NTU iGave Spooktacular 2011

It's just so hard to keep tell myself that today is not a weekend! The weather is nice and relaxing, just like how a weekend suppose to be :p

I went to office on Monday with my usual Monday blue mood. After a while I noticed that half of my team members were missing! Well, my big boss is on official leave, so the rest seems to be on an unofficial one. While checking my calendar for the rest of the week, I realized two things: 1) Wed is a public holiday! (sweet surprise!) 2) It's for Deepavali! (which means that tomorrow is most probably half day! :p) My mood was better afterwards. There was no late night call for the day, so I left at around 7.30 and went to Tiong Bahru Plaza to run some errands and had dinner at Kopitiam. I had a great chicken claypot rice. I can't resist the tempatation of Ice Khacang, so we got one to share after dinner :p

Tuesday, as expected, no one was in the mood to work (including myself). My team mates asked if I want to join them for lunch, so I just tagged along. We went to Anjappar at Little India, which served superb Briyani :D I had so much food that I felt so sleepy when I reached back office at 2.30pm. When checking my inbox, I saw an email from our head of department saying that people celebrating Deepavali can leave NOW! At around 4pm, the office was 75% empty. I tried to complete some work before finally leave at 6.30pm for dinner with duck.

Briyani Feast at Anjappar - Little India

It was the NTU iGave Annual Giving Appreciation Dinner at Marriott Hotel. I didn't expect anything more than dinner, but apparently the event had more to offer. We were welcomed with an accessories booth, where you can take any Halloween accessories, for free! They even helped you to match it with your attire. Coming next, they have the tatoo, glitters, and eyes painter booth. Of course, there are also professional photographer roaming around taking pictures of you, with printing booth next to it.

My first Hallowen Party :p

After having fun drinking and wandering around with my friend, Duck; we decided to go into the restaurant at around 7.30pm. The event started not long afterwards with the presence of new NTU president - Bertil Andersson and the MC - wait for it - Hossan Leong! I almost can't believe that I actually see Hossan Leong Live! Hosting an event I'm in as a guess! Whoaa~ NTU is rich :p

NTU iGave Spooktacular 2011 - I forgot my camera so this is the best I got with 3GS :(

Good food, superb MC, nice companion - time flies and the event was over before I even realizing it. I think I'm converted to be a loyal donor because of this event. Hope that it means the event fulfill its objective :p I reached back home at around 11pm, feeling so sleepy and knocked off to bed at 12am.

Wednesday morning, 7.15am. The sky was so blue and sun was shining brightly. I lost my excuse to ditch my trekking, so I woke up quickly, got ready, and went to Bukit Batok. Bukit Timah Nature Reserve is probably one of the last sites which I haven't trekked in Singapore, and famous for being the most challenging one. Fortunately, the weather was nice and we have professional around us, so we still got to enjoy the reserve. We started at around 9am and finished at around 11.30am. I went home afterwards, while the rest continue with movie at CCK.

Bukit Timah Nature Reserve

Back home, I had lunch, showered, and then started to pack for my trip this weekend. My parents told me that they got their Visa - thanks God. Nothing much else to prepare as it's a guided tour travel :) Just got a call from the tour lead today, requesting me to stand by at the airport at 12.30pm on Sat. Well - I'm getting excited!

Coming Thursday and Friday will definitely be the most challenging days of the week - I just have to keep telling myself... this too will pass :p Now it's almost 6pm. Time to think about dinner!

In the midst of Disney Car 2, and I'm totally loving it~

ED

PS: Just notice that this is my 600th Post! Whoa..

Happy Birthday, Dad!

Another week has come and gone. I'm glad that my mood is back to normal and I didn't spend my week counting days. Weekend comes before I realized it (and now it's almost gone before I noticed, too).

On Monday, I received the weekly 1-1 meeting invitation with my boss in Germany, even before I have to request for one! Voila. I was so glad that I accepted the invite with thanks. She must be thinking that I'm meeting-holic. (I just hope that she didn't schedule it because she read my blog). Other than that, I had my Monday routine: felt a bit blue, planned my schedule for the rest of the week, then ended my day with a dinner at Anchor Point.

On Tuesday, things start to get crazy. In fact, I can't really remember what happened from Tuesday to Thursday. Just lot of calls and discussions and almost no time for real work. I reached back home at 11pm and just threw myself to bed after shower. There were no jogging nor yoga this week - weather has been wet and my yoga instructor is on holiday. Ah, it was Dad's b'day on Wednesday and I'm glad to hear his healthy voice =) Wish you wonderful healthy years ahead, Dad. Love you.

