Bandages, Anyone?

14th February 2007, Wednesday

No elaborative celebration with the missus for this day filled with commerical propaganda written all over..breaking the tradition for perhaps the last 6 years, but the experience at Secret Garden was really the last straw for me...

This Valentine I spent with 4 of my girlfriends...er more like lady colleagues at the secluded end of Penang Lane where the Red Cross Center resides...
We began the First Aid as scheduled which will last till the end of this week...
Upon reaching and got all dizzy inching up that sprial staircase, we were ushered to this room at the rear of the building with a rather dilapidated facade, typical of such HQ of these ancient NGOs...
This Malay lady with a face as gloomy as charcoal ushered us in and we prayed she would not be the one giving the lectures and it was answered when this pudgy Indian guy by the name of Damos came in to lead us through the introduction to safety at work...
He was passionate about the topic and was funny enough to keep us awake the whole deal through as the class filled with workers from at least 8 organisations came together with the same ideology of going through the motion for the next 3 days, pass the test and get the certificates before the New Year...

Surely the lunchbreak at 12.30pm didn't goes down too well with BY who scurried to seek that oasis to satisfy her hunger and that oasis happens to be the most unlikely venue of Han's at Park Mall...

Our nightmare known as Julie eventually took over the baton from the entertaining Damos and sent us to the brink of slumberland with that typical Malay style English and seriously the topic on First Aid surely ain't the most exciting topic to be taught especially a hearty lunch....
I was trying to keep myself awake, let alone focus on what Julie was blabbering; and I believe BY in front of me was sharing the same sentiment which she confirmed my perception when we went back later on... even Shin beside me was dozing off once or twice...

But things got a bit more interesting after the break as she covers on the various types of bandages we can apply for different type of injuries including elbow, eye, jaw and palm...
I was paired with Shin and was wrapping that innocuous triangular bandage silly for various demonstrations...
We both are happily married so shouldn't feel shy to practise on bandaging which might have some bodily contacts but I got to realize how small her waistline is yet she complained that she is "blossoming" in terms of physique... Her figures might not be truly fantastic for a mother of one but still should draws envy to many I supposed...

At the end of the day we were just glad it ended earlier than postulated of 6pm as BY was rushing back to feed her litter of street cats including my personal favorite, the one known as Macy...

Today we got to watch another episode known as "The Enigma Known as Chan"...
Weeks before, he was sending out signals to the gang about a movie marathorn this coming Friday evening....
While many despised his choice of "Epic Movie", we still be going ahead with the show with Nicholas Cage as a burning skull rider...
He was gracious to do the booking once more but guess what he isn't watching this movie once again as a queer display seen in the past before...
Heard from EK that it might be due to work commitment, but still it baffles me once again....

Japanese word of the day: 包帯~hou-tai~ (Bandage) It is hard to do the one for scalp injury on that small conical head of Shin...

2 days left in the office...

12th February 2007, Monday

The favorite question I am posted the whole day thus far would be ..."what happened to your hand?"
As you can see, I had been putting off a visit to the traditional Chinese physiotherapist to get my left wrist treated as it seems like the synovial fluid along the joint of the bones got squeezed out much due to some high risk maneuver I had perform during a badminton session (yeah right) not too long back...
I knew of the cosmetically unnatural structural protrusion since and the acute pain when I try to lay my body mass on the right wrist, which is a common way to enable to sit on the ground which is precisely what happen last Friday during gym as I was warming down after my run, aggravating the injury...
The thought of visiting the sensei was much put off by the fact that he is based in West Coast Road where the birds don't even bother to shit at...
My wife brought the over-aged baby in me to the "tie-ta" which moonlight within a provision shop and the friendly sensei recognized my problem and try his best to correct it...
He did mentioned that it might take a while for the fluid to flow back into the joint and at the meantime when possible, I should bind the bandage over the wrist to keep the fluid in check..looks kind of rugged but not when the stinky medicine begins to ooze out of the bandage...

