No Internet Access & Lack of Humanity

I've not been having access to the Internet due to this, for, what, a day, and I'm already suffering from Internet withdrawal symptoms. My computer's (almost) my life, and now, I don't know what to do with all the free time in between! I could do some reading, of course, or catch up on real life, as they call it. Yet ... there's this void that only the Internet can fill. Something about a constant connection to the outside world, perhaps?

Sigh. And yet ...

I just realised, that ever since the earthquake in Taiwan disrupted our Internet access, everyone's only complaining about lack of Internet access, blaming it on streamyx, etc. But no one's actually thought of the earthquake victims who lost everything to the disaster. Here we are, grumbling pettily that we have lost our Internet access ("Oh no! No online gaming for a day! How will I live?!"), when there are people out there who suffered a lot more. What has happened to humanity? When have we become that oblivious and selfish, that we are all we think about?

Having said all that ... yep, it's definitely time I move away from the computer for a bit, give my eyes their much-needed rest, and breathe some fresh air for a change. Hope that all is well in Taiwan.

My Christmassy Events

• 9th secondary school reunion on the 23rd. Had such a fantabulous time, and I got to meet up with old friends, some of whom I've not seen in 9 years! Where has the time gone, huh? Couldn't booze up as I'd like, 'cos I was the designated driver. Shucks. Anyways, May's back from Australia, Chin's back from the US, and it was really good catching up with 'em. Chin, thanks so much for the very lovely gift (a Coach keyring, 'cos she knows how much I love Coach. It's the real deal, people!), I loved it.

• Christmas service (well, a day earlier anyways) on the 24th. For some reason, I did NOT enjoy it, because we only sang ONE Christmas song (Joy to the World) during the entire service! By the way, the song, God Sent His Son, is a dirge, no matter what people say.

• Went shopping with the family after Christmas service. Mum bought me MAC foundation for Christmas. A very useful gift indeed, as mine's about to finish.

• Had our annual Christmas BBQ at home. Brother brought along his girlfriend, and a couple of friends. I was in my room on the computer with the boyfriend for a bit, before streamyx died on me. Drats. Anyways, great BBQ; Mum made mean pork chops.

• Christmas lunch, as usual, at the Penang Swimming Club. Seriously, I think we only go there every year 'cos the food's cheap (and not that good either). Mum wants it to be an annual tradition at the club. o_O

All in all, it was a really good Christmas this year. Didn't get many presents this year, but the company of family and friends was really heartwarming (this year's school reunion was the best!). Too bad the boyfriend couldn't be back for Christmas this year. That would have been the icing on the cake. Still, celebrating it online wasn't too bad. Your rendition of White Christmas rocked, babes ;) (I wasn't laughing AT you, by the way ... tee hee hee!)

Thanks for all the text messages of greetings and well wishes. A blessed Christmas to y'all too. And here's to a wonderful 2007 *cheers*

Merry Christmas

Christmas is a time to see the world through the eyes of love. It's a time to remember that the world is made up of people like us, and to see them for who they are inside. All have problems like we do, no matter who they are or where they come from.

Christmas is the season of love because God is the God of love.

I'd like to share a Christmas song which is very dear to my heart.

As little children we would dream of Christmas morn
Of all the gifts and toys we knew we’d find
But we never realized a baby born one blessed night
Gave us the greatest gift of our lives

*We were the reason that He gave His life
We were the reason that He suffered and died
To a world that was lost He gave all He could give
To show us the reason to live

As the years went by we learned more about gifts
The giving of ourselves and what that means
On a dark and cloudy day a man hung crying in the rain
All because of love
All because of love

I finally found the reason for living
It’s in giving every part of my heart to Him (every part to Him)
And all that I do every word that I say (you know I’ll be saying)
I’ll be giving my all just for Him, for Him (every thing for Him)

We are the reason that He gave His life
We are the reason that He suffered and died
To a world that was lost He gave all He could give (all that he could give all)
To show us the reason to live

He is the reason to live
(don’t you know do you know the reason
that he came, oh he came to save us
when he gave his life for us) he suffered and died
To a world that was lost He gave everything (everything that He had He gave)
To show us the reason to live

A blessed Christmas to all.

Christmas Shopping for ME

Took half a day off work yesterday. I make it a point to try taking half a day off work once a month or so, to just unwind from the office. I can't do this too often though, as I need to save my annual leave for special occasions.

Anyhoos, coincidentally, Hester also took half a day off to settle her wedding stuff. In the end, we went out together to the newly-opened Queensbay Mall to shop for the stuff she needed for the wedding. I didn't come home empty-handed. A few books from Borders (3 for 2; I'm so glad they do this here, and not just the UK and Australia), makeup from Elianto (a lot of Korean makeup lines coming up, which aren't too bad. Quite cheap too), lingerie from La Senza (I lurve this shop; too bad they're pretty expensive), and other bits and pieces.

