hello
Haha thanks kwa for associating me with such pretty flowers!! I'm super honoured..:) i havent blogged for more than 3/4 of a year i think..somehow i find myself at a loss for words! looking at kwa's post i cant help feeling that my time this year hasn't really been spent that meaningfully thus far..it's good to have some form of working experience of cos, but my work sometimes really borders on the most mindless and repetitive of tasks..still, each day brings sth new becos theres no knowing what my colleagues or bosses will ask me to do..as you all know by now, my work has ranged from tasks that are menial (cleaning/dusting/packing/making tea/folding shirts) to repetitive (fotocopying an entire book/sticking stickers/writing cards/searching for tel numbers) to physically draining (climbing up a hill to deliver stuff/delivering mail/retrieving stuff from storerooms) to totally random (searching for old invoices/checking stuff)..the most challenging tasks ive handled that remotely requires more brain work are some very basic accounts n drafting of an email..thankfully, im beginning to appreciate the few colleagues I have more with the passing of time (as opposed to the first day when i came back disheartened and sickened)..ive got used to their brand of humour, their way of talking and i no longer dislike some while i genuinely like some a lot.. and im quite thankful in the sense that they've been quite forgiving of my never ending list of blunders thus far (though i m a little irked when one of them always laughs at my stupidity, its a little patronising the way she does it!) though they arent passionate abt their work (theres hardly a day without someone on leave; makes me wonder how many days of leave they can take) they certainly adhere to high standards of perfection in their work and are amazingly meticulous..and the other temp's nice too..we started communicating by msn at work today..quite funny cos we can hear each other's typing when we chat..
still i cant help feeling that i havent exactly learnt much from my work..yes thats always that intangible "experience" everyone speaks so highly of, but when I think about it i havent improved much essentially in the way i deal with things..ive realised to my horror that i'm not the most meticulous and careful of pple and i can be HIGHLY inefficient..its alright when i only have one task on hand but on days when different pple pile me with work i flounder-and cant decide whose to priortise esp when everyone tells me theirs is urgent ..i have so much more to learn-and i want to change-but i dont quite know how..
call me mercenary but the best part of work i think is the pay..getting the payslip thru mail is one of the most exciting experiences..tho i din manage to hit a thousand for the first month cos of 2 days of leave (and it will be even worse with CNY and results coming out) its nice to tell my mum I help u pay for this la! when shes hesitating over sth to buy though in the end she always pays..fillial me has given a treat to my parents though muahaha.. anyway i dont know if its foolish, but ive started recording my daily expenses from my very expensive transport fare to the occasional Hello panda and eight days i splurge on..ive become quite money conscious in a sense..esp when i think of the future..i already noe what the proverbial rainy day will be for me..or for my family rather.
speaking of the future all of u have already made up your minds on what to do! or at least partially in the case of bin..im the only one..i cant believe it..the future is like some vague misty distance that i just avoid thinking of..all i noe is that i want a good income:( i feel depressed and lousy just talking about it..and i dont even feel the urge to do some research on the future possiblities..one problem with working is that i lapse and slump into a total state of bonelessness the moment i reach home..i feel no incentive to do any of the meaningful things i resolved to do earlier-and i just slack away with the justification that ive been slogging at work earninng my meagre income:(:(
haiz..how have ur cny hols been? as always i loved mine..looking forward to seeing u all soon!!!!!!!!!!!!!! tmr to be exact!! happy cny nway!
more on 2007..
hey, i wanted to continue my post, but the silly homepage forced me to do some weird things to the account. it said must transfer some rubbish. and being rather blog illiterate, i didn't really see a way around it. so i just followed it's instructions. hope i didn't screw things up to much. anyway, i'm sure the computer geniuses who generously help to maintain this blog can reverse it if what i just did was really detrimental, right.. in any case, they said now have to log in wif some google account. so i just used my own normal email. so if any of you can't log in, can try that.. really hope everything isn't too messed up.
continuing with my rather boring entry, after i was done at the law firm, i got another temp job through the job agent. it was an admin assistant job for 2 weeks with a mnc, draeger medical. 2 weeks was just right. any longer and think i'd be expert at playing freecell and hearts. the company's a german company that supplies medical equipment to most of the hospitals in singapore, like respirators and baby logs (still figuring out wat exactly that is). helped out in the accounts department, which basically consisted of one other person, cos the other girl quit, and they hadn't found anyone new yet, which is why i was there i guess. so this one other person in the accounts department (the accounts analyst) was sort of like my boss cos i worked directly under her, tho it was supposed to be the finance manager. must say i'm really fortunate that this accounts analyst was really really nice to me. she's a rather soft spoken person, the kind who will quietly do all the work piled on her, so in the end she kana bullied a bit i think. she works part time, meaning up to 2.30, but always ends up going back around the same time as me, which is 5.30. but she was saying that if she works full time, she'd prob go back at 8 even tho the official time is 5.30, so better still work part time, then can spend more time at home since she claims she's getting old. apart from meeting really nice, fun and lively people (the logistics department was in the next row and the engineering department nearby too), i didn't too much besides right checks, help put the files in order, pack cupboards, data entry..
