First day of work
Thursday, June 28, 2007
It really wasn't too tough, if you minus the waking up bit (which is practically everything because sleep is extremely important now that I realise I can't get much of it.)
So far, I'm just a trainee so had a series of nonstop workshops from fellow colleagues trying to sell their wares and recruit us into their various committees and also one from our department head training us on the updated syllabus.
Yes, I have a table, which is all the way to the back of the room and almost entirely hidden unless you walk a u-turn to get through to the other row, but that's really okay. My middle name is obscurity but my sense of fashion is loud (actually that depends, there are lowkey days) and people often use my hair as a topic to open up the conversation.
Right, back to the table.
It is practically empty but I have cleaned out the stack of newspapers under my desk (god knows what they are doing there) and shifted some leftover bags of junk food and miscellaneous to the other side where I try not to look at and also wiped the table and little shelves with wet tissues (the last skin allergy to dust has taught me not to give those dust-loving bacteria a chance).
So now my desk is practically empty, save for a few books, a Salvador Dali calendar (yup, an extra one I bought in Spain but didn't have a chance to use and nobody seems to appreciate him but me so finally there is an avenue for such an evangelising mission now), two tin cans worth of thumbtacks and metal clips (for fairly idealistic organising purposes, but will probably end up playing with them colourful little bits when the papers pale in comparison), one mini wastepaper-bin-turned-food-bin (where else could I fit my camomile tea bags and sweets and whatnot snacks? Of course I decided that as soon as I placed it on the table and decided that baby pink was too sweet a dustbin. Obviously my mother was pissed that I had kop-ed her bin used to hold my sister's nonsense lol), one pair of wooden twin foxes arm in arm (to cheer me up when I'm depressed in the near future and to start me thinking of nicer things in general other than work, not that they have been used for such purposes yet), a bright green mug with some other bright paints splashed on it, extra toiletries and a pair of bedroom slippers (in case the heels get too painful lol, although I think the larger reason lies in comfort for my poor feet).
Well, I realised that's quite alot to bring in for a first day, but I assure you that the things will eventually multiply and then I'm gonna have a dreadfully hard time lugging them all back by the time I leave.
Hmm.. maybe I should smuggle in some toys sometime, or some flowers ha (if I ever receive them lol.. er... oh well maybe not).
3:54 pm
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Several things during my short-lived freedom...
Friday, June 15, 2007
Several things. This post has been long overdue. There were many things I went for and wanted to blog about but just didn't get down to doing it until now.
The GSS has seen me on several occasions, in several spates of money-spending/begging/lending. No, I'm only just kidding, I don't think it's that bad. At least not yet. Yup "shopping spree" is my current middle name but I have one main valid reason: I need working clothes. If you've seen my wardrobe, you will know that it's full of clothing that can be divided into two extreme categories: 1. Comfortable casual clothing meant for school and going out and sleeping in. 2. Formal clothing meant for dressy occasions. Obviously the latter category is seriously lacking in quantity since I seldom wear them, not to mention even sniff at them. Besides, most of it belongs to the dinner and dance sort of occasion and is hardly meant for the working environment, which explains part of the reason why I am "stocking up" on these utterly boring clothes (although I usually try my best not to buy such stuff). So let's not even go to the shoes and accessories bit.
Mandy and I (Cat couldn't come!) celebrated Maggi's birthday by expertly conning her, the latest and the second of the birthday surprise installments for this dysfunctional family. But I must say, this girl seriously has issues man. First she tries desperately hard to "remind" Mandy in several smses (I think we counted a total of 5 so far) that it was
her birthday on the day we were meeting, and then she constantly chides us for totally forgetting about it and NOT doing anything about it. But perhaps, it was a blessing in disguise, since we pulled off the conning bit fairly easily and could even exchange frequent glances that said "I told you she would react this way" without her even suspecting a thing. Eventually, Mandy -the larger victim of the day- managed to produce the present we got her prior to meeting her in a rather crude way by casually pulling it out of her big bag and placing it on the table in front of Maggi, to her absolute horror and embarrassment. LOL.
In fact, the conversation went something like this after that:
Maggi slumped on the table after staring at the white paper bag and without touching it. So Mandy tried to prompt her.
Mandy: Eh, aren't you going to open
your birthday present?
Maggi: OMG I just want to bury my head inside this table. SO
PAI SEI!!!
Me: Errrrr... (and we both stare at her in half amusement and half puzzlement)
After about 15 mins, Maggi finally looked up and decided we should order our food (Mandy and I were practically starving but was too polite to interrupt her embarrassed moments).
Maggi: Ok, I think I should treat you guys to
dim sum.
OMG Maggi has never (bold/italicise/underline) offered to treat us to anything before! This was like a one-off thing that we better grab before she changed her mind because we knew that we would never hear those words from the horse's mouth ever again lol. In fact, Mandy and I offered to pay for our share, I guess we couldn't quite believe our luck, even until after the food had been served.
