I just realised I'm a dunwannabe. Never wannabe this or that, always dunwanna be this and that.
I’m turning 29 tomorrow! Ben managed to get this Sunday & Monday off, so it’s our first birthday together. A HSBC rep who handled Ben’s banking stuff insisted that Ben must cook for me… Don’t you think that’s so expected? Like, “oh, your husband’s a chef so you probably get to eat really nice food huh” or “oh, your husband’s a chef so you don’t need to worry about cooking huh”…
If that’s the case, then I wonder what people say to Ben? Like, “oh, your wife’s a housewife who was a graphic designer and who’s in limbo between graphic design, early childhood education and 'tai-tai-hood' so you probably get really creative lectures about how to wipe your nose while keeping the kitchen clean?”
We've realised that time, or the day, passes real quickly here. We figured it’s cos since you get more hours of daylight here (it’s bright n sunny from 6am till 7.30pm), your body automatically works on “daytime mode” right up till sunset. Ok, firstly I wake up rather late lah… Say about 11.30am or sometimes even later in the afternoon! Then I either prepare cover letters to fax or email out, get something to eat, do laundry or house cleaning when necessary… By 5-6pm I may go out to the nearby shops for grocery shopping, faxing or internet surfing till 7-9pm… Then by 10-11pm it’s time to prepare dinner, read the papers or Dubai guide books, wait for Ben to get home, have dinner at 1-2am, sleep.
I’m still looking n applying for graphic design jobs, cos the teaching jobs require you to be British, American or “western educated” – their way of saying “we only hire angmohs”. Like out of 5, I get a call back from 1, and find out that the company is located far from our Timbuktu home. So what I do now is go for the interview anyway and ask them if I can do freelance work for them… which is usually no cos most employers of course want someone whose neck they can breathe down all day.
Ben n I have sorted out our monthly budget and hope we can stick to it cos based on how much we have to send back to Singapore to settle bills, etc, and the amount we spend here, it’s quite alarming that Ben doesn’t get to save much. That’s why I’m still hoping I’ll get a job soon so we can at least have a bit more to save (and splurge…). But it’s a good thing I was jobless last month or the Summer Sales would have killed me! So tempting… It’s like 80% of the stuff goes on sale at 50% discount, and the last week of the sale (that was last week), it gets slashed another 50% so it’s 75% off the original price.
So back to our monthly budget… We spent like about Dhs.800 on groceries (foodstuff only) last month! I guess it’s hard to calculate how much we actually spend/need cos The Housemate and I take turns to buy stuff like rice, oil, eggs, etc, and even though I use it more regularly than he does, when he has his “China Parties” he uses up a lot of stuff at one go, so I’m not sure exactly how much foodstuff Ben n I need a month. Right now I’ve set the budget at Dhs.500 and hope I can keep it to that or less.
We also spent damn a lot on cabfare, so now I’ve downloaded all the routes, maps n timetables for the public bus service so that we can budget our travelling expenses a little. But Ben doesn’t really like the idea of me travelling by public bus here. I guess I’ll try it out at least a couple of times first to see how “convenient and efficient” it is and whether it’s considered “safe” by Ben’s standards.
There’s a restaurant/café in Ibn Battuta Mall that is equipped with wi-fi whatever-you-call-it and I tried it out a few weeks back. In the end, it’s still better to pay Dhs.10 an hour at the nearby shops, cos connection at that wi-fi place was really slow, and to take a cab back from there costs me Dhs.30, plus another Dhs.10 to buy a drink and sit there… So even if I sit my butt there for 5 hours, I can’t get much done due to the slow connection.
Before I left Singapore, I applied online for a cabin crew position with Emirates Airlines. When I got here, I got in touch with my bro’s friend, Juline who flies with Emirates to ask her whatever I wanted to know about the job. She used to fly with SQ too, and comparing working with both airlines, with Emirates, much better pay, but shorter layovers and horrible passengers. Apparently the economy class cabin is converted into a dump after each meal service as the pax are really messy and demanding. It’s like an SQ Madras turn, but on almost every flight! And she said to be able to make it and enjoy the job, you have to be very “garang” and get your way with the rest, no need for the SQ “please go ahead cos you’re senior n I love your hair n nails” culture. It’s a dog eat dog world for Emirates crew.
