I now understand why those seniors at school always warned us about this subject called Strategic Marketing.
Now that is what I'm going to warn all my juniors about as well.
Blardy hell. Wanting us to do 25 pages of project is NOT funny. And 25 page of project is excluding Part 1 that we had already handed up(and it was already 17 pages).
But the best part? ... The deadline's next week :)
If it wasn't for the last minute, NOTHING would get done!!!
CiiN Sniffed Her Pillow At 10:39 am
Didi is Discharged
Sunday, November 25, 2007
Yup. He's out of hospital. These few days he's been sleeping so much that it was worrying. I sometimes touch him while he's sleeping to make sure he's still alive and breathing. And even then, when I reached out to touch him, he wouldn't even wake up!
I cancelled my leave at the last minute. Was supposed to take a half-day on Friday but realised it was not a day to go out. I applied for it on a Tuesday, and realised to my extreme surprise that our GM had tendered her resignation. (By chance of sheer luck, I also received a call after canceling the leave, that Didi can be discharged that very evening!!).
Plans immediately went underway under Mona's command, to do up a little farewell lunch party to show our appreciation for the company's first and by far, only Singapore lady General Manager of Pest Control.
It wasn't easy throughout the week, believe me. Here and there, we had to act like what we try so hard to kill everyday (I was referring to Rats). Squeaking here and there and scuttering about to secretly do up Mona's birthday surprise as well that was to be held on the same day (the day I'm taking leave).
Finally, Friday came. Our farewell 'gift' to Susan was a video. A series of photos that were taken here and there throughout her time with the company. From renovation works done to our office last year, to bowling tournament outing, management training, sand castle building.. whoa you name it.
It was quite difficult to find all the photos that had her face. We had a hell of a time doing it. Running to this manager, that secretary, and somehow my rotting computer also managed to squeeze out a few out-of-nowhere photos too.
These photos were decorated and put out one after another to the tune of a song called 'Don't Forget About Us' by Mariah Carey. Needless to say, we were playing this video so much that we all fell in love with the song, so here's the clip to share it with you.
NO GUYS. COME ON. IT IS A REALLY SWEET VIDEO. Just ignore the way how you always associate this song and Mariah Carey touching herself. The video was MUCH sweeter with JUST the song, and our photos.
She cried after she saw the video. Oh boy she did. Which made everyone else wanted to cry too.
Crying after the video
Crying while giving speech
Mona just couldn't talk either. So they hugged each other instead. Maybe sometimes words just can't suffice.
I think they hugged for the longest time. I was persistently trying to stop myself from coming close to crying, so I looked at the ceiling, I looked at the door, and also my toenails suddenly became the most interesting thing to look at on earth.
Susan's closing speech was that "I have never ever cried before when I leave a company. You guys have succeeded in making me cry."
I don't know what to make of it.
But on to happier things, we celebrated Mona's birthday too.
Credits to Tricia Wong!
My own manager's birthday was also that day. I thought it'd be pretty rude as well for me to attend another manager's farewell, another manager's birthday, and then miss the one that I am reporting to (Chinese there's a translated saying that goes "never die before").
So I stayed on. Checked with the surveyors who was going to settle everything. I called Desmond Lim.
"Eh, cake who settle?"
"Me lor"
"Then the card who?"
"Me lor"
"Okay. What about the present?"
"Me lor"
....
Not just because it was Sales Closing, but it was the first time I saw the entire Sales department actually come 'home' by 4pm.
Amazingly, our manager did not detect anything fishy, or, for our case, did not detect the smell of dead Rodents.
Eh, speaking of that let me sidetrack a little. DO YOU HAVE ANY FREAKING IDEA... how SMELLY a blardy dead rodent is?
Just food for thought.
So it just happens that our manager got out of the room and went to speak to someone from the Finance side.
Sales people were hardworking, but when it came to giving birthday surprises, they were abit slow. We had to gather, shout, scream and give massive obvious hand signals that were dangerous to people standing near to us that they finally all gathered and we all squeezed into his office and turned off the lights, while scaring the new surveyor who was taking an exam in his office.
