Long hours of study has culminated in the first battle this evening. 

To say that the paper was easy is an understatement for everyone was shocked when the question paper was handed out. Less than 50% of the focus areas provided by the lecturer came out for the exams and the questions were vague to start with.

22 out of 40 marks in the compulsory section were easily thrown down the drain as you tried to "smoke" your answers through. The other section which made up of the remaining 60 marks were also an art in convincing the examiner that your answer is relevant to the questions. So much for the intensive 12-hour mugging session the day before and over the long weekend.

While you are demoralized from this paper and yearn for a reassuring hug, you can only depend on yourself and self-motivate in order to push through such stressful times. Now you can only hope for the best for this paper as you focus on the next paper. 

The weekend has been one of an emotional roller-coaster ride. Now you know that despite the efforts of Father Time to heal the pain, things does take time. At the end of the day, you just have to get through this tough journey.

When the journey gets tough, a drive along your favourite stretch of road and looking at the innocent nephew is the antidote to get you going. But there have been times when you have caught yourself staring at the crib looking at the little one sleeping away while hugging his little bolster.

And you wonder...if everything had worked out back then, your kid would had been the same age of your nephew. Is that a sign of the ticking body clock? But then again, since when guys have this? Isn't that the domain of the female species?

Focus. You ought to focus. The exams are this week and you ought to put away all these regrets in order to put the mind squarely on the final battle. What you had yesterday is only memories; what you will have tomorrow is your dreams and what you will do today, is all in your hands.

Like what the wise man once said "Idleness is the enemy of the soul; and therefore the brethren ought to be employed in manual labor at certain times, at others, in devout reading." And an idle mind is better employed in preparation for the final battle on Tuesday and Thursday instead of drifting towards the memories of yester-years. 

The best is yet to be...

That familiar back view of her with him having breakfast before heading off to class. 

That familiar voice chatting with her classmates over lunch at the study area as you walked past to top off the bottle.

The breathing increases and the heart skips a beat when you recognized that view and that voice which once made your imperfect world perfect. The memories of a bygone era came gushing out of the abyss like the magma bursting out from the depths of Earth and you were brought back to those good times both of you once had. 

You hoped she hadn't noticed you for it would sure spoil her beautiful Saturday. You don't expect her to give you that "twinkle-in-the-eye" beautiful smile to acknowledge your existence. As hurtful as it may be, its better to be treated like 路人甲 or an invisible person in order to not to destroy her already blissful life.

But seeing her so happy is good enough for you. Indeed, she deserved better.    

With much trepidation, you went to get yourself medically re-certified for flying. 

It's part and parcel of being a pilot where, depending on your age, you are subjected to annual medical checks to ensure you are fit for flight duties. Despite the usual urine test, the extremely comprehensive eye checks, blood pressure checks and height & weight measurements, you were deemed fit for flight.

But some of the results were a tad worrying. For instance, the blood pressure is a tad on the high side at 131/84 and your eyes are not as sharp as it used to be. Adding to the insult, your weight has slowly inched upwards!! You need to lead a more active lifestyle and eat healthily by reducing the intake of red meat. 

If you don't do that, you are worried you are going to fail the compulsory ECG check when you hit 35. But before that, you think you better do a blood test with cancer markers to check for any potential health problems which will hinder your flying.

And who said that pilots are hard drinkers, smokers and party-goers?

Exams are around the corner (next week) and the time of writing, you are kept busy understanding the various manpower laws and Acts for one of the modules. Given your limited memory capacity, it's a challenge trying to remember all the different Acts and their applicability.

But there isn't much option given as a quick glance of the past year papers have necessitate the need to memorize and remember them by heart. This is one paper where you cannot utilize your "smoking" skills to answer the questions. 

You just hope that the memory bank lasts long enough until the exam next Thursday when you can regurgitate out everything. As for now, you hope that the old wives tale of sleeping with the notes and mixing the ashes of the burnt notes will allow it to be totally infused into the body. 

Well, its already the last semester. You have to bite the bullet and push yourself through the final stretch. 必胜！！

The day of reckoning draws nearer as you spend the weekends at the school's study area cramming for hours, trying to understand the laws and concepts. It's mentally exhausting as you sit still and study for 8 hours, making notes while draining cups of coffee. The session is only broken by visits to the washroom or to the food court to pack food.

