Should travel now. And if I spend all my money and I am still alive at ninety-nine, I come live with you, lah, Saffy!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">“I wouldn’t count on it, Shazz,” Saffy replied. “I’ve got no money now, so I can’t imagine where <i>I’ll </i>be living at ninety-nine. Maybe I’ll be living with <i>you</i>, Amanda!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Saffy later said the look of panic on Amanda’s face was priceless.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Jason Hahnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07240623610405771612noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32042620.post-48628716968510667892019-07-03T10:12:00.000+08:002019-07-03T10:12:21.855+08:00It's Raining, Man...<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">“You very free, lor,” her best friend Sharyn told her the other day when she walked into Saffy’s office and found her peering up through the tinted windows.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">Saffy whipped around, frantically waving her hands. “Can you not say such things so loudly, please?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">Sharyn shrugged. “Yah, what. Every time I come in here, you never work, one! Got dat time, remember, you were sitting at your chair, going cross-eye! You say you were exercising your what, ah? Your <i>pelvic </i>muscle!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">“Ugh,” Saffy said, turning back to the window to stare up again. “You can blame Amanda for that. She was so into her Kegels, she made us all do it. Jason says he’s still doing them!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">Sharyn glided up next to Saffy and looked up. “So, what are you looking at?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">“Rain clouds!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">“Today where got rain? Is so hot!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">“I’m trying to train my internal barometer!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">Sharyn sighed. “Aiyoh.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">A few weeks ago, someone in Saffy’s yoga class gave her a book called ‘Inner Engineering’ by Sadhguru. “It’s quite life-changing!” Marissa said as she thrust the orange covered book into Saffy’s hands. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">Later that evening, Saffy says she wished she could give Sadhguru a make-over. “I think if he trimmed his beard a little, he’d be so much cooler!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">“The man rides a motorcycle all over India, Saff,” I said. “You can’t get any cooler than that!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">Saffy turned astonished eyes on me. “How do you know this?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">“I watch all his YouTube videos. I think he’s the coolest dude I’ve never met,” I told her. “He’s so smart and explains heavy metaphysical and spiritual stuff in simple language. My sister became a vegetarian after watching one of his videos!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">Which is how that evening in bed, Saffy found herself turning the first page. She could only get through two pages. “It’s so intense!” she reported the next day. “I loved that he started page one with a joke though!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">“Oh, Sadhguru is full of jokes,” I said in a way that seemed to indicate he and I were squash buddies. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">That night, Saffy read another two pages. And the following night, another two. Each morning, she would stumble into the lounge room, goggle-eyed. “My God, the things that man says! And how he says them! I seriously can’t wrap my brain around any of it! But I also can’t stop reading!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">During the day, she’d catch herself thinking about her relationship with other people, and situations. After one office meeting, Sharyn asked, “Ay, you sick, ah? The whole meeting, you smile and not say anything. Marcus from accounts WhatsApp me and say you very scary!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">Saffy blinked. “No, I was just thinking that none of this matters at all. All this angst is just a reflection of my externalities and has nothing to do with what’s going on inside.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">Sharyn stared. “Yah,” she said eventually. “Confirm, you sick.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">And then, one night, Saffy got to a passage in which Sadhguru said he has tuned his inner consciousness to such an elevated state, he is be able to tell if it will rain.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">“Can you imagine?” she said the next morning at breakfast. “That’s just totally mind-blowing!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">Amanda was unimpressed. “There are weather apps for that kind of thing!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">“Yes, but still! That’s real skill!” Saffy’s eyes shone.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">For a week now, she’s alternated between sitting with her eyes closed concentrating on tuning into her inner barometer and staring up at the sky for any sign of rain to check if the bright blazing blue sky above correlates with what she’s feeling. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">“So, how? Can feel rain or not?” Sharyn asked the other day. She’d just marched back to the office from Lau Pa Sat and had to disappear into the bathroom to mop up her sweat and dry herself off. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">Saffy pursed her lips. “I can’t feel anything!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">“Of course not, lah!” Sharyn sighed. “I no need read your book, I can confirm got no rain! These few day so hot, where got rain? If Sadhguru was here, he also tell you the same ting!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">Far from being discouraged, Saffy perseveres. Even when she announces that it won’t rain, and there’s a thunderstorm two hours later, she’s convinced she’s on her way to becoming a human barometer. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">“It’s just a matter of practice,” she told Amanda who told me privately that it’s a good thing Sadhguru never wrote a book on levitation. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">“Can you imagine?” she asked. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Jason Hahnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07240623610405771612noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32042620.post-32188229442397898502019-06-25T20:19:00.000+08:002019-06-25T20:19:01.472+08:00High Ambitions<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">When I was in high school, there was a girl in the class below me who ice-skated. Needless to say, she was one of those annoying people who got straight-As, and her parents were both surgeons. Well, technically her mother was a surgeon in the sense that she actually cut into human beings, whilst her father was a tree surgeon (yes, that’s an actual thing) who made his fortune from the cyclones that would rip through Western Australian gardens every winter, but the way Swee Ling would go on about it, you had to feel sorry for her because she was obviously over-compensating. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Anyway, the point is, the girl was freakishly smart and gifted. And, as if life wasn’t already unfair enough, she had also hit the genetic jackpot by way of long legs, slender arms with delicate fingers, and a face so perfectly sculpted I swear people would, today, take a screen shot of off Facebook and bring to their plastic surgeon and say, “I want these cheekbones and that nose!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">As for her ice-skating…the girl was going places. Everybody said so. And by everybody, I mean her mother, Auntie Mui who was in my mother’s mahjong group. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">“Swee Ling’s coach says she’s so gifted,” she would say, for instance, right after she’d ponged the whole table. “She’s almost perfected the triple sachow! The coach says that if Swee Ling hadn’t gone off to Paris during the holidays to practise her French, she would have landed that jump by now!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">It was the sort of child boasting you hear at every mahjong table around the world, but what made Auntie Mui particularly galling was the fact that the other ladies at the table had all, by some odd turn of fortune, given birth to children who’d done nothing but grow up and bring unending shame on the family.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Auntie June’s middle child, for instance, had just been diagnosed as a pyromaniac – a shocking diagnosis that Mother said made her glad we didn’t live next door. “This whole house is made of wood! Can you imagine?