Summary of 2012

There are only a few more days before the end of this year. I realised I have been very busy trying to cope with marriage life and have not been updating my blog frequently. It is difficult to balance work and marriage.

There is less than a week's time before 2013, I didn't take time to reflect what I have done this year during my birthday, so I am going to do it now and give myself a few days time to think of my new target for 2013.

I have been travelling a lot this year, visited 6 countries this year and revisited half of them again within a year. The travelling schedule was especially hectic over the past two months. I visited 5 countries over the past two months, spent 3 weeks of November in 3 countries. It may sound odd to many, but I really don't want to board a plane to anywhere now, not in the near future, neither work nor leisure.

Other things I did this year:
... Started picking up readings again, and found a few good books. (刘墉 《我不是教你诈》系列、禤素莱 《战地情书》、Clayton Christensen "How will you measure your life?")
... Went to Siem Reap and was amazed by the life of history. It was my first time to Cambodia.
... Visited Korea for the first time, and managed to visit again late this year, which I managed to spend a good day in a palace in Seoul by myself.
... Went to Bangkok shopping trip for the first time.
... Conducted product commissioning for the first time in Philippines. It was my first time to Philippines too.
... Conducted vibration diagnostic on a finished product for the first time on my own in Taiwan.
... Attended government organised marriage workshop, it was pretty informative but too bad my husband couldn't enjoy it due to the language barrier.
... Got my father an iPhone.
... Brought my mother to remove her cataract.
... Secured over USD 1.3mil sales in my first year involvement in sales activities.
... Received silver star award for my contribution to the company sales.
... Celebrated Chinese New Year the first time as someone's wife, and was shocked by my husband's extended family members that visited them on the first day of the new year.
... Called a stranger for the first time to chase for money.
... Was tailed by a road bully in a morning due to protesting his reckless and unsafe driving. I saw him again later this year on my way to work.
... Discard the use of handbag and changed to a small purse to avoid unnecessary attention from snatch thieves.
... Experienced the longest traffic jam (3 hours) in my life so far, due to the rainy Ramadan after work rush hour.
... Late for work for the first time, thanks to the flash flood. It took me over 2 hours to get to work as I was stuck at less than 2km away from the office for over 1 hour.
... Late for flight for the first time, due to the lousy traffic planning for the Sepang International Grand Prix. The traffic craw started right after the toll house and it made me craw for over an hour to the airport, it was about 10km distance. The traffic police did nothing to ease the scenario.
... Argue in public for the first time with the AirAsia ground crew due to their rude attitude. I was not allowed to board the flight after my luggage was checked in. (I arrived at the gate just when the the gate was closed). The ground crew manager, who dare not even show his name, told me, "In here, you listen to me, not I listen to you!"
... Faced a difficult "Mat Saleh" customer in Taiwan.
... Challenged the management and fought for my rights when bullied by the managers.
... Got my company phone upgraded from Nokia monochrome GSM candybar to Samsung Galaxy Y.
... Finished paying my car loan.
... Fell down on the tar road when walking a dog.
... Re-organised my messy bank accounts.
... Enrolled into a Korean Language class which starts next year.

I think I have completed or almost completed the things I planned to do in 2012:

1. Finish moving and unpacking my stuff.
I have bought a cupboard from IKEA in August and unpacked most of the stuff. There are still some minor things in boxes, which I was thinking if I should just throw them away or find space for them. It is hard to throw your memories away.

2. Find a new career.
I am still struggling on this, the newspaper job adverts are getting thinner and thinner these days.

I applied to a few companies, one of them was pretty interesting but their 3rd party recruitment agent kicked me out because I couldn't fit in all their check boxes.

I went for an interview with another company this year, it was a second interview with that company. There was no response from them after that meeting. I called their HR to follow up, but their HR avoided my call. I thought that was pretty rude, as one should at least give the two finalists an update call or email. After all, we took our day off to participate in the interview, and they even knew I cancelled my honeymoon flight to attend the interview.

