Chicken Feet Noodles - A Delicacy

The chicken feet noodles at Hong Lim Food Centre was one of the most well-known wanton / chicken feet noodles in Chinatown. With the training centre within 5 minute walk from hawker centre, how could I miss the noodles?

Hong Lim Food Centre was a popular food centre among many foodies. Quite a number of the best-of-the-best local food could be found here. This included the Hong Lim curry chicken noodles, the fried kway teow and the wanton noodles.

The wanton noodle stall was located on the second level. It was hard to miss the stall for there was often a visible queue in front of the stall since the stall promoted self-service among the patrons. The front of the stall was also decorated with many newspapers cuttings pronouncing its good flavour. Despite the fame, the stall owners and helpers were still friendly as they attempted to take each order. The wanton noodles came in $2.50 and $3 per plate choice. The chicken feet noodles was slightly more expensive at $3 or $3.50 per plate.

When I was served, I was slightly taken aback by the generous servings of noodles and chicken feet. There were 3 big chicken feet. The feet was tender and juicy without being too mushy. The flesh and the skins easily peeled off from the bones by just sucking on it. There was also generous serving of green vegetables and mushroom. For someone who was not a big eater, I felt terribly full after finishing the whole plate. Although I was tempted to give up halfway to avoid over-eating, the good flavour kept me going. Moreover, wasting food was a waste.

This was one of the best chicken feet noodles I had tasted for a long time.

Juggling Working and Studying

Studying - something that I seemed to have lost the skill for. My mind was inpenetrable to all the new concepts. Unfortunately, this course required that all participants sit for a test at the end of the course. Hence, no matter how difficult it was for me to concentrate and remember the concepts, I had to persevere. Failing was certainly not an option.

I finally could experience the stress of part-time study. Not only did I had to go home and revise the lessons for the day in preparatio of the test, I had to go home and work. In fact, to save time, I would also work during the lunch and tea breaks so that I could minimise the amount of catch-up awaiting me after a four-day course.

By the time I hit home after lessons, I would start to work from 7 plus until 10 at night. Although it was only day 2, I started to feel the stress especially when during the activities time, my course mates seemed more familiar than I did on the application of the concepts.

I probably had to spend the weekend mugging to ensure that I passed my test next Tues.

Start of Six Sigma Certification

Getting Lean Six Sigma certification is a journey. It requires 8 days of intensive training with a test and an exam. The certification is only complete with the project. Getting the certification is a journey.

Initially, I was rejoicing the break away from work even though this was not a good time to be away from work as my mentee would be joining the company soon. Moreover, my colleague who was taking my portfolio was just back from her maternity and before I had time to hand over, I would be leaving her to fend for herself.

Nevertheless, it still felt exuberating to be able to be intellectually simulated. This was when I heard that the instructor was a professor from the Australian Graduate School of Management. Lean Six Sigma was also one of the modules in MBA which meant I could get a free tutoring of a MBA module at company's expense.

I was certainly looking forward to the next few days of classroom.

New Role - Mentoring

There would be a new management associate joining the company next month. This management associate program was newly created to encourage more department heads to recruit fresh graduates. My boss has decided to appoint me as a mentor for this management associate.

Mentor? It sounds like heavy responsibility especially to someone new to the company and someone new to the workforce. Whatever I do or say will likely etch on the memory of this newbie.

My impatience can also get pretty out of hand when I am short of time and becomes extremely task-oriented. Will this also dampens the spirit and ideals of the newcomer? How do I strike a balance between getting my point across and work done versus coaching for him to gain experience?

I am excited about this role as it is a good opportunity for me to develop my soft skills, especially in coaching. Yet, this will be added to my already ballooning portfolio. Do I have time and energy to do a good job. At this point, I am still filled with apprehension.

Importance of Primary School

Recently, Chrys has been fretting about the enrolment of her first son into primary school. She has shortlisted a few schools which fell within one kilometer radius from her home. However, it seemed that despite her proximity to these schools, she would only stand a 40% chance of getting her son into these schools during the balloting. I have never expected competition to be this fierce for primary school enrolment.

