Gracy Bee

Dragon Boat festival

Posted on June 16th, 2007 by GracyBee.
Categories: General.

Dragon Boat Festival? It is this coming Tuesday (the 5th day of the 5th Lunar month)! Since I was in the UK, I have not been celebrating this festival. Hence, I was a bit shocked when my aunt reminded me . Ok~~ it should be the other way round right? Ah…..me getting old now!!

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I went to the temple yesterday (the 1st day of the 5th Lunar month) and I was thrown at the bustling of activities near the Kwan Inn temple near Bugis Street. OMG! They are already celebrating?! All about commercialisation huh?

We eat rice dumplings on this Dragon Boat festival, also known as Duan Wu Jie (端午节). The significance behind this practise is this. According to the legend that I was told when I was young was about this Qu Yuan, a poet in ancient times was wrongly accused by the corruption government and to prove his innocence, he threw himself into the river. However, the local people knew about his character and in order not to let the fish eat his corpse, they threw rice dumplings into the river instead. Hence the rice dumpling to mark his death and remember him. (OK I’m not the fish ok?? hehe…)

As for the dragon boat, I’m not sure about its significance, but I read it in Wikipedia and just found out that the dragon boat played another role in addition to the rice dumplings.

Qu Yuan, the main character of this festival

Look at those dumplings!!

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My aunt rarely buy dumplings and she always prefer to make it herself. And she makes the best dumplings ever!!

Our homemade dumplings….can’t wait to lay my hands on!

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I decided to have one for breakfast and here it is… a quick snap before I eat it~

ready for the opening ceremony

Unlike the black version that my grandmother did in Malaysia, my aunt did the white one (as in most in Singapore). Ta-da!!!

The white one

The Verdict: YUM! YUM!!

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My Colleagues

Posted on June 12th, 2007 by GracyBee.
Categories: General.

Working in the airport has their plus and minus points. Hey, isn’t that the same everywhere right?

We have thousands of people working under one roof and under different shifts, and so it is common that you would not get to know or see one another, or others you can to see only once in a while. Because of these, it is quite common not to associate with them as much as you like. As you might guess it, a smile or a hi-bye greeting is the most we do when we see someone we know. Thus, it is a blessing to know someone not from your batch and remain close. N and F, you are a gem.

This post come about when it come to issues regarding my batch members. There is a chinese saying 日久见人心 (As time goes by, get to see the true colours of a person)。Don’t get me wrong. I still treat them like my friends. After all, who else but your batch members are the closest to me? We trained together, share the happy and sad moments together at work, getting together during our rare same break/ shift time together. At least, that was the case during our early days of going solo at work.

However, I couldn’t help but notice the change of behaviour in some from my batch. That is, coldness towards me and F and we don’t have a clue what happened that resulted the change of behaviour. There is a reason for F, which I and F think is childish. As for me, I was stunned as I couldn’t think of a reason or time I have offended her. First, we don’t work the same shift, which mean we don’t even get to see each other at all, perhaps one or two days. Second, I never have same flights with her, and lastly never get to see her after/ before work and never go out together So all that translated to near to NIL communication between both of us. SO why the change of behaviour? Her cousin was in the same shift as me, but we also rarely share time together, and so what the reason??? THAT IS STRANGE ISN’T IT?

This is not unfamiliar to me. I have faced with such treatment while I was still in school, and so I expected what is to come. Previously I was at the loss what happened as I loved all my friends dearly. However after much experience with it where I eventually knew what happened, I coped a lot better this time and seriously don’t even bothered with such friendship anymore. So they ignored me, I ignored them too.

My personal thoughts: I  can understand such incidents happened in school due to our age and maturity, but at work place?? I’m quite disappointed to know that. People are telling me: this is normal and exist in all work place. But can there be someone who think like: this is not normal? they don’t want healthy competition? They can’t handle this situation rationally rather than throwing tantrum, exchange strong words? Strange huh?

I am quite amazed that though it happened in different time, the whole situation is just the photocopy of each other. So I might have a clue what have happened, but heck not the fault of mine.

I still treat them as my friends. Hey: JUST MY HI-BYE FRIENDS. They don’t deserve my time as I prefer to direct my energy, time and smile to my other dear friends who love me for what I am and I do love them the same too.

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Updates!!

Posted on June 2nd, 2007 by GracyBee.
Categories: General.

Ok OK OK……P reminded me that I forgot to include one more detail in my ‘3 days break’ post. Here it is!

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We arranged to meet the night before we supposed to meet. And so when they told me they would be at my place in 40 min time, I hurried to finish up what I’m supposed to do in the shop. At 2045 the phone rang.

P: hey, we are out there already
Me: Ok Ok….coming

Rushing out of the shop. NO sight of vehicle

Me: Wei…where are you? I’m outside already
P: ah?? We can’t see you as well
Me: HmHHmmmMMmm…..where are you?
P: I’m outside where there are a lot of lanterns at the car porch.
Me: ????
P: Hmm…are we at the wrong house?
Me: (!!!!!) YOU ARE AT MY HOUSE?!
P: YEAH

AAHhh….I actually forgot to tell them I actually in the shop not at home…..OOOpss…Sorry guys, as it is always default I’m be in the shop always…..that I forgot to tell you guys…SORRY!!!!!! Eventually after much guidance on the phone (lucky I still remember a bit) , they managed to get to the RIGHT place. Phew!

