This is the bloody critter that has infested my laptop at home...
*grrrrrrr*

w32.bizex.worm

Congrates to my youngest brother on graduating from university!

What my weekend really concluded with wasn't more smses... but a virus in my computer. Now my icq keep sending that same bug to people on my contact list (my apologies to all) and i keep getting disconnected from icq server.

*curse curse curse*

It is a horrible weekend when you hear from your friend about their r/s problems.
Worse still is when it sounded so similiar from what you have been through.

Damn. Why am i talking in the 3rd person? Ok.. What i have been through then.

I wanted to help but i know i am probably biased in my opinions because i feel for the party who may be dumped though i can understand the rationale behind why the person is doing what he is doing.

It is a horrible weekend when things i shouldn't know, i had to find out. And when i do, it struck me that i have no idea how to really deal with it. Sometimes too much relevations may not necessary be a good thing. If only i had been able to let go of not knowing all the facts. But i know i can't. It sadden me because despite being assured it wasn't my fault, somehow circumstances to me as such, make me feel that it is partially my fault. I just wish for everyone to be happy. I don't consciously try to make people like me though i enjoy the feeling of being likable. Yet, i didn't expect that it would become such a difficult thing. Now i just feel like hiding in a hole somewhere.

It is a horrible week when you insist that i talk to you when i am already feeling drained and tired and maxed out. When i am already feeling guilty enough that i couldn't see you for the past few days. When the last thing i need is to talk about what was wrong when all i wanted to do was hole up somewhere to digest what had happened, what i have seen and what i have heard. All i wanted was to talk to you in my own time when i am ready, for you to trust me that i will when i am ready and for you to be supportive in the meantime. What i don't expect is for you to tell me that i could only do so in a time convenient to you, which is now and that next week you "have a lot of work to do". All i can say now is that i am so disappointed in us, that you have made an otherwise horrible week, even more that i can bear.

If the whole world has not gone incredibly mad, then i think i have.

I'm sleepy again.
Went marketing in the morning and now i want to take a nap.
Yawns.
So much to do though.
Need to do the posters for the retreat
and look through cookbooks for inspirations...
having a potluck for tomorrow's farewell party in school.

I'd say, sort out your personal relationship problem first before bringing in another person into the equation.
What is it about humans and their egos that they have to know that they are being admired?

I have been offered a training course in North Carolina for 2 weeks in July-August.
I guess i am both happy and unhappy about it.
Happy to finally be offered
yet unhappy that the nomination came from someone else other than my own dept head.
I hate thinking that favouritism plays a part in selection.
I hate not being picked for the course that i am more suitable for.
I hate that place being given to someone who does not merit the placement.

There are a lot of things i am becoming unsatisfied about at work and it bugs me that as the organization grows, people start losing sight of what is importance and politics come into play. I miss working in an environment where none of those things were important and though we were a small organization, everyone felt like part of a family. Except now, we aren't and management tried salvaging the old culture by organizing retreats. My question now is, exactly what culture are we trying to salvage? Do they know? Why do i have the feeling that it is an attempt to make one side conform to the other? Like my colleague said, i don't really need the job. I guess if i am required to play politics and do some serious ass-licking, i would just pack up and leave. But i will really miss the kids though.

Tomorrow is my performance appraisal.
Doesn't really worry me, unless they found out about me taking 2 hour lunches during the school holidays.
I am not expecting an "A" for appraisal
but if its anything lower than a "B" i'm gonna protest.
For once i just wish people can appreciate the energy and work i put into what i do.

A flurry of smses concluded my weekend.
Looking at other people's problems
problems of my own
and suddenly i wondered if the whole world has gone incredibly mad.
I feel like i am having a perpetual crick in my neck
from looking up into the sky
and nothing can work out the tension.
Suddenly, the burrow in the duvet looks mightily
inviting.
Except i can't be in there because i am needed out here.
I wish people would just be happy.

Somethings you can say and other things you can't.
For those things you can't, you can perhaps write.
But what if you can't write about it?
Then what?

