Category: life

I had a lovely day yesterday and I was glad that I went out 🙂

Zila sms’ed me in the morning and asked me out for a chat and to watch a fashion show. I was a little hesitant to go out as I was a little dry, and just wanted to moan and lounge around, and be depressed at home.

But then again, I thought to myself, why not? I could take some pictures while I’m at it too. So we decided to meet up at Jurong East Mrt Station and the first thing I saw about her was that she rebonded her hair and it looked very straight. I liked it, she looked really pretty with her new hair-do. I’ve never seen her with her regular hair though as ever since I’ve seen her at work, she has always bunned it up, so I can’t really compare.

We chatted all the way during the train ride to Orchard, and talked about work, her going to Australia for her vacation, and laughed about some matters. I hope we didn’t annoy the people who shared our cabin. I’m impressed by her enthusiasm and her outlook in life. For someone who was just 19, there is a lot of energy about her.

The first time that I met Zila was during the office meeting. Zila was an ex colleague from the previous company that I worked for. She’s really cool to me. I didn’t really had a big impression of her the first time I talked to her as we didn’t really have much chance to interact. I only got to know her better when she was posted to West Spring and we managed to talk more.

She’s an amazing girl. I learnt that she was the captain of the National Women’s Soccer association. And she sings in a band, and she also tutors primary school kids in mathematics and English. Very impressive right? I don’t think I could manage all those activities. I think I’ll faint trying to cope with all that.

Anyway, Zila’s friend tells us that the place was located at Muhammad Sultan road and the fashion show starts at 6 pm so we decided to have lunch first.

We walked to Far East Plaza shopping complex. We managed to see this really impressive looking car. I don’t know what type of car it was, but I liked it. Would be nicer if it was green.

We went up to the fourth floor and had lunch at the corner of the Cahaya foodstall and had rojak which Zila said was the best rojak that she ever had. It was good rojak . So much so that we completely forgotten about taking a picture of it.

We walked around Far East Plaza and stopped to do some window shopping along the stretch of road, and then headed down the shaw house and saw a toy fair there, while Zila was looking at some dolls, I chanced upon this adorable little girl who was playing with some toy puppies. How cute she was. I could just pick her up and give her a hug, but I feared that her parents would beat me up to a pulp seeing a stranger carrying off their daughter. Just look at her 🙂

We then went to Wheelock place as Zila wanted to see some birkenstocks shoes. I didn’t quite liked the shoes there, it was much too expensive for such a simple shoe. 300 dollars for a pair of sandals … bleh. We went upstairs and saw an interesting shop that sold items completely for scrapbooks. I’d love to make a scrapbook, maybe I could do one since I’ve got the time now.

There was a photography gallery there too, sponsored by epson and I looked at the works done by Ken Seet, Derrick Lim, Geoff And and Tay Kay Chin. Looks great.

The gallery was entirely done in black and white, and somehow the monochromatic tone of the images, seem to give it more expression and feel. I liked it.

Zila and I saw a hairdressing shop and saw a little car inside it, and I thought how ingenious it was, to have a car for kids to play in while the hair dresser cut the kids’s hair. Zila wondered if the hair would be loopsided or crooked that way. We went down to borders bookshop for a while to find a street-directory to find out where the location of the place was.

The city was extremely crowded, in the Saturday afternoon. We had to wiggle our way through the area.

And then we walked past the wisma atria, and crossed over to the paragon and saw Kym Ng doing a show. I’m not too sure what the show was about, since I don’t watch Chinese shows, but I think it was the matchmaking show in which she plays cupid and interviews a random girl in the street to see what type of partner that she was looking for and see if she is able to fulfil the girl’s requirements as I read in 8 days, a local magazine, a while back.

We walked past a makeover counter where some make-up artists made over some girls with their make up range. I was tempted to try it out too, except for the fact that I didn’t fancy using nor buying the Fasio brand make up. It seemed too thick and since I had an extremely oily face, I am hesitant to try clogging looking make-up. Some of the girls looked really nice and I admired the colour of the artist’s eye-shadow.

