The lovers are losing

From 6th Nov 08…

Keane’s got a new album out! I cannot wait to get my hands on it.

If I had to write a book about my life right now, I guess I’d call it this. Or “Love in the time of Recession”?

When I started b-school I knew what I wanted. I wanted to work in Europe. I wanted it so bad!
And then I lived in Europe and figured it was a great place but just not the best place to work and live in. Great place to visit but I don’t see myself buying my first house there. So I decided I am an Asian and Asia is where home is. Singapore – definitely. Tokyo – maybe. Hong Kong – totally. India – not yet?

And then I land a job in a European bank, knowing only that I’ll be spending time in Europe and probably the Americas. Not the slighest chance of that Asian life. Things will be clearer next week when I finally find out my job location. I am curious to say the least and quite frankly terrified of what may lie ahead. Is it going to be easy? No. Enriching? Yes. Fun? Maybe. Money-raking? Probably not. Great for my career? Too soon to tell.

Yesterday’s Wall Street Journal featured heaps of women CEOs, CFOs and executives who have made it big and are now considered the “people to watch” of this age. I wonder if I’ll ever get there and whether I’ll be young enough to be admired for it. So far, I don’t see anything in my life that indicates that I am destined for greatness (except my cooking which is fantastic).

Apparently, people who start their careers during a recession are perma-screwed with lower starting salaries and worse prospects than the newbies who graduate a year or two later during the boomtime. This is major suckage and hardly fair.

From today… 18th Nov 08, on the plane…

As it turns out, trading in an Air France boarding pass for a Singapore Airlines boarding pass isn’t half bad. Yes, you don’t get the good Boursin or Camembert with your meal but heck, getting awesome Thai pineapple rice, basil chicken and sweet vegetables is certainly alright. Replace the apathetic staff with very polite, good looking and slightly on-the-gay-side stewards, the non-existent sleeping packs to Givenchy eye shades, socks and blankie and we have a winner! (I can’t figure why they’re Givenchy.. they’re not that luxe!) Did I mention the breakfast was cheese omelette, stewed vegetables and veal sausage was an utter delight? Omelettes served at the end of a 12 hour flight that don’t taste vile- now that’s hard to pull off.

I am now trying to spend a very boring three hours on an Iberian air flight. While it’s a budget airline, the seats are new and comfortable. I wish I had breakfast though, it’s been a few hours since I last ate and I did not know that I would have to pay for breakfast. They should do something about that for passengers who were previously on a non-budget airline!

Oh well. An hour to Barajas and then a couple more on the road before I reach my destination. I am going to be famished. Let’s hope I can steal a few minutes to tuck into one of those ham sandwiches at the airport. God it’s like I can only think about food and I am supposed to be trying to lose weight (part of me just says fuck it.. another month and I’ll be too busy relocating and working and getting adjusted to eat too much. All this post-mba puppy fat is going to mellllt away).

I am so stressed out about tomorrow. I have no idea what they’re going to throw at me and I will just have to take it. I really hope it’s good. I am not sure exactly what to wish for. I want to wish for Asia but I know that being non-Chinese-speaking and non-Japanese-speaking, there is no chance of that happening! I sort of want to wish for a really hardcore tough-as-hell job that keeps me superbusy so I don’t have time to obsess about missing Brendan for a whole year or more. I want to wish for a country where the cost of living is low so I can save a lot of money, but then again do I really want to live alone in one of those countries? But I also don’t know if living in say, London is such a good idea on a shoestring salary.

Grrr.. At the end of the day, I guess the only thing that does matter to me is my job profile (since I’ve already accepted the fact that Brendan and I won’t be together in the same country). So I hope that it’s an awesome job profile that opens doors for me and makes me look (and be) a star. Something that will pave the way for putting my name in the papers as one of THE women (for all the right reasons, please).

I haven’t left Singapore yet and already there has been enormous stress on the relationship. Where are we and where do we go from here? How do we get there? When will we be in the same geography? Why do other peoples’ relationships look much less complicated from the outside, I wonder. Some people just know they will be together, married or not, long-distance or not. Do they have way too much confidence or do I (we), way too much doubt?

