A Mind of My Own

With the slowdown of the economy and everyone is tightening their belts, garang guni men are picky. The rag and bones business hasn’t gone out of the windows yet. It’s quite lucrative at times and does help to supplement the income.

My mother tried to get the attention of the collector only to have him say, “My boss will come later.” That was 10am. I went out at 11am for my hair appointment and returned home at 4.30pm. The stack of newspapers were still outside our door.

Apparently, this particular collector prefers handphones, old TV and other valuable stuff. I know where to trade in my handphones for cash. I know I can look around and trade in my old TV for cash. I know I can just go to the Cash Converter shop that is just near my place to sell for cash. Why the heck would I just pass to you, the garang guni man for an amount that isn’t worth it?

You think you are clever? Don’t try to be clever for this case. People have stolen our fire riser metal lock before. They are clever too but the authorities had to spend more money to replace with better locks. Do you know where our taxpayers’ money all go to?

The money have to go into building a better nation. That’s why our transport and everything is going up despite paying our taxes. That is also why being a rag and bones collector, you should stop being picky. Because I ain’t gonna let ye pocket that $100 for yourself when I can sell my handphone for a higher price.

I have been freed from the routine job. Perhaps I have reached my ends of the what one might call the boredom of routine job. It hadn’t been that routine but I needed a change of scope that I craved for. I wanted to do something else but there just wasn’t any slot for me at the time.

I was in my first job for 4 years. Hanging on because I was still studying for a degree that isn’t recognised in the end. I had the chance to shift my scope there. I had a chance to expand my knowledge at my second job. There I was so focused in that I got so wounded up due to the demands there. There wasn’t any change of job scope that was possible as there were more talents in the HQ.

After all these years, I am realising that I am looking for an ideal job. My criteria is:

• Allowing me to work from any time as long as I can produce results.
• Allowing me to work from anywhere.
• Paying me enough for my bills and insurance and enough to save up for retirement.

Perhaps what I need isn’t a job. All I need is to have a few roles or skills to juggle with so that I won’t be looking around every 18 months.

Since my last day at work was on a Thursday, I had an event to attend on Friday, the bag competition. On Saturday, I stayed at home scheduling my posts for my blogs. Sunday, I went out. Monday, I stayed at home to source for more money making schemes and I went to watch Hellboy 2 with DD on Tuesday.

Today, I will pick up the cosmetics from Pure Luxe from HY. I have activities on Friday and Saturday although I’m wondering if I have any activities on Thursday.

I have been thinking about the bags I have just bought. I think I would like to sell the black bag. It looks so odd when I hold it. The photo was taken by me, the background has been photoshopped out.

I have many affairs with agents for years. Not something to be proud of, but I have had good and bad ones. The good ones have been matching up pretty fine. The bad ones just couldn’t match no matter what. One even pushed me to attend an interview I already knew it wasn’t going to work out. I wonder how she did it.

Image via Wikipedia

The ones that I have had good matches are:

• Thomas J
• Robert Walters
• People Search
• The one in Maxwell Road (Can’t recall the name as it was more than 7 years ago)

The bad matches, I won’t want to write down the names as I could just be the unlucky one who has met the wrong agent. This time round, I hope I have a good match. Despite my attempts to avoid joining certain companies, I have now come a full circle if this interview works out well. I just hope the boss and peers are kind enough.

If it wasn’t that I needed the money, I would have said that I won’t be going for it. However, this is a critical period for me, thus my affair with agents have to continue.

I am utterly fed-up with True Spa. Each time an appointment has to be made, I have failed to secure any appointments that fit DD and my schedule. DD has made an appointment with the account manager and we have yet to know if it is confirmed because there isn’t any call from them.

This is horrible. We have booked a month in advance and apparently, this isn’t enough. I don’t even know if the person is still working or just ignoring us. Why do we even buy a package when the after sales service is horrible and lacking the attitude to even keep the paying customers happy?

Spas are supposed to keep customers happy so that they will introduce their friends to join in. Spas are supposed to have adequate follow-ups so that customers won’t be even blogging or writing so many negative reviews too.

I don’t even know how much we have left to use it all up so that we will take our money elsewhere. Bangkok and Batam have better services that this company. They even have slots open for 4 hours in advance or immediate.

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

Ah, shopping. Something that is bound to happen at one point or the other. The main thing is whether the money is enough. I have been bitten by the shopping bug these days. It’s really a bad way because I am going to be jobless and the money will trickle to practically NIL if I still don’t have any backups.

I have bought clothes online and still pending the arrival. Orange Bear seems to be pretty quiet on the orders. It’s unfortunate that MC’s grandmother passed away recently. There isn’t time for NL to update us on the orders yet.

