Paul's Fulfilling Life

I was travelling on this Service 143 yesterday, as it was this new Wheelchair Accessible Bus (WAB) , there weren't many seats on the lower deck, so I decided to go on the upper deck to take a seat. A shock greeted me as I went up to take my seat. I saw the rubber material of the window screen peeling off the bus. I wonder who is the idiot to go & vandalise the bus like that. What's more, this was a bus that is less than a year old. Friends who know me will know that Paul would report the matter to the bus captain, which I did. I wonder what was in the person's mind when he did that?

I was on this feeder service bus Service 315 today when the bus captain actually stopped the bus and got out of his seat to get to the back of the bus to catch 2 school students who did not pay their fare after telling him that they were not paying their fare as they had no money to pay. Perhaps some of you did not realise that Singapore has imposed a penalty system for people who misuse concession cards, underpay their fares or didn't pay their fares. I was just shocked by the attitudes of these students about how abusive and vulgar these students are when they were caught. The students actually shouted at the bus captain. What shocked me was that they were gals and not guys and they really shocked me with their coarse language. I wonder if there is something wrong with our education system?

Got this from Jasmine's blog once again, & thought that it was interesting. Your Seduction Style: Siren / Rake You possess an unbridled sensuality that appeals to many. The minute you meet anyone, you can make the crave you almost immediately. You give others the chance to lose control with you... spiraling into carnal bliss. A dangerous lover, you both fascinate and scare those you attract. What Is Your Seduction Style? Your Dating Purity Score: 87% You are an innocent dater. You're either lacking in dating experience or have had a long serious relationship. Either way, there's still plenty of fish in the sea out there for you to sample! Dating Purity Test

My mum and I had to change our location of our weekly prayer session this week to the SSA branch at Senja as we had to attend the karaoke 观摩会 organised by my dad's singing coach, Ms Lim Li Ying at Boon Lay CC. I must say that these 2 places are what I always called "the place where birds don't lay eggs." This was my 3rd visit to the Senja branch. I decided to try a new way to get there as it was a hassle to take a bus to AMK or Bishan MRT, switch to MRT, then to LRT, then take a 10 min walk from the station to there. I found out that the new way which I took, my usual bus service 74 to Bukit Timah King Albert Park, then switch to Service 961 at King Albert Park & alighting at the Ten Mile Junction bus stop was much faster. Had lunch at Ten Mile Junction's Seng Siong's food court. I saw my ex poly bookstore seller there again. I saw her at Bukit Panjang Plaza the last time when I visited the Senja Centre the last time. She was there to help out her f...

I wanted to catch Red Cliff but again I was disappointed as the movie was full at the Grand Cathay. Since I have watched the current box office No 1, The Dark Knight  last week, I selected this movie to watch after reading the storyline at Yahoo Singapore . The story is about: The Book of Revelation is a confrontational and provocative film about love, power and sexuality. In this erotically charged and powerfully haunting thriller, we follow the story of a charismatic and physically beautiful dancer, Daniel, at the height of his career, who's world is turned upside down when he is abducted by three hooded women - who sexually seduce, abuse and exploit him over the course of twelve extraordinary days. I felt that the storyline was filled with emotion as the victim was very disturbed by what happened to him in the course of the ordeal that he tried to seek out who were the women who did the deed to him. He subjected himself to a emotional rollercoaster, with serious conse...

Saw these few quizzes on Jasmine's blog and felt that it was interesting and decided to try it. Displayed are my results. Your Dominant Intelligence is Interpersonal Intelligence You shine in your ability to relate to and understand others. Good at seeing others' points of view, you get how people think and feel. You have an uncanny ability to sense true feelings, intentions, and motivations. A natural born leader, you are great at teaching and mediating conflict. You would make a good counselor, salesperson, politician, or business person. What Kind of Intelligence Do You Have? You Are Sunshine Soothing and calm You are often held up by others as the ideal But too much of you, and they'll get burned You are best known for: your warmth Your dominant state: connecting Wh...

I was awoken by mum to accompany her to the old folks home at Mandai Estate this morning to settle my mum's cousin's CPF matters. According to mum, the administrators at the old folks home wanted to login to her CPF account using her Singpass, which I thought should be private & confidential. Apparently, someone from the home tried to login & failed. Went to pick her up at the home. We got to find out why was the CPF Statement needed. It was to be used to claim for her medical bills the next time she visits the hospitals for medical appointments. We were advised not to top up her CPF account any further as the government will not give government subsidies to old folks who have savings of up to $1,000 in the bank savings passbooks or CPF accounts. Brought my mum's cousin to Woodlands CPF Office to get her Singpass resetted and retreived her CPF Statement.We had lunch with her at the nearby MacDonald's as she requested for it. We aceded to her request since...

