Year 2007 was a total new experience for me. I began the year as a property agent, continued from the previous couple of months. This period lay my poorest days for I did not get to receive my commission (pay) until months later. I gave up after almost half a year of trying for reasons: - joined the wrong company - received basic training only four months after joining - met wrong “teachers” - market is too corrupted for a naïve me - too used to help people for free
It was a sad decision for the efforts I put in definitely deserved a much higher income; basically, I made less than a toilet cleaner. However, I managed to make use of the period of time to do up a website http://property.sillydumb.com. I also got to taste the hypocrisy of human beings, from fake people who indulged in the self assuming of being clear conscience.
Carol Ng was my benefactor to introduce me to a web design company, where I met the greatest souls on earth. Everyone tried so hard to stay for each other despite the not appreciating management. I learned little over there as Web Support and I did beyond my job scope. I left within four months together with some of them because I realised it was not worthwhile to sacrifice myself for people who were not unconcern.
I had a breakthrough in my web development. I managed to come out with a site that did give me some earnings for a couple of months before it died. With the money, I was able to get myself a new desktop, which I regretted badly for I could have chipped in more money for a laptop more convenient for a webmaster.
One of my new part-time jobs was filming at Mediacorp. It was thanks to Jesedy that I managed to gain this experience and know more about how filming was done. Each time, I got to make more new friends. However, it could only be a hobby and not permanent job.
I spent more than two months almost jobless, trying to learn PHP and MySQL on my own. The project was halted when I chanced upon a good opportunity as temporary lecturer. My first ever project for the school almost killed me, until the last day of the year, I was finally released.
Volleyball played a big part of my life as usual but my career path was never good. I started playing again a few months after my left calf operation to realise that I could never jump like the past. I lost my touch. The worst thing was when more injuries dragged me behind further.
Relationship began a downfall at the beginning of the year. However, it brought me to sense. My isolation from human beings worsened due to uncompleted projects.
Mingfa and I met up with her last Saturday before volleyball and we calculated the money earned for the past half year. I did not expect her to add in Kaven’s commission as well for she had clearly stated that she did not want to get any after she failed to attend the HDB appointment. That day, she put me in very awkward position to answer to the sellers and Kaven’s family, and eventually she had lame excuse not to turn up at the law firm.
We could have played bastards and not give her any cent since all the commission were under our names; Kaven thought likewise but it was obvious we could never do such thing, or otherwise we would be very successful in the real estate line already.
As I was very busy for the past few days, I did not transfer the remaining amount of money to her since I supposed she had strike it rich and was not very in need of cash. I was once again disappointed by her when I received a SMS from her to after me for the money.
It pretty much showed the amount of trust she had in me despite knowing my honesty. Clear self conscience could have solved the problem.
It’s very depressing to earn only around $3000 in half a year when everyone can easily triple that amount. Perhaps, I shall treat the loss as a lesson learnt.
This early morning when my mum reached home, she saw a plastic bag on the table with some finger food. Both my brother and I did not know who that was from and we were all very puzzled. I went to sleep near 4am.
I woke up at 8am and was too lazy to leave my house, or rather, my “bed”. I was eventually late for work for around ten minutes, which was insignificant compared to the extra time I had worked there. My stomach continued to play with me.
Work was as per normal and lunch was the Chinese mixed vegetarian stall at Enggor Street. It was rather expensive to me somehow but location wise was the best since I could get back to office soon. Perhaps, it was stupid to squeeze work into my own lunch time.
Kimmy and Ruifen came into the room to play with Cherie’s Qoo-lookalike big head tortoise and created laughers throughout. I began with Elgin’s holy project and put aside the forum before Kimmy finally chased me for the timesheets which I had already prepared but it turned out to be “buggy” and there were many amendments to be done. My portion of the work was therefore slowed down badly and I was so stunned when Eugene managed to complete his portion of work very fast.
When Cherie suggested him to help me with part of mine since I had other things to do, he slowly got out of the topic. It was fine with me at first until I saw him watch anime using his IPOD and idling to wait for knock off, I got damn pissed off. I stayed until 8.30pm to finish up most of the job. Then, I accompanied Liza and Cherie to the 7-11 store before I went home.
I hurried home to try to beat my work for time to sleep early but there seemed to be too many unaccomplished tasks. Sally called me and I was quite turned off for it was regarding property again. This property line seemed to be like secret society and I could never take a complete break from it.
Alas, I got back to my work and felt so down that I seemed to be too slow. Jianhao messaged me to seek help from me to obtain a password and I told him I could not find it. The next reply was “how?” and it drove my tiredness into flames. Perhaps, that was his problem and he should be the one answering “how” to solve it. I chose the best solution which was to ignore and put my heavy head into my work.
Jianhao called me after 2am, perhaps just for something related to property, which pissed me off. Firstly, it was so late already and the call could have waked my family and me up; there were chances that my family would sleep early and especially me because I was so drained. Secondly, I really hated hearing about property because I had met too many ugly agents and would really appreciate people would stop bothering me unless they had free money to give me for the fact that I had worked more than the money I would be receiving.
My mum had been irritating me as well as usual using her random stupid questions and self talking. I went to the room to rest in order to escape from her and she obviously could sense my anger, but she would never know she was hindering me from my work, which had contributed to the money I could give her every month.
Eventually I dozed off and woke up at 3am to continue with my work until 5am. I woke up at 8am to continue with my stuffs and then left for work.
The early call from a client quite stunned me. I was the “web support” maintaining the forum and she must have thought that I was the webmaster of her company’s website that I could do all the programming and web design, and that was the reason why she had approached me. Anyway, it took me quite long to figure out what she wanted but Pingping took over after that.
Ruifen continued to bug me even when she was on medical leave. Lunch was Chinese mixed vegetarian rice bought by Carol and Cherie. I wanted to help Cherie with her work but new requests in the forum came in.
Ricia from MediaCorp called me but I told her I could not go for filming anymore unless it was on weekends. Later on, Amen from NTUC club called me to check if I had sent the cheque over for the beach volleyball game. I was glad to have Weiyao and Kimmy crapping at my department with me to ease the embedded tiredness inside my mind.
I left home at around 6.10pm. I saw my neighbour who was waiting for her sister to return from pushing the NTUC trolley back. She had difficulty in walking and I helped her to carry many heavy plastic bags to her door in my rush for time. I did a little work before leaving my house. I took train to Buona Vista and transited to bus 95, which took me to NUS. I did not find out the road name and luckily I stopped at the correct roundabout.
Xuejing called me just in time and Kenny came over to fetch me. I felt an ease with both of their presence at the weird room, which had a door that could not block the band’s music from going in.
By then, I was so exhausted and famine had strike me badly. My throat was very dry with the threatening sore throat and my brain was blank with the extreme lack of sleep. By then, I totally had no confidence for the audition especially when the script was in English. We continued to chat there and then Xuejing accompanied me to the toilet. We had another round of great chats before I started walking towards Dover ITE. I met Xinkai at the track and chatted with him again before going off to take bus 97.
I did not doze off on the bus even though I was very tired. I alighted after Tanjong Pagar Railway Station and walked towards the prata shop where I got my dinner - mee goreng.