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As for Maxis SMS scam, I have checked our bills, and we are not affected. Phew! But I felt sorry for those who are affected, and hope the matter would resolved. We would look out for such in the future bills too, just in case ~

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Class gathering

Posted on May 30th, 2007 by GracyBee.
Categories: General.

I was rushing back from Malaysia as I nearly forgot the gathering was actually yesterday. So I pushed forward the time to come back Spore earlier.

I managed to take this picture with my new camera. The coach company that I took.

The seats on the coach are spacious and there are plenty of leg room, unlike another 1st class coach I took before. A bottle of water and a pack of biscults was provided. Not too bad for RM100, and I can zzz all the way from KL to Spore, as there were no TV and noise distraction. Highly recommended.

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The gathering was my Sec 1N3 (year 1992) class gathering from ZHSS. Ever since most of us moved to different class in Sec. 3, we don’t keep in contact. And for me who was not in Spore, it was meant I have not seen most of them for nearly 15 years. WOAH…………15 years leh!!

I was having mixed feelings on my way to Suntec. Would I still recognise them? Would they recognise me? How much changes for us?

Finally as we met, I still can recognised them, though some of us don’t remember the names. Thus the first few moments was awkward, as long years spelt the barrier between us. After a while shopping for restaurant we finally settled down in Wakaka in Marina Sq.

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Then the memories started flowing in. The ‘at-first-don-recognise-you’ syndrome diminished and the room become our class room again. We talked of our individual memories and that refreshed our memories of certain things and people. Towards the end, we decided to draw out our class plan in Sec 1. Quite a feat as we need to flip back 15 years in our brains! Now I remembered one of our classmates who transferred to Express stream after half year, and the different nicks we had for each other.

GP knew that there were 38 students in our class, we jotted down the names that we remembered and the seats we used to occupied.

Half way through

We couldn’t remember the seating arrangements. So we jotted down the names. After much discussion and much mixed up, our namelist stood at 35. So who are remaining 3?? Gosh, we really can’t remember anymore. So perhaps we need more people attending and the memories of the remaining 3 will come out.

Our finalised list. Who are the remaining 3?

Nice meeting you guys again

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May 13 riots

Posted on May 18th, 2007 by GracyBee.
Categories: General.

Having grown up in a different country during my schooling years, I’m not familiar with Malaysia despite being a Malaysian. A shameful thing that may be. I have tried to be fully engaged with Malaysia’s affairs: political and social… sad to say, I am not convinced that I like to stay there. As a third party looking inside Malaysia, I’m not happy to see what is inside. I always have this feeling that the truth behind certain scenes are covered up, and the words and promises made are contradictory to what has been done.

Courtesy from http://www.malaysiakini.com/news/67317

Thus I’m not actually surprised to know that truth of the May 13 riots was clouded until recently, yet I’m furious too, why the truth was not known before.  I only know  that such riots have occurred before in Malaysia, but for what reason I not too sure. Initially I thought that it is racial clashes. OK, that was obvious right, before we has this ‘racial harmony’ theme.

However based on those records now shed to light, I’m not too sure if it is caused by racial disharmony, as there are rumours that it is caused by politics too. The recent seizing of the new books launched by authorities seem suspicious too. Ok, they may be afraid that this might cause disharmony again, but wouldn’t the citizens these days mature enough to know that the book serve as a reminder that racial harmony is so important and no such riots should happen again?

Well, I don’t wish to meddle into this complicated affairs more than I wanted.  This is purely my personal thoughts. No harm intended.

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Phew, what a way to start a day!

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

What a unlucky day I have to say.

Today I started morning shift and company would arrange transportation for us to go to work. However, instead of calling everytime I need it the day before, I have decided to use company intranet to indent for transport which is supposed easier and reliable.

HOW WRONG IS THAT.

My bus actually din turn up!! ARGH!! I’M GOING TO BE LATE FOR WORK!

Obviously taxi is the only way to go, but taxis seem disappearing when you really need it. When you don’t need it, they keep slowing down or stopping wanting to pick you up.

Luckily, this uncle stopped for me and zoom I off to the airport.

I don’t have cash on me but the uncle is so kind to put on credit for me!! Oh my god!! thank u! thank u!!

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Ok….just in time for work, and rushing for my 1st departure of the day. Things went on smoothly as usual. My officer WF reminded me that this flight can be quite demanding so have to be alert and focused. I agreed with that, considering the characteristics of this particular one.

TRUE ENUFF, trouble is brewing already.

Due to the latest implementations about liquid restrictions, we have to be strict with that. So this pax had that in an ‘illegal’ way, and of course we have to dispose it. However that is not possible as pax still want it. Well, we need to do our job as it is not properly sealed, and ironically, she came from the place where such practices are very strict, so why the unsealed bag? And so argument here and there, my officers reminded her if she go on like that, she gotta miss her flight. Well, for the sake of other pax, we have to let the aircraft go due to quite severe delay. And so she missed her flight and for 1 hr, she has been yelling and turned slightly violent and argued we din remind her. Oh well, we did. And cos of that, I also nearly late for my next flight.

