e*toile

I haven’t written for a long, long time. It’s been 4-5 since my last post, probably the longest blog-sabbatical I’ve had.

So, why haven’t I written for so long, and what have I been doing?

1) May
- why I didn’t write: busy, lacked inspiration, too many uncertainties, the Boy and I were living in the same room and he was using my laptop so I didn’t really have personal time and space to write
- what I was doing: the Boy and I were flat-hunting to buy, found a little basement flat, put an offer in, started paperwork and was waiting for clearance, work was busy

2) June
- why I didn’t write: ditto as per May, with a greater focus on the “busy” at work bit (see below “what I was doing”)
- what I was doing: work was busy on “my” silly client; working all hours like a dog for a sale process that was proclaimed by all as going to be “deal of year in the sector”, e.g. pulling together a management presentation in one week, my holidays to Denmark/Sweden got cancelled

3) July
- why I didn’t write: ditto as per June, with more uncertainties than usual, and work was still busy
- what I was doing: the vendor of our beloved flat raised his price on the very day we were about to sign the contract, so there was a rush to find alternatives - either find a short-dated place to rent, or find another place to buy in less than a month (we were about to be kicked out of our rented rooms as we had terminated our lease). so there was a lot of drama, discussions, viewing of flats, discussing options. Finally, despite not liking the vendor’s last minute price-hike, we decided to match the offer, even though I had wanted to reject it, just on principle. - The other options just made much worse sense, from a financial perspective: house prices were rising, mortgage rates were rising, no other flat offered as a good a deal as this one did (decent size, with a garden, share of freehold, W2, £547 per sq ft). I had my birthday - the Boy organised a very lovely long birthday weekend, but I ended up being very stressed because of work, with “the most important Board presentation of the year” coinciding with my birthday weekend. - Isn’t every presentation that will f*ck your plans / life up always “the most important” one of the year?

4) August
- why I didn’t write: lacked internet access
- what I was doing: I was leaving work at 5pm almost every day for the month of August - sweet life indeed! So, not busy at work at all. We moved into our little Flat of Dreams, my little piece of England. We had only one table and one chair for most of the month. Slept on an inflatable bed that we borrowed from a friend for about 3 weeks. My back and neck ached so much, I was hurting all the time, even when walking around. - Never again! I was really inspired to write about my experiences, thoughts and feelings, having so little to do at work. But the lack of internet access at home was killing my inspiration and pissing me off. I spent many hours calling BT, Be to set up my landline, chase the set up of my account, investigating why my broadband didn’t work etc. Very very frustrating. We adopted a little moggie kitten. Went all the way to Plumstead / Woolwich Arsenal (that’s in SE18!!!) to collect our little black and white ball of fur. We had planned to call him Vasco de Gama after the Portuguese explorer, but ended up calling him Newton after Isaac because he looked so quiet and (we thought, or hoped) intellectual. I also started taking driving lessons - I found it very stressful actually.

5) September
- why I didn’t write: work started getting busy, holiday
- what I was doing: I started getting some work and was leaving work between 7-9pm. Still early by historical standards, but rather later than I had gotten used to during the summer siesta. Went for a 2 week holiday in Malaysia/ Singapore. One of my JC friends got married and I was bridesmaid! HURRAH!!!!! This may be the first and last time I get to be bridesmaid. The wedding and the holiday was fun. I was needing a holiday quite badly by September, my last one having been in April.

Which brings me to today.

Work has been getting busy again. Last weekend, I stayed until 5am on a Saturday morning to finish a presentation that was “the most important presentation of the process” (another project) that was scheduled on the Sunday (yes, WTF right?), then had to work until late on Saturday too. The Boy and I went all the way down to Sleaford in Lincolnshire to adopt another kitten. A blue Abyssinian kitten this time, whom we’ve named Byron. We’re raising a family of feline intellectuals and wanted a poet after having a scientist. It’s been several stressful days since the second adoption. Newton’s jealousy, the kittens fighting etc. But hopefully things are calming down.

