The bug

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Arghhh! I hate these words…. they’re driving me up the wall…

And to add to the agony, words that keep crushing my pea brains:

Insurance

RTA

Green slip

$ Ka-ching $

Troubled morning + Lack of sleep + Worry worry + Big mass confusion

= A cranky ME

$$ concerns

I am still stubborn, refusing day after day to apply for a phone line. A land line that is. I wasn’t bothered initially with standing alone at the phone booth, making a thousand-miles-away phone call to foreverhome. Mum would constantly ask “What IS that sound?” or “What happened just then?” with every booming sound. Just sounds of motors with wheels, zooming past the corner of my eyes as I chatter away. Winter is creeping up real quickly, and I’ll probably won’t be able to stand as long as my conversation would last now that the winds are getting more violent and the temperature is chilling into your bones. Guess I really need to get that line. I’ve been missing out on MSN chats and long email talks. Stealing the company’s internet during lunch times and tea breaks is probably not a long term solution, like what I’m currently doing now….ALT TABing between typing this entry and a supposedly-being-worked-on-computer-screen. No I cannot be caught, and will not be caught.

I’m so appreciative of friends who cook dinners, and I had one really good lamb steak dinner last night, followed by an intense game of ginramy. Amazing how my brains can still find the game so competitive after a long weekend in frustration and utter annoyance at myself, for the lack of research, knowledge, money and power. This will become clearer towards the end of this week, IF what has been agreed on will fall through.

The plane has left for Melbourne, and I’m missing him already. What’s left behind is a pot of curry chicken, made with TLC at 1.30am this morning.

Ice Cold

I came into work this morning, realising the temperature in the office has been increased. Finally! Someone noticed how cold the office has been, and has collectively decided to do something about it before everyone turns into a block of ice.

In walks my colleague who sits in the adjacent cubicle from me. He comes over and asked me to touch his cold hands! What the??!! You DO NOT ask your female colleague to feel if your hands are cold or not. Man, how weird can he be?? Noticing that he was holding a cup in this right hand, I politely told him that he can go get a cup of hot water and wrap his hands around the cup for warmth. Yet, he insisted that his hands were freezing cold, so out of obligation, I poked it with one finger and immediately withdrew it. Eeeewww. Shivers sped through my spinal cord.

I suppose I haven't pen down the incidents that have unfolded, situations where I've found him most bizarre and too friendly. My encounter with him started on my first day of work, 3.5 months ago. He is a senior process engineer, but have only joined the company 3 weeks earlier than me. It was somewhat good in the sense that we can figure out abbreviations and company jargons, attend trainings and inductions, basically help each other out or get lost together. I thought it was a splendid idea, but now I wished I hadn't.

He will only talk to me about non-work-related stuff when no one is around in the office, claiming that it's to avoid empty winds whispering in the corner. I don't think that's an issue really, unless you've got something to hide. I talk to everyone any time, anywhere, openly. It got so creepy that my friend suggested that I avoid talking to him for a while, which I did almost subtly, but still got picked up by him when he asked me if he did anything wrong because I wasn't talking much to him anymore.

I just got to be more careful. I can sense that he's a friendly sorta guy, in this late 40s, married with 2 kids and loves surfing. But being too friendly gets me suspicious. Maybe I'm just over reacting.

And he just offered me some sweets, while I was in the midst of typing this entry.

Office Musings

My boss is yet again away for the whole week for training purposes. Dennis usually takes over as the acting senior engineer while my boss is absent. He's a funny guy, really...cracks me up all the time, along with my Turkish colleague, Eric. Without them, the office is silent, all you can probably hear are sound of the keyboard buttons typing away, air conditioning humming continously, and the phones over at the mechanical blokes area ringing annoyingly. Somehow they just don't pick up each other's phones like we, the friendly electrical people, do. All the office perks, guess it just makes coming to work all the more enjoyable.

While trying to steal some work hours yesterday for personal reasons:
Me : Hey, Acting Senior...
Dennis: Yes? How can I help you?
Me : Can I leave work earlier today?
Dennis: (with an immediate response) No.
Me : Why not?!
Dennis: Because...I'm the Actor.
Me : (rolling my eyes)I have to let the plumber in. My bathroom got flooded over the weekend.
Dennis: Geez, what happened?
Me : My friend was using the bathtub and water flowed back out through the hole on the floor.
Dennis: Why did you let him use it?
Me : Him? Oh no no, it's a she. She was using the tub to bathe her daughter.
Dennis: Oh now he is a she, eh? Tsk tsk!
Me : Just act as though I'm still at my desk.
Dennis: Alright, off you go.

