While the sun shines

This looks set to be the most stressful holiday season yet. One colleague has gone on maternity leave, the other has tendered his resignation and will leave middle of next month, and yet another has gone back to her hometown for the holidays for a week. In the meantime, I'll have 2 interns, 1 new staff, 10 books (and counting), 3 journals, and a colleague's email account on my hands.

I feel like I've truly been inducted into real publishing world. This was what I thought I had wanted to experience when I decided to leave the comfort of the research centre--stress and deadlines and fractious authors--the real stuff that this line is made of. But thinking is just thinking; now that I'm standing right in the middle of it, I feel seriously disconcerted and a bit scared.

I'd be lying if I were to say I've not thought of backing out. It's really quite a pleasant thought, but only as a thought. :) It did take me a lot to leave what I had come to regard as a safe haven and now that I'm finally out, I really should make the most of it. To those who are also struggling in one way or another, as an old saying (courtesy of Queen Rania) goes, "a ship in the harbour is safe, but that’s not what ships are built for". Ahoy, mates! Full speed ahead!

Of lazy dreams and idle days
that life seems so far away
still, I'll take heart in what they say
"while the sun shines, make the hay"

Blogging is not fun

I seem incapable of blogging spontaneously. I wish I could. Those who do seem to have much more fun.

My blog is an exercise in deliberation. My posts are usually very short, but I don't remember ever spending less than 1 hour on even the shortest, 1-paragraph post. Do I sound too whiny here? Would I offend anyone if I write that? If it's not a showcase of the most scrupulous, diligent self-censorship, I don't know what is.

Not only the content--I write, delete, rewrite sentences over and over again, so that they sound right, stylistically. I attribute it to the legacy of my journalism education. Or maybe I'm just a bit anal. A friend recently commented that my blog looks very "neat" but I know that my thoughts are anything but. I certainly don't think in such neat, short paragraphs.

For me, writing has becomes a highly deliberate, premeditated process. Writing is not "fun" but needs a purpose, an agenda. And maybe blogging is about creating an online persona. I write, therefore I am. I think many people blog so that they can write their preferred persona into existence. The truth is, what we're blogging is really not so much about what we're thinking, but what we want others to know we're thinking. ;)

Rainy season

The rainy season has started. Nothing gets me more into the end-of-the-year mood than the rain and the drop in temperature. I always feel slightly melancholic, and a bit lost in thought, around this time of the year.

Those storms during the day are depressing. I feel cold and miserable, with the harsh air-con bearing down relentlessly in the office. The sky turns into concrete, and the only way to look out at the world is through tear-stained windows.

"Pitter-patter", her tears I hear
the year sighing, "my end is near"
"but don't rue my friend, have no fear"
"when I'm reborn, the skies will clear"

Ah, what melancholy. I guess I'm just feeling a little droopy. Storms pass, so do moods.

Serve chilled

I was looking forward to this weekend. Nothing special, just that I'm finally done with a series of tests--3 in the last 3 months--and I feel like I can rest easier for the rest of the year and "reclaim" my weekends by doing what I like most, which is to nua, or slack off, chill out, bum around. Like what I'm doing now, blogging with a mug of tea at my elbow, while bobbing along to Josh Rouse's songs. It feels like a weight has been lifted off me. Long live weekends!

"A beginner's mind is a beautiful place to come from"

My fingers and arms feel sore at the sight of a violin now. I've been practising regularly for the past 2 weeks for the exam earlier today. Very often, I would lie flat out, with the violin beside me, in the middle of a session because I was feeling peng san from the practising on top of a day's work.

The exam today was OK, except for some violent bow-shaking during the 2nd exam piece, a slow one which required long, slow strokes. And each time my bow trembled, the examiner, who was mostly occupied with writing her comments, would pause and look up. It was quite unnerving, I can tell you.

