Cleaning Out My Cube July 9, 2011

Funny stuff I found when cleaning out my cubicle from XYZ Bank… hehehe.

You know you’ve started treating your office like your own personal store room when you have to cart back 3 boxes of stuff after you’ve resigned!

This was some exercise that we had to do for a corporate black belt training. Basically, we were all given pieces of wood, where we had to write down all the excuses that we give for not doing / achieving what we aim to do. After that we have to “breakthrough” the excuses… LITERALLY… by chopping the board into half. With our hands. Quite cool…. 

((but I threw this away after I took this photo))

Close up of a random box. Some stuff here are diskettes, part of a Dilbert calendar that Jayne gave me. My trophy for running in the IT Sports Day… a Carrefour ring binder that I bought but never used… 

About 60% of all the pay slips I ever got?

We were all so close once upon a time. (And that time was 8 years ago!)

Random picture that I saw in the newspaper and I cut out for LOLZ on a boring day at work. Gosh, I’m so juvenile.

My postcard collection is GINORMOUS. Do not doubt me.

We were all so close once upon a time pt 2!

My stationery cup! (Free from Oracle back when I was in college!)… filled with a lot of random stuff, but mostly souvenirs from friends. Like that funny car pencil thingy is from Pauline… and the Marie cat clips were from Mr See!

The first present that Tron ever gave me was this… hahahaha! *love youuuu*

My animal collection.. hahaha! Most of them are the “Bali cats” because I was mad about them at one point (about 7 years ago, actually). Whenever my friends said they were going to Bali, I would ask them to get me the wooden cats! When Mr AIP bought me that large purple cat, I was actually quite peeved because it ruined my trend of the “standard” wooden cat style…

 I wanted an entire army of wooden cats! Now I don’t know what to do with em.

You can’t see what’s written (thank God!) but this was me strategising for my Travian village game last time. I was writing down what villages I had built, and what each village was for and what I could do to further improve each village. -____-

Er…. drawings related to the online games that I played last time. The ones done in black ink were for an online football managing team called hattrick. My top players (virtual ones… lol) were Gino Scanu (who was a goalkeeper) and Ibrahim *dunno what* who was a top scorer. Hence I had to immortalise them in some manner. -___-

The drawings in blue pen were the football team’s coat of arms and mascot. My footie team was called Cummingbirds and I thought I was so darn witty. -____-

Yeah, this is how Raymond plays the piano… with his legs in the air. =p I actually pinned this on my cubicle wall, and a few bosses actually asked, “HAH?? Raymond plays the piano with his feet?!!?”

(I also find it funny that I had to ‘autograph’ this picture…)

I think I never cracked this open…. and I think they stopped giving this to new joiners after a few years…

Halfway through sorting out the mess… 

I had so many keychain souvenirs that I needed a tub to keep them all in!!

Found one that I liked (in fact this is one that I bought for myself from London!) and decided that my car keys could use some color. ;P

Some more random memorabilla the bank had given me over the years… *heart* Sad they don’t really work anymore though (must replace battery for the clocks)

We were all so close once upon a time part 3!! I still remember, this was for celebrating Edy’s birthday, and Kim made this photoframe for us using shells that we picked up in Redang… my friend’s so creative, right?

In the end, I kinda took what I needed from the 3 boxes and then crammed it all into one box. Which sits right outside my bedroom. -___-

Anyone going for the Bersih rally tomorrow? I’m not, but I have an event that I need to attend in PJ tomorrow morning. Gosh darn it!! I’m really hoping that it won’t be a grid lock on the Federal Highway…

Letters Home Part 4 January 9, 2010

Entry #13
I just finished watching “Maid in Manhattan” (seriously no chemistry between Jennifer Lopez and Ralph Fiennes — I’m also distracted by his strangely creepy smile which shows off his weird pebble teeth), and am distracted by a live performance of Take That singing “It Only Takes A Minute” in concert. Gosh! Take That!! That was sooooooo Standard 6 ok. I still remember how happy I was when my sis and I were saving up for the cassette tape and then strangely my dad suddenly bought it for us. I still have that cassette. It was so strange… how did he know that we liked Take That? We rarely share such information with our parents. Maybe my dad likes their songs too, hehehe. Anyway, that live performance was so provocative ok… one of the members suddenly started pole dancing (yes, a GUY pole dancing) and then I felt like, wtf, I want to learn pole dancing too.

