The past week...

Saturday was a frenzy of packing, saying my goodbyes to people and more packing, *grin*

I had my first brush with airport security on my way here. At the security check, in usual fashion, we had to take off our shoes, belts and empty our pockets before walking through a metal detector. Our carry-on baggage was put through the xray machine and once on the other side of said machine, I hear the security person pointing to my bag and asking who it belonged to. Curious as to what exactly set off the alarm, I identified myself, and went over to the table where he proceeded to open my bag and rummage thru it. Evidently my tweezers were what set off the alarm. *sigh* So after telling me that I cannot take them, he says he's got to run the bag thru the xray machine again, and again, the bag's owner is called for. *sigh* This time another guy brings the bag over, looks thru it again and finds my nail clippers (incidentally in the same pouch as the tweezers) and yup, said I can't take them on board...I had my bag ransacked 3 times and what gets me mad is that all three things were in the same bloody pouch! sheesh.

The flight was long and horribly uncomfortable. My sinus was so bad that when we took off and landed, the change in pressure made me feel like my head was gonna explode! I watched a whole bunch of movies, had a nose bleed and napped for about an hour out of the 18 hour flight *sigh*

I landed about an hour earlier than expected, at about 5:20am on Monday (SG time) and then met up with my dearest friend for breakfast. Half way thru I was sooo tired I was falling asleep on her...poor thing...she put me in a cab and I got to my parents' friend's place at about 9:00 am. After talking to them for a while I went to bed around 10am, got up every couple of hours till about 8am Tuesday morning. I feel much better, refreshed and all, but my sinus troubles are still annoying me *sigh*

I just had lunch and its raining so heavily you can't see the building across the road. Its one of the things I miss about Singapore, the rains are so heavy and it just feels like its cleaning the whole place up!

On Tuesday: I went over to one of mum's friend's place yesterday and spent the day with them for a lil while and then met Sunita and Francis for dinner. We met at about 7:00 and were sitting at the food court till about 12 heh heh...they picked me up in their new car....a new Hyundai Getz....very nice...and we went over to Holland Village and I had the most amazing Hainanese Chicken Rice...ok, I don't really know if it was the best...but to my taste buds that have been starving for a good chicken rice, it felt pretty damn good!

Holland V was pretty nice...but I felt strange to be back....like an outsider, not really sure if things are all the same...and was amused by the lil things that you don't see anywhere else, like the international magazine store on the corner at Holland V where the guy has every magazine imaginable and that Sanwin Sports is still open next to Watsons and its still looks like its been a while since they have had any customers.

We sat there till 12am and then decided to head back coz they have to get to work tomorrow and when we get back to the carpark, we were horrified to find the place closed up...apparently it closed at 11 and we were supposed to take our cars out before that, now there's a wheel clamp and it cost us $50 to get it off....*groan* An expensive eye test, given that we failed to see all the signs telling us about the wheel clamping and closing times...

heh....

Wednesday:I was supposed to be a busy bee today and go out do a bunch of things...*sigh* but I felt really ill...the damn Tylenol Sinus was obviously not doing it job. Finally irritated with myself for being so uncomfortable I hauled my ass down to the doctor and was promptly put on antibiotics, 2 other pills and a cough syrup. I could deal with the medicines, what was more annoying is that 3 of of them medicines "cause drowsiness" and just knocks me out for a coupla hours.

Thursday: Day of Action!
Was quite productive in sending out resumes and application forms. I know you understand...it just bugs me that unlike Aussie where they send you a letter apologizing for not being able to hire you, here you are not even given confirmation of the resume reaching them. You'd be lucky to get a response regarding said application. *grr*

Met up with Su and Vinod for dinner when I enjoyed an excellent plate of carrot cake and then met up with Jean and Anil, Kelly, Jasmine, Uma and Arne at a bar in town. Turns out Arne is currently working on his Masters thesis on Consumer Behaviour before heading back to Germany. He and Jasmine were giving me great ideas on the job scene...still a little woozy from the pills.

Friday: Met up with Sara-Ann for lunch and had a great time catching up. We are both in a particular situation and it was interesting to hear her explain some of the things I hadn't understood. Lunch lasted almost 2 hours and was a wild ride of memories and catching up to where we are now. *grin*

It shocks me how thin she has become, and to my pointing that out, to hear her say that she's actually put on weight. I remember when she was at the very beginning of the whole modeling thing and *shrugs* I guess I wasn't expecting such a drastic change in 3 years.

Later, I met Penn Nee for dinner. We were living together at Howitt Hall in Melbourne in 1998. She hasn't changed one bit, although seeing her in her business suit was rather interesting, given that we're used to a very different Penn Nee.

We were exchanging stories about our lives (having gone through the same, she now understands why he and I parted ways in 1999) and terrible housemates...(heh realizing my three ex-housemates are reading this, may I clarify that I was talking about terror chick that lived with me for 3 weeks *shudder*) and our friends that are doing so well at places like Reuters, CNBC, SIA, UNDP and Merrill Lynch. *sigh* I feel so small.