Ok. Work. I'm currently working as a lowly temp staff at the Office of Finance in NUS. Actually, the official name of my post is Casual Management Officer,which sounds slightly better but wth temp staff is still temp staff. Paid six bucks per hour, which makes me feel like some form of cheap labour cos many admin pay now for A Level people is 8 to 8.50 per hour now. Outsourced tele workers in India get paid more than me lah. But whatever, money is still money, so I shall trudge on until something funnier comes along.
My building is called the University Hall and houses all the administrative offices of NUS. Specifically, I work in the Tan Chin Tuan wing, on the 3rd floor, in an office that needs you to scan your card before going in (made me feel really important until I found out that I'm not supposed to get a card. So everytime I need to go in I knock. oO Or borrow someone's card), in a small cubicle that's painted yellow. Yew.
Ahaha for now, I've only got pictures my handphone (edit: no pictures from my phone for now! phone not behaving and refusing to send stuff out) because my brother has stolen my camera again. With all my pictures at his mercy! Shall go and extort him tmr. Should be able to get it back. Anyways, I didn't take any pictures with my colleagues because 1. it's not time to leave yet 2. all my colleagues except 2 are 30 years and above 3. not allowed to take photos in my office due to highly secret posting procedures and cash and cheques and whatnots.. (the above photos are actually secretly taken) 4. no beautiful scenery at all. Although the inside of my office looks awful, the exterior of the building is actually quite cool, with NUS campus as the backdrop. When I get my camera (which I will... believe me), I will show off more of my beautiful workplace (exterior!).
A day in the workplace for me would be like this. 0900 arrive at workplace half an hour late. Yes, consistently everyday. Mwahaha funny why my boss haven't fired me yet... oh, I get paid by the hour that's why. D'oh. AAh anyways, I sit down and start work. My work basically consists of checking payment postings (money that goes out of NUS, and inter deparmental journal spendings). Which is dead boring. Just check check check check check check check check check check check check check check check check check check check check check check check check check. But sometimes it's quite interesting to see what the department buys. For example, the other day, Department of Biology bought 2 female, 7kg New Zealand rabbits from the Animal Unit. Each rabbit costs $40+ dollars. LOL ex! My one day pay buys a rabbit! Oo Guess how much a mouse costs. ...$2. And the liver of a pig is not very cheap as well. And they buy penises of some animal I forgot. ......I refuse to remember the price of that particular purchase.
Ah you must be thinking now that all I remember from my job is prices of weird animal parts. Well, I don't just check payments for animals. Basically, about half of what NUS spends I get to see at least once. It's actually quite a knowledgeble job come to think of it. I now know what hotels visiting professors stay at and where they usually eat. I know how much the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory pays their adjudicators for honorarium purposes. And I know how much renting a limo costs (the president's preferred mode of transport overseas). Plus, with those reimursements/invoices are supporting documents which tells you what is the root of the payment ie what is NUS paying for. So I kind of know what's going on in NUS... sort of, since every activity needs money. Random, yes, but useful in some sort of way.
My colleagues are pretty nice people. Most of them are accountants (ACCA!) and they do their job diligently. But they all have a common nightmare; that is of one day coming to work seeing their cubicle stuffed full of invoices that they can't even step foot into it. It almost happened to me one day. Everyone just piled what they want me to chop, photostat, check, file, look for, prepare cheque, on my table and there was absolutely no space for me to do anything. So I moved to another empty cubicle. Where it started piling again. Goodness.
Actually, come to think of it, my job is quite bimbotic. I don't need to use my brain all the time... of course I got use my brain dammit, just not all the time. Read properly. The need to use more brain jobs goes to my colleague Eunice who does some real posting. She's more experienced than me cos she came in a month early. Waiting for her A results as well. A bit anti-social but it dosen't matter much. Lol, sometimes she cheats! When she gets busy, she would throw some of her jobs to me. Like preparing cheques for a (thick) stack of reimbursements, chopping "recieved" on a (thick) stack of mail, running errands for her to look for documents.. aiya basic psykang lah. But I don't have anyone to pass my work onto! So I get abused. Argh.
At least the state of my work is improving now, and I'm kinda settling comfortably into a nice rhythm. Checking, then opening some mail, checking again, then doing some photocopying odd jobs for Dawn and Ms Tan, then checking again, then preparing a cheque for Sonia or Joe, then checking again, then getting some document for Eunice, then resume my checking, then doing some really sian long stuff for Ms Tan and then chopping posted documents for Catherine the cycle goes on and on and on. ... It's a joy. Really.
Haha, at least I have the lunch hour to look forward to everyday (don't we all). The food on campus is pretty good. Best thing is that it's really cheap (average $2.50 per meal with drinks) with huge portions and that there're more than 5 cheap canteens to chose from! And 20% off Subway and Spinelli and Burger King! :D Plus, most of the time I'm in good company - Sranj!! :) She's working in NUH so we take a bus down to one of the canteens to have lunch frequently. Actually Annar is there too, interning at Psychology, but is usually too busy to join us. :( Oh wells, one day Annar we are going to drag you out, you workaholic.
