千七百二十六： ２６歳

Happy birthday to me！♪

26 years old today, suddenly I've leaped to the late 20s category. OMG!!!!

Thank you to all who sent me birthday wishes / gave me birthday treats.
- Hawx for treating me lunch at Shokudo Raffles City
- Local girls from MS - Thank you for dinner at Tonkichi Suntec & the Nike gym bag I've been hankering after since I saw it in Phuket
- Edwin for his Soba dinner & movie treat & agnes b skinny which will come in very useful for lunch
- Julius for treating me ice cream & accompanying me to shop for formal evening wear
- Akane & James & Calvin & my sis for their facebook messages
- Ayako for sending me a mixi message
- smses from Anthony & my cousin & Xinhuan
- msn msgs from QY
- Ryo for emailing me & calling me at about 12 midnight last night :D

very stupid of me to keep forgetting to take pictures with everyone this year..

so only took pictures of the presents -

the Nike Vintage print bag

agnes b skinny 

& angbao from my parents :D

ok I better go shower & get ready to watch the F1 races!
I think I'm supporting Raikkonen - very handsome haha, but don't think he will win..

& forgot to put my resolutions for this age. or should I say goals?
1. Tone up - must not have any flab & have to strengthen my abs.
2. Save up - must have at least 20K in cash savings by 27
3. Career up - must fight for higher salary next negotiations

千七百二十五： Bad to Worse

i wonder if having a slack one is better than a stupid one.

i better claim my leave while i can.

I don't really know what I want, but I don't want a team of slackers. Of course, it's too early to judge, but really really would really change to something more jp. dun care. i will just take my leave in Nov & new year holidays anyway.

tired..... suddenly rush of work this afternoon. had to miss my gym session.

keep forgetting tomorrow i have to go to R's wedding dinner. my mind is always just blank after work on weekdays.

千七百二十四： F4 + F1 prelude

Hot yoga yesterday and I think I put in my worst effort yesterday.. was feeling very lethargic & with all the muscle ache from the past week, I couldn't bring myself to just strain myself a little bit more. I had gone to the gym Mon - Thurs & yesterday this week and since Monday was a Public Holiday (敬老の日）, I caught 花よし男子　ファイナル the movie with A. 小栗旬 as 花沢類 is so cute!!



saw all the preparations for the upcoming F1 races when the bus went past Esplanade yesterday, realised the race cars will have to go under the NDP carpark area as part of their race route. how dangerous!! and the roads are really narrow, I hope the whole race will go safely w/o casualties..

had lunch with H yesterday at shokudo - first person to treat me to a birthday lunch this year! thank u H, hope everything goes well for u from now on..

Received a few more communications from unexpected sources this week.. maybe the stars & the planets are aligning for me since its my birthday?

千七百二十三： How to make people not work for you

Finally Friday..

Hectic week. because.. some buggers at work really know how to scream and shout but not do any work. These pple send tons of emails in a rude/sarcastic tone and I don't see them giving concrete instructions/information in their email. they only know how to pick on work other pple do, and all they do is ask stuff like *can i get this thing in a "consumable" format." comeon ,you receive the same emails as me and u are so stupid that u can't read the emails yourself? want me to collate the emails into 1 simple sentence for u? that is the most stupid thing I've ever heard. u want us to read the email to you aloud? these people I hate, they have no idea what they actually want to see, just make alot of noise hoping someone will make their jobs cushy & to protect their own asses saying - ya i pushed for them to do something wat!! pui! If I have your request nicely asked to me, I would maybe feel obliged to complete your requests but now its really just disgust .. learn some manners first b4 u get people to give u the work you want.

千七百二十二： Back in Singapore

you know how life is, the day you have to leave is always the day with the best weather so that you totally regret choosing the wrong day to leave.

Ryo sent me to the airport this morning.

we had a sunny day on Friday and we jumped right into it, sunbathing & swimming in the hotel pool in the morning before heading to the beach in the afternoon.

saw this in Patong -

I totally did not know they customise Ronald to the country's way of greeting

the sky was perfect in the morning on fRiday -

but it rained yesterday again so we just stayed in the whole day even after the rain stopped (cos the whole sky remained overcast).

I didn't really enjoy Phuket mainly cos I was having either sore throat / flu throughout the past week; which meant food either didn't taste/smell good, '& the rain didn't really make the holiday any better, and also the number of white men + thai girl couples I saw made me feel quite uncomfortable, as some girls looked like they belonged in high school still. Also the prices were not that cheap, 1 bowl of tom yam soup was almost S$10, its really defeats the point of enjoying good & cheap food in Thailand. Luckily the whole trip was about spending time with Ryo so the negative aspects weren't so bad after all.