Today was a milestone in our work here, we patched a great freaking lot of errors in the system to production, I pushed in my new reporting program, etc. Tomorrow, Mr Tuan will be leaving to go back to Vietnam, I’ll be left with my new roomie who I am suddenly fond of. Tell you something weird she told me today. She said that last time she worked for a software house that didn’t have enough laptops for all the staff. When not enough laptop and another staff have to go overseas for work, they packed their PC to go wtf. HAHAHAHA. And yes, they were always over the weight limit. WTF. HAHAHAHA. And that time the monitors (which they also packed) was not flat screen but the old school CRT type. You know last time I bought my new flat screen monitor, I traded in my old school CRT one? When I told that to my colleagues, they said 50 sen also the computer shop don’t want. I said I got RM10 for it, and the computer shop owner said, “Why are you treating my shop like a rubbish dump.” And then he said he will turn the CRT monitor into an aquarium.

I am dying to buy more souvenirs to bring back home, but no time and no money. The crazy staff here (Mr Sia and AhSiang) really go and calculate the exchange rates like madfcuks. They will even exchange very exact USD in order to make sure when they round up / down the Lao kip, they suffer the lowest of lows of losses or no losses at all. Anyway, we get slightly better staff rates when exchanging USD for kip. I hope US market doesn’t fall any lower… wtf… at least while I’m here. If it falls lower, at least do it when I’m back in Malaysia. If it reaches 3.0, I will open a foreign currency account. Cos I’m sure as hell it will climb back up again. I’m that sure. Hahaha.

After work, I managed to convince them to go to the Joma Bakery which my sister’s friend’s Laotian gf recommended. Said the coffee is good, but I think the pizza even better. This freaking huge slice for about RM8… it was soft and so filling. And then washed it down with a cappucino freeze that was quite bad, but not as bad as the coffee I had in Cambodia. It’s about RM6, so definitely cannot compare with Starbucks lar. We had our usual soyabean with cincau after that. Crap… I’m turning quite cina hanging out with these 3 old people… they are like talking cantonese all the time, so I will follow as well. That’s a good thing though… I don’t really mind. But the better my chinese, the worse my english. A good telling point is when those people say that my english is good. Don’t laugh your arse off, I got an A1 in my triple-one-nine after all. Hahaha.

Store from the outside

Interior inside… quite a comfy little coffee house. Very popular with all the gwai loh backpackers!

You can get yourself a souvenir if you love the bakery / cafe THAT much.

AhSiang placing his order…

Some yummy looking sandwich..

Meat pizza! Really really good. The coffee is meh, but the pizzas are yummmmmm!

Oh yeah, this Tuan and Wong rented bicycles for the past two days. The people here are soooooo weird. They rented the bikes for 10,000 kip a day. NO NEED PAY IN ADVANCE. And then NO COLLATEROL. And then.. they told the lady, it was for one day, but ended up due to working late and karaoke sessions, they kept the bike for 2 days. Today they returned it and the lady didn’t scold or complain or anything. GOSH. These people are soooooooo trusting la. If they joined the bank as loan officers, sure we end up with lots of bad debt. KAKAKA. Anyway, since Tuan and Nguyen left earlier to go with their friends to … I donno what… Tuan asked me to cycle his bike back. This AhSiang smartly said he would ride pillion on Wong’s bike, which left Mr Sia to either be pillion on my bike, or I be pillion. I wanted to cycle, so I said I would ride. But once I got on that stupid bike, it was soooo wobbly. Plus I had to sling the laptop around my bike. I remember being a pretty good cyclist when I was younger, but the stupid thing kept swaying towards the right, and the seat was high so I frequently had to use my legs as brakes (tip toe). THen I also felt bad that if I was to ride properly, Mr Sia had to walk and carry my laptop bag for me. WTF. OF course he didn’t dare to ride pillion while I cycled because I was sooooooo unstable. So then I let him cycle and I walk, cos I didn’t trust HIM cycling either. He wasn’t having such a good time of it, and most of the time he used his legs as brakes as well, besides, he is damn tall, so him using his legs as brakes is much easier than me.

