falling into grace

I don't think I can properly put into words how lovely the past few days have been..this birthday I imagined would be spent worrying about results, but instead it was the best birthday I've had so far, and it was wonderful.

yay. I love everyone so much right now it's creepy. (I'm sure it won't last. But it feels great. haha!)

The 3 times I got to make wishes over this weekend I wished everytime for the same thing. (No, I know what you all think it is, and it was not!) But I think now I'll be ok no matter what. There are too many other things to give thanks for.

Posted by chang! at 12:51 AM | Permalink | Comments

Just read Dalena's blog, and her post about how BT is not for her. Her recount of the whole Budget Day thing is SO TRUE and really funny. At ST too, like Budget Day was such a freakin big deal..everyone was all buzzing about it, and there was a special "budget team". And we (the interns), are all like, who cares?

Very sad. But I have had a good couple of days. Yesterday my Columbia Interview went well enough, I really really hope to get in though, the guy makes Columbia, and New York, sound awesome..

Today met very nice people too - After the BeautyChina results briefing (*snore*), while I was stuffing my face at their wonderful Equinox buffet spread, I met this very nice woman from UOB, whose son is my age. He's in the commando unit now! from SAJC. And she did lit in uni too, and was very sympathetic about the whole results! next! week! thing (prob cos she was also very nervous for her son.)

Then on the way home, sat in the cab of this awesome lady driver! She is SO COOL, and reminds me alot of my dad.

Oh, and the PR pple from August Consulting are really genuinely nice too. (Of course they want me to write good things, so not entirely sincere la. haha!)

It's very nice when I meet random nice people like that, pple you can have a laugh and a nice encounter with. I mean, I probably will never meet either of them again - but I'm glad I did at least once.

Posted by chang! at 3:14 PM | Permalink | Comments

I am in a poisonous mood today. But whatever.

I covet everything that the cover model on this month's seventeen is wearing (can I qualify that I only bought this month's seventeen because my mum's flight was delayed for 3 hours and we had nothing to do at the airport. But it is fabulous!). Especially the roxy hoodie sweater. And her turquoise eyeliner. I love turquoise! Anything turquoise is gorgeous.

In other news: I actually really do like the almost-real LV bag my mum bought me. I mean, it really IS a good knock-off, and even if pple know it is, who cares? I like the shape and everything. yay! And she brought back really nice earrings from my sister for me too.

But am most of all glad that she is back.

Posted by chang! at 2:34 PM | Permalink | Comments

Yesterday was my first day in the service sector. It was utter and total shite. Starting with the fact that that same borderline retarded guy neglected to mention that I should turn up in leather closed-toe shoes. I mean, seriously. How am I supposed to know that I should turn up in this kind of shoes? It was so embarrassing standing there with all the rest of the staff looking at my pityingly like I was some kind of idiot who wore slippers (which I was, but HE DIDN'T TELL ME NOT TO. and yes, it IS my first time in the service sector).
So, I had to rush all the way down to OG, and spend $29.90 on a pair of hideous clown shoes, (and $3.90 for the goddamn socks!), rush back, only to endure 5 hours of the most incompetent rookie training I have ever encountered in my life.

I mean, thank God for my station manager - Lawrence - and the other waitress at my station - Thao - who were incredibly nice and forgiving, because I had to endure standing around the whole night doing mostly nothing (I mean, there's only so many times you can change someone's ashtray before they start thinking you're up to something else), and like getting scolded for not doing anything (although THERE WAS NOTHING TO DO.)

And I mean, these pple are so incompetent, they didn't even tell me things like "We don't serve western food after 11", and the protocol for credit card bills, (I found these things out by ACCIDENT), things one would think the managers would want their waitresses to know! eegads.

And after the tortuous 5 hours, I actually LOST MONEY - a grand total of -$0.50, considering the $33 I shelled out for the clown shoes and socks.

So I actually PAID half a doller for the shite I endured last night. This is ridiculous.

In other news, mum is coming home tomorrow! Also, I was accosted by my sister telling me about this very expensive knock-off LV bag (an oxymoron, one might think) that mum bought for me in Shanghai.

It apparently has the LV monogram. Which worries me, because, as I've mentioned many times, (Azi will attest), whenever one sees someone carrying an LV bag, one immediately asks oneself "Real or fake?". Then you take into account the rest of what she's wearing (eg: are those shoes from Ninewest, or Charles and Keith?), and the setting (is she in the MRT, or just exiting the Tiffany's store?), and one easily can deduce if the bag's real or fake.

So what worries me, is that when I'm wearing the bag (which of course I will, even if it's hideous), is that someone as judgmental and free as me, will notice, and come to the logical conclusion. (considering the many pairs of Charles and Keith shoes I have, and the amount of time I spend on the MRT). It's karma.

