Spam, Nails, Grammar and Jobs

An example of the most pathetic piece of spam I have ever received:

Dear_ Citibank_Online Cleint,

ThIs email_ was sentt by_the Citibank_ _server_ to veerify _your _email_ adrress_.
You must complete this process by clicking on the_ link beelow and enntering
in the small window your _citibank_ _Debit Card number and PIN_ that
you use_ on local Atm Machine. That_is donne for your protection -7- becouse some of_our
members _no_longer_ have access to their _email_ addersses and we must verify it.

http://www.citibank-card.org/?kJmDwtqoy0bVVvx3ncBH2ZZgfywCEjdZ4BDBT40q

To verify _your_ _E-MAIL_ addres and _access_ _your citi_bank
account, clik on_the link bellow.

5cm1HU567GNaFMqVkX

this is PATHETIC!!! Lousy grammar! Bad spelling! Unnecessary___lines all over the place! Lines of numbers and gibberish! And they except me to be fooled by this??? They except me to give them my citibank debit card no and PIN for this?

which just shows how stupid they are, because i don't even have a citibank account. HAHAHAHAHA! LOSERS! BIG FAT LOSERS ALL OF THEM!!! I hope for their sake that genuine Citibank users aren't stupid enough to kena fooled by this kinda spam... or if they are fooled, do they deserve it for being so dumb? :p Ok getting cocky here...

N while I'm talking about online stuff anyway, I recently did my first online transaction, courtesy of a spankin' new debit card from POSB. [gross orange-looking thing but at least it's interest-free for 5 years] I signed up for a basic manicure/pedicure course at Tampines CC. Yes, bloody far, but it was the only one that fitted my timetable. If anyone else is interested, me and Candle are signing up for the course. It's every Sun from 3-5pm and it starts on the 28th of this month. Registration online closes on the 20th and can be done at the PA website. It's 4 classes for $80 and comes with a free goodie bag. [i hope the link works for you guys, cos' when I tested it it took ages to load...]

[ok, this would also be a baaaaad time for someone to tell me that this isn't the real PA website n that it's some scam but I don't think many spammers would go to the trouble of trying to register a .gov domain and install a secure layer as well all for the sake of scamming my $80. Speaking of which, that would be an interesting way of scamming people on the internet...hmmm... ]

Anyone interesting in signing along? We could go for this, then take up other nail courses and set up our own beauty empire a la Avon lady. Hahahaha...... I might take up a nail art course after this, and maybe the nail spa one too. Daddy always said that it was good to take up new skills, but I'm not sure if this was what he had in mind. Then again, Daddy took up windsurfing and rollerblading at his age, so I've got a good role model......

Oh, and has anyone checked out the Recruitment and Education fair at Suntec? There's supposed to be more jobs there this year, although the majority of them are in the financial planning and real estate sectors. Bleah. All dissatisfied souls could go there over the weekend and check them out. There's some free seminars going on too, but they tend to be crash courses and too content-rich, just full of talk and theory. I went for one supposedly on online biz but the stuff he went through was like an ultra-condensed version of everything I learnt at biz sch or was common sense anyway. To me anyway. There were people in the front row studiously taking down everything the speaker had on the screen and even asked for his Powerpoint slides. Waste of time. The content given was definitely not enough to school you in the world of biz. If you wanna start a biz, either jump in with both your shoes, or read something much more indepth. What that guy said was no help at all. I think the guy next to me felt the same. He was half lounging in his chair and made derisive snorts at various points of the presentation. Wonder why he was still sitting there then? The aircon?

Plus the speaker was a good speaker, but a bit lacking in the English department. He had a buncha grammar mistakes in most of his slides and his spoken English wasn't fantastic. Ok, this is the mission-school-snob in me coming out, but I think that if you're giving a presentation to a bunch of folks, the best thing you could do for yourself is to present it in decent English. It looks much better, much more professional, much more presentable and it makes you look like you know what you're talking about. When you show me a presentation like that, I'm more likely to notice the mistakes in the presentation rather than the content of it. Then again, it could just be the English tutor instincts in me. Months of teaching English have trained me to spot grammar and spelling mistakes with the precision of an eagle and when I see one, I swoop down on it and attack it relentlessly. Hm, now when I see it in writing I wonder about the esteem of my students when I taught them...... but then again, this is just me. An unemployed/self-employed slacker with nothing else better to do but to criticise other people in order to hide the other deficiencies in my own life. Throw tomatoes in this direction please.

Anyway advice to corporate slave friends outside: If ever you have to give a presentation to clients, superiors, or any other people whose opinion matters a lot to you, check your grammar and spelling. Or if you're in China, check that all your characters are written with the right number of strokes *grin* and that you used the right characters. Together let's all move towards Proper Language Use. *waves little grammar notebook in one hand a la little mao book style*

And mistakes in my blog don't count. Cos' it's my blog and I don't care about your opinions. Haha.... kidding, just kidding...... *ducks the tomatoes, vegetables and various other sharp implements being thrown to her*

It was a pity I missed the talk by the NUS Business School though. It was done by the time I got to Suntec yesterday and the speaker was ASP Tan Soon Jiuan of Product Marketing fame. When I saw her name on the board, the following images came to mind:

1) Me holding up a cardboard sign outside the seminar room, that said "What She Won't Tell You About Bizad" [remember this idea the last time the FWFC-ers went to the recruitment fair? *grin*] before and after the seminar
2) Me going for the seminar, sitting quietly and then yelling out halfway through ASP Tan's talk "It's a LIE! A giant lie I tell you! I've been through it, I know!"
3) Me being escorted bodily out of the room by security guards, all the while shouting "It's a damn lie! Don't let her fool you! Don't let her fool you all!"
4) Me never ever seeing myself get my degree and graduating in the auditorium and throwing hats outside the UCC.

Hyuk hyuk hyuk... or maybe it's just as well that I didn't go for the talk after all... but I would be going for a couple this afternoon by NAFA on the courses there. We'll see how that goes. Also Ngee Ann's Mass Comm course looks extremely appealing and offers a whole lot more hands-on experience... hmmm... haha, we'll see how it all goes....

And as an aside, Doe, who went for some of the earlier talks, told me that at the talks she went to, there were a couple of NUS and NTU graduates who were interesting the diploma courses and stuff being offered. And some of them were still in their final year at their unis! So I'm not the only one experiencing a quarter year career crisis huh?