Weird

I'm going to Bangkok tomorrow night.

It'd be the first time I take Tiger Airways to anywhere really. I'm not exactly looking forward to it.

I guess the company wanna save money cos Thai Airways is full and they dont wanna splurge on SQ.

But the weird thing is they're putting me up at the Conrad, which is one of the nicer hotels in Bangkok which I never got to stay at. Plus they're arranging airport transfer for me from the airport. I might just be the only person alighting from that flight that has someone with a card waiting for me.

Finally Home

After a

1. 2 hour ride to Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta Airport
2. 2 hour wait at the airport
3. 14 hour flight to Narita Tokyo
4. 3 hour transit at Narita
5. 7 hour flight to Singapore

I'm finally home after a whopping 28-hour journey.

Even though my room is small and doesnt have an adjoining bathroom, it's still my home!

YAY!

Bangkok

I thought I'd be travelling lesser for my new job. But after arriving in Singapore on Friday midnight and reporting back to work on Monday, I'll be going to Bangkok on Tuesday night.

Thankfully it's just for a meeting and I'll be back on Wednesday evening.

Yum yum

I think I was the only one eating ice cream in the entire shopping mall cos it was too cold.

They all must have thought this crazy asian is.. crazy..

But who can resist the Cookie Dough Dynamo from Haagan Daz which has been discontinued in Singapore?

Sunday

The weather was good today so i went shopping...

This is the mall..



This is my hotel..

Job

Someone just smsed me to ask if I'm interested in a job in Shanghai or not.

So weird.. how come nowadays I'm so hot?!?

American Life

It was snowing cats and dogs on Saturday morning.. thank goodness my hotel is just across the road from my office.

I'm staying at a Westin... it's a pretty nice hotel and a huge room but amenities are very bare and they dont serve bottled water here. This meant that I had to steal water from my office everyday. That's basically cos I dont wanna pay US$5 for the mineral water in my room.

I bought pizza back to my room that day. Pizza, according to Michael Scott from The Office, is the great leveller. White people like pizza, black people like pizza, rich people like pizza, poor people like pizza.



I went to the office today to meet my colleague and my US boss for the basketball game. The atmosphere was wild! Tons of college kids jumping up and down. Cheerleaders chanting and jumping. It was literally my first time seeing college cheerleaders, not unlike the looks of Kirsten Dunst in Bring It On. But i did realise that not all of them look pretty. Some actually look quite ugly. But enough of them...The game had EVERYTHING! Trash talking, player being fouled out, slam dunks, alley hoops, technical fouls, the home team blowing a 16-point and then clawing back to win the game 81- 70! w00t!







Here's a picture of how heavy the snow was...



My boss has stayed in Atlanta for 40 over years and it has only snowed like this only five times. FIVE TIMES!!!!! And i'm here on one of those times... brrrrr....

Here's a picture of my boss and my colleague.. back view..



The ticket as a fond memory of today.. I didnt know the ticket cost US$30!

Miles

This is how much miles I have - 114,430.

That means I have enough miles to go to New York and back and then Bali and back and then some. This is excluding the 15% rebate/"discount" if I do this online.

And I'm 2,654 miles away from Elite Gold re-qualification, which I'd get when i return to Singapore.

And I have trips to the Maldives, Shanghai and Hainan on the cards.

I thought I was supposed to travel less for this job. Dammit.

Basketball

"What are you doing on Saturday? Interested in a game of basketball?"

"Urmm.... i didnt bring my shoes," I replied.

My US boss asked me that question.

"No. I meant to go watch a basketball game" he said, with the slightest of eye rolling.

What a dumbass I am!

So we are going to watch a college basketball game this Saturday!

So cool... I'd have rather it be an NBA game but college basketball's fine.

Bacon

I just saw another colleague. He looks damn like Kevin Bacon... even sounds like him!!!

WEEEEEEEEIRD

So much for six degrees of separation for Kevin Bacon.. this guy looks like him!

The wiki link is quite funny really. Some people sure have time to do all these...

Jet Lag Redux

I actually duno what redux means but it sounds like a short form of "reduction"

I woke at 7am today instead of my usual 5am, so that's good... maybe now i can pay attention during my meetings now.

Atlanta

I havent been blogging, simply cos I'm jet lagged.

