Day 6



right. only tiling work today. and only one guy did all the work with some others coming in to look see and chit chat with him. me i sat in my room most of the day and slept for a while. today so far is the most relaxing day. cos i get to hang out in my room instead of the corridor. only thing is still no toilet but it isn't that bad. a little used to it now. i kind of like walking around downstairs anyway. now i'm downstairs so often i feel a little more part of the neighbourhood in some way.



oh a side note, are channel 8 drama serials getting a bit too postmodern or what. i haven't been the most faithful follower of double happiness but in the about ten over episodes i've watched, there've been ironic references, in about at least 4 episodes, to the show being a drama serial by the characters in the show. even in the last episode they couldn't resist a final dig. having that guy write a story called "double happiness" based on the happenings in the lives of the characters in the show "double happiness". what's this. 2046? i mean it's just a little bit of an overkill. and what about the totally snook "twist" near the end of the show where chen zhicai seemed to die and jiaming seemed to have in the aftermath married jiaxi? that's just a leeeeetle contrived hey. the kid calling jiaming papa cos he's the godfather and chen zhicai daddy cos he's the real father. the drama is getting stretched a little bit too thin.



anyway not much photos today cos it's just one type of work.









as i said. tiling works today. so here are the piles of tiles all ready to be cut and stuck on the bathroom and toilet walls.









right this should be up yesterday but i forgot. the ceiling beam and the area above the kitchen windows have been cemented and plastered over so they're nice and white and smooth now.









here's the bathroom all tiled up. nice and pretty. well it would be nice and pretty if the guy didn't leave all his stuff in the bathroom to continue tiling the floors tomorrow. but it's alright.









the toilet all tiled up. except for the bit for the toilet roll holder.



yeah that's it.

pretty nifty. i went to try it out after i saw this. it makes a pretty big folded tee. but hey it's pretty nifty all the same.

Day 5



remember when i said that the first two days are supposed to be the dirtiest. i was wrong. today was the dirtiest. cos of all the cementing work done today. man there was cement everywhere. luckily after today it's not so bad anymore i hope. i get to hide in my room again from tomorrow onwards cos all the work that's left has got to do with the bathroom and toilet. yeah i still don't have the toilet and bathroom but i'm getting it back on thursday night if everything goes as planned so hurrah for that. on to the photos.









what was going on today mainly as i said, was cementing. buckets and buckets of cement. the guy's cementing the bathroom and toilet walls.









this guy's cementing over the parts of the ceiling that are spalling. only at the end of the day when they all left did we realise they missed out a spot in the living room. oh well. have to tell them tomorrow and endure just that bit more of concrete then.









everything covered up in my room. for once i get to take a photo of my room and get almost everything in it. wanna know why. check out the next pic to find out.









that's cos the goddamn windows have been taken out. the view's great but i don't think i could get used to it.









new windows. it took the whole day for the windows to be changed. pretty spiffy looking innit.









here's a sequence showing the process of window changing. i'm not gonna describe everything so use your imagination. for all those interlacktuals out there who are confused. the order is from top left to bottom right. you know like reading comics. morons.









guess who. i snuck a picture of su-lynn as she came in for the only time today to check the waterproofing of the toilet and bathroom. it's not very clear but she's a pretty no-nonsense supervisor so i didn't want to be caught. was pretending to look into the bedroom while i pointed my camera at her. wouldn't ah chuan love to have this photo.









so here's the bathroom. newly cemented walls. and new windows too.









toilet. also newly cemented walls. and i'm sure there's new windows too but i forgot to take notice.



right so that's that. nothing much else exciting happened today. i got to take a short nap on my chair in my room in the afternoon as the workers went on with their work. it must have been nice seeing me sleeping in my room as they toiled. but i was really beat. oh well. 5 more days to go.

so this is where i beat it to yesterday. went over to ted's in the afternoon after going to an NTU talk with yaowei before that. we went early cos i wanted to and i took a nap there and then we started to cook the food we brought along for the dinner. chicken wings and fish. wings in the oven and fish in the hot oil.









ted's dogs. that's moey on the left and moe on the right. moe's the fattest dachshund you'll ever see while moey is just a noisy bitch. can't remember what breed she is though. always forget. one of the few photos in which they actually kept still long enough for me to get a decent shot of them.









yaowei and elaine frying up the dory in the kitchen. fry that fish yaowei. fry the fuck out of it. that blurry thing is ted's arm.









