So far, the worst thing about my job has been getting accustomed to the fact that it isn't 9-5. Which is not a terrible thing. Consider Toi Ngee, who has duty tomorrow (Sunday) and is paid something like one peanut per hour. Which he can throw to the monkeys which potter around outside the gate. Now, that's a terrible thing.

It's all a matter of getting used to, step by step, level by level. And fortunately, for me it's been a nice gradual incline. 1) stay back past 9pm, cancel dinner plans, get emailed work at home; 2) stay back past 10pm, cancel dinner plans, realise stayed back for nothing; 3) stay back past midnight, no longer bothering to make dinner plans in general; 4) called back on Saturday to work till midnight. And every time some new barrier is broken my heart kind of breaks along with it because I feel like my life has been invaded but then shortly after it no longer hurts too bad and from then on when the same thing happens I don't care so much. Eventually, by the time mid-year and the crazy season comes round, I'll be pulling consecutive 3am nights with a smile on my face and spring in my step. I'll be clapping my hands with joy knowing that I never see my family or anybody else who matters and that my friends have been reduced to the people who work in the same building as me. It'll be sheer ecstacy. I can't wait.

Some other pupils got it the other way around though. Instead of a gradual incline it was more like those rides at the theme park where they shoot you into the sky and you're vibrating and battling with G-forces and screaming your head off. Like my colleague's ex-colleague who in the first week got sent to The Printers (more of that later) every single day and remained there until the wee hours of the morning. And then went back periodically for the rest of the month. For all I know he's at The Printers tonight. Haha. That's just a Very Bad Job. And a Very Bad First Impression for a pupil.

Anyway. The Printers. It's hell which has been decorated to look like it's not hell. There's a room with nice chairs (massage?) and pretty flowers and drinks and nice looking ladies who come in now and then to offer you foot reflexology etc as you proofreed bundles of documents over and over and over again, along with the other hapless souls who are also proofreading bundles of documents over and over and over again. I presume they serve you breakfast when day starts to break, which of course, makes you forget that you spent the night proofreading a document which no one will ever read, over and over and over.

In a completely different vein - visited Marmalade Pantry the other day thanks to Luyi and I'm not going again because it's so overpriced it still hurts. But I really liked the wrap of the chicken wrap. (I know, of all the things to like - what about the chicken? The pesto sauce? The roasted squash? Or even the side salad with the roasted tomatoes?) Well it's a heck of a wrap - wholemeal I believe and thin and almost crisp and really tasty. I need to get my hands on that wrap. Wonder if they sell it in the supermarkets or some chef back there pounds away at the grains every day.

FIVE FOUR THREE TWO ONE HAPPY NEW YEEAAARRRR!!!

Well, actually there was none of that. We passed the threshold without much fuss: I was busy checking that my files had downloaded and Toi Ngee was playing a game of "guess the brand of negative film from its dye colour" (or something equally geeky). So we were about 1 minute late with the "happy new year" and there weren't even party poppers and drunks vomiting in the vicinity. Darn. But then who needs that sort of revelry when you have photography. And like, developing. And like, scanning. Did my second roll today and I still get all sweaty and panicky, and I'm always mildly afraid that at the end of all the agitation (of the liquids, and of me) I'm going to open the canister and the film will have tied itself into a knot and is all bright red or green or something. Anyway, I'm slowly getting into it, when I never thought I would (it helps that Toi Ngee does all the hard work like the calculations and actually buying the stuff haha) - it's a bit like cooking. The only difference is that in the end you don't get to eat anything, which is why we just went for my first drive-through. The reason why I've never driven-through is because my father is really sensitive about food in the car. It's not even about eating in the car - it's just food in the car.

But anyway. I really like my camera equipment now. I have the digital set-up, which - although I complain about it all the time and treat my D70 like an unwanted child - is a great workhorse, and produces smooth pictures. And then I have a fun film set-up (Contax G1), which doesn't have the control of an SLR but has first class optics - meaning I don't have to obssess about getting it perfect (coz it's just impossible, so whatever) and half the time it does turn out better than perfect, because the CARL ZEISS LENSES ARE AMAZING. Bee-yoo-ti-fool. Whacks my nikon 50mm f1.4 upside down, which I thought was a pretty classy lens. Although I have yet to run a roll of coloured positives through the camera. All I need now is the 28mm lens and then I can be perfectly peaceful and stop spending on "big ticket items".

And by the way, who needs a holiday when you have a boyfriend. Really. It's as good as Bali.