Promotion

Hey hey! Back from the hols already. I had a great time back in KL. Went up to Gentings with my family. I'll post up some pics on that soon. I was really depressed this morning though. I kept thinking, why am I coming back to this place? This place has no supermom. This place doesn't have home-cooked food, an endless supply of dvds and bundles of laughter everyday. It was difficult to drag my feet to work, I tell ya!

Day started off really pissy. I came to work with my newly permed hair. Guys just don't get it. It's freakin' normal to look like someone set fire to your hair during the first 2 weeks of a perm! Well, boss and manager couldn't get used to it. I thought to myself, hang it, and just slipped off to the meeting room to have my curry puff for breakfast.

The day got better as it went on though. Boss comes back from meeting and calls me in for my appraisal. A whole bunch of la-dee-da(all of which I've heard before) then tells me I'm promoted! I will be officially Accounts Executive starting January and I get a fantastic increment of.. drum roll.. $200!! I don't want to be an ungrateful bitch and under normal circumstances, I would be appreciative. Don't wanna be a Pete Repeat but my starting salary is just too goddamn low! It is just not enough to give me an increment based on percentage, they need to raise it so that its competitive with market rates!

Anyways, I just nodded here and smiled a little there. Meeting ended soon after and we headed down to a Brazilian Barbeque Restaurant called Carnivore in Vivocity, the largest shopping complex in Singapore. It was our Christmas lunch and we were going for a meat-fest buffet. What happens is these guys come round with all kinds of meat on their long skewers and slices off portions onto our plates. They had beef, lamb, pork, fish, chicken..phew.. I was close to hibernation towards the end of it. The fish was absolutely fantastic though.

After lunch, I felt great and managed to get a whole bunch of work done. As a whole, the day went pretty well. So will I still consider the foreign bank position(like I said, I don't count chickens before they hatch) if I am officially presented with the letter of offer? HELL, YES!! Don't get me wrong. I am starting to get comfortable here. We are starting to get along with each other. But I can't forgo my ambition just because of "loyalty". I have a goal in mind and I am going to get there.

Letter Of Offer

AHA! As expected, the moment of weakness passed by like a gust of wind. Too caught up with work and house chores to think so much. I got some good news on Monday. The recruitment agent called me and told me that the German bank is keen on hiring me and is currently processing the letter of offer which will take 1-2 weeks. As I am a very cautious person, thanks to my accounts training, I am not going to write this down as a 100% yes until I see the actual letter of offer. Seems a little strange to me that they didn't even discuss salary with me or the agent and that they need 1-2 weeks to get "upper-management approval". Sounds like they're stalling while doing some last minute interviewing of candidates.

Assuming I do receive the letter of offer in 1-2 weeks, that means.. THAT'S IT!! I'm finally moving on! I'm leaving the company that I've whined and complained about for months. I feel happy that I've finally achieved what I've been working for. On the other hand, I feel a little sad to be leaving this place. And the thing that pisses me off the most is that boss has been REALLY nice to me lately. It kinda scares me actually. Now, I almost feel dread thinking about having to face him and resign. I even feel a little sad to be leaving him. Sigh, what am I thinking?

Moment Of Weakness

I am experiencing a moment of weakness. Just got back from work about half an hour ago. Managed to clear up a good part of my accounts. But all the time I was thinking about crap that makes me weak. Weak, useless, mushy, FEMALE CRAP!! Stuff that doesn't do me any good but wastes all my brain juice and gets me all confused and WEAK!! Shit! I hate it when I get like this.

Ahh!! It's just a moment of weakness which will pass soon. Must be the stupid whiskey or something. Me and alcohol just don't mix. Thank God for Yaoi on Youtube. Or I'll probably go nuts tonight.

Interview With Foreign Bank

There's something I'm quite excited about actually that I've forgotten to mention. I went for an interview last Thursday. It's for the position of Accounts Officer in a foreign bank! It's the 2nd largest German bank in the world. I think this is my break. Sure, it's accounts. But I'm definitely not going to stop there. This will put my foot in the door to move into a recognised, established organisation and move upwards! I could transfer to investments 1-2 years down the road. There's no stopping me then!

The very next day, I received good news. They called me back for a 2nd interview with the head of human resources. I think the interview went quite well. However, it ended quite abruptly when he didn't even discuss the salary range of the position and suddenly got up. Very quickly we exchanged goodbyes and I was left walking towards the MRT feeling a little confused.

