You know how, in relationships, you reach a point where you run out of things to talk about?

Piers and I got to that stage a few months back. We gradually replaced our bonding sessions with TV. Lots of TV.

I was starting to get addicted, too, because England has no end of interesting, crazy TV shows.

Not very productive.

Fortunately, things are beginning to change now that I’m back at school. Piers will ask about my day and I will have many stories to tell him. We can last hours this way.

That wasn’t possible just two weeks ago.

Our daily updates went like this:

Piers: How was your day?

Shey: Um, same as yesterday. How was your day?

Piers: Same as yesterday.

Shey: What’s for dinner?

His job is a bit boring. He sits in front of three monitors and stares at pixels all day long. If the pixels are not worth staring at, he stares at his iPad.

For me, two weeks before, I played Facebook and iPad games full-time. Sometimes, I blogged.

But now, we can have more engaging conversations, like this one that just happened:

Piers: How was school today?

Shey: We learnt how to transfer water and beans from container to container.

Piers: Gosh.

Shey: And how to open and close padlocks.

Piers: Wow. Sounds interesting.

Shey: Yes.

Piers: You must be becoming very useful.

Shey: I think so.

Piers: I can get you to do all sorts of stuff around the house now.

Shey: Do you have beans that need transferring? I can do that.

Piers: No, but now I know you can, I might get some.

Shey: I can do mung beans, butter beans, soya beans and aduki beans.

Piers: Amazing. You’re so smart! Proud of you.

Shey: Thanks!

We went on to talk about nuts. I tried to convince him to buy me honey roasted cashew nuts to practise on, but he wouldn’t hear of it, insisting that I haven’t been trained to work with nuts.

I have, though. I’ve been living with one for almost a year now.

Yes, we’ve been dating for nearly a year, so it’s understandable for us to run out of things to talk about.

But not anymore!

I think tomorrow we learn how to use scissors. Yes, Piers and I are going to have another exciting conversation!

I got told off this morning.

All because Edgeworld, a game I’m playing on Facebook, sneakily told all my friends that I’m playing it.

A lot of Facebook games do that, in fact. You can’t even log in to Facebook these days without everyone immediately knowing that you’re at the moment skiving off instead of working/studying/blogging.

So, this was what happened.

I totally didn’t know an update was posted when I logged into the game, and then suddenly I got a notification that someone had commented on my activity.

To further illustrate my point about Facebook games being sneaky tattertales, there was this one morning when I woke up and went about my daily routine, which was:

1. Turn on computer.
2. Turn on MSN and say hi to Piers.
3. Open all my current Facebook games to use up stored energry/collect daily credits etc. Then, if I have time, play for a bit.

((I know it looks like a very sad routine but looks are deceiving so let’s leave the judging for another time because today’s topic is not to discuss my Internet/gaming addiction (although the word I prefer is passion)).

So in the midst of doing my routine this one morning, an MSN message suddenly flashed on my screen:

“You logged in to Edgeworld before saying hi to me!”

Now, before you get the wrong idea about Piers, he was just teasing me and not being stalkerish. It’s impossible to develop an impulse to stalk a girlfriend who wants to stay home all day and play games. I would say I’m quite safe from having a stalkerish boyfriend.

To clarify the situation, I did in fact turn on MSN before I opened my games, but it’s just that Chrome loaded my games a lot faster than MSN signed in, so it would have appeared to stalkers, should I actually have any, that I prioritised games over going on MSN.

This incident brought home the point that Facebook is quite dangerous so we should never add our bosses, teachers, parents, elders and people we don’t like on it.

Who knows what other kinds of things, in the future, Facebook will tell about us without us knowing.

Of course, we can (and should) try to be more careful. And if we strive to be honest and reliable and diplomatic in all things, we don’t have to worry about Facebook telling on us.

Like, if you wanted to turn down a date from someone you don’t really fancy, just say no and don’t come up with stupid excuses like “I broke all my fingers so I can’t come out” and then the next thing is he sees you playing Edgeworld on Facebook.

I’m sure I’m not saying anything new here. Everyone already knows the dangers of Facebook. But then people still keep getting caught in embarrassing situations. We really can’t be too careful.

