presents exchange

They're still exchanging presents! The committee members are still exchanging presents. :{ I didn't get anyone any. Now I feel guilty. Now I feel like I'm obliged to get presents. Which means I'd probably be hitting the shops tomorrow to see what I can pick up for nine people. *sigh* What should I get them? Buying non-functional presents is definitely not my forte.

jetlag???

My internal clock is royally screwed! The times I keep now is so weird I'm not sure if I can attribute it to jetlag. I don't fly often enough to know if this is truly jetlag but shouldn't I be cured of it by now? It's been 5 days since I got back from London. 5 days is plenty of time to recover from jetlag isn't it?

Someone needs to explain to me what jetlag is. I'll describe my situation. I get sleep at 7pm. Wake up at 11pm. Go back to sleep at 4am and try to wake up at 7.30am to 8am cause of work.

Now, what weird timezone am I in?

Saturday, 21 Dec - We arrived, my sister and I, safely after a 13 hours flight from KLIA to Heathrow, at 5am in the morning. Thinking previously that it would be quite fabulous to be able to spend my birthday in London, I was reminded by the gentleman sitting beside my sister that today was to be the shortest day. I did know that but have quite forgotten about it.

Nevertheless, we did spend quite and enjoyable, if a little tiring, day.

Directly after checking into the hotel and leaving our luggage there, we went to Notting Hill in search of Portobello Market, I think it was called, cause someone recommended that I visit it. Neither one of my aunts have been to the market before but they did have a vague idea where it was so, we didn't really quite get lost. The market was very interesting and colourful with all sort of crafts and knick-knacks on display.

When our stomachs started complaining of hunger, we went to a little basement tea shop and had tea and scones with jam and fresh cream. They were good but I remember the scones I had during the adventure trip in Australia was much better.

Next we were off to the city to look at some shops before retiring to the hotel for a little rest before starting off again to the city to meet Robin, my little cousin Fehn's godfather, for dinner.

And after dinner, my first musical at West End. My Fair Lady at Drury Lane.

The musical was very good and so was the cast and costumes. I had never imagined, however, that the scene at Ascot would be done all in black. That was quite an oddity to me. I'd always thought people dressed exceedingly ridiculous and overly colourful for the races so this was quite a change. But it was all good.

And so ended my first day in UK.

Buskers at Covent Garden


I thought the violinist was quite adorable. ;) If you know him, tell him I said so.

Happy New Year!

Still in Liverpool. Still the same routine. Eat, drink, TV, shops. Oh yes, and still struggling to hook up the 3 PCs in my aunt's place. Managed to get 2 of them to work. Only one left. That on's been giving me lots of problems. Feel like throwing it away! Bah!

Hmmm ... still hoping to watch Joseph sometime before I leave Liverpool for London before I head home on Saturday. Maybe we'll get tickets for tonight? We're going back to London on Friday so the only day left would be tonight.

Then in London, hoping to steal in one more before I go. I'm undecided as to which musical I should watch. There's Bombay Dreams, Lion King, Mama Mia or Chicago (which I have seen before). I'm leaning more towards Bombay Dreams and Lion King at the moment.

liverpool

Have been in England for about six days now. Wow! That's almost a week and I've only one more week left.

I think I like London, but I'm not quite sure as I haven't seen enough of it to make up my mind about it. What I've seen so far however, I do like. didn't manage to catch as many shows as I would have like either. Only My Fair Lady so far. Hopefully, will be able to catch a matinee show when I get back to London before my flight home.

Currently in Liverpool now. Not doing much here. Eat, watch the telly, open presents. Nice relaxing chill out time. :)

More when I get home.

money, money, money



Whoo whee ... that's the biggest stash of RM50 notes that I have ever laid my hands on. Not even when I was working in TGV do I remember that high a stack of cash.

Sadly though, almost the entire stack has an allocated purpose ... payment for flight tickets ... payment for credit card (I forgot to sign my cheque again!) ... stack to be converted to pound sterling. Don't have much left to buy the rest of the presents. Luckily, there's only three more presents left to get. For Stef, for bro and for grandma.

candlelight carols

My submission to the Mirror Project has been approved! Yay! Check it out.

SURPRISE!!!