I need to find harder in this new year. If you heard to two-factor theory or motivation theory by Frederick Herzberg, the hygiene factor in the office is getting worse by day. The MD's contract will come to an end soon, he has been getting very desperate hygiene factor is the least of his care now. He may get his extension, but he has gotten into the dynamics of pointing the fingers to others.

3. Take care of my own donation accounts.
I have took care of them, and wonder if I should increase a few more donations.

4. Participation in charity work.
Well, I have not been participating over the past few months due to all the travelling.

5. Exercise 3 times a week.
Hard to keep it, I don't get to leave the office sharp 5pm everyday in order to arrive home at 6pm to exercise. Leaving the office 5.30pm means I arrived home around 7pm, which would be too dark to jog around.

I can't exercise in the morning, because I leave home around 6.15am in order to avoid the traffic. There isn't much time for me in the morning.

I wasted a lot of time in the traffic jam, a normal single journey takes 1 hour. It would extend to 2 hours if it rains. If it were the Ramadan month, the day before and after the long weekends, first day of school, a single journey would need twice the amount of time.

6. Keep in touch with my friends.
I met them a few times this year, but mainly organized by one of my old friends. I didn't take initiatives in calling them up.

7. Visit my family once a month.
Have not been visiting enough due to the travelling schedule and works at home.

8. Rewarding myself once a month.
I took a few days off work in November to rest from the hectic travel, and made use of my replacement holidays in December to do nothing but stay at home.

I saved some amount over the months and blown all of them in the shopping trip with my friends in Bangkok in October. Not to mention that I have bought a few polo-shirts that shrunk 2 size after washing.... *frustration*

9. Start growing my own vegetables.
My baby leeks weren't doing well, I transferred them to a pot and put them under the sun. They are growing ok now, but the quantities are not enough to make a meal for the family.

The passion fruit plant was badly damaged when the residential contractor installed the barbed wires along the fences a few months ago. We were forced to cut away majority of the plant to let it grow again. It is still recovering, it produced one fruit since then.

My sugar cane was chopped away recently by the residential contractor too, when they came by to cut the grass in the neighbourhood. They mistook the sugar cane buds as wild grass, it was about 1m tall when it was chopped away.

In fact, they cut away my baby leeks previously too, they seemed to mistake everything as wild grass.

I brought two more branches of sugar cane from my parents' house to grow them here, and put little fences around them this time. Hopefully they won't get chopped away again.

I would like to grow some aloe vera and papayas in 2013.

10. Went for Siem Reap for honeymoon, it was a great place.

11. My world map project has yet to start. My fridge magnets continue piling up.

I need to think of some better targets for 2013.

Safety Personal Protective Equipment

There was some stories before my month long trip begins.

I requested a new pair of boots since over two months ago, and Ms. Azreal mentioned to Ms England that Decamouth did not approve it as he thinks we are spending too much on safety boots, when we could just purchase some other brands off the local hardware shops like what he does, in order to save money for the company.

England and myself were pretty mad at this, but MD seemed to agree with Decamouth, so we kept quiet.

When Decamouth wanted me to come to Philippines to commission the products, and I told him my safety boots are worn out, and need a new pair. He asked me to buy it from local hardware shop, I told him I couldn't find my size. I also asked him for the budget, he said there is none, just buy whichever that suits me. I then challenged him why not then let me buy the one that I requested two months ago, since I know for sure that model suits my feet?

He said he didn't know about the request. I was really pissed by his lies, I referred Azreal's words on the request was not approved by management, so if he doesn't know about it, could it mean that he is not a member of the management? I enjoyed seeing his face turning black. He pushed it back to Azreal, since she hasn't been back from maternity leave, and said it would be done when Azreal is back. I just enjoyed the moment and told him it would be too late, as I would be walking around in the China factories and Philippines construction sites risking my safety, would the company take responsibilities if anything occurred? I also told him a couple of near miss incidents I encountered due to the disintegrating boots and other safety equipments.

