Archive for the ‘Pictures’ Category
It has been a year
It has been exactly a year since my dad passed away. May felt like it didn’t happen without him here. My birthday felt like it didn’t happen either. I don’t know. There’s still a void there. I’m not sure if anything can fill it in for a couple of years.
I’ve been doing a lot to keep his spirit alive. Not that it’s too difficult, but sometimes if I do it, it makes it hard for me to breathe. A good example would be Manchester United emerging as UEFA Champions League champion. If he was alive today, I can imagine the grin on his face for the rest of the day. He is the biggest Manchester United fan in the world. How he would jump for joy, I can only imagine. That is why I love the two cups that the team has won this season. Because I know he would be happy, and that in itself makes me happy.
What also makes me happy is I know which David who won American Idol season 7. (Spoiler after the jump.)
How do I name this?
American Idol: I’m disappointed with David Cook this week. Performance-wise, Simon Cowell was right, it was a knockout, and David Archuleta emerged as champion. If we were solely looking at this week’s performances, David A. would win. But overall, I love Cook more. I’m OK with an Archuleta win as he deserves it as much as David C. does, but I’ll be ecstatic if the latter wins.
We shall see in the results show tomorrow. 
Mazda: Anyway. These pictures are for the curious
The dent, the chipped paint..
.. and the cracks.
The bumper is fixed now, heated and molded back to its original shape, spray-painted to cover up the chipped paint spots, and alhamdulillah, it only costs B$80. Big thanks to my uncle for bringing it to the workshop. The cracks on the taillight is yet to be fixed, but if you didn’t know, you won’t notice that they’re there. So I’m happy. Maybe my bonus in December will see me with a new left taillight.
It doesn’t look so bad in the pictures, does it? Faz has looked at the damages when the car was parked at The Mall on a Saturday night, and she had a reaction. LOL. I guess it’s just hard to handle the fact that it’s new.
Me: I have another picture, and it’s a candid. See more candids here, taken during the BBQ last Sunday. You can also see my name (among others) on a birthday cake! Thanks, guys! 
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A post about lunch and Prince Caspian
It’s about fifteen minutes to lunch, and I am already very hungry. Since early this morning, however, I’ve been craving for ice blended coffee with loads of whipped cream. Loads.
Had a horrible headache yesterday, after watching Narnia: Prince Caspian with the kids (read: sister and cousins). Headache aside, the movie was OK. It wasn’t great, but it’s like a filler. You know, when you don’t have anything to do, and all they show at the movies is this movie. Something like that.
Although there were a few movies I haven’t watched that I want to, like Iron Man, Speed Racer, and What Happens In Vegas, but I felt Narnia was great to watch with the kids. Plus, I already have plans with other people to watch Iron Man with. I digress.
Yea, the movie felt like a filler. Wouldn’t say it was bad either. I’ll give it a rating of 3 out of 5. Prince Caspian (right, played by Ben Barnes) was cute though. I found it funny when my cousin, who sat next to me, said that the boy who plays King Edmund was, and I quote, ‘hot’. I wouldn’t use the word ‘hot’ for King Edmund, would you?
Things at random
Before I resume normal posting, I’d like to convey my congratulatory message to one of my good friends, Nurul Siti, on the new arrival! It’s a boy! This is her second baby, so a big, hearty congratulations to you and your husband!
So I bought something from Wardrobes Inc. on Friday. OK, two somethings. They launched a program called “Feel Good Friday“, and I had the chance to buy a shirt (which I really just grabbed because it had fit me!!), and get another one free (which I had given my cousin, Siti, the privilege to choose something). I also bought a pair of shoes.
Support WDRB!
Anyway. I’m happy that I can fit into most of my clothes nicely these days. I’m not losing any weight, trust me. I’ve just been keeping myself ridiculously healthy and, erm, un-slothlike.
