I am absolutely giddy with excitment with this discovery.
Let's say you are at amazon.com and you see a book that you like. You want to check to see if it is available at the National Library, so you have to open a new screen, type in the National Library webpage address, load up the catalogue, type in the title, etc. and wait for the results.
Did you know that you can shorten all of the above into a single step by installing NLB's bookmarklet? It is fantastic! Just click a single button and you will know if it is available at the Library, at which branch, and if it is on loan!
Install the bookmarklet from here.
See detailed step-by-step instructions here (thanks mel)
And read about other NLB tips and tricks here.
I'm going book-surfin' now!
Thursday, June 30, 2005
National Library Tips and Tricks
My dream
For the past two nights, I've woken myself up by shouting "Ring!" in the middle of the night.
No I wasn't dreaming about a telephone, or a wedding ring, or the one ring that rules them all. I was dreaming about...
Ringworms.
I had these red bumps shaped in an incomplete circle all over my arms and my legs. I remember trying to get someone to cut my skin to let the worms out. I was squeezing my inner right knee for that person to cut my skin, and that was when I cried, "Ring!", and woke myself up.
It is a strange dream -- one that has popped out of nowhere. Usually I can trace my dreams to real life -- like if I stepped on a worm in the day, or if I've had rashes recently, or mosquito bites, etc., but this time, absolutely nothing. When I woke up, I kept touching the spot on my inner knee to see if there were any residual bumps there. I was very relieved to feel smooth and cool skin.
I looked up a dream dictionary and it says this about dreaming about ringworms:
Interpretation:
Allowing others to get under your skin, allowing them to eat away at you
Running rings around yourself
Going round and round in circles, not making progress
Feeling inadequate or unclean
Hmmm. Very interesting...
Splish Splash went the shoe with the hole
Date | Place | Time (mins) | Distance (km) | km/h |
| Wednesday, June 29, 2005 | Barker | 19.4 | 3.5 | 10.8 |
It drizzled. I wore the top my sister sent me for my birthday. The top looks and feels like a swimming costume -- it has a built in shelf bra ("Dry motion control" it says on the tag) and is made of a sweat-wicking fabric. After the run, with the rain and the sweat, it did feel like I just stepped out of a pool.
Read More!Wednesday, June 29, 2005
Moses E. Herzog is a modern-day hero. As his life crumbles about him -- his wife leaves him for his best friend, he gives up a scholarly career -- he writes unsent letters to both the living and the dead, revealing his innermost thoughts. At the edge of sanity, Moses' words are startingly true, deep with thought and emotion. At the end of the book, Moses thinks:
Oh boy, oh boy!
I am listed! Lonely Runner (who ran 24 hours straight at East Coast to raise funds for tsunami victims) listed me last night!
It is such an honour to be listed among the REAL runners that I feel like I should be posting about my pace, my heartbeat, the route I took like madman, but that would just be too embarrassing. Seriously, all the runners in that blog are very zai (good). So I will stick to the literary side of running. These are the top three reasons why I run:
1. The sense of accomplishment
Running is one of the few things I can control in my life right now. I'm somewhat stuck in a corner in my job and relationships, and being able to set running goals and meet them gives me that extra motivation to cope with the rest of life.
2. To prevent osteoporosis
I am petite. I'm also Chinese and female, which means I have all the genes for osteoporosis later in life. Running (unlike swimming) is a weight-bearing exercise that helps build up my bone density. Bone mass peaks at age 30, at which point it starts to decrease, and so I'm trying to run as much as I can before I reach the big 3-0.
3. Oh, the places you will go!
And the things you will see! Nothing beats the light of the setting sun reflecting off the water at MacRitchie Reservoir. Or the feeling of your first 10km along the coast of East Australia. Or running in the rain at Bishan Park. Or weaving in between ancient Chinese gravestones at Bukit China, Malacca. Or nodding and smiling at people with large dogs. Or simply finding yourself again...
So what are your reasons?
Tuesday, June 28, 2005
Why I am against the fare hike
This appeared in The Straits Times on 29 January 2005. It was a Special Report on the poor in Singapore.
