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Saturday, January 15, 2005
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Had a good time yesterday with christine and huili (without sick lihui :< ).
For huili's 21st belated bday celebration. :)
Well it all started out pretty rocky cos at 5 plus, i had no idea where the place wesley recommended (Changing Appetites the cafe) was. I was trying to check the location out on good ol' www.can.com.sg but cos of conflicting details like "Far East Square" and "Cecil St." which were totally different places, i had no idea where that place was. Until i realised i could just do a google search. The internet is INCREDIBLE. love it. Esp when you need to figure out where places are and how to go.
ANYWAY. Yep, i was getting pretty frustrated cos i couldn't get too huili-san cos she was in a meeting and lihui might not turn up cos she's quite ill. (everyone is getting sick. everyone beware. ) And i was rushing huili's pressie (hehe) cos this week happened to be a pretty hectic week for me and i managed to squeeze time here and there and take fri noon off to come home and finish it up. Then finally i got huili and confirmed the meeting time and place. And i was flying around the house, having to bathe, put my contacts, get the cake (hehe) , 'wrap' the pressie and get a digicam i borrowed (lucky i borrowed).
And yep. i was late. i am always late la. But i was INTENTIONALLY late this time round (proud look) cos i wanted to smuggle the cake into the cafe. So i could either go early or late. But knowing me er.... early is quite impossible. (:P) So i got up a bus at er... 6.45 when i was supposed to reach Chinatown MRT at 7.15. hyuck. I do 'late' very well. Its damned tough i tell you! My pressie was A3 size and flat so i trayed my huge cake on it and slinging my bag, i had no hands to spare. Can u imagine going up a bus with no hands? I was trying to juggle my ez link card while getting a seat before e bus uncle moved off. Brrr. (HUILI , wei3 da4 right?!) Then i stopped at outram and started my HIKE. i walked from.... Outram MRT station ALL THE WAY to far east square , holding that not heavy but bulky load. Its bout 20 min walk my speed which is super far. I was all sticky when i reached. (i'll spare the details of chiding christine for being late for e reservation i made and getting really lost at chinatown. haha)
Passed e waitress e cake. Haha. It was quite hilarious. I simply presented the cake to the waitress outside the cafe and she gave this clueless expression. Then i realised wat i was doing and quickly explained : " Could u help me keep this cake ? " And she gave an even more bewildered (slightly offended too) expression! Then i realised she din even know i was a customer with the girls who were in there already! But anyway, she finally got my pt and managed to smoothly glide pass the gossiping girls with the cake unnoticed. Then i came in.
It was a pretty good dinner! Cos it was FREE! Free dinners are always good!
I like free dinners! Huili rocks! I love 21st bdays! All my friends are to treat on 21st bdays! Yay!
hurhur. Oh the food was in great quality and satisfactory proportions. :) Huge. I had Parmesan Fish and Chips. Never tried cheese in fish fillets before. Yummy and dead sinful. Huili decided to challenge her Feng1 Mo4 again and try fish and chips here. (haha, the last 2 times she had it at Coffee club she had a hives outbreak and spent god-knows-how-much on her doctor fees with huge bumps all over her face) While chris ate her lover's choice : Mango Steak (er... its a nice steak i think with mango and cheese sauce which was surprisingly appetising . mmm, gonna try it e nxt time i go. )
THEN we presented gifts. Christine gave Huili HEAVEN (aka Godiva chocolates). MMMmmmmm. They very generously allowed me to have 1 hazelnut praline which was worth $4. Oh. i think i died. again. But dats only her part 1 present. gee. Like some bday saga. Oooh. Den huili gave me MY present! haha. Super belated. Stupid huili, wrote a letter on her wrapping paper which i happily tore up. Scolded me somemore. WHO ON EARTH uses wrapping paper as letter paper? And the wrapping paper was cheapskate " Season's Greeting" type somemore. wAh lau. my bday gift. pui. OOOh. But wat's outside DOESN'T MATTER. She gave me a PIERRE CARDIN 100% PURE LEATHER WALLET. ooooh. altho i recenly started using my B.U.M. wallet (another bday gift 2 yrs back), but this one is much nicer so i ditched my BUM (smirk). It looks younger la. And its brown n not boring black. And its PIERRE CARDIN (proud bitch look). And also cos huili was demanding i changed wallet there and then, so i painfully said goodbye to my 12 day old bum wallet.
ME ACTING DAO w SILLY HUILI AFTER DROPPING EYEDROPS N MY stylish 'PC' WALLET (i think i can go pai guang gao)
Then i gave MY pressie! She criticised the wrapping. Wah lau, i chose the newspaper with NAthan to wrap ok. gee. hehe. Aiya, cos its a mirror mah, so must wrap w newspaper. (i have NO IDEA what the logic is, if it drops it'll crack also ma. odd. old wives' tale of sth ba hehe) Its actually a photo collage of our photos which leaves a star-shaped mirror in the centre. GRIN. Think its quite nice :P. Here it is :
And yea, could tell she loved it. Until she started noticing how AHEM AHEM she looked in the old photos. *cough cough* er... *whistles* er.... *knits fingers* ladidar. hahhaha. aiya, we both look TERRIBLE. mortal terror. black and fat OBS photos with village hairdos. haha. we look so different! check this 2 photos out :
BEFORE
AFTER
looked so gross last time. teehee.
chris was busy pacifying the traumatised huili with stuff like :
"but you look great now! you look pretty! (den adding in a whisper) relatively..."
silly girls.