We ended the afternoon of shopping with a bit of frozen yogurt at New Zealand Natural. We had a good 20% discount, courtesy of the vouchers cousin Bea gave me when she was in Penang. It wasn't too bad; the low-fat ice-cream which she recommended were sold out though. Shows how popular they are, eh?

After the last couple of weeks of Christmas shopping for my family and friends, this time, I call it Christmas shopping for ME. Retail therapy's fantastic, y'know ;)

PS: They're playing Christmas songs over the PA system at the office, just before breaking to the 3-day weekend. Whee.

Learn A Bit Of Tact, People!

At a recent interview,

HR lady: So, tell us a little more about yourself.

Interviewee: (nervously) I'm 23 years old, from KL. I recently graduated from MMU.

HR lady: How many members are there in your family?

Interviewee: Three. My father, younger brother and I. My mother passed away when I was very young.

HR lady: How old were you when she passed away?

Interviewee: I was four.

HR lady: How did she die?

Interviewee: Umm ... I don't know. It happened a long time ago.

HR lady: (incredulously) Huh? You mean you don't know how your mother died?

Interviewee: (uncomfortably) Umm ... she died of a fever.

HR lady: (disbelievingly) Fever? She DIED of a fever??

Interviewee: It was high fever, I think.

HR lady: (raising one eyebrow) Ohhh ... so she DIED of a high fever lah?

Interviewee: (very uncomfortable now) Yeah. She was already sick when she was pregnant.

Hr lady: Oh okay (writing it down casually). Let's move on.

...

I attended this interview. Thank God, I wasn't in the interviewee's shoes (I was interviewing for an extra member in my team). He looked so uncomfortable, shifting in his seat, trying to explain to our company's personnel on HOW his mother died.

First of all, who the hell asks such a question in an interview?! Hello, do you even understand the meaning of tact?! How is this even relevant to the interview? Go ahead, ask a few simple questions to break the ice or something; I mean, hey, it's a job interview, the interviewee's bound to be nervous, even more so if he/she's newly graduated from university. But to probe deep into cause of death of a parent, when it's not even any of our business to know ... now that's just wrong. It's highly insensitive, and if we were in the States right now, we'd get our asses sued for harassment and emotional trauma. The death of a parent is already traumatic enough, without having to have the memories brought up again, and worst of all, ridiculed.

Geez. The sort of tactless people we face day to day. Just makes you wanna smack 'em upside down. I'm conducting another interview on Friday. If she does this again (she asked insensitive questions again, in a separate interview), I'm telling her off there and then. I really don't give two hoots if she gets angry. She can jolly well kiss my ass when I lodge a formal complaint against her to HER boss.

Sweet Jazz

Currently listening to Swingtime on Lite FM. Feeling very hmmm at the moment. I just love swing and jazz, which, unfortunately, not many people appreciate. These days are just teenybopper pop, hardcore rock, garage (okay, what the heck IS that?!), techno (which, in my honest opinion, is simply music for aerobics and nothing more), etc. The lovely oldies are simply forgotten, and jazz is all hoolabaloo. What a pity, huh?

Dim the lights, light some candles, put on some soft jazz, and ... well, you fill in the blanks. Certainly a great mood-starter, no?

And who knows? You might actually start to enjoy the music on its own after all *wink*.

Bad, Bad Facial

So my facialist totally ripped me off today. I didn't know that it was my last session with her, and after she reminded me, she bugged me so many times about continuing my facials with her, I tried being real vague, real dodgy of her questions. Which resulted in the lady kept whacking me with her roll of papers she was holding in her hand!

"Are you [whack] continuing or not? [whack] Continue lah [whack]."

She did this a few times, before I really couldn't take it anymore (the facial was already about to start; I was already lying on the bed, with the ugly headband on and everything), and I told her I'd like to try someplace new. And I was really nice about it too, without even complaining how shoddy her services have been lately.

"Aiyo [whack], why you don't want to continue? [whack] You don't want to take care of your face already meh? [whack] Why don't want to continue? [whack] Continue lah [whack] !!"

WTF, right?

Well, ladies, a lesson to be learnt. NEVER tell your facialist you don't want to continue on with her till AFTER your final facial with her, or she'll do a completely sloppy job for you. Of course, I wouldn't say this for all beauticians, but mine was just over the top. What used to be 2++ hours (sometimes even 3) of facial was reduced to an hour and 15 minutes. She did NOT do the blackhead extraction on my nose, neither did she do a good job on my eyebrows (I still have a lot of stray hairs around the eyes).

