Whacked upside in the head once again

I know for sure that I’ll need to get my tampons ready in the next two days on the day my nose starts dripping ballistic. Not for stuffing my dripping nose with, although I just gave myself this brilliant idea. My current method to prevent a sore nose and to stop it dripping is to rip a piece of Kleenex facial tissue, roll up one half each and stuff them in my nostrils. Imagine how much easier this would be with regular or super sized tampons.

This nose-dripping phenomenon has been repeating itself the last two months after a hiatus of several months. I thought I’d boosted my immune system. Well, I thought wrong. My body is back to playing the waiting game with me. Just when I think everything is fine and dandy and I’ve planned a night out dancing, it whacks me in the head, starts my nose taps flowing and leaves me gasping in despair. Once again, I have to shove my dancing shoes back into their box.

I wonder if my eggs are any good at all at the rate I’m going.

A pinch of estrogen

It’s quite amusing to see what people will receive or do for free. A bunch of guy friends have free tickets to watch the preview of Jennifer Aniston’s latest chick flick tonight. There are four tickets and they are a gang of three. To even out the hormonal imbalance, one of them called me up to go watch the movie with them.

“Huh, you’re watching a chick flick?”

“It’s just us guys, man! We need a girl in our group.”

Talk about validation! I just find it so amusing and quite comical. I wonder if they would attract weird looks if they walked in and out of the cinema on their own?

Then again, I don’t think anyone would bother or even notice. It is Malaysia after all. The only time people stop to stare is when there’s a pile up or a fender bender on the roads or highways.

Advertising one's underwear from the inside out

It baffles me why some women wear black or dark coloured underwear under white tops. I often see women who wear black bras under white shirt or white T-shirts.

Today I came across a woman sporting a black panty underneath an unlined white skirt. I wonder if she realized that the colour and shape of her undies were visibly noticeable under her skirt.

I think it takes an awful lot of balls and indescribable layers of epidermis to layer your clothes so creatively. Especially if you’re dressing for work.

Mind-boggling!!

Two nights alone and thinking about busting my butt

The hubby is off to Janda Baik for two days for a work course thingy. In the middle of the night he scrambled to pack and discovered his track pants were nowhere to be found. He looked, I looked; they were nowhere to be found. He had to make a trip to his brother’s for stand-in pants.

I’m free in the evenings for two nights. This should be the best time to try to utilize it as best I can and possibly to get some salsa practice in.

I’m not sure if I can do much more guaguancos. I’m not used to sticking out my posterior and boobs and having my underwear show up above my pants. That and the way my thighs wobble when I try to walk after.

My cup runneth over (or so I would like to think)

There is something not quite right with my bra today. Either I’m sprouting or the clasp has gone awry. It’s unclasped itself about three times already just this morning. It’s never happened before.

Dare I think it? Dare I even hope that my breasts have taken it into their twin heads to suddenly go on a sprouting spree?

Or is it just my two-month old bra starting to fail on me?

I think I’ll be realistic and bank on the latter. No point getting my hopes up only to have them dashed.

Long John Silver's

I'm of the mind it's no coincidence that we had dinner at Long John Silver's and ended the night playing Pirate's Cove.

"Shiver my timbers!"

A major step backward, a tentative foot forward

Yesterday I did what I swore I wouldn’t do: I lost my temper. Not once but twice! In a day. In one meeting. It was very unprofessional.

I’d never realized how difficult it is to try and control my temper until I actually tried to do it. It’s like keeping a raging, foaming-at-the-mouth, totally out of control beast caged in. I failed utterly and miserably.

I blew up at my consultant because I didn’t listen and felt that she was questioning the integrity of my work. I blew up at my HR head because she overstepped her bounds and interfered unnecessarily with my department. It was a day of major spewing. I was the raging beast foaming at the mouth.

I was not proud of myself. Suffice to say I felt like the algae in the darkest parts of the longkang that never glimpse even the shadow of the sun.

I apologized to all parties involved, including the chairman for my utterly unprofessional conduct. And vowed to myself not to do this again.

