I found a new song I like. It's called 想念你的歌. I just like the words.

In other news, I'm busy at work again. I like my job and all but sometimes I wonder if there's anything more to life. Sometimes it just seems as though life in its whole is like being in an ant farm. There must be more than this but you just can't see it, and all you have in front of you is the usual paths and things that everyone else is doing and so you do it too.

When I was in Singapore, I felt trapped in by society, by family, by expectations. Strangely enough, out of Singapore, with the whole world at my feet and really anywhere that I can go, I don't feel any more free. Or maybe I am free but suddenly realize that there's no place else to go. No cage to break out of, but no larger world to break into either. I can't even tell you what I'm looking for. I have everything I want... rewarding work, challenge, enough pay to live comfortably, friends, a life.

So yet while there's nothing I want, there's a quiet yearning for something more, something different, something better that doesn't exist.

4 meme

Just felt like doing one (a meme). At some point I'll do the other number ones....

4 Jobs You've Had In Your Life

1. Analyst (current job) basically all round researcher/analyst random stuff person
2. Summer analyst (trading floor)
3. Cafe counter girl
4. English teacher (sadly to say this was the best paying job of all... US$35 an hour!)

4 Movies You Could Watch Over And Over Again

Disclaimer: I'm not a big fan of movies so erm.. actually its more like 4 I would watch again rather than over and over again.

1. Mirrormask
2. Finding Nemo
3. Love Letter (Japanese)
4. Samurai X (I forget the title but its the tragic one with his past)

4 TV Shows You Love To Watch

1. CSI (The original)
2. Coupling! (British version please)
3. Whose Line is it Anyway
4. Anime (I know I'm being generic)

4 Places You've Lived In

1. Kyoto, Japan
2. Singapore
3. Boston/Providence US (I know there're different but sorta close)
4. Tokyo, Japan

4 Places You've Been On Vacation To

1. Australia (Perth, Brisbane, Adelaide...)
2. Brazil
3. London
4. Palm Springs/LA

4 Places You'd Rather Be

1. Kyoto. Either downtown or in one of the many gardens.
2. Disneyland or DisneySea (in tokyo)
3. .. The rest it's not so much I'd rather be there as who I'd rather be with...


4 Of Your Favourite Foods

1. Raw Fish.. namely Ikura and Negitoro Donburi.
2. Warabi Mochi
3. Yam Paste.. the teochew kind that's super fattenning
4. parfeitts :-p

4 Websites You Visit Daily

1. Gmail
2. Google... generally the news section
3. boingboing.net (lately)
4. random webcomics and blogs

of everybody I know, who came from singapore to study here, I think I'm the only one that chose to stay. Of course, I'm the only one who had the choice to stay not being on scholarship, but lately I've been thinking that maybe that was a good thing after all... a very good thing.

Over cny, my mum found out that nobody she knew in Singapore was happy in their job. Not one of my cousins, not one of her friends' children. Suddenly, she decided to stop pressuring me to come home.

As tiring as my job is (the 2am nights are likely to continue again soon), it is also among other things, challenging, interesting and above all, fulfilling. In addition, it's a pleasure working with other people who feel the same way about the job because you can rely on them to do the best they can and to get things done. In contrast, I think if I were to go home to work, I'd feel stuck and be surrounded by many people feeling the same way.

Not to disparage many of the scholars who have gone home, (some of them are happy where they are), but I think I got the better deal here. Sure I have a bunch of debt and sure I may be far away from many of the people I care about and who care about me, but in exchange, the job I spend 50-70 out of 112 or so waking hours each week, I go to each day happily.

Of course, right now I still have a ton of friends in the area who I hang out with and enjoy life with so lonliness is not a factor but we can't all stay here forever. If I follow the typical american path, or at least the one my friends seem to take, I'd be going to grad school in a couple of years (some kind of grad school anyway, MBA, Law or Phd) and then after that would be a whole new set of choices again.

My work week is getting on the ridiculous side... i.e. the reason why I decided not to do investment banking. So far its been Sunday 6 hours, Monday 11 hours, Tues 15.5 hours, Wed 16 hours... it's thursday morning and I really don't want to crawl to work because I'm just so tired. I think that under a "normal" work week system I've already exceeded the number of hours most people work in a week within half the week.

I just really really really need some rest at this point.

I AIN'T DEAD...

Just absorbed in the business of living.

Let it snow, let it snow... not?

