My heart skips when I hear your name.
My mind runs wild.
I die a little inside when I see you around.
I have no control over the way I feel.
So don't come near me.
Avoid the places I'll be.
'Cos I wonder if I'm ever able to revive my heart
when it has died every time you ran across my head.
Monday, August 29, 2016
Friday, August 12, 2016
Pretty awesome mate!
No prizes for guessing where I went from the title above. Australia!
I was so blessed to be able to make this trip 2 weeks before the start of my graduating year in university. I planned for this trip since god-knows-when, all to visit my best friend who's studying in Melbourne. I invited my brother along, who is about to enlist in 2 months time. Partly also because he's never been out of SEA.
If I were in secondary school, I would probably blog about what I ate, what I did, where we went; every single detail. But I'm not. This trip is blog-worthy because of the things that could have gone wrong but didn't. And I'm extremely thankful. This may not be the trip of my life, but it has certainly shed some perspective that I cannot take grace for granted.
Things that could go wrong/that went wrong.
1. Domestic transfer
To save $100, I booked at multi-city flight from Singapore-Perth, then Perth-Melbourne on Emirates. Connection time is about 2 hours, but little did I know that we were to clear customs, collect our baggage, before we could check in for our second flight. Google shows that the transfer bus from the international to domestic terminal departs every half hour. Shag. Throughout the journey I was so frickin nervous about missing our connecting flight, and even got Szemin to pray.
You know how it turned out - well. No queue at the customs (probably due to winter), our baggage was one of the firsts to come out, smooth transfer with time to spare. Thank God.
Oh, did I mention. I didn't know we had to apply for visas. So I panicked when we were checking in at Changi airport.
2. Airbnb
The location of our airbnb was great, just a traffic light away from Queen Vic market. We reached earlier than the stated check in time, so we got the host to place his keys outside. We spent 30 mins trying to locate the keys in some god-forsaken meter cupboard, but gave up and went for lunch. We still managed to check in but we were met with a first-world problem: WIFI ISN'T WORKING. He said his wifi spoiled, and offered his hotspot. Whut. I won't use it. This whole wifi thing seriously inconvenienced us in our planning man. No go.
3. Grampians hike
I am the only one who has a license, and I wasn't prepared to do 4 hour drives and still be able to hike. Szemin researched and found out it was possible to take public transport from the city, but it would take 5-6 hours. But the problem with public transport is, you don't get a say when to leave. Initially, the website states that the earliest train back was at 2pm. But Sze min wanted to attend a Greek bible class on the very same day at 2pm! So after some searching and googling, we managed to find a route that takes us back early in the morning. Butttt, the ticketing counter couldn't issue us the tickets because the first bus is owned by a private contractor. In the end, I just took the leap of faith and trust that we could buy tickets while we're there. and we did!
4. Airbnb room
Our second bnb was very clean, and we even had our private bathroom. Wifi signal is strong, so no complaints. The host handed me two keys and I was ready to get out. Being Asians, I wanted to make sure my belongings are safely secured in the room, so I inserted my keys and turned the lock. It worked. I proceeded to lock the door from inside. BUT MY KEY DIDN'T UNLOCK THE LOCK. So crap. We were locked out of our own room. The host wasn't at home, so we sent a message and asked them for the spare keys, and then headed out. Hours later, she sent a message saying that she didn't have spare keys. At that moment I felt like I could cry. In an attempt to feel better, I told myself - 'if it's a problem that money can solve, then it's not a problem at all'. At most, I'll pay for the locksmith myself. While I tried to let it rest, the matter kept coming back to my mind. But thank God, the host settled it before dinner, paid for the locksmith, and I had a smashing time at this indie gig in Brunswick. Thank God.
5. Going home
Being poor meant that I took the public transport to the airport. I thoroughly checked the schedule the night before, made sure we could reach on time while still having time to bid my last goodbye to my bff. The train was on time, but the problem was the BUS. I seriously panicked when it didn't come after 10 mins. There was a 'next bus' signboard, but the numbers kept jumping upwards; not a good sign. It was an excruciating half hour before we hoped on, and then I could have my last Melbourne sushi in peace. I didn't miss my check in time.
Aaaaand that's it! There were many more mini epiphanies along the trip, but I'll leave them for myself to enjoy. These 5 'go-wrong' moments gave the trip more meaning, and also something to laugh at. Thinking back, this is the first time I spent 10 consecutive days with my bff. But I thoroughly enjoyed every moment of it, enjoyed everything we did.
No pictures because I'm a lazy person!
I was so blessed to be able to make this trip 2 weeks before the start of my graduating year in university. I planned for this trip since god-knows-when, all to visit my best friend who's studying in Melbourne. I invited my brother along, who is about to enlist in 2 months time. Partly also because he's never been out of SEA.
