Saturday, April 22, 2006

i feel so lazzyyy to blog. haha really, i feel laaazzy to breathe la so thats not saying much. loonngg tired day at work. yes calling people is tough ok. my fingers feel kinda numb and i think i have a callus on my index. haha kidding.

anyway i think i've officially earned the title of Most Irritating Person infamous within the tuition agencies circuit.
anyway this other tuition agent found me a job teaching a sec four girl who:
1) wasn't really a poor student she just wanted someone to reassure her that she was smart. ok oookaayy she just "wanted some guidance"
2) sec four. nuff said.
3)wanted me to teach her chem (can), bio (can) and math (wtfff??!!)
4) i'm not done. which topics in math? transformations and vectors(which includes relatvie velocity. i hate that with a vengeance i tell you. i didn't even study that topic for o levels cos it was so gone case for me and i'm so glad. i will forever remember only ONE question came out which combined rv and vectors. i was busy kissing the floor, but i definitely noticed the ppl who were kiasu enough to spend more than their effort's worth of studying on that topic. not rubbing salt into wounds here, but it was really the bane of my existence. note to future sec4s i don't think its gonna get this lucky again)) anyhow...
5) her eng standard is bad. as in she wants me to spk in chinese. ok for one thing my chinese now is....errr.

ok having that all laid out... i don't even KNOW what in tarnation possessed me to accept the job. haha. well technicallyyy i didn't really get all this info from the agent. i got the rude shock when i had to call the girl to confirm.
so the next day i called the agent back and told her i didn't want the job. really, i just wanna teach pri school kids and lower sec so its relatively effortless (i know its terrible to be so lazy i could cry. but this is hols!). she wasn't too happy with me i can tell you. i wonder whyy ;)

12:38 AM

Saturday, April 15, 2006

today is good fridayy so me and my mum went for service. i find that now it seems easier waking up for 11 service cos i've gotten used to dragging my sleep-deprived, eyebag-inflicted self to church by 930 every sun for lessons. haha... so today for once in my whole 18 years (ok not ONCE but like the few rare times) we were not only not late, not on time. we were EARLY! haha yes unbelivably. the chan clan (rather half of it. my dad's away and ren stayed hm) was about half an hour early for easter service. so we got nice front seats at the main hall!! haha. ok i know i sound like a really deprived or bad christian. but i must say when you sit in the mainhall there's a difference compared to watching the service frm cctv. you feel like you're part of it... i didn't start dreaming half way thru the sermon!

well since its easter, i shall get this off my chest. i think the past year i haven't been as close to God as well, last time. i have to admit i'm not a staunch christian so this isn't some holier-than-thou self-righteous speech. its not about going to church la (since my attendance wasn't really great until i started my sit-ins), its more of like the bond with God. i think going to a catholic school changed that. sounds ironic? same here. haha. its just that comparing MG and Cj, prayer and devotions everything was so different... and i am still used to and prefer the methodist way of worship i guess cos i grew up with it. i dunno how to explain it. i think i've been out of the Mg environment for so long, drifted from what i felt was important... anyway i'm gonna mend it. no offense to any catholics, just a my opinion as a methodist. (haha later kena jail or what.)
ok that was kinda serious. but sometimes some stuff can't be explained! as in like miracles. my A levels for instance. i'm not just saying it.. i don't think i would've gotten thru without Him.

ok anyway! i've alr i've graduated from being one of The Unemployed to one of the working druids of society. haha i've joined jolynn telemarketing for the time being until i reach greener pastures. haha. its ok la, pretty mundane. the worst is after lunch my SLEEPIEST point of the day. and i can't even catch a nap cos i'm sitting under a camera. and at the counter facing the public. and get this.. they record all conversations! so much for trusting employees. hehe. but its ok la cos since theres jolynn, i have a kaki to go to and from work, lunch break, toilet break, gossip break... hmmm. slacking around break. warming up break (the stupid office is like bloody antartica so we have to keep going out to warm up) chatting break, bitching about rude customers break. so as you can tell our time is very well spent. haha. i guess at least i'm earning some money and not sitting around at home or in town slacking. i'm sitting in an office slacking! theres a difference haha. but really la, i'm doing something productive so i don't feel so bored and useless. hehe

happy easter all!

12:34 AM

Sunday, April 09, 2006

hey againnn... i'm actually blogging bout something which happened on fri
anyway earlier that aftn a lady from one of the tuition agencies called and i was all excited! yes. i alr started scouting around for jobs. i think its an affliction- once you start working you have to keep working, which is kinda sad isn't it. haha. now i can't imagine how i managed to bum away 2 whole mth! its like i feel really useless and lethargic doing nothing at home. people used to tell me that they MUST work, and i was like just chiiilllll brothaaa ya know peaacccee. haha but that was back when i was still working everyday and feeling really tired, so i didn't understand why their obsessive need to work and be all tired like me. then. haha now i do.
my mum's working now too i'm all alone at home and i hate being alone. put it this way, i rather hear nagging than the silence of being myself in the house. haha.

ok anyway! god, i have to learn to stop digressing. ok so the agency called.

agency: do you want a job at ... (blah blah)... level... sbj... dadeedah. (i was happily taking down notes and all la)

me: (when she was done i asked her the most basic question. cos the day before i was actually offered a job teaching english. imagine. gimme gimme! but the mum didn't like the fact i had no exp. anyway i thought it was best to clarify) does the mum know i have no teaching expereince?

agency: you have tutoring experience.

