Summer so far...

Almost a month has flown by since the start of summer break and I'm loving it. I'm third week into my internship at EY and I'm liking it so far. Despite having to work, I feel thankful everyday because I'm FREE after 5.30pm from Mon-Fri and on weekends!!! I don't have to think about deadlines, project, assignments... ... ...

It feels good to be free and I'm praying that the break isn't going to be over before I know it.

Internship at EY has been pretty fun so far! Surprisingly, I really enjoy doing the tasks given to me although I must say that the learning curve is still pretty steep right now. I usually spend hours wrecking my brain, trying to digest all the info before finally being able to start on the computations. (I wouldn't have believed it if someone were to tell me I would find tax fun when I was in Poly.)

All interns had to work in groups to design posters and do a presentation on it by the end of Week 1. And guess what? WE WON THE FIRST PRIZE!!! The partners really enjoyed our skit and we won $20 Taka voucher each!!!!

Well, I must admit I put in minimal effort for this because I just couldn't be bothered at first. But seeing how serious and enthu my orientation group was, I had to put in more effort to play along. Still, my contributions are negligible but I got to meet a really nice bunch of people!!

Despite being a pretty big group, I think our personalities really complemented one another and we could work together very well! :) It's a pity we're all in different departments which makes it harder for us to meet up for lunch-es.

Very lucky to have someone you already know in the same team as you!! :)

And guess what?? Jessica and I are in the same department!!! After 3 years of being classmates in Poly, there is a high chance that we are going to become colleagues! Haha.

Courtesy of EY, we were very well-fed during the first week of internship. We get snacks for tea break everyday. And on the day of presentation, we even get a packet of Garrett popcorn each!! Super welfare please.

My very own desk with my name tag on!

My stack of work...

I must say I am really very lucky. Honestly, I wasn't very keen to join EY initially because I felt that maybe some other firms are better. But it turns out that EY has a very strong tax team! And on top of that, I'm really lucky to be in this department because not every department's interns get their own desk. LOL.

Aside from this minor stuff, everyone in the office is really patient and helpful with us! I mean, our charge rate is so freaking low so it doesn't matter how many hours we use in doing our work. BUT everyone's still really approachable! (At least on the surface... We'll never know if they are actually complaining how slow we interns work HAHAHA)

Given my 6-week internship in PwC audit department and 3 weeks and counting experience in EY tax department, I think the most stark difference in the two departments: the atmosphere. In audit, the office is SO quiet and solemn you can almost hear a paper drop onto the floor. Partly because the people are usually out doing fieldwork, but mostly because people are almost trying to finish some impossible amount of work in a short period of time. As a result, you mostly see glum-looking people around and it's so hard to really have friends because you work with so many different people and everyone usually leave after 2-3 years.

On the contrary, people in the tax department are very observably happier. The whole atmosphere just feels different with happy people around! (And most of the managers look so young and their skin look so good!!!! Probably because there's not as much stress LOL)

Can I foresee this as a long-term career? I think so. But it's only the beginning so it's still too early to decide!







Sissy flew to Aussie with BIL on Saturday and baby Rae has been babysitted by my parents since. So the past week I'm always greeted by Raegan's baby talks and mumbling, when I come back from work, which are usually super animated, except we do not understand anything at all.

 Rae facetime-ing with his Mummy

I brought him down for a stroll.

The house gets so much livelier with him around. Kids bring so much joy to the family! You just have to see them waddling around, babbling to themselves and hear them laugh to themselves and you'll feel so much happier! And it's usually so easy to make them to make them happy!!! You just have to do silly things with them or simply bring them downstairs to get them hyped up!!

And as I'm typing this blogpost, Raegan is sitting behind me on my bed babbling to himself and fiddling with my rubrics cube.

After Raegan come into existence, I realised that there is a huge role reversal between my parents. My mum has always been the disciplinarian when I was growing up. But the soft spot she has for Rae is UNBELIEVABLE.

