Pillayarpatti and Madurai

Landed in Chennai at around 12am this morning due to flight delays. There was heavy rain and lightning storms across the whole of Southern India. Anyway the flight was good, went on board a new domestic carrier called Paramount Airways. It basically offers internal flights across the major cities in South India. However, all the air stewards and hostesses are from North India, most of the gals seemed to be Punjabi. Most were really really good looking.

After landing at Madurai on Tuesday, we took a 1.5hr drive to Pillayarpatti. Dad had paid for the 'abishegam' before the 'Adutha Jaamam' pooja (the last pooja before the temple is closed for the day). After the prayers, we went to the temple agraharam to visit one of the former temple priest's family. That man passed on a few years back so my dad just wanted to go see the maami.Of cos in these place there's alot of "madi and aachaaram" so when they give you water or drinks, you are expected to keep the cup in the air can drink. The point is for your saliva not to come into contact with their cups, its good hygiene i guess.

On Wednesday, my dad had some purchasing to do for the temple. After that it was lunch at another former temple priest's house. The maami had made great food. I think I haven't eaten so much or had such a great lunch in ages. After that we took a drive to Madurai to go to Thiruparankundram where we had a great drashan as well and then flew back to Chennai.

In Chennai

On Monday morning, I left home at 0640 to check in for my flight which was scheduled to leave at 0825hrs then in typical Indian Airlines style we were told that the flight has been rescheduled to 1010hrs for operational reasons. So we went to the biz class lounge and had breakfast after which I went to the watch shop in the airport to check out the loads of nice watches.

After we boarded the aircraft, they moved it till the taxiway and then decided something was wrong with the aircraft and so we went back to the apron and waited. We waited from 1000 to 1300, which was when we took off. And for safety reasons, the captain decided against flying across the Bay of Bengal and went on a route that was near land so it took 4.5hrs. I didn't mind all the wait as there was super hot air hostess, Nancy on board. She had one of the most angelic faces I've ever seen. It was a stark contrast to the usual old woman you get on Indian airlines. Then I realised she only served biz class and aunties were for the economy class. Even the class u travel in determines the gals who serve you.

Anyway after landing I went to Gowdya Mutt temple with my aunt and had the greatest paal payasam I've had in my life. Today, I'm taking a 55min flight to Madurai followed by a 1.5hour drive to Karaikuddi.

Holiday at last....

My last holiday was sometime in May 2005 when the sajc makkalz made a trip to Bangkok for 4days. Since we went with the gals, it included massive amounts of time spent shopping at all the street market. Well it was a good decision on Naresh and Gold's part to organise that trip because ever since that trip, even meeting up with these people is difficult. For the record, since the start of 2007, the only time we all got together was at Naresh and Gold's engagement.

Well I'm off to Chennai on Monday(27/08) for a week with my dad. My mum and aunt would be joining us on Thursday (30/08). We are all going for my uncle's house prayers, not housewarming but just prayers since they are installing the main doorway for the new house that he's building. Dad and I would be going to Pillayarpatti, Thiruparangkundram and Madurai Meenatchiamman Temple before my mum and aunt arrive. After the house prayers are done the whole lot of us are going to Thirupathi and this time I hope we can walk up. The last trip we made, by the time we reached it was too late to walk up as it isn't too safe to start walking in the night.

My last trip to India was in June 2004, so its been 3 years since I've gone there. I'm quite sure my aunt will cook and stuff me to the point where I feel like puking so I've got to brace myself for that.

2008 Presidential Race

Read a piece of news on Yahoo! which mentioned about this interesting video on you tube so I decided to post it here. This is the new face of Americian politics, maybe in the next GE, we might have a PAP gal and SDP gal....u never know what is is possible in the 'city of possibilities'. This is a video of a gal who calles herself the Obama Gal and supports the Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama. Enjoy it she's kinda hot too....

ORD OH!!!

Finally its my ORD! 2.5 years that included 3.5mths after uni has come to an end. As a farewell gift, I got Staff Ridzwan and Staff Tham a pen each yesterday. Well for Staff Ridz, it was for all the welfare that he made sure we had as nsf in TAB. Staff Tham, tolerated all my ORD crap for the whole 3.5mths so he deserved it.

Collected my pink ic, my certificate of service and the 'NS-Men' sticker on my 11b from chief clerk this morning. Before which I had to sign my release forms which had quite a few terms...so guess I can't stand for President of the US&A just yet. For now I'll let mama Clinton and the rest fight it out...

