On The Move…

It’s been a pretty eventful couple of weeks.

Starting from a month ago, which was my first free weekend in six weeks.  Too bad no one seemed to be free to do anything…  everyone either had prior plans, or work, or whatever, so I went to see Enchanted with my sister.  (Fun movie, go see it if you still can.)

Then everything becomes a bit of a blur, there was a memorable weekend trip to Hong Kong with colleagues, and a series of parties and fun nights out… but the important thing is I now have fluffies again!  Two lovely little white silkie chicks, hatched from the eggs I carried back from the US.  Regardless of the wild rumours that I’ve been hearing, I did not incubate these eggs with my body heat by having them strapped to me for three weeks (??), but instead used a very efficient Brinsea incubator with auto-turner.  Right now, the still-unnamed little puff balls are asleep (it’s about 2pm); they’ve developed a strange, house-pet sleep cycle – they are most active (and loudly demand to be played with) in the morning between 8am and 11am and in the evening after 5pm, which is about when most of us are at home to attend to them.  Which also mean they mostly sleep from noon to 5pm everyday, waking occassionally to water or eat a little.

Of course I’ve only recently discovered this odd schedule because I’m now on holiday break from Christmas through to New Year’s.  Lovely.  Earlier this week my parents took the opportunity to take a little roadtrip up to Malaysia, suring which I did little other than sleep, eat, shop and watch movies on cable TV.  Bliss.

The other main benefit of having a break from work is being able to catch up with old friends whom I haven’t met or communicated with in months.  I’ve made several happy long-distance phone calls and enjoyed a couple of leisurely meals reconnecting, reliving, refreshing…  all very much needed.

Happy holidays, and a happy new year.  May 2008 be filled with unexpected blessings, fulfilled desires and abundant joy.

Click on the picture to see more pictures from the past couple of months!

This was our only day off, and most people rented cars to drive either to Boston or Provincetown.  I chose to head to Provincetown with two of my teammates and two others from the Sydney office.  Here we are having a lovely seafood lunch.  The shot was snapped by Ren Hua, who was seated with others from the New York office at the next table.

From left: me, Emily, Sofie, Ryan, Alex

It’s been a while, hasn’t it?

Since I last wrote around National Day, I have been on what feels like dozens of planes, clocked hundreds of hours of work, written thousands of lines of Excel as well as personal emails and somewhat settled into what might be viewed as an unexpected life choice for me.

To recap: Towards the end of my internship I was extended a job offer and after about a week of consideration I decided to take it.  I started immediately, against everyone’s advice urging me to take a vacation first.  So I’m now an Ass0ciate ConsuItant in Singapore with Ba1n & C0 [apologies for the odd typing, I'm trying to fend off the spiders].  In many ways the job meets the profile of what I’d wanted to do right out of college if I had to have a real job – it’s interesting, dynamic, hectic, and has some pretty great perks.  The expected downside, that I haven’t had time to maintain connections to the people, events and activities I used to (like this blog), hasn’t been too much of an inconvenience so far, and I think as time goes by I’ll adjust to the schedule and reclaim more me-time.

Highlight: A couple of months back Flora was lovely enough to entrust me with the weighty privilege of being the official photographer at her solemnization ceremony!  It was great fun, if a little anxiety-causing since I really wanted to give her and Alfred the best images I could of their beautiful, intimate event.

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One of the (many) perks of the job is the training sessions we get sent on around the world every couple of years.  First year juniors like me get sent to Cape Cod, so I got to visit my old haunts in Cambridge and Boston back in October which was lovely.  I saw some Dins, some roommates, some dear friends…  I got to tie up some loose ends and revive some old connections.   And the training itself was great fun, especially because the trainers and other newbies were lovely people.

And while I was there I got some white silkie eggs!  At the Boston Poultry show, no less!! :)  They’re currently a week from being due to hatch in my spiffy new auto-turning, state-of-the-art incubator that’s right here in my room.  So exciting!  I haven’t figured out how I’m going to deal with the first couple of  months until they become old enough to wear diapers, but I’ll figure something out along the way, I guess.  My main concern now is finding some chick starter feed next week…  where should I look??

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This is the first free weekend I’ve had in over a month, and it’s sad that none of the people I sent messages to are free this weekend.  Meanwhile, half the young’uns in the office are in Bangkok attending a colleague’s wedding.  I’d tried my best to go but couldn’t get tickets in time.  Hopefully next week’s trip to Hong Kong will be better fated.

Next week my current case will officially wrap up, which makes me pretty excited as well.  Not because I’m bored of the case or anything, but it will be the successful end to my first case, and it has been a long one, relatively.  While our office averages cases of about two months, mine has lasted over twice as long at five months.  At this point I don’t even recall how to begin work on a new case in a new industry.  Anyhow it’s been a good ride, and if nothing else I am now intimately acquainted with all the transit lounge options at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport

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Maybe I’ll post some pictures up next time.

PS:  Is anyone even continuing to read this blog, after a three month hiatus??