Friday was the birthday of the two twins in our office (quoting Adelene: One is made in China and one is made in Singapore). We went to Thai Accent for lunch, and I was in for a sweet surprise. Sabrina was there as our GOH! Ha. I didn't even know that she is in Singapore. Even better, she is starting work in Singapore from next week onwards. Wew, how time flies...

After lunch, I went back and drowned by my usual calls until 7pm, then started to get calls from Glen and Baggi and Sapna asking where I was. I rushed out of office and went to Holland V (Cha, cha, cha) through Labrador Park Circle Line (first time!). I was at Buona Vista when I suddenly felt that something is missing. It took me another minute to realize that I.... forgot to bring Glen's Birthday Gift!!! T___T How can someone go to a b'day party yet forgot to bring a gift for that person T_T I worked really bad under pressure T_T I almost went back to office to get the gift, but then they assured that it's ok... In the end I got teased by Glen all night long.. Oh well. Lucky the food was good so it was worthy of the embarrassment :p

Happy Birthday Uncle Glen @ Cha, Cha, Cha - Holland V

I went back home at around 11.00, then settled down for "Hangover II", before sleeping at around 1.30am.. Weekend!!

Saturday, I was on total shutdown until 11.00am. Once awake, I showered, then we both went to Vivocity for Long John's Silver lunch (for the sake of utilizing some coupons ^^;) It was my second time having Long John's, and I'm yet to find anything which can make me go back for more. After lunch, I went around hunting for jacket, and finally fell in love with one from Uniqlo. They come in so many different color - white, grey, choc, pink, purple, black, etc. After hundreds of tries, I finally settled for purple :)

From Vivocity, we moved to Chinatown. I exchanged some Korean Won for next week's trip. Who knows that Won is almost similar with Rupiahs? After the exchange, I became a millioner and my bag suddenly felt so much heavier. We spent the rest of the day walking around Chinatown, then took our dinner at one of the restaurant before going back home.

Night, we watched "The Smurf" - which I realized in the end - was totally for kid =__='' I still love seeing Barney (HIMYM) and Ema (Glee) in the movie though :) So, no regret.

Sunday, I woke up by morning call and went for Badminton at Lake side. The location was ok, but I swear I will never take shower there again. The water was as sharp as needle punching through your body T_T After lunch, we went back home, and I spent the rest of my day browsing, playing iPhone games, and picking some pictures for mum and dad. Oh, we also started watching the new TV episodes "How to be a gentleman". The title sounds nice but well, the episodes don't seem to get lot of compliment so far.

For dinner, we went to Tiong Bahru's Soup spoon with Helios. I went for Cream Chowder Bread Bowl... and boy, that was filling! We were discussing about what to do with remaining day-offs for the year, and I'm yet to find answer for mine. After a quick fruit shopping at Fair Price, we went back home and enjoying the last bit of weekend before it ends. 

Now I guess I'm ready for "What's your number" :D There have been quite a lot of romantic comedy these days. I watched "Crazy Stupid Love" and "Friends with Benefits" recently, and now there is a new one coming up "One Day. Does it relate with the wedding seasons?

It will be a short week next week and I can't wait! It's only one week for my family trip and my parents' visa are not out yet *panicking* Anyway, Happy Deepavali for those who celebrating :)

ED

While he was away

Recently, I felt left out in the office. After the recent arrangement, I become the only team member in Singapore; while the rest are based in headquarter. Slowly but sure, there are lots of things happening which I wasn’t aware of, and the discussion in team calls started to become alien to me :( I felt frustrated as I sent mail asking for support but never get responded. Even in the team call I was never able to get much of airtime. They know hardly 10% of what I’m doing in Singapore. This new arrangement really made me questioned my own importance in the team. Why would I work until 11pm if they don’t even know I’m working, and don’t even care what I’m doing?

I shared my frustration with my colleagues and they reminded me on the point taught in my training couple of weeks back. I can blame anyone as much as I want, but in the end it’s myself who is responsible for my career. They suggest me to either request for weekly one-to-one call with my new boss, or do share with her my task lists of the week so she knows what I’m on. I found that really implementable, and will see how it works for me in couple of weeks from now :) This is my first time having lady boss again after more than 2 years!

