Arsenal did it again!

Arsenal 2 - Juventus 0.

Of course I didn't watch the game. After Arsenal managed to beat Real Madrid in the last round, I thought that was the best result they'd ever get this season. Having to face Juventus, who are almost sure to win the Italian league title this year, seemed too high a mountain to climb. Especially as we had to face former captain Vieira, who has been instrumental to Juve's current form.

So it came as a surprise when after dinner last night my sister (who's a big Juve fan, by the way) said something to the effect of, "Juve's finished. After 2-0 I don't know if they can come back."

The papers yesterday, of course, didn't get to cover the story in time, but finding out later is just as sweet.

The Workshop at the Saujana

As promised, a very long post on the Workshop in Subang, which took place on Wednesday and Thursday last week. Or read - what you get when you pay a management consultant exorbitant amounts of money to conduct a session where you have to do all the dirty work yourself.

When I checked in at the Main Hotel Lobby on Wednesday morning, I was told that my room would be at 'The Club' and I had to check in there instead. Ooh, sounds pretty exclusive. They had a car bring me round to the Club, which was located towards one end of the resort. I checked into a room which had a view of a landscape pool, with the lake in the distance. Having settled myself in, I called up the guy I was supposed to meet for the briefing.

We agreed to meet at the lounge, where he explained to me that all I had to do was 'interview' a member of the Top Management, get together with other similar interviewers and 'synthesise' our findings into a presentation back to the Big Boys (and a Lady). Oh, and watch some video set in the future which was supposed to be very impressive. The top guns had already been briefed about the interview, and it seemed as if they had quite a lot more to do over the next two days, so I was set for a quite relaxing stay here. Or so I thought.

I went back to my room, feeling really hungry, so I ordered a Hamburger and a pot of Milo that cost just under RM50. At 2.45 pm, as agreed, I made my way down to meet with the rest of the group. When I got there, I was told that the session was postponed to 4 pm, and the venue had changed. When we regrouped at the restaurant for the interview, we had to wait another hour before it was time to 'pick up' our partners in their briefing room.

I have to admit to panicking for a while, as I don't really recognise the Top Management except for maybe 3 or 4 persons. My partner was not one of these 3 or 4. Someone described him as wearing a coat and a red tie, but when we got to the room no one had a coat and tie on. Fortunately, he was sitting right next to someone else I knew, who promptly introduced us.

The interview went quite well. I hardly had to do any prompting, and before I knew it, the interview had ended. Then the tables were turned and I got interviewed instead, starting from where Iwork back to my schooling. As we walked back to the briefing room, the topic turned to my pregnancy. The small size of my tummy, hidden under the voluminous black abaya I was wearing, misled him into thinking that I was actually in the earlier stage. When I informed him I had 3 weeks to go, he seemed genuinely surprised that I was still up and about.

Anyway, because of the delay that afternoon, the 'synthesis' discussion took quite some time. I don't understand why they have to make us get into four groups, present each group's findings then combine into two and finally one list of findings, when everyone had pretty similar results. By the time we finished the list itself, it was almost time for dinner. We hardly had enough time to squeeze in Maghrib prayers, let alone take a nice long shower, before we had to turn up at the same interview venue for an Italian dinner.

The food itself was good, but I have to admit I wasn't very good company. I've always been really bad at making small talk. I mean, how do you speak to company VP's, especially when the topic was on BMW's and golf, two things I have never really had the pleasure of indulging in?

In a way I was glad when dinner was finally over, but we had to head back to our discussion room to devise a presentation format for the next day. It didn't help that the room's aircon wasn't working, and I really think we were not that productive considering the time and the location. Hubby and Nuaim had decided to come over to spend the night, but by the time I trudged back to my room, both of them were already dozing away. Nuaim slept soundly the whole night, in fact when he left with Hubby in the morning, he hadn't even laid eyes on me.

I was tired, sleepy and missed playing with my baby. I think I deserved to have a good cry, so I did.

When I made it downstairs to breakfast, I had my professional, confident face back on. We worked on our presentation, again in that really hot room, and didn't get to watch the video. Lunch was a hot and humid affair, despite having it indoors, and we were 'treated' to a speech by one of the consultant's big shots that, to my engineering mind, didn't offer anything concrete or tangible to take away as food for thought. I felt like a plant wilting in the heat, so just had to take a shower. This resulted in me being late for our last minute presentation dry run, and I wasn't really able to take in the last slides before we had to head off to do the presentation proper.

It could have been worse. No one told me that they decided to make do without the music, so when the slides came onscreen I thought it was just a technical test and I missed my cue for the narration. Fortunately things went smoothly enough, and my insipid attempt to wrap things up with a golf joke was warmly appreciated.

