Entertaining

I cant remember if i mentioned this anywhere before. I must have, cos i feel strongly.

I hate entertaining and networking.

I dont like standing around in a dark room holding a drink (usually a soft one) and talking about "the market". I do like being invited though. And i'll put it in my calendar. On the odd occasion, I'd enjoy dressing up for it.

Oh wait, who am i kidding? I love to dress up for entertainment.

And when i drive to work, i tell myself that i'll enjoy this one. And i'll think back on that time in October when i went to one and we are on our way to signing a deal.

But inevitably, a few hours before the event, i'll be making all kinds of internal excuses to myself that i dont wanna go anymore.

But tonight, i decided to go cos i promised some people i would go. Plus it's near my office.

My company is relatively unknown in our realm so i was pleasantly surprised that many people i spoke to knew me. It was good to be able to introduce yourself without having to introduce your company history as well.

One odd introduction went like:

Me: Hi, my name is Cornball and im from XXXXX.

Guy: Oh Cornball, did you use to work for XXX?

Me: Ya (suspiciously)

Guy: I used to intern there shortly after you left and heard your name around.

Me: Bad nasty things mostly?

Guy: No. Those were mostly guys you mentored and they said u taught me many things.

Me to myself: Ya right, i taught but they didnt remember. Dumb asses.

Guy: And they were all very surprised you resigned cos it was all so sudden.

He went on telling me abt the nice things said about me, but this isnt the purpose of this post.

I later spent the rest of the evening, literally meeting new people who in some way or another, heard my name or my presence in my company and really spent the bulk of the night talking about my ex-company. It was sooo weird that i made my excuse to head out to answer a call and just left.

And because i'm on leave on Wed and Thurs to capitalise on the long weekend, i bought the fried chicken from Chippies to "celebrate".

I'm going to JB on thursday to play my first ever round of golf. I hope i dont embarrass myself.

Escort

I think ive been spending too much money.

My mum asked me where i have so much money to spend and when she read in the newspapers about this guy who worked as an escort to a rich tai tai to fund his purchases, she asked me if i worked as an escort too.

She even said she's not sure im actually going to work when i leave the house every day.

WTH!

They're Back!

They are back in June!



I didnt manage to go see them last year cos I was travelling and came back on the day of the concert and i didnt wanna rush just to get the tix . And i was pretty disappointed.

I really think I'm going for this one, even if i have to go alone. I'd pay for anyone who'd come with me.

How Embarrassing

I drive pass this every day on my way to work but i never had the chance to stop by the road to take this.

Yesterday I did.

See how proud the School Advisory Committee is of their 2008 PSLE results.

I bet the committee members themselves didnt do too well or as well for their PSLE, cos they cant even spell "committee".



I took this picture on my Bold. It's pretty clear considering i took it from across the road.

Frozen

I couldn’t sleep last night due to several reasons:

1. I took a nap at 6pm after my strenuous badminton.
2. I drank bubble tea at 11pm.
3. I watched the FA Cup semi final which ended in an anti-climax penalty shootout at 2am.

I decided to get off my butt and do some work. I also decided to check my bank accounts to see how much earthly wealth I’ve accumulated. Imagine my shock when I saw this on my DBS bank account.



Then this at on Amex page.



So scary. A lot of things were running through my mind. Did someone hack the impregnable fortress that is my Mac? Or did the government shut down my account cos i was laundering money for a terrorist cell? (Absolutely no idea where that came from) When my DBS account was blank, i thought DBS went bankrupt!! Scared me until my UOB account still had my money. Phew.. Though i had no idea why another bank having my money reassured me about the empty bank, i was nonetheless calmer. I realised i couldnt do anything about it, so i went back to my work and facebooking.

I eventually slept at 4am. Yawn….

Tea Time

I was going to blog about my tea when I bought it but then while walking back and swinging quite vigorously, I spilt some of it. Damn.. lugi some tea.



I have been drinking quite a bit of Kiliney-esque tea of late cos of the pick-me-ups I need from the lack of sleep. Have u ever noticed the people who make the tea/coffee are very similar in the way they do it? They’d line the cups in one line, then very very deliberately pour from a kettle with a long spout into the tiny cups. They are invariably always hunched and shoulders tightened. The amounts of condensed milk, hot water, sugar they put are also very precise. For my cup just now, he actually scooped some condensed milk back from my cup into the can cos he put too much.

I also bought yummy mangoes.

Apocalypse Now

It seems like the Challenger Superstore know something we dont. The last days are upon us.

Filing

My friend tried to file her taxes. I guess she had a hard time cos she put this on her blog

"Filing taxes online this year is like finding a good date in Singapore: hard to get started, getting ditched halfway through the process, and ultimately, an exercise in futility."


Haha.. i should ask her out soon.

Yawn

I didn’t feel like working yesterday so I went to the range at 4pm. Not that hitting balls was a good way to relax, it just offered another option as compared to going home and watching tv.

I had asked Sox to join me but he had JP Morgan run. He’s quite the athlete.

Because it was early (duh!), I could get a bay on the ground floor, which is always more interesting than being three floors up.



After that I went to Tampines 1 to check out the new mall. Nothing spectacular really. Except maybe the Dian Xiao Er, which was still under renovation. Plus there’s a Japanese snack place in B1, which seemed promising but was too crowded.

Another place which was too crowded was Uni Glo. You might have seen many adverts here and there and when I went, there’s such a long queue, it’s absurd man. When I went to Uni Glo in Shanghai, it was dead quiet sia. It’s like an upscale Giordano and Singaporeans and queuing up to buy upscale Giordanos, my goodness. I decided I needed to take a pic of the carnage of good taste.