I was so nervous that my knees were shaking involuntarily. While waiting for our turn, the accompanist, perhaps sensing I was jittery, starting chatting with me outside the examination studio. Strangely, I was able to keep the conversation going like everything's OK when on the inside I was panicking and going "shit, shit, I can't stop all this shaking."

Other than the bow-shaking (maybe the examiner would think I'm attempting vibrato. Yah, right!), I guess I should be glad that I didn't make stupid mistakes this time round. I hope the nice old lady examiner won't have the heart to flunk me. Before the exam, my violin teacher had said with gusto about how we shall move on to preparation for Grade 4 straight after this. I felt excited, in spite of myself.

I bemoaned last September in a post about how I came to music late in life. Sometimes, I wish I had a headstart earlier on. Maybe my teen years would have been happier, anchored by music. Someone, I can't remember who, said that kids who learn music seldom, if ever, turn bad.

But like the accompanist commented, because my classmates and I are older and we actually voluntarily commit ourselves to this, we know to appreciate it, not like some of those kids who are learning but can't really be bothered.

And as the ever-perceptive Mr Mraz (hes's on blogspot too now! Read his stuff at http://freshnessfactorfivethousand.blogspot.com/) said, "A beginner's mind is a beautiful place to come from". I hope that when it comes to music, I would always retain the zeal of a beginner. :)

How do you smoke through this exam?

I've got to give it to music exams: you can't breeze through it with dumb luck. Or through the systematic spot-the-question approach. Or smoking through it, as any mass comm graduate would tell you with a self-satisfied smirk, is the best method there is. I still giggle a bit when I think of how I aced my chinese A's and surprised everyone, including myself.

There's no way you can fool the music examiner into thinking that you have been practising religiously when you haven't. You can't lie with music. Or at least I can't. Or maybe it's more accurate to say that your musical instrument won't be an accomplice to that lie. It'll show you up one way or another--in my case, bow shake is a nice possibility, and so is the slanted bowing that produces my signature screechy playing style.

But I must say the opposite ain't true all the time: even if you have put in the requisite time and effort for the exam, stage fright is still something you've got to reckon with. I was so nervous last year that the (wrong) response that came out from my mouth to a question for the aural component was exactly the opposite of what I was thinking.

So here goes the same refrain that I suspect will repeat itself year after year: I wish I had practised more. I've been lazy and unfocused. There're still so many kinks in my playing that I haven't straightened out and the exam is less than 2 weeks away. Last week someone says its commendable that my passion for music has lasted thus far. I was having a bad day and was tempted to skip the violin lesson later in the evening; I mumbled that it's more of a habit and a sense of duty than anything else now. I think I was giving excuses. Good thing about music exam is that it forces me to invest in my violin playing, and I find that I actually care about whether I'm going to flunk the exam, whether I'm improving, and whether and how I can correct my horrible all-over-the-place bowing in the near future.

But it does sounds a bit like empty rhetoric to my own ears because I was once again distracted, from my practice to blog about how I should be practising more! OK, OK, back to playing now.

Can the new ever be as good as the old?

Recently, I bought a new violin. It's also made in that "factory-of-the-world" country, alas. A friend's husband who's much more knowledgable about music was like "No no! Not a China violin!" But with budget constraints, I shall defer that European violin for later in my musical career!


The old one was too big for me. The new violin is niftier as it's smaller, 7/8 of the usual full-sized violin. Compared to my first violin, the sound is definitely more crisp and robust. Listening to the difference between the 2 is like mono vs stereo sound. However, that means the the mistakes and the screeches are sharper too. And I didn't count on the fingerboard being so much narrower. My blundering fingers now feel even more awkward as they scramble clumsily across the 4 strings, sometimes pressing on more than 1 accidentally.


