I've been listening to This Never Happened Before continuously (yes, the defected version) and the more I listen to it, the more I miss the currently-non-existent boyfriend. 5 days w/o talking to each other. I wonder if I'd last 5 months (hmmm...)

For now, I am going to start listening to other songs (and the occasional This Never Happened Before because it is such a beautiful song). I reckon the boyfriend doesn't even notice that I've been missing (for now, it'd probably take an orbituary to appear on the front page of every major newspaper in the country for him to take notice). I'll just see how long the 'homo-sapien-girlfriend-doesn't-exist' thing will last.

I caught the Lake House today, it was an impromptu decision by Teresa, Eng Hooi and me. Lol, the funny thing is despite being great friends for over 2 years, this is the first time we've caught a movie together. Anyway, Teresa and I wanted to watch the Lake House (rather badly lol) and so we did. We sauntered into the theatre at 4.40pm and caught it.

I guess I was in the mood for something really sappy and romantic and I have to say I enjoyed it A LOT. Thinking about the plot and well, the movie in general, leaves this smile on my face. One of the sweetest and most romantic films I can remember. And yes, I am sitting here, right in front of my computer, listening to a cocked up version of This Never Happened Before by Paul McCartney (there's a blip in the centre of the song, I can't find a decent version) which happens to be the theme song of the movie, as I'm typing this. And I have this silly smile just thinking of the movie. It's great, it really is.

I find the song, This Never Happened Before, awfully romantic. Just check out the lyrics:

I'm very sure, this never happened to me before
I met you and now I'm sure
This never happened before

Now I see, this is the way it's supposed to be
I met you and now I see
This is the way it should be

This is the way it should be, for lovers
They shouldn't go it alone
It's not so good when you're on your own

So come to me, now we can be what we want to be
I love you and now I see
This is the way it should be
This is the way it should be

This is the way it should be, for lovers
They shouldn't go it alone
It's not so good when you're on your own

I'm very sure, this never happened to me before
I met you and now I'm sure
This never happened before (This never happened before)
This never happened before (This never happened before)
This never happened before (This never happened before)
This never happened before

Sweet, isn't it? I thought so too. I really want to have it on mp3 but the only one I can seem to find from websites all have this blip in the centre of the clip.

Anyway, spoiler alert. The movie's about a pair of lovers who communicates to each other through a time-travelling mailbox. Yes, once you get over the lapse in logic, you'll find that it's really a beautiful movie. Kate is a doctor living in 2006 who's just moved out of the lake house to take up a job in Chicago. Alex is an architect living in 2004 who receives Kate's note in the mailbox in which she asks Alex to forward her mail to her new address. They somehow realise that they're living in different times and try to meet, only that Alex fails to meet Kate at the designated restaurant in 2006. Kate tries moving on, Alex doesn't give up and continues writing. Alex moves out of the lake house and into Kate's apartment (remember, Kate lives 2 years after Alex), leaves Kate a present in her future apartment. She finds them. Kate moves on and hires an architect and that architect happens to be Alex's brother (that's in 2008). She sees Alex's drawing and enquires about him, only to find out that he's killed on Valentine's Day in 2006 and she was there, and tried to resuscitate him. She finally gets the epiphany and understands why he didn't make their date (he was already dead) and rushes to the magical mail box to try to save him. Meanwhile, back in 2006, Alex realises why he didn't make the date as well (as she mentioned in a prior letter that she saw someone get killed on Valentine's Day on 2006). Kate waits by the mail box on 14 Feb 2008 where she tells Alex to meet her in the life-saving note and he waits 2 years and makes it. Our 2 leads finally meet. And there you have it, the happy ending.

I guess if you're in the mood for something romantic, this would be the film for you. Out of 5 stars, I'd give it 4. Yes, I was in the mood for something romantic, and I wasn't disappointed. I only wanted to sever the vocal chords of the secondary school kiddies who were torturing me with their live commentaries and explanations to their dense schoolmates of the plot.

Anyway, if anyone manages to find a nice version of the song This Never Happened Before (or even better, the soundtrack), please be kind and inform me. Thank you!

that the boyfriend's been playing too much computer games. Lol. Some 4 days after he reinstalled the SIMS 2, the university and nightlife expansion packs, and then added on the business expansion pack, I haven't seen him online in well.. 4 days???

Yes, he officially has a new girlfriend, and her name's the SIMS 2. Guys..*rolls eyes*.

