Anticipated Serendipity II

Moving on to....

2007-06-04T21:00:00.000+08:00

Hello all...

Please proceed to my new site for further updates :-)

It's still work-in-progress so there'll be regular changes to the site layout...

Cheers!

*The wonders one can achieve on a day of sick leave ;-)

How Rude!

2007-06-03T17:33:00.001+08:00

On a regular salsa night out...

Guy : Would you like to dance?
Me : Sure... *extending hand*
Guy : Err, I dance with you later. *heads off to dance with another girl*

WTF?!

Eh, if you were so eager to dance with the other girl, go and stalk her and catch her the first chance you get la. Dun come up to me and ask me to dance, then, upon catching sight that she's free, brush me aside like I'm a piece of shit, without even apologizing, and dance with her instead.

What an asshole.

It's not like I was the one who asked you to dance.

Geez.

Havana Estudio 9th Anniversary Party -- Teaser!

2007-05-31T23:55:00.000+08:00

Theme : Gangstas & Divas

No Manners Nor Cow Sense

2007-05-31T22:56:00.001+08:00

... on second thoughts, I shouldn't insult the bovine species.

**********

The country can forget its hope of becoming a developed nation anytime in the near future.

Why?

Because its people have 4th world mentality. I know there's no 4th world but that goes to show how bad the M'sian mentality is. What's makes it worse is that we have good facilities (those that are not leaking or collapsing) but the way some M'sians behave, it's better that we DON'T have any good facilities.

Simple manners seem to delude them. For example, just this morning, I held the office door open for a woman who was entering the office behind me. Not only did she not say a word of thanks to me for holding the door open for her, she acted like I wasn't even there! As if the door magically stayed open by itself. Gosh, I shudder to think what type of example she's setting for her children. (Yes, I dunno why I even care to hold doors open for people here. But it's a habit -- a good one, I think -- that I'd picked up from the States. Unfortunately, people here never seem to appreciate it. Maybe next time I should just let the door slam on their faces. Hah!)

And it is beyond me, how people can instinctively know how to keep their own homes and cars clean, but totally disregard the cleanliness of public property, places, etc. It's like, just because they don't own the place, they can do whatever they want to it. For example, I have seen countless people throw rubbish out of their cars while on the road. And with children in the car some more! Don't you feel like strangling these people???!!! That's like, stealing from a shop in front of your own kid and telling him/her "Hey boy/girl, it's ok to steal, you know". Hellooo!! What are you teaching your children??!!! In Bangkok and many other countries, you can actually notice people throwing their trash in the garbage can on a regular basis. Children even. Here, you see the parents littering.

You know how the public toilets, even in our canggih shopping malls like Suria KLCC, are always dirty and wet with paper towels/toilet paper thrown indiscriminately (on the floors, outside the bin, etc.)? It is such a disgrace! Heck, we even have Toilet Usage Guidelines on the doors of the toilets at my office :

I think it's quite pathetic that a sign has to be put up to teach people how to keep the toilets clean. Don't you think this is just plain, simple common sense that you don't even need to think to know what to do???

On the other hand, public toilets in Bangkok malls are so clean! (I'm comparing mall-to-mall). They were dry and not a single scrap of paper on the floor. Whereas in M'sia, it's a rare instance indeed to find a toilet cubicle with DRY floors! In the US, wet toilet floors are unheard of!

I don't understand why. Is it our toilet habits? How different are our toilet habits compared to the Thais? Do they throw rubbish differently from us? Not that I know of. I mean, you have a piece of trash, you look for a trashcan and throw it in there. It's not rocket science.

**********

Before anyone starts cursing me for dissing M'sians and M'sia, yes, I will consider leaving this country if ever I have the chance, if things do not change for the better. Though it would be quite a sad day for me if that ever happens because this is home (though it feels less like it everyday, after hearing what spews out of our MPs mouths). No, it's not just about dirty toilets. But what with an incompetent and corrupt government running the country, legalized discrimination, and faux freedom to practice the religion you wish (yes, refer to the Lina Joy case and those preceeding hers), faux freedom of the press, speech, etc. etc... we are definitely heading down the drain. I don't want to but I feel I have to, or at least, plan for the future "what ifs". Like, what if the govt. decides to pass a law that says non-Malays have to be like this or that, or must abide by this or that. Like JN said, if they're going to treat me like a second class citizen in my own country, might as well BE a second class citizen elsewhere.

I don't believe that the grass is greener elsewhere. Every country has its pros and cons. But to be celebrating our 50th year of independence but not getting the fundamentals (e.g. equality in race/gender/work, transparency of the govt., press/speech freedom, human rights, etc.) firmly in place all this while is just wrong. If there are signs that show that the govt. is sincere and actually working to make things better, even though we're not 100% there yet, then it's not so bad. But problem is, there isn't any. And people can still be so happy happy, celebrating our 50th merdeka without anything substantial to show for it except more buildings and lesser forests.

I don't remember it being like this during P. Ramlee's time, or my parents time, from the stories that they've told me. There was so much more racial harmony and freedom back then. No such thing as that petty "Muslims cannot wish non-Muslims a Happy Deepavali" sort of crap.

So what went wrong?

So sloowwww!!

2007-05-31T18:12:00.000+08:00

Aiyoh! I'm taking so long to do up my new site! Bleh...

No time! No tiiimmmeee!!!!

:-(

Athens, Italy?

2007-05-31T18:08:00.000+08:00

We were watching Travel & Living the other day and there was a segment on Greece.

Me : I wanna visit Greece one day. And Italy.
CL : Athens is in Italy, rite?
*Me and sis looked at him blankly.
Me : Err, Athens is in Greece la.
CL : Eh? Where's the Colosseum then?
Me : That's in Rome la!
CL : Oooohhhh, I meant to say Rome! Heh...

Farney. Hehe.

What Kind of Boss...

2007-05-29T01:08:00.001+08:00

What kind of boss, upon hearing that her staff are practically suffocating from noxious glue fumes due to renovation works, tells her staff to email the property admin people because she "isn't THERE (i.e. on the same floor) to smell the fumes"?

What kind of boss, upon exiting the elevator on the said floor where the renovation works are taking place, takes a whiff of the paint fumes and flees back down to the safety of her own room and even utters "I don't know how you all can tahan the smell. I cannot tahan!"

And does NOTHING to try to temporarily relocate her staff to a less hazardous work area until the renovation works are completed?

Which resulted in one staff having to be given emergency oxygen due to constricted airways from breathing in the glue fumes (and is now forced to take steroid pills to expand her airways) and another having severe headaches from the same. The doctor has even ordered the said staff who encountered breathing difficulties to NOT enter the office in the next few days lest her breathing problems recur.

Yep, that's the type of boss that I have.

Welcome to the world where the boss couldn't care less about his/her staff's well-being and deserts his/her employees when it suits him/her.

Yay for me.

Bleh...

Revolting Sights

2007-05-28T09:55:00.000+08:00

I was at the Tmn. Tun pasar malam yesterday evening to look for my favourite boiled peanuts. As I was walking along, I passed by a few vendors selling meat - chicken, beef, and I don't know what else as I wasn't looking and trying to pass by as fast as I could (I don't like the meat stalls, for its smell and sight of raw meat). Then I noticed a most revolting sight. At one of the beef vendors, there was a full head of cow in the middle of the table! It wasn't a skinned head of cow; it was the complete head of cow, with it's bits of fur visible!

Yeck!! I know they are selling beef; is there a need to display the dead animal's head to drive the point to potential customers what they are selling?

Yucks... I coulnd't find my boiled peanuts vendor so I did an about-turn and left. After seeing the cow's head, I quite lost my appetite for anything.

**********

Another quite revolting sight, in my opinion, is the suckling pig served at Chinese restaurants. For those who are not familiar, the suckling pig is a Chinese delicacy, which is actually a piglet, roasted until it's flesh and skin is crispy and golden brown. Read here for more description. So, these restaurants would serve this dish on a large plate, chopped up into rectangular bite-sized pieces and arranged to form a shape of a flattened pig on the plate, complete with its head and hooves, all cooked of course.

Each time I see this dish being served (usually its a mid-course dish), it would turn me off the rest of the dinner coz I just feel so sorry for the piglet. I mean, it's just a baby. And piglets, to me, are pink bundles of cuteness (I haven't seen one up close). And for it to end up on the dinner table before it had a chance to grow up is quite sad. And to make matters worse, it is served with its head staring back at you at the dinner table. Bleck.

Same thing goes with lamb. But at least, they don't serve lamb dishes with its head on the plate.

o_O

**********

No, I don't eat pork, beef, lamb, mutton, venison, ostrich meat or any other meat except for fish, some seafood and very rarely, chicken.

By choice, not for any religious reasons.

Bunch of Clowns...

2007-05-25T09:40:00.000+08:00

... and that's being very generous.

*****

...sexual predators do not just decide to rape. They could be encouraged by their environment every day of seeing sexily dressed women. So I feel that it is better that women dress decently.

I am just voicing my personal opinion that women should not dress indecently as this could create lustful feelings in men.

Women who dressed indecently were also sexually harassing men.

~Shahbudin Yahaya (BN-Permatang Berangan), state Islamic Religious Council President (quoted from TheSun, Friday, May 25 2007).

I've never paid attention to politics in the country until recently, where there have been so many ludicrous happenings in our Parliament/Cabinet sessions and the way the government is handling various issues in the country. It's quite difficult to ignore them when they are in the headlines every single day. Really, I didn't know our government is so happening, man!

So apparently, according to that man named above, it is women's responsibility to ensure that we do not create lustful feelings in men. OK, so this is not the first time our Stone-Age MPs have made such sexist remarks. Nor would they be the last, seeing that these same types of morons keep getting elected into office.

First of all, I think this fella has tremendously little self control, if he says that just seeing a sexily dressed woman will make him lustful. Which is quite ironic seeing that he IS the state Islamic Religious Council President. I thought among all people, all these religious leaders are supposed to be role models to their followers, and as such, be able to resist temptations more easily than an average man. Well, to be fair, he didn't say that HE would be lustful but men in general, but then again, he must've had some experience since he made the remark and he must've made the remark based on some evidence, right?

Secondly, everyone has their own definition of sexy and decent dressing. A man who's in the "lustful" state of mind, would probably think a tudung-clad, baju kurung-wearing female is sexy. Just look at the number of rape/molest cases and what the victims were wearing they were sexually assaulted.

Seriously, I just feel like slapping all these stupid MCP MPs. OK, that was a very childish comment but really, I feel like they just need a good whacking coz they don't have the brains/common sense (see, no common sense again! It's like a trend these days) to think logically. So talking like civilized adults just won't work with them coz all of them are led by their dicks.

Geez, from the bocor issue, to comparing the dilapidated state of the Parliament with the looks of a 50-year-old woman, to comparing new brides with toilets, our MPs are such a joke.

Hey people! You want to see clowns in action??? Come to Malaysia and just listen to our MPs talk!

**********

Oh Oh... guess what? Our govt. has decided to hire someone to help teach M'sians how to keep toilets clean! (TheSun, Friday, May 25 2007, Pg. 25) Woopee! We are a developing nation with the world's tallest building (at one point in time) and the biggest this and longest that, but we don't know how to keep our toilets clean so we need someone to teach us how to do it! Hahahahahah! *falls off chair laughing*

Do People Have Any Common Sense These Days??

2007-05-24T23:05:00.000+08:00

I don't think I'll ever understand the general M'sian psyche. I don't really want to, coz that would probably mean I'm like them (God forbid!) but it would be so much easier to understand why they choose not to use practical, common sense in their daily lives.

Don't get me wrong; I do NOT think that I'm better than everyone else. Far from it, actually. But I do think that I have more common sense than the average Joe on the street, judging from the incidents that I've seen/been through.

For example, if you want to kill yourself while pumping gas with your vehicle engine running, should any accident occur (God forbid!), by all means, go ahead. Go find a gas station that's completely empty and you can pump all the gas you want with your engine running and risk killing yourself. Fine, go ahead. But when there are tons of people around you (especially me, right in front of you, minding my own business and pumping my gas), I do think it's rather selfish for you to be happily pumping your gas away with your vehicle engine running, without consideration at all for the rest of the patrons of the gas station, not to mention the employees there. Although I haven't heard of anyone getting killed YET while pumping gas with his/her vehicle engine running, I'm not willing to take the risk. There's a reason why the list of PRECAUTIONs are pasted near each kiosk i.e. Don't Smoke, Shut off your vehicle engine and mobile phone, etc. etc. So simply instructions also cannot follow, is it? It takes a lot of effort for you to just twist your ignition to the OFF position, is it?? PREVENTION IS BETTER THAN CURE, thank you very much.

I'm not sorry if I've offended my friends who do pump gas with their vehicle engines running. Seriously, it's your life and the lives of people around you. Like your girlfriend or wife, sitting in the passanger seat of your car. Or your parents in the back seat. Or your friends in both the passenger and back seats. Yeah yeah, I sound preachy but nothing drives home the fact that LIFE IS SHORT like knowing someone who got killed in an accident that could've been so easily prevented.

Another so so simple common sense thing that people don't do, I don't get. You know there are markers around a parking space, right? Sometimes they are rectangles, sometimes they are the corner borders. You do know that you are supposed to park WITHIN the rectangle or within the corner borders, right? What??!! You're saying you don't know?! Then why the hell do you think those rectangles/borders are there for?! Decoration, is it???? DBKL got nothing to do, they go paint rectangles on the roads is it??? Your condo management collect all your maintenance fees just to draw ugly rectangles around your condo compound for fun, is it???

Gawd! So infuriating! Just now I came back from class and found that the stupid fella who parks his/her car next to my space, makan into MY parking area! And you know what? This is not the bloody first time! What I normally do is that I would park oh-so-very-close to the fella, just to be in my box. If he scratches my car also never mind. As long as the fella has great difficulty getting into his car, padan muka! This time, I sooooo wanted to write on a big piece of paper "PLEASE PARK WITHIN YOUR SPACE". In fact, I was looking for a blank piece of A4 paper in my car but couldn't find :-( So I thought I'd go upstairs and get some paper but as I was walking back, I thought twice and decided not to. The ONLY reason why I didn't do it was coz I didn't want to give them any reason to retaliate and start complaining about us feeding the stray cats. Which is another long story altogether so I'm not going to even start on that (but I think I already did that in a previous post, haha).

Even more infuriating is when you're at a crowded mall carpark and you notice a free space from afar but when you get there, you see why no one has taken the spot. It's coz the stupid bugger parked in the next space decided that his car is soooo grand, it has to take TWO parking spaces!

So there you go. Two of many many incidents where M'sians (this is a generalization based on numerous firsthand-witnessed cases) do not display an ounce of common sense.

I think I should just stop trying to figure it out. Waste my brain cells only.

Hmph.

@#$%^&*

2007-05-24T08:43:00.001+08:00

M'sian drivers have no common sense and courtesy whatsoever!! GAAAAAHHH!! Yes, I know this topic has been written/discussed to death but REALLY!

If you see someone ahead of you giving an indicator that s/he wants to merge into the left or right lane, you give way to the person, no? At least, I do... if s/he gives the indicator early enough and not last minute.

So there I was, I had to do a U-turn under the flyover near Dynasty Hotel and turn an immediate left after that. So I had already indicated before I finished my U-turn and I made it out of the U-turn before any other vehicles came from other directions. But this bunch of bikes coming from the opposite direction (the traffic lights had just turned green), they just wouldn''t give way! HALLO! I'd already indicated! And I reached the road before YOU morons did! Buta is it???? What else do you expect me to do?????!!! Some more dare to honk at me!! WTF, man!

Bloody morons/assholes/idiots/nincompoops/bastards.

GAAAAAAHHHH!!! So angry. Some more so early in the morning. Spoil my day only.

GGRRRRRR!!!

New Home!!

2007-05-23T10:54:00.000+08:00

I have a new home! I have a new home!!!!! YAY!!! It's gonna be so much fun to set it up and decorate it anyhow I like!!!

A new website lar... :p But it'll take some time before I can get it up and running coz I don't have as much time as I want to work on it.

Watch this space! :-)

The Westin, KL

2007-05-17T22:25:00.000+08:00

So recently I was invited to spend a night at The Westin, KL, free-of-charge. Of course I jumped at the chance! Me being the jakun that I am i.e. haven't stayed in enough of 5-star hotels to realize that it is just a room with a bed and bathroom and tv. But hey, 5-star hotels are usually COOL rooms with awesome bathrooms and really plush beds! What to do, I'm no high-flyer, so I dun get sent all around the world to stay in 6-star hotels and attend very important meetings :-/

My history with The Westin : I've only been in there twice, and that wasn't even up to the rooms. Once, to attend a DKNY fashion show and another to attend an artiste's press conference in Qba.

