Retribution of a Fairy Tale

Cinderella is a mean bully. She mercilessly beat up all stepsisters, cousins, distant relations, destroyed most of the shrubs, ate her servants when they displeased her, and probably caused some of them to commit suicide in depression. She's the female version of Hitler. Make that a Discus version of female Hitler.

Cindy btw, is a giant, white discus fish in C's tank. Old bitch, hard survivor and mean bully. Just think all pumped up steroidal version. She's a big one, because she's eating all the food meant for the other fish. Poor other guys, either get nothing to eat, or get eaten by her. Have lost count the number of small tiny fish she has eaten (perhaps >100 in her 2 yr career), she has even found a way to eat the giant snails in the tank. She knows her escargots. Hmpf. She's even mean enough to bully the other Discus fish so they either die of depression or starvation. I think over $300 worth of Discus have not lived past 6 months thanks to her. As I said, petulant and ill behaved children ought to be punished. I finally convinced C to put her in a red bucket by herself. Oh she's not pleased, but she needs to be punished. In old england, criminals are locked in a tower and beheaded. A bucket is too easy a punishment for her.

I got my econs results back - I passed, yay. So seems the professor bought into my cow-grazing externality theory. In fact, based on my scores, I'm a better economist than human resources person. I guess the HR lecturer did not like my paper on women's equality. Old british farts probably still think women ought to stay at home and milk the cows. Moo. Anyway, who cares. Except maybe a very pissed of Cindy in a red bucket. If Cindy were to write a women's equality paper, I bet she'll kick some big ass.

Blip of Happiness

Coffee Bean has finally come to Toa Payoh!!!! AT LAST!!!!!! YAYYYYYYYY!!!!!!

Was on the 238 bus home today when it rounded the corner and I spotted the all too familiar COFFEE BEAN sign board. Yes!!! It's now at the corner of the HDB Hub next to Delifrance, YES YES YES!!!!!!

That's my one true blip of happiness on the radar today.

On the other hand, job continues to suck. I feel so bad for Nic too. Yeah, maybe it's time I moved on, life is short, why get stuck in a rut.

I need to make it back to yoga frequently, I miss my zen lifestyle. Yesterday at yoga class, I can barely go up in handstand. As I posed upside down, I can literally feel all the pineapple tarts of the last 2 weeks, sinking heavily into my diaphragm. Where I used to feel lightness before, now it's like, a lump of flabby blob moving around the tummy area. Even during forward bends when my teacher came around to adjust me, she had to put her hand under my belly, I was mortified because of the rolls of fats there. She didn't say anything. Neither did I. But, no more pineapple tarts for me.

Just a regular weekend

This is the first normal weekend I've had in a long time. As in, go for yoga, go to the spa, get my hair done, lunch with kakis etc. It has been so many weeks of abnormal, it's such a relief to be normal again. But then, sitting here on sunday night blogging, and later having to 'work', well that puts a spin on things, but at least the weekend has been mostly normal. I finally had time for a haircut, it's looking long, messy and very auntie-like. Finally I had time to spare at the salon - a good 3 hrs though 1hr was an unecessary wait. My mood was almost black, but I managed to convince myself to stay cheery; no point being angry when I've been angry for a good 2 months already. Yesterday, my hair was pretty again, having been washed, blown straight and treated to a bouncing, light softness. Man, this guy can really cut hair, in 15 mins, snip snip snip and 1/3 of my hair on the floor, and still it looked like he didn't snip anything away, but wah, my hair looked like the nice rebonded image of before. He was able to reduce volume but retain shape. Very nice. until this morning when the natural curls came back, but still, very neat. For $100, it's good stuff. Except the wait.

