Wednesday, April 28, 2004
I've developed an affinity for supermarkets and houseplants. Yesterday I bought fruit juice and fresh milk at NTUC Fairprice Ang Mo Kio, and then today I had a box of cherry tomatoes from NTUC Coronation Plaza for lunch, and stopped by at Shop N Save Jurong East Central to buy bread and peanut butter. I come home late and fuss over the pot of petunias I recently bought in honour of Mother's Day - trimming dead flowers, checking on the stem cuttings, watering, fertilising. I've even started growing balsam plants from seed - something I haven't done in years.
Goodness. I'm finding new ways of wasting time.
Anyway, I've been awakened to the fact that petunias really are lovely. They flower profusely and provide a daily, beautiful cascade of bright-hued blooms that are especially soothing to the eyes after an entire day's worth of school. They don't look as though they belong in humid, tropical, predominantly and overwhelmingly
green Singapore. The colours are
dazzling. I could stare at them all day. OK, maybe I shouldn't restrict myself to simply staring. Pencil, watercolours and camera all spring to my enchanted mind. Imagine the possibilities... notwithstanding the ability.
JK Rowling did petunias an injustice when she named Lily Potter's sister.
Oh, caffeine pills do exist and they can be obtained over-the-counter, i.e. without doctor's prescription. However, there supposedly aren't any available in Singapore. Not because of some import ban, but because 'there's no caffeine pill trend in Asia', so there's simply no demand and hence zero supply. You could still arrange your own overseas delivery, but I'm not that desperate.
Of course I was disappointed. By now, I'm pretty much game for higher doses of caffeine. Either that or I'll have to abstain for some time to water down the tolerance that I've already built up. Save it up for more critical crunch periods.
Just came across something that put a smile on my face: Sweet messages in Chinese about love on a well-adjusted picture background scanned in from disturbing and quite literally screwed-up manga... I saved it, of course, to revel in the hidden irony. A tiny detail that wouldn't matter to anyone else, to be sure. A nice picture's just a nice picture if you are unware of the implications.
words were spilled on Wednesday, April 28, 2004
