Gracy Bee

My new job

Posted on March 31st, 2007 by GracyBee.
Categories: General.

Through the many years of education, I have realised what I would like to do in the future: that is people-oriented career and so I have changed my line of profession from business to accountancy to marketing to tourism.

People have been telling that I’m giving up a good chance and career advancement, in this case: accountancy. It is easy to get employed and good pay. I appreciate my friends and others about their concern since I’m a graduate and so why should I go towards a different route.

Good pay is essential as money is the basis to survive. However, to me, money is not so important, but rather job satisfaction. Given a choice of ‘good pay, boring job’ and ‘bad pay, job satis’, I would choose the latter. The 1st one is good money wise, but towards health I’m afraid is not too promising. I have faced such circumstances and going to that job can be a drag every day though the money is good. Hence the latter.

Of course the ideal will be good pay & job satis. But before I go on to that stage, I have to stick on to what I’m doing.

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I found this job through the advertisement. Having going through interviews, I got the permit to work here. It is not a high paying job but I know I like it, despite the odd hours working.

I can’t reveal much about my job content as most of them are P & C. Generally speaking, I serve people and companies to meet their needs. Thus due to that reason, my working hours can be weird at times. But I don mind since I enjoy helping people.

It can get challenging at times as it is working against tight schedules, but I’m looking forward to those challenges and those tired feet!

2 comments.

Life renewed

Posted on March 28th, 2007 by GracyBee.
Categories: General.

It is nearly 7 years after I finally returned to Singapore. After much debate, I have made another decision, this time to come back to Spore where I have spent my school years to restart my life. Initially, I gave myself 1 year to get used to life back in my hometown. Apparently for some reason or other, it has been difficult to blend fully into the culture. And so here I am now, in a place where I know my life will be renewed. Oh yes, my life did get a new life.

I’m now gaining back my mobility, which was dervived from me when I’m in Msia. Public transport is so easily available here and I can get to places in just a click. And yes, I’m back to use public transport, which sad to say is not as yet easily available in Malaysia, where they do not go to places that I want to go. And what did surprised me that, my relatives and friends do welcome me back to Spore, which deeply touched my heart. And they did what they can to help me get back to life here.

Don’t get me wrong here. It is not that I don’t like Msia. My family is there and I love them. But after been living overseas for years, and life in Msia are not just the same, in terms of transportation. I will still go back to Msia for visitation purposes.

So it is time for reorientation as things change here so much, and I know in my heart that I will be happy here.

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My little Angels

Posted on March 11th, 2007 by GracyBee.
Categories: General.

I have plenty of nieces and nephews. If we were to do an approximate count, inclusive of my ALL my cousins’ children from BOTH side of the families, I think it can add up easily to 30 +. *sweat*

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Out of so many, my heart holds dearly these 3 children: A, D and S., known as my little angels. Why only these 3? Perhaps I was there personally right after their birth and experiencing their growing stages with them, and hence the closeness to them.

This year, the 3 of them are 12, 10 and 8 years old respectively. It is a joy to see them going through the different stages in school life, growing up well, and listen to them speak in proper languages (with a hint of singlish sometimes). However, despite them being in primary school already, sometimes I still see them as little children growing from babies to toddlers.

I missed their baby squabbles; missed their sleeping moments; missed their childish smiles, chuckles and sweet laughters; missed their irritating questions as they started to gain awareness about their surroundings; missed their efforts in learning to speak and trying to tell you things they just discovered; missed the sparkles in their eyes when they learnt something new; missed their moments of taking their first steps; missed that kind of unconditional love they were so capable of giving you; missed their hugs and kisses; missed their pouted lips when things don’t go their ways….There are just so much I have missed about them when they were young.

Such moments are gone forever, but the memories are still etched firmly in my mind. As they are all going into the next stage of their lives, I hope to be there as well to experience with them.

Love all of you, my little angels

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Zap Goh Mei & Lunar Eclipse

Posted on March 11th, 2007 by GracyBee.
Categories: General.

4th March 2007 marks the end of the Chinese New Year, also known as Zap Goh Mei (15th day of the month). It is deemed to be an important occasion for all Chinese, but we never celebrate it…heheh

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This year, Zap Goh Mei falls on the Sunday, and so we decided to go to our Ancestral Hall in Seremban. Our Ancestral Hall in Malaysia??? I thought this is all in China. But no. Our ancestors came to Malaysia many years before, and their 1st place to land on was Seremban. After they called this place their home, they began building a temple and ancestral home dedicated to our people who shared the same surname, dialect and roots as us. Hmm….what a dedication from them! Off we went with my grandmother and family.

