I still wake up at 6.15am or 6am and that pisses me off. I am someone who needs a lot of sleep. So if I have to wake up that early, it can only mean one time- sleep earlier. So by 9pm I will have to prepare to sleep. Yes, I am a loser. I think I will die in college. HAHA. Okay, maybe it is a matter of choice that I sleep early and wake up early so I can catch a ride from my dad. But now that I am working at SP, I kind of appreciate the fact that my dad wakes up so early without fail (okay, maybe sometimes he doesn't hear the alarm and we all turn up late) to make breakfast for us and drive all of us to school. Last year was mad. My dad had to stop by 3 places: Kranji Secondary, Nan Hua Primary and finally RJC. So I finally understand the scarifices he makes each morning and I really admire his strength and consistency because he starts work at 8am earliest and he often reach school way early at 7.30am or so. Sometimes he goes for a run and I have been for a morning jog together with him once and I didn't really like running in the cool morning and I still feel sleepy. I'm really looking forward to the end of the Chinese New Year because the swimming pool will be opened officially and I can swim there finally after almost a year.

Shocking news, my dad says his colleague reads my blog. Well, if you are the colleague, all I can say is: I hope you enjoy reading my blog and please don't spread the word because I cannot handle the attention. LOL. It's been almost one month now. Next month will be a short one at work, what with the Chinese New Year holidays and all. Sometimes I feel that I am bursting from the work I have to do. Work has changed me because now I eschew from the computer when I get home and I try my best not to have anything to do with it even in weekends. HAHA. Facing the computer for 9hours, 5days a week is enough for me man. There is so many things about work that I feel like noting down but I am not sure if this is the right place to do it, especially with the lack of privacy these days. But nonetheless I will try to write a bit about it. Maybe the main points for the hungry reader out there. (Notice the singular for reader because other then my dad's colleague every other possible reader is in NS while I can think of one reader/stalker in Melbourne now but that's for later..)

Work. Someone needs to come up with a better version of Lotus Notes. Or maybe come up with a totally different system altogether. Lotus Notes gives me a lot of problems. Firstly, I cannot send big files to people and most of the time due to work, people from all over come to me to request for photos from events etc. and I have to send it to them or burn it in a CD for them. What I feel is that the file capacity that can be transferred through emails should be expanded so I can save CDs and people don't have to come to me personally to collect CDs after all we all know they are busy people. Next, I always cannot find the person I need to transfer a call to because the search system in Lotus Notes is not capable of searching accurately and quickly. Thirdly, my colleagues are always complaining about being locked out of the system as their inbox is over the brim. I know that Lotus Notes prompts the user to delete their mail or store it somewhere else but apparently it is not good enough. And I don't know what is the obsession with emails and phone calls and privacy. Why can't people just get their butts off the chair and get out of their room/cubicle and walk over to someone they need to speak to. I mean how much time can you save and a little exercise is always good. I am sure there are better systems out there but the public service uses Lotus Notes which is not a very good emailing system. I am so used to gmail that when I started using Lotus Notes I appreciate gmail more.

Interpersonal skills. I have breakfast with my dad and his colleagues most of the time. It's either Food Court 3 or 4 which are closer to the car park that my dad parks his car. I love the view from Food Court 3, when you sit near the end facing the soccer field, you see 3 beautiful rain trees and some other trees which I cannot identify. But the view is fantastic and I can see a windmill like thing in the distance too. And I will be reading TODAY and later when I get to my office I will read The Straits Times before my colleagues need them. I get all kinds of newspapers on my desk in the morning from all 4 languages and even The Business Times, My Paper, The New Paper etc. This is a good thing because it means that I don't have to read the papers when I go home. My colleagues are.. unique. Now that the interns are gone, it is really quiet and I don't know who to have lunch with. Lunch time is a test. The people in my office stick to their cliques during lunch time and they mostly go out of SP for lunch. I haven't tried all the food courts here yet so I don't feel the urge to get out of here and eat somewhere else. I guess people here are not so particular about the time they go for lunch. Officially it's from 1 - 2pm but it can be flexible if you decide to go for early lunch or you have extra work. Some people never eat. At least that is my impression of them. While others like to bring back their food to the office. I like my food outside of office. I hope that I can work in a more friendly and alive place. An office that doesn't feel like an office. I hear that in Google, the employees love their workplace so much they don't want to go home. I can understand that at some places like in a school, an office must be an office but the depatment that I am working in seems to call for a workplace with more creativity? Well I don't know but given a choice I would like to work at somewhere like Google where I feel at home in the office. One more thing that I am not very pleased about is the bureaucracy and lack of transparency. Maybe because I am at the bottom of the hierarchy so it hits me directly and the most. I get chided by for it too. Like it is my fault when didn't make it clear. We shall not go into talking about because this entry is long enough and there is so many more significant things to talk about.

Seeing that I am mainly doing menial and mindless tasks I have made vowed to get a robot one day if I am someone with authority because I will stop making people do degrading work. Yes it trains the character and allows you to connect with the people down there in future but is it really necessary for people to do this kind of tasks? That is why I believe that in the near future machines will replace man. What saves me from insanity is MSN and Windows Media Player. Thank god for all the wonderful entertainment devices that people create so that I can cling onto some sanity. Perharps the most important lesson that I have gained is this simple sentence: Do what you like and like what you do.

But often it is not as simple as it seems. When you find something you really like, your colleagues may not be fantastic. And then the opposite is true. So I guess you gain some and lose some, at the end of the day you must feel a sense of satisfaction in whatever you are doing in order to stay sane and to survive. I need a job I can grow to like.

Today is the day that our dear friend Tan Kang Wei or Kang Wei Tan aka kwt says goodbye to us and flies off to Melbourne in search of a better tomorrow and for a 2-year head start relative to his fellow guy friends in sunny Singapore. I wish him all the best and I know he will be able to make it. Hey Kang Wei, if you are reading this you are probably one of the only reader who has seen this blog through all the seasons. (Although we only have the rainy and sunny season here in Singapore). I hope you get into one of your US universities and I really really hope I can meet you there because that will mean I get into one of my US universities too. HAHA. It's strange that we are so close when it's only 2 years. I guess it's because you are a stalker and because you are close to Chun Tsen to start with. Please enjoy that CD and yes I am getting to like Sufjan Stevens more and more especially after Little Miss Sunshine! HAHA. Woofie will miss you, actually maybe he won't since you don't really like him in the first place! LOL. =D TAKE CARE!!! Get a tan please and some muscles! HAHA.