Of Bank Sarasin and FPA prod 07

My accounting job at Bank Sarasin

Arrgg! Working in the accounts department sucks! I’m so glad my major is in Economics rather than Accounting. I can’t imagine how my life will be after I graduate, if I am to sit 8-9 hours a day in front of a computer doing all the accounting shit. Not to mention that the Thaler Program is pretty difficult to use as well. But at least after a couple days of intensive training, I managed to master the program, of course with the much-needed help from my supervisors, Lay Hong and Colin. Kudos to them for having the patience to teach and guide me. My hours are from 9am to 6pm, lunch is 12noon till 1pm. I feel extra energetic and motivated when it’s about 11.45am. I greet the clock with a huge radiant smile on my face when it shows 5.30pm on the clock face. That should sum up how much I love my new job.

FPA production 2007

Met up with Glarie, Gilbert and Kamy. We have decided on the theme of our production. I won’t reveal anything yet but everything’s good so far. Innovative, creative, ingenious, brilliant, enterprising, inventive are all I could easily use to describe our play. All of us are very excited and enthusiastic about it. So now I have to start penning the script. However, one bad news is… this time round I won’t be able to perform on stage. This is so, as me being the scriptwriter and director, it will not be viable to have myself as one of the casts. Still, Glarie has convinced me that being the director, I can have my thoughts and ideas being produced on stage. The satisfaction of these can be very high.

Well guys, thank you for reading. Goodnight!

A queer dream

Last night I had a very strange dream. Here's how it goes...

I opened my letter box and there was this letter addressed to me. I opened it up and inside, it wrote: If you're still single do let me know, I won't mind marrying you.

LOL!!! What a dream! Even as I'm typing on my keyboard now, I'm still laughing. As to who's that girl who sent me that audacious letter in my dream, I think I better keep it to myself. Haha!

What if...?

I suddenly had so many ‘what ifs’ popping up in my mind. At the recent YEN camp I attended, I’ve met up with many of my SIM friends whom I have not seen for like the past… 5-6 months? Saw Jem and Huimin together as a couple, know of Gil and Gen attaching to each other and a few others finding their other halves. Sometimes it makes me wonder…

What if I still…
What if I did…
What if I didn’t…
What if we…

I know I shouldn’t be still harboring those blind dreams. Call me a sentimental fool, or even a pathetic dreamer, I won’t shy away from these tags. It’s been six months already, my wounds should have been healed, yet I know I’m still taking medication without fail each day, trying to find my solace.

To this day, that precious book still lies on my bookshelf, unread and untouched. I know one day I will get out of this mire completely, flip the pages and finally start reading it. And I do know that I will become stronger and wiser than I am six months ago.

As the saying goes, setbacks will make a person stronger in future, and it never prove wrong.

Wake up Val, wake up! Someone slap me awake please! Yes, sometimes I need to remind myself how silly I still can be. But it's almost 3 am now, so I shall go sleep and wake up only later in the morning. Zzzz...

YEN Camp 2006

YEN Camp 2006 had just ended. Compared to last year’s camp, it was quite a big contrast. In the ‘05 camp we had 50 freshies while this year we had only 22. Out of the 22, there were only 6 females… To most of the males, it was pretty disappointing, nevertheless, most of them had tremendous amount of fun (at least I know my group certainly had).

This year we had 3 groups of freshies and my group (I’m the OGL) Bubbly Beauty Queens won the best OG competition. Throughout the 3 days I had lots of fun leading my group together with Kerri. Met a lot of interesting characters and new friends, but at the cost of almost losing my voice due to all the cheering and stuffs.

Some interesting and noteworthy moments…

Jeremy, Kerri and me had our first fellowship on the first night and we prayed for a couple of things, especially about the whole YEN Camp.

Performance Night. My group, BBQ, had all the males dressing up as girls for a beauty pageant. It was hilarious to see the guys in female clothing made from mainly plastic bags, trash bags and even coconut leaves and coconut husk.

YEN’s little Guard of Honor ‘parade’ for our 2 lovebirds, Jeremy and Huimin. Since Jem is the President of YEN, Huimin is now our First Lady. Every time we see her, we will stop to greet and salute her.

Making of the Chicken Soup. After playing the captain’s ball game using a raw chicken, with us all dirty and oily, Davis, Qiuhan, Gilbert and me jumped into the Jacuzzi. Result? The Jacuzzi water became a little murky and I heard from Davis later in the evening that the Jacuzzi is down. Ops… lol.

Some thoughts…

Whatever you want to do, always think of the people around you. Each and every one of us are components of a system.

And lastly…

I’m very proud of my group. Not because they won the best OG title, but because they had shown so much enthusiasm in the camp and participated wholeheartedly in every events. Like I always believe, the heart and soul of an orientation camp is the freshman’s participation level and BBQ had proved me right. I actually wanted to gather my group on Thursday morning for a very formal farewell but then… erm… when I finally awoke from my deep sleep they already boarded the bus getting to leave Aloha Loyang. A pity I didn’t get to thank and bid them farewell in person but I believe we will still see each other in school when the semester starts.

And finally…

I give my thanks to God for everything. For giving me superhuman strength and stamina to last the 3 days, especially when I didn’t sleep the night before the first day of camp. For returning me my voice when I was about to lose it for shouting my lungs. For the creativity and charisma that enable me to gel my group together and break the ice. For the solutions He provided to the so many problems the camp faced.

YEN Camp ’06 … Hip hip hooray!

Everything's fine

Ok, praise God! It's not cancer, but my mum's still required to undergo a 'minor' operation.

Drained and tired now... shall retire to my bed.

