Tuesday, May 31, 2005
NUS Arts and Social Sciences, here I come!
I guess its gone full circle then...back to the arts where I belong.
Zenon and other people may agonize about which side they should head towards but its a pretty obvious choice for me.
And don't tell me I'm wasting my life in arts, I know i could have gone anywhere else - but i don't want to. Its a decision I made because i cannot stand the thought of 3 years more, nay, a lifetime more, of science or science related whatevers.
Anyone else in NUS arts? Do let me know, my prospects look bleak if I'm going to stroll into uni knowing no one at all. Drop me a comment! A message! A tag! Because hardly anyone I know seems to be heading the same place i am.
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Today i walked Clifford the Big Red Dog through Borders and around the outside of the store. It was to say the least, extremely amusing. Especially since the guy inside the Clifford suit was inclined to striking very strange rocker-style poses, dancing, and playing an imaginary guitar right smack in the middle of Orchard Road.
Despite never having read any Clifford books in my younger days I am now a decided Clifford fan.
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Sunday, May 29, 2005
Today i walked Clifford the Big Red Dog through Borders and around the outside of the store. It was to say the least, extremely amusing. Especially since the guy inside the Clifford suit was inclined to striking very strange rocker-style poses, dancing, and playing an imaginary guitar right smack in the middle of Orchard Road.
Despite never having read any Clifford books in my younger days I am now a decided Clifford fan.
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Wednesday, May 25, 2005
5 albums to take with me if i had to stay on a deserted island for a week:
1)Athlete - Tourist
2)Sarah McLachlan - Surfacing
3)Damian Rice - O
4)Wallflowers - Breach
5)Tori Amos - From The Choirgirl Hotel
There's a fly/bee thing buzzing around the inside of my light. I have no idea how it got in because it certainly can't find its way out now. I wonder what it would be light to die in an explosion of brightness and brilliance. It has been said that the last thing humans see before they die is a tunnel filled with light, going on forever. Some argue that this confirms the existance of a heaven towards which we speed our way in the final moments of our lives. To the more cynical others it is merely the expression of the brain's final attempt to shield our cowardly selves from the horror of non-existance.
God give me the grace to believe the former. Dear Lord I seem to have lost the ability to have faith in what i cannot see. Sometimes it seems I'm losing faith in myself, or rather, in the person I used to be. Because I've somehow, imperceptibly to most, changed and I'm losing sight of what I once was.
To hell with
change is the only constant
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Tuesday, May 24, 2005
If i had to single out the one most unforgettable lesson I've learned from my job it would be this:
Despite how far we as a nation have progressed economically, financially and all that jazz, in terms of how
civilised we are we've moved not an inch. To quote a certain manager, Singaporeans seriously need a reality check.
It comes from dealing with customers and the aftermath of their visits day after day. Particularly in the kids bit where I usually am. Its insane how quickly the section gets thrashed, especially on public holidays (like today). And how blatantly rude and/or clueless certain customers can be (and i don't mean just the little tykes). And finally, just how inherantly selfish people are.
I really think a book on bookstore etiquette should be published and made compulsory reading in schools, having learnt from experience that the presence of parental figures seldom brings about any form of positive change. Such essential points as those stated below may be included.
(1) Open browsing policies mean just that:
browsing . Which by default implies brevity. Flipping through a book for a few minutes constitutes browsing. Planting yourself in a corner for 5 hours with a stack of magazines does not.
(2) When staff ask if you need a book, they do not mean:
do you intend to continue sitting here for another five hours reading this copy? They really mean,
are you actually planning to buy this? . And because most of the time the answer is actually in the negative, be grateful that we're all nice and polite enough to leave you be and not tell you to fuc off and go to a bleeding library and you don't plan to pay for what you want to read.
(3) Do not take it as your God-given right to root yourself in any crevice and corner you find comfy. Granted, if you're stubborn enough none of us will be able to move you, but having a storeful of grumpy salespeople hating your guts is definitely not good karma.
(4)If you're standing in line at the cashiers, buying
one single measly l0nely item, please for heaven's sake do NOT wait till you actually reach the counter to start digging through your bag for change. I have personally encountered $13.15 (lemony snickett book) paid for purely in coins, all of which were retrieved from the depths of a handbag wile standing
at the counter . impressive,no?
(5) And while we're all really happy to serve you and all that, we're only human just as you are.
Note to all this post was not intended as a complaint. It's really just what i think about working where I do. So the standard of service in Singapore's been going down? no surprise. It seems painfully obvious that service is a two way thing: there is no way
goodcustomer service can materialize in a society where customers lack the basic civilities of humanity. In other words, the problem lies not in the service sector per se. Its something we as a society lack, and seriously, like i said before, what we need more than anything else is a reality check.
thankyougoodnight
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Tuesday, May 03, 2005
ok, if this works and you see a bee-yoo-tee-ful new tkin, thank jeasson
if you don't, blame jaesson.
either way, im too outta touch with my dear old blog to be in any way responsible.
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