Training Quite Xiong

and my first week of work has gone by.

its been tough. learning all the hardware and software of the computer systems and products of standard chartered. and yet its been a fun-filled learning experience. outr trainer for this week, christine is very nice to us, like an older sister lidat so we get to talk cock with her and all that. also got a good bunch of friends in my training group, all 7 of us. like though today we kenna arrow to change the noticeboard decorations(wah lao! always arrow newbies for this kinda shit work!)the girls all sibeh onz and happy to do it, while us guys keep complaining haha. but fun lah, being with them, all damn good at talking cock. thats what a good job is about right?

today started to learn to swim in the sea. had to pick up calls from customers. i was attached to this girl named adeline as my senior. same batch as julian. she is super zhai and damn fast with her work(i suppose the longer you are at the job the better you are at it) so there's really alot to learn from her. and she takes the time to explain to me all sorts of things, so very thankful, even more so considering she has a call target to meet inspite of having to put up with my blurness and slow movements. promised to buy her a box of chocolates as a reward. haha.

aside from that sometimes will hang out with my fellow trainees while sometimes with julian and other staff. all the staff there really very nice so thats a really good environment to work in. the managers so far have been pretty nice to us too. and its mondays are beachwear days! can wear berms tshirt and slippers! no kidding! and fridays are jeans days, can wear tshirt jeans and comfy shoes(my lifestyle nikes!) so good!

kie lah think thats about it for my job. next week gotta stay back after work with my gang to do the stupid decorations and fuck shit. meanwhile after work really dun have much of a life. just now while having dinner i received my 7th call for an interview since i sent out my resume 2weeks ago. yesterday had one from a filtration company, this afternoon dbs called, and then just now richburg motors called. the fucker who called was an ang moh can?! shit man hope i dunt end up regretting getting into a job so early, else i'm gonna curse the hr department of stan chart for being so xiao onz. knn.

but 'least work's fun lah.

so far.

haiz.

Lost And Found Job

the last few days have been flying by for me. not sure if its because i'm enjoying every minute of it or i'm just constantly kept too busy to smell any roses.

i've gotten a job liaoz! have been officially welcomed to the standard chartered family. doing the same job that julian does, as a sales consultant. got through my second interview with the big boss, ann kong(who was really intimidating) with a coupla hitches but ultimately she offered me the job. really excited and looking forward to start work - tommorrow! wah so fast.

we had a oldie guys night out on friday. got me julian joe thomas ah aow john weixiong steven and howren. ate at the golden mile towers basement steamboat(its really quite good!) and then played pool afterthat. was really cool to catch up with them again after so long. most of them are still the same though, 'cept everyone's working. we kept suaning steven about his ambitions to be a police officer, saying hte only reason they'll recruit him is so that he can help act as the baddies on crimewatch. haha. pool was fun too. then we had dessert at army market afterthat. and everyone's turning into a smoker! haiyoh...

yesterday was dinner with the 44 gang. had fiona and simon(her da nan ren!) bock lian leon kelvin chun and myself. we ate at nooch at paragon basement. was quite fun, though being the subject of torrid questions sucked. we went to nude at wisma afterthat and i got high after a bottle of carlsberg. geez i suck. and then there was this malay waiter who was so obnoxious and rude! he said something to the effect that we were cheapos and who came only to drink their promotional beer! wtf?!?! argh so pissed off. that guy totally spoiled the rest of my night. haiz. asshole.

think thats about it. later playing softball with the even oldies corrinne they all at bishan park. but seems like not many people going leh...

tommorrow starting work!