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Meanwhile, Auntie Diana’s eldest daughter was dating the newspaper boy – something Auntie Diana put a stop to as soon as she found out, but she lived to regret it because twenty years later, Daniel became a super-rich hedge fund tycoon and named his mega-yacht after his mother-in-law. “That could have been me!” she would tell my mother who could only cluck in sympathy. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Meanwhile, my sister was going through her Goth phase, I had undiagnosed short-sightedness so I was always walking into walls and failing exams, while my brother Jack, at age 7, insisted he could see dead people. Which also explained why after a while, Mother’s mahjong sessions were always held at Auntie June’s house. Who could blame them when Jack would wander into the mahjong room and stare at a spot two inches above Auntie Diana’s shoulder and smile like he’d just bumped into his best friend. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">“So what happened to this Swee Ling?” Amanda asked the other day at home as we all watched a replay of Nathan Chen’s short programme at the world championships. “My God, he’s so good!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">“His triple axels are flawless,” I said as I absent mindedly dipped a hand into the bowl of popcorn. “Swee Ling? Oh, during practice one day, she attempted a quod, landed badly, broke her ankle, and that was the end of her career.”<br /><br /><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Saffy gasped. She hit pause on the laptop and turned to me. “Oh my God! That’s <i>horrible</i>!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">I shrugged. “I wouldn’t feel too sorry for her,” I told her. “Now that she didn’t have to spend three hours a day practising, she put all that extra time into her studies and graduated top of her class. She went to Harvard and became the youngest partner in Morgan Stanley in New York. Then she married a plastic surgeon, so she’s going to look gorgeous for the rest of her life. And meanwhile, all her children are Mensa geniuses. At least that’s what Auntie Mui tells everyone at mahjong.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Amanda sat back in her chair and pouted. “Seriously, who are these people?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">“I know, right?” I said, helping myself to another handful of popcorn. “I still take the bus!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Saffy had been silent for a while, staring at the frozen screenshot of Nathan Chen in mid-triple-lutz. “So how old is Nathan Chen?” she suddenly asked. “Is it just me, or is he seriously cute?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">As Amanda later said to me, this is exactly the sort of thing that people make award-winning investigative documentaries about. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Jason Hahnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07240623610405771612noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32042620.post-50732410333831108732019-06-16T11:22:00.000+08:002019-06-16T11:22:52.874+08:00Head Space<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">I’ve been going to yoga classes for years now and despite all my best efforts, I’ve never been able to do a headstand. Which makes it sound like I’m a pro at the Crow and the Peacock postures, and that it’s just the headstand that’s missing from my comprehensive yogic repertoire. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">The truth is, I’m barely competent at even the standing postures. I still get confused between Warrior 1 and Warrior 2. The forward fold continues to elude me – whilst everyone else in the class can place their entire palms on the ground next to their feet, it was a real moment of triumph the day I managed to connect all ten finger tips to the mat.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">And so you can imagine what a hurdle the headstand has been for me. What a torment every time the teacher announces, “Now, sirshasana, everyone!” My chest deflates, my spine slumps, and my mouth droops. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">In class, there’s a group that gets down on their knees and instantly, they’re upside down, rigid like a popsicle. And they can stay like that all day. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Meanwhile, another group goes up against the wall, and suddenly, they’re upside down too – though in yoga politics, I get the sense that people who need the wall for a headstand are regarded as second-class citizens. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Me…I struggle even with the wall. Over the years, teachers have tried their best with me. “You’re collapsing on your shoulders!” one sighed. “Stick your chest out,” said another. “Pull your stomach in!” “Lift your legs higher!” “Tighten your thighs!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">“Why do you torment yourself?!” Saffy once asked. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">“I really want to be able to do it!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Her bosom inflated to a dangerous volume. “How will doing a headstand make your life better?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">I tried to explain that it wasn’t about making my life better. That lately, I’d realized that as I’ve gotten older, I’m not learning anything new. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">In school, you were always learning. And for years, you never stopped. Every day, something new was inserted into your brain. And then one day, you find yourself watching Dr Pimple Popper and wondering if this is what life is all about. Somewhere between your first job and Kim Kardashian’s feud with Taylor Swift, you’ve stopped learning. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">And then, some random thing like a headstand pops up and suddenly, that’s all you care about. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">“You are so incredibly strange!” Saffy told me. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">A couple of weeks ago, I bumped into my friend Vivienne. She’s a hot shot hotel executive who, a few years ago, took time off work, shaved her head and became a yoga instructor. Of course, I immediately began moaning about my lack of progress with the headstand.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">“You must come to this great school I go to!” she said. “It’s in Serangoon Gardens. They have inversion classes, and they do headstands and variations for beginners!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Which is how, a few days later, I found myself at Yoga Kalari in a room full of pretty young women who were contorting themselves into unimaginable poses. And it was all so quiet, too. No one spoke. Just a lot of quiet movement. All you needed was some steam, some sticky goo, and it would have been exactly like that scene where Ripley stumbles into the egg pod room in ‘Aliens’, and all the eggs start hatching. I was scared out of my wits. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">“Are you mad?!” I hissed at Vivienne who was currently serenely upside down. “<i>This </i>is a basic inversion class?” But before she could reply, the master came around. He sat on a mat and pointed at a spot in front of him. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">“Come!” he commanded. “Put your head down here. Put your hands like this. Now lift your hips. Move your legs closer. Closer! Closer! Lift your hips! Lift!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">And suddenly, I was upside down. Swaying like a drunk – back and forth and sideways – and I would have toppled over any number of times, but the master calmly nudged my hips with a finger to steady me, and at one stage, I was in a full unassisted headstand for, like, three seconds.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">“Now practise against the wall,” the master said as he moved onto the Alien hatchlings.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">I can’t begin to describe what that class represented to me. After all these years, someone, with minimal words and a few finger jabs, had achieved what none of the teachers before had managed to teach me. And finally, I had learnt something new. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">I went back to Yoga Kalari the following week, and by the end of the lesson, I was, admittedly in a very wobbly way, getting up into the posture unassisted. But still…I beamed for days.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Saffy says the next thing I need to learn is to get a life. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Jason Hahnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07240623610405771612noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32042620.post-48914601077796652782019-06-11T20:45:00.002+08:002019-06-11T20:45:41.913+08:00Job Satisfaction<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">I read somewhere once that in their lifetime, Millennials will have between ten to 20 different careers. And that doesn’t mean promotions in the same job or field, so that you might start out as a bookkeeper when you’re 23 and by the time you’re 65, you’re an auditor.