2010 Holiday Mood: ON

December has such a magic spell. Doesn’t matter if I don’t celebrate Christmas, but this month gives me the weekend feeling everyday. Amazing isn’t it. Topped up with the dazzling decorations, mind blowing sales, and code-freeze period in office, I don’t see any reason not to celebrate :)

This week comes and goes in god speed. Now is already 6 pm of this sunny Sunday when I noticed that I haven't written anything for the week. Well, my week in office is normal. I just remember a lot of numbers and horrible reconciliations. All thanks to year end T_T Amidst all these fuss and mess around financial, my boss suddenly decided to cancel his trip to Abu Dhabi. I was wondering if it’s because of me (e.g. being too dependent on him and can’t do anything without his guidance), and was really thankful that it wasn’t the case. He needs to take care of his kids as his wife won’t be around. Family is his highest priority after all. I wish I can be someone like that one day :) To forgo 2 weeks of company-covered trip to an exotic place like that… I think I will be in bad mood for at least 2 days. But he just took it like nothing happened.

On Friday, I bought something that I have been longing for years. Macbook Pro! And oh the process was so not cool :( I filled in my particular and clicked “Buy”… then it went to processing screen for one second… and then the browser went off!!! I didn’t even have a chance to see the word ‘successful’ or ‘thank you’. Just when I was about to give another try, I received an email saying that I have purchased the laptop. Huh. The perfectionism in me was screaming for a repeat. But it was 2am in the morning on the black Friday day… I decided to conclude and go to dreamland.

On Saturday, I slept until.. 11 am. Then did my monthly house chores, had a quick lunch, and went for badminton session at Jurong West at 3pm. After the badminton, I came back, showered, and went for a date at Bugis. I had my sinful KFC for dinner T_T now feel guilty about it… but no regret! Haha… We watched Social Network before going to sleep… The movie was all words, but surprisingly good enough to keep me engaged at 1am in the morning.

On Sunday, I did my part time job as mover at Bukit Gombak :p Inche and the gank are moving… one to Boon Lay, another one to Bishan. They did a good job in finding rooms. Th new place looks great. I had fun doing the move… and decided to take some pictures for memory. The guys were screaming like mad when I took their picture in the back of the lorry. Hahaha!


Bunch of NTU grads doing their part time job :p (Now I will get killed)

After the move, we had lunch at the food court nearby, then come back home. It was a long journey from Bishan to Queenstown :( I hope we can still meet up frequently despite the distance…

Once home, the sleepiness wave hit me quite bad. I decided to take a shower and phoned home. Guess what, I got my spirit back! :D I then continue playing some games, browse some websites, send some mail… and get ready for some dinner :p

3 more days to Medan! :)
ED

Day by Day

The remaining days of work last week were quite painful. Thursday is the official stay-late day, and Friday…. All thanks to the reporting deadline, I was stuck in the office until 12am. The best thing? My boss called me on Saturday morning complaining the way I did the report. I felt sorry and puzzled at the same time. I had done it like that for the past 3 months… and he just asked me about it now? ~.~ Anyway, I’m expecting him to give me a big blast tomorrow… so let see.

The call bothered me for one hour. And that’s it. I managed to get the work out from my mind, went out to MidPoint for dinner @ Jtown cafe & have a walk around orchard. The Christmas decoration is up and I forgot to bring my camera T_T I definitely need to go there once more time for the Christmas tree hunting!

On Sunday morning, I went swimming with roomie. We reached there at 8.30 and the sun was bright as 12pm’s sun. There was no one around until around 9.30 and I broke my own record today! It’s 20 laps!! The max I did last time was 15… I have my roomie to thanks for her patience and support :) hehe..

After the exercise, we went for lunch, then came back home. I was pretty idled for an hour… then I decided to go to Suntec for some gift shopping :) Managed to get a shirt for my dad, a toy for my niece, choc, accessories, thumbdrive, etc for myself :p Mission accomplished!

