optimus prime vs megatron

transformers is so cools! you has to go catch its!

i caught transformers with my mom, aunty and nephew last night. it is super duper cool. i’ll give it 4.5 stars out of 5. just watching them transform from machine to robot is so cool! sorry i’m just saying the word cool so many times. i can’t think of any other words to describe it. my england nosso powderful you see. i can’t describe how they transformed. they just did. they’d be flying, driving one moment, then transforming whilst flying/driving.

very cools indeed. i say go watch transformers.   

err, ohayou? erm, konnichiwa.

got a call from a mr hirota-san this evening. wha? who?

he was a tad worried about his daughter. somewhere in malaysia, no contact via email or mobile phone.

if you’ve just started reading this blog. or have been following for sometime already, no, i did not suddenly acquire a japanese dad. neither am i somewhere in malaysia. i’m still in singapore, still singaporean with a peranakan-chinese dad. does this make my dad peranakanese? if so, he’d be similar to being japanese because of the suffix +ese behind. hrm. perhaps not. 

you see mr hirota-san, your daughter is actually in the jungle somewhere in malaysia trekking with her boyfriend. but i couldn’t really tell you that because i was surprised, forgot how to speak japanese, forgotten alot of the vocab i learned at school. but what i will do is to get your daughter to get in contact with you once i’m in contact with her.

raina to chihiro. can you hear me? raina to chihiro. hello?

thankfully, in our mix of english-japanese, we managed to get what we wanted to say across and sorta understand one another. well, i did anyway.

note to self: the first and second of the month is known as tsui-tachi and hutsu-ka respectively. not the ichi-nichi and ni-nichi i nervously stammered out. remember to print out the counters to bring to japan.

in other news, which is nicer?

1. rafe (pronounced as ralf)       or,

2. raoul (pronounced as ra-ul)

protest against trashy romance novels and other stuff

been on the lookout for trashy romance novel titles. the situation out there is bad. quite bad really. it’s usually the girls who would be holding such books. and they (the books, not the girls) should be banned. i repeat. trashy romance novels should be banned.

books should not have covers with roses, pink (or any shade of pink), swirly, flow-ey designs/motifs/print. they should be banned. any books with fabio on the front cover should also be banned. no more trashy romance novels!   

/end of tirade

in other news, there was a farewell party at work today. champagne/sparkling wine, delectable pastries from delifrance, yummy-licious pizzas from spizza. it’s quite unbelieveable. it’s the people that makes the whole difference. everyone’s nice (or so it seems anyway). i guess this is why i’m not hating this office job.

there’re lots of french nationals working here and it’s just common to hear french being spoken. everyone who works here speaks at least 2 langauges. the basic would be english, the other would be either japanese, mandarin or french. and of course, there would be those who are proficient in three langauges (with english and french being the main two languages).

maybe it’s just the legal department where everyone is just so smart. and by department, i mean all 4, 5 of them excluding myself. i’m sure they are all at least trilingual. and maybe, just maybe, i might work till the end of the month and for slightly longer. tis not bad, not bad at all.

y’know, most people may think that filing, scanning, removing staples is a brainless, dead-end job. and for the most part, it is true. it’s truly boring, highly repetitive, you can almost do it with your eyes closed. but, it is actually quite a humbling job. why do i say that? because this job requires prayer. without God, i cannot do my job. it’s a simple job, yes. what kind of prayer? that the paper feeds into the machine well, documents get scanned properly.  

so many times, i just stare at the machine, counting the number of pages (i can’t help it. it’s automatic for me to count things). then the paper gets jammed. i sigh, removed the jammed paper, reload it into the machine and start counting again. paper gets jammed. i say a quick prayer and the next time i reload it, it goes well.

then i forget about praying because it’s going well. and hey, whaddyaknow. paper gets jammed. i think God’s teaching me a lesson: that he’s in charge and in control of everything; small things and big. there ain’t no hiding away from him. not even in the belly of a huge fish at the bottom of the ocean.

there really is no hiding away.       

employment part quatre

so i haven’t blogged for a while. being busy is really an excuse.

a few things i thought about at work and whilst taking public transport:

#1. corporate jobs aren’t for me. (at this point anyway)

#2. the director/head of the legal department reminds me alot of my ex-boss in australia. (the shorter one. haha)

#3. i would never be caught dead holding/reading a trashy romance novel. especially one with a title that reads deadly kisses.

#4. the all-in-one machine that scan, print, photocopy and what not are very very sneaky.

#5. such machines work well for others but not for me (only about 80% of the time)

#6. lunching with the director gets you a super extended lunch break and no one says anything about it!

#7. i make in a day what they prolly make in half an hour or less. relativity really really sucks.

#8. it’s quite an enjoyable place to work at. i’m surprised myself.

#9. travel time seems to decrease lots when you have something to read during the journey.

