back for now

i have reached the point (again) where i REALLY don't wanna work anymore. any ideas on how i can stay home and still earn moolah, anyone?

or maybe i should work on rediscovering my passion for research. if i had any in the first place.

in a fangirl moment, i have also decided that my new goal is to be an extra in the bre.aking da.wn movie. naturally i will be a va.mpi.re and the hubby will be a wer.ewo.lf.

we've come a long way, but we're not too sure where we've been

it's that time of the year y'all, to reflect on 2007. i would say that it has been a pretty eventful 12 months. in no particular order:

europe 2007
this was just the best vacation ever lah. thanks to ez and zur for helping to make it happen. we had a blast and i would so totally do it all over again. ok ok so my travelog kinda got truncated around italy or so but hey, the memories will remain with me forever.

closure of loans dept/ transfer new dept
what can i say? work is still the bane of my existence. new management, new style. even though we were making a good profit and were embarking on a whole new marketing campaign, it was not meant to be. was perfectly happy there with my supervisors and colleagues, even though my work scope could've been beefed up a bit. went on a pretty passive job hunt in may, as my bond was ending in july and i wanted out sooo bad. unfortunately i did not manage to find anything suitable, probably due to the fact that i myself did not have a clear idea of what i wanted. in july, i started at my new dept. think it was my partly my fault that i did not fit and and i still don't. i didn't feel the need to put any effort in as i wasn't counting on staying very long. 3 months max, i told myself. 6 months on, i'm still here.

starting 4th year psych
this is why i'm still in my current job. i really don't think there is any other place where i can have the kind of work life balance that i have now. i can take leave anytime, with any amount of notice, i can take time off, i can do school work during office hours, i can skip out on meetings that i'm chairing or attending just cos it's 6pm and i need to go for classes. like seriously, where else will they allow you to skip out on meetings for goodness sake? not to mention the dec and march bonuses. dear god, please please please let the march bonus be worth it for the extra excruciating amount of time i'm spending here. this course is pretty intense and i need all the balance i can get.

relationship
04 07 2007 saw me giving up my 'keep my options open' mantra in favour of commitment and a serious relationship. i have to say it's a great switch and i'm thoroughly enjoying myself. i also have the big event to look forward to/ worry about for the next 375 days. earlier in the day at work i started reminiscing about how it has already been a year since shaz, di and i piled into farn's car to go catch the fireworks at marina bay, followed by a late nite session at simpang. it was pretty cool huh? one year on, i spent a quiet new year's with my bf, playing tennis in the afternoon and at night, walking from parkway parade to siglap and having a coffee there- and there's no place else i'd rather be than with him, anytime, anywhere. of cos this doesn't mean that i can't have a social life but it seems that a lot of people are nani-ing too. wahaha. u know who u are!

u and me we can light up the sky if u stay by my side we can rule the world

moving house
goodbye peaceful reservoir, hello ghetto tamp. we finally made the move after the board won against the dude who didn't wanna sell and took it all the way to high court only to get thrown own pretty much immediately. hah! padan muka. we also felt kinda cheated cos this was supposed to happen a year ago, and guess what happened in that one year. that's right, the property market heated up and prices went sky high. meaning that we naturally had to pay higher prices for a house now. damn u, u greedy bastard! at least we got a pretty good price on our place. my new room is quite awesome even though it's smaller by a crapload than my old room. ah well. the rest of the house is pretty cool too.

facebook
damn u kavi for introducing me to this! wahaha. enough said. had an brief but intense affair with graffiti on superwall (dead now), scrabulous (which is waning) and having a current obsession with fluff friends. my al dente is whoopin' ass y'all. facebook is not helping me stop my procrastinating. argh!

with that said, i guess i'll do my resolutions another day.

HAPPY NEW YEAR &
HOPE YOU'LL HAVE AN
AWESOME 2008!!

hope is the thing with feathers

hmm i'm feeling kinda tingly all over. i only recently discovered that i actually qualify to do a post grad dip in psych that's accredited by the aust psych society (thanks kavi!!). OMFG. think i only have myself to blame cos when i checked about 2 yrs ago, they didn't offer this course and only had the honours year. doh! now the question is, do a post grad dip or an mba? they would both cost around the same amount. i'll probably need to take a loan which is a bit of a bummer cos i don't wanna. haiz. the things we do for our dreams.

an mba would mean that i'll be able to do whatever it is that i'm currently doing (ie. stay in the private sector, not necessarily at the same company. heaven forbid) and move up the ranks a lot faster. post grad dip would mean that i finally get my foot in the door of psych. i'm excited y'all! i'm fine with either one lah but naturally i'm leaning more towards psych tho mba would mean hitting the big time. decisions decisions.

in work news, my manager is going on leave for 2 wks. yay! we will be shifting to the 6th floor on tuesday. apparently our new space is kinda small and fishtank-like. i have no idea what that means cos i haven't seen it yet. this is the ceo's floor tho so no more dressing like a bum to work. how sad.

i discovered on fri that sometime in nov, i'll have to make a presentation to all the heads of dept. this is regarding the annual staff survey so will have to present which depts have the highest and lowest satisfaction scores and what we can do about it. i'm praying that my h.o.d. will say he'll do it and i only need to give him the info and presentation slides. please ah please. will also be working with one of my colleagues on cleaning up the standing instructions that we have so hopefully that will occupy my time.

oh i finally signed up for the oil painting course at nafa that i'd been eyeing for the past year or so. this means that i'm officially broke this month cos it cost me friggin' 330 bucks (inc. gst and processing fee). not inclusive of materials. it better be worth it man.

