A cautionary tale

Woke up this morning with a painful throat (just finished the second stronger course of antibiotics yesterday. argh what's wrong!) I think primarily because I ate too much unhealthy food yesterday... I thought I had recovered I guess (becoming ill disciplined). Anyway to get to the main point of this post. Since I woke up 45 minutes later than planned I had to take a taxi (thankfully it wasn't any later)

My driver was a relatively colourful character, with a big frame and equally booming voice. In his baritone voice, we discussed yesterday's Man U match and soccer betting tips. Somehow that led to the issue of gambling and his own personal trials and tribulations. I seriously think I have this potential to talk to taxi drivers (maybe thats why I have seen so many opportunities in the insurance industry.) Not to digress.

Over the long journey from the east side to the west side of Singapore, he told me his tale of gambling addiction. How he started mahjong for example, beginning with 10and 20 cents and eventually progressing 20 times bigger to 2 and 4 dollars. He elaborated on other gambling venues, his horse and soccer betting and illegal bookies and underground gambling. We had somewhat of a good talk (although I just really wanted to sleep) I think his is a tale that most of us can relate too. Thanks to my family I don't gamble much although I do a little more now that I am earning a wage. Discipline is a key character trait and it needs to instilled by the family at a young age. Gambling like sex, alcohol and drugs have two similarities. They can quickly become addictive and have the ability to cause a lot of harm in a short time. Although I have doubts about him being a millionaire before a little, I do believe he was once quite rich (millionaire if you add his house that kind probably). One thing is true though you CAN gamble away millions. So with the advent IR opening, do take care ladies and gentlemen and don't fall prey to addiction

Auld Lang Syne

Its New Year's Eve!!! (and I am counting the hours till I get off work) I think many people will be looking forward to the coming of the new year. In my opinion its been a tumultous year. Its been a great year for Singapore in terms of sports but other than that I don't like watching or reading the news.

So how will YOU be spending the last few hours of 2008? The usual party at Sentosa or Marina Bay? Any New Year's resolution? I seldom make any resolutions on this day because in my opinion, a hasty resolution made on New Year's eve with the countdown party in mind doesn't mean much does it? In all fairness though maybe before (or after) the booze numbs our brain cells, we should take a little moment to look at life this year from a very NARROW perspective. How good (or bad) have we really been this year? It seems to me that there are many things wrong on Earth. I am not a mover and shaker and neither are most of us. Each of us do have the power in us to change things however. Like the King of Pop croons " I am starting with the man in the mirror....."

So take care and party safe people! Take care of the ladies (and men who still wear spongebob underwear) and lets have a wonderful party! Happy New Year!

The week in a nutshell

Jingle Bells Jingle Bells...

Oh wait! Christmas is over! Aww.... Its back to WORK! Back to the highly political workplace for me. Work here is rather easy I think but relationships between people here is so stressful my hair is dropping! :x Case in point: After an argument with the assistant manager about training a new technician, the senior technician (in my department :x) tendered his resignation on the same day. He also happens to be the only person working in the laboratory. The result? He stayed on with instructions from the manager to people including myself not to disturb his work... Hello? Who's going to do his work if he is sick or on leave if no one including myself is allowed to be trained? Its nonsense!

Ok enough about all the B.S in my workplace. How was Christmas for everyone? I hope most people got the gifts they wanted. Don't forget to give presents to people important to you as well though! It is the season of GIVING after all.

