Taking One Baby Step at a Time

2011-03-30T12:48:00.000+08:00

With my pregnancy well under way, I knew I shouldn't have been so surprised by my discovery this morning: I looked at my feet only to find that my toes looked like little cocktail sausages.

Yes, it seems water retention has finally plagued me at Week 36, just when I was thinking that I may be one of the lucky few to get through my entire pregnancy without it. Then again, I really should have known better, seeing as I've probably had every other common pregnancy symptom known already. And its only my first pregnancy. I feel like I've been through it all! From the un-ending morning sickness, to the aches and pains, swollen boobs, haemorroids, heartburn, swollen lady bits, not being able to sleep properly, having to pee in the middle of the night, abdominal pains, leg cramps, shortness of breath... I really could go on. Now I can add swollen feet and water retention to the list.

Still, I suppose I should be grateful that its only hit me at this late stage. I've seen ladies with swollen feet as early as their 2nd trimester and I can't imagine how uncomfortable they must have felt.

2011-01-12T18:47:00.000+08:00

I know I post about my irration with work more often that I should but allow me a moment to go at it again:-

I've been at my present company for some 8 months now and for the initial period, it was mostly good (or as good as working in a law firm can get I suppose...). I was all happy and convincing myself that perhaps coming back to law wasn't so bad and it was just a matter of finding the right law firm with the right balance of having a decent boss, lovely colleagues and good working hours. I was pretty sure I had found a combination that worked for me and perhaps it's still true. But I think my general moodiness and unhappiness has been back on the brew in the last 2 months. I reckon its just because I am tired, especially with the manic back to back deadlines I've had and having to deal with overly demanding clients. It also doesn't help that I've been preggers and my body just gets tired and need more time to rest that I did before. I feel mentally drained and it feels like the only respite I'm gonna get is when I go on maternity leave at the end of March.

I know I need this job and I'm not going to quit just coz I've been having a rough couple of weeks. But sometimes its hard to remember the good things about it when I feel like my boss just doesn't appreciate the work I'm doing or have any clue with whats going on with a particular file only to jump in and give instructions for soemthing that isn't wholly relevent. I don't know how to raise it with him either without getting emotional (which is highly likely in my present hormonal state) and I just feel like I don't give a crap anymore about my clients or this job.

I need to figure out my life.

2011-01-03T11:57:00.000+08:00

Happy New Year World!!!

I've been away from this blog for a long time. I've thought about coming back to it countless times but just haven't. But it is on my New Year's Resolution to write more and I'd like to revive this blog as an outlet to that endeavour.

My New Year's Resolutions for 2011 are:

1) To write more :)
I used to do this all the time, with words flowing out of my mind faster that I could type. But as I've stopped, its become harder and harder and more often than not, I'm staring at a blank Word document trying to put words down and there is just nothing coming out. It's been a life-long dream of mine to become a published author but at the rate I'm going, its not going to happen if I continue this way. So, to re-ignite my creativity, I'm hoping to write more this year. About anything and everything and I guess the easiest way to start would just be to write about my life and daily shenanigans.

2) To write monthly articles about weddings/wedding planning.
This is a recent passion of mine and something I want to build a portfolio of. I'm not sure exactly where I plan to take my portfolio but I do think it'd be mad cool to get a job writing for a bridal magazine/website. So hence, must build portfolio. The goal is to write one article every month, by the end of the month, of about 500 - 1000 words on some aspect of weddings/wedding planning. The articles will be published on my other blog Sweet Pea Soirees.

3) To get out of debt!
Last year I was unemployed for about six months in the early half of the year while I tried to launch my own wedding planning business. While I did get to work on some weddings last year, unfortunately, I didn't make enough money to support myself and ended up making a horrible mess of my finances. NG too was between jobs and I eventually had to bite the bullet and get a proper job. I tried looking for things that were wedding planning related but without much experience in the field, no one was looking to hire to me and I was over qualified for shop jobs. In desperation, I joined a law firm. The pay has been pretty decent and I've been incredibly lucky to find a boss and colleagues that I get along well with. Unfortunately, that debt I'd accumulated during my unemployed state still looms over my head, even though things are much better now and I've been trying to pay off my debts since I started working again. This year's goal involves saving a bit more money to put towards getting out of debt and never being as broke and miserable as we were in the first half of 2010.

4) To be a good mom
Lol, yes, I am preggers and about 6 months along now. NG and I certainly hadn't planned to have kids so soon and I'm thankful that I got pregnant after things started to look better for us finance-wise. But money aside, I really hope to be a good parent from the outset. Growing up, I had a lot of issues with my mother and to a large extent, I still do. I think I've come to terms that she just is the way she is but in so many ways, I have promised myself that I will be different when it comes to raising my own kids. I just hope I put into practice all that I had promised myself.

And finally, my perenial favourite:

5) To get back into shape.
With the madness that was 2010, I really let myself go in terms of taking care of my body. I've eaten a lot of junk and put on weight and have all but stopped exercising regularly. I hope to change that this year, especially after the baby is born in April.

2010-09-07T15:32:00.000+08:00

So its been about 10 months since my last post. In that time, quite a few things have changed though I still feel like the same person.

1. I got married to NG. Twice. After months of madness, its finally all over and we've nicely settled into being Mr. & Mrs. (though saying the word "Husband" still sounds strange to my own ears). We had two 'big days', the first in November 2009 and then again in February 2010 and by then, we had made everyone else happy. The parents got what they wanted: a show for their respective friends.

2. I left the corporate world, determined never to come back...only to crawl back 6 months later, cash strapped and desperate. But lucky for me, I managed to find an awesome job with a great boss and I'm actually happy where I am. I realised that not everyone is cut out for a big law firm and sometimes, to find that right balance between working and living (yes, it does exist!) you've gotta give on somethings. I may not be earning as much as I was before, but if you look at what I earn now divided by the number of hours I have to work, I think I'm doing much better than I was before. My office is too small for office politics and I get on great with my colleagues and even my boss.

3. I started my own business and its still running, albeit on a smaller scale. I still love wedding planning and I have a few clients lined up here and there. Its great to have something outside of law that keeps me busy.

4. I got pregnant. Haha. This one I'm still getting used to! I found out a couple of weeks ago that NG and I are expecting. This is partially also what has led to a revival of this blog. I thought it might be nice to document this new chapter of my life and who knows, maybe someday Little G will be able to read it too.

2009-11-15T13:22:00.002+08:00

Good God... this time next week I'll be Mrs. G!

:-O

I've been so busy with sorting out the details for the wedding and shuttling between the apartment and my parents' house (which I have now taken to refering to it as, even though I haven't officially moved out) since my stuff is all over the place. I haven't really thought about it much, except to wish it was over already just so that my mother would stop being Mother-Kong. I don't think it'll really hit me until Wednesday, when my MoH arrives.

2009-08-20T12:32:00.003+08:00

Work has been driving me nuts lately. I thought that maybe if I changed firms, things would be better but I hate to say it: they've gotten worse.

I've had people tell me that I need to change my perception and negativity and just get on with it. Afterall, I'm getting married in about 3 months and with a mortgage on the way as well, I really can't afford to be unemployed. Fair point, I suppose but not when the very thought of being here makes me want to lie down on a busy highway and get run over just so that I can get medical leave and not have to come to work.

People have asked me what it is that I hate about my job so much and for awhile, I could not put it into words. Now though, I can't stop:

1. The work scope. I have never really cared for anything finance/company law related. Big banks suing people for loans, rich companies suing other rich companies for money. People suing other people for damaging their boats. Yawn.

2. The research and the memos. Once upon a time, the idea of working in a career that was set in its ways didn't seem so bad. Afterall, most of the novel arguments had already been thought of and Judges tend to like to stick with what another Judge has already acknowledged. Case law gets entrenched in itself and all you have to do is find a successful case that sounds kinda like your own factual scenario, argue that what ever was decided there should apply to you as well and then everyone can be on their merry way. Except no two cases are alike, the parties differ, the lawyers differ, the facts differ and the state of the economy differs. Yet, the bosses expect you to trawl through every possible case (read = look for a needle in a haystack) until you find that one case that fits so that everyone can run with it.

3. As an associate, you do the shit work that no one wants to do. They call it "training" and "working your way to the top". And when I say shit work, I mean the researching, the sifting through reams of documents, the binding and photocopying. Its incredibly dull and half the time meaningless.

4. Being bound to a desk. Often for periods much longer than 9am - 5pm. Try more like 9am to 2am. Then you crawl home to your bed, not bothering to eat or talk to anyone along the way because it takes up too much energy/time and collapse, only to have to wake up the next morning at 7am and trudge your way back to the office.

5. Being bossed around by the Boss. Having to meet ridiculously unrealistic deadlines and trying to do your best while still getting yelled at.

I realise its more than just the things that are "typical" to being a legal associate. I dislike the job scope and what the job typically entails. More than that, I don't see myself being a top lawyer one day. I don't look at my bosses and think to myself, wow, one day I will be just like them in their cozy offices. Instead I feel sorry for them. They barely have time to spend with their wives and kids (its a wonder that they found the time to get married at all) or pursue any leisure related activities.

Ultimately, I realise that it was never my ambition to be a lawyer. When I was younger, I never participated in debates. I chose to go to law school as an alternative to going to med school (Father was a doctor and all that. Had high hopes I'd take after him and if not, go into an equally "respectable" professional career). I did a series of internships, thinking it wasn't all that bad being lawyer, only to discover later on, after I had become a lawyer that the HR people would send out an internal memo to all lawyers, especially associates, to be extra nice to interns and give them the impression that it was great to be a lawyer. All the more to lull them into the misapprehension that they were making the right career choices if they joined our firm. Boy, was I duped.

So here I am. Still miserable and hating my job and thinking about all the other things I would rather be doing with my life. Feeling scared that even though I want to quit so badly and follow my real interests, that I won't make as much money as I am now and might not be able to pay my mortgage in a few months time. It sucks but that's reality I guess.

I am willing myself to hold on till the wedding. Who knows, things might change (unlikley) but at least I'd have earned a couple more thousands by then to bouy me for awhile. If I haven't already snapped by then!

2009-08-05T23:58:00.002+08:00

What makes me sad is that NG and I haven't argued this much as we have over the details of our wedding. On some days, we bicker about what colours we like, on others, its a full blown shouting match on the limitations we are facing because so and so's family is being a pain.

Apparently, its normal for couples to argue in the run up to their marriage. It could be that we're both just blowing things out of proportion due to our stress levels. Still, its hard to deal with this without wondering whether we're rushing into things.

2009-07-28T19:03:00.004+08:00

Today I had lunch with an old friend and fellow bride-to-be and we swapped stories about just how much had to be done before the actual day itself. It was nice to be able to chat about it and compare deals with someone else who was also going through the same thing.

More excitingly though, the wedding planner course I attended last night completely met my expectations and taught me so much that I didn't even know that I didn't know. I'm so excited to be doing this and learning about a whole new industry which I'll eventually jump into.

Aside from NG, I hadn't really told anyone that I was doing this because I was afraid that I would be laughed at or told that I was just being fruity. But it has surprised me that the few people that I have told, including my dad who I was most afraid to tell as he'd always encouraged me to work towards a good profession like law, have been incredibly surportive. I figure I can start this off as a side business, helping out friends and then hopefully establishing a reputation by word of mouth as I build my portfolio.

So today, I also registered my business and told my bride to be friend over lunch about this new venture I was taking. And she asked me whether I would help her out with her wedding (as its after mine) and call it my first project. I was thrilled and it was exciting to get my first client.

2009-07-22T08:33:00.002+08:00

As most of you may already know, I am getting married at the end of the year. Well, specifically, on 22 Nov 09. And now that I think about it, thats exactly 4 months away. Really, there isn't a lot of time left.

At least I can say that we've finalised our venue and booked a deejay (who is really more of an event co-ordinator in that he planned out our itinerary for the evening and comes with 2 performance acts), our caterer (one of the venue's approved caterers who happens to also be a family friend) and a make-up artist. But I still have a ton of details to take care of!

Anyways, the point of this post wasn't to rant about my upcoming wedding but to rant about my career. I've just joined a new law firm and while things have started off ok so far, I feel more and more that this isn't what I want to spend my life doing. I've spent the last couple of months thinking about what I want to do professionally and the few things I keep coming back to are writing and events.

I have wanted to write for as long as I can remember. I started blogging at 18 as an outlet for my writing. I have completed one novel thus far and have at least 5 other projects which are presently half written. I considered going into journalism as a career switch but I wondered whether working in a time crunch environment would kill my passion for writing. I decided that I would maybe get into doing some freelance writing but will save the rest of it for writing novels at my own pace which I will someday publish.

As for events, I think back now to all the parties I've planned, the event-planning committees I've always been on, my year as ISA president was effectively that as chief event planner for international student activities. I've planned birthdays for friends and family trips. And if there's one thing I can say with certainty, I've always been much more excited planning a successful event than the actual event itself. And now, as I plan my wedding, I realise that perhaps this is something I could do professionally. As a side business for a start and then from there, who knows where this could grow to?

So here I am. I have just enrolled myself on a diploma course to become a certified wedding planner. I'm incredibly excited about it and NG has been incredibly supportive, encouraging me sign up for it in the first place. My classes start next week.

2009-06-29T18:03:00.004+08:00

The Boy and I have adopted a three-month old kitten. Our friends are calling it a prelude to parenting. I just thought she was the most adorable little thing when I first saw her at the pet shop: picking a fight with a labrador at least twenty times her size. Lucky for her the other pets at the store were used to her antics and could not be bothered to swipe her away when she was nibbling on their ears. Since bringing her home, I love watching how everything is an adventure to her, how she always pounces on the carpet fringe and tries to get her tiny jaws around every thing to see if its edible. And when she gets tired, she's under my bed, curled up on one of the smaller suitcases which she declared her bed.

The oddest difference I've noticed though, besides having a new roommate, is that a typical conversation between the Boy and I now sounds like this:

Boy: How's the little one?

Me: She's ok. Woke me up early so that I would feed her.

Boy: Aww. Did she take a poo after that.

Me: Yup. Stank! But I've wiped her down and cleaned her litter box.

Boy: What's she doing now?

Me: Attacking the carpet fringe/napping on the suitcase.

Boy: I miss her already.

Gah! Can you imagine the mundane conversations we'll have after we have kids?!

2009-04-08T16:53:00.001+08:00

Hello Bloglanders!

I'm proud to announce that this is my 100th post on this site. It has been an enjoyable ride thus far but I'm afraid, like all things, it must come to an end. What was once an exciting project where I could bitch about work and dish on the little things that made the legal world what it was, is now become a constant reminder of how much I hate my job and how annoying I must sound to anyone reading about my daily whinging. And that was not what Corporate Bitch was supposed to be about. I had wanted to write witty little commentaries but I hardly have the time or the patience to write anymore. I've already quit my job and am serving my notice period and I don't think it'll be much longer before I leave this industry altogether.

Not to mention my personal life is drastically on the move and this blog was never meant to be a personal space (even though it became one at times).

To the few folks who do stop by and read my rants once in awhile, I'm not exactly leaving Blogland just yet. I'm planning on reviving Faz-in-a-Box but will be hosting it on Blogger now instead of Diaryland. Hopefully I'll write about the things that make me smile again.

Till then, thanks to everyone who ever stopped by, read what I wrote and took the time to comment on my posts. Ciao folks!

2009-03-26T19:04:00.003+08:00

Perhaps I'm just one of those people who can't be told what to do. I feel so restless at work lately. I dread having to come into the office every morning and the end of the day just doesn't approach fast enough. I am exhausted most of the time and miserable the rest. This job is turning out to be exactly what I had hoped would never happen.

At the begining of the year, I was so thrilled about moving to a new team, thinking that a change of folks might do the trick. Now about to change firms and am starting to wonder if going to all these interviews and finding another lawyer-ing job is really the answer. It might be something I'm half good at but its not something I'm passionate about anymore.

I feel stuck but feel that leaving this industry is not an option. I'm already fighting with people for my personal life, I don't want to have to fight for my professional life either. How is it that some people land the perfect jobs to suit their lifestyles/passions/ needs while others simply make do, try and earn what they can and sit quietly with their misery.

2009-03-13T17:43:00.003+08:00

So, I have quit my job.

I finally plucked up the guts to make up my mind that this is not how I want to spend my life. I do not think it is normal to work till past midnight every night and then to be in the office before nine the next morning. I did not think that it was normal to think that such a lifestyle is normal. After only 3 months of being with this team, I am exhausted and burining out fast. And despite the dismal state of the economy, I decided to brave my chances and see what else is out there.

Wish me luck! I'm probably going to need it once the panic sets in that I will be jobless in three months time and I start to wonder if I've just made the stupidiest mistake of my life, quitting the Firm and the job that was once my dream.

