I went for a facial at the Bioskin at Chevron House yesterday evening. Yi-Hui had bought me a voucher for a Bioskin P2X treatment for my birthday last month.
I decided to visit Lau Pa Sat for some Fatman Satay. I was quite suprised by how competitive the satay scene was that night!
All the sellers were touting quite heavily. I was surprised to see customers drawn away from Fat Man by aggressive touters.
Fat Man is one of the most established satay stalls there, but the stall is located at the ‘end’ of the satay line, so customers get easily pulled away by some of the lesser stalls.
I felt bad for them, especially since Fat Man is a major player in the satay scene.
All stalls were barbequing up a storm though! There was so much steam pouring out of their charcoal. It was like a satay steam bath to complement my recently completed facial.
I ordered 10 sticks of beef and 5 sticks of chicken. It was $0.60 per stick. They reserved a seat for me while I went to the nearby stall to buy a drink.
I forgot that I shouldn’t buy a drink from the nearby stall! They don’t have kopi. They only have teh. And IMO, it isn’t very good. And it’s expensive! My teh-cino was $2. In its defence, the cup was pretty big.
I felt quite nostalgic eating at Lau Pa Sat. It’s hard to imagine that I once worked at the now empty Ogilvy Centre behind me. I still remember the last time I ate Fat Man satay when I worked there.
I was working on the EDB website. I was pulling a grueling overtime job. I went down for satay at 1.30am. I wanted to order 10 sticks, but they only had 7 left. I ate what I could and returned to the office exhausted, a little poorer and still a little hungry.
Those were some tough times. I worked insanely hard for a very meager entry-level diploma salary.
Here I am some 2 years later, making much more money in a job that doesn’t require me to kill myself everyday. It feels like I’ve come a long way. I worked my way up from the bottom and I worked very hard to be where I am today.
I didn’t take any shortcuts or rely on anyone else. I got to where I am through skill, talent and hard work.
As I ate my satay, I reminisced about my life the last 2 years. Thinking back, I couldn’t believe some of the things I did. I was especially proud and astounded by what we managed to do with Bloggers in Big Shoes.
I had a team of 4 undergraduates with no experience, contacts and skills and we ran a wildly successful public relations campaign for Sanctuary House in a period of 1 month.
When Yi-Hui and I met Noel from Sanctuary House he had trouble finding staff. The heart-wrenching nature of his job made it difficult to attract and retain talent.
He was a part of Give.sg but he had barely received any donations. Sanctuary House had only received a few hundred dollars.
Then we came on board, and pulled off a minor miracle by organizing Bloggers in Big Shoes in a month with virtually no resources. 1 year on, Sanctuary House now has 2 public relations practitioners and accountant helping them out.
They now have over $20,000 in donations from Give.sg alone, of which over $5,000 came from Bloggers in Big Shoes.
I still have trouble fathoming how we did it. It was quite the underdog story. Hard-work and perseverance saw us through.
And I still work very hard. My combined working hours at MCYS and teaching classical guitar can hit up to 70 hours per week.
The last two years have seen me becoming more established as both a classical guitar teacher and a communications professional.
I’ve seen my students do exceptionally well and I’ve done some pretty interesting things too. I’m lucky to be working in fields that allow me to see the fruits of my labour.
It’s nice to see people living a better quality of life because of something you’ve done. With everything that’s happen in the last 2 years, I can’t help but wonder where I’ll be 2 years from now, when I sit down for another plate of Fat Man Satay.
