Time flies

A very cliché title but aptly reflects what I feel now. The cause of it, an ex-student who added me on Facebook. She told me has been looking for me so she can show me her daughter. Her daughter is 6 this year. It was 6 years ago she told me she was pregnant and had to drop out of school for a while as she had decided to give birth to the baby. It was my 2nd year into teaching. I was really traumatized. It was like a drama serial playing right before me. Anyway this was one of the more traumatizing events during teaching, think this places second compared to the suicide girl episode, which shall make into another story another time.

Anyway, through Facebook I saw pictures of her daughter and I can't believe that it's been so many years since then and her daughter is going to primary school next year! It made me feel old. It also made me question myself - what have I done all this time? Looking at myself now, I'm nowhere at all. Not working, yet not leading a tai tai life, with a bank balance hitting low soon and yet an unwillingness to go back to work, really caught in a dilemma.

Test

Test test

Never been kissed

I just spent an hour talking to a friend who tried to tell another friend of ours, M, that her current boyfriend cannot make it. It turned out that her pep talk came too late as M's cannot-make-it boyfriend had proposed. She kept asking me what to do, I told her that love blinds all flaws. If M knows what she's in for and she still wants to persist then no one can stop her. Ultimately, we are answerable to ourselves and we bear the consequences of our decisions and if we choose not to do certain things then no one can make us. Sometimes people just need to make their own mistakes and learn from there and move on. We have different priorities in our lives at different stages, afterall, she's not young anymore, maybe she thinks that this may be her last chance to jump on the bandwagon of leading a happily married life. Anyway marriage is no longer an institution . Long before I got married, people around me are already divorced and getting remarried. If she's unhappy and wants out after getting married, it's so easy to just bail out. There's no perfect man out there, it's just what you can put up with and what you can't and if you can't just leave. As I grow up, I realise that life is no longer that fairytale of happily ever after. If this thing called marriage is such a fleeting thing, then why do we even sign the papers at all? Maybe it's the idea of having signed the papers that is so appealing or maybe it has to do with the big rock behind it. We are just two imperfect people living in an imperfect world, looking for a perfect balance. Sometimes we hit the balance and sometimes not but as long as the balance is not too far off, we will continue to sit on the see-saw.

Life and death

Sighs received bad news from my mum's recent health checkup. She's diagnosed with a high probability of stuck arteries like my dad. In fact the doctor made it so serious that he insists my mum ask my dad to go down the next working day so as to talk to my dad so my dad can talk to my mum and convince her to do the op for the stent. I just hope that when she goes for the scan there's not too many stucked arteries. I fear that one day I'll suddenly become an orphan if both of them die from heart attack. Seems like a history of heart problems run in the family.

My grandma's youngest sister died from cardiac arrest in her sleep, she went to sleep one night and never woke up to see the next day. Sometimes I wonder if this is the best way to leave but then again she didn't have the opportunity to do what she wanted to do for the last time and say what she wanted to say for the last time. I wondered what kind of regret she held with her when she left. Like Steve Jobs said, after his close brush with death, he asks himself: If I were to die the next day, would I want to be doing what I'm doing today? And that became the guiding principle for all the things he does.

Then I wonder back to what the geomancer didn't tell me about what will happen to me after I turn 60. He says we'll talk about it as we get there. Sometimes I wish that I don't want to live too long and prolong the agony of being sick. Let's face it, if we are meant to die then why prolong our lives artificially just to live in misery and deplete our money on medical care only to end up in the same destination. We've all got to meet our Maker some day. So while we are alive, why shouldn't we make merry and lead a happy life? Do things that make ourselves happy and the people around us happy. The crazy man who wants to work till his death can go ahead and die at his work desk but not me.

Glee

Just watched episode 12 of Glee, I love what Mr Schu said: "The best teachers don't give you the answers. They just point the way and let you make your own choices, your own mistakes. That way, you get all the glory and you deserve it."

