the february tales

I know February has been quiet on the blogging front, mainly cos I went home for a week's holiday and then I just got plain lazy. As the end of the month is upon us, I feel compelled to take the post count for February to at least 6 (what a difference from January) and so here's the contribution to making that goal. Sit tight cos this is going to be a looong one. Previous posts have proven, I love to ramble and it also doesn't help that I suffer from a paragraph break disorder!

What have I been up to? Let's see, I went back to the motherland for one week, enjoyed food, food and more food, slept late, did not exercise one bit and now am 2.5 lbs heavier than when I left. Plus I strongly believe my face puffed up over this weekend and now my face looks like a round ball when I have my hair scraped back off of my face. I came back and didn't start exercising again until a week and a half later and even then it was just one day. My left wrist was strained from doing yoga the week before I left for home and it's still not better so am trying not to worsen the injury (:P) further by overdoing the exercise although I know it sounds as if I am wavering on the exercise front. I can't allow that to happen cos I just invested in some extremely spiffy exercise outfits and am not allowing those to go unworn. Plus the company trip in May has waterfront related activities and I must get in shape for swimwear attire.

Which brings me to the next thing that's been keeping me busy and poor. Shopping. It started when I went home and there was a member's sale going on at my favoured department store. I can't resist the sales there (SOOOO CHEAP) and despite having complained throughout the one week I was back about having no money, I manage to haul back here, a zebra print blouse (an early birthday prezzie from my mum and dad), a pair of black patent platform pumps (another early b-day prezzie courtesy of my second sis), a pair of silver foldable flats that I can fold into two and stuff in my handbag (meant for travelling), three pairs of matching underwear (yup, another thing I can cross of my NY's list), a Maxtor Basics 500GB 2.5" external drive (trust me, it sounds like a lot but I can fill it up fast, it's been less than a month and I have 70 gig worth of stuff on it already), a total of 16 story books on various subject matters (and I've pledged not to purchase anymore books until June) and a bunch of beauty essentials.

Considering all that I got in that one week, you'd think I'd stop buying things wouldn't you. But a shopaholic will ALWAYS find something to buy. The first weekend after arriving back, I was going round the shops looking to get a swimming suit for the May trip. I came home with a matching Athletic Works yoga sleeveless top and long pants, Athletic Works capri-style yoga bottoms, Top Class gray tunic shift dress suitable for both work and play, a Cinema Etoile long nightgown, a work appropriate cream scalloped necked blouse from a brand I can't seem to make its label, a gorgeous floral H&M top, an Xhilaration bikini top, West Pacific bikini bottom and a Merona swim skirt cover-up. After this spree, I figured, ok, I should be done but I underestimated myself. The following Friday, after 4 days thinking about it, I went out again during lunchtime to get 2 more of the matching exercise outfits. They fit so nice and looked so good and were on sale and I was afraid if I didn't move in on them now, they would be gone. I got those..... and I also ended up bringing home an It Figures! Tummy Thinner bandeau-style one piece suit (I never heard of this brand before and just thought it was a pretty suit but when i got home and looked at the label, I googled them and found they have the most funky and gorgeous swimwear for all body types. And it works too! I didn't even know I had gotten a tummy flattening piece but when I tried it on, I was amazed at how flat my stomach looked. I finally looked at the label and figured out that it wasn't all the exercise that made me look great but the suit itself) and 2 long sleeved tees from H&M, one in purple and one in fuschia. So, I've also sworn off shops for March cos I overextended my entertainment budget for February and will not have any money for groceries if I continue at the pace I've been going.

