Love this song by Nelly Furtado

First heard this song on radio and it really grew on me. Enjoy!

SAY IT RIGHT! I love YOU TUBE! *snapping my fingers to the song*

Happy Golden Pig New Year!

Today was Day 1 of Chinese New Year. It wasssssssssssss.....Fun-tastic!!

The house was so lively with my little cousins galore. My mum is the eldest in her family so her siblings came in the morning to "salute" her and of course, everyone stayed for vegetarian lunch because its such a killer meal even though its ALLL vegetarian. My little cousin Cheyanne was wearing a korean dress and much to the amusement of everyone present, she performed a korean bow that she learnt from the "DA CHANG JIN" drama serial. And Jerome who was so handsome in his outfit performed his "practise kung fu" and piano song. Note: Jerome is the sweetest boy with the shyest smile. I'll try to paste some pictures later on.

The cutest was, of course, my baby niece Vera. Everyone was oooh-ing and aaah-ing away and Vera was such a sport- just smiling and smiling away. She was wearing a silk suit that I bought from her in Shanghai (very expensive ok!) and this nice socks that my mum bought from another part in China...and this cute red pin on her head.



Here is 3 month old Vera, the center of all the attention. The little cutey.

Packing packing...cough cough

Chinese new year!!!! I have never been happier to hear that CNY is just around the corner.

When I was younger, I would fret about buying new clothes - trying not to look a freak in those RED RED RED RED "Hongbao" clothes (you see, the Mother would nag every year: Girl ah!! No black, gray, white, blue coloured clothes.. its CHINESE NEW YEAR....you think somebody just died and u are in mourning ah.......no no no just choose RED colour, you won't go wrong. Trust me...it would be lucky for you this year).

I also associated CNY with naggy relatives, helping my parents out like a slave/maid during their many house parties-playing the part of the good dutiful daughter. As you can clearly see, I'm a "happy-family" humbug.

But this year....its soooooooooooo different! I'm looking forward to CNY:
1) 4 days of public holiday
2) Lotsa yummy food to eat
3) Extending extra 4 days of vacation in Malaysia
4) A surprise party in store...

I'm so excited I actually bought my CNY clothes 2 weeks before the actual date. Its fantastic...and its going to be this weekend....happiness...............

OLE OLE OLE....Singapore is ASEAN CUP 2007 champions!!

I don't like soccer much....

But the patriotic me was glued to the telly when the Asean Cup was playing.. Singapore versus Thailand. There were 2 matches played.

On 31st Jan, the first game was played in the Singapore National Stadium. The score was initially tied at 1-1 and at second half the MALAYSIAN referee called for a penalty against the Thais near the goal post. The unhappy Thais walked off the pitch in protest and had to be persuaded to return to the field. Despite the chaos, the referee stuck his grounds and Singapore scored a penalty shot by Mustafic Fahrudin ending the game at 2-1.

On 4th Feb, the second game was played in Bangkok and although Singapore managed a goal in the first half, it was declared offside and void. The Thais were leading 1-0 towards the second half. 8 mins to the end of the game, Amir from Singapore scored a one-man show superb goal, crowning Singapore as the 2007 Asean Cup champions.

Ole Ole Ole...Ole....Ole.....

Singapore is 2007 Asean Cup Champions!!

I still don't like soccer much..................and actually I'll admit that I think that the Lions were super "heng" (lucky) this time round. As far as I could see, the Thai team was the stronger team. But never mind, "heng" is also a skill by itself. :)

However, granted that the Thais, for many various reasons, were really hungry for the championship, I still think they could have behaved better on the pitch.

All in all, the end result is that the Lions are crowned re-champions for Asean cup 2007.

Hip HIP HOOORAYYY!!!!

The Last Templar by Raymound Khoury

In 2003/2004, I had the impression that Dan Brown's Da Vinci code took the literary world by storm and started the religion conspirarcy-theory ball rolling. Everywhere I went and every flight I took I'd see at least one person (regardless of nationality) holding onto a copy of that book. I've read that book twice myself and heard countless Christians tell me that the book is blasphemous. Its an enjoyable read nonetheless. :)

Recently I've finished another book written on the same premise - That the Roman church is trying to cover the true story of Jesus Christ. I would highly recommend it as a fascinating read except that the ending was a little disappointing to me. But due to the highly controversial nature of its content, I find that not surprising.



