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for whom the bell tolls

for whom the bell tolls

Monthly Archives: August 2007

The Blues will be Blue

31 Friday Aug 2007

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I have been receiving (is it ie or ei – god I’m a bad sub) mixed reactions to the colour of this blog but as Blogthings says ‘I am a yellow crayon’.

I don’t feel like a yellow crayon though. Warm and fuzzy or whatever. I feel black – no grey. Last night it closed all around me and I ended up shouting at V while we were both on the treadmill in the gym (not on the same one – if we could fit on the same treadmill we wouldn’t be in the gym). I wouldn’t have shouted if it hadn’t been for the noise in the gym and V making patronizing remarks such as ‘you should be grateful for your job’ – as if I didn’t know – when I was mid-rant. The guy running next to us must have been pretty scared because contrary to popular belief these Cantos sneakily also speak English – though they refuse to. Then I stomped off to the bathroom to cry. And when I came back V was gone – to another machine – but the Canto guy was still running. How long can a person run anyway?

And anyone who said that it’s good to excercise when you’re depressed is wrong. It is only good to sit down and eat chocolate and imbibe vodka (neat) and cigarettes (if your husband does not threaten to throw a tantrum that will overtake yours). When I am depressed I feel like I cannot move a step – so thick is the fog of everything – so running is pretty ambitious. So now, not only am I depressed but fat too – though when I weighed in I had lost a kilo (V has unkindly pointed out that I always rejoice when I lose a kilo but if I put on a kilo I attribute it to ‘daily fluctuations’ – hmph! Really V should be cured of stating the obvious).

When V and I next saw each other – after I lamely attempted to work on my abs – we were sheepish and loving (and slightly sweaty yuck – gym romances always astound me. For the longest time I refused to join the gym with V because I didn’t want him to see me sweaty although we were already married. I was going through a phase that was contrary to popular wisdom that said that you should let your partner see the true you and instead was going for being attractive at all times so that your partner thinks you’re wonderful. However, I have abandoned that as is obvious to anyone who has seen me in my flat lounging around with some old vest on refusing to have a bath despite V’s pleading. I mean think of the wells running dry by our compulsive bathing).

Ok this post has been pretty random but I felt obliged to entertain – did I? I am not going to start on the cause of my depression – same old same old.

Duh!

30 Thursday Aug 2007

Posted by The Bride in Banking wanking

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It’s been a dead boring week – characterized by dullness, moodyness and the return of stomach-upsetness.

Idiotic email exchange of the week (with PR who coordinated an emailed response with a banker for a story I am doing):

Me: Can I have a photograph of said banker to go with the piece?

PR: Could we have a look at the quotes before publication?

Me: Errr considering you sent an email response it’s a bit silly to want to check quotes.

PR: Yes, but our colleagues still want to look at it?…

Me: Huh?

(cut and paste quotes from her email and mail it back to her).

Unsettling observation: I log into Orkut out of pure habit this morning and the interface is looking so nice. Now I want to switch back from Facebook but I’ve made all my friends switch over. Whatodo?

Saturday Night Live

26 Sunday Aug 2007

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Since we didn’t go out drinking on Friday night – this is a measure of what losers we are; we decide to go out drinking on Friday and then the minute we come home and sit on the couch, we realise we cannot move – we went out yesterday.

First we went over to a friend of V’s house – this is the guy who I have been enemies with because he was incredibly rude to me once but I guess we are not enemies any longer if not exactly friends – to watch the Simpsons movie. I have to say that this is the most beautiful apartment I have seen in Hong Kong. The building is oldish and the the lobby does not quite prepare you for what’s inside – which is sleek and ultra-modern. I have always been against that aesthetic but this house looks beautiful. Also the floor is dark wood and the sofa leather so it doesn’t come off looking too stark.

Anyway, after watching the Simpsons movies, we went down to Wan Chai. In an attempt to go to a bar we have never gone to before, we ended up in something called Club Amazon. I don’t know why V and his friend thought this would be less seedy than the other bars in the Wanch – I guess because it didn’t have a curtained entry way or women in micro minis sitting outside and exhorting you to enter. But it did have murals of highly caricatured nudes and seemed exclusively populated with obese men and very slim, goodlooking women with long lustrous hair. The band though was pretty good – which is the point of this post.

