scrapbooks and being accosted

i’ve been on the lookout for a scrapbook these couple of days. what i want is a simple book with thick pages that can withstand things like polariods and ticket stubs stuck to them, yet light coloured enough for me to scribble things down with a pen or marker.

unfortunately, all i’ve been seeing are those photo album things with black adhesive pages and a peel-off film, and lots and lots of notebooks with pretty covers but really thin pages. Or scrapbook kits that help you assemble a scrapbook in 10 easy steps with handy slots to insert photos and jot memories – that kind of thing.

all those but no plain scrapbook. i don’t even understand the need for scrapbook kits, when the whole point of scrapbooks is to let you exercise your creativity, or at the very least offer you the freedom to express your creativity. In my case, it’s the expression of the lack thereof, but at least a simple fuss-free book allows me full control of how much – or how little – effort i want to put in. at the moment i just want something to stick my ticket stubs and photos in, but it’s proving difficult to find in Singapore.

that’s the good old book i bought from Shinsaibashi’s Loft. I haven’t checked out the scrapbook store at Raffles City, but if they don’t have what I want I’m gonna have to look for some other alternative..

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i get accosted every time i head out, between tampines mrt and the bus interchange. in the short distance between them, i’ll be approached by a bank (standard chartered, sometimes UOB too), insurance (Prudential), one or two flier distributors, the occasional person asking for donations and whichever company has rented the space at the interchange for a roadshow (recently it was KPN Investments).

today was exceptionally bad. i went from the station to tampines mall, and encountered 4 flyer distributors and UOB credit card promoters. then, i crossed back from tampines mall to tampines one via the MRT station, and between the latter met with yet another flyer distributor and someone from the Singapore Cancer Society (SCS).

Now, i’m so tired of of the many people who accost me between Point A and Point B that I generally just tell them “No, thank you” the moment they try to approach me. I’ve been seeing the same Prudential and Stanchart people every day, and i’m just annoyed that I can’t go from one place to another on this island without all this unwanted soliciting. So I did the same as usual today, and the person from the Singapore Cancer Society actually had the cheek to get annoyed with me for being unwilling to stop and listen.

*fumes*

I know they’re out there for a good cause, but really, with all those bank/insurance/flyer people out there, I don’t see how I can be blamed for assuming that the SCS people were yet more of those. Come on, even their lanyard is red with white letters: the same as Prudential. They don’t wear a special t-shirt with the SCS logo either – in that fraction of a second where they’re approaching me and i have to decide whether to stop or not, if in doubt I will not stop. I made the mistake – more than once in fact - of stopping before and it was always yet another pushy insurance agent who wanted only “a minute” but took at least five.

I walked past another one of the SCS people later, and he was approaching people while holding up a clipboard that had a poster emblazoned with the words “SINGAPORE CANCER SOCIETY” in big white letters – i’m sure he was a lot more successful than that person with the nerve to get pissed with me. Young lady, if you’re given such a clipboard, then you should be using it - and you only have yourself to blame for not applying your brain to your job, regardless of whether it’s for a good cause or not.

*grrrr*

my brother commented that flyer distribution is a rather demeaning job – i suppose i do agree with him, as they have to deal with a lot of rejection. but i feel that a lot of those jobs shouldn’t exist in the first place, as the distribution of flyers is, in most cases, unnecessary. except for flyers from fast-food outlets or eateries with a promotional voucher, i’ve never once received a useful or relevant flyer in the years between secondary school and graduation from uni when i took flyers that were handed to me.

there was a period of time when my motto was to take whatever flyer given to me to help the distributor finish his/her work faster, but it has come to a point where i find flyer distribution useless to me and a waste of resources. with demand comes supply; me not taking a flyer sends a small signal that i don’t need one and am not interested in the product being advertised. hopefully more people will start doing so, and one day contribute to the presence of less flyer distributors.

it’s a bit of a stretch, but i’d like to think of it as being something similar to the idea where if you stop eating shark’s fin, there’ll be less hunting of sharks eventually. either way it means that I no longer have to find a bin to chuck that unwanted flyer after taking it, which suits me just fine.