Dilemma again....

I'm in a dilemma to decide if I should change my job again. I didn't expect this to come so soon. It has only been 8 months down the journey with my current company and I'm feeling tempted to make a move already ....

Sigh....

All this started after I had my mid year review with my manager. After 30 mind of going thru my objectives and achievements, we went into an open topic discussion whereby I told him how I feel about my job. I told him I feel a bit demotivated because the team that I am supporting does not always get me involved in their game plan. I'm suppose to provide analysis and strategic analytics but how am I suppose to do that if I'm not sure what will be our end game? Most of the time, I'm doing random analysis which make sense to me but I'm sure it does not always make sense to them. Due to this disconnect engagement model that we have been operating on, I felt left out and I don't feel the sense of belonging. 

We talked about a couple of other things as well, such as my heavy workload, i feel underpaid for the things i am doing and things other stuff along that line but, the main topic in that discussion was mainly about how demotivated I felt. I think my manager could sense that I'm in the verge of abandoning this ship, therefore he took me out for a drink, not knowing that a drink with me does not solve issues like any other straight guys would... Lol

Anyways, from there on, I sorta start hinting my circle of coworkers and past colleagues about my intention to look for another opportunity. My prayers were answered when one of my past colleague got promoted recently, told me she has openings in her team. She approached me with the offer and asked me to consider. I have to say, the first time she talked to me, I wasn't interested at all, hence I turned her down. But after a couple of persuasion and explaining the actual job scope, it sorta caught my interests. Hence I agree to give it a try. 

I thought things will come easy but I was so wrong to think that way. After talking to her manager, he sort of doubt her judgement and asked her to pull in another peers of her to interview me as a neutral observer. Somehow deep down I knew that her manager have someone else in his mind to full this vacancy. 

So my dilemma lies between this 2 options. Should I stay and continue doing my current work which is rather dry, aimless BUT stable, secure and more lay back environment OR... go ahead and try out the new opportunity which is more challenging, fast pace and I'm pretty positive that it will be more tense and stressful. Frankly I don't know. This is something I hate about making decision coz the first thing that I want to avoid is getting myself into a worse situation that I am currently in. But again, I bet everyone wants the same thing as well. Well instead of asking myself 'Is this a good move?', I should ask myself 'Do I want to change my current situation now?'. Coz if I do, I need to take up something new or take chances with other opportunities that comes my way. Otherwise, I will be exactly where I am currently for the next couple of months or maybe years....

Tough choice eh? Frankly I don't have the answer now... Hopefully after a short nap and a good shower will help me see things in a better perspective... ^_^

I'm officially a Landlord....

.

I did exactly what is shown in the photo, passing my house key to a stranger call 'my tenant' on 19-Aug. And yes.....My condo is officially rented out and that made me the landlord. 

Maybe a little bit about my tenant. He's 2 years my senior, Chinese, Perodua car dealer and he will be staying with his GF. He seems like a nice fellar, typical salesman kind of personality, firm hand-shake and eager to talk in order to spice up the environment. 

Deep down, I do hope that he will turn up to be a good tenant and I can continue to rent out to him to ease down a bit on my finances. Guess only time will tell.....

Time to change car?

By end of this year, my car will turn 5 years old. At this juncture, I'm considering should I change to a new car or continue driving this current one? Yesterday itself, I spent close to 1K for regular servicing, got my front brake changed and serviced the air-con. Next week I can foresee another big hole in my pocket because I need to send to the workshop again to repair some annoying sound from my left rear tyre which has been bugging me for almost 3 weeks. Bummer....

In my last couple of visits to Honda workshop, I have been spending an average of 400-500 ringgit, just for regular servicing. It used to be around 150-200 ringgit. The moment it hits 50,000 KM, the cost for regular maintenance shoot up high. *sigh*

When I bought my car back in 2008, my plan was to change my car every 5 years. I know for a fact that cars nowadays are not built to last. Back in the olden days, it's quite common you see people driving a 20 to 30 year old car. Now? The moment your car celebrate its 5th or 6th birthday, the cost of maintaining it starts to get relatively high. Things will start to break down slowly but surely.