I think huili was on the verge on throwing the mirror on the floor in distraught if not for the 18 years of bad luck dat comes with it. *grin*
Den we started taking photos.
And all of a sudden, the waitress came over and laid the MOST GORGEOUS CLASSY LOOKING PROFESSIONALLY DECORATED CAKE ON THE TABLE.
OH. WAT. A. SHOCK WE HAD.
hahahahahhahahahahah. (im so irritating n egoistic i love miself)
Huili was in shock. She was about to ask the waitress if they got the wrong table until she noticed her name on it. And all the while, christine (i noticed) had this sudden SMEAGOL look on her face, she looked spellbound by the cake and its rich cream and purple luminous jelly, she wanted to DEVOUR IT ALL BY HERSELF! haha. Den i gave the "oh-not-a-big-deal" look and told huili dat i baked it. hahhahaha. I'm a poser shit. Den we had this very miserable bday song singing session. Cos i was taking photos while huili was e bday ger which leaves CHRIS happily clapping to herself! she looked a bit mad and giggly. But her eyes NEVER left the jelly.
THE CLAPPER, THE WISHER and THE CAKE (chio right?er.. the cake of cos)
Den we cut 3 slices off the pretty oversized cake (for 3 persons) and chris was sneakily trying to pinch off some "overhanging" (i quote her) jelly or some mispositioned black cherry. HMM. hehe.
Its a " Triple Sponge Cake with Three Layers of Black Cherry Cream Cheese Mousse decorated with fresh whipping cream and topped with Cherry Jelly " I LOVE exaggerating my cake names! haha. But this seriously took a lot of work la. Esp. the whipping cream part. got my hands super creamed up cos HUILI chose to call dat day to disturb me. tsk tsk. Den the lousy box was too small and smudged the cream a few times so i had to redo the creaming. But it was fun to do and fun-ner to eat. hoho.
LOOK AT THE TRIPLE LAYER! and the SHUAI GE and er.... *small letters* mei nus...
Den we started this mad phototaking session. took alot of wu liao photos. rocks. i love taking photos.
Den we decided to go over for our 3 person ktv after all!
haha. KTV was fuN! haha. these 2 girls are really mad, u see the way they dance. okay la but i am always mad so its okay! and there are ALL the SHE songs! but er. the words were MTV size so most of the time we were mumbling. BUT TONG KUAI was no problem! hahha
all in all, a good stress outlet for this week. Whew. altho most of e stress came for preparing for the day itself haha. e irony.
Anyway, i get to drive next tues to next thurs! cos dad is out of town n bro is in sweden! woo. scary tho. But i'll drive to nearby places onli. :) Hopefully can find one day to drive jiabin, chris n huili to somewhere for dinner after their classes. JB go arrange! otherwise no car ride for u. we could go tiong bahru for dinner! i love tiong bahru market! heh. i'm excited. den we could have dessert back at Changing Appetites since we havent tried e NO.1 MUDPIES YET!
p.s. first time i have a blog with pictorial inserts. so tiring. :P
p.s.s. anyway boon, u can claim a reasonably sized cake slice from huili cos i ordered her to bring u a piece on monday. ok? im good right?
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I remember being in a pseudo organisation in HC council called Slackers' Inc. I remember sneaking out of General Meetings to have a lollipop with Zhao outside the toilet. I remember sneaking out of OTHER general meetings to share a pack of chips with Jianrong. I remember the few of us constantly raising doubts and objections (fully felt) towards the way things were done during evaluations. I remember protesting more than once how so many of us were simply making points for the sake of doing so and repeating the same mistakes over and over again. I remember being a "Slacker".
My appeal is "Slack (if it is considered slacking at all) in style".
Too many people i know slack for the sake of slacking. And i will be frank, i am now referring particularly to camp mates. They do not know why they are slacking, they lament the whole day away and they seem to have a major grudge with work and responsibilities. But if i were to ask any of them, what is it they can't stand about the army, I do believe none of them will be able to put forth a convincing argument which pinpoints the organisational flaws but probably say something like "its fucked up." or "i can't wait to get out of here."
Do not be mistaken. I too cannot wait to get out of the army. And i slack, too.
But i am not proud of it. THIS is fundamentally different. I believe my parents have alot of credit to claim for this. They have taught me to become an individual who believes that working hard and being responsible is not the ONLY way to go, but at least the CORRECT way to go. As i was telling paul once, I hate how the army makes us all become "off-grubbing", undriven, unmotivated oppurtunists. I hate how it makes us believe that shirking off responsibilities can be justified. I hate how it sucks the achiever out in me most of the time. But i realised its not its fault entirely (although the inefficiency and politics have alot to contribute), its all in the individual.
