Party Like It’s 2012 January 1, 2012

So I didn’t manage to write before the end of 2012, big deal. It really doesn’t feel like a brand new year (maybe because I haven’t gone in to the office yet), but I’m feeling great. I don’t know why – maybe it’s laziness or plain giving-up-ness, but I don’t feel like making any resolutions this year. Maybe because I know what I need to do and what needs to get done. Don’t need a 365-day goal to make it happen. In fact, why do I need 365 days? I should just give myself 30 days and see whether I can stick to it for even that long.

2012 is going to be a BIG year for me. There’s so much going on, and getting a nephew is just the first part of it. I visited my sister & the baby quite often at first, but getting lazy. Sometimes when I visit,  he’s just busy sleeping and I feel like a witch trying to wake him up just so he’ll entertain me. And then when he *does* wake up and start wailing, then I regret it deeply. Because you can watch all the “5 Languages of a Baby” or “The Happiest Baby On The Block” videos that you want – practicing it is another story. I rather the baby just sleeps more than wake up and has to be soothed for mysterious disturbances that we can’t figure out.

My nephew is also very very active… when he’s getting burped and lying on my shoulder, he will move his head everywhere and breathe into my neck and ear and it tickles!! I thought babies are supposed to NOT be able to move their head so much? Not my nephew! He can move so much that he can be in Willow Smith’s Whip My Hair video. -___-”

I also don’t feel like making a recap of 2011, because I didn’t travel as much, so it doesn’t look so exciting. There was only 2x Singapore trip + Penang + Hong Kong. Eh, all islands lah! I guess the biggest, most dramamama change for 2011 was that I switched jobs. For those who don’t know, I had been working at XYZ Bank for 7 years and now I’m with UVW Bank. It’s been 6 months with the new company, and life has been great! I know a lot of people are all ??? at how I can stay in a company for so long when nowadays, a lot of people frequently job-hop on to bigger and better things. Most people I know have at least 2 – 3 different jobs before this. To be honest, the culture at XYZ Bank is totally different. Somehow, a lot of people there have only worked at XYZ Bank and has been there for way longer than me. It makes you wonder – there surely must be something that has them staying, right? I can tell you why, but not free to post it up on my blog.

Ok, 1st day of 2012 and I’m still overbrimming with the possibilities the year ahead holds. Have fun, and let’s go out and yum cha soon!

P.S : I loved how I didn’t have to do year-end support this time! *glee*

“There Are Hospitals For People Like You” January 6, 2010

… that’s what Ben said about me throughout the Singapore trip. But I know he loveeeeeeeeeeees me, duncha? Muwahahhaa. Anyway, what a fabulous way to start the new year! I think I should do something like this every year, so it really feels “fresh” when I get back to work. Then again, when I came in to work today (1st working day of 2010!), there was sooooooooo much $hit to settle, worked 12 hours today! Hope this is not an indicator for the days to come. T___T

I know I said that I would blog on the 4th, but sue me, lots of stuff to do.

Back to my trip — the trip was not awesome because I did a lot of interesting stuff there… but it was awesome because the company was awesome! *awwwwww* I miss Ben already! He’s seriously the best travelling / hanging out partner ever. The main thing that we did was… walk aimlessly around, eat, talk, eat, shop, eat, gym, eat, read books together, blablabla … very normal stuff. He’s not really the bestttt person to show you around the touristy spots in Singapore because he’s just not that kinda person. Same like in my London trawlings, he would browse through the touristy photos on my camera when I got back from my “walkarounds” and say, “I don’t even know half the places you walked to and I’ve been here for years.”

Ok, I travelled down to Singapore with Aeroline, which is actually iNsAnElY expensive, but it’s really convenient. *sigh* It cost me about RM185 return… but it was a very comfortable ride down, even though I slept through some of the meals being served. *sad* Also, for some reason, the ride down to Singapore took about 6 hours, but coming back from Singapore took only 5 hours. -___- There was no jam going down, but the bus driver was damnnnnnn slow. Grr. So I wound up at Hostel Amigos at about 4:30pm. -___-

Right, so this was my first time staying at a backpackers, and I always had this vision that it’s very seedy, rather dirty and kinda packed with people who will be dressed in shorts, singlet and slippers. WTF. When I first met “Stan the Man” (the owner of the place), he looked slightly disheveled (later found out that there was a wayyyy crazy party the night before) and I saw that he had painted his fingernails in alternating colors of bright pink and bright blue. Hmm….