And last but not least, I have been watching a whole bunch of tv and movies. To name 'em all: the Shia LaBeouf movie "Eagle Eye" (creepy government high-tech stalking but good movie, makes you think about what the MAN knows about you), "Repo: The Genetic Opera" (saw the cast promoting the movie at the horror/action awards show, SCREAM Awards, in '08 and thought it seemed hilarious that Paris Hilton was acting in a Rocky Horror show style movie, was intriguing to say the least), "Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog" (was on Amazon.com and saw that there was an actual "The Bro Code" book made famous in "How I Met Your Mother" and because I am in love with Barney Stinson, I was checking out the audio download of the book as it's narrated by Neil Patrick Harris and the dvd for Dr. Horrible was in the recommended purchase list. It had sooo many great reviews and I thought why not. The verdict: It's greatly amusing and Neil Patrick Harris is unfortunately adorable as Dr. Horrible/Billy as well. At this point I am unsure if my crush is still on Barney Stinson or Neil Patrick Harris himself), season 5 of "Hell's Kitchen" (never followed the show before but AM SO IN LOVE WITH IT NOW!), catching up on volume 4 of "Heroes" (seems like the show's storyline is going down the crapper) as well as season 5 of "Lost" (this show just reels me in each season), "Slumdog Millionaire" (LOVED IT! I can see why it won a whole bunch of awards! And yes, I cheated and watched the movie before reading the book, which I still have not read, it's just sitting on my shelf at this point), "Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist" (I had the OST first and the tracks didn't really appeal to me but the movie had a lot of great reviews so decided to give it a watch and loved it. I guess it's because I find Michael Cera endearing) and, as shameful as it is to admit, "High School Musical 3" (I watched 1 and 2 with the nephew and felt I should follow through with the third..... *bats eyelashes thrice*.....FINE, looking at Zac Efron is a guilty pleasure of mine, the boy is just sooooo pretty and fit!). Phew! Recapped in one sentence! You gotta find that impressive *BIG GRIN*

What I have NOT been doing in February, besides showing no restraint on the purse strings, is reading. Maybe because I have set it in my head I am not allowed to buy anymore books till after June and so am unconsciously saving my reading stock for the months of tv show no-mans-land. I've been trying to finish this book called "Little Earthquakes" by Jennifer Weiner since the week I was on holiday and can't seem to get to the middle of the book even. I bought it 3 years ago and couldn't get past the first chapter then. I picked it up again at home and was powering throught the first 80 or so pages cos it suddenly became interesting and then I got back here and just got lazy. The story is good, I just can't bring myself to read this month I guess.

Other than that, been doing nothing else, work is work, routine and crisis-free (exactly how I like it, emailing is no longer a chore, weekends are a no-work zone 80% of the time). Ooh yea.....I did try a DIY sewing project but that was a complete bust. I have these light gray Levis jeans that I have completely gone off of due to its thigh widening effect the different shades of gray causes and was thinking of donating it to a charity when, hit by fashion inspiration, I thought I'd convert it into a knee-length skirt. I googled around, found a relatively easy looking clear and concise step-by-step pictorial of converting a pair of denim pants into a four panel skirt and went on my merry way hacking the pants into useable pieces. Just fyi, I don't own a sewing machine so ALL the stitching/sewing was done by hand. I spent the better half of a sunday piecing the skirt together and when I had a version of what the finished look would be, I gave the skirt a try and to my utter disbelief (and horror), it added like an additional 4 inches to the hips, more so than when it was simply a pair of jeans. I abandoned them there and then. I'm not going to waste my money getting it professionally finished by a tailor if it's still going to make my hips look like its been through a magnifier. I'll just wait till I can get my hands on my mum's sewing machine to put the final touches on it before I give it away to some skinny soul out there who would appreciate the extra inches. I hate having unfinished projects so despite not wanting it anywhere near my wardrobe, I still feel obligated to get it done right. I just regret the back-breaking bending, needle-stabbed fingers and eye squinting hours I endured.

And there you have it folks, the February activities roundup. Let's march right on into.....March! Yea, I'm corny like that :D

i had a dream.....and I didn't like it

I woke up from a dream this morning that left me feeling unsettled. It revolved around my first serious boyfriend and a serious quasi-fling. The dream was confusing, it felt as if I'm meant to choose between them but whether I chose or didn't, I couldn't actually have either of them. Throughout the dream it seemed as if they weren't allowed to talk to me but they were constantly within view. A "see, no touch" kinda thing, lol.

I don't want to be cliched and do a post about love so soon after Valentines Day, which is an occasion I don't celebrate nor believe in anyways, but perhaps due to the proximity of the day recognized as a celebration of love whereby your senses are inundated with romance, love and the like, this dream happened. And it got me wondering if this dream of mine was a subconscious way to tell me.....something. Ok, I guess I should explain a little bit on my romantic background. I have been single for the past 4 years. Completely by choice. My last serious relationship ended after 4 difficult years of being with, let's call him H, someone I should never have gotten with in the first place. After that relationship, I dated about 4-5 men, some overlapping but was never interested enough to keep any of them going beyond a couple of months. I have only ever had one other serious relationship prior to H, we'll call him G, and that was a year and a half long. I am not a fling kind of girl, hence I don't date around. I am more of a long term relationships person.

