My Invasion on The Land of Labuan

I've just return from Pulau Labuan. A lot of people still don't know that Labuan is part of Federal Territory (Wilayah Persekutuan) together with Putrajaya and KL. Labuan is home to my sweetie and this is the first time I'm there. It's nearest to Brunei and Kota Kinabalu.Labuan is a duty-free island exactly like Langkawi. Dr M tried to encourage offshore finance in this island in the 90s hence it became a duty-free island and home to almost all the banks that exist in Malaysia today. You would ask, why such a small island and so many banks, that's because all the international banks have to have an office or something like that in Labuan before they were allowed to step into any other part of Malaysia to open a branch. But most of these banks opened a proxy office in Labuan since it has such a small population.

I've had some tight schedule during my first trip to my sweetie's beloved home. First two days were about buying offering stuff for Qing-Ming (tomb sweeping). My sweetie's dad left them a couple of years back, so it's about buying some paper made slippers, crocodile brand polo-t, cigarette and millions of hell-money. Hehehe... It's really fun.

A few culture-shock that I have includes:

1. The thick mee-hoon (they called it the China, "Gui Ling" mee-hoon)
2. The mandarin word "ba" that is used at the end of every sentence, juz like our "ma"
3. The side parking that I always see the car enter the parking spot head first instead of butt first
4. Related to item #3, since you enter side parking with the head first, 95% of cars in Labuan park their butt outside the line
5. About 50% of the people there are Phillipinos and Indonesians
6. Majority of the Malays in Labuan speaks in Bahasa Indonesia, even though they are Malaysia citizen
7. The road signs, traffic lights, lamp posts and even the trees in Labuan are shorter than usual

Then sweetie brought me around the whole island on the remaining 2.5 days in Labuan. Love that place. If you think of buying a bottle of plain water at RM2, you might as well buy a bottle of Heineken at RM2.60.

Took quite some pictures of sunsets and beaches. Will post them up once I finish processing and sort them out.

After almost a month...

Haven't been updating the blog for a while. Has been really down and confused lately that I didn't know how to type-down. But everything is better now and the sunlight has shed a little more and make the path more visible now. Alright, let's go thru everything 1 by 1.

First of all, about the career/life changing thingy I mentioned here. Since it has almost come to an end of it, I think I can write about openly in my blog. More than a month ago, I was informed by my boss that her boss was looking for someone to go for a 12-18 months assignment to the UK. And he asked whether I am willing to do that. Of course I was delighted. But that is all about it on the details. Nothing was metioned on the terms, compensation, benefits, what I'm going to do there and who am I going to report to. Another factor was and still is that I'm still working on my project with the current centre I'm in. It's quite politically incorrect to just leave my project and go away. After much discussion and arguements, these top people finally decided that I should stay and finish my current project. It might sound quite disappointing, but I take it as a positive news. At least I don't have to go to somewhere that I don't know the situation and what's my role would be. And so, I have the headache that has been bugging me for about a month gone.

That's the confused and pressured part.

Now, it's about my Chinese New Year. Went back to BP. My sweetie too. She has to follow me because the flight ticket back to her home is too expensive this time and monetarily, it's not worth going home. Anyway, it's quite a boring CNY for her, since all we do were gamble, yamcha, boozing, gamble, yamcha, yamcha, yamcha and more yamcha. Maybe I didn't feel it's something bored, coz it's been like that all these years. The only different this year is that I didn't really got to see a lot of those friends that normally I can only get to see once in a year (which is CNY). It's so sad to finally realise that all those highschool friends are drifting apart from each other from year to year. I'm considered lucky that I still have the normal bros-frm-da-hood gang that we keep in touch all the time in KL.

Anyway, that's pretty much for that I have to type. Will try to update more frequently.

Secret Santa

It's Christmas, my office area put on a really heart-warming tree last week. Since the tree was so heart-warming and doesn't have any decoration at the bottom of it, someone suggested to have the "Secret Santa" thingy. What's secret santa? It's actually getting everybody's name and put in a box. Once all the name is in the box, all will have to take turn to draw a name. Without announcing the name you draw, you will need to buy a X'mas gift (everyone agree to make sure the gift is below RM20). Then everyone is not supposed to sign off the X'mas card with their own name, instead is encouraged to sign off as "Your Secret Santa". Sounds fun, some people still wouldn't be able to guess who their secret santa is even after years.