After checking in (it cost me SGD45 for 3 nights in an 8 bed female only dorm), he showed me around the place, and was really friendly. As he was fumbling with a lock, he noticed his own fingernails and said, “Oh, I don’t usually paint my nails. Someone did it for me during the party last night.”
“I thought you painted it to match your walls…” I replied, pointing the matching wall & floors. Seriously, did someone paint his nails with wall paint?
But he’s too cute for words, really adorable. This place was such a lovely introduction to backpacker-style hostels. Then again, I had it really good since I actually got the ENTIRE DORM TO MYSELF! Of course, I didn’t scatter my things around the whole room, I still kept quietly to my bunk, but I could do things like walk in and out indiscriminately and switch on the lights to read at night. Everything was spanking clean and well-decorated. It’s very welcoming! See for yourself:

This is the pantry + place you brush your teeth + place you do your laundry. The main kitchen where you get your breakfast is in the floor above ours.

Free Internet connection! Although for the first two nights, there were people using it endlessly…

My room — I’ve already marked my bunk with my towel, hehe.

My lack of flash doesn’t show how fresh the colors of the walls are, but they be poppin’.

Guiding you to where Stan lives…

For the first night there, we went to Vivocity, because by the time I had settled into my cosy nest, it was practically time for dinner. Vivocity is really nice! My favorite place to be in Singapore, hehe. Nicer than all the shopping malls nearer to Orchard, although the new mall  – Ion – really is pretty. Within 10 minutes of being in Vivocity, I was already grabbing stuff to try on in MNG. Got a few office basics, cheap cheap! Like, SGD9 for one turtleneck sweater. And I’m wearing a very cute mutton-chop sleeves knitted top now. Love!! Maybe the stuff are too plain for the SG girls, but I loveeee it.

Sitting, waiting, wishing for the MRT to arrive.

Random marching band walking through Vivocity…

My gym… but not really.

When darkness falls.

In case you really believed me, I have to clarify that the last 3 pictures were taken inside the National Geographic store, which was unexpectedly uber cool. And overpriced.

Then, Ben treated me to Sushi Tei for dinner and there was sooo much food. Seriously ate til stomach distended and all that. Food pics to make all you people jealous :

For starters – some salmon sashimi with yam… actually, it tastes kinda slimy… I have no idea that YAM is supposed to taste like that. But it tastes a lottttt better with copious amounts of soy sauce.

Ben’s must have — okonomiyaki…

The Dai Dai Roll

Dragon roll…

The entire spread…

Walked around Vivocity after that… although I think we were both ruining the “mood” for couples who were being all romantic outside. We would camwhore with each other while bitching and talking bad about others. Hehehe! And talking bad about each other too…  T__T For example, Ben told me that I already gained weight since I last saw him, but I think I became more muscular leh! And I think my face / chin is still very sharp. I have a jawline that, if I move my face too quickly, will slice atoms around my chin into particles. *denial*

Not much for the first day in SG. Ooh, I bought a copy of Singapore FHM, so that I could show Mr AIP and Raymond the hot chicks of Singapore, but they were featuring two Malaysian models! Singapore fail!

We were debating over whether the thing surrounding that golden disc is water or not. Thank goodness I didn’t try to step in. *paiseh*

I said I was being all artsy and shit in this photo and Ben said, “more shit than artsy.” T__T Such cruelty, such scorn!

Actually, FHM Singapore is not a bad read…

This place was introduced by an instructor who apparently loveeeess the pancakes here. Can’t disagree with him! My favorite is the blueberry one, though the cheese is not bad either. It tastes like Laughing Cow brand cheese melted inside… a bit too sinful though. Out of 4 days in Sg, I ate this 3 times.

