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.

i wanted to post this up yesterday but was too tired and the upgrading update was taking really long cos of photo loading problems. so here it is now. stuff i noticed in the tuesday edition of the new paper.







notice the "for those who like" bit? well i guess it means that no one is going to like this show then. cos there isn't a single person who likes any of the shows listed.









this is up cos i think it's stupid. not cos i support piracy or what. but this whole ad is just stupid in that it doesn't have any logical reasoning behind that main statement at all. look at the next photo to read the small print.










"each time you reject piracy, you encourage creativity." hey thanks for repeating yourself. and then they try to make you forget to look for a reason by asking and targeting you with "Whose life do you think that will affect tomorrow? Yours.". this effort to support the statement by making the readers/perpetrators go on a guilt trip and also feel like they're at a major losing end is just stupid. and check out just check out the closing lines equating creativity with originality and hipness. of course hip is a play on the acronym HIP standing for the Honour Intellectual Property Alliance. it is like so totally unhip to like take part in piracy dude. come on man. at least. AT LEAST substantiate the statement with some sort of proper argument.

Day 2



well i didn't go to town today as planned. i ended up going around with my mother and getting bathroom stuff again. so another hot and tiring day. yeah i'll leave out the long ramble today so on to the photos.







i found out what the metal container thing with the blue lid is. i saw this guy using it. he's the guy in charge of all of the containers. guess what. it's a vacuum cleaner. i thought that my guess of septic tank was right earlier when i saw him pouring water in the container. but i guess he was just washing it. anyway who would open a septic tank at the corridor.









my mother calmly telling my neighbour how she kept things under control with some sort of hypnotic kung fu. my neighbour is skeptical.









work work work. the chinese guy started to sweep the place after he realised i was taking photos.









beware my mother. good thing the guy started cleaning up.









then after the guy cleaned up the place this guy decided to show up and proceeded to hack down the tiles on the ceiling beam. so it's a mess again. when he arrived my mother wasn't around so he had to answer to me. and now i'm "brother" while my mother is "aundie". "brother" here had to get him a chair so that he could reach the beam and tell him to clean up the mess he made.









anyway while i was out today i happened across this in a public toilet. my favourite kind of retort graffiti. the ironic dumbass kind. reminds me jc times when my classmate danlin wrote on my foolscap pad cover "aloy is a idoit", without realising what she had done.









irrelevant photo taken going down the escalator into chinatown mrt station. look at my muscular arm man. well actually it doesn't look very muscular at all. whatever.









today's update has been brought to you by cock's head concrete. i feel really assured and vaguely amused that the foundations of the upgrading are made up of this. i thought of photoshopping the photo and replacing the cock head with a erm...cock head but i'll try to keep this upgrading series as PG as possible.



no photos of the bathroom and the toilet today cos the portable toilet is in the way and i can't take a full photo. all that's different is that there are new pipes inside. and also outside. oh they didn't dismantle the portable toilet. they just moved it aside. i should have figured.



thank elvis it ended early today.

Day 1



so the first day has passed. the main thing they did today was clearing out the bathroom and toilet. and i really mean clear it out. it's as bare as it could be and there's some new concrete slathered about the place. today's supposed to be the dustiest and dirtiest day cos of all the destruction. i hope that's true cos it really is fucking dusty and dirty. i've finally gotten a shower and i'm feeling relatively much better and cleaner. i spent the whole day wandering about the neighbourhood with my bag full of stuff. stuff to ease my boredom. and finally in the afternoon went to get some stuff with my mother. bought a new heater and some light fittings for the bathroom and toilet. this is the list of the places i went today -



1. downstairs for breakfast after the workers came to start work and everything was underway at about 9am

2. to the CC to use the toilet

3. to the post office to pay bills.

4. to shaw balestier to hang out at macdonald's. tea costs way too much there. i got incredibly bored and sleepy sitting there waiting for my mother and eventually i...

5. walked sllloooowwwlllyyy back to my block and ran into my mother downstairs.

6. walked to the contractor's main office to check out the colour of the toilets offered and to see the study and rest rooms they've provided for the residents.

7. walked to toa payoh.

8. from there took a shuttle bus to turf club.

9. came back to toa payoh.

10. took a bus to kitchener road to get bathroom stuff.

11. came back home. reached home at 5pm.



by then the demolition of the bathroom and the toilet was done and i was like hurray we got back just in time. BUT we waited outside the house for them to clean up the place and put up the portable toilet inside until around 9pm. yes 4 hours. sweet. so after that we went down for dinner and then finally now i'm all clean and settled. kinda. i was so tired and tired during the day. man. it sucked. i think i'm gonna go hide out in town or something tomorrow. but trust me. trying to spend a whole day out of the house is not easy. especially when you start early in the morning.



good news is tomorrow they're starting work a bit later so we don't have to get up so early. but actually that is most probably bad news cos they might end later also. fucked.



anyway here are some pictures.







the first few workers showed up and the bigger shot is taking photos of the bathroom and toilet. it's procedure so that they have proof of how the bathroom and toilet looked before they destroy and rebuild them so that owners can't go like hey there was this thing in there before which wasn't. anyway i took a whole load of pictures of everything i could think of so that they couldn't get away with fucking something up and saying they didn't do it. so i've got them under scrutiny too. the other guy is proceeding to tear down the doors to the bathroom and toilet.









here's the cardboard and plastic laid out onto the ground so that they don't fuck up the ceramic tiles. those two fellas are all deer in the headlights cos i accidentally switched the flash on while taking this picture. well. at least they know they're being watched.









