Contentment

"He is the richest who is content with the least, for content is the wealth of nature."
-Socrates-

Dear Friends,

It has been a while, hasn't it? So many things have happened and I do not know where to start. Perhaps I should start off with my current employment at MCYS which for your knowledge stands for Ministry of Community Development, Youth and Sports and not some motorcyles company which my friend has said.

And for your knowledge, I am now multi-tasking- working and blogging at the same time. I would very much love to concentrate fully on my work but my eyes are failing me, so is my attention span. If you ever have to sort through 200 applications at one go, I believe you would understand my reason for taking a small break in my own world.

Well, perhaps I should share with you some of my working experience and especially to those who are currently on the lookout for job opportunties. Being attached to the HRD and in particular the recruitment side, I have killed almost 100 trees ( I do not know how many trees make up one stack of A4 side papers but roughly about 6 stacks of paper, haha) through printing of all the job applications. Now, I can fully understand why some employers took such a long time to contact you for an interview if you were ever being shortlisted.

There are simply too many applications for one job and simply so many degree holders that I wonder how many are still jobless at the moment. Though the statistics showed that the unemployment rate is going down, I have my doubts about it. Haha. Being skeptical I guess.

Anyway my two cents worth of advice to those job seekers, especially those seeking job in the civil sector. Kindly please fill up your application forms properly, in particular your results section.(So please do not be lazy, though I know it is very tedious having gone through it myself. As the saying goes, "No pain, No gain..Patience is a virtue"

Kindly please do not fake your highest academic qualification as dishonesty is not appreciated. Though one may say results aren't everything, they are the most objective criteria which we, recruiters can look at. Imagine having run through 200 applicantions, and you will understand why. (Ok, I think I have been repeating this quite a few times haha).

Another tip for you is to try to highlight your experience that is most relevant to the job description as stated in the advertisement as we actually based our selection on the criteria stated in the advertisement. ( By right you should know, or by left, you just can't be bothered). Ok, that should pretty sum up my learning points from my job for the moment. Stay tune for the next episode of " Idiot's Guide to Job Application in the Civil Sector" (provided that if I still have any more things to add). Alright folks, till then, good luck in your job hunting!

Work aside, recently I celebrated my 22nd birthday. For that, I did an makeover to mark the start of a new year for me. I shall post some of the photos which I have taken up here once I have decided which photos I want to develop. There are especially many septemeber babies and just last thursday, I went for a shopping birthday spree. I have bought 3 bags, 1 shawl, 1 pouch for all the september babies. In turn, I have received 1 backpack, 1 pouch, 1 bag, 1 big cushion, 1 pair of slippers, 1 bouquet of handmade flowers and 1 message in a bottle. Thank you guys! I love them all ^__^ Your friendship is the greatest gift of all.

Last weekend, I went to help the elderly living in those one room apartments to clean and paint their house. For the first, it was purely interaction and I had a fun time interacting with the ah mas, aunties and uncles. There was a lantern making competition and the theme was the east meet west. Guess what our group made? Two fishes( one goldfish from the east an one blue fish fro the west which signify the elderly and us respectively. In between the two fishes lies a lantern in a heart shape that joins us together.

And the title of our lanterns is he(3) zhuo(4) yu(1) kuai(1) whereby the he we change it to the river the he, and the yu we change it to the fish the yu. Creative right?? haha. Love our lanterns, though I wonder if it can be used. haha. Most probably, it will go up in flames once we light the candles. Anyway the process of making the lanterns was enjoyable though the elderly did not participate a lot. We just chatted with them. For me, it was a mix of chinese, hokkien cum teochew. I am amazed at my knowledge in dialects. I could actually speak in dialect! Though it wasn't perfect, or should I say far from perfect, the most important thing was that the elderly managed to understand me.

There was this ah ma who was very cute who helped me to do the heart lantern. She commented that she did not know how to make lanterns and requested me to teach her. Being an amateur too, I just 'taught' her as much as I could. Along the way we chit chatted and me being the silly me, cracked some lame jokes. She laughed, I laughed, the whole table laughed. And we were very happy making the lanterns. I love being with the elderly for no particular reason, perhaps for the stories they share with us and perhaps for the warmth they extend to us. They were very cordial and keep thanking us.

