Thursday, May 25, 2006 01:19 p.m.
THE BOYFRIEND IS FLYING UP TO LOS ANGELES FOR 2 WEEKS!!!! THE BOYFRIEND IS FLYING UP TO LOS ANGELES FOR 2 WEEKS!!! Hippie yay yay yay!!! He booked his own tickets, paid for them without discussing it with me and only told me about it this morning my time at 640AM!!! And he's coming in tomorrow afternoon 320PM (my time) and that means I get to see him in about 26 hours!!! I don't believe it!!! I really really don't believe it!! He might come up to Seattle with me too if he can get a cheap domestic ticket so hopefully we can work that in but him coming up to LA for 2 weeks is already such a big treat for me, I don't want to ask for more! Yay! I really can't believe it and I'm way beyond excited! Woot woot!!! Can't wait! 26 more hours!!!Wednesday, May 24, 2006 01:38 p.m.
I wish I could just pick up the phone, dial that familar number and start talking to E without any consideration for costs and the 15 hour time difference. It's Wednesday, 01:40PM here in downtown Long Beach. It's Thursday, 04:40AM back home.Tuesday, May 23, 2006 01:40 p.m.
One thing I've come to realized working here in America and being away from home is that even if you had the best job with the best perks, a good pay packet, an office with the ocean view and nice looking credentials to add to your cv, all this pales if you don't have your family or your loved ones to be beside you, to share everything with you and to come home to after a tired and long day at work. Don't get me wrong. I'm completely and totally grateful and thankful for this experience and to this company. It's just that right now, I'll like to be a little selfish and wish that E, sarahwong and the folks (minus the nagging) could be up here as well. Having a salad for lunch right now because I am dieting. Haha. I'm swearing off Peanut butter cups for this whole week because I realized one peanut butter cup is 105 calories and I had 4 yesterday! Have to leave the office soon with my uncle to meet a customer and we're going to be playing a round of 9-hole golf with the customer! The sun's out and the weather's absolutely gorgeous today so it should be nice playing but I somehow better swing and hit like Tiger Woods. Haha.Monday, May 22, 2006 08:07 p.m.
Today, my Aunt and I went shopping and I managed to get Levi's jeans! I don't even know why I got it when I don't really like wearing jeans but who cares. Came home to pick my cousin up and then we went to the pet's store near Sea Port Marina. My Aunt got him a hermit crab for a pet and the hermit crab had its shell painted! Really cute.
Anyway, we spent USD28 on the hermit crab and its habitat and food and they put this tiny crab into this huge box, we just had to take a picture of it. It's ridiculous and it's crazy to spend that amount of money when hermit crabs are in abundance along the coasts of South China Sea. Haha.
Went to Mimi's afterwards which is a quaint lovely romantic french restaurant for french onion soup and fresh bread! I love that place and it's my mum's and aunt's favourite restaurant as well. I have to go iron my work shirts, put the dishes into the dishwasher and make my sandwich right now!
Monday, May 22, 2006 05:24 p.m.