Filipino bands are awesome. It’s like they are a nation of extremely talented singers – which also explains their fondness for karaoke. The next place we went to – Dusk Till Dawn – had an even better band. The lead singer was doing covers of The Cranberries with elan, something that’s not entirely easy. Weirdly I ended up having heart-to-hearts with the two boys, probably a function of being the only girl. Not that I cherish these situations… I miss the girls!

Biting the hand that feeds you

24 Friday Aug 2007

Posted by The Bride in Banking wanking

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Sometime this week I went to a training organized by one of the big investment banks on ‘bond offerings’. This is a pretty basic topic – the process a company/bank goes through when they decide to raise capital (money to be put to some useful purpose) through a bond – but I was pleased because I am actually quite dodgy on basics and am always grateful to anyone who can lucidly explain.

The surprising bit was that my boss – the editor-in-chief of the magazine and my colleague who covers bonds (and hence should already know about something this basic) – came along too. I can understand the colleage’s (SOS for short) motivation – maybe he wanted to make contacts since the guys conducting the training were very senior – but not my boss. In the taxi on the way there (which we took after my boss suggested we take the MTR), boss goes: “they’ve invited so many people”. I had to bite my tongue from saying: “Um yeah, especially if unnecessaries like you turn up from all the publications.”

When we get there I realise that the meeting is a mix of senior people – but none I think as senior as my boss (or if they are senior, they are not covering finance, which justifies why they might need to learn more about it) and very junior people. I turn to the girl next to me and ask her where she’s from. It turns out she is from the magazine that I first interviewed with when I started my job hunt – and I didn’t get that job. In the course of the conversation I discover that she joined three weeks ago, has come down from London and knowns nothing about finance having worked at a law publication there.

So I’m thinking – this is the person they hired over me. They were prepared to bring her down from London where she already had a job which means they would have to pay her an equivalent or more than her salary in sterling plus get her a work visa for HK. She knows nothing about the subject. The obvious difference between her and me, apart from the fact that I know a sight more than she does, have already been working in finance for a year and have some amount of contacts, is that she is white and I am not. Hmm.

As Curly termed it: White Hangover.

The training starts – while the presentation material is very basic, the presenter having being a banker for so long is unable to break out of the jargon and I can tell that the newer girls are struggling. I think it would have been better if they had more junior people present so that they could actually imagine a time when they didn’t know anything about this and how it felt to learn.

The questions from the audience can be divided into three groups:

1) My boss who, given his experience and designation, clearly knows all about this but still asks questions to what end I’m not sure. It’s like a kid from five grades above sitting in a kids classroom and showing off that he knows all the answers.

2) Other senior journalists who I think don’t cover finance but work for financial publications like FT and WSJ. They ask searching questions relating to stuff going on like the sub prime market. Although this session is supposed to be off the record and a learning experience, they are clearly trying to get some quotes and to also prove that they are intelligent. I see this a lot with the Anglo journalists. They often ask questions with a kind of arrogance that is supposed to showcase how smart they are.

3) Me and the new writers who clearly want to learn.

I am mystified by boss and amused/annoyed by the second group. As E said when I was telling her about it later: “They should just go – shut up you guys, we pay your salaries with our ads.”

I am also amused by the banker presenting who for some reason is trying to be diplomatic about the relationship of the bank’s with the rating agencies when everyone knows that it’s symbiotic. But the point is – if we know and they know, why go on about it from both sides. Sometimes I think journalists also get carried away with this ‘carriers of the truth’ idea in terms of badgering the person they’re interviewing instead of just getting the information quietly, making your judgement and writing it up in the way they see fit. What’s the point of confrontatation unless it’s on TV?

What was more weird was the conversation in the elevator downstairs:

Journo 1: What’s the big deal with what they do. They’re just glorified salesmen. (errr yes, and you’d give your right arm to be one of them if you could).

Journo 2: Yeah there must be some guy putting it all together for them on a computer (so?)

Journo 3: Yeah just a salesman in a suit.

I’m thinking: Guys grow up and get over the pettiness. It’s one thing for people like E and me to diss the bankers because a) we’re actively trying to get out of this field b) we have a problem with their conservative and chauvinistic behaviour more than anything else, which the male business journos also exude because they’re semi-bankers themselves.

If we chose to work in finance for more than 3 years, then we wouldn’t have the face to criticise these guys because hey if you’re not interested in it, why are you here? And if you are so interested in it – why aren’t you a banker? Yes yes, we all know that you are the communicator but how many of you really are? How come so many business journos end up going over to ‘the dark side’ and working as Corporate Communications guys or analysts after a few years? Surely there’s some envy there. And pissing on someone in a suit is ironic if you yourself are wearing one – thereby attempting honorary banker status in your clothes. So what gives?

