千五百八十四： *ucks

In case u think I can't count, took down the KL post cos I'm apparently not allowed to vent my frustration online. when I actually did mention watever I was angry abt to the person in question in real life already?

u can call me petty, but its not like u dunno wat i'm like. If i'm angry with u i'll tell u.

Forget it.

千五百八十三： Resident Evil - Extinction

Just watched the movie Resident Evil 3 cos Ryo had free tickets. haiz. so gruesome. interesting twist at the end. but still, i don't have stomach for gore. especially that room where the people are sliced open via the lasers. argh. I don't like zombie shows!! actually felt quite puky about10 min into the show. grr.

landed here yesterday at abou 8.30am, Ryo came to pick me up from the airport. very sweet of him to do that (he seldom does it) and then i went straight for a hair cut at my old salon. was so tired due to the lack of sleep I kept nodding off, which was quite embarrassing as the hairstylist tried to cut my hair. The flight was quite a disaster, considering it was SQ. Bad food, they skipped the snack, and the Krisworld inflight movie selection sucked. Usually there would be a ton of movies, both new and old and the movie would begin when u watched it. But this time, it was like some back to the future thing when the system had reverted to its old system instead of upgrading, and all the movies were following some main system start and end time and we had to watch the movies we chose from whenever it was at. SUCKED!!

then went to Ryo's friend's place and learnt alot of moves about Pokemon from his fren's kids. hee. delicious dinner as usual. But i was feeling quite tired so didn:t really join in their conversations and just watched tv. dinner ended about 12 midnite, and we sorta walked back w/o knowing the way. Was abit scared as it was in osaka, the roads quite dark and quiet.

this morning we woke up super late, slowly got ready then went to buy 昆布 from a store in Osaka and then went to Umeda to shop around, relax and wait for the movie. Went to the pokemon center as well, but that was only cos it was on the way to the train station. got some souvenirs for the pokemon players in my team, hope they like it. Got the latest Kimura Takuya pamphlets from Yodobashi as well. :D

Tomorrow will be doing spring cleaning at Ryo's place and then its a countdown to the new year. Wanted to go USJ at first, but think its a waste of money and its too cold anyway. today was 3 degrees celsius outside. brrrr..

千五百八十二：お疲れ様でした。

Finally end of the calendar year is here and I'm able to fly off on a plane to see Ryo again today. This is the most tiring month of the whole year, having flew to Seattle and then gone to KL and then having to pack to go Osaka again today. I think the more time u spend on a plane per trip, the more you age. the travelling back and forth in time on the US trip really took alot both in mentally and physically. with the biological all screwed up and the jet lag and stuff, and then starting work straightaway the day after i land was really super super tiring.

Anyway. I received 2 mini tubes of handcreams , one from Crabtree and Evelyn, the other from L'Occitane. tried the C&E one, it feels good but only for a short while, like if i apply in the morning, in the afternoon my hand feels dry again. so weird. I haven't tried the L'Occitane one, but I think i'll bring Ryo's to use on the plane and save this for something else. or some other time.

am in a holiday mood liao. and there's nothing to do at work as well. feeling pretty bored. zzzz. maybe i'll clean up my desk in preparation for the new year.

千五百七十九： Heartbreak Kid

I got lazy again, especially since this week I was quite busy trying to create a ppt presentation for an upcoming presentation for next week.

Watched Heartbreak Kid by Ben Stiller, the ending was so unpredictable and the movie was pretty hilarious. but i guess the scenes did throw me off a little, didn't expect such graphic scenes in a comedy. After that i joined a few of my colleagues for a drink at Novus at National Museum, it was pretty good ambience, but marred by the fact that the disgusting guy was there and trying to speak mandarin to me. its super irritating, since we dun understand him when he speaks even Japanese already, why the heck is he even trying to speak mandarin?! i can't wait for him to leave the company , only a few more days til his contract ends.

