Paul's Fulfilling Life

My manager and I were invited by our Chinese Muslim colleague, Syafiqah to her house at Bukit Indah, at JB on the 3rd day of CNY. My boss had given us the day off, since most of the staff had gone back to Malaysia. Her place is about 1.5 hrs away from Singapore. There is a direct bus service, CW 3 that takes us to her place directly. Its hard to imagine how my colleague can endure the long travelling time and bad jams and travel to Singapore to work everyday. I would like to thank her for the hospitality shown by her family during the 2 hour visit to her house. I also would like to thank her for her dinner treat at Jusco Bukit Indah that evening. Here are the photos that we took that day. My manager, Amy & my mum Me with my manager's hubby The Group pic with our host, Syafiqah. The child with her is her youngest child.

CNY is always a time that I like, but it is also don't like as I grow  older, as relatives will always ask the question, "When will it be your turn?" I must say this year is very different as the friends that I knew from the Facebook Groups decided to ask me out for movie once again after my morning round of frantic house visiting, due to the fiasco as stated in my previous post. Would like to thank Thomas for picking me up and sending me home for last night. Although the movie we caught was not that good, as I felt that the movie was too gross and there was no storyline, but the visit to the Marina Barrage was great. I think Quincy, Jane, Shu Ting & Thomas will have the same view as me. When nursery teacher Jenny escapes to the country for a relaxing weekend away with her boyfriend, she is unaware of a romantic surprise he has in store. The location is perfect. A lake enclosed by woodlands is seemingly deserted and the scene is set for a picturesque proposal. ...

For the first time in my history of CNY house visiting, my family was forced to wait to visit my grandma as this year was very different. My grandma has been staying at a nursing home since a bad fall at her home late last year. As the Chinese saying goes, every house has a difficuit bible to read，（家家有本难念的经), we certainly did not expect that because of someone's indivdualistic and selfish action caused us to waste 6 hrs of our precious time, just to wait to visit my grandma. If this relative had told us about his plans to bring grandma to his house for lunch in the first place, I am sure that the 6 hrs can be better utilised. Because of a person's selfish act, I had to miss a CNY night movie session with my friends, instead of sitting down, playing with Facebook Games and checking on sms. I feel bad that I have to reject my friends, but since it is CNY, and my grandma had been in a bad state of health recently, coupled by the fact that she is in her advanced years, I felt t...

Chinese New Year is only about 2 days away. I just want to wish my Chinese friends a Happy Chinese New Year. 祝我的朋友们： 新年快乐！ 万事如意！ 祝大家恭喜发财 大家发发发！！！ 工作的朋友们事业顺利！ 读书的朋友们学业进步！ 迎春花 Leaving you with this MTV performed by my favourite radio station YES 933 FM DJs Jiahui, Jiafa & Chongqing.

I went to catch this movie with my Facebook Singing @ K group at The Grand Cathay last evening.  I would like to thank Wesley & Thomas for organsing the movie gathering. It is my first time watching movie with such a big group of 9 people. I hope that Shu Ting, Jane, Tracy, Yvonne, Quincy and Corrine enjoyed the outing last night. The movie is about:- Kei's (Ronald Cheng) eldest sister Sandra (Sandra Ng) is a hot-tempered magazine editor and her temperament has left her single all this while. One of the family rules is that none of the siblings could get married before their eldest sister. Kei seeks help from the famous Casanova, Koo Chai (Louis Koo), to pretend to court his eldest sister and lure her into the mood of love. With Sandra falling in love with Koo Chai, he in turn falls in love with another girl, Mun. I was tickled by the madcap actions of Sandra Ng, Louis Koo, Raymond Wong & Ronald Cheng. Personally, I feel that this is a movie that can make you laug...

Our Finance Minister, Tharman Shanmugaratnam delievered the Singapore Government Budget for 2009 on Thu. I must say most of the tax measures that I have predicted were spot on. A corporate tax rate cut to 17%- A move to make Singapore a more pro-business enviornment to work in than Hong Kong. An enhancement to the loss carry back relief - The amount has been increased from $100,000 to $200,000 and the losses that were allowed to carried back were increased from a year to 3 years Personal Tax Rebate - A one off tax rebate at 20%, similar to the one given for Year of Assessment 2008, is given in this year as well. Enhancement to the Renovation Deduction   The measures that were not expected but I thought it was good were Helping employers by giving them a cash rebate for staff on their CPF payroll. Enhancement to capital allowances claim for plant & machinery that used to qualify for 3 years of tax deduction to 2 years. Let's hope that this Bu...