Now and then, I still take out my old violin and give it a play. The feeling I get as I set it upon my shoulder can only be described as a very comforting familiarity that makes me want to go "ahhhh...this is more like it!" My fingers feel more confident and at home on that generous fingerboard and its just a very shiok feeling drawing the bow over those well-worn strings that I've bowed over and over for 3 years. I started to wonder whether I had ever really needed to change it, and whether I now have an expensive mistake on my hands. *shudder


The change in violin coincided with my change of job, so I can't help but notice my struggle with both. It's a humbling experience to know nothing and having to keep asking around for help and depending on others. I feel painfully ignorant and stupid sometimes, struggling to keep up. It's such a difference from my previous job, when I know what to do, how to do it and where to get the resources. I crave for that kind of security and confidence. I wish I could feel in control again.


But as with the violin, the old job may be more comfortable but not necessarily the best fit for me. And fond as I am of the old violin, I probably should stop taking it out for awhile because it'll just make me feel more acutely how unfamiliar the new one is and make it harder for me to get used to it. And it'll be the new violin that'll accompany me to the dreaded music exam. Onward and upward for my work and music aspirations!

The food hurdle

In the past, when people ask me what I do for a living, I always have to attach a long explanation to my reply of "research assistant" because I don't research--I meddle in editorial work. At last I've resolved that incongruity by joining a publishing company. Hello, I'm an editor.

The process of moving on to a new workplace has been a long one, somewhat less terrifying, but rather harder than I anticipated. But I can hardly complain because I had plenty of time to mentally prepare myself and say bye-byes. After the numerous farewell lunches and messages and thank-you cards and presents, I felt slightly weary, emotionally.

For people who change jobs on a regular basis, I must seem like a bleeding heart. Well I don't quite understand why it has to be so hard for me too, except that the research centre is just too comfortable, and therefore difficult to leave. The people are exceptionally helpful (and smart), the work was stable, culture was free 'n' easy aussie-style, and food was plentiful. There was just this little problem of my "career" and "professional growth" stagnating.

The new place needs a bit of getting used to. New colleagues are typically overworked Singaporeans--need time to open up. I needed to be reminded of this obvious fact after 3 years of general affability. I have to get used to the unsmiling part too.

I was quite excited about the job scope though: it was exactly what I wanted to learn, although I realise that my work would actually be quite mechanical, seeing a book through all stages of production. I can imagine anyone in India doing the job equally well (i.e., not outsource-proof, but which job is, anyway?)

I was complaining to friends about the lack of culinary choices due to our remote location: most people bring their own food, or they order in, but there're only 2 (unhealthy) choices everyday! After 2 days of sandwiches, I decided to cook some instant noodles and was I grateful for eating something hot at long last, even if it was just a handful of precooked noodles and dried peas swimming in watery, MSG-flavoured soup. I was feeling very sorry for myself, after being so spoilt for choice, with the numerous canteens dotted around the campus.

The next day, I ordered in and it was mixed rice: lots of white rice with a small piece of omelette, some tofu, vegetable, and a thin slice of very tough meat. As I told Hong, it felt like I was eating lao fan (prison rice). Just earlier in the morning, my former colleague was still raving to me about the fantastic food they had at the post-conference appreciation dinner. Oh, the indignity!

I get the feeling that once I get past this hang-up about food, things should start to look up. In the meantime, I'm going to feast this weekend.

Reminiscences

I'm supposed to be churning out a report by next Monday about the journal that I've been managing but it's not any easy report and I don't feel like starting.

Anyway, just came back from a night out with the gals. So fast, but we've known each other for more than 10 years. Over coffee, we were reminiscing about our school days happily, now that we can look back on the horrors and tedium of those days from a safe distance: how teachers used to terrorise us, how we dreaded art and music lessons, snooty classmates, our grades and (non)aspirations, and fights that we had with each other.

It's curious how we became good friends: I think some of the bonding came from simply being close to each other during assembly, or chemistry class etc since they went by alphabetical order in those days and 4 out of 5 of us have a T surname .

