I've moved!

It's been fun, blogger, but we're here now

http://ruyen.posterous.com/

The road home

Weekend with the parents

Tea at Fortnum's

Rainy day dim sum

Victor of the dog's affections for the day

Sleepover!

Thursday is the new Friday

W: You have compulsive reporting disorder, you need to tell your mother everything...

- on my need to tell my mother everything

P: So your brother has a tiger mother and a tiger sister, huh? Poor sod."

- on how I help prepare my brother for the real world

C: Mum is really excited about the cars!

A: There are really nice ones in the lobby of my building

C: No, Mum only likes the ones with eyes

- on the Disney Cars cartoon mock ups at the Motorexpo in Canary Wharf

M: So what's the bet?

A: Mum, it's Monopoly Deal..

- on playing Monopoly Deal

AV woes

Why aren't these things plug and play? I'm starting to tire of the same unhelpful blue screen that presents itself. That baleful and unrelenting colour returns every time I dive into the mass of wires, resetting, connecting and disconnecting in every configuration imaginable. Even my TV is fed up of me furiously, and I mean furiously, flicking through all of its inputs and modes that it's stuck on ATV and refuses to budge. I was reminded of how little sympathy Weng has on 6 hours of sleep when he wryly commented that it simply expedites the new TV process. My team mate at work merely asked if I had read the instructions -_- I'm so unclued-up on AV stuff that I didn't even know how to start Googling the issue.

So, under much stress and emotional distress, I resorted to basic consulting instincts and threw Visio at it in an attempt to impose order on the chaos. I'll see if my new, tidy schematic will help me tonight, otherwise I'm calling the cavalry.

Update: Visio clearly works, the PS3 and amp is online! Now for the finicky challenge of the BT box...

Consulting101: wireless networking

Easy Sunday

We've started to add touches of green to our apartment - fingers crossed for germination and baby seedlings over the next week or so. We've compromised on chillies, flowers, tomatoes and no fake grass.

And then some tennis with the crew. Ice cream and strawberries, anyone?

Nesting, much?

Our new home is almost there sans blinds and beds - two fairly crucial bits of furnishing if you're a) not planning on waking up with the sun (now rising at 5.30am, thereby negating my wakeupyou'remildlydepressed clock) and, b) if you don't like sleeping in the draft.

I cannot believe what a joy it is to come home to a view and a shiny new flat - so bright that you have to squint at the T.V. (which is now too small!) from the hours of 4pm to 7pm. We still need things like paintings and plants and pictures and an extra armchair and a bench and folding chairs and a some new lamps, but that's ok, at least we have internet now.

I think we're due a first clean soon even though I've been neurotic with spills and fingerprints... I might fall a tiny bit out of love then.

Our new home

A toe in the water

Let's give this a shot. Blog resurrection take #1.

I'm on the verge of adulthood, or in the midst of it. It's hard to tell because it's a fierce battle between the reality of things such as my 26th birthday, recently passed, and the things below, and adolescent denial.

1) Four weddings, four more weddings and eight engagements

My Facebook feed is choc-a-bloc with beautiful pictures of brides to be, grooms to be, brides and grooms, and congratulatory messages. I sigh and aww very loudly at rings and happy couples, but then chicken out when Weng says to go and get my finger sized.

2) Findaproperty

We are jumping onto the property ladder with the help of my parents' massive generosity. It is a mind numbingly large amount of money, which we'll pay back of course, but still, a huge amount of money to owe for a significant amount of time i.e. most of our lives.

3) What do you want to do with your career?

What? I have a 'career'? Apparently it's no longer ok to say, 'I dunno, I'll figure it out when I get older', because I am. now. old. and I needed to know, like, a month ago, when I was supposed to have submitted my 'development plan' for the year with my carefully balanced and considered ambitions. To that point, what ambitions?

4) The noobs are SO YOUNG

They're like my brother's year. My brother is still picking his nose and eating it in my head, not nearly old enough to hold down a real job...geez.

The only upside of getting older? I can (just about) afford a lavish 2 week holiday to Peru this autumn. Woohoo!

