There has never been a time where I was away from home for more than 3 nights. I thought I wouldnt be able to survive through the first part of 4 days-3 nights induction camp at NACLI. What made things worst was that before the first day of reporting for the induction, I was still at the office, at 1am, clearing my work. That really made me reluctant to go for the induction.

With just 4 hours of sleep, I headed for the close to 1.5 hr train + bus journey to our 'chalet'- our '2nd' home for these 2 weeks. It was pretty lucky that I have Winnie, Chiao Min and Ivy, whom we met during a training course, as my cohort mates. Otherwise, I would definitely feel at a loss.

During this first week, there were plenty of team building games and that really brought all of us closer. Everyone were very encouraging and forgiving. It is also fortunate that I am in the team learning committee where my I/C and cohort mates are so fun. In our group, every night was like a gossip night. Ha.

During the 2nd week, I was sorta looking forward to going back to the camp. Of course, I do miss my family, bed, pillows, and home toilet during my stay at NACLI, but there wasnt any negative emotions. Perhaps the only complaint was that I need to travel tat 1.5 hrs journey again.

As I was having dinner at Subway with LH and Eric on friday night, we talked abt whether we would still be as close with each other after 6 mths, or whether we would still remember each other's names in future...My belief is that I still would. Perhaps not all of them, but definitely those who made a difference to my life ;)

Will miss the moments with you guys...

This is an event under my Women's Exe Committee-KidsREAD graduation ceremony cum children's day party...

I had intended to blog a few days back. However, I wasnt able to do so because the Post Editor's toolbar has gone missing on the blogger webpage. I cant post any photos or save any drafts. Stupid isnt it? I thought Blogger was undergoing some maintenance or maybe some hackers got interested in Blogger too. But apparently this was not the case when I realised that many other people are still able to post photos in their blog. So today, I did the easiest method to find the solution - i.e. Google. Tada! Within 1 min, i managed to solve the mystery. I simply cleared my internet history folder and refresh a few times to get my blogger back to normal. Aiya, next time shd have trusted Google earlier.

I first saw the appeal for donation through Mr. Brown’s blog.

After reading his post about Charmaine, the little girl with neuroblastoma, I went on to find out more about this feisty princess. Half a million Singapore dollars (USD350,000) is required to send her to New York for treatment. To most people, this is really a hefty price tag. But it is heartening that many have already came forward to help, including former Malaysian cup legends, Rafi Ali, Fandi Ahmad and Media Corp celebrity team etc.

And at this point of time, taken from the blog (http://www.ourfeistyprincess.blogspot.com/),

"Officially, we have about 330K.Unofficially, with the amount that are still with our fund-raisers, and together with RafiAli's effort, we should be looking at an amount, not far from 420K!!!!!"

So please, to anyone who happen to read this blog post, I urge u to help them out. Any amount can play a part.

I got attacked by 2 stupid crows this evening when I stepped out of the office! One flapped its wings over my head while the other messed up my hair with its claws! How ridiculous can it go?

I know I just changed my shampoo brand lately but I appreciate if they just keep themselves off me.

Damn those 2 stupid birds! I wanna barbeque them if they dare provoke me again.

It is amazing how a week can pass so fast yet so slow. Fast in the sense that it is my second week of work now, yet slow in terms of the hours and minutes every day. You get what I mean?

My workstation will arrive today. Hopefully there will be enough space. Anw, i am still on the 'newbie' mode where I need to ask around for advice. Hate to say but it make me feel quite lost at times- wondering what I can ask and what I cant. But if I dun clarify, and things doesnt go well, it will be worse right? So, yeah, it is better to ask. And at least my colleagues are nice.

Plus, I get to listen openly to class95 every day during work. =)

Plain Belgium Waffle $1.50 each
Desribed as "Crispy crust and sweet aroma with original Belgium Sugar"

This is going to be a long post...

I had went for a briefing by some Market Research Company to be a part-time survey interviewer on thursday morning but the whole thing didnt pull through eventually. The main reason is because some of us who attended the briefing felt that the personnel at the company did not honour what they had promised.

