Today... wait a minute, it's 2.30am!!! So ahem, yesterday I attended a wedding dinner at Nikko Hotel. It was my husband's father's brother's daughter's wedding!!! Makes sense?

My husband's father is my father-in-law. N his brother in turn is my "ah jiek" and because he's the youngest, we had to call him "ber jiek"!

Now the thing is... I ish not Hokkien!!! Greeting each n every one of the elders is a REAL challenge!!! And after a while, I just got all mixed up as to who to call "jiek, jim, gu, kim, pek, gor" and more! Not to mention "tua, di, sa, see etc etc down to ber" in front of their 'titles'!!!

Why can't it be like before where all male elders are called uncle and all female elders are called auntie!!! Wahlau!!! Confused max!!!

And oh... everyone around seemed to have kids... I've been called "ber jim", "ber kim" etc etc!!! Wanna cryyyyyyy!!! Makes me feel so old!!! And it doesn't help with the fact that the dinner we attended... the groom's 23 y.o. and the bride's only 21 y.o!!! I'm a decade older than the bride!!! No wonder I feel so old!!!

- Posted from my iPhone 4

Divorces usually happen at one of the following 3 phases; according to a psychiatrist I met recently at a training:

1st Year
When couples officially live together as husband and wife with new sets of responsibilities and commitments. Some find that they share very different values or outlook in life vs. that of their partner. Not to mention financial-related opinions too on when to share, when to split and who to pay etc.

1st Child
When all energy, time and attention is devoted to the only child with none to spare the spouse. Couples face issues like lack of intimacy (too tired, no time, not in the mood etc) or lack of communication (nothing to talk about aside from the child). This is the time, where couples sometimes grow out of love.

Empty Nest
Parents who are so used to communicating with one another via their kids often find that they don't know who their spouse is anymore when their kids are old enough to leave home to start their own life / family. Suddenly, the person who is supposedly the dearest become somewhat a stranger.

Yesterday, someone from my inner circle confided that she is planning for a divorce. She got married 3 years ago and now has a 1 year old son. Her stories about how they feel out of love were exactly as per what the psychiatrist said! It happened between the 1st year and the year she had her 1st child!

It was so heart breaking to hear of people contemplating divorces for whatever reasons. And yet these things happen cos we sometimes take things for granted. Perhaps it's good to remind oneself that just becos one is married, it doesn't mean that one can stop working on the relationship!!!

:-(

Crazy day today! Attended a simulation workshop where I was supposedly the MD of a Hospital tasked to turn around the business via convergence of existing business units and expansion into new areas of opportunities.

Super tight schedule and we were even assigned an "assistant" each who'll remind us of our meetings with COO, CEO and Board of Directors (BOD)! And if that wasn't enough, they even had psychiatrists observing us in all our one to one meetings with COO and CEO as well as our presentation to the BOD! Plus, everything's captured on video for our personal reflection tomorrow with the psychiatrist!!!

Halfway through the preparation of our plans, I was "summoned" to meet 2 "reporters" who were there to interrogate me about a patient who turned PINK after drinking the prescribed cough mixture by our hospital! I was expected to provide an official statement there and then and these "reporters" even came with an audio recording device to record my statement!!!

Then out of the blue, my "assistant" reminded me of my meeting with the COO. And this happened nearly immediately after we got our brief i.e. no time to even finish reading up!!! And the biggest mistake I did was not checking with my "assistant" on the org. structure of the hospital and it's subsidiaries!!! Where I came from, a COO is the 2nd in command after CEO but here... this COO supposedly reports to me but was secretly eyeing my seat!!! The meeting was disastrous and I had to cut it short!!!

Then just as I began to deep dive into our plans, my CEO sent me a nasty email asking me to sort out a bad publicity from a patient who died from wrong prescriptions! I was whisked away to a corner with laptop; away from my team to draft a press release to address the negative publicity!!!

Just when I thought there were no more surprises, came my meeting with the CEO this time round! Luckily, we had slightly more time to prepare and the subject of discussion; strategic long term plans that I have in mind for the hospital was an area of my functional expertise! Again, the psychiatrist was also present and I was sweating profusely!

The last meeting of the day was the presentation of our plans to the BOD and boy were we bashed to the max!!! The day was supposed to end 5 sharp but thanks to the severe thrashings from the BOD, both teams had to stay back till 10.30pm at night to polish our decks!!! Why? Cos the final round of presentation to the BOD along with our real-life senior management team will be tomorrow at 10am SHARP!!!

I'VE BEEN CAUGHT OFF GUARD NUMEROUS TIMES TODAY!!! AND I AM SO TIRED AND EXHAUSTED AND BRAIN DEAD!!! HELPPPPP!!!

- Posted from my iPhone 4