Job Search For A Soul

yay. i made it to the 2nd round of interviews at standard chartered! whoo. going for it at 3pm later. hope for the best!

been actively searching for jobs since i came back. took a really long time to get my resume and cover letter(i HATE writing cover letters) up and running but its finally done. its alot easier now like once the skeleton is complete the rest of hte work just revolves around tweaking little details and making sure you don't send the wrong shit to the wrong company!(did that TWICE! KNN)

so anyway i managed to start sending my resumes and letters on tuesday. then what do you know on wednesday i get called up for not one not two but three interviews! wah. thought i was damn popular. but no lah haha. out of the 3, 2 are for selling insurance wan(knn so the position name is really very tricky). the last one was julian's standard chartered bank. still i went for all lah. go listen and learn also good right?

the first one was for prudential. i applied for a business development executive post. those bastards sell insurance whether you are an insurance agent junior management associate or the toilet maintenance executive lah so now you know in prudential, everyone has got a policy to sell. but not that i'm bad mouthing the profession. after the talk i realised that it really is quite a lucrative insurance market and the only problem with the profession is the public stigma against it. i mean seriously there's nothing wrong with selling insurance and more often than not the policies seriously do serve to help you (A) financially protect yourself against mishap or (B) save a fuckload of money. so really, nothing wrong with that right? but the interviewer who interviewed me, this Josephine woman, made a very realistic and valid(i was really impressed by her honesty in this business) point - alot of the social stigma has been created by insurance agents themselves. from their over-pesistence to their capitalist attitudes, this is what's become of the insurance industry. so its quite sad. of course not all insurance agents are like that, alot genuinely want the best for their customers too as either way both customer and seller wins mah. then of course she proceeds to say that "under her wing"(knn i thought she was gonna say under her skirt), she will train me to be ethical and successful...yada yada and the sales pitch overwhelms her. still it was interesting and she was relatively nice lah. till she asked me to address her as "da jie"(big sister? - fuck you!).

the second one was more interesting lah. standard chartered, as a sales consultant, julian's working there, and the environment looks pretty good(with tons of chio bus!). i dunno how i spent an hour and a half there but it felt bloody xiong. two managers asked all the standard questions, then told me the demands of the job, blah blah, standard(roll eyes) stuff lah. but afterthat a more senior manager came over and asked me to do a role play with her. i wasn't too obliging since she didn't look very young. then i realised the role play was an on-job role play. chay. wah so xiong still must pretend pretend siah. anyway she gave me a whole list of faq about one of their products and then she was supposed to call me and i was supposed to "assist her". the whole process wouldn't have been so tough had it not been for her stupid "to make this role play more challenging" task of typing a separate document altogether. so anyway i went through with it. i realise i sucked at multi-tasking cuz i only managed to type one paragrapgh and a half of that shit she gave me, though i felt i had to spend most of my time finding the answers to her stupid questions...so i came out of the interview feeling like crap. at least julian was there to show me around so that made me feel slightly better. but i made it to the second round of interviews! whooo!

the last one was a financial planning position. this company is apparently a wing of prudential. i didn't like it that much. the guy interviewing me, kevan, talked ten times more than i did. in the end the gist was pretty similar to that of all that josephine talked about. they, who call themselves the pathfinders, do apparently have better administrative and manpower support than jo's, but still if i ever did get into insurance it'd be with jo bah. geez i swear if my parents weren't so against the idea of me becoming an insurance agent i'd definitely give the profession alot more thought.

yup. so that was my three interviews in one day. haven't gotten any calls eversince. haha. except for today's second round in standard chartered. but then again everyone says the calls will come in around a week or two after the resumes are sent. so at the the worst this first round gave me pretty good practice.

anyway something really funny happened when i went for dinner with chun that evening. i was in a very mean mood(though at that time i really didn't realise it) possibly cuz of the tiring day. we had finished our meal at this ramen restaurant called ajisen in taka and while i paid the bill i also applied for their cheapo membership lah(10% off subsequent meals!). then as the poor cashier was writing my name on the card she had the indignant cheek to ask her friend beside her whether my sirname was spelled L-U-M or L-V-M?!??! i mean wtf??!?! then chun said its L-U-M but i suddenly(this was instinctive, really!) said damn loud to chun, "wah lao, L-V-M how to pronounce?!?". eeks. obviously the cashier heard it lah, and all she could afford was a wry smile. then i quickly smiled, took my card and left. haha. wah what a fucker i was. but seriously. that woman has the WORST handwriting EVER! ask to see my cheapo card when you see me.

think thats about all.

