21 Lower Kent Ridge Road
Singapore 119077
A0085616@nus.edu.sg
September 10, 2012
The Human Resource Manager
Ministry of Home Affairs
My SingPost Box 880117
Singapore 919191
Dear Ms Ang,
I am writing to express my interest in the position as a full-time translator for your company. This is in response to the advertisement posted on the Careers@Gov website on 1st September 2012.
As a computer-engineering undergraduate, I am equipped with the essential computer skills needed to be familiar with the tools and software used for translation by your organisation. More importantly, I have great interest in languages, reading and writing. The university module, Basic Translation, mainly exposed me to the various forms of basic translation. I also benefited from the additional practices that further trained and enhanced my translation skills beyond the fundamental objectives.
Being trained in relevant areas of knowledge required for this position, I believe that this will enable me to learn quickly and pick up information faster during the trainings provided by your organisation.
Furthermore, I had the opportunity to enhance my basic writing and communication skills in conversation with customers, through my previous work at AETOS. Similarly, having been involved in the SHF Flag Day, I had the chance to interact and train my communication skills. These allowed me to gain an insight into how translation can affect people’s interpretation of information, and therefore, to come up with more appropriate versions of translation.
I would appreciate the opportunity to grow not only as an employee but also as a student and to gain experience in the course of contributing to your organization. I believe my enthusiasm and willingness to learn will serve further as an asset to your company.
Please contact me if you require any further details. I look forward to hearing from you. Thank you very much.
Yours Sincerely,
Lim Huiyun
Enclosure
Saturday, September 15, 2012
Sunday, September 9, 2012
Interpersonal Conflict.
Well, upon receiving Eric's comment (Thanks Eric!), I decided to do up another more appropriate post. Something more....interpersonal, I hope. Title sure makes a lot of difference!
To be more specific, I guess my previous post was just about a conflict. A conflict in general. I did know the stallholder for quite some time though. But I reckon our relationship wasn't strong enough for the conflict to be considered an interpersonal one.
I admit I'm spoilt for choice after accumulating so many interpersonal conflicts over the years. Yet, it just makes choosing one even tougher.
It was during the second year of my JC. The year before, I had joined Indian Dance as my CCA, despite having zilch dance background and the fact that I cannot dance for nuts. This meant double the effort from me as the other dancers had almost no problem picking up the steps. Effort inevitably meant time.
However, this was a huge problem for me. I had already flunked my first year very badly when I was struggling to balance my studies and CCA, especially since it was the year of our SYF (Singapore Youth Festival) competition. Being a professional procrastinator and slow learner certainly did not help.
Trainings got more intense and frequent. I'd be left with less than 6 hours at home everyday for having dinner, studying, sleeping and preparing for school. On top of that, because our batch saw too little new additions, I became part of the Exco. Apart from added responsibilities, higher commitment level was now expected of me.
My sleeping and studying routine was getting so drastically ridiculous that my aunts began voicing their concerns. Initially, I had assured them that after the competition ended, I would have plenty of time for that. Little did I expect another performance to pop up in the second year. Furthermore, being one of the Exco members, I had no valid reason to skip trainings. And honestly, I didn't want to.
But that ended up worsening the situation and straining our relationship. I'd practically go home every night utterly worn out. They'd add on with their brief nagging that would escalate into fierce exchanges which sometimes woke my grandparents up. We said tons of regretful and ugly things but I lost it when they demanded me to quit. I wasn't going to quit, not even when I was risking my place in school. I could see where they were coming from, and I knew it was my problem of poor time management, so I was forced to talk to my teacher about it.
Thankfully, I didn't have to quit eventually. I'm much more thankful that despite of all the horrible things we've hurled at one another in a fit of pique, the strain proved to be a strengthening bond ultimately.
Yet, looking back sometimes, I can't help but wonder, how could things have been different?
To be more specific, I guess my previous post was just about a conflict. A conflict in general. I did know the stallholder for quite some time though. But I reckon our relationship wasn't strong enough for the conflict to be considered an interpersonal one.
I admit I'm spoilt for choice after accumulating so many interpersonal conflicts over the years. Yet, it just makes choosing one even tougher.
It was during the second year of my JC. The year before, I had joined Indian Dance as my CCA, despite having zilch dance background and the fact that I cannot dance for nuts. This meant double the effort from me as the other dancers had almost no problem picking up the steps. Effort inevitably meant time.
However, this was a huge problem for me. I had already flunked my first year very badly when I was struggling to balance my studies and CCA, especially since it was the year of our SYF (Singapore Youth Festival) competition. Being a professional procrastinator and slow learner certainly did not help.
