I kinda like these songs. Sounds a lil cheesy… but I like. :p

Presenting to you, Deutschland sucht den Superstar (German Idol)… with the songs All For One, and Fly Away from the Album Fly Away.

Kee just sent me a link over MSN last night. I wanna go for SINGfest 2008!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

There are going to be some nice artists lined up. Especially on Sunday. There’s Jason Mraz, Alicia Keys, One Republic, Stacie Orrico…. sigh… I really wanna go. But a whole day pass will cost me a bomb. Even more than what I spent of front row tix for the Phantom of the Opera. It’s like $200 for the Sunday whole day pass! Too bad I’m a poor student now. I’m so broke. My pay is still not here yet! It’ll cost me an arm and leg. I can’t wait till I’m earning enough to enjoy stuff like this. But I don’t wanna work!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Haha… more wishful thinking. :p

I’m so bored that I’m actually Googling what happens to companies which pay their employees their salaries late. I’m actually thinking of this coz I’m feeling really disgusted at my internship company for not issuing my pay on time. It’s already July and I haven’t even got the pay for the first week of June. It’s even worse for Sc coz she hasn’t even received the May one. Just be cause we’re interns, that doesn’t mean we’re supposed to live on grass! I wonder what employment laws in Singapore say about this.

I remember over our internship period. The payment of our allowance isn’t processed till our attendance for the month is complete. That means only on the last day of the month is our pay sent for processing. Sometimes, even later if our supervisors aren’t free to do it. We only get our paycheck in the mail like 3 weeks later, the following month! Which means it’ll take another freaking 2-3 days for it to clear! The first month was quite a torture as we didn’t have any money for a full month. The following months didn’t feel so bad as we used the previous month’s pay for that month’s expenditure. But seriously, WTH! What kind of stupid policy is this?!!? All my other friends get paid on a specific date of the month. Meaning, if payday is on the 23rd of the month, they will get their January pay on 23 January. For us, it’s like a whole month later. Grrrrrrrrr…

Anyway, ranting done… I came accross some interesting articles with regard to the salary of people in my course of study. Somewhat similar to what Sam and I were talking about the other day. I’ve posted them in the 3 previous posts. Do read and share your thoughts if you may.

Perhaps as a continuation to Engineering - dead end career, there is a second thread of discussion in Sammyboy in Delphiforums: Engineering - get out while you can.

Interesting read.

Quotable quote:

“Get out while you can. Engineering Degree perhaps, but Engineering Career in SG?”

Among news like a monk and an infidel GP doctor making six-figure income, there’s an interesting piece in ST two days ago - ex-top civil servant Ngiam Tong Dow worries that Singapore is becoming “high cost, low tech”.

“The United States has overtaken Britain because while some of their best went to Wall Street, their best still go into engineering.”

His concern is valid.

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By Eileen Yu, ZDNet Asia
Thursday, June 05, 2008 11:45 AM

In Singapore, it certainly pays to grow old–at least, for those in the IT profession. And those who slogged those extra years in post-graduate studies are also laughing their way to the bank.

According to the ZDNet Asia IT Salary Benchmark Survey 2008, there are significant differences between the overall average annual salaries of IT professionals with higher paper qualifications and more years in work experience.

The study polled some 5,400 respondents from Singapore, 62.1 percent of whom held jobs in the IT, Web and telecom sectors.

Twenty-one percent had more than 10 years of experience in the industry, and this group raked in the highest overall average annual salary of S$96,430 (US$70,683). In comparison, respondents with between five and 10 years of experience earned at an overall average annual salary of S$69,239 (US$50,752), while those with fewer than five years of experience brought home S$39,263 (US$28,780).

IT salaries also varied between job functions, with respondents holding positions in IT management pulling in the highest average annual pay at S$99,562 (US$72,979). This figure was significantly higher than the overall average annual salary for Singapore, which stood at S$62,502 (US$45,814), and is more than double that of those in IT support–the lowest paid job function–who earned an average annual pay of S$44,884 (US$32,900).

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Just in case you haven’t noticed, I’ve added some extra stuff to my blog with the help of some amazing plugins here. I’ve updated the list since the it was first posted.

Firstly, I’ve added the choice for readers to increase or decrease the font size of my posts to their liking. Makes it more readable for people who don’t wanna squint to read my long posts and those people who prefer to have the entire post within their screen (but you probably have to have super vision for that).

Now… how to use it.

You see this on the sidebar?

Well, all you have to do is click on the T+ and T- to increase and decrease the font size respectively.

Click on the flag to translate to your language.To revert to the original language (ie. English), click on the US flag.

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I totally cannot believe I’m already something like halfway through the Special Sem. I just took my mid-term at 9.30 this morning. Honestly, I didn’t study much. I just managed to finish reading the first 2 chapters of the textbook. (I’m supposed to read 7 chapters btw!) There’s just too much to read in the book. So, I decided to change my gameplan at 12.15 last night! Just read through my skimpy lecture outlines and try with my mightiest might to remember all the stuff my lecturer was talking about while going through them. Good thing this subject interests me and I have alot of the stuff in the GV12 Aesthetic and CreativeMoving Images Techniques course I took 2 years back. Stuff like mise-en-scene and the cinematography stuff aren’t exactly new to me.

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