it's been a busy week for me, unfortunately the weekend wun be 'spared' either... but i do look forward to two unusual upcoming 'events'... Boss's farewell later this evening and first jap class tmr morning! Boss will be leaving to further his studies soon and so we're having this party for him at a colleague's place. Everyone's supposed to turn up in GREEN... dun ask me why. and one colleague actually went and bought a Giordano polo T just for this occasion... aww. :) New boss and old boss joked that they can turn up in their No. 4s. (have no idea what that is, but from conversation it appears that its the army uniform)... then shall attempt to refamiliarize myself with Jap tmr morning... bleah. no time to do any major preparation or revision at all! hope i wun get too lost and get thrown out of the class that i somewhat smoked through to get a placement in! :P

some ppl at work are really starting to grow on me... while one or two others make me wonder if i should keep them at a distance... but this particular female colleague has been really funny cos for some weird reason she has been trying for some time to matchmake me with someone (whom i know) who used to work in this unit... and today she explicitly asked, so what do you think of XXX? and randomly commented, relationships take time to grow you know.... yeah i suppose. but sometimes things just happen without you even trying. for better or for worse.

though mum has been faithfully and lovingly preparing meals at home (whenever we eat at home) i have more than once insensitively commented on food being too weird or bland, only to realize it too late... sigh, housewife really difficult to be sometimes... esp when the husband deems food too salty (when it isnt!) then daughter thinks food akin to that prepared for sick patients... but somehow realized after coming back that i seem to have taken a liking to food saltier/sweetier than what my family fancies... and today we went out for dinner and ordered cereal prawns (an all-time favorite! :P) i thought cereal prawns were too dry but parents thought not too oily just right... but it really is true that sometimes food that's more healthily prepared doesn't taste as good what... hehe of course i should also bear in mind to cut down on oil intake...and recently, choc intake too... :(

after helping to arrange two meetings for top management, i've decided that being someone else's personal assistant (PA) is probably a job that i'll avoid at all costs. having been culpable for rescheduling meetings several times, i felt guilty even to have to call those PAs up to tell them that meetings been changed again. surely doesn't help that these PAs' bosses are highly busy ppl with packed schedules. i can just imagine how nerve-wrecking it must be getting all these phone calls from diff ppl in the organization all day and having to reshuffle meetings/appointments again and again! bearing that in mind, i guess i can empathise with some of them for being a little hostile at times; or for wanting more commitment to certain dates given... hehe certainly doesn't help that being a small fry in the office i can't make big decisions on the spot! :P

beginning to feel like though colleagues are all very nice ppl, prob wun get to know them very well; but maybe it's still too early to tell. ppl do talk, gossip etc, but feel like there's less of the get-to-know-each-other-better kind of talk... hehe and given my tendency to keep to myself, i guess i ought shoulder some of the blame as well! feel like right now, it's quite impossible to hang out a lot with ppl and to get to know ppl really well, like i did in uni... maybe that's why ppl say after you get out of sch, it's a lot harder to make good friends. aiyah i guess there will be exceptions too. haha maybe when i start getting a lot of OT... and have to go through thick and thin with colleagues, the chance will arise. :P

there were 7 infants and toddlers in total at my colleague's housewarming party yesterday! given my experience living with Kai and family, this isn't exactly an eye-opener, but it's been a while! at one point, i was also 'passed' my colleague's ten-month-old baby... whom i tried very hard to hold properly, while frantically trying to draw on my baby-carrying experiences some 16 years ago with my then extremely little cousins. i was told by a colleague who recently crossed over from the private sector that the phenomenon of young married couples/young married couples with kids is certainly not the norm where she used to work. i guess it might be cos ppl working in private/public sectors have diff priorities? anyway, i was a lil baffled how till today i dun seem to have 'shaken off' my guai1 image... one colleague, when introducing me to her husband, joked that i was the guai1 type who "will stand up just to shake his hands"... i mean i know i'm not pai4 but why is it that wherever i go i seem to project this guai1 image...

these couple of days i've been feeling bad about being not xi4 xin1 enough with my work. the little things i overlooked didn't lead to disastrous consequences... but really felt incompetent :( sigh, no use brooding over them now. have to tell myself to learn from mistakes and then move on! actually i feel extremely guilty because my boss, instead of telling me to make the necessary changes, makes the amendments himself whenever he can, then sends the improved versions back to me and highlights things i need to be aware of.... i hav to admit that his style of doing things is quite efficient and cool. and it REALLY makes me even more motivated to do my work well...

