Chasing Dreams

Went to my ex-secondary school friend's first book launch on last week at the National Library. Am so happy for her having her dream comes true although I didn't know that writing children's books was her passion...She has always been the brainy one among my old school friends, having been awarded an EDB Scholarship to study Chemistry at Imperial College London and attaining a PhD as well. She has been staying in the UK with her husband and 3 girls until about 3 years ago when her husband found a job in Singapore. She has been more or less a housewife since the birth of their 3rd child as it is not easy to get domestic helper in the UK. So she has time to pursue her dreams now that even her youngest child is away at school most of the day now. 

"The Magic Mixer" won her the rights to publish with the Strait Times Press. It was one of the five winning entries for Beyond Words 2011, an initiative by National Arts Council to encourage high quality literature. I am not sure how many entries were there but I am impressed that she won and she will receive royalty with every sale of her book. Although we all know that books don't sell very well in Singapore as Singaporeans are not that into books as compared to other nationals.

Anyway, this event set me thinking..."What is my dream and how can I pursue it?". Hmm...

10 years on...

How time flies! I have worked for this company for 10 years! Exactly 10 years ago yesterday, I joined the Singapore branch office as the Accounting Manager for the Euro-American Sales Division. 5 months later, they promoted me to Senior Manager of Admin and made me in charged of all the Admin matters including HR, payroll, accounts, IT and warehouse. Then another 8 months later, both the Admin Divisions of the Japanese Sales Division and Euro-American Sales Division merged and I was asked to look after the warehouse as HQ was deploying a global ERP and warehouse management system and they needed someone with very strong Japanese fluency to coordinate with the Japanese staff in HQ. I had no prior warehouse management experience at all! I didn't know what was required of me but I needed the job badly, I was a single mother with 2 young kids and a mother to feed, so I took on the challenge gritting my teeth. Anyway, although it was really tough implementing the system, I gained quite a lot in terms of job knowledge and recognition. So today I am made to be the consultant to a total of 6 warehouses in Asia.

To actually think about it, it was also because of taking up position at the warehouse that I met my present husband. :) I was given the option to employ another preferably Japanese-speaking staff with more computer knowledge to assist me with the system implementation. I still remember vividly on the day of the interview, I stepped into office seeing this handsome guy sitting at the reception area and jokingly commented to the receptionist that I like this one! After interviewing 2 other candidates who were total disappointments, I was looking forward to meeting this handsome guy! However, I was shocked to find out that he had left after the first interview conducted by the HR and Admin Manager! The receptionist quickly called him on his mobile and asked him to come back for interview with me and the rest just fell into places...

10 years later, from being a single mother with 2 kids struggling to make ends meet, I am happily married with 3 kids, 2 dogs, 2 private apartments, 2 cars and a post-graduate degree under my name! And hubby and I are looking into investing in some businesses to get ourselves out of the rat race sooner by increasing our passive income. I hope in another 10 years, I can retire and travel around the world in style!