In the evening, I went to313 Somerset and had dinner at Handburger. It was quite a nice place, and the burger is good too. The waiters served non-stop plain water, so you don’t have to bother about ordering some drinks (cheapskate mode on)


Handburger - Chicken Caesar Burger

Ok, by the count of food pictures I posted every week, I can’t complain why my scale never go down T_T

Time for some movie before sleep! :)
ED

Travel Back in Time

It’s funny how Facebook makes you aware of your age.

Couple of year’s back, all I saw in my friends’ pic is gatherings, school, and fun. Nowadays, all I see is office, holiday, and pre-wed pictures. Couples more years down the road; I will see baby pictures filling my facebook page.

All these make me feel that time travels too fast and I want to stop it! I felt nostalgic all in sudden, and decided to dig out some proves that I was teenager once.

I look at the pictures I took in high school, the website and yearbook I designed…
I look at the millions picture I took during undergrad, the poster, the banner, the screenshot, the for-fun photo editing…


Class website, donkey's years ago


for-fun photo editing... during Death Note Fever


keeping screenshot of everything! This was taken during my 2006 B'day I guess.

And then I realized…

It was a big mistake to look back T_T I’m just confirming that I’m old. I don’t have the energy, passion, and appreciation like what I used to have. I wasn’t as narcissist as what I used to be…

…

And what have I gotten in return? I don’t know… But I know that I would never be able to return to the past anyway… so I’m glad that I digitalized enough stuff to be reminisced once in a while :p

And for those of you who is on your high school / undergrad now, enjoy the best time of your life :) Like what people always said, you will only be 21 once (quote from movie: 21)

Back to present: Yay! It's time for dinner! :D
ED

The Pleasant Mid-Week Break

Yesterday, one of my colleagues just came and burst his frustration to me. “I can’t stand working with him! Yesterday, boss was asking us to do the report today. Then he acted smart doing OT and finished it yesterday. Today the boss is asking questions about the report and I totally have no idea what the hell he has done… such a pain”

Of course, this is just one among hundreds of complain I have ever heard… but this specific one somehow knocked me quite hard. I have been working with 6 teams so far and I guess I have been the same painful person for all of them. I didn’t do it for the credit, I just want to help my team members... as my own way to thank them for their guidance so far. However, it turns out that it I don't really feel appreciated... even by the bosses around... and now I understand why.

Moral of the story? I don’t know... maybe do not scarify your life for something you’re not asked for… People might not appreciate that… or even worse, they might hate you because of that T_T I just realized how lousy I'm in this kind of relationship. Is this what we called office politic?

Ok, reflection aside, I had good time on this Wednesday off. On holiday eve, we celebrated Inche’s birthday at Bali Thai, West Mall. The dinner was at 7.30, but I arrived at 9.30pm... T_T I had a super bad luck with cab at that time. 4 people took over my potential cab. 4 CAB! And then I called 4 cab companies… all of them attended to me, give me 10 mins of music, then cut me off saying there is no cab around the area. !@#$@$. 4 CAB COMPANIES! Why cabs are such rare stuff? Maybe I should try the cab business also. Oh wait, I can’t drive.

Anyway, It was really sweet of them to order some fried rice for me. I was hungry and hence didn’t get a chance to take a pic of it, but it was nice :) After the dinner, we celebrated Inche’s B’day, and then went to McD for dessert and played Bang! Card game. It was a really fun game… It’s kind of similar to the police & thief card game that I knew off, but this has so much variation that you can really make your own sheriff story for each game. Our first and only game went on for 2 hours, and the story ended with Sheriff about to raise white flag, where suddenly the dynamite exploded and killed the Renegade. Good show, Fendi!


Happy Birthday, Che!


My Bang! Player Card

I didn’t manage to catch the last MRT, so Rina and I shared a taxi. Back home, I wasn't sleepy, so I continued watching “Just My Luck” (which was cut in the middle last week due to one and half hour black out). I slept at around 2.30 after the movie. Oh... if only luck can change that easily...

