hakuna matata

it's a pity that when i finally decide to blog again, it's cos i'm in a bad mood. i suppose if i'm in a good mood there isn't much to rant about huh? or it goes into my written diary... e.g. praises for what God has done. the irony. anyway i can't figure out if i'm being PMSy or tired or what it is, but really, I was in such a bad mood today! I think working late last week + on Saturday really made me feel like I'm so done with this stupid report so Monday was kind of unproductive (plus my manager told me I could go home at a decent hour, so I kind of assumed the worst was over - not true). Today at 6:30 he stops by and pretty much tells me I've to stay late (or was assuming that I was going to, whereas I was actually intending on leaving already. More irony). I guess that's why we didn't have to work too much on the weekend.

He was really nice about it though, said to make up for it, if we get an extension I can go home earlier on Friday. I'm like haha... I just got arrowed to audit this other huge report due next Fri, fat chance about leaving at decent hours for the next week or so, it seems. Anyway, was just not very gracious about it in general. Maybe I'm just tired.

God has been good, nevertheless. I did get a nice brunch on Sat and Bobby McFerrin! and hanging out with Selene! and different yummy Vietnamese food + pandan waffle/improv on Fri/finding the hill! But I guess that came with sleep deprivation too so not the most ideal... Ah well, at least there're more waffles coming up this Sat :p and SF Symphony on Sat night! Yeah... maybe that'll motivate me. and I also have to stop stress-eating..

i was just remarking to ser this morning that it's been such a long time since i blogged and she was like ya, you shd blog!

alright that was yesterday as in wed, jan 13.

i have realized that when i don't have deadlines, i tend to slack. a LOT. and be very unmotivated. basically i just wrapped up a case, and the reports were due monday. so the week before i worked late on tues, wed, fri (manager let me off on thurs cos i had tickets to go watch cirque [yay!]), came in on sat and sun. i calculated it was a 70-hr week and have NO idea how i-bankers survive... it really wasn't very fun. anyhow, thankfully the CEO gave us tuesday off :):) i was very happy, it felt like time for the ACTUAL weekend on monday night. and then when i came in on wed i was curious to find out what case i'd be staffed on cos jem's like "20march! tahoe!" and i'm like well... depends on when my next report is due. anyhow. came in for 1.5 hrs with nothing to do (again! gosh, you can't imagine how useless one feels).

and then my first proj mgr gave me a case to work on. but it's pretty far on out and there aren't even that many documents to work with [i guess that's good, better than overload] so i'm just summarizing patent license agreements now. but i'm back to being slack, that i can feel... i guess i need to set my own deadlines else i just float along.

yesterday i was so tempted to go to sushi with my coworkers! but i brought lunch. ah well. and it would've been kind of ex... but i also realized that it's a trade-off between spending $ and getting to know them better. so i guess maybe half the time i should eat out and the other half i can bring stuff. it's also slightly annoying that we STILL don't have a kitchen cos there's no fridge and i can't leave stuff lying around. although today's lunch (portobello mushroom panini) is going to have to sit around until i leave, at least sandwiches are less problematic in that sense i think. anyway it was hilarious, when steve (my 2nd proj mgr) saw that i was going to get lunch with them his jaw dropped and he gave me this utterly SHOCKED look and held it for a while cos i didn't notice at first. rofl.

the funny thing is that i think the staying late thing helped me bond with the rest a bit. like, i'm more comfortable with stopping by offices and asking how things are going. and there was something else but i forget.

mmm. i think i shall try to make pan de sal tonight. :D am excited. and matt gave me his banana bread recipe! also excited about that, but probably not making that just yet... we shall see. he said the measurements aren't exact cos the recipe's at home in minnesota.

anyway the whole getting tuesday off threw me off kilter a little cos it felt so much like a weekend that i thought today is tuesday when it's really thursday... ah well. next weekend! woohoo. and moving. haha. time to unpack in the new house for real! yayyy.

the return...

of the work monster!

so i thought i was being on task by finishing my 261 pset early (for once. maybe twice.) and then today after dschool stuff i realize i have TONS of stuff to do. it's amazing how much time dsch stuff takes, i must rethink whether i want to apply to do another dsch class next quarter, it being my last quarter. man, that sounds so sad to say. but i have determined to fill it with fun stuff! well ok i have to find people who want to do fun stuff too but hopefully that won't be a huge problem.. although one of those things does include doing pearline's otter kayaking thing.. hm.

