On the Battle Ground: Comex Promoter Day Two

Truth is, I'm only typing this almost a week after this post is dated. Don't ask me why, but after just a day or two of posting, I somehow lost all interest again to blog. Wonder where all my previous enthusiasm with blogging ran off to. Perhaps it's all lost with age. But more on that later. Or next time when I actually blog.

Anyway, the second day of Comex was pretty uneventful. Not if you count me managing to "break the egg" (according to my Uncle) from the previous day's *duck record. I was able to sell one pretty early in the first 2 hours, thanks to one of the ASUS promoters who helped me out with the Chinese-speaking customer. She let me fill up the invoice and use my name instead of hers. So grateful! If I'd known earlier, I'd have shared it with her so she could get her commission from selling AMD computers. Anyway, the first laptop I sold was priced at $799!

For lunch, our supervisor somehow allowed us to eat away from the rest of the AMD group (thank goodness),  so Smelly and I went off to Marina Square to eat at a lesser-known fast-food place called 'ChicKing'.

As I'm writing this, I'm sifting through folders upon folders on my computer seeing which pictures I have that would apply to this post in any way. The photos are accumulating like crazy. And for some weird reason, I think the only way to be rid of them is to post them on this blog. Who knows if one day all these posts and photos would be erased? But I'll take a chance.

Anyway, at ChicKing, I ordered a box of cheese fries that are way too overpriced (SGD$5) and a mini chicken wrap (SGD$2.50). Pretty ordinary fare.

Smelly consumed her lunch box given by her fellow ASUS promoter.

 Oh and see that water bottle there? It was given by the lady boss of AMD. More on her later. 

We had a hearty laugh over the label on the lunch box. According to Smelly, she'd consumed expired food since she started eating after 3PM. Ha!

The ASUS booths on Level 3 of Comex where Smelly is stationed at. 

Anyway, back to the lady boss. She came to me acting as a customer with too many probing questions about AMD and the laptops. Terms like 'FPS' (frame rate per second) and questions about the temperature came up. I didn't exactly suspect anything until I'd noticed the booth in-charge exchange friendly smiles and acknowledgement with her. She gave up the entire charade after she asked me to leave my name for her (still in her customer-guise) and rejected it after I gave it to her on an AMD information handout. Then passed me a Watsons bottle too. She approved my explanations and then gave me tips to improve. And before she left, she instructed me to leave the company branding on the top left corner of the shirt wide open. Now, I'm still unconsciously tucking my hand from my left side back from time to time.

My steady companions throughout my Comex days. Literally. I consulted them a number of times you would never believe and held on to them from 11AM to 9.30PM. The AMD handout is the one on the top.

A view of the ASUS booths on Level 4 where I was stationed at for 3 days. Smelly got to take this when she worked on the final day of Comex.

For the second laptop I managed to sell (priced at $1198), it was to a gamer (I think). He was asking me questions about AMD laptops good for gaming. He looked pretty familiar. Perhaps I talked to him on the first day of Comex. I'm horrible at remembering faces. An excellent example: a guy asked for an ASUS brochure from me, and I went to grab a copy near the cashier. I returned and gave it to the first guy I saw standing at the spot I left moments ago. The guy who requested the brochure looked confused and beckoned to me. Cringe. I returned to grab another copy for him after that. 

Okay, enough about Comex. It pains me to be writing about all the past experiences of working. Anyway, on the morning of my second day at Comex, my mother returned home from Bangalore, India while I was groggily slurping up noodles at 6 in the morning! She was there for a week learning some new accounting software and brought back some pretty souvenirs for me! Apparently, there were even people from Kenya and Ethiopa who joined them on the learning journey in Bangalore. Pretty awesome.

 Love the wrapper! And so beautifully wrapped too! And in it...

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 A wooden elephant figurine! It's earned a permanent spot on my cluttered desk, lol.

 An I heart Bangalore tee that I requested from my mother. Somehow looks a lot different than how I wish it was. And it's friggin' huge for a size 'S'! Pretty sure if I wear it out, Becky will start talking about wearing bags again.

 Other stuff from India I got during the week!

 A pencil holder! Beautiful handiwork there!

 My mother knew I'd eat any snacks from the Singapore Airlines planes and kept these two packets for me.

 Postcards with Bangalore's sights and cultural locations. Their postcards feels like cheap, soft cardboard, but still pretty.

And finally, a letter from my penpal from Mumbai, India! She sent lots of stamps from Hungary and other places, and an empty postcard of the Queen Necklace in Mumbai. According to her, the beachline lights up at night and resembles that of a necklace, hence its name.

