Just to say hi!

You know this mad person? 11.05

This is me in my corner office, snug and warm.

Hello, everybody!

Day 7 and what a week it's been

My nights are filled with shopping for the house, thoughts of shopping for the house, and wondering what I can do to settle in. Any tips? I don't feel brave enough to venture out much yet, and there's hardly time anyway. How long will it take for me to feel like this is home? In the meantime, there's work. For the first time in my life, I can write pretty much anything I want (and push for the story to be printed) and I have absolutely no idea where to begin.

On a lighter, happier note, Baby and I have been talking on the phone everyday and it's good. I've also been meeting people and going out, so...yeah, it'll get better. I hope to feel like myself again.

4 weeks to Xmas!

A quick one

The temperature has been around a plesant 11-18 degrees. Mmmm.

If you can drive in Shanghai without getting killed, you can drive anywhere.

It will take a while for me to feel settled. In the meantime, I need more Singaporean-ness!

The apartment

Left to right, from the top

1. The balcony
2. View from the guest room
3. The guest room
4. The guest bathroom
5. View from the balcony
6. My bedroom
7. The entrance, sort of
8. My bathroom
9. The living room

Shanghai, Shanghai

Ok! I am safe and sound here but a little cold and overwhelmed and lost and yes, lonely coz I had the entire apartment to myself last night!

Loads of stuff to buy for the place and some effort must be put it to home-ify it...starting tonight.

That's all for now!

To celebrate...

...others go for a romantic dinner. We bought our first 4D together and watched Harry Potter and The Goblet of Fire and shared a tub of popcorn.

Thanks, sweetie. It's been a swell one year.

The one where she refers to herself as a third person

Ok it's just past 4pm at the office and it's not that she doesn't have any work to do. It's just that the work involves a lot of waiting for bureaucratic, government-type people to get back to her, which is a royal pain in the butt.

Speaking of butts, she fell on hers like 5 times on Sunday afternoon when she and the boyfriend went rollerblading for the first time in years! Now her right hand has this big, black, funny-looking bruise - who the hell falls on her palm!? such an idiot - which he spent some time rubbing last night so it will "go away". He even crowned her Queen of Bruises coz she's got one of those on her right bum as well. That one, he didn't rub. heh heh.

So anyway, she has been doing her sums and she realised that while she can probably afford to buy her own little apartment in Telok Kurau now, she might be better off waiting another 6 years - that's when she turns 35 - and buy herself a HDB flat. Cheaper. Monthly mortgage payments are no joke and a real heavy responsibility. Wouldn't it be better to have that much extra cash to play with every month and sock away for emergencies? Definitely. What do people think? She has never been one of those girls who spent her 20s dreaming that some guy is gonna come rescue her and carry her away to a private-condominium existence, hence the whether-to-purchase-now decision.

Damn. Come to think of it, maybe she should have been one of those girls, eh? Imagine! They say you get what you expect, right? So maybe if she had gone around expecting some random guy to pick her up and pay for the home, she would be happily shacked up in some 99-year condo with one of them stupid names and driving her hubby's Nissan Sunny now?! Oh, fate, how you mock me! Her, I mean!

Anyway, she had lunch with a couple of 22-year-olds who interned at the previous newspaper and boy, was it refreshing! She enjoyed the optimism, the cheerfulness, there was no whining, no lurid stories about this person sleeping with that person who used to sleep with the other person's sister. It was all very nice and sweet and proper and imagine! They actually look up to her and asked her for advice about what they should do after they graduate from university in six months' time.

Oh, just do what makes you happy, she said. Don't be what you think you should be. Be what you are. You won't go wrong with that.

So after years of struggling, she is following her own advice and has newfound happiness. Why it took so long, she has no idea.

But it's not too late la.

Have some faith, dammit

Lordy...

Ok, as the day creeps (or rather, speeds) closer - 5 more days! - more people have been asking me - "So how, you nervous/prepared/scared/excited (or some other emotion associated with starting something new)?

Many are sending well wishes, notes that say "I'm inviting myself to your place when I visit!"

Others ask "So how, the boyfriend?", with perhaps a perverse desire to hear me go "Don't know. See how." or "We've decided to call it quits."

In many ways, the answer is genuinely "Don't know. See how." coz we don't know what's going to happen. I've also stopped answering such questions and would only smile coz most people, for some reason, would prefer to see me stressed out and upset and sad that my boyfriend and I are going to be living in different countries for a while.

It's mindboggling.

