My workdesk

Got a chance to snap a few pictures of my current workdesk at Synovate. Many thanks to my dear friend Judy, who came over for a short visit last Friday (8th Jun). I borrowed her camera to snap the pictures.

Note my new set of PC and 17" Flat Screen monitor...hehehe.....Provides me a wide spacious and tidy environment for my desk. Cool ehh?

I love my work place now. Since shifted down to the newly renovated 9th Floor office, I have enjoyed the nicely designed and colour decorated walls, pantry, chairs and desks. However, I am not much of a decorative person, therefore my workdesk do looks a little dull...Anyone care to sponsor me some money for decorations? hahaha.... Nah..I don't care much decorating it, unless it's my own home! I do not have intention to turn this place into my 2nd home.

New Motivation at Work

Yay! I got a new set of computer at work now. With a newer version of system Intel Core 2 CPU 6300 @ 1.86Ghz with 1Gig Ram definately make my programming work smoother and has faster debugging speed. The best part is, I got a new 17" Flat screen monitor to match it. Save me a lot of space and makes my work desk looks nicer too (will post picture later when I can). Never cross my mind that they would replace my key board and mouse with a new one too.

Provided with a newly built working environment and now, nice set of computer for me to work on my daily boring stuff, it's really kind of motivated me to come to work now..hehe... You know, how everyone of us has that kind of feeling at some point or another, the feelings of having to drag ourself to work everyday and wish we could avoid sitting in that gloomy work desk? Well, I can now say good bye to those feelings... uuhh..at least for the time being I think...hahaha.... Anyway, I am really thankful to be blessed with this kind of luxury at work.

Feeling Bored?

I found this article interesting and would like to share.....

Feeling bored? If so, that could mean that your brain is "hungry." Did you know that you can "feed" and keep your brain in shape, just like you can with your body? I've just been reading about what seems to be a growing movement to encourage people to do mental aerobics, or exercise for the brain.

Just like the body, your brain needs stimulation, or exercise, to keep its cells active and efficient. It's rather like the old saying, "use it or lose it." And it isn't only elderly people who may be concerned about such things as memory loss. According to Dr. Gary Small, the director of the Center on Ageing at the University of California, brain "ageing" can occur in people in their twenties or thirties. Evidently genetics plays a part in brain ageing, but only by about a third. The other two-thirds has to do with our environment and lifestyle choices.

The next time you're feeling bored or perhaps less than alert, why not try a little mental exercise to sharpen up those brain cells? I've started to collect some exercises, and here are just a few suggestions:

Try counting backwards from 100 to zero as fast as you can. Pick a letter from the alphabet and name 20 words that start with it as quickly as you can. Recite the names of all the teachers you've ever had. Switch to the other hand to do tasks. For example, if you are right-handed, use your left hand, and vice versa.

And one of my favorites is wiggle your toes! This is a good way to "wake up" your brain in the morning. While you're still in bed, slowly begin to move your toes, wiggling, scrunching and stretching them. Move them up and down, and then try just moving your big toes. This actually activates nerves that stimulate your brain. You can also do this if you've been sitting a while; it will help you become more alert.

So, put your mind to it!

Japanese Buffet Lunch

On Sunday 3rd June, I had a Japanese buffet lunch at Shin-NiChi with my favourite friends. There were 9 of us there, 3 of them are new friends to me ( 1 is Michelle's friend, 2 are Wai Ling's friend ). It is to have a combine birthday celebration for Michelle, Amy and me. Both Michelle and Amy's birthday falls this month but mine was one and a half months ago that gathering was cancelled. Only Pui See and Lyn Yen did not turn up on that day.

Both me and Wai ling arrived first at the same time. So, we started out our plunder first. Head on to the fresh oysters and sea foods. The oyster is really fresh and they are very generous with the refilling. Apart from the fresh seafood, there are of course the famous sushi, tempura, teppan and some chinese cruisine like Monk Jump Over the Wall and Ginseng Chicken (both are famous chinese soups). Of the two type of chinese soup there, I only tried the Monk Jump Over the Wall. Was really tasty. If I can recall, I had 3 round of food and 1 soup on that day. Wow, really filling. I actually feel full after finishing the 1st plate, but very tempted to try on other type of food there.

I had a wonderful time there eating and chatting. I am sure everyone enjoy it too. Our conversation that day touch on our childhood time to ghost stories. Don't really know where the ghost stories stared off, all I know is I am really into ghost stories and found myself feeding into every bits and details of it, not feeding more of the food..hahaha....