So, I got the name of the person whom I should buy a gift for. Although it already passed Christmas, we all agree to exchange gift on Jan 2, due to last minute execution (hehehe). So I went gift hunting today.

I think book is the most ideal gift. After all, it's knowledge. And this is what I ended up with.

Yes, it's called SUMO (Shut Up, Move On). It took about an hour to decide. And I was still having doubt if this book makes a good gift. So when I reached home, I search in Amazon. It's 4.5 stars out of 5. I think it should be good. :P Actually heard of this SUMO word some time ago, thought it should be a nice book.

Alright, anyone in the office that sees this book, please keep a secret from the receipient aite. :X

Self-demotivated

It's been a while since last blog. Su Chin has only recently (about 2 days ago) read the blog and broke out smiling so loudly. She said she can't believe I'm so quantitative till that I can graph out my morale level in lines. LOL... I think I can better express myself in pictures than in words most of the time. After all, "Pictures speaks a thousand words" (if I didn't get it wrong).

Herm... Got tonnes of work in my hands. Finish one of them this morning and lose my momentum right away after that. Maybe because I know that even if I finish the others, my boss will not have the time to read or correct them through. Means it's not critical, at least it makes me feel the sense of urgency is not there.

Ohh... Chinese New Year is coming!!! Hope this will be a good chance for me to realign my goals and my perspective a bit. Got 1 week of leave for it (in case some who don't know, YES!!! I don't have public holiday working in this company).

Alright, I don't even know what to write right now. Writing blog for the sake of passing time and lazing off from work. Aihh... Sounds so pathetic. Anyway, Happy Chinese New Year everyone....Dong.. dong dong dong chiang... Dong.. dong dong dong chiang...

Not so festive afterall

In the office alone right now. Damn!!! I'm actually alone in the whole floor. I can hear the mosquitoes flying around, ants talking, bees buzzing, air-condition chiming and worst of all, the slow moving time from my watch ticking. This is how lonesome my office environment is right now.

Hermm... Used to worked in a team which have to work even during Malaysian public holidays, but never felt this kind of loneliness. Guess X'mas and New Year's Day is still the most celebrated holidays. Why I say so, in a "globalised" company like mine which work according to holidays of countries such as Singapore, UK, USA, Australia, Hong Kong, New Zealand, etc. everybody don't come to work on the same day. From the normal busy block of building with 2500+ employees, occupied at an average of 1000 (estimated only) employees at any time of the day become an abandoned building filled with less than 100 human beings + 1 Centre Manager + thousands of flies and mosquitoes flying around. Zzzz....

Worst of all, when you come to work expecting your counterparts or business partners from other part of the world to be there for you to contact, "NO ONE IS THERE". All the e-mails I sent out got no reply and it seems like it somehow lost in the cyberspace. At the end of the day, nothing seems to be accomplished. What's the point of coming to work? Like my boss always like to say "Anticipate". I'm getting rotted anticipating now. Hahaha... If I were to die here right now, my colleagues will only discover me tomorrow morning, of which she might thought that I came early to work and doze off on my desk, which will take her another few hours to discover I'm dead. Juz a thought... Choy choy choy....

La la la la la........ la la la la....... la la la......... la la........ la........ ZZzzzz.....

Festive mood

Oh my God!!! X'mas is coming... Yeah!!! Brought a CD with full of Christmas MP3's to work. Su Chin and I are now in the Christmas mood listening to all these music. Obviously, with the hype for the holiday season right now, I just can't put my head down on my work. Especially when boss is on her holiday as well. But still, need to get a hold of myself... A few more head bang on the keyboard might work... ;P

And before my boss left the office for her vacation back in the States, she prompt all of us with question to keep us pondering through our New Year. I will attach it at the end of this blog entry to let all of you think about yours too, if you have a team at your own workplace.
1) I want you all to think about specifically how you can help to strengthen this team?
2) What can you do to be a better team player?
3) How does what you have identified impact your own future growth?Take this an please set personal goals for yourself for the coming year. Write them down and be specific.

Everybody out there, wish you Merry X'mas and Happy New Year. May you enjoy your Christmas with your love ones and have a happy happy New Year's eve party. Booze yourself to the max and for guys, please remember to wear "precautions".

We wish you a Merry X'mas,
We wish you a Merry X'mas,
And a Happy New Year!!!