Photos are here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/alexxis/sets/72157607284862847/
Can't wait to see him in October again.

千七百二十一： Rainy day

ok so what's new? haha.. its raining again today, was sunny in the morning so we had about an hour of sunbathing before heading to our room cos of rain. tried to play metal slug 7 on DS and was able to last till Mission 3. Pity about the DS game is there are no cheats, and I'm just rubbish with only 9 credits.

We went down to patong to just be outside, in the end we stayed at starbucks after I bought a book - A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers while Ryo played DS. The book was funny, because I understood the literal translations made by the author from Chinese idioms & sayings & it was quite fresh to be seeing the perspective of a person who is learning English & the British culture as a 2nd language. and especially the parts where her culture clashed with her English lover's, some of it I could relate to. the very bad/broken english at the start could put you off though, but I can totally hear it in my head coming from a real person.

dinner at Burger King today, because Ryo had never eaten in a Burger King in his life. no Burger King in Japan except Tokyo recently that's why.

still having a stuck nose & an off and on sore throat. I hope this clears up tomorrow.

千七百二十： Phuket - Surin Beach

Blogging from Surin Beach - Phuket.

Had originally booked the stay in Patong, but... apparently our hotel wasn't ready to open, we were shifted to Surin Beach. ;( its so quiet here.. not many shops / restaurants. i reached here on Saturday, no sign of any political unrest except alot of armed guards at the airport.

Trip from airport to hotel was 450 baht, then we just napped the afternoon away. heh.

sunday/monday was raining. it was sunny for a while yesterday so we spent the morning at the pool but it started pouring again in the afternoon. we decided to rent a car for the rest of the week, & this morning we got a car. (Braun car rental - only 1200 baht per day with full insurance) we drove down to patong, which was great cos we finally saw the beautiful sea & the sun lasted until mid afternoon. I had a facial for 299 baht - about S$12?! super cheap.. and felt very shiok.. have been sleeping alot these few days, which was good, but dunno why i just don't feel that well-rested still.. in the afternoon, we walked around the shopping complex at Patong (because it started raining again) & its really very tiring to try to bargain with the thais. in the end we just decided not to buy. after lunch/dinner at 4.30pm... we went to shop at carrefour. then drove back to our hotel with the sun setting.

thais drive crazily, including the motorbikes with 3 pple on them. well, we just try to give way & overtake only when enough width is on the road.

being in Phuket just reminds me of the tsunami incident & i can see how the worst hit area would be patong having no highland near the beach area at all. at least the buildings here at this beach is so far inland that it would take some time. I'm not sure if these signs were there b4, but there are now tsunami warning signs all along the beach town.

the best things about hotel rooms is that i get to watch all the shows on national geographic. super interesting, esp air crash investigation. so far, not many interesting movies, Jarhead was the best so far, about US marines stationed in Iraq, the rest were all repeats..

got a bad flu here... going to sleep ..

千七百十九： September

very quick recap of the past week + weekend:

Monday - work til 11pm

Tuesday - work till midnite

wednesday - work till 11pm

Thursday - gym

Friday - work til 3am

Saturday - Gym in morning; suntec lunch in afternoon; met ryo at airport in evening; marina sq imperial treasures for dinner; ritz carlton 1205 for the night

Sunday - Ritz poolside breakfast & jacuzzi; lazed in their bathtub with a view before checkout; marina mandarin 1015 checked in; lunched at chatterbox; watched Die hard marathon on Star movies: napped in room for whole afternoon; met with abe-san for dinner at long beach udmc; had an iced-tea lemonade at starbucks; watched Die hard marathon again; read all the magazines I kapo-ed from ritz; ate strawberries with ryo.

Monday - Ryo woke at 5.30am, left at 6.15am; i left hotel at 7.30am for work... worked till 2am last nite. zzz

Tuesday (today) - worked til 10pm - end of UAT!!!!!

finally month of my birthday -shit i:m going to be 26 soon (late 20s argh!!!)

looking forward to the phuket trip this weekend - hopefully the thailand chaos will clear up b4 end of this week..

going to collect mooncakes tomorrow; finally to the gym tmr as well. :D

what a mad rumble of thoughts, its cos my eyes are closing from the lack of sleep........

