F1 in Sepang

This post was meant for last week. Alas my internet service let me down. I can't seem to upload any photos. Hmm..
Anyways last weekend was the Malaysian Formula 1 Grand Prix week in Sepang circuit. However this year we didn't manage to go to the track and in addition hubby was also not in town. I'm not a big fan but my eldest son is. He's a Ferrari fan. Hubby is Renault (largely bcos of Alonso) while the youngest Danial has to settle with home team BMW Sauber (which is doing well both in Melbourne and Sepang). Me, well I'm going for the handsomest drivers! wink!wink! so for now it's Kimi Raikkonen.
Sepang result: 1. Ferrari - Kimi Raikkonen 2. BMW Sauber - Robert Kubika 3. McLaren -Heikki Kovalainen. These pictures were taken in 2006 and 2007 where we were fortunate to get into the track during qualifying and final days, courtesy of sponsored expensive tickets.

A frustrated 8 days

It has been 8 days since I last logged into my blog or to any www for that matter. Thanks to my undependable Internet service provider.

It had been an equal stressful time at work too!! I spent more than 8 hours a day in the office gawking at the PC screen that my tired eyes can't take it anymore. I was too tired to do anything that by the time I came home, I immediately hit the bed after dinner. Yeah, a sure and effective way to let all the fat from your dinner stored in your body!!

I did log into the net to upload some photos a couple of evening back but it was so slow and it frequently push me out that twice in 2 days I found myself asleep with my head on my laptop waiting to get connected. Eventually I gave up!! Big *SIGH*

So I'm back today. Don't know how long this good fortune gonna last. Oh pls, pls don't get disconnected on me today.

cont. from the Ice Cream Maker book

I'm happy to confess that yes I've stick to my readings. My last entry under the label books was for this book called Ice Cream Maker. I've finished it for quite a while already and since then have been reading 3 more books.
There are plenty of good advices from the book but I particularly want to share this one here.
In my opinion, most of our companies here are too concern in getting colorful and mouthful slogans whenever a campaign/product/brand is launched without fully showing to the employees the means or ways to achieve it. After the hip and hooray has died, the level of quality comes back to square one or worse didnt even live up to its promise in the first place.
All credit goes to the author of this book - Subir Chowdhury

Starlight by Heritage (feat. P Type)

I immediately fell in love with the song the first time I heard it. Second time I was hooked. It's RnB and Soul combined. Don't know much about the group though. If I'm not mistaken they originated from singing gospel songs. That may explained the powerful voices especially the women.
And my list of CDs to get growing by the day. Enjoy this one people & Happy Easter to those who celebrate. Ciao'

and the winner is ...

I received the invitation from HR about 3 weeks ago. After clicking accept on the invitation, I totally forgot about it until last Friday on the day of the event. It's the closing ceremony of my last training. A high tea of sort. Be it on any other week, I would welcome the intrusion but being the busiest week, I almost didn't go if it was not due to the persistent persuasion from the HR training coordinator to ensure high attendance and food are not left to waste ... so she said.

Boy was I in for a surprise. In fact many staffs were. There were not only our batch present on that day but many other as well whom 'graduated' from HR series of training. In addition, directors from every unit participated in the program were invited too. From far I saw Mr Z. Apart from tea and certificate, top 3 scorers from each batch from every series were given prizes too. HR kept their surprise well. Many were caught off guard 'as not dress up for the occasion' since most of us rush from office to the hotel. And I certainly didn't aspect that I would be chosen the top scorer amongst the rest in my batch. The other two winners were the ladies which I'm closest with during the course of the training. One is the regional sales manager from Kuching (I'm close to her bcos I know nuts about sales) and the other one is the finance manager (since I'm hopeless with numbers) - so that's how we became close. I'm like a leech who stuck on others. LOL And what they got from me? Maybe a couple of jokes to ensure everyone is wide awake during the course of training. Ha!Ha! Frankly speaking, I'm not sure how I managed to score high against these brilliant people. Anyways it was a pleasant surprise. And I'm thankful to all the other participants as we are now turned from strangers to buddies. As I mentioned in earlier post about the said training, I'm just so glad I managed to finish the modules and didn't aspect of winning anything.

