i've taken an unannounced vacation from the 'net. hence the suspended update of this blog.

well, you know what they say - when you have more things happening in your real life, your reel life takes a back seat. this is true. after i took over the new role at work, i had been busy learning new things, picking up stuff that was required to perform the job.

then i decided to take a break. i took a vacation in perth, visiting my bro.

oh how i missed him. he'd grown up so much now. not the little brother i used to protect anymore. it was the other way round now.

it was a fantastic vacation i think i deserved.

but to those who frequent this site, i do apologise for my sudden absence.

honestly, there were times where i could have updated the blog, but i got lazy. yes, laziness is part of me. quite a big part of me actually.

but i'm back now.

i hope.

i apologise for the infrequent updates lately. i've been pretty caught up at work and when i am home, i'm either beat or feeling lazy.

last week we had to pack our stuff at work because we were shifting our workstations around. some were moving upstairs, some moved to the next building, and i was moving to another location in the same floor. i thought i was finally getting a bigger workstation with a side table, higher partition and a hanging cabinet for my files. turned out that nothing was changed. i still got back what i had. you see, i was just a contract staff. all contract and lower-than-executive-position staff can't have side tables, higher partition and hanging cabinets.

i wasn't complaining. but the same day that we had moved, i was called up by HR and was informed that they would be converting my contract to permanent position finally. despite my inadequate qualification and working experience (in this field), i was given an executive position (yesh!). that also means that they would be adding partition, a side table and hanging cabinets to my workstation. what puzzled me was why couldn't they do it during the shifting over the weekend? they knew they were going to offer me the position before the shift; i was probably the only one who didn't know.

oh well.

i guess that's how a big organisation works. procedural. so i would be having a cubical soon.

the size (or height) of our workstations clearly defines one's position in the offce :-

desk with low partition but without side table and hanging cabinets --> contract and graded staff

desk with higher partition, side table and hanging cabinets --> executives

desk with even higher partition (the highest part being see-through glass), side table, side shelf and hanging cabinets --> managers, deputy directors

room --> vice-presidents and above

plastic chair in the pantry --> pantry aunties

we had a 3-hour long meeting again. it went way past our lunch time and ended at 1:30pm. i got really restless and hungry. meetings bore me. meetings chaired by my boss bore me even more. so much time is wasted without accomplishing anything when you have a long and uncontructive meeting.

so i tried to accomplish something during the meeting - by drawing on my palm.

this, ladies and gentlemen, is my boss. she almost always starts her sentences with "in this case is that..." i have no idea why.

12:30pm. stomachs growling. i thought i saw skeletons. or did i?

check out the time people. it's <gasp!> 8:40am in the morning! why the hell am i up at this time on a saturday morning? not to mention a cool rainy saturday morning. ah... well... i had to send Little White aka XiaoBai (mandarin) for servicing. oh, for those of you who don't know, it's a name my friends affectionately gave my little white subaru vivio more than 4 years ago. even though i had booked the Atos Prime, i still have to take care of XiaoBai, because i doubt i would get the COE even after 3 bids. $26k. it's almost the price of the Atos Prime without COE. ridiculous.

at work, my boss told me on thursday that she finally got the approval for a permanent head count for me in our department. for a moment, i was scared, because all along, i thought she ALREADY had the head count, but just waiting for HR to action on it. <shrug> i don't know. my boss works in a way i can't comprehend.

last night, i went out for movie with a friend i used to watch movies with every friday. we stopped. for a long while, because she got busy, then she got jobless which meant no money. now she has a job but she has too much work to do she has no time. she managed to find time last night. but we almost could not make it. every show was sold out at orchard cineleisure. unbelievable. each ticket costs $8.50 now, but it seems like no one is affected by the increase in price. so we quickly walked down to lido to try our luck. long queue, but we managed to get tickets for Tomb Raider for 9:30pm (it was 9:10pm when we got them), some 10 rows or so from the front at the corner. you get the idea.

i'm a bad organiser. and i have told everyone so right from the beginning. i hate to have to coordinate with 283 people at the same time just so all of them can make it on ONE date. the thing is, i don't even care.

the following is just another example why i'm such a bad organiser.

one day last month, henry came to me and asked if i was interested in rock climbing. he and 2 girls he knew in the office (i don't know any of them) were going to go for a beginner's course at Tampines CC. ok, i said, why not?

so a few weeks passed and i heard nothing of it again.

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