I think an MBA is a tricky degree like that. A single MBA student is “set up” almost perfectly to find a spouse in school. Likeminded ambitious, work-hard-play-hard, multilingual people all couped up in one place – it’s bound to happen. And then ironically, after the MBA, the same mindset drives us to follow our own ambitions unilaterally in many unfortunate cases like mine. I just hope that what they say is true. That it’s not your first job that is important, it’s the career in the longer term. At least that way I know I can have some control over it at a later time. Am I making any sense? I am so befuddled.

PS: This post only took 15 minutes. So much for killing time heh
PPS: My luck totally ran out. My driver showed up two hours late..gahhh

Disturbia

My mind is truly in disturbia, where it seems to spend most of its time. (I can’t help myself, that song is hot).

You know how they say there’s light at the end of the tunnel? Well sometimes, it’s light, sometimes it’s lightning. Just when I thought things were looking up, I got blindsided and how.

I am in a bit of a shit right now. I had a job offer until yesterday and it got revoked. The HR bitch (may she suffer from herpes) miscommunicated, misinterpreted and quite frankly misrepresented me, kept me waiting for over 2 weeks for a response on a simple clarification and when I called yesterday, I realised that the job didn’t exist anymore. You know what’s symptomatic of being screwed over? that there’s never one reason. It’s always twenty different reasons from “it’s the economy”, “it’s the weather”, “you went to spain” to “I don’t like you”. Inconsistent, Unprofessional and plain evil. And the manager who I seemed to respect at first (my mistake, what was I thinking?) also gave me a ton of attitude, sided with the HR bitch and basically asked me to shove it because he had a plane to catch and didn’t “have time for this”. It was like one of those lame breakups you see in bad movies. I got dumped big time. Assholes.

So well yesterday was pretty much spent crying crying and more crying. Not just because I lost the job but because I lost the only job I had managed to find in Singapore. And that just breaks my heart. You see, I love Brendan more than I imagined I could and I really wanted to be with him. And now because of this stupid mishap, I have to take a job in some random continent far far away from him.

There’s hardly anything positive happening in my life. I am broke, my shoe collection is dying, I am gaining back the 6 kilos I lost during b-school, I’m on the wrong side of 25 and did I mention no luck in the getting-a-job department? So what I am trying to say is that I have hit the proverbial bottom of the barrel. Which explains why the high point of today was taking a cab to have lunch with Brendan, bumping into an ex-colleague and later receiving an sms from her that said “your boyfriend looks cute”.

I need to find something to do for the next 2 months, something that will keep me here with him. The folks won’t let me while away time here when i could be whiling time away in India while getting judged by all and sunday. And come January, I will have to move somewhere I don’t even know yet. It’s ironic, a year ago, I would have jumped at a globe trotting uncertain as-the-weather job but now it seems irresponsible and unsatisfying. I guess this is what growing up must be all about?

My parents in an attempt to console me for the grand fiasco that happened yesterday said very casually, either marry him and stay in Singapore or take the other job NOW. I don’t understand parents, I never have. Funny how they make everything about marriage. Maybe if I am unemployed and married, it’s loads better than being unemployed and single? Not really, it isn’t. It’s just a question of who is the financial support, I thought. Then it hit me. And it really hurt.

Life in technicolor

The last 3 weeks – a lot has happened. A lot. For that matter, the past few months have seemed like an entire lifetime. But just keeping to the last three weeks, the long and short of it is this.

Brendan came to France, we went to barcelona together and I am working on an elaborate post to describe our fascinating 5 days in Spain, for posterity’s sake because I am so going back there! He also took some of my very obvious hints and got me Coldplay’s beutiful new “Viva La Vida” album, where coldplay shows that they can build a beautiful song even without words – Life in technicolor is that song – it makes you think of words….

