Simply ME..

2 more weeks of being Miss Leong

2006-05-28T01:29:00.000+08:00

I thought it would be a simple affair but just now my good friend, Stephanie asked me if there’s a lot of preparation, I listed out 70% of the things I have to do.. and woah… yes it’s a lot of work…

The things we have to do..

Buy our wedding bands (done)
Bought ours from Goldheart after looking for 3 – 4 days. Simple band with gold in the center and mine has little diamonds all round =) We have the sweetest wedding band pillow too
Decide on the date (done)
Jon chose the date cos apparently it’s a good day for him. 11th of June is our 29th monthiversary but it’s a Sunday so 10th was good.
Venue (done)
Yup as I mentioned: it’ll be at esplanade the V tea room. The place Jon proposed to me
Find Solemnizer (done)
We found a prof to be our solemnizer! Just met him today. He seems really experienced and responsible, so no worries of him MIA-ing on our big day. Told us the process and gave us some advice too
Decide on Menu
Still discussing the menu with Dawn. We decided to settle on a menu that’s 50+/pax. It’s the cheapest they had. Trying to increase the variety. Went to Lawry’s today becos we had a 1 for 1 voucher. Thought it would have been quite nice to hold our ROM there too.. but too bad already gave them the deposit =(
Guests list (done)
Tentatively, it stands at 59 pple. It just keeps getting longer n longer and I wanted it to be a private cozy affair.. I’m only inviting 15 frens while jon’s inviting 28, so not my fault =p
Invitation cards
Took a whole afternoon to decide on the words for the invitation card Invites really pretty and ada n I went bras basah to buy materials to write the names. Took me several days to finish writing the names. Have not finished sending them out though..
Write our vows
We will be working on them sometime next week.. hopefully
Find Make up/Hair/nails artist (done)
Fortune center for $138 only, hope she’s good. Has 30 years of exp and does makeup and hair for celebrities
Find pretty, princessey dress (done)
Mom made me a really pretty purple dress with pink ribbons
Find matching shoes
Bought one pair already but mom thinks it doesn’t match.. so have to search again
Find matching purple shirt for him
Found one at tampines, will be going Taka to continue our serach
Find Videographer (done)
Found one at $238. Includes 2 hrs coverage and a MTV
Find Photographer (done)
The lady at the V tea room will do it for me
Balloon decorations
Getting Vivien, my boss to help me. Have not settled the details with her yet
Flower bouquet
Mom will be helping me. Have not decided the flowers I want
Flowers and ribbons for venue and ROM table
Mom will be helping me but I have not even decided what I want!
Decide on the aisle
Thought of having an aisle of rose petals but there’s a lot of other problems. Moreover, the place is really small so they have not told me where my aisle will be. Dad’s walking me down the aisle.. =)
Buy guest book
Still looking for one.. can’t find a nice one though.. any ideas?
Send out reminders on theme and dress code as well as date and timingWill prob do that a few days before the reception
Get a receptionist
Thinking of Meiting or Noel. Noel will be good in getting pple to write hee
Theme and dress code
We didn’t specify it on the invites but we did inform everyone we invited. Since my dress is pink n purple I’m going to have a pastel theme. So light pink, purple, blue, yellow, etc would be good. Dress code is formal.

Still have a lot of other small little things.. but yup that’s a brief highlights of all the things we have to do.. can’t imagine planning for the Chinese wedding.. thank goodness I’ll have ada to be my wedding planner

Our longest trip together: China

2006-05-22T01:13:00.000+08:00

Our China trip was quite alright, not the best trip I would say. Food was pretty bad, super oily, salty and fatty!! Still, I had a nice time with Jon, Ada & Meiting.

Shopping:
We got conned several time with some pathetic, magical high tech toys, bought super expensive Long Jing cha, Tai hu pearls and some fake goods. Bought a lot of pajamas, some working skirts and winter coats. Shopping in China is not the best, only managed to buy things from Shanghai and Beijing

Sightseeing:
In Shanghai we went to see their Oriental pearl tower, Shanghai version of CBD as shown in MI3, some old town, huge bookstore, Nanjing road and Shanghai tan. We took a cruise on the west lake in Hangzhou, went to see Yuefei and spent a bomb at the Longjing tea plantation. At Wuxi, they had their famous Tai lake and their pearls which I wasted money buying. Went to see 2 gardens that some emperor loved and ‘world’s number 2 spring water’. At Suzhou, we went to the famous Hanshi temple, a silk mill and a tea pot shop. Can’t remember what we saw at Nanjing though. Basically same message throughout: Hangzhou has their miraculous Longjing tea, Wuxi their miraculous pearls and teapots and Suzhou their miraculous silk. They are fantastic salespersons but after listening to so many miraculous products we can’t helped but roll our eyes. Beijing was nice, especially the Great Wall and the food there was the best. Beijing duck is really good too! 3 of us also got the chance to be princesses for less than $5/each.

We played a lot of bridge together and watched a lot of TV at night.. went for massages too =)

China is a nice place to go if u wanna feel rich and have not enough money to go anywhere else =) Our package was only $1022/pax for 10 days and 1 domestic flight. Quite value for money I would say..

A Wonderful Month

2006-04-29T22:56:00.000+08:00

April 2006 has been a really wonderful month for me.. Especially the 11th and 28th of April

11th April was the date I signed my first ever job offer. I have accepted a job offer to work in UBS Fixed Income sales. Mainly, I will be servicing clients’ request when they require particular fixed income products, such as bonds and its derivatives. Of course, on the other hand I have to sell products that UBS have on hand to clients. UBS have a really warm and nice corporate culture, which is the main reason why I really wanted to return to UBS. I had a really nice time interning there last June and I made several good friends there. I heard from Zhizai that there’s a SMU girl working at equities, he’s working at forex and with me in fixed income, I have completed the SMU coverage in UBS. I quite excited to start work on 19th June, but on the other hand, nervous that I will not be able to perform. All I can do is enter with the right sprit and just trust the Lord in guiding me and blessing me with wisdom and favor.

11th April also happened to be my 27th month with Jon. He has been very supportive throughout the past 2 years. He has been really sweet to me and endured all my rubbish and endless whining and demands. He is extremely calm, peace loving and logical. Of course, there are areas that I do not like about him but I guess I just have to accept them. For one, he totally dislikes planning and he’s not the romantic type that will plan a evening out at the beach, etc. Everything is super last minute. It’s fun sometimes but occasionally, I wish that he can just plan more romantic night outs, other than on anniversaries and birthdays. But I guess I can’t ask for too much huh..=p

28th April was the day Jon proposed to me at the V tea room in esplanade. Unfortunately, on the way there, I had a really bad fall down an escalator and hurt my leg. My right leg now looks like it got scratched very badly by an angry cat. My leg was bleeding but I did not want to think too much about it, so we just continued our plans, after a visit to the pharmacy. We had a pot of tea as usual and after awhile, the staff brought out a really good Chocolate Cheese melt cake. It’s really one of the best, if not the best chocolate cake I have even eaten. It’s very rich and fudgey and I would not recommend it to people who are not chocolate fanatics.

When the trolley was near our table, we saw some very small, cute and exquisite round boxes with a little dog sitting on top of it. When I requested to look at them, the server told me that they are carefully hand made in London and each piece is unique in the world.

She also took a bouquet of tulips and passed them to Jon. He then gave the flowers to me and said some really sweet and sincere words and with that, he opened one of the boxes and proposed to me.

I was really very happy and he was really relieved that it was finally over. Later that night he spoke to my parents and asked for their consent and blessings. We are planning to have our ROM at the V tea room on 10th June 2006. It’ll be a high tea reception and we’ll be inviting a Justice of Peace to solemnize our marriage. We’re still looking for a solemniser, so if anyone knows one, pls inform me ya? Tentatively, the menu for that day would be..

Norwegian Smoked Salmon Fried Rice with Salted Eggs
Winter Pear Teacake
Lovers’ Brownies
Baileys Irish Cream Teacake
Swiss Berry Tea
Majestic Queen’s Tea
Jasmine Rose Petals Tea
Café Americano

For those who have never been there, it’s a really pretty tearoom with a Venice theme and it’s located 01-02 Esplanade. Their stuff is pretty pricey, with a pot of tea going for $8, their liqueur teacakes at $15, cake melts at $19.50 and normal warm bakes at $8. Guess you’re really paying for the ambience and the fantastic service.

Finally, April is the month I finished my FINAL final exams at SMU! Except for my internship and community service report, I’m done!! All I have to do is rent my gown and get ready to receive my certificates!

So here’s to my first job and my new life with Jon!

Growing up is no fun..

2006-02-21T00:31:00.000+08:00

Just got back from a short trip .. went batam over the weekend to rest and relax. Went for massage, water sports, hair treatment and basically have fun with Jon, my brother and his sweet girlfriend.

During dinner at Jon’s place today, we started talking about how we are generally pretty introvert people. I am pretty talkative in front of closer friends but generally I do not really talk to people I do not really know; unlike Noel or Joel who can go on and on regardless of their audience

Both of us thought about it and realized that we were both very outgoing people during our secondary school days. We talked more, played more and basically have more fun together with our friends. I figured that friends in our secondary school tend to be like-minded and more carefree. Who cares about fats, it’s off to KFC and other fast food eateries every day for us. We all joined CCAs because we really wanted to and not because it’ll look good on our resume. We had fun together as a class and no one bothers to be ‘politically correct’ or make calculated moves or backstab others, which are some of the things I see in school today. Of course during our younger days there’s no such thing as boyfriends and I guess having a boyfriend since secondary 4 changed the way I spend time with my friends and vice versa..

So I guess growing up is no fun, growing up takes away the simple pleasures of life.. but guess i can't complain that much.. cos being a child these days is no fun either..

A side note:
Anyway to my dear friends out there, thanks for sticking by me all these years. Thanks for being the same old you, regardless of how life treats you.

Especially my dear ada it’s been 12 years since I knew u and 9 years since we became best friends. We grew up together, went thru O and A levels together, got our driving licenses, went for exchange togets, saw 23 countries and 4 continents togets, you saw me thru all my boyfriends, we spent our 18th and 21st birthdays togets, and all the other important events in our lives! I look forward to u being my wedding planner and me being your bridesmaid and of cos being the godmother of your children!

To all my dear friends out there, I love you!

I'm home..

2006-01-18T14:34:00.000+08:00

I’m back on this sunny island.. and yup most of you know I’m really sad to be back..

Sad that I can no longer enjoy all the beautiful sights and freedom of Europe and peaceful, well-rested days in Rouen

Being back in Singapore means..
Losing my own room and freedom…
It means weekly deadlines and project meetings…
It means having to start looking for a job...
It means having to unpack and settle back into my sad life in Singapore..

Basically just having to go back to my stressful days..

Still in the mist of packing and unpacking as I have just been chased out of my brother’s room. At least I’m not living out of a box anymore.. as compared to a few days ago.

I’m really glad I went for Exchange.. it’s really an experience of a lifetime. I saw and enjoyed a lot, I went through hardships as well and I made some wonderful friends as well.. My exchange in a nutshell..

Visited about 18 countries and countless cities, got molested once in Italy, pick-pocketed twice at Italy and Portugal, got spat at once in Paris, took 1 flight within Europe, took more than 100 train rides, longest journey was 37hrs from Kiruna to Oslo, bought about 6kg of chocolates from Belgium, bumped into Singaporeans twice..

Highlights of exchange:
Fulfilled my dream of seeing the northern lights! Saw it thrice!! Awesome!!
Went to Santa Clause Village and took a photo with him. Saw quite a few letter posted by Singaporeans to him
Crossed the Artic Circle Line
Stayed at the Ice Hotel
Went for a snow mobile and dog sled tour
Saw my first snow
Count down at London Eye
Went to all the markers mentioned in Da Vinci Code in Rome

That’s all I can think of now.. most of them occurred during my last leg as it’s still fresh in my memory. The past events have already been blogged by Ada, so I can just go to her website to read about it =)

Being back in SMU is quite overwhelming.. the school is huge and it’s pretty cold with all the security measures and glass panels. Sometimes I miss the coziness and warmth of the old school.. on the other hand, I’m thankful that we’re in the city.. so much easier to meet up with friends and also a lot more convenient to go shopping and eating as well.. I also feel safer leaving my laptop around and leaving things in my locker because I know our school is like a fortress.. slowly getting used to the new campus.. have not been to the Econs or IS building yet.. have only eaten once at kopitiam and Killiney.. food here is really expensive..

Also beginning to sign up for recruitment talks and trying to apply for more jobs.. I’m stressed when I hear pple getting such wonderful and high paying jobs.. but I’m also stressed when I hear who n who have not gotten a job.. I think job hunting is a really stressful process and I really hope I can get it over and done with.. but the biggest problem is I am not passionate for anything.. except for being back at UBS.. which is pretty impossible.. so other than UBS I do not really know what I want..

Oki off to Mkt101 class.. bleah.. sianz.. taking IT n law which is hell for me.. and Biz Processes which has hell a lot of work.. but thk God I am only taking 3 and auditing 2 finance courses.. one to learn and the other to see cute charming prof heehee..

Last Night in Rouen

2005-12-20T10:17:00.000+08:00

Today is the last day I have in Rouen. Last night sleeping in my own bed.. something I never had all my life.. last day of having such a slack and easy life.. last day of.. many things..

After my last paper on Thursday evening, ada and I invited all the HK pple for dinner and we had our last meal together.. it was quite sad leaving them.. but thankfully, I think it was greatly reduced by the fact that we’ll be meeting again next June when Ada, Meiting, lulu and I head to HK for our grad trip.. pity I only got to know many of them better during the last few weeks.. but I guess it’s better late than never ya..

