A Month of Festive Season & Celebrations

For most of us, February is a month of festive season. As for myself, this month is especially meaningful. Cos my bdae falls on the last day of Feb (not the 29th of course). This post summarises how I've spent the month of Feb.

First in the line will be CNY. Should have been Valentines Day, but not applicable to me as I've got no one to celebrate the occasion with. Anyway that day I was on afternoon shift as well.

Day 1 of CNY was a boring day for me. Fyi, I disliked "bai nian" as I am not close to any of my relatives. Only see their faces like once a year. Most of them I dun even know how to address them properly. So I ended up spending my time at the gym. Thank god they open even during CNY.

Day 2 was ktv & movie session with Ki Siao Gang. Went to partyworld orchard. Was misled by the waiter that 1 mandarin orange cost $8.80. They served 2 plates, a total of 8 mandarin oranges which we thought would cost us a good $64++. We kept complaining until the bill came. Lucky it was just mis-communication. $8.80 was the cost 1 plate (4 oranges). So the bill came cheaper than expected. After ktv, we proceeded to Cineleisure for a quick dinner and movie. Settled our dinner at the basement Jap fast food outlet. Had wanted to eat at Long-John but the place was fully packed, same for KFC & Burger King. Watched The Protege. We expected the tix would be sold out so we went to buy tix before the ktv. The storyline was not too bad, with some gore scenes. Was abit disappointed with the ending though.

Day 3 was house visiting to my colleague Julliane's house. Spent the whole afternoon playing blackjack, ended up losing some $$ there. Julliane prepared food for us and even gave each of us an ang bao. They have a cute and hyper active dog. It was running ard so much that it vomited. Oh poor thing... Later in the evening, met up with Serene, Mark, Terry & Jason for dinner at Taka Crystal Jade. Followed by chilling out at the Acid Bar. Esther joined in too. She was "tekan" by us shortly upon arriving late. She was made to eat the lychee inside her glass of martini, without using her hands to pick up the lychee or touching the glass. The trick was to use a toothpick but of course she did not manage to figure that out. Thanks to Jason, the lychee fell onto the floor and Esther ended up drinking 1 more glass. I shall not write further on this topic. The rest is up to you readers to imagine. Hahaha!!!

On the 7th day (Ren Ri), I went over to my sec school classmate Yihui's house for a gathering. The usual group turned up, Mandy was not there, and Jinglin who was not there last year had turned up. Btw Jinglin was the girl whom I had a crush on during my sec school days. Yihui was the person whom I have owed an apology all the way back from sec 3. But I've decided it's best for me not to bring it up.

Next big event was of course my bdae celebration!

Grace, Serene, Mark, Terry & Jason celebrated Esther's (19 feb) & my bdae (28 feb) together on 25th which was a Sunday. We went for ktv at partyworld orchard in the afternoon (without Mark & Terry). After singing, we went to Chung Ching Steamboat @ Suntec for dinner, with the 2 guys joining in. The soup was disappointing, very different from the last time I ate. Quality dropped but price raised. Should have gone there during lunch. Would have been cheaper, and we could have gotten better soup. After dinner, we proceeded to Paul Launer (did I spell correctly?) for a drink. We also had the present giving there. I received a cool singlet and a kappa bag.

As for Esther, she received a red hot sexy bikini (sorry guys no photos for that)

On the 26th, Ki Siao Gang celebrated my bdae for me at Bosses Restaurant. We decided to go

ala carte as the Yu Sheng set was too expensive. The dishes were quite good, except that portion was very small. We kept saying that we want to go for second round at Long John after the meal. I got the latest cK perfume and a LOTR pc game (as per requested) as presents

Last but not least, I went for a gathering cum lou hei dinner at Tea House @ China Sq with Swee Ling, Shinder, Sheila Joey, Edwin & Paul. Gek Cheng & Yvonne could not make it last minute. Dinner was ala carte buffet with Yu Sheng. Food was quite good, and as expected, 2nd round of ordering was an ordeal that we had to go through. We were already 90% full and food kept on coming. But we were able to finish almost everything, except for the plate of steamed chicken which the meat was tough like it was left inside the steamer overnight.

This is all for the month of celebration update. Coming up will be my new school term, which I have been looking forward to. And lastly if you manage to read until here, I thank you for your patience.