Veron's baby popped earlier than usual. The big hooha was how it was a boy when everyone including the OB was confident of a girl. There goes all the pink clothing we bought. This little fella sure is very cute, and very un-fussed. His gaze has the all-knowing wise look. Sorta like bis. And a very calm temperament. He merely observes us, and fusses very little. I like babies like that, in fact V's other son is very well behaved and charming little kid. That reminds me of Lenny, who on the other hand, who wails like a female in distress. Maybe he aims to be an opera singer. That guy takes advantage of his doting mom, who unfortunately is too indulgent for his and her own good. Spare the rod and spoil the child. Reminds me of whenever she complains her mom spoils her brothers. Maybe these things run in the family. Me, I'll just stick to dogs.

The quivering Jelly Bean

That's me. That's what I feel like. An hour of Power 1 yoga and that's all it takes (actually, just the first 20 mins) to make me feel like a quivering jelly bean. So you think quivering thighs, heaving chests and trembling fingers are only the stuff of those trashy romance novels? Well obviously these trashy novel writers haven't been to a Power yoga class yet.

There used to be a time when Hanoi's Power 2 90 mins yoga class would be like a walk in the park to me. But alas now, even the basic 60 min class has become Mission Very Difficult. That's what happens when one's yoga takes a slack (a big one!) in the past 2.5 months. I thought I still had the moves - I still do, but I sure ain't got the stamina now. 4 Sun salute Bs, not even fast ones, and heaving chest abound. Perspiration trickling down my face like I just ran a full marathon. By the time I moved into Triangle, my fingers were trembling reaching for the ceiling. If there had been a large 18-carat Tiffany diamond necklace up there, I'm pretty sure my trembling fingers wouldn't even had the strength to make a grab for it. Did I already mention the part when we were on the floor doing leg raises? It was just moving one leg up and one leg down. But alamak, my flabby tummy started shaking - as in SHAKING. Capital S. And so did the legs. If anyone was looking at me, it was as if my body had electric shock delivered through the system. Thus yes, I am the quivering jelly bean.

CNY resolution - get back to yoga. Get out of that work rut. (speaking of which, it's back to work tomorrow. Argh. cowdammnit).

Another Chapter

It was a hard week as usual - work, work, more work. But somehow maybe I got tired of being stressed, frustrated, and irritated, my mood was just 'take it easy' the whole week. Most of it anyway. I guess one is only down when one let's the mood put you down. What the heck, I've been irritated and annoyed for a good 2 months. Time to just go back to being zen. Speaking of which, yoga practice took a backseat some 150km away....practice has now dwindled to 1x per week (sometimes even none). Eeeow. I see my flabby arms, and thigh quickly making their dimpled appearance. I even begin to look a little pasty white. Alamak.

Week ended with the culmination of the dreaded F&A exam at 12noon yesterday. F&A is like the dreaded enemy. Accounting wasn't so bad, but Finance.....gawd, I swear, these pple are too, way too, too obssessed with $$$$ and making more of it. Pple like me who don't obsess with $$, and don't really keep track of $$ in our bank acct (which often explains why one overspends more than one earns, and savings hasn't increased in the last 5 yrs), well, I guess we suck at Finance. Return on Investment? Dude, ROI to me is, buy tod's bags and shoes, just need to use them more frequently to get the "ROI". It's not some goddamn ratio these Finance pple are so obsessed about? Capital structure? Err....I don't think they mean the White House building in Washington DC (wait, is the White house even IN washington dc????). There's also something about a beta. Major blank. Err, the only beta I know is the betta fish. I don't suppose the betta fish is a measure of how sensitive that fish is to market movements. Duh duh duh. One thing for sure - I won't be taking the class in Corporate Finance. Sucked in this course in poly, sucked during Uni, and will continue to suck at it in my MBA.

Gong Xi Fa Cai - Happy Chinese New Year today. Lots of goodies scattered all over the kitchen, the table, and the living room. As usual we're just going to slob our way to fatty prosperity. My dogs wouldn't mind I'm sure.