Anyway, me, Westin, FREE! Weeeeeee, here I come! Haha... :-D

The Doorway (this one is comparable in length to the Intercontinental Hotel in S'pore)

The Bathroom... it's quite big, with a separate WC and shower stall

The condiments (?) section and bath items

I got me a Berty!! He ONLY costed me RM35! That's like THB350!! Do you know how many things I could get with THB350??!!! :-O Anyway, I like my Berty. I was wondering, do they have different toys at different Westins around the world? Maybe I could make this my new hobby -- collect all the different toys from all the different Westins around the world! Yay! Duh, like who's gonna pay for my airfare and hotel charges??? *smacks self on the head*

This is the ONLY hotel I've been in in KL that actually displayed and provided condoms and pleasure enhancing warming lubricant anywhere on its premises! (ok lar, the drugstore in the lobby doesn't count). So cool!!

I saved the best for last! My favourite feature was the bed! It was so soft and warm and comfy, I didn't wanna get up and go to work the next day! *zzzzzzzzzzzz*

The View from the 21st floor... day and night... I definitely like the night view better.

And that concludes my one-night stay in The Westin KL.... *sigh of contentment*

Customer Service...

2007-05-17T15:44:00.000+08:00

... is non-existent in this country.

A colleague was relating his experience with Jaring. He had called up Jaring's customer service line to find out information about registering for their broadband service. He'd put in an order and he was told that he had to go to a Jaring outlet to complete his registration. First thing the customer service agent didn't go was to tell him exactly what documents he was required to bring along to complete the registration. Secondly, when he got there, they couldn't find his order no. Then, when he read the Terms & Conditions on the form, one of the T&Cs said that subscribers can cancel their subscription within 7 days if they are not satisfied with the service. My colleague double checked with the Jaring person. The person said no, subscribers cannot cancel the service and must sign a 1-year contract. And even if they wanted to cancel the service, it would be subjected to a Jaring technician's inspection and their approval of your reason to cancel the service.

I've got a few comments here:

The T&Cs are printed in black and white on the form, thus, it holds as an agreement. The Jaring person can say whatever s/he wants but it's all merely verbal and whatever is on the form takes precedence.
Which idiot operator would think consumers are so stupid that they can just tell them any grandmother story pertaining to the T&Cs? Waaa, like that, anyone can say anything and disregard the T&Cs then! Where got such thing?!
Why do I need the technician to approve of my reason to cancel my service? As far as I'm concerned, I just need to tell you why I'm canceling the service, just so you can TRY to improve your service. But I don't care if you think my reasons are correct or wrong.

In the end, my colleague told the Jaring person that he will try the service and if he's not satisfied, he'll cancel within the 7 days and see what they (Jaring) will do.

My boss related her experience with Streamyx. She had wanted to set up a WiFi network in her home but when she asked the Streamyx people to set it up for her, they said that they didn't know anything about setting up WiFi and they told her to do it herself! Come on lar, you are an internet service provider. Customers can have access to the internet, regardless of whether via WiFi or not, so it is part of your domain to assist your customers in both methods!! With WiFi becoming more common and easily accessible these days, it is only common sense for you to upgrade your staff's knowledge and expertise with the latest technologies in order to serve your customers better. That way, when people see that your staff actually know what they are doing and can offer value-added services, they would be more than happy to recommend your service to their contacts. Which, ultimately, increases your income. But see, these dungus (you know who they are) prefer to lose income and rot in outdated technologies than spend the money to invest in their staff training. The least they could do is refer the customer to their partner who specializes in WiFi. Their installation services are contracted out anyway so what's so difficult about getting a partner specializing in WiFi?

But it's an infinite loop. At the end of the day, if consumers don't voice their dissatisfactions and act to ensure something is done to address their dissatisfactions, the service indsutries will continue with their lackadaisical attitude and continue to bully consumers.

I know I'm guilty of this as well coz sometimes, I'd think "Aiyah, so small matter only. No need to complain lar." or "It's too troublesome/inconvenient to file a complaint lar. Forget it." but then you see, all these small things add up and the more we turn a blind eye, the more daring these people/companies will get. And in the end, we consumers are the ones who will pay for our lack of action.

However, in saying that, the ONE place I wouldn't complain would be in any restaurant. If I don't like the food/service at a restaurant I'm in, I would just not return to the place again and I would not recommend it to anyone I know. Or I will only complain AFTER I've had my meal and plan not to return again ever. Everyone knows why. Heh.

One good experience I had recently was at the LCCT. We'd arrived back from Bangkok and were queueing up at the the immigration autokiosk (is that what it's called?) to scan our passports. There were 2 scanners and two long queues so they opened up another counter to manually scan the passports. The immigration guy who was manning the counter was such a pleasant fella, smiling all the way. And the scanning was very quick. So I was satisfied with that service. Fast and pleasant, that's what I like.

Why can't all services be like that?

Puppies for Adoption

2007-05-15T19:10:00.000+08:00

Email from the Animal Rescue Network:

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PUPPIES FOR ADOPTION

These puppies were rescued from the streets of Pandamaran, Klang and are in need of good homes.

All of them have been nursed back to health and all of them are already spayed and vaccinated.

Kindly contact Pat Lim at 016-6568 997 for more details and for viewing of the puppies.

If you know anyone who might be interested in adopting, please forward them this email. Serious and responsible owners only, please!

Thank you for helping our furry friends. Remember, love needs no pedigree!

Hopeless... just hopeless

2007-05-14T00:55:00.000+08:00

I was walking around my condo grounds this morning, trying to look for one of the stray cats that I was planning to take to the vet to get neutered, when I bumped into one of the residents who stays in the unit few floors below us.

Resident X (peering into the cat carrier that I was carrying) : Eh, how come empty one?
Me : I'm trying to catch one of the stray cats.
Resident X (eagerly) : Oh, you're taking it to the SPCA?
Me (to cut a long story short) : No, I'm taking it to get castrated so it doesn't fight with other cats.
Resident X (visibly disappointed) : Oh...

Sorry lar... I'm not going to take the stray cats to the animal shelter coz the shelters are already overflowing as it is. And the cats that are around here would most likely be euthanized (i.e. killed) coz they're not the cute, adoptable types that people seem to like. So no, I'm not going to do the dirty work of first, taking the stray cats to the animal shelter and second, having the record that I'd voluntarily sent a healthy animal to its death on my head.

Bah... people.

Honesty...

2007-05-10T00:08:00.000+08:00

... is always the best policy.

One of the notable experiences that I've had in my recent BKK trip went like this...

I was a Paragon shopping for shoes when I saw this pair that I liked. So I asked the sales guy to get my size. He went to get the size and when he came back, he was apologetic coz they didn't have my size but they had one size larger, which he had brought with him. I said it's ok, I'll try it anyway so he took the shoes out of the box. When he picked up one of the shoes, he took a look at the inside sole of the shoe and his face became even more apologetic and he indicated that the inside of the sole was a bit dirty, and was kind of reluctant to pass the shoe to me. I said never mind, I'll try it anyway just to see if the size fit.

In the end, I didn't buy that shoe... but I bought the same design in a different colour! But what struck me was that the sales guy didn't try to cover up the dirty sole and hassle me to buy it, which was what would've happened if this occured in KL. If it were here, I think the salesperson would've said "It's ok, can wash one" or "Never mind, it's on the inside so nobody can see".

So yeah... I appreciated the sales guy being honest about the dirty shoe... and I ended up buying two pairs of shoes from his section of the shoe department :-)

Another good experience I had was when I was shopping for belts at MBK. Was at this shop that sold belts of all kinds so it was a bit overwhelming coz there were belts everywhere. So I saw this belt that I liked; it had some fake sparkly stones on the buckle. The salesgirl who was helping me got one for me and after trying it on, I decided I would get it. When I was about to take the belt, she started looking for another belt in the same pile and when I looked confused, she showed me that there were a couple of stones missing on the buckle so she was getting me another one. Now, how nice is that??? That's how customers should be treated! I bought 5-6 belts from that shop :-D

Outside Paragon, waiting for a cab to Suan Lum Night Bazaar

Four-faced Buddha... outside one of the malls...

Aahhh... Bangkok...

2007-05-07T20:38:00.000+08:00

Things I love about Bangkok:

Super efficient, clean, and well-organized BTS Skytrain and MRT.
Wide selection and up-to-date fashion in the shopping malls.
Reasonably priced (and some very cheap!) clothes and shoes.
Super cool markets that consist of tons of stalls selling everything from clothes, to souvenirs, to home furnishing, decorative items, candles, bags, shoes, knick-knacks, etc.

So that was my birthday gift, a trip to Bangkok. Thanks, babe! :-x

First of all, I just love love love how organized, efficient, clean, and well-planned Bangkok Mass Transit System (BTS) Skytrain is! And they make efficient use of the space beneath the train tracks as well i.e. there is a pedestrian walkway one level below the train tracks along the shopping district (Chit Lom-Siam stations) and this walkway is connected to all the buildings/malls along the road! Talk about integrated, man! After getting off the train, you don't even need to go down to road level to get into the malls; just walk to the building you want, and chances are, it's connected to the walkway. So cool! Their MRT is exactly like Singapore's, it's like the same architect/engineer designed/built it!

And the best thing is the entire place is clean and well-lit. You can see that proper planning was done coz the result is an efficient and well-organized transportation system. KL's Putra LRT, Star LRT, and Monorail is nothing compared to Bangkok's BTS SKytrain and MRT systems. Our train system is like a haphazard network built randomly and later, the powers-that-be try to integrate them but fail miserably coz our city councils don't PLAN properly!

Bangkok malls can rival Singapore malls anytime! Needless to say, KL malls fall way behind in terms of selection, latest fashion, and prices. I think KL gets the outdated stock from Bangkok and Singapore coz we seem to be behind in the latest fashion. And this outdated fashion stuff is sold at such high prices too! Talk about being ripped off, man!

One good example is the lingerie. Take the Wacoal brand, for example. The price range of a Wacoal bra is around THB480-590 (depending on the style) and they have so many different designs, even those fancy ones with sparkly stones on them, which only costs THB590. Here in KL, a normal, boring-looking standard bra from Wacoal costs at least RM80 and if you want to get the fancier designs (if there's any, to begin with), you can expect to spend RM150 and above. But that's IF they even carry those designs here.

And the shoes, oh my! I think the shoes department at the Siam Paragon is 10 times the size of Isetan KLCC and a million times better in terms of selection and fashion. A nice, chic pair of heels that I really like costed me THB1080 whereas in KL, I'd have to first FIND a pair of nice shoes that I like and chances are, it's gonna cost me at least RM150 for that nice pair of shoes. Which is why I hardly buy really nice shoes in KL and end up having to wear the not-so-nice ones coz I just cannot justify paying that huge amount for a pair of shoes (yes yes, this is my post-Nine West 50% off period :p I no longer buy Nine West shoes in KL even if they are 50% off coz firstly, I don't want to pay RM159 for those shoes and secondly, we get the outdated stock).

So, the main malls to head to in Bangkok, based on my recent experience, are:

Gaysorn (lots of designer stuff - out of my budget even for Bangkok!)
Central World Plaza (the Zen Central departmental store has some nice clothes, ok to buy if there's a sale)
Siam Paragon (the Paragon departmental store is awesome! There are other outlets besides this store, designer brands and such. Their supermarket and food court are very nice and trendy-looking, as well)
Siam Center (I bought 6 pairs of shoes for only RM150 (gasp!) at one of the shoe shops here. Lots of outlets like Levi's, VNC (I think this is Bangkok's version of Vincci), Bossini, etc.)
Siam Discovery Center (Adjacent to Siam Center. This one has a lot of home decorating stores like Habitat, Loft. The Loft has lots of cool knick-knacks)
Mah Boon Krong (MBK)

*You can stop at Chit Lom (Gaysorn) and walk all the way to MBK (National Stadium). Or the other way around, whichever you prefer :-) Please note that these are only the malls that we managed to visit. There are MORE!

MBK deserves a write-up all on its own! It's like a classier and trendier Sungei Wang but 10 times the size of Sungei Wang. The number of shops there is just staggering! Just the shops selling apparel can make you go crazy, there're so many of them! And you can find a shop selling denim clothes here, and the next shop selling formal gowns, and another selling baby clothes, it just goes on and on and on! Amazing! Just remember to bargain when you're here. I bought a dress for THB700 at one shop and found out later, in another shop, the same dress in a different color for THB550! And the THB700 one was already the bargained price from THB950! So it pays to browse around first before buying but you'll need lots of time here coz there's just soooooo many shops! If you want to head straight to MBK, just take the BTS Skytrain to National Stadium.

Suan Lum Night Bazaar is another awesome place! It's similar to Chatuchak Weekend Market, just smaller but even so, there are still tons and tons of shops to look around! We didn't need to go to Chatuchak this time around and the best thing is, it's closer to the shopping district than Chatuchak and it opens every night, if I'm not mistaken. They have an enormous food court/beer garden, with many many stalls selling different types of food. Just like Chatuchak, different sections of the bazaar sell different things so you've got one section specially for home furnishings, another for apparel, and another for souvenirs, etc. It's not as big as Chatuchak but even so, there are more than enough stalls to keep you busy for a few hours, especially if you're like me and like to stop at almost every stall, haha! To get there, just take the BTS Skytrain to Sala Daeng and follow the signs to the MRT (there are very clear signs, you can't miss it!). Take the MRT to Lumphini and the bazaar is literally at the exit of the station.

One thing I noticed right away about the malls in Bangkok and the things that they sell, is that, there's a classy, trendy feel to them. It's rather difficult to explain but when I go to the malls in KL, the things feel like, they're "cheap" (in looks, not in price). But in Bangkok, the things are reasonably priced and they have the classy feel as well. And they are well-organized and not all jumbled up here and there like in the malls in KL.

All in all, we spent 4 days almost entirely on shopping! Phew! I walked so much until my tailbone hurt! :-O And even then, I couldn't look at everything that I wanted (i.e. bags and cosmetics) coz I was just too overwhelmed by all the different things they have there!

Here's a glimpse of most of the stuff we bought :

Shoes, tops, dresses, shirts, bags, baby clothes (for my sis), undies, etc...

Wall hanging, pillow cases, salt & pepper shakers, tidbits...

...and he got a Deuter 35 + 10 L backpack (THB4200), a suit tailor-made plus 3 pants (THB4500), and many more other things!

That's it, man. I'm not going to shop in KL anymore. I just need a twice yearly trip to Bangkok to cover my shopping needs for the entire year!

The Thais are generally courteous and they seem more tolerant of each other as compared to Msians. Drivers almost always indicate when they change lanes on the roads, even on highways and they GIVE WAY to others on the roads, even in the traffic jam. On the first night, we took a tuk-tuk back to our hotel and the guy got lost so he stopped at one of the nicer (i.e. more expensive) hotels to ask for directions and the security guy (?) of that hotel, nicely dressed in a suit patiently explained to him how to get to where we wanted to go. Isn't that nice? I tell you, if in KL, the tuk-tuk guy would probably just get told to get lost! Especially if he stopped at one of the 5-star hotels.

Another thing I love about Bangkok is that the people respect and are kind to animals. Even stray ones off the street. People don't chase them away, they just let them be. It's like, they know that these animals have as much right to be on the streets as them. And I think this makes the animals less edgy and more calm (most of them seem to be sleeping most of the time) and less likely to bother the people. Almost all the animals I saw there had collars on them. Outside our hotel, there are street vendors who set up their stalls along the street to sell their wares and there is this black/white dog whose owner seemed to be the lady who has a stall there and the dog just sleeps underneath her stall. How cool is that?! Among all the dogs I'd seen when I was there, I don't think I've even heard one of them bark!

Dog lying under its owner's stall (it's got a collar on)

Many of the stalls at Suan Lum Night Bazaar had cats. And all these cats have collars on them (wow, people actually CARE to put collars on their pets!). And they just stay in the stall with their owners, they don't run out and make a nuisance of themselves. I just find it so fascinating! And such a stark contrast to M'sia. Zen Central at Central World Plaza even allows toy dogs into the store! Gosh, I'm 100% certain that there will never be a day when I'd see a pet (cat, dog, whatever) allowed into any store/building in M'sia! Unless it's an animal hospital/clinic, that is.

Kitty at Suan Lum Night Bazaar... see, it's got a collar too!

Oh, and Thai policemen and security guards are slim and trim! Unlike M'sian policemen... I shall leave it at that.

Colourful fruit made of green beans...

Cool escalator at the new Suvarnabhumi Airport...

Bangkok's got a fan for life here! Till next time, BKK!! :-D

Stoopid humans

2007-05-02T17:57:00.000+08:00

Some people just have no compassion and no sense of civic duty.

There are stray cats around my condo grounds. Me and my family feed them. In addition to that, we get them spayed or neutered so they don't reproduce, and release them back where we caught them. With this bunch of "resident" cats, it minimizes the infestation of stray cats coz these cats have "claimed" the area and other newcomers would think twice about invading their territory. This is not just coming from me, studies on the benefits of the TNR (Trap-Neuter-Release) method of managing stray populations have proved this.

