Back to SG: Momentum picking up

Back to Singapore.
Been lazing around.. have barely had time to sleep .. at first I was suffering from major jetlag.
The Singapore weather is incredibly hot these days.

I could not sleep well on Sunday.
My sleeping hours have been as follows:

Sunday & monday: 3:00 a.m sleep - 7:00 a.m. to go office
Tuesday: 10 p.m. sleep I was a bit KO since under the new VPnot allowed to doze off in office. hehe
Wednesday: 2:00 a.m sleep to 7:30 a.m
Thursday: 4:30 a.m sleep to 7:00 a.m then go office
Friday: Knockoff at 9:00 p.m at auntie's place.
Saturday: sLeep at 3:00 a.m

Gonna do something urgent about that sleeping disorder.
Today is nothng much: did some exercise.. chat with friend, need to study for exam soon.
Need to grab myself a new set of friends.. things have changed a bit since I came back.

Or it's the fact about turning 25 that metamorphosed my perspective. hehe
YOU TELL ME>>

Tip: ever listened the japanese song by Ayumi Hamasaki "Momentum"..
I have a bias towards japanese, arabic, french music.

Un peu plus pres des etoiles LYRICS. Nearer to the stars(Mauritius)

Here's my favourite song. maybe some mauritian friends will remember:
Ils ont quitté leurs terresLeurs champs de fleursEt leurs livres sacrésTraversés les rizièresJusqu'au grand fleuve saléSans amour, sans un criIls ont fermé leurs visages de mielLes yeux mouillés de pluieLes mains tendues vers le ciel
Un peu plus près des étoilesAu jardin de lumière et d'argentPour oublier les rivages brûlantsUn peu plus près des étoilesA l'abri des colères du ventA peine un peu plus libres qu'avant
Au pied des murs de pierresIls ont brûlé leurs dragons de papierRefermés leurs paupièresSur les chenilles d'acierEux qui croyaient vieillirEn regardant grandir leurs enfantsA l'ombre du sourireDes Bouddhas de marbre blanc
Un peu plus près des étoilesAu jardin de lumière et d'argentPour oublier les rivages brûlantsUn peu plus près des étoilesA l'abri des colères du ventA peine un peu plus libres qu'avant
Ils parlent à demi-motsA mi-chemin entre la vie et la mortEt dans leurs yeux mi-closDu soleil, du soleil brille encoreUne île de lumièreUn cerf volant s'est posé sur la merUn vent de libertéTrop loin, trop loin pour les emporter
Un peu plus près des étoilesAu jardin de lumière et d'argentPour oublier les rivages brûlantsUn peu plus près des étoilesA l'abri des colères du ventA peine un peu plus libres qu'avant
Un peu plus près des étoilesAu jardin de lumière et d'argentPour oublier les rivages brûlantsUn peu plus près des étoilesA l'abri des colères du ventA peine un peu plus libres qu'avant

Oh sunny days.. Globally warmingly sunny days

Today is a very sunny day.. Gonna go QB.. nah..this is not the QB house where people cut hair in Singapore.. but Quatre-Bornes. Going to do some sight-seeing or window-licking. (leche-vitrine)
Just had a call from Health Sanitary Services asking me to do Malaria blood test. That shall be tomorrow for me. Better check if I still have enough blood.. Otherwise have to do some biting tonight. I lost 3 kg. Not eating enough veggie here.. not good.
Better prepare to get going.. Life is still routine. Go toilet at exactly same time everyday. Been eating a lot of yoghurt. Toilet break time.
Always at 2:00 p.m singapore time. That what everyday in SG i do after lunch.. go toilet, wash face, and brush teeth.

What's my plan?

