decemberrr

i'm leaving on a jet plane in about 4hr time...

just packed finished, but needa download all the #happs events for December here.

whokays.

first things first.. last friday, it was the last day of Phase 1 OJT!

abit of a mixed feelings altogether. 

the funny thing is ... u know how i've been complaining about my random posting at cabin... F.I.N.A.L.L.Y on the last day.. we got posted to A&C. hahas. abit too late right. but nvm, make every opportunity count right.

coz it was uplifting the engine, they needed manpower so we're (finally) being (legibly) requested for.. i did it before in Line during my very first OJT with my previous school... but that was for the A320. this one was massive. it was the Engine 4 of the A380. 

as our side wasn't equipped with the electrical machine to make life easier, we did it manually. hahas. so it was like gym session totally. basically, we're supposed to pull down the chains (of the 4 corners) to lift the top part of the cradle that carries the hugeass engine. so it was like maybe 8sets x 10reps before we swopped with another guy. hahas. wasn't easy but glad i managed it pretty well. one of our guys over exerted and almost fainted. was quite scary coz his face was really pale with perspiration and was intermittently closing his eyes. the snr techs were very concerned... ahhas. i guess yea, they really cared for human life, but primarily, i think they want to maintain the no. of workplace incidents. hahahas. but glad he's ok after some rest.

the next physically challenging part was torquing the bolt of the fwd/rear mount that links up with the thrust links. and coz it's like on top of the huge machine, u had to tip toe-abit on the edges of the wide gap of the platform that's part of the cradle that's being hoisted up; whilst trying to push the torque wrench tight that's probably about 5kg + the loads. to make things even more unfriendly, the wrench wasn't a ratcheting one.... imagine that. hahahhahahs. so in total, both 'sets of exercises' was like an arms day session at the gym with lats pull down and forward rows. hahahhahahhas. okok. 

so yup that's it. 

1 month of OJT. being honest, i didn't learn much, relatively. the good thing about this whole thing is that luckily, we had really good snr techs who were really helpful as to guide us and loan us the tools. they trusted us with the job... perhaps coz its 'just' cabin work, but they allowed us to try and learn ourselves and then checking it later. i dont think many techs would have such attitudes that allows learning for continuous growth. so for that, i thank God for them. 

also in this month, i managed to witness many of the erm... challenges.. that a big company may face when it comes to corporate culture that relates to the final dollar and cents. honestly, people at the management level may have many meetings and some may even possess prior experiences with the pursuit in making the best decisions for the company. however, the gap will always exists and people will have to alter their mindset in positive attempt to even try and make a change to a cemented culture. not just at the top level, but also at the bottom level.

individual level, i see people change or rather, characters unfold. perhaps i may have always been naive or overly positively judgmental of people/friends that ultimately leads to disappointments. friends are friends. collegues are collegues. i guess no matter what, it is human nature that people are competitive, to the extent that for one's personal self gain/benefit, if it requires it to happen at the expenses of another friend/collegue's learning experience or for any positive growth, not just at individual level, but also at a group level, people will choose to be selfish eventually. and they will be in denial, be it consciously or unintentionally. people fail to acknowledge the wonders of group growth vs individual growth. u know the cliche T-E-AM = Together Everyone Achieves More, i guess it only works in the classrooms when the learning process is planned.

also, in an environment where i'm surrounded with guys, i really need to learn to be more patient and tolerant. not complaining and trying hard not to sterotype, guys are so egoistic. by saying so, i am one. but u see, when guys are sensitive, they dont acknowledge but then to put the blame on external factors (with added reasoning) whilst being ignorant of their intrinsic factors. well, at least when girls are sensitive, because we acknowledge our 'weakness', we whine, complain and 'make noise'.  and then, when guys dont say what they actually feel deep down, things dont usually go very well in the long run. sometimes i do think of cutting my hair all short again coz with that ponytail, perhaps its just out of ego courtesy, people dont let me do the heavy job. sometimes it gets really frustrating especially when its just like carry a 10kg equipment; they would  just take it away from my hand; sometimes even w/o asking. there's one incident on the engine.. when i was torquing the bolt.. wasn't stumbling or anything and even doing it relative smoothly.. but one of the snr techs said like "eh, we're running out of time, u stand aside, let ur friend do". then when my friend (who is a guy) took over, though he was stumbling abit to get the alignment, it seemed that the snr tech was more 'ok' with it. ok, for this, its clearly a gender difference thing, either that, or he just dont like me. tmd. there are several other incidents but let's not go there.

ANYWAY, just thank God for every experience for me to keep.

and i sincerely pray for a change and movement despite the bleak outcome.

Wednesday was Christmas Eve. HALF DAY.

reached home at about 1pm. shiok. i asked mother poon for dad's tool box.. hopefully i dont have to buy them. so mother poon kindly dig it out from the store room and we found dad's legendary tool box! its metal, rather big and he installed wheels below it as this toolbox was for his home use. so quite sad coz its not work-friendly for me in all. his work tool box is probably being 'koped' by his collegues. :( i secretly hope to find it if i do go Line maintenance. not hopeful at all, but worth a try. ahhaas.

anwyays, digging out the tool box was like digging out a treasure chest. found lots atas tools. like good brands sia. Snap-on and all. i posted this photo on FB and one of my friend commented that this tool was made during some war time or smth.. so i guess the value of it is pretty high. hahas.

we stumbled across some of dad's super old and classic photos. 

primitive man.

probably his happy and proud moment in the cockpit of a 747. 

should have taken a photo in the cockpit the same plane when i had the chance to so can do another father-daugther-look-alike montage. ahahahas.