However, the people who live in this same place that I do, all they know how to do is complain complain complain about the stray cats and not do anything to help the situation. I'm losing my patience with these people who can complain and complain about the cats scratching their cars but are doing NOTHING to help the situation! So what if it's a flashy car? At the end of the day it's just a piece of overpriced metal that depreciates by the day. The only reason the cats sleep on it is coz it's warm and seeing that they have no homes, they have to find someplace warm to keep themselves alive. Why can't people comprehend simply animal survival instincts?? My dad was doing his rounds last nite and bumped into this resident who kept complaining the cats are a nuisance. My dad told him he has no conscience. Way to go, Dad! Gawd, I cannot tahan these people! They don't even know that we are spending the time and money to get these animals fixed for THEIR (the humans) benefit as well!

Seriously, these people can buy their flashy cars and spend large amounts of money on ridiculous things but they don't THINK of the simple things they can do to help the strays. No one's asking them to go out and save all the animals. Just put a little effort to think what they can do to make their community a better place. The stray problem is NOT going to disappear overnight as long as there are still unfixed strays out there and people are still allowing their pets to breed indisriminately. And getting management to capture the strays and dump them somewhere else is NOT a solution coz that's just throwing the problem somewhere else and making it some other community's problem.

These people earn tens of thousands a month vs. me, who earns less than 5K a month. Do you know how difficult it is to want to try to get these cats fixed but having to watch my pennies each time? And having to have to limit the number of cats that I can get fixed each month? I don't think what I'm doing is extraordinary or noble. I just want to make things better for both the strays and the people who live alongside with the strays. And to stop the stupid residents who only know how to complain from complaining even more! Every time I hear of someone complaining, I'd get really anxious and I dread the day when the management will show up with the wire cages and catch the cats and dump them goodness-knows-where.

I know some like-minded individuals who are doing the same as well i.e. spaying/neutering strays animals. But for every one of us, there are like, 100 other people who only know how to complain complain complain and who care more about their flashy cars and expensive hobbies. There's nothing wrong to have fancy cars and expensive hobbies. But just THINK about those less fortunate than you, and I'm not just referring to the human ones but also the four-legged ones. THINK, when you are in your warm bed and dry clothes on a rainy night, there are kittens and puppies shivering out there without shelter. THINK, when you are driving your fancy, air-conditioned car, there are hundreds of cats and dogs risking their lives and becoming roadkill when they make a wrong estimate and decide to cross right in front of your flashy car.

But more often than not, this person driving his/her flashy would be more concerned about the damage caused to his/her car rather than the badly injured/mangled animal lying on the road.

A lot of times, people make me sick. You'd think we were given the ability to think and feel in order for us to make the world a better place for us and every living being. But no, we only use our brains (WHEN we even use it) for our own good.

One of the residents here has someone in the family who is pregnant and who isn't supposed to be around cats. They have 3 young cats. Or rather, had. What did they do? They kicked the cats out of the house and the cats are now living at the guard house at my condo. Sooner or later, some residents is going to do what they do best. COMPLAIN. And now I'm trying to rush to see if I can find homes for them before the management decides to catch them and dump them. They are such young things and are very friendly. And it is so unfair for them to have to pay for their humans being such assholes who treat them like objects they can keep and dump at their pleasure. Gggggrrrrrrrr, it makes me soooooo MAD!!!

And people who claim they are so pious and religious but show no empathy at all towards animals?? Bah! Don't preach to me how good you are and how you follow all God's words if you can't even show compassion to a four-legged living creature. Didn't God say that we should be kind to ALL living creatures?

Some day, I hope all the animals will revolt against humans and take control of the world. And do to the humans, what the humans did to them.

GAH!

What I've Done

2007-04-30T21:36:00.000+08:00

by Linkin Park.

I just saw their new video of this title. It's good to see artists expressing the destruction that we're inflicting on the Earth... wars, famine, terrorism, human-inflicted environmental damage... these are not good images to be seeing but at least they're not ignoring it and pretending everything's hunky dory.

But it was quite sad to see the picture of an ocean bird completely covered in oil from an oil spill,unable to move, and looking totally helpless. Reminds me of another image from Michael Jackson's "Earth Song", which showed a seal being clubbed to death by a seal hunter and elephants getting shot and their tusks sawed off.

What have WE done???

:-(

Too busy "rescuing" others?

2007-04-29T14:20:00.000+08:00

Ever notice how some men, when it comes to their partners or their families, seem ignorant or oblivious to their needs or troubles, but when it comes to their friends, they can just drop everything and go to their friends' rescue?

I've heard of and seen this happening. It doesn't have to be big, major events... but even small things. Say, for example, the wife or girlfriend likes to go to this particular restaurant but the guy doesn't and always refuses to go when she suggests it. But when his friends suggest it, he's all game and even eager to go. Or, when the couple is out clubbing, say... and after a few hours, the girl says she'd like to go coz she's tired or wants to get something to eat, he says to stay a while more. But if his friends were there and they were to say "Let's go mamak", he'd immediately agree. Or if she asks him to do something for her, he'd dilly-dally and put it off, but when his friends ask him to do something, man, like a road runner, he'd get it done in a jiffy.

If I were the girl, I would be quite annoyed and insulted, even. Occasionally, ok lar... can and should accomodate the guy. Give and take, right? But if it were to happen all the time, I'd probably tell him to go marry his friends or something, since he seems to cater to their requests more than he does mine.

Contra-ed off

2007-04-27T15:02:00.000+08:00

Heard on Mix.fm's news on one of the mornings:

Indonesia is looking into banning the sale of new cars if current measures to curb urban pollution is not effective.

Malaysia's strategy to reduce its infamous traffic jams into and out of the city?
To implement restricted zones in the city and charge users to enter these restricted zones, while at the same time, STILL promote the sales of the national car.

A bit the stupid, isn't it? If you're still promoting car sales, there's no way you can reduce the traffic, no matter how many new (and useless, IMHO) highways you build. Here, you pay toll to get stuck in a traffic jam.

Holiday!!!

2007-04-27T10:33:00.000+08:00

I am very excited, anticipating my trip next week :-D

I plan to do lots and lots of shopping as well as get my costume for the HE Anniversary Party.

:-D

Passion or Patience??

2007-04-27T10:29:00.000+08:00

I don't know how long I can keep it up. The only thing that's stopping me from quitting is my drive to continue to learn as much as I can and also because I enjoy the intricacies of it and the challenge it gives me.

The politics, the favoritism/double standards, the diva attitudes... I guess that's all part of this "industry" but really, each time I think about it and see it happen in front of me, I get disgusted. It's all so fake and superficial and unnecessary.

I'm all for encouraging and promoting the promising ones, but is there a need to disregard those who are not the stars but who have been putting in more effort than others in the same league but at the end of the day, those that don't put in as much effort get the recognition instead? If there's one thing I really detest, it's not being given due recognition for my work. If I didn't do the work, then it's fine, you can sideline me. But when I put as much or more effort than my peer but s/he gets the recognition and more "benefits", so to speak, that is just plain unprofessional.

But of course, the world is never fair. I have the choice to either continue and accept everything (good and bad) that comes with it... or I can choose to just walk away.

Right now, I decide to stay. Just to see how long I can endure. I take this as a test of my patience, which may be good for me since I'm not a very patient person to begin with. Haha.

Something "good" finally happening???

2007-04-26T22:19:00.000+08:00

YES! THIS is a good thing!! Some people need to be taught that they can't just go around talking shit about other people.

Can't wait to see/hear what happens next.

Haha... my country is turning into a circus and laughingstock... hahaha! *demented laughter*

I Am A Law-Abiding Citizen

2007-04-25T17:53:00.000+08:00

I filed my taxes yesterday!!! A full SIX days before the due date!!!! Woooooooo!!!!!! *Now they can use my money (if they haven't already) to build more useless, tasteless things around the country*

And now the IRD owes me money!!!!!!!! Muahahahahaha!!!!!

But, as usual, it'll take them the whole of the next tax year to return my money to me, if I'm lucky.

Hmph.....

Hello!!

2007-04-21T10:34:00.000+08:00

Hey, Jus!!!!! So how's life Down Under??? ;-)

Blur-nya!!

2007-04-21T10:21:00.000+08:00

So this was me last Saturday, when I went to Bangsar Village to meet up with Mich and ChienLi...

Yes folks, I managed to walk around Bangsar in mismatched slippers!! Ack!!

o_O

Missing Dog...Please Help

2007-04-19T07:10:00.000+08:00

Got this via email from the animal network:

**********

URGENT! MISSING PINSCHER!

A 4-year old male crossed Miniature Pinscher is lost in Taman Kencana, Pandan Indah. He answers to either Alex or Prince. He has a dark brown shiny coat with a round face. We re-homed him with a Mr. Thomas in Taman Kencana. He is believed to have escaped from his house in the wee hours of 11 April 2007, Wednesday. He is on medication for his heart ailment.

Please contact Leigh 016-2571092 or Joanne 012-2297332 if anyone has any news of his whereabouts.

We are very fearful he might be harmed as Alex or Prince does not like to be patted on his head and will turn ferocious.

Animalfriendsatwork

Bunch of Nincompoops

2007-04-10T20:34:00.000+08:00

So can someone explain to me why :

1. The problem of Lack of Ownership and "tai chi-ing" of tasks/ownership is so prevalent in large organizations

People just cannot seem to take ownership of their own tasks, even though it's so blatantly obvious that the task belongs to them. They keep going around in endless loops, trying to get someone else to own those tasks and the task ends up not getting done. What's wrong with these people?! I mean, the work needs to get done somehow and eventually, someone's got to do it so why waste all this time ding dong-ing emails to and fro???

And, to make it even more infuriating, some people are so bloody "efficient" when it comes to commenting on other people's areas, but when it comes to their area, suddenly everything doesn't belong to them! Person A says Person B is supposed to do it, Person B say Person C is supposed to do it, Person C says Person A is supposed to do it. Round and round and round... in an infinite loop. Just a small task could get blown into a big argument and finger-pointing.

Giving deadlines is of no use. It's not like these people even read their emails. Or, they read but they don't bother about it.

Case in point : We had a sign-off deadline on Wednesday. Less than half the people signed off on the due date. About 3/4 signed off the day after the due date. On the 2nd day after the due date, I called the remaining people up to remind them. Then I sent a status report to the PM and she escalated it to the CEO. The CEO sent an email to the people who hadn't signed and only THEN did they start trickling in one by one. And one of them even had the cheek to say "Oh, so like this also you all escalate to CEO lah? I'm so busy, you know. You all should call us and remind us." First of all, everyone else is also busy but they still came and did the sign-off. What makes you so special that your level of busy-ness is more important than the rest? And secondly, we DID call! And this particular person said over the phone "Ok Ok, I'll come" and then never showed up. How many times do you want to be reminded? We're not your bloody personal reminder service, ok?!

2. There is Endless Politic-ing and Stabbing Other People in the Back

Some people seem to be so engrossed with making others look bad to make themselves look good. To me, that's quite hard work. I mean, you have to keep thinking of ways to catch people off-guard and find opportunities to "advertise" their weak points. That's a lot of work, you know. So, if these people are so busy politic-ing, who the hell is doing the work?! No wonder things don't get done.

And some people are so vocal to us (my dept) about their displeasure of other people, and say that we don't have the guts to stand up to other people (we do, but only to certain things that we are in the position to respond to). But when we tell them to write an official email to respond to the other party's comment coz they've got the right to do so, they chicken out and send the email to us without addressing it to the other party, expecting US to do the dirty job for them!! WTF?! You say we got no guts but then you do the same! Geez!

Gawd, I feel like I'm dealing with a bunch of babies at work! And we haven't even started the major part of the project yet! Haish!

Life is fragile

2007-03-31T18:19:00.000+08:00

I found out today that a friend had just lost his wife, eldest son, and mother~~parents~~-in-law in an accident. His two other children are in intensive care. Mich didn't know the details but she thought they might've been on their way back to their hometown for cheng beng when the accident occurred (a traffic accident, we presume).

Although we're not close, we used to work those long crazy hours together as a team and Mr. Tan is one of the nicest, most unassuming, and ever helpful people I know. That such a tragedy should strike him is just too hard to imagine.

Please help pray for Mr. Tan and his children.

To break or not to break?

2007-03-29T21:49:00.000+08:00

Mix FM's "He Says, She Says..." segment every morning is quite entertaining to listen to. They will throw out a topic pertaining to the male-female gender and get callers to call in with their views.

Past topics include :

Why do women blame men for everything when things go wrong
Why do men blame everything but themselves when things go wrong
Men cheat for thrills, women cheat for attention
Women are better at managing money than men

The entertaining part is listening to the callers. Like the last topic above. It was yesterday's topic and this lady called up and started her spiel, which went something like this:

"Yes, it's so true. I give you an example of my man. They always spend spend spend. They never think of saving for tomorrow. They never think about whether we got food to eat tomorrow, or whether the children got enough money to go to school, or whether the wife got enough money to buy veggie. Then they come home and say "Hah, ikan again today ar" They earn five thousand ringgit and give the wife one thousand ringgit and come home and say "Hah, ikan again today ar"....."

It was damn funny, man, the way the lady was talking. But I guess to her, it was an outlet to vent. And boy, do we all sometimes need to vent, eh?

Yesterday evening, on my way home, they played a snippet of today's topic "When you've been going out for 5 years and haven't gotten married, maybe it's time to break it off."

Which brought back memories about my five-year relationship. And yes, we've broken it off. After the 5.5-year mark. Haha. That was about 3 yrs ago.

Pietro and Serena were of the opinion that people shouldn’t get married just because they have been together for n number of years. Ika said that she would break if off if she wasn’t married after going out for 2 years with a guy.

We didn’t break it off due to any reasons pertaining to marriage. We did briefly touch the topic once or twice during our relationship but it never went very much past the surface. I think one of the main reasons it didn’t work out was due to the distance (he was halfway around the world) and also coz our priorities and goals had changed. At that time, I was quite naive and idealistic. “Oh, distance no problem lar. Can handle one.” Hah, yeah right. That’s a lesson for being so idealistic and having such high expectations.

Anyway, back to the topic on hand, hhhhmmm, would I get pressured to get married after being in a relationship for n years? Depends what I want at that point in time lor. If I wanted to have a family, then maybe I would. But knowing me, the reason I’d want to get married would be NOT because I want a family but coz I love the guy that much that I’d want to spend the rest of my life with him. But then again, if having a family is secondary, then why even need to get married? Hhhmmm...

Tomorrow’s topic on “He Says, She Says…”

“Are men or women more paranoid when their partners hang out with their exes?”

* where n = the number of years one feels is sufficiently long to be in a relationship and the next step would be marriage.

Would you adopt?

2007-03-29T20:43:00.000+08:00

So I was reading this blog where the writer was talking about adoption. Of kids, that is.

I was and am never one who goes all crazy and google-eyed when I see babies. When I happen to be around babies (cousins' babies, friends' babies, etc.), I would silently pray "Please dun ask me me if I want to hold him/her. I can't say no else I will sound rude but I dun want to hold the baby!" Mainly coz they seem so fragile and me being the klutz that I am, I would be so paranoid about "breaking" the child and then have the whole entire family come after me.

But I don't hate kids. I'm ok with them, as long as they don't bug the hell outta me.

So far, my biological clock hasn't been screaming at me to start reproducing and neither has my maternal instinct started getting me all misty-eyed around those little creatures we call children (thank gawd!). But if some day I ever decide I want to try motherhood, I would give adoption a consideration.

Why? Firstly, because humans are overproducing as it is. I read in the papers a few weeks ago, there were like, 400,000+ births in M'sia alone in one of the recent years! I don't know if that's a huge figure, but it certainly sounds like A LOT of births to me. Secondly, like homeless animals, there are a lot of orphans out there who are starved of love and affection. My thought is, why not channel my love and affection to a few of these orphans and try to give them a better life, rather than add to the whole menagerie of humans. Thirdly, I've never felt the need to have my own child. I can't quite comprehend when people tell me there's nothing like having your own child. I mean, if I like children, why can't I adopt since there're so many of them available. Maybe it's something that can only be experienced when one is actually IN that situation. I don't know.

But I think my underlying justification towards adoption is just the need to do something to help one or two orphaned children to have a better life, if ever I have the means to. You know, like how I always preach about adopting pets from an animal shelter rather than buying them pedigreed from a breeder or pet shop.

That's not to say that I don't like people who reproduce or that I think people shouldn't reproduce. Not at all. Each to his/her own, I say. Anyway, I didn't say that I'm totally ruling out actually having my own kid some day *gasp!*

Just don't come up to me and tell me that my eggs are getting older by the year and that I should start making babies right now.

Infuriating!!!!

2007-03-29T00:05:00.000+08:00

GAAAAHHH!!!

This just makes my blood boil!!! This and that stupid Eye on Malaysia monstrosity.

To think most of us citizens work so hard to pay our taxes and see how our so very "wise and efficient" powers-that-be use all our hard-earned money.

GAAAHHH!!!

