Half-Yearly Mark

Half a year has passed. It is time to revisit your resolutions to fine-tune or adjust when plans change.

If you are still a long way from the end of your resolution list, you still to buck up and start sprinting.

For those who have accomplished at a faster pace, good for you and keep it up.

Let's work towards a fruitful year.

Transformers: The Revenge of the Fallen

I never expected Tranformers to be this exciting. That was the impression I have had when I watched the first Tranformers movie about 2 years ago. I have always loosely and perhaps inaccurately classified Transformers as a "guy" show with the automobiles and the robots. I was also slightly wary that it might be a show filled with gruesome blood splatterings, disembodied corpses and violent fights. I was hooked after watching the show. The bravery and righteousness of Optimum Prime and the cuteness and loyalty of Bumble Bee simply blew me off.

Needless to say, I was filled with anticipation about the sequel. And, I was not disappointed.

The Revenge of the Fallen lined up the same dynamic cast of Shia LeBouf and Megan Fox with the autobots - Optimus Prime and Bumble Bee. It was more action packed than the previous show. Even in the face of the evil Megatrons, there was still humour and light-hearted moments throughout the show to bring a smile to the audience's faces. Megan Fox continued to sizzle the screen with her sexy appeal.

However, I still preferred the first show to the second one as the fighting dominated too much of the sequel. With the intense fighting, it was also abit hard to distinguish between the good and evil when the fighting started.

Nevertheless, it was still an entertaining show.

Disappointed and Sad

I must be suffering from amnesia. Or maybe it is the first signs of dementia. How did I keep getting the information wrong. How is it that I never can overcome my blurness completely?

I wanted to bring my mum to a complimentary boat ride along Singapore River as part of the Singapore River Festival. I got the dates wrong. It was supposed to end on 27 June and I thought it was supposed to end on 28 June. In the end, we missed it despite talking about it for some time.

The second time I got the venue wrong instead.

It was a company event where we were given two free tickets to watch Transformers at Cathay. I mistook the Cathay to be the Picturehouse when it was the Cathay Cineleisure. In the end, we waited in vain and had to rush to Cathay Cineplex to catch the movie. Fortunately, it was happy ending the second time round when we managed to catch the movie in time, albeit wiht a bit of rush. If not, I think it would be hard for me to forgive myself for causing disappointment to my mum twice.

If you know of any cure against blurness, please do let me know.

The Demise of a Pop Icon

For people who grew up together with me, when we mentioned an iconic pop star, MJ would certainly come to mind. Despite some recent bad publicity surrounding this well-known pop star, the support from his fans never wavered. I am not a particular fan of MJ but I grew up hearing songs such as Black or White and humming to Hand in Hand. If you tell me you don't know who MJ is and what are his songs, I will undoubtedly ask you which planet are you from.

Hence, the shock and heavy heart that I experienced when I heard of his passing away was as if we had lost a hero. He might not have helped save the world with his physical powers like Superman, MJ is no less a hero when he brings the world together with his songs. He represented a dream with his stellar career in the music industry. Many performers aspired to be like him.

Farewell and may your dream continues.

Overwhelmed

As I was already drowned by the 2 projects of my colleague that I had to cover within the next 2 months, another bombshell dropped again. This colleague who seemed to be having some personal crisis decided to throw in the towel and tendered his resignation. By the time I was officially informed of his resignation, there was only one week left before his last day.

When my boss first told me about my now taking his entire portfolio, it had not hit me the extent of the coverage until when my colleague and I were discussing the upcoming forecast exercise. Then did I realise the load that awaited me for the next 1 month.

Suddenly, I was at a loss. Although I was confident about my competence and I was willing to put in the extra hours to meet the deadlines, I was still apprehensive with the numerous deadlines looming ahead. Suddenly, I felt overwhelmed. Suddenly, I felt like in despair. My mind went into a rejection mode. I wanted to be wilful. I wanted to just tell my boss I simply could not just take on additional load. I wanted to complain.

Fortunately, my boss left office early before I had chance of exploding on her. In the meanwhile, I had time to calm down and reassess the whole situation. I had not act rashly but rather took time to list our my predicaments and concerns to her so that she could help gather help from my peers so that we could work as a team to meet the demands.

Despite taking actions to help resolve our manpower resources, I still went home with a heavy heart for that day.

Getting Fat

I don't know if it was a casual comment or it was from the bottom of his heart. Nonetheless, my ego felt deflated momentarily.