Too Busy To Be Nice + Resolves December 26, 2009

About one week more before the end of the year, and I sit here, with a pile of work and problems stacked around me, wondering where I’m going in life. These past few weeks have been hectic – major projects aimed to launch at year end, countless production issues cropping up, new change management system that does more to deter than to aid, the fact that Sifoo is not around to be the main filter against all these things… Tiring.

The fact that 2009 is coming to an end, and all that has happened this year, all the abuse my body and mind and soul have taken this year overwhelms me. Fine fine, most of the abuse it has undergone is of my own undertaking, no complaints there. It has been a great ride, 2009. I wanna do more in 2010, can I take it?

The main reason I’m afraid to take more is not because I can’t handle it. As in, I’m not afraid that I’m not CAPABLE enough. I’m afraid because I know that when I’m busy, and I’m stressed, I’m not a nice person. I am very cutting if I think you’re irritating me, and I am very sarcastic if I think that you’re wasting my time, be it whether you are trying to ask me for help or if you’re dilly-dallying when I am rushing.

One of the things that my boss mentioned during my appraisal is that I tend to be unable to hide my emotions, so that when I’m angry, people know that I’m angry. Actually, I think that is not necessarily a bad thing. Hey, at least I’m being upfront and honest with you. Also, I think it’s not wholly true, because if I’m angry and upset with you, it’s really at a saturated point, whereby I feel that I have been withstanding your nonsense for so long, and finally I can’t take it anymore and I explode.

I call this me being “too busy to be nice”, but I know it’s a poor excuse. I think it’s easy for people to be nice and easy-going when they have nothing to do. They have no stress, no pressure, so when other people waste their time, well, the time is there to be wasted anyway. So they just smile and say, “No problems!” and everyone loves them because they are so NICE. Sorry, I can’t be that kinda girl for you. I also think that it’s easy for people to be nice if they are beautiful because people usually are nice to beautiful people to begin with. Don’t say, “Oh, that’s not true, people have judgment against beautiful people too.” You know that’s like only 1% of the case. Most of the time, people tend to treat you nicer. Worse come to worse, you won’t ever get mistreated by people like Mr AIP who would say things to you like :
a. “I can’t look at your face for more than 2 seconds, else I will puke.”
b. “Don’t come and talk to me. Just leave the documents on my desk and go!”
(Note : not from personal experience)

Anyway, my point is that if people tend to be nice to you, its easier to be nice to them in return. I don’t know why people like to bully me to test my patience. Sometimes I can take it, but I’m human too… sooner or later, one item is going to become the straw that breaks the camel’s back. And then people will say, “Oh what a short fuse. All I did was _____ and she already scolded me like mad. So bad tempered, etc etc.” I really don’t wanna bother with all that shit anymore.

Looking back on the year passed by… although I felt that it was a blink of an eye, I think I got a lot accomplished. *somewhat* Although not as busy as I was last year (travelling up to nearly 4 months worth for the bank), I had a few major projects which I am proud of finishing. I managed to pass my certification for Body Attack, and although I’m far far farrrrr away from being an instructor, it was a good experience and most of all, teaches me to be THICK FACE. Hahaha! Not just saying because I trained in Body Attack, but seriously, this is one of the most effective Group Exercise classes. Since more and more of my friends are asking me “What is Body Attack? Attack people ar?” let me just write a bit about it.

Body Attack is a group exercise class introduced by Les Mills, under the same umbrella as Body Combat, Body Jam, Body Pump, etc. It is also a cardio based workout like BC and BJ, with the core essence of the program being “STRENGTH” and “STAMINA”. Average amount of calories lost per class is about 650 calories in one hour, but of course, if you drive yourself harder, there are those who say they can lose up to 1000 calories (mainly, the instructors on the stage, hahaha!). Body Attack mainly works with your own body weight for floor exercises, doing non-stop repetitions of upper body and lower body workouts such as lunges, shuffles, running and jump jacks. Aside from that, Body Attack also places great emphasis on having upper body and lower body conditioning. This is where your “STRENGTH” comes in. Think : push ups, sit ups, more lunges, planks and such. Unlike BC where it’s usually half track upper body and the remaining track for lower, Body Attack dedicates one full 5 minute (on average) song for your upper body and another full 5 minute (on average) song for the lower body.