Veritas Vos Liberabit - the truth will set you free. (Latin)

The Last Templar starts off with the fall of the Knights Templar in 1291 - Acre (Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem). Interspaced with events occuring in the era we live in today (21st century), it explores the rise and fall of the Knights Templar.

According to the book, in 1118, The First Crusade is over and the Holy Land is back in Christian hands. Baldwin II is the King of Jerusalem , people across Europe are jubilant and pilgrims are flocking to Jerusalem. Unknown to them, the crusading knights have considered their vows fulfilled and went back to their homes in Europe with their plundered riches. The area is precariously surrounded by hostile Islamic states and the Turks and Muslims, who have lost much of their lands to to the Christian armies, wern't about to forgive and forget.Many pilgrims were killed on the dangerous roads between port city of Jaff (coast of Palestine) and the holy city of Jerusalem.

Nine pious knights led by Hughes de Payens arrived at Baldwin's palace and offered their humble services. They announced that they had taken the 3 solemn vows of chastity, poverty and obedience and had added a fourth: a perpetual vow to protect the pilgrims on their journey from the coast to the city. King Baldwin was impressed and gave them quarters in the eastern part of his palace, which stood on the site once occupied by King Solomon's Temple. They had become known as The Order of the Poor Knights of Chris and the Temple of Solomon, more simply the Knights Templar. (The Temple of Solomon has an interesting history on its own).

What is interesting is that the Knights then ended up spending 9 years locked up in the Temple of Solomon.............digging.......and they found a treasure so magnificient that would result in their eventual doom on Friday the 13th. Was it gold? Was it proof that Jesus had fathered a child with Mary Magdalene. The book keeps you hooked and the suspense is well worth the wait as it turns out to be none of the above and instead brings into a picture another very interesting possibility. (I'm certainly not going to spoil it for you here so find it out yourself!)

This book is a touch and go on the Jesus bloodline, the Gnostics, the Gospel, the Bible, history of how the concept of our modern financial institutions (banks) came about, a little something of everything to spark your interest to read more.

For more information: http://www.lasttemplar.com/home/index.asp

WentWorth Miller...yummy

Care and share. :)

Back to the basics and making them measurable

Every year I would conscientious write down my new year resolutions. This year, 2007, I did not. I've thought about the list, its there in my mind's eyes and its the usual stuff but I just haven't gotten around to writing it out.

The theme for this year is the same as every year before: Living a balance lifestyle with equal emphasis on work and play.

At the end of every year, I would have a self-reflection session and each year I would not be able to proclaim that I've had a GREAT year and met my objectives. I can't seem to say that I've had a balanced lifestyle, its always been a very obvious focus on work instead of personal growth.

Each year I find that work is taking up so much of my time that I slowly become a very very very boring person. And then, at moments when I have that realization, I start to feel very pressured to balance it out. This creates additional stress. And when I tell myself to relax or to spend more time with my family/friends, I find out that I do not deeply enjoy doing those things which I should. Actually, I start to find myself feeling rather guilty when I'm not working 100% of every waking moment.

Its only the beginning of Jan and already for 2 mornings in a row, I couldn't get out of bed. I was just too exhausted to do it. When I wake, the first thing that come to my mind is work and when I thought about all the difficult things that is waiting to be managed, all i want to do is to dig deeper into my covers.

I acknowledge that this feeling, as bad as it may be, is already a great improvement from my yesteryears back in the previous company. I recall on several occasions that I had to literally crawl my way into the hotel bathroom because my legs were so weak but I just didn't have time form them to "wake up"!!

So today I decided to step back and take a deep breathe. No matter how much work I've got to do, duties I have to fulfill, responsibility I have to take up, people I have to spend time with. I'm going to do things one at a time.

For starters, I realized that I needed to take my mind off work, even if it were for a little while. (It has been a most strenous week for me in Vietnam emotionally). And so I pulled out little Vera's pictures and a novel by C.S Lewis Prince Caspian to just relax a little. I told myself that I'm going to focus on one thing at a time and block out everything else. After just an hour, I felt suitably recharged.

Eating my chocolate ice cream, I reflected on the Vietnam trip to assess why I was feeling the way I did and then realized that I never really was happy with my performance because I never thought it was good enough. During my performance review, my manager told me that all objectives should be made measurable and thinking back now I think it applies to my personal resolutions too!

