Monday, March 26, 2007

Meeting Up

Numbers, names, meetings, ratings. Numbers, names, meetings, ratings. Numbers, names, meetings, ratings............

Work was just CRAZY, going back to work after my CNY break. My daily 8 hours stretched to 12hours or more, my 5-days workweek became more like a 6-days workweek, and I spent weeks on end in the meeting room hearing Managers exchanging ideas/thoughts/justifications/ crap and the occasional BBS (big bulls***) with each other in order to unearthe the hidden germ, uhm, I mean, hidden Gem (a certain biggie in office pronounces "Gem" the baku way ie."Germ"so can't blame me for being confused=p) among our staff. Yup, it's the Year End Performance Review for the whole MNC, and the responsibility of coordinating and facilitating this whole exercise falls under the HR Development Section that yours truly is currently a part of;).


Still, despite the huge amount of work this month, it's not all bad, especially with it being a month of reunions of sorts for me since I got to meet up with some of the Bears,my best friend from hometown, and most importantly, my Sayang =D. Won't go into too much details, but just take a look at my pics and see the self-explanatory happy smiles =D....


Reunion #1 : Yik Yung & Jess



Met up with Yik Yung just before he left for Malacca where he is having his final sem in Uni... It's comforting to know that after all these years, we can still yak for hours and hours and not be bored of each other's company ;) This is the guy that I was so close to in High School that everyone, including our teachers thought we were an item=p We were in Brass Band together, acted in school plays together, organized Orientation Week together, joined Leo/ Prefects/ Christian camps together....I guess the memories of actually doing things together ends there, but the sharing of thoughts, anecdotes, jokes and random titbits from our own (separate) lives continues on ...


Reunion #2 : Own Chai, Woonie & Jess

(Picture was taken by Melvin, a surprise meet;) )

Went on my first ever Business Trip to our KL HQ in the 2nd week of March =) I went there to attend a Refresher Session/ Briefing with regards to the Year End Performance Review exercise...I call it the Lightning KL trip since it was a day trip, but despite the time limitation, it sure was fruitful one =)

Woonie took a half day off work so that we could have lunch and dinner together, while Own Chai braved the massive KL jam to do the same ;) So sweet of them...Own Chai even got me a McD Chocolate Sundae, bless him for remembering my favourite....Here's pics of us in KimGary having dinner....




Still think I'm the best when it comes to taking pics of Woonie ;p....


Reunion #3 : My Sayang =)

Went on my 2nd official trip, this time to Kerteh, Terengganu and later to KL for the national level meeting...work in Kerteh was even crazier than in Miri, if that's possible =o/ The night before the meeting started we stayed up til 330am preparing and making sure that all the presentation materials were sorted out....and it didn't help that the Kerteh office's computer network was having a virus attack....suffice to say all our thumb drives and laptops were infected...I was hoping that I'd get to see a bit of more of Kerteh since I heard so much bout the beauty of the East Coast from the Cycling Bears but the only scenery I saw those few days were of my hotel room and the office=p But again, looking at the bright side, it was a nice hotel=p with a very satisfactory breakfast spread (my motivation to wake up early in the mornings=p)....


...and of course the thought of meeting up with my Sayang at the end of the week was never far from my mind either...there was many a frustrated and stressful moment (my colleague did another of her missing acts while in KL=o/), but having something to look forward to at the end of the long haul made the whole thing worthwhile =) It was a good break for both of us since my Sayang's been busy with a project and been working his butt off as well , and we had a GREAT 4 days in KL and Colmar Tropicale =)



Travelling together as a couple is romantic, but the trouble is you normally only get pictures of each other instead of pictures together, OR your pictures together are mostly of the self-taken type ie the above=p


Colmar Tropicale is a quaint little French-themed resort tucked in hills of Bukit Tinggi, and we were there on a 2 days 1 night MATTA fair package which was inclusive of meals, accomodation and passes to all the tourist attractions (which was actually not much, so 2 days was very sufficient to go to all of them =p). I have told Khoon that this trip does not and will not make up for any future trips to the real France=p, but we'll have Colmar Tropicale for now...=p









Stumbled upon an advertisement shooting while we were there...=p








We then spent Saturday night in KL where we stayed at the Heritage Hotel, which is actually located at the Old Railway Station ( I never knew that there was a hotel there!=p). The whole place had a very antique-y feel about it, especially the elevator which was of the rickety old kind (you have to open and close the door manually and maximum 4 persons!=P) so it was quite an experience...A bit freaky in a way because it is a very very OLD building (JC said : "Sure lots of those things..." yeah she had to remind me=p) but our night's stay was quite uneventful....


...Except for that time when our phone keep on ringing and ringing in the wee hours of the morning, only to stop when we answered it....and then it rang again....

....and when Khoon answered it, he heard...

...a voice...

....a male voice...

...asking....

.... for "Toilet paper please! Toilet paper please!" =P

Hrumph. Obviously he got the Front Office number confused with our room number.


Anyways yes we did meet up with Alan, JC & Florence on Saturday night, everyone's still looking good and doing well =) Which makes for Reunion #4 =) Didn't take any pics with them though, but here are some pictures of the Heritage Hotel =)








Last reunion of the week before I flew back home was of course with my fellow Osirians, Woonie & Kok Hin =) Here's a picture of us, 2 years (can't believe how time flies!=p) down the road after our heady Brandstorm days ;)



It's always a good feeling to see a picture of 3 us together =)...It's kind of like looking at a jigsaw puzzle and knowing that no other pieces can fit as well together as we 3 do =).....

*happy sigh*


Work will always remain hectic, and back home my most constant companion will always be myself....but happy smiles in a picture with those dear to me are always worth waiting for =).