Today is the first day of Chinese New Year and as a new daughter-in-law, I followed KS back to Melaka. It has been eat, EAT and EAT since then. Oh, and sleep too.
We went to Masjid Tanah this afternoon to meet up with the rest of the clan. What is good about this family is that all of them stay in Masjid Tanah and since it's a really small town, they have a yearly pact of meeting at one house and everyone exchanges ang pows. Can you believe we were done and over with visiting within 2 hours? Back in KL, I would still be going around visiting and eating and sweating in my new clothes in the hot CNY weather. I appreciate the efficiency of this visiting method.
Oh, KS received his birthday gift from his sis in Perth - the U2 Vertigo Tour DVD. Since she couldn't get the tickets for us, she thought the next best thing was to get the DVD, bless her. We have watched half of it and hope to finish it by today but since we have guests downstairs, we'd rather not make too much noise.
Speaking of the guests downstairs, they are my father-in-law's school friends. It's great to see them get together once a year even though they've left school for more than 2 decades. One of them happens to be the brother of my ex-HR manager back in my previous company. I was introduced to them and one of the wives was sitting on a separate table from the men. She was surrounded by 3 sons and after shaking her hand, I threw them a glance and she introduced the bunch of them with a wave of her hand, "These are my sons". What followed next is the most obvious things people like to say, like "You having your lunch?" when you're busy stuffing your face during lunch time or "Eh, what are you doing here?" when they bump into you at the shopping mall. In this instance, I embarrassed myself with a "Your sons are already so big!" as though I have met them when they were crawling on their tummies.
Hence, I'm quietly sitting upstairs blogging and avoiding further embarrassment.
Sunday, January 29, 2006
Friday, January 27, 2006
Mortification
Embarrassing moment of the day: Looking downward at my boss’ water tumbler as he was holding it, while saying loudly, “Why? Is yours small?” when someone else commented he drank too little with such a small tumbler.
What You Want?!
The memo is finally out and it’s official. Banks do not work on Saturdays anymore. Exactly what I was looking for, or was I? Now that I’ve come to appreciate being in town on a Saturday, I guess I wouldn’t mind another few more months of working alternate Saturdays.
Talk about not being easily pleased.
Talk about not being easily pleased.
Tuesday, January 24, 2006
Mandarin Oranges!
I’ve been receiving an endless number of Mandarin oranges and other food gifts from my office suppliers. In my old company, we normally tell our suppliers not to give us oranges or shout us a meal but instead, save the money to charge us lesser for their products or services.
Today, my department heads took us out on an expensive 9 course Chinese lunch at KLCC. Something about Chinese belief on closing the work for the year and starting afresh for the new year. They’re really such a brick. We had our second lo sang for the season and look forward to more.
Yay, Chinese New Year is coming! I look forward to meeting up with everyone. It’s usually noisy and loud but there’s loads of good food awaiting our stomachs at every visit. I’ve learnt to ignore those loud music and small cutesy little girls with fluff in their hair clasping their hands together while singing irritating New Year songs. This is a huge reason why I prefer Christmas to CNY. Christmas is soft, warm, comforting with cosy dinners. CNY is RED, LOUD, firecrackers, screaming kids and folks shouting over a din of relatives speaking in a language foreign to me. I love being in Malaysia for being able to celebrate such different cultures.
Today, my department heads took us out on an expensive 9 course Chinese lunch at KLCC. Something about Chinese belief on closing the work for the year and starting afresh for the new year. They’re really such a brick. We had our second lo sang for the season and look forward to more.
Yay, Chinese New Year is coming! I look forward to meeting up with everyone. It’s usually noisy and loud but there’s loads of good food awaiting our stomachs at every visit. I’ve learnt to ignore those loud music and small cutesy little girls with fluff in their hair clasping their hands together while singing irritating New Year songs. This is a huge reason why I prefer Christmas to CNY. Christmas is soft, warm, comforting with cosy dinners. CNY is RED, LOUD, firecrackers, screaming kids and folks shouting over a din of relatives speaking in a language foreign to me. I love being in Malaysia for being able to celebrate such different cultures.
Maid of the Cleaners
We have two ladies who come in to clean our house from time to time and it has been 3 months since they last came, as we’ve been unavailable during weekends.
Last week we called them to come and they said they were busy with other things but they would be able to send their maid.
No wonder their charges are so expensive.
