Always look at the bright side of life

2008-08-08T23:17:00.003+08:00

Olympics Opening

As i'm writing this blog now, the tv program is showing the opening of olympics 2008 at Beijing.

Very spectacular, the level of participation & display really showed how much effort china had put in to make it an event one can remember for a long time.

I wonder when will Singapore be able to have the chance to host such a grand event. Tomo is the National Day & i'm sure it will be that impressive to me as well.

No tickets to the NDP, been balloting for many yrs but somehow couldn't get it. Maybe it's just my luck, have to stay at home & watch it on TV.

5 mins ago the opening was showing our Singapore team walking around the stadium aka " bird's nest". Felt kinda proud of our athletes as they walked round & waving the singapore flags. We are such a small country but able to complete with them on a international level.

Wouldn't it be great if the opening is the same day as NDP. We'll be celebrating together with the whole china tomo. Surely this will be a significant milestone in the course of history.

Had durians for dinner at the branch today. Long long time since i last tasted this king of the fruits. Bring back fond memories of my dad buying back when i was a kid & opening it with a screwdriver.

Well, having it together with my colleagues is not too bad. Very filling & i had lots of fun.

The marching of the athletes is about to come to an end. China is displaying their athletes now, a whopping 696 of them!

Hopefully when i go to beijing during sept i will be able to at least catch a little of the olympic spirit there!

2008-07-16T23:30:00.002+08:00

Running & running

Signed up for the Army Half Marathon ( AHM ) on the 24th August as well as the nike+ human race run on the 31st August.

http://www.safra.sg/singapore_bay_run.aspx?pageid=1433

http://nikeplus.nike.com/nikeplus/index.jhtml?locale=en_sg

Recently got addicted to long distance running. Running is usually to keep in shape and prevent myself from getting fat. I eat alot and also can get fat easily. Since i do not wan to curb my appetite, i better do something to repair the damage after that.

Training is fixed on wednesday and sunday afternoon. From now till the race, i'll be taking afternoon off on wed. I can't go running after my work which normally ends at 6pm. By the time i reach home it's already 630pm. After the run will be around 9pm. I can't do this routine due to the following reasons: First of all, i'll die of hunger at around 730pm, secondly, i won't be able to slp due to the adreline rush after the run!!

I'll normally go around 330pm on Wed & Sun. Quite bad as i always end up testing myself using the hot sun. If you think you will get very sweaty from the run, think again. Before anything happens, the sweat dried up.

I hope nike or adidas can invent some shoes with good ventilation. My feet feels like it's on fire everytime halfway through the run. How hot is it? Basically i can get high after taking it off immediately after the run!!

Which part of running do you like best? The last portion is the part i like the most. I can only hear myself, ignoring anything beside me. Every step is in tune with my heart, every gasp of air i can feel it rushing down my lungs.

However there is a part which people encountered called "The Wall" It's a term which describe the mental state of the person struggling whether to continue or give up. It's some sort of a transition part of the run. Remember the nike slogan " just do it" which will be very helpful. DO NOT THINK & STOP!! Just keep moving and you will find back your pace.

Lastly i will need to get more plasters to prevent blisters on my feet from all the running. Always used minimum 3 on my feet to prevent blisters from forming.

Hopefully it will not rain on my training days!!

2008-07-06T23:52:00.005+08:00

No more messy lan cable!

Remember one of my previous blogs which had this picture shown below? The lan cable extend from my computer to the phone line there, bo bian lor. Quite dangerous as my grandma might trip over it while walking & during that time my pregnant sister-in-law was still staying with us, quite dangerous for her as well.

But last saturday my dad's friend came over to help us extend the wires around the house! A phone line was extend to the corner la, so now my com can just directly link to the phone line via lan cable. No more messy lan cable on the floor!

Also less kao bae from my mum while she is sweeping & mopping the floor, heng ah.

Another TV wire was extended to my grandma's room so she her shows will be clearer. She was using an antenna before this & it really can't make it. The picture looks like those displayed from a pirated DVD , damn jia lat.

However this is not all of it. He's coming back coming saturday to extend more wires to my new room. This means i can shift my computer into the room after that, yuppee! Finally no more people peeking at what i was doing on my com while walking to the kitchen. Kinda like my privacy alot.

