Many people have expressed fears of loss of job in Singapore to foreign talent, be it in the high (management and above; C-level), low (less than $1800) or middle (S-pass, more than $1800) level.

Even before the Sunday Times report today, I was commenting to Alice one day, while eating at the Parklane Wan Ton Mee store, that almost 80% of the helpers in the store are either from PRC or Malaysia - and it sort of reminds me of my history lessons eons ago about how our early forefathers came down to Nanyang from China looking for jobs and better prospects.

From the past, we know that (most of) our forefathers have worked really hard to become what we are today - not that our Malay counterparts are any less hardworking, but it’s just that they have a different way of working with an entirely different set of beliefs and priorities.

Soon after, the Chinese helped flourish (with the help of many other people from other races) Singapore to what it is today. If you ask me, the situation in Singapore is somewhat similar to how it was pre-independence - where a lot of Chinese came down from China for a better future.

The only difference now, in my opinion, is that there may be stiffer competition for jobs, but I figured that if PRC Chinese are willing to learn and work hard, they will get somewhere one day and build their own empires.

Wait, isn’t that supposed to be "detrimental" to Singaporeans - in that Singaporeans will be losing jobs to PRC Chinese and become jobless. I guess a lot lies in the mentality - not that I am any less vulnerable, as the Post-doc sitting next to me is from PRC, the PhD student diagonal to me is from Indonesia and the Masters student opposite me is from Pakistan.

For me, I’d constantly be upgrading myself in more ways than one - be it academically, professionally or otherwise. It does seem that I’m always on my toes, doesn’t it? In a certain sense, it does seem that way - but I don’t think I’d be exaggerated to keep upgrading myself constantly - that would definitely be too tiring. At the end of the day, there are many other factors besides skill sets that can keep us hired, including interpersonal skills, a good working attitude and sad to say, perhaps some pay cut.

I figured that by the time the new Chinese (as I like to call them) is up and coming again, I’d hopefully be planning for my retirement in Singapore or elsewhere. So, there’s really more to competing for jobs. It’s a whole process of packaging and marketing yourself, as well as planning your roads ahead. Sometimes, complaining probably doesn’t help as much as taking the first step and planning ahead. After all, the end point doesn’t always have to be the same as where you started.

A friend of mine told me that calling Caucasians "angmo" is derogatory, but in this post, I think the angmo is rude in the first instance. I am not sure if it’s a cultural difference, or do they think that it’s really fine, or do they think that Singapore’s an Asian country and hence they are supreme almighty. Thank goodness it’s a rarity that people like them exists and someone should really knock some sense into them.

Can you see what’s wrong? No? Okie… how about another picture?

Have you noticed anything yet? Still haven’t? Hmm… maybe this isn’t obvious yet, but the following picture should be.

Yes! His feet is on the table! Both of them; and his girlfriend (I suppose) doesn’t even seem to care! Is this a "Western Culture" or is this really alright? I’m not sure, but if I put my legs up onto a table where we put our food as well, I’d get whacked out of my wits.

Then again, maybe there’s nothing to do with culture and someone may just attribute it to bad habits - like how some of us like to shake our legs when seated; but his feet were on a public table where it’d be used by someone else after they leave - without it being cleaned first.

So now, I’d just use tall tables - where I hope that any attempts by any angmo to put their feet on the table will result in them toppling down from their chairs. Another couple just sat at that seat after the angmo couple left, and the girl is happily resting her palms on the table. Sigh…

Seriously… look at her with your head tilted to your left, to your right… and even upside down if you want to. Look at her from her legs up or head down… or even at her shadow… can you figure out?

No? Okie… if you are a guy, perhaps you should stop looking at her nipples because it doesn’t really help much. As one fellow blogger mentioned, “guys will get tired after staring at her for quite a while because they’d all be looking at the wrong parts of the body!”

For me, I think I’d have a headache. 

Now, can you see her spinning clockwise or anti-clockwise? I saw her spinning clockwise first, for as long as I wanted to, then I saw her spinning anti-clockwise. While it was rumoured that this determined which side of the brain you used more, the fact is that, this is only a 34 frame animation in a constant loop which does not provide sufficient 3D spatial information for your brain to process - so your brain tries to fill it up by providing whatever spatial information it thinks you need to see something that you can interpret.

And if you are interested in the left-right brain nitty-gritty, here you go (extracted from news.com.au):

More explanations can be found here and here, and thanks to Chillycraps for highlighting this.