千七百十八： Fireworks

went to meet xh for dinner on Friday. due to work, i was late by about an hour... ate at sakae teppan.. dunno why their rice was so dry it felt like the rice scratched my throat.. hmm .. after that we sat chatting at Gloria Jeans until nearly midnight.. I guess the influence of your surroundings is really very important in how your attitude is towards the things you do. how much you want to put in effort for everything you do depends on how much the other around you want to put in effort as well. if you are surrounded by a bunch of slackers, would you want to work hard? I don't think so. & since everyone is slacking, why would you know what is harder work than what effort you are seeing? we don't see why people can put in half-assed efforts & be proud of their "effort" thinking its cool to do whatever they are doing & laugh at people who put in wholehearted work. grr. anyway, highlight was that we got to see the fireworks by accident. :)

i'm so hooked on 花より男子　now... 小栗旬 is so handsome! i didn't know he was sooo tall. 1.84m! his character is so sad in the show.. 花沢類 is so melancholy... when 牧野つくし turned away when he tried to kiss her, the hurt on his face really made my heart drop.. (T.T) have been up til 2am every night trying to finish the show. heee.. i must watch the movie when it's out in sg! 花より男子ファイナル！！

finished work at 11.30pm today...

千七百十七： 10 more days

damn it. i can't believe how suay i was this evening. the usual instructor for the class this evening wasn't there and was replaced by the boring instructor from yesterday's body sculpt class. sianz. in the end we skipped the class & treadmilled our evening away.

10 more days til Ryo comes by.

finally finished getting the Japanese version of the F4 drama. :D

sick so sick of my work. & everything else. I just wan to sleep for days...

千七百十六： Hot Yoga

Finally 2nd week of UAT is over.

This week, i was really too busy to log on, having to work til midnight 2 times in the past week. the rest of the time i didn't only because i had made appt with others to go to the gym to force myself to leave earlier. it really amazes me that even though we all speak / read /write English, the pple in redmond can't seem to understand our emails. :S then we waste all sorts of time going back & forth.

gym on monday, tue, thurs & today. (Hot yoga this morning)

A accidentally kicked me when i was behind her with her heels today & now my ankle is swollen. hurts like mad. its amazing what heels can do.. how dangerous they are actually.

Finally made reservations for ryo's oct stay. we'll stay at Fairmont Singapore. the rates for hotel rooms are up the roof actually.. but the weekend price for the package is pretty worth it. I hope we have a good time.

have not been sleeping well the past few days. very weird dreams, of pple I thought I had forgotten about.

too tired now, can't really recall what I did during the week except work.. will update more when i can recall.

千七百十五： UAT

Lack of posts the past week due to being lazy busy.

UAT time this month again, being the Regional Coordinator is really a killer this time due to the volume of tests we are expected to execute & having to coordinate so many pple. wish that some of them would be more cooperative though. doesn't it irk u when u send out a very complete email that these people don't even bother to read then ping you for every little thing that could have been resolved if they had just read the emails? whats the point of having a mailbox if you don't read your mail?

Went to the gym on tue, wed and thurs.

Yesterday was a super unlucky day. I lost $50, dropped it i think, almost the minute i got it w/o realising. Until when I had reached the gym then I remembered the $50 & it couldn't be found by that time. sianz. got to the gym, waited a while, then I checked with the reception to realise that there were no classes cos it was national day. what a waste of my time!! so I took a shower, headed to peninsula to collect photos, but guess what, the shop was closed as well. argh!! headed home dejectedly. stayed at home the rest of the day to avoid more bad luck.

had very weird dreams this morning. dreamt of a huge tsunami and I was trying to escape it, then woke up in fright. ate breakfast, dozed off and dreamt of some weird evil ghosts who were trying to deny me my mushroom swiss burger. after that .. the dream continued to have my handphone stolen by some chinese foreigner worker at a bus stop. wonder wats going on in my head.

千七百十四： Baby Chloe

finally some breathing time.

went to D's baby girl's 2 year old birthday party yesterday, it was pretty fun. meaning, we had fun with the little girl :) she's so cute!!

baby Chloe looking at me as I try to take a picture with her.. 

Chloe & her birthday present

saturday, went to Sentosa with colleagues and got myself a sunburn on the left shoulder & back. I didn't know cafe del mar looked this good.

cafe del mar

Hiroki showing us card tricks

drank a little too much, was sleepy & headachy towards late afternoon. the sun was super hot as well. left at about 5pm..

gym planned for tomorrow, i'm getting quite fond of the ABT class at Cali.