I am ok with the part where their 10 min face-to-face survey escalated to become 15 minute survey becos, having been a marketing student, I can empathise that a survey could sometimes exceed the stipulated interview time. I am also cool with the fact that the questions are lengthy. But the ultimate factor that made me change my mind on accepting the assignment was when we each of us had a personalised quota form, stating the specific no. of students which we need to approach-with a criteria where the students that we are supposed to approach have to be from their specified faculty under the respective varsities. We are also only allowed to find only final year students who have just finished their exams and who are heading towards the working society.

I was even more surprised to learn that I was only given a quota of 7 participants fr SMU, with 10 to be fr NUS and 3 fr NTU, when evidently, it will be more effective to assign smu quota to me and another guy who is also from SMU. When asked if we could swop the quota ourselves, the lady handling the survey demographics said that we are allowed to do so, but the ultimate responsibilities will still be traced back to their original allocation. So what is the point of swopping?

Since there are so many perturbing factors to consider, I decided not to go ahead to do the assignment for them even though at that point of time, I was hard pressesd for cash (actually, I am still hard pressed for cash now, I still got abt 800 bucks of outstanding dental bills but I am glad to have an elder sister who can pay for me first.haa).

First reason for not taking it up is that the 2-week deadline is just too risky a time frame to find those students esp when most graduating students have either gone holiday right after their exams, or at home dutifully sending out resumes in this recession-hit economy. Second reason- I feel a strong sense of disgruntlement over their way of handling things; ignoring our concerns and feedback.

But, a good lesson that I, as a job finder can learn, is that there is no such thing as easy pay. Now, in the viewpoint of a market researcher, a word of advice is, if you want others to work for you, remember to listen to what they want to say.

After stepping out of that office, I can still recall that I was very dejected upon facing another failed attempt in getting a work assignment. But I still believe that it was the right thing to do. So, I called my sister out for lunch that day, hoping to forget all the disappointment and melancholy. Too bad she only have 30 min to spare that day.

It happened that I had arranged a coffee appt with my coffee kaki- josh, that day, so eventually the day turned out to be pretty much enjoyable. During that whole afternoon, I was complaining to him how bad the economy was, how I failed those analysis tests, interviews blah blah... In fact, I had predicted that I would be turned down again for a job because I didnt have honours. Josh felt surprised that I could still sound so optimistic after going through these obstacles. Ha... well, maybe it is because I am trying to put up a false front.

But towards the end of the day, a miracle happened. It was a moment that I was looking fwd to. I finally received a phone call telling me that I was accepted for a job and whether I would like to accept the job offer. Hell, yes of course! I was so overwhelmed by the news but in contradiction, my face expression at that point was pretty cool and calm so josh was like trying to guess whether it was good news or bad news. Haa... I think the news just came too suddenly and I was caught off guard. I was so excited that I didnt noe who to inform first, apart from Josh who was beside me when I recd the call! Josh was telling me that it was a blessing in disguise for me, and things happen for a reason. Maybe he is right. The events that took place all these while could be just obstacles to test my endurance. What doesnt break me makes me stronger. So at the end of the day, I guess faith and determination is the key to pull through the obstacles especially in this period of tough time. To my friends out there, I know you can do it too and I believe your ideal jobs will come your way soon too! Gambate!

Charm Necklaces have always been popping in and out of fashion and the good news is that it is still right in style now. I did a revamp of my blogshop again, giving it a more cutesy style. I am now thinking of ways to sort of unofficially announce it to friends and any ppl out there. I also created a facebook group but fathom that it may not be sufficient and effective. Will think of more ways to publicise it. Anw, I added new creations, so anyone who is interested, please visit http://fashionstatementspore.blogspot.com/

It is raining cats dogs outside, with loud thunder and lightning. This reminds me of a line taken from a book which I had read lately.

"It crosses my mind that luck is a lot like the weather and sometimes for no apparent reason it turns really bad"

It is taken from The Big Shuffle by Laura Pedersen and now I find that this sentence really connects to me totally and I hate this feeling because my luck is just like the weather outside now. I know that the weather will probably turn out better in a an hour or two but definitely not my sucky luck. How I wish I can skip this moment and fast forward to a year or 2 from now.