Ushering 2009

It has been a lovely, lovely year... 2008 that is. There were ups and downs, but everything was absolutely great. And to let the curtain down with a new start, a new chapter in life, it's absolutely enchanting as it is terrifying. Ha ha ha...

Before everything else, I hereby declare my protest against the violation of human rights by Israelis upon the Palestinians. I am not gullible enough to believe that this particular war will ever end, at least not so soon, but I'm protesting nevertheless. I am also against the US government occupation activities in other countries around the world. It's time for this particular government to concentrate on its own internal matters and resolve them soundly.

Okay, that is done.

Now, for 2009. I am not going to list down new resolutions OR renewed ones from the past years. I find it hypocritical to list down things just for the sake of listing it down. I am never one to diligently go item by item day by day. Besides, my wants and needs will change as the year goes by. Although there is one thing, which I believe is common amongst every single one of us, that is to pile up more moolah. :-)

Oh bugger. Seems like I'm going to list a few. I vow to swear lesser or none at all this year. Wardrobe change, hopefully. Nothing fancy just more presentable and suitable as a lady. Okay lah. That's enough.

Tomorrow, there will be another ceremony in the family. This time, it's my brother. I have reasons to believe that this fella will be off to marital bliss before I do. He he he... We're traveling to Temerloh tomorrow for the engagement action.

By the way, thank you so much for all the well wishes and prayers. Please continue to include us in your prayers for a blessed year ahead. Thank you God, for making things happen for me.

The weekend I was "booked"!

The weekend has ended. And the ceremony went well. Alhamdulillah. I was more concern about the food, but syukur it received good response from the family members. Although there was a little emergency about the baju, I am thankful I have loving parents that could bail me out in such situation. I love you Abah! I love you Mak! And I love the plan B dress a lot! Thanks to Margaret Tan, the designer who made it happened. :-)

I love the make up so much. Thanks to Zai. Feel free to browse her FaceBook to see her works. You won't regret it!

The fact that my best friends were around, helped to reduce the butterflies flying around in my tummy. We were busy chatting in the room until Sharky came up to tell us that they are coming up. I started to get breathless at that moment. Luckily Dakwanie reminded me to take deep breath and continue breathing. Ha ha ha... You would think I'm meeting the Prime Minister or the King!

My hands were cold and clammy when CapalPerak's mother put the ring on. Everyone laughed when she said my hands were icy cold! Haih! Can't help it!

To my bestest friends; Syieda, Ina, Aeez, DakWanie, Sharky; thank you so much for being there! Aeez and Sharky, you gals helped a lot by sleeping over that night, believe me. He he he...

DakWanie, tenkiu for the cute little cookies. Love it. Emma, tenkiu for the chocs. Delish! Syieda, tenkiu, tenkiu for Zen. It was really unexpected!

And to my darling CapalPerak, tenkiu for the ring! Ahahahaha... We still have a longgggggggg way to go... :-) Love you. It's an honour to be called your fiancée. :-p

A day to remember: 27th December 2008

From My Mobile

See?

From My Mobile

Look at all these stupid people causing bottle neck on the road. They are creating their own tidal flow. Where are the authorities? This people, they think only they need to arrive early. Everyone thinks they are more important than others.

Nerves

I am all nerves. Yes, the nervousness is back!

Alhamdulillah

I went to see Abah this morning. He looks better. He said, the first thing he wants to do when he's discharge would be to visit the barber; to get a haircut and shave. :-)

Just received SMS from Alang, he said Abah could be discharged this evening; provided the nurses can finish their tasks quickly. There are a lot of patients today. I hope the doctor is discharging abah because he is really doing better and not because they need beds for the patients...

Feeling blurgh again

I have this "thing" that is building up in me. I don't know how to describe it. The only way I can say is that I'm feeling overwhelmed.

Simple silly little things can annoy me a lot. And there are wicked voices that wants me to think negatively when everything that doesn't go my way happens.

It's frustrating. It's tiring. And it's taking a toll on me. I hate feeling this way. And this is not just a case of PMS.

On the brighter side, Abah is doing much better this morning. We're hopeful that he can be discharged tomorrow. The recovery however is ongoing. He is still quite weak. Not quite his jovial sarcastic self yet. And I say that fondly.

The Day After

Abah was transferred to CCU last night at around 10.30pm. The reason is because he had too many visitors during the day and the doctor wants to keep him under close observation. Mak and Alang stayed for the night. They had to sleep at the room designated for patients' family members because they dare not allowed to wait in Abah's room.

This morning as I started to drive away from the house, Alang drove in; with Mak beside him. I immediately stopped the car and went into the house with them.

Abah is doing much better. The pain is gone. And now he's resting because last night he could not sleep because of the pain. The nurse woke Mak up at 5am today telling her that Abah did not want the nurse to bathe him. He wanted Mak to do it. Mak said now Abah smells like a baby because of the sponge bath. :-) Abd ge's doing much, much better. Alhamdulillah.

