Due to reasons only kept to myself, I have not been blogging here as often as before. Also due to being busy with work that kept me occupied in my home office. From calculating prices to emailing quotations and brochures, I have work every day with my present company. There is also the frequent travelling needed and I bring along my lap top to check new emails and to work online. My parents are now in Jakarta enjoying their holidays, the second within 3 months. In March, they were in Macau under the SAGE group tour. Hence, it has been a while since I last updated this blog which is quite well developed with many links and old pictures uploaded from Flickr. For my own safety and privacy, I no longer put so many photos to boast anymore. Instead I now save money on digital camera batteries which are not cheap either.
With the current retrenchment and loss of jobs, now is the best time to upgrade yourself and get an online degree. In the long run, you will save plenty of time and money from commuting to your university from home if you decided to start an online degree. Employers tend to favor those with higher qualifications like a Bachelor’s degree or a Masters degree compared to ‘O’ level or ‘A’ level passes. Your qualifications are also proportional to the income that you deserve. This is the reason why many parents are willing to pay so much to send their kids to varsities in the hope that they will graduate with flying colors and get a higher paying job later on. If you are the busy executive with a family to look after, online degree is the perfect solution for you because you can download lesson plans and course material from the internet in the comforts of your home. And you can even submit assignments online to beat the deadline at home.
This blog post is based on information provided by Blogitive. For more information, please visit Blogitive.com.
My paternal grandma pass away on 16th May 2007 at the ripe old age of 93. She was cremated at Penang’s Batu Gantong Crematorium and the ashes were put in an urn in a Chinese temple in Air Itam. Yesterday, my dad, my aunt, uncle, my youngest sister and myself paid respects to my grandma. Since she died a Buddhist, we offered prayers and food to her departed soul at the temple. May she rest in peace and may eternal light shine upon her. No more weakness, no more sufferings from old age or bad memories of struggles to bring up her 4 children single-handedly when my grandpa passed away in his thirties due to illness. She was my room mate for many years before I went to Singapore to study for my A levels.
Most people will eventually get married, settle down and start a family, though there are some who choose to remain single all their lives. Before they get married, it is time for them to start hunting for the most affordable Diamond Engagement Rings. There are four ‘C’s that you need to consider when choosing a diamond ring - Cut, Clarity, Color and Carat. With regards to cut, the round solitaire diamond has the most sparkle and is very common. There are other cuts like princess cuts, oval shaped, heart shaped, etc.
For clarity, grade D is more expensive than E and represents the clarity or clearness of the stone. Other grades may have blemishes that tarnish the clarity of the diamond. The more blemishes the diamond has, the cheaper it becomes and is less valuable. Diamonds also come in fancy colors like blue, yellow, pink, etc. The colors vary depending on where it is mined where South Africa is the biggest exporter of diamonds in the world.
Carat represents the weight of the diamond. It is obvious that 1 carat diamond is more expensive than say 0.5 carat diamonds. I used to follow my aunt around in Singapore and she was the one who introduced me to the features to note in choosing diamonds. I also owned a diamond cross bought in 1999 that comes with a certificate.
At some point in our lives, we will eventually start hunting for a home to stay. And it is more desirable to own a home than to rent from other people when you are staying away in a foreign place. I have had my bad share of renting from other people who want to control the time you come back late at night, the house rules, the unspoken dos and donts and not counting the secret sifting through your stuffs when you are out by the landlord. Not only that, you phones are tapped as well. So much for privacy and if you happen to own a computer like I do, the landlady wants to increase the electricity bill by S$30 extra.
So it was time for me to hunt a house in Singapore after 4 months of torture renting from my landlady. First and foremost, you need to get a real estate agent to help you in this after you have selected the area of your choice and one that suits your budget. I must admit that I was put in a desperate situation by my sister who co-owns the HDB flat with me. At that time, you cannot buy on your own merit but need to share with either a spouse or a fiance who are Permanent Residents in Singapore. You can read more on this in Recognizing a Good Real Estate Agent and don’t let the real estate agent pressure you into making a fast decision on the spot like my case. That idiot even counted 1 to 3 for me to decide before bluffing that it will be given to someone else. And I was desperate enough to fall into his trap and made a foolish decision which I regretted later on.