From Friday to Sunday, I went to Strasbourg in France, Luzerne in Switzerland and Luxembourg. It was Xiaolu birthday on the 16th so Ada, Meiting and I went to Strasbourg to meet up with Lulu to celebrate her birthday. Ate a really good dinner cos Ada mom treated us, so it was really nice. We had pizzas, salmon and pork. Strasbourg is really pretty and it’s very Christmasy and all. There’s loads of lights and beautiful Christmas tree, nice cathedral and big Christmas Market, apparently the oldest one in Europe. We also bought Christmas hats and managed to bargain from 3E/each to 1.5E/each, not bad huh.. We stayed at a hotel just opposite the train station. The room was meant for 2 people but all 5 of us squeezed into the room. Unfortunately, the controls were really strict and in the end after much negotiation, some of us were made to leave at 6am.

After Strasbourg, Ada, Meiting and I headed for Luzerne. We went up the Titlis Mountain and it was freezing!! It was -30 degrees and the wind was really strong that day. So strong that the chair lift was closed and Mt Pilatus was closed as well. Meiting did not know that we were going up a mountain so she did not prepare much clothes and she only wore a thin pair of boots. Poor her was suffering really badly from the cold. Thank goodness nothing happened to her. The 17th of December is the first time I really saw snow!! It snowed the whole day in Luzerne!! Guess I’ll be seeing lots of snow in Scandinavian.. maybe too much..? We also went to the city to see the famous Lion Monument and also Swiss Christmas market. After going to several Christmas market, I decided that they all look the same and sell the same thing. At the end of the day, we had 8.2 Frans left and since we were unable to change it back to Euros, we spent a really long time decideing how to use the money. In the end, we bought 1 large fries and a cheeseburger from Macs as we could not afford a meal, one pastry and one really small tomato with the remaining 0.30Frans. It was quite a fun activity and I was thrilled when I finally found a tomato that cost 0.30Frans.

Took 5 trains to Luxembourg and there we met one of our HK friends, Wing, a really nice and strong girl. She led the way around in the city and we went to the Christmas Market and bought Fried Potato patty. Quite good as it was hot and crispy =) Went to Leonidas to buy about 5 KG worth of chocolates for friends and relatives.. hard a really difficult time carrying it.. but thank goodness Wing helped me quite a lot.

Was supposed to go Reims today, but overslept and missed the train so stayed home and spent the whole day cleaning and packing. Ada and I have loads of things to carry tomorrow and both of us are super duble worried. We have probably more than 40KG each to carry to Maastricht, before we can post it back home. Holland postage is only ½ the price of France..so that’s why we’re brining everything to Meiting place to post. I did not plan to post thigns back initially cos I’m super low on cash but today when I talked to Jon and my mom, both of them were really worried by the amount of things I am going to carry all over Europe that they both offered to pay my postage fees.. so I guess I’ll be posting back some tomorrow and carry as much as possible.

We are 90% done with clearing our house. Brought down heaps of garbage and hopefully tomorrow our guardian will not be so strict and charged us for too many things.. if not I will try crying infront of her like what Christine did when they wanted to charge her 80E for her bed.. Better go sleep now.. need every single bit of my energy tomorrow..

See you all next year in Singapore! Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!

Goodbye Rouen and France.. Thanks for having me these past months..

6 more days in Rouen

2005-12-09T01:31:00.000+08:00

6 more days left in Rouen.. such a sad and depressing thought.. really dread the day of leaving this place and all my friends.. and having to go back to Singapore.. there’s a lot of things I dislike about this place, but I have grown to love where I am now.. choosing how I would like to spend my time and doing whatever I like, whenever I like.. the happiness I get from the kind of independence and freedom I have here is simply indescribable… everything is just so beautiful.. and suddenly 4 months in a foreign land seems like a really short time.. really hate the feeling of never being able to do this or that.. never having any more finance class.. never having ‘next week’.. having the last time of everything.. Every time something like that happens.. I just feel so sad and lost.. now even the thought of being able to see Jon again doesn’t make me less sad..

Down with a terrible cough.. and my back is aching like mad.. my fingers hurt from dun noe what.. cooked and washed too much for the party yesterday.. yupyup we organized a Christmas party but all guest had to pay 8E.. we had prawns, mussels, salmon, cheese, ham, calamari, seafood salad, pasta, paella, whipped potato, chocolate cake, chocolate tart, red bean soup, chocolate fondue, mini cakes.. quite a feast.. we played Indian poker with red wine.. thought them the Singapore version.. which is having one chance to chance your card, and anyone can add wine to a cup if he wishes to.. but in the end all the girls are cheaters, when any girl loses, we will not allow anyone to add wine, but when a guy loses, we will top it up to the max.. after that we played Bing Bang Ah.. and whoever does the wrong action will have to take a sip of wine.. in the end we managed to finish 2+ liters of wine.. which is almost 4 bottles of wine.. but no one got drunk though.. the guys and 1 particular gal can hold their liquor very well.. this gal is amazing.. she’s strong, national handball player, she can jump, do a lot of things as well as guys.. but yet she’s sweet, she can do a split, and she learnt ballet before.. so she’s simply amazing.. I admire her man..

A lot of clearing up after the party, heaps of washing to do.. lots of rubbish, leftover food and had to mop the entire place.. simply exhausting.. guess I do not really like to play host.. it’s so tiring having to prepare all the food.. and then u’ll worry that your guests do not like the food and there’s too much/little food.. and during the whole party I had to constantly watch over the dessert, clear the rubbish etc.. so did not really enjoy myself or eat a lot.. but I was too tired to really eat a lot anyway.. but overall I think it was still fun to have so many pple in our house and spend an evening together like that.. and I think it was nice that everyone came even though some had test/presentation the next day.. I myself had a terribly difficult time dragging myself out of bed at 9am to return the chairs and to attend my international finance class.. convince myself to go for the class cos it was my last class and my professor asked us not to skip classes anymore =p..

And now reflection of the past week..

Sat and Sunday we were out shopping.. we went shopping on Sunday, expecting shops to be open for Christmas, but in the end only a few shops were open.. learnt in my French class that it’s against the law to open your shop on Sundays, unless u are a shop that sells food.. Shops here are only allowed to open 5 Sundays a YEAR.. however, should you choose to open u on Sunday, like IKEA for example, you have to pay heavy fines to your prefecture.. very interesting culture.. this is mainly becos historically France is a Christian country so according to the bible, Sunday is a day of rest.. so even though they are no longer a Christian country, they still do it cos it’s in their culture.. interestingly my French teacher loves the idea that everything is close on Sunday, and she’s an atheist.. this Sunday, more shops will be open as Christmas is in 2 weeks time =) so I guess we’ll be out shopping even though I have a paper on Monday =p

Monday, we went Carrefour (AGAIN!) to buy food and drinks for our party.. thank goodness Ewin and Christine were coming over our place for a project meeting with Ada, so they met us at Carrefour to help us carry the groceries. Think Ewin carried about 15kg of food and drinks.. more than the 3 of us haha.. I cooked laska, bak ku the and green bean soup for the 4 of us.. felt quite tired too, cooking and washing.. think I am getting old =( but it was nice having dinner together and letting them try a little bit of Singpaore’s food.. though it’s not as good haha..
spent many hours on the net looking for an online flower shop to send flowers to my fren in Brisbane for her graduation.. but after searching high n low.. the cheapest I found was about $70!! Mad right.. I mean man of u prob think it’s reasonable.. but I dun think she’s someone who really appreciate or go gaga over flowers and she’ll be traveling with her family which means the flowers will jus rot at her place.. so after inputting our information, my credit card details and the message.. I changed my mind and decided to spend the money on other things when we’re both back in Sg.. but still.. feel guilty and sad that I din send her anything on her ‘big’ day =(

Tuesday, after class, went to another residence to have dinner with 2 China students. Managed to eat dinner at only 10+ cos the guys had project meeting and they took a really long time to cook.. but the food was good, and the amazing thing is these 2 guys never cooked in China, and only started cooking in France.. so I think it’s quite a feat for 2 guys to cook for us =)

Wednesday, spent the whole day preparing, hosting the party and cleaning up.. and lastly today.. I had 2 classes.. had lunch with a few Chinese pple for the last time.. this ‘jie jie’ treated me to Kebah =).. she’s a really nice person.. currently doing her MBA and she’s already married and planning to have kids when she return next month.. takes really good care of the other Chinese pple who are much younger than her.. after my French class in the afternoon, I came home to do some washing and went to rest.. cos felt very sick and my back is really killing me.. Ewin came over for dinner and we ate leftovers.. quite a feast haha.. he helped us take photo of us in our house.. and man he’s really good, at one single spot he can take 10 pictures from different angles.. can be a wedding photographer haha.. but ada said whoever is his wedding photographer is darn poor thing..

Tomorrow will be a day of rest.. and I guess it begins now..

Stupid Qn 2

2005-12-01T23:04:00.000+08:00

Heard this sometime ago but never got down to really thinking though it..

But anyway.. firstly..

If u’re playing da xiao (big, small) at a casino and say for the last 3 times, it was always small (when u actually chose big), what will you bet on the 4th time? n why? Do our natural instincts and logical minds tell us different things?

Anyway, that’s not the qn..

Say your betting strategy is:

Always bet on small
Start at $a
If you lose, double your bet until you win
When u win, go back to betting $a again

Mathematically, you should make money. Try that on excel if u do not believe me..

But in reality, would we..? Jon has a lot of reservations on my lousy strategy haha..

anyway happy 1st day of the last month of the year..

Finally Friday..

2005-12-01T23:01:00.000+08:00

So I guess my blogging is now a weekly affair..

This week has just been another ordinary week. Went to sch on Monday and heard 2 amazing stories from my HK frens.. first from Ewin: he actually saw a couple doing‘it’ right before his eyes on the floor, in his hostel! How disgusting is that?! The gal even held on to his bed and shook, screamed and moaned the whole room down.. so I guess Ewin must have a really difficult night.. for several reasons.. and second another group of my HK frens were on their way to Germany when they were arrested by German policemen for not having a valid visa in Germany. They were brought to a police station and were ordered to strip.. every single piece of clothes.. guess they were afraid that they were illegal immigrants trying to smuggle drugs.. and the worse thing is they went to the Germany Embassy to enquire about their visa in Germany and the officers there actually said that their visa was valid in Germany.. so they were arrested and stripped for nothing.. and even had to cross the german-france border by foot in the freezing cold weather.. becos German police ‘cannot’ enter France.. now dun u sense some form of discrimination.. tsktsk.. but what can we do..

Tuesday during my Critical Thinking class, our professors started talking abt discrimination against women.. and these Finnish and Canadian girls started debating while the other Chinese students just sat there and listened. One Chinese girl said that she didn’t really care, my hk fren said she doesn’t care either.. and honestly.. I dun bother as well.. I thought that’s really interesting and it goes to show our lack of passion and views for anything in life.. sadly, I can’t think of anything I’m really passionate for.. maybe when someone asks me about SMU or when I’m asked to promote SMU.. cos I really love SMU and I feel SMU has given me a lot.. but that’s not really a passion either.. hopefully one day I’ll find my passion in life…?

Wednesday, I went to Paris with Ada.. took the first train out at 5+am and caught the last train back at 11+pm.. reach home only at 1am.. was really tired and my whole body was aching.. partly due to all the walking but I geuss also cos it’s so bitterly cold.. my legs, feet, fingers and ears seemed all ready to drop of.. how scary.. definitely gonna get more protective layers for my head, ears and feet. So broke though..

ohh. But was on the phone with Jon the other day and he knew I was 200E in the red and he said: I’ll sponsor u 300 dollars.. max that’s all.. I was like REALLY?! 300 EUROS right heeheehee.. and he said ya.. haha I was even more shocked.. really sweet of him to make such a generous offer and the sweetest thing is I din even ask or whine to him… he simple offered.. maybe a small sum to many of u but it’s a lot of money to us.. he’s usually broke and he just came over to visit me in November so this is really a big amount to him since we never have any savings.. so THANK YOU DEAR.. you have blessed me greatly throughout my whole exchange =) but actually I’m more than 200E in the red cos I have not included the tours and attractions I’m going for in England.. and there are in pounds somemore!!! Bleah..

ok back to Paris.. yup we went to many places, went to Place de la Bastille, Luxembourg Gardens, Place des Voyages, Musee d’Orsay, Napoleon Tomb, Army Museum, The Louvre, walked along Seine river, Chinatown and Champs Elysees. Learnt that Napoleon’s Huge red tomb has another 4 more tombs inside.. Went to The Louvre for the 3rd and probably the last time.. this time I rented the audio guide.. was only 2.9E becos I’m a member so it allows me to rent 2 at a discounted rate (instead of 5E) Learnt a few interesting things from the guide n noticed several things I missed out the last 2 times. Went to the biggest LV in the world at Champs Elysee and seriously I detest going into LV in Paris. You have to queue to get in sometimes, queue for a salesperson to attend to you, queue to pay and lastly queue at the concierge to get your items. Many of the staff are rude, unwilling to help and very inefficient. It’s really a very frustrating experience buying from LV.. and to think u’re paying hundreds of dollars.. (haha if u’re thinking I’m so rich.. think again.. both times I have to experience such ill treatment, I was simply helping others to buy LV products) the first time, the concierge even handed me the wrong items.. and it happened to several other customers as well.. I mean what the h***.. this is LV eh.. not This Fashion! If the staff at This Fashion treats me like shit I can understand.. but being treated like shit at LV is totally unacceptable. Simply dun understand this French people and this huge craze over LV products.. I can better spend my money elsewhere.. well we went to Gucci to find out products prices for our friends and the salesperson that was serving me was really efficient and friendly but the stupid Chinese lady that served Ada was really rude and I felt she was snapping at ada.. tsktsk.. talk abt bad service in Singapore.. at least when u step into such shops in SG u are treated like royalty (well, almost) and not like beggars..

rushed to Godiva to try their new Chocolixir drink.. but when we went there, they said they ran out of ice.. so could no longer sell their drink.. they ran out of ICE.. must be a really difficult thing to get in Paris..!! was really disappointed.. cos I dun think I’ll ever have the time to go back to Paris to try it.. but nvm hopefully I’ll have the time to drop by Brussels to give it a try =)

Today, I had a finance test in the morning, was doable, so nothing to worry about.. had lunch with a group of Chinese students, walked to some kebah stall with them and bought fries.. for 1.5E, quite a reasonable portion and thk goodness I bought the fries cos when I went back to school to eat, I realized the pasta I packed was frozen and I couldn’t eat the bulk of it.. got to eat some kebah and sandwich from the others as well..so in the end it was quite a satisfying lunch. After French class, went to Ango to have dinner with my HK frens. 7 people, 5 girls, 2 guys and interestingly the 2 guys cooked dinner for all of us.. heehee, had broccoli with minced beef, veg soup, eggs with tomatos, eggs with sausages and chicken wings. Quite a nice meal, especially since it was prepared by 2 guys.. impressive.. it was a nice dinner, have not eaten together like this for quite sometime and it was pleasant spending an evening chatting and laughing with friends =)

Tomorrow is my free day! Totally free day cos unlike Wednesday, ada has sch on Friday, which means I get to be alone in the house. Will probably do some washing, chat with my mom and Jon and maybe try applying for some jobs.. unlike Darren, I dun have 1001 offers to choose from.. I just wish and pray for 1.. sighs..

