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.