Why is it that people feed into negative energy and repeat cynical statements that may not truly reflect what they feel, thinking it makes them appear sensible? I have had to fight the urge to go "Yeah, it may not work out, I don't know." when talking to naysayers but as the day approaches, I find myself going "Hey, will you stop being so negative?" more and more often. And I truly believe it.

No, I am not saying it's going to be easy. I'm not saying there won't be difficulties or challenges or shitty, emotional episodes that we have to deal with, but I'm taking the risk because there is no one else (real or fictional) I can imagine wanting to be with.

I'm choosing to do what's hard - to have some faith and hope and be happy that I've found the rarest thing in the world - than to cop out and give up even before trying. Too many people do that with almost everything in their lives.

So friends, I hope you'll be happy for me that I'm doing this.

And most importantly, be there for me when I whine and cry!

What's wrong with being a good girl?

So I've been to Catholic/Christian schools all my life - I went to a Catholic primary school and a Catholic secondary school. Even my high school in Perth was an all-girls' boarding college (but I didn't last more than a semester being a boarder and moved out and got my own room - for A$55 a week! in a house after that).

Anyways, this post was a direct result of Daryl asking me what's the naughtiest thing I've ever done in school. I was stumped. I didn't break into the teacher's room at night, I didn't steal my classmates' stuff, I didn't paint shit on the schools' walls, I don't even remember playing truant. Ok, so I've copied my friends' homework, taken the occasional MC-day when I wasn't truly honestly bedridden, and soaked the floors of the homeroom playing water bombs but...who hasn't, right?

So I was hum-ing and haw-ing and that was when I realised I was a good girl and still am one, through and through. The only rebellious thing I have ever done was to quit JC against my parents' (or more specifically, my dad's) wishes and moved to my aunt's the year I turned 17. "I am going to apply to go to poly (vocational school, for the benefit of those outside Singapore) and you can't stop me!" I remember screaming that to my father.

And I got my first job, earning $900 a month, which was a lot of money when you're 16.

Then I studied literature and Asian history in university instead of economics.

So anyway, now I'm wondering if the education system has failed me - I blame YOU! - and turned me into a scaredy cat who doesn't dare to take risks. Sure, I dropped out of JC and had decided, from a very early age, that I was going to pursue a career/life in the arts/writing and not let money be anything significant in my life. I could have been a banker, you know? But...I guess my point is: staying in a good school, studying hard, getting the grades was the safe thing to do and most of my peers did that, I think. Coz "messing with your future" was seriously a stupid thing to do. There is such a thing as rebelling for the sake of it.

Today, I think most of us still wanna beat the so-called unconventional path, picking our battles and fighting The Man in our little ways. We may not have the big stories to tell but the little things are no less significant.

So I am a good girl. Who continues to fight The Man. And I'm proud of it.

The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou

Awesome

It is the best film I've seen in ages. I must qualify that statement...coz I don't watch many films. I am a film lover to the core and have refined my taste in films greatly after watching countless of them. So I know what I like, hence, I don't watch many films. It takes a fabulous film to make me shell out $9 or whatever it is you have to pay these days at the cinema. And most films nowadays are crap.

This one's really smart, funny, touching, offbeat and makes you look at the things around you in an entirely different light. It's probably not coming to the big screens in Singapore but thank God for Video-Ezy and DVDs.

Right now, I am loving...

Hmmmy latte

- anything bronze in colour
- Chai latte
- dressing down
- not reading fashion/girly mags
- The Boy (like, really really)
- triple fudge brownies
- speaking in Mandarin
- the strawberry margarita at New Asia Bar
- Origins products
- Thai food
- being whoopeeee-do! excited
- day dreaming about buying a place of my own
- thinking about possibilities

My 'burb - Changning

Ok ok ok ok ok!!!!

Shit, this is what happens when I become excited and hence incoherent.

My friends, this will be my neighbourhood, my home, my 'burb in 7 days' time. My home will be a two-bedder in a two-block condominium. Will post pictures when I move there.

And please....visit!

X is for Xmas

It's Xmas! 11.05

The lights are up, people are shopping for gifts and there is no excuse not to binge on chocolates and cake and champers.

Yup, it's fast approaching that time of the year when people just have less motivation to work than any time during the year. I don't know how I feel about Xmas. I think it's just the festive, easy-going mood I enjoy. You know, a time to see friends you might not have seen much through the year - bad, bad - and just taking stock of the year. To reflect, to think about what was good and bad in the previous 11 months and what is to come.

