so bye. google is a bitch and has made a mockery (i.e. blown out of porportion) my stupid hints of identity.

yar. so i’m fucking off.

There is not one day a week in which I do not feel like tearing the head off an inefficient workmate.

There is not one day a week in which I do not feel like tequila dozens are in order.

And every day I dream of moving to Discworld.

Overheard in the Newsroom #2546: At the newsroom Christmas party: “He’d eat a roofing shingle if it was free and had sugar on it.” Yay, my first real solo. From the schedule, it seems like another chance for PR personnel of the money industry to fuck with me.

 Traffic tests me, both LDP and Federal, but I didn’t lose half an hour’s extra sleep for nothing. Still, it didn’t help that the night before I rewatched Grey’s S02E12 and E13. Denny Duquette so pawned MasterCard in the battle for my attention. Needless to say, lack of sleep and research made me a very angry driver.

Soon anxious driver, barely got to Giant Shah Alam in time for 9am, breathing “Thank God thank God thank God.” Then angry when discovered Giant only opens at 9.30am. WTFFF?!

Walk through the whole Giant and see a group of equally bemused people at Giant entrance, shutters only half up. MasterCard I ask and some well dressed females say yes. They’re the PR Weber Shandwick people who basically ran the whole show for the day.

Four couples given RM1000 to spend in 6 minutes. So this turns out into a human interest story. The Sinar Harian reporter and I strike up conversation, interview the winners and have the pretty biasa breakfast Giant provides – currypuffs, packed drinks and sandwiches.

Make nice talk with PR people, but I can see the Berita Harian guy is let down. He’s from Business desk but he ain’t getting any story here. Somehow, SOMEHOW the PR people feel sorry for him – “Sorry sorry tapi kita tak boleh disclose apa-apa.”

Poor guy. I drop the Sinar Harian reporter and photographer off at their office then take the long drive back to the office via Federal. See F first, he says to put in M&M with a human interest angle. Nice. I get to practice feature stuff in news length. Grab coffee cos I’m still yawning.

I decide to finish the press release F sent me yesterday to cook into a story. But after coffee and a grumbly stomach; I feed the pangs at the cafeteria with Spanks – he’s got a story to dig – pretty hard news. When I come back only slightly awaker, N is back from Kiara and is very excited. Oh-kay.

“What are you doing?” “Oh, just exciting Ricoh office printers, really.” Sigh. If I do the Giant story first, I would be so unmotivated to do the release and balik lewat again.

Ah!! I do a little jig around 3.30 when I’ve done the Ricoh thing – too bad the entertainment senior notices and gives me a look. Yeah, I know. I’d be super-pissed if I was chasing a deadline and some idiot rubbed it in.

 I feel this later when, excited, I pursue my people angle on the Giant story and N makes calls to write hers – and we are interrupted by some bloody bloddy lions (dance) and NOISE and oranges. N says “I’ll call you back, there’s a lion in the office.” but I stare determinedly at my screen and somehow keep my thoughts in order. Looking around, I see everyone but F and I looking at the lions. Like WTF, they’re nothing new.

Much later, there are orange skins lying on the floor. I make a less elaborate celebration upon finishing the Giant story at 5.30, send it in. Then I try to get F to sign my weekly report. Like me earlier, he grunts, “Do I have to do this now?” Signs it. “I’m doing this story.”

I sympathise with him, I really do. After all, he was correcting a court story headline and flow. On the same note, A is a really fast worker and she’s been hopping around since 4pm when she was done, chatting with others. I head home at 6.30 – like hell jam will be, but much worse if it was an hour later. Not so N, I think she waits out the jam till 8pm and takes a while over her stories. She is such a perfectionist.

Which is good really, but for M&M? Just before leaving, I glance at her two pages of text and say, “Wow, two pages?” N says, “Oh I’ve just been putting down everything and deleting it.” I’ve glanced through some of her past articles, she really puts effort into the lead and flow.

