Landmark discovery and buy

The Discovery - How to save money in London if you're under-26

This was motivated by yet another trip to Wimbledon, with great expectations of buying The One, whatever it might be. I had done my research on the TFL website, and realised that the young person's railcard can be used to get 1/3 off the overland train (which i would have to take from Waterloo to Wimbledon). Feel quite stupid because I've had this railcard for 5 months and I just found out about this, so obviously I go to the ticket office to get my Oyster card linked!

Turns out, that when I tapped out of the underground at Waterloo, a tube journey that would normally cost £1.90 only cost £1.25!!! I was so thrilled :)

The Buy

Today I finally concluded the long and arduous search for a dress. It's been rather tough going. 5 or 6 wedding dress shop appointments, 1 national wedding show, 10s of dresses tried on both in London and Singapore, countless hours spent on www.preloved.co.uk and various other 2nd hand dress websites, I finally bought something today.

Stumbled upon Teokath actually, and boy I'm glad I did. Was actually just randomly calling up stockists in London for Pronovias, because I was convinced (and bought over by their amazing website) that I wanted a Pronovias dress. The flagship store at New Bond Street was fully booked, and the next appointment was in April, which I booked in January. Actually, it was also Teokath's website that actually made me interested in going all the way to SW19 to visit the shop. Researched like mad for reviews online and couldn't find any. Was really worried that the prices would be overpriced and the alterations would cost a fortune. But the lady on the phone sounded friendly and she assured me that "we will find your something". Obviously, anyone who had been through what I did would find that difficult to believe.

When I finally got to the shop on Wed night, I was actually very impressed with the layout of the shop, it was classy and spacious. The other bridal shops I visited had amazing websites but a pathetic store layout - almost disappointing. The service was excellent. I was offered a drink while I browsed through the dresses. There must have been about 100 dresses there, but I already knew the styles I wanted, which made things much easier. Maria was amazing, she actually listened to what I wanted and then helped me pick out some dresses to try according to the criteria. At other places I just had to go around and pick 4 or 5 myself. Throughout the fittings she sounded very genuine in pointing out the characteristics of each dress, and telling me what was nice and not. I finally narrowed it down to 2, and she didn't even mention anything about buying the dress, just a simple invitation to return during the weekend for a 2nd try. I was convinced that I would get something from this shop. It offered the best services out of all the shops I went (which did not include the high-end designer boutiques which I would think have good service to justify the prices!)

I'm glad I went to the other boutique inside Elys the departmental store for the 2nd fitting. There were other different dresses there, and I was sipping my orange juice while picking out a few others, including a dress that was quite similar to the one I was actually going to buy (spent Thurs and Fri doing a survey among some colleagues and friends and was decided.) Before I put on that dress, the ladies at the store seemed to have their doubts, though they encouraged me to try it on anyway. I did, and when it was on, I could see the amazed look on their face. There was a WOW factor, and they really looked impressed. I guess that was what confirmed it for me, since no one came with me to the appointment. To be sure, we tried on the 2 dresses a few times, and the last thing that sealed it was the price. This dress looked a lot more elegant, was in the material I wanted, looked more expensive, but was actually cheaper. So I said I would buy it. Maria took some pictures of me in it (I must say that the background was actually even more amazing because the boutique is really really pretty), while Daniella got the champagne out.

Then, measurements had to be taken, and to my surprise, my measurements were actually smaller than the smallest size! Plus I have a waist size that surprised me and made my sisters jealous :p Actually one amazing thing about trying to get a wedding dress in London is how everyone thinks I'm tiny. It's so funny, because the sample dresses are always in size 12 or 14 and I always look like I'm drowning in them and they have to be pinned in to fit. In Singapore, the dresses were all either fitting or slightly too tight, which made me feel extremely fat. Maybe thats why I didn't fancy any of the dresses I tried on in SG.

So, I guess I'm (almost) done getting into fitting rooms with complete strangers and having to strip down to the bare minimum.

Congrats me!!! and thank God for bringing this to a conclusion - I was seriously about to give up! My only regret is that I had to do most of this alone. It would have been a lot nicer if mummy were here, and not just on skype looking at the Pronovias website with me. Or if the sistas could stop me from picking ridiculous dresses tell me what suited me instead of me having to go back and then showing them via email how the dress looks like on a supermodel on the website (but generally my taste was not bad, right? :p). I guess I learnt (the very hard way) to stand on my own 2 feet and make a big decision. Now I just have to hope that I don't change my mind about this decision in the next 7 months or so because there is no turning back.