I think I will still stick to Japanese brand instead of Taiwan/Korea made car. Though they have really good design and interesting gadget like what you can find in Hyundai / Kia. Time to do some survey on the car model available in the market again......

New addition to the family....

Introducing a new member of the family...Bailey

Well, it's not exactly new anymore coz she has been with us for 5 weeks now.

Yup, I got another new female yorkie pup from the same breeder. 

I had this intention since last year when I decided to get my mum a female pup. She gets so attached to Tezel each time I go back. I guess partly she has given up hope and tired of waiting for me to make her a grandchild to play with. Hence, she resorted her grandmotherly love to a 4 legged furbabies instead. Hence, I tried to contact the breeder since 2012 but I failed, right till somewhere June this year, she finally replied my email. She told me she was away from the country and she is not actively doing Yorkie breeding business anymore. I was so excited to know from her that her sister/friend got a female pup. 

Notice why I use the term sister/friend? Well, there's some story behind that rationale. Right from the beginning, I have always suspected that the breeder (a lady in her 40s, I think) and her "sister" (a lady in her late 30s) were couple. 2 years back when I bought Tezel, they introduced themselves as sister. However, this time round, she was referred to as friend, or sometimes sister. How can one be your sister 2 years back and now she is your friend? Weird? Yes....I felt the same way too. I was telling my partner, maybe they have broke up or decided to go their own ways.....

So, Bailey is a 5 months old, female Yorkie, hyper active and extremely playful. To a certain extend, I'm a bit skeptical that she might be a result of cross-breeding with silky terrier coz her facial feature seems longer than Tezel's. Well, my mum, like many other people who have seen Tezel and Bailey, commented that Tezel looks more cute, Tezel behaves better and blah blah blah....BUT deep down, I knew she has her eyes on Bailey, or that is what I'm hoping for, coz I will never EVER give up Tezel to anyone.

Well, if you put both of them side by side, I think you will mistaken Tezel as female and Bailey as male Yorkie. Here you go.....tell me what you think?

** Top 2: Tezel; Bottom 2: Bailey **

However, personally I think Tezel has a more doll-like face as compare to Bailey. Even when he was about Bailey's age. Look at this comparison instead.....both at 4 months old

** Top & Bottom Left: Bailey; Top & Bottom Right: Tezel **

I guess both has their own charm....don't you think so? 

I'm currently keeping Bailey with me till she is potty train and more stabilize. Then, I will pass her on to my mum. She does sent me off the ceiling at times by:

• eating her poo some times
• being too hyper active that she barks a lot
• She's more "butch" then Tezel, hence that made Tezel afraid of her
• She is still teething, so she chewed on anything she sees
• She will push the "fence/barrier" thingy around each time I put her inside
• many to go.... but those are getting less as she hit 5th month

Oh well, despite all the complains and frustrations I had towards her, I know that deep down, I will definitely miss her when she is living with my mum. Till that day comes, I will continue to embrace the positive and negative moments I had with her and cherish those moments...... hard being a parents eh?

Lunch at Kensington, Seremban

Today, unlike any regular Sunday, we decided to head down to Seremban to celebrate my partner's parents' birthday. Like any other special celebration (X'mas, birthday and etc), we went straight to this place called 'Kensington'.

We reached that place around 12.30 pm, found a place to sit and we ordered straight away. From the menu, my craving was asking for chicken badly. I was deciding between 'Deep Fried Chicken Chop with Mango Thai Sauce' or 'Roast Chicken Casserole'. In the end, guess what I chose....

Yupp, I decided on 'Deep Fried Chicken Chop with Mango Thai Sauce' and ordered myself a cup of 'Rose Tea'.

As I was sipping thru my aromatic yet flavorful Rose tea, I noticed the waiters and waitresses have changed. We have been there for a couple of occasions and every time it was the same group of waiter and waitresses - 2 Indon/Filipino lady with a local chinese guy. This time it was a bunch of young Chinese (about early 20s I suppose) and a couple of Indon guys.