I’m seriously not ready for this. It’s not because I have this delusion that my parents will live forever, it’s just that, I am really not ready for situation like this. All the while I was telling myself to calm down and think logically instead of emotionally. It worked through out the day except for when CapalPerak dropped by in the afternoon and when Abah was transferred to CCU. Listening to the machines beeping, seeing the wires and everything else… not to sound cliché but it just does something to you.

Thank you for all the well wishes. Please continue to make dua for him. Thank you, very, very much.

From My Mobile

Abah is admitted today. Heart attack. Please make dua for him for a speedy recovery. I cannot. Just cannot. Not yet.

After the Weekend

The wedding was done. Lots of talks. But then again, you cannot expect everything to go exactly like you've planned right? Although there is one thing that is not so nice to hear... Apparently the cousins, especially the male cousins, don't really like the groom. More because he is not the down to earth type and lack of respect to the elders. Well. So.

When we agree to tie the know with our partner, we should realise and understand that we are also "marrying" the family. That means, our partner's family members become our extended family. We should do our best to treat them the way we treat our own family members. It's not nice to start a new chapter of our life when family members are not really keen of us, right? We could say, it's our life, we don't care what other people think. But we have to remember that our spouse might feel unhappy because we don't get along with their family.

However high you go, whatever profession you're in, whichever level of your education is at, never ever forget the roots. And we should do our best to be humble at all times, especially with the elders.

Sometimes I do wonder how a person behaves a certain way when the person is considered to be a jewel to the community. But then again, our profession does not reflect directly on our attitude, right?

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To you-know-who-you-are,
Babe, let me tell you, there will be one day when you look back to today, you wonder why you were so distraught by all that is happening. That one day will come certainly. But you have to make way for it to come sooner. How you want to do that is up to you, it's not my place to tell. What I can say is that, you're stronger than you think you are. The fact that you are so sad is because you let yourself to feel that way. Seriously babe, it's time to move on when you want to move on. The way I look at it, you do not want to move on just yet. Take that first step, and you will see the difference. My hugs for you. Take care.

ps: I make a bad Aunt Agony lah... But I hope it makes sense to you. :-)

Blurgh!

There is a major problem whenever what you plan to do can only be done when other people has finished their part of the task. It is frustrating when you're all geared up to go and get it done, by the other people apparently has not completed what needs to be done. As such, your timeline is dragged, and you have to re-adjust your planning.

I am supposed to be on leave today. Full day. But because the people who are supposed to deliver the PC yesterday "forgot"; as they conveniently put it; I was not able to do what I had earlier planned. The documentation that I requested is still not completed, as such, eventhough I'm at the site today, I couldn't get things started. The PC is still not delivered. And there are only a couple of hours left before I'm calling it a day. Bugger.

I know these things happen everywhere, anytime. I'm sure even the Prime Minister or the President have these issues with their own people. But hey! I'm not talking about them, am I? Everyone has their own set of problems to settle, I understand that. But this is just too much. I'm grumbling I know. I'm b*tch*ng, I know. But can you blame me?

I'm supposed to be helping my aunt and cousin with the preparation for the akad nikah ceremony this evening. But here I am, waiting. I have a feeling that I will not get anything done before noon. I already promised Mak that I'll come by to pick her up somewher around lunch time. SO, when the buzzer sounds, I'm outta here!

Wednesday with Boss D

These are the things that I discussed with my bigger boss (Boss D) this morning. Well.. he asked for it!

• Better documentation to assist the team in supporting the system
• Weekly or monthly meet up with the team members for status update and knowledge sharing (yes, we never had this before...)
• Dental and optical benefits (no, we don't have this currently...)
• Language course! - to at least sponsor half of the tuition fee
  
• And during lunch, when I was asked what did we discuss, I just mentioned casually that Boss D said we're going for company vacation; which was seconded by the Boss L who proceed to explain how our partner had company trip to Paris a while back; to which I said, "...because vacation in Malaysia is so expensive..." (ha ha ha...)

Boss D (from HQ) came down a couple of days back to see the operations here. And also to find out more on the issues and problems that we have. Bottom line, he's spying. :-p Each one of us have a one-on-one meet-up with the man to be briefed about the plans for 2009 and for us to share our ideas for improvements and aspirations. So, each member of the team spent 20 minutes with him, and let me tell you everyone took the opportunity to speak up! Padan muka ini orang Franchis. Dia ingat kita senyum and angguk kita tak de opinion, eh?

The past few days have been busy for us. The system starts to be used by the customer. And starting next Monday, the remote sites will follow suit. But the problem is, the version that they have currently is not updated. And we were not able to do the update because of some network security policy that the customer has. SO, yours truly decided to use a valid loophole that is readily available. We'll see if it works out tomorrow...