There was such a sense of joy or whatever its called. When I was entered camp and flashed my pass to the 2 RPs the thought that came to me was "I'll flash my bloody pink ic when i'm going out" of cos I didn't do it. If I had done it,the RP would have probably cursed my entire family (past, present and future) all day long, especially since he was standing in the rain with his poncho and M-16(a soldiers best friend besides his buddy).

I just hope I don't ever get called for reservist even its going to be about being a clerk or medic or whatever shit. I hope I don't have to sew ranks on my no.4 since I have not used after training wing. Can u imagine at having to singing
"Purple light in the valley,
That is where I wanna be,
Infantry best companion,
With my rifle and my buddy and me..."

Maybe as a chao recruit it might have been fun singing those nonsense songs about seeing your girlfriend with another man on your book out day and how to raped her and kill the guy but now its not going to be fun anymore. Well lets hope the saf has had enough of me!

Signing out for day CPL(NS) R S Vignesh, Over and Out!!

ORD - 1

Well its Thursday already so I'm just one day away from ORD. Got to go to camp later in the afternoon for my FFI (Fit For Infantry) so thought of meeting the ORD Corporal gang for lunch one last time at the Whitehouse. After this I'll have no more of the SAF or so I hope.

While having my shower this evening one of those mindless songs I sang as a Recruit came to my mind. I'm sure all the guys would remember marching to the cookhouse singing "training to be soldier...fight for our land...". No more training, no more ironing uniforms, no more beret/peak caps, polishing shoes etc.

Anyway had a great time and it was an experience I'll treasure for life. Especially the lessons learnt and people met but still I rather be CPL(NS) R S Vignesh!!

The photo in the post was taken on Sunday during the COG which I went to watch. That's the Clarinet section with LTA Tan Aik Kee on the extreme left, 2WO Ong and 1SG Kadar to my left.

Heuter ist Dienstag.

Just out of curiosity, I dropped by Jobstreet.com this morning and saw a position "Fund Managers Assistant". The position looked for students on vacation or studying part time and it was a temporary assignment between 3-6 months. So went for the interview with the agent. The woman who interviewed me looked like she joined the agency 2 weeks back, she was totally blur and didn't ask me anything. When I asked her about the job, the only thing she could tell me was, "ermm...its assisting the fund managers i guess?? that's what I gathered from what the client told me." I felt like shaking her and asking her if I was so dumb not to know that. Anyway lets see what's the outcome.

Anyway after that I went to Times Bookshop at Golden Shoe to look for a book that I wanted. My gf was getting it for me as our anniversary present so I just went to check if it was there since I was in the area. Anyway, they had the book there so I just got it. The book's title is "Guide to Analysing Companies" its part of The Economist series of books. I thought the content was good and that it would be useful during my masters as well. Anyway, a useful gift is always the best gift,at least to me. I think I'll have to use Foo Check Teck's method of reading 2 books at a time so that I can finish this as well. I'm still not done with my undercover economist, its getting kinda dry especially when they go on talking for pages about negative externalities.

My mirdangam teacher who had a stroke on my convo day is out of ICU, I'm yet to visit him. But the guys were saying he now responds by slightly opening his eyes when called. Heard he cant recognise his own wife and kids, I doubt he'll be playing after this so that's the end of my mirdangam class. When we to class as kids he'll scold as all the rubbish under the sun. The classes were often draining and I've gone home a number of times with the skin on my fingers split due to the constant impact, he'll say only when that happens you've practised enough. I just hope he gets better.

Tomorrow is the start of my daily morning run, hope I get down to doing it tomorrow. I also am going to start polishing up my Visual Basic Programming which I last touched in 2001 from tomorrow onwards. I realise I need the VBA (Visual Basic for Application) skills for some of my modules in Sydney which require extensive programming and Excel work. I'd rather perfect things like this now than to struggle during the semester trying to learn the theory and the programming side by side. Some may call this being kiasu but I call it working smart.

Success....

Everyone wants to succeed in life. However, what's the definition of success to each of us? Is it what we want in life that we have achieved? or is it that we have achieved what society expects out of us?

If success == what society expects us to do in life then isn't that a limiting factor in this whole game? Anyway who's that swine on the street to tell you how much you should earn or where you should work or what car you should drive? Very often its people who have achieved nothing in their own lives who pass these comments, maybe its somewhat an ego boost to them. Perhaps if they concentrated on their own betterment, they might just have gotten somewhere in life.