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After we reach there, I have to wow at the temple. You can really feel their effort and pride in the architecture and design of the temple. It is nearly 100 years old, but the place was well kept and clean. Generous donations can be seen and ALL have the same surname as us! Supersitious they may be, but what is more important that they believe in their gods, and so do I.

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After the praying session, we have to rush back to attend a dinner function. Nice food there!!

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It was after I came back and read the news that there would be a lunar eclipse. Oh yea it can be seen in Malaysia at around 4 - 6am! My last one seen was the solar eclipse in around 1995/96 - the one that nearly created havoc in sch! Really looking forward to it!

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My alarm rang at 5. 40am and with blurry eyes and brain, I went out to seek for the moon. Eh…………….where is it? After a while of searching, i finally found it. It has become a small little dot with partial shadow before it goes into totality. I tried to take it with my little humble camera. Can you see the moon?

No?

Try again this time.

Sorry if you need to strain your eyes but very small right??Alas…. P took some in the UK. With his big and powerful camera, he took wonderful pictures that, mine is a shame!! haha

Anyway, at 7.28am, it was supposed to be the full eclipse. And when I was rushing down, I forgot that it is already morning with the sky clear blue!! the moon is missing!!! Argh, while my friends in UK are enjoying the full nice view of the red moon, I’m fuming that the moon is missing at its climax!

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Bus from Msia to Japan

Posted on March 5th, 2007 by GracyBee.
Categories: Laughs.

This happened in real life.
There are certain people who loves to exaggerate and show off. Well, it is pretty normal. I’m not trying to make a mickey out of this particular joke, but to show off in an extravagant manner is a bit too much!

Take this example. My aunt’s neighbour loves to exaggerate. But sometimes she exaggerates just too much! I was not there at that time, but I heard my parents was there in my aunt’s place to talk about the trip they went to Japan nearly 10 years ago. This particular neighbour was there at the same time. So this is how it went.

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Aunt: woah…such a long time already we last been to Japan
Mum: yah lo….nearly 10 years already! But it was better last time than now. I just came back and things now so expensive blah blah blah

Neighbour heard it and join in the conversation.

Neighbour: woah…you also just come ah! I also just been to Japan
Mum: oh really? that is nice, a pity didn’t see you there. Exactly when did you go?
Neighbour: I went last week, and I took 3 hours bus from Malaysia to Japan! Woah..so tiring!
Mum and Aunt: !!!!!!!!!!

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Me after hearing this: *sweat*, *amused*

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ahahahaha……O…h….m…y….g…o….d! oh pls! Even if you want to exaggerate, then do it within limits! Really, I would like to nominate her in the Guinness World Book record! To be the first person to be able to travel by bus at the shortest time to Japan from Malaysia!

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Scotland

Posted on March 4th, 2007 by GracyBee.
Categories: Places.

Today is Good Friday and I’m off from work. In my line of job, it is rare to get off days from public holidays. So this 3 day weekend, I must really make full use of it! One of them: update my blog!

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My housemates & I planned a trip to Scotland in August 2006. Since we did not want to join tours, we planned the trip ourselves. Our finalised route for 5D4N after much debate and changes: Glasgow - Fort William - Skye - Inverness - Edinburgh. (quite a hectic schedule I must say!)

We took Virgin train from Birmingham and the journey would be around 5 hrs.

that carriage of the train we took

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Our 1st stop: Glasgow

We were a bit disappointed with Glasgow as it is no different from Birmingham, so much that once we see the skyline our 1st thought: Are we still in Birmingham? As you might guess it: disorganised, dirty etc. Lucky we did not plan to be there for long! We planned to have lunch there.

The Square (forgot its exact name)

We bought take away and had lunch in the square. There have had lots of birds: specifically sea gulls look-alike and pigeon. Can really see who is the king amongst the birds as they fight for food available for them.

The little boy being the centre of attraction

As there are a lot of pigeons, the locals loved to share food with them. TT took this sence and the little boy was really cute!

While having lunch, I can’t help but notice this.

white ‘hair’ on statues’ head!

Every statues in every corner of the square have birds on their head. Poor thing as the birds decorated their head white! The statues are really suffering in silence. tsk tsk

After lunch, we took a short visit to the city centre and after that we headed off to our next destination.

The 3 of us

A touching scene in the bus station

 

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Our 2nd Stop: Fort William

We reached Fort William in the late evening. Wow…what a vast difference as we stepped into the world of Nature. Mountains, trees and lake all in one. A nice welcome after being in cities for so long.

Ok…I kind off spoil the whole scenery right?

TT, being the shutter crazy one, took this pix

 

After we explore the town, we then realised the intensity of the WWII that happened here.

