Having graduated and completed A levels last December, these past 3months have been a simulation of adulthood. As I quote from Jt that quoted from me, 'If this is a glimpse of adulthood, I don't want it anymore. '

December was me desperately finding jobs , I was hard up for cash. I missed all the post A's fun as I was simply too poor to go out and have fun, or at least the fun I had in mind - we all know having fun needs money. So I got what I wanted. I landed myself with 2 tuition assignments, both teaching Chinese though it's pretty ironic to me considering that I haven't quite been in touch with Chinese since I entered JC. But more importantly, I also got employed at Starbucks, my dream job then.

Starbucks has been ton of fun and an enriching life experience. On one of the first few days of work, I remember travelling to Newton for a food hygiene course and meeting this girl named April. We talked as though we were long lost friends on our way home and the thing is, we didnt even know each other whatsoever and she worked at some other Starbucks outlet. We didn't even talk during the course, April wasn't even my one of my groupmates. It was Joanna and Ryan that were my groupmates and we had small chats throughout the day - the course was too boring and easy for us to pay attention. Back to where I stopped about April, April's my age and studies at NAFA , takes Jewelery designing, makes gold jewelleries for rich Taitais, has a designer father and therefore has her room refurnished every other day which drives her nuts. I found all that out while we were commuting on the train where I was on my way to meeting HAM for dinner - Nakhon and later, some other cafe that had nice lava cake, and April was on her way home. The thing is , my first impression of April was a 20ish delinquent. She had wild golden dyed hair and unmatching pink highlights. Her freshly plucked eyebrows that's a tad too thin didn't help her ahlian -ish image and I made sure to avoid her throughout the course , something I always do when I think of someone as an ahlian. Who knew we'd hit it off so well? Incidentally, I've never met April since. We didn't even exchange contacts. I don't know how she felt, but I was left marvelled with the ability to connect with a stranger so quickly, and also a quick lesson on how we shouldn't be too fast to judge others.

I spoke of April as this led to a series of other similar events - meeting new people and experiencing kindness and niceness in life all thanks to my work at Starbucks. This , I'm referring to my attachment at Big splash where I underwent training as a Barista for a month. Perhaps the title of a trainee gave me much privilege and forbearance on the senior partner's part. Everybody was welcoming , understanding and it truly felt like a family and a home. I never wanted to leave work early, looked forward to breaks or off days. It never felt like work when I was there. The company was good, the customers were friendly , nice, and more importantly, knew what they wanted. And I never had to chase away students hoarding tables, or get sent as delivery girl. I enjoyed getting the customers their beverages, sometimes extending my small chats with them, and also talking crap with Khairi and Aziem, getting entertained with their crazy attics, learning from and chatting with Reezal and Kin , and the time there also allowed me to forged ties with May who treated me as a little sister. We'd go shop around at Parkway, and exchanged cultural differences as she learnt more of Singapore from me and I learnt more of China from her. She'd warn me of stupid pranks Khairi or Aziem would pull and introduced me to the shuttle bus driver as 'the new one '. Because of the latter, journey to work was also a pretty cool experience - before this, I'd never thought of talking to and understanding the life of a China bus driver. Thinking back, I should really have taken up Reezal's offer when he asked me to stay at Big Splash cos of my 'hardworking attitude' . After chuckling at his request - I was bent on going to Bedok , he told me to study hard and do well .

And when I first transferred over to Bedok, I suppose the niceness of people was still there. But as time passed, it just hits me that things aren't the same and it isn't about to get better than before. Sure, the people are nice, but not as nice as those I'd previously met. Sure, I'm still doing the same chores but it feels different. One thing for example, the customers. In all honesty, what drove me to work at Starbucks was the brand. As I've mentioned countless times to my friends, I liked it for it's 'atas' ambience. This is basically nonexistent in my current store. I have to entertain aunties asking me weird questions from ' Do you sell coffee? ' , to ' Where is the toilet? ' ( I used to get this the whole time at Big splash, but it was pretty remote an area so that's understandable. But at Bedok we're in a mall for Pete's sake!!! ) and to even ' Where is Pop Eye? No not Popeye, POP. EYE ' And get prepared to chase out hoards of students and office workers during peak hours which doesn't make sense to me - why can't they enjoy the facilities if they bought their coffee? Isn't a cafe for them to do work? I know in America it is. How different are they from the aunties that come and talk for hours? If so isn't everybody 'extended users' since they do more than drinking coffee? This is especially awkward and hard for me to do considering how just a couple of months ago I was one of them table-hoarders. And the fact that my working hours have been dwindling since first week, thereby giving me the feeling that I've been sidelined doesn't help in removing my displeasure at work.

I guess my work experience pretty much went downhill since my transferring to Bedok and here's the post on my quitting as promised.

PS. I realized I haven't talked much about my tuition. Just had tuition for both kids today and the workload's getting heavier now that term test's in sight. I guess tuition has been pretty smooth going and I intend to keep it that way. More on this next time!

PPS. Recently I've been getting a lot of time to catch up with people since I'm pretty freed from work - one day work for Starbucks ( even though I put myself down for 4 days, this is really disturbing considering the numbers I'll see in my bank account for this month) and Wed & Sat for tuition. Really happy to be able to meet up and have meals with old friends. More on this (and tuition lolol) next time.

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