Reno & Decor Can Kill

I just realised that renovation does cost a bomb! Like, a huge C-4 bomb to your money coffer . if you intend to have the modern chic look, as though a designer himself has put some touch to your home, be prepare to fork out a big lump sum.

Nowadays we see magazines showing how to decorate your house depending what mood you want to set it to be: modern, retro, feminine, you name it. And it always looked so nice from the glossy page isn’t it? It makes you yearn for something similar too isn’t? I know I do.

Apart from going through magazines and numerous googling session, I finally understand that it is not easy to build your “dream home”. Unless you have a plush bed of cash waiting at your beck of call. It is definitely not likely, if you have a budget to adhered to.

Let me break down to you my result of early research into reno & décor:

Bathroom

If you were thinking to get a chic modern bathroom (think white small cabinet with small white porcelain sink, white toilet bowl & mirror) that will easily set you AT LEAST RM2k back. Oh, I haven’t even look at the bathtub price.

Now think again if you have two or three toilet that you want to renovate. Naturally you can change the faucet design to any other that they have, but that too is a cost, mind you.

Kitchen

Don’t you think range cooker is all in the rage nowadays? I do. In fact, after having been using it for quite some time in oversea, I came to adore it. I was thinking of getting one, but then when I take a look at the price, I almost had a heart palpitation. A range cooker with hood can easily set you RM6k back. And I am looking at the cheapest here.

My colleague told me, the metal sink with two partition for washing costed her RM600!

Now, I haven’t even been checking out the price for custom made kitchen furniture yet. You know, those cabinet doors that don’t bang upon closing, Chic modern design with the colour of your choice. But I was told, be prepare to fork out twenty grand for it. Again, my blood pressure shoot up like the geyser.

Electrician and plumbing work will cost about RM4k.

Retiling

Let’s say you bought a pre-owned house and you hated the sight of the floor tiles. After all, big tiles is in the rage now as compared to small tiles. A quick quotation told me it will cost approximate RM7-8k.

I forgot how much it cost for a build in wardrobe though. I guess my mind starts go hazy after seeing all the cost involved just to decorate a place to call home.

Furniture

A simple 3 Seater sofa cost about RM2-5k (depending on the brand & design, material: fabric? genuine leather? bycast leather?)

A bed frame with a relatively good mattress cost about RM2-5k too, depending on the brand,size, thickness etc.

Nightstands, cabinets are not that costly, but it will probably cost you about RM1k?

Oh did I mentioned, the above cost is only for a tiny condo? I shudder to think of those Semi-Ds.

Initially, I was dreaming of getting a custom made shoe rack and a daybed. But now I have soberly shelf it to the back of my mind.

Haze Made My Mind Go Hazy Too~

Damn the haze!!!

I am back to feeling sick again!

For more than a week, I was constantly at war. My immune system was battling with viruses so rapidly that I have to keep adding “back up troops” 3 times a day.

It started with the feeling of hot. I knew I was feverish then but I persevere on. I continue to go to work like normal and pop panadol in due time. Very quickly, my fever subsided.

But Mr Cough lingers on. For a week, I was coughing and coughing and coughing so badly that I’m beginning to feel embarrass to go to work. I wouldn’t want to spread the germs to all albeit “sharing is caring”. though I don’t think any of my colleague will be particularly happy if I do

I tried my best to cough gently and, less noise, less frequently. It kinda works because not much people realised that I was even sick. It is either I’m too insignificant to be noticed or I managed to masked myself pretty well.

Unfortunately, I am someone who hates to take cough syrups. I can self-prescribe myself medications, but I just wouldn’t touch the cough syrup. Only for cough alone, I would turn to Chinese medicine. Normally, I am not a big fan of Chinese medication due to my mistrust of their credibility however, for cough, I personally think that swallowing black pills is so much easier than swallowing *raspberry* cough syrup.

Yuck!!!

Anyway, just when I thought the worse is over and I have won the battle, the taste of victory that still lingers in my mind  suddenly vanished.

Come Monday, and here I am, sick again.

