Time can change everything?

My friend der had free tickets to Harlem Yu's concert on saturday and invited us to attend. Jy, zz, xh and myself went. The concert was entertaining although I felt that something was lacking. Harlem included some humour and fun into the concert with audience participation and making fun of his band mates. Felt a bit like Super Sunday show.

I have known this group of poly band friends for a long time and I often miss the days we had back in poly. The time we spent together during practices bonded us. There was once we practiced outside foodcourt 3 and my conductor, tt, took us for symphonic overture. Our ending part drew the attention of some passer-bys and they actually stopped in their path to listen to us and applauded our rousing end. I love it when people like the sound that my band have practiced hard for. My clicks was a large group and we always head to clementi central after band practice to have supper and to chat and gossip at the coffee shop next to the bus interchange. I miss the outings we had like supper at geylang (Teowchew Muay and Tau Huay...the empty bowls of porridge will be stacked high on the table), movie gatherings, concerts, performances, christmas and CNY gatherings, band camps, overseas band trips (how I miss Sydney!) and the endless banter of jokes and conversations.....sigh...but as time goes by, everybody just drift apart as each of us got busy and involved in other things. Some of them went overseas to study and the rest of us are just busy with work and other stuff. Among us, I am of the few who is still playing. Lately I feel that my group has fewer meet ups with each other and we talk less. Our group has dwindled over the years but this is not unexpected. I wonder if we are still as close as before but I guess we probably know each other well enough that we don't need much updating or chats to know what is going on in each others' lives. At the very least, I still care about them and appreciate the little things that we do for each other. I do hope I can visit teow and wl in melbourne with jy and zz next month..haha....

It was peaceful today...boss was on leave...

26 May 2008 9:57am

Sounding better

Sectional practice on tuesday was not bad. Jos worked on techniques and foundations with us instead of taking us through the pieces. Learnt double tonguing and slurs and he gave us some exercises to keep and practice. After the session, I tried playing other things and for once after a long while, I sounded better than before and have hopes of reaching the peak that I had two years ago for the competition : )

My boss went missing for the whole afternoon today. She informed me that she was attending a meeting outside at 11am with my GM. My GM came back just after lunch but my boss was MIA and only came back at 4:30pm! No word from her as to where she was. She got anxious when she saw the long list of unread emails on her PC and quickly asked me to help her reply some requests and other tasks that she wanted me to do. There was actually a rather important email about an edm sent to her which my colleague and I wasn't copied in and it needed her approval before it could be sent out . Till knock-off time, I still hear nothing about that email from her until my colleague called and said it was quite urgent. If she was back earlier, this wouldn't have happened and we could have replied that urgent email and get the matter settled. I was so fed up with her that I just left office on time. I think its unfair if I have to stay back and clear up the backlog that she created just because she was skiving off work somewhere. She needs to be more responsible. All these could have been done in the afternoon if she forwarded me the email but she wasn't in! I just don't want to be bothered with all these nonsense from a boss who don't have any leadership skills at all! Instead of staying late, I went for a run just now. Cannot take it anymore! sigh...... tomorrow morning will be hell....

I just don't care....

22 May 2008 8:52pm

Uneventful Weekend

It was the start of a long weekend...but not before a crappy day at work again on friday....

My office engaged a professional photographer on Friday to shoot some interior shots for use in our branding campaign. Its a full-day shoot and I was supposed to meet the photographer at 9am to start the shoot. As expected, my boss called at 9am and asked me to attend the morning meeting on her behalf. : S I was irritated and told her I have to meet the photographer. And then she said my colleague, Ag can meet the photographer but she had to attend to another matter that morning as well and someone has to be at the office. If I attend the meeting, Ag goes to attend her matter and J stays in the office, who will meet the photographer? My boss said its ok that I attend the meeting since its only 15 mins and Ag will meet the photographer. J had to settle the matter for Ag so there was no one in the office. And my boss should not be late that morning, knowing there is a photoshoot that day and should have come on time but created inconvenience for everyone. When the photoshoot was going on, she didn't bother to be on site to approve the shots and my other colleague had to run up and down to get approval from her director as her sales & marketing department requested to have the professional shots. My S&M director asked why my boss is not working, seeing that she is not helping to approve the shots at all. I think she will give my boss a good scolding pretty soon. She is the only one in the whole office who understands that my department do not have any directions at all due to our lazy boss. sigh.....Besides taking turns attending to the photoshoot, my boss wanted me to help J with her publicity and I couldn't do my work at all! Its my boss's fault that the publicity circulation was late....becaaue she only checked the files from Oct 07 to Apr 08 till now. I can't believe it has been so backdated......

