That lonely, quiet country...

My good friend Emma, who is now back in NZ, was with me in Secondary 2 and 3 in Brunei. It was a very small school, and there were lots of other girls named Emma. Right Emma? It's nice to hear from her after all this time because it reminds me of a time when life was so simple. Things were very sort of easy and simple in Brunei, without every really being easy. Because you had to throw out your own trash at the landfill (there were no garbage collectors), there was limited Internet access, new phone lines took months and months to set up, there was no McDonalds, 2 major supermarkets, maybe 3... What other amenities were missing? Well, I can't remember, but for a time, there was no public transport either, but then they began to introduce the buses and taxis that would take you anywhere for $1.00 or $3.00, respectively.

There was Jerudong Park, which we kids went to like 2-3 times a month. All our birthdays were celebrated there, except for mine, because I always threw pool parties at home. And do you remember the time when that kid, I forgot his name, jumped off my roof to dive into my pool? That was so weird. And we weren't even high or drunk! Imagine if we were... but we were so young back then...

Now that we're older, sometimes I wonder how our time in Brunei helped to shape us into the adults that we've become now? Did it contribute a lot to our present character and personality, or not at all? Sometimes I think the time we spent in that quiet country was so traumatic (due to its isolative factors) that it contributed a whole chunk to how we are now. Isolation makes us into either creative or destructive creatures, or both. Which one have I become?

Lazy mornings...

I've got a headache this morning. From not being able to breathe right last night when sleeping. The bosses aren't in today so I'm blogging. Plus I have no mood to do any work cos of my headache. The sky looks so strange today.

I slept for like about 15 mins in the car before pulling myself out and unlocking the office. Some weird guy with one good eye (his right eye) was looking at me strangely, and I gave him one of my stares back. Like, "Whatchu lookin at?? Eleh..." Those ppl give me the creeps cos they look like they're dying for a fuck... with any chick... Eee.

Now I've got nothing else to say so I'm going to start work... *Yawn...

My four-day weekend

I'm reading acclaimed Turkish author Orhan Pamuk's newest novel "Snow". I've already read his other book, "My Name is Red". His newest book "Snow" makes me wonder when I'm going to start wearing a tudung or headscarf like other Muslim women everywhere. Reading the book makes me feel proud, happy and relieved that I live in Malaysia, where the state is secular, and Muslims are liberal and tolerant. I feel sorry for the Muslim girls and women in Europe who aren't allowed to cover their heads in schools and universities because it is seen as a symbol of "political Islam", or as a symbol of religion. I wonder why ppl can't just see it as a piece of clothing or a fashion accessory? After all, married women in Spain and Italy cover their hair with a scarf when going to the market, and they're not even Muslim. And when ladies drive around in a convertible in the countryside, they'll wear a scarf around their heads to prevent their hair from blowing all over the place. I don't see the big deal in banning the headscarf in public places. In Turkey, women members of their parliament aren't allowed inside the building wearing a headscarf. That's so pitiful.

But anyway... enough of all this "hard" stuff. I'd just like to say that I really like the way Orhan Pamuk writes. It sounds as if he's recounting an episode that really took place in his life. He describes movements, people's faces and expressions, their tone of voice. Which is why I like it because it doesn't feel like I'm reading a work of fiction, but something non-fiction. (I like to read non-fiction travelogues... my favorite form of literature.) Even when the work by Pamuk's been translated from Turkish to English, I can see that his writing is very up-front and very honest. Which is the way I've always wanted to write. So, I like this man's work very much.

Today is the last day of my four-day weekend. Wow. It was really nice to do all that stuff that I did. I don't feel like going to work tomorrow as usual after a long holiday. (But it wasn't even long. Later on I'll have to take 8-10 days off in a row.) And today I did something I've always wanted to do, and that was go to Nilai 3 and buy kain. Buying material has always been something I do with relish. It's like the same feeling a small child would get being put in a candy store with money to spend. Or a toy shop. That was the feeling I got. Surrounded by rolls and rolls of material to make baju. And everything machine washable and affordable (I won't say 'cheap' because that would give the reader the impression that the material was of poor quality). Most of my baju kurung have to be dry-cleaned, so it was such a relief to buy some kain that was washable.