It feels nice, and safe to have a bunch of friends who have a shared history. I have periods in my life whereby my memory is quite patchy, sometimes because I didn't want to remember. There're so many things that I forgot, and to hear about them again from friends now and to be jolted and remember all over again, I feel thankful. I feel like my memories would be safe with them. Nothing beats old friends. :)

Return of the baking virtuoso

I've gone back to baking! After halting for about 10 months (due to discouraging results), I decided to bake again after colleagues suggested I do it again before I quit the place. These people must be some sort of masochists but since they asked for it, I, of course, obliged!

I decided to make an orange cake, after my mother found this real simple receipe in the Chinese newspapers. She tried it and it smelled good! So I wanted to have a go at it too, for another colleague's farewell lunch. The cake is made with the all-natural goodness of real orange juice and orange peel. Yummy!

I know it doesn't look very good, with that jagged little hole there (Someone said it looks like a donut), but it tasted OK, really! I kinda like the orangey tang, and my colleagues all said it was quite good. That's the thing with my cakes--they're edible, just that they don't look fantastic, especially since I don't like the idea of smothering them in whipped cream. I shall try lemon next. :)

Another conference that came and went

So the conference that has kept us busy for the past few months has finally ended. We had a similar one 2 years ago, and I blogged about how exciting and exhausting it was. This time round, it was, well... a bit lacklustre.

I was looking forward to it actually, because it is the last major event of the centre that I would be part of and I remember how all of us worked so hard together to make it work for the last one.

The centre was only 2 years old then and it was to be the biggest, most international conference held at the institute for more than 2,000 delegates. I remember on the Friday before the conference, a few of us were still toiling away in the campus at 11pm to make sure everything goes smoothly during the conference. I had emailed the dean to ask if we could take the cab home and claim for reimbursement. He replied immediately and gave us his number in case we needed him. Shortly after, he sent out an email as a rallying call to the whole centre to remind us how far we have come as a centre and how he knows everyone is working hard to make that conference a success.

At the end of it, many of us went for the conference dinner at Sentosa where we dined at the beach, open-air style and accompanied by singing and dancing. We sat back and enjoyed ourselves while watching the crazy dean really let loose with his friends on the beach.

The closing ceremony then was rousing, with a touch of triumph, the feeling that we really pulled it off. There were high-fives, hugs on the stage and the deans couldn't stop smiling. This time round, it felt so uneventful. The auditorium was strikingly empty, and the ceremony was short and quiet. At the night safari conference dinner, there was only a handful of us but we were made to feel like second-class guests, because the bossy hospitality committee head (who is not from the centre) ensured that the paying delegates had priority in everything, from seating to food to the tram ride. There was a bit of annoyance and irritation all around, but I was still glad to be there, enjoying the cool night ride on the tram with my colleagues, ooing and ahhing at the lions, tigers, giraffes and elephants. It felt like a school trip with a bunch of excitable primary school kids, which is quite funny because some of them were actually the admin "aunties" (I use that term affectionately) . :)

Maybe because the dean is gone now so things are very different, but the centre is still a good place, with good people. As the dean himself said when he left, the centre has made a difference in many people's lives, including his own.

I survived jet lag!

Woohoo! I survived what I would consider my most gruelling trip ever.

Let's start with the time spent on the flights and transits alone: 51 hours! It's changed my opinion of air travel forever. Going there was more punishing and in a way makes the coming back seem more bearable. It entailed 3 transits: Narita, Portland, and Minneapolis. By the time I was on the final leg, I was drifting in and out of consciousness. I used to be one of those people who think flying was part of the fun of going away. I used to get all excited about the idea of going to the airport, about making full use of the flight entertainment, and I actually ate up all the food they serve. Well, not anymore! They kept running out of chicken which means I had to eat beef stew. Urgh.

