If only there was anything clearer than crystal....

When I was in secondary school in Seremban, I used to take part in a few English debating competitions. One of the most over-used phrases in the debating fraternity then was "crystal clear". Today I was reminded of that phrase, and this entry's title was, apparently, another participant's smart spin on it. (No, I am not so original to have come up with that saying myself, nor did I hear it with my own ears as it was quoted to me by another friend).

Anyway, the reminder came as a result of a loss of water supply at the resort where I was staying.

I'd come back from work yesterday, and decided to spend a few minutes with my son while the maid did her prayers. After 15 minutes I began to wonder why it was taking her so long. After she was done and I passed Nuaim over to her so I could take a shower and pray, she told me that there was no water in the bathroom. The only available source was the kitchen tap, and even then the water was sometimes murky.

I called Maintenance. Apparently the whole resort is affected and there was no prior notice from JBA about the disruption, so there is no backup supply.

At about 9.30 pm, the water in my bathroom was flowing clear again, so I thought that was the end of it. But no....

When I woke up this morning the taps were dry again, including the kitchen sink. My husband and I quickly called Awana Kijal and booked two rooms for tonight, in case the problem remained unresolved throughout the day. As I was about to leave for breakfast, the water was back, though barely more than a trickle. We still haven't cancelled the booking at Awana though, just in case...

Oh, and did I tell you I have to come to work today (Friday is meant to be OFF day in Terengganu) because of some documents I'm expecting to arrive from Kuantan at 10.00 a.m., but it's now almost 11.30 and still no sign of anyone?

Speed Devil vs Overconcerned Nanna

Drove home from Kerteh last night with Ros keeping me company. We yakked most of the way home, which helped to relieve the boredom of the KL-Kuantan highway. Mind you, I'd never dare take a night drive all by myself. Can hardly believe I managed to travel from Kuantan to Genting in less than 2 hours. I hope I don't get caught on speed camera doing 160 on a 110 km/h road. Feel damn tired though. To make up for it, I stayed in bed till 10.00 this morning with darling baby Nuaim.

He's so cute when he wakes up in the morning but pretends to still be asleep. His eyes are shut, but he can't hide the smile or giggle when I tickle him behind his ears or his chin. What a lot I missed in 4 days! He can stand and take 3-4 steps unaided, and is now more vocal though he still can't form any coherent words. And he talks back! Must be something he picked up from me...

But tomorrow, hubby is driving us back to Kerteh, hopefully only till the end of the month. Mak isn't too happy about it, since Nuaim won't be spending his time at her house during that time. She keeps telling me to leave him behind, that the trip would tire him out, that he'll be lonely without the usual brouhaha that is her neighbourhood to keep him company and he'll lose his appetite. She's even suggested that I move back into the family home when I finish this Kereh project. What? That's so going to cramp my style!

I can't help thinking how self-centered she is about all this, trying to make me feel guilty for wanting my son to be with me. I mean, Nuaim already spends most of his waking hours away from me, at least let me spend my nights with him. After all, I am his mother, and Mak has already had the opportunity to lavish maternal affection on 5 children, all her own.

I really want to be able to bring up my own children and care for my family my way, without people dictating what I should or should not do. I don't remember my grandparents giving continuous instructions to my parents on how to raise us 5 siblings. Or maybe my parents were just as obstinate as I feel (although I do give in most of the time) and by the time my long-term memory could register anything, my grandparents had already given up. Then again, they did live 10 hours away from us. All the more reason for me to start planning a move somewhere a bit farther than ten minutes away from Mak's house.

Guilt trip. I should order a lovely bouquet of flowers for Mak. After all, it is Mother's Day on Sunday, and Nuaim and I won't be here to celebrate it.

Temptations

Look at this beauty. Whatever money I save from not going to the KL International Book Fair, I'm gonna spend it on this. Just as soon as I fill in all my claim forms, and they're all processed. Now, if only I can find all my receipts and boarding passes...

It's just another day...

I should've just stayed at home another day.

I was back in KL last week to attend a 5-day Control Valve Engineering and Maintenance course conducted by one of the vendors in PJ. The venue was only 10 minutes away from my mum's house, which was very convenient as it meant I had at least 1 and a half hours available in the morning to lounge about doing nothing. I spent the first few mornings catching up on the news, and the next few days catching up on my sleep. It felt so good to wake up at 8.00 a.m. and still make it in time for work. Nuaim seems to have caught the habit of sleeping in as well - he's usually up by 6.30 a.m. at the latest.

Anyway, the course finished on Friday, and yours truly got Top Student honours by virtue of getting the highest score of the combined 4 quizzes we had. Although I have to admit if they took into account the Hands-On training, I wouldn't be anywhere near the Top 5! But as it is, everyone else in the course was from Operations or Maintenance, and I was the only one from a Design Consultant background, so it's only fair that I should know more (at least theoretically) than the rest of the class. For being clever, I got me a mug and a 256MB thumb drive (I keep getting these lately, I now have a combined 672MB of thumb drive space at my fingertips - and all of them free!). This is much better than what my husband received for being Top Student in the same course two years ago - only a denim shirt that everyone got this time round.