probably when he was in his 20s. dont u think he's super charming. cute loh. hahahhahaahs. can see the type of boys mother poon likes. HAHAHA. but this photo old school sia. look at the pot. probably on the charcoal stove that he had to fan it with his rattan fan. hahahas

Thursday was Christmas day!

went to church in the morng. really happy that my bro-in-law went down with my sis... first time for him too!! :D coz mother poon also went down! :D i mean its Christmas day and our family always go church together especially on Christmas day. haven't done so after dad's gone. hopefully this can be a yearly affair again. 

hmmmm... ur mum was really happy to see mother poon. not surprising coz they were doing alot of things together in church previously, but what made my heart jumped abit was when u updated my mother that ur son is currently overseas in an exchange programme. and what's even more surprising is that mother poon replied "yea, i know... saw on fb!". whas. with fb, mother poon is constantly surprising me with the updates she is aware of while i know not of k!! 

and james found his ex-police buddies. ahhass. all same pattern.

after that.. the annual gathering with the ang-moh/father side of the family. usually its like dinner.. but this year's a lunch.

after that, went home and concussed while playing hayday. james took this photo. ahhas

i mean, its been raining right.... hahas. 

after that, went to 2 of my friend's place for celebrations. supposed to go to stan's house also but didn't have the time.

enjoyed myself at naz's place coz her family is super welcoming and homely. felt realllyyyyy warm. the father was like playing the piano while the mother was singing and all. and they were power sia. hahas. we had steamboat for dinner. couldn't stay for long coz had to go to nad's place. 

its becoming an annual event. ahhahas. stayed till about 2am. ahhahs. didn't drink this time coz there's technical work the next day. nice to see the girls again. lou-lin wasn't with us coz she's in london. hahas. thanks nad for all the arrangements, deco and all. understand the effort behind all these and i've always been lazy/no money/ no time to do all these. hahas.

so yep. that's roughly about this dec. didn't have alot of small gatherings as compared to previous years.. i guess coz as we're growing older.. its either we're too caught up with work to make time for other friends, or priorities are just shifting. not a bad thing.. but instead of living a life of 'how it should be', i guess we're all leading a life of 'how we want it to be'. not sure if this generalization is interchangeable in terms of the timeline.. but there about. hahas.

just last fri, also went bowling at 12am. hahas. at the new alley at civil service club! actually was superrr lazily reluctant and tired coz of the rainy day and all, but dickson manage to persuade me over countless whatsapp negotiations. ahhas. had to like lug the equiptment and all. hahahahs. 

well, manage to chalk up a 150 avg. ahhahahs. coudn't bowl well, but at least i was hitting the pins. HAHAH.  took out about 5 tapes from the thumbhole and my fingers couldn't fit my spare-ball. for the record, i used rented house shoe coz the base of my shoe totally cracked. first time renting shoe in erm... 12 yrs? ahhahs. time to get new shoeees. but was fun. this is probably the first/second time in 12 yrs bowling not competitively / not trng for anything. felt abit weird, but felt good to spend time with them. we lepak at changi V and playing those charades game using the handphone until like 3am.

and like after less than 10hrs, we met again today to climb!

last climb of the year. did 1 lead climb and my hands were really all pumped up. somehow, completed a 6b climb after that rather effortlessly. AHHAHA. last top rope climb for the year. did abit of bouldering as well. :D

after that.... went home for a feast by mother poon! 

first time doing a proper homecooked Christmas dinner. full attendance with the Liew family. 

:D i believed i was eating constantly for at least 2.5 hrs. ahhahahs. 

thank God for mother poon really. not just because of the cooking skills, but coz of her giving heart, just like dad.  

if only he's still around. 

so yeps. that's about the last week. not its 4:35am. in about 2hrs, i should be making my way to the airport. gg phuket with some of the batchboys till Thurs! kinda excited. but abit sad coz i know i'm gonna be spending more money. i mean, i wanted to climb mt bromo at indonesia - less money spent too.. but still excited coz this is the 2nd time i'm travelling just for fun and not for rugby or like any other sporting purpose. hahas.

with all the festivity, u just wanna spend time with ur loved ones and of course, it was getting challenging to keep u out of my head. dreamt of u last night. was abit surprised but it felt so real that i had to wake up to just think it through and consciously tell myself that it was a dream.

in my dream, u were nice to me, we're on talking terms, and what made it confusing is that did seemed that we're trying to figure things out / to rationalize how we could walk on together.. so all those legit calm arguments in the dream did seem to tie in with reality. i didn't want to dwell much on it coz i know where the line is, and i know where i should be. by confessing it here, i may be stepping on the line or even gg overboard. i really dont know what's worth anymore, but i guess at this rate and while controlling myself, its all calm and fine.

anyway, 1 exciting thing that i wanna share with u that happened in this week was on tuesday, while riding to work along coastal road.... I SAW CONTRAILS OF A FLYING PLANE!!

ok this photo was taken off tumblr.

of course, what i saw wasn't so epic. minus the rainbow part, and change the white fluffy 'clouds' to swirling grey/black lines..... was what i saw. i cant rmbr which plane model or what airline coz i was just too busy trying to live in the moment. ahhas. was shiok coz the plane was flying really low. but that's also the sad thing coz, it went past quite fast. and its even more sad coz it flew past in the diagonally opposite direction towards the back of where i was heading too... so i only had like 2 secs to see it. #ifonlyeyescouldtakephotos. actually looking back, coz it was so awesome, i now can't really say  if i really did see it or what coz i'm somehow still in disbelief. ahhahas.  #toocool.

okok. goona go and finish packing up now. 

see ya next year. 

should be doing a mandatory year-end post and back date it when i'm back from phuket. 

miss u!