I left the place feeling unsatisfied, and ripped off. I could have told her off, since I wasn't going to come back anyway, but I thought I'd be nice and leave on a good note. I made a mistake telling my parents how it went when I got home, because I got mocked big time for being stupid anyway. What's that thing about karma now? Oh yeah, be nice and you're screwed.

Argh. And you know what the funny thing about this unscrupulous business was? The facialist goes to the same church as I do!

#@$%!!

PS: On a lighter note, I got all my Christmas shopping done today, so yay!

Bloody Blogger Beta

Dear friends who are currently using Blogger Beta,

I'm currently having problems placing comments in your blogs. I kept getting this error message everytime I tried posting a comment:

I'm not on Blogger Beta (and has no intention of ever switching to one, because it's a real pain in the ass). I tried so many times to comment on your blogs, but to no avail. Nope, I don't think it was a wrong-password problem; I even tried typing my password REALLY slowly. I have no problems with the classic Blogger. Is anybody else having this problem?

Bugger :(

A Nerd, That's Me!

The other day my colleague and I were discussing on current mobile phones in the market, and also the different features available on the phones. We started debating on screen resolutions, types of image sensors used, etc.

Colleague: How do you even know all these?

Me: Err ... 'cos I'm interested in 'em? What's wrong with that?

Colleague: I can't even talk about things like these to my girlfriend. She has absolutely no interest in such things whatsover. I wish she was more like you.

Me: ??

Okay. Was that a compliment, or did he just call me a nerd? Can't help it if I love electronic gadgets; the shiny metal, the fancy buttons, the gorgeous screens ... if you leave me at Akihabara, I'd die, because there's no way I can survive that place without bringing home something shiny (and you know it's going to cost ya big). I'm always glued to my notebook; I feel naked without it (same goes for my mobile phone). I need to be constantly connected to the Internet; that was the reason I bought my Nokia N80 (bloody expensive brick, I'd say).

Yet, I love the pretty, girly stuff, like shoes and bags. I have 10 different tubes of nail polish, bagful of cosmetics which I regularly use, about 20 pairs of shoes, and a gazillion bags in my wardrobe (major shoe-and-bag-whore, that's me). Scary, I know. I'm fast running out of space to keep 'em.

Anyhoos.

There ya go. More nerd than anything else. A woman of the noughties, surely.

Acting Smarter Than You Are

May sent me this today, and I thought, man, this is great weaseling (which we practise and aim to perfect at the office). The article's by Dilbert's Scott Adams, oh hailed father of weaseling.

People have often told me that I seem smarter than I really am. I accept the compliment. As you know, appearances are more important than substance. And so, because I love you, I will teach you some tricks for appearing smarter than you are. Believe me, it comes in handy.

First, and this cannot be over-emphasized, you need to wear corrective lenses even if your eyesight is perfect. Spectacles add ten imaginary points to your I.Q. You’ll be amazed at how many people stop you on the street to ask tax questions. That’s been happening to me since fourth grade. I’ll always wonder how many people went to jail because of my advice on offshore tax shelters.

You might think that corrective lenses are unattractive, but what you don’t know is that there are quite a few people who have major fetishes for brainy people. It’s probably some sort of evolution thing. You probably think Stephen Hawking is in that wheelchair because of a motor neuron disease. But if you got as much barely-legal student poontang as The Hawkster, you’d be in a wheelchair too. And for the women reading this, I’ve noticed that Tina Fey isn’t walking too straight lately either. If you ladies want more action, get glasses.

I used to think that the glasses-wearing geek was just a stereotype perpetuated by, um, me, until I gave a speech at M.I.T. About 80% of the audience wore spectacles. I assume that the other 20% wore contacts. That is not a coincidence. People who have bad eyesight are smarter than average and everyone knows it. What everyone WON’T know is that you bought your glasses at the Halloween Superstore.

Second, you must learn to stop talking so much. Talking is the surest way to inadvertently showcase profound ignorance. If the conversation turns toward the political unrest in the Chechen Republic, that’s a good time to ask if anyone needs a drink. People won’t know if you’re escaping the discussion because you know nothing about politics or if you’re just so tired of arguing about the 1999 attack on Dagestan. (Thank you, Wikipedia.)

It’s also good to know a few brainy words that only appear in high-end publications. The two words you need most are zeitgeist and eponymous. I try to drop one of those two intellectual turds into conversations as often as possible. If you use those words with confidence, people will naturally assume you know lots of other big words. If someone responds with big words of his own, that’s the time to stop talking entirely and do a lot of nodding and smiling. This leads me to my next tip.

It’s important to agree with people if you want them to think you are a genius. For most people, the definition of smart is “Thinks exactly like me but even more so.” If you think that disagreeing and offering excellent reasons for your thinking will change anyone’s mind, you might be new on this planet. The best outcome you can expect from any conversation is that the other person will walk away thinking you’re probably the CEO of something, assuming you also seem selfish, egocentric and unethical.

