bel

Last day at the job today. I have learned to:

- keep up with deadlines
- work under pressure
- talk a lot more rubbish
- write equity research reports minus the difficult financial substance seeing as how I have no prior knowledge of stocks
- stay focused while chatting on MSN, tweeting and blogging simultaneously. I am the mother of all multitaskers although my boss doesn't think so.
- how to quickly snap MSN shut when the boss rolls around
- get my boss two drinks in 2 seconds

After 1.5 months of having to wake up at ungodly hours, I will finally get to sleep in for another two weeks. Damn, I miss my bed.

I am not maudlin about packing up and leaving; I am overly used to the fact that almost everybody who enters my life is but an ephemeral presence. In due time, most will become erstwhile entities, if not faded memories trapped at the back of my head. Long ago, when I was 13, a much older friend of about 20 told me (I was so much more mature when I was 13) this in all her sagaciousness. That is, however, not to say that I don't treasure what friendships and relationships I've had and have. People forget; out of sight, out of mind.

Yet, I still cling to the naive idea that if someone is meant to come back into your life, whether you meet him or her while shopping for painkillers in the pharmacy, having dinner with your children some 13 years from now or walking down a busy street tomorrow, then he or she will. It is, indeed, sort of like saying, "let's leave it up to fate" and wistfully hope for a film noir star-crossed ending to a certain chapter of your life. Most days, I challenge that in a caustic tone: "your fate is entirely up to you!" But on moonlit nights I wonder who gazes upon the same glowing orb that I do, and I think of everyone who has ever come into my life, and what has become of them. And there in my mind they will remain. Until some 13 years from now, perhaps.

Everyone in the firm has been coming up to me today and saying, "Omg, you're in the prime of your life, man. How I wish I was young and having a ball again...you know, doing batshit crazy things like having strings of girlfriends, snorting lines of coke and drinking like a fish".

Then it occurred to me that the best three years of my life have gone by and I don't have a gym bag full of crazay stories to tell. Not that I want to have strings of girlfriends, snort lines of coke or drink like a fish. Crazy does not merely encompass such things. I could climb Mount Everest...that'd be crazy. I could train for the Kona Ironman...that'd be crazy too. Well, whatever. I like to think I age slowly and have moral high ground most days, contrary to what some people may think.

I am going to come of age soon. The inner brat in me is longing to ask for something shiny and expensive, whilst the older, more mature me in me refrains and simply wishes for goodness and happiness in years to come..

Oh, what the hell. I'm only going to live as a dependant for another year and off I go to join the ranks of unemployed hobos living off kacang and white porridge with soy sauce. Sob.

I stumbled upon style rookie. Turns out she's a fashion blogger who's only 12. Hurray for adults stuck in children's bodies!

So when I was 12, I used to be called 'mature', 'wise beyond her years' etc. Apparently my English essays were pretty insightful, cogent...at times verbose. (Oh, Oxford thesaurus, how I miss you) I wasn't the type of kid to climb trees or go around playing in the mud. I stayed indoors most days and watched TV and ate my poor dial up connection going online to devour fan fiction. During the summer holidays, I would stay awake until six am writing poorly constructed stories of diaphanous elfin characters and their beautiful stories of life and love in a parallel universe. Now I stay awake until six attempting to memorise equations I know I'll only need for a couple of hours in a few weeks.

I remember playing around in the rain one day after school with a couple of friends. We were soaked through and we stuffed our faces with McDonald's after. I got the scolding of my life from my grandfather when I got home, but it was okay. It felt good; I couldn't stop smiling for days. That's probably the happiest feeling I can glean from my mid secondary school years.

I was a reserved child, one who didn't say much. And when I did, it was probably something sensible and well thought-out. I couldn't ever explain Pythagoras' Theorem though. I still can't. I was permanently pissed off because I never made it to the top maths group. I guess that should've been a telltale sign that I should never have done engineering as a major. No point crying over spilled milk, huh.

Anyway, in 2002 I discovered Linkin Park and Limp Bizkit. Nu-metal rock or whatever that genre was called (does it still exist??). So began my liberation phase. I remember that LP concert distinctly. I was wearing a tank top (first time EVER, I think. Was and always have been afraid to put my disturbingly large arms on display) and some really baggy cargo pants which were ALLL the rage back then. I remember headbanging and acting like a crazy bitch and freaking quite a lot of people out, as I am wont to do these days. It was pretty awesome. The next day, everything went back to the status quo. I was my usual self: I studied, I sat my exams, I scored straight A's lalala. Not that I'm not grateful for it. I'm a lucky girl, I know I am, so put aside your judgmental glasses for awhile kthx.

And then when I came here, I really started to grow younger. I'm rediscovering my lost youth. Painting the town red, blue, green, purple. I never painted towns any damn colour. It's been fun, really. I'm not the same person I was when I left GIS for this country. I'm probably not the same person I was yesterday, or the day before. Humans weren't meant to remain static; we're 66.6% fluid and hence fluid we should be.

But I know I'll always carry that cargo-pants-wearing-all-black-shirted kid with me. She's not that bad. Really.