Trainings got more intense and frequent. I'd be left with less than 6 hours at home everyday for having dinner, studying, sleeping and preparing for school. On top of that, because our batch saw too little new additions, I became part of the Exco. Apart from added responsibilities, higher commitment level was now expected of me.
My sleeping and studying routine was getting so drastically ridiculous that my aunts began voicing their concerns. Initially, I had assured them that after the competition ended, I would have plenty of time for that. Little did I expect another performance to pop up in the second year. Furthermore, being one of the Exco members, I had no valid reason to skip trainings. And honestly, I didn't want to.
But that ended up worsening the situation and straining our relationship. I'd practically go home every night utterly worn out. They'd add on with their brief nagging that would escalate into fierce exchanges which sometimes woke my grandparents up. We said tons of regretful and ugly things but I lost it when they demanded me to quit. I wasn't going to quit, not even when I was risking my place in school. I could see where they were coming from, and I knew it was my problem of poor time management, so I was forced to talk to my teacher about it.
Thankfully, I didn't have to quit eventually. I'm much more thankful that despite of all the horrible things we've hurled at one another in a fit of pique, the strain proved to be a strengthening bond ultimately.
Yet, looking back sometimes, I can't help but wonder, how could things have been different?
Saturday, September 8, 2012
Conflicts.
When it comes to interpersonal communication, I tend to have this queer habit of imagining possible scenarios and then rehearsing all the probable reactions. Yet, many a times in reality, you are not blessed with some sort of time buffer to contemplate rationally. Especially for conflicts, most reactions would almost be impromptu and, sadly, regretful.
Conflicts are part and parcel of our daily lives. We had this survey in class once, and I remember being the only one who spoke dialect. This reminded me of an incident years ago when using dialect in a normal conversation somehow ended up as a wrong move.
In school, we were taught English and Mother Tongue. As such, it's not surprising to see the dialect-speaking population shrinking discouragingly. Speaking dialect has been a norm for me, though, ever since I learnt to talk. Despite so, I was careful to use it appropriately since I was aware that stereotypical opinions towards dialects do exist. What I didn't know was that some of these are just plain ridiculous.
It was a very simple order at a hawker centre - a bowl of noodles, with more chilli but less oil and meat - but I got back more than I had asked for. It was all because I had placed my order in Hokkien. After noting it down, the stallholder started to lecture me in a mixture of English and Mandarin with his opinions on speaking dialect. He first told me that students like me "shouldn't be speaking dialects" and that we "should speak just English" and our Mother Tongue. Before I could put forth any response, he followed with another argument that since I was in my school uniform, I should have been more sensitive towards the use of dialects.
At that very instant, I had very much wanted to just cancel my order and do that in English. Yet, all I did was to wait in silence but not without the typical offended expression. My hunger convinced me it wasn't worth venting my perplexity and his absurdity on the food. Despite so, I regretted that reaction of mine. Yes, I had satisfied my hunger, but I had failed to pacify my indignation. If the guy before me could place his order in dialect, why couldn't I?
Was it really wrong of me to speak dialect in that circumstance?
Conflicts are part and parcel of our daily lives. We had this survey in class once, and I remember being the only one who spoke dialect. This reminded me of an incident years ago when using dialect in a normal conversation somehow ended up as a wrong move.
In school, we were taught English and Mother Tongue. As such, it's not surprising to see the dialect-speaking population shrinking discouragingly. Speaking dialect has been a norm for me, though, ever since I learnt to talk. Despite so, I was careful to use it appropriately since I was aware that stereotypical opinions towards dialects do exist. What I didn't know was that some of these are just plain ridiculous.
It was a very simple order at a hawker centre - a bowl of noodles, with more chilli but less oil and meat - but I got back more than I had asked for. It was all because I had placed my order in Hokkien. After noting it down, the stallholder started to lecture me in a mixture of English and Mandarin with his opinions on speaking dialect. He first told me that students like me "shouldn't be speaking dialects" and that we "should speak just English" and our Mother Tongue. Before I could put forth any response, he followed with another argument that since I was in my school uniform, I should have been more sensitive towards the use of dialects.
At that very instant, I had very much wanted to just cancel my order and do that in English. Yet, all I did was to wait in silence but not without the typical offended expression. My hunger convinced me it wasn't worth venting my perplexity and his absurdity on the food. Despite so, I regretted that reaction of mine. Yes, I had satisfied my hunger, but I had failed to pacify my indignation. If the guy before me could place his order in dialect, why couldn't I?
Was it really wrong of me to speak dialect in that circumstance?
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