I'm Back!!!
Wow! what a long time its been. I don't even know if anyone still checks out my blog, but if you have been and were disappointed in not finding anything for the last 6..7... no wait, 8 months, I apologise. But, I'M BACK!!
So a quick update as to what's been happening in the last 8 months - I was miserable for a long time in that wretched firm, I quit my job, almost made my way back to Sydney, decided to stay in Singapore, and now have a very good job in a very nice company. WOW. And in addition, I've decided to change the name of this blog as "a girl, a guy and a whole lot of fish" no longer applies. There are no more fish! So till I come up with a suitable name, it will be known as "The blog without a name" very original I know. What do you expect from an ex-auditor? I say EX because I've finally made it out of the crappy industry and into something bigger, better, sexier! I hear this company has heaps of parties, so that is something I'm definately looking forward to. Also, the guy bit is a little shaky at the moment.
Those who know me, would know that I rarely talk about my love life. Be it the good things that are happening, and worse still, the bad things. I'm not usually a very open person, even with those I consider to be my closest friends. But seeing as I haven't blogged for so long, I don't think anyone would be catching any of this, so I guess its safe to pour out all my sorrows for some random to read.
The last year has been really hard. Not only have I come to a new country, but I started work, right in the middle of the busy season, and I've also moved in with
S. Being someone who has never lived in a shared house and has always gotten my way with everything at home, let me say it was hard getting use to living with someone. I'm clean, he's messy. I'm a morning person, he's nocturnal. I don't like going to the gym, he's a junkie (gym junkie, that is). I squeeze the toothpaste tube from the bottom, he squeezes from the top. I step onto the bath mat, he steps onto the floor. We've tried really hard to make this work, comprimising on both parts to keep some sort of order in the house. But at the end of the day, its hard when there are two opposites.
Please, dear God, make this better
"The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances: if there is any reaction, both are transformed."
Truths about the Island (and I don’t mean the one that Jack and Kate are stuck on)
Efficient (ee-FI-shee-ant): producing a result for the lowest cost possible.
So its 10:25am and I'm sitting in a shop-house on club street, famous for its food and shopping. The client’s place is stuck in between a Puma outlet and a funky shop that reminds me of a place you would find in subi selling home wares. Wicked lamps and odd shaped vases. Very cool if u can afford to splash out 600 bucks for a glass bowl, whose purpose would be only to sit on a table and look pretty. Getting back to the point I'm trying to make, it’s now 10:27 and the finance manager is still not in, I'm blogging, the accountant is playing with the air-con and the accounts clerk is…filing her nails. The moral of the story u ask? Well let me say it again: it’s now 10:27 and the finance manager is still not in, I'm blogging, the accountant is playing with the air-con and the accounts clerk is filing her nails. Doesn’t anything seem odd to u?? Anything?!?! Well if u answered: why aren’t all these people doing any work? You would be *ding ding ding* ….absolutely correct! Someone who had worked in both Australia and Singapore once told me that “the reason why Singaporeans work so late is because they are inefficient.” NOOOO WAY! After he said that, I started to think how true it was. We come to work at 9:30, put our things down, go buy breakfast, being sure not to walk too fast otherwise our make up will run from the sweat, come back and eat it, throw away the rubbish, start our computer, put in our headphones, and its suddenly 10:30. By the time we start any work it’s almost time for lunch! I say “WE” because I think I have been sucked into the way of life, I have been captured and brainwashed, otherwise why would I have come into work at 9:30, put down my yoga bag and walked up the road to buy a vegetable pau from 7-eleven, come back and ate it, then started my computer, took my ipod out from my bag and picked a song? When I was working in Perth I was at the client’s place at 8:30 sharp, earlier sometimes, we had lunch which was exactly 1 hr and went home at 5:30pm on the dot. That’s 8 solid hrs of work in one day- what we get paid for. There is no chit chat throughout working hrs, no gossip about who is going to resign, who is going out with which manager. In Singapore I don’t leave till 8:30pm, sometimes 9:30 to make up for the mindless chatter that occurs throughout the day. At the end of it I'm still working 8 hrs, not too sure if it’s solid or not, but never-the-less 8 hrs- what we get paid for. Now for the voting poll: would you rather work 8:30 – 5:30 (a total of 9 hrs) or 9:30 – 9:30 (for a total of 12 hrs)? It doesn’t take a genius to figure out which would be the obvious choice. However, Singapore who prides itself on its education system, having some of the smartest young mathematicians in the world- close to genius, where you get bragging rights if you to go to university in Singapore, they are still picking the latter. Who’s the genius now?
Lo and behold, its 11:15, almost lunchtime J and I have still need to complete my updated resume.
