there were things that happened before australia, of course, the week before i left:

monday:

woodlands library, to get a copy of christoph ransmayr's the dog king. the library needs to relabel all their books with four letters instead of the present three, particularly the macs. nothing seemed to be the right plane book. ran into my parents on the train and all went to taiseng for dinner - braised goose meat, heichor, steamed fish, baicai fried with salted fish, and lots of ornee with kimkway.

tuesday:

poach drove over (we're taking turns, instead of me going to bedok all the time, she says) and we went out to hougang mall and ate at orange lantern. (i was especially pleased about the three-way pork, just like that which darryl so enjoys at pho pasteur.) poach is going to climb mount kinabalu over the september hols! so sporty! i grumbled, thinking of her recent 2.4 gold award, because i certainly haven't run it in that kind of time since jc and probably would take two days to hobble even halfway. then we come home and i foist many books on poach for reading over the national day hols (including charmed life, the apprentices, good night mister tom.) and then we find the rgs yearbook and gasp at ourselves (addy: you can watch the ants make love. su-lin: drawing venn diagrams with compasses, shulin xian sheng. that is also when i discover that minyin won the chemistry prize in sec 3! sneaky! (and sec 4 too, apparently, as i'm peeping at her cv.)

wednesday:

had tea at fosters with su-lin and julian. su-lin made (for julian's self-improvement) a list of things that julian was not allowed to do (tell her she's a gay man, nitpick on her use of scientific language, make pseudo-apologies), or must do (carry things, take her out, treat her like a girl) so as not to be considered mean. (item 3: he's not allowed to have a list about her shortcomings) near the end of tea yeen teck rang up to ask if i wanted to go to the campaign for the awarding of the public service star to jbj, so of course i said yes, on account of the title. it was a huge disappointment, but later. got home just in time to see the march past of the national day guard of honour contingents, but missed the bits i liked (the arrival of the members of parliament.)

thursday: helped my mother conduct practice oral exams for her kids. minded sarah and ariel (we played the jungle game - i have a new desklamp that made a splendid setting sun, and the removal of my old bed made for new topography. a gorge, i remember, is a narrow steep sided valley formed by the upstream retreat of a waterfall. this blanket here is a waterfall.) dinner at paramount hotel that night - haven't been in the marine parade region for years. black pepper venison, and pigeon soup, and garlic doumiao, and a jolly big steamed fish. (i can't understand fish steaks. who'd eat fish that hasn't got eyes and a tail?)

friday: visited grandmother - went to see with the jbj play with yt. bloodless and rather tedious. just moments of entertainment but, ultimately, tame and lame. i actually saw the real jbj on a tv documentary on cna the next day, and thought he's worth watching, not that ridiculous play. half the civil service turned up and laughed at all the in-jokes. what rank is pps, i asked yt afterwards. personal private secretary, he explained. ohh, like bernard woolley, i said, revelation dawning. i have just discovered that yeen teck, with his idiotically high mfa salary, paid a grand total of $96 in taxes last year. i am simply infuriated by this news and i tell it to von as soon as i get home, in the knowledge that he would be infuriated too. (he was.)

sat: ariel and sarah came to play (they got into my suitcase and offered to stowaway to melbourne with me, and their mother was very pleased (no kids! peace!) but i said i might get in trouble for human trafficking and sent them home with a starfruit and a wang wang craker each.) ariel: can we play with your makeup? the day before i'd picked out some make up on their last legs and sarah and ariel turned themselves into warriors. warpaint, i agree, when they came to show me their work, and pack them home to launch an ambush on their unsuspecting parents. in the afternoon, with two aunts and two cousins, off to lao beijing (novena square) for northern chinese tea - fried chives buns were very good, xiaolongbao very poor indeed. muachee, and white garlic cold pork, guotie, and ground almond with white woodear fungus.

and then i find myself in melbourne.