Career Changes and Website Peril

It’s been a transitional period for me. I have a new job and a minor website issue to deal with.

Leaving MCYS
Recently I’ve left MCYS for Nanyang Polytechnic.

Working at MCYS of the President’s Challenge was a rewarding and deeply gratifying experience.

I thoroughly enjoyed working on such a meaningful initiative.

However, my position was a temporary one. I was brought in to get lagging projects back on track and develop a social media framework. I also performed conventional public relations work like speech writing and event management.

My bosses pushed very hard to make my position permanent. Unfortunately, 2011 was a transitional year for MCYS and the President’s Office. MCYS received a new Minister AND a new Permenant Secretary (PS) and Singapore elected a new President.

When I undertook my position at MCYS, I thought I’d only stay for a month or two. I stayed for 8 months.

The Community Relations and Engagement Division (CRED) at MCYS is a great place to work in. My immediate bosses Audrey and Karen are very nice people and wonderful to work with.

At the Istana with the MCYS team that organized the event.

I enjoyed working at MCYS so much that I even turned down a permenant position at another stat board to stay there.

Ironically, shortly after I accepted a new position at Nanyang Polytechnic, MCYS’s PS finally agreed to increase headcount for CRED. My old position will be made permenant soon.

I took the news with a mix of good and bad feelings. I was happy that Audrey and Karen would get the additional manpower they desperately needed. But I was disappointed that the situation changed after I had left.

At MCYS I started several iniatives and systems that I would have liked to see through. I will also miss my coworkers there.

Aw well, that’s life. It’s a lot like dating; if the timing isn’t right, romance can’t blossom.

What a terrible analogy. I should clarify that I had no interest in dating anyone from MCYS. It’s just an analogy, so don’t kick me Kung Fu Cutie.

On to NYP
I now work at Nanyang Polytechnic’s (NYP) Communications and Promotion Unit. I’ve only been there for a few days, but so far so good. My colleagues are nice people and NYP is an awesome polytechnic. The student facilities are excellent and from my short time walking amongst the student population, I sense a very vibrant campus life.

There’s an excellent gym, great swimming pools and tracks, a rock climbing wall, a mini Challenger and a mini shopping ‘mall’. There’s even a Mc Donald’s!

It almost seems like a perfect date place for the Kung Fu Cuite and I!

It’s great that there’s so much for students to do in addition to studying. I’m very impressed and I can’t wait to pay their guitar club a visit.

NYP is having an Open House soon. If you are interested in attending, click here for more details.

Website Woes
Recently I received a warning from Bluehost, the host of this website. They informed me that I need to take steps to reduce my website’s size, or they may take it down.

Bluehost offers unlimited storage space and bandwidth. However, users are not allowed to host websites with more than 200,000 files.

According to them, websites with more than 50,000 files can cause performance issues.

The number of files on my website has ballooned to over 700,000. I suspect the problem is caused by a plugin I installed a few months back.

This plugin creates a cache of my website to enable faster loading. I’ve been trying to clear the cache and uninstall hte plugin, but I’ve been running into some troubles.

Expect some performance issues in the interim.

I hope to solve it soon though. Bluehost has given me a 14 November deadline and I need to go back for In Camp Training on the 21 November!

I’m afraid they will take my website down if I don’t solve this issue soon..

Author: Dedrick Koh

Dedrick Koh is an acclaimed , fully-booked classical guitar teacher who teaches from his home studio at Sengkang. He has been teaching the classical guitar since 2006 and has successfully prepared students for ABRSM and Trinity exams and he holds a flawless 100% pass rate, and a 90% merit/distinction rate for his students. He was previously an instructor cum assistant conductor at Ngee Ann Polytechnic Strings under Alex Abisheganaden . Dedrick Koh is also a former public relations and communications specialist, having carved out a notable 10-year career in both the public and private sector. He has work for/on brands like Nanyang Polytechnic, Coca Cola, DHL, Nokia, Nestle, the Health Promotion Board, the Economic Development Board of Singapore and the President Challenge. He also also been featured in the Straits Time, the New Paper, and CNN.

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