The scriptwriter is good! I wonder how many times in life do we really get to meet someone like that who truly inspires. Everyone needs some inspiration :)

No money no honey

July official marks the third month of bumming. Everything's great except for the diminishing bank account. From young, my parents have always instilled the good virtue of saving for a rainy day. So that's why I have them to thank that I'm able to bum around with no income now. I remember when I was little, my dad would bring us out and sometimes he'll give us money to pay for things and then tell us to keep the change and that's how I start amassing my wealth on top of the regular pocket money. I think it's also the Taurus in me that compels me to save as Taureans cannot stand financial insecurity. We live on beautiful things and in order to do that we need money or so that's what the horoscope says. I'm not sure I'm that into beautiful things but money I sure am. Actually these three months I've also been living with the nagging voice behind my head saying that: YOU NEED AN INCOME. Then again the procrastinator in me has only led me to apply for jobs that's countable by the fingers on one hand. I need to look for a job MORE ACTIVELY so I've promised myself that if I find a job by next month, I'm going to buy a ticket to Sydney and hang around there for a week with K.M. and she definitely have to bring me to that cook's heaven where I'm loading all that cooking stuff back!

Ideal life

I wish I lead an ideal life where love is not an issue;

I wish I lead an ideal life where money is not an issue;

I wish I lead an ideal life where health is not an issue;

I wish I lead an ideal life where happiness is not an issue.

But would we know the ideal life when it's staring at us in the face?

We were once young

After the boh liao day where we spent the afternoon looking at ex-students' photos, every time I login to FB I will start looking for more of these ex-students and silently stalk their FB page. Thankfully I changed my FB privacy settings, it's scary what you can find.

Last week's ultimate shock was: Short and lame boy from my second form class became the boyfriend of the sweetest and hardworking girl in class and they only got together recently! So now I know who's the one the girl has been holding a torch for but still... what an unusual choice!

Some other recent snippets: The boy from my first form class that gave me a photoframe has a girlfriend, the girl from Miss L's class that was actually a sweet girl gone bad but gone good again from her latest updates and blog but still don't like studying I see,the butch looking basketball girl looked more butch, the chor lor girl who plays both netball and basketball straightened her frilly hair, fat boy who used to be called up for skipping fitness club now looked sooooo thin.....

Some have girlfriends or boyfriends now, reading their love stories reminds me of the time when love was simple: You love me, I love you. No worrying about what colour of flowers for the wedding, balloting for house, having kids etc.

And how makeup can change the girls! The short scrawny boys has grown up. The fat ones have all slimmed down. The once slim ones have turned fat! All look so different now, I bet I can't recognize them if we pass each other down the road. Sometimes I do get the occassional student calling me on the streets and I don't remember who they are but it's scarier when I think about those who never call me and then secretly telling their friend, "Neh, that day I saw that Ms T that was teaching POA, wah she look so old and fat now!"

Those years in school was a trying time and age for them and those trying to teach them but the bottomline is these whom I checked up on all turned out fine in the end :)

Lazy blogger

Yes, I admit I am a very lazy blogger. I have all the time in the world now but yet the last thing that come across my mind is to blog. So what have I been doing all this time?

1) Giving tuition every Sat to a fat boy whose mum is scarily domineering and she still claimed that she's not. Poor boy has school till 5pm on some days during school days and his weekends are used for tuition. I know that at least on Sat, he's on for 2 sessions of tuition. One in the morning for mine and second one in the afternoon for some other subject.

2) Doing housework. Now I truly appreciate the meaning of being a housewife. One day can be washing clothes, folding clothes; another day ironing; another day vacuuming and washing the floors; another day cleaning the rest of the house that's dusty; another day trying to tidy up areas of the house that's messy and the whole cycle starts again. So there's really no end to housework. Think the most permanent job in the world is to be a housewife because you will never run out of chores.

3) Cooking. Was fervently cooking away in May but come June because my guinea pig is away most of the month, I stopped cooking and the kitchen felt unfamiliar. When I decide to cook again, I met with my first utter cooking failure for the first time in my kitchen - a failed souffle. Very disappointed, I wonder when I will have the courage to attempt the souffle again. Luckily cooking other stuff didn't turn out bad so I'm cooking once again in July.

