Riding on the topic of buses (please excuse the pun), I just wonder why I always miss the bus, or generally, miss the opportunity for things in life.
On Tuesday night, I just came out from the shopping centre when I saw the bus that would take me home. I had to cross the road to take it, but I could not. It was the red man. By the time I could cross, the bus had sped away as all passengers have boarded and also because the bus was blocking the crossing (it was a Bendy bus).
No choice. Had to wait another 10 minutes or so.
Last night, I went to pack dinner at a hawker centre. Hokkien prawn noodles. The old man was frying up a big wok of it. He was going to portion it out later. I thought, surely, I was going to get my share. To my dismay, I had to wait for the next round of frying. That took time. Another 8 minutes or so.
Finally got my packet of noodles and was on my way to take the bus, only to see it whizz away, liek it was afraid that anyone else (like me) would try to stop and board it. No this is not the first time this happened, and I am angry with SBS buses.
Waited another 10-12 minutes. Double waiting: wait at the hokkien prawn noodle stall and wait at the bus interchange.
Have I also missed my boat/ bus in life? Missed the chance to meet the right one? Of course, there is no such thing as "the one" or "the right one". It is just a figure of speech.
Well, until I meet my so-called "one", I can only wait... .
Friday, November 30, 2007
Precision timing
Just moved to my new place and the distance from home to work has increased tremendously. The strange thing is that, I am now able to get up on time and get to work on time, without having to rush at all. This proves my own personal theory that the further one stays from a certain point, the more punctual they would be.
Well, I digress a little. The point that I want to make is that I am really amazed with the SMRT buses. It just took me the whole of two days to figure out the timing of the buses and they are really precise!
On the first day, I missed the 7.14 am bus and had to take the 7.31am one. On the second day, I thought I would set out earlier to catch the 7.14am bus, only to see the 7.02am bus whizz by from a distance. Today, I reached the bus-stop at 7am. The bus came at 7.02am. Life is so much easier with such reliable timing. With SBS buses, it was never really so precise.
Of course, I have also learnt from my mistake and not take bus to work in the morning. For although I enjoy bus rides very much (one can almost always get a seat), the unexpected jams on the roads can be time costly. It took me 2 hours to get to work on the first day! Hahaha...what an experience!
Well, I digress a little. The point that I want to make is that I am really amazed with the SMRT buses. It just took me the whole of two days to figure out the timing of the buses and they are really precise!
On the first day, I missed the 7.14 am bus and had to take the 7.31am one. On the second day, I thought I would set out earlier to catch the 7.14am bus, only to see the 7.02am bus whizz by from a distance. Today, I reached the bus-stop at 7am. The bus came at 7.02am. Life is so much easier with such reliable timing. With SBS buses, it was never really so precise.
Of course, I have also learnt from my mistake and not take bus to work in the morning. For although I enjoy bus rides very much (one can almost always get a seat), the unexpected jams on the roads can be time costly. It took me 2 hours to get to work on the first day! Hahaha...what an experience!
Tuesday, November 27, 2007
"Jesus is the reason this season": A quote from the poster at St Joseph Church, Victioria Street
To many non-Christians, Christmas is all about Christmas tress, festive food, buying and receiving presents and sometimes even a waste of money and time. They do not know what the real purpose of Christmas is and they probably don't want to, as it is, after all, a religious celebration that some do not feel like indulging in.
For Catholics*, the Christmas period is a time of giving and a time of waiting. Waiting for the coming of Jesus (His birth in the past, and His second coming in the future). It is also the start of the new liturgical year (the church calendar).
This year especially, Christmas has a much deeper meaning for me. Even though I have been a Catholic for about 7 years now, I still was very blur about the celebrations...until now. Non-believers are not wrong in saying that this festival is more for religious purposes, for again, it is time for us Catholics and Christians alike, to reflect upon ourselves, how religious we have been and how religiously we want to go in the future.
No, I have no right to judge anyone here. Everyone has their own way of reflecting. For me, I chose to reflect (a bit) here, in my own blog.
Christmas to me then, is not so much about how many presents you can give or how big your presents can be but more of what you can give from your heart. The time you can spend with your loved ones, or the little donations that you give, be it the slavation army or to the charitable organisations in your church. Those can be more meaningful.
Think too, before you buy that present, whether you will be creating more junk for your friends and contributing to global warming (waste) and whenever possible, minimise on packaging :P
* All that I am talking about is purely my own opinion and is said in the capacity of an ordinary catholic. This is so as it is an area that I am most familiar with. I did not intend to offend anyone.
