Quick Update

Company monitoring internet access. Many sites banned.
New puppy in the house --- little Oreo. Pics soon >.<
I'm happy.
Waiting for a new posting.

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Taking Charge

As is my wont, I've been vaccilating between periods of low, depressed self-loath and a sense of worth and purposefulness. Thankfully the doldrums are over for now and I feel renewed with energy to get things done. One of the things that I got inspired to do all of a sudden is to dress professionally. According to an article, people who dresses more professionally have a higher tendency to get promoted. I guess that's somewhat part and parcel of the acting and looking the part strategy.

In my current company, people tend to dress fairly casually with minimal make-up etc. With some effort, I've begun to incorporate at least some blush and lipstick into my daily look. Except that I still feel shy to refresh my lip colour in the middle of the day >_< So yes, I have red luscious lips in the morning and pale ghastly ones at the end of the day. So much for professionalism there.

The other thing I've been wanting to do is to get some formal pencil skirts. Somehow none of the ones I tried looked flattering on me. It's odd but when I tried on some bottoms at G2000, I could fit into most of the size 34 skirts but a size 36 pants was absolutely horrendously tight on me. What's up with their sizing?!? I would really think about tailoring some but I'm not willing to invest in that right now. Will have to strive onwards to hunt for respectable looking skirts and pants.

I'll have to try my utmost to dress up my darling as well since he himself couldn't be bothered. Well, not quite dress up. But he definitely need some new shirts. Oh boy, sounds like my brother. Men!
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Online Shopping

It is ironic that I'm that much more an online shopping here than when I was in the US of A - land of eBay, free online shipping and fabulous return policies. Now I have to deal with the horrible postage fees and yet I'm buying more things. So much so in fact that my in-laws have noticed the constant stream of bubble wrapped packages that are coming through the mail.

Ever since our marriage I've turned into a more girly person than I ever was. Now I actually know abit more about make-up, skincare and girly clothes etc. Which explains the additional purchases. I still wear the same stuff to work mind you and my make-up is minimal (the weekends may probably fall under the subtle category. I realized that I'm still more of a lips person than eyeshadow person...hmmm)

But all these girly whirly stuff makes me feel like my brain is turning into cotton candy under a hot sun - all gooey, drippy and gunky... boo.

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A State of Zen

This morning, after a wasted trip to get my pass done, I was in a surprising state of zen -- letting events flow pass me as inevitable consequences, focusing only on the flows that I can influence. Okay, in no nonsense non-zen words, I simply accepted that some negligence including my own brought about this situation and that getting angry/ upset does not remedy it in any way. I just have to focus on the here and now and what I can do next to change the situation.

People say that married people get more alike and it's true. I learn this from my carefree husband and I must say I quite like the change. Hopefully it's here to stay :)

That said though I was very sad that I didn't meet e* when she came by last week. I was too busy feeling sorry for myself to be vigilant about when she was coming. And being the klutz that I was, I missed her phone call, didn't check my gmail till it's too late...etc. Basically everything that was wrong. It's rare enough that I get to see her. We don't talk enough. Partly I'm to blame. I've turned all anti-social.




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The Great Escape

Counting down the days. 720 more to go.
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A Good Weekend

It was a good weekend. I spent most of my time reading Raymond E. Feist's Daughter of the Empire. It's a fairly well written book with a decent plot and captivating writing style. Though I did end up feeling like I watched an action movie -- it was all BAM BAM WHAM from the beginning till the end. Character development was a bit lacking but it was a decent weekend book nontheless.

We also went back to our fav bowl of ramen at Marutama@Central. The mall has certainly gotten on a good start by attracting a variety of eateries, some of which can only be found in Central. The shops have a general Japanese theme about them with quite a few hawking trinkets, goodies and snacks from the land of the rising sun.

Of course, we also had many nice breaks cuddling in bed/ on the sofa. Somehow not doing anything but relax in each others arms is a great way to pass time. It's obviously not productive but just feels great.

Not to mention that his paladin is now level 60! Finally we can play together again. (This will be my 3rd level 70 character.... eep geek alert)
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Writing on my Forehead

There's this colleague who I don't know well who's been asking about me. He's married and he knows I'm married so it's not a romantic thing. I barely know him. He's a close friend to one of the colleagues in my department.

