The Value of Money

A few days ago, my boss was talking about the value of money which kept me thinking. Value of money not in Economic terms, but people’s perspective towards the value of money. Especially when we try to put a price in our relationships, be it towards partner, family, friends or mentor.

For example, when buying a birthday gift to a close friend. We often get too focused on the price of the gift rather than the value of the gift. We weigh the value by keeping to the budget on the price of the gift that particular friend had bought for us previously, instead of weighing the value on the friendship and focusing on the effort in searching for a gift which that friend will like, even if may cost a little more.

On the other hand, I am guilty that at times, I tend to spend more on others (going party with friends) and try to “save” by giving lesser to our love ones taking for granted that they will understand. Initially I thought it is “saving money”, however it’s wrong. The thing is, we can spend a little lesser on restaurants/cafes/beers/cabs to spend a little more on others who are worth to make them a bit happier.

The value of money is to make sure the money that we spent is worth something, which is investment. How many times we will buy meals/gifts for their mentor(someone who have helped or guided us) to show appreciation and gratitude? Honestly, sometimes we spend too much money and time with people who doesn't even help us to be a better person or you might even question if they will still be there 3 years down the road.

Yes, spending money on your bosses might get you more opportunity. However, the thin line is between trying to curry favour and showing gratitude. That is a grey line. It is our attitude that defines which side we are on.

Saving all our money wouldn’t help us to gain more money. It is just like, you have more food because you starve yourself. At the end of the day, you have more food but poorer health or even die. Quite a stupid example but you get what I'm talking about. haha.

I need to learn how to invest my money. I don’t mean by literally investing all my money in buying stocks, property or insurance. These are just one of it to invest to get more monetary returns.

Some money are meant to be spent. Investing a little money to show gratitude to our love ones who are always there to support us. Investing money to show gratitude to our mentors who spend their time and effort to give us knowledge, skills and opportunities. Not telling you to spend all your money blindly but being less calculative towards love ones.

In addition, I need to invest in myself more. Spending money to learn new or improve skillsets, read more books, buy more clothes to dress with confidence, sign-up for gym membership to keep fit, spending more time with the right people. These will help to add values in me in order to earn more income, opportunities and better relationships in the future.

My boss said,  小钱不出，大钱怎么会进来 and I believe in this.

I want to list this down, so I can always look back and remind myself. Hopefully, someone can find meaning in this post and share with me how they feel. :) 

I'm Back but Everyone is Gone

Yes, I back to blog again but I guess the few readers that I've gained has gone. I can't believed that I actually didn't blog for nearly 3 months. Time flies man! 

Nothing much happened over the past 3 months. Just busy working like a bull and having company events. Let me show off some pictures before i bore you to death with my grandmother story.

Hawaii themed year end party.

With Rebound Team

Rebound and B2B Team

 Like a siao char bor

Christmas eve count down

New year count down

Team night with Forte team

Karaoke with the owners

and I think my boss treats me better because I can sing better. LOLOLOL.

Lunch with the admin team

dinner with Forte Team

I am glad that some managers actually asked me to join their team night even when I'm not even doing their recruitment for them. much appreciated. =)  

So far, I'm happy working in the company. We are not just about having fun, when it comes to work, I do get stressed up. So stressed that the pimples are all growing back and it has to be during the cny season. Fuck. One of my biggest new year resolution for 2013, to have a clear and pimple-free face! 

Oh yeah, I've finally changed my hugeass phone! My galaxy tab has been a really good companion for the past 2 years. At first thought of buying Iphone 5 but still ended up buying a Note 2. I've yet to explore the phone yet. Just using it for basic use. I hope I won't regret my choice. 

Cny is just a few days away and I haven freaking pack my room! Maybe I should just leave it the way it is and stop people from visiting my house for cny. LOL.

Journey to the Working Society Begins...