Baju kurung is the easiest thing to put on for work in the morning, because you don't have to accessorize. If you wear a shirt and pants, both top and bottom have to match... shoes have to match... etc etc. And I'm such a lazy person in the morning, that I can't be bothered sometimes to match clothes, so I just put on a baju kurung. Plus I'm kinda big on top so shirts have the tendency to look very tight on me, and I hate looking fat.

So Nilai 3 is this place that looks like a border town bazaar. It's how I imagined the border between Russia and Asia or the Middle East to be like, with lots of different merchants selling cloth, furniture and other goods. All the shops were in these warehouses and the heat in them was stifling. There were lots of electrical goods and toys from China I noticed. Lots of fake Barbie dolls that looked really nice. As if they were real Barbies. There were plenty of kedai kain around to my amazement. And lots of them sold really cheap material, around RM3.00 - RM4.00 per meter. But they were the polyster-feeling type of cloth that was coarse and if you wore a dress made out of it, it would make you feel hot, so I didn't buy any of that. But it was just amazing to be there anyway because if you go to Jalan TAR in KL, they'd probably sell the same stuff double or triple the price.

Anyway, not that you want to hear, but I bought 4 different patterns of cloth and I'm very happy with my purchase. The only thing left to do is to send them off to the tailor to make my baju. Next week, I'll have to bring my mom... she wants me to bring her...

And yes...

if you check the time of the post, I really did wake up this early on a Saturday... because I slept so early yesterday and skipped dinner... and now I'm hungry.

I got my passport

My arm so hurts from yesterday. Actually I was so exhausted, I slept so early even on a Friday night. I took leave yesterday just so I could go to the Isetan members' only presale. How sad, I know. And only a woman would do that. Yeah, so what. I was there at 11am, and didn't leave KLCC till 4. But I left Isetan at around 2 cos I couldn't stand the crowd by then. I was at Kinokuniya after.

Anyway, I discovered something about salespeople. If you go shopping looking your best, for some reason, they layan you more. Yeah. They'll think you're rich and have lots of money to spend. But the fact is everyone has money to spend if they go to a presale on a working day. Please... who'd go to all that trouble, getting suffocated in that big a crowd not to buy anything? It was like an oven in there yesterday! I was sweating in an air-cond room.

For the first half an hour it was fun cos there wasn't much ppl around yet. But then it got unbearable and I stood in line for 45 mins or more just to pay for the 3 things I wanted to buy.

Yesterday was also the day I got my first civilian passport. Not that I wasn't a civilian before... not that before I was military... No but it just felt weird. Cos if you are still a dependent at the age of 21 (which I was) you get to keep your diplomatic passport. But once I graduated and got a job, I had to surrender my diplomatic passport. Which is what I did. And I was passport-less for about 2 years... can you believe that? A passport is your freedom, and I was living without one for that long. Imagine if some bad thing were to happen in Malaysia, like, God forbid, a military coup... you would need a passport to escape, and I didn't have one! You know, stuff like that... it's your freedom ticket.

Other ppl will say that money is freedom. But there are ways to travel without money you know. So a passport is still your freedom.

My face still looks like a clown's in the passport photo. Except fatter. And I was so shy with the auntie who brought me to the special immigration to cancel my previous passport. She had things to say about Chinese ppl that I wasn't very proud to listen to, and I was tempted to tell her that my bf is half Chinese, which would mean that I took offence to the stuff she said (narrow-minded stuff) but then she's really old, and it would make her lose face if I told her. It would be like me telling her straight to her face she's narrow-minded and it would hurt her because she's so much older and experienced in life, and I'm supposed to be so young. But you see, I'm an advocate for making Mandarin a subject in schools. Why not? Kids can learn to understand each other better.