The worst part of coming to work in the morning is having to rush with everyone on the mrt, and then standing sardine packed on the train with the possibility that someone is going to feel my ass. Swaying from left to right, and then losing my balance when the train jerks, because I haven’t had years of experience standing with my legs shoulder width apart to control my body from inertia. I can always feel beads of sweat dripping down my face, my back, my neck. Then I come into the office and everyone stares. Is it because I have something on my face? Is it because im overweight (by their standards)? As soon as I walk in I feel the competitive stares, everyone tearing me apart with their eyes. No smiles. No hellos. Just dark, squinted eyes. Then a second later all heads are back down, almost in unison, rushing to complete whatever they were doing before being rudely interrupted by the non-Chinese speaking Chinese. This is common practice throughout the day. No smiles. No hellos. Just looks of despair, tiredness, wishing they were somewhere else, someone else. Wait that would be me staring at my reflection. Every week, five days a week, this is my life. I guess I should be glad it’s not five and a half, but this is bad enough.
But my heart skips a beat when I hear a “ping” from my phone. I know it’s a message from none other than my baby. It’s a message of love, a promise that everything will be ok. Any doubts are washed away. Time seems to stop for just a while and Im not even conscious of where I am. For that moment I am lost, oblivious to my surroundings. I forget the morning train ride, the walk of shame through the glass doors, the stares of death, the absence of hellos and smiles. Everything seems to be perfect for the briefest of moments. It is in these moments that I find strength, courage, determination to carry on, to fight back those stares and to put on a smile in hope that for every 10 smiles i will receive one back, but more importantly to know that this is just one phase of my life and it will make me a more fervent, respectable person.
I've been tagged by Jos.
4 jobs you've had in the past:
1) Waitress
2) Clothing shop assistant
3) Subway chick
4) Auditor
4 Movies you could watch over and over:
1) Legally Blonde
2) White Chicks
3) Two Weeks notice
4) Bride & Prejudice
4 Cities you've lived in:1) Singapore
2) Perth
3) YTD
4) YTD...haha
4 TV shows u love to watch:1) One Tree Hill
2) The OC
3) Veronica Mars
4) House
5) Greys Anatomy
6) Sex and the City
7) Fear Factor
4 Places you've been to on holiday:
1) Melbourne
2) Bangkok
3) Phuket
4) Falls Creek
4 of your all-time favourite restaurants:1) Olio- Suntec
2) Ciao Italia
3) Rigulettos
4) Witche's Cauldron
4 of your favourite foods:1) Pasta
2) Sushi
3) Ice cream
4) Fruit
4 schools you've attended:
1) Kardinya Primary
2) Winthrop Baptist College
3) Curtin
4 places I'd rather be right now:
1) At home sleeping
2) Shopping in Milan
3) Spain
4) Japan
4 things I find myself saying:1) HUUUNNNN....can you please.....
2) I just wanna die (only recently have I been saying this)
3) Are you serious?
4) Oh...ok
4 people I tag:1) Justin
2) Lou
3)
4)
hahahaha...I have no friends
Suicide
Sorry everyone who has been regularly checking out my blog and have been disappointed to find no posts. This will make up for it! So here is whats been happening....
The day after I got to S'pore we left at 5am to go to phuket. Yes I was afraid another tsunami would hit but living a life in fear is a life half lived! so we got there at about 9am and the drive to patong beach was almost an hour, of which I nearly puked going round the bendy bits down to the beach itself. The hotel was really nice and the rooms..so so. The food was so cheap and nice. We went snorkeling and jetskiing, we watched a cabaret show, saw a thai boxing match and explored the night life. Steve's two friends were getting picked up by "
ladyboys" and one conned us into buying a drink for her. We also went to watch one of those sex shows hoping to be amused, but we were only disgusted! haha but it was funny. It was quite sad to see alot of girls/guys selling themselves because the country is so poor, and it made me realise that the problems I have are so much smaller than theirs.
After getting back from Phuket on Sunday I was kinda looking forward to starting work the next day. I packed everything and set out my clothes and prayed that training would be fun. But lo and behold, NO TRAINING. I was put on a job straight away, with no laptop and only a few pens and a calculator. Luckily I had a really nice senior who was very helpful and patient and liked to joke about the client hehe :P We took a cab to and from work everyday which was awesome however we had to walk about 15 minutes to get lunch! Last Friday we finished the job, well I finished and my senior continued on Saturday and Sunday, and that night me, Steve and Steve's friend Scott went to the opening of the new
Ministry of Sound club on Clarke Quay.
This is the best club I've ever been to, ever. When we got there around 11pm we were told there were 6,000 people inside the club and about 5,000 people waiting to get in. But as luck would have it we didn't have to queue up and walked straight in! The club has lots of different rooms, kinda like Metros Freo, where they play different music and there are some rooms that are VIP and some rooms that are "secret". If there wasn't a bouncer standing outside the door you wouldn't even realise there was a door there. The night went off to a good start in the R&B room where me and Jos scammed free drinks only because the bartender was too busy to collect any money from us. However as wewent upstairs to check the rest of the club out my shoe broke. So for about a period of 20 minutes I was pissed off that I couldn't fix my shoe because the buckle had been glued on and now could not be glued back on. But Scott was kind enough to lend me his sweatband to put around the strap. After that we went into the VIP room where there were lots of seedy old men and an skanky girls who were drinking lots of expensive drinks. We even saw one girl try to feel up the bouncer to get her way into the room haha. After watching some "feminine" guy in checked pants dance like there was no tomorrow we decided to leave.