Today was a rainy day & luckily the rain stopped around 3pm plus. Hence i'm able to train for the Army Half Marathon. http://www.safra.sg/singapore_bay_run.aspx?pageid=1433

1) Ran to Toa Payoh Stadium ( i stay in potong pasir )

2) Firstly did a 2.4km to check my timing ( need to take IPPT this wed )

3) 20 rounds at the stadium

4) Finally slow jog back home

Legs feel kinda weird everytime after my training, not tired but kinda like it's not there anymore. Hhaha....i also don't know how to describe it.

Hopefully i can finish the 21km within 2 hrs, that's the target i'm hopping to achieve, jia you!

My Own Room!

2008-07-05T19:09:00.007+08:00

My Own Room

No more slping in the living room as well as moonlighting the security guard at home! Reason is they had moved out!! Finally my bro & wife moved out to their new nest located at Yio Chu Kang.

This means that i'll be going to a quiet home without having to listen to all their whinings & loud voices. I like the quiet environment i have now of being alone when i reached home daily.

For those who happened to have a room to yourself all this while will never be able to understand my feeling. Going home after work to your own room is a fantastic feeling!! It's like having a world of my own.

I've shifted most of my stuff inside the room, which half of the cupboard belongs to my 2nd bro. He rented a room outside & will not be moving back to stay, hence he'll just leave the stuff here till the day he moves back. I don't quite forsee that suitation hitting me quite soon, maybe for another 2-3 yrs later.

The cupboard still look damn empty lor, i realised i do not have alot of stuff of my own. Some computer stuff, books, that's all, nothing else. I'm a person will very low physical assets, hahahahha!!

The left belongs to my bro while the right belongs to me. Really very empty, need to stock up on my stuff liao.

There are 2 beds in the room. I've told my mum i wanted to throw away one of them & her reaction definitely told me it's a big fat "NO". I guess that's reserve for my bro when he comes back.

So not much space left in the room, nothing much to get from Ikea even though i would like to fully re-design the room. But it's more than enough for me. For it's something i've waited, something i've desired for many many years... and i'm glad it finally came to me.

2008-03-23T00:29:00.001+08:00

Musical Chair

Recently been applying quite a number of jobs. Some in foreign banks, others in brokerage firms.
Met a few people from the recruitment companies such as robert walters to establish my portfolio as well as get to understand my expectations.

Got my increment last week which is not that impressive but also not too bad. I would say it's kinda average in the banking industry. However consider the sub-prime turmoil going on now, satisfactory is the word to be used here.

Went for a number of interviews and got 2 offers from brokerage firms as an equity dealer. Jobscope will be deals execution from inhouse clients as well as advisory for external clients. FYI it's not a sales job, no commission and just a normal mthly paid worker.
( that's for the 1st offer )

2nd offer is also the same, equity dealer but however the jobscope requires me to do sales such as selling structured products to customers. However what i don't understand is that this is also a mthly paid job. Weird if u ask me, for why do i need to do sales when i'm not being paid commission. I have no idea and the interviewer also could not give me a satisfactory answer.

Needless to say i declined both offers. Honestly i don't really feel the push factor to move to a new job. Currently i have a bunch of very nice colleagues, great boss and i'm able to go home quite early everyday. This means i have much more free time on my own as compared to those who need to work OT daily. So considering all these, i can't really find any realistic push factor.
( money is very subjective as what is more to you may be less to another )

However if the pull factor is very strong from the other side, such as a very very high increment, then it's a different story. Or the job is from a very reputable foreign bank, then i might consider jumping even though the increment isn't that high.

I just went for an interview at Deutsche Bank on a role in fixed income ( settlements ) on last thursday. Interviewed by 3 person ( been a long time since i'm interviewed by a panel of people ) Nowadays interview for me is much different as compared to just graduated from NTU.
As a fresh graduate, you are trying very hard to sell yourself to the employer, trying to impress them with your best attributes and skills & finally trying hard to get the job.

However at this stage, interviews for me can be describe as finding out what's my expectations as well as wat's their expectations. I can say it's more like a discussion rather than an interview.

