砂漠のJeffire

Jeffirean Stories

Friday, May 11, 2007

Buongiorno~

I've recovered slightly, no longer confined to the bed or the house. Thank you all for showing concern. Ice queen, your ice can go and put to use at the ice kachang stall, thank you. lol. However, I still cough occassionally, so still have to be pretty careful with what I consume.

The weather is shen-jing-bing! Yesterday was oven day, this morning it rained and nobody wants to wake up. Cool sleepy weather. This pattern has occurred for a few times over the past 5-6 days i think. No wonder people are falling ill.

Just applied for internship yesterday. The organisation is NTUC. Some people on first impression thought I'm going to the supermarket for internship. Some people think it's the insurance division. For god's sake, NTUC is a trade union. Not just a service provider, not just a retailer. This is another example of the organisation bigger than the brand. Also another case of over-generalisation. For example, "Pampers" (previous brand name of "Drypers") means baby diapers, regardless of the brand (at least in my family). "Milo" refers to any chocolate beverage (but "Ovaltine" is rare on the local market anyway) So the supermarket's name is Fairprice (or Liberty, for the Americanised themed NTUC) and the insurance division is Income Co-op.

The internship is about doing a supportive role to the executives who are encouraging people to retrain themselves so as to strengthen their employability. I fully support this, but in practice, many people are just exhausted by their daily lives that only a few fortunate and healthy ones can make it. However, I also feel that many of the lower wage workers are simply choosing to stay in that circle because it's within their comfort zone. They have no desire to put in more effort to earn more (my personal observation). They complain, whine and curse but still the brains and the limbs are still stagnant. The greatest challenge is to dangle the carrot and get these people to move before the "blade of retrenchment" or the "gale of job exodus" gets to them. Till then it may be too late.

Will be meeting Nigel and Jason later! Nigel is my secondary school friend. We used to go home together and occassionally I get free rides from his mother. Haha. He's back from Canada for summer break I think. And Jason was my deskmate for two years. Interestingly, our lives have diverged so far since we stepped out of our green shorts. 9 years ago we were all in the small 24guy class, with all the crapkings, beng-wannabes, the jpop fanatics (Speed, anyone?) and some of the world greatest chess nerds gathered under one class. Today, things have developed so differently for everyone. With a few clicks on Friendster, we can see how one another has changed.. for the better.. or for the worse. (let's hope the former).

With the weather cool and nice today, I shall post off with a poem. Haha.

细雨中有人撑着伞等着我
脸夹上时间的痕迹掺着清楚的笑容
热阳中有人戴着帽子等着我
头额角晶莹的汗珠依然有那怀念的微笑
我的爱人吗? 是吧. 你的爱人吗? 没错.
那是你和蔼可亲的妈妈, 笨蛋.
没错啊, 我爱的是我妈妈!

Ironically, she doesn't use the internet so she won't see this. Lol.

Buon settimana!
Jeffire

Acknowledged my existence at
9:13 AM