stuffed and sucking. my favourite muslim rash, wendy, grace, ansen and ted.









singapore just scored the first goal against indonesia. and everyone came over from the dining table to check out the action. which was good cos everyone decided to pay attention to the match after that.







and so after the match we walked to the old SA school site to do a little nightwalk and ghosthunt. i arm myself with my camera and took a bunch of pictures hoping to get something.







and look what i get. a whole bunch of orbs in this photo. this was the only photo that had "anything" in it. and there was "nothing" interesting in the school shots.









old woodsville site. given the old makeover so that it looks newer. it's dark as ass here. we're up on the old prefects' tower as i take this photo.









the tower we were at the top of. at the very top used to be a bell and rumour has it that a prefect hung himself from the bell once. which made the walk up pretty damn exciting. but not as exciting as the time in sec 3 when i had to walk up the tower myself in pitch darkness at 6am in the morning. that was fucking spooky.









and the obligatory group photo which i think we have never taken before. elaine, yaowei, wendy, rash, ted, grace, ansen, cong and me. titus left early. lit siong and joanna were not back in singapore yet. jasman wasn't there again.



upgrading resumes tomorrow and it's the day they change all the windows in the house. i have to move my bed and some stuff later before i sleep. man what a pain. i'm beginning to get really fucking sick of this upgrading.



oh well.

Day 4



this is a day late cos i got back too late last night and was too tired to post an update.



yesterday upgrading work started in my next door neighbour's house so they're hanging around the corridor too and also hanging out in the next neighbour's place. soon all four units on this side of the block are going to be undergoing upgrading work and this corridor is going to be crowded as fuck. already today there was no space to even stand around. anyway work in my house ended early today cos they're still doing waterproofing and stuff like that and more spalling concrete repairs. here's the pictures.









this guy is the guy who does the spalling concrete repairs. my mother calls him samurai cos she says he looks fierce and like a warrior/samurai. i think it's just cos when she first saw him his face was caked with dust and he had his goggles on his head and bandana. he does look pretty dissatisfied most of the time.









neighbour's place with the plastic sealing. dust and dirt everywhere. at least my neighbours are pleasant people. a young couple with a little boy. makes upgrading a little more tolerable.









i am starting to question the materials used for upgrading. as far as i know niger seeds are for feeding birds and wheat flour? i really don't want to be able to eat my living quarters. torch brand or not i'm still not very keen on the idea.









and guess who showed up again today? my brother is back and my mother's got a new job for him. hack down more tiles. so here he is being a daredevil and making a mess out of the place again.









upgrading is boring dude. an even more unshaven me.










and here's loveable old ah chuan. i checked with my mother and his name is ah chuan not ah guan. here you see what he does best. kaopehkaobu-ing. that indian guy is the guy who was taking pictures in my flat on the first day. he really doesn't like ah chuan much. ah chuan is always scolding people in a real kaopehkaobu voice. later on i heard ah chuan telling a worker "you know i scared what? i scared su-lynn see the blahblah". su-lynn is that lady supervisor i was talking about in one of the previous posts. ah chuan's a real wuss when she's involved. all act in control and shit. it's really amusing.










my neighbour's toilet. all the upgrading work around the place caused three window panels to fall off in her toilet and it shattered everywhere. the glass bits were all over the kitchen floor even. after this happened i was called onto the scene to take some photos as proof/evidence whatever. i'm a threat to the contractor's i am.










the quiet queen of all that is covered. quiet (actually not really) cos she's got a sore throat. don't mess with this mama in her home. she's got you in her sights.










anyway i beat it to meet yaowei and then go to ted's place and on my way out to the main road i chanced upon baby jesus omg having a nap amongst the greenery! then i remembered that baby jesus wasn't a cat so i legged it.










and while waiting for yaowei at bugis i took a pit-stop in the toilet and omg guess what. my ass is on something that christopher lee's ass was on! and just like 3 days ago even! like our asses are almost like touching each other! fuck that is so gay.



later on we went to ted's for dinner and that was really fun. singapore beat indonesia 3-1 which is pretty amazing. i mean. i'm not against singapore i'm totally for us but taking a reality check, beating indonesia 3-1 is something i would never have imagined. singapore's got a fighting chance at winning the tournament now. hope they don't screw it up.



no photos of the bathroom and toilet this time cos they look practically the same as before just with a bit more cementing done so i'm not going to bother putting any up.



time for lunch.

