wonderment

Oh my poor little neglected blog.

So many things have happened over the past month or so but let me just do a quick sum-up while I wait for my hair to dry and have to go to bed.

1. I had a seriously bad bout of flu which deteriorated into tonsilitis the week my Perth trip

2. I nearly faint after taking an antibiotic jab to get well

3. 2 days after I’m well enough and I’ve been to Perth for Amanda’s wedding, being her bridesmaid and now I’m back!

4. Aquina Patina is coming together. The postman came knocking at 930pm! I didn’t know VPost operated till so late. I thought I lost some purchases, but they’re all coming. I can set up shop soon!

5. With the setting up of Aquina Patina, I have to be more organized in my personal life, work and the shop. Organization is very tedious but will be immensely useful in the long run. The first thing I have to do? Answer all emails and SMSes within 24 hours - just like any good service person.

There’s more to this sketchy little blog post, especially about the wedding, but I have to go sleep now. I hear my dad outside my door grumbling that I’m still awake.

I plan to blog more often. I always say that, but let’s see how I can keep this up. Part of my organizational plan!

It’s one of those days when it’s sandwiched between a public holiday and the weekend.

Why can’t they then make Friday a holiday as well???

Can someone kill me now?

How could I have made that kind of mistake? *Note to Ruth: SEND A FOLLOWUP EMAIL TO COVER YOUR A*S!!!

Today is one of those days that are so slow I feel like checking on out of here and going home. I finished most of my work early this week and today I’ve no emails, no calls, and no work to do.

Everyone is probably feeling the same way I do. I’ve a record number of Facebook additions today.

Big yawn.

On the other hand, I just heard that a friend who had gone to Brisbane to study passed away in her apartment 2 days ago. She was in her early thirties. Life is so frail.

The ginseng chicken soup my dad cooked on Friday has given me a huge, red pimple on, of all places, my chin. Ripe enough to pop, yet I can’t because it’ll ruin my makeup and probably get even more infected.

Too heaty!

What a random subject to write about on my first entry after a long hiatus that totally caught me unawares?

I would like to explain why I was caught “unawares” but it’s too long a story that I’m sure you wouldn’t be interested in. Essentially, life catches up and I don’t have the time nor energy to write.

But something happened today! And I got home early, so I can write.

I’ve (rather cheekily) told some people I know that I’m “part Eskimo, part Dutch royalty and a little bit of Indonesian blood” when asked why I don’t look totally Chinese. In Malaysia, I’ve had shopkeepers speak to me in Malay and my Australian lecturers used to ask if I was Chinese.

For the record, my parents say I’m 100% Chinese, but who knows right? Maybe along the way when my ancestors migrated to Singapore, there was some Caucasian influence?

Furthermore, today, I met Alison, our Australian hair stylist whom we use sometimes for training. The backstory to this is:  I’ve been having a never-ending battle with my hair since Day One. Previously, I pulled and tugged my hair into place trying to achieve the 70s bee-hive look to give my flat head some shape. But I feared that by the time I hit 30 I may have lost all my hair, so I decided to get my hair cut, hoping by some miraculous stroke of divine intervention, my hair would listen to me and stop acting like a spoilt 7-year old.

So I had my hair cut last weekend and at the salon it blew me away - very soft and feature-accentuating, when styled properly. Once I wash it away and have to style it myself …. ho ho ho …. welcome BAD hair day. I managed it all right yesterday which got me lots of comments but today, tres terrible! My mid-length bangs were sweeping into my eyes (which my boss absolutely detests) and the humid, heavy weather totally fried my wispy ends to unruliness.

It so turned out that Alison had come to do the VIP’s hair for a BT interview and I so happened to be in the room talking to my boss when she came in. The boss talked to her a bit about her own hair when she turned to me and proceeded to tell Alison about my entire hair history and asked her to have a look at it.

I was embarrassed to say the least , but hey, what the heck, free advice, don’t want to take ah?

So she sat me down and walked me through all my hair habits and taught me how to wash my hair (twice, massage, don’t scratch) and told me that the stylist had over texturised my hair (I knew it. The stylist was using a blade t0 lop off most of my hair when actually that really hurts your hair shaft and makes your hair dry and flyaway. A proper stylist uses a good sharp scissors.)

Then she told me a strange thing, “You have Caucasian hair.” Double take. First people tell me I have mixed looks and now, for the first time, someone tells me I’ve got hair like an AngMoh? “Very fine and very lightweight, your hair isn’t suited to be overtexturised. Chinese hair is coarser and stylists texturise to take away the weight, but when you take away weight from your hair, you’re left with nothing.”

Now I get it. I loved my hair salon in Australia even though it was a training academy. They knew exactly how to cut my hair so that it would fall just nicely. People used to say that Caucasians didn’t know how to cut Asian hair and told me never to go to an AngMoh stylist but I just had to try … and loved it! No wonder I don’t really have a stylist in Singapore, they don’t know how to cut my hair!

Alison is going to help me save my hair a little bit on Sunday. I’ll have to go to her house, and she’s going to help me retouch my roots too! Whee!

So 3 reasons why I am really an AngMoh in disguise:

1. My hair’s really blonde, the pigment just got a bit whacked and came out black for some reason.
2. No matter how hard I try, I sound like an Angmoh when I speak Chinese
3. I can only buy clothes that fit me and look half decent in Target, ValleyGirl and BigW.

Bah, what am I doing in Singapore?