Hiao like fishball

I wore glasses to work today for the first time at this (relatively) new workplace, but only because I woke up with a right eye that was red and slightly swollen, and therefore couldn't wear my contact lenses. I suspect I might've rubbed the eye in my sleep. Terz always growls at me when I rub my eyes when I'm awake, which has pretty much cured me of the habit, but perhaps muscle memory twitches my hands to do their own thing when I'm asleep.

Even though I think I look horribly different (and horrible) with glasses on, few people seemed to notice the difference. I think the students I teach did, but I also suspect they're so used to seeing their teachers a certain way that the slightest change --- a new pair of shoes, a fresh haircut, a different jaunt in the walk --- provokes a buzz likewise. (They don't think of us as human beings, you know, more as lecturing, hectoring automatons. It surprises them that we have preferences, lives, loves, whims.)

Some colleagues noticed and one commented that I either looked like I'd been crying my eye out (very agile, these tear ducts of mine, to only cry out of the right eye) or that I'd been beaten up. I really don't think I looked that bad.

Nevertheless, I hope the eye rests well tonight and lets me go back to contact lenses tomorrow. What to do, hiao lah.

--- Which brings me to the derivation of this blog post title. When I was in junior college, one of my classmates used to use the phrase, "hiao like fishball". Hiao means vain in Hokkien, a common enough turn of phrase in Singapore's polyglot vernacular. However, no one ever idiomatically pairs hiao with fishballs, which are processed balls of fish and flour that we eat with our noodles (tasty, honest! --- and having absolutely nothing to do with balls of fish). We make colourful comparisons like "blur like sotong", but there's no precedent for "hiao like fishball". My friend is the only person who's ever used the phrase, and when I parroted it to my mother and others, all I got in return were uncomprehending stares and helpful observations that fishballs were anything but vain.

Nevertheless, the vivid memory of my friend tossing off, "That girl, she hiao like fishball!" --- remains for me the quintessential expression of that scornful sentiment. And me, as far as the wearing of contact lenses are concerned? Definitely hiao like fishball.