2009-02-02T15:27:00.001+08:00

"Why am I in this profession again!??" I squeaked from under the never-ending pile of documents that were being heaped on me by the minute.

"Because you like pain," came my roommate's wry response.

2009-01-23T18:02:00.002+08:00

My little pro bono criminal case was heard today and I can safely say it wasn't my best work. For starters, I should have prepared my written mitigation a lot sooner than working on it till 4.30am last night.

When I'd first met my client after being assigned the case, I was convinced that I would be able to write a powerful mitigation for him to show the court how he was a victim of his circumstances and had strayed into crime by mixing with the wrong kinds of people. I completely believed in my client, that he meant what he said when he wanted to change and was remorseful for what he had done. But when I finally got down to writing the piece, I wasn't so sure anymore. At the end of the day, being poor isn't an excuse to be a thief, especially when the proceeds weren't going towards helping your family but being spent on yourself.

As I tried to draft the piece, I felt my heart sink more and more as the mitigation just sounded weak to me. I tried to cover my angles and think around the situation, hoping to camoflauge my client's bad deeds with redeeming traits but they were scarce to begin with.

Today at the hearing, I feel like I didn't try hard enough. A part of me felt that I had already judged my client and limited my mitigation to a sentence that I thought would be appropriate for someone with his background. And when we were before the Judge, even though I had tried to put my best case forward, I felt like the Judge saw right through it and sentenced him based on what I was secretly thinking he deserved.

I felt like a crummy lawyer after that. Like I didn't do my job properly to get my client as light a sentence as possible. But as NG said, in the end, the client did get the "right" punishment. And it was supposed to be part of the oath that I took when I was called to the bar that I was there to assist the court in the pursuit of justice.

Its kind of reminded me of that question I always get when I'm at a dinner party with older folks and they love to ask whether I could sleep at night after successfully defending an axe murderer. In all honesty, I don't know if I can answer that question.

I knew what the policy considerations were for today's hearing and even knew that my client was not going to get of easy. Secretly though, I still think I feel safer knowing that he's being sent for reformative training rather than being let off with a stern warning.

2009-01-23T18:02:00.001+08:00

A lot of people know that my dad is a bit of a big cheese in the medical fraternity here. People fly in from around the world to get treated by him and in turn, people offer to fly him around the world so that he can give lectures to others. A lot of people who know him professionally are usually a little afraid of him because he runs a tight shift but no one disputes that he is one of the best doctors in South East Asia. (uh huh, thats the whole damn region!)

Anyhoo, what a lot of people don't know is that my dad is actually one of my favourite people and is a really funny and silly when you get to know him.

The third thing which no one knows as yet (and in telling you I'm letting you in on a little secret), just the other day, my dad was called back to the hospital one evening to attend to a patient that had just come into A & E. Picking up the fact sheet and glancing at the patient's name, my dad couldn't help but joke, "Mr. _______? You wouldn't by any chance be related to your namesake would you?"

The patient looked confused. He was probably doped up on medication. "Which MR. _____ are you refering to?" he asked slowly.

"How many Mr. ______ do you know?" My dad returned.

"Err..." the Patient scratched his beard, still very much puzzled by my dad's line of questioning.

"Hang on a minute," a light bulb seemed to go off in my dad's head and he pointed a finger at the patient. "Are you a lawyer?"

"Yes," the Patient nodded slowly.

"Oh my God!" (Yes, my dad really says "Oh my God") "Are you the Mr. _____?"

"I suppose so," the patient nodded.

"My daughter works are your firm," my dad couldn't help but blurt.

"Oh?" the patient appeared interested. "Who is she?"

And thats probably why I was summoned to the CEO's office this morning and told that my dad had a very pleasant bedside manner.

2009-01-23T18:00:00.001+08:00

Yesterday, an intern at the Firm popped by my office to say hello. I found it strange because I am no where near the top of this corporate structure such that I'm in a position where people want to meet me. And yet, this little intern had hunted me down specifically. But what was even more surprising was the fact that we'd actually met before, about a year ago, in a court room, when I was just a lowly pupil slaving away under the Ex-Boss and she was an even lowlier intern for zouk Boy (who coincidentally is now a High Court Judge-in-training). We met during a hearing while we were both seated in the public gallery. And of all the random things, we started chatting and I think possibly even exchanged numbers (though the note pad where I had scribbled it onto has long since disappeared...)

Promptly after the meeting, I forgot all about it until yesterday when the intern popped up. The poor child is presently interning under the Ex-Boss. I felt it was my civic duty to warn her right away. But then I remembered why I had even joined The Firm in the first place: Four years ago, when I too was just a lowly intern, I had interned at the Firm under the Ex-Boss. And at that time, he was lovely. (To be fair, the man does possess the capacity to be nice to people who aren't working for him) On top of that, the Firm has a policy to sugar-coat everything for interns to lure them into a false sense that the Firm is an awesome and happy place where everyone gets to leave at 5.30pm and go out for drinks afterwards and entice them to apply for jobs at the Firm when they graduate. Admittedly, I too was suckered in this way.

So instead, I kept my resentment towards the Ex-Boss to myself. Now that the dust has almost settled (and after I heatedly told D2 last week that if I ever saw the Ex-Boss's extension number flashing on my little phone screen again I would explode) and I am in a happier place now, I guess there's no need to slander the guy anymore. What was done was done and what was said was said. His number has not flashed on my phone for awhile, nor has a little window appeared on my computer screen proclaiming an email from him. I don't even see him around the Firm as I'm ten floors away from the man. For what it was worth, he taught me alot. But I'm thrilled that lesson is finally over and I've moved on to the next class.

2009-01-22T15:20:00.001+08:00

I find it cute that Number Two also calls her husband "the Boy". Not to say there's an age limit on these things but she's at least 10 years older than me. Perhaps love makes people feel youthful.

2009-01-14T11:50:00.000+08:00

First off, Happy New Year all!!

I know I'm about 2 weeks late but things have been busy. For starters, I've finally finally FINALLY transferred to my new team and I couldn't be happier, aside from the few calls I've received from the Boss which were beginning to make me think I'd never be rid of the evil man. But those have since died down and now, even though my hours are longer and I have more work to do, my disposition is generally happier and I find myself getting to work earlier and not complaining about working later. I feel like that self-motivated drive I once possessed has come back and in part, I do have the Boss to thank for it. Working for him kept me on edge all the time for the past year because I was terrified that I was going to get screwed for missing out on a detail. The result is that I now make an extra effort to cover all my angles just in case. I'm not great yet and still mess up, but I do think I pick up things faster than I did before.

The people on my new team are so nice! They have all made me feel incredibly welcome and VJ, a director and the team's Number Two, seems to have taken me under her wing and taken it upon herself to fill me in on the team's eccentricities so that I don't feel left out. As a smaller team than my previous one, the workload on each person is a lot more but everyone is just generally more chilled out here. I've been moved to a new office and have a new Office Roomie (though I miss my old one terribly for no one else would randomly start humming the theme tune to Indiana Jones in the middle of the afternoon!). Its still early days and I really hope that, if the past two weeks have been anything to go by, moving to a new team was the right decision to make.

Workwise, I've also been assigned my first pro-bono criminal case. Its a pretty small matter but I was incredibly excited nonetheless because somewhere in the law society, someone thought about asking me to take on the case amongst hundreds of other new volunteer lawyers for the pro-bono scheme and again, I have the Boss to thank for this. On one of the last weeks when I was working for him before I went on holiday, he introduced me to a couple of his friends at the criminal bar and really bigged me up. When the pro-bono people called me, they mentioned that they remembered me from when they met me with the Boss and asked if I was interested in taking the case. And I took it because the Boss once told me that he started taking pro-bono cases just to get on his feet and practice trial advocacy. It was a great opportunity to stand up and argue a case before a judge and get some courtroom experience.

As in almost every other profession, its who you know that helps you get a leg up. I've been putting myself out there for various criminal law related activities and meeting people who are at the top of the field. I'm starting to get recognised, even though they don't know my name yet, they know my face and nod a smile in my direction when they see me in court. Its an amazing feeling, I must admit.

Blogwise, I'm not sure how much I'll get to update this in coming weeks but I will try, especially with the number of cases I have coming up, I'm sure there will be funny stories to tell about how I messed up in front of a judge. I realised that my blog was becoming less corporate and more personal of late but then, the two do go somewhat hand in hand. I am just an ordinary twenty-something at the end of the day, struggling to carve out a career while trying to maintain some semblance of a social life. I'm still in the middle of the epic battle that is Mother vs. NG (though I think there's a bit of a ceasefire at the moment which is a relief!)

Anyhoo! Happy New Year bloglanders! I hope 2009 is looking bright for you too :)

2008-12-19T17:46:00.004+08:00

Today I learned what I had been doing wrong this whole time I was working for the Boss. I never got him drunk!

Not to say that he's drunk at work right now!! But he's certainly come back after a very long lunch and is sounding very very happy. In fact, he even giggled to himself a few times. And very candidly spoke about someone he knew who'd recently put on a lot of weight and how she looked out of control. I told him that was a mean thing to say but was secretly tickled by his demeanour. Initially, when the phone flashed the digits of his extention number, my heart had dropped. I wasn't prepared to show him the submissions I had been slaving over for this past week. In the morning he'd called to press me about them and I assumed he was only calling me at 5pm to scold me for not getting them to him earlier in the day and being tardy about the work. But instead, after his jolly lunch, he called to wish me a great vacation and said that we could get to the subs when I got back.

Perhaps its just the Christmas spirit. But I certainly ain't complaining!!

Anwyays, I know I've been MIA of late. Mostly becuase I've just been swamped with work, even though December is supposed to be a quiet month. The Boss and I have been in trial and when we're not in the courtroom, I'm working on the closing submissions. I've been rushing to tie up as much as I can before I go on a family vacation to Egypt tomorrow (which I'm absolutely looking forward to!) so I'll probably not be blogging till I get back.

Happy holidays world!

2008-12-07T20:54:00.003+08:00

I ran the marathon today.

Well, it was the half marathon but still, 21 km is no joke. And I managed it in 3 hours and 50 mins so I'm rather proud of myself. I never thought I had it in me and all who know me know that I'm not exactly the fittest person they knew. But what I discovered was that by the middle of the distance, your body settles into a rhythm and the rest is more of a mental battle. Every time I thought we were about to finish, there would be another loop or turn, detouring the route for another 5 km. My hopes would surge, thinking it was all going to be over and then come crashing down when I saw how far the lap stretched after the bend. But quitting was never an option to me and I just learned to stop looking up to see where the end was, concentrating instead on my feet hitting the road.

I was thoroughly impressed with the sheer number of people who turned up for the marathon. I never realised what a huge event it was even though the marathon happens every year. Roads had been blocked off and traffic rerouted for the thousands that had turned up for the run. To keep the energy up, they had posted cheerleaders along the route who would cheer us on and signs with slogans like 'the pride you'll gain is worth the pain'. Indeed, I am proud.

I am also in pain. In the last 5 km, I wanted to just push myself and run it off but my calves decided that they'd have enough. Every time I broke into a jog, my muscles would cramp painfully and I had to slow myself to a brisk walk. By the end of it, I could barely take another step and I've been limping around for the rest of the day because my left ankle and knees are sore. I'm not looking forward to tomorrow when the muscle ache sets in.

But I can now proudly say that I've run a marathon in my lifetime :)

2008-12-03T10:53:00.001+08:00

Call me a heartless bitch but I hate to say that I had gotten to a point where every other terrorist attack that I heard about was just another unfortunate statistic. Don't get me wrong, it was a horrific thing to happen and I condemned the acts but if I were truly honest, it never hit me on more than a superficial level. I'd denounce it but I'd forget about it the next minute.

Many people know that on 26-27 Nov, a bunch of crazy terrorists went on a massacre in Mumbai, killing people point blank. At the time I heard about it, I was mainly concerned about my friends who had family there, praying they were all alright. But as per usual, other than just condemning the acts, I wasn't too bothered. That is until I heard about Ms. Lo Hwei Yen. Internationally, I doubt many people know who she is. But in Singapore, she's become a household name overnight. She was a young lawyer who had been in Mumbai and had been shot twice by the terrorists in her hotel room.

What struck me the most about her though was the fact that she could have been anyone of us. She was only 28, having started her legal career at the Firm, just like many of my friends, before she moved on to other big firms. she had been in India that night only because she had gone there for a business seminar. She was only supposed to be there a night before coming home. Any number of us could have been sent over for a business trip like that one. Any number of us could have been placed in that situation. Everyone keeps asking "why her?" because she was so young and full of life. The scary part is that if it wasn't her, it could have just as easily been one of us.

For once, its really hit close to home. In Singapore, as much as we talk about terrorism and defending ourselves from it, its always been something that happens in other countries. I feel sad that it took something like this to make us pay attention.

2008-11-27T11:06:00.003+08:00

Today we were all called into a meeting with the Big Boss and told that we weren't billing enough hours. And of all the people in the room, he chose me to make an example of. He pointed out that I had only billed about 400 and something hours that year when the average was around 1000. That was not cool. And at the time it didn't bother me but afterwards, as I thought about it, I was peeved. It had been meant as a general reprimand for the group but if I was really doing that badly, surely he could have called me out in private. And the more I thought about it, the more I felt it was unjustified to say that I had billed less than half of what was the average for a year. I wondered if he had accounted for the fact that I had only started billing in June when I had gotten called to the bar. In which case I ought to have been compared against an average of around 500, making me below average but at least not by such a huge margin.

I spend hours at the Firm. I may not work till 3am like some people, but thats because I value my life more than this job which I've grown to hate. I would rather get out early (read=8pm) and go to the gym than start working on other things that aren't urgent. I only recently discovered that I wasn't billing things that I should have been, only because I had believed they didn't count. Like when you're sitting around talking about a case, that is supposed to count.

Ah well. Its done now. I know this frenzy has only sparked because its the time of the year when they take stock of these things to calculate our bonuses. But its disheartening all the same. If they're telling me that I need to be working harder and longer and billing more than I already am, I'm not sure how much more I have to give. I would rather spend this kind of time on something I'm actually passionate about and I'm starting to wonder if the law is really it.

I'm looking forward to the new year when I transfer to my new team. I just met with them just now and I love how I'm getting a good vibe from them. The team's energy is different, they're a smaller group and they strike me as being a bit more of a family than my large team. Hopefully it's what I need to keep me at this a while longer.

2008-11-25T23:27:00.003+08:00

A friend of mine from boarding school recently accomplished something that I've secretly dreamed about for years: she published her first book. And while I sent along the usual congratulatory message, inside I was so envious. We used to talk about our writing, publishing it on our blogs. I would read hers regularly but honestly I always thought she had a rather meandering style, a little too artsy fartsy and disconnected. Definitely not something I would have bought if I'd chanced upon it at a bookstore. I always secretly thought my writing was better. But look who's just talking now and who actuåally has a book published.

In a way it really makes me think about my job and what I'm doing. Writing has always been a passion and while I've completed a few novels already, I've never taken it to the next level of editing. I've never seriously considered this pursuit and taken the time to develop it. It makes me think about the writing that I have given up simply because I just didn't have the time anymore.

I guess it comes down to the will to accomplish something. My friend slogged hard for what she did (though refused to offer more information than that when I asked how she did it) and in the end, even though her book is still something I'd never buy, the fact is, she's out there. And I'm still here, doing a job I almost hate and wondering how the hell I got stuck doing this and if I can ever get out.

Perhaps I can use that as material for my next book....

2008-11-21T13:38:00.000+08:00

Scratch what I said earlier... I still hate my job :(

2008-11-20T18:43:00.002+08:00

I just got myself my first Mac! :D :D :D

2008-11-18T09:44:00.003+08:00

The Boss has been surprisingly nice to me of late. Not that I'm complaining. Just noticing.

I like to think that perhaps, my impending move to a different team has finally sunken in and this is the last chance to get a good impression in. But honestly, I doubt he even cares or knows the true reason for my move. He's probably just been in a good mood lately.

Again, I'm not complaining. Yesterday provided a prime example. I showed him the first draft of my skeletal closing submissions for the trial we're working on and was fully expecting to be decimated, as per usual. I sat before him, watching his facial expressions contort as they always do when he's reading something that doesn't quite sound right, bracing myself for the onslaught. But instead of telling me how stupid my argument is and chucking the work back at me to redraft it, he explained to me that the language I'd used wasn't quite clear and needed to be tightened up and some aspects of my argument needed more research. Simple as that. And instead of walking out of the room screaming silent curses at him for not telling me where I'd gone wrong and leaving me still fumbling my way in the dark, I left the room determined to do a bit more research and come up with a better second draft. I understood what he meant about the language not being ironclad.

This was all I'd ever wanted from the Boss. My first draft was still rejected but the mode of rejection made all the difference. I don't believe I'm a stupid person. But I do know that I need a just a wee amount of encouragement to keep trying. Its a pity the Boss didn't resort to this tact earlier.

