Sempena perayaan merdeka minggu ini, saya akan memblog dengan Bahasa Malaysia. Ini bukan satu latihan yang senang - walaupun di zaman sekolah saya selalu memperolehi markah baik untuk BM. Sekarang, selepas 10 tahun saya tidak bisa mengarang atau memikir dalam BM, saya memperlu sekurang kurang 5 minit untuk mengarang satu ayat. Lagi selapas ini saya kena menterjermah balik ke bahasa inggeris. Malangnya.

PS: Walaupun karangan saya dalam bahasa melayu sudah terlampau merosot, saya masih petah mencakap dalam bm.

In light of Malaysia’s Independence day this weekend, I have decided to start blogging in Malay. This is not an easy excercise - even though I used to get good marks in school for my Malay. Now, after a 10 year absence of not writing or thinking in Malay, I need at least 5 minutes to write a sentence. And have to translate it to English. Poor thing.

After ten years of not writing or thinking in malay, I realise that there has been changes to many words….to english. My favourite example is monolog, realpolitik, conspiracy and inspiration..even though most of them have a word in malay to describe them.

Right, enough of my monolog. This few paragraphs have taken up 15 minutes. In English it usually takes me about 3. So, now that my dear readers agree with my malfunctioning malay, I am going to try to blog in malay more often.

PS: Even though my writing is absolutely horrible, I can actually still speak pretty well in malay.

No, not uploaded my 500 pix from my trips in July yet, but here are some pictures - with me in them, which is a first! Yes, just something to distract you from my traumatic turnmoil

A giant candy

On the London Eye flight - my second time. I forsee this to be another KL Towers trip - where I had been about 10 times due to visitors ect. I must say, how perfect was it for a London Eye trip with the fluffy white clouds. Unlike my freezing, cloudy and depressing trip in 2005

At the river Thames - I love just hanging out by the river and people watch. No, I wasn’t trying to pose, the wind keeps blowing my hair on my face. |My tshirt says Vegetarians Tastes Better. Hehe

Another one to add to my London Underground collection. I love love it…wished I could just close a station down one day and just take pictures in it….its just so…as the chinese love songs would put it, very feel ah

…and everything’s still the same.

I won’t even bother apologizing, I think it’s quite understandable why I have not been blogging and my feelings at this moment in time. In the past two weeks I’ve had more conversations with myself than I care to remember. Nothing’s more fun than soul-searching conversations with yourself thinking about your immediate future and long-term plans and strategies on how to get there.

A slight update on the jobfront. They have the guts to offer me my assistant’s job. My immediate response to my boss was, ” Are they taking the fucking piss??”. And rightly so. Even boss agreed with me. I don’t think by me accepting the assistant’s job I would be doing myself any favours. I think I have done enough back-pedalling and swimming on the spot in the past three years. With the assistant’s job, there are no reduction of jobscope; they will still be getting the amount and quality of work that I am currently producing .The only loser in this situation would have been myself if I were to accept that. Obviously there is the usual HR spiel of how my job’s been reevaluated. They know that I love working with the company and would do ‘nearly’ anything to stay in it, therefore the outrageous offer. Well, this is where the buck stops. Take that demotion and shove it.

Which brings me to my self-conversations. In the bath, in the bus, whilst walking, watching tv, sleeping…

I’ve always believed that everything happens for a reason. And this, I believe, is a kick up my ass. God’s way of a slap in the face. I knew that I wasn’t going to stay in this career forever, I may enjoy it, but I knew that it would only have lasted until mid next year. Now maybe it’s the time for me to do something that I want to do and will keep my interest for at least a couple of years. I’ve looked at retraining, explored other options. I don’t want to go back to doing what I have already lost interest in doing, and I guess this is a good time to move that direction.

All will become clear next week when we are given official notice that they have not been able to place me and will therefore wait for a month before giving me my redundancy notice. At the moment, anything can happen, but I am not putting much trust in it turning out to be a good outcome for me. Which is really ok. Yes, really.

Following the problems in the sub-prime lending market in America and the run on Northern Rock Building Society in the UK, uncertainty has now hit Japan .

In the last 7 days Origami Bank has folded, Sumo Bank has gone belly up and Bonsai Bank announced plans to cut some of its branches.

Yesterday, it was announced that Karaoke Bank is up for sale and will likely go for a song, while today shares in Kamikaze Bank were suspended after they nose-dived.

Furthermore, 500 staff at Karate Bank got the chop and analysts report that there is something fishy going on at Sushi Bank where it is feared that staff may get a raw deal.

**hmm…I wonder which one is my company??**

Joen Jovan Goh E-Sern was born at 4.25am on 7th August 2008 at Mercy Hospital, Melbourne.

Look at his beautiful angelina jolie lips!!! And of course, the trademark Tey nose ;). Apparently he is thin and long, just like his big bro. Just spoke to Daddy who is doing well, ableit slightly toolan (pissed off) with the hospital. Here’s hoping that Joen continues to grow up big and strong, just like his smelly brother. And no colic this time .

Notice anything funny about the house above? Well, it is close enough to where I live to be classed as a ‘neighbour’. The cops had been there in the past couple of days, breaking through the door and upstairs windows. There’s even been a photographer taking pictures of the cops posing outside - and a huge skip which was covered up. Strange, as I did not think that cops were involved in house cleanup excercises. Been searching local news sites for a couple of days, and found this today:

A CANNABIS factory was discovered after police raided a house in Leeds.