Off Friday and Saturday, back on duty Sunday. I am loving working for a less harried paper (at least not before 4.30pm) but I don’t know what I’m doing Sunday – guess I’ll have to wake up early again argh.

By the way, yes the above quote really did happen on the second day when a staffer brought leftover yeesang. Upon the quasi-tossing and eating, she observed casually, “Oh, so it’s still fine.” Since then, orange peel on the tables and floors – 100% sugar and cake finished in under 10 minutes.

This summarises me. I am happy to note that the TARC idiots who went through diploma with me and could barely string words together are not present. Everyone here can write real snappy (they’ll just put it off XD) and love the sound of their own voices – essential, of course.

Reading Tabby’s Star stories.

Listening to The Good Life by Tony Bennett.

Looking forward to a peaceful Sunday in church sans family – FOR ONCE!

Today I have two assignments following N, 9am at KL Hilton and 12pm at Bangsar. I’m stuck in a horrific please tear off my (eye)balls- jam. Plan to take the Putra because public transport no matter how notorious still is better than going into the city on a weekday morn. I barely make it to the Hilton but surprise, surprise JRs have lateness ingrained into their DNA so actual launch only starts 9.30. This is me. This is MY job. N smses – says she’ll be late cos of jam and I wonder how I’m going to get in without the press tag.

Thankfully, our society isn’t so sci-fi suspicious that the PR people give me the press release when I say my name and ”the Sun.” They inform me that Zulkifli, the photographer is here and he already has one. I look around at the group of guys with cameras and I can’t make out which one is him. 40 minutes listening to John Legend, chatting with a Japanese JR and eyeing the chef/waiter candy that passes by is relaxing.

The Lumix launch starts at 9.45 after some kickass Hilton coffee and scones outside the hall – I wanna stay! Panasonic has clearly put a lot of effort into this. Later I find out from some techie JRs that it’s the norm for Panasonic to release so many models at one time and give JRs (they love their media friends, apparently) a hell of a good time.

Soon after 9.45 N arrives. Looking at the schedule, we may have to skip the Q&A to make it in time for the Bangsar assignment – a Dell launch. Wow. N calls F with my cell and he tells her not to worry about Dell.

There’s a sketch with Alex Chong, a speech by Tony Endoh (Poor guy, why do they put him through it? He sounds cute though.) and then the presentations follow. Patricia Yaw seems more at ease and halfway I say aloud to Anne, a Click JR next to me : I want her job. Patricia as product manager gets her pick of Lumix to take with her. Agh.

The next product manager is less exciting but she tries – after all, her products (camcorders and lenses) are not the launch highlights. The Panasonic staff poke fun at each other – we seem one step away from some good booze.

But no, it’s just good food. At the Q&A, the Panasonic Msia people give time for all questions and are on very good terms with some regular JRs. It’s all laidback.

Throughout the heavenly lunch Spanks bugs me via sms about the wonderful food he’s having at the Marriott assignment with A – first roast lamb then choc and cheese cake. Little does he know over a 5-star buffet of salmon, lamb cutlets, rare beef and mussels (I subscribe to one plate only – so I tried everything non-veg or healthy), I am having a joyously good time.

Dessert was another affaire with ze attwactive French chef B asking moi if je wants anything that sounds french and expensive with moi apple crumble, cake by some weird name and tiramisu. I said yes to everything of course. If he was slightly younger, my thoughts would have gone haywire (oh yes yes yes I’ll lick ‘em off your wonderful sweaty …) ….

Pause. Over the food, N starts by telling me she’s done with her first helping, wants to take more but… I say lunch is 12-2pm, it’s a buffet and NO ONE will know. So she goes for another – and I chat with some JRs from Marie Claire and China Press at the table.

What’s Marie Claire doing here? Is the food always so good? I ask.

Oh, we cover lifestyle too and yup it’s always this good. One says.

But after a while it gets boring. When we started out younger we’d go “oh yea night event! food!” but after 2 or 3 years it’s “not a night event, I want to go home and sleep.” They laugh, start trading stories and generally titter agreement.