To me, the choice of the primary school is important but not as important as secondary school or junior college. My preferred primary school is one that is near to the home of the student so that he needs not spend unnecessary time on travelling. Moreover, travelling can be tiring especially with the early start time of school days.

If a child can be enrolled into a SAP school, it will certainly be good. However, parents should also be aware that once you are in a SAP school, your child will be exposed to intense competition from a tender age as meritocracy and strive to excellence will be some of the values strongly inculcated. If you child is still not mentally strong enough to withstand these pressures, the competition can stump instead of catalyse the development of the child. In the worst case scenario, it can atrophy the joy of learning.

I have very fond memories of my primary school. I believe my primary school days help lay very strong foundation of my quest for learning and my determination for giving my best. It is a place where I have the most enjoyable time of all my study years. I remember the wild days of running around the school field during recess time playing ET with my classmates. I remember stealing all the valuable time before assembly for our zero-point training and keeping it from my mum. My mum barred me from doing zero-point because I was growing taller than other kids my age and she was afraid I was suffering from gigantism.

Despite being a neighbourhood school, my teachers were as proud of us as if we were the brightest students in Singapore. They encouraged us to take part in the Singapore Youth Festival despite the choir group only forming six months before the competition. My teacher actually ferried me to a National Chinese Essay Writing Competition. We might not have won the competition but we felt we had won just by participating.

It is because of these enjoyable times that I like going to school and that I have confidence that I can achieve as long as I believe and work hard. I see the same passion and confidence in my of my friends who are also from neighbourhood school. Would I have been able to achieve more if my parents had enrolled me in a SAP primary school instead? I don't know. However, I am certain that despite graduating from a neighbourhood primary school, I too can do my part to the society.

Change of Portfolio Again

Although this is my second job after I graduated, it feels as if this is the 6th to 7th job I am having.

In first job, I was fortunate to have bosses who were willing to offer opportunities for me to gain exposure to various aspects of finance. Within operations, I had ventured into billing and collection and later procurement and payables. During my stint in operations, I was lucky to participate in the financial policies review which was more on control and policies. Later, I was moved to management accounting which focused on budget and reporting before ending my first job at financial accounting where I had to revisit all my financial standards for statutory reporting.

In this job, I have been in management accounting all these while but I had a chance to support for the performance of a product as well as reporting of a department. Most of my peers were either in product performance or department performance. Even within products I had moved across several products where I seemed to change one product yearly.

There are often both pros as well as cons associated with changing portfolio. The pros include an exciting time with no room for boredom. The cons include a steep learning curve almost constantly. Just as I thought I could be comfortable doing something arising from familiarity, it was time for the carousel to turn again.

I wonder how long I will stay in this current portfolio.

Senki Japanese Restaurant at Cuppage Terrace

I was at the Senki Japanese Restaurant at Cuppage Terrace to celebrate Chrys' birthday. It was a recommendation from another colleague who had been there before. The set meal which consisted of a main course, a salad and a soup cost about $9 per set. This was extremely good deal.

There were four sets to choose from which included ugagi (grilled eel) and grilled beef. I chose the grilled unagi set.

The salad consisted of prickles and fresh greens served with balsamic vinegar. The unagi came with a rice and miso soup. I had not eaten so succulent and fleshy for a long time. The unagi was also deboned nicely without any remaining bones which could sometimes killed the eating experience. Often, one of the reasons I might avoid unagi was that some of the chefs did not debone the fiah nicely and the remaining bones could make the eating a hassle. The fish was also grilled nicely with slight crisp but without any burning at the thin end of the fish.

It was definitely a value-for-money set.

Boot Camp for Six Sigma

The boot camp was designed specifically for the six sigma project team to get to know one another better and to understand basic concepts of lean six sigma as well as the project. After the boot camp, we were supposed to have a project charter and team responsibilities ready.

