Little Potty

I've always enjoyed building or making things with my hands. I've not built terrariums for a long time and thought I'd just make a small simple one since I had new leaves on my existing pot of red fittonia.

First time I'm using such a small container. No points for guessing, it's the ubiquitous small spice bottle from IKEA. :)

Energy, wherefore art thou?

I want to do things and get presents settled in time for Xmas. Kah Hui's going on leave next Thursday and I need to finish making her present before that.

The body is weak though. It's 9pm and I've just finished dinner. I have not bathed yet but I'm already lying flat out on the bed feeling exhausted. Eyelids are closing on me.

How ah? :(

Thoughts

Sometimes, the more you think about something or want something, the more it eludes you. It would do good to relax and let things flow naturally, but sometimes, it's easier said than done too. Hmm.

Happy News from the Cuz!

It was like telepathy. She was thinking of me yesterday and I was thinking of her too. I didn't manage to text her yesterday though and decided to MSN her today instead to see how she's doing.

She's pregnant! :) 15 weeks.

Really really happy for her. She went through a rough patch early this year and I'm glad that she's managed to conceive. :)

I'm supposed to help with naming the baby lol, but we have no idea about the baby's gender yet. She's going for a scan next week and hopefully we'll know!

The people in your life

There are some relationships in my life which have almost melted away into oblivion or there's so much dust and cobwebs obscuring them that I've almost forgotten they were there.

I used to think that the other party was at fault for not putting in enough effort to keep the relationship alive and healthy. That might have been selfish thinking. It suddenly occurred to me recently that maybe I did not put in enough effort too.

Maybe I should pick things up again and work harder? Better late than never?

Le Bon Weekend

It was a good weekend. Tiring but fulfilling.

Saturday
- visited my granny as usual
- had lunch with my folks and spent the early part of the afternoon running around with my mum in Tampines running errands
- popped by PQ's place for our weekly visit. Met up with Ally there. Ran around with Kyler and cradled 2-week-old Darius! Baby D happened to burp when he got into my arms lol.
- and then it was back to my parents' place for dinner with them, my brother, my sister-in-law and my nephew.

Sunday
- went to run errands again, this time with K. finally settled all the xmas presents which needed to be bought.
- finished with wrapping all the presents

And now for the rest of Sunday evening where I hope to.....
-finish making at least 2 of the 3 Xmas presents I intend to make/assemble this year
- watch Asia's Next Top model with K
- spend some quality time at home with K before sending him off to the airport....

$3,200 and counting

公司欠了我很多钱。那个Claims Processing Unit 真的process得很慢。圣诞节和农历新年要到了。开销会蛮大的， 真希望他们快点把钱还给我！

Christmas

The Christmas mood hits me later and later the older I get.

But it's still.....

*sings*

The most wonderful time of the year...

I guess the jingles, sales, lights, decorations and mad shopping brings out the joyousness and festivities of the season. 


The only thing is, K will be away for 2 weeks from the 9th till the 22nd. :(

Groping in the Dark

Caught in a strange situation where even my vendor "complained" to me about my staff. Spent half an hour talking to him while I was making my way home from work earlier this evening.

Not quite sure how to handle this hmm.

So now I have overseas people hinting to me that maybe she should not be so hot-headed and speak so freely. I have internal team-mates who have casually mentioned to me that she maybe should keep a rein on her emotions. And now I have a vendor who is giving me feedback that they are trying hard but are somewhat exasperated with her.


She was hired to get the job done for me, not to add onto my burden of dealing with these people-to-people relationships.....

How to manage this?

I'm new to this. Never quite experienced this before.
Groping in the dark somewhat. Trying to learn from all this at the same time.... 

Sticking to Your Values

My boss was not around yesterday and I had shared my intention with his PA yesterday morning that I wanted to take half-day afternoon leave. She shared with me that on other occasions when my boss was not around, my other colleagues would sometimes just disappear without even logging in their leave in the system and advised me to do the same. She said I would be silly if I were to “waste” half a day’s leave and log it in the system when other people didn’t even do so.

