So I gave up on that writing on the train stuff. Too tedious. I think my Palm is too scratched on the writing bit. I tried to take care of it, but the stylus eventually made marks on the surface anyhow.

Today was a busy day, but also the kind of busy day, as it turns out, which is good for illustrating what my job is all about. So this is what I did today.

In the morning, I had to be there early 'cause some of the local media were coming to take pictures/footage of a committee meeting. Okay, it doesn't sound very exciting, and if I were a photographer/cameraman employed by the media, it'd have to be a really slow news day before I volunteered for such an assignment, but it happened. After that wrapped, at about 9:30, I went back to my desk and fine-tuned some writing I was doing. Then I met a colleague from a different office at 10 am because we're both in charge of publicity for this upcoming work-innovation-workshop-seminar-retreat type thing (I'm not being deliberately vague; I only have the foggiest idea of what the event actually is myself). We worked on stuff, interspersed with chatting about her three-month-old pregnancy, which isn't as TMI as it sounds because she was teaching with me at Raffles and we both joined the education ministry together and we're pretty good friends.

So I went back to my desk and continued to work on the writing thing. By 11ish, the committee meeting had concluded and they needed to issue a press release, so I had to figure out with the secretariat who was going to write it. Once that was settled, at about 12:45 pm, I took off for lunch with a colleague. It was only the two of us --- because three of our colleagues are on leave and three couldn't afford to take the time out for lunch --- but it was really fun. I never really thought of us as being on the same wavelength, but we had a decent time talking about all sorts of things. She, in particular, had plenty of stories to tell since she was at the school that had an emergency exercise yesterday.

(If you didn't read the local press already, what happened was that a school was roleplaying an emergency evacuation exercise, except that some antsy neighbors called the media, thinking it was a real emergency. The media showed up, the school thought they were roleplayers too, and things got a little confused, resulting in a press release at the end of the day to clear everything up. The only question I got is: if you were living next to a school that appears to be experiencing some kind of emergency, wouldn't you call the fire department and policemen first, both of whom knew it was a mock emergency situation, rather than the press? Go figure.)

After lunch, there was more writing of stuff. Not the press release, since I hadn't attended the meeting and people who had were perfectly capable of doing the necessary rewriting. But I did have to handle calls from the press chasing me for the press release all afternoon. I said we were trying for mid- to late afternoon at first, but it was 6:45 by the time it finally got faxed out. 6:45 pm, I kid you not. And not that many people had to read and approve it, either. It's one of the hazards of working in a large organization, I guess. I feel bad for the reporters waiting on the other end of the line for the press release, 'cause they have no (or little) story till they see it --- but I also feel bad for my powerless little self, twiddling my thumbs in my cubicle till things are okay to go.

So it was 7:30 pm when I finally left work. I was right when I told my mother it would be a long day and having us over for dinner was a bad idea.

At home, Kentucky Fried Chicken awaited me (I know this grosses some of you out, I'm sorry) and then I watched the first episode of season two of the Gilmore Girls, which has been waiting patiently on my videotape since Tuesday night. And now I'm here. I still have last night's The X-Files to watch, but it won't happen tonight. I'm too pooped. I think I'll get into work at 9 am tomorrow, instead of 7:45 am like today and earlier this week.

I think today went well despite the loads of work because I wore my blue suit which I like and which I got for like thirty bucks at Filene's Basement in Boston in 1999. Maybe that's why people wear suits to work --- so they feel good and then even the crappiest day doesn't feel so bad. I'm not wearing one tomorrow, though. I only have three at the moment, unless you count a jacket that happens to be black and a skirt that happens to be black, though they were bought from different stores at different times, you consider that a suit.

Okay, enough rambling, more sleep. Goodnight!