Work + Leisure

Met up at Leng Kee CC this morning for another round of briefing and synchronisation of PDAs. We were informed on how to deal with difficult situation by real life examples. Got a total of 11 submitted surveys and i'm the fastest in my team. Muahaha.... The rest got an average of around 8 submitted surveys. I guess i'm just lucky to get more households who are present.

Went with 2 of my colleagues to a hawker centre for some drinks before meeting up with ks as i had to pass my camera to him. We went carrefour suntec and there was a mini clearance sale of cds and vcds. I was tempted to buy a few vcds as they were only selling at $5 but did not buy any after some consideration. Had lunch at kopitiam and went bras basah complex as ks wanted to get some 2nd hand assessment books for his tuition students while i wanted a street directory and bus guide.

Ks left for his David Tao mini concert and i met up with clarence for dinner. We planned to watch Millions at PS but it was sold out and we decided on The Hidden Blade at great world city. The movie timing was quite late and we were roaming around in PS, centrepoint and heeren. Derrick joined us for the movie and fetched us there.

Received bad news that we have to be at Singtel Call Centre tomorrow at 9 am to fix a small problem in the application program in our PDAs. That means i have to wake up at 7.30 am!

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My night is burnt

Met up with my supervisor and team mates at Leng Kee CC this morning. We were briefed on some more things and had our PDAs loaded with the list of households we are to visit. I was given a group of households in a small area of HDB flats in commonwealth. I was quite happy that i did not get those private estates and condominiums, but i'll surely get them in the future. 3 of my team mates got areas in whampoa which is quite far from their own houses. After having our lunch with one of my teammate, we parted ways and started going around the housing estates to the specific households selected for the GHS interview.

Many of them were not at home and i only managed to get 3 completed surveys and 2 incomplete ones. 10 of the households assigned to me did not have anyone at home. Left for home at around 4.30 pm. Went back to the same area at 8 pm to get those people who had come back from work. Got 4 more submitted surveys and another incomplete one. 8 more to go before completing my whole list but i think it will be hard coz some of them don't seem to be around during the day or night.

Got back at 10.45 pm and spent quite a lot of time to write down my progress which is required by the supervisors. Well, guess i have to sacrifice some time for $$$$. Ka-ching! The rate of 4 households for $70 is really too good to be true, although it is definitely more tiring than an office job.

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Work Vs Leisure

The training today is really boring as there were lectures throughout the morning. Afternoon was worse as there were more lectures and we also have to wait around 1 hour for the supervisors to prepare all the stuff for our work which starts tomorrow. Didn't really talk to my team mates as i didn't really feel like talking to them. I guess it's hard to find topics to talk to guys older than me by at least 5 years. Another boring day of training.

We got our PDAs, accessories and a lot of other stuff after waiting for a long time.
These are all the items issued to us excluding the pile of lecture notes. There are charger, spare batt, ac adapter, paper survey forms in case PDA no batt, pass, certificate of authorisation, pamphlet on GHS, appointment cards, notebook, pen, memory cards, PDA, bag, newspaper report, some pieces of paper and a folder. Tons of things right?

Just showing a solitaire game on a PDA.

Went for a gala premier of Divergence (HK movie starring Aaron Kwok, Ekin Cheng and Daniel Wu) at lido tonight with Zewen as he got 2 free tickets. We thought it was just a normal screening and did not expect some of the stars here (should have brought my camera if i had known). Aaron Kwok, Li Sin Jie and Gallen Lo went on stage in front of the theatre for a short chat with a 933 DJ before the movie started. Sat rather far away from the stage and did not see their features clearly. Anyway, they did not stay in the theatre to watch the movie with us. After watching the movie, we both agreed it is not very good. So don't waste your money on the show.

Meeting at Leng Kee Community Centre before starting work tomorrow. Hopefully i get mostly HDB flats instead of private estates.

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My 4th job and hopefully the longest

Went to watch 2 movies with weiming yesterday, namely Swing Girls and The Interpreter. (Still got Millions and The Hidden Blade left)

Today is my first day of work! Again! Haha.... Today is not really my work day, but my training day. I was quite surprised with the number of people doing the field interview. There were a total of around 70 people and a number of them were uncles and aunties. I think around 80% of the total population there is older than me. Clarence and i were separated into different groups as we live in different parts of Singapore. Those who live in the west are grouped together, same goes for those living in the central and east area. There are lectures and powerpoint presentations to advice us on what to do and what not to do during our stint as a General Household Survey (GHS) officer. We are also given lecture notes on what we are supposed to interview as well. I fell asleep a few times since the topics are really dry and fact-based. After several lectures, we were each given a PDA as we would be using it to store information for the household surveys (no survey papers!).

It was the first time i used a PDA and i must say that it is quite interesting to handle some new nifty gadget. We have to memorise the password to unlock the device as the information we gather from the various household are strictly confidential. Some of the questions we are to ask are the personal particulars, family relations, education levels, working details and loads of stuff. Couldn't possibly remember every single question either. Anyway, we got to play with the PDA, know how to open this and that, and enter the relavant data inside.

