GSS

Seriously, how depressing can it get? With the GSS on, there are lots of Singaporeans out there trying to get some good deals.  Although I am not the type who will just shop because there is a GSS going on but was in town yesterday and had some time so decided to go for a hair cut.  Ended up spending more than I expected but so be it.

Since there was a GSS going on, there was also a lucky draw in the mall.  And I got a $5 McD voucher and you know what? If I am a tourist, I get a free Samsonite backpack!!!! Where is the fairness of it all?

Further depression, as I was walking to the MRT station, I saw this big signage, asking tourists to redeem for a booklet where they will get big discounts from retailers if they present their passport at the concierge.

So don't tell me we are complaining too much when we are being discriminated by different parties and now we are worse off than tourists who are just passing through? Their $250 dollars is worth more than my $250??

Need to get out of here pronto!

Do you get it?

A fren smses me today and while responding back and forth with her, she said "you should get a smartphone so you can enjoy free messaging".

And I replied "my phone plan comes with free 500 smses per month and I never use more than that either and whatsapp will only be useful for me if I sms overseas frens" and she said "whatsapp can also use locally"

I know it and get that but why would I need free messaging when I have 500 smses free anyway?

Do you get it? I don't.

p.s I hardly sms my overseas frens and the cost of paying for those global smses are definitely cheaper than paying a higher price for a smartphone.

So far so great

Had a great day yesterday, went for my accupuncture, when I was about to leave I had a discussion with the TCM, not very happy with what we communicated on but didn't think about it much until I left the clinic. Need to think on how to manage that prior to my next visit.

Anyway I left and head back east to meet up with a friend for coffee. Spent some time doing banking before the meet up. After coffee, we went together to fetch her son from Chinese class. Such a cutie-pie, haven't met him for a while and he still remembers who I am and had became quite chatty versus the shy boy he used to be. Attending kindergarten does makes him more sociable I guess.

After the meet up I went up to the bookstore to get some paint for my DIY project which I finally started working on today.

I woke up late and watched some tv and read my story book. After lunch I plunked myself in front of the computer and do some office work which took the whole afternoon and part of my evening before I headed off for my exercise class.

While working I did the 1st stage of the DIY project which is spray painting this piece of wood and I applied a few coats so you can imagine I took a while, since I had to apply, wait for it to dry and apply again.

Hope that I will have time to work on part 2 tomorrow which is to mark out the space and start drawing and painting!

Aktiv

Was surfing on Apartment Therapy when I saw this article on a house call Aktiv from ideabox. ideabox is based in Salem, Oregon and focus on prefab houses.

Anyway the design I wanted to talk about is Aktiv, it is a prefab and pre-furnished with furniture and fixtures from Ikea. Honestly I will buy it, it is 745 square feet and cost from USD 86,500. How are you going to get a house this size at this price and comes with all fixtures and furniture to boot in our sunny island? I will snap it up.

If you go to the page, you can see the photo gallery, basically nothing to complain about. And here's the floorplan, well design (except for the fact that your guests will have to walk through your bedroom to go to use your bathroom.

Another Bee Zee day

After a long day out yesterday I was busy surfing and then finally logoff near midnight to take a shower before settling in before the tv to watch a rerun of the Amazing Race which I missed earlier as I was still out.

Only then I realized G.O.S.H my credit card bill is due that day and I had to boot up my computer again to pay via internet banking and by the time the transaction was over, the payment was already overdue. Had to call the customer service line to make sure they don't charge me for late payment. That done, I finally sat down in front of the tv and watch my tv program and after the show was over, I switched channel and saw there was a replay of the Spurs and Man Utd match so watched that till all 3 goals were scored from Man Utd before I switched off and went to bed.

Woke up early today as I needed to do some work before I go off for my appointments for today. Turned out what I was expecting was not sent out from US so ended up chatting on msn with my 2 colleagues in the office while clearing off emails from the last 2 days. Logoff and shower and headed out to town to have lunch with ex-colleague then.

Spent 3 hours catching up with her and then went to do some banking errands, walking up and down Orchard Road just to commute between 2 banks. Thank goodness the weather was ok and not scorching hot. That done, I decided to run down to the CBD to another bank as they have requested for my latest passport copy so went down and was in and out by 15 mins.

Left there to head back to Orchard where my dinner appointment was but had some 2 hours before meeting that friend so went to had my manicure done (FINALLY!), saw a tv actress doing her nails there as wel. Was not even paying her any attention IF she had not called attention to herself by wearing sunglasses indoor (DUH). Maybe she was expecting me to take out my photo to snap her photo etc but hey I am not 'star'struck ok. And besides my phone has no camera function haha (yeah very archaic phone I know).

Finally done with my nails and met up with my friend for dinner and drink and made my way home, shower and login to complete some work again before changing laptop to blog surf and blog.

