date with ryl

thanks for the dinner and after dinner treat ryl! =) it was only a short 2hr plus meet-up (thanks to your boss for making you OT), but im really thankful! i always feel at ease and comfortable when i meet you, and all my negative thoughts will disappear momentarily. thanks for making my otherwise unhealthy thoughts a healthier one =) *hugs

headed to boy's home in the afternoon for hari raya celebration! abit silly actually, for us to travel from defu ave all the way to jurong =/ zzzz. and i was so tempted to claim my birthday time-off but i didnt in the end. because i wanted to see how boy's home looks like. heh.

but i soon realized it was such a mistake to go boy's home because i got sabo-ed to do a fashion walk in front of all the people in the hall =/ omg. kill me pls. so apparently the emcees were looking for 3 volunteers to participate in their fashion walk, and one of my colleagues arrowed me because she claimed it was my birthday. and so the whole hall of people sang happy birthday song for me and i had to do a catwalk in front of everyone. OMG. i really wanted to find a hole and hide like seriously. an experience indeed.

ok, putting the embarrassing moment aside, here's a pretty cupcake that my colleagues bought =)

and thank you colleagues for all your cards =))) i'll pin them up when i get my own table! =)))

and my day ended with a steamboat buffet with  boyf =)) noms!

loved.

my first hari raya celebration at shehnas's house =) it has been quite awhile since i last saw all of them. reminded me of the good old prison days when work is nothing too taxing (doing interviews and writing papers) but shopping online, making chicken wraps and mug cakes in office, going for yoga classes, having a cup of coffee at chock full of beans, counting down to the end of work, bitching about others and much more. reminiscing those days....

yes, shehnas's house looked like a cosy cottage =)) and mama shehnas prepared yummy pasta and chicken wraps (yes chicken wrap! exactly the same as what we had in office back then) for all of us =))so we had a good chat over dinner as we shared stories about our workplaces. come to think abt it, HAPPY 1 YR OF FRIENDSHIP! just a yr ago, we were all newbies at prison hq. heh!

and the girls surprised me with a birthday cake =) awwww. THANK YOU SO MUCH!

and my birthday gifts =))) much appreciated!

and so we ended the day at close to 11pm. could have stayed longer if not for work the next day =/ zzzz. it was reallly nice to see of them again =))) the warm fuzzy feeling.

and yes, so i reached home and walked past the kitchen, and as i walked past, i took a second glance again. because i saw boyfii, mum and sister standing at a corner in the kitchen with boyfii holding many many tarts with a candle on it. OMG! really caught me by surprise. *teary eyes

thank you soooo muchhhhhh for making the effort to surprise me, and having to wait for me for a good 3.5hrs before i finally reached home.

thank you for the box that you made, the note that you wrote, and the earrings too! =D i feel loved for the friends that i have, and for you.

insights

i'm so actively updating my blog nowadays because my supervisor is away, and i have no one to shadow.

work was fun yet tiring yesterday. we were on shift work from 1pm till 8pm, and we were attached to the blocks where the girls resided. so i was basically running on the ground yesterday (thank goodness because i almost died working in the ops room previously staring at cctv and opening and closing doors for people like a security guard). so for the first time, i saw how strip checks and body search were conducted, how the girls were treated inside the home, i saw how police officers brought girls in for remand in handcuffs, we escorted girls from point to point, and i moved from levels to levels, dorms to dorms delivering food for the girls, squeezing toothpaste and shampoo for them (they have no access to these items because they might just eat/drink the toothpaste/shampoo in an attempt to commit suicide). i saw girls crying in their dorms, i saw girls giving attitude to us, i have girls calling me 'amanda' because they thought i look like one. i found out that remanded girls were not given utensils during meals for reasons that i do not know. it was actually fun to be on the ground because i really saw alot of things i didnt see before. yet at the same time IT WAS DAMN TIRING. i felt i lost at least 1 kg climbing up and down the stairs. and yes, time flew by so i was happpy =)

and i was pleasantly surprised to find boyf outside girl's home after i knocked off. thanks for travelling all the way from ntu just to meet me at such a ulu pandan place =)

i never knew hair matters so much to me until i realised i was dropping freaking more than 100 strands a day for the past 3 months. trust me, the feeling sucks totally. its easy for ppl to say 'don't worry, the hair will grow back", yes im sure they will or rather thats what the dermatologist claimed as well, but hey, its really not that simple to brush it aside and tell myself not to worry. it sucks to wake up in the morning and having to go through the whole motion of hair dropping everywhere u go. it sucks really. im trying so hard to stay positive and telling myself that 'hey, short hairs are sprouting on ur head alr!', but at the end of the day, when i slp at night,i cried still. its disrupting my life. rawr. i cant help but to be superficial and say that my hair defines who i am to an extent.