I love earrings. I have too many and yet I still feel that they aren’t enough. DD shook his head about my obsession with earrings. The main reason why I started online sprees is because I hate salespersons breathing down my neck while I’m browsing through the aisles. I may not know the promotion for certain range but when I’m browsing, don’t breathe down my neck or within 1 metres as I can’t think with someone else looking at my hands as if I would still their goods. It’s not as if I can’t pay.

The downside to shopping at the shops is the squeezing of the crowded trains and buses after buying. One or two large sized shopping bags is enough to make the trip home torture when there is a huge crowd.

I have been on the hunt for the right foundation colours for years until HY mentioned that she is using mineral makeup from Pure Luxe. It stays on for hours despite her oily parts of the face. The powder stays. You can witness it when you just press the tissue paper on the face oil. Very little of the powder will come off. I haven’t done a proper review. Been meaning to until Rinaz mentioned it. I have found another makeup lover.

I hope to get some nice before and after photos to post. Shopping is a bug that I can’t get rid of.

I have dreamed of being my own boss for quite some time now. It seems that I have reached the age whereby I feel unfulfilled by my career. One can be daunted by the amount of capital needed just to open your own cafe in Singapore.

I would be very happy to have a sponsor or two to help me defray the costs of setting up my own shop; from selling D.I.Y trinkets to food. Not to mention paying the salary to the helpers. However, entrepreneurs don’t need to be hiring anyone initially if the business does not require so many hands in it.

This is where ACE (Action Community for Entrepreneurship) comes in. This is where you may just win $1,000 for pitching your idea of how to make entrepreneurship a better place in Singapore. We are creatures of ideas and they are crying out loud to be used.

You can share your ideas in the following categories:

• New ideas to increase Singapore’s attractiveness as a place for business
• New ideas to nurture entrepreneurs of tomorrow
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Being an entrepreneur is a step towards creativity and a personal development too. Entrepreneurs have a way of thinking out of the box and managing the change of winds. WHY NOT?

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I am in a rather foul mood. It started in the afternoon. Something just triggered it. From work? Could be. It lasted till now. I had a black face all the way to Suntec City. The squeeze began. I used my skills gained while navigating the crowded trains during peak hours.

I walked through the crowds and grabbed whatever brochures were offered. Looked through the booths and the offers. I went to look at Brother printers. The network ready printers are very attractive. Starting from $399. Tempting. I decided to think through since the current HP is still working fine except for the fax.

I hate the way the software works for HP. It is laggy and it can’t even update automatically. I can’t find the CD that came with it. Could be lost somewhere in the boxes. I wanted to have a hands on feel for HTC Touch Diamond but there was only 1 working set at the booth and I ended up looking at the display.

Image by Brent and MariLynn via Flickr

I did get my hands on MWg Zinc II and found the spacing for the keypads too far apart for my taste. It is now out of my list. I wanted to buy SD card, 8GB from Kingston. To my horror, it was sold out. Tired and hungry and feeling foul, I decided to get from SanDisk. There were 4 choices. SHDC, SHDC II, SHDC III and SHDC Plus. I bought SHDC as I felt the rest were rather expensive.

Ultimately, despite my spoils from the PC Show, I was still cranky. I must have radiated heat because most people avoided me. I guess I’m hating the fact that I was right the 1st time. Now that my contract is being asked for the extension, I feel like being evil and refuse them. However, where does that leave me?

Am I being childish not to renew it? Am I just trying to exact my revenge or have my passion burn out? Or I have found new passions?

What the future holds I’m not sure. I just want to be sure about something and yet afraid to do it. It’s my first step towards something. I have tried to work towards another goal, getting a writing job but unfortunately, been rejected twice. It isn’t as much as some who may have been rejected 10 times.

I find that in Singapore, if you want to work towards your dreams, it isn’t that easy. Various factors include:

• Your own flat.
• You lack the reputation such as being featured in magazines for photography, writing, etc.
• Your own car.
• You have been doing what you hope will help you but unfortunately, your face needs to be plastered all over the net and your name must be found all over the net before anyone will want to feature you.

I will be facing the unknown and I think I may have to plaster my name all over the net and write my name all over the net so that the idea that I have in mind will take off. I don’t know how long it’ll take but I hope that it’ll pay off well.

Life here has been good. I can walk home after 7pm without much worries except for that time when I saw that flasher. That memory wasn’t good because that wanker hasn’t been caught and I don’t know why the police never did call me for a photo fit. Oh wait, Mas Salamat was/is more important than some penis attention. Sorry.

While I have some complains about the public transport, I will not say that I don’t love my country. I just love my country only. However, life has become stressful in some ways because if you are not promoted at work, you are screwed when you reached your 30s for a woman and 40s for a man. It isn’t written but it’s all in the mindset.

The future is scary because I know what I don’t want. However, I don’t know what I want. My elimination list is rather long at this moment and I hope that by the time I have eliminated 70%, I know what I want.