I woke up and my throat felt parched like sandpaper. Then when I drove to office, I find the weather much too gloomy and instantly I knew that the haze has taken a toll to the worst. A few hours confined in my office cubicle had me feeling rather heaty and I just knew it. I knew I’m having fever all of a sudden.

Drink more water. I know.

I had been drinking tonnes of water but it doesn’t help. Not my fever nor my sore throat.

Throughout the day all I’ve been thinking was to go home and rest.

Naturally I didn’t do that, simply because I already spend a better part of the day at office. If I were to go for MC, it’s kinda a waste IMHO. So I tell myself that I will persevere until end of the day, and if I am still feeling shitty, I can then go to a doctor and get myself a MC for a good rest the next day.

Insurance Agent Sux!!!

Can someone please tell me honestly what does an General Insurance agent does? Yup, I am talking about car insurance agent.

Truth to be told, I have no idea at all. None. Apart from collecting money for insurance renewal, very promptly I may add, what else do they do?

Aren’t they the one knows best of laws and regulations and procedures and stuff when it comes to claims and accidents and all? Aren’t also they are supposed to give us the best advice/guide us on how to handle/proceed when it comes to the moment in need?

In my fantasy world (I know it is a fantasy now for even putting hope in agents!) I sincerely believed so. But now I know better. Apart from taking commissions and protecting their company’s pocket, they don’t give a damn to any policy holder.

Sadly, this happened to my family. My brother met with an accident early last year and subsequently a lot of things happened which I will not elaborate here…when we refer to our agent to make claims, then a lot of issues came up. Finally at one point, when my brother enquire further, the answer he get is “I don’t know”

Like is this even acceptable for an agent to say “I don’t know”? Like, can’t she (yes, a mature lady) find it out? Check with company or such?

No. She didn’t think so. In the end, my brother has to solicit a lawyer to act on his behalf to make claims on the party at fault. Naturally, once lawyer is thrown into equation, everything settled smoothly.

And promptly.

Oh, and now the agent says, since we have solicitor lawyer to make own claim, this has nothing to do with the insurance company anymore. To put it bluntly, this is not part of her job scope anymore. Her work is done! Though I don’t know what did she do in the first place.

Another case, again my brother met with an accident late last year, and the repair cost plus lost of use is claimed on the party at fault too. In order not to tempered with my car’s NCD (yup, he was driving my car then), we have to pay upfront to the service center, and then claimed back from the party at fault.

This my friend, is deemed not part of our agent’s jurisdiction either. According to her, if we want to expedite the payment and such, we need to chase them ourselves since we are not claiming our own insurance company, but as a third party claim.

So it means, all the endless phone calls to service center and also the other party insurance company is to be borne by ourselves. This has nothing to do with our agent.

It has been more than half a year and we have still yet to receive any payment. Through the wonder of Google, I did find out from forums that it takes forever to get paid and such hence most dubbed insurance company as leech – because they are all bloodsuckers!

Now back to square one: What does a General Insurance Agent do again? It seems like quite a lot of things are not “fallen under their jurisdiction” anyway.

Perhaps its just me, but I surmise that my agent sucks.

BIG time!!!

Me, an IT geek?

I am so very proud of myself. And also to whomever that create the wonder of world wide web, as well as Google. With it, I can do magic as well.

Just take for example, last week I have some difficulty accessing to my online 2D game. For some unknown reason to me, my laptop just failed to access to the web server, despite numerous attempted to uninstall, reinstall, not to mentioned copy the entire file from another computer.

It can function well on my bro’s computer, but not my laptop. That kinda make me depressed for like, nearly a week. The depression sunks deeper especially during the time when there is double exp event going on.

Just when I thought, enough is enough! I gotta take control of the situation myself. So I called up my friend, who’s a genius in IT see if he can find out the root of my depression. But alas, my friend is not free. About to embark on a weeklong holiday escapades with family.

For a short moment, I was thinking, “oh well, it’s okay, I’ll just wait for another week to fix my situation. No biggie”

But then my itchy backside gets the better of me. Out of some spur genus, I went and googled online to see if I can fix this mess myself! After several failed attempt at searching at the wrong area, I finally found it.

