s(leaze) factor

straits times did a feature on this new channel 5 show called s factor. basically it is a search for a good looking girl, apparently with brains too, that guys want. top prize is a cover shot on fhm.

this show is honestly addictive. the amount of bitching that goes on in the show is really entertaining. it's like, once girls are told they are in a competition, the amount of bad-mouthing is unbelievable! but seriously what makes the show entertaining are the girls themselves.

first off, with all due respect to them and editing, they appear not so smart. i cringed when they were playing dog & bone, and the host shouted "24-22!" AND NO ONE MOVED. they took so long to figure out the answer.

but seriously, i nearly died when one of the girls used a funnel the wrong way round. actually let me rewind. they labelled the bottles using their scientific names. and provided a periodic table. piece of cake you'd have thought. but none of the 8 girls got to the elusive NaCO3 right at the first time. i thought it was bad enough, then said girl filled the bottle using a funnel the wrong way round. SERIOUSLY. how she got any powder in just defeats me.

then they got the girls to debate. ok. i have to write a complaint to channel 5. in one episode, they tarnished my top 2 favourite things in school - chemistry, and debates. the topic was, "what is more important - intelligence or attractiveness" or something like that. AND THEY GOT EX NATIONAL DEBATERS TO JUDGE. cue sigh. you can imagine how catty it turned out.

yet i can't wait for episode 4. i think deep inside i like to think that the age old adage is being confirmed. (ooohhhh bitchy!!!)

reaquaintance

i have been through a lot these past few days. very exhausted. like now, when i am looking through sleep-deprived puffy eyes.

and i feel like blogging, to talk things out. but it is hard and painful.

and i know escapism is harmful, but i just want to blot it all out. never knew i could think of drinking with as much desire as i do now. alas have work so can't actually drink.

even work is hard. reading the same paragraph over and over and over again. i shouldn't whine. i have the solution ready, i just am unwilling to implement it. it is called ignore. oh fine art.

i want to sleep well every night again, and i don't want to have to be forced to go through this because of another's stupidity. i feel it unfair. what to do, blame my taste and choice again i guess. my lack of foresight and my complacency.

i wish i didn't know, but this is really just words of anger and frustration. i know deep down i would hate it even more if i didn't know. i need time, i need space, and most of all, i need to actually be able to make a choice. how hard can that be?

update update

finally have the time to update after finishing some work. the brain refuses to stop working see, even though the eyes are incredibly tired.

people often ask me, so how's work so far? to be fair and honest, i think it is going on well thus far, and it is challenging, as with all jobs, but there are many pluses. for instance, it is a really good time to be working for the government now! no but seriously, the job scope is sufficiently challenging, and while there are peaks where we work late, it is not something that one forms into a chronic habit, so there is still quite good work-life balance. there is good exposure. and i think i have no basis of comparison, and being the optimistic person that i am i still think this is "good". yup so that summarises my answer to the burning question that people ask.

how's my life now? um, view above. haha, my life's degenerated into work & taekwondo and phone calls. oh and i shouldn't forget running. (i am very upset about my half marathon timing, but it's ok. this just means i have to run faster and stronger for the adidas sundown marathon). i am so glad to be doing taekwondo again since this really is my first sporting love, more than running. it really trains your mind, flexibility and endurance. and the learning never ends. i look at my sir and wonder if i will ever attain his level of proficiency in tkd. (at 50+, he can still do a split. i find that mighty impressive.)

but my life should get better! it's december after all, so many people are on leave and work slows down a little. plus plus plus, the boy is coming back tomorrow (about 12 hours in fact) so i am very pleased. so my quality of life will improve greatly. hurhur. not trying to be romantic as my colleagues reminded me i should get a gift for him to show my appreciation. however knowing his interests, i might go bankrupt first before i get what he REALLY wants (a ferrari, btw) to me, between a toy version, a fake version, and some exquisite egg tarts from red star, the choice is very clear.

ok i am rattling on and on now, time for bed. boss is still checking emails! argh.

shopping therapy

after attending my colleague's solemnisation ceremony at marriott, i decided to treat myself to orchard. i haven't spent much time on orchard shopping. and i realised why.

in the span of say, an hour and a half, i bought four tops, one skirt and one dress. so i thought i had better flee orchard before i spent more of my hard-earned money (i can say that without feeling guilty now.) and came home to bad news, that my pay will probably be cut. ah well. let's hope the cut will not be too severe.

work has been hectic, as usual. the boss thinks i am very stretchable, so i guess this means more late nights in future. not an issue i think, at least for the next two years. it's always a little queer, when something improves, some other part of your life is probably going haywire. i feel that now, quite strongly so.

but in the end, i am still better than my ancestors. my destiny remains in my hands, who i am in future, what i do, etc remain more or less within my control. sorry if this is all very cryptic, but i think i shouldn't always dwell on the past - the past is not the future. i have just finished reading dreams of my father, and boy can he write (it's a really long book.) but there's still contradiction, in the sense that you can never really run away from your past. so, we remain in this recursive cycle of forgiving, forgetting, and then drudging up the past. a very tiring cycle.

i need some sort of escape, and so clothes shopping is indeed very therapeutic. i think i will go for a nice long run tomorrow, nothing like the sweet scent of morning to clear my mind and put me in a better mood. perhaps followed by taekwondo. let me tire myself out for a while, do mindless things, so i sleep well at night.

paris marathon here i come!

Everytime I do a long run - that is, a half marathon, I tell myself I will never, ever join a marathon. In fact, I recall telling Diane a few years back that she should stop me if I should ever decide to participate in a marathon.

