Internship.

So that’s it – my internship has officially ended today. No more waking up early in the morning to try to go to work, no more irritating people in the office shouting at the top of their voices because of some small issues. Put it simply, I’m liberated! Of course it’s definitely with a tinge of sadness that I’m leaving the company, but then again, I had loads of fun for the past year and it’s an experience that I definitely will not be in a hurry to forget. I mean, my boss has given me so much opportunities throughout this period and I really learned a lot of things. I learned how to deal with people, how to do negotiations, how to be quick in my thinking and working, how to control my temper… it’s just a great experience. I don’t care what daft or crazy things some people will say about my boss and my company, but as far as I’m concerned, it had been quite a wonderful ride and I definitely made the right choice. And for that, I shall always be thankful. (Some people should be ashamed of themselves for all the horrible and irresponsible things that they said about my boss and my company.)

Tried to pack a little today and discovered that it’s really not easy to try to pack all these things after this one whole year. I probably may need to ship some stuffs straight to Singapore to prevent my baggage from being overloaded!

And we are in the last day of the year. As usual, I’d be doing my round-up of the year, as well as some resolutions for the year 2006. Just that I’m going to be so busy for the next few days that I don’t know if I’ll be able to get it done on time! Whatever it is, it had been a hell of a year, and I’m sure there will be loads of things to write about.

Off to sleep – see you guys around.

Busy.

With 2 official days left for me, it’s always a run against time to get my work done. And even with just 2 days left, my manager had no intention of letting me off – he’s thrown me a new arrow today and expected me to get it done by tomorrow!

Went to dinner with Justin, Shallene and the new boy in town, David. Seeing juniors coming into Shanghai is always a great thing, and I hope they have fun for the next one year here.

As for myself, my schedule is really packed from tomorrow onwards as I make my last dash in Shanghai before going back to Singapore next Thursday. Looking at what I have in my plans, I wish I had booked the ticket to go back home later! But no worries, my friends in Singapore – I’ll definitely be appearing in school on the 6th January, so if you want a coffee or a meal, I’ll be around!

Getting a bit confused about things again – but maybe it’s a good thing.

Hangzhou (for the 15th time).

After all the alochol in the dinner yesterday evening, as well as the lack of sleep, waking up at 6.30 to try to get to the train station for the train to Hangzhou was never easy. However thanks to the opening of Shanghai South Railway Station metro station, as well as the same-card transfer between metro lines 1 and 3, I took only about 25 minutes to get from Zhongshan Park to Jinjiang Park, where the Meilong train station was. However I was running a very bad headache, and my stomach was acting up wtih me, so I was feeling pretty horrible. Decided to skip breakfast even though the lure of a McDonald’s breakfast was always hard to resist. Went straight onto the train and starting my concussion, but not until I actually saw Kandesse and her friend who would be on the same train as me. It’s always nicer to be going to Hangzhou for play rather than work.

I was concussed for almost the entire journey and when I reached there, it was raining and therefore very cold! Took a bus to my client’s office, had a pretty good chat with them, though I couldn’t fulfill the target that I set to achieve before I left. My boss had told me that I didn’t have to really force the deal through, but it still was a little disappointing that I didn’t really pull it off. Oh well, corporate negotiations are never going to be easy anyway.

After the visit to my client, I decided that I shall take a long distance bus from Hangzhou back to Shanghai because the buses go at quicker interval – about 10 minutes, and it was actually faster if the traffic conditions are good. So I got on the bus that was scheduled to leave at 3.35 in the afternoon. The best thing was the bus got stuck in a jam immediately after leaving the bus terminal, and it wasn;t about half an hour later that the bus got onto the Shanghai-Hangzhou expressway. Little did I expect that worse was to come. The bus came to a stop on the expressway itself at about 5 in the evening, and the bus remained stationary for one and a half hours, before moving slowly amidst the jam. In the end, I reached Shanghai at 8, feeling absolutely exhausted. Should have taken a bus instead.