I'll be nice and cut him some slack because he works (and I don't, mainly because I enter and start university in 2 weeks) and can only play at night and over the weekends. I can play all day long if I want to, but I haven't been doing that because I've been away at a chalet for the entire day on Monday and Tuesday and I was out today with my ex-colleagues (from my 5 month stint at a rather renowned auditing firm). Tomorrow, I'm returning to my junior college (where I suffered for 2 years) AND meeting my buddies from junior college. Friday... I'm off to the university for some briefing, might take all day too.

I don't feel the urge to really get involved in the game, probably because I've already pushed one business to the top (but it's still in deficit, that will be my next goal; to get it out of the red).

Anyway, next week will be interesting, with Matriculation Day on Tuesday (1 August 2006), declaration of my major by noon the next day and then bidding on the 3rd and 4th. On the 7th, (the Monday after next week), I'm off to school for Week 0 of my first semester (I personally hate the ideas of week zeroes, why must we start at zero? Can't we start at one as most normal people do? Why zero? The last 2-3 years of my school life in uniform was spent having week zeroes as well, whatever happened to the traditional starting-the-new-school-year-with-week-one? It's almost as if I'm back in that uniformed group when I was in secondary school where our seniors were sadistic enough to make us recount our push-ups from zero, yes to include zero in our counts, whenever they were dissatisfied).

I just spotted this on the ChannelNewsAsia website:

PTC Chairman says timing of new service standards for buses not linked to fare issue
By Asha Popatlal, Channel NewsAsia | Posted: 26 July 2006 1555 hrs

SINGAPORE: Public Transport Council Chairman Gerard Ee says the announcement of new service standards for buses was not meant as a precursor to any possible fare increases next month, and that the timing was merely coincidental.

"We can choose to do whichever piece of the work first but there is a certain logic to it - some will interpret it as a sweetening of the pill - but imposing standards is a priority and the question of fares will come later on," said Mr Ee.

He did add, however, that operational efficiencies, which include incidents like the recent NorthEast Line stoppage, will be taken into consideration when looking at any applications for fare increases. - CNA /dt

And then I'm thinking that these despicable public transport operators can simply widen the frequency from 5-35mins to 5-60 minutes just so that the frequency by which their buses come won't deviate by more than 5 minutes from the stipulated frequency. People have despicable ways of dealing with things. I live at the extreme eastern corner of the island and my university is almost at the extreme western end. I need a good 105mins (if I'm lucky, 120 if I'm not) to get to the campus. Bus fares are going up, train fares are going up. Taxi fares have ALREADY gone up. University tuition fees are FOREVER going up. Movie ticket prices are up. The only thing NOT going up is my allowance, I bet it'll still be that $5/day that I've been getting since I was 13. $5 a day as my daily allowance, I'll need more than that just to cover transport. The Consumer Price Index (CPI) must be jumping by the truckload instead of the mere 1++% that we're always led to believe.

I find it unbelieavable that when the price of everything (including groceries and medical bills) increase so substantially, the CPI only increases by a minute percent. It doesn't feel like 1% to be, it feels more like 10%! On Monday, I topped up my fare card to $15 and I came home today with only about $7 left in it. And I haven't been doing much travelling, I haven't been venturing to the other corners of the island. $8 for 6 bus rides and 1 train ride. Maybe it's cheap in some other countries, but I'm starting to feel the pinch because I used to be able to go EVERYWHERE and pay 45 cents for a bus/train ride regardless of the distance I travel because I was a student. I've started calculating which methods are the cheapest ways to get from A to B. Oh well....

I am off to bed now, it's past 11pm even though the HORRIBLE weather has rendered me an insomniac. I lie in bed for hours, tossing and turning in frustration from the humidity. My airconditioner is down, I shut the windows when it gets too late (because it's the Hungry Ghost Festival and I am superstitious enough to think that something will fly in in the middle of the night, not to mention I heard 2 rather monstrous shrieks from outside my bedroom window when I reside on the 3rd floor just 2 nights back and I am still rather freaked out by it), the fan's not strong enough. And when I do sleep, I can't seem to sleep for more than 4 hours at a stretch. I feel asleep at close to 2am this morning, woke up at 3++am and ended up watching a rerun of the Ellen Degeneres (is that how I spell her name?) show and slept past 4am, only to wake up a little before 8am, and then got a negligible amount of sleep before the alarm clock went off. So yes, I am going to bed to try to get some sleep. Hopefully tonight will be a more restful night.

Phoebe

P.S. I'm supposed to plan the date for this weekend, with the boyfriend going MIA, I suppose I can skip that one now. *Chuckles*