GOING TO AUSTRALIA IN ABOUT 12 HOURS WOOHOO! NO MORE INTERSHIPS! and i'm gonna be talking nonsense with stella and abi for the next five days.

AND. jon i've got your ic number, you already verbally OFFERED to run ahm when you get back from the states and i ACCEPTED and by giving me your ic number that was CONSIDERATION. maybe i should make you pass me the fees. . . but whatever it is there's a valid contract. i'm signing US up when i get back from australia. becauase you said so, at the very beginning. please everyone remind him that his paunch is getting big enough to warrant a separate passport when he travels.

hopefully there'll be updates and photos cause turtle'll be away (yeah right, i'm how lazy. plus my name is not chang yalan and i do not photo-whore in foreign countries, i take pictures of SCENERY which no one likes to look at).

ok if you want krispy kremes just sms me. mag and yalan have entreated me to buy back one box, as has spoon. personally i think they're too sweet for anyone's good.

i never gave much thought before, to how it must be like to be Married to my father.

he's an Ordinary guy: civil servant; constantly complaining about his job (which civil servant doesn't, you tell me?). still, i'm quite sure he secretly enjoys it because it gives him the flexibility, not to mention the funding, to carry out his crackpot schemes. of course, there's only one person who thinks his schemes are crackpot. although i'm beginning to realise that my father is fighting Time, which is gradually beginning to leave him behind. and it's strange because he embraces some aspects of change whole-heartedly (read: amazon.com) and obstinately rejects others, driving us to extreme exasperation.

i used to Think that this other one person was rather unreasonable: didn't quite know how to relax, couldn't see things from my father's perspective, gave him an earful too often, always thought he had crackpot schemes. and i became afraid that i'd become exactly like that when i got married, in the future. naggy, constantly annoyed.

but i've come to see things from Her perspective, especially in the past three weeks, and i've come to realise that i shouldn't be afraid to become like her because she's not really a cannot-chillax person, neither is she genuinely bad-tempered and impatient.

of course, she's not Everything that i want to be, but i don't think i know anyone who wants to be exactly like their parents. more like we're the sum of our parents, the product of our upbringing, the whole of ourselves.

thanks for everything, mummy. for loving daddy Regardless of the fact that he's a Class A Dinosaur - the worst kind, one of those who refused to leave the island even when the volcano began erupting (or however they died) - and messy, to boot.

happy belated father's day, to both of you. :)

i've got to find a way to tell my dad not to take her for granted: Married (to you), Ordinary, (but) Think Her Everything Regardless.

i went for lunch with bowei today. it's been six years (imagine that!) since we last talked properly, after our rather tragic and traumatic (on my part) break-up. hurhur. i remember sean saying at that time that we'd (bowei and i) meet up when we were older and working, drive up in our cool cars to some kopitiam somewhere and have breakfast. well, so it wasn't breakfast and we weren't driving but today's lunch came pretty close la, i think.

it was quite funny, thinking back on all that drama and emotion. i told him straight to his face that we lost contact cause i made up my mind to hate you for the rest of my life - you were damn bastard to me!!. and we burst out laughing because it was true (that he was damn bastard to me) but it didn't matter anymore. and we agreed that after all, it takes two hands to clap. i wasn't exactly very nice to him either la.

he bought me wanton mee from the wonder mee at amoy street today. the char siew was lovely, charred and chunky.

he's still chubby (time for plastic surgery, dude! he admitted that he needs it too), and i'm really happy for him because he's with one of the sweetest girls i know. i finally got my peculiar remedies cd back (bet you can't find it anywhere already) and i also told him to go search for miscellaneous other items that i would like to see back in my possession - he very willingly obliged.

:D

the point is, two very nice boys have bought me lunch this week so far, and NEITHER OF THEM WAS NAMED JON LAU. horrors!

but then i heard this song on the radio just now, when i was doing e-filing (finally, a productive day at the office).

we even got a secret handshake
and she loves the music that my band makes
and i know you heard the last song
about the girls that didn't last long
but i promise this is on a whole new plane
i can tell by the way she says my name
- cupid's chokehold, gym class heroes.

aw i'm so sweet right. sometimes i think i'll have to give myself diabetes because jon'll never do anything that sugary-sweet inducing.

of course, this internet server being government linked, they've blocked quite a few sites - but pictures as well?! i can't believe it. they've blocked all the pictures on gofugyourself and EVERYONE knows you can't read gofugyourself properly unless you have pictures.