I was looking forward to checking out, going home and spending a couple of hours with Nuaim before heading back here for another dinner, but we weren't let off so easily. I suppose after the huge amount of money we must have paid them for the video, we were obliged to at least watch it.

It turned out to be a collection of 10 different scenes, all intertwined, set in 2010. The scenes were supposed to depict how things would (ideally) be like in the future, especially concerning Leadership and Performance Management. I was expecting a very hi-tech look a la 'Minority Report', with arms sweeping over virtual screens and retina scans, but the only difference was that everyone, despite having Asian names, spoke in an American accent. I was hungry and hot (temperature, not personality) and really couldn't be bothered to analyse all the stuff. My table kept making funny remarks about the people appearing in the video, which lasted a whole 2 hours.

Dinner that night was much more enjoyable. Knowing that it was finally over brought a huge sense of relief to me, and my dinner companions stuck to topics I could really appreciate. The waiter must be new, because he kept misreading all the non-verbal instructions (and misunderstood some verbal ones too) and I bet he actually hailed from mainland China, judging from his accent.

Hubby picked me up at 10, but when I reached Mak's house my in-laws were there, and I couldn't just excuse myself and go straight to bed. Add to that a restless son who wouldn't let me sleep and a busy weekend, it's no wonder I feel as knackered as I do today.

And I still haven't started on the Forum notes.

Any Time Now...

Almost everyone I bump into at the office keeps asking me the same question: "So when are you due?"

When I tell them my due date is 13th April, the response is always, "Oh, any time now then."

Seriously, I think they should put in the Project schedule as one of the major milestones: Senior Field Instrument Engineer EDD.

I had estimated that towards the end of March things would have slowed down for me at the office, leaving me with enough time on my hands to blog, and pick up where I left off with 'What to Expect when you're Expecting' (which is somewhere in month 4 or 5, so that's a lot to catch up). At my 36th week check-up the baby's already engaged in the pelvis with an estimated weight of 2.4 kg, much smaller than Nuaim was at that stage, but a good 600g up from the previous two weeks. A week later, the weight hasn't changed but my cervix has already dilated by 1 cm, probably due to the fact that I've been here, there and everywhere, much to the distress of everyone else around me.

Today, despite my resolve to work right up to 'Labour Day', I've decided to stay at home. Correction - Hubby decided I should stay at home and get some rest, so like the good wife I agreed to do his bidding.

It doesn't stop my mind from going into hyperdrive though.

I've realised that lately my body is having a really tough time catching up with my brain, especially with so much mental stimulation on offer. Which is probably the thing that lead me to this state of lethargy.

First of course, there was the yearly appraisal that gripped everyone in high fever. Everyone knows it takes no small amount of brainpower and creativity to make the most mundane task read like a really crucial contribution to the company's growth, just to ensure you get that extra salary increment and performance bonus. Never mind that it causes the real value-adding/ profit-making work to come to a standstill for the whole month of March. Finding the right balance between having multiple objectives (to make it look like you did a lot of work, therefore are indispensible) and having delivered a really outstanding job (after all, too many mediocre results ain't gonna get you an overall rating of 'Exceeding Expectations' in the end) is something I'm still trying to figure out, even after 4 review cycles. The thing is I'm proud of the little short-term things that I did, because I think I did them very well, whereas the longer-term jobs was just a matter of going through the motions for me. Although some may argue that my motions are better than most in my current grade. The only reason of course being that with the new job grade structure, despite two fast-track promotions in the past, I am now no different from a junior engineer who's only left uni a year ago.

Then there was the Project Managers' Forum at Marriott Putrajaya last week. I had already planned since a month ago to attend the Forum, partly via some encouragement from a very senior person who had roped me in to help prepare some speeches for the VIP's (now I know what Rob Lowe's character in 'The West Wing' feels like), and partly because I knew the project wouldn't mind me being absent for a few days, since most if not all my deliverables were already completed. Besides, you don't always get to stay in a really posh hotel on company expenses. What happened in the end though, was that I actually had to stay attentive throughout the Forum to jot down the important points of several speeches and presentations, to be compiled into some report.

Okaylah, whatever.

Anyway, in the week leading up to the Forum, I was assigned at the very last minute to the Technical Evaluation team for a package that I'm not entirely familiar with. Yeah, yeah, I know I helped to write the Evaluation criteria, but that was only because I was standing in for my LE at the time (and I made sure this was recorded in my appraisal) and my colleague who prepared the specs was overburdened with other work. In the end I don't know if my evaluation actually bears any great impact to who gets the job. It still wasn't finished when I left for Putrajaya, and I still have a couple of bids to look at. Plus the evaluation actually takes place in Tower 1.