updates!

national day and hari raya celebration with the girls at girl's home! =) felt as if i was back in school again. having to go for assembly in the hall, singing the national anthem, saying the pledge, and feeling all patriotic singing the many national day songs. so nostalgic! the performance put up by the girls were pretty impressive, and glad to see them having so much fun =)

went with my supervisor to see a girl in the late afternoon, and i was really intrigued by the girl. traits of borderline personality disorder, oppositional defiant disorder, ADHD, acute stress reaction.....all the labels thrown on her, sometimes i really wonder what with all these labels. i cant help entering the room, painting an impression of how this girl would be like based on all these labels. but i was wrong to judge. yes, she is definitely not an easy case to deal with, and i admit i was a little afraid of her because i felt as if she's gonna launch an attack at me anytime, but at the end of the day, labels are just labels, and my perception should not have been clouded by them. ok, just some food for thought.

life suckssss

life sucks. i look in the mirror everyday and i think im ugly. sigh. i came to realise how it is not easy to change one's thinking. does cognitive therapy really works in that case? its hard to have positive thinking at times. its easy for people to dismiss your worries, but you know its hard for yourself to dismiss whatever worries and concerns you have. you just cant.

therapy yesterady was drama mama. the kid found pleasure engaging in the 'gag' action, and he did until he vomitted. AND I HAVE TO CLEAN IT UP because his mother went out, and his maid had her off day. so i cleaned and i almost wanted to puke as well =x then we moved on, and continued with session while he tried to make the 'gag' action over n over again, which irritated me because it just disrupted the whole session.rawr. then i brought him to the toilet, and after he cleaned himself with the toilet paper, he threw it into the toilet bowl by putting his hand in the toilet bowl water *gasp. and i tried to get him to wash his hands before he pull up his shorts but to no avail.

i feel more like a nanny than a therapist.

work is getting interesting now that im attached to girls' home. sat in for interview sessions with the girls, and went vivo with supervisor to bring the girl to collect her pay. fun! =)

hello migraine, pls go away.

happy birthday sister!

so the day started with me going for therapy in the morning, then off to meet er jie in town in the afternoon. and seriously, i bumped into so many ppl in town. saw charlene three times from orchard to somerset, saw anthea, saw shiling, saw people i didnt want to see. zzzz. anw, i finally bought my bandage skirt from stradivarius =) yay! off we left to meet parents, dajie and linus for dinner, and we went back home for cakes and moscato =)

happy birthday da jie! =DD

happy 1 mth at work!

4th week into work now! so 20 newbies were introduced to the foundation training program that will last a good four months. and the 20 of us were then splitted into 4 groups.

tadah! my group members! =D group C for char siew, and that made us char siew baos being members of char siew.

i think im really really thankful my group members are all easy going and fun to work with =) things could have been much different if we were in different groups (just saying.....). although it has only been 4 weeks, they have already seen me cry. try as much not to let my emotions show, i think when i hit the peak, everything just spells out on my face. loser. but anw, really really do want to thank them for being supportive and giving me words of encouragement. appreciated much! i will get thru it!

holiday no more

cant believe my two weeks of break just zoomed by. ITS FIRST DAY OF WORK TML! *scream! how nice if i were to have just one more week...just one more weeeeekkk plssss! sigh. i have yet to feel excited about work tmr.

Oh well.

Anw! dinner with parents and sis at skinny pizzaa ydae! yumss =D

then headed to st regis for a drink :))) because awesome sister had $200 drinking voucher to spare. heh!! :))

photos were abit um mo mo cos e place was so dimly lit. but it was nice just chilling n sipping our drinks :))

short getaway - day 2

looking decent before we embarked on our urban hike!

first stop - batu cave

we actually climbed up, and you know what, the presence of monkeys LITERALLY MADE ME SPRINTED UP E FLIGHTS OF STAIRS! almost out of breath when i reached the top! yes i just realised im seriously afraid of monkeys. i could feel my heart beating fast whenever e monkeys came near me and i couldnt help thinking they gonna attack me...:( booo. hate monkeys.

picture of e batu cave

trying our best to smile nicely after climbing up e donkey flights of stairs.

went to this cave villa to walk around, and it was just really dark inside.

they claimed to have the largest reptile collection in malaysia, inside this cave. so heres what we saw..

nothing beats having ice cream under the scorching hot sun, and after a tired walk =D

yay!! We did henna!! :))

We continued our urban hike and went to kl railway station, and attempted to walk to thean hou temple which we decided to forgo because our map reading skills suck. we really tried to navigate our way there but decided things werent looking good halfway because we seemed to be heading towards the highway =x oh well, A+ for effort!

took a train back and shopped at this plaza! yay to two new dresses! :) headed for dinner next!

stingray and kangkong to go with rice!

the place where we had our dinner! day 2 ended with us da bao-ing chicken wings n satays back hotel :))

Short getaway! -day 1

Short getaway with cousin! :)

so we woke up at freaking 4am just so we could reach the airport by 5.10am. Totally zombied having only slept for 3 hours =x

the plane took off and prepared to land reallly soon and we found ourselves at KL! cant remember when was the last time i went KL. maybe like a decade ago =s

Things we do while waiting to board the plane..

