Saturday...my favourite day of the week, because I get to go down to TP, meet up with the tennis guys and play tennis. Once you start working, the weekends become very precious and you won't want to waste the time. So when my time was wasted unnecessarily this morning, I was really pissed. The team had training so there weren't as many courts or people to play with today. I had to call Coach up to get permission to come down, just in case we were disturbing their training. I only managed to get two seniors, excluding myself, to come down and play today. I asked them to let me know what time they would be down at the courts because there was no point in my going down when there wasn't anyone to play with. So I got down on time, but one of them never turned up while the other was really late. I was standing there waiting for 1 and 1/2 hours in the end. I did get to play for a while in the end and I played a doubles match with the girls. But that was so disappointing; I had problems with my serve and made so many stupid unforced errors. It was a very unsatisfactory tennis day today.

On the bright side, I had a chance to chat with a couple of guys whom I don't usually talk to. It turns out that I might have misjudged one particular person. Sometimes I make my judgements too quickly based on the person's actions and behaviour without getting to know the person better. Still, I'm not going to change my mind so soon regarding this person. It's a pity the tennis guys are so young, as nice as they might be, there are times when I feel old with them.

Although work is enjoyable and I am happy there, it's quite sad that majority of the workforce are female and there are many older people. So far, my colleagues and I have only seen two younger guys who, unfortunately, are not working closely with us at all. We only see them during lunch and perhaps on the shuttle bus. Well, at least I can say that there aren't any distractions and we can concentrate on our work better this way, heh... Hey sometimes you have to look on the brighter side of things.

People say that you can't lose what you never had.
I say, you can't miss what you never had.

Tian Tian's Bday

My fellow Gemini and tennis kaki whom I have known for at least 5 years now.

Happy 24th birthday!

It was nice to have the old tennis gang meet up for this occasion. Everyone is so busy post-poly with their own lives that we seldom have a nice get-together like this. As usual, we had lots of fun, lots of laughter (Tian Tian is a natural comedian), lots of suan-ing here and there (may I just say that Chris and I make a great suan-ing team??? muahahhahaa!!). The time we had for lunch was just not enough but I have to be thankful that we even managed to grab lunch together. Tian was late for an hour plus even though he took a cab down. I was late by 25 minutes because there was a super long queue at the bank; I hate running errands on weekends. Mike had to rush off for his NDP practice thing (I don't know why they had NDP practice when it was pouring outside), Chris had to rush off for a dinner celebration with her family and Keong had a doubles tournament at Kallang at 5 pm. So there you have it, a bunch of poly grads who are leading busy lives but still find time to run down to Queensway and buy birthday presents for a dear friend (actually only Chris and I went down to do the shopping, haha).

Lunch at Carl's Jr, the Marina Square branch. Keong always has to do weird poses when we take his picture.

I seldom get a nice photo of Mike too. He pretends to be camera-shy.

We tricked Tian by giving him this scarlet blouse and pretending that it was his actual present. Sure he's smiling in this picture, but you don't get the hear his vulgaries or see his expression when he pulled out this blouse hahahhaha! Yes my tennis friends are all very vulgar but I'm used to it.

Now this is his actual birthday present! The company of two beautiful girls is more than enough to keep him happy...hahhahaa....ok now you understand why Tian always has to ask me to shut up and says I have no shame!

Work @ Lim Chu Kang

I've officially started and gone to work for 1 week. So far, I'm adjusting pretty well to waking up at 6.15 am and leaving to catch the bus at 6.30 am. I take the train from Pasir Ris/Tampines all the way down to Jurong East and then catch the shuttle bus which leaves at 8.05 am. I always get a seat on the train so I try my best to catch some sleep and listen to my music at the same time. I sit with my friend and colleague during the bus ride into Lim Chu Kang but we exchange greetings and then fall silent. We are both NOT morning people.

I had to do an orientation tour around the work complex on Monday and Tuesday so that I could get to know the different labs (there are 8 altogether), find out what the labs do and also meet the people working there. Apparently there isn't much chance for different labs to meet during work because each lab does their own thing and there is no need for interaction between the labs. Mostly we only get to see each other when we take the shuttle bus, have lunch or go to the toilet.

Majority of the people working there are very nice and friendly. They smiled and welcomed me. Although I was supposed to spend a few hours in each lab to watch the people working, I got "chased" out very politely from certain labs because they were shorthanded and had a lot work to do. I was also paiseh to hang around and disturbing their work. So my shortest orientation in a lab lasted 5 minutes while I spent the whole morning in another lab. But it turned out good because I had time to go back to my lab and interact and learn from my colleagues. Plus my orientation was over in 2 days while this other girl who started on the same day as me had to undergo 4 days of orientation. Basically the admin department arranged for her to spend half a day in each lab whereas my boss arranged my tour so he squeezed in 4 labs on Monday and 3 labs on Tuesday. Heh heh heh...lucky me!!!

