2008 - An Eventful Year

Everyone's doing a 2008 recap.

While I hate jumping on any bandwagon, I'm gonna do one too since it's the easiest way to talk about all the stuff that happened last year without posting them one by one - so here goes :

1. Ran a half-marathon with Chris

One of the things on my To Do List in life is complete a full marathon. We started with a half marathon in the KL International Marathon - a mere bone-crushing 21km.

Our stamina was fine, but we didn't expect our limbs to give out. The knees and fibula (or whatever you call the bones of the feet) gave way under the strain and we were hobbling to the finish after only 10km. Walking was excruciating.

We managed to make it under the qualifying time of 3.5 hours, but only barely. I was reminded of similar suffering and tears when we approached the peak of Mt Kinabalu only a year ago - seeing the peak within reach, but no longer having the strength or bone density to reach it.

Read Chris' account of the harrowing experience here.

2. OMFG I married Chris !
That which I had not thought possible, has become a reality. I actually found a lovely man to fall in love with and I want to spend the rest of my life with him. And ... he feels the same way about me. Shocking!

I planned to do a day-to-day The Making Of our wedding, but I shall now condense it into a few visual aids.

Making the wedding cards. Very kindly printed by my uncle, but a very manual process to put together.

"AAAAAAAUUUUUUGGGHHHH!!!!" .... Losing it after cutting 500 little name labels.

Roped in some strangely cheerful help ...

And some ... not-so-cheerful ...

Our little sweat shop ...

Prepping for pre-wedding studio shots

Chong ... Chris Chong ...

... neither shaken, nor stirred ...

"Nnngarrfff". Hungry zombie snarfing a scone after 9 hours of shooting

3. Best Valentine's Day & Birthday ever!
I'm a cheap date, so I have not been wined and dined in style before. Often because I stupidly tell the guy that it's a waste of money to spend big moolah on one expensive dinner that could buy you 5 more equally tasty dinners somewhere else. But in my hidden, secretly girly heart, I still hoped for it.

A mind-blowing menu containing beer-drunk cows

Chris, my first Valentine, gave me the most romantic and sexy of Valentine's Days. Details have to be omitted ... because I am shy. *Coughs*

A few months later, it was followed by an amazing birthday treat in a restaurant I only ever heard about from other girls - La Fite. Swoon. They were the most beautiful of dates which made me feel very RARRRR RARRRRR (!!!) about Chris. Which is why I really shouldn't have been surprised when this happened :

4. OMFG OMFG I was impregnanted !
Still reeling over this one because getting pregnant is the single most feminine thing a female can do in her life. To many, being able to have a bun in the oven DEFINES you as a woman.

So for obvious reasons, I didn't think that macho, cussing, finger-flippin' furniture-smashing little ol' me could ever get knocked up.

Then sometime in Sept, a shocking discovery was made on a pee-stained stick (read about it here) and I am now over 5 months gone.

But, I hate being pregnant. All the rhapsody and song about the "beauty" of pregnancy is a bunch of bull crap!

You suffer all manner of indignities during pregnancy - gas, pimples, strange BO, horrendous rashes, hair growing in weird uncomfortable places, uncontrollable leaking when you sneeze or vomit, reswallowing your own bile and vomit to save your carseats, vomit splashing back on your face when it rebounds from the toilet etc... you name it!

And God help you if you have a HARD pregnancy because you should expect NO sympathy from the following :

- Other women who have been pregnant before, but had EASY pregnancies.
("It's all in your mind, love ... You should keep yourself busy")
Um. I DO keep my mind busy. I often have lurid and detailed fantasies of beating you to death with half-digested chicken drumsticks.

- Males
("Pish tosh, pregnancy is a snap. It's the delivery that's hard ...").
Yeah, like you'd know what either one feels like, motherfucker.

- Females who've never been pregnant before
("You should be more positive and stay calm, for the baby's sake. You should this ... you should that ...").
Why don't you go fuck yourselves asexually, get yourselves pregnant, stare down at your regurgitated breakfast, lunch and dinner everyday for 5 consecutive months and THEN tell me if you stayed calm and positive? Fatherfuckers.

