I am now rendered a member of the dog-eat-dog, rat race world of business.

Every morning and evening, I squeeze into the train with the peak hour crowd. Every lunchtime, I leave and return to the office en masse with the rest of the building.

Jeans and T-shirts no longer exist in my vocabulary. It is now replaced with dress pants, shirts and heeled shoes.

I am now an automaton, and my world has narrowed into an endless cycle of travel, work and sleep.

Despite it all though, I am thankful for the job. And I think God had his hand in it all.

It is extremely challenging, and I’m not talking about the bit where I have to book conference rooms and order stationery. I have to juggle three people’s responsibilities, of which one I actually quite enjoy. This job also has the potential to give me a great network of friends.

Citibank is established and prestigious, and they really do not pay that badly. At least enough for me to afford going to Germany in August.

But somehow, I still can’t shrug off the feeling of dread that I am now one of them.

I found work!

Granted, it's only a 5 month temp assignment, but after 2 months of inactivity and weeks of either turning down jobs or getting turned down...this job souonds pretty good.

Working at Citibank as an assistant in the marketing department (yes, I book conference rooms and order pens for the department). And yes, my life seems to gravitate towards marketing and PR, no matter how hard I fight it.

I'm not complaining (much) though.

Not only do I get Sabbaths off, I am now able to afford my trip to Germany for Cydknee's wedding (with a short detour back to England...I couldn't resist) in August.

I can spend as much time away as I want overseas as well since my assignment would have ended then. Or till my money runs out. Or till I outstay my welcome.

Honestly, not my dream job (seriously, I didn't get a degree to book conference rooms), but God knows best and right now, the timing for everything seems pretty darn good to me!

currently sitting in Gail's bedroom getting my eardrums assaulted.

No, Gail isn't the one doing the assaulting.

There seems to be some kind of live performance going on somewhere in her neighbourhood and as sound travels, I am listening to the singing live and LOUD.

Initially, I thought the singing was bad, but since I had no idea what they were singing about, could somehow managed to block it out.

Currently though, I am sitting here listening not just to whoever it is mutilate Nirvana's Smells Like Teen Spirit, I'm also subjected to extremely bad guitar playing.

Isn't there a law somewhere against bad live singing that would cause people's ears to bleed?

Today, I realise that the B3 that I got for my Chinese for my A levels have gone down the drain.

Went for a second interview with a PR firm and had to translate an English press release into Chinese. The number of blanks, the inability to translate accurately as well as the number of hanyu pinyin words I used in place of the proper Chinese symbols were atrocious.

As if my humiliation wasn't complete, I then had to read a Chinese article. Ended up misreading half of the words, and skipping over the other quarter.

Was I surprised that they decided not to hire me?

The Cleo saga continues...

Just got back from schmoozing with 50 "Eligable Bachelors" and virtually the rest of Singapore - it really felt like the entire country was packed into Zouk Disco tonight.

And rather than sitting in a corner and laughing at everybody, I found myself on stage, pairing up with one of the bachelors, trying to stick post-its all over him...without using my hands.

Let me just take this opportunity to say that Urban Decay Lip Gunk is the stickiest lip gloss to ever exist in this world coz the post-its were stuck on my lips rather than on his jacket. I even had my nose squashed coz I was trying desperately to get the post-its off my lips.

Did I say I wanted to laugh at everybody?

He ended up grabbing a post-it off my hand and sticking it onto himself and to make matters worse, he whispered "use your hands!" into my ear. Talk about cheating.

Should have known that going to such things with Maya would result in some attention grabbing antic or another. That girl attracts attention wherever she goes.

At least I got a whole bunch of freebies for my participation...

I honestly hope I will not live to say that I’ve made the biggest mistake of my life.

After rejecting the job for the second time to the boss of Image Marcom last night, he sent me a text message an hour later saying that he would give me more time to reconsider, and that he’ll wait for my reply this afternoon.

Sent him a text message this morning saying that I really am unable to change my commitment on the Sabbath, and asked if he would be willing to put me on trial for 3 months instead.

