Saturday Diploma

Haiz. Spent the whole of the good day in our office training room attending our sponsored diploma course. Boring as hell and yet have to try and tahan the ordeal since its always good to add more papers to our resume (MY educational system taught me this).

The training marked the end of some 6 months of on-off (mostly off) studying and ended with an online exam which I scored a good enough pass of 80%! And so we have all completed the 1st of 4 modules (I think), of a European diploma whose name I cannot remember anymore. But its finance something something, and it covers basically every investment instrument under the sun! Haha.

Anybody who knows what this diploma we're doing is called please comment!

Choot choot!

Afterthat we all celebrated with a SGD700+++ dinner at the nearby Sushi Tei. Dun ask me how we spent so much. I get full and sick of sashimi just thinking about it.

Sometimes, People Deserve To Know Earlier

Its tough, I know.

But sometimes, more time should be spared for mourning.

For after the agony of despair always comes the optimism of hope.

And a new beginning.

That is when we will all be happy once again.

Let your friends rejoice, not feel sadness!
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Life is sometimes a tough little cookie.

Full of choices but yet hardly able to decide.

But then when the boat reaches the harbour, it will automatically straighten.

I wish you the very best in your endeavours!

Still Can't Figure Out What Went Wrong

With my previous posts.

Anyway, things are going ok. Not doing too well this month, so decided to take things easy and buckle up for June.

Was upset that Chelsea won the FA Cup when we actually played better. Hmph.
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Is the job market really that good out there? Maybe I ought to hang myself out and see if there're any takers...
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Watched Blades of Glory over the weekend. I can't really describe how good I find it because some people will disagree with me. But it is downright the funniest movie I've watched this year. Hands down.

Those who like the type of humour I like will love it!

I Can't Believe Melinda Doolittle Got Voted Out Of American Idol

Replacements

The new guys came in yesterday.

The Agony Of Getting FIRED

I really should've blogged about this much earlier, when my memory was still fresh and lingering.

Its utterly horrible.

No words can describe it.

The sight of seeing a few good buddies being told that they've been released by the company. Terrible. Just so ruthless is the environment we're in that nobody's safe from "not contributing enough towards the revenue of the company".

It happened on Tuesday. We even had a good celebratory cheer about Man U winning the championship when I got in to work that morning. We talked about the Macquarie Warrants tradegame that we all joined and how we were gonna win it. Too bad I missed lunch as I had to meet some ex-colleagues. It happened after lunch when the first him was innocently asked to go into a meeting with them. Nobody knew exactly what was going on but something was just not right.

When it was all over, he was escorted out of the office. Didn't even have a chance to pack up and leave. Escorted out of the office. Wahlao.

Then they also called the second him in also. This time around there was abit more grace. He was allowed to come back to his desk to pack up, under a manager's supervision. And then he too was escorted out.

That was even more terrible in fact. The fact that you have all your colleagues' eyes fixated on you as you turn off your PC for the last time and pack up all your belongings. All this while the watchful eyes of the manager makes sure you are not doing anything suspiscious.

We were all confused. Blur. Went down to try to catch them and find out what was going on in that meeting room. I could see alot of anger. I could see alot of pain. I could see alot of sadness.

They were given two simple choices. To resign on their own accord, or to be terminated by the company. Sign, and you pack up and leave immediately. Everything else, get a colleague to pack it up for you. There are no other alternatives.

We had a final dinner together at Burger King that evening, and the rest of us still had to go back to office for the FX Seminar. Haiz.

Yesterday was round 2. One more was let go. Another was transfered to marketing.

In total, 3 were release and one was transfered out of my department. By last night, my team had shrunk from the original 12 when we first came in, to the current 7.
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It is times like these that you do wonder what's really good for you. You fear being treated with such ruthlessness. And yet you somehow come to expect it in this line of work. Once you don't meet the grade, you're asked to move on. Indeed, only the fittest survived.

I have lost some pretty close colleagues. And the office is all the quieter without them bantering and being silly and making jokes. The Gears of War email thread has lost an integral member. The Golfing buddies have lost two key members. One less smoker in the company.

Somehow, things will never be the same again. And yet, we have to keep moving forward.

We have to get over this quickly and reach for greater heights, or the ones who have left would have left in vain.
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Bros, I will really miss you guys. Keep in contact always.

