March is the month of.....

a) rainy days and gloomy weather
b) quizzes, quizzes and quizzes
c) projects and assignment deadlines
d) performance BONUS!

so it has been a month of hectic craziness and it feels like braving through the rain and storm going thru so much at work.

i just can't believe april is approaching, somebody pls tell me it's not true. this month just flew by in a wink! it reminds me of the show "click", time just slipped by without me being able to live in the moment, savour the days or smell the roses. it's as if waking up one day and finding myself at the end of march, not knowing where the time has gone. it's a scary feeling, a sense of loss.

managed to scrape 100% for two quizzes (yippee!) and made a mistake on the third quiz, thus having to do a recovery on 9 april. yes, the passing grade is 100% and the results are sent straight to my bosses for scrutiny: studying FOR work is a different playing field altogether. the quizzes are part of a long process of getting myself accredited for an impt cert. it's impt in the long run, anyway. shan't elaborate on this.

and i'm done with the project as well. i hate it. 5 more to go over the next several months.

the only hell left is the dreadful piece of assignment due on fateful monday. i'm on my first page... slowly but surely. i'm pulling my hairs out.

all these done on top of the canopy of work we have to carry out on top of the course. my four schools' cases, committee projects, national studies, reports, meetings, presentations.

the only saving grace which came out of all the shit in march is our performance bonus! my first without a proration or nominal grading. better than i expected to get... pretty contented. but come to think of it, i'm still severely underpaid, bonus or not. and they just announced a civil service-wide pay cut. this sucks.

i'm planning to do my assignment till 1am. been slacking for the past 2 hrs since i reached home from work. really braindead and would rather go on blogging brainlessly than slogging over the assignment..

long hiatus

it's been a long time since i last blogged.

in a way, i'm still grappling with the beginning of this new year, and i just can't believe that it's already march and it still feels like a brand new year. it's already tainted by the happenings over three months, but sometimes i still get the feeling that last year and this year is just an overlapping realm and i can't draw the line between them.

anw, my dec hols was marked by house painting and my bedroom re-org. was really quite happy with everything... all the furniture shopping at ikea for my family, fixing up the cupboards and shelves tog, painting the whole house tog, painting my room in lilac, n adding little pieces to my room. for that brief moment in time, i was brought closer to my parents and they were brought closer to each other.

as i always say, happiness is transient. with the new year, everything fell back into place both at home and work and the magic of holidays is all but a remnant of memory. it's back to work for me and extreme stress. i can feel the higher expectations and pressure on us this year as we become a lil more senior.. more leadership roles, more independence in casework, more conceptualisation type of work. the strain of the course is taking a toll on us finally: tons of research, thousands of words to submit every 3months, projects, fieldwork, quizzes with 100% as passing mark. and i can safely verify that the course is but 10% of the work we do.

so i've had enough of overtime and nights in office, and i'm so glad to be home early this whole week. the work is still there, waiting for my clearance, but i've just made the choice that i need to keep my sanity.

on the home front, things are not going well. ironically, home is my sanctuary when i return from work but sometimes when i'm at home and bad things happen in the family, i just want to get outta here.

at times i think back to my life from the beginning, and run through my life in sequence. at which point did things in my family crystallize to this state? what was the trigger, if any, or was it a slow gradual process? were we doomed from the start when my parents were married, or when we were born, and were we definitely heading this way and nothing else could have changed history? is it only certain family members deciding our fate or is it the dynamics of the family as a whole?

i think i've surrendered. there's simply more questions to answers life can provide, and answers won't always make a difference anyway. just loads of disappointment lately with the pple in my life.

and when all else fails, food never. i've been eating with a vengeance and it really makes me feel happy. satiated. my sanity is seriously held on by food hunts on weekends or snacking at home. i'm currently on one of my steak phases and i just can't get the craving out of my mind! it was so bad i ate steak for both lunch and dinner on sat. and had it again yesterday. the steak at seletar airbase is just great! abit costly but very good.... the taste is lingering at the back of my brain. and i miss the spicy chicken wings there. there are like 30 levels of spiciness level u can choose from but level 1 is just nice for me. damn good! anyone knows of good steak places pls pls pls recommend me or jio me! i'm always on the lookout!

and i have this thing for buffets and i just can't wait to go for the next one... the way i gorge on food and dun gain weight my friends all think there must be a giant worm/snake swimming in my stomach. i've no idea why too but i'm just very very happy to eat. it's dinner time, gonna makan!