I wonder why there's water coming out of my eyes

There is a baffling phenomenon that happens when I apologise to someone. Tears will start seeping out of my eyes on their own accord. Even though I'm talking calmly to the person, my eyes and tear ducts seem to have a mind of their own and the water seeps out. Esepcially if I apologise after I've blown my top like a sleeping volcano that's decided, "Enough's enough! It's time to spew!!".

I wish I didn't have a temper. I wish I could keep it under better control. I wish I could direct it to other people other than my family. I wish I didn't have a problem with authority.

At least I can still apologise and I am big enough to apologise. But the matter of the fact is, I already blew. I must stop spewing.

Just stop.

Counting the eggs before they've hatched

Okay, I admit it. We’re ready to have kids. Well, the truth of the matter is, I’m not quite sure that I’m ready but if we don’t start now, who knows when we’ll ever start having a family?

Who else but both sets of parents would be madly excited about our decision? The point was driven firmly home this morning when I got into the office.

My mom had packed last night’s leftover meehoon for my breakfast. Together with the noodles, she’d added another container. She excitedly explained to me that they were full moon eggs from a friend’s daughter. She had tried long and hard to conceive and finally, they were blessed with a baby.

“Here, the eggs are for good luck, eat them. So that you’ll conceive soon.”

??????

Evidently, this child, when it arrives will not want for anything.

Pirate's Cove!

Dinner was a hefty-sized Marsala Thosei with liberal helpings of tomato chutbey and coconut chutney, mmmm...I just love the stuff! Oh, and topped up with juicy Tandoori which I only half-finished. The remaining half went to Sam, the bottomless pit.

Games began with Blokus, which turned out to be boring if you are the first person who ends up without anywhere to put your piece. It was a short round, after which we moved on to Pirate's Cove. It was a looooong wait for the game master to explain the game, the rules, the moves, the many things we could do with cards collected, the direction to move, the battles to play, the points to collect, you get the picture. It took more than 30 minutes for the explanation, during which time I had the liberty to get more drinks, comb Trixie and pay attention to Pixel. And barely paid attention.

During play, it was all but boring. It was actually quite entertaining: choose and then declare which island you want to go to, battle it out if another pirate chose the same island to go to, either recuperate or plunder, upgrade and move on. It all happens in a matter of 12 game rounds, which is equivalent to 12 months. During this time, a pirate is to accumulate as many fame points as possible and this is done by killing off another pirate or burying treasure and loot or collecting fame cards. It is much more fun than when sitting and listening to the explanations.

It lasted about an hour. I won.

Did I mention I won at Blokus too?

Looking forward

Things to look forward to tonight:

1. Today will be the first day in about two months that I'll be taking salsa classes again. A fresh start.
2. It'll also be the first time in about two weeks that we've broken from the routine of our weekly evening game sessions with Aisha and Sam. Today we resume. What will it be? Blokus or Ticket to Ride Europe or Ticket to Ride - Märklin Edition or even Pirate's Cove? It'll be exciting.
3. The anticipation of Dinner.

Lazy Hazy Sunday

As a bunch of the Asiaworks grads meet up at Redbox The Curve to karaoke their hearts out, I'm nursing a sore foot and chilling out at home.

Yann Tiersen's score to Good Bye, Lenin! is an inspiration. There's a haunting quality to the music that evokes a certain kind of nostalgia: I think of my trip to Berlin a few years back, when I walked along the edge of one area of the Wall, reading about the atrocities and imagining what it must have been like back then. The music is sad, the piano riffs are melodic in minor keys, evoking a sense of loss. If I play the score loud enough, I'd be engulfed in a wave of sorrow.

A somewhat morbid way to start off a Sunday but the weather is agreeing; thunder is beckoning and I'm quite sure it's a sign that it will pour in about an hour or two.

My right foot sports a loud magenta bruise. It's just below my big toe and is darker in a spot in the middle, courtesy of someone stabbing a dance heel in my foot. My big toe protests when I move it too much. The ligaments and muscles surrounding the bruise are sore, evidence of my night out at Little Havana, a reminder to myself not to take to the dance floor when it is too crowded.

