123 - The absence of peace and quiet in the morning

Midnight, a motorcyclist is arriving home late, broom broom-ing on the ground floor.

01:12, the man and the woman next door are arguing about who's responsible for buying the milk. Grandpa went to piss.

03:34, do I hear birds chirping?

04:33, why does the printer have to make such a cacophonous noise when it prints?

04:37, jeez, it makes such a horrible noise even when it scans stuff too.

04:49, grandpa's going to pee again, the heavy breathing, the trickling of his urine into the bowl, the sigh of relief, I hear it all and it's giving me a headache.

04:59, yup, it's those dumb birds, the same old birds singing at the break of dawn every single morning. I wish I had a shotgun.

06:35, great, grandpa's up, watching the morning news, I loathe the theme music of the news, the Morse code beeping, the beeping, the high-pitched, repeated beeping, ugh...

07:14, the bathroom door closing, the sound of my clothes dropping on to the floor.

07:15, water going through pipes, water splashing on to me, dropping on to the shower floor, gurgling down the drain, so much noise...

07:38, Front door closing, front gate clicking, the sound of my footsteps, the elevator doors, sssshhhh...

07:45, Oh, my God, the commotion inside an early rush-hour train is frickin' unbelievable. People chit-chatting, the uproar of the train moving along the tracks through a tunnel.

07:48, baby screaming and crying, mother trying to overpower her in volume.

08:01, students all waiting to catch the bus, talking amongst themselves like they didn't just see each other yesterday. I think I'll take a cab.

08:03, horns are beeping, buses farting whenever they stop, people running, screaming "wait!" at bus drivers who can't hear them, the occasional high-heels pass by, cab arrives.

08:06, taxi driver asking which route I want to take. I tell him the route. Then I tell him to leave me alone so I can close my eyes and rest.

08:08, the meter beeped, price of ride has risen.

08:10, beeped again,

08:11, and again,
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08:27, arrived at school, the coins in my wallet are making sounds, I press them down against the soft fabric of my wallet to eradicate the sound. The taxi driver, however, is happy to jingle-jangle his coins here and there, ugh.

08:28, I hate entering school. Apart from all the loud thud thuds of the juniors running, and the female staff's high high-heels galloping through the corridors, there's all the "Hey, good morning!", "How was your parents' anniversary dinner last night?", "Did you do your Mandarin essay?". Grumble...

08:30, the worst noise in the world: the school bell ringing.

It's the morning, for Pete's sake, it's when I am trying to gather myself to live for the rest of the day, and if I can't do that, I basically become crabby for the rest of the day. Why can't my mornings just be QUIET?

95 - Running on the spot because something's in the way

So, I hadn't slept for the whole night and before I knew it, it was six in the morning. I was feeling spontaneous so I said to myself, "hm, perhaps I'll go jogging". And so I did, I got dressed in my hoodie and my shorts, unplugged my iPod from my computer, turned on my funky tunes and stepped out into the chilly, refreshing morning air.

The sun was slowly coming up as I ran down the hill. I live on a hill, you see. There's quite a decline from my place and running down it is pretty damn liberating. I was just running, running, running, minding my own business running, when I reached a street I couldn't cross because a car was approaching. And what did I do?

I jogged on the spot on the sidewalk.

And then I thought to myself: how lame am I? I'm here, bobbing up and down on the pavement because I want to conserve the momentum until I can proceed once more. Jeez, I should blog about how lame I was, I'm sure other people would hate the sight of me. I know I would.