It was quite funny. So there we stood and waited. You see, our manager never leaves his office for long so we were quite sure he'd be back soon and then we can shout TA DAAAAAAAA... The lights were off. The candles were lit.
And I really don't know why one of them went to close the door.
You think it'd be more shocking right? For him to open the door and see the entire department squashed in his room?
WELL THAT ONLY WORKS IF THE DOOR IS OPAQUE.
We use GLASS doors there mind you.
He took longer than we thought. We were quite worried because the candle was burning out already. We even wanted to resort to one of the sales to go up to him holding an envelope and looking really solemn and say "can I speak to you in your office?" so that he will cut short whatever he's doing and faster return.
When he FINALLY came back, he stood outside his office, shocked.
The door was still closed. He was looking at us through the glass door. Not to mention, right beside the glass door was the huge window that could oversee his entire room.
Now, 10 people squashed in his office is a sight to behold. Not to mention, 10 people, in a dark room, illuminated by candlelight.
How prehistorical...
"Come in!" one of us shouted, in the hope he could hear us beyond the door. As if he could even come in, in the first place. He opened the door but there was no space for him in the office to even walk to the cake (and I would like to add that the candle was dangerously finishing already).
Some of us got out of the room so he could come in. But once he did, someone else went to close the door, again.
And then we turned back to the cake and the birthday boy and was about to erupt in a cheerful birthday song when we heard our GM shouting outside the room "Oei! Why close the door! I also want to sing!!"
Let me end this post with a sound piece of advice I found on James' post card:
(Don't know why I can't switch it)
CiiN Sniffed Her Pillow At 10:06 am
Dead Sick Injured
Thursday, November 22, 2007
I think I just got a visit from the god of Suay-ness.
Miffy died. That one we all know, after my widespread efforts to get rid of her cage. The new owner's claiming it this weekend.
Didi stopped eating for a few days. It suddenly dawned on us that the dog bowl with the food always untouched actually belonged to Didi (Chubby can survive purely without dog food because of his uncanny ability to beg for bread from my Ah Gong).
Sent him to the hospital. Have any of you sat in the car with Didi? If you have, you will never want to sit in the same car as him again. Do you know how a dog sounds like when he whines, high-pitch, in a confined car?
I used to counter that by winding down the car window and sticking his head into the wind so that his whinings will travel outwards, which only serves to make passers-by turn around and stare.
But that day when we went to the clinic, he was slumped on the car mat. He did struggle to sit up, but he had no strength so he put his chin on my leg.
Everytime the car took a left or right turn, he would fall down in that direction.
Yes. It was bad. In fact, he couldn't stand upright for long. His hind legs would give way because it was too weak and he would end up in a seating position instead.
He was diagnosed later on that evening. Some chronic kidney something. The doc said it might get so bad, he would have to be given daily injections. Because he hadn't been drinking enough water, he was severely dehydrated, so his test results were very bad. He's on drip now, and will be for the next few days. After he gets more hydrated, they would test him out again.
You know previously when Didi's previous owners came to take him back, I went out with Xiang immediately after that. So on the bus, I told him that they came to take back the dog already. And then I cried. Yes. On the bus.
Xiang said "Eh, don't cry leh. Wait everyone think I bullied you." and then looked away. I laughed. I didn't know why the tears just auto gathered in my eyes.
Then, when the vet said Didi had to be warded, and carried him to the back of the room, it was horrible. Didi has the ability to give super mournful eyes, especially with him having already gone through such a tough life.
He was slumped on the doctor's table, too weak to struggle, and let the doctor carry him away. But what was bad was that his eyes was looking at me the whole time. In fact, throughout the entire talk with the doctor while on the table, he had his face hidden in my jacket while leaning against me. He wouldn't even let the doctor shine the torch to check his eyes. It only managed to drive him further into my jacket.
I thought to myself if he cannot get any better, I will not hesitate to put him down to sleep. With that, I made payment, walked out of the clinic, and then just stopped there to cry.
So downright embarassing. Thankfully Skully was there. Don't think he should be afraid of others misunderstanding that he made me cry because of the dog leash that he was holding on to.