Conclusion : I ran home and Mr Sia cycled. Of course, when we got back, Wong and AhSiang who had no problems laughed like hell at me. Donno what la.. they said Mr Sia looked like the boss cycling to work and I look like the maid running after him saying “Sir, sir.. you forgot your laptop”. WTF… hahaha.

Anyway, it was another fun day here… and since there was a lot of work completed, it was also satisfying in a way. Very rewarding. :3

More stories after the cut:

Appraise You Like I Should + London Ending December 23, 2009

Wah, today was damnnnnnn tiring. I’m soooo tired right now! Started with having our annual appraisal. Kinda P&C to disclose everything that went down, but just to say that I’m quite jaded with appraisals ever since last year. Last year was like my most outstanding work year ok. Lots of huge projects, and I was like a star employee ok. But due to such “good” luck, the economy was not good, so not only did I not get a hugeeee bonus as anticipated, like everyone else, I actually got a cut in bonuses. Compared to other people, with my “outstanding” work, I only got extra 0.25 months bonus compared to the average employee. Imagine working your butt off, and all you get is 0.25 months more. Why not just do average and get by, have more peace of mind, and just forget about the 0.25. In the whole scheme of things, 0.25 is not a lot … at all.

Anyway, then I have like ETTS to complete (enterprise trouble ticketing shits), 2 national bank related requirements to do, 1 automailing / ebanking thing to complete BY TOMORROW, clearing up large month-end runs and backups, helping the business processing & procedures side document stuff and troubleshoot. On top of that, helping my little team mates with their problems. And now the management have “helped” us by insisting we use this software for change management control that actually helps us to do things SLOWER. Heck, to set up my PC with this software, it took a few days. OMG OMG. I hate year end. Other people dream about Christmas presents and new year drunken debauchery… I have nightmares about year end processing hanging and wrong reports being sent over to head office.

But we got our 2 months bonuses and our pay already got banked in on the 22nd (usually on the 25th), so now I have $$ and I wanna buy stuff! Top on my list : Gap jeans, tops for Chinese New Year, new Guess bag, heels, moar gym clothes, the Nike Heritage sling bag, etc etc. Oh yeah, I wanna blog about my new year resolutions, but kinda busy, so let me just cut and paste another pre-written entry for you. Gosh, got so much things to complete tomorrow that I told the gang at the office that they’ll see me in by 7am! They laughed! Well, that just feeds my need to prove them wrong.

Oh, also sat down with a friend from gym to talk about insurance stuff. I understand this endowment payment thing more, and maybe I’ll blog about it to educate my friends about insurance endowment plans. Don’t rush into it, I will explain fully so that you know the full financial impact to your lifestyle. It’s not to say a good thing or bad thing… it’s like buying shares… it’s a risk that you have to take. Don’t believe it when insurance agents tell you endowment plans are guaranteed returns of twice the amount invested or whatsoever. Luckily my friend is an honest lady and really spent time to explain fully to me, which I will try to share the knowledge here for whoever cares to learn.