It was around 9pm when I got home and quickly filled my stomach because I knew Jianhao would come any time. He arrived at the car park at around 10pm and I passed him his document. I was very turned off for the property stuff continued to bug me. I did not even earn a quarter of what a normal diplomat holder would get on average for the past months and yet it was taking up hells of my time.
I slept at around 3.30am and waked up at 7.45am like usual. There was a meeting at work in the morning and I almost “died” there. Basically I knew I had to work no matter what changes were going to be made, therefore I was not very interested in the contents other that Han Seng was leaving the company.
I had lunch at Amara Hotel with the guys before leaving for home during after noon. Just then, a girl from MediaCorp called me and asked if I were free for a filming the next day and this time I would be given lines. I had to reject her even though it would be another good experience for me.
I left for Toa Payoh and met up with Kelly. It was good that Penis Seah did not go down and instead, he sent Lester and Yanyan down. Kelly did not stay long before leaving with her other client. The clients were late as usual and the appointment was delayed badly. I supposed some of the officers had taken leave and thus, appointments were pushed to other officers, which resulted in the long waiting time.
Actually, I felt very reluctant to go down for the appointment. Anyone could just take my place to go down for completion and since we were co-broking with another agent and we actually represented JTC, Francis had told me I was not required to go down at all. At least, that would mark the end of the interaction with Penis Seah and I was drawing nearer to freedom from those cheap labour jobs.
Before peace could restore in my mind while waiting for the queue to be called, Kelly called me and told me to get number from the buyers. There was this rules that we were not supposed to exchange numbers with co-broke agents’ clients and I felt really weird to abide to Kelly’s instruction. This was one of the reasons why I hated the line because those experienced agents always told me to be straight but I had to start suspecting.
Kelly’s intention was to help the buyers to install SCV, which was her side line. Since she had met up with them a few days ago for the final inspection, she could have taken the number herself on that day. What was more was that she had given them her number and it was impossible for her to forget to get theirs. Anyway, I talked to Lester and got his permission to do it in front of all of them. Yanyan did test the couple out by asking them about the SCV thing.
Anyway, I could have left right after coming out from the officer’s room after the appointment was over but I had to stay for the sake to help Kelly to get the number. I had to wait for them to finish applying for fire insurance and SP services, which took another half an hour.
I tried to rush home immediately and was very disappointed to see that the UOB bank’s teller department was closed and that I could not activate my Visa Mini card, which I needed for renewal of my domain and possibly, acquiring of other new domains.
After reaching home, I dozed off from five to eight. After doing some work, I went into my brother’s room to “blow” air-con and I started playing Condition Zero with him, also to try out his laptop.
Towards midnight, we started checking the price of computer hardware.
I struggled till 5am for it was Vesak Day and I needed not to go work.
I waked up at around noon and began with my work. The slow computer pissed me off that I almost wasted the entire afternoon, which I could have possibly tripled my work with a better system.
Kelly called me again to inform me that the completion date for block 102 Bedok was the next day and since the keys were still with me, I was totally turned off. After talking to Mingfa, he said he would collect them from me and at the same time, he asked me out for steamboat with Wilson and some ex Shuqun players.
They arrived at my place in three cars owned by Wilson, Alvin and Shunliang. I took Wilson’s RX8 and proceeded to Bugis instead of Marina South, where we had problems finding parking lots. After we parked the cars, we went to the steamboat stall but there was a long queue.
We went to Bugis Junction instead and decided on Pastamania instead of Seoul Garden because of the price. Shunliang left to take duck rice and came back later. The girl who entertained me at the counter smiled without stopping, which puzzled me a lot. However, she managed to persuade me to pay extra two bucks for a ten inches Hawaii pizza instead of a seven inches one.
There was a cute waitress on training, however, the rest were joking about her because they claimed that her mouth was big like Jeff Wang. We joked about asking for her number. My pizza seemed to be on the plane and we called for this cute waitress who went to help me and get one with the circumference overcooked. We made some fake fuss over it and she was a bit loss. When she offered to help me get a replaced one, I refused to, for we already had enough of wait. Mingfa told her I wanted to get her number but I was cool with it. Shunliang helped me with two small slices of them and I had to stuff them into my mouth for their parking coupons were going to expire soon. before we left, I asked her to submit our lucky draw coupons and I told her the one on top belonged to Wilson in order to “sabo” him.
Inside the car during the car washing
Wilson's good friend - the monkey
As we got back to the street where we parked the car, we crowded around Wilson’s lousy car to discuss where to go. Junyuan’s girlfriend needed to join her friends at Serangoon Garden and we decided to join them eventually. I got into Wilson’s car and he led the way until when we were at Hougang, the other cars lost track of us after a filter lane near the sports hall. Wilson decided to go to the nearby petrol station to clean his car.
As we joined up with the rest, they wanted to use the toilet and thus we went back to the Shell petrol station from the roundabout. Just then, we realised the mini-mart was 7-11 store and we went in to get drinks and titbits. After that, we went to a park nearby and joined up with Junyuan’s girlfriend’s big group of friends.
Shunliang seemed moody and I tried to stay close to him but there was no chance to talk to him about his problems with people around us. There was an unpleasant smell at the part where they sat down and I only went inside when they decided to play Indian poker and soon, changed to the “Zhong Ji Mi Ma” number guessing game. My guys were thinking that all of them were very childish, but we got to mix with them well with the game.
They started pouring all the different type of drinks into an empty bottle and even adding of sea weeds inside. I lost a game by accident and was forced to drink up the water which one of the girls added in the remaining washabi sea weeds, which was very disgusting for I had to chew on them for quite long before I could swallow them. My face turned red I supposed and I felt like I was drunk, and in fact, I would rather drink alcohol than to take that bottle of disgusting water.
We played the last game when I was supposed to "sabo" Junyuan’s girlfriend as instructed but Junyuan was not sure how to use my phone and the plan was seen through and Alvin was the final victim. After that, Wilson sent Junyuan, Junyuan’s girlfriend and I off. He dropped the couple near Bugis while I was still feeling drunk.
I got to sleep from 2am to 8am and was satisfied with my performance to sleep early. I continued with some work before setting off to my company.
I was intending to fulfil the client’s request by changing an advertisement banner of the S-League website but somehow there was no changes reflected on the actual site. It was only till an hour later, Sheila dropped by and told me I was only uploading it to the company’s server and not the actual one. That was the IP which she saw in my email and told me to transfer the new file into. It seemed like I had to put in much more effort to really figure out everything.
I continued with transferring of contents from an old website to the developing site and I was getting a better hand of it. However, I was not sure of my speed and the most important thing was to meet the deadline. Liza told me it was okay for I was only a beginner but that did not justify the speed of my work. I had been working so hard, trying to avoid errors and also made extra effort to check the actual day of the week of each article when only the date was provided, such that the entire date format would be really standardised. I did not want to work too slow nor fast, which would cause delay or extra workload.
I took a half day leave in this first week of my new job. I left for home at 1pm and my mum had bought nasi lemak for me. While travelling to Toa Payoh, I almost overshot after dozing off and managed to dash out of the train seconds before the doors closed. I took a seat at the first level of the HDB Hub and was shocked to realise Kelly was already at level two, and was more surprised that she did not give me a call. George and his wife arrived later and somehow, we were delayed.