What a scene to witness, really I hate witnessing such obscene scenes. What should we do? Break the law and let her take the liquor? Or do our job, abide by law but pax get angry?

ALAS.

Lucky, this hullabalo ended after 12, and after that, flights have been ok.

Juz cross fingers that tomorrow will be better!!

So a gentle reminder to those travelling, make sure those duty free liquors and perfumes are properly sealed!

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Temper! Temper!

Posted on May 9th, 2007 by GracyBee.
Categories: General.

Today, things don’t go smoothly at work, that get me fuming with anger at one point, and get me to do a walkathon at the other.

That is actually very common at all work places, but I still believe today’s incident can be best avoided or managed. In the end, it has to be blown up so big. Alas…..I can’t release what happened, but what I can say that, please please please, control your temper and emotions when you are at work if not you are really at the losing end even if this is not your fault.

I hope all is ok for you, S. I really din expect such to happen.

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On the News

Posted on May 2nd, 2007 by GracyBee.
Categories: General.

My job I realised are greatly affected by natural disasters, terrorist attacks and all, and these days, I scanned through the newspapers to get myself prepared for the day of work.

Some of the normal ones are the bad weathers such as snow storms and typhoons that may mean delay to some arrival and departure flights. If such cases happened, our office will like be war zone to prepare for the affected passengers on board.

By far, the worst case ever happened in my 1 month plus here is the recent temporary closure of Sri Lankan International Airport due to rebel attacks. As such news means serious consequences, we cannot allow planes to fly and let passengers on board.

In a day, there were thousands of passengers connecting to Sri Lanka from Singapore affected and we have to make arrangements for them. I myself did 2 flights like that.

On a personal level, I felt sad. After all, the airport of any country is important as it symbolised the respective country which I’m sure people would look at the airport first before anything else if they want to judge that country. The reputation of Sri Lanka may be affected now. I’m sure there are reasons behind such violence attacks but I don’t know what it is. I have to admit that I don’t know about the history of what has happened before. I have imagined the fear, despair and annoyance on the social and political aspects; and the anger from the rebel’s point of view.

At the time of writing, the airport is still closed, according to Channel News Asia. As I’m more of a peace person, I do hope all will cease in due time and let the airport open again. That way, we can allow our passengers on board to their destinations safely and punctually.

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The flights

Posted on April 20th, 2007 by GracyBee.
Categories: General.

I’m now in the 2nd module of my training.

Today is my 4th day of OJT, with A as my departure mentor for the 5 days. He has been very helpful to teach me all the ropes to handle departure flights, and all the time telling me to relax and take things easy. Thanks to him, I’m ok with handling basics and simpler requests. He even let me do the flights all on my own for the last 2 days. Everyday is different. Even doing the same flights for 3 days also mean 3 different incidents and thus I’m learning everyday!

Tomorrow will be the last day I’m with him. Hence I do hope to learn more from him so that when I go solo on Mon, all is well.

I’m enjoying my job at the moment. Typically I’ll be handling 4 flights a day. Each day there will be different officers to be with us. Well, working with one another is not too much of a problem. I understand the fact that while working it is normal and inevitable to face difficult people. Well, that was what happened at work today. I have met with this offier J. And I don ‘t understand one thing. Why did she has to pull such a long face and be rude  for that 1hr and 20 min. I mean, c’mon, we have to face nearly 300 passengers at one go per flight and it is vital to be happy so that I can get through the flight confidently. With her around, the mood can be dampen and hey, she even get frustrated with passengers for something they don’t know….J, you didn’t go for training issit??

Geez…..officers……some are nice, I have to say, but some……………………

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My Job Part II

Posted on April 17th, 2007 by GracyBee.
Categories: General.

Shawn wrote in my comment that why don’t tell other people about what my job is. Thinking about it, yeah hor….why not?? What is so secretive right?? hahha, ok la….giving face to Shawn being my ‘younger’ brother, then here I am!

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I currently work as Customer Service Agent in Changi Airport. Not a great pay job, and I have said earlier, this has caused some dismay amongst my friends and family, but I’m enjoying it at the moment.

I’m lucky to get together with my group members!! We are certainly a crazy and happy lot of people that bring me joy to work everyday! So much that even before you all can see us, you can hear us coming down from the corridor already Love all of you!

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Being a new trainee, we are trained to do arrivals and departures duties. So far so good. Didn’t even realise there are so much into arrival and departure of aircraft! Hence must be more careful at work!

As it is a mega corporation with thousands of staffs, there are inevitably some people that are difficult to deal with. Needless to say, I enjoy working with my fellow group members! We truly help each other wherever possible to help cope with the environment.Hopefully in the future, things get easier as we get to familiarise ourselves. Overall, I enjoy meeting thousands of people thronging thru Changi Airport, and meeting different VIPs and guests!

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