130801, 2230hr, Singapore time.

i finally managed to finish all that 21-year-old immigration problems. for all those non-singapore-born singaporeans who will be turning 21 soon, hope you don't have as many problems as i did.

of course, as i had mentioned before, i had already made 2 wasted trips before, taking leave during my attachment, because i didn't turn 21 yet then. and then my birthday happened to fall on the week of my psc seminars, so i couldn't do anything till last week. so last monday, i went down to the m'sia high comm to hand in the application and do all the paper work, at least. it turned out that i had to submit my malaysian passport. which i don't have! i think my mom threw it away...come on, who would have thought they'd need to keep the malaysian passports that have expired like 10 years ago, and practically useless. erm. anyhow, so the m'sia high comm woman told me that i need to make a police report to complete my application.

so this morning, i went down to the police post to make a report. grr...the policeman on duty was so rude! he made this irritated face at me when i told him that i don't know what the passport number is. neither could i tell him the exact date of the loss. i told him it's probably lost about 5 years ago [when we moved house] and he gave me this incredulous look. while filling in the forms, he called two people, asking them what to do, while complaining how ridiculous it is. argh! mr policeman, so sorry i'm making your life difficult ok, by making you fill in an ambiguous date. sheesh. at first i was just amused, and i didn't blame him, for taking his job so seriously. but after the report was done, and he said i could go, i checked, and realised that he's not given my ic back to me yet. so i asked him nicely for it. he didn't even look at me when he passed it back to me. argh argh argh! so rude! not a word of apology for not returning me my ic before trying to chase me out. grrrrr... so i take my opinion back, it's not that he was taking his job seriously [if he were, he wouldn't have forgotten to give me back my ic] but he was just being irritated at me for bringing such an unusual [and hence difficult] case to him. sheesh. so irritating!

*pant pant*

anyway, the rest of the day went fine. renounciated my citizenship officially, took the oath at the singapore immigration place, with my right hand raised and everything. the whole process was faster than i thought. there were 2 other people who were also there to take the oath. interestingly, the guy looked younger than 21. the other girl looked older than 21. hahahah...these days i'm obsessed with this issue of whether i look my age, by the way.

sidenote: i have to comment that SIR (Singapore Immigration Registry) is very efficient. very impressive. i took less than an hour to take my oath, have my citizenship cert altered, and my passport renewed.

*beam* i'm singaporean!

oh, by the way, i think my mom is acting weird these days. yesterday, know what she said?

"eh, not bad, you lose weight, now can tell got shape." [by the way, this is a huge compliment, in contrast to her usual comments about my weight.]

and then this afternoon, "i think you've become pretty."

eek! is this my mom? hmm. think she feels bad at realising how her comments have hurt me before. apparently my younger brother felt like complimenting me today too. to cushion the mushiness of mom's comment, my brother joked, "yeah, other people become prettier when they're 18, you're more retarded, you have to wait till you're 21." hahaha...what should i say to that? hah....

this is the way my family compliments one another, very rare, and always hidden in an insult. but cos i know what they really mean to say, it still feels good. ah, even though i don't see what's so different about me now. i think it took them too long to realise how gorgeous i really am...muahahhaa...