"Cos you had a bad day..." - Daniel Powter

HDBs @ Pasir Ris

I must be really unfit when I wake up finding myself utterly tired and fatigued from the golf game yesterday.

Today we went to look at HDBs in the further east, having already seen enough private condos (which we can hardly afford). We saw 4 HDB apartments in the Pasir Ris area and 1 in Simei.

I can't speak of Simei yet because I think I haven't seen enough there, but I JUST CAN'T live in Pasir Ris.

Thats right.

And its not because its a lousy estate. Its actually quite a great place and the estate's pretty new (like 10-15yrs old?) with lots of good amenities like Downtown East (never been there), White Sands and the like. Very residential and serene, close to the sea with a very nice park.

The killer - no offence to Pasir Ris residents - is the distance to town. I can just imagine getting to work will be a bitch. Shopping in town will never happen ever again. Going home to mom's will be painful. Visiting in-laws would REALLY suck. And basically getting to any other location in Singapore would require a mandatory second and possible third thought. Its just too far out from the rest of the world.

Just too far out.

Thats not to mention that Pasir Ris has the 2nd or 3rd highest HDB transaction prices.

Ooooh, that hurts.
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Back to work tomorrow.

I'm expecting lots of MCs, owing to the Labour Day holiday on Tuesday.

Sebana Cove

Just back from our golf trip at Sebana Cove, Desaru, Malaysia.

It was way fun!!!

We met at 7am this morning at Tanah Merah ferry terminal to take the ferry ride there. Originally there was gonna be 8 of us, but Jackson pulled out at the last minute due to high fever. To make matters worse, Wilbur forgot to bring his passport?! Who ever forgets his passport when travelling overseas???! Anyway he had to go home to take it (he lived in the west) and therefore could only come on the next ferry ride which was in the afternoon.

So it was Youlong, Edmund, Eugene, Fadz, Marcus and myself starting it out.

The ferry ride was about an hour and a half. Lousy ferry, it was the Pulau Tekong BMT kind with no canteen or snack bar small small type. Bleah.

When we reached we were driven to the resort called Sebana Cove in Desaru. After a quick and expensive breakfast, we started our game.

I can't really describe the full game at length as not to bore non-golf readers (and because I'm not too sure myself), but we have to play 18 holes in total, and see what kind of score we had.

I must say that as an anti-golfer once, it was more fun that I thought. The greens and holes were tough and there required not only good hitting skills, but you also needed to plan your advance to get to the hole with as little strokes.

Youlong, Edmund and myself were grouped in one flight (its a group game) so we competed against one another.

Anyway *yawn*, I carded a score of 77. For the first 9 holes! Haha. But as the day wore on and got so much hotter, I improved and got used to the conditions and eventually carded a 69 for the last 9 holes, giving me a total score of 146, not counting double-pars (if you wanna know what that means, email me.)

That ranks me as amongst the worse scorers, but hey, its my virgin golf game, mind you. I ain't no Tiger Woods.

I also ended up losing 8 balls, because I hit them in the forest or water or mysteriously disappeared.

And I CANNOT hit anything that lands in the bunker/sand wedge.

Finally we reached back TMFT at 6 plus after a good bath.

Went for a crazy fattening hawker dinner at Changi Village.

Then trooped to the opposite kopitiam to watch Manchester United play Everton.
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Manchester United came from 0-2 down to win 4-2!!! Chelsea went from 2-1 up to draw 2-2 against Bolton!!!

We are 5 points clear!!!

Screamed my throat hoarse at Changi Village.

We are so gonna win the Premiership.

Night Shifter

How silly.

I came into work early today completely forgetting that I was on the late shift. Geez. That leaves me working 13 hours straight till 10pm later.

Well at least I get internet connection here. Its gonna take quite awhile before I get the home PC connected online.

My hotmail must be bursting liao.

Sanjaya Malakar was finally voted out!!!

Chelsea held by Newcastle!!!

PC Down

My PC is down.

*sobz*

Just got it fixed but there's not gonna be internet connection for quite awhile.

Last week was pretty hectic.

Monday and Tuesday nights were spent bringing my PC to Sim Lim and going for golfing range. Wednesday was spent at the Private Banking Conference at the Grand Hyatt followed by an in-house seminar in the evening. Thursday was still at the Grand Hyatt and followed by an SMU seminar in the evening. Friday was spent at Plaza ParkRoyal at the AustCham networking event.

Tired.