Mr Tham posted yesterday on FB: "I hope I don't let myself down. Two more days..."

On one hand it's really sweet to see a teacher panicking over As results as much as us, but on the other hand...

IT'S REALLY SCARY OH MY GOD DOES THIS MEAN WE ALL SUCKED MAJORLY AT CHEM NOOOO ARGHHHH WHYYYY

But ok I told him not to worry and that he's done a very good job, and that he should chill, so YUP. Cannot be hypocritical. Will endeavor to chill. Chilllllll.

I was so scared of not being able to sleep tonight that I refused to drink tea this morning, and have been stumbling around mildly zombified the whole day.

Today I hosted a meeting all by myself, and brought the clients to get their documents notarized all by myself!!!!

Knowing that I had a meeting, I specially dressed up in my best climbing-the-corporate-ladder suit, complete with 4-inch heels. Nah jkz I swopped them for my fuzzy pink caterpillar slippers as soon as I got to office; no office suit is complete without startlingly out of place slippers.

Anyway it was great fun! I pasted all the stamps on the documents beforehand (in Indonesia, you need some blue stamps to sign documents or something) and sorted them painstakingly into a few piles according to which ones needed to be notarized, and which ones didn't. The boss said to ask the legal executive if I needed anything, but I had handled the case from the very start so why would I need anyone to explain my baby to me right :,)

And then after the signing at our office, we had to head to the notary. They decided to walk, and I had to stay back to pack up and then meet them there. My boss told me to bring along some document they'd sent us earlier, but I was rushing so I decided to just dump all the correspondence files into those rolling briefcases that lawyers all tote around, and grab a cab.

To cut a long story short: it's all fun and games until you meet a staircase. Then you realise that files aren't exactly light (well, which is why you put them into a rolling briefcase in the first place), and NEITHER IS THE BAG. Horror is walking down a staircase in 4-inch heels with a huge briefcase in one hand, and a giant tote bag swinging from your elbow.

Anyway the notary was really nice! He was a little old man (on the phone he sounded like max 30-40ish actually!) and he was really sweet about our having cancelled and re-made the appointments at the last minute all the time. And he gave me his card, and asked me for my card! Okay I don't HAVE a card, but yeah it's cool to be asked.

And and and after I collected the notarial certs (super pretty!!! They have ribbons and seals) I was going to take a taxi back, and some other lawyer rolling a briefcase like mine looked at me, and my briefcase, and was like, "Hey, are you going to the High Court too?"

I LOOKED LIKE I WAS GOING TO THE HIGH COURT!!!!!!

A much better compliment that my dad's "eh today you air stewardess ah?"

The taxi guy even helped me with my briefcase and put it into the trunk for me. And then he took it out after. I love limo taxis omg I got in and soft classical music was playing. I KID YOU NOT. It was 92.4FM I think. Although the taxi ride back was much lamer. At 2pm there's hardly any traffic, so we didn't get stopped at traffic lights. And from UOB to the notary, we had to make a huge loop cos all traffic is one way only in the CBD. But the other way back was a straight road. Even the taxi driver judged me; he was all "Um, UOB Plaza, as in, down the road??"

But yay. I really love this case a lot; I've developed feelings for it because I've been with it since the start. I requested that my boss keep me on this case all the way to its end, and she said sure, so yay :D

Ohgawd I have actually done this before I am a terrible person ):

ON THE BRIGHT SIDE my boyfriend is smarter than the sad sods standing outside because when I was finally done I saw him reading about helicopters on his iPhone and amusing himself hah.

And a note of fairness: Bershka is pretty damn awesome I wish I were rich enough to buy everything there ):

The ONLY 2 hours in the whole week that I don't have my handphone at my side just happens to coincide with what seems like the only 20 minutes of admin time Jie's platoon gets in the whole week.

I wondered if I should bring my bag to piano, and then decided, nah, all I have is a couple of scores and a notebook. And since I didn't bring my bag to piano, I didn't bring my phone either.

Less than 20 minutes after I stepped out of my house Jie texted: "Hi! I finally got some admin time!"