In the meantime, I’m not too worried. I can live with the odd person telling me I game too much. Not that it’s even news, duh.

And Justyn should be quite happy now so I should be able to log in to Edgeworld without further repercussions.

It is very hard to please everyone but that doesn’t mean we can’t try our best.

So, be happy and make people happy! Just don’t burp or pick your nose when Facebook is watching.

I am at the moment dog sitting Basil in Piers’ parents’ house, which I thought is a great setting for starting my blog going again.

I’m on a plush sofa. I have in front of me my laptop, a crackling fire and a sleepy dog snoring in his bed. Perfect.

The TV is on because Piers, after he dropped me off here and before he went back to the office, turned it on for me, worried that I would want to watch TV and not be able to turn it on.

I told him I didn’t want to watch TV because I have lots of other things to do but he said to leave it on mute just in case. Apparently, the TV is hard to turn on or something.

I couldn’t imagine how hard turning a TV on could be but I didn’t protest. Life is simpler if you just let people do what they want to do if what they want to do doesn’t hurt anyone.

Now, though, Piers’ worry has gained a new validity. I have just tried to turn the TV off and it wouldn’t go off.

There is a power button on the remote control. I am quite sure the symbol on it is the universal indicator for on/off.

So I pressed it but instead of going to sleep, the TV told me, “No channel found. Please check aerial or local signal availability. Press OK to start Auto Setup.”

It didn’t turn off even after a long wait, adamant that its warning not go unread for the next hour or ten.

Either people are bent on making my life difficult or I am terribly backward. The TV stays on for now.

But never mind the TV. Let’s do updates.

There are many reasons why I haven’t blogged in months. These will remain unannounced because I’m quite sure your life won’t be made better by reading my rambling excuses.

But, since my last post in November, I have been very productive. I have:

• Showed Piers around Singapore and acquainted him with what he’s been missing out on all his life (for example, chilli crab).
• Played a lot of Facebook games.
• Read half of the book I’m supposed to have finished reading by the time school starts (in three days’ time).
• Bought a lot of winter coats from cheap China shopping websites and then thrown away half of them because they don’t resemble the product photographs so much as they resemble chopped liver.
• Usurped half of Piers’ storage space in England because I’m moving in for a year.

Today is my last weekday of freedom. That is, I start school at the Montessori College the coming Monday and I still have half a book unread. I had planned to either read the book or write a blog while dog sitting today.

Write a blog won.

That is not to say that the book is boring. It is in fact a very good read and I can’t wait to learn everything there is to learn about the Montessori Method.

It’s just that there is a very strong procrastination gene in me which sometimes makes me procrastinate even things that I look forward to doing.

Can’t help it, you know. Genes are fixed things. I try to colour my hair brown but it keeps turning black again.

That’s why I don’t do new year resolutions.

Basil just left his bed to seek my humanly warmth.

Actually, he’s probably warmer than I am. The temperature outside is 9°C but it’s quite comfortable indoors with the fire going and two layers of clothes on my body and a warm dog across my lap, passionately licking my left hand like it’s a hunk of juicy beef.

Life is quite good right now and Basil is starting to create a puddle on my hand so I’m going to tell him to stop drooling all over me.

Bye, Basil.

Well, now that I’ve started to blog again, I’m gonna try and keep it going.

Thanks for all the admonishments. “When are you going to blog again!?!?!!”

It’s very nice to know that I’ve been missed.

Have a great 2012. In fact, have a blast. It’s supposed to be the very last year of our lives.

I don’t really believe it but no harm having a blast anyway.

Happy New Year!

I just received a phone call with an invitation to attend a Dior christmas party (presumably because I’m a Dior member and not because I’m a blogger.)

I was first told the date of the party, then a list of highlights, including makeup and fashion shows, food and drinks, limited edition products on sale, and a door gift, all of these read off a page in monotone.

Then silence.

“Is that all?” I asked.

“The price is $50. If you want to bring a friend, it’s $80. But you can redeem products with your tickets.”

“Oh, okay. I’m not interested, but thanks.”