I must say, the head of human resources seems a little bitchy but I'll give him the benefit of a doubt. It scares me to think these are the people who decide who are chosen to be the building blocks of the company. Are they competent? And do they really have the company's interests at heart or are they just enjoying themselves wielding they're wand of power and having this suck-up-to-me-or-I-won't-give-you-the-time-of-day attitude.

Anyway, I have no choice but to be a suck up. Right now, I have nothing. No position, no money, no leverage. But I swear, if I get my foot in the door this time, I'm going to give it my all to move up! FINGERS CROSSED, GIRL!!

No Reply

Rise and Shine! I have a little hangover from yesterday's whiskey. Feels like shit. My brain is throbbing even though I've had several glasses of water. Still no reply from M. I just want to know, how can anybody be so rude? We aren't 18 or 21 anymore. We are in our late twenties and we are in the corporate world. How can anyone not reply to a "Let's keep in touch" message? And we come from the same country too!

I just don't understand how some people in this world have no sense of consideration for other people's feelings. It seems silly to blow such a small thing into something big but I do expect something more from a fellow Malaysian. I really hate people who put on airs like this. Put on a nice shirt, hobnobbing with the pretentious pack while sipping whiskey and making insignificant fake conversation with everyone. And a whole lot of fake fake laughter too.

Why can't people be more down-to-earth? Being succesful, smart or rich does not make anyone a class above others. We still have to be humble and generous towards everybody. We'll never know, we may lose everything we have in the snap of a finger. Too late to change then, isn't it?

Well, I'm off to work. Still got to finish the rest of the accounts before I go on leave this coming Wednesday. I'll be taking a week off to celebrate Christmas and my father's birthday. Can't wait to be back with family and some real, genuine people!

St James

Its 2.35am now and I'm a little pissed. As in pissed drunk. I got to work at 8pm. Finished up a couple of things by 10.30pm and took the MRT to St. James to meet up with my girl friend from KL. It was fun and as usual, extremely fake. I HATE the airs people put on when they're mingling at the club or at the disco. I honestly just wanna take the taxi home and get to bed.

I thought it would just be my friend and 2 other mutual girl friends but I didn't expect to meet some other pretty cute guys there. There was a guy, let's call him M, whom I met a number of years ago back when I was a "club-goer". Let's not take a walk down memory lane because it's filled with embarassment and stupidity. Anyhow, we exchanged the usual banter.

Don't know if its just me but it seemed like he m-i-g-h-t have been a little interested to, say, get to know me better. Well, at one point he did ask "So.. are you married?" Then again I could be jumping the gun. Honestly, sometimes I am so clueless when it comes to guys. I left about an hour ago cos I really didn't want to stay and waste the night away getting drunk and being pretentious. On my way back, I thought, why am I such a stick in the mud?? I never do anything out of the ordinary and I'm such a hermit. Why don't I do something different for once?

So I decided to send M an sms when I reached home. That's about half an hour ago. It was a "breezy" message which said I'm sorry I didn't have a card(he gave me his) and that its hard to meet a familiar face here and we should keep in touch. No reply so far. Yeah, I guess I remember now why I'm such a stick in the mud. Because guys are such JERKS!!

The only interesting thing worth remembering was that I got to see Jonathan Leong, the 1st runner up of Singapore Idol! Not bad, he's kinda cute. Anyway, I'm going to bed. Stupid f*cker still hasn't replied my message and if this is his "strategy", he's got it all wrong with me. I am the straightforward, don't play games with me, kinda gal.

Lazy Saturday

It's a Saturday and I really need to go back to work to get some things done. Got to finish my accounts before I go on my Christmas leave which starts on Wednesday itself. But I'm feeling so lethargic and lazy that I'm using the rain as an excuse to stay home and blog. Well, the rain has stopped now and its 6.00pm. Should I bother going?

Anyhow I have a friend who's down in Singapore for the weekend and she wants me go out with her for some drinks tonight. I am feeling so lazy right now I just want to make a nest with my quilt and hibernate til Monday. JEEZ!! I AM FEELING SO LAZY!

No choice. Gotta go now. Guess I'll just finish up a couple of things at work before I meet up with her tonight. Sigh..

TAG

I got tagged. So what do I do now? Tag you back 7 times or find 7 totally random people to tag. As you may notice, I have a very impressive list of friends under the "Different Facets Of Life" column to the right of my blog.

