Wednesday, December 20, 2006

Thoughts About Work

Here are some of the quotations that I like, by my friends:
- The present does not matter, but it’s the person who gives the present that matters.
- We need courage in our life for making every single step

After working, I realize several things:
- We earn enough money to spend, but we often do not have enough money to give to our parents.
- Even if there is no work for the day, we still feel tired after getting home from work.
- By following the rules strictly, we will not be able to achieve our goals. Think of the box!
- Distance is not an issue. Even though I have friends working in the same company, we only see each other for a chat during gatherings. The company is too big and we often do not have the time to catch up with each other.
- People often give up a good job opportunity because of transport and location. As the saying goes, “no pain no gain”. Short term suffering is better than losing a good opportunity. I will definitely go for it, unless there are some other factors that I may need to consider at that time (eg: parents’ health).
- Many people let problems to make their life tough, instead of solving them. Problems are meant to be solved. If no actions are taken, a problem will forever remain as a problem.
- We were striving hard to get a “nice certificate” during our studies. But these certificates are merely the key to get for an interview. There are much more skills that we need to learn other than the facts from the books, and these skills have proved to be much more useful in the future.
- The worst part of a wedding is the wedding dinner. If you invite guests A, then you must invite guest B as they both know you. Then, if you invite guest B, then you must invite guest C. In the end, you will need to invite many people. However, can you afford to invite so many people? If yes, go ahead. If no, you will have a headache selecting the people to invite. Wedding is no longer economical. The wedding photos itself need more than RM3K.
- As we earn more money, we have less time to spend them.
- We like Friday and hate Monday.

My Birthday

December 6 is my birthday, it is also Huwi Yin’s birthday. Birthday means that I have grown older. Does that mean that I am wiser now? I think it’s still the same. This year I didn’t get to eat any birthday cakes. Does that mean that I unable to make wishes and thus, my wishes won’t come true? I had dinners on the 5th and on my birthday. I feel that I am starting to hate food… I don’t want to eat anymore… Since it is a festive season, it is impossible to reduce “food load”. I received some presents from my friends and colleagues. Special thanks to Christine, Kim Sheng, Khim Foong, Kelly, Hui Shan, Khai, Pei Ling, Siew Ean, Yen Ching, Cheah Jing, Lay Leng, Yean Hong, Cheah Chee, Huey Sze, Queena, Jin and those names not mentioned. After living on Mother Earth for more than 22 years, I have many pleasant and unpleasant memories. There are so many things that I can recall now. When I reach the age of 30, there will be even more! Wonder if my internal memory will get overloaded by then.

Tuesday, December 12, 2006

December~

December is here! It is the month that I am looking forward the most throughout the year due to several reasons. December is a holiday season and sales is available everywhere, one of the best seasons to shop other than the Shopping carnival around September. As Christmas is approaching, there are beautiful decorations in all the major shopping complex. I am always looking forward to see those cute artificial snowmen and well decorated Christmas trees. They always make me feel excited even though I have being seeing them every year around this season.

December 1, Friday – I rushed to the PC fair at PISA immediately after my work. A heavy traffic jam was expected to occur as there were many events occurring during the weekends. This includes the opening of the new shopping complex, Queensbay Mall. It was raining heavily as soon as I departed from my company. The traffic jam is not as bad as I thought. I met several high school friends there, working as part-time workers for the fair. It is their semester break now. In addition, I managed to get some goodies. It was a satisfying purchase. I spent around RM130 for a webcam, card reader, headset and 25 pieces of DVD+R. I was having a nice time playing with my new 1.3 Megapixel webcam on that night. The video is clear and there is not much lagging from my side.

December 3, Sunday - Last Sunday I took my Japanese Language Proficiency Test (JLPT) Level 2. I met some ex-classmates there, Lee Wei and (I cannot remember her name). They were attempting the Level 4 exam. The exam didn’t go well, especially Paper 2, the listening test. There maybe something wrong with the CD as there is a serious vibration for many questions in Part I. Perhaps they are trying to test our listening skills in various situations as well? Overall, I feel that I am going to fail for another time this year, even though I am able to answer more questions this time. God please bless me… After my exam, I went to the steamboat shop at Sg. Dua for a primary school gathering. It was a sudden gathering. Lay Fen message me the night before thru MSN messenger and I was a bit surprise. A total of 12 people attended the gathering. It is good to meet so many people again, after such a long time. Some I haven’t see them for around 10 years. They sure have change (appearance). We finished dining at around 10pm. It feels so weird after the exam, with nothing much to do. It is like losing a direction.

November Events

Festive season is around the corner. It is also a season of food, food and more food. A week ago, I completed my second pot of clay flowers, Hyacinth Heaven. It is a plant that grows during the winter, a perfect tree for this season. The office now is filled with Christmas trees, snowman, penguins and other Christmas decorations. Holiday mood is in the air. I still remember last year, around this period of time, Christoph showed me snowing scene outside of his room using his videocam. The scenery out there is very bright. The whole are was covered up by snow. I felt like as if I had just seen Heaven.

As year end is approaching, there are many dinners. November 22, Wednesday - There was a dinner organized by an extended team as an appreciation of the support we provide throughout the year. It was a luxurious dinner at Prawn Village, a restaurant very near to my company. My favorite dish of the night is cheese and prawns. The first runner up would be the fish dish. The fish slices were “smooth” and delicious.

November 24, Friday - I attended the Waseda Brass Concert jointly organized by Japan Embassy and University Science Malaysia (USM) in Dewan Budaya, USM. Admission was free. The hall was almost full. I was not particularly interested in brass. Since the concert was free and I have not attended any concerts for more than a year, I decided to give it a try. It was raining heavily on that night and traffic jam was extremely heavy around the island, as a lot of places were slightly flooded and many people were rushing to go home on this last day of work for the week. I almost gave up attending concert, but luckily I didn’t. It was a wonderful concert and changed my perceptions towards brass. With only brass instruments, it is possible to perform very wonderful music. My favorite member would be the conductor. Besides being the youngest member of the band, he is a very spirited and funny conductor. I felt like dancing while watching him conducting the band.

November 26, Sunday – I went to Gurney Plaza with Queena. The main event of the day was watching the movie “Step Up”. It was a very inspiring and wonderful movie. It was all dancing, classical + modern. The opening of the movie is well down, showing the contrast between ballet and modern dance. It is movie worth watching! In addition, the soundtrack is nice. Before the movie, I had lunch at Food Loaf. We called it as the “high-class food court”. It is like a food court, there are many types of delicacies to choose from – Italian, Japanese, Korean, Western and local cuisines, everything under one hub. The atmosphere is very nice. The view from the glass is very nice. The price there is of KL standard and the servings are a lot. The waiters and waitresses there are very friendly. I am satisfied with my Manhantten Market Platter, with a big piece of fish and chips, mashed potatoes, 3 fried prawns, BBQ squids and some salad. It is a place worth visiting once in a while (unless you are rich enough to visit there for meals everyday).

Last but not least, I would like thank Yushu for wonderful pictures of Korea, especially the fireworks one ^^