Madam Rozario is a widow who lives alone. She gets $260 a month from a community development council. If you add up what she spends on rent, utilities, telephone and meals, it is still less than what she spends on transport.
The ground is black with mourning
Remember me raving about streetdirectory.com's jogging route calculator six months ago? Well, they have decided to make it a paid service only. You can input the points, but to see the final distance, you will have to pay something in the range of $0.53. Today's map is in black to mourn this loss. But we will survive, there is always string and paper. I calculated the distance this time by using string on the computer screen. Not perfect, but hey, my string cheaper than 50 cents okay?
Monday, June 27, 2005
Kopitiam*
There is a certain solidarity among the working class that comforts me this Monday morning when my colleague is no longer here. Today I stopped by Tekka market for breakfast and sat with the Indian men and Chinese men, all of us holding our cups of kopi and teh, staring into space. Two Indian men held a conversation in Tamil above my head and the only word I caught of their conversation was this – “kopi” – the league of the Monday Morning Sufferers, the disenchanted, disfranchised, overused – the kopi drinkers. Perhaps this is what the Irish coal miners feel at the end of the day, spending their wages for the day at the local pub while their family go hungry at home. I am much too sentimental for my good. I will cheer myself up with a post on the tale of the never-ending sari. Till later.
* kopitiam - coffeeshop; kopi - coffee; teh - tea
Thursday, June 23, 2005
Running in Singapore I: Where to find that elusive locker
I'll be posting information here that I've found relevant in my amateur running romps around Singapore. Today's topic is : Where to find that elusive locker.
Unless you drive, get driven around, or plan to run with cargo pants stuffed with your wallet/ mobile phone/ EZ-link card/ make-up/ towel etc., lockers are essential. Knowing where they are and how much they cost is also important to a happy running romp.
MacRitchie Reservoir
As far as I know, lockers are located in two places at MacRitchie: outside the toilets by the carpark and at the top of the hill where the snack shop is. The small lockers ($1) are large enough to squeeze two backpacks in. The lockers only accept $1 coins, so make sure you have a dollar coin in your wallet before setting out. The toilets by the carpark can get really gross though, so I would suggest changing into your gear and emptying your bladder before getting to MacRitchie. The toilets at the top of the hill are marginally better. There is a watercooler at the top of the hill -- it is located outside the toilets near the vending machine. There are no showers that I know of.
AMK Library
If you need a place to deposit your stuff before a jog in AMK, you will be able to find cheap lockers at the AMK library (20 cents for the small locker; 50 cents for large). The small lockers accept only 20 cent coins, the large ones 50 cent coins. AMK library has a clean and large handicapped toilet for you to change into your running gear. (Remember to change into running gear BEFORE putting stuff in the locker though; turning your hp to "silent" would be considerate too) And if you are lucky, you may get a locker numbered "42", which is of course the answer to life, the universe, everything.
[Lockers at AMK library are now key-less! It may help to commit the code number that unlocks your locker to memory just in case the paper it issues you disintegrates in your sweaty running shorts.]
Central Library
Lockers are free! Sweet! Just make sure you don't leave it overnight or you'll be slapped with a fine.
Public Swimming Pools
The lockers at public swimming pools costs 20 cents for a small one and 40 cents for a large one. It doesn't make sense to use these when you are out for a running romp because it costs $1 just to enter the pool on weekdays ($1.30 weekends). Unless you are swimming, that is.
California Fitness
Bring a small lock. Bring two small locks if you want to lock up your track shoes while you are in the shower. They have shoe-sized lockers at the bottom row. The upper lockers are shaped in a “P”; the bottom lockers are shaped in a “d”. To open the lockers on top, use the grooves at the bottom of the arch of the “P” rather than the bottom of the stem. California Fitness discourages the use of combination locks – I assume it is because combination locks are easily picked. Shower foam, conditioner, shampoo, hairdryer and towels are provided (What kind of seventh fitness heaven is this?). As an extra tip, there are no hooks for you to hang your stuff in the shower.
