Envy is bad but I just cannot help it

There are many things that happened today ... good and bad ... but at the end of it all ... it is the GREEN EYED MONSTER of ENVY that rules the day! I hate myself for feeling this way but that's the truth. I cannot deny this ... this feeling that makes me feel so down!


Okay - here is the incident. It was a normal day. I was messaging Mesell and stuff like that. Then to my surprise, Ah Pat SMS that he has tendered his resignation. I replied if he is serious or not. He said yes. Of course, me being me, I replied in my usual over-the-top jubilant manner. I mean, truthfully? Yes, I am happy for him. I mean, look at the guy. He has worked about 10 years only and got a great cushy job here in Medan where he is not responsible for any form of output in terms of work!

He purchases over USD100k of equipment and before we launched the product or even decide on final direction, he is upping and leaving. Before this, he had a chance to go to Berlin and attend many trainins in his field of interest. And he went to Bangkok and Penang and supposedly next week to Russia. On top of that, if he isn't lying, he got supposedly above 3 months bonus for less than 1 full year of work! In addition, he has turned down work when offered to him by telling his boss he has no interest or things like that

And within 2 weeks of receiving bonus, he supposedly resign for a regional role based in KL that pays even better than Medan? I am happy for him, yes, but so depressed that I am unable to even hook a decent interview and GET OUT OF HERE

Ugh! Don't want to type anymore. This is so F-ing ..........

Thanx roadside foods ...

I am a glutton ... that's the truth ... glutton for food ... glutton for drinks (non alcohol) ... glutton for laziness ... o wait that sounds ... off? Anyway yesterday and today I am eating the food from rat shop up the road ... and as expected there were bits of stuff inside like sand or something ...

And I whacked the whole super-sized package ... so much for diet, right? RIGHT? And even the chilli I ate so much of it and picked out so little ... so guess what happened?

Diarrhea ... or whatever ... pain in stomach ... running to toilet ... pooping ... and sometimes pooping nothingness ... ugh ... and so full until I had to nap in the afternoon ... a nap that took 2 hours!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Naturally I couldn't sleep at the proper time of 11:00pm - ugh! WHEN WILL I LEARN?

WHEN CAN I CONTROL MY GLUTTONY?

Yum Yum McD

I reached home nearly 3:00pm and since I had nothing since last night's overeating ... tiny hunger pangs were starting ... unfortunately after seeing two lightning flashes along the road to town ... it POURED when I hit Medan ... so I finally decided to make instant noodles using hot water (tasted awful n not sure what I am going to do with the rest) ... and guess what?

It stopped raining as I took my first mouthful ... in an hour ... I disgusted and disappointed myself by going out to buy a takeaway rice packet ... and eating it all until I feel so bloated I had to lie down ... I kid you not ... I AM SUCH A PIG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And then at 8:00pm I ordered Big Mac set meal online ... damn those convenient onlines ... if only KFC has this as well ... hahahahaaha ... my first Big Mac ... maybe this year? It was yummiiiiiiiiiieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee and I feel so guilty over eating when I have one more kg to lose this month and less than 10 days to go ... ARGH! DISCIPLINE!

Accidents galore ...

Another beautiful morning ... and I actually had a good stretch of uninterrupted sleep from about 11:30pm until 6:00am ... it has been a while ... strange but I would not have expected this from Berastagi staff quarters ... and especially not after gorging on food last night ... hahaha ...

It was a beautiful morning ... crowds were swarming in ... and after clearing my work i.e. discussions with Andrew, Burns and a few others ... (and a surprising interview with the Security Lady) ... I took everyone's advice and decided to go down earlier to avoid the massive jams ...

1st accident - less than ten minutes away ... we saw a lorry careening off the other side of the road and nearly tumbled down the ravine ... good thing it didn't ... there were no jams ... must have been recent ...

2nd accident - we were stuck about 40 minutes later for about 30 minutes ... and it was a bad one ... Pertamina gas tank coming up whacked into the speeding public bus crushing the front until eating into the driver's seat ... Putra (my driver for the journey) said most likely the driver of that bus died on the spot ... the bus spinned out of control and whacked into a Toyota ... there was barely room for 1 car to squeeze through ... and there were loads of people taking photos on their handphone cameras etc ... and the craziest thing is ... after squeezing through ... people were speeding up!!! WHY CAN'T THEY NOT LEARN? Those roads are damn dangerous! Ugh!

Foodie ...