She thought it was rubbish. Sometimes I wonder if they put these ppl in our paths to test us. Like maybe they are spies for the government and they are just there to see what our opinions are really like and report back to their bosses. I'm sure that type of stuff exists. I mean who would suspect an old lady to be a spy? She asked me lots of questions yesterday, and she did antagonize me over certain subjects for no reason. Maybe she wanted to see which political stand I had. I'm pro government. Just that the govt should improve their policies just a little. But anyway, maybe she was a spy. Because she said certain unneccessary things to gain my trust like, "How's your mother? I like your mother, she's a pleasant lady." Okay... no, my mother is not that pleasant, but alright... And she's got no reason to suck up either, she's in a totally different dept than my father. Maybe she is a spy, because sometimes I just refuse to believe that the foreign ministry can have such narrow-minded ppl working in it when they've all been and lived overseas.

See... now I'm the one being narrow-minded, or being stereotypical, or um... making my own conclusions. But there is absolutely nothing wrong with learning different languages. She's so rubbish about that.

Incident in the lift

When I worked at the Bank, I had a colleague whose husband went to the same high school as me. I attended a boarding school for the last four years of high school. Technically, (in the American sense), I did my last two years of high school there and then added 2 more years to do A-levels, which was a waste of time because I discovered I could've entered the uni I went to without it.

Anyway, it being a "British" boarding school, it was really strict in some areas, and not strict at all in others. But there was one funny incident that still makes me curl up with embarrassment, and which my ex-colleague at the Bank refuses to let me forget. Her husband was my senior and also a prefect. When I was in Form 4 or 5, I can't remember when exactly, he booked me for excessive PDA (public display of affection) during bulan Ramadan. It was nothing excessive of the kind. It was a good-bye hug and kiss at the speed bump leading to the girls' dormitories, which provides the border where boys are prohibited to step over. It was fasting month, and I was having my period, and therefore can't fast, so what the hell, we kissed and hug, and that was it. The humiliating part was, Azly, (the prefect and my ex-colleague's husband) saw us performing our good-bye ritual from his dorm's balcony and blew a whistle to stop us. Of course, when he blew the whistle, everyone rushed out to see. It was late afternoon, and possibly even lunch time, so all the kids were about. And then, for punishment, me and my bf (now ex, and possibly married) had to run around the school at 5 am in the morning (it's called school drill) for a week. Our names (along with other ppl being booked for other offences) were posted on the notice board.

Anyway, this same prefect that booked me, he works for Sime Darby on the floor above mine in my office building. And what should happen last Friday but me bumping into him in the elevator! And he gave me this big grin and says, "My wife told me you were working in this building..." and I think I blushed remembering what he'd seen me do during puasa month, all those years ago and I covered my face with the cheque and bank-in slip I was holding. Hehe... how embarrassing... I was so young then... how naive and innocent... yeaaah right!

Flashback

You know, looking back at old photos, I have the same exact haircut as I had in high school. Exactly. I didn't even realise it until a week has gone by since I first had my hair cut. It's the short bob where I can tuck it behind my ears. Back in school, when my hair grew a little longer, I would tie my hair up in two pig tails. And my bf (now ex, and maybe married) would call them "Nads tails".

I couldn't possibly tie my hair up like that now and go to work. Even though it can get very warm in the office because the air-conditioning is weak.

Do you sometimes go through everyday life and then suddenly realise that you've gone through the same thing before in the past? Like you're reliving a flashback? Ya, those things are so scary. Especially when it's not a happy event. I was sitting in the car for more than an hour (pretty much) having a discussion, and I had chills up and down my spine cos it seemed like a perfect re-enactment of something I've gone through before. I was telling myself, "Do something different this time, so it won't be jinxed... or else you'll be doomed to relive the same nightmare over and over again."

I am determined to make my life different this time, although I am not sure in which way I should change, or whether I am even capable of change. Because you know, day in day out, we become creatures of habit. Even if it's a bad habit. I don't know how I should start, and even where I should start.

