Episode 1073: It Came In The Mail...

All five parts of The Resident Alien have arrived, so that's my reading plans sorted for the next couple of days! Shouldn't take long, since they're graphic novels. My graduation photographs have also finally arrived, literally at the very end of the six weeks the company estimated delivery would take at the most. (I graduated on a Thursday.) Offer letter from Warwick also arrived, as requested, so I'm going to scan it and send a copy to MOE, then there's really absolutely nothing they can still need me to provide before my signing can be arranged. Was going to start my visa application today, but it turns out the online system isn't available today (or yesterday, for that matter), so I'm going to have to do it tomorrow, if there's time before I need to meet Bernard at NUS to collect a couple of books he's bought for me. Like I was telling Shirley yesterday, my current game plan is to get one thing done everyday. It's working out well so far. Today was sorting out chords, which I've kind of done. Just need to actually check the arrangement before sending out copies to the music team.

Episode 1072: Selamat Hari Raya!

Totally forgot that it's Hari Raya Puasa today. Public holidays are clearly wasted on people like me. Tried to buy the Interlogue volumes that I'm missing from the Ethos Books website, but it wouldn't play nice with my Visa, so I'm probably going to end up paying by cheque. Great to see that the publisher still has the titles in stock though, considering that the second volume on poetry, the one most relevant to my dissertation needs, was published more than a decade ago. Have e-mailed my proposal and module choices to the department, so it's back to waiting. Speaking of which, all the graduation stuff I bought has yet to arrive, apart from the departmental photographs, which were amazingly prompt, considering posting to non-UK addresses usually takes forever. If the stuff doesn't arrive within a fortnight, I think it's time to start chasing the companies responsible. Have also finally ordered a bookshelf from Scanteak, so all those boxes of books are finally going to be proudly displayed, if not always read. I mean, I was going to finish reading the two dozen or so issues of Timothy McSweeney's Quarterly Concern that I ordered earlier this year, but so far, I've only made it through Issues 1 and 2!

Episode 1071: Proposal Written (At Last!)

Given how long I've been putting it off, writing the 500-word proposal took only about an hour. Granted, I'd been mulling over it for weeks now, so it was really a question of getting the wording right in the proposal. I think it's convincing enough to get approved, and the actual thesis is going to have to be refined through workshops anyway. Next thing to do is settle my visa application and book an appointment. Still no word from Vital.org about signing anything, frustratingly. Anyway, I recently bought Troy Chin's graphic novel series, The Resident Tourist and all the back issues of McSweeney's Wholphin (steeply discounted!), so I'm looking forward to their arrival in the post. Would've bought all the back issues of The Believer as well, especially with all the annual catch-up bundles being discounted, but the shipping to Singapore would literally have been as expensive as the magazines themselves. Guess I'll wait till I'm back at Warwick. Transatlantic shipping'll still cost a pretty penny (and then some), but not as much as to Singapore. Once I've got all the back issues of all the various magazines published by McSweeney's, I'm going to take out a combo subscription to all three!

Episode 1070: Tony Tan It Is...

In the end, the finish of PE 2011 proved to be as nail-biting as GE 2011, with recounts meaning the result wasn't official till I was in bed. Tony Tan is now the seventh President of Singapore, by a whisker of a margin. Had the Equinox high tea in the afternoon, where the desserts were better than the rest of the food and the mango juice was excellent. Not sure what the draw of the place is though, apart from the view from the 69th floor, which is admittedly excellent. Anyway, I still haven't done anything about my proposal, although I've continued to read and schedule submissions. Currently, the queue is holding steady at about eight months, so I don't think there's any need to double up posts from October onwards to trim it, which I was seriously considering doing. If writers insist on having instant publishing gratification, well, they're not going to get it from this editor. Especially when they should've been forewarned, assuming they even looked at the site before submitting! Time to distract myself with the returning episode of Doctor Who...

Episode 1069: PE 2011

It's not every year you get to vote twice in four months. That said, I can honestly say that I don't care who wins the presidential election. Wouldn't it be nice if reality had a fast-forward button? Then we could find out who wins and all go to bed, instead of waiting for recounts. (I freely admit that if I stay up to hear the results, it's literally only because like pretty much every other Singaporean following GE 2011, I think Yam Ah Mee is amazing!) The actual voting this time was even more anticlimactic than when I was in London in May, as it was at North View Secondary School, right beside my block. The polling agents were momentarily at a loss at what to do because I'm still registered to vote overseas, but they eventually got their act together. Haven't made any progress with my dissertation proposal. Instead, I've been playing various versions of 'Awakening' and 'Forever Reign', trying to figure out which version's the best to use when I'm leading worship at COGS in September. 'Awakening' is especially tricky because the Chris Tomlin and various Hillsong versions all have noticeably different arrangements, even though the core riffs of the song are kept throughout.

