#126 - Of This and That

Assalamualaikum.

It's lunch time now and since I had a heavy breakfast, I decided to skip lunch and update my blog instead.

I am almost entering my second month here. Alhamdulillah, so far everything is still great. Of course, there are a few hiccups here and there especially dealing Expats and Academicians. Need a lot of mental strength and will power.

Dealing with them would require you to be tactful. You can be humble but with limits. They tend to push you around thinking that you are there only to serve them.

I wish to rant more about this tapi malaslah. 

Anyway, one of my social groups is planning for an event in August to commemorate our 10 years anniversary. I am actually excited to plan for the event as it has been a while since our last event. Been checking out a few places and hopefully we managed to shortlist one or two soon. There are a lot of other things that we need to consider for this event. Hopefully, the 4 months time that we have now would be sufficient.

 That'll be my updates for now.

Till then. Toodles.

#125 - Pet Peeve

Assalamualaikum.

Things were quite mundane at the office on the last few days of last week. Both my colleague and I, we were taking our own sweet time to do our work. Mainly because our Manager was not around so we lepak a bit lah. Thought of updating my blog last Friday but of course, my writing mojo was not really cooperating.

Anyhow, since am not going out for lunch today as I just finished with an interview session with a candidate, I shall take the opportunity to write down my thoughts.

Ok, I have a question. When a person ask you "Hey, we want to go this place this year at this time. Do you want to join?"

What would be your answer or how do you answer the question?

It seems that whenever I posed that question to certain people, they would ask me with this question "Kenapa?"

I would normally answer the question with "Saja nak bercuti". Then, they'll be offended because they thought I am being sarcastic which am not. I am basically answering your question.

They would be like "tahulah nak bercuti. Ada kawan ke kat sana?"

Again, I don't find the logic. Why would I need to have somebody in certain places or countries for me to go there? I want to visit a place because I want to.

If it so happen I have a friend staying or living in certain countries, it would be a bonus. That's all.

As for me, whenever people ask me do I want to join them for a trip I would be "oh bestnya. Berapa lama nak pergi. How's your itinerary like or where do you plan of going?" You know that sort of questions.

One more thing, people's reaction when I want to go to certain places. "Nak pergi Adelaide? Tempat tu boring kan. Takde apa2?" "Oh ye ke. Pernah pegi sana?" "Tak pernah tapi tengok macam boring je?"

Penampar aku pernah kena?

#124 - 1 Month

Assalamualaikum.

A month of a long commute to work.

A month of familiarizing with new system and job scope.

A month of building new professional relationship with senior peers and colleagues.

On 24th March 2014, marked my first month working with the current organization. Alhamdulillah. Now, I can say that I am enjoying whatever I'm currently doing.

I am blessed and grateful to be given this opportunity to be exposed to new branch of Human Resource, acquire new skills and enhancing my current skills. These are among the things that I've been waiting for. 

I like the fact that everyday I am swarmed with work leaving me with a little bit of time to do things other than my job. I don't have time to scroll my Instagram feed, scrolling through 9Gags and blog hopping.

I hardly counting the hours anymore as time passes so fast that I wished it would slow down a bit so I can breathe.  

There's nothing much I am hoping right now except for endless motivation, energy and strong will to be with the current employer and gain as much as knowledge and experience.

InsyaAllah.

#123 - Babbling

Assalamualaikum.

It has been a crazy-roller-coaster month. Beginning of the month, the whole of Malaysia woke up to MH370 of MAS lost while flying to Beijing. While the incident happened about 12 days ago, there are no definite answers on where the plane is now. 

When I first found out about the news, I was actually numb and had butterflies in my stomach. You see, my family and I travel a lot. Either for work or leisure. Almost every other month, we will send someone at the airport. It could happen to anyone of us. Just weeks before that, my husband mentioned about going to Beijing as he has never been there. But, I brushed off the idea as I was not really keen to go there just yet. I could not bring myself to imagine what if we were on that plane?

However, when some people are considerate enough to think of the families' feelings and their sensitive state of mind, there are still a lot of people think it's funny and appropriate to speculate, make up some theories and passing judgments to the crew, passengers and airlines. 

It is already reaching beyond sickening. I don't have a word to describe these unfortunate shallow-minded citizens of Malaysia.

Enough babbling on MH370. May Allah protect us all and ease our journey of finding the plane and bring everyone back to the loved ones.

On the other hand, for the first time after so many years I am overwhelmed with work. There are a lot of things to do and catch up. Familiarize myself with system, SOP etc. Everyday, before I switch off my computer I would spend a few minutes to write down thing-to-do for the next day. That's a first, I might add. There are times when I have so many things to do that I do not know where and what to start. Even with that list in hand, I only managed to cross out one or two things from the list as there would be unexpected meetings and interviews to attend to.