In the end, two hours after that, slightly after 2pm I left and the rest are still there chatting and eatting until 3pm as I heard. Overall, the food there is nice and fresh. The price is RM45++ for the buffet. I think it's really value for money because they have alot of fresh seafood and wide sellection of food. Must try the green tea ice-cream for desert if you are there. Here is the website link at Shin-NiChi Japanese Buffet Restaurant. It is located at Kompleks Antarabangsa, just between Hotel Equatorial and Hotel Crown Plaza at Jalan Sultan Ismail, KL. If you do not drive there, you can take the KL Monorail and stop at the station in front of Wisma Genting/Hotel Crown Plaza ( station Raja Chulan if I am not mistaken ), walk on your right is Kompleks Antarabangsa after Hotel Crown Plaza. Very convinient and easy to find the place.

Live Job

Finally officially begin started scripting my first live job on the mrStudio. Since April this year, I have been officially transfered to an offshore DP team in Synovate. Previously I was attatched with Malaysia DP team for 3 years since 2003 (minus 1 yr out of Synovate). There are numerous offshore DP team now based in Malaysia office. I am now attatched with Fieldwork International Healthcare scripting team. Job function and platform being used is very different from my previous ones. Been waiting for the transfer since last year September I think... now am happy with the job and pay increment especially .. hehehe.... Also, got the chance to do something very different, which I am now only need to do interview scripting for online panel.

Already had training in April. Ben Grey, CAI Manager in charged of offshore scripters from Fieldwork International Healthcare, based in London, came over to Malaysia to gave us training on Dimension and mrStudio which I would be using from now onwards. The training was about 2 weeks and after that I had a few test jobs to practise. It was very tough for me since it require quite a lot of programming skills in doing the interview scripting. I have lost touch with real programming skills for quite long. Luckily there's a new guy just joined my team who are able to help me with it.

For this 1st live job, I am blessed with a short and simple questionnaire. It is all about medicine and treatment. Since this Synovate sister company that I am now attatched with only deals with healthcare related matter, therefore all the questionnaire that I will be receiving contains a lot of medical jargon that I have to get used to. It is really important for me to understand the questionnaire better in order to script it correctly.

Amy Wong's Wedding

It's almost a month since I attended Amy's wedding on the 6th May 2007. She is a long lost friend which we recently met. She's a primary school mate of us, living just near by my housing area but we didn't keep in touch until recently. She's a good athlete in school and has grown up to be a very pretty girl. She wore a transparent looking white dress as her 1st dress for that night (as seen on the picture here). With her great figure, of course she looks gorgeous. Later on, she changed in to a modern looking traditional two piece dress that she had it custom made by a designer friend of hers. In that she looked stunning too. She'll look nice in pratically anything as she has a great figure and a very nice fashion sense to go with.

Her wedding night was wonderful. I have had an enjoyable time chatting with friends and savouring the 8 course chinese dinner. The dinner started quite late as I can remember, we were all famish. We finished up most of the dishes except the last 3. Not bad for a table of 9 girls...haha... Too bad I didn't have the chance to taste the desert because I have to leave early at 10.30pm Aldrin is already there to pick me up.

Congratulations Amy, on your wedding.... Hope you have a wonderful and blessed marriage.

To get the best prices aroundon beautiful wedding bands , bracelets and diamond rings head over to the website BarskyDiamond.com. They have a huge selection of gorgeous diamond rings that your wife or husband will love.

In Times of Trouble

I came across a daily online bible message that a friend sent to me quite sometime ago. It brought great comfort and meaning to me. As time goes by we tend to forget the blessings that we get undeservingly and yet when things goes wrong, when we are troubled with sorrow and turmoil in life, we tend to blame God either directly or indirectly without knowing it. Who are we, as God's creation have the right mind to be angry and blamming others in our times of troubles? Sometimes we wait for God to do someting because there is nothings else that we human hands can do. Only God is capable to "turn a MESS into a MESSage", "a TEST into a TESTimony", "a TRIal into a TRIumph", "a VICTim into a VICTor!".

Message taken from YL:

Waiting for God means power to do nothing save under command. This is not lack of power to do anything. Waiting for God needs strength rather than weakness. It is power to do nothing. It is the strength that holds strength in check . It is the strength that prevents the blundering activity which is entirely false and will make true activity impossible when the definite command comes.
--G. Campbell Morgan

If we refer to Isaiah 40:31 says:

31 but those who hope in the LORD
will renew their strength.
They will
soar on wings like eagles;
they will run and not go weary,
they will walk
and not be faint.

Message taken from ML:

Did you know that an eagle knows when a storm is approaching long before it breaks? The eagle will fly to some high spot and wait for the winds to come.

When the storm hits, it sets its wings so that the wind will pick it up and lift it above the storm. While the storm rages, below the eagle is soaring above it. The eagle does not escape the storm, it simply uses the storm to lift it higher. It rises on the winds that bring the storm.