Well, seriously, part 2 had nothing to do with the PHP User Group, except that we were all heading to somewhere together. Bernard wanted to go to Kinokuniya to get some books because he had some 20% for purchases, while Tianhong originally wanted to go to Borders, but got waylaid by me. =P

So we grabbed a small bite at Sushi Tei, where the sashimi is really good - compared to Sakae Sushi, Ichiban Sushi and the likes. The food might be a little costlier, but I guess when it comes to good food, footing a little more is alright.

There’s this Hokkaido crab promotion that seems to happen every now and then. I’ve not tried it before, but I guess I’d just give it a miss and stick to Singapore’s Chilli Crab, unless I am in Hokkaido itself. Heh. Probably fresher too.

It’s the first time that we were actually given window seats, or rather it’s the first time *I* was given a window seat - not too sure about the rest though. Haha… it’s different, I guess - in that, everyone else walking outside can see you eating, scratch your hair, dig your nose, scratch your inner tights, adjust your pants, unbutton your pants (when you are too full?!) digging your ears, making funny faces… haha…

Here are some more views… and you can see Tianhong seriously surfing some porn doing his tweaking on his blog. Heh heh… I think he managed to get something to work on it.

Food finally arrived and the sashimi looked really good! Heh heh… there’s salmon, yellowtail, tuna and swordfish. Hmm… too bad Alice isn’t a fan of sashimi, so it was left to Tianhong and myself! Haha…

We had some fried salmon skin too, which we thought were overcooked! It seemed like it was double fried! Oh well, it was too hard and too much were sticking to my teeth.

There were probably too much good in the end, but thank goodness we had miccheng to join us to help finish some food. =P

Here’s Alice giving her thumbs up for the food! Mmmmmm… the food smells good! Haha! And here’s Tianhong with his fastest fingers first kungfu chopsticks! Look at that double take!

More of Alice’s don… and Tianhong has his opinion of the food! Haha… thanks for putting up for the camera! =P If you think there were too much onions in Alice’s don, it’s because she asked for more. I think I’d be away from her for the next couple of days. =P

Soon after, miccheng’s food came as well. You see that fuel under that pot, it seemed like they were burning some plastic along with the fuel - and I am not sure if that’s entirely environmentally friendly! Haha…

My snack turned out to be much bigger than I expected. Oh well… in the end, Tianhong didn’t get to go to Borders and ended up with us at Starbucks. Yes, everyone was busy blogging! Haha… that seemed to be the highlight of the evening! And I had had my usual Chai Tea. Somehow, it seemed blender than usual! Oh well…

Haha… oh well, today’s quite a relaxed day. Just hope that I’d be as free as today for all Saturdays… you know? It’s good to take some time off after a week-long of work and study. After all, work and no play makes jean a dull girl =P

I was supposed to meet up with the PHP User Group people for brunch in the morning, but I

• got up late,
• was tied down with lunch with J’s parents, and
• couldn’t grab a taxi at all (where in the world are all the cabs?!)

In the end, I got there by almost 2:00pm and lunch was all finished and I was left with not even a drop of water. Oh well, at least I met really nice people!

From top left to bottom right, arzhou, Hendri, miccheng, Neo Neil, Nicole and Tianhong. Yes, all were quite obviously there much earlier than me and had already finished their brunch by the time I went there. And you know what happens when geek conjugate? This.

Haha… all were either happily Battle Station’ing away or doing up their blogs. I mean, what do geeks do when they get together, right?

So, arzhou was busy giving tips to Alice, who was a newbie to Battle Stations, while discussing strategies with Bernard. I wasn’t sure what miccheng was doing on his Mac, but Tianhong didn’t bother to join in the gang on Battle Stations. Instead, he was busy beautifying his new blog. =P

Following which, for some reasons, I got very hungry. arzhou was about to go to Old Chang Kee to get some curry puffs, but was unfortunately closed. So he got 12 pieces of Kaya/Butter bread for the whole gang! Haha… thanks arzhou!

And because he’s so nice, I won’t mention what is wrong with the picture above. =P

Soon after, some left for Microsoft, some while others went on their way. For the few of us remaining, we decide to head off to Kinokuniya/Borders; but that’s part 2. =P

I didn’t know about the concert until the middle of November, by then, all tickets were sold out! Can you believe it? All sold out!!! Goodness.