Gonna bath now and off to my nice, comfy, warm bed.. goodnight..

Stupid Qn 1

2005-11-28T08:02:00.000+08:00

Been thinking of really stupid questions since I came to Europe.. so thought I give u something to think abt while u bath, cook or basically when u have nothing better to do..

Was watching Pirates of the Caribbean last night.. and ohhh.. Orlando Bloom is oh so cute!! Was thinking how nice it’ll be if Will Turner (Orlando’s character in the show) is my husband.. then.... I thought if I could make 1 man, any man on this planet, love me.. and of cos marry me.. who would I choose..?

So if YOU were given a choice to make any lady/man fall in love with u, who will it be??

I thought abt it really long and hard.. and thought: would I really wanna spend my life with Tom Cruise or Orlando Bloom.. and I thought, nope dun think so, cos it’s their character I love, such as Legolas & Will Turner.. then I though of all the nice, rich wonderful guys I noe and after awhile.. I decided if I was given such a powerful choice, I would give it a pass.. becos it doesn’t matter at all..what matters most is who I love.. even if I choose the richest and nicest guy in the whole entire world to love me.. if I dun love him.. I dun think I’ll be happy spending the rest of my life with him.. for now I love Jon the most and I just want to be with him everyday.. n the best thing is he’s already in love with me.. so I dun need that option after all.. so if ever an angel comes by to grant me that wish.. I’ll give it away =).. so whoever needs it now.. do tell me ya.. I’ll send the angel to u =)

Till my next stupid qn.. tata

Enjoying a slow-paced life in Rouen

2005-11-27T23:13:00.000+08:00

A few weeks ago I felt totally depressed that I could no longer travel out of Rouen becos I do not have a eurail pass anymore.. but now looking at things.. maybe it’s sort of a blessing in disgust after all..

Firstly.. there’s freaky weather out there.. with pple dying in Britain cos of the cold.. Disruptions in Holland and Germany due to unexpected, heavy snowfall.. was reading the papers and read of people shivering out in the cold as their Hamburg bound train was disrupted due to weather.. ada and I spent 2 hours in a train station.. and we were so miserable.. shivering in the cold.. can’t imagine being stuck in the middle of nowhere now.. it’s already ‘shiveringly’ cold at home sometimes.. hopefully when the weather will not worsen too much after our exams as we make our way to Switzerland, Germany, Scandinavian and London.. we are expecting -30degrees in Scandinavian.. but I really dun noe how -30 degrees would feel like.. and whether they’ll be any health problems.. such as having to pick our ears up from the floor..

Secondly, it really gives me time to just rest and relax.. and really appreciate all the beautiful things ard me.. was walking along the streets of Rouen yesterday, and it was really pretty seeing all the Christmas cottages, people skating out in the open, frens and family hanging out together.. really makes u love Christmas, but also makes u miss your loved ones terribly.. also I now know rouen much better.. jus found out that there’s a Zara here, Leonidas too.. and a lot of other small interesting shops.. there’s tons of tea/coffee shops and lingerie shops.. kinda show the favourite pastime here.. hee..

Thirdly, gives me more time to do my own things, such as replying emails, applying for jobs, talking to family members, chatting with frens and now I get to talk to Jon everyday.. =) I get to sleep in on Saturdays, Sundays and other days when I have no school and I really love sleeping =P.. every night (except weds nights), I tuck myself into bed, feeling so happy that I can sleep till 12+pm the next day.. life is really shiok here.. just resting and eating all day long

But I guess soon it will start getting miserable as there’s less daylight and it’s only going to get colder.. going to have to pile on even more winter clothing and I really dislike having to carry my winter coats while I shop at departmental stores.. super ma fan.. also dun really enjoy walking the streets when it’s dark n cold.. jus makes me wanna go home.. I use to think darkness doesn’t bother me that much but now I realize that the lack of daylight can really get to me when I’m out.. on Sundays it doesn’t really bother me cos I’m home the whole day but on days when I go shopping with ada, I just feel bluey and just wanna go home.. =(

Spent quite a bit of money this wkend.. but I thought they were money well spent.. bought 2 blazers for 5E/each and more socks and a hat to prepare for the bitter weather ahead.. also went to the supermarket to get chicken and apple pie.. spent slightly less than 20E.. not bad for the amt of things I bought.. but way above my daily ‘allowance’ of 8E (which is supposed to be spent on food) and bleah.. I’m really in the red.. according to my budget.. I’m 200E in the red.. dun noe what I am gonna do abt it.. but have decided to ignore it for the time being and hopefully I’ll never have to deal with it.. hee

Boiled bak ku teh soup today.. it was nice having some Chinese food and ada cook black pepper spaghetti for us so it was quite a nice dinner and we ended the meal with cookies, icecream and chocolate tart.. yummy the choclate tart from Carrefour is oh mu goodness, so so so good.. simply to die for.. it’s abt 4+E/pie and the pie’s abt 20cm in diameter.. so not exactly very expensive but definitely not sth I can afford to eat everyday.. =’(

Okie gonna bath now n off to Zzzzz land.. =) goodnight n sweet dreams!

My exchange is coming to an end soon =(

2005-11-26T04:52:00.000+08:00

Sure feels like my whole exchange is coming to an end.. how time flies.. still remember rushing through all the preparations during my internship. Firstly, deciding which school to apply to, deciding which courses to take, messing up my mom’s entire room with all my clothes, frantically trying to squeeze everything into my DHL box, rushing to get my Visa, searching for the cheapest air tickets, deciding which countries to visit during the first month, having to buy a million n one things before leaving Singapore.. and of course, meeting up with close friends and eating as much Asian food as I can for the last time in 2005. Looking back, it has been a hell of a journey. First time stepping onto this continent and still remember the first country we visited: Greece. Stayed in Zeus’s hostel (I think) and ada would not stop complaining how bad our accommodation was and Xiaolu saying that it was probably gonna be our best accommodation for the first leg (thank goodness it was’t =P) we shared a foot long sub at subway as everything seemed exorbitant when we multiplied all the prices by 2.. and most memorable of all.. the 3 of us sitting at Carrefour with out 3rd ham and cheese meal of the day and ada started crying, saying that she just wants to go home. Amazing how we spent such a large sum of money, only to leave our lovely homes, to come Europe to suffer. It was indeed very challenging and miserable in the beginning, and many times, I couldn’t help but break down and cry, feeling so helpless and lost. Thank goodness, things improved tremendously as time went by and now I am really comfortable living in Europe, without anyone controlling me, without having to do any work, having the opportunity to visit so many countries, cooking and washing by myself.. basically, it feels like a never ending holiday… really nice and now I wish I never have to return to Singapore.. all this is like a dream and I really dun wanna face up to reality.. the one thing I really miss here.. is not being able to see Jon and.. of cos not being able to communicate with anyone on the streets… but other than that.., it’s really nice staying in Europe.. when I can just stare out of the windows during class to admire the autumn leaves, or being able to experience daylight at 9+pm… or nighttime as early as 5+.. and many other things I will never get to experience in Singapore.. not saying that Singapore is not good.. but there are a lot of things I will miss about staying in Europe.. jus thinking of it makes me blue..

Going to cherish every remaining moment I have here in Europe.. and I am really looking forward to go Scandinavia, where I will be taking dog sleds, staying in Ice hotel and going for a northern lights tour!! I really wish and pray with all my heart, fingers and toes that I will get to see the northern lights.. it has been my dream since I cannot remember when.. so pray for me too =)..

To all those in Europe, enjoy the rest of your stay here.. and to those in Singapore.. appreciate the warm weather .. it’s freezing here.. but it’s snowing at least!!!

Can't wait for my first real snow experience..!

2005-11-25T22:50:00.000+08:00

Din do much today.. got up really late and after breakfast and doing some washing I made my way to my stupid ‘landlord’ to get some documents chopped and signed. I went with a translated set of instructions but in the end ended up not being able to communicate with the ladies there. Their English are 1000 times worse than my French.. so u can imagine how bad their English are.. after an hour or so of telling her I do not understand anything she’s saying, I got the chops and signatures I wanted.. but she was unable (as usual) to tell me how and when I’ll be getting back my deposit and told me to check out through my guardian, who doesn’t know a single word of English.. as well.. so life can get really frustrating when I do not speak the native language.. but then again who am I to blame but myself.. but it’s not just the language.. it’s their attitude as well as their, slower than snail pace, efficiency! U will marvel at how fast they get things done here. For example, when ada and I checked into our residence, our guardian promised us that she will fix the 2 lamps that are spoilt.. till now.. they are still not working! Seriously if you get a heart attack or an asthma attack, dun even bother calling an ambulance.. maybe u can make better use of your time by ordering the last bed u’ll be resting upon..

Came home and started packing my cupboard because I can’t find one of my red socks.. and after packing all my winter clothes and those clothes that I do not need anymore, my cupboard’s empty..! but.. still no red sock =(.. spoke to Jon too =).. after not having a decent conversation for quite awhile, it’s nice talking to him again and not being upset anymore (was upset over him having to go for NS reservice during our anniversary and also while I’m in Thailand)

It’s snowing here in rouen.. cars were covered with snow today and saw my first snow today! It was not really snowing.. it was like half rain half snow.. so still looking forward to my first real snow experience.. can’t wait to have snow falling on me and having an all white surrounding! But it’s really sad that Jon can’t be with me when I experience my first snow.. I think it will really be very magical and romantic.. 100 times better than seeing the Eiffel tower.. cried when I first saw the Eiffel tower.. can’t really explain that kind of feeling.. maybe it’s so nice that it made me miss Jon so much or it was such a romantic sight that I was ‘moved’ to tears.. I’m sure when I experience my first snow.. I will get the same magical feeling.. only much much more intense.. always wanted to see snow since I was a little girl.. and now I wish to see snow with the guy I love.. can’t wait for the day when I open my window and it’s all white outside =)..

On the other hand, it’s quite worrying too.. still remembered my French teacher commenting that it hardly ever snows in Rouen and even if it does it’ll only be in February. She also mentioned that it’s difficult when it snows cos pple here do not have the resources as well as experience to deal with snow and there’ll be lots of accidents and disruption in services.. so to think that it’s snowing SO MUCH, SO EARLY.. is really scary.. I hope there wun be much accidents and hope I can still go about my daily life normally..

We have a new dinning table!

2005-11-17T06:38:00.000+08:00

Today has been quite a special day as compared to my other boring days in Rouen. We were supposed to get out of bed at 9am to go catch a movie, as movies are much cheaper before 12am. However, we were too sleepy to drag ourselves out of bed and only managed to get moving at around 10+.

I was so sleepy partly because I spent the whole night dreaming. I dreamt that Jon broke up with me.. and He sent me a big bouquet of flowers with 2 ‘break up’ letters and the first letter was in a bright yellow envelope, stating that this will be his final letter telling me the reasons of the break up. However, while opening the letter, I cried so hard till I got woken up. I guess either my heart/mind could not endure the pain it was going through or I am such a clean freak that I cannot bear dirtying my pillow with all my tears. This time round I did not feel a sense of relieve when I realized that it was only a dream but instead felt sad that I did not get to read the letter. I dreamt a similar dream just few days ago: that Jon broke up with me to get back together with his ex.. I felt so heartbroken and was so relieved when I woke up.. however I was so sad that I continued crying for more than 5 minutes and cried even harder when I called Jon. I do not understand why I am dreaming of such things considering that things are going perfectly well for the both of us. Maybe it’s due to my fear of losing him. Certainly, I wish this is not a glimpse of the future! I really do not know how I am going to go on with life without him. Well, Meiting believes that nobody needs 1 particular person to live the rest of her life, but at this point of time I find it difficult to agree with her. At least for now, I really look forward to the time where I can fall asleep beside him every night and wake up in his arms every morning… to share my daily ups n downs with him before I sleep and hear words of encouragement and assurance every morning before I start my day. I feel sad that my exchange is coming to an end but on the other hand I can’t wait to be with him again.