He's not even in the country most of the time but he's asked two people separately if I'm okay. And I wonder to myself if I've had something written on my forehead. For all intents and purposes, I've appeared quite cheerful at work for the last 6 months. I've been wondering about what it was that prompted this repeated concern. Perhaps it read ' Suicidal' or 'Serial killer'?



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Straw on the Camel's Back

The last straw fell yesterday. And I woke up with a vengeful sense of purpose: To get out of here. The work load has been increasing and bosses more demanding. I've had enough of being bullied into putting in extra hours after work to cater to the whims of the management. I might be chained but that doesn't put me in slavery.

I think it's counterproductive to squeeze productivity out of your staff at the expense of their personal life. It's not healthy. I'm not healthy. Thinking about it, my acid reflux problem is related to stress. Ever since I took over this portfolio, I've not had much time for a breather. It was one project after another, one paper following the next. I'm tired.

Over the last month alone, I've thought of how I would have resigned in three separate occasions. For a while, I've even deluded myself into considering a future in this place, seduced by a false sense of complacency and familiarity. But no more. I've had enough.


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Mood: Destructive

Such frustration building up that I've the urge to break something. I'd twirl my hair in my usual nervous manner and try to breaking them with my fingers. Of course my resillient thick hair resists such attempts with a scoff.

But the mental agony is not subsiding.

My inner peace recoils from the boiling dissatisfaction. I don't feel like myself.

I want to escape.

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Mood: Stuck

Work is a bitch. It's giving me some serious headaches at the moment and I really wish I could leave it all and disappear. The idea of being a stay-at-home mum is getting more and more appealing.

Nothing too drastic needed of course. If I could leave this place, I would in a jiffy. Till then, I guess I have to live with this stomach wrenching pain of staying.

In other news, there's nothing seriously wrong with my stomach. No ulcers, bleeding, cancer (touch wood) and stuff after they did a endoscope on me. (Jeez the IV they inserted sure as hell hurt. Fine, I'm just a wimp) I have some excess acid in my stomach... if only I could regurgitate it and spit it on all the idiots who pissed me off today. Hmm and probably burn my throat in the process too...
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Busy Busy

Very busy. Lots of work. A few things

1. I'm now a Permanent Resident. Yay to extra CPF.
2. I finished my first really literary book of the year. (Graham Greene's A Love Affair)
3. I have gastricitis :( Or in more simple terms my stomach is being a bitch and doesn't want to digest some types of food. Seeing a specialist this weekend. Meanwhile, I'm burping like a cow.... moo

Sidenote: Another colleague mentioned today in jest that maybe I'm pregnant. I told her I'm gonna ignore her and walked off. No hard feelings. We were still on talking terms a few minutes later. But I'm wondering if I'm just being too sensitive about the whole thing. It just gets annoying when people treat your illness like a joke especially when you are sincerely worried about whether you have to live with this gassy crap for the rest of your life.
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Work = :o(

:( :( :( hating work...overworked and bored out of my skull...
I want to find my real calling.
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So it is possible to bored and busy all at the same time. I've been chugging along my job for a while and I'm yearning for a change. Anything but this endless overworked routine.

Recently, I've not been feeling well. It ddin't start just recently but many months back. I started having this extremely uncomfortable bloatedness and gassiness that comes with the usual accompaniments of burps and eructations. Recently it seems to have gotten worse. I've been burping the whole day and about once or twice get that retching feeling from having burped too much. I went to the company doctor yesterday when I had a slight fever as well. She gave me some indigestion and gastric medicine but it doesn't feel like it's relieving me of this suffering.

I was very annoyed when my colleague mentioned a second time that I should see a gynae. Firstly, I told him pointedly that any pregnancy that comes with abdominal pains and a fever would probably be a miscarriage. Later, when my other colleagues suggested that I drink hot chocolate after eliminating tea, coffee, milk etc from the list of 'approved' beverages, he said what I needed was a drip. I was just such an insensitive remark to someone who wasn't feeling well. So when he mentioned the gynae thing AGAIN, i told him that I was going to ignore him for the rest of the day. Fine, I concede that it sounds really childish in the 'I don't want to friend you' flavour but since I couldn't outright scold him, that was about the best I could think of at that time >_<

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Personal Bubble

I remember I read somewhere a long time ago that everyone has their own personal bubble/ space whereby they are uncomfortable to share with those not close to their hearts. I remember it as a force shield around myself whereby if people invades it, my defence systems go up and I try to distance myself.

