My company has an associated office in Jakarta, and I sometimes have to work with them to draft legal documents (okay, well, really just checking for Indonesian grammar mistakes).

So I'm really glad that I have James around to help me translate stuff. Especially because Indon and English have quite a lot of words that sound alike, and over the phone I can't see spelling. Like sure, it's really spelt "eksekutif", but it sounds EXACTLY like "executive".

But even though I have James, I am still regularly amazed by some of the really WTF things that our Jakarta office does, which James calls "typical Indon". For instance, yesterday, the Jakarta's office email broke down, and instead of thinking "Hmm, maybe we should get that fixed," they all went home.

So when we called them, and asked to speak to the head lawyer (let's call her A), the convo went like this:

Singapore: "Hi, is A in?"
Jakarta: "No, not in."
Singapore: "Okay, then can we speak to B?"
Jakarta: "Also not in."
Singapore: "Okay, can we speak to C?"
Jakarta: "Also not in."
Singapore: "D??"
Jakarta: "Also not in."
...

So we went all the way down the list, and finally got so fed up: "Is there ANYBODY in?"

Apparently not, but they couldn't have told us that at the start -.- Kudos to their patience though. But sucks for us, because we had to email stuff on behalf of them, and do all their work as well.

Well, with my newly acquired Bahasa skills (and a lot of help from James), I hereby proclaim: saya mau tinggal di Jakarta kerena MEREKA TIDAK MELAKAKUN APAPUN DI SANA.

I am sitting around on a Sunday afternoon eating freshly baked buttermilk cranberry orange scones with clotted cream (ooh, I find that listing almost all the ingredients in a baked good makes it sound about a thousand times more atas- blueberry lavender milk egg sugar cake anyone?) and reading a review of Fifty Shades of Gray courtesy of Zhiyou.

Okay I guess it's more funny if you've read the book because you'll get all the inside jokes and the things that the reviewers are poking fun at, but it's pretty hilarious for me all the same. HERE, because good things should be shared :D

I shared it with Crystal when she was sulking about the Punggol East loss, and within 5 minutes we were both rolling around laughing and screaming choice lines from the book.

I know, we are 18-going-on-19 and legal adults and WORKING and we should totally be mature and all, but I think there is a bit of the P6 kid still inside us that enjoys playing the P- game and is unable to keep a stiff upper lip during Bio lessons involving human anatomy.

So this is how our conversation went for awhile:

"HAHA LADY B-" (censored for small kids, eheh)
"HAHA 'ABSOLUTE P- OF A BUILDING'" (I swear, an actual line from the review- DO YOU NOT WANT TO READ IT NOW? And also censored for small kids, eheh)
"'Rolling to her right side to long for Edward, then rolling to her left side to long for Edward...'"

Yknow, maybe it is precisely because we ARE working adults that we are especially immature- because we have to bottle up the P6 kid while at work and wrap her up in tight skirts and high heels. So she just bursts out with a venegance whenever given the opportunity to.

There is this site ( http://six.pen.io/ ) which- okay, I'm going to spoiler here, so if you want to try it just open a new tab and do it now before you continue- makes you do a lot of sums that add up to 6 and then asks you to think of a veggie, and apparently 98% of people think "carrot".

I thought spinach x.X

So a group of us on Facebook were having this discussion: how is carrot related to 6?

Shao Yang: My Freudianesque guess would be because it's phallic, haha.
Me: But then wouldn't, say, 1, be more phallic? How is 6 phallic at all??
Jia Rong: Maybe because carrot has 6 letters?
Shao Yang: Or maybe because if you're Freud, six six six six sex sex SEX CARROT PHALLUS

Yeah and then I looked at "carrot phallus" and read it as "carrot callus" and thought of plant cloning x.X Ever the conscientious Bio student.

I don't know if there's anyone who still reads my blog now, but guys, I got nothin'.

Like seriously. For the past 2 days I've been vegetating on the couch watching CSI or NCIS or whatever crime show is available because I can't get up the energy to do anything else. Or I drag myself to the bed and sleep for 4 hours.

So yeah. I really got nothing.

Except a bunch of fin aid forms which I don't really want to fill up sighpie. Maybe next weekend.

Also I have a question for male readers (if any): what does one get guys for V-day? A cheesy Hallmark card?? Gasoline????? A chainsaw??? Shopping for guys is so tough. So much pressure to think of manly gifts.

There should be a rule for humans: that they should only be allowed to suffer from 1 disease at any given time, so if you're sneezing away from flu you shouldn't be allowed to simultaneously get food poisoning or something like that.

Shouldn't have told my mum I was dating-- she keeps teasing me dammit.

