The end is NEAR!

Lord, with recent disasters here and there, then yesterday tsunami disasterin the SOuth Asian region that killed more than 11,000 people, sone can't help but wonder if we are living in end times... Hmmph, then this had to happened...


There was a ferocious storm outside the office today towards evening and with a mighty boom, the lightning struck something and the wiring tripped. Everything was pitch black and there were startled screams in the darkness. When the electricity was restored, everyone calmed their nerves and everyone started booting up their computers. I press the Power button and nothing. Geeze, don't tell me my CPU got fried?!! ALL my work!!! Gone??! Please- nononononononono....And when it successfully booted, the screen was blue and red and with stripes of black. I let it complete its scanning then rebooted again. This time it went into safe mode.I tried to change my display settings back to the originals ones but It. Just. Wouldn't. Change! I restarted it again and again after it prompted me to restart my CPU after changing the settings! It kept booting up in safe mode and when I changed the settings, it still remained the same despite it all. I was nearly ready to tear out my hair. The CTo was no help as he disappeared elsewhere. I was ready to tear hishair as well. I tried to fix the problem but this is no task for a non-IT service personnel. It's just so DARN FRUSTRATING that I can't fix this myself.

Since there were no one around to help me, I made some calls to try to find out what's wrong with my PC. Had to call a few people before I hit paydirt. Apparently my display card is attached to my motherboard and it prob got fried by the lightning strike, OR the monitor cable was the one who got fried. Don't know which is which and I can't open up my CPU to fix the darn problem. Lord, my eyes hurt using my PC in safe mode. I really hate this. It seems like everything on my screen is leaping out at me like a bad nightmare. All the pixels are in tiny X's with terrible colours - it's like being stuck in a cross-stiched world!

Let me outta here!!!

The frenzy continues before Christmas

It's amazing how many things a human can do in a day. The amount of work I finished this week truly boggles my mind. It like everyone is trying to get EVERYTHING done before their Christmas break. Everyone rushing everything, and I too got caught up in the frenzy. Of course I have reason to be frenzied too - they put me in charge of the company newsletter and it has to roll out by January.

I'm happy that my pile of 3 feet high of newspaper has dwindled to zip. *GRIN* That is at least a load of my mind and I managed to vet and photocopy four sets for out internal circulation. Phew. I was already late by one week.

One shining star in the very touchable horizon is that Christmas is coming! Christmas is coming! Hee hee... I know I don't celebrate it but I can't help being cheerful about it. And Erica the receptionist got me a very nice Christmas stocking, and she added a Chritsmas-Tree shaped body shampoo inside as a tiny surprise. It was certainly a pleasant surprise. =) Nancy also got me a nice gift.

Family's planning a nice dinner on the eve and I've just bought two fantastic reds to go with mom's yummilicious cooking. Hee hee... Zona and I took a long lunch to go to the Wine Cellar to get some nice wine for Christmas. Well, she went there with the intention to buy some... Me, I couldn't help myself. Come on, I was in a wine shop with an amazing selection of reds. Of course such impulsive behavior can be excused... it's wine for heavens sake. =P It's like citing the Fifth Amendment or something, with the clout to boot. WINE WINE WINE!

Plus the very nice woman, Noelle gave us a nice box for buying two bottles each. The box itself cost RM39.90 and it's a wooden box especially made for Wine Cellar's customers. I bought a bottle of South African Red that I'm dying to try out - Le Riche's 2001 Cabernet Sauvignon / Merlot. If it's good, I'm definitely going back to buy a few more bottles to keep. You can check out the site at http://www.winecellar.com.my.

Yummy. ^__^

A bolt out of the blue

The last few weeks, as evident from the tortured postings in my blog, have been hell for me. The fact that I was continuously reliving each hellish incident did not help myself much. But something happened last week and I feel as though a great burden has been lifted. You see, I realised that all these weeks of torture and humilation is nothing as I've just been granted one of my wishes. During my review with my boss two months ago, I asked for more challenging rolls and guess she granted my wish after all. *laugh*

I've been so busy lately that I haven't had time to do my papers - I've been allowing them to pile up to 3 feet high and goodness knows when I'll ever finish this never ending chore. But I do try to read them and get my circulation out to the bosses by Tuesday the latest. So there I was mindlessly photocopying the news articles when all of a sudden, out of no where, this thought "My job is more challenging now" hit me square on. I was stunned! I think I stood there a few minutes after the photocopy machine completed one cycle. I was so miserable before that I could not see or think straight. But with this new self revelation, I was sort of freed from my own vicious cycle. I was stunned and relieved.

