Farewell, my Beloved Purple-Colored Buddies

Tonight is my last fourth day in purple company. We just came back from our yet-another-fun but last (for me) trip to Bali over the weekend (which I’ll definitely gonna write something on after gathering the 2GB photos from every camera owner and filtering to the bare minimum). It’s hardly drought and my ‘well’ has been filling up these couple of days after all the fun we’ve had. Despite the over-flowing joy throughout the trip I still did find some private time to reflect and gear myself up for the looming farewell end of this week.

But I certainly didn’t expect anything dramatic to happen today as I was still busy working on a couple of projects going on for my key accounts – whole day that is. Right up to dinner time, then I started looking for chocolates to munch although I usually don’t crave for it. ‘I won’t be able to have the luxury to get a sweet tongue free-of-charge come next week’, was what I thought. There I was, searching every corner for chocolate samples, right up to Maguro’s place, and begging for samples which she needs for her work. Dug my dear subordinate Gary's new place in the Aquarium, to no avail. Finally managed to steal a couple of soon-to-be-launched ‘dynamites’ from Nic’s place, which tasted exceptionally good in times of desperation (it’s a helluva good innovation anyway – one of my favourites so far, by our brightest and smartest dear marketer, my ‘Ah Jie’ Vickz).

Offered a bar to the ever-hardworking Bee (my favorite dinner cum gym cum movie buddy). She’s my savior during my OT hours during the busy times of the season. Having her around as company in a cubicle 6 meters away would soothe my restlessness and offer a focus point for me to strive for more. Usually we’d pledge to finish up work by certain time and go for a peaceful dinner either sipping herbal soups or light congee (called 'teng jai juk'; should mean little boat congee - with preserved egg, stew peanuts and deep-fried vermicelli). It's located in this peaceful hawker street beneath an LRT station in PJ. The sound of LRT breezes through at night sounds urbane yet somehow peaceful, hmm.... love it a lot!

Back to the office, this moment at 9pm reminds me of so many other wonderful buddies I have as well. In their own uniqueness they are Woei, Junee, Pyein, Maguro, Tomato, Potato. My life in this purple company tastes sweet enough with all the things I enjoy doing. These buddies splashed more salt to this sweetness, which gave me a TOTAL and complete flavors of a great working life.

Woei was the reason I’m having so much joy with this laptop, living my life in this cyberworld, like I should have so many light years ago. I’m so glad she accompanied me to get my first personal laptop during the PC fair. She’s also a good buddy for a 7-hours karaoke session (but keep it to less than 4 singers please).

Junee is… er, somehow, I couldn’t describe vividly what we enjoyed doing. But somehow, we’ve done quite a bit. This ‘bit’ is made up of tiny bits. She’s one hell of a slap-your-face-now-kiss-your-ear-later buddy, hmm (I’m gonna get slap for this I’m sure, just like many other times, haha). But somehow, she’s there when I least expected it.

Pyein is a ‘balanced’ buddy whom I somehow enjoyed shopping for grocery in Tesco or Giant, usually sharing a large pack of vege to cook. She’s also someone I highly-recommended to take up a vacancy in my Department, which she did and enjoyed, as she seems now, as I’ve expected. She’s now turned into a ‘wild thing’ with the beautiful perm hair and dressing styles (certain degree of influence from me, I suspect).

Maguro is always someone I should’ve known 12 years ago, when both our schools were so near and brought-up so alike (Jiau Lai). We speak the same language all the time and inspire for the same vision (though not visible yet). We don’t usually need to speak too much to understand what’s going on.

Tomato is someone who’d jump on top of me (physically) without notice. It’s really nice to have her cuddles when times are low. Her passion for art and beauty enables us to share so much. Her taste in things also brings alignment to what we look forward to in life.

Potato is my dear student whom I’ve guided and taught, in different corner of work or relationship matters. After she graduated, I was in turn, guided and taught. We share quite a bit on life philosophy and the ‘path to enlightenment’, as both is as innocent as the lotus flower (really?).