Early National Day Special

ha this blog too has a National Day feature. not that i'm particularly patriotic or anything, but... this is just for fun :) i took the following two pics on the day of my Little India outing, but decided to reserve them for this entry. I've never seen HDB flats in such patriotic colors...

these were apparently old flats that have undergone upgrading. and clearly given a fresh coat of paint...
while near the void deck, i happened to glance up and this was what i saw... hmm apparently old HDB flats can look a lil futuristic too? :P
PS: though my comments may make me appear like a HDB spokesperson, i am really speaking from an objective POV!

Little India photo outing

to keep my mind off work and to brush up photo composition skills, i visited an ethnic enclave in search of interesting things to capture. i'm ashamed to say that i never once set foot in Little India ever since a sch visit in Sec 2... though it was a little too hot and uncomfortable to be taking pictures, the bright sun helped a little in making colors more xian1 yan4 ( i think?)

what are these? i dun think i can call them saris cos they are just brightly colored skirts. sari skirt? haha anyway, these bright skirts on sale outside a shop caught my eye and i decided to "abstract" them a little ;P

i liked how i could see both high-rise flats and the 'shophouse' from this angle.

standing across the st, i spotted this 'potato man' working in the hot afternoon sun. tried to be discreet and snapped the pic when he wasn't looking ;P i think the orange sacks hold potatoes and the red ones, onions...

one of many flower stalls selling garlands

have been feeling somewhat down the past few days for no good reason... despite efforts to be positive, i suppose i get a relapse once in a blue moon (maybe a lil more frequently lah). and somehow dun hav appetite for dinner. and little things at work and in life in general get blown up out of proportions when i'm feeling :( however i find that it helps to do brainless numbing things cos when one's upset trying to concentrate just makes things worse.

for some strange reason, i have been addicted to Music to Watch Girls By by Andy Williams ever since i heard it in That CD Shop last weekend... think it was some ad jingle some time back but had no idea what the title was then. wo lao3 le...? but it's a cool song.

work can be quite stifling sometimes... of course there are 'rules' too when you study, but there's a lot more freedom to 'swim' around within the boundaries set for you... whereas for work, feel like it's less so. like you have to use rather strange language to get clearance from boss; everything's kinda interconnected and so one mistake can result in unintended 'turbulence' elsewhere; even when doing up powerpoint slides ppl advise you to do things a certain way (i really appreciate that colleagues are kind, but dislike how individuality somewhat suffers... but i mean i suppose i understand how sometimes standardization is necessary for organization and clarity/consistency) let's hope certain little uncomfortable things dun get to me too much and too soon.

today i finally asked a colleague what the acronym MSCP stands for (keeps reminding me of MCP- male chauvinist pig) and felt extremely silly when she told me... Multi Storey Car Park! but hey... it should be MCP instead since it's more correct to say Multi-storey Car Park... or Multi-storey Carpark (MC).... no? but whatever lah, just being boliao ;P

i just finished Mark Haddon's The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time this past week :) it was certainly an enjoyable and refreshing read. i also liked how the author managed to weave in the bit about how difficult it can be for parents to take care of an autistic child. how much patience and love it takes... and it did remind me of some of the things the staff used to tell us at CHAI.... i'm newly inspired to read up more on Autism for fun. one thing that bothers me a lot is how autistic people don't really naturally acquire social skills... like they find it extremely hard to interpret social behavior/cues... even perfectly able human beings find it difficult to figure out what others are thinking sometimes, so i can imagine how frustrating it must be for them! :(
nonetheless, some parts are really quite innocently funny. like...

29. I find people confusing.
This is for two main reasons.
The first main reason is that people do a lot of talking without using any words. Siobhan says that if you raise one eye-brow it can mean lots of different things. It can mean "I want to do sex with you" and it can also mean "I think that what you just said was very stupid."

Siobhan also says that if you close your mouth and breathe out loudly through your nose, it can mean that you are relaxed, or that you are bored, or that you are angry, and it all depends on how much air comes out of your nose and how fast and what shape your mouth is when you do it and how you are sitting and what you said just before and hundreds of other things which are too complicated to work out in a few seconds......

anyway, me thinks that it makes for some good light reading for ppl who want to gain some insight into an autistic mind :)

