Slowly and surely

My days are getting better, mainly because I am getting validated by companies.

So much for staying away from the corporate world - I swear I got an orgasm when I entered ocean finance center for an interview early today. Fuckkk I probably need to improve myself and improve myself quickly.

Also I am vain, but you already knew that.

Sliver lining in my cloud

These few days have been quite a shit-storm.

I knew my afternoons are regularly badly spent but these two weeks hit me the hardest. In the mornings I'd wake up aimless but refreshed, and by afternoon it ebbs to aimless and unemployment blues, and by night it escalates to full-blow, how-is-it-like-to-die misery.

Which has led me to the solution that I need to get out of the house more and go back to filling my time with meaningful things like work or watching trees sway or anything but making love to my bed.

TO BETTAR DAZE AHEAD.

Matchy for a day

Just about sums it up!

A mandarin new year

The aim is to win enough to buy myself a one-way ticket to the states, but instead I lost half of my vietnam's spending budget hahaha. But it's okay because weary me is now absorbent of all of life's disappointments. UPSIDE!

Vae victis over semper excelsius

Today I caught my tattoo on my favourite show. I don't understand the other bunch of latin words, but I think the third line is semper excelsius. It is a motto: always higher. Quite a nice phrase.

I wish I could say I did something productive. I wish.

No luxe in luxury

It is not a luxury to suddenly be given a shit-ton of time.

It makes me dazed and confused. It gets me trigger-ready to search "writing jobs" on gumtree simply to use the time I have. It gives me too much time to think about my problems and dreams.

So I decided to forget all that and have a face-off with my sister in badminton!





Sister showing off her flexibility to piss me off. Yep life is back to normal!





I am tall as fuck, the chart is just wrong.

I wish I could say life has a purpose now that I'm not slaving away in corporate, but it doesn't. Life after unemployment is getting hit by series after series of inspiration that never really could pull through.

I spent most of my paychecks either paying back my student loan or buying nifty gifts for my family. And it leads up to a giant, gaping hole in my rainy day expenses. And every day I spend not adding on to my bank account, is every day I count as a failure.

There has to be more than this.

HALLE-FUCKING-LUJAH!

This is a terrible photo but I shall bear with it because it is my final photo taken as a weekender staff!

There is nothing to miss here, at all. I wish I could say something, anything, but everything is eclipsed by how fucking amazing my colleagues are. In fact, if not for them, I think I would've concussed much sooner at this place.

Finally, after three months of fervently praying for a meteorite to strike me at work and end my suffering, I am done. I am free to pursue life and I am free to be a jobless bum and I am free to be free.

I already know the days ahead will be fraught with uncertainty, self-doubt and tons of insecurities.

But not today!

Heaven has a face

Last few hours on a shade of paradise.

(this is a throwback post written on 25th feb, and you have just pissed me off. hence everything here on is not truly reflective of what I felt on that day)

Throughout the trip back, I thought about many things. The way you talk to me and the way we talk about everything. I don't think I have ever found anyone I have quite as much in common with.

But with the good arises the bad. It is inevitable that this mirror has its ugly side. There's the fact that you and I are headstrong and don't do well in arguments, because you are shit at giving me assurances and I am a endless abyss of insecurities.

I think I should stop now.

A valentine to remember

What a magical day.

I like dressing words up and dramatizing everything but when something truly amazing does happen, I get clamped up about it. It feels like a secret, my secret, and any retelling of it would kill the magic. 

But knowing my shit memory, it is best to ink everything down.

Gabriel spent most of the coach ride dozing off and his head kept threatening to bump onto the lady's next to him so I had to balance catching snatches of the city and tugging at his snoring head. Still, the ride was quite bubbly for me.

In fact, this was from my notes app:

I always thought I'm done with Bintan after my previous trip. I remember me and my friends talking to a stranger and having him bring us on his bike to a farm. How do you top that!? But in the last trip, I neglected to look at the landscape of the city.

Littered with poverty at every turn, the island of Bintan looked and felt like a poetic mess. Sure I throw that word around a lot but it stands true. 

The villagers here each have their own way of spicing up their humble abode. Some paint their houses, some decorate it with flowers, some do simple graffiti and some build nice fences. It is the touch of individuality that HDBs have robbed us long ago of.

