And the future is... uncertain

So we're going through another restructuring process and gasp! some of us may be transferred to other desks within the group, as in bye-bye to this subsidiary!

Looks like I'll just have to wait and see...

And the future is... bleak?

Today I got into the office and straightaway asked my colleagues about yesterday's staff briefing.

Everybody sort of shyed away from the question and all they say was "Let's talk about it during lunch.."

I hate this!

Rumours...

The recent buzz in the office centres around the recent promotion of several prominent journalists in the main section. Right now the gals in my office are hoping some changes will also be brought in nearer to us - in fact we're hoping something can be done to change the current hierarchy in our editorial team.

Right now we're kinda top heavy - meaning we have more people telling people what to do than the people who are at the position where they only do what they're told to do. There's also a rumour going on about salary increment - but I'm not putting too much hope in that, after all the company did not do as well as we hoped to achieve last year.

In any case it is always a good reminder to myself that if I ever get to the position where I'll have the responsibility to tell others what to do, never forget that without them you're not going anywhere. Most of the time, if you're on the pinnacle position, it'll likely be you who'll need them more than they need you.

There'll be a staff briefing today at 3PM here, but sucks! - I can't be there! I have an assignment starting at 3PM as well, which means I'll be off half an our earlier than that.. Wonder what's up...?

Aw man, I better not think too much about this - it's quite sickening when you hear stuff from different ends of the office, one predictingthis, one predicting that. I better get back to that feature article on Bluejacking and Bluesnarfing...

Lina Teoh isn't so bad...

Lina Teoh and her crew came filming at our lab again this morning. The CT Lab team guys are all out for assignment and she needed to go through some IT products with someone.

I must have been smiling too happily when I got to the office at 10.30am (well, I'm early so that's why I'm smiling, see?) cause the sales manager saw me and immediately roped me in to be the one to tell Ms Teoh how things work.

So I was dragged to her make-up room (our small library actually) and three things were handed to me. It was a Canon digital SLR camera, the PEG-TJ27 Clie and Motorola V600 - I had not had the chance to play with any of these gadgets before, but as IT stuff can be quite standard stuff, I said I'll help wherever I can.

It was easy peasy when it comes to cameraphone (V600) - I was able to tell her what she can do with it and answer her techie FAQs just by tinkering with the gadget's menu and setting. The Clie wasn't so bad either, cause I had a some experience reviewing PDAs.

Surprisingly Ms Teoh is very pleasant to work with - she had good questions which actually made me see how a real consumer's mind works. I began to suspect the marketing guy who said she was eksyen the other day probably blew his story out of proportion.

The digital SLR stumped me - hey, it's a powerful 8 megapixel model okay, and I only had about 5 minutes with the thing. And it turns out that Ms Teoh here knows her cameras well.

When she started asking about wide angle and normal SLR equivalent and stuff, of course I could not answer without referring to the manual. Besides, I have never worked with a traditional SLR (yes, I went straight into digitalhood and totally skipped the whole before-CCD era, whaddaya expect from a person who's not even familiar with VHS?) so I could not give her definate anwers.

But as it turns out I had to help out a colleague do his David Blame Office Magic goof project, I simply ask the Lab Donk who just came back from an assignment to handle the explaining bit to her. He didn't comply easily but by then Ms Teoh already have her make-up on and she looked gorgeous, so I managed to rope him in.

It was a good thing that Ms Teoh did not mind me leaving her with the Lab Donk, and she nicely said thanks as I was about to leave. When I got back into the editorial room, the marketing guy who earlier on called Ms Teoh names asked me how did it go - and I said she's not bad at all...

My favourite X-men is Storm

Before I start let me just make clear that my previous post is dedicated to my favourite flirt-buddy H, who initiated (pressured me, rather!) the write-up on the subject, as if he didn't know I have lots of other write up to submit to the Ed already! But he did say he was feeling in need for some kind of attention so..

Anyway, today's post is about rain and my personal experience with rain.

If you ask my sis, she'll tell you that my name should be Shaman, Rain-Shaman to be exact, cause everytime I sing it'll rain (this line is funny if you happen to know my real name and you also know that some tribes address their bomoh as "shaman"). Well, maybe not everytime, but in too many occasions, that's what happens la.

Ask the residents of Aishah Hall of MCC Kuantan (year 1996 - 1998) and they'll probably agree with my sis. In fact they can tell you about this lil incident.. Ah, whaddaheck, I'll tell you miself, thank you very much!

We were lepaking around the TV room, watching football or something. When the commercials came I got bored so I did a little singing of Zaiton Sameon's song - no, not Menaruh Harapan, that other one that goes kupu-kupu.. hiasan.. dindingmuu.. you know? Dat one lah.