I am in Berastagi today ... this morning ... we did it from a tourist perspective ... driving from office to airport and up a road named ... "Katam So" I am not sure of the spelling but that was how Miss Shallow (Hokkien literal translation for her name) ... pronounced it ... stopping by Singapore Petrol station for a surprising cup of Espresso ...

Lunch was awesome frisbee fried chicken ... and for dinner I wanted something different ... so when rain stopped, we went to the city with Soogs and Shallow ... I had the roadside fried koay teow that was surprisingly delicious ... followed by the famous roti bakar with chocolate n cheese (it was soooooooo rich/ sweet/ greasy/ unhealthy but WOW YUMMEEEEEEE) ... and for supper I had the mini-burger shaped hot dog where they cut the sausage into slices n fried in egg ... it was different but didn't taste fantastic ... only the ROTI BAKAR YES YES YES!!!!

A Balancing Act ...

The above title and coincidentally these covers from artist David Finch's title from Image Comics ... is kind of ... oh heck ... forget it ... let's not try to get too deep! This is a blog for the masses. Long time ago ... when I started this ... I said I want it to be anonymous so I can type what I want ... but I noted I have been pulling my punches ... and after seeing the trend of legal action ... to a certain extent I am glad I did ... so this is not a 100% true reflection of what my personal diary will be like ... but is it sufficient? I think so ... yes ... it is sufficient ...

The topic for this posting is our Internal Auditor from head office, named Sooks ... his dear mom passed away within a quarter of being diagnosed with (untreatable) cancer ... sad ... and while he was home for her final days ... she passed away ... Chinese tradition/ culture believes in contributing money (pek kim or white gold) ... when Sooks rejoined this week ... he did a check on the cash balances and movements in our sales office ... and he came to me with a little drama ... he said that the FC wanted to give a little something for his mom's funeral ... but as FC was up in the mountains ... FC called the staff in Sales Office to borrow some money ... the staff said fine but didn't have enough and as they were sending the money already ... the staff asked the cashier ... who used company funds for that ... unfortunately as the FC is not aware and didn't meet the staff until late this week ... the money was not topped up ...

So you can imagine Soogs worry ... on the one hand it was all done with no malicious intent ... and the money went to him ... however the fact that the staff in-charge didn't realize the seriousness or implication of their actions ... means there is a possibility of dismissal ... I told him he still needs to report this as it is his duty and we will try to be as lenient as possible ... and had a discussion with HR and FC ... HR being HR is prejudiced as those involved are Chinese and wanted to be lenient ... FC said whatever happens ... happens ... so we agreed on councelling, documentation and submission to MD ... and see what happens ... sigh!

It was a good thing to see Pak A having a wee bit more energy today ... and then to my utter surprise, he was flying home today! And he had no luggage ... ah well ...

Aside from that, my energy seemed to be low ... I got home before 6:00pm and hoping to do some exercise ... but WHAM ... lay in bed ... then as I finally got up WHAM my right foot hit the bar and got cut ... so no exercise ...

Then I went out to buy food and guess what? DING DING DING ... I ran into Chef L ... and of course, the girl who was with him was BITCHY W (the little neighbour) ... no surprises there ... and when she saw me she walked so far away to the other side of the shop ... and waited until I left before she went over to him ... ah well ... this confirms it ... when Pak A said BITCHY W invited him to join Chef L a couple of weekends ago ... and yesterday when Chef L said he had "another appointment" ... good luck to him! Hope he wakes up to the truth about BITCHY W because she is such a nasty unpleasant character! Good at conning people at the start and turning nasty when she cannot get her way!

A mix bag of goodies

I am still psyched from last night ... and I spent the bulk of the day setting up our facebook fan page ... until another MM old-timer burst my bubble ... everyone just loves to do things one way their way even if they were not successful and claimed they were ... and of course name dropping to justify themselves!

Who am I talking about? The Event Queen (B rhymes with witch) ... Any Has Son ... she was happily sending rude emails to the world and grilling me like I am a junior staff ... then she has to quote Mr & Mrs Lim's names ... anyway I replied ... and she replied ... and I replied the big scheme of my plans ... I know she has nothing except organize an event based on moods ... and don't care about sales ... because based on track records ... they never sold well!

Anyway I still came home ... and got motivated ... and replied the good Doctor and got started on the next stage of my proposal to Seddick. Fingers crossed, I am going to give my all , pray hard and HOPE FOR THE BEST! This is my chance. I am not going to tell anyone until I get it ... like Yana says ... don't jinx it. So I am planning and telling those I need to be in the plan ... the rest I will clam up ... I am FOR ONCE effective immediately going to learn to KEEP MUM!!!!

