it's just another day in yixin's life

there's been 2 counts of unglamness in the short span of 1.5weeks at work. major unglam. shall not advertise here. tho i truly believe they are rather entertaining :p actually i believe i must be one of the few souls remaining to love my own unglamness. hence i would like to think that it's a form of beauty, the beauty of being unglam!

***

I'm freaking out cos I'm just starting to search for who is that great guy behind the quote in my valediction. ("what lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us") This is how last minutes I get :/ Thank God for google which returned the search in 0.32seconds :)

May there be zero unglam moments tomorrow. I could have conjectured up this title in a way to prep myself of psyche tools in case i really unglam tmr. to normalize things shud one of the following occur:

spill drinks on prof? step on pro chancellors feet?? fall off the stage???

with yixin, all things are not impossible. it's just gonna be another day in yixin's life. stay calm...

***

Actually I got distracted and even before finding that quote, I strayed off to another quote:

"Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind." ~Dr. Seuss

I don't know who is Dr. Seuss, but this guy makes a lot of sense. friends never condemn. another word for condemn is judge. perhaps i belong to the "don't matter" group. that's one unfriendly thot. discard. Perhaps I'd just choose to don't mind then. But I thot minding is a reflection of being bothered enough cos you are impt. Really don't know what to think.

***

Random: While bathing, I figured that on this day to wrap up our education, we are all gonna show up in uniforms. Duh.

Oweek = slack life

allow me to say this before it becomes a taboo topic.

i've knocked off at 4pm for the past two days. with 2.5 hours lunch break. no, i do not start work at 6am; 9am actually.

Ok, I will stop showing off my slack life. Anyway, I'm nearing the end of the second O week, so the slack life is going to end soon too.

Amazingly, I'm actually looking forward to real work. Geoffrey, my work buddy/mentor, has shown me his 60000 lines of outpatient data. Woohs. It took like almost a minute to load on the company's laptop. May I also complain about how I can't use Office 07 at work?!! Super inefficient. For all this and more, it's time to get MacBook Pro.

one man's sky

is another man's ground. but what the heck, because everyone's happy in their own worlds. that's what i conclude after watching ice age3.

i rem this particular question from guojun,

which do you prefer - a big monk in a small temple or a small monk in a big temple?

he thot that even if i become SGH CEO (in my estimated 20 years) i will just be a big monk in a small temple. he sounded like he think it's a bad idea, fyi. and he made me think that it's a bad idea too. but if that's my sky, then i'll accept my lot and be very contented to just see the ppl up there passing by thru.

contentment, i think that's the greatest gift i have and i've been using it pretty well. erm, minus the times i spend on all the unnecessary facial masks and rebonding and the soon MacBook Pro. other than that, i'm pretty alright, right? :D

i wish rainbows on all of your skies :)

***

i guess the really painful thing is when u've been to both worlds. and u want the best of the two. the adventure in one and the familiarity in the other. diego chose his loved ones over adventure. do i abandon the adventure i love?

NDP 2009 Rehearsal

one fine day at marina barrage!

the individual shows are all very nice, with a nice stage set up! but i really don't get how they link up especially when there was sang nila utama den cheryl fox comes in with an obviously fake channelnewsasia interruption that we've got a terrorist attack at marina barrage.

blogger can't upload photos in proper sequence so here's little snippets!

chopping driving up waters! quite amazing :p

the soldiers who came in to "defend" us. part of the script was pointing the rifle at the audience upclose. right, that makes me feel real safe.
little paper boats! shifu's bro is on one of the boats. according to shifu's bro, all the paper boats cui'ded save for the one we are seeing. hope they somehow repair the paper boats in time for a mega set up!

the set up rocks! it's very fun to see little ppl dancing in each box! the sign language'r on the right is so into it... it was totally enjoyable just watching her, cos she looks like she's enjoying herself too. as for her partner... that sian look, sighs.