She never loses her temper with Rae. No matter how Rae throws tantrum or refuses to eat or starts screaming for attention, she'll find it amusing and probably even adorable. Instead, my dad becomes the one shouting at Rae when he misbehaves. And every single day I hear this conversation between my parents of how my mum tells my dad that he shouldn't be so harsh to Rae and my dad insisting that Rae will get out of hand if he doesn't start disciplining now.

That's the impact Raegan has on my parents. :)

Bali 2014

It has been a really tough semester for me. I just got back from 5 months of carefree adventure in January and school started 3 days after I landed in Singapore. For the past 4 months, I barely had time for myself. I was battling with sudden acne outbreak, depressed over being unable to find a tuition assignment (which I still have not), constantly wrestling with assignments and deadlines and frequently staying in school till late/burning my weekends trying to finish up projects without compromising on the quality. Towards the second half of the semester, I couldn't even afford a dinner date with friends and chilling session over a couple of drinks.

I think the worst of the worst is how I overwork my mind and constantly get insomnia that leaves me sleepless, sometimes up to DAYS. It's like I get SO worn out mentally but my mind refuses to shut down and go to sleep. After hours of tossing and turning and reminding myself of the fact that I gotta get up in like 3 hours' time got me even must frustrated and it got even harder to fall asleep.

Just over the exam period of 2 weeks, I think I lost sleep for at least 4 nights. Insomnia isn't a new problem to me but I think it has gotten worse in the recent years/months. When I was in the States, I constantly had problems falling asleep too. I tried aromatherapy, drinking chamomile tea, sleeping in new positions, increasing the number of pillows, listening to slow songs, counting sheeps, taking in deeper breaths, taking hot shower 3 hours before bed, sleep on the mattress on the floor, go jogging in the evening, reading a really boring book etc etc. Sometimes they work, other times they just don't. Let me know if you have some effective remedy before I fall into depression.

Anyways, having said all that, I'm really glad I pulled through everything, including sending an email to a prof whom I think has undermined the quality of our work. For my acne outbreak, I've gotten A LOT better. It took months and I was really depressed over it. I went to see a really expensive dermatologist who prescribed me with antibiotics and some cream for application. The recovery process was slow and painful (not literally). I cried on some nights thinking about all these issues that I have... The acne are mostly gone and the scars are not left to fade off on their own. I am really hoping it doesn't haunt me again!




So to celebrating the end of my toughest-semester yet, Kw and I booked a trip to Bali!!! It's been more than a year since we went overseas together. The last time was right before he enlisted in September 2012. It was pretty last minute because he can't just take time off work as he like so I must say we splurged on this trip. Despite all, I think that the deal voucher we got from deal.com for our poolside villa was absolutely worth every cent!

We paid $700 (after additional discount, teehee!) for a 3D2N stay at the villa. The package included:

• Daily breakfast served by butlers to our villa
• A picnic lunch
• 90 minutes massage
• To and fro airport transfer (they even prepared water for us upon arrival!!! Super 贴心!)
• Welcome drink
• Honeymoon setup

This is the name and address of the villa we stayed in - Ziva a Boutique Villa

Going to the check-in counter to check in to our flight! :) 

Took a photo of this cuz they were really pretty! Well, not really in this photo cuz it's static. But the real thing was moving up and down in sync like it was a performance! 

And we set off to Bali!!!

My last paper ended at 11am and our flight was at 4pm. That was how badly we had to get out of Singapore. Hahaha. Heavily photoshopped photo (as you can see) because I was super sleep-deprived and I looked as cui as you can imagine. 

But no you don't have to start imagining.

After 2.5 hours, we reached Denpasar airport! The villa staff was holding onto a paper with my name on it. Feels so special hahaha. (I forgot to take a photo of that -_-)

And finally, we got to our villa!

It was a room just surrounded with glass doors and windows. The pool is right outside! 

The living area 

 The pavilion where we have our breakfast.

Pretty decorations!

Took better pictures in the day when the sun is out:

We cannot decipher if this is a bathtub or just a tub for us to soak our legs. It's big enough for 2 yet kinda too shallow. So this is pretty but we didn't really do much (plus the fact that it was surrounded by a handful of ants) with it other than admire its beauty. Hahahaha.  