Stressful at interview? No at all, as it's a situation where the employers are finding people to fit in and i'm trying to find out what can they provide me with and what advancement are there for me. So it will be the best with a win-win situation when all can fit perfectly. If this situation is not possible, so be it. There will always be chances. As i said, there is no strong push factor for me, only waiting for the strong pull factor from the other side.

Let's see whether i will hear from them the coming week. Even if there's no news, i'll still be happily working together with my colleagues as it's the best part of my working life right now!

2008-02-04T22:20:00.001+08:00

Sorry people, can't complete the episode as i have a super mum at home!

By the time you read all these, most of the household chores and clean up are done.

Honestly my mum have a certain fetish over cleanliness. A tiny tiny bit also cannot tahan.

The plus point will be that the house is always in stand by house position ( only those in the army wil understand what i meant ). BUT it's also this which irritates me as well.

The nagging ( yak yak yak yak....... ) never end with all the clean this, dun put this here, remember to put this back blah blah blah. A bit fed up hearing all these from her after a long day of work. Anyway, let's not spoilt the CNY mood here.

Does anyone know what is the name of this particular plant? It's only sold during CNY and fetch a heafty price just for your info. My mum is decorating this plant like a christmas tree with the only difference it's white and red rather than green and red.

She's taking her own sweet time decorating and the position is just so nice, smack right in front of the TV. Darn i'm watching the channel 8, 9pm soap opera at that time.

I think she's planning to watch it as well and finished with the decorating just exactly at 10pm sharp. Here's come her master piece using 1 hr.

2008-01-31T23:12:00.000+08:00

CNY CNY, dong dong chang, gong xi fa cai!!

Next week is the foodie week, bak kua, pineapple tarts and not to mention MJ sessions!!

CNY is always associate with such activities every year without fail. However to some people this is regarded as a long break from work to recharge themselves. For those who hadn't take leave ( provided still can take after reading this post ) you can take on the 4th,5th and 6th of feb and thus having a break from the 2nd feb till 10th feb!! superb right, with 3 days of leave you can get a break of 9 days. I would certainly agree no more with fully utilising your leave in this situation.

Also some people adopt the new type of CNY celebration of going overseas. China, Korea, Taiwan and HK are some of the places with remarkable CNY celebrations going on. Take note that china is experience the worst winter in 50 yrs and many people are stranded at the airports with electricity cut off and unable to go back home to celebrate with their family.

For me will be as usual, CNY reunion dinner at home and danny recommend going to zouk after that. Thumbs up for me as well as the rest due to the fact that it's really damn boring after the dinner lor. Nothing to do and just waiting for time to pass. I'm sure i will be able to enjoy myself in CNY clubbing !!

Before CNY will be the gruesome spring cleaning. I will summarise into 6 episodes if i can to make it like star wars

Episode 1 : The spinning Menace

For all my friends who is going to purchase their dream homes and love nest, pls DO NOT install those ceiling fans for the reasons below

1) Only certain positions can experience the wind ( as for my computer seat, none at all, crap )

2) If there's alot of dust, they will start flying around if it's spinning at a very fast speed!

3) Finally the cleaning part has a high tendency of endangering your life as shown below!

2008-01-23T21:41:00.000+08:00

Valentine's Day

Hey people, it's the time of the year to let your partner bask in the deep aroma of love with all the gifts and appreciations.

My friend Jean had a shop ( Vuture Flora & Gift Boutique ) at outram mrt which definately will be able to help you convey your love with different combinations of flowers and unique arrangements. Moreover there are dedicated professionals with 30 yrs of experience in this area to help you in all your needs to get a gift for this special day.

Price is affordable and do place your order early before they are full ( i'm sure you dun wan to find yourself in a situation of unable to get flowers for your partner ) Normally it will be more and more expensive when it gets nearer to valentine's day itself, so do your wallet a favour and place early!

For more information, pls visit this fantastic website http://www.vuture.com.sg

Uncle

2008-01-16T23:23:00.000+08:00

I'm going to be an uncle in about 7 mths time!!

Apparantly my sister-in-law is 2 mths pregnant and i just realise it last week! Let me narrate how i became suspicious of this incident.

As spoken to previous blog, there are 2 desktops and a laptop in my house. We are using a modem and duno why my wireless D-link started to fail on me and i have to change to using a lan cable. This is how it will look like everytime when i'm log on to the internet.