Left at about 11pm with Jimmy & Lovell, since I have to work again tomorrow. Everyone said wah, so poor thing, gotta work on public holiday, but actually I dun really think so. I prefer holidays to be quiet and its even better to have holidays when the whole world is at work or school and u have peace and quiet and no crowds when u hit the malls. u can even go to the banks etc, which I can't do if I follow the sg holidays. & i love it that i miss CNY to tell the truth, cos i hate to spend the day just sitting there watching tv the whole day at relatives' place mindlessly.

was in the loo the day b4 and I saw a pube on the toilet seat. pretty gross huh!? I wonder why those people can't clean up after they use the loo. eeeks.

everytime there is a PH eve and i goes to drink, I can't help but think back to the Good Friday eve of 2007. Very very very good memories of that night. sighz.

千五百七十八： 3 day work week

Time went by really fast this week, & before I knew it, its sunday again. I think I irritated some people in my team, but that's not really my fault, cos I didn:t slack or anything, rather, they were just being tightasses about me having more free time. I don't see it being my fault if your workload has increased such that you feel that you have to sacrifice your lunch, cos it doesn't make a difference either way. and then when people come over to talk to me, you show annoyance. what's that?? I didn't have any urgent work due, and its not like that 20 minutes mattered whether I had ignored the people who had come to talk to me or not, so I felt really pissed off, that you think I shouldn't surf the internet because you are busy?? what crap is that?? and I find that these people are damn selfish and petty also. The other day, I realised that there were unused monitors in the UAT room. so I decided to fix up 2 monitors for myself (by attaching 1 extra 1 to my PC). meaning, I came up with that idea. Since, some of them went to take the wireless mouse from the UAT room as well, and it was very first come first served, so as I didn't know, I couldn't complain when there were none left. Now, apparently some teammates are not happy we have the 2 monitors, but then there is only 2 extra, so if they don't want us to use, its not like they get to use it cos they would throw their own words in their faces about team equality won't it? The main thing was that the mouse thing was first come first served as well, and why shouldn't this be? It's not like the monitors were taken from them in the first place, they were just sitting there gathering dust!! very pissed off at such pettiness, if they wan to complain i'll take it out and let them use then. see how after that they can use it with peace of mind. want to be equal in workload, get equal pay as me then. pui!!! I failed to point that workload is equivalent to pay level. next time i'll definitely say that. When I'm responsible for something, I do it with 110% effort. so screw them, for being so petty and selfish.

Saturday evening was a party at a colleague's place (a very cool renovated shophouse). i don't have any photos yet, so I'll talk about that another day.

ok enough of the complaints, 郷さんtreated me to high tea at Shangri-La hotel. it was for me helping her set up her internet & cable tv at her new place :).

High tea @ Shangri-La

First time having high tea, I enjoyed trying out all the different types of iced tea, but one was really weird. It made me feel like I was drinking ink:

something with pineapple

but it tasted pretty good. :D we were so stuffed by 5pm that we just sat lazily on the couch and dazedly looked around and planned the KL trip.

& then we took the shuttle bus from the hotel to Wisma & got a drink each at Indochine's bar area while she did her work and i just sat there and played DS. Very shiok and relaxing afternoon.

finally, to end off, the newest additions to my softtoy collection mr bear & mr cow:

bear & cow

千五百七十七： Long Journey

the journey from SFO back to sg was long, but was made more bearable because it was newer planes. the tv screen was big!! (ok, bigger than usual but not that big) and the seats more spacious and the remote at the back of the seat in front of you rather than squeezing with u at ur side.

ta-da!!

alot easier on the eyes but kinda embarrassing cos u can see what everyone else is watching. I saw this show named "How to look good Naked" and when it started playing, I was mortified, cos I didn:t expect the airline to screen something that showed women topless, and some bottomless as well. very shocked but mainly concerned if anyone saw me watching that show. :S

watched many many movies, Stardust, Superbad, 881, Death at a Funeral, the attack on the Pin Up Boys, some episodes of Family Guy, a Singapore food guide show, and rewatched a few movies, Bridget Jones Diary 2, I now pronounce you chuck & Larry, and some titles which I dont remember.

many many meals, but managed to eat almost everything. :D

and reached SG at about 1.30am, the Duty Free store's cash register was spoilt!! and there was only 1 cashier so there was a long slow queue as the cashier used a table calculator and pen and paper to write the receipts.

Back to work yesterday, spent nearly the whole day doing claims for the seattle trip. Was so tired I fell asleep at 10.30pm. Today too, was editing the claims forms, treated XH to dinner at Bali Thai. Had a good long chat with her and then we shopped around for gifts for her students.

very tired now , eyes are about to close. nitez...