I felt uncomfortable doing a disappearing act. And eventually, I still logged in my leave officially through the system.

What would you have done?

Maybe I am straight-laced. Maybe I am silly. Maybe I am stubborn.

But I don’t feel that it is right to disappear from office just like that. Others might have done on severla occassions in the past but that doesn’t mean that I should follow the same, especially when I think it is not right.

At least, my conscience is clear.

Fragility

I was controlling myself and trying not to tear when ET shared with me today about his sister's last days of her battle with cancer, about him quitting his job to be around in Singapore to help care for her, about him massaging her arms to diffuse the swelling caused by water retention, about how he missed saying goodbye to her by just a mere 5-10 minutes, about him breaking down in hospital, about him trying to console his parents thereafter; and about him trying to help his mother cope with her emotions evern to this day, a year on from her passing.

Life is precious. Take time to breathe and enjoy the things around you.

Treasure the ones around you. Appreciate them. Love them. Care for them. Be there for them.

It's not all about work or grabbing the next new gadget that comes out in the market.

Don't get it

And so I heard from ET today that the Chinese spit alot because they believe phelgm and saliva are toxins which need to be purged from the body. (True for the first but not for the latter I think. Saliva helps break down some of your food and also acts as a mild form of antibacterial protection for the mouth and tongue)

He didn't have an answer when I asked why couldn't they spit into a tissue or something, He said it probably easier to hack and then spit out whatever it was in your throat. Rather than hack, take out a tissue and then spit.

And anyway, isn't it odd that when you spit these "toxins" out in the public, you're spreading more germs and bacteria around to others? And in the meantime, you're breathing in the bacteria left behind by other people as well?

Being Anal

I don't profess to be extremely good in English. But I have minimum expectations on how work documents should look like. And I tend to vet or correct grammar, editorial and formatting mistakes in work documents I receive. Yes, including those coming from my boss.

As far as possible, work documents should be properly vetted, formatted and edited. Typographical errors just seem careless and unprofessional. One or two which slipped through the cracks are still okay, but not when the whole document is peppered with them.

I attribute this to my Marketing background, having done lots of proofreading on lots of brochures and copy and other papers throughout my working life.

Mostly, I think I'm just being anal.

Is this considered a type of OCD?

Tht said, I try to be mre relaxd whn I am typng or wrtig out a blg entry.....

Sometimes, doing things on a whim brings you great results

ET was back in Singapore. I was supposed to have met him for dinner today but on a whim, I decided to take half a day's leave and met him for lunch instead. I'm glad I did.

It's rare that we meet up given that 85% of the time he is out of the country. But I defintiely did not expect us to talk for more than 4 hours haha.

We sat at Vivocity's Marche all the while and saw people coming in for lunch, tea and early dinner too...lol. We touched on many things but mainly it was him giving me updates and sharing things with me especially since we didn't have a proper catch-up the last time round in April or May.

1. How and why he wound his company up in China
2. Recruitment in China and the young generation of workers in China
3. The general culture and mindset over in China
4. The culture and mindset in Myanmar
5. His next move in his career
6. My career
7. My life in general
8. His sister's death and how his parents are coping with it
9. His relationship with his wife
10. Common friends
11. How we're a little late in the marriage, family, building a nest phase of life
12. Police in China
13. Some of my travels
14. My current big project
15. Perspectives and priorities in life
16. Some buddhist concepts

I hope he fixes his relationship with his wife soon and I wish him all the very best for his next career endeavour!

That French Chef

I love Raymond Blanc! Watching his programmes always brings a smile to my face. Besides the fact that he's French and a talented chef, he's got a weird laugh, an equally weird sense of humour and a down to earth personality.

Charming. With a capital C. :D

Different People Handle Things Differently

Some internalize their problems. Others voice it out to the whole world.

Some listen and dish out advice. Some listen but ask questions to guide the first person to think and come out with his/her own conclusion.

