caught!

I was reading a piece of entertainment news on xinmsn. And on the article was a picture of a model in a piece of swimsuit and a deep cleavage. I was plugged into my earphones.

Damn.

And my boss came by. Apparently he stood behind me for a good 5 seconds calling out to me.

That’s it! Minus points liao.

*bleah* haha…

Lunch at work

It used to be a happy time and a happy environment. We’d all go for lunch together in a whole bunch, sometimes up to 9 or 10 of us. Joking and laughing, we’d be a rowdy bunch. That was more than a year and a half ago.

And then things took a turn. Kelvin left the company, and then Sandra and Cedric. BK was transferred to another department and then shortly after, he left the company too. And then some new people came in. Dynamics changed. People changed. Some folks had work piled up on them and couldn’t make it as often for lunch. Some others developed grudges against others and tensions grew.

These days, lunch is a chore at times. I get caught in the middle at times.

“I want to eat with you but I don’t want to see (him) around”. “I’m okay with having lunch with you but who else is coming?”

I don’t bother too much with gathering people for lunch these days. Either I pack lunch in, or I just go with one or two other girls, or I just go with one or two of my teammates.

Not here, not there

I didn't really have a proper dinner. Hmm, let's see, what did I have....

I had a stick of Old Chang Kee sotong balls and a stick of their chicken wrap at 730pm. Also a cup of lychee green tea bubble tea.

And then I went to PQ's granny's wake. Between 8pm till 10pm I stuffed myself with loads of peanuts, some melon seeds and some sweets. And a packet of green tea.

I got home at 10-plus and I had a slice of raisin bread.

I can't say I'm hungry. But neither do I feel full.

:( It's 11-plus now. I don't think I should eat anymore right? :(

Movies

On the way back from San Francisco, I watched a few movies. All are foreign language films. :)

1) The Man from Nowhere - Korean and highly highly recommended. Won Bin was gorgeous, the little girl Kim Sae-Ron was wonderful, the cinematography was lovely and the soundtrack was just awesome. I've been listening to "Dear" by Mad Soul Child everyday since I came back to SG. I'm planning to watch the movie again very soon. :)

2) Kuch Kuch Hota Hai - Hindi and a classic one, one of the longest shows running in India's theatres. Shah Rukh Khan and Kajol pair up again in this typical love story.... p/s: kuch kuch hota hai is pronounced as "kooche kooche hoe-tah hey" and means "something is happening".

3) Norwegian Wood - Japanese. Adapted from a novel of the same name written by Haruki Murakami. Directed by a Vietnamese. It's an okay show. But overly draggy and peppered with uneccessary sexual scenes and sexual talk at times.

4) Iron Ladies - Thai. What can I say. This is a classic. :) It's the third time I've watched it and I still enjoy it alot haha.

5) A Moment to Remember - Korean. Highly recommended as well. Watching this movie has reinforced my view that Jung Woo Sung is an able actor. He may not be as good-looking as some other Korean actors and his eyes may not be as expressive but he makes up for it through other facial expressions and raw emotions. His physical build is awesome though haha. I cried alot when watching this show. I hope the guy sitting next to me didn't notice. Hmm.

Oh I love travelling long-haul on SQ. I watch tons of movies during these long long flights...:)

of sighs...

The weather is making me feel melancholic.

Here I am sitting in the dim room sipping hot tea and not really doing anything else. The only light is coming from the pink skies outside the windows and from what little light there is from the PC monitor.

Been feeling quite testy and emotional today. I don't know if it's because of some songs I've been listening to, some news I've heard from friends, or just that K isn't here.

A friend's feeling a little lost right now and trying hard to keep his marriage alive. He and his wife have been together for ages, since 14 or 15 years ago at least and married for the last 4 or 5. I don't know how things deteriorated between them but I really wish them all the best. I told him "You guys have come so far, I really believe you guys will go so much further". Sigh.

Another friend's Gran just passed on due to illness. And it made me think of my own Granny. I've not seen her for 3 weeks now due to my cousin's wedding and then my work trip. I hope she's doing okay.

A colleague's feeling down cos of neverending work and she doesn't see any light at the end of the tunnel.

So on and so forth....sigh.

movies

Oh yes. I couldn't sleep on my flight to SF. And so...I watched 6 movies in totalduring the 16-hour journey hehe.

1) The King's Speech - Good
2) Love and Other Drugs - I love Jake Gyllenhaal~!! And Anne Hathaway's so pretty!
3) Tangled - Excellent
4) True Grit - So so
5) Burlesque - Not Bad
6) Les Bruits Des Glacons - French movie. True to the typical French style of movies. Utterly neurotic, utterly sexual and utterly bizarre, leaving you with many question marks at the end of the show. But this one makes you think a little and ponder about the fragility of human life.

On the journey home, I think I want to watch Kuch Kuch Hota Hai...I did not manage to catch this Hindi show last time when it showed here. It went on to become one of the highest grossing Hindi movies of all time.

Maybe I'll catch Harry Potter (though I cannot stand how draggy the show can be at times) and Hereafter, the movie by Clint Eastwood.