My transfer to the New Team is still somewhat up in the air. Its all been agreed on but nothing has been finalised yet. I went for my first divorce hearing on Friday which was quite fun, though I suppose not so much for the clients. And the members of the New Team seem really nice and more laid back. Hopefully the move will be a good one and my drive to remain in this profession revives.

In completely unrelated news, I'm thinking of buying an iMac. I'm presently a PC user. I'd love to hear any input from anyone on whether the Macs are as good as they sound.

2008-11-12T19:49:00.003+08:00

On Saturday, a producer friend of mine asked me if I was willing to come onto her show to talk about a subject that was somewhat close to my heart: arranged marriages. Not that I'm looking forward to mine or even necessarily willing to have one, the whole concept is something I've always been familiar with as its so rampant in my culture. And ever since I turned "eligible", its been my mother's main mission to get me hitched, ideally to someone of her own choosing.

I agreed to be on the show, partly to help a friend out and partly also because I felt that there are a lot of myths about arranged marriages that have given rise to misconceived preconceptions of it amongst my friends. For starters, arranged marriages today are no longer about being forced into a marriage against your will, only meeting your spouse-to-be on the day you are to be wed. Today, the concept of having an arranged marriage, at least in the "modern" sense which would apply to me if I were ever to have an arranged marriage, is that my folks would introduce to guys that they think would suit me and if we hit it off, then great, we'd all have a wedding to attend in about a year's time. If not, they'd introduce me to someone else and so forth, until someone stuck. To me, its almost an extension of how friends already try and matchmake their friends and it saves me having to scour the earth trying to find someone my parents would approve of.

However, its not all as great as it seems. I have come to learn that while your parents always want the best for you, they may not know what exactly that is. Their definition of "the best" may not be the same as yours. They may think that someone with a great career and lots of money is a good catch while what I'd look for is someone who listens to my nonsense and doesn't get irritated when I randomly burst into song. I want someone who I can curl up and watch TV with at the end of a hard day at work, not someone who expects me to massage his feet when I come home half dead from work. I'd go for someone who makes me laugh over someone who makes a truckload of money.

Anyhoo, the point of this post was that I was interviewed for a segment in a show about arranged marriages. The show had a story from someone who was really traditional and super exciting about being arranged and a story from someone who'd had a horrific experience from having been married off to someone she barely knew. And then I came in as one of the voices of today to talk about how arranged marriages today are not what they used to be. They asked some pretty personal questions and I was quite frank in my responses, talking about the attempts my parents had made to set me up (*cough*Sunny*cough*)and even admitting that my relationship with NG had soured partly because of my parent's expectations of having "the best" for me.

I never got around to telling people I'd be on this show, partly because it wasn't a huge deal and partly because I wasn't sure how I'd be editted on the show. I certainly didn't tell my parents when it was being aired! But all day today, I've had the most random people coming up to me and telling me that they saw me on TV. I couldn't believe they'd seen the show! People ranging from The Boss' secretary to my old friends from secondary school had caught the show as well as the CEO of the Firm, who'd seen it briefly in the Court's bar room and turned to ask an associate next to him "Isn't she in our firm?" Ack! Who would have thought I'd caught the attention of the CEO!! And of all the topics, it was about arranged marriages! This can't bode well for my end of year bonus prospects :S

Nevertheless, the fifteen minutes of fame has been fun. I get mildly embarrassed when people mention it but I know I have nothing to hide since my views on the show are the same as I'd always expressed in person.

2008-11-10T18:13:00.002+08:00

Two things:

First, Happy Birthday Wiggly!!! Wish I could have been there to celebrate it with you!

Second, today is NG's and my supposed one year anniversary. Yes, yes, I know officially we're over, but inside I still love the guy. More than I realise sometimes. We've been on and off even though we'd officially broken up 3 months ago. And I couldn't help but be awed when NG sent this message last night:

baby, i don't know if this is appropriate... happy supposed anniversary. i love you for who you are. i thank you for all the love we shared. i appreciate every effort you took to show love, effort to look beautiful for me, took time to see me when i was down and celebrated with me when i was happy. you have always been the girl of my dreams. i will always thank God for the day you walked into my life. i love you baby.

:)

To NG, because I know you are secretly reading (:-p): I know that things haven't quite turned out the way we had hoped. I'm not even sure where we'll be this time next year. But I do know that I'll always think of this past year with you, including all the good moments and the bad, as one of the happiest years of my life. I love you smelly belly.

2008-11-06T18:12:00.002+08:00

Work has been so busy since coming back. We've gone into a full-fledged trial with documents and sharp-tongued arguments flying all over the place. Its a three-way fight and each party is sticking to their guns, no one wants to back down and settle when clearly, we are so winning. But don't quote me on this. I'm not liable for any representations made on this blog and on the off chance that the counsel from the other side are free enough to be blog-hopping and happen on my blog, i will disclaim all liabilty. But yes, in my humble opinion, I think things are looking good for our client.

It has been fun watching the trial unfold. Today our witnesses were being cross-examined and the Boss would jump up every so often to object to the other counsel's questions. Even when the evidence was slow, there was a certain amount of adrenaline in the room and I could feel why I had gotten into this profession. I even got a chance to say a word or two myself which irked the pompous ass to my left to no end.

The down side to trials is that going to one means you end up coming back to the office around 5.30 and starting a regular work day at that point so you're working doubly long hours. And for someone who's jetlagged, I'm well and truly exhausted!

Ah well, thankfully tomorrow is the last day of this tranche, am looking forward to getting some sleep this weekend!

2008-11-04T20:01:00.003+08:00

I'm back in Singapore, back to work, back to the life I was trying to escape from for the last two weeks. My holiday away was simply brilliant. I didn't realise how much I needed that break. Even now, I'm sitting at my office and its about 8pm, I'l incredibly jetlagged and have tons of work, I still feel calm (or perhaps I just that damn tired and sleepy!) But seriously, I feel better than I have in awhile and I know my holiday accomplished what it was meant to.

London itself was grey and rainy as usual but I loved every second of it. Apparently it even snowed which is bizarre for October. I crashed at P's place which is right behind the London Eye (which certainly helped last Saturday when P and I were half drunk and stumbling home from a club in Trafalgar Square and knew we were going the right way because we could see the Wheel Of Hope ahead of us. In hindsight, it was probably quite a silly thing to be walking home at 4 in the morning but at the time we couldn't stop laughing about it. I mean really, the wheel of hope?! likening it to the north star that was directing us on our way?!? we must have been drunk). I mooched most of my time away, just catching up with friends over numerous meals and coffees, went to a couple of house parties and got hilariously drunk, chilled out with my girlfriends and ranted about men. I also jetted off to Milan and Venice for a couple of days to spend time with Wiggly and had the most amazing time! Venice is gorgeous!!! I definitely plan to spend more time in Europe next summer.

As for Z, he is officially being renamed Banker Wanker. For all the hype and sweet-talking and telling me how much he wanted to see me, he ended up cancelling on me last minute 3 times. By the third time when he asked if we could reschedule, I just told him I was too busy and had other plans. He claimed that work was really busy and in fairness, we all know how bad the markets are and how the bankers are suffering the most but I just felt that if he really wanted to, he could have squeezed in a drink with me or at least have the decency to pick up the phone and actually call me to cancel rather than just text. So that was that. He hasn't bothered to be in touch since I told him I was busy and I refuse to message him either.

Meanwhile, it didn't help that there was tons of NG drama going on along the way. Gosh, I'm just so tired of it all now. I went away to get away from him and even then he wouldn't leave me be. I felt so angry at him and still do. I feel like I'm becoming such a bitch to him and have taken on a very cold demeanor in my dealings with him now. But it needs to be done. How much longer can we drag this out?

P, bless her, spent her little free time trying to set me up with her various "eligible" male friends and I hate to say she was eventually successful :) Haha, not my fault though!! He was so incredibly cute and I was convinced he wouldn't be interested in me in the slightest. But we got along really well and ended up hooking up by the end of the night.

Anyways, its back to the grindstone now. I came back to a mass of work and discovered that my secretary "quit" the day after she was given notice that she would be fired. D is also leaving and I'm not quite sure I'll be able to face The Boss without him around. But on the brightside, the Big Boss has confirmed my transfer so there is a light at the end of the tunnel. And now, more than ever I am convinced I want to move back to London (in about a year or two and hopefully by then the whole credit crunch mess will be marginally better) so I might need to start looking to moving my ass to an off-shore firm.

I just hope things stay quiet for awhile more. I'm not ready to deal with more drama just yet.

2008-10-20T17:09:00.003+08:00

Hello world!

After the madness of last week it feels so good to be sitting in a tiny apartment in London, sipping my PG tips tea and watching the Wright Stuff on Channel 5. I can't believe how much I've missed this country and how natural it felt to reassimilate myself here. The day I arrived the weather was all grey and gloomy and while the other passengers on the flight groaned when the pilot announced the weather, I was grinning.

So far the holiday has been nice and relaxing. Had dinner and drinks with some friends on Saturday night and went to an art gallery yesterday before meeting another friend for a coffee. It looks incredibly grey today but I'm going to hit the shops and maybe go to the park if the weather gets better.

In other news, I have much to think about and I was planning to use this holiday time thinking about it. I hope things get better and I am making the right decision.

2008-10-17T11:24:00.001+08:00

Its finally here!!! The day before I go away on holiday for 2 whole weeks! Finally! It seemed like this day would never arrive, especially after the craziness of the last few weeks. But here we are. And no surprises for guessing that I haven't even packed yet. I have a ton of work to get through before the day is out and then gonna get waxed and pick up stuff from Wiggly's mom.

But I am in a fabulously good mood. Not even the Boss can get me down today.

2008-10-14T20:23:00.002+08:00

Today has been an emotional day at work. I met with the Boss, we discussed work, for the first time I spoke back to him, I walked out, I cried over the phone to NG, I wrote an email to the Big Boss saying that I wanted to see him about a personal matter. NG calmed me down. I sniffled but stopped crying. My office roomie looked alarmed.

I was calm and made an attempt at my never-ending list of work to complete before I leave on Saturday, got a call from the Other Boss, worked straight for 5 hours including pouring over contracts with a fine-toothed comb and meeting clients in Deutsche Bank, came back and was called into a meeting with the Big Boss.

Big Boss seemed to know immediately something was wrong. I tried to sound as professional as I could. I wanted to try different type of work, I said. He jumped on it, telling me he would have a word with the right guy and move me tomorrow, he made it so simple. I didn't have to explain anymore. He said he'd rather move me to a different team than have me leave the firm.

I had to see the Boss next. I didn't want to say anything then, just wanted to quietly move away. But what I didn't know was that between my email to the Big Boss in the morning and my second meeting with the Boss in the evening, the word had already spread: Office Roomie mentioned something was up when D asked her if I was ok, Big Boss barged into the Boss' room, asking if something in particular had happened, the Boss suddenly being super nice and offering to take some files away from me and lighten my workload. I blurted out that might be a good idea since I was going to move to another team. D and him did not look surprised. They already knew.

So there it is. I'm finally moving away from the Boss who had killed my drive to be a lawyer. Working with the Other Boss today made me feel like I wasn't a total moron bacause the Other Boss actually took the time to explain things to me. And as soon as he did, I knew how I needed to work. But I couldn't just work for the Other Boss because I'd still be on the same team as the Boss. D told me later he was proud of me and happy for me. I knew he knew where I was coming from. Afterall, he too had tendered his resignation about a month ago and was leaving for better places.

Hopefully, this is the right choice. I guess only time will tell.

2008-10-08T19:30:00.003+08:00

I've just been given the heads up that HR are going to fire my secretary.

!!

I swear, I had nothing to do with this! She's only been my secretary for a little over a month. But I'd heard a lot of rumours about her from her previous team. Like how she takes a LOT of days off for no good reason. And frankly, when I got a call this morning at 10.30 am from her telling me that she wouldn't be coming to work because she had to attend her brother's parent-teacher conference, I couldn't help but raise my eyebrow.

I hate to sound mean (but we all know that I'm totally bitching here). Perhaps today she really had to go to her brother's school because she's an orphan and her brother has nobody else. But then last Monday, her mother fell while cleaning the bathroom so she couldn't come to work then and she's clearly not an orphan if she has a mother who's failing in the bathroom (again, this could have been a perfectly legit excuse). And on Friday she didn't come coz she wasn't feel well. And on Monday this week she had conjunctivitis. Is it me, or is this a lot of bad stuff to happen to one person in the space of two weeks? Not to mention she was on leave last week on tuesday to thurday due to Eid.

Nevertheless, I've never grumbled about it out loud. For the most part, I think she's rather pleasant to be around and at least when she's here she does do the work that needs to be done. But it is incredibly frustrating when I come in to work and I need her to urgently do something and she's not there. Or today when I was looking for a bundle of documents that I'd asked her to bind but it had only been half done. I had to get another secretary to finish the work. The Boss had some how gotten wind of this, perhaps from another secretary in my team and had told me that I should complain to HR about it. I didn't even know I could.

I guess someone else got there before me. Now I'm not sure whether I should give her the heads up when she comes in tomorrow (or when ever...) or just play it dumb and act surprised when she tells me about it. Or should I just keep quiet and when she mentions it, confess that I'd heard about it some time ago. I'm not sure if it'd be the friendly thing to do to just warn her or if I even have the authority to, seeing as she hasn't officially been notified by HR.

2008-10-08T12:13:00.004+08:00

My secretary came into my office the other day and said (with a notable amount of glee, I might add), "You're on leave after next week aren't you?"

I guess I couldn't blame her for being pleased... after all, I'm positively ecstatic when I know that the Boss is not at work.

"Yea, I am," I replied slowly, then brightened, remembering where I was going and realising that Oh MY GOD, its only next week!!!!! When I'd booked my tickets two months ago, it had seemed like a long time away. "I'm off to London and then Milan!"

"Don't rub it in," my office roomie grumbled.

Hah! I can and I will!!!

In other news, my secretary wants to take me out to lunch next week because it is Bosses Day. While I'm an incredibly chuffed at the idea (not that I'd ever heard of Bosses Day till now), I'm not quite sure what the decorum is here...:

1) I'm the boss and she's my secretary. Surely that means that no matter what the case, I am supposed to buy lunch, not her. I know this is old-fashioned and even somewhat patronising but then there's only one reason I would put myself through the horror of having lunch my Boss: I get a free lunch out of it.

2) We're the same age. I wonder if this trumps the Boss-Secretary rule in that now we're both almost like 2 friends going out for a meal in which I'd imagine we'd go dutch unless it was a special treat of some sort. Then again... I suppose Bosses' Day is a special occasion of sorts. A bit like how you'd bring your mum out for a nice meal on Mother's Day. Only treator wouldn't feel the same kind of love towards the treatee as he would towards his own mother.

3) Eeek! Does this mean I have to bring The Boss out for lunch?!?! Because that would be a completely masochistic thing to do, even for a free lunch. And seeing as it's Bosses' Day, that would mean I would have to pay but it would go back to the Boss-Junior Associate dichotomy (which is rather similar to the Boss-Secretary situation). Either way, lunch with the Boss just sounds like a daft idea.

Nevertheless, it's nice of my secretary to offer to take me out. I guess we'll see how it works :)

2008-09-29T08:18:00.002+08:00

For those of us living under a rock or who are just not fans of F1 (ie. most of the world I guess, including myself), the latest leg of the grand prix was held right here in Singapore over this weekend. Despite the hype in the run up to the race, I just couldn't bring myself to feel the excitment and get caught up in the frenzy that seemed to have griped the nation. While businesses around me were gearing up for the weekend, jacking up their prices and cashing in on the fact that our tiny country was crawling with tourists who'd come in to watch the race, the only affect of F1 that I felt was the increased traffic as I drove into work due to the major roads that had been closed and converted into the F1 track. On Friday night, I was working at the office till about 8pm and only stopped because the noises of the F1 engines as they completed their warm-up laps made it impossible to concentrate.

Frankly, I couldn't see what all the fuss about. To me it was just a bunch of cars speeding around the roads of our central business district. NG tried to convince me otherwise and even wanted me to go with him to watch the race (he'd scored himself a weekend pass to the event) but I told him the ticket would have been wasted on me and would probably be more appreciated by someone else.

And yet, there I was on Sunday night, glued to my TV screen throughout the 61 laps as the cars whizzed past places that I was so familiar with... parliament building, the supreme court, the merlion, the esplanade theatres, even a stretch of the ECP. The race itself was nail-biting stuff: Picquet's crash that caused the shuffle in the track positioning, Massa's mishap with the feuling tube, Alonso jumping from 15th place at the start to win the whole damn race. It was the kind of race that would have made any non-believer a fan, including myself, I have to admit.