A brilliant day!

What made it brilliant is the company website on facebook was right on target - 18th March 2011 I took over - and 18th April 2011 - I got the max of 5,000 members at 5:18pm. How brilliant is that! The new members was slowing down over the past week ... and the weekend ... but on Monday ... wow! It just keeps on coming ... and coming ... and coming ... so I ended the day totally PSYCHED! And Shannon and I were rushing to set up the next stage: FAN PAGE - yes, baby, we are rolling ...

So was it an ordinary night? No ... as I was updating Facebook at home ... I clicked on Yahoo Mail ... and normally I delete all the junkmail especially those that have nothing as title ... then I decided not to click on the email from Dr. Mohamed as I remembered that it was the same name as Seddick's dad ... it could be a virus junk mail ... but IT WASN'T. Talk about having a great day. The Dr sent me a private email and thanked me for somehow managing to connect with his son and switching on his son's fire to reach for more in his life ... I am so happy ... and he wished he had met me ... he said he is reviewing our business proposal ... and hope that when things settled down i.e. the mourning period ... he hopes to look into getting some business started ... if the proposal makes sense ... and he ended by saying he hopes we will meet some day ... AAAARGH! I AM SO PSYCHED!!!

This is a perfect day!

Back on the road to recovery ... hopefully

After the past few weeks of travelling, I decided to take it easy this weekend and spent it right here in Medan. Heh heh heh! That's the only time I stay here for the weekend ... when I need to chill out. I have been here 10 months and honestly, this is the first city where I have yet to find any form of connection to ... if not for the colleagues I met ...

So after a good month plus of great health, I have been hit this week by a terrible case of illnesses ... my right toe was stubbed ... my butt hurts (no not because of that!) ... sore throat ... fever ... I think it's most likely a case of "heatiness" ... sigh ... too much meat ... not enough veg ... too much coffee ... not enough tea ... too much work ... not enough rest ...

So that's what today is all about ... getting enough rest ... I went to JW for a nice breakfast and had to control myself from the meat and ate congee, fruits and a bread roll with yogurt and juice ... and what's on the cards today? Rest, DVD and hopefully a bit of writing and a sketch ... what's with all the Superman pictures? It's from Action Comics ... I am not a huge superman fan ... find the character dull ... but these are a nice selection of covers from recent years ...

Horrible ...

I have got to learn to keep my damn mouth SHUT. It's easier said than done. I have gotten into so much trouble over the years for being too direct and just trusting everyone. Seems like I never learn. Yet I am good at dispensing advice that I never take. Example: in my current job, I blab to too many people who I don't know from spit. So with IMMEDIATE EFFECT, I am going to stick to the job, not be too friendly and keep my opinions to myself (fingers n toes crossed)

Today was 4 hours of pure torture ... had a counselling with my 50% staff (sharing with another company now) ... then a torrid time with HR ... recruitment is so slow ... then finding out my recruitment has accepted another job and I am back to square one ... small wonder coupled with an on-off fever ... I am pissed off right? Still no excuse for the temper ... sigh ...

To make matters worse, I came home and there were workers hammering and drilling away ... so no sleep ... and they cut off the water!!!!!! ARGH!!!! Then Chocolate called to hang out ... I brought a book thinking they were doing the gym ... turned out they wanted to buy DVD, have a drink and a meal ... and they didn't bring enough $$$. I mean, what is that? You organized, you knew what you wanted ... and you didn't have enough dough? I am easygoing ... but isn't that a little too much? Sigh!

Okay ... these pics is from that smash Jap cartoon/ comic ... Akira ... loved the first one with all those slaughtered millitary bloke ... and the kid just walking calmly ... hehehehehe!

And the work piles on ...

When I woke up this morning, the sore throat was not so bad ... but I felt a bit feverish .. but hey ... we have to work right? I was happy to go in because the office was empty as my one office mate is up in Berastagi since last night ... so at least I don't have to look so active and energetic ... pretenses can be tiring ...

So it was all going smoothly ... things were getting done ... and then BANG one phone call ... and there goes the day ... I was now asked to do a corporate profile for a presentation to the embassy and some people ... but they are not sure if it should be formal or casual or whatever and I have to figure it out even though I wasn't in the meeting ... sounds kind of like when I was in Banyan Tree, eh?

That's life! O yeah. This is a showcase of ALIENS comic covers from Dark Horse. I did purchase a few though not the ones listed here. The main problem is the interior artwork is not to my taste. But Dark Horse always have cool covers