On Saturday evening, we met up for the first and final time with regards to the itinerary of the Japan trip...
As usual, it can only be proceeded once the hobby shop had stopped its operation and we began our operus modus at a nearby vegetarian eatery which EK knows quite well...
Vincent, our man in charge, was prompt to begin giving a brief outline of the events to be happening starting from departure at Changi Airport on Monday evening till the return on wee hours of the following Tuesday...However his other half would be equally and adequately prompt to disrupt his rumblings, me myself was guilty of interrupting him as well...
But you have to pardon us for the anxiety built up with the trip barely 10 days to come....
The whole discussion ended by around 9 plus when the eatery was closing for the day... my missus made known to me she wouldn't be too pleased and very willing to let her sentiments made known as it seems to be an excessive of checking in and out of hotels or places of lodging at both Iwate & Tokyo..Nevertheless I am looking forward to the Wonder Festival, the interactions with the local Iwatian and most importantly SHOPPING!! I am beginning whether Ferris could really survive on that measly S$500 expenditure budget...

Speaking of the Chong brothers, the younger sibling brought his kanojo to the badminton session on Saturday morning, and she was really jyouzu in the shuttle game as well, relentlessly giving me and Chan a taste of defeat..(not that I have not grown accustomed to that)

Sunday afternoon, the sun was as glaring as the day before, yet I brought my missus up to the summit (a bit exaggeration there) of Fort Canning for Sunday high tea at the Legends cafe...
With nice live music performed by the resident pianist, we indulged ourselves with the sandwiches, pastries, bee hoon which we hope to fill us up till dinner..
Though the price of high tea was pretty reasonable at $15.80 per pax, the offering was pretty limited and I wasn't really too much into chocolate fondue...
But I guessed a huge portion of the cost was appeased by the tasty pizza, samosa and of course that double shot of expresso....

This start of this new work (& much truncated) week, my French supervisor has finally returned from her 3 months of maternity sabbatical...
His Beautiness was rapid to draw ire from the rest with his Oscar-worthy theatrics again...I am just glad I am not available first hand to witness his performance that could put Denzel Washington to shame for the department meeting again...

Our executive director held his annual briefing session to illustrate the direction the company is going and I must say he won his accolades from renowned scientists worldwide for really his zeal, enthusiasm and ability to deliver what he preaches...
The records were that to show, and he surely has the most unenviable job to maintain the morale of the company though it really boils down to each department managers and group leaders..
The company has a thorough plan all the way to 2010 and I sure hope my numeration would be appealing enough to last me till then...

Finally my American boss kinda reluctant to let me go for my ICT in April with his massive project starting by then...But little does he knew that the sentiments was shared as I wasn't too keen of going to Kao-Tsiung, Taiwan as well..I rather slog at work and have a great time bitching about the shady characters at work with the likes of BY...Let's hope he was prompt to get the HR to send in the deferment letter...

Japanese word of the day: 手首 (Wrist) It's hard to change the paradigm of people that a bandaged wrist doesn't always mean a fractured one

Grumpy Old Man

8th February 2007, Thursday

The furore towards my highly-temperamental, unreasonable and ultra-whiny old man just reached a pinnacle last evening...
He was supposed to send my sister back from some exercise class somewhere in his recent pride, that lame piece of junk known as Geely...That notion itself was already a bad choice which I had experienced more often than none over the years...

Around 10 minutes after he left, the house phone were shrieking with anxiety as Mom, was at the end of his insensitive berating, blaming her for not giving the exact direction to the point of pick-up....I tell you, you install GPS in his useless vehicle, he would curse and swear that it got him nowhere...

Another 10 minutes gone, and my easily-volatile sibling came home, fuming and slamming the front gate, and started throwing the pique about the unreasonable attitude of our father before he also returned, slamming that very same gate as if our domestic entrance were the cause of their tussle, pulling another of his famous "I'm the king of the household, now cower in front of me" act...exclaiming that my sister has no sense of appreciation as well as he would ram his China-made car into smithereens the following day... talking about being childish...
At this point, much as an impulsive reaction, my blood starting to boil and storm to confront my poor mom over his petty behaviour...when i should at least be mediating or just simply ignorant of the on-goings of my household...