4) Play games. Namely, Restaurant City on Facebook. My ex-colleague says that I am cooking in real life and virtual life as well. Haha.... when the going gets stressful, the stressed plays game! The only thing that can take my mind off for a while is to play games. I used to be an avid gamer on MapleStory but have stopped since I got married because partly, I didn't have the proper hardware to play games with. So now there's Facebook, playing online games are easier because I don't have to download anything, just login to FB will do. And then there's the iPhone which can get pretty addictive too with all those apps! Hmmm... speaking of Restaurant City, one of these days I shall attempt to recreate the dishes in RC in my own kitchen!

5) Watch tv. I've become a tv addict especially during the afternoons. I scroll between the chinese programs with its singing reality shows and Discovery travel and living. Occassionally I will switch to Asian Food Channel to see what they're cooking. But usually I will multi-task while I watch tv so I will be ironing away and watching tv.

6) Holiday. Went to Taiwan, the one that started the whole saga which ended in me resigning from my job so that I can go for a 1 week holiday. It was a good holiday but 1 week was really too short. Too many things to do and see but so little time! I must go back again!! I so enjoyed all the sightseeing, eating and company of my best friend.

7) Going out with friends. I try to go out as little as I can for the simple reason of saving money because every going out is associated with spending money and I would want to try to avoid that as far as possible as I have little or no income for the time being. But no man is an island and I need to be in touch with civilization and good company from time to time so going out became an unavoidable thing.

8) Shuttling between mum's place, granny's place and mother-in-law's place for free meals. Pretty self-explanatory statement. But it's a bit of a hassle as I have to pretend that I'm working so I have to dress up in work wear, put on make-up etc just to go for a meal. So some weeks I don't cover all 3 places.

9) Looking for a job. I figure that I eventually still need a stable income that can bring in the cash for my cpf to pay for the house loan so there's no chance of me going freelance until I'm debt-free. However, my attempt at looking for a job has only been lukewarm. Till this point in time, I've probably only sent out 1 resume which I got a call from the job agency last weekend saying that they will submit it to the employer. Well, shall see how it turned out. In the meantime, got to be more active.

So that's the story of my non-working life. There's actually a lot to do when one's not working. If only money falls down from the sky then I can continue leading this kind of life!

Early days of not working

I left my workplace of more than 2 years with a heavy heart. My last day I was truly feeling sad when I bade my colleagues farewell. I'm a closet egoist. I love the feeling of being loved by everybody. And it was a sucky feeling knowing that so many people would have offered to reach out and helped me if I had just told them I wanted to look for something new in the company. Instead, I chose to leave over an asshole who didn't deserve my committment to the job.

As with all places, everytime I leave, there are lessons to be learnt. This episode I learnt that nobody is indispensable. If I can be replaced easily in terms of doing the job then how important am I? Hence why the need to sell my soul to a job. Probably my only value-add is that I truly get along well with everyone except that one person. Even then in the end I still chose not to burn the bridges and finished up all the outstanding work. I guess I should be honoured that he even sent me a thank you email when he didn't do the same for my 2 other colleagues. Or maybe he had an ulterior motive because I was a permanent staff and he also copied all his managers (yes, again) and some other big shots who may or may not have the need to know in that email.

Replacement Minion *Updated*

Well well well, as usual(AGAIN) His Highness, for unfathomable reasons, did not tell me that the replacement minion is coming in tomorrow. I found out from the poor minion that was asked to go fetch the replacement tomorrow morning. How apt, catch me on my last day!

Anyway from a separate source, it was said that my replacement is 1) a MBA holder, 2) with working experience. Wow, I must say I'm honoured that they needed to hire such a high level person to come do my puny job. I wonder which part of the job description did His Highness tweaked. He should show me the JD so I can copy that into my resume. Let's hope the replacement minion has a stronger heart than me and will at least stay around longer. More updates on the replacement minion tomorrow when I get to meet her. :)

*Updates*
Haha sending someone in on the last day is definitely not a good choice as leaving minion has more important things to do such as being grilled on unfinished work, meeting pple for last lunches, meeting pple who can't get me for lunch for tea, returning office stuff etc. In the end I only got to talk to the replacement minion for 1 hr.

