December limbo

Need a kick to wake myself up from December inception limbo.

December is passing wayyyyyyy too quickly.

My birthday.
Xmas eve.
Xmas.
New Year eve.

Other than enjoying day offs from the public holidays, asked myself if I recall any significant events from December? I can't believe the year will be over in 24 hours.

In 12 days....

The year will be over.

WHAT??? Wait, I'm not prepared for that! This year has passed wayyyy too fast (then again, I think I comment the same every year hmm....).

While it's still 2013, are there any other things you would like to accomplish? Do you have anything to express, confess or explain to a person who matters?

My review of 2013 coming soon...

My internship

Twelve consecutive weeks at the far west was not a very short, nor very long period of time. The journey to and fro was arduous and work was strenous, but fortunately fulfilling. Rules were regimented; environment was not ideal; humans displayed not their best side. Thereafter the internship, an attractive offer was all but pending pen to paper, but I bit the bullet and rejected.

Boy, extremely tough decision it was, but not one I will ever regret....

CNY that comes every year

In just 50 more days! Looking forward to bonding with the relatives again... :)

On this day in 2008...

What a surprise I received! :)

(Oh gosh, I think I have aged so much........)

ME gathering

Being graduates from the same batch and from the same clique, naturally one of the discussion topics when we meet up is how we are doing and how are the other ppl around us are doing.

Everyone is progressing steadily and well.... but I found out that it's not uncommon to be earning >$10k when one is in their late thirties... with a family, house and car. And these people aren't even in the healthcare/legal/banking industry.

Take home for the day?


Self contentment is key.

Random pic

That's me fighting epic battle with Balrog on the left!

TMSCO

The alumni



Lovely Sydney

4 more days!

The difference 5 years make

Aged much?

Mummy, it's over

We discussed excitedly about going to the Mummy exhibition at MBS together.

Before we knew it, all of us endured sore bums from the bus ride to and fro Redang.

We had so much fun during that short getaway so when we returned, the title was changed to "Mummy! It's over!!!"

And yeah, before we knew it, it was over. Picture says a thousand words...

LOTR on Lego!

You get to choose to play almost all the characters in the movie/book!

1 more month!

Random pic

Doing OT

Disadvantages of doing OT:

- you are not paid extra
- nobody knows and appreciates
- the office is dark and quiet when you leave
- you lose your staff pass (and the credit inside the card)
- you miss hotpot dinner with your family and end u...p having leftovers by yourself
- you have to wash up all the dishes after that
- and dump the wet garbage bag

Work can wait till tomorrow!!!

1 day foodie trip to Malaysia

Took one day leave and headed over the causeway with my parents and indulged in our hometown favourites and visited my maternal grandmother. Didn't really think about work (cos email server was down and practically everyone was affected) and it felt really like a Saturday. Returned to Singapore late in the evening and felt soooo bloated from all the rich food - best thing was that we even dabao fresh durians!

Shiok ah!!

Awkward moment

Awkward moment - when your colleague (who's of a higher designation) starts complaining about your common boss and you don't really want to contribute (for fear of office gossip) nor speak up for the boss (cos you don't quite like him either) so you just nod and smile awkwardly.

__________________


Types of bosses, as explained by Dilbert.




P/S: Hmmm.... is there a type of boss whom everyone likes and still is able to get good work done?

Really???

Sydney

So it's confirmed!


It took last night to decide and this morning to book the tickets! Took advantage of Scoot's "Morning Glory Tuesdays", they have promotions on every Tuesday from 7am-9am!

What a beautiful city!!

So stoked already!!!

:D

I miss Hong Kong!

Sleepover at Ra's

I remembered not too long ago...

On some Fridays, I would arrange with my old friend Ra, and he would drive by and pick me up to go over his place.

We would play Avengers and tennis games on his Xbox till late, ransack for titbits in his huge fridge, before heading up and watch Blu-ray favourites like Finding Nemo, Lord of the Rings trilogy, Percy Jackson... and I would always be the first to doze off haha.

