Friday, October 29, 2010

IVP wushu competition

For the first time since I had known about this competition, I am sitting as a spectator.

I've been competing for the past three years without fail and I still remember the first year I had competed. Every year is a different experience and my goal was always to grasp at least one Gold. But I never did. The best I had done was the first time I competed, in the National Wushu Competition, obtaining 2nd for my fist form. After that was always a decline.

It should be a lack of focus. It is now a regret and I wonder if I could ever, after 10 years of wushu practise and now not practising anymore because of work, still obtain a Gold somewhere somehow. Maybe I should go train in Tai Chi as what Wei Han said. Too old already. Am I?

All my life I just lacked the focus. I had always wanted to go Nepal, but Ivan beat me at it, left only after 6 months of planning. I had planned 6 years.

I really want to continue training in wushu. Just when I felt my competitive life had started, it ended too soon. But because of work, because of various other reasons, I had stopped. And as I see my friends and people I once knew in De Wu, how thay had remained focus and made a name for themselves, I blame myself for not being strong enough to heck the barriers and move on.



Monday, October 18, 2010

Ups and Downs

It's been some time since I was here. Been working very hard and trying to play as hard too.



The first month of work was really the honeymoon period...where everything was fresh and I was still wondering why my predecessors left my position so quickly for various reasons. Although I have been working OT since the first day of work, doing surveys way after office hours, I thought this job was great as I am meeting people and coming up with new ideas every day (coz I had the time to think) . I'm also learning new marketing stuffs everyday.



For the past week or so though, I havent been meeting people. I havent been thinking. I have only been trying to chase time, the same feeling like trying to chase after your shadow in the evening sun, aiming to plant both your feets on your head but each time you move, the shadow's always ahead of you. And the midday sun has been so shrouded by cloudy skies (with haze recently... even NEA website's so loaded it's not loading) so you're prevented from the simply goal of standing in your own shadow from head to toe.



I'm also not really learning new marketing stuffs. But I'm still learning - about how to twist words so that I don't say the wrong things to bosses and partners, at the same time trying to stay as honest as I can. It's such a meticulous and delicate balance, I'm not careful enough and I kept shattering it.

Keeping in contact with overseas bosses is also mind blowing. I've been working for more than 12 hours this week so far, simply because I spend more time collating everything and trying to make things short and sweet in view that bosses are busy people, esp overseas. Then when things are short and sweet, people start to assume missing information and then make the wrong assumption, often to a negative side.

Then it makes no sense to rectify the assumptions which may require long emails when the reason why everything happened is because I wanted to keep things simple. Trying to rectify probs may also make me look like I am arguing, esp when the boss specifically told you ' no time to read emails'. So I went ahead to do my stuffs, threading on my toes, yet I still recieve a 'Who gave you the approval?!" So I went back to square 1, seeking approval for every single breath I take.

Its not like people in the same hazy island are anymore contactable too. Somehow when I need things I could never get to them. Then when they needs things (which are ALWAYS very urgent, more urgent than mine), being the person who strive to nv miss a call, I am always there and I became a messenger, doing more things when I have not even settled my own issues I wanted to raise to the very same person. Somehow. Then when everything is finally done, and I raise my issues, "Oh! I get back to you in a while" then the same whole process repeats. TMD.

All hell broke loose and I spend my nights worrying what kind of emails I will receive the next day. Sometimes I even felt like I should not sleep but wait for my boss to reply 3-4am emails so I can quickly get things stright.

Now I know why my predesessors left. But I'm gonna stay. If this is the kind of trials God has in mind for me, then I'll just take it in my stride and prove myself. Although I feel that many of my so called mistakes were are driven by circumstances I dont understand, leading to many misunderstanding, I don't think I need to stand up for myself. I just have to do my job, be more stringent (that is if i get my good slp) and try to stop those stress acne from popping.

Bracing myself for the arrival of bosses tml. They are finally back. Bad news is I am expecting some form of compiled and burning lecturing and they have probably lost their faith in this one who aced the interview. Good news is since they are back and things will go on right once again.

Sunday, October 10, 2010

Funny times

I received a email from Candice that reads this.

The Vanilla Pudding Robbery

This is just too funny not to share an article which appeared in The Dublin Times about a bank robbery on March 2.

Once inside the bank shortly after midnight, their efforts at disabling the security system got underway immediately. The robbers, who expected to find one or two large safes filled with cash & valuables, were surprised to see hundreds of smaller safes throughout the bank. The robbers cracked the first safe's combination, and inside they found only a small bowl looks like vanilla pudding. As recorded on the bank's audio tape system, one robber said, 'At least we'll have a bit to eat.'

The robbers opened up a second safe, and it also contained nothing but vanilla pudding. The process continued until all safes were opened. They did not find one pound sterling, a diamond, or an ounce of gold. Instead, all the safes contained covered little bowls of pudding.

Disappointed, the robbers made a quiet exit, each leaving with nothing more than a queasy, uncomfortably full stomach.

The newspaper headline read: 'IRELAND'S LARGEST SPERM BANK ROBBED EARLY THIS MORNING'....


Shawn prompted me to search for this wickedly intelligent Thai bank commercial after reading this email.




Then as usual I began my search for the infamously intelligent and humourous thai advertisements. Seems like there has been lots of updates over the past few months! Here's a series of commercials promoting a coffee that will boost your energy level, enabling you to multitask well.







The one below is nothing intelligent actually... just in your face and so plain dumb i'm laughing at it's stupidity =P



Its amazing how thai people make fun of themselves and their own country's uniqueness - ladyboys and lots of infamous ghosts stories









This is one that I didn't like. But I guessed that Siong would like it, and I was right. Talk about ego-centric men who like to make us women look silly. ARUGH.

Tuesday, October 5, 2010

Message in a Bottle Survives Epic Journey

Last year, a high school student named Corey Swearingen put a letter in a bottle, sealed it up, and dropped it in the Atlantic Ocean, off the Florida coast. It was kind of an experiment for school. In the letter, he appealed to whomever came across the bottle to contact him and let him know where in the world it showed up. Amazingly, someone did.


About 16 months after the bottle was dropped, Swearingen's marine science teacher heard from someone in Ireland. The letter had made its way across the Atlantic Ocean and washed up on the shores of the Emerald Isle, found by a 17-year-old and his Dad while out for a stroll. In an interview with Florida Today, Swearingen said he never expected the message to be found.
Can't blame him for pessimism. After all, the wine bottle, which, according to Swearingen, is being put up on display in an Irish pub, did face long odds. But it's hardly the first message in a bottle to survive a perilous journey.


In 2009, a message in a bottle washed up on the shores of England. It had been tossed into the waters near the Bahamas nearly five years previous. Incredible

There's even a case of a message in a bottle helping a family find a new life. In 1979, Dorothy and John Henry Peckham dropped a message in a bottle in the Pacific Ocean while on a cruise. Amazingly,
the bottle found its way to Southeast Asia where it was picked up by 31-year-old Hoa Van Nguyen.

Nguyen wrote back and began a correspondence that eventually led to the Peckhams helping to sponsor Nguyen and his family's immigration to the United States.

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I believe that this is the work of God working His miracle on earth! I could never figure out how fragile glass bottles could survive sea storms, potential rocks and the constant curiousity of sea creatures (I think they would be curious!!!) to carry it's message across the surface of the earth when tough steel tankers ships are always at the mercy of mother nature! It must then be God's work to build faith in the hearts of those who dared to try =)