Things are getting really chaotic at work now... at times seemingly dangerously close to everything falling apart. Unhappy sentiments seems to be surfacing all over the place, from teachers to parents. The students are acting up as well...

And now this thing about a colleague...

Man. I am bloody confused and feeling really uptight about every thing.
So much so that "I quit" is just hanging off the tip of my tongue, just waiting for the next wave to tip that over.

Perhaps i am just stressed.

Read this somewhere about relationship...

The difference between 'United' and 'Untied' is where you put the "i".

Did the MBTI on saturday and my profile is INTP. Well, i could be INFP too, since it was only a point difference between my thinking and feeling part.

He has been quite sick these couple of days.
I'm abit worried because usually when he falls sick, it lasts quite a while.
Hmm... Must ask my mom what he needs to eat again.

What a super duper short weekend!
Too much seemed to have happened and i am totally exhausted.

Whatever it is, i hoped that you are feeling better my dear...
Though as your friends, we know we can't do very much
but we hoped that things will resolve itself soon...

Hey!
It's friday the 13th!

Tomorrow is Valentine's day and I am spending it with 100 over people... at work.
There would be a survey in the morning in school which is compulsory as well as some trainers who would be conducting the MBTI personality test for the staff who hasn't done it. The profile would be used for our staff retreat. Whole thing expected to finish around 4pm. Doh. There goes my saturday. Not that it matters since he is away on reservist.

Had a real scare in the last couple of days but thank god it turned out fine. However, it did made me think through something quite personal and put some things into perspective for me. I can only say, i have never felt quite so peaceful in a while.

Attended another wake. This time, its my colleague's dad. She looked a little shellshock and confessed that if it wasn't for her aunt, she would have really gone down the deep end not knowing what to do. Despite being the oldest in the family (she has a younger brother), she is after all only in her twenties. I think it is such an ordeal for the living to say their goodbyes to their dearly departed. I think back to my own family and wonder how i would be able to live through that day when my parents passes on. It is a scary thought and not one i bear dwelling on. Sigh. I hope my colleague is okie after the cremation today.

Don't you know that i keep your bagful of misses right here in my heart?

The Wild Rose
Random Brutal Love Dreamer (RBLDf)


Colorful, but unpicked. You are The Wild Rose.

Prone to bouts of cynicism, sarcasm, and thorns, you excite a certain kind of man. Hoping to gather you up, he flirts and winks and asks you out, ultimately professing his love. Then you make him bleed. Why? Because you're the rare, independent, self-sufficient kind of woman who does want love, but not from a weakling.

You don't seem to take yourself too seriously, and that's refreshing. You aren't uptight; you don't over-plan. Romance-wise, sex isn't a top priority--a true relationship would be preferable. For your age, you haven't had a lot of bonafide love experience, though, and this kind of gets to core of the issue. You're very selective.


Your exact opposite:
The Dirty Little Secret

Deliberate Gentle Sex Master

The problem is them, not you, right? You have lofty standards that few measure up to. You're out there all right, but not to be picked up by just anyone.


"You're never truly single as long as you have yourself."

ALWAYS AVOID: The Bachelor

CONSIDER: The Vapor Trail.

Your wings are BROKEN and tattered. You are
an angelic spirit who has fallen from grace for
one reason or another - possibly, you made one
tragic mistake that cost you everything. Or
maybe you were blamed for a crime you didn't
commit. In any case, you are faithless and
joyless. You find no happiness, love, or
acceptance in your love or in yourself. Most
days are a burden and you wonder when the
hurting will end. Sweet, beautiful and
sorrowful, you paint a tragic and touching
picture. You are the one that few understand.
Those that do know you are likely to love you
deeply and wish that they could do something to
ease your pain. You are constantly living in
memories of better times and a better world.
You are hard on yourself and self-critical or
self-loathing. Feeling rejected and unloved,
you are sensitive, caring, deep, and despite
your tainted nature, your soul is
breathtakingly beautiful.


*~*~*Claim Your Wings - Pics and Long Answers*~*~*
brought to you by Quizilla


GEEZ!
That sounded terrible.

