Queuing is a hobby of a typical Singaporean

Since it's a public holiday tomorrow, I decided to eat out and maybe check out Tampines One, the new mall in Tampines.

I thought we were supposed to be in recession, but it certainly did not look or feel like we are in recession at the mall. It was overflowing with people.. There were queues forming outside the restaurants.

When I passed by Uniqlo, all the shutters were down, except for one, and people were queuing outside. Certainly an eye-rolling moment for me. It's like, come on, it's just Uniqlo! It's all over the place in Hong Kong and Tokyo. Not only that, it's actually more expensive over here. A UT tee cost S$24.90, when the same thing cost HK$100, or 1500 yen. Certainly not all that worth to get it here, when air tickets are so cheap now. You could fly to Tokyo for S$623 on SQ now.

I really cannot understand why people here just enjoy queuing for the sake of queuing. My first thought when I saw the queue was 'This feels like another Donut Factory'. Can't imagine the mad craze when H&M comes here..

Back with a vengence

I'm back again...

I realized that ever since I graduated, I've lost touch with the creative side of me. Not going to give any excuses for not having written anything for almost 2 years. Let me just start the ball rolling on again with an interesting observation I made yesterday.

Strangely, the people around me never ceased to be amused by my ability to give explicit details to things or events, or just, anything in general.

I was at my colleague's (Cecilia) baby shower when someone suddenly talked about the health checks which are part of our company's benefits. Someone asked if there was a need to provide stool (a.k.a crap) samples for testing. I've been to the test before, so I told them 'yes, you got to provide your shit samples'. They were 'concerned' about how their faecal matters was going to be collected, so I told them how it was done. There were 2 designated clinics where we can go to for the body checks. The one that Fiona went to, the doctors were rougher. The doctor in charge of the screening would stick their finger into the anus to 'collect' some samples for testing.

Now, for the clinic I went to, it was slightly different. At the beginning of the health screening, I was given 2 bottles, 1 for urine samples, 1 for stool samples. The urine bottle is pretty easy, just aim and pee into the bottle. Now, for the stool sample bottle, it had a spoon stuck onto the cap, apparently to aid in scooping the stool into the bottle.

Someone asked me how I collected my stool sample, so I told them I went to a squatting toilet pan, and tried to position myself such that when my first piece excrement drop down, they would drop on the side of the pan, instead of sliding down into the water part of the pan. Ta-dah! Now you can scoop that piece of crap up! I was a bit concerned about not providing enough sample for testing, so i took a big scoop, which turned out to be a bit too wide to go through the bottle opening. I rested the sample on the opening, slowly pushing the sides into the bottle, and after a while, the whole thing was in, moist and warm. Then I continued with my business.

Now, everyone who was listening in was grossed out, yet amused by the stool collecting exercise. Well, at least they learn how they should do it when they go for their health screening next time round.

If you need some motivation

I've finally gotten back all my results for this semester. My results are as follows:
Marketing Information Systems - A+
Analysis of Equity Instruments - A+
Corporate Reporting and Analysis of Financial Statements - A-
French - A-
Ethics and Social Responsibility - B+

Besides, this is my best semester ever, with an all-time high GPA of 3.86. I managed to achieve all these in spite of what happened throughout the semester. At the beginning of the semester, I was busy with housemoving. In a way, we were forced to move out of our previous rented place. So for the 1st month of the semester, besides school, I was extremely worn out by housemoving, on top of having to juggle with the ongoing school projects.

Shortly after, I was admitted into hospital because of an abscess growing on my tummy. I had to get it removed at the hospital. 3 days after I was discharged from hospital, I was re-admitted into hospital because of active bleeding of my wound from the operation. Shortly after Chinese New Year, I was down with food poisoning for 3 days. In the final weeks of the semester, I was down with flu which persisted for almost 2 weeks.

In spite of the odds being stacked against me, I keep telling myself to stay focused and to tell myself that I can do it. I keep telling myself how badly I wanted to graduate with Cum Laude. And yes, I finally did it!

I'm saying all these not to boast about my achievements, but rather, to illustrate a point: Have a goal, believe that you can achieve it, and everything else will fall in place. Stay positive and show gratitude for the little things in your life and good things will naturally be attracted into your life. I couldn't have achieved all these if I had negative along the way. Lastly, I hope my little story here will inspire whoever read this to strive to do better in future =)

The Secret

I've just watched a video called "The Secret". The content is pretty mind-blowing. I've always been an advocate for positive thinking ever since I started reading up books on neuro-linguistic programming, or NLP, from the beginning of this year.

The gist of the video is about the secret of the law of attraction. When you think about the good things, they would come to you naturally. It works the same way for the bad things as well. This is something new, something which I didn't exactly come across in my readings. However, it does make a lot of sense. You get what you think, as simple as that. If you keep thinking about the immense debts that you've got, you will just get more of it, based on the law of attraction. On the other hand, if you keep thinking of achieving your goals, you will get it.