Blogs somewhat change the landscape a little as we learnt to share our life with potentially millions of strangers all over the world. The idea of personal space is vastly different. While I'm comfortable sharing my innermost thoughts, I find myself reluctant to put down anything that physically uniquely identifies myself. I guess I'm not sure I want acquaintances to know exactly how I think. The whole idea of that is somehow embarassing even though I don't say anything I wouldn't say normally. But I guess in a way I feel constrained by the potential audience to talk about personal life. That's one of the reasons why I was on a blog hiatus for so long


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More Pics Pls!

I think I don't put up pictures often enough. Usually I can get quite narcissistic when the mood strikes and I go camera crazy. And after that, I'll take another two to three weeks before I load them onto my pc. And then it's another few months before I even think about uploading them. Just realized that I used to use this Hello program for blogger. I'll have to look it up again.

From a manufacturing stand point, I have a horrendous lead time in putting up any pictures. I also have qualms about showing personal pictures on the internet. No wonder I'm not popular :)

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Happy

Was reading about this 26 year old lady, M, on one of the local forums who claimed that she is holding a job that pays SGD20k but is so tired it all that she wants to quit her job and go backpacking while living on her investments which is yielding her 10k a month. Regardless of whether it is true (and it could well be), it was pretty sad when she talked about how her husband and parents are too busy working to accompany her on a trip and how meaningless life is. And then she asked "What keeps you going?"

I thought about it and looked at my life. I'm the same age as her and though I earn but a fraction of her income, I'm perfectly happy with every aspect of my life. Not happy as in satisfied and contented per se -- I still want to get out of this job, but my goals are very clear.

• My love for my husband is fulfiling.
• I'm looking for a job that will keep me intellectually occupied.
• I'm planning to take a CFA course just for the heck of learning.
• I want to have time to take care of my kids in the not too near, not too distant future.
• I wouldn't mind being a stay at home mum, making bentos for my loved ones.
• I want to continue writing.
• I want to have more time for my interests: reading, learning random new skills (like make-up haha)

One of the things I've never really wanted though is all the silly money, status, luxury stuff. Not to say that I won't take the money if given to me, but it's not important. I know I will have enough for my simple needs. I know I live a free life with little regrets. And you know, that's really all that matters.

*Darling and I concluded that it's because we are anti-social that we don't care about the usual things other people care about like money etc... I'm not sure I like the term anti-social but I figured he's probably right. We're just not the kind of people who cares about what other people think.
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Days Off

I'm one of those weird people who'd use my annual leave to sit at home and rest. Sometimes I'm just so sick of work I need to recharge at home. The best part about such holidays is the morning when you wake up and you just back slump lazily in glee that it's not a work day. Many people I know have very purposeful holidays, usually for short trips or vacations. The whole inactivity that I pursue will surely affront their need for productivity. Ah the joys of being in a state of bovine contentment.

Of course, the more enjoyable a holiday is, the greater the backlash when you return to work. One day, I'll find a job that I look forward to on a Sunday evening.
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People that Don't Click

There are just some people I can get along with. Esp if it's people who've insulted me before.

I was asked to work with this manager (let's call him Xxx) on a particular assignment. Upon deciding that I was probably too nooby for his taste, Xxx quietly asked my senior in the department to join in the meeting. Thanks for the great vote of no confidence... I was about 6 mths++ into the job at that point and I certainly did not enjoy the snub.

A while back, he also told his department that he doesn't celebrate Valentine's day coz the restaurants/ florists etc jacks up their prices. Or as he puts it "I don't play that game". It was all fine up till there until he added that celebrates it one week before (or is it after). Any sliver of respect for him that I might have accumulated was out of the window.