and tonight's chi alpha was quite powerful. including the fact that the guest speaker (dick schroeder) repeated something that i remembered so clearly from highway during the summer. that we must learn to accept and let go with open palms, instead of clenching to hold on and not being able to let go. and that relates to selfishness. it's funny though, i always thought i wasn't selfish until i realized all the little things which demonstrate how incredibly self-centered i am sometimes. i learnt to care for other people by seeing how jackie cared for her friends (her boys, as she calls them), to genuinely care about how other pple's days went instead of just asking it for the sake of courtesy. chi alpha helped with that too, i saw that with esther & company as well.

anyway... he gave us this sheet of paper contrasting selflessness (the embodiment of God) and selfishness and how one spirals outwards like the sun radiating its light outwards and leads to heaven, while the other spirals inwards like a black hole and leads to hell. very thought-provoking. anyway, i decided i needed to stick it up on my wall to remind me to not be so self-centered. and just now i could share in my roommate's joy of rearranging her room (silly as it sounds) and it felt good! better than just being like oh, cool, good for you.. it was fun to really care about what makes her happy too. :)

alright. now i have to go back to finishing 22 pages of reading for a case. ahhhh. pooft.

crazy week! i seem to have forgotten how hard i've to work to keep up with 20 units. like really... maybe this just happens all the time and i take it as status quo. quite possible, really.

birthday wasn't particularly exciting i think, esp cos i had a midterm and a pset to do (which i frankly hadn't much of an idea how to do either, i hope it was alright though:|) ah. since i procrastinated on finishing this post, i got my midterm back and praise God! did pretty well:)

oh, my birthday stuff all came at different times! diffused happiness. haha.
so first it was dinner..
then poor sealnet pple singing me a bday song twice (once at mon night meeting and once at midnight! so sweet :)).
i think serene's present came on time (yay! pretty bag:) although it wasn't as exciting cos i chose it anyway haha:p) hmm.
oh! yah, dayoung gave me a mini cake and yellow victory roses which seem to be slowly dying, unfortunately.
tuan's present was a little late.. but so sweet. at first i was like wat?! why is he sending me vietnamese cds? and then i saw the rest of the package and i was like ohhhhhh. aw.
then my bday card from my family arrived just this monday.. which amused me so much but made me miss home a little. the envelope was bright pink and then when i opened it the first thing i saw was the back of the card which said "princess and pony", and the front is SO cute :)
and yesterday, chris' present came! such pretty earrings from the art institute in chicago! :) which was nice cos i had a slightly crappy morning yesterday, what with professors standing me up and dvds not being where they were supposed to be -_-

yeah. i need to muster up the motivation to do my work. ack! ohh! sicheng gave me speakers! yayyy. :) i was getting rather annoyed with the pathetic-ness of the mac mini's internal ones (even though actually my bro says he's going to buy me a macbook for my bday! :)) but yeah, it makes watching stuff on my computer really hard. not anymore yay!

planning this europe trip is such a headache. i wish we had more time :( and i've been to paris/rome so i don't particularly wanna go, but other people wanna go... and i really wanna go to nice/florence/venice! we'll see i guess. maybe i'll just disappear off for a bit and meet back later.

sigh i can't sleep! maybe the excitement hasn't worn off. anyway I feel so blessed. just one night (more like afternoon + night i guess) and God has given me so much. I'm almost tempted to say "all I ever hoped for", but of course that's not really the case. it's so weird though, He works in such mysterious ways. and I don't even know why I'm so happy about it. I suppose somehow or other, after all the people I've gotten to know, Citibank has come to mean something to me. kind of weird huh?

anyway.. so originally when my boss asked HR they said i couldn't go. even though, in his words, he fought very hard for me. so I was kind of disappointed but resigned to it -shrug- it's really funny cos at first i was like nope, why would i want to go.. it'd just be weird. then i gradually got more amenable to it cos pple were all talking about it and what they were going to dress up as.. but then I found out I couldn't go so I was like sigh, whatever then..

And then today I decided to go to the costume shop with my boss and his fellow management associates, one of them is a relationship manager(RM) in training [rahul], another one is a full fledged (well, sort of) RM [EC]. since they were leaving early and i had nothing else to do anyway.. not until dinnertime when i was supposed to meet jiahui and adeline.

so we got there, and i was sort of advising them on costumes and such.. and then rahul kept asking me why i wasn't going! anyhow in the end he just called up the organizers and asked if there was space.. and there was! and i was like serious???? so i called up poor jiahui to cancel on them.. for like the dunno how many-ieth time. felt kinda bad about it. but luckily they were meeting pam yeo so it wasn't so bad i guess:p

oh and i got to wear a fun costume (egyptian queen!:p). although it got rather scratchy/hot after a while -_- haha. actually i don't think it looks THAT good on me. anyhow. yes, i also got to see everyone I wanted to see (which was quite amazing cos different departments were at different tables). anyhow hopefully everyone sends photos to me cos I didn't have my camera -sob-

and then kelvin drove me home too. so, very blessed today I feel!:) it's not even such a big deal I think. oh well. just happy anyway:) two weeks left.. hardly. I'm so glad I got to intern here though. Although it seems like what I'm taking from it is more about my style of interaction/getting to know people/work more than the financey stuff. Even though I'm sure there's that stuff too.. not as impactful. it's the interactions with people I'll remember.

