Category Archives: work

Life with a Kindergartener: Hello Work

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For an hour my 5-year-long wish came true – to be a teacher at your daycare.

Your daycare has this program on introducing parents’ work to senior class. I inquired about it and so principal took the chance to ask if I could present something about my mother country. Told her I agree with her idea but that aside from that, I will also teach them some songs and introduce them to STEM.

IT-WAS-DIFFICULT to simplify engineering to kindergarten level. But at least your class was squealing and giggling during our experiment when we mixed the vinegar and baking soda and CO2 bubbles formed. The food colouring we added made it more fun.

You were also beside yourself with giddiness by the mere fact that I am your class’ teacher for the afternoon. You wanted to hug and cuddle me. I am touched to see how proud you are of me. Thank you.

But I am so much more proud of you because you confidently got in front and taught your friends the song “Under the spreading chestnut tree”.

Keep it up, baby. đŸ™‚

PS

Our effort bore fruit. The principal, teachers, my beloved mentor at office, parents all said we did a great job/ we were “subarishii”. That we took the challenge of being the first ever to do this Hello Work activity in the entire daycare history; despite me being a none-Japanese speaker. Thank you Lord, for the inspiration.

Humbled by a compliment

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I believe anybody would consider being able to change someone, for the better, as an achievement of a lifetime. Especially when you didn’t intend to do it. That by just being yourself, you’ve brought change. 

Hence I was totally humbled when a colleague/boss told me how the whole project (process) team – 15 of us – changed, for the better, after I joined the team. How a once non-interactive team got more engaged and finally truly acted as a team just by being my communicative self. 

I didn’t see the compliment coming, who would?! Especially since I joined at month 4 and hence my role wasn’t as lead, not even for a dedicated unit. 

But indeed, if I would be honest with myself, I could see some change. No, not the whole team – even if I be truly truly honest to the core, I could not see the whole team had changed just because of me. But I did see the difference in a few people. How they got more passionate with their work, where before, there was lacklustre; and how a few became happier and more communicative. Was it because of me?! I wouldn’t dare claim that. They most likely just realised something within the month of my joining the project. 

Nevertheless, dear colleague/boss/mentor, I am deeply grateful that you think so highly of me. I am truly humbled. 

Mark Twain said, “I can live for two months on a good compliment”. 

Your compliment, however, will last me a lifetime and will continue to inspire me to be a better person than I was yesterday. Thank you. 

The Examined Life

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Realised it’s been a month since my last post. Been so busy recently I’ve been giving up some of my passions – writing, reading a good book. Ah, I miss being passionate about a book. Been having working lunches for the past two weeks in that even the one hour that I could study Nihongo has been taken away from me. 

I could go on and blame the person who’s behind this busyness. But no I shouldn’t. He probably is also in hot water because he left (for vacation!) at a very crucial time. 

So I just have to count the blessings and look at the positive side of things. That Hubs has been very supportive of my schedule and knows when I’m on short fuse. That Yui is such a sweet darling, that she is. That I could recommend ways that paved for huge cost savings. That (hopefully) my efforts will reach far. I can only hope and pray. 

life with a toddler: when Mom is on forced bed rest 

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When at home on a weekend or holiday, I rarely take an afternoon nap; unless of course I’ve caught terrible colds and cough. I consider those afternoons as a “me time” which is mostly to read or do the week’s ironing whilst listening to music. Truthfully, I welcome those ironing moments as it gives me the quiet time to reflect and think and yet be productive still (sheepish grin).  

Almost two weeks ago, Yui caught a high fever that’s lasted for almost a week. Thankfully, she got over it already. Truth be told, it was one of the most difficult time we had a parents. And as expected, I followed after. It’s worrisome, this tonsillitis, as I have an impending business trip – I have to put the house in order before my flight and of course I have to prepare for the task at hand. 

Yesterday (a Monday), I went to the office after visiting the clinic (my second doctor in a week) to make sure to issue some deliverables that may be required for my business trip; thinking of issuing them ASAP so that I can go home and take two days leave to recuperate from my tonsillitis and recover my voice. My boss learned I had 38degC fever over the weekend and strongly asked me to go home to rest. But my drive to knot loose ends was stronger so I told him I will stay until I’ve issued the last document. This left a small smile on his face. One hour after, he again strongly told me to go home (see, he is normally a scary person). My answer: one last document and I’ll be going home in 15 minutes. That same small smile on him again. And yes, I’m always headstrong when I’m driven with a passion; aren’t we always are?

And so now I’m on forced bed rest when even on a weekend, I don’t take naps. Forced because I know I have to rest to recover fast and prepare for my trip. Forced because I know this time, I really did maxed out my immune system. I can’t even do my “relaxing” ironing because it makes me dizzy. 

When us working moms living away from our parents get sick, it really poses a challenge. Yet a reminder for me not to overdo things. 

Yet, there’s so much to be thankful for. First of course is Hubs, who has been doing a great job taking care of Yui that our little one is all smiles and giggles recently. Yui’s sensitive side too, is more apparent during times like this. When she sees me lying in bed, she lies down beside me and holds my hand, giving me a smile whenever I open my eyes. What a sweet child you are anak. And your Dad and I are so thankful to God for giving you to us. 

One coin

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this has been the longest blogging hiatus I’ve had in this website. The reason being no other than that I am overwhelmingly busy at work. Hope to blog some more real soon.

In an industry that has seen casualties and injuries during a course of a project, milestones like a year or a million manhours that’s incident free are celebrated. Recently, our project celebrated a year sans injury among its project members. As a thank you note, we were given a coin token bearing our project’s logo on one side (reminding us of our objective and goal) and the “no change” sign on the other side (reminding us of the expectations in the project).

We thought of ways of how we can make use of the token but we couldn’t think of a novel idea other than the reasons why it was given to us in the first place – a token of celebration of safety among members and a reminder of our goals/objectives/expectations as we move forward in our project execution.

When my colleague who was seated next to me got to his desk, he noticed the coin and asked me what it was and from whom did it come from and what it was made of (gold plated? Not sure, probably not). And so I explained. Now this colleague usually has a serious face. But the expression he had and what he said after my explanation (and also partly because I know his wife died at a young age) left me speechless that I can only say “ooohhh”.

With a tender expression and a smile on his face, he said, “I’ll give this to my son”. His smile was a knowing smile, confident that his son will be happy with it.

We surely can’t beat that novel use for our token coin.

Company family day

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Today (or technically yesterday since it’s now past midnight) was our company’s family day – a day in which employees’ kids could get a glimpse of their parent’s workplace. The program is open for those who have kids from 4th to 6th grade in elementary. So for those colleagues who have kids around that age, they had their kids tag along with them for most of the day.

You couldn’t just bring along your kid on an impromptu whim however, your kid has to be registered ahead of time. The program is very well organised, I think, owing primarily to security reasons. The kids even have their own IDs with their photos on it – with the card coloured a pretty pink! whilst employees generally have blue or green – which they can use to open the glass doors for certain floors of the building.

If I were the kid, I’d be really wide eyed the whole day. First they had an orientation which took most part of the morning. One of the assistant area lead of our project had a kid who was part of the program so we all had lunch with him. The early part of the afternoon his Dad took him to meet our Clients who shared that they too have the same program in their country. After which the kid stayed on the vacant desk beside his Dad and “helped” by filing some outputs. Yet even with the simple task, he was very serious with it.

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I’m really glad there’s such a program in the office. Sometimes people work so hard the work-life balance is often off-balance, and leaning always on the work side. Excited for our little one’s turn some 9 years from now! Haha.