Star Light Star Bright

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It's October time again and I remember that amost one year ago, I just came in to join my current organisation. Who knows, eyes blink blink blink and here I am. Anyway, October time is also appraisal time and I just had my appraisal done with my boss today.

Appraisal Time
For appraisal, I will need to first assess myself and then sit down with my boss for the appraisal. Generally, while my rating of myself wasn't all together bad but when compared when my boss' evaluation, I rated myself slightly lower in quite a number of aspects. I am really not surprised since I always feel that I am not confident and tend to underestimate myself quite a bit.

But anyway, the appraisal went well and I concur with the evaluations made by my boss and my boss also with mine... I must say I like appraisals because I tend to be harsher on myself and hearing others sharing my strength can help balance things a bit (and of course boost self-esteem a bit too) and it is also an opportunity for me to identify my strengths (trust me I can be rather clueless at times) and identify areas of weaknesses to work on. It kind of put things into a balanced perspective.

Thanksgiving
At the end of the session, my boss did say that hopefully I will continue to stay and grow in the organisation. Well, it does feel good to be asked to stay but then again, I really have no intention to leave... at least for now, salary don't seem to be the concern since I am still single and I would usually stick around in an organisation unless I am not coping well at work or if I am "forced" to leave due to extraordinary circumstances e.g. politics. I really thank God for (i) my job, (ii) wonderful colleagues, (iii) for guiding me in the work all these while (it is so clear because it is just not possible for me to be doing the things I am doing now taking into consideration I have no experience whatsoever in volunteer management), (iv) for a good appraisal and (v) for all the"ministry" opportunities to work with people.

Although I am generally a very shy person (though it is still puzzling why some don't seem to believe it when I say I am shy), I really thank God for bringing volunteers into my path e.g. volunteers who had been abused and now want to help others, volunteers who needed a second chance in life after a taking a wrong turn, volunteers who are struggling with social anxiety issues and wanted to overcome this by volunteering etc. Not only have our paths crossed only briefly, I do hope I had been able to be of help to them; at least I have learnt a great deal about resilience from them... sometimes I just feel I am not just doing volunteer coordination but also a bit of social work.

I also thank God for bringing a new staff to our department. Yeah! I no longer feel like I am the newest kid on the block in my department and most importantly, I started to feel rather relaxed knowing that "reinforcements have finally arrived"; that that someone who can help me with a bit of volunteer management is finally here. I just managed to sit down with her today to take her through the work I do. I kind of enjoy the briefing because as I went through with her what I do in volunteer management, I come to realise how much has been done and realise how much I still like the work that I do. I really thank God for a job which has provided me with an opportunity to be creative and autonomous as well as for a boss who is very supportive of my professional development... to date, I realised I have attended some 8 training sessions, workshops, conference etc... that's pretty a lot for a new staff in one year.

Today is also a happy day because I finally got down to round up my evaluation of a database system for volunteer management; something which has been pending and bugging me since the day I came... I rounded up my evaluation, handed over my evaluation report to my director and the IT director and now just await good news. Frankly, I had been quite skeptical about the system because somehow I felt the system does not fully address my operation needs but I just could not put my finger on it. Now, I am so glad I managed to put together a report to prove my case and submitted to both my directors who generally agree that the system might not be the most effetive way to go... hopefully this will pave the way for a better system to be purchased/developed to handle volunteer management in my organisation... I am really looking forward to that.

But I do feel a little guilty because I am not sure how this will affect my boss since she was the one who made the decision to purchase this volunteer management module in the first place... on one hand, I felt bad that this might make her look bad but on the other hand, I am concerned that if I were to go ahead, the system is just going to make everything more ineffective and inefficient since relative more time will be spent on data entry. Anyway, I still thank God for the conclusion to this burden I have been having for some many months now.

Movies Under the Stars

Today, my friend blessed me with a ticket to watch King Kong under the stars at the Padang. I have read about Starlight Cinema but have not considered going since it costs $15 to watch a movie and this is indeed a bit steep. But since my friend had free tickets, I did not mind going. Watched King Kong (again) but this time, it was a unique experience; sitting on some "makeshift" mat (sat on plastic bags), watching a movie under the stars with the Singapore CBD skyline as the backdrop and having a picnic... Think it would have been more comfortable if we brought a mat along but since it is rather last minute, plastic bags will do. Haha and since King Kong is 3 hours long... I echo what I mentioned in my blog entry on Dec 17... "sit until backside pain" :)

Doesn't help the event was sponsored by Nokia and they were going around helping people to take photos and printed out the photos free for them... the photos so clear. See la, their marketing strategy worked on me... now I am so tempted to get a new phone with a higher resolution camera... then I can use for blogging... look at my silly phone and the photo it produced (above), look like some abstract art item, can't even tell what it is :D