New Beginnings

Well, it's definitely no secret that the Casino opened recently. I was working on that day... night shift from 8pm to 6am. When I saw my schedule, I was like... wtf??? Haha... So I slept as usual the night before and took a nap in the afternoon and managed to survive my first night shift! Although by 5am I was pretty tired...

The first game I dealt was Blackjack. I was happy that I got that cos it's the one I was most confident in (and the most recent game we learnt). First guest... took her $50 within a minute of her sitting down! She looked at me, said ''oei'' then walked away.

Second guest... 2 kind of chee-ko-pek men in their 40's and 50's. Asked me ''xiao mei ji sui? 22 ah? yi ding hui hen hao de hor?'' Ewwwwwww..... I wish someone else would've seen the way they were looking at me, moving their eyes up and down and raising their eyebrows. I would've shuddered with disgust if I wasn't so darn nervous! Haha....

Surprisingly, it wasn't as packed as I thought it'd be! I thought it'd be full house but there were some empty tables here and there and I was one of them. Cos I kept taking their money.... I got to deal Baccarat after that and I even took their money there! So I was at my empty table with nothing to do. When guests would sit down, I'd be kinda glad! More glad than nervous for something to do! It got to a point where I was kinda hoping the guests would win money so they wouldn't walk away! But then again, I'd only been a dealer for one night at the point so it'd be interesting to see what I would prefer a few months down the road...

I was exhausted by the time my shift ended. First time I worked night shift and it was OT some more... I clocked in when the sun was setting and clocked out when the sun rised. Boy, that really throws your body clock off! Went to get some breakfast with colleagues in Orchard then slowly but surely made my way home. It's weird to go home when everyone else is on their way to work. What follows is the first time that it has ever happened to me.

You know how they say you don't know how tired you are until you sit down? Well, I got a seat at Tanjong Pagar. I fell asleep almost immediately. Woke up for a few seconds when the train got to Buona Vista. Thought I could sleep for a while more... The next thing I knew, a rather rude MRT driver was using his keys to knock on the railing beside me and telling me to get off the train at....... Joo Koon station! OMG! I actually slept through all the ridiculously loud MRT announcements and people getting on and off the train long enough to reach the end of the line and the driver had to wake me up! I ran out of the train as quickly as possible and took the train back. HAHA! Then I got to thinking... why didn't anyone wake me up? Did everyone get off the train before Joo Koon? Cos if I saw someone dead asleep and the train/bus was at the last already, I'd wake the person up cos I don't want him/her to be alone or something, you know? It could maybe be dangerous! And worse... what if the person wasn't asleep? There could've been some medical complications along the way or something!

I'm going to work on Friday night... again. Another OT. And this time it's a weekend. Public holiday weekend! Ah! Boy, I'm gonna need my strength that night! I end at 8am, just in time to see the lovely sunrise at Marina Bay!

This really is a new beginning for me. My third job and I'm conquering my fear of counting. Lucky I have my lovely colleagues to go through this with. Recently we've been bonding a lot, going out for dinner and a lot of karaoke! So much so that I'm actually out over $100 cos of the spending and taxi taking! Hoping to save as much as possible when my pay comes in!

Bad movie experience but great movie

I had the worst movie experience today... and I'm not gonna be shy about it.

The movie itself was great, excellent! But the thing that destroyed the earlier part of my day was... the bloody cinema! Or, to be more specific, the management at the cinema! Singapore only has like 5 major cinema operations and this one is one of 2 that I don't like. The cinema is at... West Mall. Enough said. Singaporeans should know the place well and I think they might've had their own experiences too....

Its early on a Thursday afternoon. Mum and I now watch movies on Thursdays before I go to work cos it suits both our schedules well. We caught the 11am showing of Shutter Island. Here's what went wrong...

