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February 5, 2006
I spent some time with my cousins today and we had a blast looking at our old IC photos. Nothing much to post about today except before after photos.
Born on the same day, 6 years apart!
Will miss my cousins.
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February 4, 2006
The outcome of the Drummond St saga is still a question - I asked WM to ask Michael if we get some of our Feb rent back if we move out before Feb 26 but she’s trying to get him to let us stay if we up our rent to $160p.w each. And no renovations at all. I’m okay with that.
She was supposed to get back to me on Thursday, but still no news. So all we can do is to wait.
Funny thing is that just the day before the bomb dropped, Val actually mentioned that her best friend was looking for a housemate. I didn’t really go anywhere with that because I still thought I had a house. Now, I know how God clicks things into place! Things may or may not work out, but weird how it did happen.
———
My secondary 4 class met up for dinner today. I sat in the middle of everyone and it seemed as if we never left our Sec 4 mentality. Besides the more grown up talk, I still had to sit through F-bombs dropped every single second in every single sentence. Although it was certainly unpleasant to hear, it had a weird nostalgic feel to it.
4E was and still is a motley crew of people - guys who were still stuck in army, a girl who used to be so playful, now having finished her thesis and getting honors in engineering, another who stayed back in Sec 3, now a Literature major at NUS, one of the guys who used to tip the scales for our obesity rate went from 100+kg to a cool hunky 70+, and a wh0le bunch of us that the teachers never really had very high hopes on who’ve all walked on and made some kind of difference in life.
Yet for some, they’ve stayed in their pasts and never really walked out of it. Some still live in the darkness of their pasts under the facade of having already left it. They nurse broken hearts/shattered lives/deflated dreams and find ways to mask it.
Amongst the laughter and enthusiasm of those who’ve made it in life, they try to sound like they’re having fun, but I wonder what they’re really thinking inside.
Hmm ….
About housemates and houses -The Drummond Street Saga
February 2, 2006
WM turned out to be this really nice gregarious girl who was freaking out so much over our impending “eviction” that she was chainsmoking through out dinner.
For me, it’s not so much of an issue because I haven’t set up home there yet, but for WM and D, they have tons of things there and for WM, it’s even more desperate because
1) She has her all her things there and her friends who’ve borrowed her room for storage till they get back to Melb.
2) She’s got a redemption ticket and can’t change her date of arrival. When’s that? Feb 25! When do we have to move out? Feb 26! When does school start? Feb 27! Woot!
Furthermore, the landlord wants to begin renovations on the house before Feb 26. We’re not quite sure what his “renovations” mean but he’s starting with my room first and we all know that any form of reno will mean the room’s unlivable. So should I pay rent then?
We sat there for nearly 3 hours coming up with some sort of argument for her to call the landlord today and sort things out.
Michael’s the landlord who’s supposedly an easy-going bo chup Aussie fellow who has dropped in to inspect the house only once in a very long while.
Nobody has any idea why the landlord suddenly broke faith with us and he has a verbal agreement binding him too! ( I have now realised that knowing a bit of Media Law actually is useful.)
The bad part is nobody expected him to break the verbal contract so there was no black and white contract with clauses to protect the tenants.
WM banged out an email to D early this morning and here’s an excerpt from D’s reply
He was talking on the phone as if it takes 1 week to find a new place and move out. I was thoroughly annoyed because I wake up super early and come back after 6 everyday and there is no time to inspect property. Taking days off would be leave-without-pay and it would be unfair to cause me financial loss just because he was fickle about the house. So, yes I don’t mind staying here another year but then again I strongly doubt that is going to happen. I don’t think offering more rent would work either because he is really set on disposing of the house to buy a new one. What difference is (e.g.) a $50 dollar increase per week ($2600 per year) going to do if one is prepared to sell the house?
To be continued …
About housemates and houses
February 1, 2006
Before Peilin left for Singapore, we arranged to meet up with my other housemate who’s also back in Sg. Peilin’s going to pass me her keys and WM is going to feel this “newbie” out.
Lo and behold, I get a call from Peilin last night. Well, actually, I missed her so I had to call her back because she had something very important and bad to tell me.
Things have been so smooth that the only bad thing I could think of was that WM couldn’t make it for tonight. No sweat, I could meet her in Melbourne instead and things would be fine …
RIGHT.
When Peilin picked up the phone, she started with, “Ruth, you know, D the other housemate emailed and ….”
“And…?” At first I thought she was going to say that D the other housemate had gone and found another person to take her room and now I had nowhere to go. Then she continued …
“… He wrote to say the landlord is going to sell the house and everyone has to move out by Feb 26.”
“Errr… come again?”
“You guys need to find a new place to stay.”
To be continued ….