When the food came, I was surprised. Not only have the waiter changed, the food quality suffers too. The mango Thai sauce was nice - sweet and refreshing taste of mango but the chicken was coated with too much flour. All i could tasted was just the deep fried crispy flour with very thin layer of chicken meat. Sigh.....we used to enjoy their X'mas meal/set so much - roast turkey and a couple of X'mas dishes but looking at this now, I'm doubtful that it will ever be different now. Sadly......

After lunch, we head back to KL and by now, my nose was really bad. I finished 6 packs of packet tissue during lunch and I'm still busy wiping my nose. Whole day I was feeling so cranky and annoyed. 

We reached home around 5 plus and by the time I took shower and ready to rest, it was almost 6pm. Took a short nap, woke up at 9 pm, took my medicine and cooked instant noodle for dinner. I popped in Actifed and I'm all ready to end this miserable Sunday with a good night sleep. 

I hope that tomorrow will be a better day for me at work and I will have a smooth sailing week ahead of me. Wish me luck....

My Off Day.....

I took a day off today, mainly to go for my medical check-up at the public hospital. I didn't manage to wake up as early as I wanted to be, hence I ended up reaching hospital at 8 am (you should see the amount of people queued up for treatment already..sigh). I got myself registered and paid for the fee, we (my partner and I) went off to grab some breakfast. I had a plate of fried noodle and a pack of Nasi Lemak (yummy!). Ever since I started on the medication, I have been craving for lots of stuff. One of it would be those small pack, wrap with banana leaf in a shape of pyramid type of Nasi Lemak.

Ahhh.....I had it and it was so satisfying....

Call me crazy but I brought along my office notebook, hoping to finish off some outstanding stuff that I could not finished yesterday. I start eating my breakfast while waiting for my email to download. Guess what, my company are still use Lotus Notes.. WTH right?. Who else uses that anymore?!?! Gosh.....they need to get some "fresh blood" to run their IT department coz those ancient dinosaurs needs to seriously retire and take their "old school" mentality out with them. They labeled themselves as one of Multi-National Company (MNC) in the market but here they are, proud of their Win XP, Lotus Notes and manual processes like filling up forms, getting physical signature from head of unit, GM and etc in a print-out form. Damn right you are part of MNC *roll my eye*. People are moving towards latest technology - Windows 7/8, Microsoft Suite, Cloud application, paperless & environmental friendly processes to run the company....and here you are, printing leave form, claim voucher, salary slip and etc. Oh well, enough complaining about their technology and mentality, every time I talked about it, it just make my blood boil. Not that I can do anything about it....so why bother.

Anyways, as I was downloading my mail, I saw a couple of urgent request pops into my mailbox. Apparently some US folk sorta messed up some stuff yesterday and those Aussies were affected. Deep down, I was telling myself, DARN, there goes my holiday. Well, I was right.  Pop...pop...pop.... one by one came in - escalation email, one team copying another team, blaming one another. More and more people from all related functional group were making a big hoo-haa out of this. As expected, my boss called me up and asked if I'm able to step in for a while, just to ensure that our part is covered so that they will not find any reason to pin this down on us. In order not to have a dreadful Monday, I said yes and I start replying emails and working on my part.

By the time I finished doing what I need to do, it was about time we need to head back to the waiting area. So off we go, back to the waiting area and waited patiently for my turn. One thing that annoyed me was, the way how the nurses in public hospital treats the public. They have no sense of urgency, not customer oriented AT ALL, rude, arrogant or even ignorance to the people's needs. Not the best combination out there but in reality, that is what we get in public hospital. What a Shame!

The worker there are slow, hot tempered, no hesitation to raise their voice, very commanding and treating all of us like dirt. Come on b*tches, if it's so difficult for you to do this job, just QUIT. You don't have to let it out on those poor, weak and elderly patients. Just because they asked you twice or trying to clarify things with you, that doesn't give you the right to shout at them and be rude to them. Even when they asked them nicely, they will respond back to them in a very annoying and agitated manner. Humbug.... how I wish their kids will throw them into old folks home when their golden year comes or they get ran over by some bus or lorry.

