I for one, got only a pair of hands. I'm not too sure if there's mutant out there who's lucky to have more hands than i have. The first week of 8 for this batch happened to be extremely understaffed and chaotic, up till the point when my boss, a man in his prime had to do a run down obstacles and fly through man-made ramps. That's something which will happen when half of the company takes leave/go for course/falls sick, and left the pai ka pai chiu to fend for themselves. They got me, a clark to march kids around and lead morning runs. I never really expected people to use me as a true last resort, and that feeling sucks when you got like 40 over things on your hand(s).
I suddenly recalled a chinese proverb, 祸不单行, and its damn true. My favourite $15 dollar guitar just had to be stolen during the chaos, disappearing without a single trace. WHY WOULD SOMEONE TAKE A GUITAR WITH TWO FREAKING NAILS STUCK ON THE GUITAR BOARD ?
In case no one knew, my storemando had to go fiddle with my guitar while i was on leave, and dropped it, and the whole guitar board gave way, with the string's tension giving the piece of flimsy wood an unsightly curve. So i took a hammer and 2 nails, and nailed back the wood on both sides, and tada, can play the thing again le. The birdbrained storemando even had the shame to tell me "Wah, you fixed it ah." when he didn't even have the balls to apologise to me.
I think the thief probably eyed my DUNLOP capo attached to the neck and took the whole damn thing because he's also probably too stupid to know how to remove the expensive capo from the guitar. May karma hit him where it hurts the most.
Friday night, the storemandos and i got arrowed to attend some party in camp not because its a terrific party, but one of poor taste which suffers from a premature lack of attendance. My boss probably knew no one wanted to attend the thing and sent us there to fill up the space in the event photographer's shots. There were the usual low budgeted dancers the ahmi could actually afford to entertain the unappreciative "crowd", and some boring games to kill time for the sake of killing time, MY TIME. On the bright side, i enjoyed the cheapo tapioca chips the party had during the 3hr torture session. I had better fun watching automatic doors open and close infinitely.
Today went to play a mtg pre-release tournaments after a 4 year break from the game, and boy, the crowd shrunk to such a pathetic size with around 120 players only... I only manage to play the afternoon flight as the morning flight was FULL. Apparently due some very interesting rumour, more players turned up than expected. WHO DOESN'T WANT TO OPEN UP A BLACKIE LOTUS IN THEIR PACK ? Well thats the more exciting news. The packs i opened and registered was utterly unplayable, in another sense i was glad while registering as the judge would probably rotate the cards around the table, so i would prolly get another set of cards. BUT NOOOO, "Players will KEEP THEIR REGISTERED CARDS." GG, had to play 3 colour liao. Ended up with 3 lose 1 win, there goes the ranking.
Grand Prix was zoom zoom and vroom vroom when i got out of the tournament area and entered into 2 meter high barricades littered all over the bay area. Uniformed guards a plenty, and everyone's just walking around with their HDD camcorders or their DSLRs handing down their neck. I manage to find a spot near a grassy ledge slightly elevated up and caught a few glimpse of the cars zipping by, no pictures though, carrying my ahmi safe mobile phone with me then.
I realised i'm not too good with impromptu reactions to solve problems or handle an unforeseen circumstances, and i often take for granted things will just happen as i plan with murphy's law an unknown concept. I plan a lot, setting up parameters with some margin of errors, check through them meticulously up till the point i feel confident about a project/issue, then i will simple let go, expect it to automate and work wonders. More often than not, i fail to judge a particular factor and acknowledge its erratic prowess, the human.
To quote my boss who probably quoted someone else (he's a big fan of quotes and an english guru), "Treat man as not a creature of logic, but as a creature of emotions." I freaking can't agree more.
Saturday, September 26, 2009
Monday, September 21, 2009
317 : 53rd
Ah, feels good to be blogging again after a short hiatus of 1 month... How's everybody ? Healthy ? Eating well ? Me ? Oh, i gotta say, it was a blast for these 5 weeks of nothingness, just relaxing, pushing aside my usual duties and just staying chilly.
