A Menial Update January 29, 2007

::Originally posted on Completely Random::

Hey everyone. Haven’t been blogging for the last couple of days because I’ve been busy updating The Completely Random Archives. Check it out if you’re free, you can delve into “the inner Leech” there. =) You’d probably think I’m a little problematic, but in all fairness, those things took place years and years ago. Practically a lifetime ago to me!

Ben says that I used to be really fierce and “a little scary”, but I think it was just the inability to handle drama. I still can’t handle any unnecessary drama in my life, but last time I used to face it head on, now I try to ignore it. There are a lot of gaping holes in my archive though, because I’m trying to do an “eternal sunshine of the spotless mind” thingamajiggy here. ;p

I’ve been talking to a lot of people regarding my Big Decision in the last couple of entries. There have been about an equal number of people supporting my decision, and an equal number who thinks I made the wrong choice. Regardless, the deed has been done, and hopefully I will be able to decide on my own next time without asking people for their opinions. That’s something I really have to learn. As my sister says, “Stand by your decision and don’t let someone’s opinion affect you as you are responsible for your own actions at the end of the day”. Ok, I ad-libbed.

Another reason I haven’t been blogging much is because I much prefer reading. I read finish The Old-Girl Network, and it’s really good. Seriously a good chick-lit (all things considered), and has a few nice twists. Things wrapped up nicely in the end, a dash of incredulity here and there (hey, it’s a STORY after all), and loads of mushy romance. Ooh. I’m starting on Dragon Prince by Melanie Rawn now, so I am well on my way of 24 books a year. Dragon Prince is one of those fantasy series that Simon and CheeK loves. The starting has already gotten me hooked, and I finished about 6 chapters so far.

The thing is, I put the book next to my bedside when I’m sleeping, so it tempts me from turning in early. I’ve been trying to sleep early so that I won’t have to sneak in to work. But as I’m lying in bed, with the lights still on, I’ll say, “Hmm… a chapter or two won’t hurt. I mean, I left out RIGHT at the interesting part…” and the next thing I know, the clock shows 2am. -____-”

My mom tried to trick me into fetching her out for dinner & paying. Haha, not that I mind paying for dinner, but it was funny because I genuinely didn’t even know she was hinting. She was so frustrated that I was so dense that she had to send a direct order to me via my brother. ;P Anyway, we just ate at Syed. It was good because I got to split a briyani bukhara. It’s seriously yum!

My delicious briyani bukhara ayam (RM8.50) and my brother’s nasi pattaya. He ALWAYS orders this. Simon we must have briyani bukhara together! =p

My mom’s thosai, that she was pissed about cos the waiter had his thumb firmly pressed on the thosai. & my mom & brother… brother is talking animatedly about futsal.
Can you believe that I influenced my brother into futsal? Kinda cool. I’ve stopped playing though.

I picked up a package from a courier service on Saturday. I thought that it would be difficult to find, so I pleaded with the secretary to close later that afternoon. I thought I would need 45 minutes to get there. I turned up at the courier office after 7 minutes. -___-” Anyway, it turns out that the Robbie Williams RudeBox contest I won last time had more freebies! I got a RudeBox tee shirt on top of the CD. Hehehe. *small happiness* I’ll post pictures up another day. =)

On a sidenote, grr… I just found out that my colleague enters contests too! He won the Rain contest that I was stalking, that’s how I found out. Grr… why you trying to steal my ricebowl, huh!?!

We celebrated our grandfather’s birthday yet again, this time in Hon Ping restaurant in SS15 (I think). It’s quite a simple and nice place… got to lo sang as well. Also found out that there will be no “homecooked” reunion dinner for us this year, as my paternal grandma doesn’t feel so good. We’re all eating in a restaurant instead!

My sister making quick work of the red wine. Alchy.

My brother and his ‘Sexsi’ shirt. My sister’s jealous cos he wears this more than the Supertoro shirt she got him. Oh yeah, I got this shirt for my bro from Thailand!

Before & after ‘lo sang’. It’s very delicious, wish I could share this dish with all of my friends, chinese & non-chinese. Thing is, I don’t know whether it’s halal or not. *thinks really hard* Should be ok kua! Can have a ‘lo sang’ party like Elaine had last time for us. *loves Elaine*

4 seasons dish! There was chicken feet skin kerabu (damn nice although sounds dubious), two types of springroll and some kinda saucy meat fillet

Sharksfin soup! Salty~~

Sweet & sour fried fish (didn’t try)

Curried fried prawns. Two thumbs up.

Broccoli & mushrooms.

Pineapple & prawn fried rice. Could hardly eat any because everything was sooooo filling.

The lotus paste pancake… very nice. Got some ‘tong sui’ also, photograph came out damn blurry. Anyway, it was a great meal all in all. Thanks ‘kong kong’!!