Next Saturday morning, we would wake up and go for brunch at the nearby coffeeshop, or I'd go for tuition lessons. Those were quite fun times :)

Random pic

Of friends

Some friends are like leaves
They wither and are gone with the breeze
Few friends are like bee to honey
They make you feel all warm and chummy.

Thanks, bros!

Pardon I can only conjure up a noobish poem at 1.15am and it's a major understatement to our friendship. Appreciate everything!

Emotional investment in work

I have a habit of making sure everyday that I clear every email I receive.

By clearing, it would mean at least reading them. Thereafter, the emails could either be flagged for follow-up, forwarded to other parties for their action, deleted, or archived.

Not sure whether this is good or a bad habit???

It has become easier for me to do so on the go as I carry a blackberry, but often I find myself distracted by the screen and not being attentive to my physical surroundings (eg lunch with colleagues, chatting with friends etc). I think this is what they term as "dis-connectivity"? Technology and smart phones were designed to improve communication but over-dependency on them could achieve an opposite intention. At the same time I ask myself - is it even necessary? Is it necessary for me to devote so much? Is it necessary to invest so much emotionally into my job? I am in operations and the nature of job demands quick actions, fast response and detailed replies for everything else varying from IT system breakdown, payslip error, disciplinary action, operational shortage, daily updates, project status progress, meeting agenda, weekly slides, supplier queries, chasing after for PR/PO, parts shortage/defects, productivity measurement, minutes of meetings etc etc. I receive emails and calls demanding near-time action/information almost everyday. But when they come in WHEN I AM ON LEAVE,




they kinda ruin my day.

3 beer

Best combi!
Buddies, chilled beer, crispy yakitori, cold weather, overseas, talk cock sing song, holiday!



As luck would have it

So we balloted for Sale of Balance Flats (May 2013) and my chances were 1 in 20. As rare as the mathematical odds were placed before us, we largely anticipated not to stand any reasonable chance at all. Finally, the result arrived via email:


Unfortunately, as your balloted queue position has far exceeded the flat supply, we regret to inform that your application has not been successful.
 
You may like to know that the bulk of our flat supply is sold through the Build-To-Order (BTO) exercises. Hence, we would welcome you to participate in the next BTO exercise in Jul 2013. You may visit our HDB InfoWEB at www.hdb.gov.sg for the details. We wish you all the best in your journey in buying a home.


THANK YOU VERY MUCH, HDB!

Better luck next time. (Question is: how many times?)

--------

Anyway, I've always wondered why some people are just born 'luckier' than others? For example, you may have heard of people who always tio 4D/Toto, or enjoy unbelievable streaks of luck at poker or mahjong? How is luck bestowed upon us? How are we blessed with any amount of luck? Is our luck factor determined at birth or can be granted upon? Interesting...

P/S: I bidded for SPH Reit IPO and wasn't allocated any. Pffffft.

PP/S: I never win any lucky draw.

Get my name right

Call me anal or overly particular; to me, pronouncing another person's name correctly is the most basic respect any educated man must give.

If you, as a superior, is not able to even spell it correctly (and consistently for umpteen times), sorry, you've lost my respect for you.

Apathetic involvement

Ever feel why some people just do not bother to read or reply emails at work?

  Being unresponsive in an email thread (with lots of other colleagues in the loop) and later stupidly ask, "Sorry I don't know what's going on" is akin to being one of the members in a whatsapp group chat and be apathetic about any discussions.

Almost my pet peeve.

Just saying.


And leaving someone's souvenir from overseas on another table and untouched for 3 months, is quite disrespectful.

Queenstown

Miss the quaint, serene beauty of Queenstown.

With a bunch of spontaneous, fun-loving  friends.
With hot chocolate drink in hand.

2 weeks ago, I had set up a small test for my staff. If the event they did not pass the test, the would-be consequences are not detrimental, it would just be a small test to observe their level of understanding, whether they would follow/overlook simple instructions.