My kitties are with me, chilling out as I write. Trixie is curled up next to one of the boxes on the carpet. Pixel the fat one is ensconced in his favourite spot: in my bean bag. It was my spot until he claimed it from me. I now rarely use the bean bag for all the fur that's collected on it the same way that I've stopped using my reading chair. The only difference is that the reading chair is a dumping spot for Trixie's fur as that is now HER chair.

I find it mildly ironic that what started out as mine are now my kitties'. It's a reminder to me of exactly how kids will take over our lives when we have them. I'm a pushover with my brown bundles of fur. They get the run of the house and the tables, chairs and beds. They can get me all worked up into a tiff but melt my heart away with their plaintive meows. The boy especially cracks me up with his clown face and his antics to grab attention. They're dear companions: always accompanying me from room to room in the house, reminding me that I'm not alone and that they're always around.

It's a good Sunday afternoon. And I've been proven right: it's now raining lightly. Well, maybe I was off on the pouring bit, but I managed to predict the rain.

Working myself to the ground

I was talking to a client today about how stressful we tend to make our own lives, all because of work. We work, work, work and work. In the midst of it all, we neglect our bodies: we forget to eat (yes, impossible as it may seem, that is happening to me more frequently these days), we get worked up over issues, we rush our projects and deadlines, we spend less time relaxing in general.

I told her we have to take breaks and step back, take a breather once in a while. My favourite line: work will never finish, it is never-ending, so we must pace ourselves. We must remind ourselves that our bodies really have no spare parts lying around. We can’t overhaul our bodies like we overhaul our cars. So prevention really is better than cure.

I was going on and on and on and on, and she patiently listened and acquiesced.

It’s past 7pm now and I realize, I’m not bothered to eat dinner; I really have to finish up my comparison tables, I’m planning on bringing work home tonight because it’s a pressing issue that I’ll have to discuss with the management team on Monday, and to top it all off, I have to start instilling a more disciplined sales culture with my team.

Now tell me, is it any wonder that my appetite has flown out the door?

And I realized, “Damn! So much for giving people advice, look at what I’m doing to my own body!”

Doi! Such a dodo.

Choices: 1, 2, 3 or 4

This is starting to become a running joke. An exercise during Asiaworks involves choosing options 1, 2, 3, or 4 when you meet someone. We form two lines and just sorta move on down from one person to the next. Towards the middle and end of the exercise, most people, if not all, would have ended up with Choice 4 everytime the meet a new person in front of them. Choice 4 is a hug. How it works is, you hold up four fingers and if the person in front of you also holds up four fingers, you both hug.

Well, I realised that most of the guys who were holding out four fingers were just using this opportunity to hug the girls in the room.

Men! Need I say more?

Not one, but two, but three or more

Here's an interesting anecdote that I heard recently during Asiaworks:

Mike went home to his wife and said someone had called him an ass yet again. He asked his wife if he was one. His wife remarked, "Mike, if one person calls you an ass, then you probably have nothing to worry about. If someone else calls you an ass, and then another and then another, then you're probably an ass."

Somehow, the trainer told it better. Hahahah.

A dash of this, a pinch of that...

It’s amazing how stubbornly people hold onto their perceptions without even making the effort of finding out for themselves whether it’s true. If the sibling thinks this is directed at her, then she can rest assured: not everything is about her. This observation holds true for me as much as for others.

I try not to dismiss something totally if I have not tried it out. Which probably explains why I tried to indoctrinate myself into church at various parts of my growing life before I decided, no, organized religion is not for me. Noticed I said “at various parts of my life”. Yes, I even gave it a few tries, not only one before I decided it’s not for me. That fact with religion may hold true now but I do know that the fact may change in the future. After all, in life the only certainty is change.

I try not to organize my conclusions around assumptions and from what I hear from people. After all, everyone has their own perception of an event. There is no one perception that is alike and no one’s perception is 100% the same as mine. I am aware of that.