I finally had the chance and time to blog today. I was quite busy recently and my old CRT monitor walked out on me on Wed. Thanks to my ex colleague, Roy at the computer firm which I used to work in, he managed to help me get a new LG Flatron 22 inch monitor and made my PC faster within a day at a special price. I am still trying to get used to the new wide screen of the monitor. I must say the monitor is a good one.

I was invited to Caifeng's house for her baby's 1st month celebration. I was supposed to have a friend to join me for the event, but she fell sick, and didn't want to spread her flu virus to the baby gal. I didn't have the chance to take the photos of the baby gal, as Caifeng's parents and long-time poly friend, Huiyu took turns to have long chats with me as it had been a while since we met up. I haven't met up with Huiyu since my 2007 birthday celebration. It was always good to catch up with old friends. Sometimes you just wish that time could stop there as there is so many things to share, yet so little time. In fact,we were still chatting as her partner drove his car to my block's lift lobby. Thanks to Huiyu's partner for giving me a lift home tonight. Till we meet again in about 2 weeks time for a special event.

I managed to get hold of this album last week after searching high and low for the past two weeks. The album is a compilation of her hits from her albums in her 15 year career. I must say I really enjoyed the album especially CD 1 with 心痛，喜欢你，伤心. Of course CD 2 was equally good with 天冷就回来，入戏太深，再爱一回． I would recommend all of you who likes her songs to get her album. You will enjoy.

Shang Xin - Chen Jie Yi First, it was my mum who was hospitalised on the first day of 2009. Then 3 of my friends, G, M & J was retrenched by their companies. Then, it was my mum who is facing difficuities at her job. Today, I heard that my friend A is in hospital for dehydration and respiratory tract infection. This was not the start that I was expecting to happen to my family member or friends. But this year is an extraordinarily difficult year, and great perservance with hard work is needed to try to survive on the job. The most important thing is to stay postive, confident & happy. I think this is important for us to ride out this crisis!

I managed to my old ezlink changed after I saw the roving centre at Serangoon Interchange not having many people in queue. The new ezlink card does not have a deposit and it is also a cash card. For those of you who have not changed your card, you have till 30 Sep 2009 to do so.

Some changes in policy have taken place at workplace recently once again. Could it be due to the recession that its making every boss fearful as well? I am surprised that a measure that I have not expected has been put into place. My dinner companion for last nite was suggesting to me that maybe my previous firm was a better choice after all after the recent siew of policy changes. But mum & I felt that this place is the place for me as she feels that my manager is a manager who is more than willing to impart and share her knowledge with me, having met and chatted with her for quite a while at a function some time back. I also feel that I have great co-workers in my department which makes my job more enjoyable!!!

The 1st KTV session for the year for the Singing @ K was organised by me yesterday. I would like to thank the 22 people who turned up yesterday. Some of them who signed up could not make it at the last min as they were sick. I just hope Angela, Grace & Lawerence to get well soon. The session was at a high as there were disco effects in our room and we made use of the room effects to perform some of our songs. We had quite a number of new people who joined us yesterday for the 1st time. Albert, Hubert, Kay, Danny, Shu Ting, Cesar, Keith & Eric. I hope that they enjoyed themselves. My apologies to the attendees if you felt shortchanged by rude waiteresses at Top One KTV. I also have heard the feedback about the session being too long for these 2 rounds. I have since passed the message to the next organiser who promised that it will be a shorter session. I must say that other than the service rendered and the size of the room, the location was very accessible. ...

I was asked to update my boss personal contact list book recently as she was complaining that the staff assigned the task was doing the updating too slowly. I heard from my boss that she had asked that person to help her with the updating since 2007, but to date, she has not done very much. As I was quite new to the company, having joined in March last year, I was quite happy to help as it is actually my lax period for the time being as the tax filing documents have not come in yet. I got the input documents from that person. I thought the list was not properly updated thus explaining why my boss was fuming mad with that person. I managed to update the whole thing in about 2 weeks. Little did I expect that the person told my bosses that Paul messed up the whole updating process. Fortunately for me, I have kept my boss and manager in the loop about the progress that i had been doing about this task. I suspected that the list that the person didn't give me a true copy of the list she...

The day I have been waiting for was finally here. Mum was discharged from the hospital at 2pm today. She is still weak from the medication prescribed to her by the doctor. Too bad, I could not take leave as my senior was on urgent leave due to some urgent family matters to attend to for a week. Just wish to say thank you once again to all my friends, especially who sent me sms messages, facebook messages, blog messages during my period of anxiety. I also appreciate the phone calls from some of you as well. Leaving you with this song that best describes my feelings for the past week. 陳潔儀-心痛   I just got her " 再爱一回，陳潔儀" album. I really like her songs. 

