Kiss Me

To my ex-colleagues who didn't believe there was such a brand of a sweet, NAH!



Believe me now? What a weird name for a sweet though...

Officially Adopted

Folks, we've been officially adopted again.



She is the weirdest cat we've had so far. Doesn't like attention much, only comes a-calling when she's hungry. Our other cats loved attention and would always look for us to manja them but not this one. She looks like Jay, doesn't she? We haven't named her yet, and we believe it's a she coz we also suspect she may be pregnant. Great.

No More

The end of Bloody Day era is gone. The link is no longer working for 2 days now. KS is in mourning.

Chotto...

Besides filling up our tax forms, KS and I have been entertaining my sis-in-law and her Japanese friends. They are really hilarious. One of them, Asami, uses her sense of sound for directions. The other Japanese friend flings her hands up in defeat as she describes how she tried to send Asami home one day.

"Wait, I must hear the train passing the tracks at the correct crossroad" or "I take a left at that house that has a radio playing"

And since Asami is short, she never bothers to look up at signages. She doesn't know what road she's on because the road sign is taller than her or she walks into the Men's because the sign is stuck higher than her.

Long Time No Hear

It's been some time since I last spoke to my parents, as I don't make it a habit to call them. So, sometime last week, I called my Mum but she was at a Ladies Meeting. Instead, I tried calling Dad but because I didn't have an agenda, our conversation (or rather, MY conversation) was filled with lots of insignificant things and he just didn't want to talk to me even though we haven't spoken in almost a month.

He swiftly cut the conversation short "because I'm watching a movie on Astro so ok-ah?" *beep*

So much for catching up. But I found this kind of conversation normal with Dad. When Grace called him to inform him of her first pregnancy, this is how the conversation went:

Grace: Dad, I'm pregnant...
Dad: Oh... (pause). Er.. Is Matt there?
Grace: Yeah, wait...
Matt: Hi Dad!
Dad: Matt, you know that watch you were looking at....

Maybe that's where I get my practical genes from.

That Time of the Year

It is that time of the year when we come into contact with the most efficient department in the government, the Income Tax folks. This year, they have what they call e-filing, where you can fill your tax returns via the internet. I think this is a great feature except that the entire thing is in BM! Sila muat turun Flash di sini. I am SO confused with the BM translations of the internet jargons. Muat turun = download! Sheesh.

As usual, the dateline is 30th April and throngs of people are now scrambling on getting their forms and trying to submit them before the office closes. It's amazing how Malaysians never learn about procrastinating. I submitted mine waay back... 48 hours ago.

My Dad has drilled and instilled in me the fear of the Taxman since I started work. Each year, he would send reminders and phone calls before the deadline. Somehow, this has not filtered through Jan and she's not submitting hers this year - again due to the fact that she's below the taxable income. I hear conflicting views that one SHOULD submit anyway so to avoid from having the Taxman interrogate you when you next want to buy a house or a car.

All in all, I'm happy to say that for last year I'm paying nearly RM50 in taxes. I look forward to paying more this year. Bah, 6 years of work and not paying tax is just sad. Enough of being underpaid, I say.

Frenzy

I outdid myself on Saturday. Woke up and made waffles for the first time in my life, recipe courtesy of allrecipes.com. The first batch turned out ok but the second one just didn't rise. Time to look for a new recipe. Waffles, nice... with kaya and butter.


After that, tried my hand at Grace's carrot cake recipe, also for the first time. Despite all the hard work of grating the carrots and smashing the almonds, the cake was relatively easy to put together. However, I think it turned out to be less desirable. It wasn't sweet enough and I hadn't chopped the pineapples finely enough. I made it as we had a gathering on Sunday with my CG, sort of a house warming thing.

Of course everyone was very supportive and some said it was great. Hmm... that may be so for them but I personally didn't quite like it. Maybe I've used the wrong brands for the ingredients and I'll defenitely add more sugar next round, if there is gonna be a next round.

KS was truly fantastic, though. He sat and grated half the carrots until he couldn't take it anymore and volunteered to go wash the toilets instead.

After he left for church, I idly surfed the net and still feeling restless, I went downstairs and made my mum's 3-layered jelly (although I created a mess as half the jelly spilt onto the floor mat). But heck, this is for personal consumption so it doesn't matter what it looks like.

All in a day's work. Now my legs are aching from standing up too long. Eagerly awaiting to see what nips my fancy next weekend. I just need people to eat them.

Visitors

We just hosted my sis-in-law's Japanese friends on Saturday night. They have the funniest ways of expressing their delight and almost everything is new to them. Suddenly, I'm now appreciating what we have here in Malaysia.

"This is a banana tree"
"Go on, eat the mango." "But we've never had mango fruit before. We love it. In Japan, mangoes are very expensive. We only eat mango pudding and sweets."
"What? Roti canai is less than AUD0.30?" (all monetary amount is valued in AUD as they spent a lot of time in Perth)
And our breakfast at an Indian roti shop was met with satisfied sighs of "O.... oishii!" (delicious) and kaya was an instant hit.

Last night, we also had another type of visitor.

Doesn't she/he look like Jay? I still can't figure out if it's a male or female. It looks male, meows like a male but is missing his balls!

By the way, (s)he was so angry at my numerous flash of the camera that after I took this one, (s)he was blinded for a while and angrily took a swipe when I tried to pet it's head to ask for forgiveness.

Ah, we'll see how long (s)he'll hang around. Not much character though as (s)he's not very fun to play with.

Looking for a job in KL?

My team in the office is quite a large one, with about 15 people in the Marketing Department. Although when I first joined, one left the day before and I thought, “Hey, that’s pretty normal” and shrugged it off. My boss never made any pretence that people stay and retire there like back in my old company. This is, after all, a Marketing department and people are young and dynamic.

Then last month, another one left. She was leaving to go back to her hometown to get married. That’s fine too.

Since last week though, there was 2 confirmed resignations and 2 more by the end of next week. They have all turned to ask me how I feel and I try to nonchalantly shrug it off. It happens. But it doesn’t. This is an exodus that’s difficult to believe since my previous departments never had so many people and never had the chance of seeing so many people leave in such a short period.

Of course there is a worry, how on earth are we going to cope with more than half the team missing? And looming ahead of us are huge projects no one is willing to take up from where the rest have left off.

Anyone wants to join us? We’ve got at least 8 vacancies. The office is emptying and depressing.

Culture...

Went to the Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra on Sunday. Took with me three newbies who were eagerly waiting for this since we bought the tickets last year in September. The highlight for me was Rachmaninov's 2nd Symphony although there was a violin concerto of some sort which I wasn't familiar.

Anyways, of the newbies, one felt like vomiting the whole time and kept dabbing minyak angin while the other slept during the best movement of the 2nd Symphony. The one who slept later declared "we should do this more often next year" and that she found it "interesting".

The next time I go to the MPO, I will be going alone.