If I were in secondary school, I would probably blog about what I ate, what I did, where we went; every single detail. But I'm not. This trip is blog-worthy because of the things that could have gone wrong but didn't. And I'm extremely thankful. This may not be the trip of my life, but it has certainly shed some perspective that I cannot take grace for granted.
Things that could go wrong/that went wrong.
1. Domestic transfer
To save $100, I booked at multi-city flight from Singapore-Perth, then Perth-Melbourne on Emirates. Connection time is about 2 hours, but little did I know that we were to clear customs, collect our baggage, before we could check in for our second flight. Google shows that the transfer bus from the international to domestic terminal departs every half hour. Shag. Throughout the journey I was so frickin nervous about missing our connecting flight, and even got Szemin to pray.
You know how it turned out - well. No queue at the customs (probably due to winter), our baggage was one of the firsts to come out, smooth transfer with time to spare. Thank God.
Oh, did I mention. I didn't know we had to apply for visas. So I panicked when we were checking in at Changi airport.
2. Airbnb
The location of our airbnb was great, just a traffic light away from Queen Vic market. We reached earlier than the stated check in time, so we got the host to place his keys outside. We spent 30 mins trying to locate the keys in some god-forsaken meter cupboard, but gave up and went for lunch. We still managed to check in but we were met with a first-world problem: WIFI ISN'T WORKING. He said his wifi spoiled, and offered his hotspot. Whut. I won't use it. This whole wifi thing seriously inconvenienced us in our planning man. No go.
3. Grampians hike
I am the only one who has a license, and I wasn't prepared to do 4 hour drives and still be able to hike. Szemin researched and found out it was possible to take public transport from the city, but it would take 5-6 hours. But the problem with public transport is, you don't get a say when to leave. Initially, the website states that the earliest train back was at 2pm. But Sze min wanted to attend a Greek bible class on the very same day at 2pm! So after some searching and googling, we managed to find a route that takes us back early in the morning. Butttt, the ticketing counter couldn't issue us the tickets because the first bus is owned by a private contractor. In the end, I just took the leap of faith and trust that we could buy tickets while we're there. and we did!
4. Airbnb room
Our second bnb was very clean, and we even had our private bathroom. Wifi signal is strong, so no complaints. The host handed me two keys and I was ready to get out. Being Asians, I wanted to make sure my belongings are safely secured in the room, so I inserted my keys and turned the lock. It worked. I proceeded to lock the door from inside. BUT MY KEY DIDN'T UNLOCK THE LOCK. So crap. We were locked out of our own room. The host wasn't at home, so we sent a message and asked them for the spare keys, and then headed out. Hours later, she sent a message saying that she didn't have spare keys. At that moment I felt like I could cry. In an attempt to feel better, I told myself - 'if it's a problem that money can solve, then it's not a problem at all'. At most, I'll pay for the locksmith myself. While I tried to let it rest, the matter kept coming back to my mind. But thank God, the host settled it before dinner, paid for the locksmith, and I had a smashing time at this indie gig in Brunswick. Thank God.
5. Going home
Being poor meant that I took the public transport to the airport. I thoroughly checked the schedule the night before, made sure we could reach on time while still having time to bid my last goodbye to my bff. The train was on time, but the problem was the BUS. I seriously panicked when it didn't come after 10 mins. There was a 'next bus' signboard, but the numbers kept jumping upwards; not a good sign. It was an excruciating half hour before we hoped on, and then I could have my last Melbourne sushi in peace. I didn't miss my check in time.
Aaaaand that's it! There were many more mini epiphanies along the trip, but I'll leave them for myself to enjoy. These 5 'go-wrong' moments gave the trip more meaning, and also something to laugh at. Thinking back, this is the first time I spent 10 consecutive days with my bff. But I thoroughly enjoyed every moment of it, enjoyed everything we did.
No pictures because I'm a lazy person!
Monday, August 1, 2016
My last summer
For the past 3 months, I had the privilege to intern at a consulting firm.
Today's my first day without work, and looking back, I thought it was a pretty good experience. There were definitely times when I groaned and whined in the morning, but it doesn't discount some of the good times I had. In fact, I thought the whole internship could be so much better if I didn't let my personal feelings affect my emotions at work.
As a HR intern, I was responsible for mostly HR projects, although I did a fair bit of other work including cold calling. On my first day, I was thrown into cold calling without ANY training, and my first call ended up to be a Mandarin speaking uncle. Fumbled so much because I didn't manage to go through the Chinese script prior to the call. Thankfully, my Chinese was quite zai la, so it turned out successful! lol.