千五百七十六： San Francisco

Had a very packed weekend in San Francisco.

XQ picked me from the airport at 10am, we went to San Francisco downtown Cheesecake factory for lunch. Met up with Yinnah & Vivian as well, after that went to walk around the shops. Bought myself a FCUK muffler, men's style but suited me very well. :) bought more clothes from Abercrombie as well, and then headed for the ice hockey in San Jose, Sharks vs Buffalo Sabres.

my first ice hockey match

totally exciting, reminds me of Pride and Kimura, and very violent. got a good seat in the centre but upper block, very exciting when the players try to punch at each other and shove each other. Was rooting for Sharks, but unfortunately they lost 1-7. very weak performance that day.

Scuffling for the puck

After the game

It had been a long day, and we wanted to rent a video to watch after that, but was so tired that i had a delicious bowl of instant noodles and nodded off while watching friends.

On Sunday, we had Korean food for lunch, for someone who was missing Asian food very badly, it was heavenly. then we met with Karen and went to Golden Gate Bridge.

3 of us and me with my new muffler

very very blue skies and wonderful view of the bridge and the coast line and saw alcatraz.But as time was short, we spent about half an hour there, and then headed for the outlet stores. it took a 2 hour drive and was about 4pm when we finally reached there. the stores were closing at 7pm though, and we were in a rush to look around. my main aim was the shoe stores, but ended up buying perfumes as well. the rest of the shops were not that great, still high prices and very low range of products. hmmm.

Dinner at Ruth Chris, (thanks guys for the treat!) with very smooth cuts of beef. The place is really good!! next time will try the dessert though..:p

the bill

and then its back to xq's place to pack my suitcase and almost time to go...

千五百七十五： -2 degrees celsius

This was my dinner yesterday:

haha. i'm still in Seattle though. Am very sick of steak and carbs for dinner, and we chanced upon this Japanese restaurant so we had japanese food for dinner. Very Very good! cos firstly, we can finish the food, and 2ndly, the fish was fresh. :D

ok i've been lazy in blogging the past few days.

Wednesday evening, there was a group dinner:

UAT workshop attendees

& then we had a pool game and more drinks after that.

Jevan's turn

so got back pretty drunk at about 11pm ++ so just conked out in bed when I reached my room.

Thursday, most of the other regions' in charge had to leave in the evening, so me & James went for dinner ourselves. It was a rare fine day.. so we took a picture, to commemorate our week at this building in MS:

Building 85

On our way back, we managed to catch the performance of Snowflake Lane drummer boys, and it really got us into the christmassy mood.

a drummer boy on stilts

After the performance, we went to get changed and we went to Barnes & Noble and took a look around. We also went for the Japanese dinner, then to Safeway to look at some food. They have so many interesting flavours of Ben&Jerry's!

after that, I had bad stomachache and had to rush back to the hotel. :( the humongous proportions taking their toll on me by the end of the week.

& G's wife, who lives in Seattle, took us out for dinner on Friday evening and to see the skyline. it was very breathtaking, but the freezing winds almost killed us. we took a few pictures, which was too difficult for my tiny camera to do, and the pictures turned out to be too dark :( but we had a good time, went to see Safeco Field, where Ichiro plays baseball for Seattle Mariners. ;D

I've to wake up to check out and reach the airport by 6.30am...

千五百七十四： Jet Lag

I'm suffering from jet lag. :S

Maybe its just lack of sleep ??

yesterday afternoon during the workshop, i just felt a wave of fatigue and then nothing could make my eyes open. I tried hard to stay awake, but just kept nodding off.

Breakfast today at the staff cafeteria, wonderful sushi roll there (as in pretty edible) but $2.50 for a bottle of Kagome vegetable juice. luckily everything is claimable. and they block the hotel stay from my card le!! grr. S$2116.66. luckily I asked for a credit limit increase.. & i think my afternoon sleep is due to me trying to digest my lunch. keke. sianz... i must eat less tomorrw? but i didn't eat alot, just normal rice and curry.

ok heading to Bellevue square for dinner now.

千五百七十三： Hyatt Regency Bellevue

Finally reached the hotel past 12 midnite. Current time is 1.40am Monday 3rd December 2007. Have showered and roughly unpacked. but feeling quite famished.