What's my plan?
I have no plan.. But I miss my colleagues in Madagascar. 8 of them in all. Need to write
them super long emails to them.
Just a coincidence.. my aunt and uncle are taking the same flight on next saturday so we'll
have company.
Yesterday did not do much. Walked with my Mauritian friend along the streets of Rose-Hill,
met another old time schoolfriend for a while. Walked and walked until I was sure I was
slimmer by 1/2 kg. I have not been doing exercise lately. So going to catch up a bit.
Today gonna spend time at home a little bit. Then go climb mountain.
Godma, remember I bought 2 bossini t-shirts and a jeans haha to get a bossini VIP card and
also because people tend to say I wear old and simple clothes. Well, in the end I never
wore them in Madagascar. So I gave the nice graduation looking T-shirt to bro-in-law and
the otehr one gonna give to someone I know. After all my t-shirts in singapore are only
around 4 years old. But slowly maybe I will phase some out. The white ones should be
yellow-coloured already. I somehow knew I was not going to wear them. They look too new for
me.
My dad wears tommyboy perfume to go out. Haha.. Was supposed to me mine but I am just too
simple. So far my only big expenditure is to invite friends for breakfast, lunch & dinner.

- Going to one of my company subsidiaries in Mauritius to pay them a visit. The trick is to always know your opponent. I'm going to see how they work for Mauritian TradeNet.

RgdsJerry

In Mauritius

In Mauritius ..
What can I say.. Trying to maximise the time I have here.I took the plane with 0 cash in my wallet.. that was the target.
At the Mauritius immigration I had a good laugh with the immigration agent. .. I stated my birthday as dd mm 2007. haha.. He told me .. you coming out of mommy in 8 days
time. I am still "dans les couilles de mon pere" as stated by H. But it's definitely better
than not remembering my home phone number of last time.
Life in Mauritius is a "sweet fantasy" .. I do miss the Madagascar cows.. French languge is
always better.. You say milk a baby.. and also milk a cow. So that made me say " allaiter
une vache" .. i.e. breastfeed a cow..haha.. I love old buildings.
That's why my room in Singapore . the walls are greyish white. When people ask me to paint
my room before moving in.. I simply say no. I like the old 40 year old non-painted room
feel.
Let me enjoy my sweet fantasy!Nah.. have tons of crap to catch up with.. make costume.. change credit card.. etc etc
etc.. read french books. Yesterday I did a lot of thngs yesterday. I did a haircut. .. took measures for a new
costume.. The current one has become small. .. well it's a 6.5 years old costume.Life in Mauritius is expensive these days. Bought a book by author Lee Child called Echo
Burning.
What's left to do .. do blood tests, then also.. go visit the new republic of Thieves - my
homecountry. I'm waiting for labour to become cheap enough in Mauritius to come in MNS the
mauritian subsidiary and trust me I will put some rules to those lazy mauritians. Basicly
it will be working hours from 8:00 a.m to 6:00 p.m. Want to earn some good money? Well..
produce results first. the cost in India is rising too much. Manpower is the most expensive
thing ever produced.. Basicly I simply need their brain to be connected.
No wonder the tart lady was so pissed off when I kept pushing her to provide package deals
for her tarts. I can be pushy when dealing with people. Defend my company in some ways.
I went church yesterday big church called "L'eglise Cathedrale". Zzzeinnn.... the very
noisy church as they are doing the renovations. My jean became authentic jeans.. the wook
powder made patterns on the jeans. Stayed there around 15 min. Pay a small visit to
"Emmanuel" according to the old testament or to the Malagasy "Jessoa Kristy"
Gonna go out a little bit today. Ohh.. btw Life in singapore. I have breakfast to do lists, before sleep to do list in sg. . sometimes the brain can be
so f*cked up that all I do is tick to do lists. When I was in the plane.. I can imagine a
family with 3 kids. "Cabin crew please check the doors" before going to sleep. If you do
not have checklists with kids.. who knows.. it's like you pouring boiling water on them.
esp in sg where everything is so rushed. So maximise time.

Going to Mauritius.. Leaving Madagascar

Leaving Madagascar today.. sad .. :(

But going Mauritius today too.. happy :)
...
It's a lot of mixed feelings.. S.godmother is waiting for me on 20th May. S for super and S for Singaporean. There will be a lot of mixed feelings too..

I'm going to check if my flight timings has changed.. But yesterday we all came up with the most sadist jokes ever.. ..