The Odd Couple: A well-attended play with well-dressed people.

I have not attended a "straight" play for ages. By that i meant people acting as distinct characters, realistic sets, real time, yada, yada, yada... In other words, nothing that was quite so "Cheem" that require you to think about the methaphorical properties of a particular lampshade. After having overworked my brain on looking at the subtext of plays like Sand and a Distant Star, and the likes, I am a little confounded on the onset of The Odd Couple and more than once, had to readjust my brain to stop trying to think too deeply into the unsaid or unseen or symbolism and just concentrate on the wit and humor and the acting. After i changed my "mode" around, things gotten pretty much more enjoyable by the second act. I realized that watching a performance requires more that what is going on on stage as the audience is an integral part of the process in the enjoyment of the show. My cousin recited a fact about her boss who absolutely have no interest in anything related to the arts after declaring "I am not the arty-farty sort" and felt that such performances, regardless of its merits, are hardly enjoyable (perhaps even torturous). That in itself is quite ironical since he is in charge of the allocating of sponsorships to such artistic groups or productions, rightly by order of merits.

Well, back to the play. It is enjoyable and witty and funny but i have never been particularly fond or otherwise of such a genre. For some reasons, i prefer things to be less "accessible" unless if it was brilliantly witty. For example, I enjoyed ART! tremendously for its dead pan british humor and clever take on the topic of art. But I wouldn't say that The Odd Couple was quite like that though i can see its attraction for most audience and to be fair, the actors acted remarkably well (its the Adrian Pang as Felix version) despite some minor hiccups on the lines here and there. I guess i am just spolit by years of foreign art films and avant-garde theatre performances. Ah, but as i said, all i needed to do is just change my "mode" of perception a little and everything made sense again.

A short week that felt too long.

Haven't blogged in a bit because it has been terribly busy at work and play so that by the time i get home i am usually quite zonked out. Suddenly i realized that there are not more public holidays after Hari Raya Haji and it will be busy busy busy till my staff retreat in March which i am part of the organizing committee. On top of that, my performance appraisal is coming as well as various other sub-committees i am part of in school, and recently i just started a new kick boxing class. Other than monday which was a holiday, the only other day i got home at a decent time after work was wednesday. Tuesday i watched a movie. Thursday was kickboxing and dinner. Friday was dinner and watching The Odd Couple. I think i need to take leave just to relax after the retreat. Still, workwise, things are OK though a couple of parents had threatened to deregister their child (or perhaps have already done so) which made one of the programs a little topsy turvey for the moment. No biggie. All will straighten out eventually. Pity the HOP and Social worker having to deal with it though. Conducted a talk for some parents on behaviour management with my colleagues on friday and it was quite fun. I enjoy the feeling of being able to convey what i want to say to people successfully, a connection of sorts. It was heartening to see the parents contributing and affirming some of the points we have brought up in their own children. After that it was more or less a sharing session and before we knew it, we were invited to continue with another sharing session next week because we ran out of time on friday. Ah. A few more weeks like these and we would fly by 2004 right into 2005. Boy, despite being totally tuckered out most days, ironically, i felt quite energized mentally by having so many things happening (well, most of which i enjoyed, so that helped tremendously).

Caught Stan Lai's Sand and a Distant Star (Zai na yao yuan de xing qiu, yi li sa) starring TV's favourite taiwanese host Chang xiao yan, Ah liang and Ah ya, as well as well known theater director/action, Jin Shi Jie (from An Lian Tao Hua Yuan). It was a great play, despite being a little too long (2 1/2hr without intermission), about a street vendor Ye ying (Xiao Yan) who wavered between being sane and insane after her husband disappeared. She claimed that her husband has been abducted by aliens and would come back on Sept 5, 2003, 11.42pm though there has been news that he has abandon his wife and daughter for the last 20 years and remarried in Shanghai. As the day drew nearer, she became more awaken to the "reality" that perhaps her husband may never returned and contemplated going to look for him if he doesn't.