I was asked by my tax partner about how I feel about my job so far till now during the monthly payday one to one meeting today. You guys must be wondering why my tax partner has these one to one meetings every month just to distribute the pay cheques. I guess her purpose is to find out how we are getting on our jobs, and are there any stressful or unhappy things that we wish to voice out to her. Secondly, I guess she does not like to go through the hassle to hire new staff and have to train them all over again. To me, I feel that this is a good boss that always take the opportunity to take care and show concern for their staff. I guess this is due to my boss is Chinese-educated & values people. I was told by her personally that I will be trained by my manager & senior to get more exposure in corporate taxation. This was exactly what I wrote in my resume when I applied for the post. I am always learning new stuff everyday, thanks to my manager and senior. As some of you may hav...

I am sure everyone has the exprience of hearing other people's handphones blaring nice music or not so soothing music when the phone rings. Today, I just heard one irritating one. The ringtone appears to be recorded from a furneral wake. I just find it irritating and the colleague with that ringtone is younger than me. I was thinking, so fast you are thinking of dying? I just wonder what is your hp ringtone? My other colleague felt that mine is nice. My song is Joi Chua's 女人们的咖啡. Do share it here

Recently, babies are making the news in Singapore again as Singapore is still facing problems having people to reproduce to replace itself. I have a few pregrant friends & cousins who got pregrant during the past year. I was chatting with some of them about the "not so good" parts about getting pregrant in Singapore. An article about this issue is on The New Paper today. One of them had been asked to leave by the employer, after the employer got to know that she was pregrant. The other had to endure the same number of "ungodly" working hours in pre-pregrant days. I just wonder these employers have regard for the Employment Act in the first place or did they study Economics about the law of diminishing returns after a long period of time. What do you think can be done to boost our birth rate, so we do not need to rely too much on immigrants or Permanent Residents? Many people are saying that the Swedish way of long paternity & maternity leave paid ...

I was quite surprised when my manager said to me today that she is trying to train me up slowly, so that I can learn the variety of tax computations that this firm is having. I am glad that she has such high confidence in my work. I am hoping that things stay this way for as long as they can, as I hope to enjoy while I work. This is something that I have not been able to enjoy during my past two years working at my old firm as I am treated like a production line or school kid. Being asked to write in pencil when doing a tax computation & then typing it into an Excel spreadsheet makes me feel that dirty linen being left to dry. In this office, my manager or senior will assist to solve the problems highlighted. If the problem is too complex, there will be a discussion or meeting to bring it up and solve the problem. This is the management style that I like, which allows staff to participate in the firm's decision making. Let's hope the good tidings stay as long as po...

I wanted to catch Red Cliff but the movie is still serving to a full house for the second week running at AMK Hub, so my brother & I decided on the spot to catch this movie instead. This movie is about:- A follow-up to "Batman Begins," "The Dark Knight" reunites director Christopher Nolan and Christian Bale, who reprises the role of Batman/Bruce Wayne. Now, Batman raises the stakes in his war on crime. With the help of Lieutenant Jim Gordon and District Attorney Harvey Dent, Batman sets out to dismantle the remaining criminal organisations that plague the city streets. The partnership proves to be effective, but they soon find themselves prey to a reign of chaos unleashed by a rising criminal mastermind known to the terrified citizens of Gotham as the Joker. I enjoyed Christian Bale's portrayal as Batman and Heath Ledger's portrayal as Joker. There were many exciting action sequences which my brother and I thoroughly enjoyed. The ending was a little sad ...

I was with my mum on our way to Tampines Soka Centre, when I told her I was feeling hungry and suggested going to Changi Airport for lunch since the bus that we were taking, Service 27 goes to the airport within 10 mins. Decided to bring her to Terminal 3, where I saw the food court there during my last visit there in March. Mum ordered chicken liver rice, which was at $2.80. It was a price that we could not imagine that can be found at the airport or other major shopping centres & places of interest in Singapore. I had pickled vegetables with pork floss rice with seaweed, which mum ordered for me as I didn't know what to eat. The taste is not bad too, just that the price is steep at $5 for the rice and $4 for the seaweed. Overall it was a good lunch. Mum commented that T3 is very spacious as compared to T1 & T2. I guess the reason is because there are not many airlines flying out of T3 and the concept of shopping at the airport has not hit Singapore yet. She also co...

I have been back working at Orchard for about 4.5 months now. I am sure that you guys are worried about the impact of rising prices nowadays and are always trying to find cheap & good food. It appears that this is not available at Orchard. But my recommendations below, will showcase for you, some of the cheap and good food available at Orchard which will help you have a filling lunch. This list is being compiled by me and some of my colleagues. They were saying that Paul is always on the prowl for cheap & good food, therefore nowadays, they are always following me for lunch. Orchard Towers Level 4 - Vegetarian food. This place sells delicious vegetarian food. It was recommended to me by Peggy when she brought me there for lunch. 3 dishes for $3.50. Level 4 - Mixed vegetable rice for 1 meat 2 veggie at $3. Level 4 - Muslim food - Mixed vegetable rice for 1 meat 2 veggie at $3.50 Level 4 - Yong Tao Foo - 6 pieces at $3.50 B1 - Chicken rice at $3 Lucky Plaza B1 food court - Yong T...