And I don’t understand how people can dismiss something entirely from what they think they feel about something, take Asiaworks for example. I wouldn’t know what it actually is, even though my friend might be gushing about it and I may totally hate it because I think it is a form of brainwashing. I won’t know till I try it out for myself. And I’ll reserve the harshest judgment till I’ve actually tried it myself.

Since I’m on the subject of Asiaworks, I might as well talk about it. Yes, I’m a recent graduate of the training course. And yes, I think it was helpful to me in certain ways. But I also do know that it is just a training course and I didn’t expect a “breakthrough” like some people feel it is or say it is. My “breakthroughs” came earlier and through different methods via different people while going through different events in life. So no, it didn’t make such a big difference to me. But it did help me see certain things and I can see where I can use some of it’s methodology in parts of my life. Yes, certain parts of the course were really corny and I know that the lights are dimmed, a certain kind of music is played and certain things are said to evoke emotion from people. It is all part of the training and the course structure. And yes, I do feel that some people read too much into the whole thing or are overzealous. But then again, we are all different and we take different things out of the course that we feel we can use or that apply to us.

There was a bit too much emotion being emoted at certain times. And I only emoted because of the stimulus around me. I didn’t have to but like I said, certain things are done to generate certain emotions which translate into results. If it didn’t, there wouldn’t be a training course.

Contrary to what’s been written about the training, I think the trainer we had was very professional and effective. No, he wasn’t rude but he did force us to confront what was uncomfortable to us. He even mentioned at the beginning of the course that it is his job to do that, not to be nice to us. And that whatever he is doing is part of the course structure and the way it is designed to effect maximum results. So we go into the whole thing with that knowledge.

And contrary to what’s been told, we are not restricted from leaving the room to go pee or cater to whatever important bodily functions that we need to do. But there was one request from the trainer during one of the exercises where he asked us to respect the person on the mike and to try not to leave the room while they were speaking. After all, he reasoned, if you can hold your bladder during a movie, you should be able to hold your bladder while someone is telling you something that is important to them. Which made total sense to me. And no, there was no admonishment when someone really had to go cater to their bladder.

Oh, and the handphone thing? It’s only reasonable that you switch off your handphone when you’re in a course, meeting, seminar or movie, right? How many times have you been annoyed by some idiot’s handphone going off in the middle of a movie or a seminar even though right in the beginning before the movie starts, that ad comes on and tells you to switch off the phone? I’ve never been to a movie without having a handphone go off on me. So I think it’s only a fitting response that when someone’s handphone goes off during the course, the trainer zooms in on the person, asks him/her to acknowledge the fact and to reassure everyone else there that it will not happen again. If that is not a reasonable request, what is? Because we all know, that if the trainer doesn’t do it (and probably embarrasses or scare the shit out of whoever whose handphone rang) another person’s handphone will probably go off. People who couldn’t be bothered to turn off or slience their handphones before a course, movie or an event that requires the handphone to stay silent, deserve to be treated like scum. Because it just shows they have no respect for others. So every time the trainer singled out someone when their handphone rang, inside I was cheering, “Serve them right!!”

I found the whole emotion thing a bit overboard for me. Like when people started getting weepy when we were acknowledging the “staff” for volunteering. Didn’t sound like a big deal to me. And I found the enthusiasm before the course rather grating and annoying. But then again, that’s me. Soppiness just makes me go “iieerrrr” or “bah”. I feel stuff like that is pretentious but the reverse may be true for other people.

Like I’ve said before, what you take out of it is what you put into it. I went in with reservations and without expectations. But overall, I think I’ve come out a better person because I am treating my parents better and am more patient. It’s not that I didn’t know that I should before I did the course, it’s just that I’ve re-prioritised the importance of my parents in my life. And that was the main area that I wanted to work on anyway.

It’s not like I didn’t know about myself what the course taught me. I knew that the trainer was telling me what I already knew. And I knew what were the changes that I needed to make. All this I knew. And yes, I had to be RM1700 shorter. I’m not any different essentially, I still think some of the stuff at Asiaworks is corny and that some of the people there are scary. So what? At the end of the day, I take away what I want to and apply in my life what I feel is right and good. If it means that my mom is happier because of it (because I’m more patient with her now), then it’s worth it.