The stupidity of smartness

Another bad sucky week. Started mon morning well enough, before Nic and Viv decided to drop 2 very bad news bombs. That really put me in a pisser of a mood, cuz that means more work stress, and less capable pple in the team to deal with things, less 2 persons to bitch to, and more frustrations with existing morons at work. On a wed gathering with my ex-MSD colleagues, we all concluded that the morons are the real smart pple, they pretend to be morons so they don't have to do quality work, and so all the work gets pushed to the smart, capable pple who are stupid enough not to pretend to be morons. Moral of story - pretend to be moron even though one is not, and keep on pretending. Problem is, stupid smart pple like us are too stupid to continue our pretense for long, because we're so smart we just give ourselves away because our smartness would override any stupid scenarios we put ourselves in. Is this making sense? Oww my aching head.

CNY coming, and with all that post-bday celebrations and eating, wah, that's a lot of rice and a lot of food in the past week. A lot of desserts. Yes tummy is back out in full force, and wiggly ass makes its all out appearance to the entire world.

How does one console oneself when submerged in the depths of frustration and stress? We go to Tiffany and out in 10 mins with a white ribbon wrapped blue box. Happiness is costly, and apparently comes in shiny 925 silver.

Assignment due on Monday, furiously scrambling now. Exams on CNY eve, not even started studying yet - thanks to overworking and OTing like mad. Boyo I am in deep cowdunggitshit.

Om Shitty Moo.

The Flabby Bits

Biscuit has a waddle. And a paunch. A waddle, according to the character Richard in Ally McBeal, is that bit of loose flabby skin at the neck under the chin. Think Turkey. As I watched my dogs gulp greedily at the carrot cake in honour of my birthday, I noticed how Bis from neck up resembles a turkey. C and I share a resigned sigh, recognizing that his 'streamlined' body ain't so aerodynamically streamlined anymore. Paunch where a deep chest should be, and flabby skin hanging where ribs should be showing. Aiiieeee. Middle age crisis mode.

It was a good birthday, a great one. Started by rotting with dvds at the couch, and then brunch at Choupinette (irony, since I realised last year we ordered Chopinette take-out at my office to celebrate my bday too), a movie (Babel. Which I made no heads nor tails of, and was extremely tedious save for the grand lovely plush seats that cost a cheap cheap $15 for 2). A picnic at the park, and wrapped up with a round of drinks with my colleagues till midnite, when the clock officially declared me a happy belated birthday. Not to mention numerous birthday greeting sms-es, some from unexpected people. Even dad gave me a call (surprise!). Yeah it was a good one. I have a great bf, great kids (no comments at this point about their poor toilet habits however) and great friends and colleagues. Happy birthday to me.

OM happy cow.

All pent up and frustrated

I turn 31 tomorrow. This is the first time I remember approaching a birthday without any excitement, but only full of fatigue and frustration. I don't mind the age, but time in the past few months has passed in such a flurry I barely have time to anticipate or look forward to my birthday. This year it just crept up on me - one day another friend reminded me that my birthday was due in a few days. It was then I realised how quickly time had passsed, or how much of it I had lost, because I was just working, and working and working. 13-14hr days are not abnormal for me anymore. If I'm not at school then I'm working, even my yoga is suffering. Days off are a dread, because I get back to work only to see the backlog. It's a vicious cycle.

Have I offended the gods? It must be, for nothing has gone quite well in the last 2 months. Well at least I still have friends for support. Must go temple and pray soon. Today I got the results of a recent examination, to find out that I had failed an assignment. I've only failed music exams, never academia. My heart feels burderned and sad. As I contemplate myself I realise that as I grow older I become so accustomed to the material pleasures of life I no longer am able to endure hardships. Challenges at work that throw me out of my comfort zone I meet with anger and resistance. Failing an assignment is a minor setback but yet I cannot but feel frustrated and tearful at the loss. I think of how YP is struggling to juggle work, home and family committments and how C struggle to cope with the demands of being a somewhat frustrated entreprenuer. We all have to pay bills, put food on the table and a roof over our heads. This is the reality of life. Who was it that said humankind must suffer hardship in this life before they can attain nirvana? Man, next life just let me be a pampered pooch please.