I finally found the “cure” to my depression. It was unbelievably easy, once you know how, and why. It was just some stupid security pre-setting from Window Vista which I have to manually made some changes to.

Seriously it was that easy. Just a few clicks away and voila! I can play my beloved game again.

Now, I am always eager to go home after work just to continue my game. Call me a game junkie if you must, but my current addiction will last me for a while.

p/s: my laptop is not designed for game, plus it’s like, 4-5 years old? So the RAM cannot support it to the fullest. I was toying with the idea of getting a new monster CPU, but then, reality bites! We are talking about moolah here-.-“

Something that I seriously lacked off right now.

Darn!

Life @ Fast Lane

Time flew....come this Friday and i'll be free again. Literally free.


Without knowing it, I almost cover for my A.M for 3 weeks. She's on leave due to personal reason so I have to relieve her work. This is our company policy to relieve another person's work when he/she is on leave.


In short, you may not be at office, but your work must still carry on. Say if you plan to go for a holiday, firstly get your colleague to help relieve your work for the period you'll be away. Then only you apply for leave. So, better treat your colleagues good heh heh heh ;p


The person that used to relieved her has tender resignation letter therefore my A.M need to find new people to relieve her. And yours truly was chosen.


At first, I was like, hey!!! I'm freaking new here. How on earth do these people think that I am capable of A.M's job??? Are you all nuts??? I've just reported to work barely a month ago!!!


That was three weeks ago.


Time really flies huh? Three weeks has passed. Just like that.


Three weeks ago, I was really nervous and worried endlessly. I worried that my inexperience will shine like a beacon for all to see. Then I worried that if people might snigger behind my back and well, badmouthed me. I seriously don't want any unnecessary attention.


Three weeks later, I am still surviving.


I must say, this unexpected job allocation really force me to mature faster. This is because I need to learn faster, do faster, grow faster and gain double experience faster.


My transition in this double workload is made easier by all the help and encouragement I get from most of my colleagues. Truly I feel blessed because everyone is really very kind with their words and helping hand.


Due to my inexperience, whenever I faced any situation, big or small, I keep asking around. All I did was ask, ask, ask, and ask. Most of the time, I really feel inexperience because whenever my colleagues give me a "solution" I'll be thinking, "wow, why can't I think of this before?"


Nevertheless, I really enjoy this challenge. Although I spend longer time in office than I used to, but I get a sense of satisfaction. Especially when my work get acknowledged. It really made my day.


Nehhh, I am not a workaholic. I still very much honor my code of conduct: Never bring work back home!

Fainting Spell

For the first time in my life, I fainted.


Yeah~ Like, really passed out.


On the street. Full of passers by.


So embarassing right? I'll never be able to go to pasar malam for quite a while now~


Last saturday started out as any normal Saturdays. We went out shopping, have lunches and stuff. Then came at night.


Definitely one of my most memorable night in my life.


We already bought movie tickets for Avengers (midnight show) so we went to pasar malam (night market) to have our late dinner. Halfway walking and my tummy started to feel ill at eased. But I thought it's okay, just nature call.


But as I was having fried koey teow, my tummy really feel bad now so I told President that let's make a move as I need to go to toilet. Only taking a couple steps, I started to feel violently ill.


Really, really sudden. No warning at all.


Suddenly my legs cannot support my weight and my vision gets dark. I was leaning heavily on President, concentrating really hard to put each step in front of me while I was sweating profusely. All I can hear is President keep asking, "are you okay?" "how are you?" "what's happening?" "can you walk?"


The next thing I know, I'm already sitting on the floor, albeit in a weird angle. More like, I kneeled to the ground. I've actually passed out for a second or two. Thanks to a nice lady (probably a vendor at the night market) and some other vendors who saw how President struggles to get me up, she generously came and help me up on a chair.


They offer medicated oil which Presidents help to apply on my temple. And it did kind of rejuvenate me a little. So who says that there are no good samaritans out there?? There are still good hearted people out there amidst the "face paced" world we lived in. I would like to take this opportunity to thanks all those who helped me unconditionally and may God bless your kind soul!!!


