Bored out of my mind!

Help, I am bored out of my mind at work! That is why I am writing this blog during office hours using my office computer. My project is sort of stalled due to some inconsiderate human beings who cannot give me proper answers. The most irritating thing is that these people are paid maybe 10 times more than me and they cannot answer a simple email. All this time, my boss is breathing fire down my neck and staring daggers into my back. I am going to be murdered for a 10-day overdue project.

Anyway, I guess I am restless because I need to submit my resignation letter next week and I can't wait to leave. It is always difficult to submit resignations no matter how long or how short you have been with the company. Next week is the week and I need all the luck!

Then I am going to be on my way to win the Teacher of the Year Award! Haha... Teaching is like my childhood ambition, I just never got around to doing it. I wanted to try other jobs before settling down into teaching. So enough of experimenting. It has been great working in the tourism and events sector. Totally eye-opening and will definitely help in my teaching career. I really enjoyed it while it lasted and I have been unusually lucky to encounter great colleagues, some of whom have become good friends. Of course I would like to say the same of my bosses but unfortunately, you can't be so lucky all the time. That will be too much to ask! I have had good and bad bosses. Good bosses nurture, bad bosses make you clever.

I am going teach English and Geography. Geography is my favourite subject! I am so inspired by my JC Geo teacher. The first thing he told us was " Geography is about everything under the sun including the sun." Not exactly thought-provoking but all my classmates remember this. I also believe that everyone should be given a chance to do some Geography. It tells you about the world in which we live. Most importantly, it pushes you to explore the world beyond your own.

Another very compelling reason for switching to teaching is family planning. We will proberly want to start haing kids in 2 or 3 years (This is specially bolded for all the aunties out there so stop asking!) so this is now is a good time to start a stable career and stop experimenting. I want to be able to spend time with my children. I don't want to see them for 5 minutes in the morning and for 30 minutes at night or worse see them once a week!

Teaching is not the most lucrative business although the pay is decent. I am not so naive to think that money is not important. It is. But I hate working for money, for profits for the bottom-line. Quality of life wins hands down over money. I will be more motivated if I know that I am working for a cause. I need a focus in my career, something to believe in. Money just does nothing to push me to go that extra mile.

1 month apart

It has been a month since JM left for his trip. An angonizing one month. It is not that this is the first time we have been apart. In fact, we have been in different countries for about half of our 1.5 years of wedded life. His work is not the only contributing factor, I go for long work trips too. I guess that this time, it is more difficult because 4 months at a stretch is a long time and time seems to crawl by.

It is more trying and painful when you are married because you share a life together. When one party is not around, a huge part of your life is lacking. No fun sleeping a a double bed alone.

Alright, I will stop whining and continue to wait patiently for my daily dose of Voice of JM. The phone is now stuck to me. I even bring it to the shower...

In memory of the original 5

It is amazing how much and how fast things can change in six months. My former colleague from SDC just messaged me to tell me that today is her 2nd day in SDC. Of the five original execs, she has been there the longest and now there is only one of the originals left. The entire team is gone, even our AM has left for greener pastures. Well all I can say is that SDC suck at retaining talents. I must say that we were a great team. We fit and complement each other really well and the synergy among us was just quite amazing. I really feel supported and happy when we worked. There were many trying moments, stressful times, we were re-starting the entire Ops department and the centre was being re-lauched but someone is always there to share the burden. We never walked alone. Most importantly, there was always laughter in the Ops office, we had fun, loads of fun. It was an amazing time and sometimes I wonder if anyone in SDC will remember us.

Food! Glorious Food!

I think it must be the effect of running the conference for the whole of last week. I see plateloads of food all the time. My daily feeding routine (feeding both myself and the conference delegates) goes like this

Morning break: 10:30am

International buffet lunch: 12:30pm

Afternoon break 3:30pm.