H. says that his son/daughter is still in the testicles of his father waiting to come out.. I will wait and see.. His gf and he are together for 12 years.

Somehow I'm always lucky..
20000 Ariary appeared in the small hotel room safe when I was totally out of cash.. I should have forgotten then..

7 WEEKS IN MADAGASCAR WAS GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOODDDDDDDDD
I can't wait to try it again! And go police station again due to no papers on me.

Rgds
Jerry

Who ate the clock?

Well my colleague woke up every 2 or 3 hours..

H. says that colleague ate a clock that rings every 2 hours.
I have the impression that I'm going to swallow a clock soon.

the program has bugs.. gonna be very busy soon. To detect all the bugs .. Preparing myself to swallow a clock.. haha

It's a contagious disease.

The canadian guy

When I was in singapore there was a canadian guy sitting at the table next to where I was sitting. I was waiting for K. to come back to start late lunch.

The 75 year old guy introduced himself to me.. I was busy quietly reading my book. He told me how he married his wife.. who is now 50 years old.

And his precious words were "Always smile.. no matter what happens. Look at me. I'm 75 and still smiling. You're only young so there's plenty of time to smile."

Their son was doing a phd in singapore university. And they came to meet the future singaporean daughter-in-law.

Some of my weird encounters...

JIM & PANDORA

JIM is an expensive chinese restaurant. We, i.e. my colleagues and I, had a nice dinner. The food is very similar to the Mauritius chinese restaurants.

It was my treat for the dinner. Starting to spend my money for the holidays as the time has finally come for me to go home. The best way is to spend money with friends. We were 7 in all.


We ordered 7 dishes. The cost per dish is around $12 USD which in MG terms is expensive.
They have a band playing old french songs, and malagasy songs and thy had one song of sega.
So the few of us left went on the dancefloor. Though, I hate to attract attention, but had no choice this time. I was the 1.84 cm chinese guy dancing with 4 malagasy people of average height 1m60. Quite noticeable isn't it? And we were the only group on the dancefloor..
Well .. WE DUN'T CARE!!

So after having ordered 8 bottles of beer. Nah.. I take only one bottle at most.

Then we went to a discotheque called PANDORA. It was a great nightlife. Only 2 chinese in the discotheque...including me.. 50% of the crowd, french people. The music is always much better than in SG as they play french remix.. e.g. Hotel room by Lord Kossity, and other hip hop French songs.. then moved to techno etc.. Hmm can I get a PR in Madagascar? We'll see.
We danced until around 2:00 a.m as one of our colleagues was sleeping mummy.

Then comes the story where I get arrested by the Police, riffle in hand of our dear drunken policeman, on the way back to the hotel. Why? For not carrying my papers.
Had to got the police station etc.. wahaha .. WTF.. tell you more later! :)

So todya my day is screwed. But I was even more screwed when part of the presentation to customs GM did not work. The big boss was looking at me with big eyes.

Time to head office for a while.
Jerry

moving on

At exactly 2 weeks to 25, yup born in 1982..

Time to do a quick status of things:
- Going 25 and stuck in Madagascar until next week. Tomorrow have a major presentation
- Have a health insurance to handle
- Have another small savings plan
- Just moved on from an 8 year childhood or rather adoslescent love
- Starting to see the wrinkles around the eyes.
- For once starting to think about future. What kind of progression to make? Let's JUMP!!!

I guess now is the time more than never to enrich, be humble, party, and see where destiny leads me.
The best way to start is.. by sleeping early..
Nites.

MIGRATION

there are several definitions of MIGRATION

- At work ... With every change made we need to migrate our compiled code to DEVT, TRIAL ent and then PROD environment.. to perform a bugfix, or enhancement to the system.
- In our environment.. Birds migrate to go to warmer temperatures. Herbivores migrate for better pastures. They cover as much as 600 km to ensure their survival and that of the offsprings.

