The start of a new year - 2016. Goals, changes, achievements.

Its the first day of 2016. Happy New Year!

Its the day where lots of people will say things like "new year, new me", "2016 goals", "this is the time for a change", etc etc...

Hahahaha. Exactly.

But how many of us actually did what we told ourselves/the world on the first day of each year.

We told ourselves we will change countless time, sometimes we do, sometimes we don't. Though I don't set goals/changes for myself on the first day of each year, I did set it from time to time.

I'm 25 years old in 2015. I started working as a banker in 2012 when I was 22. When I started working, I came out with guidelines and questions for myself, which are:

Guidelines
- Work for the experience
- Be sincere in your work
- Give it your best
- Don't limit yourself to your job scope
- Explore
- Assess your life when you reach 25 and then every 5 years from there onwards

Questions
- What have you learnt?
- Have you achieved what you aimed for?
- Is this the type of work/life that you want?

In a way, I set my timeline up to 2015 instead of for the year. It worked for me. These guidelines and questions often came up in my mind throughout the period, consciously and subconsciously shaping me and leading me towards the decisions I made.

Throughout my working life from 2012 to 2015, I've had the opportunity to work with 12 managers/assistant managers/team leads and not to forget trained by countless managers/trainers/facilitators. I even had the chance to manage people in the departments that I worked in which ranges from 3 to 8 people. Though not a large number but the experience was precious.

I would say I've had a good start right after finishing my degree. I've had good colleagues and bosses.

But.

I quit my job as a banker. Officially ended on 02/12/2015.

Since I've had it so good, why would I still want to quit? People are envious of us. Getting paid well, travelling often, having the money to buy the things that you want. Had my promotion in Feb'15, my career progression was on track. It was such a hard decision to make.

Why, you wonder.

The answer is greatly related to my guidelines and questions.

2015 was tough for me as I've reached the assessment part of my guideline and the question "Is this the type of work/life that you want?" kept on popping up, which eventually lead to my resignation.

Eventually, it came down to is this what I want? If I continued with my career, working hard, I would eventually get the promotions that I wanted. That I "wanted".

As I neared 25, the things that I want shifted. I used to want respectable jobs and promotions.

Now, I want something different in my life. I want to live a life that I'm happy with and have a positive vibe. I want to try different things. Since I could work such long hours for a company, why not try working for myself for the same long hours and see what I can achieve.

I'm currently working on a small project with a few friends. I could feel the excitement, liveliness and positivity coming back.

Feeling alive.

New year, new me indeed. I've taken my first step, what about you? Is there anything that you've always wanted to do?

Udemy Courses

Hi there!

Its been a really long while since I last wrote. Ironically, two posts before this, I even said that I'm back to writing and that only lasted for two posts.

Anyways.

So I was lounging on the sofa the other day. Feeling bored.

Then, I received an email from Udemy that goes like this....

Interesting...

I've read about this Udemy thingy online quite some time ago and registered an account but have never gotten to using it.

For those that have not hear of it. Its an online learning platform where you can search for the courses that you are interested in and learn at your own pace. You can visit the site by clicking here.

So I was bored, it looks interesting. Something on Sale. Psychological marketing working its way through my brain. Usually the courses cost USD29, 39, 49...199...249...etc. Why not take a look.

Aha! What have we here?

Interesting - The Complete Web Developer Course. I've always wanted to learn how to make my own website ever since dabbling in it (just lightly) when in University.

Another one that caught my attention was this...

The Complete Hacking Course. Really? From beginner to advanced for USD15?

Some people probably jump right in and bought the courses since it looks like a steal, from $199 to $15.

But being the cheapskate that I am and the sad state of the MYR. I didn't buy the course.

But then again...

The courses on sale lingered around my mind. Zzz. Marketing techniques.

Guess what.

I bought both the very next day. On the day that the USD:MYR reached the 52 weeks high @ 4.4812 according to Bloomberg.

Both courses would have cost me USD30. But when I logged into the Udemy App, I saw that The Complete Web Developer Course was on sale for USD9.99.

Hmmm. Of course I chose the cheaper one since its the same.

I tried to look for The Complete Hacking Course to see if its also selling for USD9.99 or not but the weird thing is, the course is displayed as coming soon on the app and doesn't allow you to purchase it.

So in the end, I bought the course separately on the App and through my email link.

That's not all. Since I paid with my credit card, there's the processing fee for foreign currency denominated transactions of 1%.

So in the end I paid a total amount of RM114.26 for both courses at an exchange rate of 4.5722 inclusive of the processing fee.

Its not too bad a deal since it would have cost me the same or even more if I were to buy physical books that are less engaging.