He asked me to log these incidents so that the company knows it. But our office doesn't have any safety policies or channels for us to log our incidents all these years, we have always been solving things on our own. But I think it is a good start, so when he raised it to the HR, I wrote a detail report. With that, he managed to get himself a pair of new boots, by saying that his technical department members must all obtained updated personal protective equipments (PPE).

Eventually, he got Azreal to arrange for the PPE supplier bringing some shoe samples to the office and purchased them. But I still visited China and Philippines with that disintegrating boots and risking my safety as the PPE supplier couldn't give us the products in short period of time. Especially the female boots sizes are pretty rare and they don't keep the stock.

Travelling November

Just noticed that I haven't been updating this blog for almost 3 months.
Life have been pretty hectic coming towards the end of the year.

I have been travelling a lot since end of October.
It started with a trip to Bangkok with my high school friend and her family in October, which I planned since early this year. It was more like a revenge to my husband's active night life/social life, because I hardly get to see him earlier this year due to his frequent mamak time with his friends. So I thought I should give myself some time off too. But I guess things somehow turned out quite too much...

After returning from the 4 days shopping trip in Bangkok, I was told by the MD to go to South Korea, and was also asked by the US colleague if I could join him in his visit to China. So, I headed off to South Korea and jumped to China.

This trip to South Korea gave me some chance to look around, as my flight to China was over the weekend. I went to the Changdeokgong palace, and had some peaceful moment on my own inside the king's secret garden.

Seoul is a very vibrant city, and Gangnam is especially high-tech. I was lost in Gangnam, and came to realize that the huge black pillars that served like the street lights, are also multipurpose interactive tourist boards that have maps etc.

In my China trip, I saw some living history in one of the China factories, see below.

This image looks exactly like one of those we seen in our history text books, talking about industrial revolutions. But the picture was taken when these people were working right before my eyes. I guess only engineers could appreciate this? The manual labour involved in this is enormous.

Of course, there were also some real kick-ass state-of-art Aluminium foundry we saw, but I couldn't take any pictures. China reminded me a little of USA -- everything is big.

Right after returning from China, my trip to Philippines has been arranged. The trip was meant for two weeks travelling from North to South of Philippines, but the job site in the South had some demonstrations, so our trip to Philippines was shortened to only a week. (I travelled with Mr. Experience in Philippines.)

I was extremely tired when returning from China, and was secretly feeling glad that this trip to Philippines is only a week instead of two. Although I still have to return again early next year to the South.

This trip to Philippines also coincide with my birthday, it falls on a Saturday. I spent my birthday in the job site climbing 60 ft above the ground, walking on thin structures and frames. Although I like engineering, but kinda feeling sad that I have to work over the weekend and my birthday, while the office politicians have been shooting arrows at my back.

I met our representative in the birthday evening, we celebrated in the hotel restaurant with half a coconut cake and a bouquet of lilies. I doubt I could bring the flowers back to Malaysia -- It wouldn't worth quarantine it in the airport.

The plants are in some remote places in Philippines. On our way to the plants, I saw a river was entirely filled by the volcano sludge and turned into very unique grey/black stripes of land, stretching miles and miles.

I saw large sugarcane fields and padi fields along the highway that has no ends, the large stretch of light purple sugarcane flowers under the huge dead volcano was giving a oddly peaceful aura.

I also saw mountainful of coconut trees with huge underground geothermal steam pipes snake around it and around the villages to get into the plant. Coconut trees were sweeping as the wind blows, and the geothermal steam merged with the moving white clouds, everything is so dreamy and serene. If it weren't the hot sun, the sweat, the machine and construction sounds we made, it would be a heaven.

Back to reality, one thing I find common in all these 3 countries, is the horrible traffic jam.

Mushroom rice needs attention

I came across an article that made reference to Dr. Emoto's rice experiment:

Three bowl of rice were capped and put together.

The person speak good words to first bowl of rice for a week, ignore the second bowl of rice and scold the third bowl of rice.

At the end of the week, the first bowl of rice turned brownish but kept it's fragrance, the third bowl of rice turned black. The second bowl of rice turned black and grew moldy.