Goin' On The Job Hunt

long time no blog liao. don't have much in my head, nor my pockets right now. spent most of my time over the last few days typing out my resume(which doesn't look too impressive in my opinion), and sending them out to various companies. hopefully will get a job asap so that i won't feel so useless at home. meanwhile will try to get some crummy temp job without having to sell backside.

Home. Where I Wanted To Go.

there's an inexplicable good feeling in homecoming. maybe its a return to all things familiar and all things missed. maybe its being able to see all your loved ones and friends again. it sure feels good to be back.

and so my great american trail concludes.

i returned on the flight to singapore from japan feeling extremely tired. so tired that it turned out to be a good thing. coming off an excruciating 13hr flight where i couldn't get a single wink's rest i ended up on the plane back to singapore with a double-seater(the capacity of flights heading to singapore always seems inproportional to calculated distance from the location of departure - the further from singapore you take the flight from the more empty its gonna be) by the window. so i curled up like a lost puppy and nested 6 of the flight's 7hrs. missed even my dinner and snack, and didn't catcha single movie(the previous flight i watched 5 movies in all).

my great american trail has been the summer of my life. recounting it would take a pretty long time i can imagine and trying to remember all that's happened in this period would be near impossible. but its a good thing i kept a running blog and a keenly-updated written journal(writing a book about my experiences did cross my mind). so the next step would be to quickly log my digital pictures with details before my infamous short-term memory kicks in.

the first chapter of the trail began with myself joining the camp chief ouray cast of 2004. never having been exposed to a children's wilderness camp before, alot of the camp's culture and experiences did open my eyes to excessive american culture. it was also fueled by the fact that i was the only international camp counsellor in the camp and therefore had a monopoly on all affairs outside the states(hardly anyone of the staff had gone out of the american continent before). on hindsight i think that was a really lucky break, and thereby enhanced my immersion into the american way of life. which is really interesting, even in the smallest things. so i had a lot of fun going through 2 weeks of staff training, 8 weeks of children's camp, 1 week of girl scouts camp and 1 week of active older adults camp. the friends and relations cultivated along the way has been priceless. and i believe alot of these relations will continue to pepper its prints along the path that is my life. best camp in the nation. best summer of my life.

the second chapter of the trail started the moment i was delayed for 19hrs on the amtrak from colorado to chicago. the whole tour that i had pre-planned for weeks prior to the trip turned out to be a tour of a lifetime with so many memorable experiences. in the belief that opportunity and chance are often mapped by you own creations, plans and attitude, there is little much i can ask for out of this holiday of a lifetime. for starters joe makes a fucking good travelling companion. pardon the language but it deserves such emphasis. i can hardly ask more from a travelling companion. funnily enough joe mentioned at the beginning of the trip that this trip together would either make us hate each other forever, or bond us closer as brudders. i knew it would turn out the latter. we had so much fun, with my boliaoness and and optimistic positivity and his brutal honesty and agreeable-to-any-interesting-idea all blended with our sheer enthusiastic sense of adventure, i think we made up a team capable of winning next season's amazing race.

nevertheless the places we chose to go and the mode of transport we chose to take(we should've coined a name for our car like betty or something) really aided our appetite for adventure and the unknown. in all we drove more that 3700miles of american and canadian road. hit a grand total of 3 cars. got pulled over by the police more than 5 times. and slept in the trusty cavalier more than 3/4 of our holiday. in a way that car was indeed our home, home of stinky shoes(mine), dirty clothes, maps and constant backaches. a host of fun nonetheless.

working at haagen dazs was another rewarding experience, learning shitloads and experiencing the american teenager's working life(we totally blended right in). pay was good and everybody liked us alot.

but i've gotta say the biggest highlights of the trip on a personal note would be seeing the niagara falls from both borders, and the climb up mt katahdin. the climb will probably rank as one of our greatest achievements i think. what's your highlights, joe?

so i'm done packing. packing is tiring. but i'm glad its done. wonder when i'll ever take all that crap out again. wonder when i'll get to use them again. from my 2-man tent to my crazy creek, from my thermarest to my sleeping bag, i wonder if i'll ever get a chance to use them so extensively again once more.

sigh.