Well, we waited for 6 donkey hours just to see the doctor for less than 30 mins.  Cool isn't it? The level of service we get here is indeed 'superb'. This is how I spent my off day - spending a quarter of my time working and 2 quarters of my off day waiting and looking at rude nurses mistreating their patients.

Finally, I got home around 3 pm after lunch and straight away, I popped in Diablo disk into my laptop's CD-ROM and let it start installing. I know I will get bored with it after 2 days but, oh well, it's better than having to pay for monthly subscription if I play World of Warcraft.

As I'm typing this post, the CD is still running and the installation process is now at 60%. I think I'm gonna take a short nap for now and start my journey into the underworld when I wake up later.

Till then... happy weekend people. I hope mine will be a good one.... cheerssss....

My First Baby-Step....

I wonder what got into me, this is my second posting within the same day and it has been my third within the same week. Suddenly I feel like I have so much to share, not to say I have a wide audience to this blog. but anyways....who care... small group of audience is STILL audience....

Ta-Da.....
My first attempt to bake "Chocolate Chocolate Chip Cookies". Looks OK isn't it.
Well, try comparing this to the burnt one and you will agree with me that this batch looks the best. L-O-L

Over the weekend, this was my little project, despite feel so sick for a couple of days. I pulled myself out of the bed, get out from the house and grab some ingredients and start baking. I have to say that baking may look easy (try google-ing Nigella Lawson and see how she bake cookies, darn...that woman make it look so easy like stirring a 3 in 1 Milo drink, OK!) but when you actually do it, it is definitely not THAT easy.

Through-out the whole process, I was struggling all the way from measuring the right amount of ingredients to making sure the oven is heated up at the right temperature and last but not least, estimating the baking time. After 2-3 hours of messing up the kitchen, Phew...finally I manage to put 2 plates of cookies with 10 pieces on each plate. Why 2 plates? Let me tell you why. With the total of 20 pieces of cookie, I could only show 50% of  my masterpiece to the public. The remaining I have to either scrap off the burnt part or threw it away.
Check out the defected one...bummer!! Eating these will be like munching on charcoal...

Well, although it did not turn out to be what I wanted it to be, deep down I feel kinda proud with myself for pulling myself for what I did. I manage put some actions into my wish-list instead of complaining and whining about what I wish to do and I haven't gotten the chance to do it.

So will this be the last time I bake? NO way....I will continue to bake and next time, I'm aiming to hit 75% to 80% success rate.

Now, the problem is, I'm just wondering who is willing to be my lab rat to eat / "indulge" into my little "pride n joy" as I continue making them?

Oh well, I'll manage it..... somehow....

Visit to the clinic...

My eyes were red, swollen and watery with lots of discharge since Saturday. This weekend has been a very challenging weekend for me - running nose, sore throat, mild fever and lastly 'red eyes'.

When i woke up this morning, i noticed that all the symptom has subside, except for the eye. It was still watery with lots of yellowish discharge. That made me decide to work from home (not that I am complaining but I sure do miss my flexibility to work from virtually anywhere like how I used to in my previous company) for the day, just to avoid getting blamed for infecting my other narrow minded, conservative colleagues.

I start checking my email at 6.30 am (my job support Australia team, so my working hours has to follow their time zone) and by the time I cleared and complete those important stuff, it was about 9.45 am (time flies.....)

I took a quick shower, pack my stuff, search for my dumb, ridiculous 'Medical Book' from the company (ya, what era are they still in, I wonder) and off to the clinic. One thing that all clinic has in common are, their staff will greet you with a very 'sour' face. Just imagine this, you are sick, you are in pain and yet you are still being greeted by a 'soury and bitterful' face.... Bummer

30 mins has past and I'm still waiting for my turn. The clinic is not that crowded and I'm just curious what is taking them so long.....

Wonder how long is this gonna be ....
Sigh

New Inspiration.....