Through the 2-day boot camp, I knew about the problems better. I also got to know the issues faced by the various parties better. It was indeed an eye-opener. Being new to lean six sigma, I was also overwhelmed by the many concepts and terms that floated around the classroom for the 2-day.

I was excited by the prospect of being in the team and being able to hear so much about the same issue from the various parties. It helped me better appreciate the work done by the various parties from the receipt of a customer request to the billing of the customer revenue.

Arrow Shot!

My boss's boss asked me once again if I had thought through what he mentioned.

I chose my words carefully by being upfront with him on my concerns which included my fear of not being able to contribute to the project as much as my other colleague. I also highlighted the disconnect when my colleague did the operational work while I did the project. Such disconnect could be better streamline if both the operational work and project fell under one person.

After hearing my monologue, he also shared with me why he had decided to choose someone with less experience for the job.

Firstly, he thought this would be a good opportunity for me to be exposed to work of a different nature. Secondly, he thought that being less entrenched in the issues of the past, I would be able to bring a fresh perspective to the work. Both his points were valid and provided strong grounds which made it difficult for me to decline.

He also suspected my ultimate concern about the workload even when I had not told him directly. He assured me that he could always do reshuffling of the work if the project became too effort and time consuming. Finally, he asked if he could allay all my fears, I would want to give the project a try.

What could I say? It seemed illogical and unreasonable for me not to accept the opportunity that came knocking when my boss's boss seemed to provide all the necessary support.

Sensing my reservations, he finally asked if I could leave the decision to him and my boss to decide who should head this project. I nodded my head but I needed not to hear his final decision. I already knew that I would lead this project. The question remaining would be how my other porfolio would change accordingly.

It was time to pack my bags to start a 2-day bootcamp the next day.

Visit to the Doctor Again

I wondered if it was the stress, the lack of sleep or the tenacity of the virus that kept my cough going for more than 2 weeks. I was coughing to the point that it kept me awake at night. The lack of sleep aggravated the recovery. With the current rampant H1N1 cases, it was not wise for me to prolong the recovery. It was time for me to visit the doctor again.

The last time I had cough, I also took ages to recover. I hated coughs because it made you feel lethargic all the time. The cough also seemed to improve its intensity and frequency towards the night when it was the best time to rest. I recalled it took me several bottles of the cough syrups before I could fully recover. I had to take an extra strong medicine to recover.

Knowing that this medicine work, I had requested for this cough syrup during the first visit to the doctor. Disappointingly, the office clinic did not carry such medicine. I was dismissed with the normal brown sweet cough syrup. Needless to say, even after finishing the entire bottle of the cough syrup, I had not recovered.

When I heard that my colleague Pink went to the clinic opposite my office and obtained the cough syrup I was looking for, I waited no longer. I went to the doctor and told him about my condition. He insisted on prescribing antibiotics despite my expressing of strong apprehension of needing it. Before I left, I specifically asked him to prescribe me the cough medicine in a box (not the off-the-shelf brown syrup).

I was relieved when I finally laid my hands on the cough syrup that cured me previously. I could finally see an end to my cough.

Barbecue @ Home

My sister decided to host a barbecue at home and with her friends. Initially, we were still contemplating if we should gather both her and my friends together. Subsequently, I decided to hold a separate gathering for my friends instead as my place was not exactly a mansion and the barbecue area was quite cosy (euphemism for squeezy).

We were quite excited as this would be the first time we tried a barbecue caterer who would marinate all the food and deliver to our home. All we had to do is to set up the fire and put the food on the fire to cook them. In addition to barbecue food, the menu also included staples such as fried noodles.

Her first friends starting arriving at around half past five in the evening. I was all charged to help her out to ensure that she and her friends could have a wonderful time. However, it was dampened slightly by the haughty attitude of one of her friends. She made me feel like I was intruding on their gathering.

She walked into our home blatantly ignoring my presence even though I was there to greet her, her husband and her mother as guests. Strangely what honour we had for her mother to grace this occasion was beyond me as I believed it should be a gathering for friends and their spouses at most.