Back to the unsettling feelings the dream evoked. I guess why it leaves me feeling conflicted is because part of me believes the two men in my dream were the two men I actually were in love with. I have never put these emotions down in writing but I secretly fear that I'm not completely over them. Especially my first boyfriend, G. I know this was wrong when I made the decision at the time but the reason I got together with H was to see if I was over G. At that time, G and I had been broken up for a year and I was feeling it was time to move on. H was someone that, although I didn't emotionally get, I was physically attracted to him. It turned out I wasn't ready to be with someone else. I was very much still not over G. And I'm starting to believe I'm still not. I spent 4 guilt-ridden years with someone I should NEVER had gotten with. We were just such opposites and I was never really all there in the first place. It was both unfair to him and myself. I guess as my breakup with G, due in part to long-distance, was so, for lack of a better word, unfinished, that in some ways we played a game of emotional tag with each other over the span of 3 years after our breakup. Two of those years was when I was with H. G would tell me that if in the future there's a chance for us to be together again we should keep that option open but then will turn around and say that maybe he and I were meant to be just good friends, only to backtrack the other direction again. It confused me and although what I wanted from him was to just be decisive and tell me if he wanted to give us a second chance or not, he never did man up and say anything concrete. G kept being cryptic about what he wanted. I know that people say I could just as well have told him I wanted to be with him but for my part, that ship had come and sailed. Although I initiated the breakup, days later, I asked G if we had done the right thing. Whatever his thinking was back then, he said that it was and I should move on. I was humiliated and I did try to move on. Two months after that incident, G calls me and asks me why we broke up. I know he sounds like a douche and I guess his actions at that point were inexcusable but prior to that he had set the bar so high for being the most amazing first boyfriend a girl could ask for, I still unfairly use him as a yardstick. However, I doubt even the person G is now would match up to who he was back then. I'm a cynic that way.

At this point I know I should have just broken up with H but I am ashamed and embarassed to admit that I didn't want to go through Uni alone. An attempt at breaking up was made but I called H up and told him I had changed my mind and we continued seeing each other for another year and a half. I just want to say that I never cheated on H (he had no qualms about doing it to me though, on multiple occasions I might add) with G physically but I guess emotionally I knew that I was still very much hung up on my ex. Feeling guilty, I tried to make it work with H and we even talked about marriage but part of me knew at some point H and I would go our seperate ways. And we did. Only it happened because I was having an emotional affair with someone else. It wasn't because of all the times H cheated on me, lied to me, constantly borrowed money from me as well as those around us and was an all-around ass. Again, I know that I wasn't perfect or the saint in this relationship. I was half in love with someone else most of the time during that relationship. Yet, I was all ready to commit the rest of my life to this man I wasn't too sure I loved much less liked and I guess, it was a blessing that I met the next guy, my fling, who we'll call Fling.

The time Fling and I met, we were both with other people. We connected with each other on almost everything. It was like he and I were mirrors of each other. I was at a point in my life where I was feeling extremely jaded about love but Fling made me feel as if concepts like soulmates existed. It was the same emotional connection I had with G. We made many plans to go out but always, at the last minute I would cancel. I just couldn't go through with it. I had been cheated on before by H but wasn't about to do the same. After 2 months of indecision, I ended my four year relationship with H and even though I didn't verbalize it, I was hoping Fling would do the same. Unfortunately, or fortunately, however you wanna view it, he didn't. I told him I didn't want to be a third party in his relationship and after a brief freeze out, we got talking to one another again. For a while we deluded each other into thinkng that we'd be just friends. We'd hang out, bringing along reinforcements so that it wouldn't look like we were on dates. We'd call each other and talk all night. Fling was pretty much acting as my boyfriend but he was officially someone else's guy. I think this went on for about 5 months and one day, I just came to realize that Fling was no better than G. He was indecisive and couldn't make his mind up if he wanted to be with me or not. I was disappointed but didn't want to be kept in that limbo any longer. I finally made a clean break from Fling but for months on end, I moaned and whinged to my friends about why he couldn't choose me over his girlfriend. Perhaps, in hindsight, I wasn't so much into Fling because I wanted him. Maybe he nurtured the part of me that was, as corny as it sounds, dying for staying too long in a non-functional relationship. Perhaps also, Fling evoked much of the same feelings I had with G. I guess I won't really know if I was so into Fling for him or the feelings he brought up in me. Another thing that just occurred to me is maybe I am only in love with the memory of my first relationship and not the person itself. Perhaps, I want to replicate those feelings but can you ever have the same feelings more than once?

