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Various ministries held their annual career fair today - it really was quite an eye-opener. Of course, there were the more popular ones and the less popular ones. I suppose this was in part due to (i) the nature of the work and (ii) the people sent to man the booths, and it may be a bit biased to judge a ministry based on the people at a career fair booth but then again, it also reflects which ministries know how to pick their HR reps, and it gives you a fair idea about which ministries really have people who are passionate about their jobs.
Surprisingly, MCYS received a large amount of interest despite the general perception of it being a 'soft' option and not among the 'where to go if you want to fly high' set of ministries. So did MOM (but to be honest I attribute that to the strength of its booth reps). Again due to rep character, MOF and MFA received relatively less patronage, and MHA was virtually ignored. MTI had a superb presentation and it's one of the 'big' ministries, so no surprise that the reps were surrounded half the time. The presentation, esp the trade bit, actually put the previously-unentertained thought that I might consider MTI as an option into my head, the trademark of a convincing sales pitch.
Then again, considering MTI folks are meant to be doing sales pitches to countries and companies all the time, they better be darned good at it! :)
I did attempt to speak to the MFA rep but she didn't seem to be very engaging, so I sort of gave up after a while. And I made small talk with the MHA reps b/c Johnson dragged me there :D and you'd think with 4 people speaking to 1 person, they'd find something to talk about but noooo, so I had to make my escape a few minutes later. God they were boring. On the other hand, I must've had at least a half hour chat (sitting down, thank goodness) with an awfully nice Mindef guy, who even said he'd take me around the office someday so that I could see how things work, and later on I had another chat with an MCYS lady on the MRT home. So the moral is, your colleagues do make a difference!
I'm very glad Michael encouraged me to attend this year, I really think it is an advantage knowing all this compared to finding this information weeks/months before I actually have to make a choice. In the end, I signed up for 5 Open Houses, all lined up for next week but in truth, am only entertaining two as my top choices (for the moment). And most of them didn't even seem to mind that I wasn't part of this year's deployment exercise :) Also, hopefully I can get an even better picture of the work at the Open Houses, esp for MFA, since the rep wasn't much help at all.
Finally, I saw both Lai Hong and Kenneth at the MOH booth!!! So coincidental! :) I mean, of all the people in MOH to pick + they were the only ones I didn't meet for lunch yesterday among the MOH folks. Was good to see them again and I'm so glad I was able to keep in touch, even though they know I'm not too keen on MOH. Doesn't mean I don't appreciate the complexity of their work though :P I just think my personal interests lie elsewhere.
Oh, and I found 2 common factors that seemed to cut across all the various ministries, or at least those I enquired about. (i) Long work hours & certain overtime + (ii) lots and lots of brief/report writing. Everything seems to involve some sort of paperwork in terms of the generation of ideas or policy recommendations. No wonder all the engineers are running to DSTA :D and the reps do acknowledge that if we have an essay-writing background, we will find it a lot easier to cope with the workload. Pay levels do differ though ;)
All in all, life after postgrad is beginning to look a lot more interesting after all!
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Just returned from Tan's birthday. I don't think the boy knows how important this day is to most of the regular crowd who turn up :) esp since his mum told me he was thinking of not throwing a party this year. I'm really sorry to impose (Tan, if you see this) but how else would I meet up with all the people I see there every year?? Special note of thanks included, I'm really very grateful.
Strangely enough, most of them are people I hardly speak to over the course of the year and whom I see even less but when we get together, especially when we're the few left after most people have left, it just feels like these are people who are worth meeting up again and worth seeing again :)
Of course, liberal application of alcohol does help immensely.
Anyway, was particularly pleased this year to see Angey turn up (see, another favour I owe Tan) and that we actually arranged to meet again tomorrow, provided that I wake up in time of course. Plus Yaoxian, who's so tragically comic when drunk, and who I have to meet again to have drinks with hehe. And ferret out secrets from. And Eugene, Melvin (sorry) Wilfred, Junxian, Zhongyong etc.
Also was amused by the episode in which I bumped into a primary school classmate, who looked vaguely familiar but who I was afraid to approach for fear of being wrong. We eventually introduced ourselves to each other only to realise we'd already knew each other since years and years ago. Strange to think that something that happened literally 11 years ago still matters that much. There will always be some sort of connection. Hopefully I will recognise him again :)
Don't really want to speculate on how strong/tenuous these bonds of friendship actually are. At the moment, I think they are good enough and I believe that's all that matters.
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Just sent M&D off at the airport. Now is the time to SLEEP. Although to be fair they didn't really make me wake up early apart from the first few days where we had to do some serious sightseeing but y'know, it's all accumulative.