So that was Friday and on Saturday me, Steve, Jos, Wenni, Jace and her "friend" had
fondue at our place. We had cheese fondue which was really nice but salty, and chocolate fondue for desert. (Fondue tip: If your chocolate is too thick from the cream and has gone all glugy and cold, add some milk and turn up the heat. Stir till smooth.) This is a pic of me and J&J at fondue, even though you prob can't see our fondue sets. Check out Jos' blog for pics of the actauly fondue part I thought everything would be ok from there, but I was just recently proven wrong.
I've been booked on a new job for the next two weeks, and talking to my senior at lunch he told me that hes been working till 9-10pm. I'm thinking thats pretty bad already, but then he goes on to tell me that the head accountant has requested from central admin to keep the floor's airconditioning on till 12am for the next month- implying that we should be staying till then!! Hence the title of my post. I've also heard that my training will start on the 3rd Jan, which means I won't be on the job while the rest of the team attempts to consolidate 100 company's financial statements. Please God, please let me be on training!
Shopping tip: do xmas shopping
EARLY, especially in S'pore. It was totally packed at Taka on Saturday when we were rushing around trying to buy presents for everyone. Poor Steve has to spend so much more money than me on his family. The worse bit was shopping for toys for the kids. We had absolutely no idea what to get them and the roadshow in Taka near the fountain was filled with kids being menances, pushy parents and slow cashiers. But once it was done I felt sane again.
In case you're wondering, yes I am posting this during work haha but the senior I'm under has gone back to the office for a meeting and I'm here all alone. Well, thats me up-to-date. For all of those coming to S'pore, make sure you call me (get number beforehand). Can't wait to see you guys.
"We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinate hope"
Rest & Relax
Just got back from a good couple of days with my cell down on a farm in North Dandalup which is east of Mandurah. Besides the fact that I got really bad hay fever and caught a cold it was an awesome 2 days! We did so much. I shot a .22 rifle and hit a tree, rode a quard-bike which is a huge tractor-like bike that goes really fast and got bitten by horse flies. We also went down to a beach in Mandurah to watch the sun set and experienced some culinary skills I didn't know my cell members had. The two more mature people in the picture are Uncle Rapheal and Aunty Bea who extended their hospitality to us and let us stay in their huge shed on their property.
On the home front Ive started packing my stuff into boxes and my room is so messyy! I can't believe the amount of stuff Ive collected over the years. You don't realise how much crap you have unntil you have to do something with everything. But luckily the bulk of my clothes are already in Singapore. As you can see my bed is acting as a "sorting" area.
IM GOING TO PHUKET! Yes the very next day after I arrive in Singapore me, Steve and 2 of Steve's friends from Melb are heading over to Phuket to get some sun and do lots of watersports. Actaully Decemeber is going to be our "holiday" month. The first weekend is going to be in Phuket, then the weekend after is ZOUKOUT!! woohooo and then we're having fondue with my cousins and other friends and then its Christmas, then New Years. It's going to be total madness and Im going to be broke by the end of it. But Im so excited!
"Keep away from those who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you believe that you too can become great. "
Summer
I hate having my desk in front of a massive window looking out into my garden. I can see clear blue skies, our palm trees swaying in motion with the wind and the sun reflecting off my neighbours' roof. Summer is here!! I always looked forward to summer holidays. Days of surf, sun and sand, popsicles that would melt before you unwrapped the bloody thing, shopping at the Subi markets, driving in the hot hot sun down to cottesloe with the radio blasting. And the best thing of all- NO SCHOOL! Mind you, towards the end of the bolidays I would be looking forward to going back to school, only to regret that thought after the first week. That is something Im really going to miss about Perth- 4 seasons. Its different being in a country when its summer all year round, you don't get excited about change, you don't get to see leaves change colour, or notice that the sun sets at 5pm in winter or the way spring brings about a heavy dose of hay fever.
Nevertheless Im looking forward to going to Singaopre. Shopping centres open till 10pm everyday, working till 10pm, cheap movies, cheap food but Im most looking forward to being with steve all the time. It has been really hard doing this long distance thing and finally after more than 3 yrs we will be in the same city- how exciting. Oh and also looking forward to travelling around Asia, coz its so darn cheap to go anywhere from Singapore. Im heading off to Phuket jsut before i start work for only $28 bucks one way!! Thats like AUD22.50!!
Only another 3 days till my last exam. And only 13 days till I leave. Im going to stop before I get emotional and blab about stupid sentimentalities.
Fav songs for summer: Ever the Same- Rob Thomas
Stick With You -Pussycat Dolls
"All changes are more or less tinged with melancholy, for what we are leaving behind is part of ourselves. "
