55th Induction Cohort (3 November to 16 November 2009)

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...

Children's Day Coming

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

How I wish I am a kid still... it have been years since I recd presents during children's day...still can recall that some of my pri school classmates will bring sweets and goodies to share with the whole class. those were the days...

Cake in action

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.

Anw, in compensation for my lack of posts, here are a few food photos for de-stressing temporarily...

forgot the name for this but it is awesome. The warm choc fudge is gluely-thick and tastes heavenly.... ahhh

and we also had...

Muddy Mud Pie from Coffee Club, cuppuccino with choc ice cream with 'hard' oreo base.

Tastes good but advisable for 2 pax, cos it is really a tall tower of ice cream.

Every bit counts

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.

Stupid birds!

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.

Who doesn't love great designs?

Logo taken from The Design Society website

My friend just recommended me to join The Design Society, led by Mr Chris Lee, founder and creative director of Asylum. It is a non-profit organization aimed at raising the standards of design in Singapore in general.

I joined without hesitation, reason 1: because of my support for Chris Lee; about 2 years back, my friends and I got to interview Chris Lee personally for our advertising project and he is really a nice guy. Not only did he accept our interview request without hesitation, he even offered to write down for me the name of some foreign brand when he noticed that I got trouble spelling it. And well, he also happened to be a TP alumni, so of course I will support him. Reason 2: I really find Chris Lee's work to be unique. For me to describe in words would be difficult. The best would be for you to chk them out yrself. They have changed drastically the appearance of their website but you can refer to their online studio for their excellent creations. (http://www.theasylum.com.sg/v3/#studio)

So trust me, joining this membership would be a choice that you won't regret. Furthermore, membership is free until 30 June 2010. Click here to go to their website now!

work

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. =)

Food, Glorious Food

Since I still have some spare time these few days, I decided to blog about some of the food which I had tried recently.

For a headstart, here is my most recommended dessert.

Chocolate, Peanut and Plain Belgium Waffles from Yamazaki Boulangerie Chaude @ Tampines 1

This outlet is actually under Sun Moulin and all its breads and snacks are freshly baked daily at the bakery. So far I have only tried its Belgium Waffles as it is highly recommended by my sister. The waffles are quite popular so they are often out of stock by late afternoon or evening. There are 3 choices in total- Chocolate, Peanut or Original. Sorry if the photo look unappealing but trust me, they taste really nice. It is crispy on the outside with a cake-like texture inside, although I find it to be a little too sweet for the chocolate one. In contrast, the peanut waffle tastes much more savory and guess what, I figured that if the peanut waffle can be glace with a little bit of chocolate coating, it would most prob be heavenly.

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

Thursday Twist

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 Necklace

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/

Please also leave some comments or suggestions!! Many thanks!

Luck is like the Weather?

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.

Give me the top tea leaves!

I first saw this ad from a recruitment talk from Millward Brown. It left a deep impression on me, in fact,to anyone who watches it as it is simply too cute to forget. It is great that there is such a thing called youtube where I can load it over here to show u guys...

How to get A+ in SMU

I like this video totally! It is a perfect showcase of how 'some' fellow sch mates manage to get A+ in class... Ahem! of cos, I am not one of those, else i will have gotten a Summa Cum Laude.

Have a full stomach at the new "Manpuku" at Tampines 1!

I was lucky to be able to attend the private food tasting session at this Japanese Gourmet Town- Manpuku on Tuesday night at Tampines 1. I had dropped strong hints to my sister on the day before on whether I can tag along with her. I was so excited when she smsed me to say that she could bring me along.

Manpuku is located at level 3, Japanese Gourmet Town of Tampines 1. It is Ajisen's latest creation, which boasts of a new Japanese food store concept that provides Japanese cuisines in a Japanese gourmet street setting. It is the 2nd outlet, after the 3-in-1 Japanses Gourmet Town at Vivocity, but the 1st to have so many store concepts thus far. I was rather impressed to have it here at our doorstep- Tampinese!

The interior of the restaurant was set up to replicate those authentic and traditional food eateries in Japan and it will house 10 different counters of food stores which includes famous restaurant names such as AOBA (Hokkaido Ramen), HOKKYOKUSEI omu rice, BOTEJYU Okonomiyaki (pan fried batter cake) etc... as well as tempting desserts - Fruit Paradise (1st in Singapore) and the all time favourite, KYOTO SABO.

