Another saturday of shopping :) I didnt go as crazy buying things today as I did last week. Bought some make-up and a decent going-out top. So that top brings the total number of nice going out tops to 3. Now that Im working and have the moolah, Im trying to move away from the usual polo tee-shirt get up that I'd survive on in uni. Not that Im anti polo. I love polo tees. They're so versatile. And comfy. And safe. Especially for days when I just feel like blending into the background and not be noticed. At all. Or for trips nearby. Or go running errands. Anyway, Im just glad I have things other than polo/t-shirts and work clothes when I meet my friends or whoever over the weekend :)

And, I realise, I have no qualms spending as much as 50 bucks for a non descript top. Thats crazy by my standards a year ago. CRAZY. Oooh, I love working. I love MONEY.

Stocked up on groceries for fasting month too. Isnt grocery shopping fun? Good thing giant is a 5 minute drive from home!

Aside: Will the people stop burning stuff like right below my block. I understand that they have to do it cos the 7th month is coming to an end and stuff...but cant they just burn somewhere else? I live on the fourth floor. So the soot come in through the windows, stenching my clothes, hair and everything else. But that's not the worst. The worst thing is that my throat burns and my lungs suffocate. Ask my friends who smoke. They know I cant even be around the..er...smoke cos my throat is super sensitive :( I cant wait for this month to end. One more day! I think.

On a happier note, I knock off work an hour earlier during the fasting month so I can reach home in time to buka. My supervisor is so sweet :) Well, the rationale is that I dont go for lunch so technically, Im working the same amt of hours as the others. So there. :D

Yay~

It's a dreary looking day outside. The sky's overcast, the pouring rain has now thinned to a drizzle but still, I am contented.

Rain or shine, weekends are simply the best. If it rains, i stay home and watch dvds, tv or surf the net in bed. If it shines, I might head out shopping/movie/meet up w friends ard my neighbourhood (because i refuse to take public transport on weekends after all that travelling on weekdays)

Ahhhhhhh.....

I can finally breathe again now that my blocked nose -and work- has cleared up a little. Anyway, the new zealand trip ive been planning to take with my sis might not happen since we might be visiting our daddy instead! I kinda miss him. It's only been 2 weeks but it feels like months have gone by.

And sigh, let this be a precaution to all: think very carefully if you want to get a pda phone. The thing jams a lot so expect to send it for servicing on a regular basis.

Oh! Yesterday my my sis, farhana and i went to watch the fireworks festival. First time on the floating platform..and no, it doesnt feel like its floating sadly. The fireworks were brilliant but it lasted only for a while. I was expecting displays from a few countries at one go but only the french presented their yesterday. Pretty. I love fireworks :) After that, a local band played and everyone started leaving. So poor thing. They were really good! So we stayed on to watch them play. The last perfomance was this magician. Ok la. Then the journey home. Goodness. Jam-pack la. Worth it? I dont know. Maybe public transport is a good idea when heading out to town on weekends.

I cannot wait for this week to end. Oh my GOSH. I so want this presentation to be done with already. I was pretty much the last to leave work the last 2 days working on this darn thing...

Oh sigh. But at least, im doing something psych related and familiar-data analysis- so Im quite satisfied la. At least im using my brain.

Tmr, im working from home. I have this irritating paper to write by tmr and Im supposed to finish my data analyses and presentation slides by tmr so Im hoping that staying at home would cut down time wastage, i.e. travelling.

Plus, Im sick. Yup, i am down with the flu. In fact, so many people ard me have been sneezing and coughing. Oh dear, my head feels so heavy. I just wanna sleep but I have to at least complete something tonight.

Thank goodness my sup is super nice. I was supposed to send her the slides tonight and I was prepared to stay up to do it and email her by 10 plus but she sms-ed me, telling me to continue with it tmr instead.

PHEW. Im tired. I'm probably incoherent. Why? Because Im typing, watching the news, and trying to breathe.

Behold the nearly midnight rant.

I'm back. Came home on sat night and Im still tired. The trip was alright despite 2/3 of it being work. I suppose having the comfy king size bed in a luxurious hotel room all to myself made up for things. Service was fantastic too. I'll blog about that later. For now, im tired.