He replied saying, “No. You need to accommodate to the industry, not the other way around.”

Honestly, this lost chance is extremely painful to me and friends will hear me whinging about it in the weeks to come.

Ouch.

I wonder...would I say that I've made the biggest mistake of my life ten years from now?

Had an interview with Image Marcom & Productions this evening. The job was everything I've ever wanted and could dream of - video & film production.

I would be overseeing projects, conceptualising videos, working with storyboard artists, coordinating personnels, going on shoots, finding locations and talents...it is my ultimate dream job. And the best thing was the boss really wanted me for the job. So much so that he was ready to have me start work tomorrow.

And I said no.

The boss spent the next 2 hours trying to convince me otherwise.

But I just can't. The job requires me to work on the Sabbath and I will never be able to live with myself if I chose to give up God's holy day to pursue my dream.

God made me who I am and has blessed me tremendously. Granted, He is not going to strike me dead if I take up the job. In fact, I know for a fact that He would still love me.

But I simply cannot live with the fact that I cannot even keep one day holy for the God I love. That I cannot even grant Him the one tiny request He has from me, especially after all the countless blessings He has poured on me and will continue to do so.

And so now I'm left mourning the loss of what I believe is my dream job but having the hope and knowledge that God will provide something better.

I hope I will not live to regret this decision.

a weekend at Mersing has rendered me a reversed panda.

I am now extremely sunburnt and bear tan lines where my sunglasses used to be. All because my brother and I decided to go on a 1.5 hour canoe trip.

And I'm supposed to go for the Clep's 50 Eligable Bachelor's Party this Thursday looking all red and brown and yellow in different places...extremely charming, I'm sure.

By the way, don't ask as to why I'm going to the party...it's Maya's fault.

Ned Kelly and I are a pair of star-crossed lovers...

I have been wanting to watch the movie for close to two years now, and have chased it all around the world and yet, have only been able to catch glimpses of it.

It was due to open in Australia a few months after I left.

When it opened in England, it did so for a grand total of 3 days which resulted in me missing it.

Now it's in Singapore for the Australian Film Festival, except that it will be showing this Saturday and Sunday evenings and guess what?

I'M NOT GOING TO BE IN SINGAPORE!

if there's anything I hate more than having to wake up at an early hour (and I count anything before 8am early), it's being woken up 5 minutes before my alarm rings.

I love my sleep. I can stay awake till all hours, but once my eyes are actually closed and I escape into dreamland, I really do not like to wake up, especially against my will.

So having to wake up at 7.15am for the last few days have been absolutely killing for me. The agony of having to wake up at such an unholy hour was enough to test my patience. And to be robbed of the extra 5 minutes of sleep was just utterly wrong.

I was supposed to wake up at 7.15am this morning. The telephone rang at 7.10am, jarring my out of a beautiful sleep and dream. It only rang once, but it was more than enough to wake me up.

My precious 5 minutes...

no, the aliens have not got to me. It was just pure and simply exhaustion.

So, what's been happening?

1. I went for a 2nd interview with Cleo last Thursday and I think I absolutely messed up on it. I would like to cite sheer nervousness because of having to face the ENTIRE Cleo team as an excuse, but I think the main reason is that I simply do very badly at interviews.

2. The Minitoons schedule is an absolute nightmare, requiring me to stand for 12 straight hours 5 days a week. The consolation is that I'll probably develop really nice calves by the end of it all.

3. Am currently temping at a furniture fair. This thing is huuuge! And open only to trade and business personnels. So for this whole week, I've been holed up in an exhibition centre trying to sell antique reproduction furniture. Irony of it all is that I'm working for a UK based company, with three guys from the UK.

I've returned all the way from the UK back to Singapore to work for a UK company.

Unfortunately, although this job is only for 8 hours a day, it not only requires me to stand all day, but IN HEELS as well. My calves....and it also takes me one hour to get to work, hence the exhaustion and lack of desire to do anything else but to go home and sleep.