Just like the Marché concept, each patron is given a card where you charge all your purchases until the end of your dining experience. Pretty straightfwd, so I guess not much elaboration is required here, except that you shd never ever lose the card (S$100 penalty).

To order food, all you need to do is to inform the order counter at each mini store and pass the card to the staff. You may need to wait for a few minutes for the food to be ready so there is a receipt where u can come back later to collect the food. And before I forget to mention, the number that the staff calls out when the food is ready is based on the Table No. printed on the receipt, so do refer to the correct no.

To start off, my sis and I each ordered 2 different dishes from BOTEJYU and HOKKYOKUSEI. She ordered a Seafood Okos while I ordered the Fried Prawn Omu Rice.

I love this design of the Okos where they made patterns on the top of the batter with sauce and mayo. Reminds me of Coffee art. a little disappointing is that the okos was a little over done which makes it a bit dry.

The Fried Prawn Omu Rice is the other popular Japanese dish which we tried. The main lead of the dish- the rice inside the omelette, was pan-fried with ketchup. We find it to be just average but what more than compensate it was the ebi tempura (Prawn Tempura) which we find to be mouth-watering. The deep fried thin batter was crisp on the outside while the inside was firm and tasty.

Finally on the desserts. We tried the Pear and Honeydew Tarts. And boy!, not only are they great to look at, they also taste great. No wonder, they were all snapped up at the end of the night.

The honeydew tart was my fav. It was not overly sweet and even though there was cream all over, my sister and I still cant resist and ate up the whole thing.
Having posted these fotos, I cant help but feel hungry again even though I just had my brunch an hr ago. Need to tempt my kakis to come try it again soon. (Geri, if you are reading this, consider coming to this 'mini-orchard' k! The new Tampines 1 is now opened, got alot of shopping and food!!)

Manpuku Japanese Gourmet Town
Level 3, Tampines 1
10 Tampines Central 1
Singapore 529536
Located beside Tampines MRT station
Click here to Website

'Funeral'- Latest TVC by MCYS

"Funeral" is a new TV commerical launched by the Ministry of Community Development, Youth and Sports (MCYS) which looks at relationships in a different light, through a woman at her husbands funeral. Ultimately, the TVC celebrates the beautiful imperfections that make a relationship perfect. This is fresh off MCYS latest Viewers Choice 2008 win for last years Family TVC which promotes the importance and value of family bonding. (Description taken from Youtube)

Say cheeze!

It was a pretty great day yesterday. Considering that I finally did my temporary crown for my tooth in the afternoon. So now, i can smile confidently without being self-conscious.

My fren had insisted that my broken tooth wasnt obvious. But no matter what, I always suspect that others would stare and laugh at my chipped tooth. In fact , there is always a part of me who wanted to tell and explain to everyone how I fell and broke my teeth- just to earn some symphathy. But ultimately, I didnt do it. Apparently, most who know about it found my mishap to be quite ridiculous. In fact, one of my friends laughed at it. (Yeah, u, vanessa, even though u may not be reading this post. But I will certainly send u this blog link and make sure u read this post next time).

Having went through all the injections and drilling of teeth, I have really learnt my lesson painfully. I now pay 101% attention to caring for my teeth and I am sure my dentists will be glad to hear this. Perhaps one good thing that comes out of this matter is that I am going to have a whiter and nicer permanent tooth soon.

Plus, I need to thank my Endodontist, Dr Andy Lim and Prosthodontist, Dr Quek, both from National Dental Centre. They are really the nicest dentists, very professional, yet friendly and gentle during treatment. To add on, Dr Toh fr Crown dental has been pretty good too. I sought treatment fr him the day that I broke my teeth. He was friendly and was pretty honest with my condition. The only bad thing was that the clinic only accept cash and the dental fees are sky high. (which prompts me to jokingly tell my frens that I shd perhaps find a dentist as boyfriend. But I am still receptive to this idea. So, anyone who has potential one in this category, pls update me. haaaaa)

P.S. Another happy stuff that is worth mentioning is that I finally collected my internship cert yesterday and I got a Gold Award. Think I need to really thank David for his generousity in the evaluation. Thanks David!!

