my heart is sealed.

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Work And Travel USA

Hi people. A 4 month hiatus and a mysterious 3 months disappearance later I’ve decided to write something.. if people bother to read that is. Wondered why I disappeared for so long? I was in Orlando for work and travel! I guess I didn’t bother to tell many people where I was going. My bad.

But anyway, it was a good experience. It was work, eat, sleep, wake up, work, eat sleep, wake up, go out on off day, eat, sleep, wake up, work… ok you get the picture. Orlando’s not exactly a dream destination for many of us, with the many familiar banes of Singapore available right smack in home away from home. There’s the extreme heat, humidity, mosquitoes, and the occasional thunderstorm to spoil your day (and shoes).

The weather pisses me off, but I guess as a whole Florida ain’t that bad. Compared to places up north, there are many places to go, like Miami, Key West, the various beaches spread around Florida, and the theme parks themselves. After a while, the theme parks begin to lose their novelty; sometimes you feel like you could sleep on the roller coasters… not that we don’t love them anymore.

So much to say in a short post… I guess I’ll just summarize it. Great trip, great experience. New friends, new lessons learnt. Americans ain’t exactly the smartest people around. I’d rate the different races’ intelligence in descending order: whites, Hispanics, blacks. Ok that’s actually rather arbitrary but it’s the feeling I get after working, talking, and dealing with Americans for the past 3 months. The whites are generally decent, polite, and honest. The Hispanics are kinda irritating, inconsiderate, and rude. The blacks, or in a more PC term, African-Americans, are just plain rude. They’re the ones who give me the most problems (and the most attitude) at work. Enough of all the hate.

Journey To Atlantis was where I worked at SeaWorld. Honestly, it was a great place to work. My colleagues were great, there were many Singaporeans (7 of us), and I made some great friends along the way. There was another Terence, Terence Goh, and the ang mohs were so confused it was funny sometimes. Goh and Koh? Wtf? ‘Hey Terence! No not you! The other one!’ ‘Er, so are you the K or the G?’ Etc, etc, etc. Like Terence said, life was so much better before I arrived. And then there was Yuda, whom we all call Yoda, for obvious reasons. He became Terence no.3 after a particular incident which I will not bother to mention for reasons too embarrassing to state. That’s 3 guys.

And then we have 4 girls. Yi Eng, whose English name Vryn is cool enough for me to want to name my daughter just that, and whose name was picked from her own English project, concerning names. And then there was Cassandra, not to be mistaken for Leong the craziest girl in SeaWorld, who was every bit the da jie that she was. Accounting students are all the same… And then there was Bonnie, who trained with Yoda and I, the Bonnie who bought a Nintendo DS and Wii during WAT. Wow. You owned us all, Bonnie. And lastly, there was Lok Man. Or Lok Mon. Or… Lok Ness Monster. Ok, so she was the darling of JTA; everyone loved her – that constant laughter and ‘squeaky voice’… lol.

Work wasn’t tiring most of the time. JTA is a water ride, so we load boats, at speeds at frequencies unknown to coaster operators. Usually the average count for boats sent is 60 an hour, 1 per minute. ‘Sit upright, hold on tight’ was the phrase that will stay with us for the rest of our lives. And then there was the thumbs up sign for ‘all clear’, the ever-present fear of getting a safety warning…

Besides loading and unloading boats there were the dreaded drops, which are basically observation posts at the 3 drops that JTA has where people often zone out or fall asleep. Drop 1 is open air, but under the shade, Drop 2 is out in the open sun, which was the most dreaded drop of all. Drop 3 is a rather bitter-sweet thing for many people coz its located within the building in an air-con environment, but dark, mosquito-infested and the ultimate sleep inducer.

Then, there is the greeter and grouper. The most dreaded details for any JTA crew member. The greeter checks for height requirements and loose items, the grouper groups people into the 2 boats of 8, which is deceptively simple work. And I stress the word deceptively. These 2 positions ensure maximum contact with guests, which also mean maximum frustration. You’ll get all kinds of shit while dealing with guests: guests who complain about coin machines which eat up their money, guests who refuse to put things in their lockers, guests who f*** you just because the ride got stopped and its obviously not your fault, guests who refuse to stay to the allocated positions you already allocated them, and… bloody guests who don’t understand what a single rider line is. Its f***ing SINGLE line dammit! NOT double riders line! No seriously, such people ruin your day.