Later when I told my Lee Hoon about it, I actually laughed about it. I felt that much less burdened.

So yes, my job is tougher now but at least I'm learning again instead of already doing a job that holds no mystery to me. I want to learn more to be good at my job, so much so that I'm willing to take some more crap from certain irritating people.

*grin* I wonder how long this feeling will last? *wink*

Something surprising

I got a shock today when I saw my name in Kosmo newspaper in the Boys' Club article that I arranged for last Friday. The reporter actually added me in. When I read that paragraph with my name in it, I actually breathed "omigawd..."

Menurut wakil Pegawai Perhubungan Awam dan Publisiti Double Vision, Sharon Teo, Boys' Club diterbitkanatas dasar ingin memenuhi permintaaan dan kehendak penonton kaum lelaki.

"Kalau hendak diikutkan, konsep Boys' Club terlebih dahulu dicipta sebelum program Girls' Club, Sketches dan Pillow Talk wujud. Bagamanapun, atas beberapa masalah teknikal, kami terpaksa menunda projek ini buat seketika. Kini, musim pertama sudah siap untuk ditayangkan dan kami yakin dengan sambutan penonton," terangnya.

This is the first time my name has appeared in the papers in my official PR capacity, and I don't know what to say or think. I don't know what the bosses will say or think...

Also, do watch out for Boys' Club on ntvy this coming 20th December at 10.40pm. I think it's really quite fun to watch.

kicked around like a ball

I just found out that my boss is not my boss and never was last friday, and instead she has been "mentoring" me all this while, and when I ask her for her opinions, they are only that "her opinions" not directives or orders. What the hell?!! I'm now to do whatever the Queen Bee says. Effectively but unofficially I'm under HRH's wings. My only concern is that being under her wings connotes the opposite of what that phrase is suppose to mean.

My whole weekend was one depression after another. I feel betrayed, majorly. Sigh. What am I? A ball that can be kicked and passed around at any time? I wanted to quit and walk out of that room when I was told. HRH went to hash out the PR side with my "former" boss and they ended up discussing me. I heard them as the door was not closed. So I got handed over to another boss to do as she will.

Of course, I'm lamenting about it. If you're rolling your eyes at my post, then you can keep rolling, coz at this moment, I'm in no mood to listen to anyone. I'm just feeling overwhelmed and in over my head.

And of course today couldn't be made more stressful with an email to all the big heads officially announcing my new 'position', from the CEO. No the new possition doesn't come with additional benefits, so you can understand my pickle.

Why am I being made to handle such a big load when I have no experience to back it up?!! I feel HRH's frustrations at me when things doesn't go her way and of course the past one month has been so stressful that I've thought about giving in my resignation letter a million times a week. The only thing stopping me is not wanting to be a failure. I've never been a failure in anything I've done so far and I really don't want an big splash of ink blot in my life's chapter.

From Heaven to limbo

It's the oddest thing... I just came back from a relaxing weekend from the beach and here I am today, feeling drained and depressed. I cannot profess that I have no idea why I'm feeling so, cause I do. It's my job. I feel as though there are too many expectations expected of me and that I might not be able to fulfil them all satisfactorily.

Friday saw me being dressed down for my "not good enough" proposal to the queen bee. HRH said that it looked like a 5 minute bang up job, which took me 3 days to write btw... I even showed the proposal to my Corporate PR Manager and she said it was good for a proposal. HRH expected me to come up with an ENTIRE plan for a new programme coming up, in one week, alone. Apparently I had team mates in her hives that were of course, no help to me, as they themselves had no idea except to demand I 'report' to them in my meeting with them!!! Seriously, I do not think I can handle this job anymore. I feel that the burden is too heavy and the stress of working with that department is just blood-red-boiling.

Just monitoring the newspapers already taking up 2 - 3 hours of my mornings, and worse on Mondays, I start reading at 8.30am and I finish the pile at 1.30 - 2pm. Not that I'm a slow reader but there are so many papers to go through. There doesn't seem to be enough time for the rest of everything.

Then in the afternoon, the BIG CEO called me and the Marcomms team into his room for a 'chat'. There I found out:

1. that I'm really in charge of both the English and BM PR side, while one superior was in charge of the chinese side and the other the Corporate side.
2. that I continue doing my regular work but take on more corporate work
3. that the CEO is taking an interest in the PR dept himself
4. that he is concerned about my lack-of-progress on the account that I have no guidance from my superiors
5. and that HRH complained to the board that there was no publicity for an old programme that was canned but now revived, and that's why he is personally taking responsibility of the Marcomms Dept/ PR side as we all have to work together.