Anyway, I haven't even finished the first verse when suddenly we heard a growl outside followed by a blinding flash, and then "tthuddum!", a thunder broke, spearing into a spot on the earth that seemed very near outside the TV room, judging from the high decibel that registered on our ears.

Then, like a bucket full of water being toppled on floor on the seventh cloud, rain came pouring down.

All the Aishahans present at the TV room looked at me. I stared back at them, bravely.

I am after all a mere normal mortal who don't have the power to bring rain - so what if the rain started right after my singing, it was just a matter of coincidence. Why should I be afraid? I continued to stare back at them.

Yet all it take is one person to point her nasty perfectly-filed finger towards my direction. It was my roomate, Y. She's been associating my singing to the constant thunderstorm and that night, in front of everybody, she finally got something to back her theory.

And the accusation came: "You did it! You were singing the few seconds right before the rain came!"

I wasn't about to cave in. But before I could come up with a logical/reasonable/clever defense...

"Wahh, terrernya kau!" suddenly a voice broke, sounding truly appreciative of my supernatural talent. It was Kak Andak, at that time a sophomore whom we all respect cause she never give us freshmen any hard time.

"Aku memang harapkan hujan pon, best skit tidur malam ni!" she said, and with that the rest of the girls in the room began to murmur in agreement.

And that's how the story goes. It's true, kisah benar stuff I tell you.. Believable right? Wait till I tell you about my friend's experience with a real bomoh, now that might be a little harder to believe.

In case you're wondering, no, it wasn't me singing these last few weeks - I'm not auditioning for Malaysian Idol nor Akademi Fantasia nor Bintang RTM - so go find another scapegoat alright...

p/s: BTW this post is for my sis who's been calling me Shaman instead of my real name lately.

The Flirt-Buddy category

I recently discovered that I have several straight male friends that fits into the Flirt-Buddy category.

My flirt buddies are mostly good-looking, charming, intelligent, most of the time civil, romantic as hell(boy) and they fall in love very easily. Usually for the wrong type of girl - and I won't be the one to tell them so (cause flirt buddies are essentially still your buddies, so you gotta be supportive, not authoritative, no?).

But here's what's cool about flirt buddies: no matter who they date, they'll always seek you out.

My flirt buddies call me from time to time, and we'll meet up, and we'll update each other about life, work and such. We can beat the heck out of each other and throw insults as we see fit, but at the same time he'll give me piggy back rides and I'll let him eat out of my spoon.

He'll tell me about his current date/GF, and we'll try to generate the suitability rate - you know, analyse the relationship a bit. He'll get feedbacks from me: apparently he thinks I can give him the typical girl perspective.. but nevermind that.

I'll tell him about the guys I met and dated as well, and how unsuitable they are for me. He'll try to explain the weird behaviours from his point of view, so I'll get the what-was-he-thinking-when-he-did-that kind of feedback.

He'll ask me questions he didn't dare ask any other girl, and I'll ask him straight out why some guys can have so much potential yet they act so looser-y?

In the end we'll just tell each other that no pair can be more suited than the two of us, that we'll hook up when the time comes - and ultimately how we'll screw up each other's life when that happens.

Star attitude

I got to the office late today (as usual, man, I dunno why I keep telling you guys something you all already know). The CT Ed was walking around apprehensively - judging from my experience this could only mean one thing: there's a CT assignment that needs to be done, and the CT Ed can't find any journalist to do it.

I don't want to be the one doing it either, simply cause I already have tonnes to do for CSM. So I slipped behind my com and pretended to be very very interested in the booting process.

Suddenly my nose twitched. Uh oh, I know this smell - it's the CT Ed's BO plus some kind of aftershave/cologne/perfume. Since it's still morning it isn't so bad, yet having my desk located so close to his cube with him walking in and out of it daily for the past three years had made my sense of smell evolved in an AI-like manner to recognize the scent.

And he stood right next to me and asked, "Can you please interview that Lina Teoh person for me? It'd be just about how she handles that IT segment in the show that she's hosting." He has an I-bet-this-is-going-to-be-fun-for-you look on his face.

Huh uh. I'm not buying it. I hate to say this, but I sincerely detest people who host IT segments without truly understanding what he/she's really telling viewers. It is almost as intolerable as an IT writer who doesn't truly understand about the IT stuff she's writing about (hmm.. sounds like a person I used to know..).

I told the CT Ed I've never done People in IT features before. He told me he'll help me out so that I'll be handing in a good story at the end of the day.

Ah ha! Journalism training!

I could not resist! So I told the CT Ed, make it two weeks of training in writing features, I'll take the assignment. He said no problem.

