3p||<

This incident happened a few years back when I went on a holiday to Italy with Esh…

We were done with our shopping and we decided to take the Metro back to our hotel as we thought it will be cheap and safe since there were 4 of us travelling together. We were soon to be proven wrong.

The moment we stepped into the train, a group of gypsies immediately surrounded the 3 girls (Esh was with 2 other girls) and I tried to intervene but the gypsies kept getting in my way. They gypsies then all got off the train at the next station and we quickly took an inventory check. One of the girls (not Esh) lost her wallet, and Esh told me that in the confusion they nearly managed to unzip my waist pouch but she pulled their hands back in time!

The mood was always great every Friday because a group of us would pay a visit to the Macs at level 1 of the office building and buy ice cream to eat in the office.

Back when I first got my SLR, a bunch of flowers from a friend’s wedding took centrestage as my first trial subject.

This happened about 6 years back when I took leave from work so I could go to Tiffany’s to get the engagement ring for Esh. Luckily I knew what design she liked so it was much easier. The main task was to get the correct ring size.

As I had to meet her later in the day, I had to hide the ring somewhere. As it turned out, I bought a shaver later so I thought it would be a good idea to hide it inside since I presumed she wouldn’t bother to take a look.

Later during dinner, for some reason, she wanted to take a look at the shaver that I bought. I had to make some lame excuse and I suppose she suspected that something was up but luckily she couldn’t guess exactly what!

My ex-company sponsored my certifications for the SCJP and the SCWCD (Sun Certified Java Programmer and Sun Certified Web Component Developer) as there was a government scheme called CITREP that allowed for them to claim the costs of the course. However, to get the maximum rebate, I had to pass the exams!

The exams were not exactly a piece of cake as many of the questions required thinking like a compiler! I had to spend lotsa lotsa time studying just to pass these exams…

Shortly after working in my first job, me and some other newbies were assigned by the HOD to make arrangements for the department retreat at Sentosa. As it turned out, the company had some chalets available for use at Sentosa, and all we had to do was to inform HR.

It was quite fun to take time off from work to go to Sentosa to make arrangements and set things up for the retreat. Although it was still considered “work”, it was nevertheless more fun!

Those days of such staff benefits are long gone. A year or two after the retreat, the chalets were all returned to Sentosa.

There was an SIA promotion a few years back where Perth tickets were going at a bargain price. My mum managed to get some tickets and suddenly I was informed to travel along with Esh on short notice.

Luckily enough, my boss was flexible enough and he was ok with me going on the short trip. Of course, there was a whole load of work waiting for me once I got back…

While I was prepared to be a parent, the impact of being one didn’t hit me until L-A was actually in my arms and both Esh and I had to care for her.

I always wondered why people bothered to have children especially since they seemed to be so much trouble, but now I know that it will never be possible to understand the love that a parent has for a child until a person has a child of his/her own…

It was all planned out nicely. The wedding ceremony where Esh and I exchanged rings was to be done on a small stage which was separated from the main area by a small pond of fish. If youhave problems visualing this, go to Altivo at Mount Faber to take a look.

Too bad it rained and everything had to be done under the roof instead…

One of the great flexibilities that my first job offered was that lunch-time was “flexible” to a certain extent, and a group of us in the same department decided to go for some exercise during lunch time at the company club to keep ourselves fit.

Most of the time, we could not fit our exercise routine within the one hour lunch time, but I suppose no one really minded since the bosses knew about it but never really brought up a case with us…