In my hour long ride, I finally saw my first family shot. In between typing, I saw a nice, stone-built home. A mother carried a baby on her lap as her toddler looked on at us, walking towards the road curiously.

The clouds here are denser and the greenery greener. the roads are longer and the air is colder. I await for more Bintan will bring me in the next 24 hours



I kept the "mr and mrs abriel" card awww.







There was a window of time where the masseuse left us and we were left to enjoy the spa. Most of the time was him taking messy shots of me while I took fantastic-as-fuck photos of him. I blame my great photography skills.

I think it's nice that I finally found him. In between rolling my eyes at his lousy innuendos and twitching my lips at his lame jokes, I still do believe he's the happiest thing to have ever happened to me.









Thank you for everything.

From the surprise dinner to the surprise gifts to the fireworks you set off to the entire vacation. I don't think I could ever forget how I felt that day. Thank you for pampering me senseless and being so damned lovable.

Oh man I'm really not good with sappy posts.

Reflections on Tuesdays with Morrie

I can't say it held my interest the whole time.



Favorite line in the book,
"And I was right. It came. But it missed me. It struck my brother."

It's not to say it's a bad book. Not at all. I enjoyed the little stories on African tribes more than anything. On dying and living. It came at a right time. I am, what a joke, worrying about dying at the grand age of 22 and reading it lightened things up a little.

But to be honest, I couldn't enjoy the book and its values.

While I do think that life is beyond fast cars and big houses, I also believe that life would be incomplete without these worldly luxuries. There is the age old saying after all, "I'd much rather be crying in my Ferrari than on a beat-up bike."

Was it inspirational? Barely so. Bukowski got me depressed every single time I started and restarted on it, and I adore his fucking insane mind all the more for that. But this book, as with the lead, is a slow and painful one, fraught with values that only the dying can appreciate.

I can't say I enjoyed it. And I can't say it changed me in the least. But I can tell you - the pretentious folks who put this book on the list of their favourites list probably didn't read past chapter seven.

How can you like this book, agree with its values, and still carry a career and chase girls and worship money when this is a book about giving it all up?

The audacity of some people.

V-v-v-vietnam here I come

I have been pondering over Vietnam for a while now.

I do think traveling alone is a big deal. Yes, there are many men who have gone and got themselves in a hurry to travel solo. But I am a girl, and beyond that, I am a very, very small girl.

That, among many reasons, have kept me bound to Singapore. I'm going to get robbed, I'm going to get hit on, I'm going to get stepped on (I'm really smally goddammit) and most of all,

NO ONE IS GONNA TAKE PHOTOS FOR ME.

But after checking out flights to Manila, Macau and Haikou, I finally came to a decision: no more fucking around. I'm doing it. I'm going to throw myself into this and see exactly what I'm going to discover. All by myself.









SO, GUESS WHO IS GOING VIETNAM ALL ALONE!

Your mom. Okay I'm sorry. ME! MEMEMEME.

I was thinking since I am trying out this solo journey schtick, I may as well go all the way. I am now checking through airbnb and thinking if I should split up my days so I can try out different accommodations.

How about that, my inner demons! Even on a good day, I can't fall asleep well because I'd let myself be poisoned with thoughts of a young death and I'll end up not being able to sleep alone.

And now, and now I'm doing this. I am really doing it. Getting on a flight all alone and staying by myself all alone and sleeping on couches and crashing in studio apartments.

God I'm so fucking excited.

Nicole Lee would like to thank the idiots who consistently point at her arm tattoo and say, "that word Vietnam ah?" as well as the series of happy coincidences that led her to think that Ho Chin Minh could be her calling. Thank you, you Latin-impaired idiots you!






Yes occasionally I get ashamed to call myself a photographer.

But in all fairness, I am short as fuck and these attendees all look like they descended with gulliver. But in any case, new found glory is (according to wikipedia) the godfathers of pop punk so how can I do justice to myself if I miss it, right?

Perhaps it's because we stood away from the crowd, but this gig was pretty dry. I vowed that I would never be the boring one at any gig I go to but I actually folded my arms. YES I AM ASHAMED. But I only knew two songs and none of them were coming up so I was just trying not to die.

