I am just reading a snippet of an ex's love letter he wrote me when we just fell in love, more than 6 years ago:

"The difference between loving someone and just wanting to be in love.
Personally I think that for the latter [sic] one would be willing to make sacrifices, and when faced with problems willing to tackle them and at the end of the day, kiss and make up. With the latter, one will probably have the initial stages of what love brings - the lovey-dovey feelings, but when challenges in the relationship crop up one will most probably cop-out, escape and probably to satisfy their wanting to be in love (actually I would call it in love with the idea of being in love), 'find' someone else. I don't know, probably I am describing my ex here."

He was talking about himself, the person he was going to show me he was in less than half a year's time.

I read back more, and more snippets amused me:

"Well, we have talked about some of your old ghosts. Frankly speaking I am afraid for you...
I'll always be there for you dear. Love conquers all."

He had absolutely no need to be afraid for me then at all. Because he was the one who wasn't able to exorcise HIS old ghosts. Firstly, he was NEVER there for me, especially when I needed him most. And love certainly didn't conquer all. Not in that naive way he thought.

This shall be a public post, only because I am not cynical or bitter or heartbroken anymore. Some wounds take a long time to heal, but eventually they will have to make way (for new ones? Ha).

It's been amazing, how my eyes have literally been opened in this journey I felt I've taken for the first time over the last half year or so, thereabouts. I am in the midst of a hugeass cleanup of my room, where I literally dig deep into all my cupboards, drawers, nooks and crannies to toss out all the things of yore that seemed to have held me in bondage to dead emotions over all these years. I believe this cleanup has been very spiritual in nature and origin, I have never felt so compelled in my life to do such a thorough cleanup.

And this letter? It's about to go in the trashbin, right about now. I just thought it was an interesting bit that I could laugh over. The sheer irony, the utter contradiction. I have dreamt about this guy, even before we began, that he would take off and run from me when we were in trouble. And I was chasing from behind, asking him to wait up.

The prophecy was frightening, to say the least. There is something about my gut feel that can be unnerving sometimes.

It's a Friday afternoon and I have almost nothing to rush!

What a great feeling....I still have something to draft up, but shall take my time and enjoy some music at the moment cos something tells me next week is going to be a crazy week.

Worked through last weekend but on hindsight was rather worth it as I was feeling really relaxed the first part of the week.

Wheeeeee! It's payday and I think I should be able to enjoy my weekend entirely! I hope! I hope nothing suddenly lands in my mailbox!!!

You know two copywriters are having a conversation when:

Copywriter 1: (having fishball noodle soup) How's your lunch?
Copywriter 2: (eating diced chicken in thick soy sauce) It's very... saucy. How's yours?
Copywriter 1: (looks at her own lunch) Mine's somewhat...fishy!

I'd never imagined myself to be in advertising. More than that, I'd never imagined myself to follow in my sister's footsteps, so exactly what's more! She was a copywriter for MediaCorp Radio for 3 years. Well, we don't do the same kind of copywriting, cos I don't do radio ads or ad-ads, if you know what I mean.
It's still too early to say whether this is my cup of tea, after having gone through so many (well, quite many anyway, in a matter of five years) career choices. Getting a job is one thing, staying in it is another, for my case anyways.

And I'd thought I was pretty cut out to be an editor. From the looks of it, nope. Not quite. Or not at all, not at least where book publishing is concerned. Never had the chance to be a magazine editor but I'm not sure if I want to anyways.

I've had a job where I quit after less than a week. Many people probably go through these kinda jobs at least once in their lifetime, and it was something I knew really was wrong for me. There were jobs I hung onto for three months, or between three to six months, knowing they weren't right but was just waiting for the right moment or reason to say goodbye. In fact, I was letting my employers find a reason themselves!