There is actually a whole week more before my actual birtday but since I won't be here this time next week, my friends have decided to celebrate it today. I was actually meeting up with them cause one of our ex-uni mates was coming down from Penang. The last time I saw her was months and months ago. We didn't spend much time together though. Ended up mostly preparing her for her company's dinner (the whole reason she came down) ... but it was nice to see her again. She hasn't changed one bit. Still the same ol' same ol'.

Anyways, I got the cake (a tiramisu) and a CD - Brian Setzer's Boogie Woogie Christmas. Woo hoo. Will be having a swinging Christmas. And guess what? Just in time for the choir's Christmas party tomorrow (tonight).

bitter broccoli


These are the bitter-est broccoli I've ever tasted. EWWW YUCKS! It's bad I had to trash it and I've NEVER thrown broccolies(?) away. *sigh* They are usually so yummy. Wonder what happened to these.

Hello, my name is Empress ... and I'm a shopaholic

Slowly but steadily, I'm turning into a shopaholic.

Well ... relative to my usual shopping habits that is.

I have only recently purchased a mini-hifi with DVD playback and twin deck cassette slots(?). That was less than a week? A fortnight ago? Then yesterday, I bought a new pair of shoes and a digital camera.

The shoes I can justify purchasing cause I've been looking for a pair to replace my old black pumps/court shoes that I use regularly and have absolutely worn out the heel. It's so worn out that the plastic in the inside of the heel is showing. So, a replacement was necessary. When I saw that pair of Renoma at RM70 I snapped it up. Nice gorgeous sexy shoes. I'm still surprised that I can wear a size 6. I'm usually a size 6 half or 7 depending on the cut. Renoma must make shoes for people like me. People with broad feets. Cool. Should buy more Renoma shoes now. It was quite a bargain as well cause the salesgirl said that the regular price was actually RM170+. RM70 is much cheaper than my old el cheapo Vincci shoes which was actually not that cheap in the first place. I think I bought it for about RM120.

Hurrah! New shoes!

Next, after much surveying for the digital camera, I went back to the camera shop in Bangsar, which I checked out about two weeks ago, who gave me the best price for the Olympus Camedia C-730UZ. The snobs at Sungei Wang quoted me everything between RM1750 to RM2200. Bangsar quoted RM1650.

I bought an additional 128M SM card and a battery charger along with the camera. I'm more that RM2000+ poorer now.

Wowzers! My credit card bill's gonna be sky rocketting the next time it arrives. Eeps! And the guy at the bank call this afternoon to tell me that I forgot to sign my cheque for my card payment ... again! Sheesh! Guess I'm not too good at using checques to make payments. Out of all the times which I have made payments with a cheque, I've only managed to do it properly twice! Should probably stick to cash.

So, I'll be learning how to use my camera for the next few days and hopefully by the time I'm off to the UKs, I'd be familiar enough with some of the functions to take some decent pictures.



First picture taken with my new camera. It's the mess which is my bedside table.


I'm testing the zoom with this picture. It's Joe Bear!


Joe Bear again!

Yes! Finally, finished one of the additional hacks/codes needed to get things to work with the utterly idiotic engine.

Actual use of the function is to be implemented by one of my programmers. No not the slow one, the other one. The one who finishes really fast. She's probably a better programmer than I am.

Am having a bit of a problem with the SQLs required to get the reports up. My databse guy is hating me for passing him the task of generating those SQLs. I'm thinking that if it's possible, and if they're in a rush, we'd hand over the project minus the report module ... for the time being. Then after it's finished, we load that up for them later. Hopefully the client will go for it.

Work aside, am currently contemplating if I should audition for a solo part for 'It Came Upon A Midnight Clear' for the Christmas programme. Some of them had the audition on Monday. Some people think I should but I don't know cause my voice really shakes when I'm nervous. And I will be nervous when I have to sing solo in front of a bunch of people.

Another strange thing ...

I saved codes which I worked on last night (or rather early Monday morning) onto my floppy to bring to work later and when I opened the file, it wasn't what I saved. I thought it was strange cause I specifically remember doing a Save As ... before succumming to the sandman's call. Fortunately I remembered most of what I did and it didn't take me too long to reproduce it at work.

And then a few moments ago, I opened the same file, which I continued working on at work, to work on it, whatever I saved at work wasn't replicated in my floppy. Craps! What is wrong! Why isn't anything working today? Urgh!

