Monday, June 05, 2006

Happy Birthday To Me.

It was a crappy day, it was a crappy, crappy day. I had come down with a terrible sore throat, and occassional sniffs. The nite before had started wonderful, when my school chum, Abby came down to KL for training and I had spent the nite bunking in her hotel room. We caught up with each other's news. Who's she dating, who is who's dating, who is doing what etc. Throughout the nite, I began to experience the worst ever feeling since I dunno when. I huddled under the blanket, half asleep and half awake. I had a nightmare. I dreamed I was screaming myself hoarse at someone for being mean to me.

'You think I do this on purpose, you scum, you bad-mouthed me behind my back and you expect I could take it just like that??'

I woke up feeling like someone had rubbed the grittiest sandpaper on my throat until it felt raw that it was hard to swallow.

I was late for work because the housekeeping staff took her own sweet time delivering the iron, and bloody KL road, confusing me. I had to make a detour to reach somewhere familiar. Like I need another reason to be 'happy' today, huh, I thought darkly.

Work was well, work. Bloody Business Development people. You want a good product, give us something worthwhile la, how can you expect we deliver you gold when you give us crap? Like crap. I felt like jumping off the building. I was that exasperated.

Me: Your boss wants us to put how many bloody parking bays we'll have.
Chairman: Or you can manually count the parking bays.
Me (totally gave up): Whatever, just give me something. Why can't you be decent to me on my birthday? I have a crappy day you know?
Chairman: (mumbled something I can't hear)
Me: Yeah, whatever.

In the afternoon, I went in two presentations. They were like, *unspeakable stuffs*.

Trump to me: Anything you want to comment?
Me (rubbing my burning forehead, and feeling my throbbing temple): I like the music, you know, but it's like, disjointed. I felt something was not explained, the link was missing.
(2nd presentation)
Trump to me: Anything?
Me (shrugged in surrender): No.

Then, there was the time out zone, when I went for aerobic for half an hour. Then finally sitting here, staring at the monitor.

It could be any other day. It could be last year, or last month, or last day. But it had to happen today.

Under my breath, I sang tunelessly, 'Happy Birthday to me, happy birthday to me. Happy birthday to me. Happy birthday to...' at this point of time, I saw an incoming email from a passenger with a long, long list of questions which looked familiar. '... crap.' Don't they ever read the FAQs? Why the fish head curry do I bother to prep a FAQs page if nobody bothered to read it???

I think I'd better go back and sleep until next year.

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Tuesday, May 30, 2006

Bila Kau Tiada Di Sisi... Sepi.

Pada hari itu, dia kehilangan helmet baru kesayangannya. Oleh sebab semua kedai motor dah tutup dan dia takut ditahan oleh polis, dia pun mengikat sehelai tuala di atas kepala supaya Pak Polisi menyangka dia memakai serban. Adakah dia ingat Pak Polisi tu rabun malam?? Aku yang membontoti di belakang motornya di atas CLK ku sendiri tergelak sesorang di atas motor. Patut kah aku menggelarnya bhai??? Arre, bhai... lawa turban itu!

Pada hari yang lain, aku ternampak dua orang 'Bhai' original di atas motor. Aku mencuitnya dan berkata, 'Awak tak nak bertegur-sapa ke ngan saudara awak tu?' Dia sangat geram tapi juga sangat lucu. Aku temannya yang sangat suka mengusiknya. Adakala dia mahu 'memakan' aku kerana aku suka membuat lawak jenaka berunsur dia.

Kami singgah di pasar malam. Dia dan aku berjalan-jalan meninjau sekeliling. Akhirnya, setelah aku membeli barang-barang aku, dia dan aku berjalan ke motor masing-masing. Aku menjenguk apa yang dibelinya. Keropok je?? Keropok apa tu?

'Keropok apa awak beli?'

Dia tersengih-sengih. 'Pappadum.'

Aku sudah gelak sakan. Mahu berguling-guling di atas jalan raya yang sesak ngan kereta dan orang tu.

'Awak, kalau ya pun baru jumpa sedara mara...'

Dia sangat geram, tapi sangat lucu.

