Christmas gifts and what happens when college kids try to ACT cool

Its that time of the year again, when I think its fun to spend all my hard earned money* to buy gifts for other people. And I'm not only referring to the fact that its Christmas, but also that I'm going back home for the holidays and so am expected to get things for everyone like a good human being would (I should be in HR, no?)
Also it was the Boyfriend's birthday in November and I've never gotten him anything before, so I thought I should spend some **. Called Lil Sis to run ideas by

Me: So between Armani, Kenneth Cole, Tag Heuer, Calvin Klein - what would you choose. Or are there other brands I haven't thought of
She: What about like Titan and stuff?
Me: You do realise the class of watches I'm talking about. Titan is about 2 categories+ below on this food chain.
She: What's brands does he like?
Me: He wanted a Rolex Lil Sis, and since I haven't lost my senses yet, I will not spend MY money on such insane things. Come to think of it, a good Tag Heuer is expensive too. Cross that off the list. So what do I get?
She: My friends are here and he says get Tommy Hilfiger
Me: He has one already, I took it for a year and then he stole it back. He also has Esprit
She: Ok, now my friend says get an S-WATCH, its real nice
Me: a what?
She: An S-Watch. Its called S Watch. Its like Swiss made and stuff and supposed to be really cool for guys and stuff
Me: Could your friend possibly mean Swatch and not S-Watch?
She: errm, ok then bye.


* Yes, Hard-earned. Money is Money and should always be assumed to be hard earned. The fact that I don’t do much to earn mine shouldn’t matter.
**To my dear darling boyfriend who doesn’t read this blog cause he thinks he can write better: if you don’t like the gifts I got you I WILL TAKE THEM BACK. No way am I spending that money on a watch and not getting good returns on it

Run, Run for your lives!!!

We had a fire drill in the office this week. My first one in Singapore, and I have to say if this is the way people react to the fire drill, then a lot of people will die when it actually happens.

For one, it took me 15 mins to get down from the 10th floor - No, not because I am slow, but because the people ahead of me were moving like retarded snails. And i can guarantee you that if it wasn't a drill and a real one, they would move at exactly the same pace

The thought did cross my mind of just kicking everyone out of the way or atleast muttering to myself hoping everyone around would notice my displeasure and change completely.

The fact that these thoughts have been blitzkrieging in my mind before you can say whaa seems like a ray of sunshine. Atleast now I know Singapore has not deadened all of my braincells and some of them are active enough to realise how fucked we all are gonna be when pansy boys who never played sports and too thin girls on high heels are in front of you in the race of get out of a burning building *

Not surprisingly, the only thing I bought down with me was my phone and smokes, and so did most people I know. I'm sure if there was a real fire, we'd do the same too, which should say something a out how much little we get paid out here and other profound things
The fire drill also reminds me of the other time I was at work and had to walk down bout 13 floors - there was an earthquake in India and there were some tremors in Bombay. Being the high-rent fragile building that we worked in, it did sway a lil ** and at the time I thought it was just the hangover. Then people realised that it was a tremor and general confusion took over on whether we should run, run for our lives or just continue working.

The fire alarm didn’t go off - partly the reason for the confusion.

Human Resources who are supposed to make the emergency announcements in such cases, had all evacuated faster than Hiro Nakamura took to blink his eyelids and reach the Neanderthal age.
Obviously the rest of the departments were useless and replaceable other than for Human Resources and hence the exodus. They were down 15 floors before the rest of us slow trusting folks even knew it was an earthquake ***


* If I'm not mistaken there's even a group on facebook called "I Secretly Want To Punch Slow Walking People In The Back Of The Head" and if I remember correctly, which of course I do, I did join that group.
** eyewitness accounts say it swayed a lot, but you usually shouldn’t believe eyewitness accounts in India
***although they claimed they needed to be down to do a people count and ensure everyone was out of the building and accounted for. The fact that they didn’t inform anyone else didn’t seem to matter.

I Shed a Tear (Ode to my Heroes)