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.

And good paper smells good!

to have a children’s bookstore. Just like this one at Club Street. I was at Ann Siang today for work and had abit of time. I walked to Books Actually that used to be near Amoy where I got my Moleskine London Guide. It has three stories now and I had to exercise all willpower not to buy anything. I went into Little Drom Store and looked at the cakes at K Ki. I wished very much to be a tai tai to spend afternoons roaming in bookstores and little quaint stores (and having the money to buy things even though I do not work). But the pang I felt in Books Actually did not prepare me for the longing I would feel when I walked into Books in the Woods. All the Dr Seuss, Richard Scarry’s, Madelines just sat there. Just like a dream. There were Chinese kids books and even Japanese (I think, I could not look too close in case I could not leave). A book called ‘Wo Tao Yen Mama’ ‘I hate Mama’ made me laugh.

I would give my kidney to have a shop like that. I would even give my heart or my liver but that kind of defeats the purpose. I would even be nice to children if they visited because their parents would buy the books and children who read are alright in my book. I would have a helium tank and have fresh balloons all the time. For children who were funny, I would give them candy if they did not scream. (Point aside: I made a baby cry in Far East on Monday. It was ridiculous but hilarious. I did not do anything though.)

As dreams go, the one I am currently chasing seems to be leading in a dead end. Yesterday I was at the most magical little store. The owner had a bowl haircut too and she loved the Beatles too. But as I attempted to make conversation, it was not very forthcoming and I felt a tiny shy and stupid. Have you ever met someone whom you wanted to make friends with so much but they did not seem to want to give you the time of the day?

It happened today again. I was just trying to fill the silence in the air with a PR girl. I wanted to say that ‘For god’s sake, you are in PR!’. Maybe I have not been long in this and maybe she was tired and not feeling it.

It is true, I am not cut out for publishing. My style of writing is not what they require for magazines and I wear my feelings on my sleeve. I smile when I do not feel like but I do not like to show a face to people especially when they do not deserve it. Am polite even when the situation may not call for it. I know where I stand but … Maybe I was wrong. I guess twenty seven is really too old to start over again.

Looking at this picture, makes me want to learn how to put on makeup, specifically smoky eyes and grow my hair out to braid it to one side.

Jupes left for New York last night. The lucky girl had an entire village to send her off and her JC friends wearing specially printed T-shirts with her Missus Bon Bon website screen all matching and standing in one line, it was like one of the parties that she loves to throw.

We had dinner on Saturday night and dancing at Butter afterwards. Auntie Fang and Leng had a birthday party to go to after dinner but not before the Auntie dropped a bomb of her own. Our darling Auntie will finally be an Auntie. She has a bun in her oven. The rest have christened it ‘Boo-ster’ and I have christened it Tweedledum Boo (the original name for her guinea pigs). As I attempted to arrange my face into some semblance of congratulations, I got chided by Missy Teo. But I guess I am happy because as long as the Auntie is happy, I will be happy. Plus she can finally Baby Talk a proper baby instead of like baby talking the rest of the world who are above one meter. So Congratulations Mr and Mrs and Future Small Boo.

So it seems that pregnancy or rather pregnant people are everywhere. The yoga class that I attended on the Sunday after, the yoga teacher was sporting a small bump of her own. Apparently, pregnancy is contagious.

Awful has the iPhone 3GS. I am such a Apple slut.

I have the MacBook, Magic Mouse, iPod Classic and shuffle. I had the Apple Mini and the Nano. Now I have the iPhone.

I am not that techie. I do not know how to use internet on a mobile phone. My phone plan has always been the cheapo, cheapest monthly subscription. Before this internship, I had never exceeded the 500 sms limit.

But hello iPhone!

At this moment in time, there cannot be a more perfect dress than Jason Wu’s sequined cocktail dress. Zoe Saldana wears his creation here.

Erich Segal, the author and screenwrite of Love Story has passed away. Now who is Erich Segal? What is Love Story? Love Story is the ultimate tear jerker starring Ali McGraw in all her black straight hair finery and Ryan O’Neal. I never watched the movie. (Duh.) But I know of Ali McGraw with her hippie chic and Ryan O’Neal when he was young and hot. (You may know Mr O’Neal as Faye Dunaway’s long time companion, Faye Dunaway being the queen of Angel Wings hair and original Charlie’s Angel).

My point actually is the movie spawned an ultra disgusting line to date (no offence to Mr Segal): Love means never having to say you’re sorry. (Cue hurling)

I do not have patience for love stories. Tortured unhappy endings maybe.

For the nth time, I do not want to get married in a church. I do very much hate myself. I am gross. No dress could salvage the situation. Not even a 13 K Birkin.

It was a slow day at work. So I read an old copy of Self. I used to buy Self in university while trying to wean myself off the US Seventeen magazine (I know! But Seventeen used to be really good. I swear.) Those days, I looked forward to buying new issues of Seventeen every month and could survive a month on one issue that was hidden from the parents. Before Seventeen, I read YM (yes, it was that long ago when my obsession with foreign magazines began) and when the Pig confiscated all of them in secondary school, I was devastated. But when he went into hospital and I managed to get my kidnapped YMs back, I suddenly had an entire stash of new old magazines and was very very happy. My sense of when it was appropriate to feel happy and sad is always spot off. Whenever people cried, I always felt like laughing. Not like nervous laughter too.

Self had an article about having friends. The writer of that story said she did not have friends and husbands did not last forever as she buried her first husband at 34. She then delved into the categories of friends. One of the groups of friends, most important is Lifers. Lifers are and I quote ‘who’s as deep and forever as family’.

I am an only child. Friends are as close to me as family.

Addy is my msn buddy. Although we were from the same JC, I only got to know her last amongst all the EH C3 girls. But we did Bahasa Indonesia together (Apa Kabar?) and we studied together in the library. She was the first one to see me cry like a banshee in the central library. When we started working, she became my MSN constant. Everytime I logged onto MSN, the first thing I will do is see whether she is online. I am a horrible person. I am always the one boyfriend bashing and encouraging her to go on to greener pastures. Heh. But whether or not she listens is another thing of course.

Addy is the lowest maintenance girl amongst the EH girls. She is least materialistic. A rare breed of girl in these days. Some may say she is a cheap date (in a very good way). Any guy is lucky to have her. (Read this three times Mr Perth.) But chase her if you can. Only in the last year did I realise just how darn fast this girl is. Running fast that is.

I do miss her on MSN these days, considering the fact that I am not on MSN most of the time right now. I realised that things change so quick that I must grab time when I can to tell certain individuals just how important they are in my life.

This is besides the point but Addy has a brother that she calls Chrissypoo who is HOT. He is all but 21 (or 22 or whatever but young enough to make me all cougar like). In my biased opinion, he is one of the hottest boys I have seen in real life. What makes him even syrup sweet is that he is so in love with his girlfriend that you could not pry him away with a chainsaw and the things that he does in the name of Lurve is found only in story books. (Due to the fact that Maybe it is because I am sour grapes and/or extremely jaded but being tough as nails means that I scoff at such innocent professions of love. But if I was his age, I would be plotting to kidnap this fine fine specimen of a boy.

Snippets of the msn conversation with his sister (edited to increase entertainment value):-
Your brother is damn godamn hot.
Can you please ask him to do something about his hotness, like use it?
He is too hot for his own good.
And too stupid not to how to use his hotness.
Can you tell him he won’t be hot for very long, so he might as well make use of it now.
(All one sided monologues from Awful.)

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?