I've started on The Complete Hacking Course and have ran into a few problems but that makes it interesting. I'm quite hooked to it. Let's hope I will complete both courses. I'll share on my experience with the course and the problems that I ran into in my next post.

Till next time!

感慨

I was sick for more than a week. The cold has left me lying in bed for a week. Haven't had much time to do what I intended to do when I got back to Kuching. In the end, left without doing much. Sometimes it does get you wondering, life is as unpredictable as it always is.

Finishing up my annual leave as I type away and tomorrow will be my next phase in life - officially start my working life. These past week of illness has actually given me the chance to slow down, made my life move a little slower. Allowed me the chance to look at and feel the things around me and it made me sad. I feel awfully sad deep inside me, coupled with the fear of uncertainty. I've been thinking back on things the whole afternoon. I'm starting to miss the people that has gone further away in my life, some I miss a lot, so much that I can feel it in my heart. I miss home all of a sudden even though I just left home this morning. I miss school. I miss the things I used to do with my friends. I miss the places I've been to. 

I'm 22 still, moving into 23 soon. I wonder how do people live their life up to their 30s, 40s, 50s and so on. Honestly, I don't really know how to live. Seeing them work everyday, how do they manage to do it, where does their motivation come from? Is it because of commitments that they have to fulfil or just plain working for the sake of working or it is their passion? How do they balance out work, money, time and passion? Seeing the grown ups around me, I wonder how their mind works and how do they see the world.

There's no flow or structure in my blog, I'm just writing as I think of it. So if anyone of you that might read this find it weird or what, try rearranging or make sense of it on your own.

我怀念的, 都离我越来越远了. 

Back to writing

Its been more than a year since I last wrote something. Felt like writing again so here I am. Ever since I left uni in June, I haven done much reading or writing and it has slowly taken its toll on me. It has made me slow in terms of mental capacity as well as affected my capability to use the English language. Hope writing here will help solve this problem. No pictures this time round.

Currently, I've moved into another phase of my life - work. Everything felt so unreal when I accepted this job, everything happened so fast. Exams finished in mid-June, went for our graduation trip till 1 July. I even attended Shell's Recruitment Day in June halfway through my trip (this blog helped me a lot, click here and here). The recruitment day was an eye opener for me, my first official interview ever. Even though I didn't get the job but it was still a very good experience. Prepared me for my next interview which landed me a job in the banking industry. Maybank came to Swinburne in mid-July for a career session which I attended. They introduced their BMELP program to us and the interview was the next day. The interview went through smoothly and we had to go through a reasoning and numerical test afterwards when we got through the interview.

We (me, kelvin and stephen) were recruited into the program's batch 4 which began on 1 August. Everything happened so fast at this point, we were asked to do a medical check up three days before that and only got our offer letter the next day and on the next day we were to fly in to KL. Honestly, I was quite blur and 'gong gong' when I came in but after awhile, it felt quite good. From what I heard so far, Maybank is the bank that provides the most comprehensive training for their staff. The trainers here are really good, no matter in-house or external. We've had a few classes that were very lively. The only downside is the food, you'll be provided with 5 meals a day. Don't get me wrong, the treatment for the staff is good, just that the food might not be suitable for everyone, everyday sure masak lemak and spicy. You'll definitely grow fat while training here. The culture in Maybank is nice also, almost everyone I've meet up to now is friendly and knows how to add a little fun into everything to make things less stressful, no matter in my batch, in the academy or in the branch I'm attached to.

Speaking of the branch I'm attached to, Sibu branch, its totally different from what I was expecting, Since I've never stepped into Sibu before, all I can imagine of that town is based on what people told me. Everyone told me its a small town that's very boring. So my expectation of my branch was also tuned to that image where I expected it to be less busy and smaller. Sure enough, when I arrived, I could see how small and boring  it was as compared to Kuching. However, when I saw my branch, I was quite shock, the branch was big, spanning 3 shop lots and 3 floors. My branch was at the ground floor while the private banking centre and support department is on the first floor and the SME and business banking on the second floor. Lucky for me, I have Adrian, Xiao Yang and Hock Kang and his gf,  Kiki to accompany me while I was attached there. Not to mention my very friendly colleagues. =D Because of them, I seldom stay in my room, most nights, I spent it with them. The most prominent thing to notice about Sibu is the Foochow dialect and their food portion. Foochow can be said to be the official language in this town, everyday, I had to explain to customers that I'm not from around here and I don't understand Foochow, its nice that they are understanding and friendly as well. As for their food, you can get twice the portion for the same price you pay in Kuching. Eat till you ki siao. The higher end eateries in Sibu are awesome, the ambience is really nice, the kind of place that I like. Another thing about Sibu, it seems that most people here knows how to play badminton.