And the problem has been resolved, with the plumber discovering a plastic cup stuck in the pipes. How did that get there? A mystery.

And with so much time to spare before bedtime, I slumped my butt on the sofa, eyes in front of the telly, switching between programs - the State of Origin rugby game and the 25million dollar hoax show. I don't follow rugby, no safety gear, no proper tactics, just pure bull strength. I find it real boring but since it's NSW vs Qld, it's a big deal to NSW peeps as they haven't lost the best-of-three games match. Guess it was a huge strike to the heart when Qld won the game yesterday, with a magnificent intercept from a poorly passed ball, which cost NSW the game when it was tied at 20all. Nothing much of a bother to me there, guess the situation will be ramped up when the second game is played in NSW next month.

And to get back to the other hoax show I was switching about while doing my office work on my laptop, imagine tricking your family that you won 5million dollars and spending the fake money via card swiping on YOURSELF, and none on your family. An extra condition was also imposed, that if any of your family member hinted that they would very much like a particular item for themselves, then YOU have to buy it for YOURSELF. A selfish act indeed, but that's the whole point of the game, to irratate, frustrate and annoy the shits out of your loved ones, and expect them to continue supporting and turning up for your last money spin on the finale wheel. If just one family member did not turn up, they will lose the prize money.

I was initially thinking "Oh no, not another one of those reality stupid shows" but this one had family values to consider, though really swaying it on the fence but the family supported her all the way, though they really cannot believe the way she's throwing away money by:

1) taking singing lessons when she's got zero talent,
2) buying Lladro sculptures when she knows nuts about art, and
3) getting boob implants when she still actively plays soccer.

And I just love how the father summed up the whole experience:

"Bill Gates is very rich, but I am far richer because of my family - the love, the support, it's priceless."

Fishing Again

Went deep sea fishing again. After the last ordeal that went terribly wrong, I made sure I took the motion sickness pill according to directions. And I even bought some sour sweets just to keep my mind off the rocky waves, the swaying wind and the chilling breeze. Most of us caught snappers and mackarels this time around, as oppose to the many sweeps we caught the last time. Fish dinner was still very enjoyable. I'm proud to say that I fished out the biggest snapper as well as a huge squid, but I was not allowed to take Squidy on board the boat for fear of its magnificent black ink spray capability. Pity that I had to throw it back to sea. I swear I could have made some good calamari rings out of it.

Home Alone Again

I can seriously say I H-A-T-E Mondays. Here I am, home alone again when I get off work today in 2.5 hours. Well, home alone if you don't count the cat. Jason's drove up to Sydney this morning for work. Last Monday, my Italian flatmate left for good, to travel around Australia before returning home to Italy. I just hope I'll be able to find a new person soon before the rent is too much for my poor shallow pockets to bear.

We tried looking for an ice creamery around Wollongong at around 9pm last night. Most places were shut, one particular ice cream shop was about to close, so Chillis was the next best place to go. After placing our orders and excitedly waiting for our hot chocolates, it was like a big slap in the face when told there was totally no more chocolate powder to even make a quarter glass of hot chocolate. I so miss Melbourne, the buzz, the cafes, the hot chocolates. The three of us, two former and one current Melbournite, sighed in disappointment, with me politely refusing a hot tea in replacement. At least the chocolate desserts were more-than-good enough to make up for it.

Deep fried!

After getting comfortable on my office swivelling chair, I shifted the mouse to generate a movement to activate the monitor screen. Darkness. Oh well, it must be real sleepy this morning, just like me almost e-v-e-r-y other morning. I pressed the PowerOn button to turn on the CPU. Black Screen. Bizarre. This has never happened before! I started to worry, thinking I may have blew my internet quota, blogging, net surfing for unrelated work stuff, emailing, you name it, I'm totally guilty of it. The IT department must have tracked me down and blocked my computer usage. Noooooo!

Calm down, I told myself, and started to troubleshoot and found that the powerpoint was faulty. I later found out that the rat had entered one of our high voltage cable termination box and somehow done something amazing, affecting the whole of one of the major plants, and a few of our circuit breakers in the office. And to add to the quirkiness of it all, one of the main transformers in a different substation supplying power to the hot strip mill exploded close to the same time as the rat got fried. Hmmm.

Yearning for a holiday

I guess I'm not getting too far yet with my endofyear holiday planning. Some think that I shouldn't waste the hard-and-well-deserved-earned salary on a holiday in the same year. Yet others feel I should go home and spend some time with my parents, since I did promise mum that I'll return every year. Well, at this point in time, I've decided to return to homieland only next year, hopefully during CNY since I've missed the celebrations and the angpow collecting for three whole years in a row. I wonder what happened to my share of the money. Maybe mum took it. Haha. I remember how my grandpa used to give us a one dollar coin every Sunday morning during our bahkutteh breaky and mum would convinced my brothers and I to let her keep it. And I never saw it again after that.

