Haha this could be the best Friday ever for me in the office. I woke up late for work today and panicked... and so i rushed and reached work at 9.30am. To my surprise, half of my team was not even in yet, and my boss is on off-in-lieu. Ha! Good!
Spent a good half hour chatting with my colleague, gossiping and all. Now, I'm just chilling, eating some cookies. In 1.5 hrs later, it'll be my company lunch, it's our office warming today, but we're celebrating at Swensens instead, since my office is in such bad condition (it flooded last week). After lunch which i assume will be for 2 hrs, I would have to hang in office for 1 more hour and then we're off to bishan sports complex for our sports day. Haah! But I dont think i'll be participating in any of the games since I have my hair appointment later in the evening. I just dun want to rush to bath and change and so i'll just go and be a cheer leader. ha!
I'll be gng for my hair treatment today too at Mahogany Hair Salon. I really need a good treatment for my hair, my hair is so damaged that it's just too dry. Doesn't help that my waves are back and I'm back to looking funny. I'll be getting a trim and a scalp treatment as well. Hope the end product will be good. Will post pics later.
I guess my night will end early today. Not much happenings for this weekend. Will see how. Ooo.. i'm tempted for Mahjong though, it's been awhile. will see....
Okay.. i think i'm really too free at work or just cant be bothered. I've been surfing some fashion label sites and decided to surf the australian labels. After looking through Portmans, Sportsgirl, Supre, dotti, Kookai, etc... i suddenly felt.. i really miss melbourne and all it has.
I miss the shopping. I miss bridge road, smith street (adidas warehouse), i miss DFOs, I miss Chadstone and i miss CHAPEL Street the most! Sigh..... greville street.... I've yet to buy anything from that street!
I miss the food! I miss Vic Mart's jam doughnuts. I miss Lygon streets ferrero roche gelato, I miss victoria street's vietamese noodles, I miss Toorak Rd's Pacific House restaurant, I miss Shark Fins House yum cha, I miss St Kilda's cakes and coffee, I miss Crown's $2.80 fish and chips, i miss the cheap dan dan mian store in China town. I miss the chocolates, sweets and chips (honey soy chicken!) oh ya.. and not forgetting Pancake Parlour and Juice boost!
I miss the weather, the nice chilly weather. The fresh and crisp air that just refreshes u each time the wind blows. I miss the culture and heritage and the laid back lifestyle. I miss walking along the yarra river, I miss the flames of Crown Casino, I miss the M Trains, I miss federation square. I miss the trams.
Heck, I even miss school in Monash. I miss my friends, those who were with me during my 2 yrs there. I miss spending time alone with kevin and leading a perfect couple life. I miss playing mahjong with keith, sam and kelvin, I miss my howitt hall days...
It's amazing how in 2 yrs, infact even lesser, that would make me miss the place so much. I really dont think Singapore is boring but i guess the lifestyle was different. Perhaps it was a new experience, it was something refreshing. Life was good then.
Sigh.... i cant wait to return to melbourne to remember the good old times.
Hmm...perhaps i'm just too free at work now or too lazy to start on any other work.. but i just thought of a wish list or to do list for myself.
I need a detox
I think I've been eating too much rubbish. Too much fried food, oily and seriously fattening. I reckon i have to return to my salad eating days to get rid of all these rubbish. I'm thinking of trying out TCM too, go for acupunture or something. You know, to let the chi flow better. Maybe through this detox I will stop feeling lethargic, look more refreshed and awake and perhaps become chirpier.
I need to buy anti-aging products
I hate this but I have to admit I am growing old and now with work and less rest, I am growing older faster. The pain of every woman is wrinkles or anti aging signs. I can see how dull and restless my face is looking and I don't like it at all. Not that I want to look like those beauty queens out there, but I really want to restore part of my youth. I am currently researching on several brands but still undecided. H2O came out with a new eye care lotion, Biotherm looks pretty good too. Or perhaps I shld just stick to Loreal dermatology products. Eyes would be the no. 1 area I must work on. I have bad eye bags and puffy eyes. And it makes me look tired day by day. Something must be done!
I need exercise
Though I've joined planet fitness for a few months already, but I feel i haven't fully utilise it and I've not worked as hard as I should be. I see many attending 2-3 classes in a row followed by threadmill and weights. Me... perhaps one class only or 20 mins threadmill and followed by a class. I wonder if that works. Sigh..... I got to start getting my butt to visit the gym more regularly. Twice a week isn't sufficient, given the amount of food i eat everyday. No wonder no weight is lost!
I need new clothes!