San Francisco so far

This has got to be one of my busiest and most tiring meeting so far.

It’s been 3 days since I arrived and I am still feeling jetlagged. I have not had the chance to visit any shops (which is pathetic and quite unusual actually haha). I keep falling asleep in the afternoon and late morning. I find myself clearing work at 1am in the morning, going to bed at 1 or 2am and then waking up at 6am again (involuntarily) in the morning again to work somemore. My body clock’s screwed up big time. I've never had jetlag so bad before hmmmm.

If I’m not working, I’m attending a conference track. Otherwise, I’ll be in my room listening in to a track and/or trying to sleep away the jetlag. If not those, then I’ll be in a face-to-face meeting with someone. Either that or I’d be running around trying to settle some issues which cropped up last minute. Or answering my boss' queries through SMS. (my phone bill will skyrocket this month again. I'm hoping it will be less than $150.)

Ok, enough of complaints.

My impression so far of San Francisco:

1) Lots of shops around
2) Lots of restaurants around, good steak places and seafood places
3) Lovely old-school trams to bring people around
4) Very steep streets and very hilly streets, up and down, up and down. Difficult to walk sometimes. That's why they have the trams as part of public transport.
5) Rather clean sidewalks

Acne rash....

I went to the doc yesterday evening and was diagnosed with having acne rash on my left cheek. :(
As if a rash isn't bad enough. It has to be acne rash. Sigh.

And the doc said he couldn't really do much about it except to give me some cream to stop the itchiness if there's any.

*wails* My face!!!!!! Fugly lah!
And I have an international conference next week! :(

Speaking of helping out at weddings. It's interesting how you know a person's work attitude from the way that person is during the course of helping out (or should I say not helping out).

My cousin had 6 jiemeis for her wedding. One of them's a distant relative aged 16. If she doesn't pull her weight on the actual day and doesn't really help much, I can understand. She's only 16 and doesn't really know what goes on at weddings anyway. She wasn't around much of the time and when she was around, she didn't do much.

But there was this one other jiemei. Who wasn't very responsible and had zero initiative. Let's call her W. Firstly, she came 30minutes late. And then she sat and chatted to others during the morning activities. While the rest of the jiemeis were helping out with preparations, and helping out with whatever things needed to be done, she say there chatting. Zero initiative. Zero proactiveness.

At night, she was at the reception. I'd say 40% of the time she was somewhere else except at the reception table. Her partner kept asking me where she was. I saw her chatting with another friend. Sigh. If I had her as a colleague, I'd curse everyday.

Weddings

I helped out in my cousin's wedding last Saturday. It's my 10th time helping out at a wedding and it's the only one where I'm the main coordinator for both day & night activities.

With each wedding I learn abit more and with this one, I learnt the most. Partly because I was involved right from the start. She asked me how should she start her planning process and I was there to discuss things with her and give her my two cents' worth. I drew up a list of things for her to think through and consider haha. But the smart-aleck in me scribbled it on 3 pages of paper and then passed it all to her. Now I don't have a copy of it. Bleah.

She did up her draft schedule and I was the one of the first few to see it, apart from herself, her parents and her husband. Pored over it and gave her my questions and more pointers lol.

A female colleague told me the other day. "Oh no, I've already been a bridesmaid and jiemei twice. I can only do it one more time, else I'll not be able to get married in the future!!"

Lol, and this came from a girl 5 years younger than I. I didn't know people still believed in these things. I told her I have another wedding to help out in at the end of the year, and that would be my 11th time. Her jaw dropped.

Ah weddings and marriages. Maybe I should quit my job and join a wedding planning agency. I could learn much more although my weekends would be burnt....

Dad

I'm secretly happy. My dad has found a new hobby.

Although it hasn't entirely taken over his old hobby (of watching Korean programmes and MTVs on youtube the whole day) yet but at least it's taking his mind of his old hobby a little. :)

An what is his new hobby? Reading comics!! Hahahaa.....

My dad used to love reading comics. English ones of course. I used to have stacks and stacks of Asterix and Leonardo and Archie comic books at home. Then one fine day my Mum cleared everything away...

My dad's recently been going to Tampines Regional Library to borrow Asterix comic books. :) I'd come home from work to see him with a book in front of him. Good. Better than seeing him in front of the computer watching Girls Generation prancing around in short skirts.

:(

Anger takes so much energy out of a person.

I was fuming this afternoon. And it just zapped so much out of me that now at 6pm, I feel very tired. Sigh.

And in times like these, I feel K's absence even more. :(

Sweet Tweets

Tried making dessert today. :)

A very simple dessert of boiled dried apricots in a sweet broth made from honey and sweetened winter melon slices.

Preparation time = 2minutes
Boiling = about 10minutes

It took me less than 15minutes to make it.

I liked it, though the apricots could have been boiled longer so that they were softer. The soup had a nice sweet soothing taste to it. My Dad hated the dessert though and said it tasted very strange lol...My Mum sort of liked it haha...but didn't dare take too much because she's borderline diabetic. :)

*scowl*

Someone just made a snide comment about why I was so kan cheong about a particular work issue, without realizing I was there, on the other side of the partition. He then saw me and kept at it.