Rinna called Kelly and I quickly went down to meet her. It was the first time I dealt with non JTC resale flat and I was not sure of the actual procedure; worst still, there was a bank loan and non HDB lawyer involved.
The lawyer, Wendy, had told me hours ago that there was a problem with Maybank issuing the Cashier Order (cheque) and she would call me back to update me. I received no news from her and Rinna asked me to give Wendy a call and since it was my job, I tried it but Wendy was not in the office, placing question marks in my brain.
I was so shocked of these “professionals” – Chris Chong Law Firm and Maybank. I was not sure who was at fault but what we were facing was huge transaction of money and existing big players of this market should never give such crap that the appointment time was ripe but we heard no news from them.
We had to embarrassingly tell the HDB officer that the lawyer was not there yet and also told the sellers to go and have some food. Meanwhile, Rinna pressed me to follow up on Wendy and only at the third call, she was back in office. Yet again, she told me she would get back to me when the bank’s Cashier Order was released.
This time, Rinna told me to call the banker directly and I went to the Maybank branch nearby to seek for Grace’s number and the receptionist refused to give me the number. I had to go back to the HDB officer’s room embarrassingly again to retrieve the bank’s letter of offer to search for Grace’s number. Eventually, I was able to contact her but she told me it was not her problem anymore. She put my line on hold for a couple of minutes before giving me a number to contact someone called Steven Lee. I could not get through his line and after a few minutes, I finally succeeded and he sounded quite polite and offered to help me check about it without shrinking responsibility. Rinna got me to call Wendy back and this time, she was besides me and said loudly that the law firm should have collected the Cashier Order a day before. Wendy was already not in a very polite tone, sounding quite pissed, and upon hearing about this, she raised her voice and claimed that it was Maybank’s practise not to release the Cashier Order a day before the appointment. Since I was new to the line, I was not very sure who was at fault but I was glad that I had done my part, and definitely more than that.
After some time, almost an hour after the actual appointment time, Wendy called me back and told me her runner was collecting the Cashier Order at Maybank’s Ang Mo Kio branch and would take another fifteen more minutes to arrive. Steven Lee called me back soon after and told me it was done and I was too boiled to talk more. After some time, Rinna told me to call the runner, Edmund, and he was already at the car park. We finally went back into the officer’s room and did everything, which ended fast.
By the time we finished everything, I realised it was near 5pm and there was no chance for me to hurry back to the agency to submit the cheque from George and to collect the cheque of 219 Ang Mo Kio – my plan was screwed up by either the law firm or bank, or both of them. it was a rare chance that I could take a half day leave to settle stuffs, which was a great sacrifice since I could have saved the leave to go out with friends and not giving any bad impression to my new company for taking leave on the first week of work. Moreover, the following Monday onwards I had to continue to work and the agency would not wait for me after 6pm. The law firm and bank had given me such big problem that I was unable to go back to the agency to settle my stuffs.
I could not help but feel so pissed off even though I had told myself not to get so fed up over bastards. It was just too ridiculous for them to display such unprofessional service. Apart from me, the sellers had taken time off from his work just to attend the appointment and the delay would give problems for him to return back to work in time. In fact, the HDB officer complained to us about the bank as well for their repeatedly delaying of time. Rinna was asking me to cool down but I was the one facing all the stupid phone calls and obviously she was not as pissed off as me.
If any bank is causing delay of more than an hour, it does reflect and clearly show their capability. They play with investment and each second can pose so much difference to the huge sum of money that their clients have entrusted in them. How can anyone trust them then?
If any bank cannot meet the timing of the appointments, causing more than an hour of delay each time, their license for home loan should be annulled. Why would Singapore’s government want to continue the service of lousy bank which gives problems to the entire country, causing inconvenience and time lost?
Law firm: - had typo errors on the document on the first meet-up - failed to push the bank to release Cashier Order on time - failed to contact me to update me earlier as promised - played “missing” at crucial time - failed to present proper tone on phone
Bank: - failed to submit documents to law firm - refused to submit documents to law firm - did not practise releasing of Cashier Order a day before - failed to release Cashier Order on actual day - refused to give contact of banker - denied responsibility
Kaven finally called me back from overseas but everything was already solved. Rinna told me to apply SP services for Kaven and I left soon after that. Right after getting up the train, I remembered Mingfa wanted to meet me at Toa Payoh at 5pm and I had earlier told him that I could be rushing to the agency. I called him immediately since it was near 5pm and I could have waited for him there but he told me he had cancelled his appointment. Kaven called me again and I accidentally cancelled it. After calling him back, I checked my phone and realised I had exceeded the free talk time for the month; moreover I gave Kaven an overseas call minutes ago.
After reaching home, I dozed off. Backache was terrorising me the entire day. After waking up, I started packing my work area lazily.
I only managed to sleep at 4am but had to wake up early. After lazing around on the bed as usual instead of beginning work as planned, I managed to reach the company before 10am. Iris conducted the interview with me and it seemed more like a chit-chat session. She talked more than me to explain about the company’s vision and current situation, and all the questions prepared were not asked.
A thousand dollar
A hundred dollar
I went home to rest immediately. I frequented the bedroom often while doing my work and finally left for Toa Payoh before 3pm. I got there in less than half an hour and waited there while playing game. I met up with Rahman and Kelly before 4pm and when Mr Low was going to pass me the money, I was stunned. At first I saw that there were only ten-dollar notes and it was weird to hold over hundred pieces of them. Rahman did not bring the invoice despite I had reminded him severe times. Everything was settled fast for there was no loan. Kelly had a chat with me outside as I looked at my watch, anxious to make it to the office before 5pm since it was a Friday.
Just as I was leaving, I received a phone call from Iris and she told me the company had decided to employ me. I was taken aback. The fact was that I did not show any talent during the interviews except for my honesty.
I took bus 153 to Bukit Merah and gave a call to Winnie when I passed by Queensway Shopping Centre and she hurried me. I rushed up to the office after reaching the interchange but Winnie made me wait there as she left the office. It was good to see Louis again. I felt quite awkward holding the money and standing there for so long.
On the way home, I was busy coordinating time with David and Kaven for the office space. I began with my work at home and also did some calling for the beach outing.
Quek called me and told me that he was coming over to my place to a pub for someone’s birthday celebration. I was not feeling well and never had the intention to drink and thus I told him to call me when he was bored and we would meet up for coffee instead.
I was preparing to reformat my harddisk for it had been years since I last did it. It was so lag despite I had been scanning it with my anti virus, spyware remover and registry cleaning software often. There were also other major problems like restarting of system on the start-up and wrong labelling of system’s drive.
However, my elder brother advised me not to waste time to reformat it and then he told me to use the MindSoft Utilities XP software to check for problems. Since my ideal plan was to get a faster computer when I got the money and that the 933 MHz system would never improve much, I decided to take up my brother’s suggestion for the time being.
I was trying so hard to be a good boy that I was going to bed early at 2am. Just as I was switching off the light at the living room, there was a blown sound and the kitchen was in total darkness. My elder brother called out from the toilet, telling me he was still inside and asking me why I switched off the light.
I thought I can have a good rest for a day and be ready and energetic to finish up my work, but fate played on me. I was waked up by numerous calls and eventually got up before noon. Ten hours of sleep, in fact lesser than that, was actually more than sufficient to everyone but talking about sleep debt, I needed to sleep much more than that. All intelligent human being should know that the required eight hours of sleep per day should be undisturbed one. The phone calls had made me so tired.