So, I've decided that once again, I'm still going to write down my personal resolutions for this year. However, a change that I would make is to make them more measureable and realistic. Each measurable item I would determine a time and place for it and simply focus on one thing a time. Going back to basics....

Christopher the Cat, Christina the Cat

Vera is thinking:" Haha, I've got a strange mum and dad"

Mechanical Traffic Light in Pyongyang

Computer too slow during start up? Tried and tested method...

Recently, many people have been plagued by computer problems. A common problem would be that their computers would take a verrrrrrryyyy long time to start up. This could be due to a variety of reasons. ...............

FIXING THE DARN COMPUTER PROBLEM

Solution 1: The brute force method
Certainly, you can be like a certain *erhem* person that I know, and one of the solutions to the problem is to reformat the computer and install everything from scratch again. Get ready to do this every 6 months though.

Solution 2: Not the brute force method :)
Another way, which is tried and tested by yours truly and of course, it works......

1) Back Up Your Computer
Firstly, almost every article that asks you to mess around with your computer is going to tell you that the first step you should do should be a BACK UP. This is just in case you lose those precious pictures, music, important documents, they would be able to say:" Hey its not my fault, I told you to back up your computer".

So I'm not going to be any different. I'll tell you the first thing you should do is to do a BACK UP.

There are many ways that this can be done. If you have alot of $$ to spare, you could buy a nice expensive software such as Norton Ghost (don't tell me if you got the cracked version of it :P). Otherwise, if you are running Windows XP, you can use the included back up program. To find it, please following the path below:
Start -> All Programs -> Accessories -> System Tools -> Backup.

P/s: I couldn't be bothered with the first step so I basically skipped it. Don't ask me if you need me to walk you through the back up. I would be in an exceptionally good mood to walk you through it, if I couldn't be bothered to do it for my own computer, in the first place.

2) Clear out Forgotten Programs
This is pretty easy. Make sure that you are the administrator of your computer. Go to:
Start -> Control Panel -> Add/Remove Program

Uninstall away................................

3) Free Up Wasted Space.
Okay, this one is also easy. Do the following steps:
a) Open up My computer
b) Right Click “Local Disk”
c) On the General Tab, click the “Disk Cleanup”
d) Select the desired files to delete, then click “OK”

4) Defragment computer

Once again, do the following steps:
a) Open My Computer, right-click Local Disk, and then click Properties.
b) On the Tools tab, click Defragment Now. The Disk Defragmenter opens.
c) Click your first hard disk, and then click Defragment. Note: Disk Defragmenter will work for at least several minutes, though it may take several hours. Get a nice book and relax.

5) Remove Autostart Programs
This is interesting. Well, normally when you install ANY programs, I think that there is a high high chance that the vendor will assume that you would want to automatically start their program running in the background everytime you boot up the computer. Needless to say, if all programs tried to autostart in the background, you'll end up waiting a long time for it to finish loading up before the computer will pay any attention to you again.

Well, no worries because there is a really simple way to "over write" that assumption with the following simple steps: (It works!!)

a) Click “Start” and then “Run”. Type: “msconfig.exe”
b) On the startup tab, you’ll see a list of programs or processes that are set to run when Windows XP loads

There are all sorts of programs that are running which you probably do not recognize. Before you start de-selecting them, it is strongly advised that you CHECK THE FILE AGAINST this website http://www.sysinfo.org/startuplist.php.

Basically, I checked the website for all the file names that I didn't recognize and I'm glad to say that I was able to find every single program running on my computer in that website. I was able to quickly identify the programs that wasn't necessary. This website is really fantastic!

WAIT A MINUTE, I DID THOSE STEPS ABOVE BUT THE DARN COMPUTER PROBLEM DIDN'T GO AWAY!!!!

Ok, you might have done the steps above but found out that the problem still remains. Then, my friend, this might be a more serious problem than you think.

For starters, there could be viruses/worms/adware running in your computer and affecting its performance. This problem needs to be fixed because you won't like misbehaving programs that would open a backdoor for a malicious hacker to take control of your computer. Or allowing your computer to start behaving like an unruly child and becoming a total nuisance to your friends.

