Roadshow with Dave Lampert, President of CCH Asia Pacific

My present from Mr. Wolters Kluwer. Whee!
To be fair, half of it goes to Roger. Dave gave a quiz on his presentation and the question asked for two out of the four key initiatives this year for WK. I remembered "Institutionalise operational excellence" while he remembered "Grow our leading position" and prompted me to raise my hand.

Before Dave began his speech he showed us a cool video of clips from various movies to illustrate our position as leaders in our market, strategic partners to our customers, and a nightmare to our competitors.

The CCH ring. Be very afraid.

"I see CCH people"

Blank is my name

There’s this little space inside of me
Hollow and Sad and Still.
Sometimes it grows so large it yawns like a cavernous cave
and blots everything good out.
But mostly it sleeps like a little child with a smile on its face
dreaming of seeing the sun.
What I want is to put in its place
A rose-coloured rose-scented moon.

Is it wrong to feel this way? It’s me.

Timothyy!

I'm glad we can do things like that together. Happy 17th bro.

Get Lonely

I will rise up early and dress myself up nice
And I will leave the house and check the deadlock twice
And I will find a crowd and blend in for a minute
And I will try to find a little comfort in it

And I will get lonely
And gasp for air
And send your name off from my lips
Like a signal flare

And I will go downtown, stand in the shadows of the buildings
And button up my coat, trying to stay strong - spirit willing
And I will come back home, maybe call some friends
Maybe paint some pictures, it all depends

And I will get lonely
And gasp for air
And look up at the high windows
And see your face up there

by the Mountain Goats

“If human love

does not carry a man beyond himself, it is not love. If love is always discreet, always wise, always sensible and calculating, never carried beyond itself, it is not love at all. It may be affection, it may be warmth of feeling, but it has not the true nature of love in it. Have I ever been carried away to do something for God not because it was my duty, nor because there was anything in it at all beyond the fact that I love Him? Not Divine, colossal things which could be recorded as marvellous, but ordinary, simple human things which will give evidence to God that I am abandoned to Him?

There are times when it seems as if God watches to see if we will give Him the tokens of how genuinely we do love Him. Abandon to God is of more value than personal holiness. Personal holiness focuses the eye on our own whiteness; we are greatly concerned about the way we walk and talk and look, fearful lest we offend Him. Perfect love cast out all that when once we are abandoned to God."

Oswald Chambers

The thing that struck me the most after reading this was how so many people I know are so careful when it comes to loving anyone, anything. Never carried away, never totally abandoned, never truly loving. How utterly sad.

Have you ever been carried away for Him? For anyone?

I was reminded yesterday

"...we must not put in mind that prayer would only be effective when it arises from an eager and emotional heart…we all must be trained to keep appointments with God, whether we feel liking it or not."

John 16:24, “Until now you have asked nothing in My name. Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full.”

Thursday, 22 Feb

Yesterday’s post seemed somewhat like a grumble but it wasn’t meant to be. I enjoy festive seasons and I enjoyed the long weekend of excess. No regrets at all. [sticks chin out defiantly].

However, here’s a real grumble. Saturday’s shopping trip was unproductive; I only bought a pair of functional sandals. Sensible, practical and useful choice but I realise now that it is actually quite ugly. Bah.

Had the idea of recording my Chinese New Year resolutions. I’m pretty sure that I made New Year ones but I can’t recall any now. Here goes.

1) To read two new books a month. I’ve done half my quota for Feb-finished Lyddie by Katherine Patterson about three weeks ago. Hmm…one more week to go for the second, I’m gonna cheat with a thin book.

2) Not to get ragingly angry at turtles and name-call them nasty names. This applies especially to slow, dense ones. (just kidding!)

3) I’m running out of juice here. Errr. To bring an umbrella to work? I’ve had to run out to my car in the rain a number of times already but I'm still procrastinating on that. Yeah, it's nice to run in the rain, but not in workshoes and not with a 45min drive home after that.

4) Maybe I should ammend no 3) to stop procrastinating so much but...I'd rather do that some other time. Maybe next year.

Payday

My eyes are tired and my head hurts, courtesy of indulging on Monday night till past 4 am. I wonder if my eyesight has started to deteriorate due to the relentless monitor-staring I do. It feels...strained.


*I don't wanna wear glasses. I don't wanna wear glasses. Or contacts for that matter.*

Didn’t manage to catch up on sleep yesterday. Oh well, I miss staying up like that so I’d say that a headache’s a small price to pay :)

I stuffed myself silly for the past three days, yet managed to refrain from overdoing it to the point of feeling ill. This is no mean feat; the combination of pig truck load of junk washed down with cans and cans of sweet, fizzy drinks mixed with the baking heat (and temperature change when it suddenly pours) and car journeys in between can be pretty lethal. Woohoo, my super powers are increasing! However, I realise that my aspiration to look good in skinny pants is now further away than ever. In fact, I hardly wear pants or jeans of any kind anymore. But this is the Year of the Pig, so pass me the chips please.

[6:30 edit-Another price to pay for all of the above: zits. I forgot that they're popping out till I glanced at the mirror just now.]

Rant

Why is it impossible to get all my pictures lined up in a STRAIGHT row with uniform gaps in between them?
I've just spent over half an hour re-editing and re-publishing and it's STILL LIKE THAT.
Grrrrr.

12:46 update:-I came home and tweaked it again. At least the spacing's even now. I've resigned myself to the ugly alignment.

I want

Friday, Feb 16

I am looking forward to tomorrow. Liz wants to go shopping! I want to go shopping! We are both in agreement, hip hip hooRAH!!