After that we rented a car and drove around – I cleared out my shitty apartment in my little village, moved to my friends place and we drove around with our friends 3 nights in a row to Paris. We returned home at 3am every night. We went to the Eiffel tower twice. It was illuminated blue (to celebrate France’s EU presidency) and I shrieked everytime I saw it. It’s a subtle blue that reminds me of Picasso’s paintings, midnights and that moon river song. The second time, we made in time to take the elevator all the way up and boy was it fantastic. We caught the late sunset at 10pm. We ate cheesy crepes and had cheesy kisses. It was totally fun.
We met Santa at the hippopotamus restaurant where we had delish cheeseburgers and poached eggs and beer. All in all, it was a bittersweet feeling to leave Paris behind. Bitter because the city has romance and beauty and charm written all over it, sweet because we were leaving France. Let’s face it, France is more inefficient than a clay stove that uses dung for fuel and is made by mentally challenged chimpanzees. (Sorry, the language is lovely, the cheese is yummy but seriously, it’s not a real country!)

Between Barcelona and the drives to Paris, something else happened. I graduated. That’s right, if not anything else, I have one more degree. And I guess that is worth something. Maybe not now, because I am still unemployed but it has to count for something. And so we had our graduation ceremony where we had the option of wearing regional outfits or suits and I chose to wear a beautiful pastel peach and pink saree that my grandma picked out. And boy, was that saree beautiful! I had random moms and dads taking pictures of me, everyone loved it. My own mom and dad couldnt stop fawning, Brendan was surprised that I actually had the grace to (in his words) “carry it” i.e. not trip over the 4 inch high red shoes and fall all over the stage – it was the brownie points lottery.

The parents, the uncle and the brother met the boyfriend and that went alright. Some minor adjustments are in order on both sides but overall no rifles, no shooting, no tears, no emotional blackmail and much to my surprise, acceptance, jokes and relief. It is quite another matter that they want me to get married before Jan next year and the only appropriate response to an order like that is frothing in the mouth.

So now the Jups is back from her French adventure and sitting in Zip’s living room where she intends to spend the next few weeks looking for a job in a city that Brendan is graciously moving to be with me. The only irony is that I dont have a job in the city anymore. But hope is kinda like checking the fridge every 30 minutes even when you know there’s nothing, you know that sooner later you will find enough “nothings” to make a meal out of. Like today, I made a full lunch without using any onions. The fourth time you open the fridge door, you know inspiration is gonna strike. And so my point is that sooner or later, someone somewhere will look at my hopeful, beady, froglike eyes and say, Jups, you’re hired!

Yeah that makes little sense but I got a computer generated rejection letter with no explanation from a consulting company (name rhymes with Backbencher) that I just had my final round interview with. That didn’t make sense either, so bite me.

take you there..

I spent several hours of a Friday evening preparing a cover letter for a job I was seriously interested in. And I then find out that the damn link is broken. Such a waste of time..

I made carrot soup for dinner, ate it with pasta in pesto again. Watched a coupla episodes of sex and the city. Just finished drinking a cup of hot chocolate. Man, I seriously hope the soups make up for all the cheese I’ve eaten since I got here. But seriously, I will let myself go just a wee bit after the ball is over.

It’s not been a totally boring evening. I smsed Brendan who’s either still partying with his friends as we speak or is already passed out or fast asleep. I chatted with Santa who, like me, turns his disappointments into wit. He just got rejected by a company for a job he really wanted. No prizes for guessing that, like me, he too is into banking.

Then again, the evening wasn’t completely uneventful. While trying to puree my carrots into soup, little miss butterfingers here dropped the brand new food processor blades on the floor. While I deflected it away from my feet, my thumb wasn’t lucky. I’ve bleeding for 3 hrs straight. Utterly annoying, stinging and not to mention, gets in the way of making carrot soup! And doing dishes!

Anywho, I am off to bed. I resisted the temptation to call Brendan on his night out. Hot chocolate is instant-sleeping-pill-equivalent for me. I look forward to tomorrow.