1st step done

If some things don’t happen, then some things might never happen. Hehe, don’t get it? Never mind. Just called up Karen and fixed an appointment tomorrow afternoon for a visit to Singapore Association of the Visually Handicapped. Hopefully after tomorrow’s visit, I can get a head start in my volunteering work, which I strongly believe is my calling from Him. If God puts me in, He will pull me through as well! I’m pretty excited about what He has installed for me.

Why Zidane???

Why? Why did people still vote for him to receive the Golden Ball award? The obvious player of the tournament should be Cannavaro! I don't think I need to explain any more. In all the 7 matches he showed why he is the best defender in the world, while Zidane had only reproduced his WC '98 and Euro '00 form in 2 matches: against Spain and Brazil. I'm not going to even elaborate on that silly headbutt last night.

Uncle Val? Haha.

So there I was, entering the lift with this lady (quite pretty) and her son (aged 5-6 i think?). Upon entering, the lady said this to her son.

"Come, ask uncle which floor."

Ok... I looked around in the lift, there was only 3 of us. Uncle? Me? LOL. I've got friends who think that I looked like 18-19 years of age (i'm 22 this year), and this is the first ever time someone addresses me by... "Uncle"!

Needless to say, I was shocked.

Fix me next?

"Our people should feel free to express diverse views,pursue unconventional ideas or simply be different ... Ours must be an open and inclusive society."- PM Lee Hsien Loong, speech on 12 Aug 2004.


I really do feel for Mr Brown. A commoner like him being ‘fixed’ just because he spoke of his opinions. Aren’t we entitled to our own views? Aren’t we entitled to any autonomy in our speech? And aren’t we entitled to pen down our thoughts? Sad to say, it’s a straightforward negative in this country.

So much for the self-proclaimed world-class government…

Updates

A couple of weeks ago I promised myself to blog regularly. Still, am too occupied with the ongoing World Cup. I’ve finally found the time and mood to sit in front of my computer to pen something. Oh, and that’s partly because there’s no live football matches tonight.

World Cup Finals – Italy VS France

I’ll be supporting Italy, and I strongly believe they have every capability to secure a win over France. The match will be a tight affair, with both team managers likely to be using a 4-5-1 formation. With an extra rest day and two well-taken goals against Germany in the Semi-Finals, the Italians will have better rested players with soaring high confidence going into the Finals. I’m not writing off France, as we do know what Zidane and co. can produce on a football pitch. In every compartment from defense, midfield to attack, both teams are very much evenly matched. From Cannavarro (imho, he's the player of the tournament) to Luca Toni, from Thuram to Thierry Henry, there’s really very little difference to separate the two sides. And so I will tend to believe that the only difference between both teams is their goalkeepers. Buffon VS Barthez. With Italy conceding only one goal in the tournament so far, and that was an ill-fated own goal, Buffon proved why he was hailed as the best goalkeeper in the world. He has made many crucial saves during Italy’s journey to the Finals and his immerse understanding and teamwork with his fellow Juventus clubmate Cannavarro was the key factor in Italy’s progress in the World Cup. My verdict? Italy does have the upper hand in the goalkeeping compartment and that could be the deciding factor.

However, football is not to be played on paper. We can still expect Henry to turn on his magic like what he does so often for Arsenal, Zidane to once again show why he’s considered the maestro of the game and perhaps and the up and coming Ribery to affirm that he will be Zidane’s successor in the squad. At the moment I still favor Italy and my prediction? A 1-0 win for Italy!

Tattoo last longer than romance

Yes! I’ve finally got myself a tattoo! This actually happens a few weeks back. It stretches from my upper arm, to my shoulder blade. Did it at Johnny2thumbs at Far East Plaza and the whole process took about 2 hours. There wasn’t much pain when the tattooing was done on my upper arm, but it definitely starts hurting a lot more when on my shoulder blade. Ouch! Now I’ve to wait for about 3 months to go back for ‘touching up’.

FPA and YEN Camps

Will be attending two camps coming this mid-July. Film Performing Arts Camp (15th July) and Young Entrepreneur Network Camp (17th – 20th July). I’m the organizing committee for my FPA Camp, which is to be held in Fort Canning. Will be targeting to have about 30-40 people for this short yet fun and enriching 1-day camp. As for the YEN Camp in Aloha Loyang, I’ll be helping out as one of the four Orientation Group Leaders (OGL). I’ll be looking for forward to working with my SIM friends after such a lengthy period of being MIA.

Cell Group?

Jeremy, Kerri and me were standing outside Tampines Mall today. We were looking at the credit card advertisement on the automatic glass door, as if in awe of it. While I was making some lame poet-like remarks on the glass door, Jeremy trying to play along, Kerri suddenly and finally asked, “Erm, why are we standing here?”

“Waiting for God to guide us.” Jeremy replied.

After a couple of minutes of starring blankly into the air, Kerri suddenly said, “Let’s pray?”

“Ok. Let’s pray about the YEN Camp.” I suggested.

We then closed our eyes and started praying for His grace and blessing, and prayed for the camp to be a success.

We then resumed our aimless tour around Tampines Mall, which looks every bit like Mars to me, and suddenly an idea struck us. Let’s start a cell group! To be honest, I couldn’t recall who was the one who initiated the idea, but all 3 of us agreed without any hesitation. 17th July, the first night of the YEN Camp, the 3 of us will be gathering together for the first cell group meeting. While I’m still struggling to remember who among the 3 of us initiated the idea, it seems not so important afterall. Because it has to be God who put us 3 outside Tampines Mall, stoning, almost rotting and decaying, and then leading us to such a fabulous idea. Praise God! Let's see what where we can get to on the 17th night.