then there's also my fave fireworks! woohs! fave fave is those little ones that glitter and give little sparks in bunches :)

the organisers somehow decided to set off fireworks nearing the end of the national anthem. i know they want to end it with a bang, but that was totally distracting. for all my respect for the flag and anthem, i asked shifu, can i take photos? hahaha. the way the question came out was quite lame... :S but yes, i decided to take photos. hahah. so nice!!!!

very glad to have caught this live, cos will be taking the opportunity of national day holiday to go in to msia to visit grandparents. won't have chance to watch on the real day. coincidentally, shifu also won't b able to catch it on national day itself cos he's gg thailand for 2 months on aug 7. hmm glad that he got what he want and nv waste all the efforts in learning the thai scribbles up to thai 4. hope he get to find what he wanna find there.

yea, so we both got to catch the national day that we almost cannot catch! woohoohs! :)

when sang nila utama spotted the singa, in came some kiddos to do lion dance for us.......... HMMMMMMMMMS. it really doesn't sync.

Work Orientation

Woohs! It's the end of Week 1 at SiGH.

From Day 1, it's been 1001 talks by mgt, from fire safety to service quality to address by CEO. The best bit was perhaps by Steph where we got to role play as hospital staff and patients and experience frontline stress and patient impatience for once.

We've also had a Hospital Hunt. Which includes running walking around the hospital and solving clues like finding a "Push when finished" button which is actually the cashcard eject button of a photocopy machine. HR misled us by zooming it in so much that we thought it was a big button!!! :/

Following the Hospital Hunt, we had the "High and Mighty" activity where we were given balloons, newspapers, foam cups to build a high and mighty structure to survive 2 tests. The tallest structure after the 2 tests win. Our generation supposedly loves suspense, and the 2 tests were not made known upfront. Just build the most stable structure we can. After forming a stable 3-legged base, we built up another stick of newspapers. put on the cups and the blown up balloons. Saw that other groups had higher structures. Amanda rolled on another stick to stick onto the newspapers. Tick tock tick tock. Masking tape still busy taping the balloons to the cups. Amanda stresses that should tape the stick first. Which btw I totally agree, cos what's the point of sticking the balloons to the cups when they are not connected to the structure ultimately? Panic. We randomly used rubber bands to reinforce the newspaper-cups joint. Time's up! When our hands left the structure, the weak joint gave way and the cups + balloons started to swing down and kaw-toh to us :S

Now, the exciting tests. First test is the Hurricane tests, where all other teams can gather around and blow as hard as they could to get the structures down. As our structure was closest to the front, they decided to start with us first. Which sucks. Cos everyone would have a lot of energy at the beginning. Turn out to be the opposite. Everyone was so shy, anyone hardly blew. Or rather, the 2 hiong guys are in my team. Out of the remaining 5 structures, they broke 2 joints and got 1 structure totally down. Next test is the Earthquake test, where two HR folks pick up the cardboard on which the structure is laid and drop it from knee height. They decided to start from the back this time. I was quite traumatized watching structures collapse after structure. But my team's structure stood firm! Woohoohs. Which means we won :D

Between the 1001 talks by mgt and super experienced folks and touring around SiGH, we've got lotsa tea breaks and makan at Tiong Bahru Market. The #1 principle for getting food is to go to a place with free shuttle bus from SiGH == Tiong Bahru Market or Bukit Merah. It has been TBM for the past few days for obvious reasons that it serves really good food :) had the dim sum today, the char siew pastry still rocks.

Jingx came back today (and on Tues and Thurs for that matter) for tea! Just nice I knocked off early and joined her and Matt for their usual tea break :) Matt shared quite a lot on our way back to office. Got to talk more to Magdalene in office and she's totally nice. While munching on the wife's biscuits from HK, I dropped some crumbs and she cleaned up for me. Nice right! :p I mean apart from cleaning up my crumbs, she's nice in talking to me abt my orientation and my aussie trip and even plans for the weekend. Totally nice!

A week on, and I'm still happy. But... this is just orientation. The fact that Matt had to go back aft tea, Mag was still there and so was Geoffrey shows that they do work OT, even on Fri evenings. which kinda sucks. So I'm just gonna enjoy before the real work kicks in. Gotta be.