There were the dreams I held on so tightly to, thinking that was what I loved to do and wouldn't have to "work" another day in my life. There were the jobs I did for 1.5 years to 2 years and yes, I could keep doing them but somehow I had lost the passion and drive for them. In these jobs, there were phases where I would leave after 1 year and then go back to it for less than half a year before finally deciding they weren't things I would go back to do forever (or so I hope).

I've seen so much, probably more than what most people might see in their lifetime of work.
I've experienced so much too, but maybe it was necessary for me to go through every single one of them so I could finally glean some hard lessons I'd refuse to learn, that others would have learnt in their first job or first months of working.

That work isn't a bed of roses, even if you love what you're doing, or are doing what you think you do best.
That at the end of the day, there are hard sacrifices you just have to make, if you want to have some sort of comfortable lifestyle to afford your wants, or even needs (like mine). Time sacrifices. Stress. Exercise. Things you've always wanted to do.
That you would never hope to find work that is "perfect", or even "perfect for you". With every great job there will always be parts of it you don't like.

How many new beginnings was I hoping to have?
How many options left do I want or need to explore before I decide, for sure, this is IT?
What is IT?

It's been two weeks. Two mad, crazy weeks. And I've noticed a pattern. Wednesdays are my lowest days in the week, somehow, going by the cycle of work. Those are the days I catch myself wondering if I could survive all of this, or even love what I'm doing. But one thing's for sure, I've been through worse. That's a real comfort, cos then I know I have what it takes to possibly survive this, and just maybe, thrive in this environment.

Advertising sprints at a breakneck pace. It's crazier than editing (books, not magazines), and my company is already a luxury compared to many of the ad firms out there, but the cycles are shorter so you feel more productive (or at least I feel more productive than I was at editing). I also feel less snowed under. The deadlines are shorter, the work more exacting (cos we are writing to please AEs and clients, and audiences) but so far I haven't felt it to be insurmountable. Editing four books at one time is insurmountable i tell you.

It's definitely more creative than editing too. Thinking up headlines all the time is part of my job! That's about one of the most fun and yet ego-bashing parts of the job! I'm learning to let go of my ego and face rejection nonchalantly. After all, it's really nothing personal. Whether someone likes my headlines is really a subjective thing.

I can't decide if journalism or advertising is more my thing, but I do know I don't have a nose for news. I love writing articles, especially on issues that I feel strongly about (like health), but writing them for a living day after day might be a different thing altogether. (Actually, I have an article deadline to meet today) Also, writing health articles requires quite a lot of research I realise, otherwise you could suffer a backlash if you report wrongly or not based on recognised studies and research. I also realised I have selective interest even in the vast area of health, so that's why I say sometimes there is very little difference reading on technology I don't really care about and health details I don't really care for.

One thing's for sure though. It's a deadline-driven creative world I've known so far. But then again, even in a non-creative job, deadlines (or meeting targets, which are really deadlines) are of the essence. That's business. That's life.

After my first week at work, I managed to enjoy the first part of my weekend renting a bike and helmet and just cycling my ass off (like literally).

I just wished people at ECP were more considerate; lots of pedestrians love to hog the cycling track, and walk like they own the bloody road. I had a good mind to crash into them and send them flying. Let's see who's gonna suffer more, me or you!

Sigh, if only weekends were like this always. Start the day bright and early with good ol' exercise, flat out for 1-2 hours. Then eat, shower, nap, eat again .... oh the luxury!
And now I have work to do. An article to write.

I realise that after 28 years of life, choices aren't really that different anymore. I don't see a real difference writing an ad, or an article, or reading stuff I love or don't love or hate. The differences are starting to converge somewhat. Don't know if this is a good thing, but it certainly takes a lot of the emotional factor away anyway.

Sure, it'd be nice to go and watch TV instead, but I also realise that relying on how I feel isn't that reliable anymore either! For everything I do, there is an element of enjoyment, and an element of reluctance. The conflict seems common in a lot of experiences I have.

I could even love and hate exercise at the same time! So how can I rely on my feelings to tell me if what I am doing is right?

