Spend(Thrifty)
If I'm right, I've totted up nearly RM 900 in expenses this month. And that's extra expenses, mind you: it doesn't include the "normal" stuff like food and cybercafe and church offerings. Every cent of that 900 was spent on other stuff.
Well, first there was the 200 in Genting, which you already know about. The bus trip up, the bus trip down, the theme park, and most alarmingly, the food up there. Everything at inflated prices, and besides I developed a yen for Starbucks' and Coffee Bean's frappucini up there. (Must've been the cold weather, because I don't have that hankering any more.)
And then there was Saturday's spending spree. Well, I didn't plan for it to be a spending spree at first, but like my family (and actually, pretty much anybody who's known me for more than a year or so) will tell you, I'm madly stingy most of the time BECAUSE I can spend a year's worth of savings in less than five hours.
Like this:
Saturday, 11am, a certain optician's shop. I enter, tell them I want a new frame, and start selecting frames. I ask for the cheapest frames available, tell them my budget, and eventually we agree on something that roughly adheres to my constraints and is still aesthetically pleasing (unlike my current frames, which are rusting as I type). After that, I agree to an eye test to make sure my current lenses still are usable, and the result is that my current lenses are NOT still usable.
Apparently both my eyes developed another 75 degrees' astigmatism, and my left eye increased in shortsightedness by another 125 degrees, bringing the total to 725 degrees' shortsightedness. I don't know what that actually means, but as far as spectacles are concerned, it means custom-ordered lenses.
Normal lenses have a refractive index of about 1.2, which means they can handle anything up to 200 degrees without getting too cumbersome. My eyes have about 3 times that, so I need lenses with a refractive index of 1.67 (in refractive indexes, a difference of 0.47 is great indeed), and even then the lenses will be thicker than the frame (about 4mm).
And it also means my lenses cost about RM400--4 times more than my frame--which brings the total to about RM500.
The optician finishes explaining all this to me, and sits back while I weep over my wallet and fork out RM200 as a deposit until I pay the rest (next Thursday) when I pick up the finished product.
Spent: RM530
Saturday, circa 12.30pm, Sour Salon (not its real name). I enter and tell the proprietress of the Salon that I desire a haircut and a highlighting job. She asks if I am a student, and when I say yes, informs me that it'll cost RM69. I agree without haggling, because an irritated hairdresser can do mysterious things to one's hair, and my hair is mysterious enough as it is.
The hairdresser assigned to me is a very hip-hop kind of person, and it shows in the way he cuts my hair: the hands move as though he were silently rapping to himself (probably something derogatory about my hair, which is in bad condition after nearly three months of being left to grow however it wishes). I find the effect quite interesting, as well as the huge earring in his left ear.
I have never seen a male with an earring in his right ear; my classmates inform me it is a sign of one's sexual preference, although I would have no idea how. Presumably the left ear is straight and the right ear not so.
The hairdresser finishes cutting, and my blurry vision (I always have my haircuts with my spectacles off to facilitate the shearing of my sides) says it looks pretty darn good for me. He then asks what my choice of colour will be, and tut-tuts when I say blue.
Blue is no good with black, he says. It looks odd in dim lighting and doesn't look so good in good lighting, either. What I need, he says, is something in nice warm tones, and he recommends yellow streaks on a brown background.
It is a pity that he says all this in Cantonese, because my own Cantonese is patchy at best. All I hear is "blue", "black", "recommend", and "nice". (The rest is my own conjecture from the context.) So I say yes, whatever.
He then asks me how I want to be highlighted, and I ask for advice (he being a professional and all). He says that my head shape is especially suited for low-lighting, which he describes as a few slashes across the head. I say yes, whatever he says.
I find out a few minutes later that the procedure for low-lighting is as follows: Ensure that the hair is parted at the side, and outline a nice spot on said side. Then make diagonal streaks to the opposite ends of the head, always starting from that spot. The effect is of a lightning strike, with many trails leading out of a central origin.
