yup ok i know it's been a long long traumatically long time since i've updated, and i know some of you must've been FRANTIC with worry, so here i am to calm your nerves.

it's been three weeks, one new (well, the first ever, really) job, discovering the Terrible Routine that is Working Life, two maid-changes, 4 episodes of Sex and the City left to go, the return of all the other shows exept Alias from hiatus, 3 seasons of Friends sitting on my desk waiting to be seen, about 10 other DVD movies waiting to be seen, one Aparna who is brimming over with ennui. unlike nasty, unfortunately, i cannot say that i am gainfully unemployed OR employed.

having a job when you don't have a career is one of the most pointless things ever. yeah, so there's the money (i haven't been paid yet and i don't know when or how i will be paid, so actually there isn't the money yet). and even if there's the money, i'm pretty good at the spending thing, so once i'm done with my neverending shopping list, the Money will be Hugely Diminished. and yes, it's disgusting how much i shop or how much i think about shopping because my life itself has been Diminished to Terrible Routine.

getting a job was definitely on my List Of Things To Do, but i guess i never realised that when you have a regular 9-5 (actually, 830 to 530 in my case) job, just how little time and energy is left for the remaining items on the List. and just how little purpose there is in my life right now. i never thought i would miss school and the Terrible Routine of School Life, but i really do. there's a regular sort of purposefulness when there are exams every three months, however much or little you actually study for said exams. and there were the applications, the last one of which i am still procrastinating although deadline's about 4 days away. doing all the applications is a sort of hell, but again, there is Purpose In Life.

right now, all i do is work, eat, shop, sleep. and that's basically all i want to do, omitting the first item on that list. well, no, to be honest, i want to learn to drive, learn French, yoga, go back to dance, i actually want to volunteer at Unifem or something (although Unifem's become a little too trendy right now, it seems.) i want to travel, but then for everything there're the mighty obstacles of Parents and Time and this little mortal, sleep-needing body of mine.

ok yeah i'm ranting and i want to go and take a long walk and get some Fresh Air on my own, but my mom's in a Mood because the latest maid is of the eggshell-IQ variety, i know that's a beyond-mean thing to say but i've seen my fair share of maids and i've gotten pretty good at judging them. the one thing i can't stand is that she's not very clean. she doesn't wash the glasses properly and when she cleans the bathroom it's not really very spotless. i could deal with less-than-excellent food, but i can't deal with someone who can't clean spotlessly. and it occurred to me that she's just very very passive. and plus she wears these anklets that have bells so there's this tinkling noise whenever she walks, and it's hypnotic and really very disturbing. i've had anklet-wearing maids before but it's been a while, and i never realised that it could be so distracting.

anyway basically i'm angsting quite perfectly and i can't quite stand my life right now so maybe it's not the best time to recap the last three weeks. probably because there just hasn't been much to say. there have been a few outstanding moments, but basically those are the dinner-with-friends moments that USED to be my routine before i got a job.

and i don't know if i'm going to get dooced for talking about the job, but really, now i know what a dead-end job is.

so, um, "oy with the angst already" right? i'm going for a walk now, tata!

Go to your music player of choice and put it all on shuffle. For every next question, press next. Use the song title as the answer to the question.

01. What do you think of me, iTunes?
caveman by jimmy eat world
02. Will I have a happy life?
aspetta mi by pink martini
03. What do my friends really think of me?
how to dream by sam phillips
04. Do people secretly lust after me?
the space between by zero 7
05. How can I make myself happy?
grey gardens by rufus wainwright
06. What should I do with my life?
goodnight sweetheart by rufus wainwright
07. Why must life be so full of pain?
morning passages by philip glass, from the The Hours soundtrack
08. Will I ever have children?
elephant love medley from moulin rouge
09. Will I die happy?
SOS from the mamma mia soundtrack
10. Can you give me some advice?
who is it by bjork

so it looks like my uncle came through for me and i have myself a little job at citibank. i have to go in two hours to meet the boss and settle stuff with HR and FIND OUT HOW MUCH I'M GETTING PAID!

the office is at Macdonald House, the same place my daddy had his first job when he landed up in Singapore about 25 years ago. well, his first job in Singapore. how cool is that?

my brother is plain evil. my mother was discussing how i'd have to stop with the waking-up-at-noon business, and my maid was saying that if the boss told me i'm going to have to turn up at work at 7am i'd probably decline the job. i fully agreed, much to my mother's chagrin. i told her "don't you want me to be healthy and well-slept?!" she says "no i want you to get a JOB."

and my brother says "she wants you to be wealthy and hell-slept."
hurhurhur.

now i should go and find myself something to wear. i can't believe i have only two hours to put together a suitable first-work-meeting outfit.

