Enslaved

Company rule #xx - Produce a medical certificate (MC) for your absence at work due to illness or discomfort.

Don't understand why companies have to treat working adults as children. When I'm sick, I just want to stay at home and self-cure using natural remedies or simple household medicine. I don't see the need to visit the doctor every time. To visit the doctor just to get an MC sometimes become more of a chore. You're sick and trying to avoid the air-con, but still have to drag yourself to the clinic and wait in the queue to be attended to. What's worse, some doctors treat you with the mentality of treating schoolchildren. They think you are visiting them just to escape work and not really that you're unfit for work. Won't that time be better spent sleeping away, letting the body recuperate?

We should adopt the approach of the Europeans. Just call to inform you are unwell for the day and your boss will exempt you based on trust and not on some slip of paper. A good employee would not abuse this trust while those who would are not worth keeping in the company for long anyway.

Stepping up to the bigger perspective, I feel corporate stifles one's freedom and enslaves us employees. You are bound to the office (or work-related venues) for at least eight hours a day, have to report to your bosses, report on your deliverables and get graded every half-yearly or yearly.

Such a caged life!

回顾中秋

I recall vividly how we used to play lanterns at our old house during Mid-Autumn festivals. The 3 of us siblings had our own favourite lanterns or for the earlier years, just simply the usual paper lanterns. We burnt the candles, carefully stuck them at the bottom of the lantern and carried the whole piece around our house. It seemed like we used to have a spare room in the old house (or that it was spacious and rather under-utilised) where we played with the lit lanterns. The best and most fun part was the burning. Due to the unsecured candles, the lanterns often got burnt by the loose candle (with its flame) and caught a mini-fire. We would then throw the burning lanterns on the floor and stamped on them when they were near dying-out.

That were the childhood days.

In NUS, as the festival coincided with inauguration for the Freshmen, there were beautiful lightings hung on the trees around the UCC. My hall stay during my last year of studies was at Sheares Extension where these lights could be seen. There was this happy festive hanging in the airs. Though I didn't get to carry lanterns or eat mooncakes then, I recalled enjoying the festival still just by absorbing the beauty of the colours and lightings.

WW and I have spent 4 Mid-Autumn festivals together. Heh, but I can't seem to recall the first 3 occasions except the last. We went up to Kent Ridge Park with a mooncake in hand and some lanterns. When we were about to start the mooncake feast, we realised we didn't bring along a knife and WW used his keys (wrapped with tissue) instead for cutting. There was a platform set up and we just sat on one of its edge, munching our mooncake and taking in the night view of Kent Ridge and Pasir Panjang houses below. We don't usually make deliberate efforts to spend occasions like this together (since we both don't really fancy mooncakes) but seize whatever opportunities we have.

The sweet little moments in life. How we wish for more of them amidst our busy work lives.

Frustrating Work

It’s disappointing at work when you tried hard for something but do not get the outcome desired. And it’s not your fault but the lack of commitment from fellow colleagues. Or perhaps it’s the culture here – fire-fighting and projects consume most of your time that you have little or no time left for other important matters.

That’s why sometimes I wished I were in the upbeat, open-culture place instead.

But thinking doesn’t help. The next step is to seriously consider and plan the 5-year roadmap. Where is my guiding light?

SoC Dragons 2002/03 gathering

Our gathering @ Paulaners

It has been a while! Till a point where I couldn't differentiate who are from my junior batch and who from my junior's junior batch. Only remember XL and I are the oldest.

Five years on, we all are still in the IT industry. Perhaps with the exception of Steven and Julian, who manage to do more of IT-related work in cable and financial services sector. And me la, the one who still doesn't know where to venture for non-IT work.

Sam, Tong (the two guys at back row right-end) and I still meet up rather frequently and keep in touch with one another's happenings. With the others, we don't meet that often and with this gathering brought some pleasant news from some of them. Julian is engaged with his other half and XL is getting married to Stephen on the 19th of this month. Congrats! Another two marriages are from Tong & YJ and Jack & JY. Wedding bells chiming everywhere!

---

Boo. I've been having headaches almost everyday since two weeks back. What's happening?

简单就是美

Our extended weekend was simple.

I got a slice of experience of being in his office, mapping his previous description of the office to the images I saw through my eyes. The blue walls, the windowless space yet being sufficiently spacious, the messiness (actually it wasn't that bad) of his table and the unwashed mug on his table with residual coffee at the inner bottom. Then, there was the greenness surroundings, the vastness of the landing fields and the craft he has spent often racked his brains over for. In a way, his workplace allowed him the flexibility and freedom of movement, which I suppose he values quite a fair bit. Yep, I appreciate him bringing me around and introducing to the place he works at every workday.

Then it was bread-baking at home on Fri after the hangar open house. Spent 3 hours plus getting the two loaves of raisin bread out; happy that it was a success! Luckily there was an engineer at home to help adjust the oven temperature and timings. The under-performing Takada oven would have to go soon! WW and his parents found it of some standard, but too bad my own mama papa just dumped the whole loaf into the fridge and didn't cover it up. Thus it became a little too dry. But mama sang praises of it nevertheless. Didn't know one could be so proud of a bread loaf. Hoho

Saturday we were shifting some flower and plant pots and some furniture from Hillside Drive to Blandford Drive. WW and family will be moving to their new house on coming Friday. The new house is very-almost done and all the lightings, deco and feature walls are completed. It's beautiful place; can't wait to own a piece of it! Haha... (just kidding)

Today is Papa's bday and we headed off to Mong Hing Teocheow restaurant. Busy Shou Bi came down directly from his hostel at NTU and went back to his hall after lunch. Such family meals out are not that frequent anymore now that Shou Bi has his own very-packed life in uni. He has joined the Motoring Club and ODAC in uni. Hope he still has time for studies and don't end up with one more year of studying. Furthermore, Tian spends most of her weekend with Hen, sometimes wii-ing away. Good thing WW likes dinner at my place and we have that with mama papa almost every Sunday evening.

Reflecting back, it is a bliss to lead a simple life. Both WW and I don't ask for much, we live our days doing what we like (most of the time), don't particularly have to handle unpredictabilities in our lives and are pretty easy-going. To soak in the late afternoon sun earlier today, we went downstairs to fly a kite at the open area beside my HDB block. He controlled the kite movements while I released/wound up the kite string. It was a simple old-day childhood activity yet it could bring us relaxation and joy. You really don't need a lot to be happy.

Franz Liszt's Liebestraum (Dream of Love)

And meanwhile practising hard on this which I started half a year ago.

I'm hooked onto this

My new piece to master! May I conquer it in half a year!