Still, I (meaning Fatty, my salary is still somewhat along the that of a churchmouse) bought the first piece of furniture for the house-that-doesn’t-exist-yet. Along the way, I’ve gotten stuff like … Lego salt and pepper shakers (do people still have those) for that said house. So we were at Muji looking at plastic drawers for my walk-in-wardrobe-that-doesn’t-exist-yet (I may be poor but I have a ton of clothes and shit that I may or may not be able to fit into) when we saw these acrylic stuff that really spoke to us (in a way, I like colour but it’s tiring to fit so many colours in a room that I have to share with Fatty who is boring and besides we never like the same things so rather yes it spoke more to me), plus the acrylic stuff was on sale.

So anyway, meet my living room table:

Source: http://www.thingswelovetohate.com

So it’s the third day of 2012, the new year, and I’m holed out at my trusty desk (not corner unfortunately), uncharacteristically in all black, because I’m supposed to be having my period (supposed is the key word here) and I was at 7am hot yoga (I usually pull out dresses for after yoga so sweating is kept to a minimum when I’m commuting to work). So friends, what resolutions do you have for the new year? Swear less (definitely not one of mine)? Exercise more? That’s always one of mine. So join me in disillusion, thinking I could keep these resolutions, at least for three months.

1. Workout at least three times a week.
The key is to be excessive here. So if I can make it to yoga, the gym or for a run five times a week or even every day, I must. Because in a week, I will be pulling an overnighter or just be so godamn lazy that I will be thankful that I tortured myself the week before so I can indulge in Cheetos at my desk.
a) To try rockclimbing (a resolution that I’ve had since 2008)/paddle surfing/dance class
Yes, we have subsets for resolutions, don’t you? I’ll throw in kayaking but that’s something I hope to not just try but do permanently because I’m really bored of yoga. But of course I’m a creature of habit and will keep doing it.
2. Save up to spend on something big.
There’s no point making the resolution to spend wisely or less or save up in general. I will still spend. In 2011, I’ve become extremely reliant on retail therapy but maybe this is the year, I will save up to spend on something worth it – like a Tsumori dress (ha!), or a pair of Repettos (ha!). Or maybe the resolution should be:
b) Decide whether I want quantity or quality
Because I could never decide. I like cheap and expensive. I like trendy that can be bought on a song and classic that costs an arm. And hell, I have bought both. I will really manage to save some money if I can decide on which end of the spectrum and Stick to it.
3. Develop a deaf ear and just walk away from:
i. My mother – this is the year, I will just walk away when she has repeated the same thing 7 times in a row and IGNORE her even if she screams at me. I will not waste any energy screaming or trying to understand her.
ii. Big and small – just because they are not nice people doesn’t mean I have to treat them the same way they treat me. It also doesn’t mean I should go all out to kill them with kindness too. Just say the minimum and do my work.
iii. Random parasites that I dislike – complaints will probably start to come in about a new group of people called the in-laws. Who they? They are “family” you acquire by way of marriage. (As though your own isn’t enough.) Individually and if they’re not related to you, they are great people but when you have to interact with them through no wish of your own, they can be a pain as I am a pain to them. Just ignore them, I hear everyone else say? OK then.
4. Don’t feel bad about anything.
Someone was forgotten on my guest invite list for the wedding/party/dinner I’m planning? Something happened in the worker bee hive? Fine. I will make amends if it was my fault and I have to. But no longer will I take the blame or even say sorry even if I am inclined to, to keep the peace or I feel I should. Unless it is truly my responsibility if not, I will not apologise any more. This resolution is also known as “I won’t let people step over me/Stop being a pushover”. Yes, one of the things that piss me off about young people these days is their unwillingness to step up to the plate. But if I can’t beat them, why not join them, instead of picking up their slack?
5. Count my blessings, no matter how small they are – be it MacDs or steak frites. Can’t miss out a food reference.