My favourite part is the chocolate la.

Everything's rocking

I know it's a really stupid title for a post.

But like who cares.

I'm at a point where I really don't wanna be so freaking serious anymore. Yeah, in other words, uptight la.

I also refuse to put up with crap. I refuse to put up with people's funny moods and their quirks and I refuse, especially, to put up with those people's need for attention...when they act all moody and sad and cynical and want me to go to them and say "Hey, come on, cheer up" and have a two-hour conversation with them about how big their problems are and how the world doesn't understand what they are going through. Hell, we all have issues. No, wait, I have problems. Those can be fixed. But if you've been wrestling with the same thing for years and haven't been able to fix them coz you've been doing the same thing over and over and getting yourself into a vicious cycle of ineffective behaviour, hell, then you have issues. No, honey, it's not coz you're a deeper person who thinks more than others, you just like being sad coz it's the only way you feel alive. Everybody has bad habits and yours is pain.

But I digress.

So with about 7 weeks to a new year, here's my resolution: to stop freaking trying to strive for perfection. To stop trying to have it all. To stop being something that others expect me to be.

Why? Coz perfection is just dem boring. And so is having everything.

Here's to the rest of the year and a note to those who actually have a list of to-dos: You have 52 more days to 2006. It's still not too late!

These people are mad

Thought of the day: I am exhausted.

But my world is ok.

What's a job?

Thought of the day: People must really love their houses/cars to stay in jobs they hate.

So not worth it.

Screw "hard work"

Ugly-ly ever after...!

Here are the stats - I was looking through my contact lists and found that about 8 out of 10 of my secondary school friends are married, some with a couple of kids. And now... Ann is due before the end of the year, Rita is getting hitched next March and I think I'll be getting news from Angie some time next year too.

Then there are certain people in my life who are divorced, not happy with their marriages or have somehow decided that marriage is not for them. Here is my take about eight months ago. I don't know if meeting Daryl has changed my mind; I think not. I still think it is a huge, frightening, risky step to take, and that for it to work, both parties have to want the same thing.

This is not the same as "hard work", though...people always say "relationships are hard". Being with someone "is hard". "Don't expect it to be easy." But I always think "but relationships are not supposed to be hard!" Yes, I think it takes some compromise but on the other hand, I wonder why people stay in relationships that take so much work that they give them no joy and are apparently a chore to them? Maybe they love the drama of fights and (blind) sacrifice and tears and screaming - they think their love story is not a great one otherwise - but nuh-uh, not me. I don't wanna be a martyr of love. I think that's stupidity.

Gimme an easy relationship any day. And when this becomes "difficult", maybe it's time to call it a day.

Why I don't do general news

Situation: After reading The Sunday Times
Background music: Jamiroquai

Realise that general news - we're talking about local news - always involves some guy running away with his girlfriend's or wife's money or some guy running away with his boss' money or some married guy leaving his CPF money to his girlfriend or some psycho-paedophile or some woman cheating on her husband or more commonly, some man cheating on his wife and getting stabbed by the wife or some other type of psycho doing horrible stuff to other people?

Well, I don't wanna deal with the injustice of it all and also...the more you read and deal with such stuff on a day-to-day basis, the more blase and cynical you become. It's easier to go "What's the big deal?" and become the cheating girlfriend or boyfriend coz hell, everyfreakingone is doing it! Hence, I'd rather deal with economics and trade and figures and charts and graphs. Less bloody and involves fewer drama freaks.

And don't get me started on the terrible stuff that people pass off as magazines here. "I had sex with my granddad!", "How to handle 7 men at the same time!", "I had sex with my boyfriend's granddad!"...oh, enough already, really.

I wanna make a bonfire of Her Worlds.

Who? Me?

Just lacking the pin

I don't know what it is...I'd like to blame it on the flu - coz my head was just feeling so bloody heavy on Friday and Saturday, dude - but I cancelled a Friday night dinner, a Saturday rollerblading session with Daryl, a Saturday night dinner and didn't turn up for a Saturday night birthday party which supposedly involved some kinda cheesy male stripper. Stayed home and watched movies instead.

I'm becoming a blob!!!

Or maybe I just don't feel like seeing people.

Swearing off booze

Woke up this morning feeling like I would never, ever have - or want - another drop of alcohol.

Must be the medication.

Shit, I hate being sick.

Mogwai on board

Calm down!