unsurprisingly, yahoo games has also been blocked. besides wanting to play the next ravenhearst mystery and online bridge, i also wanted to try dream day wedding. get some good vibes going in the office, after seeing one too many marriage certificates being stapled onto file covers with reckless abandon. don't need already, what. so don't care lor. dog ears, staple holes. maybe things would've been better if they'd had a wedding planner.

i've decided that don't look back in anger is about a guy cheating on his girlfriend because he's really pissed off with her.

i'll never forget that article in life! where liam (or noel?) said he didn't know what the hell the song was about sally?? who's sally?

jon insisted that the gallagher brothers were lying, because they just had to, to maintain oasis' image. i don't know, no one will ever know. but the song's playing in the office now because one of the legal assistants has her radio on all day, and it's one of my all-time oasis favourites the other one being sunday morning call. which no one has ever heard because i don't think it's been released on radio here and jon says it's just weird because they have this whole nahnahnahnah bit.

anyhow, i've decided that don't look back in anger's about an affair because -

and so, sally can wait
she knows it's too late as we're walking on by
her soul slides away
but don't look back in anger
i heard you say

so sally's the girl who treated her boyfriend really badly, and he was really hurt and decided to up and go, get together with another girl. but of course he really loved sally, see, so he can't forget her. or rather he can't forget how much she hurt him, made him angry, ruined his life, treated him like a dog (hurhur. private joke, about dogs. don't you just hate it when people blog this way), in short, he was DOMINATED.

and then sally realises he was the only guy who'd ever put up with her nonsense but it's too late because he's passing her by.

of course this is just some post lunch rambling, you don't have to take me too seriously. especially since i'm still high on the coffee i had this morning.

***
i smsed cass today because i found out something about _______ and _____ on facebook and i was like omg cass how come _______ and _____ are together??? and because she's all the way in sunshine florida of course she's not going to reply because it's just plain gossip and you don't waste money gossiping. smses from the states must be about 80+ cents?

but it's so strange! and i was reading _____'s blog, about the past, and it's strangely comforting yet horrifying to realise that girls more or less experience the same things when they start dating too young. i remember feeling terribly, dreadfully and awfully alone when i was 15, when i was 17 - looking back, i'd never wish that kind of trauma on anyone else. it scars you for a pretty long time, i think, unless you manage to surrender it to God completely and SOON. doesn't scar you for life, because you can fall in love again, but still.

and i wonder sometimes how many of us actually do, or have the chance to. yes, i suppose it's the thought that there might be girls out there who never have the chance to that upsets me. and the saddest thing about it all is that i think, for girls like me and you, to be able to withstand so much trauma at such a young age, we're the ones who can love, totally completely and unconditionally. or can all girls? maybe, i wouldn't know.

don't suppose it's as bad as pain caused by your family, but still - that's the kind of thing that really scars you for life la. so i don't think we've had it so bad, after all.

***
okay this post is going to be full of "______" because i really should not name the people i'm talking about. so this morning i saw _____ on the bus and subsequently the train to work and i was busy smsing jon about how she was so hot and i could like so totally die at that instant (to quote yalan: faints nosebleed and die NOW) then i realised her bum wasn't very nice. so i was telling him about how God was fair, and see la if you don't exercise and starve yourself to stay skinny your bum becomes a funny shape.

there i was, smirking about how i have a nice bum (hahaha!! as if!!) because i run a lot. and then i caught sight of it in the sliding doors of the train and realised it looked awful in my skirt because my skirt's about a size too big for me. eh really okay, i'm not just making excuses.

anyway this is a very rambly and after-lunchy sort of post. too bad. i'm not in the mood to expend proper energy. yet. slightly less than a week to australia with abi to see lovely miss loong :) yay! and yalan's coming back from taipei todayyyy!!111!!!!

i've been randomly looking at people's pictures on blogs and facebook (i knock off in ten minutes!!) and i just have one thing to say:

JON LAU. WHY DON'T WE HAVE ANY PICTURES TOGETHER WHICH I CAN PUT ON MY BLOG(even though we're probably the two most unphotogenic people we know)? AND WHY YOU NEVER BUY ME ANY PRESENTS/FLOWERS SO I CAN TAKE MANY PICTURES OF THEM AND MAKE COLLAGE AND PUT ON MY BLOG (even though the day that happens i'll probably have a nervous breakdown followed by a heart attack)?

hurhurhur. :D

plus i hate uploading pictures. it takes a really long time. sorry guys, you're going to have to contend with my words and words and words words words -

i am too tired for words. but i just wanted to say that something very nice happened this week: i managed to undo the ribbons on my goldy bronzy ballet flats. aforesaid ribbons were making my shoes not as pretty as they could have been so it was a relief to find that they could acutally be removed.