It's decision-making time, to either visit just the southern part of New Zealand or just do both north and south. The things that I am most hoping to do are zorbing and bungee jumping. Guess I can fulfill two dreams on my wishlist, both sitting there quietly on the top righthandside of this blogpage,on this trip. No, I have not ignored you guys.

Anyone else interested? Most likely in December, on the infamous Contiki tour group, and lots of flexibility during the trip. Grab a copy of their itenarary from any travel agents and let me know if you wanna journey with me to Kiwiland. Yeah!

Star Wars III

Star Wars II: Attack of the Clones was showing last night on TV. Though not an avid fan of Star Wars (geez I'm sensing water bottles being thrown my way), I decided to watch it anyway as an introduction to seeing the third episode in the big screens when it opens this Thursday. Guess it jogged my memory back to who's Obi Wan Kenobi, Yoda, and THE Anakin who eventually turned to the dark side. Thank goodness for my good buddy who kindly and patiently explained the characters and the sometimes confusing storyline to me. At least the Lindemans red wine that we enjoyed didn't require further introduction!

Earlier in the arvo, we rented a couple of dvds at only a mere cost of $2, including new releases. By the time I managed to scramble out of bed after a night's worth of gin, all the most recent releases at VideoEzy had been rented. But still, Shall We Dance was really good as well, and Richard Gere never looked more good looking in his life!, save for the short period of time when I got interrupted by a call from Melbourne, urgently asking me to get in to the city and buy a certain Esprit knitwear because the whole of Victoria had run out of stock. I expect a big fat favour in return.

Mahjong

I can feel it coming. A headACHE, most likely from staring at the screen too long. I'm trying to capture the trend signals from the radar device that was recently installed and compare it to the current plate sensors that needs replacement soon. Unfortunately, the monitoring system refreshes itself at exactly 10:00:00 everyday, wiping out the plate signals. Grrr. And I'm getting neurotically annoyed. Grumpiness will soon set in when I'm caught offguarded during one of those moods.

But I look forward to leaving work at 4pm today, having done more than enough hours for this week itself. I'm already visualizing what we are going to lay on the dinner table tonight, with steamboat again winning hands down. And then, a game of mahjong and ginrammy would ease the stress off my shoulders and neck, and hoping that the apartment walls are solid enough to absorb the plack plack noise of the mahjong tiles, without disturbing the neighbours.

I remember ever so vividly being awake on my bed in my grandparents wooden house in Ipoh, many donkey years ago. An old well sat in the middle of the house, and at that time, it was still being used to draw water. The toilet was located outside the house, and I never liked to visit it at night because it was so dark that I thought I would fall into the hole and never come back. Many times I would knock my head on the base of the toilet flush tank. No wonder I suffer from memory loss.

My grandparents, aunties, uncles, and occasionally my dad, would play mahjong till the wee hours of the morning, "ponging" and "chi-ing". Other terms include "ka-long" and "sek-wu", terms that I picked up but never really knew what it meant. My bedroom would be the last room near the kitchen, and I'll try to stuff my ears into the pillow to try to get a wink. Mum didn't like my siblings and I to hang around the mahjong table coz my uncles smoked a lot. And my dad didn't like me sitting next to him either, coz I would whisper what those tiles he had meant, and eyes would start to twinkle and lips grinning, for I was giving dad's tiles away.

Hunting

I smile in delight as I read the words of success of a friend. Success of a house-purchase gone through. And then, I thought of myself. When will I be able to buy a house? Five and a half years worth of renting residential colleges/apartments in the past could probably have gotten me a down payment for a decent-sized house. As I reflect on the numbers of zeros in my bank account, I wonder how long more I need to work and save to get that far. And I only just finished my probation period.

Where will my dream house be? Will it have pearly-white gates and Colorbond roofs and a big swing in the garden lavished with boulevard-lined pink-flowered trees leading to a pedestal surrounded by a pool of water fountain and floating candles infused with rose and vanilla scents? Even a quintessence of citrus fragrances would be nice.

And I continue to dream....while at work.

Ladies

Many a times when I get boring programming stuff to do, my mind wanders into space. Not that I wanted to, but the oh-so-mundane-staring-at-the-screen job doesnt keep me awake enough to even pass half an hour without fidgeting, and without making frequent trips to the ladies two floors down. Alison, who works on the level where the ladies room is, and whom I just met over lunch, said that she sees me all the time at the hallway, which isn't surprising to me since I'm the only female in the entire building wearing a bright orange uniform...or maybe my trips to the ladies are getting too frequent. It made me concluded that either 1) I drink too much water 2) The air condition is too strong 3) My bladder is just too small...or maybe it's just a combination of all the above.