For Catholics*, the Christmas period is a time of giving and a time of waiting. Waiting for the coming of Jesus (His birth in the past, and His second coming in the future). It is also the start of the new liturgical year (the church calendar).
This year especially, Christmas has a much deeper meaning for me. Even though I have been a Catholic for about 7 years now, I still was very blur about the celebrations...until now. Non-believers are not wrong in saying that this festival is more for religious purposes, for again, it is time for us Catholics and Christians alike, to reflect upon ourselves, how religious we have been and how religiously we want to go in the future.
No, I have no right to judge anyone here. Everyone has their own way of reflecting. For me, I chose to reflect (a bit) here, in my own blog.
Christmas to me then, is not so much about how many presents you can give or how big your presents can be but more of what you can give from your heart. The time you can spend with your loved ones, or the little donations that you give, be it the slavation army or to the charitable organisations in your church. Those can be more meaningful.
Think too, before you buy that present, whether you will be creating more junk for your friends and contributing to global warming (waste) and whenever possible, minimise on packaging :P
* All that I am talking about is purely my own opinion and is said in the capacity of an ordinary catholic. This is so as it is an area that I am most familiar with. I did not intend to offend anyone.
Saturday, November 24, 2007
To all public nail-cutters
DO NOT CUT YOUR NAILS IN PUBLIC!
Favourites venue for cutting nails: Public Buses
-Do you know that it is unhygienic?
-Do you know that it is actually littering (if you do not contain your bodily 'debris' and let it just fall to the ground?
-Do you think that the bus driver is your servant? That he or she has to sweep and clear up after you?
-For those of you whose religios beliefs are that what goes around comes around: Someone might be sweeping your rubbish now, but in your next life or your next-next life, better not question why you became the road sweeper or that you have to keep picking up other people's rubbish.
Second favourite place for cutting nails: Out of your window from your HDB flat.
-Do you seriously think that you can save on having to clear up after 'throwing'your bodily debris out of the window?
-Have you no conscience that your clippings may land on someone else's head (you might think it is not your business but what till it happens to you. Maybe not in the form of nail clippings but water or worse, flower pots)?
-Anyway, there are window ledges. Your clippings might just fall there instead. So
who is the dirty one now??
Favourites venue for cutting nails: Public Buses
-Do you know that it is unhygienic?
-Do you know that it is actually littering (if you do not contain your bodily 'debris' and let it just fall to the ground?
-Do you think that the bus driver is your servant? That he or she has to sweep and clear up after you?
-For those of you whose religios beliefs are that what goes around comes around: Someone might be sweeping your rubbish now, but in your next life or your next-next life, better not question why you became the road sweeper or that you have to keep picking up other people's rubbish.
Second favourite place for cutting nails: Out of your window from your HDB flat.
-Do you seriously think that you can save on having to clear up after 'throwing'your bodily debris out of the window?
-Have you no conscience that your clippings may land on someone else's head (you might think it is not your business but what till it happens to you. Maybe not in the form of nail clippings but water or worse, flower pots)?
-Anyway, there are window ledges. Your clippings might just fall there instead. So
who is the dirty one now??
Friday, November 23, 2007
My own theory about my boss's conspiracy theory
'Tis the season again, for holidaying. I am really excited because I have already booked my tickets to somewhere (where, I shall not say), but everytime I think about holidays and taking leave, I feel a headache coming.
Applying for leave has never been quite that easy for me. It is through a computerised system and my bosses take ages to approve. There was this once when I was due to leave the day after and my leave was still not yet approved, officially!
So where did this conspiracy theory come from? Personally, I think they secretly use it as a tool to make you do things. They make your leave conditional. "If you are not able to finish this piece of work, then you cannot take leave."
It is of course, not unreasonable of a boss to demand so, but just a little demeaning to any staff. I wish there could a better way to go about handling such situations (the bosses I mean). Could they not think about reverse pyschology? If they approve my leave sooner, I could look forward to my holiday and therefore would work doubly or triply hard? No, I guess they did not think of that. They only thought about power and control :)
As for me, I found a way out of all this. Thank goodness (in a way) that I can swap off days (for even though mine is a five day work-week, we are not spared of working on weekends). I managed to swop my off days to the days that I wanted to take leave. In this way, I am guaranteed that I can get away from office while saving on my leave. Don't need to be at the mercy of my bosses (sort of).
Applying for leave has never been quite that easy for me. It is through a computerised system and my bosses take ages to approve. There was this once when I was due to leave the day after and my leave was still not yet approved, officially!
