relief but not quite

i have FINALLY signed the lease to the new place. days of nerve-wracking over finding a good guarantor and getting all the paperwork in are thankfully over for the time-being. so hang and i have a nice new spiffy pad to move into beginning next year, and best thing for me is that peiru is in the building next to us, meaning no more 14 block hikes in the middle of the night. and of course another home makeover to do which will be much much fun!!

laura emailed me today just checking up on how i've been and if i've paid the landlord and the phone company. i think i'm just going to leave a cordial note for her before she gets back because i don't think i can deal with the emotional bullshit and more money sucking that i'm anticipating.

all these problems that consume my mind day and night--just teeny glitches when i open the paper in the morning and read about all the bad stuff going on in the world today. the tsunamis reminded me of the forty day flood. i think perhaps apocalypse is very near and perhaps i will never have the babies i kind of want and kind of don't want. and i want to do something to help the relief in india/sri lanka other than just offer inconsequential words of sympathy--but how? i could donate to the red cross, but i wish i could just up and go and help those poor people. not that i would really know what to do, but just doing something for people who really need it other than worry about getting to work on time.

but it is something i have to worry about and i had better get to bed soon so i don't miss my alarm for the third time in a row.

yuletide greetings

christmas is just two days away and there are still no presents under the REAL (but tiny) fir tree dan and i bought from the canadian vendor on houston. and to think my housemate, yes the one that screwed me over, actually has gifts and she will get to keep my tree once i'm out of here. my xmas present to her i guess.

i have momentary evil thoughts to punish her for causing me such anxiety--wipe out her house of all her valuables and hold her ransom for it (until i look around and remember, wait, there are NONE!); perhaps leave a horrible mess for her to clean up; or i think the best one yet is to call boston steinway to get her baby grand removed/sold back and take the money. HAHAHAHA (evil laughter). but then it's also the season of love and giving, and forgiving... aye, the moral dilemmas that plague me!

hang and i are trying to get a 2br apt in the same estate (lavender!! bishan!! *wink*) as peiru, but it's almost impossible because they want us to find a guarantor with an income of at least 80 times the monthly rent. plus tax returns plus notarized guarantee forms plus employment letter plus a whole bunch of other bullshit like 8 years of good credit. while i try to find a saviour (and no, singaporean parents don't qualify), peiru has offered refuge and that's where i'll be moving my butt in a couple of days.

and from all this desperation i've learned the reason why new york landlords are so picky is that state law doesn't allow them to just kick irresponsible tenants out. they can only sue them in court which itself is an 18 month process. so THAT'S why laura the flaky lady still has a roof over her head.

my family was supposed to get in from montreal hours ago, but they're still not back. must've been stuck in the rain/snow. i'm so hungry waiting i've been stuffing my face with ikan bilis and seaweed.

boho boo boo

i should have seen it coming, but i trusted that my loopy, flaky housemate would at least have enough sense of responsibility to pay the bills. but boho that she is (and not that there's anything wrong with being boho of course), she owes the utilities company 700 and the landlord/management 3000 (not this month's balance mind you, but outstanding dues for months now). i JUST found out last night because she's on vacation and asked me to send a check to the utilities and phone companies to avoid turn offs at either. she also asked me to wire the money over for the apt management so they won't kick us out. but imagine my shock when i saw how much she actually owed!! i called the utilities people and managed to get them to keep it running til jan when she gets back. i have no idea what she's going to do to pay it all off, but i don't think i'm going to stick around to see...taking some good advice, i am going to leave before she gets back so i won't get sucked into paying another month's rent and having to deal with her whining about her financial situation.

she has a second job which she can easily go to and earn 200 a night, but i've only seen her go twice. she always says she can't afford this and that, but i mean, don't fucking complain and go work your butt off instead of your mouth. the problem is that i've paid her a 1000 in security and there is no way she can afford to pay me back because she also has installments to pay for her grand piano and other loans she's mentioned. two weeks before her vacation, i reminded her to get her tickets. she kept pushing it back until just two days before and ended up paying an exhorbitant amount. and of course she said, "oh dear, that made me very broke. i have no money left." well dear, if you had gotten them when i had checked, they would have cost you a fifth of the price. then the day she was supposed to leave, she lost her passport and was crying and panicking hours before her flight. (lucky thing some good samaritan found it and returned it in the nick of time).

you'd think that at 41, one would have paid enough bills to grasp the concept of "on time" and "in the right amount". but seems like my roommate is really a 21 year old with a wrinkly face. to be fair, she is a good natured lady and has been rather nice to me, up until i found out about all this crap.