Next series of photographs is “Typical Leech Work Day”. But as with all my documentaries on a typical Leech day, it comes out severely lacking because I can only document when I’m free right? (I mean, damn wanna get fired if I’m busy and I’m snapping photos) It makes me look like a slacker! Anyway, here goes. Typical day :

Crawl through traffic jam to get to LDP:

Traffic out of @#$% Subang. Horrendous. And I look horrible – no make-up or anything. Still trying to get myself awake at this time in the morning.

First Two Activities Of The Morning:

Check my mail (make sure got no $hit go down during the weekend / time I was sleeping @ home). No red colors = good! No new mails = even better!! Then cross out the days of my calendar (making my cube look like a jailcell, huh?

Breakfast of the champions!:

Looks like swill to you, but tastes swell to me. Must start the day off with a shot of coffee & my fix of oats. Yummy! & don’t ask me why my coffee looks frothy…

Work it:

Programming cobol directly on the Linux server. Huhuhu… My eyes will go blind doing this. And that webbie’s my team’s ‘baby’…

Printing & printouts & print ‘servers’

Lunchtime Fare:

Due to stinginess & laziness, we always eat in the cafeteria. That’s the typical lunchtime food that they offer (quite affordable, usually less than RM4), and that’s the lunchtime buddy, OCM. Don’t know why he’s laughing here, but he won’t be laughing when he sees his pic on my blog. Mwahahhaa.

Until Time To Go:
I didn’t take more pictures of my work, because it’s going to be the same black screen with silvery-white words. So I took pictures during tea-time! See, I was sooooo busy until it was almost time for the Genset. They turn off our power supply, so then the employees take a break. It’s a monthly thing.

My colleagues…

Food in the office…. arrowroot chips (!!!) and some biscuit thingy with nuts. The biscuit is apparently made from egg whites and something or other. Don’t know… but it’s awesome!~

Going home:

Time to go home! Notice the cheerier self-taken shots! =p And I only left at about 6:30pm, but see — there’s no other cars parked next to mine! Considered such a late worker! *pious*

Any plans to celebrate this coming Thursday? It’s Thaipusam & Federal Territory Day. My sis and I had plans to do a “shopping marathon” – try and hit as many shopping complexes as possible – and SHOP of course! But the thought of FINDING for parking got us down so much so that we scrapped the idea. =( Maybe just 1U for the both of us! =) Next week will be a busy weekend again. Have to go to a family friend’s housewarming party, and Gamarjobat! *yayyyy*

Lesson Learnt January 25, 2007

::Originally posted on Completely Random::

Final conclusion, everything is done. But I still feel like I could’ve made a mistake. I am being plagued by a case of what-ifs. It’s a kind of sickness that Simon despairs because he finds no point in going through the possibilities. Unluckily for him, it’s one of my favourite past times. Things could have ended better for me, but instead I made a whole loada crap happen. Believe me, it really wasn’t what I set out to do.

In the future (as I told OCM), I must be firm in what I believe in and stand by it. Just because I suck at debating and I can’t think of a logical reply, I shouldn’t just go “yes~yes~yes” mindlessly when I cannot find a way out. I should always always always bail for more time and stand by it instead of being bullied into an answer.

That’s the lesson learnt for today.

And on another note – I was sorry about what I did to you, but you were never sorry for what you did to me. I would think you could understand my situation more now, but I doubt you can make the connection. Therefore, I hope that things never work out for you in the end. It may be better, but at least I’m not the type to pretend that things are alright when I don’t think they are.

That’s What’s Wrong With Me. :( January 24, 2007

::Originally posted on Completely Random::

So… speeding ahead, are we? Well, I pulled the brakes on that one. I guess we’ll see how things turn out in 5 months time, but at the moment, I hope there will be no regrets. Daniel, do you think I’m chickenshit? All I want is to have fun in life, but I don’t want to take chances. The main reason being that I have no idea where I will be in 5 years time. Of course, if all goes well, the answer is “United States!” but a girl always needs a back-up plan, doesn’t she? =)

Argh, forgive me for rambling. You can always MSN Message me if you think I’ve blabbed too little of my life away. Let me introduce you to something really good to read & interesting – Dumb Little Man – Tips for Life. Every week, DLM will post some interesting articles on things you can do to change your life for the better. They can be small changes in the things you buy, or big changes in your lifestyle. Most of the tips are easy to follow, and pertain to tips for your career and money management. Very good stuff for the average working individual. =)

