Life is boring?

I was chatting with an ex-colleague on the phone the other day and apparently, she is very happy with her life right now after being retrenched from my company. I had worried slightly for her as I know that she won't be able to get another job paying her the same anywhere else...How wrong was I!

Post-work, she stayed at home slightly less than 3 months to take care of her daughter and husband. Then she enrolled herself in some make-up lessons and she's since been doing bridal makeup and hairdo! She will also be enrolling herself for a course on wedding planning and she is intending to make a career out of it. She told me that for the 1st time in her life, she realized that she has a dream and it feels really good. I am happy for her.

The conversation set me thinking..."what am I doing here in HK?", "is this job what I really want to do?", "do I have a dream?"...The answers to them are "for the money", "no" and "no". How sad. But I have to admit, I have lost my dream ever since I quit the tour business and started working for others. I have been working day in day out, trying to do what is expected of me and getting paid at the end of every month. I have worked for this present company for the past 8 years and so far the only job satisfaction I got from this job was being able to attain a position where no Asian female has ever attained in the organisation. But so what? What's the point? Honestly, I really don't know...

My latest passion at the moment is my 2 toy poodle pups. I am thinking of having a third one...a white toy poodle maybe...am I crazy?

The Index is climbing...not the stock market

On a good day, this is the view from my bedroom window...and I emphasize a good day as this kind of days are hard to come by especially in recent years Hong Kong. The pollution is getting from bad to worse and today it was recorded way over 400 on the pollution index in all parts of Hong Kong! No wonder I am having swollen and teary eyes! Damn!

Was chatting with an old school friend who have moved back to Singapore 2 years ago after staying in Hong Kong for the past 12 years. Apparently, the pollution is one of the many reasons that have driven her and her boyfriend away from Hong Kong. They used to stay on a house boat anchored at the marine club in Hong Kong island, the southernmost part. It's an area that I assume would be least affected by the pollution, unlike the rest of the areas in Kowloon...

What's the point of having full seaview when most of the times, I cannot see much of the sea anyway? Maybe it's time to move again...

"Sad to belong"

Was listening to this song on the way to work this morning and I think that it's really quite a stupid song. The melody is good though...just that the lyrics is stupid. It goes "It's sad to belong to someone else, when the right one comes along...." So, don't belong to anyone forever then!

How do we know that the one we are together with is the right one or not? I asked my hubby and he said that it's really a tough question as he thinks that one will never know for sure. It may feels right but is it perfect? Hmm... I believe that there will always be someone that may seem better or more right than the present one if you insist to continue looking around. But the rule of the game of love does not allow one to keep trying out new loves and then come back to the old/present one when the new ones are not "right". So, like the song, it's really sad to belong to someone else...

There was a documentary by TVB a couple of weeks ago about single women over 30s. These women are referred to as "败犬" (losers) or "熟女" (mature women). It documented their frustrations about not being able to get hooked and some of them admitted that it may be their own fault. Some of them were expecting too much from their past relationships and had thus driven their men out; some were financially too strong for their men to handle; and another had a cheating husband whom she could not forgive...All sad realities of being a modern woman in this modern world.
I had my fair share of all the above frustrations when I was much younger...glad I do not now.

A good day

Today is one of those rare days where everything feels good from the moment I woke up. First of all, I finally woke up without aches and pain all over my body, unlike the past 10 days when I had symptoms of flu and rheumatism add together...sore throat, running nose, teary eyes, aches and pain in all the joints of the body. Today I felt good, no aches and my skin felt much moisturised after a night of Laneige's Water Sleeping Pack, even my hair seemed to fall into place nicer! The traffic was exceptionally smooth too, didn't meet any traffic lights until the very last one and we made it to work 4 minutes earlier than usual. And I received a call from Shanghai that really made my day. It was J and he thanked me for helping him get his request for additional manpower and equipment approved by HQ. I am sure glad that I was of help. Feels good that HQ actually asked for my opinion and respected it when I gave it.

Come to think of it, the good feeling that I am having now actually started from last evening when I had a meeting with the rest of the Japanese managers and head of departments regarding the appraisal reviews of our staff. I was as usual the only female and non-Japanese head of department and it makes me feel good every time. I recommended 5 of my staff for promotions and they all respected my decision with no challenge at all which was really rare. Some of the other guys who had given a grades for their staff were openly told off which was actually quite embarrassing...

Oh I treasure days like this ~ makes waking early up and coming to work feels worthwhile. :)

My MIL's Wish

I am feeling exhausted as I have just returned from a 10-day Chinese New Year holidays back in Singapore. This time we finally got to see the inside of our apartments, after waited for more than 3 years. All other apartments in the area have already been completed, making ours the slowest of them all...Actually, it's not a bad deal for us as we are not in a hurry to move in and neither are we thinking of renting the apartments out for returns anyway. We get a few thousand dollars of compensation from the developer for the delay.