The weekend was fantastic! On Saturday, we had a spring luncheon in church and the different tables had different themes according to some popular books like Narnia and all. The luncheon was great and I met a US marine who is only 2 years older than I am. At that age, he's been to Iraq for 9 months for combat mission. On his arm, he has a tattoo with 13 marines's name. Apparently on mission in Iraq, those 13 marines from his unit died in a bomb attack so his entire unit had those names tattooed on their arms as an act of remembrance. He was sharing with me his stories and it's really amazing hearing it from him. He was telling me I have so much to be thankful for because at least I can go out, date, be with my family and all. He doesn't know where his next mission is or whether he'll die in battlefield and that he's always in camp, he has no time to date! It's one thing to read in the papers and see in CNN about marines dying or families being torn apart as the man leaves for Iraq or even about the war in Iraq, it's another thing to be speaking to one who has been there, done that and experienced it. To top it off, he's only 2 years older than I am! His sister told me that their mum was so against him being in the marines because their father just passed away before he got sent to Iraq and his mum had originally wanted him to go on to college. Highly interesting and warming just talking to him and his sister. After spring luncheon, my uncle brought my cousin and I to South Coast Plaza! I love that place! I went inside Abercrombie and Fitch and spent a bomb that I knew my father was going to kill me when he received the bill so I called home immediately after that to prepare him. Haha. Came home for movie night and pizza because my aunt wasn't in and we could have junk food. Haha. On Sunday, I went to Crystal Cathedral for morning service. Gosh gosh gosh, that place is so so grand and beautiful! The whole cathedral is made of glass, they have a huge choir and an orchestra, their service is televised to 30million tv viewers, Dr Robert Schuller is their senior pastor and Ruth Graham (Billy Graham's daughter came to speak)! Seriously, the site of the church is amazing. A pity though the service was a little too commercialized. I still like attending services at Barker. I feel more at home. After church service, we drove down to San Diego! Awesome!Along the way, we drove by the Pacific Ocean, saw the mountains of California, a nuclear power plant which wasn't quite what I imagined it to be because it's just like 2 domes next to the coast, nothing really spectacular but at least now I know what a nuclear power plant looks like. I saw million dollar homes (those homes shown on OC because we went to Newport Beach), shopped at Fashion Island (love that place too!), drove up a mountain just to get a view of the valleys and peaks, saw Camp Pendleton which is where the US marines train, saw the marines training ground and so so much more! The shopping pales in comparison to what I saw. I realized while driving down to San Diego and all that America is truly a big big country with many many people. They even have the land space to simulate Afghanistan and Iraq for their marines to train. Singapore has to borrow air space from Australia or borrow grounds in Taiwan and Brunei for its troops to train. America is huge! I understood too why people in the older times would say the earth is flat! As far as my eyes could see, the pacific ocean just stretches in a flat line to the end of the horizon! I'm curious now as to how big this world can be and I can't wait to travel to other parts of this world! The Pacific Ocean that I see now is also the same Pacific Ocean along the coast of Japan! That's how big the pacific ocean is. It's like an 11 hour plane ride long! Haha. I'm just wowed. It might be something duh that America and the world is huge but that fact just dawned on me on the drive down.
Saturday, May 20, 2006 09:41 a.m.
How easily you forget, substitute and make full.Thursday, May 18, 2006 06:20 p.m.
Everyone, my 2 honey sweetie pies.
The 10 year old boy on the left pounces on me and jumps on my bed in the morning to wake me up for work. He eats all my food, is an impatient shopper, calls my singapore boyfriend eggnog and tries to scare me with the cat when I get out from the shower or push me into the cold pool when we're walking to the garage.
The other 10 year old boy on the right is my neighbourhood boyfriend! (Don't worry, I haven't forgotten my singapore boyfriend) He is the cutest thing ever and he's so so sweet! He carries my shopping bags for me, helps me search for the right size shirt, gives me a 10second long hug whenever he leaves our place, shares with me his cheeseburger, tells me I'm better than his 13 year old sister because she has attitude and always always listens to me!
Shopping in LA today. Nothing fantastic and I think shopping in Hong Kong, Shanghai, Bangkok and even Singapore beats shopping in America. Blah. Going out soon for Japanese dinner! The 2 japanese restaurants nearby serves up good food for a reasonable price so it's become a thrice weekly affair!
Wednesday, May 17, 2006 08:44 p.m.
The little things that make me happy these days!Char kway teow (lard included!) and shopping at Victoria's secrets!
Weekend was great and I officially have Mondays off because the company believes in letting their interns tour and explore California! Goody! Saturday saw my uncle, aunt, cousin and myself going down to Little Saigon for my kway teow soup/chinese food fix! After lunch, we drove over to Seal Beach (which is like a 10min drive from our place). The weather was lovely and seal beach's main street is so quaint and nice, I'm going back there to just roam around and also lie at the beach for a relaxing saturday!
Seal beach area is also where the US Navy's weapons inventory is so on the drive to the coast, you see a whole area of flat land with bunkers where they store the weapons. I thought it was weird for the military to announce where they store their weapons!