It was good to start learning about what I was supposed to do. I like doing microbiology work and there's plenty of that at my new job. There are eight different stations where people rotate every month. I started out at the sampling station first. This was where I had to take samples of certain weight so that the other stations could process them. Actually, sampling is where you get to see various types of food being brought in. So far, I think the intestines are the worst. They smell bad and they smell worse during and after processing. I have to hold my breath each time I work with them but the people there are so used to the smell that they don't seem to mind it anymore. I hope that doesn't happen to me... it might mean that my sense of smell has been ruined!

When you get right into it, work is really busy. Most times you don't really get a chance to go back into the office to use the computer and the only break time is at lunch. Wanting to get a drink of water or go to the toilet is also hard when you have so much to do but so little time. Still, it makes the time pass really fast and before I know it, it's time to catch the shuttle bus home. One thing good is that we get to leave work on time and we don't have to do any overtime work. That's great because if I did any OT I would get home so late. Already I reach home around 8 pm everyday which doesn't leave me with much time to do stuff. I am getting used to it though and I'm already sleeping early and waking up early. Even sleeping in during the weekends doesn't happen anymore; I sleep before midnight and am up before 9 am. It's a huge change from my old lifestyle and I kind of miss that. Oh the sacrifices you have to make!!! Hahahahahaha!!!

23rd Birthday!!!

Ok yes, I realize that my birthday post is soooo long overdue, but I've been a little busy with work and all that. Such a lousy excuse I know...haha...

Anyway I truly enjoyed this year's celebration, even though I was quite distracted. My grandmother came down from Melaka to stay with us for a couple of days and my mom was away touring Europe. I was basically the new "housewife" for the time being; making sure the house was clean and in order, cooking when necessary, purchasing groceries and all that. Actually I quite enjoyed running the household on my own; I had plenty of practice while I was in Australia and I missed being independent and doing things my way.

My grandmother's birthday happens to be a day before mine and she came all the way down to S'pore to celebrate our birthdays together. So we had a simple dinner on the 6th of June, just my family and my auntie's family out at the kopitiam at Changi Village.

Mantou asked me out for lunch on the 7th and we went for claypot chicken rice at some ulu place. I had the chance to ride in her brand new van and she gave me a treat with some ginger chicken dish and of course, a serving of claypot chicken rice. Even though I thought the rice was quite pricey, the food was good and as usual, we ate like gluttons. We were doing stupid stuff in the shop, laughing over the menu's bad English and spelling (Letuce and Fermented Red Residue???) and taking lots of photos with retarded faces.

After lunch, we wanted to catch a movie BUT the school holidays had begun and everywhere was packed with school kids. We couldn't get tickets for the shows and time slots we wanted and we ended up at this dessert place near Bugis where we sat and chatted. I tried their "yuan-yang" dessert which was half almond paste and half sesame paste. Too bad the sesame had a slight burnt taste; perhaps they had cooked it for a little too long.

Well, after this lunch and dessert with Mantou, I had a dinner with family out at Crystal Jade. This time I bought them dinner and it was damn expensive! Ok the food was not bad, even the quantity was not impressive, but to pay $86 for a dinner for five people is a little extreme. I'm not going back there again.

On Saturday I had my usual tennis session followed by lunch with Jarred. Nice and simple...

My sister and I met Chris, Kit, Keong and the guys at City Hall where we walked to Marina Square for lunch at Waraku Japanese restaurant. We ordered many dishes to share and the food was not too bad. I enjoyed the bibimbap even though it's supposed to be a Korean dish??? Then I received my birthday presents, kindly bought by Chris and Keong and sponsored by the guys, Tian Tian, Julie, Kit, Mantou and of course, Chris and Keong. THANKS GUYS!!! I love my new Wilson tennis bag, Body Index work bag, Starburst gummies, Red Rock Deli sweet chilli and sour cream potato chips and the plastic toy car... Excuse me Chris... I know you all call me Doraemon but it doesn't mean I can transform the toy car into a real one!

All in all, it was a good birthday celebrated with good and close friends.
Thank you to all those who texted to wish me happy birthday.