After work, I looked up my aunt and uncle (they go to practically every IT fair for at most 2 days each time!), and my mother came as well! We all went off to eat at Applebee's! Love the place. But we received the suckiest service that day. Possibly because there were lots of customers and we usually went late at night when there was dwindling in numbers. My mother and I shared food, and we ordered...

 A lemon basil and shrimp risotto. Creamy. But I didn't get tired of it too quickly. And the shrimp was deliciously crunchy. The cheese strips added a nice touch to the risotto too. Sorry for that lame attempt at reviewing the dish. I'm not sure if it got through to you folks.

I ordered a frost lemonade with strawberry swirl!

See, my uncle usually orders this appetizer, 'Spinach and Artichoke Dip', basically a dish of chips served with some greenish dip. Today, he cleared the dip and suddenly commented that there was PLASTIC in the dip. He didn't get too worked up about it. But if it was really plastic, then that was really dangerous. Plus he eats this most of the time since it's a vegetarian option on the menu. He consulted the waiter that there was plastic. He offered to change the dish for us but we hurriedly declined. We were already as full as hell. The manager came up and then explained to us it wasn't plastic. Just artichoke that looked like plastic because it's a really thin layer. Hilarious! But at least we hadn't been consuming plastic.

Final segment of this post! I promise! Was bored at night after Day 2 of Comex, and did a little alteration of this photo Smelly posted on Instagram...

We took this quick shot in the bathroom on Day 1 of Comex, in our uniforms!

It ended up looking like this...

I shall leave it at this.

*duck = it basically means zero as well. I kid you not. Share

Lime Sherbet Rocks

I can't come up with a better title! Who would be able to if they've kinda made a promise to blog daily? I'm re-thinking this whole dumb idea. It's eating into all my time, really. That means I've gotta change my blog header banner, which I'm kinda lazy to do. I'll save this long-winded rant for another day.

Kinda getting stressed out for school now. I'm a total worrywart. I've got so much on my to-do list for school. Plus, the holiday break will end in a week! Crap. Anyway, had a good night's rest after yesterday's end to my short road trip! Woke close to noon! 

My mother, brother and I headed to his school to get his new textbooks. Turns out the line was positively long! The people at the makeshift bookshop were working so slowly getting other people's books too. We gave up waiting and decided my bro just get them books when school resumed. 

Later, we took a straight bus and headed to get lunch at Swensen's! I kinda grew sick eating that years ago, since we ate that nearly every month. But it's all right now. They've got the best fudge brownies and ice cream and cakes and such. I ordered spaghetti aglio-olio (without chilli! It was extra yummers.), cream of mushroom soup, a Coke, mozzarella cheese sticks (OMGosh I'm getting hungry just thinking of 'em now) and lime sherbet single-scoop ice cream! The latter cleansed my palate good after my somewhat heavy meal. The nicest ice cream I've ever tasted! Went home after that. Boring day. Without the food, of course.

 This absolutely explains my entire life.

 OMG they should make this into one of those inspirational posters or something.

Gummy worms! I love that sugary stuff!

"Humankind cannot bear very much reality." 

- T.S. Eliot

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Slice of the Sweet

Just some random photos of some pretty suh-weet photos I found on Tumblr! It's seriously almost everyone's new favorite social tool! And source for entertainment, of course. Just get on Tumblr(srsly, what's taking you THAT long?!), and you'll know what I'm talkin' 'bout!

I've totally forgotten how to fold these tiny origami stars. I used to make a ton of these back when I was 10 or something.

Awwww...!! Brilliant rapport amongst those kids there (with mostly their feet).

As cheesy as that might sound, that's still sweet. I love how the person drew Pikachu.

A cloud cone! Yummers.

Cutest GIF ever! Lovin' that eye twitch by the boy at the end.

"Man is a knot into which relationships are tied." 

- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

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Discreet Documentary

Had 2 hours of Social Psychology lecture in the morning (including another journal entry! Ugh I hate writing stuff like that, especially since it's for school!) I got only 2 and a half for the previous entry. I'd thought I'd failed miserably, but in actual fact it's marked upon 5 marks! So phew, I just passed.

We headed to town for the filming of the human documentary for the project for social psych. We just used my camera and Marilyn's handphone camera both. the cellphone camera came in pretty handy at times when we didn't want people to notice us filming them (we weren't supposed to let them know, either). We stopped to sit at McDonalds twice (different locations, of course) and I got a large fries first, and later at the other McDonalds, Cinnamon Melts! Love 'em, all that cinnamon topping! I spent close to ten on food today. Sigh I should really try restraining...