Dan pada malam itu, dia dan aku ada misi besar ke Carrefour. Membeli salad untuk aku :p Bila di Carrefour, dia dan aku berjalan-jalan (kami makhluk yang suka memenatkan kaki). Aku dan dia berborak-borak tentang perkakas dapur. Hmm... Pinggan apa yang paling tahan lama? Paling murah? Paling...

Dia pun menunjukkan pinggan mangkuk stainless steel yang kebiasaannya untuk menghidangkan capati dan naan. Aisey. Sah mamat ni seorang 'bhai'. Aku sudah ada idea baru untuk mengusiknya:

'Nanti orang akan panggil awak makan, cenggini: 'Annnnneeeey! Sappeddeeee!' sambil mengetuk-ngetuk pinggan. Hahahahahaha!'

Dia sudah tertunduk-tunduk menahan perutnya yang sakit.

Anney, sorry daa... :p

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Friday, May 26, 2006

Lirik Lagu Bila April (Fazley Yaakob)

Bila April tiba, hati mula berkata

Setahun lamanya perkenalan kita

Kutanya padamu kapankah hatimu

Akan kumiliki selama abadi.

Dia bilang aku, kau katakan padaku

Sabarlah menanti, takkan lama lagi

Kau senyum bermakna, padaku kau pinta

Berikanlah oh waktu, kenalilah dirimu.

Bila... Bila April

Aku menantimu, Aku menantimu

Dan bila April, bila April

Dapatku pastikan cintaku ini

Dan bila April... bila April

Bibirku pasti akan bertanya

Kapankah kau milikku.

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Wednesday, May 24, 2006

My Compulsive Obsessive Nature to Organize Untidy Stuffs

At the best of time, this is a wonderful nature that helps me to de-stress. When encountered with an ugly terrible mess, a tiny voice at the back of my mind crooned delightfully, 'Oooh... Look at that mess! I'm going to have fun setting it straight again!'

But unfortunately, this nature also pops up whenever I DON'T have the time or THE MOOD to tidy things up. My hands will automatically reach out to store that paper in that file / folder, and that pencil into that pen holder. And that newspaper ought to be put elsewhere but my table. In the waste basket for instance. No matter how my brain screams, 'Oh, leave it for tomorrow, you idiot! I'm tired already!' It just didn't work, my poor, poor brain.

Yesterday, I had a little bit of free time since I've finished with Trump's speech and other things are just not that urgent matter to be attended to. So I decided to organize the payment documents.

For several months now, payment was totally out of my hand. When I first joined my department, I had set a certain procedure of filing things to make it easier to locate that particular item immediately. The same thing goes for the payment file - whenever the department purchases anything, the first process is to fill in the Purchase Requisition form (PR) and attached together with a memo to justify the procurement. The memo being approved and the PR signed, the order is then placed. Once the procurement department released the Purchase Order form and the supplier has given their invoice and verified, the PO and the invoice is submitted to the procurement team so that payment can be processed. To simplify, the process goes like this:

PR + Memo + quotations --> PO (released by procurement dept) --> PO + invoice (submit to procurement dept) --> payment released

So, all those documents make up one transaction and these are made copies to be filed by the procuring department to refer to at the end of the year (how much of the budget has been spent).

I then moved out of the department and several people came aboard. Eventually, I am back in the department again. Suddenly, payment comes under me. And suddenly, I have to sort 3 piles of jumbled up and mixed up documents which had never been filed since I left the department.

It was mind-boggling. It was a huge confusion. It was a tsunami experience. My table was buried under hundreds of pages, pages, pages forward, more papers than I had ever read and I felt so alive.

Yup, I felt an euphoria at the thoughts of having to organize these papers according to date / transaction / agency / status of payment... When Trump came to tell me to add something in his speech, I had 2 hard cover document files covering half of my table, and papers all over the place - on the floor, on tissue box, on the monitor, on the telephone, on document tray, on my mug, everywhere except on me. Even my keyboard and my handphone were buried under these avalanche of papers.

Trump doesn't like to see messy tables (which is why, I have the suspicion, that he had overlooked Chairman's capabilities because Chairman simply haven't learn to tidy his own desk despite numerous times I taught him how to be more organized. Luckily, now he has someone more permanent to do that for him *wink*).