Let me justify myself. I need a pair of black shoes. The only one I have:

1) has grey and blue heels (and is therefore not COMPLETELY black and CANNOT be matched all the time); and
2) is four inches high.

It has arrived!

Today I have more money in the bank than I’ve ever had before.
Know what? I can’t withdraw any. Don't remember what my PIN is.
Nevertheless, it still feels good.

Wednesday, 14 Feb

I wore a Cheongsam to work today because














I was the only one in a full length one! Liddat:

This pic is quite similar to what I wore. Same colour and cut.

Most people didn't bother at all. Either that, or their 'CNY best' tak bes langsung, haha. Only a handful were dressed up in Chinese tops or even something red. I’m not complaining though, I won RM30 in Manhattan Fish Market vouchers without trying very hard. And someone told me I looked gorgeous! I’m not telling you who.

Yesterday's feel-good vibes continued today. Yay! Granted there was a hiccup last night but I shalln't ruin a perfectly good streak of happiness by dwelling on it.

Happy Valentine's Day!

"Love means giving something you don't have to someone who doesn't want it." Anon

"The way to love anything is to realize it may be lost." G.K. Chesterton

"Love is like an hourglass, with the heart filling up as the brain empties." Jule Renard

"The love that lasts longest is the love that is never returned." Somerset Maugham

"It is better for a woman to marry a man who loves her than a man she loves." Anon

Tuesday, 13 Feb

I had a great day today.

Slept for 8 hours, got up to an empty house and had a leisurely start. No rushing and the house devoid of everybody else was still but not lonely.
Cleared away the remains of a hurried breakfast from the table. Cleared away peelings from the sink. Hung a small load of towels to dry. Heated up soup leftover from the hurried breakfast and sat down to read the papers.
The domesticity of this morning's routine (which is NOT routine) was soothing.

I arrived at work at 9.30.
Surfed the net. Replied personal emails. Found interesting sites.
Put in a solid bit of work which was fulfilling.

Had a hilarious lunch. I finally went with the Dengkil Squad to Dengkil. Before this it was anywhere but.

We discussed bedroom worship after stuffing our faces and bedroom golf on the way back to the office.

“My opinion is, based on personal preference is: A no, O yes.”

“What’s a good Christian song to…”

I laughed till I teared. We laughed for a good 3 minutes straight. The food was extremely satisfying. And cheap.

It's 3.30pm

I feel terrible.
I ate fried noodles for lunch and I feel nauseous now. Shouldn’t have taken the risk after recovering from that hurling marathon on Wed. It's another hour and a half before I can make a decent exit (I’m only supposed to leave at 5.30). God, it seems like an eternity. I can’t do any work. I just want to curl up and die.

Office Politics

Well. I’ve never really understood the fuss about it. And after my first brush with it today

I still don’t.

A lot of it seems to be like hens squawking over tiny bits of food in the dirt. And subject matter aside, bitching happens all the time. I bitch too. Maybe things are supposed to be different in the professional environment.

On an unrelated note, I went out for a drink with three of my teammates. It feels strange to be the minority.

Chinese.

Christian.

No time to go into any of this further. Leaving for the weekend heavy in heart-but it's communion service tomorrow.

Shhh...don't tell me mom!

I'm horrible at washing my dishes and cutlery at work after eating. It's usually left till the next time I need to use it again, even over the weekend. And when it's clean I don't bother to rinse it before use in case any creature crawled over it in the night. So there goes all two decades of training by my mom.

Today I've eaten:
I pack of sugared sotong
2 mini Toblerones
I meter of Sour Power Rip Rolls
I mini Milky Way
2 plates of fried spaghetti
2 'siew pau' biscuit thingies.

I think I should at least leave my Kit Kat chunky for tomorrow.

Living life with no regrets.

Possible?

Qianyi told me that she made it a point to live so that she wouldn't have any. Which is a very good to do except. I don't know. It hovered in my consciousness after that, rather like a tiny stone in your shoe that doesn't exactly hurt but you can't forget. And I wonder: how do you know what you will or will not regret? What if you went ahead and pursued something but upon looking back, you realised that it hindered you from doing something else? What if you end up regretting that because you were so busy doing so many things so that you wouldn't regret not doing them, you somehow missed out on...Special Stuff that requires Devoted Attention?

Maybe she meant she didn’t waste time by looking back on decisions/happenstances and wishing things were different. In that case, I’d agree. To live life without regrets means being able to refuse succumbing to regret even when there is cause to do so.

I cried at work yesterday

over this.
Not the post, but the actual song.

So this is February.

My first copy’s coming in on the 5th. That’s next Monday and way to soon.

3 more days to our cell waterfall outing
14 more days to Valentine’s
15 more days till my first pay check
18 more days to Chinese New Year.

Yet, I can’t think of anything exciting to look forward too now. Not even decorating for "TEAM ASIA A!!" or cell tomorrow. Or service on Sat and serving communion then and having dinner with the cellies (or ex-cellies) now that Cason's back.

i should finish filing all my notes i should journalise all the stuff I keep scribbling on scraps of paper to record properly later on i should get some proper work shoes and pants since I keep (a) wearing ridiculously-high heels and towering over everybody and (b) freezing my knee caps off at work i really should get drawing pencils and a sketch pad and begin for goodness sake

but none of this all seems important enough to be worth the effort

Prime Numbers

"are what is left when you take have taken all the patterns away. I think prime numbers are like life. They are very logical but you could never work out the rules, even if you spent all your time thinking about them."

I like this quote from Mark Haddon’s “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time”. And I think that if you substitute ‘life’ with ‘women’, it will still hold true.

Ya hear that menfolks? Hehe.