Usually, before any event, I would send a gentle reminder a few days before. However, I intentionally stayed silent this time round.

Today, 30 mins after the event was scheduled to start, I received a call mentioning no one had turned up.

I'm utterly disappointed.

Don't understand why some people can't comprehend simple instructions or questions. And I promise, I don't use flowery language and my messages are concise and succinct.

This is just one of out many examples.

Do I have to spoon feed them every time? Why do I have to chase after them for every single simple thing I ask for? Wish they'd take more ownership of their areas and not irresponsibly conveniently forget.

I'm starting to get increasing comments along the line of "you look more matured than your age", and I wonder why.

365 days ago

Art & Craft

Painting seems to be the up and coming pastime for youths. Think Artestique, My Art Space... seeing my friends post their masterpieces on fb, I wondered how come everyone seems to know how to draw so brilliantly!

At those weekly Art & Craft lessons in primary and secondary school, they aren't my favourite lessons nor have I been the brightest student. However, I've always wanted to try my hands at painting too, curious to know how far my limited creativity and artistic talent will bring me. 

So one day, Celeste got a pair of Groupon deals for Kepler Art studio for a 3-hour painting session (with teacher). 3 months after we purchased the tickets, we finally found ourselves in a small classroom with a blank white canvas in front of us, several brushes and bottles of paint.

The teacher was a young lady, maybe in her mid 20s? We were to choose a picture from an album and that would be what we would be drawing for the next 3 hours!

I chose what caught my eye in the first instance - nature, greenery, sakura flowers, blue sky:

HAHAHA, looking at the myriad and layers of colours, I think it was gonna be really tough!

Being my first time, I really was clueless of what I should start with. I thought the first 15 mins could have been spent on a short intro on painting - you know, the material, basics of mixing colours, background foreground, highlighting etc etc? Anyway, 'cher told me to start sketching with a pencil.

The most I could sketch was the hillscape, the fence and the tree branch. Then, cher told me to start filling in the sky. She mixed a nice light blue colour and I did the filling up of the huge white space. I learnt that I could correct the colours by applying a second, third, layer. For example, if the blue sky was too dark, all I needed was to dip the brush into white paint and apply over the blue.

After the blue sky was done, the yellowish/orangy/red tint sky was the next challenge. Apply technique 1 as mentioned above.

My status now:

Still looking barren, with yet half the work done!

So light yellowish green would be the filler for the base for the foreground, the hill and grass. "Start with the lightest colours first," says cher.

Using a different type of brush and stroke, cher taught how to create the vertical strokes to mimic the tall grass. As you can see from the first picture (top), there would be many layers to the grass, tall grass, flowers, shadows, grains etc, and cher helped me mix the colours and showed the strokes to create the impression -and I was left to myself to do the rest.

The sakura leaves were the most interesting. When cher demonstrated, her every simple dap of the brush seem to grow a pretty pink leave on the branches. When I took over, every dap of my brush looked deliberate and rough, almost like a smear, a drag. Fortunately, the purposely strokes were to be concealed by the next layers of red, pink and white.

After 3-hours, our final product!

Cher complimented that my drawing didn't seem like I was a first-timer, haha, thanks cher, but it was all credit to your help!

Another KPI for the year, cleared! :D

Who's the pussy now?

And watch this too:

Hello Kitty is freaking lame.

I don't understand the madness, absurdity and insanity over a plush toy.

So what they are "Limited edition"?
So what they are "limited stock only"?


Well, guess what - just go straight to the source, the useless plushies are sold for only S$7 at China.

http://alvinology.com/2013/06/27/are-you-looking-for-this-hello-kitty/


Lame shit.

Know a few friends who queued up as soon at 10.30pm, and another who queued up overnight from midnight - 7am, before going to work.

FREAKING LAME!

Beach Boys at KD

Revisiting the moments - Tops my bucket list.

My kind of Sunday

Dear Diary,

Yesterday is a sunny day. I woke up relunctantly at 7.30am and accompanied my mom to the round market at Tampines.