I managed to upload photos from the camera and phone into the computer finally for my brother was not at all. Carol and Kaven messaged me and took my time for some serious stuffs as well as causal chats.
Jianhao’s numerous SMS and calls almost drove me crazy. He wanted me to get an account in SPH so that we could post advertisement soon. Months ago, Kelly promised to get them to send Mingfa and me the registration forms but somehow she did not do it. I called Deslyn and the operator told me that she would get Deslyn to call me back. After waiting for a few hours, she got back to me and told me she knew totally nothing about how to register an account under my company’s name. I was so lost for a moment and thus I called James who told me to call him back in five minutes’ time while he checked the exact code. Afterwards, he told me he could not confirm it and I had to play with luck then. I called Ai Lian as instructed by James but again the operator told me she would get back to me, which she did not.
Douglas called me in the evening and we had a fourteen minutes’ chat. I could not really explain why I hated working in the property line for he had actually dialled wrong number and I did not want to bother him too much. I would love to sit down and have a chat with him face to face one day. After all, I guessed I had not followed the right person at the start and everything led me to very bad impression of the line. I was working more than what I deserved and I supposed nobody would understand the shit I had faced and the extra shit I had done for all the past few months. Even Mingfa could never understand nor feel the stress for I was running the errands most of the time, meaninglessly.
The calls by Kelly smashed my brain. I was losing my usual patience nowadays. She seemed to be repeating words again and again, and even instructed me to tell Mingfa things that she had already told him. When she told me to coordinate with the crooked agent, Vincent, I felt like being forced to the edge of a building. I could be a soft guy and never would use my fists to revenge on badass, but he would never be pardoned by my public criticism. Working with such disgusting guy would bring my integrity down.
The thought that I had actually wasted the entire afternoon which I wanted to buck up on all the outdated blog entries and photos made me feel so sick.
It was six days to the next Sunday and I thought I would be early to ask everyone to the beach. I tried asking a few of those who were online but the feedback was not very good. When I was asking Xinyi if she was free to join us, she was already booked for school project. Then, she sent me a poster to ask me to help her with the wordings. After looking at it for more than fifteen minutes, I could not find anything amiss about it.
Finally, I was able to have my jog. After the past two days’ tedious workout, my legs could hardly move. Like usual, I did not control my breathing well after a few rounds but managed to get almost the same timing as the previous time, which was good enough.
Kaven had called me during my jog and I tried to get back to him upon checking my phone but I could not get through his line. He called me back when my sweat had dried up and was ready for my bath. We got to discuss about some important stuffs at first and he explained to me that it was the sellers asking him to push the completion date earlier so that they could get the money faster and it was duly fair for Kaven to request them to move out earlier even though he had promised to let them stay one month after completion. In fact, their new house at Redhill should be ready soon if they did not make the contractor redo some of the renovation.
As I was chatting with Ying Ying about beach volleyball, I tried to persuade Tze Khit to join us. He was the tallest among my team ever since Robin had already drifted far away from us. He had the height for beach volleyball and he would definitely pose fears and dangers to opponents with his spiking, which none of us could do it. He had played beach volleyball for only a couple of times and could not get used to jumping on the sand and thus did not do as well as on normal courts. He did not try to get the feel and gave up. In reality, I should be the one refusing to play on sand since I was more than twenty centimetres shorter than him; if his spiking was considered bad, mine would be considered hopeless.
After spending a few hours at Halo Bar, Mingen, Mingfa, Jianhao and I went to Bukit Timah to have supper. On the way, Mingen and Mingfa drove to the petrol station to get an ice-cream for Jianhao since they could not find a birthday cake. I had two plain prata and iced tea before Jianhao sent me home.
Mingfa called me and we had a chat for almost one and half hour. I went to bathe after that and continued with my work, which lasted for so long until 8am.
Mingfa waked me up at noon to inform me of a viewing session. I was so disgusted to go down for two consecutive days. When I first started off in this line, I would have done it without any complain but I knew well it was not the way for we should push appointments to the same day. Since I was the only very “free” person, I had no choice but to go down by myself. Kelly called me soon to make my situation worse for there was another appointment such that I had to go down even earlier.
This afternoon I was so keen to find out about the meaning of cash-down and thus I even called Douglas. He was so nice to explain things to me. Alas, I got so disappointed with real estate agents because every one of them seemed to be not practising what they had been preaching.
I continued with my work and later set off to Bukit Batok. I met up Vincent at 5.30pm and his client was already upstairs, which I found it weird. The husband arrived and that was the fourth time they had viewed the place. I did not like them for they were very stingy and attitude.
I stayed behind for the second appointment. I kept myself occupied with the television and I tried to talk to Mrs Khin to find out more. During evening, Mrs Khin gave me two pieces of snack which I did not really like for I was worried they would get my body heaty.
Jimmy and his wife arrived later. The clients were a bit weird for they seemed to be like contractors. When I wanted to find out more about their choice, they seemed to be running late for other appointments and I realised there was not much high hope.
After reaching home, I cleared my email before going down for a jog. I did not do as well but at least my speed was okay after a tired day. However, just after bathing and my mum had cooked my noodle, I was called by Mingfa to ask me down to Bukit Batok after 10pm.
The feeling of having to go down there for thrice in two days, dealing with assholes who had been wasting our time really sucked. I was not staying near and I was not driving or riding that it was really stupid to make all the trips. It was a ridiculous hour and that I had just ended a hard day work, had a tough jog which had left me strengthless and my mum had cooked my dinner for me which I had to leave them dry.
I had no chance but to follow the instruction from Kelly just to bring a stupid piece of paper down. The taxi stand was queued and I went to further in front but there was no luck. Every cab that passed by had the “on call” sign and I knew the cab drivers were making big bucks. There was once when someone alighted near me and I quickly got into the cab, the driver told me it was “on call” again. A bitch went in front of me at the Keppel Tower side to fight cab with me. I simply stared at her while I walked passed her and she stared back at me shamelessly. I would really love to take up her challenge in getting a cab there but it seemed pointless. Available cabs would rather enter the Amara Hotel to catch big fishes who might give them tips. I went to the place where Kachua always got his cab at but there was construction at the road and thus I went to Cantonment Road instead and finally caught a cab.
Meanwhile, I had to cancel my meeting up with Kaven for the next morning because I knew I would not be able to get home early and that I was already having lack of sleep. Earlier on, I was about to message him but he called me instead to schedule the appointment to look for stuffs for his house like the paint colours, which I was very interested in. I thought I could learn more as well and would be able to help others in future. However, this stupid trip had to spoil the planning.
I had suffered more loss than this. At 10pm was the beginning of the golden hours for my web business and by not updating my sites at these few hours, it might reflect badly on my sites, which would definitely cause lost of profit in both current and long term for some visitors might mistake that I was not going to update the sites anymore.
I spent more than an hour over there. I was furious and disgusted when I realised what was going on – the agent Vincent Chan had gone up to negotiate with Mr Khin directly. It was definitely a wrong to do this for he was not showing respect to all of us and that he had caused a very severe confusion over our side, ending up in almost an argument.
