Here's My Story

Some bewildering incidents have happened since the official take over by the new big boss last year: (1) Fact: Before she took over, we were already shorthanded by one. Within the next 8 to 10 months, 3 more left. Despite pleas from my boss for replacements (not new hires), there had been none except for the new manager. Thoughts: Is she trying to demoralise us? Close down Singapore office? Shift all business to China? (2) Fact: A new manager was hired early this year and we were told of his exact date of joining. That was great news as we thought he could then help us with some of the excess work we had since the departure of 4 colleagues. However, he was instructed by big boss to go to China instead for a couple of months and the interesting bit is that we were not told! We accidentally found out from HR. Thoughts: That was so rude! The irony is that he ended up doing alot of our excess work, which could have been done more efficiently if he was here in Singapore (3) Fac...

During Mother's Day and Father's Day, appreciation is shown for the patience and care our parents have shown (if they had shown) us in bringing us up throughout the decades. I would like to highlight a large group of people who have never been appreciated before on such days: those who have childish parents (and I don't mean parents with regressive minds). Oh yes, I know that some people may think it's ridiculous to compare decades of bringing us up from babies till young adults with a few years of taking care of childish parents. Well, think about this way: our parents have the advantage as starting of as parents since we were babies. We feared them. We respected them. We looked up to them. We admired them. Therefore it is much harder for us to have our roles reversed i.e. we have to be parents to them when they are childish. We want to scold and punish them and yet have to do it without raised voice, with careful words and, impossible it may sound, with respect. I p...

This is an excellent movie! Go watch it. Sorry, I'm bad at general description. I suspect Derek might write a review about it. Update on Sunday, 21 June 2009: Hehe well, I'll say a few words about this movie. I was so tired last night especially since I played about 2 hours of tennis in the morning. It was about a guy, Peter, who was about to get married but realised that he doesn't have any male best friend to be his best man. Thus he went on a quest to find one. It's hilarious (but not slapstick) especially the inevitable awkward moments (both gay and gayish ones) as he doesn't really know how to make male friends. I've never had best friends, at least not according to my intepretation of "best friend". I had a few close friends. In fact, there was a group fo 6 of us back in lower secondary school. In upper secondary, I had a few close friends and a few very good friends but not all of them hung out together. I remember writing a letter of tha...

He was always there but I barely noticed his presence. It was usually a quick, that was all. However, something changed last week. For some strange reasons, I had this strong urge to see him. I did meet and spend some time with him but I was concerned as he is not one I would wish to engage with for too long. Hence I visited a doctor and was prescribed some medication that hopefully would eliminate the urge. It definitely lessened the intensity but, unfortunately, not its frequency. I still meet him regularly for the past week. At home, at work and sometimes even at the gym. After more than a week of exhaustion and struggle, I visited the doctor again and once again I'm popping pills. Hopefully this urge will go away this time. Please let this diarrhoea go away.

To the lady driver of this BMW: you could have killed a bunch of office workers around 12 noon at Telok Ayer Street, after the junction with Cross Street, by not stopping at the traffic light when it was clearly red on your side and it was clearly green on the pedestrian side.

My poor cousin. His started his first job here in Singapore as a hair stylist less than a year ago. Still unsure about how things work in Singapore. He was recently fined S$500. For what? For taking a sip of drink in the MRT train. It was really unlucky because firstly, MRT officer is seldom seen in the train. Secondly, even if the officer is in the train, what are the odds he bumped into my cousin just when he was sipping? Thirdly, usually people are warned first rather than fined right away. S$500 is no small amount especially for a young man on his first job.

IMG_1502 , originally uploaded by williamnyk . I wanted to sleep forever this weekend.