I know I'm going to get some violent objections here, like, some might say that they have made goals to achieve certain things, but did not achieve it in the end. Does it mean that making goals is ineffective? It is not! Goals are achievable only with actions. You need to put in action to achieve what you desire, but a lot of people miss out on this point! You can't get the chicken to grow up and lay eggs if you don't feed it.

Some of you might have had goals, achieved part of it but never quite fulfil all that was set out in the goals. The Secret says that in such instances, we need to be grateful for what we have. For instance, one might set out to earn a million in a year, but only got 950,000 in the end. That's really good actually. When we show gratitude and give thanks for what we have, the law of attraction works by giving more of what we desire. So that 1 million is not too far off!

It is precisely of all these positive thinking that I've stopped writing about negative things on my little blog here for a long long time. I want all the good things to come into my life and I can see them coming in already. I'm thankful for being able to finish my undergraduate education in SMU, I'm grateful for having food everyday, I'm thankful for everything that my parents have done for me, I'm grateful for all the little things I have gotten in life. I'm thankful.

Do catch this video if you get the chance. It's pretty inspiring and definitely changes lives and perceptions.

100% of the 50%, NOT..

Well, Mr Brown never cease to amuse everyone with his infamous podcasts. And this time, SMUT takes the limelight! My school's in the limelight! Wheeee!!!

Well, 3 short years in this school and everything's coming to an end. And yes, I can't help but to agree with the stuff in that podcast. All the pre-networking pre-briefing event and whatever sounds all too familiar for us. I wouldn't say that I have wasted my time in this school. I mean, I've learned some important life skills here, like interpersonal communications and presentation skills, and how NOT to be a "backside poker" (read: backstabber). However, the layman on the street ain't all that dumb.. Look at the results of the infamous "survey". If you've got 100% "hit-rate" for the 1st year, that's possible, since the graduating batch is quite small. When you get the same "hit-rate" for the 2nd year, it's still barely acceptable. By the 3rd year, the number of graduates have already increased exponentially, so a 100% "hit-rate" didn't seem as credible as before. Besides, if only 100% of the 50% of graduates (who found a job) are interviewed, naturally there would have been a 100% "hit-rate". Besides, what about the remaining 50% who were not interviewed and who did not get a job? They would be perplexed by the "truth" and go around telling others the TRUTH. That they did not get a job, nor were they interviewed. Period.

I'm sure it doesn't take rocket science to realize something as fundamental as this. Yet, this "obtuse" glob in level 7 of SMUT administration building failed to see this and put everyone to shame! Sad to say, but lying to get there wouldn't get you anywhere.

For me, I don't even care if I'm in the "100% of the 50%" in the next employment survey. Even if I've been "shortlisted" by the fat glob to be in the "100% of the 50%", I'm gonna return a "funky" reply to them. Fuck off!

Uncivilized ATM Bitch

My parents have been away since Monday morning and I'm all alone at home. Yesterday was supposed to be a holiday, but I ended up having to go back to school for a lesson. Initially, I thought I was going to have dinner alone. Just when I thought all hope is gone, Jialong messaged me on MSN and asked if I wanted to go for dinner. That was indeed a timely invitation.

After my lesson, we went to Parkway Parade for dinner. I had to draw some money from the ATM as I did not have enough cash with me. As we approached the ATM, this stinking bitch just overtook us and cut in front of us. At that point in time, I was raging with anger, so bad that I wanted to kick her ass, but being the civilized me, I restrained myself from doing something like that. All these while, I have not seen someone as uncivilized as this bitch. It wasn't like she had to draw the money so urgently (I mean, if even if she was having her period and needed the cash to get some sanitary napkins, by the time she got the money to buy it, if it had meant to leak, it would have leaked...).

Fortunately, dinner was not too bad. We went for La Mian and Xiao Long Bao at Koo Kee. The food's alright, but I still prefer Crystal Jade La Mian Xiao Long Bao.

Seriously, I wonder why kids nowadays have such bad upbringing...

I'm not a salesman!

Last night, I was buying dinner from the coffeeshop under my house. I was so disgusted by what the rice seller said that I really wanted to slap him. Here's how the conversation went (translated to english from mandarin):

Riceboy: Just come home from work?
Me: No, I had a career talk earlier on, so I had to dress up a bit.
Riceboy: Oh, I thought you are working. You dress like a salesman.
Me: ...

I was so damn angry when I got home. I wasn't even wearing the usual 'white and black' ensemble that is typical of salespeople. I was wearing a baby blue shirt with french cuff from Topman and a pair of charcoal grey pants. I really wonder if he was blind or dumb or what!

Anyway, I'm not going to patronise that stall ever again. Even if it's the last stall open! I rather starve to death!