- How about humans? The common aspect of migration is to go for a better circumstances. Where to go Canada? Vietnam? Madagascar? Singapore? America? Switzerland? Malaysia? Australia? The fact is the world is small ... is FLAT these days.

Here's my criteria for migration now still in DEVT and TESTING environment:
a. I want to see green plantations, pastures.. hills, mountains.... I am going to walk in the rice plantations on 1st May. Still looking for a cow to milk. I never milked a cow before.
b. It cannot be USA. Somehow I do not like to be in a country that wants to be in the limelight.
c. It must be a country where I pay tax monthly to ensure a welfare state. Preferably not aboe 25%.
d. I always prefer French speakers .. so French country.
e. Winter cannot be too cold. not like Canada. I have super fast metabolism rate. I wake up eery 4 hours at night if temperature of room is below 26 degrees. That's why I can and will always remain skinny. Should have told you the semester where I had 6 lectures in a day. I had to eat continuously every 2 hours so that I do not feel weak. The best temperature I sleep in aircon room is 27 - 29 degrees.
f. A country where people greet each other good morning. Strangely, poor people are the most honest people.
g. A country where people do not care about how they look. Normal look is ok. At least they do not spend money on it.. but shampoo is necessary..
h . and work in a company in which I believe I can bring a substancial contribution. Perfection is not what I am looking for.
i. I'm the loner type so i like to travel alone to the desserted beach and watch the small crabs walking. Watch the sunset.. I will always say "nope you're not invited" if anyone should ask me.
Watch till night while waiting for a coconut to fall on my head.

If you believe or stay in a country that satisfy these criteria let me know. :)
So far shortlisted countries are LUXEMBURG, SWITZERLAND, VIETNAM, MAURITIUS, MALAYSIA, THE NETHERLANDS, GERMANY, AUSTRALIA

Been eating corn flakes twice a week for dinner. My favourite food at times. The rationale is that dinner in the hotel is relatively high priced compared to outside. So the money I save is given to the poor. Did you know that Madagascar has 35% per month tax on the salary?
And work starts at 7:30 a.m and ends around 6:30 p.m. on normal days. I hope the nation does well in the long run.

AUSTRALIA.. sounds like paradise . . I should go to Brisbane sometimes to visit friend M.W.
Did you know that 2 male kangaroos fight with their hind legs.. (their strongest legs) to get to know who get the wife kangarroo for reproduction? The one invading the territory will fight to conquer while the other will show off his skills. Kangarroo M.W. wish you all the best!! Haha. Glad that you came out of Mommy Kangaroo's pocket.

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Green Pepper

The STORY Of Green Pepper

Once upon a time ..
Green pepper fell in love, became Red Pepper, got married and became Yellow Pepper.

THAT RAINY NIGHT..

When I woke up that evening, it was raining heavily .. very heavily. I opened the windows to watch the water pouring on the streets. Under the passive eyes of the lamp post, a motorcyclist shielded himself under the extended arm of the Bank of Africa building, his motorcycle left to bathe in the rain. A stranger wearing a yellow jacket, with the jacket cap covering the head walked from left to the right end of the street.. soon to move in the opposite direction, as if he went to achieve his mission... reminded me of the horror movie.. MILO. The yellow jacket guy on his bycicle. Beware MILO was on the streets! Another couple walked hastily under the rain and soon disppeared in the distance, hand in hand, impatient to get home. The stagnant pool of water in the middle of the street was suddenly revived by the incessant drops of rain that drilled their way on the surface to create shiny ripples to bring it to life, giving the illusion of a CPR performance. The rain became even stronger. A man and a lady met just beneath the famous lamp post that was being whipped by droplets that were inclined to almost 45 degrees. With a greeting of the man's umbrella, that umbrella accepted to be adopted by the lady and man and woman went their own ways, the man deprived of his umbrella.

In the background of my room, Lara Fabian's song was being played at that time. .
"I didn't come here believing
I would ever be away from you
I didn't come here to find out
There's a weakness in my faith
I was brought here by the power of love
I was brought here by the power of love
- Love by grace "

I'll miss Madagascar ;

Time to kick ass

Hehe it's time to party.. update blog when I'm back in sg.

