What a "cold sweat" day!

Today is a hot & sunny day except for a short passing shower. What a fine Monday! But I was already in "cold sweat" early in the morning. Got up at the usual timing but not for work. Had to put on my freshly-ironed long sleeves shirt & pants, make up and make sure that I look nice & presentable before leaving my house. Yah, probably by now you would have guessed that I went for an interview. Haha...

It took a good 1.5hrs to reach the place. Everything there just appear so familiar yet so distant. Familiar coz it's still the same receptionist and many things still look the same as they were 4 years back. Distant coz it feels kinda weird when you return to a familiar environment as a visitor & having to go through the interview by the familiar people which gonna feel kinda awkward. But as expected, the interview was tough!!

The interview was broken down into 3 segments - general questions, techinical questions and finally mechanisms. General questions were mainly on what I've been doing for my present job, why am I looking for a job switch, etc. Technical questions were more for them to see how I will respond to different situations & how I will go about solving the problems. Mechanisms are just about drawing arrows here and there to show how electrons flow. Though I expected such technical questions, I decided to take things easy and so didn't prepare anything. Haha...

So since I wasn't very much prepared for the interview (I don't want to give myself so much pressure either. Haha), I guess I won't be too upset if I don't get shortlisted for the 2nd interview. But it's definitely a good "refresher" to go through an interview again after not attending any for the past 3 years. Haha... So now I'll just have to wait & see. =)

Time to learn what I wanna to?

Today I was disciplined enough to attend 2 gym classes alone, body combat & hi-lo. Haha...combat was fun as usual, while hi-lo was fun but tiring as I was not even allowed to wipe off my sweat let alone take a sip of water during the class. Yah, so the hi-lo class just went on continuously for some 50mins before it ended with some stretching. So tired!

Met up with WS after that. Hmm...somehow, we seem to have lots of "complaints" about work & life. Haha... So we spent a nice Sunday afternoon chit-chatting and gossiping away. Heez... Talked about changes, about how much we have changed & our life has changed over the years. Have the changes be for the better or for the worse? Are the changes what we really want or are they just the product of our ever-changing environment? But deep down, we know that our friendship has not changed for worse and that's really something to feel happy about. Heez... Wow, come to think about it, just 3 years into the working world & we already have so much "complaints", what will happen in the many years to come? Especially now the government has raised the retirement age. Sometimes I really wonder if I have to work till the day I die. That's so sad, I wish I can retire earlier, like 55 years old, then spend my time enjoying life, travelling. Wahaha... Will it be possible? Hmm... Maybe you are telling m to wake up from my dream now. Haha

Anyway, just to put a stop to our never-ending "complaints", we decided to catch a movie, Secret by Jay Chou. Nice show coz i love the piano tunes they played. Really impressed with their piano skills. How I wish I can play piano too. Yah, I can only play (used to play. Haha) trumpet & harmonica but I always wanted to learn piano & flute. Actually I did check up the courses before but after which just procrastinate it, so till now I've not started on anything. Sigh...Yes, I should stop procrastinating anything from now on! Yah, I wanna learn a 3rd language, either french or german, too.

Yes, there's so many things in life I wanna pursue now. Haha...

A Call Today...

This morning when I logged on to my gmail account, I was surprised to receive an email. Hmm...actually not really surprised, sort of anticipated it but just that I expect it to be in the form of a call instead of an email. (Hmm...at this point in time when things have not fallen into place, I'm not going to reveal too much. Haha...) Having received the email and followed by my reply to confirm on the details, somehow just started to think about alot of things. I began to imagine how life would change if the thing just goes on smoothly, the pros & cons. Feeling a little fearful at the thought, having to go through all the changes and readjustments yet at the same time looking forward to facing the probable new challenges. Hmm...well, I just tell myself to take it with an open mind. Anyway, nothing has been finalised yet, it's just my first step forward now. Heez...

Hope that things will turn out well next Monday and I'll be able to get a clearer view of whether things are like what I've been expecting & are they what I really want. Just wanna follow my heart! =)

A Nite of Fireworks

Yeah! All thanks to Jo, I got the tix to the Singapore Fireworks Celebrations 2007 tonite. Heez.. The fireworks were choreographed by the Spanish fireworks team. It was fantastic! I should enjoy it to the fullest but too bad, I wasn't in the best state to enjoy the display. Yes, already down with a terribly blocked nose, sore throat & cough, my left eye was suddenly "bugged" by something. Dunno what exactly happened. My left eye began to get quite uncomfortable after work, somehow there's lots of discharge ( sometimes greenish stuff) and it was a little painful. So throughout the fireworks display, I was either wiping off the discharge from my eye or preventing my half-blocked-half-runny nose from overflowing. Sigh... Quite unlucky. After the fireworks display, we still have to squeeze through the crowd & it took me almost an hour before I managed to take the train home.

