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| It's been madness.... while I'm trying to live life to the fullest, I wonder if I'm over doing everything...
Friday 28th Oct // Venue: hush, Bond St; Rockwell Bar
Event: had drinks with Eric's friend John. Had lots in common, including appreciation of good cocktails: dirty martinis, cosmos, blueberry martinis... the next stage involved getting pissed with Pearl and Fahmida, but the latter two not enjoying the professionally made cocktails @ Rockwell - champagne cocktails, passion fruit bellinis etc.. bc they had "bits" in them. I can understand that, but it was a damn shame, I ended up drinking all those cocktails myself and having to be supported to the bus stop.
Saturday 29th Oct // Venue: Nayem's house party, N1; Chez moi, E1; The Legion Bar, E1
Event: House warming where the first bottle of Friexnet was imbibed with Ed, Mia Navellou (The Love Soup star!!) and lots of hugs with many a banker-gay-boys..Then back to the curry house to get all dressed up like a rock star chick, phantom of the opera character etc and get pissed before heading to The Legion. So funny, I was wearing the shortest, ass-skimming skirt and the whistles I got walking down the street.. I would never dare to wear that in HK, but for some reason in London it feels acceptable on a Halloween weekend... Two hours of very good (old skool) hiphop later, and a couple of marriage proposals and guys trying to get our numbers Mia and I got so fed up with the rock (weird Brit rock) music that we left and walked home. Knackered, our feet were swollen from being in those heels all night.
Sunday 30th Oct // Venue: Chez moi; outside the steps of Cafe 1001 with our (mini) ghetto blaster; then Secret Sundaze
Event: post-brunch with Wilson and his very stunning new girlfriend (she is absolutely gorgeous), Mia, Jem and I got so depressed we had to go and down our sorrows in alcohol (more cava). It wasn't enough that we were pretty ourselves, when faced with beauty at that level we just got so down. Starting more Friexnet at about 4pm, then continuing with another bottle, and taking our CD player outside our local to play some of our own (ie hiphop) music and drink out of the fancy habitat glasses... next thing we know we bump into Alex K and James! Small fucking world! Cantabs populate the world. So we went to Secret Sundaze and revelled in the house music, breathed in the stale smoky air and felt our skin being moisturized by the sweat of 100 ravers. By 10pm we felt it was time to go home. good thing too.
Monday 31st Oct // Venue: Rockwell Bar
Event: I didn't get the fucking British Council job and they couldn't be bothered to tell me til now. That not only is SHIT practice. in the words of the HR rap obviously, I would never be so derogatory about the BC. All I'm saying is that they don't know what they have just let go. I tried not to, honestly, but more drinking seemed to be in order. Hannah and Jem met me, and we ranted and screamed about how life is so fucking unfair, the transition between student and adult is fucking difficult - esp when (not me) you have loans to pay back, and in the UK where you are taxed 40% for everything, what is the point of VAT if you still have to pay council tax etc etc? I swear what Blair does with the public budget, all I gather is most of it goes on MPs entertainment expenses, like First Class fucking flights... sigh... the sad bureaucratic state of the world... By 11pm Jem and I are the only ones left and we are pissed to the nines. Giovanni (he looks like a god, too bad he's 5ft) and Purna are trying to persuade us to go to The Light Bar at St Martins Lane, but we know we have to work tomorrow. (at this point i can't face work, i might want to torch the building or something, i'm more angry than sad. they should have told me earlier so that I could get on with job hunting, I am so pissed off...!"??$&^Q?. Maurro is mighty pissed off because I was flirting with god, and he is the most immature, little boy of a 26-year old I've ever met. Those italians.... why did I give him my numbner again..??shit... ...
Tuesday 1 Nov // Venue: Mi casa
Event: I am procrastinating. British Council work can sort itself out. I'll go in when I feel like it. Because otherwise I will feel like throwing a fucking tantrum. Man, job hunting again????????
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| ((reflective note: sometimes I am so capricious! The last entry was a lukewarm description of my job, and two weeks later I am enthusiastically loving it... ))
I have been living mindlessly (not v good for a Buddhist!) for the past two weeks as this new job consumes all my energy, in a good way. I can understand now why ppl eat at their desk - But I still don't do it. As manager of a couple of programmes I am busy organizing a seminar, and keeping my eye on two ongoing projects 1) Developed Countries Programme) and 2) the Developed Countries Young Creative Entrepreneurs.
It all descends into communication-frenzy with mails coming in every second, international phone calls, catching trains to various parts of the UK for meetings and visits, trying to call meetings with my boss Andrew Senior whenever I catch him and making sure I don't forget anything i've written down on my four 'to do list's. hehe.. when I describe it like that it sounds like it is overwhelming, but it hasn't been yet. When I get a chance to catch myself, I feel so grateful that I'm in a job that I really appreciate, that I enjoy, that I feel challenged by, that I believe in!
William and I met up last week, with my flatmate Jemma. He's matured a lot and it felt comforting to know that people in our class, however well they are doing, will always remember you. I hope this applies to all, and not just me, but I am always going to be there and interested in whatever my classmates are doing...