“Aiyah, at the most I do for you lah!”, he said. I told him it’s not about the “doing for me”. It’s about keeping to timelines and not scrambling to complete things last minute. When you can keep to timelines, you don’t need to scramble last minute right? You can help me out by keeping to timelines lor. He gave me a mock shocked and flustered expression.

Wah lan.

You’re not the one trying to coordinate things with people and trying to meet a timeline to present things to the bosses. So don’t make such comments and try to turn it into a joke.

Gan du lan.

Uhhhh....

The trending is as such.

Feb 08, Feb 09, Feb 10, Feb 11

46.3, 45.4, 47.1, 48.8

Shit.

This is what 6 months of eating-heartily-and-not-bothering-what-goes-into-your-stomach and what 3 months of slacking-and-not-running does to your body.

Body fat percentage has gone up 3 percentage points compared to last year.

Shit.

I dread to see what my cholesterol levels are. They should be sending over the full report to me within the next 3 to 4 weeks.

*crosses fingers*

Status Update

Remember one of my terrarium jars was almost destroyed by my mum when I went away for a month in December?

I'm glad to say that after 2 months of restorative work and lots of tender loving care, that jar is almost back to 100% its original state!

I removed the original plants from the jar and transplanted them into another pot. They are thriving happily now and are much less discoloured compared to mid January. They initially had dark brown stems after swimming in muddy murky water for a few weeks.

I put new shoots into the jar and they have since managed to pull through and are getting stronger already! I put in 1 stalk of green fittonia and 1 stalk of red fittonia. My red fittonias are very hardy and can survive even under harsh conditions. So the red stalk was generally doing fine.

The green stalk however was in a precarious condition for the first 1.5 months. It wasn't dying, nor was it looking strong. It just looked weak and withered. It's leaves were limp. I switched the jar around hoping to catch the right amount of sunlight and voila, one fine day about two weeks ago I found the right spot!

I came home to see the green stalk looking much much better than before. And now that green stalk is not standing straight and strong and tall. :)

May both red & green stalks grow new shoots and leaves and then my terrarium will be fully restored! :) Whee!

Mr Fisherman, here I come!

12 - 21 March. San Francisco.

Fishermen's Wharf! Union Square! Shopping! And some catching up with friends whom I've not seen in awhile.

Let's see, a steak dinner followed by a short bout of shopping has been arranged on 12 March evening. 13 March evening's dinner with another party has not been confirmed yet. 14 March may have a sponsored reception. 15 March there is a sponsored dinner. 16 March another sponsored dinner. 17 March nothing planned as yet. And 18 March would be my flight home at 1pm.

The weather will be cold though still manageable at a range of 9-17C.

May this meeting be a fruitful one too! I've taken on an extra role which is to assist my boss in the tracking of some issues in the Government Advisory Committee. An ultra boring role but perhaps it might help me understand some of the politics and sensitivities that goes on in the discussions these government officials have.

After this trip, the next one will only be in October or November this year. And that meeting is likely to be in the African region. Hmmmm....I hope it's a safe place that they're going to. I don't want to be caught in another situation where I might not get to go because of some dumb terrorist threatening to bomb my meeting venue. (Read: I did not get to go to Nairobi in March 2010 because some Somalian people gave out such a threat)

Of bumps and sebum

Went for my facial yesterday. Finally managed to find a chance to go and it was high high high high time that I went. If I had missed yesterday's session, I think I'd have felt horrendously ugly haha.

Because I'd not gone for at least 3 months, my face was in a horrid shape. And so the beautician poked, squeezed and poked somemore at my pores.

Ouch.

But she also gave me a very very SHIOK facial and eye massage! I fell asleep in the midst of the eye massage haha...:)

Mad Busy

For the next few months at least.

Sometimes I don't know which work item to tackle first. When they are all of the same urgency haha.

Damn it! I need to get more sleep too...:)

Hong Kong!

This is one of my shortest trip worktrip ever I think. But on my first night, I've already spent SGD$230. Haha...so what did I buy?

SKII and Biotherm and My Beautiful Diary products. There are tons of cosmetics shops here and all of them are selling products at cheaper prices compared to Singapore. There are 2 or 3 major chain stores like Bonjour, Colour Mix and SaSa. Why doesn't Singapore have alot of these stores ah? Hmm...

Anyway, I arrived at the hotel in Hong Kong island at 330pm, literally just dumped my bags and went for a Yum Cha session with some of my friends here. Went back to my hotel after that, grabbed my jacket and then headed across to Mongkok at the Kowloon side for shopping followed by dinner.

Came back exhausted but uber happy with the nice wonton mee I had and with my purchases haha. Took a quick shower and called K (who was enjoying himself with his friends) and then voila here, I am blogging little.

Am gonna do some work now before sleeping. I've an early morning meeting/discussion with my boss too....Jiayou to me!