Episode 1068: Nobody Does Local Like BooksActually

Met Shirley for books and coffee before cell. Managed to find enough stuff to buy to use up all my BooksActually vouchers, and the store now has a permanent 20% discount when you buy three or more books, which I think is great. Cyril Wong came into the store just as we were about to leave, and I could have asked him to autograph the pamphlet of his which I'd just bought, but I didn't in the end. Quite pleased with my purchases from BooksActually, as usual, but especially of Cherian George's Singapore: The Air-conditioned Nation. Mr Purvis brought it up so many times throughout my JC years, I feel slightly silly for not having sought out a copy sooner and reading it. Coffee was at The Plain, which like Forty Hands where we had coffee with Claudia the last time, is one of those niche cafés that've popped up in Singapore as an alternative to chains like Starbucks. I'm not much of a coffee connoisseur, so to me, places like The Plain are more about the chilled ambience than the coffee anyway!

Episode 1067: Singapore's Knightsbridge

I known for a while that H&M is coming to Singapore. What I didn't realise was that the store is at Knightsbridge, a rebranded mall along Orchard Road. Also didn't know that another tenant is going to be the second Asian outlet of Abercrombie & Fitch! Can finally fulfil my single remaining shallow sartorial aspiration, the next time I'm back in Singapore. Of course, the Singapore store has promised to continue being discriminatory, I mean, discriminating, in its hiring practices, in life with the brand's image. I'm slightly sceptical because if the crowds I squeeze through in local shopping belts are any indication, attractive people of A&F calibre are more the exception than the norm here, unless they're not actually Singaporeans. I predict the employees are more likely than not to end up consisting of pan-Asian models, rather than those with a more 'local' look. Regardless, all this implied criticism isn't going to stop me picking up a few pieces from the A&F store once it opens, prices depending. Too bad the parent company has already terminated the more age-appropriate (for me) Ruehl No.925 brand!

Episode 1066: Success!

Sweet! Finally made some progress with my dissertation proposal, so I should definitely be able to get it done over the weekend now. Also think I've managed to adjust the Mega Manager settings so that the file downloads don't interfere with the rest of the family connecting to the WiFi. Grabbed fewer files overnight than I expected, but at least I know Mega Manager can hum along nicely 24/7. On an equally happy note, I'm staying in Heronbank for my MA! Accepted the contract yesterday, so now it's whether I can make it to the UK a week early to attend LIPPfest in Leeds. Would really like to, although I'm not sure what I'm going to do about accommodation. Doesn't seem like the Radisson still has rooms at the festival special rate. In any case, I haven't signed anything with MOE, so I haven't booked my flight either. (Or made an appointment to do my visa for that matter. Probably should get around to doing that, especially since the application can be completed online now.) Geosynchron is read, and I must say, I liked how the ending was more speculative than conclusive, even if it was a bit hastily done in my opinion, but I can see how such an ending to the trilogy would be a major problem for any network trying to make a TV adaptation. As far as finishes go, it's in the league of Lost, I reckon.

Episode 1065: £8.97 Makes A Lot Of Difference

Am £8.97 poorer, but getting my TV shows back is going to be easier than I thought. Can't imagine why I didn't think of this solution in the first place! Now the only tedious thing is having to click through the individual encrypted links (although trawling the Internet for unencrypted URLs is also feasible, and rather less tedious), but at least it's faster than P2P. I might have been a bit optimistic though, in saying to Shirley that I'll have the contents of my external hard drive back by tomorrow. Thinking of adding a couple of shows to my TV collection anyway, since my Megaupload premium subscription lasts a month. Like Buffy The Vampire Slayer. I feel like I've missed out, not having seen such a seminal television series, and one created by Joss Whedon, no less. It's practically criminal, right? (I suspect Dan might agree with me on this.) Now that this problem is well on its way to being solved, I can kick back and finish up reading Geosynchron. Frankly, the whole Jump 225 trilogy is just a TV series waiting to happen, and if the economics of TV production and advertising weren't what they are, and David Louis Edelman had a higher profile (and was willing to sell the adaptation rights), I'm pretty sure that series would have been made by now. I realise I actually say that a lot about books that I enjoy, but I can't decide if that's a good or bad thing.

Episode 1064: All Good Things...

Caught up with reading and scheduling submissions for The Cadaverine last night, thinking to have a crack at my dissertation proposal. Felt really tired though, so ended up reading Geosynchron and watching Ju-on: Shiroi Rōjo/Kuroi Shōjo on mioTV. It's a double bill of sorts, made to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the original film, which I've never actually seen before. Last night, I watched Serendipity, a John Cusack/Kate Beckinsale romantic comedy. Loved it (especially Beckinsale's English accent) and it was one of the rare occasions when I thought it was actually worth having mioTV. Anyway, Eunoia Review saw a huge spike in visitor traffic last week, after we published this story. Even reached 200 views last Wednesday, a new record and surpassing the previous high which came not long after the journal became eligible to appear on Duotrope Digest's listings of the top 25 swiftest and most approachable markets. Seems like the increase in visitors was only temporary though, as the numbers are back to the usual average of around 70+. Ah well, it was going to happen eventually...