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Makeover

Kuja and I are thinking of doing up our home. Specifically, we are looking at wallpapering the entire apartment!

This, of course, is partly prompted by the impending arrival of our newest member of the family (yes, he is STILL called boy-boy, since we havent yet decided on a name, though we are working hard to come up with one!). But also, it's been a couple of years since we've lived there, and cracks (yes, literally) are beginning to show in various areas in the apartment.

We are currently in the process of shortlisting a couple of places which provide such wall covering services, but the main difficulty at this point is in deciding which wall(s) to use which colours & designs, cos there are so many choices! (yeah, sometimes too many choices may not be a good thing hor...) plus, we are not experts at colour/design matching, so we are quite afraid the end result may turn out disastrous - like make our place a house-of-horrors.

We are also getting a chest of drawers (and of course the all-important baby cot) for boy-boy, so last Sat, i cajoled LS and Barber to come over and provide free labour - in helping us remove the sofa bed in my study room. It has been there for at least 3 years, and so far, all it ever did was to provide another place for me to dump my dirty clothes and sometimes my bags... much to the anger and disapproval of kuja. Good riddance, at last! (although.. come to think of it, it was quite a terrible waste of money as the bed was still in good condition)

Hopefully, by early next year we'll have the whole place done up. Then we can welcome boy-boy home after the 1st month of confinement - which he will spend at my mum-in-law's place.

人去楼空

I guess it was inevitable.

The "exodus" has begun in my department, as one trainer after another threw in the towel and basically declared, "enough is enough". 3 trainers have gone since Aug this year, and 1 more is leaving (transferring to another job role within the company) come year end.

It scares me to think that with the reduced number of available CTs around, how we are going to cope come Jan/Feb period next year, when 2 more trainers will be going on their 3 month (minimum, as they may apply for unpaid leave!) maternity leave.

Sure, new blood will be recruited, and in fact, we were told that 1 of them may be joining us as early as this week. Still - and this is from personal experience - it takes a mininum of 3 months to get a new hirer up to the point where he/she is able to train the clients on an designated application - be it a trading platform or an information system like the Xtra.

During this transition period...well, as the saying goes - we all have to 自己保重!

The other thing that has come about due to this massive outflux, is the accompanying lowering of the team's morale. Imagine - instead of coming to an office with lots of buzz, lots of gossips and camaraderie, now the mornings are peppered with quiet greetings and comments of "wah, our area now so empty ah?" and "where did everyone go?".

Ironically, the most interesting talk nowadays is of this "betting pot", which Ben suggested - basically he's giving out odds of this trainer, that trainer, leaving the team. After the most recent round of resignations, I'd bet the odds have just been adjusted even lower! haha.

Well, perhaps it will take another 1-2 years to build up another strong team that can work and play together. By then, who knows whether I myself will still be a trainer? :P

Shall we Dance?

I watched this movie called "Shall We Dance?" over Mediacorp 5 last night.

It's a movie about a middle-aged man (Richard Gere) feeling a little worn and jaded in life, and eventually finding that dancing helps him to regain some of life's zest and excitement.

Initially, when i saw that Richard Gere was in the show, i'd pretty much assumed that it would be one of those wishy-washy (and worst of all - mushy) type of romantic comedies. (The other notable actresses in the show were Susan Sarandon and Jennifer Lopez) Fortunately I didnt just switched off the TV.

In the end, it turned out to be a pretty decent show! (the only other good show which i remembered Richard Gere in was, of course, "The Mothman Prophecy" )

Gere's character - John Clark - had a pretty good life, on the face of it. He has a loving wife (Susan Sarandon's character), 2 teenage kids (a boy and a gal) and a good job, being a lawyer. The problem seemed to be that as the years go by, the "spark" in life seemed to just go away, and life generally falls into a routine day of:

1) going to work
2) coming back home to,
3) kiss the wife and,
4) ask how are the kids. Then,
5) Go to bed and get ready for ... (1) again.