***

Folds of mountains

Overlay

Lush green beauty

Hands to trace

Imagine you saw a lollipop dangled in a hand in front of u. The lollipop is colourful and looks yummy. Follow it. The person holding the lollipop keeps walking. Turns over to tell you oh it could be for you. Carry on walking. Continue following. Then you discover that it was another kid he has been walking towards and he hands the other kid the lollipop. That's how cheated I feel, and I'm going to remember it forever.

1st day at work

in the local population of 4 plus million, in a place equal to 16 football fields aka sgeeach, 40 fresh grads gathered to listen to management talktalktalkzzz. we were idiotly informed that fate has brought us together.

my fave speakers of the day were the plant engineer who spoke to us about fire extinguishers and showed us something that i'm not supposed to write here but it's gotta do something with doors and emergencies and the diagnostic radiographer who told us that radiographer are poly grads, radiologists are doctors, that's the difference. and he tells us how he loves that he can see through us and he loves all his xray films. it reminds me of zhengjie saying how he loves his ugly cornea sheets, just that zhengjie concedes that they are ugly.

i thought that i was passionate, but when i hear them speak, 15, 20 years of experience and still loving their jobs, i realise i'm just a kid - albeit with beautiful dreams. may my passion last me for the next 25 years.

got to meet matthew at lunch, was told that Jeffrey is probably my buddy. freaking no idea who Jeffrey is, but I hope somehow PTB has infected him with all his smiles and gentlemanliness. ahhh. i won't get to see PTB til 13 July cos orientation is freakingly 2 weeks long. whyyyyyyyyyyy.

met the girls who are at svc ops/working closely with svc ops. There's Vanessa who took away my discharge planning project. Chloe who's working at inpatients but comes by to discuss stuffs with Vanessa. Tiffany who's at Perf Management who churns the balance scorecards so we can engineer processes for dept to keep up with the KPIs. Yangwei is coming to svc ops too. He is as lost on his project as mine cos we are both reporting for work for the first time today. anw, the main point about the girls is that they are a whole bunch of talkative girls, and when yixin says someone is talkative, it means very very very extremely talkative non-stop action talkative.

I refrained from showing my excitement when they talk about where to go for lunch. Tiong Bahru, Chinatown (bubble tea??) but they ended up at sgeeach kopitiam while i settled for takeaway for briefing with Yvonne from HR.

it's terrible when the number of ppl who knows my name and recognizes my face escalate, though not as dramatically as the number of H1N1 cases in Singapore. the nurse at staff clinic still can't clear my medical. and it's scaring me a little, the way the nurse looks at me. telling me that it's nothing dangerous, but the doctor needs more time to consider.

speaking of H1N1, svc ops is in charge of the command centre in sgeeach. matthew says that should our big brother move us to orange alert, we will take turns to come back on saturdays to command the command centre at FOURTEEN hour shifts. good morning.

my complaint to my aunt hit back with "wow! you are in the thick of the action! aren't u excited?"

NO.

iLovePeach

the thought of Project iLovePeach sprouted when this pretty notebook caught my eye. Put it off for about one month when all I did was comb through the tweets. Sat down today to bash through the remaining of the digital trails, msn, gmail/chat, blog and sms. I'm sure there are still things I've missed out but it feels pretty complete already. The main episodes are all in. Woohoohs~!! It's a nice read filled with timely punches and entertaining muses. LOVE IT. Feel so accomplished.

Finally I can return a notebook for the 3 notebooks I've received :)

---

I think it's true, how shuwan's psych test says that I'm a quitter except for things i love. This is one clear example of how determined I can get to complete things and FYP is another clear negative demonstration. May more things I love come my way, cos I believe I can really score if I want to!

missing the indulgence

splitter splatter, all the colours that get us excited and go very nice~~ right?

i am gonna miss the last scene a lot. bumming around, getting time checks a few hours into hitting the deadline for fyp draft submission, forcing a watch on the amazing race, spoiling the chair or sitting on the cardboard box, or just looking at these colourful boxes of pringles which i never got to taste cos they were all freaking empty - dunno display for what. maybe for the colours and how good they look when they are put together? it sure looks nice :) oh and those 2.8$ dinners and watching PRCs scoop away all the soup ingredients. eye-opener. almost certainly i miss the last BTC back home and everyday becomes a taxi day.