Anyways, we managed to finish filming for the most part. Of parents playing with their kids, to people sitting beside each other with some space in between them, to people's bodily movements and facial expressions! We got everything done close to 4 in the afternoon and we went home after that. Was dead beat by then. Took the same bus home with Elaine now that she lives close to school! ;D

Just when I thought I could go home and begin starting up the Internet to blog and all that... the WiFi totally wasn't working on my Mac, and iPad! Had to wait till 7 at night before it began to work again, albeit too slowly... Just my luck. I'm too lazy to put a quote today. So ciaooo xx Share

Ringlets

OMGOSH got the biggest hair makeover of my life (to date, anyways). I didn't exactly anticipate this, since the hairdresser was trying to convince me to straighten my hair again (it's been two years since the first time I straightened my unkempt hair), and I suddenly wanted to go for waves, from the ear down.

My mother went nearly berserk after I said I wanted to get wavy hair. Stuff like 'it's difficult to maintain' and 'you aren't responsible enough'. On the other hand, the hairdressers were encouraging her to go for it. It became so loud and there were other customers in the salon that I got a little humiliated and just said 'forget it' so the whole spectacle would die down. They continued rambling. Lol. My mother gave me the go-ahead in the end and I just went ahead with the styling. I didn't know what I was getting myself into...

The whole process took a little over 3 hours! Dang, I hate waiting the most! Plus, I never really liked going to the hairdresser's anyway, ever since I was young. Used to throw tantrums everytime I had to go get a haircut. I even kicked one of their full length mirrors once. I know, I sound like a devil. Ahhh, the good ol' days...

When the curlers or whatever they were called got removed after it got treated with some machine, my hair came out looking worser than Hermione Granger's in her first year! A really big, curly mess! I was scared silly. But the hairdresser did stuff to it and it died down. Phew. To make the long story short, my hair came out looking like Goldilock's ringlets. Just that my hair isn't blonde, of course. Wasn't the wavy I wanted (felt more like curls instead, yuk!), but it cost over 200 bucks! Too costly. Photo below. Really bad light!

"The hair is the richest ornament of women." 

- Martin Luther

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Day of the Job Interviews

Went through TWO job interviews today - thanks to Bec! The first one was for a telemarketing job for an insurance company! This one was apparently really far off, in the central business district areas, so the place was pretty foreign to us. Still, we managed to find a way to go there! A direct bus for moi from my house! Still, it took over an hour till the end of the bus route - Bec came on my bus a little farther down and I actually missed the first bus which came across and waited another 20 minutes for the next!

We reached the end of the route at the interchange, which is almost in the middle-of-nowhere. We contemplated for a bit standing where we dropped off at the stop, then began walking to the main road where all the business buildings were! Used the Maps app on my iPad, so that came in pretty handy - even though we were both hopeless in reading maps, really.

We reached the building - really tall, Fuji Xerox Towers! We headed to the loo before we approached the info counter to the side of the many lifts. We had no idea which one would go up to the seventh floor. We found the office - pretty deep with narrow, claustrophobic corridors. We stood outside and tried the intercom thingy - didn't work. Bec called the person and she (thankfully a 'she') came up to the door. We were given forms to fill up, and a script of some sort! I suddenly remembered I didn't bring a pen to the interview - we got kinda scolded during our last interview together at this Thai restaurant for not bringing a pen. (We didn't get hired thankfully - I've never liked Thai food anyways, and we needed to get an injection for the job!) The woman gave us stationery without reprimanding us, thank God.

We took pretty long filling up the forms! I didn't even have much experience in working when they asked in the forms about previous jobs and salaries and stuff like that. Darn. After we were done with the forms, the lady invited us into a tiny room for the interview. She asked Bec most of the questions (same goes for the 2nd interview later in the day!) and talked about the high rejection rates we were going to experience calling 100-200 numbers a night. For every successful appointment we made, we get 10 bucks! None and that's just 7 per hour! Still, that's not too bad I s'pose. If it were a work-from-home thingy, we'd only get paid if we hook 'em up with appointments, which is basically (ugh!) zero chance of that ever happening.

The interview was pretty short and we left after that and headed for a second job interview. Thankfully there were loads of buses that goes there so that worked out well for us. We headed to eat KFC first (yummers I miss their cheese fries!), though not before we headed to this scrapbooking store! I wish I could afford scrapbooking - I would so take up this hobby then!

After that, off we went to the next interview! To cut the long story short, we were apparently too young for the job (19 to 21 so it seems - they didn't state it in the newspaper ad!) and there's little chance of me getting this one! The interviewer even asked about our families and school and our extra-curriculars!