In the light of day - while chomping down home-cooked breakfast beehoon - last night seemed hilarious...what with Daryl freaking out in the passenger seat while I was behind the wheels for the first time!

Of course, it wasn't so hilarious when I was going through it. He raised his voice at me for THE FIRST TIME EVER - and I gave him hell for it after, though technically, he wasn't raising his voice at ME; he was just screaming "Step on the brake! You're gonna crash!"...my response? I slowed down the car and looked at him with shock. I screamed back "What the hell was that for?! I knew what I was doing! Would you calm down?!"

The funny thing is - Daryl is one of the, well, calmest people I know. He never raises his voice even when we fight and it's not an act. He does have a temper - if he didn't, I would be wondering what's wrong with him - but he doesn't see the need to be loud or aggressive, especially to your girlfriend, just to "have your say".

So I guess this is a note about the way we "fight". We don't shout; we don't scream. There may be some tears - from me - if the thing was bad but we're generally quite calm. I think that's cool.

When friends outgrow each other

Over the course of the past year and a half, I have been letting a particular friendship die a natural death.

At the beginning, it was a little painful coz we've been friends since we were 16.

Now, I'm finding it difficult to put up with her incessant shopping - which is what we end up doing EVERY TIME we meet...is this what most Singaporeans do in their free time? - fantasising about her imaginative angmo boyfriend (Yes, she said she wants to marry a rich angmo guy or she won't marry) and her ranch in Australia.

I am all for fantasies and getting what you want - hell, I've had a sweet German boyfriend and a gruff Scottish one! before I turned 26! - but when you start thumbing your nose at guys just coz they are Chinese or Asian and say they are no good (when you've never had any dating experience before), that's when I want to call you seriously deluded and shout that you're a bloody bimbo to your face.

But that's MY fantasy.

So yeah, there was no dramatic single episode that tore us apart, so to speak; we haven't been fighting.

For me, it's the realisation that there will be quite a few fundamental issues upon which we do not agree, that she will never understand why I do what I do - why do I carry around a daggy old Nike tote when I can afford cute little purses! - and that I will find that her attitude both parochial and condescending.

I don't need my friends to agree with me all the bloody time, but I do need them to know that I will never be happy doing certain things that certain people must do and that I'd rather do something that makes me truly happy than another which makes me look good.

If you want your condo or big house, fine.
If you want an angmo husband and interracial kids, fine.

Just don't tell me that what I want and what I love ain't good enough.

So bye bye, birdie.

Why I blog

Read a couple of bloggers who wonder what the purpose of their blogs are.

In my more reflective moments, I would wonder what the point of this is, too.

But now, all I wanna say is I have friends who live overseas, I like to rant and write and so here am I.

Snippets

Yes, my child?

Why does "good luck" usually happen when you're not looking for any?

Just when I have stopped looking for an apartment of my own, an agent calls and said he's found a great little one-bedder for me. So I trundled over to Telok Kurau on Saturday afternoon.

The unit - all 800 sq ft of it - is on the top floor of a three-storey walk-up apartment, consisting 15 households. It's next to East Shore Hospital, the famous Still Road pepper crab stall and a 15-min walk from my baby's house on East Coast Road, with all the eateries.

The lady who opened the door - a Christian who has apparently quit her job and is going to Africa to be a missionary - is clearly proud of her home coz she started showing us her pieces of furniture. I don't like Bali so I wasn't that impressed with the items, but there is so much I can do with the space.

She had knocked down the wall between two smallish rooms to create a big room with a walk-in wardrobe and a partitioned study area. The kitchen is a decent size and faces lotsa trees.

If I were to buy the unit, I would probably knock down all the wooden stuff - the built-in wardrobe, the shelves etc. - and get a brand new kitchen and bathroom. Oh, I would also install an oven.

Sheesh, how much would that cost me??????? And how sensible is it to buy the place just to knock everything down?

I likeeee!

***

"Are you hung over? I am."

Those were the first words my baby said when I answered the phone this morning...after the little session at Wala Wala's last night. No one there was in costume despite it being Halloween but we did spot a few merry-makers along Lorong Mambong dressed as Rambo and other killer rabbits.

"Uh, I'm not. I wasn't even drunk."
"Show off."
"Do not hate me just coz I can hold my booze."
"Sigh. It was a bad idea."

And that was the first time I saw my baby get drunk, even if just mildly.

***

My dog chewed up the DVDs I borrowed from Video-Ezy.

Yes, all three of them. There was nothing to say except, "We should have brought him out in the morning," after screaming "ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!"