That was then I felt that I am the richest person in the whole world, not in terms of material riches but in contentment. It is good to know that what you have done is being appreciated by the people around me. And the thing that makes me the happiest is seeing their happy faces. Joy, indeed is contagious.

On the second day, we started work proper. Right from the start of the early morning, we started cleaning and packing ah ma's house. *For your information, ah ma (87 years old, with slight walking disability) lives me her son (60 sth) who is mentally unsound. Her son is particulary conscious about cleanliness and it is said that when a peck of rice is found on his hand, he will quickly go and wash it clean for a good old period of time. Hence, the water bill incurred every month is rather high.* However, during our stint there, we did not notice this situation and hence could not verify if this information is true.

Ah ma's house was packed with a lot of stuff. And an interesting thing was that there was a square piece of cloth being tied to the window. Upon questioning, we realize that it was put there to block the view of some peeping tom living in the opposite block who likes to peer into their house. We kept asking ah ma if we could fix a proper curtain for her but she insisted that it was ok. We asked her if we could throw some of the things away and she insisted that the things still can be used. (Though I have no idea what she could do with empty toilet rolls). She keep telling us to just do a simple job of cleaning up will do and that we do not have to paint the whole house as I think she do not want to trouble us.

Nevertheless being the determined lot, we vowed to do a thorough and proper cleaning and proper job. Never did I imagine that a day's work and with say 7 pple's efforts are neeed to clean and paint a one room flat. For me, I started off with the toilet which is one of the main concerns of the elderly. There were cobwebs all over the ceiling and dried paint can be seen dropping off the ceiling. And.......while I was using the toilet (literally) I spoilt the flush.
And after I spoilt the flush did ah ma came up from the waiting area downstairs to inform me of the proper way to press the flush. AHHhhhh..! Too late. And so another project of fixing the toilet flush was put into place.

The dirt that was being accumulated can only be expressed in two words, " A lot". It seems that they have not been cleaning the place for 10 years. Dust,dirt,cobwebs were everywhere. I do understand that ah ma may have difficulty cleaning up the place and hence we tried our best to get the whole place cleaned and painted.

One thing that I need to mention about the place is their beds and the occupants in their beds which are the bed bugs, in short we call it BB. Just in case you guys have not seen any bed bugs before, it s these small insect like creatures that suck blood from human bodies. Once bitten, your skin will itch and mind you, it is very itchy. To kill the bb we have to either step on them or squeeze them dead with our hands. After much persuasion, we managed to persuade ah ma to change her bed though she initially insisted that it was still relatively new. Upon further questioning then did I realize that her reason for not wanting to change, she thought she has to pay for the new mattress. And so we told her it s free and she finally accepted our offer. And also we changed the curtain for her.

As it was a bamboo curtain which I have bought from Ikea, there were holes in between. Hence when ah ma saw it, she quickly said that she wanted to change back because she thought that the peeping tom would still be able to peer through. However, after much assurance saying that people from the outside will not be able to peer in, she accepted the curtain and then was seen fiddling with the new addition to test the usability of it.

The thing that kept me going, amist my sensitive running nose and headaches (must be too much of the paint), was the wish that ah ma and her son could live in a better environment. And her final thanks.. (gam sia zui zui-meaning thank you very very much) made it all worth it. Ah ma's son, uncle was rather quiet throughout this whole event but I could see that he really like the new clean environment. Well, well, well, though I am dead tired after the two days work, I felt a new satisfcation and contentment.

As I have said, I felt that I am the richest person on earth by having the very least which is the simple joy of giving. All they need is just that extra help and their lifes can be much better off. I shall visit them this friday again to celebrate mid-autumn festival and hopefully to check that the paint is not peeling off.

So there you go, my last entry before my trip to China. Stay tune for the latest China (Beijing) update.

Satisfied and contented.
Agnes

P.S: When was the last time you helped someone?