Consumerism: These are a few of my favourite things

1. Abercrombie & Fitch: The uberfussy shopper in me has finally been satisfied, trust it to be a sea, sand, and surf-type brand. Their clothes fit the strange proportions of my body by some stroke of genius in design and fabric. I can't wait to go back there in search of a perfect pair of jeans, and maybe flip flops, and that polka dot bikini, and a hoodie maybe...The next step in my diabolical plan is to set up an A&F pusher who lives in the land of half-priced American clothing with access to a post office and my eternal gratitude - any takers?
   
2. Boulevard Deli, Covent Garden: The most amazing roast chicken sandwich lives here. Half a roast chicken, hand-smashed and deboned, stuffed into a soft, freshly baked bun on a bed of lettuce and tomato with any sauce you can think of. The best part is that you can get two whole meals out of that one sandwich. There's a roast pork and crackling version that has Aron obsessing while he works on his due diligence. The anticipation of lunch time suddenly got a lot worse.
   
3. Sony Ericsson's W910i: The feel of the sliding screen is like a cup of Max Brenner's hot chocolate, I can't stop thinking about it. I'm still trying to justify the ownership of said instrument on the back of a phone plan that I don't really need at the moment. Weng doesn't really buy 'But when you slide it open...phwooaoh...' and he's a Nokia fanboy so everything else is crap.
   
4. Book shopping on Amazon: Even though Cheryl always beats me to opening my delivery (and sometimes tries to stick the box back together), there's nothing more exciting than coming home to a delivery of books that you'd totally forgotten about ordering. Since you don't engage in the physical act of handing over cash or card to pay, and we all know that entering credit card details online isn't really paying, it's almost like Christmas.
5. My Birkenstocks: I've wanted a pair for the longest time, but how can you spend almost RM250 of your parents' money on a pair of slippers? So I went out and a pair on my November paycheck (London prices put everything in a totally different context), in the middle of winter, and I haven't looked back since, even if I have had to wait almost three months for the right weather.
   

Let's go boil the ocean

I've had a run of really unstructured projects. How does one manage to be proactive and value-add when you're not sure what you're supposed to be adding-value to? Clients always want to get more than what they paid for.

I walked to the tube station this morning at around 7.20 thinking the only thing good about really early starts is that the tube will be really empty, I mean who goes to work before 8am? As it turns out, quite a lot of people.

I've also realised that I suffer from tourist rage. I hate tourists that get out of the train, and stop. get out of the lift and stop. get to the top of the stairs, and stop. Wander onto the busiest street corner and STOP. IN THE MIDDLE. gah.

Time for...baby clothes!

A few months ago - 6 to be exact, I received an email congratulating me on conceiving and telling me that my baby is the size of a peanut. Thereafter, I've been receiving regular reports comparing the developing fetus to various bits of fruit and vegetable and remarking on the development of fingernails and eyelashes. Apparently now it's big enough to wear baby clothes.

For those who know me, I have the maternal instincts of a steak knife. Little children and babies smell the fear and sense the anxiety and start screaming - bless their God-given survival instincts. Good thing Weng has enough nurturing talent for the both of us, he's like a kiddie magnet - little girls fall in love with him and little boys try to head butt his favorite parts when they rush in for a bear hug.

I'm not sure where I'm going with this post. It's late, I'm hungry (how much air can a being digest?) and I'm still at the office, trying to help with damage control on a project scope that's threatening to condense six months of work into ten days. Then there's that 7am memo review tomorrow, face to face.

Bring on the booties and jumper suits, I say.

No, joking only lah.

Everyday should be a Friday

Now that I've finally stopped procrastinating on getting things in line for the International Firm Day weekend (but only because I was procrastinating on something even worse and it wasn't studying), I'm excited.

I'm also thinking about all the summer wear I get to buy in anticipation of Spanish sunshine. Weng would probably read this and roll his eyes, because my shopping success rate is something like 5%., which doesn't make for highly efficient time use. Knowing my luck though, the rains will come rolling in that weekend, effectively ending the drought and any hopes of a tan.

On the topic of spending scary amounts of money, it's a toss up between a tote that'll hold my laptop and everything else I need or a Wii. I haven't found a bag that doesn't look like it doubles up as a windbreak or costs less than my conscience allows. Weng might have a hard time sharing the Wii considering his current savings strategy is to put 70% of his pay away, and Cheryl owes money if anything.

Cheryl has reached all new lows: stressing about not stressing. Being a student is pretty overrated at times.

Anyway, I'm off to happy hour. 15 minutes late, the wine isn't going to drink itself!

Monday once again

I think Pret completely abuses its position as the lunchtime go-to for stressed, unimaginative professionals, but it does include very cute extendable chopsticks with its sushi boxes.

I seem to have developed a very strange allergy to something spring-time that manifests as a large, angry hive-looking lump under my eye.

My laptop backpack is far from chic, and being the only chest-high tortoise on the tube during rush hour is very embarrassing.

The warm weather is great for romantic, billowy skirts and gladiator sandals, but less so for the corporate look - conscious efforts to avoid sweating only accelerates the process.

I felt bad not wanting to go and watch Iron Man with Weng, and he's so excited about the movie, so we're going tonight.

I'm still thinking about the space between the trees. Rob Bell's Nooma series on how Christianity relates to life is probably the most effective teaching tool I've ever tried. I usually struggle to pay attention to, much less remember, these things for any longer than 11 minutes (which is how long the clip lasted). Miracles do happen, it seems.

Three inches of heel and two inches of sunshine

Second day in a small, windowless room, sitting at a dining table from the 80s, 10 meters away from floor to ceiling views of St. Paul's cathedral on the River Thames. The printer averages a page every 5 minutes, or 2-to-a-page every 10. It too is obviously a throwback from a similar decade. Our 3G cards struggle to work in sync with our email clients, the latest failure of one or both announced with a soft tired sigh of resignation. We threaten to turn in our malfunctioning laptops with a well aimed rant, but also know the humiliation when it purrs like a kitten for those in tech. Yet we persevere, typing up minutes in Power Point, diligently taking notes as the interviewee sits there deciding whether telling us the truth will get him fired. Thank goodness it's Friday tomorrow, thank goodness for Scala pasta sauce and canned sardines.

On other more positive fronts, I finally made it to Alpha. I even sacrificed watching Liverpool's valiant exit from the Champion's League, but it was all that the testimonies promised and so much more. It hadn't even properly started yet (although Weng made every effort to answer everyone's questions), but I left refreshed and am eagerly awaiting next week's talk. Our other achievement this week was that we beat insane DoTA AIs 2 vs 2. Oh, geekdom.