She continued to venture around the house unchaperoned as if she owned the house, with the entourage of her mother and her husband. I started to seethe with anger but contained myself to prevent the evening starting off on a bad note.

When the fire was started, the trio started eating huge amount of the food even before any other guest arrived. Not knowing how many more people we were expecting and whether they were big eaters, I cautioned my sister to 'hint' to the trio that there were more guests expected. My sister oblivious to the inconsideration of the trio was reluctant to halt the continual eating of this trio. At this juncture, I felt like stepping forward and directly told off the trio.

Shortly, when another lone friend of my sister arrived, she was again kept at bay as the trio practically hog the barbecue pit. This poor friend of my sister had to stand at one side and wait and without food. Sensing her awkwardness, I approached her to talk to her and to help my friend out while keeping an eye on the trio. Fortunately, as more friends arrived and the barbecue took on its own live, the place was no longer hogged by the trio. The evening turned up to be quite fun in the balmy weather.

In the end, I never helped much as I did not want to be seem intruding on my sister's party. Somehow, I felt that my sister needed to brush up her crowd control skills more especially with regards to the inconsiderate trio.

Gathering with Friends

Frankly, it is really time to chide myself over my complete submersion into my work for the past half a year. Somehow taking on a consolidator role meant a greater responsibility and my work life balance started to go awry. Needless to say, friends and family took a back seat with my energy and time channelled to work.

It has been ages since I gather with any friend, much less a group of friends. I was surprised that I managed to get the time of a few friends with less than a week's notice. Most of my friends have packed social calendar which require pretty advanced pre-booking.

I was pretty nervous because it was a first attempt to bring a group of friends whose only common friend was me in a single gathering. I reckoned it was a good opportunity for my friends to know my friends and to have an enjoyable evening, ie Facebook contacts in real life. Fortunately, my friends were also enthusiastic about the idea. Moreover, I guessed if there were any mismatch of frequencies, at least each of them could concentrate on their food.

All of them were shy when they first met each other. Given that I was not exactly the most spontaneous or eloquent person around, I was busy trying to think of easy topics to keep the conversations going. I was also trying to be more self-deprecating and humourous but I failed rather miserably . The jokes were lame and slapstick and did not cause much of a ripple much less enliven the group.

Mr Ong was trying his best to help me with his travel experiences. All through the night, he managed to draw more conversations for the more reserved friends with his jokes and easy banter. Phew, I really owed him a big favour for being the best ice-breaker. Towards the end of the night, the group seemed more at ease with one another and laughter was also more abundant.

I have indeed enjoyed myself, albeit slightly draining while trying to think of things to say, catching up with friends. I hope they have an equally enjoyable evening making new friends.

More Arrows Coming!

I was looking forward to the day that my colleague would be back from her maternity leave. Juggling 2 portfolios for the past 2 months not only was taking a toll on my health, it was also starting to show the first signs of break-down as I was rushing to complete the more critical and urgent tasks. There were other important issues which I had tried to put off for the time-being so that I could meet the burning deadlines first.

Just as I thought my entire ordeal would end in about two weeks' time, my boss's boss suddenly had a chat with me.

He asked me if I was interested in continuing with the project under the portfolio that I was temporarily covering. Faced with fatigue from the fire-fighting for that project for the past 2 months, my first instinct was to decline. I was looking forward to going back to my core where I felt I had the most contribution. Indeed, the ability to attend training for six-sigma and to be certified a green belt was tempting. Yet, on the other hand, if I continued, I knew I would end up with many sleepless nights.

My boss always mentioned that you could never have the cake and eat it. If you wished for a challenging job, then you could never expect to have too much of a work-life balance. If you wish for work-life balance, then your career progression would have to take a back-seat. Yes, I was fully aware of this as I too believed there could never be free lunch in this world.

Now, I was once again at the cross-road. If I declined this project, I would have to do it tactfully without appearing to be one who shied away from challenges. Yet, this might be the opportunity for me to do a high-exposure project and for me to also test my own competence. Moreover, a green belt certification in six sigma could be a highly valuable accolade to be added to be my resume. In the event that I had to move on, it would increase my marketability in the job market.

