Chinese New Year

Today is chu san, or the 3rd day of the Lunar New Year a.k.a Chinese New Year. With the exception of a slight fever on chu er, Chinese New Year has been a blast so far! It is probably the only festival my family celebrates wholeheartedly. We're not so gung-ho about other occasions like Christmas, Halloween, National Day, Duan Wu Jie, Vesak Day etc etc. They're like any other day to us.

A lot of preparation goes into Chinese New Year. We pretty-fied the living room by hanging lanterns made from hongbaos on every single light fixture, and also put the various candy we bought on display. Mum also bought New Year plants like Pussy Willow, Chrysanthemum and red Zinnias. Then there was the shopping for new clothes. Perfect excuse for my Mum and I to hit town and go on a shopping spree!

Celebrations began on New Year Eve, the day families get together at the dinner table for a scrumptuous reunion dinner. Going by the family tradition, we got out the steamboat set and prepared a variety of foods to cook, like mushrooms, vegetables, seafood and meat. This year, we had a dessert: macaroons my Mum and I bought at the Central. We then stayed up late, which is another Chinese New Year tradition called 守岁. We knocked off after watching the New Year countdown live on TV.

The next day, as well as the day after, we went visiting! I see most of my relatives during Chinese New Year only, so it was great meeting and catching up with everyone. No one has really changed, Ah Min is still the hardcore anime fan, Xue Qian is as tall as ever (though it remains to be seen if my bro will ever catch up with him!) and I remain the shortest (though not the youngest) of everyone. We kids presented our elders with mandarin oranges and got hongbaos (red packets containing money) in return. During our visits, we chatted on all sorts of things and watched 2 movies: Pride and Prejudice and The Sound of Music.

Here are some photos my family took:





My dog, Pepsi, gets a makeover. Contrary to popular first impressions, Pepsi is a boy. He just doesn't look it. While decorating the house, we decided to decorate Pepsi as well by tying up his hair with decorative pipe cleaners. Now he looks more like a girl than ever, LOL!







The entire family, doggies included, posing in the dining room. That's our scrumptuous reunion dinner on the table. This is my favourite family shot.





Random picture of the macaroons we had for dessert. We got these at a pretty shop called Gobi in The Central. I love macaroons! Pity they're expensive and not very easy to find.








All dressed up and ready to go visiting! Aren't we all smartly dressed :D



Happy Chinese 牛 Year everyone!

Tagged

Happy 4th month anniversary to Kheng Meng and I! Hope to see you when you book out of Tekong tomorrow!

Right, so YKM tagged me to do this quiz thingy. It's been a while since I last did this sorta thing.

Put down facts about yourself, the number of facts will be based on your age. Then tag 5 other people.

1. I'm a HUGE anime fan. Anyone who knows me will attest to this.
2. My favourite female anime character is Ayanami Rei from Neon Genesis Evangelion. My favourite male anime character is Hitsugaya Toushiro from Bleach.
3. I used to have a crush on Tidus from Final Fantasy 10.
4. (Okay, no more facts related to anime from here onwards) I want to learn Japanese. If I can't learn Japanese, then I'd learn Spanish.
5. I'm really good at irritating people around me.
6. As well as making them crack up.
7. I can turn a cartwheel.
8. Shades are a fashion statement? What the hell. Those giant lenses make you look like a bug, and I don't see why people want to hide their eyes, which are the windows to the soul.
9. I don't like wearing jeans. Heck, I don't like any pants that completely cover my legs.
10. If all the ice cream in the world were wiped out tomorrow, I couldn't care less. Not that I don't like eating ice cream, I simply never hanker for it. Therefore I wouldn't miss it.
11. After reading The Other Boleyn Girl by Phillipa Gregory, I concluded that in 16th century England, there are too many Marys, Williams, Henrys, Catherines and Elizabeths. Where's the originality?!
12. I don't like Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. The characters and their beliefs pissed me off big time. Yes, I know it's a dystopia. A rather hateful one at that.
13. My favourite love song is Chasing Cars by Snow Patrol. I hope to have it played while I walk down the aisle on my wedding day.
14. The movies that have successfully made me tear are Hotel Rwanda, Lord of the Rings: Return of the King, Crash and AI.
15. I think I'm revealing too much of myself by doing this quiz.
16. I realize these are more trivia rather than facts.
17. Oh well. Nevertheless, I reckon I shall stop here.
18. Goodbye!

I tag Clarence, Leong Min, Ben Cheah (I know you still read my blog, ha!) and my squadmates.

My Donut Factory job

How do I began talking about my Donut Factory job?

As of now, I have worked at the Donut factory for 3 days already. In 3 days I have garnered so much to talk about I don't even know where to start. There're things to bitch about. I could talk about what my job is like. Or the food we sell (25 different donuts, 6 types of bonbons and many more;) ). How about what it is like to enter the working world?

Well, maybe I'll just be general and say whether or not I like my job. The truth is that I have quite a lot of gripes, such as the long hours without breaks, unpredictable scheduling of shifts and a not-so-fantastic salary. In spite of all that ...... I don't hate my job. I've experienced so many firsts: first time in the food-and-beverage industry, first time earning money of my own, first time learning so much about donuts (haha!). Above all, it's my first taste of the working world. Kinda makes me feel like I've grown up already.

Customer service, I must say, can be really satisfying. Sure, customers can be really bitchy and there's little you can do about it because the customer is always right. But there's nothing like seeing customers enjoy their meals or their donuts. Or customers admiring our very fine spread of 25 different types of donuts that have been lovingly made with the best ingredients Donut Factory could find ( almonds from California, chocolate from Belgium). It's good to know that I helped make someone happy, or at least put a smile on his/her face.