Her daughter, Guaiguai (Ah ya) thought that her mother was insane and was attempting to make a documentary on her with the help of her boyfriend Ah Gao, who came up with the idea of staging a reunion on Sept 5 by getting some actors to play the alien and missing husband and filming them.

Xiao Fan (Ah Liang) was another street vendor working alongside Ye Ping whose Vietnamese wife had ran away from him after he beaten her up. He searched the whole city for her with Ye Ping.

Lao Qian (Jin Shi Jie) was a rich drunkard who had abandoned his terminally ill wife in USA because he couldn't cope with watching her suffer.

Each and everyone had suffered loss in some ways either through disappearance, abandonment or death. Even the daughter was similiarly "abandoned" by her escapist mother who had created an "ideal" daughter in her own little world of aliens and a distant star called Penefere. In the end, everyone had a closure through laughter and tears: Lao Qian finally plucked up the courage to say "sorry" to his wife (in the form of Ye Ping as he acted the abducted husband in Ah Gao's scripted reunion), Xiao Fan finally saw his wife again, GuaiGuai finally understood and accepted her mother while Ye Ping finally "met" her husband in the final act and disappeared from Taipei after that.

As to whether Ye ying's husband was really abducted by aliens was secondary though the play resolved the issue by leaning rather heavily on the fact that the abduction was true when Guaiguai received a postcard sometime later (in the epilogue) from her mother, post dated from Penefere. It has a picture of her mother and someone who looked like her father looking happy together. A video played on the screen behind showed the two smiling before an alien bounced into the frame.

I thought that was really giving too much away and the epilogue was totally unnecessary. I would rather have Ye ying just disappeared after that surreal scene where her husband apparently came back from another planet for a short visit. Everyone acted well, esp Chang Xiao Yan, in her portrayal of an escapist woman and her relationship with her daughter actually made me teared a few times as they attempted to come to terms with each other. Ah ya was mavellous as her daughter(s) - alternating between the rebellious "real" daughter and the ideal "fake" daughter. Jin Shi Jie as the drunkard Lao Qian brought a poignancy to a middle-aged "macho" man who was tortured by the sight of his wife dying as well as his abandonment of her in the hospital. Even Ah Liang's typical earthy humour (akin to his comic hosting style on tv) showed a vulnerable side in his search for his wife which made the audience feel for him.

After the play, we had the chance to stay for another 1/2 hour as the director and actors shared their experience with the audience and answered some questions. I really enjoyed myself despite my cold and recommend anyone to go watch it though it has ended its run today (only 2 shows, on the 31st and 1st of feb).

Down with flu in the last couple of days but finally dragged myself to the doctor's on friday afternoon. In any case, it was anything really serious just a block nose and sore throat. While i was at the doctor's, i decided to ask about hepA & B vaccination and was told that i would need a blood test to see if i have any immunity against hepatitis. Since i was there, i thought might as well get one done. Just as the doctor was able to draw some blood from my right arm, i warned him that it was notoriously difficult to draw any blood from my arm from previous experiences and i usually ended up with bruises. My doctor laughingly told me that all it takes is experience and it is really easy to do it if you know how. Well... after warning me that it may feel a little painful as he pushed the needle in (i assured him i am quite ok coping with pain), he proceeded to explain to me that he could feel a big vein in my arm and told me how it wasn't a problem finding it. So imagine his surprise when he drew back the syringe and nothing came out. I was trying not to laugh as he continued to looked perplexed and continued to "poke" around with the needle at various angles in his attempts to draw my blood. I had to ask him finally if it was really a vein he was poking at which he told me fairly confidently that it felt like one, to which i replied "It must be a fake one then since it doesn't have any blood in it". It took several minutes before he finally took the needle out in defeat. I couldn't help but smile and when he saw me smiling, he looked alittle embarrassed and muttered something like "You don't look surprised" which of course i wasn't. In any case, he became more serious (and less cocksure) when he attempted the same thing with my left arm and finally succeeded. After that i think we both had a good laugh about my "fake vein" (he suspect must a tendon in any case) and he half-seriously told me to warn any doctors who may attempt to draw blood out from me to try with my left arm and never my right.