Mid November Already?

16th November 2009, Monday

After a nonchalant week of sitting around, going for tea breaks and reaching home before 6 pm, it was back to more routine life, not that I am complaining.
In truth the low-key ICT as the officer in charge mentioned was more for familiarization and my role together with a regular accomplice (who lives nearby and thus the free transport) was to be a guiding light.
In certain aspects especially in imparting what to expect for the overseas training at Kao-Hsiung, we did fulfilled that role.
At the end of the 5 days ICT, we were awarded the medal for good performances...but we are still half way there and an ominously long trip to Australia was hovering across the horizon for the likes of myself in 2011. DAMN!

The weekend was pretty light-hearted and suited my taste in the sense that I could just glue myself in front of my PC, playing my game, writing my tale and just rummaging through the stockpile of shows I had to watch.
Some of the movies I had caught up like "District 9" was sheer classic and one of the sleeper hit for the year while "(500) Days of Summer" really glistered with the performances of leads. Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Zooey Deschanel.
There was this slapstick French pierrot style comedy, "Rumba" which was a breath of fresh air as well.
Ending a soggy Sunday evening with the missus off to Kuala Lumpur again with "South Park" was a blast especially with the obnoxious Eric Cartman getting his antics in the right places.

On Saturday it was the cantankerous clash between ASEAN rivals Singapore and Thailand with a place in the 2011 Asian Cup at Qatar at stake.
Foo was holding his horses to see if he could make it for the match but ultimately he did not update me on his status and expectedly he was a no show.
In truth he did not miss much as our boys put out an insipid performance and meekly surrendered to a much superior Thai team, putting their qualification in jeopardy even before traveling for the return game on Wednesday.
The fallout was anything but pleasantry with fans pouring in with less than encouraging comments on local forums and other form of media, voicing their dismay and surely we can blame them.
It was back to the usual shenanigans of finger pointing of the fans not being supportive enough and are a bunch of glory hunters from the team while the team filled with foreign talents lacked the passion and what not; eventually the whole fiasco became a laughing stock to our neighbors who gloated on our expense.

It was easier said than done at times as the quality of professional footballers here had reached its plateau and no new upstarts were ready to make the step up sadly.

Back to work and the team was swamped with the new assignment since last week.
It was time consuming as anticipated but not as daunting as it seems.
The only problem might be the sheer amount of samples to be handled with and at the worst time possible.
My team partners would be clearing the remainder of the annual leave left in the crypt before bringing half the total over to the new year by these few weeks and they knew I would ghosting in and out for the final few weeks as of the past, something I wonder if the boss would frown upon.

The Anime Festival Asia would be round the corner and despite the anticipation level was well reduced from the inaugural edition, it is still interesting to keep up with what's in the scene since I had really lost touch with the anime world despite still stocking the figurines.
Of course the La Tendo gang would/should all be there with the exception of Vinny and Miyano who would be bringing the school kids for another Japanese culture exchange trip.
Doubt the wallet would get lighter by the end of the 2 days events but you never know.

The wallet would surely be lighter after Cheryl's wedding banquet that's for sure on Sunday.
Selina and her beau had confirmed their non-appearance, so Foo and Michelle might be the only viable familiar faces but I can never count the chickens before they hatched.
At least the missus was willing to truncate her seminar thingie to accompany me for it.

An appealing long weekend for the last week of the month and I have already promised CS to have a serious time, going through the prospect of getting "Uncharted 2" a game he could not stop waxing lyricals of and eager to get more people into the multiplayer mode which was the real gist of the PS3 game.
I am certainly looking forward to get my console working again but Football Manager 2010 is another attention stealer plus I could not give up on my adventures with the current FM...
Gosh I wish I had more time on hand!

Japanese word of the day: 予想(Anticipation) Always good to have some things to look forward to