today it is a rant.
i say it here because i have no one to say it too.

the first mar on my heretofore blissful start to working life in london.

wat do you do with a chao-keng colleague. at first, i thought he just the type to stay until the boss leaves (to be seen to be working hard). then i find out that after office hours, he is working on his own portfolio in the office. then i find out that when boss leaves, he even takes out the laptop and laplink, print, download etc. then i find out that he keeps using best best paper in the office to print his stuff when boss has left.

today i find out that he does his own work during office hours as well. no wonder he always has a list of at least 6-8 dwgs open at any one time.

now all these has nothing to do with me. unless i care too much or it affects my life. last half week, it has.

not only do i have to help him finish his work, to check his mistakes, to correct his mistakes because i'm tallying nos. up and help him rush as he saunters off for his daily english lessons, he doesn't give two flying f*£ks even when the boss says 'do this by today'. cos ... in the end, all things having to be coordinated in the office, i have to finish up for him. so i can do mine, or so i can do mine properly.

frus.
tell colleagues - no use. office atmosphere becomes bad. he can't help anyway. so i tell you all.

cripes. dam no mood to work already. think i'll leave for nice jap dinner and then home.

one thing i like about working - i get to dive into the boss' library.

on top of the usual mags, i get to:

1. find out about my boss from the stuff that populates his shelves;
2. read books that i might otherwise not look for myself;
3. see first editions of books that i only own the 5th edition or the LINDA photocopy of;
4. look forward to discussions with him about these books/ideas (which has thus far only revolved around gossip and inside trivia though)

i always thought that when i'm settled, luxury would just be a knee level high pile of mags arriving promptly every month and when i don't have to stand around the store flipping someone else's copy.

i was going to write down my thoughts about work today. something that made me think about 'small' problems and the beauty of solving them as a design project, as compared to the fanciful 'big' gesture etc.

but then the evening's events have given me more buoyant things to shout about! hahahaha!

3cheers for claudio - who deserves all the good things he's getting now! i hope he surges past arseholes in the PL and gives the treble-dreaming 'greatest team in the universe' nothing in the end. having said that, i hope he leaves chelsea in the summer as payback for their treatment of him this season, leaving the team in shambles and making chelski an unattractive destination for all future targets.

such a wonderful turn of events this weekend, don't you think? i'm sure at least SOME of you agree ....

i got a job offer today.

two days after the interview and almost exactly 3 days after the first call from the principal of the firm.

its a small office 8mins' walk from my flat and just behind oxford circus. his biggest job currently is a 180-room hotel. i'm so eager to start after my long break but a little anxious to meet expectations now. i'll just have to live with it.

yippee! this news must have been such a relief to my parents who think that i've been scrambling for work for the last 8mths ... i must clear things up as soon as i actually start work next monday. who knows what might go wrong from now till then or if whenever. fingers crossed.

so ... now on to the rest of my life. i can actually start planning once i'm more settled into the job.

(about that trip to new york on 31july for manchester united - ac milan .... hmmmm ...)
obviously not a longterm planning type of guy ... really should be more ambitious. altruism and puritanism can only get me so far ... might even become baggage in a world of image/simulacra over content/substance. excuses excuses galore ... ok. rant over.

yippee ....

its funny to find out the underlying logic that govern singapore's latest approach and strategy for her continued survival.

thrown into the mix are concepts of spaces of capital, urban survival, enterpreneuralism, competitiveness, market logics, flexibility (of labour force, of capital but also of geopolitical strategies), fluidity or mobility (ditto). but linking it all is a understanding of the inextricable spatial fixity of any kind of governance and market domination. and underlying a lot of these moves is an unabashedly economic drive. this might seem innocous but its attendant effects are great and multiplicitous. read naomi klein, david harvey, marx and engels, hegel, alan smith. listen to tay kheng soon.

its also funny to see that it seems to be a rite of passage that countries have to go through. it is typical and it is formulaic but it reduces the risk. nations too go through rites of passage like a terrible two turning into rebellious teen etc. one step behind the advanced capitalist nations to be the big fish in the small pond?

but what i really want to ask is:
how do architects figure in all of these?

i want to answer this.