So this kinda got me worried cos I totally cannot be “garang” lah so for sure kena bully by the big angmoh “girls”. And on top of that, Drew’s friend said that Emirates wasn’t hiring married girls anymore because of some maternity leave and benefits thing. So I decided to forget about “a rewarding career with Emirates”.
Then one day I get a call from them asking me to attend a group interview. Ben said I should just go, see-see, get free makan… So I went even though I wasn’t looking forward to working with “garang” people, but only cos they pay really well (like ten thousand dirhams a month including allowances, plus lodging, transport, etc) … It was supposed to be a whole day affair, from 7.30am onwards. Of course, it would be a whole day affair if you were lucky to get through the various rounds of “elimination”. My “whole day affair” ended by 10.30am!
There were about 23 of us “candidates”, about 4 guys, the rest girls. 80% Filipino and the rest a mixture of Kenyan, angmoh, and the “lain-lain” like me. So first off, they make you wait in the bloody cold reception area for an hour till your fingernails turn blue. Then in a room, two ex-crew tell you all about the airline, the job, life in Dubai, etc. Then each “candidate” goes into a room for the “Reach” test, where they test if you can reach a certain mark on the wall with your arm/hand, which is the minimum height requirement to access onboard safety equipment. I managed to reach it on tiptoes lah.
Then, we’re divided into two groups, do some icebreaking intro thing and given a topic to discuss in 10 minutes. The topic for my group of 12 was, imagine you have to create a new world. You have to name this new world and come up with 10 professionals who will belong to this new world. Professionals must be creative, not the usual engineer, doctor, etc.
So my group starts discussing, and waste probably 8 minutes with one guy giving a detailed bio of Lance Armstrong and why he should be in this new world, and the next girl stating why that Princess Di, Prince Charle’s “wife” (didn’t she mean late ex-wife?) should be part of this new world… only to be interrupted by the facilitator that we don’t have to name specific individuals.
So finally, based on one of the facilitators' suggestions and because we had only 2 minutes left, we came up with an imaginary underwater world called Sea World (oh wow, sungguh kreatif), and we have a king, queen, doctor, driver, etc, etc. I didn’t really come up with anything except stupid smart ass remarks which was probably the cause of my “elimination”! Like someone said that Sea World needed someone to keep the water clean, like a filter, so I was like…
Bernie: Ya, a sea sponge! We can name him Bob.
SOUND: WEAK LAUGHTER FROM A FEW PEOPLE JUXTAPOSED WITH THE CHIRPING OF CRICKETS.
Then there was this girl from Lebanon, who at the start of the day had already told the room about how sad a state her country is in, oh war, war… I’m really not being a bitch, and we all feel sad about Lebanon and war-torn countries, but she just kept this sad and pathetic look on her face all day, and all her remarks were like, “oh my country war…” So when someone mentioned that our Sea World should have a warrior, she said “oh, no war, our world must have no war”. Which is of course utopically true, but smart ass Bernie then said…
Bernie: The only way you can have a world without war is if everyone was identical so that no one will envy each other…
SOUND: MORE CHIRPING OF CRICKETS.
So of course, those who didn’t say a word during the discussion, and the insensitive smart ass one didn’t get through to the next round lah. And those who came up with creative suggestions like King, Queen, Warrior, Doctor, Driver, Consultant, etc, as well as Miss Lebanon got through. Some more, no free makan, man!
So now I wonder, if they don’t want smart asses as cabin crew, why does SQ now prefer to hire degree holders, and offer early promotion to cabin crew with degrees? I mean, all an airline needs is a stewardess who wants world peace. Now with SQ dropping in ranking for Best Airline, Best Cabin Crew, etc, I've come up with a solution for SIA to boost their image and re-invent the Singapore Girl - a Singapore Girl Search reality show.
An intense regionwide competition to see who can suck up to the seniors the best while eating humble pie till she pukes without messing up her super wayang make-up, and she should puke whatever she eats cos she has to make sure she's skinny enough for SQ standards, so stick thin that she can squeeze through two carts parked side by side but can hardly lift a fire extinguisher. Then she has to hold a degree in any discipline but ensure she entertains passengers with really intelligent conversation like how she wants to study 'law', and ponder before n after each flight why she's called a Singapore Girl when she's from Malaysia, Indonesia, India, China, Japan or Korea, and why people say she's "a great way to fly".
