Dogs And Grass

Not really in the mood to write anything longish in my blog today.

Just a picture of my dogs enjoying their time in the sun.

My dogs sure know how to enjoy themselves.

Take time out to enjoy the sun during the short break folks!!

To all Muslims - SELAMAT HARI RAYA AIDILFITRI!!!!!! To the rest, HAPPY HOLIDAYS!!!

Losing My Mojo....

Hmmm.. What do you do, when you feel that you're losing your "mojo"?

Be it something that you do at work or just a feeling that you're not achieving your very best; what do you do to get back on the horse and get it back? ;-)

Worse still... What happens if someone keeps criticizing you despite your very best? :-(

Gosh... I wish that getting my "mojo" back is as easy as how Austin Powers got his back. (^___^)

I try not to be too serious with myself. I'm sure that it'll come back. I just got to figure out how...

Boom De Ah Dahh!!!! - The World Is Awesome!

Desipte all the crap going around... The world is a pretty awesome place...



Stay happy, ok?

By the way, those of you folks who have subscribed to Discovery Channel on Astro, you might see this ad going around. The song is pretty catchy and you can even download the MP3 here.

Happy Mid-Autumn (Mooncake) Festival

This year, the mid-autumn or mooncake festival will fall on a Sunday. A perfect chance for people to go home to their hometowns to celebrate the festival with their families.

This probably explains why the city looked quiet today. Besides that, last week, there was a rush for mooncakes and etc.

I was supposed to blog about some photos this week but work caught up with me again. GRRRRRR...

Last Sunday, EV and I were on the food hunt - looking for an Elephant, but ended up in the Food Foundry. (^ ^)

Had a late lunch and decided to indulge on some dessert - mille crêpe, to be exact.

Wished sometimes that things were as clear as "chocolate" and "white"...

I ordered a vanilla flavoured mille crêpe, while EV, being a big fan of chocolate, went for her favourite flavour.

Mille crêpe up close... Look at all that cream and crêpe layers!!!

What is a mille crêpe ? It's just a French cake made up of many layers of crêpe. Unlike the Indonesian layer cake - which is layers of baked cake, this mille crêpe is a pastry which is made up of many layers of thin crêpe sandwiched with flavoured cream. Yummmm... Best to finish this when it's nice and cold.

These dragons don't breathe fire...

EV and I ended up at The Curve. The place was decorated for both the Mid-Autumn and Ramadhan festivities. I espied my chinese zodiac "floating" around... These paper lanterns are quite hard to find these days. More so when people prefer the plastic battery-operated lanterns which also plays some irritating music.

I miss the simple days when my Kong-Kong will buy for my sis and I, goldfish paper lanterns. He would proclaim that he made it for us. Guilible kids that we were, we were amazed with our grandfather. After all, he used to make paper toys for us from gold paper found in cigarette boxes.

Happy Mid-Autumn Festival!!

Enjoy those mooncakes but don't take too much of it as you'll know those cakes will go straight to your bum!!!!

What Makes You Happy?

I've been going through a few blogs here and there and found that people are either very stressed out, suffering from anxiety attacks or just depressed.

Hmmmm... Times are getting tough but I know we'll pull through if we keep our chin up. (^ ^)

At the end of a very long working day (I know, some people work > 12 hours per day and yet, go home and take care of the family), what makes you happy?

What brings a smile to your face the very moment you step into your house?

A yummy meal? (Of course, this picture I took of the "Dragon Roll" from Sushi Zanmai.. Slurrrppp)

Your fur "kids"... or pets - who always give unconditional love.... AWWWW... this picture really melts my heart...

Your supportive family. Folks whom you can spend time to talk to about problems, hopes and dreams.

Of course, ultimately in the end, the secret to happiness is yourself. If you have everything that lie can offer - good looks, $$$, great job and loving partner/family but still feel unhappy; then, you may have to examine yourself to see why you are unhappy.

Like I mentioned in one of my old posts, happiness is about how well-adjusted you are. Of course, everyone has problems and wish that they can run away from it. But the truth of the matter is that, we can't run away from our problems forever.

Problems will always be there and we have to face them - no matter how much we hate it. I'd guess, let's not sweat the small stuff and learn to be content with whatever we have?

Anyway, I'm facing a lot of issues now at work but when I go home, I leave it behind. It's the only way I can keep sane.

To everyone out there.... Hope that you can find a bit of happiness somewhere....

Anger Management and Merdeka Wishes

From my last post, you may think that I was really taking it too far.

Yeah, I nearly lost my head because I was stressed out over some massive jam. The truth of the matter was that I've been stressed out for a very long time now.

Ever since an announcement from the HQ that each profit center was to hit 80% utilization, I have been stressed out every week to try to hit those numbers. Sure, revenue collection is not part of my KPI (Key Performance Indicator) but cost recovery from utilization rate of each member in the team; including myself.

I know that I shouldn't let stuff like this get to me, but the pressure is just getting too much. Every week, we're been asked by the boss - "Do you know what happened last week?", i.e. do you know why your numbers are so fxxked up last week? Sometimes, out of anger, I would like to answer back - "Sure, YOU fxxked up the numbers because YOU didn't bring in the sales!". However, I keep this all repressed inside, waiting for the moment when I'm excused from the meeting.

I'm a technical team lead - which means, I lead my team in technical aspects of a project. Somehow, the term is being abused by management because we have the responsibilities as a manager but yet - not really having the title. In fact, I feel like a pseudo-manager all the time now.

Anyway, enough of that.

I had a small revelation while at church yesterday. It happened when I was listening to the church's 50th Golden Jubilee song. A sort of calm and peace came over me as I concentrated on the lyrics of the song. That the greatest celebration was The Word - "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God" (John 1:1)

It was as though I had been touched by God's finger, i.e. like being poked (not Superpoked! like in Facebook), nudged to return my focus to Him. Sure, the world could be really screwed up at times and it can take it's toll on us; but there is so much more to life, than just work.

With that, I have a renewed sense of self this Merdeka. Yep, that means I've got to take whole of my anger and turn it inside out. Laugh a bit more, learn to breathe more deeply - to calm the mind and also to eat right!!

I'm getting the exercise thing down - by trying to hit the gym at least twice a week - up to 2 hours per session; but food is my biggest downfall and brick wall. Well, right now I'm having my low-fat yogurt and apple and I am resolved to get the food part of my diet right. It's so hard when Malaysian food is soooo delicious and you need a lot of will power to resist the lovely char koay teow or that fatty piece of bak kut in the bak kut teh.

However, thinking of all the saturated oils just gives me the heebie jeebies now. Yeck!!

Snoopy celebrated her 5th birthday yesterday as well as our nation celebrated 51 years of independence. Both numbers are significant although one is larger than the other.

Just like Snoopy wishes for good things to come to her, I also wish for great things to come to our nation. Despite all the things which are happening now, we all wish and strive to make Malaysia the best she can be.

I pray that our leaders will wake up and remember that the job they took was provided by the rakyat. So, the rakyat is the boss.

I pray that our leaders will be granted the wisdom to lead the people and not lead their pockets.

I pray for continued peace amongst everyone.

I pray for the people of Sichuan, China who suffered another earthquake on Aug 31st.

That is my Merdeka wish. Happy Merdeka everyone!