fuchsia fragments

I had a rough start to the week. It ended up with me working till 10:30 @ night monday followed by a night of insomnia and no amount of tossing and turning could make me sleep. I guess I must be stressed, a lot more so than usual.

I'm taking a hot soak in the bathtub at the moment and its given me a chance to think about me now (today was my one year work anniversary for those wondering) and how in every office place, there are always the same old stereotypes.

The unqualified - literally and figureatively speaking - "know-it-all" who makes blanket statements (mostly wrong), are total hypocrites and change the rules only when it suits them.

I don't eat sweets but I'll take your cookies and chocolate when I'm hungry. I hate it when people ask me to get things executed for them but I will ask you to get my documents signed and filed. I never offer to go buy coffee but if someone is going do they mind getting me a large latte with 2 sugars? I'm a total indian-giver and I offer to help go but in the afternoon I will give you back your work and mine because I'm way "too busy" but I have had time for 3 cigarette breaks, spoken on the phone to my bf several times and had an hour walk. I get in before all of you in the mornings so I can leave before 5 most days (reality check: she gets in at 8 one day a week and the rest of us are usually there before her).

Yeah, it gets to me because I don't understand how these people get by in life. This is the part where I am so thankful for the support around me. Those who share my pain in finance and those outside of work who console me. You keep me sane, thank you.

It almost blew up this morning but I've learnt to kill them with kindness/ bite my tongue. It was a conversation between myself and the lawyer on my deal. All she wanted was my clarification which I was ready to give and back myself up with as I had all approvals. But no. No no no. Tuesday mornings (Btw I was first in) aren't so simple. Bitchmouth butts into our conversation saying that I had structured my deal wrong and that I needed this, this and this to fix it. Lawyer asks me to check. So I have to tell the AE (only after telling her not to call my AE... she "offered" to do that for me) that he won't get paper this morning, lawyer won't review my paper until I confirm, pricing have to reapprove deal and on top of it the other girl in my team (my buddy who I am shadowing) wants to know what's going on. Lucky, she backed me up and told me that she did overhear and bitchface's blanket comments without any knowledge on the deal were invalid and incorrect. But see how someone who thinks they know something has caused so much extra work for others? It is completely and utterly not appreciated and uncalled for. A very upsetting start to my already painfully slow morning.

And her trying to be my friend all day and sing-songing my name. NOT COOL. I pretended to be listening to music all day, had my headphones in. How she ever got a job in this team, and this company fod the matter will be a question for the ages.

I'm grateful for my corner seat but how E and I ended up with her in the middle between us... must be a test on how resilient we can be.

Perhaps its quarter end getting to me. Perhaps its the realisation that I need to fight for recognition and to prove myself in this team. Perhaps its having to "work" collaboratively in a team (finance is pretty much on your own). Perhaps its because I feel as though I can do a better job...I know its because I am more efficient and use smarter methods (which Btw is wrong in her books) but I can't believe I always end up working with idiots who think they are world class.

Q2 end is here! Long hours are here!

(Ellie Goulding - How Long Will I Love You)

This time last year, I was in-between jobs! And cruising Cairns and Melbourne. I never realized how much of a burden and what a dark place my previous role was and what it did to me until I started here.

So much has changed. . . Said goodbye, lived a lot and in general decided that I could do a whole lot more. Made an effort to catch up with many people who have been instrumental in my life and the choices I have made. Spent a lot of money. Saved some. Baked and baked some more. And even got better at baking. Met lots of new people. Learnt to take the good with the bad. Finally learnt to kill them with kindness, to bite your tongue and to shine when you can. And to never hold back.

Can't say I'm absolutely loving it at the moment but definitely a far cry from where I was a year ago and there is so much potential and opportunities and ways to blow them out of the water ;)

Most importantly... I'm happy and I feel like I belong. There are days that I still feel lost but this new family is something that I want to be a part of for a long time.

On another note on which I am EXTREMELY proud of myself... halfway through the month and I've only spent a couple of hundred dollars. Whoop that means an extra 2 or 3 grand in savings this month! HELLO mortgage offset account! I haven't done so in ages (3 months) so I am sooooooo proud of myself. I'd said time and time again, I have a mortgage but I don't act like someone who has a mortgage and this is completely the wrong mindset. Each additional dollar you spend is another brick on your home loan and its pricey and one day, it's going to be painful.

I consider myself to be a numbers person and I love to crunch numbers but sometimes, seeing the numbers in your bank account... you don't see it as dollars. I should have more self-restraint.

Missed the flash sale today where my Mulberry Double Zip Bayswater was on sale at 35% off. Feeling rather blue about it. Not sure what I want to do now. Happy Friday the 13th!

getting up was a difficult task this morning... especially after sleeping in three days in a row and waking to grey skies and gloomy weather. :(

But more or less, today passed by in a bit on an anti-climax. there weren't any disasters or emergencies at work. nothing to fight about. nothing to cry about. i think the most eventful thing that happened was that the lights weren't switched on this morning prompting my comment that it was a cost-cutting imitative and bringing a few laughs around and gentle chastising by michael. hahahaha.