Wednesday, I woke up at 9.30 am, rolled until around 10 am, then got some breakfast before went out for lunch (note: the time difference between the meal was really slim) I met up with Tine, and then we went to Coffee Club for lunch. I never know the place served such a good lunch! I’m definitely coming back next time :) After the lunch, we went to watch Megamind :) Nice movie! And prior to that, there is a trailer to a Thai movie, which is so funny that I think I have to watch it! The movie title is “Hello Stranger”, shot in Korea. For those interested, you can watch the trailer from youtube :) It’s from the same producer as “Bangkok Traffic Love Story”, which trailer was awesome as well. Thai has such a brilliant taste in ads and movies. They played people emotion really well. Thumbs up!


Yongky’s Baby Pork Ribs. Must.Have.It.Next.Time


First Shrek, then Megamind. I wonder why dreamworks animation like to put ugly character as hero :p

We went to Kinokuniya @ Taka after the movie. Initially intended to get some book, but the queue was so long that we decided to come back other day. All because of the 3-days 20% off event. Sigh.

At night, I watched “21”, which is a movie about blackjack. I watched it half, then realized that it’s a 2 hours long movie! Decided to cut in to two part :)

11.30 PM now, time to sleep and embracing my Mon.. wait.. it’s Thursday tmrw!

PS: Penny from Big Bang Theory disappears on two episodes due to horsing incidents! Finally the mystery unveiled.

Happy Hari Raya Haji :)
ED

Shrek the Ogre

I had a weird dream this week.

It was a farewell lunch at vivo. My farewell lunch. My colleagues from past teams and departments were there. We’re talking about the fun and sour we had during the past two years. One of them asked me “So, where are you going next?” I mentioned one of the small IT firm, and they suddenly looked at me in puzzlement. “What make you decided to move there? We hardly heard about it before. Did they pay you better?” My heart throbbed. I can’t remember the reason that I moved there. The only thing I remember is that the new company is 10 mins nearer than my current workplace. My current workplace suddenly seems better in every other aspect. Suddenly I realized that I have made a terrible mistake, but it was already my last day… and I have no chance to turn back time…

Then I wake up. Then I recalled and felt thankful that I hadn’t submitted any resignation letter after all. Haha.. I know I have been complaining quite a lot about my work, but now I know for sure that I don’t have the gut to give up anything yet. Not now :)

On Friday, I had a small BBQ gathering with my previous department. The last meet up was almost a year back… and it took me some time to remember some names (blush). Yet, I feel attached to the department. Everyone is as friendly as before :) Too bad some of my previous managers can’t make it as they were on holiday :( It was the healthiest BBQ I ever had. They barbequed marshmallow, pineapple, paprika, mushroom, asparagus, sweet potatoes, sweet corn. I can’t find any sausage nor crab stick there.. which is like the must have for my typical economical BBQ :p Thankfully they were still considering the carnivore like me, and had some chicken wings & chicken chop. Phew.


AMGTO @ Casuarina Cove

Saturday, Winson went back to Medan, and I suddenly didn't know what to do. Haha.. I slept until 12pm, then did my bi-weekly cleaning, called home, surfed some net, then went for a dinner with Ven, Nata, & Peko. Just Acia is such a wonderful place for gathering & chitchat. Most of the food comes with free flow of drinks & ice cream. You can even order some tofu and sit there for the whole evening (which we did :p) The drinks come in lots of variety from soft drink until hot chocolate and cappuccino. The food is not very special (still edible), but it’s really value for money :D We started at 6.30 pm and went off after being hushed away at around 10pm. It’s nice to hear what everyone is up to. Some is pretty much up to stock & trade, some is on travel, and some is on beauty & cosmetic :p


Just Acia, Marina Square

Sunday, I went for Badminton at Clementi. This is my second time… and my elbow didn’t ache as bad. We played happily until around 12pm… then a heavy rain come all in sudden. Alas, none of us brought umbrella. We waited for half and hour… and since the rain still didn’t stop, we decided to cross the rain. After lunch at the kopitiam, we went to Pioneer to help Handy moving to his new room. His previous owner wants to take back the room, so he searched for another room near by. Well, the new one is really near. It’s 5 minutes walk from the old one, and closer to MRT. All of us have some fun during the moving, and went home after that.