I was a new agent and I thought I was inexperienced that I could not do things good, but however, comparing Vincent Chan and I, I realised I was so much better; in fact, it was a disgrace to be compared with him.
I worked until 4am and waked up at 9am. I was so tired that I continued to laze around on the bed even though I had planned to make my morning really meaningful.
Later on, I waked up to find my certificates and even borrowed a tie from my brother. I went down to get the certificates photocopied and preceded to the Lippo Building, which was so near to my house. There was a sign asking all visitors to report to the security guard like any other office building but since I was wearing so formal, I tried to act like one of the workers and was alert enough to find the correct lift fast.
I was brought to a room to fill in my particulars. It was a tedious job. Soon, I was given two sets of tests for they wanted to find out whether I was more suited to become a designer or content publisher. I checked my phone and realised Carol had replied me saying that I needed not wear a tie. I was quite lost while taking the tests for I had forgotten most of the stuffs I learnt during polytechnic days. Even for simple programming, I needed more time to get them refreshed. I was brought to another room to be interviewed by the manager called Kan Seng who was friendly to me. However, I behaved too lack of confidence that I guessed the company would not call for me if there were many other interviewees. One thing I was sure was that the company was going to expand by recruiting more staffs and the manager obviously would regard me as an honest guy.
I went home and dozed off soon. My brother and his girlfriend arrived home afterwards and tried to disturb me from my sleep. Just as I thought I could spend the rest of the day to finish up my own stuffs like updating of my old blog entries and photos, I was told that there was a viewing in the evening and Mingfa had promised his friend to have a meet up, such that I was the only free person to handle it.
Jianhao called me when I was waiting at the void deck. I knew his birthday was around but I did not remember seeing it on my website’s calendar for this day was only the babe, Sherry Ong’s birthday. Since this day was not Jianhao’s birthday, I guessed it was the next day and that was why he had asked Mingfa and the rest out as well.
I got to chat with Yvonne, the agent, and her clients were late. They were satisfied with the house for they were really easygoing, except that they had old parents and needed to know about the polling of the lift soon.
I went to Lot 1 to meet Jianhao. I loitered around there and got myself a cup of bubble tea. I felt quite uneasy for I was wearing long sleeve shirt which I had wore for the job interview in the morning instead of wearing a polo tee.
I messaged both Mingli and Xinyi since they stayed nearby, but both of them were in school. Mingli promised to join us but I had to wait for Jianhao. Mingfa and Mingen were around Alexander Road. Since they were going to Halo Bar which was so near to Mingli’s location, I hurried them to go and meet up with Mingli first.
Cars are parked diagonally - so weird
Beautiful
When Jianhao arrived, we went to meet his client immediately. We actually needed to press the buttons on the lift to talk to the owner first but we went in directly. After the doors closed, we realised the buttons could not work except for the alarm bell, which did not stop after five minutes later.
Jianhao called his client who came down to meet us. That guy was actually a colonel and that was why he looked so calm and respectable. The way Jianhao explained his situation was not very direct. We only got to leave after some time and I was very worried for I did not want Mingli to wait for too long. Before leaving the condominium, Jianhao was chatting with another client who was so nagging and thus we had to waste longer time stopping at the roundabout.
Alas we set off to join the rest and I was glad that they had arrived and met up with Mingli. I did not want to take any alcoholic drink but Jianhao got five bottles of Heineken and I tried to finish one bottle, which turned my face red fast. All of them already had their dinner except me and I was forced to buy some chicken popcorn type of finger food with chicken wings, which cost $6.50 each.
There were a few other volleyball players as well and among them there was a girl with hot figure. There was a pool table and karaoke but I participle in none and not even in their dice game because I did not want to drink more.
I hope Mingfa would not start mixing with friends at pubs.
If you get to co-broke with an agent called Vincent Chan with the number 9297138*, please be prepared that he would override your right as your clients’ agent and approach your clients directly. This act of dishonest and unprofessional might end up bringing conflicts between your clients and you.
He is probably active at the west of Singapore, wearing a spectacle. More details about this smoker shall not be disclosed in order to protect his ass.
If you have the chance to bring clients to his listing, you may wish to play him out in order to educate him in order to save all Singapore’s agents and
Disclaimer: I do not encourage you to destroy his creepy face even though he deserves to be castrated. I do not have liability for anything you do to him.
I made a miracle of sleeping at 2am. It was all for the HDB first appointment which I would be facing the bastard Penis Seah. Since his attitude was ridiculous at times, I needed to catch more sleep in order to obtain the concentration to screw him back any time.
I waked up at 6am but continued to laze on the bed for another half an hour. My mum prepared milo and dumped biscuits inside, which was a dangerous thing because it used to play prank on my stomach every time. I realised I should have ordered half boiled eggs.
I took train to Toa Payoh as usual and reached by 8am. I knew for sure the buyers would be late. Fifteen minutes later, I went up to level two since JTC flats were only served there by six of the officers and the clients might have gone up there directly as indicated by the letter. Another fifteen minutes later, I saw someone who looked like Penis Seah at level one but I did not care about him for he could have called me when he could not find me and I did not want my number to appear in his phone.
I called Kelly to confirm if she was coming because she should be more experienced to face the bastard but she sounded like dying and told me she was having a headache. I was hoping she could also pass me Kaven’s documents as well and it was the second time she did not turn up. Since she had done a number of tasks, I could not blame her.
I called Penis Seah immediately and he claimed that I should meet him at counter A since all agents usually did that. I did not want to argue with him saying that we did not agree to meet up there, and thus I just told him I was going down to find him. We met up with his clients soon and proceeded to the room in a short while. During the process, the way he talked to me was surprisingly not arrogant. I was suspecting that it was because of the presence of his clients.
Anyway, it was a fast appointment for the clients were taking bank loan. I followed them to the ATM to collect the valuation report’s money and later, requested them for the commission cheque which they had prepared earlier. I offered to accompany them up to the law firm even though I was not sure if I was supposed to do so, but it was truly based on sincerity since their agents did not tag along. At least, I did manage to learn new things about the procedure and I met my objective of comparing the lawyers’ attitudes. I also got to chat with the clients and realised they were really nice people.
Kelly was asking me to get their contact numbers such that we could find out about the completion date since Penis Seah was not cooperative at all and would never tell us about it in order to make things difficult for us. However, it seemed not right to do to get contact numbers from co-broke agent’s clients even though Kelly claimed it was alright this time. Anyway, I told her they had to contact me in order to bring their contractors down to plan for the renovation as well as treating it as a final inspection. Basically, I seriously thought that we could have approached JTC for all the appointment dates, which they ought to assist us, instead of approaching buyers’ agents. I was really lost because all the while I listened to Kelly and she might not get all the correct information.
The lift's button at the office was finally upgraded and I loved the luminous blue colour.
I took bus 153 to Bukit Merah Bus Interchange and went to the office. Winnie was away and I waited there quite long for her. James saw me and even passed some documents for me to pass to Winnie. The big boss, Andy Low, saw me and greeted me always.
I took bus 145 home and it was pretty crowded again. On the way, I received a call from Jingkun to ask me down to Clementi ITE to play volleyball. Since Weitat was going for reservice the next day, I decided to join them no matter what. Just after I rushed home and got changed, they informed me of a change of time. It was changed from 2pm to 2.30pm and finally at 3pm.