me: no i don't. i just ended JC

agency: you have experience! i "compose" for you (at least thats the word i think she used. anyway by now i was getting kinda bewildered at her incessant offers of composing dunno what the hell for me. mind you she had a foreign accent so her english wasn't that great)

me: i'm LISAAA. ( in case she got the wrong person)

agency: yes yeess. i compose for you! you have 2 years tutoring experience and A level cert holder. ( then. it dawned on me. "compose"= big fat lie to some poor struggling kid and dumb enough mother for the sake of making money!)

me: umm but if i have 2 years experience, won't that like make me a university student?

agency: yes you'll be 20, 21 years old. (?!?. woman its one thing to lie about my credentials but to lie about my very existence and age?! big fat no. can you imagine? if the mother asks "so dear, hows your (imaginary) university life?" . or if asked "what course you studying?" by inquisitive mothers, for one student i could be studying medicine. next one, law. how illustrious. just call me chan, lisa chan. ok enough crap. as fun as it sounded the basis of it was wrong la.)

me: (speaking really slowly cos i thought she might not understand being foreign and all) ookayy. if i lie, i will get your agency and myself into trouble. you know, when mother find out, everyone in big trouble. (not perfect grammar i know)

agency: (very pregnant silence. oops. probably offended haha. finally-) there's another job... blah blah..

me: (she had but was on sun at 10am! if i didn't have my sunday school sit-ins i could have taken it up! but life's unfair so i turned it down.)

agent: you don't want the 1st job? very easy one (she was getting pissedwith me. rather, she was pissed at me. haha)

me: no, i don't feel comfortable with it. thanks anyway (i could almost see the halo shining on my head and hear the hallelujah chorus. obviously she didn't, cos she hung up with a cross between a "tsk", a "sheesh"-like sound and a "bye")

so apparently what cindy said was true. you can lie like theres no tomorrow and they wont find out either because they can't or because they don't give a damn. i could've been a 4 a's student with 2 special papers passed with distinctions. i could've been an ex-teacher from RJ looking to teach tuition part time. i could've been a garang guni aunty calling for fun. what lousy quality control! i'm never gonna hire tutors from agencies next time.

the worst part is. for a while after that, i was wondering if i should have gone along with the lie

2:52 AM

Wednesday, April 05, 2006

"brag about yourself in less than 200 words" or " invent something nice about your ccas if you have nothing much to say" or " sell yourself to us in 1200 characters". i'm so glad its over! all those boring dumb essays. haha. all that suffering. generally my choices were mostly business, law, arts+social the first few choices... the rest were nothing that interested me much.
big thanks to ma girlies stephyy wef and rachel: for all your warnings/naggings (hey its much appreciated!), so i did log on earlier in the end, or it wouldve been major panic attack come fri night. love you my personal assisstants! haha ok ok i'm so kidding. love you guys, you saved me a hell lot of trauma. owe ya two!

anyway as of 31/3 my contract with imh ended. kinda sad really.. i had kinda grown attached to the place and my co-workers there.
i worked in the call centre with a few middle aged aunties and now i've become an aunty fan :) as in they really know how to take care of you. granted they do nag (believe me, when you make a mistake, its like... whoa. nagsville.) but they are really nice and motherly most of the time. they'll nag you to drink more water, go for lunch break, go hand up the timesheet ("if not you won't get paid!"), and offer you those chinese tidbits like sng buay (which i don't exactly like) until you relent and try a morsel. they would complain about their grouses, from work to headaches to children. i was chief advisor to Everything You Wanted to Know About Why your Children Act the Way they Do and More. and Councellor to those who wondered what they were doing wrong as mothers. everything from warning me about difficult patients who called in, to marching out and scolding the clinic supervisor because a patient made an unjustified complaint about me...they even got me goodbye gifts! a lunch treat and chocolates. haha see why i like them. anyway i felt i owed these aunties so i blew about 10 bucks buying them goodbye gifts too...lotsa snacks. in the beginning i was actually wondering how i was going to work with 4 other middle-aged ladies i had nothing in common with.
also miss my lunch break buddies there whom i learnt alot from... from secrets to working in the career world, to the (horrible) (ok fine sometimes sweet) Truth about married life to aging gracefully (they're only 20 plus?!). haha. enlightening really. and of course the only other JC student there jocelyn.
so as of 31/3, i left my office comfort zone and now am another one of The Unemployed.

i'm currently taking a break now... before i start working again. today was the first real day since a long long time i could sit around and just stone. i woke up wonderfully late and sat around watching lousy morning shows. after lunch i took a long nice nap till dinner. now. haha yea i feel like a real lazy bum but i deserve it! i dunno how i'm gonna manage working life next time la. barely 2 mth and i'm dying! haha.
i better set myself a deadline or i'll bumm away the rest of the hols. haha. ok start job-hunting soon.

anyway after all that obsessing and worrying and loss of appetite and nerves and nailbiting.... my interview went ok! it was more like a discussion. when i saw that one of the prof had an-get this-earring, i knew the interview- "chat" -would be all ok. haha. asked pretty normal stuff like ccas and bout myself... not much of the "why did you choose smu", ie : "please feed our egos and tell us why you hate nus and want to come here instead" kinda bullshit.
much thanx to stephhyy wefff for suffering the scares, and brandon wong for his lousy brandon wong tips that didn't work in the end! well at least for my interview la. haha.
oh i finally signed up for driving too! on mon. we went late (sheepish grin) cos i got off at the wrong effing stop but! because of Fong and Me Persuation or Else Pte Ltd, we managed to get them to process my basic theory appl even tho it was 845. haha. don't mess with the best!

2:45 AM