slosh down the pepper!

Pass me the abalone...

CNY - another reason to perform a ritualistic entry to reflect the mundanity of even a festive holiday. Like any weekend or off-days, I woke up at 1plus in the afternoon. Dad was already grumbling. "We are going to be the last group again this year!" Hehe. For the past 3-5 years, we had always been the second or third last family to arrive at my 1st aunt's house. Setting the trend at that, I don't believe our 'position' this year's gonna change.

After more grumblings by Dad, a few pissed off faces of mine, a slice of pandan cake, a shower, a 5 minute wait at the bus stop, a 30 minute journey, we reached aunt's house at 3pm! We weren't the last! Second-last! As per the past... glees.

The usual stuff on the table - steamboat, fried chicken, nuggets, century egg with preserved ginger, curry, kong bah pau and kong bah. I remembered there were more stuffs last year. This year, except the addition of preserved abalone, the stir-fried vegies, "five spices roll" and prawns were gone. The health-conscious me naturally only had one - two dishes to pick at.

It came to my realisation that one of my cousins is in the private banking sector aka big money job! So tempting were her relating of the earning potential in PB. The re-emphasis in planning out a career path, she reiterated: ".. stay for 3 - 5 years, then jump!" "local banks.. they are your stepping stone.. ". As a mother of two, she's still pretty attractive, looking younger by 7 - 10 years than her actual age of 35. I was half-delighted and half-apprehended when she offered to pass me the word when her department is hiring. I am but only one of the hundreds of NUS graduates with only 1 - 2 years of experience in a mini operations unit of a consumer banking division in a local bank. Totally unrelated to "big money". On one hand, I wana move high up quickly, yet I fear the collapse of the unstable ladder. Grrr.. frustrating! Complexicating! I shall think about it later..

The entire affair ended abruptly at 4.30pm. Dad was feeling bored and wanted to move on to River Hongbao. I parted ways with them and returned to ecp for my regular fix. Whoa.. never in my 25 years of stay here did I see so many tents popping up! Multi colored tents housing mostly malay families. Still very strange. CNY is not the only holiday that sees a consecutive spread of 3 holidays in a row, yet such spectacular scene has never occurred before! But my jogging results aren't as impressive. The fortune-teller must be right! I am getting weak! :-(

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I wonder if this only happen to men. Spoken to a few guys I know who mentioned their awkardness in still receiving angpows in their mid/late-twenties. Though I wasn't as interested anymore, I still take whatever angpow that was given to me :)

posted by slingwoof @ 1/29/2006 08:51:00 PM