We still have not much furniture - a table, a chair, a mattress, bed-frame, a broken dressing table. The kittens have more furniture than we do! We’re trying to find suppliers and fitters for new double-glazed windors/doors so we can install them before winter, and we want to replace our carpets with hardwood flooring before we get more furniture. Then we’ll need to fix the plumbing, install new heaters… so the flat is an ongoing work-in-progress.

Today, my iMac arrived! I had bought it in August before I went on holiday, and due to various problems, it had only finally gotten delivered today. I am ecstatic! Now I have my own personal computer, work, play and dream space. The Boy had taken over the use of my macbook to work on the Company, so I usually left my macbook to him so he could progress on work. It’s nice to have my own space again. And given how much memory this new baby has, I have created separate access accounts for the Boy and myself, and accounts for Guests too.

Anyway, so that’s all the update for now. I’ll write again soon.

Good night, world. x

The death list was eventually ‘published’ on 29th April. The Boy got one of the 4 cherished spots. One of them was taken up by a girl who is transferring to Frankfurt to be with her boyfriend (how selfish!). And the remaining two redundancies were two guys who were really pretty bad basket cases. I didn’t get a spot. Boo.

But, on the upside, remaining employed surely didn’t hurt my application for Indefinite Leave to Remain, which I was granted today! Hurrayyyy!!!!!! I’m now free! I can quit if I want to (but won’t for now, not until I get my passport)… I can walk out any time and get a job anywhere - even flipping burgers at Mac Donald’s if they piss me off. With no need to worry about work permit restrictions etc. I am that much closer to being a Brit (haha..).

I had to spend about 4 boring hours in Croydon to get my ILR. But it was worth it - this was a long-awaited historic day for me. I spent the day out of the office, chilling out in town, just to celebrate my freedom. Although I do have to work this weekend, *sigh*.

When the head of my team spoke to me earlier this year to give me my bonus number (a derisory amount!) and the usual thank you/congratulatory chat, this time supplemented with an update on how the bank and team is doing, I very gently raised my hand for voluntary redundancy.

I asked him if there were upcoming redundancies in the team. “No, I assure you, there are none planned for now. And if the bank and team continues to perform as expected, there are no more cuts planned in IBD (the already announced cuts being in other parts of the businesses)”, he assured me. But in fact, I fully expected more cuts to come. So I said, well, I’m only asking because, if there are cuts in future, I would appreciate if you spoke to me first, because, while I remain committed to team and will continue to do good work while I am here, I don’t really have any financial commitments (wedding plans, mortgages, children), unlike some other members of the team, and wouldn’t mind taking some time off (of course with no guarantee of employment when I return to Banking) to travel. I was quite surprised that the head of my team, who is a lovely man that I respect, looked quite surprised at my softly-softly offer to be made redundant. I had expected more people to have raised their hand (as happened in other teams, as I later found out).

Predictably - and one didn’t even need my (self-acknowledged) level of seer-like clairvoyance - we’ve announced cuts, and, almost as predicably, much larger cuts than previously announced (*yawns*).

Rumours have been rife in the team. And there have been many quiet coffees and chats that have taken place between people at various levels, between levels, with differing degrees of secrecy, with contents of discussions being shared and passed on, and intelligence and tactics being discussed.

Apparently some seniors have been trying to sound out who will “take the package”, who might leave voluntarily (only relevant for Analysts) post July bonus (hah!), to work out how many to fire, and who to fill the slots. The Boy has put a message to one of the MDs who is he is close to that he would “consider” taking the package depending on the package. In actual fact, he is dying to leave and would quit if not made redundant. So it would be better to leavel with severance at least.

Before I left on holiday, one of my seniors spoke to me to see why I had volunteered and if there was any way to retain me. I was very open with him (I have a personal project I want to pursue, my client is difficult, I find work mind-numbingly boring and the pyschological effort I need to do good work is getting too much for me, I don’t really aspire to what he - some one 4 or 5 years senior to me - does), and his conclusion that I was unretainable. So I thought I was good to go.