Despite all these cramming, there are times when you remember that she is also attending classes just 2 floors above you. You wonder how she is coping and hope that all is well for her. And sometimes fate can be cruel when it gives you that chance to see her in school or on the road while you are on the way home. She may not have noticed you (which perhaps is better) but to see that she is doing well is something that life has treated her well. 

But it may not be her for as its been said that when you think of someone intensely, what you thought is her may be just a figment of your imagination. Perhaps its just those emotions welling out of the abyss like lava spouting out of the volcano. Just like Love. That one thing that most have longed for, discovered, lost, found again, lost again.  It’s one of the most complicated things in the world, and many people spend their entire lives trying to figure it all out. 

You read somewhere that it has caused many to act in ways that they wouldn’t normally act, causes them to do things which they wouldn’t normally do, and leaves such a lasting mark that entire wars have been waged over this idea of love. Interestingly, The love between two people manifests uniquely each time.

It leaves you wondering how both of you would react if you happen to make eye contact one fine day many years down the road. Would it be as emotionally charged as this? You don't have an answer for that but as Scott Fitzgerald once said "There are all kinds of love in this world but never the same love twice."

It has been a long and tiring week as you battled sickness while covering as the department head. It's been marked by the long day short night equivalent of exercise manning as you came in as early as 0730H in the morning and leaving the office 12-hours later.

Handling 2 portfolios ain't easy matter as you need to toggle your focus between your work of Business Development and Human Resources Development. You worked out something simple yet intuitive by looking at the task at hand. If you are doing Business Planning, you tend to do it in the morning when your brain is still fresh and the coffee is working its magic. Afternoons are left for the HR work where you can rest the brain.

The best part of having 2 portfolios? You are given the opportunity to network through seminars and gather useful information to scope the business strategy. Furthermore, it brings perks like business travel to places which you wouldn't be able to afford anyway. In this case, you making another trip back to Munich in a span of 1 month. But such perks also brings detractors in the form of the green-eyed monsters. Somehow or rather, they think that you are going there on a jolly good trip on company expenses.

You know that there will be such people around and you were just reminded by one of the directors who hired you. As the "blue-eyed boy" of the boss (you really hate the term), the 老臣子 of the organization view you as a threat and don't trust you. But your conscience is clear and your mission is clear. Your job is to put in place processes and to optimize the structure for efficiency. That's it. Nothing more, nothing less.

Sometimes you think flying is way more easier than dealing with human behaviour. Speaking of which, it's time to get yourself current on flying again. You are starting out with the medical to get yourself "upchit" for flight. The next step would be get yourself up to speed on the latest flight regulations before going for a flight review. Getting the flight review is going to be a challenge as there ain't many FAA certified flight instructors locally and you would have to source within the region for one. But as the saying goes, if one is determined to fly, one will fly means and ways to make it happen.

And make it happen, you shall.

When you are shortlisted for the initial interview by a local budget long haul carrier, you wouldn't pass up the opportunity despite the great future you may have at the current company.

And the interesting part was that you weren't even required to head down to their office to do that. Everything was done online; the pilot aptitude assessment test and the video interview itself. It's an intriguing experience and goes to show an organization's way of reaching out to the masses through the power of technology.

The pilot aptitude test was a stressful experience as one of your ex-colleagues wasn't accepted by the carrier because he did badly in that. The questions covered psychological, hand-eye coordination, numerical reasoning, logical reasoning, spatial orientation, etc conducted under the pressure of time. Given that some of the questions covered basic mathematics calculation (perimeter of wheel, volume of cylinder, etc), you were hard-pressed to google for the formulas. This was the only advantage of doing online assessments.

As for the video interview, it was hassle free and reminded you of the Skype sessions which you had with J eons ago. All it took was less than 10 minutes where they asked 3 simple questions and you are given 60 seconds to frame the answer before the recording automatically starts. The beauty of it is that you are able to conduct an After Action Review with your mentor/friends using the recorded footage. Unfortunately, you can't re-record the interview again.

Well, you have done what you can despite nursing a sore throat and being heavily sedated like an elephant. At least you can sleep soundly at night.