Well when you join the 2 pics together, it will somehow fit la. So this particular arrangement have a certain risk of someone tripping and falling down, which everyone ignore initially. So one fine day when my bro and sister-in-law ( SIL for short ) came back together, i overheard my bro telling her to be careful not to trip over this lancable. Weird i said to myself, this comment never come out from him before.

So never mind, maybe it's just a passing remark showing some concern for her. The 2nd hint came when he asked me what happen to my wireless and why i'm not using it. Double weird, cause normally we dun talk at home, much less asking on each other's stuff.

3rd hint came with this pic as show below.

That's my mum in the pic and she was cooking tonics for the past 1 week. So after gathering all the pieces and some assumption on my side, i asked my mum about SIL's condition and WALA, she's really pregnant!!

But there's some drastic change in her behavior ( exclude the part she keep stuffing herself with food ) , she started to whin about every little thing to my bro and yes to my bro , not to me pls. Spare me from hearing all these by keep those whining noises to urself and below my decibel level. It's quite irritating to hear all these after coming home from a tired day at work which i'm sure most of u understand.

Also my bro came up with this schedule for her which i personally felt quite interesting.

A schedule for her to take Brands Birdnest Essence and Brands Essence!! I should recommend them to the company and hopefully can get some free stock from them for coming up with this!

They can well be the spokesman for Brands!!

How bout that, in the past the advertisement show the kids drinking it before going to take their exams, maybe now they can change to making it a must for all pregnant women!!

*2 more mths before they move out and i'm free from all the whining and a room to myself, damn happy la!!!!!!

2008-01-07T23:42:00.000+08:00

Pai seh guys, somehow i can't upload the other video clips on the BBQ ( there are 3 of them ) The uploading always get stuck around 40MB and then get rejected. Bo bianz.

Anyway, this is bout the NYE 07. Dinner with the usual gang at Shashlik Restaurant. The Russian-themed restaurant is in operation for over 18 years at Far East Shopping Centre (between Hilton Hotel and Liat Towers)

Usual gang attendance is Shane, Yudan, Danny, Yvonne, Adrian, Xiaohui, surprisingly RZ turned up and me. He's taking small tiny steps back into our circle of trust, keep up the good work!

The NYE set cost around $58++ each but affordable for once a year event such as this.

The Menu first

My appetizer Borshch

Yummy bread and egg something..forgot the name

Escargot ( never expect to eat that )

Beef steak

Random pics...

After that we went to OOSH CAFE at Dempsey Road. You can choose whether to sit indoors or outdoors. However i suggest outdoor as it had a very nice ambience & also surrounded by the nature! As long as it doesn't rain, you will be alright.

We ordered 2 bottles of champagne for the night. Not a lot but enought as some of us is driving.

Talking about driving, it's going to a pain in the ass to get to the place if you dun have a car as it's quite out of the way.

We have a special apperance, which is ah boo!! MIA for so long and now fianlly decided to show himself and landed us a bomb shell. Why you never bring your gf along !!!

Great night, nice drinks, enjoyable NYE07 all below

So what's your resolution for the new year??

2007-12-29T23:58:00.000+08:00

Video on the BBQ!

Will upload more within these few days

( dunno why there's a 2nd screen, anyone who knows how to get rid of it pls let me know )

BBQ at Safra resort

2007-12-24T06:45:00.000+08:00

South Bridge Branch BBQ at Changi Safra Resort ( 15/12/2007 )

The very first outing with my branch colleagues this year. My manager ( Esther ) successfully balloted for the 3D2N chalet at Changi with just $50 !! Cheap right, haha..only UOB staff entitled to this.

Initially the plan was to go early around 1pm for a swim & some tanning as the sea as it's just a stone throw away from the chalet. However it was raining very heavily in the afternoon, bo bian, have to go later which is around 4pm liao. Didn't eat the whole day since i woke up, hoho, saving space for all the good food later!

Met Zhenrong, winnie and bump into Christopher at Tanah Merah Mrt. There's a shuttle bus available but it's at 30 mins interval, so the waiting time is a bit long. We are still the early birds as no one else was there except for boss and her family. So no choice, the task of starting the fire was given to us.