Lee Tong would be going back to Singapore tomorrow, and it would be just another week before it’s my turn. I think I would probably need to do some last minute shoppings before I actually go back. So far my shopping list has the following items:

1. An external hard disk
2. A pair of shoes (most likely from Xiangyang Market, unless some flagship stores had some ridiculous sale going on)
3. A few pair of socks at Uniqlo
4. A mug from Coffee Bean for my sister
5. A few pair of jeans from Jing’an Temple
6. Depending on availability, the textbooks for my modules next semester. It seems cheaper to get them here.
7. Blank CD-Rs
8. A CD Pocket
9. Some other funny IT gadgets if I still have money (like a MMC card for my phone, or a memory stick for my PSP)

Don’t know if I still want to go Nanjing or not – it suddenly feels as if I don’t really have that much time left in Shanghai, especially when I have these shopping to do.

Oh and I need to submit my business case. Must not forget.

Company Dinner.

The highlight of the day was definitely the company dinner. We had a really great dinner – the food was great, the wine was great, the service was great (i’m more than willing to overlook the part about them not being able to make Long Island Tea), but what was more important was the company. To have everyone in the company together for a dinner like that was really a fantastic experience. In addition, we had a lot to talk about, found out what our boss actually thought of us, and also exchanged a lot of opinions. It was such a wonderful experience and eventful evening it would definitely stay with me for a long while to come. Thank you everyone for everything.

Would be going to Hangzhou tomorrow to try to discuss about a deal, as well as to catch up with some old friends. Hopefully everything will be good. If the deal was sounding like it’s going to happen then it won’t be my last time there. But in case it doesn’t, I’m still grateful to have been able to have gone to Hangzhou so many times for work. It was definitely an eye opening experience, and I’m sure I wouldn’t have that if I had chose to stay in Singapore, or chose to go to some other companies. Really have to thank my boss for all the opportunities that I was given. It was really brilliant.

Christmas.

OK I know Christmas is technically over, but still I think I should still say Merry Christmas to all of you because over at the other side of the world, Christmas had just started!

Anyway I came back to Shanghai around noon on Friday, after a rather interesting flight from Shijiazhuang. The airport was small, the plane was small, so it was a new experience! The one and a half hour flight was OK, as I managed to conquer another 100 pages of Hilary Clinton’s autobiography.

The Shijiazhuang airport terminal building on the left, and my flight back to Shanghi is on the right. The terminal building was very much what you can see in this picture! As for the flight, let’s just say it was the smallest that I’ve ever been on – it could take 46 people!

Generally my stay in Shijiazhuang this time round had been relatively quieter. Spent quite a bit of time doing my business case, but also went to some rather interesting places as described in the entries for the past few days.

Inside one of the temples in Zhengding – apparently this buddha was about 4 stories high, and I wasn’t supposed to take any pictures inside the temple. Oops!

The Zhao Yun Temple in Zhengding. Well obviously they were trying to earn some money from trying to let the whole world know that Zhao Yun, the famous general in the Three Kingdoms period, was a Zhengding native. Being an RTK fan, I had to come to this place even though I knew all along that it’s going to be a rip-off.

One of the biggest shopping malls in Shijiazhuang – the Beiguo Commercial Mall. They had a Swarovski (is it spelt like that?) store inside it and they were selling handphone chains at RMB 499.

In any case, these couple of days had been rather low key for me. Spent the Friday afternoon working on the business case anaylsis. Yesterday was devoted to lazing around and not doing anything constructive until dinner time with the NCS juniors. Christmas Eve was never going to be a good day for clubbing, pubbing, karaoke-ing and all those leisure activities because apparently the entire Shanghai was out on the streets yesterday night! Today was also another working day – wrote about another 6 pages of my analysis. I would need to be reading two articles tomorrow and I can then continue writing on it. I could just skip the articles and continue to write, but I would need some ammunition before I can continue crapping on the analysis!

Going back to work tomorrow, though I expect these few days to be really low-key for me as I prepare to hand over my stuffs to the juniors. That can’t be a bad idea.

Off to sleep, see you guys around.

Oh ya, as mentioned by Edwin in his journal, this was the cute jazz singer at South Beauty:

Cute, eh? I think I’ve fallen in love with her. What to do, I have a soft spot for cute girls after all. Hahaha.

NCS3.

OK so here it is, as promised a few days back. Maybe I’ll start with my current batch of NCS mates – juniors, wait for your turn.

1. Chairman Phang – The SHEN president whom I affectionately call the 老总, apparently always full of crap, but when it comes down to real working he’s about the best person you can have in a team. He’s one who’s always willing to listen to all different opinions, and would not be trying to force people to think the way he does. Talking to him is always a joy, not just because of the amount of crap that he dishes out, but it does make you think from a wider perspective. Always nice to have him around in the house because he’s one who always make sure everything is in order. Also a very loyal friend who would definitely not leave you in a lurch in bad situations. “The Rage of Fuzhou Road” was one particularly memorable incident. Thank you matey.

