Never Enough

Long time never blog.

Life's still the same. As busy as ever. Life as a salesman is never dull, very tiring and more often than not, short-lived, but never dull. Wonder how long more I'll last out here.

This is the first time I'm blogging in office. Sales at the start of the month hasn't been very good by the boss's standards and so we've gotta do our bit of teleconsulting. Its never enough. There's no such thing as having done enough sales. Once you exceed your threshold you're expected to exceed your target. Once you've exceeded your target your next month's target gets raise unrealistically. And that unrealistic target sticks forever and ever until maybe one day I exceed that. Haiz. Its all very tiring and draining and yet, we still slog on relentlessly.

March was a great month for me.

Far exceeded my targets and even topped the case count in the whole of city group for insurance sales. They call me the insurance agent these days. Even won myself another Ipod Nano for my efforts and a valuable certificate of commendation that will help my jobhunt in time to come. Got a bunch of Taka vouchers here and there too. Hopefully my paycheck will look good as well.

April hasn't started as well though. And things seem to have slowed down a fair bit. Haiz, and when things slow down, we slow down. Slow so much that we've got time to blog. Haha.

We had dinner together at the Merchant Court Swissotel just the other day. Buffet was a small spread of really good food. Apparently its famous for its durian paste pudding whatchamacallit. And by golly it tasted real good. So good I had 5 dessert bowls worth of it. We also talked through our action plans for the coming months. We talked about how long we'd stay.

Sometimes it all boils down to the comraderie of your colleagues that keeps you motivated and optimistic. Of course a good manager helps but with the right clique of people, nothing ever seems impossible. Even staying 4-5nights a week till 8-9pm in the branch calling up every other stranger in Singapore doesn't seem that much of a chore.

And at least you know that when you suffer, everyone around you suffers with you. And your manager suffers worse. So thats a good sign. Really, it is. Its a good sign to know that if your sales figures were shite, your boss gets it even worse than you do. Hence it makes you wanna help him avoid that shit, especially if you think well of him. Heh.

Okay, enough of ranting. Back to make some calls for the next 20minutes

Before American Idol starts.

Then I can't concentrate anymore.

I Work Therefore I Am

Ok so I'm seriously quite a workaholic. At least I'm doing something that I enjoy, though I dunno how long I'll keep doing this. But when you're doing stuff you enjoy sometimes you don't think you're doing work at all. Plus the fact that my boss is even more of a workaholic than myself makes us both a mega workaholic combo.

This month things have slowed down quite a bit. Dunno why. People must've spent all their bonuses. Haha. Or just not in the investing mood. Am still in the running for an ipod nano though. So still gotta try to work hard. One more ipod nano is always a good thing.

Can't wait for this weekend's NATAS fair. Gotta find a place to escape to and take a much deserved break from sales. Even a few days will definitely do me wonders.

Slowly but surely am developing a mini fanclub of single aunties and *gulp* gays. Handphone turning into a 1800-hotline. Well, as long as they keep giving me business I'll take that pink dollar too thank you. Enough of your whinging already, oh wait you just got a huge bonus? Lunch? Yes, of course I'm free!

Sheesh.

Wonder how long more I'll stay in this line.

On a totally different note, trading on the NASDAQ and NYSE is so much more exciting and fun than our own SGX. Go Generex!

Reservist? Not!

Who's ever had their reservist cancelled!!! I have!!! Whoohoo!!! Haha,surprise surprise, I must be one damn lucky guy man, to have my scheduled reservist cancelled at the 11th hour. Damn heng.

Haven't had much time to blog. Life is good. Nothing much to blog about when life is good, haha. Working hard this month again. Another good month. Wonder how many more good months I'll have. Enjoy my work alot and the long working hours help me save money. Hehe...

Elections are coming! Joo Chiat will most likely be contested. Means I will get to vote. Again. Yay. Yes, its true. I am under Joo Chiat constituency believe it or not, though my place is nowhere near there.

Tried out Boardgame Paradice at Marine Parade last friday with the gang. Not bad. Cheaper than Settler's cafe at Holland V. Not crowded at all. And it opens till 3am on Fridays and Saturdays. There're alot more games to choose from and lotsa ample space. 2.50/hr if you don't wanna order anything. Cheap. Oh, but try not to stay too late when you have to work the next morning.

*groan*

Am growing a tummy. Skinny everywhere + rubber float tummy = bad combo + unwanted teasing. Must start jogging again.

Did I mention my reservist for March got cancelled?

Month End

OK, so finally I get down to writing another entry after so long. Then again who reads blogs anymore? Or should I say who updates their blogs anymore these days. Just look around.

Anyways, Feb has been a good month for me. Hopefully March will be even better, though I've got a very weird reservist schedule smacked in between so I might just take the month easy.

Nothing much's changed, except maybe my social life. Its always family and the girlfriend now. And even still I don't have enough time for both. Haiz.

Can't think of much else to blog right now.

*sigh*

Still Alive

Yup.

Still alive and kickin'.

Just kinda busy with work thats all.

Will post something more interesting soon.

Watch this space.

Good Dog Start

This lunar new year has been good to me so far.

