self check

I’m still reeling over the initial shock I’m going thru as I’m typing this entry (at work again). Having being brought down by a bad bout of gastric and incessant headaches since last week, I took some time off to recuperate on Friday and Saturday.

After not having worked for 3 days in a row, I felt somewhat disoriented and alien as I stepped into the office. My table was painstakingly neat as usual (thanks to Tim), but the mouse was oily. Eeks….

Back to which, I had some difficulties going back into full swing. I was rather slow and disengaged, but time warmed up my engine and I was back in shape in a couple of minutes. And so was my gastric and headaches…

I realize that I’ve probably taken more panadol pills in my stint here than anywhere else in the world. It just occurred to me that these may have been caused by the stress level (I just happen to have a low threshold for that). So, I may be guilty of complicating my own life after all.

For the close-to-desperate prayers, God seems to have answered. I’m found opportunities to explore in other areas, and I’m seriously contemplating moving on and leaving this job in the dust. Today, I just made known my intention to leave early, and the folks were pretty gracious so far. I’m feeling so much lighter already.

Yesterday, after much apprehension and hesitation, I did manage to “take a step of faith” and I did manage to approach one young chap for a survey. Its incredulous that after all the public speaking seminars and all the events I’ve hosted in school in the past…I actually didn’t even have the courage to approach a stranger in public?

What was holding me back? Was my heart selfish? Perhaps I’ve grown too cold. Perhaps I’ve lost the passion and urgency. I kept asking myself why.

Nevertheless, I’m thankful for God’s grace that carried me through and gave me the courage and the counsel to speak. I was really taken aback by how I even managed to do it in the first place. I’m also grateful to the team, esp. Daniel and Louis for their kind words and encouragement. Cheers!

I pretty much want to quit being so hard on myself… and start being myself. Easier said than done. Where do I begin?

A typical day in the life of fraserlogy

Typhoon Carrier strikes my desk

My lovely workstation...

...and the freezing clinmate

0110am: finally called it a day for 23/7. Freezing at 16 degrees, but I had to do it to combat my runny nose and my throbbing headache. Man, I feel one big fever coming up!

0710am: woke up to the sounds of my fav Indian ringtone over my phone. Woke up and rushed to implement some PC restrictions at home. Sorry Leon, but we have your interests at heart.

0800am: I’m late for work! Took a yellow top cab to work. The cab fare costs be $10.50, and yellow Cab hasn’t increased their rates yet. Had many close shaves along the way, what a prelude to this week!

0825am: Bumped into HP and Tim’s smiling faces at the lobby. My day seems to be so much brighter, suddenly! J

0830am: Read the farewell card that Melvin wrote for me…I’m really touched yet honoured.

0835am: Its been a long time since I last did this. but I prayed. and this huge sense of peace and assurance just transcended upon me. I handled my calls with grace and with the smoothness of silk…until…

11.10am: My lovely subscriber H called! She has been calling up with matters to resolve since early May 06. Oh man. She was really upset and screaming over the line. I managed to stay calm, thank goodness.

11.25am: After 103 calls, and nutcase after nutcase after nutcase, my head’s spinning, my throat’s sore and my nose hurts. I’m certainly not feeling well.

12.50pm: My gastric’s not being nice to me. Finally, after 168+19+7+94+43 (331) calls, the lines seemed to have dropped and I’m stealing time to update my entry.

1.10pm : I’m finally out for lunch…and I contemplate my thots along the way, to quit or not to quit? I make up my mind, and at

1.30pm: I called my agent to tell her that I’m looking for another job. Since the pay is gonna be the same, I’d be better off being somewhere I guess.

2.52pm: Tim excitedly passes me a call, from HQ SCDF. In a moment, I’m hearing the good old voice of my good old RSM. The world is small. And my gastric pains seem to have gone!

3.16pm: For once, this Chinese call is quick and painless. “Above All” is playing in the background, and I’m once more reminded of God’s sovereignty in our lives.

3.55pm: Time goes by…so slowly.

4.25pm: I get a kick…out of voicemail. 67 new messages! I’m rushing to retreeeeeive all of them. Stretched. That gastric thing in me is kicking up.