When is the last time you hugged your mom and why haven’t you?

Throwing these about

A few choice phrases thrown about during the course:

• Notice that.


• Not wrong, not right…be aware.


• Who would like to share?


• Give these folks a hand.

More? Probably, but they’re starting to fade away.

Graduation

Fast Forward – Graduation, Day 4: Asiaworks

It’s over! And it’s difficult to explain or talk about the course. Here’s my list of descriptions, by no means exhaustive:

• Profound


• Interesting


• Baffling


• Boring


• Warm


• Cold


• Loud


• Silent


• Funny


• Sad


• Enlightening


• Embarrassing


• Empowering


• Enclosed


• Irritating


• Confusing


• Frustrating


• Illuminating


• Liberating

In short, it was a roller coaster ride.

Broken agreements

Day 2 Asiaworks

It’s only morning but I am exhausted. No thanks to the 4 hours worth of sleep I got as a result of Day 1.

I’m seriously doubting my ability to sit through Day 2.


**********

Strangely, we are required to enter the training room through a side door at the back of the building. The glass doors in the front are locked and the lights are unlit. A lot of us are sitting around wondering when they’ll open the doors till I head around to the office to check on the status and JD eventually tells everyone where the entrance is.

And still we are being herded into the room like cattle.


**********

More emotions are rife. Ken starts getting personal and people get emotional. I heard sniffles and saw red eyes all around during some of the exercises.

We are entering volatile territory.

My lower back is aching from sitting in the chair for such long hours at a stretch and I found a kind spirit in an unlikely friend.

Herding cattle into slaughter

Day 1 Asiaworks

The atmosphere and attitude of the staffers and people are akin to an MLM outfit, especially when the doors to the training room burst open and the staffers in their black 2-pieces start asking people to head into the room and be seated.

I feel like cattle being herded to calls of “Fill up the front rows, please!”. I take an instant dislike to these people who are telling me where to sit. So I’m especially difficult when some of them try to move me up a row or so.

“Would you like to sit up in the front?” asks this girl with short blonde hair.

“No,”

“Are you shy?”

“No.”

There’s a pause and I can tell she’s unsure how to proceed. And I just keep quiet till she walks away.

I’m such a bitch, hahah!!


          *****************


It is a pleasant surprise when the trainer, Ken Ito, walks up and starts off enthusiastically in pleasant American English.

The session is interesting as I discover how pertinent he is and how he always has to direct the person (whom he’s asked a question) back to the question at hand. People never seem to hear what it is that they are being asked and never give an answer that is relevant to the question.

I rediscover things about myself that I already knew. That discovery reinforces my own view of myself. It is nothing that I am not aware of but surprisingly which many people are truly not aware of about themselves.

I met a couple of interesting people, managed to stay awake and fairly alert even though I was dangerously close to becoming a narcoleptic after four hours of training. Not because of the subject matter, but because I was just generally exhausted.

Day 1 ended with all participants restating what they want to accomplish at the training in their own small groups.

I left trying to figure out how I’d be able to get my sis in for the guest event (it’s compulsory to attend and to bring a guest as part of the training) at the end of the training session without her chewing my ear off about how much she hates Asiaworks.

I’m still working on it.

Bane and boon

Shopping is a both a woman’s bane and never-ending source of wonder. I just agreed to purchase a used Nikon D70 and right after that went window shopping. It was actually a grocery shopping trip for essentials like snack bars and hand lotion. It turned into an earring spree and I ended up about RM150 lighter and two pairs of earrings richer.

Nosediving to a nadir

Is it possible to feel a level of exhaustion so profound that I’m almost numb? I don’t know but I am halfway gone.

Cooking towards the finals

Following Germany’s 3-1 defeat of Portugal at third place play-offs last night, we were understandably in bed till past 1pm today. Well, at least I was. Rizal didn’t hit the sheets till 11am. His plan was to stay up and make us a breakfast of French toast.

