i wanna..

In this 1 month hiatus of mine.. :

i wanna travel.
i wanna read.
i wanna watch my soappy serials.
i wanna swim.
i wanna cook.
i wanna bake.
i wanna blog.
i wanna shop.
i wanna play with the cute nephew & niece.
i wanna have more 'me time'.
i wanna rest.
i wanna indulge and pamper myself... :)

Last Day @ the work place

friday was a day which i have waited anxiously for. yet, as i walked into office that morning, past the public area with the red plastic chairs, i felt a slight tangle of the heart, afterall, i have spent the 4.5 years in the organization, the last 2.5 years in the unit. good and bad times, good and bad memories. i've learnt alot in the past few years..from the big boss, from the exboss.. while i started out not noeing what i wanted to do, i now noe what i do not like to do, and the conditions that i can live with or without.

life at the unit has improved drastically from the madness that was 2007, with its workload, projects and new initiatives.. with more manpower, lesser and predefined workload, indeed life is good. my staff asked me.. " things have improved greatly, why are you leaving?". my answer: "this is the best time to leave". not when the conditions were tough, coz that means you leave because you are in a pressure cooker. leaving now signifies that my leaving is not because of the heavy workload. a myriad of factors, both push and pull. major long term considerations.. like passion for the work, public interface, shift work, constraints of the scheme, practises which i cannot concede with.. my regret? not making the move earlier, maybe..bittersweetness..

tingle of sadness, at leaving the colleagues who have become lunch khakis, good friends.. who share the same situation, aspirations of work and life.. of leaving the comfort zone. of uncertainty at the new place, with the posting still unfinalized at such a late moment.. an arbitrary decision from the HR department of both sides which may alter where i end up.. coz i am not gonna be doing the portfolio i originally moved for. hmm..the mantra to uphold: " if it does not work out, fret not.. move on..regret not the decision you make, but the decision you did not make.."

i surely will miss Mel dearly, and mdm R as well.. and my batch mates.. and team mates from the shift work era.. this last week was a furry of farewell lunches and dinners. after the deleting, shredding and clearing, the work station no longer holds traces of me, just like the unit will no longer hold traces of me.. its just this easy to erase me, the 2.5 years in the unit. the only mementos that i take away are my bags of personnel effects, pics of the work station, colleagues and the farewell gifts from thoughtful colleagues and fres.. wish me luck.. in the great move to the unknown yah..

( Gifts i will surely cherish....)

Stupid ah..

Sometimes i make stupid decisions at work that comes back to haunt me big time. silly silly old me. and sometimes i think too much about how my peers would discern me based on my ability at work, or inability rather. aiz. wats done cannot be undone. so so silly, so so glad i am moving onz.big time. dunnoe wat more stupid things i'll get myself into yahz. frivolous old moi who could have made a more respectable decision. still kicking meself inwardly...probably that's why moi thinks moi is better off doing a simple small biz.. ;p

Totally Crabby

Black Pepper Crabs

Special Yum Paste with Glutinous Rice

Mommie brought us crabs all the way from J.B for dinner. Black Pepper Crabs to be exact. Coupled with fried rice and special "orh ni ". She went shopping, eating with her m.j khakis early morning and packed and dropped the food off on her way to m.j as her m.j khaki stays near our place. Hee hee, totally stuffed with crabs. One big crab each for the dearie and moi. We love our crabs and usually enjoys the dish in the comfort of our house, so that theres no need to worri abt having no image. Still feeling full.. :)

Eastie Moi

The homeland is located within walking distance of great eateries and hawker centres. there's 4 hawker centres in the area, 2 of erm great for foodies looking for night makan. With some famous stalls like minced meat noodles and cheng teng nearby, we have expanded sideways by quite a bit. sobs.

The dearie had already demonstrated his cooking skills by rustling up a simple porridge lunch for us. Instead of eating at one of the 4 hawker centres or the numerous coffeeshops nearby, we decided to venture further out for some fresh sea breeze @ Changi Village..

We saw many families pitching tents, preparing for family bbqs along the beach. its a relaxy kind of surreal feeling that makes me wanna plan for a bbq for the family in the upcoming long break :)

We ended the day with dinner at Charlie's Corner. The fish and chips was better the first time ate there, but i still like the way they freeze their ice in the glasses for serving drinks..the dearie wants to try the 'zhi cha bbq seafood' restaurants the next time we pop by..

(dearie's fish & chips and my grilled fish)

We ended the day with a walk along the weekend flea market. A simple Saturday which marks my last working Saturday at the workplace. time flies. one more week before the long break.

Moi Brownie

I had a box of premix brownie which i bought some time back. Was home early one night, so i decided to bake some brownies. It took like 10-15 mins to add in the ingredients, and baking time of abt 30 mins. And ta da.. easy brownie..


