i love mysteries. when i have time i should really get down to reading all the agatha christies. anyhow, last night we went to lester's and we played the orient express! i think i like watching people solve the mystery a lot better than i actually like playing the game myself - i was simply dying to flip over the reconstruction card. especially since i'd had a rather long day chained to my computer -

the following conversation ensued in the car on the way home last night.

liz: oh chloe! you stay near valentino's! have you been there? (valentino's is this terribly expensive but "cosy homey oh so wonderful" italian restaurant, i'm SURE you've read about it in the papers. it's andrea de cruz' and pierre png's favourite restaurant)

chloe: no, it's too expensive

liz: oh but it's alright, you can bring your mum or your boyfriend or something you know, just once.

yonghong: HAHAHAHA! her boyfriend!! HAHAHA!

chloe: HAHAHA!! i have nothing, nothing, NOTHING (if i don't have you).

liz: what? what?

yonghong: she'll end up paying for her boyfriend lor. or they'll both end up washing dishes!! haha! and that's quite romantic what. she'll be like, jon, i have a soapsud in my eye.

chloe: yes, can you please take it out for me? oh! now i have MORE soapsuds in my eye because YOUR hands were soapy!

and the future of the legal service is in our hands.

i came to work extra early this morning so i could get my bsf homework done, and i picked up a cheese pancake and soyabean milk from jollibean at the arcade (opposite republic plaza, next to clifford centre). for $1.90 you get a regular douhua and pancake of your choice and for $2.00 you get an upsize douhua and pancake of your choice. the nice aunties tried to convince me to buy the $2.00 one but i told them i couldn't drink too much douhua or it would start coming out of my ears.

不能喝太多，喝太多会从耳朵出来。

bu neng he tai duo, he tai duo hui cong er duo chu lai.

it also doesn't help that there are three lousies currently on a bus to kl WITHOUT ME. fare thee well my merry men, and i hope jonong gets through.

there's nothing i'd rather be doing now than sleeping. then i'd wake up to a lunch of instant noodles with ntuc chicken and whatever vegetable's in the fridge, play the piano, watch some tv. go for a run or swim perhaps. i hope i never get so used to being chained to my computer that i forget how lovely it is to be outdoors; visiting the sunset whenever it catches my fancy or looking at the clouds and stars. the night sky's been really clear of late, have you noticed?

what i'm currently doing now is preparing to draft alterations to some company's memorandum and articles.

i almost cried last night - okay, i did tear - because of the 9 o'clock show. note how we've taken to calling all chinese serials at nine the 9 o'clock show. it's a very singaporean thing. just say "did you watch the 9 o'clock show?" and whoever you're talking to will instantly know what you're talking about. chances are they grew up watching all your old favourites, like xing ah lang and jing zen tou - and professed undying support for either zoe tay or fann wong at some point.

i staunchly professed adoration for fann wong - you could never support both. besides, when i was ten, the father of my friend staying across the road said i looked like her.

my favourite caldecott hill actress is currently huang biren. she deserves a hong xing da jiang for her role in this 9 o'clock show.

zhichao and the tree, and the flip-flop theory part 2

there's perfect sleep weather today. or running weather, whichever you like.

you know what's worse than doing data-entry? data-entry in chinese, particularly when the handwriting of those who filled up the forms is totally illegible. but there are perks. because i had to help _____ do this, i moved to a proper room with a window and a view. and it's lovely, the sky's my favourite slate-bluegrey and towards the horizon there's a band of some greyish-orangey yellow colour.

***

i'd wanted to blog about my first week interning over the weekend but blogger was down. as it is, there're now twenty minutes to lunch but i'll try to talk about everything which happened. i'm into my second week at _______ now, and zhichao keeps telling me he wants next week to come. ostensibly because he wants to finish the internship but really because he's worried about results.

potted plants, indeed. i'm sure it was a tree (don't you just hate these cryptic things people write about on blogs).

also, josh has joined us. he sms-ed me yesterday when he was in the meeting room waiting to sign the confidentiality agreements: omg i got lost in the lift!

***

we walked past a spinelli's outlet on the way back to the office on wednesday; i love the smell of coffee, and the look of chocolate cake in those glass display things. dark, rich, glossy. i think i like them so much because they look very neat, especially when they're topped with little marshmallows, and/or pieces of chocolate moulded into flowers, fans.

coffee smells better than it tastes. you think? i was telling zhichao on our second day - and he was the first person i actually admitted it to - that i don't drink coffee because it's very bitter without sugar and milk, and sugar and milk is fattening. i only ever have kopi-c-kosong when i'm in dire need of a caffeine boost.

the coffee from the coffee machine in the office is pretty good, but it's got a slightly metallic taste. i tried some for jon's sake, because he needs it. i also like cappucinos with milk and no sugar, but i think that's beyond the capabilities of the coffee machine.

***

i think, like marigold did, we all feel glad at some point of time that other people cannot know what we're thinking. at a board meeting last friday i could barely hear what one of the directors was saying in heavily Korean accented english. the director, dandruff visible in the hair just above his part, kept fidgeting in his seat. bet the rest of them weren't listening either, but thinking about tea.

board meetings are boar-ing!

i've also decided that people hold shares so they can eat. they feed you very well at extraordinary general meetings. i suppose there are monetary benefits in the form of dividends but the food comes more often, plus it's FREE!

***

i believe that the court shoes of the world (flats included, can you beat that?) have united to make my feet utterly and totally miserable. last week, four people suggested three ways for me to make them happier.

1. cherissa (the year three intern) and mui kheng told me i should bite any new shoes... so they won't bite you back. according to mui kheng this REALLY WORKS.

verdict: i haven't tried it, and i don't intend to. haha.

2. the turtle, in typical teenage mutant male fashion, told me to wear socks. he even offered me a white pair.

verdict: dude, no.

3. hannah from my bsf group told me to slather my feet in moisturiser. confirm won't get blisters one.

verdict: this works! and best of all, my feet are happy and smell nice.

of course i would say just change the dress code, and let everyone wear flip flops to work.

but i figured (during the board meeting i spoke of) that there's no point changing the system, because it's just one of those things. like how tea ladies and garbage collectors get paid so little even though they do so much. it's just the way the world's turned out. there HAS to be this division between work-wear and casual clothing.

the following is of course totally untrue (as zhichao will testify, seeing as he was looking at shoes online) but jon said that for guys it's very simple: they have shoes which make noise and shoes which don't.

still, he has a point. if we started classifying things that way, maybe we could have flip-flops as work-wear. like you can wear flip-flops which don't make noise for work, and flip-flops which do out of work.

i TOLD you about board meetings already, right?