New Weaknesses

Scrapbooking papers are my new weakness.

I passed by a scrapbooking stall at flea market today and all I saw was "OMG Buy 5 get 1 free" and I contemplated a while... until my boy saw that look on my face and he egged me to take my time to choose the designs I want while he patiently waits beside me to collect the pieces I have chosen.

Oh gosh, how much I love him.

The worst part of liking scrapbooking papers are that I love both sides of the paper and want to use both full areas but I can't bear to bring myself to... so I have to buy two copies. But heh! Who cares, the more papers I collect, the happier I am~

Another weakness I discovered is Marche bakery items. The foods are so big and fluffy and yummy and filling and heavenly! But I always missed out the donuts with fillings :( Who cares, as long as I have my apple and raisin snail buns and donuts coated with icing, I'm a happy kid!

Call Center Nightmare

Count myself "lucky" to encounter two dispute calls since the start of my work 2 weeks ago. I must have been so heng to get these type of calls because they put my reasoning skills to the test and stretch my tolerance for such unreasonable customer.

So one lady called in today and I guess the only way she speaks on the phone is to yell, shout, holler, scream, whatever you can think of. She made an enquiry and a request that I could not attend to because it doesn't fit the purpose of calling this hotline and it is not my responsibility to entertain such calls, but I attended to her request out of goodwill. Yes, goodwill can kill - and I got "killed" by the customer today all because of the little angel floating at the top of my head urging me to do something nice for her.

I did whatever I could to help the lady and all she said were,

"You don't understand what I'm saying!"

"Are you stupid or what?"

"You are not answering my question!"

Tell me how to not blow my top when she only converse by shouting? Fine, I kept my cool for the first 10 minutes of the verbally and emotionally abusive call. She even asked a very stupid question like,

"How come the country code of Hong Kong is 852 - 3 digits - while Singapore one is 65 - 2 digits?"

How the fuck would I know lady? I am not the head of whichever big company that decides the country code and decides how many digits would be in the country code! So I tolerated her a while more and replied her politely that I would not know the reason for this as it had already been determined like many many years ago. 

After tolerating her nonsense and screams for the past 15 minutes for something stupid - like how I didn't read the number in one go (I mean, hey, I read out the number slowly to you to make sure that you get every damn number correct so you cannot have another chance to scold me!), I broke into sobs and it could be heard over the ultra-sensitive microphone attached to my headset. The lady apologized to me and used her age as an excuse ("I'm 55 years old and still have to work at this age. You are, what, 20 years old? I wish I was at your age working so it wouldn't be tiring"). She asked for my name and an email address that she can reach somebody because she wants to do this...

A commendation letter.

Seriously ma'am? I don't need your fucking commendation letter for all the emotional and verbal abuse you had put me through for the past 20 minutes of phone call. I know some people find 20 minutes is not long enough to count blowing your top and break into sobs but imagine a random old aunty approaches you in the MRT and start to yell at you for something you didn't do wrong... wouldn't you be furious?

I told her straight off my chest - even though I knew every call was recorded for audit purposes - that I don't want her commendation letter. Deep inside, the damage had already been done, period. I am already inconsolable and I haven't sobbed quite badly since the last time I cried at my aunty's funeral. Yeah, that's how bad my work day was during noon time. She apologized repeatedly for upsetting me and mentioned that I am "young and brave girl that could put up with her because she was so busy that she couldn't spare time to look up the company'c contact number herself". While she explained for her abusive behaviour, I would never bring myself to accept her apology by answering her. 

Now I know how verbal abuse can destroy a person emotionally and how "sorry no cure" feels like. It is like slowly hacking a tree with each abusive word and to only apologize to the tree when it topples down with no more support from the root.

Nobody should ever be a victim of verbal abuse for something that they had not done wrong because everyone must be given the same amount of respect.

Chasing or Giving Up My Dream

Two key elements you should keep in mind while reading: money and the *cough* country. These two are deciding factors who would affect me taking up a degree that I have no interest in (but still able to get a decent job to survive in THIS country), or encourage me to chase my dream goal of becoming a dietician.

We all know money makes the world go round, and this particularly applies to insanely rich teens who didn't get ideal grades to make it to local universities but able to enter universities out of Singapore. I have two friends who are going to Australia for their studies and obviously I am very happy for them, in terms that they would be able to study what they like and with passion to study getting a degree certificate won't be taxing. I know that time and time again I have been ranting continuously about how lack of money won't get my studies any further, but I still want to stress the fact that teens with average grades coming from a middle-class family won't be able to afford the overseas tuition fees... let alone the living costs!

The most (I wouldn't say "secure") "common" degrees that would probably guarantee a job for me in the harsh society would be education - that is confirmed employment but also a "last resort" to some people - human resource, business administration, tourism and nursing. The latter is a type of job that usually people, locally, look down as nurses give locals the impression that they clean up patients and serve food and tolerate all the nasty stuff coming from the patient. Most importantly, nurses are one of the few frontliners when facing an outbreak, especially the SARS outbreak, which they were very brave to put up with. This is the reason why you don't see many local nurses as their job scope are generalized into "cleaning up, face health risks, and abused by patients". So when would Singapore change the impression of nurses to those as heroic as doctors?

Getting a job in the business and tourism industry is easy, except that one has to be particularly outstanding and able to think on their feet to secure a place in the company. As a science student for the past 3 years, I have no clue on what business industry is about... however I feel that I am going to venture into human resource management due to the lack of funding for my dream degree and the unpaved road for my journey to become a dietician.

With that being said, there are two and only two ways in getting a chance to study a degree overseas: have filthy rich ancestors or parents, or being super smart and getting a scholarship.

I belong to neither category and I'm stuck in this country.

Good day.

Ever Wondered Why

Take me as a person who has a penchant for sick movies and novels that involve in the twisted minds of humans. Obviously in the "artistic" way and not gore related fun. I often wonder what is it like beyond death? Some say you go to heaven or hell depending on the amount of good or bad karma you gained through life.

Discussing about what happens or what might happen beyond death is rather useless. So let's talk about something else that is related to death: how would my loved ones react when I die? Hold on a minute because I do not have suicidal thoughts - even though I have always wondered how does it feel like to have a quick death - and did not thought about committing suicide.

So I guess I was inspired to write an entry (YAY) after listening to a song by The Band Perry "If I Die Young". It is a depressing song that I never fail to look through the lyrics again and again to comprehend what it is trying to tell us because different people decipher the lyrics differently. Additionally, I succumbed to the stress generated from doing report and presentations and possibly media interview of my FYP project.

I have always wondered how many people would attend my funeral? Out of those who attend, how many would cry for me; if so, what do they remember me for? Most importantly, how would my family and my boyfriend react? Would they be too traumatised that they don't have the strength to cry any more? And after I have passed on, would he go on with his life to find a new partner or holding a place for me in his heart?

If I wanted to choose a way to die - in which I had avoided many accidents such as taking back my slipper while jaywalking halfway - I would want to be ran over by a big truck or a speeding car; at least this way of dying is quick and easy.