Anyway, here is how I spent the rest of my week: 

Monday – wake up as usual, it was raining as usual, and I was surprised to know that my Singapore's boss was already on leave (I thought it was on Thursday!) My initial reaction was to call him up to discuss on some pending topics, but after second thoughts, I don’t really want to bother him… So in the end I took the decision and intended to update him once he is back – Que Sera Sera. I had my Monday exercise and left office at 7pm (yes I typed it right). Glen and I went to Spize for a dinner with Ifnu & his wife. Baggi, Sapna, and Venkat joined the dinner as well. We chatted until around 10.15pm before finally calling it a day. Glen cursed me in and out as the café location was really remote for him, while it’s just 15 mins away from my flat… Oh well, I owe him a lunch.

Cheese Fries - The loveliest Finger Food ever Created

Tuesday – I went to office, not really motivated, but managed to run through all the back-to-back calls scheduled. I finished at 6pm, and then went for a quick jog. I had not much energy to work after back from jogging, so I went back at around 8.30pm. Managed to get the last shuttle bus to Red Hill, buy some bread (3 for $3), take it for dinner, shower, and went to bed after finishing one season of “IT Crowd”

 Wednesday – It was raining again, and I had my favorite hotpot. Again I had back-to-back calls from 2pm to 7pm. I intended to stay late, but I wasn’t really in good mood, which means I wasn’t able to work efficiently anyway. Top up with the fact that there are not many people left in the office, I in the end decided to have a dinner along with friends at Pondok Rasa, Bugis. I felt so much better after the nice medanese dinner + desserts, and feel ready to face the work again tomorrow. Sometimes laugh and friends are all you need =) Back home, I went browsing… I realized that blogger have new templates for blog, and accidentally deleted my template while trying out the new templates =___=’’ So.. Here I’m with a new template skin… first time without a proper plan. Sigh!

My New "Template" Blog Skin T_T

Thursday – is the 4th day in ta row that I had difficulty to sleep soundly. My body felt warm and I kept waking up at night. My head felt heavy and I wasn’t really able to clear my mind. The week has passed pretty slowly. I went to office with my usual exercise gears… but in the end realized that I forgot my shirt!! T_T No run for the day. My last call ends at 10pm, and I continued to work until 12am. No pain no gain. All for a better Friday. Back home, I didn't feel like sleeping, so I finished the IT crowd session 4 before putting myself to bed.

TGIF – I went to office earlier and get my things done. I need to present it to the team before sending it further out. Meeting was set since couple of days back and everyone agreed to participate. Last minutes, they decided to ditch my presentation and asked me to reschedule one for next week. They conveniently delay my project for one week!!! That too was being done through a messenger. Again the feeling of being “unimportant” hits me hard :( I decided to act ignorant and went to enjoy my weekend.

It was Sapna’s belated birthday celebration, and we went to Little India for dinner. It was an Indian Chinese Restaurant, but seems to serve more chinese food than Indian food (Singapore-Chinese-Indian food as how Baggi called it). The fried rice was really good and reminds me of Indo’s. We dine and chat until around 11pm, then took mrt home after 15 mins of unsuccessful attempt of getting taxi.

The food so good that I want to keep the Restaurant name a secret :D

The time was 12am when I reached Queenstown MRT. I walked to my flat as usual. All in sudden, I noticed a shadow following me from behind. I looked back, saw a suspicious guy, and my nerve tensed up. I walked faster, crossed the road, took the staircase, and in the end I can still see the shadow behind me at the near distance. I started to panic. What happen if he joined me at the same lift? Alas, as I looked around; I can’t see anyone else at the neighborhood. I increased my walking speed to max (almost small run), and as I reached the lift, I made a brave look back – the guy wasn’t around. I quickly entered the lift and hit my floor’s button. Thanks God nothing really happen. I was quite surprised that I can actually get so scared. It’s not the first time I went back late at night ^^;

Saturday, I woke up at 10am, played my Surviving High School game, did my house chores, then went to Chinatown for Korea’s trip briefing. I was late for 15 mins and had to wait for the next briefing session T_T The briefing was quite typical. Weather to be projected around 10 – 19 C, plug type is similar to Indonesia’s plug. The weird thing is – some of the hotels at Korea didn’t provide toilet amenities! We’re encouraged to bring our own shampoo, body wash, and tooth brush =__=’’ After the briefing, I paid the rest of the travel fee, then went for late lunch at Suntec.

