6 posts from 2006

Recently I'm starting to feel like I'm running a polyathlon, where they just keep adding segments to the race and you don't know when it's going to end. So oddly enough, I'm looking forward to my London flight tomorrow, because then I'll have almost two and a half days to recharge. The weather sucks, the food sucks, so I'll just need to emerge to stock up on food from the supermarket once, then disappear into my room, sleep, read and watch tv, in that order.

I went for my first yoga class today at True Yoga and signed up as a member immediately after because for the first time since I started flying, without the aid of a masseuse and much elbow grease, I felt my back and shoulders loosen and I walked out of there without the mild and constant headache that had been bothering me for two days now. I'm not sure whether it says something about how tense I was or whether I was just unfamiliar with the class that the instructor had to remind me to breathe quite a few times.

Then again, he wasn't the first person to remind me to do that today. My long-suffering dentist kept asking me to take deep breaths as she drilled a hole that felt about the size of Texas in my tooth. I have to say, she's a very patient woman. She did lower molar without any Novocaine and managed to get it done despite my wincing. She gave me a shot for the upper one. A good thing, because the hole really is about the size of Texas. It's about 90 percent filling, 10 percent tooth now. It's bizarre, because you can feel the vibration of the drilling, but there's no pain at all. And since the whole thing was covered under my dental plan, I think I'll just get a shot for every filling I'll need to get in the future and save us all the trouble.

It's been two months since I've started flying. I'm adjusting quite quickly, I think. The rashes are going away, thanks to my copious moisturizing. I'm no longer having my almost panic attacks before the flights. My meal cart goes neck and neck with the one in the next aisle, no longer falling rows behind. I'm hanging out with the crew when I'm abroad, and actually having a lot of fun at it.

Back home, things are still working towards a rosy state. Elton and I just spent an entire day together and it was one of the best days I've had for quite a while. I wish I could say the same about my parents and I, but as it is, I haven't been able to really spend time with them, and I feel horrible about it. I don't know what has been going on with their lives, I don't know how they've been, and I guess that's why I'm trying to compensate a little with my Christmas presents. I bought my mom a pendant with those tri-coloured gemstones she loves, and I'm going to get my dad a Gameboy Advance. I know, sounds like a damn weird present choice for a man in his 50s, but there's a reason for it. My dad doesn't have many hobbies. He plays mahjong, and he plays Tetris-style games on his handphone. And that's it. So when his Sony Ericsson phone died that day, he bought a second hand Samsung one, only to discover it wouldn't install the games and he was stuck with some lame-o soccer crap. Since he can't quite get his kakis together every night for a mahjong session, I thought I'll get him a Gameboy for Christmas so he can play all he wants.

If only I can figure out what to get Elton. Since he got himself all gadgeted recently after he got his commission (got a spanking new MP3 player and handphone), I'm a wee bit stumped. Since I can't quite afford a new computer for him, I think he's quite done on the gadget department.

And that's it, really. My Christmas shopping this year is limited to the three of them. No offense to my friends, but these three people are my pillars. They're the only people I see on a regular basis, and for all the shit they've taken, they deserve way more than what I'll be giving them. I feel guilty that I don't spend more time with them, and I'm not trying to buy affection with material goods. Rather, I think I'm trying to apologize with them. And my new year's resolution is to have at least a day every two weeks with my parents, so they know that I'm not going to abandon them just because I don't depend on them anymore financially. So maybe, they can release that breath they've been holding and relax.

With Elton, we've been spending most of my time here together. And I've seen a remarkable change in his attitude towards my schedule. He wasn't a fan of my long flights and erratic roster, but I've seen him work towards accepting it these past two months, and I couldn't be more thankful for it. We've had our Talks about it, and I get the vibe that he has come to terms with it. Still not a fan, but no longer organizing marches against it.