Definitely not a spring chicken and the 1 hour is enough to tell that she's a deep person. She doesn't offer any more information than she should. I acted ignorant and asked if this is her first job and all she said was that she came from completing her MBA. My counterpart in Philippines was assigned as her buddy because she just finished her MBA there. Immediately flashing through my mind was: Who the hell goes to Philippines to do MBA?? Plus she's a Singaporean. And earlier I had a conversation with my ex-manager who said: So what if she has a MBA? MBA has many different types and quality of work may not be all the same even if she's a MBA holder. Well then I asked is this her 2nd job all she did was said no. Well, ok, point taken that she will not say anymore.

But the best was the last question she asked me: So any tips for handling certain people in the team, you know, people like His Highness or my other manager etc. Girl, you just have to find out for yourself, I'm not risking this kind of question. And so I lied that everyone is nice, well, it is partly true.

So I left her as I've got plenty of things to throw or return on the last day. Next thing I know, 5pm she came to my desk and tell me she's leaving coz she had no laptop and nothing else to do. Wow, an experienced hire is definitely not the same. Even when I'm leaving, I dragged up to 6pm before I'm finally done with everything and here she is, first day at work and leaving even before time is up. *clap clap* I hope His Highness have fun dealing with her or maybe it's the other way round? :)

Tale of the Mad Man 3

May this be the last post on the mad man, I think I have dedicated too much postings to him. Anyway, let this be a pictorial one, in memorial of the GREAT emails he is always sending.
Note: I especially like the classic phrase used in the most miraculous way in this particular email: "idiot proof"

*oops... seems like I can't make the picture any bigger so you may have to click in to have a closer look*

Sighs....

Sometimes I wonder what's life. When you think you've got the worst of it all, someone else with a even sadder story came by. This must be the most tragic story I've heard so far, sounds like a drama but it happened in real life.

A friend whom I have not kept in contact for a while messaged me on msn the other day. I think, last I spoke to him was at least more than a year back. Turned out that last July, he got into an accident and nearly lost his right leg but the doctor managed to saved it. However the road to healing has been really slow. On top of that. before the accident, his girlfriend of 3 years broke up with him for another guy and 2 weeks after the break up, he was retrenched from his job and just before he start on his new job, he got into this accident. It really broke my heart knowing all these happened and I wasn't aware. He was a very active person, I cannot imagine how terrible it is for him to be not able to move and rely on crutches. And when he told me there are bad days he was depressed because the healing of his bones is taking too long, I was helpless. I wonder what else can I say to make him feel better. It's definitely not easy for him.

He was one of the few people I kept in touch from my wild IRC-ing days long ago. My memories of him were the tons of Doraemon comic books he gave me. But I think the accident changed him, from our conversation, he no longer exudes that carefree nature. He used to play a lot of football but I don't think that will be possible for him for a long time now. I feel sad and want to pay him a visit but knowing him, he probably won't want me to see him in such a state, plus we have not met in ages. Anyway I'm afraid I'll start crying if I see him in this state now. Some people are destined to take the long road, I just hope that he makes it out.

Tales of the Mad Man 2

Turns out that the mad man have no decency to tell his team that he is going to be short of 2 persons in the team. A few of my team mates in other countries told me they were shocked by the news that the Malaysia counterpart's last day is today after they saw her farewell note at 4pm. And I think they will be even more shocked when they are suddenly handed our work to help cover for the time being, not as if they are not already fully occupied in their own area. So it seems like in order to keep the rest sane, I have to announce my leaving to them soon, since the mad man is not going to do it.