So where did this conspiracy theory come from? Personally, I think they secretly use it as a tool to make you do things. They make your leave conditional. "If you are not able to finish this piece of work, then you cannot take leave."
It is of course, not unreasonable of a boss to demand so, but just a little demeaning to any staff. I wish there could a better way to go about handling such situations (the bosses I mean). Could they not think about reverse pyschology? If they approve my leave sooner, I could look forward to my holiday and therefore would work doubly or triply hard? No, I guess they did not think of that. They only thought about power and control :)
As for me, I found a way out of all this. Thank goodness (in a way) that I can swap off days (for even though mine is a five day work-week, we are not spared of working on weekends). I managed to swop my off days to the days that I wanted to take leave. In this way, I am guaranteed that I can get away from office while saving on my leave. Don't need to be at the mercy of my bosses (sort of).
Posting about my postings
I was just browsing through my own posts when I realised that ALL of my posting headings have either a question mark or an exclamation mark. I think I better stop doing that...NOW!
Hahahaha......!
Hahahaha......!
Thursday, November 22, 2007
Christmas is near!
Lovely tall X'mas tree that has donned the atrium of this building for as long as this building was here. I never really appreciated it much as there were always hordes of people cramming to take picture with the tree.
This time round though, I walked pass it after all the shops have closed and there is a beautiful serenity surrounding the tree that I had not appreciated before. Yes, there were still a few, like me, who wanted to capture the whole of the tree, but just being there at that moment made me feel all Christmas-y...in a nice way. Not the I-want-to-buy-many-things-for-Christmas way.
Why am I such a stickler for rules?
This morning, as I was taking the MRT from Bedok, I was again mentally complaining about how people do not follow rules. There are designated 'sides' for them to walk so that there is some form of human traffic flow.
It was then that I realised that I grumble, comment and mentally police lots of, if not most things. People jay walking, people not standing on the right side of the escalator, people invading into personal space, how people should behave when they let other commuters out of the MRT/bus/lift, the list goes on.
It also suddenly dawned on me that this sort of attitude could have stemmed from too much of Captain Planet (cartoon) when I was young-er; to want to make things right and to do things the right way.Then I also realised that cartoons are not that bad after all as they are almost always good against evil. Even if the children do not see it now, they may see it years later, like me (though I know it is a little late, but better late than never!).
It was then that I realised that I grumble, comment and mentally police lots of, if not most things. People jay walking, people not standing on the right side of the escalator, people invading into personal space, how people should behave when they let other commuters out of the MRT/bus/lift, the list goes on.
It also suddenly dawned on me that this sort of attitude could have stemmed from too much of Captain Planet (cartoon) when I was young-er; to want to make things right and to do things the right way.Then I also realised that cartoons are not that bad after all as they are almost always good against evil. Even if the children do not see it now, they may see it years later, like me (though I know it is a little late, but better late than never!).
Do not take it Light-ly!
Christmas is fast drawing near and as I crawl through traffic to get to Takashimaya, I can see that our economy has indeed been doing well. Lots more people were out shopping and lots more tourists were seen. Another good indication of increased wealth and employment, is the number of cars that are seen on the road.
Even if these cars were bought through loaned money, it still means that people have the means to actually service their car loans. It is no wonder that the government would want to extend the toll fee paying hours to 10pm at night for the city area, and at such time too (Festive season, when everyone needs to get out and get stuff).
What makes me appalled is the number of cars who do not turn on their headlights or turn them on 'wrongly' at night! Many a times, I have seen people who have been driving around happily without any headlights and I had to use hand signals to let them know.
There were other times when drivers are too over-zealous about showing off their fog lights and have turned on all four (2 headlights plus 2 fog lights). These are awfully hurting to other drivers' eyes and on top of that, didn't somebody tell them that it is illegal to switch on fog lights??? I know my dealer did.
Then there are those who are neither here nor there. They cannot decide what sort of light to use, for they have only turned on the small lamps and not the big headlights. In other words, they did not turn the full round of switch (in the car). That can be quite dangerous too!
Now, where are the traffic police when you need them??? All at the ASEAN summit, busy with the road blocks! Ahhahahahahaa.....
Even if these cars were bought through loaned money, it still means that people have the means to actually service their car loans. It is no wonder that the government would want to extend the toll fee paying hours to 10pm at night for the city area, and at such time too (Festive season, when everyone needs to get out and get stuff).
What makes me appalled is the number of cars who do not turn on their headlights or turn them on 'wrongly' at night! Many a times, I have seen people who have been driving around happily without any headlights and I had to use hand signals to let them know.