With Schweinsteiger’s goals resounding in my memory, I ended up spending the day cooking.

First, porridge to finish up the fish that’s been sitting in the freezer since two weeks ago. That was to be our lunch. I didn’t get to taste it till 4pm while watching a rerun of Il Mare. I’d started out with Crying Out Love in the Centre of the World but I’d seen it before and I didn’t feel like going through high-school love. Somewhere one-thirds into the show, Rizal woke up and helped finish up the porridge. It was good. The porridge, that is.

And then I got into a baking fit. It’s easy when you have ready mixes. We had Betty Crocker’s Choc chip cookie mix and Krusteaz Lemon Poppyseed Muffin mix. Just add eggs and water/butter, mix and voila! you have a batch of cookies and muffins. Easier even than Jamie or Nigella.

The kitchen was littered with muffin pans (I used two) and biscuit trays when I was done. The muffins turned out splendidly and Rizal pronounced the cookies excellent.

And now we’re off to The Curve for a leisurely evening walk. Hopefully we’ll beat the crowd heading to Ikea for their midnight sale. I hope to stay awake for the final tonight. It’s a once in four years affair. That alone should be worth it for me to stay up.

Why I love Changi Airport

I love this book, if not because of the subject matter then for its beautiful photos.

You won't find this book anywhere in KL.

Hint: For more of this and other similar books, take a step into Singapore’s Changi Airport. Take a browse through Times Newslink right after you pass immigration into the departure lounge. Head towards the back and to the right of the store. If not, when you pay at the checkout counter, you will notice small bright little books strategically placed. Pick one up, pick a few up. That’ll probably be the best place you’ll find books of the sort.

Note: You will not find these books anywhere else on the island or in Malaysia. So make good use of your transit time in Changi. I always do.

Shooting the rich

At a photo shoot recently, I discovered that:

• I really am a klutz. Let me illustrate why. The shoot was at some big-shot’s daughter’s wedding. Needless to say, the house was huge; it had a gazebo, guardhouse and even proper bathroom facilities behind the guardhouse, right off the gazebo. I needed the loo before the main shoot began. I used the “outdoor” toilet. We’re not talking outhouse here, we’re talking full-blown toilet with proper wall-to-wall mirror and lotions, sink, the works. I was washing my hands at the sink when I turned the tap to shut the water. One turn was all it took when the tap head came off in my hands and water started gushing out. Panicked, I stuck the tap head back on and managed to get it screwed back. Unfortunately, when I turned the tap to shut the water, nothing happened. The water would not stop flowing. Great! It could only happen to me. So I had to holler out to Ivan, get him to get his friend, the organizer, who in turn got the guards to look at the problem. In that time, we snuck out of the area and disappeared from sight. Like I said, it could only happen to me, klutz that I am.

• You really can do almost anything if you are rich. Like, have the wedding of your dreams, if you so wanted. The bride was young: 21. She’s apparently crazy over lomo which explains why Ivan had dragged Aisha and me to shoot our hearts out at the wedding. The house and garden were done up in style: orange and dragonflies, apparently the bride’s favourites. The house was carpeted in orange; the hantaran was in orange decked out with bejeweled dragonflies; dragonfly lights hung from the ceiling; orange posies hung from the ceiling; orange lollipops were stuffed into baskets, ready to be given out to guests. Orange spots were stuck on the backs of the dinner chairs. Orange gauze was strewn around the tables; the pelamin sported orange cushions. The road in front of the house was blocked up; flat-screen TVs were strategically placed so dinner guests could view the akad nikah taking place inside the house. It was elaborate, it was quite grand and reeked of money. Time and effort too, of course. There were a slew of professional photographers buzzing around. Like I said, if you’re rich, you can have the wedding of your dreams. This was just the akad nikah. The actual dinner reception was to be held at a hotel the next night and another dinner/reception in Penang as well.