Q2 2010 cheat sheet

March saw my birthday come and go, marked with 10 of my nearest and dearest crammed into our tiny living room, playing Buzz the entire night. We're a competitive bunch. I almost forgot that I was struggling with a bad cold the whole night.

Aaron and Young made the trip down and we aboslutely love it when they do because it means we can whip out SingStar first thing in the morning, and what's better than SingStar in your PJs?

April brought Just Dance to the See-Lee household, introducing even more minutes of hilarity, and I say minutes because that game is actually really tiring and we're really not particularly fit or coordinated.

April also brought Weng's brother to London for his annual visit ('because Cambridge is FAR, okay?') and we decided to venture down to Greenwich.

And then he turned 21 at some point during one of our Settlers of Catan marathons (we played that game over and over and over), so we stopped to whip out a Gu brownie, clotted cream, and requisite candle. Apparently, it's not a good idea to put a wax candle in a hot chocolate brownie.

May flew by in a flurry of job interviews, visits from relatives, birthdays, and Matlab training (yes, I got the t-shirt and everything), as well as a long overdue visit to Hampton Court Palace.

June rolled around with the highly anticipated (and highly televised) World Cup, (Ferragamo sale!!1!!), Wimbledon, and what I expect to be a grossly overblown electricity bill for the month. I think our TV needs to rest.

I think that brings us to now.

Old and forgetful

My day went a little like this:

Got dressed, packed for work and netball afterwards, and left the house. Sat down at my desk and opened the drawer where my laptop usually lives and it was nowhere to be found. Cue forehead-smacking moment #1. Went all the way home again to get it.

Smoothie time came around and I stood at my desk checking I had enough money then made for the lift lobby. As the lift dinged at Ground, I realised I hadn’t taken the right purse-thing (i.e. no cash), forehead-smacking moment #2, so immediately went straight back upstairs.

Grabbed the correct purse, thought ‘Aha! Needed to bank that cheque anyway’, and merrily went on my way without my security pass. Forehead-smacking moment #3: Realised the lack of access to the office only after banking in the cheque. Some would argue this is a good thing in 20 degree sunshine, but having only started work at about 10.30 this morning, I ran back to HSBC to look for it. Gave up when it dawned on me that security at the branch wouldn’t appreciate someone a) leaving an unattended item, or b) searching under tables and between ATMs like a maniac, so gave up quickly. Decided I REALLY needed the smoothie after this, and then had to sheepishly sidle up to reception where she called the cavalry (and my manager) to come get me.

And that’s not the last of it – last week I managed to magic away our spare electric toothbrush refills because for once I bothered to actually put them away responsibly and then promptly forgot where I had put them. There was a lot of looking high and low after that too.

And I was reading today about early onset Alzheimer’s also -_-

Wordsmithing

Here's another hack of a post, but it was particularly entertaining given that I'd had received it while dealing with persons 2. and 5. for much of the day.

The Washington Post's Mensa Invitational once again
invited readers to take any word from the dictionary, alter it by
adding, subtracting, or changing one letter, and supply a new
definition.

Here are the winners:

1. Cashtration (n.): The act of buying a house, which renders the subject financially impotent for an indefinite period of time.

2. Ignoranus : A person who's both stupid and an asshole.

3. Intaxicaton : Euphoria at getting a tax refund, which lasts until you realize it was your money to start with.

4. Reintarnation : Coming back to life as a hillbilly.

5. Bozone ( n.): The substance surrounding stupid people that stops bright ideas from penetrating. The bozone layer, unfortunately, shows little sign of breaking down in the near future.

6. Foreploy : Any misrepresentation about yourself for the purpose of getting laid.

7. Giraffiti : Vandalism spray-painted very, very high

8. Sarchasm : The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn't get it.

9. Inoculatte : To take coffee intravenously when you are running late.

10. Osteopornosis : A degenerate disease. (This one got extra credit.)

11. Karmageddon : It's like, when everybody is sending off all these really bad vibes, right? And then, like, the Earth explodes and it's like, a serious bummer.