Sometimes I feel like it's better to live alone and not have to bother with other ppl at all. You're free to be whoever you want to be, and free to do whatever you want to do. I'm sure everyone feels the way. Sometimes I am just tired and want to go to sleep for a long long time. I need a vacation.

Sometimes you just can't explain why

You know, there's this person I hate (or maybe just 'despise' because 'hate' is too strong a word), but I can't exactly explain why. I just hate her. It's one of those things. She just annoys the hell outta me. Even until now. And we've known each other for years and years. And when I think back, I think the reason why I started hating her back when we were kids was because she did certain things on purpose just to annoy me. Like you know those competitive types of ppl that do everything to be one step better than you. Copy-cats, etc. I've no idea why I let her get at me so much, but I did. And now, when we're both older, I still hate her.

No, maybe just despise her. I know I sound mean and bitchy when you're reading this, but she was the person who would rat on me in class if I was passing notes, would rat on me if I had borrowed someone else's homework to copy, that type of thing. She's the type of person to pretend she's British even though she's full-blooded Malaysian... yeah you know.

Why the hell am I blabbing on about this person? Because after so many years, I really feel like I want to send her a message and congratulate her for getting married. But I'm just afraid she'll reply with a catty remark that will hurt my feelings. Saying something to put me down. Which she usually did. But I think I will congratulate her anyway. And she looked beautiful in her wedding photo. I hope she's not like how she was when we were kids anymore. So here goes...

Keropok lekor

It's raining heavily outside, all of a sudden. The rain came down in a torrent in a split second. I was having some keropok lekor with my sayang at this outdoor eatery, under a wide umbrella, and suddenly the rain came. So I ran from table to table, ducking under each table's umbrella, all the way to the car park, where I waited for him to come with the car. And still I got wet.

The interesting thing about keropok lekor is that it's quite addictive. Plus it's freshly made so the flavour is quite yummy. And my boss, despite being a white guy, likes them. He likes the thin crispy type that my AM sometimes buys after lunch and leaves in the office pantry for everyone to eat. But my boss, he doesn't dip them in the chilli sauce like you're supposed to. Maybe he doesn't know.

Ugh, thinking about bosses, my other boss, the big boss, he will be in the office tomorrow. Which means I have to come in to work wearing covered shoes, and not the open-toed shoes I usually wear. The ones with a heel but actually look more like sandals. I prefer those because covered shoes give me blisters. But I will have to wear proper shoes tomorrow in the office because Maltop will be in, and I'll have to actually go into his room to get his signature for something. Eesh, so leceh... But I'm also excited because I have a new haircut!! Yay! So at least I'll look presentable. Big boss is so strict about the presentable appearance.

Ants on a Sunday

I woke up this morning to discover my arms were sore and aching. When I stood up they hung limply against my sides. I am getting heavier, I thought, this is part of the ageing process. Or the fattening process. I am putting on so much weight that my body aches carrying around so much weight. What a depressing thought to wake up to!

Then when I went upstairs, I was greeted with so much sunshine from the windows, I was happy again. And even when I saw that the ants were devouring the chocolate sea-shells, still in their box, I didn't get angry. They are one of God's creatures after all and need to eat something, so I didn't disturb them but rescued whatever untouched chocolates there were on a piece of tissue paper and ate them. Or eating them this very moment. The scene with the ants reminded me of the passage Gabriel Garcia Marquez wrote in One Hundred Years of Solitude when the ants carried away the baby that Aureliano Babilonia left in the basket at the end of the book. Such a morbid thing, but true though, these ants will eat anything. Especially tropical jungle ants.

Ants are everywhere.

But the thought of my new short hair, and the freedom it brings, and the warm sunshine on a Sunday still makes me cheerful. Despite the ants eating the box of chocolates that I only just opened last night. I should never have left them on the coffee table. These ants will eat anything sweet.

Woohoo! I cut my hair!