When "my friends over you" and "kiss me" came, I said a soft prayer to the heavens (and the management team thanks thanks) and finally screamed along. But when the final note ended, me and my date decided to leave early. YES, I AM ASHAMED OF LEAVING EARLY TOO.

It was a night of many shames.

What we learn

Intended to meet Bel but as usual, everything is a wonderful surprise with her. Ended up having khaihwa join us mid-way as well as his odd army friend, who sings oddly well.

Few years back when I first met khaihwa, I was convinced he's the hottest thing I've ever seen.

Here was a handsome man who stood at a hulking 182cm, with strong shoulders that spaced themselves out comfortably. He had strong arms, thick legs and a muscular chest - every gym man's wet dream. But most attractive of all was what he wore: a dancing, mischievous glint in his eyes and a stunning smile that came easily and charmingly.

Note that this wasn't infatuation. Neither was it love. It is my simple belief that all beautiful people must be told, carefully and in painstaking detail, how god personally carved his/ her features with a chisel, and how they must never lose their wonder because the heavens truly did spend so much more time on creating them.

But of course eventually he had to speak and we both happily knew we'd be fine as friends.

Fast forward three years and he fell into bad company, bad situations and bad addictions. I didn't get to see him much in the three years but seeing him today shook me to my core.

He looked entirely different. Gone were the body from god, gone was the hulking height, gone were the glint in his eyes and the twitch in his smile. He is now a shell of a man he once was, a man broken by everything life threw at him. But his infectious charm stood the test of time and trials, and he amused us happily with anecdotes and self-deprecation jokes.

Seeing him goes against everything I believe in, that good looking people are simply happier. But seeing him now and remembering him three years back, I can't help but to vow that I would never let that happen to me. I must never give up on my body and I must never let my trials and tribulations win.

Ever.

But more on that

In How I Met Your Mother, Robin once said something along the lines of, "How can I bore you? I'm a news reporter. Everything I say is interesting!"

Of course I am no news reporter, I am just a newspaper writer, and even that stint is ending. But I do get first hand knowledge on things happening around Singapore and it is my job to stay relevant in the world news. Which is why everything I say, I genuinely do think it's not too mundane.

But the point is: the beauty of an inexhaustible mind cannot be appreciated by anyone less than one who wields it himself.



An intellectual equal encompasses of many things, beyond just plain intelligence. It is a wholesome mix of knowing what to say, when to say it, how to say it and wording it properly. It is keeping lightly in touch with world affairs and local news and everything in between.

But that's not all, no. It encompasses additionally of the fun things too, like spinning puns out of nothing, weaving innuendos into the genuinely innocent things I say, finding beauty in things I can't appreciate, accepting and seeing everything the world and I do quietly, knowing how to turn any situation into your favor, gamely welcoming spontaneity and a change of plans, knowing what to say to get what you want and in general, abusing your intelligence onto lesser men.

Tale of two cities

The skies did not look that great. I am just amazing with editing. As I said that, six Photoshop masters and three junior designers just rolled over in their beds wondering who the hell do they need to beat up in the morning for demeaning their degrees again.

NO MATTER I CAN DIE YOUNG.

Today was supposed to be a romantic dinner with siewsia but because I simply did not think of her in that way (kidding I would give up my right lung for her), I sneaked in kaiqin and it felt like poly days again!

In fact, it felt exactly like poly days again. The two of them are working on some serious schtick that's gonna pan out, while I am going to be jobless in exactly five days. We have finally come a full circle!

But sometimes I get too busy to feel sorry for myself, and today was one of those days. We went ahead with our bitchin' dinner and our bitchin' shopping, which is mainly them telling me I have poor taste in clothes and upturning their nose at every GORGEOUS-AS-FUCK piece I selected.

Also we spent like twenty minutes at this booth:







Am I ashamed I butted out everyone else's time at this machine for our vanity? NOPE. Am I embarrassed that I danced around for quite a bit at this machine trying to find my best angle? NOPE. Do I have social shame? Nope. None. Nada. None at all.

(hey back to circle on this again! ah the hazel haze)

Heh heh so cute love them both.