Well, the HDB flat in CommonWealth Drive has since been sold to my relief as it was located in a bad neighborhood. I did not scan the neighbors closely before making up my mind being a novice in house hunting alone. That was some experience that I don’t want repeated.
Paul Blart (Kevin James) is a single, suburban dad trying to make ends meet as a security officer at a New Jersey mall. It’s a job he takes very seriously, though no one else does.
When Santa’s helpers at the mall stage a coup, shutting down the megaplex and taking hostages (Paul’s daughter and sweetheart among them), Jersey’s most formidable mall cop will have to become a real cop to save the day.
Every day we watch tv and read news that a company is retrenching its employees or winding down from operating to prevent further losses. Breadwinners with young kids to feed are finding it hard to make ends meet. This problem is compounded further by job losses by the millions around the world and the global recession is not going to end anytime soon. The global financial meltdown was precipitated by problems in the USA which spread to Europe, then to Asia as these economies are major trading partners.
Hence, it is time to save money and not to spend frivolously. Instead of eating out, you can save some money by preparing food at home and save on gasoline. From buying new clothes, you can use hand-me-downs for your kids and they will learn to appreciate the value of money. In this economic downturn, every penny that you save is a penny earned. And I might just consider selling all my stamp collection and gold coins that I got for Chinese New Year from my uncle in eBay and put the cash in the bank. Besides, it save some storage space as my 12 big stamp albums take up quite a lot of space.
2007 was a very good year to make money blogging. But in the last year, it was not as lucrative compared to the previous year. In 2009, there are still some more opportunities to take from paid blogging work with thousands of blogging joining in the ranks and it is more competitive. But to make money blogging is easy. All you need is to open up a blog using Wordpress or the free Google’s Blogger web site and post regularly for 1 month with at least 20 posts to be accepted into the program.
PayingPost also has its own blog for you to check out on updates and the latest information. Many work at home moms and those freelancers and bloggers are jumping on the bandwagon to do paid blogging weekly, earning lucrative, income through their PayPal. This is one the methods to earn money online and does not require hard core critical thinking unlike programming codes in the thousands of lines. You just write what comes to mind and simply put the advertiser’s hyperlink with selected keywords to it. Ain’t it easier than that?
Paid blogging has earned me some pocket money in the past and I have saved up whatever I earned online for my retirement plan. This is so that I have financial freedom in my golden years, no need to depend on anyone for a living. And I have to make sure I have enough savings to tide me through those golden years of sunset. As I am not married and don’t have children, I cannot depend on them to pay for my expenses when I am old. So make hay while the sun shines and take the opportunity to earn as much as you can while you are able. There are many programs offering paid blogging and PayingPost is one of them.
I am getting older now and no longer a spring chicken where I could do a lot of walking, exercising and working while cooking my own lunch and dinner in the 1990s when I was living alone in Singapore. At that time, I was at the prime of my life and could do a lot of things on my own without any problems. Now sometimes I have back ache and have put on much weight. I need to reduce at least 20kg to look younger again for a healthier BMI (Body Mass Index). You could also go to this link restylane training on how to look years younger than your actual age. The business of making people look younger has grown with more clients hoping to use dermal filler that is injected into the skin to even out the folds and thus make one look years younger.
I have recently discovered that our former futsal client Hanis from Kelantan, copied 90% of the photos from our web site in www.OlympicVenture.com to create a similar web site offering sports surfaces products. I shall not reveal her web site but we are getting our lawyers to deal with her. She does not seem to understand what copyright infringement means and delay in taking out the photos. Each time we contacted her, she says wait for 1 week before she remove our photos as ‘there are procedures to follow’. I don’t know what she means by procedures as taking down or closing the web site is very straightforward.
Hence I have been busy getting proofs of the theft and updating our current company web site with html code to prevent right click and copying for over 300 web pages. But this is not fool proof that it won’t happen next time. Therefore I was very busy the last week because of this dishonest client turned competitor. They copied every brand that we use like Plexipave, Tiger Turf and also our rubberized floor. Such no brainers who follow our very own business model.