Back home, the weather was still gloomy and really tempting me to sleep. I decided to overcome it by doing some ironing and then watching some movie… which work quite well :D

Sooo! My achievement of this week is… the completion of Shrek’s movies! Yay :D I first knew about Shrek 3 years ago, when I went to the Universal Studio in LA. I didn’t know it that well back then, but it was one of the few characters which I took picture with.


Shrek: 2007 @ Universal Studio, LA, 2009 @ Warner Bros, Gold Coast

I watched the first Shrek movie on my flight to India. After that I started to get addicted, and got the remaining of the movies from my roomie (Thanks roomie!) Now I have completed all of them… I must say that I really like the movie… but I still feel that Orge is ugly ^^; I don’t understand how can people be crazy about them & buy its merchandise. I rather buy mickey mouse or some princess accessories :p hee :p

Ok.. 7.30pm now.. finally, time to eat! Gosh, I was hungry since 5pm.
ED

Food, food, and food!

Noo! Long weekend is coming to an end!!

I have myself to blame T_T I went to office on Saturday, breaking the long-weekend spirit v_v I didn’t regret it though… By a glance on my Monday’s meeting calendar, I know I won’t have time to do anything… Still, mbosses don’t like it if I go to office on Saturday and be so kiasu, so I did my stuff and saved everything as draft rather then sending it out straight away (since when working has become such a taboo stuff?) Everything went fine, until when I finished drafting the last email and hit…. “Send” instead of “Draft”. Oh my!! T_T I’m bad in hiding stuff these days.

I stayed in office for around 5 hours, then went home and got ready for dinner. Saturday’s Agenda is dinner with Rin2 and Ryoma =D It’s funny how we stayed so close but never have dinner together before. We went to Holland Village & picked “Everything with fries” for dinner. Being a sister company, it does have the same ambiance with “Awfully Chocolate”. The food is quite good… but the place was way too noisy! We can hardly talk to each other without screaming. I ate the Chicken Cutlet sandwich, and each of us picked a different type of fries. I love the garlic & curry the best :D


Rin2’s Lamb Chop & Nyummy Curry Fries

After the dinner, we went back to their place and I learnt to play bridge. It was an awesome game! How come I miss it all these years? Helios, being the expert, can’t stop deducting and making plan. On the contrary, I, being the noob, can’t stop wanting to finish my card and move on to the next game… My cards were all bad and I lost 3 out of 3 plays v_v Will try my luck again next time!

Back to home, I received an email from the owner of Strathmore. Well, I sent an email to her earlier to inform about the air-con cleaning, she then replied with a thank you and ask how we are doing. We said we settled down & like the place quite a lot. Winson said I shouldn’t have said that T_T she will now increase the rent. Haha! Let’s see :P But I did enjoy staying in the current place… :D

The next morning, despite my aching arm & leg from previous badminton session, I still went for swimming. It was a nice swim after almost 2 months of pause. After the swim, we went to Tiong Bahru Food Center for lunch. I was astonished by the variety of food there. Another heaven after my 6 years in Singapore.

I went for the Hui Ji Yong Tau Fu, which was graded as the best noodle by ieat :p Helios went for Shark Lor Me, which was super nyummy as well. On top of that, we tried the Ghim Moh Chwee Kueh. Nyummyy =D Those are calories worth spent! Thanks Helios for being our tour guide! :D Will definitely come back again for the food!

Back to home, the lunch effect started to kick in and I felt sleepy… I was almost asleep an hour ago, when I received my phone bill for this month…


Singtel Bill for Nov 2010

It went to a freaking SGD 262.28!!

