Big fish waiting for 1.12.2007

Eat, shop and party sans credit card?!?

Thanks to my negligence, I temporarily misplaced my credit card and asked for a replacement. I have canceled the other card while I will be receiving my new replacement supplementary credit card from The Consultant. It is 5 days to my big shopping trip to Singapore and I am without a credit card! I hate carrying cash =_="

Temporary employment

It was tempting. Post-Siem Reap, I was called back to the ad agency to freelance. I semi-regretted the decision coming out of optional retirement, but who can blame a poor girl when she's just out there to make fast-and-easy money to acquire brand new MacBook? Between fasting, planning a wedding, working and teaching, I haven't had much time to breathe.

Bear in mind it has been quite a while since I worked with potentially nasty people. I found it necessary to call out some of my latent skills:

• Dialing up the beeyatch mode and being a diva. Trust me, it's a necessary survival skill.
• Using the more advance features of a photocopying machine.
  

I am pleased to report that Friday will be my last day of employment at the ad agency. I resume my days of leisure starting Saturday.

A brilliant discovery

This is one of the best discoveries I've made! A very convenient AND effective jewelry cleaner. Please read precaution on label before using on your jewelry.

The seventh moon

The Hungry Ghost Festival is in full swing. To entertain the restless spirits, a stage has been set up for the Chinese opera. If my eyes did not deceive me, there was stage smoke and... disco lights! The old timers have been on a karaoke roll since 10 pm. I wonder when are they planning to dismantle the stage? I need my ME time in the evenings.

Post-independence

Aside from having long decadent lunches with the first wives club and friends over the past few weeks, I have been preoccupied with errands of all sorts.

Today, the consultant and I were in the Pudu area to check on our invitation cards. Pudu Plaza was a few minutes by foot from the printer so we decided to pop in to take a look at DSLR cameras.



Now, if you've never heard of or been to Plaza Pudu, in America, it would be known as the mall where the white people used to shop. If you've never been there, you're not missing much in the retail scene. The anchor tenant there is The Store. You get the picture. The directory in the mall was not much of help so we approached a security guard (who looked like he was short of half a chromosome) for directions. He mumbled something inaudible and pointed out directions.

Not convinced with his directions, we walked around a while more and came to a "hair and beauty equipment center" (quoting from the name card). I stepped into the shop with the intention of enquiring about directions. Not only did I get directions to the camera shop, I ended up with a hair styling product (hey, my hair really needs help with volume!) and audio literature on Liao-Fan's four lessons. Ok, so the security guard's directions were quite accurate.

The visit to the camera shop did not help much in convincing us which camera to buy. It's still a toss between the Nikon and the Canon. I think it's coming close to personal preference. Ultimately, it's not about the bike.

Fortune prophesied

It is worrying. I have been spending too much time on Facebook. It is another one of my favourite time wasters, after Bejeweled.

Here's my horoscope from Facebook:

You've been a bit overwhelmed lately with everything you've had to get done, but an exciting adventure will soon help you leave the stress behind.


Argh. How. Scarily. True.

Post-independence day

I've always envied the people who had all the time in the world to hang out at the mall during work hours. Today, I have become a statistic. No fricking 30 minute queues at the cinema. Lovely.

I also made some purchases. The consultant does not know about this yet; he will be receiving the bill very soon. When he got home from work, I paraded around in my new dresses.

The consultant : Don't you already have a white dress?
Clara : But this one's a flirty white dress!

Men. They will never be able to understand.



Sightings : 1

The emancipation of Clara

1 August 2007 - I am officially unemployed. It's wonderful having the luxury to wake up naturally and not rushing out to work like a mad woman.

Besides running some errands, I decided to try my hand at preparing dinner.

Clara : So, how is it?
The consultant : Good.
Brother : Your prawns are overcooked.

I'm glad I don't have to satisfy my brother's tastebuds in the future.

Shopping List

1. Liberating lifestyle manifesto :




2. Will purchase book using :

Frou-frou pineapple pancake

After today, I can confirm that the cooking process is very exhausting. I could not get my pancakes to be wafer thin. And I did burn a few pancakes in the process. Rest assured, I do not plan to serve nata de coco at any of my parties. I promise to outsource the party planning and food to the professionals.

Here it is, batch #1.

Meme me!

Looks like Dan tagged me for this meme. I'm getting rusty at this but I'll try.

1. Each player must post these rules first.
2. Each player starts with eight random facts/habits about themselves.
3. People who are tagged need to write their own blog about their eight things and post these rules.
4. At the end of your blog, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names. It ends here.

8 little unknown facts about Clara 2.0 (beta):


ONE
I dislike people stuffing their grimy paw into my packet of food. If you're not part of the circle of trust, you are not eligible to share food and spit.

TWO
I need to keep my things organized in plastic bags. I am an environmental hazard.

THREE
I am forever 21. Obviously, in denial.

FOUR
My favorite time waster game is Bejeweled.

FIVE
My guilty pleasures are frivolous and flighty chic flicks and campy 80's movies. I bet that didn't take you too long to figure out.

SIX
Pet peeves : Hypocrisy, stinginess, self-imposed ignorance, dishonesty.

SEVEN
Never appoint me as a navigator because I cannot read maps.

EIGHT
I buy a lot of crap I don't need.

Destination : London

So this is it! The consultant and I will be in London starting mid-January 2008 for 1 year. Let's see if I can manage and execute the idea of being a tai tai. Read : spending the husband's money minus the guilt.