Upon stepping into the hustle and bustle of the market, my half-opened eyes immediately dilated to the sights, smell and sounds of the cultural melting pot. The sound of the chopper against the chopping board, chittering and chattering, the damp floor, the bright orange filament lights hanging over the fishes/prawns, the greens, reds and browns of the vegetable stall, the red plastic bags, the acquired scent of preserved vegetables and salted fish...

Mom has been frequenting the round market since I was 5 and I bet she can navigate her way inside blindfolded (yes, challenge accepted). She led me to the butcher, took a quick look and walked away to buy pork from another stall. Puzzled, I asked mom why and she replied of the first stall, "The uncle has a bad temper when he has a line of customers."

=O

So my mom ordered 2 pig trotters, 1 muscle, and 1 slab of lean meat. Pig trotters for braised pork, muscle no need chop, lean meat for frying with vegetables, my mom requested and the butcher packed them exactly the way his customers want them. We paid $23.

I've also been to this round market many times enough for me to recognise the Indian woman selling spices and curry powder, here's warning not to speak bad of her because she can understand and speaks decent Mandarin, ha!

Taking careful steps along the damp floor of the market, I followed my mom to another section to buy some dried foodstuff. We paid about $7 for a pack of assam pieces,  a ginger and a piece of 霉香 salted fish.

Also than the unique shape of the building, the round market is also famous for its cooked food - Sarawak Kolo mee, Xing Ji wanton mee, prawn noodles, kway chap, just to name a few. We headed to tabao vegetarian economic beehoon. I remember a decade ago, mom tabao-ed the same dish for our breakfast and not only did we not thank her, we sulked because it was not drizzled with curry gravy. Today, mom repeated 3 times to the stall helper, “ 咖哩chap ”.


Moving on to another corner of the market, mom stopped by a stall and pondered what to cook for lunch later. She bought bee tai mak (mice flour?), fishballs and 50c beansprouts. The stall helper tried to up-sell a pack of instant curry, "it's better than A1!" but mom declined nicely.

Finally, we bought 2 packets of 奶白白菜 and a packet of petai for $4 and trotted back to the car. Shopping all done! =D

As we were walking back, mom told me that the lady stall helper at the bee tai mak stall is married to the man who was just now packing beside. Mom even knows that she originated from Vietnam and could not speak any Mandarin back then! From the conversation prior, I wouldn't have second guessed she wasn't local.

When we got home, I washed up, made myself a cuppa G7 coffee and prepared to dig in into the vegetarian beehoon (with curry chap), and boy, it was only 9.15pm!

Read newspapers.
Cleaned my room.
Changed bedsheets.
Napped.

____________________________________________


After lunch, I made myself comfortable at the dining table and started on my first book (ref: Resolutions for 2013), "The BFG".

Hahaha, yes I've done this book before when I was in pri school, but I've plain forgotten! I thought I would enjoy the story, but the book was so easy and simple I completed half of it in 40 mins. Hmm.

Off I cycled to Tampines East CC to donate blood (ref: Resolutions for 2013)!

The last time I did so was 10th July 2012 and I think the short period of missing in action actually made me feel nervous about this, lol. Fortunately it went smoothly haha, no repeat of faint spells.


At about 4pm, Celeste and Jiale came over and I suggested playing with jumping clay!

It was gonna be our first attempt and armed only with minimal artistic talent and google images, we found it really tough to mould the dough into the shapes and sizes we desired! So funny recalling how infuriated we were when the clay wouldn't stick or when the colours wouldn't mix, haha! One thing we learnt - the smaller the detail, the more difficult it was!

We spent like an hour and a half rolling, moulding, crafting and cursing at ourselves before we presented our 'master pieces':

 

Hahaha. Not too bad a first attempt ya?? =)



And then it was dinner!!!!!

Heartwarming, filling and happy dinner :):)


And the above, sums up my kind of Sunday. :)