Undoubtedly intense, there are people who walk out of the class halfway because they can’t take it anymore. I would liken Body Attack most to Tabata workouts, where they USUALLY do 25-30 minutes of hardcore, non-stop cardio based movements. Imagine, a hardcore Tabata workout is 25-30 minutes. Body Attack is 60 minutes!

Everyone in the office claims that I have lost a lot of weight, but that’s not true. I weigh the same as I did on January 2009. Which is not my target goal of below 50kg. T___T However, I kinda stopped caring and instead concentrated on becoming STRONGER. Purely for Body Attack. I wanted to be able to do push-ups on my toes with ease, and now my new goal is not just that, but to do proper triceps push-ups and one day, triceps push-ups on the toes! Anyway, the point is that I did more strength training to build muscles, and now slowly easing off machines and want to do more free weights / body weight training. This is possibly the best thing you can do for yourself if you want to lose weight because YOU HAVE TO BUILD MUSCLE! YOU HAVE TO BUILD STRENGTH! No point just doing cardio all the way, anyway strong people are more useful. ;p Just a saying that I nicked off someone else. ;p

I have gotten ahead of myself here, just can’t help gushing when I’m talking about Body Attack. Although it’s not my favoriteeeeest group exercise program (scandalous, I know), but I think it is the most useful one. It has really changed me as a person. I used to avoid Body Attack, maybe doing it just once a month. However, I challenged myself to do it more often (mainly by finding more handsome instructors wtf), and it was really a physical and mental effort to get further. Basically, it not only taught / inspire me to get fitter and stronger, it also taught me how to overcome mental hurdles that we set for ourselves.

So my goals for 2010…

Work related
Continue to work hard at all projects coming my way, continue to offer help to my fellow seniors who are also inundated with work. Not be so emotional, or at least, QUIETLY emotional, haha. Must be friendlier and more “open” so that the juniors will not feel shy to ask me for help. Do not let stress overcome me… I must overcome stress. *zen*

Aside from that, I have other goals that I will not write out here in the open. Basically, I want to try different life experiences.

Fitness related
Hopefully I can get my clearance done by the end of 2010! Hahaha! And whatever advise that is given by me from my “senior instructors”, I must take to heart and incorporate it into the way I teach so that I can ensure that the students get a good workout! Some key points I hope to improve on ASAP : pre-cueing, technique (sharper movement, larger Range of Motion), scripting and STRENGTH. Stamina is there, although sometimes it fails on me without prior notice, shy!

To increase strength – hope to train more on free weights & body weights. TRY CROSSFIT IN THE YEAR 2010! Hahaha. I have been too hesitant about it.. it’s been nearly 6 months of hesitating! Anyway, I hope to be able to do all the upper body conditioning at a much higher level than what I am able to do currently.

I wanna be able to do one pull up with no assist by the end of the year! Lofty ambition? Tell me what you think!

I don’t wanna care about weight anymore, since as I told you, people say I have lost weight, but there’s like MILIGRAMS difference between Jan 09 and Dec 09. FYI, I also dropped one pant size this year. Used to wear UK size 10, now I wear a UK size 8. =p It also made me very happy when this personal trainer I got to know at TF said  “You used to look… a bit chubby, but now you look strong!” ^____^

Material / Wealth related
I wanna buy a house next year, end of story. I must!!!!
I also want to buy a car lah, but that’s secondary to the house. *determined face*

Personal related
Like what I wrote above… I must be less impatient, must be kinder and friendlier to people.
I must try to remain close to my brother & sister even though she’s already married and living away from home.
I must maintain my current friendships and don’t take people for granted.
If anything goes wrong, I must see INTERNALLY if there’s anything that I could’ve done to change things before blaming others.

Dear 2010, what do you have in store for me? I know I won’t be travelling as much next year, probably because I’ve done so much travelling the past few years. Maybe just to local beaches and travel around SEA only, huh? I foresee travelling more often to Singapore because Ben is there! In fact, the first 4 days of 2010 will be spent in Singapore, muwahaha.