12. Decafalon (n.): The grueling event of getting through the day consuming only things that are good for you.

13. Glibido : All talk and no action.

14. Dopeler Effect: The tendency of stupid ideas to seem smarter when they come at you rapidly.

15. Arachnoleptic Fit (n.): The frantic dance performed just after you've accidentally walked through a spider web.

16. Beelzebug (n.): Satan in the form of a mosquito, that gets into your bedroom at three in the morning and cannot be cast out.

17. Caterpallor ( n.): The color you turn after finding half a worm in the fruit you're eating.

The Washington Post has also published the winning submissions to its yearly contest, in which readers are asked to supply alternate meanings for common words. And the winners are:

1. Coffee, n. The person upon whom one coughs.

2. Flabbergasted, adj. Appalled by discovering how much weight one has gained.

3. Abdicate, v. To give up all hope of ever having a flat stomach.

4. Esplanade, v. To attempt an explanation while drunk.

5. Willy-nilly, adj. Impotent.

6. Negligent, adj. Absentmindedly answering the door when wearing only a nightgown.

7. Lymph, v. To walk with a lisp.

8. Gargoyle, n. Olive-flavored mouthwash.

9. Flatulence, n. Emergency vehicle that picks up someone who has been run over by a steamroller.

10. Balderdash, n. A rapidly receding hairline.

11. Testicle, n. A humorous question on an exam.

12. Rectitude, n. The formal, dignified bearing adopted by proctologists.

13. Pokemon, n. A Rastafarian proctologist.

14. Oyster, n. A person who sprinkles his conversation with Yiddishisms.

15. Frisbeetarianism, n. The belief that, after death, the soul flies up onto the roof and gets stuck there.

16. Circumvent, n. An opening in the front of boxer shorts worn by Jewish men.

Return of the netball junkie

Another cold cold night, zero out, and what I'm wearing would, quite frankly, shock my mother. (Only because IT'S COLD.) Which brings me to want to examine the awesomeness that is social netball:

1. Work grief. What healthier way is there to vent your rage at an incompetent colleague than by exacting physical punishment on yourself and everyone else in an enclosed space

2. Tactile addiction. The dimpled, slightly tacky surface of a ball in all its size 4 rubberized glory

3. Court plays. The glorious satisfaction of all those clever 1-2s that see the ball hurtling down the court

4. Court markings. The familiar lines that divide this sometimes manic, overbearing world into 5 neat, controllable segments.

5. The swoosh of the ball as it catches 'nothin' but net'

3. Winning.

Reconnecting: world, here I come!

After concluding rather stressful negotiations for an upgrade with the moneypinching entity that is O2, I finally received my new bb and it hasn't left my hand since. I'm like a new parent, jumping at every single buzz and blinking light, managing the boyfriend's gentle stirrings of resentment. Now that I have a connection on the go, I finally understand twitter and that texting and walking is still ill-advised. Reconnecting with all the friends and family scattered across the globe has totally been worth early warning signs of carpal tunnel.

I've downloaded every conceivable chat platform known to man AND run out of people to harass online, so here's one of the last to-dos on my list: resurrect the blog.

Bits of home

me: omg omg the new ipod touch is HUGE! 32Gb!!! when you go to sg, can you pls buy me the new itouch?
Cheryl: with what? i don't have that much in ang pow money :(
me: haha, er, ask mum?
Cheryl: okay. she'll shoot the messenger you kno. i'm putting my life on the line for you. could die
me: ok so the idea is, when you go to sg, get bry's crappy ipod then go to the apple store, ask if they do the 10% off the new ipod if you bring in an old ipod deal and then buy me the new itouch 32Gb :D
Cheryl: she just gave this smile. how much is it do they do student discount can't i get that can't i get stud d/c in london - is it not cheap enuf
me: you cant get student disc on ipods i think coz they're not for study
Cheryl: dad asks what do you plan to put on this 32 gb drive? do you even have that much to put on mom says you're a spendthrift
me: games and music. my music's at 8Gb already. it's for the long arduous commute :)
Cheryl: WOW WHAT A LONG COMMUTE. it's like going to singapore
me: i dunno. btw, who's sayin all this stuff? you or mum and dad.
Cheryl: combination. dad says perdy wants to know
me: yes, perdy, i REALLY need this ipod
Cheryl: mum says dog and plants at home want to know
me: wah, i get the 3rd degree when i want to buy a new gadget...but bryan's had like 5 ipods and i've had two. too bad i dont break mine in time for the next release
Cheryl: mom says no bryan hasn't bought since the last wshing machine one. dad says when bryan wants a new ipod, he washes it so he gets a clean one from the washing machine
me: our parents should do stand up. tell them they're funny. they like that
Cheryl: yes tey're thinking of doing a show next month. mom's watching tennis on record so she's fastforwarding it to every break point
me: damn that's efficient television