2008-09-26T09:22:00.003+08:00

After yesterday's post about the weather I couldn't help but chuckle to myself at the irony of today's weather. It was almost as if God had heard me making fun of the half-hearted rain yesterday and was saying "how dare you mock me! so there, take that!" today.

It POURED today. I woke up to the sound of the rain beating against my window. It was the kind of morning that was perfect for blowing off work and sleeping in. It rained like I've never seen it before. The roads were flooded as I drove towards town to the point where I couldn't even see the wheels of the car in front of me because they were submerged in water. I pitied the poor sucker on the sidewalk being splashed with muddy water from all the cars driving past. Unfortunately, that was me moments later. I have to park my car diagonally across the road where my building is and have to cross two roads to get to my office. I was so thankful that I was wearing shorts today and clutching my heels in one hand and my umbrella in the other, I splashed through ankle-deep puddles in my flip flops. It was a bit of a mission but I made it to my office some twenty minutes later, relatively dry compared to others, after navigating the puddles and working out the shallowest points at which to cross, standing well away from the curbs at the cars drove by.

This was Asian rain :)

Anyhoo.

In completely unrelated news, its my dad's 50th birthday today. Its such a milestone of an age but my dad doesn't want to make a huge deal of it so we're just going to have our usual family birthday dinner. I spent days trying to come up with a gift idea but what on earth does one give a man who's at the top of his game and already has all the material things he could want? I did try to get him tickets to a show that I know he would have loved but unfortunately they were sold out. I'm stumped for ideas. Any suggestions anyone?

2008-09-25T12:42:00.003+08:00

The Big Boss just emailed to remind us of the in-house talk this evening:

"RE:
1. "How Confidential are Arbitration Proceedings Now?" by Mr. Raymond Cox, QC
2. "Credit Crunch - Potential Litigation" by Mr. Nik Yeo

This is a reminder about this evening's talk at 5.30 pm by Raymond Cox QC and Nik Yeo from Fountain Court Chambers.

Please also remember that attendance at the talk is compulsory for all litigation junior associates. You will enjoy these talks.Tea will follow.

As we do not want to keep our guest speakers waiting, I would appreciate it if you could all be seated at 17 C1 and C2 no later than 5.25 pm, so that we can begin the talk punctually at 5.30 pm.

Big Boss"

Eep! We will enjoy these talks?! Err... whatever you say, chief.

2008-09-25T08:55:00.003+08:00

As I was coming into work yesterday, the weather was incredibly grey and windy. It looked liked it was about to rain with everything it had. The wind was flinging leaves and plant debris everywhere and my umbrella kept threatening to flip inside out. The temperature must have dropped a good few degrees as it was suddenly very chilly. But the rain did not pour down in sheets as one would have expected. For all the fanfare around it, the rain itself was almost half-hearted: just an uneven shower of water that landed where ever the wind had blown it to. In fact, the only way to accurately describe the rain was to compare it to English rain.

In England, at least from the 5 years I had spent there, it never quite rained the way it does in Asia. Over here the rain falls in thick droplets, splashing on everyone and leaving large puddles everywhere. It rains heavily like this for about 20 to 30 minutes, then stops completely, leaving the weather cooler, albeit more humid. than before. But in England, the rain falls lightly, a shower that one can still escape from relatively dry even without an umbrella. But it rains for hours, leaving everything cold and grey and damp.

The rain yesterday was English rain. And while everyone around me looked as gloomy as the weather, I absolutely loved it because it reminded me of England. I've realised more and more lately just how much I really miss the place and my life there. When I left Singapore some 7 years ago, I remember thinking that this was it! That was my ticket out of Singapore and I had no intention of ever coming back. And yet, 5 years on, following the mess with the Muppet and the end of my degree when I was at a crossroads of what to do next, I let my guard down and let myself get convinced that coming back was a good idea.

On the whole, I don't regret my decision to come back. I'm not one for regrets and I would be lying if I didn't admit that life has been good to me here. I've got a good job at a good firm, I live at home so whatever I earn is spent on pampering myself, I have a car to drive around and I've met a man who's crazy about me. I'm at home for major holidays and spend more time with my family. I'm in the same country as my best friend again and have made a great number of new friends. I count myself lucky for all the things I have in my life and yet... something in me is yearning for something else. A challenge perhaps. The freedom I once had to do whatever I liked, whenever I liked. The responsibility to make my own choices and to pay my bills. I feel that coming back to Singapore was almost like taking a step backwards after coming into my own in England. The lifestyle here is much more muted, the people more sedate. I'm expected to behave a certain way.

I don't know if going back to England is the answer but that feeling I had way back when I'm 17 has resurfaced. I wasn't made to spend my entire life in Singapore. I'm itching to do something with my life, to move away again or to change the direction I'm moving in but not sure how to.

I'm looking forward to my upcoming holiday for the sole reason that I will finally get some time to myself. Its long overdue. I need to get away from my family, my work and my man and just have some time alone to think about what I want to do next.

Till then, I'll just enjoy the English rain thats falling on Singapore.

2008-09-23T09:33:00.003+08:00

Ack. I just found out that my secretary and I are the same age. In fact, she's good friends with one of my former secondary school classmates as they were classmates in college. How awkward do I feel now having to tell her what to do?

2008-09-23T08:29:00.004+08:00

NG and I were talking this morning and somehow got to talking about breastfeeding. I have no idea how we got onto that....

No seriously.... now that I think of it, its a very VERY weird conversation to be having with one's ex.

Oh wait! I remember now!!! I was telling him about the milk scare in China (scary stuff folks, melamine in the milk and all) and how I had heard on the news this morning that 50,000 babies in Hong Kong had become sick and had to be taken to a hospital. And then he said that if he had kids, he'd want his wife to breastfeed for a longer duration. Apparently he'd read somewhere that kids should be breastfed until the age of 3. He went on about the benefits of it like mother-child bonding, boosting the child's immunity and how its great for post-natal weight loss and even reduces the risk of cancer.

I was not convinced. THREE?! Seriously?! Aren't kids a bit too old to be sucking on their mom's tits at 3? The idea just doesn't seem right to me and I'm sure it wasn't healthy for a child to still be suckling at 3. I was sure the answer was closer to 9 months or something.

So I googled it :)

According to breastfeeding.com, NG was right! Studies have shown that children should be breastfed for at least a year to 18 months and even after that. Not to mention that he was spot on about the benefits.

Who would have thought? Guess you learn something new everyday, though its safe to say that this new information has been filed away in the compartment of my brain that stores useless information. I have no intention of breastfeeding anyone anytime soon. There are still many corporate ladders to climb.

2008-09-18T12:18:00.005+08:00

Just when I think I'm getting the hang of things, something fucks up and I'm in the doghouse again. I get put down and trodden on and curl into a ball and cry when no one's looking then pick myself up again, vowing to be better this time. And for awhile, it seems like I'm getting the hang of things again, before something else fucks up and vicious cycle starts again.

Working for the Boss is challenging at best. At worst, its what I imagine hell would feel like. And quite frankly, I'm starting to wonder how much more of this hell can I tolerate.

I've been told too many times now that I get screwed because I'm one of the most junior people in the Firm. If things go wrong, I'm the first to get a finger pointed at to take the blame. And in fairness, I do still make mistakes here and there as I learn how things work around here. I've also been told that its tough love, and I should just suck it up.

But there are ways of telling someone that they're wrong. In my opinion, putting them down and making them feel like they are worthless isn't it. Shooing them away when they ask a question only to berate them later for getting it wrong just isn't right. And frankly, tough love doesn't work on everyone. As much as I tell myself that I am like teflon and nothing the say sticks to me, in truth, their words have me questioning my choice of firm, of career, of industry. Perhaps I'm just not cut out for this job.

The thoughts have me considering my options now. What's next now that I'm already this deep in? Is there anywhere else to go? Can I? If so, how?

I guess I'll just have to find out. But one thing is for sure, I have lost all drive and motivation and certainly won't be able to sustain this much longer.

2008-09-08T13:13:00.003+08:00

When the Boss is away.... The Girl breathes easier at work.

I had all of 3 and a half hours of sleep last night, partly because I slept plenty this weekend and partly because everytime I was trying to fall asleep, all I could think about was that it was Monday today and I had tons of work and was terrified of the Boss calling it in when I wasn't finished yet.

I reckon I'm a teensy bit stressed.

But my day was made when I found out that the Boss was on leave! PHEW!

In other news, there's a new intern at the Firm today, conveniently sitting right outside my office and admittedly very pleasant to look at and comes complete with a hot British accent (although he's Indian). My office roomie and I can't help but check him out as he saunters in and out of our office with files. Shame he's only 20... it would be cradle-snatching and practically incest seeing as my brother is the same age.

Still, at least there's something interesting to distract our attention with when we're tired of all the cases :)

2008-09-06T14:05:00.004+08:00

NG and I went to see My Sassy Girl last night, a movie starring Jesse Bradford and Elisha Cuthbert. It was a rather typical sappy romance movie but something about the movie really hit too close to home. The movie was about a couple who met rather randomly and fell in love despite the antics only for the girl to tell the guy that she wasn't ready to be with him and asked him to wait until she was. And wait he did. And in the end, they obviously got back together but the journey of how they got from start to end reminded me a little too much of the situation with NG. At one point in the movie, I glanced over and noticed he too was tearing. I reached out and let my fingers interlace with his. In a way, I felt the movie conveyed to him how I felt better than I could have with my words and his emotions showed me that he understood what I was trying to say.

Its hard to say where things stand now. We both are still clinging to whatever we have left after the relationship has been taken out of the equation, knowing its only too easy to slip back into the comfort we find in each other and yet putting up the appearance that we can just be friends. Since the blowout last week, things have almost reverted to the way they were, with the exception that we're constantly reminding ourselves that we're no longer together. We remain in contact throughout the day and still meet up regularly. But its a constant struggle to keep my hands out of his hair.

I still love him. Or perhaps more accurately, I still care for him. I'm not sure if the difference is significant anymore.

I know logically what I need to do. I need to be strong and enforce the break-up. I need to see him less and not answer his calls all the time. I need to learn to live without knowing he'll be there whenever I call, and indeed, learning not to call him whenever I need him. I have already made such a mess of things.

Its been almost a month since things ended. Everyone promised that things would get easier. I hope they're right.

2008-09-02T11:27:00.005+08:00

The following is a Facebook conversation with Z that has left me somewhat irked. It started off when Z's status read "Will be back at uni (studying!) in October, the terrorising shall begin again." I was reminded of a conversation we had previously, about how we had wasted our Uni years by being good when there was so much we could have gotten away with but didn't. Hence, I sent the first email:

Girl: going back to uni? for a second shot at all the good things you missed out on the first time round?

Z: You got it!!! Not going to make any conservative mistakes this time round!! Going hell for leather!! Hows is your gorgeous self these days?

Girl: haha! where are you going? and what are you doing? (education-wise!) I'm ok, just swamped with work :( have an appeal tmr and trial on thursday and i'm going to just move into my office.

Z: LSE, Masters in Finance. MBA seemed like too much hassle as i didnt want to go into consultancy or anything. If i had thought this out better i would have done an MBA just for the sake of going to school in the US! Your hot, have sex. It'll make you feel better! p.s. On a serious note, that sounds like complete poo!

Girl: I'm being holy this month :-p the only after-dark pleasures i'll be indulging in are chocolate and milo dinosaurs! work is tough but i'm going on holiday in october so at least i have somehting to look forward to :) how long is your course? i'm assuming you're giving up working for awhile as well then?

Z: hahaha, very good point!! At least you can have after-dark pleasures! I need to find someone to have that kind of fun with! :-( Where you going on holiday? Its a 2 year course, and yup NO work... wooo!!

Girl: Actually, there isn't anyone to have after dark pleasures with here either. But on the bright side, only a month or so till uni... i'm sure you'll find plenty of people to have fun with ;) I'm off to london and milan in october. somewhat random i know but i'm super excited. i haven't been since i graduated and i have been dying to go back.

Z: Well.... if you are in london, give me a shout!... after dark fun if you want ;-)

Girl: i'll think about it.

And am currently thinking that I probably won't. I mean come on.... our conversations have always been on the flirty side (alright, they are often overtly sexual) but this is just getting a wee bit much. He sounds like he just wants to have sex with me and while thats vaguely flattering, I'm just not that kinda girl honey. I may flirt and tease but I'm not looking for random sex with some dude who'll forget my name afterwards.

Z had been introduced to me by our mutual friend who thought we would be suited to each other. And while he's what many girls may describe as a "catch" (ie, ridiculously good-looking, very intelligent and rolling in the dough), not to mention that he's the exact kind of guy my mother would pat me on the head for a job well done if I were to bring him home, he's just starting to sound a tad skeezy to me.

I dunno. Perhaps I've given off all the wrong signals and I've been placed in his "random hook-up/have fun with" category which is exactly where I didn't want to be. And perhaps my recent obsession with a book entitled "Why men love bitches" may have something to do with this, I think its time to pull back and leave Z hanging. I know I deserve better. And if Z doesn't know that too, that's really his loss.

2008-08-28T15:18:00.001+08:00

Because I know Facebook never lies and we all know I'd addicted to Facebook and now even have instant updates as to what people are up to, the following must be true:

"[The Ex] has booked has booked himself a trip to Tahiti Bora-Bora Island!!!"

I was so insanely curious I googled the location straight away. I mean, I've heard of Tahiti and Bora-Bora but I never actually knew where it was. And now I know where it is. And my goodness, it looks like heaven on earth.

I'm actually rather pleased for the Ex. He needs a break as much as I do. I'd been telling him that he should book himself a relxing holiday and just get away for awhile and I'm glad he's doing this for himself.

2008-08-28T11:58:00.002+08:00

"Our much much anticipated holiday in the land of fesyen, hot men, pizzas, hot men, pretty lakes, hot men. :D" -- Wiggly on our impending holiday in Milan.

I'm starting to wonder why I've never been to Italy before Wiggly pointed out that all the things that I love can be found there in one convenient locale! Surely nothing can beat shopping at high fashion stores (alright fine... window shopping then) then stopping for a pizza at a cute cafe next to a pretty lake while being surrounded by hot men. Or even hot men feeding me pizza by a pretty lake before taking me out shopping in the land of fashion. Heck, I'll even settle for a hot man wearing something fashionable eating pizza while showing me around a pretty lake. Sigh, the possibilities are endless (though now that I'm thinking about it, I quite like the second option I just came up with....)

Dammit! Only 58 days to go!! Yes. I am counting the days. You would be too if you knew of the possibilities.

In other completely unrelated news, I have crossed a line of geekdom which I never envisaged myself crossing. I have just downloaded Facebook onto my Blackberry! I'm so proud of myself :D Aside from the fact that I have joined the dark-side and sold my soul to the corporate hellhole that is The Firm who in turn have chained me to my work in the form of a small(ish) black device, I can now log on to Facebook anytime, anywhere!! Think of all the stalk-age time that would have otherwise been wasted while we are forced to be away from our computers during times such as when we commute or go to the bathroom. Now I'll always be up to date with what everyone's status update says and I'll always be the first to know if any incriminating photos have been posted. It will take my stalking of Z to an entirely freakish new level.

Lol, alright, I'm starting to scare myself somewhat. But at least my Blackberry will keep me occupied with something more interesting than just work emails, especially when emails from Z are usually much more exciting ;-)

2008-08-27T11:24:00.002+08:00

I don't know what is up with me lately. I'm cranky and moody. I hate work and my roommate irritates me. I secretly wish my Boss will meet with a horrible accident that will prevent him from coming to work. I am angry with the Ex and want him leave me alone. I wish he would pull himself together and stop being so clingy. And to stop calling me at 3am.

I am tired.

2008-08-26T11:45:00.002+08:00

I just received a confirmation letter from the Big Boss signalling that I am no longer on probation and am now more officially an employee of The Firm.

While others, such as Superman, are probably thrilled at this, this letter couldn't have come at a worse time. I presently hate my job. Well, ok, perhaps that statement is a bit strong. More accurately, I dislike my Boss. I realise that I am absolutely unmotivated at work and I dread seeing him. I question why I've chosen this career path and am seriously considering my options so as to get out of it. People have said that its just a rough patch and everyone suffers through their first year. But I look around me and feel like everyone else is adjusting just fine and don't drag their feet the way I do. Everyone else seems so much more enthusiastic and motivated. Perhaps I just have a poor work attitude.

Nevertheless. I can't believe I've been at the Firm as an Associate for 3 months already. I can't believe I've been a lawyer for 3 months. I wonder how much longer I'll last.

2008-08-20T08:52:00.003+08:00

I spent close to three hours yesterday photocopying and binding cases. Three! I didn't need 5 years of legal training for this! @#$%!!