Okay, enough of digression.


A few minutes later as I feel a little stronger, I told President to bring me to toilet because ehem, I really need to go. Like, really, really need to go desperately.


The walk to the nearest loo feels like a climb on the Everest to me. I still need to lean heavily on President while sweating profusely like a pig, only to find BOTH toilet is occupied!!! Darn I really don't have energy to stand hence I squated right in front of the toilet.


When the lady came out from the toilet she probably had the shock of her life, as I'm sure I'm quite a sight to behold hurhur~~


President was afraid that I fainted inside the toilet that he called me 7 times, of which I only picked up one call. I was, in the toilet, you see~ lol;p


Seriously, I was sweating so much that anyone can mistaken that it's raining-.-"


Finally, I feel slightly better, with President's help I managed to somehow walked back to our car and find a nearby clinic to check on my condition.


Doctor can't find anything wrong with me as all my vital signs are normal:
I am not dehydrated
I am not anaemic
I have not caught fever
My response is normal

Okay, so maybe my blood pressure is lower than normal, BUT that can't mean anything. I was let go with some antibiotics for my slightly scrapped knee, I did flacidly slide down afterall (applied acriflavine to disinfect) and I am 25 bucks poorer.


Finally President came home and googled my condition. What happened to me is called  "vasovagal attack"


It is a common type of fainting and the factors could be due to stress, lack of sleep, overtiredness, dehydration et cetera et cetera....


 So, in order to get more rest, I was forbid to watch the Avengers-.-"


Darn, I wasted two good tickets! -.-"  iwasconfinedathomebypresident

Mind your own language

Sitting here alone in my office, listening to my colleagues talking…suddenly a thought popped into my head.

Through their conversation, I unconsciously picked up some discreet hidden agenda. The more I listen to it, the more prominent these hidden agenda stare right back at me.

I am sure it is not intentionally made. Perhaps they just think this is really funny and all, but somehow, I find it rather insensitive rather than funny.

So what do you think I’ve picked up indirectly?

Language.

Truth to be told, most of my colleagues hailed from Chinese education background. Except yours truly. And someone else.

Recently, I’ve heard quite a lot of remarks and jokes aimed at the “somebody” over his language handicap. How they made fun of him and how he might screw up due to improper usage of Chinese words that may be interpreted wrongly and offend potential customers.

Thing is, “somebody” will be going to a place filled with Chinese community and our colleagues here were making jokes over his handicap.

I’m sure they find it funny and harmless. Perhaps, it really is harmless.

But why do I feel so ill at ease?

Personally, I don’t agree with them. I mean, yes I understand that Chinese language is very important today and it is more and more in demand. However, that doesn’t mean English is not EQUALLY important right?

What I don’t understand is how people can go on and on and on.. campaigning on the importance of Chinese language, yet they overlooked/ignored English Language.

Why is it that some people looked down on “banana” people (people that don’t read their own mother tongue) and think that we’ve missed the world?

On the other hand, we have never looked down on people that can’t string a proper English sentence. Have I looked down on people like them?

No I haven’t!

I have not laughed at them or belittled them at all. I certainly don’t think they’ve missed the world!!??

So why is it that you can only master ONE Chinese language and we can’t master only ONE English language?

Just because English is not the language our forefathers speak?

Oh come on!

Grow up please!!!!

FYI: I have the utmost respect for people that can speak both language fluently. I have many such friends and I am proud of them for not belittling either one party that speak only one language fluently.

Kudos to them!

Trapped!!!!

OMGGGGGGGGGG

Today I witnessed something unbelievable!!!!!!!!

My God of all things can be done, but this????

You see, one of our colleague was accidently trapped in one of the Director’s room (unused at the moment) and he can’t opened the door from the inside, which makes him trapped.

We tried to help him from the outside but can’t either…the door just won’t bulge!!! Something is wrong with the lock mechanism. So we called for reinforce team – HR Dept that have the keys.

BUT, the key doesn’t work its magic either. So our poor colleague is really trap this time. Big time!