Some draw their energy from being around people. Others draw energy from within themselves and get tired when there’s too much going on at the same time.

Some recharge by immersing themselves in busy places. Others need to recharge by being alone.

I suppose….well yeah….I can’t and I shouldn’t judge someone just because he or she takes a different approach from me.
==============

For the most part, I internalize things and I tend to need to be alone for some amount of time to recharge. Give me a day’s off and I’d be perfectly fine just sitting at home and pottering around doing my own things or not doing anything much at all.

At this point in time, I feel a little overwhelmed with things. Maybe a day’s leave one of these days would be a good idea…

Today

I am...

1. Happy.....because I managed to speak to a colleague whom I'd not seen nor spoken to over the last few days. She brought me some laughs and I'm grateful for that. Am also happy because I had a nice lunch with a good friend-cum-ex-classmate. He just started dating a girl too which makes me even happier.

2. Pissed and frustrated.....because of a colleague. I feel he's not pulling his weight in the team. It's been like this for quite a long time and I don't know how much longer I can hold it in. I'd spoken to my boss on at least two occasions but I don't see much being changed.

3. Stressed.....alot at work and other things out of work. Just realized I've been partially holding my breath for the entire day till now, 830pm. No wonder my chest feels a little tight.

4. Somewhat tired.....physically tired and still a little sick. Mind is still racing though. Trying to slow it down a little.

5. Grateful.....yes, although I've complained about things here and there, I'm still grateful for all my loved ones and close friends in my life, and for all the good things that have come to me so far.

Upset.

Made another silly mistake at work. Very careless mistake.

To think I tried and tested it out for so many times just to make sure I got things right.

But when the actual and final execution of the task came, I flopped. Tremendously.

Brunei snippets

I was there for only 4 days and 3 nights but it was sufficient to give me a glimpse into life in Brunei.

People
They are a soft-spoken, patient, relaxed, friendly and sincere lot who seem to be genuinely content about life in general. Maybe these all stem from a life of shelter and protection from the Sultan. It was nice talking to them and it's easy to feel so at ease with them. Even people from higher management are easy to talk to. No airs. I cannot really imagine them quarreling with anyone.

Work
Their hours are usually 9am to 5pm. Normal enough. But people usually take a morning break at 10-plus, then leave for lunch at 1130 or so. Then they pick their kids up from school and send them home and then go back to work at 2pm. They have their afternoon tea break at 3-plus and then leave office at 5 or 530pm. All breaks are unofficial but the norm lol. Shiok! I also want!!

Royalty
This is big there. So who's considered royalty? The Sultan and his family. His siblings' families. In-laws and possibly their families. All in all, several hundred perhaps? Out of the entire population of 450,000. Palatial houses and big cars seem to be the status quo for these royalty.

Some of them have special traffic police escorts accompanying them on the road. Apparently when the escort out-riders sound their siren, you as a commoner driver need to shift to the left and allow the royalty and accompanying convoy to pass. I was on their roads for a grand total of only 3-4 hours across the 4 days I was there and I already had the chance to witness royalty pass us by on 3 separate occasions lol.

Drivers
Gracious, polite, friendly and patient is all I can say about Bruneian drivers. They give way to each other, they signal and they wave! So so friendly it's almost like one big family driving together. :)

Currency
For the life of me, i didn't know that Bruneian and Singaporean dollars can be used interchangeably in both countries. Ok I am suaku I know.

Life
Not much entertainment around. No pubs since it is a Muslim state, just some cinemas around. I might be generalising since I was there for only several days but I think that while life there might be slow-paced and boring, people are quite content. Maybe because the State (Sultan) takes care of a lot of things. Petrol is cheap, medical costs are covered and students are given allowances of $300-$400 a month to attend university.

Brunei

It was nice to see Brunei in such evening splendour. This was on our last night there and we had ended early. My 2 colleagues and I decided to explore the area and drove 25mins out to see a high-end beach resort. We were greeted by this sight...lovely sunset. Sometimes, doing things on a spur brings you unexpected lovely results. :)