I hate the peak hours that a 9-5 job has left me with. Everywhere I go it's peak hour peak hour peak hour. Every morning I play sardines on 963 and every evening I have to go aggressive in order to get onto the super crowded 963 at the track bus stop. But sometimes there's not need at all when the bus dosen't even stop. My record is waiting at the bus stop with 7 freaking 963s passing you by without stopping cos they're full. RARR. And even if I get onto the bus, I play an even more intense game of sardines in it. When I get home, the basketball court would be full of people cos it's peak hour evening time. The queus in the canteens are usually very long because my lunch time is at peak hours. OH how I miss the nice innocent days when dissmissal was twelve something and the canteen was empty and yong tau foo stalls don't have any queue at all.
Hmmm lately been thinking about doing part-time usher work for Esplanade. Downside: The pay is lousy, working hours are usually that of night-shift and you'll have to stand the whole way. Upside: Get to watch performances if you're lucky, and I'll be working in a place that I absolutely adore. So therefore, the upside outweighs the down ie going to call them asap!
I'm actually quite happy now (sorry random) because I'm going to go for my first practical driving lesson next weekend! Yippee!! Actually quite pleased with the whole driving process. Took my Basic Theory Test during Chinese New Year and passed after starting to mug the night before. Then got really lucky and booked my Final Theory Test date only 10 days after my BTT! Miracle! Usually it takes 2 months. Whaha my friends learning through the school are all seething now cos when I'm taking my FTT they still haven't started their lessons yet cos their test date is in April but they took BTT before me! *evil* Haha I keed but everybody please change to private if you haven't done so yet! It's cheaper by half, no bureacracy at all, flexible lessons and you plan your own progress! :D Anyways, I was quite scared of my FTT cos it's so much more difficult than BTT and I only have ten days to mug for it. Natually, me the procratinator procratinates until the last few days before the test to start panicking and mugging. Plus while I was doing the test, people started failing left and right. And I got so many weird questions that I dunno what concept they were trying to test, and I guessed about 7 of them. Which is a lot, given that you fail if you get 6 wrong. Well, but in the end, I still PASSED! Was so freaking happy! LOl I love winging tests.
Hmmm other than work, my life now revolves around anime. I watch, on average, 2 episodes of Lucky Star every night and 2 episodes of Full Metal Panic? Fumoffu!. Eh, that's not a lot ok. Firstly, one episode is a measely twenty something minutes and my watching rate is sooooooooooo much more moderated compared to before I started work. Yours truly is the type of person who, after gets her hand on an interesting book, will finish it until the very last page in one sitting. Yes. I absolutely CANNOT put it down until I finish it. So it's the same thing with anime and TV dramas -- if possible, I will watch episode after episode until the very last one. Therefore, you can usually find me perched in front of my laptop at 4 in the morning, eyes bloodshot and refusing to budge until I've finished the whole season. I finished Kanon 2006 (24 episodes) in one day, The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya (14 episodes) in half a day, Ouran High School Host Club (I forgot how many) in three-quarters of a day and etc etc etc. Oh animes I mentioned are veeeery popular in Japan and all over the world, so if you have time and are bored looking at real people, try out one of those.
But of course my limited free time to myself isn't spent all on anime itself. I'll be really hen to do that. There're other more meaningful stuff to do... like blog surfing, shopping, going out with friends, shivering in absolute fright evertime I click on the "choices" button in Track, chatting online, resolving domestics, tuitioning, waiting for PAYDAY, going to instrument shops to check out guitars (since I returned the one I had borrowed from a friend for 2 years), playing GTA, Sims 2, Baldur's Gate, FFX, etc etc etc. But I've stopped gaming now after all that gore from the chainsaw in GTA. Seriously. It goes "RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR" and your screen is drenched in blood and you see the bottom half of the guy only. I got a big shock from the katana also. Just "SWOP" and the head dissapears with the screen drenched in blood too. That's not all. There's too much woohooing from sex slaved sims, slow framerate on FFX and gender discrimination on Baldur's Gate. Or maybe I've grown really old now until games appear kind of childish to me.
I went for the COMPASS and MAPASS pilot tests in late December last year and haven't really recieved official word on my results yet. Though I recieved a letter asking me to go for full body medical the other day so... I guess I passed? I'm seriously not sure. (Edit: Jerome called. I passed.) Anyway, I'm still considering whether life in the military is for me. Mom is adamentally against it, and if I apply for SMS or RSAF scholarship now I can only get it (if I make it, which I don't think I will) next year. And I'm not sure whether I'm as much of a military person as before. .... Aiya, I'll wait until medical results come out lah. No point worrying so much when they'll reject me because my fat percentage is too close to 200%.
Phew! What a long post. Ahaha no promises it won't be the last. Woo if you're still here, thank you very much for reading my ramblings. WAhaha imaginary people hello! Ok, I'll see you soon. This is a really funny way of updating my imaginary friends about my life.
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