I know this title sounds weird as I have graduated like 3 months ago. Even though I have been working part time in between but mostly it was just 1 week kind of work. So doesn't really count as a real job. This time I finally found one full-time job. I am giving myself 3 months to test the waters. Hopefully I can stick to this job for long or that the company will convert me to a confirmed staff. I am really too lazy to look for another new job!

Worked for two weeks already, so far not so good. Colleagues and bosses are really nice people. Its just that my work performance is not that good. Made a big mistake last week as I placed a candidate to the wrong product training. As my director was at overseas, the manager reported the matter through the group whatsapp and I apologised for my mistake. The director replied, "the managers should be held responsible." and the managers began to apologise as well. I felt damn bad la because it was really my mistake for not checking properly and had to implicate the managers. Then I received a private whatsapp from my director stating,

 "don't worry. everybody learn from mistake. It's okay to make mistake just don't repeat the same mistake. next time clarify with the managers first."

People around me all telling me its okay and don't worry about it. That makes me felt more guilty and angry at myself for making the stupid mistake. I strongly believed that people cannot be praised. The day before I was still being praised by my managers that I'm very hardworking. The very next day, this shit happened. REALLY IS CANNOT PRAISE ONE. But fortunately, the bosses and colleagues are really forgiving.

Just before I can calm myself down, another problem arises. I can only blamed myself for being a smart aleck. My HR manager asked the admins if anyone knows how to make a photo video. No one answered a thing, I raised my hand and said, "I can". 

Because I've made videos before using windows movie maker, I thought it would be a piece of cake. Neither did I expected that it is a GIGANTIC piece of cake that is too hard to swallow. I used two days to create the video using windows movie maker and just when I completed putting 500 photos with music, it just couldn't be saved. Probably due to the huge video size. 

So I went to Wei Shan's house to learn making the video using Macbook. Did all the way till midnight and finally managed to save it successfully. Tested the video at the office's TV(thats where they gonna display it), to my horror, it couldn't be supported. I was like,

Spent my entire weekend trying to convert the video to FLV format. Its either the free software can only covert a small size of the video or totally don't work. I even tried to upload to youtube and download the video as FLV version. Did managed to download the video but some of the songs were gone. TELL ME WHAT DID I DO WRONG TO DESERVE THIS. 

It was really frustrating but I don't want to just leave it hanging there, I want to complete my job nicely to impress my bosses. lols. Too ambitious huh~ okay la, not impress, at least not causing damage to my image that I'm unprofessional. Last resort, gonna head over to Wei Shan's house and try converting the video. If it still doesn't work, I'll really 死了这条心.

Wish me luck.

Sentosa Boardwalk and King Louis Grill & Bar

*Warning*  This post will be filled with massive of pictures. Read only if you don't mind seeing me and my friends' faces. lols.

Finally meet up with my polymates after a few months. Having an outing with them never fail to make me feels happy and LOTS of pictures will be taken. The most vain bunch of girls I have. Wait, probably just Wu Xiao Yan. wahahaha!  As Starbucks was having a 1-for-1 promotion for Salted Caramel Mocha, the girls bought from Singapore Poly and delivered it all the way to Vivocity for me. If you are wondering why can't we just buy it at Vivocity, its because I was supposed to meet them at SP but was late so I ended up meeting them at Vivo instead. Thanks girls! <3

As Jing Yu was late as well, the rest of us waited for her at Sentosa boardwalk, enjoying the breeze and camwhore.

Forgot to mention that the Salted Caramel Mocha taste really nice!

Xiao Yan, Yin Mei and Boon Kee

So loving~~

Saranghae~ <3

Feels like I'm at overseas

A small Xiao Yan in my camera screen

Here it is, Xiao Yan's model pose. haha

Camera war with Boon Kee

A hard time squeezing to fit in the camera screen because of  my short hand

See the difference? Yin Mei's the one holding the cam btw.

I love this picture, it makes my legs look longer. 