Since Hanis is so reluctant to remove our copied photos from her web site, we had to get a lawyer to send her a letter. She admitted being too lazy working as an accountant for other people and prefer to do business. But with blatant copying from our web site including the paragraphs that I had to carefully think out, and taking a short cut method to build her web site quickly, she leaves us with no choice but to proceed this to the court if she is so stubborn. Meanwhile, we also discovered her partner who is fluent in English secretly contacted our source of supplier in USA and pretended that they sub-contract work to us when actually they are our clients for sports courts. Well, this is the last thing that we want to have anything to do with them.
January 27, 2009 at 10:34 pm
· Filed under Diana's Diary
I am eternally grateful to my father for paying for my group tuition more than 20 years ago for Mathematics which resulted in me getting 100 marks - the only student with full score in my class back in the 80s. My Math Tutor was very patient and often times, I stayed back after tuition to ask him questions one to one and he answered them all using his extra time. Well, he is now my father’s god son after being baptized a Catholic. Those were the years that I will never forget of my academic success to where I am today and I am grateful for such a caring dad.
January 27, 2009 at 10:27 pm
· Filed under Diana's Diary
I just came back from Hatyai in south of Thailand near the Malaysian border. My parents together with 2 younger sisters and I went there by van for 4 days and 3 nights during the Chinese New Year. As we passed by the immigration checkpoint, ours was the only van to be seen and it was relatively empty compared to the previous year where we had to queue up for quite long. I guess factors like the global recession and economic downturn cause people to stay at home. And even as I blog now, I could hear the sound of fireworks in the neighborhood to usher in Chinese New Year. I guess my neighbors still have small children who are in the mood for some sparklers and lighting of fireworks.
Chinese New Year falls on 26th to 27th January 2009. Following tradition, I will be wearing my red polo collared shirt of my company attire for the occasion and will probably look around for a pair of Boot or some good walking shoes. My family and I will be in Hadyai, south of Thailand for the season. We will travel there by a van from the 24th January to get away from all the nosy relatives who might be wondering why I am still not married in my late thirties. Well, I am enjoying life now, no worries and not tied down to minding kids. Also I can holiday as and when I like with no strings attached.
My whole family will be there, my parents and two younger sisters who are working and very successful in their own ways. We will treat sumptuous dinner on each night one by one for the 3 nights that we are staying in Hadyai. Life has been good to us and it is a blessing that we still hold a job each in this economic crunch and global recession. Each day we are greeted with news of people losing their jobs by the thousands all over including Malaysia and factories closing down. Hence, we need to be careful with our money and not to spend too lavishly.
I would also like to take this opportunity to wish my Chinese readers a “Happy Chinese New Year 2009″ and remember to save up for rainy days.
December 28, 2008 at 12:46 pm
· Filed under Diana's Diary
I have just submitted my 2 shorts articles for a blog of 300 words each. It only pays USD 1 cent per word, so you can calculate how much 300 words will bring in. Christmas is just over but the Yuletide spirit still lingers on. And I was in bed almost the whole day to recuperate from my stubborn flu after taking 2 rounds of anti-biotics for the last 1 month. As I felt better today, I decided to work a little by writing articles for income. My mind is clearer now and no longer drowsy from the medication and cough mixture. And Belated Christmas to my readers!
2007 was a very good year to make money blogging. But in the last year, it was not as lucrative compared to the previous year. In 2009, there are still some more opportunities to take from paid blogging work with thousands of blogging joining in the ranks and it is more competitive. But to 
I am getting older now and no longer a spring chicken where I could do a lot of walking, exercising and working while cooking my own lunch and dinner in the 1990s when I was living alone in Singapore. At that time, I was at the prime of my life and could do a lot of things on my own without any problems. Now sometimes I have back ache and have put on much weight. I need to reduce at least 20kg to look younger again for a healthier BMI (Body Mass Index). You could also go to this link 