Reunion was great. Been awhile since all 5 of us sat together to enjoy mum's cooking. And boy what a feast we had starting from Sakae's sashimi yu sheng(that could've been dinner itself) to roast duck to some of mum's own delicacies. Good stuff. You know this new year will be a great one when your sis gets high on Japanese peach liquor(eeww! thanks for drinking my portion!).

The first day of CNY saw us visiting a couple of uncles' places. Lotsa young couples, all my very own cousins who've gotten married, and lotsa their pesky kids running all over the place(I swear I can't name a single one of em). And this year it seems like the tide of auntie comments have finally turned from "wah you've grown taller!" *roll eyes* to "wah why never bring girlfriend let us see?" roll eyes twice*. Yup, it means that this year you're 27 already and the whole world expects you to make a weak attempt to show them who you're gonna marry. Geez I've got a cousin who's brought 3 different girls during past CNYs and still he hasn't married any one of em. Think this current one will be it.

But to top it all off we had our second consecutive night of dinner together at home. This time a simple dinner of maggie mee and whatever left of the duck from yesterday. Simple yet so meaningful and contented.

*sigh*

Anyway its been a great start and hopefully it'll only get better, what with the economy doing so well. Hopefully I'll be making tons of dough and leading a mega happy and enjoyable life.

Wonder what's in store for today...

Just Before I Forget...

HAPPY CHINESE NEW YEAR EVERYONE!!!

WISHING EVERYONE GONG XI FA CAI, BU BU GAO SHENG, SHENG TI JIAN KANG and so on and so forth...

Army Daze

Just back from a rare meet-up with my closest friends in the army.

It was nothing much, just a small gathering at Newton Circus food centre.

Only four of the six of us turned up. J had an unfortunate event while P had to accompany his new found taiwanese girlfriend.

Sometimes we all need a meet-up like this to bring ourselves back to our glorious past. D, A and G hardly changed at all. And as always, we talked about our days in the army together. We have a pretty checkered history in our NS days, the 6 of us. To cut a long story short, back then each other was all we had and all we had were each other(did i just say the same thing twice?).

Anyway the crucial thing was to update each other and exchange new handphone numbers and thats what we essentially did.

D just quit his job(still can't figure out what it was) at JP Morgan and is currently looking for something else or starting his own biz(yet again).

A's a fireman. Nuff said.

G is still with Accenture and is thinking of quiting.

The thing about all Singaporean men is that 50years on after serving our beloved nation, you put us back together and we'll STILL recall accurately all the funniest, weirdest army stories we experienced. Such is the power of arming men with guns and paying them shite, for two freaking years.

Everything.

Its a pity none of them will be joining me incamp this March. How sad. But the bright side is we still belong to the same brigade hq, all except A the fireman.

So for old times' sake, here's one of our little humble stories to share...

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One faithful night during our recce course in the midst of a 5-day super-xiong exercise, the six of us were on mission trying to recce an enemy position on the other side of a knoll. Now all this was simulated in LCK and we were moving around the thick jungle at 2am in the morning in total pitch darkness.

Now we were walking in a single file and I was the basher for this mission(means i take lead and bash through the bloody forest). A was behind me, G was behind A, and D P J were all following behind.

All of a sudden, A screams and we all hear a loud splashing sound. And A was behind me. A was screaming and splashing and screaming "hong gan liao! hong gan liao!" as if he was gonna die. Splashing goes on for a good 1-2minutes before P finally pulled out a torch and shined on him and we all see him in a shallow flooded ditch beside our beaten path. He had slipped into it and thought he was gonna drown. When in fact the ditch was only knee-deep. So there was A standing knee-deep in the ditch exhausting his vulgarity vocab. We had a good laugh(A was angry with us for that) and all the while A was screaming, G found a diverted path to take.

It was only till we reached our holding area(by then it was too far to track back)that we realised that in the midst of A's panic, he lost his helmet, and 2 bags of our food rations for the night. Smart.

Thankfully the next morning the exercise ended. On the walk back to camp I fell into a half-filled trench and broke my ankle. But thats another story. Haha.

Okie so I can't blog a story as exciting or interesting as it really happened. But still, one day I'll read all this and remember to laugh about it again.

*sigh*

Its reservist for me in March. Darn.

World Geography

create your own visited country map

This was too difficult to resist posting.

Taken off Beth's blog(hope you don't mind).

Amazing that all I've covered is only 12%(28 countries).

Gotta start thinking of visiting places like Kiribati or Reunion(yes! its a country!).

First MC Of The Year

Down with the runs(from work?) today.

Good to be on MC once in a while. Sit back and smell the coffee.

Did some things I haven't had much time for in recent times.

Ate with the 'rents at Siglap.

Got to eat the recently-covered-by-newspaper siglap meepok. Tastes pretty normal come to think of it. In fact I think there's a stall in Tanjong Pagar that serves better mee pok.

Walked around Cold Storage and mom got to use my UOB voucher. Don't remember iced-lemon tea being this cheap.

Checked out the magazine stall and to my horror, Singapore sells saucier magazines than I ever imagined! They've got like this mag called XXX, and they got foreign eds of FHM. Just no playboy anf penthouse...yet. Worse still they got these saucy mags with unrecognisable sleezy skanks in French and German(auchtung!)!

Doctor gave ample medicine. Yakked too much though.

Think I need to go shit once more.

Shit.