If you think all that above was bad enough, I came home only to see Chubby limp to me. You know how dog nails are. They're supposed to grow at an angle downwards to the floor. Sort of like pointing to 6pm to the floor. That nail was twisted. It was more to like 3pm or 4pm. Bleeding. And very swollen.
I couldn't help but slap my forehead.
So this evening, brought Chubby to the vet. 2 nights in a row. 2 different dogs. Can you believe it?
They had to pluck out the entire nail, and then have it bandaged.
Chubby was a brave little boy and was absolutely non-chalant about the whole thing.
In fact, he's sleeping right beside me now, with an awfully huge bandage on his right hind leg.
After Chubby was done, we went to visit Didi.
Here's a video I took for my mum to see, because she and Dad DID NOT GO AND VISIT DIDI!!!... So yea, here's the video.
CiiN Sniffed Her Pillow At 9:43 pm
We Forgot About Shalom!
Saturday, November 17, 2007
Now not many people know this because I keep forgetting to mention, but when my parents were away in China with Sa Zek, Sa Sim and Joshua (now Mum is trying to convince me that she saw Luo Zhi Xiang at the Shanghai airport)... Shalom, Joshua's parrotlet, stayed with us.
I assume it's a guy because he's so well-behaved, unlike Joon who is a TERROR, even more so now that she is guarding her egg.
Every morning at 7am Joon wakes up without fail, and goes to work.. demolishing her cage. She's a full-time dedicated construction worker. The timing was alright, of course, during the weekdays, but it gets on my nerves when I had full intention to sleep through the entire weekend.
Shalom, was different. He only starts chirping when he's superbly bored. Which means if you walk past his cage holding on to something, or when you say something, he keeps really quiet because he's observing you and trying to learn something new.
So, unless you stand there and don't move and there's nothing for him to observe, he'd start to chirp a song. I said chirp because it really is... a chirp. Joon tries to copy too. You know the way birds always imitates sounds? Joon tries to say 'Fish' but she only manages to say SHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHhhhhhhhhhhhh...
But she could easily imitate another bird's voice, in this case, Shalom's.
However, Shalom's chirp was like 'tweet'. Short & simple.
Joon's imitating chirp was like 'TWEET.
You get the idea. So even when I'm in my room and the birds are bored downstairs, I can tell who was it who just Tweet-ed.
If you need me to describe to you how Shalom looks like, it's really difficult unless you already know how a parrotlet looks like.
He's green. Has blue eyebrows,and his body is almost blue, but his back is green.
Ok, yes. Jaw drop right now, I know.
Thankfully, I have a 6500 Slide with good camera (although the battery dies off really fast).
Behold. Shalom.
I think birds (smaller ones, not those huge parrots that could bite a huge chunk of flesh out of your face unless you know how to discipline it) are one of the best animals to keep in the world. Their cage only needs thorough cleaning out once a week, which could be done easily during the weekend, and take less than 30 minutes to scrub out.
They are more interactive than hamsters. Their cages don't smell that badly. But when it does start to smell you won't faint. You'd more like puke.
Joon starts to poo alot whenever she is going to lay eggs. And I mean poo alot. So much that when it first started before she laid her first egg, I got quite frightened because I thought she's sick and having severe diarrheoa. The poo was not only different, it was so much that you could not understand how could so much poo be stored in Joon who is so small size.
Yea. It's that bad.
Ok, let me talk about something irrelevant now.
I just woke up from a nightmare. I often tell people that I'm a very realistic person. Realistic to the point of realisticism.
You know ghosts are supposed to be invisible?
Yea. I dreamt about ghosts. Except that even in my dreams, the ghost is ALSO invisible. Well, I think there are a few of them though.
Scary part was whenever I dream about ghosts, I am always in the place I'm most comfortable in; at home. Especially in my room. Damn ghosts always like to appear in my messy comfy room.
And.. throw things around. Like I would be standing there and things in my room would be going crazy. Water would be splashing out of my fish tank on their own, softoys flying all over the room. The lights would be blinking on and off.
