逞強

也許一切都需要有句點

但卻流連忘返 徘徊在邊緣

one thousand and ninety five

the course of life changes circumstantially.

is it karma?

is it fate?

is it destiny?

or free will?

and in the last three years, mine did substantially.

and along the way, i've seemed to reach a celestial level of pragmatism and grounded-ness i never realised i've achieved, leaving creative aspirations cobwebbed and dusty.

i wish the littlest things can still make me squeal.

i wish that i wasn't all this practical.

i wish to be just that little bit more romantic.

i miss feeling E.M.O.

where did that part of me go?

spectrums of white fluffy candy floss

So another 4 months have flown by.

Fleeting moments all of them.

I'd like to say that much has been accomplished, but then again, there is always much to do about nothing.

And tomorrow its off to the Sao Paulo, for a crazy week and hopefully a fun-filled birthday treat to Bueno Aires.

I try to reflect upon the last year and draw no conclusions.

Sometimes i wonder what has consumed me.

And the silence that reverberates, echoes so loudly.

perhaps global governance has given me a mission and now that the weight is taken off my shoulders, i need to find a new focus.

its great that in this area, i don't have problems letting things go.

just a matter of proportions

i'm known to be vain, but never to scrutinise myself in the mirror.

over a cigarette at an unnamed car park, my hair stylist told me that people that spent more time engaging eye contact with their body parts in the mirror, tend to have more self control over their body weight.

perhaps i should do so on a regular basis.

you know moments when you look at yourself and realise that you've grown a third eye or an extra nipple?

i have been having those moments in the last 3 weeks.

not that my ass has relocated to my head.

even worse... Kimora Lee Simmons Size 10 moments.

from fabulosity to flabulosity.

the korean housewife tried to reassure me that its a matter of proportions, that at least i was tall, even if big.

even if i didn't fit into those lace shorts from ass-sauce, it didn't mean i was fat.

can anyone tell me how that is supposed to make me feel any better?

*sulks#

and so images fleet by and by

bizarrely nostalgic.

perhaps spurred by the overwhelming amount of time on my hands, since i'm suppose to be on a vacation of sorts.

unable to resist the lure of the red blinking LED light, i had forwarded an email to colleagues. shortly afterwards, i received a private reply from DT that was so hilarious that i laughed out loud. the body of the email he sent was the dictionary definition of the word holiday.

perhaps holidays are when you think of loved ones - family and friends.

and over the last 2 years, i've increasingly drifted apart from many.

Not because there was nothing in common anymore, but because of the amount of time i spend travelling that when i returned to this sunny isle - dead beat and jet lagged - i take so long to recharge, and the next thing i know, i'm packing my bags again and heading to the airport.

Or that for the last 6 weeks since my return from Sofia, i've worked an average of 10 hour days. And in the last 2 weeks - 13 hour days.

so with all this time on my hands, i think... and this big head sure wanders.

to those that i've not managed to keep in such close proximity, i do wonder how you are doing from time-to-time.

and not being in touch doesn't mean i have nothing to say, its just that perhaps there is so much to tell that i don't know where it begins or ends.

i've never been known to be a story teller.

陌生人

And with each passing Christmas, life seems more tranquil.

and with each one, we increasingly become strangers.

in any event

i haven't written for a year.

and now that 2009 came and went faster than superman (read: a speeding bullet), the events that transpired just last year seem vague and unreal.

it'll be a year soon that i've been in my job - and when i thought i was on a steep learning curve when i was on the UNAIDS PCB, that paled in comparison to the dynamics i have to deal with now... a totally different playground which resembled nothing of a sandbox of happy children.

yet as remote as i felt to the realities of the ground, the work has honed skill sets and proved a stabilising factor in other ways.

... regardless of whether i have spent half the time traveling in the past year due to the various calls of duty.

regardless of how ostracised smokers now are with all the rules about how many metres one has to stay away from entrances etc.

regardless of the ridiculous humidity and heat levels.

regardless of the incredulous 7% goods and services tax that totals f & b bills to another 20% more of what it was.

regardless of the farcical number of new malls in the shopping district with the same shops...

it has been good to be home.

and in a strange way i've missed writing. yet the countless times i've tried to start... i'd not been able to elaborate on more than 2 sentences.

uncanny-ingly, i suffered from writer's block... from writing about my own life.

i was probably so caught up in the routine that i had forgotten about the simplest pleasures in life.

and with 2010... i will endeavour to regale... for come march, there will be stories to tell with divonne, tentatively suncity, amsterdam, and bangkok on the charts.

run away

its been a while, for i had been exhausted daily after starting work with the part time stint. 

yet, it had been strangely gratifying to have a goal daily.

perhaps i've missed feeling that way.

its been weird... the work politics, the gossip that arises, and the human relations that i've witnessed.

feels like a really long time ago since i've seen and experienced the above at this level, not to say that the work that i had been involved with lacked all the above spices to make everything more "interesting", yet things happen at different paces and over different issues.

the short stint has made me so much more aware of how much i enjoy being involved in the industry, even at such a mere level.

and with cny just tomorrow, reality hits home pretty close... and i was reminded that i had to return to beijing at some point of time to tie up the loose ends.

*sighs#

i wish i could just stay in denial.

i'm going to be your favourite sales girl

this afternoon during lunch, didi and i were catching up on the goings-on of the last couple of months.

and i think we have started a support group for women that have partners that can spend an entire day shopping for themselves, but at the mere utterance of a slight detour along to shop for something else that we want, our partners start to fidget, get impatient and pull faces that are longer than a donkeys'.

its the all too familiar of "what part of together did i not understand?" experience.

and we have come to the conclusion that partners just don't get it.

*sighs#

so starting this thursday, i will be working...

well, part-time for the moment for 2 weeks to while away my time.

and to contribute to the new-phone-fund.

i'm saving for a new phone and am completely undecided between the iphone and the blackberry bold, since i've learnt that the Nokia E71 had suddenly died on my friend.

*confused#

and i'll be stationed at Millenia Walk at Tyan, which carries the labels Christian Lacroix, Vivienne Westwood, Betty Barclay, Vivienne Tam and the likes...

the pay is miserable, and the commission even more so... but its the bazaar shop and i hope that might spur expenditure amidst this gloomy economic times.

yet its nice to feel useful... and i'm actually really looking forward to it.

this new year seems to be kicking off to a nice start... just like how it seems that people are really enjoying Dressed to Kill and its really motivating to know that.

i just really hope that the good feelings will stay that way.

i still think of you so much and it simply hurts too much

This brand new day to the year is greeting me with overcast skies...

the temperatures are cool... but it looks like it would be ready to pour any moment.

and as i sit infront of my laptop and go through the pictures in my memory stick of my trusty, but very dimwitted Nikon Coolpix S51, i can't help but tear when the pictures of burberry and mantou show up.

even though i might never have kids of my own... i suppose i now understand at least to a minimum degree how it feels to be a parent, and being torn away from my own. 

from the little pup of 2 months he was when i first purchased mantou in January this year...

to the handsome lad he was when i had to let go...

and losing him though not as traumatic as when burberry was lost... still hurts me to the core.

it will be almost a year since i've lost burberry, and mantou has turned one recently.

i miss both my boys just too much... and hope that they're doing fine.

*sniffles#