Shopping Madness....

We finally went for our much anticipated Jakarta trip last friday. When I said 'we', I meant myself, mom, Mr Judge, his mom, his sis (who is getting married on the same day as Mr Judge's bertandang session), mom's friend and her husband. Yeah.. it's a rombongan cik kiah alright....

LCCT - Jakarta - Bandung - Jakarta - LCCT

That was our travel route.

Luckily we went there prepared with one HUGE bag for each family (plus anak2 bags inside the huge one. Hence, we didn't even stop to think whether all our purchases could fit into the luggages.

3 days was not enough for us to actually complete our mission (it was due to inefficient time management). I didn't get the chance to pamper myself at the Mathatilaar spa as planned. Keciwa giler ok.

Items to checked off my to do list:
- wedding invitation (checked)
- wedding favours (checked)
- baju for nikah- kain + tailoring (checked)
(can you believe that the tailoring cost is just RM80!!! damn cheap ok for a wedding costume)
- baju for family - mom + sis + aunties + uncles (checked)
(the material for baju melayu was only RM5/meter.. and it was of a high quality material...)
- extra materials for me for baju kurung/kebaya to visit relatives after the wedding

So now I'm back to my busy work schedule. Thank god I've managed to cover most of the wedding preparation at this early stage. I can't imagine what will happen if I haven't started planning since last December. I don't think I'd have time to think about the wedding anymore until the wedding month itself.

So ok people. Have a great week ahead! I know I will sure wish that I could.




binx: i'm tired!!

Why celebrate today when you can celebrate it everyday?

Of wearing a different hat....

I have a confession to make....

I never really worked my ass off as hard as I've worked since last Monday till Wednesday.

For the past 5 years, I have been lucky where I didn't need to put in a 100% in order to accomplish a task. Even working under the Beast was not as challenging and demanding as my current task.

What happened was that my boss and I are currently working on a mega project for the company. This project is really huge that they had made us signed a confidentiality undertaking agreement that is governed by the OSA.

The highlight of the project was suppose to be this week, where the supplier of the equipment for the project is visiting us all the way from the European country. Due to the complexity of the project, we had been anticipating the suppliers' visit and had arranged for all our consultants to meet in order to address all our major concerns and any other grey areas that we had encountered after going through the legal agreement. Hence, we have been brainstorming and had organised our thoughts in order to ensure that the suppliers' visit will enable us to proceed to the next stage of the project.

However, I had received a very troubled sms at 3 a.m. on Tuesday morning from my boss (the project director) saying that her mom had been admitted to the ICU due to cardiac arrest. Tuesday was suppose to be the big meeting day. And she was suppose to chair the meeting!!

That particular sms was the starting point of a series of hectic couple of days for me. I went from being the project team member to the deputy project director in a split second. I had to actually handle my own task PLUS my boss's tasks concurrently. And I can tell you that it is definitely not fun when you are being pulled in every single direction all at the same time.

On the bright side, I had managed to brushed up on my communication skill, especially when they made me chaired the meeting, where I was the only female (not to mention the youngest) in a room of 14 gentlemen. I would have never dreamed to be able to chair a meeting (for a multi-million ringgit project) at this stage of my life. So, pardon me if I am actually feeling a wee bit proud of myself right now... hehehe...

The only time when I got a little bit worried was when I had to take the guests out for dinner and lunch the next day. Being the only representative from the company meant that I was going to have to pay for the meals. It's not that I can't swipe my card in order to pay for the meals. It's just that I don't think that my card can sustain the huge damage that it is going to cause to cover the dinner @ Wasabi, Mandarin Oriental for 8 pax and the lunch @ Tamarind Springs for 12 pax. Luckily, I had managed to convinced Uncle Singh to join us on behalf of my boss and he had paid for everything. If not, I would not be able to go on my Bandung/Jakarta shopping spree soon.

I really hope that my boss's mom will recover soon. I don't think I can handle the pressure, where everyone is actually asking me for the green light to proceed with to the next stage. I don't think that I am ready to make such HUGE decision on my own without her guidance.



Belated Gong Xi Fa Chai to all my Chinese friends out there!




binx: i don't wanna grow up!

To get any service, please press 1....

I was unable to make any banking transactions at the Tiger Bank since last November. Every time I go to the ATM to withdraw some cash, my transaction will be aborted half way with an error message that reads "This transaction is prohibited. Please call the customer service line 1-800-xxxx".

What the **** laa kan... It's not like I don't have any cash in the account. Luckily the account was not my main bank account.

When I had to transfer some cash to a friend last Thursday, I tried to log on to the bank's internet banking site. And guess what? The same error message had popped up!

This time it really gets to me because I had just deposited a large sum of money into the account earlier during the day. Why can't I log on to the website? *@&&%^$%!#@!$)*&%%%$@@!!!

I resorted to calling the customer service helpline in order to sort out the mess. However, my call was put on hold for 15 minutes...! Well, it could have been longer, but I just didn't have the patient to listen to their long winded tele-promo any longer. So I hung up.

The next day, I went back to the ATM machine to check the status of my card. It was still blocked! So I called the helpline again...

"Hi, welcome to Tiger Bank Customer Service Helpline" "Untuk Bahasa Melayu, sila tekan 1" "For English, please press 2"
Me: *2*

"Sorry, all our executives are busy, please hold" *que the CNY drum sound and the long tele-promo*
After 1 minute:
"Sorry, all our executives are still busy, they will attend to you shortly, please hold"
After 10 minutes:
"Sorry, all our executives are still busy, they will attend to you shortly, please hold"
After 20 minutes:
"Sorry, all our executives are still busy, they will attend to you shortly, please hold"

I hung up after 25 minutes....

Since I was so frustrated with the situation, I decided to try again.

"Hi, welcome to Tiger Bank Customer Service Helpline" "Untuk Bahasa Melayu, sila tekan 1" "For English, please press 2"
Me: *1*

After 1 second

"Hello Selamat Malam. Saya Aida sedia membantu"



*My boss told me that you will face a similar situation when calling most Government Agencies Helpline as well.


This is why I prefer to bank with the foreign banks!




binx: busy busy busy