I hope that whatever I've changed is still in the copy at work. I'll work on something for tonight and then I'll try integrating it with the codes at work ... it that is still there. Otherwise, a whole day at work has just gone to waste.

Shoots! Have a meeting at 9am. Hope that doesn't take too long. I'm never going to finish my project. I never ever want to head a project any longer. I utterly despise Project Management. Let me remain a programmer for the time being please. Project Management is pulling my mind at so many directions I don't have time to do my part of the development!

Mess ge l st in cyb rsp ce ... p ckets m ss ng

Messenger programs seems to be out to get me. There I was honestly using it for work purposes during work hours and my posts seems to get lost in transit. My colleague's screaming at me for not reply when I have. Lines of sentences which I have entered/posted seems to sporadically appear on his screen. Testing confirmed that not all my messages are going across to him.

me: 1
me: 2
me: 3
me: 4
me: 5
me: 6
me: 7
me: 8
me: 9
me: 10
him: 2 3 5 6 7 9

What gives? Where did the rest go? and it's not only Y!Messenger. Apparently my messages to someone else in MSN Messenger isn't going across either. That someone got quite cross cause he thinks that I was deliberately ignoring him which I vehemently denied ... at least this time I wasn't lying. I do sometimes ignore that person.

Must check that PC is not infected with virus tomorrow morning.
*slaps forehead*
How could I have forgotten to check on that?
What were you thinking about Empress?

The Swingle Singers were incredible. Their arrangements were superb, their harmonies and sound effect incredible. Nothing much to say about it except that it was great.

The new Esplanade by the Bay in Singapore was gorgeous, well, what little I saw of it anyway.

Prem got the timing wrong and so, we were late for the show. However, managed to get into the theatre two songs before the interval. At least we didn't miss the whole of the first half.

Fired due to SMS

This is a warning to all you people whose lives depends on SMS. The next time you bitch about someone over this media, be careful. Someone might be watching.

Cripes! Now wonder I don't see any changes! I'm not even working on the correct module. Doh!

The result of staying up watching movies up until the wee hours of the morning. Spent the night watching the Gilmore Girl episode and the first part of Annie that I taped with the last part of 10th Kingdom in between the tape and Sweet November afters.

Hmmm ... Sweet November seemed sadder the first time I saw it. Especially when Enya's song came on. A sob story ... well the first time anyway. Didn't sob any yesterday. Still sad but no sobbing in sight.

How can the King of Pop hates pop?! That's just not right. Shouldn't people only create things that they like and care about? Especially the arts?

Sunday: Remember my ranting about my partner? Well, he beat me to it. I was gonna talk to my teacher before approaching him but he approached me first.

He asked me if I was still interested in competitions.
He felt that I think that I was the better dancer.
He says that I don't practise my steps during disco practises, that I just sit and wait when the others are being corrected.
He said that I was the one who wasn't free for practise the past few months when he EXPECTED me to be free

YES I am interested in competitions. I thought that he wasn't cause he's been concentrating more on disco that latin the past few months.
NO I don't think I'm the better dancer. I know he's like a rubber band and can gyrate better than any girl can. I just correct him to be able to do my part. I'm totally selfish in that part. But whose fault is it if he doesn't correct me when he feels something doesn't feel right? I can't feel it for him. He NEEDS to tell me when something is wrong. Like I've stated before. I'm no mind reader.
YES I don't practise my steps much unless I'm not sure of the steps. If I think I know the steps and you don't correct me otherwise, what do I need to do? I do it when the music comes on.
WHAT THE FUCK! I'm not a robot for god sakes. I've got a job with a deadline which has been changed again and again, I have to practise disco 3 times a week for disco, I've got choir and ballroom once a week. It's not like I have been going out partying the whole time. I haven't seen my friends for ages! If he'd stuck with the once a week disco practise as was previously agreed, I would be available for latin practise.

Urgh!

Anyway, we talked to the teacher. He says dissatisfaction with the partnership happens all the time. Suggested we cool off competitive practise for the time being and just do social. Says that we should discuss when we have a problem and need compromise more and if we can't solve a problem then ask him.

Well, we're cooling it for the time being. Don't know for how long though. Will need to ask my partner soon. Haven't seen him since Sunday.

I've signed-up for secret santa again.

Last year I got a Lavay Smith CD which I absolutely love. Wonder what I'll get this year.