Anyways, I dated a few guys after that. One, K, was even serious about marrying me but I didn't like him in a romantic way. It would have been so easy just to say, ok, let's get married but I doubt it would have lasted. We didn't have anything in common and I know this may sound conceited and ungrateful, but he was too into me and that put me off. K told me he loved me after our first date. He announces his intentions to marry me on our third date. He tried to rally my friends into talking him up in front of me. He ambushed me with a meet with his parents. He was just relentless and not in a good way. He did do some sweet things, like on my birthday, he came and brought me a Baskin Robbin's ice cream cake and serenaded me with his guitar. It was a sweet move, but back then I just felt uncomfortable and semi-creeped out. I never led him on, from the get-go I had told him that I was not looking for anything serious and the reason I agreed to go out with him was because his persistance wore me down. The lesser of two evils was to agree. I openly declared that I wanted to be friends and if things changed later on then it would happen but he always tried to force things to be more than what it was. I don't know why he was in such a hurry. My opinion of him didn't improve much after he messaged me about 3 months after I had turned him down for the last time to tell me he was engaged to someone else AND in the same breath, so to speak, told me he missed me. I still have a copy of that conversation, as a reminder of how even the most naive and innocent seeming men can be jackasses.

The other guy I went out with was F. F was a catch, completely fantastic on paper. Good-looking, successful and with personality to boot. He was older by 6 years and it was a change from all the same-age or one year older guys I kept getting with. The thing is it never seemed quite right with F. To put it simply, I didn't feel that chemistry with him like I did with G and Fling so rather than waste both of our times, I let our quasi-relationship flounder. I got posted to my first overseas position so it was quite easy to just let things die. F recently got married and invited me to his wedding. I didn't go because I was here but if I had been in the country, yea, I would have gone to his reception. He's a nice person and some part of me does feel like I let a good one go. But I just think that fate has other plans for both of us and it wasn't one where we are in it together. If I'm being completely honest, back then I thought F was a bit out of my league and I always wondered what it was he saw in me. I also felt I wasn't in the same place he was in and I didn't want to string along something that I wasn't sure I was going to put myself in wholeheartedly. Shows I do learn my lesson :D

After F, I decided to give myself a break to do things on my own. In the four years since then, I have not dated anyone nor do I feel the need to be seeing anyone. I love the way my life is now, on all fronts, it feels fulfilling to me. But with this dream, I'm afraid that a part of me, my subconscious, is trying to tell me that I don't actually like my life this way (does that sound crazy?). I feel I do but now I'm not sure if I am happy about the direction my personal life has taken. See how confused I am.....I don't even know if my doubts are real or not. I'm afraid that the reason I've not felt the need to connect with another man is because I don't want to get hurt and in that way I have managed to protect myself from having relationships for this long by developing this emotional block that has stopped me from feeling remotely interested in relationships. I mean I can appreciate a good-looking man and I do have moments of undiluted fan-girly obsessions over Rob Bourdon, Matt Czuchry and the like (if I wanted to overanalyze myself, I could say that I form crushes on unattainable individuals so that I don't set myself up for disappointment, but I wont't go down that analytical road :P) but when it comes to feelings of companionship, being with someone, I'm quite dead on that front. My mind rationally says that I would like one but I can't evoke any emotional connection to that thought with my heart. I dunno if that made any sense. I'm just afraid that the two people that I gave myself to emotionally have made me scared to allow myself another shot. I think the experience I went through with them damaged me, left scars, and I am not too sure how to fix myself. At this point, I don't know how to open up myself to let another person in. I don't know if I ever can again. It was difficult to do it again after G and when, after completely and totally giving myself up emotionally for the second time and it didn't work out, it could be I just don't want to put myself though all that again. Heck, at this point, I'd be hard pressed to remember how to behave on a date.