First it was ahmi open haus, practically went for it everyday with different people every single time. I even did duty on the last day, and i saw how freaking fast they packed up the area and all the nice arsenal of displays simply vanished within a few hours in the not so silence of the night...
Then it was shopping and eating and shopping and eating and eating my brains out of all the delicious food i can eat, and the more i ate, the happier i felt about it. One of the sushi chains in sg had the $1 per plate promotion recently and best of all, i manage to get friends to join me for a sumptuous meal on PAYDAY. Let looooose baby, oh and the top buckle on my belt too...
I have this very "sexy" tan line on my back and shoulders now after 4 2-hour sessions at my kamp tennis court, 40% of the time actually playing and the rest picking up balls. Just started some serious lessons from some of my kamp mates who were ex-school teams and are VERY good. I can almost never return a proper serve overhead serve from them... Made a few more friends from other units too.
Other than tennis as a sport to kill off a minute percentage of my carbs, my fellow cq from HCJC who is an up up up CKKia, became my fellow run-mate/babe watcher. We run, and kua zhar bor at the same time whilst running... The route ? Well, none other than along the road in the most expensive district in Singapuur, where it features a central water canal. Hint hint. I was sceptical about the babe watching part before we ran, as seriously, its a very boring road... until i remembered the number of schools that are located along the road. Pwned. Well, that HC kia friend of mine sure knows what he was doing. We ran from the mac at one end of the road to the other end... and back. Madness i tell ya.
A bit about my work now... Manpower is running very low, and big boss wants us all to adapt to the faculty concept, where critical personnels are being stationed in a centralised location, to be shared within the whole school. This on the surface sorta solves the manpower issue, but deep down one would not feel emotionally motivated and attached to their work, because in actual truth, you're being treated like soccar buur, kicked here and there, a tool to fulfil the needs of a larger organisation. The cycle continues with more people not wanting to do their job properly, and thus taking the easy way (and smarter way) out, resign and leave the place to corrode. In a nutshell, my workplace as a whole is like a huge energy sink, a cranky generator, eating up more fuel than actually producing feasible results which in turns churning out more negative energy than needed. Bottom line ? Not my fight, not my problem to solve, its beyond my pay scale.
The perks of going home almost every single day is well, the usage of teh komputah. I got a PS3 controller just to hack it mod it as a wireless bluetooth controller for my kick assed system. Completed prototype (mediocre), mirror's edge (nice graphics but ridiculous gameplay), devil may cry 4 on hard (button mashing goodfun) and currently trying my hands on resident evil 5 in which the first few hours was pretty painful (controls were horrid). Currently Scribblenauts is the in-thing as of this season around the world, and at the same time, inviting my bunkmates, an indian national, a lion dance ah beng and my CCKia HCJC buddy to come out with interesting words to solve puzzles are just humorous. I notice how they like the violent approach of solving a problems, using words like knife, gun, minigun, while i rather stick to interesting and not so violent means like chainsaw (to cut wood) or death (kill mobs w/o weapons) or even balloons to solve the toughest of puzzles.
Being able to play DS games at work, or hit the gym or getting my ass kicked in tennis means there's no gahment around at work... Boh Cheng Hu. Some are not even coming for work, some playing extreme truant, some just basically heck-caring and self declaration of 1 month OhAhDee. This is what happens when no one cleans up their mess and live a half-f attitude in life...
An artist's impression of what it would be like it no one gives a shit.
First it was ahmi open haus, practically went for it everyday with different people every single time. I even did duty on the last day, and i saw how freaking fast they packed up the area and all the nice arsenal of displays simply vanished within a few hours in the not so silence of the night...
Then it was shopping and eating and shopping and eating and eating my brains out of all the delicious food i can eat, and the more i ate, the happier i felt about it. One of the sushi chains in sg had the $1 per plate promotion recently and best of all, i manage to get friends to join me for a sumptuous meal on PAYDAY. Let looooose baby, oh and the top buckle on my belt too...