There's another thing that I wanted to write about. Its what I encountered in the branch during my attachment. There was an old guy who came in, wanting to withdraw some money from his account because his daughter was sick. But the problem is, his account has insufficient fund, he wanted to borrow from the bank and asked us whether he can do so. He kept on taking out the sick certificate of his daughter to show it to us, asking us to help him, to borrow him money and said that he'll pay it back. As much as we would like to help him, there's nothing much that we can do in terms of the way banks operate. We couldn't possibly let him overdraw his account, we couldn't give him a loan either. This was the reason why I posted on my Facebook saying reality is where the rich gets richer while the poor gets poorer and nothing much can be done to change it unless if they get proper education to give them a chance and a way to improve their living conditions. In this situation, what could we have done? Provide him the money from our own pockets? As much as I would like to help him, but is that the way to do it?

One of the things to ponder in life, to help or not to help, and in what form.

Till next time~

Waterfront

It’s been awhile since I last went to Waterfront. The last time was with KiKi & Jaron, a night stroll.

I’ve been there today, it was a spur of the moment decision. grabbed a drink from 7-eleven and leisurely walked along the riverbank under the shade of the overlooking trees.

Surprisingly, it was very relaxing, with the breeze blowing upon my face. Usually, I would hate walking on my own, the loneliness would engulf me, making me emo and tensed. Today was just nice. =)

Sat cross-legged at the lookout point extended above the river. Nice view. The flowing river and Mount Serapi in the distance was a soothing sight despite the yellowish river with an occasional floating garbage passing by…hahaha….

I even managed to read the 20 page reading material that I need to present with my group, its easier to understand the whole thing when reading it here. Maybe its due to the peaceful morning, less people walking around. Most of the passerby are tourist or middle/older aged people. Those that usually hang out here are no where to be found.

Watching people/life go by is a hobby of mine. I like to observe and watch what others are doing. Seeing elderly people relaxing and talking to each other. Happy tourists/family taking photos of each other. Life is slow over here, sometimes its a good thing, sometimes its not. If you get what I mean.

 

That’s all for now~

Goodnight.

Shopping Madness

Happened when I just clocked in for work at noon.

Saw a mother with her daughter looking at the display at our shop when I just finished changing into my uniform.

Not long after that, both of them came in, the daughter was still a little kid.

The following happened:

*translated to English
Cynthia(my colleague):  Eh, there's a little boy outside our shop. He's been walking back and forth a few times. He looks like he's lost.

*Sze and I looked at the boy*

yeap..he's lost...crying...anxious and worried look...

I went out and called after him...

Me: didi(little boy), are you looking for your mother?

*little boy still crying, nods his head and frantically looking around*

Me: Come, I'll help you look for your mother.

*brought him nearer to the window display and asked him whether the woman with her daughter inside the shop is her mother, little boy shakes his head*

Me: Come, I'll bring you to the customer service counter to help you locate your mother.

*little boy holding tight to his bag of discs and followed me while I keep my hand on his shoulder and back, crying and looking around with the lost expression*

When we were near the escalator, someone called out to us, little boy recognized the voice and turned around. Saw his mother and immediately ran towards her.

Turns out, the mother in the shop was his mother, just that when he panicked, he lost the ability to judge or see clearly.

Since I worked here last month, I've heard numerous announcement looking for lost child or lost child looking for parents. In fact, there's another announcement looking for someone just now.

Its really irresponsible of them to shop until they forgot their children. Young kids really do lack the ability to recognize the surroundings and lack the ability to really take care of themselves.

What if, I'm someone with bad intention, just using the excuse of helping that kid look for his mother, where would that kid end up now?

Remember your responsibilities.

Eco Box

Skip the post on Sunway for awhile…

Seen this box awhile ago when my mum bought apple pies from Gingerbread House.

I like it…environmental friendly with coupons/vouchers on it.

hehehe…dun complain bout the pic…lazy to do further setup and edits…flashed from up, bounced by ceiling and the cards…

Got the box above from Ferns at tHe Spring’s food court…

Ordered Beef Burger Value Meal (RM7) for dinner, inclusive of fries and drink. Not bad de price, chicken rice alone already cost RM4.80, Beef Noodle cost RM5.50. Meals are expensive when you add them up. Half of my salary is spent on food =_=”…how to save money…

ok la…hope to see more ppl using this kind of box instead of the typical polystyrene box. At least this box is bio-degradable, although I personally think the ink will still do damage…

They should also produce paper bags to replace plastic bags eh….

Link to Eco Box’s website: http://www.makanmedia.com.my

*I tried opening their page but to no avail, might be down when I tried.

 

Wheee~~~ Discount Coupons~~~~~

 

ok la…

that’s all for now…

bye~