It seems like the weeks of his irrelevant tantrums over his work and hurling abuse towards mom just reached the pinnacle and I simply couldn't tolerate his nonsense no more...
Perhaps my sister might be in the wrong at some point, but I am no fan of my father and it was blatant that we were actually speaking to him to make Mom's role less stressful...

I dunno... I might not be the most filial son, and I do appreciate his love towards us but unless he curb that wretched temperaments of his and stop being that egoistic, I doubt he will be nominated for "the best father of the year" for years to come...

Like many traditional father & son relationship, we seldom talk and even we do I would get sick of how he kept repeating himself...
I am in fact guilty over the fact that when I actually take the initiative to talk to him, would be in sought of assistance in one way or another...
I am incapable to fix things which gone wayward at home and his presence surely help nullify alot of situations which we would actually need to pay for professional help...that I truly appreciate his pragmatic capability and his years of providing for the family including sending us to university, but our edgy relationship over the years surely didn't improve when he becoming worse off in terms of his attitude...
The cause is not help that I am really pro-maternity for years now... so he better pray that Mom will be omnipresent to sooth things out between us and him...
Fortunately another savior may come in the form of my missus, though she rather not meddle with our family affairs even though now she is part of it...but even so her patience was well tested by his persistent nagging when she was handling his precious cheap car which I advise to refrain from using from now onwards...

It's sad that I had inherited his genes with my tempers not that well in check for the records, but I am always seeking to improve myself as a good husband and ultimately a good father for my sons and daughters...
I must try not to be really long winded when I grew older and bring about a bit more patience towards my immediate family members...
Whatever happen in the future, I will look back on this post to keep me in check...

As for now...with the Lunar New Year beckoning, Mom just wishes the household to be peaceful and cheery again..I doubt sis will hand him the olive leaf, but perhaps less interaction in the coming weeks will be at best....

Japanese word of the day: 気性 (Tempers): His has no warnings come and goes so spontaneously that we really grow to totally ignore it if we can...

Scraping for Work to Do

6th February 2007, Tuesday

The year of the pig beckons while the anticipation for the late winter trip to Japan should aggrevate further once we chat about the plans this Sunday...meanwhile everyone seems to watch time flies by...

At work, we are virtually scraping for things to do this week and I was even chatting with many members of my department for the entire Monday morning, bemusing how out of the sudden, every platform seems to run out of things to do at this very juncture..even BY who always seems to have something to do, too suffers the same fate of work pending to be accomplished...
We knew that an avalanche of work will arrive by late February, but some dubious planning by the bosses resulted in the lax time now...
Even the projected shifting of equipments are now been delayed to the last week, making everyone really free this week, which is a bundle of joy for the likes of His Beautiness.... Especially the big boss is out of town as well, he can conveniently comes in by 9.30am as observed this morning...
While we are scrapping for work to do here, the HR sent the news for all the mentors to complied the performance appraisal for the year of 2006, which will be the mots vital period of the year with our performance bonus and pay increment on the line...
With my supervisor finally comes back next week after her long maternity leave, I hope my recent track records in terms of work attitude, self initiative and performance should impress her enough..though my theatrics are still much novice compared to Beautiness...

On the domestic front, despite others who claim that newly-weds do not need to distribute the red packets for the Lunar New Year, my mom begged to differ...
We had plan a hefty sum for our relatives yet I doubt it will be enough...the curse of the giving red packets had finally caught up to me...and that stingy side of me is crying out in helplessness...

With the coming Japan trip, my lass was gracious enough not to have a Valentine Day celebration and I duly obliged since it fell on a Wednesday which she would not be free as always...
Then again after that faithful experience at Secret Garden, I doubt I have much faith in anymore V-day fracas.. paying so much for so little food just doesn't adds up now that I am married...
However as feared by many women, that their already-mutedly romantic other-halfs would totally discarding any romanticism to spice up their marriage; I have reserved for a nice Sunday high tea session at The Legends at Fort Canning coming Sunday...surely at $15.80 each, it would be so much worth it than those lame goose liver and outdated caviar from Secret Garden....

Japanese word of the day: ~hi-ma~(Free) Too free at work now, let's hope that doesn't affect the upcoming appraisal

Sore Losers

2nd February 2007, Friday

A fellow colleague, who is staunchly passionate about Science, left the department today in pursue of his PhD in Univeristy of Tokyo...