Oh the time has finally come! I have found a job which seems promising. I'm still in a shock that I actually got selected when it was my very first interview. I did want this job pretty badly. It's related to what I was doing back in Food Science Australia, dealing with food and microbiology. For me, it's the dream job. I just hope that when I start working, it will meet up to my expectations. The only problem would be the travelling I have to do everyday. It will take me 2 hours to get to that place which means a total of 4 hours of travel daily. That is a lot of time wasted but if things go well, perhaps I might invest in a small, second-hand, cheap car.

MPH Booksale and a new gadget

My dear cousin informed me of the MPH sale being held at the Expo and asked me to go along with her. Being such a sucker for such sales, I immediately said yes and we arranged to meet on the 1st day of the sale. Unfortunately, my dear cousin had to call off the date the night before. She asked me to go on Saturday but that was my tennis day. Then she asked me to go on Sunday but I wanted to spend that day with my sister. In the end, I went to the sale on my own on Friday morning.

Friday was a working day so I didn't expect to see so many people hanging around Tanah Merah station waiting for the train heading down the the Expo and the airport. There were plenty of uncles and aunties around. When I got to the Expo, I saw the reason for so many older people. There was the food fair held at the same place and they were all buying bak kua because it was really cheap. $20 per kg!! No wonder the train smelt of bak kua on my way back.

Fortunately the MPH sale was not as crowded as the food fare and it kind of shows how much Singaporeans enjoy their food as compared to books, haha. There were so many more books this sale as compared to the last MPH sale I went to about 3-4 years ago. I spent more than an hour slowly walking through all the aisles and picking my books. As usual, I wanted to buy lots of books but had to budget myself. Money was tight when you aren't working. I ended up with 12 books and paid $68 for them. I just love buying books, wrapping them up and reading them over and over again.

After shopping at the MPH sale, I wandered down and thought of checking out the food fare but it was so crowded and my books were too heavy, heh! So I went home and put my books down and had my lunch. I had a quick lunch and then headed out to catch the train down to Jurong East. There was a Creative warehouse sale and I was going to meet my sister there. I planned to get an MP3 player to ease the journey I would have to take when I started work. Almost all research work were in the West and travelling from one end to another was really boring without some music and you couldn't count on the radio because reception ended when the train went into a tunnel or underground.

The warehouse sale closed at 7 pm which I thought was ridiculously early for a Friday night. Shouldn't they have kept the sale open for a little longer so that the working crowd could pop down after their work? I met my sister at the location at 6.30 pm because she was late and I was late and I got lost taking the shuttle bus by myself. Luckily there were still quite a crowd and we did a quick browse around. I decided on the cheapest model and my sister wanted to get it for my birthday. So I got a white MP3 player with 1 gb memory space for $55. YAY!!!

A NICE NEW TOY FOR ME TO PLAY WITH!!!
THANKS WEN!!!!!!

Visit from Steph and Milo

On Steph's second day in S'pore, we had a nice buffet lunch at Suki Sushi with the guys, Kit, Julie, Chris, my sister and I. I organized this lunch for them to meet up with Steph as I didn't know when they would get another chance to see her again.

Mr Tan's expression is so "nice"...I'm sure Chris loves it...haha.

Lucky Dagen sitting with these 4 lovely ladies...

Sushi outing...a huge success with lots of laughs, some mishaps and plenty of chatting.

This is supposed to be a huge bubble tea pearl and there was a guy inside. It didn't look like a pearl though.

This was an air-blown float, heh, and I thought there was actually someone inside so I was damn shocked when I watched Chris go up and box it.

Mag's birthday present from Steph.

While waiting to reach our destination on the train....

Heh doesn't Milo look a little kukumalu??

Can you believe we had dinner at Marche AFTER our sushi buffet lunch? It was a good dinner though...haha...




Yay Kim Clijsters!!!

Visit from Steph and Milo

Steph stayed with me for two nights and she decided to make good use of the pool. She's giving a nice cheeky wink!

I brought her down to City Hall for lunch and lots of shopping!

We had lunch at Cafe Cartel with Milo and Diana. Cafe Cartel is such a good place to bring Steph since she loves bread and of course, Cafe Cartel provides a free flow of bread. So Steph had bread for starters and bread for dessert...I'M SERIOUS!!!

As you can see, us four girls were such gluttons and ate sooooo much.



Little soft toy massagers which we bought for each other. I bought the seal for Milo, Milo bought the dolphin for Steph and Steph bought the octopus for meeee....hahaha I know it's quite lame but at least it's memorable.

Visit from Steph and Milo

Showing the girls around my school.

I love my school!!!

Letting Steph try the Singapore version of ban mian. Don't be fooled by her face; she liked it very much.

Steph and Milo at the MRT station.

Sending Steph off at the bus station...one last laugh for the hyenas...