the yellow ceiling

刚刚在电视节目中看到了久违的黄色天花板,，那是大学的特色。是为了新生与访客而漆成的。他们可以沿着黄色天花板到达餐厅、讲堂、运动中心、行政楼、图书馆等。也是为了把危险区与宁静区隔开的办法。这样的划分，当然已经越来越少了，就算是在其他的大学与学院，也不再出现。可是，这就是NUS 的校园特色。希望下次回去，这些天花板还继续保留着，虽然人事已非。

Customer service

Just came back from a short trip to Malacca recently. I had three meals back in Malaysia. All of them are pretty rush but the feelings are very different. The first coffee shop at the border town has greatly disappointed me a lot. Although it is not a big business, we are not the regular customers either. The were no one to take order for drinks at all. Even when come to pay up, the boss does not seem to be polite either.
The second one is lunch in Malacca. We arrived there around 2pm. So the foods were served pretty fast. The whole table was filled up with 8 dishes in 10 minutes. However, we all could not clear all of them in time. The waitresses there were very polite and meticulous in handling this situation. By getting small plates for unfinished dishes, keep attention on filling up our teas and always standby to answer customer needs. I find the experience very comfortable.
The third one is dinner in Yongpeng. We all throught that the dinner would be simple but it turned up to be a 8 course meal. The waitresses there were not very professional enough. Dishes turned up too fast as well after 8minutes waiting. But they do not distribute the soup, nor do they split up the big fishes. When the dishes covered most part of table, they did not request to remove any or rearrange some to keep in extra. I was a bit surprised by this 'passivity'. Luckily they did take extra requests on getting water and pack 'leftover'.
From there I can see such difference in terms of their 'servicing training '. If service ettique was not re-enforced. I think eat-out experience will be poorer in the place we live. The same type of attitude is also important to our work life. If we just want the benefit but does not care about our customers and colleague, we will definitely make nothing of return.

HongKong Food and lifestyle

I had been to HongKong a week. But it is only now I start to write about how I see that place. That's my firts time there. I spent about a week at there. Really feel happy about the trip there. I have been asking my colleague who came from HongKong about a lot of things in their lives. But there are really somethings so nice about this place. I like the food there, the taste is always just nice... not too strong as compared to the food I have in Singapore. Maybe that is their culture to have a nice meal. People here are too overwhelmed by food variety. But there is not enough time (and properly quantity of food) to enjoy the texture. So maybe the taste is one concern only but not the only one.

I do not know when JB can reach even the standard in Singapore. Maybe people there were even more driven by life....

The pressure and pace there is almost in par with Singapore. However, most people I see are not too impatent(except some minibus drivers). Things need to be done fast and good. All HongKongers are working together well to achieve that. The mtr trains never get too crowded. Thanks to the staff there.

The flats and houses mainly covered by mosaic ceramic. Maybe that is the way to save cost. As people there may not be so lucky to have government to take care of the flats and common areas like Singapore.

Choice of Path

Recently, I was handpicking a few photos to be my desktop background. One of them appear to be like:

IT really shows how my life curve is at this moment. A valley ahead then the path in front is very unclear. I think that is a good time to be calm and think I should be doing next. Slowing down the pace but still keep a momentum to climb up the next slope.

Safety! Caution!

前天上午，在办公室内得知一位同事在采收WFI 时不慎被溅出的热水烫伤，我这才警觉，建筑工地是陷阱重重，千万不可因为常常出入， 就对安全事项与手续掉以轻心。就如之前另一位同事尚未签署安全评估准证就步入工地，身为小组负责人的我并没有坚持签署准证，要是出了事，后果真的是不堪设想，总之这段时间还是把防备工作与警戒心把握好，才进入工地办事，这样或许能免除不必要的麻烦与可预防的意外。

What I learnt in life(number1)

The most important thing I have learnt during my training time in UK is : To appreciate whatever people have done, good or bad. I think maybe people there are not so straight forward. They are more considerate about others' feelings as well as 'face'. People in Singapore tends to be more straight forward at work. This maybe due to fast pace of life. People need to get things clear to have the job done. But sometimes it is too easy for people to jump into conclusion based on a few words. It is also sad to say something that may upset a lot of people easily. But how to make sure what have been said out is exactly what other people want to hear. The only way one can do that is to take a second or two to pause, cool down, and think what other wants. Well, it is hard to do so because we are either too busy or too frustrated with the current situation. I am still practising on that. The biggest obstacle to me is my fast changing temper. Others may have been pissed off by my defensive statement before they want to continue conversation(or maybe not). The second obstacle is my slow response. I will usually take some time to understand those implicated statements or suggestive questions. That could possibly cause me to fall into a stereotype which I have not ever want to be.

