Ip Man

This conversation took place before I went to HK. And so happened that I found a bus painted with the movie poster for Ip Man, so I took a picture of it, to accompany this conversation among the colleagues the other day...

On an ordinary year end day, when everyone was busy meeting the datelines, L suddenly popped up with a question to H, "H, have you seen I.P. Man?"

H was confused, "I.P. Man? What movie is that?"

myself, "I heard of X-men, Superman, never heard of I.P. Man..."

H suddenly realised that L was talking about the latest kung fu movie starred by Donnie Yen -- Ip Man, so I asked why would L read it as I.P. Man? We couldn't find the answer, until I saw this poster at the back of the bus in HK.

Apparently, all the characteres of the name was written in capital letters, despite the "I" and "M" appeared in larger fonts. So I guessed that why L naively mistaken it.

Back from Hong Kong

I am back to Malaysia today, after spending one week in Hong Kong.

Thank you to my good friend and her family for feeding me, providing a very comfortable place to stay, planning my trip in Hong Kong and shared my feelings. They have also been very generous as I have not helped them in the chores at all.

Also, my housemate during university, whom I have not met for the past 8 years, has taken time to bring me around, despite a very short notice. And I'd got a chance to meet his pretty girlfriend, who looks like Maggie Siu. Thank you.

I will update later with photos taken in HK, and write something about the trip. In fact, I did not plan for the trip at all, it was my friends who laid it all out, so I need to sort out where I have gone over the past week. My main motive of going to HK was to pay a visit to both my friends, and I have also taken it as an escape from the ever stressful Malaysia.

This trip has charged me up, as I have felt that I was being accepted by my friends as who I am, and this is something that I don't get here.

Arseholes

I met a nasty arsehole today. In fact I have been dealing with a few of these arses since a while ago. This week has been particularly bad as my direct boss is not around to help out with my limited knowledge on the product. I was covered with the fart and shyte coming from all the arseholes.

This particular arse no. 1 trapped me today, which made me feel very upset after trying my best to support. Arse no. 1 was farting around and laying shyte all over places, and make up stories to make me the responsible one.

The lesson I learned today: Some people just don't worth your best effort. It is better to save the effort for someone who appreciate your hard work.

A phone call from the chief judge

Following my previous blog on the speech competition, I have received a phone call from the chief judge over the lunch time today.

The judge was trying to pull me joining the toastmaster's club. When I asked him regarding my feedback on the presentation the other day, (he left right after the competition) he mentioned something vague, which showed clear signs that he did not pay attention to my speech.

He mentioned that I did not gave any examples, but instead my whole presentation was about examples and applications. He mentioned that no one understood what I was talking about, but instead there were interesting questions from the audience that day, which built upon their understanding of the presentation. He also mentioned a few other things, which I didn't want to be rude by telling him straight to the face, that he did not pay attention.

In fact, before receiving the phone call, I have thought about joining the toastmaster's club. However, his overly enthusiastic phone call, and his lack of sincerity feedback somehow puts me off. I guess this is what they called -- one man's meat is the other man's poison?

Gmail Background

Have you noticed that you can customised your Gmail background now? There are various backgrounds available for you to choose from.

I have chosen this little fox, and have noticed over the past few weeks that the fox have different activities at different time of the day. Here are a few print screens...

Bathing the little chick:

Sweeping floor:

Meeting with friend:

Feeding the ducks:

Oh, I love this little fox so much, I check email everyday now. Too bad my company PC is using IE6, which doesn't support this feature, else I would have just left my gmail on all day long to see if the little fox would run around having its life in the digital world. ^_^

Horror-scope

It is year end now, many of the horoscope forecasts for year 2009 are flying around, be it Chinese horoscope or the Western one, some even include blood type.

Looking into other people's horoscope, I am always fascinated by how gifted and talented others are. But when it comes to my own sign, I am disappointed as always.

I mentioned this to my bf, and he felt the same thing for his horoscope... Then I started wondering, if I am the only one feeling that way?

Take the normal Western horoscope for example, from Aries to Pisces, everyone has some useful strength, except mine -- the Sagittarius. From determine to active, charming, hardworking, sensible, filled with guts, good in planning, independent... etc, Sagittarians often only given a very short paragraph, regarding free-spirits, or playful. And you know, either free-spirit or playful is often being kicked out of the door in the working world.

The worse thing is, from Chinese to Western horoscope, even to the blood type, I am classified as the free-spirited one. And I am not any of it.

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Another incident, I once came across the daily horoscope in the newspaper, while having breakfast in the mamak with my bf. It said for my bf, there will be someone upsetting him that day, and he needs to control his emotion. Then out of curiosity, I went to read mine, it said something trivial.

I then wondered who is the person that will make him upset. So I continued reading the rest, considered that in the horoscope world, everyone in this world is catagorised into one of the twelve signs. To my surprise, none of the other horoscope mentioned that he/she will upset someone that day.

Who upset my bf that day? No one.

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I used to have a friend, who would start her day by reading the horoscope, and remembers it, lives by it. Anything happened that day, she would somehow link it with the horoscope. She seemed to enjoy it, but to me it is a horror living up to someone else's so called prediction.

Speech Competition

I went for the Institution of Mechanical Engineers speech competition yesterday. Got myself a 2nd prize. Well, for a 2-3 days part time preparation, no rehearsal, I am happy with what I've got. The cost of the prize is about the price of my flight ticket to HK this Xmas.