I’m turning 29 tomorrow! Ben managed to get this Sunday & Monday off, so it’s our first birthday together. A HSBC rep who handled Ben’s banking stuff insisted that Ben must cook for me… Don’t you think that’s so expected? Like, “oh, your husband’s a chef so you probably get to eat really nice food huh” or “oh, your husband’s a chef so you don’t need to worry about cooking huh”…
If that’s the case, then I wonder what people say to Ben? Like, “oh, your wife’s a housewife who was a graphic designer and who’s in limbo between graphic design, early childhood education and 'tai-tai-hood' so you probably get really creative lectures about how to wipe your nose while keeping the kitchen clean?”
We've realised that time, or the day, passes real quickly here. We figured it’s cos since you get more hours of daylight here (it’s bright n sunny from 6am till 7.30pm), your body automatically works on “daytime mode” right up till sunset. Ok, firstly I wake up rather late lah… Say about 11.30am or sometimes even later in the afternoon! Then I either prepare cover letters to fax or email out, get something to eat, do laundry or house cleaning when necessary… By 5-6pm I may go out to the nearby shops for grocery shopping, faxing or internet surfing till 7-9pm… Then by 10-11pm it’s time to prepare dinner, read the papers or Dubai guide books, wait for Ben to get home, have dinner at 1-2am, sleep.
I’m still looking n applying for graphic design jobs, cos the teaching jobs require you to be British, American or “western educated” – their way of saying “we only hire angmohs”. Like out of 5, I get a call back from 1, and find out that the company is located far from our Timbuktu home. So what I do now is go for the interview anyway and ask them if I can do freelance work for them… which is usually no cos most employers of course want someone whose neck they can breathe down all day.
Ben n I have sorted out our monthly budget and hope we can stick to it cos based on how much we have to send back to Singapore to settle bills, etc, and the amount we spend here, it’s quite alarming that Ben doesn’t get to save much. That’s why I’m still hoping I’ll get a job soon so we can at least have a bit more to save (and splurge…). But it’s a good thing I was jobless last month or the Summer Sales would have killed me! So tempting… It’s like 80% of the stuff goes on sale at 50% discount, and the last week of the sale (that was last week), it gets slashed another 50% so it’s 75% off the original price.
So back to our monthly budget… We spent like about Dhs.800 on groceries (foodstuff only) last month! I guess it’s hard to calculate how much we actually spend/need cos The Housemate and I take turns to buy stuff like rice, oil, eggs, etc, and even though I use it more regularly than he does, when he has his “China Parties” he uses up a lot of stuff at one go, so I’m not sure exactly how much foodstuff Ben n I need a month. Right now I’ve set the budget at Dhs.500 and hope I can keep it to that or less.
We also spent damn a lot on cabfare, so now I’ve downloaded all the routes, maps n timetables for the public bus service so that we can budget our travelling expenses a little. But Ben doesn’t really like the idea of me travelling by public bus here. I guess I’ll try it out at least a couple of times first to see how “convenient and efficient” it is and whether it’s considered “safe” by Ben’s standards.
There’s a restaurant/café in Ibn Battuta Mall that is equipped with wi-fi whatever-you-call-it and I tried it out a few weeks back. In the end, it’s still better to pay Dhs.10 an hour at the nearby shops, cos connection at that wi-fi place was really slow, and to take a cab back from there costs me Dhs.30, plus another Dhs.10 to buy a drink and sit there… So even if I sit my butt there for 5 hours, I can’t get much done due to the slow connection.
Before I left Singapore, I applied online for a cabin crew position with Emirates Airlines. When I got here, I got in touch with my bro’s friend, Juline who flies with Emirates to ask her whatever I wanted to know about the job. She used to fly with SQ too, and comparing working with both airlines, with Emirates, much better pay, but shorter layovers and horrible passengers. Apparently the economy class cabin is converted into a dump after each meal service as the pax are really messy and demanding. It’s like an SQ Madras turn, but on almost every flight! And she said to be able to make it and enjoy the job, you have to be very “garang” and get your way with the rest, no need for the SQ “please go ahead cos you’re senior n I love your hair n nails” culture. It’s a dog eat dog world for Emirates crew.