Then, while I was on holiday, the de-facto controlling MD called me for a chat to further sound me out. He wanted to understand my motivations for wanting to leave, the level of my commitment to the team etc. I was very, very careful with him. To his mind, he is not inclined to give packages to people who volunteer because they are essentially unworthy and asking for a “free lunch”. Whereas, the other MD that the Boy is close to thinks (and rightly, in my view) that packages should be given to those who would leave anyway. Otherwise, the team is exposing itself to the risk of being short-staffed after firing and then losing additional staff through attrition. So now I’m not sure where I stand.

I’m probably in one of worst-managed and most irrational teams in the bank. The de-facto controlling MD is reportedly against giving package to people he dislikes. I recently found out that the MD dislikes one guy in the team in particular, who has badly damaged the team spirit by doing no work, often coming in at 10am and leaving at 5pm, and has spent the last year constantly interviewing (apparently unsuccessfully) for other jobs. And yet, instead of firing the f*cker, the MD has refused to make him redundant in the last round (hence giving him, an admittedly very generous package, which will not be the case for this round), which has allowed the f*cker to remain, like a parasite, in the team, further demoralising the other hardworking team members. And there we were all thinking that the MD loved the little f*cker and he was protected, and were speculating which worthier person would be fired instead of him. How twisted is that. I wish I was in a more rational team.

Internally, we are expecting the death-list to be published in early May/late April (potentially as soon as this coming Wednesday). So let’s see what goes.

I am so good at my work!

There are some days when I feel really proud of myself, of how productive I can be, the quality of my work, like these past couple of days.

Yesterday I managed to check/finalise a book for printing last night while leaving at a relatively decent time of 11pm while spending most of day helping my friend review and revise his Business school application essays (and I’m still very impressed with my bullsh!ting skills, after all these years), and also managed to squeeze in some work on a personal project.

Today, in the course of one day, I have: refined my work on personal project, tanked a restaurant on a review website,drafted some CSS code, helped my friend iterate his application essays until he submitted it at 11pm, completed a tedious benchmarking exercise (finally, a work project!) with an admirable degree of professionalism and thoroughness (this should be a piece of exercise for my junior but he is on holiday) and drafted excellent points to advance our position on the work project.

It’s days like these when I feel like I am on a hill at the top of the world. I feel like a force of nature, a one-woman powerhouse, a superhero wonder woman! And I’m so impressed with myself, that I truly wonder why others don’t appreciate my ability and talent - my seniors/colleagues (I’m not top-rated),potential employers (the company who rejected my application but had employed the lame back-stabber instead), my Ex-boyfriend… It’s days like these, when I feel energised and excited, that I actually know, that I can do anything, and everything, that I set my mind to. I could, to quote J, build a rocket to the moon if I wanted to. The only problem is that I have very few of these days, when I’m all excited and a-buzz and blazing through my to-dos like Usain Bolt on fire. Most of the time, I’m just generally bored by work and life and quite contented to chill out and avoid mental exertion.

I should really find something that I’m passionate about, and enjoy doing, so I’m energised and happily buzzing all the time!

I just found out from that wonderful social newswire, Facebook, that my Ex, the first love Ex (MTB) is getting married over Easter weekend. It’s unexpected (he had told me before that he was supposed to get married after the age of 30, according to a fortune-teller) and depressing (if he’s marrying the not-even-b!tch - he deserves so much better). Wow… I can’t believe he’s decided to do it. That his mom has finally accepted a girl that is worthy of her boy, or that the not-even-b!tch’s mom is open minded enough to let her over-protected previous daughter out of the country, perhaps permanently in Vietnam?

In other news, my life’s a bit of a mess. I didn’t get the job that I was applying for. So now I’m stuck… kind of caught between a rock and a hard place. Hating my job, wanting to go to Africa or maybe move to Paris in pursuit of a sudden opportunity, yet wanting to stay to get naturalised and needing a job to pay the bills in the meanwhile. The best thing would be for me to stick it out another 15 months or so. It’s the most boring option, but even the Boy agrees it makes sense not to throw away my 5 years of arduous waiting. But it seems to painful to bear. Like pulling out my finger nails, one by one.

