Double Happiness

Happiness (1)

I was elated just now.

Big Boss approved my proposal and said it was well-argued. Was a boost to my confidence level because last night I was wondering whether I could live up to the demands of my Masters course.

Happiness (2)

A contract staff came up to sign her new appointment letter. We've offered her a permanent position. She was very happy, came to shook my hand and thanked me. I just did my job and ensure that everything went smoothly for her. I did the same things for many other contract staff. But she's the first one to show her appreciation.

It's tough being in HR. Staff sees you on the management side. Management sees you on the staff side. Me? I try hard to be the impartial middleman between management and staff. Whenever I argue my case, I have to strike the delicate balance of meeting staff's needs while maintaining organisational effectiveness. Honestly, I tend to stand on the staff side, because I see the operations and their needs. But I've learnt that resources are limited. If we can't give staff all that they want, we help them to maximise their resources.

When Will He Go?

It's confirmed. Or-Nih has cancer.

I brought him to the vet earlier. The nice lady vet examined him and confirmed it. Kudos to Or-Nih. He was very well-behaved throughout the examination. But he did a little stunt and spit a melon seed at the vet.

I could do 2 things. One, cut the tumour off. But involves high risk as he might not survive the anesthesia due to his age...and size. Two, monitor the growth and see if it gets bigger.

I decided to not take the risk and save him from the trauma of going through a high risk operation at such an old age. I'd rather let him go slowly. But he's behaving normally - eat, sleep, drink and even poo well. Even the vet says his little heart and lung is functioning well for his age. The tumour is also not hindering his movements at the moment. So the vet said we can just let him be.

I dunno when Or-Nih will say goodbye. Definitely not today.

Seasons

Went back to cell on Thurs night. Saw mostly familiar faces...was a very welcoming "home-return". Was too tired to blog this..and anyway, needed some time to process my thoughts.

Pastor Glenn Lim was our guest "speaker". He shared on his experiences last year when God put him through a personal challenge to his visions and his dreams. He shared that there are 3 "V"s that we should follow:
(1) Vision - our purpose
(2) Value - what we believe in and use to guide our actions
(3) Vehicle - how we achieve the vision and the value

Sometimes we are too driven by any of the "V"s and lose sight that we need to balance the other 2 "V"s too. We need a balance, but more importantly, to seek God and move in His directions. Well, at different seasons of our lives, different "V"s might take priority. It's up to us whether we can release our own conviction to the "V"s that we hold to, and let God tell us which "V" he wants us to focus on.

I like the part on moving when I see the Father move. I'm going to make that my prayer everyday. Well..God is in every aspect of our lives. Not only when we go service, prayer meetings or cell. We don't get "high" durng praise and worship, then put God in the closet for the rest of the week. In our work, studies, relationships, God is there. To remember to ask him to guide us in everything...that is the challenge. How many times do we proceed with a decision that we "think" or "feel" that it's the right one, without asking God first? It may sound abit trivial. You might ask, does that mean I have to ask God even what I'm going to have for lunch? Why not? God taught us that we should love our bodies. If you know you're coming down with a sore throat, will you still go for that KFC lunch if you remember His teaching? =)

God loves His children. We being His children, He already knows our needs. He already has a wonderful plan and purpose for our lives. Just love Him, and allow Him to love you, and enjoy the life He gave you, with joy and hope. Yes, there are times when we asked "why". "Why" is this happening to me/my family/my friends. Our faith can be shaken, but His faithfulness to us can never be shaken. He sees us not by the measure of faith we have, but by the heart we love Him with.

Past & Now

My gals organised a bbq last night.

It was the most organised and relaxed bbq that I've attended. I just used my "eye power" whole night long and my darling girls cooked most of the food. And we can eat! 7 girls finished the following:
- 20 sticks of satay
- 30 chicken winglets
- 2 garlic bread
- 15 BIG, 10 SMALL otah
- 20 sausages
- plenty of sweet potato, corn and marshmellow

Yummy! But there goes my diet plan. But well..all for the sake of fellowship. It was worth it! It's good to have everyone together again...