I've got really short hair now compared to my below-the-shoulder length hair before. Now I have a chin-length short bob. So I'm happy. I feel like my short hair has freed me from a lot of burden and weight. Not to mention headaches caused by the weight (of long hair).

Here's a pic of us at the sea during the team building trip in Kuching. I'm the one with my hands up in the air.

I feel so dead man

My back hurts, my head feels like it's going to explode, I start talking to myself and making sound effects at the office... everyone is saying out loud that I am crazy... this could only mean that I am on the brink of exhaustion. I don't think I've fully recovered yet from that team building trip I told you about. I even brought a pack lunch from home today because I knew I would be too tired to walk anywhere for lunch... yeah... in this heat... who'd want to??

Anyway, I ate my lunch, now I'm just dying to finish my work and go back home...

Team building trip

My company recently sent us on a 2-day team building trip to Kuching, Sarawak. Actually I just came back from it yesterday. We skipped one working day (Friday) to go on this trip. And even though it was exhausting (since I haven't had any proper exercise in years), it was a lot of fun! As team building trips usually are. Yeah, they had the usual activities like wall-climbing, rappeling, obstacle course, raft-building, kayaking, etc. And yeah, we had to spend the night in a cabin in the middle of the rainforest, with all those creepy crawlies. But the one thing that I noticed about my company was that every single employee's personality "matched" one another's. Meaning that, even though our personalities differ in some way, we were all able to mix with each other well, even if there wasn't a team building trip going on. It was like a revelation. And I wasn't the only one who noticed it either. My cabin mates did too. I was very impressed with the selection process that our HR carries out, because they do this personality test thing to see if the personality of potential candidates match the "company's personality" (if you could actually call it that), and it works. Surprisingly.

The other surprising discovery during the trip was that Kuching really does have a lot of cats. (For those non-Malaysian readers out there, "Kuching", the name of the city that I visited in Sarawak for my team building trip literally means "Cat" in Malay.) At the camp, which is situated in a rainforest by the beach, there were many cats walking around all over the place. It was as if that jungle was their natural habitat. They didn't even bother us humans. It was just an amusing observation.

Anyway, I'm supposed to rest in bed today, to nurse my aching body. I have a bad knee since my ligaments are torn (since the age of 15), and of course a bad knee means I can't balance. So you can imagine all the torture I had to go through during the obstacle course... all those "balance beam" activities. Eesh. My boss had to hold my hand while I did it. Muahaha. And I fell down hard like 3 times. And what was worse my boss made me the team leader, so like I felt obligated to always volunteer myself to be the first girl to do everything. Sheesh man, talk about leading by example. And I can't swim, but I did the kayaking anyway. And by the end of the first day, because I had no idea how hot it would be like in a rainforest by the beach (with the glare of the ocean), I had heatstroke, was very dizzy, and had a terrible migraine. And no, I didn't bring any dehydration tablets, so I was very dehydrated, and found myself panting all the time. But they had a natural "jungle pool" with natural mountain spring water, and it was great to take a dip in after a long hot day to cool your body down. That was neat.

And later on tonight, me and my best buds are going to celebrate me and my bf's birthdays at one of our fave restaurants. So... I'd say this was a pretty good weekend.

Yay! They're back!

Yay! JJ and Rudy are back!

The age thing

Well I'm off again to another family dinner at our favorite Italian restaurant at Marriott IOI. We're celebrating my 25th birthday even though it's actually tomorrow. Feeling a little apprehensive to tell you the truth, about turning 25. This is the age that's half of 50, and in a couple of years (or even less) ppl expect you to get married, and have kids. Hell some of my friends are already married and having kids... *sigh.

I really don't want to grow up! I wish I can stay in bed another day... roll around... do nothing, and still be 21. 21 was a good year, I think. Yeah.