We then walked to Somerset and took the bus 123 to head to Clemenceau Avenue. By then, it was already 5.30 pm

Zila said that the location was in Double-O, which was in Mohammad Sultan Road. I asked the bus driver if it was the right stop. And he nodded his head affirmatively and pointed to the direction where we were supposed to walk to. I told Zila, if we can’t trust the bus driver, who can we trust eh?

Unfortunately, we weren’t sure of the area so much, so we walked to merbau road, then headed to Nanson road, that is where we had a stroll at the lovely riverside. We even had time to view the gallery at the Singapore Tyler Print Institute.

We then realised that we were quite lost and decided to retrace our steps. But then we were quite tired, and stopped by the EU Square shopping centre for a quick drink and a seat to rest our tired feet. I didn’t want to drink at the shops around the area, as I knew it was going to be expensive. However we didn’t even see one drink stall there! There wasn’t even one fast food restaurant! However, there was a little supermarket upstairs where I bought a drink and a box of Baci Chocolates.

We sat down at the ledge of the corner of unity street and muhammad sultan road and then, walked past river wing. At this time, I was extremely grateful that I wasn’t wearing heels. I think I would have screamed by then, it was quite tiring. I wasn’t a young spritely 19 year old like Zila any-more 😛

Then we sensed that it wasn’t the right direction as it seemed all wrong. We asked one of the waitress there and she pointed to the direction.

Guess what?

It was right there, beside where the ledge where we sat to have our drink and rest. Why we never noticed the building was strange to me. We peered at the Double-O entrance. It seemed empty with no one inside. By the time we were there, it was already 7 pm. How could a fashion show be an hour only? Zila called her friend up and he told her that it actually ended at 6 pm!

That annoyed Zila and me to no end. Zila said that she would do something nasty to her friend. I rubbed my hands and asked her if I could go watch too .. hehehe

Anyway, by this time, we decided to enter the courtyard anyway since we made such a huge effort trying to FIND the place and we were quite tired. Zila found her brother’s friend there. We went to a Turkish/Italian restaurant and had a seat and ordered some food.

A chat with the guy revealed that the fashion show actually started at 7.30 pm! So Zila’s friend was actually mistaken. ROFL! I could see that Zila had an evil thought hatching in her mind. I just wondered what it was.

I turned around in my seat and saw that the courtyard was actually next to the Singapore Repertory Theater! I can’t believe we went around the area at least 3 times, back and forth just trying to find the place when it was just here. Oh. My. Goodness.

The guy also said that it wasn’t actually a fashion show, but more like a dance showcase of the Mediterranean.

We ordered Pizza Margherita, which was a simple pizza made of tomatoes, cheese, basil, olive oil … no toppings since Zila and I felt a little sick of the street and junk food that we snacked on along the way. The mixed berry drink that I got, I thought was delicious. The pizza was delicious too. I’d love to show Juli and Hema and Geri here, its really lovely here. And the ambience is great too.

There was a guy in ancient Roman clothing, going around asking people if they wanted to have their pictures sketched. Zila bossed the poor guy around.

Don’t draw my face too big!
I don’t want my nose flared!
Make sure you draw it nicely or I’ll complain to the manager!

The pictures turned out great, much to Zila’s disappointment. And this was hers.

And this was mine 🙂

There’s a frog in mine, it looked like I was trying to catch the frog … lol

Zila introduced me to Damien, a friend of hers who was working there at the time for the “fashion show”. He did the sound and lighting there and three of us had a chat together. He was a likeable guy, and he seemed to like his job a lot.

Then we decided to play a fool by playing around with the free chopsticks that we had earlier

I thanked Zila for asking me out, it was really a lovely day out and I really enjoyed myself. See marina! Why must you stay and home and be depressed when its so much better to go out. 🙂

We left and said our goodbyes to each other at about 10.30 or so and really, I had a wonderful time. It was a lovely evening and day indeed. Would love to do it again 🙂

I’ve never thought of myself as a very lucky person in circumstances, but I really had to thank my lucky stars. Someone up there must really love me.