Last week we called them to come and they said they were busy with other things but they would be able to send their maid.
No wonder their charges are so expensive.
Friday, January 20, 2006
Ice Cooler
KS is still not ready yet. Hmm... what else can I tell you about?
Oh yeah, last Wednesday we went to a CG member's house blessing. He works for a FMCG and holds quite a high position there. Their house was a bungalow in a gated community. The house was large, had a jaccuzi, walk-in wardrobe, gorgeous wooden patio overlooking carefully tended grass etc.
What really fascinated us was that they had a whole ice cream cooler at the back of their house, filled with ice cream! Of course, all produced by his company. And this is Walls we're talking about. Man, many of us were permanant fixtures besides it since it was filled with the new mini ice creams which meant we could have more than one helping!
I'd like a cooler like that too, filled to the brim. Which reminds me, I keep forgetting the 3 things I want to get this year:
1. To decide on a new handphone
2. To decide on what perfume to get
3. I forgot what was the third thing I wanted to get this year. And it's only 20th of January. Talk about being forgetful.
Psst... notice my point forms and specific targets? That's from writing so much minutes the last couple of days. My CG leader asked, "So are you enjoying yourself in this new job?" and I say a definite yes. This is the busiest I've ever been and it promises to be only the beginning. I've learnt more about my strengths and weaknesses too. I love doing admin/operations and hate writing proposals.
Oops, KS called. I'm off!
Oh yeah, last Wednesday we went to a CG member's house blessing. He works for a FMCG and holds quite a high position there. Their house was a bungalow in a gated community. The house was large, had a jaccuzi, walk-in wardrobe, gorgeous wooden patio overlooking carefully tended grass etc.
What really fascinated us was that they had a whole ice cream cooler at the back of their house, filled with ice cream! Of course, all produced by his company. And this is Walls we're talking about. Man, many of us were permanant fixtures besides it since it was filled with the new mini ice creams which meant we could have more than one helping!
I'd like a cooler like that too, filled to the brim. Which reminds me, I keep forgetting the 3 things I want to get this year:
1. To decide on a new handphone
2. To decide on what perfume to get
3. I forgot what was the third thing I wanted to get this year. And it's only 20th of January. Talk about being forgetful.
Psst... notice my point forms and specific targets? That's from writing so much minutes the last couple of days. My CG leader asked, "So are you enjoying yourself in this new job?" and I say a definite yes. This is the busiest I've ever been and it promises to be only the beginning. I've learnt more about my strengths and weaknesses too. I love doing admin/operations and hate writing proposals.
Oops, KS called. I'm off!
Business Lunches
This week and next week is filled with business lunches since Chinese New Year is approaching. It's been great being wine and dined (sorry, no wine). Today I had my first lo sang of the season and I look forward to more next week.
It's just amazing how much these lunches can come up to. Yesterday's Japanese lunch was definitely above RM1000, can you imagine? We had this waitress who was sour faced like anything and when our host called out to her to bring him something, she muttered loud enough for us to hear, "Apa lagi?" (what next?) while rolling her eyes. I guess I should have reported her to the manager because they should either train her to watch her mouth or fire her.
Heck, I've just lost weight from all the stress (being able to fit into my older pants is evidence for me!) and now I'm going to happily put them on again. Bring on the food! This is the part I like about Chinese New Year.
It's just amazing how much these lunches can come up to. Yesterday's Japanese lunch was definitely above RM1000, can you imagine? We had this waitress who was sour faced like anything and when our host called out to her to bring him something, she muttered loud enough for us to hear, "Apa lagi?" (what next?) while rolling her eyes. I guess I should have reported her to the manager because they should either train her to watch her mouth or fire her.
Heck, I've just lost weight from all the stress (being able to fit into my older pants is evidence for me!) and now I'm going to happily put them on again. Bring on the food! This is the part I like about Chinese New Year.
Yellow Highlighter
I’ve been taking Vitamin B for the last two days and man, the first time I peed right after taking it, I swear, is the colour of my yellow highlighter. Dad assures me this is normal.
Okay, I’m bored. Waiting for KS to finish work because I refuse to do anymore work. It’s a Friday with a non-working Saturday, what do you expect?
Although I must say I’m starting to enjoy going to work on Saturdays. Gasp! WHAT HAVE I JUST SAID? But really, I get to meet up with people since I’m in town. Like last week, I met up with a bunch of ex-colleagues for lunch and although we didn’t manage to find our lo sang, we still had fun catching up.