4.45pm: I get a call from my agent, saying that she’s got a job for me at AMK @$5.50per hour. Data admin and some cust care. Muahaha. TBC

5.33pm.: WOOHOO. The calls seem to have died down. just finished clearing all the auxiliary faxes that came in. I’m sitting down here and putting the pieces of my thoughts together. Now that Arthur is back, and I’ve taken a three-week break from thinking about the sound system revamp, its time to go into full swing again. After listening to the EAW speakers in St Andrew’s underground sanctuary, I wish we had the budget for Mackie’s S215 speakers ($1500 per piece). And the Celestion KR-8’s (heard at my mom’s church) sounds sweet and really intelligible. Thoughts, thoughts, thoughts.

7.20pm: NO MORE CALLS! I’m finally clearing the backlog, with the familiar faces I saw at the lobby this morning: tim and hp J The temperature’s down to a cool 18plus degrees.

7.58pm: I’m rushing once more…to pack my bag and update this line, with disapproving looks from Tim and HP of course. Yet another mad day has ended! Praise God. A total of 627 calls!

fraserst.com

I just had to show this...I think its A M A Z I N G. This aint done by me, and I'd like to commend this gentleman for his effort and passion!

Times of refreshing

after a furious week at work, what better to wind down and indulge in a little photo taking session...and that was what i actually did!

Well, not really. I was at St Andrew's Cathedral for another purpose, but being plain old me, I decided to explore and capture the sights. St Andrew's has always been one of my favourite subjects of the eye; alongside with Chijmes and the Esplanade. Here's some pix randomly taken out of instinct, do pardon the ameteur in me! :)

Yup, they're all taken down with my phone, and I'm pretty surprised by how they turned out. To all my photo pro boys out there, I'd appreciate ya guidance & comments. Cheers!

19072006 x 2/2

Three months, 19 days into my job at this infamous call centre. Sitting here, I’m amazed that I can even find the time to type in this entry for my beloved blog!

Sitting here, feeling somehow relieved by last night’s movie session, yet drugged by the Panadol Extra I took this morning to combat my headache spells, I had this compelling urge to update my blog.

Of late, I have had questions of a similar nature directed at me; as to why I was so quiet blog wise, and why there were irregular or no updates on my blog at all. Truthfully, I’ve typed so much in the office, lodging cases and replying emails, that I’ve completely lost the desire to type in anything official when I’m sitting in front of my computer at home, other than chatting.

Someone asked me how my life had been. A simple question like that really set me thinking, and the reason was because I had no answer to that. Life wasn’t fantastic, but it wasn’t that exactly boring either. In fact, I felt that it was rather dangerous that I had developed this numbness and oblivion to things that were happening to me. Biblically it seems dangerous to feel such a way. Or was it that I was just being at peace?

My heart feels troubled somehow. Tim noticed that at work yesterday and expressed his concern. I shrugged it off as being tired and lethargic after a furious day at work. While I am relatively excited and happy that my services has been extended, and that my folks are entrusting upon me more responsibilities and work, I’m not exactly the happiest person around. I yearn to break out of this job line and venture into something like events management and audio, I find it hard to forsake the “job stability” and the familiarity of processes that I have picked up over the months.

Today was the worst. I had a bad case in the morning. I cursed, I swore. I felt like throwing in the towel and calling it quits. Still, I just couldn’t bear to make the move and just drop everything.

I worry, I fret. Audio engineering isn’t exactly the easiest course to excel in, nor is it considered one of the normal routes that anybody would take. While I really do want to pursue this gift and passion of mine, I hit into pillars of self doubt and worry as to whether I can support myself financially through school, work my way through and support my family, and most of all, achieve my ambition.

Am I guilty of complicating up my life? Am I setting unrealistic goals for myself?

As I struggle with all these worries and cares of the world, I hope that God’s mercy and grace will be with me, and walk with me through these turbulent days.

love your enemy

Love Your Enemies!

This has got to be the hardest commandment of the Bible I find hard to obey, even till today. Was talking to UG on the way back home and the Lord reminded me of my often less than ideal responses towards some people in particular.

God knows how many times I've failed to smile at people, but instead wrinkled my nose at the crying baby on the bus while the mother struggled helplessly. Oh, how many times I've just wished I had hands long enough to slap the person over the end of the line, or bite my tongue just to avoid sacarsm from my lips.