we visited changi prison today, after landing on do not pass go, do not collect $200. and we went for lunch at changi village after, where i bought the green story book by enid blyton second-hand at cat's curios.

i'm rather worried that i'm going to feel like this when i start working, i.e., the overwhelming desire to self-declare coffee breaks. i had a break today around 1600 (tea time!)with a kit-kat chunky because my best friend visited today (FINALLY) and i was in dire need of chocolate.

against my wishes, i think i'm slowly transforming into a caffeine junkie. started off on freshly brewed iced lemon tea from maxwell road food centre last week, progressed to kopi-c-kosong yesterday, and i don't think i'm going to stop anytime soon.

i've read more about baking than i ever have in my life, these past few days with the legal service. whenever i feel guilty for switching windows because it's all taxpayers money (from microsoft word to infinitely more interesting cupcake/normal food recipes and wonderfully taken pictures of the finished products) i tell myself that i'm probably doing more than some of my friends did during ns.

also, i've almost reached the end - or the beginning, whichever way you look at it - of the night watch by sarah waters. thought i'd like it better than i do, but i think that's because i got through most of it in a week where i've seen more relationships fall apart than i ever have in my almost 21 years. so when helen finally decided to tell julia that she'd fallen for her, i began to hate her for hurting kay (yes, they're lesbians)as i already knew she had, because the book was written beginning with the future and ending with the past. and even though it was clear that reggie loved viv - viv being the character i like the most - i hated him for the fact that he was cheating on his wife to be with her. i suppose i expected more about the war, but it was mostly about relationships, and people. and they're tiring sometimes, really.

as administrative as administrative law
asinine similies (go on, pronounce it "similais" so it'll sound all matchy-matchy) is the name i've given to a game invented by the turtle and yuchang (cui lian's boyfriend). mind you, these boys were being groomed to run the country in the future - for some strange reason, they were even made to wear all-white uniforms which only served to further reflect their school's already thinly disguised intentions towards them.

anyhow, there was as courteous as a curtain and as annoying as an annoyance, and although shawn poon spent only two years in all-white, he came up with what i think's the best one of all, so far: as transparent as a transparency. which works, because it's the only one i think, that really makes sense. why don't you give the game a go?

as administrative as administrative law's my contribution; jon says it's just awfully annoying, but it came to me last night when we were at the airport seeing lukas off to japan and one of the chinese orchestra teachers was bustling around seeing to various administrative matters. which thought i had was rather out of point i suppose, but you get the idea.

today - yesterday, rather, i received the impact of administrative law first hand.

i think i've mentioned before that i'm currently a slave to the government. until the end of next week, anyway. but i realised that civil servants aren't actually slaves to the government. they ARE the government, and they're slaves to the people. what makes it worse is that there are different levels of civil servants, beginning at the top with the prime minister, who delegates work to people down the line and so on and so forth, all the way down to the lowliest clerks.

the people who have the least spark in their eyes as they jostle their way onto the train in the morning, who have to sit in rooms and record, word for word, what's being said in a particular courtroom, who prepare those endless sheafs of documents for filing, type data into computers, all day long. actually, i think even us interns don't have it so bad.

daniel (year 3 intern) and i had to attend a legal clinic with our mentor at four. lin wasn't around, so we didn't realise that it was on our schedule - she's usually the one who tells us what we're scheduled to do. at 3:50 our mentor came to look for us, and when we heard that we were leaving the office for the family courts we willingly did so, hoping that we'd be able to get off earlier.

fat chance. FREE legal advice leh. who don't want to make the best use of the time given? if can go over allotted time also, why not? after all, i pay tax what. the person in the room paid by ME, ohkay??.

even though i wasn't the one giving the advice, just being there in the room made me feel exploited on our very nice mentor's behalf. but more of that later.