So, how have I found myself in a situation where I have registered for a marathon, one in Paris no less? I blame it on the boyfriend. His ambitions have become mine, and so I will hopefully be able to run my maiden marathon in Paris, jet lag and all. To be honest I can't complain. It's a stunning place, I start at Champs-Elysées, and hopefully end in one piece down Avenue Foch. The route looks intimidating though, transversing the length of Paris. I set myself a semi-ambitious target to finish within 4 hours, and I sincerely hope I can. For one thing, I will have to start setting aside more time for running. Already I am burning quite a lot of my weekends, and now I think I will have precious little time for sleep. But again I shouldn't complain. Let me finish the race first, then complain about the effort.

Work wise, things have been hectic. Thus far, I think I may be considered to be hardworking, but hard work alone isn't enough to get a job done well. So that is my next step. I had a rather interesting interview writeup, and I think I come across as effusive if slightly dumb. Well, another thing to add onto the lengthy to-do list. Buy a thesaurus.

first update in two months

i have been putting off updating for a while - as most of you will know, i am officially a tax payer i.e. not a parasite to society. and i reasoned, since i have to spend more than 8 hours a day online, i don't particularly want to go online. (having said that i just spent $300 on forever 21 - sheepish look- the irony was that this was triggered because of a straits times article on saving money.)

so how's work, most people will ask. i normally start off by saying it's fine (just like how a lot of things are fine - not bad, not particularly good either) but then qualify it by saying that it is very different from studying. it is, for one, there is no longer the luxury of long vacations, which also means getting up at 7am every weekday for perhaps the rest of my life. but actually, the more i work, the more i get used to it, and perhaps gratefully the more i appreciate what i am doing. not only do i have the fortune of having a job during this trying time, i also have a job that gives me a lot of exposure, and something that i feel i can genuinely get satisfaction for. as cliched as this sounds, it does matter to me that i am working for something more than myself or the company - in my case, perhaps what i am doing will hopefully benefit singapore in some little way.

it is tiring though, getting up to go to work at about 7am, and only coming home at about 8-9pm (and i count myself lucky). of course some of it is self inflicted, when i get up early to go to the gym, or spend my weekends taekwondo-ing - and i should start my half marathon training in a while. that does add to the tiredness, but also i think i am becoming more lazy. after a whole day of staying focused, my mind wants to wander and do something that doesn't need much brain power, so i read a lot of magazines, or watch tv to relax.

and truly, i understand why they say, "thank god it is friday". lest i make work sound horrible, it truly is not, but requires adjustment. just as there are downs there are also ups (and now i like to say, it's not the fact that counts, but how you perceive it, as well as craft a story out of it). financial independence is great, finally being able to return to my parents instead of bleeding them dry, but it also means that i spend more freely.

oh dear i need to go tkd time! will continue later.

a light hearted post for a change?

spent the past 2 weeks clearing up the house. did the bulk of the painting in my (and now, my brother's and my) room, and it is now a cheery blue. gosh i never knew that painting could be such back breaking hard work. i am just glad the bulk of it is over - i now have nice new furniture, and even have nice new bedsheets to go along with the entire room. i've been forced to be very homey because of this - i think i have vacuumed the floor more times than i have left the house (and that's saying something), and i am ironing in my spare time. happy days, i know.

ooh have to share this before i forget. i love to procrastinate, yes. anyway the next time someone complains about that i have a witty comeback! after all, procrastination is the best labour saving device! (hahahah - i really like this one. so witty.)

wisdom tooth operation was a lot less painful and troublesome than i thought it would be - by the end of day 3 i was happily munching on an apple. would have ran if i could, but the bf objected very much. ah well. teaches me that there's nothing to fear, really, but fear itself! (cliche but true!)

ahhh and speaking of the bf today he told me that i should delete my blog because apparently, at edb, hr officers surf and find blogs prior to employment or awarding of scholarships. well i think that's fair game, after all it's probably a good place where one tends to be more frank and honest. in any case, i am not taking his advice and will continue blogging. after all, freedom of speech and all that - and you surely can't deny me that, especially since i hardly talk about singaporean politics, right! (better check to see if that is a constitutionally enshrined right. i suggest not, actually) anyway on the subject of singaporean politics, abiel and i were having yet another one of those heated arguments about it, sparked off by a recent ST article titled "why they hate singapore". abiel agrees with much of the sentiment expressed in the article, i beg to differ, but i think for different reasons. i shan't digress, but the point of me sharing this is because in the end, abiel's dad said something which i thought made a lot of sense. he said that he looks at the policies proposed, the plans and the direction that the contending parties vision for singapore, and look at which plans have/will hurt or benefit him. he then decides whether an opposition voice is necessary.

now that made a lot of sense to me. abiel says i am very radical, and perhaps i am. it gave me pause to think that a system with adequate checks and balances, and an adequate feedback mechanism might actually not require a strong or vocal opposition to represent the people. it certainly made me silent at that time as i pondered the wisdom, or rather my assumptions. i have always assumed that an opposition was necessary, end of story, but in the end i realise i do oppose the government just for the sake of it, and then other reasons come into play. i don't think that's a bad way to function, but it does mean that in arguments i may be more emotional, and in any case i had better bolster up my case in future instead of relying solely on appeal.

supposed to be a light hearted entry. shucks. met my realllllllyyy keeeewwt nephew over the weekend, he's such a darling! he was really sleepy when he came, so he just looked at everyone with watery big eyes and a dazed expression. shooo kewt, can't stand (literally!) hehe. will post photos once i get to.

oh, work starts next week, please sms if any of you will like to meet up before then!