And you meet with all sorts of people on the plane. On the longest leg back (from Minneapolis to Narita), I sat with this nice lady from Minnesota who was accompanying her husband to Shanghai. She hoped I have a safe journey back home and that the conference was worth all this travelling (erm, nope). On another short (thank goodness) flight, I had to sit beside this PRC man who swore and spit in the barf bag and put it back in the seat pocket, twice! But most of the time I don't talk to the people simply because I was too tired. It's going to take at least a few months for me to get over this flight fatigue. And no more Northwest, if possible. One flight attendant actually chit-chatted with the passengers while chomping on chewing gum while there was another matronly one who looked like she would stare down any passenger who dares to misbehave on her flight. It was actually quite a funny sight when you juxtapose it with the Sin8apore Girl. :)

The weather there was, too, a new experience. The temperature was between -1 to 4 c (the wind chill was probably colder) and it snowed. :)

The wind was so strong that the snow was falling horizontally and hitting you straight in the face. The brutal wind also battered my umbrella as I was walking along the river and I had to buy a new one, whose spokes were also slightly bent by it. It was really an effort walking in that kind of weather, and I had to occasionally stop and seek refuge in nearby buildings. I couldn't capture the falling snow on camera, but did take a picture of an area covered in snow while on the plane.

The buildings below are the Wrigley Building (left) and Tribune Tower, which are the landmarks I use to navigate around the city. They are the home of the chewing gum company and the newspaper Chicago Tribune respectively, and the newspaper founder got his correspondents to collect stones and bricks from all over the world and embedded them in his building. Which is a cool idea, except that I don't think they always got the bricks through entirely legal means. Some were after all, from very important sites where they don't give out pieces for free, like Taj Mahal and Great Wall of China.

Because the weather wasn't great for photo-taking, and I didn't feel like whipping out the camera too often since I was walking the streets by myself most of the time, I don't have many photos, and most were of buildings.

The above is an interesting edifice though, called "The Bean" and must be the most photographed structure in Chicago. It's one of the numerous sculptures to dot the city. I also went to the Art Institute of Chicago, one of the must-visit museums there with a strong collection of works by famous people like Claude Monet and Vincent van Gogh. I'm just a curious tourist and not art aficionado though, and so walked through the galleries fairly quickly, in about 1 1/2 hours. Some people just stood in front of the paintings in this deep, appreciative silence, but I was busy snapping away!

The food there is nothing to write home about. I had mostly sandwiches and wraps. The most delicious thing I ate there was actually a US$1.70 pipping hot teriyaki chicken bao which I devoured in seconds, so cold and tired I was. They seem to take their pizzas seriously though.

Chicago's specialty is deep-dish pizza, or stuffed pizza. Essentially, they make their crust deep and fill it with lots of cheese and other ingredients. I tried the mushroom and shrimp combi at Giordano, 1 of the recommended restaurants but I've never been a big pizza fan so I can't really rave about it. Their garlic bread was nice and toasty though.

All in all, I wish I was able to stay a few more days in Chicago and maybe the city would grow on me a bit more. The weather was just too severe when I was there and because of my hypervigilance and jet lag, I was a bit too tense and disoriented to thoroughly enjoy myself. Many a times I was walking around the city by myself and there were many people begging on the streets but they seem generally harmless. I was even tempted to give them the coins that I didn't know how to use. Still, I decided to veer on the side of caution and walked away quickly.

One of my favourite moments in the city was during the last morning, just before I went back to the hotel to check out. The wind had stopped and the sun managed to beat the gloom, finally. I walked among the brisk peak-hour crowd, just enjoying the cold weather while sipping on some delicious hot chocolate. Ah, this is the life!

Next stop: Chicago

What a frantic few weeks it's been. Just when I was finally pulling myself together to start on that paper for the Tasmania conference, they informed me that the grant was not approved, and instead, I would go Chicago.

What followed was a mad scramble to make bookings for the trip and to rush out all the work needed for Chicago (and apparently, I still need to write that paper for Tasmania, even if I'm not going!). No, wait--first, I had to convince myself to go. When it became clear I would possibly be staying there and taking the flight by myself, I hesitated. It's all very new to me: my first trip to the US, first overseas conference, and first working trip. I know, I know, I was just waxing lyrical about getting lost in a foreign place in the last entry, but pontification is pontification; gettting lost in transit is quite another thing!

