Singapore trip.

Singapore has changed a lot since I last time came here. Lots of more bright lights and interesting architecture. I really enjoyed the Esplanade area at night. It seems that people here prefer to walk underground (shopping centre underground passes). That leaves more space outdoors. Next time, I hope to go to the top of Marina Bay Sands and take some night shots. That would be really terrific.

I took a shower at the airport. That was an interesting experience. It's good to get on the plane clean and with a healthy amount of alcohol in the system.

Always good to catch up with old friends. It appears that people don't really change. One face to face meet up is infinitely better than multiple online conversations.

One day, when I own my own place, I would like to buy one of those really old style phones (the ones where you have to swing the dial around to dial the numbers).

It's all a bit strange.

I was asking for directions. I was told to take the shuttle bus, which would take me to the MRT station which was one station before where I wanted to go. I could get off at the MRT station, then hop on the MRT and will be there after one stop. I checked google maps - 500m between one station to the next. Therefore, once I got off the shuttle, I asked which direction was I to walk to get to the next MRT station. The guy looked at me like I was out of my mind. Eventually got there. My friend asked me how I got here. I explained. Walked?! he said. No one here walks. Not even if the MRT stations are only 500 m apart.

Cars are a lot jerkier as well. Apparently it is normal to not indicate and accelerate/deccelerate randomly.

There are burgers here that don't have beef but have deep fried chilli crab.

Feb 13, 2011

Went to the MSO yesterday. It was a bit difficult to appreciate the music given that in my ignorance I didn't bring enough warm clothing. It's great that Melbourne hosts these events though.

Sometimes I really feel my job is really intense and high stress and feel (rightly or wrongly) that most people don't understand how hard it can be. I sometimes think there's not many jobs where burning yourself to death in a fired heater running at 300degC is an actual daily possibility (fortunately we are trained but still). Wanting a holiday. Sigh.

Who's in Singapore? Let me know, heading there soon and would love to meet up.

Too many inputs, can't keep up.

I have been writing emails for essentially the last two and half hours non-stop. What I try to do each weekend is to sort out my emails (personal, not work one - work I have a different system). With my personal email account, sometimes I don't have time to reply to all the emails during the week so I leave it to the weekend. I get a lot of bills to the email account now as well, and these take awhile to sort.

Today, the inbox was getting a bit too out of my control for my liking though. Because gmail isn't that sophisticated, I find I need to keep a quite condensed or else I can't see which ones need urgent attention. Thus I went from the top dealing with each email (replying, deleting, transferring relevant info, etc).

The problem was... I couldn't keep up!! Before finishing one, I would get a new email! This went for a few emails, and two and a half hours later, I have finally finished. I did this exercise just a few days ago, I really didn't expect it to take this long, but it's really showing to me that I don't know what's going on, but since the beginning of this year, it's been getting a lot longer to manage. Even the last 5 minutes of writing this I have received another email...

The purpose of writing this is really do communicate my amazement at this phenomena. I consider myself someone that types fairly quickly and don't really have this problem. But it gets difficult when you've got to keep track of emails, SMS's, phone calls, etc.

I think it makes it harder for the mind to stop because unconsciously I'm worried I forgot something - e.g. today, I remembered I forgot to reply an SMS that was sent to me yesterday as I was busy dealing with another piece of technology at the time.

There has got to be a better system. I am a fan of systems, because good systems make things easy, and a lot of things are already hard enough, so where possible, go with the easy option.

Feb 6, 2011

Someone lent me a book recently titled "Difficult Conversations - How to discuss what matters most". Apparently it is a New York Times bestseller so I really should devote a bit of time into reading it. I believe there would be a lot I could learn from as well. Alas, I'm not a big reader.

Another weekend of crazy Melbourne weather. Love it, except of course for the bits that damages lives and property.

Google Chrome, why didn't I download you earlier? Would've saved so much time and frustration.

:)