My male boss commented that my busy schedule which led to a continuous lunch menu of bread resulted in me pounding on weight. Urggh! Is it true? Do I really look fat? I never notice any tightening of my skirts or pants around my waist recently. Although I slept better and ate more healthily, I thought all these should just make me look more refreshed rather than bloated. Moreover, with my weekly yoga session and even swimming or jogging, I should be exhausting some of the added calories through exercise. Is this an early sign of declining metabolic rate?

All girls aspired to look thin and beautiful. No matter how much we are praised for our intelligence, genteel or virtuous, what brightens our day most is still how pretty we look. Any adverse comment about our look, our style or our figure will certainly spend our morale spiralling down.

Maybe I should start a thrice weekly jogging routine in addition to my weekly yoga and weekly swim or jog. Beauty comes at the price of sweat.

Silly Facebook Games

I was quite overwhelmed with work recently. Some of my colleagues tried to cheer me up by asking me to play mindless Facebook games. Oh my, am I hooked? They are not as easy as they seem. I wonder how my colleagues managed to achieve a score of more than 100K for 1-minute Bejeweled. Do try if you have the time and only if you have the time, because before you know it, you would have sit there for at least an hour despite it being a 1-minute game.

Getting Older

I used to be able to carry on working till 10-ish each night consecutively for about 2 weeks without feeling drained. At worst, I will just sleep over the weekend and recharge. Recently, I can feel the toll of the late nights. I feel very exhausted and to the extend of hoping to skip work totally. Is this a sign of age or is this an early symptom of getting burnt?

Cute Cupcakes

I heard so much about cupcakes and its craze in Singapore. What drove its popularity was simply beyond me?

Cupcakes, as the name suggested, was a miniature cake in the size of a cup. It had become increasingly popular over the past 2 years with many people taking up baking courses to learn how to make it. There were increasingly more confectioneries selling cupcakes. From the look of it, cupcakes seemed similar to a muffin. Muffins were not exactly my favourite pastries as most muffins I had tasted were either too crumbly, too dry or too hard. Moreover, most of them were either buttery or chocolaty for my liking, since I was a fan of neither.

The fad of cupcakes had spread to baby showers' pastries which were often distributed to colleagues who chipped in for a gift to new born babies. When I first saw the cupcakes, I noted that they looked adorable with each taking a unique design.

When I took a bite, I immediately felt sugar rush with its high glucose level. There was a thick layer of fluffy cream that reminded me of cotton candy before I reached the chiffon cake layer. It tasted ok for a small cup but I was quite unsure if I would like it if I consumed more.

Now, I think I will stick to my usual ice-creams and traditional cakes if I need a dessert fix any time.

Mango Sale

I guessed I was the most excited about the Mango sale. This excitement actually rubbed off and started to influence my colleagues. Many of them went during lunch or after work. Coincidentally, many of them actually bought the same camisoles but in assorted colours. It felt good to have something to talk about other than work. What else could cheer us up more than retail therapy. *Wink!*

The Secret Life of Bees

The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Mona Kidd depicted the friendships between a White and the Black Americans way back in 1964 when discrimination by the Whites towards the coloured people was still rampant. The teenage White girl rescued her Black baby sitter from the jail as the baby sitter was unjustly arrested. The teenage White girl also used this as an escape from her uncaring father.

They travelled to the house of three black sisters who manufactured Black Madonna honey. August who was the elder sister shared a deep friendship with the teenage girl as August shared her knowledge on rearing and keeping bees. June was the one who was wary that the White teenage girl had a hidden agenda or a secret. However, she gradually grew to like the White girl. May was the vulnerable sister who could not distinguish other people's sorrow from her own ever since her twin sister April died. She eventually committed suicide by jumping into the river.

The White girl developed an admiration and fondness of the 3 sisters as well as for the bees. She also found that August used to work as a housekeeper for her mum's family home and sheltered her mum while her mum's marriage was broken down. Finally, the White girl found that she was the one who accidentally shot her mum when she was a toddler.

The Secret Life of Bees was a captivating book on bees and on friendships set in a time when skin colour still determined who could be your friends or what sort of jobs you could hold.

Warmth in the Office

This is not a complaint of the erratic aircon system in our office. Neither is this a complaint of the global warming issue. It was the warmth in my heart.

My neighbouring colleague was, among my team, the closest colleague whom I often shared some of our complaints about life, our holiday dreams and work frustrations. She was aware of the latest two arrows that I had received. They were not small arrows like the past. They were arrows in addition to my current expanding portfolio and in this peak time when we were swarmed by the annual costing exercise. These arrows were tasks of another colleague who seemed to be experiencing some personal crisis.

