2012 - Personal Holiday

Holiday

In the middle of the year, having enjoyed the cruise, I brought my parents for the next one (Royal Cariibean). And they enjoyed it very much. It was probably the only holiday they could go to.


In the end of August, I also made a short trip to Perth -
Went to Swan River and took a Cruise down Freemantle (Prison...),
Took a tour package to Wave Rock & Hippo Yawn (was actually going to Pinnacles but missed because we did not book a child seat (below 3 and they did not allow the kid to sit on the adult as Aus was very strict on this)
Went down south to Busselton Jetty (enjoyed the train ride, but missed going down the underwater observatory)
Went down south to Margaret River and stayed 2 days
- chocolate The Margaret River Chocolate Company
- visiting wineries
- Berry Farm - jam factories
-  Lavender ice cream, Ngilgi cave, went up Leeuwin Cape , went to a silk factory (but was waste of time as the silk is now produced in China, but they did show the caterpiller and cocoons), and a coffee factory (but also a waste of time as the coffee is not in Australia)

Went for a farm stay ( feed the chickens , a pony and saw many cows)
From there drove straight to Pinnacle (almost went out of fuel) as it was desert all the way GPS also not working. Went to eat lobster at the lobster shack. Was very fresh and delicicous. and also took many photos of Wild flowers

Last day
- Zoo and Nougout Factory

Wave Rock


Pinnacle



Missed the Mint and Botanic Garden and water sports (kids too small), whale watching etc

FY2012 Personal

Work

A hectic year again where my company restructured. Effectively the business group I was handling was split inot 2, and therefore I had to handle 2 jobs which was being restructured.
It was quite pure madness as I had no rest, and had to burn several evenings and late nights especially till end May - new reports, new requirements, double the meetings , double the reports.

I had one point of time considered quitting for good.

My manager had promised me that I was that close of going to the next level, so I thought of hanging on as this was a good time to show my capabilites.

At the end of the year unfortunately my dept was split, and conveniently he just dismissed that with the excuse that my business division was not happy with the service level. WTF, of course doing 2 jobs, what do u expect ?

Children

Had to brush up by 6 year old kid reading as he was not trained in Phonics. During CNY discoverd my kid is really lagging behind other kids as he could not read simple sentences. Had to drill him several hours in the evening for about a year before he caught up,
Also his maths too (simple adding and subtract problem sums)
Pri 1 standard is v high. They expect you to able to read in P1.

We were doing Parental Volunteer at Kong Hwa School.
At the start of the year, we almost could not fufilled the prerequisite of 40 hours as my teaching of english to youth students was stopped. Did not start again till March . Luckily, the PV coordinator threw in a 10 hour (project which we did a cart - my scouts pioneering skills came in useful) and Chess (2 hours) and Scouts (6 hours).

Applied for P1 registraction that year and it was close to a nightmare situation.
We fail in the bailouting in Phase2B (41 /66) and then 2C (40/70) . We had to try and literally sort help from the Principal. Of cos, they only told us they will try their best.
I put my son's name in the waiting list there, as well as MSHS (my old school), MahaBuddi, and Geylang Methodist (my Mum old teacher there).



House and Inno
After I broke my arm, I pass exclusive over to a ady in ERA as they were the most enthusiatic and had a team. But I think that was a bad choice, as there were 2 offers coming in later from RealStar. There was an offer coming in but my parents wanted 5% more. We werew about to close till the govt measures came in that day ...damm suay.

So after the exclusive ended, 2-3 months later I asked RS to be more aggressive, and finally somehow or other the housing sentiment picked up and we got an offer in May. It was slightly below average offer

It wasn't a good price and the petrol station was behind albeit its in D15.
There was also some pipe leakage.

My current property also negotiated for a refinancing of Sibor +0.75 and Sibor+1.08 by combining me + my parents loan.


Inno - Spending less time there as was really exhausted by office work. Cut down from going everyday & evening to only morning. Then slowly to 3 times morning a week.
By end of the year, cut down to once a week.
As we know, manufacturing was hit hard in 2nd half 2012.