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第一次,thoughts & Empress Dowager
Had been tagged by my friends to do some meme (Chinese one), but think I shall “play” them when I am free.
Guess what?
As at Friday 17 March morning, I can proclaim that:
我搭过飞机,
我乘过船,
我搭过缆车,
我搭过地铁,
我搭过火车,
我搭过巴士,
我坐过汽车,
我坐过lorry,
我坐过货车。。。
Very lor-soh hor. But can u see what’s missing?
Yaya, I had never rode on (pillion) a bike in my 24+ yrs of my life.
Had my first biking experience that nite. Haha, after re-read Fannie’s blog entry on her 1st biking experience, I can say I was braver than her. I din close my eyes at all. I quite enjoy the speed (not that the driver drove past the speed limit, in fact the journey was much smoother than I anticipated), can feel the wind. Shiok!
Perhaps there is a side of me who like thrills. I remember how someone screamed when she was pushed from the flying fox platform, but when it was my turn. I even requested my friends to push me higher and harder from the platform. I even dare to try flyin fox on another occasion when I was in dress & heels.
I used to wonder if the pillion rider will fall off the bike when it was turning round a bend. Haha. Like what Fannie said, the body will follow the momentum. Initially, I was grasping tightly on to the side of the seat, after a while, I was tempted not to hold on to the sides, but dun dare to take the risk of falling out and endangered my friend’s reputation of being a safe driver.
Frankly speaking, even if I was offered a ride on the bike again, I will have to consider the driver’s driving skills. It was trust I had in my friend’s driving skills that I dare to take up the offer. (shhh, hopefully he isn’t reading this cos I din tell him that as I din wanna boost his ego. Haha)
Speaking of bike, the new colleague (who was employed to replace the Auntie) is 2 years younger than me, wears colour contacts and rides a bike to work. Female biker sia, seems cool hor.
My boss made me her Reporting Officer, but from my last experience with the Auntie, I din control her much( I din give any orders to I dun wish to be that Auntie but she was already making things difficult), dun wanna seems like a bully, ordering her ard. I kept quiet when on occasions, she din not take much initiative, as it may do to she is still unfamiliar to the work she is expected to do.
However on Friday, my boss told me that it seems to him that I am not controlling her enough and that she seems not to know the hierarchy.
“If you don’t control her now, later you will find it’s difficult to control her.”
听了后,很不是滋味。如何管理下属真得很靠“技术”,拿捏得太紧,别人会在背后说你很野蛮; 管得“太松”,别人又不尊敬你,不听你的指示。
And it so happenned that in that afternoon, I was telling my friend that he being the only guy in his department is such a blessing, as aunties (most aunties) tend to bitch abt the gals but seems to dote on guys. I dunno abt my friends, but according to my past experiences, it seems that those 三姑六婆 , 倚老卖老的aunties tend to treat male colleagues better.
And it is even worse when you are at a higher hierarchy than those aunties, even when you are just delegating jobs to them, they will said that you 目无遵长,以小欺负大。
I hate office politics, try not to get involved in them but it seems unavoidable.
Now, that reminds me of something which I wanted to post earlier.
女人何苦为难女人呢?
If you had watched Memoirs of a Geisha, you can’t help wondering why Hatsumomo was so harsh on Sayuri when she just joined the house. As a young girl, Sayuri wasn’t much of a threat.
I recalled the scene where the grown-up Sayuri was telling Dr Crab “ Always seek a second opinion” when he asked her what advise she would give regarding those rumours he had heard abt her.
Always seek a second opinion. How many of us would remember that when we heard rumours abt someone. We are more inclined to believe in the person who spread the rumours if we happened to interact more with him/her. Unless we have a chance to interact with the victim, or dare to question the victim to hear his/her view, we are most likely to be brainwashed.
Ok serious stuff aside, now I shall present to you something yummy from The Patissier:
It’s call Empress Dowager.
Cost $5 for just a small piece. It’s now lying in the office fridge, 还舍不得吃。According to the website, it’s a vanilla sponge filled with strawberry mousse and fresh raspberries..
*slurps”. But come to think of it, it sounds funny when u say:
“I am going to eat Empress Dowager.”
Hahaha.