it's been.. a week? i think. somewhere around there.

i guess this week wasn't so busy but i was doing random other things. like getting my specs done. FINALLY! that poor salesman. haha. i must have frustrated him so much. cos i took a total of two hours (one on each day, i went down twice cos i couldn't decide) to choose my frames.

and i met more people this week. oh i got to talk to my investment consultant person. and a couple other people.. including one girl whom i originally thought wasn't very friendly cos when she gave me the card she just gave me that sort of impression. or maybe i just caught her at a better time this time.. it's funny how first impressions are sometimes so wrong.

anyway my mind is more preoccupied with non-work stuff. i'm so sick of telling people what i do at work! it's such a horribly boring topic. i guess it really shouldn't be, but it sounds slightly lame somehow. same with MOF prison rehab thing last year. but you know, "website content" and "trusts presentation" just doesn't sound particularly impressive. i suppose in general things aren't as glamorous as they sound.

i drove to pam's house and back today! yay:) despite my mom's rather obvious doubts of my ability to drive the car safely >< couldn't really face a 1hr train ride, not after all the commuting i have to do during weekdays. anyway first she was trying to convince me to take MRT cos i'll have to find parking and etc.. then afterwards she was like oh, you better remember to take down the carplate and insurance number if anything happens. luckily nothing did! haha. praise God:) and my parking was quite good. although granted, there were two lots' worth of space.

and it was rather queer being the odd one out. cos the bunch at her house today was mostly 3G (her class) and RJ councillors/RI prefects. and there was me. well puee and jiahui came later. and poor lyd was sick. hope lyd feels better soon! but while i was sitting there it just struck me that the situation was somewhat similar to val's bday party last sat. actually i also dunno how come she invited me, but the groups of friends were like columbia/air rifle/3J/412. so i just hung around with the 412 girls.. was good to see them after so long but also so interesting to see their dynamic. and to find out that most of them aren't attached! i suppose cos it seems like half my class is attached. dunno la.

3 weeks left to leaving. hm. i think i need to make better friends at stanford. one of my colleagues was saying "your classmates are going to be future presidents (and wat not) so better start networking!" i just smiled. i didn't want to say anything cos i don't really think i'm that close to people there somehow. i guess i need to make an effort to hang out with people more, am so bad at doing that! so easy to get preoccupied and such.

it's really been a while! what with starting work and SEALNet people coming for the ASEAN celebrations to present our circle paintings and get the PM to paint on it.. That was definitely a crazy week. Entertaining SEALNet pple until 11+ everyday and taking a cab home. and then Top (from project thailand last year) randomly came to Singapore and I got his email on Friday night asking if I was free for Saturday lunch. I'm like.. well done. But anyway I managed to get a couple of people to come down. and then sean's bday dinner on Sunday.. which was quite fun even though i was the youngest. honored to be invited though. haha :)

yeah, lunch with yingheng and then dinner with lyd n pam on monday. i don't think i was very good company somehow. dinner with aud n changmou n shaun n hongking yesterday. reminiscing about rj days was rather enjoyable. and somehow all my conversations include an element of animal! maybe i only notice it now cos tuan kept telling me i was obsessed with animals. ohwell. anyway, it also struck me what a GEP group it was.. i don't know why only today though. maybe cos we really haven't met up in that group so it was a little different.

today was a rather eventful day i guess. meaning most of my time wasn't spent at the desk which made me very happy:) it felt a little like being in school and doing PWR research again though, haha. cos i was trying to find books on trusts to help me understand. rather than random googling. i'm glad my boss let me go though.. hopefully he didn't think i was slacking or something.

so i went to NLB from 11:30 to 3:30 and had lunch w jon in btwn.. that was nice too. rather amusing and i got to see his van! apparently one of his ex-gfs or something was very averse to him picking her up in a van. and he was like "why couldn't she see past the van!" which was just hilarious cos normally it's like see past the money or something.. oh i don't know, it was just funny.

and then my boss forwarded me this email about RM (relationship manager) training.. so I got to sit in on this session where the RMs were taught about citi's house view, investing for long term, etc. and i found out that one of the guys i met was quite an important person. i THINK. anyway i shall go ask him what he actually does.. hopefully tmr. yeah, so that took up the rest of the day and i wasn't deskbound! ahaha. victory.

