Blank Doll bites.

It has been a week since I last blogged so you can tell how distracted I have been from that. The event is officially ended what with the appreciation dinner over and done with. I am now on my way to a new place in camp and everything seems a lot better than they were just a month ago.

Nonetheless, I do seem to have lost a bit of my inspiration again. It's really annoying being stuck in a rut and you really panic when you think about the fact that you're going to have to come up with 60 outfits every 6 months. That seriously is scary.

On a side note, VALERIE IS BACK. Ok, she's going to hate me but I didn't even know she was back until XJ told me. Also, Bhavan, James and Akesh have been out clubbing without the rest of the class AND Akesh has been caught smoking in his uniform. God you have balls.

French class is still nice but increasingly, my classmates are finding the teacher wearisome. Also, on the topic of GEP and top scorers, I just found out that a classmate of mine is also a friend of a captain from camp. I have to say this, I love meeting ex-rafflesians especially when out in the open world. It's so reassuring, the instant bonding upon which something richer may be built.

Also, I really crave my chateau fayau cadillac from either 2001 or 2004 so if you do find a bottle, give me a ring and I'll buy it from you.

One more week to Tokyo, will be sure to take lots of pictures. In the meantime, sales have reached our shores (Blackjack 30%, Paul Smith 20-50%, where else?) and it can only be a matter of time before I can go stock up on clothes. The tailor shall be busy again I think.

And Daddy's getting me my tablet! Perfect.

C'est tout.

Blank Doll rests

The event that has been the cause of so much interest, experience, pain and work for the past 7 months has finally come to an end. This does not mean that my work is over but it does mean that it is nearly at its end. While I do enjoy working on such events, I am tired and want my rest. I have learnt a lot from my superiors, more than I thought I would. There were good moments and bad moments. I have discovered that I have a temper for one and that I really can't stand bosses weaker than me.

Also, the beginning of November signals the beginning of consumption. A period I have kicked off with the purchase of a raw silk shawl for my mother. It is black to go with her silver one. I am contemplating the virtues of a tablet as well as a pair of shoes. My mother's friend's trip to Paris seems too much of an opportunity to be missed and I really want to piggyback on his duty free. Alas, scarcity forces me to choose and I think I shall have to postpone my tablet to next year or perhaps as a gift from my parents.

You know, this idea of scarcity has got me thinking. I was thinking, while having one of my usual gastric attacks that so much of what is precious in life is defined by its scarcity. The perfect moments of life are delineated by limitations, by pain and I suppose that is why abundance dulls the soul's delight in the world.

In which case heaven must be a horrid place.

C'est tout.

Blank Doll blows the candle.

Whew, woke up at 11am today.

THANK YOU TO EVERYONE WHO CAME YESTERDAY AND/OR WISHED ME HAPPY BIRTHDAY.

Not that I'm pleased to be one year older and that my boss msged me on my birthday with work to do. Sigh.

This is sort of like a new year for me and I'm not too sure what I should be like on my 19th year. Maybe I'll be kinder as I mature though I doubt so.

Every birthday, I gather my secondary school friends for dinner at my place and this year was no different. There's something to be said about having a group of friends you can be comfortable with, a particular bunch that no amount of time will render the old bonds obsolete. Through the dismal travails of growing up in a neighbourhood school, I am glad to have found friends like them. As I blew the candles on my cake (a giant matcha from canele, it's the equivalent of presenting ten gs of premium coke and a silver tiffany straw to a druggie), it dawned on me that this could be the second last birthday I'll ever celebrate with them before I fly off to Paris. The tradition began when I was 14 and next year when I am 20, I think I shall line up all my birthday pictures with them together so that we can all see how we've all grown.

It is the rituals of life by which we mark the passing of time. We have faced the death of a friend together, we have faced school and exams together and now we commiserate over the evils of university and national service. I hope to one day be able to share the travails of work with them even if a lot of the cost of my work will have to be left unspoken.

I am after all, a clean cut boy with a clean cut face.

C'est tout.

Blank Doll gets a surprise.

The week thus far has been good and it should be considering that it is the week of my birthday and all. Work has been bearable and the workplace has been astonishingly quiet given how close we are to D Day.