The very next morning after arriving in Singapore we met up with 2 Interior Designers to discuss carpentry works and some minor renovation works for both apartments. We will have 6 bedrooms, 5 toilets, 2 living(1 big and 1 small), 2 kitchens, 1 formal dining and 1 casual dining combined. In total for 7 of us in our family including the old folks, we will have 2000 sq. ft. of space. Not bad at all, considering that my hubby and I had stayed in a 380 sq. ft. apartment in Hong Kong for the last 4 years...

We confirmed and decided on one of the designers who had given us a very good layout with careful considerations for all of our family members. We will be getting the 3D drawings of the proposal Wednesday this week and I will be going back again on Saturday to choose the materials. I hope to be able to decide on all the necessary things by then and need not fly back again until the actual removal which will probably be end March.

On the 1st day of the New Year, we went praying and blessing as usual and the medium spent quite some time with D, telling him to work harder and aim higher for his PSLE. We are all hoping that he will do well and get into a good secondary school near to our new place. My MIL wants me to have a baby this year, telling me not to delay anymore and telling her son the same. I hope it can be as easy as she thinks...Hubby is doing his Masters in Hong Kong and won't be graduating until end of the year, I have a contract here in Hong Kong until end-June this year and I think it will get extended again. The only way that I can get back to Singapore is resigning from this company which is actually paying me quite well...So, it's really not so easy.

Bad start...

I have to admit that I had a great weekend but unfortunately I do not have a good start to my week today. First of all, I received an email from an Admin Assistant in my Shenzhen office informing everybody about changes made to the seating arrangements for the Annual Dinner tonight which I am not involved in and so are all of the staff in our Hong Kong office. (Except for the President and 2 other Managers with teams in Shenzhen). We were told by our President from last year that we would not have Annual Dinner this year due to bad business and tight budget but our Shenzhen counterparts are having one as usual...

Then our stupid Admin in Hong Kong made us sign an acknowledgement agreeing to some changes made to the Employee Handbook with effect from today but did not state clearly the changes made...And the best thing was when we told them that we will not sign because it's not written clearly, they told us that the acknowledgement letter was prepared by the HR consultant! That's the ultimate bullsh*t that this company can come out with, paying stupid monies to some stupid consultants and depriving the staff of an Annual Dinner. How can we expect any loyalty from the staff?

This is really a bad start to the week....and we are having a meeting with all those id*ots later at 4pm...

Weekend Update - Movie, walk and Spa.

I had a great weekend. Starting with a morning session movie at UA Citygate and cried my eyes out watching "Hachiko". Richard Gere looked really old in the movie but still as handsome and as charming as always. "Hachi" was really cute when he was a puppy! Love his eyes! Much like my very own Coffee's. If I can afford to have a big house, I would really love to have a Akita Inu! It is such a handsome breed! And maybe also a Golden Retriever! And a Shiba Inu!

Took Cookie to see the vet for her teeth as her milk teeth won't drop and her adult teeth are coming out. The vet told me that she will have to be fully tranquilized for extracting the teeth and suggest that I have it done together with the de-sexing surgery. I don't intend to de-sex her though. I would love for her to give me more cute little puppies that resemble both Coffee and her! So, I will have to check her teeth hygiene more regularly so that she will not get tooth decay. Anyway, the vet checked her and told me that she has a slightly weak right knee. Not very serious but may develop into arthritis when she grows old. Coffee has strong bones though and everything is fine with him. And fortunately we went to the vet as we found out that they have missed 1 vaccination. I thought the pet shop told us that they have had 2 vaccinations when we bought them? Anyway, they are fully vaccinated now, including the one for rabies.

After the visit to the vet, we took the pups to the Inspiration Lake near Disneyland and had a great walk. We didn't see any other people walking their dogs and I suspect that dogs are not allowed. Anyway, there was no sign so we didn't care. Both of them had a great workout running and walking around the lake, and so did the both of us.

In the evening, we went to the MTM Spa at Novotel Citygate. I had a 2-hr facial session with special treatment for my eye bags and caviar essence infused mask for my face and neck. I slept through almost half of the session and left feeling my skin refreshed. I guess I have to start taking care of my skin as I approach the big 40. Hubby had a 30-minute head, neck and shoulders massage which he thought was too short.

Sunday was spent at home. Tried to tub with the pups but they were terrified of the water. They hanged on to us like crazy and wouldn't let go! Coffee was so funny, peddling with his limbs so fast even though he was out of water. I cooked dinner, made soup (black chicken and fish maw and conch) and fried vegetables with pork liver sausage. Yummy. (^-^)