Right now, I don't know whether finding someone is something I want. I do find it funny (in a what's wrong with me kind of way) that I can survive with my own company most days and that I don't seek out companionship. I don't know if writing any of this is shedding any light on my emotional psyche. I just felt the need to express my feelings. The dream seriously disturbed me. I wish I hadn't dreamt it at all.

One funny little thing I noticed about myself is that I like to date guys whose names start from the first half of the alphabets, A-M...... perhaps if I were to start dating again, I should broaden my horizons to include men with names beginning with the latter half of the alphabets, someone from the N-Z range :D

this crow pie is mighty tasty

Perhaps besides the year of travel, 2009 is also looking like the year of apologies. Yup, yup. This is the crow pie post. Remember, waay back, when I went all rant-y and dishearted Barnes & Noble. Weeelll, B&N, you are sooooo back in my good graces and I hope you can forgive me for my hasty yet true condemnation.

That's right! They came through. I am the proud owner of the Barnes & Noble leatherbound revised copy of Homer's Iliad & The Odyssey! Albeit two months late BUT the point is I did receive my book. All it takes is persistance, persistance and more persistance. Plus a good dollop of patience and maybe a pinch of sarcasm. AND I also got to keep the wrong book they sent. Apparently, as a goodwill measure. Personally, I feel the company simply don't want to be spending any more money in shipping costs. The 365 Days book weighs a ton and would have cost them quite a bit to have it sent back all the way from my neck of the woods.

So, here I am, hand on my heart in a gesture of reciprocated goodwill, I offer you, barnesandnoble.com, my sincerest apologies for writing you off as an unreliable e-tailer. Despite feeling slightly embarassed about having to take back a small portion of my rant, I mostly feel ecstatic that I got what I paid for and so don't mind at all that I am writing this retraction of sorts. I admit, we had some tough times communicating but the end result justifies everything and in the end (hehehe, working in the LP ref!), the point is YOU DELIVERED THE GOODS! And that's what counts!

Now, I may experience moments of hesitatation before I make another purchase off of your site again but you have shown that you can come through and so I put you back on my list of retail sites I trust. If Christmas '09 rolls around and you have the same 50% discount offer on your leatherbound collection again, I would definitely go for the Grimm Brothers fairy tales.

Anyways, here's a look at my shiny and new and completely beautiful leather bound Homer. Excuse the poor quality of the images, even 10 megapixels can't help these pics from appearing washed out due to no flash (am trying to avoid flash reflected light) and crappy bedroom lighting. Anyways, my poetic descriptions should suffice :D


Note the electric blue colour of the book is stunning and, strangely enough, something I would associate with Greek things in general. Perhaps, because it appears as the same shade of blue in the flag of Greece (you have to squint a bit I guess). The pretty cover illustrations, both front and back, depict scenes from the tales contained within the bounded leaves. The gold embossing both on the front, back and the page sides lends a gorgeous and luxurious feel to this timeless classic. The smell of the pages so alluring, inviting one to open her up and read her (yes, I have given the book a gender, it seems to feel girly, don't ask why). The playful gold ribbon that awaits to play its role in marking your place in the book. This masterpiece of literature sits proudly on my bookshelf with an air of such majesty and grandeur.

*Big cheesy grin* And there it will remain till I and "Atlas Shrugged" are done.

la vie en paris has got me inspired again

Ok, honestly, I speaketh no francais whatsoever and only have a vague idea of what my post's title means but it basically captures the essence of this post. I haven't been in the mood to blog of late as there were really no materials of interest to talk about. Well, ok, there are a few but I was plain lazy to construct sentences and post about 'em. And one of the things that happened in the past 2 weeks involves me eating crow pie (not to be taken literally, it's a figure of speech) and I'll get to that right after I blog about this piece of exciting news! Anyways, I have been inspired again and it all happened yesterday.