The delay of time was pretty good for me as Weitat called me after 2pm to check if I was at home and offered to drive me over since he was at Tampiness and was on the way. By the time he arrived at my place, we were already late. Since Mingfa was waiting for us since long ago, Jingkun was asking us to go down to Clementi to meet Mingfa immediately but in the end, we proceeded to fetch him.
We went to a coffee shop near the Clementi MRT, which they claimed was very famous for the western food. I paid $6 for my fish and chips and the fries tasted more salty as potato chips. It was after 4pm, we proceeded to Clementi ITE but realised Mingfa’ students had not set up the net yet.
I joined them to jog one round around the school campus which was a torture to my full stomach. I continued to play with them at the side of the court and during breaks, we went in to do spiking and I had difficulties stretching my body. Mingfa and Jingkun left at around 6pm. Weitat was offering to send me to Harbourfront Centre but Mingen told me to stay behind to accompany him. I knew it was meaningless to play with the girls but decided to stay. The girls played two matches against themselves and I was worried for Mingfa because they might not be able to bring him glory for the competition this year. We did not play any match after that and I was wasting my time around.
Mingen sent me to the T-junction and I walked very fast to the MRT station. I realised a few of Mingfa’s players were quite hardworking for they chose to walk instead of taking bus. After taking the train home, I went to jog. Even though I was tired, I managed to maintain a good timing like the previous time.
After that was catching up with my work and kissing the television set.
I slept at 4am and waked up at 9am before lazing on the bed. I managed to make it to office at 12pm sharp and waited for the meeting. It was quite pathetic for there were only five of us inclusive of James and Francis. They announced about the JTC flats, which were passed to two teams and they claimed that our company was doing rotating of “lobangs”. In fact, we might not get the JTC flats for the next batches. In the case of our small team, we might not get many flats since we had to split with other groups. When they talked about the student hostel, I was so disappointed and did not wish to be involved. I collected the cheque for Mingfa before taking bus 145 home, which was a wrong choice for it was crowded with students.
My mum got an electrician to replace the spoilt power switch inside the room and I was impressed that that guy did not turn off the main switch. I dozed off for some time before beginning my work. Just right after Mingfa was asking me about the photos taken during the beach outing, Mingen called me to ask for them as well. I was pretty unlucky for my elder brother somehow stayed at home whenever I was at home as well and thus I did not want to disturb him.
Tiffany was at Mingen’s house and they sent me their photos for me to resize and send them back to upload into Friendster. It was a very tough job for I was busy working on my sites and many video clips were opened and my system was moving like a snail and yet I had to open the Photoshop to do them the favour. Anyway, they looked nice together inside the photos.
When my mum got home, she started nagging that I did not on her rice cooker and I stopped her immediately by showing attitude. I was simply irritated for her instruction was not clear before leaving the house. She told me she could have forgotten to press the button behind the cooker and I checked the power was on and thus left it as it was. She could at least tell me she wanted to cook and not just keeping the food inside warm. In fact, she did come home after instructing me but she did not bother to check it. This proved the communication disability between both of us.
The television shows caught me but I managed to continue with my work at the same time, at a slower pace. I was so motivated to sleep early but was distracted by a stranger who added me in MSN.
I managed to get to sleep at around 5am and my mum waked me up after 1pm. I was preparing for volleyball at Clementi ITE and it started to rain. My stomach started giving me problems as well and at first I thought I would be just late for the volleyball until Mingfa reminded me that he would leave at 7pm sharp. I was only preparing to practise on my basic skill but I realised it would take a few hours for my stomach to fully recover and by then it would be time to go home; it was not worth it to go down.
At the same time, I called David as he did not reply my SMS the previous day. He told me he did not know that was from me and he was in a meeting. I was in a tight position for I had to help Kaven find an office and David was the “professor” in rental. I did not mind passing Kaven his contact because I believed in satisfying the client’s needs more than what I could benefit from.
I started a blog to host all the interesting videos weeks ago but only till this day, I pushed myself to proceed with it. I was not sure how long I could maintain sustaining the daily update of all my sites but I would continue until I could find a bigger bronze goose that could lay better eggs for me, or perhaps, silver and finally a gold one. Meanwhile this new baby, Interesting Video Clips, could be linked at http://interestingvideoclips.blogspot.com.
Television was a huge distraction. David did not call me back as he promised and until late night, I gave him another call because I promised Kaven to give him a reply by the night. I was pretty worried when David told me he was not free as well at 10pm but he called me back almost an hour later. He was finding office space for other clients as well and it was “just nice” I supposed. I sought his permission to give Kaven his number but he preferred to work together with me, which proved me right that he was an honest guy who did not want to take advantage of anyone. The reason why I trusted him so much was because he was capable enough to hold three diplomats and was a part time lecturer in Ngee Ann Polytechnic as well, which showed that he was a respectable man who loved to impart knowledge to people.
Nothing was unusual about this morning and I managed to go to bed at around 4.30am. I was then waked up by my mum at around 2pm.
It was not a usual day after all. My mum brought home a letter from Google AdSense and inside hosted the cheque, which seemed to have waited for me so eagerly. This aid came in handy. It was my second time receiving it but the first time my mum was able to help me cash it into my bank account; the previous time they sent me from the America and I got them to cancel the cheque, and currently still waiting for them to credit the amount back into my account.
Therefore, I have proved wrong to those people who have seen me staying online the entire day and assuming I’m very free. Although my progress may be slow sometimes due to distraction, such as television, Friendster and MSN, I do work. I do play games but I spend more time on work.
This afternoon, I continued with my work until evening time when I set off to Bukit Batok. I met up with Mingfa at the MRT before approaching Mr Khin’s flat. Kelly was waiting at the same void deck and when the co-broke agent arrived, Mingfa and I quickly went up to prepare the house.
Kelly was intending to let Mingfa do all the talking but he was not really prepared. Since I was not wearing as formal as him and that I was dehydrated and felt uncomfortable on my throat, I did not do anything. The co-broke agent in fact did most of the talking and I was quite impressed that he could relate so much things on the first visit.
Kelly went home after that and the buyers were actually quite interested. Mingfa and I went downstairs to wait for the second group of viewers. We waited for more than half an hour and finally they called Mingfa. Just as we were at the void deck, we saw the same pair of couple who were with the co-broke agent an hour ago. Mingfa got very pissed but I knew clearly it was the couple’s fault for they should not have engaged the agent while looking for flats by themselves; the silliest thing was they did not suspect it was the same flat in the first place.
We left immediately. Mingfa was intending to have a jog with Wilson and if only I was staying near them, I could join them in the healthy lifestyle. I wanted to have my own jog as well but when I reached home, I was welcomed by KFC chicken. I decided to have a midnight jog but later on, my stomach played me and I continued with eating again.
I was working halfway when my elder brother suddenly asked if I wanted to have noodle. It was quite rare for he usually cooked for himself without asking. Thus, I continued with my work till a later hour even though I planned to sleep early. It was around 4.30am when I went to bed.
I like this crescent shaped flat; it gives a magnificent feeling.