However, Trump likes to see his staff at hard work. So he was rather indecisive whether to reprimand me for the state of my table, or to encourage me to stay back 'because you have a lot of work to do.' So he settled with a remark, 'You like to work under that condition is it?'

So now I have managed to clear one pile of the documents comprising of 4 months of transactions. The documents are meticulously stored according to date of order, items, and status of payment. The rest of the documents which are waiting to be filed, are tidily placed at one corner of my table to be tackled tomorrow. Everywhere is a picture of perfection.

The same goes to documents in my PC. They are organized together according to subject matter, and kept in separate folders. So I have many folders which I kept together under one folder so it doesn't look too messy. The next time somebody ask for a picture from my image databank, all I have to do is to ask specific questions and quickly retrieve the correct image :)

It is a wonderful, wonderful experience to think in neatly compartmentalized mental.

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Monday, May 22, 2006

My Mother Sets Out On Adventure In KL - Part 1

Despite the fact that this posting is overdue by one week, I am still posting it because my sister wants to know every details of her activities in KL (Please note that my sister is an accauntant and a uncertified auditor who tracks records of all financial transactions on behalf of my splurging mother to evaluate whether she can be trusted to have lots of money in her account).

Last week, my mother was in town for a little holiday and a lot of shopping. The reason being, because she had been such a wonderful mother, and the Government somehow forgot to award Anugerah Ibu Mithali to this wonderful woman, I have decided to give her this little treat - return tickets (AirAsia, I can't afford MAS) to KL, fully sponsored accommodation (my rented house), free meals, and two dedicated tour guides-cum-chaperons-cum-chauffeurs (namely, me and him). The only cost she had to bear is the shopping money (with two monthly donors, she's extremely rich).

She arrived on Wednesday night, donned in her best blouse (green) and pants (white). Beloved was first to reach KL Sentral and found her sauntering about, looking as unlost as any other KL citizens. She could apply for KL citizenship, I warn you. She looked ready to conquer KL (minus KL Tower and KLCC, because she just hates height). Our first place of attraction was a restaurant by the roadside which served good food (by our standard, not hers). To her, Mom's cooking is the best (kudos, Mom!)

Thursday. I woke up and asked her, 'Would you like to take a rest today and begin your conquering feat tomorrow?' since I couldn't apply for leave. Adamantly, she replied, 'Over my dead body.' So, it was that then. I had to bring her to work, and after breakfast, I clearly described how to get to Masjid Jamek and she cheerfully went off on her first shopping spree and got lost. She was sooo enthusiastic that she managed to cover half of KL ON FOOT, I tell you. She walked all the way to Pudu but eventually she found her way to Masjid Jamek. In the afternoon, she walked back to my office laden with an armful of plastic bags. I had to carry this back to my office, dumped it on the floor and then we went to Sogo for lunch.

'Mak,' I asked after lunch, 'I'm sure you're tired and will need to rest at the surau in my office.' Full of energy, my 47-year old mother replied, 'Nonsense. I want to explore Sogo pulak.' My goodness. Being a wonderful daughter, I told her should she ever come across the word tired, the office have a comfortable, air-conditioned surau for her to rest. With that, I hurried back to my office for a meeting at 2.30pm.

That evening, she came back with three bagloads of tudung, kain and more kain. When I asked her, 'Mak, how much did you spend?' I regretted doing that because it nearly sent me into cardiac arrest. I'm sure she wouldn't mind that to happen because then I'd be rushed to IJN and she would get the chance to bump into Mawi (she's a big fan of Mawi). Being a responsible sister, I called up my elder sister to report her activities (I'm sure my sister also almost crashed her jaw on the table to hear our hard-earned salaries were happily spent on yards and yards of kain).

However, it was worth it because my mother was in such a jovial mood. She has plans to sell the kains when she goes back. We spent the night calculating how much profit she'd make. I just pray that she's right when she said the market are very, very good and things will be sold out in no time at all. Otherwise, she'd have 25 different tudungs to choose from to match with her 10 different new baju kurung.

The following day was a holiday and we brought her to Aquaria. This, I will tell in the second part of 'My Mother Sets Out On An Adventure In KL - Part 2'.

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