i'm also actually home for dinner, which hasn't happened since i don't know when.. oh wait it was last fri or something. and fireworks tmr! yay

anyway, i think that guy made such a big impression on me cos he was the only one to answer me at that first team huddle thing. but again i guess he didn't have much of a choice since after all of them stared at me like i was crazy when i was like "hello! what're you doing? i'm an intern and I heard a lot of noise so i came out to see what was going on" (this was Nat'l Day eve), and went back to doing whatever team activity it was that they were doing, i asked him specifically what was going on.
and later met him when i was going out in search of a hashbrown. haha. oh this reminds me of the French guy at Total in 05. he was so nice! and smiley! i suddenly randomly remember going into his office and finding out that he went to INSEAD.
the weird things i do.

I really think I forgot just how heavy a 20-unit courseload is. seriously. after last quarter. I mean I was recruiting and CS106A (java programming) was driving me nuts, but I think I had much less class time and quite a bit of time to slack around and read books. now it's a struggle to finish my work on time and juggle SEALNet stuff and be able to sleep enough and celebrate pple's bdays (i only mention the last cos the past two nights i've been over at wilbur to watch pple get thrown in the shower. haha.)

and I don't even know how come SEALNet takes up so much time. how do other people handle so many clubs n stuff? man. oh well. it's not other people we're talking about anyway, it's you. and i guess everything in SEALNet is a challenge. coming up with curriculums, getting people involved, evaluation matrices, ..... ahhh. anyhow I am so looking forward to this weekend.. long weekend and ser'll be here! haha i want her to meet so many people it's crazy. probably not going to happen but i guess we'll see..

stupid 9am classes. seriously, i think i'm going to pick classes such that i NEVER EVER AGAIN have to get up so frickin early to go to class.. hope that's possible. so much for being naive and idealistic and thinking yay! spring = nice weather so it won't be so hard to get up! somehow 9am class just gives very little leeway for doing last min work. haha. as bad as it sounds. though technically it shouldn't.. oh i don't know. weird. ok back to silly pwr. i really need a better attitude towards my classes, but 3 weeks ago i was already a little bored with them!

i don't really know what induced me to take on this happy mode of oh-i'm-not-going-to-sleep-on-mon-night-and-write-my-pwr-draft, but it was definitely a BAD idea. man. it was so torturous to sit in class on Tuesday I really wanted to die. Thankfully I came back after introsem and took a nap (which extended past what it was supposed to). My alarm rang at 6pm but I turned it off and only awoke when Jackie asked me "Aren't you supposed to be in class?" and it was 7:40pm. ah well. (my art class is from 7 to 9 pm). and then I was like crap! My longstanding fear of sleeping thru my phone alarm and missing class has come true! eek. but then I figured my body just wouldn't take it (and I really felt very weak, hence the 'flopping around like a jellyfish' part of my nickname on msn/googletalk.

so i gave up and slept 9 hrs last night. yay! but today somehow still kinda tired. and it's going to be a long night. well i guess not THAT bad but given that it's already 1am and I need to put together a decent introsem presentation in case I -do- have to present tomorrow, a peer review (which shouldn't be TOO bad since I've already read Janet's paper), figure out leadership curriculum stuff, response to my Psych reading. oh great. that's the list.

anyway I screwed up my econ midterm. but at least my draw number was good! 338! yayy! maybe we can go on a row house or something.. not sure yet. anyway the housing draw is like a lottery.
1. you form a group (of people you wanna live/room with)
2. you submit your application online
3. they assign you a number
4. according to your number you choose where you want to live
5. they assign you your residence
6. you go for in-house draw (to pick exactly which room you get)

you have 2 preferred years - meaning that you get lower numbers and hence better housing preferences. the numbers for draw range from 1 to 3000. 1 to 1999 = preferred, 2000 - 3000 = un-preferred. and if you get '1' you pretty much can choose to live anywhere.. of course there're more desirable residences depending on wat u're looking for. row houses are the party places but they have better food (but also smaller windows for mealtimes) other places are less social/more quiet (ie my current dorm) etc

anyway we got 338! which is pretty good:) and i was very happy cos i was praying that we'd get a good number, couldn't face having to live in horrible places. and comparing that with my lousy econ (which was really my fault anyway), i think God was trying to teach me that some things I still can make up for (i.e. i NEED to work on that financial econ class, the irony) and sometimes i need a wake-up call, but other things he'll bless me as he sees fit. like draw numbers which i have no power over! yay. well i suppose that might be stretching it a little but given the range of emotions i went thru (angry/annoyed/sad/despondent abt my econ to ecstatic about housing) it just came to mind.

okay. work. work work work.