When it's time to sleep here, I'm wide awake but when it's time to keep awake, i feel sleepy. That is of course the definition of jet lag.

It has been a busy schedule. Meeting up with all the department heads, which number abt 8 in total.. and knowing what the company's all about, my schedule's packed...and I'll be going down to Auburn, Alabama next Monday for some meetings...

Today i had lunch with my US CEO, which is a celebrity in the industry. I actually didnt know much about him until i got the job and then read up on him. He's a cranky fella who was kinda funny at times. He's damn picky on service and the restaurant chose the wrong person to give a teaspoon to for his soup. Very wrong. When they eventually got him one (which wasnt a very long time), he said " Was that the last soup spoon you have?"

Power man...

It started to snow today evening. They said Atlanta wasnt prone to snowing... brrrrrrrrrrrr

Long Way from Home

After a 6.5 hour flight to Tokyo, 2 hour transit, 11.5 hour flight to Atlanta, 1.5 hours clearing customs, 2 hour car ride to Auburn, Alabama, I've reached my hotel.

Damn tired man...

Packing

It's been sucha long time since I packed my bag and I literally had to dust it off my storage area. I think the last time I travelled with to Vietnam for just one day... that was in early Nov.

And now 11 nights in the US... 11 cold nights with temperatures ranging from 2 to 3 degrees to 16 degrees in the day time..

Check out my dashboard from my iMac which gives the temperatures of Atlanta and Singapore and the time zones..


My company bought me a new laptop (YIPPEE!) and new blackberry (YIPPEE) and along with all my other gadgets, it's really quite a lot of stuff..





There's

1. Blackberry charger
2. Thumb Drive
3. Spare battery for my mobile phone
4. Pen
5. Blackberry
6. Mobile Charger
7. iPod
8. iPod charging cable
9. Skype headset
10. Wireless mouse

Second pic
11. Wallet
12. Card holder
13. Shure e2c earphones for ipod
14. Bluetooth headset
15. Bluetooth headset charging cable
16. Camera

Phew... so much things..

And here're my clothes..



And my ties



And my favourite scarf which i only get to wear once a year. I love it cos it's a Gap scarf i bought in the US back in 2002..it cost US$25 then. Quite expensive and i thought very long before i bought it. Turned out to be a good investment.



And I'm bringing two suits and one jacket...

Bleah.. so many things..

Travelling

I found out today that I'd be going to Atlanta and then Alabama this Sunday. Gosh.. that's like a 18 hour flight there and 20 hours back... BLEAH... heng i'm going alone then i sleep and do anything i like on the plane rather than small talk.

I'll be gone for two weeks. Quite possibly my longest trip ever...

Heng they giving me a laptop, else i wouldnt know what i'll do without internet for 2 weeks...

I'm glad I can add two more cities to my Facebook "Where I've Travelled" app.

Fragile

Second day was quite uneventful except for the fact that my boss asked me early in the morning if he should spend US$5 million on something. *gulp* I'm beginning to think that that's the reason why they hired me.

(This was proven again in the third day when he asked me if he should spend US$30 million on something in Bali *gulp*)

Just to digress, I was back in the office one of the days I was on leave and my boss was on urgent leave for the entire week. I sms-ed him to ask if everything's all right. He didnt reply. That was probably 1 week ago.

He called on second day of work. Said he'd rather call than reply my sms. After the usual pleasantries on how's the new workplace, colleagues blah blah, i asked him wat's up with the urgent leave. He said his 14-yr old son had a major surgery....a BRAIN SURGERY. GOSH!

Turns out that the poor kid had headaches and blurred vision for a week. The parents brought him to 2 doctors and 2 A&Es and each doctor just gave panadolls and even stronger panadolls. He only managed to get scanned after my boss didnt feel too right abt it and he hospitalised his son and bang table bang chair to get his son scanned.

They scanned him at 2am and found a major blood clot in the brain and immediately called two of the "best neurosurgeons" back to operate.

The operation was successful and the boy was recovering.

As he ended his story, his voice wore thin and he said "During this whole time, life just seems so fragile and meaningless"

I felt quite disturbed abt the whole thing..Gosh.. what poor standard of medical care is this man? tsk.. 4 doctors .. panadolls?