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">No, it means a Millennial might graduate with a law degree, and then in her 20s, decides she wants to be a baker, a farmer at 35, a drummer at 40, a journalist at 45 and, by the time she’s 65, she’s a junior dog groomer. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Apparently, this is a real thing, but leave it to my mother to announce that this kind of nonsense can only happen if you haven’t moved out of home by the time you’re 25.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">“You know what keeps a person in the same job?” she asked the other day during lunch at Crystal Jade. A perfectly manicured eyebrow lifted in disdain, though you could tell she was careful not to frown on account of the age lines she’s been careful to avoid her entire life. “Panic! Panic, that’s what. If you need a job to pay your mortgage and feed the kids, and your parents have made it perfectly clear that they’re spending all your inheritance on first-class round the world trips, you can bet you won’t be ditching your law degree to become a <i>baker</i>!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">As my sister Michelle later pointed out, it was really amazing how Mother could place such an inflection on the word ‘baker’ that she gave it the kind of emotional resonance you normally associate with a conversation about a hooker with a troubling yeast infection. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">“I mean, <i>look</i>at you!” she said.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">“Excuse me,” I said, “but I don’t have a troubling yeast infection!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Michelle giggled. “I meant you gave up law and became a writer. You haven’t turned out so bad.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">“Which reminds me,” I said, “can I borrow two hundred bucks? It’s my turn to buy groceries this week.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Michelle stopped in her tracks. “Seriously?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Later, as I was browsing the cereal aisle at Cold Storage, I remembered the old lady in my Accounting 100 course back in my university days. I say she was old, but she was probably in her 50s at the time, but when you’re 18 years old, 50 might as well be time for the hospice. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Anyway, every Tuesday and Thursday mornings, this lady would slip into the lecture hall. Dressed in sensible heels, dress falling below her knees and wearing a light cardigan, she’d sit quietly in the front row. And because she always came in a few seconds before the lecture began, she never spoke to anyone and as soon as it was over, she’d disappear just as quickly out the door. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Well, it wasn’t till our second year when several classmates transferred to medicine that we realized the quiet ‘old lady’ from Accounting 100 was, in fact, the Med School’s head of surgery. Apparently, she took lectures on consolidated balance sheets and inventory aging as a way to destress and to learn something new. Which, to a 19-year-old, made absolutely no sense at all. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Though my friend Jane recently announced that she was giving her journalism career a bit of a break. “I’m going to do private home dining!” she said with a level of enthusiasm that caused Saffy to remark she’d always found Jane a bit weird and here was proof. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">“Why would you invite complete strangers into your house and cook for them?” she asked.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">“Cause you could clear a thousand dollars a night,” I told her. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Saffy’s eyes widened. “My God, is that how much Jane’s making? Hey, maybe we should do that too!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">“You literally cannot make rice in our rice cooker,” Amanda said. “What makes you think you can cook an eight course dinner for ten people?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Saffy’s bosom deflated as she saw her dreams of a thousand dollars a night evaporate under the full glare of Amanda’s reality check. “Ugh…I just hate my job so much, you have no idea! Why did I ever decide to work in HR? Seriously, I’m like a porn star who shows up for work only because there’s work. And there’s free cookies between takes.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Amanda says there must be a bug in the air because she just found out her friend Joanne is quitting her auditors job to start a new career in clinical psychology.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">“Emotional traumas and neuroses? <i>That’s </i>going to make her happier?” I asked.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Amanda shrugged. “I guess it’s all relative. Out there somewhere is a porn star dreaming of a much more fulfilling life as an HR executive.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Jason Hahnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07240623610405771612noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32042620.post-35092446335617112502019-06-05T16:31:00.003+08:002019-06-05T16:31:46.012+08:00Child Proof<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">It seems only yesterday that my god-daughter, Mina was born. When I first saw her, she was a bundle of wrinkled skin – her eyes shut tightly and her tiny crab-like hands clenched in the kind of vice grip a District 9 tai-tai grabbing a heavily discounted Yohji dress at a Club21 sale would recognise. She looked so delicate and precious. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">“Wait!” I told her mother. “Let me sit down first before you hand her to me. I’m petrified I’ll drop her!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">May rolled her eyes. “Oh, for goodness sakes, it’s a baby, not a Lalique vase!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">“Which, if you ask my mother, I did in fact drop when I was a child!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">May’s look of indifference was immediately replaced by one of nervous concern. “Oh, really? OK, maybe you should just sit down first, then.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">At some stage, I must have blinked because suddenly Mina is about to turn 13.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">“Thirteen?” I said the other day on FaceTime with May. “How is she turning 13? Didn’t you just give birth to her?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">May’s image sighed. “Scary, isn’t it? I have no idea what happened. And she’s turned so sassy! She’s always rolling her eyes at me!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">“So what are y0u getting for her birthday present?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">May rolled her eyes.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">It turns out that a few months ago, Mina’s baby brother Johann turned ten and his parents had asked him what <i>he</i>wanted for his birthday.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">He turned his lovely almond-shaped eyes up at them and announced that he wanted nothing. His parents were bewildered. This, after all, was the child who, when asked the same question the previous Christmas, had said he wanted to go on the Virgin Galactic flight to space with Richard Branson. “It only costs $250,000!” he said, adding with the kind of economic precision that bodes well for a future in financing, “US dollars!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">And now he wanted nothing. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">“What do you mean nothing?” his parents asked.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">“I already have everything I need. I don’t need more <i>stuff</i>!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">“A new iPad?” his father ventured.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">“My old one still works.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">“A game station?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">“No.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">May hesitated. “A new bike?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">Limpid brown eyes stared up at her. “No.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">“Who are you?” his father said eventually.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">It turns out that Johann had just binge watched Marie Kondo’s ‘Tidying Up’ and YouTube clips of ‘Hoarding’ and, in the process, the boy has developed a severe phobia of, well, stuff. May reports that since that conversation, he essentially emptied out his room, and reduced himself to just three items of everything. Three books, three underwear, three toys…<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">“His room <i>echoes</i>!” May said the other day. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">“What a strange child,” I said.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">“Actually, I’m quite proud of him. I was so scared he would turn out to be grasping and materialistic.” Here she paused and then added with a dramatic flourish, “Like <i>your </i>god-daughter!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">It seems that when Mina’s parents asked her what she wanted for her birthday, they’d been half hoping that, like her brother, she would also say, “Nothing.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">Instead, the girl pulled out a piece of A4 paper on which was neatly typed in Georgia 12-pitch a long list of birthday presents, at the top of which was an a trip to Disney World. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">“And not the one in Tokyo, mind you!” May said. “She wants to go to the one in Orlando, Florida!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">I leaned closer towards the phone screen. “What else is on the list?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">May’s features hardened. “I’m so glad you asked. Because number two is a trip to Paris. With you. Not with us – the people who have fed her, clothed her, wiped up her drool and vomit, and generally cost us a fortune. Not with me, the mother who literally pushed her out into the world. No. She wants to go to Paris with someone she sees once a year! What’s wrong with this picture?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">I shrugged. “It’s not my fault your child gets along with me better than she does with you. That’s so incredibly sweet. Well, clearly, Disney and Paris with her beloved god-father isn’t happening. What else does the Golden Child want?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">“A Tiffany charm bracelet, a party dress sewn with Swarovski crystals, a French bulldog puppy, and at the bottom of the list is an iPad Pro. She’s getting the iPad.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">Mina later WhatsApped to say she’d made a deal with Johann that she would give him her iPad which she’d got for her last birthday because she wanted the new iPad Pro. “I really like the retina recognition function and the new one has it. But I knew Mama wouldn’t get it for me because the one I have is only a year old, so I freaked them out with Disney World and Paris with you, and put the iPad Pro at the bottom of the list. So that’s what I got! I love it!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">“Really,” I told Saffy. “Children are so devious !”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Jason Hahnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07240623610405771612noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32042620.post-87551542861690019972019-05-30T00:53:00.001+08:002019-05-30T00:53:43.261+08:00Ages to Go<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">My mother says one of the reasons she studiously avoids hanging out with people her own age is that they’re always complaining about their ailments. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">It all starts innocently enough, she says. Someone might mention, in passing, a little ache in the knee after a round of golf. Or a case of slight breathlessness after walking from the car-park and up the stairs to the club.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">“And then, one day,” she said the other at lunch at Crystal Jade, “they’ll say that they need to get their eyes checked because they can’t see as well at night when driving. Invariably, it’ll be cataracts and for weeks, you have to listen about the upcoming operation, and for weeks after about the post-op results!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">From the other side of the table, my father looked up from his dumpling soup. “Who’s this?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">Mother waved a hand, the low light above catching the glint off her diamond ring. “Oh, that Mei-sian! The way she goes on about it, you’d think she had stage three cancer! Which, by the way,” Mother’s voice lowered into a hush, “is what Uncle Charlie has!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">My sister Michelle coughed into her soup. She dabbed her mouth, eyes wide. “Uncle Charlie has stage three cancer? Oh my God! But he’s so young!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">Mother sniffed. “If you can call eighty-four young, then, sure. The ladies at mah-jong were shocked because they all thought he was already dead!” She reached for a siew-mai, shaking her head. “Anyway, my point is, that’s all I get to hear about. Ailments. I’m so glad I never became a doctor!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">Michelle later said she wasn’t sure what was worse – listening to Mother’s friends talk about their hip operations and double by-passes, or her own friends about their children.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">“A few years ago, every dinner party involved someone who was trying to get pregnant, or who was pregnant, or who had just given birth,” she said as we dodged and weaved our way through the Orchard Road crowds. “And now, they’re stressing about how little time they have with the children and feeling guilty because they’re at work. Or they’re pregnant again, so I have to listen to the pre-natal crap all over again! I tell you, it’s just never ending drama with these married couples!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">Meanwhile, my Sixth Uncle Harry just announced on the family group-chat that his cardiologist has discovered a potentially fatal faulty heart valve.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">“Potentially fatal?” Saffy said when she found out. “I would have thought a faulty heart valve is, by definition, fatal. Isn’t that like discovering you have a hole in the hull of the ship? I mean, surely it’s just a matter of time?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">“They’re running more tests,” I told her. “They’re hoping they can fix it. Uncle Harry says that a few years ago, this kind of thing would have killed him but now, the technology is so much more sophisticated.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">“Isn’t he the one who married his secretary?” Amanda asked, proving once again her capacity to cross-reference family scandals like a true Korean soap opera addict. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">“She’s half his age!” I reminded her. “Mother says she and her sisters are on his case to grant them the enduring power of attorney rather than to his child-bride just in case she runs off with the loot while he’s in surgery.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">“She’s forty-five,” Amanda pointed out. “She’s hardly a child-bride.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">Saffy’s formidable bosom inflated. “I’m so glad I don’t have to deal with this kind of drama as I have no money for anyone to fight over.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">Meanwhile, all this talk about aging and ailments has encouraged Amanda to update her Medisave provisions whilst signing us all up for another comprehensive health check up at Gleneagles. “You never know,” she says darkly.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">Sharyn says that she’s putting off having her check up for as long as humanly possible. “I very pantang! Skali they find I got brain tumour, den how?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">“I’ll come visit you every day at the hospital,” Saffy said loyally. “And I’ll hold your hand during chemo!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Jason Hahnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07240623610405771612noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32042620.post-68950229612365449702019-05-21T21:33:00.000+08:002019-05-21T21:33:03.332+08:00Fresh On The Boat<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">So, here we are on-board the Seabourn Ovation on a 14-day cruise up to Hong Kong. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">“Fourteen days?” Saffy had said a few months earlier when Amanda first floated the idea. “Do I want to be stuck with you guys for 14 days on a ship?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">“It’s a big ship!” Amanda had replied. “You won’t even need to see us if you don’t want to. Not even for meals. They have, like, six restaurants on-board. And there are only 300 rooms and every room is a suite with its own private balcony. And there’s Wi-Fi. Oh, come on, you’ll love it!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">Saffy had wrinkled her nose. “Won’t it be full of retirees?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">Amanda stared. “Uhm…You just came back from aerobics at the local community centre where the median age is 67.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">Saffy shrugged. “Well, that’s only because the instructor is super cute and he’s got thighs that could choke a bear!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">“Well, they’ll have Ukrainian gym instructors on the Ovation, so you’ll love it!