Busy

Hey peeps,
being stuck in the office from 8.30 a.m. - 5.30 p.m., and then travelling time, is very tiring.
And then I have my own life after that, like having dinners and coffee with housemate and friends.

Do not have time to blog for a while;
so in the meantime,
I will leave you with a photo of a hot chick to keep you all satisfied till the next time I come back on.
Enjoy!

Count yourself lucky if you know her in person.

And it reminds me of someone

The lyrics of this song reminds me of my childhood friend in Australia. I kinda think this should be how she feels right now :)

LOUSY day

I'm grounded till August 6th. Great. All for losing an important document.
I knew I was f**ked big time and no Gods could have helped me.

What am I going to do in the office??? I hate that place. There is no bigger gossip house than my office.
Who am I going to eat lunch with... My peers are all flying. Those in the office already have their own makan-gang.
Suddenly Lindsay Lohan eating in the toilet in Mean Girls flashes across my mind.
What do I wear? I do not have office attire.

AND THE BIGGEST BUMMER OF ALL IS MISSING FINE-DINING WITH EVELYN!!!! :(
Sorry Eve you have to cancel reservations. I was really looking forward to it, really really really. I kept telling my mum my biggest disappointment will be from missing that dinner.

My Friday buffet lunch with friends (they were going to take MC) is also dashed. As much as it will only be fair if I also took MC, an MC is taboo in my company's eyes. It's not funny to take MC and my slight lifeline that I got yesterday - that tiny glimmer of hope that I could still fly - was partially thanks to my clean MC record since Jan 2009, among other things taken into consideration.
My record will be tainted from today, for the rest of my career here.

My appointment with the ICA for my PR, also on Friday, has to be postponed now too.

FML.

Tom and Cameron

This is for you Alpha, for saying you couldn't see a thing. THERE!

When Tom flashed his million dollar smile, ohmy.....

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I need the power of all the Gods and Goddesses now.
Please, let me fly tonight.
I wanna make it to my appointment!

Wrapping up this trip nicely

Do you see what's behind me?
It might help if you enlarge it.

Who could it be

Paris Hilton is caught with pot, again.
I'm not so much concerned about her using pot (I'll be your slave if she doesn't use pot) as I am the people whom she hangs out with.

Just two weeks (or so?) ago when she was caught with pot in South Africa, news on the internet mentioned that she went to South Africa (for the World Cup) with friends from Malaysia.
Of course, as much as Malaysian media love to bask in whatever little limelight they might get from 'Malaysian-born' (Guy Sebastian), 'designed in Malaysia' (Ulysse-Nardin watches) people or products, they made sure this piece of news was never made public in Malaysia.

While they mentioned that those friends of hers who were with her when she was caught were Malaysians, they never mentioned names nor did they say of what status those people are.

Yesterday, Miss Hilton was caught again - and AP quoted a French newspaper as saying that Paris was traveling along with "personalities close to power in Malaysia" from the French capital to Porto Cervo, in Sardinia.

I'm dead curious now who these people are!!!

I'm definitely six degrees away from Paris Hilton. And so are you :)


Edit: My little sister tipped me and said it could be this man.

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Yesterday I did an extremely tiring Melbourne flight. Then this morning I had an early Bangkok flight to do. It was a long long day.
I got back in time to shower and then headed out to town for dinner with Chin Shi.
I was so tired that I fell asleep in the bus, and continued to sleep when everyone had gotten off the bus... I only woke up when the bus driver had already parked the bus in a bay at the interchange and was going to lock up the bus. :(
He didn't even notice me asleep in his bus! Shame on him.
It was very embarrassing though. I kept apologizing to him after that, even though looking back now I don't know for what reason I apologized.
To think that nobody even bothered waking me up when they left the bus. Seriously, Singaporeans!!!!

Dutch

The world is getting smaller. People are dispersing.
I did a Delhi flight 2 weeks ago and it seems like I had just come back from another even though really I had only just come back from Melbourne.

My legs went jelly went I heard the number of special meals, especially the vegetarian.
My heart-beat increased by 40% when the supervisor announced the number of infants (nine.teen. You'd die too if you were on the flight, be it working or as a passenger) that were coming onboard in 3 minutes.
I just wanted to rip my hair out when I heard the number of wheelchair passengers.

WHAT IS THIS!

It was like I was given two flights to Delhi even though I had changed for a Melbourne.

We boarded especially early today due to the high number of passengers requiring assistance (mothers who travelled alone with babies and wheelchair passengers) and yet we closed the door much later than scheduled.

Boarding was busy-busy-busy, busy giving out infant seatbelts and taking children names as well as giving out toys to them.