But on a happier note, I've finally booked myself a holiday to London!! Wheee!! :D

2008-08-17T18:49:00.006+08:00

Breaking up is truly awful. I really hope I never have to do this again. In the continued obsession with our stuff, I returned all the gifts and things that he'd given me over the span of our relationship as per his request. That included my bracelet, my iPod, his football jersey that I used to wear to bed, the little bears that sat in my car... almost everything I could think of. I held on to one or two items because I still wanted to remember our relationship. I told him in a note that I didn't want any of my things back. If there was anything he didn't want anymore, he could just throw it all away.

I had also been avoiding all of his calls. It really hadn't been easy. Every time that phone buzzed I would stare at it, silently apologising for not answering until the buzzing stopped. Until this morning that is. And now I wish I had just not answered that one too. He asked me why I was doing this to him and why I had been avoiding his calls. He asked me why I had left him again and this time I just spat it out. I'd met someone who possessed certain qualities that he just never would. Qualities that I thought I could live without but after having seen them on someone else, realised that I did want those things. He had obviously not been expecting me to say that.

So he officially hates me now. I just kept silent and let him jump to the conclusions that I was a lying, cheating whore. There was no use in defending myself when he wasn't prepared to listen. He told me that he regretted our entire relationship and that it had been a complete waste of his time. I couldn't help but think of all of those times when I told him that I was afraid to leave him because I knew he would think I had been leading him on and he had assured me that he wouldn't think that. And yet here we were.

I do not regret our relationship. I regret how I acted towards him as we neared the end of our relationship. And I regret that it took me meeting someone else to give me that push to let go of him. But I do not regret having spent all those months with him. As I've always said with at the end of everyone of my previous relationships, I am thankful for the learning experience. I learnt what it was like to be in a loving relationship. I learned what I was like as a girlfriend. I had my best friend by my side all the time. And I also learned that I want someone who has the same background as me and that there are people like that out there.

Since then I've had to put up with the hurtful words being flung my way. But I suppose I deserve them in a way. I had been a bitch afterall. But he just wasn't the one. I can't help how I feel and I can't force myself to love someone I just don't feel for. Perhaps in time I'll kick myself for letting go of someone so good. But as P said, I have to let go until I know whats true. And the only way to find out is to get out there and let life happen.

Still, knowing it was the right thing to do doesn't make breaking up and being hated any easier.

2008-08-13T18:45:00.003+08:00

Things we do at The Firm: play random "word games" via the internal email network. Following a conversation this afternoon at lunch about me checking out another woman's ample chest, the game began. The challenge: to use the word of the day 3 times in an email to a random 3rd party recipient. Can you figure out what the word is?

D1's email to D2:

D2,
I was shown your sms by C about the ample abuse that is heaped on you.
Let me take this opportunity to tell you i sympathise and am sorry for your predicament. As C said, among us, you are probably one of the most hard working ple around as you devote a large and ample amount of your time to your work and your craft and the abuse is uncalled for.
Take ample strength in the knowledge that you are well regarded by your peers.
Take care bro.

My email to M:

Dear M,
I cannot amply express how helpful you have been on this matter to me, especially since I did not have a secretary at the time. Your ample effort in overseeing siti as she put together the bundles as well as your help when I had to make an application for extension of time will always be appreciated. I can only hope that sab will have ample opportunity to work with you and to learn how our team handles liti matters.

The Girl

N's email to D2:

Dear D2,
I'd like to take this opportunity to tell you how much I appreciate the ample help you've given me over the past 8 months. Your ample guidance has been invaluable, especially during the first few months when I was still trying to find my feet.
I sincerely hope we won't lose you like how we're losing D1.
Take heart in the fact that we have ample regard for you and your abilities, and I hope you keep your spirits up.

N.

And finally C's email to Superman (and arguably the most subtle of the lot!):

Yo bro
Just giving you a run down of what happened at the PTC today.
Customs Prosecutor, Gurmit Singh, asked for a further 4 week adjournment. As instructed, I didn't object or even make a face. The next PTC date is on 10 September 2008, 9am.
This should provide ample time for the customs officials get back to us. I was told by Gurmit Singh that the file had been passed to the AGC and that he was briefed by the IO that they should get a reply from the US by then. At least it's a sign that things are moving in the right direction.
I told the clients this and they reiterated the need for a definitive answer to be reached. The fact that the AGC had taken the file seemed to leave them amply satisfied but I did remind them that just because we were expecting a response from the AGC didn't mean that the response would be good.
Gurmit Singh said that he would get someone from the AGC to contact us (meaning you). If you don't hear anything from them soon, you might want to chase them somewhat.

p.s. I am pleased to inform you that there is now an ample supply of chocolate in my room. Feel free to come by.

If nothing else, I think this takes procrastination to a whole different level.

2008-08-12T11:44:00.005+08:00

I have to admit, as much as I moan and groan about work, there's something about wearing a black suit and a string of pearls, paired with some pointed stilettos, that makes me feel incredibly powerful. I feel like I can walk into any room and make people cower at my feet.

Well, perhaps with the exception of the Judge who I'm probably cowering before.

But still. This morning as I walked into the courtroom, I could feel my confidence oozing out of my body and into the surrounding area. I felt young, hot and professional. With my shoulders squared, I went in to see the Judge, pleaded my case and lost but still walked out feeling like a million bucks.

I must admit, there are days when this whole Law Business doesn't seem so bad. Being the only girl on my team also means I seem to end up with the random female clients that the men don't want to handle. Like today for instance, I had a client come to see me about a fairly small matter. Her ex-boyfriend and her still co-habited and she wanted him out while she got to keep the place (Anyone seen the Break-up with Jenn Aniston? That was the first thing to pop into my head). Although the matter was small enough to be dealt with over the phone, she insisted on coming in to see me. The Boss wouldn't have touched the case with a ten-foot pole so he threw me into the deep-end and told me to advise her.

So off I went. I walked into a room that reeked of expensive perfume to find an incredibly attractive woman sitting before me. She was dressed to the nines (complete with a frou frou looking hat!) in a low-cut black dress and perfect make-up and I couldn't help but check out her fantastic cleavage. I mean, the woman was hot! The boys had no idea what they were missing when they dumped this one on me.

I listened to her for half an hour as she ranted about her Ex and her house, nodding empathetically as she spoke. She wanted to know what her legal rights were. I hadn't a clue. Frankly the whole thing just sounded like a nasty couple squabble, certainly nothing to get lawyers involved for. So I told her to change her phone number and change the locks and not to bother litigating. Then I sent her a bill for the "consultation".

2008-08-08T11:09:00.001+08:00

This is Adrian Tan's convocation speech to NTU's (singapore)
graduating class of 2008. He wrote The Teenage Textbook and is a
litigator for Drew & Napier in Singapore.

Life and How to Survive It

I must say thank you to the faculty and staff of the Wee Kim Wee
School of Communication and Information for inviting me to give your
convocation address. It's a wonderful honour and a privilege for me to
speak here for ten minutes without fear of contradiction, defamation
or retaliation. I say this as a Singaporean and more so as a husband.

My wife is a wonderful person and perfect in every way except one. She
is the editor of a magazine. She corrects people for a living. She has
honed her expert skills over a quarter of a century, mostly by
practising at home during conversations between her and me.

On the other hand, I am a litigator. Essentially, I spend my day
telling people how wrong they are. I make my living being
disagreeable.

Nevertheless, there is perfect harmony in our matrimonial home. That
is because when an editor and a litigator have an argument, the one
who triumphs is always the wife.

And so I want to start by giving one piece of advice to the men: when
you've already won her heart, you don't need to win every argument.

Marriage is considered one milestone of life. Some of you may already
be married. Some of you may never be married. Some of you will be
married. Some of you will enjoy the experience so much, you will be
married many, many times. Good for you.

The next big milestone in your life is today: your graduation. The end
of education. You're done learning.

You've probably been told the big lie that "Learning is a lifelong
process" and that therefore you will continue studying and taking
masters' degrees and doctorates and professorships and so on. You know
the sort of people who tell you that? Teachers. Don't you think there
is some measure of conflict of interest? They are in the business of
learning, after all. Where would they be without you? They need you to
be repeat customers.

The good news is that they're wrong.

The bad news is that you don't need further education because your
entire life is over. It is gone. That may come as a shock to some of
you. You're in your teens or early twenties. People may tell you that
you will live to be 70, 80, 90 years old. That is your life
expectancy.

I love that term: life expectancy. We all understand the term to mean
the average life span of a group of people. But I'm here to talk about
a bigger idea, which is what you expect from your life.

You may be very happy to know that Singapore is currently ranked as
the country with the third highest life expectancy. We are behind
Andorra and Japan, and tied with San Marino. It seems quite clear why
people in those countries, and ours, live so long. We share one thing
in common: our football teams are all hopeless. There's very little
danger of any of our citizens having their pulses raised by watching
us play in the World Cup. Spectators are more likely to be lulled into
a gentle and restful nap.

Singaporeans have a life expectancy of 81.8 years. Singapore men live
to an average of 79.21 years, while Singapore women live more than
five years longer, probably to take into account the additional time
they need to spend in the bathroom.

So here you are, in your twenties, thinking that you'll have another
40 years to go. Four decades in which to live long and prosper.

Bad news. Read the papers. There are people dropping dead when they're
50, 40, 30 years old. Or quite possibly just after finishing their
convocation. They would be very disappointed that they didn't meet
their life expectancy.

I'm here to tell you this. Forget about your life expectancy.

After all, it's calculated based on an average. And you never, ever
want to expect being average.

Revisit those expectations. You might be looking forward to working,
falling in love, marrying, raising a family. You are told that, as
graduates, you should expect to find a job paying so much, where your
hours are so much, where your responsibilities are so much.

That is what is expected of you. And if you live up to it, it will be
an awful waste.

If you expect that, you will be limiting yourself. You will be living
your life according to boundaries set by average people. I have
nothing against average people. But no one should aspire to be them.
And you don't need years of education by the best minds in Singapore
to prepare you to be average.

What you should prepare for is mess. Life's a mess. You are not
entitled to expect anything from it. Life is not fair. Everything does
not balance out in the end. Life happens, and you have no control over
it. Good and bad things happen to you day by day, hour by hour, moment
by moment. Your degree is a poor armour against fate.

Don't expect anything. Erase all life expectancies. Just live. Your
life is over as of today. At this point in time, you have grown as
tall as you will ever be, you are physically the fittest you will ever
be in your entire life and you are probably looking the best that you
will ever look. This is as good as it gets. It is all downhill from
here. Or up. No one knows.

What does this mean for you? It is good that your life is over.

Since your life is over, you are free. Let me tell you the many
wonderful things that you can do when you are free.

The most important is this: do not work.

Work is anything that you are compelled to do. By its very nature, it
is undesirable.

Work kills. The Japanese have a term "Karoshi", which means death from
overwork. That's the most dramatic form of how work can kill. But it
can also kill you in more subtle ways. If you work, then day by day,
bit by bit, your soul is chipped away, disintegrating until there's
nothing left. A rock has been ground into sand and dust.

There's a common misconception that work is necessary. You will meet
people working at miserable jobs. They tell you they are "making a
living". No, they're not. They're dying, frittering away their
fast-extinguishing lives doing things which are, at best, meaningless
and, at worst, harmful.

People will tell you that work ennobles you, that work lends you a
certain dignity. Work makes you free. The slogan "Arbeit macht frei"
was placed at the entrances to a number of Nazi concentration camps.
Utter nonsense.

Do not waste the vast majority of your life doing something you hate
so that you can spend the small remainder sliver of your life in
modest comfort. You may never reach that end anyway.

Resist the temptation to get a job. Instead, play. Find something you
enjoy doing. Do it. Over and over again. You will become good at it
for two reasons: you like it, and you do it often. Soon, that will
have value in itself.

I like arguing, and I love language. So, I became a litigator. I enjoy
it and I would do it for free. If I didn't do that, I would've been in
some other type of work that still involved writing fiction – probably
a sports journalist.

So what should you do? You will find your own niche. I don't imagine
you will need to look very hard. By this time in your life, you will
have a very good idea of what you will want to do. In fact, I'll go
further and say the ideal situation would be that you will not be able
to stop yourself pursuing your passions. By this time you should know
what your obsessions are. If you enjoy showing off your knowledge and
feeling superior, you might become a teacher.

Find that pursuit that will energise you, consume you, become an
obsession. Each day, you must rise with a restless enthusiasm. If you
don't, you are working.

Most of you will end up in activities which involve communication. To
those of you I have a second message: be wary of the truth. I'm not
asking you to speak it, or write it, for there are times when it is
dangerous or impossible to do those things. The truth has a great
capacity to offend and injure, and you will find that the closer you
are to someone, the more care you must take to disguise or even
conceal the truth. Often, there is great virtue in being evasive, or
equivocating. There is also great skill. Any child can blurt out the
truth, without thought to the consequences. It takes great maturity to
appreciate the value of silence.

In order to be wary of the truth, you must first know it. That
requires great frankness to yourself. Never fool the person in the
mirror.

I have told you that your life is over, that you should not work, and
that you should avoid telling the truth. I now say this to you: be
hated.

It's not as easy as it sounds. Do you know anyone who hates you? Yet
every great figure who has contributed to the human race has been
hated, not just by one person, but often by a great many. That hatred
is so strong it has caused those great figures to be shunned, abused,
murdered and in one famous instance, nailed to a cross.

One does not have to be evil to be hated. In fact, it's often the case
that one is hated precisely because one is trying to do right by one's
own convictions. It is far too easy to be liked, one merely has to be
accommodating and hold no strong convictions. Then one will gravitate
towards the centre and settle into the average. That cannot be your
role. There are a great many bad people in the world, and if you are
not offending them, you must be bad yourself. Popularity is a sure
sign that you are doing something wrong.

The other side of the coin is this: fall in love.

I didn't say "be loved". That requires too much compromise. If one
changes one's looks, personality and values, one can be loved by
anyone.

Rather, I exhort you to love another human being. It may seem odd for
me to tell you this. You may expect it to happen naturally, without
deliberation. That is false. Modern society is anti-love. We've taken
a microscope to everyone to bring out their flaws and shortcomings. It
far easier to find a reason not to love someone, than otherwise.
Rejection requires only one reason. Love requires complete acceptance.
It is hard work – the only kind of work that I find palatable.

Loving someone has great benefits. There is admiration, learning,
attraction and something which, for the want of a better word, we call
happiness. In loving someone, we become inspired to better ourselves
in every way. We learn the truth worthlessness of material things. We
celebrate being human. Loving is good for the soul.

Loving someone is therefore very important, and it is also important
to choose the right person. Despite popular culture, love doesn't
happen by chance, at first sight, across a crowded dance floor. It
grows slowly, sinking roots first before branching and blossoming. It
is not a silly weed, but a mighty tree that weathers every storm.

You will find, that when you have someone to love, that the face is
less important than the brain, and the body is less important than the
heart.

You will also find that it is no great tragedy if your love is not
reciprocated. You are not doing it to be loved back. Its value is to
inspire you.

Finally, you will find that there is no half-measure when it comes to
loving someone. You either don't, or you do with every cell in your
body, completely and utterly, without reservation or apology. It
consumes you, and you are reborn, all the better for it.

Don't work. Avoid telling the truth. Be hated. Love someone.

You're going to have a busy life. Thank goodness there's no life expectancy.

2008-08-06T18:46:00.002+08:00

In a country as tiny as Singapore, to own a car and to drive it around everyday is a fairly big deal. It certainly isn't cheap either and the rising petrol prices are deterring even more people from driving. (well, except me obviously. I seem rather content to pay through my ass for my car and be broke for everything else.)

Nevertheless, in a country as tiny as Singapore, you'd think that driving around would be a fairly painless activity. Afterall, it takes all of two hours or so to get from one end of the island to the other by train. So driving the relatively short distance from my office to the Boyfriend's house should really only take me about 30mins, 40 at most if one factors in peak hour traffic and all those other folks clamouring to get home after a grueling day at work.

Except that it took me nearly 2 hours to get to his house yesterday evening!!! TWO! I even rerouted my journey to get off the overly congested highway and it still took that long as even the alternative routes were jammed. It was the most frustrating journey I've ever endured and I was one grumpy woman by the time I got to his house. It wasn't even raining nor was there any mention of there being an accident on the roads. The jam was simply puzzling.

But seriously, I thought the recent ERP hikes were supposed to cure this sort of thing. Admittedly I'm not exactly helping the jam by insisting on driving myself but I know many a Singaporean has given up the luxury of driving in favour of cheaper alternatives. So why on earth were so many of us battling the ridiculous traffic?! Perhaps there are a lot more people like me on the road than I realised.