After band practice on friday, sy, eil, ms and I went to mel's place to play mahjong. While we ate supper at his place, we watched the 2nd half of our concert dvd recording. Mel was telling us how he forgot to take his el camino real score after the lidss performance and actually slipped backstage to find the score when the slow movement of el camino real was playing. And so we saw him in the recording, walking nonchalantly to the backstage and reappeared a while later, holding the file in his hand and trying to hide it as he walked back to his snare drum. Haha.....I didn't know this was happening. Heard my solo and felt it was not as good as I thought it was. Must be better for the competition...We played only one round of mahjong and finished at 4am! My luck wasn't good that night and I lost a bit. Mel actually won money from us girls this time...

eil mentioned this is her last friday in singapore as she is leaving for an internship overseas soon which she only just received the offer and was not mentally prepared. Good luck eil! I hope everything goes well for you!

I reached home at about 4:30am...really tired and slept for a few hours only. I woke up early to meet xl for a swim and so I was stoning as I made my way to meet her. I didn't swim very much as the pool was a bit crowded with the morning kids swimming lesson . Think I have not swim for too long and was feeling a bit scared. I'm not a good swimmer so I kept to the side. Chatted a lot with xl as we baked in the sun. We saw this hunk with six-pack abs conducting life-saving session with a group of guys and his actions were pretty show-offish. He looked a bit like an ex of mine from my poly...reminded me of someone...

During the wee hours of sat night, I was woken up by my ringing phone. It was a private number and I ignored it and it rang again. I answered it, half asleep, and it was my friend who got really upset after a phone call with his ex as the girl has moved on with another guy. I was thinking whether it is his fault because he chose to break up with his ex even though he still loves her. Also, its been a long time since they broke up....Anway, I will talk to him on another day as he was in Malaysia when he called....

Went to the gym as usual on sunday morning and then met Lj in the evening to watch Accuracy of Death. Takeshi Kaneshiro is so damn gorgeous! Its a nice movie to watch and funny as well. Giving a person one more chance to live can bring about unexpected changes which could lead to a fruitful life. Who knows that "suspending" the death of a young woman would lead Chiba (Takeshi) to judge her again when she became a 70 years old woman and she was ready to die at that point, having lived a full life. And I think Chiba was also glad that he finally got to see clear blue sky. I am waiting to see my clear blue sky as well.....:)

Lj and I had coffee after the movie and I told him about the late night call from my friend. He said guys actually take a longer time to get over relationships although they do not seem to feel much pain from the breakup. Whereas girls feel the pain at their greatest when the relationship is over but takes a shorter time to get over it. That was new to me and I wasn't so sure if this is true but I guess everyone takes a different amount of time to get over relationships. Some just recover faster than others.....

Music is Humanity's Greatest Invention....(as quoted by Chiba)
19 May 2008 5:32pm

Yummy Cakes...

I was reminded of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory when I was watching Speed Racer on sat because I find it so colourful like the former. The storyline is alright but the visual effects were stunning. Sharp, rich in colours and the races were exciting! Rain makes a rather good debut in his first hollywood feature in English. But I didn't catch the movie because of him, more of for the effects. Caught the movie with CH and its been like 2 years since we last met up. He's into coral collection lately and also changed a new job a few months back. We promise to meet up again after he returnsrom a business trip. I envy that he gets to travel in his job.

I was so tired during band practice yesterday. By the time I reached school, I was like really sleepy and yawning throughout the warm-up session. Didn't get enough sleep the previous night. Luckily it wasn't full band with my conductor. Jo came to take us for sectional practice. I was still very frustrated with the john williams march, certain parts sounded terrible with all the mispitched notes.....sigh...hopefully friday's practice will be better.