And that's where the story ends because it looks like he won't get any more admin time until book out day nooooooooooooooo

Again the whole BOOK OUT YAY/A LEVELS NOOOO conflict again.

Anyway I have decided that the night before A level results day, I will go to the gym and run like a hundred km on the treadmill. Until I am so dead tired that I just have enough energy to drag myself up back home, under the shower, and into bed. And then I won't wake up until like 11:59AM the next day and I won't have enough time to worry about results because I'll be running hell for leather for a taxi and panicking about getting white slipped for being late. Mmhmm. Sounds like a plan.

I haven't felt like touching Moonlight in a very long time- this is odd because there was a period of time in the middle of last  year where I really loved it and would play it every day. I even wrote about it in my KI essay. It is said that Moonlight got its name because it reminded one of Beethoven's contemporaries about the moonlight glinting off Lake Lucerne.

I can relate to that. It used to remind me of the full moon in Singapore River. I think I loved it then because I had a story for it, and because I loved the story, I loved the song. Of course I mentioned it when Jie asked me what sort of music I liked- besides, I'm not musical enough to quote particular composers or eras.

The other day, he made good on his word and played it for me; in the span of about 3 weeks he'd learnt the song better than I had in about 2 years. I didn't even know my piano had such a wide dynamic range. Or that it could produce such nice music.

Perhaps it's merely a coincidence, but since then I haven't wanted to play Moonlight ever again. Partly because I know I'll never be able to match up to Jie in that aspect, and partly because now I no longer need to play it for myself when he's around.

It's a bit heart-wrenching though, to suddenly be so distant from a piece that used to be my favourite once. I suppose there will be others to work on. The fuguto section in Bach's Toccata is killing me, and Jie doesn't like Bach enough to take on that piece, I think. He is much more a Romantic/20th Century person, and even when he plays Bach it sounds more like Mozart.

I sometimes wonder, is it worth all the work to carve out a unique identity for oneself? Suddenly, all I want to do is to lead a very average life.

Arghhh I've been having nightmares about results, like I dreamt I failed Chem and Econs and KI and like they didn't even bother giving me my marks for H3 papers.

And I am really conflicted because I really want next week to pass fast because 1. Boss going overseas = peace at office and 2. 1st book out day!!!!!! but ya A levels so like AGHHH.

Okay I don't know what is more amazing about this picture:

1. That this little girl is pulling a compound bow (which is, like, REALLY HARD TO PULL)
2. That she is firing an arrow in what looks like a house
3. THE ARROW IS ATTACHED TO HER TOOTH AND OH MY GOD ARE THERE NO DENTISTS IN AMERICA OR SOMETHING

Okay so yesterday the boss called me and was like, "are you good at Math?"

I was like, okay lah, and so she sent me this contract and told me to make sense of some epic payment plan and draw it out using hypothetical figures. No algebra, she said.

Well, she shouldn't have asked me if I was good at Math- anyone with rudimentary addition skills (alternatively, a calculator) would be able to do it. The question should have been: "are you good at plowing through bullshit?"

Even the comments in the contract said something like, "Oh, this is simply to obscure the whole mechanism," and I had to read it like 50000 times before I actually started to make head or tail of what was happening.

Yup. So that's life in a law firm. Where the hardest part of a Math problem is actually the English.

I now understand why my mum said so few people actually do a Law/Accounts double degree. People with an Accounting degree will know how to work the numbers, and people with a Law degree will know how to obfuscate the contract. So they could basically just sit around and suck money. They should totally make people who do such a double degree swear on oath to only use their powers for good.

So the day I've been dreading has come and gone without incident; a false alarm actually. It's not a good thing- it only means that worry has been confined to a dull hum in the background of Life for the time being. It will recur soon, and I will be as helpless as I am now. It's not okay, but what is there to do? I'm just trying to be a better person to those whom I owe it to be.

--

Anyway it sometimes really annoys me how some people have a tendency to dismiss all young people as value-less and disloyal to the country. Just because we didn't grow up during Independence doesn't mean we love the country any less. I can't say I feel as keenly the love for the founding fathers that my parents or grandparents do, but I tell you, I do feel it.