A noteworthy distraction

This is one of the best forwards I've received in ages, but I'd recommend not reading the rest of this while drinking something really hot and/or in the vicinity of electrical equipment. I'm also rather shamelessly using this as a filler because I'm acutely aware I haven't written here in a while. So zoom in, push back your chair, and enjoy.

Random thoughts from 20-35 year olds

- More often than not, when someone is telling me a story all I can think about is that I can't wait for them to finish so that I can tell my own story that's not only better, but also more directly involves me.

- Nothing sucks more than that moment during an argument when you realise you're wrong.

- I don't understand the purpose of the line, "I don't need to drink to have fun." Great, no one does. But why start a fire with flint and sticks when they've invented the lighter?

- Have you ever been walking down the street and realised that you're going in the complete opposite direction of where you are supposed to be going?

But instead of just turning a 180 and walking back in the direction from which you came, you have to first do something like check your watch or phone or make a grand arm gesture and mutter to yourself to ensure that no one in the surrounding area thinks you're crazy by randomly switching directions on the sidewalk.

- I totally take back all those times I didn't want to nap when I was younger.

- Is it just me, or are 80% of the people in the "people you may know"
feature on Facebook people that I do know, but I deliberately choose not to be friends with?

- Do you remember when you were a kid, playing Nintendo and it wouldn't work? You take the cartridge out, blow in it and that would magically fix the problem. Every kid did that, but how did we all know how to fix the problem? There was no internet or message boards or FAQ's. We just figured it out. Today's kids are soft.

- There is a great need for sarcasm font.

- Sometimes, I'll watch a movie that I watched when I was younger and suddenly realise I had no idea what the f*** was going on when I first saw it.

- I think everyone has a movie that they love so much, it actually becomes stressful to watch it with other people. I'll end up wasting 90 minutes shiftily glancing around to confirm that everyone's laughing at the right parts, then making sure I laugh just a little bit harder (and a millisecond

earlier) to prove that I'm still the only one who really, really gets it.

- How the hell are you supposed to fold a fitted sheet?

- I would rather try to carry 10 plastic grocery bags in each hand than take 2 trips to bring my groceries in.

- I think part of a best friend's job should be to immediately clear your computer history if you die.

- LOL has gone from meaning, "laugh out loud" to "I have nothing else to say".

- I have a hard time deciphering the fine line between boredom and hunger.

- Whenever someone says "I'm not book smart, but I'm street smart", all I hear is "I'm not real smart, but I'm imaginary smart".

- How many times is it appropriate to say "What?" before you just nod and smile because you still didn't hear what they said?

- I love the sense of camaraderie when an entire line of cars teams up to prevent a dick from cutting in at the front. Stay strong, brothers!

- Every time I have to spell a word over the phone using 'as in' examples, I will undoubtedly draw a blank and sound like a complete idiot. Today I had to spell my boss's last name to an attorney and said "Yes that's G as in...(10 second lapse)..ummm...Goonies".

- What would happen if I hired two private investigators to follow each other?

- While driving yesterday I saw a banana peel in the road and instinctively swerved to avoid it...thanks Mario Kart.

- Obituaries would be a lot more interesting if they told you how the person died.

- I find it hard to believe there are actually people who get in the shower first and THEN turn on the water.

- Shirts get dirty. Underwear gets dirty. Pants? Pants never get dirty, and you can wear them forever.