I've started work at my law firm, which is a pretty small private practice so they have plenty of interns and not enough desks. However, since one of the interns (with a desk) called Evan is on MC, I've been using his desk for the past 2 days.

Over these days, I've learnt a little bit more about the guy whose table I'm occupying. He has a bottle of Colgate Plax Ice mouthwash, Nivea Cooling Volcanic Mud Facial Foam (Jie says that makes him "effeminate", but hello, it's "MUD"; totally manly. Effeminate would be Biore super whitening peach blossom and silk or something like that) and Cocoa Butter/Vanilla hand and body cream. Also, he has a gamer headset-- earphones and some small microphone attachment for him to yell at teammates I suppose.

Also, today, I opened a file on his desk, and about a thousand plastic bags from Barcook Bakery floated gently down to the ground. It was quite a surreal experience. My supervisors stood there staring at this spectacle for a little while, before helping to pick up all the plastic bags and putting them temporarily in the tray of the printer.

As you can see, we are somewhat short on space.

Can't understand why something I've wanted to say and have been preparing to say for the longest time is suddenly so hard to say now that I can say it.

As the previous post evidences, I spent a while trying to convince myself that NUS was The Place for me, but that turned out to be rather superfluous because...

I got a conditional acceptance to Oxford!!

I was shopping for dinner supplies at NTUC when my phone buzzed and I saw I had an email from the admissions director. I nearly had a heart attack, especially because Trinity's correspondence is very attachment based: all the email says is "Please see the attachments for word on your application," leaving you to scroll all the way down and wait for the document to load before finding out. Quite a harrowing experience, really.

So I found a small deserted corner of NTUC to wait it out, where I could cry if necessary without being noticed. And then I opened the email, and started crying anyway because I was so happy and surprised and just unbelievably thankful!!

I guess this is the Plan then; or perhaps just being less stressed about outcomes is just better in general.

So yeah. It's still a bit surreal. I can't believe I might be leaving my family and all my friends and loved ones that soon. There's still so much to be done arghhh. And there is the matter of securing funding.

Oh well, I don't have to decide just yet. But in the meantime, I am going to see as much of Singapore as I possibly can; walk around the place and take loads of photos like a stupid tourist haha.

Okay before results for everything start coming out one by one I must remind myself that 塞翁失马，焉知非福, and that there is a Plan for me! Maybe I will freeze to death in the chilly lands overseas, and I am meant to be a little flower in the greenhouse (sorry too lazy to change to Chinese type) and lead a very happy life here in Singapore with my family and friends.

The relatives will celebrate if I don't get in anywhere, because that means mum and I are staying here, and I suppose that means we are loved, yay.

And all my life I've been trying to define myself in opposition to other people: like so-and-so did this, therefore I must be better; but perhaps it is time for me to start defining myself in terms of myself for once. To just muddle along and bump around in the road of life and trust that there is a Plan ahead, and that I am following it to the letter. Maybe it's not the time for me just yet.

Yeah who knows maybe I'm supposed to stay in Singapore and marry early and become a BTTT (Bukit Timah Tai Tai). Totes fine. Plus higher chance of that happening if I stay in Singapore. Yes.

There is a Plan.

There is a Plan.

There is a Plan.

There is a Plan.

There is a Plan.

Okay we all know my opinion on best singer but LEA SALONGA IS REALLY GOOD!!!!!!!! Came across this while YouTube-ing Les Mis songs, and perhaps I am a -tad- biased because I like Eponine very much, but this is really good stuff.

I can't decide if I like musicals or movie adaptations of musicals better. I was pretty excited to see how they'd exploit the drama and action in the latter genre to work with musicals, and yes Les Mis did it well! I think the scene of Eponine singing in the rain was super poignant in the movie. But to be fair I've got to watch the musical someday PLEASE COME TO SINGAPORE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Also, Wiki concurs with me that Eponine is probably the most interesting character in the entire novel, and that it is a pity that her character is relatively unexplored, because she dies so early. Then again maybe it's in a modern age that we sympathize more with Eponine than Cosette. For instance, if Les Mis were a Korean drama, she would have gotten a guy good enough for her so yay, double happy ending.

Also Eponine is adorable as a kid.


This was one of the few photos I could find! Most photos are of young Cosette, even though I searched "young EPONINE" urgh Google. Super duper cute ahhh. Not fair why must all Les Mis kids be so cute.

Okay I just went to watch Les Miserables and I am going to rant like hell about Marius so if you haven't watched it and don't want to be spoilt you should probably quietly look away and GO WATCH IT, what are you doing, slowpoke??