PS: if you want your smile to be among those greeting international delegates arriving in Sept (for the IMF/WB annual meetings), find out more HERE. can win prize some more leh, if you upload by 2nd Aug! ;P

am finally starting to recover from cough, but progress is excrutiatingly slow... and soon i will be unable to resist the temptation of snacks and succumb to cookies and rubbishy stuff... i suppose only consoling thing about not snacking is illusion that abstaining from snacks has a tummy-flattening effect ;P yest took an unprecedented initiative to ask boss if he minded sharing some of his own experiences as a HDB scholar... which led to lunch today and a pretty easy conversation... perhaps it's cos boss is young and not going to be boss in a month's time or so that i feel like i can talk to him just like a friend... he did dispense some good advice, and though i cannot really tell for sure yet, he does feel like someone i can really look up to and emulate... in terms of work attitude and how he treats ppl. in meantime, will try hard to keep positive attitude and not get too worried over other ppl's expectations... i suppose what's most impt at the end of the day is that i put in my very best.

life is fine, except that i'm suffering from the most irritating cough. i've never had terrible coughing fits like the ones i've been having the past few days...something just triggers the cough, then i 'erupt' into this violent coughing fit for 2 or 3 minutes... sometimes finding it even difficult to take in a few deep breaths to bring coughing situation under control.... i have no idea why this is happening to me... and neither the cough medicine nor the a-lozenge-an-hour 'act' seem to be helping... i dun even have a sore throat (the kind usually arising from an infection)... but throat is getting sore from coughing too much. help! what's happening to me! :( am i being punished for taking in too much fried and heaty food some 1.5 weeks ago??

ever since i got back from the US, i have been trying to refrain from getting hooked to any drama serial on TV... cos it would veer me away from this self-improvement drive i believe i ought to be on... ie. do more constructive things like read newspapers/books (haha yeah, am boring and nerdy) but alas!! i have fallen prey to one particular HK drama serial that is currently showing on Channel 8: Xi1 guan1 da4 shao4, 7pm M-F.... the irritating thing is i never get to enjoy the episodes entirely, since the long journey home from work usually means that i end up at home around 7.10pm or so even if i try to leave work punctually at 6pm... i guess i could make my family tape it, but then also means that i'll have to eat into time for other things on weekdays.... so i just watch the show in bits and pieces... wonder if this show was done a long time ago though cos Julian Cheung looks very young... and if i'm not mistaken, he's no longer a young 'chap' in real life?

was struck with a sore throat two days ago and am now suffering from a most irritating and itchy dry cough :( and will soon get a splitting headache if dad doesn't stop nagging at me to go see a doctor :P but prob will hav to tmr.... :(

pace is starting to pick up at work; though i can still pack up and go quite promptly at 6pm everyday... i guess i'm trying to do so while i can... sadly waking up so early in the morning everyday is still quite a pain, and plans to read a book on the MRT haven't been too successful. i can feel the fatigue setting in even though i haven't exactly been working hard at all and it beats me how ppl can work >10 hr days. perhaps the answer is you'll do it when you HAVE to... and perhaps i'll gradually get used to it. there's so much to learn and figure out! i'm excited also because i'm finally going to witness how ppl/organizations really operate... and i wonder when i'll be able to start feeling more useful than troublesome :P

having been surrounded by many peers (esp since sec sch) born with silver spoons in their mouths, it would be a blatant lie if i never once experienced feelings of envy... i suppose it's natural to make superficial comparisons and ask, why XXX can have all these things without working for them while i can't?? backgrounds aside, i believe i've also questioned why XXX is so smart while i am not?? OR... why is XXX so lucky to get this this and that but not me?? and when one is feeling sore about what one doesn't have, he/she neglects everything else that he/she does have. while on bad days i might try to deny that my life is good, in general i have to admit that i am a very fortunate girl with a loving family, great friends, and a beneficiary of a "fortuitous" education at Berkeley... reflecting on experiences in the past year or so; drawing on various recent articles i've read on ppl who have succeeded in accomplishing their goals and learning from the actions pf ppl i know who have inspired me, i'm repeatedly reminded of how impt it is to WORK hard, stragetically, for the things that you want... while 'windfalls' do happen, if you really want something to happen, you have to keep working for/on it... such a simple fact but sometimes really hard to put into action.

today's the second time it struck me that something was 'amiss' in Singapore--when i needed a nice cafe to sit down and do some reading. there is a sore lack of places where you can sit down with a book and have some peace and quiet to yourself to do some afternoon reading... while there are cafes around, it's sometimes even difficult to secure a table... i suppose it being the weekend makes it a lot worse. i miss the Berkeley cafes... like Brewed Awakening... where ppl around you actually inspire you... haha. imagine having loads of ppl reading at 8am at a cafe... and i remb more than one occasion whereby i unintentionally "eavesdropped" on ppl's intellectual and cheem discussions... i suppose the best alternative is to hide at home, but home's ultimately not the best place to be if i want some peace and quiet to myself :P sometimes i really wished i could make half the Singaporean population disappear... hehe being evil.