And we have some departments around just as namesakes. Like the so-wonderfully-useful Department of Environment. Hallo, I thought one of the purposes of all these different depts is to ensure that proper laws are in place and that they are being followed. Oh, you know what? I'm sure proper laws are in place somewhere, they're just not being enforced coz corruption is so blatantly happening in front of our faces everywhere these days. Even the Anti-Corruption Agency director-general practices it. Allegedly of course. Duh. Isn't that absolutely absurd???

And the "We-can't-prove-anything-coz-everything-is-subjective" Wildlife and National Parks Department. Hallo, that's what you are supposed to draft in your LAWS!! To spell out exactly the definition of cruelty!!! Define what cage size is sufficient and what is not!! But oh wait, let's see how much they earn from issuing keeping licenses. RM219,380 in 2005! Oooohhh, now I get it. These people who apply for these licenses, most of them probably wouldn't meet the minimum requirements specified under the law if the law was revised. Hhhmmm... now I wonder WHY it's taking so long for them to table the new Bill.

Geez, I cannot tahan these people. Talk talk talk talk talk only ALL the bloody time. Propose this, propose that but end up doing nothing or worse, doing USELESS things with OUR money. Work until the wee hours of the morning only to see my tax money being frivolously thrown away.

And you know what's the worse part??? I can't do anything to change the situation. Sure, I can vote. But ultimately, one tiny mite like me can't do anything at all. Sometimes, I just wish I could stand in the street and scream my lungs out "YOU BLOODY MORONS ARE DRAGGING MY COUNTRY DOWN THE DRAINS!!!" But not that anyone cares anyway.

Oh, but wait... according to them, I'm privileged to be allowed to even stay here.

The absurdity of it all.

GAH!!!

Feeling Poorly...

2007-03-21T21:10:00.000+08:00

bluurrgghh...

It's so not fun being sick... and that also not like, I'm-so-sik-I-can't-get-out-of-bed. At least, if that, also worth it to get sick. But I'm like in between... down enough to feel like my bones have been steam-rollered but still can hobble out of bed. Blearrrgghh...

And it seems that the older I get, the more "down" I get when I catch a bug. I used to be able to shrug off a bug in a day or two. But now it takes more than that. Oh the joy of aging... :-(

So not looking forward to go back to work tomorrow... sigh...

o_O

**********
I really get annoyed with people who talk more than they should to justify their actions. Seriously. I mean, if you have a good reason to do something, then just say it, short and sweet, and get it over and done with. No need to beat around the bush and tell grandmother stories just to get people to believe why you did what you did. Really, I get quite impatient with people like this. Unfortunately, I have to deal with them every single workday. Bleargh.

Barbaric!

2007-03-20T22:32:00.000+08:00

This is just too barbaric.

And, correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought the main purpose of a VETERINARY Services Department is to look out for the welfare of animals. But seems they are more preoccupied with shooting them.

Why can't they round up the dogs and take them to the pound and euthanize them humanely, if they really MUST kill them? Oh wait, it's called "systematic eradication of dogs." *rolling eyes*

Really, where do we even begin to THINK that we're a developing nation??? And this is not even the start of it.

The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated. ~Mahatma Gandhi~

Any updates???

2007-03-19T13:56:00.000+08:00

Life's pretty quiet... schedule's back to normal.

Same ol' news in the papers, same ol' gripes about the people running the country (will it ever improve??)...

Generally restless... hmm...

Started Pilates. I find it quite good, though I need to work on the exercises outside of class in order to enjoy the benefits. I just learnt that the muscles on our least used limbs are more flexible than those that we use more often. For example, I'm a leftie so my left muscles are less flexible than my right... coz my right muscles are less used and therefore, are more flaccid. Haha! Seriously, I didn't know this :-p

But my knees are giving me problems now, ever since Spellbound rehearsals. At first, I thought it was just normal strain from the extra work but it got steadily worse. So now I have to take a break from Odissi for a few weeks to recuperate. Sigh... :-(

Bleh... am stuffed, bored, and getting sleepy now... *yawn*

o_O

What about you? Anything new happening in your life???

It's All Worth It

2007-03-19T00:07:00.000+08:00

People who know me, sooner or later, will find out that I have an extraordinary affinity to animals (to some, this isn’t necessarily a good thing).

I see my pets as members of my family. And as such, it makes perfectly normal sense for me to award them with similar consideration that I give to other human members of my family. And it makes perfect sense that they are worthy of the same love and attention that other members of my family and/or loved ones get from me. For example (this one I had personally experienced), when I was moving back home from the States, I could’ve easily dumped my cats back to the animal shelter that I’d gotten them from but because I had adopted them and therefore, had a responsibility toward them, I couldn’t just do that unless I had exhausted all other options of bringing them home with me (or unless the vet told me that it’ll absolutely kill them to travel such a long distance). Also, I considered the thought that if they were actually human members of my family, the thought of leaving them behind wouldn’t even cross my mind.

BUT that’s not to say that I assign human-like qualities to my pets. I don’t expect them to understand me like the human members of my family do nor do I expect them to sit at the dinner table and eat with the rest of us. I love my family and my pets equally, but differently, if that makes sense (which would to like-minded people but maybe not so to others).

Also, this I personally strongly believe, if one can’t handle the responsibility of taking care of a pet, chances are, one may not be handle the responsibility of taking care of a baby/child either. Because to me, pets and children are almost similar in their needs. Of course, I’m sure many would be appalled that I can even think of comparing an animal and my own child (if ever I have any) but when you think about it, they’re more similar than you care to believe, in the younger years, at least. They both depend heavily on you to provide food and shelter and love. They both can’t talk to express their needs and wants or when they're in pain. They both make messes. And they both can be a nuisance when they decide to be.

But to me, whether pets or children, these are all the stages that one must go thru at one point or another. All these are part and parcel of having pets, just like children throwing tantrums or refusing to listen to you and stop running around the shopping mall are part and parcel of parenthood. Puke can be cleaned up, couches can be replaced, money can be earned again. Because at the end of the day, when my cat comes up to me for a head rub and starts purring contentedly, it’s all worth it. Just like when your child snuggles up to you at the end of the day and says “Mommy/Daddy, I love you”, you’d feel on top of the world.

It’s all quite difficult to explain to people who don’t have this type of affinity towards animals, how people like us (i.e. “animal people”) feel towards animals. A lot of times it’s quite frustrating and sometimes, it’s depressing as well, because someone you care about might not feel the same way and as such, this may cause some sort of tension between the two of you. And I’m sure people who don’t have this type of affinity towards animals think us “animal people” are just nutcases who have nothing better to do with our time but mess around with four-legged furry creatures.

But in all honesty, we enjoy that bond and connection we have with animals that we can’t get from human-to-human interaction, a bond that cannot be explained unless experienced personally. At the end of the day, if I get asked “So is all that trouble worth it?” after another clean-up session of kitty puke, or when my cats scratch the couch, or when they find out how much I’d actually spent getting my cats from the US to M’sia, I'd say HELL YEAH! Coz all those small things don't matter to me.

This is not to say that people who don’t have this type of affinity towards animals are bad or inferior, better or superior. We’re all different after all; different wants, different needs, different tastes, with different things that make us tick. It’s just that some of us need the company of animals as well as humans to be complete, that’s all.

:-)

Me and My Best Friend

2007-03-18T23:55:00.000+08:00

And the end result is...

2007-03-08T23:07:00.000+08:00

THIS!!!

We only did 2 takes... but oh, those 2 takes felt like forever! Coz I was so conscious of every move that I made and tried so hard NOT to make mistakes coz then everyone would have to do it again. But 2 takes was quite few, I thought... I was expecting them to stop us constantly during the dance to do a re-take but we just did it twice, full-out, and that was it.

The morning began at 4:45am. I was quite zombified, no thanks to some stupid mossies who decided to have a feast on my blood the night before i.e. kept me awake almost the entire night. Bah! Arrived at the studio before 7:30am. Did the hair, then got called for breakfast. After breakfast, continued with the makeup. Now here's the part where I take at least double the time everyone else takes -- to put on my makeup. Yeah yeah, call me anal or whatever :-p but I really detest having messy makeup on. So I take forever to do my eyes, and then forever to do my dots (make sure they are precisely dotted and evenly spaced!) and by the time I'm done with my makeup, everyone else had already long finished and put on their headgear.

Then comes the process of putting on the jewelry, most of which I don't have problems with except with it comes to the earpiece. I've never worn this particular set of earpieces before even though I'd had my jewelry for a few years now. Coz everytime I try to insert the post into my earlobes, it wouldn't go in coz the post is just too big! So the day before the shoot, I tried it again and managed to to get the right side in. But the left side just wouldn't go in!! So I had to get my trusty mom to help me with it and she came up with the ingenius idea of rubbing baby oil on my earlobe and the earring post, which made it a whole lot easier to be inserted (though it still hurt like mad!). And the hook that goes around the top of the ear? I didn't even dare touch that part after I'd put it on the next day, coz each time I did, it hurt double mad!!! My poor ears were throbbing after the shoot :-(

Anyway, it was a good experience. At least I got into a TV studio once in my whole life... hehe... :-D

One more show tomorrow... and I'm done! YAY! Need rest... pooped to the bone... zzzzzzzz.....

Off Tangent

2007-03-02T00:01:00.000+08:00

Some funny pics from KK...

*snorkle snorkle, glug glug* Yoo hoooo!!! I can see yooouuuuuu!!

Kitty was enjoying herself, all sprawled out on the chair at the resort. Didn't even wake up when I poked her many times!

Was fascinated with the bite marks that insects left on this leaf

Nice pics of the babe...

Waaaa... so 'yau yeng'.... hehe...

Some more posing posing all... :p

Turn of Events

2007-03-01T07:53:00.000+08:00

It's interesting how a slight turn in events can result in such different outcomes.

I just found out that if s.h.e hadn't been on leave on that day, I wouldn't be where I am today.

If we didn't choose to compete, we wouldn't be where we are now.

Sometimes, things like these can be blessings in disguise...

:-)

Main Kayu Tiga (or empat... or lima... or...)

2007-03-01T00:23:00.000+08:00

So what is it with guys who simultaneously date multiple women?? This is one thing I will never understand about men (some women do it too). Isn't ONE relationship consuming enough???

Give the gal some dignity and break up with her first lar, before chasing another skirt.

Unless, of course, exclusivity is not in the picture... then can go around with as many skirts as you desire.

The Magic is Gone

2007-02-28T21:52:00.000+08:00

So yes, yet again, we were expected to dump everything in our lives and run to them at their beck and call at the last minute. I absolutely detest being informed about last minute decisions and then expected to have everything all ready and nice and pretty. If I were a rich tai tai who has nothing to do the entire day, then it's a different story altogether. If I were that, you want me to fly to the moon today also can. But unfortunately, I, and a lot of others, have to work to pay the bills and our time is not as flexible as we'd like it to be.

This is beginning to feel like a chore. The constant reprimands and preferential treatment of some is making me feel quite weary and some days, I feel it's just not worth it. It's not like I'm not working as hard as the others nor is it because I'm not making the effort to make it to all of their sessions. I really am trying my best and I have made it to ALL their sessions thus far. This is like, my best record so far. Sorry lar, I'm a working adult, not like the stars there who are still in school and can skip their classes whenever they want. If I were younger (i.e. still in primary or secondary school, or even college), I'd mentally smack myself and tell myself to just stop whining and suck it up coz it builds character. But I'm almost middle-aged now... I've gone past those days when I was a wide-eyed kid absorbing everything that's thrown my way.

I think the magic is dying (or maybe it's already dead). I hardly enjoy it these days. And observing the way things work there, some of it just puts me off. I don't mind being pushed to the limit just to see how far I can go nor do I mind the scoldings when I deserve it, but when I rush there after a hard day's work, try my best to do what's expected of me, and then have to put up with all that crap, I really just feel like chucking it all out the window and quitting once and for all.

So I dunno... maybe I should start looking for another hobby. Something that doesn't give me that much stress when I'm supposed to be doing something that I enjoy.

I'm starting Pilates soon, under my former ballet teacher :-) I was under her tutelage when I was 10 (yes, I was a late starter!), all the way till I was 16. I can't wait to start!

CNY and stufff

2007-02-26T23:18:00.000+08:00

Maaaannn... so so lazy to write... that's what not having internet access at work does to you. Makes u lazy to do anything that has something to do with going online... haha..

So let's see... the filmshoot's early next week, then we head up to Genting for a weekend performance. We're having our final rehearsal this Friday and to top it all off, my left knee has decided to show its age at this point in time and has started hurting after each rehearsal since last week. *OWW!* :-(

*****

Traveling to work was a breeze last week. Today was hell. I wish everyone would just stay on perpetual holiday, myself included :-p

*****

What Women Want on 8TV is such a crappy, crappy show!!! Geez! The tasks are boring and useless, the prizes are laughable, and the host is such a bore!!! ~~Gawd, I swear it's more interesting to watch my nails grow!~~ I will not be mean during CNY, I will not be mean during CNY, I will not be mean during CNY...

On the other hand, kudos to 8TV for bringing in Ugly Betty. It's quite an entertaining show...

And Heroes is awesome!!! It's kept me quite intrigued at the moment... planning to get the DVD set... hehe...

*****

This CNY was rather quiet. We didn't do the normal visiting on the first day like we normally did the past years... but that's ok. I like peace and quiet.

Went to watch Music and Lyrics on the 1st day of CNY. It's a funny, feel-good movie. I like Drew Barrymore. She's such a sincere actress.

CNY also saw me junking a lot... and still junking coz we've got lots of cookies and junk food left, as always. At this rate, my tumm will be protruding out when I wear my saree for the show!!! ARGH!!!! o_O Gotta get rid of it by this weekend... *pray pray pray*

CL entertained his colleagues at his place last weekend... I was so tired I fell asleep midway (I did go to the bedroom, I wasn't THAT rude!) and didn't even realize they'd left!

I met up with my SMCK gals. Julia cooked lunch for us!!! And we had "yee sang" (my 4th this year)...

Before : All nice and neat...

After : Looked like a whole bunch of barbarians got hold of the "yee sang"... haha...

And we got the 1st Q gals a birthday cake!

Happy Birthday to Siow Lan (Jan 3), Joann (Feb 26), and Poh Fei (Mar 21)!! You're OLD!! Haha!! *evil grin*

Yaaaaaam Seng to the birthday gals!!

And one for the road!! :-D

*****

This weekend, another CNY lunch and dinner... gawd, so so so much fooooood!!!

Gambuh

2007-02-10T09:19:00.000+08:00

For the past 2 nights, I was at a workshop to learn the basics of one of Bali's ancient dance forms, Gambuh.

Wow, I don't think I've ever used my fingers, arms, and shoulders so much before! It's rather hard to explain the dance style in words... it has much more impact when seen live so I won't even try describing it.

Our instructor was this oldish man (maybe around his late 40s - I could be grossly mistaken since dancers seems to always look younger than their actual age!) whose fingers are so agile and his expressions are like, wow! Especially his eyes. He's a master in the Gambuh Balinese dance.

The workshop was held at Sutra. I like it that they occasionally bring in other dance masters to expose us to other dance forms.

Read more at the Tri Pusaka Sakti website.

Learning and Self-Discovery

2007-02-09T18:35:00.000+08:00

... is a life-long process...

It's imperative to be open to learning new things and also to continue to improve oneself, not only knowledge-wise but also as a person.

There're still so many things out there for me to learn... not only to increase my knowledge but also to make myself a better person. A better person to myself, to others around me, to the world (although I am but a speck in the ocean).

The more difficult part would be learning to improve myself. I tend to be rather a perfectionist so when I find that I've contradicted myself or did something that I shouldn't have done, I get really annoyed with myself. One part of learning is to accept our mistakes and learn from them. But the making a mistake part is the one that I have the most difficulty in accepting. It's not that I don't admit my mistakes, I do. But the after-effect would be "Argh! That was stupid! I should've known better! Stupid stupid stupid!" And then I would beat myself up over it.

So, as a new resolution for the CNY, I resolve to NOT get upset over what I've done wrong, accept it, move on and learn from it.

Haha... easier said than done. That's like telling me not to worry about anything at all.

o_O

ok ok... must be positive...

I.can.make.mistakes.
I'm.allowed.to.make.mistakes.
I.must.learn.from.my.mistakes.and.not.beat.myself.up.over.my.mistakes.
I.must.learn.not.to.be.such.a.perfectionist.and.stress.myself.up.

Oooooeeerrrr... better not let my dance instructors find out about that last one!

A Chapter of My Life, Part 2

2007-02-07T22:34:00.000+08:00

Living in on-campus housing (they call it residence halls) at UB was an interesting experience. I was fortunate enough to be able to experience this for one semester before I moved off-campus (on-campus housing is pretty costly!).