10.25 pm

I've like looked at a gazillion bridal gowns. I am beyond confused. Help.

I realised that I started this blog to document my journey to become a Stepford Wife. What happened?

Rawr!

He called be bridezilla. RAWR RAWR RAWR!

Anyway, it obviously does not matter because it's my wedding anyhow. Yes, I admit it. I can so totally be a control freak. And up until this point, I don't think I am a bridezilla. Yet. But honestly speaking, I understand how it happens. Planning a wedding is stressful. And honestly, every woman, bride-to-be or not, has latent bridezilla tendencies. So like what's wrong with wanting it to be perfect?

Ugh. Self-absorbed MCP.

Whatever.

Praise the lord the husband-to-be is not groomzilla. Triple RAWR again.

So the internet connection at home is like going crazy. Again. Without warning it just disconnects. And it is killing me. I have so much wedding planning to do.

Uh yeah. Brides-to-be. Do the bridezilla quiz.

Wish List

I'm so excited! I don't know where to begin! There's something which I am dying to tell you but I can't till it's official!

I need to start preparing for life. Here's my (incomplete) list:

• Macbook
• iPhone
  
• Canon EOS 400D or the Nikon D80 - I haven't quite decided
• an El Bulli experience
• Nintendo Wii
• an external HDD
• flickr pro account
  
• my girlfriends back home with me so that we can do our girly things together!
  
• live life.

By the way, I still can't decide if I should have an edible wedding cake or to go with the standard mock cake. I can't seem to get a grip of myself right now!

7.7.07

7.7.07 passed by just like any other day for me. Naturally, it proved to be one of the most popular wedding dates this year all over the world.

With the insistence of my wedding organizer and florist, the husband-to-be and I headed to a hotel in the city center to catch a wedding in full swing on Saturday evening. We liked what we saw. Since we only took a peek for a few minutes and did not take any food or alcohol, I guess that does not make us wedding crashers!

A belated Independence Day and a belated Happy Canada Day to all who celebrated.

(No joy here for it was not a holiday!)

The teapot episode

I absolutely loathe the idea of blogging about work. However, this deserves an entry of its own simply because it shares a similarity with a household item - the teapot.

There I was, standing by the kitchen sink minding my own business, washing my teapot and cup when Mr Hobo shows up with an ant-infested plastic tub. With no acknowledgement or whatsoever, he starts soaping the plastic tub. Since I am bothered to even post about this, let's analyze the whole situation:

Interruption in my zen-like chore by failing to acknowledge my presence. The sink is only large enough for one. He bumps me off the sink and continues to wash his plastic tub. My teapot and cup remains half cleaned in the sink.

At this juncture, I decided to be a chicken and stormed back up to my desk, trying to maintain a peaceful outlook with bottled-up rage. It is absolutely unnecessary to pick a fight over a trivial matter like this especially at a work place.

An hour later, I caught him mandhandling a flat (but just as good, nonetheless!) doughnut out from a box and tossing it to the side of the box. He picked out a slightly puffier doughnut for himself instead.

I am not perfect. But I might just forgive him for some of us may have been born with lower innate emotional intelligence. The simplest solution is to bring this up to my immediate supervisor. Which I will!

Le régime dishwashing

One can look at having a signifant other who works in the consulting business as a good thing. The relationship is centered around weekends and holidays, which means having sufficient time and space during the week to focus on what each needs to do and dedicating meaningful available times with each other.

However, certain habits of a travelling consultant can cause annoyance. The nature of the job requires them to spend many days living out of a suitcase and gives them the excuse of being spoiled by daily maid service to tidy up the obvious mess.

Back home, moi = maid service.

The welcome party

After many enthusiastic reminders, he finally decided to take charge of this domestic endeavour. The dirty dishes were not only conveniently placed in the dishwasher. According to the consultant, he drizzled regular dishwashing liquid on the plates before starting the machine.




Unless you are planning a foam party in your kitchen, it is important to know the right directions, temperature of water and cleaning agent (only use dishwasher detergent) for this perilous task. Consult the manual for further instructions.

Never open a dishwasher while it is still foaming. It only means that there is more foam in it. There is always the option of ignoring the mess for a few hours because it will eventually subside and evaporate. Which is exactly what I did.

I have made a mental note to myself to prepare the apartment with more rags and a proper mop because the fabric mop (in the photo) has very low absorbance properties - it does nothing for me!

In existential theory,

If the mess was not there, it ceases to exist.

Hence, there is no mess to clean. I must say that am leaning towards disposable plates and eating utensils right now.

The Domestication of Me

I have always been the cosmopolitan girl with no real need to manage my own household (or housework!). To put it simply, domestication was never hardwired into my system.

With my impending marriage, I have been overwhelmed with the intense preparations -- phobias and lack of domestic skill struck me as a very serious personal limitation in the near future.

I sketched out a six-step program to liberate my soul.

Step one is to compose this list, of course.

Step two, identify my phobias and my current domestic skill sets.

Step three, identify theories and techniques to combat household hysteria.

Step four, putting theory into practice and immersing myself in the world of Martha Stewart.

Step five, evaluation.

Step six, final exam and graduation ceremony. This is when everyone has to curtsey or bow to me because I have achieved zen-like domestic goddess status.

This entry clearly ends at step one. Follow my journey and misadventures. Wish me luck.