A Mind of My Own

I was late for work this morning. Whenever I rush to do something, there’s always something to be forgotten. Today I forgot to bring my handphone. I feel so naked without it.

It was already too late to go home and get it because it would mean calling for a taxi when it’s way too expensive in the morning to call for one. To think I’m expecting a call today. Of all days, I had to forget.

The trip in the train was lousy. I had to stand all the way because the particular time meant a lot more people boarding from my stop and there wasn’t any seats left. I hate to stand for 45 minutes and I couldn’t even get a good nap because some guy shifted his foot and nearly crushed my new toe nail.

I want to go home

[via Flickr uploaded by 3amfromkyoto]

I read with interest on modobs’ view on equality of male and female. Previously I had wondered about the role of being a wife. We are still struggling to find that balance in accepting that despite the gender, we are still able to do that job.

I have not been subjected to such behaviours due to being the weaker sex during my years in the IT industry. Not that I know of anyway. However, comments such as “usually girls don’t use PDA phones”, “but both of u are women, you should be able to bond” among others. Why can’t I like using a PDA phone? If that other women find herself unable to communicate with me or both of us have totally different viewpoints and unable to respect that, how on earth do I bond with her?

What I prefer to think is that fighting for equality is an uphill task. What we should fight for is acceptance of individual tastes. What say you?

I finally got my own 838Pro back after waiting for 45 minutes. I can finally return DD’s handphone to him. It feels so good to have my beloved PDA in my hands. However, I was frustrated with the long wait. When I reached the place, it wasn’t raining but when I finally had my set in hand, it was raining. So not cool. I had to use the umbrella but I had another place to go to! I got my feet and jeans wet when I finally reached Orchard. My umbrella was totally wet and I had to search for a plastic bag. Wheelock Place doesn’t provide any on rainy days. I guess they are cutting costs.

I did managed to buy the things I needed before going home. Time for my tuition lesson soon. I wonder if there will be any difficult questions from my student. So worried about the upcoming exams. My exam is coming soon but my report is not half-baked yet! :O

We arrived on time in Bangkok. The walk to our luggage collection was about 20 minutes. In between, we took a look at their transit shops. Basically, the feeling was the same as in Changi Airport. They have become quite modernised to the stage whereby most of the things can be found in Singapore. By the time we were at their arrival hall, our luggage was on the floor instead of the conveyor belt because another flight was on that same belt after ours. We didn’t have much trouble locating our luggage and there wasn’t any need to attempt to lift them off the moving belt.

We took a taxi to Asia Hotel which was supposed to cost us 400 baht but there was a toll on the way and it cost us another 30 baht. We ended up paying 430 baht. I should have minus 30 baht from the toll. The driver knew a little bit of Mandarin and English. He spoke of their Songkran; their New Year cum water festival. Pity, we will be missing the celebrations.

The first item we bought was a 6-litre mineral bottle and a 1.25 litre Pepsi. It came into good use, we drank nearly 5 litres of it.

The weather was hot and stuffy throughout our stay except it rained during our walk in Chatuchak Weekend Market and just before our check out time. The rain water was dirty. My white T-shirt had patches of black spots though not so noticeable. The highlight of the trip was that we saw lots of cute puppies, cats and squirrels. They were crying to be brought home! However, it’s troublesome to bring them back.

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I woke up at 1.40am. It seems I’m excited for the trip in a few hours, right? Wrong. DD lent me his handphone and the problem with Samsung handphones is that they will repeat the SMS unless you have read the messages. The settings can be changed but I’m not going to change it.

Now, why am I using his instead of mine? That’s because I sent it for repairs. It better be in perfect condition and repaired by next week since I don’t want to trouble DD any longer than that. 5 days should be enough to repair, right? I still like SE K618i as my backup but buying it without contract is not worth it because it’s trade-in value is $150 now. A year later, it’ll be worth $50. I must get a voucher from M1 next week when I get home. 10 years using it and no voucher. How’s that for being loyal to it but receiving nothing?

I miss my Dopod. I won’t be able to log my thoughts in it since it’s not with me. I’ll be taking lots of photos I hope. I finally bought a 1GB CF card, wished I had tried the 4GB though since the sales was willing to let me try it on my A95 while I was there. Then I would know which is the largest capacity that A95 is able to support. Darn.

I went back to bed after remembering that I will be needing new socks. I managed to find 3 pairs that were bought recently. I still need 2 more pairs! However, I don’t understand where all my ankle socks disappeared too. I haven’t worn them for 4 years and they seemed to have disappeared saved for one. It’s just not a pair, mind you. Just that one for one leg.

Wonder if I should have hotcakes from McDonald later, I doubt Bangkok has it. Excited-ness!

Bangkok, here we come!

The debate has been heating up the forums but I found it only through the newspapers. If anyone remember the car crash by this young man whose father had bought him a high performance car, today’s news had him in hot waters online because the lady who passed away didn’t get her justice served. He is still out with a driving license and is undecided on which car to buy.