When the storms of life come upon us ... and all of us will experience them ... we can rise above them by setting our minds and our belief toward God.

The storms do not have to overcome us, we can allow God's power to lift us above them. God enables us to ride the winds of the storm that bring sickness, tragedy, failure, and disappointment into our lives. We can soar above the storm.

Remember, it is not the burdens of life that weigh us down, it is how we handle them.

Message taken from JL:

Not to discourage but truth from His words recorded.
Problems of life cannot be resolve or overcome. Why?
1. If the trials comes because of our own sins, it is the result of it.
2. If the trials is permission of God, is to mold/ sanctification to us.

Support.

Job
He did not overcome or solve the mystery. Even at the end of his trials getting double bonus from God, he will never able to forget the the happiness time with his beloved family. Nothing can be replace even the bonuses from God.
He persevere...but he did not overcome or solve the mystery until when he face God.

Romans 5
1 Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 2 through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. 3 Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; 4 perseverance, character; and character, hope. 5 And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.

(Notice the word "suffering"... very clear that Christian will go through suffering. Suffering that will never able to understand, getting answer, overcome or resolve. The meaning of perseverance is commitment, patience, endurance.)

What shared from YL quote is true... Power of perseverance to do nothing...
and ML... only if we understand the purpose of storms than life goes on with God.

We usually say "in life, there are ups and downs". But when we are always in the "down" part all the time for a very long time, we tend to forget where we are now. Isn't it? I think it is really very important to remember to point our focus back to the Creator. Then only everything will fall back into placess in their righful timmings and maybe even can be like Job, receiving double bonus....

Another bad day to start with

This morning go to work as usual, my mom will send me to the Wangsa Maju Putra LRT on her way to her office there. I will take the LRT from there to Bangsar station where I will wait for the free feeder bus to take me to my office at Mid Valley. All goes well if the Putra LRT is working fine, and I will reach my office around 9am.

However, this morning when I reach the Wangsa Maju station there were already alot of people queuing up before the ticket swap enterance which were temporary blocked passenger away from comming in to board the train. And surely seeing this, I know that the Putra line LRT system having technical breakdown again. Not going to just stand there and wait, I just walk over to board a bus to KL, which can take me to Sogo to take a KTM commuter train instead. It was 8am at the time I board the bus. About 35mins later, I reach Sogo but I got down on the wrong stop (this is my 2nd time taking this bus, hence the mistake). I was supposed to get down on the next stop which is nearer to the way to the KTM commuter train station. So I walk the long walk.... not bad for an early day brisk walking exercise ehh.. I think...haha...

For those who usually commute by the KTM commuter train, there bount to be the possibility of train schedule discuptions due to technical difficulties and of sort. Well, for the bad start I had this morning, thank God the KTM commuter train service came on time, and at last I can reach my office just slightly after 9am. With all the walking and commuting in this hot and hummid morning, I was sweating all along the way...phew... what a morning....

Hope the day gets better for me today!

Material things

I am usually not the kind of a material girl. I only buy the things I need and occasionally buy the things I wanted. Currently thinking of a few items on my mind and I decided to blog it down today. Most of the item I have already longed for it for quite some time now....

Things I need:

• Handphone (Sony Erricsson brand prefered) - my current handphone is 3-4 yrs old and having problem already)
• Another pair of shoes for dinner
• Accessories to match my wedding dinner dress
• Hair accessories for the wedding dinner
• A dinner pouch maybe
• More money (haha...who doesn't need this?)
  

Things I want (not important to have):

• A new pair of jeans
• Some new outfit for work and leisure (who doesn't like shopping for cloths?)
• A new handbag
• A notebook computer

That's all that I can think of for now. I swear there are more, and surely the list will keep adding up in my mind later...haha...

Weddings everywhere.......

It seems that there seems to be a lot of wedding announcements coming to me now a days. Just for the past 4-5 months I have already attended 2 wedding dinner invitations of my friends. And just around the corner, this coming 7th July is my sister's wedding. Wow... it's almost slightly over 1 more month to go until the big day. See how time flies..... I haven't even decided which dress to wear to the dinner.

I am going to make it a little different than the usual wedding dinner I attended. Usually, I would just put on a nice dress, some very light accessories like earrings and necklace, and just put on some mascara on my eye lashes. Not really calling it a makeup at all. And I will let down my hair as usual, with my permed hair it already looks a bit messy but that's how permed hair usually look like so I don't have to bother tidy it up by accessorizing it. But that's the usual preparations that I made without much effort at all. That's me. Lazy to do anything to enhance my looks. However, this time for my sister's wedding dinner, I am going to have my friend who is sort of a makeup artist to do the makeup for me. And I am going to the saloon to have my hair done nicely. Hopefully I won't look too different from my usuals....haha...