Not every young person wants to get out of the country as soon as they can. I want to come back and get married and grow old here. Not every young person doesn't want to have kids (and even for those who don't, I can't think of anyone who doesn't out of pure spite for the government). I want to have 3 kids and pack lunches for them to school. Not every young person votes Opposition because they are feeling rebellious, or whatever simple overgeneralised feeling applies to youth nowadays

I don't pretend to be representative of every single youth in Singapore, but I hope that the startling lack of faith in us that some Singaporean adults tend to show is misplaced. It is as much our country as it is yours; our playmates and our boyfriends and your sons are defending it right now.

HORROR OF HORRORS I was rubbing my wrist today and a little bit of skin flaked off.

I panicked because I thought my skin was drying out, and my hands have never ever been dry before.

But all is okay now because I found a scratch on my wrist which I didn't realise I had gotten, explaining the flaky skin.

All the same, I should probably start using lotion more regularly, because everyone in my office seems to be compulsively rubbing on hand cream and I think there must be some sort of reason for that.

Yes, these are the deep philosophical musings that run through my head thanks to work.

Watching all these couples celebrating Vday on Total Defence Day to escape the crowd makes me feel proud/sad/I don't really know because my boyfriend is actually participating in Total Defence on a little island a ways from the mainland and (according to twitter) getting shouted at T_T

And it's been raining on/off/a little bit/loads since he's enlisted and it makes me want to cry because are they making him run in the rain? T_T what up man I've been praying for good weather why is no one listening to me?! It's not even for myself please don't I get some good karma points for that? Can't I use that for redemption of some good weather or something? :(

I went on an impromptu jaunt to Tekong today!

Jie enlisted, and I had to go see him off, except I thought I was just going to go wave tearfully at him as the shuttle bus pulled away from Pasir Ris interchange. When I got there, he was like, "WHY ARE YOU WEARING SHORTS? IT'S A FORMAL CEREMONY!!!" and I realised that I could actually go to Tekong to watch the 4 hour long ceremony!

Having never been to Tekong, I was super excited about it. Bounced around like a kid on holiday up the shuttle bus and up the ferry and I talked so much I think I was probably more nervous/excited/EMOTIONAL IN GENERAL than the enlistee himself. He didn't have his coffee this morning so he was doing that thing where he stares into thin air and doesn't realise you're there.

(This part onwards contains Tekong spoilers so if you're like Yuhui who screeched "NO SPOILERS GO AWAY" when I tried to talk to him today, GO AWAY)

Arriving at Tekong was like going on holiday to Batam haha, except without the passport checks. We had to scan our IC when we went in though, leading to a small moment of panic where Jie was stuck at the counter and his mum wondered if he remembered to bring his IC. Actually he was just tucking in his shirt. FIRST SIGN OF MILITARISATION I AM SO PROUD OF HIM :,)

(Okay across the day I just get prouder and more emotional at stupid small things even though I'm not even the one enlisting, so you are hereby forewarned. I think I will really be a terrible mother- if I ever have a son and he enlists and I have to go through this ceremony thing again I will bawl until I faint or something)

We were greeted by this LED signboard at Tekong that reminded us to not take photos, and start each day with a positive attitude. I heard faint snorts from all the boys around me. Further on there was a picture of a guy in uniform hugging a sad looking girl with a caption that read: "Think not of what you're leaving behind, but what you're going to gain". Super positive attitude hahaha I was quite amused.

Then the guys went off for some briefing, and the visitors got to tour Tekong! Or at least the nicer parts of it, like the obstacle course, and some very neat looking bunks which Jie's mum thinks were showrooms for the express purposes of impressing parents. More militarization: stuff like a fork, a spoon, a toothbrush, soap etc were laid out neatly on the shelf of each locker- the sergeant said that the guys had to keep it like that so they could "easily check if anything was missing, and then, um... do something about it." HO HO euphemisms!

