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May 17, 2005
My Amoebic Existence (Part 1)
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Choice of Music
The morning was all about Damien Rice (while Cheer Chen could not survive past the third song on her album). No, not that I have given up listening to songs by the talented Taiwanese songwriter, but Mr. Rice’s songs just appealed on this very slow Tuesday morning in the office. There is a place and time for Chen. Just that this really isn’t the time for it. (Maybe tonight.)
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Two Pretty Lasses
Events unfolding in faraway Uzbekistan got me reading a bit on the history of the Cold War. It was no intellectual account that I chanced upon but nevertheless, it was educational, to say the least. Ever since Kazakhstan became more than just the name of a Central Asian country in my life and that I have personally experienced what a post-Soviet society is like, reports of what is going on there interest me. I mean when you have a weird situation going on in Turkmenistan (where the President could pass laws how you must dress) or a tension-filled situation in Uzbekistan while Ukraine just experienced an Orange revolution, that region is more than interesting to me.
Having said that, I could still remember that fateful evening when we were invited for an authentic Kazakh dinner after a performance at one of the churches there. I was one of the last few blokes to enter into the dining room (where most of the hosting party were waiting for us before we could start tucking in) and that meant that most of the available seats were already taken. This meant that I had to sit with the hosts and this meant that communication during dinner could be difficult since we spoke very little Kazakh or Russian while they spoke very little English. Having no other choice, I sat next to this stunningly beautiful ethnic Korean lass (who, without exaggeration, would put many of those Korean actresses in those drama serials to shame, in terms of beauty). Yes, my heart was beating faster than a drunk bloke hurling expletives. Of course, I was disappointed, when while reaching for a salad dish (cucumber, carrots and another vegetable drenched in sweet vinegar), I noticed that there was a ring on her third finger and almost immediately, I caught sight of the other bloke sitting next to her wrapping his arms around her waist. The cheeky peeps from my group (sitting in the opposite direction) even took a photo of the both of us tucking into our meals. Other than those obligatory and polite shy exchanges of smiles, we never talked.
Then, there was this petite but also pretty Uighur lass (who was more than six years younger than me) whom I sat in front of during our dinner on our final night in Almarty. Thick eye-brows, plump, hair dyed in a golden-brown hue and large eyes, she was a medical student whose ambition in life was to further her studies in Italy one day because she loved the language. Unfortunately, she spoke no English and I had to depend on our faithful Uighur friend (who spoke good English and Mandarin) to translate for us during the entire dinner. She was dressed in a turtle-necked woolen top (it was autumn there then), pants and boots.
Maybe one day, I would plonk both their photos here.
Then again, despite being their dinner companions, I knew not their names.
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Hype and More Hype
It is all around us. You could hear the jingles on the radio. You saw it on and in the bus. You could hardly miss it on the screens in whichever MRT station you were at for the past week or so. Ads of it were splashed on the pages of our local rags. What I reckon is that within the next fortnight, people will be blogging about it (and linking spoofs, created with a local flavour or otherwise, here, there and everywhere) until we go beyond saturation point.
Well, even before it premieres here, I have gotten a bit sick of it. Or perhaps, the entire thing has been dragging on way too long that it is no longer as intriguing as it was back in the Seventies and early Eighties. Or maybe I was so unimpressed with the previous two installments that I subconsciously believed that the third one and allegedly best of the lot might do no better.
Inevitably, the great media hype over this got people talking about it. While having dinner with some mates last week, it was brought up as one of the conversation topics. It started off as a casual question about what we intended to do during this coming long weekend (thanks to Vesak Day) and someone commented that she obtained the all-important tickets to watch it over the weekend.
A: We should watch it.
B: Yah. D W, when do you intend to watch it?
D W: (blank look) A month from now? When the theatres are quieter…
A & B: (cocking their eyebrows simultaneously) …
Perhaps Bioware did such a great job over the game “Knights of the Old Republic” that I needed no boring and un-interactive movie to get me immersed in the whole Star Wars pop culture / craze (delete as appropriate). I mean, why be the captive audience when you can flash your lightsabre around in the game?