Just a quick background... UB has 2 campuses, the North and the South campus. The North Campus is where the core academic programs are offered, and it's located in suburban Amherst. My faculty - School of Management - is here. The South Campus is closer to downtown Buffalo and houses the Schools of Architecture and Planning, Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, Dental Medicine, Public Health and Health Professions, and Nursing. The Student Health Center is also in the South. They have buses running regularly to and from each campus so getting from one campus to the other was not a problem. The only problem I had was when I was down with a bug and could hardly move and I had to drag myself out of my room and catch the bus to the Health Center.

Naturally, since my faculty was in the North campus, I applied to housing there. I was assigned to Richmond Hall, which is in the Joseph Ellicott Complex. I was in quad i.e. 4 people sharing a room. This was when I learnt never to trust brochures coz they made the living conditions seem sooooo nice in the brochure but when I got there, I discovered that it was just a squarish room, with a bed and desk in each corner. But that aside, it was an interesting one-semester experience, nonetheless.

My roommates were 2 Americans and a Puerto Rican. The Americans were Julie and Elizabeth (Liz, for short). I can't remember the Puerto Rican's name coz she was hardly in the room (she was usually at the boyfriend's place). I remember watching Jerry Springer and Ricki Lake on her TV though, hehe. Julie was in the rowing team so she was usually up early for practice. There was an incident where during the winter, she slipped on ice and hit her head quite hard. She was relating the story of when she went to the doctor to get it checked, the doctor told her to get some rest and get her roommate to wake her up at regular intervals to "make sure she was easily aroused"... haha... ;-)

Here's how the room looked like... of course, this one has been decorated and furnished quite elaborately...

Pantry, where we cooked our late-nite Maggi mee... ;-)

*Pics above courtesy of the UB website (dunno why I didn't take any pics)

View of the lake and lecture halls (right at the far end) from the residence halls...

Mr. Steven Shaw, Director of International Admissions. This was at one of the M'sian Student Association (MASA) events. He ran the UB program at Stamford College, PJ and went back to UB when it was terminated in end '98. That was just before we all left for UB (Jan '99). Wow, it feels like ages ago! I am ancient! *sob sob*

Another MASA event

We got people to write their names in Chinese characters. There's mine, hehe...

Blurb : Goo Goo Dolls are from Buffalo, NY!

Bye bye, forest reserves

2007-02-07T21:48:00.000+08:00

And HOW will they handle the flora and fauna in this area due to THIS? Just flood the area and drown all of them, is it? Are they planning to relocate the animals? Are they planning to relocate the plants? How much more development do they wanna do??

"...the project was necessary to meet the demand for water and for the continued development of the Klang Valley and Selangor. "

We're like a concrete jungle now. Everywhere you look, there's a high-rise building... if not, then it's land being cleared to build yet another high-rise.

Take Mont Kiara, for example...

Development on the opposite right...

Development on the opposite left...

And the area on the left on the same side has just been cleared to, surprise surprise, more development. The area on the left on the same side has almost completed its apartment blocks. The area behind has at least 4-5 new developments, one of which is the Verve Suites, which has SEVEN freaking blocks! There's supposed to be a forest reserve somewhere behind but sooner or later, a money-hungry businessman or politician will decide that s/he wants to "Get rid of the trees and build me my multi-million ringgit condo complex".

WHAT IS WRONG WITH THESE PEOPLE??!!!

A forest reserve is "is a protected area of importance for wildlife, flora, fauna or features of geological or other special interest, which is reserved and managed for conservation and to provide special opportunities for study or research." - Wikipedia

It's pretty obvious that these people care jackshit about conservation and only care about the ringgit signs. Wait till all that development causes soil erosion and their homes get buried. Haven't they learned anything at all from the Highland Towers tragedy??!!!

India has such beautiful and massive national parks. They're large enough for animals to roam and also for visitors to take a tour on trucks. What do we have? A miserable animal safari at A'Famosa Resort, which is so small, all the animals are so clustered together and uncomfortable coz the truck that carries visitors get so close to them. And the noise! It was enough to stress ME out! And we THINK we're a developing country. Hah! Developing into a concrete jungle, more like it. We can't even respect our fellow living creatures. Developing, my foot. The way we're going, we're just destroying whatever's left of nature and leaving our future generations with global warming, soil erosion, and everything that comes with the imbalance of the ecosystem.

A Chapter of My Life, Part 1

2007-02-06T23:17:00.000+08:00

Our lives go by like chapters in a book. One can usually tell when a chapter closes and another one begins...

While I was driving on my way home after rehearsal on Monday night, I had a sudden flashback of the very first time that I saw snow and my years in the US came rushing back to me...

Thus was the chapter of my life, "The Buffalo Years"...

The very first time I experienced snow was when I was in transit to Buffalo, NY. I think we were at the Chicago O'Hare airport and the bunch of us, quite like jakuns, went out on the sidewalk and went "Ooh"-ing and "Aah"-ing about the snow, hehe...

Bunch of misfits off to conquer Buffalo, NY! :-)

Buffalo, NY is well-known for its heavy snowfall. One winter, there was a blizzard and the university had to close for a day or two, and the last time that happened was more than 10 yrs before!

Mr. Snowman, my very first! :-)

There were fat squirrels with bushy tails and wild duckies as well...

...Part 2, to be continued...

So so many things...

2007-02-06T21:21:00.000+08:00

Sometimes, a flurry of things happen and you can't help but feel overwhelmed...

**********
Rehearsals have started for the filming of Spellbound early next month. The item that we're involved in is not a new item i.e. most of them in the group have performed it before. But a few of us were called in to replace a few others who were not able to make it. It's a high learning curve coz most of the others already know the dance so those of us who don't, have to work really hard to catch up and not hold back the others. It's quite stressful, especially when I get called on for my mistakes and the whole group has to repeat the particular sequence a few times just coz of me.

It doesn't help when we're expected to know the steps perfectly immediately after we're taught them. It also doesn't help when a few of the seniors don't give clear instructions and then reprimand us when we don't do as they expected.

Sometimes, I feel that I'm putting myself thru more stress than I can handle. After a long day's work, I head to rehearsals and get so worried about getting my steps right so that I don't get yelled at. Sometimes I feel like I should just quit so that I dun need to take all this unnecessary stress and scoldings like I'm a two-year-old.

BUT I enjoy dancing too much. Next time, I should just stick to classes and not do any performances except for Navarathri.

We have three more official rehearsals before the filming, with however much else practice we can fit in within the week. So, by hook or by crook, we need to be ready by then.

Gawd, I'll be so glad when this whole thing is OVER.

o_O

**********

The HoD approached me and asked if I were interested if they were to convert me to a permanent staff. I said I would consider it, depending on a few factors. One of which is that my salary would remain the same coz she had initially told me my salary would be adjusted to be lower if I were to be converted to a permanent employee. But as I had not asked for an exceptionally high salary at the start of my contract (they are paying for my EPF and I have basic benefits), I'd definitely not take a lower salary just to be a permanent employee.

My one other concern would be that I would be reporting directly to the HoD. I'm not fond of her coz I feel that she doesn't really respect her staff. She would reprimand her staff during a meeting with other depts and I've observed that she doesn't really stand up for her staff. So, I'm not sure how comfortable I would be reporting to her. Having a good boss is crucial, coz s/he could make my working hours a great experience or a working hell. PLUS there's too much politics at this place. Even in a discussion on the project organization structure, the word "politics" came up more than a few times. This makes getting things done much harder than it already is.

But anyway, I'm not required to give any answer yet. So we'll see...

**********

My parents were there when THIS happened. Thank God they're ok.

**********

Saturday nite, on the way home for LH, we got stuck in a traffic jam along Jln Pudu (I think it's Jln Pudu, the road that leads from Lake Gardens, pass the DBKL building, Lebuh Ampang to the Pudu bus station). We'd initially thought that it was a roadblock due to the cops conduting sobriety tests but it turned out to be a major operation to nab those Mat Rempits. Man, it was like a scene out of a local movie! While we were waiting for the traffic to move, this Rempit decided that he didn't want to stop for the check. So he just ignored the cops and rode his bike past. Out comes this cop, he ran after the guy, shouting at him to stop and when the fella finally stopped, the cop was so mad he aimed a karate kick at the guy! Then, as we finally got to move, another Rempit on our side of the road decided to ignore the cops and just drove his bike thru and another cop, brandishing a wooden stick, whacked the bugger's bike and even that didn't stop him. He just shot off!!!.

I'm glad to see that FINALLY something is being done to crackdown on those stupid Mat Rempits coz they're not only a menace but a danger to other motorists. But it's sad to see that cops have to resort to such harsh tactics. But I don't see any other way for them to control this bunch of misfits coz they're so brash and brazen that they even attack the cops!! The powers-that-be should send in more law enforcement to carry out this operation coz they need strength in numbers. The number of cops we saw on Saturday nite vs the numbers of Rempits is just not sufficient coz these Rempits just come out in swarms. Hopefully, this operation will not be just a one-off thing coz it'll take more than one night's raid to keep them in check.

Sometimes, I don't blame the cops for not having the urgency to enforce the law coz it's common knowledge that they're lowly paid and for them to risk their lives is just not worth it. That's why you see them having a lackadaisical attitude at times. While the ministers are enjoying themselves in their air-conditioned rooms and chauffeur-driven cars with leather seats and getting paid huge amounts of salary, these cops are having to chase armed criminals for pittance of a pay. Millions are spent the biggest this, the longest that, the highest this, etc. etc. but they can't afford to raise our cops' pay??? How do they justify that??? See, you pay peanuts and you get monkeys. It's like the project that I'm currently working on at work. To cut a long story short, they've finally decided that the current vendor and system is THAT bad that they might need to re-do the entire project.

I understand that in a certain country down south, civil servants are among the highest paid. Is it any wonder that they are able to enforce their laws so efficiently and effectively? You certainly don't hear of snatch thefts there as often as you see/read/hear of them here in KL.

But really, this Mat Rempit menace is getting out of hand. On late nights when I'm driving home, I'd come across a whole swarm of them at certain parts of the highway and I always try to stay far away from them coz I've heard stories that if you accidently hit one of them, the entire swarm will attack you. But it's so infuriating to see them perform their stupid and dangerous stunts on public roads with blatant disregard for other motorists. If they want to kill themselves, fine, go ahead. But when it may potentially endanger other motorists, then it's intolerable. Whenever I see them doing their stupid and dangerous stunts and racing around the roads, I would hope that they would just crash and run over themselves. Too bad if that sounds really cruel but they are just too much!

**********

JN has decided to move down south coz he cannot see his future in this country. And frankly, I don't blame him. I normally don't like to diss the country but we seem to be going from bad to worse. The people seem to be going backwards rather than forwards, mentality-wise. I think people during my parents' time were even more open-minded than people in my generation. Just watch those old P. Ramlee films.

And then we have things like THIS. Hallo, what's is so secret about water and toll concession agreements?? We, the citizens, are paying tolls day in and day out, just getting to and from work every single day and still GETTING STUCK IN MASSIVE TRAFFIC JAMS and we DON'T have the RIGHT to know the content of those agreements?? What do water and toll concession agreements have to do with national security??!!

And don't get me started on that stupid Eye on Malaysia ferris wheel at Titiwangsa!! It's a waste of taxpayers' money, the fireworks and music are disruptive, and it causes a bloody traffic jam around the area! What's worse is that it's right in my face everytime I go to Sutra!

Bleh...

**********

Good luck, JN!! Hope life's better for you down under. Dun forget to call before you leave k?

What the...???????

2007-01-25T23:15:00.000+08:00

Is this piece of "news" sooooooooo important that it has to occupy the front page of one of our national newspapers???

GEEZ!!!!! What a waste of space!!

Is it any wonder that I hardly read the local newspapers these days??? What with the amount of crap they put in it...

My Secret Life on the McJob

2007-01-19T09:55:00.000+08:00

This looks like an interesting read... got it in my mail, regular updates from my alma mater. Unfortunately, it's only available on Amazon.com :-(

********

This message is being sent on behalf of Dr. Jerry Newman, Distinguished Teaching Professor and Chair, Department of Organization and Human Resources, UB School of Management ________________________________________________________________

Hi All!
My book finally came out! My Secret Life on the McJob (McGraw-Hill, 2007) talks about my undercover job as a crew member in 7 fast food restaurants. The book is available online at Amazon.com. For those of you in the area, I'm at Barnes and Noble on Niagara Falls Boulevard , January 27 (Saturday) at noon. Below is the inside cover blurb. Thanks for enduring this blatant sales pitch. Four more copies and it will be an even dozen., lol (PS. The Wall Street Journal just reviewed the book, it's in January 17 edition, section D.)

Once upon a time, a Ph.D. went to work at Mickey D's... And what he found was illuminating. Jerry Newman, a college professor who has taught business courses for nearly 30 years, went undercover as a bottom-rung worker for the biggest names in fast food, including McDonald's
and Burger King. Newman found that fast-food chains were the perfect petri dishes for covert research: High-pressure, high-volume businesses with high-employee turnover. The pecking order was also crystal clear, from fry cook all the way up to store manager. Of the seven restaurants where Newman worked, some were high-morale, high-productivity machines. Others were miserable, misplaced circles of hell. Yet one common trait stuck out from them all: Each restaurant's respective manager determined the climate of the work environment. Go behind the fast food counter with Newman and see what happens on an average day on the "McJob".

Jerry M. Newman
Distinguished Teaching Professor and Chair
Department of Organization and Human Resources
School of Management
SUNY at Buffalo
Buffalo, NY 14260
jmnewman [at] buffalo.edu

Constant Irritations

2007-01-19T09:44:00.000+08:00

Eeeeeeee!!! I cannot tahan these users!! I tell you, they just drive me nuts!! See, they were supposed to provide info from each of their modules for the UAT closure report based on a specific cut-off date. And even that took us so many reminders to them before they provided the info (and some of them gave us in the wrong format even though we gave them a template! Bah!). So anyway, I managed to compile all the data from everyone and sent out the report for their final review before the sign-off. And then these couple of users, throughout that one-month of time that they had to give us any updates, didn't give us any... then yesterday at the last minute, the bloody ppl email me and say, this and that and that has been completed/defect raised. And I'm like, "Hallo?????? Now only you want to give us an update???? We can't change the status/figures now coz then we'll have to change ALL the figures!!!!" Geez!! And one of them, the info that's in the report was given by him/her. All I did was copy-paste and correct the grammar. And then s/he comes back at the last minute to amend the info that s/he had given earlier. I'm like "Uh, the report's written as per what you gave. Why didn't you tell me earlier if you wanted to change it???? Sorry, the deadline to amend the report is OVER."

GEEZ!!!!!!!

**********
Oh, and I so so sooooooo DETEST drivers who blatantly (1) cut queue (2) use the emergency lane to cut queue.

STUPID MORONS! WHO GAVE U THE RIGHT TO CUT INTO MY LANE???!!!!! I WANT TO GET TO MY DESTINATION AS MUCH AS YOU DO SO GET THE **** OUT OF MY WAY!!! AND NO, I AM NOT LETTING YOU IN MY LANE!

Gawd, driving in KL is so not good for one's blood pressure. And I have to encounter these morons every single day.

GAAAHHH!!!!!

Some People Will Do Anything for Money

2007-01-16T20:16:00.000+08:00

So I had to attend an Anti-Money Laundering (AML) and Anti-Terrorisim Funding (ATF) training session today as part of the co's compliance program.

Some parts were rather interesting, others not so... plus they dimmed the lights for us to watch the VCD so I almost nodded off at certain points.

So anyway, after the VCD, the trainer took us thru some .ppt slides and told us some real life scenarios where large, well-known overseas financial institutions were fined and some closed down due to non-compliance to the AML and ATF regulatory standards.

Towards the end of the session, he told us that there are people who would do anything for money and he gave this real life story that was conveyed by a senior official. There was a couple who went holidaying with their young son in another country. While they were shopping/walking around, they realized that they had lost their son. They became frantic and reported the lost child to the authorities but the authorities told them that there wasn't much they could do but suggested that the couple wait by the border to see if they managed to spot their son. Sure enough, when they were waiting at the border, they saw a man walking towards the border, carrying their child. So the mother, being like all mothers, got frantic and ran towards the man. Upon seeing the woman, the man got scared, dropped the child and ran but the police managed to apprehend him. When the mother got to her child, she found that her child had been slit and gutted, and the boy's corpse was stuffed with drugs. Apparently, the man was planning to smuggle the drugs that was stuffed in the child, across the border, pretending that the child was asleep so the authorities wouldn't think twice of questioning him.

Gosh, can you imagine??????? What WON'T people think of doing???

o_O

What a waste of our $$$!!!

2007-01-09T21:28:00.000+08:00

So there I was, driving to Sutra last Sunday for class. Got to the Jln Pahang roundabout and ran smack into a traffic jam on Jln Tun Razak, which on normal Sundays, would be clear.

WHY??????

Coz the police bloody closed the road in front of Istana Budaya (the same road that I needed to turn into to get to Sutra) coz of the Visit Malaysia Year 2007 thing happening at Tasik Titiwangsa.