So Xiao Yan and Boon Kee did the same thing with the desire to get the same results. LOLS

Congratulations, you have survived through the photo spamming. Now its time for food! We had our dinner at King Louis Grill & Bar. It is Singapore's one and only castle themed restaurant serving medieval cuisine. You can even see man-sized armored knights standing charmingly at each corner of the restaurant.

*Credit to King Louis Grill&Bar facebook page*

There are promotions for the main courses during the weekdays. 

Calamari

Taste average only.

This dish consists of dory fish, prawns, potatoes and salad. Taste average too. I like how the cheese is covered on the prawns like a blanket. cheesy~

BBQ Chicken Pullet

Oven Roasted Chicken served with mesclun and straight cut fries. 

We love this dish the most! The strong BBQ sauce really matches well with the chicken meat. As I took the drumstick, the meat was really tender. The sauce even goes well with the fries. Can't get enough of it.

We ordered a pasta to share as we didn't want all our maincourse to be too "meaty". It is chilli pasta with pieces of chicken and mushroom. I think it taste pretty good as they used the kind of chillli paste that is layered on top of grilled stingray where you get at hawker centres. However, it was way too spicy for us. Even Xiao Yan, the chilli eater said its too spicy. Boon Kee was worse, she just ate a few sticks of pasta and never touch it again. Only Jing yu could take the spiciness. Kudos to her.

Our group picture.

Total bill was around $66. Quite cheap due to the promotion and we managed to try quite a few dishes. Love the never-ending conversation with the girls! =)

King Louis Grill & Bar

1 Harbourfront Walk

#03-07A Vivocity

Singapore 098585

Tel: 6276 0862

Operating hours: 12pm - 11pm

*ps: I am so pumped up for the Johnnie Walker F1 event at Gardens by the Bay later!!! 

Good Looks Don't Always Secure a Job Opportunity.

You must be wondering, how can this be. In this practical and cruel world, having good looks will make your life so much easier. This is because people are always bias, ok wait, maybe I should phrase in a nicer way, people are NATURALLY bias towards good-looking people. There is nothing wrong here. I admit that I do admire good-looking people on the streets everytime. Therefore, I think its really a bonus to be good looking.

My cousin who is a HR executive once told me that sometimes she don't mean to show favoritism towards good-looking people but its just natural instinct that made her tend to be nicer towards them. Of course good looks don't mean everything. But remember, the interviewer doesn't know you inside out, they can't judge your skills or character just through one interview. Thats why we have to always give a good impression. The first 30 seconds of a interview is critical where the interviewer will create an impression of you. So if you are good looking or pleasant, you've created a good impression and it will be half the battle won.

If you've been following my blog, you should know that I am currently looking for a job. It didn't go smoothly for me as I've mentioned in my previous post, I sent ten resumes and only two replied me. So I thought it must be that my resume is not impressive, I've no work experience or the picture of my face attached to the resume simply cmi. lols.

Seems legit so far, but it was until yesterday when I was looking at tips for interviews, I came across this interesting article which I want to share with you.

"According to their research, good-looking females received 6% fewer callbacks than plain-looking females and 23% fewer callbacks than women without pictures."

AND THE EXPLANATION IS THAT,

"HR departments are commonly staffed by an overwhelming majority of females. The more good-looking applicant may be viewed, subconsciously or otherwise, as a threat to overall workplace well-being and self-confidence—especially if the hiring staff think themselves aesthetically inferior to the female applicant in question. "

Credits  to stjobs

WTF, so that means you can actually not get selected for job interviews because you are too good-looking and the HR staff is just simply jealous and inferior to have you around the workplace. This is quite sad, really. To a certain point, its a hard fact.

Though male bosses might highly prefer good-looking females employees so that there will be something for them to look forward to in the workplace, LOL, but even before the bosses can meet you , the HR staffs already filter the candidates and gives you a red card. So for male bosses and workers, if you always wonder why your comapany no pretty ladies, now you know who to blame. Hahahaha.