We started for a while and luckily yvonne's yeo ( YY ) son ( a former scout ) came and chiong to start the fire. He's damn enthu to start the fire la, so needless to say i gladly give him that job.

Most of us reach around 6pm and some bring along their own speciality to let us try. Jane's fried rice, Ai Hwei's doughnuts, YY's cupcakes , boss's curry, veron's salad. Lots of good food for the day.

*Something to think about. Many people separate colleagues and friends in a very clear line. In the past i often think of such outings redundant as we see each other almost everyday during work. But honestly under such different environment ( such as BBQ ) where everyone is just there to enjoy & leave the work behind, people are able to get to know each other easily, better and ulitmately understand one another.*

Back to the BBQ, small drizzle came about & we deployed a canvas to shield the bbq pit from the rain. Luckily someone bought the canvas along , thank you so much!

Well, i shall let the pics tell the rest of the day.

Our food!

Boss giving orders again, ahha

Alvin ( left ) and Yvonne yeo's son , look alike right??

Zhenrong with his act cute pose

Ai Hwei's bbqing the satay!

Zhenrong and Anders

Yvonne Sng

I think they are all watching the korean drama on TV

Ai Hwei's girl Janice ( top left ) and her nephew

Jessilyn in pink

We even have MJ table!

Yvonne Yeo and Ai Nah!

( from left ) Man Fung, Anders and Cecilia

Stupid Internet Connection

2007-12-19T15:45:00.000+08:00

Angry with my internet connection tonight.

First of all every loading is taking so much time that i wan to fall asleep. If not it can't load the 2nd page afterwards.

Before you all comment my internet connection sucks and recommend me to change to another one, listen to this first. My internet conenction is share by 3 blardy coms in the house. 1 of them mine and the other 2 belong to my bro and his wife. How good can the internet connection be if there are 3 coms logging in at the same time!!!!! Feel like subscribing to starhub broadband use it totally by myself. Any recommendations pls let me know!!

To be honest, i dun really like her staying together with me. She doesn't know how to do any household chores, my mum need to take care of her and she doesn't contribute to the family in any way. Somemore she's a CHINA GAL!!! ( no offense to all the others but she really spoilt my image of u all already )

Every night they will make a lot of noise ( mind you it's not those obscene type) I'm talking about just a normal conversion. I dun really understand why the she likes to talk so loudly.
It's not like my bro is deaf and i'm sure other people would not want to know what is the content as well, so pls do not broadcast to the whole world.

Initially i thought once my bro got married then he will buy a new flat and move out asap. In the end the asap took around 1 yr. Crap lor, from young i do not have a room to my own and up till now i still have to wait. Heard he got a flat at yio chu kang and hopefully can move out at early march next yr.

Right now i just have to make do with watever i can at home, no privacy space and sometimes slp in my mum's room or living room. I'm like a refugee in my own house!!!!!

I better upload this post before the internet connection get cut off!

My bedroom is over there!

2007-12-10T14:23:00.000+08:00

My bedroom is over there!

Utterly piss off with myself

2007-12-06T15:25:00.000+08:00

I hate you China Fishery!!!

Executed a trade that pissed me off to the max. Luck was really not on my side at that moment.

Moreoever Murphy's law smacked me right on my face this morning with problems in all directions.

*Murphy's law is an adage in Western culture that broadly states that things will go wrong in any given situation, if you give them a chance*

Dun think i will have a good night slp tonight!!!!

wat a tiring day!

2007-12-05T15:34:00.000+08:00

My AM ( assistant manager ) is on leave today, so basically I would need to cover some of her work. Everything should be fine since there were still 5 of us ( Jessilyn, Anders, Ai Nah, Boss & me ) around to distribute the workload. However another colleague had taken a 1/2 day off in the afternoon & therefore we were down to only 4 people.

The madness started to surface around 1230pm which was the lunch time for customers ( the queue will start to build up from this time ) as well as my colleagues. So with 2 people out for lunch, there's only 2 person in the backroom!

I can't even warm up my seats for 5 mins as I had to walk out to attend to customers & attend to my tellers in the front. It was madness for that period of time between 1230pm to 130pm. Insufficient manpower is definately a big problem for me today.