Okay, I’m bored. Waiting for KS to finish work because I refuse to do anymore work. It’s a Friday with a non-working Saturday, what do you expect?
Although I must say I’m starting to enjoy going to work on Saturdays. Gasp! WHAT HAVE I JUST SAID? But really, I get to meet up with people since I’m in town. Like last week, I met up with a bunch of ex-colleagues for lunch and although we didn’t manage to find our lo sang, we still had fun catching up.
Clean Desk Policy
I have been absolutely swamped. I broke my record yesterday, coming in to work at 8:25am and leaving at 8:45pm. And I'm still busy.
So why is it that I can now take a breather? Because my boss is out for a meeting and that everyone is in an uproar over trying to get the office to fit into ISO standards. Our instructions are very funny, I wish I could publish the email here but KS advices me not to since this is internal. Basically, we’re told to clear up our desks of EVERYTHING, and I mean everything. We’re trying to achieve cleanliness with just our PCs and in-trays on our desks. Some have even cleared their desk calendars. So we now look like no one works here and the cubicles look like they are unoccupied with not a scrap of paper or files to be seen. Of course, our files are all trying to hide under our desks, unsuccessfully.
The funniest instruction is to place all our dustbins on the right side of our desk. Now, my cubicle is such that my divider is on my left, hence I can follow this rule. However, for those with the divider on the right… One colleague placed his bin on top the cabinet on his right in order to comply to this.
Now, I won’t comment much on this but the facts are enough to help you decide what we think about this. I’m just glad that I’m only almost 2 months old and was starting to stick notes on my computer. The rest of the office is still clearing up their space while I’m blogging this entry.
So why is it that I can now take a breather? Because my boss is out for a meeting and that everyone is in an uproar over trying to get the office to fit into ISO standards. Our instructions are very funny, I wish I could publish the email here but KS advices me not to since this is internal. Basically, we’re told to clear up our desks of EVERYTHING, and I mean everything. We’re trying to achieve cleanliness with just our PCs and in-trays on our desks. Some have even cleared their desk calendars. So we now look like no one works here and the cubicles look like they are unoccupied with not a scrap of paper or files to be seen. Of course, our files are all trying to hide under our desks, unsuccessfully.
The funniest instruction is to place all our dustbins on the right side of our desk. Now, my cubicle is such that my divider is on my left, hence I can follow this rule. However, for those with the divider on the right… One colleague placed his bin on top the cabinet on his right in order to comply to this.
Now, I won’t comment much on this but the facts are enough to help you decide what we think about this. I’m just glad that I’m only almost 2 months old and was starting to stick notes on my computer. The rest of the office is still clearing up their space while I’m blogging this entry.
Tuesday, January 17, 2006
Stun-ning
I am still a little bit stunned as the news hasn’t sunk in fully yet that my cousin Karen eloped – at last! Sure, we’ve all been warned as she’s been telling us that was their plan right from the start, almost 5 years ago now? And her parents, whenever they’d visit Malaysia, would get sms-es from another cousin in the USA asking if Karen had taken the opportunity of their absence and eloped.
But it’s a different matter, now that it’s really happened. You just can’t be too mentally prepared for this kind of news.
The thing I wonder most is, how on earth did she tahan not talking about it during the 2 months of preparation for it? I can’t imagine having Christmas dinners with both parents and families and not talking about your upcoming wedding in less than 3 weeks after Christmas!
All in all, congrats to you and Stefan, Karen. May your lives continue to be filled with more pee-inducing laughter and love. Thanks for giving us something to talk about to our next generation. The Caribbean Sea looks absolutely gorgeous and your photos look like they jumped off a magazine page. Simply stunning. May I put them up here?
But it’s a different matter, now that it’s really happened. You just can’t be too mentally prepared for this kind of news.
The thing I wonder most is, how on earth did she tahan not talking about it during the 2 months of preparation for it? I can’t imagine having Christmas dinners with both parents and families and not talking about your upcoming wedding in less than 3 weeks after Christmas!
All in all, congrats to you and Stefan, Karen. May your lives continue to be filled with more pee-inducing laughter and love. Thanks for giving us something to talk about to our next generation. The Caribbean Sea looks absolutely gorgeous and your photos look like they jumped off a magazine page. Simply stunning. May I put them up here?
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