Pkchukiss - Reality Wine

This is one of the rare times that I step out of the house without the intention of going to work. I woke up groggily from a 4am bedtime at around 10am, so that is 6 hours of non-accustomed sleep under the belt for the day. The cotton wool was stuffed in my head, and it made waking up a chore. After stealing a few more moments of sleep, I got up and brushed my teeth.

Surprisingly, I was not as sleepy as I was mentally blocked. My brain was definitely on retardation today, so I didn’t bother writing anything in the morning. Somehow having done this 2 times previously with my other shift transitions made it bearable. Today is the day to adjust my night-shift wrecked body back to Daylights’ Time. Already, I was suffering from lack of exercise, since I got consumed by the urge to sleep in the day. Not only did it take away half of the sunshine out of my life, it also wrecked havoc on my temper, since people still call my mobiles in the morning.

Good news: you can do so from tomorrow onwards, I’ll be awake. That is, if the transition - much like trying to continue to power a nuclear station while taking down the safety measures for inspection - does not cause me to fall sick again.

I left the house in the afternoon to meet up with some friends at the Orchard area. The trains were compacted like sardine tins. To make matters worse, the automated system decided to do a novice’s job of stopping the train, and we jerked our way to a stop at each station. Those without a stanchion pole to grab on were forced to either spread their legs suddenly as we picked up speed a few moments before jarring to a stop, or grab onto a hapless fellow passenger to avoid crashing into the baby pram behind. That was a close call.

I was thankful that I had showered before leaving the house, since I had to expose my armpits to hang on to the overhead grab pole. Then again, maybe there would have been more room in the cabin had I stunk instead. You would usually see the invisible barrier around an army guy in his uniform - even if he might have done the routine bathing before leaving camp.

Since we were paupers without the cash to flaunt at the boutiques along Orchard Road, we strolled casually down the strech to Suntec City, pausing for a short hop into Plaza Singapura to escape the baking heat. You wouldn’t have known that it was raining so hard that it flooded barely a week ago. I spotted the remanents of the christmas decorations, and took a snapshot with my Nokia, since I didn’t have my camera with me.

The lighting and exposure were all wrong, but there is no way to adjust those options, so the pictures were pretty much at the mercy of the phone software. Thankfully not many photos were mangled beyond use, but it was disappointing to find how some choice shots came out pretty badly.

My shirt stuck to my back when we finally reached the artic-cold air-conditioning in Suntec City. They seem to have no problems with the artifically low temperature. You would soon forget the heat outside, and shiver at the frost, especially having just come in from the hot sun outside. It was the same situation as at Orchard Road. We essentially ignored the marquee stores, and went straight for the arcade instead.

We made a side-trip to Marine Square, and found a shop selling jigsaw puzzles, and found a 3D puzzle of Mickey Mouse:

I had wanted to go in to take a more detailed picture, but the store had a policy of forbidding photography, so I decided to make do with the display outside.

There is a new Gundam game that seems to get boys hooked, but being the abnormal boy, I couldn’t decide whether I liked the game or not. I stood by while they played machine-operators at $2 per game. Amazingly, the enemies in the game had problems with their IQ. Whereas the players would hide behind rocks, the would just continue blasting their ammunition at the rocks. It probably didn’t occur to the close-ranged combatants to go right around the rock for the kill; but since that would make the game a lot harder, I think that’s why the game producers dumbed the artificial intelligence down quite a few notches. At any rate, they couldn’t get past the 2nd level, so that point is moot.

Tomorrow This morning, I’ll be going back onto the morning shift. I really hope that I can get to sleep, or else I’m going to suffer the same fate as that Friday.

Filed under: General