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">Saffy had remained unconvinced. “But it’s going to be so expensive! We’re not all made of money like you are!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">“You have no children,” Amanda had pointed out. “Think how much you’re already saving from not having to raise, house, feed, educate and entertain two ungrateful kids!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">“And who, when they turn fifteen, will tell you how much they hate you and wish you were dead,” I’d added, having just spent two hours at lunch listening to my best friend Karl moan about how he wished he’d never had his evil ungrateful offspring.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">Which is how last weekend we found ourselves crossing the gang-plank at the cruise centre in HarbourFront to board the all-white Ovation, the pride and joy of the Seabourn line.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">“Well, this is rather nice,” Saffy said, a little reluctantly, as she settled into the lounge chair on her balcony, a chilled flute of champagne by her side as she looked out over the leafy hills of Sentosa. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">By our second day out at sea, she’d basically fallen under a spell, spending hours on the pool deck, alternately lazily flipping the pages of volume two of ‘Game of Thrones’ and being hypnotized by the unending blue horizon that circled around us.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">One afternoon, she leaned over her chaise lounge and peered at me over the top of her sunglasses. “Don’t tell Amanda, but I’m totally sold on this whole cruise thing.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">“Isn’t this just the life?” I murmured as I stretched supine on my towel, drowsy from the warm sun and hazily wondering if I could be bothered to lift my hand to check the time. “When’s lunch? I’m thinking of sushi.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">Saffy picked up her daily schedule and scanned the list of activities. “There’s lobster tonight at the Colonnade,” she said. “And escargots! Or we could do Thomas Keller?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">“I can’t think that far ahead,” I told her. “Let’s just get through lunch first.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">The passengers are, as Saffy predicted, mostly on the retiree end of the spectrum. Large contingents of Americans and Germans, almost all broiled by the sun and happy to spend the whole day playing bridge or parked by the pool bar drinking spritzers, and gin and tonics.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">After lunch, we retreat to our suites for a nap, waking up just in time for afternoon tea of fluffy scones, cakes and cucumber sandwiches, after which Amanda invariably heads off to the spa for a manicure or a facial, whilst Saffy and I sprawl on the couch in my suite and watch the latest Hollywood blockbuster.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">Tomorrow, we arrive in Thailand. All around us, people are busy planning day trips, their guide-books and maps spread out around them. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">“Do we want to go into Bangkok?” Amanda asked this morning at breakfast. “Or do a temple tour or something?”<br /><br /><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">Saffy’s bosom deflated with a sigh. “Not really. I’m too lazy to move. I might do an acupuncture session for my knee with that cute Japanese acupuncturist. And I want to watch ‘The Favourite’ as well. Plus there’s pizza at the Patio today.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">Amanda turned to me with an enquiring look. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">“There’s a dancing class that I want to try out,” I said. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">Amanda looked relieved. “Oh good, no one wants to go. I wasn’t keen to get off the ship either, but I didn’t want to spoil the party. Great, I’ll get a hair treatment, then.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">Tonight, there’s a magic show after dinner, an entertainment prospect that, if someone had suggested it on dry land, would have caused us all to raise our collective eyebrows. But here, out on the blue on blue of the South China Sea, with the salt-tinged air ruffling our hair, it just feels like the most natural way to end a day of complete, indolently pleasurable non-activity. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">Honestly? I could not be happier. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Jason Hahnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07240623610405771612noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32042620.post-86293936770961878732019-05-14T15:44:00.000+08:002019-05-30T00:51:59.970+08:00Eating Disorder<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: "georgia";">It's hard to believe it's May already. It feels like the new year was just last week when</span><span style="font-family: "georgia";"> our friend Jodie invited us to her home for yet another Chinese New Year dinner.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">“Are you sick of loh-hei, yet?” she’d asked earlier on the phone. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">“I’ve had 12 so far,” Amanda told her.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">“I’ve had 33!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">There was a brief silence as Amanda struggled to wonder if she’d misheard. “Thirty-three?” she said eventually. “How can you have had 33 loh-hei? This is only like the fifth day of Chinese New Year!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">“Oh, I started about two weeks before and as we approached the New Year, I had it for lunch and dinner with the family and my clients.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">“Thirty-three?” Saffy said when Amanda told her. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">“She’s so competitive! Just like at Uni!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">“I feel sick just thinking about all that sweet sauce!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">“Which is why tonight’s version is going to be Indonesian!” Amanda said. “She’s basically doing a gado-gado.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">Saffy blinked. “And what’s she using for the fish?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">“Otah-otah!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">“It’s going to be cooked, right?” I asked. “Because I’m not eating raw spiced mackeral!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">“She said she’s just unpacking the whole thing from the banana leaf.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">Saffy shrugged. “That’s just weird, but whatever. She just shouldn’t call it <i>loh-hei</i>or Instagram us tossing,” she warned. “Can you imagine how that would look? All those great chunks of tofu and otah-otah flying up in the air? I don’t want to become a viral sensation for all the wrong reasons!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">Screaming with laughter at the image, we piled into a cab and zoomed towards Jodie’s apartment at Peach Garden. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">“God, that Jodie is such a China Doll,” Saffy said. “Even her condo sounds like a restaurant.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">When we arrived at the guard-house, Amanda poked her head out the window to announce who we were there to see. She hadn’t even opened her mouth when the security guard waved us through, leading Saffy to wonder if this sort of thing would also happen if we’d dropped by the Istana for <i>loh-hei </i>with the President. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">“The same thing happened to me the other day when I visited Shaun’s mother, do you remember?” Amanda said as the taxi pulled up at Jodie’s block. “I don’t think the guard even looked up from his phone. I mean, I could have been a robber for all he knew! He just happily waved me through.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">“Well, you’re in top-to-toe Chanel. You don’t exactly look like a robber,” Saffy pointed out, though I couldn’t help but think neither did the girls from Ocean’s 11. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">Amanda turned pink with pleasure that someone had noticed what she was wearing. “You know what the problem is? Singapore is just too safe! Which makes me wonder why anyone bothers with security guards anyway.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">“So that retirees have something to do!” said Saffy, HR executive to the Nation. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">“I mean, who would be stupid enough to commit a crime in this country?” Amanda went on, warming to her theme, though as Saffy later said privately, you could tell she was mentally role-playing her favourite fantasy as a PAP minister on the campaign trail. “You’d be tracked down, charged and jailed before you even had a chance to put your bag down to count your stolen cash!