Back to my day.. while washing up, our guardian knocked on our doors and viola! We were blessed with a brand new table!! Ada n I agreed to use it as our dinning table cos all this while we have been using 1 small pathetic table to do our work and eat. The new table is quite pretty and there’s also a side drawer which can be rolled around. So we decided to get rid of our make shift table and repack all our food into our new drawers.

After some packing and cleaning, we went downtown to do some shopping. Ada bought a new jacket and I bought a top of my brother’s girlfren. We also bought some candles, candle holders and best of all, we bought a mini Christmas tree!! It comes with lots of pretty red n gold decorations and lights too! All these for less than 10E!! we also bought some chicken for dinner and also some thighs to boil potato and carrot soup on Friday when meiting comes to visit us =).

Therefore, dinner today was exceptionally nice as we had a new dinning table, prettily decorated with candles and a Christmas tree. Ada cooked us pasta with sweet and sour chicken. So yup all in all today had been quite a nice day, walking around rouen and feeling happy over our new furniture =)

For those who would like to read about my adventures in Europe, do refer to adaline’s blog. www.enilada.blogspot.com because I am too lazy to blog..

A BIG thank you to Ada, Meiting & Lulu!! Love u all =)

2005-11-07T06:55:00.000+08:00

I like to blog about this because I wish never to forget how nice my girlfrens are.. Ada, Meiting and Xiaolu really put in a lot of effort to make my 22nd birthday an enjoyable one, esp since Jon left Europe a few days before my birthday.

Meiting and Xiaolu came rouen to visit us and also to tour Paris. Meiting bought an interesting looking but really delicious chocolate cake all the way from Maastricht. At midnight, they asked me to take a shower and when I emerged me from the bathroom, there they were standing with the chocolate cake with blinking Eiffel towers.. because they did not manage to get any candles.. though I already knew about the surprised, I was still very happy that they bothered to celebrate my bdae. Of course I did not bothered to look surprised because I dun really believe in hiding the truth..but I did stand inside the toilet for some time to compose myself as I was laughing uncontrollably hearing all the stupid things they were saying outside to pretend nothing was happening. However, at the sight of them, I burst out laughing again.. and I guess they felt quite sad that I knew all about the surprise..

The chocolate cake is really really good!! When u cut the cake, rich chocolate sauce will oozed out.. totally yummy.. definitely a must try.. and 100% will get a sore throat cake

The next day, while I was at sch, they all went Carrefour to buy ingredients to cook for my supposedly surprise bdae party. In the end.. due to many reasons, it was not a surprised party but it was really nice still.. they invited some of my HK frens over and they really cooked a sumptuous meal. There were prawns, beef, vegs, salad, chicken, pasta, desserts and another bdae cake.. this time with candles, but no lighter.. but all went well and I got to blow candles in the end..

I like to thank Ada, Meiting and Xiaolu for everything. You guys were really sweet and I really had a nice time.. not just enjoying the food and attention but also really happy that you all were with me on my bdae.. and I din feel so sad w/o jon. Sorry I spoilt all your surprises.. I din mean it.. and I am not like Xiaolu who is very good at ‘pretending’ and I am not like Meiting who is ever so ‘blur’ abt her surroundings =) right gals?!

Once again THANK YOU darlings!! And ada, dun worry k, I love your presents and your bdae card!

Reflections

2005-10-04T23:24:00.000+08:00

Oki.. guess my blogging is becoming pathetic. Do not really have the mood to blog either but thought I shld just update my diary from time to time.. at least 10 years down the road I will still have the slightest idea of my life in France

Today the 4th of October.. there’s supposed to be a HUGE strive over the whole of France, and last night ada and I were so worried that we would have to walk up to sch.. and that’s really no joke becos it’ll prob take us.. maybe 1.5hrs UPHILL.. yup we literally stay DOWNtown.. and this hill is no SMU slope.. this is really a steep hill and on any other day, I would not really bother becos I can simply skip classes.. and I’m sure the slack profs here will understand.. but today I have some silly 40% presentation so I had no choice but to attend classes.. however, THANK GOD, this morning the bus that we take to sch was running.. so we were spared the impossible walk up… and yup I sure we could take a cab or sth.. but our pockets do not permit and also I dun remember seeing any taxis ard this ulu mulu Rouen.. so oh well.. whatever it is .. Ada n I did not witness any strive on our way up.. but I’m sure it’s big elsewhere cos it even appeared on Singapore’s paper and my professor said it’s really serious..

Life here is pretty slack for me.. that is becos I am only taking 3 courses.. clearing 2GEs and 1 finance. Learning basic French is really no easy task.. met a missionary and she said, Pple speak French in Heaven, cos it takes an eternity to learn.. yup I totally agree.. even my French prof said, she’s so glad she’s not learning French now.. it can get really overwhelming and exhausting but I’m glad I’m learning another language .. My other GE is critical thinking and the profs are really nice and funny pple.. they are twins.. according to them and going by their surnames but they look really different to me.. my 3rd and final course is international finance and though I’m learning new stuff, I’m having a really easy time as compared to the other international students.. but I guess that’s becos English is my first language and finance is my strongest area.. so I guess put me in any other class and I’ll probably die..

I’m doing nothing yet I have no time to do anything. I spend all my time waiting.. like now I’m jus waiting for my frens to finish their lessons b4 we head to some French cultural exchange party.. everyday by the time I head home it’ll be pretty late.. bath and do stupid things and it’s time for bed already.. so I really feel like I’m on a permanent holiday becos I never have to do any ork.. even the 40% presentation today.. I took less than 1hr preparing for it.. and that was while waiting for classes to start.. and also I’m travel on Wednesdays, Fridays – Sundays.. so I’m travelling 4/7 days so the mood for doing any serious work is not there.. but I’m not complaining.. I’m only left with this and next semesters to rot and stone my life away before stepping into the real, cold, cruel world.. so for now I jus wanna enjoy every moment while I’m still in sch.. cos in the near future I noe I would never say: I wished I spent more time studying.. but I’m sure I’ll say: I wished I enjoyed my sch days more..

So far this whole exchange has been a really exciting experience for me.. firstly from someone who hardly had the chance to travel and have never been to Europe.. I have became someone who have travelled Europe pretty widely.. having been to only 5 countries before going on this program I have been to more than 10 new countries in the past 2 months and with still many more ahead.. so I feel really blessed that I am able to visit so many different countries at the tender age of 21..
I have also learned to be more independent.. while I already was very independent back in Singapore.. but now even when my headache is killing me I have to force myself out of bed to get my own medication.. when my neck is totally stiff I jus have to lie there in pain and slowly massaged my neck till I can move again.. whereas in Singapore when it hurts so so badly, I can get someone else to help me..
I also realised that I take many things for granted.. like TV, Phones, Internet, Newspaper, laundry, air conditioning.. all these are ‘basics’ back at home but here I’m greatly derived of them.. but gradually I have learnt to live w/o them..
This exchange has also reinforced my belief that Singapore is really one of the best place to live in.. it’s so efficient, clean, economical.. but I would still like to experience life abroad in the future.. cos I still feel that the whole experience is kinda magical and it’s nice starting afresh with the love of your life..
I have learnt and seen many other things and it will be impossible to write all of them.. but I guess last thing I would like to add that this exchange gives Jon and myself a good chance to test our relationship.. if we can survive this separation, then I guess I’ll be more certain that he’s the one for me… if we dun.. then I’ll be totally heartbroken but I guess it’s better to find out that we’re not right for each other now then to realise after exchanging our vows.. I hope and pray that we’ll be able to survive through this.. and hopefully 2 years from now.. you guys will be attending my wedding =)

Oki that’s all for now.. I’ll be going to Paris tomorrow and Amsterdam, Brussels and Luxemburg this wkend if everything goes well..

First entry in Europe

2005-09-14T00:15:00.000+08:00

i really wanna blog but i'm jus to lazy.. firstly i dun exactly like this stupid keyboard cos the letters are hard and many times some letter jus dun appear and the keyboard here is diff so i have to change it to the english version n i dun exactly noe where all the punctuations are.. and of cos sometimes when i type i tend to look at the keyboard and so it's irritating to type on the tab that says Q but is actually A.. okie too complex? 4get it.. basically everything in France is different.. put it nicely.. they are unique.. out house door is spoilt, bathroom's stuck, no toilet seat cover, no glass top for the sink, our shower is screwed up.. and i can go on forever abt the pple and the way they do things.. basically.. it's F up! n pple who noes me noe i hardly ever use the word F.. but yes this F..rance country needs a stronger word than F to describe things here..

but other than spoilt things, mean rude pple, things here are nice. teachers are nice and classes so far seems fun. we dun have to pay for classroom materials. n so far seems quite slack. Our prof today gave out a thin set of reading.. prob like 1-2 chpt of TWC readings kind and he was like if it's too much to read split it among the 3 of u.. and haha for someone who can never finish reading any handouts, i think i can manage that stack for a 40 percent group presentation. having quite a fun time learning french now.. it's pretty hard but so far i'm only learning the basics so still manageable but ada always say i only noe how to say the same few words.. let's hope it'll upgrade to ' the few same sentences'

also having lots of fun meeting HK pple and they're a nice bunch of pple and we have been going to their residence to cook rice and hotdogs and of cos eggs for ada.. so it's quite good. best thing is there's a Carrefour here and certain things can be really cheap, like a box of double chocolate biscuits: 0.45E, 2 bars of chocolates only 0.65E.. tuna is abt 0.75E so we bought quite a few things to bring to Germany next week..

Reading Weiyang's blog, i dun think we'll be having our meals together.. we only eat bread n ham and when we eat out it'll be those 1E hotdog stands. Macs a luxury and i hardly eat there cos i think it's too ex.. for the whole mth of travelling, i spent less than 600E on food n accommodation.. our accommodation ranges from 9E-15E except in Swiss where we paid 21E at Zurich but it was super worth it cos we stayed at ETAP and it's really the best accommodation we had the entire month..

we also met 3 really fantastic Singaporean at Budapest who were there on a biz trip.. and after extensive period of bread n ham, we were really craving for like hot, proper food. they were really nice to us and they brought us ard Budapest and treated us to Chinese Lunch, Western food for dinner and even icecream!!! so that day we had the best food ever and we spent nothing!!! they even insisted on paying transport for us! we were really happy that day.. so yup those are some of the few highlights of our trip

okie will prob blog my whole mth of travelling, but think it's gonna be a BIG challenge cos i write to Jon everything that happens in the day and i have posted the whole stack to Thailand.. haha and we're leaving for Germany this week.. which means more to write on.. actually evil me is actually waiting for ADA to blog so next time i can jus read her blog and remember everything that we did since we travelled everywhere toget haha.. but i dun think she'll have the time to blog soon.. so look out for Ada's haha.. sorry dear.. u have always been the more responsible one =p

but in summary, we had a really great time travelling in Greece, Italy, Swiss, Austria, Hungary and Prague. And last sunday we went to Paris n i really really LOVE Paris, it's a really beautiful city and i think it's a great pity that ada n i are not studying in Paris.. but ada n i will prob drop by Paris often cos it's only abt 1+ hr away.. so still reasonable.. we have also made plans with sme of our HK n Thai frens to go Disneyland and also Holland and they'll be following us to Spain n Portugal n South France during the Mid term break.. so really looking forward to all of the travelling

n YAY skipping sch next week to go germany.. can't wait to meet up with all my gfs like meiting n Xiaolu and i'll be meeting my really good fren from JC in Hamburg!! so really looking forward to that.. but i have to wake up at like 5am on Friday and will only arrive in Hamburg at 5+pm.. so i think it'll be pretty tiring and lonely..

oki i'm starving and i'm gonna meet up with ada and some other pple to go to the city ..

Farewell Jon..

2005-08-07T00:59:00.000+08:00

Dun really wanna leave for europe anymore.. i jus wanna stay in thailand with jon.. feel really sad that i'm leaving him tomolo.. sobs.. dun wanna go.. dun wanna leave this place and leave jon =(.. think i'm gonna be a miserable and sad companion to have.. so i guess xiaolu and ada will have to bear with me for the first 2 weeks..

went to chatuchak market today.. it was really huge and though we din buy like alot of things.. we spent like S$300 today.. kinda scary man.. guess all the cheap little things really add up..

after a long tiring morn of shopping we went for massage =).. the queue for thai massage was 1.5hrs.. so instead of jus sitting ard.. we decided to go for an hr of foot massage haha yup.. so in the end we each went for like 3 hrs of massage.. but jon came out of him aching.. haha so poor thing.. hope he'll be fine later..

ate really good dinner.. we ordered so much until the waiters were staring at our table.. we ordered.. mushroom soup, prawn salad, steak, fired rice, sweet sour fish & veggie.. when everything was placed on the table it was pretty scary.. but as usual we managed to finish all the food ahhaha =)

oki.. gtg..

