sometimes ppl have strange affinities for things without knowing why... i think in my case i have this strange affinity for Japanese. just like at Berkeley, taking Japanese somehow makes me happy :) and... even at Berkeley i thought the teachers were amazing to produce textbooks with such cute pictures etc.... my sensei at Ikoma has the this amazing flair for illustrating cute stick figures cum scenarios on the blackboard within minutes... and uses them effectively to enhance our understanding of the material... though teaching format etc is different, i feel like the classes are really pretty decent too. actually i think i've been placed into a class too advanced for my level... but hehe to save my money, i'm gonna stick with it... i mean at least i still get quite a fair bit of what she says :P
then today on the MRT, seconds after whipping out my copy of Milan Kundera's The Unbearable Lightness of Being, which i have been reading rather sporadically during my commutes to and from work, this middle-aged guy standing behind me initiated a conversation by asking if i've watched the movie starring Daniel Day-Lewis (i didn't even know it was made into a movie)... conversation gradually veered towards career consulting... and HR.. and turns out that he knows my deputy director from the HR dept (who's kinda like scholars' boss) anyway he appeared very well-informed and experienced and has daughter who works for A-Star... haha. somewhat random but coincidental though.... anyway, dunno.. lesson of the day....ERM, read interesting books on the MRT cos you'll never know what interesting conversations they can spark? haha.

having witnessed how some of my lady colleagues couldn't help shedding (more than) a few tears for boss esp towards end of the day, i cannot help but infer that he must have been a really really good boss. and these past few days of group phototaking... farewell last week... decorating his workstation early this morning... individual phototaking... and some resigned sighs of "things will never be the same again"... i suppose all of them must have built up really good working relationships as well as friendships. i have to admit that even as a newbie, i felt a little teary for 3 seconds in the middle of his mini farewell speech. funny thing is, despite having worked in a 90% female environment for some years, i believe boss is still rather clueless as to how to deal with women when they cry... and so when one colleague was hiding in cubicle (cos crying rather badly) boss was really at a loss and stared blankly at some of us... but still attempted to go in... poke poke a little, joke a little... but eventually decided to disappear :P oh well... i'm actually not so sure i can handle ppl crying either haha.but ya, it's certainly hard when you know you're going to miss someone.

my unit LOVES taking pictures. so today was pink day... we're doing all these crazy things cos old boss is leaving tmr and they want to have some things for him to bring away.... and so boss was made to wear pink too. he grudgingly did, claiming that it was the 2nd time wearing the pink shirt since some funny choir performance when everyone had to wear pink. new boss who thought it was a joke came in normal shirt then got penalized and made to pose with huge pink cushion in picture... hmm. dunno what to think haha. but feel like it's nice that everyone's kinda one big 'family'.... tomorrow's white top and jeans day-- but supposedly hawaiian shirt day for the male bosses. hmmph. wonder how bosses will react. aiyah but last chance for them to play joke on boss already... though i don't really know boss very well, i guess i can tell that my colleagues are sad to see him go... but, since he's gonna be bonded for quite a few more years after he returns from his studies, that certainly wun be the last we'll see of him ;P

haven't had much motivation to blog recently; and am trying very hard to ensure that all my entries don't end up talking about work.... so....
anyways, this one will be vaguely related to work lah. i was just thinking how much time i'll want to devote to work eventually. right now, i still have the luxury of going home around 645pm on average, but this certainly isn't the case for bosses... and in my case (ie. ppl i'm under) deputy director of my section works late into the night everyday (i heard) and comes back on weekends too to work... while her work dedication is certainly admirable, it makes me wonder how much i'm willing to give up for work. as it is now, i dun feel like i have much time to myself after work... and this is just the beginning! oh well, perhaps it also really depends on how one manages his/her time... how efficient one is at work... how perfectionist you want to be and many many other factors. in any case, i suppose i can't be too wrong to conclude that there's really a price to pay to be at the top?

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?