In my new year's resolution I had mentioned that 2009 is a "bag buying"-free year with one small caveat.....if I make a trip to Paris, France, I will allow a small Louis Vuitton purchase. Well it's looking mighty possible I'll be an owner of an LV piece come November. Yesterday, I was having a long-distance call with my eldest sis and she was talking about one of the airlines having super cheap tix flying to the UK. As she was checking the airline site out while we are having this conversation, she starts getting all frenzied and says she just saw return tix to London for USD500 and that was where the ball got rolling. I immediately told her to book the tickets cos the offer was simply too good to refuse. To make a long story short, my sis, the 'rents, my mum's sis and I are all confirmed for a 10-day European extravaganza this November and I am super psyched! We'll be flying into London and then taking the Eurostar to gay Paree for a 3-day stay. I'll get to stroll along the Champs Elysee, get up close and personal with "Madonna On The Rocks" as well as the "Mona Lisa", take an elevator ride to the top of ze Eiffel Tower and perhaps a trip to the famous windmill of Moulin Rouge. Next on our tentative itinerary is a 4 hour train ride to Geneva where we will gallivant around, take in the Swiss sights before taking another 20 minutes long train ride to Lausanne for more scenic Swiss sightseeing.

After our 2-day sojourn in the country of the Swiss Alps, we will make our way back to England for the remains of the trip before our flight back to the homeland. Our remaining time will be spent taking jaunts down memory lane, mainly a trip to visit Lancaster, the town where I grew up (69, Portland Street, here I come!!), a short stop at Bicester Village (for some outlet mall retail therapy) and my sis and I have plans to take in a West End show. I love that I'll be able to say I've watched shows on Broadway (if there's ever a chance to catch "Xanadu" at the Helen Hayes theatre, PLEASE DO NOT HESITATE AND GO. I got to sit 10 metres away from Whoopi Goldberg who was doing a Katie Holmes- OK, Whoopi's appearance in "Xanadu" was waaaaay before Katie Holmes' broadway run but Mrs. Tom Cruise's appearance in "All My Sons" was soooo talked about that I've decided to name the appearance of famous celluloid stars in theatre as doing a "Katie Holmes") AND at West End. Call me a braggart cos part of me is but mainly I'm so excited and just wanna talk about my good fortune (completely with God's blessing and all) thus far. I have not been back to England in eons. Most of the memories I have are fuzzy at best. I can't wait to eat proper fish and chips, you know, the ones that come served in bits of paper, and smother those chips in vinegar, none of this tartar sauce nonsense. My Mulberry will also have an oppurtunity to visit the land she originates from (ok, getting of the crazy-talk train now).

Like I mentioned, this is the rough draft, so to speak, of our forthcoming trip. Once the tickets were safely purchased, my sis immediately started mapping out a tentative schedule. We did toy with the idea of taking in Barcelona or Rome but the train ride to both those cities would have taken about 10 hours so we ditched that idea and decided to go Switzerland instead. We also wondered if a trip to Euro Disney would make its way into the plans but considering that the combined age of both she and I would equal that of our mum's and we will be travelling with 3 more "mature-in-age" individuals, we thought we'll forgo the theme park this time. Gives room for a return visit in the future, when there's a chance of bringing the nephew and 2 nieces so we don't look like total kids. This trip will be more of a cultural and fashion experience. I'm already thinking of wardrobe choices. It'll be autumn when we go and considering the European weather has a tendency to be bitingly chilly but not full on winter garb as yet, I can take my coveted camel brown Calvin Klein leather jacket out of hibernation and also finally have a reason to wear the knee high boots I bought on sale for, get this, FIVE FRICKIN DOLLARS in Atlantic City during my holiday there last Summer. I have so few reasons to be decked out in cool fall/winter clothes that I'll make any excuse to wear clothes I've bought that is geared towards cooler climates. I was just saying I needed to go on holiday to a place where I can actually make use of those boots and the oppurtunity presented itself magnificently. Now, some people might say that the the 5 dollars I paid for those boots does not justify the total cost of the whole trip in itself but who cares! I'll use any excuse to be able to rock those knee-highs. Ooh, I wonder if the weather is cool enough for me to wear my pink goose-feather puffy jacket without looking like, to put it simply, a goose?

Of course, not everything is going to be easy, namely, money to burn on the trip will need to be saved. I just recovered from my bi-coastal trip last summer and have the end-of-March Bangkok trip as well as the May company trip (which still remains a mystery destination at this point as persons in charge are annoyingly remaining schtum on the plans and location) upcoming and those will require some moolah. I also have to set aside some money every month to pay off my insurance, my Mulberry (till the month of June) and my lil HP 2133 netbook, which I'm currently using to type out this post (till May) (of course it's on an interest-free payment plan, why pay in full when you can stretch out the payments over a couple of months?). I have a major family gathering back home in September that will put a dent in my salary for that month. Which leads me to admit that there's an enormous possibility that I won't achieve 2 of my stated NY resolutions, the 10K savings and the 10K balance on my study loan. I'll most likely get close but it won't reach my target. I feel a little bit sad and disappointed about admitting defeat on those 2 items in the second month of the year but I have to be realistic and after taking into consideration the events in the past coupla weeks as well as numerous projected personal budget calculations, it became more and more glaringly obvious that I was not going to make those targets. But as long as I still make the effort I'll be contented. The contra is that I get to have life-enriching experiences instead.