I was at the Scarlet Hotel last night to meet up with my long-time net friend, Tracey from Malaysia. It was my first time meeting her after knowing her through ICQ since my army days. She is here for the first time and is here as her new employer had sent her here for some training for these two weeks. Using my powerful knowledge of buses, I managed to get to the hotel by bus within half an hour from Orchard Road, therefore avoiding 3 ERP gantries if I were to take a cab there.She was at the lobby of the hotel within 10 mins after I called her. She gave me pork floss from Malaysia as a gift. She requested to go to Chinatown as she wanted to try the food at the Chinatown market & buy bak kwa at Lim Chee Guan (林志源). As I didn't have the chance to show her around Singapore during her stay here, and in appreciation of the pork floss from her, I paid for the bak kwa that she bought for her family. We spent the time chatting about our new jobs, our past griveances on our old jobs, an...

Picture courtesy of CNA I was very disappointed about former Ren Ci Hospital CEO after hearing on YES 933FM that he was charged with embazzlement of the charity's funds for his own company. I was wondering why he did that in the light of the NKF saga? I feel sad for the people who are hospitalised and are in need of these funds for their hospitalisation needs. In my mind now, I am wondering which charity is going to be next to have a full blown saga like NKF or Ren Ci? What tougher measures are there going to be in place to prevent this from happening?

My department colleague & I had a informal work meeting with my boss today. During the meeting, she highlighted a problem which our audit department colleagues ran into and sought our help to prevent the problem from happening once again. My colleague & I managed to give some useful suggestions that we hope that it can prevent the problem from happening in future. It is good to see that my boss actually values our feedback. I just feel that the working style and environment is very very different from what I used to face at my old firm. My boss adds " When one makes a mistake, we should try to help one another to rectify the mistake and learn from it. When one makes a mistake, we should not push it to the other person, we should reflect on the mistake, and resolve not to make the same mistake again." Such words of wisdom makes me feel good working in this company. May things stay this way as long as possible.

I finally had the chance to meet up with one of the Facebook Group that I joined, Singing @ K for a KTV session at Partyworld at International Building, Although only 8 members turned up for the session, which I felt was already a good turnout, it was very fun to mingle with people who shared the same interest. I must say all the members that turned up were very very good singers. It was fun singing myself, listening to people sing & singing with them in duets. Some of the songs that we sang include the following:-

蔡淳佳- 晴空万里 Hady Mirza - Shine for Singapore   The NDP Theme song for this year is finally out and one of my favourite Singapore singers, Joi Chua (蔡淳佳）has been given the honour to sing the Chinese theme song, while Hady Mirza will be singing the English theme song. It is a refreshing change as most Singaporeans will agree with me that Joi is definitely more popular than Kaira Gong, but she was passed in 2006. Since 1998, when the National Day Parade started with popular Singapore singers singing the theme songs, Kit Chan (陈洁仪）& Stefanie Sun (孙燕姿）holds the record for singing the theme song twice. The other singers were :- JJ Lin Tanya Chua Evelyn Tan & Dreamz FM Mavis Hee Tafuik & Rui En Kaira Gong Kelvin Tan Just want to know how you guys feel about the theme songs this year? Do leave your comments.  

I always admired the power of Friendster, Facebook & Blogger. If not for these three powerful networking tools, I guess I could not have found my secondary school mates last year. The reason why I said schoolmates is because majority of them were from my secondary school buddy, M's class and not my class. I guess they know me very well because of my close terms with my buddy at that time and I was chasing a gal from their class at that time. Not only that, I guess it was the only time I participated in the Interact Club, the only ECA I was able to join then. Recently, I was viewing my schoolmates' photos and found that some of them has since married. One of them was Chay Hoon. I was communicating with her at Facebook, when she wrote that she will be giving birth quite soon. Just wish to congrat her and hope that she has a healthy baby!

I decided to write this post after I found out from one of my friends, who has no prior working experience rejecting job offers that she considered was "too elementary" or just because the job is a temp assignment and not a permanent one and she has refused to go for certain tests requested to see if she fits the requirements for the job. I am not trying to say that this friend of mine is wrong to wait for what she wants in a job. She may have some prior temp experience as an accounts cum admin assistant or she may have the necessary qualifications with a diploma. To me, this does not guarantee a job these days. The most important thing is "Do you have the necessary experience and the right mindset to take the job?" As announced earlier in the news last month, the US economy is showing signs of slowing down. Therefore, I am glad that I was able to leave my ex-firm when times are still considered good. Even then, I spent close to half a year looking for this job. I h...