Last category of work belongs to the sai kang work. Trash, sweeping, bushes and project. Trash – the most dreaded work in SeaWorld. Reduces a proud Singaporean to the level of the Bangla worker he/she once held in contempt. Sweeping ain’t so bad if not for the fact that Orlando is so damn hot and 30 minutes of sweeping is sometimes enough to destroy your will to work; right after the 2^nd hour of clocking in. Bushes is about the same, except we grab a ‘grabber’ and grab rubbish off the bushes.

It’s a good mix of things to do, meaning one never gets bored with what one is doing. You’ll be on loading or unloading on the 1^st hour, then off to sweep on the 2^nd, then maybe at one of the drops in the 3^rd hour, or maybe at loading or unloading again. It sorta alternates… which makes this job much less monotonous than the other positions or departments in SeaWorld.

All in all a good time at SeaWorld. Its probably too much to talk about all the little things at JTA but, I guess talking about what I do is probably good enough. But am I going to come back to Florida again? Probably not. But I’ll definitely make a trip to Bahamas. Everyone should.

 

Shamu ROCKS!

you may take away our lives, but you’ll never take away… OUR FREEDOM!

yaaargh! this post is dedicated to all the crap essays/papers we have to do.. 1 month of my life, days on end at national library my second home, noon to 9pm, dozens of trees sacrificed for sake of a potential A, all that anguish. oh no im becoming emo… thats not happening…

but anyway emo’s the theme of the week. somehow zhen wei’s little diversion from the realm of reality managed to smack me right on the face. am i satisfied? with life? and shit like that… zhen my man, i dunno. as a friend says, satisfaction is relative. Some people just wanna earn bucks, some people just wanna have fun. others… dunno what they really want. im enjoying myself doing all those essays.. really…

a little change of direction and… 300!

this movie is the absolute best movie of the year. it deserves like 10 oscars, seriously. Best picture, best director, best screenplay, best actor, best special effects… and other stuff. i don’t think anyone’s not watched it yet and for those who havent, well, God be with you. yup, that you Ivan Lee Zhi Xiang.

 a little on the (real) history of 300. The real battle which took place was called the Battle of Thermopylae. Known as the Gates of Fire for some reason.. but its true that Leonidas had only 300 men at his disposal, and the Persians had 250,000 men by contemporary estimates. The immortals were NOT japanese, they did NOT carry swords like those in the movie, and everyone will probably be disappointed to know that the immortals were really not that divine in their fighting skills at all. Standard equipment: bow and arrow, spear with a apple-shaped counterweight at the base of the spear for better balance (apparently). in all circumstances probably were not even a match for a standard Greek hoplite fighting in rank and file. The first wave of immortals in the real battle were destroyed along with Xerxes’ own family members who were part of the unit. why ‘immortals’? coz they were replaced, no matter the cost, to the original strength of 10,000 if any single men was lost. in any case, the first scene of fighting was probably the most accurate depiction of battle, and most likely the only thing the spartans did at Thermopylae, for 3 days and 3 nights. push, stab, push, stab, push, stab.

 damn i love that movie.

i like haven’t post since 1989

im doing my china essay. zzz.

3 day week. and a joke.

they say football is a funny old game. CORS tutorial registration is even funnier.

alright i got everything i opted for.. almost.. and i got myself a 3 day week.

BUT. of the 1 choice i didnt get had, it to be the one i’m not doing on my own.

4 tutorials all alone. it had better be worth it.

and why is it that profs like to give readings that cant be found in libraries??

girls out loud is crazy.. Ros rocks..

of poodles and terriers, drogs and crocs

it seems like a rather late observation at this point of the season but efforts to clamp down on diving in the english game seems to have worked positively not only on the frequency of play-acting but on players’ performances as well. as soon as the players’ focus shift from diving to actually playing the game, their level of performance seems to go up a notch. Cronaldo and Drogba.. used to dive and whine with impunity last season now both top scorers at their respective clubs. makes one wonder why football associations all over the world dun impose themselves on the game sooner..

david beckham’s going to the US of A for $250 million dollars, and Capello’s so sore about his astronomical pay he refuses to play Becks for the remainder of his contract with Real. talk about sour grapes. - ’The decision of the player is to go to Los Angeles, he has always been a great professional, but a player who has such an important contract with another club, we cannot count on him. He is not going to play any more.’ – Fabio Capello, exerpt from Soccernet.

