jonkoh

In the blink of an eye, it's already April. Another few weeks to graduation and i guess for myself and many others out there, it'll really be the first time we make a decision without being shrouded by education. No more progressing to the next year of study (unless i go study masters immediately haha) and not having to think of what i wanna do next. Lots of excitement and confusion ahead, not sure which way to go. It'll be a whole new journey for myself.

Still looking for a job and I hope i'm not being too paranoid here but i do hope some calls come really soon. I don't want to be stuck in singapore searching for a job. i want to secure something and then travel overseas. i want to see the world once again haha.

But despite these busy few weeks and the gloomy job outlook i've faced, i somehow feel positive. It feels reassuring to know that i can still be optimistic and happy and i think a lot of this has to do with my friends. I feel really appreciative of them nowadays, and just glad for them to be part of my life. Some things are just not the same without them =) Of course I haven't been meeting up with some others as well and when i graduate, it will be a good chance to catch up with them. 

I need a morale booster. Something to lift myself up. Now where's the call i hope to get haha?

Lessons learnt today:

1) One Raffles Link is nowhere near One Raffles Quay =X
2) It's good to be early and have buffer time for an important appointment

Had a group assessment this morning. It went pretty alright but I kinda stumbled a little. Now i just hope that they'll call me back within these few days for the next interview! (which explains the title of this post)

Besides that, I've 2 assignments due and 1 presentation tomorrow, plus 2 back-to-back lessons and consultation straight after the 2nd one. Long day ahead, no prac to look forward to, and i guess i'll be glad when tomorrow night comes.

Recess week's coming! I relish the chance to take a good break and enjoy myself within this period, meeting up with frens i haven't seen in a while and perhaps going for a movie or two if there are good shows out there.

Feeling irritable now at this late timing. Don't feel like sleeping altho it's late and i've tuition tmr morning. Got a few assignments to rush out by tuesday and i haven't done much for either of them. Got a presentation on tues too and somehow gonna settle it in sch tmr.

What YF said that day is right. i have too many things on my mind. and i guess i juz have to admit that my mind is constantly thinking. thinking of random stuff. thinking of things i have to do. things i wanna do.

Trying to be less busy in my life. that's y i decided to stop teaching tuition for one kid. already told him about it but still unsure what's happening next. i'm sorry for choosing to leave him but i guess this is inevitable ever since i lost the interest for teaching him. may i be allowed to stop before the end of feb and hope he finds someone better to teach him.

All this negativity despite having gone for a wonderful dance concert and attended a fren's 21st birthday party today. got entertained by the former, makes me wanna learn some form of dance. lotsa laughter at the latter, with joy spreading around everyone as another friend reached adulthood. most likely due to the impending deadlines and my lack of motivation for doing them. i know i'll get them done by hook or by crook, it's juz how little i sleep in the next few days only. and acty i'll be kinda liberated from wed onwards which should spur me on to do my best for this period but it's not working. argh.

I should be happier since i got a call for a group assessment. hopefully that works out and i progress to further rounds and secure a job soon. i should be happier becos recess week is coming soon and as of now, i don't see any significant tasks which require lotsa time to be spent on academic stuff then. i should be happier becos waikiki is next sunday and i'm going there to play handball with a bunch of samba peeps and we'll have fun together (even if we dun win). i should be happier becos with one less tuition kid, it frees up some time for myself. i should be happier becos i have frens who i know will be there for me through good and bad times.

Time for some AOD reading as a bedtime story. Good night world.

Ok so based on my previous post about doing a summary of 2011 soon, i think i failed in that and i apologize to all those who waited with much patience! And now is the time for me to stop the rot and really write a fantastic piece for all you readers out there hahah. Here we go!