- I can't remember the last time I wasn't at least kind of tired.

- Bad decisions make good stories.

- Whenever I'm Facebook stalking someone and I find out that their profile is public, I feel like a kid on Christmas morning that just got the Red Ryder BB gun that I always wanted. 546 pictures? Don't mind if I do!

- Is it just me or do high school girls get sluttier & sluttier every year?

- If Carmen San Diego and Waldo ever got together, their offspring would probably just be completely invisible.

- Why is it that during an ice-breaker, when the whole room has to go around and say their name and where they are from, I get so incredibly nervous? Like I know my name, I know where I'm from, this shouldn't be a problem …

- You never know when it will strike, but there comes a moment at work when you've made up your mind that you just aren't doing anything productive for the rest of the day.

- Can we all just agree to ignore whatever comes after DVDs? I don't want to have to restart my collection.

- There's no worse feeling than that millisecond you're sure you are going to die after leaning your chair back a little too far.

- I'm always slightly terrified when I exit out of Word and it asks me if I want to save any changes to my ten page research paper that I swear I did not make any changes to.

- "Do not machine wash or tumble dry" means I will never wash this ever.

- I hate being the one with the remote in a room full of people watching TV. There's so much pressure. 'I love this show, but will they judge me if I keep it on? I bet everyone is wishing we weren't watching this. It's only a matter of time before they all get up and leave the room. Will we still be friends after this?'

- I hate when I just miss a call by the last ring (Hello? Hello? Dammit!), but when I immediately call back, it rings nine times and goes to voicemail. What'd you do after I didn't answer? Drop the phone and run away?

- I hate leaving my house confident and looking good and then not seeing anyone of importance the entire day. What a waste.

- When I meet a new girl, I'm terrified of mentioning something she hasn't already told me but that I have learned from some light internet stalking.

- I like all of the music in my iTunes, except when it's on shuffle, then I like about one in every fifteen songs in my iTunes.

- Why is a school zone 25 km/h? That seems like the optimal cruising speed for paedophiles...

- As a driver I hate pedestrians and as a pedestrian I hate drivers, but no matter what the mode of transportation, I always hate cyclists.

- Sometimes I'll look down at my watch 3 consecutive times and still not know what time it is.

- I keep some people's phone numbers in my phone just so I know not to answer when they call.

- My 4-year old son asked me in the car the other day "Dad what would happen if you ran over a ninja?" How the hell do I respond to that?

- I wonder if cops ever get pissed off at the fact that everyone they drive behind obeys the speed limit.

- I think the freezer deserves a light as well.

- Even under ideal conditions people have trouble locating their car keys in a pocket, hitting the G-spot, and Pinning the Tail on the Donkey - but I'd bet my ass everyone can find and push the Snooze button from 3 feet away, in about 1.7 seconds, eyes closed, first time every time…

Join the club

I was looking back through my posts wondering why I hadn't yet ranted about the state of the job market. How unlike me...or perhaps I was still too sensitive about the fact that I had been made redundant. It's a huge blow to the ego, but when you retrench management consultants at a 'top-tier strategy firm', you're touching the realms of clinical depression.

Friendships have been tested, networks have been, well, worked, and we've run the gauntlet of head hunters, case interviews, (in)competency interviews, and enough CV/cover letter reiterations to decimate a forest. It ain't over yet.

It's been a complex journey. There's a perverse sense of security in not knowing how good the other guys are, but at the same time, if we weren't there to offset each other's cycles of doom, I'm pretty sure we'd all be living at home with our parents.

Autostalking edit: Cubicle confusion, the anti-9-to-5

There are probably many like this out there, but this one's quite cute for all of its non-offensive, gently lyrical descriptions of cubicle-life, and charmingly persistent lack of attention to grammar and spelling, of the sort you only get when you're brain-numb by 10.30am.

The cynic in my past, employed-version of me says appreciate the 5pm finish, but I'm hardly in a position to comment.

P.S. I've demoted Blobdot because its last post was over a year ago. Some of us clearly have better things to do.