Keeping my fingers crossed

I always do everything with a sense of urgency, even when it's Sunday. I found myself rushing out of bed, gulfing down my breakfast of roti canai, and then set to work trying to find the setup disk to the software I had bought. It's barely 9.30 am. I guess I like to squeeze in all my activities in the morning so that the day won't be wasted... and so that I can just lounge around all afternoon reading my book or something.

But last night (again with a sense of urgency) I rushed to the clinic around midnight because I had suddenly found that the back of my neck, as well as most of my back and my forehead was covered in rashes. I was having an allergic reaction to I don't know what. I didn't do anything out of the ordinary yesterday... except maybe 2 things:

1) Going overboard on buying my friend's birthday gift

2) Eating two unexceptional pieces of chocolate from a box that my mother gave

So it could be the chocolate, or the extravagant gift buying, or both. The chocolate, shaped like a small wooden log an inch long and half an inch wide, tasted like cocoa powder straight out of the can... the type that you bake cakes with. It was so yucky, but my lil brother consumed the whole box.

But on the gift-giving part, I noticed that I've started a pattern of buying expensive gifts for those close friends whose birthdays fall in April. And I didn't even think twice about it, I just took out the money and paid. And to think that my dad's birthday, as well as my brother's birthday is coming up this month, too. So I will probably also be buying them gifts I like irregardless of the price. It must be something already written in the stars for Aries this month, an unexplainable urge to spend money on others. Because if I think carefully, I haven't bought anything extravagant for myself at all yet.

Anyway, back to the subject of my allergic reaction: the doctor gave me an injection and sent me home with some pills and two bottles of calamine lotion. And because the rashes were on my back, where I couldn't possibly reach or see, I had to wake my mother up from sleep to dab the calamine lotion on for me. Then I took one pill and went to sleep. I woke up this morning with most of them gone, but still having that tingly feeling under my skin indicating that the rashes are trying their very best to take shape again. But I'm keeping my fingers crossed and hoping they won't. And keeping my fingers crossed, I hope my friend likes her birthday present!!

This morning's shocker

Okay.. so what happened to JJ and Rudy?

I was driving to work this morning, and as I reached the Sunway toll, I switched stations to Hitz FM and I find out the "New New Hitz Morning Crew" have left??What's the deal with Astro and Hitz FM always letting go of their popular Hitz FM Morning Crew duos? Like first they got rid of Fly Guy and Lil Kev, and then the other crew that took over from them, and then now JJ and Rudy (who are pretty good, I might say)... Okay, not that I listen to JJ and Rudy religiously like all morning, but for that 15-20 min stretch to work (usually after I've passed the Sunway toll), they make me smile in the morning.

My usual routine begins at 6.45am when I leave the house and I tune into "Program Zikrah" on RMKL where the DJ has Ustaz Wan Sohor Bani Leman on the phone telling stories about the Prophets, which I like to listen to 'cos he has this Terengganu accent which reminds me of my Abang Stopa. And then at 7 am I continue listening to RMKL for the morning news bulletin in typical RTM style recounting what PM has done or said. And only when the news ends, which is around 7.12-7.15, I switch to Hitz Fm and listen to whatever crap Rudy and JJ are dishing out.

But that however, still, did not ruin my very good mood this morning. I don't know why exactly, but I had the most refreshing, most soundest sleep that I've ever had in a very long time. I attribute it to the dreamy language of the book I'm reading before falling asleep, Gabriel Garcia Marquez' "One Hundred Years of Solitude". Ever since I started reading that book all my dreams have this fantasy-type of outlook where totally nothing seems real at all. Which is so the opposite of my usual dreams, which are usually stark and to-the-point.