Plus I skipped breakfast. So that made me pretty cranky this morning. I was inches away from snapping at people just because. I felt really really low but the day picked up after lunch. I left the office late cos i had to crunch some data and im still not done running the analyses. I tell you, we were definitely not taught how to use s..p...s...s thoroughly and effectively in school. Now I have adopt the trial and error method. My eyes. The numbers. Urgh.

Met up with pema later for dinner and we conclude that: work sucks but money and the quest for life and professional experiences motivates.

And i have this urge to get myself another piercing on my ear.

Right. Just like how i wanted to dye my head black/purple back when i was in year 4.
The things I do plan to do but might not even do when im feeling stifled.

How many times have I mentioned that things are starting to look up at work before something happens and then I change my mind? Well, thats work la. But today, I had a good day :D

I love it when I finish assignments well before the dateline. I sleep better. So I toiled the evening yesterday and I managed to complete the report around midnight. I was so proud of myself because I havent been properly trained in handling such information but it suddenly came to me as I typed it. And wa la! Alhamdulillah :) My colleague (that one) read through and made comments on it and all and I did learn quite a bit. Actually, she's quite a good person to learn from cos she's super 'strict'. So, I'm definitely more confident about doing up such reports in future and in a way, I think I'm a bit more prepared to handle interviews too.

Aside: I kinda like this new colleague who came in last friday. She's super easy going and I managed to spend some time with her today as we were the only two newbies at this convention. Yay! A new friend :)

Anyways, time to pack! Will be back on Sun morning!

Bite my tongue la.

I talk so much now I have SO MUCH WORK to do. Well, there's not so much work but whatever I have, I have to complete asap since I'm leaving to jakarta for 3 days. Bah. I have to stay up tonight to finish a report. Please God, help me do a good one.

Yeah, so I'll be going to jkt for work and I guess I'm quite excited (except for the whole clearing up outstanding stuff before leaving). I've never flown sq before so yay! And I received word today that I'll be staying at the marriott and and and I'll have my own room with a king size bed! ROLL!

Aside: Dad's safely landed, Alhamdulillah. I'm starting to miss him.

Alright, back to work!

I've changed my outlook on two things. Firstly, my wide-eyed patriotism and belief in the system has waned tremendously. Dont get me wrong, I still think that Im blessed to be living here. Alhamdulillah. And I must never forget that. Provision for the basic needs for human survival and peaceful co-existence with others of differing faiths, etc is imperative and so Im glad that we have it here. But beyond that? I dont know. All I know is that Im not that naive anymore. And that's that.

Secondly, I've definitely mellowed down. I used to be very competitive and ambitious in getting to the top. But having witnessed (being at the receiving end of) office politics, I think it's not worth it. Why cant people just work together and be nice to one another? And im not even working in a profit making org. ?!. I think back stabbing and putting on pretenses in front of the bosses to project a favorable image is shallow and pathetic. Let it be that if I were to ever get promoted, I get there through the quality of my work and by respecting those around me. Maybe meeting her is a blessing in disguise. Because she is indeed a negative example and I pray I never end up like her.

Enough sombre-ness. Super long wheeeeeeeeeeeeeenkend~ I claimed my half day leave yest and im on leave on mon :D And I no longer need physio cos Im kinda 'cured'.

Happy Weekend everyone! :)

I am typing this at work now on word and I'm gonna paste this on blogger later. I am feeling rather frustrated today due to a culmination of reasons. The first one pertains to my colleague. I can't place her. There is just something about her which annoys the hell out of me but I've been patient (you're talking about me here) with her simply because I cant ascertain if she's being like this on purpose or is she simply like that. What exactly?

Well, she's uber temperamental and the worse thing is that the changes are super subtle and quick that I don't know how to react! URGH. I mean one moment I feel like she's the office bitch and the next she's nice to me and all and then she's not a bitch anymore and then I feel guilty but then she does it again! And the cycle continues. I've never encountered such a person before and I'm quite lost as to how to respond to her style of interaction.

