Photos Mania!
HAPPY 45th BIRTHDAY SINGAPORE!
national day preview 2010 @ padang with super pretty backdrop this year.
under the really scotching sun, i decided to bring out the umbrella

start of parade with theme - red and white

uh oh, of all banks, i spot ocbc building at the background.

parachutes in the air!

flying our flag proudly across the sky

NDP 2010

5 stars arising

the national day goodies!

Proudly presents. Majulah Singapura

FIREWORKS

Sparkling stars

Some random photos of the past. cooking session with 3 potential famous cooks.

Our molten hot chocolate cake

but it was a bit too much. nonetheless a good attempt :)

our aglio aglio spagetti. yummy delicious.

US :)

somehow every weekend passes so fast that it is so hard to capture every minute every moment. the long weekend was fruitfully spent starting with saturday at jb. now i understand the luxury of driving in and around if one is familar with the area. thanks to gh's friends, we were able to travel around easily and learnt a good massage location. due to some really unforseen circumstances, sunday was a day spent at sentosa. monday morning is our yearly family day event - walk-a-ton :)

i never felt like i have grown up, always that little ger with a childish mindset who loves nothing more than playing each weekend. nonetheless, let's appreciate each of these precious day.

It's the long weekends! YIPPY :) and it is national day.

Quite a demoralizing week where i saw many people tendering and sadly including the two closest people on my team. one was my buddy on job, providing much relief and moral support. another was my senior, to me the best senior i had for the year. yet i was happy for them looking at the joy that shine on their faces.

recently we had a mini gathering with some ex-collegues. that night, i couldn't sleep. i recalled the 3 days a year ago where all of us gathered in melaka, freshly introduced and all energized then. I recalled those as one of our best days since we knew each other. vividly, i recalled that morning before we came back where all 13 of us sat at 2 joint tables enjoying bak kut teh. we talked, we laughed and we thought about our fate a year on. looking back, it always seem amazing how quickly a year has passed. Out of that 13, a couple have left and a few are leaving. perhaps i have yet to get use to departure as a part and parcel of life. but looking at those who left, i marvel at how pretty these ladies are and how amazing their companionships are.

*smilez* deep in thoughts. i think i have a better sense of direction in life after a year in audit and let that be my motivation going forward each day each step.

What a crazy week.

Work ended consistently at 12:30-1am every night and a friday night that didn't end. as a team, we worked till 7am on Saturday with the motivation of not going back over the weekend to keep us going. The client wasn't the best, giving us the draft at 6:30pm on friday night.

indeed this has broken our record timing of 5am. never thought i could suvive it but indeed we did work most of the time. time just flies each time i checked my watch. 11pm reached in no time after dinner, 1am came and we were not halfway through our work, 3am came and we had snacks provided by our manager, 6am came and we realized one of the page was not done which was followed by a mad rush of referencing. the crazy me was so tired by saturday morning but i still had a file to complete by the weekend, went back office alone to print and tidy up file. finally, i left office on saturday morning 8:30am. I doubt my file was well done, but that was the best i could give with the tight deadline. 4 days to complete the consolidation file. it was madness especially when it was consolidation of such a huge file alone.

the weekend was mostly spend catching up on my beauty sleep and storing power for the coming week. undeniably, i broke down a few times from stress, tiredness and frustration. the amount of work for me this quarter was overwhelming. nonetheless, things are still going fine and i will not give up upon my goals. somehow i feel that i have changed.

let's start the week positively with smiles. gambatte to another week! :)

Start of my main engagement.

monday marks the start of my year long engagement, back to banking industry, back to normal knocking off time between 8-10pm with some days each quarter past midnight. alrights, at least i was granted my wish not to do group and was assigned to consumer banking.

despite potentially working under the 2 toughest seniors on the job, i am frankly excited to start the walkthroughs on consumer banking. at least it is sth i can connect with, at least i will learn a lot about the process. let's hope this excitement to learn will overwrite the tough seniors. it is definately not easy, since the first 2 days on the job has been non-stop working.

it's just the beginning. just the beginning of an at least 8-mth long engagement.

LAKE TOBA & MEDAN Jun 2010

A less travelled destination, an exploration to the land of north sumatra.

Before embarking on the journey, i was full of worries. Worries of natural disasters, worries of lack of information, worries of violence and worries of the place. the trip cleared up myths, cleared up worries and most importantly cleared the mind of a hectic life.

Previously, i was one of those worried about travelling to indonesia yet wanted some affordable adventurous unqiue destination to travel to. i am not a city girl when it comes to travelling, always preferring quiet scenaric places to relax the mind, away from the hustle and bustle of life.