so, 2006 has begun on a Singapore Idle note. i feel like i owe it to 2005 to say something about it. i'm really bad at the summary-of-the-year thing so i will atleast recount my last few 2005 days. it's been Ages since i've done this sort of "standard issue mundane drivel".

so we're going backwards.

today i have done absolutely nothing besides sleep a lot, watch the first episode of sex and the city season 4, and go to Queensway with my brother and dad, where we were rushing because the mother wanted us home for dinner, and my brother was looking for some Germany 2006 football kit and football, all of which were sold out, and because Queensway is exactly the sort of place that you can lose yourself and everything else, i had to follow my brother around instead of looking for stuff myself. but i did see a pair of really cute gold puma sneakers and a vintage coca-cola hoodie which i think was adidas but had some sort of andy warhol label so i'm not sure, because i was rushed out of the store by daddy dearest. i will have to go back another time, because it was such a rush that both of us left without buying -anything-.

last night/this morning was a combination of Mad Rush and Waiting Around -- out of the house to the mrt, forgetting ezlink and therefore getting started on the adult fare a day in advance. and then ending up being Very Early which is Very Unusual for me, waiting half an hour to actually get to A's place, then rushing to get out of his place but the food was good so i practically choked trying to stuff it down my throat, cabbing to clarke quay to drop S off and then all the way to expo, where i waited twenty minutes for the rest to around, mambo jambo which was not as good as zouk itself but a good two hours of dancing anyway in heels that were killing me and gorgeous but incredibly heavy earrings that i was afraid would rip my earlobes with all the moving around, giving up and kicking off the heels and taking out the earrings, a rather random and anticlimactic countdown, trying to answer new year phone calls while blasting retro music rendered me completely deaf, and then finally going out to the lobby where there was the amusing fake accent and other things that i haven't completely figured out yet. and then my parents sweetly drove all the way from the party they were attending somewhere in bukit timah to come pick me up on the other side of the island. home, shower, two episodes of SATC and a phone call to nasty for a Dissection of the Eventage. slept from about 445 to noon, to discover that the parents were off to the temple without me. apparently they'd been trying to wake me since 9am -- i completely do not remember being woken. felt cheated because if i hadn't expected to go to the temple i'd have gone to shooj's after expo with the rest!

thursday was lunch with chit and daph, followed by romance-novel shopping at far east secondhand bookstores :D i bought about 3 books, none of which were romance, but i'll read the one daph got me for christmas, and get Knight In Shining Armour from chit to reread, after which i will decide if i should invest money in the genre. also bought a great belt to add to my fast-growing collection. remember the first belt i bought this year? the carved leather one from garcon at heeren? i think i paid $60 for that. and this shop at far east had IDENTICAL belts for $25!!! so we paid an extra $35 at garcon for a cute pink shopping bag :/ i feel very cheated. and then i paid $35 for a tiny tube of kiehl's spot treatment because i was suffering from a severe zit attack due to bad sleeping patterns and too much ice-cream. felt bad about paying that much for a tiny tube but felt better when i was given a sample sachet of blue gel cleanser which is very nice and i will buy a bottle when my vichy runs out. yeah, the free samples are very generous but also a great advertising gimmick.

tuesday night was Oxford Rejectees Drown Their Sorrows night. except it was more of eat a lot and laugh a lot than drown sorrows -- because kitson was unwell and vaish and i didn't particularly want to drink so that left claud and she decided that it would be unwise to treat the three of us to Claudia's Drunken Madness. so it was thai express which i still dislike very much =[ and haagen-dazs which is pretty damn exorbitant. but we Will check out siem reap another day.

i cannot remember anything before that. oh besides shopping with kelly the previous wednesday. which was, again, kelly following me around while i agonized over eyeshadow and primer and various other things and nasty's right, i don't know how people tolerate following me around while shopping. i want to go shopping at ikea and queensway properly and i don't fancy going alone but i can't decide whom i should subject to the torture of accompanying me. i actually miss the ikea days. strange how you miss something after you convince yourself that it's better this way. nevermind that, another story altogether.

oh and last monday my parents finally came back and my mom brought me a gorgeous long black skirt, and she bought lots of tops for herself, two of which i have usurped, yay. and the very heavy earrings which were in the process of ripping my earlobes are also my mother's india purchases. it feels like it's been so long since they came back! time is a strange thing.

other than this, i have been watching a LOT of sex and the city, sleeping at 3am on average and waking at noon on average, and since my mom came back she has been seeing to it that i finish my university applications so i've been spending a lot of time and frustration on that.

now i have to put together a resume to find myself a job in order to keep myself in Kiehl's and MAC and pretty little leather belts and all these things i'm ever so fond of.