You were out for a recruitment fair yesterday and something disturbing caught your attention during your interactions with the job-seekers.

Many of the job-seekers came from the shipyards of your sister companies. When queried, these job-seekers spoke of little or no jobs within the yard as the impact of low oil prices continues to pummel the oil and gas sector. Many of them highlighted the lack of certainties and they rather start searching for other jobs instead of waiting for the dreaded pink slip.

It reminded you of what you have learnt in the recent class and seminar; that in the current economic climate, one needs to continuously upgrade their skill-sets or pick up a new skill in order to stay relevant. While what you are going to write next may sound like its applicable to organizations only, its also highly applicable to individuals too. As the CEO of GE, Jack Welch once said; "If the internal environment is unable to keep up with the external environment, the organization is doomed for failure." 

Notwithstanding this, with the raising wages, ageing workforce and reduction in productivity, its getting more expensive for organizations to operate in Singapore. It would be interesting to see what NWC would deliver in their annual wage recommendations. You suspect the increment for this year would be lesser in order to remain competitive for organizations to stay invested in Singapore.

However, the government can only do so much. At the end of the day, the mindset of your fellow countrymen would need to change. Everyone have been comfortable for too long and gotten complacent. It's dangerous for once complacency sets in, that's when the enemy will strike. And in this case, its the organizations transferring their investments to other places and downsizing.

Thus, you cannot reiterate the importance of staying hungry for knowledge. Through the quest for knowledge, one would be able to better understand this volatile environment and find a piece of the world for oneself.

When you are placed in position where your room for maneuver is as restricted as the airspace over Singapore, you often have to check your six to ensure its clear. Such is the challenge you are facing these days. And such is the situation where you cannot tell your team for fear of scaring them and you can only confide in the safety of cyber-space without being judged.

You were called in by the Group HR director for a frank opinion on the climate of your own company. It wasn't a good feeling when your HOD saw you highlighting your concerns as she walked pass the Director's office. But like what a fellow colleague pointed out, you are being used as a tool to send a message to the rest of the company.

Sometimes its true that some levers have to be pushed in order to drive home a point, you hate to be that lever. In fact, when a few of the SVPs from the HQ spoke to you privately about the issues, you knew that you are not alone in recognizing the issues. You are also glad that the parent HQ is aware of the institutional problems which your company is facing and that help is coming in a big way. 

You worry about how the people who has been in the company for long will take it for change is going to hit them in a big way. And if one cannot adapt and move with times, one would be rendered obsolete.

You were pleasantly surprised yet humbled when you received your performance bonus quantum letter recently. Given that you are a new hire to the company, you hadn't expect such a generous payout. Coupled with the recent opportunity to expand your horizons and the additional business development portfolio, it seems like your prospects are bright in this organization.

While the prospects are bright, the culture and mindset of the people within this organization can be an obstacle. A lot of questions have popped up in your mind about the organization's futurerecently and it had to do a lot with what you have learnt in school. With an ageing workforce, poor retention rate of the younger workforce and a mindset that prefers to maintain the status quo, you wonder how much longer you can work in this organization. 

You look upon the heavens to seek guidance and strength from the powers everyday to be able to make a difference in the company. But the lure of the wild blue yonder keeps calling out for you. Perhaps its time to try again for that coveted job.

There's never been a moment where you look forward to the weekend.

You are glad that you can finally let your hair down after handing the group assignment on Thursday. It marked the final school assignment and meant that you would be graduating soon. The long week has entailed you going home early, clean up the house, make dinner before starting on the school work.

Long nights will be detrimental to the mental health as you sleep late (sometimes as late as 4am) and waking up for work the next day. With the assignments all done, you gave yourself a pat on the back and the weekend off to catch up on the sleep. In between the rest, you managed to attend a reunion of the project team and reminisce on the old times. Indeed, we all missed the times we had over at the country where, despite the long working hours, we managed to explore almost the entire country. We made a promise to head back there in 2020 to celebrate 10 years of the project commissioning.

That aside, attending a Finance seminar to keep yourself updated on the market trends and property market has allowed you to confirm your own observations. It also allowed you to fine-tune your investment portfolio to reach the ultimate goals of owning a property. 

All in all, you can say that its been a good week, but as they always say; The Best is Yet to Be.