As I was rushing across the skybridge on Friday 17th, I received an e-mail asking me to be in Subang Jaya for some sort of Management Offsite Session right after the Forum, subject 'to the (Company) President's final approval.' What? I may have to rush from Putrajaya to the other side of town, and you can't even decide whether you really need me to go or not? Add to that, my appraisal form had to be finalised by the very same day, and I was still chasing former Project Managers for a performance rating.

Fortunately, said PM also attended the Forum, so after a so-called 'Networking Dinner' where I sat with all-too-familiar faces, I was able to finalise the appraisal and send it off to the office via Hubby who consented to playing 'Mat Despatch'. Of course, this was after a Saturday which was half-spent playing a waiting game at the hospital for a 10-minute check-up, and ended with a visit to see a relative in Kajang who had to be hospitalised a week before her sister's engagement; and a Sunday when I wanted to relax but for Nuaim who, for some strange reason, stayed awake throughout the day despite waking up at 7 a.m, a Tumble Tots session at 10.30 and a swim around 4 pm after checking in at the Marriott. By Maghrib I was almost screaming my head off for Hubby to take him back to Mak's house like we planned, just so I didn't have to keep picking him up whenever he fell off the armchair after an attempt to play Superman. Hubby, of course, believes in letting Nuaim fall from high places so that he'll learn from consequences. What gives him that idea I'll never know, as he himself has never learnt to put on the seat belt or drive within the speed limit despite the numerous traffic summonses.

Anyway, the Forum itself was very good, there were some really amazing speakers (and even more brilliant session chairmen) but the hotel, I feel, has slackened somewhat.

I received the call on Monday evening confirming my selection for this Offsite workshop in Subang, and please can you attend the briefing on Tuesday afternoon? I tell them, in the politest way possible, that this was impossible, but that I'll see them on Wednesday morning instead since the session itself only starts on Wednesday afternoon.

So I did get to go home on Tuesday night, and despite my best intentions to make it to the office on Wednesday morning just to see how things were getting along without me, I decided to stay back home till 10 a.m. when I had to go off to the Saujana Resort in Subang.

Right, next is the Workshop. My mystery disappearance from the office that led everyone to thinking I had already started my maternity leave. For some reason I feel the need to write down every little detail of what happened while not disclosing several confidential issues, so bear with me. Or stop reading right now. But this is almost one week's worth of blogging so it's a very long post. Oh sod it, I'll just keep it as another entry.

The Glass is Half Full

Despite the company about to close and everyone around me being apprehensive about where they're all going, I can't help but feel optimistic about the future. Sure, people are reminiscing about the good old days, the friendships (and marriages) that have been formed along the way - and there is that sad feeling of course that everything you've worked for and dreamed of is not exactly working out the way you wanted it to be. But there's a great big world out there, even within the Group corporate structure, that's offering so many different opportunities. It's just a matter of looking at all the options available, and choosing which one suits you and your circumstances best.

Besides, after moaning and raging for the first few weeks, it is time to move on. One doesn't really expect to stay in the same place for years. But then again, a lot of senior people in the company have been there since day one about 13 years ago, so maybe that speaks for something. I suppose it was the nature of the job - being project-oriented, the work takes you to different places, working with different people (sometimes different nationalities) and of course there is always the outstation allowance that is so, so desirable to everyone else on the outside looking in.

But it's never been about the money for me (haha, I may be singing a different tune when I end up in Kerteh or Bintulu without that extra RM4000 a month), but always the experience of meeting people and learning something new every day. And that's something that's being offered to me on a plate at this moment.

So what's left to do? Carpe diem!

Blogger's block

Bored. And boring.

I'm trying to recall what actually inspired me to start blogging. I love reading other people's blogs - some are funny and witty, others poignant. Some blogs help me keep in touch with friends who are far and away beyond the shores of Malaysia. Like novels, when I read something good, I feel an urge to write too, hoping that, without imitating the style, I can be as funny or witty or emotionally engaging as these bloggers who get 30+ comments to a post.

But, I have to admit, I'm a lame writer. Most of what I write are everyday, mundane things that don't really affect anyone else but me. The only reason I use the Web instead of a handwritten journal is because I'm so used to typing that penmanship tires me out (plus my handwriting has gone from mediocre to illegible). And even if the subject matter does have a larger impact, other people have written about it in a bigger and better way. So maybe I'm just one of those people who are taking up much-needed cyberspace that could be put to better use serving the community or generating some business.