Enjoying life in Thailand

2005-08-05T12:44:00.000+08:00

ohhh..life here is pretty nice.. only bad side it can get really lonely cos jon always have to be at a plant which is like 400km away so he's back past midnight and have to leave early in the morning for work.. i guess once i'm gone he'll prob stay over night there instead of going thru n fro..

the service apartment is really nice... i'm styaing at chateau de bangkok.. even the name sound nice right.. haha it's at ruamrudee.. or near wireless road.. behind conrad hotel.. pple who have intention of staying in theiland for long period should consider this place.. it's going at 3000bht/nite.. so that's abt 120. thing that's pretty reasonable? big jacuzzi in the toilet.. there's kitchen.. n everything else a hotel have.. what i like are the pretty plates and bowls, teapot and cups haha.. cheap thrill huh..

jon brought over speakers and DVD players so i have been watch sex n the city which resting in bed from a bad flu and cough.. watched season 1 n abit of 2.. haha n abit of 6.. oki guess some pple like jon will nag at me for skipping but i wanted to see if charlotte will change over the 6 seasons.. haha yes i totally love her... she is so sweet and cute.. and i think i'm most like her.. eg. her 'traditional' view of certain 'things'.. ni realised whenever she's cryiny, i'm crying too.. she's a cry baby like i am... however, she's abit silly which i'm not haha.. oh.. she oh so pretty!! wld love being les with her... haha..

did a bit of shopping but guess i'm not really the shopping type.. i guess it's realy more fun spending money with someone else than all by urself.. just like eating at nce places.. saw many nice places but i just dun wanna eat at these places without someone else to enjoy it with me.. so to kill time i just went for like treatment which was 12.. went for several massages already and the thai are really good.. however was abit upset with the one i had yesterday.. i pd for 2 hrs.. but she only did like 1.5 and i was like kinda upset but i din wanna say too much cos like not very nice... so i decided not to tip her.. i mean come on.. i tip almost everyone.. till jon's like saying i shldn't.. but this lady shortchanged me.. and so NO TIP.. but she actually stood at the doorway and asked me to tip her.. i was like wah this lady sure have the guts man.. but aiya.. the never noe how to say no me.. just dig out 20bht and gave it to her.. i mentioned that i din get my 2 hrs and hope if i'm back the next day i'll get my full 2 hrs..

today's friday and jon's working in the city so he's having all 3 meals with me and he wun be back late so really happi and tol i can really get down to shopping =) not thati buy alot.. moreover now everything i buy i'll have squueze it into my already v small ball.. or leave it in bangkok and collect it 6 mths later... so i guess that's really stopping me from buying too much.. wished i packed 2 coats into my box.. i could still tell my family to put it into the DHL box but it's so darn full that they'll have to dig alot of things out which i decide is way too much trouble.. so i guess i'll just have to live with 1.. and haha borrow from darling ada from time to time.. aint she the sweetest bestest fren in the world hahah

wanted to wash some clothes yesterday.. so took evrything down to the 3rd fl.. the laundry room is at some far corner.. and when i turned .. i was faced with this all white 2 -door with big words laundry room painted across the 2 doors in RED can.. i tel u it's 'bloody' freaky.. when i stared at those doors.. all my fear just came rushing back i was really very scare. but hoping that there'll be some humans inside i decided to open the door.. but all i saw were clothes and i think i have to enter and turn another corner b4 i cld see the machines.. anyway by that time i have totally freaked out.. it's was late.. those 2 whites doors.. those red words.. plus the sound of machines spinning and my imaginationa dn dead bodies spinning in those machines totally scared the hell out of me.. i ran to the lifts.. and let's not get started on one of my greatest fears: the lift!! quickly went up dumbed everything onto the floor and took the life down to the lobby where i stayed for the next 4 hrs waiting for jon to return..urg.. scary.. wun venture there alone anymore..

okie that's about it gonna walk ard to see if there's anything i can buy here and source for the next place i can squeeze my aching body..

Almost done with packing..

2005-07-31T23:33:00.000+08:00

Yes.. almost there.. once I’m done with my laptop I can start packing it into my back pack.. yes my backpack is really heavy.. it’s about 11KG without my laptop so I guess in the end I’ll be carrying about 15kg ard.. and wah it’s really super heavy.. just carrying it for like 2 minutes and my back is already aching.. can’t imagine man..

Finished stuffing all my things into the DHL jumbo box..threw out a lot of things cos the box is really very small.. quite proud that I managed to put in quite a reasonable amount of items.. the box is about 21KG now so I still have 4 kg grace.. but I really can’t put in anymore things.. happy with the way it is now.. guess my brother and mom will have a super hard time bringing it to DHL office =p

Leaving in 36hrs time. real soon huh.. have not signed my accommodation and all but ada is helping me take care of that b4 she leave this coming Sunday and meet me at Bangkok =).. for now I really can’t wait to be in Bangkok where I can sleep for 24 hrs straight, go for heaps of massage and of cos shopping though my bag doesn’t have much space for anything.. bleah..

Going to contd packing then I can turn in early and head to school tomorrow to handle some admin stuff.. went to city campus for the first time this morning. Stayed over at old campus with ada, meiting and xiaolu.. had a really fun time eating, playing stupid games, listening to super cold corny jokes from meiting bf.. but yup the both of them are really funny, nice and entertaining pple.. perfect together =) slept for maybe an hour plus then woke up to have soggy, tasteless Mac breakfast.. but it’s free anyway so wun complain much.. happy so long as there’s food..

Took a bus down to wisma and was given balloons and yup the march down was quite fun and super happening! All the colorful balloons, band on trucks, Malay music club (?), lion dance, sapphires and pretty gals on open top buses.. whole atmosphere was nice =) and we occupied 2 lanes on orchard road, so really cool.. in all it was a really good experience and I’m glad that I was able to participate in such a memorable event before going to France.. our city campus is super high tech and really doesn’t look like a school.. but I feel the school’s really beautiful.. regardless what the public say haha

Meeting up with some friends tomorrow night. Managed to meet up with Linn Lipp and Bingfeng also on Saturday.. in case I dun have time to blog anymore..

TAKE CARE! And have a great semester ahead! Will write again in September..?

Last day of work...!!!

2005-07-29T17:13:00.000+08:00

Managed to finish most of my work already.. really can’t wait to knock off work and finally experience a sense of freedom!! Been waiting ages for this day. Working at UBS is great, pple are really nice and all but it’s really too tiring cos besides work I feel like I have a lot of other things to do, for home and school. Like there’s so much things to do for exchange, admin work I have to settle b4 leaving Spore and also there’s house work like laundry to worry about and there’s so pple to meet and errands to run.. so I hardly have time to just lie on the bed to rest. Every night I go to bed at 1+ and have to drag myself out of bed at 7+ so it’s the sleep debt is really accumulating..

However, I really have no regrets taking up this internship. There’s the painful side but there’s the nice side too, like the friends I have made. They’re really nice pple and today my boss gave me a farewell gift from wintertime hee.. wonder what it is.. we also went for lunch together about 20 of us so it was cool I guess to have a meal with all of them before leaving.. so if I am to choose all over again.. I’ll still choose to intern at UBS.. maybe I’ll choose to end work a few days earlier so I’ll have more time to get my things settled…

Now I’m really hoping and praying my visa will be ready on Tuesday.. I just realize how rushed it’ll be.. cos my flight’s at 12+.. which means I gotta be at the airport at 11.. which means leaving hse at 10+.. and before that I have to go to the embassy, go home to get my luggage before heading to the airport.. so I guess I’ll really have to chop chop.. but can’t wait to leave for Thailand cos Jon’s there and I’m really looking forward to spending time with him… however, he’ll be at office in the day time so I guess I’ll be quite bored and lonely.. but at least I can go for loads of massages and go shopping at the safer areas by myself..

Oki gotta go clear up some things!

Yay!!

No work day =)

2005-07-28T01:23:00.000+08:00

Went to have dinner at marina’s Japanese restaurant. Met up with Ada, Victor and his girlfren. It was nice chatting with them and they were so sweet! Actually bought us farewell presents and even wrote a card. Marina gave us farewell presents too. Was really surprised!

Jon flew off to Thailand this morning.. miss him lots n feel sad not having him ard =(.. really looking forward to meet him in Thailand n I really hope I’ll be able to fly off on tues.. which is 5 days from now.. how soon is that man..

Went to French embassy to get my visa done and he said it usually take 2 weeks!! N without my vise I wun be able to leave the country as they are holding on to my documents n passport.. so I’m really worried I wun be able to see Jon soon and spend some quality time with him there… n worse if we can’t get to Greece on the 8th.. all our plans will be screwed up..

Oki gotta go sleep super late already..

My boring life, boring wkend

2005-07-28T01:18:00.000+08:00

Wrote this several days ago at the office while I was waiting fro my colleague to go for lunch togets.. =) 2 more days of internship!!!

Really looking forward to end of internship.. I only have 4.5 more days to go.. and if I'm able to take leave on weds to apply for my visa.. I'll only have 3.5 more days to go.. yup the end is really near.. but that also means the I'm flying off really really soon.. flying off next week weds n I still feel like I have tons of things to do.. really afraid I wun be able to finish or I forget to settle some things before leaving.. meeting ada to buy things for our exchange.. glad I have her to remind me to do impt things.. and also I gues I just need my passport, eurail ticket and air ticket and the rest I can depend on her if I forget right hahaha

Had a rather good 'wkend'. Went for ear candling, eye treatment, full body massage & back scrub on thurs evening and after that went back to Suntec Kbox to sing karaoke with my colleagues. It was really fun and interesting to see how some of them can be so so cute, funny and entertaining. Think I laughed more than I sang

Friday had a bumpy day at work cos m boss seemed to be having a bad day.. so I was at high alert level.. after work I went to church and wah it's really nice to be back.. feel happy and really glad that I managed to drag myself back to church.. I'm really ill disciplined and I guess I'm a victim of spiritual warfare.. I must bring myself to church for this week's midweek and Sunday service.. it'll be my last service for the year.. now everytime I do sth I'll realize it's my 'last' of the year.. like I always go visit my dad at Simei every Sunday, and becos this was the last meal I'll be buying for him, I bought a lot of food and felt sad telling him that it was the last time I'll be visiting him for the year.. and it felt a little sad.. guess I'll miss everyone at home.. esp my brother and of cos I'll miss jon llike mad.. but he wun be in spore anyway.. so I guess whether I'm here or not, we'll still be separated so that really comfort me little.. but overall, everytime I think about us, I feel sad and anxious that we'll be away from each other for such a long time.. hope I'll be strong and not cry everyday for the first few weeks I'm there if not poor xiaolu, ada and meiting will have a bad holiday with me =(

Friday and Saturday, I was down with bad bad bad headache.. super painful so was back to eating my panadols again after staying away from there for some time.. however, since it was the last wkend Jon will be ard, we went to peninsular plaza to catch the 'ndp' parade.. we saw all the pretty planes and of cos the fireworks!! Oh so beautiful =) I love going for NDP and so I really envy Weiyang that he gets to go for them every year.. I have gone for several and once at the padang.. hopefully I'll be able to go for the next one when we turn 45 and 50! I'm sure the 50th one will be even more spectacular.. oki most of u must thing I'm weird cos I know many people who are unable to appreciate NDPs and think they're a BIG waste of time.. but haha.. I love going for parades ever since I took part when I was in Sec. 2 =)

Sunday was lazy lazy, jus sleep n sleep till 3+ then woke up to get the laundry done and then off to Jon's place to have dinner and haha yup.. to see them for the last time of the yr too.. they're really nice people and I think jon's really fortunate to have parents like them, so trusting, loving and understanding. It's a pity I'm not really close to them..but who knows, maybe one day.. if I EVER have a chance to be their daughter in law, things may be better haha Those who are going Europe for exchange, it's a good time to change money now.. the rate now is 2.013. when I saw the rate on Bloomberg at 1.9991, my eyes nearly popped out I thot there was a mistake or sth cos I have never seen it at 1. sth before haha

Life's all about eating..

2005-07-21T00:09:00.000+08:00

Was suppose to go for salsa lessons today but in the end went out for dinner with Jon and his colleagues.. it’s kind of like his farewell dinner cos he’s flying off next week.. so I went along.. the book was good, we went to sunar at Suntec, it’s this Indonesian restaurant but to me the food felt pretty Chinese.. and I dun really have to say anything so I just sat there and ate.. =) after that we went to coffee bean and ordered some coffee while the rest drank chamomile tea.. and I think how ada says this tea is only for the sick cos dun noe who.. issit bunny peter rabit or dun noe which animal always drink this tea when he’s ill.. I dun really take chamomile cos it makes me drowsy.. think it’s overly relaxing for me

For lunch went to congress suntec and ate a bowl of laska and plain prata.. super sinful.. but oh so yummy.. 2 of my favorite food together.. yummy.. but today’s laska had way too much coconut in it.. so it tasted too milky n thick already.. but the prata is really good.. and everyone commented how the food tasted better than the lunch we had at China’s Club.. and they were all complaining how high class places never serve good food.. which I feel is pretty true.. guess all the money spent went into dolling up the place and making u like king.. but mouth like beggar.. n breakfast was my cinnamon rasin bagel again haha

Today, my boss wasn’t around so pretty good.. went to other desks to better understand what they are doing.. and haha as always come 6pm I got a phone call from my boss asking me to do work.. and she mentioned that she has 2 things she wanted me to do.. after giving instructions for one.. she said she’ll give me the remaining instructions later.. I finished the first piece of work and sent it to her.. and waited for an hr+ and decided not to wait anymore n took off at 715pm.. thought it was a reasonable time to disappear.. anyway I did try… I chatted her and dropped her an email.. Couldn’t call her.. so I have exhausted my means hahah.. tomorrow I’ll be going for my first Bloomberg training.. really like to see how wonderful the pantry is haha

Next week’s my last week in Singapore.. kinda scary huh.. cos I feel I have not done a lot of things.. so I guess come next week I’ll be freaking out.. better not procrastinate anymore and get down to work.. discussed with ada abt argument methods.. she’s more hot war while I’m more cold war.. oki at least I’m better at cold war haha.. but we decided hot war would be better and we’re gonna come out with guidelines and argument ‘techniques’ haha.. hope everything will work out fine.. we have been frens for 10 yrs already.. dun wish to ‘break up’ over exchange ..

Oki time to prepare for bed.. looking forward to my massage session tomorrow =) got locked out of my email account again.. sigh..