One of threads started asking why there is a hold up on justice being meted out for a 21-year-old lady whose first job and only a few months into it. Since 2005 and it’s still not settled yet, no wonder people are angry. Imagine the sales persons asking for his IC before a test drive and I doubt they will let him since he’s on the black list of no test drive due to that accident.

The very question I like to know is that how did they find out that he was the one who caused the accident? They have even managed to find out his handphone number which will be changed very soon and everyone should avoid.

The debate on his still available driving license continues. Which frankly, to reduce such heated debate, the investigations better speed up since it’s on the first page of Home section today. His full name is printed. Until he’s brought to court to face the consequences, people would bemoan that we are not a fair country and proves that justice is blind.

Often in our lives we love free stuff. Buy one get one free that kind of promotion. I no longer believe in the free stuff thrown in after spending thousands of dollars on my new computer only to receive a free cheapskate mouse. I want the mouse that is worthy of being seen together with my thousands of dollars computer, not some $10 worth mouse.

With the rise in emails being processed, we have started to receive emails that claim to let us receive free stuff just by forwarding the email to many people and someone would contact you once it’s confirmed. So, how do you confirmed that an email has been sent? In the Sent Folder of course. Who actually checks that you have sent the email? When you CC the person who is supposed to be checking la. Does this person actually exists? Where is the contact number in that email?

One such scam is the Sony Ericsson scam email. It states that free handphones will be given but there are issues with the email itself. You can read about my dissection account of it here.

There is no such thing as free gifts. You have to buy $100 worth of stuff before you will receive a $30 iron. I might as well just buy that iron since it’s the only thing I need at the moment instead of buying $100 worth of impulse buys just to get that “free” iron, right? Depending on situation, if I need $100 worth of groceries, I will buy them and still get a free iron. Now, about my expenditure list…

The wait is over. After 5 long years, I have finally managed to accumulate enough interest for my NSS. This comes in the the appropriate time, I’m in need of cash to fund my new laptop. I’m still thinking about that laptop. By the time I have enough to buy a new one, new specifications will be out again.

Every month, it’s the same. Maybe I should put this money into some other uses such as gaining interest in my savings account instead of spending them in other things that don’t gain interest at all. I’m in a fix now. I still want to upgrade my laptop. I still need a new handphone as standby so that I can send in my 838Pro for repair on its screen alignment issues.

I’m so in love with SE K618i now. It’s nothing compared to other models but at least it is functional while 838Pro is in surgery. I still haven’t book an appointment for my lasik and GST is going to rise on July 1st.

I walked around the booths in Suntec on a weekday. It was still very crowded. I guess a number of people have taken leave to get the bargains on the 1st day. I was really tempted on buying the Lenovo Y300 for $1,999. It’s a 13.3″ laptop with 1GB of RAM and 120GB of hard disk space. So cool! It’s a major difference from my current laptop of 40GB of hard disk space and 512MB of RAM. However, I must be crazy to buy it now because my brother will be buying a laptop from poly if he were to study next year. It would be a waste to have an extra laptop around the house.

I hate the crowds that jam the walkways so, this year, I decided to elbow my way out without apologies. Don’t block my way because the walkways are wide, you don’t stop in the middle and use up all the space just to admire that wondrous XBox 360, ok. In fact, elbowing my way through the throng was a lot more effective that waiting for the people in front to move or the oncoming crowd to let you through because they won’t let you through. They want to get through you first. Yea, try phasing through me like the X-Men. Then I’ll probably let ya through, k?

I didn’t buy a thing though. I did consider buying a 4GB thumb drive or a 2GB thumb drive though. Looking around does make me feel impulsive to buy a laptop. I’m always craving for better laptops. If I were to get a new one, it’ll be my 2nd laptop. I wonder how many I will buy in future. I shudder to foresee.

I’m looking at part time or temp jobs at the moment. The following job scope (HR admin assistant) described what I did before I left my 1st company besides my main role as an IT developer.

• To handle Hotel / Air-Ticket bookings
• To handle conference rooms bookings
• To handle visa applications
• To receive guests
• To update Director’s dairy
• To assist in Reception duties when necessary
• Other ad-hoc duties

It sounds strange that I’ve done those, right? Luckily, I didn’t really have to handle visa application or hotel/air-ticket bookings. I was sort of a receptionist when my supervisor or manager wasn’t at their seats. I had to intercept their calls because the Assistant GM would hint during daily morning briefings on handling calls. I ended up putting lots of post-it notes on their laptops, monitors, keyboards and tables. There was a time I was really sick of picking up the calls instead of doing something productive. I was in the middle of a project and the 5-minute a call was getting on my nerves that I took out the phone line of one particular table because that the one that rang the most.
I had half a mind to re-direct all the calls to that person’s handphone because the callers were asking me questions that only that person knew.

I did all those admin-related stuff as temp before joining in a permanent post. So, I guess I should change my line to admin or HR, right?