  Mariah Carey & Boyz II Men-One Sweet Day Uploaded by djoik I just popped by Curryegg's blog and discovered that she has changed her blog to an all black theme. I guess this is because her granny had passed away yesterday.   My message to her is as follows:-   As your friend, I am sorry to hear about the sudden passing of your grandma as I read your blog today. I share your family's grief and pray that your grandma is happy in Heaven now. I am sure that she does not want you to be too upset about her passing, therefore, I certainly hope that time will heal the pain. Please take care of yourself & your family. From: Your friend, Paul    

I just managed to listen to this radio drama produced by one of my favourite DJs at YES 933, Cruz Teng after having problems finding it on the podcast website 2 months ago and due to problems loading the IMMEM website. I feel that it is a nice story and some of you may like the old songs he selected for the drama. I feel that Cruz & Peifen did a good job for the drama. Do enjoy the drama.

Recently, my audit partners decided to increase the staff strength of the audit and accounts department. It was difficult for them to get new staff nowadays as it appears that Singaporeans shun away from jobs in CPA firms. They have since employed 2 Indonesian auditors, 1 Mymmar national as accounting staff. I noticed that 1 of the auditors has a similar condition as mine, walking with an awkward gait. This shows that my audit partner are like his parents, who employed people based on merit. This is unlike most firms in Singapore who looks at the appearance of potential hires first and reject them on their first glance. There are some firms, who would employ us, but underpay us or take us for granted later. Just wish to know what is your views working with people that are physically challenged? You are welcome to leave your comments as well.   Get your own Poll!

I was awoken by my dad at about 5.30am, telling me that the water pipe at my parents' room had brust. He was not sure where was the location of the brust pipe, so he had switched off the water mains. He said this happened at the wrong time as my parents were going to Selangor today for a short retreat, and they will only be back tomorrow evening. He said that my brother and I could bath at my Elder Uncle's place if we need to. I decided not bother my uncle as his wife was suddenly hospitalised at TTSH due to low blood pressure. I mobilised my brother at about 9.15am, and asked him to turn on the mains to fill up about 7 pails of water for our use today. It is the 2nd time the water pipe had brust at my home. I am glad that the encounter I had in Malaysia at my relative's place had come in handy this time. We should never take Earth's natural resources, especially water for granted.    

I was invited by my ex client, Emily who wanted to catch up with me for a dinner session with her yesterday at Toa Payoh Sakura Resturant. I was surprised that she brought along two guests, her assistant, Charlene & her little niece, Sophia  with her as I thought that the dinner was only between the two of us. It was good catching up after so long as it has been a while since I met up with her. She said that she missed my great service at the old firm as my other colleagues are not able to match up with the great service that I have been putting in for all my clients. She felt that it was my ex-firm's great loss, and they will regret it for not allowing me to train a new replacement and decided to have my boss to handle the tax matters of all the clients himself. Little Sophia is so adorable and she studies well too. From what she told me, she is able to play the piano and has obtained Grade 4 at a young age of 10 years old. Emily was saying I was able to make her p...

I know that my fellow blogger friend, Curryegg 's grandma is in hospital and she is feeling very upset about it. This song, A Shoulder To Cry On by Tommy Page  is dedicated to her. Hopefully, her grandma will get well soon, so that we can see and hear from the happy & cheerful Curryegg again soon.

星座与三国人物 【射手座（SAGITTARIUS）11/22-12/21】 ●華陀—射手座 精通內科、兒科、婦科、針灸，用“麻沸散”使病人麻醉，施行剖腹手術，外號“神醫”。後為曹操治病因尊重專業太過直言而被殺。射手座向來以醫術和直爽見稱於世。 I feel that the analysis is quite true for me. I got this analysis from Jiafa's blog. Please click on the above link to see the post for indivdual horoscope.

I guess everyone would agree with me that having a great team of colleagues to work with. I am glad to say that I have this great team of colleagues that make me look forward to work with them everyday. Not only that, my tax partners are not breathing down my neck as my previous firm, making me enjoy my job even more and at the same time enjoying learning & working at the same time. One of my colleagues, who shuttles daily between Singapore & Malaysia everyday to work  is feeling very sad now as her child failed in 2 out of 4 subjects taken in the recent Primary 1 exams. She feels that she has failed in her duty as a parent and is seriously thinking of helping her child out by taking the step of leaving the company. She told us that she feels that she has failed as a mum as her son failed his exams. I guess that is what you call a mum's love for her child. It is always beyond words. A mum is willing to make the scarifices just for the well being of her child. If yo...