Oh boy, it’s been a really long time huh? This year has been a real roller-coaster ride for me. I left my earlier job of 8 years, spent 2 months looking for a job, and finally found one in the building right next to my old office. Oh ironies of ironies!

I shall not dwell on the reasons that led to my sudden decision to give up the comforts of my old job, since I don’t think it’s ethical to talk bad about your previous employer on such a public place like the Internet. Let’s just say I had great passion for my job, and the 8 years I spent there were definitely the most memorable times of my life. Although I miss my old comrades terribly, I’m more and more convinced that I made the right choice. I was getting too comfortable for my own good. This realization hit me each and every time I went for an interview. I needed more challenges, technically and career-wise. I was also too dependent on my leader of that time, who acted as the big brother for the rest of us, and it was time to learn to take care of myself.

It’s been almost a month since I started my new job. The job scope looked like what I did before, but yet was also unfamiliar to me. The technologies used and the development platform used is totally different to what I was used to. I’m the only female developer in the office, where as the ladies were the majority in my old job. My current team is not as chatty as my previous team, and the company culture was different as well. There’s lots to learn and catch up with, but I’m gradually settling in and starting to see some light.

The good thing about being located near your next company is that you get to meet-up and lunch with your ex-colleagues regularly. The down side of course, is that you’re bound to bump into your old bosses or other people whom you’ll rather not talk about your new job with. But then again, Singapore is a small country.

With all the reading and catching up I need to do, I probably will not be updating and posting to this blog regularly for quite a while. I know some of the links in the Podcasts and Links pages are outdated, but I haven’t had the time to sit down and update them one by one. Please bear with me for the time-being. Meanwhile, you might want to checkout my Tumblr page, which I plan to use as some sort of aggregate site, where posts from here and some my other site will be reflected here. It’s also a place where I can easily share short rantings and musings on the go.

I have to get back to my reading again. Until next time, adios!

Tags: life, musings, Personal, rant

As you’ve probably noticed, it’s been a while since I last updated. Life has kept me busy, especially with the recent title change that I had at work. Nonetheless, I managed to steal some time off my crazy work life last week to enjoy some quality time with myself.

I’ve been meaning to watch Puss in Boots when it started its run 2 weeks ago, but I noticed The Muppets was coming up too. So rather than taking 2 days to watch 2 movies, I decided to have a mini movie marathon.

Naturally, before the movies started, we were served some trailers for upcoming movies:

We Bought A Zoo

The trailer claims that the movie is based on a true story. I’ve not done any research on this yet, but the trailer does make it look like quite a touching story about love. Love of your family, love between man and woman and love of animals. This sure looks like a movie I might want to catch next year. Storyline and animals aside, I just want to say “What happened to Matt Damon????”. I mean.. he looks so.. matured!! On the hand, it sure is refreshing watching Scarlett Johansson fully dressed for once.

The Amazing Spider-man

Yup, I said Amazing Spider-man and not Spider-man 4. Why we need so many Spider-man movies, I’ll never know. The effects look good though and I already know a handful of my friends who’ll want to watch this. As for me, I’m not much of a Spider-man fan, as you can probably tell, so I might just skip this one.

Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked

Alvin, the troublemaker, and rest of the Chipmunk gang are back. This time they go on cruise but somehow the 6 furry friends get stranded on a lone island. I nearly laughed my head off when I saw them singing and dancing to Lady Gaga’s “Bad Romance”. I may not watch this one in the cinema, but I’ll mostly like catch it on DVD.

After the movies, I popped over to the nearby H&M that opened in Singapore recently to see what’s the fuss. Sure, the apparel is fashionable and all, but most of the items were a little above my budget. I did pick up a knitted beret at a reasonable price though. Not exactly my “go to” place to shop for clothes, but I’ll definitely be back to look at accessories.

I went on to make a brief stop at Cold Stone Creamery for some ice cream. I’ve heard lots of good things about the ice cream here, but somehow I was a little disappointed. I had the Cheesecake Fantasy, but the strawberries and blueberries tasted nowhere near sweet and had a distinct “frozen” aftertaste. Maybe next time I’ll just have the ice cream and only mix in extras that I like.

It felt good to relax and recharge for a day, even though I’ve no one to enjoy it with. The last time I did something like this was  on my birthday, which is almost half a year ago! I really should do this more often.

Meanwhile, watch out for my movie reviews coming up in the next couple of days.

Tags: life, movies, musings, Personal, rant

I was never an Apple fan to begin with and I do not own (and have never owned) any Apple products. However, I still appreciated them for their creativity and ingenuity when it comes to design and user-intuitiveness. A quick look at the smart phone market will immediately show how everyone is trying to imitate Apples technology and/or design. It’s probably safe to say that Apple revolutionized personal computers, music and smart phones. Steve Job’s vision changed the way people work and play today.

I particularly loved watching Steve Jobs giving his signature keynote speeches. His onstage charisma is incomparable. Apple would have never become what it is today without the lead of Steve Jobs.

Steve, rest in peace. You will be well missed by all.

Tags: Announcements, apple, life, musings

… continued from Part 1.

I quickly moved on from the Car Park Garden towards the section of the park known as Flora Fancy, where there are various display plots that showcase various garden designs, concepts, products and home gardening ideas. Among those on display were some playground setups, a scarecrow garden and an orchid garden. Interesting.