27 Jan 06 to 3 Feb 06
Received quite a few comments abt my blog being stagnant for a week。The reason is simply because I do not have nay access to internet for the past few days. 28 Jan 06 (sat). See how my bro could give a sweet look then turned devilish at the next moment! Nothing interesting to watch on TV this year. So sian. Imagine how happy I was when I can escape after dinner to join my friends for movie. Mocha Valencia Frappucino. Ah Du , Jiahao & his bro came just as I was abt to go off, and everyone was so excited to see Ah du . Dunno who was the one who urge him to go to the living room to play the piano. Haha at least I managed to hear him playing 《枫》。
Hmm let me recapped (Gonna to be 流水账)
On 27 Jan 06 (fri), went to the shop where my friend is working to get my new phone. If only I had thought of asking for her help weeks ago. Then I do not need to endure the frustrations of carrying two spoilt phone for weeks, Anyway, how fortunate i am to have a friend who is working for the same company as my mobile's service provider. 1stly, I do not need to queue -- simply just head to her counter. 2ndly, she had gone the extra mile of checking to see if I qualify for any corporate plan (which I Do), and helped me to make the conversion. Henceforth, my phone bill will be charge at the basic rate of $14 a month! 3rdly, I received extra freebies -- 4 packets of Ang baos and 2 mandarin oranges.
So this is my new mobile phone. Panasonic V2. Not a new model as it was introduced in Aug last year. But at the price of $68, it's a good bargain. I took the pink model instead as the black ones were out of stock. Had create a pink and purple beaded chain to match the Pink & purple handphone pouch which Ah Shui had given me as a Christmas present last year. So matching and ""so me".
So it was 年除夕, and as a family tradition, we went to our paternal grandma's house for reunion dinner. Not a reunion dinner (as usual) as aunts and cousins were not around. Watching the countdown program, and it's such a disappointment.
29 Jan 06 (sun)
Frankly speaking, I dun enjoy CNY as much I as did when I was younger. And this year is the 1st time that dad 's ang pow was the smallest we had ever received from him... (less than a blue note). Wonder what happened to the bonus I had given him..
Last year, my siblings and I took a pic together while we were on the way to Grandma’s house. Yeah 3 of us goofing ard at the backseat.
This year, we did the same:
Meet up with ML, & XM at Orchard Cineleisure. Bought a can of milk coffee while waiting for them. I need my doe of caffine! Then it was confirm that JH, Du, JH & his bro will be joining us. As I had to visit relatives the next day, and i am not interested to watch Heirloom, I only joined them for Fearless ( 霍元甲 )only.
What a relief that instead of being "sotong" I was rather sharp that day. First, I spotted two blank tickets from the stack of tickets we received form the ticketing operator. Turn out that they had failed to generate 4 tickets for Heirloom. They rectified the prob by issuing handwritten tickets. So friends, please check yr tickets after u bought them ok.
Since we had abt 2 hrs of free time before the movie 霍元甲, XM, ML, JH and I went to have coffee at starbucks. Oh yah , that means I had "double shots" of latte. I tried their promotional item , and as always, I took pic of it:
It had quite an unusual twist of orange-- not my cup of "coffee". hahaha.
Quite enjoyed watching 霍元甲, though we were seated at the 2nd row from the screen. It wasn't as violent as I expect. Perhaps I had prepared myself for some horrifying scene upon knowing the movie was give a NC16 rating. At the opening scene, I was so excited watching 霍元甲 fighting 3 ang-mos opponents that my fists clenched naturally when ever I saw the opponent striking Jet Li.