Just as I felt that the coming months look bleak with the mountains of work and the long hours ahead, she 'pinged' me over Sametime (the only IM allowed intra-office). She asked me how I was coping. Well, you could describe me as a person with nonchalant appearance but with a soppy heart. When I received the message, I nearly broke down and cried, especially after all the late nights and the rushing from meetings to meetings during office hours.

Without intending to, I launched into my difficulties and fears. As usual, my neighbour was sympathetic. Her encouragement left me feeling I was not alone in this battle. Moreover, she not only offered a listening ear, she even offered especially when she had more experience than me in some of the things that I would be doing.

Without supportive colleagues, I was unsure how I would be able to survive through some of the challenges that I went through and would be going through.

A New Personal Record

I have broken my record of all times. I saw the clock ticking by and the sleepy bug seemed to abandon me with the ticking hour. It was 2.30 am. Nope, I have not made a typo. It was 2.30 am and I was still at my office lobby trying to hail a cab.

Suddenly, I noticed how quiet Orchard Road seemed with barely a car in sight. I was getting impatient but still fully awake. Tonight, I would again have practically no sleep.

By the time I reached home, it would be around 3 am. By then, sleep seemed to elude me. I was getting frustrated with the speed that I was falling asleep, knowing that in 4 hours' time, I would have to get up and drag myself to office again. Today, in four hours' time, I knew I would practically zombied through the day. My only little wish was that I could end the day slightly earlier and not go through another 2 am night. I knew my adrenalin could only last me at most 3 days and beyond that, I would collapse for at least a week.

I should think no more and concentrate on getting to sleep.

Crackers?!

Crackers?! was the performance for the closing ceremony of Singapore Arts Fest 2009. It was a free visual treat with videos, colours and fireworks. Of course, I was there for the fireworks. I was never tired of fireworks despite its transient nature. It was truly spectacular and awesome. Enjoy the pictures.

Half-day Off

As part of the cost cutting measures, the company decided to do away with the annual Dinner & Dance totally. Instead, a smaller budget was allocated to each department to have their decentralised mingling session. We decided to spend it on good food - buffet lunch.

Actually, what we were looking more towards was the afternoon off after the lunch. Nearing the end of the buffet, we were constantly checking out watches and showing huge hints of impatience of wanting to go off. Come on, Orchard Road was literally a breath away. The shopping centres beckoned. Every minutes count especially when it was only the second week of the Great Singapore Sale.

When we could finally went off, we basked in the air of freedom and shopping on a weekday afternoon. Wow, it was truly liberating! This is what I called "a life".

When the Novelty Wears Off...

I lost count the number of times I have been to Carousel at the Royal Plaza on Scotts. From the initial being extremely wowed by the variety and quality of the food, I remain impressed but slightly bored by the buffet.

This time round, the hotel has added added new and more exotic seafood to their cold-cut section. There was more types of crabs and shell seafood such as the bamboo clams. There are still various sections to cater to the various palates such as sushi, cold-cut seafood, salad, cooked food, local flavours (which consisted Hainanese chicken rice, dim sum, laksa), grilled meat and pasta, bread, Indian, dessert and chocolate fondue sections. The ambience and decor remained contemporary and clean. Being a large group, we were seated at one of the rooms - The Straits Room with high back leather chairs and velvet walls - a truly luxurious experience.

However, the time for the buffet has shortened from the previous ending time of about 3 pm to the current 2pm with last order around 1.30pm. We were disappointed as the eating time of 12 to 2 pm were simply too short for us to thoroughly and leisurely sample the good food. Moreover, as the novelty wore off, the impressiveness of the buffet seemed to ween off. With the higher price of close to $52 per pax, I started to feel that it was not as good value for money as before.

Nevertheless, for those who preferred variety and quality, Carousel remained one of the better choices among the hotels.

Lunch with Mr Goh and Mr Ong

It has been so long since I met up with my ex-colleagues that I forgot about how entertaining our banter of teasing and jokes can be. It has been so long since I have such a good laugh during lunch hour. Three years had passed us by. Yet, the teases that we had of one another seemed not to bore us.

Three years on, we were still teasing about Mr Goh's disappearing act to KL during one of the critical project where turnaround time was short. Three years on, we were still teasing about Mr Ong's job change. Three years on, we were still teasing about my idealism (to the point of naivete) of my job change. Three years on, we kept going about the same point when we met but never tired of them. It seemed as though time had stopped from the time we went our separate ways.

Three years on, there were new developments for all of us. Yet, no matter what challenges that Mr Ong and Mr Goh faced, they seemed to still see the bright side of things. Despite shouldering more problems, they continued to cheer me up with their light-hearted take of life. Three years on, I still felt encouraged when I saw them.