On Sunday, I went to Good Shepherd Presbyterian church which is just outside the neighbourhood. Felt a little weird because I hardly knew anyone and the whole structure of the service was different from Barker's but since we're all worshipping the same God, it's cool. Dropped by Cosco to buy lunch, came home and since the sun was out in full force, we sat by the poolside for lunch, tanned and got a nice tan. Shopping with my aunt after lunch and we came home for steak, mashed potatos, corn and pea in the evening.
I went for Japanese on monday lunch, went to the town center for some shopping. Worked on Tuesday and I'm attached to Sales this time round and I can't stand the sales manager. He's really disorganized and all and myself, Ron, Ian and Ted (who are all recent college grads which makes them a little older than I am), started playing ball in the office. Haha. So while work is demanding and right now, we're in the midst of coming up with a sales budget and acquiring some companies but the people at the workplace are real friendly and all so that makes work good!
Teppanyaki last night. Yum yum and as you've noticed, I've been eating too much. Worst thing is that we have a chocolate inventory at the office and it's just 2 steps away from me so guess what I snack on the entire day and how much calories I've put on. Haha. It's been good, really except for some nights when I just miss home and all its familarity but it's good. Pictures!
Friday, May 12, 2006 04:46 p.m.
I'm done with work already and I'm done for the weekend! I'm just waiting for my uncle to settle a few more stuff before we can go home! Today was a really interesting and fast paced day! We had to submit a bid for a contract and I had to calculate contribution margins, retrieve the different rates and then input them all into Excel and then print them out and attach them as an appendix to the contract! After that, I was allowed to edit the contract to see if there was anything in there that would be a disadvantage to the company and I noticed certain things we learnt in business law like frustration and all. Highly exciting and we all had to work fast to meet the dateline! I think I'm playing tennis tonight after I get home from work! Haha. Hopefully it isn't too cold! I'm eating way too much here and it's partly because all my favourite delights (chocolates, onion rings, fries, turkey bacon sandwich, ice cream, diet coke) are all king size. Ie, bigger than super size or large size.Thursday, May 11, 2006 10:38 p.m.
Hanging on the edge. At a personal crossroads. Plunge head in, breathe in the sights and sounds, live the life and forget everything? Or go about breathing the days half heartedly and spend the nights worrying my whole heart away? Or mope about the entire day, wish that I wasn't here and spend my free time away from sulking, worrying and wondering? Why do people rarely get the best of both worlds?Thursday, May 11, 2006 10:07 p.m.
Hanging on the edge.Thursday, May 11, 2006 10:02 p.m.
Didn't work today. Woke up late and didn't feel like going to work anyway. Went shopping instead with my Aunt at 2 mega stores. Found quite a bit of stuff but most of them are too big! Hopefully, I'll manage to find something that's the right size and right price over here soon! The weather also got colder in the evening and right now, I'm freezing. I need to shower but I am too scared to shower. Argh. Not exactly in the best of moods right now.Wednesday, May 10, 2006 11:28 p.m.