Its hard to love people at times. Am I being plain unemotional? I hope not. As a pretty emotional person myself, it is extremely easy for me to like someone or vice versa.

This has gotta be dangerous..this shortfall of mine may jolly turn into some curse and worse still, have negative effects on the people around me. Perhaps this boils down to the feelings of injustice and igdinance within me. Whatever it is, it is time to do something about it.

As the Lord reveals the area(s) in my life that I need to act upon, I pray that his guidance will see me through. Indeed, I have come to see this customer service job that I hold now as a journey towards transformation

love,
noed resarf

mmmmm

040706

Today...the day I returned to work. Initially, I was still feeling a lill sleepy and spent after the swim last night and the events that took place over the weekend, but God provided and I had a managable day at work :P For once, we managed to achieve a pretty decent quota and I was glad to have contributed to that.

The break really did wonders. I returned to work feeling refreshed and lighter, and everyone was welcoming in their own way..but they did comment on how red my eyes were and how tired I looked..hahaha.

Once more, my job scope has been changed, and I do hope its for the better. With so many things coming my way, I take it that my contract has been extended. Praise God!

Chill!

endless timeline

Ahh...the joys of a HUGE blower..for once, my cell group wont have to suffer the heat when they come over :)

Today's date is 3rd July 2006. Goodness gracious..its been a month since I last updated this blog! Time goes so fast without realising it. 3rd Quarter 2006 will arrive faster than I anticipated.

I'm penning down these thoughts after recuperating from my three day retreat session out of Singapore. Work has been certainly fast paced-I've find it hard even to update this spot on a regular basis. Once again, I earned myself a change in job scope and I find myself busier than before. OT seems more of a norm then ever, common were the days I'd reach home at 9-10pm before heading off to work early tomorrow.

I thank God for the growing friendship between Daniel, Melvin and the rest of the folks and myself. These guys keep me going, and through helping each other out in times of need, I see this interesting dimension of work that you'd never experience without friendship.

Almost three months have come and gone. While I am comtemplating to stay on to this job, yet considering other avenues to explore, one thing is for certain. By God's mercy and grace, I have managed to stay on to this job till the end of the contract. If you'd read my earlier posts, I prayed that God would help me to fulfill my current contract and beyond.

Over the last month, I've made mistakes, nearly gotten people into hot soup (including myself) and drifted in and out of plain boredom and excitement. On the day before my break, I encountered a really nasty person. While I was kinda upset with the way things turned out, I was initially more upset with how some folks reaction when they learnt of it..oh well *shrugs**

Planning for the retreat certainly helped to keep my mind off most negative thoughts of things I've ecountered at work. It was my first attempt serving in such an area, but i have had the honor of working with a marvellous team. Faced with the "unknown" factor (the campsite was new, and the reccee didnt help much, a certain degree of challenge and excitement formed. The big day was on Fri, and we only got the stuff on thursday. How last minute indeed!

God's provision was evident..there were the usual last minute technical errors (we couldnt borrow a mixer, and the laptop was out of the question coz the church PC died). I'm thankful that Adrian & Pst Henry went the extra mile to loan us their laptops. The campsite had a decent mixer (better than the one I intended to loan), and the campsite had provided much more than expected. Praise God!

Above all, the campers were selfless and helped us in many many ways...I'm truly appreciative and touched by that gesture. While I was constantly battling the horrendous monster of slumber, God pointed out several things to me:

1) As a result of the rejection I faced as a kid and even in my teenage years, I saw it fit to be competitive. I couldnt afford to lose out, and I set high standards for myself. As a result of my low esteem levels, I could have come across as critical and unaccomodating.

2) I was often losing out on the better part. I was like Martha, who was perpetually busy with preperations and stuff, unlike Mary, who chose the better part. (biblical reference)

3) I realised I was not the only person struggling with sins-I was fighting a spritual battle along with my spritual brothers and sisters.

4) God has blessed me with unshakable joy in serving in the PA ministry.

On the final night, where a deliverance session was held, I had the privilage of praying for and crying with my brothers in repentance. We shared, we talked. I discovered many many things about each other that I would have missed if I did not come for the retreat. A big thank you to all you who've been a great source of encouragement and inspiration!

As I end off my entry, I'd like to repent of my high handedness, my low esteem, my incapablilty of being joyful and of my sins. Mould me, use me Lord!

Shalom!