I'm not feeling the urgency of quarter-end and its a worry because it just means that things will be worse as the days go by. but tomorrow is hump day and then another weekend to look forward to. i especially look forward to a drive down the south coast and blowing up a few things. boom.

i always knew my paternal grandmother (well, grandmothers on both sides really) was a fighter.

another winter, another scare. this time with a lung infection. thankfully nothing serious. bit of difficult breathing with the change in season and needed some oxygen. but with each year, it gets harder and harder for her and everyone tries to pitch it to make her feel better. visited her tonight and she seemed to be in good spirits but was barely eating... i even offered her my bag of chips that was my late lunch/dinner. i think she had one chip. ONE.

she's still thinking her grandkiddies are little and don't have their own jobs and need to be fed! I will always love her for that. And the secret stash of coke she always had in her shed/pad/summer room.

kudos to my 5th uncle for dialing directly into her hospital room all the way from HK. lifted her spirits muchly. so much so that she told him not to worry and that she will be checking herself out and going home tomorrow!

caught up with poh poh all night and we were shopping and talking about my new potential handbag.

i wanted the mulberry bayswater double zip $2,900

then i was convinced i wanted the mulberry willow $2,900. but that was a deal breaker because it only had handles - no shoulder strap. this was the frontrunner for the last two weeks because it had a detachable clutch... two bags for the price of one!!!

there were two colours at 30% off but weren't to my liking.....

so she suggested prada and did some research. liked the saffiano large tote - $2,500. So i went to take a look today after work since i left early. the shop, the lack of customer service (because i was not a mainlander) and all the different colours and types of bags put me off hugely. Not a fan.

So did some thinking tonight... and i think i actually want the Mulberry brand more than I want a Prada (never really liked Prada..). And surprisingly (cause I didn't know this), Mulberry is actually more expensive than Prada. I always thought Prada was up there with LV, Gucci. Wrong again.

And it brought me back to the original Mulberry Bayswater in Natural Leather in either Oak or Black. I think black because i want a black bag but i really like the oak colour too. Works out awesome, its the cheapest of the bunch. :D

Now to find someone to go overseas and get the GST back!

Getting up at 10, making coffee and going back to bed. Loving it.

Clouds in the sky, lounging around in my jammies and listening to itunes. Okay... so I did check my work emails but that was it!!!

And we enter into June, the month that is supposed to make or break our quarter.

It's sticky rice pudding time of year again ("joong") and cut one into slices and put it onto the sandwich press to crisy up. Was so good. Genius idea from my colleague!

It's been another long week.....

We didn't see it coming at work but have been absolutely hammered with the amount of work that was required of us this week. Needless to say, this meant that there wasn't a day that I left the office before 7, if not close to. Considering a 8:30 start, it makes for a very long brain-power draining day.

I'm so so glad that I did manage to see the girls midweek and catch the new Xmen movie. A very welcome distraction and I feel like I hadn't caught up with some of them in a couple of months. I thoroughly enjoyed the movie too. I was never a big Xmen fan but this one had a stellar cast and well, it was just easy to follow although predictable.

What wasn't so fun was getting up way before dawn on Friday for a cake. Perhaps in hindsight, I should have said no. Embarrassingly spelt poor Jue's name wrong too. Oh dear... and it was only three letters. *sigh* But the cake was good.

Had yet another overdue catch up with my two non-Asians Madison & Sarah on Friday night. And as usual, we went Asian and went to Golden Century to be completely ripped off (well, to me as the token asian anyway). Sweet & Sour Pork @ $30 a dish??? And Chinese broccoli for $15? Come On!!!! Though the wine was very good - any sort of alcohol would have been fine at this stage! Was hilarious, they were completely disgusting by the fact that your live seafood was brought to your table in a bag for your approval before being taken into the kitchen. And then they saw lobster sashimi served with the head still on the platter taken to a table behind us. That didn't go down too well with them. But we thoroughly enjoyed our dishes, none of which contained live seafood :)

After, we went for a stroll along darling harbour and caught the 9 pm fireworks and a couple of bits of Vivid before heading to Cargo Bar for another drink before calling it a night. Had such a good time, i actually wouldn't have minded staying for another few despite probably being asleep on my feet! love the two girls... who knew that this dysfunctional and backwards workplace would give me so many unconditional friendships!

Had an excellent sleep last night! It does help when you are obliged to wake up super early on Saturday. So got up in my own time and then we went yum cha with grandma. Made my aunty sandy's surprise birthday cake (well planned team, well planned). She had no clue until after dinner when Justin made an excuse that he had to come by and pick up something from our place because he had forgotten. Hehehe. So well executed, I'm quite proud of us!

And one other thing that has made me feel special and loved this week is my mum. She's awesome always but this week we had a massive clean out of the house and my unofficial cake decorating area has never looked so neat, clean and ordered! AND... I love it when my mum goes shopping and buys me gifts! New clothes... just because. Ah.... working full time and still having things bought for me... gives you that warm, fuzzy feeling inside. :)