if today was your first day

it's a new day at work today.

a new day because it's the first day at work after new year, and also the first day at work after i cancelled my USA transfer.

and i must say, things went not too bad, you know, except the fact that everyone who saw me today reacted as if watching george bush in white house after obama's inauguration. i felt like i've explained about the transfer a million times, i almost wished i had a t-shirt on that says 'yeah i'm back for good' at the front and "for more information, dial toll free number 1800-GET-A-LIFE" at the back.

ok maybe i should just cut them some slack. they were just concerned surely, even though the things most of them concerned for were my house and car (ok for athousandth times, i didn't sell my car yet so i still have my car but i did signed the rental agreement for my house with i had to break with 2 full-months compensation. it was a big bummer with a capital B').

except this colleague whom i worked with a lot last year. she was very good in solving technical issues and i had a weird feeling that she could solve me too. she said, knowing me, she could understand my decision. previously, rather than asking whether i've sold my car or rented my house before the trip like everybody else, she asked me whether i was ready to go 'at heart'.

which i so thought i did, but apparently her concern was spot on. i wasn't ready in the end and i learned that in a painful way. she also said she would have guessed i would prefer to pay big money to keep my house rather than thinking about saving money, which was spot on part 2. she probably could read my mind from the thought bubbles hovering on top of my head. so you see, i have a feeling i could learn so much about myself from this girl. maybe i should, you know, learn from her. just like yoda.

but first, i have to learn and find out what to do now at work since someone has already replaced me. so i had a personal, intimate discussion with my boss the first thing in the morning. to my surprise, he said one of our group member has just quitted and me coming back is just the right timing because then i could take over his job.

you see, this is so meant to be.

in fact, come to think about it, all the signs around me were as if saying something about the transfer. like for instance, during my way back from office just now, n-sync sang in the radio, "..bye bye bye bye bye", just like i byebye-ed the transfer. then britney followed, "oops i did it again..", just like i did the big oops for not taking the transfer. spooky right? even tony braxton claimed, "...he wasn't man enough for me".. ermm.. ok maybe this one is not related.

since the colleague who quitted wasn't ready to do the pass-down because it's monday, i ended up with nothing to do the whole day. so i changed back my correspondence address for my great eastern policies and starhub accounts to my current (old) address. then i called IRAS so they would adjust back my property tax to enjoy owner-stay rebate. i even browsed through qantas website to find ticket to australia.

it was actually during lunchtime when my colleague brought to my attention that we would have 12 days off during the chinese new year break plus our plant slowdown. 12 days! that's almost twice the time that God made the earth, right? i wasn't ready to just let those days go by just converting oxygen to carbon dioxide on my bed, so i figured i could probably go to melbourne and watch australian open tennis.

except, after calling the ticketing agents and worked out all the possible expenses, i found out it could totalled up to more than SGD2000.

the thing is, i have used quite a lot of money recently. first, i told you about the compensation i had to pay to break my house rental agreement, right? that was about >SGD4000. then, i would have to pay the company for my pre-transfer trip to USA since i cancelled the transfer, inclusive of the actual transfer plane tickets that they could not cancel, which should summed up to be about SGD7000.

so you see, i'm nowhere in the ability to spend further big money in near future. in fact, it would be some time before i'm able to purchase any island again. that australian trip i could still afford to pay though, but that would not be so appropriate surely? this kind of harsh decision needs some retributions.

plus, i'm sure my Yoda-girl would not approve of it. or would she? she was the one who said i would not jeoperdize my lifestyle just to save money.

o gosh.. maybe i should think harder and search the force to find the answer. yeah, i would do that at work tomorrow, you know, on top of converting oxygen to carbon dioxide.


...ed