I don't get why a whole lot of girls (and Jie) fangirl over Marius just because he's "the most handsome guy in the film"! To me, he is obviously the MOST USELESS GUY IN THE FILM. Possibly ever, but I'll have to do an empirical study and get back to you on that. The most miserable thing about Les Mis isn't that everyone dies (oops spoiler) but that Cosette actually MARRIES MARIUS.

Who, incidentally, let a girl take a bullet for him.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Alright I know I'm supposed to be feminist and want equal rights for everyone, so girls can take bullets for guys and vice versa, but dude, it's 19th century France. Was chivalry dead even then? And when Eponine lay dying in the streets after, yknow, taking a bullet for the guy who'd friendzoned her without realising and asked her to find the girl he'd fallen in love with, instead of perhaps RUSHING HER TO A DOCTOR he sits around and sings to her.

Okay at the risk of sounding dumb I didn't expect there to be so much singing! It's good, I like listening to people sing, and they sang really well (The chorale guy Jie says "It was okay." which translates into "AWESOME OMG" for plebeians like us), but we both thought it was going to be like a musical, which has bits of dialogue interspersed with bits of conversation. But in Les Mis they sang everything. Even while dying. Or when walking on railings many many metres above ground. I asked Jie if it's normal to be able to concentrate on walking and singing at the same time, because I am mediocre at both even alone, and he just shrugged and said "Talent."

And if Marius is bad with girls, at least be a loyal friend to your guys! All the other leaders of the revolution died-- he got away with a broken arm. Granted, Cosette's father took him away because he knew that his daughter would be pretty pissed if her boyfriend died, but excuse me injustice??? And he didn't even help in his own escape; got dragged through the sewers by an old man (we were trying to add up the years that had passed in the movie and hence the age of Valjean; every now and then the scene would cut to "X years later".) through loads of what looked like shit.

He sucks with Cosette's family too; Valjean told him the story of his being an ex-convict (if I may interject here: this is so mean, Valjean!! Your own daughter- adoptive, but still- has been bugging you about this for ages and you refuse to tell her, but readily tell her husband, whom you've known for like, a day?) and nobly goes "I must leave. Don't let her find out." and Marius is basically like "lol ok". Also, when he inexplicably dies in his sleep during their wedding night, Cosette is bawling because her dad's dead and the best Marius has to offer to comfort his new bride is "Hey, we're in love!"

Damn it, man, get your act together or return your man card!

To show how un-enamoured I was with Marius: I cried during almost all the songs EXCEPT Marius'. Maybe he's not a great singer idk you can't ask me for my opinion on singers because I am damn biased and you all already know who I will say is the best singer ever hehe. Les Mis was a giant tearfest and I soon gave up trying to subtly clean my tears away and just pawed away at my eyes. When Gavroche was shot dead while collecting ammunition from dead soldiers (ahem, Marius) I was already sobbing quietly to myself. When Javert placed his war medal on Gavroche's tiny body I felt like bawling T_T. Okay considering I've already warned about spoilers, I doubt people who actually need this advice will see this, but Les Mis is probably not a film you should watch if you are in a very fragile emotional state, like having your period or something.

Oh dear I realised that this is a really long and ranty post and I've gotten most of what I wanted to say out of my system, hooray! So okay yay I am going to hop off now and be happy :) And my hands have finally warmed up from the freezing cinema hehe.

There is nothing like having an accountant mum to sweeten the process of applying for US financial aid, except maybe having an accountant mum who knows US TAX. Otherwise I would be crying and ripping up paper because WHAT IS A W-2 FORM? Is it like a war plane???

Answer: It's actually the US version of IR8A, which I think is some tax form and I'm not very sure myself either, but mum knows. And that's all that matters because she's helping me fill in the terrible 18 page CSS worksheet, as well as all my Fin Aid forms.

If I haven't said how much I love my mother before, this is the time for it: I LOVE MY MOTHER. I LOVE MY ACCOUNTANT MOTHER. I LOVE MY ACCOUNTANT MOTHER WHO KNOWS US TAX BECAUSE I DON'T.

So for the past 3 hours or so, we've been marathoning financial aid applications, armed with her cute yellow calculator and my honking huge GC, a packet of corn chips and melon tea from Guangzhou, and every single bill-- utilities, telephone, credit card, you name it-- from the past 2 years. If the US people ask for supporting documents, I will ship every single one of those bills to them in a box. It's as thick as Campbell.

Oh goodness, if I didn't have her around to keep all the bills and stuff, what would I do??? I think I'd just have thrown them away and then thrown a tantrum now. I am so not ready for adulthood, man.

GET YOUR ACT TOGETHER, DAMMIT. Seriously.