Three years on, I realised I missed this banter with them without worrying about embarrassing myself in front of them or how they would take some of my not-so-pleasant comments. Although I had not told them in person, I was very glad and touched when Mr Goh and Mr Ong offered to travel all the way from the west to my office just to have lunch with me. In fact, when my pleasant colleagues heard about this, they were rather envious of the friendship that we had managed to sustain.

Three years on, thanks Mr Goh and Mr Ong for still remembering me.

Bitter is the New Black

This is a memoir by Jen Lancaster whose sarcastic comments about her life post retrenchment after the dotcom burst was discovered and published. It chronicled how she had fallen from a diva ditzy heights with her successful career to an old-time low when she was out of job for about 2 years. Her haughtiness and positivism about finding a job after she lost her high-flier one shedded as she received no interviews despite sending numerous applications. This was aggravated when she was dismissed as having irrelevant skills when she went for temping positions. When her boyfriend was also let go, they had to move out of their house and risked being evicted for not having money to pay rent. Fortunately, the situation brightened when her husband eventually found job and she was offered a publishing contract.

At the start of the book, I was slightly baffled by the haughtiness and menace that Jen exhibited towards her colleagues and her loathing towards anyone who seemed less successful than her. In fact, her early success in life had left her a little obnoxious, especially with her rather blatant outburst of displeasure.

However, as she met with more and more failures, she gained humility. She learnt from her past mistakes especially her spendthrift behaviour when times were good. At the same time, I realised that beneath her caustic armour, she in fact was quite naive. She was cheated of her ideas by a company who invited her to numerous interviews and even asked her to make a business presentation and still not recruited her. She was bypassed for a position because her excolleague whom she had confided in betrayed her.

With her heartfelt outpouring of these emotion roller-coasters when she overcome her biggest financial challenge after the dotcom burst and 9-11 terrorism act, I was increasingly enraptured and captivated. I also learnt from some of the mistakes that she had made.

• We should certainly save for rainy days when times are good because we will never know how long it will take to get out of the doldrums.
• We should try for all positions available once we are out of the job rather than harbouring hope of securing another high-pay job where we have left off.
• We should not offer sympathies and unsolicited advice to other people unless we have been through the same situation. For eg, when she was out of job, the readers of her website actually asked her to apply for a retail position since she was sales trained, not knowing that she had been rejected many times when she applied.
• No matter how bad times are, we should always keep the positivism. It was with her optimism that she managed to take a light-hearted view of her predicament and continued with life while her husband struggled with depression.

For those who fear retrenchment or who has once undergone retrenchment, this is a good book which offers advice in an unconventional manner.

Nice Claypots

I always hold an irrational soft spot for the traditional utensils and crockery. Somehow food cooked using claypots will be more flavourful than that using a slow cooker. Stir-fries from the large round-based Chinese woks will certainly be more tasteful than that of the latest Teflon-lined steel frying pans.

However, it is quite difficult to locate good food using these traditional cooking wares as they are often more fragile and cooks more slowly. Hence, for the more bourgeois businessman, these tools are simply too inefficient. Moreover, in world where our schedule is packed from day to night, few has the patience to wait for half an hour or more for their food to be served.

Therefore, when one can find a good claypot stall, it can warm your heart and of course, your stomach tremendously. Of course, it can get abit boring when we wait for the food to be cooked, but our resolve to wait strengthens as the aroma wafts around. How I hope I can have a bowl of rice now. My mouth waters. When the claypot tofu and the pig's innards are served, I cannot wait to start tucking in.

Sorry, I cannot write anymore as I cannot let the good food wait. *Grin*

Double Shock

Work has gone back to the more manageable time-table and routine since the completion of the budget and all quarterly activities. I was able to have more time to plan for the new year's template and to look at the more important but critical things. Yet, we know that life is never predictable and when it gets too comfortble, there will be new challenges that will be dished out.

My boss suddenly wanted me to take over 2 major projects of another colleague as he was having difficulty coping. Alas, there went my hope of enjoying some peace and quiet. In addition, these 2 projects had very short turnaround time, so I had to meet up with the leader of one of the projects on Saturday afternoon to go through the knowledge transfer.

Sigh!

Kind to Friends

We are always told that we should be truthful and sincere with our friends. Sometimes, friends are meant to offer genuine advice which may not be immediately obvious to us. However, in some circumstance, such advice can be unpleasant to the ears. Then, what should you as a friend do? Should you charge ahead and ignore the hurt that you may be infringing on your dearest friend? Or do you sweetcoat it and risk your dearest friend missing the entire point?

What would you do?