The first Marie Claire JR tells me to ignore them and enjoy it while I’m young.

They don’t look so old but I make pact to self to not stop being thankful for being treated like royalty. They tell N that Lumix would be glad to lend her some models for test-driving. If only I like cameras as much as Clarkson loves cars, I’d have done so immediately.

We’re back at the office close to 4pm. N offers to drop me of at Tmn Jaya where I parked so her GPS takes us a roundabout way. It’s a comical moment when it says, “Turn right into Jalan Beh-rat.” and she’s says “Such a weird accent.” She too speaks like kwai loh but grew up here so her Malay pronunciation is spot on. There’s nothing like a good meal and a long drive to make acquaintances. It helps that both of us love to talk of course. In more ways than one, she is more Malaysian than me.

We plan to pitch one general angle by N and a lifestyle angle by me. But when we get back, turns out F thought he was talking to me earlier and actually wanted N to cover the Dell thing. So the Lumix is my first solo. N took the Dell press release and made some calls for her story. When I finished about 6pm and about to head home, an email from F comes in to process a press release into an M&M.

Oh dear, homework. I rarely feel joy at homework, but apparently writing is a drug to me

Reading press releases.

Listening to Poses by Rufus Wainwright.

Hell is pretty cold really. In fact, freakishly arctic. The Sun’s offices has their aircond turned up so much so that a respite would constitute bathroom visits (wrong wrong wrong), standing in the stairwell (and dousing all Grey’s fantasies) or near and open-window (somewhat suicidal).

I brought my pens- all working, for once; notebook and I FUCKING READ UP ALL THE PAST WEEK’S NEWS. But oh no, they didn’t tell me to bring my own mug. Hence, perfectly godly coffee dispenser with mug niche, but – no mug. Spanks asked if the mugs left by the sink were for general use, the answer was a resounding NO.

Needless to say, we spent the day-

a. Watching the Grammy’s live and hearing all the office chatter.

b. Following the editor’s advice – read newspapers (so we read all and after we were done, browsed online). Others facebooked or youtubed, but not us first-timers. After 6 hours, sentences of text just became one long thick black serpent of an eyesore.

c. Staring at others’ coffee mugs, flasks and Starbucks cups continually being refilled while fighting back sleep and reading Jeremy Clarkson.

d. Going to the restrooms to see the contemporary art. Ladies – framed cartoons eg “Bowel Movement in D Minor.” You go figure. Gentlemen – (this from Spanks) posters of Julia Roberts, Angelina Jolie et al atop urinals at eye level – nothing more fun that being cheered on by beautiful ladies.

e. Taking lift for one floor changes and stairwells for more- these are caffeine withdrawal symptoms.

All in all, a lovely day. Tomorrow I follow reporter N for a branch launching. I figured it’d be easy corporate stuff – not so with The Sun. Some quick backwork shows something weird – should I pursue or is it just a fengshui/ location thing? No biggie, just weird. Don’t want to step on toes on first day, should act dumb methinks. Just let N go ahead and I’ll just write a backup of my own.

Yes Visha, thou art lucky. No I don’t have my own desk or PC (will share); my editor looks scary – hence no asking if I have my own work to submit. But I do have:

a. Free coffee, teh tarik, milo.

b. Free hot water, fruit juice and ice-cream.

c. Staff discount at affiliated places.

That said, I believe tomorrow (oops, TODAY) I may be writing for the affiliate publications not Sun. Hm, 3 months being published in 3 publications. Not too shabby.

Friday and Saturday off, Sunday on roster. Have bout 4 days off for CNY so do contact me should you wish to meet up.

Reading: Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert. (Not gonna finish anytime soon so consider unfinished till updated.)

Listening to: Perfect Day by Lou Reed.

PS: Rushed to Secret Recipe for lamb pie and long black (ah every girl’s dream) coffee to celebrate unsatisfactory first day. Thank you, Zhi Jern.

