Thursday, September 14, 2006

Moments of reflection

10th of June was the day I arrived in London. It is now some 3 months since I’m here and it only seems the right thing to have a moment of reflection of some sort.

So it all started with staying at my cousin’s place. Having a relative to look out for must be the biggest pain on Earth. Except that I was the pain. I must have caused him so much trouble I feel bad. I can even imagine him complaining to his mother my auntie (here they say auntie too, not aunt, like the Yankees) about it but blood is thicker than water. One day I will tell him how sorry I am.

Then there was this other Singaporean who was a friend’s friend who I waited for to find a place to live together. Turned out she back out last minute and is the main cause of why I am staying where I am. But I guess it is a blessing in disguise because we wouldn’t have been the best of friends anywhere – we probably wouldn’t get along that well, especially the staggering home on Fridays wouldn’t go so well with her. Besides, I love the privacy of having my own room now and wouldn’t give it up for anything.

The bulk of my life so far is work and I know I have said this a million times but I really really think that I have been so fortunate to land in a job like this. Perhaps this is just how all offices in Central London are like, but I doubt every office brings 30 twenty-something smart and fun people together at the same time. Just last Saturday when I was out with my mates having what I think has been the best night so far since I’ve been here in London, (I don’t even want to call them colleagues because they are so much more than that), we were ranting about how fantastic it has been. More often than not you’re lucky to get 1 good friend at work – but here I can name at least 10 people I really love, people I wish I lived with, people I will stay in touch with and go out frequently after we leave this job, people I will go visit at their home countries, (mainly Aussies and Kiwis if they are not English) people to bitch and gossip with, people to bitch and gossip about, people who I am more than happy to throw my hugs around, for these people are my family away from home, people who have seen me drunk and silly and love me for that, people who goes as drunk and act as silly as I am and I love them for that, people who loves me as a little China doll and thinks I am so small I needs to be taken care of all the time and always, always on the lookout for me, people who knows exactly what I am going through right now, who are as stressed and as busy and as no life as I am because of the workload, people who can go out at 8pm to get a pint of beer after seeing each other for 11 hours just to rant about work. It’s incredible how much I have grown to love them – and yet retain a certain level of detachment at the same time.

I’ve also came up with a sort of vague plan for the rest of the months. I reckon I will soon get bored of London especially with the fact that my next job will be nowhere as fun as the one I am having now, and the fact that the harsh infamous weather is coming – sun now no longer sets at 9pm but starts to get dark at about 7pm. Soon it will be about 4pm. It’d be too cold to get around and depressing – I can anticipate that. So I decided I’d probably go to Canada to look for my other family and be a pain again for Christmas and New Year, then perhaps head to California again if I find it too cold and stay there for a while if I like it (this colleague of mine stayed in Hollywood for 11 months and loved it – so I might go check it out and see if I’d like it too), come home at some point before May for a visit, then head back to London for the next season at the same place I’m working, doing a big one or two month Europe trip in May-June or something if I have sufficient funds at that point, or else, do it in October after the season ends. But I’m definitely going to come back to Europe. I have not yet seen it at all, and it is quite stupid of me not to I know, and go transatlantic but then again, I’ve considered this hard and long and I sort of think that this is the best plan yet.

And maybe, I may bring one or more inspired souls along from Singapore with me next year. Who knows?

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