'Black Out' on 28 March. It's Earth Hour!

Hey people, do your part for our Mother Earth and turn off your lights on this Saturday night to support the annual International Earth Hour.

Here's a little history first, this move was initiated in 2007 by World Wildlife Fund (WWF). It first began in Sydney, Australia where 2.2 million homes and businesses switched off their lights for an hour. In 2008, 50 million people took part in it! And two years after its efforts, Earth Hour has been transformed into the world's 1st global election, between Earth and Global Warming. And Singapore is proud to be one of those countries to join in this year.

You may ask, 'What is the purpose of switching off the lights on this day'? Well, switching off lights actually translates your vote for Earth, while leaving the lights on is a vote to global warming. Hence, "WWF are urging the world to VOTE EARTH and reach the target of 1 billion votes, which will be presented to world leaders at the Global Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen 2009. This meeting will determine official government policies to take action against global warming, which will replace the Kyoto Protocol. It is the chance for the people of the world to make their voice heard."

This may seem obvious that most would want to vote for Earth but many would still hover between leaving it on or off, saying that "I am just an individual, it doesn't make a difference if I switch on or switch off. As long as others do so, it would be enough." But as quoted from John F. Kennedy,

"One person can make a difference, and everyone should try".

However, if circumstances doesnt permit you to switch off the lights totally, then at least minimise it. It would also be good if you could switch off electrical devices such as TV, air-con etc, just to save energy.

Earth Hour 2009
When:

Saturday, 28 March 2009
What:

Individuals and businesses are being asked to switch off their lights between 8.30pm and 9.30pm in their local time zones.
Why:

As a demonstration of public concern about climate change.
Official website:

earthhour.org

Blog: http://www.earthhoursingapore.blogspot.com/
ECO Singapore Website: http://www.eco-singapore.org/
ECO Singapore Facebook Group: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=6718125635
List of participating companies and organisations: www.earthhour.org/singapore

JobsDB.com Career Expo 2009

Went to the JobsDB Career Fair this morning. There wasnt a big crowd perhaps because we went early. Among those employers who are present at the fair includes Singapore Police Force, Navy, SBS Transit, Comfort Delgro, MediaCorp, SG recruiters, and several financial planning companies like AIA, Prudential etc...

Some of the companies didnt have suitable openings for us. Yet, somehow we still managed to apply abt 20 positions, of which most of the companies didnt even have a physical booth at the fair. We applied for them through the online station where we could just scan the barcode of our registered card and perform a quick application, meaning that we didnt even need to prepare cover letters. Thank goodness!

Hopefully, we wont need to wait long to be called up for interviews. But looking at the job market, things are not promising. the news reported that the economy might take 2-3 years to recover instead of the orginally estimated 1 year recession. But to despair now is useless. So, yes, yes, I am going to start sending out resumes again.

By the way, I managed to spot a rainbow outside my window today. The saying goes that you can't spot rainbow without rain. So I hope the 'rain' will go off soon and a beautiful sight shall await in front of us.

JobsDB.com Career Expo 2009
Details:
20 - 22 March 2009
Suntec Singapore, Halls 602 & 603, Level 610am to 7pm Daily

What is Love to you?

Found this blog address from Feli's blog.

http://leloveimage.blogspot.com/

Truly sweet and inspiring. Make me feel like falling in love. Ha

A fresh appearance

I am so contented with my new blog design over here! It is the the 'Coffee Desk' theme taken from Btemplates.




In case you have missed out my previous blog design, here is a snapshot of the old design.

The main reason as to why I removed the old one is becos there had been some errors and missing links, of which I have no idea why. So the easiest way to solve it to have a complete 'overhaul'.

I simply find this new design to be much more pleasing to the eyes. The layout is also better utlised with lesser blank space at the sides. It also has an exact opposite background tone as compared to the previous one above... the format is also more user friendly this time round- I took less than 2 hrs to complete the editing and additions of links and widgets. Plus, there are some other great designs that caught my eyes. So, if you are using Blogger and am looking for new templates, I would highly recommend this Blogger Template website (refer to first para of this post for the link).