I'm here in LA already and it's a beautiful place! I'm adjusting well and I've started work already. Weather's good, just that the sun isn't always out and when there's a breeze, it gets a little too cold for me but I'm getting used to it! Jetlagged like crazy so skipped work on Monday and started on Tuesday! Touched down on Sunday morning (LA time), had lunch at the golf club nearby, headed to Target to do some supermarket shopping (all in my aunt's plot to make sure I get over my jetlag easily and faster) then came home for dinner and Desperate Housewives. Haha. On Monday, I slept till noon and then my aunt brought me to this vietnamese restaurant for mee pok! Haha. I'm going back there once a week to get my kway teow/ meepok and noodle fix! Haha. We went to the chinese supermarket afterwards, went down to Costcos which is a huge warehouse that sells everything big and cheap and I bought E his xbox games there and had quite an enjoyable time there walking around and going "Wow! Look how huge that thing is!". Haha. Started work on Tuesday and I'm adjusting in real good! The people at the workplace are absolutely friendly and nice! I'm working in downtown Long Beach and the office overlooks the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach and the two ports combined makes it the biggest in America! Very very nice view. I started work at the tax department and that was super challenging and fun reviewing the tariffs for the different commodities and then posting it to the Government. Today in the late afternoon, I moved on to Operations. Sucky sucky job. Work tires me out and I'm always shagged by the end of the day and studying's definitely better because you get breaks and all but it's good and I'm learning alot. To add to that, my uncle shares with me alot of his work experience and he buys me excellent coffee from the store downstairs and brings me for good lunches! I'm going to be doing operations for a while before I move on to Sales to work on a Sony case. Went for a spin around Naples today after work. Naples is apparently one of the most expensive and beautiful neighbourhoods in Los Angeles because the houses all line the Pacific Ocean's canals. I love the houses! My Aunt says that the Hersey's family owns one of the houses! Had Japanese after that and then came home. I've got to sleep soon because it's late and I've got to work tomorrow. Leaving you with pictures of the swimming pool at Los Alamitos where my cousin went for his water polo training, the houses and streets at Naples, costcos the warehouse and the things we found in there and also beautiful flowers that are all in bloom now!
Sunday, May 7, 2006 01:10 a.m.
I think I'm more or less done with packing. I've definitely exceeded the 20KG weight limit so I'm going to act all pitiful in a few hours at check in. Spent the day with E today. Lovely. Went to Great World City for a nice lunch of sushi and udon at Ichiban Boshi, watched Mission Impossible 3 which was really quite a cool cool show, went down town to try to pick up something from Topshop but the queue was too long so I'm sending E to pick up my stuff some other time, bought Haagen-Dazs from Hilton sidewalk, came back to my house for steamboat dinner, packed then mum, E and myself watched tv for a while till he went home a few minutes ago. Well, in the end, Workers Party lost Aljunied GRC. Personally, I think that the opposition parties are coming up quite strongly because PAP just barely grabbed Aljunied and some of their single member constituency's percentage of votes went down by quite a significant percentage and the Worker's Party Chief and Chiam See Tong managed to increase their share of votes in their wards so not bad not bad! Leaving in 6 hours. Feeling both scared and excited at the same time! I don't know if I'll get to use the internet that frequently but I'll see how it goes. I'm going to miss the boyfriend terribly and I'm still hoping that United or SQ will sell air tickets to LA for USD200 or less so that E can come up and visit. Ah well. Got to do some final packing now! See you in 6 weeks time! :)Saturday, May 6, 2006 01:49 a.m.
Thank you girls! I'm definitely going to miss cell (even if it's only for a few weeks) and I'm sure I'm going to be completely clueless on Friday nights because I spend most of my friday nights with you guys! Don't give Jac a headache! :)
Shopping and tea with mummy today before she abandoned me and went for her spa appointment so I went to meet E for a while to change money and do some more necessary shopping. I like shopping with my mum because she pays for everything. We ended up spending quite a bit at Dorothy Perkins so they rewarded us with a $10 voucher. This gives me an excuse to return to Topshop tomorrow and get what I want for $10 less! Haha. Went for cell then had supper and together time with E at United Square before coming home.
Polling day tomorrow and I'm curious to know how the opposition will fare and what percentage of votes the PAP will get. I wish I could vote!
Thursday, May 4, 2006 02:25 a.m.