Everyone's grown up. Just compare the 2 photos...


bbq 


2003 

New Toy (2)

Lappy 

I got my new office laptop yesterday.

God is good. He knows my desire. The new laptop is the model I've been drooling about, but can't buy coz beyond my budget. Now, I can use it for 2 months before I fly.

Thank You Daddy!

Turtle Me??

Couldn't sleep well since last week. Had many dreams, and the dreams involved alot of activities. Believe me, when you run and jump in your dreams, you wake up 10 times more tired than before you hit the sack.

So last night I prayed - that I will have good rest with no dreams. But dream of hubby can.

Yah, I did dream of hubby. We graduated and were in a photo studio taking our graduation shots. Then very next scene, I was by the sea. There were many giant turtles around me. Fishermen (or whoever) were cutting them up and taking their eggs out of them. Eeeks.

Shared the weird dream with my colleagues. Boss attempted to decipher the dream. She said Hubby and I will graduate from our courses (the photo). Then we will have lotsa children (the eggs) and I will give birth using C-section (the cutting up of turtles). And the turtles??? - Me lah. Turtles signify longevity anyway, she said.

Boss' smoking skills really Tian Xia Wu Di.

P/S - Julie helped me to pull out my 4th known strand of white hair today. There could be many unknown strands still lying in ambush somewhere, waiting to give me a surprise attack anytime.

Curry-Pok?

Today Big Boss bought curry-puffs from a so-called famous stall. We were excited choosing the flavour we liked - otah, chilli crab chicken (dunno wat kind of combi it was, but greedy me chose this because it seemed most "rojak"), and even durian.

SC: Wah! This curry pok very nice!

Don't know why, we just burst out laughing. Maybe it just our generation. We grew up saying curry pok instead of curry puff. It just brings back lots of childhood memories.

Simple thing - to bring joy to our mundane office life.

My New Toys

New Toy 

Went to the IT Show this afternoon. Soooo many people there. Not as if there are free things there. Still need to pay for your stuff you know.

Thank God Bro went with me. He big enough to clear the way for me. Haha..and to carry things for me of course. No lah, thank God he was there to swipe card for me. I exceeded my $2,000 Nets limit. Or else have to use credit card and let them charge me extra bucks.

Oh ya..haven't say what I bought. Bought my ACER Laptop @ $1,800. 1G RAM and 80G hard-disk with DVD writer. Bro say good buy. Salesman say good buy. So I buy lor. Anyway, I wanted to find something below $2,000.

And bought my very first MP3 player. Do you believe that apart from owning a walkman and a FM receiver donkey years ago, this is my first music player?? Bought the CREATIVE Muvo @ $249. 1G also, with FM receiver and can view video and photos. No money to buy iPod (but anyway, this is way smaller than iPod..i love the size). No more lonely bus and MRT trips for me. I'm downloading all my MP3 player from PC to the player. Yeah!

I seemed to have a strange affinity with the 1G size today..Hmm..

Connection

Over the last 2 weeks - We've tried MSN, Skype and even the Yahoo Voice Messenger. Just to hear each other every night.

Was exasperated last night because during the short 30 mins conversation, we were diconnected for upteen times. Went to bed sad.

Only today - Hubby realised that we can stay connected when he plugs into the telephone line direct instead of using the wireless network. Oh Me God! We could have enjoyed free seamless converation since 2 weeks ago. But better now than never.

He promised to still get the calling card though. Coz he can't be at the living room always in order to get plugged in. And I will be using the 019 service. Not bad, $3.00 for a 30 minute talk.

Calls, emails, messages, viewcam - that's how we stay connected..for now

Urgent Message from Boss

The Message 

3 of us stayed in office till 8 plus yesterday. Not particularly late..by our previous records. But she sent us an email and ask us to go home immediately. That's very sweet of her.

Love Languages

I started on a book last night. Each one of us have a primary love language. It means - when someone else "speaks" our primary love language, we will feel loved. We also use our primary love language to express our love to others - be it family, friends, boyfriend, girlfriend, husband and wife.