My sister's attempt to identify all the mysterious 14-week old baby bits

I only felt happy in the 5th month, when I started feeling cute little movements of the bub in my belly, thus ensuring that I was INDEED pregnant with a lovely little human being inside me (not with an alien creature about to burst free from my already distended abdomen).

I love our still-unborn child. It's the pregnancy that's unbearable.


5. I earned my freedom!
After years of talking about leaving the rat race to take a break and discover what I truly wanted to do, I have finally got my savings together and done it.

Problem is, so much has been happening during the "break" that I haven't had much time or presence of mind to think about my next career move yet - though I am leaning towards several low-paying, but highly-satisfying industries.

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Doesn't seem like much numerically, but in terms of magnitude, my life and future plans have all been turned upside down - all in 365 days. It's been a doozy of a year.

Don't have any resolutions for 2009. Can't seem to think of any. I guess I don't really care, because I couldn't possibly top what I did last year ... till I give birth to our firstborn.

Wish me luck!

From The Ashes ! (literally)

Yay!

I've resurrected my old blog. Lazy to start a new one and rebuild an archive of new posts (even though there weren't that many to begin with in my old blog), just because certain purple assholes can't handle reading the truth. You know who you are.

There were big plans to write about the wedding, but then the pregnancy came along.

Then there were big plans to write about the pregnancy, and then the all-day sickness came along ... and stayed.

Am itching to start writing again.

I Rock ...

My ex-colleagues and my ex-boss have been calling me over the last few days. They were so eager to share the good news with me, they were practically buzzing with glee.

Seems that all the work that I'd put into the business in the last 2 years of my tenure there was now paying off in spades. We used to have trouble managing growth over the year before, don't even talk about hitting our targets. We had to beg, plead, cajole, bribe and grovel to just to break even with the year before.

But now, we are double digit growth over the previous year, and actually OVER-achieved on our sales targets. Absolutely shocking.

My ex team was very kind in acknowledging that I was instrumental in driving this growth, and that the business was enjoying it because of the foundation I had painstakingly laid down, and the plans that I had created and set into motion.

They could easily have said that it was my successor's excellence in execution that made this happen, but I'm glad they are giving credit to me. That's the beauty of real narketing (not that SALES crap that most people think is marketing), when you understand how it works.

Marketing, or rather, BRANDING, doesn't pay off immediately. You set the foundation, make it strong, develop sound strategies based on what you know of the market, and if you did a good job, you will reap the rewards 2 years or so later. If you're still there.

The same goes if you do a shit job. If you run off quick enough, the new brand manager will come in and be blamed for the crappy business that's crumbling around his ears, even though it was the doing of the shitty brand manager before him.

So, the business is on solid ground now. All my lost health, hard work, planning and personal sacrifices were worth it. Sort of. I still wish there was some monetary reward for me, but ah well, that's the story of my life.

Work like a dog, and the next person comes along to reap the benefits. It's happened too many times to me for it to be coincidence.

Whatever doubt I may have had of my abilities before, I have none now.

I rock.

I really am the dream employee that any company would be lucky to secure.

Gotta update my resume now! Whoopeee!

Something's wrong with this picture

When do you know your nation's in trouble?

When one of its leading telecommunications company dedicates a rather expensive mass campaign (both on press and outdoor) to reach NOT a typical Malaysian with a household income of RM2,500 and above, but rather, to reach another apparently growing source of business.



I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw this campaign.

A multi-hundred thousand ringgit campaign like this indicates just how big this target market has become. Not because of their spending power, but because of their sheer, bloody masses.

Yeah, seems like we're doing a GREAT job of controlling the tide of foreign workers. So great that telecommunications industries have acknowledged the existence and importance of this target market enough to spend money communicating promotions to them.

Unheard of.

Have you ever seen MASS media campaigns targeted at Vietnamese in Australia? Call home to Vietnam for less than 5 cents a minute. Or in Singapore, to the masses of Filipinos working there?

At best, stuff like this is targeted to areas where they hang out. But, in Malaysia, it was a MASS media campaign, which shows just how bad it's gotten.

Thanks for the bad restaurant service. Thanks for the robberies / break-ins. Thanks for making me feel afraid to walk in my neighbourhood after dark.