I think what I need now is some medicine & sleep. zzzZZZZ

Mid Year Review

Happy Belated Birthday, Singapore! Yes, yesterday I watched the NDP but it was on TV not at Marina Bay. I never have the luck to win any NDP tickets, irregardless of how many entries my family has sent out. Sigh... Anyway, for NDP parade, I'm usually more interested in the march pass & fireworks segments, not so much on the in-between performances. Yah, another segment which I like most is the school band formation, but think they have scraped off the segment some years ago. So sad.. Well, it just reminded me of the my secondary school band's participation in the NDP when I was in Sec 2 then. I missed the chance to participate as they picked mostly sec 3 & 4 members for it.

Anyway, other than having resolutions for our country, Singapore, it's time for my mid year review for my job & to rethink about my resolutions. Yup, I've just done my mid year review with my boss on Wednesday, talked about my past 1/2 year performance, my long term plans, etc. There he asked again if I'm still keen to further my studies. With a bit of hesitation here & there thou, my reply to him was still a "yes". He then went on to talk about what are the things I should consider carefully before I embarked on the plan. How I should get started off to look for Uni & good supervisors, etc, before we can bring this up to my big boss. Hopefully I can get some help, especially financially then. ahaha!

Hesitation. I still have some reservation about the whole idea of going back to study/research. My goal? To get a PhD? Well, that would probably take a good 4-5 years followed by 2-3 years of postdoc before I can officially "graduate". Let's see. With at least a year of preparation starting from now, the earliest I'll start grad school next year when I'm 26. 5 years down I'll be 31 plus another 3 years, I'll be 34! When I did the calculation & told my boss, he said I'm so cute. Erhh.... Besides counting the years, I also understand that there gonna be lots of sacrifices I need to make. Like long hrs in lab, weekendless (which means lifeless too), a big drop in income, less time for family, friends & him. Well, the decision I make now is not just going to affect myself only, it'll affect alot of people so I can't be selfish too. That's 1 of the reasons why I've been procrastinating it, until it's mentioned again during the mid year review.

Like what I've said before, I'm feeling stagnant in my R&D job already. In terms of career aspiration, I doubt it'll bring me anywhere further with just a BSc. So I got to think of alternatives for myself now. Thought of 2 other plans besides going for a PhD. Heez...

1. Move into manufacturing. More political but likely to have more career prospects.
2. Do a Masters 1st, then probably go into tertiary teaching.
3. Get married & be a tai tai.

Oppz! Didn't I only mention 2 plans? Well, 3rd plan is just an impossible dream in Singapore lor. Wahaha....

Tiring Weekend

For the past week, and even till now I've been bugged by the rashes on my legs. So irritating! I simply couldn't help but keep scratching, especially in the middle of the nite. I was finally being persuaded to see the doc this evening coz my legs look really disgusting, red patches of rashes. Same as before, the doctor could not determine the exact cause of my rashes, coz it could be the food I eat, the shower gel I use, the clothes I wear & perhaps my work environment which cause the allergy. No idea what happened. But anyway, as long as the cream she gave me to apply helps to stop the itch & heal the rashes, I'm happy! Haha...

Past 2 days have been great & enjoyable except for the sleep which I've missed. Fri nite was basically a sleepless nite accompanying my poor bro in hospital. Luckily he was fine after a jab & need no hospitalisation. It was also an interesting nite spent in the hospital. Got to see a couple of "interesting" people there. There's this old man who has been left in the hospital by his daughter. Well, the old man was only kept under observation for a few hours but his daughter just left him there. When he was told that he could leave the hospital, he could not find his IC & wallet and he started bugging the nurses & accused them of taking his stuff. But it was believed that his daughter might have taken his stuff home after dropping him off at the hospital. In the end, he created a din in the observation room. It seemed like the nurses could not reach his daughter by phone as I see him leaving with a police officer after that. Just felt abit curious why did his daughter just leave him in the hospital like that when he's only under a few hours of observation? He's not even admitted into the hospital! Is it so difficult to accompany her dad for that few hours? Isn't she concern about what happened to her dad? Hmm...

I also saw another old man in the observation who looked so frail & fragile that he kept trembling in his bed. But there was no one to take care of this poor, sick old man except for the ever busy nurses who had to manage the 30 over patients in the observation room. At that point in time, I really wonder where his family is and why aren't around to take care of this old man. Is is sufficient to simply leave the sick parents in the hospital like this & expect the doctors & nurses to take care of them? Is this good enough to be called filial piety? If they think it is, it's really sad.

There I told my bro, he should be thankful there I was there with him throughout the nite. Wet his lips when his lips are dry, assist him to the toilet when he needs to, making sure he's comfortably sleeping in the bed when I only got a plastic chair to sit. Haha... And on our way to catch a cab home, somehow we began to hold hands. It's like back to the days when he was still a little boy and I held his small little hands. Well, back then his palms were only half of mine but now it's twice! haha... I guess as one grows up & spends more time outside with friends, you will tend to neglect your family. But when something happens, your family will be the 1st to attend to your needs and perhaps then you'll realised their importance again. So sad... hope I'm not a disposable sis to him leh. That's why I kept telling my family & some people, must treasure me before I die leh. Haha... Of course I treasure my family & friends as well! =)