Manage to clear some of my KIV stuff & other customer issues pending. Glad the KIV file is getting thinner as the time goes by. At least something was done at the end of the day. It's a sense of achievement & satisfactory which i would like to experience everyday.

Friday is getting nearer by the minute & there's a branch meeting regarding the survey which everyone has taken last mth. It's about how you feel about your work and the environment.
Obviously the results was not very ideal and that will be the main itinerary for the meeting.
Let's hope something good will come out from the meeting to improve out working environment and sentiments about the bank.

Hopefully it doesn't end to late as it's a FRIDAY NIGHT ( TGIF )

Friday night MJ Session

2007-12-02T14:22:00.000+08:00

MJ session on Friday night

Received a call from shane asking whether want to play MJ at yudan's house after work. Looking at the time, about 415pm. 2 more hrs then i'll be off work. Don't want to reply him first as i'm still deciding between the pros and cons.

Cons:
1) Super tired after work already
2) Going back home late = high chance paying $20 cab fare ( midnight charge )
3) Need to end up waiting for Danny as he's usually late

Pros:
1) Winning streak at the MJ session to cover my cab fare

So I ended up washing the MJ tiles at around 9pm. Late timing to start due to some delaying. Somehow i prefer to sit around with friends and chill out over a cup of coffee instead.

Yudan have 2 cats, Moses and Mocca. I love animals, but can't keep them as my mum will not hesitate to slaughter them if i bring them into the house. She can't stand the mess they create & the hair/fur dropping off from them.

Oh ya, forgot the mention the attendance for the day. Danny, shane, xiaohui ( danny's gf ) , yudan of course and me. First few rounds at the losing streak, luckily manage to reduced losses at the last few rounds. Heng ah, if not it will be 2 things to bring back home. Tiredness and few bucks less.

Actually i wanted to go back around 1030pm so that i can catch the last bus at Toa payoh but since danny offer to give me a lift back, so i guess i shall stay on to finish the game. If not i'll just get Xiaohui to take over me to continue the game.

SHANE U WEAKLING!!!

Just to let everyone know he ended up slping at the " Xi Feng". Wah kaoz. Jio me there liao then dare to slp without finishing the game. Lucky Xiaohui was there if not i'll throw Moses on ur face and let him scratch you till you are awaken from the pain.

Danny and Xiaohui , thanks for the ride & enjoy ur Standard Chartered Run tomo!!

Adrian's Bd at Paulaner Bräuhaus

2007-11-21T15:34:00.000+08:00

Have to wake up at 10am today!!!

Dragging myself out of bed on a sunday morning. Not because i need to catch the sunny morning at the pool, but need to reach Paulaner Bräuhaus at 1130am for Adrian's BD.

Yup, someone is now officially 26.

Actually this is the first time I'm having brunch. I thought it's more of a common event with the foreigners. The pricing is 30+++ (non-beer) & 40+++ (beer) for the buffet & free flow. I do not have the habit of drinking beer in the morning & feels weird bout it as well ( if u wish to maximise your eating capacity,your drink should be non-gaseous, haha )

The party includes our BD boy adrian, danny, shane, yudan, yvonne, thomas, terence & lastly me. Ah boo & Rz should be here as well but someone forgotten bout this 2 jokers. As i said brunch is more common with foreigners & it's proven by the crowd there. 3/4 of the people in the restaurant were foreigners & with a big capacity for beer too. Glasses after glasses the beer keep pouring in for them & even the ladies sould win us flat down with their appetite for beer.

Rowdy bunch of foreigners but it's suppose to be like this as i can really see them enjoying their meal and company of their friends. We too have a lot of fun as most of us rarely have time to meet up and it's a good thing to get together once a while. For those who had not tried before, maybe it's time to blend in with the foreigners and experience their culture for once.

Now who says brunch is only their cup of tea??

So cloudy

2007-11-18T15:54:00.001+08:00

Boring day.

Didn't do much today, now my weekdays will start to revolve around M6 book till the exam is over. Make my way to Toa Payoh swimming pool around 12pm in order to catch the sun. Not bad when i was leaving the house, it's very bright and sunny. Should expect a very good tan for bout an hr.