YCK Gym
Entry fee to the gym is $2.50 and the lockers take two 20 cents coins. The lockers in the restrooms are almost twice as large as the ones outside for the same price. There are shelves too if you have a trusting type of personality and don't want to use the lockers. The shower and the watercooler in the female restroom are excellent. One very important point: towels are compulsory in the gym. They threaten to kick you out of the gym if you don't have your towel at all times. I carried mine like an blue furry ID.
5:30pm
It was almost 5:30pm, time to get ready to go home. The sky was still bright outside her office; the possibilities for dinner and entertainment beckoned like glistening jewels -- which should I choose? Dinner and movie, the classic Singapore date? Badminton at the Community Centre?But it is always fully booked by twits who book three months in advance, this selfish act perpetuated by Resident Committee members who say, brazenly, that they have to allow it because the "RC is profit-making" -- "I ought to write in to forum one day to complain. Profit-making, my foot!
Her thoughts drifted away down a well-trod indignant path. Suddenly she had the terrifying thought -- what if I were to spend the next 60 years of my life griping about the system, flesh against brick, flesh against brick, until the flesh gives way? -- but that thought quickly drifted away.
She was meeting her boyfriend after work. She had a miserable day at work; she counted the minutes to lunch and to the time she could leave again. It was a relatively un-busy period for her department, having tied up a major, significant event successfully just last month. Her colleagues in other departments were jealous of her free time, but she could not understand why they were jealous. She would rather be busy anyday than to cope with the dark, embarrassing alleyways of her mind.
Right now, she had to shake off the old melabcholy so that she could at least be tolerable company later. She tried to think happy thoughts -- thoughts of her dog at home, of her best friend overseas, of brown paper packages tied up with string... But she reached a dead-end. She picked up her things, and walked out of the door. Another day; another forced smile; another day.
Wednesday, June 22, 2005
Links
Electronic Frontier Foundation has published a legal guide for bloggers, including a FAQ on online defamation law.
MacDonald's in America has a secret menu? (via Daryl Sng)
Merrily we go around
Date | Place | Time (mins) | Distance (km) | Pace (km/h) |
| Friday, June 17 2005 | Barker | 43.8 | 7.2 | 9.9 |
This is the fastest time I've done the 7.2km Barker route to-date. The last time I did it in 45.6mins. Come July 27, I will have kept a whole year's record of runs. I love my running log! Watch this space for the final tally.
Also, S got the July issue of the Runner's Magazine from the library. July, my friend! It is like reading it fresh off the press. Gotta love the library in Singapore.
In this issue, they had 6 pictures of "rave runs" from the top 25 cities to run in America. San Francisco, New York, Colorado Springs, even Austin Texas for some reason. Beautiful pics, all of them. It all looks so... un-humid. *envy*
I want to send in a picture of someone running with the Esplanade in the backdrop.
Read More!Tuesday, June 21, 2005
What does your screen name say of you?
from lancerlord
What is the hidden meaning in your name?
This is what my real name means: Building, Planner, Manager, Solid, Stable, Security, Traditional, Practical, Hard work, Systematic, Cautious, Organization, Discipline, Thriftiness, Groundedness
And this is what "mis_nomer" means: Reevaluating, The inner life, Solitary, Loner, Mystical, Deep, Philosophical, Analytical, Intuitive, Perfectionist, Specialization, Skeptical, Privacy, Retreat, Sanctuary, Contemplation, Recuperation, Eccentricity
Interesting, isn't it? Perhaps it points to the gulf between what I feel I ought to be, and what I want to be?
Also, a snippet from shawn cuthill's life:
Lukas: Daddy, can we make a list of vegetables?
Daddy: OK, which ones.
Lukas: Tomatoes...carrots....
Daddy: What about apples?Lukas: No they are fruits :)
Daddy (proud of his son's ability to tell the difference between fruits & vegetables): Good Lukas, what's another vegetable?!?
Lukas: Chicken nuggets
Monday, June 20, 2005
This cup
Oh mystery!
That the love that cannot be contained
in a million far-flung galaxies,
Should be contained in this cup,
Held against my lips?
Oh mystery!
That when I drain this cup in greediness,
Sinning as I drink;
No sooner as it is empty,
It is filled again?
Oh mystery!
Sift me like flour;
Purge me anew,
Strengthen my knees,
‘Till I drink with you.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