Scary Lunch interview

2005-07-19T23:39:00.000+08:00

Today has been an alright day for me. Currently, the few people I love the most are playing badminton together just outside my house.. Jon and my older brother.. cute huh =)

Today I went for lunch with a lady who's the head of APAC..it was an interns’ lunch out.. we went to the china lunch above GIC.. and yup din knew how grand it was .. but it was really posh, and I learnt that only members can bring people in.. and membership is not any oh how one.. it’s only by invitation.. so my other colleagues were just mentioning how some people just like to show off.. but I thought it was simply wanting to bring us to the best and make us feel important.. so oh well.. at the end of it I got my free lunch, good advice, good view, and it was an eye opener.. even hired mini coach to ferry us from suntec..

It was kinda stressful and disheartening.. cos everyone on the table was like doing their MBA, they are all from overseas, like Yale, Boston, LSE, LBS, NYU.. not that I look down on SMU or anything.. but I really can’t help but feel small and how everyone is just mocking me about my pathetic background.. and they’re all high n mighty.. lunch was like an interview session, and I sure suxed at it.. there’s these 2 pple who have worked for several years, and they’re really impressive and all.. so SHE was really very impressed by them and it was clear that she wish to hire them.. and interestingly she commented that she prefers employing pple who are 30+ cos they’re more mature.. fresh grads know nothing, etc.. so I guess all my hopes are gone..

I feel fortunate to be given an opportunity to work in UBS. And having worked there, my desire to work in a bank is so much stronger, maybe even desperate.. but yet I feel it is so unattainable and I find it highly unlikely to be working in UBS in the future as competition is so stiff and there’s just too many pple chasing after the same job.. who am I an SMU grad to compete with a MBA student from top international universities..

Feeling small, and not exactly knowing what I would like to do in the Fixed income dept left me depressed and lost.. but I guess I’m much better now cos I guess many a times pple do not land up where they are thru careful planning and all.. but really the opportunity presented itself.. so I shall just wait and see.. moreover, who knows whether I’ll still be alive tomorrow, or where I’ll be.. I mean even interning at UBS was never part of the plan.. I just got a call one day, went for interview and landed an internship.. perfect.. good bank, and able to accommodate my timing.. so keeping my fingers crossed.. I really hope everything will work out fine in the end.. I just have to put my trust in my God, and know that He has a plan for me =)

Met my ex bf today to transfer mobile phone account, nice to be able to catch up on each other’s life and I’m really glad to hear that we’re both doing so well in our own relationships, and I’m glad to see that our break was such a good and wise one.. so I was telling him abt my darling ada, and I can’t wait for the day where she’ll look back and realize that, breaking up with her ex was the best thing that ever happened in her life! Don’t worry dear, that day will come soon!! Love ya!

I still have 8 more days at work and 12 more days before I leave Singapore!

Hi visitor/s, care leaving a note?

2005-07-18T22:46:00.000+08:00

Oki I noe compared to everyone out there, I have probably the most pathetic number of visitors.. BUT I would still like to say that I’m pretty impressed how blogs viewing can spread.. firstly, I never gave out my blog address, except to ada, but she herself did not come to the site till she saw it at tangoh’s site.. and I guess everything started from his site? Even pple I least expect to read my blog, reads it when they’re really really really bored.. but yup.. when I saw my blog’s link on tangoh’s site, my jaws nearly dropped… and till today I have yet to asked him how he got to know about it.. I wanted to write a blog asking pple to remove my link cos I felt it was a little too public.. haha yesyes irony I know.. but.. I actually had pple blog links on my blog.. but only those that were published on MSN.. nevertheless, I thot it was silly for me to ‘disallow’ pple to link my blog, when I actually linked theirs.. so I removed all the links, and that blog entry too.. but I guess now I’m thankful for pple like tangoh and ada for helping me publish my blog.. cos it’s kinda cool when I talk to certain pple and they already know everything and we can talk w/o me having to explain anything..

But I’m curious to know who visits this blog.. care leaving a note? Maybe ada visits my blog 10 times a day that’s why it’s at 200.. possible? I suppose…

Tiring Wkend

2005-07-18T22:30:00.000+08:00

I’m so tired.. today was one hectic day for me.. my boss’s going away so she wants me to do like a million n one things at the same time.. and the worse thing was my computer was being irritating today.. everything I import sth, the file will get corrupted and theni wun be able to save the file.. I have to keep on deleting and re importing till it’s not corrupted.. and there’s like 2 charts or table every page kind.. so it was really very troublesome…

Anyway, really glad that it’s over and now I’m just preparing for all the things I need for tomorrow.. everyday my errand list gets longer n longer.. like simple things like posting letter.. have to go buy stamps, look for envelope.. and there’s seem to be so much other things to do..

Had a tiring weekend too.. stayed up over the weekend to make a card for ada.. bought this flower shaped CD, alphabet spaghetti, glue and marker, and wrote her a letter by sticking the alphabets on the CD.. sticking the letters one by one wasn’t the worst part.. looking for the letters was the most painful!! Thank goodness jon woke up on Saturday morning and helped me search for letters.. so that helped a lot. If not I think my nexk will be broken by now.. glad that I can rest for the next 1 yr.. till July comes again.. haha

had RAC installation on sat aftnn, and after that went to Levi’s to get my new pair of jeans.. initially I sent in my jeans hoping that they’ll mend some stitches, in the end they said they din noe how to do it.. and I guess they rather give me a new pair.. haha.. when I got the new pair, I decided that I din really like the design, so ada helped me get a new pair at another outlet.. so quite happy that I got a new pair =) and this is already the second time.. the first time, the whole waist band came off.. their jeans are really lousy.. I only wore the first for like a few months.. and the 2nd for less than a month.. so I gues I deserve a new piece huh? Haha =0P

After that went to have dinner with ada’s parents and we had seafood buffet.. wah I ate till I was gonna die man.. too long never eat buffet already.. and I love salmon sashimi so I kept on eating n eating.. and they have a chocolate fountain and loads of rich good dessert. So yup ate till my stomach was gonna explode.. but I guess that’ll be my last few chances of good food.. before i go Europe n survive on $1/meal.. dun noe if I’ll be able to buy anything with $1.. maybe stale bread n some sour milk?

Woke up super late on Sunday and rushed to ada’s house for housewarming cum her 22nd Bdae celebration.. wah I tell you, her house is really nice.. it’s like picture perfect house hee.. I have offered to pay rent and stay there next time when we’re both old n lonely.. after that went to Jon’s place for dinner.. have not really been spending much time with him cos I have so much things to do.. and on nights when I’m free, he’ll be busy.. so just never really had time together..

thought I wun be sad leaving him cos I’m older and more mature now.. but realize it’s still gonna be really heart breaking.. last night we were just playing a fool with his new MP3 play and asked him to record sth for me so I can listen to it when I miss him while in Europe.. and after the first sentence I started crying and felt really sad having to part with him.. I can’t imagine having to leave him in 2 wks time.. sobs.. but then again.. I do not even have my French visa yet..

changed some Euros today cos I thought the rate’s not bad already.. bought euros at 2.04.. hope it doesn’t fall the next few days.. if not I’ll be really sad..

oki.. looks like I’ll be able to sleep early today!! Tomorrow my boss wun be ard.. so I can do my work peacefully… that is if she doesn’t call me every ½ hr to give me some work.. she’ll be back on Thursday and then next Tuesday, an intern is coming to take over me.. hopefully that means I can slack more hahahahah

HAPPY 22ND BIRTHDAY ADA!!!

2005-07-17T22:48:00.000+08:00

I LOVE YOU!!!

Met up with my Sec. Sch Frens

2005-07-14T23:51:00.000+08:00

Went out with my secondary school frens for dinner today.. and it was really fun.. we have a very interesting friendship.. we are close.. yet not close.. complex friendship I would say..

I knew one of them when I was in primary 1, and the other 2 in upper primary, one of them is ada of cos... We became very good frens during our Girls Brigade days, loads of stayovers, bitching, shopping, pigging out and all the other things gals do together.. we really had a lot of fun together and I could really be myself infront of them..

However, after parting ways, ada and i barely meet up with them.. we meet up like 5 times a year, during our respective birthdays and during Christmas as we’re all Christians.. so we can dun see each other and speak to each other for like 4 – 5 mths.. so that’s the part where we’re not really close.. but when we meet up we can talk about anything and everything, we share our thoughts about love, about religion and life in general.. pretty personal stuff I feel.. things I wun talk about to my other so called good frens. I feel younger with them and I think they bring out the fun side and ‘natural’ side of me.. and I can really just be ME.. so yup that’s the close part.. today we met up to celebrate Ada’s and Steph Bdae.. looking forward to meeting up with them.. but that’ll be next year.. after I come back from France

Yup today, we were talking about love life.. and it’s nice cos we are all Christians, so we share similar views in certain areas that other friends will find hard to understand..
One of my fren was just complaining about all the things that her bf find ‘one hell of a deal’ while to her it’s ‘no big deal’.. and the farni thing is.. all the things she mentioned about are ‘big deals’ in my relationship and is practiced and displayed in our relationship.. so I probably appeared weird and unreasonable to all of them.. but well.. guess it works for us.. at least for me hahah

Yup.. I really love Jon and all.. but ever since I started work, I have been super grouchy and easily irritable.. getting pek chey over the smallest things and everything he does just irritates me.. I nag, I scream, I shout over the silly-est that seem so important and logical to me.. I guess I have been really hot tempered and I guess ada is preparing herself for one hell of a time in Europe.. and the worse part is I’m damm good at having cold wars.. cos my mom always have cold war with me.. so I guess maybe I have to set up a ‘game’ with her to shorten any possible cold wars we’ll have.. meanwhile.. sorry gal.. guess u’re gonna have a bad time there.. but then again u can be pretty hot tempered yourself too.. so I guess we’re both in BIG trouble..

Went marche today.. and we ate heaps of food.. bill came up to about 100+.. but we had a 50% discount voucher.. so in the end we only paid $9/pax.. super worth it..!! wonder what’s for lunch tomorrow.. yummy.. now besides my usual tea.. I drink 2 cups of tea every day.. plus have my cinnamon bagel fr starbucks every morning.. plus my daily frozen yogurt: chocolate based with oreos.. I’m gonna be a pig at the end of my internship.. can’t image if I actually work there..

Have to sleep early tonight.. have to be at work at 8am tomorrow to churn out some report for my boss.. been staying late and working long hours on this preso and report she asked me to work on.. only to be told that she has changed her mind and have decided to do everything in another way.. guess I have to get used to her working style.. guess there’s a good side to everything.. at least I learnt quite a lot about the company and stuff..

Bad day AGAIN.. worked late and got locked out of my own house

2005-07-13T01:24:00.000+08:00

Wow.. 7 days have passed.. n not a single blog. Not that it matters to anyone.. thought I do a quick one before going to sleep..
Was supposed to meet ada to go do exchange things today.. however, ended up working till almost midnight.. took a cab home and wah he’s one of the lousiest cab driver I have ever met.. do not even know how to change and engage gear properly.. took a longer road home.. and when I said ‘pls stop before the traffic light, he stopped way after and still can ask me ‘here, enuf not’.. I wanted to ask if he knew the difference between before and after.. guess not cos he does not even know what a receipt is.. so oh well..

Got home, dump my bag and wanted to go buy cup noodles.. in the end got locked out of the house.. and my mom’s in China, Brother in Genting and the guy who rents my room has left spore as well.. wah it was quite frightening and for once i wished I din locked all the windows.. finally managed to fish for the key.. Thank goodness man..

Went Shell to get nissin chicken cup noodle and went home to eat Venezia ice cream.. yummy it was really good…

Sigh back to work again tomorrow.. at night still have to go for some dinner that’s organized by some econs society.. they’re giving out the price for the MAS econs essay writing competition.. wonder if anyone from SMU will be there.. would be nice to see some familiar faces =)

Really have loads to do.. and really have to start doing something for exchange before ada and xiaolu scolds me =(.. wanted to check mail just now.. but got locked out of the system AGAIN.. I get locked out like every 2 days.. can be really frustrating man..

Oki.. good night.. 3rd last week at work.. admire those pple at DB.. this is their last week at work.. pple like Darren and Joel.. sigh..

Had a bad day at work today..

2005-07-06T00:05:00.000+08:00

Went to office this morning and shortly after 10, I got a blaster email from A. the email was kind of scolding me for emailing out a questionnaire list to several traders around APAC. When I read it, I felt really disturbed and I did not really know what to do but to apologize for all the inconvenience and trouble I have caused, as well as thanked him for his guidance. The worst thing was the email I sent out was under the instruction of B, who’s based in HK. B is some sort working on this project for A and B has passed this entire project down to me. B has gone through the template and he gave me the list of names I should email to… I felt very upset because I was merely following instructions and if A n B do not agree with each other style of working, the unhappiness should not be directed at me. I guess the plus side was B immediately called me to apologize for the miscommunication and told me not to worry about it. T who is my direct boss in Singapore also told me not to take A’s comments to heart. I guess after reading my email, A replied me with words of encouragement and ‘praises’, as well as apologize for taking being able to give me guide me. Though B said he will explain to A that it’s his directions, he only mentioned that ‘he will take the blame for what have happened’. I was very unsatisfied with that response cos he made it sound so wei da that he will take the blame. I would be much happier if he said it was his instructions and he’s sorry. At the end of all the emails, it still seemed like the whole matter was my fault. I guess it’s like that in the working world. However, I really felt very upset over the incident and after putting up a brave front, I went to hide in the toilet and cried my heart out. I do not know why I was so upset, maybe I just felt that it was so unfair, or simply not used to being told off by non family members, or I’m just plain weak. Whatever it is, I felt even more upset that I was unable to swallow the ‘defeat’ like a strong ‘man’. Upset that I was unable to be strong.. but I guess I became stronger through today’s incident and I guess it will be something I’ll remember for a long time.

