Jewelle Tan Personally

5 years ago today, I was awake for 36 hours.

The day before I stayed up till midnight to watch a movie on TV. Then I spent a few more hours reading in bed. Then I started to have upset stomach and soon enough contractions.

By 4 am, I decided that my contractions were regular and short in between and I got my parents to send me to the clinic.

4 hours later, Eu was born!

10 hours later, I was released to go home. The moment I reached home, I slept straightaway. So on that first night that she was home, Eu was cared for by my mother and my husband.

Until I woke up early the next morning to see her already awake, quietly looking around the room.

Eu was an easy child to care for and from early on, she charmed everyone and instinctively learn to smile and laugh even from the very beginning.

Eu was laughing hard when my sister sang to her

5 years later, she is now an articulate and articulate, “facts” dispenser, creative, sings well, smart-talking dealmaker and artistic.

5 years later and she brings a smile to my face when she sometimes ask that I call her “Sayang” and “Baby girl” to remind her and me that she is still my baby.

She has grown to have a distinctive fashion sense (long sleeve inside a dress with a long skirt underneath is one of her favorite combination) but there are times when I wish I can still carry her on my arm.

She can drive me mad sometimes with her “special ways” of doing things but I am also thankful that she is very demonstrative in her affections.

We are indeed blessed to have her in our lives and we look forward to following her journey in life.

Popularity: 23% [?]

When I visited my local public library last week, I saw a poster on the website of the “Brunei Library Association”.

However, while the idea is commendable, the result is far from inspiring. Perhaps it is still under development and hopefully it will be continually updated to live up to its tagline : “Ultimate Resources For The Aspiring Librarians”.

When that happens, I will be pleased to help spread the word around.

Speaking of librarianship, I have an ex-colleague who was offered the opportunity to work in the technical side of cataloguing (making materials easier to find and sort) which she is not so keen on. For the benefit of non-librarians, it takes a certain personality to excel in this area and even I will not willingly go into it.

However, I encouraged her to go for this post and then later find ways to seek transfer to departments that suit her strength more. Besides she plans to join this career networking site where she might find openings that interest her more.

In fact, if you did not know it, Climber is actually a useful career networking site which works by connecting professionals from any industry to potential employers. And obviously, the advantage of being headhunted through career networking site like this is that the pay is usually higher than if one were to applied for a job (as much as 15% on average). Membership is free.

Popularity: 20% [?]

Last week in the capital city, there was a briefing session on an American MBA program specially designed for managers and high level executives.

While many other MBA programs can also claim to cater for top executives, this one no doubt is definitely meant for company CEOs and those with equal power and authority.

Because the fees itself is already a cool $1++K. In US Dollars!

And this is not including the cost of traveling to various campuses around the world every few months which the stunned-to-silence-audience was told can work up to B$100K per year.

On top of that, you’d need to take one week leave to attend a study session every 5 weeks.

From the brochures, this program is definitely great and hugely beneficial. But it is by far the most expensive MBA programs that I have come across.

Even if you can afford the monetary side, I cannot imagine your boss will be too thrilled to have you take study leave for around 3 months in a year. Unless of course, you ARE the boss.

But those who have the time but not the money, you can perhaps try to look for student loans.

This particular loan provider seemed to offer really good service such as student loan consolidation where students can combine their study loans and pay lower interest rates. However, I am not sure if their private student loans service covers non-American students or most importantly, this kind of amount.

Anyway this particular MBA program did sounded like a wonderful program to join but unfortunately, the cost is simply too high.

Popularity: 23% [?]

Recently, a friend and I were discussing about another friend who seemed to be going on a lot of holidays abroad - despite being a government officer in Malaysia.

We decided that the government department where this person is working is a clear indication of how he is able to spend thousands of dollars on those holidays.

But at the same time, I also think that it is a question of priorities.

A lot of people do not go for holidays not because they cannot afford to, but because they do not want to spend money on holidays. I know many people around me who earn big income or those who retired with fat bank account but are content to stay home because to them, holiday is a waste of money.

Yet, there are folks, such as our government officer friend who may not seems to have that kind of money and yet are able to travel probably because, he makes holiday a priority and plan for it.

The other thing is of course, being smart about holiday planning.

Gone are the days when one are the mercy of travel agencies. These days, as long as you are IT literate, you could get plenty of amazing deals on the internet from free seat flights to free room stay. In fact, I bet these people who likes to travel make it a point to check out every travel site that appears in the internet such as this newly revamped portal for cheap flights based in Australia.

Apparently, this site has been around for years but lately they have been aggressively marketing their specialty service which is flights sourcing from airlines such as Singapore Airlines, Qantas and United Airlines.

The difference about this site as compared to the other travel sites is that it focuses on the Asian and Oceania market so for most of us who can only travel within the region, we are not distracted by names like Houston or Zurich but we’ll straight away see destinations like Bali, Bangkok and Hong Kong.

Anyway, when it comes to the questions of who can actually afford a holiday - I say all of us are. It’s all a matter of priorities and smart planning, don’t you agree?

Popularity: 20% [?]

Although my main search engine is Google, sometimes I dislike the fact that you can get a lot of junks in its result.

That is why I am always on the look out for a kind of directory which is not only easy to use, the results are easy on the eye and most importantly easy to assess.

One such site is the Find.com which I found recently.

Not only is it easy when it comes to keyword search, it also offers basic broad subjects that range from Electronics to Business to Sports which opens up into a page with relevant sub-categories and an encyclopedia-like article on the particular sub-category.

For example, when you clicked on Music, not only was I able to do a specific search, you would like the range of sub-categories offered here such as Music Genre (Classic Rock, Hip Hop etc), File Sharing (which gives a list of all the popular sites for file sharing), Song Lyrics and many more.

The great thing about the Find.com’s list is that they are large and easy to read with no distracting advertisements on the side. So unlike the other search engines with their tiny search result listings and adverts all over the page!

I’m definitely having this site bookmarked and I suggest that you do too.

Popularity: 17% [?]