Which reminds me I had a lovely time shopping this year. I know the word recession is being spoken everywhere but I have a job AT THIS MOMENT (may quit next month)and Christmas is once a year so its time to show a little appreciation as best as I can with my meagre salary. I didn't actually buy many gifts since my gifts this year were a little more expensive than most years. I think the gifts were welll received though so that warms my heart. I am a person that feels a lot but expresses very little so gifts are a way for me to express myself. Sadly though Christmas day this year was a very lonely affair for me (very unque thankfully) Why? Well I planned to celebrate with family on Christmas eve and with J on Christmas day. J was going overseas on Christmas day though so I celebrated with J on Chirstmas eve instead. It was rather short since I ended work at Tuas only at 3pm. A very expensive celebration in my opinion but unfortunately probably one of the most forgetable. Presents were not exchanged (we already did that a fewy days before) and there was no log cake, champagne or good music. So comes Christmas day and because its last minute and I am pretty broke I didn't ask anyone out so I pretty much spent 22-23 hours of Christmas day all ALONE! Oh man thats sad. Well determined to celebrate in SOME way, I ordered a Christmas pizza. A similar one I shared with J one or two Christmases before. Now I am a person that loves pizza so such a lot for myself should be a joy right? Wrong!It didn't taste all that great to me after all maybe because its the season for sharing so... just eating alone is sad ( I didn't finish the pizza by the way I am not a glutton!)

Apologies to two good friends of mine,Jingfeng and Alez. I know we don't usually celebrate birthdays but I was planning to treat you guys for your birthdays but
was unfortunately bogged down by work.If you guys read this you can contact me for a belated treat but starting next month ah!

Thanks to snowocean and Kenny Poon for their Christmas smses. I sent out Christmas smses to almost everyone I message often not everyone replied but snowocean and Kenny both of whom I seldom sms recently smsed me! Its a small thing but its sweet. Thanks guys esp Kenny you always remember this friend. If you need a hand in this recession do contact me. I don't know how much I can help but I am sure I can do a little something.

Sleep Debt

I have solved the riddle!!! OK so I've been working for slightly over a month (ahh I can still savour the paycheck but how long will it last???) and I've realised I've been getting rather lethargic especially during the weekends. I sleep like 10 hours on Saturday night the one night in a week I sleep more than 6 hours. So it got me thinking... how can I still be lethargic after so many hours of sleep? Well in typical NTU and UC Berkeley spirit, I went to do a little research (actually it involved mostly flipping through my limited edition Berkeley psychological text and the related websites) and I found my answer! Its a little thing I almost forgot about. Its called sleep debt. You see a person requires about 7-8 hours of sleep a day to function at optimum levels (depending on which research study you believe) If you don't get that the body functions normally but it credits your missing hours of sleep into its psychological bank so eventually you have to "pay" it back in a few days. So take me for example. I typically sleep between 3-6 hours a day. That means by Sunday I normally accumulate about 10 hours of sleep debt! Ok so in layman's terms, I cannot function very well on Sunday because I owe the "bank" too much money and I end up totally lethargic. There is not health problem although some health problems may surface as a result along the road. So my dear friends who are working just as hard especially friends like Kah Wing who are doing shift work... Sleep when you can just like I do and take good care of your health! (which I should do better).

Ok so after all the psychological mumbo jumbo the conclusion is that today is Friday and I don't need to work tomorrow so...... I really should go home and just SLEEP or practise P BUT in typical NTU fashion... it IS friday after all... So lets breakout the vodka baby! Its party time! :> Tooodles for now honeys I am going to tough for the next few hours in the office! Taihen des! :>>

20th November

Ahhh.... Its the 20th of November! Not exactly a big day but a rather significant one I'd say. Well the good things first! Today is...*insert drum roll* ...*insert drumroll again* ok enough enough :> today's PAY DAY!!!!!! (not necessarily the same for next month)

Not a moment too soon either! I am all but broke. The grand total I saved last month was... umm maybe one dollar? lol pathetic eh? This month looks like its going to be expensive as well. I mean the day I get my money for the month I had to pay for cab fare! I better be able to claim it back I need to save a little for Christmas! Oh which reminds me they deducted a 120 plus dollars from my pay!!!! Hey thats a significant amount from my meagre salary ok