Despite the uniqueness of each buddy here, they are truly ANGELS in their own form.

After having a final farewell chat with my kind ex-Boss, MrsTan (she would be on leave starting tomorrow, so would miss my last day), I went off with a heavy heart. Somehow worried that Bee would starve in the midst of the prolonged night (she would be traveling tomorrow, would miss my last day too), I went to get her a packet of Maggi goreng. The process seemed sad, and gave me endless goosebumps while I reminisced, while waiting for the mamak to goreng. I went back and gave my final pack of dinner to her in purple company and reluctantly asked her not to speak much, afraid that I’d burst.

After paying my last respect to ‘Dato Goong’, whom I believe has guided my working life here, I drove off with the ‘well’ over-flowing with tears - it's flooding everywhere! Afterall, I’m just a human being. Together with the above mentioned Buddies, I messaged other Close Ones the following sms:

“it’s premature, but I’m sobbin after walkin out from offce a min ago, quietly n peacefuly. Wana let u guys knw I’m gona cherish all of u n d moment we’v had. Dun reply, dun do anything, 4get bout tis 2moro when u c me. jus wanna mark tis moment in time.. luv yah..”

I received sweet replies nevertheless.

On another personal message, MrsTan replied a:

“I count my blessings Des you will be happier that way. Take care Des call me anytime if you need an ear”

I do cherish every single ONE of them, including those who have moved on to different paths earlier… at last, *sigh*... I'm following suit... and changing colors....

The Courage Not to Have Principles

I randomly came across this beautiful quote which coincidentally strikes a cord with what I had just read in this stranger’s blog. Let’s name this stranger as…, say, ‘Cow’ for simplicity sake. In this Cow’s blog today, the recent topic depicts a life with a long list of:

- I must
- I want
- I will
- I won’t

It’s a long set of principles. For me, it’s scary. It’s confining life to your own definition and limit. Not a bad thing to do if your life is so uncontrollable (er, say example, if you are Paris Hilton). But for a non-celebrity person like us, living in a considerably ‘normal’ or common life, I do not think the above principles should be set to the minuscule actions of how many grains of rice to eat; or in the case of Cow, how many leaves of grass.

So much of principles, let’s go to the beautiful quote:

“Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it
takes to sit down and listen”

- Winston Churchill

Let’s muse. A Principled person would reflect the quote’s first part. And more often than not, the second part is seldom seen. Maybe by listening to others, it compromises one’s principle… or, does it?

Back to Cow's story... it has this very strong principle in everything it does. From sticking to a routined schedule to selecting what grass to eat. So much so that it's not in the pinkest state of health - the limited and selective grass makes her weak and sick. But it wants to, because ‘The Principle’ says so. Now it publishes a revised ‘The Principle Part 2’ (practised by Cat, Dog, Goat, and Mouse), to overcome the problem from ‘The Principle’. But after going through all these troubles, wouldn’t it be nice if it were to just listen to Others and not clinging on ‘The Principle’ in the first place?

Well, I hope this serves some points. But if you are not a Cow, you may be confused. If you are the Cow, and try not to be the 'cow', then you'd be able to swallow this post with ease... just add a bit of nice green grass.

What Fragrance R U in 2?

070530: May event. ‘CK in 2 U’ fragrance launch in Zouk. Zouk again?? Over the years I have only been there for a couple of times. But somehow these couple of weeks alone I made it twice. This time it was Tomato who got me to join her good friend who’s in charge of CK’s branding (first time met her, looks like a cool & hip lady). It was a well-organised event with good flow of programs and interaction with the audience. Met my dear cousins who have grown up quite a bit. Overall it was a pleasant weekday outing, despite my favourite fragrance being... er... Davidoff!! :-)
.

Hot Body Eligible Bachelor

070525: May event. Lately we have been pretty close to our gym instructors and gym fans. It has to, because we’ve been very obedient students - full attendance in their classes, mainly BodyPump and RPM.