There is also a very nice annex room for each company, with even a snooker table for the one we visited! Sadly it seems that most recruits in BMT won't actually have time to use it. The sergeant paiseh-ly admitted that he hadn't even realised it existed until he passed out (like the parade, not under the hot sun)

And they also showed us all the stuff they'd be giving recruits! All the stuff is really green... and it's an ugly shade of green also but it's still pretty cool to get free stuff. Ahem cheapo Singaporean. But what's really cool is that most of the stuff is custom-made (or so they assure us visitors) according to each recruit's measurements. For example their shoes have a high arch or a low arch, depending on what kind of foot each recruit has! And there are like 3 types of waterbottles, can you believe that??? If I were enlisting I would get SO CONFUSED. They showed us a guy in full uniform with camo and everything, and told us we could go take photos/ask questions after the briefing.

So I went up and said: "How long does it take for you to put on everything including makeup?"

After everyone stopped laughing at me, I got my answer: 3 MINUTES. 3 DAMN MINUTES. That's about how long I take to curl my eyelashes or something... :( No wonder guys always get pissed off at girls for taking super long to prepare. NS ruins them.

And then because the auditorium was full with parents from the previous batch, we had to sit around in the officers' canteen for about half an hour (in army talk: "10-15 minutes"). Jie's parents are fun to talk to! His mum laughs a lot and yeah obviously we gossiped about Jie so that wasn't as bad as I was worried it would be.

When we walked into the auditorium, we saw rows and rows of guys, some with shaved heads, sitting with their fists on their knees and chin upwards in a very typically military pose. At first I thought they were sergeants, but it turns out THEY WERE RECRUITS!!!! They were diam-ed and so they couldn't move, but the first time I was diam-ed I was a terrible cadet and kept wriggling about. THESE GUYS DIDN'T EVEN MOVE A HAIR EVEN WHEN THEIR PARENTS WAVED EXCITEDLY. SECOND SIGN OF MILITARIZATION I WAS SO PROUD!!! :,)

I was looking at the guys, and suddenly they weren't the same guys who we played with throughout our lives- they were SOLDIERS. It was just quite a fantastic sight to see them all sitting there, chin upwards, and thinking to myself, oh my god, it's just been an hour and this is what they have accomplished. I can't think what they will do in 2 weeks. Or 2 months. Or 2 years.

And so, after lunch (which was not the famed chicken drumstick + cabbage + rice but some processed food medley that was really dry and sad), when the boys were walking towards the parade square to assemble and we had to say goodbye, I ended up hiding behind a tree and pawing furiously at my eyes even though I told Yuhui I wouldn't be a crybaby. Somehow the guys all managed to stand in straight rows with their bags beside them like real soldiers already, and this is the THIRD SIGN OF MILITARIZATION!!! SO PROUD SO PROUD SO PROUD :,) His parents saw me crying and they somehow found it very amusing, and assured me that I'd see him again in 2 weeks and he'd look about the same- except probably browner and thinner and without hair.

And then it was back to the mainland, and his very nice parents treated me to tea! Because lunch was so sad. I really hope the food is better for the recruits- I thought they would put out their best food for the parents. But according to Jie they had the chicken drumsticks that night, so I guess I'm a little less worried.

Sigh so here goes 2 weeks! :)

Yes so the first day of new year has concluded, and since I'm in the awkward transitional state between JC and uni, no one can wish me "xue ye jin bu". Instead, they're all resorting to hoping that I "get together with someone soon".

This year, my mum couldn't find the nice vegetarian flour balls we add to the traditional vegetarian dish for the first day of CNY, and instead made me fry tau kwa to make up for its absence. Because the tau kwa was crispy, we put it in a smaller dish shaped like a fish so that it wouldn't soak up all the sauce from our normal cabbage stir-fry and get soggy. The cabbage stir-fry we put in a larger fish dish.

So when we served it, my mum said: "Wah! Big fish and small fish! Means this year got an ADDITION TO OUR FAMILY, RIGHT?"

And then she waggled her eyebrows at me.

IT- the awkward questions from relatives about when you're gonna get married- HAS STARTED. Although I'm still not too sure what my mum is trying to hint at. Does she think I'm pregnant or something?? ._.