Also it’s just plain bad manners to start bitching about someone, who was kind enough to offer their time to train you on something you should already know and who also paid for your lunch (for their own nefarious reasons no doubt but still), just as soon as your step out of their door.

Oh later in the evening the guy who got me the interview at the first magazine (the job I didn’t get where they chose the inexperienced white girl instead) smes and says: “oh hi how are you…” so I go “fine… bleh bleh” and he goes “we should meet up” and I go “yeah sure…” (trying to be vague) and he goes “when? where? what time?” I’m like Whoa! Desperation. OK the background is that when I applying for the job he tried to get me to ‘meet up for a drink’ in order to “discuss” something that really did not require meeting up for – and then when I said I had plans said he could not discuss it over the phone on the weekend becasue of ‘my son and all’. See I would have thought it was perfectly normal if he hadn’t dragged the job or the son into it – why couldn’t he just say “hey i’m bored let’s meet up for a drink”.

Also, this guy is married and has a kid. He knows I am married too. So what is going on here? Only in bloody Hong Kong.

Rants

22 Wednesday Aug 2007

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I have been informed that V’s parents will be visiting us at the end of September. I was expecting and dreading this – except that the shocker is, they’re planning to stay for three weeks. What, I mean what!, are they planning to do in HK for three weeks? We have a tiny house, they don’t like shopping, very few people around speak English so they cannot strike up conversations with neighbours, they get on each other’s (does this have or not have an apostropher – please vote) nerves, there are no Malyalam channels or even cricket on the telly.

I suspect that it has something to do with me being around to home-make (which they should by now have realised I don’t do). The weird thing is that when V first moved to HK before I was married to him, they only visited for one week – which I thought was strange because wouldn’t he then need the company and someone to look after him (presumably)? And at that time I was pointedly told that “we are all going to visit V before his marriage, because you know…” (I have never quite figured out what the “you know” meant but I assumed something to do with “before you the wicked wife enter the plot and spoil everything so it will never be the same again). At which time my thoughts were – “Huh?” “Gah!” “Whatever – thank God they’re visiting now and don’t think they’d be comfortable when I’m there”.

Unfortunately, it’s not quite happening that way. While my family – who I recommended come for a week or two because I think they too would get bored – show no interest in visiting me, we have been visited by V’s sister (which was ok except for the taking over my kitchen and then giving me the ‘you should cook, we all did it’ talk), V’s cousin (mostly fun) and now the parents. So much for the “you know”.

The problem with V’s family is that they are – like the evil girl in Bridget Jones’s Diary – like jellyfish. Just when you’re thinking they’re all cuddly, when you least expect it, they sting. So one is always on one’s guard – having tried the ‘I don’t give a shit’ approach and coming out scathed. I guess I’m just not confrontational – until pushed into a corner. And confrontations with V’s family can be vicious because they are so bloody minded. So I have realised that I have to pretend – and I am not good at pretending. I never did it with my own family – even extended – and because they loved me first and then tried to change me, they ultimately settled down to loving me regardless. With V’s family, there’s no love to start with – so it’s all about the changing.

So it’s going to be three months of pretending as best I can (plans are to hire a maid so she can be blamed for mess if any, and to deep freeze food either cooked by V or ordered from Thai Orchid and pretend that I made it) – and since right now my job is in shambles and my mood is shot to pieces because going to work every day is like taking cod liver oil and my self-esteem is plummetting because I cannot find a job that pays more, it is not a good time for that kind of added stress. If there ever was a good time.

There is a teeny bit of hope that V is telling me three weeks so that when they ultimately come for two weeks I’ll be mollified. Which might work but the mind-fuckedness of it is astounding.

Also V says that he told them to stay on for my birthday. How he might think this is a good idea (if he did indeed suggest it) or a good joke (if he was joking – as I said before I can never tell) is a measure of how little he knows me. I get depressed on my birthday and generally don’t want to talk to anybody expect very close friends. The fake cheer about one’s life that one has to put on when someone calls you and says “Happy Birthday” wearies me apart from the fact that I hate talking on the phone at the best of times – except to specific people and only when we have something specific to discuss. V is the only person I ever made an exception for and who I talk nonsense to over the phone. (hint to everyone – do not call on birthday. Send sms which will make me feel happy and to which I will reply the next day. Or if you forget -it’s quite ok. If it was crucial that you remember I would have reminded you).

