It's never been easy

trying to adjust to the pace of life and getting over the feelings of missing my family over here in Singapore.  I kept psychoing myself.." It's just a year or 2!"  But it just not that easy at all.

Wify informed me that once in a blue moon, boy boy will nag for me.  Especially when he is tired and wants to go to bed at night.  Think it's because normally I would be the one to pick him up and slowly rock him to sleep.  He enjoys that :P

Bad news today was one of our little pups.  Either chokolat or kitkat got ran over by my own car.  Wife was reversing to park when the pup dashed out.  It happened last week but I only knew about it today.  My missus intentionally kept the news away from me until I asked about them today.  Girl girl said she cried a lot that day.  I asked her to take extra attention to cookie whenever mummy is driving. 

Work is as usual, hectic and lots of idiotic, no common sense routines.   Sometimes I wonder its a form of punishment for me (for having such a blasting wonderful time in Thailand :P).  Well, month end is coming and I'm going to get paid.  That's the day I would be gladly be looking forward too.

Just a short entry before hitting the bed.  RIP  Chokolat or Kitkat

 

The 'connected' generation.

I was back in Singapore for only a day when I received some bad news via facebook.  My friend's father has passed away and he announced it on his wall and I send my quick condolences to his family.

He was to me, a very good friend, mentor, brother and one of my insurance agent :P.  We got to know each other in Ngee Ann Pugilistic and Lion Dance troupe way back in my Polytechnic days.  We were accompanied by a bunch of good brothers and sisters that I am so happy and fortunate to get to know them thru the years.       

The following night, I called up a few other brothers (about 4 of us in total) and we head down to the wake.  And we got a bit surprised to see even more other brothers from the same troupe who were there and we chatted and had a great short time.  Although the last time we had a gathering for NAAPL was only 2 months ago during CNY 2012.  But this little sad incident brought some of the busiest brothers together.  Some that I have not seen in years....

When I got home after the wake, I suddenly feel that I really missed the days where we get physically together to play, train, talk cock or even go to the movies.  The good thing about social media such as facebook is that I get to "connect" with a lot of long lost friends via the medium.  But it's still in a virtual reality world.  The lack of being physically meeting up with them seems a bit sad to me.  I myself, is part of the blame as I was constantly not in Singapore.  But now I am!  So I plan to meet up personally with some old classmates and friends I have met throughout my 35 years of life.

So for those who do know me, please do not be surprised if you in get a phone call or a message from me!  Let's meet up for old times sake :)

 

Same place, lots of familiar and new faces.

I'm officially back in Singapore for almost a week.  I flew back last Saturday and signed my contract on Monday.  Just yesterday on the 15th, I started work again.

It's quite surreal actually.  I never thought I would be back in SG and some more, work in the same company and department before I left for Thailand. 

I was actually offered another job opportunity but that job is a daily 9 to 5 job without any shift.  I was holding on as it means it would be difficult for me to return back to Thailand once in a while.  Although the pay is good but its just not my main priorty.  It was a bit god send when I talked to one of my old colleague and she mentioned that she just left and our old company was actively hiring new people.  

I enquired, sent in my resume and that's history.  I'm onboard again.

Lots of familiar face but a lot of new ones too.  I would say more than half of my current team mates are new.  Not a bad thing though, some of the old guards are promoted and really happy that they are now in a better position.  :)

All in all, the new monitoring system was in place (it was still in WIP when I left) which means I need to spend some time getting used to the new system.   Challenging work and hope I could get it asap.  My new boss (and old colleagues) seems to think highly of me... :P  ... stress liao...   

Family updates.

Just had another video conference today.  The 3rd one this week actually.  The 1st was on Sat and it nearly tore me apart as my son was screaming for me to come and fetch him.  Really can't sleep for a few nights after that incident.  Girl girl more or less understand my need to go, so not that bad.  It's lucky my wife's relatives are visiting, my brother-in-law with her new born daughter and my sister-in-law with her 4 year old daughter.  So the last 2 videos they were busy playing and totally ignored me on Skype..... :S  Well, at least ah boy's attention is no longer on me.     

 

Tree

Just a short post before my return to Singapore.  These 3 photos were taken digitally some time ago but I only recently decided to show these before I return.  Its taken with my 8mm Peleng Fisheye lens on my A900.  The subject was actually my jackfruit tree in my garden.

Recently I have been a bit choosy in posting my photos as I find most of them a bit unsatisfactory for my taste.  Its also one of the various reasons why I have not been shooting as much lately.  Another contributing factor is the weather over here. The hazy and overcast weather over here in Maesai prevents me in getting out to shoot.  Yes, the bane of all landscape photographers like me, bad weather.

My 1st initial reactions to the shots were just like... Yeeww... a bit too pretentious.  Funny thing is that I kept opening up the series ( I took about 9 shots in total) and it slowly grows on me.  Why?  No idea but I converted one of the shots to Black and White and it turn out pretty cool.  Here's the photo, click on them to see a larger verion.  Hope you like it too :)

 

Still shooting.

Photography I meant.  :P  I had a dry spell a few months back but I was back shooting.  Selectively, of course and rarely shooting with my DSLR.  I am a bit surprised by myself actually as I had hundreds of shots taken with my "Beast" on instant film and I had not taken the time to scan them.    I also have taken some slides and black and white film but again, I scanned them and find them a bit depressingly bad so I did not post them.  Well except for this series I just completed with HP5+ pushed to 800.

I actually threw all my rules when shooting and developing this roll.  I didn't even bother to check the tempreature of the developer and just dump it in... surprisingly still can get the photos.   Very grainy and lots of watermarks on the film too...  You can check out the series over here in my FB album.  :P  

I also recently completed a roll of expired Velvia 50 which is to be doubled later by ndroo of Fuzzyeyeball.com :). Hope the results will turn out well.

Anyway I will be back in 2 days time.  Work will commence on the 15th but I need to sign the contract on the 12th.