The result was regarding positive thinking and its energy. It seems that ignoring someone is the worst of all.

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We have a new girl came into the office, she is a relative of Ms. Sulky, she is replacing Ms. Azreal during her maternity leave.

She sits next to Ms. England.

Decamouth was very eager yesterday, showing his concern to Ms. England on her messy working desk.

"Your desk is pretty messy er?"
England was pretty slack about it, "Yeah, I don't have any place to store things."
Decamouth seized the chance! "Well, you need a cupboard, I have one in my old seat in the sales department!"
England continued to slack, "Oh yeah?"
Decamouth continued, "... I can clear it for you."

The next thing I saw, Decamouth was using a trolley bringing that empty cabinet over to this side of the office for England. He even carried that cabinet down from the trolley by himself.

I am not sure about others, but it is obvious to me that he is showing off to this new girl.
This new girl also noticed that Decamouth had been looking at her very frequently from his office.

This made me want to vomit, because Decamouth doesn't even carry the water refill cartridge to the kitchen water cooler!

And today, he is walking around as if he forgot to wipe his bottom after taking a dump, trying to claim that it was due to carrying heavy weight. What an arse!

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Decamouth has always been an arse, and I found out that he does this to crave for attention and appraisals.

I sometimes wonder if he had a mountainful of moldy rice harvest in his heart...

What is your true colour?

We have surely met some people in our lives, who are good at very specific things, but do not know how to do most other trivial things in life.

Our finance manager is on of them.

She is same age as me, but have been living a pretty easy life to most of us. She owned a driving license, but don't know how to drive. Her mother fetch her to the office and fetch her home. She brings lunch from home, prepared by her mother. She doesn't know the basic ethics when meeting clients, very blunt but very sharp when it comes to figures.

She can split the bills accurately to the cents between 14 people. She can calculate things so accurately that you won't pay one cent more to the government or any party. She is very precise in her share and not her share, especially when it comes to job scope and hierarchy rights.

She insisted that managers should have the priority to choose the company allocated car park space, over the executives, despite the MD prohibiting choosing carparks.

There is no grey area like, "you scrub my back, I scrub your back."

She lives entirely in her own world.

The MD brought in five fat mangoes today to the office, this finance manager likes food, and she will take any free food without hessitation, and own it entirely to herself.

To have 5 mangoes among 14 person in the office, we need to cut all the mangoes and share it among the group.

I didn't realise she took one mango to herself, and was commenting to the other colleague that the person who took the mango to his/herself is very selfish. She over heard it and offered to share with me. I was like "Oups, I said the right stuff at the wrong time and place." Anyway, since she offered it, I said ok, and asked her to cut it, since she was having the mango and the knife. I felt that, if I rejected it, it would only make me looked like a guilty party.

So she took the knife, and slice a tiny portion out with the skin, and said to me ''There is no peeler in the kitchen, I don't know how to peel. So you take this, I will take the rest."

I wasn't sure it was because of her lack of living skills or she really wanted to have the entire mango to herself, but I felt pity for her.

I saw her digging away the large portion of the mango, with the core still attached, dripping the mango everywhere, I believe she really never cut a mango before, with a knife.

I mean, you really don't need a peeler to prepare a mango. Anyway, I wasn't really into the mango, but was only curious to know how this person is... and I think her true colour is the mango yellow.

Good anime

It has been a long time since I last watched something good... Came across The Secret World of Arrietty just now and spent some time on it. It was simple and sweet.

Life have been very busy and targetless. Anime like this reminded me of those research days. Things are so simple and I only need to focus on the research, my mind was clear as the water, my life was satisfying and fulfilling as the ripen fruits.

Never had I felt so empty and busy like now, yet feeling tired and having my mind fogged up so badly. I couldn't see my future.

I was awarded a silver star the other day. The face of it was for my contribution to the South Korea market, but the fact was for the MD to shut my mouth and to make me sound stupid complaining about the unfair stuffs going on in the office, and about his bias thoughts on me.

