My new job

Hiya Furdelance, I am glad to inform you that I have landed myself in a job yesterday. Got the offer Monday night like at 8 p.m. So yesterday I just went for my medical checkup and also signing of acceptence. Well, its the one that I applied for and went for interview last week. I will be an Equipment Engineer responsible in equipment maintenance in photolithography machines. Actually, it was quite a surprise coz I thought I screwed up quite a bit in the interview.

Even then, many people were so curious about my doing a masters. Some fellas in typical Singaporean mentality - if they can't see the nexus or material benefit, they'd say "why do it?" I'd say "go fuck yourself" coz its my life and it's my business. The satisfaction factor is there and if you ain’t open minded enough to know that life can be savoured without dousing yourself in work and the rat race all the time, then I’d boldly say that your life is a waste of time, as you have only contributed to the world as a unit of the economy and I’m sure it would have been just as fine without you and I.

On the other hand, living and learning all trades that you can (including those that you can’t see why but you learnt it anyway) is a luxury still quite a foreign concept to many people coming from fast paced countries. Where is the culmination of art, the feeling of freedom to express art, the motivation to create new non-technical, philosophical concepts and so on? Not from the universities nor the polytechnics I’m afraid. It’s the individualistic want to, not even pursue, but letting loose of one’s thoughts and responsibilities into the abyss of mainly unproductive things. You can’t institutionalize or academise these thoughts. You can’t have a diploma in free thinking nor can you award a degree for failure. Failure itself is beautiful (weird concept?). I can’t imagine my life without failures.

Incidentally, “lepak”ing is also art, though very unproductive (and heavily associated with a certain ethnic group), of letting loose without having to gain something constructive out of it. Oh well, I think I’m ahead of myself here.

Will be going back to Malacca for the weekend, need to get more clothes and stuff. Most importantly is to get my Entry permit, which is this brown piece of paper given to all new PR's of Singapore. Come Monday I will have to make a trip to ICA (Immigrations and Checkpoints Authority) to try to reinstate my PR, now that I have got a job offer. Then on Wednesday, I will drag my sorry ass to work already. Kinda fast heh? Well to think that I did nothing contributive to my life for the past 10 months would make u think otherwise. Wryly, I’d say it had been a great time for the soul.

Speaking of "PR's", for the first time yesterday after 5 years I heard the word "PRC" again. For those unfamiliar, it stands for the People's Republic of China and is a term widely used in the manufacturing business in Singapore to name Chinese Nationals. Personally, I think this underpins somewhat derogatory sentiments (no doubt unintentional) to the Chinese Nationals. You may know that Singapore is a country that is too fast for long strands of words and hence the PIE (Pan Island Expressway), SLE, CTE, MOE, COE, HDB, ROM, ORD bla bla you get the drift. If such is the case then the next time I fill a form I'd state:

Citizenship: FOM (Federation of Malaysia)
PR status : ROS and COA (Republic of Singapore and Commonwealth of Australia)


Afterall, like the abbreviation "PRC", the abbreviations "FOM", "ROS" and "COA" stand for the official, worldwide recognised names for Malaysia, Singapore and Australia. So fellas, you see that I am an FOM instead of a Malaysian. If you are a Singaporean, would you like to be called a "ROS" by more advanced countries when you work in say U.S., U.K., or Japan? For Christ's sakes you ain't a country! You are a countryman of the country!!! Man, of all the Singlish that the ROS'es can come up with, this is easily the most politically incorrect!

Dear friends, do use the appropriate term when you work next time. I would be much happier to call our Chinese counterparts from China as CN's (Chinese Nationals) and that's that. Let's restore some mutual respect here ok?

Go Furdelance! Do your stuff!