I think on the whole they had a good trip :) so Xuan, the paranoia's entirely your own. Hehe Mum and I also tio-ed stomach upsets a day or two after KX called ~ wonder if stomach bugs can travel through the phone? ;) J/k.
Didn't really feel much impact about graduation yesterday though, apart from the general fact that it was a very busy and rather stressful day. I suppose that's because I still have one more year of studies to go, so this doesn't really mark the transition from school to work for me yet. Maybe next year will be different.
OH AND. Daddy of course took loads of pics during the course of the week and I burnt it all on a CD for him to bring home and display. The last time I counted, there were at least 500 pics. Haha, BEWARE.
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| » WHEE |
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MY RESULTS ARE OUT!
2nd Class Honours (Upper)
As for the details, out of the 5 exams I took this year, I actually got 2 Firsts in 2 individual exams!! I'm so pleased!!! This is such a big deal for me :) plus the exam which I thought I screwed up on because only 2 out of 4 topics which I studied came up, I got a 67 for that (2nd upper) which is very very decent, all things considered. My dissertation was a bit of a disappointment though, I was expecting a 2nd upper and got a 58 (2nd lower) so, yeah. Shame about that :(
But overall, I'm glad with a 2nd upper, it's basically what I expected and I'm especially pleased about the 2 Firsts :) Hopefully it means I'm not that mediocre a student and I do have some stronger areas of understanding.
All in all, wheeeeeeee.
Jul. 12th, 2005 @ 10:58 pm
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| » (No Subject) |
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Been a while, huh :)
Spending most of my time these days trying to look for a new place. It's been a lot more difficult this year compared to the past 2 years because I think this time we're a lot more picky with where we want to stay, especially after the lessons learnt :P
Really don't know what I was thinking in 2nd year when Irena and I thought we could happily stay at Canada Water, especially with the crazy rent we paid + the crazy travel distance to school. But admittedly, the flat was gorgeous and absolutely nothing to complain about. This year, travelling to school has been much quicker and the rent lower but have also realised that carpets are a massive pain in the ass to clean, and living in an old house brings you more problems than benefits! Especially if the landlord is a first-time landlord as well. So yeah, it's pretty much about making compromises and I guess this is something we're less willing to do this time around.
Plus the fact that we've been twice screwed over by estate agents (in 2 days, no less) - more lessons there, especially along the lines of not trusting people who, although smile and are pretty and have big blue eyes, are actually wily, money-grubbing, mean little biatches inside. Sam's much better at dealing with them than I am, he knows the right language to push all their buttons. I just tend to get very angry and they end up being defensive instead. I just don't see why, if I despise a person, I can't show it to their face (or voice, if on the phone). Gah... Must. Be. More. Professional.
Although he does get more frustrated after he puts down the phone, while I'm calmer and more optimistic about the overall situation.
Well, too long to go into the exact details here, tell you when I get back. But here we are, (1 week) older and very much wiser, and I'm sure things are going to go a lot smoother, esp after Sam finishes his last exam today and we have more time to better focus on looking for the (almost) perfect place.
Heh Irena's gone to France for 10 days since yesterday and I've been kop-ing her computer to watch Kenshin dvds on, pretty much non-stop since she left ^__^
Jun. 13th, 2005 @ 02:42 pm
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| » Eurovision 2005 |
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Everyone took a break from work tonight and camped out in front of the TV for 3 1/2 hours watching Eurovision :D one of my annual tv staples now. I was kinda rooting for Moldova (6th overall!) cos they had such a funny, weird yet cool song but Greece won in the end ~ well, their song wasn't bad but it wasn't particularly outstanding either so I'm kinda neutral, not particularly happy nor particularly irritated as I would have been if, say, Latvia had won.
You really can see the political voting at work though, of course not in all cases. But last year, if I'm not wrong, both Ukraine and Russia gave each other 12 points (full marks), and the Ukranian commentator even phrased it as "12 points for Mother Russia". This year, Ukraine gave Russia 4 pts and they got 2 pts from Russia. Not surprising, since their entry was the anthem they sang during the Orange Revolution, by Greenjolly, can see how that would've pissed off Russia quite a lot, am surprised they had points at all!
I did like the song/rap/chant though, Ukraine didn't perform it to win points anyway, they performed it because they could and because, unlike all the other Eurovision songs, it actually means something. It really was remarkable, the Orange Revolution, one of the few democratic revolutions that have actually takened place in the last decade in a peaceful way, and with such spirit and conviction behind it. It's amazing, and the song reflects that spirit.