***
i think i've been able to cope pretty well with things this week. when i was first taken to the family courts as a year 1 intern, i went home and cried because it was simply awful, realising that court rooms weren't just those wood-pannelled ones you saw in chinese shows where the accused sat in the docks, and lawyers slugged it out for the rich and famous or the poor and condemned. no, courtrooms came in all shapes and sizes, as did the plaintiffs and defendants. the worst thing was, i realised with horror that almost 95% of the people lounging about at the waiting area were waiting to finalise the dissolution of their marriages and they were simply milling about like they were on a trip to see the dentist. every so often, a policeman would pop his head around the doors of the court and yell for a particular person, just like a dentist's assistant would have. the sheer normality of the situation and its absurdity got to me then, as it did for my first few days at (insert name of the top secret government place i'm working at now).

but this week, when we went for a second round of uncontested divorce hearings, i brought lord seow along with me because he couldn't take being in his once-a-storeroom-no-windows room at the *********** courts (aiya put asterisks you also know where already). we sat there being rather guiltily voyeuristic, craning our necks every so often - we'd gotten lousy seats - to look at any party who seemed remotely interesting, from comments made by the judge. who was rather fiery, and probably made that morning in court extremely entertaining for many people there, the both of us included. and we'd make rude comments about the lawyers who couldn't speak properly, and he told me about how some of the written submissions he's read are terrible.

which led me to tell him that we should set up a law firm, just like HOH LAW CORPORATION. give the masses GOOD legal advice and service. when i told jon about it later that night, he suggested that we call it HOPE LAW CORPORATION. i think HOPE ought to be spelt HOHPE though.

alright, not funny.

but you catch my drift, right? i'm not becoming apathetic or anything, i'm just Getting Used to Grown Up Life and the fact that it's Just Like That. no matter that i felt Perfectly Awful at the end of last week, especially since the horrible truth began to dawn on me that being stupid and human, we'd actually chosen to take ourselves further and further away from paradise. which stupid and human thing to do began with adam (NOT EVE OKAY - but this is no time to get all feminist and start quibbling over this trivial matter).

so the next thing i think i'll have to get used to is being exploited by people, which is bound to happen in The Working World. and so i will pray for the strength and courage to face each day with grace. what's so daunting about that isn't so much that you could end up being treated as a doormat - which is a horrible feeling, even if you ultimately decide to stand up for yourself, which i probably would. what's daunting is the knowledge that you have to CHOOSE to want to treat everybody with respect and kindness. EVERYBODY, simply because Jesus did. it's a choice, really, with us, to pray and decide to put aside ill-feeling. like i said in the preceding paragraph, the horriblest thing is the knowledge that the choice lies with us, whether to pray and ask God to help us make what we instinctively know is the right thing to do (even more so when we're christians because the holy spirit dwells in us) or to just ignore Him and do otherwise.

we've chosen to distance ourselves from paradise, chosen ungrace, keep on choosing ungrace; how much more foolish can we get?


***
okay i think i'm starting to sound slightly ranty and disillusioned, but bear with me please. i'm ending soon.

i really do think these people need help, need someone to talk to, really. but i was selfishly thinking of myself and my scheduled run and the fact that the women who attended the clinic kept rattling on and on, milking their time with our mentor for all it was worth. she was even pressured, in the end, to dispense advice she wasn't even supposed to dispense. advice you should only have been getting from a lawyer representing you.

and that thought scares me, because next time i'll have to put up with these incessant questions, either because i'm being paid to answer them, or simply because i don't know when i should say no i cannot do this for you - and when i do, it's too late.

and then i'm tired and exahusted and i want everyone around me to shut up because in that frame of mind i become convinced that what they need is a good spanking and nothing else. and it'll be then that someone comes along, who won't exploit any form of human kindness because they just don't know how to, these people who really need someone to represent them, i'll be grouchy and unhappy and i'll make all the excuses i want to myself about pms and hormones, about having things of my own to do.

but i think the fact of the matter's that it all comes down to basic human kindness and whether we're willing to invest in other people. and not mind, even if they exploit your kindness and take it for granted. because it does make a difference, albeit a small one, and even if we only make a difference to one person's life, it'll be well worth it. we've talked about this, jon and i, and he's right. if we haven't got our idealism, what else do we have?

how tiring i am.

***
the first person who came to see us today at the legal clinic was pretty, in a rather old-school chinesey sort of way. she was dressed in a black fila polo t-shirt, khaki pants, and she even wore one of those canvas belts with metal rimmed holes. but if you'd given her a nice cheongsam, did her hair up a bit, she'd have been as pretty as a picture, even though she must have been approaching her mid-fifties.

she spoke quietly, politely, came straight to the point as best she could, in broken english. she talked about how her husband had many ladies, doing her best to keep her voice even. but everytime she said ladies or other lady - usually preceded by i don't think i want to stay married to him any longer because he has or other words to that effect - the tip of her nose turned red, along with the rims of her eyes, and tears gathered in them although they never quite fell. and when she said those words, lady, ladies, there was an ever-so-slight trace of bitterness in her tone, an asking, wasn't i good enough? her broken english made the whole thing harder to bear, somehow. and her use of those words - she couldn't even bring herself to say girlfriend. lady, ladies; as if they were somehow better than her because her husband had chosen them. and she didn't want to initiate divorce proceedings too soon, just in case they had to move out of the matriomonial flat and her daughter's studying for a levels would be disrupted.

she left after fifteen minutes or so, the stipulated time for all attendees.