The caller asked for a reason, so I said I wasn’t interested in buying any Dior products at the moment. Parties are okay, but having to pay to attend one where they will try to make you spend even more money is plain ridiculous.

She said, “Oh, you don’t have to buy anything.”

“But I have to pay to attend the party,” I said.

She then went on to inform me that I can redeem other stuff with the price of my ticket, but neglected to explain what she meant.

I wasn’t interested, anyway, so I just said, “No, thanks.”

But she wouldn’t give up.

“You can have fun at the party with your friends,” she persuaded.

“No, it’s okay, thanks.”

“You’ll also get a door gift.”

“No, I’m not really keen, but thanks.”

“There’ll be free refreshments, and you can just come and have fun with your friends.”

“Erm… no, thanks.”

She finally accepted my polite refusal and allowed me to hang up.

Although I hate telemarketing, I can kind of understand why companies would use this channel to sell, for example, insurance policies. But telemarketing for parties? I think it’s a new low.

Not very impressed with Dior now.

A bit off-topic, but some time in the beginning of this year, they sent me my membership card with a letter asking me to go pick up a welcome gift at any Dior counter.

I went to pick it up.

The gift was a welcome letter and a brochure.

Thanks, Dior. What I always wanted.

I have a problem: The English can’t pronounce my name.

You see, my official name (Shen Qiaoyun) is written in hanyu pinyin, which is the English phonetic representation of Mandarin.

So the English would read it as Kiao Yoon because Q is supposed to be a hard K sound in English. Some of them even get stressed because Q is not supposed to come without a U.

“What on earth is this word?!” they’d be thinking to themselves. “It breaks all the rules of the English language!”

They’d make an attempt: “Kuh… Keeee… Kao… Keeeeowwww? Kiao Yoooon? The doctor will see you now.”

I don’t want to be called Kiao Yoon forever.

So what am I going to do?

The most logical solution is to legally change my name.

But that is a massive pain in the behind. I have already done that. I changed my name once in November 2005 for feng shui reasons and had to go through the tedious process of updating records everywhere.

In fact, I only updated my driving license recently, which is exactly six years late.

I’ve also had to use a passport bearing my old name for more than five years because ICA refused to give me a new one. They just made an annotation in one of the pages in my passport showing that I have changed my name.

But no immigration officer in the world has ever thought to flip to that page on his/her own accord. I always have to spend a long time at the counter waiting for the officer to check my photo page against my arrival card, then look at me suspiciously, then allow me to turn the pages in my passport to show him the annotation.

Once, a Hong Kong immigration officer even scolded me after I showed him the page. He said I should have written my old name in my arrival card since that was what was showing on the photo page.

So, now that I finally have a new passport with the right name, I never ever want to go through that process again.

In England, Piers usually introduces me as Shey for the sake of convenience because, even if the English hear Qiaoyun being said, they find it hard to say it themselves.

Piers has been practisig the pronunciation for nine months and he still says Chiao Yoon, which is close enough but not quite right.

I’m not sure what to do about it. I don’t regret changing my name because it’s been good for me, overall. It has helped to somewhat change my personality, which has in turn altered the course of my life for the better. But I wish I’d had gotten a name that didn’t start with a stupid Q.

My feng shui master had actually given me a list of names to choose from and Qiaoyun was the nicest sounding one. Many of the ones on the list sounded male or ugly, for example, Yongkang. Wtf, right?

I was talking to Piers about this recently. I told him I didn’t want to be called Kiao Yoon because kiao means dead in Hokkien and he wtflol-ed.

Life is never easy, is it?

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Addendum:

Just remembered a good example I should have given.

When I was in England, I was online shopping a lot. I received packages from postmen and courier service men probably 30 or 40 times in all my time there.

Each time I opened the door, they would read off the package: “Kiao Yoon?”

Because there are many different courier services in England, I was always getting different people, so I didn’t even try to educate them as to the pronunciation of my name.

I suppose I could use the name Sheylara for my online shopping from now on, but there will still be situations where I can’t use it (bank, insurance, clinic, etc) where people will have to try and read my name off a form. These are the ones I want to avoid!