It knocked off my earlier record of SGD120 when I back from Taiwan. Sigh. Blame it to my boss! He called me for an hour when I was in India T_T Now I will get this reimburse no matter what happen!
Enjoying the typical Sunday,
ED

Happy Deepavali!

Happy Deepavali for those who celebrated it... and happy holiday for everyone! :) This long weekend came as quite a surprise for me. With additional one more holiday on 17th, Nov is becoming my favorite month!

After the office’s incident last week, I think & think on how to fulfill my boss's order & not neglecting my work at the same time. So I decided to try this: Go to office early. From Monday to Thursday, every morning, I fought to wake up and go to office by 8.30 AM. I’m quite amazed that the thing actually works for me. Office was so quite that I can concentrate better. No phone call as the rest of the world is still asleep. No queue on the coffee machine. And by the time people starts coming in, you got your day planned out.

I manage to leave before 8 PM on Monday and Tuesday, but there was calls up to 10pm on Wed and Thurs, so I stayed in the office anyway. I have no energy at all when the clock hit 9pm and I literally just brushed through the calls. I never felt as tired as this week... guess there is still some tweaking to be done (Sigh). Why does my boss like to make things more challenging for me v_v

Anyway! Friday morning, I had my first badminton session in CCK. Despite all my limitation in serving and forehand, I enjoyed the game a lot :D Thanks to all of my shifus around! I can hardly type now as my hands are all numb T_T My weekly Yoga session did contribute to this, too.

I have just watched 3 Glee episodes continuously and started to get impatience. It’s 9th episodes and the two pregnancy lies are still lingering around. Argh! In the end I decided to ask auntie Wiki for the complete story line... and she told me everything I need to know, for Glee season 1. Now I can go to sleep peacefully :p

Heat wave is coming again!
ED

Gathering!

It has been a while since the last time I had a decent gathering. Earlier, I was always not around when they planned for gathering =.=’’

Special thanks to Bol2, I finally can meet most of my friends again… This is one of the most complete gathering in this year for me :D It wasn’t a complete set of people (missing helios the photographer, Christian the model, WK, Ivana, Ocvia, Handarmin, etc), but it was big enough for the restaurant to give us a VIP room – a room only for us!


Happy Birthday, F4!

We went to 7107 Flavours, a Philippines restaurant located at Marina Square. The name is given based on the number of island in Philippines. It was the first time I heard about Philippines food. My impression for 7107 flavours? 0 for the service but 100 for the food! All the dishes are so nyummy! And man it’s spicy. So my taste. That might be the reason why the place is so crowded despite its high price (average dishes priced at $20) and its lousy services. Talk about service. They brought wrong dish (and took it back after 10 mins), wrong drink (ordered green mango juice and came as mango blend), slow service (Nancy’s drink only came after we finished the food), and (some) not so friendly looking waiter who kept asking for tips. I might not be going back to the restaurant, until I learn how to speak tagalog.


7107 - Love the food!

After the dinner, we went back home and tried to sleep early for the trekking on the next morning. Despite continuous warning from Che, we still started 1 hour late from the planned =_=’ Well… nothing new. We started from the Marang Trail (Purple trail) and marked our finish line at Canopy Walk (green trail). It’s an achievement, k! But it doesn’t feel that exhaustive as the Macritchie. I guess the distance was hardly half from Macritchie.


The Sunday morning trail

Back to home, I’m all sleepy & moody. After getting Mystery Box from Restaurant City, I decided to take a nap… until 6.30 PM! V_V Then went to Anchor Point to enjoy a 1-to-1 Special Steak treat from Jack’s Place. It was sinful and I love it to the max!

After dinner, we watched “The girl with dragon tattoo”. Too bad we started late and didn’t manage to finish the whole movie. Time is showing as 12.30 now. Start of a new week in a new month… and wait… it’s the week of long weekend!

Happy Hallowen Day!
ED