it felt like bunking off school. like when we used to sneak out the back gate of the mount sinai campus and walk hurriedly across the hdb estate and over the bridge, heaving a sigh of relief only when we reached the bus-stop or holland village.

but yes, just like bunking off school. except it was work, and i had permission to leave the building since no work was going to be done while the lights were flickering on and off and the data connections were on the blink.

so i went shopping – a new pair of shoes, some new shirts and a pair of wide-legged trousers for SS08. all done in under an hour. impressive, non?

and then there was the picking-up of lunch from carluccio;s and delivering them to a man who was laid up in bed with ‘general grottyness’. eating lunch and reading the newspapers in bed, chatting and doing things on the internet (him) and reading a book rather unsuccessfully (me). very decadent indeed. and also so much fun.

it was a stolen afternoon. so many free hours plucked out of the air so suddenly, and so coincidental a matching of free time.

we have PLANS, my friend and i.

parisian plans, berliner plans, moving in together plans.

but the best plans we’ve made so far are the ones involving red wine and good food. oh, and endless cups of machiato made by real italian men.

there’s a coffee@ on the way to work in the mornings, and i stop there to get my small soya cappucino, a quick glance at the morning headlines and and bit of the chat to the baristas (and baristress?). i get along particularly well with one of them, a girl from auckland.

this evening i popped in on the way back to buy some food to supplement my dinner and she popped her head out and ran towards me and gave me a high-five exclaiming that they’d found the PERFECT flat in highbury islington. i was genuinely happy for her, and we stood around the counter chatting about this place she’d found.

it made me smile, as i walked out, thinking how amazing it really is, this intersection of our lives - we’re not complete strangers, we can talk about her new flat, and yet i still don’t know her name. or she mine.

it’s chinese new year next week - yet another year i spend it sans famille.

the past ones have been spent, variously, in chinatown, in friend’s living rooms, and in the kitchen when i invited friends over for a feast. this year, unfortunately, shall see no feasting as 1) the shared utensils in my current place are CRAP and i have misplaced my cleaver that is so essential in feast-making; 2) there is no dining table in the living room, and feasts are not meant for standing around the room trying to eat off a plate while looking for someplace to put one’s glass down; and 3) i’m too lazy.

but i’m sure i’ll convince some of my fellow trainees to come for a (late, i presume) dinner at dim t by the office on thursday evening, and i’ll traipse around chinatown hoping i can find ba kwa or pineapple tarts on the weekend.

a friend wrote recently about music and smells - freshly made love-letters, new banknotes, and mandarin orange peel accompanied by the ubiquitous, blaring chinese new year tunes.

1. i’ve moved into a room in a house with 5 other random strangers

2. it’s in peckham

3. i’m not dissatisfied with life at the moment

4. work starts soon - i am woefully unprepared for its reality

5. banoffee pie is still one of the best things to cheer me up on a winter’s day. especially after a night out in the company of too much rum and dancing. yum.

back in london.

sorted out one of the things that had been weighing on my mind since i stepped off the plane 4 months ago. the other things, like housing, remain puzzles to be solved when time and fate coincide.

it’s been pretty cold, but wandering around the backstreets of brixton, looking into the tiny shops and sitting around in wonderful cafes warms me up. sometimes i think i’d like to live like this forever, in limbo, with nothing to do but walk around and observe life around me.

there’s a new michel gondry film coming out at the ritzy that i’m going to try and catch. the darjeeling limited ended its run the day after i arrived, so i’m going to hunt down the dvd.

i miss [fill in the blank] already.

i’m ready to leave.

i woke up the other day with that thought in my head. i didn’t know why, it must have been my sub-conscious telling me what i’m only consciously discovering several days later.

it’s time to get on with it, time to begin the next phase of my life.

the problems here (and there), they’ll remain unresolved and probably will for a long time more. but then again, i’ve lived with them for a long time now, so there’s no real rush to force a solution when there are other much more important things to deal with.

like housing, work and my future.

i feel like i’ve done what i can, and there’s not much more i can do without giving it up completely. so, right now i’m perfecting my handover procedure and everything will be complete.

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你那天讲对了 －－ 有时辛福比快乐重要。

从今我会用心寻找辛福，若辛福能与快乐合濒那当然最完美。
若之内没你，我就也得接受这一切只是上天安排的一场长绵游戏。

但她也说得对啊 －－ 快乐不也是一种辛福？

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