I helped the IT consultant recently in the Windows 7 system upgrade and came across a confidential document from the MD's backup files. It was an evaluation and 5 years plan for this office. I was unfortunately identified as the most problematic employee, least chance for career advancement. I was also identified as emotional when taking up multiple tasks, which was an unfair claim without taking into consideration of the scenario for saying the truth under the threat of losing my job.

I don't come to work fighting for names and power, I work for self improvements and professional growth. I raised questions to things that doesn't sound right, and make noise to get things done. I guess I learned my lesson seeing the dirty tricks from these people not wanting to do their jobs, yet yearning for credits and attentions.

I know I shouldn't have read that document, but I also start to feel that honesty and sincerity is merely a relative term. It is only worthwhile in front of people who can appreciate it.

The dark vinegar is brewing... I hope I won't loose myself in this strange world.

A day in Setia Mall

Went to Setia Mall last Saturday, I was disappointed by the lack of preparation of the mall. If it weren't due to the Parkson 5x Bonuslink and its location (close to my side of the town), I wouldn't be there.

The map on the newspaper advertisement is amazingly simple, without road sign and landmarks.

There weren't a single sign board from highway/main road etc. leading to Setia Mall.
There weren't even a road sign around the mall.

Lots of illegal parking around the peripheral access road. (that's how we identified the entrance...)

The carpark floor was not epoxy coated, very dusty and still have the concrete cement smell.
Signage in the carpark was poor, lack of floor directories.

The glass panels were not cleaned, there were still some construction smudges all over the place.
The wood handles were not polished.

The mall was not properly lit, the air conditioning broken down, dusty floor, some shops still had those chemical smell of new renovation -- so strong it made me tear. Most shops had no internet line, phone line, as a result, they couldn't take credit card.

Parkson was one of the better prepared shop in the mall, but the brands in Parkson wasn't as complete as other Parkson in town. I visited the Ladies department, the clothing taste and brand location was disorganised -- you don't know if they are targeting youngsters, young adults, or mature adults.

I have to say Padini concept store has better fashion jewelleries than Parkson.

I didn't get to visit Uniqlo though, from the outside, they look well organised and prepared to do business in this new location.

I was glad that Setia Mall management decided to give out free parking for that day due to the dysfunctional air conditioning.

It has been a while

I have not been able to access to this blog for a long while. Just got back from a long postponed honeymoon to Cambodia. Loaded some photos to Facebook.

Cambodia is generally poor, Siem Reap is considered their pretty good town,but it is about 30-50 year behind some of our South East Asian countries. Nonetheless I love Cambodia for its people, they still have some basic human trusts among the crowd. They aren still some very precious human interactions and instinct that will soon be lost as the country advances.

Things are not cheap in Siem Reap, everythings starts from USD1, from fridge magnets to a pencil. Otherwise, it would be USD 20....nothing in between. But it is relatively easy to haggle compared to China.

Perhaps we visited the market pretty early (around noon) so they are superstitious about getting the first deal than making good profits.

Food and drinks are considered expensive, judging from the average local income (USD 140 a month.). A meal in local hawker stall next to the road, not by any tourist hot spot cost about USD5.

We went to Angkor Wat, entrance is USD 20 per person for 1 day and USD40 for 3 days. Most of the attractive stuffs are in the small circuit. The grand circuit consists mainly small temples and barriered archeology sites.

The main attractions are Angkor Wat, Bayon temple and Ta Phorm, which means main temple in local language. Those huge trees that grow in between the temple structures are impressive, it shows the age of the temples, but it also destroys the temple through time. It somehow shows the Buddhist believe - nothing stays or gone forever.

In the trip to Tonle Sap lake, we witnessed some poor lives,but it made me wonder if they would be any happier if they were richer.... We lost many things to get rich and developed, but in the end all we asked for are the same old basic things.

I am sure there are a lot more pitiful stuffs happening in Cambodia, especially with their rich mineral-precious gems. I hope they will learn to protect themselves better.