#10. the mercedes SLK is a really smooth ride indeed. very luxurious, smooth, comfortable. in short, very very shiok.  

that’s it. 10 points for now.. i’ll add more when i remember what they are. also, i took some pics at work and will post them up soon-ish.

in other news, air tickets and hotel for tokyo are in the midst of being settled. hooray! more permanent accomodation information have yet to arrive. why so long one? a couple more events related to this whole JET programme thing to attend and we’d be off! 

second thoughts..

maybe long pants are also known as five-quarter pants. 

then there would be a difference between the three-quarter, four-quarter and five-quarter pants.

moving on….

we had a couple of bottles of wine opened for tea today. nice. i stayed for 5 mins (met the french director for the first time. i saw his dossier and imagine him to be old, with a big belly. but he’s not! quite the opposite.) before taking my cup with me and resuming work. there’s a nice vibe around work where most people are laughing, joking around. maybe it’s cause we’re in the midst of moving to upstairs and all the packing/working is making people behave differently. lots of maybes.

got some tyre-company souvenirs today. hehe.. a collar t-shirt and a mousepad. they were clearing out the cupboard and giving stuff away. i also got 2 mechanical pencils from the excess-stationary area. we’ll see what tomorrow brings.

if only i worked at the bank and the bank was also clearing stuff out. imagine things like “hey, there’re some extra $50 notes over there. just help yourself to them.” and souvenirs can and should include cash in different denominations, in stacks of varying amounts. the minimum amount being $10.

wah… shiok only.   

four quarters..

work had a couple of free tickets to see fantastic four: rise of the silver surfer, so my aunty and i headed to the cinema at suntec city after work. i didn’t expect to have light refreshments before the movie, free popcorn and a drink for the movie too! the benefits that came along with these tickets were good alright.

fantastic four was quite good. the silver surfer is damn cool sia! in the words of a kid, “that was really really cool.” i also say sia. the kid said that sentence when the silver surfer did what he did to prevent the world from being eaten up.

so after the movie, since it was relatively early (not yet nine, but almost), aunty and i went into the supermarket to have a look and get some food for home. my aunty was looking at some 3/4 pants (those yoga-type pants). we were just looking at the rest of the pants nearby, comparing which would be better and all. then this lady, who works for the supermarket, comes up to explain the difference between the three.

lady: this one (the one my aunty was holding), four quarter.

me: huh? four quarter?

lady: yah. this one four-quarter, that one three-quarter.

me: four-quarters? isn’t that one?

lady: no, four-quarter longer than three-quarter. that one (pointing at the long pants) is long pants. [gives me the are you dumb? or are you dumb? look]

me: [gives up] oh, okay. thanks.

yep. coming to a store near you, your varying lengths of pants! one-quarter pants, shorts, mini shorts, two quarter pants, bermudas, mini bermudas, three-quarter pants, capris, mini capris, four-quarter pants, pants, mini pants, long pants, short pants. all 14 lengths and more! 

also coming to a store near you, customised-length-pants! make your five-sevenths pants today! call 1900-make-me-pants now!      

employment part trois

i’m adjusting to work slowly.. but not totally. office work will always be strange for me. perhaps it’s because i don’t have access to the internet. hrm… the computer’s there, but it’s purely for work and i can only access the local network. office work would be enjoyable when you’re connected to the internet and on msn. haha! i wouldn’t be working then would i?

today, i got to touch and feel 1000USD. well, not really in money form. more like assets. one of the lawyers went to another country to purchase two tenders. each tender costing 500USD. yep. 1000USD for two books (well, photocopied and bound). to be fair, they were about 1.5in thick each. but still, 500USD for a tender! i was really careful scanning and photocopying those two books. i was so afraid the pages would get stuck in the photocopier and i could rip them while trying to get them un-stuck. but thankfully, it didn’t happen. phew…

the people i work for a nice people. the boss is really nice, so are the lawyers (i think there are two of them), the tax counsel (he’s japanese and speaks really good english), and my ‘direct superior’. i still don’t know what she does at work. she’s just busy. legal assistant/secretary maybe? i have no idea.

like i was saying before, the office seems split by the langauge divide. the people i work for, they all speak english, with accents! their english is also very the powderfuls sia! it’s nice hearing them joke around at work. the other side of the room (henceforth referred to as ‘they’ or ‘the other side’), they speak chinese. no prizes for guessing who i get along better with. then again, i work for them, they have to be nice to me or i might decide to shred and rip all their corporate documents. haha as if i would.

the english speaking side seems to be more chilled out, laughing, chatting more. the other side just seems quiet all the time, working more. maybe it’s just me. i get slightly unnerved if they come over to the photocopier to print their stuff.

so on thursday, there’s a department lunch. maybe it’s lunch then tea or something. whatever the girl-lawyer’s fancy. hehe.. and why a department lunch? just cause. cool right?

anyway, here’s a question. is there some unspoken rule at work that you’re not supposed to laugh at a colleague’s way of speaking when they’re on the phone with other people? maybe it’s cause i’m just horrible and like to laugh at people.. but i swear she sounded really really super duper strange speaking in english (you can guess which side she’s on now)! 