My work neighbour "counselled" me and told me to step out of my comfort zone and just go! He said no matter what happens, it'll turn out OK. The persistent optimist. :) I agreed with him; it would be a good experience, or at the least, edifying. I've got to learn to be more independent, and this would be a start.

I spent an entire day in the office calling 1 agency after another, chasing after some very scarce air tickets and accommodation. My office mates, seeing how frantic I was, helped out by passing me agency numbers, websites etc.

Anyway, the frenzy hasn't ended--I have papers to write, work meetings to prepare and other details to settle. That means lots of overtime for the past week and the next. I'm starting to feel the onset of sickness already. And although I still feel some apprehension, I'm looking forward to exploring the city and its tapestry of art and architecture. I just hope the jet lag won't be too bad. :)

Get lost!

I had taken 2 days off after CNY in an attempt to at least clear some of the "backlog" of leave I've accumulated. (17.5 days! To clear by May!! Don't you wish you were in the same pickle as me? :D ) I was fretting to a colleague about how the leave days are still precious nonetheless and I've had nothing planned for the short break. In exasperation, I said that I'll just hop onto the 1st bus that comes and then just sit back and "get lost".

"But it's so hard to get lost in Sin8apore," I grumbled. My colleague looked at me for awhile, blinked and said carefully: "Err....I think you could get very lost."

Actually I've done this sort of thing before; when I was still in secondary school, in a fit of boredom I boarded a bus, tuned in to my transistor radio, people-watch and take in the scenery along its 1 hr+ route and just let it take me to its final stop. There was nothing exciting there, just another ulu, quiet neighbourhood. I had a short walk around the place, bought a packet drink, and boarded the bus again to go home.

So it wasn't a very successful attempt. But sometimes, I still have an urge to alight at a different stop from where I intended to go, be it on a SBS bus, or the public train in Perth. Actually, especially when I'm overseas, because all places are equally unfamiliar and promising, and I know that I may never come by that way again.

When you know nothing about the place, you won't have any expectations, and thus you are less likely to be disappointed. Maybe that's why those trips taken when I was a kid seemed more memorable, even if it was just a car trip to Desaru. We stayed at a cheap motel (I think we would have howled at that thought now) but it was novel then. I remember that when the lights went out, it was total darkness, unlike in Singapore where the orange glow of streetlights outside always seeps in through even the smallest gap. My sister and me were totally enthralled by the fact that we couldn't even see the hands we were frantically waving in each other's faces.

You know how as you become older, travelling becomes in a way demystified, because even before you step off the plane onto the foreign soil, you've researched the place to death, examined its most gorgeous scenery via photos, planned your itinerary down to the last minute, and mapped out all the places you want to go so that that you won't end up "nowhere".

Anyway, I did go nowhere for my short break; I got so bored that I cancelled part of my leave and went back to the office. I'm due for another extended weekend this week. Maybe I'll take up my colleague's suggestion to walk around Tion8 Bahru, with all the good food places. Anyone wanna join in? :)

Post-CNY blues?

here it comes, the piggy year

oinks to all who's dear and near

those i can't stand pls steer clear

'cos pigs give great kicks in the rear!

Age seems to be on the minds of of friends recently. I never used to think that being in your twenties is considered old. But a lot of them have been using the dreaded word of late. I told one of them that once you think you're old, that's it--almost like it's game over. To another, I said that we should enjoy our twenties because we'll have plenty of time to lament when we progress into the thirties.

But the truth be told, I feel kinda old myself after a recent bout of health troubles. Over the CNY, I also met up with alot of relatives and as I look at the younger cousins all grown up and glowing while all the aunties and uncles are looking more wizened and grey, I just feel more vulnerable.

