Last night I had an appointment with the mortgage advisor. The title to the land that I was buying will be available next month and I wanted to see what my options were. In short, I had just the one option. A lot has changed since last November when I first explored the idea of building the house that I wanted on the land that I had just agreed to buy.
About a month ago, I had lost the permanent casual job that I had, there was no expected pay raise from my full-time job, and some extra hours that I usually do now for the company might be curtailed. To summarise, my earning capacity has decreased and so has my borrowing ability.
So that one option that I had? It’s to borrow enough to just pay for the land now and decide later about building on it. I will be losing out on approx. $14,000 in the first home-owner’s grant but that’s not too bad. With a lot of people rushing to get the grant, current home building prices are artificially inflated anyway.
I was a bit disappointed of course but going into yesterday’s meeting, I already had an inkling that that was to be the outcome. Although I’m very glad that I didn’t get the land title back in May when it was supposed to have come out. I would have decided to start building and thus borrow more money based on my higher income then. With my reduced income now, I would have been stuck with loan repayments that I can’t afford. I think I dodged a bullet there, phew!
So yeah, my dream house? Maybe later. It can wait. In the mean time, I am going to enjoy my mother’s housekeeping and hospitality just a little bit longer.
Back when we were inexperienced boys, we watched too many romantic comedies where the guy always get the girl in the end, no matter how much the girl hated him in the beginning. We were naive enough to believe that persistence always works, and it felt good to believe in it because we hoped the next girl will be different.
I was 18 and in my second year of uni. When I first met her, the crush hit me hard. I couldn’t stop thinking about her and fantasising about being her boyfriend. It bordered on the obsessive and I was too eager to know that when she was being nice to me, she was really just being nice to me and there was nothing more to it.
To her credit, when she knew from my actions and from what she’s heard from our friends that I did have a crush on her, she wasn’t mean to me or tried to brush me off. She remained friendly to me and did not avoid me. Alas, to the fool that I was I thought that that was a positive, and there was still a chance for me yet.
So for a full two semesters of uni, I persisted. I would ask her out, she’d say no and make up excuses. But sometimes, she’d relent and we would end up having coffee. It was only ever coffee though and it was always at uni. I didn’t get to drive her anywhere, which was pretty good of her in hindsight – I could’ve wasted a lot of money.
During all this, I still see her for group outings and nights out. And when I see her flirt with other guys, pangs of jealousy would course through me and it hurt real bad. I don’t remember crying over her, but I do remember feeling rage. Though luckily for me, I never got violent with anyone.
After a whole year of yo-yo-ing between feeling elated when I’d see her and get to spend time with her, and feeling dejected and like a loser when I see her paying more attention to other guys, I suddenly woke up one day and thought that this can’t continue.
When I was together with her in a computer lab that day, chatting with other people and to each other, I looked at her and then typed,
Is it awkward whenever I ask you out?
She replied,
Yeah it does.
I wrote back,
Ok I’ll stop.
And then I felt the weight on me being lifted away. As we left together, we smiled and that was that. 16 years later we remained good friends even though we never brought it up again. Thanks Tina, for teaching me valuable lessons about women and relationships which I still hold on to till this day. And, for being the classiest girl to have rejected me.
Although, after you I did rush into having my first girlfriend because after having my ego bruised, it felt good to have someone showed an interest in me. But that, as you now know, is another story.
Photos from my final year Engineering yearbook. L to R: me circa 1992, me circa 1996. Ah, memories.
Friday night started out at Sel’s place for some pre-party drinks. Because I wasn’t driving, I was a happy drunk by the time we left for Rise. Yay!
Ernesto vs Bastian played a great set – hard, tech-trance is what we like! Gary and Simon met us as we got there. And throughout the course of the night, in between jumping around, we drank and lost count of the drinks. Luckily I wasn’t driving but because of that I let loose and got really hammered. I kept asking Sel and Kayo to slap me to jolt me up. Heheh.