Disappointed yet again by his action as he has no decency to inform the team and also never thank the person for a job well done during her stint with us. At the very least, while we were in the job, we gave our best and did our job, there are times we may have missed the mark but at least have the courtesy to thank them for their hard work. I know of some people who do slipshod jobs or were never available and never do their work but this team is not like that. For a person who is so used to paying lip service, he just can't do it for the person one last time?

I saw this on an ex-colleague's msn msg: "Competent Leader Can Get Efficient Service From Poor Troops, While Incompetent Leader Can Demoralise The Best Of Troops". I felt that it was so true. This could have been a strong team but the leader did not make that happen, all that he was capable of doing was to make them take on his tasks but not give them recognition - sure recipe to people leaving eventually.

Tales of a mad man

I've decided to blog about the crazy things my manager is STILL doing up till the day I leave. So I'll continue to add onto this list:

1) Ok this has nothing to do with him but it's one of those things I can never understand. Well apparently it being a technology company, even resignations had to be entered into a system and the manager has to approve it. I tried submitting a few times but keep getting unfathomable error till I got fed up and decided to ask HR who then told me that I'm suppose to change my computer system date to the mm/dd/yyyy format for the system to recognize the submission. Sometimes I wonder, is this a technology company at all?? Maybe it's way too advanced for me. Just like the other time I had to downgrade my Internet Explorer version because this system cannot work on the latest version. Duh.

2) The mad man came to tell me that the next day he's interviewing a possible candidate to replace me. He told me if that candidate is interested, he will get this person to come talk to me and I can tell the person more about my job. He must be out of his mind. Who in the right mind will let a possible candidate, go talk to someone who is leaving??? If he makes me talk to this person, I'll surely tell the candidate he/she better be prepared for a crazy guy like that. In the first place, can't you, the manager, who supposedly do one to one catch up with me EVERY week know very well what I do??? But apparently he doesn't.
Anyway I found out that he threw one of his job to my Indonesian counterpart so he now has 1 less conference call to attend. How convenient.

3)I also found out that our JD mysteriously changed overnight without us being aware, apparently none of us in the team, including me, is suppose to be an ASEAN headcount. Woah since when my ASEAN cum Country portfolio changed? I started off the job double-hatting but now I'm supposedly just country support?? Then how come I'm still stuck doing an ASEAN job?? So all along I'm doing something he's suppose to do coz he's the so-called only person on ASEAN? This mad man really makes my blood boils.

The showdown

And the showdown took place. It wasn't as I intended to, which was to tell him that I despise his high-handed way of handling the situation which triggered the sudden decision to resign.

We were discussing work (as usual) and he decided to bring up the matter of my leave application again. In his pathetic attempt to ask me to change the dates of my leave, I coolly told him I may not need to take leave anymore as I've decided to resign with effect from today. My regret was not being able to capture the classic moment of his face as his eyes looked like they were going to pop and he could go into cardiac arrest any moment. The next thing he could muster himself to do was to ask me to go to a meeting room where the first thing he did was to give a resounding: WHY..........

In the meeting room he kept probing whether there was there any reasons besides my response of I'm tired and I need a break and there's no breakthrough in what I've been doing. I'm not giving him the satisfaction of the truth. He should know very well what the trigger was from how this whole resignation talk began. Then of course he asked is there anything that can be done to stop me from leaving, I told him no. Then he tried telling me I was doing well so why leave now and in my mind I was thinking of course it makes sense to leave on a high note to make an impact and leave people with good impression of me and not when I go berserk and at the low point of the job. The he mentioned that I have not even progresses to the career path we talked about my last year but truth is, he didn't do anything to attempt to help me move at all after last year's discussion because it was just one of those chores he needed to do as a manager, I'm sure in hoskins he just want to keep me there as long as he's there so someone can continue to clear shit for him.

So unable to pry the truth from me, he launched into his 10-years-in-IBM story of how he moved from a consultant to marketing because his manager helped him and sent him for course etc. I had the urge to ask him: are you that kind of manager? If he was, then why I was never sent for courses under his leadership, why didn't he make an attempt to find me a mentor from the field I want to move to? Not knowing people from that field is not an acceptable excuse. Then he went into how GREAT the company is (which I would have agreed if my impression wasn't spoilt under his GREAT leadership). To this statement, I replied that it's just another job.