I went to find a job not so much for the money, but because of the thirst for new expereinces. And also to fill up that loss I talked about in an earlier post. I'm glad to say that I have garnered a great many in the past few days. I don't know how long I'd stay on in Donut Factory. If a better job comes my way, I'd take it. Or maybe I'll stop after a few months to try out other things I've always wanted to do. There's nothing like broadening your horizons.

Image from Google Images

FINALLY

After days and days of enquiring, sending emails, getting interviewed, prowling around, praying etc etc

I FINALLY FOUND A JOB!!!

Henceforth I shall be working part time at the Donut Factory. I'm part of the service crew, my job is to serve customers and clean up. No baking of donuts required. I reckon I'll be working for 6 months, or 5 if I get accepted by an Australian university.

Tomorrow, I'm off the collect my uniform and on Wednesday I began work!

My first job. This is soooo exciting XD

Lost in transition

I'm lost in transition. That is, the 4-7 month long transition between Junior College and university. Back in my college days I'd long for the long period of freedom I currently enjoy.After the 'A' levels, I was given the liberty to do whatever I want, whenever I want for a few months. Freedom was sweet all right. I spent the first month doing all the things I did not get to do while studying for the exams such as watching anime and hanging out with friends. Come January, and after Kheng Meng left for National Service, I started to feel a little restless. It's not because I'm bored to death. There is always anime to watch, books to read, the Internet to surf ..... it's not for the want of things to keep myself occupied. Here's the crux of the problem: I feel like I'm drifting around. I now see that though college was hectic and stressful, at least I had a sense of direction: I was working towards the 'A' levels. Now I have nothing to work for, no goal to accomplish. I feel lost.

To get rid of that loss, I spent a lot of effort looking for a temporary job. I had always wanted to earn my own money so why not do it now when I have the time? Besides, with a job, I have some things to work for: money, experience and my employer. Unfortunately, Singapore, like many countries, is currently in the grips of a recession. Jobs are scarce and competing with me for work are the people who graduated this year and the retrenched. A couple of weeks have passed and still I have not gained any confirmed offers, just a few interviews with potential employers. Frustruation began to set in. It irked me that results were not showing in spite of all that job-hunting and crafting my CV (which is not short of noteworthy accomplishments). What's more, a number of friends and acquaintances have gotten temporary jobs already!I felt the sense of loss more acutely than ever.

This morning my Mum called from work to try to cheer me up. She said that she would accompany me to my interview this afternoon and that she would take me out after that. It was very nice of her, but idiot that I am, I took out my frustruation on her. Her talk about jobs being hard to come by opened up wounds and I sounded a little impatient when I replied. I feel so guilty about being self-centred. This loss is making me bitchy and I realize I have to stop wallowing in misery over it.

I think I'd continue my job-hunting until end of January. If didn't get a job by then, oh well! Helen Keller once said " I cried because I have no shoes, until I saw a man with no feet". I'm lucky it's not a must for me to contribute to the family income right now and I'm not one of those who graduated this year, as my Mum so correctly pointed out. She suggested upgrading myself, that is, pick up new skills like learning a new language or honing my IT skills. That's an option, or I could always do some voluntary work at a charity, another thing I've always wanted to do. At any rate, I'm sure I can conquer this loss. And there's more than one way to do it.

The outing

I met Kheng Meng at about 11am this morning at Junction 8, after posting a couple of letters at the post-office. It's been only about 3 days since we last met but we still miss each other so. We then took the MRT to City Hall, walked along North Bridge Road and finally reached our destination: Hong Lim Park a.k.a Speakers' Corner. It's a place Kheng Meng has always wanted to visit. We took some photos, then hung around for about an hour and a half, watching the world go by as well as enjoying each other's company.





At about 1.30pm, we left to meet our good pal Zen. Zen, Kheng Meng and I were close buddies during our Journalism days and we used to hang around to chat after every CCA meeting. We decided to meet today, one last time before each of us went our separate ways: Kheng Meng to do his National Service, Zen to take his 'A' levels and I to enter university. We popped in at the kopitiam at The Central for lunch. Afterwards, Zen took us to a building at 1 George Street which he said has an excellent view of the city from the 5th floor. Indeed, the view was awesome. I could see the Singapore Flyer, the Esplanade, Singapore River and other landmark buildings. It was a beuatiful day too; blue skies with fluffy white clouds. We hung around for a long while, chatting about some things and ranting about others.












Our next stop was the Espalanade. Zen, who has explored many a roof top (often at the risk of being caught) in Singapore, brought us to the Esplanade's roof terrace. We stood there for about half an hour taking in the sights and sounds of the Singapore River. I remember thinking that I didn't want this day to end. We left at about 5.30pm and parted ways at City Hall MRT station: Zen to his place and Kheng Meng and I back to Bishan. We hung around a little at Junction 8 and then headed to the bus terminal. I saw him off before leaving for home.

I normally don't blog about outings and in such detail too, but I'm making an exception of this particular outing. It was a happy one, but sad too. Sad because we are about to take different paths in life. Sad because this means we won't be able to see each other as often as we liked. Sad because that's just the way life is. So if I can't stop time, then let me immortalize today's outing, it's fun, laughter, joy and all, in words.

Keep in touch! Hope to see you guys soon!


I don't know where
Confused about how as well
Just know that these things will never change for us at all

If I lay here
If I just lay here
Would you lie with me and just forget the world?

Chasing Cars by Snow Patrol