I took my fair share of bitching from some people while in jc and another bunch in uni. It was far worst in uni, that's when Victor got me into reading Sun Tzu's Art of War. There was one simple rule I applied to the whole situation:
風　Swift as the wind
林　Quiet as the forest
火　Conquer like the fire
山　Steady as the mountain

The last 2 years it was pretty much the last one which was my modus operandi soon it'll be the first 3.

End of Week 2...

Yesterday brought me to the end of the 2nd week of clearing leave so I'm just 1wk away from ORD. Finally, its over between me and the army. Its normal for NSF to gripe about serving the SAF but for a change I'm going to write about the many things I learnt. Though I didnt serve in the 1st CDO or NDU, I believe that there's something that can be learnt from every situation and circumstance in life. So here it comes...

Lessons Learnt as an NSF
1. Every system has its loopholes, part of surviving in life is to figure out these loopholes and using them to your advantage.
2. Rules are meant to be bent. If you can talk really well, one can pretty much talk your way through any situation with the regulars. (Eg. Long hair, falling in late, dirty bunk/uniform, etc.)
3. Till you go to the SAF the only people you know come from similar socio-economic background as you. Dealing with the Hokkien Bengs is a skill that will serve you throughout the rest of your life. It also gives you a good understanding of Maslow's hierarchy of needs. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow's_hierarchy_of_needs
4. SAF officers are the most difficult to convince of anything. Planning an event makes you think of every possible situation where things can go wrong, alot of times they can be extreme and far fetched but it makes you creative.
5. You'll develop the patience of a monk.
6. Not all guys like women. (Make the inference)
7. In life your boss is never going to appreciate what you do so just shut up and do it. Cos the more you gripe about it the more pissed off you are going to feel about it.
8. Never end up arguing with an Encik, your gift of the gap will lose out to his years of talking cock at the yellow box.
9. Everyone has their weak points and dirty side, knowing it means you usually can get favours out of them. Its being manipulative but you are better off manipulating others than being manipulated.
10. "In everything that you do, be a KILLER WHALE. Big and strong but swift and decisive!", Staff Tay

Please do leave your comments about the above!!

I've decided that I shall not waste my time doing telesales and selling credit cards along the street. That's the kind of jobs I've been getting considering the limited time I can work. The money I earn firstly isn't worth the time spent. Secondly, I would have the time to study for my CFA if I don't work. The cost-benefit priciple for the CFA far superceeds the working experience gained over 5-6 months. And like my friend Srikanth said, "there's a limit to how low u can stoop for money." I can't bring myself to beg people on the street to sign up for my card so that I can get a few $100.

Got a call from Sydney yesterday confirming that I've been allocated my studio apartment. So got to send the security deposit and acceptance form for the apartment. Called Citibank to settle my loan for the tuition fees, my parents want to maintain liquidity than sinking their funds into tuition fees. So I'll start off my life with about $50K in debt. I've no complaints, my parents paid my full undergrad studies and are covering my living expenses and accomodation in Sydney which is a bomb in itself. If I land myself in some place great, probably the bonus at the end of my second year should be good enough to pay of the entire amount. So will have to work my ass of for the 1.5 years. It'll be something totally new compared to the Newton's 2nd law, Bernoulli's Principle and Fanno Flow I've dealt with over the last 4years. But then again what's life without a challenge? As an SA boy, I always fall back on one important line in the school song "Foes in plenty we shall meet, Hearts courageous scorn defeat!"

End of Week 1

So its Friday again, not as if I'm going to work that I have to be damn glad that its Friday. Its the end of the first week of bumming at home.

Got called for an interview yesterday to be a telesales guy for some local bank. In my moment of desperation, I idea of doing something seemed better than forming the unemployed statistics. But after I agreed to the interview, I started thinking if I really want to be the guy who calls people in the middle of their busy day and bugs them? And I have to be thick skinned about getting screwed by people cos its my means of making a living. The job also only required an N'level holder. If not having a job is an ego bashing what's getting f-ed on the phone by some unknown person called? I wanted something sales related and customer facing as I thought it'll be beneficial in helping me land a front office role. Both my mum and gf both questioned if I'm going to learn anything out of it and its something really worth the time? anyway i doubt telesales==sales.

So I called her and told her I'm not interested and she sounded kind of pissed but put it to me in a professional manner that i was being a pain in her ass. Then again its me who'll be stuck in some crap job.

So the job search carries on...................