I tend to switch off my phone on my birthday and often lie in bed in tears or get plastered out of my mind and smoke too many cigarettes (despite having quit smoking). How having not-my-parents but people-attempting-to-be-my-parents-when-I-already-have-parents around is supposed to be cheer me up is a mystery.

The irony is that V actually forgot my birthday and planned a business trip (again!) during it and then remembered and rescheduled. And I’m thinking shit – if he hadn’t, they would have had to come for only two weeks and I could have buggered off to Bombay for my birthday or at least spent it peacefully stewing on my own in HK without having to pretend to be happy.

* * *

Everyone please go and read the comments on eM’s blog (I swear I am going to learn how to link soon – thank you Su). I feel like sending everyone straight for a crash course in Post-Structuralism. It’s amazing to hear people say things like ‘feminists are militant’ and worse ‘women are naturally more nuturing’.

But even more amazing is that people I actually know say these things. Yesterday an old friend came online and asked me when I’m planning on having a baby (she is forgiven because she had a baby a year ago and is obsessed with it and had a the good grace to laugh when I said “ewwww”). Anyway I was telling her about my blowout with V about the looking after when-it-happens baby, and she said: “Guys anyway are not going to do any work so don’t expect it” (huh? maybe true but shouldn’t we at least give them grief for it so that they at least lift a finger if not a whole hand ocassionally) and then “women are biologically built to be more nurturing”. Huhhhh. If highly educated, strong women say this then what is to be expected of one’s MIL?

For the record – women are not ‘biologically built’ to be anything except unfortunately menstuaters, nine-month carriers and then breast feeders . The rest is a social construct which we are fast tiring of. Everyone go read the introduction to The Second Sex.

Being Indian

20 Monday Aug 2007

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I’ve been meaning to write something about Indianness since Independence Day but I got sidetracked reading other people’s blogs. Anyway on Saturday V and I ended up watching/listening to different renditions of the national anthem on some CD given to us by the bank’s NRI services. It was a Times Music production and was actually quite a good idea. It helps that V and I were always slightly patriotic.

Anyway, just a few days before that had been having this conversation with E about immigration. And I realised that there are a few things that are only part of the Indian experience:

1) Paranoia about getting a visa. People from other countries don’t go through extensive preparation, trauma and dinner table strategizing about a piece of paper just to be able to travel elsewhere. In fact, one of the best parts about living out of India is that it’s easier to get a visa because you’ve already ‘escaped’.

2) Inviting 1000 people to a wedding. It’s like a wedding is a war and each side needs to have a show of strength. And of course enough people to feed an army. Only in India a small wedding consists of 200 people – a normal sized wedding consists of 400.

3) Guys live with their parents even after they are 35 and that’s totally normal. It’s also OK for guys to fool around as long as it’s understood that they are going to get married later to whoever their parents choose and then pretend to love or at least care for such person at family ocassions.

4) It’s normal for movies to go on for 3 hours and to have an interval. I really miss the interval in movies out here. With no interval, you have to buy the pop corn before and end up eating most of it in the first five minutes.

5) We are always worried about what the maids are thinking. So young people have to skulk around pretending they didn’t just sleep in the same room in case the maids see them and tell the other maids who will then tell their other memsahebs who will tell their neighbours thereby sullying your reputation forever. I think only girls have to worry about this one.

There are more things I’m sure but I’m too sleepy to think of them. Perhaps everyone else can contribute

The issue of Indianness

19 Sunday Aug 2007

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I started out writing this but it wasn’t coming out just so – so I abandoned it. However, in response to Broom’s post (will someone please help me put the links in?) I’m just posting this fragment:

I never thought that I would land up living outside India simply because I never aspired to – unlike so many of my countrymen to whom studying and living abroad is part of the great Indian dream. It’s curious that for the upper middle class Indian the great aspiration seems to be to be able to escape India so that one can have all the goodness of being Indian – the quick-on-the-feet smarts that come from an education and life situation that has you always dodging blows and looking for loopholes, the great food, the sense of community, the rich and varied culture etc which has suddenly become so chic – while eschewing the dirt and the grime, the crumbling infrastructure and the bureacratic nightmares.