The British commentator was a bit peeved that the 4 countries with the lowest score (out of 25 entries) were the 4 largest contributors to Eurovision ~ (from last to 4th last) Germany, France, UK, Spain. Hehe they obviously have no friends. On the basis of song quality, only Germany and Spain would prob deserve to be there, esp Germany, since its song was really truly bad. It was also a bit weird that the UK song drew on Middle Eastern strains, in an effort to court the ethnic bid, only prob was that unlike, say, Turkey or even other Mediterranean countries, the UK has no such folk heritage whatsoever.
Too many drums this year. But overall I felt the song quality was much better than last year's entries. Well, Turkey, Cyprus and Germany were crap, but Sweden and Croatia had cute singers, and I liked Malta (came 2nd, pity it didn't win), Israel, Moldova and Ukraine. Maybe Norway's glam-rock too.
Next year, to Athens!
May. 21st, 2005 @ 11:45 pm
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| » 2 decades and 2 years |
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Oooh I almost forgot.
A very big THANK YOU to those who made my 22nd birthday a really great day, even though it was smack in the middle of exam season. It always is, you'd think I'd have gotten used to it by now huh :) Probably when I start work, it'll end up being in the middle of, I dunno, Work Review Week or something.
I must say I received birthday greetings from some rather unexpected sources *amused* but I do appreciate it all the same. And the mouse/rat/mole/vole, that's cute too.
So yes, thank you all.
In other news, I'm done with 2 exams and have 2 left to go... spending each day alternating between slogging through revision and playing Snood and the Orisinal bee game. It's at that very complex stage where you can't wish for exams to be over (in 6 days!) and yet are going "crap crap crap I have no time!!"
Incidentally, the 2nd exam (International Political Theory) was a mini-disaster, not because I didn't know how to answer (I'm sure I could have done a very decent job) but that the exam format was a total breakaway from tradition and 2 out of 5 topics I revised failed to appear, of which they had been appearing regularly for the past 5 years. The bastards. But anyway, I did 2 pre-revised questions and then had to fall back on 2 very generalised topics and pull answers out of the air literally, using almost no theory and pretty much 100% common sense/knowledge. All things considering, I think I did okay but no firsts for sure.
Oh well :)
May. 20th, 2005 @ 12:05 am
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I have newly gained a profound respect for George Galloway. He's one of the few politicians I've seen who actually has firm beliefs and sticks to them. His recent win as an independent candidate in a strong Labour constituency was remarkable, especially after being expelled from Labour for his anti-war views, and his very recent performance in the US Senate dock, absolutely splendid.
I don't think, especially not after that robust rebuttal, that the US Senate will be able to deliver a verdict of guilty with any conviction or credibility at all. I honestly don't think that so-called judicial inquiry is in any way independent of current US politics, especially where they're trying to pin the oil-for-food scandal on the UN and Europe in general. Sometimes I really wonder how they have the audacity and self-righteousness to hold others up to account to a moral standard that they themselves are not even capable of fulfilling. It really boggles the mind.
In other news, 2 exams down, 2 to go!
[Edit: Okay, my bad, seems like the inquiry isn't meant to be independent of US interests in the first place and it has no lasting judicial value apart from it being damaging on the image, so it's not like they can press charges unless they find out Galloway lied under oath. I understand it being in the name of legality and anti-corruption, but even so, it's still presumptous - imagine the reaction if a US Senator was called to order under a similar accusation by the Executive of any other state. They'd never stand for it. And I still think they had the Galloway onslaught coming :) ]
May. 17th, 2005 @ 10:10 pm
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| » visa |
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Was having a massive headache over getting a visa extension for next year, as mine ends 31 Oct, due to the UK Home Office's bloated ineffiency and ridiculous price hikes recently.
The main problem is that processing a visa extension in the UK takes approx 4-14 weeks (that's like 1-2.5 months and even so they can't guarantee 100% of applications will be processed within that time and worse, it's their target so it's not even for sure) and they need you to submit your passport for that entire duration. So I was faced with a couple of situations:
1) Apply early in May so that I can hopefully get my passport back to go home in July. Problem: they want confirmation of acceptance to Kings, which won't arrive till August, because I can't get my results from LSE till July to prove to Kings that I've got a 2.1. Chain reaction and all that. - REJECT
2) Apply in August and stay here in London over summer but I want to go home, so - REJECT
3) Since my visa expires 31 Oct, I could technically return to UK in mid-Sept and apply immediately to make the given deadline (application to be submitted 1 mth before expiry date). But this might mean potential hassle at UK Immigration cos I'll have to show proof of student entry and assorted documents first.
4) I go down to the visa office in Croydon and do an on-the-spot application as opposed to a postal one, which aims for a 24 hour processing time.