the most exciting part of that 2 weeks was the pre-cny days. was invited to the company cny lunch on wed. it was at a chinese restaurant nearby, boon lay raja restaurant or something like that. it was interesting to see all the guys sit at one table and all the gals at other. thot this sort of thing doesn't happen in the working world, sounds childish right.. then when the guys table started tossing the raw fish salad, the big boss, this german guy, exclaimed "wat a mess!"..haha.. a lady at our table (the finance manager) jokingly told him off, said cannot say this kind of inauspicious thing..haha.. then for dessert we had this typical chinese thing. with my lousy chinese, didn't know wat it meant. only knew it sounded like ice cream in chinese and apparently it was some part of the frog. frog lens or something? anyway, it was nice and sweet so i just ate it. but the finance manager refused to eat it. then after glancing across to the other table and seeing that the big boss was half way thru his share, she asked him, "claus, do u know wat's that?".. then she kindly informed him that it was some weird part of the frog, and the poor guy didn't have another spoon of it after he found out. then on fri, the big boss went around giving out hong bao and 2 oranges to each staff. it was quite odd to see this german guy walking around the office with a stash of hongbaos sticking out from his breast pocket.. nonetheless, i was pretty glad to be on the receiving end, it was quite a bonus :) so i had a happy ending to my last day of work. my pay hasn't come in tho, i'm still waiting, they had better pay me!
apart from work, spent half a day at my uncle's clinic. went in on a saturday since i cldn't find any other day since i was working. was supposed to be in at 8.45, so i got a rude shock when he called my up at 7.45 (was still fast asleep), and asked if i wanted to see a semi-emergency surgery. so i jumped out of bed, half brushed my teeth (before deciding there wasn't enuf time), changed, haf washed my face, before he was outside my gate. girls can't get ready in 10 minutes right.. didn't even have time to put on my contacts on comb my hair. anyway, no regrets, cos it was the first surgery i saw, and must say it was pretty interesting. he was doing a cesarean for this woman who for i dunno wat reason had to deliver prematurely. by the time i entered the operating theatre (took so long to get changed cos i was so unfamiliar wif everything), the patient was already anaesthesized, and the dr had already started. thot i'd faint at the sight of everything, cutting a person right across the abdomen and seeing everything inside (shan't go into details), but it wasn't that bad somehow. in fact, it was rather interesting to see how they did things. with such ease (guess it comes with experience) that the dr was just chatting away to the anaesthetist throughout the whole surgery..anyway, the baby was tiny, it was 30 weeks, which is 10 weeks early, but i heard he's doing fine now! so that's great! spent the rest of the morning in the clinic, seeing ultrasound scan, all these anxious and excited couples, some even came with the whole entourage or grandparents and what not.. guess it's understandable.. all in all, it was interesting (limited vocab u see), much more than office work, so shall go hunt for hosp attachments..
that's pretty much bout all the "useful" stuff i've done this yr. a long and rather boring post. i'll continue to blogging some other time..
bin and oeh, must write somethng.. u both haven't written anything for ages! must be more dutiful like me :)
2007 so far..
i haven't blogged in ages, possibly half a year? and i haven't come here in ages too, so was kind of surprised to see the new template. but it's nice! and refreshing! so scenic, so like deb. and the flowers somehow remind me of xiao gui..
life without school has been rather different. i'm not sure if i prefer it. come to think of it, i don't quite miss school yet. yeah i did enjoy having frens around for almost half the day everyday, and not having to decide what to wear each day and worry about having worn it 2 days earlier, but there's a part of the JC memory that still saddens me and makes me bitter, a raw wound that is easily provoked and brings tears to my eyes. didn't even know i cld get so emotional. i guess we discover more about ourselves each day..shan't dwell into it here.
spent my first few days of this year hanging around a dermatologist, trying not to be too much of an obstruction. felt rather awkward and out of place at first i didn't even know where to put myself when there were no patients. also got pretty faintish at the sight of an open wound and thot i'd never do medicine cos i simply cldnt take that aspect. realized it just took some time to get used to.
got my first official job at a law firm. glad that i managed to get a classmate who was also looking for a job to come with me. made the job much more interesting. with someone to talk to each day, really helps. must say that i found it interesting, to find out how things work in a law firm, the legal procedures to buying properties. my summary is, they like to do tonnes of paperwork. they like to sound cheem by removing all the punctuations from the entire paragraph. the pple there were really nice tho. there was this whole row of secretaries sitting outside our room and they are terribly amusing sometimes. thot the working environment was rather pleasant, except for the high stress level. u actually see some of em running down the corridors trying to catch a certain delivery timing. office politics didn't show up too much, at least not within a month. met a few more contract staff there too. there's this gal from acjc and another from rj. they came together and are church frens. had dinner with them the last day. they're pretty frenly. amusingly, the one from rj only noes deb as the one who had some interesting story going on in sch *grinz*
spent longer then expected at the law firm cos we kept extending. in the end it was about a month. super happy when i got my first pay cheque tho, and rather pleased they don't have cpf. and they generously gave us transport and meal allowance when we did OT past 8pm.
actually still got quite a lot more to rattle about regarding my 2007 so far, but i'm too tired le.. i'll continue some other time..