GAAAAHHH!!! I had to take a U-turn at Menara Celcom, get stuck in another traffic jam on the opposite side of the road on Jln Tun Razak, take another U-turn after the Jln Pahang roundabout back to the roundabout and get stuck in another traffic jam on Jln Pahang coz I had to find a blurdy alternative road to get to Sutra!!!!

GAAAAAAHHH!!!

See, I'm fine with all this VMY campaign as long as :

Taxpayers hard-earned taxes are used wisely and effectively to make the country a more pleasant place to visit (i.e. cleaner toilets, more efficient public transportation, you get my drift...).
Locals are not inconvenienced by whatever activities they have planned for the so-called VMY event.

Coz heck, even if you dun have the largest ferris wheel in the world or what not, people will still make the effort to visit your country if your cultural heritages are well-maintained and your public transport system is reliable and efficient, and your service guides are knowledgeable, up-to-date and helpful. Visitors dun need to come all the way to lil' ol' M'sia just to ride on your Eye on Malaysia.

BUT when these powers-that-be chop down huge, old, magnificent trees and remove parking spots just to build two stupid huts for goodness-knows-what and close roads which people need to use, this so pisses me off!!!

Now, the area around Tasik Titiwangsa looks so bare (just like the rest of the city and many other outskirts) with all the grand ol' trees chopped down and all u can see is the stupid ferris wheel, which is such a waste of money and an obvious copycat of the London Eye (why can't M'sians be more original?!) and is NOT what M'sia is about and which will most likely be another white elephant before u and I can count to ten.

GAAAAHHH!!! Those road closures better NOT be a permanent feature every Sunday, man.

*fuming, visible smoke coming out of my ears and nostrils*

Shelters

2007-01-09T19:46:00.000+08:00

How do ppl run their shelters just on their salaries and donations???

THIS is what I'd like to do...

If only humans would just treat animals like any other human/living being with a right to live without being abused/exploited, there wouldn't be a need for shelters in the first place.

Hmph...

Stupid, ignorant, selfish humans...

Paws & Reflect

2007-01-08T22:53:00.000+08:00

...If a man cares about his dog, it is a mark that he may also possess certain behaviors essential to a relationship: the ability to give and receive love, the capacity to tend to the needs of another, the openness to accept the presence of someone else...

- Excerpt from Paws and Reflect : Exploring the Bond Between Gay Men and Their Dogs

I think this can apply to anyone who has the good fortune to share their lives with animals.

More PMO!!

2007-01-07T22:42:00.000+08:00

We seem to find any and every reason to have a celebration here at work, hehe...

JC's birthday

Xmas Lunch @ Manhattan Fish Market, KLCC

December Babies and their b'day cake

Gift Exchange - Xtina's idea of a practical Xmas gift, hehe...

You can tell...

2007-01-07T20:20:00.000+08:00

... a little about a person...

... from the way they wrap their presents...

;-)

Can you guess which one was wrapped by moi??

;-)

Happy Anniversary!

2007-01-07T20:18:00.000+08:00

It's been a year, babe...

Happy Anniversary!! :-)

JC's Xmas Party : 16th Dec '06

2006-12-26T21:08:00.000+08:00

This year, I've been to more Xmas dos and parties than I've ever been to before!

At JC's Xmas party, we were requested to do an impromptu salsa performance...

Lesson learnt : Try NOT to reveal that I do salsa so that ppl won't ask me to give a demo!

Food time!!!

The PMO Gang

Bored...

2006-12-26T14:40:00.000+08:00

I...am...so...

BORED!!!

This week is gonna be a slow week coz almost everyone's off for the Xmas and New Year hols...

Merry Xmas & Happy New Year to all!!!

:-D

Ambulance Crisis???

2006-12-18T21:17:00.000+08:00

According to NST, there's an ambulance shortage in the country (sorry, no link coz the article was back in Sept and their news archive only goes back 7 days but u can refer to the Monsterblog link).

I dun exactly doubt the above... but one thing I've noticed since I started work is that every single day, at the same locations (Jln Duta, Jln Kuching, Jln Tun Razak), at around the same time every morning, there will be at least one ambulance with its siren on, rushing its way thru traffic.

So while I'm stuck in the traffic jam, after the ambulance has come and gone, I wonder:

How come always at around the same time in the morning (between 8.15-8.45am), there's always at least one ambulance trying to make its way thru traffic with its siren blaring?

Seriously. Without fail. At least, from Mondays to Fridays lar. Is it coz ppl are rushing to work and are more prone to accidents during this time?? But EVERY SINGLE DAY??? :-O

Man, talk about crazy drivers!

Merry Xmas, PMO-Style!

2006-12-13T23:04:00.000+08:00

We have been decorating our PMO room to get into the Christmas-y mood...

Here's our Christmas wreath on our door...

Here's our Christmas tree...

And here's our Christmas tree with the presents for our gift exchange on 20th Dec...

Oh, and all our decorations are handmade! Hehe... PMO can open up a side business. Handmade decorations for any occasion! :-D

What to do with people you are not fond of...

2006-12-13T22:52:00.000+08:00

What do you do when you are in a situation where you are about to bump into someone whom you don't like or don't wish to meet?

Recently, I was in this unfortunate situation. From the corner of my eye, I saw a couple of people whom I didn't wish to meet or talk to. And I know they'd seen me. So wat did I do? I was far away enough and in such an angle that it would be quite natural that I didn't notice them. So I just stared straight ahead at my destination and made my way there. It was a good thing that I was late meeting a friend so I was naturally in a hurry.

When dealing with people that I'm not fond of, my policy is to stay away and have as little to do with them as possible. If I don't like a person, I will not spend time talking about him/her to others. Unlike some other people who seem to enjoy discrediting those that they don't like to anyone who'd listen. As Audrey had written about me once, "When AL runs across someone she dislikes, she doesn't start a big campaign to destroy/challenge their ideals/motives. She simply avoids them!"

I like my policy :-)

**********
I apply the same policy when it comes to unwanted attention from the opposite sex.

Over the years, my friends and I shared with each other the different methods which we use to handle members of the opposite sex who'd shown interest in us but the interest was not reciprocated.

Some only needed to give subtle hints and the other party understood and backed off. Some had to give not-so-subtle hints before the other party saw the light. Others (myself included) removed ourselves completely from the situation when the above failed. This meant that any communication from the interested party was not entertained i.e. calls, emails, any form of messages were deliberately ignored. Sounds harsh but sometimes, desperate situations require desperate measures when all else fails. And in some situations, desperate measures ARE required in order to get the message across to the other party. As the Chinese sayings goes "Short term pain is better than long term pain" or something to that measure. No use in prolonging the pain if your presence is only going to make the other person yearn for you more but you can't reciprocate his/her feelings.

**********
Unfortunately, when it comes to working with people I don't like, I don't have the luxury to stay away and make myself scarce. If the nature of work necessitates working with a person I don't like, I have to hide my dislike and get the work done.

Ah well, if it has to be done, it has to be done, rite? I win some, and lose some.

Dun Sweat the Small Stuff

2006-12-13T00:10:00.000+08:00

Sometimes, I get upset to the point that I dun trust myself to speak. So I dun.

A few weeks back, Erica was advising Jean to not sweat over the small stuff and not to be such a stickler for details. I agreed. And I'm working on it too.

I get annoyed when I find out my time has been wasted for nothing when I could've been doing something else more productive.

Like sleep.

*Yaaaawwwwnnnn*

Flexi what??!!

2006-12-12T23:38:00.000+08:00

The current company has a strange concept of flexi-time.

Official working hours are from 8.30am to 5.30pm. According to HR, employees can enjoy flexi-time where we can come in between 8.30-9.00am.

BUT this is where it gets a bit strange...

Scenario 1
If we clock in at : 8.30am
We must clock out at : 5.30pm or later

Scenario 2
If we clock in at : 9.00am
We must clock out at : 6.00pm or later

Scenario 3
If we clock in at : 8.31am
We must clock out at : 6.00pm or later

Scenario 4
If we clock in at : 8.29am or earlier
We must clock out at : 5.30pm or later

Am I missing something here or is that NOT the definition of flexi-time?? See, my definition of flexi-time is that we just need to work the stipulated number of hours based on the time we clock in. So, logically, if I clock in at 9am, I will leave at 6pm and if I clock in at 8.31am, I will leave at 5.31pm, and so on. This was how the first company that I worked for operated their flexi-time. We even had staff come in at 7am and leave at 3pm! So, this company's concept of flexi-time isn't flexi-time at all!!! I'd just call that 1/2 hour between 8.30-9am as a grace period for us to get in to work. Of course, this being KL, we almost always never get to leave on time anyway. Examples above are just for examples sake. Heh.

Duh, flexi-time my foot!

**********
Another thing that doesn't make sense here is the date when our salary is banked in. For permanent & confirmed staff, the pay date is 22nd of each month for the current month's salary. For non-confirmed and contract staff, the pay date is on the 1st of the next month for the current month's salary. Which is fine by me (I'm contract staff). But see, ALL staff gets their payslip on 22nd of the month, even those who get their salary on the 1st of next month. Which is quite useless to people who get their salary on the 1st of next month coz all we can do is look at the payslip and anticipate the $$$ that's going to come in.

And the reasoning that HR gave us for this is "Oh, we give out the payslips on the same day for all staff so we don't need to do double work". But see, aren't you already doing double work by paying out salary on 2 different dates???

I've noticed a trend here... some of their processes just don't make sense at all. It's like they just blindly follow whatever is already in place.

Geez!!

o_O

Deceptive & Deceitful, That's What They Are!

2006-12-12T23:31:00.000+08:00

It's amazing to see the extent to which some people would go to to discredit another person/entity.

Our current vendor is one such being. Up tp this point in my career, I've never come across anyone who displays such lack of integrity and huge amounts of sneakiness/deceptiveness just to get their way.

Not only do they NOT own up to the fact that their system has more problems than expected, they sweep the problems under the "carpet" and even go straight to the CEO and users (bypassing PMO, the gatekeeper of standard processes and procedures) and use their sneaky tactics to get these 2 groups of people to agree to their demands so they can proceed to go-live. And these users also, dunno why they trust the vendor sooooo much... go and listen to them and agree with their demands! Like, WTF??!!! It's YOUR system, man... YOU'RE gonna have to deal with it and all the problems that come along with it after going live. And you're stupid enough to agree to proceed with so many problems! Hallo, have some common sense, will you???

Anyway, the vendor seems to have a personal vendetta against PMO coz we're putting in place (or rather, TRYING with not much help from the users) some procedures to try to ensure that the system is as bug-free as possible and this inevitably causes people to raise questions about the stability and reliability of the system and as such, might cause delays in the go-live date (but better late than sorry, methinks). So the vendor is going all out to discredit PMO, even up to the extent of going straight to the CEO to get certain things their way and complaining about the PM's decisions being made on the basis of "emotions". Which is not true, as PMO reports the status of the project and make recommendations based on facts.

Geez, what is wrong with this vendor????? If their system is not good, then just admit it lar and everyone works together to get the problems fixed. Every system will definitely have problems, everyone expects that... but they just make it worse when they keep saying "Oh, our system is fine. You can go-live any day." with the large number of defects staring right at our faces. They think the client is that stupid, is it??? Even if the users are blinded for now, eventually someone will see the light and all the shit that comes with it.

Bleecckk... I can take the fact that some things may go wrong and some people may not know how to do certain things. As long as they are HONEST about it. But I cannot tahan all this sneakiness and back-stabbing. Makes my blood boil and feel like smacking someone.

This is so unbelievable *rolling eyes*

Ramblings while on sick leave...

2006-12-07T14:05:00.000+08:00

Oh wow! I haven't been here for so long that I even forgot what pic I had of myself on my profile! Haha!!

Today I am on sick leave. Been feeling off since last Friday... but I degil, still go to work on Mon, Tue, Wed... until I couldn't tahan anymore (my nose was running full-steam and eyes tearing)... finally went to the clinic to get an MC for today.

Which is why I'm actually ONLINE in the middle of the day!!! Haha!!!

**********

I do not like the HEAD. I get along with the other ppl fine... but the HEAD just gets on my nerves. She has this fierce auntie-type look on her face all the time. And when she talks to ppl, she always sounds like she's scolding them (maybe she is, who knows). Geez...

**********

The D show is off coz of some stupid VIP who couldn't make it. Wasted our time practicing and choreographing for the show. Why is it that these VIPs are never considerate about other ppl's time and effort??? Same goes for the Don show, which was also cancelled coz another stupid VIP couldn't make it. These ppl think we all got no other jobs to do but practice and rehearse just fo them is it???

**********

I finally watched The First Awakenings in full today!!! I've had the VCD for ages now and I'd just only managed to watch the full thing! Haha... maybe coz I was too nervous to watch myself dance. Anyway, this was the first show we had which had paying audience... and as I was watching myself, I realized that my posture could be better, my spins could be more stable, my chowka could be lower, my movements could be bigger.... so many things lar!

Anyway, since I'm in my Odissi mood...

Mohane Deli Chahi : Carrying a pot on my head

Mohane Deli Chahi : Beautiful saree

Mohane Deli Chahi : Searching fo Krishna in the forest... where is he? where is he??

Kolabati Pallavi

Eating with a Conscience

2006-11-22T20:54:00.000+08:00

So we were chatting this evening, about food and cooking... and C brought up her experience with cooking crabs. J chipped in and asked if we knew how to select good crabs. So she was telling us how and all that and then she went on to talk about cooking crabs. She said "You turn the crab over, use the knife to cut/break the shell and rip it off." While the crab was still alive. Then you cook it.

I went "Oh nooooo! The poor crab!!" And they looked at me like I was a bit psycho.

That made me think about the time when someone told me that the Japanese ate their fish partly fried with it still alive and flopping on the table, I felt quite sick. When I read how geese had their feet nailed to the floorboard and being force-feed so that they won't move in order to get their livers fat enough to be made into foie gras, I was literally sick AND disgusted.

See, I'm pretty ok with people eating animals/meat (but not exotic or endangered ones) as long the animal is killed instantly without having to suffer. I just cannot accept the way animals have to suffer just so we humans can satisfy our tastebuds. When I hear/read about how animals are treated such as the above, I automatically feel like I "feel" the animals' pain. Literally, I feel myself cringing when I imagine how it must feel like to have my chest and stomach fried while I'm still alive... or have my feet nailed to the ground and unable to move while a steel tube is forced down my throat to force-feed me.

It's not that I WANT to think like this. It's an automatic reaction that I get. I can't stop it, it just happens naturally to me. I guess that's one of the reasons why I'm so bent on animal welfare and why I feel so strongly for animals. I think a lot of people would think I'm a bit "off" but they just don't understand that animals are living creatures too and they feel pain like we do and they have feelings like we do (though studies have disputed this and reported that fish have no feelings). But whatever it is, animals ARE living creatures not very unlike us and if we were to eat them, we could at least give them the dignity of instant death rather than let them suffer.

The Food Revolution by John Robbins is a good read. Opens up your eyes about how we get our meat and why he decided to give up his inheritance of the Baskin-Robbins multimillion dollar ice cream empire.

**********
There was another time when I was reading a news report on how a group of boys had tortured a cat to death by first pulling each of its legs in different directions, breaking them and then running over her with the wheel of a car over and over.

That made me totally sick to my stomach.

Gah, people!!!!!!!!

2006-11-21T23:02:00.000+08:00

Some people are just too rude for their own good, too big-headed for their own good, and suck up too much for their own good.

**********
On another note, work's pretty ok so far. Except for the fact that the system sucks and the vendor's got a major attitude problem. Seriously, I haven't worked with a vendor who calls up for like, 20-30 mins, talking about goodness-knows-what about the project but ending the call without any resolution! Geez!

**********
I spoke too soon today. Or rather, admitted to a mistake too soon... and realized later that it wasn't my mistake after all. Haha!

**********
The way some people act sometimes, it's like the world owes them a favor or something like that. And dun get me started on how some people treat others with some sort of double standard. Like everything's some other person's fault. Duh, it takes two to tango *rolling eyes*

**********
I think I'm getting used to limited internet access every day. Some days I get home from work and I dun feel like getting onto the internet to check my mail. Whereas, I used to check my mail regularly during and after work. Hhmmm... this could turn out to be a blessing, hehe... ;o)

**********
Back to Grey's Anatomy...

:o)

Taichi Masters

2006-11-16T23:06:00.000+08:00

Hhmm... I detect a trend. It seems that almost everywhere I work, the people with whom I work are such good tai chi masters. And there is almost virtually NO sense of ownership at all.

Definition of a Tai Chi Master : a person who is an expert at "delegating" his/her task(s) to others so that s/he is free of any responsibility of answering to anyone regarding the said task(s)

Like in my current job... I'm in the Project Mgt dept (PMO) where we're gatekeepers to the projects to ensure that projects are compliant to standard guidelines and also to ensure that project activities and tasks are completed on time, documents are signed off on time, etc. This project is a huge one which involves implementing a system that affects a large number of users. Naturally, we can't possibly contact each and every user to get their updates so we would ideally appoint a team lead to own certain tasks/activities/documents so that it's easier to follow up with them. But see, the problem here is that NO ONE wants to take ownership of these tasks/activities/documents even though the task/activity/document is relevent to them!