Weirdest part was, as the whole room was going crazy, out of no where a car tyre rolled past.
I remember I was screaming, crying and basically freaking out but I stopped abruptly for a few seconds when I saw the car tyre roll past me in my room. For awhile, even though I was dreaming, I thought to myself: Where the hell did that come from?
And then I continued screaming again.
Best thing? In my dream, no matter how I scream and cry, no voice comes out. It's like somebody pressed the mute button.
And from nowhere, someone would taunt me in this sickening voice: Scream all you like. No one can hear you.
Which only successfully make me cry harder and try to scream louder.
I hate ghost dreams.
CiiN Sniffed Her Pillow At 11:12 am
Miffy Died.
Friday, November 09, 2007
Super no mood.
CiiN Sniffed Her Pillow At 3:27 pm
Sand Castle Interruption
Thursday, November 08, 2007
You know how I'm like. If I attended an event or outing recently, I'd harp on and on about it for the next minimum 2 to 3 posts, especially if I enjoyed myself.
But for now, I would like to interrupt this very very repetitive post about Sand Castles with a 'sudden' cute photo of a new puffer I bought. He's a Green Spotted, in my opinion, one of the MOST FREAKING DIFFICULT Puffer to keep. I call it 'sudden' because it's very difficult to take pictures of the fish, nicknamed by many as a 'helicopter' fish.
I hope some of you would, after this photo, understand SLIGHTLY better why I am forever obsessed with puffers:
Am I Cute?
Yes. Puffers are also known to give puppy eyes when they want to beg for food.
TELL ME HOW TO NOT OVERFEED!!!
They run to you like puppies when they want food!!!
Back to topic. I got my group pic already from the event that day.
Let's give some credit to my groupmates who had each beautified the castle (I almost typed customer).
It wasn't easy you know. Look at one of our other supervisor:
I thought it was a rather well-taken photo. It captured the excitement and exasperation at the tower crumbling. Believe me, it happened to my team like about 500 times before we gave up (and got lucky with our new castle).
I asked Blue 1 who told me they didn't even rebuild our castle. They just continued from there. Well, I guess that's because they didn't know how unstable our tower was!
They don't know about its sucky foundation, they concentrated on beautifying the surroundings and didn't know that any second the tower could fall (hahahaha!!).
I guess the saying is true: what you don't know won't kill you. So...
WE DON'T KNOW ANYTHING!!... including the fact that our banner was blocked by the castles we build ourselves!!
As Shufang would have put it: Progress! Onward to Progress!... Wait a minute, isn't that part from our national anthem or something?
CiiN Sniffed Her Pillow At 10:28 am
Building Castles In The Air
Sunday, November 04, 2007
I seriously recommend that you go eat Chubby's poo if you think building sand castles were easy. I have been awake right now, for already more than 12 hours and as you can tell, I'm not in exactly a good mood having wasted an ENTIRE freaking Sunday.
Add to that, I didn't even win a single thing this year for D&D! I won the 6th or 8th prize last year!!!
Compared to the NOTHINGNESS of this year, I feel abit pissed. But you can't blame me; I come from a family history of D&D award winners. I mean, whose Dad do you know, who, when drawing for the lucky draw, actually drew his own name for first prize?
I'm abit digressing. I was supposed to talk about sand castles. Here I am, all pissed, but excited because I want to share with you all about the beauty of sand castles.
It's not easy. You need alot of water, but then again you don't need that much until the whole sand becomes like mud pies.
You need sand, and you need to mix them up properly. They provide you with the moulds, but then you still have to really make the sand really compact or else when you turn the mould upside-down, the structure falls as soon as you lift the mould away.
And then there are some moulds that you have to 'press' against 90 degree walls in order to create patterns, and that sucks, because if your sand texture is not right (too dry), one whack with the mallet and your whole wall comes tumbling down.
My team and I had this exact problem. No matter how much we mix the thing, with our own hands, and then later on with our feet, and finally with the shovel, at the risk of endangering the lives of other groups situated near to us (imagine waving shovel around like a nut-case), we still could not get our tower up.
