the Godfather

nowadays i been zzz less n less, harder to sustain a gd rest without waking up halfway and im waking up darn early, tired but awake. even its been after the 2 month after the memorable RT i found myself still losing weight. see, thats what this crappy industry does 2 ppl, i also spotted white fur recently.

what next!? long sightedness? bloody walking stick?

58, then 56, then 55, then 54, now 53.5kg?

wth!

anyway, couple of days ago i read this article (followed by a swift reply) from the dean of one of the faculty in nus saying that nus offers a beta education than most australian universities. whoa, that is certainly gutsy, strangely the aussie high commission didnt respond but instead was a local guy who retorted that the dean has slapped himself in the face by admitting his own kids r studying abroad. in fact he also went on to say most of the ministers' kids are prob studying or even working overseas after graduation. if nus is that damn good, how many they dun let their kids study here?

so i googled the times universities 2007 ranking: uni of melbourne, uni of sydney n australian national university ranker than nus, who was tied at the 33rd spot with uni of queensland.

dean, eat yr heart out. no unjust statements b4 gettign yr facts right.

now as u know, i know many who graduated (in fact i adore nus gals [yes, u!] beyond what my poor limited vocabulary can express) but i seriously dun think such sweeping statements should come outta a dean's mouth. i wonder where his kids r.

prob princeton (my dream uni), stanford or harvard etc.

but during my course of work, i have been constantly amazed by folks from ntu. ah, the very 3 letters hold a special place in my heart, how can i ever forget the happy days working there pretending to do stats.....the daily 3 hour journey, the cheap food, the 'hiow' nie trainees who sashay in their micro mini skirts..

at my last workplace i was lucky enough to work with 2 interns whom till today i must say, are certainly ntu's finestest. no intro is needed, u know who they are.

in contrast when i hopped over here, i had worked with interns from elsewhere n they pale by far in terms of committment n effiencies. its like me trying to outrun usain bolt. most of the time they are either smoking or talking or spendign too much time on youtube/msn. another one will be coming on mon, i asked IT whether the msn can be disabled. they happily obliged.

recently i got in a few part timers via word of mouth to do boring admin work n i dunno man.....dun take it personally but there is somehting that ntu ppl have that others dun. they dun talk a lot but they show up on time n dun bitch/whine. i like it, and its a rare trait among youngsters now.

speaking abt punctuality, i had an orientation n training session on tue scheduled for 3 birds, only one turned up. she is a code 1. the other 2 were code 3.

when i rang the 2, one was uncontactable so i put a big cross on her application with the word 'punkster' ie u can fucking forget abt working here anymore sweetheart. as for the other one, she was still at raffles place (it was already 10 mins past zero hour) doing dunno-what-fuck and she asked me whether i could wait for her. she dint call earlier to inform she would late, now that she was, she dint even apologise and had the bloody cheek to ask whether i could wait.

between clenched teeth, i told her no politely and perhaps i would schedule her another time. of cos, i wouldnt. on hindsight, i should have given her a piece of my mind.

that reminded me of this book by anthony bourdain i read many times over: he wrote;

"the person (chef, dishwasher, runner, waiter)who shows up on time for 6 months without fail is less likely to fuck u up than someone who has an impressive resume and cannot be counted to turn up on the dot.

i can teach anyone to cook but i cant teach attitude. either u have it or u dun."

ah, wise words indeed. nowadays i also follow that. whenever someone calls and scheule an appt to be a interviewer, i will note the time and observe. and i dare say those who are punctual turn out to be generally better workers.

even for the experienced birds, whenever there is a briefing, the late ones are normally those who will soon fall mysteriously sick or have a family member hit by a truck/tank/plane/airbus after a few days or dun complete half of their damn quotas.