Learn this.

I WAITED A WHOLE WEEK TO DO MY LAUNDRY. BE CONSIDERATE AND WAIT YOUR TURN. MY CLOTHES WERE NOT EVEN DRY. YOU'RE WELCOME.

That's what I wrote on a sheet of paper, for this bitch who took my clothes (which were not even done spinning in the dryer) out and put them on the filthyass washing machine.

I turned off the dryer dial. Wouldn't let my hands touch anywhere near those filthy clothes.

Karma's a bitch. And it's no good to be on the receiving end, when I'm on the other.

How was work, you ask?

So I recently started my job.

It deals with so much money I found only one way to explain what I do.


~I am a perpetual Monopoly banker.~

Guilt, but happy guilt. If that's possible.

Firstly, I just realised that HOTDOG SONG became my 400th post. Hee hee hee.

Right.

Then hior, (for stalkers, ahem, you know who you are) I got the job at Westpac. YAY!! I will be starting in 2 weeks. So fast lo. Suddenly all the plans I have made are crumbling. I have to miss things, and skip things, and say no to things. Cause I'm a working girl now, babeh.

So right, the happy guilt part. I promised, well, not promised lah, more like told, Mr Miller (my bakery boss) that I would be free to work. And he actually needed me to work full time from the week of 23rd onwards. The exact same week that I am starting in Westpac. I was the only person left that week onwards to work, since everyone else is leaving for summer. And now, I can't too. I feel really really really really really really really bad.

At first I asked Westpac if I could start on the 30th of November, give time for me to sort things out, since I'm moving out, and to allow Mr Miller time to find someone, or figure out that no one's needed, something along those lines. Then I called Westpac back to ask if there're complications if I decide to start later. The HR person says it is entirely up to me, but they would prefer if I started with the rest of the new recruits. And then I thought, I would somehow be disadvantaging myself by starting a week later. Career-wise, that's not a smart decision. Loyalty-wise, it's quite mean to just leave Mr Miller in the lurch like that.

So in the end, I went for the career-wise option. It's mighty selfish of me, but sometimes in life, hard decisions have to be made.

Oh, and I will have to make a really bad career-wise decision to take leave during my first month (and it's still training period, I haven't even really worked yet) for graduation. I wouldn't miss graduation of my dear friends for the world.

So, it really is a whole medley of happy-sad-joy-guilt-hope feelings right now. While Westpac is a good stepping stone, I still hope that DREAM JOB is what I will end up with. Nevertheless, I will give my all to working happily in Westpac.

I made my choice, I feel like a royal backstabber, and I just have to live with that.

For exam destressing.

Hotdog song

*dances the hula*

I went to work today. And yes, that sure sounds mighty normal, EXCEPT, today is Family and Community Day (read: Public Holiday)!

And public holiday means....DOUBLE TIME (or double time and a half)!!!

And THAT means I either earned $40 an hour today or $50 an hour today, AND I WORKED SIX WHOLE HOURS!!!

I finally know how it feels to earn holiday pay. It feels GOOOOOOOOODDD....

And then Westpac called, and I'm going in on Tuesday for my second and final interview, and I'm meeting with the Regional Manager lo! Hope I get this one, definitely a good stepping stone to THAT DREAM JOB.

And then I now also have a night job - working for Fang Yeau in his restaurant. Pay isn't much I think, but it's $$$, I fill up my nights and I get fed yummy food. =)

SO, like I said before, everything's going well. And THAT DREAM JOB would make life heaven. Of course, having a place to stay next year would also help immensely.

Gabijillions of less than three.

Everything is turning around, FINALLY.

I have decided to move out of this very lovely place that has housed me for three faithful years. Looking for a new place seems daunting, but at the same time it excites me from the ends of my hairs to my toes.

My tons of millions of job applications have finally received favourable replies, and new, funky, adventurous, enticing jobs keep cropping up - offering me a bountiful supply of hope and wild fantasies. This week has found me being offered the chance at GREAT jobs, leaving me with hard decisions to make.

I have been offered a face-to-face interview (after a phone interview and an online assessment) for a part-time banking job with Westpac as a teller. A great chance to get myself out of bakery and Target to pursue something more closely related to what I studied for four years in uni.

And then at work (bakery) today, I happen to meet the Finance Manager of ANU's Facilities and Services Department. And good ol' Mr Miller offered me up as someone who was looking for a job. And just in a snap, he (the Finance Manager) dug out his name card and offered it to me. And just like that, I had a chance to apply for a job that is available to a privileged few. History proves that every girl who was picked out from the bakery to apply through the Manager himself has been picked. Two previous girls are living proof (and they're still happily working there now).

And then, yesterday I stumbled upon an Accenture Graduate Program, which re-opened its applications and extended their closing date till the end of next month. Accenture is a good company, one that I really wouldn't mind being part of the graduate program of.

And then, I chanced upon the KING OF ALL GRADUATE PROGRAMS. I don't want to say it here, cause I have SUCH HIGH HOPES and SOO MANY FANTASIES of what I would do if I got that job and I'm afraid to jinx it, and more honestly, afraid of competition. It is a dream job, with a drooling-dream pay, with bucketfuls of benefits. And the best part, it's the CLOSEST I can get to my Easyway dream. And getting paid to do it, instead of having to scrape out moolah just magnifies its charm. *crosses every single vein in my body*

Life is looking VERY optimistic right about....NOW. I love how I'm feeling, and I know that life has its own way of getting me to realise that when a door closes, a window opens (and all other similar proverbs). And what I love is that there's usually loads of windows to accompany the one door.