That's not the only thing I've been able to relax about. He knows I think his bosses are bad influences of the bring him to shady massage parlour sort. They're rich married men from Britain in Singapore. Nuff said. And I worry that he may not be in a position to refuse such outings, since it isn't good for company morale and those two are pushy bastards (hey, they're headhunters, it's part of the job to be pushy bastards). As it is, I'm relieved that he tells me honestly about their itinery when they have their nights out. So when he told me that my peace of mind meant more to him than whether his bosses think he's whipped, I felt as though my heart had swollen into a giant red plush toy with two outstretched hands ready to hug him into two. It meant so much to me to hear him say that, because it said that I am as important to him as he is to me. Elton isn't the sort of guy to say mushy stuff or promise things he doesn't mean. He'll evade like mad and taichi your questions away if he doesn't want to touch on an issue. So when something like this happens, it's about as beautiful a moment as having fireworks explode in the sky when you kiss. Or tasting Secret Recipe's warm chocolate cake when you've been craving for chocolate for days. I was so touched, I teared.

It's going to be a great Christmas.

One of the best parts of the job is definitely seeing my bank account blossom, reaching numbers it has never reached before. But it's not the money itself that thrills me, it's what it suddenly allows me to do that brings a sparkle to my eye.

Even before the actual flights started and things really got started, I met up with Elton's financial advisor, a very nice lady called Jeannette, and got myself a savings plan, one of those save-as-you-earn thingies. It deducts about $240 from my bank account every month and pours it into some big scale investment scheme that Prudential has, where I am guaranteed a small profit in return at the end of it all. Frankly, I'm not out for the profit. I just want somewhere to park my money where I can't touch it, so that even if I do go wild with the plastic, I'll still be able to afford a decent meal instead of munching on stale bread by the roadside.

Because it is tempting. And I have to constantly remind myself that just because I can afford it now, doesn't mean I have to, or that I should. I'm tempted to go out shopping and not look at the price tag anymore. Fifty bucks for a top? Sure, why not. Three hundred for a pair of jeans? It's an investment. And it's not because I really think that it's affordable, more like it's a rebellion against the careful control I've had to keep all this time. Kinda like a thin woman getting pregnant and eating for 20 rather than 2. When you repress yourself a bit too much sometimes, you go a little crazy when you let yourself go.

Being able to buy what I want is the tip of the iceberg. Being able to buy what I need is the real kicker. There's nothing more frustrating than needing something and not being able to just get it. For months I've suffered with my dying printer, which churned out pages with the speed of an arthritic sloth and made about as much sound as a pneumatic drill, and had delusions of being an Impressionist painter, considering the way my printouts turned out. I didn't buy a new one, resorting to squinting at the near-illegible words and filling in the blanks with a pen, because I couldn't afford to just randomly toss a hundred bucks around. So it was nice to be able to go out that day, walk into Courts, and walk out with a brand new multi-function Epson Stylus CX2900 printer/scanner/copier. The sleek white machine doesn't vibrate the entire table when it's working, and man, I love being able to just photocopy things without running to the bookshop near my place.

Ok, that probably sounded a little tragic; first big buy I talk about is a printer? What kind of a girl am I? Sorry, I just love gadgets. And hey, I use it almost every other day. Every time I look at it, I just feel so damned happy, like I can't believe I have it.

Amongst other things, I bought myself a new cargo bag, since the black one circa 1980s that I inherited from my mom seems determined to take off one of my toes one day. It's a giant dark purple one by Lojel, with six wheels and four locks and two handles and basically takes up most of the boot space of your average taxi (poor Elton got his finger squashed helping me load it in once). I made an appointment with a gynae, since my health is worth more than $60, dammit. And I'm taking cabs to and fro work, screw the change-clothes-take-bus shit. I tried one it last time today, after a Hanoi turnaround, and decided that it was not worth it. I may save quite a bit of money, but the frustration of lugging that goddamned cabin bag around was just not fun, nor was sitting in a cramped, unergonomical seat and trying not to fall asleep when I was dead tired so I wouldn't miss my stop. Not to mention that post-flight, your skin has a tendency to be kinda sticky and you just smell like an airplane, so frankly, heading straight home for a shower is probably the best thing you could do for your loved ones. I'd rather just eat on the plane and not spend on meals after to make up for it.

It feels good to be able to afford these things, once thought to be luxuries, now, simple necessities that make life easier. It's a fair trade, in a way; I have less time to put up with the inconveniences I once had to suffer, but I have the money to make those inconveniences go away.