My boss had a meeting with us today. She was repeating about the ongoing financial crisis that all of us are facing around the world. I thought this was something that we have already knew about. In fact, 2 of my friends have been given the pink slips, stating that their services were no longer required by their firms. I felt that she was trying to hint that we may not get any pay increment this year. I think it does not take long for a person who has a sound mind to tell you this. The crux of the matter is we understood what she was driving at in the 20 min meeting, but the message sounded like it is being played on a tape recorder over and over again.

As you know, Singapore's non-smoking areas were expanded from 1 Jan 2009. Dad was saying that the NEA have overlooked an aspect of enforcing the no smoking rule. It is the smoking in cars by the drivers. These smokers would usually drive and smoke and the cigarettes will be on their fingers. If the cigarette ash or cigarette butt were to leave the fingers, it could hurt a passing motorcyclist's eye. I thought that it was a valid point raised by my dad. What do you think.

Went to visit my mum today for a short while as I was chased home by her as she felt that I was too tired to go to the hospital immediately after my work. She even told me to stop visiting her. Do you think I bear to do that? Just a quick update of her condition, she is getting better. The doc is still administering the drip to ensure that the infection heals. The doc is trying to do a one week on drip course for her before discharging her & giving her a antibiotic medication to be eaten. So the most probable date of discharge may be Thu. Have been shuttling to the hospital for the past few days continously. I just hope that this bad start to the New Year ends soon. Once again, thanks to all my friends for their words of consolation via sms, my blog & facebook. I truly appreciate your friendship. Not forgetting my nurse friend, who gave me words of advice and calmed my nerves when I asked her about my mum's condition before she was sent to hospital. I guess without...

I know most of my friends who saw my blog post via here or facebook are curious to know about what the doctor said about my mum's condition today. I was quite anxious myself personally as I was tasked with the responsibility to break the news to my dad and brother. The doctor confirmed that my mum has urinary tract infection, and it has spread to her kidney, but luckily, the infection to her kidney was minimal. The doc is prescribing antibiotic drip to stop the infection. The doc said that the fever that she is having is normal as the body tries its best to kill the infection with the aid of medication. The doc also advised my mum that she has to stop the cholestrol control medication as it appears that her body is showing some side effects to the medication. If all goes well, she should be home by Tuesday, which I hope so as she was having a fever last night and she has the feeling of keep wanting to throw up. Thank you to my friends once again who have showed concern f...

I know some of you will be surprised as you are reading this. I took the decision to get my dad to send my mum to TTSH last nite as her fever and shivers was on and off for the past 3 days. The locum (stand in GP) who treated her, gave her some medication but she didn't get well. In fact, I tried to arrange another appointment with the clinic again, but as it was the locum on duty again, she refused to see the doctor. I guess I must thank my nurse friend for alerting me that my mum may be suffering from viral fever. I also have to thank my mum's ex colleague for convincing her to check into the hospital to do some tests. At first, dad was not willing to send her in. It was not until when my brother and I urged him to send her in. I was thinking, if he was not willing to do it, I could do it. I can't bear to imagine the consequences if I have not stood by my decision. Mum only got the hospital bed this morning after some tests were done on her late last nite. I just...

还是好朋友- Fish Leong & Leo Ku Thanks to Maggie for introducing this song to our singing group!! Last year was an eventful year for me and I I must say it was a year of trial and error and most of the trials turned out to be successful. There were also some blemishes in the year but overall it was a good year for me. I think the music video above summarises my feelings about one of the incidents that happened to me last year.  Job I shocked my ex firm bosses when I tendered my resignation almost immediately after receiving my bonus in late Jan. I am glad that I moved to this new company. Although the benefits may not be as good as my previous firm, my bosses and dept colleagues and manager have been very good.to me. Workload is not as stressful as last time, as it is almost evenly distributed. I also feel that I am being rewarded well for the efforts that I put in for my job. Facebook Groups With more time freed up from the late working hours that I used to have, ...

    I was at the Asian Civilsation Museum last nite for the Singapore Facebook Singles gathering organised by my friend, Michelle. The final venue of the gathering was settled to be here as there was poor response to the initial venue at DXO and there was some miscommunication over at the Ang Teng Restuarant which was featured in the newspapers recently. This was the first time I was at the ACM. I was impressed by the Michael Jackson impresonation contest and the dance item put up the radio station. I was also impressed with the way the free flow of drinks and beer are done by the sponsors of the event. Was glad that there were some people that I knew who were at the event. PT, Ken, Tracy, Alan, Jane, Yvonne were there, otherwise it could be boring.   We also took the opportunity to catch the fireworks display which happened at the Marina Bay before me & PT decided to call it a night as we were worried about the crowd if we were to get home too l...