Bear in mind that options 1-3 cost £250 and although option 4 sounds attractive, it costs £500. That's effectively S$750-S$1500. Crazy! Bloody extortion, that's what it is.
So, on a very disgruntled whim, I decided to check out the British embassy in Singapore and see how much they charge for visas here. And guess what I found?
Average visa processing time: 2-4 days
Peak visa processing time: 10 days
Student visa: S$116 + S$20 processing fee = S$136 total = less than £50
Even without taking currency conversions into consideration, in terms of absolute numbers the amount charged in Singapore is still way lot less than what they're charging us in UK! So yeah, the end result being I've decided to get an entire new student visa back in Singapore, where at least I can be sure of the system's innate efficiency, and I can even wait for my confirmed application forms from Kings to come in before I do so and still make it in time. It's really not worth it extending the visa in UK.
It's things like these that make me so glad I'm in Singapore. I guess one could argue that if I were a British national things might be different, which is true, but in general, I really believe our level of efficiency is much much higher than the UK, and this applies to other areas as well - health care, education etc.
Apr. 27th, 2005 @ 12:27 am
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| » hee |
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Retail therapy works :D
Apr. 21st, 2005 @ 07:30 pm
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| » General iffy-ness |
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Okay, turns out there was a technical error in the website, which applied only to certain people (me being one of the unlucky ones) and it's been fixed so everything's good. Even so, I think the bit about having to change passwords every 3 months is still rather anal.
In any case, I just received an email from a friend. Apparently there's been a bit of a hoohah going on back in Singapore (why didn't anyone tell me?) about a PSC scholar being "racist", which I didn't know of as I've stopped browing STI due to their recent forage into increasing profits and the fact that CNA doesn't really report 'ground news' (aka silly gossip) like this.
I don't know what you've all heard, I just want to say to you guys (including those who google his name/PSC+scholar+racist to dig up more dirt) that this person is my friend. He is a lovely, responsible, caring person who's made an impression on me since I met him. As for the remarks that he made, yes they were over the top, yes they were sorta insensitive, yes he made a mistake but he's apologised, he's genuinely sorry and I firmly believe he's not all the various nasty epithets people have been slinging at him.
And, there's absolutely no reason in hell to divert from the mistake that he made to browsing his blog for excuses to vilify his character and carry out personal attacks. Just because his blog isn't dominated by personal, introspective, oh-woe-is-my-life sort of entries is no reason to dismiss him as an "immature, irresponsible" person. And as much as I personally tend to discourage the usage of written Singlish, there's no hard and fast rule that says we can't use any sort of expressions we like on our very own blogs.
I really hate witchhunts. People look at 2 entries on a blog and think they can map out an entire person's motivations, character and future. There was one forum thread in which some person, based on a couple of CZ's entries, thought he was a she and the rest of the posts started using "she" as well - hilarious - proving the absolute depth of their cluelessness.
Also, re: the general argument that, by virtue of being future leaders of the country (supposedly), PSC scholars should not be racist...
1. No one should be racist.
2. We're also human beings - we get angry, we rant, we say ugly things, we (gasp!) even dislike people.
3. Human beings make mistakes - why is it that somehow we're not allowed to? Apparently his mistake = his character. People complain we're arrogant, elitist and that we think we're better than everyone else, then turn around and hold us to a stricter level of scrutiny and judgement.
4. Us = future leaders = fallacious. Especially considering the huge turnover rate I've heard, that many people leave after the 6 years to join the private sector.
5. And honestly, why "PSC"? A scholar's a scholar, regardless of PSC or EDB or A*STAR or MAS etc. It's like saying it wouldn't matter as much if he was somehow from, say, EDB.
And finally, a general point: we are not a generic, faceless group of people. There are many diverse characters even in my batch alone and I for one certainly do not appreciate the insinuation that we should all somehow be cardboard cut-outs of a certain character model. I guess we can't help that stereotypes exist though, the most I can personally do is to refute the negative ones, and try as much as is humanly possible to live up to all the positive ones.
Not sure if I've opened a can of worms...or tipped out the contents of a half-opened one. I honestly don't care :)
Argh, have to get back to reading E.H. Carr - there're no words for how much IPT bugs me and I am so behind on revision. Irena on the other hand is working so hard she's beginning to scare me >__<
[Edit: I wonder if PSC will start unofficially monitoring all our blogs now... and among ourselves, we've always made jokes about "being blacklisted" for what we say and do. Who knows how true it might become? :) ]
Apr. 15th, 2005 @ 05:17 pm
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| » PSC website |
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< rant >
THIS has got to be the difficult, frustrating and annoying site I've ever had to log into!