That said, I'm also frustrated because I feel under-used. The dendrites in my brain are shortening and my cells are shrinking. I need mental stimulation. Yes, it's not the peak period. I get it. And yes, it's only my first month. But I want something engaging to delve into. I might change my mind about this but till then: I miss school. I miss academia. I miss research. Although the thesis saga did not go down very well, I still very much love research. Literature review, running experiments, running stats analysis…I miss that rigor. At least that is personally fulfilling.

On a happy note, I can access utube after all. Listening to 'I'm Yours' by Jason mraz is calming J What a happy song.

The monday blues didnt hit me as bad today as it did last week. Sat and Sun didnt fly by so quickly this time round so I was able to savor every bit of it and oh, how splendid it was :)

After 2 months of recuperating from the backache, I finally ran on sat. It was a lovely evening and I managed to catch the sun set. Beautiful. The lush greenary against an orange-blue sky. Ahhhh... I tell you, I'm so blessed to be living here. My estate is probably one of the best estates in spore. As I was running, I bumped into the usual joggers. The amazing ah pek who's stamina is like woah. He runs back and forth countless times. The auntie who alternates between walks, jogs and cycle, depending on her mood, i suppose. The girl who jogs while daintily clutching her handkerchief with both hands. But I guess I missed the others since I arrived at the park connector slightly before 7 instead of the usual 6pm.

After the jog, I met up with my ex-fri-lunch girls :) We were chatting and eating and having fun that time simply went by too quickly!

Sunday. Family day. I decided that sunday would be bontot-my-parents day (tag along with parents). I havent gone out with them..just three of us..in what seems like a long time. We explored pasir ris together as they havent been to the new mall at downtown east, and we discovered tonnes of halal places to eat at. And my my, what a feast we had. We started with sushi, then satay, roti john, mee rebus, ice cream and cake. On me :) There's nothing sweeter than surprising parents by footing the bill. They've given me so much. I owe them everything.

Sigh. My daddy's leaving next monday and hopefully I can get the day off. The last time he went away to work for a few years in the mid east was when I was ard 2-4. In fact, my first memory ever can be traced back to that time. I remember following my mom to the post office where she made trunk calls in a private booth within the post office. I remember waiting for his letters and I remember my mom/sis reading his letters to me. In one of them, he said that he wanted me to write and if I could, he'd give me 5 bucks. And so I did :) I dont know what I scribbled but I remember attaching a drawing as well. I was trying to draw my family and I can still clearly recall how frustrated I was that the people ended up looking like weird monsters with super long limbs. I still keep the letters from yesteryears :) And that drawing is probably still in my 'memory' box.

This time will be different. Emails, phone calls and even webcam :)

Anyhoos, I cannot wait for my pay. Gosh, how many times have I mentioned that in my posts? I already have a mental list of things I wanna get once the dough comes in.

Money money money.......MONEY! I want.

I can't believe it's finally done. After months of resistance and putting it off, I have changed my blog skin. You see, over the holidays, I've been searching for skins which are simple, clean and pleasant-looking. I came across a few but they were either too complicated, too teenage-y. And when I did find something vaguely 'me', I encountered problems fitting html codes into the new skin. So I gave up. Then ever since I started working, I just couldnt be bothered. And I guess in some way, it affected my mood to blog.

So I'm excited now because I was just looking at blogger's selection of skins and without much thought, I clicked this one and wham! It's done! And Im loving it :) Simple. Clean. Green. I've decided not to keep the tagboard because people hardly tag and pop-ups keep appearing. So do leave a comment instead, ya? :)

And I've been doing a little thinking. I know that my previous posts seem to indicate that Im not finding a sense of fulfillment in my new job. That is still, alas, true. But the sheer fact that I am employed leaves me grateful. And it's timely that I got reminded that I cant have everything. This is my first job and Im only into my first month or so. I shall give it time. Insha-Allah, i will find meaning in what Im doing. Meanwhile, i shall take things in stride and learn as much as I can.

Whee~ Changing blogskin is therapeutic. It's like buying a new and pretty notebook and itching to write in it :)