Anyway, to me, the plots in some Jap sci-fi anime are way more interesting and less one-dimensional. For one, they do not have a sideshow like Jar-Jar Binks to begin with…
(Swiped from one internet forum, this is a great write-up which gives you 40 reasons to get tired of Star Wars.)
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Second Last Word On…
It is a little frustrating to see so much “navel-gazing” (quoting one notable blogger) on events which happened within the past month in our local blogsphere. If everyone had their own spot on the local telly to give and air their analysis of the situation, the show would last longer than the popular Holland Village drama serial. Link here and say something there, link there and say something here, which leads to further analysis and so on and so forth. Gee… why is there so much information dissection going on? Is this borne out of fear or concern or simply a “fastest-finger-first” (to get the most spot-on analysis, so everyone can cheer?) syndrome?
At the end of the day, it is all about bloody cow (or rather common) sense. At the end of the day, it is all about how people should be sharp, shrewd and smart enough before they do the things they should not do and not do the things they should do.
If everyone believes that whatever that is created under heaven is a playground for you to indulge in your whims and fancies, then play at your peril. Except for what goes on in your head and as long as the thoughts are not openly articulated, no one can go after you holding a butcher’s knife.
Until they invent the mind-reader, that is.
***
Job Search: The Benchmark for One’s Worth in the Employers’ Market
If the number of rejections for job applications I have received is any indication of my abilities, then perhaps will it be fair enough for me to feel as though I am an idiot of an invalid who should be better off begging on the streets?
Just received one today (which did not come as a surprise), since I read enough of those non-verbal cues from my interviewers on that fateful day to have known enough of my fate.
Based on my observations, here is a little list of the common non-verbal and verbal cues that I have picked up through all the interviews I have had:
(a) First Impressions
As you stride into the room and see your interviewers for the first time, you see them looking a little exhausted, a little disinterested and there was an air of “it’s-the-end-of-the-day-let’s-get-this-over-and-done-with”, your chances of securing the job have reduced dramatically by more than 20%.
(b) Game of Genders
If you are a bloke and your panel of interviewers is made up of blokes while the rest of the fellow interviewees are lasses, your chances will be significantly less fatalistic if you wore a skirt for the interview. This may apply for the vice-versa situation.
(c) Time
If it took less than ten minutes from the moment you were ushered into the room to the time when the chief interviewer asked if you had any further questions, it would be fair to say that their compassion (for you having to dress up, make it all the way to their office and be put through the agonizing wait or to fill up endless forms for them) was the only reason why they had to spend that ten minutes on you.
(d) Facial Expressions / Posture
If your interviewer is leaning forward, that denotes interest. If your interviewer is asking more questions than that standard “what are you doing currently for your job?” and/or “why are you applying for this job?”, this is also good news. If your answers manage to make them smile a little (of the genuine sort), you may have gotten yourself on their good books. If they are shooting you one difficult or awkward question after another, you are being put through the sterner tests, after having successfully aced their simpler set of questions.
(e) The All-Important Question(s)
If, at any point of the interview, the interviewer were to ask you whether you were applying for other similar jobs or that they asked whether you would consider another job offer within their organisation, you can stop pining and start looking forward to the next edition of the increasingly and pathetically thin Recruit section on Saturday.
Here, this is all that I can think of for now. Excuse me while I go mourn over my newly-acquired status of an obese amoeba…
Posted by D W at May 17, 2005 04:29 PM
Comments
Haha, and dare you say one negative thing about the martyr that was AcidFlask, you get shot down by the cavalry *grin* I am reminded why i stopped reading Singaporean blogs... except this issue is so important it made its way into LJ as well... i'm tired of it. I'm tired of the hunger for international acclaim, tangible results, and show boating that seems to define Singaporean character now, through good and bad - if nothing were graded, Sg would have faded from existence.
Posted by: C at May 17, 2005 06:32 PM
Agree with all that you've said. :)
Posted by: D W at May 18, 2005 03:48 PM