Oh yea, what's so important about the tower anyway, you say.. it's because all castles built by each team has to have one point that is at least 4 feet high
4 freaking feet high!!!
ARGHHHHHHHHHH... Yes. I thinking about it right now still makes me want to scream.
All around us teams were buiding higher and higher and higher. Their towers were reaching towards the sky. Well, from where we were squatting in the sand, a 4 feet tower definitely looks very high.
We started to get nervous and edgey. I could sense some frustration in my captain's facial expressions.
But....
A team-building is not called team-building if you do not face any setbacks or challenge, though in a way this set-back did not set us back but we felt was a heavenly twist of fate.
In a miraculous turn of events, the announcer asked us to switch castles. We were originally Team 2, so we took Team 3's castle, and Team 1 took ours.
I could not believe our luck. Our captain smiled when he came back from the Team Leaders' briefing and broke the news to us. My teamates, unable to balance, sat down and almost rolled in the sand in laughter.
As we walked towards our new castle, I shouted 'GOOD LUCK' to Team 1 who had already made their way over to our 'old' castle, and making comments like "THEY DIDN'T EVEN BUILD UP THE TOWER YET!!!!!!!!!!'.
Speaking of which, the Captain of Team 1 reads my blog and I can sense somebody's 'high blood pressure' boiling... Hahahahah!!
Team 3's foundation was perfect.
It was just WAITING for us to come and beautify it with walls, brick patterns, and shape up its perimeter wall.
Yes. It had a looming tower, sitted atop a hill, with a strong and thick perimeter defence wall awaiting to be compacted into very nice 90 degree blocks.
We set up guard towers, I made some staircase, and another team-mate helped to connect the castle to the defence perimeter.
Yes. At this moment your jaw would have probably dropped because you catch no ball of what I was talking about.
So....
I sacrificed scratching my new 6500 (which I must add, did a stunt on the road already a few days ago)... and used my salt-water stained with coarse sand hands, reached into my pocket, turned on the camera function and took this picture. You could also see 2 of my team-mates working very hard on our castle.
A team-mate of mine suddenly said while all of us were concentrating on the new castle "Whoa look. They made our old castle so nice."
I said without turning my head "Don't always look lah. We left them that shit leh. Later they scold us if they catch us looking".
"No, you look! Very nice!" He insisted, so I turned... and I was shocked so shocked that I almost fell and trip on our new castle, saved by the shrieks of the grown men in my team, which is basically everyone else la, since I'm the only girl.
Blue Team 1, I must definitely give you ALOT of credit. Our old castle was left to them in such a desolated state, it looked like it had just survived a serious castle breach, became a beautiful castle. Beautiful castle was an understatement.
It was a absolute sight to behold!!
*Gasp*
I really can't capture its magnificence using a camera. The most I can do is post it from another angle. You imagine the rest yourself. But it's really really nice.
And then I noticed that Green team had a castle that was built for the sake of being built.
You see, each colour had a group of 6 to 7 teams. They built up a few castles together already because the entire Green Team had worked together. Smart move. Everything was built really fast within the 3 hours we spent there. In fact, it felt like 30 minutes. I did not even realise I was under the sun for so long until now.. when I'm feeling the effects of a major sunburn coming along.
So, yea, Green team.. They built this .. if you could call it a sand castle... I told Desmond straight that his group's sand castle really looked like a tomb. A brick tomb. I think they were attempting to build the Pyramids of Giza or something.. realised halfway through it was impossible, and decided to just bang in some doors and put some guards to the entrance.. making it all the more.. like a tomb.
And yes, the eagerly awaited photo of it:
Now let me just end this with one final close-up. PS: I love my hp camera. Don't remind me.
CiiN Sniffed Her Pillow At 7:07 pm
Green Bean
Saturday, November 03, 2007
Thousands of years ago, when I was in Secondary School, I thought to myself; we sit at the same desk everyday, surely we can do something to our table that is allowable, and not considered vandalising.
So, I decided... to grow green beans on my school table.
You know at the ends of the table we have this depression?