So when one of them, Greg was voted in for Cleo’s annual 50 Most Eligible Bachelors, he gave us free passes to this finale at Zouk. The event was poorly-organised, with boring games and anti-climax announcement. Nevertheless it was a good time hanging out with the other gym friends for the first time. Greg didn’t win the main title but got a ‘Hot Body’ title. All the ladies still had a good time going ‘gugu gaga’ over him.

.

Cleo's Eligible Hot Body Bachelor


Modern Art

Days of Sweat and Sweets

070525: May event. Our purple company started this seem-like an annual event last year. It is a day when all management employees go out on the trade, sweat it out while giving away samples of sweets to retailers. There were certain target of quantity to be handed out. This year I am paired with Emilia aka Tomato. Being very ‘experienced’ ‘snake-charmers’, we finished pretty early and spent our extra time doing marketing work -checking out all the very important ads by our company in the theaters (yeak yeak).

.

Looks tough har? Looks real!

ah... Second session

.

Comparing to last year, I worked with Bee-Bee for one of her days. It was more of a decent affair :-)

Birthday Wine & Seafood for Gary & 60c

070518: May event. Celebration for Gary’s on 17th and 60c’s on 11th – same day as mine. Since young 60c and I have not had the chance to celebrate together. Not even this year, he was in HK for business trip on the day I had mine. But as for Gary, we had a couple of joint celebrations. One I can remember vividly was in 1993, our 17th birthday. It was held in his house. You know how it used to be, Mom cooked fried mee hoon, chicken wings, jelly and stuffs. We got our high school buddies together, drank orange juice (instead of beers), played some party games and acted innocent. Haha… it got me smiling thinking of those good ol’ days.

Anyway, move forward many many light years ahead, we had seafood at Pantai Restaurant in Kayu Ara Damansara. Don’t know where it is? No worries, I drew a map! Here you go:

Looks good? I just love to draw!

The food on this day wasn’t that great, probably because we started late. The chef may have lost some form catching up with the busy orders. Anyway couple of dishes still made it to my ‘Recommended List’.


After dinner we had wines at our favourite place, Clear Mont Kiara. It was a decent session with barrels of wine consumed - as usual.

Happy birthday to Gary and 60c, wishing both of them prosperity and wealth, which are critical for old-enough people like us.

Heaven Is Pretty Close to Earth

070504: May was such an active month full of events; and this Bukit Tabur climb was part of that month’s activities. I only have time to blog it now. But better be late than not capturing it.

We had been planning this for a couple of weeks but the weather was not accommodating. At first attempt, one of our kakis who stayed the furthest (LJune), woke up at 5am disappointed by the rain. The night before Bel claimed that she was so excited she packed such a complete kit she would look like a professional climber. Few days prior to this KW even bought himself a new pair of tracking shoes. Phew… and the list goes on and on with every climber psyched themselves up nicely for this day. Damn, it had to be postponed.

Then, came the second attempt. The night before, I was so paranoid I went into the Government’s weather forecast site. And guess what? It showed ‘Rain’ again in the coming wee morning. ‘Damn’, I thought. I couldn’t take my heart to relay this sad news to the rest. Quietly, I went to sleep with all my ten fingers (and toes) crossed X_X, hoping that the Government keeps to its general trend of contradicting itself.

At 5am I woke up without any alarm, and to my surprise, it was all CLEAR! All preparation work was neat and complete. Most of us had to gather at my house as mine is the most strategic one. I even drew a map. The only tiny hiccup was LJune took a wrong turn, not because she’s like all-the-ladies-who-can’t-read-map (ouch, I’m gonna get spanked for this), but because she didn’t print the full page of my map!! Ouch, this is classic.

Oh, another tiny incident. Trista came last. As we were so excited, different people directed her to different cars. As it was also still dark (in the morning), the 2 cars zoomed away without getting her onboard! Luckily I realized, ‘huh… did Trista climb into that car??’. What another classic!

Anyway at slightly more than 6am we managed to gather and began our climb with all exciting juice over-flowing…

Beautiful KL skyline at dawn
The other side of the hill
Breaking of the day
Shiny lake backdrop
It doesn't look real, does it??