Didn’t expect to find this here!

We spent overnight here.

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Our 3rd Stop: Skye (prounouce: sky)
The next morning we went to Skye, a island offcoast north western of Scotland. This is a much recommended place to go in Scotland, and so we went. Once we get there, it is ideally a place to relax, but very ulu place. Due to my mistake of reading the map, we landed in an ultra ulu place there called Uig, where there is not much transport services and the Youth hostel is way up the hill. *sweat*

Up the hill

Since there is no where we can go without transportation, we decided to roam around the nearby hills.

Animals we met on the way up.
They don’t hesitate to warn you if you are in their way. *eyeroll*

XC and TT were disappointed and complained to see the hills as it was not as magnificant as told by the people in the youth hostel and as compared to the ones in China. Ok…I’m neutral with that and not going to argue with them.

We ate instant noodles for dinner at the hostel and played card games to amuse ourselves. One thing we noticed in the hostel: 80% of the people are females.

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Our next stop: Inverness

We have to leave early to catch our coach as we can’t afford to miss it! There we make our way to Inverness, the land of Loch Ness.

the first thing u see when u come out of the station

After loading our stuffs in the hostel, we took a quick walk around the city area, and came by this castle. The statue is Flora MacDonald (not that McD). Apparently this family’s history is rather famous in Scottish history but I have forgotten what it is.

Flora MacDonald

After that, we went to visit the Loch Ness. Bus again.

The castle at Loch Ness

The most beautiful lake by far - Loch Ness. oh, FYI, No nessie in there

 

How real this is….I’m not sure. the mythical Nessie

By the time we came back, it is dinner time and after that, we took a walk in the city. We tried to take night shots…but all in vain. stupid cameras.

This time we have 10 people zzz in the room with us. Quite noisy but what can we ask for when we are on budget?

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Our last stop: Edinburgh

Now we are taking a long trip back from Inverness to Edinburgh. Seriously speaking at this point of time, we get rather sick of nature and wanted city life back. We yearn for modern buildings and restaurants, cars and buses, the bustling of city life.

Edinburgh didn’t disappoint us. It is a nice blend of nature and city, all in one. It happened to be a beautiful day and we took the tour bus to explore Edinburgh. Nice. It is also conincide with the International Arts Festival, and so the city is full of people and performers. We loved Edinburgh so much that we decided to ditch our plans for the last day and come back to the city instead. There are much to be seen here and so I only list out few important ones.

Part of Edinburgh

We also visited the kilt’s factory and see how they are made. Yes, that is where scottish men wear skirts. But they look so cool in it!

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Edinburgh Castle

Edinburgh Castle was built on volcanic rocks and that makes it unique stand oh mighty on the top of Edinburgh.

View from the top

Some of the few things that we saw up there.

And this we saw it when we get down the castle.

Notice the Royal Mile?

The Royal Mile is actually a exact mile long road that link the Edinburgh’s castle to the city centre. This is used in the past by the royals when they wanted to go up the castle.

How I wish I’m this thin and tall

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We took a visit to the Royal residence of the Queen. Due to the incident about the liquid bombs, there was last changes to the security checks that no water bottles to be allowed. Aiyah~

The Entrance

What attracted me to this: the Unicorn

 

 

The Palace
I try to merge 3 in1..not too bad huh?

No photography is allowed in there. Brief description inside: full of treasures of the dead kings and queens; the photographs of the current Royal family members. There is also a damaged chapel nearby.

The damaged Chapel.

 

 

There will have such statues all over the palaces and UK

That basically end our Royal journey.

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I have long heard about the loyal dog that stayed faithfully at his dead master’s grave for 13 years. I never knew that such story is actually in Edinburgh! We went head searching for the dog’s statue. This dog’s devotion has touched the life of many people and they decided to erect this in his memory. His devotion also touched mine and he reminded me of my long deceased dog.

That is him!

That end our trip to Scotland. Well, not too bad a trip as it is meant for relaxation, but because Scotland is still in the UK, the layout of the cities are similar to England ones, so we get a bit bored because of that. Nonetheless, the nature did revitalised all of us.

Good day, Scotland!

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Cheap air tickets to UK!!

Posted on March 3rd, 2007 by GracyBee.
Categories: Travel.

yeah yeah…i know I’m very late in writing this news: Airasia is flying to the UK! Have read about this but somehow I’m lazy to jot this down. till today.

Courtesy from www.airasia.com.my
It’s going to UK!

Datuk Fernandes announced this (forgotten exactly when, still looking for it). Well, it does create smiles and excitement since it is so dirt cheap! Darn is even cheaper than driving from my hometown to Singapore!