Well, I've typed plenty already - so I'm gonna go enjoy some Ben & Jerry's to perk myself up! Dead exhausted walking around all day!

Ciao xx

"For true success ask yourself these four questions: Why? Why not? Why not me? Why not now?" 

- James Allen

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A Year Without Rain

Another new music video comin' up from Selena Gomez's new album!! I'm so psyched. It's titled 'A year Without Rain' BTW - I know I'm not really being original by using that for this title for the post... Hey I'm too exhausted to think of a fresh new title that fits this post!!

Anyways, check out the sneak peeks below she released just a day ago (and today!) of the music video! Her single - A Year Without Rain! But I'm pretty sure the whole video revolves around her walking and dancing around the seashore with a shawl - but the song seems really good.

Okay, the sneak peek was really short. I was expecting more, obvs. So you can see why I thought the entire, full-length, soon-to-come (Friday! Just tomorrow!!) music video would be probably the same scene throughout.

Anyways, some added comics and piecharts below! They're all plain hilarious! Double-click them if they are too small for ya.

ABOVE: The definition of LAZINESS explained fully here...

This is usually my worst fear when we have to get into groups. Ughh!

OMG this explains my life so well!! Well, back in the days anyway. I was always the one having to face the unsightly rears of teachers. Gah.

I'd go with the Pink box.

True that. Ice Ice Baby!! Yay Gleeeee!

"Love truth, and pardon error." 

- Voltaire

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The Atrocity of Life

Sometimes, I seriously wonder why life had to turn out, like everyone says, unfair. You get the seriously rich folks who never had to worry about being broke, and you get the in-the-middle people (like me) who ARE broke half the time and everything they do is average on the whole. Then there's the poor people. I ain't gonna elaborate on that - it's depressing. Anyways, just some uninspirational crap to start off this post. I don't even know exactly what I'm going on about, either. Anyways, to put it simply, life stinks. And below are pictures that justifies my statement...

...And this is what the world has come to - kids who flash their middle fingers at beggars. Poor lady (she probably didn't know what that gesture meant) - I would have socked that schoolgirl in the face if I was there.

OMFGGG. I ALWAYS tear up at this part!

I get that this is the first ever piece of Spongebob Squarepants material I put in this blog. LABELLED! I hate it when strangers always call even after I'd CLEARLY said WRONG NUMBER.

Self-explanatory.

Ditto.

OMG this must be some new species of wild rabbits. I know I hate it too when I've to wake up way early in the morning.

Ice-cream therapy after an exhausting week always works!

Death hurts - big time. Pudding's obituary finally came through! R.I.P Pudding. I love you.

"Always treat a famous person as if they're not. And a person who's not as if they were." 

- Adam Lawrence

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Aussie Universities

Was out the entire afternoon and evening with Bec! We planned to go for this seminar on further studies in Australia! I love, love, love Australia (even though I'd only been there ONCE)! So I was planning to go to university there. Turns out it was held at the same hotel we had our prom just months ago for our final year! I had no idea it was the same one till we reached. Slow much?!

Anyways, we decided to eat first before we went for the thing. Ate at Wendy's after we met Bec's mother so she could get some moolah for food! She even returned the money Bec owed me previous! Felt pretty bad though... The portions at Wendy's were so large - I could hardly finish mine - and it cost just $6.65! I got a premium fish fillet (yummers, I love kaiser bread), a soda and fries! It came with a Frosty free, so I chose chocolate! Bec had cheeseburger and got a sour cream baked potato! That one was waaaay exy, and it didn't taste that good (not to me anyways! I don't relish eating it from the skin!). Bec took my Frosty in the end and I could barely finish my fries and burger! 

We headed to the hotel for the seminar after that, our stomachs pratically expanding from the food. Usually, all we ever spend on is food. Bummer. We had to fill out some forms before we could go in - we had to write our GPAs too, when we didn't even know what ours was! We wrote any ol' number and got in, thank goodness. The ballroom was pretty much the same, it was even the same room we had our prom! There were different sections and tables for the different Aussie universities! 

We checked out University of Queensland first. A guy approached us with the booklets so we didn't have to get it ourselves. Ha. Bec wanted journalism - and apparently, the one at QLD is pretty reputable. I, on the other hand, was looking for something in the terms of theatre studies, or playwrighting (as in writing scripts for plays, musicals, stuff like that!) 

We cracked up when we saw a university called 'University of the Sunshine Coast'. Bec commented the man manning the table there was pretty pleasant too. I cracked up even more.

Then, I saw on the papers they gave us at the entrance that there was a talk on Fine Arts, Theatre and Performing Arts in a half-hour by the University of Tasmania! So we checked out the table by UTAS.

