me? unemployed?

Well it's been a busy week.

I've been helping my mom at the International Physics Olympiad which she's been helping to organise. As a result, the past week I've been whiling away my time at the lobby of Orchard Parade Hotel, waiting for delgates to pay up. And also trying to help sort out several rooming complaints from some rather damn fussy foreigners.

But most of the time, I was sitting there, bored. And trying to while away the time reading. I did manage to finish several books, including Miriam Toews' A Complicated Kindness, a story about a rebellious 16-year-old Mennonite. Its pretty funny and is surrounded by sadness. But somehow I just couldn't get into liking the main character, Nomi.

I had an even harder time with Ali Smith's The Accidental. It's been critically reviewed and gushed about, but I gave up about 1/4 of the way through. Once again, I felt no connection with any character, more so than the previous read.

With Maureen Dowd's Are Men Necessary? I was left grasping at thin air. Dowd writes like a more serious Carrie Bradshaw - with supposedly witty concluding sentences sprinkled about. She does however state first of that she does not have any answers. So I'm not entirely sure what the book is about. Musings perhaps. But there is too much generalisation, sensationalism. It's really more of Her World material. Light and relatively fluffy, with nothing very much new.

Also, besides reading, I managed to catch up with some dear friends, including finally indulging in the Chef's Table at Ember with j and eps. Then getting sick with a flu and sleeping a lot. But catching up with some uni classmates, first on Friday at N's house in Boon Lay where we enjoyed a simple steamboat dinner. Then on Saturday, where I watched as the others devoured pepper crab and yue guang he at Sin Hoi San, while I sipped tea. But I did manage to down a bit of beef soup and tea at TCC later at Great World City.

It was really less about the eating than the hanging out with the people, whom I'll probably not see for a year or so. Good friends whose company I'm gonna miss!