My colleagues and I wanted to celebrate j's birthday yesterday with a lunch at NYDC but it went pretty quiet and unknown because we didn't get her a cake. The cakes at NYDC were too big for us to finish. Instead, ld ordered a lychee martini cake from Pine Garden(Blk 529 Ang Mo Kio Ave 19 #01-2369 Tel: 64576159 http://www.pgcake.com/) in Ang Mo Kio and arranged for uncle to collect for us today. We gathered in the boardroom, lit the candles and turned off the lights. Then ld called my boss to bring j in but she took quite a few minutes to bring her in and we were wondering why my boss took so long (but its not unusual anyway, she is late in everything). So my boss finally entered the room with j and we surprised her with a birthday song : ). The cake is heavenly : ) Tasted a lot of cakes today....feeling a bit sick now.

Happy 21st Birthday J!

tired from a run.....
14 May 2008 9.39pm

The Kissing Game

My boss has finally confirmed my appointment....we will see how it goes for now...of course, the same old nonsense will continue.

kc and his wife (they just got ROM! Congrats!) are leaving for tokyo this sunday so we met on thursday to have a farewell dinner. yc was also there and its been ages since we last saw him. He lost contact with all of us ever since he came back from UK a few years back. Believe it or not, kc found him by googling his name on the search engine and found him on a junior college website where he is teaching now! It was so funny....... first time I heard finding a friend by doing a search on the internet. So all of us had a chat and we found that yc is still the same. He told us he didn't travel out that much during his few years in UK studying, preferring to stay in. So wasted as we feel that he could travel around UK or Europe since he was there. kc showed us photos that he and his wife took during their vacation early this year. His photography skill is not bad. kt commented that he never expected kc to be the first to get married among us. Actually at our age, its not uncommon to see our friends settling down. More singles nowadays are looking at a domestic life and had enough of a single's life. You can still have fun even after getting married. As we were leaving, we said our goodbyes and wished them all the best. He told us we can stay with them if we are going to tokyo. Haha...thanks!

Had a Mother's Day dinner with my family yesterday and then went for band practice. After the practice, my conductor gave us a pep talk. How he doesn't want us to repeat the mistake two years ago for the coming competition in July. I also need to practice my solo part in el camino real. Hope I can achieve what he wants by then. Stayed back for a while to practice my parts and then we went to Alps Cafe for drinks. As usual my "mummy" and "daddy" (sy and mel) tried not to make me drink too much but with den around, she helped to fill my glass. Haha........so we all got high and then we played this kissing game by rolling a dice in a shaker, guess the number and the person who guessed it correctly have to kiss the person who was shaking the dice. So everyone took turns and kiss each other on the forehead (I know this doesn't seem daring enough but we have to take care of those who are attached...hehe). tim, mel and jos also sang a few songs on the ktv and i was hearing them for the first time. not bad man..... This time round, "mummy" and "daddy" didn't have to worry about me as I wasn't drunk, just feeling high....

Trying to smoothen out that high F...

10 May 2008 2:59pm

Stubborn and limping...

suz, YA, pat and I went for the training run (Passion Run) yesterday morning at East Coast. I woke up real early at 5am and met pat at AMK mrt station for a lift and picked up suz and YA at her block. Not many people turn up for the training. suz and I took the 8km route but I failed to finish the entire distance as my knees started to hurt halfway through and we walked the rest of the way. By the time we reached the starting point, my right knee was hurting like crazy. As we left for breakfast, I also felt another pain in my upper right calf. Think I have pulled a muscle. Arrggh....It was pretty bad when I got home as I was limping and bearing the pain.

Rested the whole afternoon and then made my way to town to meet my girlfriends to celebrate xl's birthday. Slowly limped my way to PS to buy her birthday cake and joined them at mind cafe for games.

Mind Cafe is a great place to hang out with all the board games available. However, its very noisy there with everyone shouting and talking loudly amidst the excitement of the game. I had difficulty hearing the staff explaining the rules of a particular game whenever we needed assistance as I was sitting at the far end of the table. I needed the others to explain the procedure to me again before I could understand how to play the game. I think for a large group like us, a round or square table would be better for everyone to listen to each other. Unfortunately, that outlet don't have a lot of such tables as the tables are mostly rectangular. We sang xl a birthday song with her cake and left about 11 plus. While she sent sh and kt home, sley, lic and I took ting's car to seletar dam. After xl came over, we stayed there for a while and chatted. I was sorry to hear that sley's cousin passed on recently. He was young like us and happened really suddenly. So she asked what would we do if we know we only have three days to live? We got interrupted after sley asked that question. I pondered for a while and could only tell myself to do whatever I can to make myself happy. But should it be at the expense of others? For example, getting a lower-paid job where you are happy but it means providing lesser for your family. Dilemma... We went on to talk about other things and realising its 4 May (an hour plus after midnight), we sang another birthday song for her at random turns. I hope xl's birthday wish will come true. I have the same birthday wish as hers and it has yet to come true.