It takes two hours and a lot of steaming (in the middle of which an electrical short-out occurs) before I am done and wondering how come there isn't anything on my head resembling blue. And then I start recalling the above conversation and begin piecing together everything. With my head now being brown-and-yellow-striped, it isn't very difficult.
I pay up and head out, grateful that he didn't suggest shaving the sides of my head and turning the top hot pink.
Spent: RM69
Saturday, 2.30pm, a nearby mall. They are having sales and since I recently lost a pair of cargo pants to a thief in the hostel, I go shopping and pick up a T-shirt and a pair of cargo pants in the exact same shade as the stolen ones (I am quite old-fashioned when it comes to clothing). Unfortunately, the discounts aren't quite as cost-saving as I'd hoped, and the cost is still quite high, although not as high as without discounts, or so I hope.
Spent: RM 75
Total spent: RM 600+
Time spent: Three hours
Monthly expenses: Genting....RM200+
Saturday...RM600+
Total......RM900 or so.
And Serene just now talked me into treating her, the Hanky, Cheeky, etc. to pizza (which cost me about RM50). Apparently I'm now expected to treat them to meals whenever I get good results (this pizza was for my Band 6--obviously it still rankles with her!).
So the total is now about RM 950. Does anybody now dare to say I am stingy?
A little note, and Pooh will probably be most interested in this. I have changed crushes. For one thing, the Hanky already has a boyfriend of her own (and no, I don't plan to start a war. It's not worth it); and for another, I'm much more fickle than I thought in these matters.
My sister knows who. I shall only say that her name in this blog shall be Coconut.
[edit: My sister told me that my previous measures weren't sufficient cover, so I have removed all information that may give impressions, false or otherwise. As of now, all you know is that Coconut is female. /edit]
[re-edit: My sister told me to take all information about her social life off the blog too. /re-edit]
And if you happen to guess her identity, for goodness' sake don't come up to me and tell me you know who. If I ever want to begin pursuing with a view to permanent relationships, I will. If not, I won't. Besides, I don't even know how to start one.
I'll have to ask the Pig about that.
Well, first there was the 200 in Genting, which you already know about. The bus trip up, the bus trip down, the theme park, and most alarmingly, the food up there. Everything at inflated prices, and besides I developed a yen for Starbucks' and Coffee Bean's frappucini up there. (Must've been the cold weather, because I don't have that hankering any more.)
And then there was Saturday's spending spree. Well, I didn't plan for it to be a spending spree at first, but like my family (and actually, pretty much anybody who's known me for more than a year or so) will tell you, I'm madly stingy most of the time BECAUSE I can spend a year's worth of savings in less than five hours.
Like this:
Saturday, 11am, a certain optician's shop. I enter, tell them I want a new frame, and start selecting frames. I ask for the cheapest frames available, tell them my budget, and eventually we agree on something that roughly adheres to my constraints and is still aesthetically pleasing (unlike my current frames, which are rusting as I type). After that, I agree to an eye test to make sure my current lenses still are usable, and the result is that my current lenses are NOT still usable.
Apparently both my eyes developed another 75 degrees' astigmatism, and my left eye increased in shortsightedness by another 125 degrees, bringing the total to 725 degrees' shortsightedness. I don't know what that actually means, but as far as spectacles are concerned, it means custom-ordered lenses.
Normal lenses have a refractive index of about 1.2, which means they can handle anything up to 200 degrees without getting too cumbersome. My eyes have about 3 times that, so I need lenses with a refractive index of 1.67 (in refractive indexes, a difference of 0.47 is great indeed), and even then the lenses will be thicker than the frame (about 4mm).
And it also means my lenses cost about RM400--4 times more than my frame--which brings the total to about RM500.
The optician finishes explaining all this to me, and sits back while I weep over my wallet and fork out RM200 as a deposit until I pay the rest (next Thursday) when I pick up the finished product.