After take-off and the seat-belt sign went off, I didn't dare to step into the cabin. I honestly can't remember the last time I was this afraid of stepping out to work. It was mad-house.

As if not bad enough, there was a passenger... who kept making passes at me, right from the time he boarded. By the end of the flight, my colleagues had given him nicknames like Management and Boyfriend.

Management because he kept standing outside the galley, just watching me work and trying to talk to me. So it was as though he was supervising.
Boyfriend, for obvious reasons.

When I went out with my cart for one of the service, there was another crew who had come to help and her cart was in front of mine. We stuck close together, she collecting trays and I giving out more drinks to those who wanted. Then he stood in front of her and he looked at me and said, "Some things are just so pleasant to look at."
The girl turned behind to look at me and gave me the wildest look EVER, hahahaha Jane I love you.

This must be the longest Melbourne flight in the history of the world. Time could not pass any slower, with the babies, with the profile of today's passengers, and with him constantly lingering outside my galley while the rest of the world is trying to work. I know my colleagues did not like it at all but they did not know how to get him to go away. And the weather was good for most of the flight otherwise I would have asked Captain to put on the seatbelt sign and force him to be seated.

During one of his 'supervising' visits at the galley, my colleagues couldn't stand him and were saying things about him in Mandarin, thinking he couldn't understand. Much much later, to prove to you the world is getting smaller, he spoke to me a little in Mandarin. I WANTED TO DIE.

Towards landing, he made me hook his pinky (!!!) as a promise to him that I will write to him (he had given me his name card an hour before that). HE, seated at a window seat, made me HOOK his pinky, in front of the passenger at the aisle seat! And I'm so sure the passenger already wanted to slap us both after the nonsense he had to put up with for the past few hours.

My landing station was right at the back of the plane. After we landed, I hid behind a board and my colleague told me he kept looking to the back to look for me. In the end, he waited for everyone to leave to talk to me but I quickly slid into the toilet and made sure everyone had left before I came out. So rude right?! Couldn't even say goodbye. But I guess this just shows you how freaked out I was.

He has a flight to catch tonight to Europe and during his transit in this city, he had wanted me to have dinner with him tonight. Initially he said he was having dinner his best friend who works in Singapore, then he told me he has no one to have dinner with because his best friend is working. Right until we landed, this story kept contradicting....

Haih, never been in a more sticky situation. Elsewhere I can run, I can walk away or I can just call my friends for SOS. But the whole problem was being stuck in an aluminium body with doors that can only open below 14,000 ft.

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A swimmer in the infinity pool of SkyPark at Marina Bay Sands.

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Oranje supporters during one of the WC '10 screenings (presumably against Spain) near the Rijksmuseum. My hotel in Amsterdam is just down the road man! How cool it would have been to be there, if not Afrika!

I have this urge

TO QUIT MY JOB RIGHT NOW.

I'm in this really foul mood right now which nothing can make it better.

It's just a series of things that has been making it really tough for me to trudge on.

I can name a few things off the top of my head right now but of course there are more reasons which I would not like to bring up in a public domain like this.

First, my grandma's sick and it's impossible to take time off work to stay on with her/my mum. The Company is strict with taking leave and MC - if you're a close friend you probably have already heard how anal it is to apply for leave i.e. doing it a whole year beforehand. Then, my relatives are coming back from Melbourne, Sydney and Singapore to visit my grandmother. It's gonna be like a mini-gathering and I will have to freaking miss it. I hate having to miss gatherings like this - and if I go on with this job, I know I will miss more of this in the coming years especially at times like Chinese New Year and weddings.

Thirdly, since just before my birthday I had this great big idea about my future. I thought I had my future figured out. I kinda thought how comfortable life would be if life does go according to plan. And since then I never enjoyed any one of my flights. It has been 3 flights since and I did not enjoy a single one of those. I usually enjoy going to work and working actually makes me happier than staying in Singapore. However the last few flights sucked so much.

I have not worked out yet if it was because of the aircraft type that was used, the crew or the destinations, because one of those factors sucked in all 3 flights.

Seriously, this time last year, if I had to face a fussy and rude passenger, I can probably tolerate it and showed him/her what graciousness is. Today, I'd probably give him a look that says, "Go fly with your father's airline."

If a guy tries to show his new bride how much of a man he is by ordering me about, I'll forget my niceties and there will absolutely be no more pleases, thank yous and sorrys. All he will get from me is, "Can you let me continue serving this other lady first?" and proceed with a glare.

This, by the way, did happen on my flight. My patience has been maxed out and I no longer enjoy what I'm doing anymore.

I'm also pissed at my new roster. It looks like crap and I will feel like crap if I have to do all those flights. I will never be happy again. Seriously, just take me back to the days when I had to operate only B777 flights.