So it's confirmed. The tickets have been bought and I'm leaving on Sunday! I think in many aspects, I'm ready to leave except that my bags aren't packed and my heart's not quite ready yet. The fears and worries, like how I'm going to iron my own shirts, live with 2 cats or whether I'm capable of handling the tasks they throw at me or assimilate easily into the culture and make friends with the work people, they are still there. I wonder if I'll miss home. But I believe, putting those aside, I'm all ready and excited to experience something different! I'm excited to find out what working in the US of A is like, I'm excited about what I'll see and learn, about experiencing and immersing myself into a culture I believe will be quite different from Singapore. I'm excited about traveling up to Seattle to visit Yaozhang and holiday with him and Chang, excited about the beach party, shopping trips, cooking and theme park visits with Selena, excited about so so many things! Good day today! Met Shuhui and Juan Juan for girlfriend time! Splendid! We had a nice long lunch and chit chat at Din Tai Fung, strolled along Orchard Road, shopped and tried clothes at our own leisure pace before I met E in the evening for dinner and headed back to his house to watch tv. If such is the life of a taitai, I wouldn't mind being one in the future! Wouldn't it be nice to wake up at 9AM, read the bible and the newspaper, head out for lunch with your girlfriends, chit chat, shop till dinner time and then meet your boyfriend and spend the evening with him watching tv and talking? Haha. Off to bed now! I'm tired.Wednesday, May 3, 2006 10:12 a.m.
Have you realized the occasions when you want time to pass slowly, it somehow always zooms past you and before you know it, time's up! Then the other occasions when you want time to pass quickly, it somehow always slows down and the second hand mocks you and goes tick tock pause pause pause tick tock pause pause pause. 3 more days to departure!Wednesday, May 3, 2006 12:46 a.m.
Today is public transportation day so I trained down to City Hall to meet E after he was done with school, grabbed lunch, looked for bible study materials then walked to Dhoby Ghaut, shopped around, trained back to my place, spent some time with my Aunt who was at my place cooking pasta, took a bus to Boon Keng MRT station and then trained to his house before dropping by another of my aunt's house, going for dinner and then finally returning to his place to watch tv. I think taking the bus and the train totally shagged the both of us out and the minute we spotted his car after getting out of the train station, we ran as fast as we could and I started kissing his car. Haha. My mum called while I was at E's place just now and started nagging over the phone. She's complaining that I haven't been home, that my bags aren't packed, that my travel arrangements aren't confirmed or I haven't gotten most of my necessary shopping done. I wish she didn't nag. It isn't that easy for me and seriously, I haven't had that mood and energy to do any packing. Well, to prove how desperate she is, she's taking leave on Friday afternoon to bring me shopping. Great. I'm not even sure whether I'm excited about leaving or not. Nowadays, I just swing from being totally excited to being completely turned off and fearful and then back to being all excited again. All I know is that I'm just trying to pack my days and make sure I make time for everything and everybody.Tuesday, May 2, 2006 12:07 a.m.
My exams are over! Woot woot! The weekend was amazing and woot woot to that too! E and myself made dinner on Saturday night! I prepared cold chicken mango salad (which isn't as good as my maid's) and E cooked pasta and grilled salmon. It was edible and at least we're moving away from cooking frozen food. Haha. We've become really domesticated recently. I don't even wash the dishes, clean the table or mop the floor at my own home but I actually did it at E's place and I even scrubbed the kitchen sink. I'm terribly proud that E can iron his own clothes, empty the trash, clean the dog's poo and even whip up a decent pasta (all thanks to cooking 101). Haha. Watched Hotel Rwanda afterwards which surprisingly was a rather interesting show. Sunday was church then we met Juan Juan and Leroy for sushi at Marina Bay and I got stuff at women's secret and shoes! I'm starting on my shoe collection :)
Sushi for lunch again today with Winnie and then I found out my phone's a triband phone so yay! Tried to do a bit more necessary shopping today but nothing caught my eye. I'm leaving in like 5 days and I haven't gotten my long sleeve business shirts, an extra pair of black pants and a black jacket. Bleah. I'm probably going to pick up those books I saw at Borders today so at least I have something to read on the plane and also when I transit. Am considering getting a travel journal too.
Anyhow, I'm at E's house right now watching Pretty Woman (nice old show) while he's studying for his quiz tomorrow. Serangoon Gardens chicken rice just now and then came back to watch Desperate Housewives. I'm liking desperate housewives nowadays and I'm glad I'm still going to get my weekly dose in the states. Haha. Probably going to spend more time with E this week before I leave because it's going to be 6weeks before we have together time again. I just wished taking air planes was dirt cheap then he could come along as well or visit.
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