Lovely gesture

(Post written on 21/3; scheduled and published on 26/3 1.39pm; updated on 26/3, 3.30pm)

Right after my Vietnam biz trip, I went to China.  I checked into the Shanghai hotel at about 4pm on Sunday (21 Feb) afternoon.  At the beginning of a week long business trip, I was feeling tired, and a little sad and down.

Once I'm connected to Wifi in the hotel room, a Whatsapp message came through.  It was from Carol, an ex-colleague from GFChrt.  She said that she's thinking of me because she made a flower arrangement for a friend.  We exchanged some messages; I shared my frustration of having bigger work responsibilities, and she shared news that a colleague started working half day at the beginning of this year when her triplets started P1.  The messaging ended quite abruptly when I went out for dinner.

After we came back from the business trip, I had a good chat with my boss regarding where my career is heading.  He gave me a day off, as he knew that I'm feeling drained.  I took half day on 2nd March, and my first stop for the afternoon was to Far East Floral to buy flowers for myself.  While browsing, I sent Carol pictures of flowers, telling her that her whatsapp message on the previous Sunday help cheered me up.

March had been a sad month for me, and Carol's been very busy with kids and her mum falling sick.  We kept the whatsapp messages going for quite sometime, infact till now.  It amazes me, how simple it is to stay in touch, as long as both parties made the effort.

Folks, if you are still reading this blog after so many years, I still hope that you will drop me a line.. 

Update 26/3 3.30pm:

Fate brought us friendship; fate sees to it that we stay connected, especially in these times when we both lost someone close to us.  March 2016   

 

Sharing good articles and sites - O.E.

An ex-colleague from Chartered, who may still be reading my blog sometimes, share an article on FB.  I read the article.  I'm very impressed with the writer, and his articles. 
http://oliveremberton.com/

Update (6) - Meet up with GF colleagues

There was a gathering for ex-chartered finance staff, organised by George Thomas in June. It had been more than a year since I last met some of my old gang, and the GL folks. Most of my gang and the GL folks turned up, with the exception of Geraldine, Janice and Grace.


At the gathering, I managed to speak to George and Sherman each for close to 5 minutes, which was something that I did not expect. But I didn't get to catch up with HT. Got to know that Grace just gave birth to her first kid, and that Sherman downgraded his house (in preparation for retirement, we speculated).


Subsequently, Shirley organised a mj session in July. When TH and James arrived (both of them about 5 yrs older than me) we immediately got into a conversation about reaching middle age, about white hair, long sightedness, and cpf!


Then I organised a hi tea for the ladies in my gang in the month of Aug. The 6 of us are 39 to 42 yrs old. Come to think of it, I should had taken a pic of this "aunty" gathering, ha! As we always did during lunch back then, we talked mostly about maid, a little about moms or MIL, and kids of course. Altought our age gap is close, amongst us we have kids in JC (LH gave birth to her first kid at age of 23!), in upper to lower primary school, in pre school, and one not born yet (Carol is pregnant with her 4th kid at age 39)!! 2 and half hour of the Sun afternoon just flew by; there was much catch up achieved, but then there are still so much more that can shared.


When will the next session be and be like? Looking forward..


Here are some photos of George's gathering in June.

Touching moments

It had been quite sometime since I attended a wedding of a friend. Most of my friends are about my age, and I'm 38 this year.

My friendship with Elaine is quite a special one. We became better-than-normal friends partly due to our age difference. I don't remember when she joined chrt-Gf. When we got to know each other, I grew to like her a lot. I asked her for her age, and she said that she is born in the year 83. I realised that she's born in the same year as my long-lost sister, so I asked for her birthday. Of course she is not my sister, but ever since then I developed this big-sister love for her. When I left Gf, I told her about the above (minus the part on the sisterly love, haha).

Her wedding today is a touching and fun one. She is an emo girl, so I think she believe a lot in love. I wish her happiness and ever lasting love (haha, ever lasting love is a wish I hardly ask for/dish out; so not me).

The reward for staying back late at the reception until most guests were gone - an individual photo with the bride!

My new job

Just finished a conference call; will do a quick update before i knock out..

Things have finally settled down after 2 months in my new job. I came to realise that time really heals pain. I am moving on. The emptiness and void is being filled, slowly, but surely. I'm starting to feel more and more comfortable around my new friends. Although right now there no one whom I'm close to, but I recognise that this is something that takes time.

Every company has it's own culture, so does Jab. I'm not entirely sure what Jab's culture is yet. There's some stuff that I like and stuff that I don't like. Right now it's too early to tell if I will flourish in this place.

I started my Monday salad lunch routine. It's a brave thing to do (haha), having to turn down lunch kakis and explaning my choice. It's pretty annoying to get comments from various people, but I have learnt to accept them as unavoidable. In fact at GF, even after doing the routine with Shirley for 2 years, we still get occational comments.

