Pay Day

Went back from work, saw an atm, put the card in, wait a moment.. yay! My first SGD salary is in, that’s something really new. That’s why  I think it’s worthy to be noted here. At least i’m freed from poverty for a while. Will need to clear all my debts ASAP.

Anyway, two more house mates are moving in, now all 8 rooms are occupied. This time it’s a young TALL German doctor working nearby in Singapore General Hospital, and another one a pretty young French lady just opposite of my room.

Too bad, I’m still as always stiff with foreigner so I feel uncomfortable sometimes. I would love to befriend them, but different culture, different topics, different jokes, I goes blank on what to say sometimes. I really wish I could be more adaptable. So it’s time, good luck to me! Good nite everyone.

Pathetic

Short story. I’ve got a new housemate residing in room C. He’s from UK and doing his internship in an Australian bank here – well it seems to me everyone in the house except me is working in a bank. My first impression is that he’s a really nice guy. His accent is clear that his english is very audible.

Just this morning, I learned a surprising thing. We had a bit of conversation with another housemate while suddenly some repair-men coming to set up the mirror. They spoke in Chinese but the British man could quite understand what those two men were talking. I was puzzled. He said he used to stay in China for a while.

So this sounds really pathetic. I’m chinese I can’t speak chinese. He can speak chinese. He’s not chinese. He’s not even asian. He’s a british.

Well, he’s undertaking his exam for a license to work in a stock market. So best of luck to him.

Saturday Trip

Originally planning to jump into Macritchie national park today but due to lacking of information, we would have been too late if we did continue our plan to get to the tree top walk at Macritchie, hence the plan was altered beyond spontaneity. Instead we visited the Lower Seletar Reservoir – Fishing Jetty,  Bottle Tree Park and Sembawang Shopping Center which happened to be in the vicinity of where we had “half-accidentally” been.

Lower Seletar Reservoir – Fishing Jetty: the far end of the Macritchie reservoir, nothing to be mentioned rather than it’s really fishing jetty since many people did fish for free there.

Bottle Tree Park: A really nice park, with lovely ponds and water lilies, benches, water riding ducks and utmostly “Bottle Tree” seafood restaurant. We didn’t have the chance to dine there but the price was really reasonable with nice ambience and an aircon-ed VIP room.

Sembawang Shopping Center: An very OK small shopping center reminding its location is way in the suburb. It has french toast shop called “le greenier a pain”, aston restaurant with nice price and nice spot, and splash park – water themed children park -. The shopping center is nowhere near MRT so go take free shuttle bus from Yishun/Khatib/Sembawang MRT operating in 15-20 mins interval.

Pictures to be put up later.

A man fishes at Fishing Jetty

Bottle Tree Restaurant from afar

"Ducks" on water

Yay!

The Bottle Tree - Why it's named such -

Quarantined thanks to H1N1

Yes, I was.

Short story, my colleague and I went over to the client – M******, Yio Chu Kang – around 9.30 AM in the morning. We went to the server room for a while, made another walk to the IT room only to be notified shortly after that someone at the same day, earlier, was confirmed infected with H1N1/Influenza A/Swine Flu. The person originally sat just in the cubicle in the far corner of the room and he just came back from Phillipine earlier on.

By the government authority, we were quarantined, given mask and disinfectant to protect us before they disinfected and cleaned up the room. Funnily, the staff there was still able to make a joke like “Can not work, can not breath” *pointing to the mask covering his mouth*. We could not get out of the room even to have lunch and we had to order McD delivery which arrived at 4PM which made the day. Even we were asked for our address and IC/FIN/Passport number to be recorded.

At the end of the day, everyone in the room were busy covering their PCs, and desks since it was mentioned they’re going to do through disinfection process. We were finally let off at 6.30 PM which didn’t sound so bad. Period.

Weekend is coming. Time for some time-out although even now at 1.26 AM I’m actually still doing things with work *sigh*. Oh, I watched a cabaret today, and it was indeed interesting since that was my first time watching cabaret plus it was performed in french which I barely even understood any single word. I in fact, quite enjoyed the show. Enjoy your weekend!

Hop on – Hop off

It’s mid year- June, and also mid month- 15, which the day just elapsed for 35 minutes. So I just want to have fun a bit of my migration schedule recently:

May 7, 2008: flight to Singapore - D** Production Migration and Intensive Support

May 17, 2008: bus to Kuala Lumpur – sightseeing

May 18, 2008: bus to Singapore – back to work

June  5, 2008: flight to Jakarta - Imminent expiry of visa, remote support for D**

June 13, 2008: flight to Singapore - D** 2nd intensive support

July 9, 2008: flight to Jakarta – visa expiry

Sep 10, 2008: flight to Singapore – D** Support and SAP_Hyperion Data Load Handover Issues

Sep 28, 2008: flight to Jakarta - Finished D** Handover Discussion

October 8,  2008: flight to Singapore - Conducting D** Actual Load from SAP to Hyperion and Hyperion to SAP Budget pushback testing

October 18, 2008: bus to Johor Bahru and returning at the same day – dining and sightseeing

October 25, 2008: flight to Jakarta - Going back to work with Sumardi from Jakarta for D** Actual and Budget Load automation

November 8, 2008: flight to Singapore - D** Actual and Budget Load Automation and Conducting Nov (Oct data) Actual Load

November 30, 2008: Flight to Jakarta – Visa expiry

December 25, 2008: Travel to Singapore - Seeing spray war at Orchard and fireworks at Esplanade Bay, continuing the ritual of bringing gorengan to Cyndy

January 17, 2009: Travel to Jakarta – Visa expiry, doing load for the lovely D** from Jakarta, delivering some documents back (courier man), and enjoying virus outbreak at JKT office.

Feb 1, 2009: Travel to Singapore - D** Budget Balance Sheet Load, replenishing cyndy’s gorengan stock, witnessing the boss’ new addiction to facebook

Feb 21, 2009: Flight to Jakarta – Visa expiry, back to the habit of bullying Sumardi in ID office and bringing Daniel’s “stuff”

April 9 , 2009:  Flight to Pontianak – Going back to hometown for family reunion and general election

April 14, 2009: Flight back to Jakarta – Back to work after being on leave

May 25, 2009: Flight to Singapore – working from Singapore

I can at least have a bigger picture how I’ve moved around the last one year and how often I should adapt. Now I feel tired after copy pasting from my outlook emails and my other entries. It’s 1 AM and I guess I should allow my body to have some rest. Good night! The week resumes again.