Jupes got married one Saturday in October. She’s an October baby too so in the same month, she had her birthday and also got hitched. I’ve seen people get married off (boy were we glad to get Auntie SF off our hands) but I guess when I saw her husband lift her veil as she sat in her parent’s bedroom in the house that I took a nap in on the very first day I knew her, I was overwhelmed by bittersweet emotions.

Jupes had always been the friend I could turn to. She was the one with the car in hall – the daredevil driver who we’d all scream at when she made a very very late turn in order to exit an expressway. She made things happen and wanted all the different experiences one could have in life – trying out for a game show and actually being on a game show, wakeboarding up a storm, speaking French like a native, going on exchange in Brussels. She was a banker and now a baker. She filled her days up with appointments, things to do, it was always go-go-go but she never forgets about the rest of us and me.

Being Jupes who throws the most awesome birthday parties – her annual birthday parties were legendary, think drunken speeches at locations I would never think I was atas enough to go to if it wasn’t for her invitation – of course, her wedding was equally epic. All her bridesmaid had matching pink dresses and wedges (except me with my horrid balance – Jupes was the most un-Bridezilla and very sweetly got me a pair of pink flats that I’m still wearing – unlike Auntie who requested us to wear apple green and we ended up in varying shades of green to rival a vegetable stall). The dinner was a breezy, Shanghai themed affair and thankfully the ultra-heavy downpour stopped just a hour before the solemnisation started. Burkill Hall at Botanic Gardens, a two-storey open air colonial house played host to twenty odd tables.

The bride handmade the macaroons and desserts served before the solemnisation. She had a glorious tired wedding cake that was beautiful to look at and surprisingly, yummy too!

And she wore a gorgeous white wedding gown, the same one she donned in the morning, as she walked down the pebbled path with her father to the pastor (priest?) and her soon-to-be husband. There were three dress changes through the night but my favourite was her lace-detailed cheongsam (seen here). It was elegant and simple just like the lady Jupes has always been.

(So Jupes got married two months ago and I started this entry then, only to have the two lines just lying in-situ until this day in office when I just refuse to work – Christmas was just two days ago! Another thing I don’t miss about the ex-worker bee hive – having to make sure you do enough work to complete your timesheet no matter how reluctant or allergic you are to work.)

A week or two ago, I was going home. It was a decent hour so I had a spring in my step and was looking forward to grabbing a relatively healthy dinner of sushi. My mother didn’t cook, which was great of course. It’s healthy food. I’m not big on it, especially if I’m in a foul mood but it works out if I don’t have to eat to make myself feel better. Anyway, long story short, I lost my cardcase with my house access card key, company medical card and namecards inside. And of course my mother was in a fit and I was highly annoyed with myself and her in the end because she got on my case – of course.

But the next morning, someone called the office – this kind man (sounded like an uncle to me) had picked up my card case. He verified that the item was mine in the most stringent way – asked me what it was exactly, I had to name everything inside. I was impressed and touched by his act of kindness. Some people wouldn’t have been bothered. Lots actually. Or they would just pick it up and keep it or toss it – apparently, I had dropped it at the bus stop so there wasn’t any lost and found he could pass it to. I was so relieved, I almost got down on my knees when I got the call in office.

So thank you kind man! You renewed my faith in mankind. (Partly, not when I drive of course.)

I’m usually quite stalker-ish. Streetstyle is an interest but what fascinates me more is what people have in wardrobes (Refinery 29 has these cool Close Close-ups videos) and more so … what’s in people’s bags. (Purseblog satisfied my stalkerish tendencies)

So I’m sitting on my backside, feeling rather pleased with myself for running a 5km on the treadmill and some 30 minutes weird glider machine at the gym and then walking across the road for a crazy hour of Hatha with lots of Wheels and attempts at Crow. I’ve forgotten about the lasagna, pizza and ice cream I rewarded myself with.