The aim of the competition was on the presentation skills, the content takes very little weight. I lost to a young guy, who was very skillful in presentation. Congratulations to him. ^_^

I shall improve my public speaking skills, and be more confident.

Merry Christmas

Christmas is around the corner, I am missing the days when I spent the Christmas in UK. The cold and wet weather, the strong wind, the yellowish street lights, the smell of the chill air, the cracking sound of the icy patches, the packed trains, the departmental Christmas lunch / dinner, the emptiness and serenity of the street on Christmas day, the Christmas market, the sale, the rush for everyone to go home, the turkey and gravy, the cranberry sauce, the Christmas pudding, the cooking night in my supervisor's house... etc etc etc...

To be frank, I have enjoyed Christmas over the past 10 years, that I now feel more attached to Christmas than Chinese New Year.

I have been visiting my friend F almost every Christmas while in UK. This year she and her family has moved to Hong Kong, and I am visiting her over the Christmas again. It made me missed the days in UK more.

She asked me what do I plan to do while in HK, I really had no idea. Year after year, I visited her just for the sake of spending time with her and her family, with her lovely three cats and the dog. Also to run away from my daily hectic cycle.

This year, while there isn't any Christmas atmosphere here, I have made myself a little brooch, here it is.

MERRY CHRISTMAS & HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE.

<:3)~<:3)~<:3)~...

I once saw three little mice ran out from my kitchen, in the early morning.

The front mouse was running fast, the second one was biting the tail of the first one, and followed by the third mouse biting the second's tail. Three of them were so tiny, I bet their eyes were not fully developed yet.

<:3)~<:3)~<:3)~...

Lunch time

I have been pretty lucky to have not work in any local office until today. Therefore, there are a lot of strange things that happened in my office, that make me feel like an alien.

In my office, everyone has to take turn to sit in during the lunch time, at the front desk to pick up phone calls, answer the door bell etc., including managers. Until one fine day, the MD made a huge noise, and he got exempt. Then the managers made noise, and they got exempt... and left the rest of us.

We only have one young lady sitting at the front desk. I understand that she too has to take her lunch, but I think it is very unfair for us to do her job. I think we should practice alternative lunch hour for her, instead of having everyone takes turn to sacrify our lunch time. Perhaps just set a pre-recorded voice message to inform the incoming caller(s) to call back after lunch. Besides, we all have our direct line, so it is very unlikely for the front desk person to re-direct the calls.

To answer door bell from delivery services is easy, not all of us eat out, we could just open the door once in a while when there are people coming. In any case, it doesn't require a person to sit there all the time.

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Besides the lunch hour duty, some of my colleagues like to take a nap in the office after lunch. Though they claimed it is normal, which I too had commited it a couple of times... I still find it very odd for people to do so.

I have never worked in an office in this country before, but my experience from UK is that, you shouldn't be sleeping while you are working. I think many of my friends who are working locally will agree with me, that taking a nap in the office is strange, or perhaps unacceptable. I have stopped joining the "afternoon nap team".

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My office also have some really calculative guys. They take their lunch hour to sort out their personal stuff, between 12pm - 1pm. They then come back at 1pm, with the lunch box take away, walk into the office, and eat in front of their computer, while everyone resumed working. These people claimed that they are entitled to have lunch... but well, their lunch hour has been more than an hour. And the rest of us have to endure the smell of food in the confined air-cond. room.

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My office, though located in a place called "commerce centre", it doesn't have any bank, any post office, any McDonald's, any convinient store, nor any stationery shop. It is filled with offices, restaurants and car parks. The building is located in the middle of no where, and surrounded by very bad traffic, with virtually-never-appeared-public-transport (I have never seen a bus stopping there or driving up the road, at any time of the day, despite seeing a bus stop).

So, while others can settle their bills and payment over the lunch hour, we can't do that, unless we drive out the area. This will then lead to another country-wide problem -- can't find a car park.

Anyway, this is just me moaning about the stupidity of the local town planning...

Honesty and sincerity

I remembered someone asked me what do I look for in my partner, I replied honesty and sincerity.

In fact, these do not just apply to my partner, but apply for friendship and other people I met.

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I went to see a supplier today, with my boss. This supplier, Mr. M, did not show any interest when I first called him last week to book an appointment to meet up for this week. I then found out later last week, that under the same address for this supplier, there is another company name. Out of curiosity, I called this other company, and his secretary Ms. J picked up the phone. She confirmed that the two company names are actually falling under the same owner, and that she can help me to arrange a meeting with Mr. M.

So, eventually we met Mr. M this morning. It turns out that he appeared alright in front of my ang moh boss. I found that he is obviously very proud of himself, and I have seen his "two-face" through this meeting, he showed his honesty when we talked about the specifications of our order, but he is really lack of sincerity.

Well, it takes a certain level of self confidence and guts to be honest. And it takes some level of respects and appreciation to be sincere. In my humble opinion, a person who is proud, must have known his field inside out, very confident of what he is doing and has obviously received a high recognition for his knowledge.

One thing for sure, for a person who is so proud, often finds it hard for others to agree with him from the bottom of the heart, or in other word, appreciate him. Reason being, this person often doesn't understand the limits of others, and seldom show appreciation for others' effort. In most of the cases, proud people who gainned high recognition are putting a lot more effort to reach to the summit. Therefore to them, the effort that done by others are merely a basic requirement.

A person is being so proud, because he thinks that's how he supposed to react to his recognitions, and he wants respects. Ironically, only when you can respect and appreciate others, you will get the sincere respect and acceptance from the bottom of the heart of others.