(In a job,) integrity and passion is sufficient. Dignity like money comes automatic.
- my best friend's sms to me today

Current status: Jobless and borrower of the following books...

Alain de Botton's "Status Anxiety"
Tim Sanders' "Love is the Killer App"
Chris Crawford's "Chris Crawford on Game Design"
Alan Gershenfeld, Mark Loparco and Cecilia Barajas' "Game Plan"

Oh, and I own a copy of Don Norman's "Emotional Design" too. :) So much reading and thinking to be done. Woohoo. Heavenly!

Now my shortest job stint stands at exactly one month and this is even shorter than an internship. I guess it's time to take a backseat and rest first.

Lessons learnt:
I've found out there are situations I can't tolerate or change, and won't allow myself to be changed to adapt to them in return.
I've found out more and more I can let go of security and explore the unknown.

Random memory #253, or how a story was over before it has even begun:
When her first sms to him was just that one word "Stay!" (complete with exclamation mark), and he couldn't do just that, she mused idly on what the last sms could be.

Though she is the most sociable creature, she will find herself unpredictably standing up and walking out on people. She has no inkling why she withdraws from friends and cut short interesting conversations, but she does. Just to wander aimlessly round tiny convenience stores, and lean close enough to cold glass panels and watch breath form. Just to leave fingerprints on glass doors, and curl her hands round lollipops no one ever seems to buy, not even her.

If My Heart Ever Ran Away It Would Be Looking For The Day When Right Beside You It Could Forever Stay
- title of a song by Kid 606

What's Digital about me nowadays:
I'm reading the Venture Capital handbook (no don't sneer, I've a healthy respect for the art of getting funding) and Christensen's "The Innovator's Dilemma" (which my best friend kept quoting).

What's Analog about me nowadays:
I'm also reading Nicholson Baker's "Checkpoint", which is a fun read but such a slim volume (it's the size of "Who Moved my Cheese?").

What I want to read but don't have on hand:
"The Design of Everything Things" by Don Norman
"Emotional Design: Why we love (or hate) everyday things", also by Don Norman
"Rules of Play: Game Design Fundamentals" by Katie Salen & Eric Zimmerman

What I'm going to do over the long weekend:
Watch 5 films (at least). Read 2 books (at least). Download mp3s. Sleep. Run. Meet my brother whom I've not seen for a while. And most importantly, learn.

Like Neil Gaiman wrote, I feel like I'm an analog girl in a digital world.

To borrow someone else's words, today I want to be a piano tuner of earthquakes.

Lesson #374: If you stand up and clap like your life depends on it, the encore will come.

I like electronica cos the beats are like musical morse code. If you listen hard enough, you will decipher its message.

This is how we met.
We were in the same kindergarten class. I wrote my alphabet in slow deliberate strokes using a ruler, so the letters could be straight and tall; but somehow they would end up small letters hovering uncertainly inbetween lines. You held your scissors in an unwieldy manner, with your thumb and middle finger in the scissor loops. We thought we were kindred spirits.

This is how we met.
We were strangers sitting beside each other watching a movie I couldn't recall. There was a scene where a guy unsmilingly flicks away the tentative fingers of a girl trying to hold his hand. You heard me cry and when the lights came up at the end, you said "hey" and I looked at you, all trembling lips and shiny eyes.

This is how we met.
You called my phone by mistake and the first thing I heard was music in the background behind you. It was the same tune that was running through my head the whole day but the title simply eluded me. I asked you what the song was; and though you realised hearing my voice that I wasn't who you were searching for, you paused briefly and told me anyway.

Random fact #250: I smile in the dark watching movies I like. I don't even need a punchline.

Strange as it may sound, freedom has taken my words away. After blogging consistently for a few years, I'm really not bothered if I do it anymore. It's none of those why-the-hell-am-I-blogging-cos-nothing's-new shtick, but the oh-yeah-everything-else-beats-blogging shtick. What a difference a career change makes.

All I can offer is some music. Here's the Spaceshots' album Siren Sounds. Loud alternative rock to bop to.

You wrote me out of the blue after a long while. For closure. And though I used to feed on your words, now I don't need them and I don't feel I need to give you mine. Perhaps you think that's unforgiving of me, but really I am just indifferent and more selective on how to spend my already limited time.

So I asked you to be well.
Say Hello Wave Goodbye.

My life now.

Longer working hours everyday but I've a strange inner calm. Work is actually fun. The casualty count at my old office is rising though. If only there is more time to run. If only my eating hours and diet aren't so screwed up currently.

Downloaded more mp3s. Read 15 books so far this year. Made a trip to the library where I chanced upon and borrowed Neil Gaiman's American Gods finally. Going away for the weekend with the girls. Recently, old friends have returned to my sphere of influence but I've not reeled them into orbit. It feels more like split-second encounters with falling stars; there isn't even time to make a wish.

During a meeting, someone said "Rendering is all about floating point notation", and at that instant I smiled involuntarily to myself and realised that I'm right where I want to be.