2008-08-01T17:28:00.003+08:00

For the past month I've had Ivan the Intern shadowing my every move and doing the crappy bits of research I just couldn't be bothered to do. And today, on his last day he gave me a box of chocolates to say 'thanks' for making his experience at The Firm a good one. I must say I was rather touched by the gesture :)

In other news, for the first time in my life, my account has gone into five digits. More specifically, those five digits were earned entirely through my late nights and slavery at the Firm. And I thought I'd never allow myself to be bought but I must say, knowing that I have that much money in my account is somewhat exhilirating.

2008-07-28T18:20:00.006+08:00

Something happened yesterday between the Boyfriend and I (ha ha, aside from the fact that I'm still referring to him as the Boyfriend I suppose :-p). I went to see him because he had witnessed something really horrific earlier that day and I couldn't help but to reach out to him. But in the process, we started talking about us and where things had gone wrong and realised that we could pinpoint it to a particular event in our relationship: it was when the Muppet came to visit.

Now, I know I can't blame him for everything, even though I would like to. But I do know that his arrival was the catalyst for the downward turn that our relationship took. He disrupted the happy little world that the Boyfriend and I created for ourselves. And while we must all live in reality, we really were quite happy with each other when we weren't having to consider life's big questions about marriage and religion and children. We were just happy hanging out with each other. After all, ours was just a fledgling relationship of about 6 months and it was really much to soon to be deciding on such key issues when neither of us was really ready to do so.

Nevertheless, I'm not quite sure where we stand now. All I know is that my pretty bracelet was clasped back onto my wrist at some point. We are going to see each other a little less and spend a bit more time with ourselves and our friends. Perhaps as A2 had said, things can get claustrophobic when one spends too much time when someone.

I dragged the Boyfriend along with me while I went to get a haircut and of all the people in the world, I ran into the Boss at the hair salon! It was bizarre indeed seeing him there with his young son. I knew the moment he saw the Boyfriend and I together he would ask questions later (indeed, he had told me to take time off when we had broken up) and later when he was sat on the bench next to mine as we got our hair shampooed he mentioned that it was good to see us together again. I just smiled. It felt good to be with him again.

Perhaps I'm just not ready to let go of him. Perhaps I'm not even supposed to. Perhaps when I am supposed to, I'll be ready to do so.

2008-07-24T15:49:00.003+08:00

Its quite amazing the power that material possessions take on when there's an emotion attached to them. Suddenly, a little scrap of paper like a parking fine, takes on a whole new meaning when you remember that the parking fine was issued on a night when you went over to the boy's house because he was too sick and you cuddled on the couch watching movies till late, not caring that you'd fall sick too given the close proximity.

Or that little bracelet that I hadn't really liked when he first gave it to me in a shopping mall one night but the next day when I saw it in natural sunlight, it glittered and gleamed and from that moment the bracelet never left my wrist because I had fallen in love with it. Kinda reminds me of our entire relationship in general. How I hadn't liked him at first but fell completely in love with him as I got to know him.

He gave me back all of my stuff today. Material possessions no doubt but they were all things that were now too painful to look at because they carried the weight of the memories attached to them. He just handed it over in one big bag, from the mundane crap I'd left in his car to the gifts that I had spent hours deliberating over, right down to the little love notes I used to slip into his pocket when he wasn't paying attention. I tried to tell him that I couldn't accept them back, afterall, what was I going to do now with a Liverpool keychain, but he told me that he couldn't bear to look at them and remember me.

In a swirl of emotions, I gave back my beloved bracelet, the one that I had fallen in love with and never wanted to take off. I gave it back because I knew I couldn't keep it anymore. Just like that, even though I had fallen in love with him and never wanted things to be this way, I gave him back his heart because I couldn't keep it anymore. I didn't feel right anymore. I didn't deserve to have something so beautiful and not be able to appreciate its true value.

To my gerbil, if you ever chance upon my blog again: Thank you for everything. Thank you for loving me and being who you are to me.

2008-07-24T12:21:00.004+08:00

I've ended things. Or more specifically, he could just feel that something was up and called me on it and I just admitted that he was right. I feel like a horrible person. Why can't I just be happy knowing that I have a gorgeous man by my side who loves me so much that he would do anything for me? What's wrong with me? Why can't I feel the same?

I can't put my finger on it. There's something intangible that I just know isn't there. I wish things made more sense. All I know is that I feel trapped. I feel pressured to be here. I am so scared to hurt him.

He is my best friend and the nicest boyfriend I've ever had. I doubt I'll ever find someone who will love me the same way. But I know that he deserves better and will find better. He deserves more than a girl who can't make up her mind as to whether this is what she wants or if this is who she wants to be with. A girl who's caught between making herself happy right now and making the right choice for her life.

I know with time, I'll be ok. And I know a fabulous guy like him, with time, will be ok too.

With time, everything will be ok.

2008-07-23T11:50:00.001+08:00

I feel like I suddenly have a very clear understanding of RS. Or rather, a very clear understanding of why RS and me were the way that we were. He just never liked me the way I liked him. Sure, he must have liked me a little. But it wasn't enough. And it was only when I realised that that I was able to let go. He used to say to me that there was a reason he didn't want to commit to me, even though we were sleeping with each other all those months. He just never wanted to commit and on my part, like a fool, I thought I would wait. He had flimsy reasons... like perhaps he'd commit after he graduated, he wanted to concentrate on his studies till then, he wasn't ready and was still not over his ex, he had depression and could not handle a relationship, etc etc and I actually believed him. I actually believed that I would wait till the appropriate moment and he would commit to me then.

Anyways, the point is that one day, a switch flipped in my head and I realised what a moron I was. He just wasn't that into me. And just like that I was ok again. Sure I missed talking to him for awhile. But I got over it. I met the Boyfriend. I fell in love again.

Only this time, the roles have reversed. I'm the one putting the breaks on things. I'm the one who doesn't want to commit. He's telling me he will wait for me. But this time, I'm RS. I'm telling him that I'm not ready, that I don't want committment, etc etc. Lame excuses to cover up the real reason: He's just not the one. And I'm just not as into him as he is to me. And now that I've admitted that to myself, there's no point in continuing a relationship that is going no where.

It doesn't help that he has been the perfect boyfriend all this while. He's my first proper boyfriend and going by all the men I've vicariously dated through my friends' experiences, this one was definitely in the top five. Always loving and polite, friendly to everyone and treated me like a princess. I asked myself over and over again why I just couldn't be happy and love him the way he loves me. But I just can't. I can't force myself to love someone more.

I feel like a horrible person. If the last time we broke up is anything to go by, the next few weeks are going to be incredibly difficult. I know what I need to do. But its so bloody hard. I hate having to do this. I hate that I have to do it. But what other way is there?

2008-07-23T10:12:00.002+08:00

The Boyfriend scored us a free photoshoot last night at a local studio. It was located at some semi-dodgy building in a semi-dodgy part of town though the studio itself seemed quite nicely kitted out. We were given a form to fill out and for some reason, the staff thought we were married so for the heck of it, we decided to play along, claiming that we were engaged. I slipped my shiny diamond ring onto my left ring finger and waved in the consultant's face when she ooh-ed and aah-ed at my hand. Apparently, we were due to be married in February and had known each other for almost 5 years. The consultant was a bit of a dolt though, making some of the most inappropriate small-talk comments I had ever heard, including telling the Boyfriend that if he was looking for a pretty girl like me he was sure to find them easily enough if he took a walk in the local red-light district, thereby insinuating that I could have easily been a hooker.

We were herded into hair and make-up first and while the Boyfriend only took minutes to prepare, they spent ages piling thick make-up on my face and dousing my hair with hairspray. I felt like a clown afterwards. We were then ushered into a studio and took a bunch of cheesy photographs in unnatural poses. After that, it was back down to hair and make-up and a costume change. We decided to go for Japanese and I stood around while a kimono was tied around me before we went to take more photos. I have to admit, the Boyfriend did look rather delicious. He seemed so natural in taking the shots while I felt positively ridiculous throughout the whole process.

We changed back into our regular clothes after that and they brought us to a computer where our photos had been loaded onto the screen. I have to admit, some of them really did turn out quite nice. Some of the best shots were ones were I was too busy laughing at the silliness of us to notice that the camera had captured the moment. The Boyfriend commented in an off-hand way that we really did look good together in our photos and I couldn't help but agree. We did look nice together, especially in the shots where we weren't paying attention and just looking at each other.

Unfortunately, the hard sell came after that where they tried to convince us to pay an exhorbitant amount for the photos and also to book them now for our up-coming wedding (haha, which we'd almost forgotten about at that point) . We didn't get to take home any photos but we told them we'd keep them in mind for our future.

It was an interesting experience to say the least. Having the Boyfriend there made it fun despite the staff's incompetence.

2008-06-23T14:59:00.001+08:00

Waking up next to the Boyfriend + Morning Sex = A Great Way To Start a Monday!

=D =D

Waking up at 6am + Almost getting caught having a boy in my room so early in the morning = Potentially Getting Hanged.

Thankfully it was my sister who walked in and we were both dressed and about to leave and she bought the quick cover story of how he had come by to pick up something. Thank my lucky stars she wasn't awake enough to ask what the hell he'd come to pick up at 6am on a Monday morning that couldn't have waited till later in the day. And thank God that my mom doesn't usually wake up till about 9am.

Still... that was WAY too close for comfort!

2008-06-18T18:23:00.000+08:00

Blogs are not private.

I should have learnt this lesson a long time ago. Once upon a time, I was a very prolific blogger. I used to write posts nearly everyday, about the the random little occurances in my life, about things that made me laugh and things that drove me mad. And then one day someone read something they didn't like and started giving me grief. I stopped blogging for a few months.

Sometime later, I really missed my random posts, so I started again. This time I eliminated all names and as many traces to real life as I possibly could while still writing about my random occurances. And for a time that worked for me. I wasn't as regular about updating as before but I still blogged often enough.

And then I got stupid and showed my blog to someone I had romantic ties with. I showed it to him because I had wanted to show him how strongly I'd felt for him. But he started reading the previous posts as well to trace back how long I'd liked him only to discover that in the beginning, he was one of a couple of guys I had a crush on. That blew up in my face. He said very many nasty things about the realness of my feelings for him.

So I stopped blogging again. And when I tried to pick it up again, I found it really hard. My posts became few and far between and I wasn't as motivated to write anymore. A part of me wonders if the coincidence of starting work around the same time I stopped blogging has been a reason. I barely have time for myself anymore so blogging would naturally shift down the list of priorities.

I decided to take another stab at it. This time I moved to a brand new service provider, change the name of my blog completely and only told one other person about it. I never mentioned any names, not even my own and I've even stopped blogging when I'm upset, for fear that I'll write something in a flurry of emotions that will later come back to bite me in the ass. And yet, once again, I've been found, my inner most thoughts are under scrutiny again and my words being thrown at me.

I know its my own fault. I know that posting things on the internet for the public at large means that there is a chance that someone will stumble upon it. More so than that, writing about personal experiences will inevitably get you hurt unless you control your readership. But my ego wouldn't let me make the blog private for my friends only. There was a time on my old blog when I had random readers from around the world and had even made friends with one or two of them. A part of me secretly hoped to acheive that once again with my new blog.

I should have learnt my lesson by now. I can feel myself slipping into another hiatus, as much as I want to fight it this time and tell myself that my blog shouldn't march to someone else's tune. Whats the use anymore?

2008-06-16T14:39:00.004+08:00

In her bid to convince me that I have made the ultimate mistake in my life and that it is her duty to change my mind, hoping that I'll come to my senses and leave the Boyfriend, my mother has turned to introducing me to what she would term as "eligible men". The first candidate is supposedly a brilliant young man with a double major degree and an MBA from somewhere in the USA, owns 3 franchises and acquiring another two, and is really good looking.

You would think that someone who sounds this good on paper had something going for him. But you'd be wrong. To humor my mother and to amuse myself, I took his email address and popped him a short note:

Hi Kxxx,

I'm (the Girl) from Singapore. My mom asked me to email you so here I am. Just wanted to say hello.

(The Girl)

There, it was short, simple, to the point. He responds:

Hi (Girl),

My parents did mention u all, guess they want us to get to know each other a lil bit. May be we can start with you, you can call me Sunny by da way.

Sunny?!! My jaw dropped as I stared at the computer screen. Sunny?!?!?! And 'da'? What, was the so difficult to spell?! On his very first impression the guy hit a personal pet peeve of mine. Nevertheless I persevered:

Hi Sunny,

If you don't mind me asking, why is your nickname Sunny? It sounds nothing like Kxxx! What do you do? I am a lawyer with a local firm and I've been working for about seven months now.

(the Girl)

And he responds (rather defensively, I thought):

Hi, I think I'm just used to SUNNY (whats up with the capitalisation there Sunny?), every one since I was little has always called me that, my family, friends, every one, my grand mom gave me that name i suppose when i was little, no one actually has called me kxxx, every one knows me by sunny [surname].......its just like that for ever, but i don't mind kxxx either, I guess its easier the other way too. I neveractually tried to shorten kxxx to sunny, its just my name that every one has always called me with.

I did my bachelors in business administration and bachelors in computer information systems (double major) from Concord University in West Virgina (USA) and MBA from University of Maryland, College Park (USA).Now I own three franchises (Subway, Pretzel Time & Mrs. Fields) in Maryland about an hour and a half north to Washington DC.

Err... that's nice? I didn't quite know how to respond to this one. That was the longest, most pointless explanation of why he was called Sunny I'd ever read! I didn't ask for an essay, a friggin' one-liner would have sufficed! And the second part just sounded as though he was applying for job or something. I know where West Virgina (pardon me, isn't there supposed to be an 'i' in Virginia??? Virgina?! Sexually deprived much?) and Maryland are, I don't need a parenthesis to explain that they're in the States. And his insult to the English language continues with the spaces between words in the wrong places. I don't reply to this one... so he gets impatient after a day:

U seem like a busy woman ....... u work in an attorney's office or u an attorney ur self???

Err... did my earlier email not mention that I was a lawyer? Or were you not reading Sunny? And if you can't even read my emails, where the words are in front of you so you can't pretend you'd forgotten, what hope does that have for a real life relationship where you won't even be listening to what I say?

Hi Sunny,

Sorry for taking so long to reply, I have been very busy lately. I am an attorney and I have a case going to trial soon, hence I'm so busy. I'm even working through the weekend.

Your work sounds interesting. I love the brownies at Mrs. Fields :) Do you drive? If so, what car do you drive? Also, I'm curious to see what you look like, send me a photo of yourself :)

Yes, I'm being rather sarcastic now but I doubt he notices. My mother did mention that he was supposedly good looking so I hoped his handsome face might save him at this point. He replies:

Hey whtzz up, (!!!!!!!!)

that sounds a busy life.......ya I drive, in fact i'm a lil car crazy guy, i have a 07 bmw 7 series 760 LI v12.

so how old are you? i'm sending couple ov casual pics, may be u could send me some of urs....

I nearly choked. He could not be serious. My mother could not be serious!! I mean, this guy?!??! Really?!?! He didn't even bother to check over his email. He couldn't be bothered to spell 'little'. And just because I asked, it doesn't me mean I can understand the gibberish that is '760 LI v12'. And no offence, but this supposedly good looking guy turned out to have greasy hair and toad eyes and a rather weird triangular shaped piece of facial hair just below his lip. I was appalled. Still I remained polite:

Hi Sunny,

You mean your work is not busy? Surely owning 3 franchises is a lot of work? What do you do everyday? (Since he seemed so surprised that I was a busy woman...)

I'm 24. How old are you? I'm emailing you from work so I'm afraid I do not have any pictures of myself on this computer. I'll send you my picture another time.

Hee. I lied :) I was at home at the time! I know I'm not a fox, but I do think I'm hot enough to say I was slightly out of his league. I didn't want him panting over his keyboard and drooling on it. And I didn't want him stalking me either. Yes, I know. I have a rather large ego for a girl.

hi,

My work is extremely busy, but i have store managers, office managers, accountants, attorneys, and lots of other staff to take care of every thing. (Yawn.) I'm usually keeping administrative checks while i'm in and out of my stores through out the day, wasie bhi I have every thing organized online where I can get minute by minute reports......gives me enough time to plan expansion....also gives me time to take vacations 3 times a year, infact I just got back from Pakistan, I was there for a month, then in Dubai for a week..... (Whatever. Snooze...)now days I'm working on another project, not sure if you have heard about these franchises called TACO BELL and TCBY, I just signed a contract with Taco Bell, (Yawn!) will be taking over a taco bell store by the end of august and a TCBY store in the mall location by next month.

Waise I love traveling, what about you? I usually make a stop over in Sheffield, about 40 minutes from london (No way, is that where London is?! WOW!) (my mamu lives there), dubai and pakistan like 3 or 4 times a year.

so where did u get ur education from and how long u been in singapore. what does ur family do, i mean what kinda profession ur dad is in n stuff. where r u guys from pak. did u get to open all the pics i sent u, if not leme know so i can send some others......hopefully u'll attach some pics with ur next emeil.....

laterzzz.