Woke up this morning still feeling the pain in my right calf but it was not as painful as yesterday and feeling that I have not worked out enough for the week, I decided to go for bodycomabt anyway. But I took it easy during the session as I couldn't kick very hard or lift my right leg too high. It was still painful when I left the gym, thinking it has been a bad idea to come at all. Headed to City Hall to meet 3sa, yx and Ljun for lunch. Kind of a birthday lunch meetup for 3sa as her birthday was on 1 May. Happy belated birthday 3sa! We went to Shojuku, located at basement one of Raffles City Shopping Centre. Its marche, japanese-style. I had the curry katsu rice and it was yummy. The pork cutlet was crisp on the outside and tender on the inside. We didn't get to try everything. There are some things that are similar to marche like potato rossti with sausages, crepes and waffles with ice cream. But majority are Japanese dishes. Nice...will try again. :) After the meal, we went to yx's office as she needed to finish some work. I like the spaciousness of the work place and their pantry is fantastic. Reminds you of the interior decor of billy bomber restaurant with its retro-like red cushion seats and table, counter tops and bar stools. Really cool! I wish I have an office like that.....I didn't stay very long as my leg was hurting. Limped my way to the mrt station, accompanied by Ljun and 3sa.

New week and new decision?

4 May 2008 8:47pm

The Ironman

Ironman is a great movie to watch! I went to catch it yesterday with alloi. But I was held up at the office (damn it!) so I missed the first 10 minutes of the show, I think. Beautiful red and gold armour, gripping actions scenes, fantastic gadget performances and its also funny, especially Stark's machine assistant that helps him at his lab. There were several comical moments in the movie. The coolest thing I like about Ironman is the glowing pacemaker embedded in his chest to keep his heart alive.

After the movie, alloi and I went to grab a bite. I was the first to finish my food as he talked a lot about his life setbacks, career and how he ended up in his current job. I admire his courage for going through so much. He seems to love his work now and was trying to get me to join him and try his company products. I was listening to him the whole night talking passionately about his job and why I should go into network marketing. I am still a skeptic when it comes to this particular profession. Though I appreciate his gesture, I don't really see myself in network marketing. I can still meet a lot of people in my current line of work. To be honest, I feel that his job is somewhat like sales. Although they need not literally sell the products as a salesperson and are only getting people to join the company, try the products, be a living testimony and refer the products to their friends, they are actually selling the idea that the business is a lucrative one and persuading people to join them. In a way, this is just like sales where you are promoting an idea/plan and not a product or service. You just need to be eloquent and its repetitive as you repeat the same idea to everyone. I prefer my line where we have to plan and implement activities, organise events, handle the media, encounter problems and troubleshoot the problems and evaluate your work. Its the experience and satisfaction that you gain at the end of the day that makes me want to continue my line of work. My salary may be little compared to someone in network marketing but I just want to be happy with what I like to do. I may not be able to provide as much as I want for my parents for now but I just want them to have a peaceful life at least. I am sure I will do better and give more to my family in time to come.

But alloi, I think you doing great!

My boss sent me another reminder yesterday to inform her of my decision on my confirmation. I told my HR about this and she also side with my boss's idea that the confirmation should come from both parties and not just on her. She told me I have to think through whether this job suits me or not. This is not helpful.....coming from the HR. However, I agree this is true but it is also unfair that I have to decide this on my own. My boss should also confirm my appointment base on my work performance and not solely on my acceptance of her working style. I mean everyone have different working styles and we bound to have clashes with each other's communication methods at work. Its whether you are willing to work on it and compromise. She is kind of implying that I have to leave if I don't accept her working style so is she trying to make me go out of job? This is unfair as I have been trying my best to perform and I feel that I have done a reasonable job with zero experience in this industry when I started. Anyway, we will know the answer tomorrow....

Enjoy your 五月天.....
1 May 2008 1:07pm