To awesome breakfast – yes, French eggs are better than other eggs, they taste absolutely phenomenal! The omlettes come out nice and fluffy, poached eggs taste good despite their simplicity and each egg has a ton of yolk! I don’t know how them French chickens do it.

To Paris. I’m off to Gare de Lyon and then most probably to the Louvre or the musee d’orsay . I need some art in my heart to make it sing..Heart bailed so it’s gonna be just me.

Brendan just called. He’s been partying non stop till 6am! He drunk-dialed me, to tell me he missed me and that he loved me. I had just been watching the season 5 finale where Carrie talks about the zsa zsa zu.. Funnily, listening to him slurring and talking really really fast, I actually did feel the butterflies in my stomach. I feel relieved; we’re past the 6 month mark and listening to his voice gave me butterflies.

don’t cry for me, argentina

Dinner tonight.. potato chips, a slice of toast, home-made tomato soup, and conchiglie with pesto.. not bad at all.

I’m taking it easy. Yesterday was a tough day. I received one email from a bank I had interviewed saying they had put recruitment on hold. I received another rejection email from a guy’s secretary. I know it’s a recession but that’s no reason to lose all semblance of decency. I hope he burns in hell.

I cried a lot, I cried to mom, I cried to grandma, I cried to booboo, I cried to Brendan. I cried. Honestly, not finding a job after such an expensive and reputed MBA has got to suck donkeys’ correction ELEPHANT’S balls. And it hurts to be told on bi-daily basis that your qualifications while impressive don’t match up to some douchebag company’s “exacting” standards. I felt tired, exhausted for hours and hours of work I’d put in to my CV, my letters and everything in between.

I wish it were different. Failure makes you regret things you wouldn’t normally regret. I should know better, but failure makes you feel so weak and worthless. I can’t say I haven’t been there before and believe you me, I have worked so hard to make good of my past, to get to this MBA…all in the hope after one year, I’d be in a better place. But I’m not. I don’t have a job. I have no job, no money and 3 loans where there used to be two.

I took yesterday off to cry myself out of my doldrums. My parents comforted me, my father’s introducing me to his banker friends in the hope someone might know someone who needs a bright girl like me. I mean come on, at least give me a chance. Where is the love?

At around 4 pm, after exhausting myself and embarassing myself by crying for hours on end, I finally took Brendan’s advice and took a hot shower. I thought of all the things I said… about how worthless I feel, how I wanna kill myself because being unemployed wasn’t worth it, how I was a loser…and I decided to just … relax. I decided that I was gonna enjoy my shower and moreso, my two months in France. I don’t mean I’m get drunk, do drugs and shop like a maniac (I can’t afford it). But really, just a deep breath, go to Paris maybe, go to Amsterdam maybe. I wasn’t gonna neglect my job hunt, of course not, but I figured it wasn’t the end of the world either.

In the words of Baldrick from BlackAdder, I have a cunning plan. Well I hope it’s cunning and if not anything, I hope it at least buys me time. I have also been making “Well, If I don’t find a job, Ill just be a housewife” jokes to Brendan. It’s a joke of course, I wouldn’t last a week at home. Housewife or not, it is highly likely that I will spend a few months unemployed searching for a job.. sigh.

C’est la vie. I’m gonna sip my hot chocolate and hope that the calories don’t go to my ass and that somewhere out there, my job is waiting for me…

p.s. Somewhere along the way, Juice turned 3 years old. Isn’t that something?
p.p.s. isn’t this song just beautiful? just painfully, exhilaratingly beautiful? Honestly, it’s probably one of Madonna’s best songs.

sunshine

Sometimes pretty things make you blue. Last night was like that. Doux asked me to join him for dinner; I was kinda pleased – Doux is a nice guy, a good listener, he would definitely have listened to me bitch a little about my existential voids. Of course he had to drag three other people who are nice and all, but I am not about to have an emotional breakdown in front of three people.

Anyway, we went to this beautiful restaurant, a creperie, overlooking the river in my town. The view is absolutely precious and Doux promised the food would be delightful as well. I took this picture with my phone and it hardly does any justice to the sheet cuteness of the view from the balcony where we had our dinner.