There are some things that are overtly...wrong. But there are some that I sometimes try to convince myself they are wrong, when they are really...quite good actually.

Food for thought.
P.S. Oh and I got my first pay cheque from Ezyhealth. After writing some 4 articles, and 2 advertorials,....my first pay cheque! Feels good. Still got a one-pager to write this coming week.

Don’t Look To Your Faith, Look To Jesus


Hebrews 12:2
2looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith...



If you are sick, you must know that you are already healed because of the finished work of Christ. Don’t ask, “Do I have enough faith to be healed? Do I have the right kind of faith to be healed? What if I am lacking in faith?” You are focusing on yourself and your faith, instead of Christ and His finished work.

You should be asking, “Did Jesus really take away this sickness? If He did, He must have done a perfect work.” In other words, fix your eyes on Jesus and His perfect work.

AB Simpson, who lived in the 19th century, wrote an article entitled, Himself. In it, he mentioned his exhausted nervous system, and broken down heart which could have proved fatal any time for him. So he sought the Lord for healing. God showed him Matthew 8:17, which says that Jesus Himself “took our infirmities and bore our sicknesses”.

AB Simpson said that though he believed that Jesus had borne away his sickness, he saw many hindrances which stood between him and his healing. He started removing them one by one until he saw that what stood between him and his healing was actually his preoccupation with his faith! He believed that if only he had the “right” kind of faith, he would receive his healing instantly.

He eventually came to the realisation that he had to remove that last hindrance — his focusing on his faith — and just rest in the finished work of Christ. That revelation marked his complete recovery from his heart condition.

When you ask yourself, “Do I have enough faith?” you have already put faith as a hindrance between you and Jesus’ finished work. The more you focus on your faith, the more faith slips away. But if you focus on the finished work of Christ and see God’s grace towards you, God sees that as faith! Without realising it, faith is there in your heart to believe that you will not die of what Christ has already borne away for you completely, and you will see your miracle manifest!

Finally finished transcribing the entire interview. so tired. i still have one more article to write and finish by tomorrow, before I begin work proper on Monday.

Sigh.

I haven't exercised since Wednesday. Have been very ambitious and finished a book an ex-colleague bought for me, called The Stress Cure. Have to thank her for such a good book really; the challenge is to practise the principles in there. It's tough to make time for exercise or even eat nutritiously when hours are long and work gets the better of you. Not to mention sleep well and enough, breathe deeply and not worry and enjoy happy relationships with your other half, or any other people for that matter. The article on that is done and sent, I just need to qualify what I wrote in there with reference to the book.

Well at least that interview is done. Now got pages and pages of info to plough through to get that article out. I feel like I am a summariser of sorts, just taking chunks of info and siphoning the salient points. It's a skill I suppose. Just not sure this is something I feel I like to do or want to do for long-term.

I need zzzzz. First day without coffee again. Gotta get back into no-coffee mode.

I didn't want to just hop down to any Cold Storage and be disappointed, so I called in the afternoon, a number of stores to check if this was on their shelves. The Bugis guy was really great and checked his system and told me the stores that carried the product and after a few phone calls, I nailed it.
Also called to check if the Cold Storage and Market Place carried my morning breakfast staple Lundberg brown rice cakes. The guy who checked the screen told me it was out of stock islandwide.

Went down to buy the Mrs Fields cookies (which turned out too soft for my liking) at Novena and decided to pop by the Organic store the guy at the Christian bookstore told me about at United Square.

And guess what I found?

Needless to say, I made off with three of the blue brown rice cakes and one purple one (non-salted, not the mochi sweet although that is really tempting).

So satisfied. It would have been better if I managed to get in that swim after I got home. I went all the way to the pool and realised it was closed for some !@#$%^&*SSC staff function today. Damn.