Plants and equipment used to cultivate the drug were seized after police hammered down the door of the property on Dolphin Lane. No one was inside the house but officers were confronted by a Rotweiller dog on guard inside.

The house, which has a CCTV camera fitted above the front door, was still cordoned-off yesterday as officers continued to search the premises. Engineers were also called to cut off the electricity supply to the house. No arrests have yet been made in connection with the discovery on Wednesday evening.

A neighbour said she did not know who owned the house. She added: “During the past couple of years I have seen Chinese people coming and going from the house but they don’t speak to anyone. “It’s a quiet area around here and people tend to mind their own business.”

A West Yorkshire Police spokesman confirmed that a raid on the property took place at 10pm on Wednesday.

Yes, yours truly just rushed out with her trusty cameraphone and snapped this picture about 5 minutes ago. Hurried back as I realised that I might quickly become a suspect in this very chinese minority area

I am not going to break my tradition of not talking about work, but suffice to say, the whole department’s been made redundant. Jobs are being scouted for us internally at the moment, but obviously with no promises. If we are not adopted by another department in the next few months, I would be taking voluntary redundancy, which will provide me with two months tax free salary.

Now, as the newest member of the department, I am now also the cheapest to get rid of. This also means that I have the least experience in what we do, which will prove unattractive for hiring managers having my whole team to choose for. They have years of experience in this field over me, who have less than a year. I am suprisingly taking this quite well, due to the fact that bacon had done the maths and is convinced that we can survive on his salary alone irregardless what happens to me. This will mean no more holidays or indiscriminate shopping for me, but at least we have shelter, food and wheels. Phew. Thank goodness bacon did not listen to me and took on his current job which comes with a huge pay rise over the last.

I am working from home today as I’ve sprained my ankle yesterday running for the bus. Ahh.. the dedication of the redundant staff…I was at work from 7am yesterday and only left just before 5pm. And this is the thanks that we get. Yes, I am ok with the whole thing, but that doesn’t mean that I am not bitter!!

So now it’s back to the painful experience of jobhunting. I am looking internally as well as externally..no way do I trust the HR people to ’skills match’ me. At least I am being proactive over it.Hey, the first person (after bacon) that I spoke to about this was my recruiter! Hahahah! Obviously they have their own interest (commission) at heart, but she got me this job which I really enjoyed, so I am hoping that she would be able to do the same again. But with the economy in such turnmoil, I think my best bet is still looking internally and hopefully someone will feel sorry enough for me to take me on. And oh, of course there is all my numerous hidden talents…I can give massages, make soaps, take photographs, make jewelry, cook up a storm….oh, the list goes on…

Self praise is indeed praise when there is no one to appreciate you!

On the brighter side, I am awaiting the arrival of smellyjoel’s little brother…he’s due this weekend:). Magges, remember to push harder ok.Lets hope for an easy labour…and remember…don’t try to be too brave ar, if you need help in pain relief, TAKE IT! Yeah, I am totally useless in pain threshold

…and it really does!

Got back into work today after sending the folks off at the airport, and there’s a really, really serious and bad drama going on. I need to sleep on it now, and will probably blog more about it soon. Im supposed to blog about my trip to London, Wales, Edinburgh and Dublin this week - at the look of things I will be spending all my time updating my cv and chasing after job leads.

So I am back on the jobhunt train, this time officially.

I beg for your patience. Please bear with me if I am not answering emails and comments - I promise I will get around to it slowly.

Yes, still here. Before Skipps call the Interpol on me

Most of the relatives have left yesterday - now it’s only the parents left. In the space of two weeks, they have been to:

Edinburgh
Keswick
Corbridge
Amsterdam
London
York
Scarborough
Harrogate
Manchester

It’s been absolute madness living in a house with 10 people. Looking back, it’s quite alot of ground to cover in a space of 13 days. I think there’s been a good selection of all things good and bad . The rain, for one. It rained for most of the time they were here, don’t think they had ever had so much use out of an umbrella! The ease at how well plants grow here is another, with them snapping pictures at all sort of weed. Hilarious. Not to mention the strange liking they had developed for el cheapo shops selling tops at £3. Anything below £5 is doomed expensive. Hmm.

Strangely enough, they managed to buy pairs of shoes as well. My aunt set the record with the purchase of a total of 4 shoes in the short 13 days she was here. It’s so bizzare, as me and bacon wait until we are back in Malaysia before purchasing any shoes! I guess you can find cheap shoes here if you wait until they are out of season - I think they all went into the timberland outlet shop and got matching shoes! This was after the last six months of moaning and groaning that stuff in the UK are 7 times more expensive and that they were not going to purchase anything whatsoever. Bollox to that - I think they’re carrying between them about 15kgs of Marks & Spencers biscuits and cookies to Malaysia.

And now all’s left is Wales & Ireland! Off to Snowdonia in Wales tomorrow, and then Dublin on Monday. Seeing that I’m off work all next week, this should give me some time to upload pictures! Breathe in, breathe out.

A selection of pictures from my birthday dinner - no idea what they are as I can’t see it on flickr! Yes, I am bringing photologging to a brand new dimension. Nothing naughty though :). Taken with my new macro lense.

Just a quick word of warning; my tour group’s arriving today so there will be no regular updates in the next week or so. We’re off to Edinburgh tomorrow, and then London next weekend. They’re off to Amsterdam sometime middle of next week as well; giving us some respite in this craziness. Wish me luck…we were cleaning the house yesterday and it wasn’t until it was 10pm that we realized we haven’t eaten dinner.

So everything’s on hold at the moment, not to mention I’m crazy busy at work.AAARGH.