All in all, up to this point in the year and not counting trips back to my home country as well as the to-and-fro into the country I'm currently working in, I already have or made firm plans to add an additional 6 different immigration stamps in total this year. Beat that old passport! If I can recollect correctly, my old passport bore stamps from 8 different countries in the span of 5 years. I'll be able to come close to that record only a year after my new passport was issued. This is completely, to quote Barney Stinson from "How I Met Your Mother", AWESOME! I guess if 2008 was the year of bags for me then I'll have to name 2009 the year of travel!

i was mad, now i'm not

BUT I'm still going to blog about it. Back home, I have 2 mobile numbers, from two different service providers. Like I mentioned before, I am a brand loyalist so I have had these lines for more than 5 years each. They are both prepaid numbers cos I figure it's easier to control line usage that way. Ever since being posted overseas, I have kept both numbers going, by topping up the balance every few months or when I receive a text to keep my line active. However, I was doing some online banking today and just as I decided to up the balance in one of my lines, I looked at the phone and instead of seeing the roaming service provider as per normal, it read 'Inactive SIM'.

WTH????? Just a couple of days ago, I received a text from the service provider gifting me 75 free sms-es, which I never use anyway, and suddenly without warning they render my SIM inactive? I had to call up my sister and get her to call the customer service for an explanation. Turns out, they have purged my number from their system and, not only that, any remaining balance was forfeited. I HAD OVER 150 BUCKS WORTH OF TALKTIME ON THAT LINE! I did not receive any warning text as per usual and they refuse to re-activate my line nor give me back the balance. I have been a customer of theirs for up to 10 years and this is how I'm treated????

So, I was initially fuming, all ready to write a scathing email to the customer service rep (I dunno, I've had to deal with a lot of customer service this year) but then I decided, forget it. I'm going to let it be. I'm annoyed, irritated beyond belief but if this is how it's meant to be then this is how it's going to be. I officially break up with you. I will no longer use you as my primary mobile service. I would have remained with you till the end of time but the way you have treated our relationship like it means nothing proves to me that you don't care and it's definitely time to move on. I still have my other number and I take it as a blessing in disguise, it's easier to control one line than 2. I don't live in the country for the majority of the year so what do I need 2 lines for.

In my efforts to be more zen this year, I write this to purge myself of the bad feelings evoked by this unfortunate incident.....and now I'm done. Nuff said.

a birthday shoutout to my 2 year old niece

Yup, my niece turns the big 2 today! She's adorable but ends up calling me by my elder sister's name ALL THE TIME. I feel a bit sad when that happens cos it just means that I'm rarely around enough for her to remember me.

But that's besides the point. I called her up at 8 am their time this morning. She was already up and excited. Not sure as much of the significance of the day but she felt something special was up. So, my mother put her on the phone and I sang "Happy Birthday" to her. She was all blase about it though :) I asked her what she wanted for her birthday and as yet, she doesn't understand the gift-giving aspect of birthdays so she rambled nonsensically for about 2 minutes. Then I got her mum on the phone who told me my niece had some kind of epiphany when she saw a shelf full of "My Little Pony" dolls at the toy store so I figure that's a hint to get her one of those. I used to have these dolls as a kid myself and it's nice to be able to continue that kind of tradition(?) with my niece. I bought her older sister a coconut-scented "My Little Pony" for her first birthday so I guess I'll add to their little collection by getting her one of the scented ponies as well. Her party will be held next sunday to coincide with my vacation back home so I'm really happy to be able to make it. I also need to get a present for her sister since I did not send anything back in October when she turned 3. Her sister wants the Barbie Mariposa doll. At first I was like "Mari-wat". Turns out Mariposa is a type of butterfly so the doll is a Barbie with butterfly wings.

Ok, enough toy talk. One last thing though:

I love you hunny bunny, Happy Second Birthday Baby Girl!