TCC High Tea Set - SGD 12.90++

Ari and I went to TCC. Out of curiosity, I tried out its High Tea set, which turned out to be really good (and value for money too! :p) After the lunch slash high tea, we went to do some shopping at Suntec City. It was soon 7pm and I set to Changi for someone special :) It’s really amazing to see how Changi evolves every time I go. They have opened so many restaurants (KFC is also there!!!) and it becomes quite a challenge to decide on a dinner. We finally settled down for Killiney Kopitiam for quick dinner before we go home. It was 10.30 when we reached. I showered and slept at 3 after waiting 3 hours for iOS5 download =__= (and now it's restoring all my 15 GB musics.. it will take the whole night!)

Changi with Deevapali's decoration

OK. Shall cut the blog post now that he is back :D Going to sleep now for badminton later!

Hi, iOS5!
ED

Bye, Steve Jobs…

New iPhone was unveiled this week. I was kind of disappointed the moment I heard about the word “4S”. I knew it means there is no change in the phone design :( I was wishing that they would remove the home button. It’s the only thing that I thought would be better without.

 The next day, I went to office getting ready to complain about the iPhone, while suddenly, I heard the even bigger news – Steve Jobs has passed away. My heart skipped a beat when my colleagues told me that… how is it possible? There has been no news about his condition, and all in sudden what we heard is his death! I didn’t even get a chance to pray for his recovery :( I went through the denial stage, anger, before in the end come to acceptance. Steve, thank you for all your creations. I don’t think I need to say more than that. There are million of webpages dedicated for him. Reading through his biography, I know he is the example of someone living life to the fullest.

Days in office have been gloomy. I hate my situation of uncertainty. Different bosses gave me different expectation and I don’t even know whom am I supposed to escalate to. The best resolution I guess is to act busy – blaming boss A to boss B while complaining about boss B to boss A… :p Of course, that has to be used with discretionary, and it doesn’t always work. Next week, my boss and colleague in Germany will be on leave. They conveniently put me as the delegate for all their meetings!!! I checked my next week calendar’s and I’m pretty much convinced that I won’t be touching my bed before midnight.

One of Ah Loy's Signature Dish - Fried Calamari - soft and nyummy!

On Friday, I sneaked out from office at 7pm for a dinner with friends at Ah Loy Thai Restaurant. Boy, the food was awesome! Everything was so delicious I can’t even tell which one is my favorite. Thanks Helios for the recommendation :D Would love to go there again if possible. Weird thing is, the restaurant closed at 8.15pm, which is super early for Singapore’s restaurant standard. After dinner, we spent the rest of the evening with TV series “Big Bang Theory” and movie “Friends with Benefit” starring Justin Timberlake. The movie was not bad~ I like how Marcell from HIMYM was featured there :p After movie, we slept at around 3am.

Saturday morning, I forced myself awake at 10.30pm. If only I don’t have a wedding to attend… duh! I showered, had a quick lunch, and then went off to Bukit Batok. I went by Taxi as I thought the ceremony will start at 1pm sharp... but then… it started only at 2.15pm! =___=’’ Give me back my $10! Haha.. I met WK there, as well as other friends I knew of. Thankfully, I thought I would be all alone :) I tagged with WK for most of the time, and he has to introduce me as “Hi, this is my friend, Erlin, but NOT my girlfriend” =___=’’ Sounds weird but it works. I also met up with Alvin and Ai… it has been awhile.. and I’m quite surprised to know ALL of them are already engaged and looking for wedding next year. Man! I better start saving up now for red pockets.

The happy couple - Yudi & Farica, watching the dragon dance

The ceremony took around an hour. It finished at 3.30pm, and then continued with photo taking and dragon dance. It was around 4.00pm when we finally went down to the foyer for high tea. Oh yeah, the food was satisfactory :p I had 2 helpings, then said congratulations to the happy couple, then left for… dinner ^^;

The awesome spread of goodness

It was 5.45pm as I reached City Hall. A bit early, but it wasn’t a long wait as the rest of them reached on time at 6.00 pm. Kudos, ladies! We went to Raffles City, wandering at the basement looking for restaurant, and finally settled for… Thai Express. (Two thai dinner in a row!) Nice food, comfy private couch, refreshing drink, great companies – we chatted until around 9.30 when we realized that the restaurant is closing ^^; We parted after a nice cup of Gong Cha. It was around 11pm when I reached back home. I slept after watching some short clips in clicknetwork.