Anyway, to cut the story short, she did open her present and found a baby blue crocheted bikini, to her utter surprise.
Maggi: Whose idea was this?
Me: Erm mine, I thought you could vary your chances of flaunting
hur hur.
Maggi: (gasps) Do you know that I'm
very conservative??
Mandy and me: Huh. (pause) Ya right.
And then we tried to smoke our way out of this one:
Mandy: Erm, did you know that Michelle wanted to look for your size at the kids' section?
Me: (immediately protesting) but the smallest adult size is 6!! And if she can't wear it, then I don't know what else she can wear seriously.
Maggi: Er, no lah, I think I can wear it.
Mandy: Ya, it's like a tie-on one, so we minimised the chances of not fitting.
Me: Ok,
now can we have food??
So we had food and everybody was finally satisfied.
On another note, I went for my Godma's son's wedding together with my mom, who is also Godma's close friend. It was a grand affair at Four Seasons hotel with lavish food like Shark's fins and other luxurious exquisite food, and beautiful decorations like golden plates and fresh dark red roses, all meant to serve the paying wedding couple and their guests. Most of the guests (at least those at my end of the ballroom) were older and I started to wonder if holding such a dinner wasn't more for the friends and extended family of the newly weds' parents than for the main stars' own friends, especially if such a dinner cost an average of a 150 bucks per head. I was just lucky to be there because my dad, being the faithful TV junkie, gave up his seat for me because he didn't like long events like this, and of course needless to say, my mom was furious with him.
It was a good experience going for a wedding like this, probably to gear me up mentally for more such events in the near future (already! The horror!) Of course, personally I can't contemplate the idea myself, even though I have supposedly reached a marriageable age i.e. graduated from school
hur hur. And like every woman gradually nearing her expiry date as each year passes, I dread the extended family gatherings like birthdays and Chinese New Year, where young-but-not-so-young ladies are stigmatised and promptly asked in the face if she: 1. Has a boyfriend aka a potential somebody to marry. If she does then 2. When is she getting married? Has the guy popped the question yet? If she fulfils 1. and 2. then 3. When are they having kids?
And I heard these questions are even more intensive after the age of 25, which (gulps) I'm arriving at pretty soon. Ok enough of the panic attack, at least my own mother agrees with me that it is not a good idea to get married too early. Being a partial feminist herself, she thinks a woman loses her freedom after she gets married and worse still if she stops working to look after the kids. So before I get any older, in the next couple of years, I have to squeeze in everything I want to do like travel and try new things while I'm unmarried and still can afford the time to run all over the world doing crazy things lol.
Oops, such a lengthy post heh, sorry guys. More food for thought :p
1:58 pm
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Heated conversations
Tuesday, June 05, 2007
I must say I strongly felt like Verbinski had read my last rant about his undeniable flop and then went on to curse me with no less than what seems like voodoo doll tricks when I developed a raging fever which went on continuously for 4 nights.
Talk about retribution.
In fact, Sunday morning was the first time the fever subsided after what seemed like eternity but I taught myself not to be smug about it, especially after reading about scary symptoms of dengue fever with a possible second onset of fever after the first bout. There was a time, during my feverish state, in which I contemplated myself actually contracting dengue fever to the point of hallucinating that I had rashes that were invisible to everybody but myself.
Let me tell you that at a high of 39.6 degrees, my brains were practically fried, and to put it mildly, I was having conversations with myself nearly half the time. The other half of the time is of course spent mostly asleep when I'm knocked out by lots and lots of drugs. While my anti-bodies were fighting a war inside my body, my brain went delirious, frantically trying to save random bits of information that I had learnt and memorized since I was a child like maths equations out of nowhere, some words from a spelling test, English, Japanese, French... incidentally, I noticed that it didn't bother testing how to write in Chinese
hur hur.
Basically, my brain was trying to test its sanity by attempting to recall things I've learnt before and should remember. So it wasn't really like a calm monologue in the manner of sitting quietly by the sea watching the waves roll by and reading poetry off Matthew Arnold... it was more like a frenzied argument between the brain's cells in the manner of:
Brain centre aka teacher: What is the derivative of the function f(x) at the point X0?
Rest of the brain cells run around frantically jumping up and down, not knowing what to do, having been ultra rusty at functions in approximately 5 years, finally shouting: "I don't know! I don't know!" And then they proceed to get a bit worried, thinking they have either lost their sanity or lost their intelligence, whichever is more comforting.
To be honest, the brain centre was equally as lost, having not gone through this feverish crisis in at least 10 years. In its heyday (when I was still a young child), it was actively shooting off various questions on anything I had learnt and that would drive the rest of the cells mad just searching for the answers. Of course, the questions then were infinitely easier like: cite the multiplication table of 9 or something.
Well thankfully for me (and unfortunately for some), my brain is still intact. No loss of memory or snide remarks I'm afraid, despite the heat.
2:00 pm
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