Of course it’s another matter altogether that they took like 10 hours to make the frikking crepes. We got so sick of waiting! When the crepes did come, they were like heaven on a plate. I had the Cyrano, which was a Ble Noir crepe (black wheat) stuffed with two different cheeses – gruyere, reblochons – Jambon de pays (delish French ham) and lardons (bacon pieces), egg and potato. Quite a mouthful I know. It’s a healthy meal, only 25 gazillion bajillion calories. With a heart attack on the side please.

Did I mention that after gorging myself on this deviliciously sinful, cheesy, meaty, potato-ey creation, we ordered dessert crepes as well! Another crepe! This time, I had the Corne d’abondance in all its sugary goodness – it had banana slices, thick dark chocolate and approximately a kilo of chantilly cream on top. I couldn’t even finish the damn thing, but then again, that probably means I am still a piglet and not a full grown French forest boar. (we have boars and deer in the forest that have an uncanny knack for commiting suicide in front of fast cars at 3am).

But I guess the point is that this quaint restaurant with its lovely view and even lovelier fare made me miss Brendan so much. To some extent, it’s also the reason I am not excited to go to Paris. I mean, I love Paris and I’m sure I will love it more when I actually go there, but I will miss him too. I have already made some notes about Paris – le marais, relais de l’entrecote, the louvre, musee d’orsay and some of the smaller avenues that santa recommended. (santa’s one of my closest friends at school, I love the bloke to bits despite the fact that for a straight guy, he’s extraordinarily bitchy).

The weekend as such was a tad longer as I didn’t have any class yesterday. I also don’t have any tomorrow and am seriously contemplating going to Paris. I’d have done so on Saturday but I instead attended a cocktail mixing session that was absolutely mad fun. I learnt how to make most average-skill drinks like sours and martinis and caprioskas. And delight of delights! I learnt how to shake up a mean cosmopolitan. Given I was taught by a guy who is awesome at mixing drinks, I daresay that the one I shook up tasted way better than the ones I’ve had in Singapore bars.

When I get a job, I cannot wait to buy a cocktail mixing set and have a cosmo party! You’re invited, love, of course.

On Sunday, I went with Heart, another sweetheart who lives in my village to Barbizon, a cute village steeped in art history. The place is filled with contemporary art galleries, often manned by the artist himself. I must say the art isn’t expensive, you can get decent paintings in most styles starting from ~150 euro. Again, note to self, get rich and come back here when you start decorating your own apartment. We also visited the school and museum that was set up by 18/19th century painters like Rousseau and Millet. It was an afternoon well spent.

P.S. Incidentally, wikipedia informs me that reblochon is made of unpasteurised milk. Well, if I get sick, at least I know why.

vienna

I’m listening to sad songs again. It’s always bad news when I regress into my alternative rock playlist with all the depressing songs.

People are telling me i’ve made a mistake by coming to france..That i’ve made a mistake by staying far away from campus when I don’t have a car. I am having teething problems (at least I hope they are).

It’s not that I dislike this place.I don’t. In fact, it’s beautiful, my house is very cute and the campus is lovely too. The weather has been good, the food is nice (I’m cooking..but still).

But you know.. something’s missing.. Brendan, Casa, Zip, En are all the way in Singapore. And I know they’re just a phone call away, but with sms@30 euro cents and idd@90 euro cents per minute, even friendships are expensive to maintain. So yeah, it’s email for now. It doesn’t help that Skype doesn’t work on leopard.. I have no idea why.

If I had a job already, I’d probably be writing poetry or sketching paintings while sitting on the stone benches on the banks of the river that runs right by my little house. It’s all so pretty and romantic but I am just not in that state of mind.

One last breath

Fine it’s a depressing song but I wanted something with “last” in it, seeing as I am leaving sunshiney country and off to France…France.. where “u” is “euuuww” and “r” is “cough-phlegm-ERHHH”!

