i woke up this morning on the wrong side of bed, literally. i usually sleep facing one direction and i like waking up facing that same direction. on days when i wake up and find that in my sleep i must've flipped over to face the wrong side, it bothers me and i get a nagging feeling that it's not going to be a Good Day.

i know, like as if which side of the bed you wake up on really plays a crucial role in the way your day pans out.

but it's really does!! because this morning at the bubble cup store the lady misheard my order, and instead of getting the usual red milk tea with mini pearls i got just red tea with mini pearls. it didn't taste so bad though, but i blame it on waking up on the wrong side. and then i got to the office this morning and the execution page with the signatures for one of the documents that i couldn't find yesterday was still missing; and i am sitting in my office cowering and trying to work up the courage to tell the lawyer. T___T

nope, so far it's not working.

anyway today marks the 2nd month of charles and my relationship. happy 2 months charles! :) i love you!

i am sure more unfortunate events will follow.. tis the curse of waking up on the Wrong Side of Bed. >=(

it's one of those mornings where you generally feel like the world is moving at a faster pace than you can keep up with, and you wonder how long it'll be before that energy kicks in and you pick up the pace, or you get left behind to crawl through the rest of the day in slow mo.

so far i think i'm crawling. i feel groggy and listless. maybe the last week is taking its toll on me. i've crammed so much in the days & nights that i am nearing that point of wearing myself down. getting out of bed is harder and harder every day.

yesterday and today have been a mixture of highs and lows. chris, jack, and gareth stopped by singapore on their way to china and i was really happy to see them because i miss home so much. for the first time since i've been here it was easier to not be plagued by thoughts of people from home. we walked around clarke quay and sat on the bridge that links the two banks of the singapore river - after much scrambling to get on the wall, jack unwittingly interrupted a lesbian couple's private moment, we had ice cream at hagen daaz :D

it's been a year since i've been to clarke quay. the place hasn't changed, only the company. more than once - although i loved having chris jack and gareth there - i wished for the company of the people from last year, minus a certain person who's changed, and whose comments about girls (as related to me by chris) left me highly unimpressed.

umm..on another note. every morning i walk past this old lady who sells tissue paper. and every time i see her i am filled with a sense of guilt (? can't quite put my finger on it) and i quickly avert my eyes until i've passed her.. and she is there every morning and every night. i want to buy tissue from her but once i start where do i stop with all the homeless people that i'm faced with every day? why is it that this lady should get my money instead of the other homeless people i pass... or should i just give it to them all? but then i would end up with a LOT of tissue paper.. T___T

plus if i buy a packet from her, i have to walk past her everyday not only looking at her but seeing her glance at me hopefully like i'll buy another packet. every day till i go back. and i also find the gratitude that they show so awkward... i don't know.

argh.

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people are so odd sometimes. sometimes i wish i was like the fish-man in hellboy, and i'd be able to touch people and in that one touch i could communicate my thoughts and feelings
sometimes words fail me.

headaches have now become a daily occurrence. :(

refiner's fire

i am feeling sick today :( the thought crossed my mind, more than once, to pull a sickie. but as my head hit the pillow that Little Voice that resides in the sensible part of me piped up - you're only there for five more days. get what you can out of it!

and so with a somewhat herculean effort, i dragged myself out of bed and trudged to work. the peak hour traffic hit once again.. i'm not sure if it was my imagination but this morning it seemed worse. barely any elbow space, and i briefly contemplated turning back and going home. it was almost like my bed was callllliiiinggg to me :P



i got moved to a different room again today. i like this room best, i'm sharing it with another trainee from london. his name is ben and he's about the youngest person in the office apart from me :D (he's 24) and we got talking (he's travelled alot and travel talk alwaysss inspires me) and now i have a friend! yay! the next few days are looking up. it's true; having a friend at work really changes your mindset towards coming in every day. knowing you have someone to joke with, whinge to, or even chat with (even if it's on a superficial level) is still nice. i guess he feels as lonely and displaced as i do - or even more - london and singapore are very different, after all. so hooray for that!



