Monthly Archives: December 2011

In My Hands Today…

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Sleeping with Beauty – Danna Kauffman

Once upon a time there was a beautiful graceful princess – sound asleep in the heart of a gawky, klutzy young woman…

At twenty-eight, elementary-school teacher Lucy Harper still feels more like a wallflower than the sex goddess she knows is trapped inside her. In fact, she can barely remember the last time she actually had sex. She claims she’s content with her life, but she doesn’t even realize she’s slipping into a coma-a sex coma, that is. Until It arrives: the invitation to her ten-year high school reunion.

Lucy’s childhood pals Jana and Grady are baffled by her decision to attend. But they’ve managed to put geek-hood behind them. This may be Lucy’s last chance to lose her loser reputation and knock her ex-classmates’ socks off-thanks to the modern-day fairy godmothers at Glass Slipper, Inc. For a not-so-small fee, they promise to bring out the princess in any woman. If only Lucy’s friends were more supportive, especially Grady. After all, he loves her like a sister. Doesn’t he?

Soon Lucy is under the scrutiny of eccentric self-made diva Vivian dePalma. And the diagnosis is dour: Lucy has slipped into the final stage of Sleeping Beauty Syndrome-meaning her love life is near death. Can Vivian rouse her in time for the reunion? And will a kiss from her teen crush really be enough to awaken her? For Lucy hasn’t quite opened her eyes to one important truth: the soul mate she’s been dreaming of has never left her side.

Renewal of Foreign Domestic Worker (FDW) Work Permit

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Warning, long and possibly irrelevant post ahead!!

This post is going to be of no relevance to anyone except for someone from Singapore and who employs a foreign domestic worker. I am writing this one so that it serves as a guide for me for the future and if, in the process, it helps anyone else, it’s even better!

Backstory

In November, I got a letter from the Ministry of Manpower letting me know that her two year contract with me was coming to an end around the end of the year. I had to renew her contract or send her back home. Both my V and me were keen to renew the contract, but I did not want to involve the agent who had initially placed her with me as I was not happy with the after sales service that was given to me when V and me had differences over the last two years. Ironically at this same time the agent did get in touch with me to check if I was going to renew the contract. Then she went behind my back and spoke to V directly asking her to renew the contract using her services. When V checked with me, I was ambivalent about it but let V know that if she did use the agent, she will have to bear any extra costs herself as I was not interested in paying her any commission. Later V also realized that using the agent would probably mean that she may have to hand over one or more months salary as commission. So we decided to do it on our own.

I checked an online forum I visit and found out the process. It’s fairly simple actually.

Insurance

You need to get the insurance and bond first before you do anything else. I used NTUC Income, package MI3E which cost me S$ 256.80 for a 26 months insurance. The insurance cannot be done online, so give them a call with the MOM letter in hand. They take your credit card number and process the payment immediately. You can then do the renewal the next day at the MOM website.

Actual Renewal Process

At the MOM website, the renewal process is very simple. Using your SingPass, you log in and do the renewal. A form letter is generated which you have to print to bring with you to the Work Pass Services Office to process the new work permit. This letter will give you the date when you need to be there. Along with the form letter, you also need to print out and fill up a kind of guarantee letter, which basically tells MOM that you, as the employer are guaranteeing the cost of the stay of the FDW.

Work Pass Services Centre

On the date mentioned in your form letter, make your way to the Work Pass Service Centre at Tajong Pagar. This was very close to my office and so took me less than 10 minutes to reach by taxi. The WPSC is located very close to the Keppel Shipyard. There, make your way to the room indicated in the letter and take a queue number. When I went there, it was very quiet, maybe because it was around 3 on a Friday afternoon, but the queue number that I got was called within five minutes. They check the FDW’s passport, old work permit, documents and your identity card. Then you can asked to take the form and go to another room where you can pick up the new work permit. There, the wait was around 10 minutes and I got the new work permit for my helper and that was it! I was in and out of the place in less than 20 minutes.

Wonder why I was so scared of the process. But this bodes well for any future renewals.

Woohoo…Friday’s here…

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It’s the end of another work week and a week closer to my holiday! You must know by now how excited I am about it (I can’t stop talking or rather blogging about it!)

Image from Pinterest

This week has been a mixed bag one with a dash of mommy guilt thrown in for good measure! GG has been pestering me to do something special with her, but other than shopping, which I’ve promised her soon, I can’t think of anything which I will be able to exclude BB. The thing is that I am incapable of doing something with one of them and excluding the other. In fact I am scrupulously fair to the two of them – even if I buy someone something, the other will get something else of the exact same value!

So what are we planning for this weekend? We’re going to take BB & GG to watch Puss in Boots tomorrow morning. I’ve heard many good things about the movie and so will review it later. My only concern is that it’s been rated PG, but hope any fears are unfounded.

Then later, it’s some spring cleaning time (time to clear GG’s closets of the clothes she’s outgrown) and then maybe the library!

See you on the other side of the weekend!

Protective Parenting

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Ok, here’s where I confess – S and me are very protective parents. With parents being bombarded all around about predators around children, it is enough for me especially to want to pull my children around me and never let them leave the security of my arms untill they are adults! But – and here’s a big but – I also want them to grow up to be independent and confident young people/adults.

GG and BB are not allowed to go out on their own. Period. If S is bringing them home from a class and has to park the car, he will drop them at the lift lobby of our building, see them get into the lift alone and then call me to let me know they are coming up. I’ll be on the phone with S outside my home till they reach our floor and then let S know they’re home safe. This is the extent of their trips alone. If they want to play outside our home (we have a huge corridor outside), they have to play at a place where I can see and hear them. If they want to go down to the playground, they are accompanied by a responsible adult (me, S or my helper at my place or my inlaws if at their place) and they have to play where they can be be seen at all times by the adult they are with. These are non-conditional  terms and any violation of these like going to play in another area means we bring them back home immediately.

When we are out at malls for example, till about last year, BB would come with me to the girls toilets if S was not with us. Now that he is older, he is allowed to visit the men’s toilets, but I make it a point to stand outside and do not hesitate to ask someone about him if BB takes too long inside.

Writing this post made me think of the freedom we were allowed growing up. During the school holidays I think we were at home just to eat lunch and sleep at night. The whole day would be spent either at friends place watching TV or some videos, playing at our building or at the neighbouring one, or the building in the next road (except when it was too hot to do anything but watch videos), go visiting other people (even if it was people you didn’t know at all). All this time, our parents would not really be worried about us except when we didn’t come home for meals. This was an era of pre-cell phones and in most homes in India those days (late 70s to early 80s), didn’t have telephones too (this was the height of the licensing era where you booked your phones and were lucky if you managed to get it in 5 years time!).

Parents those days didn’t worry about children as much as we do today. We grew up healthy and independent. But the reality of today is so much different from those years! In retrospect, do you want that life to this one? I for one am not too sure if I would like to live like how we lived in an India in the eighties, give me technology and today anytime!

What do you think? Are you a protective parent or a more liberal one? I’d love to hear from you.