There are a lotta things I am looking forward to…

1. full-on conversations in french for sure. I’m wayyyy in the mood for talking to the locals, “ou est la boulangerie? j’ai perdu ma lingerie…” (umm those are two totally different things by the way)

2. Paris. I mean come on! Fashion and romance capital.. granted I am broke and boyfriend-less but hope floats and Paris is beautiful. Nuff said.

3. Living in the countryside – I’m living a cute little cottage on a cute little river with two cute flatmates – a Belgian guy and an Indian girl. It’s gonna be awesome.

4. Cheese! Or shall i say Fhohmaaajjjjjje! Brie and Camembert with fig and breadsticks, bleus and chevres d’oux… Oh I better not get fat or I won’t fit into my gorgeous Hollywoodesque eggplant purple evening gown for the…

5. Summer Ball… that’s right.. we’re having a Cinderella-style ball in a beautiful french Chateau. I have aforementioned lovely eggplant dress. It’s gonna be awesome (except i don’t have a date). Sigh.

6. Netherlands is so close by! I can run over to my uncle’s place when I feel like it.

7. Londontown is so close by! I just need to figure that dratted visa shit out.

The past week has been crazy. I’ve managed to pack my entire house up in boxes. Shipped tons of shit a few mths back to India. Sent some stuff back with dad when he visited two weeks ago. Threw out some. Donated some. Packed the rest. Shipped two boxes of shoes and clothes to Paris. And today I finished packing for my flight. All done down to the last naphthalene ball.

Of course, the biggest anguish is finding that elusive job. I am hoping something clicks in Paris. I’m gonna ask Doux to help me. Doux is the most adorable French boy you’ll ever meet. We love each other and he’s giving me total access to his Paris, his car and his hashish (but I’ll pass on the last one) in exchange for my homemade Indian cooking.

Seems like the banks are hitting the gutters one by one (damn you all) so I can only hope and pray that somewhere out there there is a job with my name on it. And that it pays shitloads of delicious money that I can buy a hell-load of French bags and lingerie with very soon.

But back to the crux of today’s post and that is the fact that tomorrow is my last day in Singapore for now. I do hope I can come back to Singapore to a nice job. Until then, I love you all and stayed tuned for two months of Jups in France. It will be incroyable!!! (pronounced aan-khoh-yaa-bluh!)

Work it out

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been greeted almost every morning by a rejection email.. Most of the consulting companies have told me to go to hell, big boys whose names rhyme with Drain, Horton Befuddling Coup, McBinseed and small ones like Donald Burger, Foose Ballin Paddleton have asked me to come back later. Yes I know it sucks donkeys’ balls but whatchagonnado?

On friday I had the interview from hell. It was a good consulting company (Baitey Barney) so I have no idea what the fuck happened. The guy humiliated me and mocked me and said the worst things. I left the place in tears, cried the whole day. No surprises – I was rejected but hey instead of sitting back and taking it this time, I gave it back to them. Here’s some feedback for you, bitch! They apologised to me and offered a do-over interview which I agreed to at first. But then I thought about it .. do I really want to interview with this fuckface again? I’d rather throw up all over myself than see his face again. So I wrote a nasty-ass email to the whole bunch of partners in the firm and met with them in person to give them a blow by blow account of what happened. Oh well. It’s totally unfortunate because it’s a nice company with nice people and yet somehow I got stuck in an interview with the biggest dick in the office (metaphorically, I’m sure physically he must be as well endowed as an average housefly. That would explain the bitter grouchiness to a very large extent).

But at least I had the whole weekend to recover from that trauma. OF course come Monday I get another unpleasant call with some really random feedback (I lack analytical rigour apparently… well fuck you, I don’t lack rigour of any kind, thank you!) from another consulting company, Polymer Hymen this time.

So yes, the market’s doing bad and I’m doing worse. I sort of refuse to see this as a reflection of my sucktitude because let’s face it, I don’t such that much. Fine, I am occassionally stupid and rarely confounded but by and large I spend most of my days conscious, aware and reasonably smart. If I had to value myself on the basis of these rejection letters, one would think I had the charm and intellect of an autistic monkey.