So I got my notebook and pen ready, in my head I was already forming sensible questions like "So, what kind of preparations do you do before hosting the IT segment?" and unsensible ones like "Do you need people to tell you the difference between Gigabyte and Gigahertz?", as well as challenging ones like "Do you think IT is a field dominated by men?"

But I was more excited about having the CT Ed train me on how to properly write features articles. If he asks what kind of features I'd like to do, I'll tell him its wireless and mobile technologies, music: digitizing and streaming it, or something mind-boggling like knowledge management within oneself. Wow, sometimes I impress myself - I didn't know I actually have genuine interest in such topics.

In the meantime, the TV crew is still doing shooting of Lina Teoh doing her thing in our office lab. Actually there has been several shooting sessions done there for the past month, and frankly the lab donkey and the receptionist must be the ones who are most pissed for having to move from their spot.

The rest of us are simply annoyed that the front door gets sealed everytime hence we can't enter the office using the good lift and our visitors had to be shown our messy back route (via a lift as slow as the one in Liza's SIC office on top of that - incorrigible!).

I was ready to receive the enlightenment. The training-session I've been waiting for is finally coming to me...

... but Lina Teoh isn't?! What?

The marketing guy who was pitching the interview came to us and said "Apparently Ms Teoh refused to be interviewed today, as she wasn't told earlier about it."

As the guy rant about how eksyen Lina Teoh was when she was dealing with him and that our company has done a wrong move by letting her crew use our office facilities and lab bla bla bla [please insert the usual what-an-ungrateful-celebrity talk here] all I could think was..

... there goes my training!

Ah well, I heard the CEO's coming to visit this subsidiary today, so maybe I'll pitch in the idea to him if he ever looks my way...

Happy 28th Birthday to the most popular Siti in the family

Today's my sister's 28th birthday! Selamat... Ulang tahun..

Heard rumours about her AD19 gang coming to rock Planet Hollywood and give her the traditional birthday bash (or should I say splash) tonight, so this I gotta see!

(Ten things about) My sister:
1) is a classical-trained contemporary musician (plays keyboard, organ, piano, trombone, angklung etc)
2) is a 1976 Dragon - she's always prosperous despite being classic shopaholic)
3) has a productive hobby, which is entering all the contests she comes across
4) prefers to be known as the cool rock-chick, not 8-aggregate, 3.49CGPA high-achiever
5) is very penyabar especially when dealing with tantrum-freak younger sister
6) is a marvellous cook that leaves tasmanian devil-like mess after each cooking session
7) can charm the socks off any kid/toddler on the street - except our 2nd nephew Zakwan who doesn't impress easily.
8) loves food and massages, but she'll never have both at the same time
9) is waiting for someone to buy her a Playstation-2
10) bloody hates singing "I will survive", the song some clubgoers think they should listen to everyday

Recent office drama

A writer attached to one of the teams in my co is resigning. He had enough of his lady boss, and he wants out. And he's sharing his side of the story with the rest of the Editorial team too.

He said his boss is treating him like a kid, having to report his progress every minute and demanding that he write a formal show-cause letter when he refused to attend a casual media luncheon.

Prior to that, he once asked his boss why certain things are such when it involves him but not quite so if it's involving another writer. The boss was bloody pissed when he did this in their team meeting, obviously cause he had just revealed that she practices favouritism within their small unit.

She accused him of trying to insult her by asking her that in front of the whole team, and accused him of "plotting" against her. (Yeah, plotting is the word she actually used, suggesting her wild imagination, which must have been triggered by inner guilt, humph!!)

Anyway, we all took him out to lunch yesterday and let him pour it all. He also told us that he was appraised very poorly during the company's recent appraisal practice, which kinda sealed the deal for him - he's been saving money in case he has to resort to quitting with a 24 hours notice, but he decided to keep the money and go back to Taiwan where he once stayed as a student for four years, and try his luck there.

Good luck, J!

Zuma

When writer's block hits, all you can do is play Zuma. Check it out at AliveGames, but let me warn ye its addictive!

A post about beauty

Today I had problems with logging in - so an ISD guy was hailed from the next building. The cute one showed up - he's my favourite among the many and I have been calling him "my bright spark" since the day I first saw him a couple of years back.

Judging by the way he dresses, he' probably not married. But the way his eye does not stray around suggests that he might be attached in some other ways. OK.

No problem at all - cause I'm just interested to see him, not really interested to get to know him. Besides if I get to know him, it might spoil his reputation of being the brightest spark in the ISD department - he might be someone who is actually awfully boring, or arrogant, or silly, or temperamental (these qualities are turn-offs for me).

If you are wondering how shallow I am for releasing such statements, well go ahead and guess. Many people say beauty is skin deep, and beauty is superficial, and beauty does not last long... and some other thing such as your personality or your dignity is more important, more long-lasting, more valueable.