If the above sounds appealing to you. Leave your computer as it is. Otherwise, the next step will be to install an anti virus or adware program to start cleaning up your computer.

I'm personally using SpyDoctor and Symantec Antivirus.

For Spydoctor

I paid USD $29.95 per computer and it has a 30 day money back guarantee. But I'm telling you that ever since I installed the program, it has diligently been watching my back. Its a fantastic software and I like it so much that I'm to buy more copies to install other computers that I have.

This software is a keeper. For more information, you can go to this website: http://www.pctools.com/spyware-doctor/

For Symantec AntiVirus

After leaving my computer out in the big bad world to fend for itself for quite some time, I finally decided to renew my symantec antivirus license.

Symantec has a pretty good Live Update process that allows you to quickly and easily download and install new signatures. However, my experience with Symantec Antivirus has been less than enjoyable, so far.

Firstly, there was a spybot worm lose in the company attacking computers that have symantec installed on it, and then at home, I started to have Update problems which requires me to reinstall my antivirus software.

My renewal license cost me SGD $69.95 but I guess I'll keep my options open for new anti virus out in the market.

P/s: Symantec is one of the biggest antivirus company out there but...........................

WELL, IF ALL ELSE FAILS, REFORMAT AND REINSTALL. :)

MTV Punk'd and Olivia Wilde

Olivia Wilde in THE OC

I was watching MTV Punk'd the other day. And guess who I saw on telly....Olivia Wilde! I saw her briefly on one of the episodes of The OC and I would say that she left an impression. In the show, she really gave out the cool rocker girl vibes. Abit like Angelina Jolie - a little.... in your face attitude. Anyway, I thought she was very nice in that episode.

So anyway, back to MTV Punk'd, Olivia Wilde was suppose to get punk'd on that episode and my god...she was SO COOL about the whole thing. I mean if you saw the episodes starring Justin Timberlake and that Frodo dude from LODR, you would slap your forehead. Like LOSER..............

But....Olivia Wilde.....had none of that... she was clearly in control of the situation and while trying to make sense of the entire situation, she had just pure "coolness" pouring out of her pores. She actually was quite amused by the whole situation but at one part she got a little annoyed when the fake policeman was trying to attack her friend. It was very nice of her to protect her friend during their "close brush with the law".

When she finally knew that the whole thing was a hoax, she took it very good naturedly too. *clap clap clap* So I did a bit of surfing and since I'm such a nice person ....here....care and share.

Woman silver medalist who may not be a woman ?!?

TOP Indian woman athlete Santhi Soundarajan , who took the silver in the women's 800m race at the Asian Games in Doha on Dec 9, failed a GENDER VERIFICATION TEST soon after the race and is likely to be stripped of her medals, reports from New Delhi said yesterday.

This is interesting. Read the article. Male or Female runner

Picture on the right, you judge for yourself.

By the way, she has passed gender verification test in other competitions before. Bizarre isn't it?!?

Feminism......does not allow me to accept.....

Merriam Webster Dictionary:
Feminism
1 : the theory of the political, economic, and social equality of the sexes
2 : organized activity on behalf of women's rights and interests

I used to be quite the feminist when I was younger. At a young age of 10, I would try to “brainwash” my younger brother to agree with me that: “All man and woman are born equal. The only difference whether they succeed in life is whether they work hard for their goals”. I was so successful that my 6 year old brother could chant this sentence on demand. :)

However, today – reading the online news during lunch time (yes! I'm still skipping lunch because my GOD I have so much more pounds to shed!!) I'm acutely aware that in other parts of the world, woman are still persecuted for –to me- absurd reasons.

Title of the article: Pakistani woman in hiding despite Islamic sex law change
Summary in points: Refer to article Today Online Article

1) Pakistan have recently overhauled its existing Islamic sex laws.
*clap clap clap*
Need to share this, this is funny
-an example of the Islamic sex laws distinguishing between rape and adultery as follows –
Formerly rape victims had to produce 4 MUSLIM MALE witness to prove allegations. Otherwise, they may be charged for adultery and if convicted, face the penalty of death by STONING.

Wah KAO! I mean, if she can even find ONE witness (muslim or non muslim, male or female), she would probably NOT be raped right! NND, truckload of cow manure.