As I trudged along in the heat towards the Glasshouse Complex, I passed by the Tree Garden. Nothing too interesting to me, except for a unique looking piece of log. The Golden Garden looked quite cheery with its brilliant sea of yellow, but I only stopped for 1 quick “photo op“.

And here we are, the climax of my HortPark experience, the Glasshouse Complex. As the write-up describes, this complex consists of a collection of large and small glasshouses that are designed to simulate different growing conditions (temperature, humidity, etc) of different climates and geographical regions. Contained within the complex was a plethora of various species of flowers and shrubs. The interior of the glasshouses was not accessible to members of the public, so I could only take pictures from outside, through the glass. Since it was a bright and sunny day, reflections were aplenty. Hence if you spot a green shadow “lurking” among the flowers, it’s probably my reflection.

Not only was there a breathtaking variety of beautiful flowers in the glasshouses, there were also beautiful flowers in the outdoor compounds of the complex.

After almost half an hour, I finally managed to tear myself away from the beautiful flowers in the Glasshouse Complex, and started making my way back to the Visitor Center. Along the way I passed by some interesting topiary. There were 2 pairs of dragon topiary, a tiger topiary and a pair of Merlion topiary. I think there was a chicken topiary too, but I didn’t take a photo of that.

I also passed by the Herb & Spice Garden as well as the Bamboo Labyrinth. I stopped for a couple of quick shots.

On my way back to the Visitor Center, I also passed by the Silver Garden, which features a collection of silver, grey and white hued plants set against a backdrop of green dominated landscape. I appreciated the serenity this section of the park offered. Despite all the greyness, I still managed to find bits of color hiding in little corners, and I marveled at the genius of the Creator, and the creativity of the landscape designer.

Finally back at the Visitor Center, I stopped for a breather and a quick drink. Before long, I picked myself up and made my way out of HortPark and towards my next destination, the Forest Walk. The Forest Walk consists of an Elevated Walkway and an Earth Trail. Originally, I wanted to try the Elevated Walkway, but it was a little too elevated for my comfort. (Have I ever mentioned that I’m afraid of heights?) I only managed to cover probably 1% of the entire distance, before I quickly (and carefully) scampered down one of the exit stairways (complete with cold sweat and shaking legs, no doubt). The Earth Trail is quite rugged and seemed rather deserted since most of the visitors chose to take the Elevated Walkway, so I give up on taking the Forest Walk. However, I did venture back up on the Elevated Walkway via another entrance where the height of the walkway didn’t seem so intimidating. I spotted a pair of monkeys, probably mother and child, but they ran off before I could even whip out my camera phone. Ultimately, I had to end my Forest Walk midway as it was already getting late, and I didn’t want to risk getting stuck in the forest alone. I did take some pictures, just so that I can tell my friends “yup, been there, done that“. Maybe if I can find someone to accompany me in future, I’ll try to complete the Forest Walk.

There are still other attractions on the Southern Ridges, which HortPark, Alexandra Arch and Forest Walk are a part of. I definitely will find time to visit  the other attractions when I get a chance to. And you’ll definitely updated when I do. Meanwhile, for more photos of my little date with nature, as well as my other photos, please visit the Photos page on this blog.

Tags: life, musings, Personal

This comes a little late, but since it was the beginning of the new year, there was a pile of work sitting on my desk, waiting to be cleared. As this post comes with photos, I had to spend a little more time than usual to select and arrange the contents, so please forgive me. The entire post is a little long, so I’m going to break it up into parts. Here’s the first part, while I continue working on completing the rest.

I was given the afternoon from work on New Year’s Eve. Rather than join the crowd who have gathered for the various countdown activities in and around town, I decided visit HortPark, the up-and-coming gardening hub in Singapore, which happens to be just 3 bus-stops away from my office.

It was a bright and sunny day, perfect for taking a walk in the park and taking pictures. Although it threatened to rain a couple of times while I was in HortPark, eventually the weather turned out fine. Armed with my camera phone, some maps and a bottle of water, I happily hopped on the bus that brought me to the footsteps of Alexandra Arch, the uniquely architectured bridge that links the HortPark and the Forest Walk. My journey begins here.

I crossed the leaf-shaped structure and arrived at the entrance of HortPark and started my trail through Floral Walk. I was greeted by a variety of flowers, shrubs and trees. Some of them are quite commonly seen along the roadside, some are more rare. Apparently, not all of them were in bloom, which was quite unfortunate, but it was still a beautiful sight nonetheless.

After a short walk, I soon reached the Visitor Center of HortPark. It was obviously decorated for the festive season. I didn’t stay here for too long since I wanted to quickly visit the other attractions in the park. Just outside of the Visitor Center is the the Water Garden, a beautiful pond with an interesting collection of aquatic plants potted in specially designed geometric-shaped containers. Oh, and did I mention there was FISH in the pond? Cool!

Beyond the Water Garden was the Car Park Garden. Imagine parking your car in a garden filled with various beautiful flowers and trees. Thankfully the car park was pretty much empty, so I could easily snap snap snap with my trusty SE K800i, without causing too much inconvenience to the car park users.

to be continued…

Tags: life, musings, Personal