The coolest thing about the room is the Ipod alarm clock speakers. :D it's a charger for the ipod too!! they gave me a twin room with 2 queen sized beds but I guess its fine with me.

The flight here from San Francisco was pretty turbulent. the flight was supposed to take off at 8.40pm, but we were on the plane for pretty long until I fell asleep and the plane only took off at about 9.20pm??! tiring, total flight time today was about 20 hours. zzzz.

I finished watching No Reservations, and was drinking beer on the plane so that I would feel sleepy and I had actually nodded off when the cabin crew woke me up to eat supper. sighz. which was actually a full meal. and by the time i drowsily finished it, I was feeling more awake again. (That was at about 2am SGT) so I tried to close my eyes and just try to sleep and I think i managed to fall asleep and sleep until about 6am SGT? and then it was time for breakfast again. haha. or because we travelled back in time, it was a late lunch. (-.-!) so confusing. I wished I was sitting at the window seat so that I could have seen the plane flying into the sunrise and then back to sunday evening. While eating the lunch/supper meal, watched The Invasion, then played PSP while rewatching Ratatouille. hehe. and that was all I watched this flight. quite little :S but will have chance to watch all on the way home again. another 3 transfers!!! but at least on 8th i would have flown the Seattle -> San Francisco leg.

nite nite..

千五百七十二： SQ002

In transit in Hong Kong International Airport now, time here is 22:08. Boarding the next leg of the flight in 10 min, but the airport here looks pretty good.

JLPT1 was pretty ok but would have been sure of a pass if I had studied harded. sighz. there were so many empty seats this morning from those who decided not to come probably cos they couldn't finish studying. :S

then rushed home, had late lunch, packed the remaining stuff into my suitcase and reached the airport to check in at 3.40pm. The flight was full, strangely, codeshare with US Airways. The food was great and so so so so so many movies i haven't watched in the Krisworld inflight entertainment system. First movie i watched made me teared it was so sad and touching. (embarrassing to be tearing on the plane...) Happily ever after the title of the movie was .. in Japanese, then watched No Reservations halfway b4 they shut the system off. (flight took about 3 hours 50 min?) and my luggage weighed only 14.8KG! so can do about 6KG of shopping in US. haha.

ok.. second leg to SFO now.. hope I can fall asleep and no one is sitting beside me. grr. scheduled to reach SFO at 1830 PST. ciaoz!

千五百七十一： Good News

So happy!!!

Firstly, my hard work paid off this year. I got my renewal contract to sign today, w/o knowing beforehand what my pay next year would be like and it was such a pleasant surprise to see that my boss had granted my request for a pay rise of about 15%!! ok.. 15% of wat was originally quite low pay isn't that much but its still alot to come from a company where other people always tell me they get raise of like 3-7%?? damn sad la, they tell me that they don't even get performance evaluation from their boss, all across the board get about 3% raise?? I don't see any reason to perform in such cases, everyone just do average work can le. then they all said don't hope too high, but I thought, well, better to try asking, and be able to show the boss that I do deserve the raise i am asking for. and it worked!! well ... better work harder next year to earn my next raise.

2ndly, my boss finally confirmed the Seattle trip. I didn't really dare ask, until today during the team meeting then she was saying next week she's coming to sg, and then we were like .. ok .. then she herself asked me "so next week u will be going for the workshop right??" and i was like "yay! finally she brought it up herself!" so of cos i said YUP! and then that's settled. hoho. peace of mind at least and can start packing my bags for sure.

3rdly, since its the contract renewal period, the other guy (the one i totally can't stand) was also up for renewal. Today at the meeting, our boss announced that he was going to leave after his contract ends and that she would be looking for someone else to take up his position. We were thinking that he would just be given a pay cut given his dreadful performance for the past year but didn't expect a total ending of his contract. well.. felt bad for him a bit, but he got that ... dreadful weasel-like expression that you just can't help but feel disgusted and glad that he as leaving. :S abit bad, but I just kept quiet after the announcement cos didn't want to give out any sort of wrong expression. hmm. is it mean to feel happy and relieved that the weakest link is sorta finally given justice for all the bad attitude and work performance?

well. full of good news, but haven't finished studying the japanese... so gotta hit the books again. good night!!