That pretty much sums up my entire day - talk was alright, I'm surprised they did get a large TV in the end, which served its function well indeed. Thank goodness the crowd was sparse so early in the morning (mine's the first talk) and thankfully no press around. The audience was receptive, although I did make some crude remarks about the origins of venus' flytraps' botanical name (Dionaea muscipula - familiar with Dion in mythology?) Their old name was actually Aphrodite's Mousetrap .. hint: it's because of a certain body part.

Also met with 2 of the guys in charge of the talk, and got awfully envious of their obviously good bods. Arghhhhhh. Definitely will shed some pounds after this fiasco, but still needs A LOT of work.

Most of the morning crowd were some very silly P*C tourists, some very appreciative Japanese tourists (CPs are huge there) and a great Phillipino with whom I had a good chat about the CPs found on Mindanao island. Evening crowd were mostly Singaporeans (you can tell - the fucking brats still touch the plants even with a font size 50 "PLEASE DO NOT TOUCH" sign right in front of their stupid clotted noses).

Hmmm. Quite a lot of work, minimal returns - but then again, I'm doing this partly to do the Sentosa peeps a favour, and partly to do an informal survey. Yx was amazing today - I never knew she memorises things I blab every night over the phone, even the littlest of trivia from what a frogfish eats, to what a Sandfire Gold bearded dragon is, to the latin names of my plants. And she bought a nice trio of Tillandsia from the stall next door to hang in her room. Told her she can sell these things if she likes, I can grow them for fun like what I've been doing for the past 11 years, and she can do the sickening part of dealing with people and meeting brats.

Gosh .. 7 more days to go. Wed, Thurs and Fri would be a problem for me .. Yx has so kindly volunteered to be there on Thurs and Fri, but it's really such dull work being there alone .. and I can only be there AFTER closing time on Fri! Paeds sessions at NUS. Bad clash of times.

Yep, definitely no more next year. Back to my quiet, low-brow tending of my little garden of horrors come 5th Feb. At this point I must apologise to and thank some friends esp my groupmates, who until now never heard me mention such a hobby but yet have been so delightfully encouraging and understanding - as previously-explained, the response from people regarding my personality and apparent perverseness has been so firmly proven over the years that I simply do what I like to do in solitude and quiet, and only people closest to me or those in the circle ever knew about it.

And just for the record, I'm not perverse, nor do I grow them for the "HAH!! I'LL FEED MY ENEMIES TO MY PLANTS!" factor. It's purely horticultural with a hint of the scientific, a subtle worship of the wonders of biology, evolution and adaptation. And no - there's no such thing as a man-eating plant. =P