Friday, October 16, 2009
Well, so far I've just been doing my data coding job, getting used to the programme.
I'm also currently waiting for the responses of the residential colleges I applied to. I'm feeling rather nervous, but perhaps they're not used to applicants so early in the year, since their Year 12s haven't finished their exams yet.
On Wednesday my sister and I followed my mum to NIE to have a nice sushi lunch and watch this Japanese acapella group called Permanent Fish perform at NTU. They have 5 members - one vocal percussion, one bass, and three others sharing the lead and chorus parts.
And they're really good! Okay, perhaps I'm not an expert on acapella, though I have been in a group before and watched other groups from choir, and I think it's cool that their total singing is pulled off by 4 people, since the 5th guy does the VP.
They really had a lot of energy! I think the VP guy really just went on and on without needing to drink water! And the bass guy went pretty low! And the 3 chorus guys all have excellent strong voices! Plus one of them can make these cool sort of electric guitar sounds with the mike!
Apparently they've also released Korean albums, including a version of the old Korean song Balloons, which DBSK sang a remake of! I bet that there were some DBSK fans in the audience, because they looked excited when the middle guy introduced Balloons as their next song!!
They had a concert on Wednesday night at the Esplanade, but anyway I couldn't go because I had tuition. I think it's cool how they just keep singing non-stop, and don't seem to need any time to get their notes for the next song immediately after finishing the previous one!
I hope they really can go 'from Kobe to the world'!
Thursday, September 24, 2009
Yesterday was the last day of the interviews for the project, and I'm quite sorry to think that I won't get to do them anymore. Especially because the last school we went to was that one at stevens road, it was so interesting to hear what they had to say during the interviews, and I really enjoyed it. I also met Jodie on the way from the bus stop - she looked pretty surprised to see me! Labels: work
I feel like I've met so many people who were also administering surveys and conducting interviews for the past two months or so, and I've had the chance to go to so many different schools in this research position, it really was fun!
But anyway I was the youngest one doing the interviews - most of them were either undergraduate students or masters students already. And of course there were older adults too!
I'm just going to list some of their names down here so that I won't forget them next time - I hope it won't complicate anything: Yongqing, Xinjie, Huihui, Zoe, Joanna, Selina, Guan Leong. I didn't really talk to the masters students, I mean they were their own friends anyway.
I wish them all the best on their future endeavours!
Monday, August 31, 2009
My gosh, I'm not sure I've ever had a job that felt like it just dragged on forever. Labels: family, friends, MGS, work
Data coding was my job for one of the projects done by CRPP in NIE, and it was essentially to assign codes to the answers given by the survey-takers in an Excel file.
Now, there were 13509 survey takers, and 4 responses each, though not all of them filled in all the entries, so there were blank cells here and there.
So thankfully, instead of 13509 x 4 = 54036 entries, it was only about 46400 entries. And also, there were already pre-assigned codes, so it wasn't as if I had to come up with a whole set of codes by myself.
It was really easy at first, because being an excel file, I could arrange the column in alphabetical order, which would put all similarly spelt answers together, and then just put the correct code in the next column, click and drag until wherever necessary.
Unfortunately as it went on, I had to try to figure out typo errors as well as make decisions on creating new codes, or conforming to older ones.
I kept doing it, until the point where I thought I was going to go crazy because after entering the codes so many times after a while you it kind of just sticks in your brain.
And FINALLY, as of 11:15am this morning on the 31st of August, I finished the last entry, completing my job!
The good thing was that I got to work from home, so I didn't need to go to NIE like every working day. I think my general knowledge has increased as well.
Now I'm going to have lunch with Jane and Adeline (old MGS friends!!), and they just missed the Teachers' Day celebrations at MGS. I THOUGHT SO, they wanted to be there at what, 11:30, but my younger sister came home at about 11 already, so they must have been late!
EDIT: We had lunch at the Soup Spoon, a first time for me. And it's really filling, until I couldn't finish the bread bowl. It was really nice to see them again, but they're both flying off this month to the UK for university studies! I actually didn't know that Addie had been studying there for about 2 years already! She talks a little like a Brit now, how cool! And Jane's gonna do medicine (in Scotland), like me!! Yay!
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Firstly, today's my brother's birthday! Happy Birthday!! You're now a quarter of a century old!!
So today was my last day officially working at Graduate Programmes and Research Office [Teachers' Professional Development] in NIE, but not my last day in NIE.
For the past two weeks, I've been kind of like a regular worker - I would wait for the chartered NIE staff bus for the Holland - Farrer - Bukit Timah area, along with Dr Joan Fry (and for a few days, Mark as well) at the small side road beneath the train railway.