I got ready to go to the Buskers Opera and took the train to the Kallang Mrt Station. Called up Rosdee who was already on his way. I can go to the Kallang theater myself, I thought confidently as I’ve been there before, so it should be a peach to get there.

I walked to the bus terminal and proceeded to take a short cut at the People’s Association building. I walked and walked and finally came to a white metal fence. Eh? When did this place get fenced up? I tried to find the exit but after some time, I gave up. I asked some people there, how do I get out of this place? Just leave through the opening there, its right behind the building.

I walked briskly there and still no exit. I was stuck in the area!

I cursed and sweared under my breath at the boys who told me that the exit was just behind the building. Luckily, a taxi came by and I quickly flagged it. Only 5 minutes to go before the show starts at 8pm.

I ran to the entrance of the theatre and then I found myself tripping and falling! My foot managed to step in a drain! And boy did it hurt that I was stunned for a few seconds.

A concerned passerby asked me if I was alright. I’m fine, really. You’re lucky you didnt break your teeth or something. I guess he was right. It still hurt though, my knees hurt, so did my elbows and my shoulder. I had to limp all the way to the entrance. But I was in time! The doors were just about to close when I was there. Amazing!

The pain still smarted all the way through the show. But oh well, anyways.

The Buskers Opera, directed by Robert Lapage was an interesting show, with the storyline basically going about the life of a man, Macqueath, who was in a band, who seduced many girls along the way.

I liked the music there, which included many different genres such as blues, jazz, rock, rap, even folk. It was quite enjoyable. It has been a while since I watched the theatre since my secondary school days. It was so much different compared to going to the cinemas as it’s live and you can actually feel every emotion from the actors live as compared to cinemas.

Anyways, I’ll end here for the moment, maybe I’ll update this post in the morning, but right now, I’ve some abbrations to nurse. Boo hoo hoo

I am so humbled and greateful and overwhelmed by the care, love and warmth that I felt by West Spring this Friday. Compared to the cold treatment that I received Thursday night, from the company to the warm loving experience that I had on Friday, was such a vast difference.

I went to the school to pack up my things and I saw some friends and I told them that it was my last day there. And they looked so shocked! It was humbling to see that they cared enough to express their feelings that way. How is that so? How can it be? Thats not possible marina, no one ever complained about you! And they looked adamant about my situation. It was the same with every one that I said goodbye to, they all had this expression of shock at my sudden termination. Dont cry Marina. Dont cry. I had to say to myself. But the hot tears just came out. It wasnt about the pay (lousy as it was) but the wonderful, wonderful people there. That was why I initially thought of resigning only in October when the final term would end. Oh well.

I packed up my items, my bears that has accompanied me at work since the old campus, the cards that the students gave me and looked at my desk to keep it locked in my memory.

I went down to talk to the principal.

Sir? Can I have a minute?
Sure Marina, come on in.
its my last day today. I’d just like to say thank you for welcoming me and making me feel welcome here. I really enjoyed my experiences here these past two years.
And he frowned and told me. You’re fired? I’ll try my best to see what I can do for you, Marina. In the meanwhile, please join us for the teacher’s lunch later. I’ll ask Minder to bring you there.

I’ll be there. Thank you again.

I then went up and quickly burned my files from the intranet into a CD. No way in hell will I let that witch get my files. My hard work that I’ve done. I was just about to delete my files from the sharing folder when that witch, my supervisor stepped in and warned me not to delete away my files. It belongs to MOE she said. Its copywrited. Did you know Suhardi (an ex colleague who used to work in the company) did that and it damaged the server. I was floored at her sheer denseness. No one could ruin the server by just deleting data files! If I thought that her command of english was atrocious enough for someone with a master that comment totally bowled me over.