Seeing that he wasn't able to convince me to stay (of course not, with such an insincere and pathetic attempt, who would have been convinced?), he turned to asking me whether I could stay on longer than my 1 month notice and I said NO. If there's one thing I've learnt in all my previous jobs, it is to say NO to extension because at the end of the day, no one will thank you for that goodwill and worse still abuse it. In his last attempt, he asked if I can don't take leave during the notice period. Given that I only have maybe one or two pathetic days of leave, I gave in to it. A quick look at my watch, it's already 6.40pm, no wonder he is in a hurry to leave and close the discussion.

And so that was the showdown

When is true liberation going to be here?

Finally the course is coming to an end soon with the last paper this coming Tuesday. Next steps will be to plan and actively search for a new internal posting. Really running out of tolerance for this new manager. I regret not taking leave on Monday *sighs* but I've run out of leave for the year. :(

Anyway why do I want to change jobs? Of course many instance but the latest one being, the reschedule of the Friday meeting to Monday when 1) I have been on leave for the last 2 days and have lots of work emails to catch up on Monday 2) Monday is already a busy meeting day for me without him adding in another hour 3) I still have paper on Tuesday and obviously I do not have time to think about work, much less think of ideas for him to go back to the director. Really fed-up with it. And that bloody email saying what good luck for exams, take chicken essence etc *puiz* just paying lip service only. What I will truly appreciate is leaving me alone to take my exams in peace and not add these extra stress on me. My colleague is right by saying he totally has no understanding for his subordinates at all, now I truly understand. Of course, how could a selfish person who has a stay home wife with three kids understand anything about stress, about juggling work, family and studying?

Lured by the illusion of a promise

......

What it takes to be a good manager

Someone mentioned that for a manager, you've got to be confident about yourself. When the team perform, they will make the manager look good. Give the people their due credit in front of higher bosses, speak up for them when needed and reward them when you get a good rating for your performance because without them, it wouldn't be possible. Is this so difficult to do?

When other department bully your department staff, the least you can do is to stand up for them and not stand aside and keep quiet. Not ask your staff to do work and you take credit for it.

Morals vs laws

Doing the right thing while not dictated by the law, this is the objective that a developed country should be working towards. Of course, in every society, there are bound to be black sheep that lacks the basic moral values but that doesn't mean that we should resort to binding laws while not educating people on the right thing to do.

Eating on a bus vs not giving up seats to needy people, which one should warrant more condemnation? The idea behind fining people who eat on public transport is so that people don't dirty or litter on the public transport but that still doesn't stop people who don't eat from littering or dirtying it. At the end of the day, puny matters such as eating on public transport boils down to: are you a responsible person? If you are, then eating shouldn't matter as you will take care not to litter or if you dirty the place, you will clean it up. The law just assumes that everyone is irresponsible and so therefore bans you or better yet, earn some extra income from people who breaks the rule. The right thing to do therefore should be not littering or dirtying the place and NOT the action of eating or drinking.

I'm sure matters such as not giving up seats to the needy should warrant a more serious outlook than eating or drinking. Think of what the consequences could be should there be a sudden brake and an elderly or pregnant or handicapped person should lose their balance? And by the way, not just the people who are taking up the designated seats should give up the seat for the needy, this should be regardless of what seat anybody is in. Instead of blaming people who take up the designated seats and not giving them up, why don't they ask why did the rest not give up their seats?

I'm disappointed that Singaporeans should choose to be ruled by the law instead of using their conscience as a measure of what's right or what's wrong. To a typical law-abiding Singaporean, if there's no laws, it's ok to do it; if there's laws, you are so going to get it. So eating on public transport is a cause for hoo-haa and be subjected to fines while not giving up seats to the needy is left entirely up to a person's choice -- that says so much about the people in the country.