I saw my name in print today. It was a glorious moment as I sneaked a copy of the latest issue into the little room to find it. I always wanted to see my name up in lights. Even though I could not figure which part of what I wrote was in the article. Heh. I feel giddy like a teenager.

Sometimes, the closer you are to the sun, the harder you fall when you do not reach your goal. Cue: silly boy with wax wings who flew to close to the sun. When faced with the girls so much younger and so much more go getting and competitive than me, I feel childish and extremely old at the same time. Sometimes I do not think I take it seriously and seem to have not prepared enough. But preparation will not put me in competition with those girls who have been creative all their lives, who have a Mac for artistic reasons instead of just surfing the net and various bo liao stuff. I want it as bad as the other girls maybe more because my time is running out faster than theirs. Apart from being willing to go on my knees, I have no idea how to go about standing out from the rest.

All the years of working in the bee hive seem to have vanished into the mist, I absolutely cannot recall how it was like to be a employed worker bee. I feel like the intern I was five years ago when Auntie Shufang secured her first job. I am shy, uncertain and thin skinned again. I stutter and revert back to uncertainty. Tonight, I finally got the courage to view that silly less than 10 second video clip that I had to do for them. I looked like the cartoon person that Jackie says I am. I move with jerks and constantly. But that is the way I am, as idiotic as I look.

I tried on the toga dress Siew Lu says is too long for her. It is jersey and heavy and falls nicely over my knees. Part of old age is gravitating towards longer dresses. As I twirled around in it and wondered whether to wear it for the Friday before Chinese New Year, my mother being wet blanket says it is too fancy and weird for Ahma’s house. Tomorrow is the reunion dinner instead of Saturday. My Ahma is less conservative than my mother, really how is that possible but it is. But maybe I will not wear the dress after all. Strapless bras make me uncomfortable and I have not taken the dress out for a test run for pit stains.

As the money depletes before my very eyes, I have to learn how to live cheaper and cheaply. Which is hard of course. Economics (the layman sort) works in a very queer way. When you were young and living off a fixed allowance that you saved to buy the perfect pair of sneakers (insert other adolescent wishlist) and a top that costs more than fifty bucks was very hard to purchase. Then you started earning money as an adult, thousand by thousand until you lose track of everything and a 200 dollar dress seems like a reasonable deal. Which is what I realised when I was speaking to another intern (of intern age) and she was admiring this shirt that I told her to get because it was seventy bucks. She then told me seventy bucks is not affordable. Hence, I have to change my mindset. I am poor.

Cotton On is fabulous for cheapie buys. They are affordable with their normal prices but I live for their sales. Like could it get any cheaper? Case in point, cotton shorts for sleeping in. The sign said $10 which was very agreeable until I noticed the orange sticker that said $5. Totally of course going to get it. Then when I was at the cashier very pleased with my almost buy, the boy at the counter was ‘If you buy a second one, it is half price.’ I could not hide my disbelief. ‘You mean the second one will be $2.50?’ He did not blink his eyes. ‘Yes if it’s the same.’ Hell yeah. So that is how I walked away with two grey cotton shorts, both for $7.50. Amazing cheapie-ness.

After this transpired, I went to cut my hair for $10 at EC House. I know, it is like I am reverting to when I was in secondary school and JC and I cut my hair at this place in the housing estate behind Holland Village for Seven bucks. Now I go to this place near Cambridge Market when a Taiwanese boy band look-a-like gives me hair cuts for $14. Apart from the language barrier, though this is greatly aided with the help of magazine pictures and my mother translating (when it comes to descriptions, my Mandarin just fails me as it did during my AO levels, hence that F9), he is pretty great. However, even the cheapest hair places have to increase their prices before Chinese New Year and because I am cheap due to above mentioned unemployment, I refused to pay the hike in prices to have my lovely boy band hairstylist to trim my hair and headed to the ten dollar hair cuts establishment. It was really great though it was longer than the advertised ten minutes. Except for the exposed feeling I had as I had my hair cut whilst people were walking along side the shop very near me. It was disconcerting.

Speaking of which, I had the Popcorn chicken Snackers meal at KFC four times since last week for ‘lunch’. It is $2.90. I feel very happy after eating it every time.

Won’t you come along to be cheap with me?