My house was one of the houses that went through no electricity supply from about 3-ish in the afternoon, up until about 9-ish. My family and I didn’t spend the whole time at home, we went to my aunt’s house, and my cousins went there too to catch the Manchester United match with Chelsea.The team I was rooting for didn’t win, though. Pfft.
I’m off for now, I have something to do.
Warning: Long Post Ahead
I wanted to write about how I was feeling this morning at work today, so I typed the following on Notepad:
Listening to Missy Higgins’ (not so) new album, On A Clear Night, while thinking about why I’m leaving such a great place to work at. I have to remember that I’m doing this for the sake of furthering my studies. I have to focus on this. My dad always said, “Go a step further than I did, and you have your life made.”My dad’s qualification was a HND. I regret not knowing what it was, but I know if I look into the small library that is now our maid’s room, I will find his past assignments that I used to marvel at. I digress. So I’m doing this for myself and my dad. I want to prove to him that I can do great in life.
I personally think I’m doing OK now with my HND, especially with the job opportunities that I’ve been given. Sometimes you wish you can work at three different places at one time. (Of course, still maintaining the eight office hours.)
I feel like history is repeating itself. I am finding it hard not to think about leaving this place, but it is there in the air around me. I can already feel the tears coming, it’s ridiculous.
I’ve finished every task I was assigned. I didn’t get to be assigned much since I’ve only been here for one month and a half. I managed to translate an English manual to Bahasa Melayu with the help of a thick as heck thesaurus (and a great friend), I managed to be trained in Project Management, and I managed to make real, good friends here in that short span of time.
I will miss my friends the most. What’s different this time is that, I won’t be in the same building with my friends anymore, the way it was with The Company. Now I won’t be in the same building as both my friends at The Company and The Statutory Body! I won’t get to see them, and catch up with them for even five seconds! Sigh. Sad thought, this.
I want to write a goodbye e-mail now. Nothing too sappy, I hope. Hehe.
So I wrote that e-mail. Finished it, and went off for lunch with 10 other people at Excapade Gadong. These people were those who I’ve worked with for the past month and a half. Laughs were had, great food.. nothing else you could ask for. Maybe an extended lunch hour, haha. But that aside, it was a great lunch, and here’s a picture after we had eaten.
From left: Ariffin, Yunn Nee, Mumtaz, myself, Noreen (non-IT), Suhardi, Chian, Hermi, Azlan. Back: Man, Keith.
Uneventful afternoon, at the beginning. I didn’t have much to do, so I pestered the boys during their discussion, and Keith, one of my colleagues, played along. I was looking at the notebook he was going to write in, and I told him I wanted to write something. Instead of just ignoring me, he said somewhere along the lines of, “Write with your left hand. It is said that if you write with your non-writing hand, it shows the maturity of your right brain.”
I told him I wasn’t ambidextrous, in a way warning him that my writing would be appalling. In the end, it resembles a six-year-old’s handwriting! Hahaha. Impressive. Not.
So yea, like I said, nothing eventful happened (at first.)
Then I told Mumtaz that I wanted to go downstairs to the server room, and wondered if she’d like to come with. I usually go down there when I don’t have anything to do, or needed some inspiration on how to solve the now-out-of-my-hands program. She said, “Yes, we’re supposed to go down anyway. We have a meeting.”
I didn’t realize the bit that we were to have the meeting in the server room was a bit peculiar, so I went with it.
When I was down there, she came by, and said to me that HR was looking for me as I had a form to sign. Before I went, she said, “Bah, jangan batah-batah ah, ketani ada meeting ni!” I gave her a weird look, saying, “Since when do meetings have to wait for me?”
Being a seasoned trickster myself, I can’t believe how I didn’t realize that they had something in store for me. And there was. When I went back down, everyone was there, and the acting IT Manager said that she was going to pass it on to my superior to talk. This never happens. Seriously. People just start talking at meetings/discussions that they don’t have to pass whatever on to anyone to start the meeting.
