ooof

Been my own punching bag for several weeks now. 

Need to get out of the 圈圈。

一步一步来

往前走

#!%$%^@$@!#

Hate dealing with a certain person from the parent ministry.

Hate having to deal with high achievers with snooty attitudes who write in circles, and use exclamation marks to emphasise certain points in their emails. (How rude though. It's a professional work email.)

Maybe I am just not good enough & cannot understand their "angmoh". 

Sorry lah, laoniang is not from that strata, I cannot comprehend things beyond a certain level. Sorry lah, I ish also not a full-time policy-maker. I ish just a 打工仔 who is trying to 过日子 and 混口饭吃。

AND, laoniang 不是 scholar. Laoniang brain not so good. 

Deep breaths. Let's not ruin my Friday night. Maybe feeling emo & dramatic cos menses coming soon? 

Options...

That feeling has come again. 

Wondering how long more can I "last" in this job...

If I can't anymore...what are other options in the future? 

Can I quit & get a data entry job or an office admin job instead? Knock off on time, no need to OT, no need to handle staff, no need to handle stakeholders.....

In a blink of an eye

And so Christmas is over, New Year is over and now CNY is also mostly done & over with (though we still have Chap Goh Meh on 12 Feb). 

This year's CNY was relatively quiet. Quieter than usual. We had 4 house visits on Day 1, 2 on Day 2 and that was it. Good also...else too much ra-ra and hala-ing zaps my energy. :) 

Spent the whole afternoon yesterday tabulating the girls' angpows. They had a smaller "haul" this year partly cos we shifted out of our apartment and hence did not receive any from the neighbours lol. But till a good haul nevertheless. Both are 小富婆s..... :D

..........

有心无力，要咋做才能更精力充沛呢 

That feeling of being stuck in a rut and just cruising along with no real growth & improvement. 

Mid-life woes?

Lack of exercise & hence motivation?

Shio........Pan.......

 I am not done with my shio pan phase. We're heading to Bedok Mall later today for lunch.....

A trip to Breadtalk is necessary. :D

7 February 2025

Happy Birthday Mama!

I miss you alot. 

From time to time snippets & memories of you float into my mind. 

Like how when I was in primary school and I often did my homework in front of the TV while sitting on the floor with my books arranged in a circle around me, with you sitting in your trusty orange armchair (with wooden arms) on my right. You'd have your eyes glued to the TV which was airing some rerun of a Channel 8 drama (and occasionally cursing in Hokkien at the baddie on screen lol). It was you whom I learned some choice Malay & Hokkien cuss words from lol. 

Like how I helped you to make kueh pie tee cups from scratch, dipping the metal mould into the flour mix and then quickly dunking the mould into hot oil and finding the right time to flick out the cup and fry it to a crisp. 

Like how we squatted in the kitchen to wrap bak zhang. I was too young & too clumsy to know how to  hold & fold the bamboo leaves properly but I helped to scoop up the filling & dump it into the small hole you made in the middle of the glutinous rice, and I helped to cover up the filling with more rice too!

Like how you'd make yummy yellow sticky rice with ikan kuning fried to a level of crispiness I cannot imagine, and other lovely side dishes to accompany the rice like egg omlette and sambal ikan bilis. 

Like how you'd make your own fermented rice and leave that huge bottle in the fridge...occasionally sipping on the liquid that resulted from it (I didn't know then but I think it might have been some type of rice alcohol.

Like how you always insisted on sleeping on your tilam on the floor next to my bed even though we had a proper pull-out bed for you with a proper thicker mattress. You always said you still preferred to sleep on the floor. 

Like how you regaled me with stories of when you were young, or stories from the war, or how life was back then in those days, etc. 

I miss you. It's been almost 11 years since you passed. 

Pondering

Wonder what will become of me next time. Me who is not a high flyer nor a super high achiever but just a regular office worker. 

We're in a performance appraisal phase right now. I'd been through a round of grading at my level with my boss. He went through a moderation with his boss already and shared the current results with me. 

One older staff from another team within our division seems likely to be given a lower rating. Just because of bell curve fixed quotas that we have to meet, and just because he is older and about to "retire" in another 2 months and be converted to a contract staff. I wondered if it was fair for someone to be designated a sacrificial lamb in such a manner. I wondered if his work performance was actually satisfactory. My boss wasn't sure about that staff's quality of work but it is not the first time this has been done within the organisation as a whole....sigh. 

Sad realities of life?

On the other hand, we'd given a staff  under me a low rating as well. But given that she had the lowest job grade designation out of the entire division, she was "saved" from this lower rating and given a slightly higher rating. Both good & bad news for me I guess. 

Oh...I dislike dealing with HR matters.....