Personal development aside, I was equally concerned about my ability to contribute. After all, my colleague returning from maternity leave had more experience than me on this project. She was one of the pioneers who kicked off this project. Furthermore, I always admired her steadfastness, perseverance and merticulous attitude on work. She would definitely be able to drive it better than I do. If she were to take over this portfolio, it made sense that the project stayed with her since she would be able to translate the issues faced in operation to the improvements under the project. A separation of the operation and the project might create gaps in understanding and application.

My boss's boss asked me to think it through his proposal. Despite saying that he had not confirmed the plan and the person to be selected for this, I knew well in my heart that once he broached this subject, it was most likely that he had already made his choice.

Famous Quotes from "The Valkyries"

The Valkyries is a book by Paulo Coelho on his journey to seek out his angels. Paulo Coelho is one of the authors whose book requires a lot of mulling over and pondering whenever I read his book. Some of the things are philosophical. Everytime I run through a paragraph, I will have new insights. Here are some of the quotes from the book worth mulling over.

"Very few old people look to the future, and I'm one of them. When we look into the future, we see what it holds for us: death."

"And each man kills the thing he loves."

Orchard Central

Every morning as I passed by the underground from the train station to my office, I was entranced by the beguiling expression of the girl with doe-like eyes enlarged many times and plastered all over the wall. After being inundated with this image each time I went to work and back home, it was inevitable I was curious about what Orchard Central looked like.

After lunch with 5050 and KW, we decided to walk to Orchard Central. As usual, I was the most mountain tortoise among the 3. Both KW and 5050 had already somewhat explored the place. With them as guide, I could see more of the place in a shorter time.

The place reminded me of Langham Place in Mongkok, Hong Kong. From one end of the mall, you might not see the other and you could not see all the stores at one-shot. There was also a rock wall for rock climbing at the top of the mall. We spotted a few caucasians attempting a climb. There were also some slopes which bring you across the levels. The shop mix was slightly less common than what we saw in other malls, such as many new Japanese and Korean eateries. The boutiques were of smaller scale and cosy. There was also a rooftop garden overseeing Orchard Road.

If you have time, do drop by Orchard Central as well.

Best News in a Month

I was busy doing a high five with Chrys.

This was the best news I have heard for the past one month after wearily juggling two portfolios. My other colleague who has been seconded to a special project for a year and who will soon be coming back from maternity leave will be taking over the portfolio I am covering. Finally, I can concentrate on my core portfolio which I have cast aside for a while due to the backlogs accumulated for the covering portfolio. I can once again enjoy a better work-life balance.

All I need to do is to endure another 3 weeks as she will be back by end July.

Hurray! My heart nearly burst with a sense of relief upon hearing the news.

Cough Which Drew Much Concern

I hate coughs. Firstly, coughs these days are super long-lived often with a minimal span of 2 weeks. Secondly, to recover from coughs, there are various food that have to be avoided, such as chicken, fried and spicy items, citrus fruits, grapes and even squids. This basically comprises many common ingredients in our every day meals.

Coughs also hampers daily activities because I tend to feel weak and become breathless more easily during coughs. Coughs prevent quality sleep as drier throats in the nights mean more frequent coughs. During the audible nature of coughs, coughs also disturb people around me. Hence, I never take things lightly when I have coughs. I will try all means and go for extreme strict diet which involves avoiding many food I like to ensure a speedy recovery from coughs.

Many colleagues empathised with my recent plight of covering a departed colleague's entire portfolio. When they heard my coughs, many were also concerned that the cough was exacerbated by work stress. Although the work stress and my ailments had made me feel slightly demoralised, I was still determined to bite the bullet and persevere. However, being a softie at heart, what drove me nearly to tears was not the mounting stress and physical exhaustion. My eyes started to tear when I was showered in their concerns about my cough. I felt the tough resolve that I put up to keep it going starting to crumble.

