Life ain't simple,

Hello there,

I'm back to make a recap of these festive seasons. So many things happened, from one of the bestest NYE parties to the magicial ice skating experience under the galaxy skies of the Grand Palais to the worst ultimate burlgary to my apartment. This is how my crappy 2017 began. But first, pardon these huge .gifs images (obviously Boomerang photos) I thought they were fun, probably helps to dramatise my tale :(

Let's start with the Grand Palais.

Every year during Christmas season, they transform the hangar into a beautiful ice skating ring for a month. For the past 3 years in Paris, I've thought about going, but the dates never seemed right to me since I usually fly back to Singapore. This year, from Christmas night to New Year Eve, I had so much parties that I barely— slept. It was parties everyday till 6am and poof– off to work at 11am as a zombie. I didn't think that I actually had the energy to go ice skating.

Festive seasons calls for crazy crowd, you have to book your tickets in advance. Such dreamlike events at Grand Palais, you have to choose your time slot for ice skating— Morning, Afternoon, Night. Of course different time slots have a different price, the later you go, the more expensive it gets. The night slot starts at 9pm to 2am. They invited DJs to play under disco lights, how fun is that? :D But well, Night tickets cost 27€. So in order to enjoy the lights we opted to go in the late afternoon/evening at 6ish.

New Year Eve,

So I was having quite a couple of headaches about NYE party plans. I didn't wanna rot at home with a drama, I wanted to cling wine glasses, dance around, talk to people and have a real party. I went to a Glitter Party in a superb Parisian apartment. My intended glitter dress didn't turn out well; neither did my backup plan worked, I painted my skin with fine glitter powder even though it wasn't visible in the photos, and my friends gave me stars to stick around. There were lots of people– we emptied countless bottles of Champaign till 6am. Till then, all is well— I thought 2017 started with a bang ;)

Fast forward 2 weeks

I went back to my parent's place for an early Lunar New Year Celebration. Winter sales started, I bought lots of stuffs. You know— its new year, new clothes, blah blah blah... Now that I think back, maybe my body already predicted the upcoming sense of loss, I somehow couldn't stop myself from shopping? I left my apartment for hum— 4 days, and I came home to this crazy sight. I couldn't register what was happening. The first thing I saw when I opened my door, (yes it was still locked and looked fine to my tired eyes) was that kitchen and toilet lights were on. Secondly, was the mess on the floor (yep that's the photo, 1000% purest crime scene). Thirdly, my brain was slowing processing— I was thinking that maybe my landlord visited? But it doesn't make sense for her to make a mess of my home?!

FOURTHLY, I REALIZED MY iMAC WAS GONE!

THAT HUGE 27" iMAC, the first thing you see when you enter my tiny apartment, it's GONE. GONE FOREVER. #wtfhow! THAT WOKE ME UP. As a Designer, my desktop is basically my lifeline. I just dropped my luggage and called my parents. I couldn't even shed a tear. While calling, my brain was slowly picking up all the details, I started to make out what had be stolen. All of my work gadgets are gone, both my cameras and all lens were taken. My Chanel bag and Vuitton luggage were taken as well— they emptied my luggage's contents on my bed. Because I have too many coats, I keep some of them folded in the luggage when not in use. They fucking took my fluffy white blanket as well; They took so many things that I couldn't even keep track of. Plus my parents and I keep suspecting a "they" because there's so much stuffs gone...

I doubt you can talk about efficiency when you're in Paris. Police took 3.5hours to get to me. They weren't the police technically, just the first hand report and probably more like the forensic team to take finger prints if possible. This is the first time a burglary happened to me *touch-wood-seriously*, I was absolutely clueless about the process. So even the police came, I still had to head to the police station to make an official complain, and give them the list of stolen objects. Except 2 weeks later, I still found out that more things were missing that I didn't manage to report.

Fuck seriously.

What a way to start 2017.

How encouraging... I am okay physically, but mentally not at all. I know it's just items that I lost which I could buy them back, but a sudden loss of 10k euros worth of items? How am I going to get them back? I don't have extra 10k to cover my loss. Plus they aren't simply objects to me. Yes, my fantasy brain is uselessly (to some) emotionally attached to things I buy, it'd remind of places I've been to, what was I doing, little things like that. Even if I have a housing insurance, but I doubt they're gonna pay for my loss. Thank god, I always carry my my hard disks and macbook air when I travel. I have 85% of my data. But still.... Every time I go home now, I'd have that traumatizing scene in my head. That pile of mess on the floor, little door debris on the floor...

Life goes on unfortunately... The insurance took 1.5 fucking weeks to send someone to replace my door locks and repair the damages done! Who knows how many weeks would they take to send someone to repaint my door...

When life sucks, you gotta suck it up and carry on— How two weeks of fun quickly transformed into weeks of terror...