Monday, January 12, 2009
You know the economy is real bad when even the number of stalls selling cny goodies had dwindled down by quite a bit this year. Since cny is just round the corner, my parents have been busy stocking up on the essential goods (sea cucumber, abalone cans, mushrooms, black moss, mini springrolls etc) and basically food that you would serve to guests when they drop by your house. There's alot more shopping to go in the days leading up to cny. Examples would be like the drinks and this plum sauce that my mother would use to make our own chilli. I've decided to make myself useful over this weekend by helping them carry the bags from the shops over to the car.
I was never that helpful last year due to the busy schedule I had from school. Even on cny eve last year after my reunion dinner, I was rushing through a geography e learning reflection (they conveniently declared cny week to be the school's e learning week). Since this is a once in a year occasion and I don't have that much work to contend with yet, it's only right that I devote some quality time to my family.
Spent the evening scouting through endless number of journals before I found close to 20 of them which would be useful for my upcoming population essay. It's about time I got this rusty motor mind of mine up and running soon. Researching for articles and valuable references is definitely a good start. I hope to mentally set a deadline for the assignments due at the end of this semester and completing my population essay and having a draft for my sociology paper would be nice. Along the way I know there will be assignments from biogeography, sports management, fitness and conditioning and tennis.
I had a look at the biogeography notes over the weekend and I kinda liked what I saw. It's not totally about soil and there's ecology stuff involved too. The insects, mangrove systems and animals life etc is definitely more interesting than what I studied in humid tropics environments last semester. Biology was one of my favourite subjects back in secondary and even though I contemplated taking it at jc level, the incorporation of bits and pieces of chemistry eventually left me feeling digusted. It didn't help that I had colour deficiency and it often left me feeling helpless during lab work. Hopefully this biogreography (just like its name literally suggest) module will help me rekindle that love for the subject.
My mother had a chat with one of the packing assistants at the shop. We found out that he's a malaysian who's been earning his living in Singapore for the past 10 years. The 10 years was also the amount of time he devoted to his job. Most people would probably argue that since he doesn't have much education, he's probably better off with this kind of job and nothing else. That's just pure stereotype thinking. It takes some form of knowledge to be involved in this business and he also has to deal with the different kinds of requests from demanding customers. Take for example, when we wanted the 1kg of cuttlefish to be packed into 2 packets of 500 grams each, he did it without much prompting from us.
What he said before we left the shop got me thinking. He said it to us in chinese but here's the translation "It's important to have an interest in the job you're doing and it keeps you going. I'm lucky to have a job that I like". He may not be earning much but he's indeed a happy man.