1. You have to change passwords every 3 months.
2. You cannot use the same password again.
3. If you type in the wrong password, it does not allow you to try again; you have to try 30 minutes later. (I mean come on, this has to be absolutely ridiculous.)
4. It doesn't accept passwords saved by Password Managers, hence your access is denied and then you can only log in 30 minutes later.
5. I don't think it accepts "cut-and-paste" passwords too, cos I reset my password, tried the new password through cut-and-paste and access was denied.
I mean, honestly, I've only got into this site ONCE and ever since, I've kept having problems logging in, had to reset my password, typed it wrong and never bothered to wait the 30 minutes each time something f-ed up. I know they're concerned about security but other major sites, banks, online shopping stores etc, they all manage to get along fine with normal logins, why is PSC making my life SO DIFFICULT? What is wrong with letting people try again immediately after entering the wrong password in, or entering in the right password wrongly? Why 30 minutes? Why???
Such a retarded login design.
< /rant >
Apr. 5th, 2005 @ 07:18 pm
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| » the frailty of technology |
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Both Irena and Sam's computers have suffered massive knockout crises in the span of 2 weeks, one after the other. Sam's was worse though, he was so afraid he couldn't recover his exam notes b/c his computer couldn't even reach Windows and he had to work through DOS. At least Irena managed to back up her files first on Seb's external hard drive even though her comp kept powering off at random.
In any case, it just drove home something which all of us fluent in tech really should know and grasp but somehow keep managing to forget time and time again - that we are so dependent on our computers it's scary, especially without regular data backups. I keep thinking if that was my computer and that was my dissertation (esp since my laptop is almost as old as Sam's and definitely older than Irena's), it really would've been too much to handle, and who knows how my exams in third year would've went?
As it is, I spent the morning transferring much of my old notes, essays and current work all onto Gmail. It's such a bad time for this to happen to the both of them. Sam managed to get back the few most important files though, after extensive online research for DOS help and he's doing a total reformat now, everything seems to be fairly stable so it's not all bad.
Still, very sobering.
Apr. 3rd, 2005 @ 05:28 pm
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| » alt healing |
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Newest craze: aromatherapy and herbal healing
Also, I feel the need to shamelessly plug this seller b/c she's been such a darling and has offered extremely professional and personalised service over the past few days. I've bugged her endlessly about making custom essential oil blends and another custom cream blend for my mum's skin condition, and she's been just fabulous. Also, great prices!
If anyone ever needs oils, creams: she goes by the seller name "natural_nurture" on ebay, has an ebay shop here and an external website here. She also ships international.
And when she found out I'm Singaporean (she was born there), she gave me an additional discount. ^__^
I know aromatherapy's a bit of a dodgy 'science', I got the blends mostly to make my room smell better, considering I'll be sitting in it almost everyday for the next, what, 2 months? Chamomile + jasmine + ylang ylang to relax, lemon + rosemary + bergamot to energise. Of course, I doubt if they can be scientifically proven to have as powerful effects as, say, sleeping pills or caffeine pills but... I don't really like pills :P
Products for skincare, on the other hand, one can actually feel or tell the difference. So... if the jojoba oil that I ordered for myself and/or the blended hemp (+ aloe vera + lavender + chamomile) cream that I got for mum works well, I'm swearing off branded body/face/hand moisturisers :) Even shops like The Body Shop sell creams with largely the same ingredients, maybe with a couple of preservatives, and you pay about 3x the price.
The good thing about crazes? I go mad over the span of a few days finding out everything I possibly can on the subject heh. Always good to learn new things - I've found out so much about the differences btwn base, essential and absolute oils, the diff properties of diff oils, methods of extraction, shelf life, possible dangers etc. Fascinating! :)
Mar. 30th, 2005 @ 04:44 pm
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| » little shits |
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2 kids got into a punch-up right outside our row of houses today.
They looked about 11 or so, not even 'teenagers' but kids, and you know how European kids always look older than their actual ages. Anyway, they had a group of about 6 friends with them, who of course had to take sides and start yelling at each other until there was a mixed crowd of 20+ people were standing on the street. Most looked under 15, although there were a few adults. To be honest, I wasn't even surprised anymore at the language coming out of their mouths, it's become so commonplace. But it was all still very unpleasant to listen to.
Most of them looked like chavs. I can definitely see how gangs of children (quite literally) can terrorise the streets in Britain these days.
For definition of what a chav is, see here. I guess at some level the website is meant to be a parody but really, there are so many of them and half (or more) are genuinely stupid and crass. Scary.
Mar. 26th, 2005 @ 08:23 pm
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aralin's journal