Our American boss who seemingly always enjoying a good time squabbling with him about their different opinions with regards to their main passion in life, their scientific papers, treated the entire department to lunch yesterday...
Despite feeling under the weather due to a bad stomach and poor appetite, the allure of "Ding Tai Feng"'s famous Xiao Long Bao was too hard to resist...
Only to find out it wasn't as fantastic as we had anticipated...

In the end, together with the Gelato after the meal which BY insisted to have, he only merely spend around $200 for the whole 13 of us, which is almost negligible with respect to his hefty pay...

We spent a whole of yesterday afternoon and much of today morning, obliging to our departing colleague's request to take photos to commorate the final moments he would be here...
He left with a heavy heart by 2 this afternoon and his presence (which he would glue in front of his workstation PC, religiously going through his pile of scientific papers wee hours in the morning to late hours in the evening and even on weekends and public holidays)...but he might not contemplate about leaving if not for an external factor...

We have another colleague we like to affectionately known as "Goddess" who usually wouldn't really wanna communicate to others outside her usual clique in the lab and as our Shitty-Green-Pants boss might suggest, "the root to the hostility in the lab" despite he still very much cherish her now that she is the only student under his wing...
Goddess, always like jealousy and envy got the best out of her, and would plot and scheme to win affection from the boss and would be particularly bitter when our boss was having a good hearty chat with her number threat, the colleague who is leaving...

She had shown ruthlessness with blunt words to denounce fellow colleagues like mentioned-aboved as well as HB, another prick in the eye to her and most likely to take over the reign of the next target to oust...
Her loathe towards them even led to unprofessionalism for not wanting to do order of lab consumables for them which really irk and disgust me...

Yesterday as noticed by BY and her dear friend, CM, she displayed friendliness to everyone especially towards our departing colleagues you would never imagine to see in this lifetime...
She sprang into life during the photo taking sessions, even volunteering to borrow a digital camera from the HR and uploading the resulting pictures taken....
A bit too late to mend strained relationship, but perhaps an superb Oscar performance to show the boss she could mingle comfortably with everyone...

To me, she is just a sore loser who is not magnimous enough to allow others to overtake her...
Despite the politics here is still pretty mild compared to elsewhere, but with bosses almost blind to actual situations and willingly oblivious to people not working, backstabbing or climb over others to attain better rewards and overall disgruntle among the rest, and class acts like Goddess and Beautiness, it is always best to seek greener pastures if possible, especially if I don;t get the promotion I am hoping for this year yet seemingly impossible as heard from others like newcomers rarely will be promoted that easily...DAMN!

Talking about sore losers, ladies and gentlemen, give a hand to the Thai soccer team!!

I mean shit happens..especially in football when referees are proned to make errors even in the biggest stage of all, World Cup..But being so unsportsman like to walk off the pitch and delaying a regular 90 minutes match, the Thai team seems like a band of crybabies who are disillusioned by the fact that our Lions couldn't beat them ever...
If I was the head of AFC, I would just end that game there and then, award the championship to Singapore or at least award the host with a 3:0 advantage going into the 2nd leg, that would happen in more professional footballing regions for sure...

Understandly, the supposedly talented thai team deserves their jeering from our fans watching at the National Stadium for the final time till her rejuvenation into a modern sports hub...and a sweet victory I guess we barely deserve...

The 2nd leg will be perilous for our fans as the Thai team and fans would be out for blood especially the recent Thaksin fracas which strain diplomatic ties between us...
Seriously among our closest neighbours, I really fancy the Thais over the rest for many aspects perhaps not suitable to post here..and do hope we patch up soon perhaps we will offer the olive branch once again soon due to the size of our country again...

Finally in line with losers, my old man after months of whining and complaining and even berating my Mom about his wretched job (only he felt that way I guess), is intending to resign (Good Gracious) and hid his tail behind his legs and seek new grounds to continue his history of employment whining...I pity Mom to enduring all those shit from him...

Japanese word of the day: 敗者 (Losers) I myself hate to lose in the game of FM as well...but at least i can manipulate the games to my advantage...