2) Despite this Quratulain Sattar, 25 year old medical trainee, still needs to worry. Her story as follows:
a. Quratulain Sattar’s father is accusing her and her current husband on charges of adultery. This is because Quratulain refused to marry her COUSIN in a forced marriage.
b. QS’s father
i. Has previously detained the husband’s parents to force him to divorce her.
ii.Produced false witnesses to say that QS has been kidnapped and is already married.
c. Pakistan’s religious party Jamaat-e-Islami supported the father when he pursued the case.
d. QS and husband is on the run and may have to leave Pakistan for their safety.

*takes a deep breathe*

Enough said. This is SICK SICK SICK……………………………

Free Car Wash Today

I had a free car wash today. Actually, my car had to endure heavy “scrubbing” since last night as it kept raining, raining and yes….more raining.
It was really nice to go to bed last night to hear the pitter-patter but really a horrid experience to wake up this morning because it was still pitter-patter and how I wish I could sink into bed and let the world forget me for just one day.

Hooray!!! Today I’m going to watch Crazy horse….Yes, all of Singapore, I admit, I have yet to go to watch Crazy horse (despite the hype that has come and gone). I’m so looking forward to it as I’ve heard so much about it.

Note: Actually, this old lady with the wrinkly toes (i.e. ME) also have not had a chance to visit the Ministry of Sound for that matter. *blush deeply*. I need a walking stick soon.

P/s: On days like this, I super duper love my Honda Edix MORE MORE MORE.

Showcasing my car..........imagine it in Black tho.

Bless my wrinkly toes - Cross Stitching and more hours of sleep

Well, by the looks of it, I'm certainly getting to be quite the old lady....Bless my wrinkly toes.

For starters, I'm starting to sleep earlier (except for tonight because it is already 1.30am and I should be in bed by 1230am)- I just had enough of everybody telling me that I'm heading to "doomsland" by not getting enough sleep and acting all cranky every day.
Second tell-tale sign is that *gasps* horrors!! my latest craze/hobby is * drum rolls* C.R.O.S.S.S.T.I.T.C.H.I.N.G!

Before you roll on the floor and die from laughter, I'm going to share the story about my cross stitching saga. It starts out like this:

One day, my colleague (and also very nice friend) was telling me that I need to become more patient :). She was reflecting that when she was younger, she was alot like me and yes, we are quite the "pain-in-the-arse" perfectionist. Haha!

Anyway, she told me that I should try to relax a little, work less, have a more moderate life, yada yada. She then suggested that I pick up cross stitching because it might calm me down a little and I could learn to be more patient. I thought to myself:"Oh well, sounds like an interesting idea but aw man.....the cow will jump over the moon before I'll pick up the needle to start cross stitching JUST FOR FUN. *I'm saying this because fully knowing my own character, I would probably tear and burn the cross stitch in frustration if I don't get it right the first time *

So anyway, last Sunday, after attending Jason's graduation from bible school (and also attending the entire service at city harvest. @@) at expo 8, Mak and I headed down to Shislik, a russian restaurant at far east plaza. (Its the first time that I knew there is a difference between far east plaza and far east shopping center. So confusing!!)

By the time we got there, the restaurant was having its last orders and so we had a quick glance at the menu and ordered away. So hungry!! We had a dozen escargots (not say fantastic), steaks, soup and for desert cherry jubilee (which the waitress would prepare in front of the guests, so yummelicious).

After our lunch, we wanted to head to borders but it was raining quite heavily (And yes, Mak - if I should one day ever so run out of jobs, I can work as the weather lady). We wandered around far east plaza and then we saw this cross stitch shop! Amazing!! I don't think I ever went into a cross stitch shop before. We had a nice chat with the store lady - Betty, who is a 50 year old lady and she was so kind and patient in giving us our first FREE lesson in cross stitch. Bless the lady!

Since Mak and I were having so much difficulty deciding what christmas presents to buy each other, we made a pact and decided to each choose a design and so we are going to finish the cross stitch and exchange as christmas presents. THERE! No need to crack our brains to buy x'mas presents for each other this year.

You won't believe it but I'm HOOKED! Cross stitching is so much fun. Everything has its place. If life could only be this simple.....Anyway, I'm already thinking up of new things to stitch..........STITCH STITCH STITCH. STITCH AWAY.

Okay, time for bed.

Seven Wonders of the World

The number 7 is a special number.