But anyway now I am one of them – those that escaped – and I am constantly fretting that I will turn into those people that do the the honourary visit to India every year and turn up their nose at everything.

I worry because I have already begun to exhibit the other great NRI characteristic – nostalgia for the homeland because you are never quite at home anywhere else. So you live in a kind of slightly-less-that-best-of-both-worlds where when you are in one place you are always dreaming of the other and thinking “if only I was there”. Actually mine is still just a one-way street – I am always pining for Bombay though when I’m in Bombay I never pine for Hong Kong, only when I’m in Bangalore because I know the only way to escape the in-lawness is to live abroad.

Anyway, here are a few things I’ve noticed about me since I’ve been an NRI:

1) People in India are always slightly admiring that you don’t live in India. Like you’ve achieved something merely by living abroad and you’ve acquired some amount of glamour.

2) I am always admiring of people who live in India. Having seen the other side, I would be quite happy to go back to coffees at Coffee Day, teaming kurtas and jeans, drinking at wherever is slummy cool now in Bandra and generally being the queen of my castle, not to mention actually being recognised for having worked at one of the largest circulated dailies in Bombay.

3) I can go to the ‘NRI services’ desk at banks. Except I’m still patronized because I’m a woman and look like I’m too young to have serious money.

4) I actually like hanging out with other Indians more than other races. But not ALL – god there are some boring people around.

5) I get very excited when I see samosas.

Ok that was it.

Weird conversation of the week

17 Friday Aug 2007

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Now that the week is over I can report weird conversation of the week:

At around 11.30 pm a few days ago when both V and I were in bed, I decide to have conversation about money. I have decided I want separate savings.

My philosophy towards joint accounts has always been whaaaa? It’s not just that I think that man may take all my money and run off. I earn less than V so I also feel it is unfair for him to share with me. Why should his more be mixed up with my less? See I am really not cut out for marriage.

However, I landed up with a joint account because the perks that V gets on his staff account are incredible. And I was supposed to maintain separate account for savings. So some amount of what I earned is supposed to go into that account. Which happened at the start of the year but then I forgot about it.

So V tells me that we have savings but they are investments we made – together. So I am like: that’s very good but I still want my own savings.

So V is like – ok take 10 grand and put it in your savings. But I am like – no I want fixed amount every month.

Then when I start to calculate what I spend each month on myself + bills + holidays + one time payments like furniture (I already contribute to rent) I realise I might actually have to pay V. Which puts me in a stropping bad mood.

So V comforts me by saying that if I actually examine the bills every month it might not be that bad and I might actually be able to be saving something. But that is really a big pain in the arse. To go through all the bills every month, split them down the middle, substract my share from my salaray, take the remainder and put into my own account. Hmmm actually not so complicated.

But the problem is that I am too lazy to do that. Also it might be a farcical excercise because V will not help and I will be all insisting on him ratifying that I am not ripping him off.

My basic problem is that I am too bored to check our joint account (which is actually why I want to just forward a set amount to another account every month and let it lie there – which V says is very stupid but at least it’s there).

Now this is the crux of the matter…
V: What do you want it ‘there for
Me: Um… in case of any eventuality
V: What eventuality
Me: Errr… you know things happen
V: So you think I am going to run away with someone
Me: It could happen
V: So what’s your problem? You have a debit card.
Me: But what if you withdraw everything before I get to it. You’re faster than me at this stuff.
V: You actually think I would do that?
Me: Why not?

See this is my problem. I don’t trust anybody. V, on the other hand, is convinced that we are going to stay forever forever. I am convinced that we are. But I am not convinced that V is convinced. And so forth.

Other weird conversation of the week. I call MIL for the birthday
MIL: So you know V’s cousin is carrying (a baby)
Me: Oh ya… V told me (knowing what’s coming next)
(Pause)
Me: So are they happy?
MIL: They are happy but I am not happy. (Now this is a shocker).
Me: Why?
MIL: It’s too early for them to have a baby. They need to get settled in their life (tears of joy are springing to my eyes)
Me: Oh!
MIL: But when are you going to have a baby?
Me (sigh): Ask me after two years
MIL: Two! (I can see her marking the date in a mental calender)
Me (hastily): Okay five.
MIL: Don’t wait too long. You know it’s easier when you’re young. When you’re older there’s so much tension.
Me: First I need to find a job I like.
MIL: Anyway you and your husband decide (I almost fainted. Most sensible thing she’s said in years.)
Me: My husband wants to wait for at least five years.
MIL: Tell him his mother won’t be there in five years.
Me: Hahaha what rubbish. My grandmother’s 93.
MIL: Ya but you know in this generation we don’t live for so long. (which is the opposite of the truth)
Me: Hahaha that is totally untrue.
MIL (also laughing): Ok do whatever you want. (wow! she should be sent on birthday picnics every day of her life).