Ok so the wonderful monetary gains aside, I have a rant! I am being pulled in by a relatively new colleaguew (still older than me) to be part of an act for the year end dinner. Oh man! yes I can play instruments (which I stupidly admitted D'oh) but I DON'T wanna make a spectacle of myself at such a function! Plus I don't like the other organiser (too bossy) so maybe I'll just find a way to wiggle myself out of it. Somebody please remind me to keep my big mouth shout next time? I cannot keep saying YES! Oh plus I wonder if my manager is PMSing? She's yelled at me TWICE today! Oh and I think just ME? How did I offend her man? I mean come'on she yelled at me from inside her office when I was asking her secretary about something I didn't understand. I mean HALLOOOOO? You didn't tell me the proper hierarchy! My one day orientation wasn't even on site! It was at HQ! Hmm I recommend the next time they put this on their job descripton. " Ideal Employee wanted... Must be able to do work without instruction, withstand scoldings and endure the occassional flying high heeled shoe"

Ok so I was lying about the high heels but you get the picture *LOL* The weekend is coming!!!!!! :>>>>>

Sex on TV leads to Teen sex?

I just read a rather interesting article on the Today newspaper (17th Nov , 2008)According to the article in question, sexual scenes on television leads to a more relaxed attitude to sex in teenagers. My first thought when I read article was..........Its about time! I think we all believe that sex scenes on television does affect the nubile minds of our young, negatively, we simply choose to look the other way. Like unfired clay, their minds are open to suggestion from everywhere, television, internet, friends and more. Many have argued that the growing relaxed attitude to sex is simply an evolutionary thing. Ok... you've probably not studied evolution much then. After all the crux of evolution lies in the propagation of its specific species. The worry with teenage sex is the surprising lack of knowledge or concern when engaging in these acts. This leads to teenage preganancy and other complications. Teeangers are ill equipped to take care of their young so it inhibits species propagation in fact so... evolutionary thing? I think not.

I do believe parents and educators play an important part in educating the young on sex. Yup its a tough and sensitive subject but hey, if you don't do it they may get the info from porn stars instead so... I guess you just gotta grit your teeth and get to it. Another thing to note is that the media should also regualte what is being shown and the show timings. After all the internet is a lot easier to secure with passwords and internet blockage the television lock on the other hand is simply useless. The unfortunate thing is that it isn't only the teens that are easily influenced. Some adults are too and the scary thing is these adults are sometimes educators and mentors, preachers and teachers! We've all heard of teachers, even professors taking upskirt videos of their young students and even pressuring the academically weaker students for sexual favours. Ahh.... maybe we really need more of these articles and discussions. As the hemline of skirts get shorter, perhaps so too do our morals? Its at these times that I become thankful strict Asian families and their morals. Add a dose of compassion to that and we Asians should do okay (or so I hope)

weekend!!!

Argh the weekend is over!!! Not that it was a fantastic weekend in that the usual excitement was lacking. Nonetheless its over and I have a FULL week ahead! Oh man I understand why PC said I will look forward to public holidays once I start working. You're clairvoyant PC! Or maybe you just have the common sense I lack lol.
In any case my weekend wasn't all that great although I had lotsa time this weekend. I was totally free! Personal relationships got in the way of things though and that put me in a bad mood for most of the weekend. Not wanting to waste my weekend, I slept at 4 plus in the morning on saturday (usually the time I get UP on weekdays) and ending up feeling totally hungover the next day which kinda meant that the day was wasted. Towards the end of today I ended up with diarrhoea (super sudden) and I am still wondering what caused it.... hmmm... what?

So all in all not such a hot weekend (although the weather was super hot) as you can see. Never mind I will find ways to get myself perky again. Although the early mornings are getting on my nerves. I think we should all go to work at 10 am! Anyone agree with me? Well in any case its about time for me to say nighty night. I've got a runny nose (been runny for super long do I have and allergy like Alez?) and a churning stomach. So tata for now and you just keep on coming back to read ok! Good night sleep tight and DON'T let the bedbugs bite (know whose favourtie phrase is this?)