Narita Airport, Chiba, Japan

ah ha! bet you all thought that narita airport or new tokyo international airport(apparently thats what narita translates to) is in tokyo right? wrong! its 2hrs away from tokyo(and i'm not just talking downtown tokyo here) and its in chiba county. fast fact.

so anyway here i am back in narita airport where i had started off my american trail blog. i'm really super duper wooper excited to be heading back to singapore. i don't think words will be able to substatially express that excitement towards the plans i have, the people i miss and of course the places and food i missed.

the plane ride here from chicago took 13hrs. it was absolutely uncomfortable, i dunno how i managed to tahan the whole ride considering i couldn't sleep a single wink. dunno how i survived the trip there too(must've been the excitement). anyway i got lucky(as always), flying alone has got its perks if you're willing to look for them, i was placed in the centre seat of a three-seater by the window. so naturally the three people seating there couldn't have known each other prior to the flight. but i guess we three were in a sociable mood so we managed to chat up. on my left was a japanese dentist(must be rich) who spoke fluent english, lived in tokyo and has lots to ask about singapore and say about japan. and on my right was a vietnamese canadian lady heading back to vietnam for the first time in 5 years who had even more to say about vietnam. she was headed for ho chi minh city. so it was nice to have their company all through the flight, there was alot to talk about wow about and laugh about...just in their company and i realised i've learned so much more about tokyo and vietnam.

eastern usa highlights

okie so i'm absolutely pissed that the blog i typed while in times square didn't turn out. had so much good stuff to write about but now its more of a monotonous narration of whatever i can remember.

so highlights were aplenty. lets see...

okie as far as i can remember, after our haagen dazs tour of duty, we left for philadelphia. its a really interesting city and it prides itself as one of the oldest cities in the usa dating all the way back when the united states of america only consisted of 13 states. so the tour of philly was a walking one for joe and i. spent the whole day on foot. we had parked our car at the airport(safest place we could find) and had taken the subway down for a whopping us$17. i think it was here that we walked the most in one day. possibly so. i dunno. still the highlight turned out to be an ugly one. we had walked so much that by the time it was time to go back it had turned dark. now i' gotta say that downtown philly is seriously one place you DO NOT WANNA BE when the sky gets dark. even the lonely planet tells you so. but no. we bopianz. hungry and ended up in mcdonald's. everywhere you see african americans. everywhere. i'm sure whatever estimate of their numbers after dark would be grossly underestimated since you can't see them all. okie so joe and i were happily enjoying our big mac meals when this hobo comes and ask us for money. xianz. i mean its bad enough that they harass you on the streets but in a restaurant? that takes the cake. anyway i came up with this whole bull dropping tale(then again alot of it as true) about how we're really poor students who have no money and live out of our car. so finally the guy relents and is willing to accept whatever loose change we've got and i give him a grand total of 11 cents, though he left pissed and even chided me for calling him `dude'. such gratitude. still it instilled enough fear in us to be wathcing our backs the moment we left the macs and for once in my life i was so relieved to find a train station. its weird cuz once we were in the underground, almost everyone down there was white! how queer. they probably have a secret tunnel to congregate there bah. wonder where all the asians hide?

so that was it for philly. we drove off early next morning. found ourselve sin atlantic city! the vice haven of the east. whatever you can think of drugs sex gambling, all also have. just not as glam as las vegas definitely. i wasted about us$40 in the tropicana casino but the main highlight was me getting chatted up by hookers both on my way to the hotel and from. it is good to note that we checked into a hotel less than 50m from the casino and i got chatted up a grand total of 4 times! forgot what they said exxactly but the most straightforward(desperate bitch) was something like "i'd love to suck that juicy cock of yours, big boy...". now how'd she know i was a big boy?

we left the next day and found ourselves in washington dc. whoo. nice place and its got all the monuments and memorials that you always see on tv. also the new ww2 memorial really looked very good and majestic. main sights included the reflecting pool and the abraham lincoln memorial where martin luther king jr delivered his "l have a dream..." speech, senator john kerry spoke out against the vietnam war, and where jenny waded towards forrest in the movie forrest gump. so it actually felt pretty surreal just to stand on the steps of the memorial and imagine how it all played out. also the mall, capitol hill, the white house and most memorably, the smithsonian museums. most of these places have got super high security. so it was a good thing we walked around without any bags. the museums i've gotta say are one of the best i've ever seen in my life and whats even better is that they were free! whoo! so we got to see alot of dinosaur bones and learn alot about american history and even see the hope diamond(does anyone know what that is?).