• I have no sense of propriety. My timing for inappropriateness is immaculate. It was evident that I was the only underdressed person in the whole ceremony during the akad nikah. I was dressed for comfort; it was a hot day and I knew it’d be crowded. So I was the only female there with no sleeves on her arms. It felt a bit awkward but I’ve been in worse situations.

• If you put your mind to it, you can achieve anything. Before the night was over, all the orange swirly lollipops had been given out to the guests. Even as Ivan scoured the house and its surroundings, he couldn’t get his hands on any for Aisha nor myself. I decided to take things into my own hands. First, of course, I did as Ivan: scoured the house and kitchen for any leftover lollipops. Only when it was clear there were none did I go to Plan B. I spied on the dinner tables. There were guests who looked like they were leaving and they had left their lollipops behind. I snuck up behind one table and as unobtrusive a manner as possible, swiped the two lollipops left on the table. Mission accomplished.

• Some people are just too emotional for words. What is it with some people? When the groom was reciting the words to confirm that he wanted to wed the bride, the bride’s sisters started sniffling and then outright  gushing. I was baffled. It’s just words. What’s the big deal?

That said, the shoot was fun in itself, mainly because I got the chance to whip out my lca and put it to good use. I’d just about abandoned it into a corner of the closet for lack of inspiration for shooting.

I hope the photos turn out.

Throwing caution to the wind

Someone forgot to tell our orange friend about the ground rules…

The view from here

You can’t see it, but Pixel’s cushion is actually on my lap and I’m on the beanbag. Needless to say, he’s not light.

If I were stranded...

The few things that I’d really need in life if I was stranded on an island: a book (several would be better) and my ipod.

The Works minister should kiss all our arses

Did I mention that Rizal and I hate Samy Vellu with a vengeance? Especially after going through the mayhem and chaos that is now that part of the MRR2 is closed. At 10pm, all alternative routes to the LDP and Sg Buloh are jammed. It doesn't matter which one you take, you get blurdy stuck.

Coming out of Metro Prima in Kepong, we followed the traffic only to find ourselves stuck in a snake of a jam in a residential area (somewhere along or in front of Jln Kuang Cermin) so the smart me that I am decided to avoid the jam by going in the opposite direction. Which brought me right around to Metro Prima again.

Did I mention Samy Vellu is an asshole?

Not wanting to be stymied, I tried detouring. Let's just say that we ended up on the way to Ampang and headed back home via KL, through Jaln Genting Klang.

Can someone explain to me why I had to go all the way around and into town just to get home to my place, which is only 15 minutes away from Metro Prima Kepong? By the time we reached home at around 11.45pm, CSI was way past over and we'd missed the repeat of the Italy-Germany game.

Did I mention Samy Vellu has nil brains? He's also bald and is not fit to hold his government post. And that anyone in his position in any other country would have resigned but he's still here! Blaming everyone and everything except himself for the cracks in the MRR2.

When will the players in our political arena ever learn to own up to their mistakes and take responsibilty for them? My guess is: not in my lifetime.

Don't we all look like we're related?

Taken sometime about a month ago, it strikes me that the three of us look so much alike, it's as if we're all sisters.

There goes my career

So much for a career in predictions. Now let's see if my latest one will hold true:

Italy to win the Cup.

They are not unbeatable

I didn't watch the game. But I am surprised at the results. Germany lost its chance at a shot for the Cup. Who would have thought? I predicted they'd win. Judging by the winning streak that they were on, home ground and all.

Looks like nothing is set in stone.

But then again, the game of football has an element of luck in it. The Brazilians lost it, so did the Germans.

My final prediction? An Italy-Portugal game.

This is what happens when you assume the world is your oyster

I almost went to Japan tomorrow. I don't know if that is even possible but the key word here is "almost". I made the decision today, got a confirmed flight to and fro, ETA Tokyo 7 July and back to KL 9 July.

I called my Japan counterpart to help out with hotel accommodations, which they willingly agreed.

And then I remembered the crucial element: my entry visa. It takes 3 days to get one.

I ended up scrambling for the phone to get the office ot cancel the flight booking and apologising profusely to the Japanese for giving them a heart attack.

So much for global travel.