Anyway, I was just looking around and saw that there are people still getting their tickets! Apparently, there is some sort of waiting list from Sistic and more people have gotten their tickets. Well, I’ve nothing to say if they are die hard fans of Jay…. but! Look at this!

The tickets are going for $2400 for their buy now price for 2, which is $1200 for 1 ticket! Goodness! Is 1 ticket (originally $198) really worth 6 times its original price?! And that’s not all…

There is apparently a wait list! Haha… oh dear, I never knew that there was a wait list! =S Oh well, I guess it’s a free market after all. She can name any price she wants, but if there are people who are willing to pay that kind of price, well, all I can do is to congratulate her.

It does seem that she was some what interested to go for the concert, but somehow, I can’t help but feel that she was trying to profiteer from it.

Hmm… I am too shocked for words… don’t know what else to say.

I saw some charge on my statement which I wasn’t very clear about, so I decided to call the UOB Customer Service - which by now is infamous for their 25 minute wait - anytime of the day.

I wonder who calls them at 4:00am in the morning, not that I do. Anyway, I guess I didn’t have much of a choice. It’s about 1:20am, it should be alright.

1:25am Takes a deep breath and punch numbers… 1800-2222-121. *ring ring* Welcome to UOB Call Centre. For English, press 1, for Chinese, press 2. (Ed: If I can’t understand English, how do I know I have to press 2 for Chinese? Haha… Then again, the Chinese version came shortly) Pressed 1, then 0, then 1 again for banking services… The wait begins…

1:26am Oh boy… I think I am going to hate this… then someone answered the call. Good morning UOB, this is XXX speaking. How may I assist you? Wow! This is fast service! So it’s not as bad as I thought. After getting my accounts cleared, I asked about my cards. Ah… so here’s where the wait begins.

1:28am Still waiting… waiting… why are they not picking up the phone?

1:30am Yawning. Still listening to the music. Ok. Decided to put the phone on speaker mode.

1:31am Eh! 1 minute le. Still not picking up the phone? Who calls at 1:30am?

1:32am I decided to save whatever remaining minutes I have on my mobile plan and hung up. I think I’ll just call them tomorrow morning. Early morning. Damn. Going to waste 1/2 hour of time tomorrow. Shucks!

Today was such a busy, busy day. I had a meeting in the morning (after a long, long break) to discuss about how we are going to save the world. =P Serious. We are working on some ways to save more people from dying from accidents/high-rise falls/superman stunts.

In the afternoon, I was involved in a studio shoot project, which basically tired me out totally. Flat. Haha… I hadn’t been this hectic for a long time. More updates later, ok? =)

Well, to a certain extent, yes. I’m almost ready to talk about it now. For the uninitiated, I decided on a hair cut yesterday and the deed was done yesterday evening. The rationale behind the hair cut was because I wanted a new look. However, like most previous experiences, I got more than what I bargained for.

1 year ago…

I got my hair cut in Kimage Funan by a supposedly senior hairstylist. I didn’t get his name, but he looks rather senior - literally old. Anyway, to cut a long story short, he:

• burnt my head with hot water
• left water in my ears
• left soap behind my ear and on my neck
• combed my hair so hard that my hair snapped
• yanked my hair out of my scalp
• doesn’t give a damn to what he was doing to my hair
• tried to get people to wash and blow dry my hair

Senior hairstylist? My foot. Anyone knows anybody from Kimage Funan? Maybe they should do something. And oh, this isn’t even the school/academy. It’s the Professional outlet. If this is Professional, I fear for the students under him.

Come to think of it, I should have done the favourite Singapore past time - write in to complain.

Now…

Yesterday morning, I decided to search on the Internet for "hairstylist good recommend Singapore" on google.com, and found a forum where someone left a good comment for a hairstylist located in downtown. So I called up the branch and made an appointment for yesterday evening, asking for the hairstylist who was mentioned.

When I finally arrived at the place, I was ushered onto a seat and moments later, the deed was done…

Looking back I am not heartache over the loss of so much hair. For one, it really feels much lighter now. Haha… then again, it’d take another couple of years for everything to grow back again.

I wished I had pictures with me, but they were taken by someone else… so, I’d just have to wait. Coincidentally, the gal got her hair cut as well this morning! Haha… tis’ the season for hair cutting… fwa la la la la, fwa la la la…

Haha… getting my hair cut today. Really short. Maybe it’s a good way to vent emotions. I’ll probably be so heartache about the short hair that it’d overwrite whatever emotions I am harbouring…

Thinking of posting before and after photos… then again, maybe not.