Well not those casual kind, but more office attire and smart casual apparels. I look at my cupboard and I see boring clothes. perhaps I wore them too often and thus I deem them boring. I know this isn't good, but I feel I need to have a bit of everything in my wardrobe. And now.. what I'm lacking is a few nice tops (non-plain kind), a few skirts, a couple of nice-fitting pants, perhaps a couple of dresses (formal and semi-formal) and a couple of causal jackets. Sigh.... my pay isn't enough to feed me all these. But ye, perhaps one item per month.
As you can see, these are the few things I aim to achieve or want to do. Sigh...
I have to say my weekend had been filled with little disappoinments. It was meant to be a good weekend, with activities filled up for the day and night. Let's recap:
Saturday: Coca Cola Presents Fashion TV Beach Awards The event was CRAP! Bad organisation, bad design layout (cheap looking in fact), bad emcee, and seriously LATE people. Making this it's first ever appearance in South East Asia and on the island of Sentosa, wouldn't one expect the event to be quite fantastic and massive? NOPE! the whole place read "POOR QUALITY". Infact, I'm suprised to such standard of quality. The show started really late, i mean i know such parties never start on time, but this is show... started seriously late. The area of watching was small too. The emcee sucked. He doesn't know how to engage the crowd and even more kill time. Doesn't mean he's a pretty boy means he can get away with just giggling. I mean, if i'm the sponsor of the event, i'll be seriously pissed to see my $$ going to some lousy production's pocket. More so, the modelling contest had no substance. All the girls did was just walked up, posed and walked off. Three times for that matter, doing the same thing. One of the judging criteria was judging personality, so how does a judge score personality when the girls did was just walk up, posed, and walk off? I mean, where's the interaction? At backstage, the models were dancing to the music, and so.. why can't they do the same on stage. You know freestyle movement to showcase personality. I'm sure the audience would have like that better?
Well... nuff said about this event. Disappointed. The only good thing that happened out of this event was the music.
Sunday: Starlight Cinema, Premier of Skeleton Key I was actually looking forward to this particular show. It looked good on trailers and more so it was a premier, thus the excitement. The whole day seemed perfect and good, until the night where big clouds were covering the entire CBD area. So, it doesn't looked too good. The wind was strong and so I thought maybe it can blow the clouds to towards to east and leave us at the padang alone. But just when the show started, and i meant the very first second, it POURED! It's not even a passing shower type; it was a thunderstorm! Suddenly, you could see everyone running towards tents, shelters. Kevin and I decided to leave. Argh! What's up with the weather! And so my weekend. I hope this isn't an indication that my week will be as bad. Anyway, will post pics of my weekend later.
I co-ordinated my first ever visit programme in SIF. The delegates are from Bhutan, of which one is a Minister from the Ministry of Labour and Human Resource. The visit was meant for the delegates to understand a bit about Singapore especially in the areas of manpower, labour and human resource. So over the past few days, we visited the various statutory boards under MOM and various training institutes dealing with HRM.
As much as the purpose was to educate and introduce the manpower policies and systems in Singapore to them, it was very much an eye opener for me too. The things presented and the current issues Singapore is facing were very much educational for me too. After going through briefings after briefing, I came to realise one thing that every organisation should learn and that is constant training to the employees and also constant upgrading for management level as well. It is crucial to continuosly upgrade our older workers to new skills so that they can find jobs, but it is equally important to train our management to understand that changing times require new management skills and also the freedom to allow employees to grow and learn. Gone are the days of the authoritative figure. If one is too pampared to constantly rely on management, then one will not grow effectively and be adaptable to sudden work environmental changes. So do management, they too have to learn that their employees need the space to explore such changes and to react to these changes effectively and correctly.
I'm glad to see how several agencies (both public and private) have introduced and emphasised the need to tap on our effective human capital. Human capital is the key resource of Singapore. And the issues we have today in Singapore are very much the problem of our human capital. We have a rising older workforce and lesser babies. More are moving out to Singapore to work elsewhere, and thus foreign workers are here to replace those leaving or those who deem construction, cleaning a low class job. This of course will lead to social problems and it ends up affect the people again. The whole cycle continues and the solution will be hard.
I feel proud in the sense that Singapore takes these issues very seriously and how such issues not only impacts the manpower movement but affecting the other parts of governance. Through this visit programme, I educated myself better to understand how certain schemes are there and what is being done to solve certain issues.
To be where we are after 40 yrs is indeed no mean feat. I guess, it only takes to see and understand such real issues that one will feel proud to know that at least things are being looked into. Whether they are solved or not is one thing, but at least it's being looked into and taken into serious consideration. It only takes a foreign observer to appreciate how things have worked so well for us. Perhaps imagine if we were not what we are, 40 yrs to built where we are now compared to others with long history, for them to reach where they are now did not happen in just 40 yrs. Though we may be small, though we;re easy to manage, but this does not present smaller issues or less important issues, the issues are still the same and perhaps in terms of ratio, our issues may be far greater worse than those of bigger countries.