Also, trying to get restarted on my path to computer literacy. Wondering if I should start with Perl, Java, or PHP…

With impeccable timing and sense of occasion, I watched “Revolutionary Road” on 14 February. It’s just as well I don’t celebrate Valentine’s Day. I found the movie very scary.

I’ve always hated the concept of suburbia, and the thought of living in suburbia. Since I was a child, I had daydreams of escaping, of travelling to distant lands. I wanted to be a doctor, a marine biologist/scientific researcher, a war reporter, a photographer/journalist for National Geographer, a fashion designer, to write, to work for an NGO and/or for environmental/animal causes, to start my own company, or to become a CEO. I was confused but exhilarated, filled with hope about the vastness of my horizons.

I didn’t want a suburban house with the proverbial white picket fences. I didn’t want to settle down, and let my soul petrify in the stillness and sterility of suburbia. That is why I am ambivalent about children. On one hand, I like the concept of having a mini me, of nurturing a new life, full of potentiality. On the other hand, I’ve also always seen children as a symbol of death - mine, that is. Children would entail sacrifice, the burial of my dreams, they would nccessitate having a steady job, being sensible, sedentary, stable, still, stifled.

It’s funny… given how I’m all diffused, with desires that run amok in different directions, and my innate restlessness… one would perhaps have expected me to identify with April Wheeler, Kate Winslet’s character. The strong woman, who had the courage to leave it all behind - sell the house and car, have her husband quit his job and move to Paris, without a particularly concrete plan.

And yet, I feel that, even now, even these past few years, I have slowly sleepwalked towards suburban conformity. So yes I’m a banker, yes I live in a city (London) rather than in the ‘burbs. Nonetheless, it is the mindset, not the form, that defines suburbia. And what scares me most about the film, is that I identify with Frank Wheeler (Leonardo di Caprio’s character): frustrated with his life, but too cowardly to change it, and thus accepting mediocrity. In the couple, even though I was the one who first brought up the idea of quitting my job and spending a year travelling in Africa, I’m the one who is also more concerned about monetary/financial considerations, more worried about finding new employment when we return, and I’m the one who is willing to postpone (I say for 1 or 2 years, but in reality, it could be indefinitely) our African trip if I get a new job that I’m currently applying for.

In the film, the estate agent Mrs Helen Givings (Kathy Bates’ character) says something to April Wheeler that echoes what a friend said of me once. To paraphrase, Mrs Givings said that the Wheelers seemed so special when she had first met them, and they had first moved into the neighbourhood… but of course, Mrs Givings hastens to add, they are still special now and still a bit different from the other people. One of my friends once said to me: you seemed so special and different when I first met you… not that I’m saying you’re not special anymore, but now you’re so much more normal, more like everyone else; I guess you’ve matured. It haunts me, the film’s echo of my own experience.

At the risk of sounding childish: I don’t think that being “much more normal” or being “more like everyone else” is a sign of maturity. I don’t necessarily think that what “everyone else” does is the right thing. It might be the right thing for some of them, but most of the time, doing what everyone else does is just being cowardly, or lazy. Like signing up, lock stock and smoking barrels, to a set religion without giving the way of the world and one’s personal quest for meaning a second thought.

I don’t see anything wrong with being contented, if that is within one’s nature. But neither do I see merit in being contented just for the sake of being contented. If fundamentally, one is discontented, or has not found one’s niche in the world, then I think it is wrong to drug oneself and live within a self-made prison of inertia.

One of the pyschometric test questions that I had was this: “Which is a more natural mistake for you to make in life: a) to drift from one thing to another too easily, or b) to stay in a rut for a longer time than you should”

I asked the Boy: so what do you think my answer was?

He said, “a) of course”. And he understood the irony perfectly - that in my desire to guard against my more natural mistake of being an ever-drifting duckweed, I over-compensate and hence I have a tendency to get stuck in ruts and stay in places that do not suit me for a longer time than I should.

I need to retrace my path to find a balance, and my strength.