Illegal stuff

I have been receiving orders in my sales countries these days, things are starting to pay off.
But despite trying to sell standard products with very little specials, we have problems meeting the delivery time -- for almost all the orders.

One of the project was so desperate and urgent, that I had to place the order prior to receiving PO.

It is illegal.

With lots of sales, meaning I am also having a lot more enquiry.
Decamouth assigned me a few larger enquiries that require a lot of focus in reading the spec, quoting the product, and liaising with our global team. Well, his style of assigning things is always one-liner.

One of our rep. asked me to jack up the price for 200% in order for him to get a better commission, and asked me to whink some figure out for things that have no clear supply scope.

I refused to comply, but had nonetheless jacked up the price for 50% to satisfy his persistance.

I feel that I am doing something illegal.

I raised my work load concern to Decamouth (he is now my boss), and suggested that we could share our work among the team. But I was told that I should learn to manage my work. I mentioned that no one else could attend to those request due to the technical contents of the job, he insisted that I should learn to manage my work and stop complaining. I felt insulted when I am struggling badly and approached him after trying all I have, and even given him a suggestion on how to overcome this.

I guess I should start pushing some of the things that come my way to him. I tried that before on some small cases, and he couldn't attend to them at all (and made lots of noise). So I guess I understand his resistance to my suggestion.

On top of that, I think Decamouth is jealous over my salary. He mentioned to me that I should feel content over the recent 5% increment, because he has none. I laughed, did he think I was naive or stupid, when he made such comment?

Cataract removal

My mum just went through her cataract removal procedures. Both her eyes had the new lenses now.

I have been on annual leave since first day of her operation. Today will be the last day after staying with my parents for a week. I feel sad that I have to return to my husband's house tomorrow, while he will be away for business trip, leaving me and my mother in law at home.

The cataract removal is a simple procedure, but it takes a lot of post-operation care. My brother helped with the cooking most of the time, while I have been the driver. I don't enjoy the kitchen work, and don't have much passion on food. I much prefer stucked in the traffic than stucked in the kitchen.

I am pretty depressed now.

Bits and pieces

I have been busy travelling between my husband's house and my own home recently.
My mum just removed the cataract from her right eye today, she will do the same for her left eye coming Monday. So I am staying at home during this time.

After the visit to Korea, our agent had placed their first order, which is also my first order today. Not much, but was pretty pleased. Despite all the quality issue we have recently on our China product, and the discouragement from our MD, I am still feeling rather pleased... may be some hint of disappointment, because now that Korean market has showed some potentials, the MD said that he will take it away from me, and let some other sales person handling it.

There are still a lot of work to follow up for the order. So I shouldn't slack too much.

In fact, I should actually start looking actively for jobs, instead of letting the workload pouring over me. I am too tired covering Decamouth's work due to his incompetency, trying to open a road for myself by keep requesting to be in the sales team, and trying very hard to adapt myself to this new life after marriage.

I think I deserve a better treatment for my contributions.

Korea visit

Went to South Korea for business trip, thanks to Decamouth, the trip was rush and ill timed. To be specific, I was only spending my time in Seoul.

Anyway, I visited South Korea with Ms. Sulky, it was our first visit to South Korea and her first visit to four seasons country during winter, though the trip was short, I was able to try some authentic Korean food, except the beef and the beer -- Sulky doesn't eat and drink a lot of things.

I shared a room with Sulky, because she was afraid to sleep alone... sigh, first time in my life I met a mature lady who never slept alone before, which I find it hard to believe and understand.

A lady from our sales agent brought us to have a brief walk in Myeongdong street one night, and I brought a pack of ginseng face mask out of her recommendation. I tried it on after coming home, and I felt like a live ginseng after putting that mask on my face.

Got to see some young handsome kids dancing on some street performance.

I noticed most Koreans have very good skin, and am jealous. >_<

Meanwhile, our company phone was not working in South Korea, as the company did not subscribed 3G service provider nor 3G enabled phones for executives, which is different from managers. So both of us couldn't connect to any mobile network. To top it up, my wireless internet connection on the company laptop was disabled by the system administrator while upgrading our IT security. So I was practically disconnected from the world during that trip.