So after all the congratulations, cakes, satay and dim sum I rushed back to the office to continue ... working!

Farewell do

A colleague is leaving the company. Her last day will be mid of next week. Since Thursday is a public holiday, so we took the opportunity to go for a small farewell gathering for her last night. Another colleague cannot make it bcos she has gone back to Malacca. So there were only 4 of us. We went for a Japanese buffet dinner at Saisaki. Enough to say that by the end of our two and half hours buffet dinner, none of us can even cross our legs. We were very full. The two non-motherhood experience girls jokingly concluded that is how one felt during pregnancy bcos their stomachs were bulging (err.. not even close girls)

2 in 1, last Mar 17 was also Phoena's birthday

NJ's first attempt on Japanese food and she enjoys it. While Yu cannot figure out how on earth she managed to eat so much. Hmm..do ponder
My starter plate. I was so at home. I luurrvvve my sashimi, sushi, little bit of wasabi and I even tried Korean cabbage kimchi which was quite spicy. After many, many plates later I had two cups of white nescafe which kept me awake till about 5:30 hr. Serve me right.

300ml of AB+

Last Wednesday, I did the blood donation thingy again. It marked my 10th donation. Could have been more but sometimes timing was not right. Especially for a woman where you can't donate during your mestrual cycle and during pregnancy. My blood pressure was lower than normal on the said day but doctor said it's not harmful if I want to still donate. So I decided to went on with it.
The usual 300ml was taken out from me. It's no big deal actually. A colleague asked me whether there is a particular reason why I like to donate my blood. My answer is simple ... 'why not'? I know there are plenty of good reasons to mention but as another friend puts it ' he likes the muffin provided by the hospital staff to every donor'. That was cute! and yes the muffin is good too.
Bottom line is must there be a reason for us to perform any small deed?

Indulgence

Lately there has been an invasion. In the form of donuts. Yes you read me right. We use to have only Dunkin Donuts. But since late last year at least 2 more outlets have made their presence felt. One of it is this one.
Since it cost RM2 for a single donut so it makes more sense to buy it in half dozen which cost you RM9.50 instead. And like almost all that suppose to be hip and happening you are required to queue for it. And it's usually a long one. At certain location usually at more upscale shopping mall the queue can be a mile long!! So far, our family favourites are Chicochinos(Homer Simpson's favourite), Witnut(peanut butter filling), Chocoring(what else but chocolate topping with more chocolate as filling) and few more which I cant remember what's it call.

There goes my waist line.

110calories = 2km = 35min

We had supper last night at 12:00 midnight. My hubby, Danish and me. Our neighbourhood mamak stall was packed with people despite the hour.
I ate 2 slices of garlic naan shared it with my son Danish but that was not enough. So I ordered a roti tisu (direct translation - tissue bread). A thin crepe' shaped like an upturned cone laced with sugar and dig this - accompanied with condensed milk. How sinful can you get?? :(
So this morning, I'm paying for it. But I bet the 110 calories burned during my walk, jog and run combined didn't even match even quarter of whatever I ate last night. But the sweat did helps me to clear my guilt, enough to allow me to indulge again today, IT'S THE WEEKEND!!! :)

Crying Without Words by Yoon Mirae

My KDrama ended last Monday. Good for me. So for now my Monday and Tuesday nights are free again. Phew! But I must admit I miss the drama hauntings songs. Not only the storyline but in Korean dramas even their melodies will haunt you too :p

There are several (no make that all) songs in this drama which I like. To name a few (since only a few are translated into Eng) they are: My Love, Heart is Sad by Tei and this one which I like best - Crying without Words by Yoon Mirae (she happens to be Korean best female rapper). Unfortunately the fanmade video featuring this song only include the tear jerking clips from the drama. I guess to emphasize or increase the impact of the song. So if you are like me and don't understand the lyric, I'm sure it's without doubt a sad one. But the storyline was really not that sad. Anyways enjoy the song.

Saigon Seafood Fried Noodle

I'm a noodle lover. So much so that my ex-boss said that I was probably a Chinese in my previous life. I discovered the above at Vietnam Kitchen @ Food Republic, KL Pavillion. Had it for lunch, well it was lunch anyway for me at 2:30pm on Saturday. Like the noodle texture very much.