I waked up at around 9am and got myself ready to take bus 80 to reach Lorong Ah Soo by 11am. I alighted at the right bus-stop but decided to cut through the flats. I was walking parallel to the main road further away but soon, I realised I had to change my direction to the right and again to the right; which seemed ghostly.
At the stone table near the provision shop
Cactus along the corridor
I was early and sat at the usual stone table. I saw two guys dressed neatly and I guessed correctly that they were the contractors cum designers. Mingfa called just as Sally arrived. We went up to the flat but sadly, Milo’s door was closed and thus I could not play with him. I followed Sally and the contractors around the house and realised there were many renovation jobs to be done. After that, I had some chats with Sally along the way slowly until we reached the next block.
New project at Lorong Ah Soo near PLMGSS. If only I'm rich enough..
While walking back to the bus-stop, I was busy messaging my two teams’ members for the upcoming Rip Curl beach volleyball tournament as I had decided how to group them. I took bus 80 home and started dozing off on the bus.
Massage chair - Oto brand
When I reached home, I realised the massage chair had arrived. My younger brother bought it for my mum’s birthday and I thought that was really crazy for it was expensive and my house was already so cramped. Anyway, it was placed at my mattress’ location and I knew I had nowhere to sleep at night again like before they started packing the room.
I started a new site to create another “bronze goose” to lay money for me, which did not even start off for I was already having problems with the previous one. Before I could do much, Kaven called me and asked me to meet him out for dinner.
Jianhao finally called me back and told me the Redhill close owners did not mind my Vietnamese tenant to stay in their house. With all the efforts to confirm the timing and sudden message from princess that she had confirmed with another team to participle in the Rip Curl beach volleyball competition, I was in a mess once again. When I got down, Kaven was already waiting there for me.
At Bukit Timah Shopping Centre. Love the effect but of course my original picture is clearer.
Still awaiting for Kaven
I was feeling very low but tried hard to appear normal. Kaven drove me to Bukit Timah Shopping Centre where he went to withdraw money and we went to the opposite chain of food stalls to take our dinner. We ordered chicken, dou fu and a plate of prawn with vegetable. It was his treat once again, which was near forty bucks.
Struck at petrol station
Next destination was the petrol station further down. After refilling the tank, I was stunned to witness a driver trying to park his car in front. He had to do a parallel parking and that he went in straight from the front and I thought he was very good with parking. Nevertheless, he made a turn out immediately and went in from the back of his car. The petrol station’s staff was trying to guide the way but it seemed hopeless and the car even hit the hose which was hanging in the air. I saw there was no “P” plate and that driver should be experienced enough but Kaven guessed he did not even have a license, which was quite true.
Soon, we realised a big problem, which was the car was parked too far away from the kiosk, blocking our way. Kaven reversed the car and tried to take another lane to leave but it was blocked by cars parking by the side. In the end, the staff told us to take the entrance out. It was so pathetic and luckily we managed to leave before a car tried to turn into the petrol station.
We went to his rented house and I waited at the parking lot as usual. Afterwards, he sent me to Redhill MRT and I realised I was more than half an hour earlier for the appointment to meet up with Khoa to view the flat. Since I had just taken dinner and that I took chilli, I went to the 7-11 store to buy a packet of sweet to keep my mouth refreshed. I went to the stone “beach” when a female smoker left. A quite pretty girl came over and sat besides me.
At 8pm, Khoa called and told me he had reached the flat at block 14. Since I had told him to meet at the MRT station, I was caught off guarded and had to rush over. He was a young guy, schooling in a new university nearby. The owners seemed to be very pleased with him even though they were unable to communicate due to language problem. I had to do all the translation and the owners were very chatty that they did not answer to my questions most of the time. Thus, we stayed quite long up there and since I had heard most of the stories during the previous visit, I had some cold sweat. We were able to come to a deal in the end but Khoa wanted to consider over it even though he had promised me earlier that he would give an answer immediately.
I took bus 145 home and started working. The falling of stock price was pulling my mood down furthermore; I could not help it if AdSense pay me only $0.01 for each click.
The delay of the rental deal and the falling of the “shares price” were kerosene added to my earlier fire, burning down my entire city of hopes. Perhaps, my dreams were shattered since before leaving the house.
It was an unexpected day that I dozed off around midnight.
I waked up at around 9am and realised I did not shut down my computer. I began packing my stuffs and separating the documents.
Jianhao called me regarding two Cameroon students who wanted to rent a room. I left for the office to check out about the student hostel and met Francis over there. He taught me how to go about doing the rental. I got to chat with this guy called David Tan and we even went down to the hawker to have a cup of drinks.
After that, I went to the bus interchange to take bus 198. I dozed off soon for I knew it would take quite long time to reach the destination. Upon opening my eyes at AYE, I saw a sweet girl sitting on the right, facing the left; whereas I was sitting on the left and facing the front. She turned to my side a few times and I did not mind having free sighting on the long journey. Suddenly I gave a longer stare at her and when she turned to me again, she quickly turned to the face again. I laughed but was about to control myself that nobody really noticed me. She alighted near Wilson’s house.
Boonlay Drive Hostel office
I like the colour a lot, but too bad the original condition of the flats are so different; simply plain.
I got to Boonlay Drive finally and saw the nicely designed place. Cheryl was there to entertain me and even brought me up to the unit. She was quite pretty, helpful, enthusiastic and smart. I hanged around there to wait for the rain to stop before walking to Boonlay Shopping Centre and realised that was where Mingfa and I went to years ago.
Suddenly, Jianhao told me that his two clients wanted to meet me and thus I tried to contact them but reception was bad. They replied my SMS very slow as well but we got to arrange to meet up at Lakeside MRT. Since Jianhao told me they were on their way already, I did not set a time.
I went to get a bun and draw some money from the ATM in case I needed to bring them over in a cab. Just then, my mum called me, followed by Jianhao. I was holding my bun and phone and was worried that I might drag the queue when it was my turn, and I was in a mess. It was drizzling and I got to the wrong bus-stop. Somehow, I thought it was single way traffic and went around asking people where to take the bus to Lakeside MRT.
I sat down and waited very long near the control station. There were many girls walking past and I took notice of a huge group of teenagers because some of them were suggesting to take cabs to Taman Jurong instead of taking the bus; they would need at least five cabs and they probably would take longer time to gather in their destination if they were to take cabs.
It was more than an hour later, I gave the two Cameroon guys some calls but they did not pick it up. I sent them a message and they did not reply. I finally gave a call to Jianhao and told him I was going home since I was a bit drenched and that I was not sure the security guard on duty after 8pm would open the door for the show flat a not. Before leaving, I even sent a polite message to them but they did not get back to Jianhao or me at all.
Just as I thought it was a ridiculous day, bringing tiredness and disappointments in the journey home, the sun suddenly rose again. I was preparing to get rejected again when I sent a message to ask if princess wanted to take part in the Rip Curl beach volleyball competition. This time, unlike usually, she replied me and even with a positive answer. I forgot the entire day’s crap instantly and started confirming with everyone.
My brothers were playing Condition Zero at home. My younger brother gave me back my computer soon and I started working. I managed to catch “Zou Xiang Gone He”.
I played Condition Zero with my elder brother from 2am until 5am, but after that, I still could not doze off. It became so obviously that my mindful of stuffs were determined to keep me awake. I left my house at 7am and unfortunately, arrived at Toa Payoh at 7.30am.