I was so disturbed i had lunch alone.. actually it's largely cos no one wanted to have lunch with me.. i cant rem if i mentioned this before but my dept only got me, a VP and a COO and Owner.. all busy people.

I walked to Suntec and found a place made specially for people lunching alone...



I ate there.. right at the left side of the pic...

New Day

This is going to be a short one because it was a busy first day. I worked till 8pm and I am still working right now at 11pm at home.

It was a pretty exciting day. Given door access card, employee id, namecards (i even have two separate email addresses), new seat, computer, tons of new colleagues.

My big big big boss was kind enough to peek in during orientation to ask me to swing by to his office for a chat. Then he came after lunch to my desk to see how i was settling. By the third time he came to my desk at 5:30pm, he called for a meeting and then asked for something to be submitted by tomorrow.

Which is why im working till now. :(

And I nearly lost my car.

I couldnt find my car keys when i was packing to leave my office and then i thought maybe i left it in the ignition. I rushed to car park, which was damn super duper far away cos it's in another building. Whilst rushing, my mind was going on and on abt whether someone might drive my car away and the embarrassment of losing my car on my first day of work :( :( :(

When i got to my car (phew it's still there), I didnt see the key inside the ignition :( I decided to go back to my office to search. On the way back, I decided to search my briefcase once again and walaaaah.. the key was in a little obscure place in my briefcase which i never ever put anything one...

I'm sucha loser really.

Shallow

Gosh, i'm sto shallow that I'm even bringing my huge-ass power-packed financial calculator to work tomorrow even though there's a 101% chance i wont use it.

Haha..

Preparation

It was almost a worthless day of stoning at home cos there wasnt badminton today. That's very disappointing cos it was something i looked forward to every week.

I decided to give my car a clean before D-Day. Went to NTUC to get a hard brush for the car mats. Then as I was walking home, it started to rain :( Had to wait for it to stop before I could continue. What bad timing.

But finally, my car's clean. I have a full tank of petrol and I have my season parking.

In preparation, i also :

1. Conditioned my hair
2. Exfoliated my face
3. Used the PORE PACK
4. Cut my nails
5. Charged all my handphones
6. Polished my shoes
7. Backed up my data (ok, this isnt relevant to the new job)

Now, all I need is to pick out a shirt and tie for my mum to iron.

Fear

I start work on Monday.

This is my second job in my life. I didnt even do a real job for my internship.

It'd be exactly 1,301 days since I first had a first day of work.

It'll be odd. I've never entered a company that has more than 4 people.

I have been fretting over what to wear for some time now. Should I wear a white shirt with blue dots with a blue tie with my Ferragamo cuffs? Should i go pink shirt with pink tie with my penguin cuffs? I'm quite confused that I'll drape my suit over my arm and wear my brown shoes. I dont know what bag i should bring. My usual briefcase was kinda stained by the leather coating i did here.

There're so many things that can go wrong:

1. What if i get a bad seat?
2. What if i get nasty colleagues?
3. What if i get stupid colleagues?
4. What if I am not up for the job?
5. What if i cant get to sleep on Sunday night and then wake up late on Monday?
6. What if I cant find a parking lot?
7. What if i duno man...

Quite stressful..

Hope

I started watching soccer maybe one or two years back because I found that it was a good way to spend my weekend nights. I even got cable and an LCD tv in my room so that i could indulge.

Everyone supports a team. I actually dont like to support a team cos the players can join/leave any team. Perhaps it's quite silly to blindly follow a team when the people has left the team and the pedigree that is the players.

When i started watching soccer again, I decided to support Manchester United. It is pretty cliched since everyone is either a Manchester United or Liverpool fan. But at that time, Man U was being screwed big time by Arsenal and Cheski and were really an underdog. I love supporting underdogs.

So i follow avidly every week. Willing Man U to win. Week after week from August to May every year. But when they won the league last season, it was just.... like that lor. Happy lor but wat's next? It's like you get excited over 38 matches per season and then at the end, it's an anti-climax. :(

But this season, i'm back at it again. Even after last week's disappointing penalty miss that led to a loss to West Ham, i'm still looking forward to soccer tonight.

Perhaps it's just because we need something to hope for every week. Something to look forward to week in week out. Something to invest our emotions into, lest we become cold and heartless. Maybe it's all about the journey, rather than the destination.