We tried to find a way to get the pamphlets at the UTAS table. A woman approached us instead, and asked what courses we were interested in. Bec said journalism, and I said theatre. She got pretty excited and started telling us about UTAS, their courses, the fees and scholarships and stuff like that. Turns out she was gonna be the speaker for that talk I was planning to go to in half-hour and she wasn't a native! She was from the US orginally, and she specialized in sculpting. Lol. 

When she finally finished speaking to us, she gave me a handout on the School of Visual and Performing Arts on the Bachelor of Contemporary Arts (Theatre)! Turns out the area of studies included scriptwriting, and even accents, dialects and performance! If I got in, those are gonna be the most exciting ones for me...

...Too bad there's little chance I might be able to get in. All interested applicants had to audition and be interviewed! And in terms of international students like moi, I had to submit a video tape of myself (approx. 6-8 minutes, eh ma gawd!!) about why I wanted to get in this course and proof my interest - in my case, reading out a script I wrote). Too hard. 

We went to see a couple other universities in the ballroom like University of Melbourne and stuff, then proceeded to another room for the talk! Her segment on Theatre was pretty short, and she spent a lot more time on visual arts - stuff like ceramics, glass work, sculptures. The talk lasted half an hour, and we left the hotel after that!

We went shopping for books and magazines and walked around for a bit before we went home. Anyways, I'm setting my sights on Tasmania for now. Apparently, we can get a scholarship if we got a GPA of 3.5! Plus, it would be permanent and the scholarship wouldn't be taken from you even if your marks descended! At UTAS only, that is. Still, my mother and aunt said I gotta research further and get more options before I go head-on with a single university. Did some research on Tasmania. It's a pretty lovely island, rather rugged mountains, Victorian buildings and consist of port cities, like Launceston and Hobart!

Map of Tassie! It's just an island on its own below Aussie!

Picturesque Tassie.

More scenic views of Tasmania...

The infamous Tasmanian Devil! It roams free in the wild. Beware!

"The question is not whether we will die, but how we will live." 

- Joan Borysenko

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Chinchi Woes

Really running out of stuff to blog, yet again! Anyways, finally stepped outta the house for a bit in the late afternoon with Bec! Went to the shopping centre nearby to check out the newly renovated bookstore. The previous one was probably the oldest one I'd seen which had not been revamped yet. And the amount of books (mainly fiction) they have there is just PATHETIC. 

Now, the new one seems they've brought in more shelves, more DVDs and CDs and just slightly - more books! Guess what - it was still as similarly pitiably small! The cashier area was just a lone table with a hollow centre for the cashier to operate in. We started laughing when we saw the cashier's pathetic space. I was expecting there was further items to the back of the store, but all I saw was a storage room. Gosh.

Hungry, we went to KFC afterwards. I got cheese fries (yummers!) and a burger. The cashier taking our orders was pretty impatient and was "trying to be funny" - well, with Bec anyways. She was supposed to get a drink with hers, but the cashier didn't get that for her and just repeated saying 'bye'. Bother. We ate for a bit before another worker there approached us with a survey form and a pen. Double bother. We combined both our names and our phone numbers for that. Hah.

We went to the pet shop a little later. I'm in love with rabbits all over again!! It's too bad the white angora rabbit was already sold! It had freaky brown rings around the eyes, but its fur was snow white! Too cute! The other two bunnies were too adorable too. Grey, petite ones! 

Headed home around early 6 in the evening! I looked at chinchilla videos on YouTube till late. Random I'm totally aware. Apparently, it takes approx. 200 of chin chins to make a fur coat! And they're about to be extinct 'cos of these idiotic, heartless chinchilla murderers. They even raise these chin chins themselves, and when they are old enough (or their fur's nice enough), these suckers skin them for the fur! I would so personally murder these killers myself. It's understandable then how exorbitant they are being sold for in pet stores - they can be priced up to 700 to 800 bucks! How can ANYONE bear to kill something like this for their fur??!! On the bright side, they can live up to maximum 20-25 years! Impressive huh? I'm soooo saving up for these! 

A Royal Persian Angora Chinchilla! Exotic cuties these are!

A hamster squeezing its nose between cage bars. It looks so much like Pudding, my recently deceased hammie. She used to love doing this too...

Devilish eyes there. But so adorable!!!

Self-explanatory.

I'd kill for one of these bunnies!!

True that.

Gushing at how true this is with regard to my life.

...And this is why parents are so stressed these days!

"Faith is taking the first step, even when you don't see the whole staircase."

- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

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