Today I'll be trying to leave work earlier to get to the post office. The overdue Mother's Day card and present is still tucked behind my big office drawer. This time, I had better not miss the train...and the train had better not be cancelled, otherwise I'll get cranky.

Happy Mother's Day

To mum, with love, from down under.

Nah, of course I didn't say that to mum. Wished her the usual "Happy Mother's Day!" tagline over the phone while leaning against the public phone booth. And no, I haven't gotten round to getting a phone line yet at home. So there I was, standing alone on a Sunday evening on the BourkeStreet-like road, with shops ready to pull the shutters down, some have knocked off earlier for the day. My eyes were running back and forth from its socket, my left hand holding on to my handbag, just in case some punk kids decided to pick on me and snatch my purse. Have gotten more careful now that my good friend in Klang almost got robbed. I know, I know, it's Australia not Malaysia...just that I'll make sure I've got my back kicks and boxing fists in anticipation of anything that might happen. Geez, I think I'm getting too worried.

Dolphins!

Jervis Bay has the whitest sandy beaches I've seen so far. Located 1.5 hours south of Wollongong, this place boasts of its beaches and outdoor activities, apparently making it into the Guiness Book of Records for having the whitest beach in the world. Anybody care to check that out?

The dolphin-watching cruise was awesome. They came so close to the boat that you thought you could almost hear them communicating! Or maybe those sounds were man-made by the other excited people on the boat. Reminded me of Dory from Finding Nemo, trying to speak whale language. There was also a baby calf amongst the school of dolphins...jumping and splashing itself back into the sea. So cute!!



The rest of the day was spent hiking to reach the most talked about whitest beach... we saw Greenfield's beach, and even a Chinaman's beach (serious! it's the exact name of the beach!) but no sight of that special beach. Running out of sun time, we hiked back to Greenfield's beach for a tan, a swim, and card games. We will definitely return to Jervis for the next adventure, either snorkelling or kayaking. Yeah!

Best Wishes

Everyone at work wished me luck.

Friends over email prayed for me.

Jas over the phone said I will do well.

All others said "No worries".

Will it come true?

First Commissioning

Remember the crane job I did a couple of weeks ago? Yup, so it's time for its full commissioning. And remember the reflectors that were knocked over by the crane? Yup, this time we just stuck a piece of reflecting material complete with adhesives. I wonder why we didn't think of that earlier.

This time, I wasn't feeling so eeeky&yucky all over as I walked across the crane and up and down, bending my body whenever I can to avoid getting knocked on the head. Though my helmet was my only form of protection, it wasn't a good feeling anyway. Expectations have been materialised and I confidently placed my hands on the ladders and stepped my feet on dirt-filled structures and over protruding beams. I've probably strained my throat a little too, yelling my guts out to the design engineer who was taking the crane-hook-over-the-coils measurements at ground level. At times, I can feel the crane shake and rattle when the other cranes opearting next to us passed by.

I probably should have known, as a qualified Electrical Engineer (yeah right!) about circuit breakers, isolating switches, cable bellings, et cetera but that's all in theory. The practical experience I had commissioning this job was invaluable. Now I would probably be able to read the electrical designs and do similar testings, but when it comes to the design phase, I'm hopeless. Well, I guess everything's still a learning process for me, and my mum continues to ask if I thoroughly enjoy what I'm doing. I really don't know.

Next job at hand, figure out if either the laser or radar or CCD camera is the best option for an old sensor upgrade. I've spent most of my time on research, probably not a good investment for the company to pay me to sit in front of the computer and read unfamiliar terminologies. Time's running out for me to deliver a possible working solution but it's not going anywhere at the moment. Sigh.

Funny tummy

Hmmm still having a bit of grrr&bluaek feeling after Sunday's Chinese dinner. We decided to try this place recommended by a Hongkie friend. Pipis with XO sauce, porkbelly with veg & roast duck with plum sauce laid on our table but were not thoroughly enjoyed. Instead, it caused us to feel funny all over.

And we lost miserably during yesterday's netball game, 20-3. I keep getting whistle-blown and not knowing what I've done wrong. The umpire continued to yell and mumble our team's mistakes while chewing a gum. And facing the wrong side of the court, being a centre, wasn't a good start. The other team, sensing our bad coordination, started laughing and playing silly. Definitely not a good start to this week.