finally it was up to new york city! whoo! i can't gush about it enough. it just feels so right ot be there and i sometimes feel like i fit right in. just like in chicago. so the biggest gushing highlight that will make everyone jealous is that joe and i managed to catch 3 broadway shows in a mere 2 days! we watched mamma mia(abba fans will LURVE it), chicago(starring wayne brady from "whose line is it anyway?" - he was hilarious!) and the lion king(best propped theatrical ever ever ever - heck they even managed to put an elephant on stage!) and we spent on about us$63 on ALL 3 shows! thats the recommended price if you're willing to stand for over 2hrs per show. but with our strong legs, it was well worth it. cuz for us$20 you get to stand on the first level of the theatre, which are really small(like the one in raffles hotel) and they're right behind the us$80 seats. there's really nothing to complain about.

so we also visted times square alot, naturally since the theatres were along broadway and times square. times square is really like the billboard advertising capital of the world man. its amazing that you'd spend more time reading the billboards than noticing the stores beneath them. and there's an ultra HUGE toys'r'us there which has an indoor ferris wheel and 2-storey barbie doll house. wow. its been featured on the apprentice before. aside from that we went to battery park to see the tiny little dot that was the statue of liberty(no point taking the ferry to see it since it was so overpriced and the queues were crazy long). also went to ground zero. it felt kinda grim and surreal to be there and just trying to imagine all the drama and panic that went on in the final hours of the collapse of the twin towers was enough to keep us both in sombre moods while we were there. haiz. okie and then we saw the empire state building and the rockafeller centre. and then we spent a whole lot of time just walking the streets of new york. its really a joy to walk but a pain to drive. so if anyone of you's ever there, walk.

guess thats enough of recollection for one blog. i'm gonna go take a huge shit now and then go to my boarding gate liaoz. will be reaching singapore around midnight. can't wait.

Chicago, Illinois, USA

geez, this is my fourth attempt at composing a blog and i've had enough disappointment writing a blog only to see it unprinted.

anyway, i'm in chicago now. arrived this morning at 7am. immediately got onto a cab and checked myself into the travelodge near to o'hare airport. chicago just got hit by a cold spell last night and the weather's freaking cold right now, i really won't be surprised if it snows tomorrow. and the best part is right now i'm in the chicago public library in downtown in my berms and slippers. geez. no wonder the whole world's staring at my shivering calves...

the train from pittsburgh was really interesting. it was a crowded one so i got assigned a seat(previous they didn't need to do that). i got to seat right beside a 13yr old amish aspiring magician. the amish have always left me perplexed i've gotta say. the world's moved on but these people choose to live on without the use of technology thereby rendering them without the car(they actually still use horse carts), the computer(never heard of it), television(instrument of the devil) and even electrical lighting(oil lamps for them). still they've managed to get around and keep their tradition alive till today. which in itself is an amazing feat. so this boy's name is paul and throughout the ride i get bombarded with questions about singapore and my way of life and blah. i let him play my handphone games and i try to satisfy his questions as best as i possibly could. amish come from huge families and are devoutly conservative christians. they don't like to have their pictures taken and they dress in standard farm clothing even when they go to the city. so for paul who happened to be with his brother matthew and mom on the train, they were all wearing 19th century farming garb. wow. anyway all the way till we both fell asleep around 3am, he was either bombarding me with questions or showing me some pretty cool magic tricks. and i tried my best to be a good audience. so least hte ride was pretty interesting. by the end of it he gave me his address(no email) and i gave him mine and i told him to write me. his mom also gave me an amish souvenoir keychain which was radically cool.

pittsburgh

i had this really long blog lamenting the waste of the first blogging waste back when i was in new york with joe. was blogging in brandie's sister, brittany's room when all of a sudden the internet connection crashed. i could've hollered enough expletives to bring the house down. no kidding.

