tell me about it

Apart from the fact that it is bloody freezing in here and my fingers are turning blue, the Premier division has finished its games for the day and are now quite delightedly trying on their collector’s item polo shirts for this year’s tournament. I see Ed Okulicz (his name is a finger-twister to type) trying on his tee; so is Chris May. Personally, I’ve got a size L – anyone want to trade to an S?

We’re all now waiting for the Open division to finish so that we can proceed for dinner. They started at about 7.50pm and it’s now 8.20; not a single result slip has come back to me so I foresee I will have to let my fingers slowly become blocks of ice while I vainly attempt to hush my growling tummy. Michael quite generously supplied us all with Snickers bars to stave off hunger pangs earlier, so now I’m 1) cold (to put it mildly), 2) impatient for dinner, and 3) twitching from a sugar rush.

Hopefully tomorrow’s Internet connection will be less patchy – at least I could connect sporadically; Barry is having much trouble linking his computer up. So far though I must say that this year’s players have been wonderfully well behaved and an easy group to handle.

Many thanks to Suanne and Ed who’ve offered me their Snickers (as Ed put it, I am merely a brain led by my stomach, and if it demands sugar, who am I to deny it?) but I think I need some real food. Come, result slips, to me!

Woo! Though I won’t get full bonus, probably – only started on the Government’s payroll in June.

Good performers to get more in March 2008

IT looks like 2007 will be a bumper year, financially, for Singapore’s 60,000 civil servants. They will get a year-end Annual Variable Component (AVC) of one month and a Non-Pensionable Annual Allowance (NPAA) – also known as the 13th month or annual wage supplement – of one month, in December. In addition, eligible civil servants will be paid the newly-introduced Growth Bonus in March 2008. Payable in times of exceptional economic performance, this bonus varies in amount depending on individual performance and aims to strengthen the link between performance and pay.

Good performers will receive 0.5 months of Growth Bonus, and better performers will receive more, up to 0.8 months. A statement from the Prime Minister’s Office said the economy has performed better than anticipated this year. The Ministry of Trade and Industry has forecast that the Singapore economy is expected to grow by 7.5 to 8 per cent this year. The unemployment rate has fallen from 2.7 per cent last year to 1.7 per cent, with a record high of 171,500 jobs created in the first nine months of 2007.

In July this year, the Government paid civil servants a mid-year AVC of 0.5 month and a one-off payment of $220, in line with the call by the National Wages Council for employers to help low wage workers.

The total variable payment for 2007 is 2.5 months plus $220, not including the Growth Bonus. With the Growth Bonus, the total payment for a good performer will be three months plus $220 for 2007, compared to 2.7 months plus $220 in 2006.

Oh I am having fun with the kitchen all to myself these two weeks and whipping up simple food for my family :)

Today I made fried miso macaroni with deep-fried luncheon meat cubes (mother would never approve), mixed veg, mushrooms, onion, and little fishcake cubes. Yesterday was Hokkien-style mee with chye sim and minced pork. I also quite like my ginger soy chicken wings :D

I’ll never get to cook like this when Mom’s around, because she wouldn’t be able to stop herself from interfering :P Must learn how to do the more difficult dishes from her…

Yay I love cooking!

Couple of cute puzzly poems I found in a pedagogy book I borrowed from NIE library, which I am supposed to be writing an essay on, but am obviously procrastinating over.

:D

Ms Alice had a nice Mr
And every Friday night he kr
But when her lips began to blr
That fickle Mr kr sr.

-Anonymous

and!

Radi was a circus lion
Radi was a woman hater
Radi had a lady trainer
Radiator.

-Ivor Treby

If you don’t get it, leave a comment so I can ridicule you gently give you hints :D

My tuition kid got 269 for PSLE, A* for English, and is the second highest scorer in her primary school!

*BEAMS*

Oh, and the highest recorded score this year is…294. WTH! Kid must have gotten full marks for her Math and Science and lost marks only in language oral and composition. Gasp. Kids these days are insane.

I believe you are the answer to every tear I’ve cried
I believe that you are with me,
My rising and my light.