I am grateful. Very grateful. It's been a month since I've starting flying, and occasionally I still stop and stare at the galley or at my own uniformed reflection in mild disbelief that I'm actually doing this for a living. I can't believe my luck that somehow, I managed to stumble into a job that I like, that suits my nature, and that pays so damned well for so little work. Within a space of five months, I've gone from being a student, taking a monthly allowance of $500 from my parents, to earning my own money, to actually giving them money in return. Yeah, I do that. I may be as banana as it gets, but I'm still Chinese at the very core. I now own Prada and LV, I can casually say things like, "Oh yeah, that time in Milan", and I've slept in more five-star hotels than most of people my age have ever even been in the lobby of. And yeah, I like it.

There's the bad that comes with the good, of course. Sacrifices that have to be made. My time is no longer my own. But how many people in the working world have life on demand? As it is, I have more free time than most office-bound workers, although a substantial amount of it is spent overseas. A pilot once told me his two-year-old nephew kept calling him dad, because he spent more time with the kid than his white-collar brother. True, the actual father would come home every night, but 9pm to 12am isn't a lot of time to spend with your son, especially when you want to squeeze in time for a shower, dealing with the mundane stuff, relaxation time and whatnot.

I may have to spend holidays working, because my job does not respect such things, but hey, when I'm home, I'm home. No phone calls, no emails, no late-night SMSes from some boss who wants this presentation by tomorrow. In fact, I don't even really have a boss to answer to, since that changes every flight. It's even better than when I was a student, because I don't have anymore projects or essays or exams hanging over my head. And I'm lucky this year; I get to spend the two days before Christmas at home, do a short turnaround on Christmas, and I'm off again on Boxing Day.

I know this may be pretty darn annoying to read; it sounds like I'm bragging about my high-flying job and my high-flying life with my high-flying boyfriend. But it's not meant to be. I've been quite negative about a lot of things about this job, been very unhappy at how it ran roughshod over my life and screwed up any semblance of control I had. And it's time that I looked on the positive side and really appreciated the good things it has done for me. I'm not Christian, but I do believe in a divine presence, and man, I feel blessed through and through.

I have found a new city to love. Ladies and gentlemen, may I introduce you to Taipei, the apple of my eye, the place that makes my heart sing, the city where I've spent about half my meal allowance in a day and discovered that my debit card can withdraw cash from any ATM with the Cirrus logo (thank god).

As flights go, this has been an excellent one. The work itself was a little problematic, because everyone else was working on Turbo and I'm still running on Drive. My section was a flurry of adhoc requests. Usually quite welcome on long flights (with something to do, you won't fall asleep), but a little tricky to accommodate in four and a half hours (cos you have no time to do the other things you need to do).

Still, four and a half hours passes fast enough, and once the last passenger had been goodbyed, it has been an excellent follow up to Male.

Now, so far, the Male trip has been one of the best I've had. Half a day of fun in the sun on this massive beach resort, where the sand is like powder and the water clear enough to see the fishes, blue like liquid sapphires and topazes scattered as far as the eye can see. Copious use of sunblock ensured that I didn't turn as dark as the locals. It wasn't a cheap place to be, with everything in US dollars and a meal going at about US$12. You didn't have much of a choice of what to eat since you're stuck on a small island and the hotel owned the whole thing.

But the best part was definitely the crew. It was the first time that practically everyone hung out together after the flight instead of disappearing into their various rooms. The captain brought his wife along since it was her birthday, and we sat in the bar and chatted and played drinking games till about four in the morning, after a four hour flight. (Maybe four hour flights are magically good.) The next day, we all went to the beach and fed the schools of fish. Took lots of photos, which were all beautiful, but got rather repetitive after a while. I mean, it's pretty much just blue sky, sea, sand and coconut trees.

Now, I'm no beach bunny, but that place is beautiful enough to make even the most hardened urbanite to take a dip. Still, Taipei is definitely more my speed.

I was fortunate to find a stewardess who shared the same shopping mania as I did. She's a rank above me, but, refreshingly, didn't exhibit any of the rank consciousness most people tend to. She looked a little fierce in uniform (I'm starting to think it's the colour and the hairdo), but she turned out to be very friendly, and even a little child-like.