I have this very "sexy" tan line on my back and shoulders now after 4 2-hour sessions at my kamp tennis court, 40% of the time actually playing and the rest picking up balls. Just started some serious lessons from some of my kamp mates who were ex-school teams and are VERY good. I can almost never return a proper serve overhead serve from them... Made a few more friends from other units too.
Other than tennis as a sport to kill off a minute percentage of my carbs, my fellow cq from HCJC who is an up up up CKKia, became my fellow run-mate/babe watcher. We run, and kua zhar bor at the same time whilst running... The route ? Well, none other than along the road in the most expensive district in Singapuur, where it features a central water canal. Hint hint. I was sceptical about the babe watching part before we ran, as seriously, its a very boring road... until i remembered the number of schools that are located along the road. Pwned. Well, that HC kia friend of mine sure knows what he was doing. We ran from the mac at one end of the road to the other end... and back. Madness i tell ya.
A bit about my work now... Manpower is running very low, and big boss wants us all to adapt to the faculty concept, where critical personnels are being stationed in a centralised location, to be shared within the whole school. This on the surface sorta solves the manpower issue, but deep down one would not feel emotionally motivated and attached to their work, because in actual truth, you're being treated like soccar buur, kicked here and there, a tool to fulfil the needs of a larger organisation. The cycle continues with more people not wanting to do their job properly, and thus taking the easy way (and smarter way) out, resign and leave the place to corrode. In a nutshell, my workplace as a whole is like a huge energy sink, a cranky generator, eating up more fuel than actually producing feasible results which in turns churning out more negative energy than needed. Bottom line ? Not my fight, not my problem to solve, its beyond my pay scale.
The perks of going home almost every single day is well, the usage of teh komputah. I got a PS3 controller just to hack it mod it as a wireless bluetooth controller for my kick assed system. Completed prototype (mediocre), mirror's edge (nice graphics but ridiculous gameplay), devil may cry 4 on hard (button mashing goodfun) and currently trying my hands on resident evil 5 in which the first few hours was pretty painful (controls were horrid). Currently Scribblenauts is the in-thing as of this season around the world, and at the same time, inviting my bunkmates, an indian national, a lion dance ah beng and my CCKia HCJC buddy to come out with interesting words to solve puzzles are just humorous. I notice how they like the violent approach of solving a problems, using words like knife, gun, minigun, while i rather stick to interesting and not so violent means like chainsaw (to cut wood) or death (kill mobs w/o weapons) or even balloons to solve the toughest of puzzles.
Being able to play DS games at work, or hit the gym or getting my ass kicked in tennis means there's no gahment around at work... Boh Cheng Hu. Some are not even coming for work, some playing extreme truant, some just basically heck-caring and self declaration of 1 month OhAhDee. This is what happens when no one cleans up their mess and live a half-f attitude in life...
An artist's impression of what it would be like it no one gives a shit.
It could be a lot worse if there were bloodstains and phlegm on the floor and walls...if fights and epidemics do break out in the room. I've leave that topic for another day.
I recently watched a video on economics, in brief the topic was on how having lower expectations in life can lead to greater happiness. I discussed it with a few buds and all of us could not agree more to it. If we could reduce the "want" in every of us, life could be so much less of a pain, and be satisfied with each and every little thing that's being given to us. Its a whole load of philosophical nut crack, but i think i can sum it up simply by saying... LOOK WHAT WAS THERE and NOT WHAT IT MUST BE THERE. Perhaps architect legend Mies van der rohe all along wanted something to mean something else... ?
I recently watched a video on economics, in brief the topic was on how having lower expectations in life can lead to greater happiness. I discussed it with a few buds and all of us could not agree more to it. If we could reduce the "want" in every of us, life could be so much less of a pain, and be satisfied with each and every little thing that's being given to us. Its a whole load of philosophical nut crack, but i think i can sum it up simply by saying... LOOK WHAT WAS THERE and NOT WHAT IT MUST BE THERE. Perhaps architect legend Mies van der rohe all along wanted something to mean something else... ?
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