Anyway, I’m feeling damn boliao today, so I decided to do my own “What’s in my bag” entry. Note that usually I bring everything but the kitchen sink (I’m no girl who can live out of a tiny clutch or tiny bag, I’m not Belle) but Coach’s Court is so bloody cute, I just had to get it and figure how to live with it. So I carry another bag with me so I can still have my entire life near me.

So I shall list what’s in my bag right now.
1. First, the bag is new (heh, always), courtesy of Fats who was in Las Vegas (for work, I know, what bullshit right). The thing is, I only have had one Coach bag and honestly, never bought into the whole brand (also gave/partly sold the bag). Coach reissued their classics recently and I really wanted the Classic Leather Shoulder Purse. But it’s also the size of my camera case. I mean baby steps to downsizing right? So I decided to meet myself halfway and settled for the Court Bag. A sling and a handle – that’s the prerequisite for a good bag right? Plus, you can’t even tell it’s Coach – which’s the best thing.
2. Hanging off Court, is Ugly Doll Mr Kasoogi. He was acquired from Fao Schwartz in New York and the perfect companion for Court.
3. Vapur waterbottle that flattens and can be rolled up when empty. Super design and after I bought it online, every single imitation and real ones arrived on our shores. Damn.
4. Comme Des Garcons wallet in purple embossed polka dots. According to Lucky, it’s also a wallet that does not die. Don’t know whether to be pleased with that fact.
5. Bath and Body Works anti-bacterial hand lotion thingy with a plastic cover that hooks onto your bag if you feel like it. I don’t care for germs. But it’s handy after using your hands to eat your burger and there’s no toilet nearby – it gets rid of the oily residue. Yups, I use it After I eat.
6. Karen Walker Patsys sunnies that I tote around in an Oakley cover.
7. Tissue paper kept in Cath Kidston tissue paper cover (I’m the kind of girl who has bags for her bags) from an e-mook.
8. Kleenex blotters. They rock! Serious!
9. Ettusais Lip Essence (Deep Moist) a special edition of the normal Lip Essence. So it was given to me (perks of the job) but it’s really very very good for chapped lips. It’s a little gooey when you first apply it but you don’t have to re-apply that much. I happen to use at least 3 different lip balms at the same time. Yes I’m that kind of girl.
10. Keys! I only have 2 but my entire key chain takes up ALOT of place.
11. Not pictured but of course always by my side, my trusty iPhone 3GS.

And that ends my boliao post.

Xiu Ru did the North Face 100. This means she was part of a duo who ran 50km each on trail. She took 7 hours. She is crazy. I made her a sign. It says “Well Done!” on the other side.

I am very proud of you. And I bet you will still do it next year.

But a year after I started in the magazine business, I was finally sent on a proper press trip. Boy, I was so excited. It was for Nine West – we got to interview the Creative Director of Fred Allard. The presentation was set up in French Window at IFC with the fall/winter 2011 collection of shoes, accessories and ready-to-wear. With the sunlight flooding in through and a small press entourage, it was most possibly the best first work trip I could ever have. Fred was simply open and it felt like he was more like a friend than the creative director of a huge American shoe company. He teased me about my socks (yes, I was wearing my hi-tops instead of pretty shoes) and walked us personally through the entire collection. He spoke about Karen Elson (who was doing a collaboration with Nine West Vintage America) and how she was a muse. Can you imagine? Now I have like a one degree separation from a supermodel! (Like I “know” Fred and he is pals with Karen right, right?)

Meeting Fred was definitely the highlight of the trip but there were other highlights too. Having my very first meal at a three star Michelin restaurant, Caprice at Four Seasons Hotel. I’m no atas foodie, food is yummy or not yummy to me, but if I have to write a food snippet, I would take far too long. But I have to say, it was the best sort of shepherd’s pie I ever had and wondrous desserts (think petit fours and the most delectable to look at bonbons). Throw in a private room that overlooked the harbour and attentive waiters delivering the most delicious little castles of carbohydrates (read: bread). I just about died of happiness.