She brought me first to Xi Men Ting, which is one of their central shopping areas. It was (according to her) strangely empty, and we were one of the few wandering about their streets. We didn't sit down anywhere to have lunch, because they sell all sorts of snacks along the streets that you should try and will get incredibly full from. Bubble tea (pao pao cha) is everywhere and selling at a very affordable NT$20 to $40 (S$1 to $2), depending on what you get, and in pretty big cups too. Their salted fried chicken (yan su ji) is very good, cooked on the spot and a must-try. The store owners here are quite relaxed; you can walk in with food and drinks with no problem. We then went to Shilin Night Market, where we munched on this giant slab of salted fried chicken as we walked. It was so huge (the chicken) that by the time we were done with the equally giant Night Market, we only managed to get halfway through that chicken. And it was only NT$45 (S$2.25).

Things are quite cheap here; think Far East Plaza on a 20 percent discount. Shoes were going at NT$390, which is about S$19.50. But the shocker is that boots go for the same price too. Yes, boots, knee high, ankle length, leather, canvas, you name it they've got it, at the low low price of NT$390. Best part is, you can bargain. I ended up buying three pairs of shoes and one pair of boots; one's a pair of beige satin peep-toe heels with black trimming, another's a pair of silver ballet flats, and the last is a pair of red patent round-toe kitten heels with a red rosette on the side. In addition to a large red mock-croc tote (that means faux crocodile skin for the uninitiated), two reusable gel heat pads, dozens of these shoe sticker things (to stick on the sole of your shoe, at the heel area, on the straps to prevent wear and tear of the shoe and your foot), a very nifty Hello Kitty calculator/clock/calendar/alarm/world time gadget that opens in this super cool Lamborghini fashion, and three packets of Fran strawberry flavoured biscuit sticks (like Pocky, but way more sophisticated). Also a pair of pearl earrings, a red hairband, a pair of red hoop earrings (yeah, they're to go with Big Red, as the bag is now known), three pair of skin-coloured thigh high stockings, and a pair of black thigh highs. Oh yeah, I'm a happy girl.

This place reminds me a little of Seoul, a little of Shenzhen, a little of Osaka. In terms of shopping, the shops are colourful and filled with cutesy stuff, which makes even just browsing a pleasure. Like Shenzhen, the people here speak Chinese, and occasionally the streets stink a litttle from the "scent" of smelly tofu (a distinctly Chinese dish that even I find difficult to understand the appeal of), but that's where the similarities end. The people here are cosmopolitan and dressy; you'll be hard pressed to find someone sauntering around in flip flops and berms here. The teenagers channel their Japanese counterparts in terms of dressing and what is considered to be cool. The girls have a tendency to act a little "teh", a combination of cutesy and whiny and coy, even in just regular conversation, so bargaining with the shopkeepers (who tend to be teenage girls), often becomes a contest of who can teh the most.

The language is what puts Taipei above Seoul and Osaka on my favourite city list. It makes a huge difference when you can communicate with the locals and watch their variety shows (which are laugh out loud funny). There's less of a fear factor when going out exploring because you know you can ask for directions and get home without too much trouble.

In terms of weather, we couldn't have come at a better time. It's somewhere between fall and winter, so it's quite cool, but not too cold. A light jacket will cover you as the sun sets and the chill sets in. The wind is very strong though, so that ups the chill factor a little.

This is a place I'll definitely want to bring my mom along to. Not Elton, because I'll be too busy shopping, so I predict a rather bored Eurasian man standing in a corner munching on his giant fried salted chicken slab, with numerous plastic bags hanging from his arms. I figure Mom will have a ball though.

I have an important announcement to make. I have cut my hair.

To those who know me (well enough), this is a world-shaking decision on the scale of Pyongyang playing with its new toys. I've not had short hair since secondary school, and for good reason. Why do you think I only got my first serious boyfriend in JC?

So despite the fact that I had to tie my hair up for work, thus exposing my perpendicular ears (those who are nice call me an elf, those who are mean use the usual unimaginative nicknames of Dumbo, Mickey Mouse and other unfortunate cartoon characters whose creators believe having massive listening appendages made them more adorable), I stuck with it, because at least when I'm not at work, I could let my crowning glory flow, hiding all the flaws.

Without meaning to sound arrogant, I am like Maggie Cheung. If you examine her closely, you'll notice that her features, taken individually, look a little wrong. Her eyes are too slanty, her cheeks too chubby, her chin a little too receded. But somehow, as a whole, it all works out fine, to the tune of an endorsement contract with Ebel and arthouse films of the Cannes sort even before Ms. Zhang decided to pick up ABC For Beginners. And so it is with me. I used to be one of those angsty teenagers filled with self-doubt and loathing because my short bobbed hair accentuated every thing that was wrong with my face. The chubby cheeks, the short chin, the roundness of the entire package. And the ears, don't forget the ears. I looked like an angry mushroom.

