A long time ago, China was the single most dominant empire in the world, until its people got complacent, and chose to indulge themselves in the sinful pleasures of greed, gambling and of cuz opium. This gave all the ang mohs the chance to exert their influence on a weakened giant and the rest, as they say is all history.

Sometimes I wonder if it is in human nature that we worship those with a fairer skin. There are plenty of historical example. Racism usually occurs with our darker counterparts being the victims. Ranging from the discrmination against the African Americans in the US to the caste system in countries like India where there used to be this conflict between the Northern and Southern Indians.

Even now, in this modern and advanced society, there are examples of how we still kow tow to the supposedly more superior races such as the ang moh... Its more obvious in the service line where you can see the distinct difference in attitude when the service people attend to the asians and the ang mohs. You can see that they are basically bowing to them and they will suddenly adopt this come-out-of-nowhere-farnie-sounding accent that never fails to amuse me.

I have actually worked with some of these ang mohs before and seriously, they are not that high and mighty. Ask anyone who has been a steward/ stewardess and they will tell you that ang mohs can be quite a pain in the ass too.

Its a good thing that the asians, specifically the chinese is now begining to come to their senses and is actively trying to regain their identity. Of cuz they will have to start by influencing the young via the media, since this group is easily influenced by pop cultures.
Maybe in the near future, the Chinese can rise to the top again and instead of English being the universal language, people of other races will have to start learning 中国话

I have till date, received 3 emails from someone in the cc list, asking the sender of the email to 'stop wasting their time' and exclude them from 'future correspondences which are of no concern to them'. To these people, I have the following advise, 'Be careful what you wish for, cuz you may just get it'...

You see, within my social circles, there are always some kind souls who will try to organise outings and just include others who are in the clique in the emails (ok I'm one of the organisers and yes, one of the emails is a direct response to my invites, hence this entry, cuz I'm fucking pissed)... And I think it is only polite that whoever has been invited, to at least reply if you wish to go or not.
In the event that you do not wish to join in the activity, or future activities, for whatever reasons, there are always better ways of phrasing it... To use words such as 'of no concern' or 'wasting my time' is utterly rude and lack of social grace, no matter how irritated you feel about the outing/ the organiser and/or the long chain of reply-with-history-mails... How fucking difficult is it to just decline politely and then proceed to delete the emails???

To the one who replied me, and I think at some point or another, you will come upon this entry, or you will be informed of this entry, that I'm happy to announce that your wish has been granted and 'from henceforth, you shall be omitted from future correspondences and thus, your precious time shall not be wasted' =)

Met up with Nancy, Shujun, Min and Jackie for dinner on Friday nite.
Went to this place in Clarke Quay called Brewerks where they have their own brew of beer.

Quite a good place to chill after work but being a Friday, the place is kinda croweded, heng we managed to get a table ard 8pm...

Too bad, we were all kinda starving by the time the food arrived, so forgot to take pix, heheh...

Went over to MOS after dinner, actually old beng like me prefers to go pubs instead cuz a) old bengs like me aint too much of a dance. b) drinks are cheaper and there's no cover, so we can drink ourselves silly, c) we can actually have decent converations without having to compete with the dance tracks... But anyways, since the gals wanna dance, dance we shall and into MOS we went...

Suprisingly, the hottest dance club in town (or rather, used to be the hottest dance club in town) is kinda empty, we dun even have to queue... Guess most of the clubbers are now flocking to the new hottest dance club in town which happens to be St James over at Vivo.

Shujun left halfway cuz she's kinda beat, after enduring a long week at work, Jackie on the other hand, can dance on and on to all kinda music, like energizer batteries like dat -_- Personally I prefer the hip hop chamber but too crowded and then the gals dun like cuz too many Ah neks and Ah mats oso... hahaha... Did remember to take some shots this time round though...

Me and Min

Min and Nancy

The guys took turns taking pix with the Sony handphone before we realised we can do this

Haha can actually aqueeze 4 of us into the frame

Ok so here's the random pix, collages, peppered with captions here and there =)

Ok, so finally here it is, the long belated Taiwan post... Its a torture going thru all those pix and to decide which to post and how to blog this entry. You see, its extremely hard to list down all that has happened in the 6 days after like close to a month after the trip and I can't really decide to just blog about the random stuff or try to list everything in chronological order, plus the fact that Blogger takes forever n ever to load pix...
Me and the 洗头妹, another chio chio (",)
My hairstylist


Its taking me forever to load these pix and I have somemore to go, so the next post is gonna be random photoblog =)