It's snowing like you wouldn't believe it out there and I'm sitting here in the office looking out. Man do I want to be home and in front of the heater. If this were still school this would definitely be a snow day. Unfortunately, it is a work day and I'm in the office wondering how on earth I'm going to get home and then back here for the christmas party and why I seem to be coming down with a cold.

In response to Phlebas...

I was going to write this as a comment on her blog but then it got too long.

In response to http://lucid-nonsense.blogdrive.com/, I suspect I definitely have no principles where that is concerned.

I think if the guys in question did all that they did in a condescending manner I would be insulted rather than impressed. But because I really couldn't have managed carrying that home on my own...or rather would have managed but with great difficulty, I'm perfectly willing to let guys carry things for me to save me the work.

To be fair let me also mention that I'm equally impressed if a girl does that for me but to date no girl ever has offered to help me out when I'm bogged down with something and need help. What does that say about our society then? That the guys only do it because there is some subconcious sexual attraction even if it is not overt? Or that the guys are the only ones that have been socially conditioned to help?

I say subconciously because trust me, I know when a guy is simply doing something in order to attempt to impress me and that earns negative points with me.

I also admit that "doing all the little things" does not equate to being a nice guy and I never intended it to. I am currently caught between a dichotomy of opposites where my friends back home complain that guys are just incredibly dense and fail to remember birthdays, help carry things even when the girl in question is obviously struggling, and all the other little social niceties one would expect from anyone, and my friends here complain that guys here (who do do all that for the most part) are all egocentric jerks.

I have a number of guy friends who are thoughtful, sweet, considerate and genuinely nice, and yes they do treat me as equals. For some reason, there are never enough of them to go round.

Then of course we get to the "nice guy"'s complaint: "How come girls are only attracted to Jerks?" To which my response would be too long to post :-)

A Few Good Men...

For some reason I have a knack of finding guys who are absurdly nice. What brought on this comment? V just walked me home, carrying two bags of groceries for me the whole way. This was a 40 min walk from Chinatown, and 15 min of that walk was out of his way since he lives closer there than I do.

Yesterday, Lady Red noticed a guy in passing who crossed over to the passenger side of the car, openned the door for his gf, before going back to the other side to get in the car, saying that such guys were rare. It got me thinking that I actually do know guys who do that, and not just one but a large portion of the guys I know would actually do that.

So while the other three girls in my college posse are complaining about all guys being egocentric jerks or "incredibly dense male" type, I've never had a problem finding nice guys who do all the little things. The question then becomes, is part of that because Asian guys are more likely to be sensitive and gentlemenly?

Judging from the complaints of Singaporean women everywhere and the typical Singaporean "So you want to get a HDB flat?" proposal, I wouldn't normally think so. Perhaps then, that it is a subset of Asian men that have that quality, and if so then is there some reason I meet all of them?

If I could isolate and market that reason, I'd be a very rich girl with lots of grateful thank you letters. As it is, I'm left wondering why I am the one who meets all of these guys, when I can't date any of them and the single friends I have only seem to meet the egocentric jerk type.

The reason why I work so much

is that at least work is clean simple and satisfying.

I just hung up on Lady J, who was whining and wanted to stay close to home. I hate it when people make me organize something saying sure why don't you call person A B and C and set up lunch or dinner and then complain and want me to change things when its done.

If you are so damn fussy, you can set everything up and do the calling yourself.

I have a good mind to just ignore everyone else and have this one day to myself.

I may not have blogged in a very very long time but this time I have an excuse. All I'd have to do is tell you my leave work times for the week and you'd understand why. For this week it was 10pm, 8pm, 11pm, 12am.. so far. Let's just say it has been a rather intensive week.

Bunches of things however have occured since I last blogged.

For one thing, I can now say I've been to the west coast. Palm springs itself was beautiful in a very resort kind of way that I'd have to admit, could have been a resort anywhere. However, the things the company arranged however, were amazing. The food was good. The dinner themes were elaborate and unique. The first night we got clowns and circus performers and stuff, the second night, we got a fake casino, and the last night we got fireworks. All in all, I had a great time. I also got to ride in a hot air balloon for the first time.

LA though was very different from any other city I've been in. It's large and sprawling and seems to go on with no end. Not a good place for someone who doesn't drive to live.

And.. being that I'm supposed to be back at work in a bit. I shall stop my blogging quest for today :-p