not quite the usual wedding

"praise with elation, praise every morning, God's recreation of the new day" - cat stevens (morning has broken)


it was my friend's wedding on sunday. she's currently based in dubai on a job posting while her husband is still doing his thesis here. so she flew down for her wedding. it was so great to see her since it's been nearly a year since i bid her farewell.

time really flies...

i still remember the first time i met her and how we just got along instantly. i saw her when she was single, sorta attached, coupled and then suddenly engaged after 3 months. she almost gives me hope that perhaps in 3 months time, i too could be engaged haha! but i guess when this is it, you just know it's it.

it was a lovely outdoor wedding. quite unlike the usual weddings we have here. then again she's not quite like the usual girl either. her wedding atmosphere and choice of champagne reminded me why we're friends... 'coz that was what i would have wanted too.

there was also a pretty interesting crowd at her wedding. her husband is a sometime triathlete so among the guests were his triathlete friends. it was rather intimidating. and one of the topics of conversation with a random guy was the question "what do you do to work out?" what happened if my answer was "work out? what do you mean? i just sit around on my ass all day."

i went home and had to work out.

****

which brings me to another point...

i just had a full day offsite meeting today where we did some planning for 2007. yes, it's not too late to start...

i was thinking of doing the same thing with my life... to relook into what my focus should be. one of the things i was thinking bout is to work out more. maybe eventually join a race or even possibly a triathlon like i said before... of 'coz that would mean that i would actually have to learn how to cycle haha!

well we'll see... i guess i'm just kinda bored with how things in my life have been going especially in the last few years. this might just bring me my new high.

keep rolling

"in santa monica, on the boulevard, you'll have to dodge those inline skaters, or they'll knock you down" - savage garden (santa monica)

the fad started 10 years ago. and back then, i was always interested in learning it... but somehow other than the one failed attempt at winging it with a friend, i never managed to actually get round to learning it.

so this time when a friend asked me to join her in the beginner's class in order to get a cheaper group rate, i roped in my colleague who was also interested and we decided to go for it.

it was our first inline skating class today.

and in less than an hour, i was skating... actually rolling along. i've never really been able to do that. to get over the fear of falling and to just let go and roll with it. hmmm.. maybe that side of me manifests itself in more ways than just strictly inline skating...

but the feeling of skating, albeit at a none too fast speed, felt great. my thighs ached, my back ached and my stomach (strangely enough) ached but i felt great. or maybe i felt great 'coz i didn't actually fall... yet? the 3 of us were just laughing the whole time. our coach was pleasantly surprised 'coz he claimed that normally after the first hour, everyone's all tired out. but we still seemed so energetic, laughing away. i was probably high on adrenaline.

and it was a good rush.

lately everything has been pretty much the same old that i find myself almost bored. this is definitely something to shake things up a lil.

next comes wall climbing...

hello, how may i help you?

“please don't call me on the phone, and don't even bother stopping by before i go” – lastpagefirst (don’t call)

yesterday i spent half an hour in the train talking to a colleague acquaintance who works in the call centre. i always thought that he was kinda weird. but after half an hour of one on one conversation, i’m convinced he is weird.

so i asked the cursory ‘where were you working previously’ question. but instead of the usual quick run through, i got a pretty detailed answer. i even had company names thrown at me. while that in itself is not a bad thing and sometimes even proves to be pretty helpful, throwing company names i have never ever heard of doesn’t help. who knows what on earth is XYZ Asia Pte Ltd*? and who even cares that much? especially not if he only worked there for a week. yes, he proudly told me that he’s had 27 jobs in 9 years. wow! that number just makes my resume look humble by comparison. his resume must be the size of a phone book.

now i’m always up for a lil ‘making fun’ of strangers behind their backs… it’s just in the way it’s done. sometimes it’s funny and other times there needs to be a line drawn somewhere. in the middle of our conversation, he suddenly remarked on a short guy - tall girl couple that walked in. okay so they were certainly mismatched. she looked significantly older than he did. talk bout the mrs robinson syndrome. i can think of a few of my friends who would joke bout that… me included… but it was just the way he said it that rubbed me the wrong way.

and then he remarked that she was big boned. okay not the nicest thing to say but before my brain even had time to process that he went on to say that he likes to notice people’s bone structure. that really made me want to cover my entire body in an armour. he proceeded to explain that his reasoning was ‘coz he used to work in his dad’s hawker shop where there was a butcher in friend and a chicken slaughterer behind. he wondered if people’s bone structure were different. er… okay… i sure as heck hope so! or else i’m just having a really bad day…

ahh but definitely not as bad a day as someone else… he complained bout a nasty customer who kept calling the call centre. when you work in a call centre, you take the good customers together with the bad. i can relate. and sometimes it’s necessary to vent**. just like with any other annoying things that we face in life. i’m cool with that. but to think of harming the source of your annoyance takes it up another notch. okay so you decide not to pick up his calls or maybe pick up his calls and tell him off… whatever… but he took the cake by saying he wanted to ask that annoying customer down to our office on the pretext of wanting to give him a gift. and what would that gift in question be you may ask… well let’s just say that annoying customer may get to meet his maker sooner than he thought…

okay so i feel the need to explain a bit first for those who don’t know my workplace… my office is in a remote location where due to the large number of big tanks full of flammable liquids being stored within the compound, we have an equally large number of guards with big guns on patrol. trust me, you get used to it pretty fast. but basically what the guy wanted to do was to shoot annoying customer.

whoa!

i told him not to tell me bout it. i don’t want to be an accessory to murder.

i don’t think i ever wanted out of a conversation so much before. he was starting to increasingly annoy me with his nasal voice, bad enunciation and poor choice of words.

essentially i think he has all the personality and social graces of someone who should not be working in a call centre.

or maybe it’s just a job hazard. maybe when you are forced to make nice with annoying customers all day, inevitably you’ll just find yourself with the increasing urge to shoot ‘em all.

if that’s the case, thank goodness i’m not working in a call centre.


* note: real name of the unheard of company is protected. actually i can’t even remember the real name of the unheard of company.
** here i shall apologise for the venting content of this post. i promise that i’m not usually this annoying or intolerant.

raspberry ripple

"pink is the colour of passion, 'coz today it just goes with the fashion" - pink (aerosmith)

it's time for a change... and i actually mean with my hair...

i'm one of those who favors hair shades not found in nature. so far i've gone blueberry, blue-green, forest green and lime green.

this time i've gone raspberry. it kinda looks more purplish pink though.



the colour is pretty sedate (compared to the very striking green i had just sported). in fact my colleague said that i looked more decent. which i'm guessing she means that i looked indecent previously haha! anyhow i like the colour even though i still have the urge to go shocking pink. if i can, i probably will somewhere in the near future... but for now i'm gonna enjoy this darker and more 'normal' colour...