On a more personal note, well, life is awesomely fabulous. With hiccups that I could live with. :-)

From My Mobile

TWILIGHT. It's a story better off being read rather than watched. The story is so flat on the silver screen. Maybe because they want to stay true to the novel. The movie has some witty dialogues and funny moments though. The visual effect was awesome; the way Edward's skin glittered, the speed, agility. Nice. Brilliant idea to make the book cover come to live in the cafeteria scene. It's a lovey dovey young adults movie. Not a manly man's glass of beer. Ahaks!

UPDATED
I hate the fact that they made Jake Black look so... soft. The long black mane is not working for me. No siree. Even if we should not be comparing the movie to the book, a man who's supposed to be a werewolf, should look more, well... wolfish. Not looking like a bloke from a Ck ad. Come on. Edward's "paleness" was also over the top. I expected more character development between the Cullen family members and Bella but there was very little. Esme Cullen looked very familiar because she's Ava in Grey's Anatomy, but she plays the character very well.

Anyway, I should give credit to the actors for doing a splendid job on facial expression. The dialogues were weak for a movie, because it only suited to the book. Meyer wrote the story from Bella's point of view, it's Bella's story. And given the fact that they only took six weeks to come out with the script, no wonder it's not so grasping. I hope they do better in the sequel.

Although, I have to say that as I read the subsequent books, I got bored too fast. Meyer tried so hard to portray Bella as a i-couldn't-care-less girl; sometimes it gets on my nerve. And the emotional entanglement between Jacob and Bella since the beginning, it's just draining. She tried to convince the readers there's a reason to it in the fourth book.

I'm digressing. My intention is just to talk about the movie, but I just had to talk about the book too since I did not do it months back when I finished reading the books. :-) So, if you don't mind a cheeky teenage movie, you won't mind so much watching Twilight. If you're a Twilight the novel fan, you might get a little flustered, eventhough they try very hard to stay true to the book. If you're a man, the only reason why you would want to go and watch the movie, is because the action sequence they show in the movie trailer; I have to warn you, you'd be disappointed. So.

Twilight at IMDB
Stephanie Meyer
Twilight the Novel

Blush is Me!

I actually planned to get the blusher from one of the pharmacy racks. Cheaper kan? But, I couldn't find the best shade. Not too pinkish, not too brownish, you know the drill...

And because of that, I settled for the safest option; I turned to M.A.C. (Please note that I am not getting paid by writing this. :-p ). My first purchase with this brand was several years back when I was looking for two-way cake (foundation-powder) with suitable colour for my skin tone. The ones I used before has always been too dark or to light. I've tried Maybeline, L'oreal, even Revlon. They are more suitable for one who is fair, medium or dark skin. And since I'm in between medium and dark, it kinda limit my options. And once I purchased the StudioFix, I never changed it until today.

So yesterday, I went to the outlet in KLCC, since I was supposed to meet up with a friend. The salesgirl introduced me to the Mineralize Blush range. I like the texture very much. And it has shimmer to add the glow a bit lah. She put this colour on my cheek and I was sold!

The shade is called Warm Soul. And it really does! Ha ha ha... so, I was a happy shopper; another mission accomplished!

Owh... actually, I also love the shades that Bobbi Brown has. Last week, I went to the outlet in MidValley just to see the options that I have. The friendly lady showed me the combination of liquid foundation with loose powder and a nice blush to go with it. I loved it. CapalPerak liked it. But alas, since I already have the two-way cake, I don't see why I need to splurge on the whole shebang.

I just read the skin tone guide from M.A.C. Apparently my skin has a cool-golden-beige undertone, thus my powder comes with the colour code NC. I feel beautiful already. Ha ha ha... However, the reality is that I don't wear make-up everyday. I just put on moisturiser and dab a little baby powder. And sometime, I blush myself up. But I like to have these things handy for you know... occasions. Hehehe...

So, there you go. A girlie post for today. Never imagined I'd be talking about make-up! Wouldn't have done so if it was five, six years ago!

From My Mobile

This was dinner last night. Prawns with lots of garlic and red chilies. Served with sauteed zucchini and tomato. It was supposed to be my BodyBalance night at the gym, but I got side-tracked because of the mission for the week; to find a nice comforter set. Ha ha ha... boleh ke camtu?

Anyway, since mission was accomplished and I kinda like what I bought, it doesn't matter that I did not sweat myself right? Besides, I ate a very light, very healthy dinner right? Well... not counting the chips that I munched a little after that... :-p

Yesterday also was the last day of training for the users. Let me tell you this, spending a week, teaching a group of people who has the idea that they are above other people (well, most of them feel this way if not all), actually taught you a LOT. If you do not have control of the situation you might just, well, blow up. So, you have to be even sterner than them. And that's how you get their cooperation and maybe, respect.

As with other organisations, this particular one also has cliques. And during training sessions like this, is apparently the time for them to vent out. I'm not saying it's wrong, in fact, maybe this is the only time they can get someone to actually listen. Whether or not the someone do anything about it, is another matter. As long as the voices are heard, right?

The only consolation that I could give to them, is that it happens everywhere. And the characters that they describe, are everywhere. Well, life's like that, kan?