1. Management screwed up the movie timing for the staff so they ended up screening the show earlier than they were supposed so they had to rewind the film (which apparently takes some time). Therefore....
2. Movie started at 11.28am instead of 11am. No one official came in to tell us it was gonna be delayed, just some normal staff who said it was only gonna be ''5 more minutes''
3. The first 5 minutes or so, they had the wrong... lens or something so the actors were all squashed up, heads cut off as well as subtitles.... (t felt like watching a pirated movie or something) Oh, get this.... the lights were on as well!
4. About 3/4 through the show, the projectionist screwed up again. The bottom half of the film was at the top and vice versa. This carried on for about 5 min at a point in the film where things were getting discovered.
5. Show ended and immediately after the first name was shown on the credits, they cut it off. The was no picture and no sound for about 30 seconds. Then the credits continued but I couldn't remember if there was sound cos I was kinda busy storming out of there. Later, I overheard that they probably cut off the credit cos they were rushing for the next movie to start. (Do I f***ing care???)
6. Staff were not apologetic at all. AT ALL. They still insisted on us exiting through the front of the cinema and their faces looked, dare I say, irritated even! When my mum mentioned about the horrible service we experienced, they just blamed the management. I mean, there's gotta be some kinda manager there right? Not even a lil compensation or even a full f***ing refund?

They should thank their lucky stars that the 15-20 unfortunate patrons that morning did not make a big fuss like we could have. Mum and I worked in service line before and we know what it's like when things go wrong so we didn't wanna make things difficult for them when it's not their fault. Funny cos this isn't the first time that we had bad experiences at that cinema chain. They often forget to turn off their lights in the beginning; once the film just stopped halfway then continued on 5 min later; they blind your eyes after you've been sitting in a dark theatre for 2 hours by turning on the spotlights IMMEDIATELY after the show ends and most of the staff there really look like they are not happy to be there and might spit in your popcorn if you say something wrong!

Why, just recently, my friend and I were late for a movie cos we had to wait 15 min to get drinks! There was only 1 bloody counter open and they were really slow.

Today did it for me... I'm not visiting that cinema for quite some time if I can help it! DON'T GO TO THE CINEMA AT WEST MALL!!! And perhaps the other branches as well (I've only been to the other one at Suntec) You pay the same price at other places and get service 10 times better!!!

P.S. Go watch Shutter Island tho... it's a fantastic psychological thriller and a great homage to the film noir style. Stellar performance from DiCaprio, as usual great directing from Scorsese and I love the raw editing! Although, as one who watches a lot of movies, I kinda guessed the plot (correctly) from the first clue... Watch it!

Thinking + movies = movies that make you think

Well, what do ya know... Just a day or 2 after I posted the last post, I casually asked my mum if she'd allow me to go overseas by myself. Almost immediately, she said no! I mean... wth. I think I am pretty responsible for someone my age and can somewhat take care of myself and most people who know me would agree! Mum said that she trusts me but I just lack experience in travelling so she won't allow me to go. Well, how am I supposed to get the experience then? Sigh... I'm sure someday I'd understand how she feels when I'm a parent myself, but for now its just agonizing feelings, confusion and distrust that I'll have to keep my mind busy...

Work is going grreat... Really bonding with my colleagues so now it doesn't really feel like going to work. Like going to meet my friends! And it helps that I literally spend the whole day playing games! Currently learning Blackjack so its a whole day of counting numbers over and over... Nice to play and win/lose fake money!

Even tho I'm working now, I still can't give up my movies! And so mum and I have taken to watching movies before my work starts. I start around 3.30pm so plenty of time to catch a show before that. Recently, I was dissappointed with Clash of the Titans. The trailer was so promising but the show was... confusing. Like it couldn't decide which genre it wanted to be in... 3d spectacular? Comedy? Fantastic remake? Greek mythology references galore? Like, really similar to the characters in Percy Jackson? Haha... sorry, I know the original movie was eons ago but Percy Jackson did come out before this new one.

2 shows talked about the same thing... Forgiveness. Remember Me and A Single Man were 2 very different stories but they were all about forgiving and moving on before its too late. They show how your emotion can overrule every logical bone in your body and keep you in a prison of self-loathing and dicontentment. Its so true... cos we have such a short time on earth, if you don't let go of things, you'll just be stuck and never move on. Out of the 2, I prefer Remember me... not cos of Robert (I felt I was watching Edward Cullen for awhile) but cos the story was well written. And it was about a 22 year old which I find fiction and movies don't really talk too much about that age!

In a spending spree since I got my pay... wasn't much to spend but to go from having almost $0 to 4 digits is sooooo satisfying! :)