And in the previous co, my work revolved around events, something like in an event mgt co. (but it's not). I'd have an event to put on so I'd go see each dept who needs to be involved in making the event happen. So say I'd go see the events dept, who's in charge of getting the backdrop/set done and transporting all the required equipment to the event site, etc. And when I tell them that I've got this event on this date and I need their help to get A, B, and C done to set up at the location of the event, I'd get told that "That's not my job". And I'm like, huh??? If it's not your job, then what the hell are u here for???

The best interdept teamwork/cooperation I've experienced has been at MNC, where I had virtually no issues getting things done internally (on the client's part is another issue altogether), most probably coz the company was small and the scale of the projects weren't large or very complex. And we were like a family there. Unfortunately, I got bored with the work there so I decided to leave... sigh...

So yeah, back to the lack of ownership. Why are ppl so afraid of taking ownership, especially for tasks that are relevent to them?? Scared they cannot do the job, is it? Seriously, these ppl make it so difficult to get things done coz Person A will tell us to check with Person B, who'll tell us to check with Person C, who'll tell us that Person A should be the owner. Geez!!

o_O

Resolution

2006-11-16T23:05:00.000+08:00

I've resorted to writing my thoughts in Notepad during my short breaks at work, saving it and copying-pasting them to my blog the next time I go online at home.

Else I might as well close my blog right now coz I'd be too lazy to dig up past thoughts and write them down late at nite.

Quite sad, rite????

Haha...

o_O

Battle of the Sexes

2006-11-15T23:30:00.000+08:00

What lake did Tchaikovsky write about?

a. Swamp
b. Swan
c. Nutcracker

Answer: Swamp

The guy actually answered Swamp!!! OMG!! I laughed out loud in the car, something which I rarely do while listening to the radio, haha! It's amazing how we take for granted some things which we think everyone should know but in actuality, it's not as common as we think it is.

This took place during the Battle of the Sexes on mix.fm this morning. I'm mostly tuned into this station coz the DJs on the other stations are a tad annoying. And I enjoy listening to Richard, Shaz, and Ika. They're quite entertaining :-)

The score is 12 to 21 today, with the Men leading. Bleh...

:-p

**********
There's this guy at work who reminds me of Frakenstein... with the square head and sunken eyes... excluding those thingies sticking out of his neck and the green color.

:-O

Meet Lucas, the Wonder Dog...

2006-11-13T22:14:00.000+08:00

and this is his blog...

:-)

No internet access = BORING!!!

2006-11-10T00:21:00.000+08:00

Sigh...

I'm a boring person with a blog...

But now, I'm a boring person with a blog with NO INTERNET ACCESS AT WORK!!! No, of course I dun blog at work *looking angelic* I need the internet for research work mar...

...sob sob sob...

Am so not used to it, man....

o_O

ACK!!!

2006-11-04T13:20:00.000+08:00

I'm working!!!!! :-D

And it's nice to be in a familiar environment again and hearing those similar things I used to hear...

"If those people are not doing their work after you'd reminded them a few times, ESCALATE the matter!!!"

"Aiyoh, those vendors! They're telling different things to different parties!!! Wat the......!!!!"

"U know, just coz this one word wasn't in the document, the vendor says that the requirement is not specified!"

Hehe... aaaahhh... brings back ol' memories... ;-)

But but..... the downside is...

I...

Have...

NO...

INTERNET ACCESS AT WORK EXCEPT FOR MY OUTLOOK!!!!!!!!!

*WAIIIILLLLL!!!!!!!!*

:-(

So if anyone sends any emails to my yahoo/hotmail/gmail, expect delays in my responses...

Sigh...

I guess I shouldn't complain...

Bleecccckkk...

Eeeww, that thing is so ugly!!

2006-10-31T20:08:00.000+08:00

So said people I know about some animal or other... but to me, somehow, I find them cute, appealing even!! And it's not a "thing" to me; it's a living creature, just like you and me. Just coz it's a different species and doesn't conform to our so-called definition of beauty (which is highly subjective and debatable, by the way) doesn't relegate it to a "thing" status in my books.

I'm more drawn to animal babies than to human babies. Human babies look so... umm... boring. But animal babies are so full of life and from the moment of their birth, a lot of them have to fight to survive. I just found out that hippos normally give birth to one baby and if a mother hippo happens to give birth to 2 babies, she'll only nurse one and abandon the other one to fend for itself (and this baby would most likely die without its mother's care). Survival of the fittest, yes, but imagine in a human's case, both babies would be equally well taken care of.

But that's not to say I hate human babies. I just don't fawn and squeal all over them like most females do. Human babies just don't impress me as much as animal babies do.

**********

I'd like to visit Steve Irwin's Australia Zoo one day. I've recently watched a few of his Croc Diaries program on Animal Planet and I liked what I saw, and would like to see more of his conservation efforts in real life.

One of the main reasons why I dislike going to our local zoos and animal parks is that the animals are not always well taken care of and the condition of the place is sometimes deplorable. The last animal park I had been to was the Animal Safari at A'Famosa Resort in Malacca a few years ago. I hated it coz:

The trucks that took visitors around the large wild animal enclosure (where the lions and such animals were housed) were sooooo loud that even a normally placid animal would get stressed, what with a few trucks going round and round the enclosure numerous times every single day. And the trucks released huge amounts of exhaust and kicked up a lot of dust as well. Tell me how an animal, who's used to the sereneness and tranquility of the wild, would not get stressed in these conditions.
There were pathetically few shelters/shade for the animals to shade from the sweltering sun in the large animal enclosure.
In one of the enclosed buildings called the Chicken Farm (no surprises what I was expecting to see here but wait!), here was what I saw:

A pair of hornbills (or similar looking large birds) in a cage that was only big enough to fit the both of them, without any room to fly around. There was also a piece of paper brochure that the birds were pecking at, which some visitor had probably thrown in the cage, which could endanger the birds if they were to ingest it.
A cage containing an aquarium of hedgehogs in the middle of the cage, with a litter of kittens surrounding the aquarium. There was no litter pan in the cage for the kittens to perform their toilet duties. But why were there kittens placed in the same cage as hedgehogs in the first place?????
A few cages with rabbits, where the rabbits were sleeping/lying in their food trays because presumably it was too uncomfortable to lie on the floor of the cage since there was no towel or padding placed at the bottom of the cage and the spaces between the wiring was about 1 inch x 2 inches and probably cut into their flesh when they laid on it.
What was most saddening was that the animals looked listless, desolate, and helpless. No properly cared for animal looked like this and IT'S SUPPOSED TO BE A CHICKEN FARM! What are non-fowl animals doing in the same facility????!!!

That experience was quite depressing and what was supposed to be a fun outing turned out to be a traumatizing one and I vowed never to step foot into any local animal park again.

That was a few years ago. I sincerely hope that the Animal Safari at A'Famosa Resort is much better now in terms of the animals' living conditions. Maybe I should brave myself and go back there and have look...

**********

Petstores should know that people are generally ignorant or too dumb to read signs. So if they don't want people to touch their animals and stress out their animals, they should just keep their animals enclosed and not leave their animals out in the open and put a sign saying "Please do not touch the animal as it will cause stress to the animal" and expect people to adhere to it coz they just WON'T!! Not when an interesting-looking animal is tantalizing them right in front of their eyes. Doesn't matter that if they (people) are in the animal's position, they wouldn't like being poked and prodded like what they were doing to the animal.

I seriously and honestly think that sometimes, people have no concept of common sense at all!!

**********

Yes, I've been ranting a lot about people's attitudes towards animals... but this is one subject that is close to my heart... and I shall continue ranting and WILL do my best to make people aware of animal rights & welfare. An uphill struggle? You bet. But someone's gotta do it.

Disoriented, maybe??

2006-10-31T13:43:00.000+08:00

Haissshh... I'm quite tired of going for interviews for now. Not that I've been to many (me being so picky and all with my applications)... but each interview session just about saps the energy from me coz it takes quite a bit of effort to impress people who may be my potential bosses.

After all is said and done, a lot of times we cannot determine if a place or person is right for us until we've actually tried it out. No matter how much interviewing/evaluation is done prior to getting into the situation, we can only get the actual picture when we've actually tried out the place or person with both feet in.

Sometimes the outcome is not as good as what you'd expected (as what I'd recently learnt) but other times, it could be the opposite. At the end of the day, it's all a learning process. Never try, never know, rite??

Why am I talking about this??? Haish, I dunno! I think I'm just a bit disoriented from an interview I had today. I don't think I was in my "interview mindframe" so I'm rather dazed, haha... also coz I'm having to evaluate some rather important questions about myself, that may or may not result in a positive outcome... sigh...

BUT some things will return to "normal" (if I can call it that) starting tomorrow!!!!!!!!! :-D

Happy Feet!!!

2006-10-30T16:25:00.000+08:00

I wanna watch!!!!! I wanna watch!!!

Suntanning

2006-10-30T16:10:00.000+08:00

Aaaaaaahhhhh... I lurrrrvvve the sun!!!

Oooo oooooo... gotta turn over and get my underbelly tanned too!

Like-Minded People

2006-10-30T00:08:00.000+08:00

I read this article in Sunday's NST, with some sort of deja vu, coz I could identify exactly with what she said about her feelings towards animals as well as towards people's attitudes to animals.

And we both share the same dream! Although she's definitely accomplished more with the publishing of her book (no, writing a book on animals isn't one of my dreams since I can't write to save my life!).

**********
I'm currently reading this book by Sy Montgomery, "The Good Good Pig, the Extraordinary Life of Christopher Hogwood", which is a pet memoir about the author's pig named, well, Christopher Hogwood :o)

In the course of the book, the author also talks about her history with animals and also her interesting relationship with animals. And I find that I identify with a lot of the things that she talks about coz I have a similar attitude towards animals as well.

It is not that I disliked people; some of them are interesting and kind. But even the nice ones were no more compelling or important to me than other creatures... to me humans are but one species among billions of other equally vivid and thrilling lives... Humans seemed to me a rather bullying species, and I was on the side of the underdog.

That just about describes how I feel about people.

I know that I'm different from other "normal" people in the way that I 'see' animals. I don't see them as nuisances with diseases (in the case of stray animals), I don't see them as objects that we can choose to discard or kill at our pleasure. Basically, I think the difference between me and 'normal' people is that I actually take the time to THINK about animals (but whether or not I have any control over what happens to the animal is another different story altogether). Many a time, when people choose do something, they don't even realize that what they do can have an impact on animals and it can ultimately, the result could affect our very own selves.

For example, development is fine and dandy if there is proper planning. But indiscriminate development causes so many adverse effects, one of which is encroaching upon land where wild animals live and obtain their source of food. So the land is cleared and where does that leave the animals? Well, without a home, obviously, as well as their source of food. People get new homes, but the animals get forced out of theirs. And when they can't find food coz, well, their food source is no longer there, what do these animals do? They are forced to go forage for food in people's homes, the very homes that their (the animals') homes were cleared for so that these people's homes could be built. And then when this happens, people cry bloody murder coz they don't want wild monkeys going thru their garbage, and God forbid, somehow find a way to get into their homes! See, cause and effect and in the end, nobody wins.

That's from the aspect of land/property development. Let's talk about pet ownership. As you can see, pet shops have virtually sprung up overnight at every corner you can think of. Everywhere I go these days, I see at least one petstore. A few years ago, if I wanted to find a petstore, it was like looking for a needle in a haystack!

So that means something right? That there is demand for pets and normally, I would take this as a positive sign coz that means people are becoming more aware of the benefits of having pets but I'm not. Why? Coz a lot of people buy a pet just the sake of having a pet. They think having a pet is cool (especially a pedigreed one or an exotic one) or they feel it's a status symbol or they're just giving in to their children who've been pestering them for a pet. But a lot of people don't understand the amount of work and commitment involved in keeping a pet. I liken it to having a child (albeit one who doesn't scream and throw tantrums like a child) but requires almost as much effort and time. So, they get a pet and after a while, they 'suddenly discover' that having Rover or Fluffy or Blackie isn't as much fun as they'd thought it would be. The daily walks and regular attention, not to mention training, that the pet requires is too much for them to handle. So poor Rover or Fluffy or Blackie will find that their human, who'd lavished so much attention on him/her at the beginning suddenly doesn't want to spend any time with him/her anymore. The story usually ends with the owner surrendering the animal to the animal shelter (if they are even kind enough to do that) or the owner might just decide to release the animal on the streets for it to fend for itself.

And don't get me started on petstores selling exotic pets! If people can't even learn or commit to taking care of a common domestic animal like a cat or a dog, how can we even expect them to be able to take care of an exotic pet, which requires a lot more care and specific conditions for the animal to thrive? This is one of the main reasons why I detest pet stores that sell animals (especially exotic ones). I know selling pets is a good business and all, but I feel that a lot of them are just bringing the animals and selling them for profit without finding out whether potential owners are even capable of taking care of the animal.

To me, a lot of this is just common sense. However, a lot of people I know will not understand when I tell them how I feel about animals or when I start talking about animal issues. A lot of them have the "It's just an animal. No big deal." attitude. It's really frustrating when people (especially friends) don't understand the issue, and more importantly, WHY it's an issue. I don't really blame them coz our society is not one that places importance on animals, which I think is such a shame coz animals are such delightful and intelligent creatures and we can learn so much from them, if only we take the time to observe them. I've been brought up with animals all my life so I believe that's where my foundation was built. It is NOT just a phase, as some would like to call it. This is one of the things that make me who I am.

But at the end of the day, sometimes I feel so isolated and alone coz I know very very few people who feel the same way I do about animals that I could talk to. Sometimes there're so many things on the subject that I just wanna talk to someone about, someone who understands, but there's no one to talk to.

So, it's very heartening to come across like-minded people once in a blue moon, people who have the same affinity towards animals as I do. And also people who are doing something for the betterment of animals. I'm trying as well, the small ways that I can. I wish I could come across/meet people like these more often.

Ah well, at least I know I'm not alone... nor am I just a weirdo who seems to care so much about animals rather than her fellow species.

Oh, and I quite enjoyed the ending scene in Open Season, where the animals memberontak-ed against the hunters. Kinda wished that would happen in real life. But then again, knowing humans, they'd get angry and burn down the forest with the animals in it just coz the animals DARED to stop them (the hunters) from hunting them (the animals).

Bloated and Stuffed

2006-10-27T00:05:00.000+08:00

I have overeaten and am now too stuffed to go to sleep.

o_O

Darn... must've been the Odissi workout that I had this evening. Used so much energy that I could've eaten a whole vegetarian cow! :-p

*Buuurrrrrp*

Am looking enviously at my kats who are fast asleep on my bed... hmph... lucky critters...

Sleeping Furball #1

Sleeping Furball #2

Note: The 3rd furball is noticeably absent coz she's made herself cozy in the parents' room.

More Odissi and Kats!

2006-10-26T22:49:00.000+08:00

Aaaahhh... nothing beats a good Odissi workout. Total concentration and focus so that everything else is blocked out... err... except for the beads of sweat dripping off my hair into my eyes, haha...

Feels like forever since I last went for class even though it's only been a week and last Sunday was a holiday so we didn't have class. I swear, I miss one class and my stamina just plummets like nobody's business :o(

Ramli and the gals will be performing for the gala dinner (by invitation only, I think) for the opening of the movie "Don - The Chase Begins Again" here in KL. Am sure everyone has heard the contests on the radio (forgot which station) where they're giving out invites to the event. Among the audience will be Shahrukh Khan and Priyanka Chopra, the main stars of the movie. So cool!!!!! *drool*

**********

Nessa Mugshot

Misty Mugshot

Hehe... yup, I shamelessly posed my kats for their mugshots. Eh, u know it's quite difficult to get a kat to stay still long enuf for u to take a close-up pic of his/her face????? :-p

Things I Don't Understand

2006-10-26T10:56:00.000+08:00

I've said this once (or more) and I'm saying it again...

I absolutely detest it when ppl who have a problem with me, they dun come to me and tell me the problem that they have with me straight to my face. Instead, they go and bitch about it to someone else. Someone else who won't be able to do anything to rectify the problem. And the only one who can rectify the problem (if any rectification needs to be done) is, oh wat d'ya know, it's ME... coz well, the problem that they have is with ME rite??? Why waste your time bitching about it to someone who can't do anything about it when you can go straight to the source and resolve it once and for all???

THAT never fails to puzzle me...

I guess the human nature to bitch about someone else is stronger than wanting to resolve any conflict.

Hhmmm...

**********
Maybe I've got an idealized view of RIGHT and WRONG.

But I've always expected ppl to admit to their mistakes and apologize for them... and if I were the one who did something wrong, I'd be more than happy to apologize. To me, it's that simple.

But I've come to realize that a lot of ppl are not very giving with their apologies. They either dun want to apologize or they feel that they didn't do anything wrong.