Also, I bought flowers for my female colleagues on Tuesday. I did that a lot in GF, and finally I got about doing that, for the first time, in Jab. It was a very pleasant experience; more than half of them were truely delighted by the bright and cheerful geberas.

This weekend, if time permits, I will do some catch up blogging on the home front. The hamsters are really doing very well! Lynn said "happy hamsters happy home!".

Other than 20 geberas, I also bought a stalk of hydrangeas for my self. I gave out 18 stalks of geberas to 9 colleagues, and kept 2 stalks for myself. View of my vase from inside my room:

View of my vase from outside my room:

I repotted my "Zhu" from GF into the green pot from Shirley, and got a new plant from Far East Floral:

My new plant. Hopefully it will last:

30th Apr 2012

Today I'm not working, but WK is, and Lynn has school.  It's like one of the days during my 2 months break.  And I have dedicated today to finish my long o/s blog posting regarding my 2 months long break.  

Today started very much like the days during my break.  Yesterday, I told myself that I should plan my activities and pack for my activities so that I can leave home the same time as Lynn in the morning.  However, without a "start work" time, half the time I ended up like today, still at home at 10+am (time right now). 

That's the issue with sharing my home with MIL.  Those of you who read my blog know that we manage to live together pretty well.  There's little conflict as we can communicate with each other, and we don't face each other 24-7.  So the perks of having MIL to take care of Lynn and our dinner is that I need to share the home with her.  So during my 2 months break, I usually pack all my stuff and tried to get out of the house as early as possible.  My frequent hangouts were Bishan Library and NUSS club house.  As mentioned before, my biggest expense then was parking.    

I set up a list of things to do for my break.  They include exercising, read up on investment/money management, tidying the house, etc.  And of course relaxing and recharging, by doing things at a slow pace.  I wasn't successful in exercising/losing weight at all.  I did set up my Phillips security on line trading account properly, invested some money, but learning money management is a long way to go and I'm still very bad at it.  The easiest thing to do, because it is a brainless task, and thus therapeutic, is tidying my house.  And yes, the most important thing that i did not do during the break is to go for full body check up.  

So during these 2 months, I didn't complete a lot.  However, I did have a good break.  The 2 trips (Seoul and Shanghai) were shiok.  The time spent in Singapore (doing the stuff listed above) was stress free.  Oh yes, CNY was fantastic; it was like a let go of a big burden...

One of the reasons why I didn't complete much was that I lunched with my ex colleagues a lot.  Half the time, it was them who asked me for lunch.  It's good that we did that, as going forward there will be little opportunity to do so.  

And I'm very happy to meet some old friends.  I met up with Soo Hui (colleague from first job) at Lau pat sat.  During the march school holidays, I brought Lynn to meet up with Ivy (friend from JC) and her 2 girls at Vivo city.  I also drove to International road to pick up Lydia (colleague from 2nd job) for lunch.  I told her that I had been more than 8 years since I drive along PIE to Tuas.  I arranged for a group dinner mainly to meet Zane, who had left GF for more than a year, but she 放我们的飞机... And I spent 5 hours with Geraldine (also ex GF) one afternoon, doing lunch and tea! Anyway, I was so busy at GF that meeting my old friends was definitely something that I should do during the break.  There are a few more people whom I want to meet up, but I have to arrange again.  And 2 Fridays ago, I met JJ for dinner, and ended up spending more than 4 hours chatting late into the night.  

Actually I have come to the end of what I wanted to write about my 2 months break.  But I think this posting still have quite some way to go.  When I wrote the above, I don't have much emotions.  This second part of this post, I don't know how my emotions will be.

Today, is actually HT's last day at GF.  Do I call it coincidence, or do I call it ironical?  人生很多无耐.  Looks like it is inevitable that things come to this stage.  I remembered that when we were faced with impossible situations, he will jokingly, and yet meaningfully say that what's the worse that can happen, and that he wish they will just fire him （一了百了).   I really don't know how to judge this latest development.  I did something very out of character, which was to SMS him the moment I knew that he's leaving.  I told him "Everyone loves you and will support your decision".  I worked late that night.  When I walked home from my new office, all the emotions came flooding.  That night, I did a blog posting, and just after I published it, I received a reply from him that says "thank you seow wai".  

I also met up with Kelly on last Friday for dinner.  She's someone whom I seldom blog about, but she actually played a very important role in my life in the past 2 years.  I can say that I have no more 牵挂 in GF except for her.  But my dear Kelly is such a strong character; I was so so so so relieved when I realized that she's still hanging on strong, without me there for her.  

