Joel Seah » Food For Thought

Turtle Soup

Joelseah — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 16:14:21 +0000

Went to try turtle soup for the first time today at Jalan Berseh food centre today. For those of you who have not tried it before, it tastes very much like chicken meat. The soup itself is slightly thicker than most herbal soup that you can get at food courts. Overall, it was pretty decent. From the looks of turtles, it is easy to imagine that the meat will have a “smell” to it, so i was pleasantly surprised by the non existence of any “smell” =)

(The claypots are the turtle soup and meat)

Apparently, many chinese believe in the benefits of (soft-shell) turtle meat, especially in the rear soft-shell of the carapace which is a dense collection of collagen. It’s often regarded as a tonic and the meat is suppose to be very rich in protein. It can also boost energy and improve overall well being. H1N1 precautions perhaps? *ponder..

Be Considerate In Train Stations

Joelseah — Wed, 27 May 2009 10:53:17 +0000

I was at the train station yesterday and i saw this very interesting campaign that is on going now. For those of you who are familiar with Phua Chu Kang (for my foreign friends, PCK is a pretty popular figure from a sitcom that used to air on TV some years back), he can now be seen on buses and trains urging us to be considerate when using public transport.

Here’s an example of the campaign, a poster that can be seen on train platform doors:

So hopefully, with this message pasted on the platform doors, it’ll remind those anxious and excited train passengers to let people alight first before they rush in. Will it work? Your guess is as good as mine.

School Enrichment Training

Joelseah — Fri, 22 May 2009 15:14:46 +0000

Went to a neighbourhood school to conduct a training on Travel and Tourism this morning. The gist of the training revolves around the tourism industry and equipping the students with some knowledge on what it takes to be a Tour Guide (yeah.. in case you’re wondering, I was in tourism for 7 years before becoming a trainer).

Some of the key skills that the students learnt included stuff like presentation skills, interesting stories and facts about Singapore, itinery planning and coordination. There’s gonna be a field trip next week to allow the students to put what they learn into practice.

I must say, conducting a training in a class of over 30 noisy kids is one very interesting experience. Thankfully, I have a loud voice =P Though because of the weather, I was perspiring a lot (it didn’t help that I had to be dressed formally).

Food for thought: Would you rather be a school teacher and deal with kids, or a corporate trainer and deal with adults?

Sue Son – Divided Opinions

Joelseah — Tue, 12 May 2009 06:20:37 +0000

Last week’s episode of Britain’s Got Talent served up some interesting talking point among netizens and people in the UK. The person in the middle of all these is Sue Son, a violinist.

Sue first entered the auditions with her best friend Janine, performing a semi classical act with Sue on violin and Janine on keyboard. Both of them are pretty talented individuals. However, the judges felt that the two of them don’t have the wow factor as a team, and offered Sue the opportunitity to re-audition as an individual (Apparently they preferred Sue over Janine).

After some initial hesitation, Sue decided to take up the offer (Simon Cowell didn’t help by insisting an answer from her on the spot). The moment Sue took up the offer, the camera went right to Janine, who looked visibly disappointed.

So that started the whole debate:

The anti Sue group feels that she should have stayed loyal to her friend and declined the offer. The pro Sue group feels that she was right to pursue her dream since the judges already ruled out her friend. Besides, if Janine is really Sue’s best friend, she should be wholeheartedly supporting Sue.

Anyway, if you’re wondering how good is Sue exactly, here’s the clip of her individual audition:

The So Called Hygiene Masks

Joelseah — Mon, 11 May 2009 11:41:29 +0000

If you’ve been to hospitals or polyclinics recently, you would have seen many people wearing masks. Apparently, what the medical staff do is to take your temperature before you enter the premise, and if you have a cold or a cough (or anything that may be contagious), they’ll give you a mask to put on.

So the mask is there for obvious reasons. It is to prevent the spread of viruses. What disturbs me is when I walk past Sengkang Polyclinic, I see the masks all over the grass patches just outside the polyclinic. Here is one example of the many masks on the ground:

Food for thought: If the masks are gonna end up on the ground, then why bother issuing it in the first place? Wouldn’t this create a greater danger instead?

Lin Chiling Voted Taiwan FHM’s Sexiest

Joelseah — Thu, 07 May 2009 15:37:20 +0000

Yahoo news reported today that Lin Chiling has been voted Taiwan FHM’s sexiest for the third year running. Why am I not surprised =P

Coming in second place is singer Jolin Tsai, and third went to Hollywood actress Megan Fox. The poll took place over six weeks, and Lin Chiling won with 55,182 votes. Hm.. wonder if any Singaporeans made it into the list.

Training At Singtel

Joelseah — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 08:58:48 +0000

Conducted a product training at Singtel this morning, so that completes this round of product trainings for the three operators. Been a while since I’ve done operator trainings, and I think I’m getting old =P Left the stack of sales sheet in my house today, and I only realised it when I got to the training venue. Thankfully, Jeraldine came to my rescue with another set of notes. Mental note: should buy her coffee next time

Just finished typing the script for my Enneagram videos too. Strangely enough, though I literally speak for a living, I seem to have many stop starts when I do audio recordings. The scripts should come in handy. So stay tuned for my Enneagram videos if you’re interested in personality profiling =)

Food for thought: Which is worse? An outbreak of swine flu, or further rounds of retrenchments?