Ms. Sulky reflected the mobile issue to the MD and HR, the MD was disappointed with the double standard implemented by the HR, and the HR only mentioned that our mobile service provider confirmed that our package does not have 3G and said nothing more.

Anyway, despite the inefficiency of our company, I quite enjoyed the trip and the cold weather there.

1st Chinese New Year as a wife of someone

As we all know, Chinese have a lot of traditions to follow, and depending on the clan, there are different ways of doing things.

This is the first time I celebrated Chinese New Year with my husband's family. It is a totally different culture to mine. Although I am not particularly in agreement with some of the things they do, but in the name of respect, I kept my mouth shut. Nonetheless, I played along and entertained tonnes of stranger relatives and their intimate questions. I hope when it comes to my husband's turn to visit my family, he will at least stay for a longer time, without playing with his phone or flipping the TV channels.

I feel that women after married lost their identity. They become someone's something. Wife is just one of the checkboxes in men's life. Chinese stress on caring the elderly, ironically I always felt that the maternal family and relatives are conviniently forgotten, or put at a lower priority.

I guess gender equality can only be achieved without getting married. Once married, you are done.

Anyway, men and women must not argue on such things, there is no right or wrong. We can only agree to disagree.

Happy New Year 2012

I would like to accomplished the following during this 2012 new year:

1. Finish moving and unpacking my stuff in my new home. -- I have lots of rubbish accummulated over the past decades, which I am having trouble finding time, energy and space to sort them out and place them nicely in this new home. My room is like a war zone now... and will be like this for a long time, because I will start work from tomorrow onwards. This means I have about 1 hour a day to do anything useful at home.

2. Find a suitable job to continue my engineering career. -- I had a nonsensical meeting with the corporate HR the other day. They told me despite my technical competencies and cross-functional roles in the office, they will not promote me nor transfer me to other departments, as it is not within the company's expectation for me to continue developing myself after returning from the USA office. They will, however, train Decamouth to become a better leader, so that myself and Ms England would like to continue working for him.

They requested me to give them 6 months period to see the transformation. Otherwise my resignation will be treated as my personal grudge against Decamouth.

I think it is time to change course. I will find a job in this new year, and leave them to their monkey business.

3. Take care of my own donation accounts. -- My parents have been managing those accounts since I was young. It is time for me to take care of it now.

If possible, I would like to visit these organisations this year.

4. Resume participation in charity work. -- I have stopped participating in charity work since before leaving to USA in 2010. Now that I am more settled, I guess I could take out a weekend per month to join my husband for some charity work.

5. Exercise at least 3 times a week in the park in front of my house. -- I haven't been doing much exercise, and after moving to this new place, there is no more reason, the park is less than 5 mins walk away from my house.

6. Keep in touch with my friends. -- I have been meeting my friends after married pretty frequently, and I love the time spent with them.

Unlike my husband who has all his friends and relatives around the same area, and could meet up for a chat anytime. I need to drive a little further, if not flying, in order to  meet up with my friends, which of course would spend a little longer time comparatively. I guess time management is the key.

7. Visiting my family at least once a month. -- Given that my family is pretty busy, it is hard to find them available at home... But I miss home after married.

8. Reward myself once a month, without blowing the budget. -- I have not been rewarding myself enough throughout 2011, and have dumped all the money at the end of the year for crazy shopping... I am guilty for spending a little too much in the shopaholic shrine.

9. Start growing my own vegetables. -- My passion fruit plant in my house has started producing large, juicy and passionately red fruits for months. I have started planting baby leeks in front of my husband's house. Let's hope it would start growing.

10. Go for honeymoon. -- My husband's friend has bought us a travel package as our wedding present. It is a travel package to Cambodia. We have not claimed or make any bookings, will need to get that done some time soon.

11. Find someone who can carve the world map onto a 4ft tall x 8ft long steel flat plate. I would like to hang it onto the wall in the stair well, and hook up all the fridge magnets collected from all over the world.