And the last time I checked I was niether autistic nor a chimp.

Wish me luck. Or better still, make yourself useful and make some calls to your rich fathers, uncles, strangers you slept with and ask them if they want to hire a smart sassy (and saucy but don’t tell them I said that) MBA grad with a sense of humour for fuck’s sake.

(Please)

Overkill

My mind, body and life are warzones. Everything works and therefore nothing works.

Body
My hair, skin, nails are all shit. I got nasty cuts yesterday from sticking my hand into the copier in an attempt to fix the paper jam, which wouldn’t be such a big deal except for the fact that my skin is so bruised from fingertips upward that I cannot eat or wash or my hands or anything without wincing. I had to get a passport photo taken for the French embassy and I look like a bloated (moon)pig. I was scandalised enough to ask Brendan, “uhhh why are you going out with me?”
Have I mentioned for the ten thousandth time that I am intensely sleep deprived to the point that sleeping at 1.30 seems preposterous and insincere, waking up later than 730 induces levels of guilt commonly found in passionate murderers. No surprises that my eyes are half the normal size and the eyelids are swollen to twice.

Mind
Whether my mind is a warzone or a garbage dump of low self-esteem, too much information, guilt, fear and everything in between. Recruiting season does that to you. I tell myself to work a little less but last night as I looked through my group-mate’s compost of a report, I couldn’t help pouring over and virtually rewriting the entire damn thing. I went back to Brendan’s place, looked at the time…1.30 am..The deadline for yet another consulting company was 7 am that morning. What the hell.. I prepared another customised cover letter and got that out of the way. Of course the thought of working for an Italian company that has a natural propensity towards luxury goods is exciting. And that’s what I do for every company – I look at it, read about it and convince myself why it is a good idea to apply. If I end up convincing myself, I start writing the letter. it’s not that tough, but then again, I don’t know the yardstick for measuring the success is yet.
I am spending every alternate waking moment with Brendan. I only have another month of this level of intimacy, then I’m off to live in a village on a river, cut away from the universe and distant from his voice. I suppose I should try to get as much of B-time as I can, right? Not really, I am setting myself for failure.

Mind you, it’s not like we spend any time at all cootchie-cooing or exchanging poems. None of that. We’re groupmates on several projects with some of our other friends. We haven’t celebrated any one-month anniversaries, didn’t feel the need to; but I have now realised that we went past the 6 month mark without even noticing. And then there’s the consulting interview practice and the french lessons which we’re helping each other with. Tough stuff- we both suck – he at french, me at consulting and we both rock – he at consulting, me at french. Oh well, match made in heaven as far as tutoring goes. The yardstick isn’t there yet – If I find a job and he clears the test I guess that would answer the question.

So why am I blogging? I had an 830 class and I sat through it somehow. I love the professor, that always helps. And I took a cab straight home to recharge – my phone, my laptop and myself. I think sitting cross-legged on the bed and typing on a refurbished

refurbished what? Well I was going to complete that sentence but my laptop which as I mentioned was newly repaired crashed again. So the time between this paragraph and the last I spent yelling at Apple Customer Service, Support and the service centre that did the damn job. Word of advice: Macs are cute but get the damn extended “Apple protection plan” warranty. Nothing’s more annoying than haggling with someone about a computer that crashed one week after the blasted warranty expired. (this is Brendan’s ironclad IBM I am typing from.) And by the way, they charge 100$ “diagnosis” fee. Well I paid the fucking diagnosis fee but you didn’t really diagnose the damn problem correctly, did you dimwitted Apple people?

So in other words, the whole recharge-my-phone-laptop-and-self went down the toilet. The cruel irony of it all. I only had one class today and I could have spent the day at home but here I am, in school within 2 hours of celebrating my recharge time. Phooey.

Thank God for Blogger’s autosave function.

Now if you excuse me, I have to go write another cover letter for a job I don’t want. Easy Peasy Limey Squeezey