What I did at work today – arrrrgh!

16 Thursday Aug 2007

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Got in late to work and boss said a pointed HI.

Boss came by to ask me to do something and I was clearly doing something pointless like surfing blogs. Quickly switched windows and my personal email came up. Luckily it was open to an email of press releases. Don’t think boss was fooled though.

Boss asked me to print out something. I had no clue where that was. When boss went away, asked the guy in front of me and luckily he had it and I was able to look super efficient by making two copies.

The meeting turns out to be be about planning an editorial schedule. It was to decide stories for the upcoming year. Which makes absolutely no sense. So we’re like randomly – ok let’s do m&a in october or whatever. But isn’t this supposed to be news driven? What if the M&A stuff happens in August – do you put it off till October by which time it makes no sense. Hmmm. But apparently all magazines do this. I gained no brownie points with boss by pointing this out.

In my lunch hour went for job interview. I used to mechanically apply for jobs and get excited when the interview happened. Now having gone to so many interviews that lead to nothing, I have become less excited. I go them as mechanically as I click off my resume – and just about to muster up enthusiasm during by pepping myself up in the half hour before.

This one went well and I have another round in a couple of weeks.

So now my entire lunch hour has gone and I haven’t eaten anything and I’m starving. So I decide to get something quick like a sandwich. Unfortunately, the place where I got the sandwich was so full there was nowhere to sit down. So I got takeout. Then I get to office and E is like: “So did you have a hot date?” and I’m like “yes” and dont’ elaborate. So odd. And then I proceed to eat my sandwich hoping nobody will notice and then E stands up. Erm. I proceed to munch as if it’s normal to be eating lunch after I had just eaten lunch.

Finally, the mag arrives. I flick through to assure that all headlines are there – and by there I mean existant – and then just go back to what I’ve been doing. I’m sure someone else will find errors which inevitably exist. Two minutes boss is near me frowning and showing me the cover. I nearly have a heart attack. An error on the cover will top all previous errors. It turns out that he is unhappy with apostrophes. With punctuation. When so much else could be wrong – doesn’t he see that?

I proceeed to explain why s’s is correct. He proceeds to show me style guides which make no sense. He is irritating me beyond measure, and proving that he doesn’t know English and is not capable of logical thought.

In the middle of this, annoying salesperson comes to whine about why we have not published some photos. Ooops. We forgot to publish photos of our own awards. But hey – tough luck. This is what happens to the fall guy who has to take the blame for everything. They stop caring. Sort of.

Favourite things

15 Wednesday Aug 2007

Posted by The Bride in Uncategorized

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I had wanted to write a post simply so that the previous post slagging of V was not the first thing everyone (and V saw) if they came to check out the blog and was planning to moan on about my job search (yes still fruitlessly ongoing) when I realised I had been tagged by Su so here goes:

My favourite things (in no apparent order except for the first and second one):
1) Cocker spaniels, especially Zo
2) V in a suit, looking like an overgrown six-year-old who knows he’s hot.
3) Bubble baths
4) Lemon ice tea
5) Milk chocolate
6) Chocolate mint icecream
7) The spa thing – Facials, pedicures, massages (manicures are overrated though)
8) The Apprentice (I have to be obsessed with one TV serial and right now it’s this)
9) Chick Lit and slutty fiction from the early 90s (80s?) such as Judith Krantz and Jilly Cooper
10) My Blankie (which is still in Bombay for some reason)
11) Vogue magazine
12) Filter coffee (unavailable in Hong Kong, best available in Kamats)
13) 80s music
14) Rainy days when you’re indoors on the couch with a 1) 2) 5) and 9) – sadly unachievable because 1) is in Bombay and 2) in Hong Kong
15) Bright red polish on my toes

Since we’re doing this, here are my least favourite thing:
1) Jobs that I do not get
2) Bratty children
3) Men who think having a cock makes them superior who then flirt with you with their wedding ring on
4) Having my period
5) Waking up

I am going to turn these into a list.

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