to end the post, here’re three phrases i heard at work i found amusing.

girl who was speaking to a client/someone from another company over the phone: “you are most welcome.<insert annoying laugh> [repeat three times]

guy who was speaking to a client/someone from another company over the phone: “wah lau eh!”

guy-lawyer when he walked towards the boss’ office and finds the light off and door closed: “am i hanging around for nothing?”

okay.. i know they aren’t really phrases, more sentances. but you know what i mean. right?

employment part deux

the inconsistent updates of life from a cubicle: staples, post-it notes and more.  

i took the mrt to work today. normal stuff… squishing with the rest of the workers and getting off with majority of the workers. and for a treat, i took the train back home too! it is my first time to take the train back home after working normal office hours (it is also my first time working normal hours, i.e. 9am – 6pm). it wasn’t as crowded as i expected it to be. maybe because most people finish work earlier on fridays? i don’t know. i don’t.

anyway, today i find out that more dot points get added to my job description.

#1. i have until tuesday to try to finish scanning/archiving/filing the remaining 30 big files before i start on archiving the tax files.

#2. i have to brief the manager/director/boss/all-i-know-is-that-he-is-in-charge-of-people, on monday. and i have to repeat myself, he’s got short attention, i have to make it look like everything is in control and repeat myself.

#3. there are more files concealed in the rest of the office.

asides from these, my life still revolves around un-stapling, tearing papers by mistake, filing, scanning. oh, and apparently i look like this other girl who works there full time. i’ve also started ‘decorating’ my desk/cubicle. i’m going to gather all the post-it notes left for me and paste around the area. i’m also going to accumulate all the staples i remove and leave it all in a heap. i think i will have fun.

employment

i’m now officially employed as a temporary staff. yep. that’s right. employed for just $8/hr, and after deducting money for the retirement fund (superannuation/cpf), i’m prolly earning about $6-$7/hr. hooray! started work yesterday and today was my second day on the job. it’s not a difficult job, just a highly repetitive one.

my official job title is: temporary filing clerk.

my official job description is: to scan catalogue, archive legal and tax document.

hrm…. questionable i’d say. but hey, i get paid to do this stuff. something they didn’t mention in the official job description is: remove staples from documents (which is really what i spend most of my time on), run small errands for the company lawyers, put the files together.

i’m employed for 2 weeks, translating to 10 working days. 10 days to finish scanning and archiving more than 30 big, thick files. my agent told me to work slow. so they’d have no choice but to hire me for a longer time. but it’s not for me, this office life.

i thought i could get used to the office life. work a normal job, 9-6, hang out with the office gang during lunch, chitchat and laugh with the office girls, sit in an air-conditioned (no less than that) office most of the day. but nope. i hope to finish the job and leave. no extensions please. i find myself looking at the life beyond the glass panels. looking at the water, the sun and wishing to be outside than stuck indoors removing staples and scanning documents.

i don’t ever want to hold an office position for the rest of my working life

i heart

saturday night. saturday night, i went for a concert. alone. i know.. it’s kinda loser-ish to attend a concert alone. but when i went to buy my ticket, there were only single seats left. and since i didn’t know of anyone who wanted to go to the concert, i went alone. absolutely fine with that.

it was the wu yue tian, mayday jump! concert.

hooray! i told myself that i’d attend their concert one day and on saturday night, i did. it was really good. hearing them live and hearing them on the cd is very different. they’ve got so much energy and you could feel their energy listening to them live.

the only shitty thing was the venue. i was standing on my chair and i could see all 5cm of the band. yep. they were that tall. 5cm. i was quite bummed about it. i thought that paying more for their tickets would have me a seat somewhere nearer the front and see a bigger band. but nope.

it was like a massive karaoke session at the concert, everyone knowing the lyrics of all their songs. and i couldn’t help but bob along to the music and singing along too. the energy was great. the crowd took sometime to warm up too.. but we were all 100% when it was mid-way through the concert, singing along at the top of our lungs (i wasn’t).

music was good, singing was good (though he went off-key a couple of times), the backdrop was not cool. not cool at all. dolphins are cool but not to be killed and eaten as ‘tuna’ but they had jumping, happy dolphins for the backdrop for two songs i think. tacky.. very tacky. then there were the random words of: revolution (feat che guevara’s face) – maybe it was the inspiration of that song, imagine (feat. john lennon’s face), dream (no face here), there was one more, but i forget that one. it was either freedom/free/love.

speaking of love, they had this song, which had the words L.O.V.E. and we all did actions for it! like a mass dance… wait. it was a mass dance. ‘cept that whenever the lead singer say E, i would hear it as G. was it me? or was it his pronounciation….

anyway.. i had a good time at the concert, standing on my chair for nearly the whole concert. they played for nearly 3hrs! and if i’m good, i might be able to see them in japan again in october!!! this time, i’ll make sure i’m right in front. so that i can see the lead singer’s pimples (if any). really!