Prayers, please.

It was a friend’s birthday.

1. Supposed to go for movie and dinner, but (I am given to understand that) the movie is just a ploy so as to pull together some semblance of a surprise. The movie story bought the "hosts" time to smuggle the cake into the restaurant. So some of the guests can make it only for the movie and not dinner and movie, which since there was no movie, messes up their evening! The drama, my point exactly!

2. Conversation during dinner:

Guest 1: I have lost weight. All I eat is soup and salad, twice a day. Now repeat that sentence 20 times over and is all what she spoke about during dinner

Guest 2: Don't order so much food, don't order, are you sure you can eat that much? Two very awkward jokes followed with even more awkward silence at the table. One, I think was a dig at the firm, Frost and Sullivan.

Guest 3: Did not say a word. Cross my heart. Not a word

Guest 4: Didn't show up. See memo on movie/dinner mix up.

Guest 5: Nice guy, I talk to him, interesting.

Birthday boy: uncomfortably smiling, observing everybody, few sentences spoken.

OMG the pain!

3. Dinner gets over, photographs are taken, Guest 4 shows up.

4. I am exhausted, want to head home. More photographs are taken, I smile, I mutter a few choice words.

5. They want to buy beer and sit by the harbor and drink. Beer is bought, we head to the harbor and it’s a total love fest. Crap. I don't do that. Because. I don't drink beer. And, I don't want to intrude on nervous couples trying to have a moment. I hang out with them for ten minutes or so and then politely leave.

Oh during the 90 minutes that was dinner, I was called "pervert, drunk, old, snob..."

Woe is me. Again.

i want to text, call, speak with.
HATING the wait.

The hills and vales of life this week:

1. after two years since the girl and I ended a six-year thing i finally met someone that i really really like.

2. got a free ticket to fly away to Phnom Penh only to realize that they had misspelled my name, and screwed up the dates -- which being a free ticket, meant there was nothing I could do save fork over $350 to change the name/date. Which is SO not worth it for a two-day trip to Cambodia.

3. Heading to Nias for the last week in Feb. Part of a team that evaluates foreign aid effectiveness in Tsunami affected areas. Haven't been to Indonesia - so I really am looking forward to this.

4. Chinese New Year is happening this weekend. Everything is closed in Singapore for three days. But I got called in for a last-minute paper; and will be working dog-hours till this Sunday. CRAP.

5. Negotiating a book deal on health policy with Routledge! More later.

happy birthday, my dear,
with love, perhaps unparalleled

Tutorial sessions with the Frosh have gone by OK so far. They are eager to learn and even more so to impress. Luckily, I don't lecture this class. I just assist in teaching i.e. conduct tutorials, hold office hours and work with students who many need extra coaching.

I am done with my academic coursework and other formalities of the graduate program in economics. I still do not have a question that I can letter out explicitly for my thesis.

My sister (currently in Goa, India) and I (Singapore) are road-tripping across Canada this summer. Who knows, it might just come to me driving on the interstate. Well, whatever.

fuck buckets

Ignorant git of a friend managed to finagle a $17 K bonus with her crotch-rot intellect after working 5 months at 'Hores and Co: Partners at Law'. Why oh Why am I still in academia?