Wahs laus ehs... sibei busy these few days, so busy until I oso dunno wat I'm doing, mostly work related stuff lah, then gotta prepare for my dear godsis's wedding on Sunday cuz she had asked me to be the emcee... I tot its should be rather easy since its just a simple lunch reception and there's only about 100 guests or so, but then hor, there were some impromptu stuff that popped up along the way, such as the sudden decision to have the tea ceremony... Stress leh, cuz need to address the relatives in the correct sequence and I got to see the namelist like 5 min before I intro-ed the wedding couple for their march in... But all in all, it was quite an experience, hahah...
Feel like I'm short-changing my members over at ROvers cuz I'm not exactly performing well as the chairperson. Not that anyone complained yet but then feel that I'm behind schedule for a lot of things, such as calendar of events lah, workplan lah, hell, I've not even hold for the first comm meeting yet... Then there's the coordination for ACID (Annual Campo for Intellectually Disabled), feel bad that I'm asking my fella volunteers to attend while this chairperson can't make it... jia lat hor?... hope things can get settled down soon ar... Hahaha still prefer my previous stint as the Team Activity Group Leader where I just had to plan programmes on a week to week basis and just make sure everyone had fun...

Oh got the Taiwan pix le but still trying to find time to sort thru and caption them...

Its been like wat, a month since I injured my left knee. Doctor said its due to an over-strained ligament and it should heal within a week or so, but I'm still experiencing pain leh... Ok granted the fact that I'm still playing badminton and rollerblading but then its only in moderation mah...

So, just to play safe, decided to stop running around and back to hitting the weights at the gym again... had not been going so regulary ever since I started playing badminton twice a week... hmm, that could possibly why I'm healing at a snail's pace...

Just the other day at the gym, I saw an old classmate who had the same problem. His is more scary, the whole ligament snapped and he had to go have it surgically re-attached. The reason he's at the gym is cuz his doc say muz exercise to strengthen the knee... Then to my horror, I came to know of at least another 3 friends who are having/ had ligament issues before...

Looks like age is really catching up liaoz, although we still have the heart and the stamina to persue the activities that we so enjoy doing, our body can't seem to take the same amount of punishment anymore... and I'm not yet 30! ARGH!!!

May have to pay the good old doc another visit if the problem persists =(

Speaking of which I have to see my skin doc again due to what could possibly be the start of another zits outbreak... damn, gonna be so broke this month...

Finally, its almost the end of Day 2...
Auntie Leng Leng on medical leave today, so I'm kinda lonely in office which is almost like a graveyard, but still ok lah, cuz I'm practically glued to the laptop, taking time off for toilet breaks and updating the blog when my brain simply refused to think anymore...

One more day to go and then its Friday!!!

Oh ya, gonna be the emcee for my dear godsis's wedding lunch. Its not too bad lah, considering the fact that I'll only be addressing like 100 ppl maximum, but hor, no pretty co-emcee leh... grrrr... Hope I can put on my usual crappy self on Sunday so I dun sound boring... heheheh...

Ooooo, noticed that my daily hits counter registered an all time high of 31 hits... But hor, I dun remember giving access to that many people lei... unless the few friends that know about this blog check in like a few times a day using a different PC (cuz my counter does unique count de... heheh)

Anyway, thanks for reading my blog, whether you know me or not.
And for those who actually access this blog more than once in a day, promise I'll try to update often ya =)

Oh I have not forgotten about my promise to blog about my Taiwan trip but I haven got the time to get the pix from Rach yet, so hang in there...

Its gonna be a long 3 days before weekend is here.
Have to cover duties for like 4 colleagues since they are away for a 3-day bonding course in OBS.
Well naturally, this is a suck thumb situation lah, although I think those of you working outside Ah Geok's Dept will almost never be caught in a situation like mine.

Anyway, they cannot seriously think I can settle everything right? If I can really swee swee do the job of 5 persons (my own included), then might as well sack them and give me their pay lor...
Another reason is that if I can swee swee do, means I can be stretched further right? I mean why should I work so hard lei? Especially in a place where recognition is not given to 2nd class citizens like 'Support Officers'...

The reason why I'm kinda pissed is because of the following (not in the order that I'm most pissed about) :

1) The so called old birds were supposed to go OBS last year but then, due to hierarchy, HR (or to be fair lah, most probably its Ah Geok) decided that non-accountants should not be going with the accountants, for obvious reasons. And so, we were excluded because there were not enough non-accountants at the time. And get this, some of the really senior ones like Auntie Leng Leng and Ah Poh were not even invited cuz they were considered to be too senior and do not need to bond. WTF!!! So wat if they are more senior??? Ng si lang meh???
So for this time round, the accountants and the non-accountants all get to go but oh, the senior and more senior ones once again got conveniently forgotten... Nabei can...
Its not so much as in we are very hardup to go for the camp but its the inequality in treatment and the recognition (or lack of, rather) that the organisation is giving us 2nd class citizens that piss us off. Dun tell me we are not contributing as much to the organisation lor... How else do our bosses get their bloody promotions if we do not do their work for them?
Usually the higher ups will only see that the branch or the section has delivered all the deliverables so credit should go to the leader, cuz he can lead the team to success. If the followers dun put in their fair share, you see how the leader leads lor...