This article extremely interesting and I extracted out the important parts. The article even mentioned that good-looking males will get an advantage because the HR staffs are just horny. LOLS. ok, the latter one is said by me. You can read the article here!

So now I finally understood why I receive so few replies from the companies. Tmd, 原来都是HR搞得鬼! I don't mean to accuse all the females working in the HR department, don't blame me, that's what reported in the article and me wanting to end the post with a self-praise. LOLOL!

Short Update: Working Part Time

Yes, like the title implies, just started working part-time through agency. Previously, I’ve sent around 10 resumes and I got no replies(Received a call for interview the next day after I posted this). I thought maybe I should find a part-time job while waiting and searching for a full-time job to earn some money. Who knows, I only applied 1 temp job and within 30mins I received a call from agent.

Today is the 2^nd day of work. So far, so good. At first was abit stressed as the colleagues teach quite fast and expect me to 一点就明. Sometimes I'm too free that I might be idle for a few hours but the General Manager’s room is right behind me and I have to keep acting busy even when I’ve nothing to do. Lols.

Oh ya, my Managing Director is a German and he is very friendly. Always smiling to his employees. Got one time I need to walk pass him in a small area, he even stepped aside and let me through first. So gentleman! He totally has no MD airs. 

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not being Barbarella here. lols

 *I self-caption this. 

Just that previously I worked part-time in a Japanese company and the Japanese MD was totally different from this MD I am working for. The Jap MD really looked like those big bosses in dramas. Stern with strong aura. So I am amazed at the difference.

Anyway, I am glad that my in-charge is quite a nice man and he told me that tomorrow will be a busy day for me. I am more than happy to accept the workload with open arms provided that it’s not too complex for me.  Time will pass faster this way. Initially they require me to work at least for 2 weeks but my in-charge informed me that I will only need to work till this Friday as they’ve found a full-timer. Don’t know if I should be happy or sad about it.

Looking at the bright side, it might allow me to focus on looking for full-time job. Everytime when I reach home, I just wanna lay flat on my bed and sleep. Always ended up too tired to look for jobs.

Its frustrating that most companies want to hire someone with qualifications BUT with experience as well.  But how do you expect a fresh graduate to have at least 2 years of working experience? I am willing to learn, but are companies willing to give me a chance? Aiya, I understand that companies prefer to hire someone with experience so that they don’t have to teach everything from A-Z about the position.

Furthermore, I know clearly that I’ve no extraordinary skills and have returned all the things I’ve studied back to school. In fact I felt ashamed, like what’s my degree for. That’s when I realize a degree is really worthless. Maybe its just me. Lols.

One thing I have to admit, the main problem lies with me as well. There are all kinds of jobs, its whether I am willing to take it or not. For example, there are a lot of sales-related jobs but I won’t even lay my finger in this field because I know I can’t articulate well and convince clients to buy from me though the pay is high due to commission earned. I managed to find some interesting jobs such as being a visual merchandiser but they don’t require a degree holder to do it unless you don’t mind getting paid $2000 per month. Obviously I do mind because I need to pay bank loan for my school fees. After paying bank loan and deducting cpf, seriously not enough to save for the future. Woes of being a poor degree holder. Also in some cases, just by looking at the amount of job scope/responsibilities automatically make me click the cross on the top right hand corner. Its like, “one person how to do so many things?! 做死人 meh”.

Note to self: This will be my first permanent job and I won’t rush to find one because I’ll be spending at least 2 years in the company to gain experience. So better take time to find a job that I like. All good things are worth waiting for. God might be saving a nice job for me. =)

Okay. This short update is not short at all and I need to sleep already. Bye~

Teeth Dropping in Dreams

Have you ever had a dream that your teeth is falling out from your mouth?

It happened to me last night. Every time I bite my teeth together, I could feel the teeths shaked vigorously and eventually spitting them out. Yeah, not one teeth, but most of the teeths in my mouth. In fact, I had this kind of dream quite a few times already till the extent that I am worried whether these dreams signify something bad is going to happen to me.