The people on the bus are Auntie Kok Mui, Auntie Lek Cher (both of whom know my mum), Joy, Shih Fen, Dr Fry, Mark and Mary. The two of us would always sit in the back with Mary. Mark was there for the first few days, but wasn't there when he went to Japan.
And then I'd reach NIE at about 8:05am and go to Block 3, hoping that someone would be there to let me in, because I have no pass-card.
I'd be working/slacking from 8.20 - 5.40 or thereabouts, with an hour-long lunch in between. Before my mum went to NZ, I'd just stay in office until about 6.15 to wait for her to be done, and then meet her at the carpark. But for the last two weeks, I had to remember to close everything at about 5.37pm or so, and leave before 5.40pm so as to get to the bus by 5.45pm.
Jun Qiang from the other side of GPR left on 29 June, I think, because the person he was relieving came back from maternal leave or something, and Amos was complaining about all the baby talk, haha.
They also shifted my seat, swapping places with Radha, so that she now sat beside Charles, and I sat in front of Jiahui. At first I wasn't too happy, because I liked being tucked away in my old corner, but at least in this new place I could talk to Jiahui! Madeline also got shifted to one of those tables near the pantry/toilet. (The computer guy, who's Grace's husband! shifted the computers around.)
Sitting at the new place was quite different. The aircon was less cold (made my old corner feel like the North Pole), and I occasionally directed people who came in to the right people to ask their questions to. Also, my desk was right outside the meeting room, where the people inside could be noisy despite the closed door! And once, Mavis came in, I wonder if it was on behalf of my mum?
Then Jiahui's last day was on 3rd July, because she was going to Taiwan on the following Tuesday, and the manager had been officially hired already, so Chris 'terminated her employment', lol. We had Canadian pizza on her last day - good stuff!
After that I was the only one left in my column, the three people in the other column belonging to the other side of GPR (Emma, Asmidah, Mazian). I think it's called GAP or something.
The new manager's name is Wei Ling, I think. She's pretty tall! But then Chris had to go eat with her and the higher-ups, and Su-Ming and Madeline would go by themselves, so I ate by myself once or twice, and once with Amos (we boycott Broadway!).
And they had this TPD lunch-meeting thing on Friday where they ordered KFC. I wasn't even sure if I was supposed to go, but it turns out, I was! Apparently the lunch time was like the manager getting to know everyone's family, work history etc. Hers is really colourful, even more than Charles, but no one can beat Radha: working at NIE all her life! And she looks way too young to be the mother of a 20-year old! Then they had their meeting while I did my work outside.
Yesterday I took a half-day off to go to school to get my SGC, so I only spent the morning in office. Because I took the cough medicine, I was literally falling asleep at my desk! And then the LP people (Audrey and Ros) came in with lots of leftover samosas and fruit tarts, which I admit I stuffed my face with. Kept me awake!
Today I went in (with Cindi) and it took a while to realise that my computer was missing! Rather, they moved it to two desks in front of Madeline, so that the entire column was now empty, and anyone looking for TPD would have to walk to the right, my desk being the first in line.
The good thing about this desk is that I could eat my pau without being seen! But a lot more people walk by it, and I feel a bit paiseh if they see me playing games - not because I'm a slacker but because Chris didn't give me work!
Today at least TPD remembered it's my last day, so Madeline, Charles, Imelda and Su-Ming kind of wished me well with my future endeavours. They're so cute, they all like to shake hands or something. Even Dr Tan!
It's currently the teacher investiture going on, so Charles and Madeline got volunteered to be ushers or something, so my last lunch was at the Cafe by the Quad (teri & yaki chicken!).
Anyway, despite it being my last day, I just realised that I left my earphones there, so I'll pop by tomorrow to get them. I'm going to start my new work at CRPP (thanks to Shih Fen :D), so it's still NIE!
I think NIE is so fun. I don't know why. It's like everything works together. Like how the Foundation Programmes people are all involved in the TIC these 3 days, where teachers previously trained under the various AGs are now released into the schools, and they'll later come back to GPR for other courses! Cool.
Sunday, June 14, 2009
My family went to Malaysia for about 3 1/2 days, 7th to 10th June recently. We stayed at Kuantan in Pahang from Sunday to Tuesday morning, and then went downwards to Kuala Rompin for the last night, in order to cut our return drive home into two shorter distances. Labels: choir, church, family, work
My mum wanted to go to the beach (I personally don't really like it), and I think my parents just like going on holidays.