Another thing is of course this damned island. This island sucks the energy and joy out of its residents. The faster I quit, the likelier I can get out of this island. On hindsight, maybe not. Whatever it is, just staying on means I DEFINITELY will be stuck here. Not even a chance of escaping.

Flying no longer makes me happy anymore. Is it also because passengers are getting more and more demanding and unreasonable?

During the first 6 months of my flying, I had already received 7 compliment letters. Most of my friends flying for 2 years don't even have 7 since the day they started flying. In the last 6 months, I have probably received only 3. How can I, now equipped with the experience to handle passengers better, be getting less compliments than when I was a greenhorn?

The desire to extend a service in me has died.

I was really looking forward to meeting my friends for dinner tonight. We had already made plans the day before but the moment I got into the cab to come back to Singapore, my mood changed. My friends probably couldn't figure out why I was so moody over dinner. I did try my best to lighten up but I could barely laugh.

Elaine, take me to San Francisco with you. Where the skies are blue, where the breeze is cold, where the people on the streets smile with you....

I WANT TO QUIT. I just don't know if I can deal with not getting this salary and not seeing San Francisco, London and Paris anymore.


Not exactly excited about life right now.

I just want to sleep

Grandma's in the hospital (that's maternal side, so you paternal side cousins please don't get worked up). Just as well that I'm back from a long flight. Will visit her first thing when I get back to beepee.
Grandma also has the stupid H1N1 virus. You'd think a flight stewardess (read: high risk group) would have gotten herself vaccinated right. No I didn't. So I have to wear a mask to visit my grandmother.

I had a tiring flight back and I just wanna sleeeeeeep! I doubt I'll be getting much sleep today - I can already foresee what the day will be like today.

Hey, the diamonds on my ring look a lot brighter today! :)
I think it knows I was considering an upgrade and is telling me to keep it. Ok, for now I shall.

On a damn hot day...

Funny and the weird

I don't know if you all have already, but follow @PaulOcto on Twitter. He is so funny!
Strangely enough many Malaysians follow him probably because the first few people who followed him are pretty big on Twitter among the Malaysian community...
As a result, in the beginnning many kept mistaking him for a Malaysian and expected him to know local slangs and stuff like that.
This though, I thought was funny.

In other news, a few days ago Justin Bieber made news when he allowed his vans to vote for him to perform anywhere in the world. Somehow or rather, North Korea started leading and then it lead by a huge margin. Iraq was following second.

BBC reported about it on its website and I think they might have run out of caption/ideas.
Hell yeah I'm sure he might be interested.

Sidetracked

The biggest news that came out of Wimbledon 2010 was the Isner vs. Mahut game. They battled each other for 11 hours and 05 minutes, which eventually became the longest game of tennis ever played. Meanwhile both players also broke many other records with that game. Wikipedia has an entry on that game itself.

The World Cup 2010 wasn't fantastic either and there were many upsets. The results of the games made the bookies the happiest lot. There isn't much to talk about, and nothing memorable, but I'm sure we all know now who Paul the Octopus is. Some would like to keep it, some would like to eat it - though I'm not sure why the latter because it merely 'predicted' and it didn't actually cause the outcome.

And I can't believe I'll be up in the air when Spain plays The Netherlands in the final!!!

I betcha I'll be calling the cockpit incessantly for updates.

I turned 25

Big love to all of you who wished me a happy birthday. It was, indeed, a happy one.

2 years ago, I got called up to pax to Moscow on my birthday.
Last year, I flew back from somewhere and went straight home on my birthday.
This year, again I worked on my birthday. I flew back from Sydney.

Instead of going home, Anshii and Nelson celebrated my birthday for me with a dinner at East Coast Park. CHILLI CRABS, I LOVE!


It took forever for the crab to come but when it came it was oh-so-good!!!

I'm trying my best to blog properly because the freaking vuvuzelas on tv is disrupting my thoughts!

The next day, my friends (Hsin Ching, Wee Chieh and Chin Shi) took me to dine at Dolce Vita at Mandarin Oriental, headed by Marco Pedrelli, a Michelin Star chef.


If you google the restaurant, you'll find that the rating for the restaurant is very good, ESPECIALLY where service is concerned.
Food was excellent and service was impeccable. It was a perfect experience. At under $100 p.p., you'll get a wonderful dinner in a very pleasant ambience (read: poolside - both in and outdoors). The drinks and wines list is overwhelming and does take up a lot of one's time to go through. Cannot praise the restaurant enough.
Verdict: Highly recommended!!

To be honest, I've never been generous with tips. I mean I do give tips, but I give the minimum and I don't usually give it very sincerely. At Dolce Vita, I actually slapped down more than was required very willingly.
I will definitely return - hopefully, Marco Pedrelli will still be around.