Cant believe we combed lot10, farenheit88, pavilion, klcc, petaling street ALL IN A DAY! and the most awesome part was we took no public transport/cab. so now our legs are screaming in protest alr.. 

Our dinner!!! Still prefer our style of hokkien mee though...

brunchhh

met charlene and charis for brunch at the garden slug! :)) thank goodness charis drove so it was much easier for us to get to e ulu pandan place. and we had so much to update each other now that all of us have gone separate paths. Hopefully we will all meet nice colleagues at our workplacend my salmon egg toast was reallly yums and damn filling!:))

Headed to suntec with charlene for a cup of watermelon juice. sat and chill for awhile before i headed yck to meet family for dinner :)

officially unemployed!!

LAST DAY OF WORK!!! =D

mixed feelings actually. I think ill definitely miss working as an RO with prison. probably the best working environment ever. carefree, awesome bosses and colleagues. I guess work will only be real when i start work formally with msf...

this is damn funny. these cards came about because one of my colleague who is leaving as well, gave me a farewell card. so i felt really bad not giving her a card in return, soooo....i turned n looked at the blue paper prison files (files that have been used before and i planned to discard em) on my desk and decided to make cards out of it. i went to the printer and took plain paper, took markers from stationary box and started my art and craft session. and since i made a card for one colleague alr, i decided to make for everyone as well!  So these are cards made using office resources =x

gonna miss u table! goodbyebye!

im counting down. another 4.5 working days and i will be leaving this place! omg. while half of me thinks that im gonna miss working at prison, the other half just cant wait to leave and embark on my new job! =) and it has been a dreadful weeek for me, because for the entire week, i basically sat in office and did bare minimal. not because im lazy, but there's just no work for me to do at this moment....and i felt so unproductive and useless. zzzzz. i think my brain has all turned rusty.

and this BGC just got to pissed me off ydae. omg. this agent just called me and went 'hello! you have no leaves in june leh'. i was like 'come again?! what is it again?' (thinking to myself why would someone even start a convo like that, and yes, WHY I GOT NO LEAVES?!). and the funniest part was, i just signed my contract that very morning, and now they are calling me to say that i am not entitled to my pro-rated leaves in june when the contract that i just signed stated otherwise. and the thing is, my colleague who came in the same time as me was given the pro-rated leaves, so why the difference? and for the past two contracts that i signed with them, they pro-rated the leaves. so whats the problem now?!

and yes, so they tried to explain to me how they did their calculation and i was like 'huh, is that the way to calculate?'. the silly agent actually calculated by combining the days i have worked in my past 2 contracts, and using that as the basis to calculate my leaves. so instead of calculating it as per contract, she somehow came up with her 'new' method of calculating and therefore concluded that there shouldnt be leave for me in june. ok abit complicated. but the end story is that, their calculation didnt make sense and after my manager spoke to them did it dawn upon them that yes, their calculation didnt make sense. and hence, i should be given the pro-rated leaves. and so after one whole morning of clarifying, its back to what it was originally. seriously, if you people have thought about your calculation earlier, all these clarification and confusion would have been avoided. and this is just one issue out of many others. think before you speak people. and there was one time they sent me an email with the subject heading 'PLEASE SEND IT BACK TO ME BY XX DATE' (mind you, they caps the whole subject head), and worse still, their content read 'if you do not send by xx date, we will withhold your salary' like helllo?! could you phrase your sentence abit more polite? and the funniest part was, i was not even the intended recipient for the email! the agent sent to me by mistake. rawr.

i seriously think if anyone has to find a recruitment agency, never ever go to them like really. please don't. they just cant handle even the simplest matter. and come to think abt it again, i cant believe i signed my contract against the wall at punggol plaza last year. how unprofessional is that. *roll eyes to the moon and back

RAWR.

ok enough of complaining. and now i cant rmb what else i wanted to say -_-''

RAWR

momo recovered, and so i went over to his place for therapy.