Polling day

Yesterday Malaysian's went out to vote. It was our 12th General Election. The street was lined with flags and posters. Compare to 4 years ago when I first casted my vote, this year the atmosphere at the pollng station was relatively calm. However the results were unlike we've ever seen before. It's like the tsunami. A calm or dry beach before the big waves come crushing down. As I'm writing this, the media is still debating and discussing about last night's polling result. For the first time in the country's history that the ruling party didn't get 2/3 of the parliamentary seats which of cos will definitely change a lot of decision making procedure.

A lot of people are anxious of what will happen next and how yesterday's polling result will affect our everyday lives. I woke up this morning feeling uneasy. Somehow I felt things would be different from now on and I'm not quite sure whether it's going to be good or bad.

Guess we have to wait and see ...

Life's booze

Received this in the email. How creative!! Life's pleasure and both are equally harmful to the body.

When I pointed out the below pic to a chain smoker colleague of mine



She replied me with this



She knows how much I love to pretend not to be addicted to caffein

Shoeaholic

I have a weakness for shoes. It runs in the family. My mother used to have dozens of shoes during her heyday. When I was very little about 6 years old, I used to wear her oversize shoes on my small feet and paraded around the house. Clip-clop, clip-clop I went. I stopped doing so in my teen years bcos my feet size becomes bigger than my mom’s. She has all kinds of shoes in techno colors to match her (again) dozen of handbags. And my mother loves high heels. That runs in her family!! Both my late aunties plus the ones whom are still around love their heels. I started wearing one when I was about 25 or so and don’t quite fancy it. But the older women in my side of the family can run all over Singapore town shopping - in high heels.

I bought another pair of shoes again yesterday. All in all for the pass two months of 2008 I’ve already bought 6 pairs. But as you can see, mine are not Jimmy Choos nor Manolo Blahniks. No don't worry, I'm way out from Carrie Bradshaw (Sex in the City) league. Mine are the non expensive ones. As long as it looks and feel good on my feet, I buy. But I don’t think I can buy expensive shoes for myself all the time. Most of my expensive possessions handbag or purse was bought by my husband bcos he knows I’m such a cheapskate –especially when it comes to buying stuffs for me self.

Since most of them are not costly shoes so I don’t feel that guilty in buying them. The only time I felt guilty is when I see them piling on top of each other bcos there isn’t much space in my house to store them and come to think of it, some shoes I only wore about 3 times before I completely forget about their existence. Okay now I feel guilty.

Of all the valuable traits in my mother’s gene, I inherit this. Why not the ability to cook? Or to decorate the house or even sewing? My mom is champion in all this. Yeah, how convenient to blame mother dearest for this, he! he!

And my mother loves perfume too. Unfortunately, so do I …

That will be in another confession.

How gee by Big Bang

I posted Big Bang song before. And I'm doing it again. The same genre hip-hop, noisy but this time it suppose to be in English but I couldn't understand a single word. But song is catchy. Adaptation from one the hiphop song in the 90s. I like...

I can't sleep

pic: 'Put' aka Putera (prince) formerly known as Puteri (princess)
I quit the internet at 0130hr last night. But I can't sleep. At about 0215hr Danial (my 5 year old son) came to the bedroom complaining of a stomach ache and his temperature was high. After putting some medicated ointment on his stomach and making him take the fever medicine, I returned back to sleep without much success.

Woke up at 0300hr and watched the telly instead. Ghost Hunter was on. I didnt finish watching the TAPS from Ghost Hunter doing their second investigation bcos it was quite scary. At 0415hr, I forced myself to go to sleep. At 0540hr I was awoken by a text message on the phone. It was my jogging partner. I sent her a message last night, to know whether she was up to do some running this morning. Her early morning reply said no bcos apparently she is also down with fever. I texted her saying that I'm not going too since I just about to catch my sleep.

There goes my much needed weekly exercise. I wonder why I cant sleep last night. Luckily it happen on a non-working day or I'll be like a zombie at work today.

ps/ the similarity between me and the feline pic above is interrupted sleep