Growing older just doesn't seem like a very appealing prospect, but it is something natural and I believe that our attitude would eventually evolve with age and we'll cope with and accept what we cannot stop. But what I cannot resolve away so conveniently is the possibility of losing people as we grow older. It'll be painful no matter what age we're at.

Some of the younger cousins don't care two hoots about me and neither do I them. :P It's always the older aunties and uncles who make the effort to chat because they know I'm the quiet one and they've watched me grow up. So for the new year, I hope that I would be in good health and that my parents and aunties and uncles would all be hale and hearty! The same goes for my dear friends too. So stock up on those supplements (with your bounty of ang bao $, Rudolph! ho ho ho!), resveratrol or otherwise. :)

Things that I like (III)

I haven't been blogging. The fact is, sometimes the things I'm thinking about don't translate well into blog entries. Even when I was little, there are things that I felt which I couldn't articulate well. Now that I'm all grown up, it's still the same. I can tell you how the gentle rustling of trees makes me smile sometimes because it gives form and sound to the invisible wind that I've always wanted to see and to catch with my hands, but I'm not sure if you'd stare at me and ask me if I were on drugs. Or if I was dropped as a baby and cracked my head on the floor. :)

Hua ren hua yu?

My father and I were listening to a Chinese infotainment radio station on the road 1 morning, when the presenters started discussing the political coup in Thailand.

"Why do these people jostle for power?" My father asked rhetorically, "Those people who assume positions of power suffer so such pressure that their hair grow white."

I said rhetorically because he didn't expect a response from me, who's usually comatose in the morning and can muster, at best, a weak "uh huh".

I was silent for awhile, thinking of how best to respond, and sprouted a Chinese saying I heard just the previous night, while watching a Chinese documentary about the Yangtze River: ren2 wang3 gao1 chu4 pa2, shui3 wang3 di1 chu4 liu2 (humans will always aspire to climb to higher ground, just as water would always flow towards lower terrain).

I think he was surprised; he said: "Isn't the Chinese language meaningful? It's so descriptive."

I was pleased--it's not often that he thinks well of my Chinese language proficiency. And it felt good too, because he was right, Chinese proverbs and sayings can often hit home better than English.

I guess my perspective about my langugage usage had undergone a slight change recently, after a job interview with the Sin8apore branch of a UK publishing company. Their job application form, which I was supposed to fill out just before the interview, asked for my colour. I felt more than a jolt of irritation. I find the term offensive, and besides, they had already asked for my race and nationality. All of a sudden, I begin to understand how members of ethnic minority groups feel, when their colour gets in the way of their daily life. It really wasn't a good way to get acquainted with the company. I put in a dash.

Before the job interview, I was quite confident that I would develop a long-term career in editing. Just as the accountants crunch numbers, I like to crunch words. I like to work with words and pore over pages and pages of words. But editors in Singapore, as the instructor of the editing course I attend recently put it, get the short shrift because editing skills are not appreciated here, unlike, say, in the UK. But so what even if I shift base to overseas, I thought, how am I supposed to compete with the natives of English language?

That point was reinforced during the interview, when the interviewers explained the job scope (which was not editing per se, but more of soliciting book ideas from academics and making recommendations to the UK headquarters, ie. commissioning) and say that actual editing is done in US and UK but not Asia, even for books that are written by Asians. Commissioning is actually considered a higher rung on the editorial ladder than editing of content, but the latter is what I want to continue doing and which I hope I can still get to do in future.

The cognitive dissonance (the only handy term I ever learned in undergrad social psychology) I experienced was quite discomforting. English is the language that I base my career on, that I (mostly) think in and write in, and yet it is not a language that I own. So I could venture out of Sin8apore and possibly be considered 2nd-rate, or stay in Sin8apore and be underpaid. What a thought.