I’m back.  And it all seems a bit of an anti-climax.  The eighteen hour flight seemed really brief, probably because I spent most of it asleep after 40 hours of being awake, driving about 600 miles and finally sprinting through the airport with too-much hand luggage (this last situation wasn’t even really my fault).

The weather in Singapore doesn’t seem significantly warmer or more humid than the summer weather I left on the Cape.

Everything seems a little too familiar, like I never actually left.

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But it doesn’t necessarily make it easier.

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On the final to-and-fro trips around the Cape I felt a surreal missing limb syndrome with noone else in the minivan.  I kept looking around expecting to see my father in the passenger seat or to hear my mother and sisters in the rear.

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I start work on Monday.  Tomorrow I will get a mobile phone number and also move into my summer housing.

We’ve been staying at a lovely house in Hyannis this past week, spending the kind of relaxing but constant-activity vacation that results from being the only designated driver in the family.  We’ve been to Salem and the MFA, to Martha’s Vineyard and the beach, and tomorrow enroute to JFK we’ll be making a last shopping-stop at the ever-incredible Woodbury Common.  We’ve had good food and taken fun pictures, and I’ve said various unwilling personal goodbyes to places and memories and habits and people.

I leave on Saturday night on the direct EWR-SIN flight.

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PS: Pictures to come, perhaps when I regain internet and computer access next week.
PPS: Jo and XY, I’ve been meaning to respond to your messages, but have been really tied up and infrequently online…  so sorry!  I’ll be back in Singapore in just 48 hours.

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Just because it should be recorded – senior move out was pretty much as bad, if not worse than The Great Move-Out Disaster of 2006, if that’s possible.  The hallways and courtyards of Quincy (and probably every other House) bore an eerie resemblance to the set of a disaster movie or urban refugee camp setting…  furniture, clothes, documents, food and luggage were strewn, abandoned and forlorn, as far as the eye could see.  Theft and looting felt rampant.  It wasn’t a happy place to be at all.

I just got back from the Senior Soirée, which was beautiful in the rain, and I’m currently feeling deliriously wobbly.  Not because I had anything to drink (I stuck to Sprite), but because I’ve had so little to eat today. 

Emily and I were going to have lunch at Wagamama, which would have been a big meal, but it turned out we were there an hour before it opened for lunch at noon, so we went into Fanueil Hall instead, where I had a cookie and a bowl of chicken vegetable soup that I didn’t finish because it wasn’t very good.  Then after our visit to the precious-jewelry-box-like Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum (a must-see!  Amazing!), I promptly took a nap until the Senior Soirée was already well underway (and I had missed all the pre-party receptions and get-togethers).

So essentially in the last twelve hours I’ve eaten two slices of brownie and had two cups of soda, all at the soirée.  That’s why I’m feeling wobbly.

Thank goodness Andrew has a huge box of barbeque pork jerky in the fridge and substantial leftovers from his dinner at Grendel’s

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In six hours I must leave to drive to New York… to pick up my family from JFK!! 

No time to blog now.  Must run to dry-cleaners.

Family arrives on Monday in New York for Commencement week.

Las Vegas trip last week was very fun.  Won money, ate good food (buffets!), saw Jenny McCarthy (at a club) and Celine Dion (wow!).  But fell very sick with cold I can’t seem to shake.  Still coughing now.

Still don’t want to graduate, but completely resigned now.

Senior trip to Six Flags was…  fun?  Yes, it was.

More later.

And just because I think I might never have time to blog about the past weekend’s flurry of activity (some 700 miles of driving around NYC, Boston and Cape Cod, only three-hour naps on either end, Dins and Din alums, my first Red Sox game at Fenway Park, the SIAMA end-of-year dinner), I feel compelled to record that I saw Terence in NYC!  It was a wonderful coincidence that Terence had flown in from Stanford that morning and that I happened to be (very briefly) in the city as well for Dins.

Catching up with Terence (who was very nice about having to fight jetlag and general fatigue at the end of a loooong day) was really, really nice.

I need more sleep.

My schedule is ever more packed, although I’m not really complaining because it’s all free dinners, cool day trips and meetings with friends.

Naptime.

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Still a little breathless (and fatigued) from a very packed weekend which included spending about 12 hours in NYC (and about 10 hours driving back and forth) for the remarkable Singapore Day in Central Park plus the club afterparty.  Plus it was also pre-frosh weekend at Harvard… toughest admissions season to date, so I’ve heard.

Tomorrow (actually in 3 hours) I leave for New Haven by train, but I’ll be back in Boston by 8pm.

So much seems to be happening I can barely keep up.  Maybe I’ll get more of a chance to blog by Thursday…

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On the drive back to Boston yesterday I was amused/puzzled by the decision to edit out the words “cherry pop” from the radio version of Christina Aguilera’s latest track, ”Candyman”.  Is that really more suggestive/lewd/vulgar/corrupting than the lyrics to, I don’t know, Nelly Furtado’s “Promiscuous Girl”?  The longer I’ve been here the more bizarre I find American culture.