Hmm...thinking of it, my sister is 3 years younger than me and she is getting married first. Now a days, it is very seldom that people get married early in life. The norm now is when they are in their late twenties or early thirties only they decided to tie the knot. I am one of them. I wonder how my wedding day would be like. I do have some ideas of it but it needs a lot of convincing work to do. In fact, I am a little reluctant to plan about it because to me, it just seems to be a lot of hassle and there would be a lot of arguements hence disappointments coming along the way. So, I think I am going to do it one thing at a time. Have to force myself to do it, especially asking questions which may lead to arguements later on. But existing problem can't be left unsolved or at least have to attempt to solve it the best way I could.

SmOkE oR nOt To SmOkE

How many of us, unmarried singles who don't smoke but has a bf/gf that smoke? Here I would like to share my thoughts and feelings regarding this topic which has long been in my heart and mind for so long.

My dad smokes. My mom does not. So, what's the problem with that? Some may ask. Well, it has every reason that makes it a problem. First of all, smoking does not promote good health to the smoker. Secondly, it affect the health of those who do not smoke when they breath in the smoke, which we called them 2nd hand smoker. Note that, 2nd hand smoker has a faster and higher risk of having lung cancer. These 2 are the worst problem come from smoking. Other than that, would be the waste of money and time. Since smoking has no benefit at all, it would be like burning your money away little by little.

In a marriage where a husband smoke, the wife who does not smoke will need to worry about the health of the husband, on top of worring about her own health due to being 2nd hand smoker. If they have children, the amount of worries would be much more greater. Alot of questions will come to the mind of the wife. Such as, "What if my husband fall ill due to smoking, and there would be a big financial difficulties will fall on the family", "What if I die young", "What would happend to my children if they lost their father?"... etc..etc.. the worries goes on and on... Even, when I was young, I would started worying about my father's smoking habits. No doubt, it has given me restless night. Thinking deeper on the problem of smoking partner, it can distroy a marriage if not careful and if the smoker doesn't take the initiative and determination to quit smoking.

If you are not a smoker but you are dating a smoker, you may want to reconsider your relationship. If you are having a wonderful relationship no matter what and you do not mind having a smoking partner, well, think about the future. What if he/she really fell sick? Do bear in mind that the kind of sickness meant here are smoking related sickness. These type of sickness like lung cancer can be avoided and prevented. You do not need to go through the pain and suffering of having seeing someone we love fall sick and helpless. Or seeing your children fall sick, contacting asthma because of breathing cigarette smoke since born. Or experiencing the sickness yourself and you need to die young because of being 2nd hand smoker.

Many smoker who started smoking are unable to quit although they tried countless times. Some may succeed, but fall back again. Most of the time, they just succeed in a period of time, and then fall back again. Because smoking is also a form of addiction like drug addiction or alcoholic addiction. If your bf/fiancee promise you that they will quite smoking and stay off from smoking when they get married, then pray that they stay true to their promise. Pray that God will give them strength to fight the temptation. Pray that they themself will not only rely on their own strength but rely on God's mighty strength also. Pray that after they have stay clean from it, they will continue ro refrain from it for the rest of their life.

If you are not a smoker but you are dating a smoker, better pray now that God will give you wisdom to make decision on how you want your future to be like with the person. I choose to presevere, continue hoping, continue praying, continue trusting no matter how many times the trust has been easily broken. I do not know whether the outcome will be good or bad but I trust God that everything happen, happen with a cause and it is meant for our good. I believe God will show me the answer soon when the time is right. I can only hope that my "foolishness" will not turn out to be a complete urter foolishness. So, what's your choice?

Siew Lee's Wedding

Siew Lee is one of my college mate that I did not keep in touch for so long. We first know each other since we first started our Diploma course. In a blink on an eye, that was 10 years ago. We had many times grouped up together for assignments and projects. And had enjoyed our lunch and gossiping together with Lyn Yen. Those were the days where we were so care free, only need to worry most about our assignment due date and exams schedule. After graduation, someone from our batch of college friends always organize gatherings, and I got to meet her on a few occations back then. The gap was more than 6 years, since I last met her until recently on her wedding day.

It does not come as a surprise to me when I receive her wedding invitation which were sent through e-mail. As someone told me earlier that she is getting married soon in March 2007. I didn't know that I had the privilage to attend her wedding as we did not keep in touch for so long. I certaintly would not want to miss it. On top of congratulating her on her wedding, I had used up the opportunity to meet up with the rest of the college mate, that we were a whole bunch of friends who used to hanged out together. Some brought their partner, but I did not.

30th March 2007 @ Imbi Palace Restaurant