In order to progress my (very anaemic French), I’ve decided to listen to French songs, in addition to watching French movies, and translating the lyrics. My last teacher recommended Vanessa Paradis’ latest album, and a colleague recommended Raphael’s Caravane. Given my predilection for procrastinating, I’ve done more listening than translating. But I’ve finally taken the first step in translating what is probably my favourite song (ma chanson préférée) in the album, which one can watch/listen at www.jukebo.fr

Peut être A-t-il Révé (lyrics)
“Il vit très bien sans elle (he lives very well without her)
la ville n’a pas changé (the city has not changed)
le matin il descend (the morning, he descends)
comme on donne à manger (like one gives food)
à un petit enfant (to a little child)
son ventre se rappelle (his belly recalls)

Puis il ouvre un journal (Then he opens a newspaper)
sans le vouloir vraiment (without the desire really)
tout ça lui est égal (all is the same for him/he doesn’t really care)
un morceau de métal (a piece of metal)
dans sa gorge est planté (is planted in his throat)
mais il semble vivant (but he seems alive)
peut-être a-t-il rêvé (perhaps he dreamed)

Comme dans un songe on croit trouver de l’or (like in a dream we believe we find gold)
au matin au réveil (in the morning on awakening)
c’est un peu de soleil (it is a little bit of sun)
fondu au matin (melted in the morning)

Il vit très bien ainsi (He lives very well in this way)
comme dans un flocon (like in in a [snow]flake)
qu’importe le flacon (which ever the bottle)
pourvu qu’il ait l’ivresse (as long as he has drunkenness/as long as he gets drunk)
alors il se redresse (then he straigtens himself out)
peut-être a-t-il rêvé (perhaps he dreamed)

Comme dans un songe on croit trouver de l’or (Like in a dream we believe we find gold)
au matin la tendresse (to morning the tenderness)
c’est un corps dans les draps (it is a body in the sheets)
qui dort au matin (which sleeps in the morning)

Il sait qu’elle reviendra (He knows that she will return)
la chambre n’est pas faite (the bedroom is not done)
comme quand elle était là (like when she was there)
brûlure de cigarette (cigarette burn)
sur le meuble de bois (on the wooden furniture)
peut-être a-t-il rêvé (perhaps he dreamed)

Comme quand on croit que tout peut arriver (Like when we believe that all can happen)
au matin au réveil (in the morning on awakening)
c’est un peu de soleil fondu (it is a bit of melted sun)
au matin au réveil (in the morning on awakening)”

Source (of French lyrics): Lyricsmania

I feel stalked by bad and dramatic weather conditions! First, Klaus, the worst storm in France since 1999, now the heaviest snow in South-East England for 18 years .

Was on the plane for 4 hours in T5 this morning after an overnight flight from Dubai, and finally made my way back into London at around noon, more than 5 hours after the scheduled arrival time of 6.20am. Worked from home.

Pictures from the BBC (follow the link) and myself (see below)

Snowy street

Snow fall

Snow-covered cars

Snow-covered car

Snow-covered car

Icicle

Available parking spot

Snow falling on icy street

Winter wonderland

The path home

Will recount traumatic stories of Dubai another day.

The Boy had planned and organised a richly packed and highly detailed weekend for 24-25 January to French and Spanish Basque country. The plan was to fly into Biarritz early on saturday morning (we got up at 4am to catch the flight!), drive to San Sebastien in Spain (30 minutes from Biarritz) and have Saturday lunch and dinner and Sunday lunch at three among the top restaurants in Europe (Arzak #5, Martin Berasategui #3, and Akelare #29 respectively), take in some sight seeing of the Basque coast/countryside in between, and end the weekend by visting the Guggenheim museum in Bilbao, before flying back to London from the Bilbao airport.

But the biggest storm in France since 1999 completely ruined the Boy’s best laid plans - our plane was re-routed to Limoges, about midway through France and c.400km from Biarritz near the Spanish border. We had to rent a car and spend all day driving down to San Sebastien, sometimes having to slalom between trees that had fallen on the road and making several detours necessitated by road closures because of fallen trees. And, to add insult to injury, we were stuck in a 2-hour traffic jam just near an hour from our destination. So instead of fine dining at martin berasategui, we arrived starving in san sebastien at about midnight, and had greasy Argentinian empanadas at a local joint which had football on TV.