the outside of my house. on the floor you see the cupboards that they've stripped down from the bathroom and toilet by this time. and the plastic thing on the iron grill door? it's their effort to make a sealed passageway so that not too much dirt will get to areas they don't need to be in. it's probably for some security reasons too. anyway if you don't get what i mean, you will soon in the subsequent pictures.









the mirror above my sink and the light cover from the bathroom or toilet. all going to the dump. i'm still wondering what the metal container with the blue lid is for. i'd like to think it's full of beer but it's probably for cleaning purposes. or maybe even a septic tank. i think most probably a septic tank. i know that i could ask the workers what it's for but i'm playing the part of the quiet amused son while my mother is playing the part of fussy housekeeper. it's a good cop bad cop thing. if the workers get irritated with my mother at least they see that i'm understanding what they feel too so they don't get too irritated in the end but feel amused too. hey this is all psychological man. and anyway, i don't feel like trying to understand what the workers say. i mean, they're not terrifically bad at english but i'd rather not try. they're actually really hardworking and nice guys. not surly and sullen.









here's the sealed passageway i'm talking about two photos ago. huge sheets of plastic held up with adjustable poles. and they even put up this doorflap thing in the doorway to the kitchen. pretty nifty. that's my mother going to give them yet another instruction. it was so dusty by then cos they already started breaking stuff that she retreated quite quickly after lifting the flap a little. at one point one worker exclaimed "aundie, go!" cos my mother was getting in the way and telling them a lot of stuff. ah that was funny. if you think my mother is fussy, all i got to say is hey you wouldn't want your home to be undergoing this shit and then end up having it all fucked up and not as you want it either. i'd be fussy too but i got to keep in character.









right i wanted to put this photo and the next up yesterday but blogger just wouldn't show the photos. this is the bathroom before today. it's looking pretty empty cos we cleared it for today. the shower gel is looking really forlorn and lonely on the floor. and my shokubutsu and shampoo aren't speaking to each other anymore.









and this is the toilet. goodbye squat toilet. it's the end of my squat toilet days at home. i don't hate it but sitting down is really less tiring.









here's the bathroom after being destroyed and partially patched up.









and here's the toilet after being destroyed and partially patched up. that white pipe is the pipe from the portable toilet. that object next to the pipe. i have no idea what that is. i didn't really look closely.









and the glowing cubicle of relief. the portable toilet. yeah it's a portable toilet but i really don't think it'd be a good idea to do a no. 2 in it. seeing how it has no flush. i just took a cold bath in it and i really feel a whole lot better. tomorrow it gets dismantled i think to make way for more construction work. i'd be really surprised if it isn't. then it'll get all assembled again at night when they clean up again. this is a special portable toilet cos it's actually the display portable toilet at the contractor's main office cos they ran out of portable toilets. and in the morning someone said that we didn't want a portable toilet in our house after the cleaning up so they didn't prepare one for us. so they had to lug the thing all way from the main office which is like maybe a kilometre away? and it being a sample display toilet. we can be assured that no one's used it before and that all the fittings are new. we know it's new cos we saw them ripping open plastic bags to reveal shiny new fittings to put in the portable toilet.



yep so that's it for today. i really hope tomorrow will be much cleaner. actually it's not so bad cos they clean up the place pretty well. i'm just hoping for a less tiring day tomorrow cos i ended up really hot and tired and sticky today after all that wandering about the place.



one thing. i made a mistake. EVERY room in the house is undergoing upgrading work. cos all the windows will be changed.



1 day down.

Day 0



upgrading in my house starts tomorrow. ten days of dirt and noise. and i got to be out of the house for most of the days for most of the day cos they'll be working everywhere except the master bedroom. so it's a pain. i'll be trying to update every night when i get home to show the progress in the house. anyway, here are the pre-works photos, showing how the house looks like the night before the invasion.







everything covered and safe (hopefully) from all the dirt. the sofa's under there together with the tv somewhere. i've lost count of the number of coverings there are on the furniture. there's layers of plastic sheets and cloth. very kua zhang yes.









the other end of my living room. four dining chairs are under the paintings on the wall and at the end is my father's study area and some black bags containing some bodies we found under the sofa while clearing everything up.









look into the kitchen. and wonder to yourself (for those who've been here before), where the fuck is the kitchen table. well the kitchen table is in front of my father's table in the previous photo. no not that brown foldable thing. it's under my father's table.









a load of plastic on the cupboards, on the stove and covering the kitchen sink.









more plastic goodness over the washing machine and more cupboards. and yes the refrigerator. the refrigerator is all wrapped up. i feel cut off from it. i can't enter the kitchen without opening the refrigerator. and now...i can't.









this is how to really lose weight. i can't begin to fully describe the agony this photo holds for me. the fridge with all the food. the cupboards next to it with noodles and booze. the upright shelves that the upturned stool is on with more food. and booze.



elvis give me strength to last ten days eating and drinking and trying to pass time outside.

hey like what the fuck.



so like i'm feeling tired and listless and i think i'm going to fall ill and this guy walks into my room and says hey like what the fuck.



and i'm like yeah i know.



and then we both agree that waking at 6am is not very good because of the chairs being at the tables when there's no one sitting at the table or on the chairs and it makes the air really crisp.



so then i pop another chocolate ball into my mouth and the guy says i like hearing loud screeching laughter so i pass him a chocolate ball and he's really happy only that it isn't much of a ball now that i've chewed it some but he's happy so hey like what the fuck as long as he's happy.



then he leaves and i'm all like hi thanks for coming over but he doesn't hear me cos he already left and i start to get up to go brush my teeth and then i broke the kitchen window into three equal pieces so that i would have three windows and now it's not so draughty unless i rub my eye because it's mine to keep.



yeah so hey like what the fuck.