Ladies Night with SCEians :) :)

Sunday, I woke up at 9am, and then went off for badminton at Clementi. I thought I would be on time at least this time… but it was 10.20am when I reached the court +_+ the indoor stadium was quite crowded, there was basketball tournament happening and hence the badminton courts are squeezed to only 2 lines instead of 3. We finished at 12.00, showered, had pig organ soup for lunch, then went back home. I felt sleepy when I reached back home, but decided not to nap.

Inche and I planned to go for shopping, but I backed down last minutes… for good reason :p In exchange, I will go with my rommie for a jog at around 5pm :)

RIP, Steve, you are missed,
ED

10th.

It’s the 10^th month of the year! Where have the last 9 months gone? *Read back previous posts. Well, this has been a peaceful year so far, and I’m thankful for that :)

I recovered from my flu today (Or at least, I declared so). It has been an on and off thing throughout the week. Despite all my perseverance (e.g. eating only soup and healthy stuff, avoiding chilies, showering with warm water, stop jogging), my nose still blocked at night and I still spent one pack of tissue everyday. So yesterday, I decided to go back to my cool water shower and yoga and hey, I actually felt indifference =__=’

This week is again a short week for me in office. I had training on Tue (full day) and Wed (half day). Despite those, I felt that the week passes very slow… I don’t know why. Maybe because I didn’t have all the exercise activities to fill my time, or maybe… I just don’t have enough work these days :p

… which is actually not true. I had a page full of To-Dos in my Notes. Yet, I decided to go back home early and worry about those on the “next day”. My perception of work is slowly changing. I now care less about optimal solution but focus more on bare minimum effort to finish a task. This is NOT how I preferred to handle things, but I guess I adapted to increase my level of ignorance to suppress the level of stress. There is no point after all to spend my energy thinking of optimal solution if things change every fortnight *excuse mode on.

Having said so! I had this quote I learnt from my recent training and I'm loving it:

"Be Response-Able! No Deny, Justify, Blame.” – You can blabber about your boss and colleagues and work circumstances, but in the end of the day you need to realize that you’re the one responsible for your own success.

What else at work? Nothing much. I'm jumping to weekend now.

On Friday, we read about the opening of King of Japanese Curry Rice CoCoICHIBANYA at Somerset and decided to give it a try. Alas, the opening ceremony was happening during that evening and we didn’t get to go in T_T there are couple of idols at the premises, but we were only able to identify Utt. Guess the rest are too young for us (talk about feeling old T_T)

Youngsters surrounding Utt at the opening of CoCo Ichibanya

Failed to try on the new Japanese curry rice, we went to another Japanese shop – Yomenya Goemon. Their slogan is “eating spaghetti with chopsticks” which is quite unique… and delicious too! I'm quite surprise that I can pick up Spaghetti with chopsticks as easy. After a nice dinner, we went back home and indulge ourselves with home theater – Zookeeper. The trailer looks quite promising, but the whole story line was so mediocre :( We slept after the movie.

Japanese Style Spaghetti - Meat Carbonara 

Saturday, I woke up at 10am and did my room cleaning. Afterwards, I went for a double date (:p) at Pasta Inc. It was a fine dining style lunch, so the service was superb. The portion is just right and I love the Tiramisu the most! Hehe…

Citra & I @ Pasta Inc.

After the lunch, we went to Chinatown to pick up my Visa, and then went back home to rest for a while before we proceed to Toa Payoh for KTV session. The session was fun, and always filled me in with the latest songs. Only complain is that the session was too short =( It was soon 10pm before we realized it. After a sinful chocolate sundae supper, we went back home and slept.

The usual KTV Gang

 On Sunday, I had a weird dream (which I can’t really remember now), and it took me a while contemplating between continuing my dream and waking up for badminton.  Badminton won, so I woke up and dragged myself to JE for the session. We finished at 12pm sharp, showered, and then went for the delicious Sarawak Kolomee. It was so nyummy I felt reborn! :p Back home, I had my relaxing afternoon – watching clicknetwork, playing surviving highschool, and typing blog.

It’s 6.30pm now, time to shower and thinking about dinner. Planning for Green Latern screening tonight!

My appetite is back!

ED