But. I am not complaining. For once, I feel sense of belonging. I belong the company, to the department and people actually come to me for advice and opinions. 

Alhamdulillah.

May Allah always bless this opportunity that He has given me.

Break is over and back to work!

#122 - Snippets of the Week Part 9

Assalamualaikum.

Today is the last day of February, second month of the year and this is my first post of 2014. Wow!

A lot of things happened for the last couple of months that make it impossible for me to sit down and put down my thoughts. Plus, being a SAHM can be challenging with ever the curious little toddler of mine. 

Anyway, here's are my updates since I tendered my resignation in November.

1) During the first month of employment, I took the opportunity to spring cleaning the room and plus the house. Though not entirely because most of the stuff are not mine but at least the house looks like a house rather than a reban ayam.

2) My bestfriend, Yan is back from Brisbane for good and she got me Nine West heels that I super love. When she asked me what I want from Aussie, I told her I want shoes. Since the shoes that I like was not available at the outlet so I asked her to get something that screams me. And she nailed it! That is my bestfriend/soulmate right there. Awesome I tell you.

3) My FIL was admitted to ICU for heart condition in the middle of January so we've been travelling to Kuantan quite often. Then, he was transferred to IJN, KL. So another round of visiting him at the hospital everyday. I became Gloria Jeans regular over there because they only allowed children below 12 after 6pm. 

4) During CNY, we made impromptu trip to Jakarta and Bandung. Spent 6 days and 5 nights. It was quite an eye opener trip if you asked me. We only went to Pasar Baru in Bandung to buy some lace (itupun sebab my MIL order kain lace and my aunty hasn't been to Pasar Baru before) and spent like 3 hours there. Ahhh the horror. We managed to avoid the crowd and off to Jakarta after lunch. In Jakarta, we skipped Tanah Abang and visited the major shopping complexes instead. We were lucky enough not having to experience macet in Jakarta as we were there on weekends and most of them were out of Jakarta. 

5) Celebrated my 31st birthday in February with Family at Harrods Cafe KLCC and the lovely bunch at Melur & Thyme KLCC. Happening like always.

6) And the biggest news of all, I've started working again. My ex manager proposed my name at the higher management and I was offered on the spot. I was speechless. It is quite a distance but so far I'm liking the place, colleagues and most importantly the job. However, please ask me again after 1 month.

#121 - Adios!

Signed. Sealed. Delivered. (Well, technically)

I tendered my resignation today and am currently serving my 3 days notice. Am taking such a drastic move here, I know. Risky? Definitely. But, at this point I rather clean up after Inas rather than coming to work feeling all stressed up.

The stress started after my manager resigned, leaving me with all the pending assignments. Then, I found out that the babysitter is going back to Indonesia. After deliberately thinking of other options, the pros and cons, I decided to resign. But unlike the first time, this time around requires a lot of sacrifices.

But I must say that I am frustrated with my working life. If only I could put a stop to this. 

Anyway, at this point of time my main focus and priority would be my family. I don't want to burden En. Suami with my never ending work issues. 

I will get back to work if I find something interesting. I might or might not go back to corporate line. Only time would tell.

Till then.

Bye office. Hello huge pile of laundry!

#120 - Adelaide (Last Day)

Our last day in Adelaide. Obviously, it's going to be a shopping day. 

Our first stop of the day was, Harbour Town. We've been told that the outlet is not as big as the one in Perth so we took our own sweet time to shop. Halfway done, we realized that it was not. We didn't manage to cover all the stores. I didn't even get to peek inside Nine West. What a bummer!

We shopped like mad in Pumpkin Patch and I thought that was the quickest way to spend the last couple of hundreds. Needless to say, it was kinda tiring because so little time, so many dresses.

After Harbour Town, we went to have lunch in the city at a place called Mamak Corner. We decided to go separate ways after that because the elders wanted to look for Corelle while the rest of us wanted to look for souvenirs.

From the restaurant, we walked to the city centre and shopped for souvenirs. We were actually quite disappointed that we didn't get to shop at Central Market because of the price difference. 

Anyway, from the city we took the tram for the last time and headed to my MIL's place. We had our last dinner in Adelaide and called it a day.

Once we reached home, there was another task waiting for us. Packing. 

Imagine we have to pack all of these plus other things. It's a challenge I tell you. But, we managed!

It has been a wonderful holiday. I'm glad I went to Adelaide despite hearing "Adelaide bosan" "There's nothing to do in Adelaide" To me, different people has different preference and interest.

So to the people out there, go and explore the world with an open mind. Open your eyes and accept the city/country as it is. Trust me, you will enjoy more!