I wonder how they work and wonder why people are resting but never rest and wonder why people are working.
I wonder how they can proclaim that they are slackers and derive alot of self-pride from doing so.
I wonder how they do not understand how hard it is from someone in the 'same boat' to get their asses to budge and still persist in their unsympathetic inertia.
I wonder how thick skin can get.
You can see faces change quick as lightning when work is fairly (at least fair to public consensus) distributed to them. They go around as if some one poked a steel rod up their ass, throwing tantrums (YES. tantrums. 20 plus yr old people) all OVER THE PLACE, acting up when you aren't even talking to them and whining when their PMS tides over. How odd. I wonder how spoilt these people can get. Apparently, they have never been in a position which requires them to manage people before. And VERY apparently, they are not very suited for work. Decent work.
And many of them can (with the most earnest look on their faces) tell you that their behaviour (which implies that they ARE aware) is only restricted to army matters. That they have things outside of the SAF which they will willingly commit themselves to with PASSION, LOVE and maybe, ALL THE SEVEN CORE VALUES (snort).
I am skeptical. Firstly, i believe in basic responsibility. That when you are given something to do and you have (whether willingly or unwillingly) agreed to do it, you do it. And you do it well. Simply because you said you would do it. To me, I believe in , not perfecting everything i do, but at least giving personal commitment. Because only then, will you not INCONVENIENCE your colleagues. AND answer to yourself and YOUR superior. There is no shit like " I don't like so i don't do " or " I don't like so i'll jus do it badly ". Our every action in a workplace triggers off reactions. It is simply unbelievably IMMATURED to say "I'm not doing MY job only wat. I can ta1 e blame. Why bother me? " It influences morale. If they haven't realised.
Secondly, I believe that no work or in fact, nothing in the world can be done in complete enjoyment. There is nothing in life which doesn't contain obligations. And in our work life, it is going to be so much more then just the naive 'doing what i like'. We look forward to uni life, but we hate studying. In uni, we desire to work and leave our books but we hate working. And when we work, i dun know how in e world it can happen, but we MIGHT even miss NSF life. There similarly will be politics in the workplace. A hierachy. The inefficient people. Demanding superiors. Bootlickers. Unfair distribution of workload. BACKSTABBERS (snort). And our favourite, SLACKERS. So don't commit to the statement " I am totally different outside (i quote a campmate) " . Unless you're schizo, i am unconvinced how different you are or will be.
There are ,unquestionably , human factors involved.
The reason why my above argument sounds quite harsh is because :
there are human factors involved.
It is the most discouraging thing to see people who you can play with, talk crap to, wait to book out with , people who you too naively thought you can readily call 'friends' sit and watch you work. Or refuse to work when asked. It is disheartening to be their I/C. But it is even MORE disheartening to be a fellow campmate.
But of cos there are people who were slacking right before u asked but readily stood up when you needed help. THIS, on the contrary, is heartwarming. It is comradery. Because it just shows that the person is willing to temporarily alter his 'work style' (heh) to accomodate you. Like shaun volunteering to help me out when it was his rest time to c/o a vehicle. Like peh readily helping clean the outfield vehicle when he was only back for a day in his leave-clearing period. Like ivan who would help me out right after his noon nap when he looks like some sleepy troll trudging around.
There are people who are always there to offer assistance. Even when it is uncalled for. Like dennis my bud who took over night ops duty for me even tho i have no reason at all to not do it. Like kangwei and yx who will never say no when u need help.
I personally am guilty of not practising what i preach all the time. I can refuse to help out sometimes, not bothering to explain myself even when i have a valid reason. I might have refused to help these guys one time or more cos i was jus plain lazy but i try to minimise that.
There is no need to ask sometimes. When you see your colleagues in your department struggling, is there a further need to plead for you to help out? I owe noone. I was given an I/C job. I try to do it well. I am not willing and will gladly give it up but i WAS ordered to take up the job so i WILL do it well. As much as you are involuntary, i am too. As much as you will rather sleep, i rather too. But because i have a job, i have no choice. And i don't see why you think you have one.
This entry is not very well written. It is not objective either. But i think that it can probably give everyone an idea of how work life is like and maybe think through it a bit. The real people i am writing it for may never read this but nevertheless, it evaluates my one year and 3 mths of being some stupid I/C. I didn't do good enough but at least i tried and i am proud to say, I didn't let myself or my ma'am or who's taking over me - dennis down.
To KYZ :
Yes, this entry is triggered by you but not directed at you. Hope it gives you a better outlook of how your fellow colleague feel at times and although i doubt you will give it any more thought a trashy magazine deserves (since you ALREADY said you will never change ur ways - I'll write another entry dedicated to this, entitled : " Never make deadsure remarks like dat, it just leaves us with no backdoor and eventually embarrassment ") , i hope it makes you a better person (worker/boss) nevertheless.
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