I thought his ending was rather appropriate. I was practically asleep by the end of reading his long tirade of useless information. Did I really care that he was getting another franchise? No. Did I care that he traveled to Pakistan a lot? Absolutely not. Was I appalled by his horrendous English? Hell YES. I did not bother responding this time. I told my mother that he was exactly the type of guy I had been avoiding. My mother even went on to defend him to say that perhaps he was just shy around girls and the fact that he's green is a good thing, as it showed he hadn't been around. I told her I'd rather have someone who had. She just looked scandalised and stalked off.

Hey, at least I tried. And if I'm lucky, this should keep her off my back for some time yet!

2008-06-05T11:59:00.000+08:00

While things haven't been great home-wise, things are going well work-wise. Yesterday I made my first application to a Judge in Chambers, only a week after being called to the bar. As far as I know, I'm the first of my batch to have done so, which is kinda cool in itself. I was proud that Boss thought I had what it took to make the application. I wasn't as nervous as I expected and despite not knowing what to say while I was preparing myself, in Chambers, I was suddenly reminded of my advocacy training. In a nutshell, it went well.

But the bitch in me cannot help gloating at the look on VR's face when the rest of the team were wishing me luck on my application and he realised that I had been asked to appear before a judge and basically had just one-upped him. So there for all his competitiveness at the Firm!

ps. I finally got my own namecard yesterday too! I never thought I would be this excited over a bit of paper :)

2008-06-02T12:01:00.002+08:00

Too much has happened since I last got a chance to write and even now, the thought of writing belated posts just seems like more work than its worth. But I shall try nonetheless:

1. The Boyfriend and I celebrated our 6th Monthsary, making it officially the longest decent relationship I've ever had. The celebration was quiet and a nice respite from the fighting, although it certainly didn't last long. We got close to breaking up soon after but as things have stabilised, our relationship has regained its solidity.

2. The Muppet showed up, stirred up shit, messed up my life once again and then left so that I could clean up. Only two good things came from his visit:

(a)I will never put up with his bullshit ever again. I learnt that a leopard never changes his spots and a scumbag will always be a scumbag.

(b)My parents know about the Boyfriend... this is both good and bad I suppose. On one hand, its great that its out in the open, not that it was a secret but I do admit I had been stalling to find the ideal time to tell them. On the other hand though, it has sparked up a lot of crap from my mother about life, love, marriage and the issue of my virtues, of which she thinks I have none.

3. Teowlet and her fiance came to visit and that was an absolute blast :D I hadn't seen her since graduating two years ago and it was lovely to catch up with her again.

4. Teowlet asked me to be her Maid of Honour at her impending wedding! I was most touched and honoured and vowed to get a hold of that DVD (as featured in Made of Honour) with the perky blonde who gives us the low-down on how to be the best MOH ever.

5. I officially became a lawyer. After 5 years of intensive studying and training, it all culminated to that final moment on 24 May 2008 where the dude read out my name, announcing that I was being officially called to the Bar.

6. My parents met The Boyfriend as my boyfriend for the first time. Safe to say that was highly awkward.

7. I'm back at the Firm, working as a full fledged lawyer now. I have a nice office and my paycheck just got bigger. But then, so has the workload :S

Other than that, there has been a lot of arguing, fighting, crying and the occasional laughing at the absurdity of it all in this past month. I'm hoping this chapter will end soon enough. Things have stabilised on most fronts, save for my mother and her rampant hysteria at discovering that her dear daughter is dating a Christian boy as well as her fervent, and dare I say rather aggravating, attempts at setting me up with someone, anyone, else. Wish me luck World, I fear I'm going to need it.

2008-04-29T09:10:00.002+08:00

I swear that the Muppet is turning into a bit of a nightmare with his whole impending trip to here in a couple of weeks. I half wish he wasn't coming but I feel bad because I committed to it ages ago and in reliance of which, he's bought tickets and planned a holiday and I know there is no estoppel in social/ friendship situations but unfortunately there is a conscience and I just can't tell him at the last minute to sod off.

Bah. I don't really know what to do. I'm just gonna take it as it comes and deal with it when he gets here. Doesn't help that the Boyfriend and I had our first real fight over it :( I can see where he's coming from and am really trying my best to reassure him but it just doesn't seem to be working yet. I'm seeing a different side to him that I've never seen before, a side that strangely reminds me of RS...

2008-04-27T14:16:00.003+08:00

After a totally romantic weekend away with The Boyfriend, it all came to a screeching halt as we drove home and the conversation swung around to The Muppet (who is coming to visit me in about 2 weeks). I came clean to admit that the Muppet would be staying with me and it was no surprise that the Boyfriend didn't like it for a second.

After that he promptly got out of the car without kissing me goodbye and drove away. In a bout of anger, when he told me that he'd see me later, I told him not to bother.

And then I felt awful. I sent him a text message to apologise to which he obviously did not reply.

I do realise that the situation is not ideal and that it should not be this way. But I just wish that after telling me he trusts me and our relationship, that he would just let this go. The reason I didn't tell him till now was because I knew he would react this way. And while jealousy is all very romantic, it really doesn't help when I just want to be honest.

I feel somewhat miserable now, like I've backed myself into a corner where on one hand, I can't tell the Muppet that he can no longer come. He's already paid for his tickets and I did tell him he could come here and stay with me. But on the other, I would be an absolute fool to spoil things with the Boyfriend when he is so good to me. I wish I knew how to resolve this...

2008-04-16T21:55:00.000+08:00

I knew the inevitable would happen... it was only a matter of time before my mother learned of the Boyfriend. I just hated the way she barged into my room to pick a fight and it suddenly became about my "Christian Boyrfriend" which she repeated numerous times as if she had a bad taste in her mouth.

She told me to come to my senses, the way any good mother would.

I always knew she wouldn't approve of him. Even when I started dating him, I always had that at the back of my mind. And while I would have had to tell her eventually that I was thinking about spending my life with him, I wasn't quite ready to deal with it this soon.

It's probably time to bite the bullet.

2008-04-08T16:03:00.001+08:00

After months of being strong and tough and practically forgetting that the whole business with RS ever happened, I gave in to the fleeting feelings I've been having lately where I wonder just how he's doing.

So I sent him a message on facebook.

Yea, I know it wasn't the most tactful way of getting in touch with someone I've had a romantic history with in the past but I was too cowardly to pick up the phone and give him a call. I guess it really only hit me when I realised that what A said was true, he had indeed removed me from his list of friends as he no longer appeared on mine while I was scrolling through to invite friends to an event. On that impulse I clicked over to the mail section and sent him, in retrospect, a rather lame message.

I read over it a few times before hitting send and I knew he wouldn't respond. But still, I wanted to try.

It's no surprise that he has not replied. But that doesn't help the fact that I still feel somewhat rejected.

2008-03-30T14:54:00.003+08:00

Before I begin, I'd like to apologise for the MIA-ness of late. The last couple of weeks have been rather insane and I've struggled to keep my head above water. But in between the downs, there have been ups so I suppose it all really does balance out in the end.

First of all, I got into that car accident. Yes, it was some weeks ago now but it was a shock to me nonetheless. However, I got my baby back the other day and its as good as new.

Secondly, someone very important to me passed away, rather suddenly, in the night. Since then I've had to find my own way of dealing with the grief and the loss. The Boss was very understanding when I asked for some time off which, in retrospect, I desperately needed. I spent my day off meditating at the beach on a quiet afternoon, listening to the waves lap the shore as I thought about life, death, love and all that was in between. I have to admit it was the best thing I've done for myself in a long time and I returned to work the following day, refreshed and recharged, able to keep a straight face and talk fondly of the person who'd left us without breaking down at the very mention of their name.

Since then, work has been incredibly busy with impending trials. But I have managed to keep my weekends sacred and they've been marvelous. Last weekend I went paintballing with The Boyfriend, A2 and his girlfriend. Despite the fact that more than half of our original group did not show up, the four of us had an absolute blast! It was two on two, first guys against girls then couple vs. couple. We exhausted ourselves shooting each other and the bruises are proof of the fun we had.

I also had a girly night out with MG, first catching a hindi movie then hitting one of our favourite clubs. It was something that was long overdue for the both of us and I'd almost forgotten how much fun we used to have partying together :)

This weekend was just as fun though in a more relaxed way. The Boyfriend was down with a 38.5 degree fever this past week so time when I could get off work was spent with him. I spent Friday night at his house, watching movies on his couch and on Saturday he was well enough to get out of the house so we spent the day shopping together and buying each other stuff, ate a huge meal and caught a new movie in the cinema.

So yes, its been busy but I think things are settling down again and regaining their normalcy. Hopefully things will remain nice and quiet for some time yet.

2008-03-18T20:37:00.003+08:00

They always say that death trivialises things. I never knew that to be true until now.

2008-03-11T18:09:00.002+08:00

The Good: I got into a car accident on Friday and was lucky to walk away with a mild case of whiplash. There was no one else in my car and no one was seriously injured. I was hit from behind and thankfully, not only did the driver of the other car come forward immediately, he has been more than amicable and cooperative about sorting this out. On top of that, the Boyfriend has been in looking after me and driving me around. Even the Boss has been rather kind and told me to take a day or two off to rest.

The Bad: My little car was pretty badly banged up and had to be sent back to the shop.

The Ugly: The damage is in the region of $8000 (!!!!). There was a mountain of paperwork to be done before any repairs are even started. I won't see my car for at least 2 weeks.

2008-03-06T15:16:00.001+08:00

My Boss called me into his office just now, saying he wanted to have a chat. Being me, my mind jumped to the worst case scenario: I was in trouble for something I did wrong.

As it turns out, I was called in to chat about how I've found working at The Firm for the past few months. Aside from the endless hours and mountains of paperwork and the agonising stress of course. So I told him the truth: as much as I missed my social life and having enough sleep, I actually quite liked The Firm. My colleagues were good people to work with and coming in to work everyday wasn't a chore because it meant seeing the rest of the minion-types like myself who sit around me and I've come to regard as friends.

I think the Boss was suitably pleased with my answer. Which means I'm probably going to stick around for longer than I thought.

2008-03-04T08:46:00.003+08:00

At the team meeting yesterday, the Big Boss had this to say:

"To be a member of this team, there are 3 requirements: You must be able to drink, you must be able to sing karaoke and you must occassionally do a bit of work."

As the bottle of whiskey made its way around the boardroom of people, I wondered just what exactly on my CV had given me away.

2008-03-04T08:43:00.002+08:00

Let's be honest, the best thing about brithdays are the presents. I mean, what else is good about realising you're another year older and fatter and not necessarily wiser? And I must admit, this year's birthday present haul has taken the cake:

3 beautiful clutch purses, after I oh-so-casually mentioned I was on the look out for a nice clutch bag. Now I've got one in gold, one in red and one in black. Perfect!

1 CK hold-all bag.

1 iPod Classic from the Boyfriend. My jaw dropped at the sight of it.

1 giftbox set from Crabtree & Evelyn, smelling absolutely divine.

1 gift set of FCUK perfume. Yummy!

2 pairs of earrings, Accesorize and Diva.

2 necklaces, one from Swaroski, one from Diva.

1 pot of MAC cream eyeshadow.

1 jar of MAC nailpolish.

1 tube of Christian Dior Lipgloss.

A poem from my sister :)

Flowers!

Chocolates!!!

Drinks!!!!!

So yes, all in all, a most wonderful birthday with lots of loot :D

2008-02-28T23:12:00.002+08:00

Birth Day.

Things that have made me smile:

1) Having been booked a month in advance by the Boyfriend for a birthday dinner.

2) Finding out that the birthday dinner was actually a front for a rather elaborate secret surprise party orchestrated by A, A2, R and the Boyfriend a month in advance which apparently everyone was in on but I somehow managed to remain clueless.

3) A2 engaging me in a random conversation about cake which, at the time, I did not realise was actually a secret fact-finding mission to discover what kind of cake I'd like.

4) Singing at the top of our lungs, Part 1.

5) Campagne and chocolate cake.

6) Opening my email inbox to find 22 emails (from Facebook) from well-wishers across the globe.

7) Coming back from lunch to find a fan on my desk from the associates.

8) Chocolates from the boss.

9) Team drinks.

10) Flowers from my sister.

11) Birthday presents :D

12) Chinese dinner and more cake.

13) Having my grandparents here for my birthday.

14) Ferrero Rochers that proclaim every conceivable gift-giving occasion and a post-it flag pointing at 'Happy Birthday'.

15) Birthday Halwa.

16) Friends who are way too good to me.

17) My family.

18) Being 24 and having successfully survived the last 23 years.

2008-02-24T23:07:00.003+08:00

So I am sitting at my laptop, working away on that affidavit I'm supposed to get out by tomorrow when a little MSN window pops up declaring that RS is online. Don't ask why he's still on my MSN list, I'm honestly not sure and I certainly don't speak to him anymore.

But of its own accord, my mind suddenly remembers that tonight is the one year anniversary of our first "date". Ok, so it wasn't officially a date but it definitely was the start of the drama between us.

I remembered how we went to a really great Indian restaurant (which I sadly never went back to) and then had a drink or two before sitting down at the bay where we watched the lights flicker over the water for hours and hours as we talked about life and love and everything else in between. I remember how I got into trouble for coming so late and how I had glowed for days afterward.

I can't believe its already been a year since that night when I first felt myself falling for him. Things had started out so well and yet turned so ugly in a matter of months. We don't talk anymore but every so often, I still do wonder if he's OK.

Up until now, I had been thinking of bringing the Boyfriend there this Wednesday when he asked what I wanted to do for my birthday. I had wanted to bring him to that same place where RS and I spent hours sitting on the ledge. But I don't think I ever will. As much as I want to replace the bad memories I have of certain places with new good ones, this is one place that will always belong to RS.

2008-02-24T10:37:00.000+08:00

I had a rather rude awakening this morning. As it turns out, last night, I had parked my car on the kerb not realising it was in the path of someone's gate. I had planned to move it during the night but fell asleep and hence didn't do it.

This morning a fat, ugly chinese woman comes yelling at our gate, ringing the bell repeatedly, shouting the neighbourhood down. When I rushed downstairs, I apologised for what I had done, told her I'd move it immediately and that I'd only ever done it twice. She just shouted some more! Rather than just saying 'can you move it right now' and walking off where I would have quickly followed, she just screamed, 'you stupid! no brains! parking in front of my house! i can't get out, you want me to bang your car is it?' and shouts off down the road about how I have no brains.

So I take my time, get my flip flops and slowly stroll to where my car is.

Obviously, it pisses her off. "Can you walk faster?" she screams. "I'm late for work because of you!" I'm thinking, in that tight strappy top thats too small to cover your large belly and that ridiculous amount of make-up? What do you work as, a hooker??

I keep strolling. "I'm getting there," I say coolly. "There's no need for you to shout and be rude when I'm already on my way there."

"How dare you? You want me to bang your car is it? No brains! Young people like you...." I'd slammed my door in her face, blocking off her bleating.

Up until now I'd always admired the Silver BMW 6.45 that was in our neighbourhood, never knowing who it belonged to. Now the next time I get a chance, hope she doesn't get too shocked if she sees a nice long key scratch along her hood.

2008-02-21T18:59:00.003+08:00

The Boyfriend just called to tell me that he can't make it to my colleague's wedding next month. I know its not a big deal but I'm still slightly annoyed. I had asked him to be my date for it over a month ago and had been consistently reminding him of it so he knew we were going. But he just made plans to go to Phuket with a couple of his buddies and really, who wouldn't pick a weekend on the beach with the boys over going to his girlfriend's colleague's wedding and mingling with a bunch of people he doesn't even know.

I know I shouldn't be peeved. I know I should be understanding and supportive and encouraging.

But I'm still slightly annoyed.

Hence I've called in my replacement man :D Nothing like having my not-actually-gay gay best friend A coming with me instead.

Although then again... we all remember what happened the last time A stepped in on behalf of a dude I was seeing as my replacement friend at an event. The dude went ballistic and we didn't speak for a week. Let's hope the Boyfriend doesn't share these similar insecure tendancies. At least he actually likes A which, I suppose, is already a vast improvement from the last guy.

2008-02-20T11:20:00.002+08:00

While waiting for my caffiene to kick in (i'm soooooooooooooo sleepy! Curse you Burger King and your ridiculously affordable $1.95 breakfast deal that includes a croissant sandwich and a coffee!) I'm going to write a post for my blog.

I was a really good girl today (until the Burger King part) and woke up super early to drag my fat ass down to the gym after weeks and weeks of making excuses and being lazy. It felt so good to work up a sweat while on the treadmill, I can't believe I was letting myself miss out on this for so long. I long for those days when I was so disciplined and would wake up ridiculously early and trudge through snow and sleet just to go to the gym every 2-3 days for a run as my body would get restless from the inactivity. In those days I could run 5.5km comfortably and still have the stamina to go on. I like to think this morning's 4km wasn't half bad considering how long i've been inactive but I'd really like to get back into my fitness regime. I've put on weight lately and I hate it. I want to be able to eat what I like without feeling guilty and the only time I was able to do that was when I was exercising regularly.