Another reason for my very good mood this morning is that it's Friday and also the 1st of April. What does that mean? It means that the new quarter begins, and I get to start my new working hours at the office. Which means I get to start work at 8am and finish at 5.15pm on Mons-Thurs, and on Fridays I get to go back 4.45pm. Yay! Cos they gave us 3 choices, 8-5.15, 8.30-5.45, 9-6.15. Because I always leave the house early to beat the jam, I am usually the first to arrive at the office, and I'm usually the one who unlocks it for everyone else to come in, it makes much more sense for me to start work at 8 and to finish earlier at 5, rather than at 8.30 which I thought was much more reasonable at first because I lived quite far from the office. But then I discovered how notorious the jam is at the Sunway Toll, which means that if I leave home any later than I do now, I could well arrive later than 8.30 because you can be stuck in the jam at the Sunway Toll itself for at least half an hour (or even more!) waiting for your turn to pay 1 ringgit. So that's why after two weeks of testing out the timing, I leave my house everyday at 6.45. It's so much safer that way.

Why I call it hidup ini indah

I guess I never really took the time to explain why I call this blog "Hidup Ini Indah". Well, it's named after a song in Dewa's newest album, "Laskar Cinta". Anyway, Dewa is one of my favorite Indonesian bands, and here's a pic of them that I love, 'cos it's so candid.

Photo courtesy of www.dewa19.com - Dewa official website.

The song "Hidup Ini Indah" can be attributed to a lover, but I think it also makes sense as a tribute to God. Cos in it he says:

Hidup ini indah... bila ku selalu...
Ada di sisimu setiap waktu
Hingga aku hembuskan nafas
Yang terakhir... dan kita pun bertemu

I mean who else do you meet when you die but your Maker? But either way, it's nice to have this song dedicated to the one you love most.

Hujan/Rain

Mark's opinion

My childhood friend, Mark, was saying how he wasn't sure if working really hard right now would pay off later. And by that he meant "working your ass off til you have no free time." Is it really worth it in the long run? I think he's just feeling guilty, being an Asian in a white community in New York, about not working as hard as the Asian stereotype, at a pace that may not get him his first million by the age of 30 (or 35). There is a sort of pressure to make the big bucks by the age of 30, once you're an alumni of some really good schools. I can understand that. He was telling me that Sam Garonzik (a guy I went to high school with, who had the fortune of saying, "Shut up you stupid woman!" and slapping me in the school play--it was part of the script) was working for Goldman Sachs, and this other guy we went to school with was working in JP Morgan. And here we are, the so-called smart Asian kids, working at a considerably slower pace (for a considerably lower salary). But is it really worth it working your ass off til you've burned out, just so you can make $100,000 a year later?

I'll be perfectly honest with myself, as I was with Mark, yeah, so what, I work for a multinational company, but I don't think the job I have now is going to teach me any skills to become a manager any time soon. The job is so simple, I love it. The on-the-job stress is so minimal, I can enjoy myself at work. I have time for myself and for my family when I get back home. And I think that's important in a job, to have space for yourself when you get off work. Yeah, so what, it's not going to earn me 100k or more by the time I'm 30, but I'm perfectly happy doing what I do. Just as long as you earn enough to pay the bills and have some leftover to enjoy yourself with.

I got my dream job one month after graduating. I got a job working for a stockbroking company as a Junior Equity Analyst. It was everything I imagined it would be, and not. Yes, it was exciting and fast paced. But at the same time, the stress level was so high, I couldn't take it. And the unethical bussiness practices that were the "industry norm" left me jaded. I was disillusioned by it all and quit just after 6 months. I told myself I'd further my studies and return to the industry fortified with better skills so that I wouldn't break down the next time. But that hasn't happened yet. The Economist that I had the pleasure of assisting at my first job, (who, incidentally, also left the company) earns a 5-digit salary per month now and he's only 31. But then again, he's a workaholic and leaves the office at 10 pm.

So, in my opinion, it's not worth it working til you've burned out. It's so much better to enjoy life. Mark's opinion is that we should look forward and not look back til we're about 50 to reassess our lives. He doesn't have much to complain either, 'cos he's got a good job in an insurance company, and has no plans to get married soon. Which means, you know, no extra responsibilities equals no extra expenditure. We're 25 this year, and when we were 10, 25 was considered old. But we're enjoying ourselves, right, so that's what counts. Am I right or am I right?