All Will Come to Pass

Today is day one at my new office.  Like what another ex-colleague told me, she having just started a new job herself, the newbie feeling is awful.  Especially at the ‘youthful’ age of 33. 

As I was brought around the office by my HR colleague, introducing me to the old-timers, I can’t help but wonder what they think when they shake my hand and nod smilingly.  Are they smirking inside?  Are they genuinely welcoming me?  I am reminded of the many times when i stood in their shoes not too long ago.    Mostly indifference, I comfort myself.  Faces and names and titles became a blur after the 3rd, 4th, 5th.. Nth person.  HR colleague said: oh it’s normal, take your time.  And I am again reminded that I used to say (not without an air of superiority gained through length of service in the previous organisation) the exact same words many times over.  I am a noob, an inexperienced chap needing to learn her way around and form relationships all over again.  This newbie is suddenly tired.  And resistant. 

But she will persist… for everything will come to pass…

Watching this movie requires a heavy dose of suspension of disbelief.  Discard your cynical side and believe in the power of romance (or lust, if you will) for once. 

Disbelief: That Sandra Bullock could look this hot at 45. (Sidetrack number 1: She said she’s done with romantic comedies but took one look at this script and was apparently bowled over by how interesting and different this movie could be. rigggghhhtttt… Sidetrack number 2: How can anyone trot around in 4.5″ Louboutins?)

Disbelief: That one could fall in love with one’s nemesis of 3 years after merely 3 days of a pretend-holiday.  (I know Alaska was beautiful and that Ryan Reynolds’ character is filthy rich, but…?)

Disbelief:  That the female protagonist (alpha female/head honcho) could allow herself to be kissed, and kissed, and kissed, in full view of her soon-to-be former subordinates, who incidentally call her the witch.

Not one to reinvent the wheels, The Proposal provided a 1.5hour escape from our mundane life and work drudgery.  Nachos (extra cheese!), diet Coke and the wonderful company of colleagues made this trip an enjoyable one. 

Maybe Final Destination next?  Guys, we need to explore different themes.

Others visit Beijing to chronicle their adventures on the Great Wall, the Forbidden City and more recently, the Bird’s Nest.  They blog about their dalliances with beijing duck and various dumplings and lamb concoctions.

Me, I find sustenance and great joy in their local beer Yanjing.  Best served with a simple bowl of Zha Jiang Mian.  The closet alcoholic in me would like to share with you my many lonesome moments spent in Beijing, made bearable only by drowning my meals with cold beer.  I would gladly exchange with anyone a 6-pack Tiger for a bottle of Yanjing. 

I still remember the finger licking pepper crabs from last Friday.  These crustaceans beckon me to peel open their shell to reveal succulent flesh waiting to be devoured.  It didn’t help that we all had a voracious appetite, whetted by the earlier light lunch in anticipation of good food.  11 courses (yes, 11!) and 2 cold beers later, all I wanted to do was to lay back on a nice couch and nua… even burping felt like too much effort.

I feel very very sad when I read this.  Why wasn’t this prevented?

(AFP) – Jun 19, 2009

LONDON — The couple responsible for the brutal death of toddler Baby P, which shocked Britain, were publicly named on Tuesday, triggering a renewed surge of anger and revulsion at their crimes.

The toddler’s mother Tracey Connelly and her lover Steven Barker were jailed in May over the death of 17-month-old Peter Connelly, whose corpse was found in his blood-spattered cot in north London two years ago.

The names of the couple, and details of their background, were released after a High Court order protecting their anonymity expired at midnight on Monday.

New details revealed Baby P had four siblings. Now they have been settled with carers, the convicts can be named.

Newspapers printed front-page photographs of the pair along with further details about the background of the people whose horrific abuse of the toddler sparked outrage in Britain and triggered an urgent review of childcare policy.

Experts said on Tuesday the couple could need police protection and new identities when they are released from prison, given the public fury over the case and risk of vigilante attacks.

The toddler, who had been known as Baby P for legal reasons, had more than 50 injuries at the time of death.

Social workers, doctors and police failed to notice the abuse despite seeing him at least 60 times over eight months.

Two days before Baby P died, a doctor failed to spot he had a broken back, eight fractured ribs and was paralysed from the waist down.

He had been punched so hard he swallowed a tooth. The subsequent neck injury that affected his breathing was probably the fatal blow.

Among his other injuries, Baby P’s ears were torn, fingernails and fingertips were missing and his lips were ripped.

Connelly, 28, who married at 16 and has four other children, was jailed for at least five years for failing to prevent her son’s death.

Barker, 33, received 12 years for his role in the killing, while his brother Jason, 37, a lodger in their house, was jailed for three years.

Connelly’s mother Mary O’Connor, 59, said her daughter could “rot in hell”.

“I haven’t got any sympathy for her at all. Maybe now she will feel fear and understand what my grandson went through as he was being tortured to death,” she told The Sun.

“She got off lightly with a minimum of five years. It won’t be long until she’s out living her life again. She sent me a visiting order but I couldn’t stand to be in the same room as her.”

The 63-year-old father of the Barker brothers, who was not named by the Daily Mirror, told the paper: “What they did was awful and they deserve to be punished.

“I don’t care what happens to them. Everyone thinks they are monsters and I don’t think any different.”

Connelly and Barker were also tried in May this year in secret for the rape of a two-year-old girl just before Peter’s death. Barker was convicted of rape but Connelly was cleared of a child cruelty charge.