Just as I was trying to find the coffee shop which Kelly always brought me to, Kaven called me and told me his sister was at the Ya Kun Kaya Toast. Suddenly, I felt a hit on my leg and it was from a bike. That auntie was absurd to cycle at that area and when she was near me, she did not make any soft voice that would attract my attention. Since I could not find Fui Yen, I went inside the HDB hub and waited there alone.
I knew obviously something was wrong. Kaven had told me before that the appointment was at 8.45am but Kelly told both of us to go at 8am. since for the previous HDB first appointments I had attended, Kelly had told me to reach only fifteen minutes earlier, which she did not turn up punctually everytime as well, I roughly guessed it was too much of an extra effort to go so early.
Luckily Kaven was late for around fifteen minutes and after which, he called me and we met up. It was a terrible situation to have to answer to them why Kelly was not present when she was still holding some of his documents. What was more was that I had not been through a normal first appointment other than the JTC flats ones, which was said to be different.
Rinna’s clients, the sellers, arrived and they got the queue number already. I did not keep track of the time anymore since the presence of the experienced agents seemed more important. The number was called but the counter was empty. I was quite pressured by then for I knew the co-broke agent had to be around even though I should be able to handle everything myself if nothing went wrong.
I made a call to Rinna after waiting for some time and she told me she had just arrived. It was exactly the appointment time, which was 8.15am. We proceeded on without waiting for Kelly. I was worried for her for she usually would set auto answer for her phone but this time it continued to ring and she did not pick it up.
Things went on quite smoothly but we had to borrow the original OTP to make photocopies for we had to go to the law firm after that and the documents were with Kelly. The shop near escalator charged ten cents for each piece of paper and I was sure they had made a lot of money. Kelly finally called me back when I was going to return the OTP back to Mr Kee; it was kind of at the wrong time but Rinna helped me to pass to him instead. The sellers came out shortly. Kaven gave a call to Kelly and thus, we were kind of having a conference. Then, she promised to meet at the law firm afterwards at 11am, which was almost two hours away.
We went to Ya Kun Kaya Toast for breakfast and Kaven bought my share even though I had told him I did not want to eat anything. I had two eggs, some breads and a cup of iced milk tea. He did not expect to get so many eggs and he had to take six of them since he did not want his dad to take any. His dad thought I was from Beijing for the accent he heard.
We set off in Kaven’s car then and I was quite surprised that they found it squeezing to have three persons sitting behind. We went to Shenton Way but could not find the place and since Kaven told me it was besides his office’s building, I thought I could count on him. I learned my lesson that I should check out everything by myself as well instead of depending on others. We went to the wrong building and had to walk over.
Just as we were walking near the building, Kaven asked about Kelly. I called her and she used private number to call me back and I could guess that she could not make it since she was should be at home. She told me she was looking for her bike’s keys and I was quite embarrassed to explain to Kaven that she could not make it again.
It was my first visit to a law firm, which was nothing impressive. Wendy was a middle aged lady, sounding much friendlier than the banker from May Bank, Grace. However, I thought she could do better in her fact-finding from the bank before making any assumption, which ended up delaying the time and causing of confusion. Luckily Kaven was alert and hardworking enough to do his sum.
After spending almost an hour at the law firm (Chris Chong), I took bus 10 to Vivocity. I messaged Weitat to meet him up but he did not reply. Therefore, I dropped my plan to visit him at Harbourfront first and instead, I went straight to the Rip Curl shop. The two girls were chatting all the way until I was very near them, which was different from other staffs in other shops, who would serve their potential customers once they stepped into the shop, or at least gave some greetings. One of them was quite a cute girl and I got the registration form for the Rip Curl beach volleyball competition from her.
I was stunned at first when I saw that there was no slot to put a name for reserve. I stood there for some time to read the lengthy paragraphs but it seemed to be useless. I went out to give a call to Mingfa but he cancelled my call. I gave a second try and he cancelled it faster than the previous time. Suddenly I realised he was using my tactic to call me back using his house’s phone so that it would be cheaper. I explained to him that Jinyang aka sheep had promised to join us, which was quite rare and thus I wanted them to play together, leaving myself out of the team; most importantly, I was not a good spiker for my height and they could have higher chance without me. Mingfa did not want to leave me out for I was the organiser and he told me we should discuss over it some other time. I went back to get a second registration form.
Just as I was on my way home, Weitat finally picked up my call and told me he was sick and did not go to work. Soon after reaching home, Justus arrived and saw me at home. Soon, he came over to do his mathematics works again. Since Mingfa had called me earlier to tell me he was going to play billiard with Mingen, I did not push Justus away. I was having a chat with Xinyi at the same time and she told me she might be going down to Clementi ITE with Guoxin. Halfway through, Kelly called me and told me she was sick. She wanted me to go down to JTC Summit to collect three pairs of keys from Miss Lee.
At first, I was still considering whether to go down to Clementi ITE or not, but since I had to go down to Jurong East, I decided I should not waste the trip since they were nearby. Justus finally left at 4pm and I started to pack up. I gave Miss Lee a call and was surprised that she already knew I would be going down as Kelly had told me to contact her instead. However, one out of the three pairs of keys Kelly asked for was different. Since the four flats had finished the first appointments, I decided to take all of them instead. I called Kelly to double confirm with her but her daughter answered the phone and told me she was asleep.
My 4 branches of old friends and my personal keys
I took train to Jurong East and saw a few cute girls but soon the train was well packed that there was no sight of them. It was my first trip down to JTC Summit and it was only then I guessed that was the JTC headquarter. I was able to find my way inside except that I could not see the “resales” department. I went to the “sales” department and spoke to a guy who went in to find Miss Lee for me. I was quite disappointed when he came out with the keys instead of Miss Lee for I thought I could get to see her after talking over the phone with her. She sounded very young even though Winnie told me she was married.
I took bus 198 towards Bukit Merah. A pretty girl was nearby and I could sense that she was somehow curious about me, maybe for my four pairs of old friends hanging on the Carabineer attached to my phone pouch. I alighted at Weitat’s house’s bus-stop and walked to Clementi ITE.
I joined Mingfa and his girl team in the slow jog around the school. Weitat arrived soon, followed by Jingkun and Guoxin together with Xinyi, which was very rare. I was uncomfortable with the low net but did not do well in spiking despite the low height. I joined in the matches in the end but it was pretty boring for the girls were not strong enough to play against us.
When the training ended, we played three against three and Guoxin refused to join in. We had fun except that my shoe’s sole came off and my moment was restricted. My back-aching problem could explain why I was not able to spike as good as the previous time. Since there was problem with my right shoulder’s joint still, I could not serve normally and had to use back my very old method of serving to use some back muscle, which proved quite useful with the strength. In the end, I took off my shoes and was able to move freely, except that it caused pains on my feet.
Our lao da
Pretty eyes Xinyi
Neo Weitat
Mr available Ou
After the break, I did not join them in the training for my lousy shoes. Guoxin left before we went to bathe and Jingkun went off without us. After that, the five of us went to the famous coffee shop again for the usual western food. We had chicken chops except for Xinyi.
By the time I reached home by train, it was almost 11pm and I missed a few parts of my “Zou Xiang Gong He”.