The 5 love languages are:
1) Words of Affirmation
2) Quality Time
3) Acts of Service
4) Gifts
5) Physical Touch

For me, it's a mighty close fight between quality time and acts of service. At this moment, I think the award still goes to acts of service. I'm not good at words - telling people that they are pretty/handsome/clever or that I love them. I don't need diamonds to make me feel loved (although a stone once in a while would be nice too). I don't need looooots of quality time with my loved ones..but considering this is second place, I'm happy with spending quality time with my loved ones too.

I like a hug here and there, but I feel especially loved when i get a hot cup of milo when I'm not feeling well, or my colleagues offering to change my fish tank water during my leave (see, i'm actually quite easily satisfied). And I like to show my love through acts of service too. Like helping colleague to buy breakfast (I was her breakfast delivery girl during her pregnancy), ironing clothes for hubby, fixing things for mum (though i grumble at this).

Come to think of it - my mum's love language is also acts of service. She don't hug me or my brother, she don't tell us that we are her loved ones. But she cooks whenever she can for us. She still empties my dustbin everyday from my room. She does the laundry without complaints. She runs errands for me and bro. Sometimes, I do find it irritating (come on, i can empty my own dustbin). Now that I figured she is just showing her love in this way, I'm happy to let her continue. And on my part, I will love her more by doing things for her too. Guess I do take after my mum. Alot.

So, what's your love language?

Urinal

I have to blog this.

3 gals went toilet at XXX shopping centre yesterday. They saw a urinal in the toilet and thought they entered the wrong toilet. 1 came running out..only to find out that they indeed went into the right toilet. Just that the urinal was for little boys who had to follow their mums to do "their business".

Hahaha.

And to clarify - I'm definitely not one of those 3 gals.

Growing Old??

Went for youth service yesterday.

Was abit "lost" actually. Been about 2 months since I attended youth service. Tried to look around for familiar faces - and found SL. She jokingly commented that we have to sit in the "oldies" corner during service.

I got what she meant when service started. The new little P-6 kids were in service too. And the crowd is growing! (PTL). As I sit behind the engergetic crowd, I remember that it was not too long ago (haha, 5 years ago actually) that I was with my little froggies and sitting infront with the "happening" people. Now my little froggies have all grown up, taking care of their little froglets now. And as I told Pris, I'm the official Froggy Grand-Mum now.

Having mixed feelings actually. It's a joy to see my froggies mature and now serving in the Lord. And of course, enjoying my new-found "freedom" that I can attend whatever service I like (haha) But there's a tinge of sadness too, as I move on with the next season of my life, I have to let other leaders take care of the them and continue to mentor them. I still have the urge to call them my own and "mother" them in everyway I can. In my eyes, they are still the little ones who just transited from Urban Kidz to Urban Youth.

Don't know what God has in plan for me and hubby in the next few years. But as SL prayed yesterday, I pray that God will continue to lead us in every step we take and let us discover areas of giftings that we never knew before. As hubby joked, maybe he will run for president of the overseas christian fellowship group. It's a joke only...at this moment. Hee.

My "Trophies" 

Gals' Favourite Past-time

Shopping!

Had a good time shopping with MP and SY yesterday. We were like little gals, getting excited over pink panther t-shirts and of course, great bargains. We even bought the same pedal-pushers (same colour somemore) and agreed that we will wear it next time we come out.

My trophies (Hubby - You can stop reading from this line onwards)
- 1 pedal pusher
- 1 pink-panther T-shirt
- 2 tank tops (black & white lor)
- 2 t-shirts (babyblue and lime green lor)
- 1 spaghetti strap top (pink lor)
- 1 blusher
- 1 lipstick
- 1 eye-shadow
- 1 cleansing cream

Ah.....the feeling of able to buy things as I like. I promise this is the last shopping spree. Have to tighten belt now. Save up for Australia stay.

P/S - Hubby, if you are still reading this. Don't faint. I didn't really spend alot. The items were on sale. MP and SY can vouch for that.

8498

No, this is not the latest hot 4-D number.

This is the amount of AUD that I paid for the bank draft this morning. Covers the first term school fees and health cover for 18 months. Will be dropping by at IDP to make the payment this Sat. Yup, the first step towards my studies in Australia.