Take care all my friends :)

Cold Blooded Animal

Today I can't help but wonder if I'm cold blooded. When something happens to a family member, the natural reaction will be to feel worried and show concern. For me, I'm not capable of doing any of these. At times I just hate myself, for being such a horrible person. When a friend is in bad situation, yes I'll be worried and concerned. But when same thing happens to my family members, I remain indifferent. I know this is very wrong. Many a times I tried to change the situation but I just can't. I tried forcing myself to talk to them, but before I succeed, past memories flow into my mind, and I just shut my door to them... again. This cycle repeats itself over and over. The scar is too deep for anything to heal. It will always remain until the day I die, or maybe the day everyone else dies.

Whenever my friends talk about their family, I don't know what to say, and I just try to skip that part of the conversation. My perspective of family is just too different from the rest. I'm afraid that it will cause me to lose all my friends. I treasure my friends alot. Maybe it's bcos of my family background that I try to treat my close friends the way that I would like to treat my family. Put it bluntly, I'm trying to substitute my family with my friends.

I just hate myself for having this kind of twisted thinking. But what can I do?? Despite knowing this path is wrong yet I keep on going. What can I do except to keep going? I try to turn back but something's stopping me. So I keep going, even if its a path of desruction. And what can I do?

Nothing............ Nothing at all.

If someone happens to read this, pls do not worry bout me. Just that something happened whiched triggered my feelings. I'll be fine after a few days. Got used to it long time ago.

X'mas Thoughts

It's been awhile since I've posted something here, cos there's really nothing much to write. Today is x'mas day and for no reason the loneliness and emptiness within me has surfaced again. It just happens without fail every festive season.

Past 2 days I had a wonderful time pre-celebrating x'mas with my friends. On Sat, I went for movies, ktv, dinner and stayed a one night in a hotel with the "Amex Gang". The movie, Deathnote 2 was good, but was slightly disappointed with the ending. The hotel which cost only $99 was spacious and comfortable, with a nice bathroom (didn't get to use the bathtub though). We had our gift exchange "ceremony" there and made so much noise that the hotel manager had to knock on our door twice. Lucky we were disciplined enough to tone down. If not we might end up sleeping at the lobby! The next day I met up with my beloved "Ki Siao Gang" for a feast @ Dian Xiao Er and catched the show A Night @ The Museum. It was so hilarious that the whole theatre was bursting with laughter throughout the entire show. Although I did not go home to rest for 2 consecutive days, I was not at all tired.

After the movie, we headed home separately. I shared a cab Ric, Eve & bro. It was at that point of time those feeling of emptiness started to fill my mind. I remained quite throughout the journey. I had much thoughts on my way back home. My family, friends, job, upcoming studies... but most of my thoughts fell on Her.

It's been almost 2 months since we not kept in touch. She has not replied my sms, and I believe she must have blocked me in msn. I too have not contacted her since that D&D incident. The only channel through knowing each other's existence is via the mass e-mails that we've been sending out to our friends. I do not understand why the words I said that day had pissed her off that much. The only reason I could think of was the exam stress. As her exam was round e corner, I decided to leave her alone till her exam's over before I contact her again. But as days pass, I began to lose faith in my feelings for her. I questioned myself, what am I to her? Actually I had known the answer long ago. But I just refused to give up and held on to the belief that I would be able to touch her heart if I persevere... Gosh, that was naive of me. I should have known things don't work this way anymore, maybe at least for her. Guess she's the type of girl who knows clearly what she wants. If I'm not the one, no matter what I do, it will never happen. I'm still hanging the cross stitch keychain on my bag. Guess somewhere deep inside me, I'm still holding on. Let's see when am I gonna take it down....

Had wanted to write more, but guess I'll end here for now. For friends who has read until this point, I just want to say don't worry, I'm fine.

Keep in touch!!!

Adapting To A New Environment

It's been 1 week since my new job. So far, I've no problem blending myself into this new working environment. My whole team of 7 is made up of all ladies. That makes me the only thorn among the roses, but they still treat me nice. Inside the enclosed room, we carry out our daily operation.

I've started to take a few calls on my second day. It was very bad. I simply didn't understand what the merchants were saying when they reported the fault. Things remain the same on the 3rd day. I was somewhat disappointed with my performance. That night I managed to talk to Esther. As usual, her words enlightened me. She told me its ok to make mistakes while I'm still new. Nobody will fault me for it. On the 4th day, I decided that I got to increase the amount of calls I pickup, in order to get better. Don't worry about making mistakes cos I will not be blamed at this point, and my colleagues will help me out of the mess. This really worked! My confidence level increased together with the number of calls I picked up. And I was gradually able to solve some of the common problems on my own!