Yes, the pool it right there. You can dip in right after opening the doors! 

By the time we settled down, it was already pretty late and there was nothing much we can do. But fortunately, there was a stretch of restaurants about 3 minutes walk away from our villa. So off to dinner we go!

"Chocolate Milkshake" which taste 100% like HL chocolate milk.

Me full of intent looking down because I look super shag and my face was oily untillllll 

Steak for Kw and Pork Ribs for me, with a plate of 'cheese fries' which was really nothing like cheese fries besides having some drizzled melted cheese over it, that barely covered 20% of the fries -_-

This was when I found out one bad point about the area we were staying at: it was far away from good and cheap local food. Almost every restaurant served western/Italian food, and honestly I still do not crave for these food ever since I got back from the States.

We strolled around for a bit, did some grocery shopping and headed back to our villa to wash up (finally) and snuggled under the covers. It was SO comfy I cannot even...........

The next day, the butlers came at 9am to serve us breakfast!

 (Wellllll, the butlers were late the first morning so we had plenty of time for photos.)

Let me take some selfie before breakfast!

They had quite a few selections. I chose Eggs Benny for both days because it came with ham, which looked like the nicest on the menu. We had a fruit platter, french toast and pancake for appetizer/ Eggs Benedict and Egg White Omelette w Mushrooms and Onions as the main. (The boy totally regretted his choice of main so I donated my ham and egg to him lol)

And then we went for some water sports!! We bought a package for parasailing, jetskiing, banana boat and ocean walker. The driver came to pick us up at 10am. Lunch and transport was provided. All the activities took about 2 hours? It was pretty expensive but we had try everything once in our lives rightttt? Everything sounded scary but everything wasn't half as scary as we thought.

This was parasailing!

When you're about to land, the staff will raise either the blue flag or the orange flag to signify whether you should pull the left or right side of the parachute. It was super stressful because I was super afraid that I wasn't doing it right or that I didn't do it at the right time. They were Indonesians and they tried to shout out to us in mandarin, “先生，拉蓝色拉蓝色，大力点大力点!!!! 两只手一起拉!!!" which made it even for stressful because you might not even know they are talking to you. Thank goodness Kw went first so I could watch and learn at the side before it was my turn. LOL.

Jetski was a super awkward experience for me. There was an instructor sitting at the back to guide us on separate jetski. After skiing away from the shore, they gave us the chance to try it on our own, and I guess I was not very good at it cuz I accidentally kept jerking, and what happens next? The instructor was slammed against my back several times and he was literally sticking onto my back, if you get what I mean. I was so embarrassed the whole time it was difficult to enjoy the process. Lol.

Ocean walker was eye-opening! We sat on a speedboat out and geared up with 'shoes' and an oxygen-filled helmet (which was super heavy) and we got down to walk on the seabed and look at fishes! Everyone was given a slice of bread so that we can feed the fishes and catch a better glimpse of them!

I didn't take any pictures and that got me thinking that I should probably get some waterproof camera casing.....

After lunch, we got back to the villa and waited for our picnic hamper to be served to us in the villa as dinner. Meanwhile, we took a swim in the pool and just chilled the afternoon away with some beer.

As you know, I'm not an alcohol/beer person. So this is just pretty much how much I drank. LOL. Most of the time, beer bottles acts more like a photo tool for me. 

Cheers to the best afternoon ever.

Washed up and waiting for our early dinner!

HERE COMES FOOD.

And look at it, it is HELL LOT for 2 persons. In my opinion, sandwiches and fries could easily have been the main course but we still had burgers and more fries! The food came with spring rolls and fried banana with chocolate sauce. Everything was just carbssssss so we obviously couldn't have finished them. 

After taking some pictures, we decided that it was too warm to eat in the pavilion so...........

We moved everything into the aircon-ed villa and watched How I Met Your Mother as we enjoyed our starchy dinner. :)

After dinner, I got an idea and we started taking some lo-man-tic pictures!