I'm not ugly. Despite my less-than-perfect features, the overall look isn't too bad. But man, that period of time was me earning my stripes. When my hair finally grew out, it was like that scene in that old story about the bird with questionable parentage. Ya know, the ugly duckling finding the swans.

So the idea of cutting my hair short freaks me out to the extent that coming near me with a cutting implement of any sort usually has me eyeing the bearer with great suspicion and animosity. But after months of torturing my hair,  molding it into this hairsprayed-to-death bun that's like the Rock of Gibraltar tied to my head, I decided to take some drastic measures.

It started with a late night research session, looking up articles on the web about short hair and round faces and what suits the unfortunate people whose visage resembles a grapefruit. I discovered unexpected companions of my fate in two of the three Charlie's Angels (circa 2000, not the Farrah Fawcett generation), and the daughter of a rock god (who happens to have his own reality TV show on MTV). I scanned through pages after pages of their photos, hoping to find a style that called to my heart.

Cameron_jude

Well, here I am on a brand new blog, thanks to Liangcai. I have to say, I much prefer this one to Xanga or even Blogger because the designs are a lot nicer, and I like being able to decide exactly who reads my blog. When you're the sort, (like how that song goes) who laughs at a funeral, you realize your sense of humour may not go very well with the anal-retentive sort who over (hah!) analyses stuff to find a possible way to misinterpret your actions and behaviour to be personally offensive towards them.

In the advancement of world peace, I decided to stop my old one on Blogger (where all and sundry can see your dirty underwear), then switched over the Xanga and got quite royally annoyed by their constant ads and pleas to join Xanga Premium, and here I am. Privacy, check. No ads, check. So thanks bro, I appreciate it. :)

That's not to say that everything will be kept under wraps that only an elite few will be able to access. Not so much because I'm being considerate to the bored people out there browsing other people's blogs in the middle of the night, but because my writing is just too damn good to be limited to a few people. Oh yeah, I'm also compulsively arrogant when writing.

It seems fitting that the changes in my life has spilled over to how I keep tabs on it. Blogging, for me, is a release. It's like therapy with myself. Often, my biggest epiphanies emerge from vituperative flaying of the people and things that raise my blood pressure. So now that I've started on my first real job, leaving behind the simpler life of youth where you owe no one nothing and feel like you could live a million years, it's time for me to find a less attention attracting way to spill my guts.

It's not going to change things all that much. I am who I am, with my vulgarities and my almost obscene metaphors and my intolerance for bullshit. Just because I choose to share it with some people instead of shouting it to the world doesn't make me a hypocrite, just more politically savvy.

I used to think it was selling out if I didn't blatantly put it out there what I felt exactly about an issue or a person. But then as time went by, and fights occurred with my nearest and dearest, and I started to use pseudonyms to protect the identity of those I wrote about (or rather, to cover my ass from defamation charges. Oh yeah, I was a nasty piece of work), I realized I was just being stubborn. So it was time to change the thoughts to fit the actions, and it's time to spell it out for my own benefit.

One could say it's all about perspective. From one angle, I could reason that I really did sell out, that I'm no longer as honest as I once was, that I'm choosing to hide certain facts from certain people. I want to think of it more as a maturation, if nothing else because it gives me a better picture of myself (and isn't that what we all love to do?). Some people aren't going to change even if you hooked their balls to electrodes and shocked them when they refused to acknowledge that they're assholes. So my lengthy essays on The Evils Of My Colleagues aren't going to help either, but are just going to act as ammunition for them to make my life even more hellish should they lay their hands on them. I'm starting to be less of an absolutist, realising that not everyone can get my jokes or my metaphors, and not everyone is amused by them. Metaphorically speaking, it's time to stop walking around naked at home with the curtains drawn, because people might see in and sue you for indecent exposure.

On the bright side, it allows me to be open with who I am. I no longer have to hide my identity. My blog no longer has to be a dumping ground of all my negative thoughts, and I can share everything of interest, good or bad.

So for those who haven't quailed from the electrodes to balls example, sit down, have a good time, and try not to read this in a public place. I have been known to cause people to squeal in surprise.