Got the dearie to bring some to office for sharing with the guys and we kept the rest. Totally yums with ice cream.. ;p

The Weekend

Living in the eastside means shopping trips to new heartland malls. one of our favourite hangouts would be Parkway Parade.. pretty ulu when i was a westsider.. we managed to swing by PP for sushi as the dearie was craving for salmon. there's this small japanese supermarket cum eatery that serves cheap fresh sashimi called "fish mart sakuraya". i luv the concept where you have to choose your fish selection at the counter and the chef slices it and serves it up to ya. the selection for other items is rather limited, but the sashimi is okies cheapie..

On Sunday, the dearie cooked lunch for us. yummy yi mian with loads of clams, prawns, crabmeat, pork meat, egg and vegs. coupled with home brewed jui hua cha. tits a great homey meal.

(the dearie's masterpiece)

When the girlfres gave moi an oven last Christmas, i've been toying with the idea of doing some baking. why waste the perfectly good oven, right? especially since i found a Phoon Huat store near the homeland for baking supplies. I started with store bought premix. Now moving on to recipes i found on the web. Feeling quite pleased, although the dearie has to eat my baked items.. ;p

(moi apple muffins)

Quite a typical weekend.. :)

Atas Laksa & Hor Fun

Met up with Fen for dinner yesterday. i'm quite a no heart fre, for i always cannot remember her birthday.. Fen wanted to eat @ Conrad Centennial Hotel. Oscars Restaurant. So we had very ex local cuisine there, with Fen ordering the Laksa and moi having the Beef hor fun.. the entire bill for the meal was almost $90 bucks before discount. (Fen had a $30 voucher, so deduct that away).

(photo taken from my new pink camera.. ;p)

Hee hee, the ambiance of the restaurant was okay, although i thought Aquarmarine at Marina Mandarin was better in terms of value for money.. its actually quite enjoyable to find a great dining place whereby you can chat and catch up over a meal, away from the blustering madness of the city.. our next stop would be The Rose Veranda at Shangri-La Hotel for weekday afternoon english tea, whereby both of us are enjoying the short hiatus from the work life.. fen to study, and moi to the new workplace.. my countdown calender stands at 9.5 more workdays. Hip Hip Horayz. silly old moi.

Pink Camera

Yipee.. after so so so many years, i've finally gotten a camera to call my own ( and the dearie's too.. opps).. and its a pretty bright pink too. quite pleased with my sony T90 ( although i had wanted to the the LX3.. ;p).

hee hee.. many many of us are shopping at the great IT shows, for freebies galore. i got a free dvd player, extra battery etc with my camera.. moi is happie babe ;p

a Sat of Blog Reading

the dearie is away for his ICT and will only be back on Sundayz.. and little old moi made my way to the in-laws place, for the dearie is afraid that lazy moi would be alone..( mummie's on weekend getaway cruise).. i'm blessed, for the mum-in-law and dad-in-law are wonderful people..

without the dearie to cajole for the comp with moi, i've been able to do a fair bit of web-surfing, blog reading. the more blogs i read, the more i feel that babes of the same generation share similar likes/dislikes , desires, aspirations.. so beri much the products of our time..i'll be interesting to follow the blogs thru the decade to see how each person's thoughts have evolved with the tide of time..

at work today, the colleague and moi were whining chatting on the flaws and short comings of the workplace.. and it dawn on me that many a times, our responses reflect the current position we are in. Moi, i am the olddie about to leave in 3 weeks time who could not really be bothered to keep up appearances. the colleague is resigned to status quo and working as a means to earn more money for her own self, the boss is the up and coming mouthpiece of the higher mgt with great hope in climbing the corporate ladder. hence, the need for him to keep up the 'i'm shoulderin the burden of this unit and have to ensure every single thing is in order" kind of attitude. moi, i am the " i am forced to be here because the org has deem it necessarily, so please dun expect too much from me" attitude while the colleague has the " i'm gonna be here for a long time but has no hope for promo in the next few years" attitude. this has shaped our positions and responses to work. so different from my attitude of " i'm here to climb the ladder so i have to be exemplary" kind of behaviour i had when i first joined the unit. this was the same for the old boss, whom had tried very hard to manage the big unit but was found lacking by the big boss. when he finally gave up trying, he was no longer the nervous whack of a mgr he had been in the early days ..well, the old boss was blessed, he's now having a great time at his new posting after being transferred out forcefully.. understanding boss and work life balance.. i truly believe that we are all blessed in diff ways..

hee, am i justifying my lack of effort in keeping up with appearances for this last 3 weeks? oh well, silly old moi is still counting down.. 14 more workdays till the long overdue break.. its now Macao and Korea instead of Genting and Japan.. ;p