Anyhow, I will reveal 7 facts of myself in spirit of the TAG theme. They are as follows:

1) I don't read newspapers. I am too lazy and I hate reading depressing news that REALLY happened. At one time, everyday, all I read on the papers were violence and rape and it made me so disgusted I just stopped. So I usually get to know the latest news through word of mouth.

2) I am torn between succumbing to the rat race and seeing the big picture. Part of me is really materialistic and I'm fighting everyday to move up the stupid corporate ladder. The other part of me asks me to step back and value the most important things in life that I take for granted everyday. As a result, I'm a really confused individual. I always talk to myself in the MRT and I have an imaginary devil sitting on my left shoulder and an angel on my right. I'd like to think the angel wins most of the time.

3) I suspect I may be asexual.

4) The most important person in my life is my mother who has been a housewife all her life. I respect her without limit and I could never make the sacrifices she made for the family.

5) The biggest love of my life is my family.

6) I love yaoi. That's a genre of explicit manga and anime on male homosexuality. I think it was probably created for women and possibly, gays. I can't imagine straight men appreciating these stuff. I think it's really hot though. What's hotter than a hot guy getting it on with a hot gal? Two hot guys getting it on in a 2 dimensional world. DEFINITELY. Yeah, I'm slightly perverted. So, bite me.

7) I believe in karma. I'm not religious but somehow its been ingrained in me that when I do something morally or spirtually bad, it's going to get right back at me soon. Of course, many argue that karma is really just a series of coincidences but I just can't shake the first thing that pops into my mind when I take a hit in life, which is usually, "I shouldn't have done that yesterday." Hence the blog title Repressed Oriental.

Well, that's 7 things about me. I'm quite a quirky one. Here are the 7 totally random blogs I'm tagging:

I Gotta Know

Random Thoughts

Carmen's Paradise

maggie's world

Somewhere within the imperfect me

Life is hard soooo start playing hard

Ryan's Blog

I got these blogs through randomly clicking on the latest updated blogs announced on the homepage of Blogger. It was hard work! I had to go through a sea of porn, languages I couldn't understand, advertisements and money-making schemes before I found these 7. May the tag continue!

CFA Examination Level I

Exams are over!! YAHOOOOO!! Big celebration! Confetti! Swirls & twirls! I was so fagged out I couldn't blog til now. So how did the exam go? All I can say is I wish I had studied a little harder and prepared myself a little bit more. Ever since I went through hell for my STPM, that's Form 6 studies or Pre-U equivalent which I took at a government subsidised BOYS school (Form 6 was co-ed), I 'll have to say this was the most difficult exam I've gone through so far.

Two 3 hour multiple questions papers held on the same day. It was 9am-12am for the morning paper and 2pm-5pm for the afternoon paper. A two hour break in between to break down and cry, gulp down 3 cups of espresso and snap out of it long enough to survive the afternoon paper. Okay, so I only had 1 cup of coffee but I was pretty demoralised.

Both papers tested us on EVERYTHING that was in our syllabus and I think that is just crazy. When I went in for my paper, I had managed to finish 4/5 of my entire syllabus. And that is exactly how I did in my test. Five columns of answers to be filled in and I had one column left entirely blank. Of course, I filled it up using my ini-mini-mini-moe technique at the last five minutes. Anyhow, my advise to anybody taking their CFAs, 1) Do not spot study because they test you equally on all areas 2) Spend the last month before your exams going through past year exam papers, that's the MOST important thing to help you get through the test.

I made the mistake of only going through past exam questions the day before the test (yes, I deserve it, I know) because I thought I could fall back on the material I've studied for the past couple of months. Wrong! It is impossible to recall formulas that you have studied months ago and the questions tested at the exams can be really tough and tricky. Plus there is limited time. We are advised to only spend about a minute and a half for each question. I couldn't finish my first paper in time too but I learnt my lesson and I managed to finish my 2nd paper by not dwelling too long on the questions I couldn't answer. If you don't know it, do a mini-moe and move on.

The paper is divided into 6 sections which are ethics, statistics, economics, financial analysis, portfolio management and asset management. Please do study ethics because it is the easiest of the lot and most of the questions are repeats of past years. Also if your results are borderline, the examiners will rely on your ethics results to determine whether to pass you. The most questions come from financial analysis and asset management so it would be best to master these topics. Unfortunately, asset management was the one I slacked on.

So conclusion. Do I think I'll pass or fail? If luck favours me, I'll scrape through. Results are out late January. I really wish I had put in more effort. Too late for regrets now.