Let's put it this way. If a guy is just too absent minded or just plainly not the romantic sort (aka my darling), I don't really care if we don't do V-day. (I don't really care either way actually. Never put much stock on V-days. I'm perfectly happy buying and eating post V-day chocolates at half price >_<). But if a guy buys me post/pre v-day on the pretext of saving money, I'd be quite annoyed. If you are too cheap to get me the real thing, please don't give cheap substitutes insulting my ability to differentiate between the two and worse of all try to justify it by decrying the commercialism of the whole event. Thanks bud, you're not fooling anyone... at least not me.
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Esteemed

I have low self-esteem. I've known it for years but it doesn't stop this chronic termite from gnawing at me. I have clarity in what I want to be but without the steel cocoon of confidence, I'm easily shaken. The contrary objections gets bolder in their attacks until it shatters what belief you have.

I have begun to heal with my darling by my side. Together we build from the abandoned remnants of my self-worth. It is a fragile, nascent structure, vulnerable to attacked. Even as it crumbles again and again, we start anew, undaunted, to build sand castles on the turbulent shores of my existence.
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Tim Smit's Business Rules

#1 Say hi to 20 people before you start work
#2 Read 2 books that are outside your sphere of interest
#3 Ditto but for movie
#4 Ditto but for thearter
#5 Make a speech about why you like working here
#6 Making major decisions at night: Work hat off-> more complete rounded perspective.
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The Blues

In my reality, the week's blues starts at Sunday night, right about 7pm when I'm paralyzed by an irrational urge to to cram in something that would make my weekend more wow than a good rest. In 20/20 hindsight, it's clearly a stressful and pretty much pointless endeavor that basically ruins a good sunday night.


• 7pm -8pm: Bemoan the fact that tomorrow is a Monday. Sometimes come with some moping.
  
• 8pm- 10pm: Play World of Warcraft as usual. Woes temporarily forgotten.
  
• 10-pm-11pm: Getting tired. Grumpy that I'm spending yet another night on a game.
  
• 11pm-12pm: More moping and dragging of feet. Occasionally clears up a corner of the mess on the sofa to feel productive.
  
• 12pm - : Go to bed feeling depressed that the weekend is over too soon.
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Blossoming Love

I wonder if the many many stereotypes regarding love and married life are there to set lower expectations and to avoid disappointment. He's had many guy friends ask him if he feels acutely the loss of freedom. And he just goes 'huh?'. We've never had to restrict each in any way or perhaps we are just lucky enough not to have hobbies that the other disapproves of.

The other day at a colleague's bond free party, his friend asked about when we got married and commented that we still have the look of newly weds. But in truth, I can't imagine love diluting as the years go by. In our minds, we were wed a long time ago in Cornell. Every year surprised us with how much love we can have for one another. We never thought it was possible to love as we do now. That such unadulterated emotions can be washed pale with the years is simply sacrilegious.

It's true that we do not argue or tiff much. We talk over things that tick us off -- well admittedly, it's mainly me telling him how to deal with my sensitivities (spell: being demanding >_<). He's either too easy going or I'm just too goooood *whistle*. So cheers to all blossoming love and may they be cling-wrap preserved.
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Inspiration

It's a unique pleasure to hear about a fairy tale exit to the void of these shackles, one which inspires hope and also retrospection in you. For every successful business case, there is an well-thought exit strategy.

My dreams are much smaller and private. I have not the desires to change the world or give back to society. The world moves on without my intervention. What I crave is to communicate my philosophy and maintain my own flavour of old school chivalry. In that respect I am a romantic. Perhaps my answer lies in education but I'm not sure I want to be caught up in the beureaucratic rat race that it is here. It leads my thoughts again to my writing. My writing that gets so cryptic that one has a difficult time getting what I mean. Some things also too complicated for me to describe. As it is, I have abadoned this passion for a long time. I didn't have the confidence to see it through and I don't know if I have it now.

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Dandelion Travels

The days go by with such flippancy that I'm surprised to find that I'm almost two years into the working world. Work has ceased to throw up new and interesting twists and I feel like I'm starting to sink into a well-worn-sofa work routine. I can tell that this is not the life for me but I can certainly imagine undecided young minds to settle into this known ennui.

For most people, the unknown is like a mystical entity from childhood, appearing so magical and beautiful in their youth but somehow reveals itself as a morphing stormy blackhole as they turn older. Perhaps this only trylu describes the older generation. The Gen Y-ers are great nomads of the world. Many people I know have scattered to the corners of the world.

I, too, am looking to start my great dendelion travel. __________________________________________________________