That really weighed on my heart the whole day, and it made me very sensitive to anything anybody said. I felt like everybody was against me and I felt hated and looked down upon. C, my boss always give me a lot of work to do and usually I will keep all the work with me till she has the time to talk to me about it, if not she’ll say.. ‘dun pass me anything, I’ll get it from you when I’m ready.. Today, she mentioned that she gave me something to do sometime ago and I said I was done with it and guess what she said..? ‘give me lah! What are you waiting for?! Wah that kinda upset me too but at least for C I know she’s a very eccentric woman and one moment she’ll be pissed the next moment she’ll be alright..

And when I thought the day could not get any worse, it did… At 530pm when I was counting down to the minutes I could leave the office, C told me not to go and wait for her to return from her meeting as there’s sth she wanted me to do.. I waited and waited till 7+ when she finally returned, she said.. ‘oh no, so late already, do it tomorrow lah’.. I was upset, yet happy at the same time that I can finally leave work to go meet ada..

Okie that’s all for today still have loads to say.. but guess have to do it tol.. goodnight

Blogging at work gosh

2005-07-04T12:02:00.000+08:00

First time in a long long time that I’m slacking in the office. Well mainly because today’s the 4th of July. Never fancied this independence event but this yr guess I like it a lot more. The market is really quiet today, making my trading floor quiet as well, with many pple resting at home. Also, today also happens to be Spore Youth day. Happy youth day to Darren and Weiyang! (Haha, only few pple I noe who read my blog) adaline, think we’re too old to celebrate youth day.. yup with youth day, many parents have also taken the day off, so my boss is not ard today, allowing me to blog during office hours, and come up with a whole long list of things to bring for exchange.. seriously I’m really worried how I’m gonna squeeze everything in a pathetic DHL jumbo box..

Woke up exceptionally early today cos my mom’s flew off to china this morning. She cooked lemon pancakes for us to eat and I guess this will be the last time I’m eating her delicious lemon pancakes for the rest of the year. She’ll be gone till September and I’ll be flying off on the 2nd of August which means I will not be seeing her till next year. Well kind of glad that she’s gone cos we do not exactly get along due to reasons that date back to the 7th of November 1983.. and I guess it’s nice that there’s no one driving me insane for the next few weeks. I mean I do love her and all, oki we both love each other quite a lot, but put us together for too long, and a fight is inevitable.. things are a lot better now, with me controlling my tone and temper pretty well.. but still feels pek chey with my blood boiling inside and matching it with a cool exterior.. ultimate.. really drives me up the wall.. but at least it prevents wars..

But I guess the bad side is now that I’m going for exchange I need someone to tell me the plates and spoons, bed linen, etc that I can bring over and never bring back.. and she took the digital camera, which means I have no camera when I go over to Bangkok and during my first few weeks of holiday. She’ll be boxing the camera into the DHL box.. and hopefully that means she’ll be paying for my shipping hee..

Lunch time’s coming, hopefully after lunch I’ll be able to obtain some listing for this lady who’s ignoring my calls. Have to hand it up to my boss tomorrow, and the later I get it.. the later I can leave work.. and I’m catching a 7pm show tonight.. war of the world!! Tom cruise here I come! He is absolutely charming.. anyone saw him on the cover of reader digest.. wah he’s so cute I wanna kiss him..

Shall wait for lunch now..

Granny at 34..

2005-07-02T16:57:00.000+08:00

Was watching some silly Mandarin show today and the program was on good looking granny. There were 3 of them in total and guess how old was the youngest granny? One of the ladies’ only 39 yrs old!! And she became granny when she was 34! Like mother, like daughter, I would say. I mean what do u know when you’re 17? Even at 22, I do not even noe what job I would like, not even ready to commit myself to anyone for the rest of my life, and seriously I feel like a big bird w/o wings, not having a degree and income. However, I do admire their guts and I guess when they’re 40 they’ll be really happy that their kids are all grown up.. and they’re definitely heeding our govt’s call of creating more babies. For now I feel that I really do not want to bring a child into the world. seriously I think that’s a really selfish thing to do. The child had no choice but to come into this world, and it’s so difficult for him to leave.. life is so tough, studying’s so stressful, so is working and life is so hard in general. Yes I know all the wonderful things you can say about life.. but personally, if given a choice I wish I never had to pass through earth.. I’m willing to forgo all its goodness, in exchange for life’s miseries.. but who knows, my thinking might change several years down the road.. cos several yrs back, all I wanted was to get married early, have kids and serve my family as a housewife.. but growing older and plus after going through so many events, I realized that all children are monsters.. and life would be better without having to share my pathetic income with kids..

Sumptuous dinner and fussing over my hair

2005-07-02T15:32:00.000+08:00

been thinking a lot about my hair lately.. I mean I’ll be away for 6 months n I’ll prob be too poor to afford any hair services in europe.. which means I’ll have to live with my hair for the rest of the year and there’ll be more than 1000 photos with my current hairstyle.. I asked around my office and I got a lot of different views..
reasons to straightened my hair: the weather there is really dry so my hair will even be more brittle… it’ll be more manageable and I dun have to bring anything to style my hair.. it’s a safer look..
to keep my curled hair: I wun be wasting anymore money, I’ll look less boring and since I’ll be going Europe with ada I rather pple refer to me as the Chinese gal with curled hair then ‘the fatter Chinese gal’, some think I look better with curls..
well I thought about it and I guess I’ll just go and cut my hair a little.. that way my hair will be healthier, wun be wasting so much money and I’ll use less shampoo there..

On Friday night, went for a quick shopping trip with jon again. I bought a shawl, my black sweater (finally), that comes with a black spaghetti and another black top. Cost me less than $70 in all =). After that I went to have dinner with Jon’s boss and his colleagues at no signboard restaurant at Esplanade. Wow we had loads of food. On the menu: cold dish (with prawns and 5 others items), clear soup with shark fins and one whole abalone, broccoli with scallops, 2 different types of crab (chilli and black pepper), tofu with mince meat, Oatmeal prawns, chicken, e-fu noodles and lastly longan with almond jelly. The bill ran up to over $1000 for the 12 of us so I thought it was pretty ex.. but ada thought it was pretty reasonable for the kind of food we got..

After dinner, I went to ada’s place to stay over. As ada will be moving house next week, she really had to start her packing as she’s working and planning for exchange as well. we packed 6 boxes last night and threw away heaps of things. There were a lot of things she got from a particular person and I had a good time tearing them up and bitching about that person.. we finally slept at 4+.. sadly she had dental appointment this morning, so we were unable to do what we always do: having breakfast at Macs or having lunch at Pizza hut.. so in the end I went home for breakfast.

Europe Planning over dinner with Ada, XL n Meiting

2005-07-02T14:28:00.000+08:00

Had loads of fun meeting up with my close girlfriends… so thankful for them.. there’s jus so much things to do. And cause we’re on a tight budget we really have to look for the cheapest kind of hostels and transportation means. Xiao Lu and Ada really spent a lot of time finding out details and I really appreciate their enthusiasm, especially Xiao Lu who read dun noe how many guidebooks. Too bad she’s not going every country with me.. then I can really just sit back and relax.

We went NYDC for dinner and we ended up being so stinko and gross but the food there is still good and reasonable, esp their baked rice.
We managed to accomplish quite a lot and managed to decide which hostels to book for the 1st 3 weeks of our holiday there.. we found our air tickets to Greece and we’ll be taking Thai airways.
I’ll be flying off from Spore 5 days earlier to stopover at Bangkok.. cos Jon will be doing his 3rd rotation at Bangkok, so I’ll be staying at his place for several days before flying up to Greece with Ada and XL =). Rally glad that everything worked out so nicely and I do not have to buy another air ticket just to go Thailand. Xiaolu will be with me and ada till Venice and meiting will be joining us at Milan and we’ll be going up to Switzerland from there. Drew up an estimated budget, and after totaling everything up, the bill came up to about 13K. guess I’ll really have to sit down and reconsider my traveling plans or seek for more funding..

There’s still eurail and insurance to buy, visa, courses and housing to apply for.. guess the list’s pretty long.. and still have to find the most economical way of sending our belongings to France.. any lobang pple?

Back to blogging..

2005-06-28T23:46:00.000+08:00

Today:
Wow.. I have not been blogging for soooo lonnngg.. I can hardly remember what happened the past week.. keeping a diary is sure not easy..

I did something I have not done for a long time =) jon woke up early to have breakfast with me today! How nice huh.. we ate breakky at delifrance.. it was kinda hurried cos I was late for work.. but it was nice being able to eat breakky with him cos I noe how much impt it is for him to sleep till 9+.. and it’s not easy feat to drag himself up at 7+ just to eat a meal he does not really appreciate.. but I guess he knows how much it means to me.. so there he was having breakky with me this morning.. =)

For lunch, my colleagues brought me to eat Sze Chuan food. I was abit like uh-oh.. cos I do not eat spicy food. In the end we ordered I think 6 – 7 dishes for the 5 of us.. was a little intimidating looking at all the red food on the table. Every plate was red in color due to the massive amount of chili and chili oil. The first dish was fish in chili oil.. literally ok.. the whole bowl looked like fish red soup.. just that it’s oil.. and all the dried chili was just floating at the top.. i was persuaded to give it a try.. n hmmm it was really good.. in the end I ate a lot of the food I just kept digging n digging for fish slices and the others as well. I was quite amazed me my chili eating skills today cos the others felt it was quite spicy.. so I guess I can take spicy food a lot better than I thought.. jus that I’ll start crying after awhile.. but it’s worth it.. the bill ran up to abt 100+.. kinda ex for lunch huh.. we took out our wallets to pay, but this really nice china guy refused to take money from us.. how qiao, he actually knows Joe Zhang (my portfolio prof) and Prof Lim (some of your stats prof) he was telling me how zai Prog Lim is.. for those who din realize.. he’s a full prof.. there was only 2 full profs in NUS when he was teaching there (all this according to my colleague lah =p) and he went on n on at how amazing this man is n I was like.. heh..

I felt really stressed up at work and unhappy today. Working on some projects and I have to go round asking all the traders like heaps of questions and they’re really busy pple so it can be kind of stressful. Those who spare the time to really sit down and talk to me will start asking me questions like what I am doing and all. Basically I’m following somebody’s instructions who many miles away and do not really seem to understand the situation .. and over on this side I have the traders having their own views and basically disagreeing with a lot of the things I’m doing and they’re unhappy over my lack of knowledge over the whole organization. It’s really one complicated world and I’m only talking about the bonds ‘world’. we have people trading in different markets in different currencies, different ratings, structuring etc, and basically there’s like tons of different combinations and I’m really having a hard time finding out who’s doing what cos there’s no written manual.. basically this one proj is really making me dread going to work and being sandwiched bw this french guy and all the other people in Spore..

But other than that people here are nice.. well sometimes people get be kinda gossipy and bitchy and I feel really uncomfortable to be in such positions cos I’ll always feel that they’ll bitch abt me when I’m not ard and it really makes me doubt their sweetness and niceness towards me.. but so far it seems they only bitch abt guys.. so hopefully I’m in the safe zone

Since I started work, I have been wearing this only pair of covered toes shoes I have and the heels are pretty high and I have been walking around quite a lot and my legs are beginning to ache on the permanent basis and even my knees feel injured and all.. really dun noe if I should buy a new pair of shoes.. ouchy..

Last week:
Over the weekend, I din really do much except sleep n sleep. Well the last weekend was long because I was on MC on Friday. Went to one of the 6 stars restaurant on Wednesday for some lunch presentation.. only go there and bai swee one.. and wah.. the food was gross, totally disgusting. First dish was raw tuna.. urg.. not your typical sashimi k.. looked like medium rare beef.. 2nd dish was another fish! Poached fish with gross looking seaweed.. then came cheesecake.. after that I had some serious problems. Threw out and had several diarrhea after lunch as well as the following day. Kept on going to the toilet and I fell so dirty and yucky. Had a terrible time on thurs at office but I still went for another lunch presentation at Raffles hotel and they were serving thai food and yumm it was sooooooo good! I ate everything! However after a few hours, I was at the clinic.. walked all the way to Marina Sq to see a doc at raffles clinic only to be told that I have to pay cash at that outlet.. pekchey.. anyway she gave me MC and it was really nice staying home to sleep and relax =) but I guess having such a long lazy weekend made me super bluey and grouchy on Monday.. but overall it was nice cos quite a few pple fuss over me and this guy commented how everyone so teng wo, bought me startbucks, made tea for me, pressure me to see a doc, offered to drive me to clinic, etc.. and how no one bothers about him and started saying how I’m the office little princess haha.. seriously I did not realize how everyone was doting on me till he mentioned it… so that was when my day kinda brightened up.. yeah cheap thrill I know..

I went to Sim Lim to buy hard disk, bought a 40GB one and it cost me a bomb.. oki lah to me it was hell a lot of money.. but I bought it cos my laptop’s really slow, I’m going for exchange so good to back up my data and lastly, ada was mentioning to me that we should bring a lot of movies to France so I guess with that I could bring over more =) anyway I really hope it will not be a waste of money… also bought a new laptop cover cos my old one has holes and it’s really becoming very thin.. that cost me $36.. on jon’s acct though =)

Finally bought a new bag to go to work.. since I started work I have been wanting to buy sweater, bag and shoes and jon will always remind me that I’ll be finishing work soon and there’s really no point for me to buy stuff and all. And each time I will agree with him but every time we pass by bags and shoes I can’t help but look for a suitable one.. well though jon is not exactly 100% supportive of me buying a bag, he’s really sweet and in the end helped me choose one bag and even offered to get 2 for me cos he felt there’s another one that’s really nice as well.. but in the end I controlled myself and bought only 1!! Come on.. it took a lot of effort to say ‘no’ k…

Went to see my optician to check my red eyes.. he simply said they were kinda dry and putting some drops will help reduce the redness.. dun noe if changing to hard lens was a good decision.. but oh well.. haha notti me bought a new pair of glasses too cos I thought it will be useful to bring 2 pairs to Europe and also since I’m wearing my glasses so often now I thot it’s oki that I bought another pair.. and also my current pair’s only $70.. the new pair is slightly more ex.. $120.. but hee jon paid for me so I’m really grateful for his sweetness and excited over having a new pair!! Yay!! The last weekend sure burned a hole in our pockets..

