For someone who hates talking over the phone, I'm blessed enough to do a lot of it at work. Calling up people and inviting them for our events, updating the company's list of media contacts (and getting yelled at by people who hate being asked their contact details), and doing audits of media's impressions of our client, and blah, is a stated work scope for me.

What at first seemed extremely irritating and mundane has now only become extremely irritating but slightly interesting. Calling up different people, listening to different accents, trying hard to figure out what they're saying, and worst of it all, being so nice to them over the phone ("Oh, hi, Andrew [yup, we get on first name terms very quickly], how're you, how was your vacation [we know they went on vacation].. [blah].. thanks so much, Andrew, you have a good day, ok?) and smiling so much your cheeks hurt is the exciting part of it. Your acting skills (or rather, voice modulation skills) totally come in handy and you improve them like crazy. Your voice becomes good enough to express a myriad of emotions - "Oh, I see, that's your company policy, no problem, Rose!", while you mutter curses under your breath.

Two incidents got me really doubling up laughing while on the phone. One was when I called up, asking if Mr Kim would be available to attend an event on Friday, only to be told she was on maternity leave. Gosh, unisex names! But there have been other times when I've mailed an invite to a "Ms" only to later call and find out it's a he.

Another was when I called to speak to a Mr Homiki (uhh, some Japanese name, I can't remember):
Me: Hi, this is Vani [blah].. can I speak to Mr Homiki?
Receptionist: Hi Vani, I'm sorry to inform you Mr Homiki has passed away!
Me (chokes): Oh my God, I'm so sorry.. (thinks for a few seconds as to what to say) errr.. when and how did this happen?
Receptionist: (I'm sure she was bugged to take condolence calls over an office phone for some random guy!) Anyone else you would like to talk to?

Oh, God only knows what more I have to endure. Maybe sometime soon they'll let me do media pitching, which is basically pestering media to come down and interview someone or cover some event, convincing them how it is useful for their publication/channel. Who knows, there are 16 weeks left!!

4 weeks into my internship and I’m ready to pass on my gyan to fellow mortals on the earth:

• Never say ‘I hate shopping’ when your supervisor takes you to DKNY to choose a dress for a wedding.
• Never show excitement on the ‘60% off – Levi’s sale’ when they’re excited about Nine West’s shoe sale (where, incidentally, $150 shoes after discount make them go ‘whoooo!’)
• Never give frank opinions – smile and go ‘Wow, you must get this!’ even when the shoes are hideously-golden and oh-my-god-how-can-you-walk-on-these heels.
• If there is a way to leave the office without the concerned being able to see you, always use it.
• When asked why you don’t drink (in case you don’t), never say ‘It smells bad’. Instead think of other ways like ‘The smell is strong and gives me breathing problems’
• Never loudly choke/cough if someone who smokes stands next to you and talks to you. Instead, hold your breath and nod to show that you’re paying attention.
• Never chuckle when they make fun of someone else. Who knows, they may be making fun of you when you’re not there, and it stings to know someone else is chuckling like you, at you!
• Never, ever give it away that you’re jobless. Even if you have nothing to do, just pick up a relevant report and pore over it. Make notes, highlight, say you’re learning more about the client. Walk hither and thither, to and from the photocopy room. But never let them catch you jobless. If they ask ‘Are you busy?’, say ‘A bit; anyways, what’s it? I can try to do it when I’m done with this!’
• If you think you have a better way of doing something, make sure the relevant person hears it, not the one who gives you that work to do, because not many people are fond of listening to interns coming up with smart ideas.
  

More to come. Watch out! Work is good. Even though the pay is not quite satisfactory and I have to stay back at times, looks like they’re finally starting to trust me and give me other work than just photocopying/printing stuff. Well yeah, 20 weeks left. I’ve been counting ever since day one, so don’t look at the 20 weeks and go ‘I knew it; she’s crazy!’

Before I start, a 'Hail' to all people who work. To all those who leave for work in the morning, come back late in the evening and go to sleep, just to wake up and go to work again. And an even bigger salute to the mums who not only work all day, but come back and cook. Gosh!
2 weeks old in my internship, and I'm already wondering how I'll tackle life when I graduate and have to work to live! More than the work itself, or the part of waking up early, or traveling, is the torture called monotony. Life is so monotonous, that I feel there is hardly anything to look forward to (except of course, reaching my room, eating and sleeping, and yeah, the weekend - which miraculously vanishes!!).