***
one shouldn't leave undergraduate female interns with files containing details of all the hdb eligibility requirements (usually there because divorcees need to re-apply for flats if the matrimonial home is sold), especially undergraduate female interns who can be bothered to search in the entire thick stack of papers for - alright, i shan't continue. not that i've been bothered to do so, though. i can see jon making his eyes glaze over and purposely seeing "page not found."

i'm feeling rather sad and sleepy today, and i don't quite know why. perhaps it's just pms, or a lack of sleep. it probably is.

for some strange reason (and because i know adele's reading this) even though we barely know each other save through random facebook wall conversations (some in chinese, nonetheless) i want her to come home to singapore so we can kbox and watch mobtv. haha. although knowing how lazy we all are, it's unlikely to happen. dude you can plan them okay. i'll just drag myself out of the house.

it's just a mad, sad world and i want to sleep.

just got back from lunch, and i ate $2.50 wanton mee and had a lim kee banana fritter. the wanton mee was fantastic, great value for money - lovely little wantons bursting with filling, fat enough slices of charsiew - but it was marred by the fact that there was no vinegar. i think the auntie was bluffing me, how can a noodle stall have no vinegar?

also gave in and tried the lim kee banana fritter. not bad, though rather overrated. problem was the bananas weren't ripe enough so they didn't have that sweet mushiness i like.

they've blocked most of yahoo games so i can't even play bridge online, and i can't seem to add the movies function to my profile on facebook so i can't go around talking about movies. how very annoying.

i've been here three days and i've already fallen in love with the food at maxwell food centre. i had a mid-morning snack of ondeh-ondeh (absolutely lovely and light, skin was the right texture, not too hard or chewy) and soyabean (not mr bean. i'd never betray jollibean - and anyway, the hawkers who make it themselves always make it the best). there's ming chiang kueh here which was given a two bowl rating by makansutra, and a shop selling biscuits where i bought a pack of those light-as-air chocolate wafer biscuits. marks and spencer's cookies (you know which law firm provides them, don't you?) will never compare to these, from those huge golden tins marked khong guan. the taste of childhood, a reminder of who we are.

i suppose i should write about how depressingly government my new office looks, with its huge charts depicting the different levels of hierachy in the office, the newspaper articles on "how much this service has helped me" tacked on to every cubicle wall. i could write about how depressing it is, going to the family court and seeing five divorces granted in twenty minutes; imagining the pain and trauma all these people must be going through - and some of them will never recover, it's pretty obvious. i can see it in their tear stained, vacant eyes. we weren't made to cry this much, tears were meant for other things, like getting grit and dirt out of your eye.

but no, i think you'd rather hear about food, won't you?

there's also a shortcut to amoy street food centre from this place. i should be trying the wanton mee from maxwell soon, stay tuned.

it was reassuring, having jon place his hand gently over mine and say, softly, it's just twenty-one. and in the middle of newton hawker centre on a late public holiday night, the too-loud and too-brash voices trying to make themselves heard over the din faded away and for that moment, feeling the warm weight of his palm on my hand, everything was right with the world.

it's just twenty-one. reassurance for the days when Being All Grown Up looms closer than ever before, and it's not going to be the time of Growing Up anymore and it scares, terrifies me. reassurance, like the feeling you get when you find that you're pleased and able to smile broadly to yourself at the simplest things, like the smell of chai tau kueh on the air-conditioned bus, packaged in those ubiquitous bright orangey-red plastic bags we know so well, held by an auntie you can't bear to curse silently at for being inconsiderate - besides, it's quite a nice smell, actually. or finding the last xs ice-cream with a smiley face shirt in esprit, being scolded at the age of twenty by the station control master for eating in the mrt station excuse me miss, the sign is very big there ah, no eating okay? (but i was awfully hungry). or, after being scolded by ian for failing my basic theory evaluation, finding out that after adele failed her basic theory test she simply gave up driving, finding out that jon failed his evaluation too.

i'll get through it, through twenty-two, twenty-three, fifty-two, seventy-five - maybe even ninety, perhaps. and God will be with me as He's been before.