Now I can move on to other things, like the bridesmaid dresses, evening dress, shoes and the gazillion other things that never end.....

Had such a horrible, long and tiring week but I'm glad it ended on a good note, despite being quite a lot poorer :)

something old, something new, anything!

really hope that tomorrow will bring the dress hunt to an end! last shop, last hope. all the way to wimbledon. I pray that it will not be another wasted trip.

Loss of Boss

So I experienced my first firm-wide retrenchment exercise today, and it was not pleasant at all. Was quite looking forward to it at first from a process perspective because i'd never seen it happen before and because I was convinced that my team would be OK. After all, we had finally completed the build-out of the team in Nov and we had hired an extremely and undisputedly smart boss from a top-tier competitor.

The morning started out pretty slowly. Nothing was happening, just lots of senior directors and MDs meeting in offices and walking around, but no word was given. We carried on with our daily business and discussions. At abt 11.40am, the phone rings, and we all see that it is for P, and from the room downstairs where these retrenchment meetings were going on. Not good. The junior people on our team start to panic, and I find myself starting to tremble uncontrollably. It was either P or one of us. I was convinced that it could not be P, so i plugged out my iphone from the charging point and made a mental note of what things to take with me, just in case. Then P sent out an outlook invite entitled "Short meeting", in 4 mins. I knew then that it was not one of us, or the person should have been told individually, not collectively. My neighbour came back to her desk, completely oblivious, I told her that P got a call but it didn't seem to register. Then I thought maybe there was nothing to worry about and that they were just calling up the team leaders of those teams that would be fine. But then i turned around and saw that P had logged out of his computer. I could not believe my eyes. Nothing made sense, but P was his usual smiley self when the 4 mins was up, and he came around to gather us.

We went into the 1st free room we saw, and I guess I'll always remember what P said, "So I got a call from [the room], and they told me to take all my things. I guess I won't be coming back, so it was nice working with all of you. I'm sure you will all be fine for the rest of the day." Silence. Everyone was speechless for a good 5 seconds, until someone managed to find the voice, "Very sorry to hear about that." And that was it. P was gone.

Harsh. 10 minutes later, another team leader got a similar call. But he did not tell his team. He just got up, put his hands up in the air, took his coat, and left. No logging out of the computer, nothing. Casualty number 2. He did what any logical person would have done actually, but that pales in comparison to what P did. The sense of professionalism P showed in such a time was tremendous, as well as the thought for his immediate team. For that, I respect him.

The rest of the team had lunch together, and we could not understand the move. Surely it is a stupid short-sighted saving which negates all the time and effort spent getting P in the first place. Not a single person I know who have dealt with P on a professional level has failed to be impressed. Eloquent, intelligent, and perhaps over-qualified. As a manager, P was fair (as far as I could tell) and was always on top of everything, from analysis to even the admin. He even sent me a text with well wishes when I went home early from work after fainting one day. It was difficult to fault his performance. It was definitely more our loss than his loss, let's not kid ourselves. I was completely at a loss for the 1st 2 hours, and then everything started to seem so surreal. I don't think it fully hit me until I texted P a few hours ago to finally say goodbye, and got what I thought was a nice reply, "I will miss working with you. You have a great future and a great career ahead of you. Keep in touch!" I guess that is some sort of closure, and tomorrow will be the start of something different, something unknown.

I saw today the ruthlessness of the industry, and the stupidity that causes it to hire and fire in short cycles. Yet, I also saw some semblance of humanity amid it all. People banded together, and faces were mostly long. People in this industry do have emotions too.

Needless to say, very little work was done in the day, and shortly after 5pm, it was down to the pub.

The next few days and weeks will be interesting, and the start of a lot more unsettling to come.

I'm thankful that I do not entrust in any man or organisation for they may fail, but a sovereign God who always has the perfect plan. Amen.

