Once, while working in Milan, an ex-colleague decided to get her hair cut. "This is the fashion capital of Italy, isn't it? What can possibly go wrong?" she had said. The Italian hairstylist she went to presumably thought Chinese women should all have China doll hair cuts and proceeded to give her one, replacing the chic one she originally had. As a result, I spent 4 continuous months working in Milan without getting my hair cut. I didn't know enough italian to articulate: "I want my hair just long enough to tie up in a ponytail so I can run comfortably, but not with it resembling a horse tail mane".

However, my reservations flew out the window when a girlfriend recently had a gorgeous hair cut by a Japanese hairstylist. She looked positively kawaii. The problem is I fear another case of Babel in the hair salon. The consolation was this Japanese hairstylist had an assistant to translate for him.

Well, actually he didn't. When I finally visited the hair salon, the Japanese hairstylist had already been taking English lessons, so he and I carried on a decent though strange conversation on Doraemon, Akira, Gundam, Kitano, kabuki, bad Japanese food and the heavy rain. Oh, and it was also the most expensive hair cut I've ever paid for (no perming! no colouring!) but it was worth it, if only for the attention he paid to every strand of hair.

Since the start of the year, I found that I couldn't pace myself properly when running solo. I had an urge to outrun everyone in my path, and would run out of breath before I could finish my normal distance. This evening, I overtook a little boy on a bike and sprinted like I was doing a 100m dash. Except I was ending my 4th km.

I need to relearn how to run.

Kids, the Internet, and the End of Privacy: The Greatest Generation Gap Since Rock and Roll.

Surprise iPod track of the day: The Silver Mt. Zion's "God Bless our Dead Marines".
I guess I must have been really careless to not notice a 11:44 min track.

In a conversation with VJ today about movies, I thought they behave just like people.

There are the indulgent movies which know they are beautiful and can't help stealing sideway glances at their reflection in the mirror. There are the movies with the unnecessary nose and boob jobs to garner mass appeal. And then there are the ugly ones, scarred and defiant, egging you to hate them; and you do, not because they are ugly, but because you let them get to you.

You know, the few times I've blogged that I planned to stop blogging, I didn't; but when I drifted off without any warning, I unwittingly stopped blogging for the longest time ever. This lull period could have been longer, but I received a blog comment from oneking666 (thank you!) who worried that I hadn't been blogging for a while. So I finally logged into blogger again, converted to a gmail account, and am now writing this entry.

Actually, nothing is wrong. I've just been doing day-to-day mundane things.

I'm trying to slow down my reading speed for books I don't really feel for, so I can learn from them anyway. The latest disaster was Jared Diamond's "Collapse", on how societies choose to fail or succeed. I'm now reading Satyajit Das' "Traders, Guns and Money" and Richard Dawkins' "The Blind Watchmaker", and already I'll be distracted enough to go to the library tomorrow for another haul.

I've decided not to get new music until I start paying attention to music I don't know I already have on my iPod.

We've just run and cooked fried rice. Our first year anniversary is coming up soon and sometimes I wonder at how fast time seemed to pass.

And this is all there is to it, really. :)

The ringing in my right ear recently came back. It's like someone setting off a distant fire alarm in the wee hours every morning, just inside my head. Will see a doctor soon to catch the arsonist.

I've read 5 books so far this year, and there was a moment when I wondered if I could actually read a book a week for the rest of the year. It was of course, a very brief moment. Courtesy of the library, I'm currently reading Jeffrey Sach's "The End of Poverty", John Perkins' "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man" and William Easterly's "The White man's Burden". Don't ask why. I just happened to stand next to a library shelf and all 3 books were on it.

You will be back this Sunday and it'll be the first time we'll see each other in what felt like forever. You're probably the only person who will gush upon knowing your Valentine's gift is a (huge!) claypot.

Welcome back.