So, in hindsight:
thanks mom for always being there supporting and encouraging me that there's something better out there waiting for me;
thanks Xiang Mei Yi for being equally as encouraging as my mom and being there when I was disappointed with the opportunities that I missed out on;
thanks person for pushing me into the pit and leaving me there;
thanks another person for allowing me to use my tears as a ladder to get out of that pit.

I love me.
I love you.
I love life.
I love the world.

With this, I send out gabijillions of less than three to all.

In or out.

Realisation dawned on me.

Something that was once said resurfaced.

Once I'm in, I'm so deep in, it takes gargantuan effort to get out. And I want to get out. I need to get out. Out is where I need to be.

And out is where I will be.

So, the answer is, no I'm not really okay.

But I promise, if not to anyone else, just to myself, I will be out and I will be okay.

3-in-1.

We've all heard of 3-in-1 coffees, and 3-in-1 teas, then there's 3-in-1 malt drinks, and 3-in-1 chocolate drinks.

But have you heard of a...3-in-1 DREAM? Maybe, but how often? Haaaa...

I had the luck to have one on my flight back from Siem Reap just this morning.

I went to sleep occupying 3 seats on the AirAsia plane.

I woke up to the sound of an air stewardess shouting FOUR DEE! I was like OH MY GOODNESS people are disembarking and no one woke me up?? Then her supervisor was like "What's that?", and she was like, I'm opening the door 4D, so I shout 4D loh!

Then I looked above me and noticed the emergency exit doors were numbered. I woke up and called my mom who scooted over to the row behind me. Then I jokingly said, "Eh, mommy, so funny, I dreamt I woke up cause an air stewardess was shouting 4D. Could it be a sign? *shy* Got number for airplane wan ah?".

Before I continue, I would just like to mention that my mom is no gambling addict, she just plays the occassional 4D lottery.

Then my mom scolded me, but proceeded to ramble to herself.

AND THEN, I heard the distinct call for passengers to put their seatbelts back on, seats upright, handrests down, tables up, window shields up, baggage under the seats...the usual tirade. I got up, folded my blanket, and buckled my seat belt. Then I laughed to myself, and told my mom the story.

Confused yet?

You see, I went to sleep. In my dream, I dreamt I woke up, then I dreamt I woke up and told my mom, then I ACTUALLY woke up and told my mom.

COOL HOR!

Now, true to my name.

Eskew me lehd-dee, jeu wan to bai samsing? I can gib jeu deeskaw, cheep cheep. Jeu offer good prai, if I can gib, I gib jeu.

Jie jie, jie jie, ni ken wo mai, yi kuai, wan doll-lah. Jie jie, jie jie...

In Siem Reap, those who can speak English will call you LEHD-DEE, and if they speak Mandarin, they call you JIE JIE, and if they speak Khmer, I also wouldn't understand lah, so I wouldn't know.

The only Khmer I learnt in my 3 days (besides names of temples) was "or-khun", which means "thank you". Or else, you could say "sankseu" which is their English version.

So, trip to Siem Reap was pretty interesting. I sat tuk-tuks, motorcycles which went BUMP BUMPETY BOOMPETI on country roads which were like muddy and gross and filled with cow poop, cars, boats, sampans, and of course planes lah - I need to get there first. The only one thing I didn't ride when I was there was the elephants. But then I've done that before, in like Vietnam or Myanmar, so like no need again loh, not like it's cheap anyway.

I tasted Khmer food, for every meal besides breakfast. Tastes not too bad, most of them. Tried to speak Khmer, to no avail. At least I learnt that Khmer is pronouned "khh-mai" not "khh-meer".

Travelled to gabijillions of temples, after like the 4th, they sort of look the same liao. I mean, unless you want to go and start being meticulous and all that, then yes, you would actually realise not one of them is the same. Cause they're of different built, honouring different kings, with different inscriptions and different carvings. Went to the Tonle Sap Lake, a silk farm, and markets - the old market, the night market, the noon-night market. So the many markets.

OH OH OH, I totally had SO MUCH fun picking out ALLLLLL the Engrish! Woah, I took so many pictures, I could start my own Engrish failblog.

And, I took an amazing amount of NINE HUNDRED photos, all in a span of 3 days. Sankseu Shuey's camera, for being amazing. I took so many sceneries, and so many nice photos, I feel like a pro loh.

This is my favouritest picture of all, taken on the flight to Siem Reap, which departed at 7am, just early enough to catch the sunrise:


And then there's so many pretty cloud images and naked kiddies pictures, which capture the life of the children who live in the floating village:



And then this is proof that branded goods go a long way to leaving their mark behind:


And then the signboards there also so farnee wan - ranges from must wear shirt, to no...talking/shouting/spraying people with saliva:


It was all good fun. =) We had so much fun we nearly missed our flight home! Cause papa kept saying our flight was at 7pm, so we had all these plans to spend another day doing such-and-such. Then, mama said, eh just go and check - whilst making a booking for our airport transfer. Turns out flight was at 8am! Big difference lo! Haha, so anyway, we got on our plane - duh, that's how I got home.

I am now, true to my name - TAN.

Eh? Oh? WAHHH!!!

I just found another chiri heat scale thingie. This one way more precise.

And I realised something, yesterday, what I had was probably not the Red Savina habanero, it's probably just a normal habanero, which according to this list has only an SHU scale of 100000 to 350000.

So, the scary Jolokia is TEN TIMES it's spiciness. All my previous descriptions of any human consuming it still applies.

WHOA.