Resolutions Interrupted

I'm frankly pretty sick of the 2007 re-cap and 2008 resolutions everyone has on their blogs.

Though a new year is a new beginning and all, I think if you want to make changes, you can start anytime! You can quit smoking anytime, go on a diet anytime, be nicer anytime definitely.

I'll Stand By You

It takes a herculean effort to do what these lyrics say

.........................................................

Oh, why you look so sad? Tears are in your eyes
Come on and come to me now.
Don't be ashamed to cry, let me see you through
Cause I've seen the dark side too.

When the night falls on you, you don't know what to do,
Nothing you confess could make me love you less

I'll stand by you, I'll stand by you,
won't let nobody hurt you,
I'll stand by you.

So, if you're mad get mad, don't hold it all inside,
Come on and talk to me now.
And hey, what you got to hide? I get angry too
But I'm alot like you.

When you're standing at the crossroads, don't know which path to choose,
Let me come along, cause even if your wrong

I'll stand by you, I'll stand by you,
won't let nobody hurt you,
I'll stand by you.
Take me into your darkest hour,
and I'll never desert you.
I'll stand by you.

And when, when the night falls on you baby,
you're feeling all alone,
You won't be on your own,

I'll stand by you I'll stand by you,
won't let nobody hurt you.
I'll stand by you
Take me in into your darkest hour
and I'll never desert you
I'll stand by you.

WEEEEEEERT?

Everytime I do servicing for my car or when i wash it or when i fill it with petrol, I feel like doing something nice for it. SO I'd browse through the car care place but after a while they're all the same.

I did my 5,000km servicing today. Well, actually it's 6,052km now. 6,052km of pleasure, sorrow, joy and . I was kinda reflective as I drove for my next appointment. Thinking of season parking, thinking of the new job, thinking of the journeys ahead, thinking of journeys passed.

Back to topic..

Today i came across this..



In between the waxing and car wash stuff, there's Listerine. I did a double take. Did Listerine come up with a new line of cleaning products to clean the radiator gills of the car? They're like teeth, arent they? And it's not a random bottle cos it was an entire row of Listerine (for the mouth)

I bought a leather treatment thingy for the car seats and these for myself on those West Wing marathons...



There were a lot of entries for my itemised expenses sheet today.

Yet Another

I forgot to mention this that day but actually an ex-colleague called and actually offered me a job in her company. Well, not really offered but it's one where i'm well qualified in the face of the competition.

I dont think i'll take. Considering I start work on the new job next Monday. But it's a nice thought to be wanted.

My new job called me and said that season parking is full, which is actually baffling cos we own the freaking building! and the building beside it! and in fact quite a few hotels nearby. I was perturbed the entire day when i decided to give them a call and they told me that internal staff will get priority and gave me a number for alternative parking in a nearby building which i dutifully called and thankfully had parking for me.

That's a relief. I was fretting the entire day on whether i shld/can drive to work or not.

New Year

The new year came and went without any fanfare. I've been on leave for so long that Ive lost track on which day is which holiday.

I woke up groggy on New Year's Day (today) after a marathon of West Wing dvds and saw on my iCal (pictured above). 1 Jan.

Then comes the proverbial new year resolution making. I wouldnt say Im bad at fulfilling my resolutions but rather I forgot abt them. I really cant think of anything I want to do this year.

I probably made one decision so far and that was for more financial prudence. So, I've decided to keep track on my every single spending on an Excel sheet. EVERY item.
I just added my first entry - S$5.50 for lunch today. I only hope i remember to update it tomorrow and everyday thereafter.

I spent my entire new year's eve and new year's day (today) watching my West Wing dvds and in between being too lazy to change the dvds, i read. But i didnt tell many people that i spent my lobo days watching dvds cos it seems like society deems it as a socially unacceptable thing to be watching dvds (even though it's West Wing) all day. So i just say I spent my time reading, which is partially true.

I am reading...



I like the West Wing. I like it when people are able to weld the English language as gracefully as one would wave a magic gracefully in the air. I think Gilmore Girls is also quite witty so I'm considering getting the boxset for the entire season as well.

I think this entry has gone off tangent somewhat. It's probably largely because I dont have much to say and my thoughts are in bits and pieces. Oh screw it... i'd just end by saying, I hope the new year brings good opportunities and even better decisions.