Yesterday was spent at Menotti (again!) with Mummy, her friend and my sister. There was a pleasant surprise in the form of my sister who has got herself a very nice long bob. Now instead of looking dishevelled/snobbish/grumpy, she looks bright/light/shiny and slightly resembles a Stepford Wife when she gets too happy. Otherwise, dinner was as usual. Then because Mummy's friend's boyfriend was an arsehole, we had to wait with her at tcc until he arrived to pick her up by which time I'd arrived home at 12 plus and was all but ready to plonk myself into bed given my chronic lack of sleep.

This cannot become a pattern. I need my sleep. Also, it's dawned on me that my contacts make me feel sleepy since they make my eyes feel dry and this is the sort of mundane stuff all of us fill the Internet with. Imagine that, we generate so much information on a daily rate and all of this is actually going to be quite interesting when say our civilisation collapses tomorrow and is discovered five millenia from now.

Ah but I digress. Xuan nicely msged and asked if I wanted to watch stardust. Ok, so we didn't get to watch the show today because tickets were sold out everywhere we went so we ended up having tea at sun with moon, going around looking for my paper, browsing through art friend, playing with toys at the toy shop opp. art friend and browsing through kino. Dinner after that and the long ride home. While I didn't get to watch the movie, it's still nice to know people you care for are thinking of you.

Et ce jour-la, j'ai recu le plus plaisant surpris. Une certaine personne me telephonait du coeur inconnu et pour ce moment la, c'est comme si rien a change et nous toujours somme ensemble.

C'est tout.

Blank Doll calls to you.

The past week was annoying and gorgeous at the same time.

Annoying: My bosses have been extremely irritating. I feel that they're increasingly unappreciative of the work that I do, as if it's a given. Well, they may argue that it's an nsf's duty to render service but rendering efficient service that is the product of years of training by my mother and a rafflesian education is a privilege, NOT an entitlement. Also, I cannot stand the way they finalise things at the 11th hour and then expect you to deliver. I mean, look, if you're so intent on dragging things then I don't see why I should have to follow your time so there.

Annoying: Somebody's decided to troop off to the farthest reaches of nowhere to seek Kurtz amidst his Inner Station and I'm painfully aware of her absence. Damn.

Gorgeous: Friday was great with sarah, kaimin and a whole bunch of random people. One day I'd like to get seriously drunk but until then, getting high with a group of friends is, as always, fabulous. Not so fabulous was the fact that I got home at 5 plus and had to go to work at 7. Dragged my half mangled corpse to work in last night's clothes and then had dinner with cand who is as sweet as ever.

Gorgeous: My birthday's around the corner. AND THIS STUPID FIASCO IS ABOUT TO BE OVER THANK GOD.

Dinner with Mummy tonight and seriously, I go to Elephant/Coral and Canele too often for my own good.

C'est tout.

Blank Doll chews.

OMFG, one of my bosses is annoyingly incompetent. I cannot believe he just threw work at me and then the next moment, I find him reading up on the gospels at his work terminal. Like, dude, stop handing work down and do some for crying out loud. You should only be depending on your subordinates (and you really shouldn't be depending so extensively on an nsf) unless you have your hands full. HANDS FULL. There goes the last inch of respect I had. Sheesh.

Got into a little tiff with my mother last night. I can't stand it when people take it for granted that I'm going to be patient. My patience is legendary, I know, but you really don't have to try so hard to push it. I guess the problem I had yesterday was that people keep taking it as a given that I'm always going to be nice and patient and calm about things. Shocking, isn't it? That Sean actually has a nice side.

A friend of mine was complaining to me about what a snob some other guy was. The way he described the person, I found it incredibly amusing. I think little snobs like that annoy me the way ants annoy me. I mean, you're dissing McDonalds and telling people you only eat Carl's Junior and for crying out loud, you're wearing weird beetle bug shoes. Next you'll be telling me you don't eat cadbury because you only eat chocz and that you much prefer nydc to your run of the mill hawker centre. Gee.

It really does take effort to be a snob in any given area. I should know.

Anyway, do cheer me up if you can because I'm not in a very good mood. Thank god for dinner and zouk tomorrow and lunch on Sat. I really, really need to be happy and out and free for a while.

You know, if you were here, I'd just have hung it all up and gone to lunch with you. No doubt you'd say something bracing and I'll resent you for it but at least afterwards, I'll laugh.

I'm making panna cotta with cinnamon and nutmeg infused milk. Yay.

C'est tout.