As I sat watching The Island starring Ewan McGregor (I like his accents man, he's good) and Scarlett Johansson, I was certain I was on the brink of finding permanent relief from my eye problem.
As it is, they aren't really reacting as much as I thought they would, given my shitty diet of burgers, onion rings, sauced meats (including pork) and cookies today.

When I do find the cure, everyone's going to eat his and her words. Let's see who has the last laugh.

SLEEP (all 7-9 hours of it) Edit: Arrrrggh slept only 4 hours last night and have been up since. No naps
nutritious food (more nutritious than not anyways, despite experiment). Edit: hahaha yeah right
LOTSA EXERCISE AND BIKE RIDES in the coming week or so. Edit: Not so much exercise after all, thanks to the articles I've promised to write. Don't know what's the point when they are taking forever to pay me.

Need to pack my room.
Need to wash my makeup brushes!
Need to read Bible and pray.
Need to read all the copywriting stuff.
Need to shop for clothes. Edit: Damage done =S$240.80 sigh will most likely be using the Ezyhealth cheque to pay this off when it finally comes...Grrr...
Need to see a dentist. Edit: 1 Aug appointment
Need a massage. Edit: Done
Need to thread. Edit: done
Need a haircut.Edit: done
Wanna watch a movie before I begin work! Edit: Looks like this one will have to wait till after I've settled in at work. Don't really wanna spend the money on a weekend ticket. Would rather rent a road bike with helmet and cycle for 2 hours!

Need to write articles andconduct interview! Will be writing on something close to my heart so am very on the ball! Wasill be my first journalist interview.
I have three simple wishes:

1) Eyes completely healed
2) Enjoy my work/colleagues/boss and stay in it long-term (hopefully hours are manageable)
3) Find a God-fearing man whom God has provided in His plan for me!

Yes, in that order of importance. Once each item gets checked, the one below will take care of itself. I hope.
Presently feeling rather good about things despite a troublesome eye.

Thank You Lord. Nothing would have been possible without You. I'm beginning to see Your blessings for me and I am loving it!
Thank You Lord, thank You. Nothing compares to You.

Despite a bad start to the day when the freaking contractors had to disturb my beauty sleep with awful noise (and yes, I didn't get to sleep till 230am cos of my eyes),

I was offered a job! The people were really nice about things, letting me start when I was ready, and offering me the pay I asked. Actually what I asked wasn't much by market standards nowadays, and a lot of my peers (and those younger than me) are already earning more than me, but I am happy because this isn't an editorial job, or even a normal writing job.

I did think of going the editorial/writing route but wondered if writing shorter copy was the way to go. I feel there is more creativity involved in coming up with ad concepts and stuff, so I did write in for copywriting positions as well (and everyone's looking for copywriters too!)

There is another writing job waiting in the wings, and two editorial/writing interviews this week, but I have a copywriting job offer now under my belt.
The ball's in my court.

The office is not very near home, but the hours are pretty nice (930 to 630pm) and the gym is nearby (although the gym is quite an expensive one). I can come in for a morning workout and start work feeling all refreshed and raring to go. Or at least I hope.

Trying to be positive and look forward to it, should I be accepting this offer.
Have been praying a lot about it, and this has been the first offer held out to me, with the pay I asked for, and a very relaxed attitude about things. The boss said working weekends is bullshit. I totally cracked up.

Suddenly, my world is looking up again. Happy day.
Tonight I can kick back and watch Desperate Housewives.
And I can stop looking for damn jobs in the papers! Been looking everyday for over 2 months. Very tired you know?

And so the condition is called allergic rhinoconjunctivitis.

What a freaking mouthful. I'd always known (it to be so).
Now that it has a name, it had better have a cure.

I've read enough bad english tonight for my eyes to bleed.

But no, they are just copiously producing mucus. I'd like to think the Bad English has a huge part to play.

It's very unpleasant to read ex-fellow Editors writing so badly, even if it was one of their "off" days. Then I had to read "prolific blogger" Xiaxue's blog, and I don't know how she mauls her English so that she "holded hands" with a boy, rather than held his poor hands!