But leh, taking flights for 13hr from KL to UK is no funny matter. It is entirely different from taking 13 hr bus or train from one place to another. With the air pressure, temperature and seat arrangement taken into consideration, this is what I expect from long haul flights (according to ranks):

1 comfort
2 comfort
3 comfort
4 abundant supply of h2o
5 food
6 entertainment
Since it is still meant to be a budget flight, so I believe many usual services will be sacrificed. Basics like in-flight meals and entertainment will sure be gone. Well that is not a problem. What I’m more concerned now is

1) the item restrictions: since wanna be cost efficient, I’m sure to bring my own food and drinks to last the 13 hours. But with the recent strict regulations for contents of hand lugguages, what type of restriction on food and drinks would there be?

2) the hand luggage weight limit: the usual is 7kg. But if I were to take in one laptop and one bag of comestics and some other small items, that already amount to 6.8kg. So if I were to take in food as well, sure ‘overweight’?!
3) the seating arrangements: I’m sure the seating arrangement will be different from the usual. Oh…I already feel the squeeze in between seats in economy class in those airlines. So I can’t imagine about the seats would be like. Even more squeeze and thus not so comfortable?
I figure that, if I’m not allowed to bring in any food for some reasons, then I don’t know how much the food would cost in flight. This would apply to the entertainment facilities too.

So L and I were talking about this. We both agreed that this kind of flight is ok if it is purely for visitation. Nonetheless, it is still a good news that I’m waiting to see how it would be like when it is finally ready to fly to the UK.

But for sure, no Airasia for me if I were a student just moving into UK or returning from UK to KL for good.

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Aberystwyth

Posted on March 3rd, 2007 by GracyBee.
Categories: Places.

As I’m bidding goodbye to my student lifestyle in 2006, I started to plan more trips to make full use of student’s benefits and discounts before I start my work after I go back to Malaysia. In April, I went to Egypt. I had a new housemate T coming in in June. And we plan to go to Aberystwyth together in July. YEAH!! Another partner to join us!

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Aberystwyth

Aberystwyth was the very 1st town I have lived in when I first come to the UK in 1999. I attended the University there for one year. I suggested to XC and T about the beautiful surroundings and the sunset by the seaside. A perfect place for relaxation during the hot summer season. And we planned a 2D1N trip there. Date set: 17 July 2006

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We arrived there in the afternoon. Aberstwyth is still a same old town, other than a few changes of shops. The cool sea breeze greeted us as we strolled toward the sea…Ahhh what a nice feeling. Didn’t realise how much I miss this place until now.

 

Abertstwyth, the main road leading to the University

After we checked in, we had lunch. After that we set off to the beach in Borth, famous for their sand dunes.

 

To the beach

We spent our time taking photos, strolling along the cool sea and play around with water. After that, we took a nap on the pebbles. Ah……a perfect way to wind down and relax, and as a result, we all got a really ‘good’ suntan.

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We rushed back to Aberstwyth to catch in time the sunset. Aiyah..forget to check the train times and being a small town, the trains schedules are limited. In the end we waited for nearly 1hr before the last train comes..

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I was told by A that the best place to view the sunset is to climb up the Constitution Hill.

 

Up at the Constitution Hill, the Cliff Railway and the town of Aber

The last time I was here was in 1999. Now, I’m back again. Here we can see the full view of Aberystwyth and Borth. As it was already 6pm, the hill top was empty and we had the whole place for ourselves, enjoying the scenic beauty in the serene silence and in the cold!

 

Ah, isn’t it romantic?

We headed down and had a take away dinner for our dinner. My favourite take away store was closed and so had to settle for the next one. After that, we headed back to zzz after a long day.

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The next day

We checked out and decide to explore Aber b4 heading back. We visited the ruins of the Castle of Aber. There is a playground with adult swings facing the sea. It is still there after 6 years! That was the place I usually go when I need a quiet moment.

The Castle ruins

and the Old College, where the University of Wales, Aberystwyth was first situated in the 1800s.

The Old College. It used to be a hotel!

and of course not forgetting the Marine Parade of Aber!

The weather was very hot: 37 degrees. We are really too lazy to go anywhere else, so we decided to go into the forested area. The leaves and trees rejuvenated us and our spirits.

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We decided to catch the train at 1600, so meantime we decided to sit by the pier to enjoy the sea breeze and the cool water. Shame we didn’t have our swimsuits, so the best alternative, take off our shoes and dip our feet into it!

Does the water looks inviting?

Finally it is time to go. Alas…we really don’t want to go back home!

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PS: The pictures shown are all the works of mine, XC and T

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