Thats why I’m IT and you’re …. supervisor, I thought to myself.

And she stood there. Looking at me like I was a criminal. Thinking of me like I was going to steal something. Her mobile phone poised and ready at any wrong move that I make, to call or sms(someone) Her tone of voice told me “pack up and leave” I hated that feeling. I thought it was rude and snobbish. Linda went up to see and was puzzled at why I was packing up but she didnt ask me since the witch was there.

I returned the laptop and some other things on Rudie’s table and by then, Mr Minder was waiting for me. Ready Marina? Yeah, its time to go.

I gave hugs to the admins, Jane, Janet, Letchmi, and everyone else and they gave me the same reaction of shock and disbelief. Lets find marina a new job. I know some openings here and there! I felt so grateful and really, it was humbling to see so much support and care.

I went in Mr Minder’s car and cried all the way in the car. Randy and Mr Minder tried their best to console me.

Why are you crying for? The principal already said that he’d help you! You know that whatever he says, he means it! Dont cry Marina, who the (censored) does that company think they are? Its not worth crying over them. Principal already gave his word. You’ll go far. What is that company? Its nothing.

Eventually, I stopped being upset. And we reached the guildhouse and had our lunch there. Honestly, the warmth and feeling of love there was so touching. All of a sudden, Rudie stood up and said, this song is dedicated to ms marina, who’s last day is today. I cant remember what song he sang, but I was genuinely touched. Then P stood up too and sang along with Rudie and I tried hard not to tear up. It was just so sweet. I was duly touched.

Later on, P told me not to worry and he ACTUALLY introduced me to some high flyers! I was amazed and thought how surreal it was. I met the Military Defence Officer and some Army Specialists and the Dean of NUS and some benefactors to the school (how did he meet all these people?)

Tamil told me, P thinks highly of you. You dont have anything to worry about. You’ll be fine.

—

I think I’ll be fine. I’ll be fine. I can only hope

Well it finally happened.

I went to the meeting at the company and there I was.

Fired.

Terminated.

Cancelled.

I’m not upset. In fact, I’m kind of glad since, I dont share the company vision anymore. Especially when they keep insisting that I was “in my own world” and I’m not “commited”

I’m just disappointed in the company for not recognizing the things that I’ve done to the school. Really disappointed.

But I’ll really miss West Spring. Thats all.

Its time to move on.

Might be influenced by the Girl with the pearl earring

May 25th is Towel day. Happy towel day everyone – Celebrating Douglas Adam’s Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Cart introduced me to the idea of carrying a towel for this day and the first thing that I can think of was how crazy the idea was. But I’d do it anyways for the list of crazy things that I’d do for 2005.

What exactly is Towel day? Well, according to Douglas Adams

A towel, it says, is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitch hiker can have. Partly it has great practical
value – you can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold moons of Jaglan Beta; you can lie on it on the brilliant marble-sanded beaches of Santraginus V, inhaling the heady sea vapours; you can sleep under it beneath the stars which shine so redly on the desert world of Kakrafoon; use it to sail a mini raft down the slow heavy river Moth; wet it for use in hand-to-hand-combat; wrap it round your head to ward off noxious fumes or to avoid the gaze of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal (a mindboggingly stupid animal, it assumes that if you can’t see it, it can’t see you – daft as a bush, but very ravenous); you can wave your towel in emergencies as a distress signal, and of course dry yourself off with it if it still seems to be clean enough.

More importantly, a towel has immense psychological value. For some reason, if a strag (strag: non-hitch hiker) discovers that a hitch hiker has his towel with him, he will automatically assume that he is also in possession of a toothbrush, face flannel, soap, tin of biscuits, flask, compass, map, ball of string, gnat spray, wet weather gear, space suit etc., etc. Furthermore, the strag will then happily lend the hitch hiker any of these or a dozen other items that the hitch hiker might accidentally have “lost”. What the strag will think is that any man who can hitch the length and breadth of the galaxy, rough it, slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through, and still knows where his towel is is clearly a man to be reckoned with.