Group spirit

Half-way through was already heavenly

Buddies shining along the bright light

It is real climb! Not a walk in the park. And bare hands too!

The most dangerous part.

You can't imagine the lower part of this photo. It's an empty space all the way down.

Giving support so that they don't swing to the right, like in previous photo

Most dangerous ledge. Left and right is empty all the way down again!

Sigh of relief

It does look like a world of fantasy

Three fighters

Down to earth

Flexing muscle

Flexing joy

At 11am, we were a bunch of hungry wolves. What a beautiful brunch at nearby Batu Caves. You can't ask for more at that time. *Gulping*

.

.

Despite the tough work, we never really complained. In fact, for some of us, this is the second time climbing. For Norman, he has scaled it numerous times. The view and the air were more than enough to persuade us to wake up at 5am. Heaven is indeed close, if we work hard enough.

When Is World Environment Day huh??

One of the days in last week was World Environment Day. And I’m getting very much disturbed with the fact that of all the nice and earthly citizens who are putting in so much effort to conserve and preserve, none of the World leaders are actually giving any shit towards this.

Looking at the natural disasters which hit us so frequently in the past recent years, and looking at last night’s simple flash flood hit a common city like KL without any warnings, it’s so sad that some of these leaders are actually wearing a sympathetic mask announcing their dismay, but refusing to work towards effort like the Kyoto’s Treaty. We don’t even know whether treaty like this would help significantly, but for goodness sake, if we shut off effort like this altogether, we are likely to live short enough to see enough destruction and suffering on this planet. Does it take their own family to go through a typhoon in order to realize what comes out from their tiny mouths means a great deal to many people?? I just wonder why the lives of so many people are at the mercy of these few leaders. Are they trying to prove that their short-term economic benefits would prevail over preservation of mankind? I just hope soon enough that the World Environment Day does not fall on a single day, it should be abolished. As a citizen of this Earth, we should treat it as a habit to preserve, instead of ‘a day of reminder’.

I’ve been doing my part (since young), not to waste food in my own plate. I would be very sick to see innocent food thrown away while so many unfortunate beings beg for a single grain. Not only do I finish mine, I would even help others to finish theirs. It's a habit cultivated through Mom. It may not be enough still, but I’m putting in more - writing this blog is another one.
...

Purple Cadbury celebrates Green Day too

.

.

.

Excerpt from our Management's recent memo which I think worths every thought to be updated in this post:

"Our planet faces potentially devastating social and economic consequences. If no action is taken by governments or business there is more than a 75% chance of global temperatures rising between 2-3C over the next 50 years, with water shortage likely to be one of the first and most tangible consequences. Extreme weather is forecast to reduce global GDP by 1%, global economic output by up to 10%, and global consumption per head by up to 20% by 2050"

What’s for Breakfast?

7:00 am:: wake up, wash up, poo poo
7:30 am:: iron my shirt (urgh), dress up
8:00 am:: jam, jam, jam (urrrrgh), jam, jam, jam
8:20 am:: petrol mart – newspaper, coffee / juice / soyamilk & ‘breakfast’
8:50 am:: late to work

With such hectic morning beating jam, crazy motorists, and stupid road systems, I just wonder what do people eat for breakfast. For me, an ideal one is a bowl of hot soup noodles for easy digestion. But of course this won’t be possible with such timing. Most of the time I would end up at the nearby petrol mart, contemplating between the healthy but boring sandwich, or the tempting but oily peanut butter & jam donut. Yeah, I have great cravings for anything with peanut butter.

Recently I found the perfect solution in Tiger biscuit’s version of peanut butter, plus a little chocolate cream for the extra oomph! It’s pretty crispy and fresh, and not oily like most of the similar biscuits in the market. Just like eating Oreo’s, I love separating the joint biscuits and taste one side at a time, hmm… still keeping in touch with the child side in me. That’s for breakfast, until there is something interesting.