These were my resolutions last year. Think I didn’t manage to keep most of them, except for the one about taking gym seriously. Ya, I think I should add “sleeping earlier” as my resolution this year too, but it’s like an ongoing fight between my body’s needs to rest and my requirement to play Mafia Wars. Which means that my resolution last year to give up online gaming has not ended, although I have stopped playing Neopets.

Now for some random random photos!

(A) This was taken some time back, met up with a friend that I apparently know for 4-5 years already, but I don’t remember it being that far back! Anyway, he’s a funny guy who makes a lot of weird statements. When I share aforementioned weird statements with my friends, they all agree that people who hail from that country are a bit sot, muwahahhaa. We had dinner at Brussels in Jaya One. Not a bad place, although they have a weird policy of asking you to sign the receipt once you get the food. The waiter couldn’t really explain the reasoning behind it but sign only la, I don’t like making people’s life difficult.

My seafood pasta… something like that. It was pretty good, lots of prawns & stuff…

Side of fries, side of mussels in beer or something like that. Love the mussels! Felt so shy, ate so much already but Alvin kept saying “Eat some more!” Oy, I don’t want to be fattened up. T___T

His food…some kinda salmon strips thing that I *thought* of ordering, but pasta sounded yummier. I was hungry!

(B) What is this?

It’s my hairband from Bangkok, hahaha! Ok, I think it’s a little bit too cutesy to wear to the office, but it was Xmas eve and I had a cute outfit that day so anything goes. ^_^ Not like I have to meet clients and what not. The thing is, a lot of people apparently thought I was wearing a bandage on my head because it’s white and fluffy and the details of the flower can’t be seen from afar. *sigh*

Whatever, I still like it. And if you don’t, there’s a ‘subtle’ message in this picture here for you. Nyehehehe.

Work In Laos : Give Up January 2, 2009

I sure hope that you had a great past two days, celebrating the turn of the year and then having a good sleep to recover from partying hard. As for me, as alluded to in my previous entry, I had to work late on the 31st. Til about 2am. Then I came back on the 1st of January to work til about 9pm. Sigh…

We stopped work for about 20 minutes because we heard fireworks outside, so we ran out to see :

I watched the fireworks til I felt dizzy. Til my depth of perception went crazy. And the falling sparks felt like a billion bullets aimed at me and I would pretend to cower from fright. Or run away. Who was I pretending for? Myself… which just about proves that I was driven to the loony bin after working here.

I… I don’t know how to put into words how I feel about this project right now. I feel like the more I know, the deeper the shit I feel this whole thing is in. The more I know, the more I feel like I don’t want to know. The longer I stay here, the more random bad luck shit I find out which makes me feel as if I’m some sort of bad luck charm. I feel disappointed that there are people in this world that doesn’t care about what other people have to go through, who only care about themselves. Sometimes it just doesn’t pay to be someone who cares for others. Just look out for yourself, that’s my advice to you…

I’ll update more with pictures next time, because I need some much needed beauty sleep after the last few days.

Here’s some pictures of us being -____- on the 31st and the 1st :

Phong (pronounced as “feng”), Dung and Khamphai… nuts I tell ya.

TayTay (Khamphai’s nickname for him). Incidentally, today WongKok said that Tay = 30 and guessed that I am 26 which is TECHNICALLY correct. WTF, how can there only be 4 yrs different between the two of us!!!

Aftermath of not going out to eat dinner or lunch. Long story.

Some pictures of stuff I took while I was in at my cubicle back in Bangi :

Chu gave this to the team in celebration of his son’s “full moon” celebration.

Cleaned up my cubicle real nice before I leave. Such a good employee.

Random cute 3d stickers on my computer monitor. >=)

Napolean Dynamite mints from a store in Gilroy. Bought it just for the tin, as you can guess.

Can’t believe that it’s just 4 more days before I’ll be going back. I feel like I’ve been here for years. Heh. I’m going to post more tourist-y stuff next time… I know I’ve been talking a bit too much of work recently! Happy new year again to all! Still feeling very upbeat about the new year, as you can tell.

More BCEL girls for you… hahaha.