I brought a towel with me in my handbag, but I didnt really feel the need to use it for the day. But I’m sure there are many uses for it when the time comes. Maybe I’d fall off the motorcycle and I could use it as a sling … or wear it as a fashionable skirt … maybe wipe the smirk out off a jerk’s face … but in the meantime … *wears her towel on her head and prances around like an egyptian princess*

Been kind of busy this week.

Friday afternoon.

Reached school at about 12.30 noon. Meet a few of my ex students : Nur, Sri, Zawanah and Razali who were admiring my green kitty bag. Me (along with Rudie) taught them Computer Applications last year. I miss teaching them. They were one of the most interesting class that I’ve ever came across. Sure, some of them slept in class and there are a few smartasses in there. But its all good. They aren’t bad kids. Misunderstood perhaps. They are friendly and proactive when one talks to them. And you can see that they really put in an effort (well, sometimes)

Anyways, I was to bring some students to the Esplanade for a National Blogging Competition. I was supposed to bring only 5 students. However while I was in the staff room, there were a number of students waiting for me. I counted them. 9! That’s too many. I can’t bring you all there! Some of you will have to step out.

And all of them gave me puppy dog eyes. I guess I’ll have to bring you all there then. I filled up some forms and off we went. We had to take public transportation as I didn’t have the foresight to book a small van for us since I assumed that I couldn’t for a group smaller than 10. This will be a learning situation for me I reckon. We had to walk and walk and walk to the 190 bus stop and then wait and wait and wait in the bus and then walk and walk and walk on the way to the esplanade itself. I was beginning to melt from the afternoon sun.

The kids looked adorable though. And quite chatty all the way. It lifted my spirits a little bit. Ooh. I could just pull their cheeks

At the parliament house

By this time, Zila called me up telling me that there were a number of schools already assembling at the hall. I was late! We tried to rush as soon as we could there. My kids still had time to pose 😛

We reached there finally, at about 3 pm or so. I had to apologize to Zila for being so late. I really didn’t expect that the journey would take more than an hour. Anyway, we signed up for the attendance and entered the hall.

It was interesting to watch the previews of the competition. The event, organized by singtel where different schools compete in creating the most popular moblog. It was interesting in the sense that not only was it a blog, one could also use mobile phone sms to create posts. It was quite accessible and the nice thing about it was that it was virtually spam free, as it needed a mobile phone to be activated. Not many people would want to spend money just to spam needlessly (probably, maybe)

Singtel and Moe has organized many interesting events. 2 years ago, they hosted the Learn@Arts event which I enjoyed tremendously. That is why I couldn’t just let this event slip by. I’m sure that the students would enjoy it. It’s a pity that most of the Technology Club member weren’t interested in it. All of the students that joined me were sec 1’s.

Anyway there were heaps of students from many various schools participating. It was a little odd hearing the questions posed by the students

“Can we add programming languages to the blog?”
“How about PERL or Java or C++”
“Isn’t there a way to edit the templates instead of the default?”
“What are these datacards for?”

Umm … Isn’t this a blog? Where one puts their thoughts and opinions in? To me, my definition of a blog isn’t where one messes with the coding so much so as compared to the actual content and writing of the blog. But I guess to each, their own. I can get surprised sometimes at some people’s eagerness to compete that they forget the actual purpose of the competition.

Anyway, after the briefing, my kids saw Jamie Yeo and you could just see them hyperventilating. ‘Cher! ‘Cher! Its Jamie Yeo! ‘Cher! Do you think she’s married? ‘Cher! Do you see her? Wow! ‘Cher!

* ‘Cher is a short form for Teacher that Singaporeans adopted

Jamie Yeo, by the way, is a popular Deejay as well as an actress for the local television station here. She seemed nice and pretty down to earth with no airs about her. She was pretty busy though, with all the people around her, asking for autographs and taking pictures. My kids pestered me to take a picture of them with her.

