My Poor Calculator

My poor old calculator had finally come to its end just now, I murdered it! With hot chocolate.........TT_TT *sob*And I don't usually carry coffee or hot chocolate drinks onto my working desks...

It has been with me for about 16 years, been with me everyday, everywhere, survived through the rains, flood, snow, ice, sweat, and even desert heat. Also managed to survive through the height of building, stress of the exam halls, heat of anger and frustrations, pressure from my body weight, compression of various luggages, interference of magnets...It has also flew across various tables and chairs with rough landings, dropped countless times onto concrete floors, carpets, green fields, muds etc.

It was a tough calculator, unlike those in the market these days.

I love its rubber number pad, it is so quiet and soft, and the numbers are as vivid as ever. Unlike those plastic number pads in the recent calculators, they are noisy and looks cheap.

I also love its functions, which was easier to manuveour. You pressed the numbers first, before pressing the functions (cos, sin etc), which is how we normally work things out anyway. I hate those latter versions, where you have to press the functions first, then only input the numbers. It means that all the workings I have done previously, to determine the numbers, has to be erased, and re-input again... how stupid.

I love its metal cover, those edged in symbols never faded away.

I love its uniform thickness and sizes, the new ones these days have weird shapes, which made it hard to slip it into my jeans, when I need to climb up and down.

Sigh, I wonder if it could be fixed when I got home tonight.
Will upload its photo later.

So long, my beloved calculator. RIP.

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Update: 27 Nov 2009

Oh Man! My calculator came alive!

I was feeling all sad and tried to dry the calculator on my desk under the aircondition, without opening it up (cause I don't have the small screw driver).

It came alive just after a couple of hours!

So I took it home, gave it a good cleaning -- with the dirt accumulated all these years, it was pretty tough to clean it up.

Anyway, the calculator is alive now! And it is all clean. This is what I called the tough calculator -- able to survive the hot chocolate (with sugar and milk)!

So, here's my tough calculator, tada~~!

Things I have done this year

These are the things I have done in 2008: http://mechanicalmelon.blogspot.com/2008/11/happy-birthday-to-me.html

For this year, let me see what I have done...

1. Went to Hong Kong for the first time, it was Xmas last year. Visit some old friends.

2. Witnessed the real colours of most of the colleagues in my office - Mr. Pig, Ir. Decamouth, Ir. Twoheadsnake, Mr. Cockroach (aka Mr. Bell), Mr. Big (aka Mr. Paramount), Ms. Azreal, Mr. Woodchild etc.

3. Witnessed two retrenchments in a year.

4. Started my violin lesson in March, finally.

5. Went to Kuantan for the first time, for work.

6. Went to Singapore couple of times, only for 1 or 2 days stay, for work.

7. Won IMechE Speech competition.

8. Experiencing Flintstone Age in my office -- Internet got cut off totally.

9. Went for so-called-site-meeting for the first time, with lots of men shouting across the table for nothing.

10. Started and closed a project for the first time.

11. Went to India for the first time, for my boyfriend's schoolmate's wedding.

12. Bought an expensive handbag/workbag, that I have longed for years, for myself in June. Got it carried by my friends all the way from UK, what a sin, sorry mate.

13. Father went to hospital for open heart surgery.

14. Started my voluntary work in Tzu Chi out-reach clinic, but my attendance hasn't been good.

15. A virtual friend, graduated from PhD in USA got into NUS, Singapore as a lecturer, I am very proud of his guts.

16. Met up with old uni-mate after work the other day, to solve for first year engineering dynamics problem... Yes, we are geeks.

17. Jumped two departments within a year.

18. Witness the fear of AH1N1.

19. Went to Sabah for the first time, for work.

20. While I was in Sabah, I went into the Palm Oil Mill for the first time, for work of course. It smelled like margerine. Ha!

21. Talking to the customer as a Sales person for the first time, and hated it.

22. Went to Indonesia Sumatra island for the first time, for work.

23. Bought a pair of Crocs for the first time, after experiencing countless ankle twists with my old shoes.

24. Done my first sales proposal for the first time.

25. Witness the guts to be honest from my boss.

26. Got the news of going to USA for training, but no details after the news.

27. Met up with two of my virtual friend from Shanghai, who got married and come here for honeymoon. I got to know this group of Shanghai virtual friends about 8 years ago, when I was in UK. They had given me a lot of emotional supports, when I was struggling with my PhD.

28. Met up with CX, who has decided to leave academic for good.

29. Received an invitation to join the teaching force in one of the local college, from my ex-colleague.

30. Met up with an old friend, who lost contact for more than 10 years.

31. Made eye-brow trimming as one of my routine.

32. Lost my temper in the office.

33. Tried the most expensive cupcake in my life.

34. Bought a ring.

I guess most of the things I wrote above are trivial and non-specific, there are lot more of these small stuffs, but I can't list them all out. These trivial and non-specific items have brought me lots of memories over the whole pass year, and had made part of me.

I will continue to make mistakes in this next year, and hopefully I can learn faster and be wiser than the rate the mistakes were made.

Thank you everyone for enduring my childish-ness, and giving me the opportunities and trust to learn and develop.

My Birthday

I started my birthday today by playing Happy Birthday to myself, with my violin in the car.

Before lunch today, I received a bouquet of flowers and a box of chocolate from my boyfriend. I spread the chocolates to all the colleagues, nothing was left.

I then received a book from our agent in Taiwan, it is regarding the founder of Tzu Chi Organisation.