anyhoo, pittsburgh with the grabskis was a total blast. i'm so thankful for brandie and her family for making my experience living with an all-american family such a wonderful and memorable one. and all of them loved me to bits(must be the lack of a male presence.

the house brandie's staying in is in the tiny town of hopewell 25minutes out of pittsburgh and her mom, megan stays with her step dad, ed and stepsister, brittany. then brandie's sister, heather lives not far away, whose husband is on duty in iraq and she's gone all crabby and lonely because of that. i got to sleep in the basement of the house which was really cool with me. first day i was there brandie brought me on a short tour of pittsburgh(she hardly knows much of hte city herself haha) and then we went with megan to watch brittany's soccer match which they lost oh-so-unfortunately to a fluke goal to a rival high school.

at night we went to cheong. it started off bad cuz i was not allowed to enter one of the trendier clubs because i didn't have my passport with me(bloody ic is not enough for those snoots). so we went to the south side and hung around in the clubs there. it wasn't too bad but alot of hip hop and pop. drinks were downright cheap on a wednesday night so i totally had too much to drink. we tried all sorts of shots and rums and they were really unique because their shots were ultra-concentrated sweeteners as well instead of just straight up vodka or whatsoever liquor. so it was obviously alot easier to down. i thought i was okie but then we went to a diner for supper which was when everything kicked in and one thing led to another and all of a sudden i was wasted amongst the barstools of the diner and the whole diner's employees starring down at me. haha. i don't really recall all that happened but according to brandie i had gotten up to go to the toilet and then kinda fainted and the waitress thought i had alcohol poisoning or something. anyway gist was that i was well taken care of and the huge burly cooks did a great job of carrying me to brandie's car. haha. so that was it. 4th time in my life i get wasted. right in the heart of pittsburgh. i think the only bits i recalled were scenes of brandie screaming that i'm from singapore and i was here to visit and everyone was like "whoa thats helluva long way from here!", and me somehow hurting my elbow. hmm.

okie enough of that nonsense. next day we just hung around in the towns of aliquena and aligheny and hopewell. brandie brought me to her favourite eating places and see some sights. in the evening the whole family and myself watched the first of hte presidential debates. kerry is definitely a better debator. and then at night, even though we both said we won't cheong anymore, we somehow appeared in this hip club in the university of pittsburgh in downtown. that's cuz it was 80s night! whoo!! and the club scene this time was alot better. alot wilder. and alot more fun! not to mention that i drank alot less too.

finally yesterday i thought my train left in the afternoon but turns out it was at night so that allowed me to hang around more with the family. brandie had to go work(she took the previous two days off), so i ended up being entertained by megan at first, playing a scrabble game with her. think she's pretty impressed since she got whipped good. then she brought me to heather's high school openhouse parade(where she's teaching). its like a procession with marching bands and floats and stuff so it was a pretty interesting sight. then together with brittany she treated me to a really spendid lebonese dinner. it was kibae(raw beef) and grapeleaves. pretty interesting. finally she brought brittany myself and heather to this uptown to do clay painting. it was really fun and she said it was supposed to be a bonding session for all her daughters. we had a really good time and brandie came over to join us after her work. then it was time to go and brandie sent me to the train station. gonna miss the whole lot of them but we'll be keeping in touch.

so thats it for pittsburgh.

joe had written about the experiences we've had since we left long island after our haagen dazs working stint. i guess i'll elaborate on that later tomorrow when i'm in narita airport. it was a really memorable trip with him and we've had all sorts of the greatest funniest and crazy experiences. but more on that tomorrow bah. i'm left with 15min on the computer - i was dumb enough to try to apply for a library card only to realise you can get a temporary pass for free. and i'll be walking around chicago downtown, its a lovely saturday.

catch ya later.

oh joe, if you're reading this, i have no idea what these guys did to the library computer system here in the chicago public library but its a whole lot better now. the internet access is not on the 8th floor anymore, its on the first floor and there're about a 150 computers now and the system they are using(use library card number) is alot easier and faster. just so you know.