Also, as his children as more or less grown up, they have their own activities, and doesnt really need (nor appreciate) their parents poking their noses around too much. As for John and his wife, they spend most of their hours awake working, and seldom does anything together at home besides having meals. At one point, their lives became so predictable and routine that she commented to him on his birthday "What do you want for your birthday? Can you think of something that is in a box?"

John then slowly develop a fascination for dancing - something which occured to him as his evening bus passes by this old dance school everyday aftter work. He also notices a pretty dancer (J Lo's character - Paulina) who seems perpetually sad.
Eventually, he signs up for the class, and meets 2 other guys who are in the class for personal reasons (one, to impress his fiancee-to-be; and the other, simply to impress all gals).

As the show progresses, it becomes obviously that John has found something in life that he truly enjoys doing. The problem is - he feels "ashamed" of this new hobby of his, and because of that, decides to keep it from his family. At some point, Mrs Clark begins to suspect her husband of having an affair and decides to investigate. The fumbling investigators eventually "clear" John of any mischief, but the fact that John kept his after-work activities from his family caused much tension and discomfort within the family.

In the end, John realised that his love for dancing is nothing for him to be ashamed of (he stood up to a group of co-workers who were making fun of another male colleague who happens to love dancing), and instead, he chose to share his renewed vigour and joy in life with his wife.
And of course, all's well ends well.

I personally enjoyed the movie because it painted a pretty likely scenario (albeit in a light-hearted way) of a typical middle-aged couple (老夫老妻), married for a long time, and having kids who no longer needed much supervision. The challenge they faced is a real one - how can they keep the passion in their relationship alive? On a even simpler level, how can one maintain this "spark" in one's life, such that it does not become just a predictable, boring run of minutes, then hours, then days....?

Ah hah! That's where my lovely "girlfriends" come in! Both and curvaceous and beautiful, and ever so huggable. And they sound pretty too!

And both are made of wood :)

LAGQ new album is out!

Again, the same old debate

Just a couple of days ago, over a coffee-break with 2 colleagues -Stan & Vivian, the topic of 'purely platonic' relationship between guy and gal was brought up.

The issue of contention was not whether such a relationship could exist between a guy and gal, but whether a they could be so-called "best friends" and yet refrain from developing some kind of romantic interest with each other over time.

In my opinion, purely platonic relationships do exist, but are limited to casual friends, acquiantances, colleagues. Well, possibly "good" friends of the opposite sex can also be fall under the category. But then the debatable point would be: How "good" or "close" is considered close enough?

Well, for one thing, if this friend is so close to you that whenever you feel down and depressed, he/she would be the 1st person you would want to call/meet to pour out your innermost frustrations and emotions - that would certainly qualify. Similarly, when there's good news or feelings or elation, this person is the 1st (or amongst) person you'd want to share the joy with.

Now, I personally cannot imagine having such an intimate friend (of the opposite sex. Blood relatives excluded, of course! So we are not talking about dads/mums/brothers/sisters here) who knows you so well, and shares so many things with you, and yet - over a prolonged period of time, no other kinds of "feelings" develop, other than the purely platonic friendship types.

For 2 single persons (guy & gal) in such a relationship, over time, either they become closer, and eventually become an item (read: romantically-linked couple) OR they will drift apart. The the latter case, most likely it could be because one (or both) of them becomes attached/married, and the continued "closeness" between them is no longer tenable. Either way, the 'purely platonic' relationship between these 2 close friends will surely "mutate" over time and will be gone or replace by something else.

Back to my colleagues - both Stan and Vivian insist that they (each) have truly close friends of the opposite gender, and that the relationships are purely platonic. I find that very interesting. (Incidentally, both of them are single, though Viv is attached)
Maybe they belong to the new "generation" with new thinking. (both are in their 20s)

Ok, call me old-fashioned. :)