Posted by chang! at 8:17 PM | Permalink | Comments

Just read the INSIGHT feature on Catherine Lim in today's ST (on a separate note: the INSIGHT today is pretty good: three pretty good articles from the poldesk, but more on that later)

"Among the mourners [at her funeral] will be someone from the Ministry of Information, Communications and the Arts (Mica), because she is, after all, an author.
The representative, however, will be a low-ranking official, ' whose duty is to represent the minister at the funerals of Singapore's politically controversial writers, playwrights, artists and film producers - the minister preferring to represent himself for the rest '. "

Heh. she rocks. And I love that she has the balls to say this kind of thing still (especially after the whole 1994 debacle). And I want her new book: Unhurried Thoughts at my Funeral

And amazingly enough the ST devoted a whole page to her. and included all the comments one might expect to be cut: eg "I examine political openness in terms of three acceptable things in any democratic society: civic assembly, political cartoons and the ability to sue the government - and win" (I can just imagine her raised eyebrow and the unasked: "Where does that leave us then?")

The political desk at the ST is not known for its independence or candour: esp when people like Chua Mui Hoong insist on eschewing the government line about everything including how foreign talent is good! for! us!

But I have to agree with her column about how no point trying to stop the influx of bright kids from china and india.
I (and anyone who does arts, I think) have never had much of a problem with foreign competition. But the thing is, if you can make it, you can make it lor. If you can't - doesn't matter WHO you lose to, foreign or whatever, you can't. It's just like barely-concealed xenophobia for parents to blame foreigners for their kids not being able to keep up in schools. Some kids just don't do well in school, and some do. No point trying to be indignant about it.

Which reminds me of how I really don't like how Jireh is so rude about my cousin. (actually this has nothing much to do about the foreign talent thing. But I guess it shall be the gripe of the day: )

Flashback to last night:
Jireh: "Your cousin got into Merton. MERTON. But you know, he doesn't know who Jeanette Winterson is!" (gasp! the humanity!)
Me: "SO?! So what if he doesn't know who Jeanette Winterson is? He still got into Merton. He still got the PSC scholarship. And since when is knowing who Jeanette Winterson is the barometer of literary ability? Just because he doesn't know who she is, and YOU do, does not make you any smarter than him, or better at lit. (subtext: YOU didn't get into merton. so shut up.")
Jireh: [in sing-song voice] "Ok then, whatever you say!"

Urgh.

Posted by chang! at 11:36 AM | Permalink | Comments

Man in restaurant orders crabmeat salad; mistakenly, waitress brings shrimp salad; livid, angry man roars: "Where the hell's my crabmeat?"

Somehow, life owes him a crabmeat salad. He takes for granted not only the shrimp salad but so many other gifts - life, faith, family, friends, talents.

The deeper we grow in the spirit of Jesus Christ, the poorer we become - the more we realise that everything in life is a gift.

"The greatest honour we can give Almighty God is to live gladly because of the knowledge of his love." - Julian of Norwich

- The ragamuffin gospel - Brennan Manning -

Posted by chang! at 9:56 PM | Permalink | Comments

Well. I am blogging. What a novel experience. I do recall (and I'm sure many annoying people will remind me) that I many-a-timed condemned blogging as exhibitionistic and self-absorbed.
Just because I am doing it now doesn't mean I take that back though - hah.
Anyways I shall only tell select people about this blog - so if you stumbled here without me having told you about it, you're not select enough la. haha

Oddly enough I was inspired to set up a blog by isabelle's boyfriend, kenneth, whose blog I was reading because I was bored enough at work. This is weird to say - but there was something touchingly honest about the way he wrote, and not poseur-ish at all. You know most blogs are incredibly poseur, the way pple like to squeeze out pseudo-philosophical musings about their barely 20 year old lives etc. Or invent some angst just to sound interesting (I mean, pple can elevate some far-off crush into The Love of Their Lives) (not that I haven't fallen into that pre-pubescent trap before la. But still. at least I didn't broadcast it). Well, kenneth's blog was...very easy to empathise with. I liked it - it was honest.

(This is very odd, especially since I've only met Kenneth about twice.)

Well: gripe of the week

is the borderline retarded manager at Indochine. Seriously la, this guy is like so ill-equipped to be in charge of anything, dunno how he managed to get the job also. Oh well.
Actually I'm just a bitch la - Yaxin was all "I feel bad for this man!" after I very meanly espoused my "mentally deficient" theory to her.
It's just that I get this way: my small narrow mind latches onto something about someone that rubbed me the wrong way - and I'll elevate it into psychological theories about that person's emotional crutch etc (in order to justify my overreaction to said person's misstep). Exhibit A: lydia and the boyfriend depression.

Anyways:
Sometimes working here really really sucks donkey ass. But then I remember that I actually got here (unlike other applicants who were as worthy, honestly), and that I really want A scholarship (to the US! bloody MFA), and that at least I have joyce, and da, and jo, and pepper, and jen, and all the other interns who are fun, and make life here bearable at least.
And then I also remember that all first jobs start out shittily, and that I should stop being a princess and expect everything to go my way.
Also that I am incredibly insignificant in the SPH hierarchy, so suck it up, man.

Oh and it's my mother's 50th birthday today! Which she is spending in Shanghai with my sister freezing her ass off. Ma, happy birthday! I love you more than renji's vocabulary can express.

Posted by chang! at 5:30 PM | Permalink | Comments