I have to agree with what he says, as all of use need to work together. He asked me who I think is the best person to give me guidance and I mentioned a name. I have no idea whether he agrees or not as all he said was "Hmmm". I was brave enough to mention HRH's name but he said she was too busy. I have to agree, she is very busy, and when she's busy she's cranky as hell and it's no good anyway going to her for guidance.

I even talked to my boss just now about maybe I can't cope with both departments... well.. I left her office feeling that asking her for help was useless. *sigh* I agree I need to feel that I own the responsibility of promoting our programmes but how can I own something I don't understand?

Looking for a mentor is hard, and there aren't any good mentor to be had in this company. Maybe I should move on and leave all the bad things behind. As I certainly don't need the bad memories clogging my mind and my heart in more ways that one.

Sea-faring emotions

Been to the beach and back...

Went to Pangkor for the day on Saturday with Tom, Shani, Wai Kong, Michael and Jayme. The first four went diving (lucky devils) and since I can't dive with my ear stuffed up, I went to veg-out on the beach with Jaymee. We stayed in a RM10 a night budget dorm room in Lumut and took the ferry over to the island the next day. We then took a taxi to Teluk Nipah but I was sorely disappointed with the condition.

There was a narrow stripe of sand FULL of Malay families and Chinese yuppies running around and yelling at the top of their energetic lungs. I was appalled. How an I relax on a beach like this? So we went further to Coral Bay and blessedly, it was quiet... until noon when a bunch of young chinese yuppies came and showed how healthy their lungs were when they wre zipped around in the banana boat. Since there were so many of them, they took turns, and we had to put up with an hour of very loud squeals and hooing and hahaing and worse of all, the "Oi Oi Oi" when they fought to get on the yellow floaty thing first.

Strangely enough, this noise pollution bothered me to the point of anger and I seldom get really angry. So we rented a kayak and kayaked out to sea to another tiny island nearby. Hah. THAT island too was full of neon life-jacketed adults of the same audio capabilities. We bypassed that island, which incidentally has a lone Ramli burger stall on it. Good idea since those neon bumble bees' only accessed to anything remotely tasty was a boat ride away.

We kayaked out further and we saw three patches of sand along the coast, two was taken but the furthest one was not. We dug dip into the green liquid and paddled our way over and beached the kayak on the soft beach. We found a haven, just the two of us, and no irritating yelling. We couldn't even hear a single yell from the beach. It was blissful. There we whiled away the afternoon and snorkled a little (nothing much to see though, Pangkor what... except for sea cucumbers and spiky sea urchins).

It was a lazy half an hour before we had to kayak back as I could see the currents getting stronger and I didn't want to get caught in one flowing out to sea, especially with a partner who didn't know how to kayak despite having a cert from a kayaking course. Go figure. I didn't even know she had a cert, coz she acted like she didnt know how to kayak. Anyway, kayaking back was harder as the currents WERE pulling us in the opposite direction. Thank god we got back to the beach no worse for wear, though my arms were killing me. I didn't tell Jaymee though, she was already waning from the first leg of the journey.

So yeah, I got burned, esp my shoulders and thighs (kayaking). Stupid me, I didn't slop on my sun block properly and as a result some parts of my shoulders are RED and there's this two stripes of red on the top of my cleavage! And right now the skin is itching like crazy. Then knowing I was gonna go kayaking amidst the reflecting rays from the water, I still didn't put on more sun block! Shesh... BUT at least I did slop on some on my face... *phew*

So yeah, I'm slightly tanner now. =)

Evening came and the rest of the gang picked us up at the jetty and we stayed overnight in Lumut, in an apartment next to the jetty and the waterfront. We initially wanted to stay in Teluk Batik but the rental costs were ridiculous. In the end we ended up at Blue Bay Resort which was more reasonable for 6 people. Next day we drove home at noon and stopped over in Klang for Bak Kuh Teh... this is actually my second time tasting this dish. Uh huh... second. Taste okay loh. Can't tell the difference. =P

Alone on the entire 3rd Floor

I'm still here. Bleh. Trying to finish everything before I go off for the weekend. At least I have the whole 3rd floor to myself.

Hello...(echo x5)