When and how will my chapter in GF be finally closed?  I know it takes time to heal, but I never realize that I can't put GF down just like any of my previous jobs.  I was telling HF that I finally understand why JO couldn't let go.  

I don't want to end this posting on this tone.  I have decided that I want to enjoy today, stress free, carefree.  I want to think of my boss who is packing his stuff today.  I also want to prepare for a brand new day starting tomorrow.  Since I started my new job one month back, I do not have enough time for a lot of stuff (which is the norm for a working mother).  So I wanted to start doing and completing tasks (like exercising) again.  I will also be traveling for work in 2 weeks time.  Life must move on.  I had a very interesting and fulfilling 7 years in GF, which I will remember for a long time to come.  

   

Last day at GF

Finally, after a very long and hectic 3 months, today is my last day at GF. A lot of mixed feelings, because one on hand I'm the one who initated the parting, on the other hand I really can't bear to leave a lot of people here. It's not a clean break. Well, could be that it's not meant to be a clean break right from the first day when I gave the letter.

I stayed up to 2am yesterday night to clear my laptop of personal stuff, and to draft the goodbye/thank you emails. It's sad to say goodbye.

Now, I finally close the page on this wonderful chapter in my life.

(I thought of writing about what I'm going to do tomorrow and during the break, but I think this posting should end here. Another chapter will begin right away, but let me linger at this chapter's ending for a while more....)

Year end closing

Still counting down; only 2 weeks left.. happy me!!

Had a very busy week doing year end close. On tuesday, worked till almost 12 mn. Yesterday was the first fri of the year, worked till almost 9. This morn, took Lynn to office (wk not in spore again). I thot that we can leave in time to go to her 1115 Chinese speech n drama class, but in the end she missed it totally. Feel guilty about it, but what to do? Work is work, must finish; I guess that's why I quit..

Here's 2 photos of her taken at my office.

Spring cleaning

It may look the same to u, but it's not to me. My last spring cleaning of my cubicle at Gf. I take good care of my cubicle; it's where I spend a lot of hours in.
I have been neglecting my "zhu", which is already nearly 5 years old. So I thoroughly clean it today. Today is new year's day; I cut away some of it's rotten roots. So it will either die or grow more beautifully. Something new, something to look forward to in 2012. Happy new year to all.

Christmas team building

This year, I did not organize christmas party for the department; didn't have the time. Instead I "negotiated" for a afternoon off for my team and the fixed assets team on 23rd Dec. We booked 2 tables at Peach garden at OCC for Dim Sum lunch. After lunch, we had a round of bowling at Orchid Bowl. It was very fun, and I got a very nice team photo.

Here's some photos of the gift giving in the morning in office, and the team photo at Orchid Bowl:
Karen, a very very special girl:

Audrey, another very special character:

We posed with Sook Mei and the flowers we did for her:

My team, with "lao ban" Mr Soon and "lao ban niang" BC:

Another special friend, Shirley:

The prettiest in our office, Mui Fong:

Me and my team in my cubicle, starting with Pech, Stella and Lynn:

Stella wants a individual photo with me:

My fab 7 girls, Jeannie and Jasmine:

Rosalind, pity that our "yuan fen" is very short:

Exel; on the day I interviewed him, the first thing I ask him for is a short name (his real name is 8 to 9 character long):

My dear Kelly, a very strong character lady. I will miss working with her. Really wish her good luck and successful career:

At Orchid Bowl, a photo with part of the fixed assets team:

A very nice pic with my fabulous team:

Carol and flower

This year, I did not organize christmas party for the department; didn't have the time. Instead I "negotiated" for a afternoon off for my team and the fixed assets team on 23rd Dec. We booked 2 tables at Peach garden at OCC for Dim Sum lunch. After lunch, we had a round of bowling at Orchid Bowl. It was very fun, and I got a very nice team photo.

Here's some photos of the gift giving in the morning in office, and the team photo at Orchid Bowl:
Karen, a very very special girl:

Audrey, another very special character:

We posed with Sook Mei and the flowers we did for her:

My team, with "lao ban" Mr Soon and "lao ban niang" BC:

Another special friend, Shirley:

The prettiest in our office, Mui Fong:

Me and my team in my cubicle, starting with Pech, Stella and Lynn:

Stella wants a individual photo with me:

My fab 7 girls, Jeannie and Jasmine:

Rosalind, pity that our "yuan fen" is very short:

Exel; on the day I interviewed him, the first thing I ask him for is a short name (his real name is 8 to 9 character long):

My dear Kelly, a very strong character lady. I will miss working with her. Really wish her good luck and successful career:

At Orchid Bowl, a photo with part of the fixed assets team:

A very nice pic with my fabulous team:

Long night

Quarter end closing today, still in office.. going to be a long long night..

Some flowers which I bought last week.