bloodbath

in the past week i received not one but 2 smses asking for blood donations for specific persons. before this there was a company wide drive for one of our retired colleagues who needed blood also. the colleague i couldn't do anything about it lah, not the same blood group. the 2 smses i got requested for my blood type. i'm thinking, what the hell, i miss one blood donation in june and the bank's in deficit?? it wasn't my fault anyway, i was only like 3 days early and my iron was at an acceptable level if i had come when i was supposed to but was apparently too low for an early donation. what the hell?? so if i were to come back 3 days later with the same iron level, i would've been able to donate. screw that lah! how much can my iron level change in 3 days sia?? doesn't make sense. sheesh. should be more flexible with their policies if they want more people to donate.

so anyway, i went to check the bloodstocks.


as u can see, low and warning levels. currently only 1% of the population donates blood. sad isn't it? i'm planning on donating sometime this week so if anyone wants to join me, feel free. must be healthy, haven't been taking medication, etc etc. get more info here. then again ah i don't really feel good about giving blood this time cos i've been getting lots of mozzie bites lately. hmm. no i do not have dengue. all the same, gonna wait a few days before i go.

there's also been some news lately about organ donation. i think i opted into the scheme a few years ago but i can't remember. needed the signature of a close male relative ie. dad, so i'm not sure whether i mailed it in or not. hmm. there was an article about organ donation in reader's digest a few months ago too. it's a big deal eh. i don't think it's against islam to donate organs. that's what i understood from stuff i read ages ago, which is why i opted in. i guess it's all up to interpretation. whatever it is, u don't need yr organs when u're dead what. might as well give to someone who needs them to live.

my bond with my company was over as of 25 july 2007. since then, i've been having this urge to just throw down a resignation letter even though i have no excuse for doing so. i'm in a good dept now. i have good colleagues. i have pretty challenging project based work to do, which is what i want. so then, why do i still feel so lousy? seems that my work isn't meaningful enough for me. i'm doing strategic planning with about 6 other colleagues. so pretty much whatever we do will affect the direction of the company ah. sounds important eh? doesn't make it any less boring than batshit to me. i still fall asleep at work, i still can't concentrate and i still feel frustrated. do i wanna look back, 20 years from now, and realise that whatever work i've done did not benefit those who are less fortunate? that i've been working for money (not that they're paying me much ah) and not for the greater good? that whatever i did has no impact whatsoever on anyone? at the same time i'm not gonna be stupid and take a huge paycut just to serve. must be balanced lah, i need to live also! can't help people if i can't even help myself now can i... it's like that rule on the plane about adults using the oxygen mask first and then attending to children. fittest first. i can see how my current job and company can help people financially ah, but i'm not interested in that. haiz. i supposed i could make the best of my current situation but it's been 2 years leh. dunno if i can tahan being in this industry forever.

to be corny, shall quote a few lines from my old school song. kavi, yaya and i were wracking our brains trying to remember the whole song at starbucks a few wks ago. haha. yaya finally called a friend and we got the last agonising line.
we cannot all be heroes and thrill a hemisphere
with some great daring venture some deed that mocks at fear
but we can fill a lifetime with kindly acts and true
there's always noble service for noble souls to do

so whoever is able to, go donate blood ok. please.

in other news, went to the birdpark on sat for the s.i.e.u. race/family day. it was fun mans! pics at the usual add. er pics from the girls day out aaaages ago also uploaded. sorry for the delay ladies! wahaha.

just cos it's a slow sat

i wrote a post about my en bloc and how the dude who is against it lost the case in high court with cost, but i lost interest halfway thru it. haha. whatever it is, we're moving! not to the house we had in mind tho, cos the owner hasn't found a house she likes yet. sheesh. we told her she has until may or we're taking our biznez someplace else. totally looking forward to my black chandelier and loft bed. exciting.

moving on, check this out.
talk about parking idiot right?? licence plate has been erased to protect the silly. i'm ashamed to call this fella my neighbour. then again, my dad's skills aren't any better when he comes back from fishing at 2 in the morning. also when we're driving home and he needs to use the loo really badly. wahaha.

ok so this is berita basi, but check out my not-very-new-anymore haircut. haha. i want colour! i want highlights! i want a shorter do! le sigh. all in good time i suppose.
update on the job situation:

we were supposed to know the outcome of the dept review last wed, then my senior told me it's been postponed to mon, then after the hod meeting on fri, she said it's been postponed again to the next 2 weeks. haiz. suspense only... best part is, i doubt any other people besides the senior execs and above know what's going on lor. with my exception ah. i am but a lowly exec with a bad attitude and total disregard for authority. wahaha. everyone else seems to be going on like normal! the plot thickens... heard from my sources that our IT dept has been partially outsourced already. it's about bloody time lor. i reckon most got transferred to other depts. unless they're non-performers ah, in which case they'd probably get asked to leave. oh well, whatever. i'm not fussed.

5 weeks to EU07!! just got my credit card bill... eeks. they didn't waive my annual fee, but they waived my dad's. wtf right? like this must call and complain ready liao.

because i can't seem to sleep

i will share something that i have been pondering over since i read it a few weeks back. my friend s. (dude, lifting this right from your blog. haha) has a standard answer whenever his mum asks him the big 'when are you getting married' question. he always says 'i haven't found the right girl yet'. until one day, his mum got sick of this answer and said:

'maybe it's time you learnt something, boy. you don't find the right person... they discover each other.'

indeed. it's pretty profound if u think about it. i've been thinking about it for the longest time and the more i do that, the more it makes sense, tho i still can't really explain how. hmm. mothers know best.