So this kinda got me worried cos I totally cannot be “garang” lah so for sure kena bully by the big angmoh “girls”. And on top of that, Drew’s friend said that Emirates wasn’t hiring married girls anymore because of some maternity leave and benefits thing. So I decided to forget about “a rewarding career with Emirates”.
Then one day I get a call from them asking me to attend a group interview. Ben said I should just go, see-see, get free makan… So I went even though I wasn’t looking forward to working with “garang” people, but only cos they pay really well (like ten thousand dirhams a month including allowances, plus lodging, transport, etc) … It was supposed to be a whole day affair, from 7.30am onwards. Of course, it would be a whole day affair if you were lucky to get through the various rounds of “elimination”. My “whole day affair” ended by 10.30am!
There were about 23 of us “candidates”, about 4 guys, the rest girls. 80% Filipino and the rest a mixture of Kenyan, angmoh, and the “lain-lain” like me. So first off, they make you wait in the bloody cold reception area for an hour till your fingernails turn blue. Then in a room, two ex-crew tell you all about the airline, the job, life in Dubai, etc. Then each “candidate” goes into a room for the “Reach” test, where they test if you can reach a certain mark on the wall with your arm/hand, which is the minimum height requirement to access onboard safety equipment. I managed to reach it on tiptoes lah.
Then, we’re divided into two groups, do some icebreaking intro thing and given a topic to discuss in 10 minutes. The topic for my group of 12 was, imagine you have to create a new world. You have to name this new world and come up with 10 professionals who will belong to this new world. Professionals must be creative, not the usual engineer, doctor, etc.
So my group starts discussing, and waste probably 8 minutes with one guy giving a detailed bio of Lance Armstrong and why he should be in this new world, and the next girl stating why that Princess Di, Prince Charle’s “wife” (didn’t she mean late ex-wife?) should be part of this new world… only to be interrupted by the facilitator that we don’t have to name specific individuals.
So finally, based on one of the facilitators' suggestions and because we had only 2 minutes left, we came up with an imaginary underwater world called Sea World (oh wow, sungguh kreatif), and we have a king, queen, doctor, driver, etc, etc. I didn’t really come up with anything except stupid smart ass remarks which was probably the cause of my “elimination”! Like someone said that Sea World needed someone to keep the water clean, like a filter, so I was like…
Bernie: Ya, a sea sponge! We can name him Bob.
SOUND: WEAK LAUGHTER FROM A FEW PEOPLE JUXTAPOSED WITH THE CHIRPING OF CRICKETS.
Then there was this girl from Lebanon, who at the start of the day had already told the room about how sad a state her country is in, oh war, war… I’m really not being a bitch, and we all feel sad about Lebanon and war-torn countries, but she just kept this sad and pathetic look on her face all day, and all her remarks were like, “oh my country war…” So when someone mentioned that our Sea World should have a warrior, she said “oh, no war, our world must have no war”. Which is of course utopically true, but smart ass Bernie then said…
Bernie: The only way you can have a world without war is if everyone was identical so that no one will envy each other…
SOUND: MORE CHIRPING OF CRICKETS.
So of course, those who didn’t say a word during the discussion, and the insensitive smart ass one didn’t get through to the next round lah. And those who came up with creative suggestions like King, Queen, Warrior, Doctor, Driver, Consultant, etc, as well as Miss Lebanon got through. Some more, no free makan, man!
So now I wonder, if they don’t want smart asses as cabin crew, why does SQ now prefer to hire degree holders, and offer early promotion to cabin crew with degrees? I mean, all an airline needs is a stewardess who wants world peace. Now with SQ dropping in ranking for Best Airline, Best Cabin Crew, etc, I've come up with a solution for SIA to boost their image and re-invent the Singapore Girl - a Singapore Girl Search reality show.
An intense regionwide competition to see who can suck up to the seniors the best while eating humble pie till she pukes without messing up her super wayang make-up, and she should puke whatever she eats cos she has to make sure she's skinny enough for SQ standards, so stick thin that she can squeeze through two carts parked side by side but can hardly lift a fire extinguisher. Then she has to hold a degree in any discipline but ensure she entertains passengers with really intelligent conversation like how she wants to study 'law', and ponder before n after each flight why she's called a Singapore Girl when she's from Malaysia, Indonesia, India, China, Japan or Korea, and why people say she's "a great way to fly".
No comments:
Post a Comment