La lala la. Clarke Quay is really beautiful at night. Jie and I went to Clarke Quay after work yesterday to celebrate Valentine's Day, and we even saw fireworks! Like real fireworks in the sky- we thought for awhile that it was thunder, but soon realised that thunder shouldn't last for so long, and then we looked around to find the fireworks. We managed to catch a glimpse from a distance, but by the time we got close enough to look there were no more. ):

Today there was Rosyth class reunion, but perhaps because it was CNY eve only about 9 people showed up. Considering I hardly used to talk to those who were there, it was a little awkward. We played pool afterwards, and Jie taught me how to play pool, and I didn't totally suck!

Sighpie I am a bit sleepy but I CANNOT SLEEP because today is CNY eve and I must stay up so my parents will live forevaaaa.

So I've been really stressed out at work- and I know myself well enough to know that when I am -that- stressed, I will eventually take it out on someone else or another and snap at the smallest things.

And to cut a long story short, I did.

But even after my entire childish tirade, instead of bitchslapping me like he totally deserved to, he just said he was really concerned about me. Obviously he is the sane one in the relationship, and I am so lucky to have him.

So from today, I'm going to make a concerted effort to count my blessings; to focus on the things that I am lucky to have rather than the things that I feel are unfair.

Sigh. What have I done to deserve such beautiful things in my life? :,)

Boo blub blub blub I am tired and sleepy and getting fat because my fellow intern Jean keeps making the best cookies ever and giving them to me in the most adorable little packages and I feel so bad because all I ever brought for her were ugly scones.

And my boss has a really shrill voice so when she nags at her husband (which is all the time) I feel so bad for him ): I wonder if I will ever be that terrifying as a wife. To his credit his patience is, like, INFINITE. Except when dealing with the Jakarta office because they really are chill to the point where they don't actually get anything done. Because at 0K, the coldest possible temperature, particles rarely move. HUR HUR HUR HUR I MADE A SCIENCE JOKE I am not completely stupid yet yay!

My supervisor is getting cold feet about getting married- she watched the Channel 8 show which involves people whining about getting married (ok who thought this was a bright idea with falling birth rates and all) and how tough married life is. So now she's re-evaluating all her priorities and it's making me RE-EVALUATE MINE ALSO.

What if I end up with a haircut like Ellen Degeneres and become a tough self-reliant lesbian that dresses solely in power-woman suits and has a thousand cats?? Well, cat fur would get on my power-woman suits, so maybe not cats- a suitable replacements, like a vacuum cleaner that I don't actually use, and just sits in the corner of my chic-but-impersonal flat like a stark reminder of the domestic life that I could have had??

And at night I will fall asleep alone in my minimalist king size bed and drift into troubled dreams of kids that could have been.

):

Okay no I am just scaring myself because I sat at the Mr Teh Tarik shop for about 2 hours today drinking teh tarik and writing letters so I am writing in a teh-induced haze. Bleargh bleh weh boo.

ARGH I have been in such a bad mood lately I don't even KNOW why. Bleh.

I finally understand why everyone at my office swears so much.

Today, someone asked me to read through an email to see if it was understandable in layman terms, because "of course I know it very well and can understand it, but that's cos I'm on a whole different level from you. And if you can understand it, I think our client will definitely be able to understand it."

FML I am now a litmus test for simple English?

Also I have no idea why they have such a low estimate of clients' intelligence- if they were smart enough to make enough money to pay your fees and still invest in a few more companies, they are obviously smart enough to understand an email. Or use some of their piles of cash to hire someone to explain it to them.

Also public transport sucks because people keep trying to stealthily overtake, and it's like none of them have ever read the Basic Theory of Driving material or even the Basic Theory of Walking, or the Basic Theory of Being a Polite and Functional Human Being. If you walk like 5cm behind me and I end up stepping on your foot when I move sideways, YOU DESERVE IT.

Also, fat people who try to sidle up sneakily to the edge of the door when there is obviously a queue there: what, with that size do you really think that people won't see you?! And you have even less hope of cutting in. Even in front of me. Just because I'm obviously a public transport novice (seriously, is it so noticeable?? Like people who have yet to be hardened in the ways of public transport have this neon sign that says "please bully me I am an easy target" over them??) doesn't mean I will let you cut in. Queue up like a civilized person -.-