There were other times when drivers are too over-zealous about showing off their fog lights and have turned on all four (2 headlights plus 2 fog lights). These are awfully hurting to other drivers' eyes and on top of that, didn't somebody tell them that it is illegal to switch on fog lights??? I know my dealer did.
Then there are those who are neither here nor there. They cannot decide what sort of light to use, for they have only turned on the small lamps and not the big headlights. In other words, they did not turn the full round of switch (in the car). That can be quite dangerous too!
Now, where are the traffic police when you need them??? All at the ASEAN summit, busy with the road blocks! Ahhahahahahaa.....
Wednesday, November 21, 2007
Why can't parents be more responsible?
Parents, I have seen more than a few, especially in my work environment.
What I do not understand is that, if they have all the strength and power to give birth to their children, then why don't they have the strength and energy to discipline them?
I have seen some who have diligently briefed their children before they enter the library, on how they should behave. I have also seen those who have sat there and done nothing while their kids run amock all around the library. Still there are those (whom I think are the worst of its kind) who show bad examples by chit chatting loudly while their kids run amock.
Or perhaps, the concept of a library has changed so much that we would also need to change our expectations of them? From my perspective, the parents and kids have begun treating the library as a playground while some parents have even treated it as a childcare centre of sorts. They would leave them alone for half an hour, one hour, sometimes more, while they go and do their 'grocery shopping'.
I think it is really no fault of the children's as they are after all what they are: children! With such an urban environment as our country, there are less and less spaces for the children to run free. For me, we used to have kampungs and such. For them, they only have the playground downstairs or the water fountain at Bugis, and now Vivo City.
They are so full of energy that they need to let some of it out. As literacy is stressed upon a lot nowadays, it would be nice to be seen as bringing your child to the library (as opposed to simply going to the playground).
No, I don't blame the children but I am worried about what examples we as adults are showing the next generation.
What I do not understand is that, if they have all the strength and power to give birth to their children, then why don't they have the strength and energy to discipline them?
I have seen some who have diligently briefed their children before they enter the library, on how they should behave. I have also seen those who have sat there and done nothing while their kids run amock all around the library. Still there are those (whom I think are the worst of its kind) who show bad examples by chit chatting loudly while their kids run amock.
Or perhaps, the concept of a library has changed so much that we would also need to change our expectations of them? From my perspective, the parents and kids have begun treating the library as a playground while some parents have even treated it as a childcare centre of sorts. They would leave them alone for half an hour, one hour, sometimes more, while they go and do their 'grocery shopping'.
I think it is really no fault of the children's as they are after all what they are: children! With such an urban environment as our country, there are less and less spaces for the children to run free. For me, we used to have kampungs and such. For them, they only have the playground downstairs or the water fountain at Bugis, and now Vivo City.
They are so full of energy that they need to let some of it out. As literacy is stressed upon a lot nowadays, it would be nice to be seen as bringing your child to the library (as opposed to simply going to the playground).
No, I don't blame the children but I am worried about what examples we as adults are showing the next generation.
My favourite French singer!
She was the first French singer whose CD I bought while I was studying in Suisse. The second singer I listened to was Patricia Kaas. Segara's voice has not 'failed' me, in the sense that I did not make the right choice in listening to her.
It was also recently that I found out, she was the one who acted as Esmeralda in Hunchback of Notre Dame: le musicale, and I have already heard one of the songs even before I watched the musical at the Indoor Stadium. The song is "Vivre".
Was I in the wrong?
Just a few days back, I was driving and nearly got into an accident! A bus was turning and I almost rammed into it. I was in great shock and it did not help that an old man sitting in the bus was pointing an accusing finger at me.
This is not the first time I have met with this in the Tampines area. The last time, I was driving pass that infamous stretch between the mrt and Tampines Mall where people like to jaywalk. When I drove passed and honked at the jaywalkers, they glared back at me as if I was the one in the wrong. It made me think twice as to whether I really did beat the red light, but I WAS very sure that it was the green light! I am beginning to wonder whether it was my own eyes that played tricks on me and did not see the red light, or are drivers and pedestrians alike, so reckless here.
This is not the first time I have met with this in the Tampines area. The last time, I was driving pass that infamous stretch between the mrt and Tampines Mall where people like to jaywalk. When I drove passed and honked at the jaywalkers, they glared back at me as if I was the one in the wrong. It made me think twice as to whether I really did beat the red light, but I WAS very sure that it was the green light! I am beginning to wonder whether it was my own eyes that played tricks on me and did not see the red light, or are drivers and pedestrians alike, so reckless here.
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