2. Vice-Chairman Ting – The SHEN vice-president whom I’ve known since the days in SOC, though I never quite got to know him well back then, and I probably still don’t now. Edwin’s a pretty deep person, but he’s always willing to talk to people. At times may be a little overwhelming because he seems to know so much, but generally talking to him also gives me a different perspective to a lot of things (though I don’t necessarily agree with everything he says!). I think Edwin’s still a very charming guy, and as long as he’s not trying to woo the same girl as I do in the future, I would serious recommend him as ‘a good catch’! See you back in school!

3. Yvonne – The very kind-hearted girl – I believe no one would contest the kind-hearted part, but the girl part is always open to debate – who always places others before herself. She’d rather inconvenient herself than to trouble others. And I think nowadays there are not many people who would still be able to do that. Always a very loyal friend who would make sure everyone’s fine and doing OK. Because of that, I would tend to forgive her on the not-so-feminine character. The funny thing is, as far as my memories are not failing me, I have not been on the receving end on her brutality yet, and I would love to keep it that way until I go back to Singapore. I probably am still going to see her for another semester given that we have kinda planned to do the same GEM module next semester, so I would probably have another few months to endure.

4. Lee Tong – My colleague at the company, my roommate at the house. Always a great listening ear, and even though he doesn’t seem to speak a lot, whenever he does always seem to create a huge impact! Out of everyone in this trip with me, he’s got to be the guy I have to thank most because he’s always willing to help me with things in the office, so much so that it made me look real bad when it comes to his work (which I often was not able to help much). He’s probably the best friend you can ever have because he’s always so nice, always putting himself before others, always seem so ready to help others. A guy who befriends you not because of whatever you can bring to him, but because he truly wants to be a friend. Can’t ask for anything more. Thank you a million!

5. Chin Keong – My drinking buddy! Just like me, he holds his glass pretty well and I don’t think I have ever seen him getting drunk before. A great contributor to the alcohol that’s avaliable in the house, and the liquor he gets are always great stuffs, so as far as drinking is concerned, he’s the man to go to! Just like Chairman Phang, he’s also full of crap and I think the two of them would make a very good cross-talk combination! Another point to add, Naruto is his middle name!

6. Shuhui – My small sister in the house. And things are not always easy for someone who’s younger than all of us in the house (I’m 25 while the rest are 24 – she’s 22, oops!) because there are certain things in which her wavelength is quite different from others. But nonetheless she came through it alright. Always the subject of my 思想教育, and sharing life lessons with her is always a nice thing for me because it’s just me who likes to tell people stories. Someone once commented to me that she’s actually a very sweet and pretty girl and I normally don’t dispute that, now all she needs is to grow up a little bit more to complement the looks and everything will be great! Of course I’m not saying that she’s still a kid (even though as an older brother I’m obliged to think that she is), and in fact she’s really grown up quite a bit over the course of this year. Learning to handle life is never easy, but you just have to make the effort in doing so!

7. Fionna – Started to really get to know her better since the middle of the year. And once you get to know her, you’d wish that you’ve known her much earlier! Mature, independent, career-minded, basically whatever words you’ll use to describe the 21st century woman, you will use it to describe her. She knows so much about things, and she’s always so fully aware of what she’s going to do, how to get things done, etc etc. And her past experiences are just great life stories for everyone of us who are still pretty much in a student’s shell. If ever you need a tongue-in-cheek reality check, Fionna would be the one to turn to.

8. Hui Cheng – The one that I always tease about not coming to my company, and the one whom my boss would always classify under ‘the one who got away’ category. Very competent in her work, though I would have loved to get to know her better. She comes across as being very independent, and knows exactly what she’s doing. Also a very loyal friend who will always make sure that everything is fine. A very cool friend to hang out with.

9. Zihui – My 同乡! It’s amazing that both her and my ancestors originated from the same place in China, and who knows, they may have known one another back then! I think being so Chinese-minded has made things easier for her and I think sometimes even my Chinese was nowhere as good as hers (even though I’m always very proud of my Chinese, so it shows that how good hers is). Always very busy in her work, and I think that’s great for her because it really gave her a very good opportunity to expose herself to a lot of things in China. Also a very cultural person – I still remember watching 雷雨 together with her! Also a very loyal friend, always willing to give words of encouragement when you’re feeling down. It’s nice to have know this girl – and of course thank you for sportingly taking those pictures with me!