True, I shall not dispute that. But let's not totally overlook beauty. After all there must be a reason why God award some of us with beauty. After all there must be a reason why beauty lies in the eye of the beholder.

Personally I have always been a fan of pretty things (minus bric-a-bracs and those lovely dolls). I always find motivation in good-looking guys. If good-looking guys work in my office, I would not be mourning over Monday to Friday mornings and be at the office by 10AM (currently I'm consistently showing up around 11AM).

A good-looking face is indeed a thing that should be appreciated. As Oscar Wilde puts it *"And Beauty is a form of Genius-is higher indeed, than Genius, as it needs no explanation."

And suddenly I have an urge to buy cosmetics...

Bled

The insides of my cheeks were actually bleeding yesterday. I did it to myself. I had to, it was a matter of racial stability, which in order for the country to stay stable in that sense, I was willling to sacrifice that much..

... besides, I did it in Form One science class before.

(Didn't you all had to do that experiment..? Remember you were supposed to tear a bit of skin from the insides of your mouth so that you can see how human cells looks like under the microscope? Well my whole classroom went overboard that day, some bled - those who did it intentionally went on to place a blood sample (plus other mixed stuff, eyyeww..) and have it checked under the scope as well... Well... anyway..)

It was all because of a song - a rock song, no less thank you very much!

A rock song sang by a local independent group, the lyrics done in two languages - an integration that should be appreciated by all of us Malaysians, not just those stuck in National Service right now!

T'was a good song. Pregnant with message, I think. In any case it should not have fallen under my list of "Things that tickle" but I could not help it!

All I could think of was that wacky smiley Sue had put on the tagboard quite some time ago when she asked if any of us had heard of that Goyang song before...

Let me assure you that prior to the biting of my lips and the insides of my cheeks incident, I had tried everything to stop myself from laughing out loud everytime the song went goyang, goyang... goyang kepala goyang, goyang, goyang... (repeat 3x):

1) pretended to read NST, spreading the pages so that I can giggle behind it - didn't work cause the person next to me seems to indicate that I'm trespassing her "space". Damn! Why won't NST go tabloid size???

2) used a book to cover my face - didn't work cause the book wasn't big enough pulak! I was still fighting a losing battle with my urge to LOL!

3) buried my face in my cardigan to release a few shots of guffaws - naah, didn't work either cause though the song was blasting very loudly via the speakers, I don't think it could drawn my muffled giggles..

4) stuff the sleeve of my cardigan into my mouth so that it will stop me from laughing - yes, this is a stupid thing to do and I hereby declare it - hey desperate situation.. desperate measures.. yadda yadda yadda. Of course this one didn't work cause I almost end up gorging instead!

By the time I took out the sleeve of my cardigan out of my mouth the song came to another round of its infectious, catchy, harmony chorus rendition... goyang, goyang... it went and I immediately resorted to coughing.

Cough, cough, cough... I went. But the chorus was longer this time around (repeat 6x instead of 3x)! Goyang, goyang... and so it went for another round. Man, is this all you've got for a song pal?!

The lady next to me are beginning to look worried... I had no choice but to stop coughing. It came down to "Ekhem, ekhemm... ekhemmmm!".

Goyang, goyang... it went again! What? Another round of this? I can't take it anymore! God knows I tried!

A grin began to form on my face, and suddenly I feel my own shoulders and stomach betraying me, shaking and shivering... I detected a familiar noise - I'm laughing?

The lady next to me was giving me a look that echoed a question once posted by my MIS Dept lecturer Mr Azman*, "What's - so - funny, ya?" He didn't sound at all humoured then, nor did the lady next to me.

There was also another guy, who was earlier tapping his foot to the rock beat giving me a questioning stare.

I immediately buckled up, bit my lip and tried to chant ABC backwards in my head. The urge to continue laughing seeped deeper and deeper into my belly, surpressed but hardly receeding.

The taste of something metallic began to register in my head, but I managed to stay put through a couple more rounds of goyang, goyangs.

The moment I stepped out of the music-ambassador bus, I immediately dialled Sue (not soon enough, stupid blasted MPx200!). Sue, still at work was immediately awarded with my howlings.

I tried to her that I heard her song (she seemed to resent me referring the Goyang song as hers) and almost got hit by a pick-up while crossing in front of Kotaraya. But had I got hit, I think witnesses will say I died happy.



* During my U days Mr Azman who taught the outcasted PM28ers was a high-profile notorious too fast too furious kapchai rider, leather-jacket wearing Masters graduate who addresses all of his students as "bradders and sisters". Anim is still his groupie I think..