千七百十三： Sentosa

Some photos to show, no time to blog now..

frisbee & gigantic cards

http://www.flickr.com/photos/alexxis/sets/72157606504827833/

will update later

千七百十二： Flu Bug

The flu bug hit me yesterday and it was just sniff sniff sniff the whole day. had to ask around for tissue.

hit home with a bad headache & this morning just couldn't wake up properly.. argh..

my personal group pic of the wedding taken by N-san's camera:

everyone just looks so naturally happy :)

千七百十一： Fed up

fed up with the stupidity of some b-person (as i've mentioned before) but glad that she is showing herself up and proper during these meetings.

went to Body Balance with A today, it was conducted by J's brother. Abit weird, he totally dun look like J.

I realised I had double-booked myself on Sunday. D had sent me the invite to her baby girl's bday party since weeks ago and I had forgot about it until today but I had also promised to go for Dim Sum Lunch with the Japanese ladies also. argh. guess I have to cancel with the Japanese ladies.

been working on the new status sheets with H's help. First time I really try to understand excel macros. I always try to improve upon the previous versions, either from feedback or just my own feelings about wat's lacking. Trying to make everything as convenient for everyone as possible, because their main worry should be testing, but dunno if the new files will help them achieve that. hopefully. hmm.

ooh made this during the beading session on Monday:

high heels earrings

千七百十： 天使的烙印

watching 天使的烙印 on channel 8 now. Its a collaboration with Malaysian chinese actors/actresses apparently. But I'm quite confused who are the Malaysians since some of the actors from Mediacorp are originally Malaysians.

I know what is so different about Japanese people suddenly. They lavish praise abundantly, out of politeness maybe, but still, it makes the listener happy. so if you are looking for some positivity about your artwork or pictures, go show them to a Japanese. ;)

waiting for the end of August to come soon.

payday in another 3 days as well. :D

千七百〇九： Yoga

Joined a Yoga class for the first time today. Went to the hot Yoga class today with A & N-san at Millenia walk today. Because the lesson was so early, we had plenty of time to spare after the class for shopping.

Headed to Orchard where we were so tired after the class we just moozed around Kinokuniya and the stores in Takashimaya for a while. Had snacks at Cedele at Wheelock at 3plus and then chatted alot then we ended by heading to isetan to finish up my vouchers. :D

ate dinner with my family, shopped at NTUC, then skyped with Ryo.

time to sleep... tmr finally a change to sleep in.

千七百〇八： Weights

today i joined Y-san at Cathay for a Total Body Sculpt class. terribly tiring. it consisted alot of lifting weights and my arms were totally in no shape to do weights. after a while, couldn't move anymore. there was some weird guy in the class who tried to talk to me, who seemed to be in his own world and then who kept to his own pace instead of the instructor's but had a cute instructor who seemed to be straight for a change. & then the weird guy kept moving closer who was quite irritating since he had so much space in front of him. argh. weird.

after that my arms were so tired I had problems using chopsticks. (-.-!)

work was quite boring today, sans all the early morning meeting this morning that I had to join myself. argh.

abit braindead now, 8am meeting tmr morning again so off to bed i go.

千七百〇七： New desk

in a teleconf now.. its either tonight or 7am tomorrow morning. given that i have an 8am meeting tmr as well, this is the best time... :s

I got my retainers this evening. After a week of freedom from braces, a tooth in a bottom row has began to shift a little. :( but the retainers will push it back. it actually hurts to put on the top row. which shows how much the teeth have shifted in a week.

we started work on level 2 today. spent about 1 hour in the morning unpacking, dunno why my boss is going to tokyo next week, maybe to meet the new staff? I always feel like telling her, hv u done UAT b4? unpacked the rest of my stuff in the evening, while H kindly waited for me to leave office together. now that I'm not on level 4 anymore, i got no more A coming to my desk to ask me if i wan to leave work together. ;( everyone kept complaining lvl 2 was cold... but it felt the same to me, am I abnormal? i didn't wear a jacket the whole day either. I put up some of my posters at my desk today. but maybe i put up too many? dunno why my table just looked kind of messy. even though there weren't much things on it at all.

the camera & the pictures

picture from friday's dinner with the girls for F-san's bday dinner. we went crazy with the polaroid camera and took lotsa instant pics. its so fun i wan to get one too!