Because of the night’s partying and supper till 4am, we were so tired the next day. I slept till 2:00pm and was still feeling lethargic. But another night of festivities await because it was Simon’s birthday. I had a quick lunch, rushed out to buy a big birthday card for everyone to sign, and then went home to nap at about 4:30pm. Yes, I had only been awake for 2 hours and a bit before I felt sleepy again.
Before I knew it, 6:00pm came along and it was time to rush out the door to pick up Tham and Cheewah. We were heading to Outback Jack’s for dinner. I was happily looking forward to the Wagyu steaks. And I have to say: I was disappointed. The Wagyu meat on display did not look that nice so I ordered the Angus porterhouse and it was over-cooked! Grrr. Everyone else’s steaks were not that fantastic too. With the Wagyu burger that some had, the meat pattie was so dry and tasteless that we thought it was such a waste of high grade beef. Sheesh.
So yeah, dinner was very mediocre but friends, conversation and laughter saved the dinner. I’ve always said that it’s not the places that we go but the people we are with that makes it all worthwhile.
After dinner, we headed to Exotica for the birthday boy to gawk at some naked female flesh. It was a good excuse for the guys in the group to go too. The women in our company came along as well and it made for an interesting spectacle as we walked into the place and they were gawked at.
No photos here to tell the story. We had an ok time getting up close and personal to fake and real breasts but got bored pretty quickly. As I told Simon while we are there, “This used to be more fun in the past, wasn’t it?” I think the guys in the group all understood the pointlessness of paying good money to get teased, that we might as well just go to a brothel if we were into that kind of entertainment. But the girls, some of whom were taking pole-dancing classes, enjoyed the main strip-tease dance of the night.
Next stop was Eve at Burswood where the drinking continued.
The time there were spent talking, dancing and drinking. At one point in the night, we all whipped out our phones to update our Facebook statuses, and commented on each other’s statuses. Heheh.
Happy birthday again Simon! We were all so tired after two nights of partying but it was all very worth it.
A would-be armed robber in Russia was attempting to rob a hairdresser but was overpowered by her Karate skills. She then hand-cuffed him to the storeroom radiator and was going to call the police but changed her mind. Instead, she fed him Viagra and raped him numerous times over the next four days.
When the hairdresser released him, he went to the hospital with a monster of a Viagra come-down (haha) and a torn frenelum – the part of the foreskin that connects to the head of the penis (OUCH!). He reported the matter to the police and when the hairdresser was also arrested,
“What a bastard,” Olga complained. “Yes, we had sex a couple of times. But I’ve bought him new jeans, gave him food and even gave him 1,000 roubles when he left.”
For his sake, I hope copious amounts of lubricant were used too. A torn penis is painful enough without the chafing.
I realised over the past two days that there are more friends in my social circle who read my blog than I had thought. So there’s the weekend that I can’t blog about, and there’s the weekend that I can. Either Perth is really small, or I’m really famous. I think it’s the former.
What can I say about the weekend then hmm? The common theme was alcohol. My Friday night out started at 10:30pm with drinks at Kitty’s house. Then her, Tham, Kayo and I headed out to Rise for the therapeutic sounds of loud and heavy, and repetitive electronic beats. Most exciting part of the night? Kayo accidentally stabbed me in the forehead with a straw. A straw! It left a small reddish circle, almost like an Indian bindi. The woman’s got mad Shaolin skills.
The next morning? Headache. Though here’s a tip for the drinkers amongst you: a bottle of Gatorade before sleeping eased the hangover a lot.
Saturday night we attended a farewell dinner at New Shima for Andrea who was moving to Melbourne. There were 10 girls and 4 guys on the table. I sat in the middle with most of the girls. The conversation that got me riveted throughout the night? Double-sided tape, breasts, bras and something called “chicken fillets”. It was awesome. Oh the food was excellent too – I can still remember the tastes of the ebi maki and beef tataki. Drool.