(Well, guess I shouldn't blame the robberies entirely on them. Plenty of Malaysian motherfuckers are responsible for that shit too, more so than the foreigners. Lazy motherfuckers. At least the foreigners have a JOB!)

Somebody do something.

Broken Break

Ah, my honeymoon is temporarily over. I planned for a 6 month break, but seems God has other plans.

Just as I was starting to get used to the fact that I am FREE from the evils of 9am - 5pm work (or in my case, usually 9am - 11pm), I'm going back into the jungle next week.

Since the wedding, I've had about 1.5 months to get used to freedom. And I really was only just starting to get used to it. Got me my little routine : Make breakfast for my man, send him to work, chit chat with my momma in her house, surf the net, run errands, watch movies that I had no chance to watch before, move into my new apartment, pick my man from work, cook dinner together, finish all the post-wedding stuff that we still haven't done. It was nice.

We also did our first wedding PAID job in Singapore recently. Came out pretty good, if I say so myself. Much better than the shit I've seen some "professional" photographers take. The actual shoot itself wasn't tiring, but post-processing the photos take ages!

I think at best, this will be a part-time money-maker for us. The work is too seasonal, and competition is fierce (though they're not necessarily that good). Most people can't tell the difference.

Will post some of our shots up in my next post.

But ah, going to start freelance work next week, for 3 months. And this type of work means I will not see daylight for the time I'm working there. Depressing. But the money will be most welcome!

Guess I feel depressed about this because I've been enjoying life too much to want to give it up again for a "career". Can't believe I've was ever that gung-ho about my career, giving up all that was important to me to get the job done. Giving up a part of ME.

Well, I'll have time to rediscover myself and re-focus on my marriage again once the 3 months are over.

MyVis - the new Kancil

It's official. The MyVi has replaced the Kancil as the most irritating car, hated by all motorists, in Malaysia.

I don't have a car anymore, and my hubby's was in the workshop. So we borrowed his sister's MyVi for almost a month.

For almost a month, I was road bullied. I could not drive home without at least one person honking at me for (good Heavens) making a LEGAL turn, with my indicator light on. Or cars rudely cutting in front of me, or not giving me way despite signalling and moving in at a safe distance.

Everyone was pre-disposed to being an asshole to you if you're driving the MyVi. This is despite the fact that I was driving slowly, and safely, at all times, in an effort to conserve precious fuel.

This happened with such regularity that I began to dread getting behind the wheel of that stupid car. When I was in it, I felt vunerable and hunted, like a gazelle separated from it's herd, standing in the middle of an open field, with staring lions at its fringes. I was in an accident waiting to happen.

Now, if you didn't know me, you would probably think I was just a bad driver who got what she deserved. But ha, I made an empirical study on the matter.

Once my hubby got his car back (NOT a MyVi nor a local car of any sort), I took the same route and waited for the road bullying again. But surprise, surprise, everyone was exceedingly courteous. They let me cut in without a fuss, they waited patiently if I had to take a turn, they displayed zero aggressive behaviour.

It was a pleasure to drive again.

So my theory is this. The MyVi is such a vastly proliferated car in Malaysia that the likelihood of it being driven by shitty drivers are much higher, given the fact that almost every household has one.

Add the fact that it's a very popular car with the ladies, and female Malaysian drivers tend to live up to every negative stereotype about female drivers.

So if you've had a bad road experience, the person who pissed you off was highly likely to have been a WOMAN, driving a MyVi.

Hence, despite the fact that I do not drive like the other air-headed bitches on the road these days, I had fit the outward criteria, brought up everyone's prejudice about female MyVi drivers, and inspired them to vent their latent anger on me before I even did anything.

Prior to this, most of the curses were reserved for bitches driving the Kancils. But it looks like the MyVi has overtaken that stupid excuse for a car to be the winner of the Car-Most-Likely-To-Be-Driven-By-Assholes race.

Because of this, the bloody MyVi is the most dangerous car you could ever give to your children. Buy them a fucking Volvo. People will leave them alone.

Comment Cards : The new urban weapon

Haiya. I'm lazy to post the entire thing again, and my sister has forbidden me to link to her. So you shall not have a blow-by-blow experience of this event.


An exerpt from the post is this picture. Fucking classic Elaine. It's me all over. Or at least, it's the me since I got into the FMCG industry ....