10. Shallene – The pink lady! If you think pink, the first, second and probably the third thing or person that would come to mind would all be Shallene! Looking good in pink has been totally redefined by her. Apart from being pink, Shallene’s also a great friend to have. Always keen to help others, always ensuring that everything is in order. The best thing is, she’s the nemesis of Chairman Phang! So whenever we have enough of the crap being dished out by Chairman Phang, there’s Shallene to save the day!

11. Elaine – The perpetual karaoke queen who’s favourite past-time is going to KTVs! Of course it helped that she’s got a very nice voice, so going to karaoke with her is always a pleasant experience because it just feels like being in a live concert, and the singer’s paying for it! Never really quite got the chance to know her better because of work and where we live, but I guess 会唱歌的孩子都是好孩子,so Elaine should be a wonderful girl as well!

OK, cracked my brains too much for this, I’m off to the supermarket to get some stuffs, and then I’ll probably start packing for the return trip to Singapore. Maybe I could grab myself a dinner later on the way as well. Didn’t eat anything except for the two cookies and the bun on the plane from Shijiazhuang to Shanghai, and now I’m getting a bit hungry.

See you later.

Returning.

Last day in Shijiazhuang just zoomed past. Or should I say, the few days in Shijiazhuang just zoomed past and tomorrow morning I’ll be flying back to Shanghai. Didn’t really do much today, just like the last few days – kinda just lazed around in auntie’s place and do my business case. Not exactly the best way to spend the holidays, but then again, work is always more important.

A lot of things were going on in my head last night and I didn’t really sleep well. Seems like as the day gets nearer for me to go back to Singapore these things just keep on popping up in my head. Couldn’t really come up with any solution to sort that out, so I guess I’ll just continue to ponder about them.

I think I’ll leave those messages for everyone when I get back to Shanghai. It feels weird to be typing on somebody else’s keyboard anyway.

Going back to my own laptop for the business case anaylsis.

Gathering.

The highlight of the day had to be when my auntie dragged me along to one of those gatherings for the returning overseas Chinese association. The event wasn’t really exciting, but at least it was interesting because I got to see how a government-related event is like here in China! When the government officials (I think we had the provincial Communist party secretary) made their speeches, I was trying very hard not to laugh because the speeches were so standardized that I don’t know how hard it could be to make such a speech for them! After one and a half hours, the event was over, but not before the entire hall stood up and sang some Chinese patriotic songs! It sure was an eye opener.

Have been thinking about the analysis as to how I should approach it. Haven’t really got a clue, so I think I’ll work more on it tomorrow.

2 more weeks to leaving China, and as the day gets closer, I kinda am feeling more and more uneasy. Is it something or someone in particular that I can’t bear to leave?

Little Sheep.

According to the weather reports, today’s temperature was from -8 to 2 degrees. I certainly felt that.

Went to Little Sheep for a steamboat lunch with my cousin, her cousin and her cousin’s girlfriend (haha how about that for a long list). I suggested that place after seeing it in Yuanyuan’s blog, saying that it’s kinda like a must-go place. So off we went and I thought the steamboat was good – not the best, but good enough.

Then headed to Beiguo Shopping Centre, apparently the biggest shopping centre in Shijiazhuang to try to find something to buy for my company’s Christmas dinner next Tuesday. Didn’t manage to get anything, so I think I might have to worry about it another day.

Spent the evening working on the business case and I’m glad to say that I’ve gotten the business case done up, and now I’m going to embark on the worrying part of the analysis. Well, given that I initially thought that I would take a week to finish the case, I’m pretty much ahead in schedule and I believe that I could probably get it churned out by next week, if not the end of this.

Contemplating going to Nanjing this weekend after returning to Shanghai. To be honest, it’s not really a nice thing to be spending Christmas alone, but then again, sometimes even though you would love to spend it with someone, that someone may not be entirely interested in spending it with you. Oh whatever.

See you guys around – I think I should start writing to all NCS3 mates as well as all the NCS4 juniors now that I’ve seen so many of them written about it. Maybe I’ll do it tomorrow.

Shijiazhuang.