I found this particular entry to be extremely … hmmm! Un-do-able, I would say. And some of the things stated, I don’t really see the point to it. But he got promoted, so what the hey right? Some of the suggestions are quite good regardless. Here are 5 more things I have to do at work that may-or-may-not get me another promotion:
+++ Follow-up, follow-up, follow-up. Always have the latest status / updates on a project on your fingertips. Always know what needs to be done by whom and what is happening on that matter. Noting this down really helps!
+++ Develop your own cycle for goals to achieve in a day, and do not leave work until you’ve achieved them. Ensure that IF you do not finish the item, update the user in question on the latest status of the item and what you are going to do to get it done. This mainly applies for bug fixes, the user likes to know why the bug exists in the first place, so work is in 2 parts -> figuring out & fixing. If it isn’t urgent, informing the user you have found the cause and outlining what needs to be done is sufficient to clear more hours in your work day to attend to other mor pressing matters.
+++ Always look presentable – a pretty thing with an empty brain may be cause for worry, but in this shallow world that we live in, a brainiac in crumpled clothes and no make-up will be dismissed too.
+++ Research & read – a dull lull at work? Time to read up more on the system! Can pick up a few cool tricks here and there for future use. The best part about the IT industry is that we have TONNES of resources online. You can’t find an “auditing 101″ forum, can you?
+++ Positivity in viewing what needs to be done. If you’re mentally dead at work, then it’s time to move somewhere else. Also, it’s very embarassing to say “cannot be done”, but then later find out that there is a workaround. Although things look doubtful, always RESEARCH & READ more to ensure you’re 110% correct!

Hmmm… I sound so efficient don’t I? Do note that I said that those are stuff I need to work on, not things that I am wonderful at. -__-” Also, here are 3 items on how to have more fun / feel like you have more fun in the office:
+++ Change your colleague’s wallpaper when they are not at their cube. If they leave their Lotus Notes open, send out a mass mail from their account announcing that lunch tomorrow will be on them. At JW Marriot.
+++ Challenge your colleague to weird bets, like, “I’ll pay you RM750 if you sing 7 songs in the office. Min 3 mins length per song!” (this was a bet that arose thanks to the Rain concert ticket pricing). Or “Bet I can trigger my car alarm (car parked outside) from the 1st floor of the office!” Ooh, I won a Rotiboy from that bet. =) (Note: possible to trigger the alarm, but the keys must be pointed at a very certain angle. Colleague couldn’t find the angle. ;P)
+++ Maximise company benefits. Free medical? Drop by the panel clinic for a bottle of Vitamin C or eye drops. Free spectacles? Why don’t you change that roughed up pair you have on? 24 days leave a year? Time to take that 1-week break. Share options? Why haven’t you picked up any lots yet? And so on. It really feels like you’ve gotten more salary, y’know.

Haha, I suck at making lists. That’s why you should read Dumb Little Man – Tips for Life instead. =)

By the way, am currently working on the output screen for my Personal Money software. Am working on my vertical scrollbars, hmm. I will post a picture when I’m done. =B

What Is Wrong With Me?!? January 23, 2007

::Originally posted on Completely Random::

Haha, what is wrong with me, man? I read through my old blog entries and found so many weird hanging sentences / spelling mistakes / grammatical errors and no one even told me. Damn embarassing. Most likely this will continue til the end of days because I don’t re-read what I write and carefully re-edit my entry. Please la, takes damn long to write one entry, and I’m not really arsed to make it perfect.

It’s more irritating if I really *did* take the time to make everything all perfect and there would *still* be errors in the end. Anyway, I digress. Today has been a pretty weird day for me.

I forgot I forgot I forgot about a million things today. How could I forget? Am I really that frivolous a being? Am I really that filled with shopping that I could forget something that important? At the moment, I’m keeping my fingers crossed that I don’t get my fcukin ass bitten due to this ((forgotten, unspeakable horror)). $hit! And I was just reading The Old-Girl Network and wondering how the fcuk someone could be as forgetful as the heroine in the novel. Guess I should use my phone’s “PDA-like qualities” to do something other than note down when the next theater / concert / gig / show is.

Then there’s this pile of weird stuff going around me at the moment. Gee, I don’t know quite how to put it into words. Let’s just say that I really don’t know what is going on in my life. I feel that I’m being rejected, but it turns out that I’m being proposed. And being rushed up the aisle so to say. This shouldn’t be taken in the context of a wedding, use your imagination.

So anyway, there is a bend in the road and I’m going at it 100kph an hour. I just wish I had someone to talk to about this. Someone who is in the same boat, had been in the same boat, and hopefully had upgraded his boat to a yacht.

OK, enough euphemisms for today. I’m sure you already got it right? Ya’ll smart people.

Anyway, I just realised something today… and that is Subang Jaya people are like, damn rich. They are so rich that they make middle-class people look dirt poor. Like, I always thought that my family was middle-class, but as it turns out, apparently the rich people think they are middle-class too, so what does that make me?

But it’s ok la, I don’t think my parents are poor or blame them for not being richer. Cos anyhow my parents had “progressed” compared to their parents, so it’s like, going up one step in the rat race. Ok la, as long as there’s progression.

My friend commented that I’m so kiasu, but the moral of the story is that if you linger on, everyone will overtake you. So you always have to be on top of your game.

Haha, I downloaded a Rain caller ringtone. So if you call me, you’re going to hear I’m Coming by Rain. Hahaha, that title, tying in with the name of the singer is open to soooo many suggestive comments. His concert ticket prices are insane. The most expensive ones (I think) are about RM750. Insane right? If you know anyone who actually BOUGHT those tickets, please tell me! Never met such sui yu before, you see! Or maybe in this case, lok sui yu, mwahahha!