Gender of Your Brain

I rarely do things like these but i needed a distraction form work today.

http://www.blogthings.com/whatgenderisyourbrainquiz/

Drop a note to let me know what gender are you. Leave a name too cos i dont need to know the gender of anonymous people.

Im 67% female. :(

Your brain leans female
You think with your heart, not your head
Sweet and considerate, you are a giver
But you're tough enough not to let anyone take advantage of you!

Cheer

Here's some cheer in an otherwise highly strung week for me.



I applied for half day on Friday to go to range and take it easy for the rest of the week then suddenly my Chairman wanted me in on a meeting on Friday. Bleah..

Kio Dio

During my trip to Hong Kong/Shanghai two weeks ago, my colleague used my Amex card to book my tickets. For the uninformed, you have to bring that same credit card when you show up at the counter.

But I didn’t bring that card on my trip.

So I had to use another credit card, which was fine.

So they charged the second card and said they’d reimburse the card on my Amex within 14 days.

I checked today and found the reimbursement. As it turns out, I gained S$5 due to the currency fluctuations. Kio dio!

Towels

I don’t think I meet many weird people in my business dealings. The meetings I have are mostly for a specific reason: to make a deal. However, there was one meeting last week which was quite weird. The person I met came with a shopping bag and we discussed some potential deals before he said, “Oh by the way, my wife used to be a swimsuit model and now she designs them.” Then he gave me a catalogue of swimsuits and handed me the shopping bag.

It contained two beach towels. Great! I love towels. Haha..

Tuesdays

I've always said that Tuesdays sucked. Now it's confirmed.

April 8, 2009
Call it the 'Tuesday drag'

LONDON: Forget the Monday Morning Blues - according to a British poll, 11.45 on a Tuesday morning is the most stressful point of the working week.
The Telegraph newspaper cited a survey as saying that most workers take it easy on Mondays, catching up on gossip and not getting much done.
More than 53 per cent of those polled admitted cruising through Monday, with one in 10 ignoring their work while they log onto social networking sites to check out photos of the fun they had over the weekend.

Then on Tuesday morning, the reality of their looming workloads hits them and the stress levels rocket as they finally get down to checking the work-related e-mail they ignored the day before and start planning what is left of the week ahead.
Mr Graham Waters from health supplement manufacturer Bimuno, which polled 3,000 adults, said: 'Coasting through Monday means we're worse off on Tuesday - both in terms of workloads and stress levels.

'Tuesday at 11.45am seems to be the time in the day when the real workload for the week hits employees and stress levels rise.'

Horrible

Monday was supposed to be a happy day but as it turned out, im not one to enjoy many happy days.

My deal is falling apart and I only got home super late. Was feeling all feverish and cold sweaty all day. Then lau-sai-ed 5 times on Monday night.

Then my email was down the entire of tuesday and that super irritated me. Plus the tummy still wasnt feeling too good.

I went home early and was stopped by an oldish woman at my lift. She walked past me and then turned back and called out to me. I actually was so pissed i turned back and semi-yelled "WHAT?" She gave me a whole sob story on how she needed to replace her left eye and she had no medicine to buy eye drops. My heart softened a little and i gave her $10.

My mum said i shouldnt have given and i guess to some extent i agree but... i dont know. I thought at least someone could have a better day than me with my $10 but i hope i didnt get conned. Shit.

Someone tried to borrow money from me some time back. I refused cos i didnt like the idea of lending money to a friend. She has since not talked to me. I love money but it's sad that the lack of money really changes attitudes and behaviour.

Busy Busy

Phew it has been such a busy week with my management here. It culminated with me presenting at both the Exco and Board meetings on Wednesday and Thursday on our development efforts. I was quite jittery cos the year has been quite slow and the Board always intimidates me. But after a three hour presentation, i felt good, my boss thought it was good. So i rewarded myself with a good meal as well as yogurt before flying off to Hong Kong.

WHAM BHAM Thank you Mdm!

After my little outburst this afternoon, the bank called my finance department that they realised that their boss is meeting my tycoon boss next week. And they dont want my boss to ask their boss about this issue. So they can make an exception this time round and open the bank account first and then fill in the forms.

My goodness, that made me happy but sad also that money and fear means so much to some people.

Lunchie

I had lunch at Marina Square food court.. quite a good view..



Had Qiu Lian ban mian. Reminds me of simpler things in life.

Cheer

Some cheer in my otherwise horrid day.



I think my swing sucks. I'm very irritated and disappointed. I hate it when i dont do things well.

BHAM Again...

As mentioned here, almost three months ago, I was tasked to form an overseas entity.

Three months down the road, things arent moving fast enough on the part of my Singapore bank opening a bank account for us in Indonesia. I have never written to the bankers so they are usually handled by my finance dept. So i dropped the bankers a nasty email today.

Dear Mr X

I’m a little perturbed that it has take taken us so long to open a bank account with your bank. This and the fact that while we are in month number three in the process, we seem to be getting new requests for forms to be filled up.

While we appreciate the necessity of numerous forms, we had hoped that, in the spirit of efficiency and expediency, the requests could have come from the onset, since our directors are located in Singapore, US and Dubai.

Thank you for your kind attention in this and we hope the application can be completed soon.

I’m available to talk on the phone anytime if I can assist in any way.

So incompetent it's scary. *shudder*