I'm starting to miss my Amex colleagues, and the good food at beach road. When I get my off day on a weekday next month, I'll go visit them.

Thats about all for my update. I'll end here for now.

New Chapter In My Life

21 September 2006
This day marks a new chapter in my life. I have finally tendered my letter of resignation to my immediate superior, something which I've been thinking about for the past 1 year. Never thought that it would take me this long to make the move. What I'm going to write is my past 2 year's experiences in Amex. It's gonna be very very long post. So just bear with it.

The Interview
I entered Amex in Apr 2004, 1 month after I ORD. I can still remember clearly that day when I went for interview. My friend asked me to accompany him to a job agency for a pre- interview. When we reached there, the staffing consultant asked both of us to fill in the application forms. The consultant must have thought I wanted to apply for the post too. Feeling puzzled, I just did as I was told. I was called into the interview room together with my friend and the consultant started asking both of us lots of questions. After the "questioning session", she sent us for a second interview the same afternoon. I had not wanted to go as it was not my intention to apply for this post, but my friend insisted that I accompany him. And so I went along. When we reached the address given, we realised that the company is actually American Express! OMG, first time I step into such a big company! My first thought when I went into the office was: "Amex have a very nice pantry". Shortly, I began to realise that I was actually too casually dressed. The other interviewees all wore shirt & pants but I just wore a plain white t-shirt and jeans. I then understood why everyone was looking at me. My friend got interviewed first, followed by me. There were 2 interviewers, 1 was my immediate superior. They only asked me some simple questions on my past job experiences, and whether I'm willing to work lots of OT etc. The most difficult question they asked me was: " How do you think you can handle talking to people of different nationalities?". That time I didn't know how to answer so I just cooked up something which I couldn't remember what I actually said. After that we were told to wait for further news. I was thinking that I will definately not get the job, because I had no idea what was the position I was "applying" for, and my answers sucked. Just after 2 hours that very same day, the job agency called me and asked me if I can start work the next day. I was too shocked after I heard that, and so I just said ok to everything the consultant told me. My friend was grumbling that I had got the job when I was only supposed to accompany him for an interview. Hehe, till now I still feel abit sorry for him.

Getting Geared Up
As I just completed NS, I did not enough money to buy nice office wear. My friends had to accompany me around to search for the cheapest office wear in S'pore. Plus I only have less than half a day to search! Nevertheless, we still managed to find a shop in Queensway Shopping Center which sells long sleve shirt at only $12 per piece. Next we found a shop at Clementi Central which sells office shoes at also $8 per pair. As for pants, I had only 2 pairs to last for the week. Can't find anyne who sells cheap pants. With all these, I'm all geared up for work!

On The Job Training
First day of work, I was attached to a malay lady who was temperory taking over the position. From her, I managed to find out what my job scope is, and what my department is called, Facilities Management. Being a FM assistant, basically my duty was to attend to requests and compliants made by internal customers. The requests were mostly general stuff like help to set up meeting rooms, lights not working, air-con not cold, cabinet can't open etc... I also had to supervise maintenance works carried out by contractors which were mostly after office hours.
After 6 months, my appointment changed to Facilities Management Coordinator. An assistant was also hired to help out with the increasing workload. I started learning coordination for office restack projects and passed down the general duties to my partner. It was also through doing projects I got to interact with various contractors and the higher management people.

Harsh Reality
When I just started out, I knew nothing about the job and wanted to learn as much as I could within the shortest time. I did everything that was tasked to me without even thinking whether that was supposed to be part of my jobscope. As time goes, I realised I was actually doing a lot of things out of my scope. That was when I began to dislike my dept. To make things worse, my superior were not firm with their stand in rejecting unreasonable requests. They took the easy way out and avoided offending the internal customers by agreeing to all their requests, even though some were not within the dept's scope, and then simply passed the tasks to me. Just 3 months ago, my partner left the dept, and the management decided not to hire a replacement.
Naturally, all my partner's workload fell onto me. Despite highlighting to my superior several times that my workload was too heavy, and I proposed passing some of my jobscope to my immediate superior, the management chose to turn a deaf ear. No one in the dept had bothered to look into my situation. Therefore, I've made a decision to leave the company, and same time to study for diploma course.