In Judaism, we have seven days of mourning, seven days of celebration following a wedding, seven days for the creation of the world (which are our familiar days of the week), the seven commandments and others.................

So let's talk about the seven wonders.............

Seven Wonder of the Ancient World
Today, only one is left standing. Listed in order of construction:
1) Great Pyramid of Giza - Still standing (Egyptians)
2) Hanging Gardens of Babylon - Earthquake (Babylonians)
3) Temple of Artemis at Ephesus - Fire (Lydians, Persians, Greeks)
4) Statue of Zeus at Olympia - Fire (Greeks)
5) Mausoleum of Maussollos at Halicarnassus - Earthquake (Persians, Greeks)
6) Colossus of Rhodes - Earthquake (Hellenistic Greece)
7) Lighthouse of Alexandria (Hellenistic Egypt)

Seven Wonder of the Middle Ages
1) Stonehenge , UK
2) Colosseum, Rome
3) Catacombs of Kom el Shoqafa, Egypt
4) Great Wall of China
5) Porcelain Tower of Nanjing
6) Hagia Sophia, Istanbul
7) Leaning Tower of Pisa
------Also famous wonders of the middle ages------------
8) Cairo Citadel, Egypt
9) Ely Cathedral, UK
10) Taj Mahal (India)
11) Cluny Abbey, France

Tourist Travel Wonders:
1) Great Pyramids of Giza
2) Great Wall of China
3) Taj Mahal
4) Serengeti Migration (Tanzania, Africa)
5) Galapagos
6) Grand Canyon
7) Machu Picchu (Lost City of the Incas ,Peru)

Jamie's Wish List:
1) Acropolis in Athens
2) Pyramids , Catacombs of Kom el Shoqafa and Cairo Citadel
3) Taj Mahal
4) Stonehenge
4) Grand Canyon
5) Machu Picchu
6) Leaning Tower of Pisa
7) Catacombs of Kom el Shoqafa
8) And many many more!

There should be a lot more travelling for leisure now :)

I don't know how to .......I'm sorry

I would be scared too....if someone told me that I was dying....how would I say goodbye? Would I just choose not to know and live life as normally as I can.....

We used to visit my grandmother every Sunday when we were young but as we grew older, we became so busy that the family visits became more irregular and then fewer and fewer. It didn't help that I was travelling most of the time. In Bangkok, my mother called me to say that my grandmother was diagnosed with cancer. There was a lump that kept bleeding....it must be very serious.

I came back to Singapore and spent Sunday with grandmother. She was playing mahjong most of the time and I sat there as always reading my book. Everyone tried to pretend that things were as normal as could be. I glanced at grandma from the corner of my eye to check if she was okay. She seemed fine.

But when I went to kiss my grandmother goodbye to go home, she suddenly held my hand and kissed it. I was taken by surprise by her sudden action and didn't know how to react. In that instant, her eyes welled up with tears. I felt my heart break into tiny pieces. She was suffering and there was nothing I could do..I didn't even know how to say that I was sorry.

My grandmother is very stubborn and she won't seek treatment because she thinks she is too old from it. My mother tells me that she just wants the bleeding to stop. I think she is just very tired because she overcame alot of difficulties when she had a stroke a few years back. Would cancer hurt alot?

Geography Lesson 004 - Continents and Europe

Well, as usual, if I should be studying for my Jap paper, everything else is suddenly so much more interesting. Taking a break from my 日本語の勉強。。。。。I'm once again back to looking at maps. Big interesting world.....

Although some listed in the World Atlas cannot really be considered as continents, we have 7 continents: Asia, Africa, North America, South America, Antartica, Europe and Australia/Oceania. (ranked from largest to smallest)

In terms of population, Asia has the largest followed by Africa and then Europe. Taking another slice at the data, terms of countries per continent, the largest would be Africa (53), followed by Europe(46) and then Asia (44 - including middle east).

Having a closer look at Europe today.

From the map above, we can see that Europe is separated from Asia by Russia's Ural Mountains on the right, Caspian Sea and Black Sea from the bottom.

For a nice list of countries by continent, please refer to:
World Atlas - Countries by Continent

One of the interesting things about Europe is the formation of the Euro which is the attempt by Europe to have a single currency. The euro is the currency of 12 European union countries namely Belgium, Germany, Greece, Spain, France, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Austria, Portugal and Finland. As of 1 Jan 2007, Slovenia will adopt Euro as their currency as well.