he has an accent too :P



oh.. he told me about this place in cambodia, ruins of some sort that were once upon a time made to depict what the people thought heaven on earth would look like. apparently you wake up at 5am in the morning to watch the sun rise over the main temple and get "really fantastic shots!" (with the accent). as he was describing it - he said trees shoot out from the buildings; the entire place has been half claimed by nature and yet retains that lingering majesty of a place that once stood tall.



cambodia, anyone? haha



i was just thinking the other day.. about refiner's fire. there are several references in the bible to this concept - us being the vines and God the pruner, us the silver and Him the smith, us the clay and Him the potter. all of it to depict the relationship between our Maker and His children. the silver analogy reminded me of a story i had read. the process of refining silver is to hold it in fire until the impurities are gone.. and during this time the smith will always have his eye on the silver and will never leave it - a minute too long in the flames and the silver is ruined. but the end product is something beautiful to look at and reflective of the image of its maker.



being in the flames hurt but we are never alone, and the final image is one that is beautiful; all impurities burned away.



i found this story comforting because when i hit testing times, i often feel alone.. and i wonder why things happen the way they do.. so now i shall keep this story as a reminder to learn from my mistakes or things that happen that are out of my control.

refiner's fire..

another day at the office.

i have come to the conclusion that maritime law is not for me. it's a pity because from what i see there appears to be alot of money in this field. i think if my parents heard me say that they would all scoff and dismiss it saying that i am young and idealistic, and that in the end nobody likes their jobs but we all love the money - so do something that earns the big bucks.

somedays i wonder what they'd say if i told them i wanted to stop studying and just travel the world, and keep travelling and travelling until i found a place i know i'd be content to stay forever, like in england or somewhere. and then i'd find any job that would keep me - doesn't have to be high paying or whatever - and watch the sunsets over my cottage and bake cookies for my kids.

yeah ok i think i just made all my asian ancestors turn in their graves. or urns, whatever those little pots people put ashes in are called.

yesterday in all my bored surfing i came across an article about 2 german children, aged 6 or so who attempted to run away to south africa to get married by the african sunset. haha they didn't make it very far - just the train station - but all the same it was very cute.

i cannot comprehend spending hours every day of my life sitting at a desk doing something that means nothing to me. the pragmatist in me is placated by the reality of all the conveniences that money can buy; the idealist (the one that i end up following most of the time) - is simply horrified.

life is not about the breaths you take, but about the moments that take your breath away.

i wish i was surer of myself. some people are born into roles - leaders, doctors, scientists, politicians. i am a canvas with splotches of color, none of which really blend nor stand out. sometimes i fear a life of mediocrity - the old chinese saying to do with the frog in the well. the frog can only see that patch of sky above his well and thinks that that is all there is to the world, and he will spend the rest of his life a stranger to the wonders outside of his patch of sky above his well because he will never venture out.

i suppose 2 weeks into january it might be late for new year's resolutions. but there is one more thing i want to add to the list - to challenge myself to venture out of my well.

there are so many things we can be, do. our biggest limitation is our inhibition.
lol, ok. i think a few days at the office has made me realize.. I WANT TO DO SOMETHING MEANINGFUL.

It has been five days since I left Melbourne and I am beginning to wish that I had been unambitious and content to spend summer at home.. now that I think about it 4 months of lazy, beach-filled days.. whilst poor, is not too bad. I could wake up late, lounge around in bum clothes, make smoothies with that new blender I have at home, read, drive out to see charles illegally. Tempting.

I wasn’t sure whether I should blog or not since I think the people who read my blog are the ones whom I’ve been emailing anyway.

Yesterday I caught up with my oldest friend in Singapore, from primary school. I think it’s because she’s Indian that the night before I had a strange dream about being in India. Odd :P amidst the goss, I heard that one of the girls from primary school, a really bright girl with such a promising future, had been forced to drop out because of family problems and now she wouldn’t get a chance to finish off her education. The weirdest thing is, she is now teaching at my ex-high school! When I heard this I had mixed feelings - shock, wonder, and just.. stunned at the way life can really throw you a curveball. I hope that it’s not the end of the road for her, and that she doesn’t lose sight of that bright future ahead of her even though it may look a little dim at the moment.