IT's a saturday morning, and I have no idea what I am doing up at this ungodly hour (10.00am) when I should be sleeping off all the champagne Hannah and Jisun and I drank last night. I decided I had to recreate a lounge in my living room, as none of my friends can afford HKD150 per cocktail, and I don't want to pay through the nose like that either! So a ?5 trip to Habitat, a florist and Tescos later - voila, my living room is cosy, lit with tea lights, little coffee table (cardboard box covered with ashy green table cloth) and cute flower arrangement.. nice wine glasses (it's Greta on the Habitat website Mel and Candice, in case you are interested!) .. It was a good night, and made me think of all my HK friends who I would have really liked to have been there.. one day we'll do this in HK too!
sigh... it was a magnum bottle of laurent perrier which I was given on finishing work with the London Design Festival. It was fab, but more so bc I was sitting around with friends and chatting away... we scared ourselves talking about ghosts, more specifically korean ghosts, but we still have not managed to understand the meaning of life though.. so..
now I am going to try to tidy up the explosion of food that is my living room. aiyah. and try to live a little more mindfully!
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| I don't know how many girls would agree, but reading The Bell Jar feels like you're reading a piece of something you would have written yourself. I just think the way she writes makes you feel like your reading your own personal history in her work.. as if her writing is a mirror, and the words are like the reflection of yourself. I swear that book kinda freaked me out, until the second half, when she starts to go a bit..... and then I thought, well, at least I didn't turn out that way. But sometimes, I wonder if Mr Leach was right, that intelligent people border on the insane.....
Anyway... have started work at the British Council now, after a whirlwind of a champagne-cocktail-filled party circuit month! It's all finally over and what I have left to show of it is a pair of raccoon eye bags, black lungs and a lot of paper cuts on my hands (packing and unpacking all those fucking press bags). But now it's all over... and it's kind of sad. I had the best working environment ever - based next to the Sorrell Foundation (who do amazing work with design in schools), in this converted old school with massively high ceilings, painted off-white, with a tantilizingly hygienic Italian stainless steel communal kitchen/bar area - and 6 toilets for the 18 people that work on our open-plan floor.... The huge windows overlook regenerated and trendy Clerkenwell, and the smell of Lavazza Italian roast coffee wafts through the iBook and PowerBook and iPod populated desks. I swear it was my idea of office paradise.. sigh..
Then I remember where I really work now - British Council and it feels like a sharp smack in the face. It's a nice place, and the people are very friendly - but it feels more like an organization, where things are getting done (and you can't download music). Everyone's typing away at their desk, which they don't leave even to eat lunch. What are we, in an investment bank? Come on people, you can eat lunch outside. At least I do, I'm always going for an hour-long walk in St James' Park or around Covent Garden etc.. I guess it's a good central location. And it's nice that I know the people that work in Trafalgar Hilton Hotel - it's nice when they give me free drinks anyway.
It would be nice to have a permament job with the BC though, just for the job security. After a while, I realise that it's all very well to have ambitions and keep searching for that perfect job, but sometimes I think I have to just compromise a little and settle. Maybe it's like my flatmate said, I have this ideal that I strive for, but it's like the eternal diminishing point in a picture - i'll never ever get there. Because as soon as it seems like I'm close, I'll look up and realise the diminishing point goes on forever and ever because it's a relative, not an absolute... I hate the idea of just settling for something, I hate that I feel like I have to compromise - I never feel like I've had to do that before, but maybe that's why I'm not so successful in things I do... If I learnt to be satisfied with less and gaining less then maybe I would be happier in life. But I don't know if I like the sound of that either - why should I compromise on what I want? Or is what I want excessive anyway? .......
So, 23 and realising not only that Hollywood celebrities are younger than me, but people think I am older than I am (thanks to this haircut). I am really ambivalent about this haircut - it's short so I think it looks different, and I think I look good in it, but on the other hand, everyone now thinks i'm in my LATE twenties.... (where are the wrinkles?!?!!) Ed, you must learn the art of fine-botox, I might need it soon.
God, I miss you HK guys... I wish you were all here to hang out and chill. Mel's gone, Candice left ages ago as did Lizzy, and London just isn't the same without the oh-so-slightly ditzy HK girls who have shoe fetishes, hell, clothes fetishes, bouts of brownie baking frenzy and cocktails with really long titles...... Hel is having the time of her life. And Ed, I think you're investing time now so that you'll be very very happy later on in life. If you believe in karmic principles, then you'd see that you may be suffering now, labouring to do a lot of work, but when you are qualified and the studies are over, you'll be bearing the fruits of all that labour. It's a bit like that phrase, so ye sow so shall ye reap. I can't remember where that was from, Tess of d'Urbervilles? or The Mill on the Floss? or Great Expectations? anyway, it's stuck with me since FIS.
So here's to sticking with it, working hard, trying to achieve high goals (but maybe not setting them so high in the first place), and indulging my stiletto and cocktail fetish for as long as I can before I go bankrupt or corrupt - whichever comes first! | | |
| i started work at the london design festival today! v exciting! ppl are v nice..
www.londondesignfestival.com
also, I have officially become a grandmother - am too lazy to go out, instead stay in and just vege 24/7...
i didn't get the bloomberg job, and i'm glad. the women who interviewed me weren't my type. :P | | |
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