I spent a bulk of my time on this task called 'Functional Competencies', where I had to download all of Workforce Development Agency's (WDA) competencies standard, copy the information one by one to an Excel sheet, and then compiling it into a Word guidebook. I swear it is the most tortuous and boring thing I had to do. Someone said, 'this kind of copy and pasting can do until you drool one'. I think he meant that one could stone and still continue the task. Agreed.
Nonetheless, I had the opportunity to meet clients and attended two focus group discussions. Even though I was just there to type away (for four hours nonstop!), I could totally relate what I learnt in school with reality! Facilitating a discussion is never an easy job, so it was interesting to see how the directors go about doing it. Very, very fulfilling.
That being said, I think the most important factor in deciding a fun and a not-so-fun internship is the company. Not the organisation, but the friend-company. There were about 14 interns in a 30-50 sized firm. Imagine the dynamics here. Due to space limitation, it was difficult for 14 of us to share a small workspace with the full timers. Hence, we demarcated a separate training room as our boundary. We played ping-poing, contract bridge, and even threw stress balls around. I'm guilty of the first 2. Haha. But of course, our ethic is that we work hard and we play hard. All these wouldn't be possible if we didn't finish our work. I think these spurts of fun and entertainment really bonded us as a group.
Moving forward, this internship helped me chart my career options. I still don't know what I want, but I definitely know what I don't want. Consulting isn't something for me, because I prioritise work-life balance a lot. By a lot, I mean ALOTTTTTT. It's something I discovered only this summer. I don't want to bring home work. I don't want to be sending work-related emails at 3am. Many have told me this isn't possible even outside of the consulting industry. True, but for consulting, it's worse. At least I could try my luck outside. Everyone has different priorities. It happens to be this for me. For now, I'm just gonna look forward to my last year of school, and hopefully one more internship!
Photo time!
For memories sake
Today's my first day without work, and looking back, I thought it was a pretty good experience. There were definitely times when I groaned and whined in the morning, but it doesn't discount some of the good times I had. In fact, I thought the whole internship could be so much better if I didn't let my personal feelings affect my emotions at work.
As a HR intern, I was responsible for mostly HR projects, although I did a fair bit of other work including cold calling. On my first day, I was thrown into cold calling without ANY training, and my first call ended up to be a Mandarin speaking uncle. Fumbled so much because I didn't manage to go through the Chinese script prior to the call. Thankfully, my Chinese was quite zai la, so it turned out successful! lol.
I spent a bulk of my time on this task called 'Functional Competencies', where I had to download all of Workforce Development Agency's (WDA) competencies standard, copy the information one by one to an Excel sheet, and then compiling it into a Word guidebook. I swear it is the most tortuous and boring thing I had to do. Someone said, 'this kind of copy and pasting can do until you drool one'. I think he meant that one could stone and still continue the task. Agreed.
Nonetheless, I had the opportunity to meet clients and attended two focus group discussions. Even though I was just there to type away (for four hours nonstop!), I could totally relate what I learnt in school with reality! Facilitating a discussion is never an easy job, so it was interesting to see how the directors go about doing it. Very, very fulfilling.
That being said, I think the most important factor in deciding a fun and a not-so-fun internship is the company. Not the organisation, but the friend-company. There were about 14 interns in a 30-50 sized firm. Imagine the dynamics here. Due to space limitation, it was difficult for 14 of us to share a small workspace with the full timers. Hence, we demarcated a separate training room as our boundary. We played ping-poing, contract bridge, and even threw stress balls around. I'm guilty of the first 2. Haha. But of course, our ethic is that we work hard and we play hard. All these wouldn't be possible if we didn't finish our work. I think these spurts of fun and entertainment really bonded us as a group.
Moving forward, this internship helped me chart my career options. I still don't know what I want, but I definitely know what I don't want. Consulting isn't something for me, because I prioritise work-life balance a lot. By a lot, I mean ALOTTTTTT. It's something I discovered only this summer. I don't want to bring home work. I don't want to be sending work-related emails at 3am. Many have told me this isn't possible even outside of the consulting industry. True, but for consulting, it's worse. At least I could try my luck outside. Everyone has different priorities. It happens to be this for me. For now, I'm just gonna look forward to my last year of school, and hopefully one more internship!
Photo time!
For memories sake
 |
| It was Jena's last day and we moved the couch so we could take this picture. |
 |
| Lunch time coma. But this guy is really the king! |
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| Our first dinner out at Stickies! Had about 5 towers and a second round. Fun times. |
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| Our pingpong balls deflated one afternoon, and everyone panicked. Someone found this at the CCA hall and just kope-d it. |
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| Our last day. ORD-LOH |
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