You can round out your artificial sense of smartness by becoming a fake wine expert. I have a wine-loving friend who taught me how to bluff my way through any discussion of wine. The trick is to learn a lot about a few types of wine and steer the conversation toward the few things you actually know. If you combine that with acting interested when other people blab about wine that you will never, ever, ever taste, you look like a world-traveling gourmand.

Oh, and add “gourmand” to zeitgeist and eponymous. If you learn to use all three words in a sentence, before long you’ll need your own wheelchair and voice synthesizer.

Let's see, I've got people 'up there' whose brains are size and use of barnacles, and enthusiasm of an old granny who has lost the will to live. Oh yeah, I'm so there.

Wedding Thingies

For the past 6 months or so, I've been helping a girlfriend, Hester, plan her wedding. I've been closely involved in 3 weddings for the past couple of years (twice a wedding singer, and the other a bridesmaid), and could help her with what knowledge I managed to amass from those weddings.

As Hester's wedding drew near, naturally, she became even more jittery, and now, all of us girls at the office are going full-force in helping her come up with the wedding day schedule, cutting of confetti, etc. Looking at everyone helping her and all, makes me hope that I'd have such helpful friends when the time comes for my wedding. It sure took the edge off Hester, that's for sure.

Anyways, lots more to do. Have yet to practise the song which I'm going to sing at her wedding ceremony (geez, I hope that saying "always a bridesmaid, never a bride" does NOT apply to wedding singers!), finish her wedding slides, help her get some stuff for the wedding, etc etc. My procastinating nature does not help at all. ARGH.

Reminder to self - ELOPE.

So Christmas Is Coming

Just checked my calendar, boy, am I having a busy month or what? All my weekends are full; I have a girlfriend's hen night to attend this weekend (organised it and everything too, with party favours, and stuff), a beauty salon's opening ceremony (only for the freebies, dahlinks), luncheons, whole lotta meetings, and a high school reunion for the rest of the month. AND this does not even include Christmas shopping.

I just love Christmas, don't you? Especially the shopping. For some reason, I get a warm and fuzzy feeling everytime I give someone a present. Like they said, 'tis better to give than to receive', right? However, this year, the presents are going to be a tad cheaper, as I'm so broke right now, it's not even funny. Sure, there's always the year-end bonus and stuff, but that's going straight into my savings account, so yeah, I won't be able to buy much presents this year.

Still, Christmas is going to be great this year. I can feel it in my bones. I've had a pretty lousy one last year, and the worst new year's eve possible, but this year ... it's different. For the first time in a long while, I'm finally happy again. I'm finally able to move on, take control of my life and to be myself again. Life could not be better.

My Christmas wish? For the boyfriend to be here during the holiday season. Unfortunately, he's not able to come back during this time, so I guess we'd have to settle on ... err ... celebrating it online. Singing carols over the webcam, anyone? Tee hee hee. There's always the annual Christmas BBQ with the family, which is going to be great, when Mum finally makes her absolutely fabulous spicy squid and pineapple prawn kebabs (we only get to have that once a year. Tsk tsk tsk).

What's your Christmas wish this year?

The Empress, Am I

You are The Empress

Beauty, happiness, pleasure, success, luxury, dissipation.

The Empress is associated with Venus, the feminine planet, so it represents,
beauty, charm, pleasure, luxury, and delight. You may be good at home
decorating, art or anything to do with making things beautiful.

The Empress is a creator, be it creation of life, of romance, of art or business. While the Magician is the primal spark, the idea made real, and the High Priestess is the one who gives the idea a form, the Empress is the womb where it gestates and grows till it is ready to be born. This is why her symbol is Venus, goddess of beautiful things as well as love. Even so, the Empress is more Demeter, goddess of abundance, then sensual Venus. She is the giver of Earthly gifts, yet at the same time, she can, in anger withhold, as Demeter did when her daughter, Persephone, was kidnapped. In fury and grief, she kept the Earth barren till her child was returned to her.

What Tarot Card are You?
Take the Test to Find Out.

French Manicure

It was a good weekend of manis and pedis. Had a pedicure at a nail salon, and did my very first French manicure, all on my own, WITHOUT nail guides (I used Sally Hansen's French Manicure Kit). It was quite a feat, painting the white stripes on my right hand, using my left (I'm a rightie). Took me 3 to 4 tries on each finger before I actually got it right. Sorry, no photos to show as I obviously can't take a photo of both my hands by myself, and I was too embarrassed to ask anyone else to do so. Anyhoos, I find French manis very clean, and definitely very chic. For those who have never had a French manicure (or am I just hopping onto this train now?!), I'd recommend you give it a go.