Jerry

Marathon chicken

FOOD

Apples. ..
a weird hunch back of notre dame round shaped volumetric form peppered with black dots and brown stitches as if recovering from a plastic surgery.

It's yummy.

Marathon chicken..
A chicken where "gna gna gna" with the teeth is not effective. It's rubber. The small knife cannot go through.
The term we call it here is marathon chicken. One that ran kilometres before being slaughtered.
It must have been a race between a chicken, a cow, a fish .. yup I had the marathon fish. Most likely the fish was executed by electrocution which tensed its muscles in a conducting liquid.

The day where the south korean guy killed the 32 students, I cut myself while shaving. Quite a big cut.. a 3cm opening near the throat area, people in office swear to have me scanned before entering the building. After all it's a inspection and certification company.

Gonna read some books. I watched a documentary where 1.5 million herbivores those are real marathon anmals meet in Tanzania every year for the great gathering and migrate together. Very captivating but wish I was there to witness it. My dream would be to go to the african jungle and see animals and have an animal tattoo on my back.. haha. Need to save $$$ so that one day I can travel there. The tattoo would be that of a tiger head or a jaguar head as the jaguar is as black as the tattoo itselt.. haha

Grr!!!

Blue Eyes Blue

Blue Eyes Blue

Yesterday, we went to a muslim restaurant called "ABU NAWASS". It's always so much fun to go out on car ride with the engineer buddies. We watch lots of Arabian TV. "Music Arabia" was the TV channel. Many nice and sexy clips.. very sexy clips. We ate beef brochettes, I took 1/2 grilled chicken that looked more like 1/5 grilled chicken.. French fries.

In the evening I went to B's gym. Paid one entrance fee but did not do much as it was close to closing time. The monitors are very friendly also and they really help. I did some great exercise. That lady, B., is black belt in martial arts so she can easily do stretching. Just did the normal routine to keep fit. Feel much better afterwards. That's my secret for neer falling sick. Regular exercise. Otherwise , I feel restless cannot sleep.

Today we went to a chinese restaurant. Did you know that a sort of Siew Mai is called "bouchon" i.e. wooden bottle cap in French? The "banane flambee" was particularly appetising.

I realise how fast time goes by so I'm trying my best to spend as much super happy time as possible. Because the time to part is mid-end of next week. All the laughter, we laughed until our stomach ached almost everyday. Today was even more stupid. We were all doing our work until all the servers gave up due to lack of power and we were wondering what's wrong like idiots.
Life is simple here.. Like H says: "You are so worried about body shape, what you eat.. Bang.. you get hit by a bus and never had to eat any fat juicy beef. We cannot somehow escape our destiny. Whether we are born in a rich/ poor family. . whether we are chinese/muslim or indian.. Maybe it's all written up there in heaven.

What's the point to have $$$ but no time for friends? Plain stupidity. $ is nevertheless important.

Like my friend K. who is NUS scholar but returning back to Mauritius soon after 1 year of work exprience in SG. Family is more important.

For me the only reason I want to stay and remain in Singapore is that I have singaporean godparents who never let me down. Singapore is a society where everything is based on money and every singaporean fight in their own ways for money. That's competition.

Preparing myself for the final moments. I do not know when I will return to Madagascar again.
The waiters and receptionists with whom i spent easter with and to whom I distributed easter chocolate.
The engineers who are always so chirpy and happy.

Everytime i leave sg for more than 1.5 months, I get teary to leave my godparents but I'm so happy to see my parents as well. When I leave Mauritius, it's with wet eyes that I leave my home country where all the childhood was spent in the desserted streets and hilly mountains.

This time as well its gonna be party followed by lots of hugs.
"It was you who made my Blue Eyes Blue" - Eric Clapton

Out of business

Nothing much to relate today..
Concentrating more and more on my work.

Planning to do some exercise in the hotel room in the morning.. destretch .. to lengthen the body tomorrow.

I'm gonna sleep..
Tomorrow is going to be exciting with reports reports and reports.