Freeing myself up the next 2 days but another friend just smsed to say she can meet me tomorrow afternoon so I will probably head to town for my accupuncture and then head back towards home to meet this friend. Not a direct route but no choice. But it is a more relaxed day as it looks like I will only be occupied in the afternoon which is good, can catch up on my reading and errr start my DIY project which I have been talking about for months. Spring cleaning will have to wait haha.

Rush Rush

One would have thought once they have a day off, they will take it easy but I don't know whether it is my nature or what but I just go out of the house to do 1 thing.

So today I had 2 to-do list on my list, 1 is to go for my facial and the other is my spa. So I thought I will leave my house early to go eat my favorite breakfast (yes, I am drugged by the lor mee stall auntie) BUT the whole hawker center is close today for washing. So I took a bus down to Tampines and grab a McD breakfast before my facial. As you would know, it can never replace the shiokness of having a hot bowl of lor mee especially on a rainy day. Even though I had buffer for lots of spare time before my next appointment, I didn't realized by the time I was done at the beautician, it was already 230pm and I was there since 1045am! Saw a promotion by a bank but no time to stop and chat.

My next appointment was at 330pm at Suntec so again as you have guessed it, I was running behind schedule. So I called them to say I will be late and then I had to run to this fast food restaurant to tapau something for dinner, take a bus midway to meet my mum to pass her the food and then hop on the bus again to go for my spa.

Spa treatment ended on time and I wanted to go for a manicure (something I wanted to do since last Friday) but then no slot (I was just randomly going to 1 of the nail salon which I never visited before) so I went by the bank downstairs, check out the promo, signed up and left.

Another busy but fulfilling day under the belt. Planned to do some work tomorrow in the morning but had to leave my house early to have lunch with an ex-colleague and then friend for dinner so guess work will have to wait till night unless I wake up early to work before I head out.

Will see, work is my lowest priority this week and since I am on leave, not being constantly online is indeed a luxury and honestly, work can wait but life can't!!

What a day!

My company has this policy that states all carried over leave from last year needs to be clear by 15th March or it will be forfeited so I cleared all my 7 days leave starting today.

Started my day by going to the library to return and borrow some books, pop by my favorite lor mee stall and have my lor mee. Go to the hospital for my specialist visit, was expecting not so good results due to recent anger management issues but results turned out to be good and within range.

Went for my spa appointment after that and then head back to my office area to meet my ex-colleagues for dinner and just came home not too long ago. Was planning to slot in a manicure before my dinner appointment but thought it will be too rush so headed straight for the restaurant instead and ended up waiting for more than an hour waiting for the rest to turn up but I was about to do some reading while waiting so all is not wasted.

Although I was checking my emails and responding to office calls, I have yet to think of a day that I have been so fairly relaxed..hopefully the rest of my vacation will go just as well. Was initially planning to go to Australia but decided to stay home as there are quite a fair bit of errands to run and realized there are so much things to buy, to do and so many old friends that I should make time to meet and there is no better time than this break I am having.

Looking forward to a stressless and relaxing break!

Funny

Just came back from a short trip to KL to visit frens and while there, spotted some shop names and slogans they used that were so creative and funny.

There is this lighting shop opposite my fren's house and it is call ilightyou and a youtiao stall called iloveyoo (yoo because that's the KL style of writing I guess) and while out shopping, saw this watch shop with this slogan on their shop front "if your clock doesn't tick, tock to us".

Funny right? Guess we won't spot these until we slow down and observe our surroundings more.

Envy

"Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's house" as the Bible says but yet I can't help being envious. This year our company has their Sales kick off in Vegas and next year they shall have it in Orlando. Orlando...sigh is one of the city in US that I would love to go to so I can visit Disney World. But alas, I am never invited or get the chance to go all these meetings so I can only envy from afar. 2 of my close lunch kakis are in the invite list and they are planning trip extension but as both are not avid travellers they are asking me for advice and even ask me to fly there and meet up with them to be their tour guide but having spend so much money on my upcoming trip in December I really don't think splurging another $3k in airtiket alone is justified. I told them if I strike the TOTO tonight I will go without hesitating but of cos life never goes the way you want it to.

Honestly I need to go back to a frequent travelling job, I am sick and tired of being a desk bound employee.

DIY failure

Bought some linen bag and some iron-on to store some Xmas presents but guess what? 1 slight movement and the iron-on will move, thus creating some double image and the bleeding of the color causing some smudges. Not pretty at all and if I can't even accomplish such an easy DIY project, how am I going to be able to do those more complicated projects I am planning to do???

What a day!

I had such a busy day yesterday that even talking about it now seems exhausting.

I set my alarm at 930am so that I can wake up to go breakfast and church which is now my Sunday routine but before 9am, I was awaken by smses from friends and then I ended up lazing in bed reading my story book while waiting for my alarm to ring. After that I woke up, get ready and went out to interchange to get my favorite lor mee (another Sunday routine nowadays haha) and then I headed off to church.