活 该

so it has been a whirlwind of activity since coming home. so madness is not territorial. still haven't slept that much, which was a key thing i was looking forward to on monday. most things have been nice and sufficiently familiar.

flight was terrible, landed at CDG (Paris) and there was a big screw-up. they didn't announce my connecting flight (which was actually at another terminal) - i'm so glad i speak a few sentences of french, sufficient to understand that i had to take a train and get off at the first stop. legged it there only to find a long queue at security, which wasn't moving at all. it was 25 mins to my flight. found out that everyone else also had flights in 15-30 mins, and the crowd was getting increasing nervous and impatient. a lot of shoving and shouting later, all the flights were delayed. they had closed all the security counters for the night and had not enough personnel to re-open them. the flight was uneventful except that i was quite uncomfortable and couldn't really sleep. nonetheless still glad to be back on homeground in one piece, with my luggage (i guess once you buy insurance, nothing bad happens... heh)

1/2 hour after landing, arrived at adam road hawker centre. realised i left all my $20 in the car, so had to borrow money from S. He lent me $5 which I thought made me invincible in a hawker centre. WRONG. i bought prawn mee (the cheapest at the entire store, they were mostly $8!?) and spoke what i would consider fluent mandarin. and then the uncle told me it was $5.20 because i was taking it away. i told him that's all the money i had because i just landed, and he let me off. btw i was very grateful to the clowns for going all the way to the airport to pick me up! spared the fam car hassle or an mrt ride for me.

monday came and still jet-lagged, had to wake up earlier than i normally would for work. 6.45am. got myself downstairs and saw the bus. everything came back to me in the instant i started running for the bus - it was all too familiar. and then i began to dread the train journey, which proved to be terrible. but i didn't hear the dimsum dolly song like i thought i was supposed to. got to the CPA pre-admission course early, and even had time to buy kaya toast and tea-c. collected the humongous file of notes and my stomach flipped. all the pain in accounting class came back to me, and i can't believe i signed (and paid) my holidays away to wake up at the crack of dawn and subject myself to a week of torture. nonetheless, i survive 2 days so far. and now i have the prospect of a 125-qn, 90-min exam on friday to worry about.

stood on the right of the escalator and quickly realised.

also rediscovered squatting toilets and noted that the toilet bowls were much lower.

had a haircut + wash + style for $15. had to do all 3 because a cut alone would cost have $16. i don't understand them sometimes.

by tues night, have visited both grands and met the cousin who can now speak. after much difficulty he decided to be friends again. took the mrt and bus, and realised that they now charge by the distance and it actually costs $0.00 to take the feeder bus home!!! amazing, love how affordable it is to take the buses. i thought my $10 card was depleted in a day actually and got quite worried.

back home, i'm still worrying about home in ldn. i think J's really pissed with me from the unfriendly email i got this morning which was very unlike her. i wonder what happened and now i wonder what to tell her about what's about to happen. sigh, i wish i just never opened my mouth or tried to be nice. damn right, i wish i'd stop bringing worrying situations upon myself. need to remedy this asap if not i fear the next 10 months wouldn't be pleasant. and it wouldn't really have been my fault. tho by 1st principle, I was the cause of it all and i guess could technically be considered my fault.

真 的 是 活 该！！！

Star-studded week

Rafa (Nadal) yesterday, Josh (Groban) tomorrow and who knows who's next on Sat!

Had free (crappy) tickets to the ATP finals last night and it was an epic 3 hour battle between nadal and roddick. got to leave work at about 6pm, yay.

D bought us tickets to a josh groban concert tomorrow night, i hope it's good. at least i get to leave work early again tomorrow.

Lots of stuff undone in the office, and i need to tell myself that I have 2.5 more weeks and that's plenty of time, because it isn't! getting chased left right and center and my mind is swirling with all the different company names and profiles. i just hope i don't start dreaming of them, because that would be REALLY sad. i actually did a couple of WEEKENDS ago. i dreamt that i discovered a new species of insect, whose name was actually the name of one of the new companies I was looking at that weekend. ARGH. job hazard.

In other news, rumour has it that the first snowfall is due. Google says it will be -6 on Friday. Now that's insane. it's already snowing in Copenhagen - wish I was back there.

Also, William and Kate are getting married on 29 Apr! yay to a 4 day week, followed by a 3 day week, and then another 4 day week. i think I wouldnt want to go back to a full working week after that! wooo hooo!!!

better sleep now before i start seeing stars in the morning, dizzy from tiredness.