Yes, the behind-the-scenes are retarded. LOL. 

 After the first round of self-timed shots, I told Kw to change his hoodie because it's just so not photo-worthy. Hahahaha.

And so he did! 

My favourite out of the lot.

We don't know if it was just us, but we felt that many of these pictures (including the ones in hoodie above) made us look like siblings.....so we stopped taking pictures. Haahahaha. And the more I looked at it, the more it feels that way. You think??

Walked to Seminyak Square which was only 7-min walk away. It was supposed to be one of the better places for shopping.............but it was already about 7pm and most booths/shops were closed.

Turns out it was an uneventful night. And Kw was having tummy upset so we headed back after exploring the area and cuddled the night away with How I Met Your Mother under the covers.

On the last day (sadly), we had breakfast in the villa again!

After breakfast, we waited for our masseurs in the room for our in-room massage! 

(Yep, we were very drawn to the comfy pillows and bed.)

Well, as you can see, they were also enjoying whatever was showing on TV while giving us the massage.

Had a final swim in the private pool after the massage before we checked out and set off to explore!

Yes, it was difficult to say goodbye. Hahaha.

After checking out, we have 5-6 hours to spare before going to the airport. The day before, we asked the driver what are some must-have local food and he told us that one of the authentic Balinese food is called Babi Guling, which is essentially sucking pig!

I googled for one around the area and we took a cab to Pak Malen @ Sunset Road for one of the more popular stalls!

The first cab wanted to charge us 50,000RP ($5.56SGD) for sending us there. Knowing that he's definitely trying to tok us, we flagged for another cab that was willing to go by meter. Wanna take a chance to guess the fare?? 20,000RP (2.22SGD)!!! The first driver inflated the fare to more than 200% -_- Anyways, we paid the driver 30,000RP instead since it was so cheap and he was honest. Lol.

Reviews online gave very good comments about the soup! Which was indeed very flavourful! It looks like it should taste like the soup in mee soto but it really tasted like fish maw soup instead!

The dish comes in a set like this, with rice. I do not really know what is what. Except the light brown crispy looking thing which should be fried fish maw (or fried some part of the fish) and the brown skin right below it is the suckling pig! 

Everything tasted better than it looks! It was a good local food experience. The weather was freaking hot and everything on that dish was spicy, so it got me perspiring all over and despite it being not too big a serving, I took a longer-than-expected time to finish because it was just too HOT.

After lunch, we took a cab back to Seminyak Square, hoping to have more things to buy than the night before. But nopeeeee, absolutely nothing to buy.

Since it was such a hot day, we went hunting for Gelato ice-cream in an air-conditioned cafe.

Yes technology slave at work.

We had pretty much nothing left to do for the next 2.5 hours so we headed to the nearest beach, called the Ku De Ta Beach! The waitress made it sound really near but we didn't really know the way so we hailed cab. And guess what? We were at our location before the meter even jumped once. LOL. That was just how near it was.

Rented a beach chair and spent the next 2 hours listening to the sound of the waves crashing onto the shore and enjoying the sea breeze.

It was a beach awesome for surfing! Makes me determined to learn surfing some day so I can go surfing around the world's beaches!

And when we got bored.......................

LOL. Everyone deserves the chance to take a teenage-ish photo like that ok. Don't judge.

Before heading back to the villa and to the airport, we had our dinner at this restaurant that was perpetually packed no matter how many times we walked past it - Rumours.

Honeydew juice

Mushroom soup 

BBQ Chic Wings! 

Lobster Pasta!

The food was not fantastic but it was pretty cheap for the standard!

And that pretty much wraps up our Bali trip! Balinese people are mostly polite and friendly. They have very good service standards be it at restaurants or for activities! The best part of it was definitely the villa! Everything was well-taken care of and Ziva Villa exceeded my expectations by having things like insecticide in the room and preparing water for us after our flight.

It was the most luxurious holiday yet. I really enjoyed unwinding in Bali and we'll be back for more!!!

And lastly, I love you, xoxo.