Tuesday, January 10, 2006

so much has been happening in recent days that i thought it would be best to keep this blog updated instead of leaving it all unchronicled!

i hope this doesn't make me sound too despo, but the highlight for this week has got to be receiving an email from the cute American girl from Boston! haha! just as i was resigned to the fact that i had faded into oblivion in her memory as one of the many faces she came across in melbourne, i got an email from her! its just the usual, "hey how are u...how's things over there"...etc...etc. but its the thought that counts...yea? i never knew she was a lifeguard! i mean....wow...she's cute....but i never imagined her in the way along the likes of pamela anderson in baywatch!

Gary from North Carolina sent me a belated birthday wish too. Its nice hearing from folks halfway around the world. Mark Marasco gave me a call on my 21st birthday. Really nice of him considering the fact that he had to make that call at an unearthly hour in Pennsylvania! There was a lag time of a split second though throughout the conversation. I wonder if it was because of the satellite transmission or was it Mark trying to "decipher" my heavily Singaporean-accented English! I've lost the ability to pull off a convincing American accent!

To fill my time during this long hols, I've agreed to take up this part time job at a supermarket...guess what...promoting beer! yes....Tiger Beer! the same beer that has recently been endorsed by Jessica Alba! I can't believe this ordinary tasting beer that we used to gulp down in the military is now being marketed as a premium beer in Europe and the US. Even the Japanese have taken to it! No wonder that Asia Pacific Breweries can afford to hire Jessica Alba for their latest ad.

Anyway, work at the supermarket is rather mundance and repetitive, and of course, the pay is crap. But this is really the first time I'm actually working in a job like that...apart from washing dishes in Melbourne and giving tuition to my cousin!

So basically my job is to help push the sales during this festive season (Chinese New Year). I'm not getting commission for the job so of course, human nature sets in and i tend to slack off. Also, when customers are rather undecided, I don't push them too hard, because it goes against my conscience as a medical student to pressure elderly looking men to hasten the onset of liver problems by fanning the flames of their alcoholism!

Because of the rather heartland location of this particular supermarket, there aren't an awful lot of hot girls who frequent this place, so there ain't much eye candy to help the time pass faster. Now and then though, there would be a mother who comes in with her rather attractive looking daughter in tow. And being a promoter just gives u a perfect excuse to initiate conversations with people of interest to you. And for certain "interesting people", the conversation would of course drift away from beer rather quickly! *lol*

Apart from chatting up mummy's girls, I've actually enjoyed bantering with those old uncles who've got a lot to talk about. Some talk about their beer preferences, some about their gout problem brought about by tiger beer, and some talk about their wives nagging at them....etc. I've also discovered my penchant for underhand deals... this old guy liked the free gift so much he kept bugging me for an extra one. So in the end, i relented and in return, got a box of kinder bueno chocolates and some gift receipts.