Starting Afresh?

3rd January 2006, Tuesday

Yes we have officially entered the 3rd day of a brand new year and my first post thus far; but seriously the muted mood can be summarised by the words from this morning greeting from Siti of the neighbouring lab... "Morning..and a Happy New Year..Though it still seems like last year"...can't agree more

The stuffs to be done remains the same, the personnel around pretty much unaltered though YM has tendered her resignation and should be leaving by the 10th of February, which marks an end to the famous DSF threesome with her departure...

Personally I'm in pretty much a zombie state due to a serious lack of sleep for the last 2 days (which supposed to be actual rest days) which signify how "happening" my New Year itinery had been...

The eve was a carbon copy to that of X'mas eve as I hit La Tendo to be joined by the likes of Chan and Karen despitethe latter left for a family dinner shortly after I accompanied Chan and Matthew to Raffles Exchange to pick up their behemoth of the Sideshow Weta Sauron in the drizzle with Eng Kiong's famous crimson Hyundai Matrix as the main transport.
It was where I drove my first and perhaps last 20 cm in an automatic gear car for the entire 2005 as I test-shifted the car along a zig-zag yellow line which is a daft offence nonetheless but to save on parking fees as well as decrease distance to travel for them to load their Saurons, that was perhaps the most viable choice despite the high risk of being caught by the traffic police especially when I left my driving license back in the store.

The only entertainment on the goggle box for the entire NY festivities was a VH1 countdown of the Top 40 Awesomely Bad No. 1 songs..which include the likes of Spice Girls' "Wannabe", Vanilla Ice's "Ice Ice Baby" and the number 1 on the chart, Los Del Rio's "Macarena"; so you get the pciture... However I think they have certain agenda against Phil Collins or something but the commentators which comprised of music crtics, comedians and even musicians themselves were candid to the point and spare no one with their criticism and I am loving every moment.

Sunday, which welcomes the New Year which prompted locals to hit town once more to do more shopping for perhaps the coming Lunar New Year and I had to be engulfed in the midst of the human wave as me and my lass went for some shopping of our own since we had very much none last month and she suddenly transformed herself to some shopping maniac kept insisting on venting her fustrations at work via spending loads of hard-earn cash which I frowned upon as I felt you could never buy enough clothing but then that would lead to the battle of sexes once more.
The entire festive period had been overcasted by rain clouds and sporadic showers which was the main reason we couldn't take a simple stroll to Plaza Singapura to meet up with my La Tendo clique for the screening of "The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch & the Wardrobe" and had to resort to MRT once more.
The movie was okay and I felt it was unfair to compare to Lord of the Rings which was meant for audience of yet another age group. But it was very much a Disney affair with some violence but no gore nor blood. I really like the assortment of fantasy creatures including the fawns to the centaurs to the griffins to the cyclops and of course the Lion is called Asulan which is an inside joke if you had watch the Gundam Seed anime series of course.
However Chan and I were rueing over the fact that we had missed the trailer for "Da Vinci Code" when we made our toilet break just before the movie begins.

Yesterday was very much a mad rush as we left our place to proceed to my lass' current colleague/ex-course mate, Jack's newly renovated apartment just off Yew Tee MRT station to scout on how well their facade was done especially with Jack's brother has contacts with contractors we can employed for our own room in the future.
The custom-made wardrobe is pretty nicely-done and is in that dark walnut color we had our eyes on. The master bedroom was a bit cramped but the toilet was incredibly big and with that oversized mirror, they had a mini hotel-style restroom/.bathroom there.
Jack and spouse are into the dim, romantic lighting which I wouldn't really prefer for the main light as I had been to used to bright flourscent illumination but I really fancy that hidden wire concept which makes the place really neat without any dangling wires here and there.
The doorway is incredibly spacious and the fengshui pond thingie he has is really classy and contemporary, not your usual permed hair Hokkien uncle who likes to remove his stubbles with 2 20 cents coins type.
Beside us, there was another Malay colleague of theirs who are equally appeased by the lay-out and plan to follow suit for his own place.

We had to leave in a huff as my lass had an appointment at 3 which was 15 minutes to go when we departed from Jack's place (not the restaurant) and vamoosed down the expressway to town via cab and made it there in half an hour time.

I made my own way to La Tendo where the whole lot were busy doing the stock-take for the new bar-code stockc tracking system they just adopted. I tell you it ain't an easy affair that can be done in a day's time with a measly manpower of around 6-8 people. I was assigned to help out Karen to trace the available blind box trading figurines around, just in the main shop and now counting the store and my goodness, the entire process was endless as the trading figures were littered all over the area and of such wide variety, even I was dumbfounded at times with my knowledge with this genre of toys. This went on from around 4 all the way to 10 in the evening which by then I was joined by my lass who was waiting patiently for me to finish up my part. Karen was complaining non-stop from having gastric pain to being hungry to plain fatigue but it is undrestandable. They said the process would be adjourned for today which hopefully can be fully completed before Vincent have to key the entire list into the tracking system which is an ordeal by itself.

On the way back, my lass and I had a chat about more of our matrimony affairs which basically down to the photography part for the actual day. We also delve on the joint bank account I had proposed all these time. She is also facing a brand new proposal of shifting to non-shift work, meaning 8.30-6 kind of job which I thre skeptics about after seeing how CS is slogging with his work schedule day in day out and of course without the shift allowance, her wage package would be significantly decimated. However she had her own feeling towards this opportunity which can consider as a promotion of sorts as she said the time is ripe for her. It's really down to her to make the decision which would gravely dictate our lifestyles in the coming year as well.

Well a new year supposed to mean new problems to face and new decisions to make. La Tendo is adopting a new goods trackng system, my girl is having new work routine and for myself I guess which would very much the same, doing my work aptly and nothing more, stay under the radar, hopefully gain the most out of nothing and thoroughly enjoy the ride for the next year or so...

Oh last but not least, it actually strucke days ago while I was travelling past where my wedding banquet to be held and reaffirmed by YM today that I could jolly well be hosting my banquet in the very same restaurant dear old JxMMy has held his a couple of years back..argh..as we all know he had his in a hotel behind Le Meridian which could only be the shabby one called Grand Central (definitely suits a China-loving JxMMy as the chinese name of the hotel is none other than 大中) What a wretched twist of cruel fate!!

Japanese word of the day: 新鮮~shin-sen~(Fresh) The only thing fresh so far about my life in the new work year has to be the newly acquired guide to Hokkaido my lass had gotten over the weekends that got us buzzing about visiting places like Hakodate and Otaru very soon