Spent: RM530
Saturday, circa 12.30pm, Sour Salon (not its real name). I enter and tell the proprietress of the Salon that I desire a haircut and a highlighting job. She asks if I am a student, and when I say yes, informs me that it'll cost RM69. I agree without haggling, because an irritated hairdresser can do mysterious things to one's hair, and my hair is mysterious enough as it is.
The hairdresser assigned to me is a very hip-hop kind of person, and it shows in the way he cuts my hair: the hands move as though he were silently rapping to himself (probably something derogatory about my hair, which is in bad condition after nearly three months of being left to grow however it wishes). I find the effect quite interesting, as well as the huge earring in his left ear.
I have never seen a male with an earring in his right ear; my classmates inform me it is a sign of one's sexual preference, although I would have no idea how. Presumably the left ear is straight and the right ear not so.
The hairdresser finishes cutting, and my blurry vision (I always have my haircuts with my spectacles off to facilitate the shearing of my sides) says it looks pretty darn good for me. He then asks what my choice of colour will be, and tut-tuts when I say blue.
Blue is no good with black, he says. It looks odd in dim lighting and doesn't look so good in good lighting, either. What I need, he says, is something in nice warm tones, and he recommends yellow streaks on a brown background.
It is a pity that he says all this in Cantonese, because my own Cantonese is patchy at best. All I hear is "blue", "black", "recommend", and "nice". (The rest is my own conjecture from the context.) So I say yes, whatever.
He then asks me how I want to be highlighted, and I ask for advice (he being a professional and all). He says that my head shape is especially suited for low-lighting, which he describes as a few slashes across the head. I say yes, whatever he says.
I find out a few minutes later that the procedure for low-lighting is as follows: Ensure that the hair is parted at the side, and outline a nice spot on said side. Then make diagonal streaks to the opposite ends of the head, always starting from that spot. The effect is of a lightning strike, with many trails leading out of a central origin.
It takes two hours and a lot of steaming (in the middle of which an electrical short-out occurs) before I am done and wondering how come there isn't anything on my head resembling blue. And then I start recalling the above conversation and begin piecing together everything. With my head now being brown-and-yellow-striped, it isn't very difficult.
I pay up and head out, grateful that he didn't suggest shaving the sides of my head and turning the top hot pink.
Spent: RM69
Saturday, 2.30pm, a nearby mall. They are having sales and since I recently lost a pair of cargo pants to a thief in the hostel, I go shopping and pick up a T-shirt and a pair of cargo pants in the exact same shade as the stolen ones (I am quite old-fashioned when it comes to clothing). Unfortunately, the discounts aren't quite as cost-saving as I'd hoped, and the cost is still quite high, although not as high as without discounts, or so I hope.
Spent: RM 75
Total spent: RM 600+
Time spent: Three hours
Monthly expenses: Genting....RM200+
Saturday...RM600+
Total......RM900 or so.
And Serene just now talked me into treating her, the Hanky, Cheeky, etc. to pizza (which cost me about RM50). Apparently I'm now expected to treat them to meals whenever I get good results (this pizza was for my Band 6--obviously it still rankles with her!).
So the total is now about RM 950. Does anybody now dare to say I am stingy?
A little note, and Pooh will probably be most interested in this. I have changed crushes. For one thing, the Hanky already has a boyfriend of her own (and no, I don't plan to start a war. It's not worth it); and for another, I'm much more fickle than I thought in these matters.
My sister knows who. I shall only say that her name in this blog shall be Coconut.
[edit: My sister told me that my previous measures weren't sufficient cover, so I have removed all information that may give impressions, false or otherwise. As of now, all you know is that Coconut is female. /edit]
[re-edit: My sister told me to take all information about her social life off the blog too. /re-edit]
And if you happen to guess her identity, for goodness' sake don't come up to me and tell me you know who. If I ever want to begin pursuing with a view to permanent relationships, I will. If not, I won't. Besides, I don't even know how to start one.
I'll have to ask the Pig about that.
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