Next gastranomic destination: Aria, Sydney. *hint to Sydney-siders reading this!*

Still on the topic of my birthday with my friends, they made me the most embarrassing and absorbent birthday 'card' in the world! I'm sure the hotel CCTV caught the making of the card... so embarrassing. I don't know what to do with it now hmmm.



ps: Germany just lost to Spain in the semi-final. When Paul the Octopus kept predicting Germany's victories, I was wondering if it had actually started getting used to seeing the German flag and out of familiarity, picks its snack out of the German box. He proved me wrong by choosing the mussel from the Spanish box and is this creepy or what but Paul's got it right! Again!

Rolex commercials

I've spent the last 30 minutes watching Rolex commercials on YouTube, and still going at it.
A few things crossed my mind though.

1. We still do not know the name of that song!! I love Rolex commercials on TV because the song is so dramatic and until now nobody knows the name of the song. It's obvious that the song title is still a mystery because people STILL ask the same old question after so many years on every single Rolex ad video on YouTube.

2. Federer owns Nadal just because he is ambassador for Rolex. Just that.

3. I think the Rolex Milgauss is so suave. Makes me want to return to the lab (physics lab to be precise) just to justify buying that watch.

4. In one of the golf ads, one golfer twirled a golf club between his fingers. :-o What's the weight of a golf club again?

5. It is impossible, at least in all my efforts until now, to position the Rolex Crown on the crown of the watch at this exact angle.

6. The arts and tennis ads kick ass.

the night's not over

... I'm like ^&@*ing tired!!!!!!!!
Had a tough-ish flight yesterday which I had to wake up at 3.30 a.m. for.
Came back and did not have time to catch a nap before heading out to meet my cousin Sam who's on a stopover in Singapore.
Anshii, Nelson and I went over to his hotel at Clarke Quay to help him with his one bottle of Scotch.

We were suppose to finish up the bottle then head out to meet Anshii's friends at St. James.
Before I even headed out, I was extremely tipsy. Don't know if I could be considered drunk but I couldn't walk straight at all and was laughing my head off. I was falling on the floor and I have some of the most embarrassing photos in Sam's camera right now.
*mental note: delete those photos at every opportunity tonight.

Then at 1-ish, we headed to St. James.
I remember removing my pair of heels and then standing on tarred road (well done Ann Gie, a new low in your life... shit that one just has to do before turning 25) because I couldn't stand straight to wait for a cab at the side of the road. Sam was holding on to me because I would probably fall over and get run over by a car if he didn't.


And hell I didn't even know Sam was drunk until he got into the cab and started talking at the top of his voice in HOKKIEN. WHO KNEW HE COULD SPEAK HOKKIEN (albeit extremely broken)! He sounded like a real Ah Beng looking for a fight, and Anshii had to keep apologizing to the taxi driver.
I kept telling Sam to shut up and then Anshii kept asking me to shut up and it just went on and on and on... Hahahaha, looking back how funny it'll be to have that on video.

At St. James all I could do was sit outside the club and nod to my sister's friends who came out to get us in. I could barely keep my eyes open. I remember being extremely embarrassed when Anshii had to hold me to go to the toilet. I remember thinking everyone knows I'm drunk now :$
I tried to open my eyes and walk as straight as I could... but who was I fooling.

In the end, Nelson and I surrendered and told Anshii we must go back to our place.
Sam joined her friends while we went back.

At 3 a.m. we reached and I was still sober enough to tell myself "must remove makeup".
The best thing since sliced bread - milk cleanser and La Roche Possay thermal water: I could remove my makeup and slap on some sleeping mask without leaving my room, because Nelson was busy making a mess in there. He was so wasted.

I put on extremely slow and soothing music, which is for sleep, and the whole time I just couldn't sleep.
I kept getting up to check the time and I cursed each time I saw the time. 4 a.m., 5 a.m., 5.30 a.m., etc.
It's 8.20 a.m. now and still can't freaking sleep and that's annoying the hell outta me because there's no reason why I can't sleep! Drinking makes me extremely sleepy and I was already so ready to fall asleep in Sam's room.

So to me it's like the night's not over because I haven't slept but hey, I'm so much more sober now (I think?).

Shit, nope. I just turned to look around the room and I feel dizzy already.
CRAP! I NEED SLEEP!!!!!!!!!!!

Why can't I sleep... could it be the coke in the Scotch. I can't drink Coke by the way because it affects my sleep. Now you know another weakness of mine. But I thought the alcohol would have countered the effect of caffeine.

idea: maybe i should start baking. who knows what i can come up with?