Then when my superior, Chian, started to say, “On behalf of IT department..”, it dawned on me! How could I have not seen this coming?? Really. So we had a small thing going downstairs, and they gave me a little present which I am absolutely loving at this minute! (Which I’m going to show in a bit.) They also forced a “speech” out of me.. and I had to stop before I started crying. LOL.
Lawa ah? It’s white gold. Thanks, everyone! Hugs!
Went back up to finish the last half hour of my last day at The Statutory Body. When it was time to go, I took a deep breath. First person I said goodbye to was Mumtaz, the one I had grown the closest to. We hugged, and that’s where the pipes burst. Literally. Tears were flowing down my cheeks, and I didn’t know how to stop them! I had to get away and say goodbye to the rest that was left in the office.
Ka Dziah, our acting IT Manager, was next. Fresh tears started! It was stupid, I thought. I looked downright ridiculous. Then somehow pictures were taken and I said more goodbyes. I didn’t feel like leaving. I really didn’t.
Before I left the office, though, two girls from another department that I’ve gotten chummy with wanted to say goodbye. I walked out with them, took a picture for memory’s sake, and said goodbye.
I left something in the office as well, so I had to get back in and grab it. How embarrassing.
I walked to my car, hopped in, and zoomed off. Unbelievably, I CRIED IN THE CAR! Funnily enough, the songs on my CD were sad songs, like Babyface’s What If. Great timing. My car’s audio system really knows how to work the waterworks!
Sigh. I am genuinely going to miss the people there. Especially my friends! Oh, how I made friends there. I’ve grown close to them in one and a half month, imagine what a few more months can do??
Ugh. I think I’m going to start crying again. 
(Note: I will upload more pictures soon, even the silly ones. I’m a bit knackered at the moment so give me the weekend. 
)
Take another chance
Oh my God. I am so unbelievably worn out and sunburned at the moment. I never knew I’d be the latter, but I am, and it hurts. I’ve never been sunburned, so it’s a new, not to mention alien, feeling. It’s like having the outermost skin of your forearms being stripped down with hot wax and left to heal. Or something.
Thankfully it’s just my arms. I really don’t know what I’ll do if it’s on my nose, or anywhere facial. Erh, shivers just went down my spine.
So it was a busy weekend. Pyjama Night Out last night was a lot of fun. Seeing people in their pyjamas was the highlight of the night. And a certain someone was sobbing during the movie. LOL. I could demonstrate it once again, if you want, but only in real life and with the someone there. Kidding.
The movie made me cry and laugh again. I still believe that’s the best movie I’ve watched this year so far.
The movie ended at about 9PM, but we ate a bit and talked to a few people here and there. I was talking to Nonnie’s boyfriend about something we had in common, and I hope I haven’t discouraged him in any way at all. I was just sharing experience, and I’d rather he has a different one. A pleasant one.
Maurina, Atul, Reeda, and myself also had a discussion with a Brunei Times journalist ranging from voluntarism, to culture, to teaching! It brought us to an hour before midnight! Interesting.
Now that the Internet is properly up and running, I feel like posting a picture up from the night. The picture is from Nonnie’s camera, but there are more from Maurina’s camera, and I’m going to remind her soon to send them over. Don’t ask me if I took any pictures, because I didn’t. I haven’t charged the battery to my camera in weeks now, and I had forgotten to charge the day before. So just take a look at this one, yes? 
I notice now that my hair was covering one of my eyes. Haha. I will leech and have more pictures soon. Haha.
Now. The IT Picnic of The Statutory Body was today at Seri Kenangan beach, and it was so much fun! Besides the sunburn, of course. I wish I had pictures, but I don’t. However, I think it was just one of those things that I will miss so much about working there. And again, it is the same thing: my newly-made friends.
Sigh.
What a sad note for an ending of an upbeat post. Will update again soon!
The gecko
I know some people would freak if they see this as my desktop wallpaper! Haha!
It looks horrifyingly real, especially if it was to be that size! LOL.
Wallpaper courtesy of PixelGirlPresents.