Hurrah for good-looking, brainless bands with tunes you can dance to with a brush and your sister ten years younger. This fan of M2M and N’Sync had already whetted her appetite when Take That’s  Rule The World played during the Stardust credits. And when you have a country singer serving up straighforward lyrics and straighforward tunes with a large helping of straightforward videos on top, my somewhat embarrassed self wants to split its cocoon.

Oh yeah. When I heard You Belong With Me, I went : So true! Saw the video and went: Aww, SO TRUE!! Notice the crazy fangirl personality. Yup. As much as I admire the genius of Grizzly Bear, The Cure and Elvis Costello, I still fall for 4-5-1 progressions in 90s pop. In the same way, as much as I acknowledge how a great personality and witty humour are vitally attractive, I’d readily fuck Jonathan Rhys Meyers at the first opportunity. The body is weak, as the Bible says.

And when one waxes lyrical about acknowledged soppy tunes when one is supposed to study for one’s finals, you should get the fucking point and play along.

Reading: Charles Bukowski’s Notes of a Dirty Old Man.

Listening to: Taylor Swift’s You Belong With Me for the something-teenth time since 12am today GMT +8.

P.S. Want my rum.

a. I forgot.

b. I could not be bothered.

c. I lost my scholarship.

Hence, Cost the Second and Last:

It is useless hard work. Endless picking up after people, countless ass-kissing efforts and a CGPA of 3.6 because of a lousy mugging paper. That 3.6 only qualifies you for a 50% scholarship (but only at branch campuses). Which, as I told Miss H of SBS this afternoon, proves that by law, they are stupider than KL Campus kids. Fuck them and fuck TARC.

So I’m paying my fees. I am determined to be zen, or be Psycoe this semester, but letting go is not as easy as thought. The zen has left me twice since June, but otherwise I feel like Karen Carpenter. Top of the world.

The cost of living in TARC:

Cost the First. Playing the reject card. This is not a new experience since I have been doing this all my learning life. However, in school there were very few group projects and no breaks in between classes, so there was really no need to socialise so much. Heck, you didn’t need friends if you could watch your own back, right? Maybe then, but in TARC?

Not bloody likely. My expectations have been low for the past two years. From the first semester, I played the expendable card well. I joined different groups for different projects, as opposed to others, who had, within the first two weeks, formed fragile alliances. Luckily, the mainly Chinese speaking members took solace in the fact that I was aware of my  position. Hence, most appointed an unofficial interpreter who would be present in group discussions. Here, my brain saved me, as I did help them bag fair scores. By the second semester, there were some projects where more creative control was put in students’ hands. When I stupidly assumed I would retain at least half of the same groups, one after another apologetically told me to shove off (here I REALLY hold no grudge) as they were doing their projects in Mandarin. This language I have the first ten numbers, body anatomy and choice swear words down, the usual shit. So this time I was really useless. Another group, fairly successful, I must say, had rejected a male member, perhaps for his inherent ability to say the wrong things at the wrong time (which could be , like, ‘uncool’) or his apparently wide-eyed, childlike exterior.

I also had the good fortune to receive a subsequent reject of the same group. This time a female who I detested as much as they did. My good fortune continued in a similar pattern, until, miracle of miracles, I actually belonged to a stable group by the start of my second year (and fourth sem). Needless to say, I had not had fun in quite a while and this provided fresh respite.

This muhibbah ensemble consisted of two boys ( Chinese and Malay) and two girls (Indian and Pasembor). One of the members claims to have left said group on own accord, but I highly doubt that took place without some internal encouragement. This gathering lasted one semester and a bit before and combination of personal and professional problems threatened to break it. We have also had another reject (so blasely rejected I actually felt a tinge of compassion) from that group but only for a project last semester. See the pattern? The Year 1 feeling has never actually left me.

Since then, the best I can say is that it has been an on-off thing. I am now in my last diploma sem, the sixth. Two members are now (bless them) in the throes of young love and understandably, have new areas of concentration. As I face the last semester before most of the class will not continue to advanced diploma, I pause and ponder, How would it feel to be a reject of rejects?