It's abominable. They should all enrol in spellcast or something.

Ok, even I am starting to sound obnoxious. Ah well. The eyes haven't been letting up much despite taking out my contact lenses.
Shall sleep on 'em literally and see (pun fully intended) what the morning brings.

Hello there.

There is a name after all.

Looks like my eye condition is either Atopic Keratoconjunctivitis or Perennial Allergic Conjunctivitis, possibly coupled with Allergic rhinitis. The atopic keratoconjunctivitis sounds more like it, since there is mucus formation and rubbing of eyes and develops in late teens, but this also means it is more serious as corneal damage or blindness can occur with chronic rubbing. Also, in 10% of all cases, there will be cataract formation. Rarely, blindness may occur.

:(

Louisitis. That's me all right.

Another article down. Started on it around 1 am, and did it amidst surfiing blogs and all sortsa distracted nonsense.

My eyes started acting up a little about an hour or so after the char siew paus, but went away relatively quickly.
Sigh am I healed or not? Or am I on the way to being totally healed?

So many things to do this weekend. Resumes to send. Papers to sift through.
Exercise too!
And the church services.

My.life.is.a.mad.mad.one.
H.E.L.P.

-Out-

You never know what you're going to get.

I am not sure if I am feeling valiant like Forrest Gump, but I sure am craving something sweet. Chocolates are nice (I have 2 Lindt Lindor milk chocs in my pocket), but Mrs Field's White macadamia cookies would be even nicer!

I have had a love affair with white chocolate macadamia cookies for a long long time since I discovered Pepperidge Farm's Tahoe cookies:



Oooohhhh are u salivating already? 'Cos I am.
Unfortunately, the company had to plug this product off the shelves. Or at least Singapore isn't importing it anymore.

So imagine my delight when I chanced upon the Cold Storage label at the cookie section that gave me the hope that Mrs Field's was now selling this similar product. Unfortunately also, both Cold Storages I went sold this product out.

What a damper.

And why did I title my post such? Put "job" and "search" together and you get SOB (or sob jearch (jerk)). Whatever. Anything lah. It's a sob story for me 'cos I am just getting so antsy about the whole thing. A part of me wants to get a job confirmation today, but another part worries if this is the right thing for me. I'm in it for the long haul (2-3 years this time) so it's no laughing matter to be making unintelligent decisions. Yet I will just take it if it comes along, so I can only pray that the right one comes along, and no "wrong" ones.

Pray, pray!

I hate having to wait.
But there isn't anything else I can do, but wait.

Oh, the agony of not being able to do anything about the outcome!

Has placed my article on their board. Hahahaha. Yippeedooo.
Hey P2B let's get a shot from your trusty cam on Monday, we can pop by the gym. Then I will have a better pic to show for it.

Been trying to line up the two pages (two separate images) side by side but I am not sure how to code it. Help?

Everyone's looking for copywriters!

I'd be a fool to rule this market out entirely.
And unfortunately, I'm addicted to creative work, so working short regular hours at something totally boring and monotonous is a no-go for me.
Looks like I am a sucker for long hours. But hey, if I need to do it, I might as well enjoy myself while at it.

And it's been a month since I "promised" myself to write those articles and send them out.
Pressure rising.
Pressurising.

Haha I love playing with words!

Of steering a bike all on your own, albeit not very stably, after about an hour of being assisted...!
(Not forgetting the fruitless 1.5 hours I put in on one fine afternoon when I was feeling very brave to do it all on my own...unsuccessfully!)

Praise the Lord! Thank you so much P2B! Hee hee....
One more activity to add to the list of things I can do to work up a sweat.
Next hurdle to cross will be rollerblades!

Business was slow in the morning for my parents, and so I prayed silently for God to bless them with orders....

Before I knew it, my Dad was answering calls and processing orders. God is quick to act!!
Praise the Lord!