E heard my first coughs and asked if it was just a smattering of a few coughs or it meant something serious catching on.

Tim suddenly beeped me over Sametime. I was prepared for his instruction to me to update templates or to prepare some presentation slides, typical requests of the coordinator for the budget and monthly reporting. Little did I expect his beeps to ask me how I was getting on and that I seemed to have a bad cough for he could hear me from his workstation.

Pink bought me Woods sweets which apparently worked wonders when she had coughs previously and kept urging me to take them to ease the irritance in the throat.

Lala asked me to put some Vicks on my throat before I sleep and cover myself with blanket to keep the throat warm to reduce tendency of cough at night.

My KL room-mate, L, even bought me some strong mint sweets which had worked for her previously - passed down remedy from her mother-in-law. I felt extremely guilty that she still showed me so much concern despite her being heavily pregnant.

With the concerns that my colleagues had showed, how can I not will myself and try to get well soon. With their support, I am sure I will be able to overcome the challenging deadlines and deliver. Thank you for your concern and your support. This is what draws me to office daily despite the heavy workload.

Marina Barrage

I have heard about Marina Barrage many times. It was the first reservoir in the city. The view of the interface between the city landscape and the vastness of the sea wooed many locals there weekly for walks and picnics. I held the belief that Singaporeans should be more familiar than any tourist of every corner and tourist attraction in Singapore, I ought to see and experience for myself the state-of-the art dam.

There was a free shuttle bus from Marina Bay MRT Station to ferry visitors to the Marina Barrage and back.

There was a long ramp at the entrance to guide the visitors up to the green field on the second storey. The ramp helped to make the climb less strenuous. Visitors could also more leisurely admire the CBD landscape as well as the construction of the Marina Sands IR, the Singapore Flyers and Esplanade. As one moved southwards and upwards in the climbs, the city landscape gradually gave way to the blue seas and the sea breeze cooled us down from the climb.

There were many families and friends either having picnics and games of frisbees on the green field. Many lovers of photography also perched their DSLR on their tripods at strategic locations hoping to capture the best photoes from the NDP rehearsals.

Suddenly, our ears were deafened but the whirl of the het engines as the Black Knights zoomed past us overhead towards the Floating Stage at Marina. Shortly, we heard the swirling of the propellers as the helipcopters carrying the giant National Flag flew overhead. Many visitors shouted and clapped.

There was also a fountain on the ground floor which kept many young children happy as they ran free in the raining waters which was only ankle deep. For those who wished to find out more about the efforts of PUB in water conservation and discovery, there was also a gallery which provided information on the board's efforts. If you were hungry after the information overload and playing with water, the famous 7th Storey Hotel Chinese restaurant could be found here.

I would certainly come back for more.

Running 2 Shifts

For the past 3 weeks I have been running 2 shifts a day ever since I have been asked to cover the colleague who was undergoing some personal crisis. The 2 shifts would sustain me for at least another month or so as he had finally decided to throw in the towel and tendered.

So for the past few weeks, I have left office at 6 pm but to go home and continue working till after 10 pm. Some of the work I needed catching up required intense concentration as I had to think through and be merticulous in setting up the models. Time in office simply could not allow me this luxury as I would need to answer calls to provide real-time help or attend meetings. Oh my, I never realise that my whole schedule had been bogged down with so many meetings.

Even with the extra hours I work on weekdays, I know I am still very much behind schedule if I were to meet the mid-July deadline. To catch-up on lost time, I have no choice but to work full-time on weekends except for my yoga lesson too.

To work beyond office hours and on weekends are severely disrupting my work-life balance and starting to take a toll on my passion for my work. Ah Peng jibbed that with such heavy workload, how did I expect to have time for myself or dating ('part-toh', if I may use her exact words). I replied jokingly back to her. I still did but I "part-toh" with my work instead. I held hands with my spreadsheets and stared lovingly into the formulae.

I really hoped that I would see the light at the tunnel soon. I longed to go back to the days where weekends were spent on books, exercises and with family and friends.