Zila and I also managed to talk to Aaron, who was from the show “Eye for a guy 2” (which I don’t watch though) so I guess he’s another celeb that we saw there. Like Jamie, I guess he was pretty swamped too. Maybe it’s just me, but I didn’t really get the charm and appeal of the guy. But he seemed interesting. I snapped a picture of Zila and Aaron in this interesting shot

Zila: I’m gonna dig your nose! Muhahahaha!!

We went for a little refreshment after the preview and we went home soon after.

Saturday

Bwaah!! Feeling groggy after waking up in the morning. I just had a heavy lesson in economics on Friday night and I really didn’t feel like helping out in the school newsletter. But I had to since I promised to help Waheeda and Randy out.

Reached school at about 10 am and wondering why the heck I was at work on a Saturday and I groaned and moaned and sighed. I walked past the staircase before the staff room and saw the mural drawn by the art students starting to look really good.

I was surprised to see that there are *many* other teachers there on a Saturday too.

I settled in and got to work with the trusty laptop. I shrieked and had palpitations at how slow the laptop is at saving the 70 megs a document (there were 8 altogether) I almost had a mini heartburn. But before we knew it, it was already 3 pm and we were finally done.

Randy and Waheeda decided to act silly as a celebration.

Narimah: Dont complain marina!

Randy: Do you like my pants?

Waheeda: NO pictures!

Prakash, Superman gone wrong

Just me and my yellow flip flops

Anyway, we brought the documents to be vetted by the principal. It was the first time ever that I went over to his house. I was surprised that he lived in a HDB flat. I’ve always assumed that he lived in a bungalow or a terrace. When asked about it, he replied that he’d rather have a smaller house and keep the additional money so that he could enjoy the money instead instead of having the house as a liability. I could understand his point of view.

After vetting, he took us out for dinner at the hawker centre nearby for some seafood. And we talked casually,the principal, his friend, Tamil, Randy, Prakash, Waheeda, and me. Waheeda told me to tell the principal about my company problems. She saw that I was really depressed in the afternoon after receiving a sms from the company. They’ve delayed my pay again. Moreover boss wants to see me again on Tuesday. Just what the heck does he want this time? After that Thursday night, I’m really beginning to lost faith with the company.

The principal listened to my story and proposed to help me out by hiring me as a full time staff with all the benefits and perks as a regular staff there. I’d get 1.8 k he said. And that sounded good to me. But he couldn’t give me the job now since he is under contract with the company. At the end of the year he said. I guess that was enough to keep me hanging. I’m actually earning very little right now. I used to earn 1.3 k and now the company actually CUT my pay to 1 k since the beginning of the year. I don’t even have CPF contributions. I don’t feel like a full time staff at all! Not even medical benefits? That was so sad … It was really tough with my studies and my riding practices and my expenditure … Tamil added that the economy was bad and asked me not to listen to the newspaper that said that the economy was picking up. He added that COE prices are going down. That was actually an indication that the economy was bad. I think I’ll hang on, I have to try to. I’ll send my resignation at the end of October or November for the one months notice.

Sunday

Suffered a mini burnt out. Slept all afternoon to recharge

Monday

Went for my final riding practise today. 8.01. And what do you know, I passed that practise. No more lessons! I was pleasantly pleased. About 3 weeks from now will be my traffic police test. I hope I pass it. If I pass it, I’d finally get my license 🙂 So exciting!

Met Randy in the afternoon to pass him the edited version of the newsletter and went to the Taman Jurong Community Centre in the evening for the “parents day event”. It was quite interesting albeit, crowded. The minister was there and it was bustling with activity. There were durian tasting session, buffet as well as games. Not many pictures this time though, people move too fast and night time shots needs time for the lighting to flood in properly.

Ah well, time to sleep now in time for the Marathon at the Macritchie Reservoir in the morning. And I haven’t even completed my Literature essay yet.