Right Timing
Just the right time, my friend called me up and told me of a vacancy in her company, a call center for merchant support. So I decided to give it a try. 2 days after the interview, I was informed that I got the job. After I heard the news, mixed feelings started gushing into my heart. "Time waits for no man." I've truely understood its meaning now. Just a blink of an eye, I've been with Amex for 2 1/2 years. Althought not really a long period, but its long enough for me to know a bunch of great colleagues cum friends.


My Friends
This section is specially for my wonderful friends in Amex: Cat,Grace,Liang Mey, Serene, Mark, Edwyn and a new member Esther. I've left out one person's name because we all felt that this person does not belong to the group. I knew Cat first, and she introduced me to the group of Mark, Grace and Serene. Edwyn joined my dept sometime back and was automatically introduced to the group. Most of the them I've written a testimonial in friendster, so I shall not describe them again.

Liang Mey is a very direct person. She will not hesitate to speak her mind if she sees something not right. A woman of principle, she refuses to entertain anyone whom she dislikes. I respect her for that, cos that is something I cannot achieve. Very quick witted and vocal, I can never outtalk her. There's something very interesting about her. She can't stay out late. When she hangs out with us and starts to rest her head on her hand and keeps very quite, we all know that she's tired and wants to go home and rest.

Mark Koh... This guy has an "Ah-Beng" aura surrounding him. Haha, no offends man. We understood each other's ah-beng language. Fun talking to him. He's one trustworthy man in our group. When we hang out late, he will make sure the girls reach home safely. Doesn't mind going the extra mile to see them home first. Can't believe he's still single. Hope that he finds a gf soon!

Esther is a very friendly girl, guess is because of living in Melbourne for 4 years bah. A very pretty girl who has lots of suitors, but till now she's still single. Looks like prince charming's not here yet. She's active in charity activities and has her own set of philosophy at a young age. I believe is due to what she has gone through in life. She's a friend whom I can really talk to. Makes a good listener, and good adviser. Although she's only 1 year older than me, but I've learnt alot about life from her.


The bunch of us started out as lunch kakis. As time goes, we became much closer friends and often meet up for dinner and activities after work and sometimes on weekends. I still remembered once we planned to go Sentosa but ended up at Suntec watching movie because of the rain. On another occasion when we agreed to meet for Sentosa trip on a Sunday morning but the girls last minute could not turn up, and it ended up as an all guys trip! Beside's being activitiy partners, we were also each others' listening ears cum consultants. When either of us faced with problems, be it r/s or work, we would share with the group and ask for advise. Having them as friends made my life here in Amex really wonderful. Without them, my lunch would be very boring. Without them.......... my this post would not have been so long! It's already 2 pm and I've not had lunch yet. Now I'm so hungry. Hungry man is angry man! So now i'm going to end here and go for my lunch.

Hope that we can still keep in touch!

Distance

I'm writing something here again. Normally when i write, it would mean there's something bothering me. This is just an attempt to "dump" it here, hoping that I would have put it down once I post this blog.

Perhaps by now almost all my friends already know that I've fallen for THE girl. Or perhaps SHE too already knows. I believe I've been showing overly concern for her. I must have put her off by my actions. Maybe she does not like a normal guy friend doing so much for her. Or I should say "I know" instead of "Maybe".

If you like someone, its very natural that you would want to show concern for that person. There's no need to gain anything in return. The best return will be that person accepts what you have done. How would you feel if all you get in exchange is a sentence "I dun wanna owe u any favours"?

She must have sensed that I have feelings for her. Perhaps she is now keeping a distance from me. We hadn't chatted for 4 days. Nights seem especially long without her talking with me. Perhaps I'm thinking too much le. That's wat she always say to me. These few days I've been trying to make a decision which I've always hated to make. Should I declare my feelings to her? As each day pass by me, I can't help but feel She's drifting further and further from me... or could it be that she's never even been near?

Actually what am I think of? Why can't I just tell her? I wun die if I tell her, nor will I lose a piece of meat if she rejects me. Think its just me to "tuo li dai shui". One side of me says to do it once and for all. Worst thing is kena rejected. Then I can move on. Dun have to everyday so "fan". Another side of me says betta to wait n see wat happens. But again I ask myself wats there to see? As if by waiting she's ever gonna fall for me?? But what if after I declare we can't even be friends? OH... what should I do??? Its gonna be a long night again...