Therefore, I went to google about it and guess what, I just typed, "teeth falling" and the first result is about teeth falling out in dreams. Seems like alot of people are having the same dream as me.

If you had the same dream before, I am going to tell you what are interpretations for this dream. To my surprise, they are actually quite accurate!

Anxiety about appearance and how others perceive about you:

  "One theory holds that dreams about teeth, and losing teeth, are a reflection of the dreamer’s anxiety about his or her appearance, and about how the dreamer thinks others perceive him or her. This interpretation is certainly valid, especially since we live in a society that seems to value physical beauty above all else. Since a good set of teeth play an important role in physical beauty, it is easy to see how uncertainties about one’s appearance could manifest themselves in dreams about losing teeth."

Credit to Dream Interpretation

This is so true! All my friends know that I've been very worried about the pimples on my face. Some of them find that I'm overreacting but trust me, I have so many pimples that they look like a world map printed on my face. They are not so visible to my friends because I always covered them up with makeups. I shall blog about this next time. But those pimples really made me worry about my appearance that I don't even dare to step out of the house. Seems like it is affecting me too much that cause me to have this kind of dreams.

Loss of power:

"Another theory holds that teeth in dreams represent power, since they are used in real life to tear, chew, and bite. Therefore, the loss of teeth in a dream represents a perceived loss of power or influence. People who feel frustrated, or who feel that their voices are not being heard, may have dreams about losing teeth. You may be experiencing feelings of inferiority and a lack of self-confidence in some situation or relationship in your life. "

Credit to Dream Interpretation

Yeah, definitely feels inferior to have those little red devils on my face. =(

There are also different types of teeth dreams. For entertainment purposes, I'll list down for those interested!

Pulling teeth:

" Dreams of this nature can suggest that you are being pulled into something that you don’t like. If you know of anyone in your life right now that is causing you to do something you may not want, then you might have the answer.  Though, if you are the one who is pulling out your teeth might suggest you are pulling yourself way to hard and need to slow down. If a doctor is pulling on your teeth in your dream you have overlooked going to your doctor for way too long. "

credit to Dream Dictionary

Rotting teeth:

" It symbolizes our anxieties of the events and people that surround us at this given moment. Rotting means something is going bad and your involved, hence your teeth.  Knowing who was in your dream with your or the location your at can point to a rotting situation."

 credit to Dream Dictionary

This means that in your dream, if someone is with you when your teeth is rotting, this means that person might the cause or associate with some on-coming bad events.

Broken teeth:

" If your teeth are chipped or broken can mean many things depending on what events that are happening right now in your life.  Broken or chipped dreams imply that something in your life needs more attention before it falls apart. Sometimes we experience these dreams when we are trying to fix something that might be broken, like our relationships. If your dream involves somebody breaking your teeth than that might suggest that somebody is trying to break you down.  It is also possible that you might need to keep your mouth shut.  If you notice somebody with a chipped tooth suggest that you might feel bad for that person. "

credit to Dream Dictionary

False teeth:

" Having “False Teeth” in your dream means breaking rules or lying. Did you say or do something that ended up hurting somebody? Did you tell a secret where you were told not to tell? Did you say something that was inappropriate? Try and look at if you broke a promise to somebody in your past and it might help you understand why you had this dream of your false teeth. False teeth can mean that your covering up or lying. "

credit to Dream Dictionary

Spitting out teeth:

" Spitting out your teeth in dreams are pretty common and it generally happens to people who are older. This dream can mean that you are afraid of getting older and loosing your looks. If your always concerned about your looks or afraid of getting old you will be getting this dream more than once in your life. Another meaning to this dream can imply that your are admitting something that you have held back for while and you expressed it in a direct manner. "

credit to Dream Dictionary

You don't have to believe and take it too seriously. Can just use it for reference if you happened to have a teeth dream. =)