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">When we finally made it up to Jodie’s apartment, she said that after years of living in New York and being regularly terrified on her way home from work at night, she fully intended to live out the rest of her life in this country, secure in the knowledge that probably the most dangerous thing that would ever happen to her would be to go through an ERP gantry without enough money in her CashCard.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">“So, did you read about that Go-Jek driver?” she asked as she carefully assembled her gado-gado loh-hei, which she’d since renamed galoh-gahei. “I’m telling you, this dish could fund my retirement. It’s just a question of clever marketing!”<br /><br /><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">“What about the Go-Jek driver?” Amanda interrupted. “You mean that girl and the ERP?”<br /><br /><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">“Yes! Did you see the video and how she was yelling that she was being kidnapped?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">“Hadn’t the driver brought her to the police station or something?” Amanda said, surprising us all with the depth of her knowledge of Singapore current affairs. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">“Only in Singapore,” Jodie said, in the solemn tone of a BBC newsreader announcing the birth of a new heir to the throne, “can you be kidnapped and the kidnapper brings you straight to the police station so that you can file a complaint!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">Amanda giggled while Saffy’s bosom inflated. “You see, that’s the kind of viral sensation you <i>don’t </i>want to be involved in!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Jason Hahnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07240623610405771612noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32042620.post-84952603984153149422019-05-06T20:54:00.000+08:002019-05-06T20:54:31.446+08:00To Pee or Not to Pee<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">Not to be politically indelicate, but the world is divided into two kinds of women: those who are done peeing in a minute, and those who aren’t. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">In the first group, the women might as well be men. A few garment adjustments, a ruthlessly efficient contraction of floor muscles, and they’re out the door. My Mother, the founding member of this group, even manages to find time to check her lipstick in the mirror. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">Meanwhile, in the second group, Saffy would still be marching up and down the toilet stalls, cautiously pushing each door open as she cranes her neck in to check the state of the floor, the toilet bowl and the general state of cleanliness.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">Sometimes, nothing meets her expectations, in which case she will emerge from the bathroom with a look of grimness and announce that we need to go to another level.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">“Oh God, Saff!” Amanda moaned the other day. “The movie is about to start, and you want to go look for a toilet on the next floor? What’s wrong with this one? I just used it and it’s fine!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">Saffy’s bosom stiffened. “There’s no toilet paper in there! How am I going to line the seat if there’s no toilet paper?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">Amanda shot me a look, but I was busy examining my shoe-laces. “Then don’t sit!” she said eventually. “Just squat <i>over </i>the loo!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">“Well excuse me if I don’t have your core muscles,” Saffy snapped, as she began moving towards the escalator. “I need to sit! Look, just go in first. It’ll just be the movie previews, anyway!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">“But those are the best bits of a movie!” Amanda called out, but Saffy’s back had, by now, disappeared into the crowd.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">I turned to Amanda. “You squat?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">“Sure! It’s the fastest way to pee!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">I hesitated. “But wouldn’t you have to be very careful about <i>where </i>you aim?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">Amanda gave me a look. “Unlike a man, you mean?” she said, never having forgotten that one time she was in desperate need to pee but there was such a long line to the ladies, whereas the men’s loo next door looked and sounded completely empty. So, she dashed in and nearly died of shock.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">“Filthy and smelly!” she later told all her girlfriends. “The floor in front of all the urinals was wet!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">“Wet?” Cindy asked. “Why?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">“Wet with pee!” Amanda said in ringing tones that carried straight across the tables at Les Amis. Heads turned. She leaned in and lowered her voice. “Men can’t aim straight!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">Cindy, who’d been trying to get pregnant for years, sniffed. “You don’t have to tell <i>me</i>!” she said. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">Amanda waved her hands. “No, really. It’s disgusting. I mean, if you think about it, it’s basically a hose, right? You just aim it and direct the flow. I noticed that the urinals even have a little bee painted at the base.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">Cindy’s eyebrows arched. “A bee? What for?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">“Well, I asked Jason and he says it’s so that men know where to aim!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">Cindy put down her fork. “Shut up!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">“No, really! And yet somehow, they still miss and the pee gets all over the floor. Either that,” Amanda paused as she gave the matter some thought, “either that, or most guys have really small di…”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">Cindy coughed as the <i>maître d’</i>arrived with the foie gras, followed by the sommelier to discuss the next wine pairing.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">Leave it to Sharyn to find the silver lining in everything. “Aiyah,” she said the other day, after Amanda had complained that we’d missed the first two movie previews while waiting for Saffy to return from the loo. “At least, she only need to line the toilet when she outside. Not like my sister-in-law! That woman ah, really one kind! My mah-dur-in-law scold and scold her, you know.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">“Why, what does she do?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">Sharyn looked triumphant that for once, she was the centre of attention. She drew in breath, the better to prolong the moment. “You know when she go to toilet at home? She must oh-so line the seat with toilet paper!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">Amanda paused. “Wait. What? She lines the toilet seat at <i>home</i>?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">Sharyn’s mouth pursed into a thin line. “So strange right? Every day, the maid clean, but must still line. And she got bladder ploh-blem, some more, so she must go shee-shee every fie minute. Can you imagine? One day can use up tree toilet roll!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">Amanda sighed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia;">“Dat’s why kena scolding from my mah-dur-in-law! So you see, Saffy not so bad. Not like my sister-in-law. She really one kind!” Sharyn repeated.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Jason Hahnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07240623610405771612noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32042620.post-4860714224671188762019-04-27T10:35:00.003+08:002019-04-27T10:35:52.258+08:00The Deep End<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="color: #212529; font-family: Georgia, serif;">I don’t know about you, but I spend my days dreaming about holidays. The places I’d love to visit. The things I would do once I get there. What I’d eat. The spa treatments I would get. The museums I would visit. The Instagram stories I’d post. The hotel toiletries I would steal. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #212529; font-family: Georgia, serif;">In other words, normal stuff that normal people do when they go on holiday. Or think about when they’re thinking about going on holiday. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #212529; font-family: Georgia, serif;">Then there are people for whom a holiday means trekking through sub-zero temperatures up the side of a very steep mountain. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #212529; font-family: Georgia, serif;">“Really? Why?” Saffy once said at a party to a guy who said he’d just climbed to Base Camp at Mount Everest. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #212529; font-family: Georgia, serif;">“I’ve never felt more alive!” he told her, to which she said, that was technically true only because an almighty avalanche hadn’t come sliding down the mountain to sweep him and his friends away. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #212529; font-family: Georgia, serif;">“You were playing the odds with your life! Didn’t you watch ‘Everest’?” she asked severely, having recently revisited what she felt was a criminally neglected movie because she’d had another late night craving for Jake Gyllenhaal. “Moral of the movie is: look, don’t touch.” She paused and gave the matter some thought before adding, as her bosom inflated, “A bit like my breasts actually!”<br /><br /><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #212529; font-family: Georgia, serif;">Recently, at breakfast, Amanda, who was scrolling through her news feed, suddenly stopped and gasped. “Oh, God…”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #212529; font-family: Georgia, serif;">Saffy, never one to waste an ounce of drama, immediately jumped to a conclusion. “No, no, no!” she moaned. “Jake’s dead?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #212529; font-family: Georgia, serif;">Amanda rolled her eyes. “Honestly, rein it in, RuPaul! No! This bunch of divers in Hawaii were…wait…were ‘watching a school of tiger sharks feast on a dead whale when a much <i>bigger </i>fish appeared out of the depths. A 6m-long great white shark, believed to be one of the largest in the world…’”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #212529; font-family: Georgia, serif;">“Wait just a second,” Saffy said, holding up a finger. “They were watching a school of tiger sharks <i>feast </i>on a <i>dead</i>whale?! Why would you be watching a school of tiger sharks feast on a dead whale? Were they mad?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #212529; font-family: Georgia, serif;">Amanda scanned the article. “It doesn’t say. Oh, yes it does. ‘<span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">The rotting whale carcass off the coast of Oahu has drawn packs of divers keen to see the sea life it attracts.’”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #212529; font-family: Georgia, serif;">“You see,” Saffy said, her face turning pink. “That kind of dumb behaviour is why the human race is going to get wiped off the face of this planet!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #212529; font-family: Georgia, serif;">Amanda nodded, secure in the knowledge that the only dumb act anyone could ever accuse her of committing, was once paying a lot of money for a Commes des Garcons dress that looked like it had been sewn by blind kittens on a diet. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #212529; font-family: Georgia, serif;">“I’ll say,” she said. “But wait, there’s more. The 6m-long white shark…huh, she’s got a name. She’s called Deep Blue!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #212529; font-family: Georgia, serif;">“Not Bites Deep?” Saffy asked.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #212529; font-family: Georgia, serif;">Amanda smirked. “It, uhm…it ‘<span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">came up and brushed up against the boat, maybe she's pregnant, maybe she's itchy?’ Ramsey wrote on Instagram. ‘We spent the entire day with her till the sun went down.’ Huh,” Amanda said, looking up. “Apparently Deep Blue has a Twitter account!”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">“That’s the most stupid thing I’ve heard all day!” Saffy announced. “‘Maybe she’s <i>itchy?’</i>?! What, and those divers thought they’d be helpful and scratch its side? Seriously, on the Stupid Scale, this is right up there with </span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #212529; font-family: Georgia, serif;">watching a school of tiger sharks <i>feast </i>on a dead whale in the first place!”</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">“Oh,” Amanda added, “it also says that ‘<span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #212529;">state wildlife officials have warned on Facebook for divers to stay away lest sharks mistake them for <i>food</i>’! Seriously? State wildlife officials have to tell you that you shouldn’t watch tigers sharks <i>feast</i>?”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #212529; font-family: Georgia, serif;">“I bet they’re Harvard graduates,” Saffy said, pretending not to notice Amanda’s icy glare. “I mean, that’s like going to watch zombies have dinner! Has no one watched ‘The Walking Dead’? You don’t go <i>towards </i>zombies! The correct direction is away <i>from</i>! Put <i>that </i>on Deep Blue’s Twitter feed!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #212529; font-family: Georgia, serif;">Later, when Saffy repeated the story at work, Sharyn shook her head and sighed. “Did the article say the divers were what nationality?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #212529; font-family: Georgia, serif;">Saffy shrugged, the thought never having occurred to her.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #212529; font-family: Georgia, serif;">“Must be <i>ang-moh</i>, I think,” Sharyn concluded. “Only <i>ang-moh</i>will swim around in the sea and watch shark makan. Our people will be on dry land shopping at <i>Plah-dah</i>! Dat’s why, hor, there are so many billion Chinese people in the world, and the ang-moh population is dropping. Dey all in the sea being eaten by <i>shark</i>!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #212529; font-family: Georgia, serif;">Saffy says she laughed all day. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Jason Hahnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07240623610405771612noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32042620.post-81487271013197006042019-04-24T18:43:00.000+08:002019-04-27T10:34:20.182+08:00Box Set<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;">I like to think that there’s a force-field around the little flat I share with Saffy and Amanda. Kind of like the one that surrounds Wakanda. You only get to enter if you know the correct entry points. This restricted right applies to all kinds of things. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;">Like Brexit and Donald Trump.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;">If you were a fly on the wall of our flat for 24 hours, you’d never know there was any political unrest in either the UK or America. Our news channels are hard coded to anything to do with the Kardashians, Marie Kondo and Dr Pimple Popper and nothing else. On social media, we only follow cute bulldogs running around in the snow and every utterance of Oprah. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;">We never watch the news, unless it’s Perez Hilton’s latest Instagram announcement.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;">“What! <i>That’</i>s news!” Saffy once said to a stranger at a party who’d asked her what she thought about the devaluation of some currency in some country she couldn’t pronounce (it was actually the Japanese Yen), and she replied that she only followed Perez and the person said, “Yes, but what other news do you follow? Doesn’t the state of the world concern you?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;">Saffy gave the question some thought. “Actually, there <i>is </i>something that I’ve been thinking about. Which is why the Kardashian sisters don’t come up with their own cookbook! They’ve already got everything else,” she pointed out, not noticing the look on the person’s face. “It only makes sense for them to do a cookbook, even though I’ve never ever seen them cook anything. They only ever seem to eat take-out food, have you noticed?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;">By this point, the guy had begun to look desperately around the room, hoping perhaps to see someone who might rescue him from this conversation.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;">“And you know what?” Saffy said, moving in closer as she dropped her voice into a whisper. Or to be more accurate, her bosom, inflated like a ship in full sail, moved forward. “I have the <i>best </i>title for the book! It would be, are you ready for it, ‘Kooking with the Kardashians’! Do you get it? Cooking with a ‘k’! It’s genius!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;">As Amanda later said, after Saffy had told her all about it, some people really need to lighten up. The world, she concluded, is just too uptight about too many things. “It’s why there’s so much unhappiness. Everyone should just take a chill pill. I mean, so what if you don’t know your GDP from your NLB? Who cares? Are you going to sleep any better knowing that the polar ice caps are melting faster than ever before?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;">“Nightmares for a week!” Saffy said with a shudder, having just watched again ‘The Day after Tomorrow’ because she’d suddenly had a craving for a young Jake Gyllenhaal. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;">Amanda nodded. “Exactly. So, it’s best not to know too much!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;">“Don’t you think,” asked her friend Joanna at lunch a few days later, “that you might end up isolated and ill-informed about the issues of the day?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;">Amanda waved a fork-full of coiled spaghetti aglio olio at her. “Not at all! If it’s really super important, someone will tell me about it. Or it'll be all people will be talking about. There are just too many unpleasant things happening today to keep up with,” she told Joanna. “I mean, what’s the point? How did the quality of your life improve today after reading the newspaper?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;">Apparently, it was a question that stumped Joanna into silence. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;">Saffy says she’s got the best name for this approach to life and news. “It’s <i>Bird Boxing</i>! We’re Bird Boxing crappy, scary news! You daren’t look, because if you do, it’ll make you do crazy things.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;">“Like ask a complete stranger at a party what she thought about the devaluation of the yen!” Amanda said. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;">Saffy turned pink and her bosom puffed up. “Yes, exactly!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;">“Although the fact that you didn’t know that the Japanese currency is the yen really is quite bad, Saf!” Amanda told her.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;">Saffy shut her eyes and shook her head. “Bird Boxing! Bird Boxing!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;">A few days later, someone from some government agency came knocking on our door. Saffy opened the door. “We’re here to inspect your flat to see if you have dengue spots!” said the woman with the clipboard and flashlight.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;">“Bird Box!” Saffy said to her. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;">The woman blinked. “What?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;">“Bird Box!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;">The woman tried again. “Ma’am, I’m from the…”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;">“Bird Box!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;">“Uhm…actually, it’s mosquitoes I’m checking, not birds. If you have any places that collect water, that may breed…”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;">“Bird Box!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;">“Uhm….Maybe I should come back when your husband is…”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;">“Bird Box!” Saffy said, closing the front door.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Jason Hahnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07240623610405771612noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32042620.post-82480383139024020802019-04-17T14:57:00.002+08:002019-04-17T14:57:59.099+08:00Good Riddance<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Amanda has been binge-watching ‘Tidying Up’, Marie Kondo’s new show on Netflix. Apparently, it’s all she and her yoga friends have been able to talk about in between their downward dogs.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">For Sheryl, the show has provided the excuse she’s been looking for to throw out all her Dolce and Gabbanas. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">“She threw out <i>all </i>her Dolces?” Saffy asked.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">“<i>Everything</i>!” Amanda repeated. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Saffy’s bosom deflated as she sighed. “But why? She could have given them to me!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">“Well, she’s gone back to Lanvin as her favourite brand, but she didn’t have the heart to throw out the old wardrobe, and then that whole China thing happened,” Amanda said. “When she saw that person using the Dolce jacket to wipe the toilet seat, she knew it was time to really Marie Kondo her closet. Especially when a few days later, Kim Kardashian deleted her Dolce post after Diet Prada called her out on it.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">According to Sheryl, Dolce is the new fur. You really don’t want to be the one left wearing it and being screamed at. Or have fake blood splashed on. Or worse, be ridiculed on social media for your politically misguided fashion choices. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Amanda says that Sheryl stood in front of her closet, weeping as she took out one Dolce outfit after the other, clutching each dress and handbag to her chest as she thanked them. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Because that’s what Marie Kondo says you’re supposed to do whenever you throw something out. You thank it for being in your life. But if that sounds like too much hard work, do what my friend’s daughter did, which was to pile all her unwanted clothes into a giant heap and then thank them all at once. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">“So sayang,” Sharyn later said when Saffy told her about Sheryl. “Why she don’t give me her Dolce? I want!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">“It was a political statement, Shazz. Plus the clothes weren’t sparking joy for her anymore, now that she’s gone back to Lanvin.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Sharyn was amazed. “Ay, so expensive you know, liddat anyhow throw away one, ah!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Saffy shrugged. “She’s rich. Rich people are strange.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">But apparently Marie Kondo’s approach to tidying up your house has a much wider potential. Because a few days later, while shopping for a dress at Muji before her lunch appointment with her friend Mavis, Saffy’s phone pinged. It was Mavis saying she wasn’t feeling well and was cancelling lunch.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Saffy was livid. She immediately speed-dialed Amanda to vent. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">“She’s done it again!” she said the second Amanda picked up. “Ten minutes before she’s due to meet me for lunch, she cancels! This is like the third time she’d done it in the past couple of months!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">“Who?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">“Mavis!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">“Oh. Why are you still friends with that woman? Get rid of her!” Amanda advised. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Saffy blinked. It was as if someone had asked her how she walked. “Get rid of her? You mean unfriend her? But I’ve known her for twenty years!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Amanda’s voice sounded bored. “So? She’s not sparking joy. Why would you hold onto a friendship that isn’t sparking joy?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Again, Saffy blinked. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">As she later said to Sharyn, just when you think Harvard should be closed down for allowing someone like Amanda to graduate from its law school, she comes up with a statement that is so profound she might as well be Yoda. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">“I mean, I never thought of friendships that way,” she told Sharyn. “It’s like, my whole life, I’ve just held onto friends because I’ve known them for a long time. No one ever said to me that you can actually get <i>rid </i>of them.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Sharyn’s eyes, magnified like saucers behind her thick spectacles, blinked slowly like an overfed lizard. “Yah what. Is like old clothes. If got hole orredi and cannot sew back, what for you keep them? Just because you bought them twenty year ago, must keep, meh? Or just because is Dolce. And get mouldy in your cupboard, some more!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">“That’s kind of what Amanda was saying!” Saffy shook her head. “She said if Mavis keeps cancelling lunch on me for no good reason, then clearly she’s not valuing our friendship as much as I am!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Sharyn nodded sagely. “She not spark joy, mah!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">“Huh!” Saffy said as she stared off into space, contemplating this brave new world in which you could throw out friends like last season’s Dolce. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">“And is Chinese New Year, some more,” Sharyn went on. “You must spring clean your life. Some friend are like dust! Must wipe off!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">“Really, Shazz,” Saffy said with deep admiration. “You should put that on a tee-shirt!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">“Yah, boy!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Jason Hahnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07240623610405771612noreply@blogger.com0