Like the parts where they injected some philosophies in the movie, especially at the scenes where the blind lady took care of 霍元甲 and the scene where 霍元甲 and his jap opponent have a chat over tea. Can’t remember the exact quote, but it was something like the tea leaves to not come in grades, it is Man who grade them. And 霍元甲不愿去评价它们,只想简简单单,开开心心地享受杯中的茶。
电影的结尾蛮感人的,但我没有落泪。 也许是本人认为霍元甲那么做有点愚蠢吧。结果还被那位感动到落泪的朋友骂我们“没良心”:P
As JH and I did not watch heirloom, we left the 5 of them to catch our transport home. Now it was the 2nd incident of that nite/dawn where I was rather sharp (thanks to latte!). We waited for quite sometime and then me, learning my lessons, realized that something was amiss. For the pass 30 minutes, I only saw SBS nite owl service, there wasn’t any “yellow NR buses” in sight! So I walked over to the notice board, and figure out that there was no NR buses in operation, as NR buses on operate on Fri, Sat and eves of public holidays! JH seems to find ways to convince himself that there should be NR lines by stating since the next day is 年初二, today can be an eve of a holiday (which I rebuked that Today is a holiday), Then he pointed out to the notice that 174M also stated that it operates on Fri, Sat and eves of public holidays but we just saw a 174M bus passed by. Then I pointed out to a special notice, informing commuters of the “special few” SBS Nite owl services that will continue to operate during Chinese New Year. I was more fortunate than him, while he was left with the “best choice” of taking 174M and drop off at Bukit timah and walked kilometres home, there was a bus service 162M which I could take which passes through my town.
Think we always took for granted that there will be NR buses whenever we hang out late in town. There was another group of teenagers who walked over to check out the notices after waiting for their buses for quite some time, and I confirmed with them that I did not see any NR buses for the past half an hour.
30 Jan 06(Mon)
Day Two of CNY. We din go to our maternal grandma house as aunt had called to tell us that our uncle(the one who married a C**** wife who is just a yr older than me) was throwing things in their house, And u tot u only saw this on TV right. Think was the 1st time in our lives that we din go to grandma’s house on CNY Day 2.
So we just go to our “lua peh kong”’ house. Watched TV and just slack there while the older generation talk and the younger generation play. Went home to repack my bag before I left for ML’s home。 In summary, it can be described as : talked --> wait for Ah Du , Jia hao & his bro à snacked on CNY goodies --> watched 百年好合on TV --> then headed for Chongqing Steamboat.
Hey, we din eat any seafood (except a few slices of fish lah) that nite, but ate lots of meat (mutton, beef, pork). Played a “mutated version” of “who wanna be a millionaire” that ties in with Truth or Dare (or what Ah du termed as “真心话大冒险”). The Prof Wu-la set the questions / hahah. Anyway dun thing any of us choose to do a “dare”.
Left the place at ard 1am and walked to Esplanade. I was like dozing off to sleep when I din participate in their chats. Can’t be blame right? It’s natural to feel sleepy after a hearty meal.
31 Jan 06 ( Tue)
I was thinking in the morning: “Oh no, I am gonna get fat with another round of steamboat tonite” . But then I had to forgo my steamboat dinner with friends after my uncle sms me to ask me to help my cousin with her maths in the evening…
Anyway, I did follow my agenda of the day – Visit EL’s home. Haha Everyone was late, and since I was in a cab, tobang EL, SY and Sips. Was shocked to see so many ppl in her house, wich EL explained that her father’s students also came to visit. Thus we hang out in her room instead.
Shall I call her room “The Red Chamber”? Her room is so “stylishly “ red. I expected to see a pinkish room instead. But saw her red marbled-effects walls decorated butterflies and branches. She got the potential to be an interior designer! Haha.
After an hr, Chengyao, BR, came. We sang “live!” in her room,-- she played the keyboard while we sang. Then we chomped on CNY goodies (eat again!) and did some stupid poses in front of the camera while waiting for the rest to arrive before we set off for steamboat.
Ok here are some of the pics taken: (click for larger view)
(This is for my reference – refer to super super private blog for what happen after visit Esther’s house, before I wnet home).
I think my dinner at home was even more sinful than steamboat – Chicken Rice! Cousin’s gifted problem Maths homework was more like a puzzle than maths to me me. I could only solve one out of the two. Anyway, her parents were Uni grads, if they can’t solve, I shouldn’t feel guilty for not manage to solve both questions.
( This is for my own reference too – refer to super super private blog for what happen at nite)
1-3 Feb
I was away from work. Not tat I had 3 free off days, but I had to attend a 2.5 day course.
Arghhh!
Saw Yoyo’s test on Friday afternoon. And he wrote my surname as “li” instead. 太习惯称我为“李太太”了吧!
Shall stop here. Shall report on what happened on 4-5 in the next entry.