2 Weeks of Retreat

I went back to camp for my reservist from 19th Jun to 30th Jun. I had thought that these 2 weeks of in-camp training would be a holiday break for my stressed out mind. The truth turned out to be far from what I had imagined.

Week 1

The first week if ICT was rather relaxing. Day 1 was in-pro and some simple revision of what we had learned. Day 2 was our IPPT or physical fitness test. I was worried that this time I might not get my silver results which I got last year as I had not been exercising regularly. Surprisingly, I still managed to obtain silver standard (got $200 award). Just that my 2.4km run was slower than before. Think I got to buck up on my jogging routine le. Day 3 & 4 was the shooting training (not siong one). Come Day 5, we went for Company Mission Exercise. We reached the Lim Chu Kang training area at late morning and spent half the day doing some battle drills etc. Then we rested until 2am before we moved out for the mission. It was a 3km walk followed by an attack to enemy base. The route was quite easy as we did not walk into thick vegetation. The only bad thing is that the area had lots of sand flies and my hand was bitten all over. By the time we cleared the objective, it was already 9am. The exercise transit into defense mission and we had to dig 1 "grave" each to lie inside and wait for enemy attack. Exercise was cut at around 11am and we proceed back to camp to clean up and prepare for bookout. We were allowed to go out of camp for the weekend.

I had intended to ask my friends out to spend the weekend but they were too busy playing Ran.Online, so I decided to join them play. But my internet had been giving me problems and I always disconnect from the game. I got so fed up that I decided not to carry on playing. Good thing is I saw her online, so I spent the rest of the night msn with her. Until my eyes closing then stop. On Sunday I woke up quite late cos I was too tired from the outfield training. I spent the whole afternoon looking for her birthday present. It was a necklace with a rectangle fibreglass pendent. Hope she likes it. If given more time, I could have gotten her a better present. I bought a ring for myself from the same shop as I couldn't resist the temptation. I had a quick dinner at home and went back to camp shortly cos got to book in by 10pm.

Week 2

Day 1 was BUA training. My friend & I did not attend as we were not feeling too well. Day 2 & 3 was our Battalion Mission Exercise. As the attendence rate for last week's CME was very low (only 30% attendence), the Commanding Officer had issued a warning that those who did not attend the BME will have to come back for make-up training during December. Sad to say, his threat did not prove effective. In fact, it backfired. By doing so, he had also caused the soldier's morale to drop drastically. Those who did not attend last week's training continued to report sick to get excused. This time round, the training was very siong. At 11pm, we started walking a 6km route towards objective. Almost the entire route was thick vegetation. It was so dark that I can't even see the person infront of me. To be honest, I had never walked this kind of route throughout my entire 2 years of active NS time. I can't imagine this bast*** could have planned this kind of training for us reservist soldiers to go through. One of our guys could not take it and lost consciousness halfway through. His body was trembling vigourously and he vomitted white foam! 6 medics and 1 medical officer attended to him and they actually waited for more than 30 minutes before they sent the guy to hospital! That's atrocious! What if he could not hang on for that long? Whose going to answer to his parents? I'm utterly disappointed with the way they handle this situation... We reached objective at around 7am and carried on with the attack, which we took more than 2 hours to clear the objective. The CO had decided that we had to redo the attack as the trainers commented that it was not good enough. Given the fact that the route was too siong (rumoured that other reservist unit is not so siong) and one of our people was sent to hospital, our morale had hit rock bottom. We had agreed ourselves that we will not redo the attack. After some negotiation with our OC, our unity could not withstand the test and some of the men decided to do it. The rest had no choice but to follow. We returned to camp by Day 3 6pm. Day 4 was cleaning weapon and returning of stores and other admin matters followed by a nights off. Since it's the last night for us, we chatted until 4am then sleep. Finally comes Day 5, last day of reservist for year 2006. The whole morning I was busy running around to settle my statement for weapon part lost due to training. By lunchtime I managed to get the officer to sign my statement. If not I might not be able to out-pro. Managed to leave camp at 4pm. This is just the beginning of the very important day. I was rushing like mad from Tuas to my house

Pls visit this website for some of the photos & videos we took during the ICT http://hanalexu.multiply.com/