Day 3 - Part 2 of 2



in keeping with the objective of this upgrading series, which is to show what the hell goes on during upgrading, i'm gonna post some pictures of the works. maybe this might be helpful to some other flat dweller like me. so here come the results of today's work.









this is the bathroom now. new pipes. the floor actually looks good enough to stand on already. i don't know if it's just me but the two pipes on the right seem to be further out than last time when they seemed to be more in the corner. maybe it's just the bareness of the bathroom. will wait to see what it looks like in the end.









the sewage pipe outside the bathroom. a whole lotta dripping was happening last night as the pipe above was a little leaky. the problem seems to be resolved for now. i don't see any leaking anymore. but maybe the upstairs neighbour just isn't using any water yet.









the toilet. new pipes also.









the work done on the spalling concrete on the ceiling so far. they've cleared the damaged bits and probably will do the cementing tomorrow. you can also see the ceiling beam that my "brother" broke the tiles off from yesterday. that will also be cemented over. and probably painted also.









this is what impressed me today. i got this out of the letterbox. the pic probably won't be big enough to make out what it is. it's a newsletter that informs everyone about the upgrading works. about what has been done last month. what is currently in progress. and what is scheduled to be done next. it's really informative and i think they did a pretty good job with the design as well, seeing how they relied on MS Word and Powerpoint to do it.









and this was what impressed me the most. they even had good wishes for students starting school this year. and check out that smiley schoolbus with the thought bubble. not totally anthropomorphizing the schoolbus by making it a speech bubble which would be a little tacky i think, but making it just cute enough with a thought bubble instead.



pretty impressive work.



alrite it's time for another cold shower. tomorrow's update might be later than usual cos i won't be around for most of the day and will be back quite late. but i'll try to snap a few shots before i beat it and i'll as usual take pictures of the result of the day's work.

Day 3 - Part 1 of 2



early update today. maybe i'll do another update later at night if anything interesting happens. all the major destruction in my house has already been done and today they're just doing some waterproofing of the sewage areas so that means not so much dust and crap. but still you know it's dirty. well anyway the reason i'm able to update so early is cos i'm in my room right now. i unlocked my door pushed it open breaking the masking tape seal and slid my bag in together with some newspaper and dived in a la soon-closing-door style. so now i'm holed up in my room with little ventilation but i don't really care. better than hanging around the corridor area doing nothing. so anyway here are a few photos i've taken so far.







8 am. too early to be up and waiting around. unshaven and sitting around in the corridor waiting for workers to arrive.










the view from my corridor. it used to be a nice walkway with trees and stuff. now it's just dirt. those metal sheets are for when the huge construction vehicles drive into the area to lift or deposit heavy stuff.










the gondola lift they use to fix up the new lift on my block. more than once i've felt like hitching a ride up and down but i'm afraid i'll break something or cause the whole column of lift building blocks to fall.









and this i took just before i intended to go into my room. right after i took this a whole bunch of people including one supervisor, a lot of workers and the lady supervisor who is like the boss of them all appeared and traipsed around. so i kinda hung around and waited for them to beat it before i started opening my door. i think of the male supervisors (i can't remember his name. ah guan or dunno what.) likes the lady supervisor. she's pretty alrite and she really knows how to keep things under control. they guys are all pretty scared of her. the reason i think he likes her is cos i took the lift with the both of them yesterday and he was all like hee hee heh heh goo goo ga ga and talking rubbish to her about the works after she arrived and he got off his handphone. before that he was being his usual kaopehkaobu self scolding someone. he was like saying in mandarin something about the toilet ok already blah blah blah. then the lady supervisor was all like can't be bothered/annoyed and said in mandarin you say things can say clearly or not. i don't know what you are saying. then he again blabbered something about the toilet then she got fed up and said you don't tell me unit number i won't know what you are saying. no unit number i won't remember. then he was all hee hee heh heh and then he looked at the floor. luckily, for all of us, we got to my floor after that so he won't have to keep trying to talk to her and feel like a fool after, she won't have to endure listening to him and i, can stop trying to laugh.



i don't know if any of the workers know i'm in here or not. but whatever.



ok i am reaaally tired. so i think i'll try to catch some Zs. if i can even fall asleep amidst all the noise from upstairs and downstairs and leftstairs and rightstairs. hope i don't need to go to the toilet too often. don't want to keep having to break on through to the other side.