2011 was an awesome year, especially since I was on exchange in Copenhagen, Denmark for close to 6 months. I've mentioned it before in previous posts and while talking to friends but to reiterate the point, exchange has really been one of the best periods of my life. Or plainly put in Singlish, "damn shiok" hahah. I guess it has to do with the really carefree and independent lifestyle i led, being able to make decisions on my own, take care of myself, expose myself to many different cultures etc. It was kind of like a break from the hectic Singapore life, given how it was only pass/fail for mods i took over there, and also an opportunity to learn about myself more. Like how my cooking isn't terribly bad but also not superb at the same time hahah.

I did things which i never had before (watching man united play at old trafford, taking an overnight train alone, seeing a bit of the northern lights, experiencing snow, going for a farm stay, enjoying Rock Werchter etc), made good frens with the other singaporean exchange peeps (not only from smu but the other local unis as well) and really enjoyed learning danish (to this day, i still harbour thoughts about picking up the language again some day).

Besides being in Denmark, i also travelled to many other places. Every place has its own specialty (some more unique than others) and it was just so fun going from place to place, seeing new things and eating new food and taking new photos. And just to list down the places from memory:

Copenhagen + farmstay town (Denmark), Lund, Helsingborg, Malmo, Stockholm, Kiruna (Sweden), Oslo, Bergen (Norway), Barcelona, Girona (Spain), Nice, Marseille, Paris (France), Berlin, Munich (Germany), London, Manchester (England), Prague (Czech Republic), Krakow, Katowice, Gdansk (Poland), Bruges, Brussels, Louvain Le Neuve, Leuven (Belgium), Amsterdam (Holland)

So besides exchange, i rmb coming back to Singapore in July and adjusting back to life on the sunny island hahah. Started teaching my tuition kids once again while waiting for the school term to start and eventually added one more student. Then i went back to Samba (and am still inside now), seeing the juniors after so long and practising with them. Amidst these activities, i also did a consulting project for the experience and it turned out well! I'm happy with the results we produced. And in November, one week before the exams, i finally got my iPhone 4S even tho my contract alr expired about 1 year plus ago haha. Now it's my gaming device, video viewer, time killer, web surfer etc. hahah, and i fully understand the reason why some people say "once you get a smartphone, you will never want to change back to a non-smart phone ever again" - of coz there are exceptions though, as i read in a recent news article that some people are swearing off technology.

However, on the job front, i did not receive much positive news. Besides a couple of interviews which i went for and subsequently failed in getting into the next round, there has been nothing else except rejections and non-replies haha. With the new year comes new job openings and new hope for me to get a job before i graduate, which might be harder due to the way the job market is now. Nonetheless, things will work out fine one lah haha so i juz have to keep trying!

As for relationship matters, i'm still single right now haha. No updates to share on this area, we'll just have to wait and see what happens!

Overall, I'm glad for all that happened in 2011. The majority of things that happened were positive and i'm thankful for the experiences i had over the past year. Many memories to bring with me into the future when i can share my stories with family and frens hahah.

Now it's 2012 and a new year means new things going on. Besides doing my last 3 mods in SMU (and having already filed for graduation), i'm involved in many other things, most of which i wanna do because i know i won't get much chance to when i enter the working world. So one thing is of coz Samba, with us preparing for our annual concert coming up in 2 weeks' time. Being a year 4 senior and one of the oldest in the band, i am still feeling very psyched up over it hahah. Maybe it's becos i know it'll be one of my last performances (if not my last) for Samba Masala, and i do cherish all that i've gone thru with this club. I just watched a video made by us last year and there was a slogan like "Samba is part of our lives. Samba is our life." I totally agree with this haha and even though batches have come and gone, my passion for it has not diminished one bit. Despite the many practices per week and my parents sometimes nagging at me about it, i am still so enthu about it haha. Sometimes, I just think how cool it will be to just be playing samba as a living, or at least carrying on with it in future as a hobby. There'll surely be a future post on this CCA which has transformed my life.

I'm also doing a mod known as Managing Process Improvement which is heavy, given the amount of work we have to do. The main task is to learn and incorporate a Six Sigma process improvement into a real-life company and so far I like how this mod is going. I am learning stuff which i know is useful and informative. My team is made up of a bunch of great guys (we've worked together before for previous projects) haha and i enjoy every session with them, even though we might take up to a few hours each time. If there was a group which can exemplify the qualities of what effective teamwork is, i think this is it. One of the best workteams i've been in, if not the best and i'm really happy to have met them =).

