Minister Tea session

Not sure how things work in other stat boards/ministries, but MND regularly holds Minister tea sessions with its younger officers to "get to know them better" and "get to hear their views". Actually I dunno why they still call it 'tea session'; cos nobody dares to eat nor drink when Minister Mah is talking... then after Minister leaves the MNDHQ staff tells everyone to finish, or rather, touch the food else everything would go to waste. It was my first time having in-person contact with Minister so it was quite refreshing for me. Also met Dr Mohd Maliki, the Parl Sec for MND, whom I quite like, cos he seems like a very qin1 qie4 and smart person ;P There was however this pretty irksome, seemingly keen-to-perform guy who was very vocal the whole session, whom I couldn't really stand. On hindsight, I hope nobody caught my dubious looks whenever this guy spoke... :P

The Other WTO =>Click here

I am quite hopeless-- am still not disciplined enough to do the right things at the right time. And cos I have an urge to blog about an interesting organisation I learned about earlier today, am neglecting proper 'work' to blog instead ;P Nmind, shall make it quick! So this morning was the last day of the Asia-Pacific Housing Forum... And I had the privilege of meeting the founder of the World Toilet Organisation (actually wonder if they have to pay royalties or something for using this famous acronym), Mr Jack Sim, who gave a very quirky presentation of the importance of improving toilets and sanitation; and how many ppl around the world shirk this 'dirty' topic when it's such an essential part of our daily lives! According to him, in sg, cos ladies are perpetually queueing up for the loo; to the extent that they sometimes have to resort to using empty men's toilets; there is some new building code which stipulates that lady loos in new buildings have to be twice the size of men's. If only that could be retrospectively applied to my building. Tonnes of ladies over at my side of the dept and only two cubicles serving us! Anyway, they also have projects in developing countries, a World Toilet College to train cleaners and organise summits to talk about toilet issues...! Mr Sim's passion for what he does really rubbed off on me and so after the talk I went and asked if one could volunteer for the organisation and what positions were available. To my surprise, he said that it's very flexible and I could do what I'm passionate about and what I'm good at... that really impressed me, cos even though I believe that's the way to go, I've yet to meet anyone/any organisation that really practises this... capitalising on what ppl are best at, what ppl love to do. Aah... I have a very unconventional idol of the month! :)

1st Asia-Pacific Housing Forum - random ramblings

I had the privilege of attending the above forum the past two days... (tmr morning, too), organised by Habitat for Humanity International and the Singapore Institute of Planners. It's been a while since I attended any forum so international; and the exchange of ideas, the ec devt issues discussed (though all on housing) all reminded me fondly of my schooling days. Like seriously, though the crowd is very different-- mostly foreign delgates from the region (some further away) gathered to discuss issues particularly pertaining to slum upgrading, housing finance for the poor etc. My own CEO also gave a speech on home ownership in Singapore (coincidentally drafted by my perpetually-being-arrowed unit head), which, though intended as a sharing-of-ideas speech, turned out to be slightly out of place in my opinion. I couldn't help but feel the stark contrast of issues these developing countries were confronted with, VS issues we're dealing with now. Also, no doubt Sg has world-class public housing she ought to be very very proud of, but after these two days I also came to stark (and very delayed too, i guess) realisation how much effort and money the Sg govt has thrown into public housing... How given the billions we've invested in our HDB flats/estates alone it's prob also highly unlikely for any other country to easily replicate how we 'did it' in Sg. Plus we're so small. Another very good point raised during the panel discussions about why we 'have it easy' is the political stability and continuity in Sg... (one naive and rather insensitive middle-aged Singaporean participant in one of group discussions kept saying how it's very simple for other countries to do what we did in Sg, leading someone to rebutt saying how sg is not like say in Africa/Latin America whereby you can get military coup/ frequent change in govt) which makes it far easier to ensure that ppl's land/property rights are protected/ for govt to further build on what they had delivered earlier... Every Singaporean (esp HDB dwellers) should come and attend this forum man, then they will know not to take public housing for granted.

Forum also made me seriously wonder if not being able to really effect huge changes at work was a reason for my occasional "demoralisation"... As in, public housing in Singapore is already so 'developed' that frequently you're just like routinely implementing things or making small improvements to very established systems, whose impact on your customers you also cannot see. On the other hand, just listening to some fellow counterparts at seminar was quite inspiring- NGOs/companies developing environmentally sustainable building materials (eg. recycling debris, using bamboo as building material), experts from the devt field sharing some successful field experiences in various developing countries. Maybe this is a very selfish kinda approach to getting work satisfaction, but yeah, I seldom feel like I'm helping ppl who really need it... if at all! Worse still, get complaints...

Part of appearing more professional and groomed also entails putting on light makeup on formal occasions. So I signed myself up for a basic makeup workshop by Ettusais to pick up some tips... Ok lah, maybe I shall admit that I'm growing vainer too. Anyway, really like the whole feel/packaging of Ettusais, cos it has such a cosy Frenchy feeling. It's actually a brand under Shiseido and thus Jap, and this perhaps also partly explains its pretty packaging (such as the cute girlish bag on the left that contained my door gift!) Even after my workshop today I doubt I'm skilled enough to apply make-up decently/ professionally for myself... but I suppose practice makes perfect. And you'll have to take a baby step somewhere! :) One interesting thing I discovered was the beauty of the eyelid. In that it has such an amazing mechanism... only when I had to try putting eyeshadow on the whole eyelid did it dawn upon me that the eyelid comprises so much 'skin'... cos usually it folds up so neatly and perfectly you never imagined there was so much to it... haha ok i am mad but yeah, felt like the session made me slightly more aware of my facial features, particularly the amazing eyelid.

On a related note, feel like Singapore is getting better and better for shopping; so many new brands/stores coming in. This is bad news for my pay packet... cos feel like everytime I go out I feel an urge to buy and buy and buy. And I end up spending, spending and spending. I'm turning into a shopaholic... :(