Had our lunch break at funan at around 12.45 pm. After that was more lectures on the PDA and many people behind fell asleep including me. The speaker was just too monotonous and humourless to engage our attention. We were then brought to different conference rooms where we had ample time to try out the PDA. Some uncles and aunties who are not so pro with these technology gadgets needed more time and personal help to get used to using the PDA. It became rather simple after a few more tries and i was getting really bored, again. At least i'm getting paid for slacking right? Played the PDA games for a while before the debrief. Left at 5.45 pm. The training went rather well today as we did not have do much, only have to listen and press here and there on the PDA.

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My last movie for this year's film fest

Went with my jc gang to Chinatown this afternoon to buy tickets for the Malaysia trip. A total of 11 people are going for the trip to Kuala Lumpur from 23 to 26 June. The 4 day 3 night free and easy package costs $220, inclusive of accommodation at a 4 star hotel. After buying the tickets, we headed to the cheap cd stores and jimmy bought a whopping 6 china edition cds which only costs $29. We then took a train to somerset as we plan to watch a movie at cineleisure. We decided on The Interpreter but there were only front row seats left and we did not buy the tickets. We contemplated for some time and they decided to join me to watch Samaritan Girl later at night.

I was not pinning too much hope that there will still be tickets available but we went over to the sistic counter at wisma and found out there were still seats from the 3rd row. Thus, they bought 4 more tickets for the 9.15 pm show. Headed to scotts picnic for dinner and made our way to bugis via edwin’s car.

Went to the rest area outside bugis theatres to sit down and chit chat as we don’t have anything to do in the meantime. While walking around after that, we saw Edmund Chen, his maid and daughter in bugis junction as well. We waited for weiming to arrive as he and jiekai are the original duo that is accompanying me to watch the movie. We walked over to shaw towers from bugis and met up with jiekai. It was a bit weird for me as I had to entertain jiekai and weiming who do not know each other and at the same time not neglecting the presence of my jc friends. Luckily, weiming and jimmy knew each other as they used to be from guitar club, and jiekai and clarence knew each other as they used to be sec sch classmates.

After the movie, jk and I saw timothy in the same theatre as well. We got over to his seat and had a brief chat. He had bleached hair which is lighter than mine and he is currently working as a photographer. Going to nus arts & social science in august. Everyone left for home after that. The show is another of Kim Ki-Duk's great accomplishments as a filmmaker and most of us enjoyed the movie.

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End of my slackest week ever

Wednesday, watched Whisky with jk at shaw towers during singapore international film festival. It is quite a depressing film and it affected my mood for a while.

Did not have much to do on thursday and accompanied my sister and maid to my aunty's house as my mum was there. She had brought the car to service and went to my aunty's house to wait for the servicing since her place is quite near. They were playing mahjong as usual and i went to watch tv since i don't have anything else to do. Gave my cousin a mini-tuition session as well. I fell asleep while he was correcting some of his answers. Tuition lessons can be very boring!

Woke up quite early to go swimming with ks today. Arrived around 45 mins later as i was checking the directions to go to Jalan Besar swimming complex. We swam quite a lot of laps and the sun was really good for tanning. Went to have our lunch after that and walked over to sim lim as ks is interested in mp3 players. Coincidentally, i met my bmt mate, jia yi, there and he was quite surprised to see my coloured hairdo. After some research on the price of the mp3 players that ks is interested in, we headed to chinatown as he wanted to check out the cds there as well. We did not spend much time there and headed to orchard after ks bought a china edition FIR's latest album.

We went taka as ks thought that there is a sale there but we did not manage to find any. Went kino for a short while and coincidentally saw my ex-colleague there too. He was meeting other of our ex-colleagues to go to job agencies as they are planning to change jobs. Went library for a while after that and browsed through several shops before heading back.

My mother had planned a mini family gathering and cooked quite a feast for dinner. My rowdy cousins arrived shortly and i exhausted most of my energy playing with them. Couldn't use my com as well since they were playing computer games. Taught some of them the techniques of playing pool as well. Everyone finally left at 3 am and i can get some rest at last. Rather long and tiring day.

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Wholesome family bonding

Spent the past 2 days at home recuperating as i have not recovered fully yet. So it's basically pool games and more pool games with my family members. Been reading Straits Times from the first page to the last page as well. Singapore's gonna have world class resorts in 5 years time! Well, at least there is more things to do in boring singapore next time. Been watching a lot of tv as well.

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Birthdays

Met up with my jc gang on sat afternoon to celebrate meibin's 21st birthday. We headed to marche for the celebration cum early dinner. The full-size cake was not available and the gals bought 2 slices of cake for her. We started to order our dinner after singing her a birthday song and passing our presents to her. I only ordered a crepe as i was also going to have my dinner at qizhi's 21st birthday celebration later. Took a picture after our dinner.

I left at around 6.30 pm and met kp at amk mrt to go to qizhi's place together. The walk there was rather long and we took around 15 mins to reach there. The celebration was at her void deck and there were tables and chairs set up already. Many of her relatives were already there and we started eating. There were not only buffet dishes, but bbq food was available as well. Saw some of my long lost secondary school friends and had some conversation with them for a while. Took a photo of the secondary school friends together before cutting the cake.

Tiring day as i haven't fully recovered as well.

My whole family went out on sunday morning, leaving me alone at home with my maid. Decided to ask liyuan and daryl to my house to play pool since they live nearby. We played pool and computer games for several hours. After that, ly and i headed to shaw towers for SIFF's screening of Tarnation. A very interesting and alternative biography.

Will be slacking for the whole of next week i guess.

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