Maddy Nat Sarah and I were supposed to go Jitterbugs-ing tomorrow. Messaged them to say that I'm sick and I'm not sure if I can dance tomorrow.
Maddy replied to say she sprained her toe while shopping.
Nat replied to say she pulled a muscle while walking around Orchard.
And my cold was exacerbated thanks to the tiring shopping trip.
First, dangerous studying. Now, dangerous shopping. What next, haha! I'm rather disappointed though. I've been looking forward to dancing so badly that sometimes I'm kept awake at night going through sequences in my head. (Mostly, it's gruelling ballet barre work. I think I'm paranoid about losing technique and flexibility haha.)
I hope Sarah (the only healthy one left of the lot hehe) isn't too sad ):
Anyway I have something to remind myself about: Be thankful I'm Singaporean. A few hours in Malaysia today reminded me of that. Despite the cheap food and um mostly cheap everything over there. Yeah. Singapore's cleaner and greener and safer, and much as I complain endlessly about the service industry here at home, I realised I'm actually quite pampered over here. You won't find security guards who lead you all the way to a site under renovation, for example, when you ask where the food court is. You won't find tired and bored shopkeepers sitting on the floor amongst their clothes racks, for goodness sakes.
You won't find a Delifrance sandwich that is anything less than overflowing here. This is the flattest Delifrance sandwich you will ever see. I think I finished it in less than 10 bites, when it would normally have taken me at least twice as long.
This warrants a new paragraph because that got me really pissed off today. I believe franchises should upkeep a certain level of quality in every single branch in every single country, and there's really no need to scrimp on a few more spoonfuls of chicken since chicken's so cheap anyway, especially if those few more spoonfuls would make a satisfied customer. I mean, the benefits of having delighted customers far outweighs the cost of a few grams more of chicken. I don't know. I guess that's just my take towards service - delighting customers should be of utmost importance. Especially if you work in the service industry, you should be working there because you enjoy making your customers happy, and not just for money. If the service industry's filled with people who don't want to be there in the first place and can't be bothered to go the extra mile for a smile, then all the campaigns and training programmes in the world won't be able to help.
Whoops I think I deviated a bit.
Anyway it's not just the service. I'm so glad for Singapore and her strict laws and non-corrupt police, and the fact that I don't have to guard my bag with my life for fear of being robbed. We don't have to worry about the car being vandalised here. Noone's allowed to smoke indoors (I nearly choked to death today). There are directories and working aircons in all shopping malls. We don't have any natural scenery, but at least there are lots of trees and little plants in the midst of the concrete jungle. Going from the Singapore checkpoint to the JB checkpoint was like entering another era. I'm so glad my parents came here, or I could be living there right now.
I guess I should really be thankful for what I have here. Although I do believe that Malaysia has its charms, and if I were born and living there, I would probably be fiercely patriotic. But I'm Singaporean, and I like it here. (: There certainly are things I dislike about our country. But at the end of the day, (and this is as cliched as it gets) it's home (:
(Something tells me a Malaysian version of asd will be after me next. I'm not trying to put down Malaysia, every country has its good and bad points, and I admit my country's not perfect as well. But it's just that some of my bad experiences there today made me realise that I should be thankful for what I have here.)
(I Hate with a capital H the fact that I have to put down disclaimers and validate all my points because I don't want to offend anybody unintentionally when I blog. Shrug. Guess that incident taught me to be more wary. Blogging's not just about me I guess. Although I always feel that if you don't like it, just don't read it lah and you shall be happily ignorant and I shall be happily expressive.)