Give me strength when I am weary
Give me hope when I can’t see
Through the crosses I must carry
Lord, bind my heart to thee

That when all my days are over
and all my chores are done,
I may see your risen Glory
Forever where You are.

-Melody from Gustav Holst’s The Planets Op.32 Jupiter :)

First batch of mulled wine made, sans vanilla essence (how on earth does my kitchen lack vanilla essence? Mom must have put it somewhere I can’t find :/) and with a Chilean red wine and half a cup of Ruby Red Absolut vodka.

Next time, I am putting in maybe a tablespoon of vodka, lots of vanilla essence, and more cinnamon.

The ethanol fumes are crazy intense! Had to add quite a bit of sugar to counteract red wine and make it sweet. It’s not too bad but I suspect hot wine would taste better in cold weather.

Edit: I found the vanilla essence and stirred some in. It’s now sitting in the refrigerator waiting for company so I can heat mugs of it up and share :D

Over on the Dilbert Blog, Scott Adams gave his readers an assignment: “describe your own job in one sentence, preferably in a humorously derogatory way.”

Some guy posted his favorite top ten :D And here I am, paying homage to number 5.

1. Help people hate each other: Divorce Lawyer
2. Talk in other people’s sleep: College Professor
3. Try not to kill the baby: Housewife
4. Show people how beautiful the Earth would be without them: Mountain Landscape Photographer/Climber
5. Copy and paste the Internet: Student
6. Write words that no one wants to read: Technical Writer
7. Misinterpret the universe: Astronomer
8. Spend most of the day looking out the window: Pilot
9. Run away and call the police: Security Guard
10. Sell magic potions filled with psychotherapy: Bartender

“You know that cushion that used to belong to you?”

“Yes…wait, what do you mean ‘used’ to belong to me?”

“Yeah, about that cushion.”

“It’s mine now.”

:(

I love O Henry and his stories which always have the most entertaining twists at the end :) This is one of my favorites.

The most notable thing about Time is that it is so purely relative. A large amount of reminiscence is, by common consent, conceded to the drowning man; and it is not past belief that one may review an entire courtship while removing one’s gloves.

That is what Trysdale was doing, standing by a table in his bachelor apartments. On the table stood a singular-looking green plant in a red earthen jar. The plant was one of the species of cacti, and was provided with long, tentacular leaves that perpetually swayed with the slightest breeze with a peculiar beckoning motion.

Trysdale’s friend, the brother of the bride, stood at a sideboard complaining at being allowed to drink alone. Both men were in evening dress. White favors like stars upon their coats shone through the gloom of the apartment.

As he slowly unbuttoned his gloves, there passed through Trysdale’s mind a swift, scarifying retrospect of the last few hours. It seemed that in his nostrils was still the scent of the flowers that had been banked in odorous masses about the church, and in his ears the lowpitched hum of a thousand well-bred voices, the rustle of crisp garments, and, most insistently recurring, the drawling words of the minister irrevocably binding her to another.

From this last hopeless point of view he still strove, as if it had become a habit of his mind, to reach some conjecture as to why and how he had lost her. Shaken rudely by the uncompromising fact, he had suddenly found himself confronted by a thing he had never before faced –his own innermost, unmitigated, arid unbedecked self. He saw all the garbs of pretence and egoism that he had worn now turn to rags of folly. He shuddered at the thought that to others, before now, the garments of his soul must have appeared sorry and threadbare. Vanity and conceit? These were the joints in his armor. And how free from either she had always been–But why–

As she had slowly moved up the aisle toward the altar he had felt an unworthy, sullen exultation that had served to support him. He had told himself that her paleness was from thoughts of another than the man to whom she was about to give herself. But even that poor consolation had been wrenched from him. For, when he saw that swift, limpid, upward look that she gave the man when he took her hand, he knew himself to be forgotten. Once that same look had been raised to him, and he had gauged its meaning. Indeed, his conceit had crumbled; its last prop was gone. Why had it ended thus? There had been no quarrel between them, nothing–

For the thousandth time he remarshalled in his mind the events of those last few days before the tide had so suddenly turned.
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