Aston villa started off the season well enough with Martin O’Neill taking over but oddly enough, are on 13th position and equal on points (26) with newcastle, and a defeat at Old Trafford today will leave them gasping for breath still. so what’s the problem.. o’neill? lack of good forwards? if o’neill ever takes over at old trafford.. hmmm… i can only wonder.

jose’s leaving chelsea.. i dun like chelsea but i dun like the idea of jose leaving either. he’s probably the smartest guy in english football as far as comments are concerned and his accent rocks. chelsea were wasting 30 million pounds for shevchenko and most people knew that was the case but to flop this spectacularly? at least jose’s not at fault with this but some of his transfers have been rather suspect and s.w philips, boulahrouz, cashley, ballack, or even paulo ferreira come to mind.. and 25 million euros for essien? pui.

and finally, curses to matthias maass! go all the way to national library can only find 3 readings out of 10000.. frak. at least i can blissfully spend my sunday and monday reading those. yay?

V Bash on 20th Jan, sunday, at St. James Powerhouse anyone? (you better appreciate this, poo)

 p.s: ivan, i only pay for ‘peripherals’. no one ordered ‘peripherals’. hah.

nobody messes with Japan. ever.

by Zeus and Athena.. bad day.

sat blissfully on the toilet bowl at 11 am reading my timetable and then realised my chinese history lecture started at 10 am.

 read on ST that a soci professor died.

went to school to meet up with my hist society boss  at 2 and wrapped things up by 2.30, and dozed off at central lib till foreign policy lecture.

unfortunately Matthias Maass is such a frakking bore and suddenly things dun look so good this semester.

the gods suddenly decide to make my day and present me a gift from the heavens… rain. lots of it. 

6.30pm. stuck in a freakish jam outside NUS, clementi.

7.00pm. still stuck in a jam. thankfully along holland road.

7.15. back home with a pair of drenched jeans and relief that tomorrow will be a better day.

great day.

new sem, new blog.

wretched impulsiveness, incredible boredom, a CNA TV programme on blogging, and gentle cajoling by jpsm = new blog.

some helpful input by ivan = (re)discovery of brilliant latin saying

star wars episode 3 showing on star movies = not conducive for typing

its been 1 lecture so far, Empires, colonies, and imperialism. definitely different from 1101E lectures. 40 plus people in the lecture hall? what the heck.. looks like its going to be a fun module though.. ‘empire, not nation-states, is the typical human experience of history’, to paraphrase the Dr. whose-name-i-do-not-yet-know. great way to kick off the semester.

on a more serious note, TT Durai spent 1 million bucks on hotels in 8 years. thats 125,000 bucks a year on hotels. NKF funds? you know what ur paying for u naive donaters.. hah. who says transparency isnt important.. *cough* government! *cough*

 and CORS is irritating the hell out of me (whats new). then again, poor planning on my part means i gotta take SE1101E.. GEK version is filled.. EU1101E has timetable clash and i sure as hell dun wanna take EC, PL or TS, OR 4 history modules. fire and brimstone.

 met sean lee + martin and his korean girlfriend yesterday. after 1 year of photography sean decides to apply for SMU law? the ball is round. and i didnt know one could speak such good english learning the language in korea.. where everyone’s apparently struggling with english over there.. hmm..

alea iacta est: the die is cast. im assuming a lot of people out there know what it means but i think im assuming a lot of peopl out there are history buffs too so thats a weak assumption.. i guess. anyways Gaius Julius Caesar said this to his troops before crossing the Rubicon to confront the Roman senate, start the Civil War, utterly destroyed Pompey and with him the Roman Republic. Cool eh. No way back, all or nothing. Gotta show this man respect too coz he spent most of his life away from Rome conquering the whole of Gaul (France), while campaigning and putting down rebellions in Africa and Spain. Ambitious and cunning man, yes, but deserves an award for dedication and long service. And quite a charmer of women too, i heard. hail caesar!

 

 pssssst!