A fashion intern’s responsibility is the clothes that you borrow from shops. You have to make sure nothing (absolutely nothing) happens to the clothes. Not a single tiny anything. Now when I look at clothes, I feel absolutely sick to the stomach. In fact, I have to handle the clothes with so much care that I take it out on my own clothes and treat my clothes horribly. Because I have to take it out somewhere. Heh. Well, it really does not matter if these clothes are treated with the utmost royal reverence when no one else does. It is difficult but when makeup gets on the clothes, something gets snagged, stained, smelly, it is my responsibility no matter what.

Whenever I see the piles of clothes lying there, I feel the bile coming up my throat. I have to keep on checking the pricetag to see whether I can afford to pay for it.

of the intern Awful.

I have read and watched enough about interns to be prepared for my internship. Or so I thought. I know it ain’t all like The Hills (where Whitney and L.C. just do nothing but chat at their iMacs and make faces). The Teen Vogue interns blog about their internships and flats are an essential on their work outfit lists. Which makes sense. But pray not to be like The Devil Wears Prada which I watched the movie but did not read the book.

Loaning and returning clothes. Walking up and down town with heavy heavy bags. That is how clothes in the shops make their ways onto the pages of magazines. As much as samples do get sent to the editor to be featured in the magazine, most of the time, I have to make my rounds to see what the tiny shops at Far East and Haji Lane have to offer for a shoe string. Style is subjective and sometimes what I bring back may not be what the boss is looking for. That is where the bags of clothes come in. You have to look through every single rack to make sure you do not miss anything. That is what I have trouble with because when I do my own shopping, whatever jumps out at me from the hanging clothes is what I pick out. But when you are desperate and there are no _______ (insert trend here) pieces that you have found and it is close to five o’clock, I have to start digging.

But of course you suddenly find all these totally you clothes that are just there ripe for the picking and your savings seem to not be able to tide you through ‘unemployment’ as long as you thought it would.

Today I paid my dues for this job. Besides long due unreimbursed taxi claims, I had to pay for this ‘destroyed’ article of clothing. It was my over sight. Though it did cost a pretty penny considering I am not paid. No matter how careful you are, it does seem that when things that will go wrong will go wrong. It is a different environment and I am just trapping water. Somehow, I do not know whether this will pay off. Perhaps being lazy is easier? I have to keep reminding my self that dreams do not always come true. Fairy tales only exist in story books and they belong there. The same with all romantic whimsies.

On the train home from yoga, I saw a girl and her boyfriend look at the latest issue of the Magazine. I felt really proud, like a sense of accomplishment even though I did not contribute much to the February issue. I am silly like that, little things make me happy.

News about Haiti is very heartbreaking. BBC covers the situation all the time and I watched the looting on teevee. I always need reminding that my life does not suck half as bad as these poor people and I count my blessings. I wonder what I would do in that situation. Looting is for survival. Maybe dream chasing is irrelevant when people are already poor and dealing with earthquake consequences.

When you say I am brave, are you mocking me? Heh, not you Addy. I will not be mad, I understand from your point of view. My point of view… does it matter? When they knock you down like that song, I bounce back again. Always. But if I just lie there and not get up again, what does that say about me?

Also known as days of interning. I started off believing that it would be an interesting experience and I could document all exciting and not so appetising things that happen to me. Well, luckily for me, low expectations sometimes do work. However, I did underestimate the physicality of the job and that has rendered me more exhausted than Muay Thai classes one after another. I am awfully tired.

At Muay Thai today, I paid for this month’s lessons at the normal fee (only can manage 4 classes a month now). When one of the guys paid up, A went ‘You are a student right’. I was sitting across her putting on my handwraps, eavesdropping as always. Then it dawned onto me that I am practically a student, with no income and only outflows. After pitching my poverty to A, she very kindly returned me back ten bucks.

I was very pleased of course. Anyway, for the past few months, I had been paying the full working adult rate!

I learnt how to make these flowers at Seow’s house last year when we all gathered to help Wang with her wedding preparations (make ang pao box). Seow had a copy of Martha Stewart Weddings which she treasured (hence did not let me rip out the page of how-to). (I cannot seem to find the how-to on the Martha Stewart Weddings website) Flipping through it, these flowers that Martha used normal cloth (of the stiffer stock) to make, winked at me from the paper. I used the only material I had then, felt and made a yellow flower that I wore in my hair (before I chopped it off December last year) and attached it to my tops when my work outfit needed that spice that my magic mushroom pin could not provide. Alas, the flower though treasured had shoddy workmanship (when I am excited, I go superfast).