i'm actually quite glad i allowed myself to indulge for those months. i wonder when i'll ever get to do this again. may our lives continue to be colourful~~

overload!

i know i am back in singapore when u get info overload and start to pack ur schedules. you get funny questions like why r u at home (as in vs. out) as if it is totally strange to be at home, but truth is i really want to just stay at home. sorta. ytd shopping was not an overkill, quite relax and slow pace mixed with a lot of rubbish, like

me: i want a globe

bro: i know! u can download google maps

and we got to makan at xingwang with the mandatory order for the thick peanut butter toast :) cos unsurprisingly, the jc babes dinner was cancelled. and tonight's jc babes dinner is gonna get cancelled AGAIN. good job... then i realized have to meet mandy who is supposed to catch a flight for yet another holiday but gosh, she's got to pack and will let me know by 5 which sounds to me like i will let u know that u are pang sei at 5. geez. so i caved in to gay's emotional bribery to call it off and just meet gay for my craving for crystal jade's frog porridge! can always count on gay... :)

and i digressed. anyway, what i want to say was that i do enjoy the nua'ing at home. waking up with nothing planned at all! cos i know this kinda life is not gonna last.

with all the local clusters of H1N1 popping up, i actually am very interested to stay at home. just that i wish i can get someone to fix that sound driver in my laptop or deliver a new mac to me.

work starts next week but jingx is gonna leave! :( i was actually looking forward to lunching with her. sobs. she says that it was a tough call cos the work envt and ppl at sgh are really nice and she says i will love it there. surprisingly, i don't have doubts about everything she says. i just wish she'd be around too; will be good to have someone familiar around, i guess it always sorta help. i would dare to bitch with her should work overload, which it definitely will. and i need time to trust other ppl and yknow, open my hearts to them.

this morning, i remembered that in my first year of uni, i was still trying to figure out what ISE stands for, is it Info and systems engineering or is it industrial and systems engineering? i swing between the two when ppl ask and i guess nobody really verified. it's funny how i muddled into it still. and now i don't know if i'm management executive at sgh or hospital executive, cos at the interview it was called the former but in the contract it's the latter. so do not ask me what's my position, cos i don't know either! i'll figure out something, maybe at the end of the one year. hah.

grad trip- the condensed version

i want to blog about my grad trip and i started typing on ms word. it grew to 3 pages long and i'm still not done with it so i don't think i will ever publish it cos i don't think anyone is seriously going to read thru my 1000+ words stories.

let's just say that it was a trip filled with memories about Bob who never sleeps - and Sabrina who "watches over us", how honesty pays off at Hertz and Freeman lodge, the humji little penguins, the no wonder they are so famous 12-- apostles, a short stoney emo session in the front seat, the coats of colours on the sydney opera house, sea bay expensive xiao bai cai, and having dim sum with rose and chips and rotting away with texas hold'em with the crappy on and off drizzle as the perfect excuse. OH and I will not forget the discussions about tatoos and how I eventually argued my stand away when I started bringing in ear piercing and superficiality and it's just a social stigma. But which of us truly does not live in a society and can stand up to say I totally heck what other ppl say? Maybe perhaps I will fall for a guy with tatoo. Who knows? Sadly, though Sydney F*** Market was real good, i never found food that tasted as good as what i had in Florence. F for f-i-s-h, the word my travel mates cannot stand hearing anymore due to overdose of oysters, sashimi and lobster :D

To set the record straight, I had zero yan yu because there was a prettier girl with us named Rebecca :P

hmm. that's quite long and hard to digest too right? Oops.

i really wish that Jane can join us for the next trip we have. and I wish that the trip won't be 10 years away. For the next trip, I promise to grant shuwan's wish to wake up everyday at 11am cos waking up at 8am will probably be the first thing to kill the holiday.

excited to end the home quarantine tmr!!! i'm healthy!!! *jumps around*