The Euro banknotes are managed by the Eurosystem which consists of the European Central Bank (ECB) and the national central bank of the 12 countries. The Eurosystem has the exclusive right to issue banknotes. Meanwhile, the 12 euro-area member states are allowed to issue their own euro coins. This is managed by the eurosystem that allocates the total value of euro coins issued by each country. So the next time, you see a euro coin, you can find out which EU country produced it!!

Home sweet home and some good news

When I was boarding the plane yesterday, I learnt from this tall and slim (but very scary looking) model-like lady (she had long black hair and some parts were tinted blue and she looked like she had just stepped out of a sci-fi movie) that the the reason the flight was delayed was because the airspace around Shanghai was closed due to military exercise. One look at the electronic board and all the flights were labelled delayed delayed delayed! Quite an experience how unlike Beijing! (in a veryyyy sacarstic tone....you know how I feel about BJ airport)

My immediate thoughts was Taiwan and Mr Chen Shui Bian. :)

Reflection on politics on an increasing scale:
Family - Annoy a family member and you might not be able to have dinner!
Company - Annoy some one up there and you might lose your job!
Country - Annoy the government and have missiles pointed at your country and oh yes! no direct flights.

Enough said!

So I got home, struggled like crazy to keep my eyes open while I washed and cleaned up and then fall asleep on the coach. Didn't know how I ended up on the bed and slept till noon today. I could have slept more if I didn't have to be the chauffeaur and if I didn't have to study for my Japanese paper tomorrow. :P As you can see, I haven't started studying yet.

Good news, I got my LOMA paper results.
LOMA 280: Passed, score 100
LOMA 290: Passed, score 100

Don't ask me how I did it. I don't know.....

Trapped in Shanghai Pudong Airport...thank goodness for krisflyer elite gold

Legs stretched out and propped up against one of the trolleys, I’m in Pudong International Airport, Shanghai. The flight back home to Singapore has been delayed and it seems that the revised estimated departure time is expected to be 2 and half hours later! Thank goodness for krisflyer elite gold perks, at least I get to sit rather decently in the lounge. Otherwise, I know that I can feel a lot nastier if I were sitting outside(probably on the floor since it is a full flight and everyone is waiting impatiently at the gate). If I had known the flight was going to be delayed, I would have gone for at least an hour's body massage just now.

So I haven’t been updating my blog for almost 2 weeks now. I’ve even had a couple of friends asking if I had given up (once again :P) blogging but nah, if you are reading this as you can see, I haven’t given up blogging, it is just that it has been a pretty rough 2 weeks for me.

Yes, you are 100% right, totally work related. I’ve recently been embroiled in some office “rearrangement” and it is not a pretty sight. In fact, it got so bad that at one point I thought…hey I want OUT of this whole thing!! In fact, in a fit of anger, stress and disappointment, I wrote my letter of resignation and sent it out.

If I were to conclude on the entire episode, I would just say that the whole thing was just bad timing. Almost everyone I knew was unhappy with the situation for some time, but everyone tried to keep it under wraps and manage it in their own way but when someone finally snapped, the others followed and like some chain reaction, the dominoes came falling down.

Do I regret my decision? I don’t. I figured that if things remained status quo, I would have left anyway. Life is too short and we shouldn’t spend time doing things that we don’t find worth it.

For me, it was very easy to look at the situation in a simplified way. I wasn’t very happy with the current arrangements and tried to highlight this to my boss…once, twice and then three times but received no reciprocation. I finally made the decision to escalate and certainly I never meant for anyone to get hurt but sometimes when you try to do the right thing, I think that happens. Deep down inside, I just wanted to do a whole lot more but ended up getting very frustrated. The worst part is that I think it is hard to do it to someone you like very much but then again the situation was just too painful to ignore.

So a couple of things that I learnt from my colleagues this week:
a) Do the right thing and ensure your conscience is clear at all times.
b) After you made a decision, look forward and don’t look backward.
c) Just do the work. One thing at a time!
d) Respect other people’s time as you would hope others to respect yours.

Thank goodness for the people who love and support me. I’m sure that without them, I would never have come this far. Bottom line, I’m blessed.

P/s: I still have my job and I'm going to look forward from here onwards.