Squareface @ 31°North

• dunno whether to start working on an essay due tmrw or just do other things and ask for an extension tmrw #
• Chinese facebook? http://www.xiaonei.com/ #
• i c a n ‘ t t a k e i t a n y m o r e #
• 自己太没珍惜快乐时光 #

• on e train back to shanghai, forgot i cld use gprs to be online, but dunno how much this is costing me ha, yangshuo trip was good. #
• back in Shanghai, in dorm. #
• [reluctantly] back in Shanghai, in dorm. #
• I think I have to book an appointment to talk to you #

• i need to learn to pack ealier than a few hours before #
• I need to learn to pack earlier than a few hours before #
• wanted to upload pics but kept getting error. bleh. n my msn has/is sending out a hacking link, so beware. #

• German tuition for 2 hours and it’s the end of the week already! #
• it’s the end of week 6 already wheeeeeee #
• in this era, does anyone still listen? #
• A tourguide in Yangshuo has helped us find an available room at an Inn for our 3 nights’ stay. What is he gaining from this? #
• Grace is getting me: Zinger burger from KFC; Chicken wrap, fries, and strawberry milkshake from Macs. ‘coz she needs to use my pc haha. #
• how to settle internship requirement…do i go back to singapore? do i apply for internships now? do i contact ex bosses? shall I just temp? #

How can I not blog about this: Connie the Crazy Canadian is likely to drop by Singapore this summer. Guess where she might be staying while she explores our sunny island?

The response from the owner of the intended accommodation wrote this in last year’s email when I first asked:

If you are around it would be Ok. But she and you can’t sleep on the same bed. Either one of you have to sleep on the floor. It is very unhealthy for both of you to sleep on a bed meant for one person. Remember this wherever you are. Your friend Sam also should not sleep together with you on your bed. Your bed is too small for two persons.

(Connie, I think I successfully shifted everyone’s attention to my mom’s erm… sense of humour and you’re no longer the star of this post. Hahahaha but yeah that’s the way I am so too bad, banana.

You’d better bring me plenty of Reese’s, maple cookies, some of your banana bread, and quesadilla haha.)

A friend sitting next to me talks about working in the banking industry. The friend sitting opposite gives advice on clinching an internship. Soon, the whole table starts talking about Citibank, Standard Chartered, Barclays, Bank of Tokyo (Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ Ltd), JPMorgan, and about this or that friend working in this and that big-name firm.

I still can’t answer the question of what I want to do after I graduate, I don’t even know whether I’ll be in Singapore at that time, but if conversations are going to be like this from now on…

For now, I’m just satisfied with the little steps I make from time to time. I just want to live the remnants of my student life in the way students should be allowed peace and isolation from the world after, even though most college students around me in this era have more or less established where they want to be in life.

Perhaps I refuse to abandon the disillusion that things will somehow work out, with the complacency that they always do.

There’s an increase in the sound of wedding bells, or friends wanting to sound the bells. Talks of marriage, buying houses and whatnot fill dinner tables, and I try to understand their whines that it’s such a pain, when my idea of marriage is everyone having a helluva good time because we all get to fly across the Pacific Ocean for a happy holiday throwing maple leaves at me and (dare I say it) Sam.

But I do feel the pinch of age when thinking of skydiving and bungee jumping gives me the shudders. I admit I’m increasingly afraid of leaving the world too suddenly. Roller-coaster rides don’t possess the appeal they used to, just when not too long ago I could get down from a death-mocking ride and itch for another. I’m more conscientious about health and dental check-ups, and I can’t ignore heart/lung pains anymore. Routine headaches, fevers, diarrhoea, knee pain, and cramps; nightly dosage of medication and daily dosages of supplements all tell me that I’m no longer young and invincible. Looking at the metal brace on one of my molars, I know the possibility of bodily dysfunctions is very real, and very now.

I guess I still want to believe that things will only happen many years later so there’s nothing to worry about. I’m 23 this year and very much expected to be an adult who should know what to do, what’s next. Truth is, I have one foot in school and the other merely tiptoeing nervously beyond.

Almost all my friends are graduating in the next two months while I’m just hoping the next year and a half will whizz by, but yet not slip by without my consciousness.

These days I’m just indulging in brain-degenerating activities like peeling and eating mandarins in class or in between them (and spitting the seeds anywhere and everywhere with bad aim towards the bin), eating mo pi in between eating mandarins, eating popcorn chicken with yam milk tea, basically eating till I’m left with only one pair of pants that fits.

I’m indulging in being a student, albeit not a studious one, sitting at the back of class talking or sleeping or eating mandarins/a banana/nuts/dan bing or all of that; or sitting in the small classroom for English classes waving flying chalk powder away with my hands along with the rest of my classmates (as if it helps); to laughing at all the little things we do to make class time speed by (like doodle in our books); or taking pictures of my friends and I sleeping or being bored in class (see below). We fantasize about life after all these, but never dare to make any concrete plans.

I’m getting at nothing with all this incoherence, and it tells of my impoverished worldliness. Nevertheless, I know I’m enjoying the life of a student’s, having the power to skip classes to get more sleep/to go shopping/to eat crispy-skinned duck/to forge closer bonds with friends. I do feel pressurized to establish some connections beyond the schoolgates, but there’s the rest of my life to be obsessed with that, right? Why not savour my privileges (like having decorum AWOL) now?

This is a sponsored post.

At The Lead Dogs, we specialize in one thing – getting you the high-quality b-to-b sales leads that turn into sales. Business-to-business sales and marketing professionals turn to us when they need to:
• Qualify responders to marketing campaigns to identify those that are sales-ready.
• Leverage the investment in marketing responses by nurturing inquiries that represent future opportunity, but aren’t sales-ready today.
• Fill the sales pipeline with sales lead management to drive consistent revenue.
• Penetrate accounts to uncover qualified opportunity areas in key market segments.

Since 1994, companies like Microsoft, Adobe, Shell and Orbitz have outsourced to The Lead Dogs to generate, manage and nurture sales leads that turn into revenue. The reasons why are simple: we are rabid about quality; we keep a careful eye on their campaigns; our reporting and technology integration is unmatched; and our vision of developing leads that aren’t yet ready for their sales organizations increases their marketing ROI.

This is a sponsored post.