so i guess that answers my question from a blog long ago why i could never be a real boho.

cow girl

snack bar euphoria

wall lights. these are the coolest things that line the wall on the way into the pantry (made by philips btw). feels like you're entering space mountain.

training room

new office pantry

bloomberg cups they went crazy about. live newsroom behind them.

let's take more cereal in the background pictures

cereal crazy

pantry frenzy

fun times

x'mas time again. this time possibly a white one for me here in ny. not fun- i hate the cold because i have to wrap myself up like a bak chang*. and of course it means stuffing myself up like one too.

my family came into the city on friday and found their way to my dump of an apt in the lower east side. my dad keeps trying to psych my sister out of coming to the US to study (not that she has any plans really) by saying, wah, che's room is even smaller than our toilet...doesn't even have a proper desk...you have to do your own laundry you know...have to take train/bus everywhere you know...you sure you still want to come here and study?? wah lau, what emotional blackmail because my sister is such a comfort creature.

but family time is good. because my landlady is out of town for two weeks and couldn't find a subletter for that time, my parents are renting the apt from her for the time she's away. which works out pretty well for us coz it's cheaper and we all get to do family things like watch tv and eat fruit together. (my land lady is a whole other story worthy of another blog. omg.) yesterday i printed out the map for a walking tour of all the x'mas window displays at the big dept stores. we made our way furthest uptown first to see my office and planned to begin the walk down park/madison at bloomingdale's right across the street. my sisters ended up getting foodstruck by all the snacks we had in the kitchen and could not stop saying, wah, your office is so cool!!! so we lounged around for almost an hour while they took pictures of cereal and the bloomberg papercups. when we thought, ok, enough snacking at the bloomberg kitchen, we attempted to make our way to bloomie's only to get stopped along the way by william sonoma, pottery barn, and our dear friends hennes and mauritz. we didn't get to bloomingdale's (which btw, is literally ten steps, at most 20, away from my office building) til it was dark and didn't leave until dinner time. so much for the walking tour-we didn't even manage to get past the first stop.

i finally got my precious chinese posters. those alluring 1920s shanghainese adverts which feature doll-like, almost sexy chinese models promoting western imports like cigarettes, soaps and local products like quacky, heal-all balms and that caked power which was foundation perhaps?

and i also got a truckload of foodstuffs which my mother brought as though i was living in the middle of a jungle in africa. like ten packs of pocky??? what am i supposed to do with all that pocky?? i love pocky, but by the time i'm through, i'm going to be pockied-out. maybe have a new years party and serve pocky with the cocktails eh. haha.

my sisters and i are schlepped into my little bed in the meantime. have to deal with mei's legs which do flying kicks while she's asleep. jun last night pleaded with me not to have to sleep next to her and just now in her sleep half shouted "get off me!" because mei has comfortably wrapped herself around her (i am awake already so i have left the middle of the bed and mei of course has rolled around nicely to the next warm body)

*(explanation for ellen) bak chang is a fat rice dumpling wrapped in leaves.

yikes!

two days of work and i'm pooped. not that i've even done anything substantial yet. just been shadowing different people and learning the ropes. think my actual training starts in a week or so when the new batch of people come in because right now i'm the only newbie. i think it's the having to get up at 6am that's getting to me. i mean, after months of not needing the alarm clock, it would be hard for anyone.

it actually doesn't take me that long to get to work, but since i haven't got my gym membership yet, i have decided to make myself walk from my place to union sq (a good 14 blocks north and 5 blocks west= 20-30mins?) and catch the 4/5/6 train from there. so that adds up to about 45 mins and i try to get up early so i can take my time getting ready, have a little morning munch and make my bed (i like to return to a nice bed yeah). oh yeah, not to mention the coupla minutes i spend checking my email and the weather. ;p

man, i just realized that was like a diary of my last two days. sorry to be boring. ;p

bloomberg is very cool. the environment is very energetic and right now i'm in client services and our ceo sits right next to us. he doesn't have an office. just like a little area in the corner where we can see/hear everything he does, including the "what the fuck are you talking about??" s. today he got into the same lift as me and it was funny coz the f word came out of his mouth as he chatted to some senior guys. hear it quite a bit from his side of the floor.

and of course i have been stuffing myself silly with the snacks from the kitchen. i think i visited it a total of 5 or 6 times today. and with h&m, banana republic, the gap, zara, diesel, bloomingdales etc etc just across the st or around the corner, i think i will be a very fat and broke mama.