Of course, eating Burger King directly afterwards probably negated the goodness of this morning somewhat, what I'm more concerned about now is getting that habit back. The losing weight part will take care of itself.

2008-02-19T13:31:00.004+08:00

I went to the prison this morning to interview our client. I was genuinely excited about going, probably from having watched one too many episodes of prison break. In truth, it was nothing like that. The prison was a huge imposing structure from the outside with its high cement wall and barbed wire, armed gaurds manning the entrance. But on the inside, it was very spacious and not much going on. We walked in and did the relevant security checks before we proceeded to another building where we were led to a small interview that was divided by a desk that stretched to meet the length of the room and a thick sheet of plexiglass separating us from our client.

He looked better this time than the last time we saw him. Slightly more cheery and suriving prison as best he could. Your heart goes out to him when you see him. You can tell he's a simple person, trying to keep his chin up and making the most of what he can. He was a just a guy who was at the wrong place at the wrong time and has somehow found himself in a bigger mess than he should have been.

His case has made the news recently and there are a lot of people talking about it, talking about the injustice he has had to suffer and sitting up to take a closer look at the criminal justice system in our country.

2008-02-17T11:28:00.002+08:00

Updates:

1. Yesterday I got a text message at 8.25 a.m. All smiley and glow-y, I reached over to check my phone, thinking it was a message from the Boyfriend confirming what time he'd be picking me up so that we could go shopping. Turns out, it was from the Boss, asking me to come in to work at 11.00 a.m. So unimpressed. Contemplated pretending like I had never received the message or that I'd only woken up around noon but then I felt bad. So I cancelled all plans to go shopping with the Boyfriend and that pedicure I'd been dying to get. Worked till about 7.00 p.m. only to discover later that the Boss had left around 5.00 p.m.!!!!!!!! Grr!

2. Received a random telephone call from The Dude (who shall henceforth be referred to as the Muppet). He Said he'd been thinking about me so he just thought to ring and say hello. Right. He then asked if I ever still thought about him and jokingly, I replied, sure, every once in a while, I think ____, that muppet, he was such an ass. Surprisingly the Muppet laughed, thinking I was just being teasing and candid when really, I do think he's an ass. Or at least he was to me way back when. Anyways, the conversation proceeded as usual, about whether I believed in fate and that we were fated to meet each other and how I felt about relationships and cheating. I've given up questioning what he's really trying to get at. If he's harbouring any secret hopes that there might ever be anything between us again, I hope he realises that that ship sailed a LONG time ago.

3. My mom's parents have arrived in Singapore and are going to be staying in my room. As such, I've been temporarily evicted and I'm currently taking up residence on the third floor, in the TV room. I think given my limited resources, the room is actually rather cozy after my little touches.

2008-02-16T00:53:00.000+08:00

The Boyfriend and I almost had our first fight today... to date, everything has been rather peachy and lovey-dovey. But over the last couple of days, the Boyfriend has been whining about certain ailments and yet refusing to see a doctor about it.

Frankly its frustrating me. I wish he would take it more seriously and at least get it checked out. He keeps saying he's fine and everything will be alright but then yesterday was half limping around and today he had a nose bleed twice... how is that fine?! Perhaps it really is nothing but I'd feel better if a professional checked him out and said so. And he's covered by medical insurance anyways, I just don't understand why he's putting it off.

On top of that, it doesn't help that I just generally can't stand people who have a problem which they complain about but are just not doing anything about it. Grr!

2008-02-15T09:57:00.002+08:00

She slipped out from the office that evening, earlier than usual. Luckily for her, the boss had an important meeting which took him away from the office, leaving the door unguarded for her quiet escape.

The train journey took mere minutes and she met him at the foot of the hill that led to his town club. They exchanged a brief hug, then holding her at an arm’s length, he looked at her appreciatively. “You look beautiful tonight.”

The Girl smiled, feeling pleased. “You look pretty good yourself.”

His hand wrapped easily around hers as he led her up the path to the club. A short walk later and they found themselves being seated at a cozy restaurant.

The buffet spread of food boasted cuisine from around the world and the Girl filled her plate with a little bit of everything, just so she could try it all.

“So,” the Girl started after they’d sat down, taking a small bite of her chicken and chewing slowly. “Aren’t you going to ask me how my day was?”

“Nah,” he joked, brushing the topic away.

The Girl felt a bit miffed, but hoped it didn’t show. Admittedly, her day at work hadn’t been all that interesting, aside from the usual news about her boss and her work, but she would have liked to have been asked how she was doing, especially while the boy had been yapping away about a new phone he was contemplating getting.

Midway through their first course, the waitress presented the Girl with a single red rose. She accepted it graciously but the surprise on her face was evident. She looked at the man seated across her, seeking an explanation. “It’s from you, isn’t it?”

A grin sparkled in his eyes but he feigned innocence.

“Tell me,” she begged, fingering the velvet petals. “I thought you didn’t believe in giving flowers.”

“Well,” he said, shrugging his shoulders, “I like to make exceptions when its for someone special. You deserve the best baby. Tonight I want to treat you like a princess.”

She fought to control the smile that was rapidly stretching itself across her lips. “Is that so, Mr. _?”

“It is indeed. Everything has been taken care of. I just want you to relax and enjoy yourself tonight."

And so she did as she was told. Dessert followed their sumptuous dinner and when they were both too full to move, the bill was paid and they slowly walked hand in hand to the cinema nearby, where they had tickets to catch a new movie that was out. They enjoyed themselves immensely as the movie turned out to be better than the reviews had made it out to be.

The boy had also secretly made reservations at Ben & Jerry’s so after the movie, they adjourned for some ice-cream (even though the Girl thought she would explode if she ate another bite) and they cuddled on the leather couch in the corner, listening to the live band crooning soft melodies of old love songs. At one point she looked up at him and wondered how she got so lucky to have met a man who she not only felt safe and protected with, but also incredibly comfortable. He always could make her laugh, even when she was trying her darnest to keep a straight serious face and gave her warm tingles in her belly when he kissed her. He caught her looking and when he prodded as to what she was thinking about, she shook her head.

“No one’s ever gone out of their way to do something like this for me on Valentine’s Day before,” the Girl admitted.

“You deserve it baby.”

When it was all over, they strolled back to where their cars were parked and he pulled her into a tight hug. Whispering into her ear, he said, “Now baby, I’ll ask you how your day was.”

She kissed him gently. “It was the best day ever.”

2008-02-14T09:54:00.002+08:00

Happy Valentine's Day World!!!!

Ok, so I'm not exactly delightfully cheerful this morning. I'm still half asleep and spent a good 40 mins of my morning drive stuck in 2 traffic jams. So not fun.

My office colleagues have been in a frenzy these last few days (seeing as everyone sitting around me is attached!) as people have tried to come up with innovative gift ideas for today. Phones were continually buzzing with dinner plans being made and flowers being ordered.

For some reason, its assumed that we are all supposed to have exciting after work plans and while everyone else is exchanging details of their romantic night ahead, I really have nothing much to share.

The Boyfriend and I are going to spend the evening doing what we love best when we’re together: hanging out in our own little world. We’ve never been the clichéd sort of couple, full of grand romantic gestures and extravagant presents. There certainly won’t be any gifts/chocolates/flowers, etc. Instead, we’re going to eat fish and chips and then go and see a movie.

Part of the perks of having a boyfriend who is also your best male friend :)

2008-02-13T11:57:00.000+08:00

Work has been manic lately and I've been working all day and going home only to crash for the last couple of days, I haven't even seen my sister or the rest of my family for that matter, despite living in the same house! I did get to see the Boyfriend yesterday though and that was quite nice. He picked up my car for me (a very thinly veiled excuse I might add. Claiming to want to pamper me and pick me up from work when really, I know he just wanted a go at driving my new car) and came to pick me up from work after adding his own touches to my car, including sorting out my lights and getting me a little car freshener :)

I ended up running into one of our client's last night when the Boyfriend and I went to get some food. The dude has been charged with molesting a woman and while we are defending him and believe he's innocent till proven guilty, I clung onto the Boyfriend just a wee bit tighter than I might have normally done. I can't help myself (though I try to make it as unobvious as I can). He has been shifty about coming clean with the whole truth and it makes you wonder just what exactly he might have done.

I woke up at 8.15 a.m. this morning, 45 minutes before I was supposed to be at court for the same molester client's pre-trial hearing. I was in and out of the shower by 8.20, a personal best I am proud to say. I poured the contents of my make-up drawer into my handbag and ran out of the door. Jumped into my shiny little red baby and pelted towards the highway, pausing at red traffic lights to swipe mascara over my eyelashes.

I never made it to court in the end. at 8.43 a.m., got a call from the boss and I confessed I was running late. Thankfully he didn't blow his top (I wasn't really needed in court anyways...) and told me to get to the office and get onto researching for our new druggy client.

Ah, the joys of being a legal apprentice.

2008-02-12T00:31:00.000+08:00

Today was one of those days at the Firm where there just wasn't any time to breathe. In a good way I suppose... I worked from 9.15 a.m. to 11.00 p.m. without even feeling it. And its looking to be like this for the next two days at least, seeing as there will 4 court appearances in the next 2 days.

:-O

On the upside, the best part of today was getting to drive home at the end of a long hard day at work. It beats taking the bus and walking up a hill in heels any day :D

2008-02-10T17:30:00.000+08:00

I've been thinking about the Boyfriend a lot lately. And not in the way you would expect an adoring girlfriend to be constantly thinking about her man. More specifically, I've been spending a lot of time with my family lately as my dad's little sister is in town and everytime we settle down to another meal or pass more cups of tea around, I try to imagine what it would be like to insert the Boyfriend into the picture. There would be my dad, his dad and his brother, all arguing about medicine (the price we have to pay to have a family full of doctors) or politics (both Pakistani and Singaporean) or religion (go figure) while the rest of us carry on our own polite conversations about what we've been up to since we last saw each other.

And lately, the more I've tried to think of it, the more I wonder whether or not he would fit in. I don't doubt that the family will eventually come to accept him as he is, but I wonder whether in the long run, he won't stop to resent my family gatherings where most conversations are not entirely in English and the topics discussed aren't easy to keep up with unless one really knows about them.

But then I think about Auntie A, the family friend who's always around at these family gatherings of ours. We've come to get used to her presence at these events, including her as one of the family even though she's not related to any of us either by blood or marriage. She's the Chinese lady who's been the nurse at my grandfather's clinic since before I was born. I've never been quite sure why she's still with us but I can't help but notice how she's always there, politely seated to the side, smiling even though she can't understand a word of that urdu joke someone just made.

Perhaps one day the Boyfriend will be seated politely next to her too. Or the family will just start telling jokes in English.

2008-02-10T01:31:00.000+08:00

My folks have the worst timing. Was going to sneak the Boyfriend up to my room as all my friends left after our game of poker when my parents returned home from their night out on the town. So we made small talk and he got into his car, as if he was just about to leave too when they arrived.

Drat! Foiled again by the parental units!

2008-02-08T13:54:00.000+08:00

Pet peeve No. 468: I hate it when people cancel on me last minute, especially when you're already dressed and almost out the door. You think they would have had the decency to let you know earlier that everyone else who you were supposed to have lunch with had already cancelled.

2008-02-07T16:05:00.000+08:00

My baby has arrived:

I just got her yesterday :) :) :) And, yea, she will cost me an arm and a leg but for a girl who values her freedom of movement as much as I do, it'll be worth it.

2008-02-07T14:30:00.000+08:00

Since my last post, which seems eons ago now, I've worked a month at The Firm, took five months out to sit for and pass the PLC and then gone back to The Firm where I've just completed almost 2 months. Like all jobs, there have been ups and there have been downs. About a month into working I was seriously questioning the choices I had made and considering changing jobs as soon as my pupillage was over. My boss is a moody man. He's quick to lose his temper and it got to a point where I wasn't sure if I was strong enough to deal with his tantrums. But I'm still standing and I have no intention of dropping out of the programme that I fought to get into.

In other news, the Boy I was involved with in June is no longer a part of my life. I haven't heard from him since late November and while I do think its sad that our once close friendship has ended so abruptly, I think perhaps things happened for the best. Since then, I was introduced to someone new by my cousin. The Referral Guy and I went on a series of dates and for the longest time I just wasn't sure about him. We got along tremedously but I think a part of me just wasn't over the other guy yet. The Referral Guy was incredibly patient and never pushed me and somewhere along the way, I noticed just how adorable he really was. As you can probably guess, The Referral Guy eventually became the Boyfriend and that was about 3 months ago now.

In short, things have been good and I have nothing to complain about :) The Girl is back and has much to write about after her overly long hiatus.

the first week

2007-06-11T19:35:00.000+08:00

i have been meaning to blog but simply just haven't had the time! the weekend went by FAAAAR too quickly and probably because i had to come in to work on saturday :( friday night was nice though, went out with the people from work for a drink at oosh and it was nice to just kick back after the week of work.

the first week has left me a little stressed out and feeling largely inadequate. it feels like everyone else is alot more on the ball than i am while i'm just flailing around, trying to keep up.

work aside, things are alright i guess. i feel bad for the boy, who had to deal with my ridiculous emotional break down. i think it was partly feulled by PMS but i had this crazy crying fit on saturday night following a 2 hour walk back to my house from his out of sheer stubborn-ness. he walked with me but didn't say a word and it scared the hell out of me that he wasn't talking. i felt so pathetic and worse still when i broke into tears. this wasn't me, i'm not a crier generally. and yet there i was, bawling my eyes out as if someone had died. he was lovely about it though, making me feel even more embarrassed that my weaknesses had to appear before him.

anyways, for now, i'm still at the office... looks like its gonna be a long day!

And so it begins...

2007-06-06T22:54:00.000+08:00

Hee, I've never had phone sex before last night. It was strangely enjoyable, to say the least. Am seeing the Boy after work today and I can't wait ;)

Work's poured in today and there is much to get done. I feel as if I know nothing whatsoever and like some hopeless idiot. Ack! And to think its only my third day... am starting to wonder just what I've gotten myself into...

Last Day of Being a Kid

2007-06-03T14:50:00.000+08:00

So tomorrow, I officially start work at my first grown up job. Its a weird feeling having reached this point. I worked hard to get to here but now that I am here, I wish I had a little more time to myself before I get thrown into the big bad world.

I know I'm probably making a bigger deal out of this than I should. If anything, I should consider myself lucky. I set my mind on being a lawyer and got into law school and managed to make it out the other side with a pretty respectible grade. Then I managed to get a job with the firm of my dreams when so many of my peers struggled to get a job in their fields. But here we are. Its the night before my first day.

I'm looking forward to it though, despite the nerves. Firstly, I've interned there before and so I guess I know what to expect. I've got a nice boss. Secondly, a couple of people from my class are there too so at least I'll know people there.

Anyways, I guess we'll see how it works out tomorrow. Wish me luck!

First Day of Work!!

2007-04-06T22:53:00.000+08:00

Today was my first day of work and I had a really really great day :)

For starters, as I was getting dressed in the morning, the Boy texted to wish me a great first day at work. I was so touched by the gesture, especially as he'd woken up early just to text and it certainly put a huge smile on my face for the rest of the day :D

My friend V had also been a star, calling me up the day before to fill me in on what I'd missed on Friday and met me at the train station so we could go in together. Once there, I was a bit blur at first, suddenly there was an information overload and I had much to catch up on. We were assigned our desks and mine's in the corner on the 17th floor. A bit of a bummer as my boss and the rest of my team are on the 19th but oh well. People have been applying to move around but frankly, I'm not planning to go anywhere. The dude I sit next to, A, is hilarious! We got along instantly and were talking non-stop, only to realise we'd missed our next meeting, lol. People thought we'd knwon each other for ages by how friendly we sounded but he's a geniunely nice person. The rest of the newbies have been a really nice bunch too. Everyone's really friendly, unlike the rumours I'd heard about people being fairly snooty in this firm.

Workwise, there wasn't anything to do on the first day. My boss was the same guy I'd interned for two years ago and it was nice that he and his secretary still remembered who I was so I was welcomed back. I was initially told that I had been assigned to someone else so it was a nice surprise. Anyways, the day was spent doing orientation activities like researching and then there was a court visit.

Afterwards, a bunch of us went out for coffee and it was nice to just get to know a few of the other people :)

All in all, it was a lovely start and I couldn't have asked for more. I had been nervous about not making any friends, especially after the disaster that was my Dip Sing year but thankfully it was all alright! Hopefully this will continue :D