Do I need so much food? Does anyone in the world need so much food? And the worst thing is that much of these food is being wasted. Trays full of foods are being thrown away, most of the time, without a tinge if guilt and sometimes without any thought that all these food took effort, resources and time to be produced. Being urbanites, many of us sometimes forget or fail to connect to the fact that food comes from somewhere and that there are people out there who would kill for the food we threw away. In our very affluent and plentiful society today, I am apalled at the education some parents are giving their kids "Oh it is ok, just eat the chicken, leave the rice if you cannot finish" or worse " never mind, cannot finish, leave it" They have forgotten about the value of food and I am sad to realise that their kids will grow up not knowing how precious food is.

My parents will jump if there is any food left on my plate or on the table for that matter. They have always insisted that we only order or cook whatever we can eat. There should be no food left at the end of the meal. If there is, it will be kept for the next meal. Throw away food? Not going to happen in my family. That is why I always finish my food even if I am full. That uncomfortable over-stuffed stomach will remind me not to order or buy so much in the future!

Many people have this mentality " I paid for the food so why should you care what I do with it?" Well it is not the money, it is the fact that you throw away food which could have kept many food deprived human beings alive! If you don't need the food, don't order or buy it. Leave it for some other more needy people!

My new Hair style

Check out my new hair style!! I absolutely Love it...nice..

David (hmmm, my hairdresser is David..) said that the rest of my hair was too damaged to be saved so off it all went in one decisive snip. Yes, one snip, hair from shoulder below all gone..I think Maggie and Angie were more surprised than I was. I could hear their loud gasp as the scissors clamped shut. Haha...

But I love it!! Save shampoo, save time, save gel...save hair treatment..how economical!

Sailing Away

Sob..sob..hubby is gone for the next 4 months till Christmas...forgive me,I need to whine because I cannot whine in front of him...waaaahhhhh..A few weeks before he went off, he started to ask me stuff like "so will you miss me when I am gone?" I will reply "but we don't have a choice" Well, actually we all had choices. He was asked to go on this trip and he could have not go but he choose to go because of his sense of duty. And me, I had a choice, I choose to marry this duty-bound man. So we choose to be away from each other for 4 months with sporadic access to phone and emails. This silly method of rationalizing makes me feel better. At least I can say that I bought this upon myself. Haha..

Well, to console myself, I can tell myself that at least, I am not alone juggling 2 kids while my husband is gone for the next 4 months or that I am not pregnant with a baby waiting to be born while daddy is away. Going to the sending off ceremony puts a lot of things in prespective, there are many other brave souls out there so I should not be whining. Well, there were mummies among those who went as well and their kids are so young.

Hopefully, everything will go fine and he will be back safe and sound by Christmas! Have hope and have lots of faith in the systems which our government spends tons of $$ on.

National Day Parade Combined Rehearsal

I was at the National Day Combined Rehearsal last Saturday...it was a parade which promised the audience 20% of the real thing. And surprise surprise! the turnout was 90% of the Marina Bay Parade Ground.

A word about the Marina Bay Parade Ground which boasts the largest floating platform in the world (well this is Singapore, it has to boost some "firsts" in everything". It is truely quite spectacular which the city skyline as the background. And of course, this being the first combined rehearsal with audience, we were the first people to use the place...brand new...haha..

After the years of experience, SAF has crowd control down to a pat. At no time do I feel fustrated or irritated by the crowd.They started channeling people into the different coloured zones starting from the Marina Square staircase so there was no bottleneck anywhere.

Settling down onto our seats, we spent almost 2 hours from 4-6pm in the scorching sun, watching half-baked performances. Surprise again, no complains from the audience. Everyone just sat there watching and gamely played along with the hosts and at some point, there was even a great sense of humour on the audience's part when the performers were replaced by "simulated performers holding placards" At the "president's entrance", the "president" stimulated waving to the audience and of course, everyone happily waved back.One of the large video screen was not working, the sound system screwed up half-way and still no one complained, everyone seemed to be having a good time...Singaporeans are known for our complaining tendencies, are we not?

The last time I was at the NPD was ten years ago in 1997 when I was a cheerleader. It still fills me with a sense of awe and admiration to see so many thousands of people spending their 6 months worth of weekends training and working hard to make it all happen. It must be awesome to be able to organise something as big as as the NDP. It must be exciting to be the puppet master pulling all the strings to make it come together.

I went home with a feeling of happiness and fulfilment even though all I did the whole afternoon was to sit and watch.