Author: admin

Sometimes, we feel obliged to do things. Do you get the same feeling too?

Everytime Facebook reminds you who are the friends having their birthday, do you feel obliged to send a “Happy Birthday” message?

If you chose not to send it, do you feel guilty after that? It’s like.. “Facebook has reminded me and threw the reminder onto my face. Cannot don’t send leh.. but if I send, the friend also won’t think I’m sincere since Facebook sent the reminders.”

But if you sent it, have you done it willingly? Do you sincerely wish the person has a happy birthday?

This question on obligations was asked during a class last week, when we were on the topic of Social Interactions. There are no rights and wrongs, it’s about how humans react when situations happen.

Since we’re on the topic on birthdays, I wonder how many of us actually remembers our friends’ birthdays.

So I did an experiment – to see who are the friends who really remembers my birthday. Judging from previous years’ experience, on average there were about 100~150 wishes via Facebook.

Last year, I hid my birthday info a day before the actual day. Other than the few close(r) friends who texted me via whatsapp, there were only a handful who sent me wishes via Facebook.

This year, I did the same experiment again – hiding the info a day before the actual day. On the day itself, 1 message came in via Facebook and a few via whatsapp. When I set the info visible a day after the actual day, that’s when more messages came in.

No, I don’t feel sad about it at all. I don’t feel like I’ve been forgotten. When one gets older, priorities change. Plus the fact that we have become so reliant on technology, we tend to forget things that we used to be able to recall with the snap of our fingers.

Back to the topic on obligations. I’ve also not been sending birthday wishes on Facebook the past months. I don’t want to seen as “aiya confirm is Facebook remind one..”.

That reminds me of an exchange student in my class who said I’m rude and that I should at least pretend to say hi when I see him along the corridors – but then why should I when I’m not sincere and when he wasn’t in my field of sight? Should I yell across the corridor if I do see him at the other end then?

I digressed. Happy belated birthday to myself! And happy birthday to everyone whose birthday falls on the 365/366 days of the year!

Feeling discouraged. Some minor events that happened recently are hitting me quite badly. Lost the confidence of doing things right.

Anyway, I sat by the laptop wanting to do some readings for the assignment, but ended up doing my own administrative work (legit admin work! need to sort out finance stuff).

Looking back, blogging feels so yester-years. I feel old to be writing this post now. Maybe it’s time to look at the closure of the blog.

One of those days you wish you’re not alone. You wish you have someone to share your thoughts with. You wish you have someone by your side. 

2 weeks ago, I had an unhappy encounter with a cab driver.

I booked a cab and had to wait 10 minutes for the cab to arrive. When I went downstairs 10 minutes later (I saw from the app that the driver was reaching), the cab has already reached and was waiting at where my lift lobby is.

Usually I’ll just walk down the stairs from the lift lobby to carpark, but that day the workers were doing painting works to my block and they cordoned up the stairway, so I had to walk to the other end of the block which wasn’t cordoned before I could walk to the cab. It would have just taken me probably an extra 1minute. But just as I reached the end of the block and entered the carpark, I saw the driver driving away. Thinking he might be driving around the carpark trying to search for me, I didn’t give it much thought and attempted to walk faster.

Sadly, the cab exited the carpark. I ran. And called the driver. But he/she didn’t pick up. (Could have been my fault as I didn’t call using the number I used to make the booking.)

Being the good tempered me, I was waiting for the driver to cancel my booking (which most drivers do by indicating a no-show). Interestingly, there was no booking cancellation but a valid taxi ride showed up instead. I was charged for a 0km ride. I thought.. “hmm ok. at least the driver indicated payment was by cash. if it had been charged to my credit card (which was indicated as payment method when I booked the cab), I’ll definitely lodge a complain!”

So I booked another cab again. To my horror, I couldn’t use my regular promo code! Turned out that the code can only be used once a day and my quote had been used up by the previous driver who “charged” me for the 0km ride.

I managed to book another cab – without the promo code. And it was another 10mins of wait.

Feeling indignant in paying the $3.30 which I could have saved, I wrote in to the cab provider telling them my encounter (but didn’t specifically ask for the waiver). Had not received reply from them for 2 weeks, I’d long forgotten about the encounter. Finally received a reply email today, informing me my incident has been recorded in his service records.

While they didn’t offer to waive the $3.30, I can only remind myself that not everything will go as planned. You always need to have a give-and-take attitude, a mindset that helps to keep you in a happier mood.

Sometime in December last year, we brought the APG Boccia international referees out to discover some parts of Singapore.

While we were sending them back to their hotel, I couldn’t help but to stop and admire our beautiful landscape.

Before I left house for my walk just now, I had things that I wanted to blog about. But now that I’m back home, sitting by the laptop, I had to think hard what exactly did I want to write about. Somehow that “feeling” to write disappeared with that 200 calories from the walk. 😉

So, I went to watch 7 letters last night. Consisting of short films by 7 local film writers, all the short stories talked about racial harmony and reminiscing the olden days. Such artistic films are not meant for everyone I’d say. Gets quite boring after a while. But in one of the short stories, there was an invisible ninja cutting onions beside me. 😛

This week had been an “XM” week. Met CF for dinner on Mon, Carolyn S for dinner + movie on Tues, Bee for lunch today. Now I’m thinking who to meet tomorrow. Hehe..