And that one glorious night in the Peninsula Hotel. The last time I slept alone, not counting being home alone, was back in hall (yes Eusoff, I mean you). So to see such awfully high ceilings, and a gorgeous bathroom, a little hallway before you enter the actual suite and such a huge fluffy bed all to myself, I felt like Eloise in the Plaza hotel or maybe just very grown up for once.

A little digression – since then I’ve been on another press trip (and more about that later) but the best thing about travelling for work is having the peace and quiet for just a few days is just delectable.

I’m all for cheap thrills and of course one night in such a luxury hotel was enough to put me on cloud nine for quite awhile, along with more than one visit to H&M, a wonderful Sonia by Sonia Rykiel discount buy (I love you stripes) and my first thrift store purchases (I love you too, high waisted skirts and ahma pants) that even as I pulled along my Stella for Lesportsac rollie (bulging at the seams), all due to the fore-mentioned buys on the 20 minute walk to Missy Teo’s workplace (DFS spilling with mainlanders) and arrived at my destination, swimming in sweat, I was still walking on air.

Missy Teo put me up for a night at her bachelorette pad that was very near St Francis Yard where the Monocle store and other cool shops were. She took me out to dinner to Soho, brought me to Maple (heh) and was kind to me for 2 days (she didn’t make me clean her house).

I finally had the opportunity to move around by myself. I think I’m the only person who will get lost in Hong Kong but I still managed to get to my destinations by myself without losing any limbs. I went into a coffee house and I ordered a sandwich without knowing any Cantonese with the proprietor speaking to me in Cantonese as though I was a retard. The next time I will make sure I get my instant noodles and luncheon meat – I go to what is a gourmet city and I just want to eat instant noodles, so sue me. Just trotting around a foreign town where everyone knows where they are going to while I took many pictures of a burger joint agreed with me greatly. I guess this is the reason by people love to travel alone. For someone who got lost walking to the Bart station in San Francisco – I clearly remember Pillay telling me to walk straight and turn one left – this is a great feat.

I’m terribly privileged to be able to travel like this for work (although my colleagues have been to Tokyo and Sweden and on more frequent trips for longer – OK we are not comparing here, not trying to anyway). This is exactly how I imagined footloose and fancy free to be.

I’m the queen of impulse buys. Or Xiuru would agree, I’m just the Queen of Impulse. I don’t believe in waiting. But somehow, I’ve managed to keep the longest engagement as Dee says, even longer. Somehow, something is needed to give me a kick in the ass and what better than to start with the Dress (or also know as One Of The Dresses)

I’ve not stepped into a bridal concept store. I’ve only entertained grandiose daydreams of what the supposedly biggest day in my life (you mean not my 30th birthday?) could be if budget wasn’t an issue. I’ve looked at every white, beige, off-white, eggshell (come on fellas, is there a difference?) dress flippantly. But last week, I fell in love with a Stella McCartney (damnit) dress – it was straight out of a ’60s catalog, kneelength and the best of all, had gorgeous flower appliques all over the top on Outnet. I couldn’t imagine anything more fitting to walk down the aisle in (although the church aisle is the last place I want to walk down but hey, haven’t you heard, I’ve been bribed.) Of course being knockoff net-a-porter, the sizes available were suspicious small (oh my body back in hall, how I miss you) and within two days, the lovely dress was but a memory.

My heart was broken but this unfortunate incident spurred me on my mission to find the perfect dress. Some kind souls have suggested a tailor. However, after my JC prom, my mother has convinced me that whatever I have in my head or even manage to translate on paper will never materialise in real life. So my best bet is to buy off the rack and alter if need be. When we were just in Bangkok, I flitted in and out of Senada Theory, Disaya, Sretsis and Kloset, Thai designers whose creations are just droolworthy. So I went online and found amazing, almost wedding appropriate pieces off the Sretsis spring/summer 2011 collection and had it in my head that I needed to go back to Bangkok to hunt them down. But I decided to try my luck at Lula Rock that stocked Disaya, Sretsis, Alice McCall, amongst others (and also where I bought my Culter and Gross sunnies) run by a very sweet Maxie.