I had planned to drive back up to Kerteh with hubby, baby and maid yesterday, but since Nuaim's eye isn't 100% okay yet and he still has to go see the doctor again on Friday, I decided I'll make this trip alone and come back for my family then. The KL International book fair was tempting (last day today at PWTC) but we didn't make it. As it is, I drove off at 7.00 this morning (half an hour later than planned) and arrived just two minutes after my ETA of 11.00 a.m. My left hand is shaking right now - could it be due to the driving, the coffee or an undiagnosed condition of Parkinson's?

It seems however, that more than 2/3 of the office decided to take the day off (KL people get today off in lieu of Labour Day falling on Sunday yesterday). All I've done today is issue a Field Instruction, and I've been trying to compose another one but the drawing I want to mark up for that FI isn't exactly available right now. So I've spent the last couple of hours surfing the Internet, ogling the latest 3G mobile phones - the Motorola A1000 is so worth salivating over, I wonder if it's worth 1 month's outstation allowance?

I've also tried logging into Maxis' online personal account, but after my first time login the system kept redirecting me to the login page. So I called up Customer Service. Turns out that it takes 2 hours before the online account is activated. If only they said that on the webpage, I told them so.

I know I should be doing some other work as well, but I just don't have all the information available with me, and no one who should have the information is available in the office either. So I'm just doing this to kill the next 30 minutes. I'm tempted to just leave and check in at the resort right now, because I really need to express my milk (my left mammary is starting to kill me!) And I so do not feel like going to site right now. We can leave that one for tomorrow, eh?

Getting the positive from the negative

I read this wonderful post that should have set me off on an introspective mood, except that at the office with some welding and grinding going on backdoors it doesn't quite set the correct ambience for self-reflection. Maybe I'll think about it later today, or this week, or next month.

Kerteh lagi...

I've been going on-off to Kerteh for several weeks already. Technically, I'm in Kerteh full time till the end of this project, but several DCS and SDS/FGS FAT's and FAT follow-ups took me back to KL. In the mean time, baby developed rash, conjunctivitis, a viral infection in the cornea and more rash. Yesterday, just 5 hours after I arrived from KL, Mak called me to ask what I ate the day before as a new outbreak of the nasty red dots had developed on Nuaim's chest. When I told her I had mee hailam, she went on a long tirade of how they might've cooked the sauce with prawns and stuff, albeit I didn't see any prawns in the noodles. Previously she had blamed the Kerteh air for Nuaim's conjunctivitis, until I told her we were already back in KL for a week before his eyes started getting red. She'll probably blame it on my condo next.

It seems that everything I decide to do for him is not good enough. Even if she doesn't agree with something my mother-in-law says regarding Nuaim's wellbeing, it's me that receives the critique and comments.

And now she's telling me not to take Nuaim to Kerteh anymore, it'll tire him out since I keep travelling back and forth every 3 or 4 days. I tell her it's only for this duration, that after this I'm going to be in Kerteh for a solid 3 weeks or so, so she doesn't have to worry that all the travelling will leave him spent as he'll be there with me. If she misses him so much, I can always get a plane ticket to come out here like the last time, although she'll probably hate having to miss her classes. Well, we don't always get everything we want in life, do we?

But honestly, I do wonder why she's so protective and possessive about my son, or do all grandmothers behave like that with their first cucu?

Anyway, I've decided to keep the technical stuff in another blog, make it my own reference for future projects. It's titled 'Field Engineer at Work'. I'll put in my ranting and b$%&*ing about PM's there as well, or maybe put up another blog 'Things I Hate About my PM" (and I'm not talking about Pak Lah here). Speaking of which, I haven't seen him since I arrived here. Gone to Sudan already kah? Everyone seems to be heading there except my hubby, and he's not too happy about it either.

A series of unfortunate events

The last couple of weeks have been quite memorable for all the wrong reasons.

I decided to go to Kerteh full time until the end of the construction phase of this project. I'd already been here for two weeks in February during the plant scheduled shutdown for the tie-in works, and had been anticipating an e-mail from my PM requesting for my mobilisation to site full-time for Field Engineering, but that e-mail never came.

So, I decided to take matters into my own hands and made an Executive Decision. I wrote the e-mail to my PM, detailing my scope of work to make it clear to everyone what I will and will not do (like Construction supervision - very tiring, tiresome job). Besides, the last trip I made there, it turned out there was such a huge backlog of documents to review it could've been a whole forest!

PM called back to say he agreed to me going to site (after Client had requested apparently for weeks already!) but my job scope had to be expanded to include Electrical Engineering, as well as Instrument and Electrical Construction supervision. HEL-LO! 4 hats on my head? I told him clearly that I don't do Electrical, I can't even tell a Switchgear from an MCC! Of course, he comes back with a statement like 'Ala, apa beza sangat kabel instrument dgn elektrik, sama je.'
Huh? As if cables are all there is to it? Must be from Mechanical Engineering background, my PM.