At the end of the day, I went to a bakery shop to get some really expensive cupcakes, brought them home, and went for dinner with family.

These are the presents I received today, the two yellow boxes are the cupcakes.

These are the beautiful and delicious cupcakes, it is from www.delectable.com.my.

These cupcakes may look over-sweetened by the rock hard sugar coatings, but they are in fact not as sweet and hard as we thought. The rabbit/yellow is ginger flavour, bear/blue is chocolate flavour, and pink/sheep, I think, is lemon flavour -- cause my taste buds got so numbed after eating the ginger one. The ginger flavour has the strongest taste, and it can cover all other flavours.

Came back from Palembang

Well, the trip is pretty fine for me. Palembang isn't a very safe city for female to walk alone...

I went out in the morning to take a walk, trying to familiarise myself with the surrounding. When I got back to the hotel to meet up with my boss and our guide, that's what the guide warned me.

People there seem to like MPV and 4WD a lot -- all the cars a big. I guess it is because the petrol there are cheap.

I went into those towers that are older than myself, seeing them standing strong, except some minor defects, I felt as if I have witnessed the history with my own eyes. And I somehow see how the people trial and error with their engineering knowledge at that time, they are just as insecure and inexperience as myself today.

There was an open concert on the second night we stayed. The traffic was really bad when we went out for dinner that night. People are sticking to your car while you are driving... that's a whole new level of intimate driving.

And after the trip, both my boss and me got ill, I bet I got the virus from him.

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When I got back to the office this Thursday, I received some sacarstic email and remarks from Cockroach and Twoheadsnake.

They needed my help with some vibration issues, and wrote it in a way as if I do not want to help the project department. They are holding grudges against me handing over the Sabah project to them.

Well, there are only so little people in the office, there is no way anyone could just split the tasks so clear. But the reason I wanted to handover is because I don't want to disappear to USA suddenly next year, without anyone knowing what's going on with the project.

I had never mentioned that I do not want to associate with project departments. I guess I couldn't determine how others think about me.

Nonetheless, I guess my inputs to their problem must be valuable, otherwise Twoheadsnake would not have repeated my words in front of others, in a way which sounded as if it was his own.

I guess I need to learn to enjoy jealousy?

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Back to the Palembang trip. One of the main thing I learned from my boss is: guts and honesty.

I really admire his frank attitude, cause it takes huge guts to be frank and stick to what is right. I often give way when people pushed harder, and hate myself after that.

I wonder if there will be a day I have enough wisdom to deal with all sorts of situations without a sweat, just like him.

Going to Palembang

Well, I drawn this more than a year ago, when I first joinned this company. But the trip to Indonesia was cancelled, so was the one to Vietnam.

Anyway, I will be going to Indonesia next week, to Palembang, to visit some towers that are even older than myself. Ha!

Have been travelling quite a bit recently, just came back on Monday, from a one day trip to Singapore for meeting... so happened that my bf, too, went to Singapore on the next day. I guess there really might be chances that we eventually meet / date a the airport or highway rest area... -___-!

He was planning to go to Australia on the week I go to Indonesia, but it got postponed to my birthday.

OK, talked too much, better take some rest to battle the office politics tomorrow. I wonder what's my level now? Cause my HP is running low.

Pimples + Constipation + Grumpy Mood = ...

I am having all of the above mentioned symptoms, it gets worse if PMS strikes.

I am getting very tired, mentally and physically. I find it more tiring during weekends, compared to weekdays.

I miss my days in UK, where I can afford 1-2 hours or even up to half a day, during weekends just to rest and do nothing. Life here is so rush, even sitting in front of the TV for one hour for an episode is considered luxury.

Idiotic drivers

I am so tempted to set up a website, where people can put up those car number plate of those idiotic drivers on the road, list out their offences and let the whole world knows.

A stupid driver parked in front of my house again, this stupid driver has been parking in front of my house every now and then. After he left his car here, he went far far away, that even honking won't bring him here to remove his car. Not to mention the car is usually parked here for so damn long.

When we return home, we can't park our car in front of our own house, and causing inconviniences to our neighbours. We then have to come out late at night to check if this idiot moved his car already or not, so that we can park our car back to our places. Sometimes this means late at night.

I am so angry today I nearly wanted to leak his tyre. But eventually I left a huge message on an A4 paper, and placed it under his windscreen wiper. I hope this idiot won't come back parking here again, or else I will have to take some action.

I know we all made mistakes on the road, so I guess setting up this idiot drivers report website and listing out the offences of the drivers, which could well be ourselves anyway, would help us be more considerate when we are behind the wheels.

Someone please help me to set up a website? m(_ _)m

Taste of the prohibited www

I am sending this from the office, a place where the access to www is prohibited.
How did I go into www then?

Well, it all thanks to our lazy IT -- Mr. Woodchild. I had some problem with the lotus notes, which requires his help.

Apparently, he doesn't know how to solve it, and totally ignored me. So I wrote a message to our helpdesk in the HQ, and got a reply asking me to click on the registry button. But I need Mr. Woodchild to do that, cause I am not authorised to mess with the registry.

Anyway, when I called Mr. Woodchild at 8.30am this morning, he was still in bed. I suggested him to let me using someone else's computer (cause there are lots of idle pc around, since lots of people have left), while he fixed mine.

He was so lazy to fix my problem, that he gave me the administrator password, and I am now using my own laptop under the admin's right...

That's how I got the access to www... ^_^

But I guess I have been deprived from www for too long, I no longer know where to go when the search engine is on.... -____-!