I'm outta love

15 April 2007

I'm outta love... at least that's what singer Anastasia is saying on the TV.
I'm not outta love. I have lots of love to give and receive. After all I'm only at 34.543% of my life... still have 200% - 34.543% to live.

The sun rises at 6:15 a.m. in the morning.. I love that. Can wake up early.. and watch the sky change to light blue. The more I think of it the more I miss home. Mauritius. J.K. finally knows how to spell the country.. after a mastermind game with only the first 2 letters correct.

I travelled by cab to the queen and king palace on the hill 19 km from the main city. It's a place where the cows have more space than the king and queen themselves. I'm not like those tourists who will take picture of everything, everywhere anyhow. The king had 12 official wifes and many unofficial ones. The view was amazing. Just like when I used to be on signal mountain top during school times in Mauritius.

Then we went to see the university. It's sweet .. a buildings or rather a few buildings amongst the rice plantations. We ate the fish samossa's that I bought in the morning. Shoprite is just next to the hotel and travestites. On the other side from the university view was small children and parents busy and happy breaking the mountain rocks into small pieces. They were surprised when I looked at them from the top. Children who do not go to school .. who will carry on the tradition of their parents. They are about 8 years old and happy to pull the wheelbarrow. They are smiling and live in their own small little world.

I also saw the french international school and took a break, walked on the hilly roads, sat on the grass to admire the view. It was a great ride. I decided to cut short the trip as M. my driver has a 2 months old baby to take care and I preferred he goes home on a Sunday evening.

I did not take a single picture. We covered the north and south portion of the city today.

Le jour ou je devrais partir approche..

14 th April 2007 -
.. The day where I had to go was coming..

Life in Madagascar is fun. Last night I went with the group of system engineers to a grill/barbecue night. We were celebrating my last day in Madagascar with the guys.

We had lots of fun in office with small jokes to big jokes. Here when you order water/beer they classify as either (GM) or (PM) meaning "petit modele" and "grande modele " i.e. small model and big model. . though in english it sounds like someone with small and bog boobs.

Imagine yourself saying I want a GM for lunch.

Alternatives came in like "Prime Minister", "Project manager" , but the best remains "petite merde" and "grande merde" (Small shit and big shit)

We always cracked jokes and I was beginning to miss that on my last day. But the deal is that I always invite the team since the singapore dollar is much stronger than Ariary(Mad currency) here.

We had a quick dinner as the place where H. brought us was full of guys who drink a lot. He cling to his best friend.. the 40% alcohol drink. Apparently you can also order a 70% alcohol drink ..
B. was not feeling comfortable as her 8-year daughter was with her but we partied a bit.

The best part is after drinking only 1 bottle of beer when i stood up, the chair (heavy wooden chair) fell down... with a super loud Thump.. or "BOOM" every madagascar guy there looked at me and started laughing. I was the worst of them all. I was laughing too. It's very uncommon to find a chinese there

It's a restaurant with local standards. You know,.. no plates or spoon or forks but use hand. And tissue paper if the chicken is too hot to hold and same piece of paper to wipe the mouth.

After that they brought me up the hill .. to see the full view of antananarivo. It's a nice and chilly place with the castle of the queen of long ag and a night view of hills etc.

We had fun. It's more fun than at my hotel where the only people outside at night is a dozen of travestites. (I have absolutely nothing against them but nor do I have anyhting to deal with them)

Today I went office in the late morning.. then discovered no water.. thank god I bought my own water. I had to use it to wash my hand after I did my toilet break.. no tissue paper also. So no choice but to wait till I come back to clean my butt. No water to wash cups.

Now the good news, I just cancelled my trip back. So I'm staying here for one entire week...
This time I'm going to bring toilet paper to the office. . steal from hotel. Ahh.. tomorrow I've booked a friend of mine now.. a taxi driver for a full day around the city. Come back then work a little bit.

Got to convince the receptionist to open the gym door.. not open tomorrow morning.. I shall continue my pizza.. since I'm connected via Wifi here.