monday night rant

felt so tired after returning from a long day the client site. first none of us had internet access. tat was like a definite boring day for me. plus, i didn't have enough sleep the previous night.

things could not have been worse when i made a mistake interpreting one of the requirements. horrendous mistake. worse still, i felt that the project manager was purposely picking on me, crushing our already near rock-bottom morales.  at the end of the day everyone got to work overtime.

haiz. nothing seems to go well since late august.

on interesting colleagues

i do realized that i have interesting colleagues around me.

lately despite being piled with more workload, i ended up having more freedom to do some socializing and networking within the company.  i mended a few neglected ties and came to the realizations that once i was out of my prejudices and dilemma, there is a whole forest out there, filled with plenty of interesting people.

for example, i realized that some colleagues whom once u get closer to them, brought plenty of subtle joys and laughters, and once in a while we had really great dinners and shared a lot about ourselves.  2 of my colleagues, surprisingly, turned out to be great confidantes and had given me great advices every now and then =)

some colleagues didn't really match up to expectations, but it doesn't matter. maybe i have set the bar too high. there are also colleagues whom i would prefer to keep a distance away from, due to conflict of interests and personalities. overall, the office environment is now more tolerable.

once again i can't help but noticed the compatibility of horoscope signs. the rules will never change, and i probably have to play my cards differently as i shift myself around groups, and in the process, learn more about myself and others as well as the latest news within the company.

it's time to explore the forest.  finally, i am back to my original self once again, and will maintain my philosophy - be trusting till it's broken once!

daughtry - september

excitement

i am so looking forward to my upcoming shanghai and nanjing trip. finally i have completed booking all my hotels and stuffs yesterday.  the total cost came up to about $400 per person for accommodation of 8 nights over 3 hotels.

given the recent appreciation of the singapore dollar, the exchange rate is now valued at sgd1 = rmb5.  it seems like a good time to go traveling nowadays given the very strong singapore dollar.

well, i haven't thought of what to prepare for my upcoming trip, the jacket to bring, the itinerary etc =)

i am a happy-go-lucky person.

dilemma

this will probably be the last time i blog about such things. of all people, i was tasked to go down to client's site with this particular colleague whom i thought i lost.  it's always like this.  each time when we grew distant we ended up having common projects.  it's the same 2 years back and it's the same now.

the trip down to the client site was awkward. i kept my silence throughout and in the end he decided to break the ice and made some small talk every now and then.  it continued like this throughout the whole site visit - chatted for a short while followed by long pauses.  the funny thing was my client actually thought i had tendered in my resignation letter and was handing over the project to another colleague.

while i am grateful and appreciative of all the things that this colleague of mine had done for the past week, somehow i am still relatively stoic. one fine morning when i reached the office i found an item on my desk - something which i requested for some time ago, and he simply refused to accept payment for it.  hell, the bloody thing is not cheap! apart from thanks, i really dunno what else to say.  should i then buy him an expensive birthday present in return? i have no idea.

someone once told me to be more gracious towards others, but my stand is that the intangibles once lost takes effort to recover, and i'm a lazy person sometimes. unexpectedly, despite all the shit, it seems like he's still trying to stick around.  most people would simply walk off.

at the way things are going, it is just going to get more and more difficult for me to simply walk away. given that there could be ample opportunities as project partners, the ball is now in my court.  maybe i should just listen to my head for once.

mid-autumn festival celebration

as mid-autumn festival is somewhere around next week, a group of us within the office decided to organize a pre-festival celebration over the weekend, complete with lanterns and sparklers.

venue: chinese garden, jurong

it so happened that this weekend train services between bukit batok and jurong east were disrupted, and so getting to chinese garden took longer than usual for those affected by the disruption.

we were in a group of around 10, and we had a pretty enjoyable night mingling around and talking to each other.  i haven't played with a lantern since like maybe after i turned 12, and here i am, some 10 odd years later, holding one with a bunch of good colleagues, a good reminiscence of my younger days. omg. i sounded so old!

after we exhausted the candles for our lanterns, we focused our attention on the sparklers instead.  i think everyone had a great time, and we discovered that one of our colleagues had pyrophobia! it was fun and i got to practice my amateur video-shooting skills and testing out my camera's video capabilities at the same time.

in summary i would say the outing was good and relaxing - simple group dynamics, nothing complicated, nothing fishy this time round.

at the end of it all, we headed towards orchard for our dinner around 11 plus =p.

my bloody challenge

i took up the challenge to participate in a blood donation drive by hsa with a few friends today despite my innate fear of needles.  the donation was to take place at the newly-opened building scape.

and so i hitched a ride from my neighbor to town and waited for another friend of ours.  the 3 of us were first asked to fill up some questionnaires, and some questions were extremely personal.  i remembered questions like, "have you ever had sex with a member of the same sex?" or "do you have multiple sexual partners?" or "have you ever engage in paid or unpaid sex with someone you do not know personally?"  and so on.

anyway we were put through a series of tests, and i passed all of them.  when it came the time for donation, thanks to a girl beside me, i was distracted from the process of inserting the needle into my arm.  i guessed i pumped out my blood too fast, and very soon, i filled up half a packet of blood.

another short while later, i stopped pumping blood and here comes the giddiness. nurses were very professional and attentive and throughout the whole process i never once felt uncomfortable.  within time i recovered and i was glad i never get to see the needle at all during the whole blood donation process.

after this, i went for a good meal and some shopping and thus concluded my first blood donation experience.