We didn't really do a lot of stuff - mostly driving around, going to the beach, staying in and playing games brought from home (I stuffed 6 games into 2 game boxes!) and looking for places to eat.
My mum really wanted to see the sunrise on the sea, since it's the east coast, so every morning we got up to see the sunrise and take pictures, but it was really cloudy for the first two days! At least the Wednesday morning one was nice.
We also went to this turtle sanctuary where they keep these turtles in mini-pools and feed them lettuce! They also have an exhibit there for information, and a hatchery where visitors go to at night in hopes of spotting a turtle laying eggs there. My parents and brother went, but didn't see any.
The villa we stayed at for the first night was nice, even with a small private jaccuzzi pool, but the maintenance was bad! At one point there was a very short blackout, before the lights came on again, but some of the aircons stopped working, and we had to keep calling the maintenance people over to fix the stuff!
The second place was a golf resort, and my parents booked a chalet that IMO was in need of repair (the manager claims it's due for renovation), so we switched to the hotel-type rooms for very little money! Thank God for that! I wanted to go kayaking with my sister, but the seasports centre was closed, sigh.
One thing I really don't like about going to Malaysia is all the mosquitoes and flies. Another thing I wish they had were big shopping centres, but I suppose you'd find those in more densely populated areas like KL. Finding nice places to eat was hard! Lots of seafood though.
And my parents bought lots of DURIAN for us!!! Well, mostly for me, but who cares, right? DURIAN, PEOPLE.
I guess it's nice to be able to go away and just relax, doing nothing, but eventually we have to go back to work and school and whatnot. E.g., the moment I went back to work on Thursday, Jiahui and I had to continue organising and filing the stuff. At least we got it finished by Friday! Just need to put labels and we're done. (I got 2 paper cuts...)
This Saturday I felt like everything was so packed, because I had choir alumni practice from 10am - 2pm, and I thought it was going to end at 1pm and planned to get a haircut, but then I couldn't because I needed to bathe, pack for camp (which starts later), go for my penultimate driving lesson at 4.30pm - 6pm, then go to church for worship practice at 7.30pm. GAH.
I haven't finished packing for camp! And my driving test is tomorrow!!! In the words of my mother, "You're a busy little girl, aren't you?"
Friday, June 5, 2009
My mum helped me get a temp job at NIE GPR, and I started on May 27th.
Actually it's pretty slack, and the other temp staff Jiahui also isn't particularly busy, so I have absolutely no idea why I was hired. But I'm not complaining! I get free transport, cheaper food, aircon, computer access etc. everyday!
The people in the office are very nice to me, and I was initially kind of a bit afraid that no one would ask me to go out for lunch or something, but they always do! And they go to different places, introducing good stuff to eat, especially reccommending the shaved ice (it's flaky!) in Canteen 2. Pity the NIE Canteen closed, so we must walk further to eat lunch.
I even got treated to - can you believe it - Sakae Sushi on my 3rd day there, courtesy of Madeline, whose birthday was upcoming! She knows my mum and vice versa, and it was super nice of her to treat us!!
I've mostly been doing things like entering data into those master excel files they use for all the 2009 courses, typing out things based on templates, filing things in their respective paper folders, photocopying a bit here and there, putting certificates into envelopes... not much, really.
But today began what looks like a bit of hard work, because Jiahui and I are supposed to go and organise files that date back to 2003, for all the courses and stuff whose paperwork has been collected over the years. And it's all in this somewhat stuffy storage room with cabinets and cupboards and LOTS OF FILES. Chris has all his ideal scenarios, which would mean a lot more work for us, and we've decided he'll leave it to the people who come after we leave in July :P
So we spent some time talking about how to arrange it, and then actually got down to taking the files out and arranging them chronologically by year, and alphabetically by AG. We only managed to do from 2003 to 2005 today (considering we only started at what, 3.30?)
I'm going to Malaysia until Wednesday, so we're going to resume the organising when I go back on Thursday, because it's really sucky for one person to do it alone! Some more Charles has reservist, so Jiahui will probably be helping Chris/Suming out I think.
There's another temp staff on the other side called Amos, who is really really lame. But besides that, he likes to take things. I shan't say it for fear of getting him arrested (kidding), but it's really O.O when you hear what he and his friends have taken. I can't believe such wu liao people exist on this island.
It's been pretty good thus far, hope it stays this way!
And also, HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YUE! [she turned 14 yesterday!]
Thanks to all the blogs i referred to (countless) for html code help :) (esp. cyn' and sixseven)
Adobe Photoshop Elements for supernatural abilities