All i can say about lake toba, it is indeed a quiet scenaric place with beautiful clear fresh lakewaters still considerably untouched by the effects of tourism. There are tourists, but mainly western backpackers. So few singaporeans have stepped their foot onto this little island that we, the trio have been mistaken numerous times as Japanese, koreans and malaysians. yet none guessed we were from singapore. if only we had more time, if only we had more money, a trek would sum up the trip really well.

No matter how the pictures are taken, it seems really hard to capture the actual beauty of the place, which does not even have enough information on the internet or on guidebooks that we have some trouble planning an extensive trip.

a simple snapshots of the place to sum up the trip. our little comfortable traditional house with really affordable rates and clean spacious toilet which i appreciate lots. though we had to scoop around the house, afraid on knocking our heads on the low ceilings.

Playground is a common sight, with one right outside our house.

One of our favourite pasttime is to explore other accomodations to use their facilities, to make up for our budgeted stay. There was even a german lady when opened an place for accommodation with really well maintained gardens and even breakfast buffet suitable for foreigners travelling there.

Pillion motorbiking experience around Samosir island, an island as big as Singapore but with little development in most places, still maintaining the traditional houses and lifestyle. Motorbiking is definately not easy to learn within an hr for us to safely ride around the house. A pity that the broken heart waterfall with no water falling though.
Hotspring! we reached the foot of the volcano, reaching the source of hotspring with steaming rocks and lava stones. we went for a short soak for our feet. since almost all of us had fresh wounds, we could not soak in the waters.Food was much of a luxury with really delicious food. We had quite a bit of pleasant surprise with an super oversized springroll with fries that sent us laughing hilariously as we were expecting a small portion. Banana porriage was cerals. cottage pie was mashed potatoes and magic mushrooms with drinks was priced at 85,000rp (~S$13). Linda had really lovely food which we had to wait for more than an hr for it to be served. Satay was super good, mee goreng too. The pace of life is slow there but the food is made of real ingredients, hence the taste of food was strong.

Companions for the journey :) chatted lots, walked together lots, explored lots and bargained lots and most importantly, shared the experience together. Thank you.

Despite being the 4th largest city in Indonesia, Medan itself has really nothing much to do. Lake toba was unexpectedly more expensive than expected, hence we went on a budget from the 3rd day at lake toba. Unexpectedly we ended up having problems finishing our cash in the city with shopping not to our taste and food not as delicious. Finally on the last day, we had a sumptuous meal of dim sum and real chinese porriage coupled with 'Knight and Day' movie. Good funny movie. Traditional massage was the finale for the 2 gals. Finally we shopped at the bakery which amazed me with the range of bread and fanciful cakes. Thereafter, it was home sweet home.

Our feast in our hotel in medan on our final night, enjoying dinner with world cup screening with the comforts of room. *smilez* our main night activity revolved around watching world cup, with its free screening in Indonesia, it was widely watched.

To Mr Ong,
i love you. you have never failed to be beside me whenever i need you. Thank you for understanding me so well too.

been a long time i was so upset. when i received the calls, it hurts. the closer the relationship, the harder it hits.

A slow jog.

Finally revived running after a period of absence. Recently, there was much motivation to run as i could no longer stand the growing tummy. There was a long break of 3-4months since SCB run last Dec, always giving the excuse that work is keeping me busy and the inappropriate timing after work. Yet recently, i set exercising as the top priority, determined to flatten the tummy.

I remember how unhealthy i felt at the first run, literally feeling my stomach throbing up and down though i tried consoling myself it was the effect after dinner. Had a quick swim over the weekends before this week's run. shiok was the word to describe. it made me feel that life is a little more meaningful than working, sleeping and eating everyday. Unlike my previous runs where my focus would be on keeping a steady breathing pattern, this run was to clear my head. I thought and reflected much during the run, not concentrating on my legs or my breathing, it was a breeze and before i know it, i was nearing home. Though admittedly a very slow run.

Thinking carefully over my choices, my goals and the 9 mths of work that passed, i can clearly set out to say i have not regretted joining audit and definately no regrets in joining my current company. Definately i have learnt a lot, definately met many people and obstacles along the way. But all in all, it was an excellent learning process. Though i still have second thoughts over banking audit, but i will stand by it. after all the industries i am in, i hope to say that auditing is the same everywhere. we can't run away from its applications, we can't run away from the processes. 3 years is my ideal for learning sufficiently, but somehow this ideal doesn't seem applicable anymore. It is time to build up my real dreams, simple yet self-fulfulling dreams. Corporate culture may not be suitable for me, politics are things i do not want to mingle with. I have yet to find my exact fit, but i definately hope to find out soon :)

my takeaway from a friend's farewell.
i have a dream to chase.