On the income side, i'm doing TA and RA work for one of my profs and together with tuition, these activities bring in some money for myself. Not to forget the angbaos i got during CNY this year haha - the usual sum i guess (haven't counted it yet). Soon, it'll be monthly income coming in when i start working in a few months' time hahaha. And then it's all about financial freedom, planning and knowing how to manage money.

Things have been going on well thus far this year. I just want to be able to announce on this blog one day some good news like securing a job. Stay tuned!

2012 is here! A new year filled with lots of fun, joy and laughter! A year for us to hope for good things and gain many new experiences!

A 2011 review is gonna be posted soon i promise hahaha. Till then, just wait patiently like you always do!

it really feels like christmas is coming earlier to me this year! =) the holidays have just been wonderful thus far, and i am looking forward to hong kong on thursday! WOOHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

The holidays are here! Woohoo!

So anyway i've been spending lotsa money during these first few days of december haha. mainly on food, been eating quite good stuff. at the same time, i've started exercising consistently so that's a real plus hahaa, i better keep it up this way man.

And as the results start coming out, i just wanna hit my expectations and i'll be happy haha! In the midst of applying for jobs, i'm glad i can still find time for fun stuff like movies, hanging out with frens, samba etc. And i'm going to hk in mid-dec, haven't been there in a few years so looking forward to the food and shopping (prob not so much of the lattersince there's h & m in singapore now, of which i haven't stepped inside before). as well as do some sightseeing and chilling out with the family!

It's gonna be a hectic december, but for all the right reasons!

Ok so i'm not gonna start blogging at 1:19 am again haha.

This week's passed by just fine, cleared a report, a final quiz, a presentation and what's left is my IB final quiz on sat. the most worrying one of all my stuff this week and i just want to finish it so that i can take a good long break! but i'm not done studying yet so tmr will be spent on understanding as much as i can for it and hopefully i can do well! ROAR hahaha!

And then i'm gonna go on a shopping spree next week. i kinda already know what i wanna get haha, just a matter of how much i willing to spend only.

And i wanna go watch some movies too. tin tin, kaiji 2, real steel (if it's still showing haha) etc.

And i just had cravings for pizza hut and manhattan fish market. contemplating the idea of getting macs breakfast tmr morning and given my lack of exercise + food intake that i have been consuming, it's not good for my health. the holidays should really be a period for me to work out more.

I'm still waiting for replies regarding my job applications! just hope i can get called up for some interview soon, it's sian waiting for something that ends up not materialising at all. wish me luck! 

when i saw my computer clock display 1:19 am, i knew i had to come back here to blog hahahaha.

spent my whole afternoon + a few more hours at night in school today for ops strat project! not the best way to spend an afternoon but the delicious lunch with family at imperial treasure noodle and congee house before that made things better haha! and i'm glad we made progress with our project, can almoz see the light at the end of the tunnel alr with just one week to go before it's study week. this week's gonna be a tough one but i know i can get through it well! ROAR!

through my 3 and a half years in smu so far, one thing i realise is that it's not easy to make frens with project groupmates. and by frens here, i don't mean hi bye frens but rather, frens who u can really hang out with after project meetings, lessons etc and go out for meals together and just chill out with. it's not often that you really stay close to ur project groupmates (unless u bid for same mods and form group with them again) and i'm juz glad that i've found quite a bunch of peeps whom i can relate to well. doing project together with frens beats doing project together with strangers anytime, that is unless ur fren is a slacker/freeloader. at least when we suffer together, we can still make jokes out of it, relieve the stress levels and just encourage one another more naturally than if the project was done with strangers.

of coz, a counter argument could be that if we always stick to bidding with the same group of frens, then where got chance to meet and work with new people? well, that's a story to be told on another day...