THAT just irks me to bits.

I expect the same from everyone... no double standards, no exceptions. And I expect no less from myself. Do unto others and all that, y'know. Doesn't matter if you're a stranger, family, friend, or colleague. If I'm wrong, I will apologize and we'll get on with life. And I expect vice versa from others.

Sadly though, a lot of ppl dun see it this way. We've got the egos and the "faces", as wat the Chinese call it, to deal with.

I MUST to learn to be less idealistic about human behavior. After all, we'll most likely be the source of destruction of the human race.

WHAT transplant???!!!

2006-10-25T23:10:00.000+08:00

Geez, when will ppl ever be satisfied with what they have???

I guess never, from the looks of this.

What have ppl become???????

2006-10-20T19:09:00.000+08:00

Oh wow... I dun even know how to start describing wat I felt when I witnessed this incident earlier this afternoon.

Was stuck in a traffic jam along Jln Dang Wangi when I noticed these 2 men, at the side of the road on my left, having a heated argument. Apparently, this Merc had hit into this Camry from the back. The damage wasn't bad, probably just some scratches, there wasn't even any noticeable dent. But these 2 men were damn angry.

So the driver of the Merc (Driver M - casually dressed) got back into his car and I thought the "discussion" was over. But the driver of the Camry (Driver C - decently dressed in office attire including tie) seemed to get even more upset and started yelling "Bodoh" at Driver M. Then he opened his car door and got out his umbrella and started rushing at the Merc threateningly. He looked like he was going to smash the Merc's windscreen with it. He didn't but he gave the Merc a hard kick near the front headlight. The damage from his kick was worse than wat the Merc did to the Camry.

Naturally, Driver M got pissed, got out of his car, they started arguing again with Driver C brandishing his umbrelly like a weapon and then Driver M tackled Driver C in a throathold (or neckhold, or watever hold it is where someone has his arm over another person's neck from behind). Then another driver, this lady in a car beside mine, who was obviously witnessing the scene as well (we were all caught in a traffic jam, we couldn't NOT notice wat was happening in front of our eyes)... she started yelling and get out of her car with a baton-like stick and charged towards the men to break them apart (so brave... and rather foolish, I thought. The men could've turned on her, seeing that they were in such a rage.) After which another passerby also stepped in to break the fight. Driver M let go of Driver C but both were still very upset. Driver M slammed his fist on Driver C's car before going back to his car. By this time, the traffic was moving so I left the scene with Driver C getting out his handphone.

Wat was so scary abt this scene, to me, was how upset the 2 men were over such a SMALL thing! I mean, it wasn't like Driver C's car got smashed to bits. I'm assuming that Driver M must've said something to provoke Driver C into such rage but seriously, if ppl can get so upset over such a SMALL, TRIVIAL thing like a scratch/dent on a car, can u imagine wat would happen if something really big had happened? Like, wat if Driver M had hit into Driver C's car and caused real damage to the rear end of the car???? Are they gonna bash each other up with umbrellas and sticks, or take out guns and start shooting at each other?????

Seriously, a car can always be fixed, let alone some surface damage like a dent or a scratch on the body of the car. But imagine if Driver M had a gun and he'd shot Driver C out of self-defence (Driver C was wielding the umbrella like a weapon and looked like he was gonna smash Driver M's windscreen with it)... even if the damage to the car was worse that wat it was, is it really worth it for u to potentially lose ur life over it?????

I have no idea wat ppl have come to these days. I was internally shaken after witnessing that incident and I think if I ever hit another car (God forbid!), I think I'll admit I'm in the wrong (unless it's 100% obvious that it wasn't my fault), pay the damages and move on. It's not worth it to deal with ppl who can't control their rage and who are a danger to society as a whole.

Oh wait... I dun even know wat type of crappy society I'm living in nowadays. Now I'm so paranoid that I feel like every single person out on the street is a timebomb waiting to explode.

o_O

So touching!

2006-10-19T16:18:00.000+08:00

This is such an adorable ad... got it off a friend's blog... he prefers to remain anonymous, hehe...

Small, small world...

2006-10-18T19:03:00.000+08:00

So last Friday, was asked to help out at a salsa workshop at my "most favorite place in the whole wide world" (excuse me while I go choke now)...

Naturally, the person who I "really liked" recognized me... so I had to put on the "real" smile and go "Oh hiiiii!!! Yes, it's me... no no, I'm not an instructor. Just helping out coz the main stars are out of town...blah...blah...blah"

So anyway... they had us standing there (no chairs for us, mind u) for about 1 hour before we started. And no, they didn't want us dancing on the wooden floor coz they didn't want us to scratch the floor.... waaaaaa, ok lar, so we dance on the tile floor.

Next thing I know, I was walking pass the staircase and this girl walks by and says "Hi Ai Ling!!!" and I do a double take and think to myself "Shites! That's my classmate from primary school!!"

That's the second "It's such a small world" incident at that place. Their former asst. manager there was also a schoolmate, one year my junior. Geez, talk abt being in teeny tiny KL, man.

So anyway, after we were done with the workshop, naturally had to do some small talk with the "long lost friend", exchange of numbers, "oh, we must meet up for drinks one day ya", yada yada yada...

Sometimes, I really dun like being in such a small world.

Bleecckk...

A Lil' Bit of Silliness and Fun

2006-10-17T12:53:00.000+08:00

My friends are funny, hehe...

SL has been wanting to try out YM's voice call for some time. She's been bugging me for a few days and I keep telling her that it won't work coz I dun have a mic. But she goes "Never mind, try anyway" so yesterday I gave in and said, "ok ok, u call me"... and she went "haha, we're so sampat. I said "U lar! So sampat! :-p"

So she called... and the woman ended up talking to herself while I typed out my replies coz while I could hear her, she couldn't her me coz I didn't have a mic! Duh!

Then I said I'd go look for my old old mic while she tried to figure out how to get Steph to join our conversation so we could have a 3-way conversation. Found my mic and it was actually working! :-O Was so impressed! Hehe...

SL managed to get Steph conferenced in but the way YM worked was more like a walkie talkie. It was quite funny when we were talking all at once coz it seemed like we were talking to ourselves, haha! And we kept repeating ourselves "Hallo hallo, can u hear me???" and burst out laughing each time...

Hehe... it's cool how the simplest things can make us laugh... like a short-lived voice conversation via YM.

:o)

1st Corinthians 13:4-7

2006-10-16T16:09:00.000+08:00

Love is patient and kind; love is not jealous or boastful; it is not arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

More Holy Matrimonies

2006-10-16T10:19:00.000+08:00

Two weekends ago, it was Chien Li's wedding...

Highlight of the dinner was when the groom declared to the bride that he was "addicted to her". Aaaaawwwww... so sweet! (She's my former colleague from VS)

Yesterday was Rachel's wedding...

There was a garden ceremony where the priest conducted the nuptials, followed by a sit-down dinner in the resort ballroom. I liked the slideshows that they'd put on. Highlight of the nite was probably the part where they made the guests all go up and do the Scottish dance (the groom's Scottish). After some confusion, I think the M'sians finally got the hang of it... haha... (I've known Rachel back in the Buffalo days... we were in the same faculty and took some of the same courses).

Come December, there'll be another wedding... of my oldest friend, someone I've known since my pre-school days. Wow, I feel quite ancient o_O

This year's a good one for weddings, eh????

;o)

Animals in My Life

2006-10-12T14:36:00.000+08:00

Here are some of the animals who I'd had the good fortune to be associated with throughout my life...

Sandy, brindled boxer... the very first dog we had that I could remember...

Sylvester & Bandit

Sandy and I-can't-remember-his-name... my aunt's dogs in Ipoh

Sam & Rufus - boxers, who we'd hand-reared when they were newborns after their mother died of complications from their birth

Frisky, our very first cat! Dad wanted to dump her when she came into our house one day but me and sis protested madly. Dad & Frisky eventually became best of friends... but she ran away when we moved to our current home :o(

Patches/Patchy - our second cat who came one day and never left. She's all of 9 years now and still going strong *touch wood*

*Ppbbttthhh!!! Stop taking pics of me! Else start paying royalties!*

Vanessa/Nessa - adopted in the States, relocated to M'sia. Lost a tip of an ear to frostbite and almost had a leg amputated when she was a stray on the streets of Buffalo.

*Ssssshhhhh!!! I'm hiding!!!!*

Misty - adopted with Nessa in the States, relocated to M'sia. Has a short-haired version of a brother back in the States.

*Oh hello... would u like to rub my tummy???"

These are only some of the animals who I'd had the privilege of growing up with. Others include Prince, Ginger, Kimbo, Bobby, Max, Fred/Tiny... I couldn't find pics of them.

RIP to those who're already in Doggy/Kitty Heaven...

Random Thoughts on a Thursday Afternoon

2006-10-12T13:15:00.000+08:00

Gaaahhh!! I'm having this persistent cough that just won't go away!! All coz of the stupid haze... gggrrrrr...

Last nite was bad... was coughing and coughing till I couldn't get to sleep...

:o(

Feels like a perpetual itch in my throat... so agonizing!

*cough cough* I'm coughing my guts out... blurgh *pieces of unidentifiable gut comes hurtling out of my mouth*

o_O

**********
What makes a person determine whether another person could be a potential partner???

After going thru the checklist on the usual physical and personality traits, the next criteria on my list would be to see if being with the person would make my life more positive i.e. at the risk of sounding cliched, someone who'd make me a better person and who'd bring more life to my life, so to speak.

My logic is, if a person with whom you're planning to spend the rest of your life doesn't have that sort of impact in your own life, then the relationship wouldn't be very meaningful and the possibility of it lasting would likely be low.

Another criteria would be to see if the person would stick by me, not only during the good times, but more so during the bad times. This story was shared by Bee Suan during her 'interrogation' session when we organized her hen nite. We'd asked her what was one of the nicest things that her future hubby had done for her (or some similar question)... and she'd replied that one of it was that during the early days of their courtship, he'd driven all the way to Johor (she was studying there then) on her birthday and brought her flowers. Naturally, us gals went "Awwwwww..." when she told us that story. But what really touched me was what she added after, that he'd been there for her during the tough times when her father got ill and eventually passed away. She teared up when she was telling us this, and I could see that it really meant a lot to her that he'd stuck by her, encouraged her and motivated her to move on with her life. She'd said "U wanna know if a guy's really good? See if he sticks around when things get tough"... and that comment has stayed with me since then. And I think it's a fair criteria for anyone to expect of their potential life partners. Who would want a partner who'd take off as soon as things get tough?

**********
Hhmm... I think my cats need a shower...

Sunny weather today so they can dry themselves off on the balcony.

:o)

Who Do We Think We Are???

2006-10-10T16:26:00.000+08:00

I totally agree with his/her views on how our so-called wildlife experts handle human-wildlife conflict.

You can refer to the hardcopy of The Star, 10th October 2006, Page N45 to see the picture of the said crocodile, with all its limbs and head bound in such indignity... just coz it was following its survival instincts.

Yes, it's tragic when human lives are lost to these wild animals but do we ever stop to think why the animals are driven to attack humans? Do we even stop to think, whenever we clear forests and swamps to build our bungalows, apartments, and link houses, that we're encroaching on the land that they depend upon for their survival?

Oh no, we don't ever think that far. We just clear land and build and build, and when the inevitable happens i.e. these wild animals are driven to attack humans for their survival, we get angry and condemn these animals to their death.

Remember a few years ago when some govt. official put out the order to have any tiger shot and killed after it attacked a human? Even though tigers are extremely endangered animals? And the order was apparently approved by our very own wildlife dept, whose very existence is supposed to be to provide solutions to manage human-wildlife coexistence and NOT just send out orders to kill any wild animal that happens to attack a human for its survival. Heck, if that's the case, we dun even need a wildlife dept!

See, animals' minds dun work like us humans. They attack for survival; we, on the other hand, are capable of premeditated murder. So if that's the case, why dun we kill each and every human who's murdered another human being instead of spending tax payers' hard-earned money to rehabilitate these criminals?

If we really wanted to, if the relevent officials really wanted to, we can find solutions to manage human-wildlife coexistence. It's been proven to work in other countries. But see, our relevent officials are just too busy with making money from building this development and approving that development. So whenever something like this happens, they just need to send out an order "Bunuh saja semua buaya/harimau/gajah/[insert a wild animal] kat sana tu." Easy peasy... and they dun even need to do the work themselves.

It just makes me sick. Each time an innocent animal gets killed coz it had to do something to survive and another stupid Mat Rempit is loose on our roads, makes me even sicker. Who's more dangerous, u tell me now.....

Stupidity and What-Nots...

2006-10-07T20:55:00.000+08:00

In this day and age, I'd like to think that I have enough common sense NOT to make silly and careless mistakes.

But sometimes, I do slip up and then can't help but worry about the consequences of "What if...?", the worst-case scenarios playing in my mind endlessly until I feel like hitting my head against the wall, not that that's gonna help anything.

And sometimes, the fear that comes with it is so terrifying to the point that it almost suffocates me.

Sigh...

Note to self: Must.Not.Make.Stupid.And.Avoidable.Mistakes

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I broke our mop yesterday... but it was old and the wood was rotting from the regular usage.

I'm not THAT strong... hehe...

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What is your biggest fear? I think one of my biggest fears, in addition to being a failure (at anything), is to be a disappointment and failure to my parents, the people who'd brought me up to be the person I am today and to whom I'm eternally grateful for all the opportunities and support that they've given me throughout my life. Therefore, must work hard to ensure this doesn't happen.

Another fear that I have is to lose control of my life (can't imagine how yet, at this point in time) and an irrational fear of worms and any creepy-crawlies that are slimy. Yecckk... *shudder*

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Managed to get thru Week 1 of Unemployment without driving myself or anyone else crazy

:o)

Nudge nudge Are U Alive???

2006-10-05T15:39:00.000+08:00

Got this in my mailbox some time back...

Common Courtesy & Unemployment

2006-10-05T00:40:00.000+08:00

I've heard employers complaining about how candidates that have been shortlisted for interviews just dun show up for interviews and never bother to call.

Now, I feel that this is really disrespectful and inconsiderate of them. I mean, if you dun wanna attend an interview for whatever reason, just call the employer and give some reason (lie, if you have to) that you won't be able to attend. Dun just NOT call and make them wait for you like they've got nothing better to do.

Which then brings me to the employer's aspect. If you've already filled in a previously vacant position and you're still receiving resumes from potential candidates, just drop them an email with a one-liner saying "Sorry, this position has already been filled. Thank you for your interest." instead of making them send follow-up email after follow-up email, wondering whether their email got thru coz they haven't received any reply. I know employers are REALLY busy ppl and all, but is it that difficult to keep a template and copy-paste the same response to multiple ppl just to inform them of the current status of their application?

Now, is that SO difficult to do on anyone's part????? A little courtesy goes a long way, u know...

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I've been unemployed for a total of 3 working days now, going to 4. And I'm already starting to get restless, hehe. I dun think I can ever stay unemployed for long, mainly coz of the interruption to my income stream *gasp!* Unless I happen to strike the lottery (100% unlikely seeing that I dun even buy lottery tickets) or happen to have an extremely generous benefactor (also 100% unlikely)... then I can afford a little luxury of relaxing a bit.

So, now on to more job hunting. And I'm being quite picky coz I wanna make sure I'm ok with the work and also the environment so that I can stay there for as long as possible. All this switching jobs is not very conducive to productivity or morale. At the end of the day, I've gotta be realistic. I dun have to love the job. As long as I dun hate it and it pays the bills and allows me to have some sort of a life, then why not???

ARGH!!! Bloody drivers!!!

2006-09-28T22:16:00.000+08:00

I tell u... some M'sians shouldn't be allowed to drive AT ALL!!!! GAH!!

I dunno if it's just my bad luck or what... but my car kena hit again!!!

There I was, minding my own business, driving home from class on the Sprint highway. I was in the fast lane and was just passing this other Wira on my left when the STUPID MORON decided to change lanes into my lane without even bloody looking first!!! So, hit my car lar! Thank gawd he didn't suddenly swerve 100% into my lane or else I think I wouldn't be here writing this right now. Some more after that, when I moved into the slow lane, trying to decide if I should stop and check my car, the bloody idiot moved to the slow lane also (behind me) and started tail-gating me!!! I was like WTF!! So I slowed down even more. We were passing by a Shell station and I just slowed down to see if he'd pass me and turn into the station. He did and stuck out his hand as an apology. I just GLARED at the stupid bugger coz he's one of those ah bengs who do their car up all ugly with stickers and loud exhaust and think they're the next Michael Schumacher on the road. GAH!!

THAT was a scary incident, man. If he'd swerved into my lane 100%, I think I would've hit the divider and goodness knows wat might've happened then :-O

Everyone, pls be very careful when u're driving on the streets coz u not only have to look out for criminals but u've also got to look out for stupid, careless, irresponsible drivers who are selfish asses and think of nothing but themselves on the road.