2) I'm quite reluctant to blog about this part but then I feel that things are starting to get out of hand... Well, its like this, the culture has been that the non-accountants usually will forge closer ties cuz well, the 2nd class citizens will tend to look out for each other, so we always tend to help those newer ones and pull them along.
Problem comes when first, the newer ones suddenly get a higher recognition than the older ones as they are seen to be good in what they do. And that they can take over the portfolio in a relatively short time.
Second, the older ones discovered that they are actually presenting things which are not factual. And for some, they simply lack self discipline and responsibility and actually expect covering officers to do their jobs of them!
Things come to light when those covering their duties discovered hidden skeletons in the closets. So naturally, this gives rise to discontentment and now, even the 2nd class citizens are at loggerheads...

Super sianz lor this kinda working environment... sigh, I know you all muz be wondering why I am still here kao-behing after so long and doing nothing about it. Believe me, I am and seriously, I have reached the point where I'm seriously thinking about leaving all the shit behind and just go... but of cuz the practical side of me tells me its dumb to throw away good old money, so while the hunt is still ongoing, I will need to keep on kao-behing to keep my sanity...

3rd Sight, how appropriately named. A program for Ah Geok to invade our privacy
I'm sure those of you in the IT field will know that there is this thing called knowledge management which actually is quite a big word.
It can mean how the organisation wants to harness and retain the knowledge and experience of existing staff so that these will not be lost during staff turnover, and most often than not, this will result in some form of systems to physically capture these electronically.

The difficult part is in determining what constitutes knowledge and what is the best way to store, sort and retrieve these in a way that it makes sense to others.

Sometime ago, Ah Geok decided to implement this and so spent millions on a system that is not really used by anyone. The reason why the initiative fails are listed below, at least the way I se it:

Not user-friendly
To successfully check in a document, we need to have multiple clicks of the mouse. And then we have to either scan our supporting documents or convert them into PDF format before we can check these in as well, additional clicks. Its not hard to see why the usage is low, cuz most of our clerical staff are middle aged aunties who find this whole IT thingy a nightmarish experience.

Seeking approval
Sigh... still need to get approval before we can check in documents. I mean shouldn't we determine what constitutes as knowledge? Simply ridiculous that we need management's approval on what is knowledge. An insult to our intelligence, really...

So then, how is Ah Geok gonna justify the money spent? Oooo, she instigated her minions to boost up the stats by having a competition among various branches on the check in rate. So as usual, no one wants to be in the last position and so people started checking in documents like crazy. We have like over 1,000 documents checked in in like a week!

So after this mad rush, things started to cool off a bit and then some smart ass suggested this stupid thing called 3rd Sight. This is supposed to be some add ons to the existing KM system in that it can store and manipulate emails and establish some relationships on the contents/ contacts etc.

Sounds cool right? Not when Ah Geok now decides that it is compulsory to check in all outgoing mails. So those not work/ knowledge related mails will be checked into our personal folders inside the system, which is made available to only the system adminstrators, which is another way of saying she will have access to everybody's email.

So effectively, what started out as something pure and innocent like retaining knowledge becomes an invasion of privacy. Welcome to the darker ages of Ah Geok's Department.

p.s. I'm crossing my fingers that we will not be msn-less one day.

Just have a new boss. The archer resigned but Ah Geok is trying her very best to keep him cuz he's supposed to have varsity, integrity and EQ, so she is gonna put him elsewhere. Actually, I kinda agree that he is rather capable in terms of work, but definitely not the EQ part...



Anyways, as the saying goes, 'Its usually the calmest before the storm', this is especially true here in Ah Geok's Department. One can usually expect to be hit by tons of shit if one suddenly finds him or her having nothing much to do after his or her last assignment.



So as can be expected, I'll be hard hit by the next wave of shit storm. My colleague sent me this, so tot of sharing with the rest of you guys, if you are facing stress too =)
p.s. Dearest Estee, I have fulfilled my promise of 10 vulgarities-free posts... heheh...

Went for my 3rd JP Morgan Race last evening, this time round, really tried to run the whole 5.6km instead of walking leisurely which was what I did the previous 2 years, even though with my not-yet-healed-ligament, still managed to clock 39min 30sec, not fantastic but not bad either, considering the fact that the only cardiovascular exercise I do nowadays is only limited to badminton sessions twice a week.

One good thing abt this kinda race is that you can people-watch as you run, hahah quite a few chio bus to beo wor... The downside is its really kinda congested during such mass runs, so its kinda irritating when you constantly get blocked during the run...

Went for my regular session with TCSCBG after the run, was kinda surprised that I still had the stamina to last thru 2 hrs of badminton, although I'm suffering from muscle ache rite now =x

Yoz peeps... me is back =)
Its being a good 6 days but as usual lah, gotta wait till I got the pix before I update u guys on the trip...
Kinda difficult to tell u all everything that happened during the past 6 days, so its gonna take a while... be patient hor...

So now its back to work, back to reality =(