After dinner we headed to Metro City to party the night away. Entry was free before 11pm. Sweet! We decided to go to the upstairs bar which was dead except for my group. We had the dance floor and the bartender to ourselves. It was great. A lot of drinks were consumed and I remember doing the spinning sprinkler dance a few times which my friends thought were hilarious. I think there might be some photos on Facebook coming up soon. Don’t ever say I don’t do anything for youse!
Then, somehow we all got separated from each other. I think that’s par for the course of a night out that involves alcohol. When I decided to leave Metro, I offered a drive home to a girl whom I’ve met on the night. Nothing happened. And I’m not proud of it.
Around 2:30am, I found out that Kayo and Kitty were at Dragon Karaoke so I decided to join them there before heading home. I bumped into a cousin there and had one more drink for the night. Over the next 2 hours, I talked shit with him, the girls, their boyfriends and then right before we left, we had instant noodles. Nissin Cup Noodles FTW!
It’s been a while since the last time I’d pondered the reasons that I’m single, so I thought it’s about time I that I do it once again. Recent events have reminded me of this story indirectly, and I have told it a few times before to different people.
It happened to a friend of a friend and I shall name the couple John and Mary. So it was John’s birthday coming up, and Mary asked John what did he want to do to celebrate. John had said that he didn’t want to celebrate, and that they should just buy some takeaway food, a bottle of wine, go rent a movie and relax at home.
Mary didn’t feel the same and insisted that a celebration be had. She said that she will cook something and will buy a cake too. On the day, Mary tried to call John at work. He didn’t answer his phone due to being busy at work. When John returned her call a few hours later, Mary was annoyed about the late reply and asked John to pick up the birthday cake. That wouldn’t be that bad except the cake shop was a 20-minute drive from John’s work. Now John was getting annoyed because he had to use up his lunch hour to pick up the birthday cake that he didn’t ask for.
Nevermind, John thought. Once he gets home, he can relax like he wanted to. When he got home, Mary was cooking up a storm. He did the good boyfriend thing and helped her out. “I will relax after dinner”, he thought.
Dinner was had and it was nice. John said to Mary that he will wash up the dirty dishes and to just leave them in the sink. He then got a beer and sat down in front of the TV. He didn’t get up for an hour or so. Mary had seen the dirty dishes still in the sink and asked John to wash them.
John said that he will do it after watching another show. Mary said why couldn’t he do it now. John said that he just wanted to relax for a while. Mary said that if he’d wash the dishes, he could get to relaxing earlier. Both of them were getting on each other’s nerves now.
And you could guess where the conversation was headed. “I didn’t want any of this anyway! If we had gotten takeaway there’d be no dishes to wash!” “I can’t believe you just said that! I went out of my way to cook and to order a cake and you don’t even appreciate it!”
And on and on …
Heheh. I can see it from both points of view. I understand why Mary did the things that she did but it’s almost like she was forcing John to appreciate her. Let’s not forget that it was his birthday and he had stated that he wanted to relax and not do much. If Mary had listened to him instead of insisting on having his birthday her way, all of this could have been avoided.
As for how this applies to me being single? Well, I’ve seen this scenario and other similar ones happen to different guys and I am always on the side of the guy in the relationship. Why? I can appreciate my girlfriend doing nice things for me but not when I’ve already said there’s no need for them, or if I’m made to appreciate her out of guilt. So when she does the nice things for me, and I’m not as enthusiastic or as grateful as she’d hoped, we’d have an argument back and forth about how ungrateful I am to have her, and why doesn’t she ever listen to me – all punctuated by her yelling at frequent intervals, “That’s not the point!”
And while we are arguing, I’ll be hearing this over and over again in my head,
Just got my copy of [PROTOTYPE] – the video game where you are an infected biological weapon of a super-human being running and flying around New York City mass-murdering, bashing and destroying things with total abandon and mayhem. In other words, a totally awesome toy for stress-relief!
I got it from India via ebay for about $65 (including delivery), compared to about $90 for the cheapest retail price here. Bargain!
If I don’t answer my phone the next few days, you know what I’m doing.