but gimme a pat on the back--i just created a spreadsheet to record my expenses. got scared into it after dan calculated i only make $41 in profit after taxes, paying rent, transport and other bills. man, this sucks. today i already spent almost 30 on food and groceries. oh well, just gotta be creative with how i can turn office snack food into a palatable lunch.

waiting for the nails to dry

so it's 1.26am and i should be sleeping so i can wake up in 5 hours fresh and ready for my first day at work. but no, i got home at 1130pm from the airport and after unpacking, sorting out the mail (which included my new polaroid!! whoopie! but also a credit extention denial. boo...) and brushing up, i just had to paint my nails because i need to make a good first impression no?

since tomorrow morning will be a mad rush, i will skip breakfast and pray hard that true to bloomberg culture, the new class of trainees will be served breakfast during our orientation. how exciting. i think i'm most excited about the gym discounts which i will badly need since food is free at work. :p

shit, my nail just got caught on one of the keys. damn. extra 5 minutes now.

aye, since i have time, let me just complain about the stewardess who was serving my aisle tonight. she came along with her beverage cart and the guy next to me asked for milk with his tea. she pulled open the carton and proceeded to spill milk all over me. waiting for a "oh dear i'm sorry hon," i received nothing and only a "spilled all over me too." and she walked off to clean herself but didn't even offer to get me napkins to clean my shirt! but whatever, it didn't really bother me until i was about to take a sip of my water and realized it was chalky!!! (ie, milk spilled into it too!) stupid stewardess. now aren't we thankful for our singapore girls? (oops, not all the time!)

toiletiquette

so yesterday i used the lse bathroom in the basement which is very cold (literally and figuratively) and very quiet. an echoey kind of quiet which makes for very awkward moments because every slight movement you make like pulling the toilet roll and tearing a piece off, to the zipping of your fly... all can be heard by the person in the next cubicle. or maybe i was just being nosey and could make out all of my neighbours' sounds??

whatever the case, i think courtesy noise-makers should be installed in all toilets. i think it was in japan i first encountered these very intelligent devices (or it might have been korea--don't want to give credit to the wrong country these days). you pressed a button and a slew of flushing and other indiscernible-but obviously toilet noises would fill the cubicle, drowning out whatever embarrassing sounds one had to make answering nature's call. how many times have i been privy to the horrid plop-plops, butt belches, more plop-plops and finally the middle-to-old aged lady's (i'm just assuming-could very well be a young supermodel!) heave of relief. always quite embarrassing, even for the listener, and the worst is when both of you exit the cubicle at the same time and your eyes meet through the reflection of the mirror while you wash your hands. those agonizing five seconds seem to last FOREVER because in your mind, a little voice is singing/chanting: the one who went plop plop, the one who went plop plop... then you force a smile/disguise a jeer, and walk out.

so yes, i am an advocate of courtesy noise-makers. you think i could strike it rich making a bunch of those?

and case interview was about tea plantation. everything was going well, profits up, but not meeting 10% ROI set by CEO. why? recommendations? well, ok look at cost. i asked about labour, technology etc etc, no problems. damn. fixed cost was on my notes, but why did i not asked explicitly, "what kind of fixed costs?" instead, i asked about scale and capacity, which wasn't altogether wrong, but i guess not really nailing it to get the exact information out of the interviewer. in the end he said ok, i have some info for you. and gave me the numbers. ahh, finally. but f*** how to calculate ROI. no idea because i never paid attention in econ or accounting enough. "ok, given these numbers i would need to calculate the return on investment, which is..." thank god he picked up on my hesitation and gave me the formula and so i did a quick calculation. gave my recommendations but didn't really think of any very fantastic ideas. boo.

second interview was very quantitative. asked to calculate area of a weird shaped figure which was not hard. but next question was find the summation of all integers from 1 to n in terms of n. double F***. as if this was not the basics of what we learned in math in jc. "series summation" the topic was called, but pay attention i never did. now he wanted me to derive the freaking formula in 5 minutes in front of him. oh man, this i could not do. summation was the option i always left out because my mind can't think in chains. he was nice enough to guide me through the whole thing and make me feel like i solved it all myself, but he was just being nice. later guesstimated the number of apartments in manhattan which was not too bad.

it's been 24 hrs and i haven't got a call back which probably means i didn't get it. but heck, it was a shot and a good experience anyway. i guess the masters kid who is doing APPLIED MATHEMATICS beat me to it. (she did undergrad in econ at yale, then masters in the above at lse. god, what a nerd. okok, i am just jealous.)