Smalltalk Post

1. "Do you want to make some money in your spare time?" "No, but I really need you to help me wire my inheritance to Nigeria..."

1a. 'Tis the season to go into hiding! Greetings to Silvio Ionescu and the Wanjialing coal mine management.

2. "I have a feeling that the automated postmaster bounced back my application email because it wasn't polite enough." It is plausible in a way. I tried again with an email with proper layout and more politeness, and that one got through despite the mailbox being full.

3. The receptionist at Tan Chin Tuan wing didn't so much as glance at me when I enquired. Maybe she had been bored out by all those previous scholarship-diggers. Maybe she was just playing solitaire at the time.

4. Reading Roald Dahl's collection of ghost stories. So far, they have been variously sad, interesting, touching or inspiring... Maybe only Roald Dahl himself gets creeped out by all of them. I now owe a plurality of my cultural input to Damien.

5. Read that Ikeda's Russian skating coaches are casting hexes on Kim Yuna during the Winter Olympics... But Yuna has a rosary sewn into her costume and crosses herself n times over during warm-up, as a habit. In your faces, Day/Night Watch!

6. Astrigue overnight ops this Saturday, organised jointly by the HCI and RJC Astronomy Clubs and held at the school field. The time is from Saturday 7pm to Sunday 7am. I have messaged everyone I know who is still in Singapore AND may not be in guard duty in the weekend AND may be interested, unless of course I haven't messaged you and you are.