There on the other hand, our PIC is there making so much noise of how “no people are allowed in the rooms and such and why our colleague is in there without authorisation?”

Well hello??? It is an empty room after all and our colleague was on the phone so he just wanted some privacy. Not that he wanted this to happen right? Why make such a big deal of it?

Seriously I don’t see what’s the big issue lor right??? Just find a locksmith to open up the door that’s all!!!!

Instead, scold scold scold!!! What’s the point?

Though they did get people from the Maintenance to “solve” this issue, our poor colleague was trapped for quite a while.

Then suddenly, our PIC came over and joked with us saying how “fortunate” it happened to one of us instead of the boss-.-“

Hello?? Less than 5 minutes ago you were reprimanding all of us over the phone and now you happily laugh and joke with us?

Talk about 180 degree turn!

Finally our colleague was “freed unharmed” which I think is the most important thing ever.

This has really become the hottest issue in our department right now. ^^

My Progress @ Work

I have been working for a week already. My relationship with my colleagues are getting better as well. In the beginning, I have not make much friends but today, I see a vast improvement already. My social circle has grown bigger and bigger already. Which is definitely a good thing.

I mean, making friends is better than making enemy. It make me feel less lonely lol;p At least now I got more people to chat with me so I feel less boring.

So far, work was uber boring! The first few days there’s intensive training for us newbies as well as a plant tour. That was good because it feels that there is something to do. Subsequently, there’s nothing else to do.

My immediate superior did hand down some customer for me to follow up but then, they weren’t really active. I was also given some databases to mass mail but that’s pretty much about it.

I finished off everything and now sitting in the office with nothing concrete to do. So I spend my time doing some reading and and reading and reading. It gets so freaking boring that I keep yawning every few minutes.

To make things worse, IT man has yet to set my computer to the internet, which means I can’t even go online!!!!!

There’s really nothing I can do lor seriously. Although I can’t say I’m very familiar with my company’s product but still, it’s really boring here…

Everyday sitting in the office doing nothing. Listening to MP3…..urrggghhhhh it’s really no life here in office man!!!!

I wanna work!!!! Else I’ll get so mushroomed that I’ll get lazy -.-“

Not that I’m any hardworking to begin with!

Me @ Work

I have started work with my new employer for a week. Unfortunately, I even gotta work on Saturdays. Alternate Saturdays for half day. And my first Saturday is a working Saturday hurhurhur….so happy hor? -.-“

Seriously, time passed very fast when you are enjoying yourself. I actually had a week break in between working for previous employer and new employer. However, that week just came and go in a blink of an eye.

There I was happily cooking drama at home and before you can utter “hastalavistababy” it’s Monday and it’s working day.

I was pretty nervous at first because first day ma…how will my new colleague welcome me? To top that of, I forgot to prepare food for lunch!

Rule #1: Always bring something to eat on the first day of work. This is to be the back up plan in case you can’t make any friends fast enough or get any invitation to join your new colleagues for lunch.

Well of course if you are a social queen then you obviously will not have any issue with this. It helps too if you are a prom queen.

Let’s face it, which guy don’t wanna date their hot colleague for lunch?

Or if you are always a loner and don’t mind eating alone, well….i guess you too won’t have any issue here.

But yours truly here hates to eat alone in public. Out of desperate measure, I grabbed some cookies and stuff in my bag.

Luckily, my colleagues are pretty nice. And I have lunch partners. Thank God!

My first day started as me walking into the office bearing visitor pass (they held my driving licence as hostage!) and fill up forms before the HR Manager came and brief me on the company rules, strata, and bla bla bla… and my first impression is…me don’t really like her….hurhurhur…

THEN I was introduced to EACH and EVERY people in the office – exchanging handshakes and names and pleasantries….to e-ve-li-bo-di….

For two floors!

Obviously, I can’t recognise most of them lor…knowing me, I’m really bad with faces. I can remember names much more easily compare to faces.

But all in all, I suppose this is how big organization works. I mean, good also la, cuz this is definitely the fastest way to intro yourself and get to know others. Whether you remember them or not after that, well, that’s entirely another issue.

LOL