It’s been a few days since I last updated my little journal. So perhaps I’ll start updating from the day that my world started to spin around crazily.

16 December (Friday)
The official last day of the internship wasn’t a very pleasant one because of someone in the office making a scene out of some small issue, as well as someone in the office not doing the work being assigned and thus incur much inconvenience to everyone in the office. I almost wanted to slap that someone, but then again, my temper was supposed to have improved since coming to Shanghai.

The NOC graduation dinner was a crazy occasion. The dinner was OK, but it was the drinking that made the entire evening as crazy as it was. I think I must have drunk about 7 or 8 bottles of Heineken, and still I wasn’t the most drunk person among everyone (I was high, but not drunk like someone else…). At the end of a crazy drinking evening, the whole lot of us conjured up more determination and energy and headed for an overnight karaoke session. The session was pretty good, as I sobered myself up a lot with the singing and chatting. But after the last overnight karaoke session I was never going to last through another one, and I went off with Edwin, who was dead drunk and Min Chuan, at about 4. Leaving from Pudong back to Zhongshan Park was never the most exciting thought, but that was what happened after we were being ferried from the karaoke in People’s Square to the one in Pudong because the one in PS was just way too crowded. Somehow the entire Shanghai decided that Friday night would be a good night to go for karaoke.

17 December (Saturday)
The highlight of the day was definitely the dinner and the subsequent chillout session at South Beauty in Yan’an Road. The food was great and we paid about 130 RMB per person for the dinner, which in my opinion was a great deal, considering we would not have the chance to indulge in such a feast paying that kind of ridiculously small amount. Subsequently the chillout session at the South Beauty lounge was great too. The desserts were highly sinful but wonderful, the jazz singer was cute and sang very well, but the most important thing has to be the turnout. I was very happy to see most of us coming for this last gathering before we go for our tours and what not. In fact, for some of us it would be the last time to see one another in Shanghai and the next time would be back home in Singapore.

18 December (Sunday)
Woke up at 9 to do some last-minute packing for my trip to Shijiazhuang. Left home at 10 and headed straight to the train station. I chose to leave early so that I would have ample time for an early lunch and not having to rush. In the end everything was great and I settled into the train with 20 minutes to spare. An 18-hour train journey was never the best to begin in the morning, but it did allowed me to see some scenery and talk to some of the other passengers. It turned out that the lady who was below me actually lived in Singapore for 8 years and she claimed to have seen me working part-time in McDonald’s. I was quite amused.

Such a long train ride was never fun to be taken alone, and even with Hilary Clinton’s autobiography with me, I was still very bored. I stared at the ceiling for a long while after getting my dinner when the train pulled over in Xuzhou. Did some pondering about life before going into sleep. The sleep was pretty OK, though I could feel that the train was rushing to be on time because the speed was noticeably much quicker than it was in the day.

19 December (Monday)
Arrived in Shijiazhuang at about 6 in the morning and was told that the temperature out there was -8 degrees! The difference between the coldness in Shanghai and in Shijiazhuang was that it’s not as windy, so it actually did not make for a totally unbearable time. After arriving at my auntie’s place, I tried to sleep again, only to be waken up by my Hangzhou client. Shortly after this Hangzhou client put down the phone, office called me with regards to the same issue, and then after my colleague put down the phone, that guy from Hangzhou called again! Having my phone on domestic roaming certaily didn’t seem like a good idea – at least not with these people.

Went to Zhengding after lunch, which was a 30 minute drive from downtown Shijiazhuang. Visited a Buddhist temple, as well as the memorial temple of Zhao Yun, the famous general in the Three Kingdoms period. The feeling that these places gave me were definitely not very impressive. But since I’m here and it isn’t exactly far away, I would just make my way there. It helped when my uncle was doing the driving.

Might be going to the bookshop with my cousin tomorrow. She seemed to have changed quite a bit compared to the last time I was here in April, and I think that’s a good thing. After all, this cousin in Shijiazhuang has always been my favourite cousin – I guess I have always wanted to have an older sister.

Got my return ticket to Shanghai sorted out and I’ll be flying back on Friday from Shijiazhuang in the morning, and arrive back in Hongqiao Airport at about lunch time. Dinner on Friday, anyone?

I think I need a bit of sleep. After all, 18 hours on the train isn’t exactly the coolest thing to do, especially when you are travelling alone.