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I'm near the end of my tether.

I instead had to lengthen my MSN nick to "Please God, I really need a job and a home."

Complications to Kart's employment pass, the landlord's aversion to a guarantor signing the contract on our behalf as well as the fact that the landlord had to fly off to the US for a month on May 9th has forced us to become homeless people for about 2 weeks once the lease of my current place expires on the 15th.
Thankfully the landlord was really forgiving and was willing to hold the apartment for us until they get back from the US, so the apartment is still sort of ours and our deposit is not forfeit.

And even then, the landlord had taken a mighty long time to come that that decision, so much so that my furniture purchasing nearly got screwed. I decided to take a risk and go ahead and purchase some furnishing despite the place not 100% secured, and i'm still praying that decision doesn't come back to haunt me, as history would seem to prove that the occasional risk i take has a tendency to bite back. Hopefully we do secure this place when the landlord comes back in June, so that our deposit is not forfeit, my furniture would not go to waste, and i can leave my housing woes behind me.

But i still seem to be unable to land a job.
I'm not getting many responses to my job applications, and even the few that respond are taking a mighty long time to get back to me on subsequent interviews.
My social visit pass expires on the 22nd, and I'm contemplating between finally being able to go back to JB and be with my family but take on the inconvenience of having to cross the border whenever I may have an interview - that way i don't have to worry too much about finding a place to bunk for 2 weeks between my lease expiry and the landlord returning from the US.
Shiv has provided an option of staying with his friend - i don't know that friend too well so i'm not too keen on that option, and i wonder why Shiv himself isn't taking it. I spoke to Undi on the possibility of bunking in his new room for a while, he said he'd let me know since his girlfriend might move in with him - even then I need to ask his new housemates on how that would work out for them, and since I believe Shiv's already bunking at their house, i doubt they'll take kindly to me joining in too. I think Shiv knows this, that's why he's suggesting his friend's place. Sigh.



Anyway, my dad came into Singapore about a week back on Labour Day. He wanted to visit a temple, and he remembered seeing a big Buddhist one at Toa Payoh beside the flyover. I gave him directions, but my dad mis-heard my instructions and instead missed the flyover that would take us to Toa Payoh, we instead ended up in Ang Mo Kio. Following road signs that would eventually bring us back to Toa Payoh we stumbled upon the temple at Bright Hill Drive, and my dad decided that was good enough.
GOSH that temple was HUGE, heck it was more like a full blown monastery complex than a temple. I'm told the temple housed a columbarium as well, which explains its size. I'm not much of a spiritual person, but i do from time to time follow my parents to places of worship whenever I have the chance, and this was the 1st time i've seen a temple as grand and as ornate as this. Even the really famous temple at Kowloon, Hong Kong where the 'Bridge of Longevity' was that my family visited paled in comparison to this.
I was awed and humbled by the grandeur of the temple, and at the same time the serenity of the place. My dad wanted to visit a temple in the 1st place because he said it was Vesak Day - i'm not sure, but i believe he was mistaken as I'm told Vesak Day is later this month - but anyhow there were quite a few people who were also at the temple paying their respects (i suppose they mistook that day for Vesak Day too), so there was a bit of hustle and bustle at the main complex of the temple, but in front of the 3 statues of Buddha, somehow it felt peaceful, and for a while I was honoured and happy to be in His presence.
My dad though, strangely, didn't stay long despite visiting the temple being his idea. He wandered around at the main temple complex, and we stumbled upon a 'memorabilia' shop, and i found that they have a respectable stash of books with Buddhist perspectives (even those translated into English - since Buddhism is very much an Asian religion, so the relevant books tend to not be in English so i never found many that i could pick up and read considering my near hopeless command of Chinese), such as quotes from the Dalai's on how to apply Buddhist teachings to modern everyday life. I should keep that in mind and visit the temple again to pay my respects as well as buy a book to read from that shop since serenity is playing hide and seek with me so far for these past couple of trying years.

My life has never been the same since i came back from New Zealand. I really enjoyed my time in NZ, and i have no regrets going there. But coming back i'm exposed yet again to the harsh reality. My dad took a loan to send me there, he's still paying the loan. My inability to find a job and an income is an additional burden to him. My mum thinks the feng shui in my room might not be conducive, ever since i came back from NZ i've never been able to save much. I've confided in close friends (so much for that since i'm posting this here) that despite the small incomes i had during my internships, I've never been able to plug my leaks, there was always somewhere for my savings to slip through my fingers. If my mother's worries about my room's negative feng shui are true, then I'm hoping the new place can herald a new beginning for me - a new outlook, a new lifestyle, and hopefully a new career. That's obviously not happening, not yet anyway. I'm not looking for a scapegoat to blame, I really like my current room, I really do, but like the rituals a footballer stubbornly keeps (his lucky socks, the unlucky taboo word before a game, the prayer when on the pitch, and the gratitude sent to Heaven after a goal) i'm using every ammunition i've got to get me through these dark times. Feng shui included. In one piece. Sanity intact too.

I tried this test from Ryan's blog (awesome pictures of ur Phuket trip bro, especially the infinity pool!)
Half the fun of these tests are to see what kind of stuff they come up with - i enjoy doing these tests as you can already guess, though i always take whatever they say with a pinch of salt as I totally don't believe these tests have any real proven or even suspected relation to human psychology, but heck its fun to see what they come up with anyway. I was of course most particularly surprised with the results of this particular test though, more so than the previous test on what car i should drive.

My first reaction was "WHAT THE F**K?"......
These tests often have a few questions that you have more than one possible answer, so i went back to try the alternative answers, and i got the same result. This got me really irritated, i'm reasonably cool with people calling me satanic and all, especially an online quiz that i have absolutely no real reason to believe anyway, but calling me a slave? WTF?
The next fun thing to do for these online tests is to keep trying out the various combinations of answers to see what results we can get, so that you figure out the rationale behind the questions as well as the significance of the answers affecting the outcome of the quiz. I put it upon myself to try and figure this out, and i tried a few variations of the answers that I would've given because there were quite a few questions where a few of the answers were ones I would've picked anyway, but since you can only choose one answer for each question, there were a few permutations of possible answers, and after a couple of times being dealt the Devil card, i finally got this hand.

Well, Man U's European dream is over. At least it gives us the opportunity to concentrate on the Premiership and the FA Cup, so that at least we can get a bit of silverware this season.

Man, I guess i got a taste of how Roma fans must've felt when we romped them 7 - 1. Man U were out-gunned and out-classed, and were playing like a Division Two team. Undi's frustration was understandable, more so because he had foregone sleep despite having to work that day and stayed up to watch Man U. Our passes went nowhere, shots were everywhere but at the goal mouth, and we lost possession so cheaply at times it was as if we didn't want the ball at all.
It's even more frustrating for a supporter like me, when you read the full-time reports and opinions of the journalists who were watching the match, and everyone cries out in unison on how classy and how potent AC Milan were - in parallel to how a Roma fan would've felt when everyone waxed lyrical about how flowing and how perfect Man U's game against them was.

In other news, we're finally crawling towards a conclusion to my house hunt saga. Hopefully i can settle this and get a big load off my shoulder, and shorten my msn nick from "I need a job and a home. Fast.".