What fellow blogger, Alex, experienced is one of the reasons why I've decided not to come out to my parents. It would be a very convenient excuse for them to blame on homosexuality for all my perceived undesirable attitude and behaviour in the past and in the future. There would be pressure for me to maintain a standard that is likely to be higher than your average heterosexual person, which would be grossly unfair. Even worse is my fear that they may take this further by excusing their bad behaviour and ignore any admonishment from me and waved it as some gay distorted views. It would be so easy for them to continue to be irresponsible since whatever I say then would fall on deaf ears and maybe even ignore my siblings' advice by assuming that they have been influenced by their gay brother. If this happens, it would be dangerous. It has very real consequences on me and my siblings, at least on the financial side. No, it's not that we dep...

The next day, the Fenix Hotel occupants had breakfast at a nearby Taiwanese restaurant. I had some sort of noodle. It was so-so only to me, and evidently so from the fact that I don't even remember the name of the noodle hehe. Went shopping at Dataran Pahlawan Melaka Megamall (hope I got the name correct). Bought some underwear and a short sleeved shirt (thanks guys!). Caught up with William while Derek and Cheryl had their foot tenderised at at Thai massage shop in the mall. Had chicken rice balls, with chicken of course, for lunch. The rice balls were great but the chicken was kinda normal and in fact more moist than normal. Had delicious chendol after that. We had to queue at both shops. After that, it was tearful parting (hahaha well it could very well had been one) and then back to Singapore. What are the key practical lessons I learn in this trip? (1) Never go during school holidays, especially when it is the case for both countries (2) Satay celup is a must! (3) Th...

After satay, we went to do some touristy stuff. The place that is new to me is the so called Flower Garden but seriously lacking of flowers: The garden in front of the Cultural Museum is much better than this, if it is still as good as it was years ago. Nearby is the open air Transportation Museum: Oh, Melaka has significantly expanded the number of museums. I believed it has around 20 museums at the moment. *Boggled* We next visited A Farmosa, ruins of St Paul's church and another museum in the Stadhuys, which at the time has a small gallery on Admiral Cheng Ho: After that, our group was split. I've followed Lloyd, Nick and Lloyd's two friends to eat satay celup at Capitol Satay, while the rest, as I found out later, went outside town and had Nyonya food. The queue for the satay celup was long and the place was warm with steaming satay gravy but boy it was worth it! The system requires us to proceed to obtain the satay and the cost is counted on a p...

It was planned for more than a month. During the last weekend of May, four of us (Lloyd, Nick, Derek and I) took MRT and bus to JB to get our rented car. Yup, we rented a Malaysia car. Safer that way. We waited behind these buildings for the car to arrive: Kota Raya: a familiar place for all those who commute between Singapore and JB Was this formerly Pan Pacific? Or a new hotel? The car rental company, Avis, was a little incompetent in my opinion. We called them after failing to find their office and we were a bit worried about the weather. It was going to rain. They asked us to stay where we were and sent someone to get us. But wait a minute: how would they recognise us? That was the reason why it took them ages to get to us and they have the audacity to complain that they have made two rounds looking for us. Hello??? I won't rent from them any more if I can help it. Once we were on the highway, it was smooth sailing. Derek slept during most of the journey. So it was ju...

Last month, for the first time I had dinner at Equinox, on the 69th (69 mmm ;-) ) floor of Swissotel. The fine dining restaurant is one of the highest placed restaurants in Singapore, while Swissotel is (I think) the tallest hotel. A few of us was there to celebrate a friend's birthday. Obviously the view there is something to marvel at as you can see City Hall, Dobhy Ghaut and Somerset at night. Unfortunately, my gimpy camphone can't capture much of it: We did walk up one more floor to the bar area. It's rather small. Posh kind of bar. Plenty of alcohol on display, even outside. Well, not my cup of tea really. The food was good but horribly expensive haha. I had a scallop dish (forgot what else inside) which is so small that it was almost like finger food. It tasted great, no doubt but seriously overpriced (almost $50 after GST I believed). Guess we are paying more for the view. Oh by the way, we didn't sit exactly next to the window. That costs S$20 more l...

Butterfly ORQ , originally uploaded by Jaded Jeremy .