Board the bus & suddenly it's like the sun has a mind of it's own & wan to "tekan" me. As the bus was reaching the pool nearer by the minute, the sunny slowly changed to cloudy. Damn it, it seems like the sun pull the clouds over it's head like a blanket.

There goes the tanning i said to myself. Made my way inside the pool & as soon as i was ready to jump into the pool, the sky has a big spread of grey clouds. Siao liao, later cannot even swim if the lifeguard ask me to get out of the pool due to lightning. Bo chap, swim first then say. Manage to clear around 20 laps before it started to rain. I should say drizzling & the lifeguard let us continue which i presume there's no lightning. A very different experience to swim while it's raining. It's very calm while u are under the water & chaotic once you surface up ( wonder tat's what the fishes feel as well )

Decided to get out of the pool before the rain gets heavier. Not because i'm afraid my getting struck by lightning but more concern of how to get back home laterb because of the rain.

Burger king for lunch ( l love their ice lemon tea!! ) & M6 book to accompany me till dinner. Read the newspaper for a while & there's an article on the incident about the trishaw uncle + 3 ang mohs.

It said that the 3 ang mohs had apologized to the uncle ( which should be done long ago )
I should say they got wat they deserved for jeering & making sarcastic remarks on the uncle.
I'm sure if people recognise them somewhere let's say orchard, they will not be able to get out alive judging from all the comments and swearing on their actions.
The uncle is very old but i give him thumbs up for earning his own meals. To all those abled, younger & stronger but choose to beg instead, pls see the uncle as a role model for yourselves.

Ang Mohs bully old trishaw rider at Clarke Quay
Interview with Singapore Trishaw Uncle (Part 1)
Interview with Singapore Trishaw Uncle (Part 2)

TGIF

2007-11-17T15:03:00.000+08:00

yups, i'm sure you guys & ladies know wat TGIF means.

THANK GOD IT'S FRIDAY!

Weekend is already coming right in your face together with all the programs lining up one by one. Hopefully tomo is a sunny day for my swim.

Just started to flip the first page of the CMFAS M6 book 3 days ago. I realised the period i estimated to complete the book is not so long after all. Lots of information in the book, with all the financial analysis & formulas. I guess i'll be spending most of the time during weekends at the lib digesting this book.

Did a weird assessment test called Occupational Personality Questionnaire. Basically it gives a rough idea to the person wat is your preferences towards work. Funny thing is after doing it i also do not understand wat's my preferences on my working career. Not much of a direction at this point in time except going to work as usual and finishing work on time.

The questions ask you to choose on 4 options & list them with either most suitable for you or least suitable for you. 108 questions took me 1 hr to complete, so i guess u have a rough idea of where i'm heading already.

I wonder whether does this situation applies to most of my peers who are already in the work force for quite some time or it's just me feeling this way. The mundane routine of going to work and ending work just to kill some time and earn money as the daily basic objective. Although there are very supportive and great colleagues with me, somehow there's something missing in the picture. The passion in my work i suppose.

PASSION

How many people out there can honestly say they are very passionate in their work? Up till now i only know people who are not passionate, so the figures are quite clear. Money seems to be the only driving force for this case as survival plays a part in it. Financial freedom will be a far away land if you think you can achieve it by working your ass off for other people.

Oh, i remembered saying i'll be listing some of the extreme customers.

A lady who only like to ask stuff on her credit cards. Things she would request.

a) The card is black in color & seems unlucky to me, can i change to gold color?
b) I do not like the UOB logo printed on it, is there anyway to remove it?
c) Can i have the expire date to be the same as my bd?
d) By the way she also like to spend 1 hr queueing just to deposit $1 and withdraw $0.50.

When she told me this i was like... wat the F***? Am i getting my retribution or something to have such as crazy person standing in front of me & asking having such requests?
If i can i would just give her a tight slap and shouted " WAKE UP YOU STUPID B**CH"
Reality is always not the case though. Therefore i slowly explained to her the mission impossible to satisfying her requests.

This won't be the last time i'll be seeing her as she's a regular ( and a nutcase ).
Her mum told us she had also given up on her daughter. In a certain way i pity her for the behavior and hopefully she will be able to think like a sane person in the future.