And within just 3 days, my new life has formed a habit. Everything seems to go on unconsciously - the car of the travel is always one of the last three, this car stops near the stairs in the station I get down, the way I take to reach the office building, where I look at the pictures of the 'Male' and the 'Female' in the washrooms (and wonder at the stereotypes - the man all funky looking, and the woman wearing the lipstick looking at a hand-mirror), chuckling at the MasterCard ad playing in the lift, and missing the bus to campus when I return, with the result I wait for quite some time in painful formal shoes (which are painful even though they are absolutely flat!).

Life isn't bad, but it's so monotonous, that I wonder if all this is even worth the trouble - studying, getting a good job, getting married, and so on. Is that all there is to life? I realise with shock that there is just one more year left in university, and then my fun days are over. My sister says life in your early 20s is fun, because you start earning, live independently (well, mostly!) and enjoy with friends! But what's the point if the only time I get to spend with friends or with the things I buy are only a couple of hours at night, before I realise (with shock, again!) that it's time to go to bed so that you can go early the next day and complete the press release so it goes on time to the media? Whoa!

Yeah, I know.. I'm ranting off like a crazy woman, but I'm seriously contemplating retiring by the age of 35 and to start writing books, or freelance :D

Now, those of you who find it really funny and haven't started working yet, I'd say, hey, every dog has its day. You'll realise sometime soon. And to those of you who find it funny but are working, I'd only say you're so used to this monotony and vicious circle that you don't even realise it. To those of you who laughed and don't or won't work, I'd say you're missing something!
And if you didn't laugh and totally sympathise with me, God bless you.

My blog turned 2 yesterday! It's a pity I realised that only when I was talking to a friend in passing about the blog! And suddenly, I realised I have been religiously (well, almost!) checking it regularly and so on. Of course, it's taken a beating now that I've started my internship and only have time to return, eat and get back to sleep after choosing what to wear the next day, sigh. Life's sooooo monotonous now, I wonder how it'll be when I start working full time!!

So, two people have tagged me now, and for the lack of patience to type anything else, I take this one. WA and Sandhya tagged me to declare to the world, 5 things it didn't know about me.... Let's see...

1) There are some things I wouldn't tell anyone but my cute blue book. The book has seen it all, floating-in-the-clouds times, thrilled, excited times, disappointed times, angry times (I like to run my hand across the page after I've written on it, to see the impression it's made - it's like a measure of my anger!)

2) My good impression of a person goes down drastically when I realise she/he smokes. I don't know why, but I can never be a good friend of such a person - there's always some distance! Before I came to Singapore, I used to feel the same way about people who drink, but well, 3 years away from home changed my opinions. But I haven't met any totally drunk person, so let's reserve judgment till then! :D

3) I hate girls who dress up fashionably and wear make-up. I hate girls who even dress up or wear heels. I hate make up. It takes a lot of convincing to get me to wear anything other than compact and kajal to work. And I detest heels, and I hate girls for making them a norm. Whatever happened to simplicity, natural beauty et al.?

4) Music runs every minute of my waking hours, when I'm not talking. If it's not playing, I'm humming or singing in my mind :P Finally came to know yesterday that I can play music when I'm working, as long as others don't hear it!

5) I love to walk. If there's a person with me who I'd love to talk to, or my music player by some strange coincidence guesses my mood and plays the appropriate songs, I just feel like I'm in heaven. Oh, that said, it's very easy to make me smile, make me happy or change my mood. Something as stupid as a song listened to after long, or an ice cream can send me into screams of delight!

I guess almost everyone I know of has been tagged! Anyway, let me try - f2f, Bhargavi, Chaos Budha and...
err, no, I really can't think of more people! :D

I peeped into the living room, shyly, as Ma called out to me.
'Come, Minu, tell Uncle hi...'
I bashfully crept up and hid behind my mom, tugging at her saree pallu. I peeked out from behind her and smiled at the man who was a new uncle at home.
I had never seen this man before, in my 6 years of life.
He took out a box of colour pencils from his bag and stretched his hand toward me. 'These are for you, Minakshi,' he said and handed them to me.
I took the box - it had 24 colours! I then mumbled thanks, still suspicious of this new relative. Who was he? Why had I never seen him before?

'Colour something and show uncle,' said Ma. I wondered why she was referring to him as 'uncle' and not 'mama' or 'chitappa'.
I nodded and went to my room and tore a page from my school drawing note, and then remembering I would later have to ask Ma to stitch the pages together (again) as the pages were coming apart because I'd torn a page.
I drew a butterfly, what I was an expert in drawing. A big one. Bright, beautiful wings. I used each of the 24 colours in the pack.
I ran out into the living room where 'uncle' was. I showed him the picture.