So here I was on the final week of March. After 5 days here, I had planned to return to KL for the weekend on Friday morning, taking a nice leisurely drive in our new car. My baby (who had just turned 10 months old on Thursday), mother-in-law and maid were travelling with me. However, I was made to attend a 2D 1N project team-building session at Suria Resort, Cherating starting Thursday afternoon. Since there were four of us and only one room allocated for me at the Resort, I proceeded to book an extra room at the Resort. I had never heard of it before (it's been in operation for 2 years only), but it turned out to be alright, although a bit remote from anywhere else and the mosquitoes hiding behind the curtains and furniture.

Anyway, the first team-building activity was an ice-breaking session. For this, we had some streetwise self-defence training, which entailed punches, kicks and slaps. We were divided into several groups, each given a specific scenario. Being the only lady in the whole project team who attended the session, I was inevitably given the role of a snatch theft victim. The good part was I could kick and elbow the Plant Operation Superintendent (Snatch Thief #1) and no one would lift an eyebrow - not that I really wanted to, because he really is a very nice, quiet guy. But in the role-playing process, the other Snatch Thief must have injured my foot. At first I thought it was just a surface scratch, but as I stared at it it got redder and redder and soon was bleeding. It wasn't a very deep cut, but it still hurts. Unfortunate Event #1

The next group activity (after BBQ dinner) was a group discussion on several problem areas the project was facing. The itinerary said 10 pm to 11pm, so when I walked in at 10.45 pm after trying quite unsuccessfully to put my son to sleep, imagine my surprise when they had only just completed half of the introductions. For the record, my group was the last to wrap up at 1.00 a.m., and we had to present our findings and solution to the problem the next day. I think this contributed greatly to The Great Unfortunate Event.

We left the Resort, heading back to KL around noon. I was really sleepy, but a quick shower freshened me up somewhat before the journey. The drive on the Kuantan Bypass however quickly brought the Sandman back. I told myself to stop for fuel and a cup of coffee at the next petrol station, but there was none to be found.

I was looking for a junction that would take me to the new KL-Kuantan highway, and was less than 500m away from it when I came across another junction. The white Kancil in front of me turned right, and I moved to the left, signalled and all, with the intention of going straight on. But the Kancil confused me, maybe the junction it took was the right one to the highway. So I slowed down, almost stopping, craning my head up to read the signboard, just checking whether I should go straight towards the traffic lights ahead or follow the Kancil, when suddenly something knocked me real hard in the back of our brand new car.

'Uh oh!'

When I pulled up, and the Proton Iswara that hit me pulled up too, I said to myself that we would just go to the nearest workshop, settle the costs and be on our way. Before I was able to even unlatch my seat belt, the other driver was already standing at my window, hands on his hips, looking not very friendly indeed.

To put a long story short, we argued a bit (or rather, he argued with my mum-in-law), then went in search of a workshop. We took a long route (not very familiar with the backwaters of Sungai Lembing), and finally found a workshop near Gambang, en route to Kuantan. I paid him a sizeable amount to repair his car (I know, he should pay for MY damages instead, but my addled brain thought it best at the time, and I really wanted to get going home as soon as possible).

But my car, my not-even-three-weeks-on-the-road car, had a hole in the bumper. And it's a big bumper. After what I paid that guy, I can't afford to pay for a new bumper as well! And my husband wasn't even in the country then. So I had to drive back to Kuantan, make a police report so I could get our insurance to cover for the damages, and was rightly scolded by them for settling with the other driver before making the report. It was already 4 pm, and the report office was already closed at 3 o'clock, so I'd have to come into Kuantan again on a weekday to collect it.

All in all, I reached home at about 10 pm that night, then was running around my mum's place looking for my condo security card key when all the while it was safely tucked in my glove compartment.

When my husband arrived home the next morning, my mum-in-law had warned me to break the news to him slowly, after he was fully rested. The moment of revelation went like this:

He: I'm going out to send the car for its first 1000 km service.

Me: You don't have to. The car only needs servicing after 10,000 km.

He: Really?

Me: Yup. I checked the Maintenance booklet. But, there is something that needs doing to the car. (I try to look nonchalant, but am failing miserably).

When I told him after that, and he asked me how much I paid the bloke, I put it at about 600 bucks. I got a mild scolding from him for that. If only he knew how much it really cost me.

The next day my father-in-law called me, and said he was very upset with what happened, and was going to call the Kuantan OCPD to press charges on the Iswara driver. Fortunately, MIL managed to convince him otherwise, saying it'll be a hassle for me to go up and down to Kuantan and all.

So now I've got the police report on my way back here yesterday, and am not really looking forward to get another scolding from my insurance company for not pressing charges.