I suppose blogging is just a manner of keeping a journal for me, albeit it's no longer private as I don't hide behind a pseudonym or alter-ego. It's also a way to let my friends know what's happening - some of them complain that it's so difficult to keep track of where I am. The only glitch there is that I need to be at a place where I have internet access, and the space and time to blog in the first place. Which is why a 3G device like the Dopod 900 was so appealing I almost splurged RM4000. The idea of being able to write about anything anywhere anytime (as long as there is 3G connectivity la, which apparently is still lacking in Alor Star) is really attractive, especially when my blogging ideas only come forth when I'm in the car, or lying in bed, or am just too tired to drag myself to the nearest PC. And I'm sure I've blogged about this Dopod thingy before, which makes my blogging even more boring than ever - the fact that I'm rehashing blogging ideas.

But using my real name has its cons. For one, there are some things that I really need to vent out which I can't do on these posts because they are also intensely private, or may affect someone close to me. No man is an island, they say. You are someone else's child, spouse, parent, a company employee, a boss or all of the above. Privacy is something you sacrifice, unless you intend to keep two separate blogs for different readers and purposes.

Have a good weekend, people!

Champions' League Cheer

ARSENAL ARE THROUGH - and CHELSEA AREN'T!!!

Okay, it's been a very long time since I've watched English or European football on TV or anywhere else, and I don't recognise half the team anymore, but I still love it when Arsenal do well. I know my team is doing badly in the domestic league, but maybe, just maybe this is the year for European glory. We can all dream, can't we?

Oscar Red Carpet

The Oscars came and went without much excitement in my household. That's probably because I have not watched any of the movies nominated for the Awards, except 'Narnia' on a VCD with horrendous subtitles. Oh yes, there was also Kiera Knightley's 'Pride and Prejudice', which I did see at the cinema, but I'd definitely need to get my hands on a pirate copy to watch some of the Best Picture nominees. Even then, it's probably something I can only stomach after I give birth in April, as per Ain's recommendation upon watching 'Munich'.
I'd already checked out the results in the afternoon via Internet at the office, so the only motivation for watching the repeat show last night was to gape at the dresses and jewellery. The Red Carpet segment came on Astro at 9 pm, and I was watching it with Mak while waiting for Hubby to come back from Isyak prayers at the mosque (I know, such 'hedonistic' pursuits while my other half communes with God). We were admiring Naomi Watts' dress when she was asked how long it took to put the whole thing together and she replied, "Oh, a few hours, with a bit of stitching here and there."
Mak's response to that was, "What if she needs to pee?"
Maybe they stitch in a super-absorbent scented adult diaper in as well.

LRT Laments

Reading this post on Ubi's blog reminded me of one time I took the LRT when I was pregnant with Nuaim. The carriage was quite full, being after-office peak hours and all, so no seats were available. I stood facing a not-so-young but still healthy looking man, my big tummy almost invading his personal space. Standing next to me was a young lady. After a couple of minutes, still no one offered me a seat, and I was resigned to having to stand all the way back to Kelana Jaya when the lady next to me addressed the man in a clear voice, "Uncle, this lady is pregnant."

Everyone must've heard her, so the guy sheepishly got off his seat and offered it to me.

But seriously, it's amazing how after all these years, we still have not figured out who should give up their seats to whom. Despite the 'Budi Bahasa Budaya Kita' campaigns on TV, which showcased a guy pretending to be asleep when an old woman, a pregnant lady and a blind man in turn embarked on the LRT, there are still people who blissfully ignore the sign above their heads that say 'Arent' We a Courteous Lot?'.

When I was studying in the UK, men would readily give up their seats to women, irrespective of whether she is pregnant, old, handicapped, carrying children/heavy bags or not. That's what they call chivalry, and it's not old-fashioned. In KL, it's a whole different world. Sometimes, I see a young couple sitting together, and I'm tempted to say to him that the way to a girl's heart is to act the chivalrous knight and offer pregnant me your seat. I don't know about the rest of the world, but I'd be mightily impressed with my guy if he did that. Hang on, if he didn't do that in the first place, he wouldn't be my guy at all.

Same goes with being courteous and polite to waiters/waitresses, cashiers and even public toilet cleaners. Of course it's their job to do all that stuff, and they do get paid, but there's nothing wrong with giving them a smile and a 'thank you' once in a while, is there?

One of my pet peeves is seeing people pay for stuff with their credit cards without even facing the cashier, as if it was beneath him/her to even lay eyes on the person working at the counter. If you're some rich Tan Sri's offspring with unlimited credit limit that's a different story, but most of the time the payer is just an ordinary Joe (in one real-life observation, the payer was a university student surviving on a $400 monthly overdraft facility). There's no need to behave so arrogantly - who knows, the person behind the cashier might be another university student like you, only working part-time, so at least he doesn't have to worry about paying off his monthly overdraft.