Lately I’ve found myself wondering what a day in poly or JC would be like - considering I never had a chance to experience it. Apparently A levels are a bitch - says ankita - who tells me she has nightmares about results and is still haunted by certain questions she knows she got wrong.T____T

So this is what I do at work.

Mainly I text.. a lot. Because I get bored. Sometimes I get given things to do, mostly menial things like filing and stuff. But other times I get things like proofreading and legal research, which is more challenging but also gets old after awhile.. I think I am a lazy ass who likes doing mundane things where I don’t have to exercise my mind. Anyway it is nonetheless all good experience so I am taking it in. other times I fall asleep - honestly, can someone tell me if it’s normal to have like, absolutely zero resistance to sleepiness? Because I think there must be something wrong with me.. I fall asleep everywhere. So far I’ve fallen asleep twice at work in the three days that I’ve been here - God knows for how long each time - and once was even in a meeting room where I’m pretty sure that EVERYONE saw me. Sometimes I worry that if I get bored whilst driving I will fall asleep at the wheel and that’ll be the end of that. =\ maybe I should see a doctor.

So yeah, I do a lot of sitting. And sneaky surfing of blogs, facebook, and email. I keep having to glance over my shoulder to make sure nobody who’s anybody that’ll mind walks past. Mostly I am ignored - people here are very busy because of the recession; everyone’s trying to find a way to worm out of their contractual obligations and so here it is non-stop cases cases cases. The only people who speak to me are the female asian lawyers - I think because they were once like me, interning in a strange place and not sure what to do. The upside to being ignored is that I get time to do things like this.. the downside is that when the office “aunty” takes orders for food at lunchtime she forgets me. I wish somebody bought me lunch L today I had to scurry downstairs myself .. or the right word is hobble (many days of consecutive heel-wearing has taken its toll on my feet) and because there wasn’t enough time to walk around I had to eat a chicken puff from starbucks. *makes face of disgust* I can’t believe I’m in Singapore eating chicken puffs from starbucks. Never again am I wasting $3.90 on a stupid starbucks chicken puff when I can get carrot cake for $3 at lau pa sat.

Another thing I do a lot these days is avoid the receptionist. Because I fall asleep so much I’ve fallen into a routine of drinking a lot of water to keep awake and then as a result obviously I have been peeing excessively. Nowadays I poke my head around the corner to make sure the receptionist isn’t looking before I dart to the toilet.. and yeah it’s annoying. Otherwise I just hold it so usually by the end of the day I’m seriously busting.

Mmm yesterday stef came down to have lunch with me. Man oh man I was so glad to see her. Having stef here is like a slice of home :) someone to text and whinge to about how I’m bored and etc.. or whatever. And just as importantly someone to EAT with! We went to the nearby lau pa sat and had carrot cake, oyster omelette, and char kway teow. All for ten dollars! And later on we had chendol for dessert (which is the 3-color drink equivalent) and this new dessert that had squishy sago balls.. I don’t know what they are called but it’s those thingys where you bite into them and you’re like.. mmm.. squish. :p and RUBY.. which is like. Water chestnuts..coated with a layer of pearl sago. YumMmmM..

I am getting fat lah. L food is everywhere and it beckons to me. I hear them saying to me “you only see us once a year! COME TO US!” and I have this super weakness for asian bread so omg my olfactory senses are having the time of their lives here. My stomach though is not. T__T lol. I keep this up and I’ll have to buy new clothes because I wont fit into the ones I bought from Melbourne. See in Melbourne.. you eat ß-----à much and the food is all burnt off because it’s cold. In Singapore you eat ß---à much and it just becomes fat and goes to your thighs.

But it’s ok, I asked charles if he would still love me even if I had 4 chins, tuckshoplady arms and thighs that slapped. :P I am not sure if he replied honestly but I don’t care he better have meant what he said!! Otherwise if I come back and he breaks up with me because I am fat I am going to have a fit and steamroll over him with my new fat. >=(

But continuing about foood..

Ohmygod. $1.90 bubble cup. *embraces bubble cup store*

Photos are up on facebook :)

do you believe in soulmates?

i do..