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Last part about my trip to the UK :
The last few days in London were not superbly eventful for me, but they were fun days nonetheless. On Thursday, I had the last work on my list – the Kensington Walk, with a little bit of the Shopping Walk thrown in, not that I did much shopping. More or less enjoyed myself at the Kensington Gardens. Although not as beautiful and sprawling as St Jame’s Park, it is still a lovely place, and the sunken garden is breathtakingly beautiful. I took so many pictures of it, but it just doesn’t translate onto my camera.

Near Kensington Palace… actually, I had no idea where I was going! Was just enjoying the park sights. ;p *excuses*

Orangery is actually a place for you to eat. Thought what!

Sunken garden. Absolutely x100 beautiful!!!

Around Round Pond

I also tried to go into the V&A (Victoria & Albert) museum because there was supposed to be an exhibition of Roald Dahl-related stuff there, but apparently I went to the wrong one! There’s a V&A near Kensington, and there’s another V&A children’s museum somewhere else. Ho hum. It was free entry anyway, so no harm. It’s a bit of a modern art museum, and when I was there, there was this perfectly lovely exhibit of furniture inspired from fairy tales! The pieces are absolutely magical, like the wicked witch chair, or the princess chair which would look absolutely majestic in a little girl’s room. Didn’t take any photos though because er… I was quite sick of being the typical Asian tourist by this point.

Albert Memorial

Royal Albert Hall. I think they Diana Krall was having a performance here when I was there.

Harrods.

This may sound totally blasphemous, but I didn’t even step into Harrods. Maybe I should’ve because, like, it’s the thing to do? But I knew that I wouldn’t be able to afford anything, and I didn’t want to buy something just for the sake of saying that I got it from Harrods, so I decided to spend my time comfortably curled up at the Hummingbird Bakery in Kensington instead. I had the oh-so-famous red velvet cupcake which is soooooooo sweet that it ought to be a yearly indulgence or something.

Inside Hummingbird Bakery.

Fashionable people lining up. Actually, I saw that dress in H&M, hehe.

Damn sweet, yo. Ok lah, once-in-a-while indulgence.

After that, I took the train to Tottenham Court Road for more shopping! This was where I got a wee bit into Uniqlo, H&M, Topshop and the ilk. Oh guess what? I’m wearing my Uniqlo merino wool cardigan as I’m typing this. *random* Anyway, I was enjoying myself a bit too much at Uniqlo that I ended up being a little too late in meeting Ben & Rashid up for The Birdcage. There was a fair bit of running around and sms-ing (no credit!) before we converged at Trafalgar Square and ran to the theater. I think we got there in the nick of time!

La Cage Aux Folles

This was the last musical that I watched in London, and probably the least “musical” in the terms of all the actors breaking out in song and dance. There was more acting and story-telling, which is good. I enjoyed the show, although there were a few bits that really irked me. Like, how the son is such a shit anyway and doesn’t appreciate the trouble his fathers go through for him. And how the “disguise” was found out was so campy and unbelievable (the movie version makes more sense… then again this is just a musical, so maybe they thought this version was more lulzy for everyone). Lastly, I don’t like how they practically blackmailed the girl’s father into behaving… seems quite cheap and doesn’t really resolve anything.

One song that I totally LOVE and find inspiring — I Am What I Am.

The next day, we were free to do whatever we wanted, but we had to go back early for a barbeque dinner with Ben’s uncle’s family. Uncle Richard, wife and kids are reallllly nice and friendly. In fact, the night before, aunty saw me sneaking around the kitchen for a glass of water and said, “Come, let’s have some jaffa cakes and chat”. At first, my reaction was to turn tail and RUN because I was so shy, but of course I stayed and talked… and halfway through it was so much fun! So gossipy, and found out some interesting things, like how Aunty is working for Sacha Cohen Baron’s father. And she has met the whole family, even Olivia, their new born daughter. Isn’t that so cool? She even knows where they live, and has seen paps chasing him to the front door of the office.