生命的插曲

上个星期，一直为了许多事在忙，有着让人兴奋的婚宴，也有黯然的丧礼。欢喜的是哥哥的人生大事终于在忙碌中完成，这段时间，所有参与者都放了不少时间让整个婚宴尽善尽美。虽然帮忙的时间不多，中间也感受了不少情绪压力，但是总算是可以放下心来。朋友在患癌多日后与世长辞，其实心里还是有些悲哀，但是这也是主治医生预料中事。当病情已到了无法好转的时候，临终关怀变得十分重要，很遗憾的是友人家属的雇主并非十分体谅。然而他们与其他好友的关怀，还是让友人坚持走完人生的最后一个月。不晓得她临走时是否还在承受超越麻醉剂的疼痛。只是让我觉得，生老病死中，最难过的还是生病的阶段。不只是病人的身心受煎熬，亲人的生活情绪也会受影响，还要担负沉重的医药费。其实，就算有医药保险，许许多多的额外费用与收入暂停，也是让人喘不过气的。所以我们只能尽力维持身体健康，珍惜身边的每一个人，虽然生命中仍然有许多无法预知的事。

回家

搬去哥哥的新家后，发觉回家已不是一件易事。新的住宅区什么都好，就是非常不方便。单是买顿饭，就得驾车到数公里外的住宅区。就算是同区，也得走上至少两公里，这就是新区。虽说像派报服务很快就开始了，但其他的商店与公共交通服务，还是需要一段日子才会开始。对许久不驾车的父亲而言，这是很不容易的。进出需要人接送，而住宅区又被分割成数个群落，个别被一层篱笆围着，只有一个由保全人员看守的出口。这就像住在紧急状态下的华人新村，试图把自己同外界隔开，以求家宅平安。我不晓得这样是不是能在乱世下求得一夜安眠的好方法，只觉可怜。

我尝试搭巴士回家，也尝试坐火车。可是终站还是太远。新家也不是我的，为了更大更舒适的居住环境，放弃了自己原有自在的生活方式，对我而言，是否算是另一种成长。

长大了要另筑新巢，我还是办不到。老来从子，看来没那么容易。

我恢复上班族的生活

回到马来西亚一个月后，终于又恢复在新加坡租房上班的生活，可是该做的好像都没做到，东西还是乱糟糟，一会儿担心遗失，一会儿又在寻找可能的贮藏地点。很多事计划好了要做却没做，不该做的却又受不了诱惑。对人的态度与反应，却一再曝露自己的弱点，让自己下不了台（参deal with bad attitudes)。我要如何呢？

上班两天了，除了自己的英国帮， 其他的同事好像难以靠近。办公室内还有一批美国帮，还有几个从客户公司培训出来的同事，再加上几个SUBCONTRACTORS， 实在有点复杂。其实现在才发现自己知道很多关于母公司的事，有些还真是不能说的机密，有些事说了对自己对同事也没有好处。我这才发现有许多真话是连自己人都不能说的, 好难过。

Where and when can I have both wisdom and the feeling of relief at the same time?

dealing with negative(bad) attitude

There are many cases we will encounter people with bad attitude during our daily lives. So how are we supposed to deal with that? To do it we should try to understand why they behave like that. The reasons could be in bad mood, difficult situation, dilemma or undesired condtion. They may have been treated unfairly as well. Hence, we need to prevent these negative factors from spreading to us. The following are the ways I figure out to deal with people of such attitude:

1. Call it a stop
You are not supposed to be a victim of mental bullying. So you have to let that person know that. You may do something that catch his/her attention. Then telling that person it is no use to behave in this way because such behaviour won't do anyone good.

2.Challeging them with questions
Ask "Are you sure that is really what you want?" or "What is the point of doing that?"You need to gain the control of the whole situation and show that you should be treated fairly before you bring on a threat of taking some antogonistics actions.

3.Telling them what you can do for them. Then asking them to do something easily achievable. So your great attitude and praise to them. By doing so, you hope they will get out of negative feeling and thinking.

All these are the methods I could thought of currently. The most imporatnt thing is not to turn yourself into someone you do not like at all.

In Malaysia

PSS team in Lonza, Slough

I finally returned to my own home in JB after 1.5year in UK. Although this is the 7th day since I returned, I still pushing myself to readapt to the temperature, language and mosquitoes here. Sometimes, I would be missing those colleagues in the company there, those friends that I met in table tennis club and those from Imperial college(I am not student there).

I admit that my own home is definitely more comfortable. But somehow, I have get used to a lot of changes recently. Futhermore, the new house does not progress as I dream of. Sometimes, it is just too difficult to plan what I want to do for my new room. Even while I was choosing furniture, I have to choose from the shop my family placed order from. Otherwise there will be a lot of logistics problem, I may not be able to move over in time. Besides that, I have also heard something was not done as it should be by the person I trusted a lot. So that is life, not everything can be perfect. I wonder how much extra money my brother and sister -in-laws have to put in for this new house.