I met up with my ex-colleague a couple of days back for lunch. She seems all chirpy and bubbly after she left the company. She look so different from 3 weeks back, when she was still sitting next to me. Her signature look on a daily basis would be - gloomy face, lifeless expression on her face, messy hair and she has the look as though she might suddenly go berserk and jump off the building. Yes, it is that serious.

Her problem was her working relationship with her manager which resulted in a lot of conflicts and misunderstanding. Their character and personalities clashes with one another from all aspect - communication, trust, views and suggestion, personal preference and values, personality and the list goes on. What I can say is, it's purely a formula to disaster if they continue fighting and dragging each other down.

As a colleague, I was sad that she decided to leave. That means I will lose my lunch buddy but as a friend, I'm truly happy for her. I told her, it's the right decision to move on and experience the life that she deserve.

So, lunch with her was superb - enjoyed her bubbly presence, filled with jokes and laughter for that the entire hour. Ahh... I do miss those days when she was around in the office. In fact, she was one of my motivation to go to office.

So, in the past 2 weeks, I'm surprise with the amount of achievement that she has progressed. She started her own travel blog last week and guess what, in just a week, people are paying her money to put advertisement in her blog. Honestly, I was truly shocked and amazed with what she has achieved in just 2 weeks. Although it's not a big amount but it is INDEED the first step to everything. I told her how happy I was for her and she should be proud of what she has achieved so far. She told me one thing, which really hit me hard. She said - "I won't have done it without your support and advise. You helped me find my courage to make this step and for that, I'm grateful to have known you".

Wow...OMG.... *kembang nia I.....*

To be honest, I never see this coming and I was shocked. She did called me almost everyday to talk about the difficult sessions she had with her manager. At times, she almost burst into tears by just talking about it. What I did was just listen to her, try to encouraged her and motivates her. Of coz most sessions, we end up doing what we do best - bitching together her about her manager. I find that gives her a lot of comforts and satisfaction but I wasn't aware that it helps her to find her hidden courage.

Hmm.... in the past couple of days, I was not feeling so well. So I spent most of the time lying on the bed, watching "Desperate Housewives" and it sort of makes me think. If I can motivates and empower another person to fight for their dreams, why can't I do the same for myself. I know, it sounded kinda drama but it does flick some switches in my mind.

2 things I have always wanted to do but I did not act on it - pet and baking. I guess I'm gonna start exploring what I can do about pets and baking instead of whining, complaining and procrastinating about it. So, ladies and gentlemen.... wish me luck coz in the next couple of months, I'm gonna start getting my hands dirty on some of the things I hope to do.....

Stay tune......

I will start writting again.....

I guess most of you would agree with me that time flies faster than you can ever imagine. I do realize that my last post was somewhere end of last year but I couldn't imagine that it was 5 months ago.

W-O-W

I remembered a couple of weeks back, one of my "sister" asked me, why didn't I start blogging again. That triggered me to ask myself - what was the one thing that pushed me to start up a blog. One of the reason why I started writting is because I was complaining a lot about my job and I'm tired of taking about the same old thing to the same people again and again. I started to keep it all to myself and it made me more miserable. That is when Mariah (one of my close gay friend) suggested to me, why not I pen down my thoughts instead of keeping all the negative thoughts in me.

So, I started my first post back in Jul-12. After I registered an account, I was so excited that I can finally spill everything out. I was so eager to type out all the complains and surprisingly, after 30 mins of typing, what I had was a single paragraph with 3 sentences.

I was stunned and shocked !

Putting your thoughts in words are not as easy as speaking your mind out. It needs you to think, organize and group your thoughts in a manner that it deliver the message that you intend to convey. That is when, I start to feel bad for putting my friends thru a 30 mins to 1 hour of unorganised, unclear and confusing conversation.

After reading thru a couple of blogs today (I have not read any in the last couple of months), suddenly it inspired me to write again. It made me realise the importance of "why we need to do the thinking process".

Yes, I bet you may have guess, it took me more than 30 mins to gather my thought in this post. For some of you who knows me well, I'm sure you can tell how "disoriented" my thoughts are by reading thru what I'm trying to say....

Sigh.... Oh well, that shows that I'm just human.
I will do better..... I hope... :D