Day after day we search for the perfect black sweater for me.. and time after time I always cannot find THE one.. really hope I’ll be able to find one soon.. even jon has joined the search and brought his female colleagues to try on some black sweater for his viewing pleasure haha sound dodgy huh.. thk goodness I have not been sourcing for bikinis hee jus kidding..

Alright I guess that’s all I have in my memory.. hopefully I’ll be able to blog on a more regular basis..

Getting less lonely

2005-06-16T23:37:00.000+08:00

Work has been alright for me. Talking to more people now, and life is a lot less lonely. Given some more ‘serious’ work today. Thrown a whole booklet on some upcoming proposals and was asked to prepare preso materials for top management. My boss jus asked me to give it a try and she was really frank n honest, saying that it’s something really complicated, which I have no idea about, and the whatever I do maybe thrown into the trash.. but still she say: it’s good to try =).. my boss is one ‘highly stressed’ lady, but she is one sweet, nice lady. Her bursts of energy can be pretty frightening and intimidating, but other than that, I kinda love her. She will always say: “ I feel so evil, making you do these stuff. When u get back to SMU, they wun believe the menial things I make you so” In my head I was like.. haha trust me they all will.. you have not seen the worst.. but of cos I din tell her that hee

Tomorrow’s Friday, really happy and good thing is tol I’ll have the slides to keep me occupied the whole day and this week actually past so quickly =).. however, think I’m falling sick from all these early mornings..

My BORING Life

2005-06-14T23:31:00.000+08:00

My terribly boring life.. yup so boring that I feel that there’s nothing to blog. But then again, who says diaries have to be exciting everyday..
Work has been alright for me, been talking to several nice people in the office and UBS is really one place for singles. There’s a lot of nice, single, capable people at my office, so maybe I should start playing matchmaking services =)

There is this really amazing guy at UBS. S is only 29 years old, he’s quite high ranking at UBS, having worked there for 3 yrs. He has also worked at Merrill and some London company for several years, as well as having his honors and Masters, both done on a full time basis. (n yes he served NS too) Kinda amazing huh, the things he has accomplished at such a young age. Anyway, he thinks I’m some goody 2 shoes, hardworking, nerdy gal.. till he spoke to me for sometime, and realized what a wonderful, deceptive cover I have. =)

Today went to Fullerton for a 4-course lunch. Some foreign company was giving a presentation on their products. It’s was quite a cool experience cos everyone there were big shots from the other banks. Really admire the CEO, COO, and the other top management from the foreign company. They are from a non English speaking country, thus their English was kind of broken and all. But still they were very confident and tried their very best to deliver a good presentation, so I was quite impressed by their attempt. Imagine doing a presentation in Chinese? Talk about presenting in French or German!

Had to redo my resume for the resume compilation. Felt so irritated doing it, cos many times I did not agree with the comments that my counselor made, but I din wanna go against her again n again.. basically it was a pain having to do my resume according to her wishes.. but then again I guess she has a lot more experience n probable make more sense most of the time.. but still she pisses me off

Me really sian about exchange now. I feel so overwhelmed with the amount of things we have to do. Such as buying air tickets, eurail, applying for visa, getting accommodations, insurance and the list goes on forever lah oki.. I’m so thankful for Ada, Xiaolu and meiting for doing so much planning for me.. without them I’ll be like dead.. the going part is fun, but the preparation sure suxs.. and maybe I’m just too lousy at planning.. guess it’s not my forte.. maybe I should just leave it to the experts.. like those wonderful 3 ladies I mentioned about =)

Oh ya, went to noodle house at somerset for our monthniversary with jon, and we ordered 2 set meals. 1 set is 22+ and wah we nearly exploded man.. there’s just too much food for the 2 of us, and ideally I think the 2 sets shld feed 3 – 4 ppls (4 if u have pple like xiaolu =) ) on the menu: double boiled soup, twin roast meat, seafood with tofu, scallops with veg, cod fish, huge bowls of porridge and dessert. So hungry now.. yup it’s till this Sunday only so go try it!

Oki better sleep early, before I faint at work tol..

Finally Friday

2005-06-11T00:47:00.000+08:00

Yes! I’m so glad it's Friday. Finally, I can sleep till 4pm! Today was one of the better working days of the week. Had things to keep me occupied the whole day and managed to leave office by 8+. Interesting thing was I went down the lift with one of the superiors and just as we were about to part ways, he asked if I wanted to go for a drink. From drinks, it led to dinner and throughout the whole thing, it was a lot better than I expected. He’s English and I always feel that it's impossible to hold a decent conversation with ang mohs. Firstly, it’s the accent and secondly I just feel I’m on a different wavelength. Yup, but throughout the whole thing we had very interesting conversation and he was really nice and sweet. Overall, I’m glad to know more pple at work, cos it can get really lonely, especially when my boss’s been away the whole week.
‘down’ of the day would be the fact that I gotten a B+ for TWC, that’s kinda terrible. I dun understand why I cannot do well in Uni Core like LTB, BGS and TWC, when everyone else is doing well. am I stupid or what? Sigh.. but I guess overall it was a wonderful semester. Really slack and all and the results were satisfactory, and the best part, my real semester in SMU is kinda over, cos I only have 2-3 more subjects to take in SMU. Thus I guess it’ll continue to be slack =).

How I wish weekend’s 4 days or something.. so sleepy.. nitz

Exs and bumping into my 0th ex..

2005-06-08T22:16:00.000+08:00

Was reading my fren’s blog recently and he was kind of writing a letter to his ex and he mentioned how special their relationship was. I read with great amuse, because he’s attached to someone else while write that. Well, I must say his current gf is extremely magnanimous, and I admire her for that.

Jon doesn’t even need to tell me how much he loved his ex, I assume the worst all the time anyway. He just have to tell me how smart she is, really good memory, fluent in many languages and excellent people skills, and I’ll feel so sad and lousy. Worse was when we first got together, I was at his place where we chance upon a really big poster of his ex and his parents were saying how beautiful she is and all, wah I felt like digging a hole to bury my face.

At the beginning of our relationship, I often felt insecure, often comparing myself to his ex and how I feel I’ll never be, as good, and thus he’ll never love me as much. Well I guess along the way, with his reasoning and looking at my own exs, I realized that love does not increase with smartness, confidence and so on. My ex was a really smart and nice guy and he really treated me like a princess and ada used to comment that he’s like a ‘made in meijun factory’ product. He’s the perfect, super mr nice guy. But I guess love wasn’t really there and I respected him instead and saw him more as a brotherly figure. Jon is a really nice guy but I guess as compared to my ex, he can be considered a monster but I love him a lot more and really cherish what we have. I’m no longer treated as a princess but I’m a lot happier and have learnt to give and take in a relationship, instead of jus receiving.

Speaking of exs, what a coincidence. Yesterday when I went out for lunch with Joel Wee, I actually bumped into my very very first bf. As I was with Joel, I did not wish to stop to talk and jus smiled at him. However, later when I was alone I met him again. We chatted and during that period of time I wished we bumped into each other on my better days, like on Monday when I had make up and my contacts on and my hair was in place and all. I looked terrible yesterday, oki I’m sure it does not make a vast difference, but at least I would have looked slightly more presentable. Not that I still have any feelings for him, I actually feel ‘mightier’ than him, being more successful (so far), but I thought if I looked better maybe he’ll have a slight regret of being such a mean-o and leaving me then.

Ok we weren’t really considered together, considering I was only 12+, oki Sec 1 does that sound older? And we were only together for like a few months. So I often do not refer to him as my first bf, so I guess he’s my 0th bf. However, he’s the only and hopefully the last that ‘walked away’ from me, so naturally I feel something against him. Other then that, I’m glad to say that I have a good relationship with my other exs and we’re still good friends. My ‘first’ relationship ended terribly, with me being punched and treated meanly by him and his frens. However, sometime back, we hugged the past away, and so all is well now. So I’m really very happy cos he’s still special to me and he’s one of those people that made me who I am today. My 2nd ended ‘perfectly’.. like I said he’s Mr nice guy and he was really nice about the break and still continued to be as nice to me and all. So overall, I would say my life have been blessed with really nice, magnanimous and understanding guys. May this always be so, till the day I die =)

I love you Jon! Even when I’m upset and angry, I still love you as much! Looking forward to our 17th moniversary and hopefully, we’ll have time for each other on that day.

Hating Work, Loving School

2005-06-07T21:41:00.000+08:00

Yes. I hate working. Working life is terrible. I hate the early mornings, having to drag myself up early every single day and rushing to catch the bus. During school days, when I drag myself out of bed for a 830am class, at the back of my head I know I can sleep till noon the very next day. Now, grouchy me will only be thinking how I have to repeat this torture the next day again. At work, I become the lowest life form all over again and when I’m so sleepy, I can’t even get 30 seconds of sleep. At school, I can fall asleep anytime I want. Lunch is only an hour, unlike in sch where it’s 2 hrs. I can go on n on.. yeah.. working life’s miserable. Maybe cos my pay is pathetic that’s why I do not love it as much as I should now..

Missing school already, and working makes me feel I’m getting urban poisoning. All the “city living”, everywhere’s packed with people, and all the tall walls and concrete are making me depress. Miss the greenery back in school, and when we return back to sch, the urban poisoning will continue. Guess having a City Campus has its pros & cons, but I’m sure I’ll miss all the nice and familiar spots in SMU. I love our old campus… where I made so many wonderful friends and fell in love.. again.. =) So many wonderful things happened at the old campus to bring us together. From Joel’s insanity to take Tax in year 1, Prof Gan forcing Jon to take in this lost 1st year sheep under his wings, me not being able to get Malay (can u believe it.. $17 and I din get malay at that time.. I was shocked), and Prof Huang deception that AT is so easy and best taken before FA and MA.. Putting all these together.. I ended up taking AT and Tax planning in my 2nd year.. and with these 2 suicidal courses, a new love was born.. I’ll really miss all the places where we spent so much time together..

Shall rest early tonight, wouldn’t want to be caught sleeping at my desk. The working environment is so stressful there. Some people actually need 5 computer screens to work. How much more efficient can they be? My goodness.. for me, now I’m doing mainly research work, and wah it can get really challenging sometimes to keep my eyes on the computer screen..

*Yawn* I’m so sleepy.. goodnight and sweet dreams.. can’t wait to go France to eat fries, drink champagne, cognac, toast, loaf, Delifrance and many many more!! Oki I know, French fries does not belong to France, but it’s still FRENCH fries!

My First Entry

2005-06-04T21:38:00.000+08:00

Creating my blog
Firstly, I must salute all of you out there who have your very own beautiful blog. Call me an IT idiot or maybe just an idiot..fullstop. I think creating your own blog is no easy feat and it’s time consuming and frustrating. Well as least, I got something out of it. While going through the template editing, managed to learn a little tiny weeny bit abt programming and a little of their ?/>!< etc. So for now, my blog will remain ugly and a big sore to your eyes, till I have the time to pick up some skills from my friends.

And now about me…Well, like meiting said, “I do not understand why everyone is blogging”.. haha seriously I do not really understand either. For me I feel it is a good and motivating way of keeping your own diary, your childish thoughts and one day you can look back and have a good laugh at it. In addition, I guess it will be a great but sadly insincere way of staying in touch with my friends

Well, today is a bad day for me. Exams are over, but I’m feeling so moody and sianz about life. Firstly, sian about love. During the last few weeks of term 2, I heard about many break ups and it made me feel very skeptical and sad about love and all. Well, I would say I have been a great failure in this complex ‘game’ of love. What is love? How can 2 pple stay together for such a long time, without feeling bored and tired? After a long while of being together, do pple just stay together because of habit? Because you’re so comfortable with the fact of having someone there for you? Do you stay together because you choose to be faithful and committed, and afraid to do otherwise cos the path is not as straight and broad? Dun worry I’m not going through a rough patch or a break up.. maybe I’m just a weird person always seeking for troubles that are not there.. dun get me started about life.. maybe you’ll be suicidal after hearing how meaningless life is..
Anyway, I feel we’re getting old already and as we grow older, it becomes more difficult to find that special someone. Looking at Jon’s colleagues, there are no singles at all. Now isn’t that scary?? Marriage for some of us are only several years away and if we do not find the right one now, we’ll be an ugly old hag when we walk down the aisle, if we ever that is.. now who said gals are the prettiest on their wedding days. I guess in this area, guys are a lot more blessed than us.. as guys grow older, they become more charming and financially stable, and naturally more attractive.. hope remains.. to all my dear friends out there, I wish you happiness in your love life, and may you find success in your career as well as marriage.

Well, I’ll be starting work at UBS on Monday, how sian is that right?! Sigh but I guess ultimately this was my choice and I stupidly brought it upon myself. UBS’s at suntec and it’s really very inconvenient to get there from my place, which means I have to get up before 730am every morning to be at the office on time. Hopefully, something good will come out of it.. well at least I’ll be able to save up some money for Xchange and hopefully, reach my target of visiting 17 countries, living on bread and water.

At least I have exchange to look forward to, and the best part is many of my friends will be there as well. also the pple is Rouen sounds fun and I have even spoken to a guy from Nepalese who’s going there for exchange as well. will keep you updated when I’m finally there!

Okie guess I should not be having such a long winded first entry. To all of you, have a wonderful holiday!