Happily, we managed to get a new reservation for Martin Berasategui for Sunday lunch, which was the only thing that saved the weekend from being a total and complete fiasco. I was particularly keen to try Martin Berasategui because of his reputation for innovative food (which I strongly prefer to traditional food). And I was completely blown away by the food- taste-wise, it is the best I’ve had so far, and very innovative too (though not as experimental/intellectually engaging as Fat Duck)! Furthermore, Martin Berasategui, was actually in the kitchen - at most of the other places we’ve been to that had big name chefs, the chefs were either away travelling, or not in the kitchen. And, to top off an amazing meal, we actually got to meet Martin Berasategui, the man himself, in the flesh - he shook our hands and we even took a picture with him, and got a tour of the kitchen!

I’ll write more about the food and experience another day. In the meanwhile, Happy Chinese New Year of the Ox!

Yesterday was a historic day for 2 reasons:

1) Barack Hussein Obama was inaugurated as the President of the United States. The historic significance of which has been reiterated ad nauseum. On balance, I am more of a supporter than a detractor. I don’t expect him to perform miracles, but I do believe that he is our brightest hope, and the best man for these times. Primarily because of the confluence of economic environment, his racial/birth heritage, and the fact that the world has been traumatised by Bush, I believe Americans and the world will be more co-operative, give him greater leeway/leverage, more benefit of the doubt, and take a longer time to become cynical and disappointed than with any other President. Which is not to detract from the fact that he is highly intelligent, has proven to be very capable and impressive to date (if a bit aggressive), had chosen strong advisers during his campaign and continues to appoint highly qualified and intelligent staff, nor to diminish the significance of his message of bi-partisan politics, reconciliation and reaching out, responsibility and hope. I watched/listened to his inauguration speech (the first time I have heard him speak) and was very impressed and happy with the text of his speech, the highlights of which, for me personally, were the following: addressing the environment within 5 minutes of his speech, making a deliberate effort to reach out the Muslim world, emphasising the importance of science, partially exonerating bankers of the current economic crisis by reminding of the “collective failure to make hard choices..”, and remembering the poor

2) I had s*x for the first time and shed my virginity. So now, the UK has lost one of its last few remaining virgins over the age of 25, most, if not all, of whom I know… it is after all quite a (rare) achievement to be so obstinate in this day and age, especially in London. I’m not particularly against pre-marital s*x per se, and my continued innocence was driven more by an accident of circumstance (of not having done it with my ex-boyfriend), my judgement that I wasn’t emotionally ready for it (after all, I took 4 years to get over my first boyfriend) and a refusal for the first time to be random (and I have been single for 7 years since my one and only previous relationship), than by any closely-held principle. So, since I was curious and impatient and thought the time and the Boy were both right, I decided to take the plunge. It was interesting… and certainly different from what I had expected from my vicarious experiences through trashy romantic novels. It was both more and less painful than expected, and the quality of the pain was also different than what I expected. I had expected just a sharp pain which then disappears (*every* single bl00dy romantic novel says that!)… instead the pain wasn’t very sharp at all, but more “rounded” … like it covered a larger area but not acute, and the discomfort lasted for quite a long while! The Boy said that I looked like I was about to faint and/or puke up half the time.. and it was true that I did kind of feel like that ;p And I wasn’t used to all that poking around inside and felt like going to the toilet (!), which was, I suppose, a good distraction, as I had to focus more on not letting it all go than on the discomfort, haha! But overall, I like it. I like that feeling of deeper connection with the Boy, our one-ness. I am, however, definitely increasingly disinclined to have a baby, especially not a natural birth! There’s NO WAY a baby could pass through.. we’re not built for it (no matter that generations of women have undergone it - they were misguided for agreeing to undergo legalised Mediaeval torture!), and it will hurt way too much. CALLING ALL SCIENTISTS: please please please invent an external baby incubator, such that we can create a zygote in a petri dish and incubate the embryo to babyhood in a little external glass incubator, feed it via tubes so that after 9 months, we can open the incubator and voilà.. out comes Mini Me!