Being in this job actually grills me to be a more patience person & also able to put myself in other people's shoes before judging. ( the case mention above is a bit different as it's really a nutcase. I'm talking about sane people right now )
Customer service line is really not an easy job so everytime i queue for food or going into a retail shop, i would try to make things as simple as possible for the salesperson.
After all i'm already in the person's shoes for 1 year and 2 mths.

Farewell...

2007-11-14T16:05:00.000+08:00

Just heard from boss that one of the colleagues ( Kenny ) is going to relocate to coleman branch. Reason is that due to the high number of new trainees over our branch, the number of staff increases and hence have to reduce to meet the orginal allocated quota.

The worst thing is to train the new comers all over again ( need to spend a lot of time and sometimes may end up having customers complaining as they are still new )
Dun really like this type of arrangement of making the "old birds" leave due to the newcomers.
It's not easy to find a group of colleagues who are like a big family while working together.

Luckily the trainees are keen to learn & i'll make they are trained in all aspects on the procedures as well as how to handle customers.

( side track a bit )
Just taken a look at the DJ & it's a big increase due to wal mart's good 3rd quarter increase as well as dip in the oil prices. Hopefully tomo's Asia market will perform the same.

Tomo's lunch will be sponsor by boss ( pizza ) for the farewell party. .
Let's hope that the new environment is going to be alright for him!

A fresh start

2007-11-11T14:20:00.000+08:00

It's been quite some time since i've started to blog again.

Spend much of my time on the stock market which is now my hobby.

Volatile is the best word to describe the stock market globally due to sub-prime mortages which is the core of the problem. End result is clearly the diving of major stock markets and top banks have to write-off the losses.

Been trying out the stock market for some time & it's really not suitable for the fainted heart.
The prices moving up & down can really cause your heart to move up & down as well.
One of my colleagues lost around 50k due to the CDOs ( Collateral Debt Obligations ) when alot of home defaults from US side starts to kick in, causing the market to plunge.

In the past i always wonder how people can lose such a big amount in stocks and after being inside the picture myself, i can now really understand the situation. For those who want to start investing your money into the stock market, pls be more rational when making decisions.

Too hook up on the martket right now. Basically my home page is SGX website http://www.sgx.com/ with all the prices and bloomberg http://www.bloomberg.com/ is my secondary sites for all the global information

( for Dow Jones index you can refer to this http://finance.google.com/finance?q=INDEXDJX:.DJI )

I should be looking forward to weekends but somehow i dun look towards it.
Reason is that the stock markets are not open!!!
( A friend actually told me to seek counseling with this problem..something to do with the gambling social issues which will happen once the singapore casino start to operate.
I think their hotline would not entertain me ...haha )

Hopefully the market will correct itself once & for all and start picking up asap from the start of 2008 and everyone can start to make big money again.

Still stuck at UOB right now, already 1 yr and 2 mths with this operation job in Chinatown ( south bridge branch ) There's a bunch of very fun colleagues to work with & they are all like my god-mums. The only bad thing is the pay ( not high lo, wat else ). So right now i'm trying to switch job into something related to my interest, something to do with the stock market.

Previously i was called for an interview at Lim & Tan Securities for the role of central dealer.But somehow the appointment was called off as there's an applicant who is more suitable than me. The HR told me that he had CMFAS module 1 and 6 taken, so he can immediately start on the new job. Of course in this way the company do not need to spend extra resources on him. Damn piss off lor, i thought i can finally find a job i like but now it's gone.
( basically how do you know u like your job? Here's an example. If you wake up in the morning and do not feel like draggin your ass out of ur bed , most probably answer is you do not like your job. )

In the end i went to take the CMFAS module 1B last week and manage to pass it, lucky.
Right now i've registered for M6 & the exam is this coming january. Hopefully i can pass it with a single try and switch to a trader or dealer job asap.

My current job is actually not too bad, but just tat there are always some weird customers who like to make things difficult for me ( Future entries i will list some examples, very extreme ones) Without them the work is basically very relax. Fixed timing with no OT and you can't bring work home, what more can you ask? ( except for more pay )

Tomo is Monday and i'll be looking forward to it!!! No more weekend blues as the market is starting at 9am sharp, yeah!!!!