For my delegates, I feel they have gained alot from us. I felt their sincere longing to understand the success we have gained over the years and that we are good examples for them. Like one agency mentioned, this period will be an exciting period for them as they have an open book for them to write about. and that is true, Bhutan will definately be a country to look out for.
A bit about my delegates: They are very courteous people. Gracious and polite, patient and contended. Such simplicity and respect they have are really something we can learn from too. Bhutan is a country in between India and China and modernisation is something very new to them. They preserve their culture and community is still close to their hearts. They are indeed a country of preservation and of simplicity. I loved the way how soft spoken they are and how respectful they are. Indeed the buddhist teachings are evident in their everyday life. I feel honoured and priviledge to have met them. This week, though tiring and tough, i enjoyed the cultural exchanges and the meeting of new friends.
Looks like Bhutan would be a must-go destination for me. :)
Past two days had been rather fruitful, met up with old friends and attended a wedding I've been waiting to attend for a long time.
10/9 Saturday: Kevin's Convocation
He has finally officially become a Masters Degree holder. I shld say his 1.5 yrs in Melbourne has garnered him tremendous exposure and experience, both good and bad (ie. Gambling in Crown) I'm proud of him, he has done well and I hope his hard work will pay off soon and that he'll find himself that dream job soon (ie. by 23 sept).
10/9 Saturday: Clifton and Claire's Wedding They are finally married! They finally tied the knot! So happy for them, 10 years of courtship. The night was beautiful, and it was truly an occassion to be joyous about especially for their parents. I think they've been waiting for baby dragons for a long long time. It was also a night of meeting old friends and friends i met in Melbourne. It was indeed great to see all of them again. It is indeed the rarest occasion to see everyone in the same place. Claire looked stunning in her dress, I have never seen her in a dress before actually. Clifton as usual looked suave and charming. Here are some pics of the night:
11/9, Sunday: Holy Cross Feast Day
Yep, it's actually Holy Crosses 25th Anniversary too. I shld say feast days always excites me, I guess it's because we see everyone in church for more than 1 hr and that there's fun, laughter and community spirit in the air. My day started out rather early. Had to mend the RCIA store at 8.30am. I had a hard time waking up for that. It was rather early for curry chicken, but I shld say my group was rather enthusiatic abt selling curry. We had mascots, promotional materials and real life testimonies. Wont' say much... there are some pictures:
Sigh... I'm at Bishan. 3 days leave just pass me by just like that! Hai.. i just dont understand why work can be so slow and when it's fun... it's so FAST!
Anyway, as I was saying, SIF has moved to Bishan officially and my work place is seriously small. It's really a downgrade of space for me. In Park Mall, I had the freedom to swivel my chair around moving from one table to another, here.. I dont think my chair can even move out of my cubicle. I knew there would be a downgrade in space, but i never knew it would be this small and congested. I guess it isn't all that bad for me, but for my colleagues who have accumulated stuff + rubbish over the years, they are having difficulty to make and find space to store their stuff. On the outside, the office looks pretty good, nice and bright. Inside.. hahah different story. Maybe it's just me, but i really prefer a pretty office than a practical looking one. haha. Anyway, I'm gng to decorate my table soon. I'm gng to pile it with pictures, decoratives and whatever I think will make my place feel more homely.
Actually Bishan is okay, i mean there's a shopping centre just downstairs, there are alot of food outlets around, lots of snack outlets too, cheap and good food around the area, MRT station just downstairs. I wouldn't get caught in the rain coz from the moment i alight, i'm sheltered all the way. I guess it's like Seagate days maybe just more convenient. I guess the downside would be having more travelling time (from home, to orchard, to gym, to home) oh well... more money spent on travelling.
Okay for other news:
Sentosa was nice. Finally made my way to KM8 and it was really nice to sip cocktails by the seaside soaking in the seabreeze.
My Japanese friend has lost so much weight! Goodness, and she said it's coz of stress at work. Poor girl. I'm glad she's enjoying herself in Singapore. She's enjoying soaking in the culture and the food of course. I told her she'll definately put on weight when she returns to Japan.
I cut my hair. Yep, I finally decided it was time for a really different cut. I went to Xpect studio, a place my friend recommended and it's actually not too bad. The owner has won several prestigious awards and he looks rather funky himself. My hairstylist wasn't all that bad too. She really did cut off a lot of my hair which actually got me a little worried, but it turned out okay. I cut off my length and fringe, it's much more layered and textured. Literally I've waved goodbye to my rebonded hair. Next on the line, hair treatment then hair colour. I'll post up a pic of my new hairdo later when I return home. I think it's okay, and some said I look younger, so you judge for yaselves later.
My weekend is gng to be hectic but i'll leave that to later.