After church, I didn't have time for lunch, I had to go to Bras Brasah for my accupuncture session but prior to that I had to go Popular and Art Friend to check some stuff out. Started my accupunture at 2 pm and told the TCM I need to finish by 315pm cos I need to rush down to Chinatown to meet my parents at 330pm. But ended up leaving the clinic only at 324pm (why so precise because I kept checking my phone!) but good thing is Chinatown is near and the bus came immediately. Met my parents at Chinatown and we headed off to the travel agent for our tour briefing but prior to that had to wait and make final payment.

Briefing started at 4pm and ended around 5pm. After that brought my parents out to dinner at Beach Road, only 1 bus which had to take a detour around Marina Square area so we reached the dinner place only about 530pm. Had our dinner and left around 610pm and took a bus to Kallang MRT to change train to Tampines. Reached Tampines and started doing our winter shopping, by the time we finished was already 9pm. My dad still wanted to go have coffee but I was so beat so we went straight home. Reached home around 945pm, shower and surf a bit of the internet and was in bed by 11pm. Dead tired.

Busy Bee

These days my life is so swarm with activities that my only free evenings are Mondays and Saturdays.

Most of what I am busy with is pretty repetitive but just can't run away from them :

- Accupuncture at TCM clinic 3 times a week to improve my thyroid condition

- Night teleconferences 2 times a week

- Exercise class on Thursday night and Saturday morning

On top of that I am also dealing with these :

- Xmas shopping and preparation of presents for some friends and meeting up with them as well

- Some art and craft projects that I meant to start on for...ever!

- Talking to some headhunters regarding some new roles

- Planning and packing for an upcoming trip to Europe in December

- Talking to a migration lawyer on some advice on migration

- Dealing with bank on my housing loan and deposits

No wonder everyday I am yawning like crazy even though I am trying hard to sleep at least 8 hours a day. Big improvements from 6 hours in the past and the accupuncture really help aid me in having better sleep but it means I have to cut down hours spent in front of computer or reading my story books so I can grab 2 more hours of sleep per day. Worse of all is I used to sleep in on Saturdays and Sundays but due to my schedule and activities these days I had to wake up about the same time as the work week....sigh.

Writing this entry just reminded me I am supposed to meet my best friend since August and it is now already coming to December! Both our schedule just clashed very badly and really hope that I will get a chance to meet her before we both go on our separate holidays.

Sure or not?

Just the other day I received a leaflet from Fancl inviting me to pop by one of their branch to do a facial test in order to get 2 free bottles of their new Tense up drinks. I was initially skeptical wondering if they will be hard selling products to me and wondering how long the test will take.

Lo and behold, the test is a mere 5 secs! All they do is put a pen like monitor to your skin to check your skin hydration and that's it. I got a 66 reading on the pen and I was checking with the consultant what that means? She said anything that shows 70 and above means the skin is well hydrated and mine is still showing normal.

Was quite happy given that it was like 8 pm at night and I was joking with her that after a day at the office in an airconditioned environment, under the sun during lunch and sweat throughout the day, I am amazed at the reading.

Am wondering if the reading will go above 70 if I do the test ear

How to Overcome Career Burnout

Sometimes some articles you come across really speaks out to you because you are facing that dilemma at the exact moment.

Here's another article to share. Link here.

What to Do When You're Struggling at Work

Another article to share, link here

10 Signs You Have a Bad Boss

I always love reading all these articles (this one is from Yahoo Finance), love to see how many apply to my everyday life. Also, this serves as a reflection if I am the boss.

Link to article

Let's just say my boss currently exhibits 8 out of these 10 signs. Woopee

The Top 7 Healing Destinations on Earth

So sad that I have not been to any of these places before although I travel to so many places already...looks like my focus in travel needs to change haha.

http://planetgreen.discovery.com/travel-outdoors/the-top-7-healing-destinations-on-earth.html

In case anyone is wondering why all of a sudden I have so many articles on top 7 or top 10, that's because I have been super busy and I just save all the links and finally put them into the blogs at 1 go.

7 Countries Home to the World’s Healthiest People

http://planetgreen.discovery.com/food-health/7-countries-home-to-the-worlds-healthiest-people.html

Hmm....time to relocate to any of these places? After all, health is wealth ok!

10 Things Unhappy People Have in Common

Hehe, for those unhappy people out there, maybe this article will tell you what are the root causes to your unahappiness.

http://planetgreen.discovery.com/food-health/10-things-unhappy-people-have-in-common.html

Let's see, I am not unhappy but there are 3 things in the list that applies to me...hey, at least I admit it!

Gordon B Hinckley

Don't know who he is and even after googling, don't think I know any better but dang, he has pretty good quotes.

Here's sharing some which really speaks out to my soul at this time at this moment.

"Life is to be enjoyed, not endured"
"You have not failed until you quit trying."
"Mediocricy will never do. You are capable of something better."
"Be grateful, be smart, be clean, be true, be humble, be prayerful."
"You can be smart and happy or stupid and miserable. . . it's your choice"
"Without hard work, nothing grows but weeds."
"Do your best, and be a little better than you are."