back to the basics

the past week was both mentally and emotionally straining for me. for some reasons i was damn sentimental to the point that i felt like i was drowned by all kinda memories which came flooding into my mind.

as i walked around chinatown the other few days, memories of the place came flooding back.  the people i used to hang out with and all the crazy things we'd ever done. passing by places like timberland, max brenner, soup restaurant etc in vivocity is enough for my mind to be overwhelmed with both happy and sad memories.

i ended up being melancholic for half of the day, and almost got drunk while drinking beer at national geographic. fortunately, i managed to hitch a ride home thanks to a new friend who happened to be my neighbor.

re-assessing everything i think the best solution for this stalemate is for me to return to the basics when we all first get to know each other.  just be my diplomatic self and not being overly-indulgent in anybody's business.  i think that would be in everyone's interest.

a busy week past

the previous week has been really interestingly crazy. it so happened that i had appointments every single day of the week, to the point that i have no time to spend with myself.  not that i am complaining, but i prefer to date myself once in a while.

this week, i learnt to play golf.  the game was more challenging than what i expected, and i had a hard time perfecting my "down swing".  i ended up being the joke of the day, and everyone around me had some good laughs.  maybe i'll do better at the next game.

i finally resumed my japanese lessons after a long hiatus of three consecutive weeks due to personal reasons, only to find out that it was the last lesson and there's exam like next week. crap!

had a brief but momentous gathering on thursday with some friends whom i had not met for over a year, and the next day it was beach day at sentosa. for some reasons i do not enjoy spending time hanging around the beach - it makes me more restless and moody.  i ended up exploring the fringe of rws and taking some photos, though i did not purchase any tickets to enter.  tickets were sold out for the day anyway.

earlier today, i attended a celebration of my friend's baby's full month poolside party (baby shower). i believed it was silly of me to forget to prepare some "ang pao" for the event, luckily a friend came to my rescue.  thank you. later in the evening, i was back in chinatown, enjoying some KOI bubble tea and chill out around the area.

oh gosh. i feel so tired................

all good things - nelly furtado

unknown source of stress

for some unknown reasons i have not been able to catch quality sleep these few days. my ever active brain seems to jolt me awake at weird hours, and the symptoms seem to be indicating that i'm going through a period of high stress level, but wait, what stress is there? i really dunno.

on "缘份"

was reading some hwz forums and decided to post about this.  the chinese word for fate is compounded by 2 words: "缘"(yuan) and "份"(fen). the first word, "缘", essentially holds the same meaning as its english counterpart: fate. however, the second word, "份" introduces a concept of measurement, which in turns controls the fate. a difficult concept to grasp right?

for instance, 2 persons getting to know or even bumping into each other is termed "缘", or fate or serendipity.we all have plenty of "缘" with many people daily. but what helps to determine whether this "缘" will continue? this is controlled by the chinese concept of "份".

the "份" part determines how far the relationship goes.when the "份" part runs out, the "缘" gets terminated in one way or another. hence the chinese phrase "有缘无份" - fate allows the meeting that weren't meant to last.

though i strongly believe people control their own destiny, there's only so much that one can control. there's pretty nothing much one can do when the "缘" ends.  trying to retain someone who is no longer supposed to be there is a tragedy in my opinion.

anyway i think i dun have much "份" with the people around me. i used to have a close friend, but one fine day he had an accident and was declared brain-dead on the spot and was gone. other people came, but try as i might, they never really stay. somehow somewhere along the way there's bound to be some distractions or conflicts or dramas. well, people's priorities do change over time. hardly get to see my family members too as i am currently all alone in singapore.

there's this one great colleague friend i once had. if i am not wrong we always hang-out at similar places (determined from blog posts), but we never bumped into each other. seems like when one is out, the other is at home, or when both are out, we will end up at 2 entirely different locations. it looks as if there's no chance of reconciliation.

to put it scientifically, you might have all the factors but the quantity and quality was insufficient in comparison to something else. perhaps just not enough of something, not good enough of another so despite being together for a long while, it just didn't work in the end. nothing wrong with that, just that somehow the cards we received didn't fall together into the correct places.

and thus, life goes on...

the return to solitude

well, good times in the office have officially concluded.i am glad that for the first time,i actually completed walking down an expected path.the rewards have been pretty satisfying.thank you for pointing out to me.

in summary,the prediction model is right.however,i may have inadvertently became a party-spoiler in some cases. as expected within the prediction model, sometimes simple things or arrangements can have very complex dynamics behind them. i shall try not be so pro-active in organizing events or outings or whatsoever in the future.

as predicted, i ended up being the fringe member of the group. well, i'm probably the thorn within the group. seriously, i dislike sneaky people and people who play boycotting games. i know that a lot has been going on behind my back, and those who put up an act without realizing that i know the full story behind are just plain idiots.

i have truly enjoyed this short journey together.however, i think i have been overly-reliant on this group and may have brought in unnecessary stresses. maybe i should boldly step out and know more friends. i dunno how lucky i may get, but hopefully i can find friends who can double up as activity partners who do sports and so on, rather than simply gourmet partners.

as i was commenting to another colleague, i admired the other group of colleagues. they seemed so united with much simpler dynamics. no unnecessary complications, no mind games and so on.  i wondered why do i always ended up in such groups?  anyway, the timeline i have given myself has expired and i shall depart from this group, most likely never again to return to or maintain contact with any of the other members.  really sorry, i dun like sneaky actors/actresses as friends.

however, i wish the group members all the best in their lives.

i'm so looking forward to the golf session next tuesday....