New details also showed the Barker brothers were charged with assaulting their 82-year-old grandmother in 1995, in a bid to make her alter her will. She died before the case could come to court.

Jason, who changed his name to Owen, was a lodger at the couple’s home in Tottenham along with his 15-year-old girlfriend.

They lived in a filthy house with their three dogs, including a rottweiler which was used to terrify Peter.

Barker collected knives and Nazi memorabilia, while Connelly spent her days at the home on the Internet, drinking alcohol and watching pornography.

Another noteworthy article: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/carol_midgley/article6790629.ece

I scratched my head and ponder.  Can I, the eternal pessimist, write something happy-clappy?  I don’t even remember what I have done lately that has given me a spring in my step… though it is certainly not exercise.  While clearing out my work cabinet recently (I wonder why they call it a pedestal), I found evidence of my once less sedentary lifestyle.  I found two rolled up socks and two badminton rackets; shuttlecocks and ugly shorts.  My two pairs of running shoes lay side by side, almost looking forlorn from lack of attention (the last time one pair was worn, it was by my colleague who forgot hers and simply had to go to the gym, because, as she said, she felt the fats accumulating).  Funny how I never let growing fat daunt me, even though I must seem to whine till the cows come home.   

A colleague once commented that I appeared to have lost weight, to which i gaffawed.  The art of concealment one must learn with clothes, I told her.   Shortlived happiness: the very next day, another colleague asked, with mild excitement, if I am carrying baby no. 2.  This time i wailed.

(By the way, for Tsai Ming Liang/Lee Kang Sheng fans, pllleeasse let me know if you have Visage (2009) ok?  I just watched ‘Help Me Eros’, you can actually see Lee Kang Sheng fully in the buff. )

Lee Kang Sheng

Failed my driving test on the 16 March.

Rejected and snubbed by interviewers on the 17 March.

I need Prozac, hard liquor and a good cry.

It has been a good 7-8 months since I last attempted to write anything non-work related.  After having stared at the laptop screen for almost 10 hours each day for the last couple of weeks, inspiration for literary words and beautiful sentences eludes me.  (I get my doses of the loveliest written words from dearie jio’s instead!)

Work is draggy… how i long for light at the end of the tunnel.  It just seems like an endless path of darkness, with only dim lights every other month to lift my waning hopes only to dash them when being enveloped yet again by unreasonable clients and apathetic bosses merely days later.  Perhaps it is time to throw in the towel and show management that we are not here FOREVER.  There is only so much dung one can sink into before choking to death.  But lo and behold, the recession strikes!  How apt.  I foresee Recruit getting thinner and competition for new jobs keen-er. 

Silver lining and therapeutic moments: learning to drive, learning to knit, learning to cook baby food, learning to be more discerning with alcohol, pedicures and manicures.

At least my toenails look pretty, especially when high on beer. Thanks O.P.I.

My post natal blues could jolly well be permanent.  It struck me tonight whilst witnessing the SO drink a can of ice cold Tiger (oh what I would give to get a can!) on the things I have given up on.  My figure was the first to go.  Although never fabulous to begin with, it’s now positively hideous after childbirth.  The flabby tummy with the ugly stretch marks!  The thunder thighs that rub each other the wrong way when I walk!  The saggy uneven boobs!  I even suspect my feet to have been upped a size.  The scales scream a murderous 60+ kg when I step onto it.  I have never seen the first figure a 6 in my 30+ years of existence. Reality is not only harsh, but really really cruel.

All the physical tortures, I can stomach.  Speaking of pain I have got to digress to the ephemeral experience of childbirth.  As the gynaecologist looks deep into my overly expanded vagina and tells me to listen to him and push, all I wanted to do was to punch him in the face, that is if I could find the strength to get my legs down from the stirrups admist the pain and the horde of folks holding me down.  There is no dignity.  You shit when pushing.  They give you an enema but faeces still flow.  Did I care that I was pooing into the doc’s hands?  No I didn’t give a shit (how literal).  I grunted like a boar and didn’t care.  You know when mothers say that when they look at their newborn in their arms, all the pain was worth it?  I don’t seem to remember feeling this way when little one was in mine.  It was the strangest feeling I couldn’t describe.  I do, however, remember this very dreamy scene of me looking down at the doctor’s after I have given birth.  He was sewing me up and while I feel him performing his needle work, I could not feel any pain.  It was so surreal to see fresh flowing blood (mine) spilling freely and him chatting with the nurse whilst sewing my cb.  I will never forget that moment ever. 

My battered body is still recovering and my emotional side still needs healing badly.  Adapting to motherhood but a nurturing personality I’m still trying to grow.  I miss my independence.  Very very severely.  The days of going out on a whim have gone forever.  Will you ever understand this forgone freedom?  Will it get better?

This is nothing but a rant.  It is a Wednesday evening, a day before Deepavali and I am sitting squarely at my office… working on a never-ending report.  It threatens to overwhelm.  Each time I think it is done, it is not.  Each time I get a little excited about finally churning it out, something creeps out to make me wonder if I could have missed out some important element, something that could potentially be detrimental in the future.  You know, when you try to sweep things under the carpet only to realise it is rearing its ugly head when you least expect it.  It can only be Murphy’s law.  When all bad things coalesce to mammoth proportions.  Everyone tells me I should head home, given my current ‘condition’.  They do not understand.  I am not a workaholic.  I would jump at the chance to experience more pleasure outside of work.  At the same time, I also understand that if I leave the office right now, the workload will simply continue to pile into unmanageable heights.  Given impending deadlines, I would be better off dead.