i guess he is just not his usual self today. probably because he just recovered and so his attention span was really short, and he was distracted half the time. anyway, he threw a tantrum today and went crying on his bed and started banging and all (well, i didn't know why the sudden outburst because he was actually doing well for the task. he got em 100% correct for all trials). i ignored his behavior and just continued to write my notes. and for all i know, this little kid ran up to me, grabbed two bunches of my hair and tried to pull it. YES, IM SUPER SENSITIVE TO ANYONE THAT TOUCHES MY HAIR NOW, AND THIS LITTLE KID JUST HAD TO RUN UP TO ME AND PULL MY HAIR. crap. i almost snapped at him. so i tried to keep cool. held on to the bunches of hair that he was pulling and went towards his direction, and slowly got him to release his grip. and i turned right at him, stared at him and sternly said 'NO. CANNOT DO THIS'. and yes, i continued to stare at him for the next 10 seconds with my black face and both hands at my waist, trying to convey to him that teacher was really angry with him for having done that (well, i was really angry anyway). and it kind of worked! well at least for the next 5mins, he was an angel. every instructions that i gave, he followed and made no noise. so anyway, total damage : 4-5 strands (i think) of my precious hair. *sniff.

on a lighter note, ITS USS TMR! =D my long weekend is so eventful!

happy PH!

the thought of dragging myself to wake up at 8.30am to go for therapy at 10.30am kind of suck. and so the alarm rang, and i continued lying on bed, turned to my left, checked my phone and my eyes lit up instantly. THERAPY IS CANCELLED! WHAT?!! REALLLY?!! WOOOHOO! so it turned out that momo felt sick, so i had the day off!!!! ok, i can't express how happy i was. so i got all excited and walked to the kitchen. saw my mom preparing breakfast and i offered to help! we were trying to make waffles once again, but you know what, it failed again. so waffles turned to pancakes at the end of the day.

looked at the many pieces of pancakes man. just for daddy, mummy and i! i ate 4 pieces and the rest went my parents' tummies. heh.

so morning was good for me. no therapy, and awesome breakfast to kick start the day! =) and then it was a nice afternoon spent at ryl's house, doing our scrapbooks till night =)

off day!

YES I AM ON LEAVE TODAY! =DDD AND I WENT ON AN EXCURSION TO THE SOUTH EAST ASIA AQUARIUM =D AND I WENT IN PAYING AT STUDENT PRICE! my nus matrix card still works! =) 

the dolphin was really adorable. it just came swimming towards us, and stood there as if it was waiting for us to take a shot of it =)

 i always thought thats the eyes and mouth when i was younger =x

 sea nettle

 mr grumpy cuttlefish

 sea jellies that reminded me of cells in our bodies

starfish waving HELLO!

the aquarium was prettttttyyyyy =)))) i really felt like a kid going on a school excursion because i was intrigued with most of the stuff there, and i left the aquarium feeling a teeny weeny bit knowledgeable *thumbs up

and dinner was sushi and salmon sashimi. totally primed by the marine creatures *grins

and yes, i have decided to accept MSF's offer and reject path light's offer. i hope thats the right decision to make *deep thoughts

lazyyy dayyy at workk

ok, so having had countless cups of mocha from chock full of beans, i decided to try out something new! tadah! a dose of macadamia brulee to keep me awake till the end of work! pretty much needed especially when I'm tying to summarize a dissertation that's worth 228 pages. no joke. we were so reluctant to head back to office that we decided to give the shuttle bus a miss, and took a cab back office at 2pm instead. oops! 

=)

OMG. i didnt know my workplace allows access to blogger! *gasp

its has been a long while since i updated my blog. sooooo much has happenedddd and i have no idea where to start. ok, im supposed to be doing my work actuallly. shall do a quick update!

major major things that i can rmb

1. almost died at punggol jetty. i strolled down the path with yuting because i was curious to know where the path leads to. so we strolled what seemed like 2 to 3km until we saw TWO WILD DOGS ahead. so being timid, i decided that we should just u-turn and head back. so we turned and the next thing we saw was a WILD BOAR. kill me seriously. because on my right was the sea, on my left were trees and bushes, behind me were that TWO WILD DOGS running towards our direction, and infront of me was that WILD BOAR. I HAVE NOWHERE TO HIDE. for a moment, i thought i could hear my heart beating *tremble. so the TWO WILD DOGS decided to chase after the WILD BOAR, and started to bark really furiously. and there i was, standing there and refusing to move an inch. then, the TWO WILD DOGS gave up chasing after the WILD BOAR that probably ran into the bushes, and decided to lie in the middle of the path. ah crap. i mustered courage to walk past them, like reallly closeeeeeeeee. almost died. so afraid that they might just pounce on me and bite me! =/ but thank goodnesssssss, nothing happened. so i ended my day with an adventure at punggol jettyyyy *shiver

2. was not in the best mood ever. felt down and damn sucky. and i reallllly want to thank ryl because she was spot on without having me to say whats wrong. *hugs. probably one of my bestest friend that understands me really well =) and to you, thanks for appearing at my house just to cheer me up =)

3. my sis is down with chicken pox!!!! I HOPE I DON'T GET IT FROM HER.