It's so our pens and pencils won't 'roll' off the table. They will fall into that depression.
I asked Kingston to bring some green beans to school, and then got some tissue paper from Miao Juan, and borrowed Sharmela's water bottle because not everyone have the habit of bringing water bottles to school, and there I planted my first green bean.
It was fun. Very fun. Every morning when I reached my table, the little plant had grown a considerable amount.
But I realised I was often stuck. I could water my plant everyday during the weekdays, but once weekend came and I go to school on a Monday, the tissue paper that was damp had already dried up over the weekend and the plant had shriveled up and died to my dismay.
Immensely disappointed, but never for long, I decided to grow another one. And another. And another. Until I decided to try my luck, and grew 4 at the same time and filled up the entire depression with water. Didn't think Mosquitoes could breed, but they did not even get to, because everytime over the weekend, I came back, and the whole thing had dried up.
I was reminded of my weird practice (that had also influenced a few other classmates who attempted the same) while shopping at a plant nursery with Skully at night.
Suddenly, an idea struck me. Now that I'm in the working world, and have a HUGE table to myself, I'm thinking... why not?
In fact, now I have a handphone camera that could upload pictures to all of you and show all of you a day-by-day change.
Wait. Why do I hear some people groaning. Not fun meh?
CiiN Sniffed Her Pillow At 6:29 pm
I Skipped School
Sure. Nothing new about it.
Remember that stupid rushed project I mentioned in my previous post. They were returning it to us.
Obviously I think the teacher is so going to blacklist us because not only were we probably the ONLY group late for the softcopy hand up, we were also not present at all during lesson when he return us the project.
Speaking of which, my mother is going to read the title and then freak out and say WHY YOU DIDN'T GO SCHOOL!!
But then again, I must admit I am a very honest daughter. Whenever I skip school I tell her straight. Of course, I must warn you that you must have a very magnanimous and understanding mother like mine before you can be so brutally honest.. hor Mummy hor??
Well, then again, she and Daddy, and my third uncle, his wife and their son, Joshua, is all away happily shopping.
And I just talked to Joshua last night, who told me that every hotel room comes with a PC, so he downloaded MSN messenger and came to talk to me about how nice how nice China is.
ARGH.
Dad promised me a graduation trip to Japan. That will be way in July NEXT YEAR. I don't care about the country, but Dad often mentioned that Japan is a country where, although expensive, you should go at least once in your life. I think Europe should be a place where you should go once in your life.
Thailand is a place you should go like at least once... a year.
I've forgotten what it feels like to be overseas in a foreign country. Hell, ever since school plus work started, the only 'overseas' I've been to is Batam, neverthless, with many many old ah peks who are crossing the sea as well in search for their mistress, who are also probably cheating behind their backs!!
Whoa. The complication and irony behind all that.
Anyway, I think Mum is still jumping on the fact that I skipped school today, but hey, I have a valid reason.
I'm going back to office. And it's all because of a stupid company event that is going to be held on 4th November. Need I remind you what date 4th of Nov is?
IT'S A FRIGGING SUNDAY. And it's a compulsory attendance thing!
Add to that, NO LEAVE-IN-LIEU :(
I hate and love the event at the same time. Hate it because it's eating into my personal precious Sunday. Love it because I'm like one of its mothers who helped to 'give birth' to the event having been a secretary to the committee.
Another thing to talk about. Jo was seeing my new phone, and decided to play with the camera.
You know how the newer phones are these days.
Even if you turn on Silent it will still play the camera sound when you eventually capture photo. It was to deter those assholes from taking pictures up girls' skirts, especially in public places like in the train or escalators.
Apparently Jo didn't know.
Thinking my phone was already on Silent, she decided to take a picture.
Bad idea. The whole class was quiet and paying attention. Suddenly there was this unmistakable searing sound of a camera shutter. Natural reaction? Turn around and look towards the sound.
Before I knew what was going on, even my own head naturally turned and looked at Jo, who was already trying to bury her head under the table.
And this, was the photo that she not-so-secretly took.
Whoa. I just realised can see my Qing Ai De in the left background!!