Erm… she also thinks that Ben and I are dating. Ben, you gotta explain k. My love life constantly suffers because of this.

Despite suggestions from my Twitter, I didn’t take the advice given and spent my last day shopping instead. Hehehe! Went to the old shopping spots… like Primark, which I LOVE. I think I spent 2+ hours there! There’s just so much to see and so much to try. And I suppose a bulk of the time there was waiting to try the clothes. I LOVE PRIMARK! Even if Ben scoffs at me and says that only poor people go there… hmm…

Then there’s those mad sales going on at Topshop / Miss Selfridge / Dorothy Perkins… they have buy 1 free 1 tops, so I went a bit mad there. Came back to Malaysia and saw the stuff that I bought were “new arrivals” some more. Heee heeee this brings me gleeeeee. Again, bought lots of warm clothing from Uniqlo… I think that’s about it. Aside from my bridesmaid dress from Coach, I didn’t really buy anything pricey.

The next few days were mainly spent with Ben’s uncle’s family, and packing bags, and then going over to ASDA and other “wholesale” kinda places to buy souvenirs back. I would recommend getting Cadbury Jaffa cakes as souvenirs! Yummy, light and cheap. Hahahaha! Other than that, I bought back Whittard tea, whole seed mustard and Ben’s cookies! I am great, huh.

I don’t know whether I blogged about it before, but no harm mentioning again. I think that Ben’s uncle’s family is so close-knit and … I dunno, just the perfect little family. They always sit down and have meals together. They love having barbecues outside, where dad grills, mom plucks the salad leaves fresh from the garden (and it’s delicious & crunchy & yummy) while the two kids play badminton in the cold air. It’s all sooooo picture perfect, seriously. I wish I could have a family like that one day. Perhaps it’s the biological clock ticking… but who needs a huge house and a dozen maids. Perhaps there is greater joy in tending to your rocket leaves in the backyard.

Click on the link below to see more pictures from London! + 28 more pictures!

Travel : Back In Bangkok, Back From Bangkok November 10, 2009

It’s official — Bangkok is going to be THE city that I’ll be visiting the most in my lifetime (aside from KL, but I didn’t have to mention that right?)!! And I’m soooo happy that we managed to convert Alice and Raymond into Bangkok shopping lovers too! (We meaning Pauline, Tay and I). Somehow, us girls prefer roaming around Chatuchak, while the men prefer the convenience (and air-conditioning) of Platinum Mall. Either way, there’s fun for everyone.

The trip was already off to a good start, with us getting our rooms upgraded for no reason other than us being lucky. Had this most awesome room for only RM120 altogether (shared with colleagues mah… it’s actually RM120 per night). Shopping was good too, although I felt that I spent more this round, I found more “wearable” stuff than I did when I went in May. Kinda made a lot of mistakes shopping then — too many dresses that wound up being too short, and a few ill-fitting button-down shirts. So this round, I made sure that the dresses I bought were longer than usual, no strange pieces, mostly basic staple type of tops. I like my haul this time around! And so many cheap accessories! If you see me more be-feathered, be-jewelled or be-anythinged more than usual, well, what to do. Only RM2 for each accessory, who wouldn’t buy more.

Nothing much differed for my trip this round, except that we had less time because our plane landed in Bangkok later than before, and we had an earlier trip back to Malaysia. Oh well, no biggie because coming back early means that I could still make it for my gym night classes on Monday. And seriously, I had SOOOOOO much fun this trip. Thanks to Pauline for organising everything, Raymond who was our resident “terminator” and had to walk in front to clear the path for us WTF, Alice who is sooooo sweet and nice but can come up with random wtf statements that make us laugh (especially when the statements have to do with hentam-ing Raymond!) and Tay who came up with the worse joke of my life, something that the 5 of us just know as the “Squidman” saga. I might tell it here later, but no point because you just had to be there to fully enjoy the lulz.

Short entry cos I’m gonna be turning in soon :