And that's why I'm thinking about picking up Chinese reading and writing again, just to touch base with the language I was born into. My first step was buying a Chinese (kiddo) storybook about 2 weekends ago, thought I haven't gathered the courage to pick it up and start reading yet. I tried the Chinese newspaper My Paper today though, and I must say it takes some getting used to. Is it me, or do Chinese writings have this undertow of moral righteousness in between the lines? It's almost like listening to a sermon. I don't think I'll be able to become a Chinese editor, but gee, I don't mind switching to translation as a career and oh, work for the UN aka The Interpreter! Erm, but I'm talking nonsense now. So, back to work.

Why didn't I study harder for Geography when I was young?

The weather has been freakish for the past month. I've never seen Sin8apore so drenched in rain before. Today, I got to talking with a sweet-looking, dimpled French girl on exchange, who said that back home , people are milling around in summer attire when it's supposed to be deep in winter because it's been unusually warm, about 15 degree celsius as opposed to the usually 3-5 degree celsius.

And last night, I was bumming at home, watching the epic-disaster movie "The Day After Tomorrow" which was wildly exaggerating but still reasonably scary. The scene that caught my attention was the one with Jake Gyllenhaal trying to stop people from leaving the library and trekking to the south because they'll freeze to death once outside. How do you know, someone asked, and he replied that because his father is a paleoclimatologist working for the US government (and the 1 who briefed the Mr President of USA) .

Wow, that sounded so cool, so authoritative, the kind of thing that would stop people in their tracks (but, of course they didn't in the movie because someone has to go outside to freeze their butts and chalk up the death count for not listening to the cute lead). Which of course got me to thinking that if I had studied harder for Geography when I was in secondary school I could have become a paleoclimatologist too.

But how do you get worked up about Geography when you had roly poly teachers who treated the lesson as an extended lunch break by demonstrating how a gorge is formed via munching on a piece of sponge cake, or tell you gleefully that the geography department in university makes you chomp on soil as part of the education? Or another one who got more excited about our upcoming prom and what we're going to wear than us?

But I think all the paleoclimatologist-wannabes in Singapore can ever amount to would be hapless weathermen who kena questioned by ST for not issuing a heavy rain warning earlier last Thursday. So boring!

Run, 2007 is coming!

The end of the year has always been my favourite part but this year, it seemed to have whizzzzed past me (or me it, I'm not sure). Christmas was quite hectic, with work deadlines and gift-shopping and a looming job interview joining forces to knock me out.

I still remember how I scurried around the mazy mall a few times in a panicky mode, lugging my violin and trying to zig-zag my way through the crowd. I rushed into those crowded Gifts-n-Such shops and scanned their shelves up and down, frantically flipping their notebooks and cards or poking at their trinkets, trying to find something nice.

But if you want to talk about running in a frenzy, nothing beats new year's eve. Me and 2 other pals, W and YZ were basically driving around Sing*pore, first in search of a decent dinner, which was difficult because everywhere was full of people, and then a decent countdown party, which was much worse.

We first climbed down Fort Canning Hill and marched to the National Museum, but found it too arty-farty. We didn't want to usher in the new year watching a few contemporary dancers twirling around incomprehensibly. So we climbed up the hill again and drove to the Esplanade area at 11.30pm. But W's car was running out of fuel and we were caught in a jam while the minutes went by. "I don't want to count down to the new year in a car!" W wailed. Us spending the dawn of the new year pushing her conked out car in the jam was a real possibility. We had to turn off the air-conditioning to slow down fuel consumption, and I made helpful comments like "Hey, look, the sign says Esplanade Drive closed 8pm to 1.30am!" while W starts to hyperventilate.

Finally, we got ourselves out of the traffic mayhem and parked the car at a basement carpark with 5 minutes left. "Run, run!" we shrieked and bolted out of the car and ran up 3 flights of stairs to the exit which turned out to be locked. We were stuck, huffing and puffing in that stuffy, narrow stairwell but good thing there was an uncle and auntie who were as tardy as us. The mighty uncle wrestled the door open and we tumbled out into the open air. Freedom! And so we managed to join the countdown crowd with 3 minutes to go. What a thrill. Let's see whether we can top that this year.