Last week, I dug out my felt again and decided to make myself more flowers (practice makes more perfect flowers). I managed three and pinned them to a yellow ribbon to make a necklace like the bib necklaces that have been in vogue for the past year. It is a little too sweet for me however, I do like fake flowers and yellow used to be my favourite colour. The flowers seem more like clown-ish kid’s handicrafts. I will wear it for my birthday.

Two years of learning cooking in Home Economics did not pique my interest in culinary arts. Of course it did not extinguish my obsession with cuisine. The class was split into two for cooking and sewing (sewing really was godamn boring and uninteresting, I still do not know how to thread the sewing machine.). Home Economics was usually the last lesson of the day and the sewing girls could be seen outside the kitchen begging for scraps from the cooking girls.

We did not learn how to bake much, so as I dove into the unknown waters of making sweets, I learnt the following:-

One. Gelatin powder stinks and smells exactly like what it came from, Pig.
Two. Vanilla Essence smells like Paddlepop, the colourful swirly one.

I made jellies for the last pinics and I recalled the ever popular Jellyhearts that my friends clamoured over. Google being the ever so wonderful search engine showed me the Strawberry Jellyhearts Cheesecake from Happy Homebaker. Supplies were bought from Phoon Huat (my first cake tin!) and a mixer was borrowed from The Laney’s mother. The oven at our house does not work (when it is switched on, it trips the entire house’s circuit, not good), so no bake recipes are the best.

One Saturday afternoon, I settled with the recipe copied on a piece of paper in the kitchen and all my new toys to embark on my virgin cake. Mixing, measuring, stirring, pouring, all new exciting processes. Slowly, the cake took form. First, the biscuit crust bottom, mashing digestive biscuits and mixing with the delectable butter. The cheesecake mix comes next. Making the smelly gelatin solution. Using the mixer (it has a life of its own) and smelling the cream cheese. After letting the cheese mixture set in the fridge for a couple of hours with the strawberries nestled snugly on top, jelly mixture is poured right on top to make the top layer. Viola! Jackie’s birthday cake was ready. I also made the same cake, (practice makes perfect) for Tiffy’s birthday, I think it was well received.

For The Laney’s birthday, I also made him this cake modified to be Double Layered Chocolate Cheesecake instead of Triple because three layers was just too much effort. Heh. But it still turned out pretty good. Even though the yogurt did make it slightly sour. Oh well, it is the thought that counts.

So the Proclaimers proclaimed.

Well, I guess the Proclaimers did not have arthritic knees because 500 miles is impossible with knees that hurt. In fact, two 10 km runs within a week of each other is very very painful. Awfully painful.

Awful Nike Human Race = 1 hour 10 minutes
Awful Great Eastern Women Run = 1 hour 8 minutes
Addy’s Great Eastern Women Run = 52 minutes (Freak!)

The less said about the runs the better. One feels a sense of an accomplishment after crossing the finish line if one does not feel like throwing up. The pain and angst experience during the actual run is temporary forgotten like selective amnesia. However, this false sense of accomplishment lures one into thinking that signing up for another race maybe of a longer distance is a good idea. The next day, when one rolls out of bed, the knees screaming and the flat feet hurting, one will Regret the decision. Adrenaline clouds your judgement, kids. Say No to Running!

But we had fun cam whoring after the race at the Padang. Plus we saw this lady walk away with two armfuls of granola bars. And no, I am not wearing a top.

Jupes and I had brunch at Rider’s Cafe on Thursday morning, we sat outside on the veranda and watched this horse gallop in circles round and round. How come the horse never get dizzy? Another mystery of nature. As we chatted about Jupes’ pending Hong Kong trip and her grandiose plans before she leaves for New York, it was reminiscent of the days in Eusoff when I would force myself to wake up to have MacD’s breakfast with her at Engine’s MacDs. How the aircon would be chilly in the morning, we probably had a 10 am lecture to rush to after but the place would be packed. Funny how things around us can change and everything still stays the same.

I would walk 500 miles for Jupes and Addy. (Addy you have to wait for me at the end though. I cannot catch up. Heh.)