On Sunday after a 90 minute hot vinyasa class, I trotted over to Pacific Plaza and browsed through the racks at Lula Rock. I saw some swoonworthy Sretsis dresses (as Xiuru would ask the next day “How come we didn’t see those in Bangkok?” but not the ones my heart was set on. So I enquired with Maxie’s assistant whether I could order a dress and she passed me some lookbooks. Whilst I was flipping through S/S 2011, she pointed out a dress that was gorgeous but “sold out” and I told her that the one I was eyeing was the one on the other page. It turned out she had it hidden away. She brought it out and I lost my heart. I had found my dress.

It’s a little vintage, sheer, what the Man Repeller would call a mullet dress, calf length, polka-dotted, loose fitting and I think actually despite the lace, quite me.

So now all I have to find is my party dress. Onward!

I’ve been spending some time with the girls. I accompanied Xin bebe to an Insead open house a few weeks ago on a (yes you got it) Friday night. It was amazing how stepping into the three quarter filled lecture hall transported me straight back into National University of Stupid. Some things won’t change. There will be foreign students everywhere, speaking up, making their point known. Maybe it was having already spent an entire day restless at work or the fact that it was a mock lecture that rendered me even more restless even though the lecturer was of course miles better than NUS standards. There wasn’t much to fiddle with on my phone, so my old JC pal and I pretended to be involved with each other, resting our heads on each other’s shoulders, the occasional fingers entwining, the whole lesbian shebang.

Suddenly though everything’s picking up speed. Jupes and I had dinner outdoors and discussed pertinent issues, for instance, her upcoming wedding and my longest-engagement-is-it-happening wedding. Today was spent at Jackie’s, with her snarling fat cats and watching her work at sewing machine while I sang along to songs playing on her computer. I realised it wasn’t normal for people to wonder what was going on in other people’s heads, that no one actually wondered about how important music was when it came to finding the person they would fall in love with. The older I get, the more confident I am in expressing what I think, no matter how ridiculous it is, but this doesn’t mean I am more self-assured. Sometimes, something might catch me off guard and I would feel that I do have the upper hand in the situation but then of course, I am always wrong.

I feel like a lost middle child (never mind I never had siblings). My peers are way ahead of me, they talk about houses, marriage, and even its (my slang for children) and ask me when is my turn almost all the time. They have grown up, their minds are full of serious issues and choices that have real consequences. My most serious decisions are whether I should get up for early morning yoga or gym and whether I really should stuff my face with junk food. Or when am I going to lay my hands on a maxi skirt, a cape and a proper cut-out shoulder top. At work, they are busy fighting fires and doing real work. At my desk that I attempt to keep tidy, I rush to make sense of writing, to fit words into spaces and burn the midnight oil to ensure that there is an issue to go to print. My mind is filled with spelling, grammar and other things that seems to be non-consequential.

But yet, I don’t understand the young ones. I don’t fit into their world where they patronise blogshops with wares that aren’t my size. It’s really normal to be a skinny girl for the under 25 set. I have never been conscious of my size until now. Maybe I could have been an anorexic or bulimic if I were part of them. In the same way I don’t understand my peers, I don’t know what the hell they are talking about. I don’t approve of their entitled attitude or how un-humble they are.

Generally, what unsettles me is how no one means what they say and how everyone hides behind a mask. I am always at the losing end because I am trusting. I will believe you if you told me the moon was made of green cheese. In the same way that I will tell you almost exactly what I think and not say what I don’t mean. I feel that I don’t know how to protect myself. And I am scared.