'Beautiful!', he cried in appreciation. I looked at Ma. She smiled approvingly.
'Oh, Lakshmi,' he said, ' I need to make an ISD call, where can I make one?'
'The booth is at the end of the 3rd street from here,' said Ma. She then noticed the confusion in uncle's eyes.
'Maybe Minu can take you?'
'Of course. Will you, Minu?'
I looked at Ma, wondering how she could let me go with this stranger, 3 streets away from home. She nodded, as if reading my mind, telling me 'It is safe. Go with him.'
I couldn't believe my ears. She was letting me go with some stranger! What if he kidnapped me, or worse still, wanted to hurt me?
I had not much choice now. I ran to the door, and shyly called 'Uncle!'

He got up and came with me. I took him to the shop where I waited inside the booth and watched the little fan getting stuck and working again, while he spoke on the phone. Whenever the fan got stuck, I used a cone made of a flyer in the booth and twirled the fan around, and it would work again.
He was done. We walked out of the booth, and he paid the bill. Then, noticing me wistfully looking at the jar of toffees and candies, he asked if I wanted a Dairy Milk.
'No!' I vehemently answered, worried about the consequences at home. (Ma would scold me for eating it without offering Somu, my elder brother, still at school)
'Sure?' he asked. I nodded.

He then went over to the counter and spoke to the man with brown teeth there.
And as I looked, 'uncle' got a cigarette and lit in a box with a switch nearby. He drew in, and a ring of smoke came tumbling out. I immediately choked, and coughed. I pinched my nose to block out the smell.
He held out his hand. 'Let's go.'

I looked at him. He held out his left hand, still smoking with the cigarette in the other.
I just turned and ran with all my strength.
'Minu, Minu, wait!!' I could hear him yelling.
Overcome with fear, I ran even faster. This man was out there to kill me. I ran until I reached home and hid in the safety of my mother's arms, while she wondered why I was panting, and where 'uncle' had gone.

Remember I wrote a post with a happy It's-sunny-again feeling? Darn, it's raining in this wretched place again. I've been in room all day, not even stepping beyond my corridor to go to the canteen, managing lunch with damned Maggi. And now that it's dinner time, I'm wondering if I can even go out and find decent food.

It's been raining ever since I woke up at 7 in the morning and nodded off to sleep again. It was still raining at 10 when I switched off the alarm, in a vain attempt to wake up 'early'. It was still raining when I finally got up at 12 30, and ever since. How, really, how, can it rain in a place like this? My first December in Singapore, and the rains have been really pissing off.

Went to Sentosa yesterday to show my cousin around. We were ushered at 6 for the magical fountain laser show at 7 40. Gosh, the place was so crowded it looked like a cricket stadium in India during a ODI. Wily pushcart sellers sold ice creams at exorbitant prices which we were forced to buy out of boredom of waiting, for the simple reason the authorities wouldn't let us out of the arena. The show was good as usual, and was really nostalgic of my first month in Singapore, when our seniors took our entire batch to Sentosa.

Otherwise, the beach was as usual, useless. My cousin's first reaction on seeing the water was 'Hey, idhu thaengina thanni, beach illa!!' (It's stagnant water, not a beach!), and I couldn't disagree with her. There was the (I'd say fake) 'Southernmost point of continental Asia' where one 'island' was connected to another 'island' by a swing bridge (and below the bridge was the thaengina thanni) and we went there only to discover that technically, the southernmost point was another tiny island in the sea. Ok, I know I'm confusing - welcome to dear Singapore!!

Christmas eve's outing was a lot of fun. We first went to Boat Quay for dinner, then went on a boat in the Singapore river, seeing Singapore's 'sights' - the Merlion, Esplanade, you know, the usual touristy blah. Though quite ashamed I'm seeing it in my third year here, I was relieved I'd finally 'lived the experience'. After that, we were treated to amazing Haagen-Dazs ice cream - oh dear God, heavenly!!! I then went to a Midnight Mass for Christmas - my first ever. The church was extremely simple, and that was surprising! I had expected a more cheery, brightly decorated church, but this one was down-to-earth simple and sober. I listened to whatever was read out with not much idea of what was going on - but the nice thing was I could understand everything that was said for the simple reason it was in English! 'Twas nice!

Goodness, it's 8 pm already. Canteens would be closing down, and the rain shows no signs of stopping. My late night walk plans will be foiled, I know. I should find some dinner.
Oh yeah, belated Merry Christmas, guys!!

I stopped short on my tracks. Looking at the nearly-clear, rainless sky, I saw, for the first time in Singapore, a beautiful sky - the most beautiful one I have ever seen here. Brilliant, bright stars, and a naughty one twinkling and smiling at me! I kept looking up and walking, mindless of where I was going.
Who made the universe so beautiful???
Thanks, Corbis, for the picture.